She passed an enormous hangar-like structure, easily as large as the Aerojet silo building in the Everglades. The side facing the rails was open. A massive antenna stood inside, undergoing some kind of maintenance. The dish was pointing straight up, like an enormous chalice waiting to be filled.
Beyond that building lay several empty pads, each with three concrete footings that rose up from the dusty ground like grave markers, then a dish, then more pads. She checked each without slowing, looking for the track maintenance vehicle that would indicate Sophia’s location. Three long minutes later, she spotted what she was looking for: a Chevrolet pickup truck that had been modified with flanged steel wheels to run on railroad tracks. It sat parked in front of a towering antenna dish. As she got closer, she saw movement high above, on the staircase that led up to the base of the massive dish.
Jenna stopped the Jeep and got out. A dark haired woman wearing blue coveralls, descended the staircase, taking several steps at a time with the agility of an experienced parkour athlete. Even from a distance, Jenna could see the resemblance; the woman — it had to be Sophia Gallo — looked just like her.
Sophia paused on the lowermost landing just above the concrete pillars upon which the antenna rested. There was an unmistakable look of excitement on her face, and Jenna found that she too had broken into a broad smile.
“Come on up.”
Without waiting for further prompting, Jenna mounted the short flight of stairs to the landing, where she found Sophia waiting with open arms. Jenna fell into the embrace without the slightest hesitation.
The sense of kinship — sisterhood — was overpowering. The bond she felt with Mercy was only a shadow of what she now experienced. This woman didn’t merely share the same DNA. Sophia and Jenna were the same person, only separated by age and experience.
Sophia released her and held her at arm’s length. “You’re new.”
It sounded a little strange, but Jenna understood. It wasn’t just that Jenna was young. Sophia was a connected part of a family that Jenna had only just learned about. “Yeah,” she replied. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’m Sophie.”
“Jenna.”
“Wonderful.” Sophia laughed with undisguised joy, “Well, you’re timing couldn’t be better. Come on up to the vertex room. You can tell us both.”
She gestured to the ascending stairs, which rose at least another forty feet above the landscape.
“Both?”
“Oh, sorry. I guess you really are new. Jarrod is up there.”
Jenna was not the least bit surprised that her intuition had been proven correct. Everything was happening according to plan. She started up the stairs behind Sophia, and with each step, she felt herself moving closer to a pivotal moment in history. The moment everything would change. She wondered if this was how the crew of the Enola Gay had felt one early August morning in 1945, as they took off from the Marianas Islands with a cargo of nuclear death in their bomb bay. The world was about to change, and Jenna would bear witness.
Sophia passed a gently chugging compressor and ducked under one of the large curving gears that allowed the dish to tilt. She continued up another flight of stairs that ended at an innocuous looking door right below the dish. She opened it and allowed Jenna to step inside first.
The room looked empty, like a disused storage closet. A small raised metal platform provided access to the upper reaches of the pyramid-shaped space. Several large cylindrical objects reached down from overhead. A man stood in front of a cylinder. She recognized him, both from the picture Cort had shown her at the safe house and from the uncanny resemblance to the face she saw in the mirror. Jarrod Chu. He held a laptop computer trailing a thick cable connected to the cylinder.
Jarrod showed only a trace of surprise at seeing her, and then his face broke into the same smile with which Sophia had welcomed Jenna. Sophia stepped in behind her and made the introduction. “Jarrod, meet Jenna. She’s new.”
“Very new,” Jarrod remarked. His voice was a deeper version of Jenna’s. “You must have slipped through the cracks. Last generation?”
Jenna risked a quick glance at the computer screen. It showed a download progress bar, about two-thirds green.
I’m not too late, she thought. And then, Too late for what?
“I think so,” she answered. “And I only learned about…all off this…a couple of days ago.” A small lie, but one she delivered without the slightest hint of dishonesty. Jarrod gave no indication of registering the falsehood, and Jenna realized that, despite his training as an FBI special agent, he wasn’t adept at reading people. She pointed at the laptop. “Is that it?”
“This is it,” he confirmed. “In about two minutes, give or take, it will be done.”
Two minutes. Jenna felt a tingle of anticipation. All I have to do is stand back, let it happen and the world will change.
I told Noah I could stop it.
Stop it? Why?
“What exactly is it?”
Jarrod cocked his head sideways in a look of mild surprise. He glanced at Sophia then back at Jenna. “You mean you don’t know?”
Jenna gave a helpless shrug. “Still catching up.”
Jarrod tapped the touch pad and then turned the screen so she could get a better look. The display was filled with ones and zeroes, a binary code. After just a moment’s scrutiny, Jenna recognized the pattern. It was identical to the DNA message Soter had received thirty-seven years earlier. But then an impossible detail leapt out. A change. Something in the code had been modified, added, but why?
She almost asked for an explanation, but before she could phrase the question, she came up with a possible answer on her own. The DNA message was a unique recognition code. Sending it back to the source would be a way of signaling that it had been read and understood. The addition revealed that the language could also be spoken by those on the receiving end.
“You must have talked to Soter,” Jarrod continued. “How is our dear father?”
“Uh, he seemed kind of confused actually. He didn’t think any of us understood the last part of the transmission.”
Sophia grinned. “He still thinks it’s from aliens.”
This time, Jenna made no effort to hide her ignorance. “It’s not?”
Jarrod laughed. “You do have some catching up to do.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but instead he returned his attention to the computer, closing the window with the message and checking the progress bar. Three-quarters done now. Ninety seconds? Less? And how much time was left on Cort’s ten minute countdown, to…what? Nothing good.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jarrod continued.
“You do?” He does? I doubt it.
“You’re wondering if this is the right thing to do,” Sophia said.
“We’ve all thought it,” Jarrod said.
Jenna gave an involuntary gasp. Of course they know. We practically share a brain. “Is it?” she asked, abandoning all pretense. “Destroying the world?”
“Destroying?” Jarrod exchanged another meaningful glance with Sophia. “Jenna, we’re saving the world. Saving it from this slow death called humanity. I know it’s a lot to process, and I know you want to believe there’s a better way. We all did. We’ve spent years trying to find a better way, but the message…”