The Digital Dream

by Mike Cartlidge

  Moving clumsily in the white protective suit, turning his head to peer through the Plexiglas face-piece, he punches numbers into the combination lock and steps through the double door air lock into laboratory six, tutting to himself as his foot brushes against a crumpled-up piece of note-paper. The paper was there last night. Bloody Estrada never cleans up properly.

  The computer screen sits on a bare metal table next to a line of glass-fronted cases containing jars and vials. At least Estrada has brought the new batch of samples through, he notices. Sitting in front of the terminal, he enters his ID and passwords into the computer, automatically checking the system’s list of culture samples with those he can see in the cabinets to his right. His mind wanders. Special day today, the thought bringing with it a mixture of excitement and depression. Since his wife found out about his relationship with one of the lab assistants, he’s been living in a rundown apartment in Spencer City, a far cry from the cozy brick house on the nearby base. Two weeks and he’s already begun to wonder if he’s right about the lab girl, who’s half his age and has been making increasing demands on him to move in with her. And he’s seen nothing of his wife and their daughter. His calls to what he still thinks of as home meet dull silence, followed by the sound of the receiver being replaced.

  He reads the schedule off the screen. Low-level stuff today. A strain of African animal fever, symptomatically similar to AIDS, but mild and non-toxic to humans. The philanthropists who guide our way want to see what benefits a new vaccine will have on the lab animals. First the monkeys had to be infected. Oh fuck, he thinks, not the fuckin’ monkeys.

  He runs his fingers through his thinning brown hair. He can half-see his reflection in the computer screen, mid-forties, average-looking, he figures, broad mouth and eyes just too close together. He looks like what he is, or used to be—an ordinary family man living his life in a typical mid-western small town. The thing is, he ain’t no womanizer. No way. It was just a work thing, him and the girl working late night after night, thrown together. Things just got out of control. Not that Marina, his wife, would ever understand.

  He opens the glass cabinet and removes two vials, checking their numbers against the computer screen. Batch B7173, non-hazardous, says the computer. Always believe the computer. Only people lie. The machine issues its commands and the laboratory routinely performs its function. They carry out experiments ranging from legitimate medical research on diseases to investigations of potential germ warfare agents and counter-agents. Over the last forty years, many of the world’s cures for disease and fever have originated here, lending a legitimacy to an operation which always seems to gain more publicity for its alleged darker side.

  He glances at the next shelf down and frowns in irritation. Batch A8811. Someone has stuck a label on one of the vials. A parody of a Pierre Cardin logo with the slogan “designer plague” below it. Estrada, for sure. The bastard has a sick sense of humor. Although, he thinks, “designer plague” isn’t a bad description. Cultivated from naturally occurring bacteria, the strain’s one that was created here in this lab and which exists nowhere else in the world. Tests are continuing and early signs are said to be impressive, at least to those among his colleagues who have worked on it. Very promising, these little bugs. Nice fellas. The scientific community manages a certain detachment in considering the results of its labors. Rapid effects and a good spread rate mean instant popularity. Fast in an immediate vicinity, but not so fast that it can’t be quarantined. And here’s the friendly angle: it can’t survive without living hosts. It dies out within a few hours if quarantine holds. Perfect weapon material, if you like that kind of thing. Some people do. Times are hard and bugs are cheaper than warheads. It’s this stuff that wins the appropriations that also finance anti-disease research, thinks Hendriks. Ends and means... So what if it’s a rationalization. Curie rationalized. So did Oppenheimer.

  What the hell. Today’s little Rebecca’s birthday. Five years old. He aches when he thinks of her. No matter what happens, he’s going to be there at six tonight, carrying the giant-sized Teddy which currently leans against the wall on top of his desk. He’ll look pathetic, he knows, but he’s determined to be with her. He wonders what Marina will do, whether she’ll slam the door in his face again, whether she’ll even open the door if she sees him through the sitting room window, which she will do, of course, pushing the drapes aside, just an inch, peering through like a Seventh Cavalry scout spying on a Sioux village. The cavalry used bug warfare, too, in the old days, before anyone told them such things were politically incorrect, infecting blankets with anthrax and passing them to the Indians. Safer than sabers and head-on charges.

  He’s wandering. He pictures the other parents, arriving with their kids for the party, glancing at him with a mixture of contempt and pity. Fuck ‘em all.

  Passing back through the double doors, clutching a vial awkwardly in his gloved hand, he calls for Estrada and the man wanders casually through from the rest room. Twenty-five, long greasy hair crammed into the protective helmet. Hendriks guesses he hasn’t had a shower in a week. Despite the filters on the protective suit, his nose wrinkles in disgust. He suspects it was Estrada who started to spread the rumors about him and the lab girl. The man ain’t even bothered to fasten up the front of his suit properly. Fuck you, thinks Hendriks. Thinks, never says it. Why not? Always polite to people’s faces, even when he’s thinking acid. Too bad, he reckons, this stuff is only animal fever. Serve this bastard right if he got a nice case of dengue. Not that he’d really take the chance if the vial held anything infectious. Just think it. Just visualize it, Estrada writhing in agony, blood and puss pouring from eyes and nostrils. We all need happy thoughts to get us through the day.

  He watches Estrada unlock the cage and lift out the small monkey. Fuck it, the damn things never try to bite Estrada. Why is that? Maybe they recognize a fellow ape. From the smell, most likely. He pushes the tip of a hypodermic syringe into the top of the vial. His mind strays to little Rebecca and he wonders what she’s doing. First day at school tomorrow and he won’t be there to see it. He hopes she’ll be all right and that she won’t start to stammer as she sometimes does when she gets nervous. And that the other kids won’t make fun of her if Marina’s tied her hair up into those little bobs on top of her head, braced with those silly ribbons with Barbie Doll patterns. And that no one will tweak her little ears or push her over in the corridors or...

  Estrada holds the monkey down, spread-eagled on a bench. Hendriks sighs, pushes up the skin on the animal’s back, inserts the needle, slowly pressing the plunger. Take that, you nasty little fleabag. He glances at the clock on the wall and signals to Estrada. Smiles, friendly-like, hiding his thoughts.

  “Put the damn thing away and get the next one out. The sooner we get this over with the better.” He walks over to another computer screen and starts to enter details of the time and dosage.

  “How long to wait?” asks Estrada.

  “A day or two, they reckon. Once we’ve got full symptoms, we start on the antidote.” He turns back and sniffs as the next monkey emerges from its cage. “Don’t know whether to hope the goddamn cure works or not, really.”

  2

  I sleep badly. Events of the day replaying in the subconscious, I guess. Dreams of young boys hanging themselves followed by others—almost nightmares—about shadowy creatures who inhabit electronic devices and move at the speed of light. Mental space invaders. I’m supposed to be hunting them, as I recall it, tracking them ever deeper into some sort of maze, a vast, dark system of tunnels and caves. Except, maybe they’re hunting me. Every time I come close to them, they slip away. I enter a deep subterranean cavern, empty but with a glitter of phosphorescence on the slimy walls and a memory of evil. I get the feeling that they know my every move, that they have been watching me and waiting. Dreams make their own rules. Shakespeare appears, sitting in front of a laptop and intoning words for me to type with one finger. “What is this device, of shadow plays and
liars? A ghost in the machine, a phantom in the wires...”

  Crazy.

  I drag myself unwillingly from my bed and pull aside the curtains. Nature in harmony with my mood. The skies are gray outside, light rain keeping the streets glistening-wet. I take a shower, find there’s no clean towels, recover yesterday’s from the washing basket, dry off, wander into the kitchen. I pour ground coffee beans into the percolator and slide slices of bread into a toaster. Strange. I never normally feel lonely but today...

  I sit alone at the kitchen table and think of Michelle. It’s hard to believe that her renewed interest in me is simply as an act of friendship. She’s never been one to reveal her true motives. This is the new joke. I’m doing amateur dramatics in my spare time but she always wanted to be the actor. In her mind she was the big film star: I knew because she used to tell me about the roles she could have played. Silkwood, the one Cher played. The Bridges of wherever it was, Meryl Streep, that role was written for her.

  Did I say in her mind? She was an actor all the time, always playing each situation for effect, so that you had to guess what she really felt about anything. Always weaving her real aims into a web of intrigue, even when a simpler approach would have been more fruitful. Last night I was relieved, tell the truth, when she finally left. For the hundredth time since then, I reflect on the consequences of a resurrected relationship with my darling wife, just when I was starting to sort out my life.

  The toaster jams again, as it has been doing recently, and the bread starts to burn. I jump up fast and turn it off before the smoke sets off the fire alarms. Eject black slices, hop around, juggling them from hand to hand, scorching fingers, drop them in the sink and turn on the taps. To hell with the toast. Coffee for breakfast. Sit again, sighing. I think of Michelle again and decide to stop trying to second-guess the motives of someone I know so well but have never been able to understand.

  I reach for the TV remote. Breakfast news. In the studio, a presenter’s conducting an interview with Stephen Garner. The politician’s clearly somewhere else, presumably sitting in a regional station’s studio. Every time the interviewer asks a question, the camera shot switches to one of Garner sitting in front of a backdrop of rolling rural land. Despite the rain here, the sun seems to be shining wherever Garner is. I guess he has friends in high places.

  Several of my brain cells begin to function beyond the purely mechanical. Strange, is the thought they pass to my frontal lobes. Wasn’t Garner on TV last night? For a minor leaguer, the bastard’s suddenly getting a heap of attention. Maybe his appearance the previous night has raised his profile. Or maybe it’s just his photogenic face. He certainly looks better for an early morning awakening than I feel. The man seems perfect, not a hair out of place. With the slightest effort, I figure, I could get to hate him.

  The interviewer’s been talking about opinion polls. Seems our beloved Pres has lost ground and that Garner’s registered a slight improvement, not that the establishment will be too worried, status quo being still light years ahead. The talking head’s moving on to question Garner about his views on violent crime.

  I watch more closely. What was it Jackie said about him? Yeah, he’s responding just like she said, last night. His response seems to be measured as though he’s considering each question and framing his reply with statesmanlike precision. Giving himself time to think, turning it into a virtue. Clever. “The thing is,” he’s saying, “everybody in this country knows that violent crime is at epidemic levels and is still increasing. This administration’s attempts to deal with it have been little more than a cynical vote-catching exercise and clearly do not work. All I am saying is that we should take a firm hand with offenders. It’s about time that our children are able to walk the streets to their schools without being threatened by drug dealers and that our old people are able to sleep in their beds without fear of criminals breaking in and assaulting them in their own houses.”

  He goes on to talk about reducing unemployment as one way of bringing the crime stats down. The interviewer tries to press him for details. How would he reduce unemployment? Simple. His administration will create jobs through stimulating the economy. How’s he going to stimulate the economy? Lengthy reply. I think that what he says is, he’ll do it by reducing unemployment.

  Defeated by circular arguments, the interviewer steers the conversation to foreign affairs. By this time, I’m sick of the whole deal. The coffee’s strong and black. A meal in itself. Mind wanders. I think of Kathleen. I’m just about honest enough to admit that I’m looking forward to seeing her again. TV becomes background noise. Interview finishes. Garner says a cordial good morning. Reassuring smile. Not exactly prime time coverage, I guess. But it all counts when your poll results are down below the margin of error.

  The guy’s good, though. Assured, friendly. Something of the Kennedy about him, the public Kennedy, that is, the charming photogenic King of Camelot not the debauched womanizing user of a later legend that let inconvenient fact intrude on fantasy. TV-Kennedy alternating with Movie-Reagan as he talks about combating the nation’s enemies. Making America proud again. Friendly but fearless. Yeah, right.

  Fuck politicians. Time to go.

  3

  Hendriks sits in the rest room, drinking his fifth coffee of the day and again thinking about his daughter. He’d had hopes that his wife would allow him to take Rebecca back to his place for visits. It’s only fair, he figures. He’s her father, after all. But Marina won’t even let him talk to her for long enough for him to ask. His fingers push the mug around the Formica top. He sighs. He guesses he’ll have to apply for visiting rights, or whatever they’re called. He’ll have to get a lawyer. Marina’s pre-empted him there, retaining the lawyer they used when they bought the house to send him a letter about his alleged adultery. Making demands for alimony. The bloody lawyer was always so friendly before. Now he’s turned traitor, the bastard. As faithless as the lab monkeys but without their warmth of personality.

  When the row starts up, in the non-secure room next to the lab, it takes him by surprise. He checks the time against the computer. Less than four hours have gone by but it’s clear that the monkey’s feeling something. It’s started to screech with evident discomfort. Good. Serve the little fucker right. Hendriks walks over to the cage, hearing Estrada stroll back into the room and come to stand behind him. He scratches the side of his head: he’s removed the helmet after the round of injections, this being a non-secure area, but his hair always itches where it’s been.

  “It’s a bit early, ain’t it?” asks the tech.

  “Maybe they’ve got it wrong.” Hendriks peers at the monkey. It doesn’t look well, he thinks. Specks of foam have appeared at the sides of its mouth and its tiny hands are pulling at the fur on its face and chest.

  “Wrong fuckin’ symptoms as well. They’re supposed to get hot and sleepy.” Estrada glances at the monkey in the next cage. “This one’s doing the same thing.”

  Hendriks walks back to the computer screen and brings up the display on today’s experiment. No mistake about the batch number or the symptoms. Computer details are always checked four times over and are always right. Too much at stake if someone makes a mistake. He looks up the batch details again. No mistake. The stuff should deliver nothing worse than a mild dose of flu...

  “You’d better look at this.”

  He hears the worry in Estrada’s voice and turns back to the cage. The monkey screeches at him and continues to pull at its face. There’s fur on the bottom of the cage, he notices and, as he watches, the animal pulls a patch of skin and hair from its cheek. The exposed flesh weeps blood.

  “Oh shit.” Hendriks rushes to the door of the laboratory suite and pushes it closed. “Suit up. Fast.”

  For once even Estrada moves quickly.

  4

  USENET-A CHAT SESSION NUMBER 7246-E3. MESSAGES RECORDED AT ***.**.**.

  STRYKA It’s happening, man. U seeing wot I’m seeing?

  UNDERDOGG Yeah. U s
ure this is OK?

  STRYKA It’s cool, man. Ultra.

  UNDERDOGG It’s heavy shit, man

  STRYKA The man told us. No one’s gonna trace it to us.

  UNDERDOGG You hope, man

  STRYKA This dude’s the best. We can learn here, man. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

  5

  I slide the access card into the magnetic door lock with a backwards look at the deserted street. Paranoia lurks. I still have a vague feeling of uneasiness from the previous night’s dreams. Inside, the empty foyer echoes the sound of my footsteps and reinforces the sense of disquiet I felt when I woke up. I glance up. The surveillance camera eyes me. Don’t know whether this is comforting or disturbing. I wonder if someone’s watching me on a screen somewhere. I use the card again to let myself into the stair well. The card system’s probably another way that someone can trace my movements. A body can’t pass gas nowadays without someone knowing about it.

  Climb to the first floor. Stop. I figure I can hear movement from above. I lean over the handrail and peer upwards. There’s no sign of life and beyond the fifth floor the rails disappear into the gloom. It’s the pit to hell, inverted. I continue to climb. Again, I seem to hear a rustle of feet above me, but there’s nothing to be seen up the half-lit stairwell. I find I’m treading quietly but there’s no other sound and I make the fourth floor without being set upon by little pacmen. The corridor leading away from the reception area is unlit and gloomy but I can see the glow of electric light through the open door to the little office.