“Agent Otto is in the other zodiac,” he said. “He’s okay.”

She felt a burst of relief, albeit a brief one — she had her hands full trying to save a life.

Tim adjusted his grip on the wounded soldier. “He’s still breathing, he’s moving his legs, and I think the major vessels are intact. He can survive this if we can control the bleeding.”

“Cease fire,” another voice called out. “Cease fire!”

The gunfire stopped, leaving only the driving snow and the howling of the wind.

Klimas stood. “Recovery complete,” he said. “We’re clear.”

From high above, she heard the loudest sound yet. She looked up in time to see a flicker of flame heading behind them, toward the Pinckney and the Brashear.

A missile.

She looked away just before it hit and became a deafening, temporary sun that lit up the surface of Lake Michigan.

The task force was done for. Captain Yasaka, Cantrell, Austin, Chappas, Edmund, all the crew from both ships and the Truxtun as well — all gone.

So, too, were the last of the hydras.

A black-gloved hand dropped a black canvas pouch in front of her. It was about twice the size of a paperback. She looked up, saw the black-faced Klimas looking down.

“Trauma kit,” he said. “Save him.”

She nodded.

Thoughts of Clarence, the battle, the dead, the hydras, even the awareness of her shivering body and her own wound faded away as she and Tim Feely went to work.

THE SELECTION PROCESS

In the deepest points of Lake Michigan, the water temperature remains steady at just a few degrees above the freezing point.

The intense cold hadn’t stopped the apoptosis chain reaction from affecting the Los Angeles’s dead crew, but it had slowed the process enough so that plenty of rotting meat remained on their bones. Meat, for example, that was on the severed leg of one Wicked Charlie Petrovsky.

When the Platypus ground its way past that leg, slimy flesh sloughed off onto the machine’s acoustic foam covering. This coating of partially rotted tissue contained thousands of cyst-encased neutrophils.

As the Platypus returned from its mission, the regular, mechanical vibrations of its fins and inner workings caused the neutrophils to come out of hibernation. The microscopic organisms shed their cyst coats and prepared for the touch that might give them a host. When Cooper Mitch.e.l.l, Jeff Brockman, José Lucero, Steve Stanton and Bo Pan worked to secure the Platypus to the deck, Charlie-slime smeared onto exposed skin — the neutrophils found their new homes.

The five men had no idea what had happened. They had no idea what was coming next.

The neutrophils secreted chemicals to make microscopic fissures in the hosts’ skin, then slid through those fissures, penetrating deep inside. The little bits of crawling infection sought out stem cells, tore them open and read the DNA within.

It was there, at that initial point of a.n.a.lysis, that the neutrophils chose the role of each host.

One host had a genetic disposition for increased size — significant height, heavy bone density, above-normal muscle ma.s.s — so the crawlers in that host programmed stem cells for one of the two new designs.

Another host’s genes showed significant indicators for high intelligence. Extremely high intelligence. For this host, the neutrophils chose the other new design, a design that would be the true masterpiece of the long-lost Orbital’s bioengineering efforts. The neutrophils rapidly changed their form, shedding cellulose to become a microorganism made from normal human proteins. Then, they converted stem cells to produce millions of copies of themselves. From there, all would head straight for the host’s brain.

The genetic makeups of the final three men were unremarkable. They were normal. For those three, the crawlers chose between three random options — these men would become a kissyface, turn into a hatchling factory or swell up with gas, soon to pop and spread the infection wherever their spores would reach.

In twenty-four hours, one of the hosts would become contagious. In forty-eight hours or so, all of the hosts’ brains would start to change. Sometime past seventy-two hours of incubation, they would start to recognize each other, realize that they were all members of a new species, a species above and beyond humanity.

Roughly ninety-six hours after infection — in just four days — they would not only recognize each other, they would start to work together.

Work together … to spread.

DAY FIVE

A LITTLE p.r.i.c.k

Margaret slowly awoke. Darkness, save for the lights of medical equipment. She lay on her back, blankets pulled up to her chest. She started to rise, but a bodywide ache froze her in place.

“Oh, man,” she said.

The last time she’d felt like this was the day after her first Boxercise cla.s.s — everything hurt. This was what she got for years of sitting on her a.s.s. But at least her muscles had served her well enough to get out; she was alive, which was more than could be said for most of the poor souls on that task force fleet.

She was in what looked like yet another trailer. A kind of trailer, anyway — this one was small, barely big enough for two field hospital beds, cardiorespiratory monitors, ventilators, a rack of IV pumps, a spotlight, and compact cabinets packed with supplies. An IV line ran into her arm.

A man lay in the other bed. She didn’t recognize him. Margaret did, however, recognize the wound area — this was the SEAL she and Tim had worked on. They had saved this man’s life. That felt good. It seemed ridiculous to feel that way, considering the hundreds of bodies now at the bottom of Lake Michigan, and yet, it mattered.