The Darwin Effect Read online

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE

  DARWIN EFFECT

  A science fiction thriller

  by

  MARK LUKENS

  The Darwin Effect—Copyright © 2012 by Mark Lukens

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead (or in any other form), is entirely coincidental.

  PLEASE CHECK OUT THESE OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:

  ANCIENT ENEMY – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

  THE SUMMONING – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

  DESCENDANTS OF MAGIC – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC

  NIGHT TERRORS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

  GHOST TOWN: A NOVELLA – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

  SIGHTINGS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

  THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

  WHAT LIES BELOW – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

  A DARK COLLECTION: 12 SCARY STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

  DEVIL’S ISLAND – Coming Soon

  ONE

  The interior of the ISF Darwin was deserted. Nobody was awake. The lights were low. Everything was silent except for the constant mechanical hum.

  The bridge at the front of the ship was empty. Large plate-glass windows at the far end of the bridge, each pane of glass framed and divided by thick metal beams, looked out onto the vast and empty space like a windshield—there was nothing out there but an endless black void dotted with millions of glittering stars.

  Six large metal and molded plastic chairs were bolted to the floor of the bridge, all of them facing the windows in front. A lone seat, the captain’s chair, sat in front of the other chairs, and it sat a little higher on its metal platform than the others. A spider web of seatbelts and buckles lay together in a heap in the middle of the memory-foam covered seat. The wide metal arms of the chair had displays of buttons, tiny computer screens, and a handheld control stick at the end of each arm. Wires and what looked like headphones dangled down from the top of the headrest. Two similar chairs were situated right behind the captain’s chair, and three more chairs were set in a row behind those two chairs.

  Along one wall of the bridge was a bank of computer screens with a plastic countertop and swivel chairs in front of them. One by one those computer screens began to light up. Other small lights and displays around the bridge began to illuminate and beep, all of them coming to life.

  No one was in the kitchen or the small dining area. These rooms were dark. And then a moment later the overhead lights flickered and turned on, a harsh and impersonal light shining down on the plastic built-in tables with attached chairs and the immaculate plastic countertops.

  Outside of the kitchen and dining area, in the main corridor, rectangular lights protected behind clear plastic lenses at the tops of the walls turned on one by one, revealing doors to each of the sleeping quarters. Each door had a nameplate on it.

  The sleeping quarters were all empty. Each room was sterile and dark. The beds were neatly made. No personal effects were displayed on the walls or on top of the built-in desks.

  The rec room/gymnasium was stark and empty. A few pieces of exercise equipment sat dusty and ignored against the far wall. Storage lockers stood in a row against another wall, all the doors closed tightly.

  On the level below the living quarters and the bridge, the storage units sat in darkness—only the lights from the small computer panels on each storage unit provided any light in the blackness. The storage containers formed walls from the floor to the ceiling with wide aisles running between them like a hallway between walls.

  Little by little the ISF Darwin came alive with lights and sounds.

  The cryo-room was located on the upper level of the ISF Darwin, a level above the bridge and the living quarters. The cryo-room was crammed with pipes, wiring, computer displays, and other mechanical devices. Against one wall stood six cryochambers, each constructed of steel on the top, bottom, and back, with a clear Plexiglas door on the front. The cryo-room’s floor was a metal grate that covered the drains underneath. Each cryochamber stood eight feet high and each one was filled with a bluish-greenish liquid.

  Inside each cryochamber, in that bluish-greenish liquid, a naked person hung suspended in the liquid-like gel. Tubes were hooked up to each person’s body, and a black form-fitting mask was secured over each person’s mouth and nose. There were black goggles over each person’s eyes.

  Above each cryochamber a computer panel recessed into the steel frame beeped and clicked, lights blinked on and off. A never-ending stream of data sped by on the tiny computer screens. And above the computer panels on each cryochamber there was a brass nameplate.

  The nameplate above the first cryochamber read: CROMARTIE.

  The man named Cromartie was in his late-thirties, lean and muscular. He hung motionless in the gel.

  And then his hand twitched.

  A buzzer sounded from Cromartie’s cryochamber.

  Lights in the cryo-room turned on one by one, lighting up the cramped space. Computer screens, crammed into any available niches in the walls, came to life; all of them flashing the same screen icon for the ISF: International Space Fleet, and the company logo—Reaching for the Stars. The cryo-room was crowded with equipment; the ceiling was a maze of duct work, pipes, wires, and cables. Not a single space was wasted.

  The buzzer at the top of Cromartie’s cryochamber stopped bleating.

  Cromartie twitched again. This time it was his thigh muscle that twitched, like a current of electricity had just jolted his flesh.

  With a hiss of sound, the blue-green gel-like fluid swirled around Cromartie’s body. Dark and light fluids moved in and out of the tubes that ran from the cryochamber’s curved walls to the metal imports stuck into Cromartie’s flesh.

  A soft-spoken male voice sounded from speakers hidden somewhere in the cryo-room: “Awakening crew members as programmed.”

  The gel-like liquid drained out of Cromartie’s cryochamber, flushing down through a drain at the bottom of the cylinder. His body crumpled down and collapsed onto the floor of the chamber with the escaping fluids.

  The Plexiglas door unlocked with another hiss of
air and the door swished open. Cromartie spilled out from the chamber onto the metal grate floor.

  Cromartie opened his eyes but all he saw was darkness. He moved his arms and legs, but he could feel that he was tethered to something. Even in his groggy state he started to panic. He didn’t know where he was, where he had been, what was going on. He tried to cry out, but there was something covering his mouth and nose—something was in his throat.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Cromartie managed to get to his hands and knees even though the tubes pulled at his legs, arms, torso, and his head. He felt the metal grated floor biting into the skin of his palms and knees.

  He clawed at his face, groping at what felt like a plastic mask strapped to his head. He moved his hands down his naked, slick body and touched the tubes that were imported into his skin and still connected to the chamber.

  He needed to breathe.

  Finally, he managed to unstrap the mask. As he tore the mask away he pulled out a long tube from down his throat. A torrent of liquid followed as he vomited up the fluid from his throat and exhaled the fluid from his airways at the same time.

  His mouth hung open as he spit out the last of the fluid that was inside of his lungs. He kneeled there, hunched over, his mouth agape as the last strings of thick fluid and slobber dripped out of his mouth.

  It was like he’d forgotten how to breathe for a moment.

  But then he inhaled a breath and exhaled a wheezing cough. He coughed and coughed, his body racking from the hacking spell.

  At least he could breathe now.

  He fumbled with the goggles over his eyes. He ripped them off of his head and threw them down beside the respirator which was slick with mucus and clear fluids. He blinked his eyes over and over again. Everything was blurry and his eyes watered uncontrollably. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, then opened them again and stared at his hands for a moment, and then he looked around the room at all of the machinery and computer equipment.

  What was this place? Where was he?

  He saw the other five cryochambers next to his empty one. He saw a naked person suspended in the bluish-green gel in each cylinder. They all had respirators and goggles on their faces. They all had tubes attached to their bodies.

  Cromartie wiped more of the thick, gel-like fluid off of his face and felt the full beard on his jaw. He looked down at his arms and legs. He stared at the tubes snaking from the cryochamber to his body, each tube stuck into his flesh by a small round metal import.

  He tried to call out for help, but his voice cracked and he erupted into another coughing fit.

  A buzzer from the next cryochamber startled him.

  He spun around and stared at the next chamber. A naked woman floated in the gel. She seemed to be his age—late-thirties, he guessed—and she had a lean and athletic build, long and lithe limbs. The nameplate at the top of her chamber read: SANDERS.

  Sanders’ body twitched inside the chamber; a hand, then a foot, then a jerk of her head. After a loud hiss, the gel swirled around her body like a whirlpool and then the fluids flushed out of the chamber down through the drain in the floor. Her body collapsed down to the bottom of the chamber and the door slid open, spilling her out onto the metal grated floor.

  She started panicking right away. Cromartie could hear her muffled screams from underneath her respirator as she clawed at it.

  Cromartie moved closer to Sanders, but the tubes attached to his body only allowed him to move so far and they pulled at his skin painfully. But he ignored the pain—he needed to help this woman. He unclasped the respirator for her and pulled it away from her face, pulling the long tube out of her throat at the same time. She puked up a clear liquid onto the metal grated floor. She coughed and coughed, trying to catch her breath.

  “Cough it out,” Cromartie told her. His voice sounded weak and gravelly to his own ears. “Your lungs were filled with some kind of liquid and you need to cough all of it out.”

  Sanders coughed a few more times and then knelt there for a moment, her body trembling, her arms over her breasts.

  “Now breathe in,” Cromartie told her.

  Sanders nodded and inhaled a huge breath, and then she coughed again.

  “Dark …” she whispered after she caught her breath. “Can’t see …”

  She groped at her face, her trembling fingers exploring the dark goggles over her eyes.

  “Let me help,” Cromartie told her.

  He was about to pull the goggles away from her eyes, but she grabbed at them and tore them off of her head. She let the goggles fall from her fingers. She blinked rapidly, and then she rubbed at her eyes for a moment. When she could see clearly enough, she looked around at the cryo-room with confused and frightened eyes.

  “Where the hell am I?” she asked. She looked right at Cromartie. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Cromartie.” He nodded his head at his empty cryochamber. “At least that’s what my nameplate says.”

  Sanders’ eyes darted to the two empty cryochambers that they had just come out of. She saw the nameplates and the busy computer panels at the top of each of the chambers. She saw the other four chambers that still had naked bodies suspended inside of them.

  She looked back at Cromartie. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What? What do you mean you don’t know?”

  Cromartie shook his head. His throat hurt from the tube that he’d just pulled out. He cleared his throat as he looked at her. “I can’t remember anything.”

  She stared at him, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Do you remember anything?” he asked her.

  She shook her head no. She looked down at her naked legs; they were still slick from the gel that she’d been suspended in. Her body shivered as she touched one of the plastic tubes still connected to the cryochamber, and then she touched the metal port in her skin that the tube was connected to.

  Cromartie looked around at the cramped cryo-room. “Hello!” he called out.

  Sanders tried to stand up, and her legs trembled with the effort like a newborn fawn.

  “Hello!” Cromartie called out again. “Is anyone here? We need help!”

  A computer panel on the opposite wall caught Cromartie’s attention—the screen changed from the company logo to a black background with different colored lights swirling around in a kaleidoscope of movement.

  A soft-spoken male voice spoke to Cromartie from the screen, but the voice seemed to come from everywhere in the room. “Hello.”

  Cromartie stared at the computer screen across the room. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the Mainframe Automated Computer. You can call me MAC.”

  “Where are we?”

  “You’re on the ISF Darwin.”

  “What’s that?” Cromartie asked. “What’s the ISF Darwin?” But for some reason he felt like he recognized the name. Something in his foggy memory was trying desperately to surface. He was sure he had heard that name before, but he just couldn’t remember from where.

  “It’s a spaceship,” MAC answered. “It’s part of the International Space Fleet. This ship is called the Darwin.”

  Cromartie felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “A … a spaceship?” He couldn’t seem to get his brain up to speed; he couldn’t understand what was going on here. “Why are we … what are we doing on a spaceship?”

  “You’re part of the Darwin Mission,” MAC said in his calm and polite voice.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Cromartie said, and he could hear his voice rising even though it hurt his raw throat even more. He could feel a wave of panic washing over him, about to take over. He couldn’t be on a spaceship. This couldn’t be happening. He had to get out of here. He had to run!

  MAC didn’t answer the question, almost like the computer knew Cromartie had asked a rhetorical question.

  Cromartie’s heart pounded in his chest. His breaths were getting shallow and quick. He was af
raid he was going to start hyperventilating. He had to calm down; he had to get himself under control. He took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes for a moment. His face felt a little sore, most likely from the respirator and the goggles, but the same gel he had been suspended in also seemed to have been smeared all over his face and inside the respirator and goggles for lubrication. His skin was still wet and sticky from the gel in the chamber, and he was freezing.

  He opened his eyes after taking those few deep breaths, and he felt a little calmer. He looked at the computer screen across the room. “I don’t remember signing up for a space mission. I don’t know how I got here. I … I can’t seem to remember anything.”

  “You may have suffered some short-term memory loss from the cryosleep you were in,” MAC explained cheerfully.

  “Short-term memory loss?” Cromartie said. “I can’t remember anything. Nothing at all.”

  “It’s temporary, I assure you,” MAC said. “Your memories will begin returning to you soon.”

  Cromartie got to his feet and he had to hold on to his empty cryochamber to balance himself. His muscles trembled and he had to wait a minute as a wave of dizziness passed over him. For a moment he thought he was going to pass out, but then the swirling dizziness subsided.

  “What about these tubes?” Cromartie asked MAC. “How do we get these off?”

  “Simply twist and then pull on the metal ports in your skin. The tubes and ports will pull right out. There will only be a small hole in your skin which should heal completely in four to five days.”

  Cromartie twisted and pulled one of the tubes out of his thigh. The tube and the metal port came out together and the hole in his skin closed like a puckered mouth as soon as the port was pulled free. There were a few drops of blood around the closed hole, but the wound didn’t look red even though it was a little sore.

  Sanders wasted no time in twisting and pulling all of the tubes out of her skin—it was like she needed to be free of the tethers. She crossed her arms over her chest after she was done, shivering from the cold. She looked up at the maze of ductwork, pipes, and wiring in the ceiling with wild eyes. “Clothes,” she asked MAC. “What about clothes?”