The Blood Artists
- Автор: Хоган Чак
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-688-15622-0
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Blood Artists». Краткое содержание книги:
Maryk glanced back at Melanie as Dr. Pearse prattled on.
“He never found one, Peter. In fact, his latency period is growing shorter. This is because the virus is extraordinarily volatile. It is changing more rapidly now than ever before. Wholesale shifts since the prison outbreak. Incredible.”
“Stephen,” Maryk said. “You are talking a mile a minute.”
“It’s all here, Peter, all the answers.” His gnarled hand rested on the pile of notebooks in the manner of a schoolboy taking an oath. “I know what he’s waiting for now. His virus is changing all the time, becoming more refined. It’s all that uranium it was exposed to in the cave, for centuries. Zero’s virus is breaking down to the point where it will no longer infect vegetation and lower animals. Do you understand? Zero will sicken only Homo sapiens.” Dr. Pearse patted the notebooks in wonder. “It’s all happening within him — of him. He’s not there yet, but he’s getting closer, and he knows it. He knows it.”
Maryk nodded but showed him no enthusiasm. “Rest a moment, Stephen,” he said. “You’re exhausted.”
“I came here to kill him, Peter. I admit that. But now I see that we have to understand him first. We have to learn from him. Zero has something to teach us.”
Maryk looked stem. “You say you know things about Zero, Stephen. How?”
Dr. Pearse thought about it. “I’m not sure. I just do.”
“What, then? I need some idea of what I’m up against. Tell me what you know.”
Dr. Pearse held Maryk’s gaze, then accepted his challenge. “A man infected by a deadly virus that has not killed him, but instead combined with him, at some elemental level. A biological model of a man-virus.”
Maryk stared. “That’s right.”
“Viruses like tight, dark places. Sunlight is a virus killer. Given the evolutionary transformation that has taken place, he must prefer night to day. Direct exposure to sunlight should weaken him. Not mortally — this is not Dracula — but ultraviolet light exposure from the sun should have the effect of wearing him down.”
Maryk moved closer, intrigued. “Go on.”
“His thinking process is impaired. The body is resilient, as we know. The body battles for stability, always. The body adjusts to change. But the brain, the brain goes further than that: The brain compensates, sometimes to the point of overcompensation. It is an elastic organ, regenerating damaged tissue, even redrawing neural pathways with minimal impairment, perpetually searching for solutions to the millisecond-by-millisecond problems it is given. We know that Plainville targets the brain. Therefore Zero has, at the very least, suffered a series of shocks or minor strokes. There is physiological damage to the brain, unique psychological damage, and whatever resulting chemical imbalances, all combined with the rudiments of infection. As his higher functions began to fail, the brain’s only alternative for survival would be to simply switch them off. After so many years — I would say he exists in a state where dreaming and waking have become one and the same.”
“A functional dream state,” Maryk said, less encouragingly than provokingly.
“Yes,” Dr. Pearse nodded. He ran on. “As his brain continues to compensate for what it lacks, more primal emotions are tapped, and the mind reverts to the primitive. Survival beyond death means, for man, reproduction: offspring, parent to child. Fertilization and cell division forming another living host where the progenitor’s DNA can thrive. Of course, infection is essentially the same process. Zero is operating on this primal level now. His damaged brain has no choice but to embrace the creature its host has become. Only propagation can ensure survival at the genetic, viral level. This means widespread infection. That is his ultimate goal.”
It was as though Dr. Pearse was almost channeling Zero. He wilted in the heat, but still pressed on. Maryk said, “What about personality?”
“The character of a virus endowed with human traits? Easy. We’re talking about a being uninhibited by any obligations, social or moral. Combine the worst elements of a serial murderer, a rapist, an impulsive arsonist. Hyper-aggressive, hyper-sexual, homicidal, egocentric, pathological. An unqualified sociopath. The ultimate deviant terrorist mentality. All Zero wants to do is infect, infect, infect.”
Maryk moved one more step closer, now facing Dr. Pearse across a wooden table. “One more thing,” he said. “We’ve said that people who contract the virus do one of two things — they either die quickly, or we get to them early with the serum and they survive.”
Dr. Pearse nodded. “Except for Zero. He remained alive, and the virus was given time to integrate itself with his person.”
Maryk nodded slowly. “So this could, theoretically, happen to anyone who contracted the disease, and was kept alive through extraordinary means.”
Dr. Pearse considered it and was about to give his answer when his grin fell. He came to stare at Maryk as Maryk went on.
“How do you know so much about him? How did you find his lab here in the middle of four hundred thousand acres of swamp? You say you could feel him.”
Dr. Pearse said nothing. He continued to stare.
“Stephen, how is it you are so obviously sick, and yet have remained so strong?”
Melanie understood now. She watched the sunlight beat down on Dr. Pearse, and he noticed that he was weaker in it.
Dr. Pearse had nothing to say.
“We’re leaving here right now,” Maryk said. “I want to get another took at you back at the bureau.”
Dr. Pearse’s face changed, and he looked at Maryk as though Maryk were crazy. “There’s too much to do here, Peter. Too much to learn. I’m so—”
“Close to him,” Maryk said. “How close are you, Stephen?”
Dr. Pearse was jittery now. This was the first time Melanie had ever seen him angered. Sweat glistened on the livid sores mottling his face and neck. He looked back and forth at the two of them, and then at the BioCon agents behind.
“I’m staying,” he said. He pointed weakly at the table that separated him and Maryk. “I’m staying right here and working.”
Something happened then, and Maryk started to back away from Dr. Pearse. “Stephen,” he said. He held a gloved hand out in front of him. “Stephen. Listen to me.” Melanie did not see it until just then. “Don’t move.”
A spot of dark red had appeared under Dr. Pearse’s nostril. He grew agitated under their staring, like a cornered animal. “You all just stay away from me,” he said.
“Stephen.” Maryk stopped and held his ground. “Your nose is bleeding.”
Dr. Pearse looked at them strangely. He reached up to his face and examined his stiff fingertips. The blood was coming down onto his blistered top lip now. He looked at it on his fingers as though he did not understand.
“Just don’t move,” Maryk said.
Dr. Pearse looked up, confused, his hand still open in front of him. Then he started slowly around the table, as though to explain. Maryk took another step backward, and Melanie found herself doing the same. “Stephen,” Maryk said sharply.
The blood was coming faster now, a dark, heavy red, running out of both nostrils and down over his lips. Melanie sensed movement all around her, the suited BioCon agents, assembling.
Dr. Pearse appeared disoriented suddenly. “You don’t understand, I—”
He came another step forward, but this time Maryk did not give any ground. Maryk stood ready to meet him. Melanie saw the black bag in his right hand.
Melanie said suddenly, “Stephen. Please.”