Alex sat on a bench with her hands wedged under her thighs, palms down. Her shoulders were drawn up by her ears. She did not look happy.
“What better options are there?” I asked.
“Better than having two of you explode yourselves?” Zach said. “I can think of several.”
“Like what?” Patrick said.
Zach’s mouth bunched, making his beard ripple. But he didn’t have a reply.
I started tentatively, “Look, I’m not saying we will do it, but if we did do it, what would be the most effective way?”
Zach leaned forward and blew out his flaming marshmallow. “Well, you’d want to get to a high altitude in the middle of a dense population. You’d need the initial effect to be immediate—infecting a bunch of others quickly is the best way to ensure the virus’ll spread throughout the city. Once the entire city is infected, our algorithms show that the air concentration will be sufficient to carry to neighboring cities. And from there we hit wind streams, and off we g—”
“Zach?” Laura said. “Not helpful.”
“Oh. Right.” He chomped down on the marshmallow, then turned bright red and let it fall from his mouth onto the floor. “Sorry. Hot.”
“Perhaps we should table this discussion,” Laura said.
Alex blew out a shaky breath.
For a while we chewed and stared at the neat blue flames. Except for Zach. He was regarding us.
“I always wanted to have kids,” he said. “Especially if they turned out as cool as you guys.”
Laura looked at him, and her eyes were puffy and sad. “Maybe someday you still will.”
He made a little noise in his throat and spiked another marshmallow on the makeshift skewer.
Alex finally lifted her head. “Why do you think this happened?”
“As in a cosmic why?” Zach said. “I doubt that any of us can offer a better answer than you guys could.”
Laura said, “We do know that the fossil record shows five major extinction events where at least half of the planet’s species died off.”
“That is what we’re staring in the face,” the scientist next to her said. “Extinction.”
Patrick said, “Unless we can stop it.”
“The worst part has been watching what it does to us,” Alex said. “How it takes over our bodies.”
Zach made another of his little thoughtful noises.
“What?” Alex said.
“You assume you’re in charge of your body now?” he asked.
“Of course I am,” Alex said.
“Can you make it stop growing? Sprouting hair? Growing fingernails? Can people with Type 1 diabetes decide to make insulin?”
“At least our brains are still our own,” Alex said. “Our thoughts.”
“Are they?” Zach smiled. His tone wasn’t malicious in the least. You could see he loved this kind of stuff. “Can delusional schizophrenics control what’s coming into their heads?”
“But they’re sick,” I said.
“More readily definable as such. But I’m not.” He shot a smile at Laura. “Not diagnosable at least. But when I get anxious, I perseverate—obsess on stuff, I mean. When I get scared, I can’t just force myself to think happy thoughts. Some of that is learned, sure, but some of it is genetic. Hardwired into my brain. We’re not as in control as we’d like to think.”
“You know what Alex means,” Patrick said. “The way spores take over people. It’s not natural.”
“Ah.” Zach raised a finger. “And here we arrive at naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good, right? Cancer is natural. Earthquakes are natural. Animals eating their young is natural. Antibiotics are not.”
“That’s assuming that there’s even a distinction between natural and unnatural,” Laura said. “If humans are natural and Earth’s resources are natural, then how could we make something unnatural? Why is, say, nuclear waste any different from a beaver dam or bird droppings?”
“Fair enough.” Zach stood up and walked over to a row of big lockers against the wall. “But my point is, the Harvesters aren’t doing anything to us that doesn’t happen all the time in nature.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex said. She was getting flushed, ovals of pink coming up under her cheeks. Her spiky hair shot out in all directions, and she looked tough enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to take her on right now.
“Brine shrimp,” Zach said. “Also known as sea monkeys. They’re transparent. Until they get infected by tapeworms. The tapeworms make them turn a vibrant red and gather in clusters in the water. Why? So they’ll be spotted and eaten by flamingos. You see—this species of tapeworm can only reproduce inside flamingos. So they reprogram the brine shrimp to suit their own purposes just as the Harvesters reprogrammed human adults by turning them into Hosts.”
“And,” Laura said, “just as we were hoping to re-reprogram them with our viral vector.”
Standing by his locker, Zach started to don a puffy white suit. “The examples are countless. There’s a tiny worm that invades crickets, grows to adult size, and turns the crickets suicidal. The crickets seek out the nearest body of water and drown themselves. Then the grown worm wiggles out. Why? Because the worms have to be in water to mate.”
Zach pulled on a giant boot. He was on a roll now, and it was clear that when he got on a roll, no one could stop him. “The emerald cockroach wasp stabs a cockroach with a stinger sense organ.” He looked over at us. “Just like the Harvester Queens have. Except the wasps use theirs to feel inside the cockroaches’ brains. They inject venom into specific brain areas that take away the cockroaches’ motivation to move of their own accord. Then the wasp walks the cockroach to its lair by one of its own antenna like a dog on a leash. It lays eggs inside the cockroach, and when the offspring hatch, they devour the cockroach. They even eat the organs in a specific order that guarantees the roach will stay alive until the larva can become a pupa and spin a cocoon inside the roach.”
Alex made a gagging gesture with a finger.
Zach was now ensconced in his airtight suit up to his neck. He held a helmet under one arm. He looked like a mix between Neil Armstrong and the Pillsbury Doughboy. “Which raises another interesting question. We love to talk about free will. But is there any such thing? Is the infected cockroach still a cockroach? When does it stop being a roach? When does it become part of the wasp?”
“Like the Hosts,” I said. “They became part of the Harvesters.”
“They did. We’re looking at good old-fashioned parasitical warfare.” He tugged on his helmet and secured the latches. It was completely clear, giving him 360-degree sight lines. He spoke into a wire microphone that floated before his chin, his voice coming through clearly. “Which is why we need to ready our defenses to kick some Hatchling ass.”
He started to shuffle out. “I gotta fix that blockage in the saline-mist line on the east wall. Be back in fifteen.”
“That’s fine, Zach,” Laura said with a grin. “It’ll give the rest of us a chance to speak.”
He flashed a thumbs-up and waddled out.
Laura turned to us. “He’s excitable,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Alex said. “We like it. Everything’s felt dead for so long, it’s nice to see someone with a spark of life in him.”
Laura fiddled with her locket. “He does have that.”
One of her colleagues called her over, and they began discussing supply inventory. That gave me, Patrick, and Alex a moment to huddle in relative privacy.
“We have to talk them into letting us use their viral vector,” I said.
“Or steal it,” Patrick said.
“Either way we’ve gotta get our hands on one of those syringes and get down to the city center.” I stared at my brother. “I’ll inject myself. You go back for JoJo and Rocky.”
“We both take it,” Patrick said. “You remember the odds for success. We both have to do it, and then Alex goes back for t
hem.”
“Do I get a vote?” Alex asked.
“No,” Patrick said at the same time I said, “Yes.”
She looked from my face to his. “You Rains are beyond impossible.”
A loud chime sounded—some kind of alert—and then Zach’s voice came in over the loudspeaker unit. “Uh, guys? I think we got a problem here.”
ENTRY 56
Laura bolted through the doorway of the cafeteria into the hall, the scientists surging after her. We grabbed our weapons and backpacks and followed them as best we could. Running through the corridors was infuriating because of their segmented nature, each sliding door needing to seal behind us before the one ahead opened.
At last we made it through and up to the comms center. Laura brought up Zach’s image on one of the giant wall monitors. He was standing by the keypad at the front door, peering into the security camera. His bearded face loomed large on the screen, cast green by the camera’s night vision.
“Hello? Are you there, Laura?”
She clicked a button. “I’m here. What’s wrong? You scared us.”
Zach said, “I have a … well, see for yourself.”
He stepped away from the camera, visible in the dawn light. His finger and thumb squeezed a fold in his suit at his thigh. Laura leaned over the console, bringing her face close to the monitor.
Then she jerked in a breath.
When she bowed her head, I saw past her to what she was looking at.
A tear in the fabric of Zach’s suit. He was pinching it closed with his gloved hand. A few loose threads waggled in the air. He stared down at them.
“Shit,” he said.
“Maybe the spores didn’t get through,” Laura said. “Maybe that’s why you haven’t been infected yet. Maybe—”
“No,” he said. “I already feel funny.” He pressed his other hand to the helmet over his forehead. “The leak in the suit—it’s tiny. And I sealed it off pretty quick. I think the spores haven’t built up a high enough concentration in my body yet. But I can feel them in there, working. It’s … interesting.”
His chest heaved a few times.
My mouth was dry. I hadn’t known Dr. Brewer long, but I liked him a lot already. The other scientists were staring through the Lucite entry room at the door beyond. He was right there on the other side.
Zach looked back at us and managed to produce a smile. “When an ant dies, the others take its body and dump it far, far away from the colony to protect the surviving members.” His breathing grew more labored. “In case it was infected.”
“No,” Laura said. “No, no, no. Zach, listen to me. You don’t know you’re infected. The spore concentration could have thinned in the air.” Her hands flew across the keyboards. She brought up a screen on another monitor showing various readings of air particulates.
“Laura, it’s okay. Let’s make this easy now.”
She stared at the readings on the screen, and her shoulders curled, as if she were folding in on herself. None of the rest of us could move.
“Hello?” Zach tapped the camera screen with his finger. “Is anyone there?”
Laura still couldn’t respond, so I stepped forward.
“Yes?” I said.
“Chance?” Zach said. “Kids?”
Patrick and Alex came forward next to me.
“The future rests in your hands.” Zach’s beard shifted, and again he showed a hint of that goofy smile. “I guess it’s always rested in the hands of kids. But you know what I mean.”
“We’ll do our best, sir,” Patrick said.
Zach stared into the lens. “Laura?”
She finally looked up. “I’m here,” she said.
Zach pulled back his shoulders, straightening his spine. “It was a pleasure working with you, Dr. Messing.”
Laura’s voice was raspy. “It was a pleasure working with you, Dr. Brewer.”
Zach gave a nod. “Good luck, doctors.”
Still pinching shut the tear in his suit, he walked over to the nearest golf cart at the edge of the parking lot and climbed on. Then he drove off.
Laura clicked the mouse, and another surveillance angle came up. We watched the golf cart motor across the parking lot. It bumped up onto a grassy slope and headed for the edge of the cliff by where the aerial tram was perched. Halfway across the lawn, Zach shuddered.
A storm of particles released inside his suit, swirling in the glass helmet, turning it into a snow globe. Then he slumped over the wheel.
The golf cart rolled forward off the cliff.
There was no crash, no noise, no nothing.
Laura took a step back from the console and sat down on the floor. Her hands lay loose in her lap.
No one knew what to say.
The scientist standing next to me sobbed a few times and then silenced. Another wandered off and sat on a chair in the corner. Alex chewed her lip. Patrick took his hat off and held it against his chest. He studied the frayed stitching along the band.
Slowly, the scientists started to head back to the lab below.
I was the only one who noticed it.
A dot of movement on the monitor.
No—make that two.
Entering the field of the wide-angle security lens, two forms rushed along the edge of the cliff. One of them carried something swinging at its side.
They passed the spot where Zach had tumbled over the brink and veered toward the building.
Toward us.
As they came closer, I blinked a few times, unsure if I could trust my eyes.
Rocky and JoJo.
“Uh, guys?” I said.
No one turned around.
“Guys!”
At that, several heads snapped to attention. I pointed at the monitor.
Alex said, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Rocky and JoJo were gesticulating at each other and pointing up various paths. They were arguing. Which seemed about right. JoJo swung Bunny’s head by the ears and whapped her brother on the crown.
They finally agreed on which way to go and ran right past our building, vanishing off the edge of the screen. A moment later they came back and stopped in the parking lot, looking around. Looking everywhere, it seemed, but at our building.
Now they sprinted off in opposite directions, neither one correct.
Alex slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.
Patrick said, “Let’s go get ’em.”
He started for the door when JoJo reappeared on the monitor. She pointed at our building and started jumping up and down and shouting. Rocky emerged from one of the trails, and they ran for us.
Now they appeared in the other screen, the one linked to the surveillance cam by the door. JoJo leaned in so close we could see up her nose. Her breath fogged the glass. I could see her hand bobbing as she punched buttons indiscriminately.
All this time Laura hadn’t stirred from her position on the floor. I stepped past her and clicked the button. “JoJo?”
“Chance? Chance! You gotta get out of here. There’s no time. They’re coming.”
“Wait. Who?”
She and Rocky jockeyed for position, and I caught a glimpse between their shoulders.
A Hatchling stood behind them at the edge of the cliff.
We watched with horror.
Another flew up over the brink, landing beside it. And then another.
They’d scaled the cliff face with their claws.
A few more came over the edge, and then we stopped counting.
A wave of orange poured over the lip, sweeping toward us.
ENTRY 57
I couldn’t figure out how to buzz the door open for JoJo and Rocky. They were screaming into the camera now, their faces mashed together as if they were trying to crawl through the lens.
I hauled Laura to her feet. “Open the door!” I shouted.
She blinked twice and then snapped back to life.
With trembling hands she keyed in a code, and the door clic
ked open. JoJo and Rocky leapt through into the decontamination room. As Rocky swung the door closed behind them, one of the Hatchlings hammered into it, knocking them both onto the floor. The door whammed shut and autolocked. Already the fans and UV lights were going, sterilizing the air around Rocky and JoJo in the Lucite-walled room.
There came a dull thud and then another, the percussion quickening as more and more Hatchlings hurled themselves against the concrete walls. A clawed hand struck the slit window, leaving an orange dab. The windows were narrow, but still wide enough that a Hatchling could wriggle through. It was only a matter of time.
“The saltwater misters!” one of the scientists cried.
Laura initiated the system, saline solution humming through the pipes. A moment later we heard screeching from outside. The other scientist called up various feeds on the monitors. The sight was horrendous—Hatchlings melting along the sides of the building or staggering away, clawing at themselves. More and more swept in toward us, trampling the wounded.
“There are too many,” Laura said. “We’ll never hold them off.”
The decontamination process finally finished with Rocky and JoJo, the glass door clicking open. JoJo spilled into my arms, terrified.
“Ben told them where you were,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Ben’s alive?”
“He was,” Rocky said. “But after he told them where you guys were, they didn’t need him anymore. The Queen, she … she fed him to the Hatchlings.”
JoJo’s voice, hushed with horror: “It was awful.”
Alex lowered her head, closed her eyes for a second. We didn’t know what to say or feel. Ben had shown his true colors again and again, but even he didn’t deserve that fate.
JoJo said, “We raced here to warn you.”
“Thank God you did,” Laura told her. “We’d have been down below. They would have caught us off guard. It would’ve been a bloodbath.”
“It still might be,” another scientist said, pointing to the monitors.
The mound of carrion at the base of the walls was growing, flesh layering on top of flesh. Each new wave of Hatchlings used the mounting pile as a foothold to jump higher toward the windows.
A melting face rose into view, smacking the pane, all black eyes and flaring nostril holes. The glass spiderwebbed. Another vaulted into brief view, soaring above the glass. We waited to see him drop.
Last Chance--A Novel Page 27