Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(44)

—Technically, you are not the one who kept on looking. The … other Dr. Franklin did— —I should have stopped looking! I should have left Themis alone. She knew. She killed me for it.

—Mr. Couture and Ms. Resnik killed you, however unwillingly.

—You don’t think it means anything that I was killed by the robot I put together? By the robot whose discovery put everyone’s lives at risk? I see poetic justice, but please tell me you at least find it a bit ironic.

—You discovered parts of a very powerful weapon. There is risk in dealing with dangerous things. People die every day because of their proximity to handguns, or power tools, or chemical drain cleaner. You found a two-hundred-foot-tall alien weapon that weighs thousands of metric tons and is capable of destroying armies. You worked with it all day, every day. Had your insurance company been aware of what you were doing, your premiums would have increased a thousandfold. Your death was devastating, but it was also highly probable. Furthermore, I do not believe you had a choice. I suspect you were steered towards the hand by forces well beyond your control.

You did, however, get a second chance. You are here now. You are here so that you can help us save people. You will not be able to save them all. I could have told you that long before the attack. But I am convinced that you can save some. That may not sound wonderful, but there is a strong possibility that saving some of us is the best that we can hope for at this juncture. With that in mind, and with all due respect to your disproportionate feeling of guilt, I would like to know what you have managed to learn since these bodies arrived from London.

—They died a horrible death. There are a dozen medical examiners doing autopsies around the clock, but the twelve they’ve looked at all died the same way: extremely severe sepsis. Inflammation quickly spread throughout their entire body. They would have had a very high fever. Blood clotting would occur very quickly, restricting blood flow to the entire body. Without oxygen, all the major organs would start failing. The kidneys, liver, and lungs would go first, then death. They died burning up from the inside, gasping for air.

Do you still think it was a good idea to bring children for a picnic around the alien robot?

—I never thought of it as good. I merely stated that it might have been our best chance of showing them our peaceful nature. I still believe it was our best chance.

—It didn’t work too well for these people.

—It did not. Therefore, we must proceed knowing that peace is no longer an option. How long did it take for the victims to die?

—It happened quickly. I’d say under a minute. We’re getting video surveillance from all over London. The gas reached a uniform height of 230 feet. It spread in a perfect circle, approximately twelve kilometers in every direction—that’s about 450 square kilometers—in just under eighteen minutes. Everyone was dead after twenty. The alien robot vanished shortly after. Has there been any sign of it?

—It reappeared in Madrid almost immediately.

—Are they evacuating?

—General Govender is coordinating with local government in the thirteen cities under immediate threat.

—The other robots, are they … ?

—No. Fortunately for us, none of the others have sent out any gas, up to this point. We can assume it is only a matter of time before they do. If the survival rate is as low as it was in London, and only half of the population remains in these cities, we could have one hundred million dead within thirty minutes.

—How many have survived? I was told only a few hundred.

—We are finding more as rescue teams sweep the city. The latest figure I received had the number of survivors near fourteen hundred.

—That’s still horribly low.

—It is. Most of them were found within five kilometers of the point of origin. The density of the population affected decreases as we move away from it, as more people were able to get away. I would not expect the number of people who came into contact with the gas and survived to increase significantly from this point on.

I have requested that some of the survivors be sent here for examination.

—They’re here. They arrived an hour ago.

—Have they been examined?

—No, but they’ve all given blood samples on the plane. We should have those results in an hour. I talked to four of them already. I’ll interview the rest when they come back. I sent them all to get something to eat.

—How did they manage to stay clear of the deadly gas?

—They didn’t. From what they told me, there was no way to escape it. They tried to seal themselves inside a room, block every orifice with whatever was at hand, but the fog—that’s what they called it—found its way in as if nothing was there to stop it. They say it came in through the walls. I know many of them didn’t even make it inside. Some were part of the group gathered around the alien robot. They were exposed to the gas, breathing it, for over an hour before it dissipated.

—How did they survive? Were their symptoms any less severe?

—What symptoms? They had none. They’re all perfectly healthy. That’s not true; one of them has a pretty nasty case of the flu, but I doubt it has anything to do with it. He says he’s been sick for days. Whatever this “fog” does, they’re completely immune to it.

—Do you have any idea why?

—No. They’re all physically very different. They come from different parts of the world. I’ll try to get as much information about them as I can, see if they share eating habits, some activity. It could be something they’re in contact with at work, or at home, the kind of soap they use, their shampoo. The ones I talked to aren’t on any medication. I’ll keep asking. It’s possible something will come up when I talk to the others but, in all honesty, I doubt I’ll find anything. There’s a six-year-old girl in that group and an eighty-year-old man. How much of their daily lives could they have in common? I’m not the one who should be doing this.