Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

Cobbler jumped into my lap and I stroked his silky fur while I chewed on the problem.

Until now I’d hesitated doing a direct search on the DMS for fear of that acronym, or the words “Department of Military Sciences,” setting off some kind of alarms. For a while now the government has used different software packages to locate certain combinations of words in e-mail or Net searches. Type in something like “bomb” and “school” and it’s supposed to raise a red flag. Doing this kind of search could land my ass in a sling. On the other hand how could I just leave this be? How could Church expect me to forget it? Even if Church was right and the whole Javad/prion/walking dead thing was over—a one-shot fluke that we lucked into and solved before it got out of the box—that still didn’t alter the fact that the incident changed my whole world. Now I know how those folks feel who see a UFO or Bigfoot—not the nutcases, but the ones who are absolutely sure they’ve seen something outside of normal reality, and have nowhere to go with it.

What would happen if I did that search? I mean… what would Church really do as a result? I met the man, and even though I could see him feeding a busload of orphans and nuns to hungry wolves if it furthered his aims, I didn’t take him for petty vindictiveness.

So, what would he do if I did a search on “Department of Military Sciences”?

“Kiss my ass, Church,” I said, and hit the enter key.

I got a few hits for college ROTC programs under that name, but in terms of national security or secret agencies, absolutely nothing came up on the search. A waste of time? Maybe. Or maybe I had lobbed a serve into Church’s court.

Gault and Amirah / The Bunker / Six days ago

THE LEVEL-A PVC hazmat suit was air-cooled and very comfortable, but Gault still felt like a big marshmallow. He stood close to the airlock. In one hand he held a wireless remote that would trigger the emergency release on the lock in case he had to make a run for it; in the other he held a Snellig 46, an electric wire-dart pistol. Amirah stood behind a Plexiglas wall and her fingers hovered over a computer keyboard.

“What stage is it in?” Gault asked. Their suits were soundproof and the intercoms were of the best quality.

“Advanced stage one.”

Gault cocked an eyebrow. “It’s still alive?”

The creature standing there certainly didn’t look alive. The brown skin had faded to a sickly bruise-yellow; its mouth was slack, lips gray and rubbery. It was only when Gault shifted a few feet to one side in order to see the thing’s eyes that he could detect any trace of intelligence; but even then it was rudimentary.

“I resequenced the hormonal discharge to make the blood chemistry more hospitable for the parasites. They spread the prions at a much more accelerated rate now. The nonessential functions shut down more quickly,” Amirah said brightly. “Higher brain functions deteriorate at a faster rate now.”

“How much faster?”

Amirah paused and turned and flashed him a triumphant smile. “Eight times.”

He frowned. “This is Generation Three?”

She laughed. “Oh no, Sebastian… we’ve passed that phase a long time ago. What you’re seeing is Generation Seven of the Seif al Din pathogen. We’ve broken through almost all of the symptomatic barriers.”

Gault’s head whipped around and he stared at the subject then up at the big wall clock. “ Seven … Christ! When was infection begun?”

“Right before I came to meet you.”

Gault licked his lips. “That’s… what, an hour?”

She shook her head. “Less. Forty-seven minutes, and I think we can get that down even more. That rate is based on injection only; we added a new parasite to the salivary glands so infection from bites is much faster, a matter of minutes. By Generation Eight we should have it down to seconds.”

The creature shook its head like an animal shaking off a biting fly. The hazmat suits prevented the subject from hearing or smelling them, which were the two most significant response triggers; however, the sight of them was causing it to become agitated. Without human scent or sound that hadn’t happened with earlier generations. Gault moved his hand experimentally, wanting to see if the creature would track him.

Suddenly it lunged.

Without warning or hesitation it threw itself at Gault, springing across the cold metal floor of the display area, hooked fingers clawing the air as it tried to grab him. Gault cried out and staggered back, but he brought up the Snellig and fired the weapon’s twin flachettes into the monster’s naked chest. He pressed his thumb down on the activator and sent 70,000 volts into the infected predator.

The subject let out a scream like a cougar—high and full of hate—but it dropped down into a fetal ball, twitching as the current burned through it.

“That’s enough,” he heard Amirah shout, and Gault sagged back, releasing the button. His chest was heaving and his heart hammering. Amirah laughed as she came out from behind the Plexi screen. “The new parasite has enhanced predatory aggression by at least half, and it begins far sooner. Even from a nonfatal bite the infection will take hold within minutes and begin reducing cognitive function. In cases of a more serious bite, or in the presence of other traumatic injuries, the infection will spread exponentially faster.”

“He could have killed me!” Gault snapped, rounding on her and pointing the Snellig at her chest. For a white-hot moment he almost pulled the trigger.

But she was still laughing, shaking her head. “Oh, don’t be such an old woman.” She used the toe of one booted foot to pull back the creature’s upper lip. Gault saw that the pale gums were smooth. Amirah said, “I had its teeth pulled in preparation for the demonstration. I’m not an idiot, Sebastian.”

Gault said nothing for a moment, his jaw locked, lips curled back from his teeth in as savage a snarl as he’d seen on the face of the subject. Then, by slow degrees, he forced himself to let go of the moment. He made his face relax first and gradually straightened his body from the defensive crouch. “You could have effing well warned me!”

“That would have been less fun.”

“God, you’re a wicked bitch,” he said, but now he was smiling, too. It was completely artificial but he made it look convincing, thinking, You are so going to pay for that, my dear.

Amirah either couldn’t tell how upset he truly was, or didn’t care—and the hazmat suit hid most of his face—but she looked at the wall clock and then walked back to her control console, pulling off her hood. “The new hormone sequence has one more really marvelous effect,” she said as she punched some keys. There was a heavy metallic chunk as steel panels slid back on the floor. She hit another button and four curved sections of inch-thick reinforced glass rose from the floor. Their sides fit together with only a faintness of the seam visible. The glass walls hissed upward until they reached a large circular track in the ceiling. As the upper edges slid into the tracks there was another chunking sound and the walls stopped moving. Amirah watched the wall clock all the while. The subject lay in the center of a big glass and steel jar.

“Wait for it,” she murmured as the digital counters ticked away the seconds. “Should be right about now. Generation Seven is so wonderfully quick.”

The creature suddenly opened its eyes and peeled back its lips to issue a hiss of animal hatred. No sound escaped the barrier, but Gault still flinched. Then he blinked and looked from the subject to the clock and back again.