The X-Files: Antibodies (21 page)

She whirled back toward Jody, who still lay gasping and bleeding from the bullet wound in his chest.

She tore off more of his shirtsleeve and pressed the wadded cloth hard upon the open bubbling wound.

This was a penetrating wound—the bullet had not antibodies

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passed through the other side of Jody’s back, but remained lodged somewhere in his lung, in his heart . . .

Scully couldn’t imagine how the boy might survive—but she kept on treating him, doing what she knew best. She had lost fellow agents before, other people injured on cases—but she felt a unique affinity with Jody.

The twelve-year-old also suffered from a form of terminal cancer; both he and Scully were victims of the vagaries of fate, the mutations of one cell too many. Jody had already been given a death sentence by his own biology, but Scully didn’t intend to let a tragic accident rob him of his last month or so of life.

This was one thing she could control.

She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the cellular phone. With shaking, blood-tipped fingers, she punched in the programmed number for Mulder’s phone—but all she received was a burst of static. She was out of range in the isolated wooded hills. She tried three times, hoping for at least a faint signal, some stray opening of the electromagnetic window in the ionosphere . . . but she had no such luck. It was almost as if someone was jamming her phone. Scully was alone.

She thought about running back to the car, driving it across the rugged meadows as close as she could get to the slide area, then rushing to Jody and carrying him to the car. It would be easier that way, if the car could travel over the wet and uneven meadow.

But that would also mean she’d have to leave Jody’s side. She looked at the blood on her hands from pressing down on his gunshot wound, saw his pale complexion, and noted his faint fluttery breathing. No, she would not leave him. Jody might well die before she made it back here with the car, and she vowed not to let the boy die alone.

“Looks like I’ll have to take you myself, then,” she 184

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said grimly, and bent over to gather up the young man. “Above and beyond the call of duty.”

Jody’s frame was slight and frail. Though he appeared to have fought back the worst ravages of his wasting disease, he still had not put on much weight, and she could lift him. It was lucky they were close to the cabin.

Vader whined next to her, wanting to come close.

Jody moaned when she moved him. She tried not to hurt him further, though she had no choice but to get him back to her car, where she could drive at breakneck speed to the nearest hospital . . . wherever that might be.

She left the mangled and bloody form of the attacker lying on the trampled forest floor. The burly man was dead, killed before her eyes.

Later on, evidence technicians would come here and study the body of this man, as well as Patrice’s.

But that was in the future. There would be plenty of time to pick up the loose threads, to explain the pieces.

For now, the only thing that mattered to Scully was to get this boy to medical attention.

She felt so helpless. She was sure that whatever first aid she could give him—even whatever emergency room surgery the doctors could perform whenever she arrived at a medical center—would be too little, too late.

But she refused to give up.

In her arms, Jody felt warm and feverish. Incredibly hot, in fact. But Scully couldn’t waste time thinking of explanations. She trudged ahead at her best speed, lugging him out of the forest, taking him to help. The black Lab followed close at her heels, silent and worried.

Jody continued to bleed, spilling crimson droplets along the forest floor, the grass, finally out to the clearing around the cabin. Scully focused her attention antibodies

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straight ahead and kept moving toward her rental car.

She had to get out of here, had to hurry.

She looked off to one side as she bypassed the plague-ridden body of Patrice Kennessy. She was glad Jody didn’t have to see his mother like this. Perhaps he didn’t even know what had happened to her.

Scully reached the car and gently set the boy down on the ground, leaning his back against the back fender as she opened the rear door. Vader barked and jumped in, then barked again, as if urging her to hurry.

Scully picked up Jody’s limp form and gently positioned him inside the car. Her makeshift bandage had fallen off, soaked with blood. But the bleeding from his huge wound had slowed remarkably, congealing. Scully worried that meant Jody’s heartbeat was weak, at the edge of death. She pressed more cloth against the bullet hole, and then jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car.

She drove off at a reckless speed up the bumpy dirt driveway, over the rise. She scraped the bottom of her car again as she headed back toward the logging road, but she accelerated this time, ignoring all caution.

The isolated cabin with all of its murder and death fell behind them.

In the back seat, Vader looked through the rear window and continued barking.

THIRTY-TWO

Federal Office Building

Crystal City, Virginia

Friday, 12:08 P.M.

The phone rang in Adam Lentz’s plain gov-X ernment office, and he grabbed for it immediately. Very few people knew his direct number, so the call had to be important, though it startled him from his quiet and intense study of maps and detailed local survey charts of the Oregon wilderness.

“Hello,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

Lentz listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, feeling a sudden chill. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

“I was about to have a progress report for you.”

Indeed, he had put together a careful map of his ongoing search, a listing of all the attempts he had made, the professional hunters and investigators combing the wooded, mountainous area of western Oregon.

“In fact,” Lentz said, “I have my briefcase packed and a ticket voucher. My plane leaves for Portland within the hour. I’m going to head up the mobile tactical command center there. I want to be on site so I can take care of things personally.”

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He listened to the voice, detecting no displeasure, no scorn, only the faintest background lilt of sarcasm.

The man didn’t want a formal report. Not at this time. In fact, he tended to avoid anything on paper whatsoever, so Lentz verbally gave him a summary of what he had done to track down Patrice and Jody Kennessy and their pet dog.

Lentz looked at his topographical maps. With a flat voice he listed where the six teams had concentrated their searches, rattling off one after another. He did not need to make his efforts sound extravagant or impressive—just competent.

Finally, though, a hint of criticism came from the other end of the phone conversation. “We had thought all of the uncontrolled samples of Kennessy’s nanomachines were destroyed. Your previous reports stated as much. This was a very important goal of ours, and I’m quite disappointed to learn that this isn’t so. And the dog—that’s a rather large mistake.”

Lentz swallowed. “We believed those efforts had been successful after the fire at DyMar. We had sent sterilization crews in to retrieve any unburned records. We found the fire safe and the videotape, but nothing else.”

“Yes,” the man said on the phone, “but from the condition of the dead security guard—as well as several other bodies—we must assume that some of the nanomachines have now escaped.”

“We’ll get them, sir,” Lentz said. “We’re doing our best to track down the fugitives. Finding the dog should be no problem. When we complete our mission, I assure you, there won’t be any samples remaining.”

“That isn’t a suggestion,” the voice said. “That’s the way it must be.”

“I understand, sir,” Lentz replied. “I’ve narrowed down my search, concentrating on a particular area in rural Oregon.”

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He rolled up the maps as he talked, folded other documents, and slid them into his briefcase. He glanced at his watch. His plane would be departing soon. He had only unmarked carry-on luggage, and he had papers that allowed him to bypass normal ticket-ing requirements. Lentz could take advantage of one of those empty seats the airlines were required to keep on all flights for important military or government personnel. His passes allowed him to move about at will with no written record of his travel plans or his movements. Such things were required in his line of work.

“And one last thing,” said the man on the phone.

“I’ve suggested this before, but I will reiterate it. You would do well to keep your eye on Agent Mulder.

Make sure part of your team is specifically assigned to shadowing his movements, following everything he does. Eavesdrop on every conversation he has.

“You already have the manpower that you need, but Agent Mulder has a certain . . . talent for the unexpected. If you stay close to him, he may well lead you exactly where you need to be.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lentz said, then glanced at his watch again. “I need to get to National Airport. I’ll remain in touch, but for now I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“And a mission to accomplish,” the man said without the slightest hint of emotion.

THIRTY-THREE

Kennessys’ Cabin

Coast Range, Oregon

Friday, 3:15 P.M.

The red pickup truck Mulder had comman-X deered handled surprisingly well. With its big tires and high clearance, it ran like a steamroller over the potholes, puddles, and broken branches on the old logging road and the overgrown half-graded driveway that led back to the isolated cabin.

After seeing the dead trucker’s body and the image of supposedly dead Jeremy Dorman on the surveillance videotape, he felt an urgency to find Scully, to warn her.

But the cabin was quiet, empty, abandoned.

Leaving the truck and walking around, he saw fresh tire marks embedded in the soft mud and gravel.

Someone had driven here recently and then departed again. Could Scully have gone already? Where would she go?

When he discovered the woman’s body lying in the grass, he knew it was Patrice Kennessy, without a doubt.

Mulder frowned and stepped back away from her.

Patrice’s skin had been ravaged by the same disease he 190

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had just seen on the dead truck driver. He swallowed hard.

“Scully!” He moved with greater urgency. The scarlet blood spatters on the ground were obvious, bright red coins splashed in an uneven pattern.

With a sheen of sweat on his forehead, Mulder broke into a trot, looking ahead, then back down to the ground as he followed the blood trail back into the forest.

Now he saw footprints. Scully’s shoes. Paw prints from a dog. His heart beat faster.

Mulder found his way to the base of a steep slope where a mudslide had gouged the hillside. Near one of the horizontal tree trunks Mulder saw the blood-smeared man with broad shoulders, tattered clothes, and a mangled throat ripped all the way down to the neck bone.

He recognized the burly man from the DyMar personnel photos, from the surveillance video at the truck weigh station. Jeremy Dorman—certainly dead now.

Mulder also smelled gunpowder beyond the blood. The dead man’s hand clutched a service revolver. From the smell, Mulder could tell it had been recently fired—but Dorman didn’t look as if he’d be firing it again anytime soon.

Mulder bent over to inspect the gaping wound in the man’s throat. Had the black Lab attacked him?

But even as he watched, Dorman’s mangled lar-ynx and the muscle tissue and skin around it looked melted, smoothing itself over, as if someone had sealed it with wax. His throat injury was filled with translucent mucus, slime oozing over the mangled skin.

Around him, Mulder saw signs of a struggle where rocks and mud had slid down the slope. It looked as if someone had fallen over the edge, and antibodies

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then been pursued. He saw more of the dog’s footprints, Scully’s shoe prints.

And smaller prints—the boy’s?

“Scully!” he called out again, but he heard no answer, only the rustle of pine trees and a few birds.

The forest remained hushed, fearful or angry. Mulder listened, but he heard no answer.

Then the dead man on the ground lurched up as if spring-loaded.

His claw-like left hand grabbed the edge of Mulder’s overcoat. Mulder cried out and struggled backward, but the desperate man clung to his coat.

Without changing his cadaverous expression, Jeremy Dorman brought up the revolver he held in his hand, pointing it threateningly at Mulder. Mulder looked down and saw the clutching hand, its covering of skin squirming, moving—infested with nanomachines?—slicked with a coating of slime. A contagious mucus . . . the carrier of the deadly nanotech plague.

THIRTY-FOUR

Oregon Wilderness

Friday, 4:19 P.M.

Fifty miles at least to the nearest hospital, X along tangled roads through wooded mountains—and Scully didn’t know exactly where she was going. She raced away as the lowering sun glittered through the trees, and then the clouds closed over again.

She kept driving, pushing her foot to the floor and wrestling with the curves of the county road, heading north. Dark pine trees flashed by like tunnel walls on either side of her.

In the backseat, Vader whimpered, very upset.

Clumps of blood and foam bristled from his muzzle.

She hadn’t taken time to clean him up. He snuffled at the motionless boy on the seat beside him.

Scully remembered the brutal way the dog had attacked the hulking man who had carried the plague that killed Patrice Kennessy, who had threatened Jody.

Now, despite the spattered evidence of dried blood on his fur, he seemed utterly loyal and devoted to guard-ing his master.

Before driving away from the cabin, she had antibodies

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checked Jody’s pulse. It was faint, his breathing shallow—but the boy still lived, clinging tenaciously. He seemed to be in a coma. In the past twenty minutes Jody hadn’t made a sound, not even a groan. She glanced up in the rearview mirror, just to reassure herself.