The X-Files: Antibodies (23 page)
Mulder’s eyes widened, turning to look over his shoulder. “You used early generation nanocritters, the ones not fully tested. You injected yourself so your body could heal, so you could escape while everyone else thought you were dead.”
Dorman scowled. “That dog was our first real success. I realize now that David must have immediately taken a fresh batch of virgin nanocritters and secretly injected them in his son. Jody was almost dead already from his leukemia, so what difference did it make? I doubt Patrice even knew. But after seeing Jody today—he’s cured. He’s healthy. The nanocritters worked perfectly inside him.” Dorman’s skin shuddered and rippled in the dim forest light.
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“Unlike yours,” Mulder pointed out.
“David was too paranoid to leave anything valuable within easy reach. He’d learned that much at least from his brother. I only had access to what remained in our cryostorage. Some of our prototypes had produced . . . alarming results. I should have been more careful, but the facility was burning around me. When the machines got into my system, they reproduced and adjusted to my genetics, my cell structure. I thought it would work.”
As he trudged into the meadow, Mulder’s mind raced ahead, sifting the possibilities. “So DyMar was bombed because someone else was funding your research, and they didn’t want the nanotechnology to get loose. They didn’t want David Kennessy testing it out on his pet dog or his son.”
Dorman’s voice carried a strange tone. “The cure to disease, the possibility of immortality—why wouldn’t they want it all to themselves? They intended to take the samples to an isolation laboratory where they could continue the work in secret.” He continued under his breath. “I was supposed to be in charge of that work, but those people decided to obliterate me as well as David and everyone else.”
He gestured again with the revolver, and Mulder stepped carefully, swallowing hard as understanding crystallized around him.
The prototype nanocritters had adapted themselves to the DNA of the initial lab animals, but when Dorman had brashly injected them into himself, the cellular scouts were forced to adapt to completely different genetics: biological policemen with conflicting sets of instructions. The drastic shift must have knocked the already unstable machines out of whack.
Mulder continued to speculate. “So your prototype nanocritters are confused with conflicting programming. When they hit a third person, a new genetic antibodies
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structure, they grow even more rampant. That’s what causes this viral form of cancer whenever you touch someone, a shutdown in the nervous system that grows like wildfire throughout the human body.”
“If that’s what you believe,” Dorman said with a low mutter. “I haven’t exactly had time to run a lot of tests.”
Mulder frowned. “Is that mucus”—he carefully pointed at Dorman’s throat, which was glistening with slime—“a carrier substance for the nanocritters?”
Dorman nodded. “It’s infested with them. If someone gets the carrier fluid on them, the nanomachines quickly penetrate their body . . .”
The battered red pickup stood parked in the muddy driveway right in front of them now. As he walked, Dorman made every effort to avoid the fallen body of Patrice Kennessy.
“And now the same thing is happening to you as happened to your victims,” Mulder said, “but much more slowly. Your body is falling apart, and you think Jody’s blood will save you somehow.”
Dorman sighed, at the end of his patience. “The nanocritters in his system are completely stable. That’s what I need. They’re working the way they should, not flawed with contradictory errors like mine. The dog’s nanocritters are good, too, but Jody’s are already conformed to human DNA.”
Dorman drew a deep breath, and Mulder realized that the man had no reason to believe his own theory; he merely hoped against hope that his speculation was true. “If I can get an infusion of stable nanocritters, they’ll be stronger than my warped ones. They will supersede the infestation in my own body and give them a new blueprint.” He looked intensely at Mulder, as if he wanted to grab the FBI agent and shake his shoulders. “Is that so wrong?”
When the two men reached the old pickup parked 204
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in front of the cabin, Dorman told Mulder to take out his car keys.
“I’ve left them in the ignition,” Mulder said.
“Very trusting of you.”
“It’s not my truck,” Mulder said, making excuses, hesitating, trying to figure out what to do next.
Dorman yanked open his creaking door. “Okay, let’s go.” He slid onto the seat, but remained as far toward the passenger door as possible, avoiding contact. “We’ve got to find them.”
Mulder drove off, trapped in the same vehicle with the man whose touch caused instant death.
Tactical Team Temporary Command Post Oregon District
Friday, 6:10 P.M.
To Adam Lentz and his crew of professionals, X the fugitives were leaving a trail of clues like muddy footprints on a snow-white carpet.
He didn’t know the members of his team by name, but he knew their skills, that they had been hand-picked for this and other similar assignments.
This group could handle everything themselves, but Lentz wanted to be on the scene in person to watch over them, to intimidate them . . . and to be sure he could claim the proper credit when this was all over.
In his line of work, he didn’t get official promo-tions, awards, or trophies. In fact, his successes didn’t even amount to tangible pay raises, though income was never a factor for him. He had many sources of cash.
He had flown into Portland, discreet and professional. He had been met at the airport and whisked off to the rendezvous point. Other team members converged at the site of a local police call, their first stop.
Their high-tech mobile sanitation van arrived, 206
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escorted by a black sedan. Men in black suits and ties boiled out of the open doors next to where a logging truck had swerved off the road. The report had come in over the airwaves, and Lentz’s response team had scrambled.
A state trooper, Officer Jared Penwick, had remained at the scene. Next to him, huddled in the patrol car passenger seat—obviously not a prisoner—was an old man wearing a red wide-billed cap and a rain slicker.
The man looked miserable and worried.
The men in suits flashed their badges and announced themselves as operatives from the federal government. They all wore sidearms. They moved quickly as a unit.
The doors to the cleanup van popped open and men in spacesuit-like anti-contamination gear clambered out, armed with plastic bags and foam guns.
The team member in the rear carried a flamethrower.
“What’s going on here?” Officer Penwick said, stepping toward them.
“We’re the official cleanup team,” Lentz answered. He hadn’t even bothered to take out his badge. “We would appreciate your full cooperation.”
He stood stoically out of range beyond the risk of contamination as the crew opened the truck driver’s door and descended upon the victim with plastic wrapping. They sprayed thick foam and acid, using extreme decontamination efforts. They quickly had the dead trucker bundled, his arms and legs bent so he could be wrapped up like a dying caterpillar in a cocoon.
The trooper watched everything, wide-eyed.
“Hey, you can’t just take—”
“We’re doing this to eliminate all risk of contamination, sir. Did you or this gentleman here”—he nodded toward the man in the rain slicker—“actually open up the truck cab or go inside?”
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“No,” Officer Penwick said, “but there was an FBI agent with us. Agent Mulder. One of your people, I suppose?”
Lentz didn’t answer.
The trooper continued, “He commandeered this man’s pickup truck and headed off. He said he had to meet his partner, which had something to do with this situation. I’ve been waiting here for”—he glanced at his watch—“close to an hour.”
“We’ll take care of everything from this point on, sir. Don’t concern yourself.” Lentz stepped back, shielding his eyes as the suited man with the flamethrower sprayed jellied gasoline inside the cab of the logging truck and then ignited it with a
whump
and a roar.
“Holy shit!” said the man in the rain slicker. He slammed the door of the patrol car as a wave of heat ruffled over them, sending clouds of steam from the wet weeds and asphalt.
“You’d best step back,” Lentz said to the trooper.
“The gas tank will blow at any minute.”
They hustled away, ducking low. The rest of the team had gotten the trucker’s body wrapped up and tucked inside a sterile isolation chamber within the cleanup vehicle. They would shuck their suits and incinerate them as soon as they got inside.
The log truck burned, an incandescent torch in the gray rainy afternoon. The gas tank exploded with a deafening roar, and all the men ducked just long enough to avoid the flying debris before they turned back to their work.
“You mentioned Agent Mulder,” Lentz said, returning to the trooper. “Can you tell us where he’s gone?”
“Sure, I know where he’s headed,” Officer Penwick said, still astounded at the fireball, how the men had so efficiently obliterated all the evidence. The 208
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sound of the fire crackled and roared, while the black smoke stank of gasoline, chemicals, and wet wood.
The trooper gave Lentz directions on how to find Darin Kennessy’s cabin. Lentz wrote nothing down, but memorized every word. He had to restrain himself from shaking his head.
A trail like muddy footprints on a snow-white carpet . . .
The men climbed back into the black sedan, while the rest of the crew sealed the cleanup van and its driver started the engine.
“Hey!” The old man in the rain slicker opened the passenger door of the trooper’s car and stood up. He shouted at Lentz, “When do I get my pickup back?”
If the image of Agent Fox Mulder driving around in a battered redneck pickup truck amused Lentz, his face betrayed no expression.
“We’ll do everything we can, sir. There’s no need to worry.”
Lentz then climbed into the sedan, and the team raced off to Kennessy’s isolated cabin.
Oregon Back Roads
Friday, 6:17 P.M.
With a brief sigh from the backseat, Jody X woke up again at dusk, refreshed, fully healed—and ready to talk.
“Who are you, lady?” Jody asked, startling her again. He woke up so quickly and fully. Vader sat up next to him, panting and happy, as if all was right with the world again.
“My name is Dana Scully,” she said, intent on the darkening road. “Dana—just call me Dana. I was here looking for you. I wanted to make sure you got to the hospital before your cancer got any worse.”
“I don’t need the hospital,” Jody said with a lilt in his voice that made it clear he thought the answer to that was plain. “Not anymore.”
Scully drove on into the dusk. She hadn’t been able to reach Mulder.
“And why is it that you don’t need a hospital?”
Scully asked. “I’ve seen your medical records, Jody.”
“I was sick. Cancer.” Then he closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, 210
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that’s what it’s called—or ‘ALL.’ My dad said there were lots of names for it, cancer in the blood.”
“It means your blood cells are being made wrong,”
Scully said. “They’re not working properly and killing the ones that are.”
“But I’m fixed now—or most of the way,” Jody said confidently. He patted Vader on the head, then hugged his dog. The black Lab absolutely loved it.
Though Scully suspected the answers, she still had a hard time wrestling with the actual facts.
Jody suddenly looked forward at her with suspicion. “Are you one of those people chasing after us?
Are you the one my mom was so afraid of?”
“No,” Scully said, “I was trying to
save
you from those people. You were very hard to find, Jody. Your mom did a good job of hiding you.” She bit her lip, knowing what he was going to ask next . . . and he did, looking around the backseat, suddenly realizing where he was.
“Hey, what happened to my mom? Where is she?
Jeremy was chasing her, and she told me to run.”
“Jeremy?” Scully asked, hating herself for so bla-tantly avoiding his question.
“Jeremy Dorman,” Jody said, as if she should already know this information. “My dad’s assistant. We thought he was killed in the fire, too, but he wasn’t. I think there’s something wrong with him, though. He said he needed my blood.” Jody hung his head, absently patting the dog. He swallowed hard. “Jeremy did something to my mom, didn’t he?”
Scully drew a deep breath and slowed the car. She didn’t want to be distracted by any sharp curves or road hazards as she told Jody Kennessy that his mother was dead.
“She tried to protect you, I think,” Scully said, “but that man, Mr. Dorman, who came after you . . .” She paused as her mind raced through possible choices of antibodies
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words. “Well, he is very sick. He’s got some kind of disease. You were smart not to let him touch you.”
“And did my mom catch the disease?” Jody asked.
Scully nodded, looking straight ahead and hoping he would still see her answer. “Yes.”
“I don’t think it was a disease,” Jody said. He spoke bravely, his voice strong. “I think Jeremy has nanocritters inside him, too. He stole them from the lab . . . but they’re not working right in him. His nanocritters kill people. I saw what he looked like.”
“Is that why he was after you?” Scully asked. She was impressed by his intelligence and composure after such an awful ordeal—but his story seemed so fantastic. Yet, after what she had seen, how could he be making it up?
Jody sighed and his shoulders slumped. “I think those people are probably after him, too. We’re carrying the only samples left, carrying them inside us.
Somebody doesn’t want them to get loose.”
He blinked up, and Scully glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing his bright eyes in the fading light. He seemed terrified and innocent. She thought of the cancer ravaging him, how he faced a similar fate but a much greater risk than she herself did.