by Chris Hepler
I look at the self-heating food packet, still unopened. I toss it to the floor. I might as well get started resisting temptation now. I'm out of practice.
7 - RANATH
August 9th
I sit alone on a bench in Rock Creek Park, watching the sun dwindle and the fear set in. In the early twilight, I stop seeing lone joggers and hikers; instead, they travel in packs. Though I left room on the bench, no one stops to sit beside me. Whether it's attributable to Lorenz's videos, I can't say—my stare keeps civilians away, too, and I'm not in a smiling mood.
When Kern arrives, he looks small outside his office, short and lean in a tailored coat bought more for fashion than for comfort. The wind whips his light caramel hair back, making it obvious how far it has receded. His eyes look puffy.
"Let me guess," I begin. "Not much sleep."
Kern flops on the bench next to me. "I wanted updates, so I didn't shut my phone chime off. Every minute of the night, another ping. Washington Post, Boston Arrow, One World Network. Their guys are working around the clock—"
"What do they know?"
"At the moment, they just want Dr. Kern, the talking head, saying qi isn't black magic. As the facts come out… that may change." Kern's phone chimes. He checks it.
"Surely, not so fast…" I say.
Kern doesn't look relieved. "No, it's Shelia. Says we have to talk alimony again. My life, it's comedy. So, I bet you're wondering why we're in the park and not the office."
I can guess. There is zero chance that the company is going to sin no more. Instead, Kern will rely on the tried and true, which means meeting to give the verbal go-ahead. The park is better than offices or vehicles. Those can be bugged by some cop or FBI agent tipped off to the Forced Protection Program by a vector's relative. Here, we can spot a tail, and the trees make it a little more difficult for drones.
Kern never utters the words. He doesn't have to. His pitch is, "It needs to look like a fanatic. It should be easy to come up with people who could watch that video and decide they're doing God's will."
I watch the wind caress the trees and make time with a question. "You want me to sign it 'The Van Helsing Squad' or something?"
"Would that be a problem?"
"It's a little pulp-adventure, don't you think?"
"People pull the trigger for dumber reasons." Kern is trying to look confident, but it's hot, and he looks flushed. "Lorenz made himself a public figure. Public figures never know where the shot is coming from."
"That makes some aspects easier and some harder," I explain. "Motivation isn't everything. Consequences are what concern me. We've never done someone tracked by media."
"Everybody's tracked," Kern scoffs. "You got that writer girl one time. What did she have, like ten thousand friends on her little social thing? And when she died, it was a bit of news, but it went away."
"It's not the same. Her death was the story, and then it was gone. If she had a cause, a phenomenon such as vampirism, then the death is just one aspect of the larger story, and the larger story never goes away. We have to avoid that like it's cyanide."
Kern waits a moment as a bicycle goes by. "He's not martyr material, not yet. No one really gets his cause yet. Once the deed is done, the best anyone can do is find out the details of how, not why—and that's only if you're sloppy."
"If he's smart, this is what he'll be expecting. He'll have made provisions. More video, stashes of evidence."
Kern's mouth goes crooked. "I'm unconvinced that is the case."
"Tell me we have a file on him and that our plan is not to assume our opponent is stupid."
Kern warms to the subject. "Lorenz works with a private insurer. He's never been to our hospitals, so we didn't have blood work on him. We've been tracking police reports, but everything I've found indicates he's shown no sign of aberrant behavior—"
"Who is he? Is he connected?"
"We don't know about connections. It takes a little time to access tax records, political donations, that kind of thing."
"Who infected him? When?"
"That we narrowed down," Kern says, and he looks grateful to have something that stops the questions. "His vector was in the Kovar family, D.C. locals we isolated a few months back. We missed one, maybe six months or a year ago. I don't know."
I nod. It makes sense. Marie Kovar had been a busy vipe. A cute little nightclubbing waif who fed at will, no remorse. She'd topped four exposures a night.
Kern's pocket chimes again. He checks the screen. "Edison Field." He frowns. "He needs a report." He taps a few keystrokes in reply.
"It'd be nice if every now and then he checked your meeting status," I say.
"It's not a report on Lorenz. It's a report on you."
So much for my confidence. The Health Initiative's executive VP is not supposed to want anything from me. As Kern's superior, Field has only an inkling of my role. He keeps ignorant of the details to avoid liability. For him to take a personal interest is trouble.
The amateur panics, I tell myself. The professional knows.
"The two of you had a meeting. Give me the highlight reel," I say.
Kern shakes his head but not in refusal. "He wanted to know if anyone had left F-prot. Morgan Lorenz will be looking for a whistleblower. I explained how you put on the memory cramp to keep a quiet team, and his words… well, they were, 'This hoodoo shit, will it stand up to some tabloid offering them fifty grand to tell their story?'"
It is earthy, and that sounds like Field, but I don't laugh. Kern continues. "Anyway, I said the cramp's batting a thousand, so he called your loyalty into question. You know, are you and your family financially comfortable, do you have a drug habit—?"
"Yes, can I pass my own background check?" I'm not mad; I just sound like it. I've asked similar questions of all incoming F-prots. "What did you say about my family and friends?"
Kern shrugged. "I wasn't sure you had any. You don't like people, Roland. It's… sort of your personal skill."
"If that comes up again," I say, "please tell him this is the only job in the world in which you let me do what I'm good at. Then, remind him that in this profession, a manager flexing his power is a bad reason for any sort of… action."
Kern's phone chimes again. He looks, and from his face, I guess it's the worst news yet.
"He wants you to solve the problem before it gets worse," Kern says, obviously striving to stay calm and focused. "Hell, I want you to solve the problem—"
"It isn't that simple. A pack of reporters can bring us low. We're not congressmen or celebrities. They get to survive in humiliation, go to white-collar prison. Us… we can't get nailed even once."
Kern shifts gears. "Okay, let's roll with that. Can you make it look like an overdose or an accident?"
I take a long breath and choose my battles. "Not an overdose," I say.
Kern gets it. Vipes shrug off most drugs. It's too risky. "Right."
"Accidents, unlikely. They tend to heal. You'd need massive trauma, plane crash or something similar."
Kern looks contemplative. "How hard is fake suicide?"
"Well, unlike the real thing, you only get one crack at it." That gets a smile. I continue. "If we were to go that route, we'd need surveillance on Lorenz. You can't do a passable fake note without knowing the man, and you've got to execute at a time when you won't be interrupted. The first enemy to put in your sights is Murphy's Law."
"But you could do it?"
I don't want to commit. "With surveillance, possibly. But there's no guarantee on a time frame. You can have it tight, or you can have it now, not both."
"Stop me if this is the stupidest thing you've heard," says Kern, easing in. "All Lorenz has is his own tissue for comparison to any found at our site. How hard would it be to create a fake lab? One that he could find, and boom, case is closed. This is where it came from."
"Stop," I say. "We could make a lab. People who staffed the lab, hell no."
"I thought maybe you could�
�" Kern waves his hand. The memory cramp.
"Virginia has a district magister now for forensic qi investigations. If something goes wrong while we're sanitizing, it just gets worse."
Kern has a look on his face like a man walking up gallows steps. "You're telling me Field wants the impossible, aren't you?"
I want to be kind to him, so I am gentle as I say, "Lies are for targets." It is our rule. We need honesty to plan accurately. And, left unsaid is that if there is ever mistrust between the two of us, it will create leverage on the day that we finally get caught. That way lies prison. "If you have another solution—"
Kern's sweating. I can smell it. He breaks, words coming out too quickly. "Our only other option is full disclosure, once we have a treatment or cure in progress, so we might be able to bargain with the infected directly. Disclosure would mean the end of the Forced Protection Program." Kern looks into the distance as he speaks. "Field's already consolidating records. It wouldn't be hard for them to paint us both as rogue troublemakers with histories of instability. They could say the whole cover-up was our idea. It wouldn't take them a second to decide to throw us out there."
Kern glances at me hopefully but doesn't quite meet my eyes. I can't help but remember the first time BRHI threatened me with expulsion. Kern wasn't able to look at me then, either. At the time, I didn't resist; I had been ready to move on. Now, as I listen to the sounds of the park and the road, I find myself wondering.
"Strange," I say. "It sounds as if Field knows exactly what I do, but he's more scared of Lorenz than he is of me."
"That's about the size of it."
I examine my assumptions. "Just how dangerous can one vipe be?"
"Roland," Kern says, "put yourself in Field's shoes. There's two things he knows for sure. This is America, and Morgan Lorenz is a fucking lawyer."
8 - INFINITY
August 12th
Just outside D.C., at a cute little Japanese restaurant, Owen Fargo makes me feel sane again. Which is good because, by now, the admissions staff at any mental health facility would have clucked their tongues at me.
"And on Ilion Morris, their opening skit was about the Lorenz guy." Owen's new girlfriend Didi prattles while I inhale another ginger ale. "He goes, 'I'm infected with a magic virus that gives me immortality and superhuman strength. I will now find those responsible and make them pay. Furthermore, I will find anyone who ever offered me a job and wreak a terrible vengeance. Then, I will go after every teacher who gave me A's. And just in case you smile at me in the elevator, I got grenades."
I laugh, despite everything. Half an hour ago I was alone, eavesdropping on the couple two tables down. They were talking about the vid, of course, blathering about how someone should put Lorenz's whole household into quarantine until the virus is analyzed. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone gives a damn. But for a few minutes, I don't have to.
Owen leaps in. "No, the Tyler show had the best. They had this guy, he goes, 'I'm petrified, hearing about these vampires living in the sewers 'cause they hate the sun. But I know how we get them. We get a priest to bless our toilets so they're full of holy water. Then, we'll flush 'em out.'"
I wince. "That's terrible."
Owen's made me feel normal before. He was a so-so lover but a good friend, so I'd opened up to him about my less-than-ideal adolescence. He took it in stride and never, not even in the worst arguments, thought of me as anything less than an honest, if hurting, human being. Whether or not I deserved it is a debate for those sleepless nights with nothing to read in reach.
Last night had been one of those. I've driven hard for the past few days, autopilot off and straight into the rising sun when I had to. By the end, I felt like a flagellant whose back had outlasted the whip. I dug out Owen's number from the depths of my phone and curled up in the reclined seat with my jacket over my head. Just talking to him was blessed banality. I wasn't a fugitive or a runaway. I was just overnighting in my car because I was calling on an ex who was going to make it all better.
That hope disappeared as soon as I saw him enter the restaurant. It's not that Owen doesn't help people; he's a programmer and is used to picking up the check for his unemployed friends. What threw my hopes out was one-point-six meters of significant other, walking unannounced into the Yakiniku Grill.
No forewarning means the girl is someone he habitually thinks of as part of the package; no Owen without a Didi. That means I'll be lucky to get leftovers, let alone a couch to crash on, given the stories he's probably told about me.
"So, how long will you be out here?" Didi asks casually.
I finger the necklace in my pocket. The gold can get me fifteen hundred, the silver another five. In my wallet are my three remaining twenties, a flimsy shield against the temptation of Owen's condo.
"I'm moving the rest of my stuff in a month," I lie. "Where, I don't know yet."
"Was it bad? I mean, it always is, but are you at least amiable?"
I cover as best I can to score a little sympathy. Lying isn't good for the soul, but the truth isn't good for the body. "We're not speaking to one another."
"Oh, how awful," Didi says. It's the strangest thing to smell her worry-sweat, but there it is, like lemon in a glass of water. Her fear will taste good, and that is the last thing I should be thinking right now.
"Do you need somewhere to crash?" Owen is watching me, not Didi, and I smile back. Didi is right to fear me. It could be really nice—sitting up nights, chatting with an old friend until I get back on my feet. But in my trunk are bloodstained clothes that I will have to slip into the wash, and if I stay, I will be introduced to more warm, good-smelling friends of theirs. There is no safe way that will end.
"I can't do that to you," I say. "I can get a motel."
"Are you sure?"
I make certain to address Didi. "I can find a place. It's not like I'm a wanted criminal or anything. What I need, really, is a smaller favor."
I have to get to Lorenz. I don't know much about the upper echelons of BRHI, but I know the Baltimore-D.C. sprawl was where the virus began, and they aren't shy of personnel here. There is no worse place for Lorenz to have broken his silence. There will be meetings all across the city, task forces set up to silence him before he releases another vid.
Have I been thinking a lot about Lorenz? Honestly, I'm one step away from writing our names in a diary with little hearts over the "i's." Now that he's opened the possibility of VIHPS going public, I'm dreaming of this spot five years from now with Owen and Didi. Maybe they'll be married, maybe with kids, and I'll just casually follow up the teriyaki with a pill. And they'll be like, oh, I didn't even know. How is that? And I'll shoot back with eh, a little dry mouth, but it beats the alternative, and none of this will ever happen if BRHI keeps their secrets.
"It's this Lorenz guy," I say. "Does anyone actually know anything about him?"
Owen smiles and wags his phone at me. "I did my homework, Ms. DeStard."
My eyebrows go up. I wasn't sure he was listening when I babbled over the phone at him. But here he is, thoughtful and responsible.
"No one knows where he is, do they?" I ask. His grin doesn't fade. "You're not serious."
"As the clap," he smirks.
"You made him stay up all night talking to those criminals on the Deep Web message boards," Didi says.
"I'll have to go to the next meetup wearing a pickle hat and a T-shirt that says, 'Pedophilia Is Accepted in Some Cultures,' but I have your damn address," says Owen.
I don't laugh, for multiple reasons, but I say automatically, "You're the best." Then, after a second, "Dish."
"Okay, we found out he does like privacy, so it wasn't easy. He did a lot of basic tricks like uploading from a cybercafé and using an anonymizer."
"How'd you catch him? I know people who are practically cops, and they don't know where he is."
"Cops hire clickers who are clean, not the ones who are effective."
"Seriously?"
"Well, do you c
onsider Lorenz a smart man?"
That's a good point. I'm still a little apprehensive about stepping into the crosshairs with a vipe, but somehow, he's gone in my mind from a possible friend to the leader of the new world order. This guy has to have spacious housing, a car with heated seats, and human blood on tap in the guest kitchen. "He doesn't seem like an idiot," I say.
"Lovely, I won't tell you so you can maintain that illusion. Let's just say his real name is indeed Morgan Lorenz, his Social Security number isn't as hard to find as he wants, and he's got his mail forwarded to a house that isn't his."
"So… wait, he's staying with a friend?"
Owen turns his phone over to me. It has an e-mail with hasty, lowercase notes—as well as an SSN, phone number, address.
"Like I said, he likes privacy, but he's not hardcore. He can afford to pay rent, though. Besides the lawyer thing, his parents died, and he's an only child, so… ka-ching."
"Apparently, he's Batman," Didi pipes up.
"Yeah, he's not married, lives alone... or used to."
"This is great stuff," I say. "I should totally pay him a visit."
Didi looks at me strangely. "You don't think the guy is full of shit? I mean, it's like every week someone says active qi can make you lose weight or shoot fire from your brain. Vampires, it's just so obvious."
I brighten up. "Shit or not, it will sell glossies." At their blank looks, I ease into the lie. "I'm doing a 'Most Eligible Bachelor' spread for a magazine called Love and Leather. Just the type, you know? I'm thinking I talk to him, bring a camera, get some shots of him and Castle Dracula."
Owen leans forward and taps his phone in my hands. "Castle Dracula's on the next page, hon. I got his ass on Street View. Now, you want to tell me how many backrubs you owe me?"
"This is worth more than I can say," I tell him, dead serious. But that brings up the uncomfortable specter of payment.
"I'm going to the bathroom," Didi announces, all sugar before she turns to ice. "Try not to fuck her until we get the dessert menu."
