Midnight by Dean R. Koontz

Now Watkins said, “They’re more than disturbing. Much more than just that. They’re …. psychotic.”

“I know they’re psychotic,” Shaddack said impatiently. “I’ve named their condition myself metamorphic-related psychosis.”

“They enjoy killing.”

Thomas Shaddack frowned. He had not foreseen the problem of the regressives, and he refused to believe that they constituted more than a minor anomaly in the otherwise beneficial conversion of the people of Moonlight Cove. “Yes, all right, they enjoy killing, and in their regressed state they’re designed for it, but we’ve only a few of them to identify and eliminate. Statistically, they’re an insignificant percentage of those we’ve put through the Change.”

“Maybe not so insignificant,” Watkins said hesitantly, unable to meet Shaddack’s eyes, a reluctant bearer of bad tidings. “Judging by all the bloody wreckage lately, I’d guess that among those nineteen hundred converted as of this morning, there were fifty or sixty of these regressives out there.”

“Ridiculous!”

To admit regressives existed in large numbers, Shaddack would have to consider the possibility that his research was flawed, that he had rushed his discoveries out of the laboratory and into the field with too little consideration of the potential for disaster, and that his enthusiastic application of the Moonhawk Project’s revolutionary discoveries to the people of Moonlight Cove was a tragic mistake. He could admit nothing of the sort.

He had yearned all his life for the nth degree of power that was now nearly within his reach, and he was psychologically incapable of retreating from the course he had set. Since puberty he had denied himself certain pleasures because, had he acted upon those needs, he would have been hunted down by the law and made to pay a heavy price. All those years of denial had created a tremendous internal pressure that he desperately needed to relieve. He had sublimated his antisocial desires in his work, focused his energies into socially acceptable endeavors—which had, ironically, resulted in discoveries that would make him immune to authority and therefore free to indulge his long-suppressed urges without fear of censure or punishment.

Besides, not just psychologically but also in practical terms, he had gone too far to turn back. He had brought something revolutionary into the world. Because of him, nineteen hundred New People walked the earth, as different from other men and women as Cro-Magnons had been different from their more primitive Neanderthal ancestors. He did not have the ability to undo what he had done any more than other scientists and technicians could uninvent the wheel or atomic bomb.

Watkins shook his head. “I’m sorry … but I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. Fifty or sixty regressives. Or more. Maybe a lot more.”

“You’ll need proof to convince me of that. You’ll have to name them for me. Are you any closer to identifying even one of them—other than Quinn?”

“Alex and Sharon Foster, I think. And maybe even your own man, Tucker.”

“Impossible.”

Watkins described what he had found at the Foster place—and the cries he had heard in the distant woods.

Reluctantly Shaddack considered the possibility that Tucker was one of those degenerates. He was disturbed by the likelihood that his control among his inner circle was not as absolute as he had thought. If he could not be sure of those men closest to him, how could he be certain of his ability to control the masses? “Maybe the Fosters are regressives, though I doubt it’s true of Tucker. But even if Tucker’s one of them, that means you’ve found four. Not fifty or sixty. Just four. Who’re all these others you imagine are out there?”

Loman Watkins stared at the fog, which pressed in ever-changing patterns against the glass walls of the tower room. “Sir, I’m afraid it isn’t easy. I mean … think about it. If the state or federal authorities learned what you’ve done, if they could understand what you’ve done and really believe it, and if then they wanted to prevent us from bringing the Change to everyone beyond Moonlight Cove, they’d have one hell of a time stopping us, wouldn’t they? After all, those of us who’ve been converted … we walk undetected among ordinary people. We seem like them, no different, unchanged.”