6
“It is alive,” Drexler said.
Darryl watched him run his hands over the surface of the Orsa’s flank like he was feeling up a woman. He hadn’t liked the feel of the thing, like football hide, but with a little more give. And he especially hadn’t liked that little ripple effect when he’d touched it.
“How can it be?” Hank said, looking a little scared.
“It simply is. And over the years it has been most entertaining to watch the transformation.”
Entertaining? Darryl thought. Drexler found the weirdest things “entertaining.”
Drexler’s voice dropped in volume. “But then, in the early hours of yesterday morning, it woke up.”
“How could you tell?” Darryl said.
Drexler didn’t look at him. “We knew.”
“Well, like how?”
Not like it had eyes that opened, or a mouth that could say good morning.
He still wouldn’t look at Darryl. Like he thought if he didn’t look, Darryl would disappear. But Darryl wasn’t going anywhere.
“When it awoke, the Orsa changed from an opaque gray to clear, as you see it now.”
Darryl’s arm started to itch again. Damn.
“Okay,” Hank said, “let’s just say I buy that this thing is alive and awake. What does it do?”
Drexler looked at Hank—oh, sure, look at Hank but not Darryl.
“As I said, it will help change the world.”
Change the world . . . the Kicker Evolution was supposed to change the world, but Darryl got a real strong impression that they were talking about a different kind of change, and speaking in some sort of code.
Hank didn’t look convinced. “Yeah? How?”
He gave a sideward nod toward Darryl. “It’s too complicated to go into now.”
“Hey,” Darryl said, scratching his arm, “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”
Finally Drexler looked at him. “Can you now?”
“Yeah. I’ll leave and let you get ‘complicated.’ ”
“That would be—” Drexler stopped and stared. “What is that on your arm?”
Darryl tugged his sleeve down. “Nothing.”
Drexler stepped closer. “Show me.”
“It’s nothing. I—”
“Show me.”
Didn’t look as if the guy was going to give up, so Darryl yanked up his sleeve and exposed the purplish rash. Drexler stared a few seconds, leaned in for a closer look.
“Do you have more of these?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Half a dozen, I guess. You know what it is?”
“How long have you had them?”
Darryl was getting worried now. “A couple months. What is it?”
“I’m not a doctor, but you need that looked at. Have you been having night sweats?”
“N-no.”
Not true. He’d been sweating a lot at night, and it was getting worse. Just last night he woke up with his undershirt so wet he could have wrung it out. He’d had to get up and change.
But he didn’t know why he’d denied it. Maybe it was the way Drexler was looking at him . . . like he suddenly found him interesting. But not a caring interest. More like a guy who’d found a strange-looking bug.
Maybe he was afraid Drexler would find him “entertaining.”
“Be that as it may,” he said, pulling out a cell phone, “I’m going to call a doctor I know and get you an appointment immediately. You need a full work-up.”
Now Darryl was really scared. “What do you think it is?”
But Drexler wasn’t listening. He was frowning at his cell phone.
“Forgot: no signal down here. We must go upstairs.”
“Hold on a second there,” Hank said. “That can wait. I want to know how this thing’s gonna help change the world.”
“I’m afraid this cannot wait. This man must see a doctor immediately.”
Darryl didn’t know what frightened him more now: what might be wrong, or Drexler’s concern.