Contagious Page 109

“No. We’ll watch Sanchez carefully, but get him on it right now.”

“But Margaret, he—”

“That’s a f.u.c.king order, Dan,” Margaret said. “Now start the G.o.dd.a.m.n drip.”

Dan looked at her for a second, then snapped a smart salute and walked out of the autopsy room.

Were his little feelings hurt? Margaret didn’t care. She finally had a potential weapon, and she was going to use it.

MOVEMENT

Margaret sat down at the computer desk, utterly relieved to finally be out of the hazmat suit she’d worn for fifteen hours straight. She typed commands to call up the new Sanchez samples.

What was that smell? Had someone left food in here? She looked under the desktop, then under the chair before she realized what it was.

The smell was her.

d.a.m.n, she needed a shower something fierce. Nothing she could do about that now, though.

She looked at the readout. The latrunculin was working—Sanchez’s crawler counts had fallen. The chemical’s side effects were taking their toll, but he wasn’t in any serious danger. Not yet. She called up a feed from one of the latest samples. It showed three crawlers, still motionless, just as they had been since Murray’s people shot down the satellite. As she watched, one of the crawlers slowly dissolved into little bits, courtesy of the latrunculin.

The second crawler started to disintegrate. Margaret had never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life.

And then . . .

. . . then the last crawler twitched.

She stared, wondering if she’d imagined it, hoping she had. It twitched again, kept twitching. It reached out, looking for something to grab. A dendrite arm locked onto the surrounding muscle tissue and pulled.

The crawler was crawling again.

The intercom buzzed.

“Margaret, you there?” Dan’s voice, urgent.

“I’m here.”

“Something’s up,” he said. “I’m looking at the side-by-side samples. Everything that wasn’t already dead is moving again. They just woke up, all of them.”

THE REBOOT

So many thoughts. So many voices. No organization. No cohesion. Did she know what that word meant? Yes, she did.

Chelsea blinked and opened her eyes. Slivers of early-morning light poured through cracks in the roof and the boarded-up windows. She felt sleepy. She felt sad.

Her special friend was gone.

She needed Chauncey’s wisdom, needed to know what G.o.d wanted her to do. She sensed the minds of the soldiers, the hatchlings, the converted. They were all very still. Random thoughts . . . they were dreaming. No one there to tie them all together.

That’s what Chauncey had provided. He’d made them one.

A sneaking suspicion grew in her mind. What if she could connect everyone? She could replace Chauncey.

He had been G.o.d, but he was gone.

Now Chelsea was G.o.d.

She sensed all the soldiers, Mommy, Mr. Burkle, the Postman, General Ogden . . . she sensed the two hatchlings back in g.a.y.l.o.r.d . . . and she sensed one more voice, a new voice, very faint, very weak, but also very close.

The two hatchlings in g.a.y.l.o.r.d remained prisoners.

Prisoners of the boogeyman.

Chauncey had told her to leave the boogeyman alone. Chauncey had blocked her, but Chauncey wasn’t around anymore.

And besides, no one could tell Chelsea what to do. She wasn’t afraid of the boogeyman. G.o.d shouldn’t be afraid of anyone.

Could she block the boogeyman, like Chauncey had done? Maybe, but it would take time to learn how, to experiment. If she couldn’t block him fast enough, the boogeyman would come for her.

Unless she got to him first.

She summoned General Ogden. It was time to put the pieces in place for his contingency plan, just in case the boogeyman escaped.

PERRY HEARS AGAIN

I’m going to kill you.

It started as a mental tickle, or maybe a ringing. Something faint. At first he wished it away. He just wanted to sleep.

You will scream . . . and scream . . .

The ringing grew louder. He heard a voice but couldn’t register it. What he could register was a serious hangover. Holy G.o.d, did his head hurt.

. . . and scream.

Perry sat up and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. The movement produced a metallic sound. The bed felt wobbly. Both hands held his head as he looked around. He wasn’t in a bed. He was on an autopsy trolley in the examination room. Someone’s idea of humor? Well, yeah, that was kind of funny.

The mental tickle grew. With a sinking sensation, he recognized the feeling.

Chelsea.

Are you afraid?

She’d grown stronger. His breath came in short gasps. He was afraid.

I’m gonna get you, boogeyman. Maybe I’ll make you shoot yourself . . .

f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k-f.u.c.k-f.u.c.k.

Perry’s hand shot to his waist, to the holster. The .45 was there. His hand gripped the cool handle. He didn’t draw it, just held it.

Soon, boogeyman . . .

He hadn’t experienced her this clearly before. The intensity shocked him. It felt as if her every little emotion was the most important thing that could possibly happen. And yet behind the intensity lay a curious blankness, the feeling that she wasn’t good, or evil.

Chelsea didn’t know what good and evil were.

She would do whatever she wanted, without remorse, without conscience.

Soooooon . . .

Perry had to find her. Find her and help her.

He jumped off the trolley and ran to find Dew.

CRAVING MCDONALD’S

Private Alan Roark parked the Hummer on the shoulder of North Chrysler Drive. He hopped out. So did Private Peter Braat, who carried the map. They both walked to the back b.u.mper and looked at the ma.s.sive overpa.s.s.

“f.u.c.k,” Peter said. “That’s a lot of road.”

Alan nodded. It was a lot of road.