And then Ricky half climbed, half fell the rest of the way down the ladder to the ground, and the swarm reinhabited Julia's pale body, and the two of them stood there and watched me. I turned away from them and looked up the ladder.
Vince was standing there, five feet above me.
His feet were on the top rungs, and he was leaning over, blocking my way. There was no possible way I could get past him. I paused to take stock, shifted my weight on the ladder, got one leg up to the next rung, hooked my free arm around the rung nearest my face. But as I raised my leg, I felt the lump in my pocket. I paused.
I had one more vial of phage.
I reached into my pocket, and drew it out to show him. I pulled out the cork with my teeth. "Hey, Vince," I said. "How about a shit shower?"
He didn't move. But his eyes narrowed.
I moved up another rung.
"Better get back, Vince," I said. I was panting so hard I couldn't manage the proper menace. "Get on back before you get wet ..."
One more rung. I was only three rungs below him.
"It's your call, Vince." I held the vial in my other hand. "I can't hit your face from down here. But I'll sure as hell hit your legs and shoes. Do you care?"
One more rung.
Vince stayed where he was.
"Maybe not," I said. "You like to live dangerously?"
I paused. If I advanced another rung, he could kick me in the head. If I stayed where I was, he would have to come down to me, and I could get him. So I stayed. "What do you say, Vince? Going to stay, or go?"
He frowned. His eyes flicked back and forth, from my face to the vial, and back again.
And then he stepped away from the ladder.
"Good boy, Vince."
I came up one rung.
He had stepped back so far that now I couldn't see where he was. I thought he was probably planning to rush me at the top. So I got ready to duck down, and swing laterally. Last rung.
And now I saw him. He wasn't planning anything. Vince was shaking with panic, a cornered animal, huddled back in the dark recess of the walkway. I couldn't read his eyes, but I saw his body tremble.
"Okay, Vince," I said. "I'm coming up."
I stepped onto the mesh platform. I was right at the top of the stairs, surrounded by roaring machinery. Not twenty paces away, I saw the paired steel tanks for the sprinkler system. I glanced down and saw Ricky and Julia, staring up at me. I wondered if they realized how close I was to my goal.
I looked back at Vince, just in time to see him pull a translucent white plastic tarp off a corner box. He wrapped himself in the tarp like a shield, and then, with a guttural yell, he charged. I was right at the edge of the ladder. I had no time to get out of the way, I just turned sideways and braced myself against a big three-foot pipe against the coming impact. Vince slammed into me.
The vial went flying out of my hand, shattering on the mesh. The jug was knocked from my other hand and tumbled along the walkway, coming to rest at the lip of the mesh path. Another few inches and it would go over. I moved toward it.
Still hiding behind the tarp, Vince smashed into me again. I was slammed back against the pipe. My head clanged on steel. I slipped on the brown sludge that dripped through holes in the mesh, barely kept my balance. Vince slammed me again.
In his panic he never realized I had lost my weapons. Or perhaps he couldn't see through the tarp. He just kept pounding me with his full body, and I finally slipped on the sludge and went down on my knees. I immediately scrambled toward the jug, which was about ten feet away. That odd behavior made Vince stop for a moment; he pulled down the tarp, saw the jug, and lunged for it, vaulting his whole body forward in the air.
But he was too late. I had my hand on the jug, and yanked it away, just as Vince landed, tarp and all, right where the jug had been. His head banged hard on the walkway lip. He was momentarily stunned, shaking his head to clear it.
And I grabbed the edge of the tarp, and yanked upward.
Vince yelled, and went over the side.
I watched as he hit the floor. His body didn't move. Then the swarm came off him, sliding into the air like his ghost. The ghost joined Ricky and Julia who were looking up at me. Then they turned away and hurried across the floor of the fabrication room, jumping over the octopus arms as they went. Their movements conveyed a clear sense of urgency. You might even think they were frightened.
Good, I thought.
I got to my feet and headed for the sprinkler tanks. The instructions were stenciled on the lower tank. It was easy to figure out the valves. I twisted the inflow, unscrewed the filler cap, waited for the pressurized nitrogen to hiss out, and then dumped in the jug of phage. I listened as it gurgled into the tank. Then I screwed the cap back on, twisted the valve, repressurized with nitrogen.
And I was done.
I took a deep breath.
I was going to win this thing, after all.
I rode the elevator down, feeling good for the first time all day.
DAY 7
8:12 A.M.
They were all clustered together on the other side of the room-Julia, Ricky, and now Bobby, as well. Vince was there, too, hovering in the background, but I could sometimes see through him, his swarm was slightly transparent. I wondered which of the others were only swarms now. I couldn't be sure. But it didn't matter now, anyway.
They were standing beside a bank of computer monitors that showed every parameter of the manufacturing process: graphs of temperature, output, God knows what else. But they had turned their backs to the monitors. They were watching me.
I walked calmly toward them, in measured steps. I was in no rush. Far from it. I must have taken a full two minutes to cross the fabrication room to where they were standing. They regarded me with puzzlement, and then with increasingly open amusement. "Well, Jack," Julia said finally. "How's your day going?"