Altar Of Eden

“But how can that be?” Jack asked.

Before anyone could answer, the buzz of a cell phone interrupted the discussion. Carlton gave an apologetic look and answered it. He listened for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Jon. We’ll be right down.”

Lorna’s boss closed his phone and faced Jack.

“It seems our resident pathologist might have an answer to your question, Agent Menard.”

JACK HAD EXPERIENCED his share of dead bodies, but there was something particularly macabre about the pathology suite at ACRES. The windowless room was as large as a basketball court. Drains and floor traps crisscrossed an expanse of cement floor. Huge stainless-steel tables lined the center of the room lit by surgical lamps. Overhead ran a pulley-and-chain system for moving the carcasses of large animals into and out of the place. The air reeked of formaldehyde and an underlying hint of decay.

On the whole, the space had a feel of a giant slaughterhouse.

The promise of answers from the facility’s pathologist had drawn everyone down here.

Off to one side, the intact carcass of the female jaguar covered one table, but they all gathered by another. It held the dissected remains of the young cub. The tiny body was splayed out like a frog. Its cavities had been hollowed out. Parts floating in labeled jars: heart, kidney, spleen, liver. But the most gruesome sight was the cranial cavity: sawed open and empty.

The brain rested on an instrument tray at the head of the table. The organ’s gray surface glistened moistly under the halogen lamps.

Jack noted Lorna staring at the hollowed-out carcass. The violation and needless loss of life clearly troubled her, but the pathologist drew her attention.

Dr. Jon Greer waved everyone closer with a thumb forceps. “I thought you should see this in person.”

Jack did not necessarily appreciate this consideration, but he kept quiet.

Using the forceps and the edge of a scalpel, the pathologist peeled back the top layer of the brain and exposed a deeper layer of the cerebrum. The tissue looked much like the rest of the organ, except for what appeared to be four tiny black diamonds reflecting the light. The indentation for a fifth marked the firm flesh.

“I teased out one of the inclusion bodies and did a couple of quick tests. Let me show you.”

He moved to a neighboring table. On a plastic tray rested one of the black diamonds, only this one had been sectioned into four pieces. Greer used tweezers to pick up a shard. He moved it over to a pile of material that looked like coarse ground pepper.

“Iron filings,” the pathologist explained.

As the shard passed over the pile, a few metallic granules leaped and clung to the sliver.

Greer glanced to the others. “I believe what we’re dealing with- what’s lodged in these brains-are dense aggregates of magnetite crystals.”

“Magnetite?” Jack asked. No one else looked particularly surprised. Lorna’s brother merely looked ill and like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “Like magnets?”

“Sort of,” Lorna said.

Zoë explained. “All brain tissue, including our own, has magnetite crystals laced naturally throughout it. Crystal accumulations can be found in the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, even the meningeal layers that cover the brain.”

Lorna nodded. “The magnetite levels in avian brains are even higher. It’s believed that these magnetic crystals are one of the ways that birds orient themselves to the earth’s magnetic field during migrations. It’s how they get to where they’re going each year without getting lost. It’s also found in bees, fish, bacteria, and other organisms that navigate by internal compass.”

“Then why do we have it in our brains?” Jack asked.

Lorna shrugged. “No one knows.”

“But there are theories,” Zoë interjected. “Newest research suggests that biomagnetism may be the foundation for life on this planet. That magnetism is the true bridge between energy and living matter. For example, piezoelectric matrices can be found in proteins, enzymes, even DNA. Basically all the building blocks of life.”

Lorna lifted an arm and cut her off. “Okay, now you’re losing even me.”

“Regardless of all that,” Greer interrupted, “we’ve never seen this level of magnetite in any animal. Nor such precise symmetry and pattern of deposition. I took the liberty of examining the inclusion under a dissecting microscope. The structure is composed of smaller and smaller crystals, breaking down into tinier and tinier identical parts.”

“Like fractals,” Kyle said.

“Exactly,” Greer said.

Jack had to refrain from scratching his head. What were fractals?

The pathologist continued: “But those magnetic inclusions or nodes are only half the story.” He led them back to the exposed brain. He used the tip of his tweezers to draw lines from one magnetite inclusion to another. “Each node is linked by a microscopic web of crystals, from one to the other, forming an interconnected array. And wrapped throughout this webbing is a dense region of neurons.”

“As would be expected,” Dr. Carlton Metoyer said.

The others turned to the head of ACRES.

Carlton explained. “It’s been proven that magnetic stimulation of the brain results in the growth of neurons and new synaptic connections. If this magnetic array formed during embryonic development, the low-grade and constant magnetic stimulation would produce a richer region of neurons locally.”

Jack remembered the earlier discussion. “And this would make the animals smarter?”

“Individually… to some degree. But it also adds validity to Dr. Polk’s theory of some wireless interconnectivity. More neurons, more electrical stimulation locally. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the transmission triggering the synchronization is electromagnetic. A weak EM pulse shared among the animals.”

Lorna shook her head, struggling through it all. “There’s still so much more we need to know.”

“Then I’ll let you all get back to your own research,” Greer said, “but there’s one last thing.”

“What?” Carlton asked.

The pathologist shifted to the other side of the table. Another tray rested there. A tiny object lay inside. It was clearly man-made. A plastic capsule the size of a pea. Through its clear surface tiny electronics were visible.

“I thought you’d like to see one of the microchips embedded in the animals.”

Lorna crinkled her brow. “Microchips? Are you saying they’re tagged?”