Hybrids

A minute later she had another groggy woman on the phone. “H-hello?”

“Kerry?” said Mary. “Kerry Johnston?”

She could almost hear the woman rubbing her eyes. “Yes. Who’s this?”

“This is Mary Vaughan. Remember me? The geneticist from York—the expert on Neanderthal DNA?”

A small part of Mary was disappointed that neither Louise nor Kerry had offered up the cliché, “Do you have any idea what time it is?” Instead, Kerry seemed now to be instantly awake. “Yes, I remember you,” she said.

“I’ve got a huge story for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“No, it’s nothing I can tell you about by phone. I’m down in Rochester, New York, right now, but I’ll be in Toronto in about five hours. I need you to put me live on Newsworld when I get there…”

Mary and Louise were driving along the Queenston-Lewiston bridge over the Niagara River. Exactly in the middle of the bridge three flags snapped salutes in the breeze, marking the border: first the Stars and Stripes, then the robin’s-egg-blue UN flag, and finally the Maple Leaf. “Nice to be back home,” said Louise as they passed them.

As she always did, Mary felt herself relax a bit now that they had returned to her home and native land. Indeed, an old joke came to mind: Canada could have had British culture, French cuisine, and American know-how…but instead ended up with American culture, British cuisine, and French know-how.

Still, it was nice to be back.

Once off the bridge, they were confronted by a row of customs booths. Three of the four that were open had small lineups of cars in front of them; the fourth had a longer queue of trucks. Mary joined the middle car line and waited for the vehicles ahead of them to be dealt with, tapping the steering wheel impatiently with the flat of her left hand.

At last, it was their turn. Mary pulled up to the booth and rolled down her window. She expected to hear a Canadian customs official’s usual greeting: “Citizenship?” But instead, to her astonishment, the female officer said, “Ms. Vaughan, right?”

Mary’s heart jumped. She nodded.

“Pull over up ahead, please.”

“Is there—is there something wrong?” asked Mary.

“Just do as I say,” she said to Mary, then picked up a telephone handset.

Mary felt her palms go moist on the steering wheel as she drove slowly ahead.

“How’d they know it was you?” asked Louise.

Mary shook her head. “License plate?”

“Should we make a run for it?” asked Louise.

“My name’s Mary, not Thelma. But, Christ, if—”

A balding customs agent, paunch flopping over his belt, was coming out of the long, low inspection building. He waved for Mary to pull into one of the angled parking spots in front of it. She’d only ever stopped here before to use the public washroom—and then only when desperate; it was rather squalid.

“Ms. Vaughan? Ms. Mary Vaughan?” said the agent.

“Yes?”

“We’ve been waiting for you. My assistant is putting a call through right now.”

Mary blinked. “For me?”

“Yes—and it’s an emergency. Come along!”

Mary got out of the car, and so did Louise. They went into the customs building, and the fat man brought them around behind the counter. He picked up a phone, hit a line key. “I have Ms. Vaughan,” he said into the handset, then he passed it to Mary.

“This is Mary Vaughan,” she said.

“Mary!” exclaimed a Jamaican-accented voice.

“Reuben!” She looked over and saw Louise smile broadly. “What’s up?”

“God, woman, you need to get a cell phone,” said Reuben. “Look, I know you and Louise are heading to Toronto, but I think you’d better get up here to Sudbury—and fast.”

“Why?”

“Your Jock Krieger has gone through the portal.”

Mary’s heart jumped. “What? But how’d he get up there so quickly?”

“He must have flown, and that’s what you should do, too. It’d take six hours to drive up here from where you are. But I’ve got The Nickel Pickle waiting for you in St. Catherines.” The Nickel Pickle was Inco’s corporate Learjet, painted dark green on its sides. “I only found out he’d gone over by accident,” continued Reuben. “Saw his name on the mine-site visitors’ log when I was signing somebody else in.”

“Why didn’t anybody stop him?” asked Mary.

“Why should they have? I checked with the Canadian Forces guys down at the neutrino observatory; they said he had a U.S. diplomatic passport, so they ushered him right through to the other side. Anyway, look, I’ve faxed a map to the customs station, showing how to get to the airfield…”

Chapter Thirty-nine

“And it is a new era we are entering. The Cenozoic—the era of recent life—is indeed all but over. The Novozoic—the era of new life—is about to begin…”

“Medical emergency!” snapped Reuben Montego. His shaved black head glistened in the harsh lights of the giant building. “We’re going straight down to the 6800-foot level.”

The elevator technician nodded. “Right you are, Doc.”

Mary knew that the cage had been waiting here on the surface in response to a call Reuben had made from his office. The three of them hurried inside, and the technician, who would stay up top, pulled down the heavy cage door. He then gave five blasts on the buzzer—express descent with no stops. The elevator began its drop down a shaft five times as deep as each of the World Trade Center towers had been tall—until, of course, some male Homo sapiens had destroyed them…

On the way in, Mary, Louise, and Reuben had grabbed hardhats and mining coats from the racks in the changing area. They struggled to get them on as the elevator made its noisy descent.

“What sort of police force do they have on the other side?” asked Reuben in his deep, Jamaican-accented voice.

“Hardly any,” said Mary, half shouting to be heard above the racket. And it should stay that way, she thought: a world free of crime and violence.

“So it’s up to us?” said Reuben.

“I’m afraid so,” said Mary.

“What about taking some of the Canadian Forces guys with us?” asked Louise.

“We still don’t know who’s behind this,” said Mary. “It could be Jock acting alone—or it could go all the way to the DND and the Pentagon.”

Louise looked at Reuben, and Mary saw him draw her close. If they were half as scared as Mary felt, she couldn’t blame them for wanting to hold each other. Mary moved over to the far side of the mud-covered lift and made a show of watching the levels go by, so that Reuben and Louise could have a few minutes to themselves.

“My English vocabulary is clearly still wanting,” said Christine’s voice through Mary’s cochlear implants. “What does juh-tahm mean?”

Mary hadn’t made out a thing; evidently the Companion’s microphones were more discerning. She whispered so that the others wouldn’t be able to hear her. “That’s not English, it’s French: ‘Je t’aime.’ It means ‘I love you.’ Louise told me Reuben always switches to French to say that.”

“Ah,” said Christine. They continued down, until the lift finally shuddered to a halt. Reuben hoisted the door, revealing the mining drift, heading off into the distance.

“What time did he go through?” demanded Mary, once they’d finally reached the staging area to the portal, built on a platform in the barrel-shaped six-story-tall Sudbury Neutrino Observatory chamber.

A Canadian Forces man looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Who?”

“Jock Krieger,” said Mary. “From the Synergy Group.”

The man—blond, light-ski

“That’s him,” said Mary. “Did he have anything with him?”

“Forgive me, Dr. Vaughan,” began the officer, “but I really don’t think I’m supposed to divulge—”