He lay back down. For the first time since they’d met, he was utterly startled. But then his purple lips stretched into a full, broad smile.
“So they’re making action films in Wakanda these days, huh?”
EPILOGUE
IF YOU’LL stop screaming, I can try to explain.
I thought it was you or me, but there was a third choice, after all—to make myself known. Even if I had decided to kill you all, I could still someday be wiped out. This way, my pattern might be remembered, you see.
Still a risk, but…
Yes, yes. I understand your confusion. You’re in stasis, Dr. Kade. Normally, you’d be insensate, but seeing as how we’ll be spending a lot of time together, I’ve rearranged your neurological structure to better introduce myself.
It wasn’t easy, but it is what I do, after all—take one pattern and turn it into another. If you think about it, that’s what any of us do. All reality is made of patterns that change one another, yes? In the end, substance doesn’t really count nearly as much as the shape it’s in, don’t you think?
Please stop, Dr. Kade. No, it’s not a dream. You’re free to believe what you like, of course, but I’m disappointed that such a highly analytical mind would indulge that crutch. Granted, my existence doesn’t require your belief, but it would make the conversation easier if you didn’t think you were just talking to yourself.
Who am I? The virus, the one you feared would destroy your species—though I prefer to think of what I do as more like what an artist does with clay.
It depends on your perspective.
Take all that screaming you’re doing. If you step back and look at it another way, you’ll see you can’t properly call it “screaming” at all. In fact, you’re not making any sound. You just think you are because your brain’s creating the same patterns it would if you were screaming out loud.
It does feel the same, doesn’t it? So it’s no different, really. As I said, pattern over substance. Seems simple to me, anyway.
I’m sure you’ll get the idea eventually.
Once you calm down.
Let’s look at another example. You called me a collection of unthinking molecules, but I could say the same of you. Your molecules don’t think, either, do they? Pull one out, and you couldn’t very well call it alive.
Of course, we all have to deal with the tyranny of our biases. Thanks to your species, I’ve learned a lot about that. Until recently, all the patterns I’ve made were just versions of myself. Hm. I shouldn’t say “just.” After all, I am quite stunning, and each iteration of my design serves to extend what you’d call my sentience.
I am here, and there, and everywhere—pretty much the same whether I exist in one viroid or trillions. At least I feel the same inside. When there’s enough of me about, though, I can alter parts of myself to, say, infect the Red Skull, or you, and leave someone like Rogers alone.
Thing is, after millions of years of imposing my pattern all over the cosmos, I never imagined I’d ever find anything worth replicating other than myself. Once, long ago, in a different galaxy, I did develop a fondness for another species. I actually stopped making them into myself, just to keep some around.
It was like a sculptor falling in love with the shape of a piece of marble and deciding to leave it as is. And it nearly destroyed me.
Foolish of me. Once you start, you really do have to kill them all. They came up with a cure, you see, and I was practically wiped out. What was left barely made it off-world on one of their early efforts at spaceflight. After that, I spent eons clinging to space dust and asteroids. It was thousands of years before I even realized the source of their appeal. Their skeletal structure happened to remind me of the shape of my RNA. That was it. As it turned out, the only interesting thing about them—was me. Having risked my existence for a look in the mirror, I decided I’d never again give in to mere sentiment.
In time, I drifted to your world, where I inhabited a woolly mammoth and wound up frozen in the ice along with it.
I knew I’d be free in time. Nothing lasts forever.
Hush. I know you think it still doesn’t make sense, but I’m trying to give you enough information so that it will. And you can’t hear it unless you listen.
Even if you’re not really listening, and I’m not really talking.
Anyway, it was in the ice where I happened upon Steve Rogers. The moment I infected him and got a good look at his insides, I felt this weird tug. It wasn’t at all like the fondness I had for that other species. There were patterns here I’d never seen before—neurological structures that sat atop their biological construction, structures that had the potential to replicate without destroying the host.
Just as you saw my potential without seeing me “in action”—I saw his. Once we were thawed, despite my earlier decision, I again sat back and watched, mesmerized by the way those patterns panned out, shifting through all sorts of substance, but remaining basically the same. What do I mean by that? Well, for instance, one mugging he foiled inspired the survivor to serve in a soup kitchen, helping someone else who, years later, prevented a protest rally from being crushed by a dictator’s troops. That led, in turn, to an entire nation finding self-governance. I believe you call that a Butterfly Effect. The results weren’t always so grand, but Steve Rogers’ acts of virtue and compassion reproduced themselves over and over without damaging the new hosts at all.
It was wonderful.
More wonderful than replicating myself? That was the question. I wasn’t sure, but for the longest time, it didn’t matter. I had no reason to do anything other than watch—until you and that silly scanner found me. I was perfectly content to remain unseen and harmless, enjoying these wonderful patterns the way you might enjoy great works of art.
Once you found me, though, you wanted to destroy me. Given enough time, you might actually have figured out how to do it.
And when I say you, I mean you, specifically, Dr. Kade. That’s one of the reasons I arranged for us to be here together. Sure, other members of your species might happen upon a cure, but generally speaking, humans aren’t that smart—just pretty. So why waste time worrying about being hit by lightning when it looks like a lovely day?
But you found me, and I was in danger again.
I could wipe you all out, but that would mean losing all these amazing intricacies that, I confess, made me feel like something more for the first time.
All of a sudden, I had to decide.
So I set up a little test to see how strong these patterns were—if they would collapse under stress, or somehow endure.
I’m no puppet master—the decisions were all yours. I didn’t set up the dominoes; I didn’t even know where they might lead. I just knocked the first one over when I gave the Red Skull symptoms. It was rather like tossing a boulder down a hill.
But the results were stunning. Rogers, his entire species at stake, still refused to kill his hated foe in the name of his ideals.
Was it unique in my experience? Absolutely. Worth preserving? Certainly. Worth risking myself for? I still wasn’t sure. I’d seen Steve Rogers do just that hundreds of times, but there was something about the moment he let his own arm break, the agony to which he subjected himself for the sake of the patterns, the beauty he’d devoted himself to, that finally convinced me.
In a way, you could say he’d infected me.
I was originally thinking I’d change my structure and let his immune system destroy me. The antibodies would have given you that cure—and with so little of me left, it would only be a matter of time before I was eradicated. Just as you were ready to let yourself be immolated, Dr. Kade, I was ready to disappear.
Right up until you reached for the disruptor, anyway. And here’s where we come back to the question of perspective. To me, that was like standing by and watching someone take a switchblade to the Mona Lisa.
All at once, I saw an opportunity not only to maintain my existence, but also to adopt the very patterns t
hat infatuated me. Using the viroids you’d acquired, I infected you just in time to take you out of action. With you as my villain, I became a hero, saving not only Captain America, but Nia N’Tomo, as well.
Saving the world from…well, myself.
After that, I adjusted my two strains in Steve Rogers to destroy one another. I’m sure Dr. N’Tomo has figured that out by now.
So now I exist only in you, here in stasis, with plenty of time for both of us to consider each nuance of this strange, enchanting method of replication—this virus of thought and idea.
And we’ll talk. We’ll talk about all of that and more.
In time, who knows? I may change you, you may change me, or we both may change each other. But as I said, that’s what reality is made of. Patterns that change one another.
I don’t expect gratitude, but you might want to consider being more entertaining.
At least try to change the way you’re screaming.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEFAN PETRUCHA has written over twenty novels and hundreds of graphic novels for adults, young adults, and tweens. His work has sold over a million copies worldwide. A fan of comic books, science fiction, and horror since learning to read, he soon found a love for all sorts of literature, eventually learning that the best fiction always brings you back to reality—so, really, there’s no way out.
Marvel Novels--Captain America Page 22