Apocalypse blues x-1

by Walter Greatshell

  "Don't worry, he won't bite," said the approaching voice.

  "People always say that," I growled into the mud.

  "You're too young to be so cynical. C'mon, stand up. Don won't bother you-he only attacks Furies. He's just excited."

  "That's what worries me." I slowly got to my feet. The baboon watched closely, sitting on its haunches with a magisterial air. He really was a frightening creature, but by then I could tell he didn't mean to kill me. Still, I was afraid to talk too loud. "You call him Don?"

  "That's his name: Don Ameche. Mine's Rudy." He offered me his clean hand, and, with some reluctance, I gave him my dirty one. He was middle-aged and had the wan look of a graveyard-shift motel clerk, albeit one with a cultish amulet on his head. "You must be Louise," he said.

  "Lulu."

  "Lulu. Well, Lulu, I'm sorry to have scared you. Don doesn't usually come on so strong. You scared me, too, running toward the ditch like that. Lotta stuff has gone in there and never been heard from again."

  "Why do you have a baboon?"

  "This is a research facility. We use animals for tests."

  "I mean why is he running around loose?"

  "Oh come on! Don't you think he's a charming fellow?" He smiled at my expression. "We got the idea from the Egyptians. Don ensures we don't get a lot of casual visitors disrupting our work. There aren't enough security personnel to go around, and you'd be surprised at how many people are interested in what we do here. Privacy is at a high premium these days."

  We strolled to the enclosure, Don loping ahead. Inside the fence, it felt like a concentration camp, with longhouses jacked up on planks and muddy runs in between. Power cables drooped overhead like clotheslines, and dirty lawn furniture was scattered about on atolls of cigarette butts. One of the sheds had an open door, and inside I could see lab-coated people laughing and drinking coffee under fluorescent lighting. They all had implants. A genial-looking older woman with hair like steel wool saw me and leaned out, cackling, "Well, if it isn't Little Bo Peep! I see you've met the foul brute that stalks this compound. The other one we call Don."

  "Charming." Rudy sighed.

  "Wow, that's a fresh one." She brazenly examined my forehead. "Let's splash a little hydrogen peroxide on this before it goes septic, whattaya think? You have to keep that stud clean."

  "Lulu," said Rudy, "this is Dr. Chandra Stevens, Assistant Chief of Experimental Gerontology under Dr. Langhorne. Did you meet Dr. Langhorne?"

  I nodded. "She brought me here."

  "And she didn't come in?" Dr. Stevens was mock-outraged. "What a brat-ever since her ex showed up, we never see her anymore. Don! Outside! Outside!" The baboon snorted indignantly and vanished down the alley, flashing his barstool red behind.

  They gave me a pair of plastic sandals and took me into their cluttered office. It looked like a third-world medical clinic, except that the cots were for the doctors' own use. There was also a small kitchen, so that they could presumably work, sleep, and eat in the same room. It didn't look like they got out much.

  "May I see my father now, please?" I asked.

  "Sure thing, hon," said Dr. Stevens sympathetically, dabbing my head. "It's just that there's a little formality we have to go through before we can admit you to the ward."

  My heart fell. "What kind of formality?"

  The woman lost some of her twinkle. With the ham-handed compassion of a grief counselor, she said, "It's a little complicated. Not everybody gets the grand tour-it's to help you better understand what to expect… and why you are here."

  "Is he dead? Just tell me if he's dead, please."

  "No, he's not dead, but-"

  "Are you sure? Because this sounds an awful lot like you're trying to break it to me. It really does."

  She glanced at her colleagues, who were fiddling with their coffee cups. "Of course I'm sure. Although we did have to intervene quite aggressively to save his life. Ordinarily, we would not take measures like that. If someone is close to death in here, they are euthanized and immediately cremated for safety's sake. But we were instructed in this case to keep him alive for questioning. Do you have any idea what that might be about?"

  "Not really." I tried to calm myself down. "There was something about him having stolen something from the submarine. They had him tied up and were trying to force him to tell them where it was. They even assaulted me in front of him, but he still didn't say anything. I think they made a mistake. He was just trying to save our lives!"

  Dr. Stevens nodded thoughtfully, arranging her pens. "Did Dr. Langhorne tell you the nature of our work here?"

  "I guess so. The 'Magic Bean.'"

  "Yes. Pretty terrible, wouldn't you say?"

  Feeling like she was testing me, I warily nodded.

  "What if I told you there were people lining up for it? Lining up for a dose of Agent X?"

  "Why?"

  "The same reason people used to have their ashes shot into space, or had themselves cryogenically preserved: a shot at immortality. Agent X stops time. It stops the aging process."

  "But you're not human anymore." The deeply buried memory of my ravening mother flickered in my mind, and I had to wrench my thoughts away. "There's nothing left of you. Just a horrible thing."

  "Insomuch as you have seen."

  "What more do you need to see? God! Are you people all crazy in here?"

  "Louise, Lulu, I'm sorry. We know you've been through a lot, and we're not trying to make it harder for you. Believe it or not, we're trying to make it easier." They were all looking at me like I was an unstable psycho.

  "Then let me see Mr. Cowper!"

  "Of course. But in order to do that, you're going to have to help us question him. He won't speak to us, and we very much need to know what he knows. We think he might talk to you."

  "About what?"

  "About the 'Tonic.' The corrective to Agent X. Come this way."

  She led me through the office and into a dark doorway, flicking on the lights. We were in a storage room filled with oblong metal boxes, all propped upright. They could have been sturdy lockers, but somehow I just knew they were caskets. It was not cold enough in there to preserve a body, so my immediate thought was that they were empty, being held in reserve for the men whose names were inscribed on them: Klaus Manfred Van Oort, Roger Danforth Eakins, Marcus Hugh Sudbury-Wainwright. There were hundreds of them, many with foreign lettering-Russian, Chinese, Arabic names.

  "What is this?" I asked nervously, scanning for the words "Fred Cowper." It occurred to me I didn't even know his middle name.

  In the sunny tones of a real-estate agent, Stevens said, "This is our little morgue."

  "You told me he wasn't dead!"

  "I'm sorry-no one's dead in here. We've just cemented their status as Moguls."

  Dr. Stevens went to a random coffin belonging to one Charles Wesley Cox, unlocked it with a key, and opened the burnished door. My hackles rose, but inside was a body encased in some hardened resin, a plastic mummy with a metal pipe protruding from its mouth, inert as a fossil. Then I heard a thin wheezing sound bubbling up the tube.

  "Mr. Cox here passed away last October, but he is exactly as he was when we administered the morphocyte, thank you very much."

  "He's one of them," I said, aghast. "But you said-oh my God. Mr. Cowper is one, too, isn't he? They're all Xombies!"

  "We don't use that term here. And they're not Xombies in the sense you may be familiar with. Listen." Ignoring my hysterics, she leaned over the pipe, and said, "Mr. Cox? Can you hear me?"

  I was flipping out to think that Cowper, my father, was gone, a ghoul like my mother and all the rest, but then my skin crawled to hear a muffled voice reply, "I hear you, Dr. Stevens. Who's that with you?" The words scuttled quick as a cockroach in a paper bag.

  "Oh my God," I gasped.

  "Just a visitor, Charles. I thought you might reassure her that you're quite comfortable."

  "Stop!" I cried.

  "Comfortable," crackled the p
aper-dry voice, tasting each syllable. It kept weirdly changing in pitch, weaving in and out of clarity. "Comfort is how you cope, I know you make a womb out of trash and huddle there for comfort, I remember. Time is a cancer you can't cut off, heavier and heavier it shrivels you to nothing and you take refuge in hollow comfort." He made a grotesque sucking noise. "My only discomfort is that I can't save you, doomed pups fighting over a dead teat and I can't help you. Not from here. Not with talk."

  Dr. Stevens shut the lid and locked it. "Wow, he's on a roll."

  "God," I said, quaking. "You just keep them in there?"

  "We have no choice. One thing Agent X confers, along with everlasting life, is a powerful 'evangelical impulse.' They will do anything to 'convert' us, if you know what I mean, and they are tremendously slippery. You've seen it. This is the only practical way of handling them, long-term."

  "But he can talk! He's intelligent!"

  "Yes, we've about perfected that part. It's a matter of controlling the brain damage caused by oxygen starvation while the microbe colonizes the body. It's only a few minutes of clinical death, but without precautions, it leaves cognitive deficiencies-the 'Xombie' behavior you're so familiar with. The morphocyte eventually repairs the cerebral damage, but it can't restore personality. Keeping the mind intact is as simple as lowering brain temperature until full inoculation takes hold. About twelve minutes, on average."

  "Why do they keep attacking us?"

  "Strangely enough, it seems to be an altruistic thing. They're just spreading their own gospel, so to say."

  "And the kissing? What's the kissing all about?"

  "Ah, you've noticed that. Yes, we call that 'Downloading' or 'Expiration.' In a way, it's the opposite of the 'breath of life' used in CPR. Instead of delivering air to a person who has stopped breathing, it actively prevents the person from breathing while feeding them a dose of morphocyte-laden vapor. It guarantees a quick, successful transmission."

  "And people volunteer for this?"

  "These were all very old or dying men. They didn't have anything to lose. You know what they say: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." She gave me a shrewd look. "But this is nobody's idea of heaven. I mean please. This is just a halfway measure. What these gentlemen went in there gambling on is that we would eventually perfect the treatment so they could come out someday and resume their lives as Moguls, only safe from disease, aging, and death. The ultimate golden parachute. But it didn't sit well with some people, including the head of the project. Dr. Miska sabotaged everything."

  "Sabotaged? How?"

  "We think he might have been the one who let the morphocyte escape into the environment, and we know he stole the Tonic when he destroyed his lab and records and everything pertaining to Agent X, so that our chance of making the Mogul dream come true was almost sunk. But Dr. Miska was in a hurry, and he didn't do a perfect job. A lot of material he tried to erase from his hard drive was salvaged, as well as a test sample mounted on a slide."

  "And that's supposed to be the cure for Agent X?"

  "Not so much a cure as a perfected strain, a kinder and gentler strain, one without the virulence and predatory mania conferred by this one. One that can be meted out to the righteous. It's the carrot to top all carrots, you see."

  "Carrot top?"

  "Carrot and stick, reward and punishment-those are the only ways you get people to do things. The Moguls want the Tonic so they can motivate people with something that until now has been an exercise of pure faith. It's better than a cure, you understand. It's literally the Holy Grail-the promise of everlasting life! And we were expecting it to arrive on that submarine of yours, so you can see why everyone's pestering you so much."

  "You think Mr. Cowper knows where it is."

  "Well, somebody knows, and if you know what's good for you, you'll do everything you can to bring that information to light. Our division has jurisdiction over you only so long as we can promise results. Once Mogul steps in, it'll get ugly. That's not a threat, just a helpful hint."

  I shrugged helplessly, miserably. Hate was pounding in me like a drum. "I'll try. Where is he?"

  "Not in here. Follow me."

  We left the building and crossed to a different longhouse. This one had a heavy black curtain for a door, and a second one just inside. It was pitch-dark between the drapes, but once past the inner flap we entered a long narrow hall running down a row of dimly lit viewing windows.

  "Don't be nervous," said the doctor.

  "I'm not."

  Each window was a porthole into a metal tank, and each tank contained a naked blue Xombie, mounted like an insect on an exhibit stand. Steel rods had been driven through their limbs, torsos, and even heads to hold them in place. Some were immersed in water or other liquids, some were in fogs of caustic gas, and some were being frozen, sawed apart, burned, or otherwise mutilated in various creative ways. Despite these torments they were weirdly resigned, even peaceful, their smooth brows free of woe or implants-paragons of yogism, unearthly fakirs.

  I ran outside and threw up in the mud.

  The doctor watched me from the curtain, and said, "You know, your Mr. Cowper is depending on you. You're his only hope. That's what you have to get through to him."

  "I can't," I said, gasping. "I can't see him like that."

  "Then he'll be incinerated with all the others. That's what happens here when a test subject is no longer useful. They get incinerated and tossed in the ditch. His only chance lies in us finding those research materials-then he'll be first in line for the treatment."

  "Don't lie to me! Stop lying to me! That's only for those rich guys!"

  "Not until it's tested. It has to be screened on someone. Why not him?"

  There was nothing to do but force myself back inside, shielding my eyes from the gallery of ravaged flesh.

  "This may seem cruel," Dr. Stevens said, "but Maenads have no consciousness of pain as we know it. The Agent X morphocyte was modeled on prokaryotes and archaea-primitive life-forms that exist in highly adverse environments-so they're all but unkillable, however grisly this may appear. They regenerate in no time."

  "But I killed some," I said. "On the submarine we killed a whole bunch."

  "Ah yes, your carbon-monoxide flush! We heard about that. That was good, but I hate to tell you they were far from dead. They were simply dormant, and if they had been first-generation females or neurologically intact specimens like we have here, they wouldn't have fallen for it. Like Clinton, they wouldn't have inhaled. You got lucky."

  Lucky, I thought, coming to the last window. At first I didn't see a thing, but as I reluctantly stepped closer, I spotted him crouching in the bottom of the cell, squat as a toad, his lacquered blue back turned to me. Cowper.

  I clapped my hands to my mouth, moaning, "Oh no, oh no…" It was actually a subdued reaction, tempered by relief: At least he wasn't mangled or hung up like a gruesome marionette! I had seen worse, let's face it. Maybe there was even a chance he could be saved. I grasped that flimsy straw, thinking, We'll get through this. Just hold on. Hold on.

  "Do you want to try to talk to him?" Dr. Stevens coaxed gently. A microphone was pressed into my hand. "Just push the button to speak."

  "I know how it works." As if preparing to jump from a high board, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. With as much calm as I could muster, I said, "Mr. Cowper? It's-"

  There was a startling thud that caused me to open my eyes. Cowper's gargoyle leer was pressed to the glass only inches from me, his black eyes bugging out so hard they seemed about to pop like corks. He was horrible-a giant baby bird yearning for a worm. The shock made me trip backward and fall on my butt. "Oof," I said.

  "That's good," Dr. Stevens urged, thrilled. She helped me up. "Don't worry, he can't get out. He can't even see you."

  I wished I didn't have to see him. He remained imprinted on the glass, waiting, his eyeballs rolling with the slow deliberation of a man cracking a safe. Those eyes. They made me think of our floating compa
sses as they went haywire around magnetic north. They were my mother's eyes.

  Shuddering, I swallowed, and whispered, "It's me. Lulu." Cowper spoke: "Lulu." His voice was a bottomless silky rasp, savoring the word. The sound of it, especially over the crackly radio, was so freakish it curdled even the doctor's enthusiasm. Her wiry hair seemed to stand on end.

  "Yes, it's me," I said tremulously. "Do you remember me?"

  "Of course. I hope I don't scare ya." His bulging eyes, undersides glistening, fixed on something above the window. He was looking at the intercom speaker, the source of my voice. Before I could reply, he asked, "Still there?"

  "Yes, I'm still here."

  "Good. They treating you okay?"

  "I'm… fine."

  "Because it can get cold in here… very cold…"

  "He's cold," I protested.

  "Interesting," said the doctor. "I've never heard one complain before. It has to be some kind of ruse."

  "Are you cold?" I asked him.

  "Why? Are my lips blue?"

  Dr. Stevens and I glanced at each other. "I think that was a joke," she said.

  I shook my head, eyes wide, and said to him, "I'm just concerned, that's all."

  "There's nothing you can do for me… except trust me."

  "Trust you?"

  "Trust me to help you. That's all I want, Lulu, for you and me to have all that we never had together, before you turn to dust and slip through my fingers. You're dust already and don't know it, just waiting for a breeze to come along and blow you away. I'm not what you think. You're in the shadow of that big grinding wheel and it's coming around. It's coming around. But I can make you real so the bastids can't touch you. I can take you home."

  It was awful to hear him say these things, these travesties of fatherly concern. Swallowing my grief, I forged ahead. "Fred, I need your help."

  "I'm here for you, sweetheart."

  "I need you to remember something. About the boat. When you were in command, did you take something from the captain's safe?"

  "Lulu, did you look into my heart?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I gave you my heart, and you didn't even give it a second glance."