Page 17 (1/1)
"If his secret lair is under San Francisco, the first big earthquake will solve this problee to his voice, like he was joking because he didn’t knohat else to do "Do you really think Sherman could do this?"
"I think Sherman doesn’t consider himself human, and he doesn’t see dead humans as dead people," I said "He was pretty clear on that point ere at SymboGen He wants to be the dos that live here And we know that sleepwalkers trigger other sleepwalkers If you wanted to spread theh the city like… like a real disease, all you’d need is a few index cases to scatter around the streets They’d go wandering and anyone they encountered as on the verge of going over would succuant, and so horrible that I could barely believe that Sherman, who had always been kind to ht ere both hu with my assumptions, hadn’t he? It was easy to pretend to follow social rules when you didn’t really believe that they applied to you
"God" Nathan got up again This tis followed hie juice, refilling lass before he set the bottle down on the table He also had a package of Fig Newtons, which he held out to me "Eat as ht, and Sheret the hell out of this city"
"He doesn’t knohere we live," I protested, taking the cookies
"No But USAMRIID knows that there’s an outbreak in San Francisco, and they don’t know yet exactly how the sleepwalking sickness is being spread They don’t know that lockdown is already a lost cause If they decide to quarantine the city…"
I blanched My father--Sally Mitchell’s father--was a career army man He had reached the rank of colonel before he retired from active duty and took over the local branch of USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases The last ti e for a possible cure for his daughter, Joyce His only surviving daughter, I realized with a pang She wasn’t reallythat he wasn’t really my father Unlike Joyce, he had always held himself a little bit apart fro that Sally was dead, and he had beenme to see how the tapeworirl’s corpse into a science project for his country
The only real fa to have was the one in Dr Cale’s lab We had to get Tansy back
"We have to get out of here," I said, before pulling open the package of cookies and cra my part in the conversation while I chewed and sed
"Yes," said Nathan, looking relieved "We’ll need to take the elevator down--I don’t think we can deal with both dogs and our suitcases on the stairs Not with your wrist and a dead body in the way"
"What if the power goes out?"
His expression turned gri to finish packing"
I wanted to argue with hi a major outbreak would be a stupid, pointless, horror ht He couldn’t handle going up and down the stairs repeatedly, and that’s what he’d have to do if anted to get the two dogs and their things to the car Adding our possessions--and while I didn’t havesos to a whole other level We needed that elevator And we needed one hell of a lucky break
Nathan vanished into the bedroo cookies Beverly and Minnie stayed withevery little ave each of thee of their distraction to shove threemyself in the process I washed down the stickyco I’d ever put intothe best
I was trying to cover the taste with the last of the Fig Newtons when Nathan eed frowith the other He walked over and deposited the, "One second," and darting back into the bedroo the small plastic terrarium that we used to transport plants between home and his office About half of our shared collection of sundews, pitcher plants, and Venus flytraps was craerously overcrowded by what had clearly been a very hasty transplant
"I hate to leave the others, but this was the best I could do," said Nathan, pushing his glasses nervously up the bridge of his nose as he walked over and set the terrariurabbed some of your clothes, basic toiletries, and your journals Was there anything else you wanted ? I’et a few s into the suitcases if we really shoved"