Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(39)
Unfortunately, only a very small portion of the original neural net was currently functional. The molecular data storage banks were the most heavily damaged, although he worked steadily to repair them. He had the feeling that if he could just reach a critical mass here, he would attain access to knowledge that would enable him to understand how to bring more of the power systems back online. And with more power, he could bring the main computers back to life.
In the meantime, he had made a glorious breakthrough. He had managed to tap the Internet remotely. Raul still didn’t quite understand how he had achieved it. He had been wishing that he could access data from the outside world and somehow the ship had brought a connection online. It wasn’t a physical connection like a cable line or an uplink to a satellite. Somehow, the ship just managed to make it happen.
But that connection was spotty and limited, the result of damage to a set of components that were the object of Raul’s current repair efforts. Clinging with one hand to a set of conduits, Raul unfastened the casings, his artificial right eye seeing the activity in those circuits in a way that no human eye could. As he observed the data flow, his brain, augmented by the shipboard neural net, understood exactly what was wrong. He might never again leave this craft, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t touch the outside world.
A broad smile crawled across Raul’s face. Perhaps his suffering had not been in vain. Maybe God wasn’t done with him after all.
36
Heather rolled over in bed and opened her eyes, surprised to see her own arms stretching high into the air. It was Saturday, and she was still alive and not in a federal penitentiary. Considering the horrible nature of her dreams, this waking was a major improvement.
Glancing over at the clock on her bed stand, she saw that it was 5:30 a.m. Holy cow. She had been so busy just trying to survive the week that she hadn't really had a chance to think about the fact that she was still alive and in good health.
Heather rolled out of bed and slipped into her long, white robe and her fur-lined, moccasin-style slippers, then made her way quietly down to the kitchen. By the time the teakettle started whistling, she had already gotten the chamomile tea bag situated in her cup, switched on the television, and begun channel surfing for any news that might indicate some other disaster was on its way to annihilate them.
The smell of the tea wafted up to her nostrils as she began pouring the hot water over the bag and then paused to add a little Splenda.
At first she barely registered the scratching at the kitchen window, so softly did it intrude into her consciousness. When she did look up, there was nothing there, just a large section where the condensation had left a cloud on the pane. Only as she started to turn away did she see it, crude letters in the condensation where a finger had traced them on the outside of the glass.
“I know what you are.”
Heather set down her tea and walked across to the windowsill. On closer inspection, it was a thin layer of frost, not steam or condensation, that had been scratched away.
She shifted her gaze to the tree line at the back edge of their yard. There, standing in the snow beneath the pines, stood the Rag Man, his long, greasy, blond hair and the mouthful of bad teeth in his grinning face immediately recognizable. His eyes, though. Where were his eyes?
Grabbing a long butcher knife from the block on the countertop, Heather opened the sliding glass door and stepped out into the predawn darkness, the garden dimly illuminated by the light from their back porch. As she stepped out, the Rag Man slid back into the trees.
Heather lunged after him, almost slipping on the ice covering the deck’s lower step, but she managed to right herself as she plunged into the snow-covered grass beyond. She reached the tree where she had last seen him, whirling to make sure he did not jump out of the darkness behind her.
There in the snow beneath the tree, a clear set of footprints led away into the woods just beyond her backyard. Heather sucked in a chest-full of air, then moved, head bent to keep the trail in sight as she made her way forward. In seconds the trees behind her masked her house from view, bringing down a deeper darkness that would have been absolute, except for the light of the three-quarter moon that filtered through the branches high above.
Those tracks in the snow pulled her onward, her hand clutched so tightly around the handle of the big knife that it seemed the skin would peel away from her knuckles at any moment. She felt like screaming after the Rag Man: Who are you? What do you want from me? Stay the hell away from my family!
“I know what you are.”
The voice behind her was so close she could feel the hot breath puff against the back of her neck, could smell the rot in those decaying teeth. Suddenly all the anger and strength leached out of her body, replaced by an icy terror that left her frozen in place, unable to move. Unable even to turn her face to look into those vacant eye sockets.
“I know what you are becoming.”
“I know what you are becoming.”
“I know what you are becoming.”
Heather sat straight up in bed, the struggle back to consciousness leaving her momentarily disoriented. Ever so slowly, her racing heart slowed its beating.
Jesus. The same dream she had endured before. On impulse, she pinched her arm hard. Ouch. Well, if she wasn’t really awake, then the old myth of not feeling pain in dreams was flat-out busted.
Snow. There had been snow in the dream, but it was summertime. Of course it was a dream.