SINdrome

by J. T. Nicholas

  “Can we get back to the army of super soldiers immune to the plague?” Hernandez asked. “That sort of seems more important.”

  “The solution—or at least the broad steps we need to take to find a solution—are now made clear,” Silas said. I grimaced at his typically eccentric way of phrasing, then felt guilty as he ruined it by unleashing a sudden, hacking, racking cough. It went on for some time, maybe ten, fifteen seconds, long enough that I could see Tia’s hands twitching to try to help. The humans in the room had all experienced something similar at some point in their lives. We knew the lung-wrenching feeling of not being able to draw breath and were familiar with the shaking and gasping aftermath. For Silas, for Al, it was something new. I could see the faintest glimpse of fear in Silas’s eyes when the fit finally subsided and Al’awwal had edged a bit farther back from the door.

  “Excuse me,” Silas said, not letting the coughing—or his fear—slow him down. “Our course of action is made clear. We must find wherever these soldiers are being grown and infiltrate that location. Somewhere within, we will find our cure.”

  I was about to follow that up with a quip about, sure, sounded easy enough, but was interrupted by the sound of heavy and quick footsteps closing in on us. Hernandez and Al must have heard it too, because almost on instinct, all three of us spread out, taking up positions within the chamber Silas used as his room and turning toward the long avenue of interconnecting boxes that served as a conduit between Silas and the rest of the facility.

  It wasn’t an NLPD assault force breeching the Ballasts. Instead, it was a lone synthetic, young, but then, most of them looked to be in their early twenties, and with the long-limbed grace and beauty—and in the case of the males, lean musculature—of the Toys. I didn’t know his name. The synthetics had continued to trickle in to revolution central and we’d passed the point where I could keep track of everyone. Not so, with Silas, apparently.

  “What is it, Thomas?” he asked, holding up a hand to stop the synthetic from entering the room. Not much of a safety measure against contagion, but it was the best we had.

  “We need Ms. Morita, quick,” he blurted. “Sanjay’s dying.”

  Chapter 13

  I went with Tia.

  The others stayed behind, since there was no point taking Al’awwal into yet another sickroom, and carting Silas through the halls was likewise contraindicated. Hernandez and Al were going to talk tactics, try to figure out what resources we had available to infiltrate what, we could only assume, would be the most holy of holies for Walton Biogenics. But damned if I was going to let Tia go into whatever we were headed for alone. Sure, there was a chance that I was clean, clear of whatever carrier agent the psychopaths at Walton had engineered to turn regular humans into an attack vector for the synthetics, but the odds were against it. I’d spent too much time in too tight of a space with too many synthetics to be in the clear. So fuck it. Might as well lend some support to a friend.

  I reconsidered almost immediately as we entered the infirmary.

  It wasn’t the frequent coughing. It wasn’t the few synthetics stretched out on their beds who were writhing in apparent pain. It wasn’t the pall of physical misery that hung over everything. I’d seen more than my share of that. It wasn’t that it didn’t faze me, but if you’ve seen enough human misery—synthetic misery, whatever—it just doesn’t surprise you anymore.

  It was the fear.

  The room stank of it.

  I’d seen a hospital bed or two in my time, including one in a MASH unit in the middle of the desert. People shot, torn to bits by explosives, bitten by venomous creepy crawlies, or just laid low by the rank and file infections and viruses that had been a part of human history for so long that we barely noticed. Sure, people in those places always had a little bit of fear in them. But there was hope, too. Hope, and whatever ingrained human stubbornness that made a terminal cancer patient look their doctor in the eye and say, “I’m gonna beat this thing.”

  Resolve.

  The infirmary had all of the fear, but none of the resolve.

  And why should it? Synthetics didn’t get sick. They didn’t grow up experiencing the thousand little indignities that the frailty of the human frame inflicted on us. No migraines or nausea. Not even a common cold. The thought was enough to make me feel a little surge of…jealousy? Anger? Whatever it was, it was squashed by walking into that room.

  I couldn’t imagine what they were going through. Sure, they’d never suffered the indignities of illness—countless other indignities, but never those—but that also meant they had no idea how to deal with them or what was going on in their own bodies when, for the first time in the history of their species, they were laid low from within. And knowing that it was a targeted, genocidal attack, whose ultimate goal could only be death… That just made it all the worse.

  The pall that hung over the infirmary had little to do with physical discomfort, and more to do with soul-crushing despair. Which was only heightened by the low, keening moan coming from the back of the room.

  Tia, either inoculated against the despair by her medical training or just made of sterner stuff than I, was moving confidently among the beds. It was her job to run toward the sounds of pain just like it was mine to head toward the gunfire. Most people probably thought I had the harder gig, but there was no way in hell I could have done what she did, day after day. I had to lengthen my stride considerably to catch up, but we made it to the bedside of Sanjay at the same time.

  The man was in bad shape—no—he was dying. I supposed you could argue that everyone in the room was dying, but Sanjay seemed a lot more serious about it. Without looking, Tia thrust a surgical mask back at me. It seemed pointless, but I pulled the loops over my ears and settled the wire-and-cloth around my nose and mouth. I didn’t really understand why she bothered, given she was already a carrier, and it would be a miracle if it turned out I wasn’t.

  The reason became a lot clearer when the next cough from Sanjay included a fine mist of brownish-red blood.

  There were none of the machines that I associated with modern medicine anywhere to be found in the infirmary, but Tia had produced her screen and a variety of other small devices from somewhere within her still blood-splattered scrubs. It took me a moment to realize that they were sensor pads. Tia expertly applied them to various points on the synthetic’s body, and then stared intently at her screen. Another wave of deep wariness seemed to wash over her face, and she rested one hand lightly on the man.

  He grabbed her hand, clutching at it like a drowning man. “I can maybe do something for the pain,” Tia said. “Would that help?”

  Sanjay, coughing enough that he couldn’t really speak, nodded.

  From within another pocket, Tia withdrew a syringe. I didn’t know what was in it, but she gave the man’s hand a squeeze and said, “Try to stay still, just for a moment.” The synthetic nodded, drew as deep a breath as he could, and stilled. With deft hands, Tia injected the man. Almost immediately, he had another coughing fit, but then his pain eased. He smiled up at the coroner’s assistant turned revolution doctor, and then he slipped away into unconsciousness.

  “I doubt he’ll wake up again,” Tia said, her voice barely above a whisper. “His blood oxygen levels are way too low. And I don’t have the equipment to intubate him and put him on a respirator.” She shook her head, and I saw the first tears spill out from the corners of her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do to help him. I wish we could take him to a hospital, but…”

  But it was illegal for hospitals to treat synthetics, even in the case of accidents. Walton had seen to that. They had their own facilities for dealing with injured synthetics, and Sanjay would just be shipped off to one of those. It would be worse than a death sentence. I took her into my arms, offering what comfort I could. I was aware that we were in a room full of sick—dying—people. I had a sense that their doctor’s despair was p
robably not the best thing for them to be seeing at the moment. But she was in pain, so I offered what help I could. I doubt I could have done anything else and still called myself human.

  We stood like that for a long moment, her silently sobbing, me just holding her. We were a quiet island of sorrow in a broader sea of misery, the stillness broken only by the coughing synthetics and the shudders that passed through Tia as I held her. It was not a good moment. But it was a very human moment, and part of me reveled in it. I suspected we might not have many of them left.

  The moment was broken by the arrival of another synthetic, one of those who had been assisting Tia in her doctoring. “Ms. Morita,” the man said, “the Walton woman is awake.”

  At the mention of Walton, a low murmur, almost a growl, coursed through the room. I didn’t miss the fact that in this company, Dr. Larkin wasn’t Dr. Larkin or Larkin or even the patient. She was the Walton woman. The body of their oppressor made flesh. And we saved her life. When we couldn’t save their lives.

  “Too tight,” Tia gasped.

  “Shit.” I let her go, realizing that the comforting hug I’d been given her had tightened with my surging anger. “Sorry.”

  She waved off my apology as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s fine.” To the synthetic still waiting in the door, she said, “Can you stay with Sanjay? I think… I think it will be soon.”

  The…nurse? Tech? Shit, I’d have to figure out what I was going to call Tia’s helpers, at least in my own mind. The assistant nodded, and we traded places, edging past one another in the tight confines. “This way,” Tia said as we left the infirmary. “We set up a recovery room over here.” She gave me a frown. “I was afraid I was going to need surgery and recovery for you or Hernandez, going off to kidnap a corporate executive. I didn’t expect to be patching holes in that executive.”

  I raised my hands in mock defense. “Hey, I didn’t put them there.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing that none of the synthetics can pull a trigger, or we’d have to post a guard on Larkin’s door. I don’t think they like her very much.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I think it’s safe to say they don’t like her much at all.”

  * * * *

  Larkin looked like shit. It seemed to be going around.

  Unlike the synthetics in the infirmary, she’d been given the privilege of a private room—a sectioned off bit of container that wasn’t being used for anything else. Not because she warranted it, but because putting her in with the synthetics would have been cruel. To the synthetics, not Larkin.

  It was difficult to feel sympathy for the woman, given that she was part of a vast global conspiracy guilty of more crimes than I could possibly name. But genocide summed up Walton Biogenics’ most recent transgressions rather nicely. Attempted genocide, hopefully. Some part of me understood that Larkin was just one cog in an immense machine, and, though I hated to admit it, one who had truly believed the lies upper management told. That didn’t change the contributions she’d undoubtedly made to the misery of synthetics across the globe. But if I could forgive the people who had used synthetics, whether they accepted their true nature or not, could I be less forgiving with Larkin?

  I realized that forgiveness had to happen, at some point. Without a fresh start, some honest attempt at reconciliation on all sides, the anger and resentment would never disappear. It would just go underground, slip beneath the surface to rise up and rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moments. So maybe, just maybe, I could make a start of it by, if not forgiving Larkin, giving her the benefit of the doubt. She had just had her former employers try to shut her up with a bullet, after all.

  “How are you feeling?” Tia was asking, moving to her patient’s side. She either felt no animosity to the Walton employee or was a hell of a lot better at hiding it.

  “Weak,” Larkin muttered. “Water?”

  Tia poured a glass from a pitcher near the tattered cot serving as a bed. There was no real way to prop Larkin up—it wasn’t like we had access to fancy hospital beds. Tia resorted to main strength, levering one arm behind Larkin’s shoulders and leaning her forward while simultaneously bringing the glass to her lips. “A little at a time,” she said.

  Larkin took a few struggling sips. Even that seemed to exhaust her. “Can you grab a couple of those pillows and help prop her up?” Tia asked, still holding Larkin in a more-or-less seated position.

  I followed her nod to a pile of… Well, some of them were actually pillows. Others looked like cast-off couch cushions. And one was just a torn-out piece of foam that looked like it might have been ripped off a mattress. I grabbed an armful and dumped them by the cot. I selected as best I could, opting for cleanliness over what I thought would provide the maximum comfort. The end result didn’t really look all that comfortable, but Tia was able to free her arm and settle the woman into an upright position against the supports.

  Some of Larkin’s strength seemed to be coming back. She reached out and took the glass from Tia, waving a hand to indicate that she wanted to try on her own. She only dribbled a little as she sipped from the glass. But by the time she lowered it, her hands were shaking enough that Tia had to retrieve the cup before she dropped it.

  “Why am I so weak?” Larkin asked, voice a little slurred.

  “Mostly, that’s the blood loss,” Tia answered. “And a little bit of the drugs. We gave you some pain killers. We don’t have much.” Her words were clipped, professional. But something in them made me revise my estimate of the animosity she felt. She was exercising a doctorly bedside manner, but it was too textbook, with none of the warmth I’d come to expect from the beautiful young woman.

  “Thank you,” Larkin said. First to Tia, then she looked at me. “And thank you, Mr. Campbell. I know you and your partner saved my life.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to pussyfoot around. “From a corporate hit squad. Of synthetics.”

  “What?” She tried to sit up straighter. Hell, maybe she tried to jump out of the bed. Whatever she tried, it was aborted as she gasped in pain and reached for her leg. Tia was quick to intercept her hands.

  “Keep your hands away from the dressings,” she said. “We’ve got a hard enough time keeping things sterile without you poking at them. And try not to move too much. You’ve been shot, remember.” She eased her back against the cushions, but by the ashen-faced, glassy stare, Larkin wasn’t planning on trying to move any time soon.

  “Not possible,” she gasped. “Programming.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Tia sighed. I stared at her in shock, partly because she’d taken the words right out of my mouth, and partly because she swore so rarely that I almost couldn’t believe the words had come from her mouth. She looked mildly embarrassed at her own language—which I found adorable—but plowed on. “Doctor,” She invested the title with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Programming. Indoctrination. Brain washing. Call it whatever you want. But if you can program synthetics against violence, what in the world makes you think that you couldn’t program them for violence as well?” Her voice had risen, and while she wasn’t shouting at the end of it, she was close. Her face was red, eyes pinched with anger. She’d taken even more of a liking to the synthetics than I’d realized.

  “But the laws…” Larkin started, but trailed off as she realized the idiocy of that sentiment.

  “Yeah,” I said, placing one hand on Tia’s shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze to calm her. She’d hate herself if she caused actual harm to one of her patients, and at the moment, it felt like a real possibility. “Turns out, laws don’t stop a lot of people from doing whatever the fuck they want, any more than they stop bullets.” I nodded at her injury. “Never have. Never will. It’s why we have cops in the first place. Well,” I amended, “when the higher-ups haven’t been co-opted by assholes like the Walton execs.”

  It took Larkin a moment t
o process that. Her face set in a stubborn line, but then relaxed into a more resigned expression. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Yeah, that makes sense. And I suppose if the company wanted to, there’s no reason they couldn’t program the synthetics to be killers.” A shudder coursed through her body, whether from the thought of vengeful synthetics with the capacity to cause harm, or the more primal fear endemic in humanity that our creations would one day turn against us.

  “Great,” I grunted. “Now that we all agree your bosses—or former bosses, since I think being the target of a hit squad can be considered your termination notice—are evil fuckers, we can get to the real question at hand.”

  Larkin gave me a confused look. “Which is?”

  “Which is where the fuck are they making them?” I growled. She winced and I shot a guilty look at Tia, fearing condemnation, but she just stared poker-faced at Larkin. She really must have been pissed at Walton. Still I couldn’t be that big of an asshole. “Look,” I continued, “we’ve got a plague your loving and caring corporate offices have released into the world. I don’t know where or how they did it, or even when, except that it must have been recently. But they’ve made us—regular humans—carriers of an illness that can wipe out the synthetic population.”

  “To say nothing,” Tia interjected, “of what could happen if the virus mutates. I’m sure your geneticists and virologists are top of their fields, but no one can control for all the possible variables and mutations. A few dozen generations of viral evolution and we might find ourselves with something that could wipe every primate off the face of the planet.” That was certainly a sobering thought that hadn’t occurred to me. Could the plague make the leap from synthetic to human? And why not, when we’d been saying all along that there really weren’t any differences between the two?