Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14)

by Laurence Dahners

  He looked around the party and saw one of the guys putting his arm around Carley’s shoulder. Zage thought the guy looked drunker than most. Carley shrank away a tiny bit, but the guy pulled her closer anyway. She did a neat pivot out from under his hand. From the movement of her lips, Zage thought she said “I need to go check on the beer.”

  She did go check on the cooler in the corner where the beer was on ice. Zage was thinking about getting up and going over to try talking to Carley or Alice, but at that moment Carley started walking his way. She sat down next to him, “Are you doing okay?”

  Zage nodded thoughtfully, “I’m learning a lot about the effects of alcohol.”

  Carley stared at him for a second, but then seeing his eyes on the people at the party, she laughed, “I’ll bet you are.” She frowned at him, “Maybe you shouldn’t have come, you might learn some things you’re a little too young for.”

  He looked around the room, “I’ve always liked learning about anim… human behavior. This’s an important part of it. One I havn’t encountered before.”

  Carley laughed again but then the guy who’d had his arm around her earlier appeared in front of them. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, saying, “Let’s dance!”

  She pulled back, saying, “Hey!”

  Zage thought she was about to refuse to go with the guy, but then she shrugged and let him tug her over to a corner where another couple was dancing.

  Zage followed through with his previous plan, getting up and going over to stand near Alice. He hoped she’d talk to him, but she seemed to be pretty involved in a conversation with another student, one Zage thought looked handsome, though he didn’t think he was very good at recognizing which men were attractive. As Zage stood there waiting, he watched Carley dancing with the guy in the corner. The music had slowed and both couples were dancing with their hands on each other. Zage found he didn’t like the way the guy was pulling Carley to him, but reminded himself that it was up to her.

  Then he noticed that she’d worked her forearms in between their bodies and seemed to be bracing them there to hold him away—working against the way the guy seemed to be pulling her toward him. Zage hadn’t had any personal experience with the hormones and emotions that might be in play, but he had certainly learned about them back when he’d watched hundreds of nature documentaries. Most of the videos he’d watched hadn’t really dealt with humans so Zage felt unsure about whether the way the guy and Carley were interacting was normal or not.

  After a little thought, he wondered whether the question might not so much be whether it was “normal,” but whether it was acceptable. He felt pretty sure that human males and females felt many of the same hormonally driven urges that he’d seen described in animals. However, they probably subordinated such urges to societal constraints. But, from what he’d read about the effects of alcohol on human behavior, it might liberate some of those urges from the normal limiting influences of the forebrain.

  As if to put a point on Zage’s concern, the guy slugged back the rest of his beer and tossed the can on the floor, thus freeing his hands to more fully participate in what appeared to be almost a wrestling match with Carley

  So, if this guy starts behaving in an unacceptable fashion, what’s to stop him? Will Carley be able to? Will someone else step in? Should I be ready to help her?

  He didn’t know the answer, but decided that, as Carley’s friend, he should be keeping a close eye on them and hold himself ready. But, will I know if it’s actually unacceptable and not just part of human mating rituals I’ve never observed? Zage wondered. He glanced up at Alice, wondering whether he’d be able to tell from her expression if she thought what was happening was wrong or not, but Alice didn’t seem to have noticed. She was pretty focused on the guy she was talking to.

  Zage looked around for Rick, the only other person he knew at all well. Rick looked pretty intensely involved with a young woman he was talking to. Zage got up and went over to pick up the empty beer can the guy had tossed onto the floor. This’d be a great opportunity to observe human mating rituals, Zage thought, if I wasn’t so worried about Carley.

  After throwing the can in the trash, Zage turned his eyes back to check on Carley. The guy was pulling her out the door of the apartment! Is she feigning reluctance? he wondered. Or really trying to get away from him? Zage leaned away from the wall and walked swiftly that direction, trying to get a look at Carley’s face so he could see whether she really looked upset.

  The guy had Carley out the door before Zage got a good look at her expression. He closed the door in front of Zage, but it opened readily enough when Zage tried it. The guy was pulling Carley around the corner and Zage was still in a quandary when he heard Carley say, “Let me go!” in an urgent tone.

  Zage felt fairly confident that the tone of Carley’s voice sounded stressed enough to indicate she truly meant the words. She wasn’t just pretending reluctance; she really didn’t want to go with the guy. Zage felt even more certain of his assessment when the guy said in a slightly slurred tone, “Oh come on! You know you want it!”

  Zage started running toward the corner they’d just disappeared around while speaking to Osprey and asking him to send him a canister of pepper spray through the one ended port his mother had installed below his umbilicus. He held his hand in front of his abdomen, ready to catch it, worrying that he might fumble the catch because his abdomen was jerking back and forth with his stride. Then the port appeared with a tiny flash of light and the canister flew out into his hand, apparently moving relatively slowly. Zage caught it easily, realizing he’d dropped into the zone without feeling it coming on.

  He shifted the canister into place in his hand by feel as he rounded the corner. Carley had one hand pushing on the guy’s chest as she tried to wrench her wrist out of his grip with the other. Zage yelled, “Let her go!”

  The guy turned a glance at Zage and said, “Get out of here you little troll!”

  As the guy turned back to his struggle with Carley, he grabbed at the front of her shirt with his free hand.

  It ripped, exposing her bra.

  Zage had been going to shout another warning, that’s what they taught him to do in self-defense class. But he thought if the guy was tearing her clothes, it’d definitely gone too far and needed to be stopped immediately. Besides, Zage would’ve had to stop running to shout the warning because he was right on top of them. Instead, he leapt upward, put one foot on the guy’s butt, grabbed the guy’s shirt collar for stabilization and reached around with the can of pepper spray to give the guy a quick shot in the face.

  Zage kicked off the guy’s hip and landed a couple of feet away as he assessed the spray’s effect. The guy said, “What the…?” then let out an agonized bellow, letting go of Carley and dropping to his knees as he swiped desperately at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt.

  Carley crouched back away from him, clasping her torn blouse shut with both hands. An astonished look on her face, she said, “What happened?!”

  Knowing he was in the zone, Zage moved and spoke very slowly. “Pepper spray.” He wanted to focus Carley on something else besides what he’d just done, so he turned her attention on her own predicament, “Do you want me to try to get you another shirt? Or do you want to just hold that one closed while you’re going back inside?”

  She looked down at herself as if uncertain, then glanced at the side of the building. She stepped to it and tugged at the window, but it didn’t budge. “This’s the window to my room. Maybe you could go inside and unlatch it?” Then she looked apprehensively at the guy who’d been assaulting her. He’d pulled up the hem of his shirt and was wiping at his eyes with a clean area.

  Zage looked at him also. Saying, “I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to bother you for quite a while. I’ll go unlatch the window. Would it be okay if I passed out a wet towel so he can wash his face?”

  She nodded, and Zage turned on his heel to go back inside. As he turned the corner,
he found Jerry standing in front of the door in his swimsuit. Jerry held a backpack in his left hand and his right hand was inside of it. Zage thought it might be holding the grip of a gun. Zage also saw several members of his security detail running toward the apartment from different directions. When Jerry saw Zage, he asked urgently, “What happened?! Allan said you called for pepper spray?”

  Zage told Osprey to connect him to the entire security team, then said, “Everything’s okay now. Please don’t make yourself obvious. One of the guys at the party got drunk and ripped the hostess’ blouse. I gave him a little shot of pepper spray. He’s no longer a threat. I’m going back inside to open her window so she can get another blouse. Maybe one of you guys could go around the corner,” Zage jerked a thumb in that direction, “and act like a helpful bystander. But if all of you show up like some kind of army, it’s going to give away our secret!”

  Zage went back into Carley’s apartment and through her bedroom to open the window. The security team sent Linda, one of their new female members, around the corner to help Carley. Zage thought that was a good idea as she probably seemed less threatening than one of the guys. Linda helped Carley climb in the window once Zage had it open.

  Zage quickly soaked a towel and passed it out the window to Linda, then left Carley’s room so she could change her blouse. As he exited her room, Zage ran into Alice who said, “Have you seen Carley? People are asking about her.”

  Zage nodded at her room, “She’s changing her clothes. One of the guys tore her shirt.”

  Alice raised a hand to cover her mouth as her eyes widened, “What! Who…?”

  Zage said, “I think she’s okay, but she could probably use some support from a friend if you’re up for it?”

  “Of course! But what happened?”

  “One of the guys at the party seems to have lost control of some of his baser urges. I think he was pretty drunk, so I suspect he was quite disinhibited. As you might expect, Carley’s pretty upset.”

  Alice drew back in startlement at this objective and somewhat clinical description of what she’d have expected to be a highly emotional altercation, but then she tracked back to the situation. “Have you called the police?”

  Zage shook his head, “I thought that should be up to Carley, but I don’t really know. There were some people outside helping her, they might’ve called the police already.”

  “Outside?!”

  “Yes, it mostly happened outside. I just helped Carley climb in through her window because she didn’t want to come back through the party with her torn clothing.”

  Shaking her head in dismay, Alice knocked on the door, “Carley? It’s Alice. Can I help?”

  There wasn’t any answer, so Alice knocked again.

  Zage touched Alice’s wrist, “Alice? I promised my mom I’d leave the party by 9:30, and I’m a little late. If you can help Carley, is it okay if I go now?”

  Alice nodded absently and Zage headed out. He felt conflicted, thinking that he should’ve stayed there longer in case Carley needed him. However, he knew that his mother’d be upset if he got involved in a big way with something that might bring a lot of attention. She’d already had him refuse a number of interviews about the little kid who was going to college.

  He sighed, I’ll apologize to Carley tomorrow and blame leaving in the middle of her tragedy on my hyper-nervous mother. Hopefully she’ll understand, and mom’ll be happy too.

  When Zage got home, his mother was waiting up for him. “Hi Mom,” he said, hoping that she wouldn’t know what’d happened. He didn’t expect that to be the case though.

  She got up and stepped to him, kneeling and pulling him into a hug. “I’m very proud of you for helping Carley.”

  Having expected her to be angry, Zage felt pleasantly surprised. “Um, thanks.”

  She leaned back and gave him a look that he thought was somewhere between amused and frustrated. “However…” she snorted when he rolled his eyes, “I’m pretty sure you knew there was going to be a ‘however,’ didn’t you?”

  He nodded, “What did I think my security team was for? All I had to do was have Osprey call them and they’d have taken care of everything, right?”

  Ell laughed, “How am I supposed to chastise you, when you beat me to it?!”

  He shrugged, “I still think I did the right thing. That guy had already torn her clothes and the closest member of the team, Jerry, was quite a distance away at the pool.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, “Are you saying they should stay closer to you?”

  “No!” he said shaking his head emphatically. “If you want to tell the world that I’m a target, all you need to do’s start having a bunch of security start hovering over me!” He tried to give his mother a little more sympathetic look. “I think you’ve taken exactly the right strategy. You gave me the self-defense training and the single ended port to deliver weapons so I can protect myself briefly. That way a more loosely arranged team has a few moments to get there. Don’t make the team obvious so they don’t attract the very threats you’re trying to protect me from.” He took a breath, “It worked fine tonight. I was never in any danger, I only helped a friend.”

  “You didn’t have to get involved,” Ell said, sounding frustrated. “You could’ve called the team and they would’ve taken care of it.”

  “Mom,” he said tilting his head and looking at her curiously, “Carley’s my friend and I really like her. Someone had attacked her and was tearing her clothes. The team was minutes away. Would you have waited instead of helping one of your friends?”

  His mother stared at him for a moment, looking frustrated, then her shoulders sagged. “No, I’d have done exactly the same thing you did… I hope. That was very nicely executed.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “Just… when these things happen in the future, and they almost certainly will, please think about your poor old mother and how terrified she’s going to be on your behalf.”

  Zage grinned, “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  When Zage got up to his room, he had Osprey call the Gordito site up onto his big screen. The large screen on his wall was recent enough that he still felt grateful that he had it. It’d been hard to talk his parents into letting him have it as they argued he should be sleeping when he was up in his room. But then he’d told them how he couldn’t sleep very many hours a night. They’d looked at one another and his mother’d said with a sigh, “Neither can I. And it’s pointless trying to lie there hoping you’ll fall asleep.” They’d only agreed to talk about it, but then when he’d gotten home the next day it’d already been installed.

  Having the big screen was good because trying to work on the Gordito site using the HUD in his contacts would’ve been difficult. He stared, Especially when it has this many requests! he thought.

  Alice’s Note had only gone up on the journal’s website earlier that week. Somehow Zage had expected it’d take weeks to months before many people noticed the article. After all the website itself had been up for months with little if any traffic. He’d had a handful of queries he’d responded to yesterday, which he’d thought of as a big uptick. Now there were seventy-three more! It’s a good thing I don’t need to sleep very much, he thought. Then, I wonder if this big bump’s due to some kind of viral spread among scientists? I know that viral spreading of memes happens in pop culture, but in science?

  Osprey’d already done the parts he could, so Zage had him throw up the first fold Osprey couldn’t predict. The answer seemed obvious so he fed it to Osprey and said, “Next.”

  As he went through fold after fold, it seemed to be getting easier and easier. He wondered if he was getting better at intuiting the folds or whether he was just getting sloppy. Caring less or something. He paused for a moment to wonder if there was a way for him to know. Realizing that some of the queries might be tests submitted by people who were dubious of his ability, he said, “Osprey, are the 3-D structures of any of these proteins known?”

  Osprey repli
ed, “The third submission and the fifty seventh are both known.”

  “Did I get the third one right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t tell me which number I’m working on as I go through them, but after I do the fifty seventh one, stop me to let me know if I also get it right, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Zage kept working them and putting them back up.

  ***

  When Zage got to the lab Monday, Alice was already there. She turned to look at him when he came in, so he walked over, “How’s Carley? I felt really bad about leaving before I could be sure she was okay Friday night.”

  Alice said, “Okay, I think. She was a little freaked out at first, but about a half an hour later she was back to hosting her party.”

  “Did the police take that guy in?”

  “No, they came and downloaded the records off of his AI. Carley’s too. But she didn’t want to press charges because he’s a nice guy when he’s sober. The police said that they’d keep the audio video record of this incident and if he ever got in the same kind of trouble again he’d have hell to pay.” Alice shook her head, “I think he’d better stay sober in the future.”

  Zage studied her, “Would you’ve pressed charges?”

  She looked off into the distance for half a minute, then said with a shrug, “I don’t know. I’ve always said I'd have no mercy on guys who act like that, but…”

  Zage waited a minute for her to say something more, but when she didn’t, he said, “Well, I’m really glad Carley seems to be okay.”

  Alice focused back on Zage, “Carley said you were there when it happened?”

  Zage nodded.

  “How’d that happen?”

  “I’d been watching them dancing and it seemed like he was trying to pull her closer and Carley was fighting to get away. Then he took her by the wrist and dragged her out the door…” Zage shrugged, “so I followed.”