The Skunge (30 page)

"Nice." Arneson slide into a chair.

"More TNG than the original bridge, I'm afraid."

"That Picard is a badass."

"I couldn't agree more." Brayle leaned over and clicked a microphone button. "Hold still please."

"I am holding still." Sugar's voice was tinny and faraway through the computer speakers.

"Well then hold stiller. The thing has motion sensors, it won't start until you stop fidgeting."

"I'll try."

After two minutes, the machinery began to cycle up. Arneson felt its pulse thrum beneath his feet. He watched the screen, fascinated, as the images of the inside of Sugar's body scrolled across the screen.

"Interesting. The formation of the fibers would indicate she's only been infected for a few weeks. See here? Normally that area is packed with fibers, and they would twine around this area." He zoomed in and out with the mouse and keyboard, and swiveled the view to view from the top, sides, and even underneath. The view scrolled down further; down her chest, over her sternum, down to her belly. "Oh. Whoops." Brayle turned to Arneson. "How long has she been pregnant?"

Arneson's boots hit the carpet with a thump. "You're not fucking serious."

"I'd guess seven or eight weeks, but I'm afraid I don't remember much from my OB/GYN rotations." Brayle adjusted something with the mouse and leaned in to peer at the monitor. "She should probably see an OB right away."

"What is it?"

"There are certain…complications with pregnancy in her condition." Brayle zoomed in, clicking here and there with a mouse. "I take it this wasn't planned?"

"No."

"And, of course, the obvious question?"

"I don't know if it's mine." The muscles in Arneson's arms rippled as he flexed his hands open and closed. He stared at the monitor as if an answer might reveal itself in the murky gold and black image. "Not a clue."

Brayle leaned forward again, and clicked the mic. "OK Sugar, are you ready to get out of that thing?"

"God, yes."

The enormous machine turned in place like a mechanical whale, then split down the side. Sugar looked small and pale inside the giant thing's gut. Arneson helped her out and back to the office. The screen that had been showing the baby was dark.

Sugar took one look at Brayle and sat down heavily. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." At the look on her face, he raised his hands. "Everything is fine."

"You don't sound like everything is fine. What is it?" Sugar's breathing rasped, and the fibers on her body twined faster, keeping time with her agitation. She looked to Arneson.

"Nothing we can't handle," Arneson said. He laid his hand on hers. The Skunge wound around them, stitching them together.

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

Arneson lit a cigarette and pointed it at Brayle. "What the fuck did you mean back there? Complications? What kind of complications?"

Brayle eyed the cigarette. "Technically speaking, this is a government facility. You haven't been able to smoke inside one of these since the Reagan years."

"You want one?" Arneson offered the pack, one orange filter poking up like a dare.

"Christ, yes." Brayle examined the cigarette, and let Arneson light it. He sucked in the smoke, and let it out with a ragged cough. "Oh man, that is
good
. It's been ten years since I quit, and I miss these goddamn things every day."

"Enjoy it. Now tell me what you know."

Brayle eyed Arneson, as if debating how much to share. He took a long, meditative puff, staring at the ribbon of blue smoke rising from the tip. The silence stretched.

"Doc."

Brayle ran his hands through his hair, patting down his ponytail. "I'm going to start at the beginning, Arneson. Humanity has changed a lot, you know? Even just since the start of recorded history, we've changed so much. Our average height has increased five inches, our hands and brains have grown and become more specialized, our speech has gone from grunting and pointing to math, music, and poetry. All of that in the space of—historically speaking—an eye-blink. We've altered ourselves with mutation, selective breeding, chemicals, diet, surgery." He gestured with the cigarette, and the smoke made an accidental circle above his head. "But because that time span is so short, we haven't seen any significant changes to the ecosystem. No new predators, no new threats."

"Until now. The Skunge is that threat."

Brayle nodded. "For a guy who comes across like he's half-asleep most of the time, you don't miss much."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should."

Brayle grabbed another cigarette and shook his head ruefully. "Goddamn things. Anyway, if you ask any scientist, they'll tell you: humans had
maybe
another few hundred years, tops, before the big one. An event that would either kill us off or radically change the course of humanity."

"So, this is it, then." Arneson took a moment to scratch at his arm. "What do
you
think? Is the Skunge is going to kill us off, or replace us, or what?"

"If you put a gun to my head, I would say the Skunge is the next step in humanity's evolution."

Arneson said nothing, his eyes hazy and far away. "What if you're wrong, Doc? What if this thing is just trying to kill us? What are our chances to beat it?" His eyes bored into Brayle's.

Brayle stood, dusting ash from his clothing and straightening his tie. "I would say our chances are zero. We can't beat this."

"Everything can be beaten. We just don't know how yet."

"Of course, given a long enough time-line.
Do
we have the time, though? Infected males are more immediately dangerous, but it begs the question; what is the female purpose? What is
their
agenda?"

"Ah, the age-old question: what do women want?"

"Just so. But in all seriousness, that will likely be the key to our survival as a species—that species being
homo sapiens sapiens
. What happens to the women after their transformation completes? Will they still
be
human? If not, what can we expect from them? And will we be able to deal with them?"

"Why not just…get rid of them? I mean, I'm asking as an infected, but also as a government agent. I know how the bureaus work. What's cheapest and easiest always works best, am I right? What's stopping you from just killing and dissecting us all?"

Brayle smiled. "Oh, we could never do that. There's enough studying here for a million PhD theses. Not to mention other applications."

Arneson considered Brayle for a moment. "What exactly did you do before all this, Doc?"

Brayle returned the gaze, blinking slowly and deliberately. "Why, the same thing you did. Government work."

"And what do you suppose you'll do afterward? Assuming there
is
an after."

Brayle contemplated his cigarette. "If we get lucky, and there is an after…who knows? Who knows." He stood, sighing like a man getting ready to lift a heavy burden. "Come with me, I want to show you something. Bring the cigarettes."

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

"Doc," Arneson said.

"Yeah?" The only other sound was the whisper of unseen machines. Midnight in the garden of government spending. They walked and walked, the hallways unchanging.

"What else is in this place? I know, classified, all hush-hush and super secret. But come on, who am I gonna tell? I know there's more." He wondered again just how far down Juniper Ridge went. If he got to the bottom, what might he find there?
Vampires? Werewolves? Turtles all the way down? Here be Dragons.

Brayle eyed him with a species of amusement. "True enough. I guess we'll all be lucky just to get out of this alive. As the famous last words go, what could possibly go wrong?"

"That's the spirit," Arneson said.

"If you feel like you have to know—I mean, cross your heart hope to die stick a needle in your eye
gotta
know—then I'll show you. I doubt very much that you'll enjoy the show."

"'The valiant never taste of death but once.'"

"Shakespeare, he quotes me. Oy." Brayle headed for another set of elevator doors, these ones dull black rather than polished steel. "It's lucky for you that I just happen to have the keys to the kingdom," Brayle said, waggling his phone. "And all I had to do was sell my soul."

"You're a weird dude, you know that, Doc?"

"I do," Brayle said as he tapped on his phone. "I really do."

They stopped in front of the elevator doors, and Brayle turned to Arneson. "All aboard. And remember: keep your head and arms inside the mixer at all times! This ride gets dangerous." He spoke into his phone.
"Doctor Lester Brayle, going to Phase Three. One guest." Brayle put the phone to his ear, listened, and sighed. "I understand that." He rolled his eyes and made a quacking gesture with his hand. "OK. Yes.
Yes
. For the love of Christ, Greg, just do it already. Yes, I'll sign for it." He sighed as he hung up. "Kids these days. No respect for their elders. That's the problem."

"Oh, is that what the problem is?" Arneson said. "I guess the blood-thirsty zombie-plant parasites are a minor inconvenience."

"If you think those are a nightmare, you haven't seen what's on MTV." They entered the elevator's smooth, humming quiet.

"I don't think they have MTV any more."

The elevator doors opened. "Good riddance," Brayle said. He waved Arneson forward. "Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly."

"Is this where you reveal the hideous monster?" Arneson asked.

"Something like that." The hall was swampy with humidity, the temperature maybe eighty degrees. Brayle's forehead was already beading with sweat and his button-down shirt clung to his bird-like chest. It made Arneson feel as if he had been slapped by a warm, wet rag.
Arneson's fingers left ephemeral prints on the steel walls.
More anonymous curving hallways. Finally they reached a doorway.

Inside, a brilliantly-lit antechamber filled with equipment and computers. Chromatographs, scanning machines, 3-D printers, and various machines too esoteric for Arneson to even guess at their function. Techs in lab coats scurried hither and yon as they stared at the smart phones in their hands. The phones looked like clones of Brayle's device. The walls thrummed, as if the room had been built beside some giant machine.

Brayle greeted any of the techs who greeted him, but only a few even looked up from their workstations. Arneson knew the type: ultra-bright, barely more than kids, pushing themselves so hard that they never learned how to deal with any situation that couldn't be modeled on a computer or dealt with by an algorithm. They worked in eerie silence.

Brayle led Arneson past room after room, all of them full of bright young things, all head down and working regardless of time or energy.

"Jesus, the money this must take."

"The facility overhead is exorbitant. Less than the space station, but not by so much. Most of these kids would work for free if we asked. Some of them would probably pay us. It's all about toys for them—they get access to the most modern equipment in the world, and the time to play with it. We do away with all those pesky labor laws and OSHA restrictions here. They can work until they drop." They passed through a bright, industrial-yellow steel gate the opened smoothly with a few clicks of Brayle's phone. "Some of them do."

Another room full of toys, but empty this time. Brayle sat in front of a terminal, logged on, and began typing commands, hands moving so fast Arneson could barely keep up. After a few seconds, a panel on the other end of the room slid up to reveal a smoked-glass window into a seemingly empty room. It was barren concrete, nothing to be seen except a string of night-lights spaced near to the floor every few feet.

Arneson looked at Brayle. "It's awe-inspiring. Tell me you haven't sold the movie rights. Can we get Spielberg?"

"Keep looking."

Arneson stepped to the glass and peered in the corners. Finally, he craned his neck to look up, and saw it. An egg-shaped object, roughly the size of a person, was stuck to the ceiling with lines and filaments of the Skunge. Skeins of the stuff hung down like cargo netting.

"Is that a cocoon?" Arneson asked. His boots felt nailed to the floor.

Brayle smiled like a magician unveiling one hell of a trick. "It's as much chrysalis as cocoon, actually. She spun it around herself out of Skunge, and it hardened within minutes. What she'll do when she pupates...we'll have to wait and see."

"Jesus." Arneson glanced around at the array of machines surrounding the pod. "You have no idea what's inside, do you?"

Brayle spread his hands. "We just don't know. We've tried a lot of different ways to peek, but none that have worked."