MARK OF THE EARTHWALKER: Evolution Protocol Page 2

  Maya went away. She had her back turned to him as she selected equipment after. Luke tried to move, to raise his arm or leg. It was futile. He could only watch her return with a bigger syringe. An effervescent liquid bubbled within the translucent container.

  "This is the exact gorilla gene serum I used on myself," she said, taking his left arm. She inserted the long needle into his artery.

  It wasn't pain that made Luke scream. It wasn't even fear. It was an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, that such a thing could be happening to him in this modem day without a single person, even a passerby, hearing his cries and coming to help him.

  Maya chuckled. "Stop embarrassing yourself. My bots are canceling out your noise so you might as well save your breath." She pressed a sterilizer pad to the puncture wound for a few seconds, and then went back to her seat, her bots forming an all-round defense around her.

  She closed her eyes as if in deep meditation. Unable to move, Luke stopped struggling and lay panting, surprised that cold spread into him where his naked calf touched the bed metal. His heart pounded with the realization that feeling was returning and that he might make good his escape yet.

  He turned his head a wee bit. Maya was paying attention. His heart skipped a beat as their eyes collided.

  "I see that you are less stiff. Don't believe your body. Even if I let you go now, unless we are truly lucky, you will not survive. You will have your best chance of staying alive if you cooperate with me."

  "Never!" Luke said but it came out as a meaningless grunt.

  Maya shook her head as if to a naughty child. "You had better save your energy for the coming pain. I call it an ordeal but I don't have to frighten you unnecessarily. But you should know that between where you are now and where we are going lie many dead. So, Luke, be strong. For you and me."

  CHAPTER 4

  REFUSAL OF THE CALL

  With the passing of days, he knew time from how he felt, something that had never happened to him. Nights, Luke filled with an urge to run amok, to cause a catastrophe. In the mornings, the desire turned to a yearning for a cool shade to lie in.

  Though he hadn't eaten a bite since Maya happened to him, each time he stretched in the morning, he could feel an exponential increment in muscle tone and strength. He also observed a tiny time lag between when the bots received command and when they reacted. He kept his mind off a sudden possibility that was repeatedly suggested to him.

  In his increasingly lucid periods, he witnessed the same scenario, Maya on her feet, prodding with needles, taking samples, running tests, checking results on a palm-held, and prodding again. Compared to the pain he suffered for, in his best estimation, thirteen days, being stuck with a needle was less than nothing.

  She leaned over him.

  "I don't need to ask, but for the sake of conversation, how are you doing?'

  "I've never felt worse in my life."

  "Thanks to me," Maya said. "But, relax, you will soon have reasons to thank me."

  "I don't think so."

  "I believe I informed you that when I was changing, I feared that I would die. What I did not say was that the final pain was such that I begged to die. But now, I know what it means to have immense strength and absolute health. I recover fast from injuries. I have no fear of any human being. It is stupid to be scared of what you can destroy."

  "So, why would I thank you?"

  "You should understand by now. Use your knowledge of biology, how do you think a lion feels before a rabbit?"

  "It isn't the same thing, animals are not humans."

  "Regardless of what you think, that's how you will feel when your change completes. The world is filled with the weak. But you will become an apex predator if you help me willingly."

  "I only want to teach my pupils."

  "You will become the field Marshall of the army that I'm going to build. You will have power over everything in the world."

  "Army?"

  "Change is not an easy thing. What I want to do for everyone on this planet is a favor worth dying for. But the world will turn against me even if I'm working for their good. That is the perverse nature of humanity. As such, I must have a fighting force to subdue global opposition. When there's no longer anyone to delay me, I will then usher in the new age."

  "But you can get all kinds of people to do your bidding. You don't need to turn a quarter of the human race into large monkeys."

  "Am I monkey-like to you? I guess no, so I will ignore the insult. Let me tell you why I need my hybrid soldiers. People have become soft over the years. Look at you, over six feet but at the best a mollycoddle, at the worst, useless in a conflict. I'm talking of merging the best qualities of both species to create something better. Of course, I cannot control everything, there will be unintended effects. You might have noticed a nightly irrational. You surely know what atavism means. Imagine an intelligent army with the capabilities of gorillas?"

  "I can only imagine massacres."

  "True. Although death is the foundation of life, it will be for a short time before we whip everyone into line, and then the great vaccination."

  "I will never watch it happen."

  "You have no choice. Look at you, weak and pathetic, being offered the chance of a lifetime. If you refuse my offer, I'll simply turn you into a serum factory for as long as possible. Mark you, I need only your body, I can delete your mind permanently with a single dose of the right drug."

  Luke sat up, the room going round and round. "I will never let you do that to me," he said.

  The bots scurried forward and lined up before him, the heat from their engines reaching him. Luke made as if to lie on the bed. Moving faster than he expected, he sprang from the bed and grabbed the legs of the closet bot. The next one smashed into the opposite wall as he swung into it. In the return swing, the glowing head of his weaponized bot glanced off Maya's temple, sending her sprawling off the chair. Luke sprinted into the bedroom and bathroom, exited the fortunately still open window headfirst. He tumbled into the fortunately thornless rose bush, scrambled to his feet, and raced into the warm night.

  Chest burning, he forced himself to his utmost speed for as long as he could endure. His feet thumping dully on the sidewalk, not being the sporty types, he allowed himself to be surprised that he'd kept running for so long. From past experiences, he should have collapsed breathless a long while ago. Rather he felt he could even run faster if he wanted.

  It was what he wanted.

  The questioning glances of the people he passed, some driving electric SUVs, and driverless cars or drones hardly registered on his mind. Inexplicably elated, his objective was to put as much distance as he could between him and his apartment.

  His feet took him across the small town until he hit the narrower way leading out of the overcrowded town.

  As he pushed steadily against the stiff night breeze, something nagged at the back. Why was he running with such fortitude? Certainly, it would be the effect of the gene treatment Maya gave to him. Fear dawning on him, Luke tilted his face and screamed at an uncaring moon.

  CHAPTER 5

  At intervals, Luke glanced over his sweaty shoulder to see if there was any pursuit. Although the half-moon Shone bright in a cloudless sky, it couldn't account for the clarity with which he saw everything.

  But he pressed on, feeling as if he was a member of a group and had lost his way. He shook his head. Herd instinct wasn't that strong in humans, but then, he remembered, he'd been given gorilla genes. And he didn't know which.

  He was almost there when he realized where he'd been heading. Somehow, he knew the forest was the only safe place. People nowadays preferred the familiarity, and maybe safety, of their homes.

  Worried, he reached the barbed wire fence that surrounded the so-called forest reserve. Effortlessly, he clambered to the top and dropped to the other side, the pungent smell of some crushed herbs filling his quivering nostrils. He straightened and went away from the roadside.

  Maya
would search for him but he was determined to evade her. If it was true that he was her only hope, if it meant spending the rest of his life in the genetically engineered forest, he was ready.

  He'd stopped running thirty minutes ago, yet his chest burnt from the effect of the long race. What bothered him was that he was certainly not himself. Apart from the strange anger that waxed with the progress of the night, he noticed things he'd never observed.

  Sounds were acute. The sound of a leaf blown along the ground came distinctly. Fully alert, he reacted to the tiniest threat.

  He smelled new scents, especially that of plants. Sometimes his face puckered from the acrid odor that signified inedibility. At other times, he salivated. He plucked a leaf, sniffed at it and put it in his mouth, and chewed. It wasn't as interesting as a drone-delivered cultured meat burger, but it sort of tasted nice. Abhorred by what he did he spat into the ground and drew the back of his hand across his lips. He hesitated as soft hair scrubbed his lips.

  But he pushed on deeper into the forest, dimly aware that he had run from Maya, he was also running from a responsibility that he couldn't recall. He racked his brain but the more he tried to remember, the faster and further away whatever it was slipped.

  And the more an overwhelming need to rampage took hold on him, as it had done nightly since he had the gene treatment. Only this time it was more compelling and almost more understandable. Crouching, he slipped through the forest, sneaking from cover behind one tree to the other, sniffing the air, freezing at the tiniest creak of a tree branch in the gentle breeze.

  Soon a palatable smell reached his nose and titillated his palate. A low growl from his throat surprising him, his face tilted upward, his hands brushing the top of low bushes and hanging branches, he followed the scent until he lost all sense of time.

  He passed a clump of trees, burst through to the other side, and surprised a small herd of Dorah's Deers, named after the great scientist that found the first way to create a new species from scraps of the old. But Luke wasn't on a scientific mission. What he wanted was a taste of…

  He dashes out of the shadows at an unbelievable speed and made a grab. His hands grasped thin air as the lithe animals disappeared with a bound, in different directions.

  Suddenly fully alive, Luke fixed his eyes on a young animal and crashed through the forest.

  He slipped and fell several times as his body sometimes seemed to work faster than his thoughts. Eyes on the price, he always scrambled to his feet and continued the chase down a slope, up a long hill, through a clearing filled with grasses, and across a knee-deep stream. Each annoying obstacle only made him want to sink his teeth into the deer's soft throat. He faltered in his step at the almost immoral thought. He tumbled head over heels and rolled to a stop that took the breath out of him. The deer too was on its knees, fatigued from the chase. Like in a horrendous dream, he swayed on his feet and sprang at the deer. It bleated plaintively, only a token of resistance, and only trembled as with a severe cold in his hands. Luke raised the deer, tilted up its head, exposing the under of the neck. He lowered his bared teeth. The hair was rough on his lips. At that moment, wanting to throw up, he chucked away the frightened dear in disgust at himself. He'd chased down and almost ate the poor thing. His knees hit the dew dampened soil and great, heaving sobs ripped through him.

  As he battled to suppress the ravenous hunger in him, he pressed his forehead into the dew-dampened gound. With the musty smell of rotten plants in his nose, he wondered at what he was becoming, what Maya had turned him into. A human being with an animal craving. And if what Maya said was true, more change was coming, change he wasn't prepared to accept. He wasn’t prepared to accept that he had to kill small animals.

  Luke didn't know for how long he wept. But he was hungry. He had few friends, so there was only one other place he could go to for food and help.

  His mind made up, he stood and crashed through the forest on his way back to the town.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was dawn when he slinked back into town and raced to the house on a small hill. The lights in the house were going off. Although Luke didn’t like that she lived far away from any neighbors, his pulse quickened to see a sign that she was there. She had raised him as her child. She had no other child but insisted he called her granny. He didn’t know why.

  In his haste to escape Maya, he’d left his communicator at home. He could go to a public center and make a call to granny. He changed his mind. Maya would have set up a system to track him. He slowed down for a while, afraid that he might bring danger to the good old lady. She’d taken him from the orphanage and raised him herself. He shook his head at his memory of how difficult he’d made things for her. He’d thought of making it up to her, but he’d never followed through. He shrugged. He had no one else to approach. He was only afraid that he might be drawing danger to her.

  Luke swallowed his shame and hurried to the front door. He pressed the button and glanced over backward. Driverless cars glided silently along the street. Delivery drones brought in breakfast for families. Robots went about on errands. Others, yellow-painted, cleaned the streets and trimmed flowers. He was the only human being. He looked at the slowly stiffening black hair on his hands and changed his thoughts. He was the only almost human in the streets. He stood straight as the door mechanism whirred.

  “I knew you would come back,” granny said, her voice quavering. She let her walking stick fall to the wall.

  Luke cringed for shame within her embrace. She might have intended it to be a bear hug but it was as feeble as a hug could get. She pressed her grey head to his chest for a long minute and then she stood away at an arm’s length. Her wrinkled skin was mottled with dark spots.

  “Granny, why are you so stubborn?” Luke asked. “You refused the Longevity Vaccine. You should have been looking younger. Do you want to die early?”

  A raspy chuckle was her response.

  “Is that how to talk to your granny?”

  Luke hung his head.

  Granny grabbed her walking stick and stepped back. “There’s nothing to forgive. You’ve got your own life to live, Luke.”

  “I know I’ve wronged you.”

  “Young man, get off your damn knee and come inside before passersby think I’m a god. Reserve the apology for later.”

  Luke stood and dusted his knee, although the floor was clean.

  “My eyesight is going, but you look a bit darker, right?”

  “It’s a long story. Give me some food first and then I’ll tell you.”

  With the smell of her herb-scented bath soap in his nose, he followed granny into the house, to the sitting room. The tip of her cane tapping on the floor, every few steps, she turned jerkily to look at him with startlingly bright eyes. Luke kept a straight face. He was interested in filling his stomach first. Granny pointed him to the old dining table next to a small television bolted to the wall. A male humanlike robot newscaster read the news mostly gathered by other robots, drones, surveillance cameras, and from the internet. If he’d had his back to the television, he’d have thought it was a real human being talking. Luke hesitated before the rickety chair.

  “Let me come and help you, granny.”

  “Shut up and sit down. I’m not so old that I can’t cook for you.”

  The table and the chairs were made of real old wood. The old-world style of the furniture seemed outrageously out of place. They contrasted sharply with his stronger mental impression of the metal and synthetic plastic things that were more commonplace[1].

  A few minutes later, the sound of frying came from the kitchen, followed by a spicy aroma. He squirmed as his stomach rumbled louder than he was comfortable within the sparsely furnished room. Apart from the set of crystal water jars and cups on the table, the only other adornment was a long wood shelf packed with hardback books, the only ones Luke had seen with his eyes. Granny was strange.

  The house was exactly as he’d left it seventeen years ago. One of the older
houses, granny had resolutely rejected the government agent’s overtures to renovate it. Nobody refused the government anything. They’d only left her alone because, as custodians of everybody’s data, they knew she’d refused the longevity treatment and wouldn’t live half as long as normal people.

  “You seem to have become a young man of deep thoughts.”

  Luke stared at the large plate in granny’s trembling hands. On it was a quivering heap of milk-brown mass. It had tiny bits of shiny red and green stuff in it. It took all his willpower to remain seated and not grab the food out of her hand.

  Granny set the food on the table. “New Eggs and New Bacon, with a generous helping of red and green pepper, all from my garden. They almost taste like old eggs and bacon.” She stood back, beaming.

  How she managed the egg-producing and pig meat culture at her age was a mystery Luke wasn’t prepared to bother himself with right now. The last he remembered, it was hard work even for a hefty teenager. He wolfed down the food until the red floral design of the ceramic plate stared back at him. He gulped down three glasses of water and raised his head to see granny observing him from the corners of her eyes, from behind her reading glasses, aware that he’d just behaved in a most uncivilized fashion. Luke wiped his mouth with the napkin she’d provided. He stood with the plate and cup in his hands, and queasiness in his stomach.

  “Let me wash them.

  Granny tapped the side of the table with her cane. “Put them down!”

  Surprised at the sharpness of her voice, Luke sat back in the chair, nausea in him growing.

  “What happened to you?” The opposite chair squeaked as Granny eased herself into it. “You don’t look like the Luke I knew.”

  The words tumbling out of him, he told Granny what had happened to him. She sat still, the only sign she was listening, her head cocked sideways to favor her left ear. When he finished, she placed her cane on her lap and folded her withered hands lined with delicate blue and green veins across her chest. It was a long moment before she spoke.