them to back off and leaned in behind Storch's head.
"I don't presume to know everything about you, Sgt. Storch. I'm not even cleared to know what happened to you in the Gulf War. But I think I know a lot more about you than the people who are going to execute you today, because I'm the only one who's been looking in the right direction. I've read medical reports, for instance. VA hospital records that were sealed and buried. They knew there was something wrong with you, Sergeant. You and the other survivors of the Tiamat engagement. They found elevated white blood cell counts, but they didn't match the other blood in your system. They did DNA tests, and they couldn't accept what they saw, so they did them again, and then they forgot about you. Because they couldn't explain what the DNA of another organism was doing in your body, in rogue cells that were stimulating your autoimmune responses. They couldn't explain how the cells continued to split off in culture, and became independent single-cell organisms, with no genetic similarity to you or the parent cells. You didn't die in Baker because you already had cancer, but they couldn't understand it, so they never told you. You see what they do with unacceptable truths.
"I already have all the answers they want, but they don't really want to hear them, so your silence is the greatest service you could possibly render them. I don't need to know anything else from you, except this: when did your thumb grow back?"
Storch leapt away the table and sprang at Cundieffe. The agent's feet slipped out from under him on the plastic sheeting. The flagstone floor banged his knee silly and it gave way under him. He whirled around and went for his gun, but Nye had it. He froze then, when he saw Storch's eyes. For a second, he could have sworn they were the same steely gray as the blisters on the tumor in the picture.
Storch jolted straight up and his legs kicked out spastically in mid-air. Then he collapsed and beat the floor like an epileptic. Cundieffe smelled ozone and burning hair. Storch's eyes were green wheels with gold spokes flashing rage and terror, but his voice was steady and low as he said, "I will talk to you…outside."
Col. Nye fought with Cundieffe for five minutes, but after a replay of the argument with someone on a secure telephone line, he relented, and they brought Storch to the surface.
He walked in the center of the eight-man escort, with Cundieffe and Nye just behind them. Nye explained the conditions of the field trip in an almost hysterical rasp, relaying instructions from someone at the other end of his phone. Storch was not to be unshackled. He was not to move more than fifty feet in any direction, because the shock-collar around his neck contained two grams of C4. If he wandered out of range of the microtransmitter Col. Nye carried, it would detonate.
"Do you really think that's necessary?" Cundieffe asked.
"Not even sure it'd slow him down, but if he runs, he's your problem."
The eleven of them crammed into the elevator and two guards reached to press the button. One looked at the other one second longer than he should've, both their hands off their weapons, and Cundieffe looked at Storch, whose head was inclined on the pair. Cundieffe looked down at Storch's feet, shifting weight and turning as if to spring into a pivot motion that would allow him to grab one of the weapons behind his back. Nye leaned on the shock button, and Storch trembled while Nye chewed them out. One of them finally pressed the button, and the doors slid closed.
As they rose, Col. Nye shouldered his way through the cordon and stood nosehole to chin with Storch. "Bet you love all this attention, don't you, asshole?" he growled. "All this commotion over Baby's first fucking words, you think we're gonna blink and away you'll go with a song in your motherfucking heart."
Storch looked back blandly at Nye's Halloween-mask face, but made no move. In the close quarters of the
"I don't presume to know everything about you, Sgt. Storch. I'm not even cleared to know what happened to you in the Gulf War. But I think I know a lot more about you than the people who are going to execute you today, because I'm the only one who's been looking in the right direction. I've read medical reports, for instance. VA hospital records that were sealed and buried. They knew there was something wrong with you, Sergeant. You and the other survivors of the Tiamat engagement. They found elevated white blood cell counts, but they didn't match the other blood in your system. They did DNA tests, and they couldn't accept what they saw, so they did them again, and then they forgot about you. Because they couldn't explain what the DNA of another organism was doing in your body, in rogue cells that were stimulating your autoimmune responses. They couldn't explain how the cells continued to split off in culture, and became independent single-cell organisms, with no genetic similarity to you or the parent cells. You didn't die in Baker because you already had cancer, but they couldn't understand it, so they never told you. You see what they do with unacceptable truths.
"I already have all the answers they want, but they don't really want to hear them, so your silence is the greatest service you could possibly render them. I don't need to know anything else from you, except this: when did your thumb grow back?"
Storch leapt away the table and sprang at Cundieffe. The agent's feet slipped out from under him on the plastic sheeting. The flagstone floor banged his knee silly and it gave way under him. He whirled around and went for his gun, but Nye had it. He froze then, when he saw Storch's eyes. For a second, he could have sworn they were the same steely gray as the blisters on the tumor in the picture.
Storch jolted straight up and his legs kicked out spastically in mid-air. Then he collapsed and beat the floor like an epileptic. Cundieffe smelled ozone and burning hair. Storch's eyes were green wheels with gold spokes flashing rage and terror, but his voice was steady and low as he said, "I will talk to you…outside."
Col. Nye fought with Cundieffe for five minutes, but after a replay of the argument with someone on a secure telephone line, he relented, and they brought Storch to the surface.
He walked in the center of the eight-man escort, with Cundieffe and Nye just behind them. Nye explained the conditions of the field trip in an almost hysterical rasp, relaying instructions from someone at the other end of his phone. Storch was not to be unshackled. He was not to move more than fifty feet in any direction, because the shock-collar around his neck contained two grams of C4. If he wandered out of range of the microtransmitter Col. Nye carried, it would detonate.
"Do you really think that's necessary?" Cundieffe asked.
"Not even sure it'd slow him down, but if he runs, he's your problem."
The eleven of them crammed into the elevator and two guards reached to press the button. One looked at the other one second longer than he should've, both their hands off their weapons, and Cundieffe looked at Storch, whose head was inclined on the pair. Cundieffe looked down at Storch's feet, shifting weight and turning as if to spring into a pivot motion that would allow him to grab one of the weapons behind his back. Nye leaned on the shock button, and Storch trembled while Nye chewed them out. One of them finally pressed the button, and the doors slid closed.
As they rose, Col. Nye shouldered his way through the cordon and stood nosehole to chin with Storch. "Bet you love all this attention, don't you, asshole?" he growled. "All this commotion over Baby's first fucking words, you think we're gonna blink and away you'll go with a song in your motherfucking heart."
Storch looked back blandly at Nye's Halloween-mask face, but made no move. In the close quarters of the
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