Immortal (17 page)

Jericho and Gabrielle threw their backs
against the rack of shelving, as they tried to disappear into it.
The boxlike machine came to a stop in the middle of the main
corridor, and then turned and quickly accelerated ahead of them. As
it approached a doorway ahead, the door slid open, it zoomed
through, and the door slid shut. Jericho looked at Gabrielle, and
she just shook her head. She had no idea what had just happened
either. She began to walk ahead towards the door.

“Wait.” He said, as he turned down the aisle
and took a closer look at the vats on the shelves. Each had a
series of black and white speckles on the bottom right corner,
which varied in pattern from vat to vat. As he got closer, Jericho
could see that the containers were actually clear. It was the
liquid inside that made them look opaque. He reached out and
touched a small one at waist high level. “It’s warm.” He said to
Gabrielle who had walked up beside him, but cautiously watched back
toward the main corridor. He attempted to open the top, but could
not find anyway to release the lid, and was in fact, unsure there
was even a lid to be opened. He pulled the container closer to the
edge of the shelf, and in the process he jostled the container, and
felt the liquid within as it shifted. Suddenly he lost his grip on
the smooth surfaces of the small container, and it fell off of the
shelf. The hoses disconnected as it fell, and spewed liquid into
the air. The container crashed onto the floor and shattered. A
cloudy liquid ran every which way. Both Jericho and Gabrielle
jumped back, reflexively. As they both saw what was in the
container, confusion was quickly replaced by terror as they
realized that something lay in the middle of the shattered glass,
surrounded by the puddle of filmy liquid. It was eyes. Blue eyes.
One looked straight up at them, and one lay on its side, with bits
of nerve and muscle tissue strung out from each.

Gabrielle turned away. She bent over and
wretched and heaved. Jericho took another step back, and stared in
utter disbelief. Then slowly he looked down the aisle, and saw row
after row of shelving, and each shelf contained a vat of varying
size. His expression shifted from shock to anger as the reality of
what he saw sank in. He ran to the other side of the aisle, and
slung another container onto the floor. As it crashed open, what
appeared to be a type of cloth was left lying in the puddle. But as
he looked for a moment, he could see clearly the shape of a hand,
which lay folded back onto itself, as if deflated. Human skin, he
realized. He grabbed the next vat above, and slung it onto the
floor. As it crashed open, a small red organ the size of a fist,
skittered across the floor, and came to a rest at the edge of the
far shelving row. He watched in horror as it still beat, the
rhythmic pulses made it rock on the ground.

Enraged, he began to haphazardly run from
side to side. He began to grab and throw container after container
on the floor, until rivers of opaque fluids began to stream past
horror after horror. Gabrielle had begun to regain her stomach, but
weakly leaned against the row of shelving. She watched helplessly
as Jericho continued his destruction, until at last he too slumped
against a shelf, and cried. She carefully walked down the aisle
towards him, and tried not to fall as she stepped through the
viscous slippery fluids that ran across the floor. She tried not to
look at all of the pieces and parts scattered about the floor as
she walked, as she constantly fought the gorge in her throat that
threatened to rise back up. As she reached him she laid her hand on
his slumped back, and he spun with a rapid movement, the control
stick in his hand coming up. She tried to step back, but he stopped
himself, came back into the moment, and recognized who she was. He
dropped the stick and embraced her. He held her tight. She returned
his embrace.

“Quarantine.” He said weakly. “It’s a
lie…it’s all a lie.”

The communications device vibrated, and
Charles stepped away from the Premier’s side to view the message.
He quickly read that another of the Guardians had been
incapacitated in the ward. Exasperated, He angrily typed out a
response and sent the message. He looked up, and watched as Roger
conversed with some of the honorees. He watched as Roger nodded and
winked at some of the ladies, as if oblivious to the dire
circumstances that unfolded in the ward. Charles had been skeptical
from the beginning when the Omega Alpha series concept had been
introduced. Even as it was explained to him that this series could
allow for better memory enhancements and dexterity upgrades, the
mere thought of such a creature on the loose gave him the chills.
Though not a single specimen had ever escaped from the farm,
Charles knew what havoc it would create in their society if anyone
ever knew the truth. All those years ago, even before the great
floods that had wiped out all civilization, even the good Doctor
Sebastian had known how delicate the balance would be in a society
such as this. The theories had been eye opening at the time,
Charles remembered his father had said to him.

Even as normal ambient temperatures continued
to rise due to the sun’s eonic cycle, and the ice caps continued to
melt which raised the water levels, population overload had reached
its extreme. As the water levels rose, it left less and less land
for people to live on, the cities became even more and more
crowded, and tension between the many cohabitating cultures became
more intense. In those ancient days, terrorism had reached
grandiose levels, with no point of civilization safe from attacks
both small and large. It was the biological viral attacks in that
part of what was America, in a then coastal area called Nevada,
that had caused the final pandemics. Referred to as the Deathshead
Plague, the virus that was released would cause symptoms that often
went unrecognized for days, all the while the carrier host became
increasingly contagious. And thanks to the high speed system of air
travel prevalent at the time, the airborne contagion had spread
worldwide within a matter of days. When the first symptoms began to
appear, eighty percent of the world’s population had already been
infected. Symptoms were said to seem mild at first. With just a
small rash, and a slight cough. But once they presented, the
fatality rate was one hundred percent. The World Health
Organization seized immediate world wide control, backed by the
peace keepers of the United Nations which had taken over the
defense system referred to as NATO some years previous, and travel
was stopped in its entirety. The cities where people remained
alive, were immediately quarantined, and had to become self
sufficient over night. The cities that had been infected, died, to
the last person.

It was for almost twenty years that research
continued on an inoculation against the virus. But it was Doctor
Emelda Parkinson’s team that had finally made a breakthrough on the
vaccine. She had modeled their research after a successful study of
the previously eradicated AIDS virus from some hundred years
previous. They were able to develop a strain of the virus that
continually mutated and yet would consume itself, to the point that
it would totally eradicate itself from the host. The first to be
inoculated was her own team of researchers, and though at first the
plague symptoms presented, they quickly subsided. After extensive
tests, it became clear that inoculation was not even needed in
order to administer the vaccine. The vaccine itself would transmit
from host to host in the same viral that way the plague had moved.
As an airborne contagion. The World Health Organization acted
quickly and weaponized the vaccine, and distributed it through
aerial bursts throughout the areas of the population that remained.
The cure had been found. Over the next year, every living soul that
remained had been inoculated, and it appeared that Doctor Parkinson
had indeed saved mankind.

What was not known then was that there were
side affects of the vaccine. Some of which were issues with normal
cellular regeneration. Though not specifically pinpointed, it was
learned that the virus interfered with the cellular division at the
molecular level, which left the host to age faster than normal.
However the most notable of side affect was an actual genetic
modification to the host. The inoculation virus strain would
rewrite a portion of the DNA of the host to better replicate
itself. They determined that the specific location on the double
helix which was rewritten, directly affected a specific chromosome.
Though this DNA transcription and resulting chromosomal change were
of great concern, there were no symptoms to the host. And neither
were there any birth defects that were caused by it. There simply
were no births. The virus had rewritten the code for the X
chromosome. Through saving humanity, Doctor Parkinson and her team
had also condemned humanity to extinction.

In any birth, the mother provides the egg,
which contains a copy of one half of her DNA, and a copy of one
gene of each of the chromosomal or gene pairs. Specifically she
provides the X chromosome to her offspring. The male provides a
copy of one half of his DNA, and a copy of one gene of his own for
each of the chromosomal pairs. He specifically provides the Y
chromosome, in the case of a male offspring, or the X chromosome in
the case of a female offspring. All males have the XY chromosomal
pair. All females have the XX chromosomal pair. Every human has an
X chromosome. The change in the X chromosome left it defective, so
that it would not recombine and pair successfully during natural
fertilization. Attempts were made at in vitro fertilization,
however the results were the same. Without the X chromosome
functioning properly, once again humanity was at the brink of
destruction. Without births, no civilization could continue.
Without births, and with a population that now aged faster than
normal, humanity was once again doomed. That was, until Doctor
Sebastian hit upon a solution.

In his early research his team had been able
to successfully stimulate a human egg so that it acted like it had
been fertilized. Using a series of chemical baths, and low
frequency alternating current, the egg would exhibit the
characteristics of a normally fertilized zygote, yet it would not
begin to divide as would be normal. Using a varied method of micro
interferometry, they then inserted the nucleus extracted from a
healthy human epithelial cell. Additional baths and stimulation
triggered the egg to now divide as would a normal human zygote.
After several unsuccessful attempts, they finally were then able to
surgically plant a viably dividing zygote into a human womb. But
regardless of the circumstances, no viable birth ever took place.
The zygote would grow, as would a normal human fetus, but abort
itself at the end of the first trimester.

Further research yielded that the damaged X
chromosome of the host mother created an immune attack response to
the fetus, and once it had begun, there was no way to stop it until
ultimately the inoculation virus would travel through the placental
barrier and kill the fetus. After repeated attempts to shut down
the immune system of the host mother, there was finally a
successful entry into the second trimester. However, the host
mother died from complications of the immune system suppression.
Doctor Sebastian then went to interspecies gestation, as he used
one of the few female apes left in existence, but this too resulted
in the death of the host mother. This time in the first trimester.
With no other options available, his team then began to work to
create an artificial womb. Using lab grown tissue for the
substrate, and an artificial placenta filtration system, Doctor
Sebastian was finally able after hundreds of failed tries, to at
last coax a fetus through the complete term. A new birth. A human
birth. The first in over thirty years. Even though it was
genetically a perfect clone of himself, it was still a birth.

It was at this time that it became known that
the good Doctor had been diagnosed with a diseased pancreas. He,
like all other humans, had been affected by the inoculation virus,
one of the side affects of which, was lack of cellular
regeneration. This had caused the issue with his pancreas, and left
untreated, he would die within a few months. He consulted with the
powers of the World Health Organization about his findings and his
results, and finally his condition. On a vote of five to two, the
WHO authorized him to have a pancreas transplant on himself from
the newly born fetus. In their findings, they had written that his
work was too important to the survival of humanity to allow him to
die. They specifically stated that his life should be protected,
“at all costs.”

Within twenty four hours of the ruling, the
transplant took place, and due to that success, Doctor Sebastian
was able to continue his work up until the final days of the great
flood. In the years to come he was able to improve upon the
artificial womb system, to the point that it became completely
automated. The modification of robotic surgery systems allowed for
automated zygote fertilization and creation. Within the last few
years of his life, the entire process from start to finish could be
housed in a single warehouse, and run completely autonomously.
Worldwide, births ranged into the thousands on a daily basis. But
as sea levels continued to rise, more and more land was swallowed
to the point that those few cities left either migrated to the
highest peeks left in the world to build new civilizations, or
began to build giant floating contraptions in a last ditch effort
to survive. Suddenly new births had become a problem, as there was
no more room for population growth.

A four to three change in the prevailing
power balance in the World Health Organization led to the ruling
that new births must cease immediately, whether for population
growth, or for organ replacement. They had decided to let the crush
of humanity in its ever smaller space, fix itself through
attrition. The birthing factories world wide were closed, and the
practice was abolished through penalty of death. There had even
been rumors of military strikes against those populations that
continued the practice against the orders of the WHO. But the
rumors ended abruptly when all communication was cut off from the
outside world by the first Premier of New Sebastian. The first
Premier, Roger’s father, and the first Chancellor, Charles’s own
father, had been in complete agreement. The continuance of humanity
rested upon their shoulders. The city that they had founded, was
located at the top of a dormant volcano, far in what had been the
south Pacific. And in their wise opinions, they had no further use
of the outside world.