“You’d have to rape me,” she said. “I don’t think you want to do that, do you?”
He let go of her immediately. It certainly wasn’t what he wanted, and it definitely wasn’t his style.
“There’s nothing I have to offer you any more, I suppose?” he said, not intending it to sound as bitchy as it did. “Nothing you want in return?”
She didn’t look angry, but she didn’t look apologetic either. “This was a mistake,” she said. “It was silly.”
“Not that silly,” he assured her. “Whatever you were looking for back there, you were more likely to find in me than in those tattered slags you were talking to. You still are. What were you looking for? Not just something to relieve the boredom, surely.”
“No,” she said, positively. “Not just that. And you’re right—maybe I should have come looking for you in the first place. But it’s nothing to do with sex, Bru, nor with the stuff you peddle as synthetic happiness. It’s something else. You’d better go now.”
“Why?” he riposted. “Is it time for your boyfriend to come out of his coffin? Oh, sorry—home from work, I mean. What exactly is it that he does?” He was almost tempted to make a crack about the plasma in the fridge, but he knew better. One of his golden rules was never to tell people he knew they had secrets until he’d figured out what the secrets were.
“I wouldn’t like to keep you away from your own work for too long,” she countered. “All those hemorrhoid creams and heartburn tablets have to be kept pure, don’t they? And there’s always more happiness to cook up while the plant’s lying idle. You always were a busy man—that’s why your sex life consisted of brief encounters with cheap whores.”
The insults were too far out of date to hurt. The new generation of pharmaceuticals was way past the hemorrhoid and heartburn phase.
“I knew the acid wit was what you’d missed most,” he came back, as heroically as he could. “You obviously missed it so much you stole the recipe.”
He left after that—as politely as he could, given the circumstances.
It wasn’t easy to get the car out of the basement, but he managed it eventually. He drove it home, possessed all the while by an icy calm.
He was sure that he’d see her again, even though he’d made such an unholy mess of things. He’d memorized the number inscribed on the phone in her hallway, and he knew she’d probably be on her own during working hours. Next time, he’d have a script ready, and he’d make up all the ground he’d lost.
He had to; it was a matter of pride.
Brewer made no attempt to put the pills or the plasma into analysis while his lab assistants were still on site. Even Johanna wouldn’t have known what he was doing, or why, and she knew better than to ask, but it was his habit to be discreet and he needed the equipment in the main lab to get the job done quickly. Johanna and Leroy weren’t in the least surprised that he was still there when they completed the last of their own assignments a mere two hours into time-and-a-half and dropped the results on his desk. They thought of him, half-admiringly and half-pityingly, as a workaholic night-bird.
He bid them both a cheery goodbye, and switched on all the privacy screens as soon as they were clear of the building.
Once he’d got the first set of analyses started his curiosity faded away into the methodical routines. It wasn’t until he was certain that it was a very exotic protein that a certain excitement began to force its way through his controlled state of mind. All proteins in the public domain were intrinsically boring; these days, one had to go a long way out of that domain to find anything really weird. This one was from way back in the wilderness.
When the first sample had cleared the initial stage of analysis he set the replicated samples of the second compound going, but he held off on the plasma lest he get into a tangle. The first rule of good lab practice was to take things in order.
As soon as Brewer had an amino-acid map of the first compound, and while he was still waiting for its 3-D configuration, he checked the newest edition of the encyclopedia. He knew that the unknown wouldn’t be on file—these days, nobody ever filed anything until they were sure it was worthless, and that usually took a long time—but he expected the book to throw up a few probable template molecules based on common base-clusters. Practically all novel proteins were designed by computer programs which tried to juggle known activity-sites into more interesting or more economical configurations, so it was usually possible to guess what kind of base an innovation had started from and what kind of effect the designer might be trying to enhance.
It didn’t take him long to figure out that he wasn’t dealing with any of his usual fields. Whatever pill number one was supposed to do it hadn’t any obvious potential to mimic or interact with neurotransmitters or amygdalar enkephalins. Nor had it any detectable kinship with the currently favored avenues of research into cell-repair and tissue-rejuvenation. That probably meant that it had nothing to do with Jenny’s new look—but if it had, then it really must be something odd, something unexpected.
It didn’t take long to find out that the same was true of type two—by which time Brewer’s instincts were beginning to detect a suspiciously natural ambience.
Brewer was not at all enthused by the thought that the samples might be nothing more than lumps of raw-material churned out by DNA of unknown function that had been cloned from some obscure plant or bacterium in the faint hope that it might turn out to be interesting. Computerized design hadn’t quite driven the old pick-and-mix methods to extinction and there wasn’t a nation in the world that didn’t have its own mock-patriotic Ark project dedicated to gene-banking as many local species as could be identified, in the faint hope of preserving data that would otherwise be lost to the attrition of routine extinction.
The trouble with natural proteins, of course, was that they might be geared to functions which had no relevance at all to human beings, slotted into biochemical systems which had long been discarded by the higher animals—or, indeed, all animals of whatever height. The majority of exotic natural proteins sufficiently stable to be incorporated into pills were structural materials devoid of any real physiological significance. Brewer tried to console himself with the thought that nobody would keep those kinds of samples in his bathroom cabinet, but it wasn’t until he had the 3-D configurations, and could trace the pattern of active sites, that he became morally certain that he wasn’t dealing with any mere building-blocks for fibers or cell walls.
Unfortunately, it still wasn’t clear exactly what the relevant physiological activity might be. The proteins certainly weren’t psychotropics, and if they were cosmetics of some kind they were no common-or-garden patent-avoiders.
When he decided that it was time he put the plasma-like stuff into the system he had been studying his screen intently for at least twenty minutes, virtually oblivious to his surroundings. While he reached out to pick up the specimen bottle containing the straw-colored liquid his eyes still lingered on the screen. It wasn’t until his groping hand failed to make contact with the bottle that he looked sideways, and then up.
There was no way to tell how long the invader had been standing there, not six feet away, watching him. Brewer had never been so startled in all his life—but he had never before been confronted by anything so nearly impossible. His electronic defenses were, as he had assured Jenny, glorious in their subtlety. How glorious, therefore, must be the subtlety of the man who now stood before him, having hacked his way through the undergrowth of passwords and booby-traps?
There was nothing particularly striking about the invader himself, apart from his lustrously pale skin, his remarkably dark eyes and his astonishing aptitude for silence. He didn’t seem unusually menacing, although there was a peculiar glint in his near-black eyes which suggested that he might become menacing if crossed.
Brewer desperately wanted to say something that would save a little face, but he just wasn’t up to it. All he said, in the end, was: “Who the hell are you?” He was
uncomfortably aware of the fact that it was a very tired cliché.
“You’ve seen me before, Mr. Brewer,” the unwelcome visitor told him. “Several times, in fact.” He had a slight accent of some kind but it wasn’t readily identifiable.
Brewer stared hard at the invader’s face, certain that he would have remembered those coal-black eyes and that remarkable complexion. He had method enough left in him to realize that if that were so, those were exactly the features he must set aside, in order to concentrate on the rest. When he did that, he got a dim impression of where he had seen the man—but, not, alas, the least flicker of a name.
On the other hand, Brewer realized, given what he was doing and the way his uninvited guest had taken the trouble to sit around and wait for him to look up, there couldn’t be much doubt about the invader’s purpose in coming to call.
“Jenny said we had interests in common,” he said, knowing that there was far too much lost ground to catch up but feeling that he had to try. “You see so many people, though—all those seminars, all those cunningly contrived meetings where clients try to whip up competition in order to drive the tenders down. We were never formally introduced, were we? Funny how we can have so many mutual acquaintances, and not know one another at all.”
“I know you very well,” the stranger said. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, one way and another.” There was suddenly something about his eyes that seemed profoundly unsettling, but there was as much sadness in it as threat.
Brewer, desperate to know exactly how much trouble he was in, tried to fathom the significance of one way and another. One way was obviously Jenny—but who was the other? The people Brewer met at conferences and the people he met in the course of his legitimate business had little or nothing to tell. He put two and two together and hoped he wasn’t making five.
“You’re the guy who’s been taking over my runners, aren’t you?” Brewer said, “Jenny put you on to them—to Simon and the others. Is that what she was doing in the Goat and Compasses today? Making deliveries?”
The stranger shook his head. “She doesn’t make deliveries,” he said. “She has nothing to do with that aspect of the business at all—except, of course, that she did give me the information which allowed me to make contact with some of your agents. I only needed a handful of names; the rest I did myself.”
“Did she tell you where to find me?” Brewer asked, warily. He wondered whether the accent might be German, or maybe Serbian.
The stranger shook his head. “That was Simon,” he said. “You embarrassed him. He told me you were after me—and why you suddenly stopped asking questions. Jenny doesn’t know that I know you were at the flat, any more than she knows about the things you took. It was careless of me to leave them lying around, but I simply didn’t realize that you might be able to walk through my security systems as easily as I could walk through yours.”
That was a scoring point; without Jenny’s help, Brewer would never have been able to worm his way into the stranger’s flat, and they both knew it.
“Fate seems to have been determined to throw us together,” Brewer observed. “Did you pick up my ex-girlfriend solely in order to find out about my distribution system, or did she just happen to give you the idea of making a little extra money that way?”
“What do you make of the proteins?” the other asked, pointedly ignoring the question. “How much have you figured out?”
What Brewer had figured out was that the one advantage left to him might well be that the other man couldn’t possibly know how little he knew, so he wasn’t about to tell him.
“Jenny’s looking very well,” Brewer commented, instead. “Rather better than you are, I think—which presumably means that you’re testing your freshly-hatched miracles on her before applying them to yourself. Sensible enough, I suppose, but not entirely sporting. No wonder Simon thinks you’re a creep. You’ll want to do a few more runs before you’re certain, of course. Better safe than sorry.” That was the best he could do without admitting that he hadn’t a clue what the proteins were for, or where they might have come from.
“We’re not enemies, Mr. Brewer,” said the man with the disturbing eyes. “We’re not even rivals—not really.”
Brewer didn’t understand that move either. Was the stranger trying to make a deal? If so, he thought, the best thing to do was play along with it. “Sure,” he replied. “We’re both on the same side: the side of the psychotropic revolution. Marked down by destiny to be the midwives of the Übermenschen.”
“Jenny told me all about that,” the stranger admitted. “She told me that you were sincere but I wasn’t convinced.”
“Is that why you’re here—to be convinced?” Brewer couldn’t believe it was as simple as that.
“Not exactly,” said the dark-eyed man. “I came out of curiosity. While I’m here, though, I suppose I ought to recover the things you stole, and obliterate all the records of your analyses.” He stressed the word all very faintly, perhaps to remind Brewer that memories were records too.
“I can understand that,” Brewer said. “I’m irredeemably curious myself.”
The stranger hesitated, as if he were hovering on the brink of some make-or-break decision. Then, making up his mind, he set the specimen bottle down on the bench beside him and took something out of his pocket.
Brewer recognized the device immediately. It was a sterile pack containing a disposable drug-delivery device: what the tabloids had taken to calling a “smart syringe” since it had become the darling of all the hardcore mainliners. The instrument wasn’t so very smart, but it was subtle; its bioconductors could deliver drugs to underlying tissues without ripping up the superficial tissues. Deeper probes did tend to break a few capillaries, but they only left a little round mark like a bruise—or a love-bite.
“Need a fix?” Brewer asked, uneasily.
With a dexterity that might have been admirable in other circumstances the stranger took the cap off the specimen bottle one-handed and carefully transferred the fluid to the barrel of the device.
“Keep your hands on the bench,” the stranger instructed him.
Brewer instantly raised his hands from the bench and came to his feet. He wasn’t being stubborn or heroic—it was just a reflex, animated by fear. He swung his fist, the way he’d seen a hundred men actors swing theirs in a hundred action-movies.
The dark-eyed man pivoted on his heel, and moved so fast that Brewer couldn’t keep track of him. It might have been the blindness of Brewer’s panic, but the speed of the man seemed supernatural. Brewer found himself reeling backwards, clutching his stomach. It hurt horribly, but he hadn’t yet had the wind knocked out of him and he was able to lunge forward again, as if to tackle the other around the knees.
The second assault was no more effective than the first. The unseen blow to his head hurt even worse than the smack in the belly. It didn’t leave Brewer unconscious, but it knocked him down and it knocked him silly. He was on all fours, wondering whether he could get up again, when he felt a foot in the small of his back, forcing him further down. He pressed upwards against the force, but he couldn’t resist it. Once he was flat on the ground, with an irresistible weight bearing down on him, he felt the pressure-pad of the smart syringe at his neck.
The contact lasted at least twenty seconds, but there was nothing Brewer could do to break it. It didn’t hurt—that, after all, was the whole point of smart syringes.
Brewer was slightly surprised that he was still conscious when the instrument was withdrawn, although there was no earthly reason to suppose that the straw-colored liquid might have been an anaesthetic. By the time the weight was removed from his back the pain in his head was easily bearable, but he still felt nauseous. He thought it best to stay down until he was sure he could stand up straight. He was dimly conscious of the dark-eyed man moving to the bench where the pills were.
Eventually, he picked himself up, and met the stare of those remarkable eyes. “Thanks,” he sai
d, putting on the bravest face he could. “I thought I’d lost my chance to analyze the stuff.”
“You’ve got every chance,” the dark-eyed man assured him. “But there really isn’t any hurry. Not now. You know where to find me when you’re fully prepared for a rational discussion.”
Having said that, the stranger simply turned away, walked to the door of the lab, and went out. It shouldn’t have been easy to exit the building without the proper codes, but Brewer didn’t suppose the unwelcome visitor would get into any difficulties.
A quick check told him that the remaining pills were gone and that the data displayed on his screen had all been dumped. It wasn’t a thorough job, though; he probably had enough traces left in the equipment to do another run, and he ought to be able to recover the ghosted data from the hard disk. The dark-eyed man didn’t seem to care what Brewer had found out, or what he still might find out. Brewer wondered exactly what the mysterious stranger had meant by “fully prepared.” It couldn’t be a simple matter of attitude.
Brewer used an ordinary hypodermic to extract some blood from the discolored patch at the side of his neck, but he didn’t start any kind of immediate analysis; he stuck it in the refrigerator and hurried out into the night. He didn’t stop until he reached a pay phone. He used a generic phonecard of the kind anyone could buy at the checkout in any supermarket but he was careful to route the call through Talinn; the people whose help he needed preferred to deal with careful customers.
It was so late by the time Brewer got back on the road that Simple Simon was at home, sleeping the sleep of the unintimidated. Unsurprisingly, he was alone. His door had three good locks on it and his window had two, but the glass was so old it hadn’t been proofed against solvents, so Brewer was able to get in without disturbing his host and conduct a rapid but thorough search.
He found Simon’s supply easily enough, buried beneath the youth’s collection of business cards. It was a collection like any other; Simon stripped telephone booths the way younger kids stripped foreign stamps from used envelopes. Brewer pocketed all but a few of the pills. Then he positioned himself by the side of Simon’s bed.
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 49
