Gene Pool

Night comes to Whitton Falls, and for Cate Somers, paleontologist and researcher, the university town she thought of as a safe harbor has an insidious element at work. Cate gradually becomes aware that there is a hidden presence, alien and cold and impossible to stop. Whoever or whatever is attacking local residents has an agenda that is accelerating.

Cate is called on to help in the investigation, along with the sheriff’s nephew, Wyatt, a homicide detective from New York. But everything she assumes about what is going on is altered when her biologist friend Emma analyzes metal objects found at the killing sites. The series of murders has left a trail of evidence that has its origins in a peculiar chemistry. Each one contains the attributes of anaerobic bacteria, the sort that NASA and ExoMars would expect to show up on other planets.

The rules of what is “real” no longer apply.

 

EXCERPT–Chapter 13:

Emma and Wyatt were both at the table, Wyatt bent over a microscope. He glanced up as we approached. Emma had dark circles under her eyes.

“Have a look at this,” he said.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, as I viewed the sample.

“It’s Archaea, a domain of single-celled microorganisms—some refer to it as a species,” Emma said. “It was originally found in extreme environments, but we now know it occupies perhaps twenty percent of the earth’s ecomass. It can survive in a broad range of habitats, including humans.”

“That sounds like bacteria,” I said.

“There’s a lot of controversy on that subject. I’m an advocate of species-building, but it’s being studied in a variety of ways and shows promise in many diverse applications, including mineral processing, to extract metals from ores, metals like gold and cobalt and copper,” she said.

“What’s this about?” the sheriff asked. “What’s it got to do with what we saw going on last night?”

Emma went over to another table and brought back a small glass beaker with a narrow level of pale blue fluid.

“What the spectrometer registered, I found out later . . . I just had to go back to the lab . . . were consistently high levels of methane after transformation. And methaneogenic archaea can be measured for concentration. I did that using the centrifuge and resuspension of the cell culture for spectrometer analysis.”

“Why do that? Where did this sample come from?” Wyatt asked.

“That’s what’s interesting. It comes from residue I found on the table after the metal objects transformed. I noticed it after you left, a paste, or maybe more the consistency of mud, a thin, transparent substance. I think it might have derived from the combination of the solvent with the objects. The point is, in that form, I could use the spectrometer for analysis in a way I could understand.”

Once again I was struck by the absolutism of her focus. This wasn’t the same Emma I was used to chatting with at the diner.

“So you’re saying that paste or mud has these archaean things in it. So what?” the sheriff asked. “How does this help us know what’s going on?’

Emma leaned against the table. “I can’t pretend to know the answer to that, but there are some facts that seem to me to be relevant. At least, based on my database research last night. I should add that the archaea would be familiar to any biologist. Anyway, first off, archaea don’t need oxygen—they’re anaerobic. They live on a diet of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Second, interestingly, given what we looked at yesterday, one group of microorganisms classified as archaea are methanogens—they produce methane as a byproduct. They are common in wetlands, where they produce marsh gas.”

“You mean plain old swamp gas?” the sheriff asked.

“What they call ‘will-o’-the-wisp’,” I said.

“Yes to both. But it’s more than lights over water,” Emma said. “Archaea are especially notable, as I said, for how they thrive in extreme environments—harsh deserts like the Mojave or the Atacama in Chile. Methanogens have been found in those environments. Some scientists have suggested that the presence of methane on Mars, in its atmosphere, may be indicative of methanogens on that planet. That means the presence of archaea here on earth might reveal a lot about the properties of extraterrestrial life forms. Microbes might even be transported in the solar system through meteorites, which is a long-standing but currently unproven theory.”

“Whew. If you decide to give a series of lectures on the subject, count me in,” I said to her. “You’re like an encyclopedia.”

“Look who’s talking. All of this is commonplace data for biologists, and that’s what I am. The thing is, nothing I’ve said explains the transformations we’ve found here. I’ve only been able to analyze the composition of the objects.”

“You mean you can’t determine what made the metal change form, what it specifically turned into, or why, or where this residue came from,” Wyatt said.

“Other than the fact the residue has to be the result of the transformation process, yes, that’s about it. Three unsolved mysteries.”

“So you’re saying after all this we have no explanation?” Tyler said with dismay.

“I don’t have any,” Emma said. “How can I? When it comes to the why, I’m not the guru here. I can tell you what happened, and you already saw that for yourselves. That’s all.”

“The cylinder showed the signature for nitric oxide, you told us. The third piece you worked on, the one that became a sphere, it had carbon dioxide, right? But the second changed into methane. If I’m correct, those are elements required for the existence of organic life,” Wyatt said.

“Related to it. You mentioned the organic aspect before, but the actual building blocks are sulfur, phosphorous, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen. The objects didn’t change into those elements.”

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked her.

Emma pointed to a cot against the wall. “I always have a backup,” she said, smiling.

It was almost one o’clock. We’d already been in the lab for over an hour. It didn’t seem possible. It was all so absorbing. I’d never understood that about her work before. Still, we were no closer to understanding what any of this was about.

“In essence, all we really know is that something has interacted with each of these objects and there’s been a new chemical re-combination in each case,” I said.

“How do we know there might not be more changes?” Wyatt asked.

Emma looked startled. “Why . . . I hadn’t considered that. We’ve no way to tell. I mean,” she swept her hand in a gesture over the table, “who knows! I suppose the transformations could continue, but so far, that’s not the case.”

“I’d say if what we have here can’t be explained then we have to just leave it alone,” Tyler said with finality. “Call it a dead-end. I don’t see any connection with the murders here, and that’s what I’m after.”

“You mean forget about it? How do we do that?” I asked. “At the very least, it’s dynamite in scientific terms. You really are putting Whitton Falls on the map, Emma.”

“You think I’m going to broadcast this?” she said in wonder. “No way. I haven’t digested what it’s about, and I have no control base. I can’t duplicate the event. The methodology is haphazard. No one would believe me.”

“You have the readings from the spectrometer. We’re eyewitnesses to the transformations,” Wyatt said.

“All of which means very little in scientific terms,” Emma said, “unless I can reproduce the results. I can’t. We’ve used it all.”

“The objects were found at the murder sites,” Wyatt persisted.

“Not all of them. We found the cylinder ourselves, at Clarissa’s,” I said.

“Who’s to say Clarissa Mason didn’t find it at one of those sites and fail to mention the fact?” he offered. “Maybe that’s why she got cold feet when we went out there. She didn’t want us to know where it came from or why she hadn’t reported it sooner.”

“That sounds plausible to me,” Tyler said. “That woman always has been secretive.”

“Wouldn’t she tell Henry? I can’t imagine him keeping anything to himself,” I said.

“Somehow, I don’t think she would, at least not right away,” Emma said. “She wouldn’t want to look like a fool, in case it was a prank or something like that. Oh, I nearly forgot about these.”

She picked up the bag of pebbles Wyatt and I had carried in from the Mason’s back yard.

“They’re stones, pure and simple. They did have a silver nitrate coating, just as Wyatt thought. That accounted for why they burned his skin. I can’t see any connection, I’m afraid. Maybe it was something Henry was using.”

“I’ll check with him,” the sheriff said, taking the bag from her gingerly.

“I cleaned them—no problem handling them now.”

Wyatt leaned back against the table. “Look, Cate’s right. Sorry, Will—I can’t see us just forgetting about all of this. I’ve never understood it in court when the judge says to strike a witness’s testimony from the record and tells the jury to ignore it. How? Once we know something is there, we know it’s there.”

“I don’t like mysteries. I don’t like things unsolved,” the sheriff said.

“Neither do I.” Emma stared at the blank LCD of the spectrometer.

The objects lay before us on the table, looking very solid to my eyes: a cylinder, a tetrahedron, a sphere. They all had the same reflective surface as they had had originally. They all seemed to have a symmetry and beauty of their own. The mystery they held was provocative. And apparently way beyond our ability to fathom it.

“So what do we do with these things now? I don’t think you want to put them into your evidence room, do you, Sheriff?” I asked

He gave the first smile I’d seen from him that day. “Not so anyone would notice. Emma, box these up, okay? Let me have the lot, and your report. I’ll keep it all in locked in my desk for now. Safe as anywhere in this town. Even though there’s no connection we can see to the murders, I have to follow protocol, for now, at least.”

“I’ll get it to you in a couple of hours,” Emma said. “I just have to write up my notes. I printed copies of the spectrometer readings. I’ll add those in, too.”

“You do that. Thanks.” He turned to Wyatt and me. “Far as I’m concerned, we’re done here.”

I had to agree, but I also wanted it to make sense. Emma was frustrated by the outcome as well. I know she wanted to experiment more. I was pretty sure she would try something before that report reached Tyler, but it would be done from a compulsion to get answers, not from the hope that she would.

“Oh! Wait!” I reached behind me and dragged the trash bag over and took out the car bumper, tearing the bag as I did so.

“What on earth?” Sheriff Tyler stared at it and at me.

“I’d left this in the trunk of my car the day of the dance, last Saturday. I’d gone walking through the old cemetery and it was lying in the grass under some blackberry vines. I thought it was litter and was going to throw it away. It’s a wild card, I know, but maybe we should test it, too? The surface looks a lot like the other objects.” I laid it down on a chair and they all gathered around.

“It’s much larger than the other pieces we’ve found,” the sheriff said, “and it’s not flat. The cemetery’s not exactly a murder site, either. Not yet, anyway.”

“The texture and surface shine do have similarities. What do you think, Emma?” Wyatt said.

“I can’t think. I can’t process another bit of information, to tell the truth. Offhand I’d say it was a car bumper probably dropped in the cemetery as trash, just as you thought, Cate. Different shape, different thickness, bigger size. I’ll analyze it,” she said quickly, catching my look, “just not right now. Now I want to finish my report and get everything to the sheriff and go to sleep.”

I couldn’t fault her. She’d been up most of the night.

“Fine with me,” the sheriff said. “Any objections?”

We had none. Little did any of us know how soon we would find our decision tested.

 

“Almost like living the story with the characters. Likable character (mostly!). A different take on the old story with a very different motives for a change. Well worth the time.” ★★★★★ Amazon review

“a wonderful read I will look for more by this writer …” ★★★★ Amazon review

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Book categories: Thriller/Science Fiction