The light flashed red.
It works, Margaret said. Clarence, the test works.
Fantastic, he said. Ill let Murray know immediately. He can rush the testers into production. Great job, Margaret. That finally gives us what we need.
Thank you, Margaret said. She had grown rather fond of Clarences voice in her ear as she worked. He stayed in the computer control room, managing any requests she had, listening in to her and Amos theorizing as they cut up infected bodies.
Gitsh tapped her on the shoulder. The samples up on the screen, Margo.
She turned to look at the large flat-panel monitor mounted on the wall. She hadnt designed the trailer, but the monitor was her idea. Looking into microscopes was kind of annoyingrouting them to a big plasma screen let everyone see what was going on.
The screen showed what she expectedthe red, pink and white of highly magnified flesh and blood vessels, along with the gray of decomposing matter and the black of cells that were already long since destroyed by the apoptosis chain reaction. Only about 25 percent decomposed: the best sample shed had yet. Even so, she didnt have long.
Okay, boys, Margaret said, turning back to the table. We need to work quickly.
Anthony used scissors to cut away the boys yellow pajama bottoms and the T-shirt, leaving his bent body naked on the table.
Caucasian male, approximately six years old, Margaret said. Severed spinal column, ma.s.sive blunt-force trauma.
Even before cutting into him, she could see that the boys internal organs were smashed to h.e.l.l.
One triangle on the stomach, Margaret said. Heavily damaged, lowest priority. One on the front upper-right thigh. Intact. Highest priority. Turn him over, please.
The a.s.sistants flipped the little corpse. Now his broken body angled to Margarets left instead of to her right.
One on the lower back, just above the eighth thoracic. Completely destroyed. Lowest priority. No other triangles visible on the body. Flip him back and lets give him the injection series. Maximum dosage. Ill take the right thigh.
They gently put the corpse on its broken back again. Marcus laid out six large syringes, each with a long needle sheathed in hard plastic. Margaret carefully unsheathed the first syringe and went to work in the area around the triangle.
As soon as the triangles died, they caused a chain reaction of apoptosis. Apoptosis is a normal part of human health: sometimes cells outlive their usefulness and become a drag on the body, so they self-destruct. The triangles did something to that chemical code, however, turned it into a cascading event that dissolved all the tissue of an adult male in less than two days.
Margaret had tackled that problem in working to save Perrys life. Shed performed immediate surgery on him to remove any trace of the dead triangles rotting inside his body. That hadnt stopped the apoptosis, but it slowed it, giving her enough time to find a solution.
Apoptosis is driven by proteins called caspases, also known as the executioner proteins. Caspases exist in every cell in an inactive form, but when cells are damaged or old, the caspases activate and kill the cell. In a normal person, other proteins known as inhibitor of apoptosis proteins, or IAPs, shut down the process as soon as the intended cell dies. The triangles corrupted this normal process by neutralizing the IAPs suppressive abilities, allowing the caspases to spread the deadly chain reaction to surrounding cells, which then released their caspases, which then destroyed more cells, and so on.
Shed fought this process by testing multiple drugs that inhibited caspases. The magic formula turned out to be a trial drug called WDE-4-11, which successfully shut down the apoptosis chain reaction. That saved human tissue, although the triangle corpses still decomposed within hours.
That meant she could operate on a live hosts, remove the triangles, then use WDE-4-11 to stop the apoptosis. Despite Perrys naive, violent beliefs, she could save them. When she did, however, saving the tissue was only one stepshe also had to deal with the mental effects. For that she had a battery of mood-controlling drugs at her disposal, including drugs that had tackled the chemical imbalances in Perrys brain and returned him to a semblance of sanity.
Or so shed thought at the time.
She focused her attention on cutting the triangle free from the dead boys leg. The human tissue would keep, but the triangle would be black ooze in only a few hours, and she needed to move fast.
MEAN DRUNK
Dew parked the Lincoln in front of Perrys motel room. Fluffy snowflake cl.u.s.ters had replaced the rain and hail. As the saying went, if you dont like the weather in Wisconsin, just wait ten minutes. Dew had heard the same kinds of jokes about Michigan, Ohio and Indianaand they were all true.
Perry sat in the pa.s.senger seat. Hed pa.s.sed out with a beer in his left hand, his right still wrapped around a tattered six-pack that had only two bottles left. Dew didnt want to act as a chauffeur for this psycho piece of s.h.i.t, but he wasnt about to put someone else at risk.
Wake up, Dew said.
Perry didnt move.
Dew put the Lincoln in reverse, backed up about five feet, put it in gear, then gunned it and jammed on the brakes. Perrys big body lurched forward against the seat belt.
His head snapped up, and he blinked in confusion.
Home sweet home, Dew said.
Perry turned and looked at him with drunken eyes. Thanks, Pops, he said.
Dew said nothing. Perry stared and smiled for a few more seconds, seeming to wait for a response. He didnt get one. When he got out, the Lincoln rose up at least six inches. G.o.dd.a.m.n, but that kid was big.
Dew shut off the car and got out. His room was right next to Dawseys. Just like always.