clamber through into the passenger compartment. Furthermore, the latch
mechanism was unreachable from within the trunk because of a metal cover
plate fastened in place by several Phillips-head screws.
Fortunately, Rachael and Shadway had been so busy gathering up the copy
of the Wildcard file that Eric had been able to snatch a Phillips
screwdriver off the tool rack, remove the latch plate, climb into the
trunk, and close the lid. Even in the dark, he could find the bared
latch, slip the blade of the screwdriver into the mechanism, and pop it
open with no difficulty.
If he heard no voices the next time they stopped, he could be out of the
trunk in a couple of seconds, fast enough to get his hands on her before
she realized what was happening.
At the service station, as he waited silently and patiently within the
trunk, he brought his hands to his face and thought he detected
additional changes from those he had seen and felt at the cabin.
Likewise, when he explored his neck, shoulders, and most of his body, he
did not seem to be formed quite as he should have been.
He thought he felt a patch of… scales.
Revulsion made his teeth chatter.
He quickly stopped examining himself.
He wanted to know what he was becoming.
Yet he didn’t want to know.
He needed to know.
And he couldn’t bear knowing.
Dimly he suspected that, having intentionally edited a small portion of
his own genetic material, he had created an imbalance in unknown-perhaps
unknowable-life chemistries and life forces. The imbalance had not been
severe until, upon his death, his altered cells had begun to perform as
they had never been meant to perform, healing at a rate and to an extent
that was unnatural. That acflvity-the overwhelming flood of growth
hormones and proteins it produced-in some manner released the bonds of
genetic stability, threw off the biological governor that ensured a
slow, slow, measured pace for evolution. Now he was evolving at an
alarming rate.
More accurately, perhaps, he was devolving, his body seeking to
re-create ancient forms still stored within the tens of millions of
years of racial experience in his genes.
He knew that he was fluctuating mentally between the familiar modern
intellect of Eric Leben and the alien consciousnesses of several
primitive states of the human race, and he was afraid of devolving both
mentally and physically to some bizarre form so remote from human
experience that he would cease to exist as Eric Leben, his personality
dissolved forever in a prehistoric simian or reptilian consciousness.
She had done this to him-had killed him, thereby triggering the runaway
response of his genetically altered cells. He wanted vengeance, wanted
it so much he ached, wanted to rip the bitch open and slash her steaming
guts, wanted to pull out her eyes and break open her head, wanted to
claw off that pretty face, that smug and hateful face, chew off her
tongue, then put his mouth down against her spurting arteries and drink,
drink…
He shuddered again, but this time it was a shudder of primal need, a
quiver of inhuman pleasure and excitement.
After the fuel tank was filled, Rachael returned to the highway, and
Eric was lulled into his trancelike state once more. This time his
thoughts were stranger, dreamier than those that had occupied him
previously. He saw himself loping across a mist-shrouded landscape,
barely half erect, distant mountains smoked on the horizon, and the sky
was a purer and darker blue than he had ever seen it before, yet it was
familiar, just as the glossy vegetation was different from anything he
had ever encountered as Eric Leben but was nevertheless known to some
other being buried deep within him. Then, in his half-dreams, he was no
longer even partially erect, not the same creature at all, slithering
now on his belly over warm wet earth, drawing himself up onto a spongy
rotting log, clawing at it with long-toed feet, shredding the bark and
mushy wood to reveal a huge nest of squirming maggots, into which he
hungrily thrust his face.
Transported by a dark savage thrill, he drummed his feet against the