“Yosh?” she called, hearing the man’s frantic steps as he pounded up the stairway. Coming into sight, she could see his terrified expression, and in his arms lay Toni. The three-year-old boy was rigid as a board, his arms and legs straight and stiff, his face a strained rictus. The wide-eyed stare in the boy’s paralyzed face looked almost monstrous. The kid was breathing hard, each breath forced, and a sheen of perspiration coated his face.

“Yosh? What happened?”

“Don’t know,” the man almost choked. “Mikoru asked me to get him ready for breakfast. We let him sleep late. I found him like this. I need Anna up here now! She has the medical implant.”

Michaela leaned into the communications room, grabbed for the mic, and keyed it. “Attention. Anna, we have a medical emergency on level two. Please report to the clinic. Repeat: Medical emergency.”

“Come on.” Michaela led the way down the hall that separated the labs and to the small clinic located just below the landing pad. She opened the door to the room, and Yosh pushed past her to lay the comatose Toni on the examining table. The little boy looked catatonic, with his eyes fixed and mouth pulled out of shape.

“My, God.” Michaela placed a hand to her throat. “What did this?”

“No clue.” Yosh was massaging the boy’s hand. “Come on, Toni. Wake up. Toni! Do you hear me? Toni, it’s Yosh. Hey, son. Come back! Toni! Please, son. Wake up!”

Michaela stepped back, watching as the man massaged his son’s body, stripped off the boy’s shirt and began rubbing his sweaty chest.

“Weird.” Yosh lifted his hands, studied them as he rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “It’s like . . . greasy. Slick.”

Michaela started to lean forward, only to have Anna Gabarron burst in, demanding, “What’s wrong?”

Yosh cried, “Something’s wrong with Toni. He’s like, paralyzed.”

She elbowed her way in. “Give me room.”

Yosh and Michaela stepped back, watched as Gabarron reached down the scope from its holder, used it to peer into the boy’s eyes. “Pupils react,” she noted, “Toni? Can you hear me?”

She snapped her fingers next to the boy’s ears, used the little rubber hammer to tap his elbows and knees. Got nothing. Pulled down the stethoscope, listened. “Heart’s racing.” Taking down the monitor, she ran it over the boy’s body. “Hundred and five beats a minute, blood pressure is one-sixty over one hundred. Not good.”

Then she began pressing on his board-stiff body, carefully watching the boy’s face for any reaction. In the end, she pinched the child’s arm, hard. Toni did nothing.

Gabarron, too, rubbed her fingers together, made a face. “Did he get into something? Is this some chemical? A lubricant that he might have found somewhere?”