David stared at the wall. “I don’t see—”
Kate brushed her hair back. “Ok, let me start over. The human race is about 200,000 years old, but we have only been so called behaviorally modern humans, the really, really smart-type that took over the globe, for around 50,000 years. So 50,000 years ago, we know there were at least three other hominids — Neanderthals, Homo Floresiensis—”
“Homo flor—”
“They’re not widely known. We only recently found them. They were smaller, sort of hobbit-like humans. We’ll just say Hobbits, it’s easier. So 50,000 years ago, there’s us, the Neanderthals, Hobbits, and Denisovans. Actually there were probably a couple more hominids, but the point is there were say five or six sub-species of humans and that our branch of the human tree explodes while the others die out. We go from a few thousand to seven billion people in the span of 50,000 years and the other human subspecies go extinct. We conquer the globe while they die in caves. It’s the greatest mystery of all time, and scientists have been working on it since time began. Religion too. At the heart of the question is how we survived. What gave us such a huge evolutionary advantage? We call this transformation the Great Leap Forward, and the Toba Catastrophe Theory proposes how this great leap forward could have happened — how we became so smart while our cousins, other hominids — Neanderthals, Hobbits, etc — they all remained basically cavemen. About 70,000 years ago, a super-volcano erupted at Mount Toba, here in Indonesia. The eruption and ash as well as the resulting climate change, reduced the total human population drastically, maybe to as low as 10,000 or even less.”
“Wait, the human race was down to 10,000 people?”
“We think so. Well, the estimates aren’t exact, but we know there was a huge population reduction, and that it was marked in our subspecies. We think Neanderthals and some other hominids alive at the time might have fared better. The Hobbits were down-wind of Toba and the Neanderthals were concentrated in Europe. Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia took the brunt of the effects of the Toba eruption and that’s where we were concentrated at the time. Neanderthals were also stronger than we were and they had bigger brains; that could have given them an additional survival advantage, but we’re still sorting that out. We do know that humans got hit hard by the Toba Super Volcano. We were on the brink of extinction. That caused what population geneticists call a population bottleneck. Some researchers believe that this bottleneck caused a small group of humans to evolve, to mutate to survive. These mutations could have led to humanity’s exponential explosion in intelligence. There’s genetic evidence for it. We know that every human being on the planet is directly descended from one man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago — a person we geneticists call Y-Chromosomal Adam. In fact, everyone outside of Africa is descended from a small band of humans, maybe as few as 100, that left Africa about 50,000 years ago. Essentially, we’re all members of a small tribe that walked out of Africa after Toba and took over the planet. That tribe was significantly more intelligent than any other hominids in history. That’s what happened, but we don’t know how it happened. The truth is we don’t actually know how our subspecies survived Toba or how they became so much more intelligent than the other human subspecies alive at the time. It had to be some sort of change in brain wiring, but no one knows how this great leap forward occurred. It could have been due to a change in diet or a spontaneous mutation. Or it could have happened gradually. The Toba Catastrophe Theory and the population bottleneck is just one possibility, but it’s gaining followers.”
He looked down, seeming to consider this.
“I’m surprised this didn’t come up in your research.” When he said nothing, she added “So… what do you think Toba stands for? I mean, I could be wrong here—”
“No, you’re right. I know it. But it’s just a reference to the effect of the Toba Catastrophe in the past — how it changed humanity. That’s their goal, to create another population bottleneck and force a Second Great Leap Forward. They want to bring about the next stage of human evolution. It tells me the why, which we didn’t know before. We thought Toba was a reference to where the operation would start. Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia makes sense. It’s one of the reasons I established operations in Jakarta, 60 miles from Mount Toba.”
“Right. Well, history can be pretty handy. And so can books. Maybe even as much as guns.”
“For the record, I read a lot. And I like history. But you’re talking about 70,000 years ago, that’s not history, it’s prehistoric. And by the way, guns have their place; the world isn’t as civilized as it looks.”
She held up her hands and sat back in the seat. “Hey, just trying to help here. Speaking of, you said you would help me find those kids.”
“And you said you would answer my questions.”
“I have.”
“You haven’t. You know why those two kids were taken, or you at least have a theory. Tell me.”
Kate thought for a moment. Could she trust him?
“I need some assurances.” She waited, but the man just stared at the other screen, the one with all the dots on it. “Hey, are you listening to me?” He looked concerned now, glancing about. “What’s wrong?”
“The dots aren’t moving.”
“Should they be?”
“Yeah. We’re definitely moving.” The soldier pointed to the seat belts beside her. “Strap yourself in.”
The way he said it scared her, but not like the man before, who had taken the children. He reminded her of a parent who had just realized their child was in danger. He was hyper-focused. His eyes didn’t blink as he moved quickly, securing loose articles around the truck, then grabbing a radio.
“Mobile One, Clocktower Commander. Alter course, new destination is Clocktower HQ, do you copy?”
“Copy Clocktower Commander, Mobile One altering course.”
Kate felt the truck turning.
The man lowered the radio to his side.
She saw the flash on the screen a second before she heard — and felt — the blast.
On the screen, the large SUV in front of them exploded, lifting off the ground and falling in a heap of flames and burning metal.
There was gunfire and then their truck veered off the road — as if no one was driving it.
Another rocket struck the street beside the truck, barely missing it. The force of the blast almost rolled the van over and seemed to pull the air completely out of the room. Kate’s ears rang. Her stomach throbbed where the seatbelt had cut into it. It was like sensory deprivation. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. She felt the truck fall back to the ground and bounce on its shocks.