Ultimate Thriller Box Set (18 page)

“It will be fine, Regis,” Helen said.

Race touched his wife’s neck. “Lower your head, dear.”

Helen hunched down, and Race pushed her chair into the dwelling.

Bub waited, squatting down. Race moved slowly, the white object resting on the wheelchair's handles.

“Don’t beeeee afraaaaaaid.”

“This is called a cattle prod,” Race said, holding out the white stick. “It’s been modified, and has enough electricity to stop your heart.”

Bub took a step towards them and reached for Helen, his movements slow and steady.

Helen sat stock-still, even when Bub touched her face.

“Relaaaaaaaaaax.”

Bub picked Helen up, slowly and carefully, while Race stood by holding the prod like a broadsword.

Helen began to shake.

This was bad,
Sun knew. Very bad. She took a step toward the habitat door, but Andy held her back.

“It’s out of our control,” Andy whispered.

Sun watched, helpless, as Helen’s tremors became worse.              

“It's the chorea,” Race said.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaait,”
Bub told him. The demon cradled Helen in his giant arms; close to his chest, like a child would hold a teddy bear. Her trembling gradually subsided.

Sun became aware she was biting her lower lip.

“I brought the bible,” Thrist said, bursting into the room. He stopped in mid-step when he looked in the habitat. “Sweet Jesus,” Thrist whispered.

Helen's head disappeared in Bub's massive claw as he appeared to anoint her. She yelped like a scared puppy. Race moved in with the cattle prod, but Bub set Helen down and quickly backed away.

      “It’s dooooooone.”

Race looked at Bub, then at his wife, who was lying curled up on the ground.

“Helen?”

She held up her head. “Race?

And then she stood up.

“Helen... you’re standing!”

Race dropped the cattle prod and ran to embrace her.

“My dear, how do you feel? Are you okay?”

“I feel wonderful, Regis. Just wonderful.”

Race began to sob, and then Helen sobbed as well.

“We've witnessed a miracle,” Father Thrist said.

He genuflected, kneeling down and making the sign of the cross. Sun sidled up to Dr. Belgium. She remained unimpressed.

“Did you run serum tests on that sheep leg yet?” Sun asked from the corner of her mouth.

“A few. It was still wiggling this morning when I checked. Some apoptosis—cell death, but it's still moving. Since there's no respiration or circulation, I think the leg is reabsorbing its own dead tissue for energy.”

“Anything conclusive?”

“I'm running an amino acid detection to ID proteins and enzymes.”

“Where are the recent video recordings of Bub's habitat?” Sun asked. “For the last week?”

“Uh... Red 4. I've been putting them there.”

“Look Regis! I can walk!”

Helen was strolling around the habitat, tentatively at first, and then prancing like a gazelle.

“Wonderful, Helen! It's wonderful!”

“We'll also need blood work on Helen,” Sun said. “I don't trust Harker. Can you do it?”

Belgium nodded, several more times than necessary.

“What should we do now?” Andy asked Sun.

“First the recordings. I'd like a chance to examine Helen myself. I'd also like to spend some time in Red 3 and see what else I can find out about Bub's physiology. Frank, are you sequencing Bub's mitochondrial DNA?”

“Hmm? No. Nuclear.”

“Mitochondrial?” Andy asked.

“The genome of an organism is found in the nucleus of a cell,” Sun explained. “Mitochondria are organelles that produce energy for a cell. They also contain DNA, but fewer genes than nuclear DNA.”

“I'lI test for short tandem repeats,” Belgium nodded. “I'm convinced Bub has a lot of the same genes that we do, and that other animals do, but so far I can't classify them. Maybe an STR of his mitochondria will turn up something.”

“I'd like to get back to the capsule,” Andy said. “See if I can make sense of that hot rock.”

Race and Helen were slow dancing, wet cheek to wet cheek.

Father Thrist was on his knees, hands clasped in prayer.

Dr. Harker had her nail clippers out.

Bub was staring at Sun through the Plexiglas, the expression on his face unpleasant.

Sun shivered. “I liked him better before he could talk,” she said. “Let's get started.”

She left Red 14, feeling the demon’s eyes on her the entire time.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pathetic,
Dr. Julie Harker thought.

Race had kissed so much demon ass his face was turning brown. The All Important Roosevelt Book had been left on his chair, forgotten. Race and Helen had danced out of Red 14 an hour ago, giggling like teenagers. Probably going to have sex, Harker guessed. The thought sickened her.

Just as sickening was Father Thrist, sucking up to Bub with sycophantic relish. He'd given Bub his precious bible, preaching endlessly about the wonders of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Harker had been a Christian, once. Her parish priest offered no explanation for her daughter’s death, other than the lame “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

A child’s death wasn’t mysterious. It was reprehensible. Harker wanted no part of any religion that allowed such a thing to happen.

Harker sat patiently outside of the habitat, waiting. She had a question to ask Bub, but she wanted to be alone when she did. It was admittedly a long shot, but it kept Harker rooted to her chair, watching Father Thrist grovel and gesture. Harker passed the time by picking at her cuticles, a habit from her youth. A day didn't go by where she didn't draw some blood from one or two fingers, cutting down too deep.

After an interminable wait, the priest left. Running off to call the Pope, Harker guessed. The only two remaining in Red 14 were herself and that flake Dr. Belgium. Belgium was busy at the computer, engrossed in some gene program. Harker decided to chance being overheard, and she approached the habitat slowly.

“Dr. Haaaaarker. Are you maaaaaaaad?”

“Mad? Why?”

“I heeeeeeealed Helen. You could noooooot.”

“I haven't examined her yet, so I can't be sure the Huntington's is actually gone.”

“You have dooooooubt.”

“No. I just prefer facts to faith.”

The demon nodded. Harker eyed him, hoof to horn. He was certainly formidable. But supernatural? Harker decided she didn’t care, one way or the other.

“So you can raise the dead?” she asked.

“Yesssssssss.”

“How long can they be dead before you can raise them? Minutes, hours... years?”

      “Houuuuuurs.”
          

Harker frowned. She'd been harboring a minor fantasy of digging up her beloved Shirley and bringing her to Bub. It was ridiculous, she knew. But better to ask than always wonder.

“Who diiiiiied?”

“Excuse me?”

“You want me to bring someone baaaaaaaack.”

Harker's eyes began to glaze and her lower lip quivered. She couldn’t help it. The pain never went away.

“I lost a child,” Harker said.

Bub grinned. His grin was like opening a drawer full of steak knives.

“I can maaaaaaake a child.”

Harker blinked. “What?”

“A chiiiiild. I can maaaaaaaake one.”

“A newborn?”

“Any aaaaaaaaage.”

That would be perfect! All these years, without hope of ever holding a baby again...

“How?” Harker asked.

“A sheeeeeeeeeep.”

Harker frowned.

“You can make a baby out of a sheep?”

“I can change the geeeeeeeeenes. Make it huuuuuman.”

“I'd like to see,” Harker said.

“I neeeeed your help.”

“How?”

The demon leaned closer to the Plexiglas and lowered his voice.

“We shouldn’t beeeeeeee here,”
Bub said.

Harker furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“In Samhaaaaaaain. You and I are trapped heeeeeere.”

No kidding
, Harker thought.

“So what do you want?”

“To get oooooooout.”

Harker shook her head. “Impossible. I couldn't help you. The President would have me killed, plain and simple. He'd send me back to prison for even thinking about it. No way.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

“There's too much security.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

Harker could picture Shirley’s face.

“A girl. A little girl.”

“I can maaaaake a beautiful giiiiiirl.”

“I can't. There's the door here, plus the two coded gates in the Red Arm. There's also a camera right over my shoulder.”

“Give meeee the cooooooodes.”

Harker thought it over. That couldn't be traced back to her. And if Bub got out, so what? The demon had a right to be free. He didn't deserve to be locked up here any more than Harker did. In fact, if Bub escaped, Harker might even be allowed to leave. No more Bub, no more Project Samhain.

But even more important than that was the thought of having a child. If just for a few stolen hours. It had been so long. The feedings, the diapers, those little fingers and toes...

“I give you the door code, you make me a child,” Harker confirmed.

Bub nodded.

“The child first,” Harker said.

“I neeeeeeeed proof.”

“How?”

“You’ll think of soooooomething.”

Harker
would
think of something. Suddenly nothing else mattered to her. During her trial she'd been evaluated by a court-appointed shrink who did a thoroughly incompetent job, but who had managed to say something interesting. Harker had shown no remorse. And why should she have? She loved Shirley more than her birth parents ever could have. But because Harker never felt bad for her actions, the judge decided she could never be rehabilitated.

And never was a very long time.

“Everything you told the priest,” Harker said, “that was all bullshit, wasn't it?”

“Whyyyyyyyyyy?”

“I need to know if I can trust you. Maybe if I let you escape you'll try to murder us all.”

Bub laughed, a giant frog croaking.

“Truuuuuust meeeeee.”

Harker decided that she didn't care what Bub's plans were. She was going to help him no matter what.

“Okay. I'll need some time to think of something. We'll also need some way to turn off the video camera. I don't want to get caught.”

“I’ll take caaaaare of that. Tell Sun I want two sheeeeeeeeep.”

“Fine.”

Harker checked her watch. She had about an hour. How could she somehow prove to Bub that she was giving him the real code, other than taking him out of his habitat and showing him?

Showing him.

“I'll see you at lunch time,” Harker said. She left Red 14, hoping she'd be able to make her plan work.

*

Dr. Frank Belgium was oblivious to the exchange. He was busy multi-tasking on the Cray. Switching focus from nuclear to mitochondrial DNA, Belgium used restriction enzymes to cut some specific sequences, then used a PCR—polymerase chain reaction—machine to amplify the sample for an STR test. The DNA molecules actually went through channels in a microchip and then passed through a laser beam, getting 'fingerprinted' in the process. This would give him a tagged sequence that could be checked against samples from other life forms in the database.

At the same time, he was using some proteomic tools to identify the amino acids in the serum sample he took from the re-animated sheep's leg. Genes were sort of like factories that could build themselves. DNA coded for protein. Some of the protein was used to make things like cells and antibodies, but some of it was used to make enzymes and hormones. These were chemicals that caused biochemical reactions within the body.

For instance, insulin was a hormone that lowered blood sugar, and a lack of it resulted in diabetes. HGH was responsible for human growth, and lack of it caused dwarfism, or too much of it caused NBA players. Enzymes speeded biochemical reactions—saliva contained enzymes that helped break down starches, aiding in digestion, and the restriction enzymes used so often in molecular science were chemicals that functioned like tiny pairs of scissors, cutting DNA molecules at specific sequences. These were essential to genetic research, because a single strand of DNA could have billions of base pairs, making it unwieldy indeed.

Belgium was convinced that Bub's power of resurrection was either hormonal or enzymic, and in order to prove it he had to identify the proteins. Since proteins were made of amino acids, that was what he searched for. Some of the tools he used were AACompIdent, PeptIdent, SWISS-PROT, and TrEMBLE; all extremely sophisticated amino acid identifiers.

“Let meeee oooooout,”
Bub said, startling Belgium to the point that he almost fell out of his chair.

“What?”

“I want the inteeeernet.”

Belgium had already made the decision that he wouldn't let Bub out again. He knew Bub had lied during the interrogation. Bub had claimed to have never read the bible, but Frank had checked the cookies in the Temp file, and several of the websites Bub had been extensively surfing were biblical. That made everything the demon had said suspect.

Belgium wasn't sure why Bub would lie—he'd cured Race's wife and been friendly to everyone—but he decided he wasn't going to give Bub access to any more information.

The last 24 hours had been gut-wrenching for Belgium. He destroyed the video recordings of Bub leaving his habitat, but he was still worried the infraction would be discovered. He was even more worried once he realized Bub was lying. If Bub had done anything harmful, Belgium would consider himself to blame. After his screw-up at BioloGen, Frank didn't want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt ever again. He would sequence Bub's genome without the demon's help, no matter how long it took.