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Authors: Dean Koontz
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exhausting.
A thin serpent of blood slithered from the haft of the buried knife and along the pale abdomen, and for a moment the cadaver seemed human, after all. But then Deucalion slashed to the navel and beyond, and the illusion of humanity was cut away. The lips of the wound sagged apart, and the blood—if it was blood—proved to be confined to the surface tissues.
Deeper, all was strange, not the viscera of a human body. Some of the organs were the color of milk glass, others were white tinted unevenly with faint streaks of gray like the flesh of certain fish, and a smaller number were white with the merest suggestion of green, some smooth and slick, others textured like curds of cottage cheese, all of them bizarre in shape and asymmetrical. A double helix of opalescent tubes twined through the body trunk, and a creamy fluid leaked from those that had been nicked or severed. Throughout the body cavity lay a fine web of luminous filaments that seemed less biological than electronic, and they glowed softly even though this replicant of Warren Snyder was surely as dead as the real man that he had replaced.
Leaving the knife protruding from the body, Deucalion rose to his full height.
With a quiver of revulsion and with fear in his voicethat dismayed him, Sammy Chakrabarty asked, “What is that thing?”
“It was made in a laboratory,” the giant said. “Hundreds or even thousands of them are in the process of taking control of this town.”
“What laboratory?” Ralph Nettles wondered. He shook his head in disbelief. “Our science isn’t far enough advanced to do this.”
“The proof is before your eyes,” Deucalion reminded him.
Burt Cogborn stared not at the cadaver but at his wristwatch, as if his world of radio-spot sales allowed no room for a development of this magnitude, as if he might announce that he had a deadline looming and needed to return to his office to write ad copy.
“Maybe a laboratory,” Ralph acceded. “But not on this planet.”
“On this planet, in this state, this county,” Deucalion assured them with unsettling certainty. “Who I am, who made these creatures, I’ll explain soon. But first, you’ve got to prepare to defend the station, and warn others, both in Rainbow Falls and beyond, what’s happening here.”
“Defend it with what?” Mason Morrell asked. “A couple of kitchen knives? Against hundreds—maybe thousands—of these … these things? And they’re stronger than us? Man, this isn’t a movie, there’s no big-screen superstar to make everything right in the third act. I can’t save the world. I can’t save anythingbut my own ass, split this place, get out of town, way out, leave it to the army.”
“You won’t get out,” Deucalion said. “They’ve taken over the police, all authorities. Roads are blocked at both ends of town. They’re seizing key utilities—telephones, the power company. The weather helps them because people will tend to stay at home, where their replicants can more easily find them.”
“Without phones or any text-messaging devices,” Sammy said, “without the Internet, KBOW is the only efficient way to warn a lot of people.”
Ralph Nettles said, “I’ve got guns. I … collect.”
Sammy had always thought that the even-tempered, responsible, detail-obsessed engineer probably had a plan for every contingency from falling in love to Armageddon. Although he’d never heard Ralph say a word to suggest that he collected guns, he wasn’t surprised by this disclosure, and he suspected that the collection would prove to be extensive, though just short of a quantity that would justify the use of the word paranoid .
“I have enough to defend this place,” Ralph said. “My house is less than a mile away. I could be back here with arms and ammo to spare in … twenty minutes or so.”
Deucalion said, “I’ll go with you, and we’ll be much quicker than twenty.”
The front-door buzzer sounded. KBOW was locked to
A thin serpent of blood slithered from the haft of the buried knife and along the pale abdomen, and for a moment the cadaver seemed human, after all. But then Deucalion slashed to the navel and beyond, and the illusion of humanity was cut away. The lips of the wound sagged apart, and the blood—if it was blood—proved to be confined to the surface tissues.
Deeper, all was strange, not the viscera of a human body. Some of the organs were the color of milk glass, others were white tinted unevenly with faint streaks of gray like the flesh of certain fish, and a smaller number were white with the merest suggestion of green, some smooth and slick, others textured like curds of cottage cheese, all of them bizarre in shape and asymmetrical. A double helix of opalescent tubes twined through the body trunk, and a creamy fluid leaked from those that had been nicked or severed. Throughout the body cavity lay a fine web of luminous filaments that seemed less biological than electronic, and they glowed softly even though this replicant of Warren Snyder was surely as dead as the real man that he had replaced.
Leaving the knife protruding from the body, Deucalion rose to his full height.
With a quiver of revulsion and with fear in his voicethat dismayed him, Sammy Chakrabarty asked, “What is that thing?”
“It was made in a laboratory,” the giant said. “Hundreds or even thousands of them are in the process of taking control of this town.”
“What laboratory?” Ralph Nettles wondered. He shook his head in disbelief. “Our science isn’t far enough advanced to do this.”
“The proof is before your eyes,” Deucalion reminded him.
Burt Cogborn stared not at the cadaver but at his wristwatch, as if his world of radio-spot sales allowed no room for a development of this magnitude, as if he might announce that he had a deadline looming and needed to return to his office to write ad copy.
“Maybe a laboratory,” Ralph acceded. “But not on this planet.”
“On this planet, in this state, this county,” Deucalion assured them with unsettling certainty. “Who I am, who made these creatures, I’ll explain soon. But first, you’ve got to prepare to defend the station, and warn others, both in Rainbow Falls and beyond, what’s happening here.”
“Defend it with what?” Mason Morrell asked. “A couple of kitchen knives? Against hundreds—maybe thousands—of these … these things? And they’re stronger than us? Man, this isn’t a movie, there’s no big-screen superstar to make everything right in the third act. I can’t save the world. I can’t save anythingbut my own ass, split this place, get out of town, way out, leave it to the army.”
“You won’t get out,” Deucalion said. “They’ve taken over the police, all authorities. Roads are blocked at both ends of town. They’re seizing key utilities—telephones, the power company. The weather helps them because people will tend to stay at home, where their replicants can more easily find them.”
“Without phones or any text-messaging devices,” Sammy said, “without the Internet, KBOW is the only efficient way to warn a lot of people.”
Ralph Nettles said, “I’ve got guns. I … collect.”
Sammy had always thought that the even-tempered, responsible, detail-obsessed engineer probably had a plan for every contingency from falling in love to Armageddon. Although he’d never heard Ralph say a word to suggest that he collected guns, he wasn’t surprised by this disclosure, and he suspected that the collection would prove to be extensive, though just short of a quantity that would justify the use of the word paranoid .
“I have enough to defend this place,” Ralph said. “My house is less than a mile away. I could be back here with arms and ammo to spare in … twenty minutes or so.”
Deucalion said, “I’ll go with you, and we’ll be much quicker than twenty.”
The front-door buzzer sounded. KBOW was locked to
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