Apocalypse blues x-1

by Walter Greatshell

  "Thanks. Thank you very much. It's been grand-how often do you get to fiddle while Rome burns?"

  "And without a fiddle, at that."

  "That's a myth, John. The fiddle hadn't been invented in Nero's time. Only the lyre."

  "I hate bloody liars."

  "No, the instrument. Like what they play in 'eaven."

  "What do they play in 'ell, then?"

  "Apparently, old Beatles songs." Rim shot.

  "And now we'd like to introduce a man who needs no introduction. The magnanimous magnate who has made all this possible: Mr. James Sandoval!"

  I was startled, though I don't know why I should have been. Obviously, they had all been waiting for him to arrive. As applause rose and vanished into cavernous heights, Sandoval mounted the "stage" and accepted the microphone, saying, "Weren't they great? Gee, what a treat." He clapped for the band as they took another bow.

  Someone touched my elbow, and I turned to find Dr. Langhorne standing at my side. Her eyes were intent on Sandoval, but she spoke to me:

  "Enjoying the party?"

  I didn't know what to say.

  "You should be," she said grimly. "You're the guest of honor."

  "I didn't have any choice," I pleaded. "I didn't know. What was I supposed to do?"

  "Shh. Listen."

  Without a trace of irony, Sandoval said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Mogul Research Division and I are so pleased to welcome you all to this little shindig, which would not have been possible without your generous support. I do not exaggerate when I say that you gentlemen are carrying the world on your shoulders, or that your noble efforts to keep the flame of civilization alive will someday be the stuff of legend."

  This was the speech he had asked me to punch up. He gave a subtle signal, and the Blackpudlians began softly harmonizing-an undertone at first so soft as to be almost inaudible, accompanied by mournful-sweet strains of the electric organ, but rising.

  "Am I presumptuous to speak of future events?" he continued. "You may wonder who will be alive to read of these glorious endeavors. You men are realists. You don't believe in fairy tales. Since the earliest beginnings of the Mogul Project, you have expressed again and again your skepticism about our ultimate goal, preferring to focus on the less-sensational milestones along the way. Yet what milestones! Cracking the proteome. Creating the means of designing life, and programming it to serve our interests. The Autonomous Self-Replicator. These things were not narcissistic pipe dreams. They were about AIDS and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. They were about ending human suffering.

  "Perhaps that all seems very quaint now. Naive. My colleagues in the Research Division"-he indicated Dr. Langhorne-"harbor no illusions about your opinion of them: freeloaders, charlatans, crackpots. Fools and hucksters who have left us in this quagmire with no means of escape, all the while filling our heads with schemes and nonsense. You worry it's all been a confidence game, the scam of all time, and you the suckers who bought it. I myself have even acquired a funny little nickname-we've all heard it: Ponzi de Leon. But in your hearts, you're sick. Sick at the cost of it all. The ruin. The loved ones you've lost. You think nothing can ever make up for it… and perhaps you're right." He stooped, slowly shaking his bowed head, letting the microphone dangle at his side.

  An awful silence settled on the crowd, a gulf of dead air that grew wider and wider until the offended Moguls began filling it in with grumpy asides and throat-clearing. Some of them were gloating feverishly over Sandoval's capitulation. They thought he was throwing himself at their mercy.

  Then Sandoval lifted his head and put the mike to his lips: "But. We. Did it."

  The band erupted in a blaze of guitars and screaming-the opening of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Dr. Langhorne left me and climbed up to join Sandoval. They embraced in the spotlight like Hollywood royalty, and he said, "Dr. Alice Langhorne, ladies and gentlemen!" It was getting crowded up there.

  When the music died down to an expectant hum again, she said, "Thank you, Jim. Gosh. You know, when you sift through the hysteria about Maenad Cytosis-Agent X-what you find is that in many ways the Mogul Project was an unqualified success. We did achieve what we set out to, and if it hadn't been for one bad apple, we would have been heralded as the saviors of the human race. Has this epidemic made us lose sight of that basic truth? It has, hasn't it? When the emphasis is all on developing a cure, a return to the status quo, that means we have failed. All a cure means is that you are back to where you started: doomed. Succeeding at that is nothing but a death sentence. So what I have to say is this: Who needs a cure? What does a cure avail us, other than a few paltry extra years in our aging carcasses? No, I say no. Why settle for the booby prize when you can have it all?"

  A heckler in the crowd yelled, "Have what?"

  "What you paid for in the first place. What the faithful have been promised from time immemorial." She descended from the sail, taking the mike with her. Sandoval followed, then the rest of us. She didn't go far, only to a low wall of ice on the far side of the sub, where the grass ended. The crowd spread out along the barrier, looking across.

  There, behind the fairwater, in the half of the dome that had been deserted and dark until then, a single spotlight shone. We could see a man standing in its harsh beam, perhaps fifty feet away. He was a Xombie, or at least had that familiar blue cast to his skin, but he was not grotesque-though at first sight of him, the crowd gasped and drew their laser pointers in alarm. He was wearing a white robe, and it gave him the bearing of a Greek god. Sea green light webbed across him from a polynya at his feet-it was all that separated us from the striking, unearthly creature. As he stared back, I had the feeling of being watched by some vast dispassionate intelligence. I couldn't believe how different he looked from the homunculus I had seen in the tank.

  In a hushed voice, Langhorne said, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Homo perrenius."

  It was Mr. Cowper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "You have seen them die, and you have seen them rise," said Langhorne. "But you ain't seen nothin' yet. Gentlemen, I direct your attention to the man on the conning tower."

  Sandoval had climbed stairs up to the port sailplane, the one opposite the band, and was picking up an elaborate compound bow. It was camouflage-colored, with Day-Glo arrows attached to it, and with practiced grace, he removed one, nocked it, and cranked back the string. His posture with the bow was heroic, Olympian.

  Unbelieving, I mouthed the words, "What is he…?"

  Without the slightest hesitation, Sandoval let fly. The arrow flitted across the water, too fast to follow, but then as if by magic was planted in Cowper's chest, its bladed point sticking out his back as if to indicate something. The old man barely reacted except to steady himself from the impact. Easy as plucking off a piece of lint, he removed the arrow and dropped it on the ice. It came out perfectly clean.

  Sandoval called out, "Anybody else want to take a turn?" He held up an armload of bows.

  The Moguls were suddenly animated with surprise and delight. They had not been expecting party favors this interesting. Sandoval passed down the bows, and men lined up along the wall to try their luck.

  "This is sick," I said.

  "It's a guy thing," Langhorne replied over her shoulder.

  The row of archers, twelve in all, tested the feel of their bows, some more awkwardly than others. They were so close to Cowper they could scarcely miss, but the first two who fired did, sending their arrows skittering far across the ice. Friendly ribbing and encouragement emanated from their less-adventurous fellows: "Hey, Chauncy, got your game permit?" Then several men shot almost simultaneously, and three arrows struck Cowper's upper body-one so deeply that its gaudy quills resembled a pink boutonniere. I flinched. He didn't bother removing them.

  Everything became very quiet as the men methodically fired and reloaded. I was reminded of the boys' grisly revenge on the fallen Xombie in the sub, so long ago. The men's catharsis continued until the supply o
f arrows was exhausted. I made myself turn away, more out of protest than horror-I knew Cowper couldn't be hurt, though he was the picture of martyrdom with all those spines sticking out of him. When they were done he looked exactly like what he was: an archery target. There were even arrows in his face! For a long moment he stood there in the water-dappled light, literally transfixed.

  After a span of awed silence, the Moguls began to applaud. The bows were tossed aside and the archers welcomed back into the crowd.

  Langhorne asked, "Do we all agree he can't be harmed?"

  The spectators scoffed, "Of course!" Fun over, they were more annoyed than impressed, convinced that this had been only a cheap stunt. While they were grumbling, Sandoval gave a signal and several doctors began maneuvering a light pontoon bridge across the water. This caused pandemonium:

  "Are you out of your mind? Stop! He's a killer!"

  Langhorne replied, "Strictly speaking, Maenads don't kill; they share. But I understand your anxiety. Be assured you are in no danger whatsoever."

  While Dr. Langhorne was trying to calm them, Sandoval nudged me, smiling benignly. "Go to your father," he said.

  "What?"

  "Go to your father, Lulu. This is it: the reunion you've been waiting for. It's why you're here. It's why we're all here. Don't be afraid."

  "I'm not."

  My instinct was to resist, but then I realized I wanted to go to him, no matter what happened. I really wasn't afraid. Sandoval saw the change, the tears, and nodded in encouragement. The bastard. I slapped him and jumped over the wall onto the wobbly platform, making my way across. The crowd buzz doubled, and I could hear boys entreating me to stop.

  Cowper waited for me as patiently as he had borne the arrows. Something was different, I knew, or he would have been all over me. I was almost disappointed. Red speckles danced on him, and on my back as well, I'm sure. Freezer-cold air wafted off the water-I tried not to look into the depths.

  As I mounted the far ice bank, I began to get anxious, thinking of the wolfish faces of Xombies I had known, including his. But this new Cowper had the calm bearing of a guru, regarding my approach with world-weary compassion rather than animal lust. Looking out from that thicket of feathered shafts, his marble black eyes were full of pity.

  I wasn't sure he knew me, and ventured, "Mr. Cowper?"

  He didn't respond.

  By then we were about ten feet apart, and as I cautiously closed the distance, he turned his face away, showing all those embedded spines in profile. They looked strangely ceremonial, shamanistic. He was looking across the ice to the dark side of the dome. Someone there was running out of the shadows toward us-someone I dreaded to see.

  It was Julian. He was not placid like Cowper, but of the more-familiar Maenad type, monstrous and vulpine, with all the rapturous fury of an avenging angel. A Fury.

  He came straight for me, ignoring Cowper. From the crowd, boys' voices entreated me to swim for it, run, hurry, but there was not a thing I could do to escape, and I didn't try. As Julian got close, Cowper suddenly darted between us, snagging the boy by one leg, whirling with it, and slamming him down on his face. Julian was bigger and younger, but he seemed clumsy next to Cowper-or maybe it was just that he wasn't fighting back at all. While Cowper attacked, he behaved as if the old man were some kind of baffling invisible obstacle, like a high wind. In a flurry of blue limbs, Julian tried to break free and get at me, but Cowper was tenacious as a pit bull. He wrestled Julian to the edge of the ice and finally flipped him into the water. With a pleading cry of, "Lulu!" Julian scrabbled at the slick ice, then sank like a stone.

  The wind was knocked out of me, seeing Julian just vanish like that, but I slowly became aware of the sensation his death caused among the spectators on the opposite shore. It was fizzing in me as well-What just happened? Could it be true that those doctors had done what they promised? Had they cured Cowper? No. He wasn't a horrible Xombie, but he wasn't human. What had they turned him into?

  The show was not over. As I stood there in shock, something else stirred in the darkness: many people this time. A whole host of men came shuffling into the spotlight, and from the way they walked I knew at once that they were human. There were about a hundred of them. Even before they fully emerged, I began frantically slipping and sliding my way over, because it was obvious from their clothes that they were the men from the sub. Commander Coombs was in front. Flanking him were Mr. Robles and Mr. Monte, with Noteiro and Fisk and all the others streaming after. Kranuski and Webb were there, too, the creeps.

  They all looked haggard and suspicious, and the sight of me in my getup didn't seem to alleviate their fears. I couldn't blame them; I was just one more part of the whole appalling circus. My own relief was short-lived. Before I could reach the men, there was more commotion from another direction, a line of dark figures that unmercifully resolved itself into feral blue Xombies, scores of them, swarming in to intercept us.

  A collective moan of dread arose from the living. As the rampaging creatures skittered into the light I could make out the warped features of Albemarle and Jake and Cole and Lemuel, as well as Xombies from the tanks in the research compound and many others I had never seen before-forty or fifty all told. But there was something unusually awkward about them, and as they swept forward like a bizarre chorus line, I realized what it was: They were connected together by a cable that had been threaded through their bodies, like fish on a loop.

  Coombs and the others reacted as if they had been expecting something like this, bracing themselves for the attack. They were doomed and knew it. Nothing would protect any of us from that host. Not even Cowper.

  Just before the two groups could collide, however, the tethered Xombies were abruptly jerked up short as if they had reached the end of their leash. Thrashing wildly, they began to be dragged backward, then, one after another, hoisted upward, until the whole string of them flailed in the air, dangling from the boom of a high crane.

  "Ooooh," went the crowd.

  Jim Sandoval's amplified voice rang out: "This is to all the new citizens of Valhalla: Congratulations, your period of orientation is finished. We welcome you to this ceremony ushering in a new age of mankind, and we invite you to join our community, to share in our fortune, and to enter a world where the Maenad threat has been lifted."

  Relieved laughter and grudging applause from the Moguls met this pronouncement. The rest of us looked on stonily.

  Sandoval continued, "Today we bury the past, not just symbolically, but in our hearts. We bury it and put flowers on it and stand before its gravestone to say our final good-byes. Today we renounce the past and are baptized anew. There can be no doubters, no one left dangling. Lulu, will you please come forward?"

  The float bridge had been put back in place, and at the end of it stood Sandoval, reaching out to me with a big phony smile. I hesitated, reluctant to leave Cowper and the other men. I was suddenly very self-conscious about participating in whatever this was they were doing. Having cast my lot with the undead, I couldn't bear to set foot back on that deceiving turf. What would happen if I refused? As if reading my thoughts, Sandoval flicked his eyes warningly upward at the flailing Xombies. The sword of Damocles. There was no choice-I went.

  "Don't be nervous," Sandoval said, helping me across. Before anyone else could follow, Rudy brought Don over on a chain to police the bridge, barely restraining the beast from charging across and attacking Cowper. Dr. Langhorne came up and took my arm.

  "What's going on?" I asked her.

  "Cheer up," she said. "You're about to be saved."

  They walked me around to the garden side of the fairwater and stopped before the brilliant ocean pool sunk in the grass. The crowd moved with us. Several doctors, including wire-haired Chandra Stevens, were waiting there with medical instruments and an aluminum stretcher.

  "Now just relax," Langhorne said, and ripped my dress off.

  There was a minor uproar among some of the boys, shouts of "Leave her alone!" but S
andoval, who was standing back from the whole thing, quashed it by saying, "Now now-these are doctors. Professionals." The Blackpudlians, who had been softly singing the whole time, went dead. As Langhorne strapped me naked to the stretcher, I asked, "Why are you doing this?"

  "Because it's the only thing to do. My daughter was about your age, so don't think this is easy for me. But there's no cure, no future-nowadays little girls grow up to be Furies. This is all that's left." She put her lips to my ear, whispered, "None of this would be happening if you'd done what you were supposed to."

  "What?"

  "I expected your cycle to have kicked in by now, honey. A surprise package for that bum I was married to. Why do you think I let him have you? But I guess he gets the last laugh after all, the bastard. Now he gets to be Christ Almighty." She strapped an oxygen mask to my face and turned on the flow. Cold air hissed through. It seemed thin-I couldn't get enough and began hyperventilating.

  While Dr. Langhorne was ministering to me, Sandoval addressed the Moguls. As unctuously as a TV evangelist, he said, "There is no salvation without baptism. Cold-water immersion-not as a superstitious rite, mind you, but as a means of preserving higher brain function while the morphocyte conquers the body-is the key to resurrection." He shook his head despairingly. "But what kind of resurrection? Resurrection as an intelligent monster, anathema to all that's human? That's not my idea of a quality afterlife. Quality resurrection requires something more. Alice, can you hand me the inhalant?" A small glass tube was produced, and he held it up for all to see. "This is it. The chalice. The sacrament. It doesn't look like much, does it? But it is body, mind, and spirit. It is freedom and safety from the ravages of time."

  The Moguls were fiercely intrigued, their competing babble resembling the trading floor of a stock exchange. Questions rang out: Is it really the lost formula? Is there enough to go around? How much are you asking for it? Is it safe? Does it have to make you blue? Many of them were concerned with the disposition of their wealth and power-would they still have use for these things and the ability to manage their affairs? Above all, they wanted to remain themselves, or what was the point?