Damage Control - ARC Read Online Free Page B

Swedish, in old and new Turkish, in
ancient and modern Hebrew. She didn’t need to actually learn the
languages, she just needed to analyze them. Look for patterns. What
patterns, she couldn’t tell. She only knew there was something.
    But she was being silly. It was ridiculous to
think that she, Jade Massilon, could find something the world’s
expert linguists hadn’t found. She had only a GED with a couple of
college courses tacked on. And she read a lot, for whatever that
was worth.
    And anyway it didn’t matter. She didn’t have
time to chase language-ghosts; she had a living to make. She wished
she’d at least thought to bring a paper and pencil. She could start
working on translating the novel, that way. At least she’d be doing
something, and she could get her mind off the tantalizing readouts
locked inside this vehicle. She looked at Zuke working on it and
wondered if it was ever going to fly. She wondered if he could
really be an alien. She wondered if there was any way to know for
sure.
    Then suddenly he was done. He stood up and
spoke a command, and the engine—or whatever it was—started with a
babbling hum. Then the hum stopped and the vehicle disappeared.
    "Cloaked," Jade heard herself say.
    Zuke spoke another command and the vehicle
reappeared, silent this time. He turned to her and offered his
hand. This time, she shook it willingly. "I will leave now: you are
free," he said. "I believe that since you have seen me, my people
will expedite the Earth project. I expect ships from Chuze to
arrive soon." He let go of her hand and started toward his vehicle,
then stopped and turned. “Our meeting was due to an error, but I am
glad of it. You have a greeting.” He paused a moment to think, then
said with his congested sound, “Pleased to beet you, Jade.”
    Then he stepped into his vehicle, and the
opening closed behind him. The vehicle made its babbling hum for a
few seconds, then went silent and disappeared.

3
little green men

    T he dying stopped as
spontaneously as it had begun.
    In the last week of October, five hospitals
in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts admitted 32 patients
diagnosed with antibiotic-resistant strep throat. By the second
week of November, the number of admissions had swelled to 105. 50
of them eventually recovered, while the remaining 55 died suddenly
of brain aneurism or stroke within a week of their
hospitalization.
    During the same two weeks, seven New
Hampshire residents died unexpectedly in their homes or workplaces
of brain aneurism or stroke. Only one had a history of heart
disease.
    By the second week of November, hospitals all
over New England were on high alert and ready to deal with the
outbreak. Quarantined patient rooms were set aside. Centers for
Disease Control trainers refreshed staff on containment procedures.
Bacteriologists, epidemiologists and immunologists abandoned their
other projects to focus on what they'd started to call
streptococcoid syndrome.
    But only 12 more patients were ever diagnosed
with the new infection, and eight of those diagnoses turned out to
be incorrect. Lab tests confirmed those infections to be regular
old strep throat, and they were all cured with a standard course of
erythromycin. And the remaining four patients recovered.
    On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Elliot
Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire, received its last
streptococcoid case. And no healthcare facility ever saw it
again.

    The first time they told Chegg what Humans
were like, he put on his best curious face and pretended he hadn't
already been dealing with them for years.
    It was an ordinary water-city conference
room, with lots of blank, white wall space for presentations and a
central oval enclosed by a waist-high railing. Chegg swam through
the round doorway and over the railing and chose a spot near the
back. About half the people had arrived so far, and he wondered how
many of them realized they'd been set up to fail.
    Deet was there, and he caught her eye.