Night of the Living Trekkies (25 page)

“The aliens. For just a minute I could . . . I could
hear
them. Not the ones inside me but . . . others.”

“What are you talking about? We’re miles from Houston.”

She grimaced in agony. “We’re miles from Houston but the . . . the network . . . it’s followed us.”

“That’s not possible,” Jim said. “This highway’s been empty for miles. There’s no one following us. And Matt’s dead.”

“Matt wasn’t the only one,” Leia said, her eyes growing wide. “There is . . . another.”

A few minutes later, Jim emerged from the RV. He carried the heavy flashlight from Leia’s discarded gun belt in his right hand.

His sister had pulled into a seemingly empty rest stop. The
Stockard
was parked at the edge of its parking lot, near an area reserved for trucks and buses.

Sandoval sat at a weather-beaten picnic table under an oak tree. Rayna stood about fifty feet away, staring at the horizon.

Jim waved her over.

“Will you go talk to Leia?” he said. “I don’t want her to be alone.”

“Of course. What are you going to do?”

Jim tapped the flashlight gently against his leg.

“Wrap up some loose ends. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He walked over to the doctor and sat down opposite him at the picnic table.

“I can’t help the woman,” Sandoval said preemptively. “We’ve conducted hundreds of experiments. We’ve tried dozens of vaccines. There is no cure.”

“I understand that,” Jim said. “But how do you explain someone like Matt? He could speak, he could run, he had extraordinary strength. Why did the virus affect him differently?”

Sandoval shrugged. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that he was a sort of carrier. The parasite that infected him had mutated in a way beneficial to its host. It kept him alive and healthy and sentient. It even augmented his cognitive, motor, and sensory functions. It really was a win-win situation.”

“If you don’t mind having an octopus for a hand.”

“Well, yes. There’s that.”

“So, a certain fraction of those infected could turn out like Matt,” Jim said. “Normal on the surface, yet teeming with parasites on the inside.”

“Almost certainly,” Sandoval said.

“That sounds like a very important discovery. Something our government should know right away. Why don’t you call them?”

Jim produced his cell phone and placed it on the picnic table.

Sandoval stared at it.

“You know what I find strange?” Jim continued. “The fact that you’re so relaxed. The zombie threat is still out there. Even a nuclear strike couldn’t possibly get them all. But you’re just eating apples and staring out the window. You haven’t tried to call anyone since we left Houston. The world still needs saving, Doctor.”

Sandoval kept looking at the phone. He made no attempt to pick it up.

“But perhaps,” Jim said, “you aren’t interested in saving it.”

Sandoval seemed amused by the accusation.

“And here I was, hoping to win GulfCon’s prize for most unrecognizable costume,” he said. “How did you figure out my secret?”

“Leia did. She sensed that ‘the network’ was nearby.” He gestured at the vast, empty landscape around them. “And since there’s probably not much of a wireless connection in these parts, I figured it had to be you.”

Sandoval leaned back from the table and crossed his arms.

“You figured correctly,” he explained. “I was the very first person to have physical contact with the specimens. I was also the first infected. Not that I realized it. I developed flulike symptoms and went home early on a Friday. It was a holiday weekend, so I had three days to shake it off. Come Tuesday, I was back to my old self.”

“Except that you weren’t.”

“Correct. I soon realized that I was no longer alone in my body. Naturally, I kept that information to myself. I continued studying the aliens, but with a new, radically different agenda.”

“You weren’t working to contain them,” Jim said. “You were trying to help them.”

Sandoval nodded.

“I learned, through my own experiments, that my blood was infectious. A single drop was enough to change other organisms. But only into simple zombies. The sort of symbiotic union I’d developed was exceedingly rare. I calculated that if everyone in the world was infected, only.6 percent of the victims would become like me. But that’s still a significant number. Given a current world population of approximately seven billion, that works out to about forty-two million mutated individuals.”

“A new species,” Jim said.

“Correct. My benefactors were very interested in this prospect. They—we—formulated a way to make it happen. I hadn’t planned to move this quickly, but events forced my hand. Last week several suspicious files were discovered and traced to me. An investigation was pending. I didn’t want to be interred in a little steel box like the rest of the infectees. So I hacked into the facility’s systems and disabled the security protocols. The complex was destroyed, hiding all traces of my activities. Then I neutralized the GulfCon attendees—a gathering, essentially, of all my greatest, most able adversaries. I infected the entire city of Houston with the pathogen, and the zombies did the rest.”

“How did you spread the plague?” Jim asked.

“About a week ago, I purchased several dozen rats from pet stores, infected them with my blood, and released them in various high-traffic locations. Rodents are extremely effective disease transmitters. The affliction quickly jumped to the human population, then spread exponentially.”

“You blamed Cronin, but he was just a victim, not the vector,” Jim said. “No one person could spread a disease that quickly.”

“True. If I’d had more time, I would have invented a better story for you and your friends. But I was thinking on my feet. Blaming Cronin seemed like something a group of laypeople might accept.”

“Why didn’t you help Matt? He was like you.”

“Matt was a hybrid, but an imperfect one. The fusion process drove him insane. Still, my benefactors didn’t want me to take a hand in his destruction. They left it to you.”

“So who am I speaking to now?Your benefactors or Sandoval?”

“Truthfully, it’s hard to tell anymore where they end and I begin.”

“Where’s your extra eye?”

Sandoval smiled.

“It’s a little more involved than that,” he said. “My benefactors have had years to make improvements. Have a look at what I mean.”

He got up from the table, stepped back, and then pulled off his shirt.

At first Jim had trouble comprehending what he saw. Sandoval’s chest seemed to be subdivided by what looked, at first glance, like an elaborate tattoo. Blood-red lines formed a complex geometric pattern that stretched from his neck to his waist. Four triangles ran up each side of his chest. Four large red rings sat just above his belt. Above those, a battery of smaller rings. And above that, centered on his ribcage, sat the biggest ring of all. It was about the size of a grapefruit.

“Watch,” Sandoval said.

His torso began to move.

The triangles, Jim suddenly realized, weren’t tattoos. They were skin flaps. The red lines were livid, blood-engorged flesh. As he watched, they slowly rose and fell.

“Auxiliary breathing apparatus,” Sandoval said.

Tendrils and frills darted out of the smaller holes arrayed on his chest.

“Sensory organs,” Sandoval offered.

Tentacles issued from the four holes just above his beltline.

“For manipulating objects,” Sandoval said.

Finally, the big circle in the middle of his chest opened. It was an eye. The biggest alien eye Jim had yet seen.

“You’re a monster,” he said.

“You could say that. There’s really not much of me left below the neck. They’ve done extensive remodeling.”

Jim stood. The two circled each other slowly.

“I was planning my escape when you found me,” Sandoval said. “Since your own mode of egress seemed sound, I tagged along. But now you and your friends have served your purpose. I’m truly sorry it has to end this way. But I must move on. The invasion isn’t over. This is just a pause.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jim said.

“Please don’t get delusions of grandeur. I’m vastly stronger than Matt. One might even say invulnerable.”

“No one’s invulnerable. Especially against a person like me.”

Sandoval smiled.

“Someone in a Star Trek uniform who thinks he’s Captain Kirk?” he said.

“No. Someone who’s entire world has blown up in his face. Someone who doesn’t care if he dies, as long as he takes the thing that caused his pain with him.”

Jim raised the flashlight. Sandoval looked at it with new interest. He noticed a white powder on the casing.

“You spend time in Afghanistan, you learn about IEDs,” Jim said. “You learn how to spot them and how to make them. The RV had enough cleaning products and other chemicals to produce a really nice flashlight bomb. Anything I smack this against will be blown to bits. I can’t wait to see what it does to you and your friends.”

Jim leapt at Sandoval and swung the flashlight. The creature slid deftly out of the way.

He swung again. Another miss.

“Catch, you son of a bitch,” Jim said.

He hurled the light straight at his opponent’s chest.

With superhuman speed Sandoval caught it in his right hand and then tossed it away. It landed in the parking lot.

And didn’t explode.

“A dud,” Sandoval said as he turned to face Jim once more.

“No,” Jim replied. “A diversion.”

During the distraction, he’d reached behind his back and pulled out the two Tasers secured to his belt. He fired them simultaneously, at point-blank range, but Sandoval effortlessly sidestepped the darts. Then two of his tentacles lashed out and yanked the weapons from Jim’s hands.

“Here’s the irony of this situation,” Sandoval said. “All this time, you’ve been trying to figure out a way to cure the woman. But the solution was literally in your hands. Electricity.”

“I don’t want to kill her.”

Sandoval flung one of the Tasers across the parking lot. He adjusted the dial on the remaining weapon, upping the voltage to maximum.

“You wouldn’t have had to,” he explained as he worked. “In these early hours, the virus is very unstable. It’s replicating within her body but it hasn’t taken control of her neural system. You’ll know it’s reached maturity when the third eye appears. Until then it is sometimes possible to neutralize the virus with a high-voltage blast of current. Of course, it would have to be a pretty strong dose. Nearly enough to kill her.”

He aimed the Taser at Jim’s chest and grinned. “The only problem is that it hurts like a son of a bitch. Allow me to demonstrate.”

For a moment, Jim didn’t realize what had happened. Every muscle in his body seemed to cramp at once. He cried out through gritted teeth. His body, twitching from the voltage flowing through it, fell to the ground, landing him face-first in the dirt.

For the first few seconds, he was still capable of cognizant thought. He understood that the darts were delivering fifty thousand volts of electricity through his neuromuscular system. The only way to end the assault was to pull out the darts. But it was impossible. His body was no longer under his control.

He could see the USS
Stockard
across the parking lot, but there was no sign of Rayna or Leia. There would be no dramatic rescue. They had received their orders and were following them to the letter. Gradually, his consciousness began to dim, and then everything went black.

When Jim opened his eyes again, Sandoval was on the far end of the rest area, approaching the entrance of the RV. Jim’s heart was racing, but otherwise he felt no lingering pain, no aches or cramps. He tried to push himself off the ground, but his muscles moved slowly, as if there were a three-second delay between his thoughts and his actions. It was as though his entire central nervous system had been reconfigured. The Taser lay discarded on the ground, just an arm’s length away. Jim summoned just enough will to yank the darts out of his chest.

Across the rest area, Sandoval opened the door to the RV and climbed aboard. No doubt he was planning to kill Rayna and Leia, but of course Jim had anticipated that. Sandoval wouldn’t find them waiting in the RV. The women had fled to the safety of the surrounding forest.

But now came the tricky part: Jim was counting on the fact that Sandoval would not pursue them, that he had nothing to gain by tracking them down. It was a risky assumption, but he had improvised the plan to the best of his ability. There wasn’t much to work with, after all—just some expensive Cuban cigars, a bottle of Bacardi 151, and a threadbare Star Trek pillowcase.

The engine of the USS
Stockard
roared to life. The RV lurched forward as Sandoval cut a wide turn through the parking lot, turning the vehicle one hundred and eighty degrees. As the far side of the
Stockard
turned into view, Jim was relieved to see the bright orange flames were already rising out of its fuel tank. He covered his face with his hands just as the
Stockard
literally went airborne, propelled off the ground by an enormous explosion that sent flames billowing twenty feet high. Faux metal tubes and pieces of a fake satellite dish rained down from the sky. Clouds of gray smoke rolled across the parking lot, momentarily obscuring everything.

He pushed himself to his feet and tested his limbs. The three-second delay had vanished. He was whole again. He reached down to pick up the Taser.

When he looked up again, he saw his sister running toward him.

“Oh, my God,” Rayna exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

“You did it,” Jim said. “That was perfect. Where’s Leia?”

Rayna pointed across the parking lot. “Sitting over there. She’s getting really weak, Jim. She can’t even walk—”

“Stay here,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

His sister looked like she was ten years old all over again. Jim didn’t answer. He just started running. There was no way of knowing if Sandoval had told him the truth—but there was only one way to find out.