He concentrated, but then he sighed. “I can visualize birds, dragonflies, and flies. But I don’t know anything about how to make them, like their bones and blood and chemistry and all that.”
“I will complete your visualization with the necessary details. The details are in my archived data.”
Bobby sighed. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He visualized Lamotelokhai particles flowing out of his body into the mangrove and into the water and mud at his feet. He then visualized shapes emerging from those raw materials. The first large flying creatures that came to mind were the pterosaurs he’d encountered only minutes ago. But he definitely didn’t want to create more of those. Back in Missouri, he had often seen massive flocks of migrating snow geese. Those would do the job nicely. They were large, and they were fast flyers. And they didn’t attack and kill people.
In his mind, hundreds of them began taking shape. No, he needed thousands, at least ten thousand, so he broadened his vision. He pictured the entire landscape around him transforming into countless white geese. He tried to image the roar of their wings as he pictured the birds taking to the air, a flock of them miles across. He imagined them flying off in every direction, to every corner of the island. He gave them the capability of knowing the distance of their brothers and sisters, so they could distribute themselves evenly over the island, each of them destined for a reasonably-sized area of land. He envisioned them disintegrating once they reached their destinations, turning into thousands of green dragonflies, the kind he often saw in his new home in Belize. In his mind, the dragonflies, knowing the distance to their nearest brothers and sisters, flew rapidly to their designated patches of land before disintegrating and becoming thousands of tiny flies. To make sure there were plenty, Bobby envisioned the smallest flies he could think of, the tiny insects his mom used to call no-see-ums. The flies then scattered, and when they found transforming creatures, they attached themselves to skin or feathers or scales, injecting just enough Lamotelokhai particles to stop the transformation.
Bobby then took the vision one step further. He visualized the creatures transforming back into the humans they had once been. He doubted this could work, because most of the people had been divided into multiple creatures or torn to pieces. But it was worth a try.
“Well done, Bobby,” the Lamotelokhai said. “I have filled in the necessary details. Now carry out your plan.”
So he did. He took hold of the nearest mangrove branch and looked down at the mud around his feet. He willed the plan to begin.
He was surprised when he actually felt the particles leaving his body, flowing out through his skin and into the tree and the mud. He felt his body getting smaller. His hands were shrinking, and his arms and legs. Oddly, his clothes were shrinking with his body, which meant they weren’t really clothes at all.
Soon his body had become so thin he worried he would collapse. He stared at his hand. It was slender and fragile. His legs were so thin he thought he must look like a heron. He put his hand to his head. It felt smaller than usual, but still large compared to the rest of his body.
“Will I disappear?” he asked aloud. His voice was higher, like he had sucked in helium.
There was no answer.
“Lamotelokhai?”
“Speech function partial now.” The voice in Bobby’s head still sounded like his own voice, but the words were in monotone, with no expression. “Your consciousness still complete.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Parts done flowing out. Plan initiated. Not safe here. Move away.”
Suddenly the mangrove tree beside Bobby began collapsing. The limbs folded over, and the entire tree sank into the mud. Shapes began rising from where the tree had been.
Backing away, Bobby tripped and fell. He was weaker now, which was no surprise considering he probably weighed sixty pounds. He got to his feet and stumbled back from the transforming mud. He made his way through the mangroves until he was on dry ground, standing again in the partially burned field of weeds. Even with constant explosions several miles out from shore, he could hear strange moaning and crackling sounds coming from the mud and trees. The sounds slowly turned into screeching cackles. The transformation process expanded to the left and right, and toward Bobby, until even the mangroves at the edge of the field collapsed, joined with elements of the soil, and became snow geese.
Bobby covered his ears to dampen the cackling. For as far as he could see, the shore was covered with a blanket of white geese. One of the birds rose above the others, becoming airborne. As if they’d been waiting for this signal, others began taking off, and then more beyond those. The wave of flight spread rapidly, and soon all of the birds were rising upward, a cloud of snow geese miles wide, generating vortexes of whirling ash.
As the geese passed over Bobby, they filled the sky until he could no longer see the black aircraft hovering thousands of feet above. He wondered if Ashley was watching, and what it must look like from where she was.
The geese continued dispersing until Bobby could see the sky again. He saw one of them explode into a cloud of dragonflies, which then spread out in every direction.
“My plan is actually working,” he said in his high-pitched voice when the cackling had diminished.
“Yes,” the Lamotelokhai said. “Now replenish parts.”
Bobby looked at his tiny hands. “Yeah, we definitely need to do that.” He scanned the barren shoreline. “But all the trees are gone.”
“Birds biological. My parts not.”
“Then what do you—” Bobby noticed that a creature was walking toward him from the far side of the field. He dropped to his belly. “There’s something coming this way,” he said silently.
“Yes. I detected.”
Bobby lifted his head enough to see it over the weeds. The creature was fat and walked on four short legs, and its head was comically small. “Should I run?”
“Creature not transforming. Not dangerous. Touched by fly. Your plan successful.”
Bobby watched. It was still coming toward him. “If my plan were successful that thing would have turned back into a human.”
“Not possible. You knew that.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The creature was now only a few yards away. It spotted Bobby and stopped. It gazed at him with tiny eyes set in a turtle-like face. Bobby could see that it didn’t have fur, but he couldn’t tell if it was a reptile, a mammal, or something else entirely. The creature stared at Bobby for a few more seconds then skirted around him and went on its way.
“What if it had attacked me?” Bobby asked. “Could it hurt me?”
“If not transforming, no. If transforming, maybe.”
Bobby got back to his feet. “Well, I doubt the flies have touched all the creatures around here already. What’s the fastest way we can replenish your parts?”
“Go to Helmich compound.”
“What?” Bobby looked at the compound, about half a mile away. “It’s on fire.”
“Fastest way. Instead of make new parts, use old parts.”
He stared at the burning structure. “It’s on fire,” he said again. “Wouldn't your old parts be destroyed by now?”
“Unlikely.”
“Then how could we get them out?”
“You are not alive. You will not—”
Bobby waited, but it didn’t finish. “I will not what?”
“No,” it said. “No time now. New problem. Water creatures transforming. Their presence detected. Must have started elsewhere and now spreading. Go to water.”
Bobby looked to the shore, now clearly visible with the mangroves gone. Several miles out he could see the wall of smoke and explosions, the planes and helicopters flying above it. “You mean the fish are transforming?”
“Yes. And other creatures. If you wish to stop it, go to water now.”
Bobby didn’t know if the barrage of bombing could successfully contain the transforming creatures, but even if it could, Genera
l Vickars had said they wouldn’t be able to continue the bombing much longer. Bobby realized that now it might not even matter if the snow geese were successful. He started running. “Have the creatures made it past the bombing?”
“Unknown.”
His depleted body was difficult to maneuver, and he was making slow progress. “If we release creatures in the water, how long will they take to spread around the island?”
“Unknown.”
Bobby was now slogging his half-sized feet through several inches of mud. “Do we have enough parts left to do this?”
“Unknown.”
He entered the water and stopped when he was knee deep. “Um, okay. I’ll do what I did last time. He closed his eyes and started concentrating.
“Bobby.”
He opened his eyes. “What?”
“If parts diminish too much, my functions stop.”
He knew that already. “Okay. I’ll try not to get rid of too many parts.”
“Bobby.”
“What!”
“If parts diminish too much, your functions stop.”
“What does that mean? I’ll die?”
“No. You are not alive. But you will be gone.”
Bobby stared out at the military jets and helicopters. The pilots were doing everything they could to stop the outbreak from spreading to the rest of the world. He closed his eyes again.
“Bobby.”
“I don’t care! I’m doing this.” He formed a vision in his mind, as he had done before, of Lamotelokhai particles flowing out of his body, this time into the water and mud. He imagined the particles working their way into algae and bacteria and plankton and fish. Larger creatures began taking shape. Bobby visualized the fastest fish he could think of, the sailfish. In his mind, thousands of sailfish formed and then swam away, spacing themselves evenly around the entire 300-mile perimeter of the island. Then they disintegrated into smaller fish. He couldn’t think of a smaller ocean fish, so he pictured a fish he used to catch, the bluegill, hoping the Lamotelokhai could fill in enough details that the fish wouldn’t die in saltwater. He then pictured the bluegills disintegrating into tiny minnows, which he thought would be able to locate even the smallest of transforming creatures. He opened his eyes and hoped for the best.
“I provide details,” the Lamotelokhai said.
Particles began flowing from Bobby’s body. His arms and legs became even thinner. His chest and abdomen began to shrivel. He realized he was getting shorter.
“Lamotelokhai?”
There was no answer.
“Are you there?”
Nothing.
Bobby felt dizzy, so he put his hand to his head. He could actually feel it shrinking.
“Stop!” he cried. “That’s enough.” He walked back toward the shore, struggling to keep his balance. When he finally emerged from the water onto the mud, he stopped and inspected his body. What he could see of himself barely resembled a person. His legs were as thin as a child’s wrist, and his shoes were less than half their normal size. He couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds.
“Lamotelokhai?”
No answer.
A disturbance drew his attention. The sailfish were forming, taking shape, floundering in the shallow water. At first there were only a few. They flipped their tail fins until they had wriggled their way into deeper water. More lumps began rising from the mud and shallow water, gradually taking shape and fighting their way to where their sail-like fins could stand upright and then shooting out from shore, the fins sliding smoothly through the water and then disappearing.
The growing, flopping, swimming forms continued to appear along the shore until the splashing reached farther than Bobby could see. Gradually the sailfish started to disperse and disappear.
“Lamotelokhai, I need to know what to do next,” he said aloud. He hardly recognized his voice.
Something broke the water’s surface about a hundred yards out, the head and neck of some kind of sea creature. It was desperately swimming toward shore. Suddenly two black fins surfaced just behind it, in pursuit. Bobby’s sailfish were chasing it. The creature hit the shallows, moving so fast it slid in the mud until most of its body was out of the water. The sailfish slid up behind it, but the sea creature kept coming, running on flipper-like legs. Giving up, the two half-submerged sailfish turned awkwardly and flipped their tail fins until they were gone.
The sea creature looked back once and continued up the mud. It was maybe fifteen feet long including its neck and tail. It moved like a seal but had a longer neck, with an alligator-like head. Then Bobby noticed something. The thing’s neck was now shorter than it had been only seconds ago. As he had suspected, the creature was still transforming. And it was coming directly toward him.
Bobby turned and walked slowly away from the water’s edge, trying not to attract the creature’s attention. There were no mangroves to hide in. The only structure within half a mile was Helmich’s compound, which was still burning. He didn’t know if the reptile could hurt him, but the Lamotelokhai had made it clear he should avoid transforming creatures. Maybe one of the flies he had created would find it soon and stop the transformation.
He looked over his shoulder. The reptile was following him. He didn’t speed up, but instead he turned to his right and continued walking. The creature also turned. Bobby had no idea if he could outrun it—or if he could even run at all.
The creature began trotting, splashing through the remaining shallow water and then across the mud. It was obviously better suited for water, but still it was gaining on him. So Bobby tried running. After several steps he fell on his face. He needed to concentrate on moving his body, but the sight of the monster barreling toward him made this difficult. He looked at his thin legs, trying to focus his thoughts on their new length and size. The lumbering reptile was now twenty yards away.
Bobby got to his feet and ran, dodging water-filled pits, mud holes, and burned mangrove roots. The creature’s flippers slapped the mud close behind him, and its nostrils wheezed. It was closing the distance quickly.
Bobby’s foot hit a hole and he went down again. He rolled onto his back, assuming the thing was too close for him to get up. It was still ten yards back, so he rolled over, got up, and started running again.
There was no place to hide, no destination to focus on other than Helmich’s compound. So he veered left and headed toward it.
He fell again. This time there was no getting up. The creature’s jaws clamped onto his foot and ankle just as he rolled onto his back. Its teeth tore into his flesh, and he cried out. He kicked its head with his other foot, but this tore his flesh even more. He tried pushing himself backwards to pull his leg free, but the thing braced itself by digging its clawed flippers into the mud. The creature then started backing up, dragging him toward water.
“Stop!” Bobby cried.
Its eyes, high on its alligator head, stared without blinking as it kept pulling. Its mass actually wasn’t much more than that of a grown man—it was mostly neck and tail—but it was surprisingly strong and was making steady progress toward the water.
The pain from its teeth made it hard to think. Why was he even feeling pain? He shouldn’t have to feel pain if he didn’t want to, just like he didn’t have to breath. He concentrated on his flesh caught in the reptile’s teeth. “No pain,” he thought. “It doesn’t hurt.” And suddenly, the pain disappeared.
Bobby looked past the creature. It had dragged him halfway back to the shore. The thought of being pulled into the water and torn to pieces nearly caused him to lose himself entirely to panic. The creature continued dragging him toward the water. He was now on the mud, and his back was sliding, making the reptile’s work even easier.
“Stop!” he cried again. But it did no good. With the Lamotelokhai gone, Bobby was on his own. He had no idea what to do.
The creature backed into the shallow water, pulling Bobby along with it.
“Dammit, stop!”
&nbs
p; Bobby was now floundering in a foot of water. He tried to think. The creature tugged at him again and his face went under. In his panic he sucked saltwater into his lungs. He started to cough it out and then realized it didn’t matter. He could breathe water—or anything else for that matter—if he wanted to. He was the one in control of his body.
That was it. He knew what he needed to do.
He sat up and grabbed his mangled leg above the knee. “Lamotelokhai, if you can hear me, move your data out of our left leg!” He then looked at the reptile’s unblinking eyes. “Here, you can have the damn thing.” He focused his thoughts on his leg and squeezed. The leg responded, giving way like putty. It separated just above his knee.
Bobby pushed himself back, putting distance between himself and the creature. The reptile stopped, apparently aware its prey had escaped. It raised its head, lifting Bobby’s leg into the air. It then turned and headed for deeper water, taking the leg with it. Seconds later it was gone.
Bobby managed to push himself upright onto his right foot. He started hopping toward the shore, but the water made this almost impossible, and he fell. Rather than try again, he crawled on his hands and one knee until he was out of the water and past the mud. He rolled onto his butt and sat there, staring at what was left of his body.
“Lamotelokhai?”
There was no response. Bobby was completely alone.
Bobby had no idea how long he had sat there feeling regret and staring out at the water and the tumultuous off-shore defense barrier. But now it was time to do something.
He looked up. The black aircraft was still hovering above. Even if they could see him, which was unlikely, it would be stupid to risk coming down here without knowing for sure the outbreak had stopped. They were probably waiting for the Lamotelokhai to return to the aircraft. Bobby was sure they weren’t waiting for him. As far as they knew, he was dead.
He thought about Ashley. She thought he was dead. How was she handling that?
Diffusion Box Set Page 83