by D Krauss
*
"Why?"
Mark did not look at her. She left the question out there and huddled into the silly afghan he kept on the back of his chair, now grateful for the comfort. She sipped her coffee. "I asked you a question."
"It's a stupid one."
"There's a stock response to that, about there never being such a thing, but I guess I need to change it a bit and ask how could you be so stupid?"
He still held the bat, clean now, and was carefully applying a layer of shellac to it. Without the terrifying events of the last half hour, she would have known immediately he had taken the serum, just based on his current actions. It showed way too much initiative.
"It wasn't stupid. It was a necessary risk."
She snorted at that. "Did RB tell you all of his volunteers died?"
He didn’t answer, his lips compressing. She couldn't tell if that was a yes or no. Didn't matter, the information was imparted. "How do you feel?"
He looked at her. "Like I did a year ago."
She sipped more coffee, feeling somewhat more normal. Or what was the new normal: lethargic, prone to letting things go for a day, but still active, still curious. Still human.
Unlike Mark.
"It's only temporary," she said
"What makes you say that?"
"Because it isn't real. It's at best, territoriality, or the murderous intent of pissed off chimps."
Mark shrugged, "Quacks like a duck. And aren't you personally glad, even if it's nothing more than pissed-off chimpanzee antics?"
She sank into the afghan, shuddering a bit, feeling Blondie's probing, violating hands again. Worse, her own helplessness. "Yes," she whispered.
"All right then." He put the bat into the wall case.
"What made you come look for me?"
"Territoriality."
"Shut up. What made you?"
He locked the case. "When you didn't get here by ten and you didn't answer your phone, I figured something was up."
"So you decided to come stalking me with a bat."
He didn’t answer.
The gray spot was moving up her spine again so she gulped the coffee, ignoring the scald, got up and poured herself another. The gray was slow, probably due to the heightened adrenalin. Not at pre-Slackening levels, of course, but enough to propel her.
"Alpha male," she said.
"What?"
"Classic alpha male. Going out to battle for your mate. And so unlike you," she glared at him because in all their years together as classmates, then lovers, then disastrous spouses, then divorced and, now, wary colleagues, he had never, ever, in that whole tumultuous, depressing, sad, and contentious history, fought for her.
"Listen, Rosa…"
"No," she slammed the cup onto the counter, cracking it, startling herself, considered for a moment that fear and attendant adrenalin levels could hold a solution (tried that, remember?). "You listen! Substituting one set of imperatives for another is not a cure. All you've done, all RB has done, is create a short, incompatible bridge over the ATs to the GCs. It's not a cure," she swiped at the cup fragments, "it's a bandaid."
"But if the bridging effects a behavioral change, then there's a solution."
"Behavioral change?" she looked at him in astonishment. "Do you want to groom me now?"
"Ack," an exasperated snort. "I’m not turning into a chimp. But, look, look at me." She refused, keeping her head down. "Rosa," he insisted, "look."
She did. The flush of his face, the alertness, the pulse in his neck, standing tall and balanced, a set of energy on him, like someone who wanted to go out and do something.
Damn him. And damn Mateo.
"You see it, don't you?"
"What I see," she toned, "is heightened respiration and pulse, probably heightened body temperature, also. Your heart is racing at a pace it's not supposed to, your blood pounding with pressures it shouldn't, and various foreign hormones are cooking in your brains." She paused. "I see a massive stroke. Or aneurysm."
"That won’t happen."
"What did RB's volunteers die of?"
He did not answer.
"You cannot make simian DNA compatible with human," she recited.
"It's all we've got," he replied.
"You cannot make simian DNA compatible with human."
"It's not the compatibility. That's not the issue. It's…synthesis,” he made a helpless gesture.
"What kind of synthesis?"
He did not answer.
"Let me guess," she clacked a fingernail against her teeth, "a derivative of some hormone triggers, probably mating, probably fighting. How far off am I?" Still no answer. "So, that. And you think a slight urge to rape and kill is the same as restoration, do you?"
"I don’t have an urge to rape and kill," he pointed out the window. "They do."
"No, they don’t," she found another cup and poured the last of the brew. Automatically, she began another pot. "The Immunes aren't following an imperative. They could just as likely build skyscrapers as rape Slacks." She did not add, 'like me.'
"I know that," he was impatient, "but an artificial imperative could buy us time. It's what we need right now." Mark walked over to the counter and rummaged around some papers that had been there for a week or more but through which she'd had no urge to rummage. RB's package, of course. She slapped herself mentally. Should have looked. He held up a hypodermic with a clear, yellowish liquid inside, "This one's for you."
"No thanks," she poured the water, "I'll wait to see if you live through the day first. Or night." She paused. "There should be a video in there, too."
He looked at her and rummaged back through the papers and pulled out a disc. "This?"
She nodded. "Have you watched it?"
"No."
"No urge? No curiosity?" she mocked.
His face flamed, or was that the ever-increasing blood pressure? "I don’t need to see that doom and gloom crap."
The first of the coffee began filtering and she took in a deep breath. The Elixer of Life, her Dad used to joke. You don't know how true, Daddy. "You should have watched it before you did something so stupid."
"Why?"
"So you wouldn’t do something so stupid."
He stared at her a moment, then said softly. "What else is there to do?"
She had no answer.
