So goddamn sure of himself. He never learns.
“Do you have any idea what was happening just behind that door?” Luke pointed at Westlake’s lab. “What still is, for all we know? Two men have been killed by… I don’t know what. It’s all linked. The station, the ambrosia, and…”
…whatever controls the ambrosia…
Clayton said, “Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? Westlake went crazy. By the sounds of it, Toy died in a structural collapse. Both of which were known threats. Men have perished underwater in such circumstances before, and will again. It’s the danger of working this deep.”
Luke wanted to grab Clay’s arm (his unbandaged one; the prospect of gripping the other arm was wildly revolting) and drag him to Dr. Toy’s destroyed quarters. He wanted to show Clayton the metal pulsing in the ruined porthole.
But he knew it would be useless. Westlake and Toy were fools. That’s what Clayton would say. And to an extent he was correct, if the only measuring stick for their intellect was his own immeasurable gifts. But they had been smart men, serious men, and they had shattered, utterly. This place had done it to them.
“What if you’re wrong?” Luke said. “Just this once? What if this stuff is of no benefit at all? It can’t cure the ’Gets, can’t cure anything. What if you can’t control it? What… what if it’s controlling you, Clay? If it knows you—your habits, your flaws? Maybe it’s playing you. What if…”
Westlake’s voice: We’re in the basement with the beast—
“…Clay, what if it never lets you go?”
Clayton’s reply was shocking.
“I don’t really care if it cures anything.”
“…wait, what?”
“I… don’t… care,” he said, enunciating each word. “People need to die. Of cancer and AIDS and whatever else. There’s too many of us. Too many by half. It’s a planetary imperative. Not enough resources to sustain the hordes. We needed a grand curative. We call the ’Gets a disease but it’s not. Mother Nature has taken out her broom; she’s sweeping up the trash.”
Luke’s skull throbbed. “Jesus, then… why agree to come down here, if you disagreed with the whole purpose?”
“Because I’m fascinated, Lucas. I really just want to know how it works.”
Luke found it almost impossible to grapple with his brother’s misanthropy. It wasn’t that he was hateful, as their mother had been—you required a working emotional barometer in order to feel anything at either pole, be it love or hate. Clayton’s barometer was zeroed out. His emotional weather patterns were unvarying. No shutter-rattling storms, no radiant sunlight. Just an endless string of gray, edgeless days.
Luke had never really known Clayton. It would have been like trying to comprehend the mindscape of a meticulously disguised alien, a creature composed of sentient goo poured into an empty shell that he’d called his brother.
“If you don’t give a shit,” Luke said, “then why the fuck didn’t they send down someone who does?”
“Because none of those people can do what I can do.”
“You fuck. You miserable fucking specimen of humanity.”
Clayton’s expression suggested he took this as a compliment. It was perfectly acceptable to be a miserable representative of a species you cared nothing for.
Drrrrrrithhlippppp!
“What is that, Clay?” Luke said coldly. “What the fuck is that noise?”
Luke shoved past his brother, adrenaline tweaked as he stalked toward the open hatch. LB was stuck tight to his heels.
4.
THE LAB WAS BRIGHT and ordered, not a hair out of place. Positively Claytonian. Luke’s gaze fell on the cooler containing the guinea pig…
…the guinea pig, and the strange shape wrapped in durable black plastic.
Ttthhwillipp!
The sound was coming from behind the Einstein poster. Ole Albert with his tongue stuck out of his mouth. A sense of unreality washed over Luke. It was so plainly obvious, wasn’t it? How had he missed it?
Hell, on my last descent I brought a poster of Albert Einstein for your brother, he remembered Alice telling him.
“Oh, shit. I don’t… how could you… you Shawshanked us,” he said softly. “Oh, Clay. You sly dog, you.”
“You cannot move it,” Clay said, setting himself in front of Luke. “Do you understand? It’s forbidden.”
Who was he, Bluebeard with his locked room full of severed heads? What did that make Luke then—his cringing, servile wife?
Luke took a step toward Clayton; a challenging smile tweaked his lips. LB came forward, too, her eyes resting on Clay with bright menace.
“You can’t move it.” Clayton spoke carefully. “Trust me, you don’t want to.”
The buzz drifted through from the main lab, adding to the riot in Luke’s head. It was as if wasps had built a nest between his ears, stinging the insides of his skull.
“I think I ought to know,” Luke said, deathly soft. “I’m not a scientist, right? Why keep your secrets from me? Unless, I mean, you’re working on a new dog-neutering system.” A hollow laugh. “You’re not working on that, Clay. Are you?”
“Get away from me.”
“Shouldn’t I know, brother? I came all this way.”
“I never asked you to.”
“Oh, I think you did.” Luke’s throat was dry, and the words came out in a choked rasp. “I think you’ve done plenty down here without even knowing it.”
Next they were grappling with each other. They waltzed awkwardly around the lab bench, locked up like professional wrestlers—not yet committed to actual violence, just testing their strength. Luke’s fingers sunk into the bandages on his brother’s hand; his flesh had a sickening give, spongier than skin should ever be.
Luke was dismayed to discover that Clayton’s strength overmastered his own. It was that age-old truism: no matter how old two brothers got, the older brother still had the upper hand in any physical confrontation. Clay’s elbow clipped the bridge of Luke’s nose. The room exploded in cold blue fire; Luke’s synapses lit up like a pinball machine. He stuttered backward on his heels and fell, a shockwave juddering up his spine.
Clayton’s face shaped itself into an expression that did not often grace it: concern. He stepped forward, his hand instinctively outstretched.
“Luke, I’m so—”
LB sprang. Her skull rammed into Clayton’s breadbasket; the wind whoofed out of him. He tottered backward, arms held out to ward off LB’s jaws. She was harrying him now, not nipping but really biting, aiming to do some serious damage.
“LB! Heel!” Luke shouted. “Heel!”
The dog paid him no mind. Clayton’s hip hit the edge of the lab bench, spinning him sideways. He fell backward, arms thrown out to check his fall.
His fingertips snagged on the poster. A look of helpless panic entered his eyes.
The poster stretched—for a heart-stopping moment it appeared as if it might hold—then it ripped from its hooks and fluttered down onto Clayton’s chest.
Dear Christ, Luke thought. It’s worse than I thought. More awful than I ever could have imagined.
5.
A HOLE. Halfway up the wall.