Read Online The X-Files: Antibodies by Kevin J. Anderson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson
Tags: Fiction, Media Tie-In
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why he was here. But it still doesn’t tell us what killed him. He wasn’t shot or strangled. We don’t even know that he met up with the intruder.”
“But it’s possible, even likely,” Mulder said.
Scully looked at him curiously. “So this other person took all the records we need?”
He shrugged. “Come on, Scully. Most of the other information on Kennessy’s cancer research was locked away and classified. We can’t get our hands on it.
There may well have been some evidence here, too—
but now that’s gone as well, and a security guard is dead.”
“Mulder, he was dead from a kind of disease.”
“He was dead from some kind of toxic pathogen.
We don’t know where it came from.”
“So whoever was here that night killed the guard, and stole the records from the safe?”
antibodies
59
Mulder cocked his head to one side. “Unless someone else got to it first.”
Scully remained tight-lipped as they eased around a burned wall, ducked under a fallen girder, and crunched slowly into the interior.
What remained of the lab areas sprawled like a dangerous maze, black and unstable. Part of the floor had collapsed, tumbling down into the basement clean rooms, holding areas, and storage vaults. The remaining section of floor creaked underfoot, demonstrably weakened after the fire.
Mulder picked up a shard of glass. The intense heat had bent and smoothed its sharp edges. “Even after his brother abandoned the research, I think Kennessy was very close to some sort of magnificent breakthrough, and he was willing to bend a few rules because of his son’s condition. Someone found out about his work and tried to stop him from taking rash action. I suspect that this supposedly spontaneous protest movement, from a group nobody’s ever heard of, was a violent effort to silence him and erase all the progress he had made.”
Scully brushed her reddish hair back away from her face, leaving a little soot mark on her cheek. She sounded very tired. “Mulder, you see conspiracies everywhere.”
He reached forward to brush the smudge from her face. “Yeah, Scully, but sometimes I’m right. And in this case it cost the lives of two people—maybe more.”
ELEVEN
Under Burnside Bridge
Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, 11:21 P.M.
He tried to hide and he tried to sleep—but X nothing came to him but a succession of vicious nightmares.
Jeremy Dorman did not know whether the dreams were caused by the swarms of microscopic invaders tinkering with his head, with his thought processes . . . or whether the nightmares came as a result of his guilty conscience.
Wet and clammy, clad in tattered clothes that didn’t fit him right, he huddled under the shelter of Burnside Bridge, on the damp and trash-strewn shore of the Willamette River. The muddy green-blue water curled along in its stately course.
Years ago, downtown Portland had cleaned up River Park, making it an attractive, well-lit, and scenic area for the yuppies to jog, the tourists to sit on cold concrete benches and look out across the water. Young couples could listen to street musicians while they sipped on their gourmet coffee concoctions.
But not at this dark hour. Now most people sat in their warm homes, not thinking about the cold and antibodies
61
lonely night outside. Dorman listened to the soft gurgle of the slow-moving river against the tumbled rocks around the bridge pilings. The water smelled warm and rich and alive, but the cool mist had a frosty metallic tang to it. Dorman shivered.
Pigeons nested in the bridge superstructure above, cooing and rustling. Farther down the walk came the rattling sound of another vagrant rummag-ing through trash cans to find recyclable bottles or cans. A few brown bags containing empty malt liquor and cheap wine bottles lay piled against the green-painted wastebaskets.
Dorman huddled in the shadows, in bodily pain, in mental misery. Fighting a spasm of his rebellious body, he rolled into a mud puddle, smearing
“But it’s possible, even likely,” Mulder said.
Scully looked at him curiously. “So this other person took all the records we need?”
He shrugged. “Come on, Scully. Most of the other information on Kennessy’s cancer research was locked away and classified. We can’t get our hands on it.
There may well have been some evidence here, too—
but now that’s gone as well, and a security guard is dead.”
“Mulder, he was dead from a kind of disease.”
“He was dead from some kind of toxic pathogen.
We don’t know where it came from.”
“So whoever was here that night killed the guard, and stole the records from the safe?”
antibodies
59
Mulder cocked his head to one side. “Unless someone else got to it first.”
Scully remained tight-lipped as they eased around a burned wall, ducked under a fallen girder, and crunched slowly into the interior.
What remained of the lab areas sprawled like a dangerous maze, black and unstable. Part of the floor had collapsed, tumbling down into the basement clean rooms, holding areas, and storage vaults. The remaining section of floor creaked underfoot, demonstrably weakened after the fire.
Mulder picked up a shard of glass. The intense heat had bent and smoothed its sharp edges. “Even after his brother abandoned the research, I think Kennessy was very close to some sort of magnificent breakthrough, and he was willing to bend a few rules because of his son’s condition. Someone found out about his work and tried to stop him from taking rash action. I suspect that this supposedly spontaneous protest movement, from a group nobody’s ever heard of, was a violent effort to silence him and erase all the progress he had made.”
Scully brushed her reddish hair back away from her face, leaving a little soot mark on her cheek. She sounded very tired. “Mulder, you see conspiracies everywhere.”
He reached forward to brush the smudge from her face. “Yeah, Scully, but sometimes I’m right. And in this case it cost the lives of two people—maybe more.”
ELEVEN
Under Burnside Bridge
Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, 11:21 P.M.
He tried to hide and he tried to sleep—but X nothing came to him but a succession of vicious nightmares.
Jeremy Dorman did not know whether the dreams were caused by the swarms of microscopic invaders tinkering with his head, with his thought processes . . . or whether the nightmares came as a result of his guilty conscience.
Wet and clammy, clad in tattered clothes that didn’t fit him right, he huddled under the shelter of Burnside Bridge, on the damp and trash-strewn shore of the Willamette River. The muddy green-blue water curled along in its stately course.
Years ago, downtown Portland had cleaned up River Park, making it an attractive, well-lit, and scenic area for the yuppies to jog, the tourists to sit on cold concrete benches and look out across the water. Young couples could listen to street musicians while they sipped on their gourmet coffee concoctions.
But not at this dark hour. Now most people sat in their warm homes, not thinking about the cold and antibodies
61
lonely night outside. Dorman listened to the soft gurgle of the slow-moving river against the tumbled rocks around the bridge pilings. The water smelled warm and rich and alive, but the cool mist had a frosty metallic tang to it. Dorman shivered.
Pigeons nested in the bridge superstructure above, cooing and rustling. Farther down the walk came the rattling sound of another vagrant rummag-ing through trash cans to find recyclable bottles or cans. A few brown bags containing empty malt liquor and cheap wine bottles lay piled against the green-painted wastebaskets.
Dorman huddled in the shadows, in bodily pain, in mental misery. Fighting a spasm of his rebellious body, he rolled into a mud puddle, smearing
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