“I know, and I’m sorry, our investigation turned up nothing, as I told you. But I’m still digging. Or maybe Markis lied...Edens can lie, you know. Back to your question…you think he was looking to make some kind of deal?”
“Yes, I do. It may be related to Denham.”
JT raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What, he knew about Skull coming here? That he had something to do with it?”
“Curious timing, don’t you think?”
“You think he’d trust a non-Eden killer like Skull?”
“If he knew him well…and we know they were buddies.”
“The way I hear, they didn’t get along.”
“Neither do we sometimes, son. Don’t mean we ain’t family. But I wonder what kind of deal he was looking for?”
“Maybe we should ask Denham.”
“Maybe we should.”
Half an hour later Skull was sitting next to JT, having been roused from his usual early bedtime. “All right, sir, what’s so important you have to get me out here at midnight?” His tone was light, but his permanent undercurrent of anger showed through.
“Did you hear about Markis visiting us today?”
Skull nodded. “I did. I wasn’t sure if it was rumor or fact. What did he want?”
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us.”
Skull sat back, digesting the question. “You think it has something to do with me? Or you think I’m a spy for him? If I was, he sure blew my cover quick.”
General Tyler shook his head. “No, I don’t think you’re working for him. Maybe you coming here pushed him into a decision, like you said about him wanting to save your soul. I just want insight into his mind.”
Skull steepled his fingers, tapping the end of his nose with his thumbs. “He must have thought he could accomplish some great breakthrough by the meeting. He’s not stupid but his impulsiveness always leans toward the big play. It makes sense that he would come here and try to smooth things over in some major way. Maybe to come back to the USA in triumph, maybe make a formal treaty to end all hostilities, some kind of political deal. I doubt it had anything to do with me. It might have involved Tiny Fortress…do you have any intel on their biodefense program?”
“Very little. The FC's damn hard to penetrate from the inside, and without our overhead assets we can’t collect much SIGINT or imagery.” Signals intelligence would normally involve intercepting enemy communications and other signals, to try to determine what they were doing.
“It doesn’t matter,” Skull stated, positive. “I’d bet dollars to donuts that the FC will be giving you a cure for the Demon Plague as soon as they have it. They are already publishing a ton of results on their research without any thought to security. Markis, and Edens in general won’t, can’t keep something this beneficial secret. The Eden Plague compels them to share it for the good of mankind.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with that attitude,” JT asked in an amused tone.
Skull snorted. “No problem at all, as long as I don’t have to be one of them. I used to think the Eden Plague was bad; now I realize it’s great for the mass of humanity. It leaves the rest of us in charge and free to do what has to be done without a bunch of yahoos getting in the way.”
JT smiled broadly. “I like your thinking.”
“Back to the question,” General Tyler said sharply. “What did he want?”
“Well, the only other thing I can think of is he thought he could make a deal for Tiny Fortress. Or for a piece of it. Something that only nanites can do.”
The general rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then tilted his head back for a moment, eyes closed. Two minutes later he brought it forward again. “Then maybe we need to give it to him.”
“Dad!”
“Oh, not everything. Just the piece he wants, for our own good reasons. For that, we need to arrange a meeting. Denham?”
Skull shrugged. “Easy enough. For who? Is this just you, sir, or is it the President?”
Travis Tyler smiled thinly. “Just me, if you please, and you to make the introductions. I’d rather not involve our fearless leader just yet. He’s got far too much on his mind.”
“Roger that, sir. I’ll see what I can do.”
-38-
Cassandra stared at the monitor. “Skull Denham. Not in a million years would I have predicted your face showing up on my screen.”
“Hello, Cass. I hear Rick has grown up strong. That’s good. And Millie. How are they?”
“You know, Skull, if you’re trying to remind me that I owe you my family, I know that. But I owe other people things, and so do you, like when Zeke derailed your court-martial using information I provided. Let’s not play that game.”
“No game, Cass. I’m just trying to get in touch with DJ, and here you are. It’s great to see you but I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not back from Pueblo yet…as I bet you already know. Since you’re on, anything you’d like to tell me about Tiny Fortress?”
Skull laughed darkly. “If you can get Markis on, you might learn more than you thought you could. General Tyler wants to make a deal.”
“The meeting with McKenna didn’t go so well.”
“McKenna doesn’t run Tiny Fortress: Tyler does. If he and Markis can make some kind of arrangement, maybe everyone will come out ahead.”
Cassandra pressed her lips together. “All right. Just as soon as he gets back to Medellin, I’ll get in touch.”
***
The meeting took place in Mexico City. In a rented mansion guarded by Karl Rogett and his team, four people sat down together: Markis, General Tyler, Skull, and Cassandra Johnstone. No one shook hands.
“Good to see you, Skull,” opened Markis.
“Good to see you too, DJ. I’m glad this all worked out so well.”
The others looked at Skull in surprise.
Cassandra broke the shocked silence. “How in the world can you think hundreds of millions of dead people ‘worked out so well’?”
Skull smiled in triumph, relishing their discomfort. “Oh come on. It wrecked the Big Three, and now the Free Communities’ research program can go forward, just in time to save us normals from the Demon Plague, right? Because that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? If it hadn’t happened this way, do you think the Unionists would have let you alone? They’d have cut their own throats to keep power.”
Markis chuckled. “So you’re making your ‘good from evil' argument again, huh? And I suppose you’re going to say that without the Unionists and their paranoia, Tiny Fortress would never have made progress enough to be useful against the Demon Plague. See, I can play prophet too.” He turned from Skull to the lean, weathered man sitting next to him. “General Tyler, if I’m right, you decided to overrule or bypass President McKenna in this matter. That means you’re the real ruler of the United States, right? The man who scared him so much?”
Tyler shook his head. “I don’t know what you think you saw, Markis, but I'm not pulling McKenna’s strings. It’s true that I’m going around him; lots of generals have gone around politicians before, if they thought it was important enough. If he fires me, I can live with that. But he needs me too much. No, Markis, it’s just me willing to take a risk for the greater good.”
Markis looked at Tyler long and hard, trying to see past the cowboy confidence and the rough exterior to the man beneath. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Enlightened self-interest. We have a much greater threat bearing down on us. The USA is on her knees and she can’t take much more. We need the cure Skull is convinced you will come up with. He’s sure you’ll just give it away when it’s ready, but I wanted to make sure you owed us. To, as he keeps saying, ‘make a grand gesture’.”
Tyler pulled a finely machined metal cylinder out of his pocket, placing it on the table. It was about the size of a soda can, slightly thinner, and appeared to have a removable top, wrapped in plastic tape. Next to it he placed a data module.<
br />
“This is the best we can do right now. It’s a few grams of one of several kinds of nanobots we’ve produced. These are self-replicating, so you can get them to breed using the protocols on this drive.”
“What do they do?” Cassandra asked.
“Simply put? They defend Edens against the Demon Plague. It’s all in the files on that drive. I’m sure you have your own nanobot project; this will give them a huge leap forward. If you get them replicating properly, you should have enough to pass around to your most important people, at least, as an inoculation.”
“But what about the rest of the populace?”
Tyler spread his hands. “I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do. Nanotech is centuries, millennia behind biological and evolutionary design. We’re catching up as fast as we can.”
Markis looked at Skull a moment, who nodded smugly. “Bastards,” Daniel muttered under his breath, then he laughed. “This must have been your idea, Skull. You’re trying to out-me me. You know I’ll be in your debt for this.”
Tyler glanced at Skull, masking his surprise, while the tall killer sat back, his smile broadening before he replied, “I told you things were working out pretty well.”
Markis reached for the cylinder and the hard drive. “I’m usually the one arguing for moving past suspicion, but…there’s no chance this could have been tampered with? By the SS, or someone like that?”
Tyler said, “Have your people examine it.”
“Yes,” Skull interjected. “Play with it. Breed it and try it out on Edens that get the Demon Plague, I know you have plenty of those dying all the time. It’s your best chance.”
Markis hefted the cylinder in his hand. “Damn you, Skull, you’re right.”
“You know, DJ, I’m always right.”
-39-
Raphael’s spacecraft entered extreme high orbit, well out of range of any of Earth’s weapons. So close now, the communication delay was only a couple of seconds, and over the past weeks human scientists and their Meme ally had worked out a voice synthesizer for the amoeba-like creature. Thus it was that their conversation approached something like normal.
“Greetings, Raphael. It’s good to speak with you again.”
“The same to you, Daniel Markis. Your media indicates you will soon have a vaccine for normal humans against Demon Plague One. Is this true?”
“Demon Plague One? Yes, it’s true. I just wish we knew how many of these things we had to look forward to.”
“If I understand the idiom ‘look forward to’ I do not understand your happiness.”
“Sorry. It’s irony.”
“Ah. What will you do about the Edens? Roughly fifty percent of the planet’s population is infected with it; how will you safeguard their lives?”
“We have a possible solution. I do not want to talk about it yet.”
“You still do not trust me.”
Markis shifted uncomfortably. “Put yourself in my position. Would you stake so much on one person you have never met?”
“I am staking my future on you.”
“But not the future of your race.”
“On the contrary. Humans will soon be my race.”
“Point taken.”
“Have you selected a candidate for Blending?”
Markis nodded. “Yes. She is young, very intelligent and well-educated, and entirely willing.”
Raphael’s visage, meaningless to a human, pulsed and quivered on the screen. “I have explained to your scientists that this is a permanent arrangement. I also do not know exactly what the result will be, but my observations of my siblings indicated that each Blending resulted in a superior being, able to manipulate its own cellular structure. I reiterate this to make sure you understand what will happen, Daniel. Your people may fear me. You need to understand that, once we are Blended, I will be just as much Human as Meme. A mind is a mind, whatever its bodily form.”
“You’re afraid people will see you as a monster.”
“I am not afraid; but many humans will be.”
“Then why do it?” Markis asked.
“Because it is the only way to transmit the whole of my knowledge to you. Much of it is locked in my genetic structure, inaccessible to even me without either Blending, or my biocomputers. My machines on the comet base are deteriorating. Many of those devices have biological components, and they are slowly dying. I do not have the means to save you. But I can help you save yourselves.”
“And live on as one of us. I can accept that, and humanity will have to as well, if I have anything to say about it. When will you come down?”
“As soon as you like. I am ready.”
***
After much debate and protest, Raphael set down in South Africa; it allowed him to come in over Antarctica out of reach of any Earth weaponry, and land near the research center at Carletonville. The place thronged with dignitaries from around the world, eager to be among the first to welcome an extraterrestrial to Earth.
First in a few centuries, anyway. If what Raphael says is true, he’s been visiting us for over four thousand years, helping out here and there. Makes you wonder what would have happened to humanity without him. We might still be driving chariots and wearing togas without the seeds of advancement he sowed.
Markis looked up from the floor of the soccer stadium they had chosen as a landing site. It provided visibility for the visitors and at least a basic security framework; seeing Skull had reminded DJ how vulnerable they were to an assassination attempt. Karl and the South Africans were working overtime. The one major modification was the concrete, hastily poured, that covered what used to be the playing field.
The crowd stirred as they heard a sonic boom; a few minutes later the battered spacecraft flew rapidly into view overhead, to slow down and hover several thousand feet up. Slowly it descended on roaring jets. Raphael had assured them the thrusters, properly adjusted, would not harm anyone, and so it proved as the machine settled onto the hard surface. It threw out engine wash like an enormous helicopter.
The craft itself was somewhat disappointing: only about the size of an old American space shuttle, and shaped somewhat similarly. Form followed function, and this was made to fly in atmosphere at need. Gleaming whitish-silver, sparkling like crystal in the sun, no door could be seen for several minutes, until an opening finally appeared in its side.
Daniel and Elise Markis and Sophia Ilona walked forward to meet the rolling stairs that a crew hastily wheeled up to the door, as if they were simply boarding an airplane. Once at the top, Markis led the way into the craft.
A collective gasp came from the crowd; this was not according to the script. They expected the alien to come out, but Daniel – and Ilona – had a different plan.
The three stopped just inside the door and let their eyes adjust to the soft lighting, which glowed white with a greenish tinge, just as the picture had been showing for the last few weeks. A softly pulsing light on the wall bobbed like a will-o-the-wisp, beckoning them deeper into the machine. Soon they stepped into a round room, empty of gadgetry or ornamentation, except for a round dais in its center – and a large teacup full of Meme.
The alien extended its pseudopod one more time in imitation of a hand, and Markis, steeling himself, reached forward to grasp the proffered limb. It felt like soft rubber, but was firmer than he had expected. Its familiar one eye hovered on a stalk above the mass of its body.
“Nice to meet you, Daniel Markis.” Its synthesized voice was also familiar, and came from the cuplike machine in which it rested.
“And I you.” He let go, suppressing the urge to wipe his hand. The pseudopod hadn’t actually been damp, but his mind insisted it should have been.
Raphael then extended its ‘hand’ to the young woman next to Markis. “Nice to meet you, Sophia Ilona. I look forward to our Blending.”
Ilona shook its hand, her expression full of wonder. After she let go, she murmured, “I just touched an alien, Wow.”
“And w
ho is this person? I am sorry, you all look alike to me.”
Elise stepped forward. “I am Elise Markis, chief of our biological research effort.”
“And wife of Daniel Markis. I know you now, though we have not spoken. You were curious.”
“Intensely.” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to record the Blending process, if you did not mind.” She took out a camcorder.
“Of course. Shall we begin?”
“Already?” gasped Ilona.
Markis looked at the young woman. “You can still back out.”
“No. No, I’m ready. Up here?” She pointed to the dais.
“Yes, just lie down. You need do nothing more. The process may be slightly unsettling, but there will be no pain.”
Ilona climbed up on the round platform, finding it yielded slightly, like rubber. Raphael’s teacup hummed and maneuvered next to her. Raphael extended itself out of the cup, slowly flowing up onto the platform. For a moment they lay side by side, then the jellylike alien moved to contact her bare arm.
The woman gasped, but did not pull away, staring at the ceiling, her mouth slightly open. Slowly Raphael oozed along her skin, disappearing under her clothing, eventually covering her whole body up to the neck. Its eye stalk was last to go, reabsorbed into its body near the place the Blending had started.
“This is amazing,” Elise murmured, circling the dais with her camcorder. “I wish I’d thought to have her remove her clothes.”
“I’m sure you still can. I’ll step outside and reassure the crowd.” Daniel retraced his steps, emerging into the sunlight to wave to the stands. He spoke to one of the security guards, and soon he had a radio microphone in his hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, everything is all right. Raphael and Miss Ilona are Blending even as we speak. When this is done, I have no doubt you will see something unique in recorded history: an extraterrestrial, but no longer alien being, to walk among us. I hope you will welcome this new person with kindness and understanding, and not fear or revulsion. I have no idea what this Blending will look like; but remember, beauty is only skin deep.” That got a nervous laugh from the restive crowd.
The Demon Plagues Page 24
