Infected

Chapter 24

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Margaret rolled the concept around in her brain, but it didn’t take hold. She was already suspicious of the growths’ incredible complexity — another theory began to take shape.

Amos pointed to the screen. “The growth either produces or causes to be produced excess neurotransmitters, which create reproducible results. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

“There are other variances as well,” Margaret said. “There was seventyfive times the normal level of enkephalins in the tissue surrounding the growth. Enkephalin is a natural painkiller.”

Amos thought for a moment. “That makes sense. It’s hard to tell with all the rot, but it looks like the growth causes a lot of damage to the

surrounding tissue. Whoever engineered the growth doesn’t want the host to feel that damage. The level of complexity is astronomical.”

“Amos, you don’t have to root for the little b.u.g.g.e.rs,” Margaret said, a dressing-down tone in her voice. “We’re here to stop these things, remember?”

He smiled. “It’s hard not to be astounded. Come here and take a look at what I’ve got under the ultraviolet microscope.”

Margaret shuffled to the device, where Amos had been working for the last thirty minutes. Her Racal suit zip-zipped with each step as if she wore children’s footed pajamas.

She peered into the microscope. The sample looked like a normal nerve cell. Amos had done a perfect job of isolating and preparing the tissue: fingerlike dendrites, stained and glowing electric-blue under the ultraviolet light, reached out and over the thicker axons. It was the same connection that provides signal communication for every animal on the planet.

“It’s an isolated cl.u.s.ter of nerve cells,” she said. “Where is this from?”

“I found it near the eighth cranial nerve. The rot is working its way through there, but I was able to find a few relatively clean areas.”

Inside the awkward biosuit, Margaret frowned. The eighth cranial nerve, or the vestibulocochlear nerve, was where signals from the ear entered the brain.

“It’s heavily damaged, shows signs of decomposition, but still obviously nerve tissue,” Margaret said.

Amos remained quiet. Margaret looked up from the microscope.

Amos leaned forward. “You’re sure?”

Margaret wasn’t in the mood for games, but she took another look anyway. She could see nothing unusual.

“Amos, if you’ve got a point to make, please make it.”

“The cells don’t belong to Martin Brewbaker.”

Margaret stared blankly, not understanding the statement. “Not Brewbaker’s? Why are you looking at other samples? If they’re not Brewbaker’s nerve cells, then whose . . .” Her voice trailed off as the significance hit home.

“Amos, are you telling me these belong to the growth?”

“I performed protein sequencing on the black thorn and the vein siphon. The results turned up some unknown proteins, definitely not

human. So I took some samples from around the body and ran the same sequence. I found high concentrations in the brain — that’s how I discovered the cl.u.s.ter on the cranial nerve. I found the protein in other places, but no more nerves, only remnants of that peculiar rot. There were high concentrations in the cerebral cortex, thalamus, amygdala, caudate nucleus, hypothalamus and septum.”

Margaret felt overwhelmed. Much of the brain’s higher functions remained a mystery, even in this day of rapidly ascending scientific knowledge. The sections of Brewbaker’s brain infected with the rot composed part of the limbic system, which was thought to control memory storage and emotional response, among other functions.

What the h.e.l.l was the growth doing in Brewbaker’s brain? It already had him controlled with the neurotransmitter overdose, didn’t it?

Amos continued. “What you’re looking at here is the only sample I’ve found that wasn’t completely decomposed. I’ve never seen proteins like this, so I a.s.sume they’re synthetic, man-made. If they’re natural, they’re nothing I’ve encountered. I’ve searched all the academic and biotech databases and found nothing similar. That means if the proteins are synthetic, someone is keeping their research well guarded, which doesn’t surprise me considering the vastly advanced technology we’re dealing with.”

She was awed. It was unthinkable that the organism’s creator had engineered a new parasite that could grow from a very small embryo, possibly even a single cell, and latch on to a human host. It was even more unthinkable that this creature produced neurotransmitters like some kind of factory, dumping them into the bloodstream. But it was numbing — yes, numbing— to comprehend the genius that had bioengineered artificial nerves so accurately that they could interact with human nerves.

“I follow the vein siphon, that makes sense,” she said. “But the siphon is just a physical attachment to draw nutrients. What good does it do the parasite to grow mimic nerves?”

“You’ve got me. But one must draw the logical conclusion that the growths tapped in to the nervous system, just as they tapped in to the circulatory system.”

“But why?” She spoke more to herself than to Amos. “The neurotransmitter overdose produces somewhat predictable, reproducible results. If the goal is to make people crazy, then why would they go through the

trouble of tapping in to the nervous system? And what’s the purpose for doing so?”

Amos shrugged. He rolled his shoulders and twisted at the waist, trying to loosen up. He walked around the table, doing mini laps, trying to shake off the fatigue.

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