LZR-1143: Evolution Read Free

from the wires forced his hand into the trigger and the weapons were still hot. It was when they set down that Fred turned on him. He realized that Hartliss was the only way to get back to you, and made his decision. Put a gun to his head and made him make the repairs and return up the mountain. They got fuel at a podunk local airfield, put back into the air at daybreak and followed us to the facility. Fred put a bullet into Hartliss’ stomach after they landed, trusting in his own piloting skills to get him off the roof.”
    Her voice was still a little incredulous, as if she couldn’t believe it herself.
    “Why not kill him before then? It would have sealed his escape, since none of us could fly the damn thing.”
    “Hartliss said it was because Fred didn’t know how to make the repairs on the British bird.”
    I nodded, still somewhat stunned at Fred’s identity and his role in the government’s cover-up, although with some distance from it, it made logical sense. Send an operative to keep me from disclosing Maria’s condition. Make sure the trial was rigged—not a tough job, considering I was found with the murder weapon in hand at the scene of the crime—and make sure I was pumped full of enough drugs to keep me from remembering my own name, not to mention the condition my wife was in when I came home that night.
    I still didn’t believe this shit about Maria. Plain and simple. There was another goddamned explanation for what happened, and it involved the vaccine she had at home with her. I knew it. She hadn’t stolen the virus.
    But then how did she become infected? It all came back to that question, and I didn’t have an answer to that.
    “So how’s Hartliss,” I asked, not sure that I wanted to know the answer. “Will he make it? What about Anaru and Lansing?”
    She grimaced. “We didn’t see them on the way out, but that doesn’t mean anything. We were fairly occupied at the time. You were bleeding all over the cabin, and Hartliss was holding his stomach together with one hand. I can’t imagine they made it, but you never know.”
    She lowered her voice, looking briefly over her shoulder before turning back to lock me in a serious stare. “He was really badly hurt, Mike. He lost a lot of blood, and there was an infection from the bullet wound. They think … well … they don’t think…”
    She bit her lower lip. “He’s bad, Mike. Real bad.”
    I looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to come barreling down the hall. Her affect was nervous, as if she was saying something forbidden.
    “The infection, is it …?” I started, not wanting to hear the response.
    She shook her head sharply. “No, no. It’s not that, but he’s septic. The ship’s doctors don’t know if there’s anything more they can do for him.” She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She looked at me, searchingly. As if silently asking me a question to which I had no answer.
    My mind was traveling at warp speed, trying to reconcile reality with circumstance.
    Time for the fifty-million dollar question. The one for which I was pretty sure I had a fifty-million dollar answer.
    Raising my hand and turning it in front of her like a commercial for skin conditioner, I made a questioning face.
    “So, I see your wound is healed up nicely. I see that my theory was correct, yes?” I wiggled my fingers in front of my face. “That vaccine—it not only kept me from turning, but it has restorative qualities, just like Maria told me they were working on.”
    I was sure of this much, now. Sure that it had kept me from turning, and that it had a healing effect; that I had done the right thing when I injected Kate in the facility.
    That was a relief. I think I was half-delirious when I decided to do that.
    But looking back on it, even then I was sure. Of Maria’s love, and her integrity; and that whatever it was that she brought home, it hadn’t been the virus.
    “I was wondering if you’d remembered,” she said,