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As he said this, he stared at Gutsy.
“You think we’re monsters, Gabriella,” he said, and for a moment his voice softened. “But we were trying to prevent the extinction of humankind. The government fell. The armies died. Reaper spread around the world. We were the last hope of our species. So, you tell me—any of you tell me—what could we have done but do what we did?”
No one spoke for a moment, then Gutsy said, “You could have told us. You could have asked us to help. To volunteer.”
Morton began shaking his head before she even finished. “Volunteer? To be lab rats?”
“No. To be test subjects. To help save the world.”
“And why would any of you do that? Why would any of you risk your lives like that?”
“Because,” said Spider, “it’s our world too. We live here. Our friends are here.” He took Alethea’s hand. “Our families are here. People would have volunteered. They’d have stepped up if you ever gave them a chance.”
Gutsy wiped at her eyes. “If she thought it might help save me, Mama would have been the first in line.”
“I’d have done it to keep Sarah safe,” said Karen Peak.
Morton shook his head again. “No, no, no. People are afraid. They’re selfish. You say this now, but I know we wouldn’t have had enough volunteers, and then we would have failed.”
“And look at how well you succeeded doing it your way,” said Mr. Urrea in a voice that dripped with contempt.
“We were doing what we were ordered to do,” Morton countered.
Manny Flores cut in. “Look, guys, I tend to agree with all of you, and for two pins I’d feed this piece of garbage to los muertos, but Karen called you all in here because of something new we found.” He turned to Morton. “Get to the damn point.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Fine,” he snapped peevishly. “While attempting to find a way to change the function of Lucifer 113, we used many of the earlier versions of the parasite. This research took many forms, including a variety of clinical trials—mostly on animals, of course.”
“Mostly,” said Gutsy in a way that transformed that single word into something obscene.
“Yeah, very successful,” Benny said sourly. “We saw some of your test subjects. Nearly had our heads bitten off by a zommed-out gorilla.”
“If you expect me to apologize, you can just forget it,” said Morton. “We were trying anything that had even a whisper of a possibility. Anyway… there were other… ah… failures. One of my great fears is that the explosions at the base may have caused the accidental release of some of those stored bioweapons and paracides.”
“What’s a paracide?” asked Benny.
“Something that attacks and kills a parasite,” said Morton. He pointed to the corpse. “We found traces of a very specific paracide in this man’s blood. The only possible source of that contamination is from something inadvertently released when the lab blew up.”
“Oh crap,” Chong said.
“Allow me to explain,” said Morton. “Depending on how bad the fire was, most of the bioweapons stored at the base have likely been destroyed; most can’t survive outside a living host or some stable medium, and would have been compromised by the heat.”
“Most?” echoed Benny. “Not really digging the sound of that.”
“No,” Morton agreed. “The paracide we found in this man’s body is a very specific prion-based bioweapon. Before you ask, prions are misfolded proteins. Very tough, very difficult to destroy. They can survive on virtually any surface, withstand heat, and even survive freezing. We worked with prions because of that natural toughness, but they are not airborne pathogens. We needed something that could be a delivery system for the prions. Something we could use against mass populations of reanimates.”
“And that’s what this guy was infected with?” asked Spider.
“Yes. It’s likely all of the subjects who attacked Captain Ledger and Gabriella here were infected with it, since they all exhibited the same behavior.” Morton cleared his throat again. “Understand, this paracide was designed to work in conjunction with a genetically altered version of pertussis—whooping cough. That’s the primary delivery system—the infected coughing, spitting, or using a forced exhale.”
“The ones who attacked us kept yelling,” said Gutsy. “Howling, really.”
“Howling projects more than sound,” said Morton. “Yelling of any kind carries particles of the paracide in spit or exhaled vapor.”
“Then how come Captain Ledger and I aren’t infected?”
“I’m not sure,” admitted Morton. “By rights, you should be. It may be something as simple as neither of you having inhaled the exhalation of the infected.”
“So… we got lucky?” asked Gutsy.
