Little Deadly Things

by Harry Steinman

  The lessons of literature were lost on Eva. The tale of Bellerophon or Icarus might have served to warn her before she began her own flight to Mount Olympus or to the sun.

  It worked. Damn, this feels good! Going to do this yet. Look out world, here I come. This project is mine and nothing is going to stop me.

  And the chorus from the Table of Clamorous Voices was sweet and, for once, harmonious. It sang on and on and on and Eva sang with it.

  19

  ___________________________________________

  IN DREAMS

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  AUTUMN, 2043

  Jim Ecco was jittery. He might as well have chewed a crop of coffee beans. The smart bed could not lull him to sleep. Nor could it dampen his movement enough to protect Marta’s fragile slumber.

  “Querido, what is it? What’s troubling you?” she asked in a strained voice.

  “Bad dream.”

  “Come here,” she said, and reached out for her husband.

  “I can’t lie still. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Querido, come here. Let me hold you and you can tell me about your dream.”

  Jim sighed. The dream was confusing, upsetting and finally, ludicrous—not one he cared to recount. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, and then exhaled through pursed lips. He repeated the exercise three times. Tonight, the rhythmic cycle of inbreath and outbreath brought no peace.

  “Marta, I’m scared.” He laid his head in the crook of her left arm. She wrapped herself around him and reached her right hand up and stroked his hair.

  “Tell me your dream.” She stroked his forehead until she felt him relax a little.

  “We were at home. I saw white ash falling from the sky, like something had burned. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I went outside to look and the ash burned me where it touched me. I tried to warn you to stay indoors, but you couldn’t hear me. I wanted to shout but I couldn’t make a sound. You came out to see what was wrong. Then you were burned, too.”

  “We were afraid that Dana would come out. We saw him at the door and shouted for him to stay inside, but he came out anyway. The ash landed on him, but he wasn’t burned at all. Dana just brushed it off and said, “I tried to tell you but you couldn’t hear me.”

  “Then the dream shifted. Now it was just me. I was in an old-fashioned stationery store, the kind that had antique postcards. I was looking at different places I might like to visit. When I looked up, I saw superheroes from the graphic novels I used to read. I remember Superman in particular. I can’t remember who else. Then I saw my mother. She was angry. She reached over and touched Superman and he turned white, like plaster. She had drained his life force. She came through the store and touched the other superheroes and took their vitality as well. Then she was reaching for me. I was scared. She touched me but nothing happened. I realized that my own superpower was that I have good boundaries. That was my superpower. Weird, huh?”

  Jim was quiet for several minutes.

  “That’s the whole dream?” asked Marta.

  “Yeah. It was scary and funny at the end. Weird.”

  “Well, I think that’s a pretty good superpower,” Marta chuckled. “Hello, Boundary Man,” she said and in a moment, they were both laughing.

  “Still restless?” Marta asked.

  “I can’t sleep,” Jim said.

  “Come a little closer. You may be Boundary Man but I’m a bohique and I know what’s good for you.” She rolled him onto his back grabbed his wrists and pinned him on the bed. She straddled him. “Here comes your medicine. A wise woman’s orders.”

  Later, Jim, eyes wide, decided to get up rather than wait for morning. He slipped out of bed and looked at Marta. She had one arm flung up over her head and the other down by her side, as if she were demonstrating the size of the big fish that got away. She looked so peaceful in repose. Maybe her pain was gone for the rest of the night.

  He’d left his clothes on a chair. He picked them up quietly and went into the bathroom to dress. He touched the wall to turn on the brightwalls and swept his hand down to keep the light low. He subvocalized and left a message for Marta that he was going to the office. Maybe he could do something useful as long as he was awake. Eva’d been working nonstop and promised results soon. He thought he’d go to the office and see how she was getting on.

  The night air was cold. All the science in the world, he thought, and we still can’t touch the weather. Maybe it’s just as well—we’d just screw it up. Jim subvocalized a command instructing his clothing to warm him. His shirt had an inner layer of silk-like textile embedded with carbon fibers against his skin, and an outer layer, indistinguishable from cashmere. He wore denim jeans and a lining on the inside of them warmed. He tugged the back of his shirt collar and felt a moment’s resistance before it relaxed and allowed him to fashion a hood around his head. He invoked a heads-up display and from the transportation options, he selected a P-cab, a driverless personal taxi. He reached a corner parking lot where the car waited for him, glowing to identify itself.

  By the time he reached the NMech offices on Boylston Street, he was warm. He left the cab and approached the building. After palming the door for entry, his clothing cooled to comfortable indoor wear.

  Jim took the stairs to the sixth floor executive offices. He thought he would review the plans for the Rockford remediation project. He wondered if NMech would be ready to submit a bid on time. Perhaps Eva had managed some kind of breakthrough.

  When he reached the executive suite, he was startled to see the entire floor alive with light and color. The brightwalls were dimmed, but so many holographs were illuminated that the suite resembled an outdoor celebration lit by paper lanterns. He saw displays of graphs, flowcharts, architectural drawings, and diagrams that had no meaning to him. He caught movement in his peripheral vision, almost too fast to notice, and he followed the blur to Eva’s office. She was coming back out. They were about to collide but Eva stopped faster than he thought possible.

  Jim studied her. She was flushed, and a sheen of sweat made her glow. For a moment he thought he’d stumbled into a holographic display. She looked up and smiled. “We’re going to do it, Jim.” Her voice was uncharacteristically animated, loud even. “We’re going to do it. I’ll show you.”

  Eva grabbed his hand and started running towards the conference room. “Slow down, Eva,” Jim said. “I can’t keep up with you. What’s going on?”

  “I forgot. You move slower. I can fix that. First, I show you the proposal.”

  “The ZVI bid? I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Jim said. He looked at her more closely. “Eva, what’s happened to you? You’re running around like a crazy person.”

  “Ha! You know better than to call me that. But for you, all is forgiven. Come. Look!” She pulled him into the conference room. The glow from a dozen displays was unsettling. They were like grinning Jack-o’-lanterns. She pointed at one, then another and another. “See? See? Is ready. Is ready.”

  Jim stood still and took in the room, understanding nothing. He looked back to Eva, still clinging to his hand.

  “Eva, are you all right?”

  “Better than ever, Jimmy Boy. We make proposal.”

  “Eva, you’re acting strange. You’re even talking strange. You’re starting to scare me a little.” Jim tried a smile, to soften his words, but couldn’t move his facial muscles out of any arrangement other than slack-jawed astonishment.

  “Not strange, Jimmy Boy. Alive.” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “They say people use ten percent of potential, but I use more now. Now I deal with all of, of...of what’s held me back. I can even deal with you. Come here.”

  Eva was still holding his hand. She reached up with her other hand, behind his head and grabbed a hank of his hair. She pulled him roughly towards her. He felt an unexpected strength in her grasp. She leaned up and said, “Kiss me.”

  Jim stiffened.

  She repeated, “
Kiss me. Isn’t that what Marta says to you? Kiss me!”

  “Eva, you’re freaking me out.” He tried to keep his voice steady. “We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. But I don’t want to kiss you.”

  “Yes you do! You hide it all these years.”

  “No, Eva, I don’t. Your friendship means too much to me.”

  “I’ve done everything for you, Jim. I kept you out of jail, yes? I helped your wife with her public health, yes? I make you a lot of money. I teach Dana the things that Marta couldn’t. I even help you get married. Now it’s time for you and me. Now I’m going to take care of you.” She pulled him down again and smashed her lips against his. Jim grasped both her wrists in his hands. He held her at arms’ length.

  “Eva, this is not what I want. I think you’ve been working too hard.” He saw her face turn slack with shock. “Please, Eva, I care for you as much as anyone in the world. Anyone. But you are my friend, and I don’t want to lose my friend.”

  Eva twisted and struggled to free her wrists. Jim gently but firmly pushed her away and said, “Eva, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you’re not acting normal, even for you.” He tried to grin. She did not respond. “Listen, I’m going home. I’m not going to mention this to Marta—to anyone. This never happened.” He backed up with the same care he might show retreating from an agitated dog.

  With a speed that astonished Jim, Eva leapt forward. She reached out and grabbed Jim’s wrists. Her grasp was like iron. He was trapped. He looked into Eva’s eyes, now twitching, feral, and in a sad and quiet voice, said, “Please, Eva. You’re breaking my heart.”

  She let go and slowly crumpled to the floor. Jim turned back to her, but she held one hand out in a ‘stop’ gesture. Then she turned away.

  Jim left the NMech building, numb to the cold even as his clothing refashioned itself to provide warmth. He looked up from the street to the sixth floor, the executive offices. The bright lights of Eva’s holo displays were flickering out, one by one.

  Jim started to walk. The weatherproofing properties in his jacket were fully activated and repelled each of his tears.

  Eva lay in the conference room. Something held her fast to the floor, something more than anguish, fatigue, or gravity. Her muscles twitched. At first it was a tremor, then a shiver, finally a feverish seizure. Her eyelids spasmed, like a parody of blinking back tears. She tried to subvocalize a message, to recall Jim, to entreat, to apologize. But she could form no words.

  Then images replaced language. She watched from infant eyes as Mama and Papa looked at her, first with pride, then with horror. She felt Gergana’s arms and listened to her songs, then heard her screams. She saw Bare Chest’s face, looming and leering, then paling in death. Doran’s fat wattle reddened as he strangled Gergana and then bled as Eva strangled him with a length of piano wire wrapped around wooden handles.

  Then blackness.

  Slowly, consciousness returned. The holographic displays had extinguished themselves. She opened her mouth to subvocalize, to bring the displays back. She had work to do. As soon as she moved her lips, she heard a terrible cacophony, a roar from the Table of Clamorous Voices that demanded her attention. The loud voices, the soft voices—they were now unregulated by any agency, any construct. Thoughts and memories, images and stored sensations, rushing up from the deepest trenches of her unconscious. She was overwhelmed.

  When Eva was an infant, Gergana’s presence helped her to manage the growing din of sensory impression. The din became a roar after Gergana’s murder and organized into the Table of Clamorous Voices. Eva invested Jim with the role of mediator, regulator of the Table, and the fantasy role of mate. The illusion helped her weather her inner turmoil in order to meet the demands of the saner world around her. But flesh-and-blood Jim Ecco had just destroyed fantasy Jim Ecco, the construct. The mediator was gone.

  Eva lost consciousness again. Her body took to repairing the damage inflicted upon it over the last many days. Her swollen and overworked adrenal and pituitary glands relented. Hypopituitarism replaced her chemically-induced hyperpituitarism, fatigue replaced zeal, indifference replaced libido.

  Time passed and Eva awoke to disoriented incomprehension. Was it day or night? Had seconds passed, or hours? She had a pounding headache and her vision had diminished to a dark tunnel, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

  She tried to move, to organize her thoughts. These tasks seemed herculean. She rolled to her desk and pulled herself up. She saw her coffee mug, still half full. With a grimace she swallowed the cold liquid with the bitter ingredient that had permitted her to work as quickly as she had. It wasn’t enough.

  Her overtaxed endocrine system was in a state of rebellion. It ignored the chemicals she ingested. There had been too many demands and not enough rest. She’d pushed her body past Mother Nature’s limits for this wondrous design, this human form. Now she was weak, unable to focus. Her body demanded rest to repair the damage.

  I just need forty eight hours. I can sleep when I’m dead, she thought, and mixed another cup of the adulterated beverage. The effort was almost beyond her. Soon she would break a trail into new territory—all propulsion, no rudder, and with an impaired captain at the helm.

  Ah, that’s better. I don’t care what it takes. Rockford is mine.

  20

  ___________________________________________

  DEBATE

  ROCKFORD, VA.

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2044

  A panel winnowed the field of prospective vendors to two finalists: established remediation leader, CleanAct, and upstart NMech. A year before the plant was intended to open, the competitors met to address the bid committee, a debate to help decide a winner.

  CleanAct’s president, Fritz Reinhart spoke first. The Chinese-educated Texan of German descent was at ease. He knew several of the bid committee members from industry meetings. Two had worked for him in the past. Reinhart was tall and well-groomed, comfortable speaking to an audience. He wore his thin blond hair in a military-style crew cut and kept a well-trimmed moustache that drew attention to a full mouth with generous lips. His mannerisms were prim, almost prissy, but when he spoke, he transformed himself into a folksy cowboy. He wore a bolo tie, cowboy boots, and a western hat and spoke in an exaggerated drawl. He doffed his hat and bowed slightly—Fort Worth meets Frankfurt—when he took the podium.

  “The single reason y’all want to accept our bid is that we’ve done exactly this kind of work for years. No one has anywhere near the experience we have in remediation.” Reinhart paused, making eye contact with each member of the bid committee. He was charismatic and easygoing. The committee leaned forward as one.

  “We completed 45 major cleanups in the last five years. Clean-Act’s performance exceeded the contract specifications. We were right on time and right on budget. We have six more projects and all of ’em are even a mite ahead of schedule. And we aim to finish ahead of schedule on this one, too. That’s our corporate style. It’s also a guarantee to you. I promise to this bid committee, right now, that your remediation plant will be fully operational three weeks before the end of the performance clause in the contract. That’s part of our culture: better and faster.”

  One member of the bid committee broke in with a choreographed question, a softball objection intended to appear challenging. “But the bid requires that you use nanoscale ZVI. You have no experience with nano production. And now you’re promising to finish early? How are you going to make that work?”

  “Now that’s a good question. Heart of the matter, yes sir.”

  “Yes, Dr. Reinhart, it is the central issue. How can you ensure that you’ll have enough of the ZVI in nano form? And how will you keep it safe? After all, you have no experience with it. Mismanagement of nanoscale materials can be hazardous.”

  Dr. Reinhart drew a handkerchief from his inside breast pocket and mopped his forehead. He rubbed his chin. He might have appeared flummoxed by the question but his confidence nev
er wavered. “If y’all are worried about hazards, I’d look to that river there. That’s what’s hazardous and we aim to clean it. As far as safety, well, we have an effective approach. We’ll flood the ZVI storage building with pressurized helium—good, safe, inert helium—before one particle of ZVI goes down the hatch. If even a single atom of helium escapes, we’ll know. We don’t expect any leaks, no sir, none at all, but if there are, we’ll find ’em and fix ’em and still be on time and budget. From transport to operations, the ZVI stays in helium so it doesn’t combine with anything at all until we inject it into the river.”

  “But you have no experience with ZVI.” The friendly inquisitor pressed for more.

  “True. But we have ourselves a real simple solution. We bought the experience.”

  The Committee, dutiful and attentive, chuckled.

  “I’m pleased to announce that CleanAct has acquired FeFree, the very best producer of ZVI. ‘Fe’ is the chemical symbol for iron, and we think FeFree has the best ZVI fabrication process in the world. We don’t have the experience to create the stores of ZVI that y’all need, but FeFree does. So, we bought ‘em, lock, stock, and containment chamber. Problem solved.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen, CleanAct’s approach might not be sexy, but it works. Now, let’s take a peek at what NMech proposes. Those Boston folks claim that they can convert carbon atoms into iron atoms to solve the logistics problem.” He stared for a moment at Eva Rozen and then started to clap. “I have to give you a hand, Dr. Rozen. Rewritin’ the laws of physics. Now that’s one darned good trick.”

  He failed to see the tightening around Eva’s eyes, the bunching of the muscles in her shoulders. Nor did he notice a trembling in her hands and feet.