by Darrell Bain
Daniel didn't bother disabusing him. If a government agency wanted to listen to someone badly enough, or wanted information badly enough, they could find a way, even if it meant suborning or blackmailing employees.
The elevator opened into a room with stainless steel walls and ceilings with light fixtures covered with what looked like glass, but if Daniel had to guess, he would say it was of some other material. There was no apparent way to change the odd looking bulbs inside the fixtures; another source of bugging stopped. There was a metal door at the other end or the room which was closed securely. This man took no chances. He approved, thoroughly.
The seats at the long table were almost all occupied. Daniel scanned the mixture of individuals, ranging from young to old, men to women and persons of varying colors. They could have posed for one of the diversity ads being bandied about with no problem.
Daniel began heading toward one of the middle vacant seats, but Tyrone touched his shoulder, steering him closer to the head of the table, where he and Lisa were given seats next to each other. Marybeth sat down by Tyrone at the head of the table. She pulled a new Comphone device from her purse and clicked it on to record the session.
Daniel glanced down at a tablet of clean white paper on the table at his place, just like those in front of the other individuals. At the head of each sheet was a quote.
* * * *
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C.S. Lewis.
“It looks as if everyone is here, so let's get started,” Tyrone said. “First, I'd like to introduce Daniel Stenning, late of the National Security Agency. Besides Mark Terrell, it turns out that we had another of us strategically placed in the NSA; we just didn't know it. Fortunately for us, Daniel realized where he belonged and has joined our circle. That's very good; we may be needing his advice on security matters before this is over.”
Charles Masters, the Police Chief, grimaced. “Tyrone, I trust you, but how the hell can we trust someone from the NSA? He could be a ringer.”
Tyrone smiled. “There are several reasons to why we should believe him. First, you don't really think that fire and shootout he and Lisa were in was staged, do you?”
Masters rubbed his chin where a mix of white and dark unshaven whiskers were showing. “I suppose it could have been. By the way, I've got it covered so far. All I've let out is that three John Does were killed trying to break into Lisa and Marybeth's place. So far, the feds haven't contradicted me.”
“All right, but even the NSA would think twice about sacrificing their own men just on the chance of planting someone here. Besides, it wasn't the first attempt on his life. Remember that SUV that almost ran a stranger down the other day? That was him. And in a restaurant where they were eating, they poisoned his and his partner's food, trying for him that way.” Tyrone paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you know where the leftovers from Sammie's go?”
“Yeah, I think Jim's hogs wind up with them most of the time. Why?”
“Has he lost any hogs lately?”
“Well, Goddamn. Yes, he called the vet as a matter of fact. Lost a whole passel of them yesterday, so I heard. Was it from that food?”
“Almost certainly. And if that doesn't convince you, the Agency and me both ran a deep search on Daniel. Turns out his grandmother was from here.”
“Doesn't prove anything.”
“I think it does when he has all the traits. Besides, I'm vouching for him.”
Masters nodded slowly, reluctantly conceding.
Daniel didn't blame him, or anyone else here if they doubted him. Hell, he doubted himself in some ways. It was all still so new!
“All right, let's move on. Where's Harry?”
“Over here.” Harry Sildon had come in while the others were still seating themselves and had stayed by the coffee and pastries, filling himself up enough sweets to convince anyone that he seldom stopped work long enough to plan a meal.
“Harry, can you stop eating long enough to go over the data you gave me last night? I think we need to start spreading it around.”
“To everyone? Damnit, Tyrone, I told you it's not a proven theory yet!”
“I know, but you're certain in your mind that you've found the key, aren't you?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Never mind. I appreciate your good scientific methodology, but I doubt that events can wait. Spill it, and give it to us in laymen's terms as nearly as possible.”
Sildon began with simple wording, but quickly devolved into jargon, drawing tolerant laughter from the room. He backed up, tried again, then looked helplessly at Tyrone.
He laughed. “Harry, you ought to try your hand as a stand up comic. You'd make a fortune!”
“I wasn't trying to be funny,” Harry said mournfully.
“I know, but let me give it a try.” Tyrone began speaking, telling the group in simple terms what had been discovered, then going over it twice more to be certain it had sunk in. He then mentioned the two items in the Little Rock newspaper Daniel had seen and gave his interpretation of them. “Okay, the floor's open. Let's hash this out and get a consensus on what action, if any, we should take.”
Daniel sat back and listened. Chief Masters was inclined to wait and react to events. He was scared of the power the federal government could bring to bear if it wished.
Marybeth spoke up strongly for announcing Harry's findings in a reputable journal.
“Why would you want me to do that-not that I'm in a position to publish yet anyway.”
“Couldn't you do a-a, what do they call it, a preliminary report on findings?”
“Well, I could, but my reputation would sure suffer if I wound up being proved wrong.”
“Listen, Harry, it's going to be more than reputations that suffer before this is over. If the public ever gets the idea that we're trying to conceal the idea that we're mutants—”
“Are we really mutants?” Fred Collins broke in to ask, as if it were some dread disease.
“Everyone is a mutant in the ultimate sense, Fred. Hell, if it weren't for mutations, we'd still be amoebas,” Eric Buffer said. He ran the library but he also kept up as well as he could with scientific developments, besides being a science fiction fan.
That got a laugh from everyone but Fred. “You know what I mean. Are we really mutant humans?”
“Yes.” Tyrone and Harry responded at once. Harry started to elaborate, then nodded at Tyrone, not wanting to be laughed at again.
“Fred, I guess you can say we are mutants, but it's not a significant deviation from the norm, like say, having telepathic powers or superman muscles or the like. Just to look at us or talk to us and no one would know the difference.”
“Until they start in with religion and marriage and intelligence and-”
“That's the problem, all right,” Tyrone conceded. “We happen to be different in the very ways that strike at normal people's beliefs and morals. It's going to be a real problem.”
“Unless we defuse it first,” Marybeth said.
“I don't think we can,” Eileen Tupper said. “People aren't rational on those issues like we are. The best we can do is ask for tolerance, and as far as I'm concerned, the longer we wait before we have to ask, the better.”
Harry Sildon couldn't stand it. “Eileen, Marybeth may have a point. I wouldn't like to publish anything except what I would call a preliminary finding, but think of this: how do we know we're the only ones with this prion mutation?”
The silence in the room after that remark couldn't have been greater had it occurred in a vacuum. Finally Daniel spoke for the first time.
“It's possible for sure. I never knew I was from here until
very recently, and the way I understand it, Mark Terrell was discovered accidentally. If we go back a long way, as Tyrone says we do, there could be little colonies like us scattered all over the world. The European world at least.”
“I don't know if that would help or hurt,” Tyrone said. “Look at what's happened to the Jews over the centuries. And at least they have a religion. Picture what the fundamentalists will think of us.”
Lisa, the newest council member had kept silent so far, but this remark induced her to speak. “Read those two pieces in the paper again. If the feds are going to start coming after us anyway, I can't see what harm a pre-emptive strike can do. Why don't we simply put Harry's discoveries out on the internet and at the same time publicize the NSA's efforts to kill Daniel and the way they treated Mark? And if we have to fight, we—” Uncharacteristically, she broke into tears. The understanding that she had taken two human lives at last swept over her in full detail, wrenching her emotionally and mentally.
Daniel put an arm around her while she brushed the tears away and continued, the emotional stability and reasoning power of her mind quickly coming back into play. “I killed two persons yesterday. And if those bastards try to harm me or Daniel or anyone else in our valley, I'll do it again! In the end, it's going to come down to them trying to wipe us out, isn't it?” Her green eyes swept the room, flashing defiance.
Tyrone lowered his head for a moment so that the others wouldn't see his amused smile. He had suspected Lisa would become a valuable addition to their group, and this only confirmed it. He raised his head back up and saw that the others were waiting on him to respond.
“I'm afraid Lisa is right. That's what will happen eventually. Best we try to control events rather than letting them control us.”
The discussion went on for another hour before Tyrone glanced at his watch and called a halt to further debate. “Folks, we can talk the issue to death but we need to agree on what we're going to do, even if it's nothing but a wait and see. Why don't we have a show of hands? I'll go around the table. The question is, do we expose ourselves or wait on the government to do it for us?”
Chief Masters was reluctant but he went along with the others. Everyone else was in favor of letting the news go out and see what happened. Once it was clear that they all agreed, Tyrone outlined a general plan for their consideration. First would come Harry, with an easily understandable report on his research sent out to a plethora of sites on the internet, followed quickly with commentary by Eileen from the Mayor's office and the true version of events at the B&B from Chief Masters. Eileen would then call for a town meeting to let the citizens of Masterville speak for themselves once they learned they were, not a different species, but a different breed of human.
“And that last should be emphasized in everything we say,” Harry said. “We may carry a mutation, but so long as we can interbreed we're as human as anyone else. I'll repeat that again and again in my preliminary paper.”
Fred Collins didn't speak often, but when he did, the feed store owner almost always made a point, sometimes one that the others hadn't thought of, as he did now. “This here town meeting. That's going to be the most unwieldy sumbitch we ever heard of.”
“If it's announced in advance, there will also be ringers there from the NSA, FBI, CIA and maybe from NASA for all I know, checking us out to see if we're responsible for all the Mars probes we've lost. Certainly we'll draw some UFO buffs and other fringe elements.”
“We'll have to hold it at the football stadium,” Eileen said. “Either there or in the park.”
“Stadium,” Tyrone said. “And let's do it quickly.”
“Agreed. I'll set it up for day after tomorrow. At least we already have facilities there, but I'll order up more of what we need, like Porta Potties for the overflow, and contract out for some extra food booths. I can have some flyers printed up, too, if Harry will give me the specifics of his paper in writing.”
“All that will help, but it's still going to be like Rosicrucians and Scientologists scheduling their conventions in the same hotel on the same dates,” Fred said, but he was grinning, as if he anticipated the coming hoorah.
“And there's going to be a lot of questions flung our way about what right we had to make decisions for everyone,” Tyrone said. “Hopefully, most people will ignore that and concentrate more on learning about what we are.”
“What if we get kicked out and someone else gets picked to run things?”
“A recall for town officers requires lots of signatures and a cooling off period,” Eileen reminded them. “It couldn't happen real soon. As for the rest of you, I think I can convince the city council to leave us be for the time being, so long as we keep them and the people well informed. I'll put out a daily briefing for the paper, Jeremiah, if you'll print it.”
“That I will, and comments pro and con to boot.” He rubbed his hands together and broke into laughter. “This is going to be more fun than a basketful of puppies dumped into a ton of hamburger. The big boys at the major sheets are gonna cry their eyes out with envy at my Pulitzer Prize, not that I give a flying fuck about it. When can I break the story?”
“How about as soon as you can get it printed? We'll release Harry's preliminary research report to all the right places on the internet tomorrow, then you can have at every day afterwards. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like I better go make sure my shotgun is loaded-and you boys and girls should, too. Once this story breaks, that's what it's going to take to run the national reporters and photographers off your front lawns.”
With everything agreed on, Tyrone declared the official meeting closed and opened his liquor cabinet. After most of them had departed and Marybeth and Lisa had taken Daniel out for a tour of the facilities, Tyrone got Harry aside. “Harry, stay for a bit once we're alone. I have one more question to ask you.”
“Sounds important.”
“It is, Harry, it is. Perhaps the most important question of them all.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once they were alone, Tyrone put it to him. “Harry, let me ask you a theoretical question: suppose I gave everyone in the world a spoonful of our prions. What would happen to them?”
“Be damned if I know. There's no way of telling without experimenting on humans and I'm not going to do that. Besides, it wouldn't take a spoonful. Prions multiply once ingested.”
“Okay, let me put it another way: what do you think would happen?”
“Nothing, probably.”
“Why do you say that? Wouldn't our prions make it to the brain through food? Isn't that the usual route?”
“Infectious, disease-causing prions, yes. And presumably, ours too. But you're forgetting something: prions take a long time to act. And in our case, we've had them all our lives. Most likely, they've been folding and unfolding, and interacting with, and affecting our synapses, right from birth. Thankfully, they seem to have a positive rather than a negative affect. But remember, they multiply as our synapses increase while we're growing, presumably with the result of enhancing our reasoning power as we learn and mature; from birth right on up to old age. Giving them to an adult who has never had them probably wouldn't cause much more change than an upset stomach. Or it might kill them, though I doubt it. Who knows?”
“Well, suppose they were given to infants. What then?”
“Ah, that's a different case entirely. They would grow up with them then. I can't say they would eventually affect a person like they do us, but I can't think of a reason right off hand why they wouldn't. Tyrone, I know what you're thinking and I won't do it.”
“Yes you will, Harry, once you realize that humanity can't afford to lose this mutation. Just imagine a whole world that thinks and behaves like we do. What couldn't the race achieve?”
“The race would have us both executed for doing it, that's what they would achieve first thing.”
“You don't have to have anything to do with it Harry, other than manufacture the prions
for me. I'll take the responsibility after that.”
“Don't bullshit me, Tyrone. I would be as guilty as you. Goddamn, are you really serious?”
“Insofar as wanting to have the prions in my possession in case we have to dispense them clandestinely to save our mutation, I'm serious as hell. I've never been more serious. And if they try to wipe us out, just the threat of spreading them around might stay their hand.”
Harry was silent for long moments, staring off into some world of his own. Tyrone let him be, knowing he had to be silent while the scientist mulled over all the possibilities, pro and con. Finally he blinked and shook his head.
“You really think the government would kill us?”
“Yes, I do. They would have very good reasons, of course. Harry, get it through your head. We're different. Humans don't like different. They never have. And they really don't like different when it threatens their religious beliefs. We're-they, I mean-are just built like that.”
Harry went into another long contemplative silence before answering Tyrone.
“You realize if we did it, we'd go down in history as two of the maddest sons of bitches since Hitler and Stalin. Or if it goes the other direction, the greatest benefactors of humanity since Xerxes got his ass kicked by Darius trying to invade Greece. God, how did I wind up in this crazy situation?”
“Same as the rest of us, Harry. We care what happens to the race. The ones we're against don't. They'd rather depend on some pie in the sky heaven and rarely look beyond the next election. Besides, it might not be necessary. Hell, it could be that governments and prospective parents will ask us to supply them with our prions once the positive benefits are known.”
Harry shook his head, laughing out loud with a total lack of humor to the sounds. “You're the godawflest optimist I've ever known, Tyrone, but this one time, I surely hope you're right.”
* * * *
While Tyrone and Harry were talking, Marybeth was showing Daniel, and to a lesser extent Lisa, around. They were going down the long hallway they had traversed before, but this time Marybeth occasionally opened doors to show off offices, labs and other facilities.
