Cynthia opened the door and Marcus Eads stepped in, followed by two suited men from the security staff. Carl pointed at Lyle and attempted to smile warmly. “Please take our friend here to my private lounge upstairs. Get him some breakfast, and treat him well.” The men moved toward him, but Lyle shook his head and pointed at Pedro.
“I’m the real Lyle; you want him.” He glanced at Carl, suddenly uncertain. “Don’t you?”
The men looked at Carl, who frowned at the two Lyles, then nodded. The suited men led Pedro into the hall, but Marcus hung back. Cynthia closed the door, and Carl spoke in a low voice.
“Keep him here for now,” said Carl, “and keep this as quiet as possible. I don’t want one word of this to get out until we’re good and ready for it.”
“Bellevue Hospital knows,” said Lyle.
“Everyone in the whole hospital?”
Lyle grimaced. “A handful of orderlies, the hospital administrator, and anyone else Pedro may have talked to. A crowd of people from the lobby. I don’t know if any of them understand what’s going on, but they did hear some of the details.”
“The Brooklyn police know about it, too,” said Sunny, “though again, they don’t know everything and they probably don’t understand the full implications of it.”
“Then we keep it that way as long as we can,” said Carl. “If they don’t hear about it again, they won’t think about it again. Now, let’s be very frank here: what kind of fallout are we expecting from this? How many people?”
Kerry’s face was white with fear. “I … I’ve been using it. So has Carrie.”
Jeffrey laughed nervously. “You’re talking in the third person now?” He looked at Lyle. “Is that normal?”
“Carrie’s my wife,” said Kerry.
“You married someone with your own name?”
“It’s spelled differently!”
“I’ve used it,” said Lyle, “long before anybody else, which is probably how it got imprinted with my DNA. Six test subjects used it; one of them is dead now. My assistant Susan used it; she’s currently in the hospital.”
“This can’t be true, though,” said Kerry. “There’s got to be another explanation. I mean, I started using it…,” Kerry counted in his head, “two, maybe three weeks ago. And I don’t look anything like you.”
Lyle leaned in close to him, peering at his face. “You have the heterochromia. And your hair’s coming in lighter.”
“It is?”
“I can see it, too,” said Cynthia, walking to Kerry’s chair. She stared at him, fascinated. “You have black hair, but all the roots are brown—about the color of Lyle’s.”
Lyle picked up Kerry’s hands, examining them closely, then looked back at his face. “The human body completely replaces its own skin about every three weeks. Odds are good that all of your skin is mine by now.”
“It’s not the same color, though,” said Cynthia, “it’s darker than Lyle’s.”
Kerry swallowed nervously. “I tan,” he whispered. He looked at Lyle pleadingly. “I started last week. My wife said I looked kind of pale.”
“So he has your skin and he’s growing your hair,” said Sunny, “but he doesn’t look like you. Pedro could have been your twin—why is Kerry different?”
“Because bone and muscle take longer,” said Lyle. “Change his skin and he just has different skin. He won’t look like me until his body has time to rebuild the muscles on his face, and the bone structure underneath. Those are the features we recognize.”
Carl growled. “How long does that take?”
Lyle shrugged. “Normally it doesn’t happen at all—you’ll keep your same bone cells all your life if they don’t get injured. They don’t replace themselves like skin cells. But if something tells your body to regrow them, like an injury or some kind of … insane hand lotion, a healthy adult can fully rebuild bone tissue in about six weeks.”
“Pedro did it in four,” said Sunny.
“This process is very aggressive,” said Lyle, nodding. “That’s why most of the subjects—the ones who had to make major changes in order to align with my body type—have experienced flulike symptoms and dehydration. Your body’s using water and raw materials at an incredible rate; that’s not a comfortable process.”
Kerry paled further. “My wife has the flu.”
Lyle paused. “I’m very sorry.”
“She’s a woman, though,” said Kerry, “does that mean it’ll happen differently?”
“Are you not listening to me?” Lyle snapped. “Your wife has my DNA! She’s turning into me, dammit, she’s turning into a man!”
Carl swore.
“No!” shouted Kerry, jumping to his feet. “You’re wrong—there’s got to be another explanation!”
“You want proof?” Lyle cried, striding to his chair. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a thick file, slamming it onto the table. “This is the autopsy report for Jon Ford—he had Susan Howell’s estrogen levels, he had her ovaries, and if he’d lived another week he’d have had one of the best pairs of breasts in New York.”
Kerry stared at the wall in horror. “Carrie’s going to be … a man?”
“At least her name will still work,” said Jeffrey.
“How does it kill?” asked Carl. “What kind of damage are we looking at?”
“The only immediate danger is blood type,” said Lyle. “I have O negative blood, which they call a ‘universal donor’—it’s not ideal for everybody, but it can be given to anybody without serious consequences. Everyone turning into me is probably fine—”
“There’s nothing fine about it!” shouted Kerry.
