CHAPTER 18THIS TIME, PEARL WOKE JAMES up at 0500. Th’f**k? Didn’t nuns sleep? James barely had time to come to before she was at the door, pounding on it. He shook his head and then tuned in to her as he went to answer her knock.
His heart started pounding as hard as her fist.
Pearl was excited. Hopeful.
“What did you figure out?” he rushed out as he opened the door.
“Hands!”
“Huh?” He’d expected her revelation to be more revelatory.
“Smith had an obsession with hands. With doing work himself. He wanted to do everything by hand.”
“What, like build circuits and s**t? That’s impossible.”
“Yes, but it’s not impossible to infect you with a modified parasite by hand. He’d have to do the DNA manipulation with AI, but he could infect you by hand. He did as much as he could by hand. And he
