by Kate Danley
He rolled over to nudge his wife. It was her turn to get up. But she was already out of bed. In fact, she was quietly getting dressed. Carl felt a sudden flare of panic. She was leaving him. She’d been threatening to go for weeks, and here she was, sneaking out as he slept.
“Wendy?” He hated the plaintive sound of his voice and tried to sound more stern. “What’s going on?”
Wendy turned to her husband with a placid smile. Her eyes seemed almost to radiate warmth. She placed a hand on his arm. “Come with me,” she said.
At her touch, Carl felt all his worries—about his marriage, their finances, the incredible privilege/burden of raising a child—fade away. He wasn’t responsible for any of that anymore. What a blessed relief.
He pulled on a T-shirt over his boxers and followed Wendy out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door. In the empty house, Aidan continued to wail.
# # #
Dallas
It was quiet in Brett Archer’s hospital room, other than the soft, steady beep of the heart monitor. Brett lay still. He’d been in a coma for weeks, ever since his sister, Tanis, had nearly beaten him to death with a claw hammer. To be fair, he’d been trying to dismember her with a chain saw at the time.
The night-duty nurse came through on her rounds. She checked his IV and his vital signs. No change. The light from the dromon shone in and surrounded Brett, unseen by the nurse. His eyes opened, infused with a golden glow. He sat up.
The nurse gasped and took a stumbling step back. Brett smiled at her. “It’s all right,” he said as his hand closed around her wrist.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I-90 East, Washington State
“That’s weird,” said Tanis, looking down at her phone.
“You’ll have to narrow it down for me,” Matt said.
They were dealing with a self-powered ancient ship, undead Byzantine lords with glowing eyes, and a virus that turned people into homicidal zombies. Everything was weird.
The two of them were on their way to Moses Lake, Washington, to meet up with Dr. Mendelsohn and find out what he’d learned about the virus. They’d left Wilson, Carrie, and Lowell at the dock in Seattle to keep an eye on the dromon, in case it sent out any more bursts of light or started moving again. Heather had returned to her office at Seattle Northwest University to analyze the information she had collected on the dromon expedition.
As Matt drove, Tanis had used her new phone to check the recent posts in online groups about the paranormal, supernatural, and bizarre. Since she’d started blogging about her visions of people with decomposing faces, she’d been embraced by what she would once have dismissed as the lunatic fringe. Among the online discussions of UFO sightings and government conspiracies, Tanis sometimes found useful information about the real evil in the world. There had been plenty of posts about the recent rash of murders, people killing their loved ones in order to “save them.” That’s exactly what Brett had said after he slaughtered their mother, leaving her body in pieces.
Thankfully, there were no new reports of similar murders. But another strange killing caught her attention. A private on a military base in Utah had suddenly left his post and started to walk off the base in the middle of the night. The soldier at the gate told him to stop. He didn’t. When the soldier threatened to shoot, the private shot him instead. He never even broke his stride. Two MPs promptly grabbed the guy, but instead of arresting him, they left the base with him instead. Tanis found it especially interesting that this had happened at 1:47 a.m. PST, right after the dromon had sent out that weird light.
As she searched, more stories appeared about people suddenly walking away from their lives with no explanation. A waitress at an all-night diner had left in the middle of taking an order. An entire rave party had abruptly left the club, leaving their stash of ecstasy behind.
Even creepier was a video posted by a teenager in West Virginia, an unsteady camera-phone view of the family next door leaving their suburban home just before five a.m. local time. Dad wore sweatpants, Mom was in her nightgown, and the three little boys sported pajamas with various Disney characters. All were barefoot. They came out the front door and headed for the sensible minivan in the driveway. They didn’t look scared or excited, just…blank. When the owner of the camera phone shouted to them, only Dad even glanced up. He said nothing, just got into the car with his family and drove away. Clearly, these people were victims of a government mind-control experiment, stated blogger TruConspiracy99. Tanis suspected something worse.
She related this to Matt. “The signal from the dromon must have been pretty fucking strong. It’s affecting people all over the country.”
“But only some people. Why them?” he wondered. “And where are they all going?”
Tanis scrolled back through the posts. “Nobody’s been following any of them to find out,” she said. The lunatic fringe had let her down.
She sat back, frustrated. She’d been glad to do something useful, finding these stories and connecting them to the dromon. But it turned out to be one more mystery to solve. As if they didn’t have enough already.
The sun was beginning to rise when they reached Moses Lake. Matt pulled up to a generic office park. Three boxy buildings faced an open parking lot. This early on a Saturday morning, the offices and the lot were empty. Matt parked the SUV in front of a light-blue building. As he and Tanis stepped out of the car, a familiar voice called, “Hey! Look who’s still breathing.”
A man-shaped section of the wall stepped forward. The blue faded into Jake’s normal skin tone as he approached Matt and gave him a hug. He turned to Tanis and hugged her as well. “Glad you made it.”
The hug caught her off guard, and not just because she was suddenly in the arms of a hot, naked man. She and Jake weren’t exactly best buds. They’d never had an actual conversation that she could recall.
But she supposed that fighting the forces of evil together created its own kind of bond. She hugged him back.
“It’s been quiet so far,” Jake told them. They knew that university operatives would find them here eventually. To study the virus they’d stolen, and then to modify it, Dr. Mendelsohn needed certain equipment. Of course, searching every lab that used this equipment would take time. The plan was to work fast and get out before the operatives got around to this one. And before the rightful owners of the lab showed up on Monday morning. Technically, it was the property of BioGen Industries. The facility was closed for the weekend, but a former colleague of Dr. Mendelsohn’s who worked for BioGen had slipped him the access code.
Jake grabbed a pair of shorts he’d stashed behind a box hedge and put them on. He led them into the building and down a hallway lined with security doors, each with an accompanying keypad. Jake stopped at one and entered a code. There was a brief tone and a click as the lock released.
Matt and Tanis went in and Jake returned to guard duty. Tanis didn’t know what she’d expected a genetics lab to look like, but nothing this swanky. Polished stainless steel covered the counters and a long table in the middle of the room. There were several workstations stocked with microscopes, centrifuges and other equipment Tanis couldn’t identify. Genetic engineering wasn’t really her thing. The room was open and airy, with a high ceiling and a large window that let in the morning light. There was even a break area with a gleaming coffee machine.
Dr. Mendelsohn had been working for nearly twenty-four hours without a break, with the occasional boost of energy from Amelia. She helped him when she could and kept an eye on their prisoner. Mildred was secured with zip ties to one of the chairs in the break area. Her face was smeared with mascara. She’d been crying.
On the drive to Moses Lake, Mildred had thanked the Mendelsohns profusely for rescuing her from Dr. Dorcott, who had been forcing her to assist. She would be more than happy to help Dr. Mendelsohn with his work. She’d been friendly with one of the guys who was developing Virus X, and he’d talked to her about it.
“Don’
t call it that,” said Amelia. She was disgusted by Mildred’s craven efforts to win their sympathies. At the university lab, this woman had seemed perfectly willing to assist Dr. Dorcott as she flayed Amelia’s arm, never looking their victim in the eye or responding to her pleas.
When they reached the lab, Jake stayed at the front of the building to keep watch. He stripped off his clothes and seemed to vanish against the side of the light-blue wall.
Mildred gasped. “You’re one of them.”
“Yeah, I’m a freak,” said the wall. “You want to peel off my skin, too?”
When they got inside, Mendelsohn asked Mildred what she had learned about the virus from her friend.
“He said it was a chimera, made from the common cold, a strain of rabies, some weird tropical disease, and…” She tried to remember the exact phrase. “Irradiated glycoproteins.”
She smiled proudly. He nodded. “Interesting. What else?”
“Um…” Mildred wracked her memory. “He said it was going to make them a fortune.”
She’d clearly exhausted her supply of insider information. Amelia put an encouraging hand on hers. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
“That’s all I remember,” the younger woman assured her. “I wish I could tell you more.”
Amelia nodded and asked, “Do you know why Dr. Dorcott wanted to study me?”
Mildred looked uncomfortable, not wanting to linger on that unfortunate episode. “Because of your special abilities.” She glanced at Dr. Mendelsohn, who could pass for thirty. “She said you have the gift of rejuvenation.”
Amelia tightened her grip on the woman’s hand ever so slightly. “Did she tell you it works the other way as well? That I can drain a person’s vitality?”
This was a lie. At least, she thought it was. It had never occurred to her to try. But Mildred fairly leapt back, trying to yank her hand away. Amelia held on to it.
“Please,” Mildred begged. “That’s all I know.”
“I don’t believe you,” Amelia said calmly. She watched the tears welling up in the other woman’s eyes with a bitter satisfaction that she knew was petty and cruel. But it felt good nonetheless. “Where else are these vivisections going on?”
“I don’t…” The former nurse started to protest, then burst out, “Wait! Dr. Dorcott said something one time, about the Sioux Falls facility. But I didn’t hear anything else. I swear…”
She dissolved into sobs. It was enough for Amelia. She’d pass along the tip to Matt. He might be able to use it to plan a future rescue. She released Mildred’s hand and turned to see Vincent looking at her with a combination of admiration and shock. He still had things to learn about his wife.
They found some plastic zip ties and used them to bind Mildred’s wrists to the back of a chair. She might actually be a capable lab assistant, but Mendelsohn thought it equally likely that she’d steal the virus and sell it to the highest bidder.
Amelia helped him prepare the viral DNA samples for amplification and sequencing. The state-of-the art machines in the lab would make fairly quick work of it. When Matt and Tanis arrived, he stated confidently that they’d have a complete genome by this time tomorrow.
“Then the real work begins,” he told them. “Identifying which gene sequences control which functions.”
“How long will that take?” asked Matt.
Mendelsohn considered. “It’s difficult to say. Once I find an effective viral vector, I should be able to isolate segments of the host DNA…”
Tanis felt her attention drifting, as it always did in those endless community college classes. She felt guilty about it every time. She’d been lectured about her lack of focus by her teachers, and her mother, on a regular basis.
“Could I please have some water?” It was the nurse. Tanis filled a paper cup with tap water and held it for Mildred to drink.
“Thank you.” She finished her water in a few sips, then looked up at Tanis miserably. “I just needed a job, you know? I was broke. And working in a university lab sounded really interesting.”
Tanis didn’t answer. She’d been broke and unemployed more times than she cared to remember. And had made an ill-advised decision or two as a result.
“It was, at first. Dr. Dorcott said we were exploring the next stage of human evolution, which was pretty cool, right? Most of the procedures were pretty harmless. And when they started to get more…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “She was my boss. I needed the money. What was I supposed to do?”
Any shred of empathy vanished. Tanis had plenty of ideas about what Mildred was supposed to do with herself. Then she remembered what Brett had advised when she was gearing up to vent her wrath on some asshole.
The guy won’t hear a word you say, he’d told her, and you’ll look like the asshole.
Tanis had usually gone ahead anyway, but this time she would actually listen to her brother. She walked away from Mildred without a word. Brett would be so proud. When he was all recovered and back to normal, she planned to tell him about it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Moses Lake, Washington
Jake struggled to stay awake and alert as he leaned against the wall. He took the occasional walk around the perimeter of the building, but as soon as he stopped moving, his brain seemed to shut down. None of them had slept much in the past couple of days. Whatever was going on with that Byzantine ship was bad, very bad, and Jake suspected they hadn’t seen the worst of it yet.
Then he saw a middle-aged couple walking up the road, towards the office park. He might think they were out for an early morning stroll, except that the man was in his pajamas and the woman wore a terry-cloth robe. They turned in to the parking lot. As the couple got closer, Jake wondered if they were stoned. Their faces seemed oddly blank. They went to the far corner of the lot and stopped. Then they just stood there, not talking to each other, perfectly still. They seemed to be waiting. But for what? Yoga class? Bird-watching club? They had no weapons, and Jake didn’t think they were university assassins, so they weren’t exactly a threat. For now, he’d stay hidden and keep watching.
# # #
Tanis roamed restlessly, steering clear of Mildred, as Matt and the scientist talked. She knew this virus was important, but she wanted to do something. She didn’t belong in a damn laboratory. She should be outside with Jake, guarding the place. Maybe having an actual conversation.
“The problem,” Mendelsohn was saying, “comes in identifying which gene sequence controls which function. I’ll remove one short sequence at a time, infect subjects with the altered virus, and see how it affects them differently. Of course, finding willing subjects for a project like this poses its own challenges—”
“You have willing subjects,” Matt told him.
The man almost laughed. “You mean two people who have returned from the dead and a human chameleon? Hardly a representative sample.”
Amelia touched his arm soothingly. He smiled at her and continued. “Assuming I can find appropriate test subjects, it should be fairly easy to tell when I’ve removed the genes for violent behavior. The virus simply won’t have that effect.”
Tanis didn’t see the problem yet. Then Mildred, of all people, spoke up. They had more or less forgotten about her, but she’d been listening to every word. Having failed to ingratiate herself with the group, she now seemed pleased by their dilemma. “Good luck testing immunity, though.”
Mendelsohn glared. Amelia took a step towards her and Mildred shut up.
Matt was confused. Genetic engineering wasn’t really his thing, either. “But we already know it creates immunity. What would you be testing?”
“Genes are interconnected,” the virologist explained. “Changing one sequence can affect others. Removing the genes that cause violent behavior could compromise or even eliminate the protective effect.”
Tanis saw the problem. “And the only way to test that is a handshake from the Dark Man.”
Mendelsohn turned to Matt. �
�Unless you know of an analog with a similar effect that I could use in the lab…”
Matt shook his head.
Great, thought Tanis, so this has been one big waste of time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Moses Lake, Washington
A young man in sweats sauntered across the parking lot and approached the middle-aged couple. They didn’t exchange hellos or even friendly nods. He simply took his place next to them and joined the exciting activity of standing around.
Jake didn’t like it. This guy didn’t appear to have a weapon, either, but the little group tripped his inner alarm just the same. He decided it was time to have a conversation, even if that meant making himself visible. He stepped away from the wall and retrieved the shorts. He’d hidden a hunting knife under the bushes as well, and he picked that up. He held it along the inside of his arm, where it would be less obvious to the casual observer.
The trio watched him approach with no apparent alarm. Or much interest, for that matter. As he moved across the lot, Jake could now see between the buildings, to a service road that ran behind the office park. A teenage girl was walking along that road, heading towards the lab where Dr. Mendelsohn was working.
This triggered more alarms. Jake camouflaged himself again and edged along the wall to keep her in sight. When she disappeared behind the building, he followed. Then he stopped cold.
A dozen people had quietly gathered here while Jake was watching the people in the parking lot. They stood in an orderly formation, four across and three deep. They were so still, they looked almost fake, like puppets waiting to be animated. These puppets were armed. Each of them held a makeshift weapon they might have brought from home: garden shears, a kitchen knife, a handsaw.
An attractive black woman in a business suit stood in front of the group, like a drill sergeant evaluating her troops. Her eyes were a warm golden color that seemed almost to glow. She turned and looked at Jake, right through the camouflage. He wondered if she’d been watching him all morning, maybe even sent those decoys into the parking lot to distract him from the larger group.
