Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits by David Coy Page A

the bed, John, propped up on one elbow, watched her.
    “How’s
your buddy?” he asked.
    “I’m
going to the lab today,” she said, avoiding the question. “Do you want to come
with me?”
    “Sure.
You want to take the punk along, too?” John had grown fond of Eddie.
    “Sure. If
he wants to go. I don’t care.”
    “He’s
really under your skin, isn’t he?”
    “Who?   Eddie?”
    “No,
what’s-his-name, Jacob—whatever.”
    “Oh,
that. Yes, he does, if you really must know. Not that it’s any of your
business.”
    “I wouldn’t
put it that way,” he said.
    “Oh, how
would you put it?” she asked.
    He had to
think about this. It was his business. He cared for her. She’d been acting so queer ever
since she dragged the freak back from the chamber. He’d known she had turned
strange ever since her encounter with the centipede. That he could
understand—poison in her system he could understand. But the effect this
skinny, wasted mutation was having on her was a real mystery.
    “Well,”
he said carefully. “I’d say you’re nuts over this—if I thought I could get away
with it.”
    “Fine,”
she said. “You said it. Now can we get off the subject? I’d really like to.”
    He nodded
his head slowly. “Sure. I’d love to get off the subject. And go to the lab by
yourself, or take the kid. Whatever.”   He
turned over and covered himself with the blanket. “Okay, whatever,” she said.
    “You
taking the kid?” he asked with an edge to his voice.
    “Yeah,”
she spat back.
    “Good,”
he said.
    “Now,
please. Shut up about it,” she said as she stomped off.
     
    * * *
     
    Rachel was
too pissed off for company, even for that of mild-mannered Eddie, so she went
off without him. She wasn’t supposed to. It was one of their rules, but this
time she didn’t care.
    Halfway
down the tunnel, she nearly turned around, went back and apologized, then
decided she’d do it later. He could wait. She hated what was happening to her.
She hated it and she didn’t understand it, which made her hate it even more.
    The
aliens’ laboratory had become quite familiar to her. It was a vast open area
filled with a baffling array of bizarre and fascinating stuff.
    Umbilical’s
attached most of the tools to the structure itself, and a mass of these lines
throughout the upper part of the chamber formed a thick web. Using a scope from
the floor, she’d viewed the junctures where they made contact and could make
out odd formations she presumed to be organs where some of the umbilicals
attached.
         The technology puzzled and captivated her,
and most of the intense dread she’d originally felt about it all had
largely—but not entirely—dissipated. There were times, though, when an
especially horrific device gave her the absolute creeps, and she could do
nothing to control it. Familiarity reduced the number of those incidents with
each passing day. But today, being there alone, surrounded by the very
implements of one’s worst nightmares, was getting to her and she felt edgy and
alert. She’d learned from years of fieldwork to trust those feelings.
    Today,
she was going to check out one of the sub-chambers at the far end of the lab.
It had held her attention for some time. From a distance, it looked smaller,
and unfortunately darker, than some of the others.
    She took
a deep breath, shifted her pack, then went down the ramp and headed for the
opening on the far side.
    As she
weaved her way through the jumble of benches and hanging instruments, the
ghastly atmosphere of the place began to fill her, and she felt as if she were
losing herself to the lab’s space. She felt that as she walked, the tools themselves were moving, not
her. When she turned, they turned with her, tracking her with their knife
blades and spiky tips. The thought began to grow that the lab itself was alive,
had a mind of its own, and operated not at the hands of some alien technician,
but of its own will. She began to see it as a