She forced a smile, but Jace could tell she felt uncomfortable. She knew something was going on here, but she didn't know what it was. “I was going to undo the damned thing any way. I'll just do it sooner, rather than later.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jace. “Sometimes even ‘sooner’, is way too late.”
Chapter Thirteen
“How are they?” Simon had just returned from de-briefing, and headed straight for the hospital.
Cole responded quietly, which surprised Simon. Cole usually wasn't quiet about anything. “Rick's out for the count. He's got some kind of foul infection, but once again, Dr. Dung gave them the solution. He told them to use charcoal, to absorb the metal.” Cole gave a small smile. “It seems to be working.”
“What about Jace?”
“Believe it or not, he's nearly recovered.”
“You don't sound too happy about it.”
Cole lowered his voice even further. “When I found Rick, he was in Jace's room. He said, ‘I did it’.” Cole was frowning. “I don't know what he did, but I do know he paid a visit to Eric Sterner before he stopped at Entadyne.” His eyes met Simon's. “I visited Sterner myself. The box of vials is gone, Simon.”
“Rick wouldn't—”
“Are you sure?” Cole looked unhappy. “He blamed himself for Jason's illness.” In Rick's defence, he added quickly, “He was delirious. He might not have known what he was doing.”
“Is Jason changing? Has anyone tested him?”
Cole shook his head. “Not that I can tell. But, everyone's astounded by his remarkable recovery. They're blaming it on the antiserum he got from Rick.”
“But you don't think so?”
“No. And if Jace knows anything, he's not talking.”
* * * *
Jason lay there, a frown on his face, lost in thought. Cole had come in to see him, but the interlude hadn't been a comfortable one. Cole was obviously hiding something, and Jace had wondered if he knew what Rick had done. That made Jace feel sullen and alienated. The fact that they'd decided Cole should still wear an isolation suit didn't exactly help, either. Rodrigal had assured Jace he was in the clear, but now they'd decided they weren't going to take any chances—at Hylton's insistence. Steven found the “miraculous cure” bit a little hard to swallow.
Just in case Cole didn't know anything about what had happened, Jason avoided talking about the things that were bothering him the most. He realised that the person he tended to talk to when he was worried about something was the same person who had just done him some major structural damage. The thought wasn't a happy one.
So he and Cole had interacted—mostly about the weather—lightning in particular. Even that, though, had held its share of suggestive comments. Jason didn't know if it was just his own fears that were giving him the impression, but Cole had seemed to be probing for information.
Jace was actually glad when he'd left.
* * * *
Simon saw the expression on Cole's face. Angry, almost sullen. Someone was about to be the recipient of Cole's anger, and Simon thought he had a pretty good idea who the “someone” was. He pulled Cole aside, and handed him a can of Coke. “Wanna get a burger?”
Cole nodded, then walked along silently by his side.
Silence and Cole were incompatible. Even Simon was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Time for a change of subject. He commented, “That irrigation plan was brilliant.”
Cole was taken by surprise. He looked a little flustered. “All in the spy game,” he muttered.
Simon frowned. “Knowing you, I'm surprised I didn't end up in a sewer somewhere.”
Cole choked on his Coke, and Simon pounded him on the back. When he could talk again, he admitted, a little sheepishly, “I tried the sewers, but they had ‘em all secured.”
“I knew I was pounding you in the wrong place. Next time, I'll just aim for your head.”
* * * *
“You did a fuckin’ Denaro, Rick!” Cole was furious, and his anger seemed to fill the room. He'd decided to shove the issue in Rick's face. He wouldn't admit it to Simon, but some part of him still hoped Rick would deny the accusation.
“You're fuckin’ right, Cole!” Rick yelled back. “Just like I did a ‘fuckin’ Denaro’ when I infected him in the first place!”
Cole's fury escalated another notch. “That was an accident! But this—” Cole said with disgust, “—this was something else. Don't try to excuse it, Rick! Say what you will—you tried to play God. You mutated him!”
Rick thought it was probably a hopeless gesture, but he made an effort to get Cole to see it his way. “Every time a virus invades your body, Cole, it uses your own system against you. And you're changed by it, even if it's because you now have resistance, which you didn't have before.”
“But you put plant genes into him, Rick. Don't you know how sick that is?”
“I asked him first—”
“When he was half out of his head—”
“But he was infected by a plant virus, Cole. He was dying!”
“You don't know that!”
Simon had come in silently. Both had seen him, but neither one acknowledged him. They were too caught up in their argument.
“Rick almost killed himself trying to save Jace's life, Cole,” Simon interjected.
“Oh, yeah! The great martyr! Risks himself, and half the DSO—yourself included, Simon—so he could play the hero. Good ol’ brave, give-his-all Lockmann! How many of your followers would polish your halo if they knew you'd mutated a man? If they knew how you'd deliberately and cold-bloodedly decided to change his body—and his life—on some kind of God-trip? What would they make of their precious mutant then?” Cole turned around and stormed out of the room.
“Nothing like a sunny visitor to cheer up the patient,” Simon remarked.
“He'll never forgive me,” Rick said. “He thought he'd come to terms with my ‘mutation’, but now he sees me as some kind of monster, trying to mould everyone in my image.” Rick's smile had no humour in it. “I wonder what he would have said, if I'd talked to him about it first? If he'd seen how bad Jace was?”
“He did see him—when he dragged you out of Jason's room.”
Rick made an effort to remember, but everything after pushing the plunger on the syringe was gone. Mental block, he decided. I didn't want to deal with the consequences of my actions.
Simon was still speaking. “He also saw how bad you were with it, Rick. Yet you made it through okay.” Simon knew it wouldn't be fair to let Rick hide behind any illusions. He had to come to terms with what he was, and what he'd done.
“Yeah. Have you ever killed anyone, Simon?”
Simon's smile faded and he was silent for what seemed like a long time.
“That wasn't a trick question. And I wasn't trying to make myself seem better by pointing out something you'd done. It's just that—when I gave that stuff to Jace, I knew I might be killing him—but I did it anyway.”
“So if he died, you'd be wondering forever which time you killed him: when he tried to save your life, or when you tried to save his.”
“Something like that. But you can stop trying to glorify it. There was nothing ‘heroic’ about it. It was just something I had to do.” He gave a wry smile. “I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't tried. Now I can't live with myself—or anyone else—because I did.”
“I think half of what's bothering Cole is the fact it was you who did it. He likes to think he's the one with the wild streak. He had you pegged as the sane one.”
“Thanks, Simon,” Rick said. “I wish it were that easy.”
Simon was reminded of the dying plant that sat on his window sill at home. Rick had wilted visibly since Cole had left. “Let me help you back to bed, Rick.”
“There's something else, Simon,” Rick said, after Simon had covered him with a blanket. “I met this man in the elevator. He told me I had the answer to world hunger ‘at my fingertips’. That it wasn't right to hide some
thing like that away.”
“We caught him. He works for a ‘procurement’ firm. He would've sold you piecemeal, if he had to.”
“But he was right, and that's what's bugging the shit out of me. Back when I had scruples—”
“—about a week ago?” Simon asked with a smile.
Rick flicked him a smile, then went on. “When I had scruples, the idea of initiating a mutation in someone else was real horror-story material, even though it had already happened to me.” He hesitated, wondering whether Simon would understand. “But then it came down to life or death—for Jace. And I chose life. If the genes I carry around could save even one life, Simon—isn't it worth it?”
He suddenly went still, and silent. Speaking the words had given them a horrifying aspect that he hadn't recognised, when he'd mulled them over in his brain.
After the stillness, his sudden explosion into action took Simon by surprise. I should be used to this by now, he chided himself. Not only was it the way Cole reacted to everything, but it was the only way Rick seemed able to respond now, once a little adrenaline started stirring in his system.
Rick was appalled at what he'd just said. “Listen to me! Maybe I am some kind of a monster!” Agitated, he pushed back the covers and slid his legs over the side of the bed. “Jace might have lived if I'd just left him alone! 'And I chose life'!" he mimicked himself. “What a crock of pontificating bullshit!”
He shoved away Simon's restraining hands, and stood up—unable to come to terms with this new image of himself. “Maybe my little gene trip has gone deeper than anybody thought! Did you ever think I might be out of my fuckin’ mind? That locking me up—or chopping me to bits—might be the best way to go?!”
“Never crossed my mind, Rick,” Simon told him calmly. He discreetly pressed the call bell.
“Hylton's so afraid that others might try what Denaro did. Christ!" He stomped across the floor—needing the action for release. “I agreed with him!” he said in frustrated disbelief. “Yet I turned around and did a ‘fuckin’ Denaro’ right in his own back yard!”
“It's not the same—”
“Raeiti said we should burn. Like a ritual cleansing, to get rid of all the aberrant parts. Instead of sacrificing his staff to keep me alive, Hylton should put my head on a goddamned pike to warn others away.”
“Rick—” Simon held his arm. Rutgers had specified chair or bed. Rick's recovery had been slow—for him—and this wasn't going to help.
Rick pushed Simon aside, and continued to pace angrily. “All this time, I've been distancing myself from her—believing we had nothing in common but a few seconds of contact—”
If he'd wept, or become hysterical, Simon could have handled it better, but this chilling analysis made gooseflesh dance across his skin. Rick began talking dispassionately now, almost like he was analysing one of his experiments gone bad. “She used to visit me—at the house. I thought she wanted me to help her. But maybe it's because she could reach me so well—because we share a common heritage.”
Suddenly, his anger exploded again. “How the hell could I think I was any different?” He rubbed his chest. “I killed her, and I could've killed Jace. All because I was so sure it was the right thing.” He glanced at Simon, torment in his eyes. “Isn't that a form of insanity? To think you can control the lives and deaths of other people?”
Phillip Rutgers poked his head in, saw what was happening, and spoke to someone in the hall. When he came in, he had a syringe in his hand. “Relax, Rick,” Phil said calmly. To Simon, he whispered, “Delayed trauma.” He'd been anticipating something like this ever since Lockmann had discovered he was a mutant. He was just surprised it had taken so long.
Rick's crystalline eyes met his. “There's nothing wrong with my hearing, Phil,” he said, slamming the window with his fist. It shattered, then exploded outwards.
Simon moved quickly, to grip Rick's shoulder. He was half afraid that in his present frame of mind, Rick might follow the glass through the frame.
“Maybe it's best—for everyone—to keep the mutant quiet. So he can't kill anyone else—” Rick stood there, agitatedly pounding the jagged frame. There was blood all over his hands, but he didn't seem to notice, at least until Simon grabbed his hands to try to stop him. “It's all right, Simon,” Rick told him angrily. “Don't you know how well I heal? Cut off my head, and I'd probably grow a new one,” he added, with a trace of hysteria. He pushed Simon away, then stood poised at the window, one hand on either side of the frame, and stared down at the ground below. “How much can he heal?” he muttered. “Don't, Simon!” he warned. “I'm faster than you. Don't force any decisions—”
“Rick—” Phil said.
But Rick wouldn't look at him. “It's all gone, Phil,” he said. “I thought, for a while, that it'd work. But—” he held up his hands and stared at the colour, “—there's too much blood on my hands,” he said simply. “I'm not human any more. Sooner or later, they'll see it. I can live with their obliviousness,” he smiled sadly, “but I can't live with their hate.”
He perched on the windowsill, and Simon sucked in a breath. He suddenly realised that the three of them weren't alone in the room any more. At the sound of breaking glass, five DSO people had joined them. Simon hoped they'd have the good sense to shut up.
The sound of Simon's gasp drew Rick's attention. “I always thought this was the selfish way to go, Simon,” he said reasonably. “But, that's for humans. This way, I could will my body to the world. You'd honour it, wouldn't you, Simon? As my friend?”
“No. And I'd never forgive you if you made me watch.” Simon moved a step closer. “You've been my friend for years, Rick. You've listened to me when I had no one else to talk to. You've helped me through the rough times.” He reached out and gripped Rick's arm. "I don't see you any differently, Rick. Except that now, it's you who needs my help. Give me a chance. Give all of us a chance—even that pighead, Cole—to help you for a change.”
Rick's eyes were bereft. “The way Jace did? That's all you've been doing for weeks now—helping me. I can't take the weight of it any longer, Simon. All those lives—” Rick turned his head away, but he didn't object when Phillip gave him the injection. Right now, oblivion would be preferable to the thoughts that were racing through his head. Rick noticed the other people in the room: Finlay, Geraldo, Jamaal, Johnson, Chan. “I constitute a hazard to your health,” he told them. “They should have manufactured me with a warning label.”
As the drug began to take effect, Rick mused, “At least, this way, the plant man won't be running around, knocking-up any nasturtiums.”
Simon and Phillip tugged him off the window sill, but as his feet touched the ground he froze. Simon was suddenly afraid that Rick intended to fight them—that he'd changed his mind, and was going to bolt out the window.
Then he saw Rick's expression. He'd lost the angry look of moments before, as he recalled the other thing, that had come to him in his fever, and that had been eating at the back of his mind ever since. “The plants,” he said in sudden horror. “Alternate hosts. Tell Hylton we need to test for virus. Imperative—” He slumped, and Simon and Phillip put him back into bed.
“That bit—about alternate hosts?” Simon asked Rutgers.
“More nightmares,” Phillip remarked. “But if he's right, Hylton should be told.”
“He'll love me for this one,” Simon remarked. “Are you going to keep him sedated?”
Phillip nodded. “For now. At least until he's stronger.” Rutgers turned to the DSO people, and nodded reassuringly. “Everything's fine now. It was just the effect of the metal on his nervous system,” he lied. “Can one of you arrange another room? I don't think he'll need any reminders.”
“It's okay,” Simon assured them. “Nothing will happen to him. I'm staying.”
When they'd left, Phillip said, “I think the best thing for him would be a visit from your friend Jace.” His eyes met Simon's. “Stratton's resentful right now, but I think he'
ll get over it. Miracles excepted, I think we can safely say we'd be attending his funeral by now, if he hadn't received ‘therapy’ when he did. That doesn't necessarily justify what Rick did, but at least Stratton's alive.”
“'Therapy’. That's a nice way of putting it. It might be a term even Rick could learn to live with. Does Hylton suspect?”
“I don't know. Something, maybe, but not the truth.” He grinned. Phillip knew that if it hadn't been for Rick's efforts, and Rick's antibodies, his own body parts would be resting in some lab, or nestled under a graveyard marker by now. “We mutants and almost-mutants have to stick together.”
* * * *
“What's bothering you, Jace?” Sheryl had tried to put down his depression to his weakness, or frustration, but the mood didn't fit. Was he worried about his ability to return to work? Only time would tell whether his memory was totally intact, and if all his motor functions were up to par. From what she could judge, however, he was making an incredibly quick recovery from what had appeared to be a morbid state. It wasn't the first time in her medical career that she'd been surprised by a patient's recovery from a near-death situation, but the cases were infrequent. Jace knew that, too, and she considered whether that might be bothering him—the fear that his apparent recovery might be temporary, or some kind of mistake—a mistrust for the miraculous. Sheryl smiled. She was just glad that one of those miracles had been reserved for Jason Stratton.
Then she began to wonder if maybe they were over-estimating his rate of recovery, and if this depression was the result. His attitude might be revealing more about his physical condition than they suspected. She'd known Jace for a while now, and even though people tended to show their best faces to their supervisors, she'd always known that Jace was, for the most part, pretty even-tempered. Until recently, that is.
“I've just been thinking,” Jace said, “about how close I came.”
Sheryl nodded. “About as close as you can get.” She smiled. “For a while there, I was worried I'd be looking for another assistant. Hurry up and heal,” she told him. “After this, I need a break.”
Light Plays: Book Two of The Light Play Trilogy Page 21
