Read Online Xeno Sapiens by Victor Allen - Free Book Online

building and keep it all from happening, yet no
thing constructed by human hands ever deterred its inevitable
detonation upon its intended target. She hadn’t even stayed to
watch as the Twin Towers began to crumble to cinders before she
consulted a small business card in her shaking hands and called the
number on it.
    “ Yes?” It was Merrifield. His voice
sounded thin and papery and she imagined him staring at the TV
screen in sickened amazement just as she had.
    “ This is Ingrid, Mr. Merrifield. When
do we start?”
    “ How soon can you be ready,” he asked
calmly.
    “ Give me two weeks.”
    She turned off the TV. In one grand,
evil gesture, a middle eastern madman named Osama Bin Laden had
turned the clock back a thousand years to the time of the Crusades,
managing to kill the most people on American soil in one day since
the battle of Antietam. And while he and others were fanatically
intent on returning to past glories, Ingrid made her decision to
step into the future. As Hubert had told her, it was useless to fly
in the face of Fate. She picked up the project Change folder she
had left on the coffee table, wanting to know just what the
terrible attacks of 9/11/01 had forced her into.
LOOKING FOR
GOD
1
    January 1, 2002
    The biggest winter storm of the year
had blown into the North Carolina mountains, bending the trees into
twisted ice sculptures and piling up drifts six feet high. The wind
screamed through the valleys of the little town of Winfield like
the whistling of a skyrocket. Ingrid, who was used to the mild
climate of Florida and thought the southern states were supposed to
be warm during the winter, found temperatures hovering around zero
with wind chills to sixty below more than she had bargained
for.
    She had arrived at the facility a week
earlier without a single winter garment to her name. Merrifield had
bundled Ingrid into one of his mammoth topcoats and driven her
fifteen miles from Winfield to Little Switzerland, a resort town
that had everything the winter tourist could want. Merrifield
supervised the procurement of an entire winter wardrobe for Ingrid.
He was obviously well known in Little Switzerland because the store
proprietor greeted him by name and produced an account book for
Merrifield’s signature when the shopping was done.
    During the drive back, Ingrid had
peered through the blowing snow at the houses and shops in town.
Nearly all of them were modeled after Swiss chalets, thus obviously
accounting for the name. Signs of civilization ceased abruptly as
soon as they left Little Switzerland and made the journey back to
Winfield on the narrow, twisty road. The project facility (which
everyone referred to simply as the Alamo) was right in the middle
of a heavy resort area.
    “ Why would you want a secret camp
right in the heart of a tourist area,” Ingrid asked.
    “ The project site itself isn’t
secret,” Merrifield said. “The locals think we manufacture
drugs.”
    “ Do you know a lot about the
area?”
    “ I grew up here,” he said. “Not in the
mountains, but in a little one hydrant town called Candor, the
Peach Capital of the South. It used to be, at any rate. The most
excitement we had there was sitting in the car and watching the
stoplight change.”
    “ Is it always so cold?” Ingrid had
burrowed into her new parka, even though Merrifield had the heater
going full blast. The back seat and trunk of the sedan bulged with
packages.
    “ Not that unusual for the mountains.”
He slowed down to let the windshield wipers catch up with the
blowing snow.
    “ I tell you,” he said. “When I found
out you didn’t have any winter clothes my blood fairly boiled. Here
I am with one of the most valuable commodities in the world running
the risk of catching the cold or flu.”
    “ Thanks for your concern,” Ingrid said
ruefully. She didn’t quite know how to take being called a
commodity.
    “ Now I didn’t mean it like that,”
Merrifield said. “My concern for you runs