Streetlethal

by Steven Barnes

  For a moment, Wu's face tightened and Mirabal knew that he was gripping the armrest of his communications seat with crushing intensity. Wu was a strange one. His strength didn't lie in physical mass, or even in any conventional concept of intensity. Mirabal remembered the pleasure of watching Wu deal with a trio of federal spies. His frail hands appeared to move slowly, the stick-figure body barely torquing, moving more like a dancer than a fighter; but the three men were rendered into insensate pulp. Fascinating. And yet neither Wu's control, nor strength, nor even the vaunted Ortega blood in his veins could master the drug. Mirabal quelled his flutter of unease, and directed his attention back to the table.

  "Look at yourself. You know what I did to you. Do you hate me?"

  Wu moistened his lips. "I—don't waste my energy on unproductive emotions."

  "Yes. Of course. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you did. You can imagine yourself in that role, can't you?"

  "Most assuredly."

  "Do you think for even a moment that you would do anything to interrupt the continuous flow of that drug?"

  Wu paled, but remained silent. He dropped his head in shame and didn't answer. Finally he looked up at Margarete. "I have made a grave error," he said, "and wish only an opportunity to correct it." Margarete and Tomaso nodded at the same time.

  "Tomaso," Margarete said carefully, "we know that this Cyloxibin can control minds. The sales figures are most impressive. It must be carefully considered."

  Tomaso inclined his head gratefully.

  "But Tomaso, where—where are your brother's killers?"

  He swallowed hard. "As you will see, Grandmother, finding Aubry Knight and securing our supply of Cyloxibin have become the same project. Steinbrenner..."

  The small woman seemed to shrink even smaller in her chair, and she ran a fingernail nervously through the tight bun of brown hair at the back of her head. Her voice sounded as if something were pressing against her throat.

  "We possess enough information now to make a guess at the missing pieces of the puzzle, ma'am." She triggered a video note scroll that didn't appear on her holo image. She coughed quietly, calming herself as if the information were a meditative mantra.

  "First. The drug Cyloxibin was derived from an unknown form of psychoactive mushroom, probably genetically engineered. The active form of the drug would be the live spores or the flesh of the mushroom. There is some synergistic reaction of factors within the spores that we have not as yet been able to duplicate.

  "Second. Luis believed that Cyloxibin was an easily synthesized synthetic organic. Patricks therefore misled him. Based on that deception, he convinced Luis to kill all of those connected with the original drug research project."

  Mirabal interrupted calmly. "Most of the killings were routine, except for the death of Patricks himself, which was an information-retrieval operation. And one other—the death of the lab assistant, Ornstein. Under Patricks's supervision, it was made to look like a murder/suicide attempt. Maxine Black was allowed to live, as bait to pull in anyone else who had associated with her."

  Steinbrenner smiled uneasily. "From this we can conclude that the Patricks-Ornstein connection was the most dangerous. The woman Promise was involved with the detoxification clinic, Maxine Black, and the death of Luis Ortega. We can assume that she holds the key to the entire puzzle." She looked up at Tomaso, eyes melting for approval. He smiled, very briefly, and then turned to Sims.

  "Your report?"

  The man's calm was no longer as steady as it had been. His eyes were haunted, and Mirabal watched them with caution. Sims is addicted, he said to himself. Do not trust him.

  Sims couldn't meet Tomaso's eyes. "During the time that Aubry Knight was in Death Valley Maximum Security Penitentiary, he was implanted with a security scan device similar to that used by our organization.

  "It couldn't have been activated, or he would never have been able to escape." He was sweating. "Nonetheless, the implant is there, and our communications satellite has been attempting to trace it. Either it is inoperative, or the transplant is shielded somehow. A few meters of concrete or steel would do it. We're still trying. If we succeed and the woman is still with him..." He shrugged.

  "They're together," Tomaso said. "I know it. And she has the secret with her. I know—"

  "You know, Tomaso? Or you hope?" Margarete's voice was cold. "This drug. Yes, very interesting. But it is nothing compared to the Family. Two murderers still walk the earth. Do not speak to me of chugs. You have lost perspective, grandson. What is money if the Family dies?"

  "It...is well."

  "It is well? When half of your own people are addicts? When assassins lurk in your own bedroom? Tomaso? That is what you said, isn't it? That the woman, Orozco, attempted to poison you?"

  "Yes..."

  "I want no more excuses. I want answers. In sixty days you will come here. To the Island. We must have a full meeting of the Family. Bring the drug, Tomaso. But more importantly—" She leaned forward until the edge of the table disappeared into her holographic image. "—I want Luis's killers. This is my family. It is more important than anything. Anything in the world. I hope that you understand me clearly."

  "Yes... Grandmother."

  She sank back down limply. "Good." Her voice was profoundly weary. "Good. I will rest now." Her image darkened and disappeared.

  Tomaso composed himself. "Steinbrenner, you have work to do. You are excused." She nodded gratefully, and her image collapsed like a ruptured soap bubble.

  When he turned to Wu, he caught a moment of interaction that disturbed him. Wu and Mirabal were watching each other, no expression on either face.

  "Wu," he said sharply. "I want you to work with Steinbrenner. Surely, in all of your years, you have heard of some drug similar to this. Or one of your contacts must know who provided Patricks with breeding stock. I want to know. Anything. Anything at all."

  Wu nodded, making a slight bow in his seat, and signed off. The others followed suit, leaving Tomaso alone in the conference room.

  He adjusted the heat in the room: it always seemed to be out of whack—either too hot or too cold. He was sure that the meter was off, even though no one could find any error. With sweaty fingers, he pulled a bottle from his shirt pocket. He noted the dark moist rings spreading out from his armpits. They smelled more acrid than normal perspiration. He rattled the bottle in his hand, popping one tablet out into his palm.

  He didn't need to take it. Really, he didn't. He hadn't heard the screams for hours now. Hours. Maybe if he just stayed busy, he wouldn't hear them.

  Or see the faces.

  Or feel the nails ripping furrows in his throat. Or smell the blood. Or taste the bile welling up in his throat as he gasped for air. Air. Oh, God. There was no air! He gripped at his throat, reddening. The ringing—at first a distant, keening, sour note—trebled into a scream, a mouth gibbering fear and betrayal.

  He swallowed the pill. Instantly, the images, the sounds and smells and tastes, began to recede. Instantly. It's all in your mind. The pill hasn't even dissolved yet. But that was the voice of sanity, a still, faroff voice.

  Tomaso Ortega sat on his throne, in the dark, and calmed himself, and plotted.

  Wu shook his tablets out of their yellow tube, and watched them spin to a halt in his hand. Such small things, to command his life as they did. "Hurry up, darling," the woman on the bed whispered huskily.

  He glanced at Dawn sidewise, wincing. What demon in hell had egged him to choose this woman that fateful night at Tomaso's? Her face, without makeup, was too thin and lacked character. Her eyes were too small and sharp, her lips hard. But he abhorred makeup and had insisted that she face him as herself, not a painted clown.

  He had pondered that many times, on many nights, many days—but only when the drug was not coursing through his veins. Then it was different. Then he could forget the hundreds of men that she had known, her virtual illiteracy, her shrill laughter, and all of the superficial things he mi
ght have judged her by, and saw only that she was capable of filling his cup, if he let her come that close to him. And under the influence of the drug, he had no choice.

  His robe floated above the surface of the rug as he crossed to her.

  She had no appreciation of the things that he loved. The seventh-century Silla tapestries on the walls of his bedroom were dull things to her, no music, no history or pageantry in them. Fine wines were wasted on her, as was talk of literature or politics or business. There seemed no area of communication save the bedroom; but what happened there was a mind-burning experience.

  If only he could find the strength, or the urge, to try the drug with someone else. But every woman he saw had Dawn's face, every breeze that blew through his fantasies carried Dawn's perfume.

  He felt the smoothness of her skin, and laughed to himself. The drug had taught him one thing, something that he never would have suspected: It is possible for anyone to love anyone. You cannot hold a complete image of someone in your head, even when you are looking at them. The selection of images and impressions you hold of a person determines your opinion of them. And when he thought of Dawn, his mind was pulled inexorably to the desirable, irresistible, essential femaleness of her. At least, as long as he had the drug. And without it, a longing arose that paled all pleasures, that made life seem an impossible burden, one best released as swiftly and painlessly as possible.

  He slipped the robe from his shoulders and lay down in the bed next to her, her hands smoothing the care from his spindly shoulders.

  "Where are they, lover?" She licked her lips to a glistening sheen. Even without the drug in his system, something within him shivered in excitement.

  What if...?

  "Where is it?" Her lips were warm and intimate.

  With all of the strength he had in him, Wu made up his mind. His right hand dropped down to the floor, finding one of his slippers by touch, and dropped the pills into it.

  He looked into her face. "Do you love me?" he asked flatly.

  She was confused for a moment, a dull cloud dampening the glow that had been building a moment before. "Of course I do. You know that. Now—where are they?" Her searching movements were nervous, as if unsure of the game he was playing.

  "We don't have any more pills now—" He felt her stiffen, withdrawing from him, and he almost gave up the game at that second, just forgot about anything but the moment, anything but the supreme happiness of lying with Dawn and feeling their bodies meld.

  The hardness in her face broke through, a greasepaint mask emerging from shadow. "Baby, no. Don't play with me. You know I love you. I just need some help. Just a little help. There's nothing wrong with that."

  "No. I just want to try something. This once." Her eyes were wet, and there was a catching sound in her throat. Wu kissed her on the shoulder. "Please? For me. I have to know something."

  "And then?"

  "And then we can have the drug." He paused, wondering whether to add the last thought, finally deciding yes, "If we need it."

  Her mouth pursed with surprise. "You're not serious?"

  "Do you want me to be?"

  She tried to nod, but couldn't; tried to speak, but couldn't, and finally communicated in the only way she knew how, drawing him to her like a mother caressing a son, trying desperately to believe.

  It was dark in the room, and Wu wanted to turn on the lights, to find the slipper under the bed, to take the pills. Wanted to, and his gut burned with the need. His eyes watered. The memory of other times, inhumanly intense experiences, pounded in his head.

  He wanted the pills so badly that he could barely lie there in the bed, touching her body, feeling the clammy sweat on it, feeling her restless sleep.

  Just barely.

  The darkness he staggered through seemed tinged a sickly green. He fell against the door that connected his bedroom and study, his body turning around seemingly of its own volition. Back. Take the pills. The pain will stop —

  No. He had to do it alone, just his will and his knowledge. And Dawn. He thumbprinted the lock and the door swung open slowly. He turned up the light very slightly, wincing. Withdrawal made his eyes painfully photosensitive.

  In the precise center of the floor was a simple mat. Naked, he collapsed onto it gratefully. He sat with crossed legs and closed eyes.

  From the swirling confusion in his mind, he called forth the image of the Tai Chi form. He often practiced this way, without movement, concentrating so deeply that his muscles twitched and the sweat rolled down from his head, his joints singing with the imagined strain. Slowly, slowly. More slowly than he ever had before, he pictured himself in the form, finding the feeling that would allow him to stay in the moment, intimately linked to each ritual movement. To ride the flow from the first inhalation, Rising Hands, through the subsequent cycles of contraction and expansion: Catch the Bird's Tail, Carry Tiger to Mountain, Split the Horse, and finally the gathering and centering of Close the Tai Chi. There was peace here, and strength.

  His mind wavered, and for a moment he was out of the form, back in the bedroom, writhing with Dawn in the grip of Cyloxibih. He stopped breathing, held it until his lungs began to ache and he was pulled back to the immediacy of the moment.

  He hurt. Sitting silently on the mat, only die faintest of glows illumining die room, Wu sank into the depths of the greatest pain of his life. Searing. Ripping.

  Cleansing.

  Wu sank deeper into the Void.

  15. Dark Within the Earth

  You want to accuse me of humping Emil, or trading our rations for makeup, or primping too much, or not enough, or—

  "No."

  "Well then, what is it, Aubry? I mean, this time. As opposed to the last time, or the time before that. I want you to tell me, Mr. Knight, because I'm about as sick of your complaints as I am of you."

  His voice was barely a whisper. "All I was going to say is that I'm tired to death of this. It just doesn't seem to be working."

  "So you've noticed that, have you? Well, here. You want it to work? Do you?" She pulled her work smock out of the corner and dug into one of the pockets, pulling out two mushrooms.

  She gripped them in her hand, squeezing her eyelids shut, breathing hard. "Here, damn you. Take it." She threw one to him, and he snatched it from the air with arms outstretched, as if it were a snake that he had to keep from biting him.

  He glared at it, turning it over in his hand. He had to swallow twice before he could get the words out. "No. I can't handle any more of this."

  She came a half-step closer and stood over him scornfully. "Poor Aubry. So used to his independence. So used to not needing anything but his own strength to get him through the day." She bent down until their faces were level. He hardly seemed to be the same man. His eyes were weak, watery, and he couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze. His muscles seemed to hang off his body in loose coils, as if his mind no longer controlled them. "Well, welcome to the real world."

  "Just shut up," he growled.

  "You think you're the only person in the world who's had his dreams smashed? Do you really think I came down to California and Nevada to become a whore? Is that what you think?"

  "I don't think anything. Just get out of my face."

  "No." Slowly, deliberately, Promise raised her hand to her mouth and bit off the head of the mushroom, chewing it slowly into mush. "No, Aubry. You wanted me, damn you. And God help me, you're all I've got."

  Aubry watched her with eyes that bled. "Why? Why can't you love me without that? What is it that's so wrong about me?"

  In the dim light of their shared room, Promise seemed not wholly human. The plastiskin side of her body was milky pale, as though she didn't care enough to maintain the color properly. Her hair was a frazzled ruin, the right side chopped down crudely, with no concern for the overall effect. The muscles in her face had grown slack, and she seemed to have aged years in the past few months. "Everything's wrong." The toughness had left her face. He saw the ruin beneath it.
"There's nothing left. And if you were any kind of man at all, you'd take the goddamn mushroom and help me." She rubbed at her nose, wiping a slick of wet from it as she chewed down the last of the mushroom.

  He glared at the tiny pale thing in his hand, hating it, hating himself for needing it. He curled his hand into a fist, pressing hard, trying to feel the interplay of muscle and tendon that had come so easily to him before.

  "Please, Aubry?" She smiled in a pitiful attempt at sensuality. "Please? I'm sorry I can't be anything for you without it. I'm sorry..."

  He uncurled his fingers and let the damp crushed thing fall to the ground. Her eyes, dilated now, widened and she hissed at him. "You can't handle it, can you? Damn you, you scumbag. And damn me for ever having needed anything from you. You're no man at all. You're just a little boy who grew a lot of muscle to keep anyone from ever knowing what a sad, sick case you really are."

  With a flickering movement of his hand, he slapped her. There was no body in it and barely any arm, just a whip of the hand, but her head snapped back and she gasped in shock, throwing thin arms in front of her face. She glared at him, wiping a trickle of blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. "So. I should have expected that. That's all you have to express yourself, isn't it? That's the only way, right? You're nothing. Do you know that? Nothing at all. You're getting fat and sloppy, big man, and that didn't even hurt." She stuck her jaw out at him. "Want to try again?"

  There was murder in Aubry's face, suddenly turning to sickness as his stomach churned with acid. He fought to calm himself, swallowing a throatful of vomit, gasping at the edge of the cot. He looked down at the folds of flesh hanging at his belly, for the first time realizing how long it had been since he had done his exercises. Or run. Or done any of the things that had kept him alive in the long years of prison.

  He looked up at her. "Yeah, maybe I am falling apart. But I'm not the only one. You better check your own face, baby.

  There ain't a whole lot left of the glamor girl I met a while back. And fat? Isn't that a little like the kettle calling the pot bellied?"