"There's kerosene or gasoline down here," Alex said. "So don't light a match."
He began to hand up boxes of ammunition. "We'll take as much as we can carry today, and tomorrow we'll send out another group to get as much as they can bring back. We'll have to pour the kerosene into smaller containers to get it back to the park, but it shouldn't take more than a week with seven people working."
"What a find," Flash said, beginning to appreciate the enormity of their discovery as the material was handed up to him a bit at a time.
When they had as much as they could hope to carry, Alex clambered out with the help of Jo and Flash. The diagonal positioning of the wall made egress easy.
Jo smiled in wonderment. "How do you suppose Victor ever came up with that?"
"I'd say this house was built during the twenties," Alex said. "During prohibition. Bootleggers must have had this secret room built to hide booze."
"Thank God for devious minds," Flash said. "Bootleggers, dope runners, and all the other outlaws have their purpose in the scheme of things, just as I always suspected."
Burdened with bullets and medical supplies, each of them carrying one new semi-automatic and one new handgun, they started back toward the park.
"You know, if we go down this hill, we'll meet up with the tunnel just as quickly, and it'll be a lot easier on us," Alex said.
"I don't know," Jo cautioned. "Let's not push our luck."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that we may run into infected people if we go that way."
"Why should there be any more of them that way than the way we came?"
"We know the way we came is clear. So let's go back by the same route."
"Jo, you're still thinking of our first visit to Ishan Street. We have no reason to believe that there's any real danger around here today."
"I'd rather not, Alex."
"Look, if we're gonna fight back, we'd better start now. If we're afraid of our own shadows, we're not going to succeed."
"Well, aren't you infused with fighting spirit today," she said.
"Come on," Alex said. "How about you, Flash?"
"I'll go down the hill, I guess," Flash replied. "Why not? Like you said, we got to start fighting back sometime."
"There you have it," Alex said. "You're outnumbered, Jo."
"Once again, macho adventurism wins out over reason."
The street curved down the side of the hill, obscuring what was ahead. Alex felt fortunate, as though things were at last going their way. Perhaps there was a chance after all. And then they came around the shell of a ruined rowhouse, seeing what was at the bottom of the hill.
Dozens of shambling figures milled in the street near a three storey, brick building with a peaked roof and red door. This rather large structure and the surrounding blocks had been left untouched by rocket fire during the war.
"Ironic," Alex said, drawing back behind the rubble.
"Ironic that we came this way?" Jo asked.
"That, too, I guess. But I was talking about that building down there. The big one without a scratch on it."
"What is it?" Jo demanded. "Some kind of government building?"
"You bet your sweet patoot it's a gummint building," said Flash. "That's the armory."
"
The armory!
"
Jo cried.
"Quiet, Jo," Alex said anxiously. "You want them to hear us?"
"They're too far away, aren't they?" she whispered.
"I don't know. You really want to chance it?"
"I see your point."
They withdrew, retracing their path and making their way back under the river the way they had come. Alex was silent much of the way, and when they emerged into the light on the other side, Jo said, "Stop sulking, Alex. You could have been right. It just turned out that you weren't."
"It's not that," he said. He frowned as Jo rolled her eyes. "No, really. It's a good thing we went that way."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, because now we know something about the enemy we didn't know before."
"And what is that?"
"The colloids are trying to keep us from getting in the armory, which must mean there are still weapons in there."
"Makes sense," said Flash.
"It does, doesn't it? And you know what else it means?"
Both Jo and Flash looked at him curiously.
Alex smiled. "It means that the infected don't know how to use them . . . at least not yet."
"How do you know that?"
"There were no armed guards down there. Why wouldn't the colloids just arm a few of those zombies and tell them to shoot anything that comes near the armory? I'll tell you why. Because their brains are not functional enough for hand-eye coordination that complex."
"Probably because the colloids eat away at the nervous system right from the beginning," said Jo. "Infected people can only walk for a few days, let alone chew gum and shoot rifles."
"And after a few weeks they start melting down into colloids," Flash said. "And the colloids look for food, which there is less and less of these days, now that the human population is way down."
"That means that if we can hang in there long enough, they might all die," Jo said.
"They might," Alex said. "But most likely some of them will survive, no matter what, just as some of us have survived."
"You're such an optimist," Flash said.
"Just a realist, I'd say," Alex replied. "Besides, Flash, we might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg."
"What do you mean?"
"Look how this epidemic has spread, and what it's evolved into in thirty-six months. Maybe it's some virus genetically designed to mutate rapidly, but got so out of control that the scientists couldn't come up with a cure for it in time to stop it from spreading. Now that it's been out of control for three years, it's quickly reaching a crisis situation, since it's running out of host organisms."
"So what will it do next?" said Flash.
"The only thing it
can
do to survive," Jo replied. "Evolve into something new."
"Viruses don't necessarily die out," Dr. Siegel said as she leaned against the stone wall of Flash's hideout. "Some of them can lie dormant for extraordinarily long periods."
"So even if the entire human race disappears, this thing can still survive?" Elvin said.
"It might." Siegel assumed the air of a professor, stalking back and forth across the floor as she spoke. "We don't know enough about it to determine what will happen. We don't even know that it is a virus, not for certain."
"Well, where does that leave us?" Polly, the newest addition to the group, asked. "It's indestructible, and it's everywhere, and now it's immortal, too."
"Not immortal," Siegel corrected. "Just adaptable."
"We know that it can live on animals," Flash said. "I've seen it myself, eating away at pigeons and rats."
"But when was the last time you saw that?" Siegel asked. "No, that was only when the epidemic first started. They quickly learned to distinguish between humans and other mammals. Furthermore, so far as we know they have never eaten anything cold-blooded."
"Right to the top of the food chain," Flash said. "You almost have to admire its chutzpah
."
"We've known for quite some time that it's selective," said Jo. "But this recent development of massed attack is way beyond any virus I've ever heard of."
"Claire," said Alex. "The other day you expressed doubt that the colloids had been created in a lab. Do you think this epidemic can possibly be a natural mutation of some virus?"
"Virus or not, I don't think it originated on Earth," Siegel said simply.
Nobody said anything. It seemed to Alex that she had stated what they had all suspected for some time, but that no one had dared to say it aloud, perhaps out of some atavistic fear that saying it might make it come true.
"It's
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
time," Flash said, after a long moment.
"Something like that," Siegel nodded. "It's my guess that the virus drifts in space, perhaps clinging to meteorites until one falls to a planet with life on it. Then it infects some of the local lifeforms until it figures out which one is the most neurologically complex."
"Yes," Alex said, "it managed to do that rather quickly. But what's it been doing since the end of the war and the present? Why is it all of a sudden directing attacks, capturing armories, stuff like that? My guess is that the past few years have been a time of analysis for the colloids. Not only have they consumed their hosts, but they've studied them at the same time. Now they've mastered the nervous systems of their victims, perhaps even using areas of the brain that we have not developed ourselves."
"That might account for the telepathic communication," Jo said. "Maybe they're using the human mind as a kind of communication device."
"The human nervous system's electrical impulses might make a very good broadcasting system, if they could be appropriately channeled," Dr. Siegel said.
"But the broadcast time is limited, if the body is being used for food," Flash said.
"Which must mean that the brain is the last to be eaten." This came from the seemingly catatonic Elvin.
"Maybe not. Maybe there's some interaction between the colloid and neural tissue."
Flash shuddered involuntarily. "Inside the skull, man. We're talking about inside the fuckin' skull."
"Look," Jo said. "Can it be that we're making the whole thing too complicated? I mean, what about Occam's razor, or whatever you call that law? Why are we dreaming up this wild scenario, when there's a simple explanation?"
"Well . . . " Siegel stared at her.
"We've been attacked by groups of infected people, right? Does that prove they're telepathic? No, it just proves that some of them have banded together."
"What about the armory?" Alex asked.
"Maybe they have some dim idea that they could use the weapons kept inside. That doesn't prove that an alien virus is making them into its own personal army, does it?"
"Quite plausible," said Siegel. "Except for one thing. Why are the infected so intent on attacking and killing any uninfected human?"
"For God's sake, we've been attacking
each other
for three years. It's a kill or be killed world outside our little hideaway. These infected people are sick, dying, and yet they've banded together. They gotten it together sooner than we did, in fact."
"Good point, Jo," Flash said. "What do you say to that, Doc?"
Siegel said nothing, but went to a barred window and stared out at the shadowy branches.
Alex was puzzled by her desultory action. And he was a little surprised by Jo's plausible scenario. She had seemed to believe that the infected were working in concert this afternoon. And yet he had to admit that her theory was easier to believe in than an invasion from space.
"Doctor Siegel," he said, "do you have anything to add?"
The old woman seemed infinitely sad and lost, as she said, "No."
Alex glanced at Jo, but she avoided his eye. Flash jerked his head toward the window, as if to say that something was wrong with Siegel.
"Are you all right, Claire?" Alex asked.
"Probably not," she replied. "You see, Alex, I neglected to mention something that might be pertinent to this discussion."
"Something about the colloids?"
"No, something about me."
Alex moved closer, seeing a tear glistening on her cheek. "What is it?" he asked gently. "What's the matter?"
"I'll tell you what's the matter. I was once diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic."
Nobody spoke.
"How long ago?" Alex asked.
"Several years. Twenty years. Thirty. I don't know." The tears were streaming down her face now. "I don't know what's real."
Alex put his arm around her. "You know as much as anybody else, Doctor."
But Siegel didn't seem to hear him. She just continued to weep, staring out the window into the gathering darkness. She gave no sign that she knew he was there.
Alex left her alone at last, retiring to the corner of the room where Jo was now sitting cross-legged on a mattress. "I think you opened a real can of worms there," he said. "What made you do that?"
"Well, it struck me that we're making too much of all this. What Siegel was saying really doesn't make a lot of sense, when you get down to it. Now we know why."
It seemed a harsh judgment, in a way, but it was logical. He pulled the curtain, a blanket hanging from a rope, that separated their section of the room, and lay down next to Jo.
"There's one thing that still bothers me, Jo," he said after a while.
"Oh?"
"If they're just sick people, why don't they go inside the armory and get those guns? Even if they couldn't use them, it doesn't make any sense. They'd try, wouldn't they? If they've been transformed into something else, though, something that isn't really human, they might not understand how firearms work."
"Alex, how could creatures that can cross billions of miles of space not understand something as simple as a gun?"
"Well, maybe they just don't think the way we do."
"They've had three years to learn."
"True, but they've done a lot of other things in that three years without guns. They've conquered the human race. Making their flunkies use M-16s might not have seemed that important to them."
"A disease has wiped out most of the population, Alex," Jo said with exaggerated patience. "That doesn't mean that there's some sinister purpose behind it."
"No, I suppose not." He rubbed her back.
"Alex, I think we're taking too many risks. If we lie low, this thing just might wear itself out."
Maybe she was right. Maybe the worst was over. Maybe they were among the lucky few who would survive this terrible plague. He wanted to believe that, but experience had taught him that things rarely work out the way you'd like.
"I don't know, Jo. We've been lying low for years, and look what's happened."
"Yeah, we've lived while other people have died by the billions."
"That's one way of looking at it."
"That's the
only
way of looking at it, as far as I can see." She pulled away from him. "I want to live."