Magnus sighed and hung up. Once she started with the sexual innuendo, she didn’t stop. She sounded sexy as hell, true, but he’d heard enough about her in certain circles to know that getting horizontal with Farm Girl could be a very bad experience. The woman was nine shades of psycho.
Fischer and Longworth were clueless. The rest of the G8 nations had no idea Genada was still in the hunt. The Chinese knew, but they weren’t about to talk and give up a chance to save millions of their own people.
Genada now had the most valuable resource it could hope for—time. The Rhumkorrf project, it seemed, might just pan out after all.
NOVEMBER 14: HOT MIDNIGHT
Implantation +5 Days
COLDING TYPED IN the supersecret password of 0-0-0-0 and entered the security room. Gunther sat at the terminal, his eyes wide and his fingertips flying across the keyboard.
“One sec,” he said without looking away from the screen. His fingers never paused. Colding shut the door behind himself and stood there, waiting. Once Gunther got into a writing groove, you had to just let the man do his thing.
“She screamed… and grabbed… the broken pool cue,” Gunther muttered, leaning so close to the monitor that he had to turn his head a little to read from left to right. “Never again, Sansome said… never again… will you harm my love. He jabbed the cue down… like an axe… and the point punched through Count Darkon’s… unprotected… chest. As the body… vanished… no, wait, as the body… disintegrated… yeah, that’s the shit right there… he knew that it was over. Forever.”
Gunther leaned way back in the chair until it almost tipped over, pumping his raised fists in victory. “The end, bitches!”
“You’re done?”
“Hell fuckin’ yeah. I just finished Hot Midnight. The trilogy is complete.”
“Nice work.” Colding checked his watch. “Not to muck up your afterglow or anything, but I need to report to Danté.”
“Oh, right.” Gunther stood, then leaned forward to tap in a few more keys. “Just saving this slice of brilliance.”
“Congrats, man. When do you send it to publishers? How does that even work?”
“Screw the publishers,” Gunther said. “I’m going to give this baby away.”
“Give it away?”
“Yeah, online,” Gunther said. “You’ll see. I’ll rack up so many fans that the publishers have to give me a big fat deal.”
Gunther walked past, his eyes once again dopey-looking and half-lidded. He held up his hand for a high five, which Colding met, and then Gunther walked out and closed the door behind him.
Give the book away, for free? That was the dumbest thing Colding had ever heard of.
He moved the mouse and clicked the icon labeled MANITOBA, then waited patiently as the encrypted line connected with the home office. Less than a minute later, Danté’s smiling face appeared.
“Good morning, P. J. How is the weather out there?”
“Getting colder, sir. Word is we’re due for a big dose of the white stuff.”
“When it comes, you have to get on those snowmobiles. Fabulous times. What’s up?”
“They did it.”
Colding watched Danté’s reaction. The man looked half hopeful, half skeptical. “They’ve done what, exactly?”
“Implantation.”
“Finally,” Danté said, more of a breath than a word. “And it’s successful thus far?”
Colding nodded. “Forty-seven cows are pregnant. Two failed to implant, one fetus aborted on day two. What’s more, all of the pregnancies are either twins or triplets.”
Danté smiled a wide smile, a genuine smile. Colding realized that he had never actually seen a real, heartfelt smile from Danté. It made the man look a bit maniacal.
“How long?” Danté said. “How long until we have an actual birth?”
“Well, we don’t know,” Colding said. “Getting to this point was a major accomplishment, but Doc Rhumkorrf said there’s bound to be complications. The fetuses are growing very fast, which makes it hard to react to problems. It’s been five days and they’re already around fifteen pounds each.”
“If they survive, how long until a live animal, P. J.?”
Colding shrugged. “Too early to tell, really, but it could be anywhere from a month to three months.”
Danté grimaced. “Just do what you can to get me at least one live animal.”
“Will do. Danté, as long as I’ve got you here, I was wondering if you had an update on Doctor Hoel? Any word on her?”
Danté sat back. His demeanor seemed to change instantly. “She’s fine. Don’t worry about her and do your job.”
That subject was clearly off-limits. And Colding could do nothing about it from Black Manitou. “How about Colonel Fischer? Does he have any idea where we are?”
Danté shook his head. “No. But he’s looking. Hard. We must have live animals if we’re going to get the media and the public on our side.”
“The fetuses will grow at their own rate, Danté. It’s up to nature now.”
Danté didn’t like that answer, but had to accept it. He knew enough about biology to understand things had to run their course.
“Very well, P. J. Keep me updated.”
Danté broke the connection. Colding looked at his watch. He could go check up on Jian, or he could see if Sara was around. Jian was with Rhumkorrf and Tim… she’d be fine.
He’d go find Sara. Colding walked out of the security room, amazed at once again feeling excited and nervous about talking to a woman.
NOVEMBER 14: TASTE
Implantation +5 Days
THE TWO FORMING creatures floated inside the amniotic sac, pressed face-to-face like sleepy lovers. The liquid environment supported their growing weight. Millions of chemical compounds drifted freely within that liquid. Some of those compounds were strong enough to register as scents.
And others, strong enough to register as tastes.
Inside two tiny mouths, those taste compounds landed on tiny tongues. Newly formed dendrites fired off chemical messages, chemical messages that traversed a tiny gap, known as the synapse, to land on the axons of the next nerve cell. This process repeated up the chain, traveling from the tiny tongues to the tiny brains in a fraction of a second.
Those taste signals activated a very primitive area in the newly formed brains. In effect, taste turned the brains on for the first time.
There were no thoughts, no decisions, although those things would come soon enough. There was only a short, intense race against time.
For the taste activated an instinct that would drive the creatures’ every waking moment.
Hunger.
NOVEMBER 15: COW SIXTEEN, MINUS ONE
Implantation +6 Days
HANDS SHOOK HIS shoulder.
Claus Rhumkorrf tried to open his eyes, but they seemed glued shut. Lights blared right through his eyelids.
“Doc, wake up.” Tim’s voice? Tim, who had replaced Erika. A stab of emptiness. Claus had told himself he didn’t feel a thing for that woman anymore. That had been easy to believe when she was around every day, but now that she was gone he felt her absence.
“Wake up, dammit.” Tim’s voice, ringing with stress. His breath, reeking of scotch. And the man’s palpable body odor—how long since Tim had bathed?