5
Kate came out of Jack's kitchen when she heard the door open. He looked terrible as he stumbled across the front room like an exhausted homing pigeon flapping toward its roost. She followed and watched as he tumbled face first onto the bed she'd just made up. She'd opened the window to freshen the stale, sick air.
"Jack, are you all right?"
"Just swell," he said, his words muffled by the bedspread against his face.
"You could have fooled me."
"Imagine what's left of the Hindenberg on the Lakehurst tarmac after burning and crashing and you have the beginning of a hint."
"I was worried about you."
Those words startled her, not because they weren't what she'd intended, but because she wasn't saying them. A stormwave of terror smashed against her.
Someone else had control of her voice.
The words were true—he'd been gone awhile and she'd waited with growing concern—but the words weren't hers, and she couldn't stop them.
"Where did you go?"
Of course. That's what the Unity wanted to know. It had overheard him mention a countermove.
"Out."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing." He turned his head and looked at her with one eye, like a cat. "Is this a conversation or the title of a book?"
Kate tried to gesture to Jack, to let him know that she wasn't in command anymore, but her hands remained at her sides.
"If you're worried about the Unity listening in, it's okay. It's left me for the time being."
Lies! Jack, don't listen!
"Why would it do that?"
"I think it waited as long as it could for you to come back, then had to focus its attention elsewhere."
Jack rolled onto his back, staring at her, not quite convinced.
"You're sure?"
Kate felt her head nodding, tried to stop it—and succeeded. It worked! She wasn't completely helpless. But her voice… she still couldn't reclaim her voice.
"All right," Kate's voice said. "If you've still got your doubts—and I can't say I blame you—don't give me any details. But I'd like to know something. After all, I'm involved in this too—more than you."
Don't listen to me, Jack. It's trying to sucker you into revealing something.
He sighed and ran a hand over his pale face. "You've got a point there, I guess. Sorry."
"Well, then, how did it go? Were you successful?"
"I think so. I put some wheels in motion. We'll see if things turn out like I hope."
"Which is?"
Don't answer!
As Jack opened his mouth to reply, Kate willed her hands to move, to wave in the air before her.
Jack's eyes widened. "Kate? What's up?"
And suddenly her voice was hers again. She sagged against the bed.
"Oh, Jack!" she gasped. "That was the Unity! It took control for a few minutes there and I…" A sob burst from her throat. "It was awful!"
Jack sat up and gripped her hand. "But you fought them off. Keep fighting, Kate. We should know by late this afternoon if my plan works. Can you hang in till then?"
She nodded. "I think so. But don't tell me anything, Jack. Even if I'm in control, the Unity is part of me. It's always there, always listening."
His features hardened. "I shouldn't have let you talk me out of Plan A, damn it."
"Don't talk like that. You promised, remember."
"Promise or not, Kate, if Plan B doesn't work, it's back to A."
"It will work," she told him, and sent up a silent prayer that it would. "Whatever it is, it will buy me enough time for CDC and NIH to come up with a cure." If they can.
"It better." He flopped back onto the spread and closed his eyes. "And they'd better. Because if they don't, I'll use my own virucidal agent. Don't know about theirs, but mine's administered via nine-millimeter, hollow-pointed injection."
How could he speak so casually of killing eight people? Could he do that? Could her brother be such a cold-blooded murderer?
Looking at his features now as they relaxed toward sleep, she found it hard to believe. She touched Jack's cheek.
"Get your rest," she whispered.
She had an uneasy feeling he was going to need all his strength back, and soon. She'd sensed something while the Unity was controlling her voice. The same background of ecstatic anticipation she'd experienced last night, and something else: fear. The Unity feared her brother. It had feared Fielding, too, and look what happened to him.
Kate went to the front door and locked it.
And then an awful thought jarred her, stiffening her limbs with dread: How much of her would remain in the morning? Would she have enough of her own volition left to fight off the Unity and go home for Lizzie's concert? Maybe the distance to Trenton would attenuate its influence.
She prayed so.