Out of any possibility of control.
Reaper, inadequately tested, not at all ready for deployment, had been used by the military in a desperate gamble to introduce mutation to a perfect weapon. If something was perfect then any change would, by definition, create flaws in that perfection. That was the logic, and it was as flawed as the science.
Dick Price stared at the screen and now he understood the last secret in Volker’s science. The most important secret.
Lucifer, for all its power and aggression, had not been perfect.
Better than all generations before it, but far from perfect.
Until now.
Until something allowed—even encouraged it—to mutate further. That one step further until it was, without doubt, perfect.
Until Reaper.
The phone fell from Price’s fingers and shattered on the floor.
The woman kept screaming.
Everyone else began screaming.
It seemed like the only possible response. The only appropriate response. So Dick Price screamed, too.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO
ROUTE 81
NEAR HUNGRY MOTHER STATE PARK
SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA
The traffic on the highway started off as bad, became worse, became impossible. Dez and Trout crouched in the exit well and studied the road through the big windshield. Jake DeGroot was behind the wheel of the first bus, and Dez touched his arm and pointed to a small side road blocked by a chain and a sign saying that it was reserved for forestry service vehicles only.
“There,” she said. “Let’s get out of this shit. Pull off.”
“What about the chain?” asked Trout.
“Fuck the chain,” she said. “Jake, get us out of this shit and I’ll deal with the chain.”
Jake edged the bus that way, but the traffic was jammed tight and moved forward an inch at a time. He hit the horn, got nothing, then jammed his hand down on it in a continuous blare. Still got nothing.
Jake shook his head. “It’s too tight, there’s not enough room.”
Dez snarled and jerked the handle that worked the door, snatched up a combat shotgun and jumped out.
There was a big Tundra to the right of the bus, blocking their way. Dez used her scuffed knuckles to rap on the driver’s window.
“Hey, buddy, how about pull off so we can get through?”
The driver, a big man with a John Deere cap, refused to even look at her. He had snow-white hair and a mean-looking face. The man riding shotgun was equally muscular and twice as ugly. He felt for the pistol in his pocket.
Dez tapped again, much harder. “Yo! Dickhead, you deaf or something?”
The driver raised one hand, forefinger extended and still didn’t look at her.
“Dez,” called Trout as he stepped down from the bus, “be careful.”
Dez ignored him. With a grunt of angry effort, she slammed the shotgun’s stock into the driver’s window. It imploded, showering the driver and the man in the passenger seat with safety glass.