Mutation

Marsha leaned over and turned the bedside clock so that she could see the face. “It’s five-fifteen in the morning,”

she said. She fell back against the pillow and pulled the covers back over her. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

But just then the doorbell rang. “It was the bell!” Victor said, leaping out of bed. “I knew I wasn’t dreaming.” He hastily pulled on his robe, but had the wrong arm in the wrong hole. Marsha turned on the light.

“Who on earth could it be?” Marsha asked. “The police again?”

Victor got the robe on properly and tied the belt. “We’ll soon find out,” he said, opening the door to the hall. He walked quickly to the head of the stairs and started down.

After a moment of indecision, Marsha put her feet out on the cold floor and donned her robe and put on her slippers as well. By the time she got downstairs, a man and woman were standing in the front hall facing Victor. Small pools of water had formed at their feet, and their faces were streaked with moisture. The woman was holding a spray can. The man was holding the woman.

“Marsha!” Victor called, not taking his eyes from the new arrivals. “I think you’d better call the police.”

Marsha came up behind Victor, clutching her robe around her. She glanced at the people. The man was wearing an oilcloth hooded cape, although the hood had been pushed back, exposing his head. All in all, he looked dressed in a ski parka that had long since soaked through.

“This is Mr. Peter Norwell,” Victor said. “He’s from Able Protection.”

“Evening, ma’am,” Peter said.

“And this is Sharon Carver,” Victor said, motioning toward the woman. “An ex-Chimera employee with a sexual-harassment suit lodged against us.”

“She was set to paint your garage door,” Peter elaborated.

“I let her do one short burst so we’d have something on her besides trespassing.”

Feeling somewhat embarrassed for the bedraggled woman, Marsha hurried to the nearest phone and called the North Andover police. The operator said they’d send a car right over.

Meanwhile, the whole group went into the kitchen where Marsha made tea for everyone. Before they’d had more than a few sips, the doorbell sounded again. Victor went to the door. It was Widdicomb and O’Connor.

“You folks are certainly keeping us busy,” Sergeant Widdicomb said with a smile. They stepped through the door and took off their wet coats.

Peter Norwell brought Sharon Carver from the kitchen.

“So this is the young lady?” Widdicomb said. He took out a pair of handcuffs.

“You don’t have to handcuff me, for Christ’s sake!” Sharon snapped.

“Sorry, miss,” Widdicomb said. “Standard procedure.”

Within a few moments, all was ready. The police then left with their prisoner.

“You are welcome to finish your tea,” Marsha said to Peter, who was standing in the foyer.

“Thank you, ma’am, but I already finished. Good night.”

The security man let himself out the door and pulled it shut behind him. Victor threw the deadbolt and turned into the room.

Marsha looked at him. She smiled and shook her head in disbelief. “If I read this in a book, I wouldn’t believe it,”

she said.

“It’s a good thing we kept that security,” Victor said.

Then, extending his hand, he said, “Come on. We can still get a few more hours of sleep.”

But that was not as easy as Victor had thought. An hour later, he was still awake, listening to the howling storm outside. The rain beat against the windows in sudden gusts; he jumped with every buffet. He couldn’t get the results of David’s DNA fingerprinting out of his mind nor of the cephaloclor being in the blood samples.

“Marsha,” he whispered, wondering if she were awake as well. But she didn’t answer. He whispered again, but still she didn’t answer. Victor slid out of bed, put his robe back on, and went down the hall to the upstairs study.

Sitting down at the desk, he booted up the PC. He logged onto the main Chimera computer with the modem, rediscovering how easy it was. Absently, he wondered if he had ever transferred copies of the Hobbs and Murray files onto the PC’s hard disk. To check, he called up the directory of the hard disk and searched. There were no Hobbs or Murray files.

In fact, he was surprised to find so few files on the disk at all, other than the operating programs. But then, just before he was about to turn the machine off, he noticed that most of the storage space of the hard disk was used up.

Victor scratched his head. It didn’t make sense, knowing the fantastic storage capacity of one hard disk. He tried to pry an explanation of this apparent discrepancy out of the machine, but the machine wouldn’t cooperate. Finally, in irritation, he turned the blasted thing off.

He debated going back to bed, but, glancing at the clock, he realized that he might just as well stay up. It was already after seven. Instead of going back to the bedroom, he headed downstairs to make himself some coffee and breakfast.