“Are you sure?” asked Professor Silvester Montellini, the head of the Institute, looking directly at Salzman. Their eyes met.

  “I have never been so sure of anything in my life. The DNA sample shows a perfect match. But you will see for yourself. He looks just like young Philip.”

  “He'd better be.” Montellini sighed and took off his glasses. He wiped them slowly, carefully, keeping silent for a while. Finally, he said, “Because you got us into a very big trouble. And if you’re wrong, it will mean that you got us into trouble for nothing. Needless to say, such an event not only will get you instantly fired, but it will also ruin your reputation forever.”

  “Silvester…”

  “Let’s see what we have here. Kidnapping an underage person. Evading the pursuit. Using firearms against the military forces of the Treaty. In any other place in the world, this would be enough to put you away for life, not to mention the company spending millions to cover for your damage.”

  “But we are not in any other place in the world. We are in the Zone. And this boy is our guarantor. They will not risk revealing the conflict to the public.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Silvester, this boy is our evidence of what the Treaty wants to do in the Zone. If the conflict goes to the outside, we can charge them with much more than damage to a few cars. We can charge them with running experiments on children. This shelter is nothing but a factory to grow super soldiers, capable of surviving in the deep regions. Oh, Silvester, they will not want such information to be publicly revealed.”

  “You’re right. They will not escalate it to the leadership. Instead, they will just come and burn this place to the ground.”

  “It’s just a shelter, Silvester. They don’t have stormtroopers there. Just regular contractors. And a big bunch of them got killed by the mutants last night. Listen, just call the office and explain to them what we’ve got here. They will contact the officer responsible for this district, pay him a million, and everyone will forget about this little incident. It’s not such a high price for having this artifact, and also the son of Philip Thorne in our hands. The management will be very happy.”

  “But is he worth starting a war? Because it could be a precedent for a war, what you did today, Albert. I’m not joking. The Treaty wants to kick HADES out of the Zone for a long time, and they only need one match to start a big fire.”

  “The war? Between the Treaty and HADES? You must be joking, Silvester. They won’t survive here without us.”

  “Just as we without them.”

  Salzman shrugged. Montellini shook his head and sighed.

  “What is it you’re studying there?”

  Salzman turned back to the grey flickering screen of the electron microscope.

  “It’s his blood sample. Look at this. Do you see what I see?”

  Montellini leaned forward. For a while, he kept silent, watching the black and white images moving, his eyes sweeping as the screen was updating. Finally, he muttered,

  “You have to explain this to me. I see erythrocytes, lymphocytes, macrophages. But what the hell is this molecule?”

  “He got bitten last night by a mutant dog. It’s the poison. You see, his immune system attacks it, disintegrates, and then the remnants get attached to the blood cells. It’s like his body is accepting it, integrating it into his metabolism. How is that?”

  “Un-fucking-believable,” Montellini drawled, grabbing a chair and sitting next to him. “Ok, not gonna lie, you got me interested. This sounds like promising work for the molecular guys to find out the mechanism behind it. Do you think it’s embedded in his DNA?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Hard to say now. Need to decode a huge part yet. Could be an inherited trait, but could also be acquired. Don’t forget, he spent his entire lifetime either in the Zone or very near to it.”

  “Any other observations?”

  “He grabbed the artifact with his bare hands. And that moment, there was an emission. Our hand detectors picked up, but I was busy, did not check the exact amplitude and frequency. Did you notice something here?”

  “We did, actually. Last night, a signal was detected. Terahertz. Peaking at 5.3 megawatts.”

  “You see? How much do you think it could be at the source? He was like twenty kilometers away from here.”

  “A lot,” Montellini nodded. “A very powerful emission.”

  “And he said, all anomalies around him were swept away after that.”

  “Damn, that’s impressive, Albert.”

  Montellini looked at his companion thoughtfully, shook his head again.

  “We can’t do everything here,” he said after a pause. “We need to take him out. Or at least send to the B-2 station; they have equipment there. And it’s further away from the shelter. I still don’t trust your complacency. Listen, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give a call to the Center, explain the situation. Let them try to contact the Treaty Headquarters and negotiate it. They will try to let it slide. But I’ll also ask for an emergency evacuation, in case it’s needed. Ask to send a helicopter to Eagle’s Rock.”

  “You really think it could be necessary?”

  “I really do, Albert.” Montellini pursed his lips, frowned. “Albert, I must say… You’re a great scientist and invaluable field worker. Your experience in the Zone is immense. But… I always found your methods a bit too brutal. You rush headfirst where you need to slow down and assess the situation. Is it your therizer’s past speaking to you?”

  “In the Zone, you need always to know when to slow down, and when to rush headfirst,” Salzman smirked faintly. “That’s how I survived here for twenty years. And will survive twenty more, don’t you worry.”

  “I wish, Albert. I wish. But the times are changing. We always thought ourselves to be in a relatively safe region. But now… These reports of mutants hunting in the Forest… And, by the way, not sure if you’re aware, but the Worms were noticed in the neighborhood of the Frontier.”

  “The Worms?” For the first time during the conversation, Salzman looked concerned. “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “Perhaps searching for their wormholes? Do you think they tell anyone? They’re damn cultists; they don’t reach out for contact. I just got a report from the Frontier garrison. They saw a squad of twenty people lurking around in the hills, very close to the Perimeter.”

  “Scimitar did not try to intercept them?”

  “Twenty armed lunatic drug addicts? Thanks, Scimitar prefers to save his people’s lives. He will protect his village, of course. But there have been no reports of the Worms attacking therizers. Until that happens, they are not Scimitar’s concern.”

  “Strange times,” Salzman muttered, lost in thought. “I’ve told Edward to watch the road. If they come here, be it the military or the Worms, we are ready. If they want a war… We must show that we also have teeth and can bite back.”

  “You’re forgetting that you bit them first, Albert.”

  Montellini shook his head again, then brightened up, as if remembering something. “What about the artifacts, by the way? Did you check something already?”

  “Not the one from beyond the creek. Will do later today. Mass spectrometry, electron microscopy, and impedance. It must be a very interesting sample. Let’s go fetch it, I’m gonna show you the catch.”

  Salzman leapt up, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and briskly walked out of the laboratory. Montellini followed him, catching up with difficulty, panting as they rushed through the corridors and down the concrete staircases into the belly of the Institute. Finally, they reached the thick, lead door, which opened slowly and heavily after Salzman touched the sensor with his card. Cold sharp light of buzzing neon lamps illuminated the coolness of the room. Along the walls, shielded cabinets with hundreds of glass drawers stretched. Salzman slowed down, bending toward the small LED screens showing names of the samples.

  “Not this, not this, this is from two weeks ago… Aha, this is from the boy’s backpack, Inny has sorted it. This one, by the way, is a very rare toy; the boy found it last night, and it almost cost him his life, the mutant dogs had been wandering around… Ok, our main catch should be around here…” He frowned, walked back and forth several times, staring into the screens, opened several drawers, took a few containers out, and studied them. Montellini stood silent.

  “It’s not here,” Salzman finally said, confusedly.

  “What do you mean? Where is it, then?”

  For a few seconds, Salzman looked at him, his eyes wandering.

  “Inny must have forgotten it in the car,” he said after a pause. “But she never forgets such things. It means…”

  Montellini nodded; their eyes met. The director finished sullenly:

  “It means, for some reason, she decided to keep it to herself.”