Even in death, the venom of a dying parasite doesn’t fade quietly.
From the cut neck of Apostle Three’s host body lying numbed in the center of the hall, a final, spiteful bio-chemical defense reflex triggered. The blackened, rotting stump erupted into an expanding geyser of tiny, crimson spore mist. A packed fine mist of suicidal necrotizing enzymes designed to dissolve the lung tissue of every living human within two hundred meters.
The crimson fog rose toward the ceiling exhaust shafts, caught in the heat drafts, threatening to penetrate the main air-flow system that supplied oxygen to the seventy floors below.
“The air vents!” Valerie shouted, her voice hoarse from shouting commands. “If that red fine mist reaches the central intakes, thirty thousand office workers on the middle tiers will choke to death on their own melted lung tissue!”
Arthur took half a step forward. But his knees buckled under the lingering neural tiredness of the de-linking surgery.
He didn’t have to move.
On Arthur’s chest webbing, the brass latch of the water-pressure glass flagon clicked open.
Echo poked his round, pink head into the cold air.
