“It’s not,” Vik told him, shooting him a wounded look from her masked face. “Not any more than that was my Sheena laying on the floor beside him.” The words sounded so brittle, as if Vik were on the point of shattering.

“What are we looking at here?” Dek asked.

“A whole new biology,” Jones told him. “Even by Donovan’s standards, or what we thought was Donovan’s standards, this is a step beyond what we imagined was possible.”

Dek stepped closer, stared down at the boy. “Why is his skin green? What are those things on his neck? And he looks like a weightlifter, not like the skinny little Felix I knew in Ashanti.”

Raya turned her attention back to the body. “The closest I can come to describing it is that he’s like two organisms existing side-by-side in the same body. This is a quantum leap beyond simple TriNA molecules. We’re seeing prokaryotic cells forming organs alongside the human cells. Augmenting, remodeling. And it isn’t random like an infection, but directed morphological change to preadapt the body to an aquatic environment. The scary thing is, not only did it modify and integrate with the boy’s immune system to do this, but it had a plan. It knew exactly what it was doing, and how to do it.”

“Why just the kids?”

Vik shot him another look. “Oh, I’m infected, too, Dek. We all were. Doesn’t matter that my infection is dormant. I’m still in quarantine. Will be for as long as it takes to figure out if I’m contagious. Our first guess is that the slime chose the kids because they were still growing. For whatever reason, it either decided, or figured out, that the adults weren’t suited for remodeling and hybridizing.”

“Why green?”

Iji told him, “It would have allowed the boy to photosynthesize, not enough to support the body entirely, but it would certainly cut the amount of food he’d need to survive. Remarkably efficient, if you ask me. And looking at the skin cells, they’re like a lattice of human and prokaryote cells. Every bit as flexible and resistant to tear as human integument.”

“Stay back,” Raya warned as Dek tried to get a better look. “The human cells are dead, as are the internal organs, but the prokaryote cells in the skin are still alive. As long as they can photosynthesize and don’t desiccate, they remain viable. We think the slime is spread by contact. Especially through sweat glands in the palms.”

Which, of course, was why Vik was restricted to her hazard suit and lived in a quarantined section of the hospital.

“You got it. I’m staying back. Got enough trouble with all these quetzals in me.”

Into her mask, Raya mumbled, “And I thought that was bizarre? Compared to what we’re seeing here? Quetzals are a cakewalk.”