Chrysalis

62

“Snow!” Logan called, pounding on the floor of the narrow tube. “Snow! Can you hear me?”

There was no reply — just the sound of automatic fire; a piercing scream; and then an even more furious eruption of gunshots. Logan, in a sudden ecstasy of frustration and claustrophobia, writhed in the tube like a maggot trying to shed its larval skin.

And then, as quickly as it deserted him, reason returned. He did what he should have done as soon as the chaos started — reached up to the prototype unit snugged around his ear and, with a sharp yank, pulled it free.

A brief darkness blurred his vision, and when it cleared he found himself once again inside the cage — in a scene of shocking chaos. Thick smoke — gunsmoke, from the stench of it — rose in waves from various locations in the room. As it cleared, he made out bodies on the floor, blood pooling into large puddles: Peyton. Purchase. Dafna. And a man in a Chrysalis service uniform that he didn’t recognize.

My God.

Springing into motion, he pulled the hardware from his chest, head, and arms, jumped out of the chair, and exited the cube. The main door of the lab suddenly opened and a sea of faces looked timidly in from the corridor. This was followed immediately by screams.

“Close that door!” Logan turned to see Snow emerging from behind the command console. A moment later Mossby, too, rose from under the desk. Snow was clearly injured, but Mossby, though in shock, seemed unscathed.

Now Logan noticed Roz. She’d been lying beside Dafna, whose wounds were clearly fatal. But other than being covered in Dafna’s blood, Roz seemed unhurt. She rose from the floor and began moving in a zombie-like shuffle. Next, Wrigley loomed into Logan’s vision. He stepped to the door, forcing the onlookers back into the hallway, and closed it again.

Despite the carnage surrounding him, Snow seemed fixated on one thing: Mossby, and a Sentinel attached to some kind of input device and keyboard next to him.

“Well?” Snow gasped.

Mossby looked around; grimaced; then turned his back on the bloody scene. “Give me a minute, will you?” he said. “Christ, it’s like the O.K. Corral in here.”

Logan, joints as stiff as if he’d been in the cage a week instead of an hour, walked over to the shooter, picking up a large drum wrench on the way in case there was something that needed finishing. But the man was clearly dead, blood and brains blown out in a corona of gore. Peyton lay nearby, white shirt sodden with blood. His eyes fluttered open. For a moment, they focused, recognizing who was looking down at him, and Logan was sharply reminded of just how young the logistics chief was. Then the eyes closed and the limbs went slack.

“It’s undamaged,” Mossby told Snow. And then, a moment later: “I’ve got the code. It’s not encrypted.”

Logan began moving toward them, slipping twice in the blood that covered the floor. Roz had recovered her wits and was trying to stop Snow’s bleeding. He remained bent over the coder, ignoring the ministrations.

“A lot of people just sacrificed themselves for this,” Snow said. “And a hell of a lot more will die if you don’t get this right.”

“Will you shut up and let him parse the code?” Wrigley shouted. “Jesus.”

Snow sat back, balancing a little erratically on the edge of the worktable.

“Call medical,” Wrigley told Roz. “And call in our backup team. Third shift. We have to do damage control, get those people out there refocused on the rollout.”

Mossby sat up straight, fingertips trembling slightly. “Okay. I can fix this cleanly. Just bypass the kill function with two instructions: a jump and a NOP.”

Snow took a breath, nodded.

Logan came forward, still holding the drum wrench. He, Wrigley, and Snow encircled the coder like a protective shell. Mossby worked fast now, fingers flying over the keyboard. “Debugger’s not complaining,” he muttered. “I’m running it against three… four… five implants in a test environment.” More typing. “Compiled and wrapped.”

He cleared his throat.

“What now?” Logan asked.

“Commit.” And Mossby pointed to a blue key at one corner of the keyboard. “This will activate the transmission interface Purchase wired into BioCertain’s ‘push’ mechanism. In two minutes, three thousand implants, give or take, will get upgraded firmware. Rendering their backup medication chambers — if they have them — permanently inactive.”

There was a brief silence.

“Well?” Wrigley asked.

“Well, what?”

“Go ahead. Commit.”

Mossby looked stricken. “I’m not going to do it.”

“But…” Wrigley hesitated in confusion. “You altered the code. You just gave the green light!”

“That’s not the point,” Mossby said, almost pleading. “It’s not my job!”

Logan understood. Gently, he pushed through to the keyboard. “I guess it’s my job, if it’s anyone’s.” He glanced at Wrigley. “After all, it was you who said to part the Red Sea.”

Logan extended a finger and touched the blue key. “So here goes.”