Part 27 (1/2)

”Jon Benatti. From Helixia.”

The name struck Shane as somewhat important.

”I'm Deputy Director of Science. You're in a lot of trouble, boss.”

”You want to let go of me now.”

Benatti considered him and then took his hand away, and pointed at the building behind him. ”You've got stolen property up there.”

”What are you talking about?”

Benatti's voice rose. ”You took a protein from our gene library. One of our centrifuges. G.o.d knows what else. Whatever's in that box belongs to Helixia.”

Shane stared at him in disbelief. ”It's medicine for a baby.”

”Give it to me.”

There was no choice at all. He shouldered Benatti hard, knocking him backward, and started for the pa.s.senger door. He balanced the cooler on his left knee, found his keys in his pocket, and pressed his keypad. He slipped the fingers of his right hand out from underneath the cooler to lift the trunk.

He felt the contact just after he registered the rush of wind, and the peculiar energy of a human being in full motion. The ugly feel of Benatti's bony body against him. The horror of the cooler slipping out of his hand, falling onto the parking lot blacktop, the styrofoam top flying off.

The sickening sound of the vials spilling onto the ground, the cracking of gla.s.s, and the sudden spilling of liquid.

9.

The trail wove through the forest like fine brown thread.

Caleb scanned the ground for rocks, loose roots, the occasional yellow lizard, anything that might trip him. Small bright birds darted out of the foliage, and red-tailed hawks floated above as if covering the race for ABC.

His stride was metronomic. His feet hit the earth lightly on their b.a.l.l.s, regardless of whether he was leaping over a rock, or hit an unexpected dip in the ground. His breathing was perfect, his spine straight as pipe. A great confidence enveloped him; he had reached the point in his run where the cells of the body bind with those of the trees.

The first aid station came at Tuolumne Grove. A gray-haired official yawned in a chair behind a fold-up table. Plastic bowls of M&M's, energy gels, and bananas sat on the table; a cooler lay underneath. Hank was waiting for him beside the table. Hank was a huge live-music guy, always grabbing people for a run up to Catacombs, one of the happier and most helpful of the house. Caleb always blew by the first aid station, he knew, so he had prepared himself to start running as soon as he saw him cantering close. But surprisingly, Caleb stopped at the tent, grabbed a bottle of Powerade, and sat in a folding chair.

Other runners ran by for a bottle of water and back to the course; some didn't stop at all.

Hank took a tentative step toward him, his hand held out, as if about to touch a wound, when suddenly Caleb snapped his brown and earthy eyes open. He took the time to pour a salt packet into his sports drink. Then he stood and nodded, and they ran back onto the trail.

Hank ran out in front. He knew his role was to slow Caleb down, keep him from burning out. But Caleb never challenged him. In fact, turning around at one point, Hank had seen Caleb almost fifty yards behind him.

The course corkscrewed into a series of stunning ascents along narrow mining trails that had been closed for half a century. A yard to Caleb's left, the cliff dropped straight down to a canyon. On his right rose a solid wall of large pink-sheened granite rippling with blue veins. Rae had been right, of course; injury here would be fatal.

Eventually, they wound down into a canyon. With utter amazement, Hank watched Caleb run this stretch with his eyes fluttering closed.

Then he screamed.

Caleb whipped his head around. Hank was leaning against an oak, clutching his ankle, looking at the bottom of his sneaker.

”What?”

”f.u.c.king acorn,” he said in a calmer voice, sweat pouring from his crew-cut head. ”Let's just go.”

Later, Hank told Mack that he had been surprised by his ability to keep up with Caleb. They hit Jacob's Furnace just before noon, a shelf of exposed dark rock seven thousand feet in the air, under the burning midday sun. Caleb drained the last bottle of water in his pack and walked across the shelf trail. A wide stream circled below, taunting him with cool water to dive into. After a brutal hour he discovered himself at the top of a breathtaking gorge. Happily he watched hawks flying underneath him.

”Beautiful, right?” Hank smiled. ”What a course.”

Alice was waiting to replace Hank at the next aid station. She handed Caleb a banana, and took off with him into the afternoon. The course flags marked a path down to a fast-moving stream. White caps gurgled where its water met the rocks. No rope line had been fixed; this was either a major oversight by Barry and Mack, or their first hint of just how dangerous this race would become.

Alice looked around. ”No good,” she muttered.

Caleb waded into the water; immediately its force shoved him downstream. This was the answer. Rather than expend energy fighting the current, he let it push him like commuters exiting a subway as he walked, and crossed on a sharp diagonal, reaching the opposite bank two hundred yards downstream.

Alice followed him, but by the time she made it across, he was already disappearing into the distance, his long legs loping over the slippery gray rocks. Alice tried to pace him, but she was small, with stout legs, and when Caleb leapt like a palomino over a fallen stump, it was difficult for her to match him. Five miles in, she fell forever behind.

The light in the park turned a G.o.dly green. Prisms shone through the pine. Night, Caleb saw, was coming. At the Antibes aid station there was no one from Happy Trails waiting to meet him. Caleb found his drop bag, retaped his feet, put on a GoLite sh.e.l.l, fresh sneakers, and clipped a black rubber flashlight to his waist. He drank two cups of chicken broth, filled his water bottle, and left by himself.

Somewhere near Tamarack Flat, Caleb understood he had left the course. His eyes tried to adjust, but it was such a perfect blackness that he could not see the roots, rocks, or the steepness of the inclines. He stopped, enraptured by the woods around him. Above he saw a crescent moon among an initial gathering of stars. The world ahead felt like black water; Caleb imagined he could push his arms through it and swim upward, break the surface, and arrive somewhere entirely new.

In his peripheral vision he could make out pale purple silhouettes of sequoias, like pillars holding up Heaven. He stuck out a hand and stroked one; a tree that had stood here since Plato. In each of these trees, millions of insects were birthed, lived, mated, died, none aware that he was off of his trail, off his course. He felt he had it made it somewhere he had always guessed existed. He might wander in any direction, encounter any magic.

Caleb swept his flashlight around him, trying to find the small blue glow sticks that marked the course. He caught only the bizarre depths of nature, no less mysterious than s.p.a.ce. In the distance-he hoped it was the distance-he heard the howl of something doglike.

And then, at last, his flashlight revealed a cl.u.s.ter of five blue glow sticks, removed from the trail and grouped together with definite intent. He closed his eyes thankfully.

When he opened them again, June was standing in front of him.

The moonlight bathed her face in alabaster. Caleb kissed her, stroked the back of her head.

”Okay,” he whispered, and they turned into the backcountry.

PART FOUR.

Ultrathon.

1.

Caleb and June wove through an impossible density of forest.

Between the redwoods, oaks, and underbrush, no moonlight availed itself to them. He found June's fingers in the dark and squeezed them. It was necessary to take her hand here, to protect her, and himself. It had been so long since he had touched her. A well of emotion rose through him and nearly burst. But he did not have time to nurture it.