Rollie spat a curse. “So we just fragged one of our own guys?”
“It wasn’t human anymore,” declared Mad Dog. “We did him a favor. Whatever shit Doctor Tox cooked up, it looks like it works fast. We have to find her and end this.”
Hood was only half-listening. He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that they had just killed a fellow operator, and Mad Dog’s rationale provided little comfort. What if it had happened to one of them? If Rollie or Mad Dog began to turn would he be able to pull the trigger on his brothers?
How did this happen?
On an impulse, he swung the NVGs up and then, working by feel alone, slipped the sunglasses over his eyes. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then, like the recipient of some Biblical miracle, he could see again.
The view before his eyes was not the green-tinted reconstituted video image provided by NVGs, but a crystal clear, full color vision of the cavern, lit up as if by sunlight. He could distinguish the gray-brown rock, and the startlingly bright scarlet of freshly spilled blood. He could even see the luminescent lichen, glowing a faint but distinctive hue of lime green. It covered most of the floor, except where it had been disturbed by foot traffic, and crept partway up the walls.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
“Who is this? Identify yourself,” said a familiar albeit artificial voice.
“Phantom?”
Mad Dog turned toward him, a look of alarm on his face. “Who are you talking to?”
Hood held up a hand to forestall his friend and listened to the computer-generated voice that was not merely in his ears but reverberating through his skull. “Major Hood. What are you doing? Why did you disregard my orders?”
Hood considered how best to reply and decided that there were more important things to do than justify his decision to enter the cave. “What the hell happened here? Enough lies. What’s really going on?”
“Major, listen to me very carefully. You and your men are in extreme danger. You need to get out of there right now. Before it’s too late.”
“Tell me what’s going on. What happened to your team? You said they were all dead, but that’s not true, is it?” He glanced over at the motionless form of the lizard-creature that had once been Imhotep. “They changed into… I don’t know what. But you knew, didn’t you?”
The pause was longer than expected, and despite the complete lack of emotion in the artificial voice, Hood sensed a weary resignation. “Major Hood, I will explain everything to you, but you and your men must leave the cave at once.”
“What about the others? Did they change, too?”
Mad Dog advanced a step toward him, his weapon coming up. “Who are you talking to?” he growled.
Hood shook his hand again. “It’s Phantom. He’s going to tell me what’s really going on here.”
The last was said as much to Phantom as to Mad Dog, but the latter simply echoed the word, “Phantom,” as if hearing it for the first time.
Phantom spoke again. “Major Hood, you must listen to me. Your eyes are deceiving you.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is something dangerous in the cave, but it’s not what you think. I don’t have time to explain everything—”
“Try.”
There was another long pause. Mad Dog was now standing right in front of him, eyes darting back and forth as he scrutinized Hood, searching perhaps for some hint of a reptilian metamorphosis in progress. Hood tried to ignore him.
“The change is not physical,” Phantom said.
Hood was beginning to wonder if Phantom was stalling, intentionally wasting his time. But why? Was the man behind the disembodied computer-generated voice secretly in league with Doctor Tox?
“It looks pretty physical to me,” Hood said, staring at the bullet-riddled corpse.
“Shortly after they entered the cave, the team began to experience changes in their mental status. Increasing paranoia. Hallucinations. Minor at first, but quickly escalating in intensity.”
Hallucinations? Hood thought that sounded like the kind of thing an enemy might say. Perhaps Phantom was gaslighting him, trying to get him to question his own sanity. “How did she do it?”
“She?”
“Doctor Tox. How did she expose them? What’s her delivery system?”
Another pause. “Doctor Tox is dead. When the squad entered the cave, only four hostiles were present, and all of them were in the final stage of critical exposure.”
“You mean they had changed?”
“There is no physical change. Their minds were gone. They killed and consumed their comrades — including Doctor Tox — and were roaming the caverns like wolves.”
No physical change. Why did Phantom keep stressing that, when it was so obvious that his own people had been transformed by the teratogenic compound?
Phantom was still speaking. “Your teammate is already showing signs of critical exposure.”
Hood jerked his gaze to Mad Dog, surprised. “You can see him?”
Mad Dog, realizing that he was the topic of the seemingly one-sided conversation, bristled. “Stop talking to him.”
Phantom’s voice was already vibrating through Hood’s skull. “I can see everything you can see, and far more. It may be too late for him. It may be too late for all of you, but the longer you stay in that cave, the less likely it is that any of you will survive.”
“I said stop talking!” Mad Dog shouted, showering Hood with flecks of spittle, shaking his rifle emphatically.
Already showing signs… Was it true? How else could he explain the profound change in his friend’s demeanor?
But why had Mad Dog been affected and not Rollie or himself?
Hood raised his hands. “Dale, it’s okay. He’s gone. I’m not talking to him anymore. But we need to go now.”
“Go? We have to finish the mission. We have to find the bitch that did this.”
“She’s already dead. The monsters killed her. And they’re all dead now.”
Mad Dog’s eyes darted back and forth for a moment, then settled on Hood again, narrowing into accusing slits. “You’re lying. You’re trying to protect her.” He shifted the rifle toward Hood’s face. “You’re one of them.”
Hood instinctively recoiled from the gaping hole of the weapon’s muzzle, knowing with absolute certainty that his friend was going to kill him. He could see Mad Dog’s finger sliding into the trigger guard. “Dale, wait!”
There was a flurry of motion behind Mad Dog, followed by a sickening thud of impact — the butt of Rollie’s rifle striking the back of Mad Dog’s helmeted head. Hood threw himself flat an instant before the weapon discharged, the bullet sizzling through the air where his head had been a moment before, drilling harmlessly into the wall. Mad Dog didn’t fire a second time, but instead toppled forward like a felled tree.
Rollie stood over him, wearing a fierce expression and gripping the stock and heat shield of his own rifle. “Damn,” he whispered. “He was gonna kill you, bossman. I think he was starting to change.”
Hood nodded dully, staring at Mad Dog’s unconscious form, searching for any signs of an incipient transformation.
No physical change, Phantom had said. Increasing paranoia. Hallucinations.
But why was it only affecting Mad Dog?
The answer hit him like a slap. “Rollie, put your mask back on.”
The other man stared back at him in alarm. “No way, boss. I can’t breathe in that thing.”
“Breathing is what’s going to turn us… To get us killed.” Hood paused to remove his helmet and, with some reluctance, the sunglasses, temporarily suspending his link to Phantom and plunging him once more into total darkness. “There’s something in the air in here that’s doing this to him. To all of us. It affected Mad Dog first because he took his mask off first, but it’s going to hit us, too.”