What he hadn't anticipated was her weapon.
As the giant talons encircled Sun's body, she jabbed him in the wrist with some kind of small spear.
This amused Bub, but his demeanor quickly changed to shock when he felt the foreign liquid pulsing into his body, burning as it went.
What had she done?
He shoved Sun away, pushing her back into the Med Supply room, and then tossed Andy aside to yank the weapon out of his palm.
Bub stared at his hand, watching as the hole healed, but his expression was pure bewilderment. The nictating membranes over his eyes fluttered once, twice. His head swayed back and forth, and then his chin hit the ground with a SLAP.
*
“Run!” Dr. Belgium yelled at them from the Octopus, looking at them through the gate. But they didn't need to.
Bub was sprawled out on his face.
Sun limped out of Yellow 6, staring at the demon.
“Is he dead?” yelled Dr. Belgium.
“I’m not sure.”
She moved closer, reaching out her hand to take Bub’s pulse.
“Bad idea,” Andy grabbed her shoulder.
“We have to make sure he's dead. If not, I can get more drugs and...”
Bub's eyelids flicked open and his claw shot out at Sun.
Andy yanked her out of the way and they stumbled down the hall to the air conditioning vent. Sun went first, up the book case Belgium had pushed into the hallway for his ascension. Andy followed quickly.
Bub flopped over onto his belly and moaned, but he didn't chase them.
Maybe the bastard was going to die after all, Belgium hoped.
The computer monitor beeped. Dr. Belgium dragged his attention away from the Yellow Arm and went to the desk. The message bar read VIDEO INTERFACE ACTIVE and the President came on the screen. He looked as he always did; rosy cheeked and rested.
“I see Protocol 9 has failed,” he said.
Belgium frowned.
“We turned off the nuclear device. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we’re all still alive.”
“I didn't like the decision, Dr. Belgium, but I don't regret it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You can understand that.”
“Yes I can, Mr. President. I can also understand what it’s like to live with innocent blood on my hands. It isn't pleasant. Though perhaps your political bearing makes you more tolerant of it than I.”
“You do realize the area still has to be neutralized.”
“Neutralized. That's a nice way to put it. Like spraying a smoky room with disinfectant. Five people have already been neutralized by this ill-conceived little project. I don't want the rest of us to follow suit.”
“I'm sorry, Dr. Belgium. My hands are tied.”
“Look, we've managed to knock out Bub. He may even be dead. And we got rid of the thing Helen turned into.”
“This is the way it has to be, Frank. We cannot allow for the slightest possibility that the occupant may escape. You knew this when you signed on at Samhain. You voluntarily accepted the risks.”
“Yes yes yes. But if there's a chance of saving us and still destroying Bub, shouldn't it be considered?”
“I am sorry, Frank. I truly am.”
He didn't look sorry. Not a bit. He might have been talking about the economy or the budget.
“How long do we have?”
“Operation Slim Bob has already begun. It will reach completion in eighty-seven minutes.”
“Can we have more time?”
“That's impossible.”
“No chance of a rescue?”
“Your country recognizes the sacrifice you're making, Frank. May God be with you.”
Belgium rubbed his eyes and let out a deep breath.
“There is another favor, a personal one, that I would like to ask.”
“If it is within my power, consider it done.”
“It is within your power, Mr. President. And you could even do it right now.”
“Yes, Frank?”
“Go fuck fuck fuck yourself.”
Belgium hit the disconnect button.
“Eighty-seven minutes,” he said softly. “That isn't enough—”
CLANG!
Belgium jumped six inches out of his chair and spun in the direction of the noise.
Crouching in the Orange Arm was another creature. Bigger than a hippopotamus, covered head to toe with coal-black scales. The thing cocked its head and stared at Frank with a bloodshot eye the size of a dinner plate.
It was on all fours, and its back nearly touched the hallway ceiling.
The animal moved backward, much quicker than Belgium would have anticipated for something so large, and then reared on its hind legs and charged the gate again.
CLANG!
The ground shook and Belgium watched in amazement as the titanium gate bent slightly inward.
“What the hell is that sound?” Andy asked.
The biologist turned and saw Andy and Sun were now in the Red Arm. The Orange Arm was to their right, so they hadn’t noticed the latest complication.
CLANG!
“It's, um, proof that things can always get worse. We'd better hurry.”
“Get out of there, Frank,” Sun said. “Meet us in the Green Arm. What's Bub doing?”
Belgium tore his eyes away from the ramming demon and looked down the Yellow Arm.
“He's still there. But he's... changing.”
“How?”
“I think he's turning back to his regular size.”
“Good, then he can't get through the vents.”
CLANG!
“I talked to the President. We only have about eighty-five minutes,” Belgium said.
“Find the digging equipment. We need to get the blueprints.”
Belgium nodded. He stole a glance at the Orange Arm gate.
CLANG!
The lower half was bending away from the doorway.
Belgium hurried into the duct, not daring to look back again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Check that cabinet,” Sun told Andy. “They're in a brown folder, legal sized, about an inch thick.”
Sun was pretty sure she'd filed them away rather than left them in one of her growing piles, but she wanted to double-check. She quickly sorted through the large Samhain pile on the desk, then for caution's sake went through the Bub pile.
Something caught her eye.
Not the blueprints, but an old report on Bub's stool samples. She picked it up, trying to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her.
Since Bub had been brought here, he'd had several bowel movements while in the coma. Back in 1921 the stool had been analyzed with a newly acquired mass spectrometer, which found it contained an ample amount of uranium.
It hit Sun like a slap. Now it finally made sense. What she'd been searching for in Red 3. How Bub had been buried in Panama. Why it took him so long to wake up. His spaceship, the hieroglyphs...
“The hot rock,” Sun said.
Andy looked up at her from the file cabinet.
“It's uranium. Bub's got such a highly advanced genetic structure, he's very sensitive to radiation. Radiation destroys DNA, it kills cells. The ancient Mayans probably covered him in uranium ore when he was sleeping. That's the hot rock they were referring to.”
“It put him in a coma, and they buried him,” Andy said. “It fits with the glyphs.”
“But there's more. The capsule, his spaceship, had lead in it. To protect him from the iridium in deep space. That’s why he’s been in a coma so long—it took him that long to get all of the uranium out of his system. The radioactivity slowed his metabolism down to a crawl. And being here made it even worse.”
“How?”
“Look around,” Sun said, picking up a handful of files. “X-rays. Thousands of X-rays. The X-ray machine was invented before the turn of the last century. They bombarded Bub with radiation on a continuous basis up until the 1970s. I'm surprised he didn't glow in the dark.”