Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  “Let’s hope so for your sake. There can be no leaks, nothing that can lead back to you. If there are, it would be wise to eliminate them now.”

  “That’s your job.”

  “I’m ancient history now, too, Doctor. A purveyor of information and nothing else. This crossed my desk. I thought you should know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How is your new assignment going?’

  “Well enough.”

  “I’d heard otherwise.”

  “A few setbacks, that’s all.”

  “Glad to hear it, because we’re both at the end of our lines now. Nowhere else to go. Make the best of what we’ve got.”

  “I always do.”

  “Let’s hope I don’t have to be in touch again.”

  Haslanger replaced the receiver and tried to refocus his thoughts on completing his analysis of the blindness weapon, but quickly grew distracted and decided to return to his office. He opened the door and froze. The lights inside were off, and he never, never even considered turning them off for darkness might bring on thoughts of sleep and such thoughts had to be avoided at all costs. He was fumbling for the switch when a powerful hand closed on his bony wrist at the same time a scratchy voice found his ear.

  “Hello, Father.”

  “Dr. Lyle,” General Starr, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, challenged, after Susan had finished the core of her explanation,”would you have us believe that the crisis we are confronting is nothing more than an accident, as you call it, at the hands of this boy?”

  Starr’s reaction had not surprised Susan and she was prepared for it. “I do, sir, because all indications point to that very conclusion. Joshua Wolfe was obsessed with the need to rid the world of air pollution and decided to do something about it.”

  “And what exactly did he do, Doctor?” asked Clara Benedict. “Or, should I say, where did he go wrong?”

  “By far the largest portion of pollutants to the air—car exhaust, factory smoke, even the exhaust from lawn mowers—is composed primarily of sulfates and nitrates. These sulfates and nitrates possess a sequence in which the oxygen and nitrogen forming them share a specific and close proximity.”

  “In layman’s terms, if you will, Doctor,” someone requested.

  “The sulfates and nitrates are indentifiable from the inclusion of OHN—oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen—that form their molecules. Now, if you could teach a genetically produced organism to recognize and target those proximities specific to their chains, you would be able to effectively destroy them at the molecular level.”

  “You’re saying that’s what the boy did?”

  “I’m saying that’s what he tried do do. He made a mistake.”

  “Obviously.”

  “To him, it wasn’t obvious at all. What Joshua Wolfe thought he had created was a living organism that, once released into the air, would attack and destroy the nitrogen-oxygen bond present in the air pollutants. The pollution would thus break down at the molecular level and cease to exist.”

  “Only that didn’t happen,” noted the voice from speaker number three.

  “Yes, it did, but the organism didn’t stop there.” Susan settled her thoughts, continuing to speak without benefit of notes. “Normal protein structure is a twisting mass of strands in which space is shared by a variety of atoms forming molecules at various proximities. Unfortunately, human hemoglobin contains several complex amino acids, which results in additional twisting of the protein strands, thus bringing the nitrogen and oxygen molecules closer together. To a proximity, in fact, that almost duplicates the proximity the organism was programmed to recognize in the sulfates and nitrates of air pollution.”

  “In other words,” started General Starr, “it kept on killing after its primary objective was achieved. Sounds to me like this organism liked its job a little too much.”

  “That’s probably not far from the truth. The organism would need to ingest the nitrogen to produce more of itself. The desire for self-perpetuation defines its very role and existence. So when it identified something else determined to contain its target structure, it continued to attack—to, in essence, feed: on human blood. That accounts for the condition in which the bodies were found—the drying and general loss of cohesion.”

  “And Joshua Wolfe didn’t anticipate this? As brilliant as you claim him to be, he didn’t perform preliminary experiments on lab animals, exposing them to … what did you call it?”

  “CLAIR,” Susan replied. She had been ready for that question but her voice still lost a measure of its confidence as she continued. “And according to his files, he did and everything checked out. CLAIR tested perfectly safe. But in the Cambridgeside Galleria all the pet store animals, other than the dog that had been inside the storeroom, were found in the same condition as the human remains. I wish I could explain the anomaly, but I can’t.” Susan paused briefly. “The boy planned everything out to the last detail. He had the air-quality registers perfectly placed. He somehow managed to lure physical plant personnel out of the boiler room. He knew exactly how to use the air-conditioning system to spread his organism. He watched it all on the security monitors, and when it was obvious something had gone wrong, something horrible, he ran.” She paused again. “He must still be running.”

  Silence again took over the cramped confines of the communication center as the audio participants struggled with what they had just learned.

  “Have you been able to confirm what contained the spread of the organism to the mall?” asked General Starr.

  “According to the boy’s notes, and confirmed by the survival of the dog, he was working in the area of temperature sensitivity. His organism was programmed to survive within a very narrow temperature range, rendering it inactive above, say, seventy-eight degrees. The temperature at the mall was maintained at seventy-two degrees. The dog survived because it was in a room with a temperature considerably higher than seventy-eight.”

  “We’re talking about air temperature here, are we not?” asked Clara Benedict.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “But the temperature of the human body is twenty degrees above your seventy-eight-degree window. How, then, could the organism have survived once it entered the victims?”

  “I’m not sure. Something to do with the programming the boy wasn’t expecting. Since the organism was airborne, my best guess would be a chemical reaction with the mucous membranes in the nose and mouth which caused a transformation allowing heat tolerance.”

  “Hold on,” said the voice from speaker number one. “If this transformation occurred as you have represented, why did the organism still stop at the mall doors?”

  “Most likely the transformation only affected those cells that attacked the victims initially. When the cells divided, the original programming kicked back in. My associate Dr. Killebrew is en route to our containment facility inside Mount Jackson in the Ozarks to run further tests to determine the precise pathology of the organism.”

  “Programming,” repeated General Starr, clearly intrigued by her use of the word. “You talk as if this boy was working with a computer.”

  “Because, sir, through some advanced form of genetic engineering, that’s exactly what he did. Joshua Wolfe created this organism to be task specific, only to find it performed its duties too well.”

  “Could he have purposely programmed it to kill people, Doctor?”

  “If he desired, yes, but I don’t think—”

  “What steps are we taking to recover this boy?” General Starr interrupted sharply.

  “As of this time, none. In fact, until moments ago I had shared the fact of his existence with no one.”

  “Good. I will supervise the search personally, then. I assume all other pertinent information has been forwarded to me.”

  “It has. Only …”

  “Only what, Doctor?”

  “I have reason to believe, General, that he will be heading to Key West.”

  “And what re
ason is that?”

  “Materials found in the boy’s dorm room at Harvard,” Susan lied.

  She had debated relaying McCracken’s revelations and his insistence that the boy’s Harvard file had been doctored. His admonitions to be leery of those with whom she shared information weighed heavily on her. But she didn’t feel she had a choice. Shortly after McCracken had left Joshua Wolfe’s room, the registrar, Mulgrew, had called with the inventory list she had requested from the labs at the Harvard Science Center. He read it to her over the phone. Joshua Wolfe had requisitioned two vials tailored to the specifications of the substance he called CLAIR. According to his original plans, that was how many he felt he required. But later analysis proved he only needed one, which was how many he had used in the Cambridgeside Galleria on Sunday.

  That meant there was still another vial of CLAIR left. And the only way to get it back was to find Joshua Wolfe.

  I’m not your father,” Haslanger managed, not wasting his time trying to pull from the iron grip.

  “Close enough. Now, shut the door.”

  The words emerged as if the speaker had to force them through marbles held between his teeth. They were distorted yet easily understood, emerging from a terribly distended mouth that hovered at least a foot higher than the doctor’s ears.

  “A light first, please,” Haslanger pleaded, as the shape slid away from him.

  “Of course. That is where we’re different, isn’t it? You shy from the dark while I live within it, live for it.”

  Haslanger swallowed hard and shook his head. He wondered for a moment if he had actually nodded off and was dreaming now, one of his creations come back to get him. Yet he knew this creature was the product of reality, not nightmare. Haslanger felt his breathing turn shallow, as a coldness swept down his spine in the moments before his desk lamp was switched on. Angled down, its fluorescent bulb nonetheless produced enough light to quiet his nerves. A creak sounded as the huge frame of the visitor settled into his desk chair. Haslanger’s eyes, starting to adjust to the semidarkness, made out the outline of his frame sitting there, the big chair lost to his bulk. He shut the door.

  “You’re early. I said eight o’clock.”

  “I knew you’d be returning before that. Anything that requires my services always keeps you from your work.”

  “This is a simple task, one I hoped wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Not yet … Father,” the shape said, and Haslanger cringed again at the thought. “A man like me likes to savor such moments, since they provide the rationale for my being.”

  Haslanger swallowed hard.

  “Of course, I’m not really a man at all, am I?”

  Haslanger remained silent and watched the shape of something like a hand reach for the desk lamp.

  “Answer me, Father, or I may choose to switch off the light.”

  “You are a man, and plenty more, much more.”

  “What is my name?”

  “Your name …”

  “Yes.”

  “Krill.”

  “Why?”

  No response.

  “Tell my why”—an elongated finger of bone scratched at the lamp switch—“or you lose your precious light.”

  “You couldn’t say the word.”

  “What word?”

  “Kill.”

  “Why couldn’t I say it?”

  “Your … mouth.”

  “Didn’t form properly, did it? Had me putting the r’s where they didn’t belong, so ‘kill’ came out ‘krill.’ Not as you planned. Like my eyes. They have trouble with bright light. I see better in the darkness.”

  Krill’s muffled, raspy breathing became the room’s only sound. Eyes fully adjusted to the thin light now, Haslanger could see his contours clearly and most of his features. Krill’s face was huge and elongated, supported by a massive neck banded by thick, overdeveloped strands of muscle. His skull was similarly too thick and large for the skin that coated it, leading to hollows, fissures and gaps in the cheeks, brow and both sides of the jaw. The mouth hung open, the teeth resisting all attempts to close it fully. His hair had never grown properly, covering his scalp in thin patches that looked like scabs.

  Despite the horror of the rest of Krill’s face, though, his eyes were the worst. They bulged out from sockets too small to contain them and lids that could barely close, looking like fat golf balls with black holes drilled in their center. Open as they were almost all the time, those golf-ball eyes focused incredible intensity forward. Peripherally they could extend vision to nearly 270 degrees, so they missed nothing, except when exposed to bright or sudden light.

  The shape rose slowly from the chair and hovered over it. Haslanger had to tilt his head back to see the incredible girth of the chest and shoulders, a sight he viewed with his customary awe. The arms hung low enough for Krill to rest the whole of his Popeye-like forearms across the desk blotter.

  “Now, what is it you have for me, Father?”

  ELEVEN

  Colonel Lester Fuchs arrived at Group Six early Wednesday morning while the corridors were still vacant. He closed his office door behind him and moved to the closet. Inside, hidden in a garment bag, was a uniform jacket already complete with a general’s stars. He traded it for the colonel’s jacket he wore and sat down behind his desk.

  Today was going to be a bad day, one of the worst. Today he would be called on the carpet for yesterday’s debacle. Five of the volunteers had died. Three more would be scarred horribly for life. At the very least, he expected Group Six’s scope to be dramatically reined in. At the very worst, his foes in Congress would get their way and he would be finished. The Washington forces who solidly backed Group Six’s existence could devote only so much energy to damage control before someone had to take the fall. That someone would likely be him.

  The phone on his desk rang, startling Fuchs. At so early an hour, who could possibly expect to find him in?

  “Yes?” he greeted, receiver squeezed against his ear.

  “Something’s come up,” General Starr’s voice announced. “Something that may allow us to reverse the current trend we have found ourselves mired in.”

  Fuchs went rigid and slumped in his chair, as if afraid Starr might notice his bogus general’s jacket.

  “It’s something Group Six needs to get involved in immediately,” the general continued. “Tremendous possibilities. I’m faxing you the preliminary of what we have. It should be coming through now.”

  “One moment.”

  Fuchs rose from his chair and moved for the private message center that was built into the wall at his rear. There were three separate fax machines, in addition to a quartet of secure telephone lines. His hand was waiting when the first of the pages emerged from the machine reserved for Washington correspondence. The transmission ran only three pages. Waiting for the second and third gave Fuchs time to peruse the first. His hand was trembling when he returned the receiver to his ear.

  “How confident is your information?”

  “Very, by all accounts.”

  “We need this boy.”

  “My office has taken charge of retrieval. I believe I can arrange jurisdiction appropriately.”

  “And the woman, this Dr.”—Fuchs had to look down again at page one—“Lyle. She could prove useful, given her now-expert knowledge. Can reassignment be arranged?”

  “Why not?” General Starr returned. “After all, she works for the same employer we do.”

  Erich Haslanger found the door to Colonel Fuchs’s office open when he arrived minutes later. The colonel’s summons had reached him in one of Group Six’s labs, a tone in his voice like none Haslanger had heard in recent weeks. Haslanger slipped through the door and found Fuchs seated at his desk, fingers interlaced beneath his chin, something that looked like a smile flirting across his lips. He’d never seen the man teetering so on the verge of emotion, his eyes alive with something other than desperation.

  Fuchs held the fax out across his des
k. “This just came in via Washington,” he said, fighting to restrain his exuberance. “I want your opinion.”

  Haslanger took the pages and realized Fuchs was wearing a general’s uniform. Fuchs followed his eyes to the stars and seemed not to care. Haslanger began reading. His eyes widened halfway down the first page when he came to the first mention of Joshua Wolfe. He knew the color had drained from his face and actually felt dizzy. He clutched the back of the chair set before Fuchs’s desk.

  “Well?” Fuchs prodded.

  Haslanger heard his own words as if someone else was speaking them. “This substance is effectively a containable killing machine. Theoretically the target arena could be as small as a city block, as large as the city containing it.”

  “How?”

  “If temperature sensitivity could be employed to control its spread, then so could finite cell division. It’s a fairly simple formula, figuring out how many times the cells of the organism would have to divide in order to cover a predetermined area.”

  “Of any size?”

  “With few exceptions, yes.”

  Fuchs leaned forward in his chair. “This could save us, Doctor. This is what we have been waiting for. Arrangements have been made for us to take charge of the boy’s retrieval … .”

  At that the colonel noticed the ghostly tint Haslanger’s flesh had taken on. His skin seemed to cleave more tightly to the bone, turning his gaunt face into little more than a skull. He looked as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

  “What’s wrong, Doctor?”

  “This boy …”

  “Go on.”

  Haslanger slid into the chair before the desk, strategically arranged to assure that Fuchs was on a higher plane. “There’s something you should know.”

  The fat man sitting on the bench leaned forward to better aim the bread crumbs he was tossing at the pigeons.

  “You’re not supposed to do this anymore, you know, Thurman,” he said to the man sitting next to him. “Something about the birds being diseased. Makes me wonder.”