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The creatures failed to reappear, apparently done with their responsibilities, both here and in the surrounding waters.
Unfortunately, that only applied to this immediate area.
Distant booms still echoed, and fires continued to glow along the horizon.
Gray frowned and knew the truth about their efforts.
It’s still not enough.
39
January 24, 3:22P.M.NZDT
Eight miles under the Pacific Ocean
Through the acoustic headphones, Phoebe listened to an eerie chorus of undulating calls and sharper cries. They echoed out of the blighted forest, rising from where the glade shimmered and glowed.
The song was interrupted by muffled explosions, which faded in and out. She didn’t know if they marked a firefight or if they rose from volcanic eruptions. She stared up. TheCormorantwas approaching a depth of fourteen thousand meters, but the upper world felt much farther away. Its troubles seemed petty and unimportant, having no bearing on these quiet and peaceful depths.
Datuk huffed behind her, slightly kicking her seat.
She removed her headphones. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m still getting the same anomalous results from the nanopore sequencer,” he said. “I don’t know if the pressure or the radiation is affecting the MinIon unit.”
“What’s the radiation reading out there?” Adam asked.
Datuk sat back and cringed slightly. “Eight hundred rem. Bad enough to cause acute death.”
“What about in here?”
“Hundred and sixty.”
Phoebe swallowed. She had begun to feel nauseous, but she didn’tknow if it was an early sign of radiation poisoning or if it was simply due to tension.
Bryan grimaced. “Approaching fourteen thousand meters. Between the pressure and the radiation, I’m only keeping us down here a quarter hour. After that, we’re heading up.”
From his tone, he would brook no argument.
No one tried.
None of them wanted to stay down here any longer than possible. For the past hour, theCormoranthad begun to pop and groan under the increasing pressure.
It had kept them all tense.
Phoebe had tried to distract herself by listening to the forest, seeking solace in the quiet chorus around her. With that same goal, she twisted and faced Datuk.
“What problem are you having with your sequencer? Maybe I can help?”
Datuk gave a frustrated shake of his head. “I keep getting the same error. The MinIon is normally very precise, able to pick out and differentiate individual DNA and RNA bases. Same with polypeptides and other polymers. But in the DNA I collected from the specimen, I’m registering adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine.”
Phoebe shrugged. Those four bases—abbreviated as AGCT—composed the four-letter code for most life on the planet. “So what’s the problem?”
“According to the MinIon’s results, those four bases make up ninety-eight percent of the sample’s DNA. I’ve repeated the test and keep getting the same number. Plus or minus a few decimal places.”
“What makes up the othertwopercent?”
Datuk frowned. “That’s just it. They’re still registering as AGCT, only they’ve been tagged asanomalous.”
