Taji's Syndrome

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  It was almost dark when Jeff and Susannah left Alexa. They had come to a distrustful understanding that troubled all three of them.

  “Well, what do you think?” Jeff asked as they drove into the town of Golden.

  “I think you’d better be right or she’ll kill you.” Susannah opened her purse and checked the three filled tapes. “And I hope we can mine a few nuggets from all this. She sure had a rough time of it.”

  “It isn’t over yet,” Jeff reminded her sadly.

  —Sylvia Kostermeyer and Weyman Muggridge—

  When the alarm went off at six-thirty, Weyman found it and flung it across the room without raising his head from the pillow.

  “Hey,” Sylvia protested as she heard the clock break. “I like that clock.”

  “I’ll get you another,” he mumbled. “But promise not to set it for earlier than eight.” He was lying facedown; he rolled onto his side as he reached out his arm to pull her closer. “How much time have we got?”

  “Depends on whether you want breakfast.” She smiled faintly and kissed the corner of his mouth.

  “What if we get coffee and rolls at the office?” He nuzzled her neck.

  “What about shower and shave?” she asked, this time grinning.

  “Probably a wise idea. If I have my wicked way with you right now, you’ll look like you’ve been sandpapered.” To demonstrate he rubbed his chin over her shoulder.

  “They wouldn’t see most of it, would they?” She was pleased and shocked with herself for how she was acting. Last night she had been astonished to realize how intense her desire for him was, and how wholly unselfconscious she felt with him. Was that what being abandoned meant? She had never done or said such things.

  “They’d know. But who cares?” He tussled with her playfully, kissing her between growls.

  “Weyman?” she asked seriously a bit later.

  “What?” He had caught her tone; he braced himself on his elbows, his face only inches from hers, and looked her directly in her eyes. “Something the matter?”

  “Did I . . . shock you?” She could not meet his gaze.

  “You sure did,” he said, grinning lazily.

  “I . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “You shocked me the best possible way, by giving me exactly who and what you are, no lies, no deception, no frills, no bells and whistles, just whole, real you. It’s the best possible shock in the world, you know that?” He kissed her nose.

  “It didn’t bother you?” She was starting to feel better, as if she might not have wrecked it after all.

  “You mean worried or troubled me? no. Not in the least.” He took her face in his hands. “What does bother me, Sylvia Ingrid Kostermeyer, is that you seem to think you’ve done something that might offend me. What makes you think that?” He watched her closely, with warmth in his eyes.

  “Oh, nothing.” She had to suppress a giggle and did not entirely succeed.

  “Tell me, Sylvia. Please. I want to know.” He rolled onto his back and pulled her across his chest. “God, you feel good.”

  “So do you,” she said, growing a little bolder.

  “Go on; tell me.” He held her close without restraining her. “Sylvia.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said.

  “Now you are giving me ribbons and bow and bells and whistles. I like you better just as you are. If you don’t want to talk about it, say so. But you can tell me anything. I mean that.” Suddenly he broadened his accent. “Hell, chile, I growed up in the mountains an’ there ain’t nothing I ain’t seen or heard of.” He watched her smile and felt some of the tension go out of her. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gentle. “Sylvia dear Sylvia dear Sylvia, nothing you could say would change my feeling about you, for you. No matter what you have done or might do.” He pulled her tumbled hair back. “You can trust me, Sylvia. Truly.”

  “I wish . . . I wish I could believe you,” she said, and bit her lip to stop herself from crying.

  “No more than I do, Sylvia,” Weyman said.

  “Why can’t you simply take this for what it is,” she began only to have him interrupt her. “Enjoy the moment.”

  “That’s what I’m doing. But there’s more than a moment. This isn’t a fling.” His hands were still and his eyes grew solemn. “Word of honor.”

  “What makes you think it’s not? We’re thrown together for a short time during a crisis. Everything is tense and frightening. We’re working against time and an invisible enemy; we’ve got so much at stake. It’s perfect for a fling, for trying to find something positive and fun in the ruins.” She was astonished to hear how angry she was, to feel the tightness in her shoulders and arms as if she wanted to lash out at him. “If we weren’t investigating TS, this never would have happened.”

  “That’s true. We met because of a horrible disease. TS might be our matchmaker, but I refuse to feel guilty about it.” He waited, holding her, and after four long minutes had passed, he asked, “Are you trying to drive me away, is that it? Are you hoping to get rid of me?”

  She brought her head up so quickly that she clipped his chin. “What?”

  “Well, that is what you’re trying to do, isn’t it? I’m getting too close. You’re scared to death that you might want me to stay, and so you’ll drive me away to keep from having me leave.” His hands moved slowly, languidly over her back. “Since I’m not going, it’s kinda dumb, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not . . . Weyman, it’s not that.” She lowered her head so that she would not have to look into his face. His lean, craggy features held no secrets from her and she saw no deception there.

  “Appears pretty much like it to me.” He continued to hold her. “Better listen up, Sylvia, because I’m putting you on notice right now. I am not leaving. I am not walking out. I am going to stay with you until one or the other of us is six feet under. That isn’t wartime panic talking, it’s the way we are together: work, sex, dinner, all of it.”

  “That might be pretty soon—the six feet under, I mean,” she said, and swallowed hard against the cold tightness that had not left her throat. “With TS all over the place, who knows how long any of us is—”

  “Who knows anyway? You might have another quake any day now, and it might be a really big one that will do more than wreck a few old buildings and roads. You might eat something that’s contaminated. You might be stricken with any number of illnesses. You could choke on a chicken bone. You might get run over by a car or shot by a burglar or—”

  “Stop it,” she said, not quite able to laugh. “Stop it, Weyman.”

  “You can’t spend your whole life wondering when it’s all going to fall apart, Sylvia. It isn’t that it’s going to end that matters, but what you do in the meantime. The meantime is what it’s all about, not the end. You can’t let that keep you in a box. Boxes are for when you’re dead, not when you’re alive.” He wrapped his long arms more tightly around her. “Who walked out on you? Who made you so afraid? Can you tell me?”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, her face away from his. “Nothing’s ever certain.”

  Gently he stroked her hair. “No, it’s not.”

  “And if you depend on it, you’ll be disappointed or hurt.” She started to cry, and did not know how to make herself stop.

  “Hey, hey.” Lying beneath her, he rocked her slowly. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Sylvia. Go on.”

  “What’s the point?” she asked, but her tears continued.

  “It doesn’t need a point. It’s okay.”

  Quite suddenly she turned her head and kissed him, her mouth open and insistent.

  “Hey,” he said when she broke away from him. “Sylvia, if that’s what you want, I’ll do it. If you want a hard, fast, deep fuck, you can have it. I won’t object. But there’s more, if you
want it; more than you or I ever dreamed of. And God, God, I hope you want it. I hope you won’t be scared away.” This last was a plea, and it reached a part of her she had tried to hold inviolate.

  She collapsed on him, her sobs deep and anguished. She caught the sheet in her hands and held it so tightly that it tore. She did not know what brought about this overwhelming emotion, but she could not stop it now. “I can’t I can’t I can’t,” she chanted as she wept.

  “Yes, you can,” Weyman said, feeling an echo of her pain in him. “For me.” He held her until it was over. “That’s better,” he said, kissing her forehead and her eyelids. “Good for you.”

  “Shit, I’m ashamed of myself. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Stop that,” he said with stern kindness. “Don’t say that.”

  “Say what?” She wanted to get up now, but could not get out of the circle of his arms. It was the strangest thing, she thought with a still, remote part of her mind. He did not seem to be holding her tightly, but she could not break free of him.

  “Say you’re ashamed of yourself. You have no reason to be. None whatever.” He kissed her slowly, thoroughly. “No reason.”

  “Weyman . . .”

  Very quietly he whispered “Shut up,” before he gave her a longer, more complex kiss, one that left both of them slightly breathless. “How much time have we got?”

  “An hour, tops, and that means a short shower,” she said as she peered at her watch on the nightstand. “Just a wash, nothing more.”

  “Terrific,” he said, his smile widening. “I’ll hurry.”

  “Hurry?” she asked incredulously. “An hour?”

  “Haven’t you heard that us country boys like to take our time?” he teased, his hand sliding over her hip, fingers sensitive and playful at once.

  “I heard quite the opposite, but never mind.” She was doing her best to match his bantering tone, but her attention was increasingly on the subtle and marvelous things he was doing to her, and doing so casually, so . . . laconically. It was so wonderful not to be rushed, she thought, and resolutely turned away from her watch.

  “I’m going to shift you over a little,” Weyman said from beneath her. “I can’t reach everything unless I do.” He wiggled his hand to show her what he meant and she inhaled sharply.

  “Go ahead.” If anyone had asked her the day before, Sylvia would have said it was impossible for her to forget the catastrophe that had struck San Diego, even for a moment: she found out now this was not so. For an undetermined length of time there was only Weyman, his hands, his mouth, the smell and taste and texture and weight of him, the way they moved together in the bars of morning sunlight across the bed. All the rest of it faded. Even while they rushed through the shower and he shaved while she tried to salvage her hair, TS hardly crossed her mind. It returned as they raced to the car, and started toward the Expressway.

  They walked into their morning meeting five minutes late and were confronted by the five men in uniform they had seen not long ago.

  “I’m sorry,” Weyman said while Sylvia was still trying to think up a plausible excuse for their tardiness. “My fault. I took a wrong turn on the Expressway. Serves me right for insisting on driving in a city I don’t know. God knows how much later I’d be if Doctor Kostermeyer hadn’t been with me.” He had put his attaché case on the conference table and had pulled out a chair for Sylvia as he spoke.

  “We could arrange for a driver for you,” offered Captain Jacob Lorrimer.

  “A good map would do,” Weyman told him. “Provided I have the sense to use it.”

  “One of my assistants could prepare an orientation for you, Doctor Muggridge,” offered Commander Tolliver. “I have a staff that will be happy to assist you if you like.”

  “Doctor Kostermeyer does a fine job, as well as providing an opportunity to discuss the investigation, which I doubt your staff could do, or would be allowed to do,” said Weyman as he pulled papers from the case. “And five minutes isn’t that crucial, is it?”

  The men in uniform exchanged glances but said nothing. “Doctor Muggridge has updated figures on TS, most of them are . . . are not optimistic.” Sylvia took her place beside Weyman and started going through a few of the printouts. “We’ve been instructed to go back to the first reported cases of TS and to determine as much as possible about those who first died of it.”

  “We received the formal requests for assistance,” said Tolliver. “We have also agreed to provide fifteen quarantine beds in the Naval Hospital and the Naval Air Hospital, as well as twenty quarantine beds at the Marine Hospital.” He looked at Weyman as if expecting gratitude.

  “Good to hear it,” said Weyman when he realized what was required. “I have another request, if you can help me.”

  “Of course,” said Tolliver smoothly.

  “My colleague, Doctor Klausen, in Portland, has been trying to learn about the present location of a James Joseph Jackson of Twin Falls, Idaho. He’s a high school athletic coach and he contracted TS in January. He was moved to a VA hospital and we can’t get any more information on him. I’d appreciate it if you could unsnarl the red tape.” He looked from Tolliver to Colonel Packard. “I don’t know what service he was in.”

  “We’ll take care of it. In a situation like this, it’s probably a simple question of misfiling.” Captain Lorrimer nodded and the officers sat down. “We have a request that I understand has encountered some resistance from your Atlanta organization, Doctor Muggridge.”

  “Oh?” Weyman said innocently, trying to figure out what the military might want in return for their help with Coach Jackson.

  “Yes,” Commander Tolliver said, taking over from Lorrimer. “We can’t understand why the National Center for Disease Control would refuse to answer the Executive Security Agency’s requests for information about TS and its victims, especially in matters of public health risk where the few survivors are concerned.”

  “Probably because we don’t know what kind of risk the survivors are,” Weyman suggested with every appearance of bonhomie.

  Packard and Tolliver exchanged looks; Lorrimer said, “It could be a matter of national security.”

  “Yeah, it could,” said Weyman, not quite concealing the sharpness of his response. “But so far there is no reason we know of to think that it is. We have possibly five survivors to assess with a disease we do not yet understand. It is impossible to determine the extent and nature of the hazard they present, if any. We are not yet in a position to appreciate the long-term effects of TS. And until that’s the case, we’ d be remiss in turning over what are confidential files under the Right to Privacy Act. I guess the NCDC doesn’t want to be sued.”

  “Possibly not,” said Packard. “But there are others who might bring suit if the request isn’t honored.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Not that we’d want anything like that to happen.”

  “I bet,” Weyman said, catching Sylvia’s hand in his under the table. “We have a responsibility to protect the public and to guard the health of the nation. Just as those in the ESA are obligated to protect the personal safety of the President and his cabinet. Occasionally the immediate goals of our work would seem to clash, but that’s rarely the case, when you examine the question more objectively.”

  “We are satisfied that there is a high degree of risk,” Commander Tolliver insisted.

  “No argument,” Weyman said at his blandest. “But what kind and to whom. That’s the part we can’t answer yet.”

  Colonel Packard stared at Weyman, the weight of his gaze intended to intimidate. “You realize that President Hunter is considering establishing martial law in this part of the country because of TS.”

  “And I know he has decided against it,” said Weyman, his affability gone. “It looks to me, gentlemen, as if you are after something and you will not say what. T
hat troubles me. Because as a civilian I outrank you, in case you had forgotten. I am not inclined to be bullied into providing you with information you have obviously been unable to obtain through usual channels.” He gathered up his materials and squeezed Sylvia’s hand again. “Until I have a better understanding of what my superiors have decided, I think: it would be best if we postpone this meeting. Another can be arranged in two days.” As he put the last of the printouts into his attaché case, he added, “I hope you will not withdraw the offer of quarantine beds. All the rest of what we’ve said this morning was jockeying, but that could mean the difference between life and death for someone with TS, and that is what matters, isn’t it?” He stood up, letting go of Sylvia’s hand. “You know, gentlemen, it’s a mistake to ignore Doctor Kostermeyer because she is merely an epidemiologist for the state. She probably knows more about TS than anyone from Atlanta does.” With that, he opened the door for her and followed her out of the room.

  “I wanted to kill them,” she muttered as they waited for the elevator.

  “Me first,” said Weyman, and as the doors of the elevator closed and they rode down, he said, “We’ve got to hurry, Whatever they’re fishing for, we’ve got to find before they do or we’ll lose what little edge we have.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “You mean they scared you? You didn’t show it, if they did.”

  “Why give them an advantage?” he asked, and as the door opened, he added, “Sylvia my darling, I’ve been terrified for the last two months.”

  —Jeff Taji and Dale Reed—

  “I’m sorry about Doctor Picknor,” said Jeff to Dale Reed as they left the enormous new University Medical Center.

  “I feel I’m responsible,” said Dale, his head lowered and his eyes wetter than usual. “He got involved in this because of me and now look at him. Did you see the ACTH readings? Even if we could bring his blood under control. what would we do about that?”

  “I can’t answer you,” Jeff said. “But I hope your Missus Channing will give us a clue.” He made his way between the parked cars to his rented Comet. “How far is the private hospital?”