by Chris Hepler
Olsen looks relieved. "Like the man says, any ideas?"
"All of mine are for alternative elimination of the virus," Ranath says. "Vaccines, cures, timelines of educating the public."
"Who are you, and where did you put Roland?" spouts Yarborough. "You've dropped the hammer more times than John Henry."
"We're trying to race viruses and rumors. We only win if we keep the game short. Here, I can draw a diagram so you can see the math…" Ranath starts toward the touch-and-talk, but I pull it away instinctively.
Something flashes across Ranath's face. There is no pity in his stare, and for a moment, I see what Davis must have seen. It is why Jessica, gentle and pragmatic Jessica, feared him and why I came to Ranath those years ago to cover our tracks.
I fake a smile. Media training is my lifeline on this job. "Hold on a minute," I say. "There's something all of you should know about this proposed path. It ends in education and prevention. That means culpability."
"Kern's right," says al-Ibrahim. "It's giving up. We're here to win the war."
At least I have one supporter. "Not only that, are any of you aware what our list of enemies looks like?"
None of the F-prots speak for a second.
"Isn't that what's on the screen there?" says Yarborough.
"Wrong answer," I say. I grab the opportunity to take control again. "BRHI dominates biomancy. That means everyone from all sides of the political spectrum hates us. The greens? They see the Initiative as a step worse than GMO. The fundamentalists? They think we're pagan sorcerers out of the book of Exodus. There's competing labs that want legislation to break us up. Last… way down, dead last with only a few individuals and not much money… are vipes. But let me tell you, if they knew what we know, revenge would be a fire in their brains that burns bright and hot. If they talk to all our other enemies, we have real problems. You aren't here because all the cool corporations have armies. You're here because we need an army."
Several of them nod their heads. Al-Ibrahim and Yarborough don't concern me. Ranath is the important one. Breunig leads the team, but he's the F-prots' heart. Ranath is the F-prots' soul, a fact that is not very pleasant to think about for more than a few minutes. Ranath doesn't ask for promotions or praise. He is content to do his duty, night after night. How he blows off steam, I'm not sure. All I know is, normal people get prematurely gray hair, so a man who's gone all the way to metallic silver has probably bottled up enough stress to sterilize Bikini Atoll.
It's been four years since I asked him to help contain the vipes. I'm the only one he talks to regularly. We do dinners and project management sessions, and he seems… stable. But whenever I ask about where he was during his time away from the Health Initiative, he changes the subject. He has two rules: call him Roland Cawdor, and don't argue when Mr. Cawdor brings in a vector, alive or otherwise.
Right now, he looks thoughtful. "Are you saying to stay the course?"
I unload. "What I'm saying is there's a very big difference between a brainstorm and a grievance. I appreciate that you brought this up, but it concerns me that we're starting to lose heart in our current trajectory. It manifests in different ways for each of us. Sometimes, we may be tempted to confide in a family member…" I nod at Breunig, "…sometimes someone forgets to swap a barrel out…" I point at Yarborough, "…and sometimes, we just have second thoughts. The first two are problems. The last one is only a problem if we make it a problem."
Ranath regards me with that same stare. "Do you have advice?"
It comes out naturally. "When's the last time you took a vacation?"
Ranath considers. He hasn't come up with an answer when Breunig chuckles at him. "Roland, you know there's some jobs you're supposed to like and some jobs you're not. We can handle a few interviews without you."
Thank God. I can play the senior F-prots off against each other. "I think he's got you there. Enjoy yourself for a couple of days. Keep your phone ready, but the main thing is to be rested. We can talk fresh approaches then."
I close the windows on my touch-and talk and kill the projector. I pull the external drive out and put the pliers next to it. I focus on Ranath. "Do you want to do the honors for the meeting?"
Ranath hesitates, and I can't say what's going on behind his eyes. Is this an affront? He was the one who suggested making the team actively participate.
Then, Ranath walks over, picks up the pliers and the drive, and pitilessly crushes the casing. He exposes the memory chip inside, wedges it between the pliers' teeth. Now, it too is in pieces. I think the rest of the team breathes with relief as much as I do. We can't lose Ranath.
"Ten dollars gone," announces Yarborough. "Come back next week, same bat flu time, same bat flu channel."
"It's really bat rabies," says Olsen.
"If you got no poetry in your soul."
The F-prots begin to file out. A few clean up the bottles and cans that litter the area. But the hitmage doesn't move.
"When we do this again," Ranath says, "I want to talk about sustainability."
"I'll be ready," I say. "We've got this under control." And because I believe it, it's true.
5 - RANATH
August 8th
Everyone relaxes in their own way. Mine involves venomous reptiles. North-central Virginia is not home to any particularly spectacular varieties, unless you count the ones in zoos, herpetoculturalist trade shows, and my basement.
I've hung a sign on the door to Ena's room. It's not much, just the word RESPECT. I hung it there as a reminder never to be forgotten. I open the door slowly, as always, with a grabbing stick around ankle level, just in case today is the day Ena has gotten out of her tank. She hasn't, in all the time I've known her. But I cannot take that for granted.
The room has no TV, no radio, no table lamps, no phone hookup. To the casual visitor, it would give an impression of old-fashioned tranquility, a clinical escape from the pressures of modern life. But… and you may think this weird… I've never had a casual visitor in this room. The lack of electronic devices is to keep distractions, interruptions, and sudden movements at an absolute minimum. The walls and floor are plain white, so anything out of place can be easily seen. Its chairs, when not in use, are up on the table, so there is no awkward reaching under.
I approach the enclosure. It's Plexiglas, three meters long by almost two high. Its humidity gauge is low, as I feared. Ena is out of sight, no doubt in her hide box. I start my preparations. Work has eaten into the month; I've neglected her, and now it is time for maintenance.
I unlatch the door and slide it aside. Almost immediately, the snake sticks out a gray, coffin-shaped head. I've tried not to open the door only when she's being fed, but I haven't been good enough. She pours out of the box, meter after meter, flicking a black tongue. Her eyes are milky white, and tufts of skin hang off her in unsightly patches. It's my fault. Bad humidity leads to a bad shed, and she won't eat until she can see again.
I bring the grabbing stick up, and instantly, Ena gapes, showing the dark mouth that gives the black mamba its name. So, she can see, a little, and she can still strike like a flickering flame. I slowly move my hand to adjust the stimweb.
With the stick, I hold her body at bay, gentle enough that she reacts as if to a crawling surface, not a threat. I make a circle with the fingers of my free hand and cue up a concealment function. When I let go, her movements get much less frenetic—she's ignoring me. I ease the stick's mouth up to grasp her neck and keep it far away.
Patience is key. I run her body through her water dish and gently slough off the stuck skin, rolling it down toward her tail. When everything is stripped off and thrown away, I use my hand to hold her squarely behind the head. Ena twitches, but for such a touchy breed, she's downright sedate. Then, with a long, calming breath, I put the stick down and go for her eyes.
The skin sticks a little, and her reaction is immediate—thrashing, squirming to bite. With a pop, it's over, and the eye caps come free. I move to the beaker a
nd put her fangs through the plastic film topping it. I let her bite, pushing on the venom glands to yield an almost-clear fluid. As her long gray body reflexively coils around my arm, the wallphone rings in the living room.
I let it ring as I milk Ena. This is our time together. Also, I need to keep my antivenin supplier stocked. I have a freezer-full, which goes bad at a slow but inevitable rate. You really need a horse farm and medical equipment to produce the goods or a top-notch meat vat. The alternative is not living with her. She's a worrisome, stressful vice sometimes, but she's worth it.
Some twenty minutes later, when Ena is safely sulking in her hide box, and the venom is packaged up for mail delivery, I emerge from her room. The doorbell rings.
I go upstairs and check the camera to see who it is. It's Parvati, who is the greatest neighbor I can imagine, in small doses.
I open the door for her. She's holding Indian donuts.
"Roland, I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Take these, and don't give them back no matter how much I beg. If you can't eat all of them, maybe bring them to your office."
"Um…" I say, "that's lovely. Thank you." Parvati is very easy to talk to, which means for me, she's not easy to talk to at all. Over the course of the last year, she's noticed my stimweb and gotten Breunig's name out of me.
The conversation ranges over hill and dale, including how skinny I am, whether investing in robots is wise, and about her spare Stowaway concert ticket, which I politely decline. I tell her to e-mail me at one of my decoy accounts. When she finally leaves, I don't remember what I was about to do. I check the e-board on the fridge.
Raking the leaves? No, I need daylight. Checking the tire pressure on the car can wait. The last note reads STAIRS. I kneel at the base of the steps to open the panel I built into the side.
Behind this secret panel is a small fire safe. Inside, among other things, are my many identity records, the mortgage, financial documents, a spare license to carry a concealed firearm and a small stack of papers.
The papers are my long-term project, a series of observations and experiments. I can never publish them; they are a course in how to use qi to disable human biological systems. The only other hardcopy of this work exists in the United States Patent Office, where I sent the early drafts in case of theft. I flip through them but decide against editing tonight. Neil Berman's reaction was nothing special.
Next to the safe is a Kriss submachine gun, my quiet pistol, and a pair of Damascus-steel butterfly swords. All need oiling. I fetch a can before I see the light blinking on the phone. I dial the last caller.
"Hello," I say. The screen lights up with Marcus Kern's image, video-receive-only. I aim never to show my face or send my name. "Is my vacation over?"
Kern doesn't return the greeting, jawline locked tight. "Turn on your TV."
6 - INFINITY
August 8th
I wake up in the back of the car, feeling sore and cold. It's raining in Phoenix—yet another thing that's not supposed to happen—and I'm stiff and raw all over like I wrestled a gorilla for fifteen rounds. No, it's worse. Even my face and jaw and fingers ache, and those can't be leftovers from the struggle yesterday.
I sit up, pushing off the towel and jacket I was using as blankets. When I try to rub out the pain, I pinch myself without meaning to. I've got strength like a crab's claw. It's the virus, re-forging me into a predator. I just wish it didn't have to make me feel like I've been steamrolled.
As if on cue, I feel my neck relax. The crick in it from sleeping in the car is gone, before I've even had time to complain about it. How fast will this pain in the rest of my body be over?
I attempt to remember all the briefings I've been in and don't come up with much. Vipes really live on the qi of their victims, Darcy once explained: straight-up life energy they can use to stay alive and heal like something out of comic books. But the energy falls off with the square of the distance from the prey. If you want qi from their body, you have to drink directly from the wound, or it's no good.
I sniff. Old sweat. Everything smells stronger today, another of the signs. I'm feeling pretty rancid, but staying in a hotel seems like an even worse option than the car. That's how vipes get caught—burning through all their cash until they use credit cards or ATMs. Once you get a paper trail, eventually cops are on you and F-prots after that.
I always wondered why we never heard of smart vipes staying off the grid. A good bite on a victim can sustain them for a week, creating calories to burn without the malnutrition you'd expect. So, why not sell their possessions, live a nomadic existence on the road? I get it now. Nobody wants to live on bread or blood alone. They want their central air conditioning, their clean, pressed sheets. In my case, I want something salty and hot.
Fortunately, I bedded down in a grocery store lot. Once inside, I go for the survival foods aisle, less for the trendy cachet and more because self-heating meals are cheap. I make for checkout, where the lines are clogged like a pork farmer's artery. I end up behind a mother with a small child and a cart that looks in danger of turning into a burial tomb for Pharaoh.
The checkout stands have little flat-panel screens up over the magazine rack. They're presumably a riot-control measure in case the customers in an over-long line are too illiterate to pick up a tabloid. It's twenty-four-hour news. I've avoided political television ever since they started asking for donations in the crawl beneath the screen. I mean, I wade through California's endless series of propositions like everyone else, but now I just want to ignore the ratings-grab ranting and focus on which downloadable magazine promises the most laughable sex quiz this month.
"—a lot like a vampire—"
I look up and freeze. The camera cuts away from the anchor who gave the story's intro, and now the words VAMPIRE VIRUS scream across the bottom in bright white letters. What follows is a badly lit, homemade video of a man in a black muscle shirt, ready with a barbell.
"This is not the face you expect when you hear about a new disease," narrates some reporter or other, "but the video uploaded by poster 'MorganLorenz' features individuals claiming to be infected with a virus brimming with active qi." I watch as the man lifts the weight first to his chest, then over his head. "The weights are supposedly two hundred kilograms, the virus, a kind related to rabies."
"Mama, can we have Frootsweets?" interrupts the blonde four-year-old a few centimeters in front of me and totally not on the same planet. I'm too stunned to even try to shush her.
"No, you're going to have ice cream at Heather's party," says her mom pleasantly. "Can you put the groceries on the belt?"
"—would seem like a hoax except that Morgan Lorenz sent tissue samples to eleven media outlets, samples that have now been confirmed to have unusual DNA. They do appear to be infected by a virus that has active qi. Mr. Lorenz has not made a public appearance, citing safety reasons."
With a sting of music, the newscast cuts into the digifile of Lorenz himself. I stare at the image of a man in what I guess is his early thirties. He has styled sandy hair, not yet gray at the sideburns, and dark brown eyes. Lorenz's face looks strained, as if he hasn't slept, with the same pale, queasy look I've seen on many vipes, most recently in the bathroom mirror.
"The rumors you've been hearing are true," he says, in an earnest, plainly-spoken voice. "I and an unknown number of other people are infected with a virus that makes us consume human blood. I say there is an unknown number because someone doesn't want us to know."
"—Honey, don't squish the bread. Hand it here—"
I stand welded to the aisle, half my mind screaming that it's a damn good thing I got out of the F-prot program now. The other half stares at the man on the screen, wondering how long he has to live.
"This is not a natural disease," Lorenz continues. "Lower-order life, viruses included, does not naturally turn its host's qi active. Someone made it, and I am going to find out who and when and why. I am offering a reward for any information about the creators or origin
of this virus, and I will provide a safe haven for any of its victims."
"Mama, can you read the TV?"
"It doesn't say anything you need to worry about," says her mother.
The girl turns to me. "Can you read it?"
The video has cut back to the anchor, who's introducing the panel of Robert Rightwing and Laura Lefty, and they argue about the validity of the vid or the virus or why the other's political party is somehow going to get a bump from this.
"It's not a good idea to depend on me," I say. "I'm a stranger." I get a smile from the mom but not the kid.
As they go back to the mound of groceries, I take out my phone. There are ways to track people using their phones, and the F-prots know them all. But it will take them time to get people on the ground here, and I will be long gone. My phone doesn't have spyware from work on it—if it did, I would have been called into Darcy's office a lot earlier than this due to practical jokes involving turkey porn. So, it's a calculated risk when I access the Net for videos by this Lorenz person. I put in my ear buds and cue up what I can.
By the time I'm out the door, I've gotten a head full. Lorenz has made five video posts with the most recent getting about three million hits. The reward is ten thousand dollars, which hasn't raised any eyebrows in the media, but it sticks a little smile on my face. He doesn't have any contact info beyond what is no doubt an overflowing e-mail account. All I can do is fire off a message and hope he, or whatever friends and filters he has, will mail me back.
I sit in the back seat of the car, watching the phone's tiny screen. Morgan Lorenz is crazy—he's painted a target on his chest for any lunatic with a tent peg, to say nothing of Forced Protection—but F-prots never had to deal with someone this brazen. Maybe the vipes need a leader, a fixer, a man who jumps into the spotlight in the hope that it will preserve him.
He also lives over four thousand kilometers away.
I make a short mental list of who I know on the East Coast. I'll need somewhere to stay because I'll be sick of the car by the time I get there. Around the time I dig out contact info for an ex of mine named Owen Fargo, I realize I've already decided to go.
