from the refrigerator and was eating them 10,3 with enthusiasm, though
they were uncooked. He let himself slip mercifully back into the
half-trance again.
Finished eating, he went upstairs to look in on Denny.
When he opened the door to the boy's room, everything at first seemed to
be just as it had been the last time he'd seen it, during the previous
night. The shades were lowered, the curtains drawn, the room dark
except for the greenish light from the VDT. Denny sat in front of the
computer, engrossed in the data that flickered across the screen.
Then Loman saw something that made his skin prickle.
He closed his eyes.
Waited.
Opened them.
It was not an illusion.
He felt sick. He wanted to step back into the hall and close the door,
forget what he'd seen, go away. But he could not move and could not
avert his eyes.
Denny had unplugged the computer keyboard and put it on the floor beside
his chair. He'd unscrewed the front cover plate from the
data-processing unit. His hands were in his lap, but they weren't
exactly hands any more. His fingers were wildly elongated, tapering not
to points and fingernails but to metallic-looking wires, as thick as
lamp cords, that snaked into the guts of the computer, vanishing there.
Denny no longer needed the keyboard.
He had become part of the system. Through the computer and its modern
link to New Wave, Denny had become one with Sun.
"Denny')" He had assumed an altered state, but nothing like that sought
by the regressives.
" Denny?
" The boy did not answer.
"Denny!
" An odd, soft clicking and electronic pulsing sounds came from the
computer.
Reluctantly, Loman entered the room and walked to the desk. He looked
down at his son and shuddered.
Denny's mouth hung open. Saliva drooled down his chin. He had become
so enraptured by his contact with the computer that he had not bothered
to get up and eat or go to the bathroom; he had urinated in his pants.
His eyes were gone. In their place were what appeared to be twin
spheres of molten silver as shiny as mirrors. They reflected the data
that swarmed across the screen in front of them.
The pulsing sounds, soft electronic oscillations, were not coming from
the computer but from Denny.
The eggs were good, the pancakes were better, and the coffee was
strong enough to endanger the porcelain finish of the cups but not so
strong that it had to be chewed. As they ate, Sam outlined the method
he had devised for getting a message out of town to the Bureau.
"Your phone's still dead, Harry. I tried it this morning. And I don't
think we can risk heading out to the interstate on foot or by car, not
with the patrols and roadblocks they've established; that'll have to be
a last resort. After all, as far as we know, we're the only people who
realize that something truly . . . twisted is happening here and that
the need to stop it is urgent. Us and maybe the Foster girl, the one
the cops talked about in their VDT conversation last night."
"If she's literally a girl," Tessa said, "just a child, even if she's a
teenager, she won't have much of a chance against them. We've got to
figure they'll catch her if they haven't already."
Sam nodded.
"And if they nail us, too, while we're trying to get out of town,
there'll be no one left to do the job. So first we've got to try a
low-risk course of action."
"Is any option low risk?" Harry wondered as he mopped up some egg yolk
with a piece of toast, eating slowly and with a touching precision
necessitated by his having only one useful hand.
- 305 pouring a little more maple syrup over his pancakes, surprised by
how much he was eating, attributing his appetite to the possibility that
this was his last meal, Sam said, "See . . .
this is a wired town."
"Wired?"
"Computer-linked. New Wave gave computers to the police, so they'd be
tied into the web-And the schools," Harry said.
"I remember reading about it in the paper last spring or early summer.
They gave a lot of computers and software to both the elementary and the
high schools. A gesture of civic involvement, they called it."
"Seems more ominous than that now, doesn't it?" Tessa said.
"Sure as hell does."
Tessa said, "Seems now like maybe they wanted their computers in the
schools for the same reason they wanted the cops computerized-to tie
them all in tightly with New Wave, to monitor and control. Sam put down
his fork.
"New Wave employs, what, about a third of the people in town')Probably
that," Harry said.
"Moonlight Cove really grew after New Wave moved in ten years ago. In
some ways it's an old-fashioned company town-life here isn't just
dependent upon the main employer but pretty much socially centered
around it too.
" After sipping some coffee so strong it was nearly as bracing as
brandy, Sam said, "A third of the people . . . which works out to
maybe forty percent or so of the adults."
Harry said, "I guess SO."
"And you've got to figure everyone at New Wave is part of the
conspiracy, that they were among the first to be . . . converted.
" Tessa nodded.
"I'd say that's a given."
"And they're even more than usually interested in computers, of course,
because they're working in that industry, so it's a good bet most or all
of them have computers in their homes."
Harry agreed.
"And no doubt many if not all of their home computers can be tied by
modern directly to New Wave, so they can work at home in the evening or
on weekends if they have to. And now, With this conversion scheme
nearing a conclusion, I'll bet they're working round the clock; data
must be flying back and forth over their phone lines half the night. If
Harry can tell me of someone within a block of here who works for New
Wave-There're several," Harry said.
"-then I could slip out in the rain, try their house, see if anyone's
home. At this hour they'll probably be at work. If no one's there,
maybe I can get a call out on their phone."
"Wait, wait," Tessa said.
"What's all this about phones? The phones don't work."
Sam shook his head.
"All we know is that the public phones are out of service, as is
Harry's. But remember New Wave controls the telephone-company computer,
so they can probably be selective about what lines they shut down. I'll
bet they haven't cut off the service of those who've already undergone .
this . . . conversion. They wouldn't deny themselves communication.
Especially not now, in a crisis, and with this scheme of theirs nearly
accomplished. There's a better than fifty-percent chance that the only
lines they've shut down are the ones they figure we might get to-pay
phones, phones in public places-like the motel-and the phones in the
homes of people who haven't yet been converted."
Fear permeated Loman Watkins, sa
turated him so completely that if it
had possessed substance, it could have been wrung from his flesh in
quantities to rival the rivers currently pouring forth from the
storm-racked sky outside. He was afraid for himself, for what he might
yet become. He was afraid for his son, too, who sat at the computer in
an utterly alien guise. And he was also afraid of his son, no use
denying that, scared half to death of him and unable to touch him.
A flood of data coruscated across the screen in blurred green - 307
waves. Denny's glistening, liquid, silvery eyes-like puddles of mercury
in his sockets-reflected the luminescent tides of letters, numbers,
graphs, and charts. Unblinkingly.
Loman remembered what Shaddack had said at Peyser's house when he had
seen that the man had regressed to a lupine form that could not have
been a part of human genetic history. Regression was not merely-or even
primarily-a physical process.
it was an example of mind over matter, of consciousness dictating form.
Because they could no longer be ordinary people, and because they simply
could not tolerate life as emotionless New people, they were seeking
altered states in which existence was more endurable. And the boy had
sought this state, had willed himself to become this grotesque thing.
"Denny9 " No response.
The boy had fallen entirely silent. Not even electronic noises issued
from him any longer.
The metallic cords, in which the boy's fingers ended, vibrated
continuously and sometimes throbbed as if irregular pulses of thick,
inhuman blood were passing through them, cycling between organic and
inorganic portions of the mechanism.
Loman's heart was pounding as fast as his running footsteps would have
been if he could have fled. But he was held there by the weight of his
fear. He had broken out in a sweat. He struggled to keep from throwing
up the enormous meal he had just eaten.
Desperately he considered what he must do, and the first thing that
occurred to him was to call Shaddack and seek his help. Surely Shaddack
would understand what was happening and would know how to reverse this
hideous metamorphosis and restore Denny to human form.
But that was wishful thinking. The Moonhawk project was now out of
control, following dark routes down into midnight horrors that Tom
Shaddack had never foreseen and could not avert.
Besides, Shaddack would not be frightened by what was happening to
Denny. He would be delighted, exuberant. Shaddack WOuld view the boy's
transformation as an elevated altered state, as much to be desired as
the degeneration of the regressives was to be avoided and scorned. Here
was what Shaddack truly sought, the forced evolution of man into
machine.
In memory even now, Loman could hear Shaddack talking agitatedly in
Peyser's blood-spattered bedroom what I don't understand is why the
regressives have all chosen a subhuman condition. Surely you have the
power within you to undergo evolution rather than devolution, to lift
yourself up from mere humanity to something higher, cleaner, purer .
Loman was certain that Denny's drooling, silver-eyed incarnation was not
a higher form than ordinary human existence, neither cleaner nor purer.
In its way it was as much a degeneration as Mike Peyser's regression to
a lupine shape or Coombs's descent into apelike primitiveness. Like
Peyser, Denny had surrendered intellectual individuality to escape
awareness of the emotionless life of a New Person; instead of becoming
just one of a pack of subhuman beasts, he had become one of many
dataprocessing units in a complex supercomputer network. He had
relinquished the last of what was human in him-his mind-and had become
something simpler than a gloriously complex human being A bead of drool
fell from Denny's chin, leaving a wet circle on his denim-clad thigh.
Do you know fear now? Loman wondered. You can't love.
Not any more than I can. But do you fear anything now?
Surely not. Machines could not feel terror.
Though Loman's conversion had left him unable to experience any emotion
but fear, and though his days and nights had become one long ordeal of
anxiety of varying intensity, he had in a perverse way come to love
fear, to cherish it, for it was the only feeling that kept him in touch
with the unconverted man he had once been. If his fear were taken from
him, too, he would be only a machine of flesh. His life would have no
human dimension whatsoever.
Denny had surrendered that last precious emotion. All he had left to
fill his gray days were logic, reason, endless chains of calculations,
the never-ending absorption and interpolation of facts. And if Shaddack
was correct about the longevity of the New People, those days would
mount into centuries.
Suddenly eerie electronic noises came from the boy again.
They echoed off the walls.
- 309 Those sounds were as strange as the cold, mournful songs and cries
of some species dwelling in the deepest reaches of the sea.
TO call Shaddack and reveal Denny to him in this condition would be to
encourage the madman in his insane and unholy pursuits. Once he saw
what Denny had become, Shaddack might find a way to induce or force all
of the New People to transform themselves into identical, thoroughgoing
cybernetic entities. That prospect boosted Loman's fear to new heights.
The boy-thing fell silent again.
Loman drew his revolver from its holster. His hand was shaking badly.
Data rushed ever more frantically across the screen and swam
simultaneously across the surface of Denny's molten eyes.
Staring at the creature that had once been his son, Loman dragged
memories from the trunk of his pre-Change life, desperately trying to
recall something of what he'd once felt for Denny-the love of father for
son, the sweet ache of pride, hope for the boy's future. He remembered
fishing trips they had taken together, evenings spent in front of the
TV, favorite books shared and discussed, long hours during which they'd
worked happily together on science projects for school, the Christmas
that Denny had gotten his first bicycle, the kid's first date when he
had nervously brought the Talmadge girl home to meet his folks. . . .
Loman could summon forth images of those times, quite detailed memory
-pictures, but they had no power to warm him.
y He knew he should feel something if he was going to kill his only
child, something more than fear, but he no longer had that capacity. To
hold fast to whatever remained of the human being in him, he ought to be
able to squeeze out one tear, at least one, as he squeezed off the shot
from the Smith Wesson he remained dry-eyed. but Without warning
something erupted from Denny's forehead.
Loman cried out and stumbled backward two steps in surprise.
At first he thought the thing was a worm, for it was shiny-oily and
segmented, as thick as a pencil. But as it continued to extrude, he saw
that it was more metallic than organic, terminating in a fish-mouth plug
three times the
diameter of the "worm" itself. Like the feeler of a
singularly repulsive insect, it weaved back and forth in front of
Denny's face, growing longer and longer, until it touched the computer.
He is willing this to happen, Loman reminded himself.
This was mind over matter, not short-circuited genetics. Mental power
made concrete, not merely biology run amok. This was what the boy
wanted to become, and if this was the only life he could tolerate now,
the only existence he desired, then why shouldn't he be allowed to have
it?
The hideous wormlike extrusion probed the exposed mechanism, where the
cover plate had once been. It disappeared inside, making some linkage
that helped the boy achieve a more intimate bond with Sun than could he
had solely through his mutated hands and mercuric eyes.
A hollow, electronic, blood-freezing wail came from the boy's mouth,
though neither his lips nor tongue moved.
Loman's fear of taking action was at last outweighed by his fear of not
acting. He stepped forward, put the muzzle of the revolver against the
boy's right temple, and fired two rounds.
Crouching on the back porch, leaning against the wall of the house,
rising up now and then to look cautiously through the window at the
three people gathered around the kitchen table, Chrissie grew slowly
Dean Koontz - (1989) Page 41