by Cody Sisco
Circe said, “Samuel’s transfer is going to be complicated, legally speaking. Unless the Human Life movement is a legally recognized entity?” Circe looked at Wonda with the dead-eyed face Victor knew she used to hide what she really meant.
Wonda blinked. “I would have to ask Del about that.”
“Then I think we’re done here for now, don’t you?”
Samuel, appearing calmer, was taken back to his room. Just before the door closed, he locked eyes with Victor and said, “Help me—you promised. I’ll hold you to it.”
It took several minutes for all the Lifers and BioScan staff to make their way down the hill. As they were nearing the administration building, one of the security guards rushed over.
“Chief! Karine! We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Circe asked.
“We asked the demonstrators to move off the property to keep the administration building clear and accessible.”
“A good idea,” Circe said.
“They agreed at first, but it was just a ruse. They’ve occupied the construction site. They’re setting up camp, chaining themselves to the equipment. What do we do?”
“We remove them,” Circe said. “Call the sheriff. I’ll get on the line to Oklahoma City and see what national resources we can get. Protests are one thing. I won’t tolerate interference like this.”
“But people will be hurt!” Wonda said.
“This can end peacefully,” Tosh said. He smiled broadly, pulled out two stunsticks, pointed one in each hand at the security guards and fired.
Two bodies dropped. The rest, Victor included, wobbled a bit, residual Dirac forces scrambling the bystanders’ neurons. Tosh dropped the third and last guard. He said, “It can end peacefully, but that’s not how it starts.”
Five Lifers crowded close and more were forming a perimeter.
“What’s this?” Karine asked indignantly.
“Confinement,” Tosh said. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re not making any calls.”
“Tosh, don’t do this,” Victor said.
“We’re not leaving without Samuel,” Wonda said. She’d looked surprised by Tosh firing the stunstick, but now she seemed to be taking charge. Victor imagined her nimble mind working out a new plan second by second. “BioScan is going to agree to change how it operates. We want a signed legal agreement before we let you go.”
“You planned this?” Victor asked. “That whole thing with Samuel was a show?”
“Of course not,” she said, looking surprised. “It’s Emergence.”
Karine laughed. “We’re not agreeing to anything, and everything negotiated under duress would be unenforceable anyway.”
Circe spoke up, “We should at least hear what they have to say.”
Victor looked at his aunt. Her face was unreadable. And that was the scariest thing of all.
PART SIX
38
You wouldn’t tie your feet together before you run a marathon. You wouldn’t close your eyes to paint a masterpiece. So why would you allow your brain to rot on Mesh feeds and propaganda and then expect democracy to deliver results?
—BrAiNhAcKeR Collective
15 June 1991
New Venice, The Louisiana Territories
Tosh confiscated electronics and issued orders to the Lifers, dictating who got tied up, locked up, or sedated. Circe cooperated, sending home most of the BioScan staff, including all the security guards who hadn’t been rendered unconscious, by saying she wanted to minimize exposure to a potentially contagious pathogen, which she blamed on one of the stim addicts.
Patients who could be discharged were. A skeleton crew of nurses remained to deal with a few newly admitted stim addicts in the midst of withdrawal, a man who needed treatment for excess iron in his blood, and Florence Eastmore, who was experiencing cardiac arrhythmia. Within thirty minutes, the BioScan campus was locked down.
“We’re going to settle this peacefully,” Circe explained. She was leveling a hard gaze at Karine, who wasn’t on the cooperation bandwagon. “C’est de la merde,” she kept repeating. “Le monde est fou.”
Circe ordered Karine to cooperate. “You too,” she said to Victor.
“I’m no hero,” Victor said.
Tosh showed the hostages a vidfeed of the demonstration at the construction site. Judging by the high angle and wobbly frame, the vidcapper was probably a hovering drone. “Ozie is hacking MeshNews. These images are going out around the world.”
Alia asked, “What are you telling the demonstrators about us? Do they know you’re taking hostages?”
Tosh grimaced.
“They don’t know, do they?” Alia said. “You’re not being honest with them.”
Wonda raised her voice so everyone could hear. “I’m going to say this once. If any of you tells anyone what we’re doing here, there will be consequences, starting with Florence Eastmore.”
“You can’t be serious,” Alia said.
“I am,” Wonda replied.
“They’re doing what they think is right,” Tosh said. “So are we.”
“Look,” Alia said, turning to Tosh, “we’re willing to listen to your grievances. But you have to be reasonable. Let’s make a deal.”
Tosh asked, “What do you have in mind?”
“If I can convince the demonstrators to leave, will you release us?” Alia was shorter than Tosh but somehow seemed the bigger one at that moment. Beautiful, principled, willing to do what was necessary.
“Are you proposing a wager?” Tosh asked, his eyebrows rising. A grin spread across his face. “This isn’t a game, sweetie.”
“Then you don’t have to worry about losing.” Alia turned and began walking up the path.
Tosh grunted, handed a stunstick to one of the Lifers wearing a Venetian mask, and told him to stay close to Alia. Three other Lifers escorted Circe and Karine to the administration building. Tosh pulled Victor by the arm toward the construction site.
“I’d recruit her in a heartbeat,” Wonda said, catching up with them. There was a hungry look in her eyes as she watched Alia walking away.
“She would never join you,” Victor said. “It’s beneath her.”
Wonda gave him a hurt look, wiped a tear—was it a real one?—and said, “I don’t know why I’m still surprised how hurtful you can be.”
“You’re still surprised I’m not a blank puppet all the time,” Victor replied. He shrugged away from Tosh and picked up his pace to walk with Alia.
They reached the lip of the foundation pit, a pair of squares etched into the hillside, open toward New Venice. There was little dirt to be seen. Enough tents had been erected to house a good chunk of New Venice’s population. It reminded Victor of the slums surrounding Oakland & Bayshore but on a smaller scale. He spotted four drones hovering ten meters above the crowd.
A cheer rose up among the demonstrators. People were gathered around a makeshift stage made of wooden pallets, a flimsy and treacherous ziggurat that allowed a speaker to be seen while addressing the crowd.
“We are here to demand accountability,” the man in the white robe said. He was wearing a mask that covered his eyes and gave him a long pointy nose but left his mouth free to pontificate in a voice Victor didn’t recognize. “The clinic has gone far beyond its mandate to heal the sick and care for our community. We know there are genetic experiments going on right under our noses with no oversight. The work of this clinic puts our health at risk, and it defiles the purity of our bodies. It defies the natural order. It makes us into monsters.”
“No more monsters!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“Except on Halloween,” someone responded, and there was a round of laughter.
Victor turned to Alia, “They think this is fun?”
She shook her head. “They’re not thinking about the consequences. They just want to feel empowered. I knew some people begrudged the Eastmores’ control over the town, but I never thought it was this bad.”
Th
e man continued, “We demand an end to testing and treatment of the preborn. Let nature take its course. We demand an end to stem cell research. Let nature take its course. We demand an end to gene therapy and genetic engineering of all life, from humans to single-celled organisms. Let nature take its course!”
“Hooray for cancer,” Alia muttered disdainfully.
On the outskirts of the tent city, a group of townies watched, grumbling to each other. Their group grew as tourists wandered by, asked what was going on, and then stayed to watch. A separate group carrying signs—“Save New Venice,” “Trash Goes in the Garbage,” “Lifers Out,” and “Save Our Healthcare”—crossed the bridge and joined the counterprotest. Del and a few of his loyalists stood on the outskirts of the tent city, wearing normal clothing rather than Lifer robes.
The speaker continued, “We demand an end to research without accountability that threatens humanity and the sanctity of our bodies and our divine genetic code.”
“Let nature take its course!” the crowd shouted. It was amazing how the man had set up a call and response pattern, Victor thought. Had they practiced or did the group-think of a hundred people suffice? They were like birds flying together that turned at the same time, spontaneously organizing. Emergence, he thought. This is Emergence. It felt like a cloud lifting from his brain, the insight was that powerful. It was all simply happening now because it couldn’t have happened before. The tensions and conflicts that normally created stasis had reoriented and now pointed in the same direction. Slight predispositions and innocuous conversations had built up to a moment when everything switched into higher gear, the wheel of progress turned, and humanity surged forward in a blind race to the top.
Or perhaps the bottom, depending on how you looked at it. Ozie was beaming this footage around the world. Who knew what impact it would have?
“We are many! We are strong! This gathering is one of hundreds that will rise up throughout the American Union and the world. We will protect humanity from harmful technologies and safeguard our survival. Our demands must be met. Let nature take its course! Let nature take its course! Let nature take its course!”
Before the crowd could take up the chant and build into an unstoppable frenzy, Alia shouted from her perch, “Listen to me.” There was muttering in the crowd. Alia said, “I know you don’t all agree with him. I have something to say for BioScan.”
“Shut her up!” someone yelled.
“Let her speak,” Del countered. He and his loyalists pressed through the forest of tents to form a tight pocket of resistance in the midst of the Lifers.
Alia said, “I understand your concerns about the research conducted here. I do. However, we have procedures to ensure the ethical integrity of our work, to comply with all relevant laws and regulations, and to reach out to the community to hear their concerns. I welcome further discussions with you about our work here, which is vital to the health of the New Venice community. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk—that’s all I’m asking.”
“Don’t listen to her,” a woman shouted.
“Are you mental?” someone said. “Of course we can listen. This is America. We’re not afraid of words.”
“We just want all this protesting and demonstrating to end,” Victor heard a townie say in a tired voice.
Someone yelled, “It’ll end when they’re all drowned!”
Victor was growing concerned that the crowd would turn against Alia. Crowds seemed to turn more quickly than individuals. Just because there had been no violence thus far, who could say how long that would last?
“Thank you,” Alia said, “The work of this clinic and others like it have saved many lives and improved the health of many people. We have developed treatments for many otherwise incurable genetically inherited diseases. We can now screen fetuses for potential problems much earlier in a pregnancy and protect the health of mothers and their pregnancies. These advancements save lives. I’ve seen it. We are working on compounds that slow the progress of neural degenerative diseases in old age, and someday soon, we may be able to reverse the damage and bring dignity to our parents and grandparents. We know many of you support us—”
A call rang out from a young woman in a white robe: “You are killing the human soul!”
“You’re losing perspective,” Alia shouted back, the first sign of annoyance slipping through her demeanor. “We treat people of all beliefs, whether they believe in souls or not. Whether they believe in God or gods or not. Our job as scientists and doctors is not to judge the beliefs of our patients or to treat one person differently than another. We heal. If we start putting boundaries on the technologies we use, we tie our own hands. I will not allow anyone to suffer or go without treatment for the sake of another person’s beliefs. That is called bullying.” She looked at the woman who had called out to her with a surprising ferocity. Some people in the crowd looked down at their feet.
“Are you done?” Wonda asked her.
Alia shrugged.
Wonda smiled and turned to the crowd, “Let’s all talk about what she said, okay?” People looked around, seemed to regroup into small clusters, and began to converse.
Wonda said, “Let’s give them some time. I want to air all perspectives. Victor, what do you think?”
“How about I go into blankspace and then you ask me? That way you get a real prophecy to work with.”
“Oh, don’t tease,” she said in a light voice, but her eyes told a different story. She was hurt by his remark, and the growing distance between them had done more to sour her mood than anything else—he felt it.
“I think it’s better not to know how things end,” she said brightly. “Otherwise where’s the fun?”
Victor walked with Alia, Wonda, and Tosh to the meeting room in the administration building and found Karine and Circe sitting alone at the conference table, leaning in and talking quietly. The other BioScan staff were apparently being held separately.
“We’re here to solve a problem together, so let’s talk it out,” Wonda said in a bright voice that made Victor think fresh never tasted so foul. “Talking helps.” She gave them each the look of a teacher tolerating noncooperative students.
“Thinking has also been proven to solve problems,” Karine said. “You should try it sometime.”
“Ugly words aren’t helping,” Wonda said with a tight smile.
“Why don’t you and your friends crawl back to the bog you came from!” Karine yelled. She opened her eyes wide, put a hand to her breast, and smiled. “Phew, I do feel better,” she said.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Tosh said. His gaze dared anyone to try to leave.
“We’re going to take Samuel Miller out of your care,” Wonda said, “but that’s not all. BioScan is corrupting human life. We’re going to put a stop to it.”
Karine threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. She may have been second in command at BioScan, but it was clear to Victor, to everyone, that she wasn’t taking responsibility for the situation.
Circe stood up and immediately assumed the mantle of the adult in the room without saying a word. It was humbling to watch. Humbling and disconcerting. Victor hated that he couldn’t regain a simple love for his aunt. Every feeling he had for her was tainted and probably always would be.
He supposed that Circe, having lived in Europe for so many years, would have more experience, or at least more knowledge, about how to deal with terrorists. Though, of course, these weren’t professionals or hardened radicals like the ones they had in Europe. These were average citizens who for some reason found themselves under the sway of a charismatic leader.
“We cannot appease unreasonable demands,” Circe said.
Wonda’s eyes flashed, apparently eager for an argument. She laid out her position: a Lifer put in charge of patient care at every BioScan facility, a ban on providing any enhancement services, no medication for mirror resonance syndrome and other mental illnesses. The list went on and on.
The two Lifers gua
rding the door wore proud smiles that made them look ghoulish in their Venetian masks. That was a pronouncement from Wonda—all Lifers except her, Victor, and Tosh were to keep their masks on at all times.
Victor thought there must be a gene or something in human biology or cognitive processes that made people’s minds susceptible to such influence, that allowed strong men and shucksters to prey on their emotions, to manipulate them like Mesh programs: input fuzzy rhetoric; output crazed loyalty. Repeat and escalate, until taking sick people hostage no longer seemed like an insane endeavor. Victor wanted to scream. He knew it wouldn’t help, but he felt pressure inside him rising. He recognized the panicked, skittering feeling of his emotions breaking from his control and poised to run amok. He had to do something.
Victor walked over to the door. “Where is everyone else?” he asked Tosh.
“You don’t want a seat at the adults’ table?” Tosh joked.
“This isn’t my fight. Not yours either, is it?”
Tosh’s eyes were like black-eyed peas gone brown and moldy. “I’ll be right back,” Tosh said to Wonda and the two masked Lifers at the door.
Victor’s shoes squeaked on the floor as he and Tosh walked down the hall. Normally there would have been doors opening and closing, people rushing everywhere. Now it was so quiet he could hear the lightstrips gurgling. The high powered ones needed their feedstocks refreshed every month. There would be tanks nearby, little bioreactors where the waste was reprocessed into fuel. Did the Lifers want to get rid of those as well?
After a moment of walking, Victor stopped and stood eye to eye with Tosh. “Are you going to kill Circe?” he asked.
“Are you?” Tosh responded. He let out a long sigh. “If it was anyone else… If it had been the King or a jilted lover or some former employee with a grudge, they’d already be dead. This was family, and that’s… That’s something entirely different.”
Tosh led Victor to a room that held six med bays. A few BioScan staff were treating the remaining patients. A nurse was attending to Florence, whose hand burrowed in her blouse, massaging whatever pain blossomed in her chest. He murmured quietly to her, reassuring her that everything would be fine. When he turned and saw Victor watching, an unreadable expression formed on his face.
