Minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Kate felt the pressure ease. The Unity was still desperate to know how Jack was reacting to the virus, but must have realized it could only watch and wait right now.
Was this what it had been like for Jeanette—fighting minute to minute, losing ground inch by inch? Maybe not. At least Kate knew she was in a war. Jeanette had probably had no idea. Most likely she wrote off any early alien feelings or thoughts as part of the healing process, a side effect of the tumor's shrinking. And when finally she'd realized that her mind was being usurped, it was too late.
When will it be too late for me? Kate wondered.
She thought of what was developing inside her head, the Unity virus running free through her brain, inserting its own genes into more and more of her brain's neurons until it had nibbled away everything that was her and replaced it with someone else, someone with viral ethics, another drone like Jeanette.
That possibility pushed up a bubble of acid to the back of her throat. She had to find a way to stop it. And bring Jeanette back. But first she had to save herself.
She looked at Jack. If his immune system truly was fighting the virus, it would be producing antibodies. If she could isolate those globulins and inject them into her own bloodstream…
Her excitement died aborning. If-if-if… even if it were true, the process would be lengthy. She'd be a born-again member of the Unity by then.
She'd have to find another way. Maybe Fielding would come up with something. Whatever happened, Kate sensed that Jack would be the key. But everything was stuck on hold until he pulled through this, if he did.
She checked him again—still sleeping but less sweaty—then wandered into the dizzying clutter of his apartment's front room. She stopped when she saw something that looked like a gun on an end table. Dear Lord, it was a gun. She stepped closer. Did Jack own a gun? Obviously. Kate hated guns. Bad enough for her brother to own one, but she couldn't believe he'd be so careless as to leave it out like this with a child around. Gia's little girl could have—
Wait. It had a red plastic handle and the rest of it looked made of tin. The knob of a power dial bulged from the side next to a pair of words framed by lightning bolts etched into the metaclass="underline" Atomic Disintegrator. Kate smiled and shook her head. A toy raygun—no, a cap gun. Ancient, too.
She did a slow turn. Look at this stuff. What did he do, go through flea markets and pick up everything that wasn't nailed down? And none of it seemed less than fifty years old. A Daddy Warbucks lamp, a Dick Tracy alarm clock—lots of clocks, all old, none working. Framed certificates and more clocks, their pendulums arrested in final swing, hid the walls. She stepped closer to check out the certificates—all from clubs and secret societies devoted to the Shadow, Captain Midnight, Doc Savage… what on earth did he see in this junk?
The only thing she could find that belonged in the Twenty-first Century—or in the latter half of the twentieth, for that matter—was the computer monitor atop the oak rolltop desk. And a vaguely familiar-looking black object resting on the monitor. Kate leaned in for a closer look and stiffened when she recognized the timer clock from the bomb Jack had found yesterday. She knew it was the same clock by the four cut ends of the wires snaking out from its casing. The only difference now was that the display was lit, showing the time.
And next to it were those silvery little AAA-battery-size things with the rest of the cut wires that had been attached to the clock. What had Jack called them? Blasting caps. But where was that clay-like explosive?
She checked the rest of the desk top and hunted through the room but didn't see it. Must have hidden it away. She didn't like poking through Jack's desk drawers but she'd feel better if she knew the explosive was here too. She suspected that Jack had used it to blow up that car this morning, and she hated the thought.
But the drawers in the old rolltop held nothing but papers and video catalogues. She made a point of not reading any of the papers and moved on to the equally old oak secretary. And there in the top drawer, next to what looked like another toy gun, she found it—still wrapped in cellophane, with the empty holes where the blasting caps had been inserted.
What a relief. When he recovered, maybe Jack could explain how that car exploded, but at least now she could be sure this stuff hadn't been used. Meanwhile, she didn't want to have to look at that timer and the blasting caps whenever she was in this room, so she put them in the drawer with the explosive.
As she wiggled the drawer to push it back in it slipped out of the desk. She stood there holding it, wondering why it was so shallow—only half as deep as the base of the secretary. She peered into the slot and saw what was obviously a false rear wall.
Curious, Kate replaced the drawer and angled the secretary away from the wall. She felt around the weathered rear panel until she found a recessed catch. A gentle tug released the board; it fell toward her, revealing a hidden compartment with three shelves.
And on those lay at least half a dozen pistols of varying shapes and sizes and finishes, extra clips, boxes of bullets, knives, blackjacks…
A miniature armory.
She stared for a dry-mouthed moment, then replaced the panel and pushed the secretary back against the wall. She opened the drawer again and took out the tiny pistol she'd seen before. Heavy… too heavy for a toy. She dropped it back in and shoved the door closed. Shaken, she retreated to the center of the room and stared around her.
She had to face it: Jack was a gun nut or worse. Some sort of criminal. Had to be. What other reason could he have for owning all that weaponry?
Who was her brother? What on earth had he become?
She'd thought he was exaggerating when he'd said his closet was deeper and darker than hers. Now she knew he wasn't.
And yet… he was still her brother. And despite all this damning evidence, she sensed a core of old-fashioned decency within him. A man you could trust, a man whose word meant something.
Was that the key to all this pulp era junk? Memorabilia from a time before he existed, relics of an antiquated obsolescent code of honor to which he still hewed?
Or was she reading too much into this? Not every idiosyncrasy had to have deep psychological overtones. How did the saying go? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Maybe Jack simply thought this stuff was cool—or "neat," as he liked to say—and picked it up whenever he came across it.
Kate heard a sound from the bedroom and stepped back inside. Jack was tossing back and forth under the covers, moaning, mumbling, whining. He seemed frightened.
She watched him closely, wondering what terrible sort of nightmare would scare a man like Jack…
12
… Jack looks up as the girl in the middle of the store check-out line coughs. He watches from the rear as people ahead and behind her back away.
"Just a cold," the girl says, her voice slightly muffled by her surgical mask.
Everyone in the store, including Jack, wears a surgical mask. Jack loves the style—not only keeps out germs but hides the face. And the store is packed. Rumor got out that the place managed to get in a shipment of produce and people are buying up as much as they can carry. Jack left Gia* and Vicky back at his apartment where they're safe from infection and ventured out alone. His cart—and it is truly his because he pushed it to the store from home—is loaded with corn and peaches and tomatoes that look like Jersey beefsteaks. He managed to snag some canned beans and a box of fusilli from the nearly naked shelves as well.
Good haul, he thinks, happy with his finds. Food shipments are so sporadic these days, what with survivalist groups hijacking trucks for themselves, so you take what you can find. Looks like Italian on the menu tonight. Gia can whip of some of her famous red gravy and—
"She's one of them!" cries a heavyset woman in a turquoise sari directly behind the girl with the cold, backing farther away from her. "I saw her pull out the bottom of her mask before she coughed!"