The Experiment (Book 3): Infectious Thinking

by Micah B. Edwards

  "Sexy, Dan."

  "You just don't understand the ways of the bodysnatchers! Don't trivialize my people."

  Getting out of the main body actually isn't too bad. One long cut up each limb lets me slide my arms and legs out, slithering out of the skin like a molting spider. My feet pop free with a sound like pulling a shoe out of sucking mud, which is probably the grossest part of the whole process.

  After that, I'm left with the discarded husk of my Peterson costume hanging from my neck like the world's most morbid cape. I cut it free extremely gingerly, then try to pry the mask off, but with no luck. It is, obviously, skin-tight.

  Reaching around behind my head, I try to cut the mask up the back, but instead I poke myself in the neck and swear. Regina says, "Here, let me do that."

  "Careful with it. Don't stab me in the head," I say.

  "What, you mean like you're doing?" she asks. She has a point, so I shut up and let someone who can actually see what she's doing make the cut.

  Seconds later, I'm lifting the mask off and feeling air on my face for the first time today. It feels amazing. It's just one of those things you never even notice while it's there, but it's so nice when it comes back after being gone. I rub my cheeks and revel in my freshly-restored sense of touch.

  "Ah, freedom! And now, a shower."

  "No kidding," says Regina, wrinkling up her nose. "And you might want to burn those clothes."

  "Juices, I tell you. Juice stew."

  "Okay, stop talking."

  - - -

  By the time I'm cleaned up enough for human company again, Regina's already got the thumb drive hooked up and is skimming through the security tapes. I sigh heavily as I flop down on the couch next to her.

  "Do we have to do this right now? This job was boring enough to sit through the first time. Let's go get dinner first."

  "We just had lunch two hours ago."

  "Then let's go get ice cream. Or tattoos, or mugged, or whatever. Anything besides watching more tapes."

  Regina puts a finger to my lips. "No whining."

  I settle in sullenly. "I bet the guys at Facebook have face recognition software that could do this automatically."

  "Yes, probably. Do you know anyone at Facebook? Then shh."

  My tapes go by faster than Regina's, since people are only there for the beginning portion, about 15 minutes at 4x speed. That said, we're into the second hour of viewing before we finally find what we're looking for.

  "There, look!" I point excitedly at the screen, as if Regina's not seeing the same thing I am. The museum is nearly empty of patrons, but gangling toward the desk is the same broomstick man that we saw on Regina's tapes, the same one I saw at Børger. He appears to only own the one suit, too, although he's accessorized with a hat this time.

  Regina slows the tape to normal speed, and I watch as the man gets my attention, has a short conversation, then sticks his hand out for me to shake. In my head, I'm going, "Don't do it!", as if this didn't all happen months ago and I can will it to turn out differently.

  After a moment's hesitation, the me onscreen shakes the man's hand, and he turns and leaves. Behind the desk, my past self applies Purell.

  "Good instinct," I say to the TV. "Too bad it didn't work."

  "What, having powers hasn't been a walk in the park for you?" Regina asks jokingly.

  "Ha! Actually, you know what? Pull up –" I flip through the videos quickly "–this one. Here's the night I discovered I had powers. I don't know how it went down for you, but I did not have what you might call a gentle introduction."

  I've never told Regina about the first fight at the museum, where I had superstrength and apparent invulnerability, so when the museum's front door comes flying into frame, shattering the desk, she jumps. When the ape-person charges in and hurls me into the wall, she gasps out loud. And when I clobber him with the length of marble from the desk, laying him out on the floor, she turns to look at me, wide-eyed.

  "Wow, Dan. I mean – wow."

  "Yeah, I know. But wait, watch this part." I fast-forward it again until I get to the point where I'm walking around picking up chunks of the desk and stacking them in my arms.

  "See, here's where I'm testing how strong I am, and thiiiiiiis part..." I wait for a few seconds, and onscreen, suddenly my past self cringes and drops the entire load of marble and wood onto his own foot, crushing it to the floor. "Yup! That's why I had a cast on when you met me."

  Regina stares at the screen. "Wait, what happened there?"

  "Well, while I was in the middle of seeing how much I could carry, my powers wore off and I smashed my own foot. Definitely one of my more shining moments."

  Regina looks at me for a second, then breaks down into gales of laughter. I stare at her, mildly affronted.

  "Okay, it's funny, but it's not that funny."

  She waves her hands vaguely at me, gasping out words between laughs. "The whole situation! Monsters? Fine! Desk? Very dangerous."

  I'm grinning now, too. "All right, fine. Now would you pull yourself together so we can go get dinner? We proved it was the same dude in both of our cases, and I want to celebrate by eating an entire pizza."

  - - -

  On the way to the pizza place, I text Brian, who comes to join us. He and Regina are still looking over the menu when the waiter shows up, but I'm starving, and order a pizza with bacon, jalapeños and goat cheese. Brian looks at me in disgust.

  "Like one of those ingredients is edible, dude," he tells me. "Your breath is going to smell like you licked a garbage disposal."

  "They invented this new thing called a mint," I say.

  "Great, so your breath will smell like you licked a garbage disposal that someone put a mint in."

  "You seem awfully concerned about my breath for someone who's 'just a friend,'" I say, making the air quotes with my fingers.

  "I'm sitting across from you! You've got ranged halitosis."

  "I'll try to keep my Hs to a minimum, Henry Higgins."

  "You two are like an old married couple," Regina says.

  "He's the wife," Brian and I both say immediately, and Regina laughs. The waiter comes back to take their orders, and Brian orders a pizza with garlic, so I don't even know what he's talking about. And when my pizza comes, it is delicious and I regret nothing.

  I'm down to my last two slices when Brian says, "Hey dude, that's your building on TV." I turn around and crane over my shoulder, and sure enough, the local news is doing a piece on the new police station, and they're on-site with Mr. Steele. It looks like he's just talking about the work progress and projected completion date, though, which I already know, so I turn my attention back to my pizza.

  I've just stuck a slice in my mouth when Regina reaches across the table and slaps me in the shoulder. "Dan, look! Look, look, look!"

  She's pointing excitedly at the television, so I turn around again to see Evan Tanger, the guy who owns the construction company I work for, delivering some sort of speech from behind a podium. Evan Tanger, Jr, technically, but whatever. He's high enough up the ladder that I'm never going to talk to him, so it doesn't really matter if I get his whole family lineage into his name.

  I'm about to ask Regina how she even knows who this dude is, when I suddenly see what's caught her attention. There are several people in suits sharing the stage with Tanger, seated behind him. One of the suits looks shiny and well-used, bearing a strong resemblance to an undertaker's suit. And the man who's wearing it looks like a scarecrow with limbs made of lashed-together broomsticks.

  "It's the guy, the nano guy!" Regina says unnecessarily. "What's he doing there? Who is he?"

  The camera's cut back to the construction site, showing video of bulldozers clearing the land, but I've got the image of the broomstick man burned into my head. I don't know the answers to Regina's questions, obviously. But at least I've got a starting place to find out now.

  The question of "How do I talk to my boss's boss's boss?" is still not a simple one, of co
urse. But compared to the impossibly broad "Who is this guy?", it feels a lot more manageable.

  - Chapter Nine -

  I've never really thought of myself as a problem-solver. My standard technique when confronted with a problem is to wait for it to go away, which works a surprising amount of the time. Obviously that has not been the case lately, but my life in the last year has been anything but standard.

  I've also never been much of a people person. They don't bother me in any way; I just don't need them. Brian's the first friend I've had since high school. That sounds really sad, but I just didn't see the point. If I wanted socialization, I went to a bar to watch the game. Having people over seemed weird and awkward.

  So all that said, the fact that it's really bugging me that a lot of the guys at work have a negative opinion of me is particularly odd. This sort of thing should roll right off my back. It's not, though, which is why my lunch break on Monday finds me earnestly confronting a guy named Raoul who I'd just overheard talking about me.

  I'll skip through the five minutes of arguing, where I challenge him to name one actual thing I've done wrong and he just swears at me, and cut to the end.

  "Drop it before I drop you, man," says Raoul.

  "If you need to take a swing at me, go for it, but I –"

  I don't get to finish my sentence, because Raoul takes me at my word and pops his left fist out in a lightning-quick jab. I don't know if he boxes or what, but I never even see the punch coming, and it hits me right on the side of the chin, snapping my head back and to the side. I stumble back a few paces and drop to one knee. I've got a stupid urge to retaliate, but I tamp it down and instead say, "I didn't deserve that."

  Raoul's got anger burning in his eyes, but after a second, all he says is, "Maybe not." He makes no moves toward me, either to help me up or throw another punch, so I decide that that's about as good an ending as I'm going to get for right now.

  "All right, man. Good talk," I say, standing up. Raoul glowers and stays silent as I walk away.

  After lunch, Christopher and I are chatting while pouring fill. He asks, "So, is this your new thing? Some sort of lunchtime fight club?"

  I rub my jaw and say, "It's not what I'm going for, but if I have to, I guess."

  "Why do you even care? They're a bunch of meatheads. We're a bunch of meatheads. Why does their opinion even matter?"

  "I don't know – it just does. I feel like I'm fighting against the idea of 'Dan's a bad person.' I don't think I am, but if the thought's out there, one of us is wrong. And the more people that agree with me, the more likely it is that I'm the one on the right side."

  Christopher shrugs. "It's your crusade! Don't let me stop you."

  - - -

  After I punch out for the day, I knock on the foreman's office door.

  "Mr. Steele? Hey, I saw you on TV yesterday!"

  He laughs. "The piece on this place, yeah. My wife taped it."

  "Ha, that's great. Hey, so I have a question. I saw they were talking to Mr. Tanger, too. Any chance you can put me in contact with him?"

  He studies my face for a minute. "Is there a problem on the site?"

  "What? No! No, everything's fine." I rub my jaw self-consciously. "I'd come to you if there were a problem. This is a, a side project."

  "I can't give you any personal contact information for him, Dan. Best I can tell you is to look up Tanger Construction online, call his office and make an appointment."

  "Yeah, okay, thanks. I'll give it a shot."

  "You're welcome to drop my name when you call, to see if that helps. If you're doing that, though, I'd make it soon. Tanger knows my name right now because I'm heading up the community outreach project and I'm making him look good, but I wouldn't count on him remembering me for long. I've worked for this company for a long time, and every time he comes to a site, he's got a cheery smile, a big handshake, and a blank look in his eyes when I tell him it's good to see him again. He's a great man, though, and he'll help you if he can."

  Regina's waiting for me when I leave Steele's office. "Afternoon! Nice bruise. Clumsiness, or stupidity?"

  "Shoot, is it that obvious? No wonder Mr. Steele asked if anything was wrong on-site. Whatever, it'll fade." I climb into the car, poking at my phone.

  "What's up?" Regina asks, starting the car.

  "I'm calling Tanger's office to make an appointment. Hang on, it's ringing."

  A female voice answers the phone. "Tanger Construction, how may I direct your call?"

  "Uh, hi. I'm calling to speak to Mr. Tanger, or to make an appointment with him, I guess."

  "What is this regarding?"

  "A – story? I'm a, um, freelancer working on a piece about the new police station. Mr. Steele, the foreman on the building site, suggested I call."

  "Hm." I hear a keyboard clicking in the background. "Are you available today? I can give you a fifteen minute appointment at 4 PM."

  "Yeah, that'd be great!"

  "Okay, and your name, please?"

  "I'm Dan Everton."

  The phone goes completely silent. I look to make sure it hasn't dropped the call, then put it back to my ear. "Hello?"

  In a flat, unfriendly voice, the secretary says, "I'm sorry, I must have made a mistake. Mr. Tanger will not be available today. Thank you for calling."

  "Wait, don't hang up! Is he free tomorrow?"

  "I'm sorry. Mr. Tanger is unavailable to meet with you for your article."

  "What, at all?"

  "Thank you for calling." And with that, she hangs up on me. I make a face at my phone.

  "Well, that was weird."

  "What's up?" Regina asks again.

  "She told me that I could talk to Tanger at 4, but then took it back once I told her who I was."

  "Huh. You want me to try to get in to talk to him, then?"

  "No, you know what? We know he's there. Let's just go in person and see if we can catch him in the hall, or talk our way in or something."

  Regina shrugs. "All right, what's the address?"

  An unremarkable drive later, we're in the elevator of a relatively new office building downtown, riding it up to the Tanger offices on the top floor. Regina seems uncomfortable, shifting uneasily from foot to foot as we ascend.

  "You all right?" I ask.

  "I – no. Something feels wrong around here. It feels – untrustworthy, maybe?"

  It's not the word I would have picked, but she's not wrong; something is definitely off around here. I think I would have gone with "oppressive." It's a nice building, clean and modern, but it looms with an aura I'd associate with age and decrepitude. I feel an almost physical burden from it, a sense of disapproval.

  The elevator dings, and I push aside my horror-movie sensibilities to be dealt with later. Regina and I step out into a lobby with a security guard, who nods at us briefly before returning his gaze to his book, phone, or whatever's behind his desk. I pull open a glass door leading to a reception area with a couple of men in suits waiting in it, and the secretary at the desk inside looks up.

  "Yes, can I help you?"

  On the way up, I've come up with a fake name and a new story, so I smile and say, "Yes, hello. I'm –"

  Her smile fades the instant I open my mouth, and she cuts me off angrily. "I recognize your voice. We spoke on the phone earlier. You're Dan Everton."

  As if my name is a magic word, I see the security guard outside stand up from his desk and begin advancing on me. The secretary looks ready to spit nails, and even the gentlemen in the suits stare at me.

  "You're Dan Everton?" one says. "I've heard about you. You're filth." The other man nods.

  "Whoa, what?" I say, turning to him, but the security guard is at me and taking my arm in a non-too-gentle grip.

  "You need to leave now," he says.

  "That guy just called me filth! I've never even met him!"

  "Maybe you should take a hint and leave," the guard says, walking me to the elevator. "We don't need your kind around here."


  He shoves me in, pressing the button for the ground floor. As Regina joins me, the guard says to her, "You shouldn't be hanging around people like this. He's bad news."

  Regina looks shocked, and says nothing as the doors close.

  "Wow, so," I say as the elevator lowers us back to ground floor. "That was a bust."

  Regina says quietly, "No. I know that feeling."

  "Of being kicked out of an office?"

  "Of hating you." She looks me directly in the eyes and says, with increasing vigor and disdain, "Rot. Canker. Festering blight!"

  She pauses, then adds, with quiet viciousness, "Filth."

  The elevator dings and opens its doors on the bottom floor, but I'm too stunned to move.

  The last time I heard words like that from Regina, she was attempting to murder me in the shattered halls of a museum. Since she's currently between me and the only exit from the tiny room we're in, I think I can be forgiven for freezing up for a moment.

  This time, though, Regina just shakes her head and says, "I can feel it trying to crawl back in. It's different this time. I know it's not true. You're not like that. Not this stain, this blight."

  Regina sounds like she's trying to convince herself, which is not entirely reassuring. I lead her out of the building and back toward the car, on the theory that maybe fresh air will help. It helps me, at least; the oppressive feeling of the building lifts somewhat once we're outside, though it doesn't fade entirely until we're in the car and driving away.

  After a few minutes of silence, Regina shakes her head again and takes a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. "Wow, that was unpleasant."

  "Yeah, you're telling me," I say. I'm pretty sure I've got bruises on my bicep from where the security guard took hold of my arm. "What was going on in there?"

  "Definitely something related to the nanos. Nothing else could create that feeling. I'd know it anywhere. Ugh, I feel greasy just remembering it."

  "Well, that's sort of a good sign though, right? We went there to find out about the broomstick man, since we saw him with Mr. Tanger, and now we've found that the building is associated with the nanos. So we're on the right track, maybe even more than we expected. He might have a base of operations in the building!"