Pandemic Page 60

Margaret had tuned the crying boy out, but he suddenly grew louder. The suit comms were on a private channel — the young sailor couldn’t hear Tim’s statement of doom, but perhaps he’d read the look on Clarence’s face.

Two options, neither of which promised success: save herself, or try to save these men? She clenched her jaw tight, and made her decision.

“Gas the cells, knock these men out,” she said. “We know the infection has mutated. One or more of these men could have the strain that makes those strange cocoons. We put them under, get samples from all of them before we administer the yeast.”

Tim shook his head. “We need to get the hell off this boat is what we need to do. We’re still clean. Can’t Secret Agent Man call in an evac for us? Let’s get out of here before some psycho kicks in the door and swings a wrench at our heads!”

She took two steps toward him. She meant to stand face-to-face, but forgot about the clear visors, which thwapped together.

“Feely, we need to see exactly what strains these men have. We’ll get tissue samples from each of them, then you divide the yeast, just like I told you to. In a day or two, you’ll have enough yeast for us to take it ourselves. We need to act now, because these men can’t wait.”

“What we need to do next is save our own asses, Margaret.”

“How about we save the world, Feely? Can you stop being a selfish little prick long enough to focus on that?”

He couldn’t hold her stare. He looked off, sniffed, then nodded his head.

“Voice command,” he said. “Feely, Tim. Activate gas in cells three, five and six.”

The men couldn’t hear him, but they knew something was up. Austin and Chappas stood. Chappas pounded on the glass, screaming to be let out. The scream didn’t last long. Colorless, odorless gas filled their tanks. Within seconds, Chappas and Nagy slumped to the floor.

Margaret looked at Austin Conroy. The boy was still crying, his cheeks puffed out, his lips pursed into a tight little pucker. He was holding his breath. Wet, pleading eyes stared at Margaret.

Tim looked away. Margaret did not.

The boy held on for almost thirty seconds, but his crying broke his lips apart and he drew in an unwanted breath. His sobs slowed, then stopped. He fell back onto his bed.

“All right,” Margaret said. “Let’s get to work.”

TIMELINES

That bitch was crazy.

Tim prepared the yeast culture for Clarence. Sure, that had to be done; it only made sense to get it to Black Manitou. Maybe someone could re-create his work from data alone, maybe not — sometimes getting that first engineered organism to produce was more art than science. He’d spent years perfecting his skills and techniques. Douchebag Cheng might fuck it up if he had to re-create from scratch, so sending him an already successful culture, yeah, that was the right thing to do.

But test the yeast that remained on a bunch of poor fuckers who were already infected, instead of just taking it themselves? Crazy. Margaret was willing to sacrifice her own safety for a shot at helping those guys. Maybe Tim had been wrong about her — maybe she and Mr. Flag Waver really did belong together, living happily ever after in the Land of Idealism & Platitudes. He sealed up the fist-sized canister for Clarence. Inside was enough living yeast to start a hundred new colonies.

That left the remainder to be divided four ways: one quarter to continue the base colony, and one quarter each for Nagy, Austin and Chappas.

Tim stopped. Why didn’t Margaret want to use some on Clark, the man who was already showing triangle growth? Clark was a lot farther gone than anyone else. Maybe she was going to drain the hydras from Edmund, put those in Clark.

He eye-tracked through his visor menu, called up the surveillance feed from Clark’s cell. One look showed it wouldn’t be long now. Six bluish triangles with inch-long sides were clearly visible under his skin, a slit near each point running toward the center.

Four days into Clark’s infection. The timeline seemed to vary slightly with every victim — every host’s body responded differently — but if the general track record held true, those triangles would hatch today. Clark’s containment cell would be home to six hatchlings, their inch-high triangular bodies supported by long, black tentacle-legs.

Then what? Someone would have to go in there, put the hatchlings into smaller cages. Those cages would be shipped to Black Manitou. Cheng’s group would study them, look for weaknesses.

And Clark? He’d just be dead.

Tim licked his lips. He had an overpowering urge to get off this ship. But if he did, what then? If the infection somehow reached the mainland, then Tim was fucked anyway. Everyone was fucked.

He looked at his yeast, the result of years of work combined with the dumb luck of Candice Walker’s bizarre immunity. His yeast secreted the killer cellulose that slipped through the gut barrier to enter directly into the bloodstream. Theoretically, anyway — Saccharomyces feely had yet to be tested.

A human trial. That’s what was needed. An uninfected human trial.

He again focused on the video feed of Clark. Tim didn’t want to end up like that, with things growing inside of him, things that would rip out of his body, tear him to pieces.

Tim eye-tracked the menus, zoomed the camera in on the triangle embedded in Clark’s right shoulder. A gnarled, nasty thing. A living, blackish-blue cancer just beneath the skin.

And then, the slits vibrated … they opened.

Three eyes, black as polished coal, seemed to stare right into the camera, seemed to look right at Tim. Alien eyes, demonic eyes, eyes filled with murder.

Chapter end