Immune

by Richard Phillips

  Wonderful. They had been upgraded from cheaters to incompetent losers. And although the paper had carried the story of the revised decision by the board of judges, that story was relegated to a page snuggled up against the classified advertisements.

  At least the ravenous press feeding frenzy had died out and their houses were only egged every other day. At this rate, within a couple hundred years, their popularity would be epic.

  Just as Heather had about decided to go in and stand in line with her mom, Mrs. McFarland reappeared.

  “Hi, sweetheart. Sorry it took so long, but I had to get something notarized and there was a line.”

  “No problem, Mom,” Heather said, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

  Heather swung her head in the direction of the intersection, her eyes scanning. For just an instant, she could have sworn she had seen the Rag Man. Her attention drifted to the traffic light. Odd. There it was again, that feeling of wrongness.

  As she looked, a white Impala screamed around the corner, accelerating toward the yellow light, its engine climbing up through the RPM scale in a manner that indicated a floored gas pedal. As the light turned red, a blue van moved forward from the cross street, the faces of three young children visible through the van’s side windows. The squeal of brakes was so loud that it hurt Heather’s ears. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t, as the horrified faces of the three little girls in the van etched themselves into her brain an instant before the Impala impaled itself into the side of the van.

  Heather screamed.

  How long it took her to realize it was her mother’s arms wrapped around her, she wasn’t sure, but slowly, her eyes refocused onto her mother’s panicked face.

  “Heather! What is it? Please, baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Heather glanced at the intersection across from the bank parking lot. Nothing. No sign of the fatal car crash she had just witnessed, only normal traffic. She shook her head to clear the remnants of the vision. It had been so real.

  As she started to answer her mother, she was interrupted by the squeal of brakes. Her head swung back toward the intersection as a large red pickup truck slammed into the side of a teal mini van, burying itself halfway into the passenger compartment, sending both vehicles spinning into a light pole and then into the plate-glass storefront beyond.

  The other cars swerved to avoid the accident, miraculously coming to a stop with no further collisions.

  “Oh my God!”

  Heather’s mother was already moving toward the accident scene, her running footsteps waking other bystanders from their shocked immobility. Heather followed, the sense of déjà vu so strong that she found herself struggling to wake up. But this time there would be no waking. It was all too horrifyingly real.

  Mrs. McFarland was the first of the onlookers to reach the accident scene, the look on her face erasing any hope that lingered in Heather’s mind that the accident was not as bad as it looked. Her mother was already speaking into her cell phone. She must have been dialing 911, even as she ran.

  Several men reached the vehicles and began frantically tugging on the crumpled doors, trying unsuccessfully to get to the people inside the van. The driver of the truck had been thrown through the windshield and now lay with only his feet sticking out from beneath the overturned Dodge Ram.

  Heather stopped about ten yards away from the scene, assaulted by a wave of nausea that brought her to her knees.

  “Oh Lord.”

  As she doubled over, puking violently onto the sidewalk, the warble of sirens rose up behind her, but Heather never heard them. The thing that filled her head was the sound of the Rag Man’s distant laughter.

  42

  A wave of weakness assaulted Raul, something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. If anything, he felt stronger with the passing of each day. His success in tapping into the external Internet had provided an exhilaration that drove him to speed up his work.

  Despite his growing familiarity with the shipboard neural net, Raul had to admit that understanding the alien technologies that made this ship possible remained well beyond his grasp. Perhaps he would never completely understand them, although he didn’t really believe that. Every time he was able to fix another of the ship’s circuits, more of the neural network came back on line. And as that network improved, so did his mental capabilities. After all, he was thinking with it. At this point, it was merely an extension of his own brain.

  What Raul had learned about the ship’s technology fascinated him. Apparently, the alien race that had created it, whom he had come to think of as the Makers, had mastered a technology other alien races regarded as dangerous and unstable. The data records he had been able to piece together referred to those other races as the Enemy. And unlike the Enemy, who had adopted the use of subspace technologies, the Makers had learned to manipulate gravity.

  Actually, that wasn’t quite right. They manipulated gravitational effects, completely in the absence of matter. The Makers specialized in what earth scientists were just now beginning to investigate, the science of black holes and wormholes, where conventional mathematics breaks down.

  Unlike a black hole, where anything that passes across its event horizon is crushed out of existence, wormholes created rips in the space-time fabric so that the distance between two places disappeared. It was the theory behind star gates—a way to travel from here to there by merely stepping through an opening.

  It was the use of one minor aspect of the wormhole technology that had allowed Raul to tap into the Internet. He had managed to bring just enough of the ship’s systems back online to produce the tiniest of these distortions, not so much a wormhole as a worm fiber.

  In some ways, it helped him to think of these tiny wormholes like the optical fibers used in standard fiber-optics. Only these fibers were not limited to light passing back and forth. They made it possible for any signal to pass through.

  The process of directing the worm fibers was as natural to the shipboard control systems as tuning a radio. But it had still taken Raul a considerable amount of time and effort to learn to examine and tap into earthbound computer networks. He had no possibility of plugging in a network cable, but the worm fiber link established a virtual splice into existing lines.

  The downside of the gravitational technology was the massive amount of energy required to make the magic happen. From what Raul had learned, it was the reason the Enemy hated the Makers so ravenously. The Makers had created technologies that directly consumed matter, converting it to pure energy, and that energy provided fuel that had made the impossible practical, creating a thirst for resources that grew with their expanding capabilities.

  Even the creation of the tiniest of worm fibers, such as what Raul had accomplished, drained power from what remained of the ship’s systems in a frightening manner, each attempt requiring a lengthy recovery period to recharge. Raul was filled with a worry that if he tried too much he might completely drain the reserves, something that might kill his ship permanently.

  Still, he had managed to store up just enough power for this one experiment. Raul had tapped into the Santa Fe traffic management computer system just long enough to take control of the traffic cameras and signal lights at a busy intersection. At the key instant, he had extended the yellow light on one signal while allowing the other to go green, something that had produced the most amazing results.

  Raul wished he could maintain the connection just a little longer so he could watch the response as emergency crews arrived, but he had already overtaxed the system. As he killed the worm fiber link and switched all non-essential systems to standby, Raul grinned.

  Successful test.

  43

  Dr. Donald Stephenson moved along the rows of cages, pausing to examine each rat in turn. Anyone else would have been completely outfitted in Level 4 Biohazard protective gear. But, here by himself in the infectious disease section of Rho Division, the time just past 2:00 a.m., Dr. Stephenson merely wore a set of hospi
tal scrubs.

  As he moved, he scanned the labels that identified the different cage groupings. Order Mononegavirales, Family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. Stopping before a cage labeled “species Zaire ebolavirus,” he bent down to examine the occupant, a healthy brown rat with a white splotch on its head. Stephenson reached inside and grabbed the little fellow by the back of its neck. Ignoring the frightened animal’s attempts to bite him, he held it up to the light.

  Completely healthy. It was also perfectly predictable, but amazing nonetheless. Just two days ago, the rat had been in the final stages of death from hemorrhagic fever, suffering from extensive bleeding from the nose, eyes, and anus. Dr. Stephenson placed the animal back in its cage, nodding with satisfaction. The latest strain of nanites worked every bit as well as the original, but these were much hardier outside of the bloodstream, requiring no special suspension fluid to keep them functional until they were injected. The microscopic machines could survive in almost any environment short of a two-hundred-degree-Celsius oven. Even boiling water wouldn’t harm them. With so many nations demanding them, this would solve their shipping problems.

  To think that just across the huge open bay to the west, deep within the inner recesses of the Rho Ship, Raul had been his first human test subject for the new nanites. That had been a bit of a risk since Raul had already been infected with the original nanite strain. It had been entirely possible that the two strains would be incompatible, and if that had been the case, he might have lost a most valuable asset. Still, his reasons for subjecting Raul to the nanite upgrade were sufficient to make it a risk worth taking.

  Other than some intense initial pain, Raul’s system had accepted the new nanites very well. Judging by the pace at which Raul scurried about the equipment within the inner reaches of the ship, the young man had experienced no long-term adverse reaction.

  And from what Dr. Stephenson had observed over the highly encrypted video link from the ship’s interior, Raul had been very busy indeed. In a ship full of fascinating oddities, Raul now appeared the oddest, climbing up the equipment racks hand over hand or scurrying across the floor, dragging his umbilical bundle of cables behind him. Sometimes Raul would pause, the three-inch long snakelike appendage that had replaced his right eyeball swiveling around in front of his face as it fed signals directly into his optic nerve.

  While the deputy director had hoped that Raul would begin to understand something of the inner workings of the shipboard systems, the results of Raul’s efforts had surpassed his best-case scenario. New activity in alien equipment that had been completely inoperative only a few weeks ago periodically sent power fluctuations through the ship’s core, spiking the instruments Dr. Stephenson had positioned to detect such changes. Each time once the transient effects had died out, the ship had returned to a quiescent state. Nevertheless, the progress was nothing short of remarkable.

  But it was also quite clear that Raul was being less than completely honest about what he was learning. That didn’t matter to Stephenson. He needed Raul to continue his repairs of the damaged shipboard systems. So far, he had barely scratched the surface.

  The thought of the extent of the damage that had been inflicted on the Rho Ship made Dr. Stephenson shake his head. He would dearly love to know what kind of weapons technology could have done that, especially since no earth technology could put the slightest scratch in the ship’s hull. It was the type of question he wasn’t going to get an answer to unless Raul succeeded.

  Of course, it was possible that Raul would try something really stupid. After all, Dr. Stephenson had known the boy was completely insane from the instant he first met him. The Messianic complex that afflicted Raul had only been temporarily suppressed by his current imprisonment. His God complex was bound to reassert itself at some point, and when it did, Raul was likely to act out.

  Turning his attention back to the healthy rat in the cage, Dr Stephenson pulled a small device like a penlight from his pocket. Machines were funny things. You could have the finest and fastest car on the planet, but loosen a few lug nuts and watch out. It was something all machines had in common, even nanites.

  Dr. Stephenson pressed a button on the device.

  The rat let out a squeal that devolved into a damp gurgle. Within seconds, all that was left in the cage were bits of hide, hair, and bone, floating in a gooey mess. It was the second time he had attempted dynamically reprogramming the new nanites inside a living thing.

  The first had been a most unfortunate necessity and had not been the complete meltdown the rat had just endured. Dr. Nancy Anatole. So young. So brilliant. Such wasted promise. But recent events had clearly shown the existence of a mole within the Rho Project. The only ones with that kind of deep access to the data were Dr. Rodriguez and Dr. Anatole. Given his own research priorities, it could not have been Dr. Rodriguez, even if he wasn’t dead. So that left Nancy.

  The deputy director shook his head. Incredible to think that she could have resisted the special conditioning to which he had subjected her, that she could have continued to deceive him. She had been a strong woman. But not strong enough to survive the massive brain hemorrhage that had struck her down as she shopped amongst the Native American jewelry vendors in Santa Fe.

  For several seconds Stephenson stared down at his latest handiwork before turning toward the chemical bath chambers that awaited him at the exit. No doubt about it, he knew how to loosen the lug nuts on the upgraded nanites.

  As he stepped into the first of three decontamination chambers, stripped off his scrubs, and tossed them into the Bio Hazard Disposal Unit, Dr. Stephenson grinned. When the time came, Raul would find out which of them was God.

  44

  Heather’s scream brought Anna McFarland out of bed and down the hall three steps ahead of her husband. Pushing open the door to Heather’s room, Anna’s hand flicked the wall switch to the on position, momentarily blinded by the brilliance of the illumination.

  “What’s wrong?” Gil McFarland’s breathless question echoed the one that had been about to roll from her own lips.

  Across the room, sitting upright in the middle of her bed, Heather’s open eyes had rolled back in her head, the look of horror on her young face so intense that both parents whirled to look back down the hallway. It was as empty as it had been a second ago, surreally illuminated in sharp shadows by the light shining out from Heather’s open doorway.

  “Baby?” Anna McFarland moved to the bed.

  As she reached out to touch her daughter’s face, something made her stop. Heather’s eyes were moving as if she were seeing things move before her, things that only she could see. The way emotions played across Heather’s face as those white eyes moved brought a chill to Anna’s neck, a ripple that ran up over her scalp and down along both arms. Heather didn’t even know she and Gil were there, her daughter’s open-eyed dream-state undisturbed even by the sudden bright light in her bedroom.

  Anna reached out, gently cradling Heather’s cheeks between her shaking hands, turning Heather’s head so that she could see into those eyes. At first, there was no reaction, and then, ever so slowly, Heather’s eyes rolled forward, refocusing on Anna’s.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m right here, baby.”

  Anna wrapped her daughter in her arms, letting Heather’s body collapse against her own. Almost immediately, Anna felt Gil’s strong arms wrap around them both.

  Searching for anything to lift the dread that filled her, Anna glanced up. But instead of reassurance, what she saw in Gil’s face was a fear as great as her own.

  45

  Jennifer opened the door to let Heather in.

  “You look tired.”

  Heather shrugged as she settled down on the couch across from Mark. “I’m exhausted. Mom and Dad found me sitting up in bed about two a.m. Apparently, I was having some sort of nightmare, dreaming with my eyes open. It really freaked them out.”

  Mark paused between bites into his cream cheese bagel. “Christ. That
would freak me out too.”

  Jennifer scowled at her brother.

  “It’s okay, Jen,” Heather said, a sad look settling on her face. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  Mark looked like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “I’m sorry. I was trying to make you feel better, not worse.”

  Heather’s smile was weak. “It’s not your fault. I’ve been feeling terrible since it happened.”

  Jennifer moved onto the couch beside her friend, wrapping an arm around Heather’s shoulder. “So what happened next?”

  “Nothing, at least not right away. But, this morning, I heard Mom and Dad talking quietly about setting up an appointment with a doctor.” Heather’s face tensed. “I’m afraid he’s going to order an electroencephalogram or a CT scan.”

  Mark gasped. “But if they do that…”

  “Exactly,” said Heather. “They’ll spot the difference in my brain activity. They’ll discover our secret.”

  For several seconds complete silence reigned. Just then, Mrs. Smythe walked into the room. “What are you kids up to? I can’t believe Heather is over and you didn’t even tell me.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Mark and Jennifer’s voices merged into a single apology, something far from uncommon for the twins.

  Linda Smythe laughed. “As if it was the first time. Can I get you kids something to eat?”

  “No thanks.” This time the three voices merged as one.

  For the barest instant, Linda Smythe looked hurt. Then a broad smile spread across her face. “Peanut butter sandwiches?”

  Mark, Jen, and Heather exchanged glances.

  “I guess we could go for that,” Mark said.