Pandemic Page 87

“You win,” she said. She kissed him, slow and warm. Steve’s body seemed to melt. Becky’s hand held the back of his head as her tongue slid into his mouth. He felt himself grow hard instantly, knew that she felt it, too, and she didn’t move away. He heard Jeff screaming something supportive yet obscene, but Steve’s world narrowed to the kiss, to the girl.

This was the greatest night ever.

As Steve, Cooper and Jeff partied, they couldn’t know what was happening to their bodies. Jeff, in particular, couldn’t know of the microscopic, amoebalike organisms on his palms, his fingertips. He couldn’t know that on everything he touched — and everyone he touched — he left these moving vectors of disease.

A waitress picked up a gla.s.s: contact.

The bartender put his hand on the bar where Jeff had done the same only moments earlier: contact.

A drunk man b.u.mped into Jeff, then they shook hands to make sure no one was upset: contact.

Jeff made out with a woman who had put in a long day at the office and just needed to blow off some steam: contact.

That night, two dozen people would leave the bar with crawlers already burrowing under their skin, already seeking out stem cells …

… already changing them into something else.

BOOK II

CHICAGO

DAY SIX

MEN WITH GUNS

“Hey, Margo,” Perry said. “Aren’t you going to say h.e.l.lo? That’s what you’re supposed to say at this point — h.e.l.lo.”

Her mouth moved.

“h.e.l.lo, Perry.”

Perry Dawsey smiled.

The bomb screamed its war cry of descent. Margaret tried to take a step forward, but couldn’t move her foot. She looked down. What little blacktop remained atop the decades-old brick street had melted, all shiny and black, a stinking, gravel-strewn mess that trapped her like an ancient animal in a tar pit.

Hot wind whipped madly, making roofs sag and smolder. Her blue hazmat suit slowly dripped off her, running down her body to puddle along with the liquid tar.

Perry drew in a deep breath through his nose, seeming to soak up the hot wind and the fetid air. He looked around.

“This is where I caught Chelsea,” he said. “The voices stopped, but you know what? It didn’t matter. Those things were already inside of me. Nothing I did made any difference. I shouldn’t have fought them, Margo — I should have welcomed them.”

Her suit melted away, leaving her naked. Stabbing pains rippled across her skin, the hard sensation of long needles sliding into her muscles, her organs.

Perry frowned. “Margo, what’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” she said. “Bad.”

He nodded knowingly. “I think they’re moving to your brain. I know you don’t want to lose control, but it will be okay.”

The pains grew worse, driving to her bones, through her bones and into the marrow inside.

“I … I’m not infected,” she said. “The tests … I took the tests …”

Perry reached out his right hand, cupped her naked breast. His skin felt icy cold, a knife-sharp contrast to the blast furnace that roiled around them.

“The Orbital traveled across the stars,” he said. “It could rewrite our DNA. It could turn our bodies into factories that made the things it needed. Did you think it wasn’t smart enough to make changes, Margo?”

Her skin bubbled like the street’s boiling tar. She fell to her knees.

Perry stood over her, gently stroking her head. Her scalp came away in b.l.o.o.d.y, wet-hair-covered clumps that clung to his huge hand.

He squatted in front of her, put a finger under her chin, lifted it until she looked into his blue eyes. Then, he gave his finger the smallest flick — her jaw tore off, spiraled away.

Perry smiled. “Did you really think it wasn’t capable of beating your silly little test?”

A shudder brought her awake. She sat up, pulled the blankets and sheets tight around her. She was alone in the tiny bunk room.

She was on the Coronado. She was here with Tim, with Clarence, with Paulius and his SEALs.

She was safe.

Or was she?

Outside that door stood a man with a gun — a man who would murder her if her next test blinked red.

And Clarence … she couldn’t trust him. He’d worked with Cheng to keep her out of the project until it was too late, until Cheng got all the credit. Tim Feely had also helped Cheng, gone behind Margaret’s back, sabotaged her work. She had put her life on the line and the three of them — three men — had conspired to push the only woman out, to make sure she got no credit. No, not three, four, because Murray had to be part of it.

Now that breweries were kicking out millions of bottles of Feely’s yeast — and how convenient the strain was named after him and not her — did Murray even need her anymore? Maybe that man outside with the gun wouldn’t stay outside for long. Maybe he was already planning on how to put a bullet in Margaret’s brain, maybe he was …

Her thoughts trailed off. Her paranoid thoughts. Perry had been paranoid. All the infection victims had been.

Paranoia.

A sore throat.

A headache … body pains.

She had all the symptoms.

The incubation period was around forty-eight hours. Her suit had been ripped during the battle, but that was just twenty hours ago — even if she had contracted the infection, she wouldn’t be showing symptoms yet. She couldn’t be infected … could she?

No, she couldn’t, because she’d ingested Tim’s inoculant and introduced his modified yeast into her system. That should have killed the crawlers long before they could reach her brain.