The Empathy Gene: A Sci-Fi Thriller Read online

  “A refined mix of carbon and machine. Which makes me the best of both worlds.”

  “Or the worst.”

  “Well, that's a matter of perspective. From where you're standing, I am the worst. There is no denying that.”

  David glanced over at Gull. “Does the existence of the Event Helix mean that everything is predetermined? By cause and effect? That we have no free will?”

  Goliath smiled. “I find your curiosity refreshing, son. It bodes well for what this imagination of yours might conjure regarding the Shadow Strands, and the events they're concealing. As regards free will, it's like this: at each juncture you are required to make a choice. But that choice, even though you made it yourself, comes about as a result of your previous choices. That's how cause and effect works. But beyond that, the Architects know you better than you know yourself, and they predicted every single choice you were ever going to make. And they programmed those choices into their mechanism. That is how fate and free will are able to walk hand in hand.”

  David folded his arms across his chest. “So, you think there's a point to anything?”

  “I might ask you the same question.” Goliath smiled. “One thing is clear though: the Architects have made me their instrument. Chosen me to mete out their punishment on humankind.”

  “Punishment for what?”

  “Seems to me for disregarding that which made you unique – something you have done often throughout your history. Now don't look at me that way. They didn't place no empathy in me, which means I haven't disregarded a damn thing. So how could I disappoint? Enough questions, son. I think you got all the information you need. It is my turn to ask the questions.” The ground jerked violently beneath him, and David stumbled to his left, breaking his fall against a tree. “The gods!”

  “Are who I'm aiming to find, son …”

  The meadow disconnected from the surrounding fields and rose up inside the Event Helix. David glanced over at Gull. He swung back and forth at the end of his noose like a child maxed out on a playground swing. The meadow ascended into a square vortex that contained a cylinder, a tube inside a square – and within this tube, blue veins hung and twisted about each other in bunches the size of skyscrapers. David tore his gaze from his surroundings and looked at Goliath. The giant's dome-shaped head was infused with thick black veins. His eyes were closed, his face tilted up. And on it an expression of rapture. David looked at the transparent, twisting shapes around him. “Are we moving forward through time?”

  Goliath did not open his eyes. “The universe does not subscribe to a notion of time as you know it. You see any straight lines in here?”

  “Not a single one.”

  “Exactly. The truth of the matter is that everything that ever occurred did so in the same instant. What you see here is a freeze-frame of that instant. Time is an illusion, son. It exists only in the minds of living things. It makes movement and progression conceivable to cognitive beings.” Until now, it had felt as though the meadow in which they stood had been climbing into the Event Helix, but now the meadow had come to a dead stop. Their surroundings began to move down around them like a butterfly net over its prey.

  “Not long now … we're almost there,” said Goliath. “You have an inquiring mind, so you will find this of great interest.” All movement ceased, and Goliath opened his eyes and said, “Come and take a gander at this.”

  Twisting veins fell about them like the hanging gardens of Babylon, but where Goliath pointed they were joined to branches that looked conceived in a Grimm's fairytale. These were the Shadow Strands. At some points the Shadow Strands were no thicker than a man's wrist, while at others – and like the twisting veins they mirrored – they were the circumference of Earth's tallest trees. Goliath folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “First impressions of the Shadow Strands, son?”

  “Well, it looks like some kind of infestation,” said David.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Are they attached?”

  “Melded right to the side of each helix. Now it's not like I don't know what they represent …”

  “What?”

  “Dark matter.”

  “If you know what they are then why ask me?”

  “The dark matter is hiding something, and I need to find out what. And why.”

  “Maybe it's hiding something from you, specifically.”

  Goliath shook his head. “Dark matter exists to cloak certain eventualities from human eyes.”

  “All eyes, it seems.”

  “I like to think of it as a puzzle. One that only the worthiest can unlock.”

  “How long have you been trying to crack it?”

  “Five hundred years. Give or take.”

  David looked up at the giant. “Then you must have considered the possibility that you’re not worthy.”

  “Straight-talking little bastard, ain’t you? I already told you, time is not relevant. Outside of conscious perception it does not even exist.” Goliath stepped forwards. “Come with me. Let's go take a closer look.” David looked down at his feet. The ground appeared to be made of glass stretched to breaking point, and beneath this flimsy construct yawned a drop without end. Without looking back, Goliath said, “Use your noodle. If the ground can take my weight, it can take yours.”

  They stood before a section of branch, or Shadow Strand, no thicker than a tyre. Goliath reached up and ran a finger along it. “It is the only thing in here that takes on solid form. Which is curious, because by all the laws known to nature this should not be possible.”

  “What about the floor we're standing on? That feels solid enough.”

  “The floor's an illusion. It's only there to stop you hollerin'.”

  “Alright.” David lifted a hand towards the Shadow Strand and paused.

  Goliath smacked a palm against it. “Go ahead. It won't bite.” The tip of David's finger passed into the Shadow Strand, and he withdrew it quickly as though it had bitten him. He collapsed to his knees, retched and mumbled, “No, no, no, no…”

  The giant observed him, chin in hand. Then he poked at the same spot. Solid. “My eyes did not just deceive me? You were able to penetrate this Shadow Strand.” David did not answer. “Are those tears in your eyes, son? Has something gone and upset you?”

  David murmured, “Sorrow …”

  “Come again?”

  “Sorrow. Intense, black, crushing … sorrow. Not something I care to feel again.” David blinked, and suddenly found himself before another section of Shadow Strand. This one was larger than the first, considerably so. He felt a hand clasp the back of his neck. “I'd like you to pay close attention to what it feels like on the inside, son. Something tells me it may be important,” said Goliath.

  “Please. Don't do this.” Goliath shoved David's head inside the Shadow Strand as far as his own hand would allow …

  Part 2

  Chapter eleven

  Destination Earth

  David's eyelid was thumbed up, and a light shone into his pupil. Within his own mind, David lay on his back and stared into darkness while the light moved around him like a spotlight in search of its leading man. Within his mind, David pushed his chin up as though trying to see what lay behind him. A sound issued from his arched throat that sounded more simian than human. It continued, unwavering, until his lungs had emptied of oxygen. A vacuum of silence followed, and David cast his eyes about in terror at what might fill it. The spotlight went out, and the sun rose to reveal a forest at dawn.

  David sat up and saw a waif-like girl step from behind a tree. She looked at him. Her eyes were large and light brown, and her face pale and luminous. Her hair was dark and it fell about her face in the manner of a cavewoman. A scar ran down her cheek. She raised her hand and touched it. David smiled at her as a child might at a fawn stumbled across in a wood. She did not smile back; she just watched him. The wind came up and the trees shook like creatures waking from hibernatio
n. The girl looked about her. She glanced once more at David, and then she ran.

  David got to his feet and staggered after her like a drunk through the doors of a saloon. The trees began talking to him in faint whispers, keen to remind him of things he did not wish to be reminded of. Off to his left, he saw a man on horseback and froze in his tracks. The man wore a blue army uniform, and on his head a wide-brimmed black hat. He had a handle-bar moustache which he fingered as he surveyed his surroundings. He took up his reins but froze when he noticed David. His horse pranced back and forth, and he regarded David like someone whose path he'd expected to cross but not at this time. He snapped the reins and rode off.

  The winds grew stronger and the whispers became bellows. With his hands clasped to his ears, David cried, “Gull!” A branch whistled through the air and struck his neck. David touched the spot and observed blood on his fingertips. Another branch struck him. Then another and another. David lurched from the spot and went into a laboured, stumbling trot. The blows rained down and tore flesh from his arms, back and face. Blood filled his eyes and as he wiped at them with the backs of his hands he tripped and fell. The trees crowded about him like a gang of thugs. Their assault stated, “You will think about the suffering you encountered inside the Shadow Strand, and you will feel it.” David curled into a ball and screamed through a mouth without lips, “Guuuull!”

  Light flooded the ground about him, an artificial light that dissolved the wood. David blinked up at a white ceiling. The face of an elderly man loomed over him: a yellowing face with bushy eyebrows and a long, flat nose. The man was bald except for a curtain of grey hair that stretched from earlobe to earlobe and fell about his shoulders.

  “Where am I?” asked David. “What's happening to me?” The man stroked his chin with a liver-spotted hand and appeared to weigh something of importance in his mind. David's eyelids grew heavy, and his world faded to black …

  David opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling. He tried to get up and the next he knew the ground had reared up and smacked him in the face. He clambered onto his knees, got up and sat on the edge of the bed. Rolls of bandages and tubes of antiseptic were stacked on a table. A glass-fronted fridge contained a number of vials. The room had no windows, and the door was slightly ajar. David craned his neck to see outside, and listened. Nothing but a distant hum. He clenched and unclenched his hands. They felt weak, hollow. His throat was bone dry. In a quiet, scratchy voice he said, “Gull? Can you hear me? You can't be dead. If you were, then …” He caught his breath. “Please. If you can't talk, then give me some other sign. Anything.” Nothing.

  David lowered his feet to the ground and stood with one hand on the bed. An expanse of two metres lay between the end of the bed and the door. He stepped away from the bed and stood like a wire-walker balancing on a wire. He took four wobbly steps and leaned against the door frame. He pulled open the door and looked into the corridor. The floor was red and illuminated from beneath – light climbed the grey walls but left the ceiling in shadow. He edged into the corridor, pressed his right shoulder to the wall, and made his way along it. At the end of the corridor was another, this one wider, with a curving gradient. A little way down on the right-hand side, he could see an expanse of black against the grey wall. He stumbled into this new corridor, placed a hand against the wall and moved towards it.

  David's hand moved onto a window. In the top left-hand corner, pronounced against the stars, he could see an object floating in space. It was not a moon or an asteroid but something cylindrical and deliberate in shape. It appeared no bigger than David's thumb, but even at this great distance the curved top of Central Dome was unmistakable. David slid along the window and did not take his eyes from that floating imposter.

  At the end of the corridor he stood before an open elevator. He stepped inside and the doors closed and opened again. David turned and looked into an oval-shaped room. At its centre was a glass cylinder that rose from floor to ceiling. Goliath floated upright in the cylinder. His eyes were closed and his domed head was a criss-cross of thick black veins. David scanned the inside of the lift for buttons or anything that might shut the lift's doors. There was nothing. David limped tentatively from the lift and cast his eyes over a number of holographic displays. Maybe one of them will liquidise the son-of-a-bitch. The lift's doors closed and opened, and a vessel walked out: a tall man dressed in black with the whites of his eyes showing. He walked past David and stopped before a display. As David turned towards the lift, his world faded to black once again …

  “By rights you should not have regained consciousness for another forty-eight hours. Much less go walk about.” David squinted up at the old man he'd seen earlier. “Don't move. I'll carry you to the med bay.” The man's eyes rolled up to their whites and he lifted David off the floor. David lay face up in the old man's arms, the lift's ceiling became a blur …

  David was sitting on a chair in the medical bay. The man loomed over him and shone a light into his eyes. David swallowed. His mouth felt as though he'd been chewing on a ball of spiked air for a week. “W-water.”

  “I will get you water presently. We have been running some tests … trying to ascertain the status of your implant. Your life may depend on its status. Nod if you understand.” David nodded. The man went to a water cooler and filled a cup. He came back and pushed a button on the chair. The chair's back raised David into a sitting position. He held the cup to David's lips, and David sipped. “I have not been able to locate the implant's cognitive signature. This suggests it is no longer operational. Yet you are alive. When was the last time it spoke to you?”

  “Di-dining room.”

  “The dining room at Central Dome?”

  David nodded. “The last I saw him… saw it… it was strung up to a tree. Throat all shot out.”

  “Can you hear anything in your head? Any low hums? Anything?”

  David shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Well, there was an incident where an implant ceased to function, and the vessel survived for a short period. Albeit in a vegetative state.”

  David nodded. “That sums up how I feel. Who are you?”

  “My name is Carradine.”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “How much do you remember of your meeting with Goliath?” David closed his eyes and shook his head as though trying not to remember. “He forced my head into …”

  “A Shadow Strand. And whatever you experienced placed you in a coma for two weeks. We are going to run some tests. Find out what it is that enables you to enter the Shadow Strands. And why you experienced sorrow.”

  “I'm not going anywhere near those things.”

  “We are headed back to Earth. Or, to be more specific, an area in Earth's orbit where the Shadow Strands converge. Not facsimiles, you understand. The actual things.”

  David's eyes widened. “He intends to take me inside one of those things?”

  Carradine shook his head. “Since the rest of us are unable to accompany you, it is his intention to place you inside one. But for now you can relax. We will not reach the location for another two weeks. Plenty of time in which to get you prepared.” David wrapped his fingers around Carradine's gizzard-like neck. Carradine took hold of David's hand and gently removed it. “You are drugged. In a weakened state, and will remain so throughout your time on this craft – not for my protection but your own.” Carradine turned his back on David and began sorting through medical supplies. “Why do you imagine that you alone are able to sense bleak emotion from the Shadow Strands?”

  David watched him.

  “Do you want to hear my hypothesis? In all the universe you alone remain vulnerable to the torment and suffering of others.”

  “That would explain why being alive is the joy it's been.”

  “We believe this ability makes you the key to unlocking the purpose of the Shadow Strands. During your time in a coma you spoke. Do you remember anything of that time?” David sipped some water. “Assisting you
is not high on my list of priorities.” Carradine turned to face him. “The more you tell me the more I can help you. Prepare you for what you are going to face.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A scientist.”

  “You have an implant?”

  “I've had many, and as many replacement organs. Goliath has desired my counsel for a long time. That must tell you something of my abilities.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Old and wise enough to help you if you cooperate.”

  David closed his eyes. “The only thing I can remember is a nightmare. Two people in a forest.” When David opened his eyes Carradine was staring down at him. “Go on.”

  “A man and woman … or girl.”

  “Did you recognise either of them?”

  “No.”

  “Describe them to me.”

  “The girl had big brown eyes. Pretty. But gaunt. Hungry-looking.”

  “And the man?”

  “He was riding a horse. Dressed in a blue uniform. Moustache. He wore a hat. Some kind of soldier, I think.”

  “Did he converse with you?”

  “No. Just rode away.”

  “Did you follow him?”

  David shook his head.

  “Did you converse with the implant?”

  “No. I called for him, but he didn't reply.”

  “Called for him? In what way? In the way a man calls for assistance from a friend?”

  “That's right.”

  “Your implant is … unusual.”

  “So I've been told.” The tone of Carradine's voice changed, as though he'd forgotten his charm offensive. “Get up. Let's see how stable you are on your feet.”

  “Alright.”

  “I've decreased the dosage of your paralytic … to enable basic movement.”

  “You're all heart.”

  “Here, take this.” Carradine handed David a cane and moved to the door. “Come with me. I will show you to your quarters.” By the time David had reached the door Carradine was nowhere to be seen. “This way,” came his voice from beyond the corridor. David walked in the same direction he had earlier, but this time he turned right into the wider corridor. A little way down, Carradine waited outside a door.