Ultimate Thriller Box Set (6 page)

Some of their finds were extraordinary.

Bub was impervious, it seemed, to extreme cold. They'd placed several refrigeration units in Red 13, the room Bub was kept in while he was comatose, and gradually lowered the temperature to four below zero degrees Celsius. Bub's internal body temperature didn't drop a single degree, and his heart rate and breathing remained consistent.

The two then moved in some heaters and cranked it up to over two hundred degrees. An egg fried on the table next to Bub, but he didn't fry. The demon's skin got hot, but his internal temperature didn't fluctuate more than a degree.

Meyer and Storky also discovered that Bub could breathe just about anything. It had been known since the '40s that Bub's complex respiratory system, which included four lungs, two diaphragms, and two organs that resembled air bladders, processed nitrogen and oxygen and excreted a combination of methane and nitrous oxide. Through experimentation they showed that Bub could process pure nitrogen, or pure oxygen, or carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, propane, and even chlorine gas, and was able to break it down to nourish his cells.

They stopped short at nerve gas, even though President Nixon gave them the okay.

Sun read all of this with great interest, but the interest was slowly giving way to something else.

Paranoia.

Bub was resistant to all disease, fungal, viral and bacterial. His body attacked any invader, whether it be bubonic plague, herpes zoster, ringworm, or even Dutch elm disease, surrounded it with what were assumed to be antibodies, and expelled the intruder from his anus in a crystalline pellet. Meyer even went so far as to inject him with enough anthrax to wipe out a large city. Bub excreted it within twenty minutes.

He wasn't invulnerable to physical harm, but damn near close. Ever since the first doctor drew some of Bub's blood and watched in amazement as the needle mark repaired itself moments later, it had been known that the demon possessed rapidly accelerated healing ability. Meyer and Storky must have been amazed by this, because they spent no less than three years conducting experiments on the anomaly. They poked, gouged, sliced, burned, scraped, and subjected every part of Bub to chemical attack.

Bub could repair all harm, even plugs taken from flesh and bone, within seconds. It happened so fast that they brought in a 35mm film camera to shoot the miracle in slow motion.

Meyer theorized that Bub's endocrine system was extremely advanced. The endocrine system in humans was capable of instantaneous reaction, such as a burst of adrenaline in a dangerous situation. Bub's had developed to the point where it had taken over the healing functions, knitting wounds instantly. Nixon had given the go-ahead to fully amputate one of Bub's limbs, but Meyer and Storky only went as far as a finger tip.

It grew back, longer and sharper than before.

Sun thought of Hercules and the hydra. Every time he cut off a head, it grew two more.

Meyer and Storky also tried to accurately gauge Bub's age. They took a sample of Bub's horn and tried to carbon date it. All living things take in carbon-14, which is created in the earth's atmosphere when the sun's rays strike nitrogen gas. It combines with oxygen to form CO
₂
. As long as the organism is alive, it has a constant new supply of C-14. But in dead tissue, the C-14 begins to decay into nitrogen-14, with a half life of about 5,730 years. Since Bub's horn—made of keratin like hair and feathers—was dead tissue, it seemed ideal for the task.

Something wasn't right, apparently, because the amount of N-14 found in the sample would have put Bub's age at over 200,000 years. Obviously impossible. Meyer hypothesized that since Bub breathed and was able to process nitrogen, that somehow accounted for the high N-14 count. Sun, who never excelled at chemistry, found that explanation suspicious, but easier to believe than the idea that Bub was older than mankind itself.

Along with a record of Bub's medical history, Sun was also sorting through the hundreds and thousands of pictures taken since the project's beginning. Everything and everyone involved in Samhain over the last century had been photographed, filmed, recorded, and videotaped, and more than half of the file cabinets in Red 3 were filled to the brim with visual media.

Somewhere, buried in all of this mess, was the answer she was looking for.

Sun didn't share Dr. Belgium's belief that Bub was some strange, prehistoric missing link. She also didn't share the view of the holies, who believed Bub was a true demon, a spawn of hell.

Sun had a different theory, one she wasn't willing to share yet. Not without proof. Given that the average tenure here was twenty-two years, Sun figured she'd find it eventually. In twenty-two years a person could find anything.

Maybe even peace.

She finished sorting the files in front of her, and then moved on to the next cabinet. It was crammed full of serum and tissue analyses. Sun picked up a thick folder containing an in-depth report on the physical properties of Bub's early stool samples. It didn't surprise her to find out that they contained ample amounts of radioactivity.

The demon was so damn tough, even his droppings were nuclear.

She gave it a cursory flip through and dropped it in the BUB pile.

“Attention, this is Race.”

Sun reflexively looked up at the intercom speaker near the door.

“We have a new arrival, Andrew Dennison, and I think it would be a good time to have a group powwow to get him up to speed on the project. The Mess Hall, in five. Refreshments will be served.”

Race chuckled and cut out.

Sun placed her hands on her lower back and stretched, the vertebrae crackling like a bag of chips. She left the lights on in Red 3 and headed for the Octopus. Her thoughts drifted to Andy Dennison, not for the first time.

Sun thought he was cute, in a non-threatening teddy bear kind of way. He was trying hard to be amusing. The complete opposite of Steven, who was so self-assured and serious. She compared all men to Steven, and they all came up lacking. That was one of the reasons she'd been celibate since his death. Everyone else seemed like a step down.

So what was it about this new guy that intrigued her? Must be hormonal, she decided. She had been completely alone in Africa. Andy was the first man her age she'd had a conversation with in close to a year.

Maybe she should let down her guard a notch, stop acting so hard-nosed. Would it kill her to be personable? He obviously found her attractive. She should be flattered rather than irritated.

But then, she should be a lot of things.

Sun walked through the Octopus and went down the Green Arm. Before entering the Mess Hall she absently reached for her purse to check her hair in her make-up compact. The gesture annoyed her; she hadn't carried a purse or a compact in a long time.

She settled for finger-combing her bangs back, and went into the cafeteria. The holies were already there, locked in their usual intense debate. Dr. Belgium was measuring coffee to put into the automatic maker, his actions as meticulous and precise as they were in the lab. Andy was leaning against the water cooler, hands in his pockets. Sun caught his eye and tried to look sympathetic. He gave her a shy smile back and walked over to her.

“Sorry about...”

“No need,” Sun interrupted. “We've all been there.”

“I haven't thrown up since doing keg stands in college.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Oh. Harvard.”

He said it as if it embarrassed him. Sun had met plenty of Harvard men, and they usually wore it like a badge of honor.
Interesting.

“How about you?” Andy asked.

“Johns... uh Iowa State.”

“Were you going to say Johns Hopkins? I didn't know they offered veterinary medicine.”

Sun thought fast. “I lived in Maryland, took some undergrad classes there. Transferred to Iowa.”

If he'd caught her lie she couldn't tell.

“Is that what you always wanted to be? A vet?”

“Yeah.” Another lie. “Did you always want to be a linguist?”

“I never really thought about it. It's something I've always been good at.”

“Do you like it?”

“I don't know. I guess I do, or why would I do it, right? Do you like being a vet?”

“Yes,” Sun said, happy to say something honest. “I don't beat myself up if my patients die.”

Andy smiled. He had a pleasant smile, she thought. She smiled back, surprised at how good it felt.

“I'm still not sure if I want to stay,” Andy said. “This isn't a normal translating job for me. I don't know if I can do it.”                       

“It’s okay to be afraid.”

“I'd bet you've never been afraid of anything in your entire life.”

“Not true. When I was seven, a bat got in my bedroom. Harmless, couldn't have been bigger than a tennis ball. But the way it flew; in a figure eight, unbelievably fast, inches from my face on every pass—it terrified me. Then it landed on my head, got tangled up in my hair. I was so scared I couldn't move. Took about five minutes to get up the guts to scream. Seemed like an eternity.”

“What happened?”

“Dad came in, caught it with a blanket, let it outside. He said it must have come in through the window. I didn't open my window again until I was eighteen.”

They shared a small laugh, which felt even better than the smile.

“Well, now you're taking care of the biggest bat in the history of the world,” Andy said.

“Gotta face your fears sometime. Besides, I think Bub's a wee bit too big to get tangled in my hair.”

“You don’t find him terrifying?”

“At first I did. Now I’m more intrigued than scared. Aren't you just a little bit curious about him?”

Andy rubbed his upper lip. “It's hard to be curious when breakfast is coming out of your nose.”

“Just think about it for a second. Every person on earth, no matter what country or culture, has some kind of idea of the devil. But no one has ever seen him before. Don't you want to know more about him?”

“You think he's really Satan?”

“Actually, I find that pretty hard to believe.”

“So what is he? An alien or something?” Andy asked.

“That's hard to believe too. But of the two, I'd buy the alien theory more than the biblical one. His physiology is just too strange.”

“An alien, huh? So is he the kind that flies around with Elliot, or the kind that eats Sigorney Weaver?”

“I don't know yet. He seems friendly.”

“Maybe that’s because he’s locked up. I wonder how friendly he’d be on the
other side
of the Plexiglas.”

Race entered the Mess Hall with Dr. Harker. They were in mid-conversation and Sun caught the end of it.

“...for what you've done with her. I still can't accept why you're here, but—”

“No thanks needed, General.” A frowning Harker cut him off. “It's my job.”

Just visited Helen,
Sun guessed. Both looked grim. Harker retained the look; she probably scowled in her sleep as well.

Race, with the poise of any good leader, quickly hid his feelings with a good ole boy smile. “Good, we're all here. Before we get started with the intros I'd like to announce that the Jacuzzi should be operational again by tomorrow. The same rules apply as with the pool, swimming suits are mandatory. You got that, Frank? We have ladies present.”

Dr. Belgium gave Race a nod without turning his attention from the brewing coffee.

“Good. Now I think all of you have met Andy Dennison by now, except for Julie. So let's start with you.”

Harker had a long, hound-doggish face and a droning voice which left no doubt that she didn't kindly suffer fools. Sun learned after only a few meetings with her that Harker considered everyone a fool.

“I’m Dr. Julie Harker. I came on in 1980 to oversee the medical well-being of the Samhain team, including the dispensing of medication and monthly physicals. I've also been monitoring Bub's vitals since my arrival, and have been attending to the treatment of General Race's wife Helen.”

It didn't surprise Sun that it was the exact same speech she'd given to her a week prior, right down to the nasally inflection.

“Thank you, Julie,” Race said, and Dr. Harker took a seat and removed a nail clipper from the chest pocket of her lab coat. She began to snip away at a hangnail. “How about you, Frank?”

“Hmm? Oh, sure.”

Dr. Frank Belgium touched the fresh cup of coffee to his lips and took a large slurp.

“Frank Belgium, molecular biologist. I'm the gene guy. I've been mapping Bub's genes. Hard, very hard. As you may know, or, well, maybe you don't, it took ten years for the human genome to get sequenced, and we've only got 23 pairs of chromosomes, and less than 25,000 genes. We've isolated 44 pairs of chromosomes in Bub. Hard work. Hard hard hard.”

Belgium took another loud slurp of coffee.

“But he's from earth. I'm sure. Bub has the same twenty amino acids as all life on this planet. Why is this important? Well there are about 80 different types of amino acids, and all can create proteins, but nothing on earth uses those extra sixty. All life—plant, animal, bacteria—uses different combinations of those same twenty, and the reason is because we all evolved from one common ancestor. That's why all living organisms share genes. Everyone in this room, on this planet, shares 99.9 percent of the same DNA. We share 98.4 with chimpanzees, 98.3 with gorillas, all the way on down to blue-green algae.”

Sun glanced at Andy. He was being drawn in by Frank's words, the same way Sun had been upon first hearing them.

“Now,” Belgium continued, “if life started several times, rather than just once, we'd probably find different amino acids in different things on earth. But we don't, we all have the same genetic code, and Bub shares it as well.

“What I'm doing, is mapping sequences in Bub's genome to find out what on earth he shares the most genes with. Very hit or miss when we're not sure where to look. It’s kind of like searching for a single sentence in a single book in the Library of Congress.”

Frank shrugged and drank more coffee.

“What do you believe Bub is, Doctor?” Race asked, glancing at Andy while he spoke.