“I said no more partners, Murray.”
“You’ll follow orders.”
“Send me a partner and I’ll shoot him in the knee,” Dew said. “You know I’ll do it.”
Murray said nothing.
Dew continued, his voice halting only slightly, colored by a tiny sliver of emotion.
“Malcolm was my partner, but he’s as good as dead. The s.h.i.t I saw was crazy, Murray. People infected with this c.r.a.p aren’t human anymore. I saw that for myself, so I know what we’re up against. I know that Margaret needs something to work with, and she needs it fast. I can get that on my own. If I have to get used to someone else I can’t move like I need to. I fly solo from here on out, Murray.”
“Dew, you can’t make this personal. This is no time for stupid thoughts to cloud your judgment.”
Dew finished the second mag. He held it in his left hand, staring at it, staring at the glossy tip of the single exposed bullet.
“This isn’t revenge, Murray,” Dew said. “Don’t be a dumb-a.s.s. The a.s.shole that got Malcolm is already dead, so what can I take revenge against? I’ll just work better sans partner.”
Murray fell silent for a moment. Dew didn’t really care if Murray agreed or not — he was working alone and that was that.
“All right, Dew,” Murray said quietly. “Just remember we need a live victim more than we need another corpse.”
“Call me when you get into town.” Dew hung up. He’d lied, of course. It was personal. If you thought about it enough, everything was personal in one way or another. Sooner or later he’d find out who was making these little triangular b.u.g.g.e.rs. Malcolm was gone, and somebody was going to pay.
He popped a magazine into the .45, chambered a round, then walked to the bathroom. Holding the gun in his right hand, finger on the trigger, Dew carefully examined himself in the mirror. He wasn’t going out like that, not like Brewbaker. His skin looked fine, but small red spots seemed to fade in and out, catching the corner of his vision and then disappearing when he stared. His imagination, f.u.c.king with his head. If he contracted the infection, would he be sane long enough to know the symptoms? He didn’t need to hold on to his sanity for long — just long enough to pull the trigger.
Dew walked to the bed. He set the loose magazine on the nightstand, slid the .45 under his pillow, lay down and immediately fell into a light sleep.
He dreamed of burning houses, rotten corpses and Frank Sinatra singing “I’ve got you under my skin.”
THE FIZZLE
It felt so good to be out of the Racal suit. She couldn’t wait to take a shower, because she smelled riper than a rotten egg. She had to clean up — Murray was on his way to the hospital for an official update. At the moment, however, the shower had to wait. She read the report on the a.n.a.lysis of the strange fiber growing out of Martin Brewbaker.
“After a few hours, the fiber dissolved,” Amos said. “They still can’t figure out why. It seemed rot-free when we cut it out, but something triggered the effect.”
“But this report came before that, right? This is from the fiber itself, not from the rot?”
Amos nodded. He was also thrilled to finally be free of the suit. He looked as relieved as a teenage boy who’s just lost his virginity.
“That’s right, they were able to a.n.a.lyze it before the effect kicked in. Pure cellulose.”
“The same material that made up that triangular growth.”
“Exactly. Well, almost. The growth’s cellulose seemed to be a structure — sh.e.l.l, skeleton, elements responsible for form. Most of the growth was the cancerous cells.”
They were out of the suits because there was no more point in examining a body that was nothing but black, liquefying tissue and a strange green mold that covered half the table. They’d done all they could, as fast as they could. They hadn’t really found any answers, just more questions. One such question bothered her to no end — the cellulose.
“So the blue fiber, same material as the triangle structure, both sources composed of cellulose, a material not produced by the human body,” Margaret said. “And we think this is some kind of parasite. You have any theories on the blue fiber?”
“I think it’s a fizzle,” Amos said.
“A fizzle?”
“I think the blue fiber is part of a parasite that didn’t quite make it to the larval stage.”
“We know the stages now?”
Amos shrugged. “For lack of a better term, let’s call the triangle in the body the larval stage. Obviously, there’s a prelarval stage. The triangle is mostly cellulose, the fiber is cellulose, you do the math.”
It made sense in a way. Some cellular automata producing raw materials that were never quite used, or perhaps a mutation of the parasite that just produced cellulose and never moved to the “larval” phase, as Amos suggested.
And that word bothered her as well.
“So if there’s a larval stage,” she said, “I suppose it turns into something else in the adult phase.”
Amos clucked his tongue at her. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Margaret. Of course it does. And no, I don’t know what that is. Right now I don’t care — I want a shower before I have to face Murray Longworth.”
Maybe Amos could turn off his curiosity, but Margaret could not. Perhaps more accurately, she couldn’t turn off her fear.
If this was a larval stage, just what the h.e.l.l awaited them in the adult form?