by Peter Ponzo
Chapter 15
I said, "You were stealing product information from a competitor? How did you gain access to their computer?"
"I don't know nothing," Josey groaned. "Ohshit just gave me a phone number and some passwords, said I should call after midnight and make a copy of certain files."
"But that call can be traced," I said. "If JMP finds out their files have been copied they can trace the call to Oerschott Medicals."
"No ... I called from my apartment," Josey said. "Did I do wrong?"
"Miss Josephine," Charles said, "are we to understand that you have a computer at your home, with a modem to provide telephone communications, and that you used that computer to copy these files from Jason Medical Products?"
"Yeah, that's about it."
"So if JMP traces any phone calls," I said, "they trace them back to you, Josey, and Hans is innocent of any crime. He has clean hands."
"Clean Hans," Charles said, smiling. Then he jumped to his feet, gesturing dramatically. "Computer theft, you say? You might enquire of my secretary, Miss Josephine Cowley. She has a computer at home, provided by Oerschott Medicals so that she might earn overtime wages. The calls came from her apartment, you say? Dreadful! Her absence would be a great loss to us, but if she is to go to jail for her crimes, then we must bear this burden—"
"Sit down, Charlie boy," I said.
"The bastard!" Josey was on her feet. "Ohshit! That crummy bastard!"
"This isn't getting us anywhere," I said. "I don't give a shit about Hans and his theft of JMP files. Somebody stole my files. That's our problem. My files and my salve and my mice."
"But you still got them, right?" Josey said. "I mean, they ain't gone."
"Of course I still have them. Nevertheless, somebody is privy to my research."
"Salve?" Charles said. "Mice?"
"What?" I asked.
"You said somebody stole your mice," Charles said. "I was aware of the theft of the salve, but mice?"
"Bloody right," I said. "Two vials of Dermafix liquid and one jar of salve are gone, and several of my mice."
"Then," Charles said, "somebody is performing experiments, wouldn't you say?"
"That dirty, slimy bastard," Josey moaned.
"No, Miss Josephine," Charles said, "I rather doubt that it was Mr. Oerschott. He's quite dead, you know." He turned to me. "The thefts you describe, were they the items you wished to discuss with me?"
"Not entirely," I said. "It's about some experiments that I've been working on. Curious." I got up and left the room. "I'll be back in a minute," I shouted over my shoulder. "Meet me in my study. I have something to tell you. Something remarkable."
I was in my study leafing through a notebook when they arrived a few minutes later. Josey was still swearing softly at Oerschott for having her copy files from her apartment, with her phone and her computer.
"Sit," I said. "Anywhere." Josey slid onto a short couch. Charles looked at the size of the couch, pulled a pillow from beside Josey, tossed it on the floor and sat on it. I was in my chair, by the desk. I swiveled to face them. Josey reached into her pocket and withdrew a package of cigarettes. I glared at her and she slipped the package back into her jacket.
"Recently I inflicted a small wound on a mouse—" I began.
"Oooh, lordy," Josey whined. I glared at her and she was quiet.
"I've done this dozens of times and always, the same kind of thing happens. After I apply Dermafix, a film forms over the wound, a pale and smooth cream-colored membrane. If I remove the membrane after a day or so I can see that the wound is healing. If I leave it for perhaps a week, then it either sluffs off, leaving a nearly healed wound, or turns to a kind of foam, or it remains a membrane, perhaps growing slightly in size." I looked at the back of my hand. "The scratch I got in Brazil kept its membrane for weeks before it peeled off. When it did, there was slight though clearly visible evidence of the wound."
"May I interrupt," Charles said.
"No. Wait till I get to the point. What I'm telling you is old stuff. That's what has happened in the past. What happened last night is quite different. In fact, there is quite another phenomenon which can occur, as Josey can tell you."
"Covered with foamy crap, from head to foot," Josey said.
"Yes," I continued. "Until last night I've only observed the membrane to grow and encompass the entire body, in humans, in a dog. The body of Hans von Oerschott, the other four bodies at the coroner's office, and, of course, Josey here. But never in mice. That is, not until last night."
"May I interrupt," Charles asked.
"No. I'll tell you when. Last night I removed the Dermafix skin which had formed on a mouse during the last forty-eight hours. The mouse was dead, of course, just as Hans and the others were dead."
"And it coulda got me," Josey said.
"The remarkable thing was," I said, ignoring Josey, "it wasn't the same mouse."
"I really must interrupt," Charles said.
"Go ahead." I expected Charles to be intrigued by my statement, but he changed the subject entirely.
"Miss Fleetsmith, how did you know that your files were copied?" he asked. "Miss Josephine says that a copy cannot be detected."
"Charlie! I'm describing a novel evolution of this affliction and you want to talk about copying files?" He can sometimes be exasperating." Anyway, Josey's wrong. Hans told her that, but Hans knows nothing about computers. He still uses a slide rule to add and subtract. In fact, I can request a history of all computer commands issued on my files. I did, and there they were: copy commands. Several of them."
"Well then, about the mice," Charles said. "It has already been noted that there is a kind of regeneration, under the membrane, in human bodies. There is no reason to believe that such a regeneration doesn't also occur in mice. Miss Fleetsmith, the mouse you removed from within the cocoon was a recreated mouse, with rebuilt organs and fetal characteristics which—"
"Precisely!" I was unable to contain my excitement and cried out. Then, more calmly, "Cocoon? Did you say cocoon?"
"Quite so, Miss Fleetsmith," Charles said.
"That's exactly how I feel, about this Dermafix skin. And you've come to the same conclusion? A cocoon? Really?"
"Well, to be honest," Charles said, "you mentioned the word 'cocoon' some time ago and I thought it explained a number of things. The metamorphosis, within a cocoon, of caterpillar into butterfly, for example."
"Charles! That is precisely, but exactly my understanding of the phenomenon. Under some conditions—I don't know exactly which—the juices from the miracle weed grow to form a covering for the entire body and, within that cocoon, a remarkable change takes place. The body becomes regenerated, reformed, organs rebuilt, wounds healed. A sick mouse becomes a healthy—"
"And then the bugger gets killed," Josey said.
I stopped talking and stared at Josey.
"Yes," I said slowly, "the body is renewed ... but dies." I looked at Charles and started humming. "That's the problem," I said very slowly. "Why should the body die?"
"Miss Fleetsmith," Charles said, "it would perhaps be even more remarkable if this restoration of the body took place without the cessation of life. Is it not difficult to imagine a living, breathing individual within this cocoon, who remains alive, while every cell is renovated? Is it not difficult to imagine that an individual is able to survive the reincarnation of its body?"
I grunted. "Mmm, perhaps. But the butterfly emerges from the cocoon and it's alive. Right?"
"Put the foamy crap on a caterpillar," Josey said. "Will it turn into a butterfly? Lordy, no."
We both looked at Josey for some time.
Eventually, Charles said, "Miss Fleetsmith, if you are to believe Professor Hunger, then the foam is a type of fungus. Perhaps you should approach the problem from that angle. I suggest you attend his lecture on mycology, but only after you have rested."
"Screw the rest." I strode out o
f the room, heading for the kitchen. "This calls for a Bloody Caesar."
"My sentiments, exactly," Josey said, and followed me.
Charles waited for a moment, shrugged, then followed us.