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“A pheromone I hoped would attract infected gators.”
I cocked my head as I worked through his statement. “Oh! To use in the swamp so we can make sure we find any that are left out there?”
“Precisely.” He screwed the cap back onto the bottle. “We’ll send an inoculation team out every day until we are confident all have been found.”
Relieved, I entered the pen and got the gators lined up—and made sure they behaved themselves. With the help of Reg and Rachel, we got each and every one inoculated. As soon as we finished, we retreated beyond the safety of the fence to watch and wait and hope my spit cure worked.
For nearly a minute, nothing happened. Then, one by one, their hide shifted back to healthy dark green, and their eyes lost the milky film. Normal alligators, once again.
“Y’all were great,” I told them. “The coolest pets ever.” They probably didn’t understand me anymore since our connection had been due to the disease. And I didn’t feel them at the edge of my mind anymore. I heaved a sigh. “I’m going to miss having y’all around.”
We headed for the door. “When will they be released?” I asked Dr. Nikas.
“This evening,” he replied. “I’m assuming you wish to accompany them to the swamp?”
“Yeah!
That would be—” I jumped at a bellow from Tupac. The gators were lined up along the fence, snouts pressed against the chain-link. I let out a squeal of delight and ran back to give scritches. “You still like me!”
Biggie let out a low growl-warble as I rubbed his snout. They didn’t croon anymore, and the weird mental link we’d shared had faded, but it seemed they still considered me a mama of sorts.
“Well, you won’t be in here much longer,” I said and gave them one last round of nose rubs.
My phone buzzed as we finally left the room. Allen Prejean. Shit. I’d forgotten to update him. I paused to take the call while the others headed for the lab. “Hey, Allen. Dr. Nikas found the cure. Nick is better and so is everyone else. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, but I’ve had kind of a hectic morning.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I figured as much. The CDC guys are losing their shit because they want to know how it was treated and why they weren’t kept in the loop. But most people are so relieved the epidemic is over that they’re not paying the CDC much attention. Death toll seventeen, but it could have been so much worse.”
Seventeen more souls to help throw your ass into hell, Kristi Fucking Charish. “Remember Special Agent Aberdeen? I suspect she and her boss will make a few calls and quiet the CDC down.”
“That’s good to hear. So will you be back at the Coroner’s Office tomorrow?”
“Absolutely!” Weird that I was eager to get to work.
“Excellent. See you then.”
I returned to the main lab where Rachel, Reg, and Pierce had finished gathering up everything that belonged to the Tribe, along with a plastic bin of partially destroyed computer parts.
“What’s all that for?” I asked as I helped carry stuff to the helicopter.
“The drives are damaged but aren’t destroyed,” Pierce said. “There is still a chance we can retrieve data from them. I know a lady who did recovery work for the NSA. She’s expensive as all hell, but if she could get back any more of Kristi’s work, it would be worth it.”
“But we already have a cure.” I pointed to myself.
“It’s not the cure we’re interested in,” he said. “Kristi was working on how to become a mature zombie—without having to be a zombie. That’s how she expected to become, essentially, immortal. But Dr. Nikas has other ideas from the direction the research was going.”
He climbed into the helicopter and buckled in. Silent, I followed and sat across from him, fastened the seat harness like an old pro and got my headset in place. I waited until we were in the air then tapped Pierce’s leg and held up three fingers.
“Kang knows how to force maturity,” I said once he was on channel three with me. “But he had a good reason not to tell you how he did it.”
“I know,” he said. “He was right to keep it from me for so long. But I don’t want to use his technique. Trust me, I know how . . . uncontrolled I can get.” He shook his head. “But now I’m hoping that Dr. Nikas can modify his technique. Adapt it to prevent the hyperaggression or any other unfortunate side effects.”
“And you’re hoping that Kristi’s research might have answers.”
“Dr. Nikas is, and therefore I am.” He fell silent but didn’t switch the headset channel.
“I don’t always agree with your methods or, er, attitude,” I said after a moment, “but there’s no denying you want the best for the Tribe and all zombies.”
He met my eyes. “I want us to be as safe and secure as possible.”
