Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake - Страница 32

      “Houuuuuurs.”

Harker frowned. She'd been harboring a minor fantasy of digging up her beloved Shirley and bringing her to Bub. It was ridiculous, she knew. But better to ask than always wonder.

“Who diiiiiied?”

“Excuse me?”

“You want me to bring someone baaaaaaaack.”

Harker's eyes began to glaze and her lower lip quivered. She couldn’t help it. The pain never went away.

“I lost a child,” Harker said.

Bub grinned. His grin was like opening a drawer full of steak knives.

“I can maaaaaaake a child.”

Harker blinked. “What?”

“A chiiiiild. I can maaaaaaaake one.”

“A newborn?”

“Any aaaaaaaaage.”

That would be perfect! All these years, without hope of ever holding a baby again...

“How?” Harker asked.

“A sheeeeeeeeeep.”

Harker frowned.

“You can make a baby out of a sheep?”

“I can change the geeeeeeeeenes. Make it huuuuuman.”

“I'd like to see,” Harker said.

“I neeeeed your help.”

“How?”

The demon leaned closer to the Plexiglas and lowered his voice.

“We shouldn’t beeeeeeee here,” Bub said.

Harker furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“In Samhaaaaaaain. You and I are trapped heeeeeere.”

No kidding, Harker thought.

“So what do you want?”

“To get oooooooout.”

Harker shook her head. “Impossible. I couldn't help you. The President would have me killed, plain and simple. He'd send me back to prison for even thinking about it. No way.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

“There's too much security.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

Harker could picture Shirley’s face.

“A girl. A little girl.”

“I can maaaaake a beautiful giiiiiirl.”

“I can't. There's the door here, plus the two coded gates in the Red Arm. There's also a camera right over my shoulder.”

“Give meeee the cooooooodes.”

Harker thought it over. That couldn't be traced back to her. And if Bub got out, so what? The demon had a right to be free. He didn't deserve to be locked up here any more than Harker did. In fact, if Bub escaped, Harker might even be allowed to leave. No more Bub, no more Project Samhain.

But even more important than that was the thought of having a child. If just for a few stolen hours. It had been so long. The feedings, the diapers, those little fingers and toes...

“I give you the door code, you make me a child,” Harker confirmed.

Bub nodded.

“The child first,” Harker said.

“I neeeeeeeed proof.”

“How?”

“You’ll think of soooooomething.”

Harker would think of something. Suddenly nothing else mattered to her. During her trial she'd been evaluated by a court-appointed shrink who did a thoroughly incompetent job, but who had managed to say something interesting. Harker had shown no remorse. And why should she have? She loved Shirley more than her birth parents ever could have. But because Harker never felt bad for her actions, the judge decided she could never be rehabilitated.

And never was a very long time.

“Everything you told the priest,” Harker said, “that was all bullshit, wasn't it?”

“Whyyyyyyyyyy?”

“I need to know if I can trust you. Maybe if I let you escape you'll try to murder us all.”

Bub laughed, a giant frog croaking.

“Truuuuuust meeeeee.”

Harker decided that she didn't care what Bub's plans were. She was going to help him no matter what.

“Okay. I'll need some time to think of something. We'll also need some way to turn off the video camera. I don't want to get caught.”

“I’ll take caaaaare of that. Tell Sun I want two sheeeeeeeeep.”

“Fine.”

Harker checked her watch. She had about an hour. How could she somehow prove to Bub that she was giving him the real code, other than taking him out of his habitat and showing him?

Showing him.

“I'll see you at lunch time,” Harker said. She left Red 14, hoping she'd be able to make her plan work.

*

Dr. Frank Belgium was oblivious to the exchange. He was busy multi-tasking on the Cray. Switching focus from nuclear to mitochondrial DNA, Belgium used restriction enzymes to cut some specific sequences, then used a PCR—polymerase chain reaction—machine to amplify the sample for an STR test. The DNA molecules actually went through channels in a microchip and then passed through a laser beam, getting 'fingerprinted' in the process. This would give him a tagged sequence that could be checked against samples from other life forms in the database.

At the same time, he was using some proteomic tools to identify the amino acids in the serum sample he took from the re-animated sheep's leg. Genes were sort of like factories that could build themselves. DNA coded for protein. Some of the protein was used to make things like cells and antibodies, but some of it was used to make enzymes and hormones. These were chemicals that caused biochemical reactions within the body.

For instance, insulin was a hormone that lowered blood sugar, and a lack of it resulted in diabetes. HGH was responsible for human growth, and lack of it caused dwarfism, or too much of it caused NBA players. Enzymes speeded biochemical reactions—saliva contained enzymes that helped break down starches, aiding in digestion, and the restriction enzymes used so often in molecular science were chemicals that functioned like tiny pairs of scissors, cutting DNA molecules at specific sequences. These were essential to genetic research, because a single strand of DNA could have billions of base pairs, making it unwieldy indeed.

Belgium was convinced that Bub's power of resurrection was either hormonal or enzymic, and in order to prove it he had to identify the proteins. Since proteins were made of amino acids, that was what he searched for. Some of the tools he used were AACompIdent, PeptIdent, SWISS-PROT, and TrEMBLE; all extremely sophisticated amino acid identifiers.

“Let meeee oooooout,” Bub said, startling Belgium to the point that he almost fell out of his chair.

“What?”

“I want the inteeeernet.”

Belgium had already made the decision that he wouldn't let Bub out again. He knew Bub had lied during the interrogation. Bub had claimed to have never read the bible, but Frank had checked the cookies in the Temp file, and several of the websites Bub had been extensively surfing were biblical. That made everything the demon had said suspect.

Belgium wasn't sure why Bub would lie—he'd cured Race's wife and been friendly to everyone—but he decided he wasn't going to give Bub access to any more information.

The last 24 hours had been gut-wrenching for Belgium. He destroyed the video recordings of Bub leaving his habitat, but he was still worried the infraction would be discovered. He was even more worried once he realized Bub was lying. If Bub had done anything harmful, Belgium would consider himself to blame. After his screw-up at BioloGen, Frank didn't want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt ever again. He would sequence Bub's genome without the demon's help, no matter how long it took.

“I'm sorry, Bub. The server is down. It happens all the time.”

Bub didn't answer right away.

“Are you lyyyyyyyying?” he finally asked. The tone in his voice seemed to bore into Frank’s bones.

“Hmm? No no no, of course not, Bub. Our server is under construction. Maybe they're doing an upgrade.”

“Use another server.”

“We don't have a contract with another server. Besides, we couldn't access another server without using our current server.”

“I wish to see.”

“There's nothing to see, simple as that.”

Belgium buried his face in his notes, pretending to be in deep concentration.