Hunger

beautiful she still was. Despite everything. But he saw as well how delicate she seemed, how thin and fragile. She had lost weight, like everyone. Cheekbones more prominent than before, eyes bruised by exhaustion and worry. There was a welt just in front of her temple.
    “I don’t think they talk, not like you mean,” Astrid said. “But they can feel each other. Petey’s been trying to warn me…I didn’t understand.”
    “Short version,” Sam said in a low voice. “What do you think?”
    Astrid nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m not…” Her voice trailed off. But she shook her head vigorously and refocused. “Okay, it’s some mutant creature. Origin unknown. It has great power to influence minds. That power is greater over people who’ve already encountered the creature. Like Lana. Drake.
    “And possibly Caine,” Astrid added.
    Sam said, “You think Caine has had a run-in with this gaiaphage?”
    “You asked for the short version. So I’m leaving out the epistemology.”
    Sam recognized Astrid’s favorite ploy: dazzling people with polysyllables. He managed a faint smile. “Go ahead. Leave out the…whatever it was.”
    “Suddenly,” Astrid went on, “after months of relative quiet, Caine reemerges. We know from Bug that he was in some kind of a coma, or delirium, before that. But suddenly, he’s better. And the first thing he does is charge off to take over the power plant.”
    “At the same time, Lana begins to feel the gaiaphage calling to her. And Petey is starting to talk about something being hungry in the dark.”
    “Orsay says the thing is expecting to be fed soon,” Edilio said.
    “Yes. And then, there’s Duck.”
    Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Duck?” He had not expected this.
    “No one listened much to his story. Me included,” Astrid admitted. “But he kept saying there was a cave down there that glowed. Like from radioactivity. He said like something from The Simpsons .”
    “Yeah?” Edilio prompted.
    “The power plant is at the center of the FAYZ,” Astrid said. “We know it was going into meltdown when Little Pete reacted by creating this…this bubble. But why were things changing even before that? How did Little Pete acquire that kind of power?”
    “The accident thirteen years ago,” Sam said, realizing it even as he said it.
    “The accident. We’ve always said it was a meteorite that hit the plant. But maybe it wasn’t just a meteorite. Maybe there was more to it.”
    “Like what?”
    “Some people theorize that life on Earth grew from a simple organism that reached this planet by comet or meteorite. So, let’s say something as simple as a virus was alive on the object that hit the power plant. Virus plus radiation equals mutation.”
    “So that’s what this gaiaphage is?” Sam asked.
    “Please don’t act like I just told you the answer, okay?” Astrid said. “Because I’m totally off in guesswork. And it doesn’t really explain much, even if it’s true. Big ‘if.’ Really big ‘if.’”
    “But?” Sam prompted.
    “But maybe this thing that’s been living under the ground for thirteen years has been living on radiation. Feeding on it. Think about a virus that could survive thousands of years in the environment of space. The only possible food source would be hard radiation.”
    The next part was hard for Astrid. Sam could see the way her lip quivered. “The power company lied: they never cleaned up all the radiation from the accident. It’s been under our feet all this time, seeping into the water, being absorbed into the food we eat.”
    Astrid’s father had been an engineer at the power plant. She must be wondering whether he had known of the deception.
    “They may not even have known they didn’t get it all,” Sam said. “The people who worked there—they probably didn’t know.”
    Astrid nodded. The quiver stopped. The tight anger in her expression remained. “As the gaiaphage mutated, so did some of us. Maybe some kind of synthesis. I don’t know. But one safe guess is that the gaiaphage began to run out of food. It needs more. It can’t get to it, it can only attempt to make others do its will. I think—I believe—that the meltdown Little Pete stopped was caused by someone at the plant. Obeying the gaiaphage. Attempting to blow up the plant, which would spread radiation everywhere, kill everything nearby…except for the creature that lives on radiation.”
    “Little Pete stopped the meltdown. Created