Michael Palmer - Oath of Office

Come on, Welcome.… Focus, dammit, Focus.

After two futile attempts, Lou hooked the keys, but deflated an instant later when the grip he had secured failed to hold.

Lou inhaled deeply. He needed to slow his heart in order to steady his hands.

Just imagine you’re sewing up a squirming little kid … don’t get flustered … just another routine procedure.

One more try, and he was going to give up and bolt. Whether he loathed them or not, he wished he had gone for the gun.

The pulsating alarm was unnerving. There was no way to tell precisely where the intruder was or how many of them were out there. He began considering going for an ambush-hiding behind the door onto the catwalk and using the extension pole as Edwin had used it. The necessity to make that decision never came. One more deep breath, and he hooked the keys. He hoisted them up, thought a second about going for Stone’s gun, but decided against it.

Looking over his shoulder, he limped across the catwalk, then disappeared into the radiation room. Whoever was about to enter the termite lair was in for a hell of a surprise.

As the steel door closed behind him, Lou thought he heard the door open at the far end of the catwalk. He slid a dead bolt into place and finally allowed himself to exhale. He had to get out and get out soon, but there had to be confusion on the other side of the door, so he probably had a bit of time to compose himself.

The radiation room was bathed in red light. Lou’s eyes were immediately drawn to what looked like a holding tank. It was a massive glass-fronted structure, five feet high and four or five feet deep, occupying most of one wall. Inside the tank were thousands upon thousands of termites, almost certainly, Lou guessed, Macrotermes. A long plastic tube rose up five feet from the center of the tank, made a ninety-degree right angle bend, paralleled the floor for fifteen feet or so, and then dropped down into a plastic box the size of a small refrigerator. The box rested on top of a conveyor belt, which would, Lou observed, carry the contents inside a piece of machinery that looked like the X-ray machines found at airport security points.

The purpose of the setup was apparent. A vacuum would suck the termites into the tube, then deposit them inside the box. Afterwards, the box would be conveyed into the apparatus where the insects would be radiated. On the far side of the machine was a door marked simply: EXTRACTION.

Extraction. Probably the removal of the DNA from the termites, Lou decided. Incredible how far the technology had come-absolutely incredible and absolutely terrifying.

He was overtaken by an image of him and people in his life-Cap, Emily, Renee, Darlene, Steve, Filstrup, Brian, Graham, bunched together at some sort of cookout, grinning broadly as they each held out a huge ear of steaming sweet corn swathed in butter and salt.

Here, have a bite. Bon appetit!

Mutation, he knew, was the alteration of the pattern of nucleotide bases in a plant or animal, by natural accident, radiation, chemicals, or other stressors, resulting in changes-often massive ones-in the properties of the organism. Edwin was radiating the Macrotermes bellicosi, as Humphries had suspected, causing them to mutate into insects with greatly enhanced fecundity and the secondary ability to consume flesh.

Here, have a bite. Bon appetit!

Now, with the finding of the huge tube in the lab on the other side of the termites’ habitat, the cycle from two organisms to one was complete.

The mutated bugs were placed inside the steel holding pen where Edwin, Stone, and Anthony Brite had all perished. When their DNA was needed, somebody would gather up the carnivorous insects and bring them to the extraction room. There, they would be pulverized, and their DNA extracted using large centrifuges. Lou now felt certain the long tube he saw in the other lab was a mammoth gene gun, literally capable of blasting the mutated termite DNA into large numbers of corn kernels.

At that moment, Lou’s exhausted reverie was cut short by pounding on the door. The nightmare was hardly over.

On the far side of the lab was another door, this one with a glowing EXIT sign above it. The door at first seemed stuck, but Lou yanked harder, figuring the room was being kept under negative pressure as a precaution against radiation leaks. With a loud rush of air, the door swung open into a cinder block anteroom, with another door, again marked EXIT, just opposite him. From behind, he could hear the pounding intensify, now with some sort of metal implement. He went through the exit, then up a short flight of metal stairs. The gunshot wound to his thigh, probably responding to a constant surge of adrenaline, was quite bearable. At the top of the stairs was a steel storm door that opened into the floor of a utility shed. After he closed that door behind him, Lou dragged as much weight as he could onto it and exited the shed, squinting against the late afternoon light.

He was at the edge of the woods, bordering the clearing. Through the tree line, he could see Edwin’s Mercedes-Benz, Stone’s cruiser, and another car, a black Cadillac-almost certainly the car that had followed him into the city, what seemed like eons ago. It appeared empty. Humphries’s radar cart was where Lou had left it, but there it would have to stay. His priority at the moment was survival.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the blockhouse, Lou took a couple of tentative steps into the clearing and then ran as best he could to the Mercedes, fired up the engine, and skidded from the parking lot. He had never been much of a car aficionado, figuring that the lust to drive high-end vehicles should be commensurate with one’s ability to afford them. But the Benz-the first he had driven in many years-was a car to dream about. With only the slightest punch to the accelerator, it sped ahead, sending a rooster tail of sand and gravel swirling into the still air.

Any confidence he felt about his improving situation was short lived. A hundred or so yards down the road he risked a glance into the rearview mirror.

Trouble.

The Cadillac, emerging like an enraged phoenix from a dense, swirling cloud of dust, was on the move. It looked as if there were two men in the front, but it was impossible to see behind them into the rear seat. The power of the Mercedes was more than he could easily handle, and he skidded several times from one side of the narrow road to another.

When he finally got the hang of the car, Lou jammed down the accelerator again, and the Mercedes shot ahead with a force that felt like several g’s. The Caddy kept pace, and actually seemed to be inching closer. Lou’s palms were soaked with tension-driven sweat. He was trying to remain composed, but he knew he was hyperventilating.

It seemed like only a second or two since he had checked behind him, but when he looked again, the Caddy seemed to fill the rearview mirror. Moments later, it slammed into his rear end, snapping Lou’s head forward like a whip. The Mercedes fishtailed several times before Lou was able to regain control.

Jarred and disoriented, he failed to notice the men-two of them, he could see now-had drifted to his left and were attempting to pull alongside him. He skidded in and out of a shallow drainage ditch and when he looked back, they had taken over the road. The bull-necked man in the passenger seat was grinning as he opened his window and raised his gun.

Instead of ramming into the side of the Caddy, which was Lou’s first instinct, he slammed on the brakes. The other car surged past him, and the bullets from several shots vanished harmlessly into the corn.

Clenching his jaws tighter than seemed possible, Lou spun the wheel to the right. Instantly, he was flying through a dense forest of tall stalks. He punched the accelerator and jounced violently ahead. Tall green Frankenstalks lashed at the windshield like the brushes in a car wash. The soft dirt stole much of the car’s traction, but miraculously the tires navigated the uneven, loose terrain. Somewhere out there had to be another road.