“Use…what…you…have.”
Her anger faded.
Agent Clarence Otto was right.
26.
The seedlings continuously monitored development, fed by data from the roaming readers. At a certain point, the seedlings’ checklists determined that the readers’ jobs were completed. A chemical signal rolled through the host. The readers went through a phase change. With a simple adjustment, the sawlike jaws dropped off and the balls sealed up tight.
Inside the balls, death started to brew.
They inflated, filling themselves with a new chemical compound. Herders moved the chemical balls throughout the framework, wedging them here, wedging them there.
Where the jaws had been, a crusty cap appeared. The deadly compound ate away at the inside of the cap, but the seedlings flooded the structure with another chemical that added thickness to the cap from the outside. It was a delicate balance, but as long as the seedlings remained “alive,” kept making the chemical, the poison balls would remain sealed.
If the seedlings ceased to function, however, the caps would disintegrate and the vile catalyst inside would spread through the framework, dissolving it, the modified stem cells and all the cells they had created. Cells would blacken, die, then dissolve, the resulting waste material moving on to poison other cells. The ensuing chain reaction would dissolve every soft tissue it reached-framework, muscle, skin, organs…everything.
To stop this from happening, the seedlings had to survive.
But this host had no way of knowing that.
27.
“I’m sorry, Mister Phillips,” the doctor said. “He just slipped away. We thought we had him out of the woods, and then he was just gone.”
Dew stared at the doctor, who looked tired and bedraggled. It wasn’t the doctor’s fault; the man had done everything possible. Dew still couldn’t stop the wave of fury that swept over him, that had him wondering how easy it would be to snap the little doctor’s skinny neck.
“What killed him?”
“It wasn’t one particular thing. I think the whole incident was just too much for his body to handle. To be blunt, he should have died back on Monday, but he was strong enough to fight another sixty hours. Because of that, we thought we might be able to save him, but there was just too much damage. I’m very sorry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk to his wife.”
“No,” Dew snapped. Then, quietly, “No, I’ll do it. I was his partner.”
“As you like, Mister Phillips,” the doctor said. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
The doctor strode away. Dew stared at the floor, gathering his courage. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost a partner, and it wasn’t the first time he’d had to break the news to a new widow. It never got easier. It was funny how you could get used to killing, but not to death.
He wearily looked down the hall. Shamika stared at him, her son, Jerome, asleep in her lap. Her eyes filled with tears of denial. She knew. Dew still had to tell her, though; the words had to be said.
He walked toward her. Dew remembered another hospital, a day six years earlier, the day Jerome was born. He remembered sitting in the waiting room with Malcolm, who’d been so nervous he’d thrown up twice. He remembered talking to Shamika just hours after the delivery.
He kept walking toward her. She started shaking her head side to side, clutching Jerome tighter. She mumbled warbling words that couldn’t be understood, yet their meaning rang clear. Dew wished he were anywhere else, anywhere but facing this crying woman, the wife of his friend, his partner…the man he’d failed to protect.
He fought back tears of his own, an empty sorrow rolling in his chest alongside the burning hatred and rage. The only thing that kept him strong was the knowledge he’d find out who was responsible. And when he did, oh daddy, daddy-o, the fun he would have.
28.
For a moment, Perry slipped back in time. He was seventeen. His mother crying, as usual, shaking him gently. Perry slowly opening his eyes, feeling the pain roaring through his brain, fingers touching the back of his head, coming away with blood. His dad sitting at the kitchen table, drinking steadily from the bottle of Wild Turkey that he’d used as a weapon against his only child.
The bottle wore a small streak of tacky blood, half on the label, half beaded up on the glass.
Jacob Dawsey stared at his son, his cold eyes fixed in their permanently angry stare. “How you feelin’, boy?”
Perry slowly sat up, his head throbbing so bad he could barely see.
“Someday, Daddy,” Perry mumbled, “someday I’m going to kill you.”
Jacob Dawsey took another swig, his eyes never leaving his son. He set the blood-streaked bottle on the table, then wiped his mouth with the back of his dirty hand. “You just remember that it’s a violent world, son, and only the strong survive. I’m preparing you is all-someday you’ll thank me. Someday, you’ll understand.”
Perry shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and found himself lying on his own bathroom floor. It wasn’t nine years ago. He wasn’t in Cheboygan. Daddy was dead. That chapter of his life was over, but that didn’t make his head feel any better.
His face felt crusty and squishy on the linoleum. The scent of bile filled his nose. Didn’t take him long to figure out why. His rebellious stomach had apparently found something else to cough up while he was passed out.
A little shiver tickled his soul. It was a good thing he’d been lying facedown, or he could have choked on his own vomit, just like Bon Scott-the original lead singer from the band AC/DC. Bon had passed out in the back of a black Cadillac, so the story went, bombed out of his skull on whiskey and perhaps a few other controlled substances, so blasted he couldn’t wake up; he drowned in his own puke.
Perry wiped his hand across his face, scraping away vomit slime. He had some in his hair as well. His stomach felt tired but otherwise fine; the regurgitation festival was apparently over. Most of the awful smell emanated from the toilet bowl. Perry laboriously sat up and flushed.
How the hell had this happened? Vague, out-of-focus pieces flitted back and forth across his brain like moths circling a streetlight. His left leg ached with a cold-iron throbbing.
Using the counter to pull himself to his feet, he slowly stood. His whole body felt very weak, which made him wonder how long he’d been unconscious. In the bathroom with the door half shut, there was no way of telling time; sunlight could not reach down the hall.
Resting his weight against the sink, he looked at himself in the mirror. “Look like shit” couldn’t describe it. A green-yellow film of vomit caked the right side of his face, matting down his hair. A black-and-blue bump on his forehead stuck out like a unicorn’s starter kit. The dark circles under his eyes were so pronounced they were almost comical, as if he were wearing overdone movie makeup meant for an extra in Night of the Living Dead.
What really caught his eye wasn’t his face, but the dried-up crap all over his mirror. Rivulets of some odd liquid had dribbled down the glass, then dried in black streaks. Papery chunks of grayish matter clumped on the mirror like old paste, or perhaps a smashed insect.
Only it wasn’t an insect, and Perry knew that. Memories of the mess on the mirror jostled his fuzzed-out, pain-fogged brain. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was evil. The thing was death, something to be very afraid of. At least it had been something to be afraid of.
He needed some Tylenol and he needed to wash this filth from his body. Even reaching down to turn on the shower made his head pound. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hurt like this, or if he’d ever hurt like this.