The Hatching (The Hatching #1)(82)
“Maryland, actually, but it doesn’t matter.”
“They’re loose in DC now?”
“Maryland. But no. He was in a biocontainment unit. There was an egg sac inside him. They were trying to get it out. It shouldn’t have been . . . It shouldn’t have hatched so quickly. None of this makes sense.”
“Yeah, well, I’m hoping you can tell me what to do.”
“I don’t think anybody can tell you what to do,” she said. “You’re in Minnesota?”
“In a warehouse.”
“Is it as bad as Los Angeles?”
The phone was muffled for a second and he heard her shouting something. Then she was back. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing. It’s calm here. The only thing we’ve got is a dead spider and three pod things. As far as I know, there aren’t any other spiders on the ground here. We’re only a couple of blocks from where Henderson’s plane crashed, so I’m sort of figuring there must have been another spider that survived, that came over here and made these egg things.”
“Are the egg sacs warm?”
“I didn’t, uh,” Mike stammered, “I mean, nobody’s touched them. We set up a few barricades and taped the area off.”
“Like, with police tape?” She actually laughed. “That’s not going to do much.”
“That’s funny? I guess it’s a little funny. We’re a federal agency. It’s kind of what we do. But no, I don’t know if they’re warm or what.”
“Okay. Listen, Mike, I’ve only got a couple of minutes before I land, but I need you to go touch one, tell me what it feels like.”
“Give me a minute.” He walked back into the building, ducked under the police tape, and walked over to the shelves. He tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder and pulled a wheeled platform ladder over. He went up a few steps, reached out his hand, and then hesitated. “Just touch it?”
“What does it feel like?”
From a distance, it looked smooth and white, almost like an egg, but up close he could see the individual strands, the way the silk threads were wrapped in layer after layer to create the sac. He shivered and then let his hand fall on the orb. He expected it to be sticky, but it wasn’t. It was a little rough, maybe a little bit tacky, but it was nothing like what he’d been afraid of. There’d been a part of him that was terrified his hand was going to stick to the thing. “It feels a little bit like one of those jawbreakers, after they’ve dried out again.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a kid. You know those big jawbreakers? My kid will eat one for a while and then stick the thing in a bowl and come back to it later. They’re basically pure sugar and chemicals and don’t go bad, but once they dry out, they’re sort of smooth and rough at the same time.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Lady, you work with spiders,” he said. Even with the sound of the helicopter and everything else, he imagined he could hear her smiling. Definitely, he thought. If they managed to survive all this, he was going to fly back to DC and take her out on a date. What the hell?
“It’s not sticky?”
“No. A little tacky, sort of, I don’t know—”
“Calcified?”
“Yeah. Good word. And it’s not warm at all. Cool, really.”
The White House
Melanie kept the phone pressed to her ear, her other hand covering her free ear. She was talking somewhere between loud and shouting. Below her, she saw the South Lawn of the White House looming up. They were landing.
“Keep track of the temperature. Far as we can tell, when it gets hot, it’s ready to hatch. Don’t touch them in the meantime,” she said. “No. Wait. Scratch that. Find one of the local universities that has an entomology program and have them bring over some insectariums. Get the egg sacs in there, and then make sure they’re somewhere contained. Somebody has to have a lab in the area that will work. I think you’re safe for now, but I don’t know.”
She felt the jolt of the struts hitting the ground, and the battle-dressed soldier next to her grabbed her arm. “We’ve got to go, ma’am.”
She ducked her head instinctively as she ran out from under the chopper blades. “Let me know if anything changes,” she yelled into the phone. It was louder outside the helicopter. “And good luck.”
The soldier handed her off to a pair of Secret Service agents, and they hustled her through the halls and toward the Situation Room. It was overwhelming, and as they passed a bathroom, she stopped. One of the Secret Service agents tugged on her arm, but she shook her head.
“I’ve got to use the restroom.”
The agent, a young Latino man, kept his hand on her biceps. “We’re under orders to take you to Mr. Walchuck immediately,” he said.
She gently peeled his hand off. “I’m forty and have a doctorate. I’m the one who gets to decide when I pee.”
The hallway was buzzing with people moving back and forth, some of them running, all of them looking harried, and the bathroom felt cool and quiet. She ducked into the stall and peed. It was a surprising relief. For that matter, when had she last had something to eat or drink? She needed a coffee or a Diet Coke. She needed a few minutes to get herself together before she faced Manny and the president and a roomful of uniforms, she thought.