Contagious

Inside Chelsea’s head 1,715 crawlers were waiting at the base of her skull. As a unit, they released enkephalins and endomorphins into the blood pouring through her brain. These powerful natural opiates spread through her brain, locking onto opioid receptors and stopping them from receiving any information—in particular, messages of pain.

Which, considering what was about to happen, might have been the only humane thing the crawlers would ever do.

The crawlers surged upward, expanding through her frontal lobe like a gas. Once dispersed, they unbundled, turning back into individual hacked muscle fibers ready to rebind in new ways with entirely new functions.

The “I am here” signals began again, but this time the fibers latched onto each other end to end, forming long strands. These strands crossed over each other on all axes, X and Y and Z and everything in between, creating a ropy mesh that ran through her frontal lobe, her parietal lobe, her hippocampus and, in particular, her orbifrontal lobe. In many places fibers formed dendritelike fingers that connected to Chelsea’s brain cells on one end and to the mesh on the other.

In just a few hours, 1,715 crawlers morphed into a neural net lacing through the parts of Chelsea’s brain that controlled higher functions. Functions like memory. Thought. Reason. Abstraction. Emotion.

Finally, the remaining fibers wiggled and converged at the center of Chelsea’s brain. If you could have seen in there, you would have sworn they were attacking each other, ripping each other to pieces. But the fibers weren’t alive, and they weren’t individuals; they were part of a larger function. They weren’t tearing each other apart; they were rearranging, rebuilding... melding.

When they finished, they formed a ball some one thousand microns in diameter. Tendrils reached out from this ball, connecting with the neural net of converted crawlers. Once those connections were made, the ball did what it was designed to do.

It sent a signal.

REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE

The Orbital had monitored early biofeedback from the new strain. Based on initially high levels of apoptosis, the Orbital had logically a.s.sumed that this batch of crawler-building seeds was a total failure. The growing workers would once again have to fend for themselves, try to

The Orbital was already working on creating a second crawler-building batch with a modified code. This would be the last chance, the eighteenth and final probe.

When it received the signal, however, it abandoned the modified code. It focused all processing power on the new situation.

This signal, this lone signal, meant potential success. It provided a direct point of entry. And if the Orbital could communicate clearly enough, gather enough information, send enough reprogramming code back down the signal chain, then that lone signal meant a vector.

The Orbital sent a signal of its own and started gathering information.

SENIOR PICTURES

“Daddy, wake up.”

Donald’s mind swam in a sea of subdued pain. His body burned. Every inch seemed to be deep-fried, and his left hand felt even worse than that.

“Daddy, wake up!”

He didn’t want to wake up. When he was asleep, he didn’t have to feel it.

“Daddy, mah face! Mah face!”

The voice finally hit home, as did the hysterical urgency of Betty’s words. She was misp.r.o.nouncing things, as if she had food in her mouth. He blinked awake, hissing in a sharp breath as the pain continued to wash over his body. A cough caught the tail end of that breath, then ripped out, dragging barbed wire through his lungs, his throat, smas.h.i.+ng his eyes shut as liquid burned his mouth. He’d coughed so hard he’d thrown up.

“Daddy! OmahG.o.d!”

Donald pulled his right hand out from under the sleeping bag, put it on the steering wheel and eased himself back. The steering wheel felt hot and wet from his vomit. He didn’t want to move his other hand—it burned too much—so he left it under the blanket. He opened his eyes.

And found that it wasn’t vomit at all.

Blood covered the steering wheel. Blood, and bits of something black.

“Daddy, are you okay? You’re coughing up blood!”

Donald blinked, trying to get his bearings. He hurt so bad. His body burned. His daughter screaming right in his f.u.c.king ear. He had to calm her down. Donald turned to look at her and flinched when he saw her face. Three oozing black sores clung to her left cheek. For a second, he thought how nothing could be worse to a teenage girl than something messed up on her face. Only for a second, though, because through the haze Donny realized that this wasn’t some monster pimple—there was something very wrong with his baby girl. He had to get her to a hospital.

He had to get both of them to a hospital.

“Baby, I...” Another coughing spasm built up in his chest. No, not again, it hurts too much.

The cough hit, and he covered his mouth with both hands. As he did, his left hand felt like he’d punched jagged gla.s.s. Blood sprayed between his fingers, all over the steering wheel and even into the winds.h.i.+eld.

“OmahG.o.d Daddy your hand yourhandyourhand!”

Betty was in full-bore hysterics now, her syllables running together without punctuation, broken up only by the level of her screams.

Donald lifted his left hand. It looked as if he’d dipped it in acid. The wet, shriveled, blackened fingers stuck out lifelessly. Most of the flesh was gone. He could see bare bone in some places. At least he guessed it was bare bone, because even that was black and pitted.

Donald Jewell screamed. He reached across himself with his right hand and grabbed for the door handle. He b.u.mped his left hand as he did.

His pinkie and ring fingers fell off in a clump, right into his lap.