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He was staring at the three items on the table. Timson wasn’t sure, but he thought that Gretzky had an almost thoughtful look in his eyes. He was obviously trying to figure out which of the three objects was of most interest.

Eventually, he reached out with decaying hands for the cell phone.

After looking at it for a few seconds, he managed to pry it open.

Then he put it to his ear.

“Amazing,” Moody said, making notes on his clipboard. “He knows what it is. There’s gotta be some residual memory in there of when he was alive, even though that must’ve been several years ago now, based on the decay of his flesh.”

No sound came over the phone, of course, and Gretzky showed no inclination to speak. Even if there was a working cell tower nearby, which was unlikely, they were too far underground to get a signal.

Apparently, Gretzky realized this on some level, and he put the phone down.

Isaacs nodded. “The camera next.”

Timson had had worse bosses than Isaacs. He’d also had considerably better, but at least Isaacs had been able to adjust to the changing circumstances. While the doctor did maintain a sense of discipline, he also understood that people had to let off steam, especially given the horrendous situation they found themselves in. So he let them banter and make fun of each other and generally act silly, as long as the work got done and done well.

For that reason, he and Moody toned things down in his presence. They thought it was the least they could do.

Of course, it was never clear how much Isaacs actually cared about them. He was so damn aloof—but maybe that was just his coping mechanism.

In any event, Timson followed Isaacs’s instruction and pushed the digital camera toward Gretzky.

The corpse picked the camera up and started turning it over and over in his hands. Timson feared that he would just keep doing that for half an hour, but eventually he held it the right way and moved the dial on top that put the camera into the on position.

With an electronic whir, the lens cap opened. Timson broke into a huge grin. Isaacs just nodded slightly.

Moody, though, was stunned. “My God!”

Gretzky looked up and over at Moody. Moody’s stunned look modulated into a frightened one, and he took a step back.

In a quiet voice, Isaacs said, “Stand your ground.”

When he was sure that Isaacs wasn’t looking, Timson shot Moody a grin and mouthed the word wuss.

Moody just glowered at Timson.

Gretzky kept staring at Moody. Timson couldn’t help but wonder what, if anything, was going through his brain. Was he capable of a thought more complex than feed?

That was what they were trying to find out.

Then Gretzky lifted the camera in front of his face and pushed the button.

Everyone had to blink for several seconds after the flash went off.

Timson was grinning. “Unbelievable!”

Gretzky put the camera down and wandered back to the table. Timson saw Moody’s face captured on the camera’s small display screen. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. Timson immediately started making plans to print the picture out on the color printer and hang it on the bulletin board. Preferably with some kind of caption. Maybe even do a “Caption this!” contest. Isaacs probably wouldn’t completely approve, but he wouldn’t stop it, either.

That was for later, though. Right now, Timson had a job to do. He observed Gretzky, who had picked up the triangular plastic piece from the kids’ toy.

Timson winced as he remembered that that toy had belonged to Humberg’s son. The security man’s wife and son were killed, not by the T-virus but by a tropical storm that had slammed the Gulf Coast. Nobody named this storm—by that time, the world was more concerned with staying alive—but with no government resources available, they were trapped in their Florida home when it came and were swept away. It wasn’t even a particularly bad storm, not even enough to gain hurricane status, and ten years ago it would’ve been a minor hardship at best.

Humberg had bought the toy for his two-year-old,