by Neal Asher
He also felt a strange dread when he found he could not plumb the depths of this clarity of thought and drew a line beyond which he would go only when necessary. As he drew that line he realised why he could think like this: the parasite. To it his body was a tool for its own survival and his brain was part of that tool. It had improved the function of his brain just as it had improved the function of the rest of his body. He understood that he was not under any more direct control than a normal person is by the imperatives of survival. His actions had been controlled by his own mind; instinctive, unconscious. The parasite was using his mind for what it did best: for thinking. It was not controlling his thoughts. This was just another aspect of the parasite’s growth and had been going on for some time. How else had he managed to control his parasite-augmented body?
A terrible clarity and nuance of meaning infected his thoughts and seemed to recur to infinity, yet it did not make him unhappy. What had he been before but a slavish machine for the passing on of his own genes? Now he was a slave to the parasite ... and he was the parasite, or was that the right word? Was the right word now symbiosis, mutualism, or should there be any kind of separation at all?
None, he realized. I am the parasite.
Jack leant his head back against the headrest and felt at one with himself. It was almost a religious experience, though perhaps it had more contentment than such. A deep calm filled him and from that calm he gazed out again and viewed his situation. He studied the chair again, inspected the bracing that held his arms. What is the extent of my control over my body? How much stronger could I make one arm?
Jack tried to lift his arm. There was no movement. He concentrated and threw all his strength into it. The chair creaked. He increased the pressure until sweat broke out on his forehead and his muscles were burning.
Something cracked.
He was getting angry. He knew it was the wrong thing to do, but he could not help himself. For too many years he had seen the trail of broken bodies and grief this woman had left behind her and was too involved. He abruptly turned away from the table and faced the wall whilst he tried to get himself under control. Sune Jean Rhienz, I could kill you now without the slightest regret. He turned back to the table.
The plastiskin on Sune Jean’s face was a source of infinite satisfaction to Saphron. He regretted that they still had to hold Jack Smith in custody. The man deserved his freedom.
‘Okay, we’ll forget about the other victims for a moment. The scanner technician Halson claims one of your men injected him with a genetic venom.’
‘Genetic venom? What’s that?’
‘Don’t fuck me about. Even if you are as innocent as you claim you would know what a genetic venom is. You have the qualifications.’
‘Ah yes,’ Sune Jean leant forwards, put her elbows on the table, and began to toy with her plastic cup. Chinese water torture. ‘I think ... I recollect now. It’s been such a long time since I took my doctorate... Gene specific ... venoms tailored to an individual’s genetic code. They’re very difficult to trace and the antivenins are almost impossible to make unless, of course, you were the one who tailored the venom. Am I right?’
‘You know you are.’
‘Really?’
‘We want you to give us the formulation of the venom you gave Halson.’
‘I thought you said one of my men gave it to Halson.’
‘Don’t play semantics with me!’ Saphron cracked his hand down on the table. The plastic cup leapt into the air, its dregs spilling in a small pool. Sune Jean watched the cup expressionlessly as it rolled off the table. Saphron glanced at the officer at the door, then stepped back.
‘There will be certain benefits for you if you give us this formulation.’
Sune Jean began to write in the spilt tea. ‘If, as you say, I am guilty of the crimes you have described, I cannot see what benefits there could be. One death more or less would not alter the penalty ... the ultimate sanction of the law...’
Saphron felt a horrible coldness. She just did not care. He should have realized this from her indifferent response when he asked she wanted a lawyer present.
‘I suppose I would be wasting my time if I appealed to your better nature?’
Sune Jean glanced up at him and smiled, then dipped her head down again and continued to doodle strange and curious shapes in the tea. Saphron turned away and and slammed out of the room. ‘Bitch, bloody bitch!’
‘Er, sir...’
Saphron glanced around and saw that Jennifer, his secretary, was standing next to him. He noticed how pretty she was, just like Sune Jean had been before Jack Smith smashed her face. Strange how meaningless exteriors could be.
‘What is it? What do you want?’
‘Two representatives of World Health have arrived: Professor Jane Ulreas and Chris Golem. They’re waiting in your office.’
Saphron glared at the door to the interrogation room holding Sune Jean. Perhaps this was what he needed; something else to do, some time to distance himself again. He nodded and set off down the corridor, Jennifer tagging along behind like an anxious terrier.
‘Chief Inspector Saphron,’ he said as he finally entered his office.
The two people sitting before his cluttered office turned to watch him, creepily in complete harmony. So, these were Professor Jane Ulreas and Chris Golem – two people with entirely different names. Yet, with their identical grey suits, cropped blond hair, their shared stillness and the lack of expression on their very similar faces, they could have been twins.
The blank-faced woman stood up. ‘It is imperative that we see Jack Smith immediately,’ she said.
The blank-faced man stood up also, reaching down to pick up a heavy briefcase.
After an hour he had to desist, feeling drained and his arm like bruised meat in a tin. When, shortly after that, a nurse came to him, a sure sign his condition was known amongst the medical staff of the station, he realized he was now a patient as well as a prisoner. The nurse brought him a sparse meal of soup and bread. He swore at her.
‘Now Mr Smith there’s no need for that.’
‘Prison fare, is that it? Bread and water?’
‘We didn’t think you would want—’
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, and he was.
‘I’ll see what can be done,’ she said, standing.
Abruptly he altered his tone. ‘Sorry, not your fault. I guess they gave you no instructions concerning extra nutrition. The parasite you know...’
She looked uncomfortable. Her lips formed into an oh. He knew there would have been no such instructions and he did not want her to check. He gave her his most sincere smile.
‘I need a high protein and sugar diet else there’s a chance I’ll go into coma.’ He noted to himself there the pun about comets before he went on, ‘At the moment I’m pretty depleted. I need a quantity of glucose drinks, high solution – a litre or so – and something like eggs or steak. Can you get that for me?’ He smiled again.
The nurse continued to stare at him as if hypnotised. Jack realized he was listening to her heartbeat and the rhythm of her breathing. He saw then what he had been doing on an unconscious level and brought it to consciousness. He changed his tone and continued to speak, fixing her gaze with his and moving his head slightly from side to side.
‘You’ll get these for me. Yes, you will won’t you? Plenty of glucose drinks, perhaps more than a litre? Two litres? Three litres? You’ll be the best judge of that of course. And eggs, don’t forget the eggs. A dozen eggs. Raw. You can break them into the drinks. Yes, that would be best. Hurry back.’
The nurse turned away, shaking her head as if she had passed through cobwebs. Her palm against the panel by the door opened it for her and she was soon gone. Jack closed his eyes. He was shaking. What am I? The answer came to him in a hundred ways in shouts and whispers.
The nurse returned in less than twenty minutes and in a daze she fed him three litres of a saturated solution of glucose with raw eggs
broken into it. As he gulped Jack could feel his stomach distending and when he had finished he could feel it emptying. Energy flowed into him like an adrenaline rush.
‘You may leave now.’
The nurse stood and turned for the door.
‘Wait.’ Jack paused. He had been about to ask her to leave the door open but decided he had better not push his luck. There were limits. He knew, for example, that there was no way she would release him from the chair. ‘Thank you,’ he said, instead.
The nurse smiled and went on her way, closing the door behind her. Immediately Jack concentrated on his right arm. The burning was like acid in his veins, the force of his arm that of a hydraulic ram, and the sound of cracking ceramal, angelic music. He peered down at his arm, released now. It was swollen and bruised yet only flesh. What am I? He wondered yet again. And as he went on to junk the chair he said to himself, ‘Jack Smith.’ It was the only answer that sufficed.
Saphron ignored their obvious anxiety to get to Jack Smith and headed for sanctuary behind his desk. He noted that Jennifer had followed him in and was waiting by the door, her expression perplexed. He was about to tell her to leave, then changed his mind since this was her area after all and she would be working with these two, no doubt.
Once seated, he took a moment to arrange some papers and position his note screen. It was a bureaucratic pause – a way of asserting authority.
‘Please sit down,’ he said, in his most peremptory tone. The two looked at each other. Silent agreement seemed to pass between them. They sat.
‘Now, why this great anxiety to see Jack Smith? We have him in confinement and the situation is under control. And hopefully, I have no great need to remind you that you are here in an advisory capacity.’
As always it was the woman who spoke. ‘The parasite as described by your colleague is the reason for our haste. It was first discovered in Brazil–’
‘Brazil?’ Saphron interrupted. ‘That ties in. This Jack Smith recently flew over from there. Do go on.’
‘The problem with this parasite is that we do not as yet know how it is transmitted or infectiousness it might be. In the interests of everybody’s health we must first determine if it is the same parasite and then bring about suitable quarantine ... precautions.’
Saphron nodded affably. What she said made sense, yet there was something here that did not quite gel. He was unsure about these two, so pulled over his note screen, accessed the Internet and casually he began to make inquiries.
‘It would seem this parasite has some pretty strange effects on its host,’ he said. ‘We thought he had cybernetic implants. It took a number of stuns from a remote drone to bring him down and he still managed to scrap it with a fifty–’
There was a phut like the sound of someone swatting a fly.
Saphron glanced up in time to see Jennifer jerk back, hit the door, bounce and sprawl on the floor. Blood pumped out of the wet hollow in the back of her head. Saphron stared at her without comprehension for a moment then slowly turned to face the blank-faced woman. She held a small silenced pistol pointed rigidly at his forehead.
‘You will lift your hands very slowly away from that note screen. You will not press one more key.’
There was a key that lay half an inch from his little finger under a flip cap. Two seconds and alarms would be blaring and armed police battering their way into this room. Saphron well knew that the distance between his forehead and the evil black eye of that gun could be travelled by a bullet in so much less time than two seconds. He lifted his hands up into the air.
‘Why? Why did you kill her?’
‘She realized. It was obvious. She was also excess baggage.’ The woman glanced at her partner and nodded at the still quivering body on the floor. The man stood, walked over and picked up the corpse in one hand, dragged it to concealment one side of Saphron’s desk.
‘What do you want?’
‘You will come out from behind that desk, very carefully. My brother will search you. Should you attempt anything stupid my brother will break your hands.’
As he stood up and moved to obey Saphron said, ‘You don’t work for World Health, I take it.’ In any other situation that comment might have been humorous, but the blood and the brains on the floor and the warm corpse hunched by his desk were not the best elements of comedy.
‘You are most observant.’ Irony negated by her blank expression. While her brother searched Saphron thoroughly and professionally, she continued, ‘Shortly you will lower your hands to your sides and take us to Jack Smith’s cell. Should you attempt anything stupid my brother will break your hands.’
Like robots, thought Saphron, using the same phrase with same meaning, and feeling no need to change it for aesthetic purposes. He lowered his hands as her brother backed away from him, frustrated as a pen spring under a brick. He noted that, as she stood, the barrel of the woman’s gun wavered not one millimetre from its aim at the centre of his forehead. It could have been fixed there with a steel rod.
‘Now, open the door and wait. When you are tapped on the shoulder, advance into the corridor three paces. When you hear the door close behind you, you may continue on to the cell block. Incidentally, we know where the cell block is and the security procedure for getting in there. The latter is the reason you are still alive.’
Saphron opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. The door closed behind him and he advanced with sweat slick on his back. It frightened him more than he liked to admit that he could not hear them walking behind him. Halfway down the corridor, the woman spoke again.
‘My weapon is now concealed, but it would be best for you understand that I can draw it and fire it faster than you can turn. This though, would not be necessary. My brother could break your neck even faster.’That flat emotionless voice was almost as frightening as the silence.
At the end of the corridor Saphron turned right. A secretary came out of an office holding a box of memory crystals, and nodded and smiled at him as she passed. Saphron wondered what he would do if they came upon an armed officer, sentence him to death? As it transpired they reached the barred doors to the cell block without event.
‘Place your hand on the palm lock. When the door opens continue on to Jack Smith’s cell.’
Saphron nodded, then placed his hand on the square to one side of the door and it slid open with a quiet hiss. He advanced. Excess baggage, that’s what she said. He realized with growing horror that, as soon as he opened the door to Jack Smith’s cell, he would become just that. The cell lay ahead of him, there, to the right. He had to do something.
‘I–’ he began, and jerked to one side as he said it. With a loud crash the door to Jack Smith’s cell hit the opposite wall. The pistol fired twice as Saphron dropped to the floor and rolled. As he came up in a crouch, ready to run, he just froze in shock seeing the armoured door thump down in the corridor. What the hell? He glanced at the two killers, realizing he had missed the chance to act. I’m dead, he thought, but the two were ignoring him.
‘Now!’ shrieked the woman. ‘The APW!’
Oh shit! Saphron put his arms over his head as an empty briefcase hit the floor beside him. An actinic purple flash took his vision away momentarily, yet in the moment of that flash he thought he saw a shape moving impossibly fast. A tremendous explosion shook the building. Saphron felt himself lifted from the floor by shock wave, his ears ringing, masonry falling all around him, the smell of burning plastic in his nostrils. The corridor filled with dust as he tried to blink back his vision. Finally he saw the male killer’s feet before his face, the APW lying junked beside them, then he glanced up and saw, as the man toppled, that he had no head. A voice impinged then over the ringing in Saphron’s ears.
‘I understand now. So clear. TCC allowed me to get away with the memory crystals to avoid quarantine restrictions on that last load of ice. It’s so obvious. Now they are in trouble. For that small amount of profit they gambled billions and now they are losing. I suppose
they did not see it that way. The parasite I carried then was a small risk.’
Saphron rolled over to a sight that warmed his heart. Jack Smith had one hand around the woman’s throat, pinning her against the wall with her feet off the ground. He seemed oblivious to the fact that her face was turning blue.
‘It could be said then that I am the only tangible evidence against them, or rather, against the Toad ... is that not so?’ Abruptly he noticed the woman’s condition and lowered her to the ground. But as she gasped for breath he did not release his hold.
‘You are a killer employed by TCC. Not too bright though. You’re still dressed in TCC businesswear. No matter.’ He stopped to consider for a moment, then continued. ‘You won’t be the last. Whilst I remain a threat to him the Toad will continue to send killers after me until I am dead.’
‘We can get them,’ said Saphron, then coughed the dust from his throat.
Jack deigned to notice him. ‘I think not, Detective Inspector Saphron. I doubt that there is enough evidence against TCC or the Toad, and even if there is enough evidence the legal branch of TCC will tie up the courts for the next century. No. The Toad must be brought to book another way. I feel a personal affront.’
‘But–’ Saphron got no further. Jack’s hand jerked up and twisted with a horribly gristly crunch, the woman gagging, her legs kicking. Then in a moment Jack was gone, even before the woman hit the floor to make her last futile spastic attempts at life. Saphron felt no inclination to assist her.
Chapter 8
‘Flight sector 16.23 east is closed to all aerial traffic. This sector is for use of emergency services only. If you wish to enter this sector please approach the ground cordon. This is a recorded message. Flight sector –’
