Immune Page 12

  “Mmm. Sure, Mom. Give me a minute.”

  “That’s what you said ten minutes ago. You’ve got to get up if you’re going to make the ceremony.”

  Heather sat up in her bed. “What ceremony?”

  Anna McFarland smiled down at her. “The town is having a big ceremony over at the high school to congratulate the three of you on your award. The mayors of Los Alamos and White Rock will be there along with the press. Even a TV crew from Santa Fe is supposed to be there. You three are going to be famous.”

  Heather stretched her arms out over her head. “Well then I guess I better not keep my adoring fans waiting.”

  Mrs. McFarland’s laugh followed her from the room. “At least you should get some breakfast before starting your big day.”

  The ceremony at the high school was a surprise. Heather wasn’t sure how the community could have organized it on such short notice. Apparently, Principal Zumwalt had anticipated a respectable finish for their project, although even he probably had not expected a first-place finish. Perhaps it was the perfection of the event that injected a note of concern into her consciousness, although it was more likely the presence of the stern-looking man she noticed standing against the back wall of the gymnasium. Whatever the cause, by the time the ceremony reached its conclusion, a low-grade dread had settled firmly onto Heather’s shoulders.

  As the crowd filed out, Heather noticed the stranger move up to whisper in Principal Zumwalt’s ear, an action that immediately preceded the two of them walking briskly from the gymnasium. As the principal passed through the double doors, he glanced back, his gaze momentarily locking with hers. Something in that look confirmed her very worst fears. Equations filled her head, all of them resolving to the same solution. Something was horribly wrong.

  Despite the tables full of refreshments and the dozens of people who came up to her to offer their congratulations, the sense of impending doom continued to deepen. Before she got a chance to discuss her fears with Mark or Jennifer, Principal Zumwalt re-entered the gymnasium, walking directly up to the spot where Heather stood beside her mom and dad.

  “Mr. and Mrs. McFarland, if you would be so kind, please bring Heather to my office. An urgent matter has just come to my attention.”

  Gil McFarland set his soda on the table and raised a questioning eyebrow. “What’s this all about?”

  “I’m sorry, but I only want to go through this once, and the Smythes need to be present as well. Please wait for me in my office while I go find them.”

  Gil McFarland nodded. “Come on, Anna, Heather. Let’s go find out what this is about.”

  When they reached the principal’s office, Heather saw that the slender man with the stern face she had seen earlier was already present, shuffling through a briefcase that lay open on the corner of the principal’s desk. Before he had finished arranging a stack of papers, Principal Zumwalt arrived, leading the Smythes into the room.

  “I apologize for this…” Dr. Zumwalt momentarily stumbled with his words, something that Heather could never remember him doing. “This gentleman is Dr. Caldwell, one of the judges of the National High School Science Competition. He has just informed me of some very disturbing news, which I will now ask Dr. Caldwell to elaborate on.”

  Dr. Caldwell straightened, the act exaggerating his thinness so that it seemed that every fold in his brown suit had become a wrinkle that matched the skin that draped his bones. He stepped forward so that he stood even with the front of the desk, turning the stack of papers with a bony finger.

  His gray eyes swept the room. “Unfortunately Dr. Brannigan had already flown back to California when this matter came to our attention. Therefore, she could not be present to deal with the situation. I am here in her stead.

  “As you are no doubt aware, we at the National Science Foundation have no tolerance for plagiarism. And while I regret that we did not find it earlier, so that we could have avoided all the embarrassment that this will cause, our duty is clear. We are stripping your team of its award.”

  “What?” Gil McFarland’s exclamation was accompanied by those of the other parents. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  Dr. Caldwell picked up the stack of papers and began spreading them out on the coffee table that sat between the principal’s desk and the three overstuffed chairs on the opposite wall.

  “It was very subtle. It was almost a surprise that we found it. If it hadn’t been for the elegance of the equations in this section of the report, we would never have looked this closely at it. But that, in itself, attracted attention.” Dr. Caldwell paused for effect.

  “You see this section right here?” His hand swept a page from the team’s report. “This particular derivation of the quantum equations governing the cold fusion reactions matches that produced by a team at the Fermi Laboratory, a team of physicists that only recently published their paper on the subject. We were seriously surprised that a group of high school students had even managed to make sense of it.”

  Again, Dr. Caldwell paused, his eyes scanning them sadly. “It’s a shame, really. If you had only documented the source of these derivations instead of trying to take credit for them as your own, you would have still been the runaway winners of the contest. Unfortunately, cheating demeans you all and leaves us no choice but to strip you of the award.”

  “But that’s not right. We didn’t cheat!” Mark’s fists knotted so tightly, the veins along the backs stood out in purple spider webs.

  “Really?” the sympathetic look faded from Dr. Caldwell’s face. “Then maybe you would consider explaining how a group of three high-school students derived a set of equations that only one other team of physicists on the planet has managed.”

  Heather’s head felt like it would explode, a clear set of visualizations flooding through her brain in a manner that left the outcome clear. There was no way the committee was going to believe that she had derived the equations on her own. The only way they could explain themselves would be to reveal the existence of the Second Ship. Feeling sick at her stomach, Heather stepped forward.

  “I’m Heather McFarland. I believe I can explain.”

  “Well?”

  The faces stared back at her. Dr. Caldwell, Dr. Zumwalt, Mr. Smythe, and even her own father looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and dismay.

  “It was my fault,” Heather said, unable to keep her hands from shaking. “I was so excited when I read the Fermi Paper that I used its equations in our report.”

  “But that fails to explain why you didn’t document your source.” Dr. Caldwell’s face grew even more severe.

  A small sob escaped Heather’s lips before she could stifle it. “I know. I was responsible for that section of the paper. I never meant to cheat. I must have gotten sloppy in our rush to the finish.”

  “Sloppy?” Dr. Caldwell took a step toward her. “That is something I cannot believe. Everything about your team’s report is first class, all meticulously assembled and documented. But you tell me that you got sloppy with your attribution? Ridiculous. If there is one thing I can tolerate even less than plagiarism, it is a lie. And you, young lady, are a liar.”

  “Now see here,” Gil McFarland sputtered.

  “You take that back!” Something about the tone of Jennifer’s voice caused all eyes to settle on her. Her delicate features had warped into a mask of anger, her forehead creased in concentration, her eyes alive with something that seemed vaguely familiar to Heather.

  Jennifer stepped closer to the startled professor, her eyes locking his gaze. “Apologize. Now!”

  For several seconds, everyone stood frozen in place, awed by the surrealistic confrontation. Suddenly, Dr. Caldwell bowed his head, both hands rising to rub his temples.

  When he raised his head again, the harsh look of moments before was gone.

  “Odd. I don’t normally allow myself to become emotional. My response was entirely inappropriate. I apologize to you all, especially to you, Heather. I had no b
usiness questioning your veracity. Unfortunately, that does not alter the sanctions that the judging committee has decided to impose.

  “Your award has been stripped and will be presented to the runner-up team. As for your cold-fusion apparatus, you have a choice.”

  Heather felt the constriction in her chest increase. “What choice?”

  “The committee has decided, due to your age, to allow you the possibility of partial redemption. If you choose to donate your apparatus to the national science foundation, signing over all rights to the ingenious design, we will refrain from issuing a formal report on your disqualification. Otherwise, you can keep your device and we will issue a formal report, something that will go into your academic record to be considered by future college admissions boards.”

  Mr. Smythe interrupted. “That’s not a choice. Even if your report is not formalized, the plagiarism story will still be out there in the press. These kids will be humiliated.”

  “I’m afraid we cannot help that. All we can offer is to mitigate the long-term impact of this situation.”

  Dr. Caldwell picked up his satchel and turned back toward Principal Zumwalt, indicating the papers on the table.

  “That is your copy of our report.”

  As he made his way to the door, Dr. Caldwell paused to survey the three shocked students one last time.

  “Think it over.”

  Then he was gone, leaving behind a group so disheartened that they didn’t notice that Heather never bothered to wipe away the tears that dripped from her chin.

  35

  Raul’s harness dangled from his buttocks as he swung himself up along the wall of alien machinery to which the far ends of the cables were attached. The knotted muscles in his arms seemed ready to burst through the thin layer of skin that covered them. In his concentration, he hardly noticed the minor amount of effort the climb required.

  Dr. Stephenson had been encouraging him to explore his connections to the ship’s machinery, only the good doctor had no idea how successful that exploration had become. With every attempt, Raul’s access to the ship’s neural network got better, despite the severe damage the ship’s systems had suffered. Like him, she had been horribly injured, but she was a survivor.

  Crude as they were, the connections Dr. Stephenson had made between the machines and his own amputation-exposed nerve bundles had been effective. It had taken a while to make sense of the wild sensory data that bled into him through his optical nerve and through the cables he now thought of as his tail. At first, he had thought the strange sensations were only pain-induced hallucinations. How wrong he had been.

  His nanite-infested bloodstream had worked miracles, accepting the attachments as if he were a hybrid plant with some new genetic sprigs grafted to his trunk. New skin had grown up around them in a way that just seemed right. Even better, the physical connections to his nervous system were getting better. Yes, the nanites had been one busy little colony, always analyzing his health, always seeking ways to fix imperfections. And while they could not regenerate lost limbs, they were very good at keeping him alive and incorporating usable new parts.

  What Raul had initially thought were hallucinations were his first feeble attempts to deal with the data coming from the ship’s damaged neural network, a magnificently capable system that his consciousness roamed at will. It was incredible. Now, when he thought about something, he not only thought about it with the neurons in his own brain, he thought about it with all the functioning neural pathways in the ship.

  Unfortunately, only a very small portion of the original neural net was currently functional. The molecular data storage banks were the most heavily damaged, although he worked steadily to repair them. He had the feeling that if he could just reach a critical mass here, he would attain access to knowledge that would enable him to understand how to bring more of the power systems back online. And with more power, he could bring the main computers back to life.

  In the meantime, he had made a glorious breakthrough. He had managed to tap the Internet remotely. Raul still didn’t quite understand how he had achieved it. He had been wishing that he could access data from the outside world and somehow the ship had brought a connection online. It wasn’t a physical connection like a cable line or an uplink to a satellite. Somehow, the ship just managed to make it happen.

  But that connection was spotty and limited, the result of damage to a set of components that were the object of Raul’s current repair efforts. Clinging with one hand to a set of conduits, Raul unfastened the casings, his artificial right eye seeing the activity in those circuits in a way that no human eye could. As he observed the data flow, his brain, augmented by the shipboard neural net, understood exactly what was wrong. He might never again leave this craft, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t touch the outside world.

  A broad smile crawled across Raul’s face. Perhaps his suffering had not been in vain. Maybe God wasn’t done with him after all.

  36

  Heather rolled over in bed and opened her eyes, surprised to see her own arms stretching high into the air. It was Saturday, and she was still alive and not in a federal penitentiary. Considering the horrible nature of her dreams, this waking was a major improvement.

  Glancing over at the clock on her bed stand, she saw that it was 5:30 a.m. Holy cow. She had been so busy just trying to survive the week that she hadn't really had a chance to think about the fact that she was still alive and in good health.

  Heather rolled out of bed and slipped into her long, white robe and her fur-lined, moccasin-style slippers, then made her way quietly down to the kitchen. By the time the teakettle started whistling, she had already gotten the chamomile tea bag situated in her cup, switched on the television, and begun channel surfing for any news that might indicate some other disaster was on its way to annihilate them.

  The smell of the tea wafted up to her nostrils as she began pouring the hot water over the bag and then paused to add a little Splenda.

  At first she barely registered the scratching at the kitchen window, so softly did it intrude into her consciousness. When she did look up, there was nothing there, just a large section where the condensation had left a cloud on the pane. Only as she started to turn away did she see it, crude letters in the condensation where a finger had traced them on the outside of the glass.

  “I know what you are.”

  Heather set down her tea and walked across to the windowsill. On closer inspection, it was a thin layer of frost, not steam or condensation, that had been scratched away.

  She shifted her gaze to the tree line at the back edge of their yard. There, standing in the snow beneath the pines, stood the Rag Man, his long, greasy, blond hair and the mouthful of bad teeth in his grinning face immediately recognizable. His eyes, though. Where were his eyes?

  Grabbing a long butcher knife from the block on the countertop, Heather opened the sliding glass door and stepped out into the predawn darkness, the garden dimly illuminated by the light from their back porch. As she stepped out, the Rag Man slid back into the trees.

  Heather lunged after him, almost slipping on the ice covering the deck’s lower step, but she managed to right herself as she plunged into the snow-covered grass beyond. She reached the tree where she had last seen him, whirling to make sure he did not jump out of the darkness behind her.

  There in the snow beneath the tree, a clear set of footprints led away into the woods just beyond her backyard. Heather sucked in a chest-full of air, then moved, head bent to keep the trail in sight as she made her way forward. In seconds the trees behind her masked her house from view, bringing down a deeper darkness that would have been absolute, except for the light of the three-quarter moon that filtered through the branches high above.

  Those tracks in the snow pulled her onward, her hand clutched so tightly around the handle of the big knife that it seemed the skin would peel away from her knuckles at any moment. She felt like screaming after the Rag Man: Who are you? What do you want f
rom me? Stay the hell away from my family!

  “I know what you are.”

  The voice behind her was so close she could feel the hot breath puff against the back of her neck, could smell the rot in those decaying teeth. Suddenly all the anger and strength leached out of her body, replaced by an icy terror that left her frozen in place, unable to move. Unable even to turn her face to look into those vacant eye sockets.

  “I know what you are becoming.”

  “I know what you are becoming.”

  “I know what you are becoming.”

  Heather sat straight up in bed, the struggle back to consciousness leaving her momentarily disoriented. Ever so slowly, her racing heart slowed its beating.

  Jesus. The same dream she had endured before. On impulse, she pinched her arm hard. Ouch. Well, if she wasn’t really awake, then the old myth of not feeling pain in dreams was flat-out busted.

  Snow. There had been snow in the dream, but it was summertime. Of course it was a dream.

  She glanced at the clock beside the bed. 5:30 a.m., same as in the dream. Well she damn sure wasn’t going downstairs to make some tea. Not this morning.

  As Heather stared at the clock, waiting for it to tick to 5:31, a new worry settled over her. She hadn’t been able to remember her dreams for weeks now. Every morning she awoke knowing that she had been dreaming but dreading the thought of remembering them. Even worse, now that she had remembered this one, she had the distinct feeling that it was the least threatening of them all.

  If the dreams were bad, her waking hallucinations were worse. Thinking back, she identified the day, three weeks ago, when she had quit seeing numbers in her mind and started seeing visions. In a weird way, it made sense. Programmers used mathematics to generate the fancy 3D imagery in video games and animated movies. Her mind had just gotten so good at math that the calculations now formed movies instead of equations. As scared as she had been during her original savant experience, this new phase horrified her beyond belief.