“Faith told me about your zombie problem. I had to see for myself,” the dude said in a deep baritone, without turning around.
“And you are?” Aiden asked. The back of the stranger’s head was vaguely familiar, but he didn’t know him. He was certain of that.
The stranger started and turned. After studying Aiden’s face for a second, he held out his hand. “Sorry. Thought you were Wolf. Name’s Embray. Leonard Embray.
The name boosted Aiden’s memory. Turned out hehadseen the guy before. But only in business and gossip columns. “Dynamic Solutions?”
He caught a whiff of the dude’s aftershave as he reached for the guy’s outstretched hand. Something citrusy, yet light, with an expensive undercurrent.
“The one and same.” Embray took Aiden’s hand and gave it a single shake before letting go. No attempt to squeeze too tight. No attempt to drag him closer. No testosterone games.
“Aiden Winchester.” He stepped up next to the billionaire.
“The SEAL who survived?” He paused and cocked his head; his gaze locked on the white spider webbing spilling out of the cracks and holes in Squirrel’s skull. “Or at least the SEAL who escaped bot-inization.”
Aiden’s lips twisted. That was a new description. “Thought you were up on the space station.”
Embray’s nod was absent. “Just got back. Came as soon as Wolf called.” He turned, thoroughly studying the two overhead screens. “Any luck with using ASL to communicate with them?”
“Not as yet.” Aiden shook his head, swallowing his frustration. Which only made it swell in his chest. He’d tried using sign language repeatedly, but none of his former teammates, not even Squirrel, responded.
“Well, it’s a clever approach. With the damage to their heads and throats, it’s unlikely they can speak.” He paused, a singe eyebrow rising. “I’m assuming they haven’t spoken?”
“No. They have not.” Aiden glanced at Squirrel, who was still staring at him with those cotton ball eyes. “Cosky says you’re a genius. And that you’ve got your fingers in all the breakthroughs in the technical industry.” He paused a beat. “You seen anything like this before?”
“No. I haven’t. It’s fascinating.”
Aiden would have used a different description. Horrifying. Or creepy. Even whacked. “Have you worked with nanobots before?”
“A bit.” His lips quirked slightly. “Not as much as I will be.” He shifted slightly, studying Squirrel. “That one reacted as soon as you walked in the room. Up until then, he was lined up with the rest. Now he appears to be …watching …you. Has it done this before?”
Aiden simply nodded. “That one’s Squirrel. Used to be my best bud.” A quiver of grief sliced through him. Like a papercut—sharp but fleeting. “You said he was watching me.” Which Aiden suspected as well. “But how the hell can he be doing that with cotton balls for eyes?”
Those spiderweb filaments still freaked him the fuck out. Every day, there were more of them filling the crevices and cracks in their faces and skulls.
Embray shrugged. “The bots are creating the white...substances for a purpose. Probably as replacement organs. They’re replacing bone, skin and—”
“Eyes,” Aiden filled in quietly, his stomach an icy knot.
“That too,” Embray murmured.
“You think they can see through that white shit?” Aiden grimaced, avoiding Squirrel’s face.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. If these bots were developed from medical nanobots, which is our prevailing theory, then they have all the programming necessary for medical intervention. They could be using that knowledge to create a …substance that woulddo the same job as the missing pieces of their host’s body.” He leaned in for a closer look, studying the inhabitant across from him, which happened to be Lurch. Or used to be Lurch. “From here, it looks like the white fibers that are acting as bone grafts are harder and shinier than the white cotton ball substance acting as your friend’s eyes.” He pulled back with a shrug. “I won’t know for sure, of course, until I can get the substance under a microscope, which may be problematic.” He turned back to Aiden. “Faith says during remote testing, they’ve penetrated every type of personal protective equipment they have on base. Leather, nitrile, rubber, neoprene, latex. Not only did they penetrate these materials, they also absorbed them and used them as fodder for more bots.” He rubbed alongside his nose with an index finger and frowned. “Such adaptability makes them extremely dangerous to oversee.”
Aiden mulled that over. He hadn’t heard about the results of the remote testing. But then, he’d been rather busy lately.
“That explains how my crew got infected. The bots must have penetrated their gloves and boots,” he murmured, staring at his former teammates.
Embray simply nodded. “Certain dense metals appear to be the only thing they can’t penetrate.”
“Like the metal of the tank the actives bots are being held in?” Which explained why they hadn’t escaped their holding tank.
“Exactly. The problem is that such a dense metal can’t be used for personal protection equipment. As of now, we’re looking at taking samples from the…occupants...of this chamber with robotics.”
Aiden frowned over that. “If the samples are full of the bots, how can they be managed safely?”
Embray grimaced. “That’s the conundrum. We’re looking at the same kind of setup that Faith has in her clean room. The samples will have to be taken remotely, through robotics, thentransferred to another remote metal container for testing and studying—again with robotics. Everything will have to be done remotely. Which will slow things down considerably.”
