Douglas Preston - Reliquary

“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, trying to keep her voice under control, “some of these seeds will make it out to the storm drain system, and from there to the Hudson and the open ocean. When they hit saltwater, they’ll activate the virus, polluting the entire ecosystem. Do you know what that could mean for the world’s food chain?”

“My dear Margo, that is the idea. Admittedly, it’s an evolutionary step, a step into the unknown. But as a biologist, Margo, you surely realize that the human race has become degenerate. It has lost its evolutionary vigor, become grossly maladaptive. I am the instrument for the reinvigoration of the species.”

“And just where were you planning to hide your fat ass during the flood?” D’Agosta asked.

Frock laughed. “No doubt you foolishly assume that, by virtue of this little excursion, you know all there is to know about this underground world. Believe me, subterranean Manhattan is far more vast, more terrible, and more wonderful, than you could imagine. I’ve wandered again and again, glorying in the use of my legs. Here I’m free from the dissembling I must continue aboveground. I’ve found natural caverns of incredible beauty. Ancient tunnels used by Dutch smugglers in the days of New Amsterdam. Snug little places where we can all retire while the water rushes past on its way to the sea. You won’t find them on any maps. When twenty million cubic feet of water drains through here shortly, delivering the very ripe seeds of Liliceae mbwunensis into the world, my children and I will be safe in a tunnel just above the flood. And when the flood is over, we will return to our freshly scoured quarters to enjoy the fruit left behind. And, of course, to await the arrival of what I like to call the Holocene Discontinuity.”

Margo stared at Frock in disbelief. He smiled in return: an arrogant, distant smile she had not seen before. He seemed supremely confident. It occurred to her that Frock might not know of the charges they’d placed.

“Yes, my dear. It’s my theory of fractal evolution, taken to the logical extreme. The reovirus—‘glaze,’ if you will—inserted directly into the bottom of the world’s food chain. How fitting, don’t you think, that I myself will be its vector, its activating agent? The mass extinction at the K-T Boundary will seem minuscule by comparison. That simply made way for mammals by removing the dinosaurs. Who knows what this transformation will make room for? The prospects are tremendously exciting.”

“You’re a very sick man,” Margo said, feeling even as she said it a chilling despair grip her heart. She’d had no idea just how much Frock must have missed the use of his legs. It was his secret obsession. He must have seen the potential for the drug’s restorative effects, even from within Kawakita’s misery. But he had clearly discounted the drug’s potential for poisoning the mind. He could never understand—he would never believe—that in perfecting the drug’s action on the body, he’d increased exponentially its ability to stimulate mania and violence, to magnify buried obsessions. And she sensed there was nothing she could now say that could bring him back.

The processions continued to shuffle up to the cauldrons. As the Wrinklers raised the cups to their lips, Margo could see shudders ripple their cloaks—through pleasure or pain, she could not tell.

“And you knew our moves all along,” she heard Pendergast say. “As if you were conducting them yourself.”

“In some ways, I was. I’d trained Margo here too well to hope that she could leave well enough alone. And I knew your busy mind would always be spinning. So I made sure the draining of the Reservoir couldn’t be stopped. Finding one of my wounded children here, the one you shot, merely cemented my conviction. But how clever of you to send your little frogmen in as a precaution. Luckily, my children were all on their way to the Ceremony and prevented them from crashing our little party.” He blinked. “For one so clever, I’m surprised you thought you could come down here and defeat us with your pathetic weapons. But no doubt you misjudged just how numerous my children have become. As you’ve misjudged so much else.”

“I think you’ve left something out of the story, Doctor,” Margo said suddenly, as evenly as she could.

Frock stepped closer to her, an enquiring look on his face. It was very difficult, seeing him move so nimbly on his feet; it made it hard to think straight. She took a deep breath of the noxious air. “I think it was you who killed Kawakita,” she said. “You killed him, and left his body here to look like just another victim.”

“Indeed,” Frock replied. “Why, pray tell?”

“Two reasons,” she said, speaking louder now. “I found Kawakita’s journal in the wreckage of his laboratory. He was clearly having second thoughts. It mentioned thyoxin. I think he had learned about the effect salinity would have on the reovirus, and he was planning to destroy the plants before you could flush them into the Hudson. He may have been warped in mind and body, but in him, at least, some small voice of conscience must have remained.”

“My dear, you don’t understand. You cannot understand,” said Frock.

“And you killed him because he knew the drug’s effects were irreversible. Isn’t that right? I learned that much through my own experiments. You can’t cure these people, and you know it. But do they ?”

The chanting in the ranks around them seemed to falter slightly, and Frock glanced briefly from side to side. “These are the claims of a desperate woman. This is beneath you, my dear.”

They’re listening , Margo thought. Perhaps they can still be convinced.

“Of course,” the voice of Pendergast intruded on her thoughts. “Kawakita fell into this ceremony, this dispensing of the drug, because it seemed the easiest way to keep his own poor victims docile. But he didn’t especially enjoy the trappings or the ritual. He didn’t take them seriously. That was your addition. As an anthropologist, how you must have enjoyed the chance to create your own cult. Minions—or perhaps acolytes—wielding primitive knives. Your own hut of skulls. A reliquary for your wheelchair, symbol of your own transformation.”

Frock stood stiffly, saying nothing.

“That’s the real reason the killings have been increasing. It’s not lack of the drug anymore, is it? Now you’ve got a reservoir full. No—there’s another agenda. An obsessive one. An architectural one.” He nodded toward the hut. “You needed a temple for your new religion. For your personal deification.”

Frock looked at Pendergast, his lips twitching. “And why not? Every new age needs its new religion.”

“But it’s still a ceremony at its core, isn’t it? And everything relies on control. If these creatures know the effects are irreversible, what hold will you have on them?”

Murmurs were rising from among the closest Wrinklers.

“Enough!” Frock cried, clapping his hands. “We don’t have much time. Prepare them!” Margo felt her arms seized again, then she was dragged to her feet, a knifepoint placed against her throat. Frock looked at her, a strange mix of expressions again playing across his face. “I wish you could be here to experience the change for yourself, Margo. But many must fall in the transition. I am sorry.”

Smithback lunged toward Frock, but was dragged back.

“Dr. Frock!” Pendergast cried. “Margo was your student. Remember how the three of us struggled against the Museum Beast. Even now, you’re not wholly responsible for what’s happened. Perhaps there is still a way for you to go back. We’ll heal your mind.”

“And destroy my life?” Frock leaned toward the FBI agent, lowering his voice to whisper. “Go back to what, may I ask? Being a helpless, superannuated, slightly ridiculous curator emeritus? One whose years are rapidly dwindling? Surely Margo’s research showed you there is another side effect to the new drug: it eliminates the concentration of free radical molecules in living tissue. In short, it extends life ! You would have me give up both my freedom of movement and my life?” He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes to twelve. We’re out of time.”