The Nemesis Origin

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‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.’

The cottage was filled once again with warmth and a rich orange glow from the crackling fire as Ethan sat down opposite Lucy Morgan.

‘I know,’ Lucy replied. ‘Being shot at kind of broke my flow.’

After the unexpected appearance and gunfight with the two masked men, and Ethan’s subsequent explanation to Major Wilkinson, the British officer had posted sentries all around Ethan’s cottage and agreed to provide protection for twenty four hours. Ethan had made some rapid repairs to the shattered window to seal out the bitter cold and Lucy had busied herself tidying up the debris from the bullet strikes before they had settled down to eat. It had been then that she had discovered that the files she had left inside the cottage had been stolen by the two gunmen, one of whom must have entered the building when Ethan and Lucy had fled up the hillside.

‘Major Wilkinson is pulling some strings with the Ministry of Defense to see if we can identify who the gunmen were or where they came from,’ Ethan said. ‘I didn’t manage to get any plates, but it’s possible they may be able to pick up the vehicle travelling through local towns and start identifying them from there.’

‘They must’ve followed me, despite everything,’ Lucy said. ‘You’re living out here in the middle of nowhere and suddenly they turn up on your doorstep. Whether they predicted I would come here or not I’ve dragged you into something and I had no idea it would become so dangerous.’

Ethan shrugged. ‘I can’t say that I’m happy about it, but it’s not like it’s the first time this has happened. You were telling me about something you found in the DNA from that bone of yours.’

Lucy leaned back in her chair, the firelight glowing on the features as she replied.

‘The strands of DNA that I extracted from the bone show clear evidence of human strains alongside them. The remains that we found in Israel are not those of an entirely alien species but of some kind of hybrid.’

Ethan stared at Lucy for a few moments in the silence as he digestive this new piece of information. He recalled that in Washington DC, pastor Kelvin Patterson had attempted to meld human and alien DNA in an attempt to create Angels to bring about the second coming. As insane as his plan had been, Patterson had had possession of alien bones and remains for some time all of which had been pilfered from the scientists he had hired to find the remains in the first place. It was not entirely impossible that he had come to the same conclusion as Lucy, and thus had his plan for the second coming been born.

‘How can you tell?’

‘It’s all to do with what we used to call junk DNA,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘In the genetic sequence of DNA there were long strands that made no sense whatsoever and were simply termed junk because it was not believed they had any active processes ongoing. However, in recent years we’ve come to understand that even this supposedly junk DNA has a role to play. What’s become clear from my study of this bone segment is that within the semi-active DNA are strands that have a purpose other than guiding cellular division.’

‘Pretend I’m an idiot,’ Ethan said. ‘I like baby steps when it comes to science.’

‘The DNA sequences are ordered in a particular way,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘The way they are ordered does not correspond to any biological processes known to man. That does not mean of course that they have no biological process attached to them, but it does lead me to suspect that their purpose within the DNA is not so much as a biological marker as a message.’

‘A message?’ Ethan repeated as he raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You think that there’s a message in the DNA?’

Lucy nodded as she set her mug down.

‘A number of scientists have postulated that the best way for alien species to have left messages or markers of their presence on earth would not be the classic idea of leaving a monument or rock carvings or similar because those messages would not endure for as long as a species that may be living on any given world. Their idea was that the best place to leave evidence of their passing would be in the genetic structure of the creatures that they encountered, because although those creatures may evolve over millions of years into species entirely distinct from those witnessed by passing aliens, the DNA would hold still the messages left behind. As long as life survived, so would the messages.’

Ethan stared into the flames of the fire for a moment. ‘So you’re saying that if ET wandered past Earth when the dinosaurs were walking around, and left a message in dino — DNA, then technically we should be able to find that message in the species alive on the earth today.’

‘Technically, yes,’ Lucy replied. ‘The dinosaurs, or more specifically the raptors, survive now as many species of birds. If what you have outlined occurred, we would expect to find that genetic message surviving in the genes of birds.’

Ethan shook his head in wonder, quite surprised at how often advances in science revealed new ways in which the message of life could be passed across the universe.

‘I’d never have thought of something like that.’

‘Well, until Crick and Watson discovered DNA, nobody else had either. The point is that this discovery goes far further than just potential messages in the genetic sequence of species. There is a theory known as panspermia.’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ Ethan replied. ‘It’s the idea that life is common in the universe, that complex organic molecules form naturally in deep space and are then carried to new born planets by comets, kick starting life all around the universe.’

‘That’s exactly right,’ Lucy agreed, for the first time showing some sign of enthusiasm and delight in her work. ‘Complex organic molecules have been discovered floating in gas clouds throughout our galaxy, some of those molecules just one step away from proteins and amino acids, the basis of all life on Earth. Panspermia is no longer just a hypothesis, it’s a solid and valid scientific theory and provides the means for life to travel across the vast distances between stellar systems and spread the basic chemicals of life wherever it can be found.’

‘How does this tie in with the message in the bone DNA?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But if the creature that we found in Israel was indeed a hybrid, then its genetic code must have been blended with that of a human. If you recall, although tall and with many features very different to ours, it was nonetheless bipedal and with a humanoid appearance. It’s generally considered highly unlikely that humanoid figures would be a commonplace result of evolution around the galaxy. Certain features such as eyes, ears, grasping hands and limbs are of course likely to develop, but the appearance of any intelligent alien species we would expect to be vastly different from our own. It is my conclusion that this hybrid creature was part human, and if the message encoded in its DNA is present then there is every likelihood that same message is present in some humans today.’

Ethan raised an eyebrow as he considered this new idea.

‘A bloodline,’ he murmured as he thought back to his work in Israel. ‘Kelvin Patterson was obsessed with the bloodline. He thought it was something to do with angels breeding with humans, like the Biblical legend of the Nephilim.’

‘If there is any chance that an alien species did interbreed or otherwise genetically altered our ancestors then the traces of their work should be present in the blood, or in the DNA, of certain peoples. It’s my hypothesis that the clearest signal of any extra-terrestrial intervention in human development would be found in the oldest civilizations and the oldest remains that we can locate. I was in the process of researching various ancient civilizations and trying to determine which would be the most likely to harbour the evidence that we seek when Vladimir Polkov showed up.’

Ethan rubbed his jaw with one hand, a day’s growth of stubble rasping beneath his fingers as he thought for a moment.

‘That could be almost anywhere,’ he replied finally. ‘If I remember what your mother told me correctly, mankind evolved in Africa and expanded out in all directions, inhabiting the Middle East, Far East, the far north and Europe.’

‘Well, that’s one of the other interesting things I’ve been looking into.’

Lucy made to reach for her missing bag and then sighed as she remembered that it was no longer here.

‘You’ve got a good memory,’ Ethan guessed. ‘I’m sure you could fill in the details.’

Lucy sat for a moment as she gathered her thoughts.

‘I started looking into the research of people involved in something called pseudo-archaeology. It’s essentially a fringe branch of science that until now hasn’t really been science at all. Its proponents believe that the current model of human civilization’s evolution is incorrect and that in fact we were able to develop complex societies many thousands of years before we originally thought.’

‘You’re talking about the kind of people that believe in Atlantis?’

‘Not so much Atlantis,’ Lucy replied. ‘The thing with Plato’s Atlantis is that the name is simply the one he gave to a rumoured advanced city that existed somewhere in the Atlantic, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which are what we now call the Rock of Gibraltar. If you take away the name and everything associated with it, then what you have is an eminent individual from an ancient civilization merely claiming to have heard of the existence of a much older civilization.’

‘Okay, so how much evidence of you found?’

‘Quite a bit,’ Lucy replied. ‘Mainstream archaeology does not involve itself in claims of ancient civilizations predating current history, and accepts only that our earliest civilizations evolved in what we refer to as the fertile crescent, areas of the Middle East, Iraq, Iran and so on that border the Persian Gulf. However, in recent years cities have been discovered deep in the jungles of India and other countries that clearly predate those civilizations, pushing back advanced human endeavour by thousands of years. The best known is Cabo de San Antonio, off the west coast of Cuba.’

‘What’s there?’

‘A geological survey team discovered an entire sunken city beneath half a mile of water, filled with geometric megalithic structures like multiple pyramids arranged in rows that the scientists involved said they could not describe in terms of natural geological formations. They have beautiful sonar images of streets arranged around the pyramids. It’s old enough to have existed during the last Ice Age, up to fifty thousand years ago. Ancient stories of the Maya and native Yucatecos people tell of an island state of advanced peoples that was swallowed by a flood. Samples collected from the site are of polished granite, not the limestone that forms the entire northwest Cuban peninsular. The closest natural granite is in the centre of Mexico.’

Ethan sat in silence for a moment. ‘You think that such sunken cities are the origin of ancient flood myths?’

‘The end of the Ice Age raised sea levels immensely as the glaciers that once covered the entire northern hemisphere receded,’ Lucy explained. ‘Any coastal cities built by advanced civilizations would have been easily swallowed by the oceans.’

‘How many are there?’

‘Dozens,’ Lucy said. ‘The Cambay Ruins off the coast of India were discovered in 2001, with artefacts such as bones, pottery and wall sections from the site dated at some nine thousand years old. The city of Yonaguni off the southern coast of Japan is at least five thousand years old and contains stepped walls and a massive pyramid about seventy feet below the surface of the sea. The walls of the city show evidence of men having working the stone and the inhabitants are believed to have been the Jomon, the first culture to have developed pottery, who lived up to twelve thousand years ago.’

‘And you are intending to go out there and search for something to support your theory,’ Ethan surmised with a wry smile.

‘That was the plan,’ Lucy admitted. ‘I’d managed to put aside some savings to fund the expedition because I knew that the museum would not support any such research. I was virtually ready to book flights when the Russians appeared.’

Ethan thought for a moment.

‘The Defense Intelligence Agency confiscated the remains that you found in Israel and could hardly have failed to examine them themselves. What you think the chances are that they will have discovered the same things that you have?’

Lucy inclined ahead to one side as she thought for a moment. ‘It depends. The DIA have never approached me and asked for any advice or even what I was researching that led me to find the remains. They have one piece of the puzzle, and it is possible even that they will find the message in the DNA, but what the hell they’ll be able to do with it I don’t know. The problem is that the message in itself is useless without a means of decoding or deciphering it.’

‘You didn’t say anything about deciphering,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘Ah,’ Lucy said, suddenly excited as she returned to her theme. ‘Now that’s the really interesting bit. You see, the message in the DNA of the bones we found in Israel is only one half of the message. We have no idea what language or dialect might be used, although we would hope for mathematics or perhaps even binary code, something universal that all advanced species would presumably recognise. But that’s not the reason I’m here.’

‘It’s not?’

‘No,’ Lucy replied, her face falling suddenly as though she had just recalled why she had journeyed across the globe to find him. ‘Have you ever heard of Saethre — Chotzen syndrome, or Hydrocephalus?’

‘Never,’ Ethan admitted. ‘What are they?’

‘They’re rare congenital disorders that cause the human skull to deform or fail to expand in the correct way as a child grows,’ Lucy explained. ‘Their origins lie in some kind of genetic mutation, and I’ve been working on the DNA from the bone to figure out if those mutations come from human genes modified in ancient history.’

Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘Seriously? You think that some modern illnesses may be connected to those remains we found in Israel?

‘If a species altered our DNA in some way by breeding with humans, then it’s entirely possible that in doing so they created a new line of illnesses.’ Lucy pulled a photograph from her pocket and handed it to Ethan. ‘This is Bethany O’Learey, from River Grove, Chicago. She is two years old and is suffering from the syndrome.’

Ethan looked at the image of a smiling, bright eyed little girl with rosy cheeks and soft brown hair. Her entire skull was encased in some sort of metallic device.

‘It’s a brace that is holding her head together after cranial surgery,’ Lucy explained, seeing Ethan’s reaction. ‘But the illness has other side effects, including heart issues, spinal fusing and renal problems. She’s dying, Ethan, and I’ve been watching it happen for the past year.’

Ethan looked up at Lucy as he put the pieces together for himself. ‘You’re looking for the cure.’

‘I’m looking for the genetic material of any human being who might have been a hybrid with the alien species, that is fresh enough to extract DNA from and search for the gene that causes these illnesses,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘My guess is that someone, somewhere once carried the origin of this and many other diseases. That person, whoever they were, would have been extreme the important to those who followed them. Their remains would quite likely have been preserved extremely well, perhaps well enough to extract the DNA required to decipher the cure to this illness and perhaps save Bethany’s life.’

Ethan considered the ancient cities to which Lucy had preferred to.

‘And you want to go and find the oldest possible site of an ancient civilization in the hopes of discovering the remains that you’re looking for.’

‘You’re quite bright really when you try hard,’ Lucy managed to smile.

For a moment Ethan was reminded of Lopez’s snarky wit. He shook the memory off and glanced at the clock above the fireplace. It was already after eight, the Highlands outside black as night: perfect for moving unobserved.

‘This cottage is compromised,’ Ethan decided. ‘There’s not much point in me sitting here waiting for the next bunch of gun wielding goons to turn up, and certainly no sense in you waiting around. Does Rachel have any idea where you are?’

‘None,’ Lucy admitted. ‘After what happened in Israel I decided to keep her on a need-to-know basis.’

‘I know how that feels,’ Ethan replied.

‘She thinks I’m abroad on another dig, tucked safely away in Europe, which in some respects is true.’

Ethan rubbed his forehead and sighed heavily as he realized that he could hardly now walk away from Lucy when it was clear that she was intending to go straight for the oldest human civilization she could find. Although Ethan did not have an idea of who had attacked them, and could not even be entirely certain of why, what he was sure of was that they would continue to pursue Lucy. If they now had her most treasured files, then it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that they would follow the same leads and would likely end up in the same places.

‘They’re going to follow you,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Whether it’s the Russians or somebody else, somebody wants to know what you know and they’re not going to give up.’

Lucy’s smile faded again.

‘That means I’ll need some kind of protection,’ she replied, ‘somebody who has experience of working in these kinds of conditions, somebody upon whom I can rely.’

‘I’m not in this business anymore,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘I’ve never been in this business,’ Lucy replied. ‘I’m supposed to quietly dig up fossils and prepare them for museums, not run around the Scottish Highlands getting shot at. I can’t do this on my own. You’ve spent the last year hiding away from everything — if getting away from the rest of the world is what you want, I can take you to places that people have not seen for thousands of years.’

‘You’ve got a destination already?’

Lucy nodded and clearly did not need her files to inform him of her plans.

‘The site in Israel where we found the remains is associated with ancient tribes that lived in the area during that period, and during the work I found numerous images depicted on rock faces, including engravings. I had photographs of them all, but they were in the bag we lost. However, it’s not hard to show you.’

Lucy took a notepad from her jacket and a small pen, and quickly sketched an image. Ethan looked at the drawing, of lines emanating downward from a semi-circle.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘An ancient petroglyph that portrays the sun,’ Lucy explained. ‘It’s common throughout the ancient world in various similar forms, but this one stands out as exceptional because I have also found it at one of the supposedly impossible cities beneath the waves. The photograph was taken by divers examining the top of a pyramid, and the light from the shot by chance illuminated the engraving beneath a layer of sea moss.’

‘Where was this pyramid?’ Ethan asked.

Lucy smiled conspiratorially.

‘You help me and you’ll find out,’ she said, ‘if you want to.’

Ethan glanced at the crackling fire and the piles of books that had kept him company for so many months, and then he made his decision.