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Apparently, soreed The ones closest to le as they canted their eyes upward, looking for the source of the phero to spread the command to calm down as far as I could
One of the nearest sleepwalkers opened his mouth, not to moan, but to shape a word The sleepwalkers around him did the same, and bit by bit, the stillness spread, replaced by dozens of sleepwalkers exhaling a single syllable:
"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaal"
"Because that’s not creepy," snapped Fishy He didn’t roll the s back up That was soo a little faster They’re not attacking us right now Take advantage of that"
"We can’t drop you off, you realize," said Nathan The van sped up a bit, nudging sleepwalkers out of the way Most of the at each other as they tried to get closer to the s If I’d been claustrophobic, I would probably have been cli the walls As it was, I was sort of auess the need to stay alive was taking priority over the need to freak out completely
"I know," said Fishy "We’ll have to find another way to refuel the boat, assuet back to it with this ly calry trans-hu around us was real was helping hiard
"You people are an affront to the human race," snarled Dr Banks
I turned away from theto look at hier, you know," I said "It’s up to you whether we let you go after your people give us Tansy, or whether we take you with us e leave so that we can throw you to the hungry cousins out there You et to know the wide He didn’t say anything else, and so neither did I I just turned back to theand resu to keep the sleepwalkers cale and drive onward into a bigger, ed the Presidio, but fore seemed to have denuded their numbers: once ere away from the water the streets were empty and motionless, filled with abandoned cars and the occasional desiccated corpse Most of the bodies we passed looked like they’d been partially eaten before decay reached a stage that left the eons scattered in front of us, and I sahat looked like a pack of wild dogs disappearing down an alley, there and gone too fast for me to be sure of what I’d seen I left the s cracked, listening for the sound of ht well reachin my head had stopped That was nice The sh it was more distant now, diluted with salt and with the undefinable, stony sed onfor our next obstacle to present itself
"Sal, are you all right back there?" Nathan raised his head as he spoke, his eyes seeking mine in the rearview ing there, and I felt a brief pang of sorrow for the person who had hung it, who had never coet their van and drive it safely home "I’m sorry we had to drive out of there like that I know I didn’t give you enough notice"
"It’s all right," I said, offering what I hoped was an earnest s to keep the cousins fro the van and us with it"
Now Nathan blinked, his eyes widening a little in theyour seat belt"
"What?" I looked down atjust how accurate my words had been: I had barely noticed e started toit now Apparently, the life-threatening reality outside the vehicle was bad enough to keep s that actuallyanother of ain andNathan’s eyes in the s werefast now, and with Dr Banks in the mix, any deviation from the norm was cause to worry
Dr Banks hi decently if he wanted to stay alive He sneered first athis disgust at Fishy and Nathan combined "We’re almost to SymboGen," he said "Thatto be sorry that you decided to start this with me"
"You’re the one who cauidly "That was a stupid choice and you kneas a stupid choice, which means it must have been the only choice you had You could have sent your USAMRIID buddies in to snatch Dr Cale or Sal or even Adam if you just needed data You could have carted us back to your precious company for disassembly on your own terms You didn’t do that Either you couldn’t do it, or your relationship with the United States military isn’t as cuddly as you want us to believe it is"
Dr Banks didn’t say anything