measures of disbelief and disgust.
“His kids are abducted, and he hides information from the cops? ”
“Del’s deep in the Wyvern mess, ” I said. “Maybe he has to keep his
mouth shut about the abb’s identity until he gets permission from his
boss to tell the cops.”
“If they were my kids, I’d kick over the rules, ” she said.
I asked Bobby if Jenna Wing had been able to make anything of the crow
and the message left under Jimmy’s pillow, but she had been clueless.
“I’ve heard something else, though, ” Bobby said, “and it makes this
whole thing even more of a mind-bender.”
“Like? ”
“Charlie says, about two weeks ago, school nurses and county health
officials conducted an annual checkup on every kid in every school and
preschool in town. The usual eye exams, hearing tests, chest X-rays for
tuberculosis. But this time they took blood samples, too.” Sasha
frowned. “Drew blood from all those kids? ”
“A couple school nurses felt parents ought to give permission before
blood samples were taken, but the county official overseeing the program
flushed them away with a load of woofy about there’s been a low-level
hepatitis outbreak in the area that could become epidemic, so they need
to do preventive screening.” As I did, Sasha knew what inference Bobby
had drawn from this news, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if
chilled.
“They weren’t screening those kids for hepatitis. They were screening
them for the retrovirus.”
“To see how widely distributed the problem is in the community, ” I
added.
Bobby had arrived at a further and more disturbing inference. “We know
the big brains are burning up gray cells around the clock, searching for
a cure, right? ”
“Ears smoking, ” I agreed.
“What if they’ve discovered that a tiny percentage of infected people
have a natural defense against the retrovirus? ”
“Maybe in some people the bug isn’t able to unload the genetic material
it’s carrying, ” Sasha said.
Bobby shrugged. “Or whatever. Wouldn’t they want to study those who’re
immune? ” I was sickened by where this was leading. “Jimmy Wing, the
Stuart twins … maybe their blood samples revealed they have this
antibody, enzyme, mechanism, whatever it is.” Sasha didn’t want to go
where we were going. “For research, they wouldn’t need the kids. Just
tissue samples, blood samples, every few weeks.” Reluctantly,
remembering these were people who had once worked with Mom, I said, “But
if you have no moral compunctions, if you used human subjects before,
like they used condemned prisoners, then it’s a lot easier just to
snatch the kids.”
“Less to explain, ” Bobby agreed.
“No chance the parents won’t cooperate.” Sasha spat out a word I’d never
heard her use before.
“Bro, ” Bobby said, “you know, in car-engine design, in airplane-engine
design, there’s this engineering term, something called test to
destruction.”
“I know where you’re going with this. Yeah, I’m pretty sure in some
biological research there’s something similar. Testing the organism to
see how much it can take of one thing or another, before it
self-destructs.” Sasha spat out the same word, which I had now heard her
use before, and she turned her back to us, as if to hear and see us
discussing this was too disturbing.
Bobby said, “Maybe a quick way to understand why a particular subject why
one of these little kids has immunity from the virus is to keep infecting
him with it, megadoses of infection, and study his immune response.”
“Until finally they kill him? Just kill him? ” Sasha asked angrily,
turning to us again, her lovely face so drained of blood that she
appeared to be halfway through applying the makeup for a mime
performance.
“Until finally they kill him, ” I confirmed.
“We don’t know this is what they’re doing, ” Bobby said in an attempt to
console her. “We don’t know jack. It’s just a half-assed theory.”
“Half-assed, half-smart, ” I said with dismay. “But what does the damn
crow have to do with all this? ” We stared at one another.
None of us had an answer.
Bobby peered suspiciously through the stained-glass window again.