Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

IT WAS TWO days that all the men in the camp were in too much pain to do anything at all.

The women's wounds in their stomachs were leaking green fluid and—when Riley felt around inside—she could feel hard growths around all the places that she'd been punctured. There was pain, like waves of cramps here and there, but nothing like whatever was happening to the men.

The women went around to all the guards, bringing them water, which was all they could keep down.

And Riley and Angela had several conversations with Nancy.

"We need help," Riley said to her. "We need Anderson Scott to send someone for us."

"Not until we know what's going on," said Nancy.

"What if it kills us before we know?" said Riley.

"We're not going to die," said Nancy.

She wouldn't contact him, and they didn't have any luck getting into her phone or laptop because it was locked down tight with fingerprints and passwords and everything else.

Harris's plan had probably been to give the laptop to Luther, Angela said. Luther was good with stuff like that. But Luther was down for the count like the rest of the men.

But it was Luther who said something about the pipes. He'd been part of the repairs, and he remembered voicing some concerns about putting the pipes all together the way they had. He told them, in a scraping, gasping voice, that it was likely that they'll all drunk and bathed in whatever had come out of the lab.

So, that was when Riley went to Jonathan.

He was in and out of consciousness. She'd tried to get him into bed, but he always seemed to end up on the floor of his living room.

She sat there and babbled about the acid in a human stomach, about how it didn't make sense to think that whatever he'd put in those tanks could really be affecting them in this way, how it was all ridiculous.

"This is not one of those Marvel comic books," she said. "This can't be happening."

"What are you talking about?" he had said, looking at her with strange, blank eyes.

So, she'd shown him the way the scales were growing around the holes in her belly.

He'd sat up then, gritting his teeth against the pain, and she'd seen it all register in his expression. He scooted over to lean his head back against the wall, still sitting on the floor of his living room. "Did you know that, in certain circumstances, amphibians can change sex?"

"I, um, I heard something like that once," she whispered. "But this—"

"So, the exposure to this cocktail of amphibian and other creatures cells and DNA," he said, "who knows what it's enabling us to change into."

She grimaced, shaking her head. "No."

"You're the one who brought up Frankenstein," he said to her.

"I didn't mean… this isn't possible," she growled.

"Just because it's never happened before doesn't mean it's impossible," he said. "What kind of scientist are you not to know that?"

She only shook her head at him, too disgusted to know what to think or say.

She left him there, after that, and she didn't tell anyone what he'd said. If anyone asked, she refused to confirm what they all knew, which was that something was happening to them all, something transformative.

And then, on the third day, all the pain stopped, and the scales on Riley's abdomen, and the other women's as well, faded away.

They gathered again, in the mess hall, but all of them were haggard and wary and altered in a way that they hadn't been before. They all looked the same, but something had shifted within them, and they all knew it.

They heated up food. None of them had eaten much in the past few days.

They sat down at the tables, mostly silent, shoveling food into their mouths, meeting each other's gazes now and again, and then looking away.

"So," said Luther finally, with an attempt at a smile, "when do we start eating flies, Dr. Greyson?"

Jonathan didn't laugh. He gave Luther a pained look.

No one else laughed either.

Jonathan lifted a finger. "As long as I'm not doubled over in agony today, I plan to go to the lab and do some analysis on my blood and tissue. If I can come up with anything to treat what's happening to us, I'll be sure to pass it along."

"No, thanks, doc," muttered Harris. "I don't think we need anything else from you." He turned to Nancy. "I think we need to contact Scott, Nancy."

Nancy shook her head. She had dark circles around her eyes. They all did, but Nancy's seemed more pronounced.

"We need a rescue more than ever," said Harris. "We need a real doctor."

"At this point," said Jonathan softly, "it's likely we'd be of some interest to Anderson Scott. He wanted a new species after all." He spread his hands, giving them a twisted sort of smile.

"No!" said Riley. "We're all still human, Jonathan!"

Jonathan ate a bite of food and shrugged. "I'm only saying if there's concern that Scott is going to kill us all, he'd likely keep us alive somewhere for study."

"Like lab rats?" said Harris. "In a cage?"

"I don't know," said Jonathan.

"Oh, it's all fine and good for you, doc," said Harris. "You'd be allowed to study us, I'm sure." He grimaced. "Has anyone contacted anyone?"

He waited, looking out at them. "Family? Friends? Anyone?"

Everyone was silent.

"You're kidding me," he said, looking around.

"You been capable of holding a conversation on the phone, Lieutenant?" said Mann pointedly. "Sending a text? Because I ain't had the capacity."

Harris shrugged. "Well, one of the girls did, then. You, Ramirez, you contacted Mom, yeah?"

"Been too busy," said Angela. "We were running ourselves ragged out here."

"Well, good," said Harris. "We don't."

"No?" spoke up Lee. "But if we're turning into lizards—"

"Amphibians," said Jonathan tiredly.

"If we're turning into lizards , it's a thing our families are going to want to know," said Lee. He shrugged. "Me? I don't really have nobody to contact."

"Here's how it would go if any of us did," said Harris. "First, they can't get to us, can they? It takes money to charter a chopper down here, and nobody's got those funds."

"We all pool together for it," said Luther in a soft voice. "Between us, with our salaries, how we don't have expenses down here, we could manage it."

"Maybe," said Harris. "Maybe. But let's say we get out of here, and we're all lizardthings. We got two options. One is to be studied in labs by Anderson Scott and the other is to disappear before we get to the press and tank his stock prices."

"He won't kill us," said Jonathan witheringly.

"We all signed NDAs," said Luther. "He doesn't need to kill us. He just buries us in lawsuits for the rest of our lives. Which we'll apparently be living out with tails."

"Either way," said Harris. "We don't contact anyone yet. Now, best case scenario, a few days pass, nothing else happens. Then, great news, we contact Scott. Yes, Nancy? Yes?"

Nancy sighed. "Fine. We'll give it, what? A week? Five days?"

"Five days," said Harris. "Five days, that's all, we wait. No contact until we know what we're dealing with. Then, once we got a handle on it, then we figure out how we're going to leverage this to make sure that we don't get anally rammed by Anderson Scott. That's how it's going to work."

"You don't have a gun anymore," said Riley mildly. "Can you still order us around?"

Because while the men had all been in agony, the women had been busy. They'd taken the firearms and the ammunition and put them away, hidden. Only the three of them knew where they were.

"Sure can," said Harris, giving her a nasty smile. "I can still punch you, lady."

Riley's nostrils flared. "You can't be serious."

"He's the one who said we were the muscle," said Harris, folding his arms over his chest and nodding at Jonathan.

Jonathan sighed.

"Look," spoke up Luther, "I'm not punching women. That's a bridge too far, sir. Come on."

"We're turning into lizards here, Thompson," said Harris.

"Amphibians," said Jonathan.

Harris turned to him witheringly. "Really, doc?"

"Lizards are reptiles ," said Jonathan.

"We seem all right," said Riley. "We haven't changed into anything. Whatever happened, our immune systems fought it off."

"You think so?" said Harris, and there was real vulnerability in his tone, something that hit her hard.

She didn't like Harris at all, but she suddenly felt sorry for him. She realized his bravado was a mask for the fear he felt. He was out of his depth with all of this. She had knowledge he didn't have. She wanted to use that knowledge to tell them all that they were fine. This couldn't happen. It made no sense.

But in the end, Jonathan was right. Scientific discovery was full of things happening that had never happened before. And the scientific community was wont to suppress new knowledge, because the unknown was terrifying. However, the first step for anything unknown becoming known was to accept it was real.

"It's possible that is what happened," said Jonathan. "I need to do tests to know more."

"Well, do your tests then," sneered Harris.

Jonathan shoveled some food into his mouth and then got up from the table. He chewed and swallowed. "All right, I'll be in the lab if anyone needs me."

"I'll come too," said Riley, getting up. "Whatever happened, it's presenting differently between the women and the men. We need to see if we can quantify that."

"Good thought," said Jonathan. "Let's go."

JONATHAN WAS ALARMED . Under the microscope, his blood cells were dividing and changing at a rate that seemed to suggest some kind of mutation. It was frighteningly quick, though, and still happening in the sample he'd taken, which was now outside of his body, and he didn't know what to make of it all.

He tried a few different things on the blood cells, and he managed to concoct something that slowed the rate of mutation, but it didn't stop it.

He injected himself with it as a test. If it worked, they could give it to the others. If he died…

"You idiot," seethed Riley from across the room, who was examining herself with the ultrasound. "We need you and your expertise. You can't treat yourself like a guinea pig."

"So, I'm supposed to volunteer Harris?" he said caustically. "I think that will go over well."

She glared at him.

"You hate me," he said tightly, looking away. "I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry for everything."

"Don't, none of that," she said, sighing.

"But I—"

"We focus, Dr. Greyson, and we try to diagnose what's happened and do something to fix it. There's no time for apologies. That's not what I need from you right now."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Right. Well, then. Let me draw some of your blood to see what's happening to you. What's the ultrasound showing?"

"Something's happened to my uterus," she said dully.

"What?" He scurried over to look at the screen. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, but he thought things looked better than they had before. There were no strange bulges or blisters like before. Everything looked smooth and… "What's wrong?"

"It's larger," she said. "There's something… I can't be sure but I think something has been altered to do with my cervix."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh."

She let out a breath. "We should… examine it. I tried. I went into the bathroom and I could feel that something about it doesn't feel right."

" We? " he said. "You mean me. You want me to put something in your…" Say it, you're a fucking scientist. "Vagina." Except now, things were stirring in his crotch, which was mortifying. He felt his face growing hot.

"If you don't think you can handle it, I'll figure out some other way," she said, her voice bland. "I realize it's irregular to ask, but we need to know , don't we?"

"I don't have… tools," he said. "This isn't a gynecological office."

"Put on gloves and use your finger," she said. "It's hard for me to reach, and your fingers are longer than mine and—" She broke off, probably because of whatever expression he was making. "Please, Jonathan. Please?"

He had an erection. Perfect. He looked up at the ceiling and tried to think about baseball—but that just made him think about Bub— there .

That was a perfectly unsexy thought, beating poor Bub to death. He was deflating, thank Christ. He gave her a nod. "All right, fine. I'll get gloves." He was actually wearing gloves, but they'd been tainted, and he wasn't going to put them inside her.

Fuck, hard again.

All right, no fighting it, then. Maybe she just wouldn't notice. He tried to glance down at his crotch to see if it was obvious that he was erect. But he couldn't tell and he didn't want her to notice that he was looking at himself.

He'd never been quite so embarrassed in his life, he didn't think.

Briskly, trying to remain professional, he went over to the other side of the room, stripped off his gloves, tossed them in the trash, washed his hands, and put on a fresh pair of gloves.

When he got back to the other side of the room, she'd removed her pants and underwear. She was sitting up, the folded clothing in her lap, biting down on her lip. She looked frightened.

He still had an erection, which made him feel a flood of shame. He paused there, holding up his gloved hands. His voice was tiny. "I don't know what a normal cervix should feel like. I don't know if I'll be able to tell you anything."

"It felt scaled to me," she said. "I hope you'll be able to tell with your gloves, but I think you will, because the difference between the skin of the vaginal walls is distinct."

"Scaled?" he drew back. "B-but…"

"I know, I can't understand it either! It's not like any other creature that I know of. Maybe it's like a cancer, Jonathan. Maybe we're falling apart."

He wanted to reassure her, but he was frightened too.

"Oh, just do it," she muttered, lying back, moving the folded clothes away.

Oh, God, there she was.

He averted his eyes from the triangle of her mound, covered in wisps of dark hair.

"I haven't been much for grooming there," she said. "I haven't been in a relationship with anyone in a long time."

"Me either." He looked back.

"Anyway, it's good," she said. "You won't find it… appealing."

"Oh, right," he muttered. "Because before women started grooming their pubic hair, no one was ever aroused."

She crossed her legs, tightly, giving him a reproachful look.

"Not that I'm… because we're both terrified and that would be awful," he said. "And unprofessional, and—"

"I suppose you probably couldn't help it," she said tightly, and then she looked pointedly at his crotch.

Which made him, for some awful reason, jerk a little inside his pants, and he was even harder. He let out a shaky breath. "I-I'm sorry . Really, I—"

"Well, this is terrible for both of us, so let's just get it over with," she said in a breathless voice. And then she opened her legs and showed him everything.

And something else happened, inside his pants, something that wasn't an erection, but that felt…

He put a hand there, instinctive, gasping.

"Oh, God, you're not… just from looking at me?"

He tore at his button, at his zipper, not caring that she was there, not caring because something else was happening to him.

"What is that?" she said.

It was behind his erect penis, another long protuberance, much longer than his cock, inches and inches longer and still growing, still lengthening. It was thin, and it had a point, like a wasp stinger. It was dark at the tip, fleshlike at the base. "I think it's an ovipositor," he said in a strangely detached voice.

"A…" She sat up. She reached out to touch it, then realized what she was doing and pulled her hand back. " Females have ovipositors."

"I know this," he said. "But amphibians, the sex changes, the theory I had…"

"Amphibians don't have them," she said. "What? Fish, right? Or certain insects?"

"Yes," he said. "Certain kinds of insects, the ovipositors have evolved into stingers, like bees." He touched the tip of the thing. A shuddering kind of intense pleasure shot through him. His eyes widened. "This is… bad."

"Yes," she said. "It's all very, very—"

He advanced on her, with his pants still down, and her voice cut off. He still felt ashamed, but he was also curious now. He touched her thigh, to let her know he was going to use his finger to penetrate her, and her eyes widened.

Then he just did it, sliding his middle finger inside her, which went… easily. Was she wet?

Don't think about that, for fuck's sake.

Her cervix was scaled. And prominent. And when he touched it, it moved.

They both let out a cry.

Her cervix sucked his finger up further inside her, as if it were alive and had a mind of its own.

He yanked his hand out, swearing.

"Oh, my God," she sobbed, pressing her knees together, panting in terror.

He looked down at his genitals. "You… you've changed to accept… eggs."

"You don't mean…" She looked at his genitals too. "You don't think…"

"Well, I'd have to expel some, I suppose," he said. "But maybe we've switched in a way, sort of. Maybe if I'm expelling eggs, your ovaries have turned to testes, and then you could fertilize them in your new… uterus."

"If I have testes, that would make me a man."

"Right, I don't… know," he said. "I was just throwing something out, I guess?"

"We don't even know that's an ovipositor," she said, gesturing at his crotch.

"No," he said. "We do not."

It was quiet.

"Could you… expel…?"

"I don't know."

"How?"

He met her gaze. "Well… it seems to have… grown in response to sexual stimuli, so maybe it's… just like, you know… if I masturbate?"

"All right, well, I don't want to watch that."

"I don't want you to watch that," he said. He was actually deflating again, and the ovipositor, or stinger, or whatever it was, was shrinking. He tucked himself away as it did, zipping himself up. "Maybe… later…"

She yanked on her underwear. "You should draw my blood. See if it's similar to what's happening to your blood?"

"Definitely," he said. "Let's move on from this."

"Good idea," she said.