Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [23]
“No. I told you!” she replied—too loudly, Paul thought. “Anyway, I’ve got it in me already. And there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“What does it feel like?” Paul felt rather in awe of her and a little envious, too. She had all the things he’d worked so hard for: speed, strength, agility. He must seem ridiculous, with his heavy, pumped-up muscles.
She shrugged. “It’d be like you trying to describe, say, how your legs feel. This is all I know. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
She placed her hand on Paul’s bare forearm. “I feel cold to you?”
Paul nodded, taken aback but strangely excited by this sudden contact.
“You’re scalding,” she said, puzzled. She brushed her thumb across the underside of his wrist. “Your heart is blasting away.” Then she maneuvered his fingers onto her pulse. “Here.”
Paul concentrated but felt nothing. A cold prickle moved across his neck. Did she have a pulse at all? But she smiled and pressed his fingers tighter against her skin. He felt something now—not distinct beats, more like a continuous purr.
Paul swallowed. “Yeah, I feel it now.”
“We run pretty fast.”
He realized he was still holding her wrist and abruptly let go.
“Does it scare you?”
“I don’t—no. Is that why you’re so pale?”
“I guess so.”
“And light?”
“I suppose we don’t weigh much, do we? Nothing like you, anyway.”
“It makes you tired,” he said. “Like after we ran away from Sked.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s as if all your energy burns away. But it comes back after a while.”
He was trying not to believe any of it—to just stay calm. But Sam had written it all down.
“You knew what would be on the diskette.”
“I had an idea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not the kind of thing we’d tell strangers, is it?”
“Is that why Armitage didn’t want me to read it?”
“One of the reasons. He doesn’t want anyone to know about us, especially people from the City. He’d do anything to get the water out of him. He hates it.”
“So why did you let me read the diskette?”
“Better you than Cityweb. And,” she added with sudden intensity, “I want to know what your brother found. None of the Waterdrinkers ever knew how the dead water worked. They thought it was magic.”
“Sam thinks it’s some kind of microorganism in the water. He calls it a metabolic accelerator.”
“A what?”
“It speeds up the way your body works. It takes over your system.”
“Where does it come from?”
“He doesn’t know, never saw anything like it. He thinks it might be some kind of mutation, but he couldn’t find it on any of his identification tables.”
“So it’s not magic,” she said sadly. She looked at him defiantly. “You must think I’m some kind of freak.”
“No,” he said truthfully.
“I wonder. Still, it was only a matter of time before someone found out. Surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I don’t know what’s worse: Cityweb getting hold of it or your brother. What do you think he’s going to do with his great discovery?”
Paul felt an icy contraction of fear in his guts. He knew exactly what Sam was planning.
Da Vinci.
The perfect man.
8
SOMETHING WONDERFUL is going to happen. His brother’s fevered words sounded in his head as he typed in the code word, calling up the second file. Monica crouched beside him and together they watched as the screen filled with light.
Day 1
I’ve decided that this is the only way to understand the effects of the dead water on human beings. No amount of computer-simulated modeling can match it. And I want to know. I want to experience it firsthand.
I’ve screened out all tramp elements and toxic traces from the samples I’ve collected. I took the first dose at 0800, the second at 1400, and will continue at eight-hour intervals.
No discernible symptoms or observations so far.
“When I first saw him around the old boathouse, I didn’t think he was a stranger,” said Monica quietly. “I thought he must have been a Waterdrinker—some crazy who didn’t know better. You still see them around sometimes.”
Paul nodded, mute.
Day 2
Muscle pain. I’m assuming it’s an initial reaction to the dead water. Slight fever. Heart rate up. Am continuing