Survival Gene. Science Fiction Novel

Is it a trap?

“A strange office,” Andrew said trying not to manifest his uneasiness. “Where are the tables and chairs?”

“I don’t use them as I prefer to work in the standing position. But I’ll let you sit down.” He raised his voice. “Computer! Lift two chairs!”

A part of the floor moved apart before his feet. From the square opening, two light brown spheres resembling large balls of wool emerged. Coming abreast with the floor surface, the spheres rolled to the wall on the left. Meanwhile, the floor closed.

Having stopped at the wall, the balls flattened. A hollow appeared on one side of them while the other side stretched up and bent. This resulted in two armchairs.

“Self-moving transformers,” Lorenzetti explained. “They can take the form of a table, a sofa, a carpet or, as in this case, an armchair. Have a seat!”

Andrew had seen advertisements of such goods, but had never bought them because of their high price. Lippo has lots of money. With his kind of work, it’s natural that he’d earn big fees. But what else might Lippo be involved in? What if legal work for various companies is just a cover, and Lippo is an ordinary crook with extraordinary abilities? If I wasn’t going to leave my job, it would be interesting to conduct an investigation.

He and Emily went to the armchairs and sat down.

“Is it comfortable?” the hacker asked with a pleased smile looking at the girl.

“Yes,” she said.

“If the seat is too hard, I can make is softer. If it’s too soft, vice versa. What would you like?”

“Nothing. Everything is absolutely perfect,” Emily said with some irony.

“That’s great. Let’s get down to business then. Here’s the globe!”

The planet appeared in the air in front of Lorenzetti. Its lower part floated several centimeters above the floor and the top almost reached the ceiling. The Earth looked like an absolutely real object. The sphere started spinning slowly. When the waters of the Atlantic Ocean passed by and the shores of the North America showed up, the sphere stopped. The hacker’s face was directly opposite Washington DC.

“Bull’s-eye!” he exclaimed with satisfaction.

Barkov knew that such realistic images could be created not in the air but directly in a viewer’s mind by a new game computer that cost more than fifty thousand credits. I wonder if this man pays taxes.

“Are you going to play a geography game with us?”

Lorenzetti looked at Andrew with astonishment. “Do you think it’s a game?”

“Of course.”

“You are mistaken. This is how our planet looks at the moment. The image is transmitted from satellites that remained intact after the asteroid attack. We are online!”

Andrew smiled wryly. Yes, he knew the government had devices such as this, with the ability to transmit images and sounds to a human brain in real time. The devices could be controlled by their owners who were able to select game modes and give commands mentally without lifting a hand or even stirring a finger.. But holographic representations like this one were beyond the means of anyone outside the government; only gamers with thick wallets could afford something that even resembled the real thing. “Give me a break!”

The hacker’s face became stern, almost angry. “I guess you have no idea who you have come to see. All right, I’ll prove it to you. Let’s start not with the President but with your mother. Is she home now?”

Andrew bristled at the mention of his mother – and Lippo’s threatening tone.

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I want you to make sure that this isn’t a recording of past events or an imitation of the present ones, but a reality. Is your mother’s address 1237, Southwest Street, Miami?”

Barkov nodded unwillingly. Really, Lorenzetti had studied his dossier thoroughly!

The globe turned down, then started to scale up. The North Pole disappeared somewhere under the ceiling and the South Pole, under the floor. The western and eastern parts went into the walls. The image shielded the part of the room that was behind it. It seemed that the planet’s surface was approaching quickly, not scaling up. Wind whistled in Andrew’s ears. Although he had the wits to understand that there was no danger, he felt a unpleasant chill in his stomach and a desire to back up.

Soon he recognized the Biscayne Bay outlines, the network of streets leading from the seashore to the center and, finally, the gray roof of his mother’s house. He could even see branches of trees around the house swinging from the wind.

“I’m switching to the street viewing mode,” Lorenzetti announced.

The point of view changed. A part of the room they were in turned into the street. This time the image was a bit dim. In some places of the image there were gaps where the opposite wall of Lorenzetti’s room could be seen. Nevertheless, Andrew easily recognized his mother’s house, three coconut trees growing in front of it and the garbage can lying on the road with some black bags of garbage and cola cans spilled out around it. He instantly remembered the burglars’ Cadillac that had run down the garbage can.

“That’s it! It’s her home!” Emily blurted out.

Andrew’s brain spun as he realized, Of course this guy has a brain e-vision system just like the government – he was probably the one who helped develop it! He was starting to understand why Lorenzetti was treated like such a highly secret government asset.

“It is her house!” Lippo claimed with triumph. “But that’s not all. Let’s switch to the premises viewing mode!”

The house scaled up and the spectators “entered’ the closed front door.

Nellie Barkov was collecting things scattered around the house and putting them into a cardboard box.

“Mom!” Andrew shouted as he jumped up.

Lorenzetti smirked. “Don’t shout, she can’t hear you. But we can hear her!”

The shuffling of the woman’s feet and remote voices that came seemingly from her old e-vision could be heard.

“That’s impossible,” Andrew murmured. Now his heart raced. No one could penetrate any private premise. First, it was illegal: the International Primal Privacy Act, enacted by the President years ago, ensured total privacy within any private residence. It had been a keynote in his campaign, as assurance to the world that eliminating borders and creating a World Government would allow all citizens to retain their privacy, not give it up in the process. Second, since Andrew worked in dangerous missions and he or his family could be a target for revenge, Andrew had installed an insulating shield on his mother’s home. It was a shield impenetrable by electronic interference to ensure his mother’s safety. Even an electronic bug placed in her house would set off an alarm on Andrew’s monitor. So… no way was this video feed from inside his mother’s house real – it was surely a hoax.

Raising his hand, Andrew looked at his mindphone ring on the fourth finger and commanded, “Connect with Mom!”

The old bracelet on Nellie’s wrist started to flicker. The call melody was heard. The woman stood straight, looked at the bracelet and pressed the button, smiling. “Listening, Son!”

Andrew’s skin crawled as he heard her voice. “Mom, are you at home now?”

“Yes, I am cleaning up. And where are you?”

“Not far off. I’m doing… business.”

Her voice became anxious at once. “Do you have any news? Have you tried to free Housman?”

“Not yet. I can’t discuss it at the moment. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” She paused. “Don’t forget to have dinner, Son!”

“I’m not hungry, don’t worry. Bye!”

Andrew disconnected. Nellie looked at the bracelet thoughtfully for a few seconds, then sighed and continued tiding up.

“Have I removed your doubts?” Lorenzetti asked.

Still shocked, Barkov nodded. Lippo couldn’t have modeled Andrew’s conversation with his mother beforehand. The big question was how had he managed to transfer video and audio from a house where there was not a single video camera and a total electronic shield?

“Fine! The next stop is the residence of the President of the United States of the World, Washington DC. You’ll be able to eavesdrop on everything said in that house as well. God help us!”

Lippo closed his eyes, crossed himself slowly and in a sweeping manner. Then he opened his eyes and looked intently in front of him.

The picture changed at once – Barkov felt as if he flew up through the mother’s house roof and soared into the sky.

Chapter 8

Andrew Barkov had been to Washington only once, in his childhood, on a tour with his mother. His only recollection of the tour involved a small dog with long ears that ran around a fountain before the White House. Andrew had wanted to throw his ice cream into the water to see if the dog would swim after it. Mom had not allowed that, and he was upset. He even refused to finish eating the ice cream!

He recollected all of that while staring at the approaching satellite image of the city. From above, the world capital looked like a fanciful carpet. Parks and public gardens with flowerbeds and lawns, a rectangular grid of streets with diagonal avenues lined with trees and bushes, roofs of buildings covered with multi-colored solar panels…

The White House roof looked gray. It was not hard to discriminate it in the city – it stood separately in the center of a green park. There were two round fountains near it, on the north and south lawn. I wonder which of them the dog had been running around.

“I’ll take you in through the doors only six people in the world can enter,” Lorenzetti said in a ceremonial tone. “Those are the governors of North America, South America, Australia, Africa, Europe and Asia!”

“Can the President not enter the doors?” Emily inquired mockingly.

“I mean guests. The President is the chief of the White House, he can enter anywhere!”

Lippo made a sharp gesture; as a result, the northern entrance moved closer. To the right of the entrance stood a marine who seemed to be looking right in the hacker’s face.

“And now the most interesting thing,” Lorenzetti continued. “Computer! Turn on the 3D mode and full interactivity!”

He took a few steps on the spot lifting his knees high, and the building continued moving towards him so that he penetrated through the closed doors. The marine disappeared.

Now Lorenzetti was in the entrance hall and Andrew and Emily felt as if they stood right behing him. It was a rectangular spacious room decorated with columns, several marble sculptures and pictures in gilded frames. A portrait of the last President of the United States of America was hanging on the left wall and a portrait of the first President of the United States of the World on the right wall. An antique grand piano was standing before the left portrait. Its legs were made in the form of sitting eagles with spread wings. The keyboard lid was open.

Three men came out of a corridor adjoining this entrance hall and went to the exit. One of their shoulders caught on Lippo’s shoulder. Emily gasped as the hacker didn’t even stir as the man’s shoulder went through his.

Lorenzetti followed them with his eyes, spread his arms to both sides and smiled. “Isn’t it impressive? It’s me who made it all! Not the White House, of course, but the computer program to allow this penetration.”

Approaching the grand piano, he started fingering the keys.

“There’s no music,” Emily observed.

The hacker laughed as he went away from the instrument. “Certainly. All the objects are virtual here, I can’t affect them directly. They can’t affect me either. But we’ve no time to waste. Computer! Scan the White House and find the President! And one more thing: scan all the computers of the White House and find any notes on a refuge for the government. Display the retrieved information,” he looked around, “on the portrait of the President of the World!”

Holding his hands behind his back, he started to walk at an easy pace circle-wise, looking around him. “A beautiful interior, don’t you think so? To tell the truth, I’m here for the first time.”

“Are you sure we’ll stay undetected?” Andrew asked.

“Absolutely. My technology is unique. No one has ever made anything – ”

A melodious female voice announced, “Data has been retrieved.”

Instead of the portrait of the President, the layout of the White House appeared on the wall. A small red circle began to blink in the western wing marked as the “Oval Office’.

“Here he is, the mankind leader,” the hacker said. “This is done. What about the refuge?”

“Two hundred and fifty-six concordances found,” the female voice answered.

Instead of the layout, a long numbered list with extracts from texts appeared in the frame.

“Narrow the search,” Lorenzetti commanded. “Find the asylum intended for salvation of the government.”

The answer was prompt. “No concordances found.”

Lorenzetti shook his head, clicking his tongue. “You see? You’ve been misinformed. The President is not going to hide while others die!”

Andrew wanted to believe that, too. CHENG Wenming had fought for justice for all his life. He was one of the founders of the Nature Party that opposed corporations manufacturing GMO and trying to turn the whole population into zombies – insatiable consumers of their produce. He was at the head of the World Unification Movement. Thanks to people like him, governments of all countries signed the Agreement on Creation of the United States of the World. When separatists tried to take their revenge in different locations of the planet, CHENG Wenming entered into the struggle against them – not as an army general but as an ideological leader. During recent years, after becoming the President, he imposed a ban on using oil and gas as fuel. Fast implementation of ecologically safe technologies started as a result. Such man wouldn’t try to hide while the earth’s population was destroyed!

“No concordances found?” Emily said to the hacker. “Is that all you can do? You promised that we’d listen to the President!”

“Fine. But bear in mind that it is not only illegal, but also unethical. He might be in a bathroom or with a secret lover.”

“He doesn’t have a secret lover!”

“Do you think so? Maybe, maybe. Computer! Depict the situation to me. Is the President still in the Oval Office? What is he doing?”

The text was replaced by the White House layout. The blinking red circle was moving. The female voice replied, “The President has just gone downstairs. The President is walking to the Situation Room. There are sixteen people in the Situation Room. The President is opening the door. The sixteen people are getting up…”

Lorenzetti interrupted it, “That’s enough. Meetings are held in this room only in crisis situations. We must hurry!”

He ran in place while Andrew and Emily still stood but watching, as if they were in the middle of a movie and the scene moved in front of them.

He’s in a good physical form, Barkov noted to himself.

The building moved towards the hacker, and he came to a stop on the red carpet in the corridor. Raising his arms over his head with his palms turned up, Lippo “fell’ through the floor into the basement. Emily gave a slight gasp again as she and Andrew felt they, too, had fallen. They stopped on the floor below where there were no windows. The massive arched walls created an impression that it was a bunker hidden deep underground.

Lorenzetti continued to run in place. Some doors and gold yellow statues flashed past. Then there was a turn, and the hacker entered a small hall lit by sunrays. A rose garden was seen behind the glass doors. One more turn, and the hacker rushed along a lighted corridor to the western wing of the White House.

Having penetrated into the closed doors, Lorenzetti went down the stairs and stopped before the door with the inscription “Situation Room”. In a second, he entered.

“Sit down, please,” CHENG Wenming pronounced loudly.

Andrew jerked at the words, but those words were not addressed to the hacker, of course.

The central part of the room was occupied by a long table. Men and women standing along it began to sit into armchairs. The President of the United States of the World, a short lean man, sat down in the far end of the table.

Lorenzetti went around the table and, folding his arms on his chest, stopped behind the President of the World.

Barkov knew by sight almost all the people who were in the room as they had often spoken on e-vision. There was the Secret Service Director Radomir Novak and several ministers – of transport, construction, communication, public health, agriculture… Obviously, the whole ruling top had gathered there.

“I’ve invited you to listen to the report from the professor of physics, the president of the International Academy of Science Sam Goodman,” CHENG Wenming said. “Sam, please!”

A gray-haired man wearing a light gray suit sitting to the right of the President stood up unhurriedly and surveyed all those present with a heavy look. Then he looked at the control panel installed in front of him on the table for the laser e-vision.

“I can see two scenarios,” he said in the distinct voice of a professional teacher. “Bad and very bad. Which one to start with?”

“With the bad one,” CHENG Wenming said.

“Okay. Now I’m going to show you the Earth.” Over the middle of the table, an image of a globe appeared and started rotating slowly. “The Earth is a sphere, isn’t it?”

“Certainly,” the Minister of Health, a dark-haired woman of about forty answered.

“The answer is incorrect!” Goodman retorted. “A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space.”

“Are we having a geometry lesson?” the minister inquired.

A snicker spread over the room.

“I’m just reminding you of the ABCs from the school curriculum so you can understand the problem properly,” the professor objected. “And the problem is that the Earth is not perfectly round. It is flattened on its poles!” He made a gesture, and the image compressed vertically a little. “Waters of the World Ocean are retained on the equator thanks to the planet’s rotation. Now, as the rotation is slowing down, their outflow to the poles has started. For instance, the Canadian Arctic Islands have submerged almost entirely. The bad scenario is as follows: in a couple of weeks the Earth’s rotation will decelerate a few times. All the territories to the north of 50 degrees will be flooded.”

“It can’t be true!” the Minister of Agriculture, a bald-headed man with a light golden moustache resembling an ear of wheat, said.

“Yes, it can. Now you’ll see the flood.” Arrows denoting movement of waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans appeared on the globe and areas in the north and south were painted over with the blue color gradually. “Most parts of Canada and Russia, the whole of England, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and half of Germany will submerge. But that’s not all! The atmosphere, just like the oceans, will be displaced to the upper and lower parts of the planet. Life on the equator will be impossible. The atmospheric pressure will become less on the ground level in future than it’s at the altitude of twenty kilometers now. At such pressure, the whole body will simply boil up.”

“What do you mean by ‘boiling up’? ” The Minister of Health looked puzzled.

The professor pointed with his finger at a stoppered bottle of mineral water standing on the table.

“Open the bottle, and you’ll see bubbles foaming the water. If you happen to be on the equator in two weeks, the same thing will happen to you: the gas dissolved in blood and lymph will start to ooze. It’s certain death. In the tropics – for example, in Rio de Janeiro – such things won’t happen, because you’ll die of suffocation there first. The same applies to Singapore and Bangkok. Air in those cities will be too thin to support life.”

“It’s a real nightmare!” someone’s muffled voice was heard.

“Yes, it is! Now look at the zones where life will be possible.”

Two greenish stripes appeared on the globe – in the northern and southern hemisphere.

The professor commented, “Those are spaces between the latitude of 30 and 50 degrees North and South. Air will be accumulated in the southern part of Australia, Africa and South America; in the northern hemisphere, we would be able to breathe in some parts of the USA, France and China. But there, a new problem will arise – increased solar radiation. The magnetosphere created as a result of the rotation of the Earth still protects us against destructive rays. As soon as the rotation slows down, the magnetic field will decrease. Sunrays will be deadly. People bent on suicide won’t have to jump from a cliff – it would be enough to sunbathe for ten minutes on a beach. Besides, there will be earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and thunderstorms all over the planet. However, life will be possible in the latitudes mentioned before. We call them ‘green zones’.”

“So, we must start building camps for refugees!” exclaimed the Minister of Agriculture, an elderly man with a hatchet face and dark shadows beneath his eyes resembling bruises.

Instead of the professor, a reply was given by Radomir Novak, the Director of the Secret Service, who was a big and strong man looking like a weightlifter. “Three camps are already being built.”

The Minister of Agriculture looked at him in surprise. “Really? Why don’t I know anything about it?”

“Those are secret projects, former underground military bases. We’ve started their re-equipment for the members of the World Government and their families, the management of corporations and the international police.”

“What about other people?”

“We’d been waiting for the final conclusions of the Academy before deciding how many bases we need for the rest,” the President of the World interjected, “after which we could declare total evacuation.”

The minister looked confused. “I see. Sorry for the interruption!”

So, people were not forgotten, Barkov thought. The President is really going to save everybody, just as he promised in his speech.

“I’ll continue with your permission,” Sam Goodman said, casting a cold glance at the minister. “In case of a very bad scenario, the underground military bases will be useless. They might be destroyed during earthquakes. We will need absolutely autonomous, airtight constructions on the surface. Just like those that were designed for the colonization of Mars because conditions on the Earth will not be much better.”

“You didn’t tell me about this before,” the President of the World said. He scowled at this news, then asked, “Can you substantiate your conclusions?”

The professor paused and cleared his throat. “We’ve got some geophysical evidence that the Earth’s core might stop completely. Day and night will last for half a year each, and deadly cold will alternate with unbearable heat. For instance, the temperature might go down to as low as minus one hundred Celsius at night and rise to plus eighty by day! But the worst thing is as follows: The magnetic field will be so weak that solar radiation will start to annihilate air. The Earth atmosphere will be useless for breathing and, with time, it will disappear completely.”

A few people moaned quietly.

“When will it happen?” someone asked.

“It’s hard to say. Maybe in a few hundred years… or maybe in a few months. We’re still gathering data and the dynamics are changing.”

Andrew Barkov felt a shiver down his spine. He looked at Emily Housman beside him. She looked at him, too, her eyes wide open.

“It’s a damn narrow squeak,” she whispered.

She looked at him with worry etched across her brow, her delicate lips trembling. She’s lovely, he thought, then chastised himself for thinking of anything but the current crisis.

Trying to calm down not her as much as himself, he replied, “That’s just an assumption. A tiny probability.”

“What is the probability of the planet stopping completely?” the President of the World asked, as if hearing him.

The professor paused again and uttered distinctly, “The probability is very high. That’s all I can say at the moment.”

He sat down knitting his long gray eyebrows.

Silence reigned. All eyes were turned to the President of the World. At last, CHENG Wenming said, “We must get ready for both scenarios. It is necessary to build both the camps and autonomous constructions. Radomir, do you have projects of such constructions for Mars that we can convert to use on Earth?”

“Yes and no,” the head of the Secret Service replied. “The habitats built for Mars aren’t suitable here. But we have a construction like that for Earth. Its codename is ‘Noah’s House’.”

“An analogy for ‘Noah’s Ark’?”

“Exactly. I call it ‘The Base’, for short.”

“How many people can we put up in such Noah’s Houses?”

“Two thousand people. But only in one House. It’s been built for a long time near Salt Lake City. We can’t build anymore.”

“But the population is more than twenty billion!”

Radomir Novak spread his arms. “There aren’t sufficient resources for the rest. We didn’t know that such Houses would be required so fast. We started construction before anyone knew about the asteroid.”

“Why did you start building? And why was I not informed about it?”

“We didn’t consider it to be important. At first, only private assets were used. The new owner of ‘Apple’ was the initiator. He was afraid of a flood because of global warming. Two months ago, the Security Council decided that the state had to take part in the construction – for any emergency. We improved the project by requiring that the Base be able to move not only by water, but also on the ground and even by air.”

The President was silent for a while. He took a pen and started to twirl it. At last, he spoke to everybody. “First, the right for living in Noah’s House should be granted to most talented and healthy representatives of mankind, not just businessmen and government members. Second, we must decide on what information should be provided to the mass media. Shall we declare both variants – the green zone and Noah’s House – or just the first one?”

Ministers dropped their eyes. The Director of the Secret Service answered, “We can’t possibly tell the whole truth by any means! Otherwise, each person will try to get into the safest place – the Base. It will be the war of everybody against everybody. As a result, no one will survive.”

The ministers kept silent.

“In this case,” the President of the World said gloomily, “I have to make the most difficult decision in my life. We will declare evacuation to the green zones… and pray for them to be really green. If the worst case scenario happens, at least two thousand people will survive in the airtight base. Let’s vote.”

One by one, all the ministers raised their hands.

“Unanimously,” the President of the World summed up. “In half an hour, I will give an address to the people of the Earth.”

“I’d advise to do it in two hours,” the Director of the Secret Service said. “I must put all our security forces on full alert.”

“Why?”

“I think the opposition will try to revolt. Especially separatists in the green zones. They might shout about strangers who will drive the local population out, take away their homes and food. They’ve been looking for a reason to restore borders between nations for a long time. In America, Europe, Asia…”

“I see. You’ll have one hour, no more.”

Suddenly a man with colorless eyes and white eyebrows wearing the uniform of a police sergeant appeared in the room. Barkov did not understand where he had come from. It seemed the man had walked through the wall. All the others present in the room froze as if someone pushed a pause button. A perfect silence fell on the room.

The sergeant stopped in front of Lorenzetti and said, “Mister, what are you doing here?”

Lippo stepped back. “That’s impossible!”

“What is impossible?” the sergeant asked.

“Computer!” the hacker cried out. “Break all external connections! Quickly!”

The table, chairs and people, including the sergeant, disappeared. Lorenzetti was standing alone in the middle of his white room. He had a confused and scared look, his face almost as white as the wall.

As Lorenzetti stood silent, Andrew Barkov turned to look at Emily. He understood now that Emily was right. Appearing on the e-vision, the President hadn’t told the whole truth. In fact, he told lies. He was going to continue lying, even if he meant well. Mother was right, too. Neither she nor Andrew would be able to get into the secret asylum – the so-called Noah’s House. If the Earth stopped rotating completely, one could survive only in there. It meant they were both in mortal danger. Cold, heat, radiation, lack of air… Genetic modification could be their only chance of survival.

I must act decisively and quickly. Before it’s too late.

“How did they trace me?” Lorenzetti squealed.

That was the least of Andrew’s worries. He caught Emily’s hand, stood up and towed her to the doors.

“Stop!” Lippo shouted. “Where are you going? Take me with you! I can’t stay here. They’ll come for me soon. I don’t wanna go to jail!”

“In that case, our ways part here,” Barkov replied. “Jail is the place we are going to right now.”