Infected Page 53

he struggled to rise, the Mandatory Rich Person walked up and accosted him with the ever-so-familiar, “Have you taken leave of your senses, Mister Columbo?”

who is there

Perry almost jumped out of his seat when the Triangles spoke. “What?” he said, looking around the room, eyes darting to every corner.

who is there

Dread filled Perry. Was someone here to finish the experiment, perhaps kill him and dissect him? Or maybe take him away? Did the Triangles know something he didn’t?

“What are you talking about?” Perry said. “I don’t see anyone, there’s no one here.”

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v oice ne w voice

The TV droned with Columbo’s nasal growl. “Sorry to disturb you again, ma’am,” Peter Falk said to the Mandatory Rich Person, “but I was wondering if I could ask you just a few more questions.”

Columbo. They heard the TV. A laugh escaped Perry’s lips, which surprised him. The Triangles didn’t know what television was.

Or maybe . . . maybe they didn’t know what reality was. More accurately, they didn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality. They couldn’t see a thing, but they could hear. They didn’t know the difference between a real person talking and sound from the television.

“That’s Columbo,” Perry said quietly, trying to figure out how to handle this new plot twist. He didn’t know what good this information would do him. It wasn’t like it could save his condemned a.s.s, but something in the back of his head told him not to let on about the TV. Perry decided to trust his instincts and turned the set off.

who is columbo who

“He’s a cop, a police officer.”

Perry felt the now-familiar pause and the burst of lumpy sound, which grew so loud he almost winced. The Triangles worked his brain like a big thesaurus, hunting for meaning.

In a way, the searching was worse than the pain, worse than seeing the things under his skin, even worse than hooks wrapped around his bones or the creatures sucking nutrients from his blood. They scanned his brain, using him like wetware, like their own personal computer.

The concept hit him with force. If they could scan through his brain, through the chemical-storage processes that locked memories down, then this was some seriously advanced s.h.i.+t. Perhaps they didn’t know what TV was, but something was going on here that was beyond the cutting edge of science and

no cop no cop no cop n o no not tell him w e her e no no no no no

The Triangles’ burst of words interrupted Perry’s thoughts and filled his soul with a wave of fear that ripped through him like a blast of November wind. His adrenaline surged against some perceived threat even as he realized it wasn’t his fear, but theirs, the Triangles’ fear. Something about the rumpled Columbo had them scared s.h.i.+tless.

no no no no no

co ming to get us

Their fear felt corrosive, almost tangible, a jet-black snake squirming and writhing under the grip of some heartless bird of prey.

“Take it easy!” Perry winced at the bizarre feeling of alien emotions coursing through his own mind and body. “It’s okay, he’s gone, I got rid of him.” He thought it might be easy to make the fear go away if he told them about TV, told them there was no police officer

co ming to get us

in the apartment, but his instincts told him to keep that trump card. He might find some use for it later.

cop is gone cop is gone no no no

“He’s gone! Now take a chill pill and shut the f.u.c.k up!” Perry’s hands involuntarily went to his head, trying to hold in his brains against the pounding tumult of shouts and anxiety slas.h.i.+ng through his skull. Contagious fear. Perry felt the cold fingers of panic wrapping around his chest. “He’s f.u.c.king gone! Now relax and stop screaming in my head!”

co ming to GET us

They sounded different, and not just because of the fear. They actually had some tone to their words now, something deep, and a certain slowness that he found vaguely familiar.

he ’ s co ming to GET us

He felt their terror. It was nothing like the emotionless monotone he’d

first heard — they’d increased their intensity, or maybe just lost their restraint.

no TELL him w e her e

“I won’t tell, okay?” Perry lowered his voice, tried to relax himself in hopes that it would, in turn, relax them. “It’s okay, he’s gone now, you just have to take it easy.”

The claustrophobic fear instantly vanished, as suddenly as if he’d been in a dark room and someone had flicked on the lights.

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“Why the h.e.l.l do the police scare you so bad?”

co ming to GET us

Why were they afraid of the police? That made no sense. Perry supposed this might mean he wasn’t alone, might mean that someone knew about the Triangles and wanted to destroy them. But why hadn’t he heard about it? Surely the police couldn’t keep a secret like this from the press. And how could the Triangles know of hostile police in the first place? They’d grown from nothing, all the while in his apartment — they had no contact with the outside world. Could they have some preprogrammed memory of potential threats?

They didn’t recognize the words cop or police right away — they’d had to scan and scan hard to find the meaning that frightened them so badly. But they found something in Perry’s Unabridged Brain Dictionary, something that they knew. At least, they thought they knew.

“What do you mean, he’s ‘coming to get’ you? Does someone know you’re here?” Perry felt the Triangles search his mind, his memories, for the right words. The more they searched, the more familiar he became with the feeling, like an eye slowly adjusting to the dim light of a dark room.