Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (20 page)

Rachel
and Eddie clamored out of the truck to help. Rachel rested her hands on Donna’s
shoulder and head and examined the insect, now seemingly stitched to her neck.
“Christ, it’s a pepper bug,” she said. “It’s on good. We gotta get her outta
here.”

They
helped her to her feet, her body pain-stiffened and her head cocked to one
side. She stopped howling, her eyes and mouth now pinched tight.

“Where?”
John asked.

“To the
clinic, I guess. Maybe there’s something left we can use,” Rachel said.

Holding
Donna between them, they started in the direction of the clinic.

The voice
behind them stopped them cold.

“Bring
her inside,” Joan said.

John
turned to confront the voice, his hand taking a grip on the rifle slung over
his shoulder. He noticed that Eddie stood there stiffly, facing the other
direction.

“Well
c’mon,” Joan said. “We’re being eaten alive out here. You too, Eddie,” she
smiled. “Get your butt inside.”
 
Joan
turned and double-timed it up to the shelter’s door.

She held
the door open for them as they came in, whacking at some of the larger bugs
that tried to follow along. Sheepishly, Eddie walked in. Joan slapped a large
beetle off his shoulder and mashed it with her boot.

“Hey,”
she said to him. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Yeah,”
Eddie said, not meeting her eyes

“We have some
things to talk about, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“C’mon.”
 
She guided him inside with her hand lightly
on his back. He moved as easily as a feather. It seemed to her he weighed
nothing at all.

They
moved Donna into the kitchen and sat her down. Joan turned up the lights. When
she looked at the thing on Donna’s neck, she could see a thin line of blood
running out from under it and down into her clothes. The blood had gathered in
a fist-sized blot on her shoulder.

“Rachel,”
Donna said weakly. “You’ll have to do it. It’s easy. For you, it’s easy.”
 
She tried to smile.

“What’s
the procedure?”

“Pull the
long, back legs off with your fingers.”

Donna’s
voice was so weak and low, Rachel had to lean in to hear her.

“Okay.”

“Use some
clippers or scissors to nip the head off at the thorax,” she continued in a
weak voice.

“Okay.”

“After
you get the head severed, nip off each leg about a centimeter from the body.”

“Got it.”

“After
that the legs will slip right out. The head will come out if you work it around
a little.”
 
She looked at Joan. “You’re
uh . . . ?” she asked.

“Joan
Thomas. You treated a couple of my kids on your first day here.”

“Joan?”
Donna asked. “Do you have any antiseptic?”

“Sure.
Lots.”

“We’ll
need it.”

“I’ll get
it. I’ve got some little wire cutters, too. Would those work?”

"Sure.”

A few
minutes later, Rachel finished taping a clean white bandage over the rows of
wounds on Donna’s neck. Donna was clearly relieved and was on the very verge of
smiling. “Those little bastards are horrible,” she said.

“So I
take it you all escaped from that brig they set up down the road,” Joan said.
“That took some doing. I like that. They say you three are murdering outlaws.”

Donna and
John exchanged looks. “What if they’re right?” John asked.

“Seems to
me you’ve killed the right ones, that’s what,” Joan said.

“There
are no right ones,” Rachel said.

“Yes
there are,” Donna said in a tired voice.

“No,
there aren’t,” Rachel repeated.

“Cut it
out,” John said in a calm voice. “Look, Joan. You could get in a lot of trouble
by helping us like this. You know that, don’t you?”

Joan
laughed a brief, loud laugh. “I’d say you’ve got that reversed.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You
definitely have that backwards,” she said, her tone taking a deadly serious
turn.

“Why do
you say that?”

“Because
we’re taking our lives and the planet back, that’s why.”

“Who is?”

 
“Let’s just say it’s the ones at the ass-end
of the food chain. You, too. In fact, the four of you are at the dog’s
ass-end.”

“So how
are you gonna pull off this insurrection?” Donna asked.

“God, I
like the sound of that——insurrection—don’t you?” Joan asked with a half-mad
conspiratorial smile.

“Yeah,
we’re revolutionaries. Real big time. So how?”

Joan
smiled a warped smile. “We’ve got a surprise for Mr. Jacob No Name.”

“What
kind of surprise?” Donna asked, intrigued by this determined, though maybe
slightly deranged, woman.

Joan
sniffed, then looked from one to the other as if she were keeping some
incredible secret and unsure whether or not to tell it to these relative
strangers. She thought it over. It was so cool. She had to show it off.

“I’ll
show you,” she said.

She got
up from the table and headed down the hall. She returned a minute later with
the nuke attached to its carrying strap. She dropped it onto the table with a
loud thump.

“Is that
what I think it is?” John asked.

“Not if
you think it’s a big bird’s egg,” Joan said. She took her hand off it and the
device rolled over. John nervously grabbed it, and then eased it over until it
rested on the strap. Joan took the detonator out of an upper pocket and held it
up.

“This is
the gizmo that sets it off,” she said. “I’ve got it all programmed and ready to
go. What do you think?”

“What is
it?” Rachel asked nervously.

“It’s a
nuclear bomb,” John said.

Rachel
swallowed and crossed her arms. Eddie sat down with a concerned look, his hands
between his knees.

Donna
rested her chin in her fist and knitted her brow at it. She could almost feel
the energy inside the thing, pushing and snarling to get out, like some raging
demon. The exterior of the device was covered with neat rows of printed
instructions and big red and yellow labels that wrapped perfectly around its
curved form. The warnings seemed superfluous. Why have warnings at all on a
nuclear bomb? The surface was dark gray, smooth, with a texture of satin. It
was actually quite attractive, like a piece of sculpture. She could imagine it
being on display somewhere. She imagined, too, the title, printed on a white
card affixed to the corner of the pedestal:
 
Proto-nuclear Exploding Device. The artist’s name would be Commonwealth
Armed Forces.

“Where
did you get it?” Donna asked, more casually than she was feeling.

Joan
sniffed again and hesitated. She’d told them this much; even showed it to them.
What did she have to lose?

“I stole
it,” she said with a quick glance at Eddie.

“From the
Council’s hired hands?” Donna asked.

“The
Council is the hired hands,” John added with sarcasm.

“That’s
right. Right out from under them. They think it’s buried in a mountain of
containers on Dock Four. They don’t even know it’s gone.”

“Pretty
slick,” John said. Here was the most powerful weapon on the planet, he was sure
of it—and they were in control of it, and as long as they were, they were in
control of everything. All that was missing from their little pot of
revolutionary stew were the right communications mixed with an ultimatum or two
and the guts to turn up the heat.

“So that
thing could blow us all up? Blow up everything?” Rachel asked.

“No
everything. But enough,” Joan said.

“You’re
going to threaten to blow something up if you don’t get your way, is that it?”
Rachel asked.

“Something
exactly like that,” Joan said coolly.

“That
makes a lot of sense,” Rachel replied curtly. “There’d be exactly nothing left,
probably.”

“I said
not everything. It’s not that powerful. And look around you, Sister. You’ve got
exactly nothing left right now.”

Rachel
seemed to draw up tighter. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said.

“Where
would you put it?” John wanted to know.

Joan told
him.

“That
seems reasonable,” John said.

“Reasonable?”
Rachel said under her breath, unable to believe John had said,
"reasonable.”

“Count us
in,” Donna said unexpectedly.

“Count
yourselves in,” Rachel said.
 
“Not me.”

“She’s
right, you know,” Donna said to Rachel. “We have nothing to lose. It’s either
jail and probably death or the jungle. I don’t like either option.”

“So
what’s this?” Rachel said, pointing an accusing finger at the bomb. “That’s
somehow not death? You’re crazy. I always thought so, but now I’m sure of it.”

“It’s a
tool,” John said. “We use it as leverage.”

“You
should hear yourselves,” Rachel said. “You sound like . . . like . . . I don’t
know what.”

Donna
looked at Joan. “Rachel always spoils the party,” she said, her voice thick
with sarcasm.

“Oh,
sure. It’s always me,” Rachel complained.

“Hey, if
the shoe fits . . .”

“I say we
do it,” Eddie said. “It could work.”

“You’re
as crazy as they are,” Rachel said to him.

“Why?
Because we’re tired of hiding and living in the jungle like animals? Because we
don’t want to run anymore,” Eddie said.

The
passion in Eddie’s voice surprised them all. Rachel was taken off guard by it.
“Well, I don’t think this is the answer, is all. You’re all . . . crazy.”

“You’re the
one who's crazy, Rachel,” Donna quickly countered. “You’re the one who has the
crazy dreams and visions. Not us.”
 

“All
right,” John said. “This is getting us nowhere. Rachel is free to do as she
pleases.
 
She doesn’t have to do anything
if she feels it’s not right.”

“You
sound like her psychiatrist,” Donna said with a crooked grin.

“Oh, shut
up Donna,” Rachel said.

Donna
gave her a black look. Rachel gave her one right back.

“Hey, not
in my kitchen,” Joan said. “Besides, there’s a bomb in here.”
 
The comment brought a couple of wry
grins—none from Rachel.

“Rachel,
relax,” Donna said with a note of mockery. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Really.”

Rachel
slumped into a plastic chair and turned away, arms still crossed like an angry
child. “I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Okay,”
Donna said with a baby voice. “Okay. We won’t talk about it anymore. We won’t
upset widdle Rachel.”
 
She turned to Joan
with a smile. “Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to do this.”

Rachel
sprang out of the chair like a tigress. She grabbed Donna’s hair with one hand
and threw a punch to her face with the other. Before anyone could react, she
had Donna down in the seat, throwing punches with both hands. John wrapped his
arms around Rachel’s waist and yanked her backwards. Donna kicked out at her
with a foot that missed by a full meter.

“You
bitch!” Donna screamed, blood running out of her nose.

“I’ll
kill you, you scrawny bitch!” Rachel yelled back. “I’ll wring your neck!”

Rachel
was wild, and it was all John could do to hold her. Her strength was
tremendous, and her madness amplified it. If he let her go, she might kill
Donna, and she was capable of doing it. She thrashed at him with her arms and
legs while the others gawked, wild-eyed. He couldn’t hold her forever. Maybe he
and Eddie could wrestle her to one of the bedrooms and lock her in.