Zombie Zero Read Free Page B

idealistic scientist is forced into decision: either begin your career in a cloud of ridicule from nearly every respected and established researcher in your field, or toe the line and wait for your elders to pass on so that knowledge can evolve.”
    Ryan chuckled. “Of course, at that point you become the dinosaur. You’ve spent a lifetime getting an idea you had twenty years ago in the books, and the last thing you want is some young genius supplanting the theory with a better one. So you call it ‘fact’, and you support the ‘facts’ of other accredited dinosaurs so they will support yours; and actual scientific inquiry crawls along at a snail’s pace on your broken back.”
    “Or,” the general cut in, “you find a facility not bound by the restrictions of law and not threatened by a lack of funding.”
    “Right,” Ryan bobbed his head in happy agreement. “Or that.”
    “Which leads us to the reason we came here, I presume.”
    “Of course!” Ryan beamed, then abruptly grimaced. The next words from his mouth were not spoken with the excitement that had driven his ideas before.
    “My discovery,” he murmured, still frowning.
    A primal howl split the air; some animal crying out in hunger, or some human who had long relinquished the last vestiges of their humanity releasing a lifetime’s torment in one anguished scream. It lasted for several long, painful seconds. The sergeant shuddered. Ryan cast an annoyed glance over his shoulder, toward the sound. The general unsnapped the strap of leather that held his sidearm in place, and tucked it between the holster and his belt.
    “It was recently discovered that when grasshoppers become locusts, they have a marked increase in serotonin just before the transformation.” Ryan spoke slower now, and lower. “We have always known that environmental conditions trigger it, drought or the increase of vegetation in the rains afterward, possibly temperature changes. Yet humans have gone through all of these conditions without metamorphosis. There has never been any indication that severe environmental conditions of any kind would trigger the dormant DNA in people.”
    “What about massive doses of serotonin?” the general asked.
    “Precisely! Well, not serotonin, but a similar chemical found naturally in most mammalian species.” The doctor was his excited former self for a moment; then another hungry howl split the air. He rubbed at the prickles that were surely standing up on the back of his neck and opened his mouth to continue.
    “Doctor, please,” the sergeant whispered. “What is that?”
    His eyes were wide with wonder, or terror, and the sergeant turned to move uneasily toward the sound.
    “Well, it’s not a butterfly,” the doctor frowned. He followed the sergeant as his steps brought him to a sealed steel door. Ryan glanced at the general, and he nodded. There was no going back at this point.
    Ryan put his hand over the lighted screen. The steel slid aside, and the general almost had his gun in his hand before he realized that it wasn’t time. He relaxed and followed them up a short hallway. There were three rooms along it, each sealed behind bulletproof glass in an airtight vacuum. Each lab had three such rooms, able to contain sickness or violence or other things less easily explained. The general passed the first room as the sergeant approached the third, and he saw that it was empty. He heard the disgusted sounds of fevered chewing; they stopped as Ryan pressed a lighted circle on the pad that was mounted to the door frame. He heard the sergeant cry out.
    “Simms!” he shouted. “Simms, is that you? Are you okay?”
    The sergeant whirled on Ryan just as the general reached his side. He had made note as he passed; the second room had been empty as well.
    “That’s my man in there!” the sergeant shouted, looming over the doctor menacingly. The general moved between them before glancing over his shoulder at the third room.
    There were