Callsign: King

26.

Brainstorm facility, Algeria

“What is the status of your research?”

Sara jumped at the sound of the electronically produced voice. After hours of conversing with Felice in a tone so low it was almost a whisper, the computerized speech was almost ear-splitting. “Is that you Brainstorm?”

“Affirmative. What is the status of your research? You have not yet drawn blood or tissue samples for analysis. How do you intend to conduct research and develop a vaccine without collecting specimens for study?”

Sara detected a very uncomputer-like note of sarcasm in the utterance. It was however the truth. She had not taken a single sample nor performed even one diagnostic test. She had simply listened as Felice recounted a bizarre tale of past lives and what sounded very much like spirit possession. Sara didn’t believe in reincarnation or ghostly hauntings, but she had come up with an alternative theory.

She put her hands on her hips. She didn’t know if Brainstorm had eyes as well as ears in the room, but she wanted him…or maybe it…to know she was defiant. “If you’re such a genius, why don’t you do it yourself?”

“Are you stating that you no longer wish to be involved in the research?”

Sara sighed. So much for defiance. “Look Braniac, this is what I do and I’m very good at it. So give me some time and space. Nagging me won’t make things happen any faster.”

“There is a 69.4% probability that you are purposefully delaying. It would not be in your best interests to attempt to prolong this process as an act of resistance. Your survival is contingent upon your usefulness. This is also true for your patient. The research can be conducted equally as well using samples taken post-mortem.”

Sara wanted to scream, Don’t you get it? There isn’t going to be a vaccine. Not for this. Kill her, and you kill the whole human race ! But revealing her suspicions about the “contagion” to a soulless computer was probably a very bad idea. She had seen too many science fiction movies where sentient computers decided that the world would be better off without their human creators. If Brainstorm realized the true potential of what Felice had discovered, then there was no telling how that might affect its grand scheme.

“Fine,” she said, evincing defeat. “I’ll take some blood samples if it will make you happy.”

At least, she thought, I know it's not eavesdropping on us. Indeed, if Brainstorm had been listening in, it would already know that she wasn’t actually stalling, and it would know the sheer futility of trying to develop a vaccine.

As Felice had related the story of her shared memory with an ancient primate female she called “Old Mother,” Sara had wracked her brain to come up with a rational explanation for what had happened to the woman.

Most troubling was the nearly instantaneous nature of the reactions. Even the most virulent contagions required several hours incubation time before a patient became symptomatic. But Felice had been overcome almost from the moment she touched the Old Mother’s skull. And Jack had described how the man attacking Felice had been changed into a mindless zombie “just like that.” Her pheromone theory couldn’t account for that, any more than the idea that it was all the result of a viral infection.

There was only one force in the universe that had been proven to cause instantaneous sympathetic action across distances of both space and time; a force known as quantum entanglement.

Felice’s memories of the Old Mother verified Manifold’s notion that exposure to a particular retrovirus had been the pivotal event in the evolution of human consciousness. It had rewritten the Australopithecine female’s genetic code, and made that newly awakened consciousness a heritable trait, which had started the snowball rolling. Consciousness had been passed along to all of her offspring as a genetic trait, not because of continued exposure to the original retrovirus. That contagion had been out of the picture long before the Old Mother’s entombment in the elephant graveyard, which meant that there had to be another explanation for what had happened to Felice.

Quantum entanglement described a connection between subatomic particles separated by vast distances; when two particles interact and are subsequently separated, a change to one of the particles had an effect on the other. By its very nature, the replication of the DNA molecule, within each cell in a body, and from one generation to the next, facilitated quantum interaction on a staggering scale. If her hypothesis was correct, then every human on the planet was part of the tangle.

It was one possible explanation for the oft-described phenomenon where one of a set of identical twins reported seeing or feeling things that were happening to the other. Indeed, because quantum entanglement was not limited by temporal distance, the effect was probably the cause of almost everything that fell under the umbrella of the paranormal, from psychic visions to past-life experiences, alien abductions to religious visitations. Somehow, the quantum wires got crossed up and the brain tuned into something experienced by someone else in another place or time.

If Sara was correct, it was the real cause of what had happened, both to Felice and to her unlucky co-workers. Felice had connected with the Old Mother, and that had somehow loosened the wires connecting the section of the genome responsible for human sentience. The other Nexus researchers had come unplugged, and it seemed that, as part of some instinctive defense mechanism, Felice could do the same to others. And that was what really frightened Sara.

If Brainstorm followed through on its threat to simply kill Felice, there was no telling how far the ripples would spread. Felice was linked to the Old Mother, and the Old Mother was the source of human consciousness. Destroying that connection might conceivably mean the instantaneous end of humanity; an entire world of people, turned to zombie-apes in the blink of an eye.

Brainstorm’s probability assessment was wrong; she wasn’t stalling. In truth, there was nothing she could do.

Brainstorm wasn’t finished. “In order to expedite your research, access to the guest level had been rescinded.”

“Are you saying we can’t leave this room?”

“Affirmative. How you choose to employ your time is at your discretion. However, results are required. You will be supervised from this point forward. Furthermore, your progress will be reviewed in thirty-six hours. If it is determined that you are unable or unwilling to achieve the desired results, you will be terminated.”

Thirty-six hours, Sara thought. That was how long she had left to live. And maybe all the time left for the human race.