MARK OF THE EARTHWALKER: Evolution Protocol

  EVOLUTION PROTOCOL

  Mark of the Earthwalker: Book 1

  Kristen Isaac

  BLURB: After the devastating third world war, people swore to live in peace. Until Maya Underwood tries to improve the human race with animal parts. This is how Luke became who he is: a half-man, half-animal, half-robot, with a flaw that he must kill to protect or die. But Maya chose the wrong person. Change from gentle to warrior.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE CALL TO THE ADVENTURE

  The overpowering scent of rose flowers wafted in through the window, brought in by the cool breeze, raising goosebumps on Luke's skin.

  At first, Luke thought that it was just the air making his skin crawl in such a nice way, but he was deceiving himself. He rose from the bed, a simple mat he made by himself from the bark of tough plants because he disliked the intrusive nature of technology. He padded on bare feet to the large window. Although it was risky to do so these days, he'd always kept it open at night because he hated the air-conditioned air. Others kept theirs permanently locked.

  He grimaced as the steel guides for the steel window pressed into his elbows as he leaned over the sill. The rose flowers were as large as SUV tires. They smelt nice but it was a little annoying that they were made in a laboratory. They were the only ones he could get to plant in his garden. He has heard that, for a price, the olden days rose could be had at the black market, but…

  Luke inhaled sharply as a tall woman with long dark hair walked in through the tiny gate. He was sure he'd locked it last night. Her heels clicking repeatedly as she strode up the concrete walkway to the all-metal apartment.

  Long legs in black trousers, black velvet cape sweeping the ground behind her, she skirted the small roundabout in the front yard and disappeared to the front door.

  Luke racked his brain but he didn't think he knew the woman or someone of that size. He was almost late for work and he didn't have the time to talk to strangers when he had a class of genius-level seven years old kids to introduce to the science of growing plants that morning. The specially selected pupils were the forerunners of a better humanity, the type that would never fight a world war.

  He quickly wiped his face with a fresh towel from the sanitizer rays closet and then he wrapped a soft white nightgown around himself. With long quick steps, he crossed the sitting room, punched in the security code and the guaranteed indestructible steel door slid slowly into the wall. He froze in his steps as he got a closer look at the woman. He'd thought she was tall, but her head was level with the top of the door. Her large hands were covered by thick black gloves. She stood with her large head cocked to one side, a quizzical look in her extra-wide face. Who wears black capes these days when the wise are converting to minimalism? Even at six feet two inches, he had to tilt his head up to meet the large but piercing eyes.

  "What do you want?" Luke asked.

  "Perhaps I should ask you how you would answer that question if you had the option of life or death?" she said.

  The resemblance of a smile revealed a mouthful of platinum teeth, sending a shudder through Luke. He was only an elementary-level biology teacher, but he knew enough about people to understand that this giant of a woman's smile was that of a hunter. He stepped back into the house and pressed the button for closing the door. He gritted his teeth as the door, one one of old technology but which had withstood the test of time, slid close too slowly for his liking.

  It seemed like ages before only a glistening dark eye peered in through the narrowing crack, and the lock mechanism whirred almost inaudibly. And then the door stopped, the gap between the door and the wall remaining open.

  Luke leaned closer, wondering why the door did not lock. His eyes fell on something black, stuck in the gap. He reached out to dislodge it so that the door can close properly. The black thing felt like very thick leather. He snatched his hand when it wriggled. Then he backed away as the metal door shivered and then began to slide open.

  Now at alert, Luke grabbed at the door. He pushed hard until he couldn't add more force as he tried to get the door lock. The soles of his feet slipped on the smooth tiles, his breath came out short and sharp. Yet the gap widened despite the force of the locking mechanism and his. A feeling of failure washed over him as the door, forced back by a single hand, continued opening until he could see the woman's calm face.

  A few more seconds, the woman slid into the house, letting the door snap into place with a metallic click as the security function activated needlessly.

  The woman's true size became apparent. It felt oppressive being in the same room with her. She moved with a grace Luke had only seen in big cats. He stepped back until he fell on his backside as the backs of his legs ran into the couch.

  "Phew! That was harder than I thought," she said, pointing a finger. "Please, remain seated and you may survive."

  "What do you want?" Luke asked again, his eyes searching the room for a way to escape or even a weapon.

  Her eyes on Luke, the woman pulled a chair closer and sank unto it, making it look like a small stool. She removed her cape, folded it neatly, and kept it on the seat by Luke. Around her waist was a flat utility bag. She took it off, kept it on the floor, and opened it.

  The pungent smell of unknown chemicals filled the air. Luke's eyes widened at the sight of what the flat bag contained. If they were in the dark ages he would have described the contents as crude instruments of torture. But these were high-tech cutting and piercing devices, as well as syringes, vials, and little machines like tiny robots. He couldn't remember wronging anyone, but the certainty of his innocence did nothing to stop the room temperature from seeming to plummet.

  "What's this all about?" he asked.

  "You look so distraught, young man. You should rather be happy because we have chosen you to be the first of a new kind of human being."

  Luke shook his head hard. "I don't know what you're talking about. Can you please go and leave me alone? I'm late for work."

  "You are just perfect for your new work."

  She pulled off the large glove. She raised her right hand and flexed it. Pale but healthy skin rippled over extremely defined muscles that stood out in the minutest details. The hypertrophy was monstrous. With his knowledge of biology, Luke was certain neither a lifetime of bodybuilding nor the use of drugs could have resulted in such powerful-looking muscles.

  "Who are you?" he asked, his voice croaking.

  "Since we are going to have a long and fruitful relationship, I might as well introduce myself. I am Maya Underwood, professor of advanced ethological genetics at the World Virtual University."

  Luke looked from the corners of his eyes. "You wrote that crazy paper on improving humans with animal parts."

  Maya gave a small bow. She raised her hands. "It is not as crazy as you think. I cracked the cross-species transplant code, and then I refined it to a gene treatment. Would you be surprised to know that these muscles that helped me open your door are gorilla muscles?"

  Tight-lipped, Luke stared at the heavily built hand. He did not doubt her claim. "So, what has it to do with me?"

  "The simple answer is that I need more subjects for further experiments."

  CHAPTER 2

  Luke had never been a believer in dreams, and everything was too real to be one. He regretted going to open the door in the first place, but then he doubted that the door could have held back such a creature. In any case, he wasn’t ready to be used as a guinea pig. He toyed with the idea of dashing for it, but Maya sat straighter, her sharp eyes so rigid they appeared to vibrate. It was as if she could read his thoughts. Maybe he could play for time, or at least negotiate with her. />
  “I have a stash of gold my grandfather left me. I’ll give them all to you if you will leave me alone.”

  Maya laughed an almost pleasant peal of tinkling laughter, the way he’d supposed upper-class people did to show that they were better than everybody was.

  “You want to bribe me off?” she said, using a small black handkerchief to dab the corners of her eyes.

  “Not a bribe,” Luke said hurriedly. “Well, not in a bad way. I do not need the yellow metal, so if I can help fund your… err… research, why not?”

  “In other words, you want whatever you think will happen to you to become the lot of another person, as long as it is not you, right?”

  A wave of shame washed through him. “It isn’t true.”

  “Yes, it is. You want to shift your bad luck onto another person because you are such a coward. What if I went and used one of your pupils?”

  “Stop!” Luke sat up. “I’d rather die before I let that happen,” he said, not knowing what to do. All his life he’d been but a bookworm. He’d never even been in a fight with anyone. But if Maya was going to threaten his pupils, he’d have no choice but to give her a run for her money. But he needed to know something first.

  “How the hell did you know that I was a teacher?”

  Maya crossed her long legs and pressed the tips of her fingers under her chin. “I despaired that you were not going to ask me. After I had treated myself, I discovered that my gene treatment serum is still in its infancy stage and I still have a lot to learn. But what I know is that it affects different subjects in different ways, by which I mean that some survive it and some don’t. The painful thing is that those that don’t are disproportionately more than those that do. And those that do end up with permanent deformations, forcing me to weed them all out.”

  “You killed your subjects!”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sometimes, death is better than life.”

  “You lying bitch. You’re trying to mess up my head but I’m not going to let you.”

  Maya waited calmly until Luke finished his outburst, and then she said, “In my long life, I have learned that the best way to deceive people is to tell them the truth because most people already believe that everything is a lie.” She stood up and languidly stretched her hand, touching the ceiling with a thick finger. “You are a life science teacher. Have you ever seen anyone, man or woman, of my height?”

  There was no use lying. Luke shook his head.

  “Good. And it did not occur to you that something is wrong with me?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Things are very different from the Stone Age. Anything is almost possible.”

  “Well, I treated myself with the first serum I made, the gorilla gene serum. The result was amazing, almost too good to be true. Locked in my room, I was so ill that I thought I was dying. But I recovered and went about my work, disappointed that the treatment had failed again. Then things happened. I changed. I used to be a skinny uni lecturer, but suddenly I put on weight. It was not fat but sheer muscles and bones. A week later, I was able to rip off the door of my old electric car with my bare hand. I thought the only thing that remained for me to do was to activate my magnum opus, my great plan for humanity."

  "Great plan?"

  "To combine the best of all extant fauna species into one new superrace."

  "You're crazy."

  "So were all the people that changed the world. But you are interrupting me. As I was saying, things went out of hand, I added muscle and grew taller. The last time I measured myself, I was nine feet tall and weighed 240 kilograms. And by my tests, it is just the beginning.”

  Luke’s eyes bulged at the revelation. “So how is that my business?”

  “I’m afraid, it is. You will soon understand. I need to cure myself because, although my bulk and strength increase daily, and I have no sign of any illness, I know that the point of diminishing return will set in when I reach optimum size. By then, I needed to have found a way to freeze myself in my best shape. That is why I need you.”

  The couch seemed to drop from under him as Luke sprang to his feet and raced toward the other door. It slid open as he sprinted nearer to it with all his strength, aiming to dive out of the bedroom window. He leaped through the door but his feet didn’t touch the ground. He gasped as his ribs constricted under the pressure of python-like arms. The doorway retreated from him.

  “Good try, Luke. You don’t want to hear why I chose you?”

  Luke kicked hard as she went back to the sitting room, carrying him as easily as if he was a baby. He bashed the back of his head against her, jabbed with his elbows, and only managed to hurt himself with each blow he gave. He bounced on the couch that he’d left a few seconds ago. Before he could regain the initiative, moving faster than he could follow, Maya stuck a syringe in his arm and pressed the plunger. In less than a second, Luke could no longer move any part of his body. But he remained conscious, watching the purple fluid drain into his flesh.

  Maya stood and wiped her hands. “Listen,” she said, as amiable as ever. “I carried out an extensive meta-analysis of all the records in the uni database, which, incidentally, is that of the whole world. The computer AI suggested that the only person that can survive and give me the serum that I want is a pureblood African.”

  Luke struggled and failed to raise his eyebrow to ask her what she meant. Maya squatted before him. Even though she got on her knees, she was still a full head taller than he was. She brought her face so close that he could smell her animal scent.

  “Luke,” Maya said, “You are the only extant true blood African.”

  CHAPTER 3

  For a long time, grey mist filled the world, swirling around, growing into a hurricane, long before it slowed, settling into luminous white specks and then resolved into large snowflakes through which Maya gradually

  A chill rippled through Luke. He clenched his jaw against a rising shiver that increasingly sought to convulse his body. A series of dry heaves racked him, sending bitter yellow fluid down the corner of his mouth. He wanted to wipe his lips but his hands, like the whole of his body, didn't obey him. But, at least, he could see Maya. With an air of inexhaustible patience, She remained perched on the undersized chair.

  Maya leaned forward, a minuscule, almost indiscernible movement. Despite her immense size, her movement reflected finely tuned motor ability, and her demeanor, the alertness of a hunter waiting to strike.

  "I see you are back," she said. "You have experienced the initial shock of the immobilizer jab that I developed for the police. It neatly replaces the need for handcuffs, until I administer the antidote. But don't worry, you will regain your speech and some movement."

  She picked a small, clunky device that had a sunset yellow lens. "In case you are wondering, this beauty enables me to analyze your body magnetism. It's a form of an electromagnetic spectrometer. Through its lens, the state of your health is a secret in a glass box."

  She glued it to her eye and inspected him for a long while, and then she clicked her tongue.

  "No time to lose. I think we are ready for the next phase."

  She replaced the strange equipment, and then she picked one of the small shiny box-like metal devices. There were four of them. She hefted it in her palm, an amused look on her face.

  "This might seem little to you but each weighs twenty kilograms, made of the toughest metal known to science, and a tincture of another that does not exist in common knowledge, so to speak. They are nuclear-powered multifunctional super nanobots. And they do what I tell them to do, like," she brought the device closer to her lips, "build me a lab."

  The bot emitted a high-pitched whine. She kept it on the floor and leaned back.

  The whine amplified to an intolerable pitch as the three others activated too, setting Luke's teeth on edge. Then the piercing noise flattened out to a subliminal hum as the bots cracked open at the edges, revealing a red hot core. The air shimmered above and around them. Molten
metal extruded and elongated, forming into shapes, each not helping the other. In a few minutes, the bots assumed a faintly android shape, complete with telescoping hands and legs. The glowing core rising to the position of a blazing, perfectly round but eyeless head.

  The nuclear bots ambled off in the same direction, carrying the same steps like well-drilled soldiers. Their tracks smoldered in their wake. The bots reached the steel wall. They touched the wall with their metal hands. Violet sparks lit the room, and then a continuous arc light followed. Luke thought they wanted to cut through to the other side.

  "At your level of education, I wonder why you chose not to live in better mobile skyscrapers. Whatever be the case, it is surely a good thing that your house is the old solid steel type, built after the third world war. Fortunately, steel is excellent for the lab that I need. You understand soon." She folded her arms on her chest and sat stock still, the only sign of life the regular rise and fall of her breasts.

  It turned out they were only stripping off the outer layer and bringing the material to space opposite the couch.

  They worked until the wall clock showed it was evening. Then they clumped together and heated the gathered metal, making bars, rods, wires, and tubes.

  By dawn, they had assembled the seemingly senseless conglomeration of metals into a high-tech laboratory, complete with a spring bed and test tubes.

  That was when, like a bear emerging from hibernation, Maya's eyes came alive, gleaming with the light of far away but attainable hope.

  "Form perimeter defense," she said.

  The bots scurried over and ranged themselves around her. And then she stood and stretched languidly, the sound of her bones snapping into place filling the room. Then she took a step, stopped, and stood with Luke cradled in her hands.

  As gently as a mother putting her only child to sleep, she laid Luke on the bed that looked remarkably like a sick baby on the bed. He couldn't tell yet if it was comfortable.