Scott Sigler - Contagious

Five days is an engineering marvel of self-organization, a testament to some seriously advanced technology. Consider it an upgrade to the old strain.

For the new strain, however, five days seemed like an eternity. Whereas Perry’s structures had to build many complex parts, the new structures produced only one thing.

Microscopic strands of modified human muscle.

Hacked muscle.

Each strand contained muscle cells, of course, but also tiny neurotransmitter secretors and a complex crystalline set of molecules capable of both sending and receiving rudimentary signals.

A hacked strand by itself was worthless. It could wiggle… and that’s about it. It could also send and receive “I am here” signals, which was key because the strands weren’t designed to work by themselves.

The “I am here” signals drew them together, almost like the last individual bits of cereal floating on top of your milk. The bits just float there, until they get close, and then surface tension yanks them together. When a strand detected an “I am here” signal from another strand, it wiggled toward it. The wiggling strands reached out to each other, touched and intertwined. Now their signal was twice as strong, drawing more strands, and so on.

A normal human muscle cell by itself is useless. Many cells working in unison, however, produce complex movement. The hacked strands followed a similar logic—the whole proved greater than the sum of the parts. When the hacked-strand collections reached a certain size, about five hundred microns wide, the “I am here” signal shut off.

A micron is one one- millionth of a meter. Five hundred microns is five ten-thousandths of a meter, or about two- hundredths of an inch. Damn small, but you can still see something like that with the naked eye.

If you could have looked inside the bodies of Chelsea Jewell, Donald Jewell and Betty Jewell, you would have seen something rather disturbing, something that looked very much like a human nerve cell. On one end, a long, thin axon. On the other end, branching dendrites spreading out like the tributaries of a river.

But in a regular nerve cell, the dendrites don’t latch onto other nerve cells, muscle cells and membranes, and they certainly don’t reach out and pull .

Regular nerve cells, you see, don’t crawl.

The crawlers implemented a very simple navigation system: cause pain. This was a practical strategy, not a sadistic one: the human body is wired to give pain messages the highest priority. The crawlers’ stretching dendrites reached out, locked onto axons, then released a chemical that mimicked normal pain signals. Some nerves ignored this message—those were the efferent neurons, the ones that carried signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Also called motor neurons, they let the brain do its thing, controlling muscle reactions and bodily functions. The nerves that did not ignore these messages of pain, but instead replicated them and passed them on to the brain, those were the afferent nerves.

Once the crawlers identified afferent chains, they grabbed, and pulled, and crawled. Every three or four nerves, they released the pain signal again, measured the results and kept moving.

Eventually their crawling would lead them to the brain.

Fluffy snow blew lightly in all directions, flying into Chelsea’s eyes and tickling her nose.

She didn’t feel good. She felt kind of hot, achy, and she had some little bumps on her hands. Those hurt a bit, but didn’t itch or anything. She held her daddy’s hand as Unkie Donny and Betty got into Unkie Donny’s car. Betty blew her nose into a pink Kleenex, then put her head back on the car seat and closed her eyes. She didn’t feel good, either.

Unkie Donny shut the driver’s door and rolled down the window. He coughed hard, a rattling sound in his chest, then stuck his hand out of the window toward Daddy. Unkie Donny’s breath billowed out as he talked.

“Little brother, thanks for having us,” he said to Daddy. “And thanks for the gift that keeps on giving.”

“Oh, put a sock in it,” Daddy said. “You imported the creeping crud from Pittsburgh. I’m not shaking a hand you just coughed in.”

Unkie Donny’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Chelsea took a step back. Unkie Donny suddenly looked kind of scary.

“I’m just teasing,” Daddy said. “Relax, big brother.”

Unkie Donny stared for a few seconds, and then his face softened. He blinked a bunch, like he was waking up or something.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “I… I guess I really took that the wrong way.”

“Meds?” Daddy said.

Unkie Donny nodded. “Took them. Honest.”

“Cool,” Daddy said. “We’ll come down to Pittsburgh sometime soon.”

Unkie Donny’s eyes narrowed again, then opened again. He shook his head the way a puppy would.

Mommy stepped forward and leaned in the window to give Unkie Donny an awkward hug. “Drive safe,” she said. “This storm is supposed to turn into freezing rain. The roads are full of downstaters, and the traffic is going to be terrible. Watch out for the drunks.”

She backed out of the window. Unkie Donny smiled and nodded.

Mommy went around the other side of the car to say good-bye to Betty. Unkie Donny looked right at Chelsea. He held out his hand.

“Come here, dolly,” he said. “Say good-bye to me.”

Chelsea shrank back. Why did Unkie Donny want to touch her? Was he going to do something to her?

“Honey,” Daddy said, “go say good-bye to your uncle.”

Unkie Donny smiled. Chelsea blinked a few times. It was Unkie Donny—why would she be afraid of him? He loved her. Chelsea let go of her daddy’s hand and ran up to the car door. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Unkie Donny on the cheek.

“Bye-bye, Unkie Donny.”

“You be a good girl, okay?”

Chelsea nodded. He seemed… different. So did Daddy. So did Cousin Betty. The only one who didn’t seem different was Mommy. Why was that? Maybe Chelsea didn’t need to fear Unkie Donny at all—maybe she needed to fear Mommy. Mommy might get the spanky-spoon.

Chelsea leaned in and whispered in Unkie Donny’s ear. “When we come see you, can you take me to get my ears pierced?”

Unkie Donny laughed, then touched her cheek. “I’m afraid that’s up to your dad.”

Chelsea loved the way Unkie Donny smiled at her. Just like Daddy did.

Unkie Donny was a lot like Daddy. Chelsea wished he would come by more often. He knew a lot about the Deeeee-troit basket-ballll.

Unkie Donny’s face wrinkled up. He gently pushed Chelsea away, then coughed so hard his head almost hit the steering wheel. He coughed again, then leaned back and laughed a little. He waved his hand at his face, like he was trying to cool off.

“I’m going to get you for giving this to us,” Unkie Donny said to Daddy.

“I hope we get home before it really kicks in; I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a humdinger.” “If you get sick, just be safe and get a hotel,” Mommy said. “Don’t be a stubborn bastard like your brother.”

“Candice, come on,” Daddy said.

Chelsea knew that Daddy was pointing at her, even though she couldn’t see him do it. He did that when Mommy used the bad language.

“Aw, crap, sorry,” Mommy said. “Okay, guys, you get going—and drive safe! ”

Unkie Donny rolled up the window and backed out of the drive. As he drove away, Chelsea poked at the little bumps on her hands.

Mommy knelt down in front of her. “Honey, are you okay?”

What did Mommy mean by that? Maybe she meant… nothing. Chelsea did feel really hot. Mommy was just trying to take care of her. Chelsea shook her head.