Pulse

NINETEEN

Pierce stood in front of a five-foot-square window, staring out at an endless expanse of ocean. He knew they were on an island, but where in the world, he had no idea. His third-story room provided him with a view of the airstrip they'd landed on, a patch of grass beyond, and then one hundred eighty degrees of ocean. He had yet to see any indigenous animals or birds that might hint at a location, and the only flora he'd seen was the grass, which helped about as much as a toothpick in a knife fight.

The room was an improvement over his cell on the plane. Not only was the window larger and view less unnerving, but the accommodations were comfortable — probably meant for actual employees, not prisoners. A firm twin bed sat in the corner across from a desk holding copies of the Odyssey, Dante's Inferno, and several Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, including Pierce's favorite, The Lost World. As a child it was the kind of swashbuckling adventure he pictured him and King having as archaeologists. Thanks to Indiana Jones, most men his age had the same views of the science. The truth was far more boring, though no less interesting. Of course, he had been kidnapped by armed looters. That had to count for something. He just wasn't whipping his way to freedom.

As the first thoughts of dramatic escape filled Pierce's imagination a sharp knock rattled the door. The guard, Reinhart, who he'd learned was head of Manifold's security force, opened the door without waiting for an answer and tossed a lab coat to him.

"There's a problem with your artifact," he said.

Your artifact. "What wrong with it?"

"Do I look like a pencil-pushing scientist to you?" Reinhart crossed his arms, letting his muscles bulge.

Pierce slipped the lab coat on, noting a Manifold I.D. card with his name and photo on it had been clipped to the breast pocket. Pierce smirked. "Am I hired?"

"Consider this your ninety-day trial period," Reinhart said.

Pierce fell silent as he moved toward the door. He knew what happened at the end of ninety-day trial periods. You were either kept on board with a hearty handshake… or terminated. As he noticed the strange three-barreled handgun holstered on Reinhart's hip he realized that he was probably one of the men who kidnapped him, and after ninety days, if he even made it that long, would be his executioner. He fell in step, walking in Reinhart's massive shadow as they worked their way through a maze of unlabeled hallways.

After nearly two minutes spent in silence, Reinhart pushed through a set of double doors and revealed a futuristic, stark white chamber. Men and women wearing lab coats worked at stations around the five-thousand-square-foot laboratory. Ridley and Maddox turned at their entrance. Maddox approached with a smile. "Welcome to Wonderland, Dr. Pierce."

"This is, ah, something," Pierce said.

"It's more than something," Maddox said, leading Pierce through the room, pointing out machines and equipment as he walked. "We have fifty Zeiss and Olympus microscopes, one at each station, along with fifty automated karyotyping and FISH — fluorescence in-situ hybridization — stations. Each has the capability for multicolored FISH and other molecular cytogenetic procedures. There are ten low-temperature freezers — the long white boxes by the back wall. The giant pills up there," he said, pointing to a line of cylindrical bath tub-sized containers bolted to the wall above several workstations, "those are twenty-one liquid nitrogen storage tanks."

"Isn't that dangerous? Keeping liquid nitrogen above the workstations."

"The only way to breach them is with high-caliber bullets or explosives, and if either are used to burst one of those high-pressure containers it won't matter if they're on the ceiling or the floor."

As they approached the long work table Ridley stood by, Maddox continued his tour. "There are five Barocyclers — really high tech — six automated Vysis VP2000 slide processors, three Axon Scanners, four Thermotrons, and—"

"You do realize I'm an archaeologist," Pierce said. "You're speaking Chinese to me."

Maddox paused, frowned, and then covered the remaining distance to the table in silence. Pierce watched the man, wondering how someone with obvious accomplishments could so easily be offended. His impeccably shiny shoes, hair, and teeth all pointed toward some innate desire to impress those around him.

"You've gone and hurt his feelings," Reinhart whispered.

When they stopped at the table, Pierce saw the Hydra artifact resting at its center, still wrapped in the petrified fabric that fused to the head long ago. Pierce starred at it. Part of him thought he'd never see it again. He'd even started thinking that he'd imagined the serpentine details, that his imagination had got the better of him. But seeing it again now, in the bright white glow of the lab, his doubts vanished. This was the real deal. An aberration at the top of the artifact caught his attention. A hole. "You drilled a hole in it?"

"For a core sample," Maddox said. His voice raised an octave in annoyance. "But it's the same cementlike substance all the way through. We dissolved it in an alcohol solution, but it just turned to paste. How are we supposed to get a DNA sample from paste?"

"I never claimed that you could."

"You claimed it was the authentic head of Hy—"

"If you're trying to pin incompetence on someone else, find another scapegoat."

Maddox's face beamed red. Ridley put a hand on his arm, calming the man.

"Dr. Pierce, please," Ridley said. "He's under a great deal of pressure to succeed. Now, we can banter about this, call names and so forth, or we can cut right to the swift. What say you?"

"By all means," Pierce said.

"Being the closest thing to an expert on the Hydra, you will tell us how we can take a DNA sample from what I've been told, based on your initial assessment, is the authentic head of the mythical Hydra… or, Mr. Reinhart can take you to the cliff side, put three bullets in the back of your head, and toss you into the Atlantic." He smiled. "Is that clear enough?"

Pierce tensed from head to toe. He knew a braver man might tell Ridley to shove it, but he really just wanted to survive. He looked up at Maddox and was surprised to see a look of horror on his face. Apparently the man had no idea his employer could be so ruthless. Pierce glanced around the room. The other scientists remained hard at work, having not overheard the conversation. Pierce wondered how many of them knew what was really going on here.

"Well?" Ridley said.

Pierce looked at a long line of tools laid out next to the Hydra head. With a shaky hand he picked up a scalpel. Pushing hard, he cut into the petrified fabric. With a pair of tweezers he pulled the piece away and placed it on the counter. The four-inch square showed what looked like scales, though they were powdery and gray. He watched it for any change.

Nothing.

"You keep the air in here dry," he said. He had felt the sting of dry air on his throat upon entering the lab and heard the hum of the air conditioners. Most labs kept the air cold and dry to preserve artifacts or other elements, but in the case of Hydra, it kept another reaction from occurring. At least that's what he hoped. The petrified fabric probably kept natural moisture in the air from reaching the Hydra head en route to this facility, but the air in the lab was like the desert at night. Moisture had yet to reach the sample.

He placed a chisel against the exposed area, he held a hammer high and took a deep breath. He let out a long sigh, thinking, I can't believe I'm doing this. Then his thoughts turned to what being shot in the back of the head would feel like and he brought the hammer down hard.

A chunk the size of a walnut shot off and fell to the table. He caught it and held it up. It looked no different from a dry piece of dog crap— insignificant in every way. He looked up and found Ridley, Maddox, and Reinhart watching in rapt silence. In fact, the whole lab had gone silent at the sound of hammer and chisel. All eyes were on Pierce.

He stood, picking up a plastic sample dish, and filled it with water from a nearby sink. He returned with the inch-deep water dish and placed it on the counter. He held the Hydra sample in his hand. "Hydra lived in a swamp. The word 'hydra' means water. Hercules buried the head in the driest environment on earth." He looked at Maddox, "Alcohol is a diuretic. It does the same thing to cells as it does to the human body — dehydrates."

Ridley smiled.

Pierce dropped the sample into the water. It bubbled like an antacid as air trapped in the miniscule depressions was forced out by the water seeping in. As the water cleared, the sample went from light gray to dark, like water on cement. For a moment, Pierce thought he was mistaken and his life was over, but a twitch of movement caught his eye. The sample bounced like a Mexican jumping bean, twice clearing the water. All at once it seemed to ooze and expand, the top side turning vibrant green, the underside red, fleshy sinews. The water inside the container seeped into every pore of the sample until not a drop remained. The fist-sized chunk looked like a green-scaled filet mignon.

"I'll be damned," Reinhart said.

Ridley pounded the table victoriously. "Well done."

Reaching out slowly, Pierce traced his fingers along the scaly flesh. The scales felt hard, almost sharp. Touching it brought it all home and erased his concerns for his own well-being. He smiled wide, picked up the sample container, and handed it to Maddox, whose hands were shaking, too. "Dr. Maddox, your DNA sample."