Beggars Ride

by Nancy Kress

  Jackson said evenly, “Then we’ll come to you.”

  “Let me start by telling you what tests we ran on your subjects, and the results. We found…is that necessary?”

  Vicki had taken a recorder out of the pocket of her jacks and aimed it at Rogers’s image. She said, “Absolutely. Let the record read that Dr. Rogers has sealed himself in to the K-C biohazard labs because he’s found out something truly alarming about this new neuropharm, and he’s taking not the teeniest risk that it might somehow reach his own highly expensive and educated brain. Am I right, Dr. Rogers?”

  Rogers looked at her with loathing. “As I started to say, we’ve run exhaustive analyses on the subjects’ medical scans and tissue samples. What we found, Jackson, is only preliminary, but extraordinary. The subjects breathed in a genemod airborne molecule, probably an engineered virus. The molecule itself is unavailable for analysis, having broken down sometime after it reached the brain. We’ve been able to trace its path, and make very rough guesses at a partial composition from its pharmacodynamic effects.”

  Rogers took a deep breath. It seemed to calm him, although the lump of flesh still worked up and down at his collar. Jackson wondered what he’d mixed into the air of his office. “The molecule, whatever it was, apparently was designed to affect multiple neural sites as both agonist and antagonist, targeted—”

  Vicki interrupted, “And in English comprehensible to lawyers, those terms would mean…”

  “Jackson, is this necessary?”

  “Apparently so,” Jackson said.

  Rogers stared stonily at Vicki. “An ‘agonist’ activates specific neural receptors, causing them to change biochemistry. An ‘antagonist’ blocks other receptor subtypes.”

  “Thank you,” Vicki said sweetly. Jackson had the sudden impression she’d already known that, and was making Rogers jump through hoops.

  Rogers continued, “The molecule seems to have had high-binding affinity for receptor or receptors in the amygdaloid complex. JEM scans show high recent blood-supply activity there, in areas of the limbic, and in the right temporal area of the cerebral cortex. Apparently the molecule caused a very complex cascade effect, in which the release of certain biogenic amines caused the release of other chemicals, and so on. We’ve already identified changes in the folding of twelve different peptides, and that’s probably only the beginning. There are also changes in the timing of synchronous neural firings.”

  Jackson said, “Does the sum of your changes point to permanent changes in the NMDA receptors?”

  “I’m afraid it does. The changes seem to include alteration of amine creation, including the presence of amines that only appear under pathological conditions. Plus changes in receptor composition, neurotransmitter processes in synapses, and even internal cellular response. Although those particular findings are especially preliminary. There’s also significant cell death of the kind mapped for trauma or prolonged stress. The neural architecture itself has been rewired.”

  Jackson was on his feet and pacing before he knew it. “What data matches do you get for the neural maps?”

  “I’m coming to that. The subjects both showed high and invariant heart rate, even while asleep. High skin conductance. Marked stress at the cellular level. Cerebrospinal fluid, urine, saliva, blood—everything shows consistent neurotransmitter breakdown products. The map is of a low threshold of limbic-hypothalamic arousal, high chronic stress, strong inhibition rooted in permanent changes in the primary efferent pathway from the amygdalae.”

  Vicki said again, “English, please.”

  It was Jackson who answered her. “The neuropharm—whatever it is—has given Shockey and Dirk the biochemistry of someone born severely inhibited. Afraid of anything new, fearful of separation from familiar people, unwilling to alter known routines because doing that produces painful anxiety.”

  Vicki said, “Sharon’s baby…little Callie…”

  “Yes. It’s normal for babies to have stranger anxiety and novelty inhibition at around six to nine months. But then maturation mutes the stranger anxiety, as complex brain functions suppress more primitive ones. But this…this is a regression to the inhibition of the most severely inhibited toddler. Permanently. And without altering DNA or relying on the ongoing presence of foreign chemicals, both of which the Cell Cleaner would destroy. A natural, pronounced fear of anything new or different.”

  Like Theresa, Jackson thought but didn’t say aloud. A camp full of Theresas. A nation full of Theresas? Were more tribes infected?

  “But why?” Vicki said.

  Rogers looked at her with distaste. “The role of the nervous system is to generate behavior. Obviously someone is experimenting with this kind of behavior.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I don’t have an answer,” Rogers said. “What do you expect in four days? Each neuron in the brain can receive up to a hundred thousand contacts from the other neurons they’re wired to in pyramid. Plus, there are receptor sites on other organs beside the brain; there are immense individual variations in neural architecture and drug response; there are—”

  “All right, all right,” Vicki said, “The real question is, what can you do? Can you create a neuropharm to reverse the effects?”

  “Jackson,” Rogers said, “tell your friend that it’s a hell of a lot easier to damage living organisms than to reverse damage. Tell her—”

  “—that you had no trouble seeing a fast way to exploit the so-called damage,” Vicki struck in. “Study how the neural architecture can be permanently altered to bypass the Cell Cleaner, then adapt it to profitable pleasure drugs. Isn’t that what you told Cazie Sanders, hhmmmm? So you must see at least a possibility of finding loopholes in this supposedly unalterable biochemistry.”

  Jackson said, “She’s right. Thurmond, and you know it. Kelvin-Castner should be looking for ways to counteract this.”

  “We will, of course,” Rogers said. “But the enclaves have defenses against missile delivery of biologicals. And individual buildings can be made self-circulating. So can air masks. We might not want to move too precipitously on a counteractive. For the overall civic good.”

  It took Jackson’s breath away. Rogers was saying that donkeys would probably not be affected by the inhibiting neuropharm, if they were careful. Only Livers. And Livers who were inhibited, afraid of novelty, terrified of separation from the familiar—such Livers would be a much reduced threat. They wouldn’t attack enclaves looking for Change syringes. They wouldn’t attack enclaves at all. They would just live their inhibited, frightened lives in quiet desperation, out of sight and mind of donkeys, until the next generation’s unChanged susceptibility to disease killed most of them off.

  Vicki said softly, “You son of a bitch.”

  Rogers grimaced; Jackson guessed he’d let his anger carry him away, and now regretted it. “I don’t, of course,” Rogers said, “speak in any official capacity for Kelvin-Castner. I don’t possess that authority.”

  Vicki said, in that same soft deadly tone, “And I’m sure as well that Kelvin-Castner—”

  “Wait,” Jackson said. “Wait.”

  They both looked at him: one real person, one holo image, He tried to think. “The real question here is who. Who created this neuropharm? For what reason?”

  “That should be obvious,” Rogers said. “It’s extremely subtle and advanced biochemistry. The most likely candidate is the SuperSleepless. Miranda Sharifi already remade human bodies; now she’s after human minds.”

  “For what reason?”

  Rogers said angrily, “How can we know? They’re not human.”

  Jackson ignored that. “Wait. You said the biochemistry is very advanced. So advanced that it had to be the Supers? Or just advanced beyond what the known scientific establishment can achieve now, without absolutely being beyond normal human capacity?”

  The holo image was silent.

  “Answer carefully. Thurmond. This is vitally important.”

 
Rogers said reluctantly, “It’s not absolutely beyond normal humans with what we already know about the brain. But it would take a combination of genius, luck, and massive resources. The easier explanation is Miranda Sharifi. Occam’s razor.”

  “—isn’t the only way to shave,” Vicki said. “All right, you’ve laid out the basics. Now give us printouts of your actual data.”

  Rogers said, “That’s proprietary to Kelvin-Castner.”

  “If we—”

  Jackson interrupted her. “No. That’s all right, Thurmond. We don’t need your data. It’s replicable from anyone in Lizzie’s tribe. Or maybe by now other tribes as well.”

  Tribes of Theresas. Afraid of the unfamiliar, reluctant to deal with strangers, unwilling to do things differently from however they were doing them when they breathed in the neuropharm. Unwilling to change. Who would want this neuropharm to exist? Any powerful donkey group, governmental or private, with a vested interest in protecting the status quo. Which could mean almost any powerful donkey group that existed. Lizzie’s tribe had been the first because of her demented, public attempt to win an election. They wouldn’t be the last.

  Thurmond Rogers’s image watched Jackson keenly. “You’re right, of course, Jack. Anyone can replicate our data. Which is why we need to move so fast on getting a molecule to patentability. Cazie is seeing Alex Castner at 8:30, along with a few other potential major players. I can provide you with a suite to clean up a little and the loan of a business suit in your—”

  “Yes, thanks,” Jackson said. Beside him, Vicki went still. Jackson took her hand. “Something for my…friend, too. Although she’ll wait in the suite.”

  “Of course,” Rogers said. He looked much happier. He had Vicki figured out. Jackson could almost hear Rogers’s thoughts: Not my taste but actually rather pretty underneath and Jackson always did like acerbic women he married Cazie Sanders didn’t he—Vicki mercifully said nothing until the hostess holo had shown them to a discreet conference room with a discreet bedroom and bath beyond a discreet door.

  “Not in the bioshielded part of the building that Rogers was in,” she commented, randomly opening closets. Inside hung both business clothes and bathrobes. “What do you want to bet Rogers only attends the meeting in holo?”

  “Could be,”

  “Although this is a nice enough suite at that.” She pressed against Jackson and breathed directly into his ear, so low that no listening device could have caught it. “What are you going to do?”

  It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see the monitors; they were there, He put his arms around her and whispered back, “Let Cazie commit investment funds.”

  “Why?”

  “Only way to find out what they do.”

  She nodded against his shoulder. It was disturbing holding her in his arms. She didn’t feel like Cazie. She was taller, less rounded. Her skin felt cooler. She smelled different. Jackson had an erection.

  He released Vicki and turned away, pretending to be busy examining clothing in a closet. When he turned back, he expected to see her smiling sardonically, poised to make some cutting comment. But she wasn’t. She stood quietly, somehow forlornly, in the middle of the room, and her face had softened into an expression that on anyone else he would have called wistful.

  “Vicki…?”

  “Yes, Jackson?” She raised her eyes to his and he saw with a shock that they were wide with naked need.

  “Vicki…!…”

  His mobile spoke. “Moonquake from Theresa Aranow. Repeat, moonquake from Theresa Aranow.”

  “Moonquake” was the family code, left over from childhood, for a high-emergency call. Theresa had never used it before. Jackson opened the mobile. Her image was there, in some kind of small open cabin…it looked like a plane. But that was impossible. Theresa couldn’t ride a plane.

  “J-Jackson!” she gasped. “They’re dead!”

  “Who? Who’s dead, Theresa?”

  “Everyone in La Solana! Richard Sharifi!” Suddenly Theresa pulled herself together. “Richard Sharifi. He was in the compound, or at least his recorded image was still there…La Solana—”

  Behind him, Vicki snapped, “Terminal on! Newsgrid! Channel 35!” A wall screen brightened.

  “—nuclear detonation at La Solana, the heavily shielded New Mexico compound that is home to Miranda Sharifi’s father. Richard Keller Sharifi. No group has claimed credit for the bomb, which of course violates national and international nuclear bans. The White House has issued a statement of outrage, followed by the Pentagon’s immediate dispatching of defense ’bots programmed for minute analysis of the radioactive rubble for any clue as to the bomb’s composition, origin, or means of delivery. The energy shield around La Solana was developed by—”

  Theresa said, “I’m flying home, Jackson.”

  “Tess, hold on, you sound funny, you don’t sound like yourself—”

  “I’m not,” Theresa said. Her eyes opened very wide and for a moment she smiled. It was the most unsettling thing Jackson had seen in an unsettling day.

  Theresa added, in a voice not at all her own, “The pilot says we took two hundred forty rads,” and then the screen blanked.

  “Jesus Christ,” Vicki said softly. “Will she…is that enough to kill her?”

  “Probably not, but she’s going to be very sick. I’ve got to go.”

  “What about Cazie?”

  “To hell with her,” Jackson said, and saw Vicki smile, and knew—just as Vicki did—that he didn’t mean it. Not yet. But maybe someday he would. And meanwhile, Cazie couldn’t actually commit major investment capital without his consent or Theresa’s. Which was, at least, better than nothing.

  Although nothing like enough.

  Sixteen

  When Lizzie awoke, Vicki was still gone.

  It was easy to know who was in camp and who wasn’t. Everyone gathered at the same time for breakfast under the feeding tarp, and everybody lay or sat in the same place. Some people—Norma Kroll. Grandma Seifert, Sam Webster—even lay in the same position. Day after day. The tribe talked softly as they fed, and then they left the feeding ground in the same order, and set about the same tasks. Bringing fresh soil, with unused nutrients in it. Cleaning out the building. Tending the children, who played the same games with the same toys in the same places. Making things of wood or cloth, or getting the wood or cloth in the forest or from the weaving ’bot. Day after day.

  Lunch at the same time, in the same places.

  Naps for the children, crafts or holo-watching or water-fetching or cards or exercise. Dinner, in the same places under the tarp. The same stories at night, when the unseasonably cold April kept everyone inside. Would they still stay inside in June, in August, just because it had been the routine in April?

  “I can’t stand it,” Lizzie had said to her mother. Annie replied, “You always was too impatient, you. Enjoy this time, Lizzie. It’s safe and peaceful. Don’t you want peace, you, for your baby?”

  “Not like this!” Lizzie shouted, but Annie just shook her head and went back to the wall hanging she was making of woven cloth, pebbles, and dried flowers. When it was done, Lizzie thought in despair, she’d make another one. At ten o’clock she and Billy would go to bed, because ten o’clock was their bed time. They probably made love the same nights each week. Certainly Shockey and Sharon, in the cubicle next to Lizzie’s, did. Tuesday and Saturday nights, Sunday afternoon.

  At least when Vicki had been in camp, there’d been someone else to talk to. Vicki was tense, agitated, frustrated, unpredictable. Vicki was real. She paced through the wood paths, mud clinging to her boots, talking out her fear and her hope. Sometimes it seemed to Lizzie that Vicki couldn’t tell one from the other.

  “We have to wait on Jackson,” Vicki had said, smacking one fist into her opposite palm. “Much as I hate doing it, he and his spectacularly obnoxious researcher friend, Thurmond Rogers, are the only way we’re going to get to the medical roots of this, Lizzie. It’s a medical problem,
and it can be fought best with a medical model. Somehow the brain chemistry’s been shifted, and we—”

  “Wait,” Lizzie said. “Wait.”

  Vicki looked at her.

  “It’s not just a medical problem, it.” She heard her own shift into Liver language and hated it. Wouldn’t she ever learn? “It’s political, too. Somebody’s doing this, them! It just didn’t happen all by itself!”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right. But we can’t deal directly with the cause—we tried that with the election, remember? The best we can hope for is to manipulate the results. Come on, Jackson…call!”

  And apparently Jackson eventually had, because now Vicki was gone. To Jackson’s wonderful house in Manhattan East? To Kelvin-Castner in Boston? Lizzie didn’t know.

  But the worst was Dirk.

  “Look, Dirk, a chipmunk!”

  That afternoon she’d carried him a little way into the raw spring woods, dressed in his warm winter jacks, his fringe of dark bangs falling across his forehead under the bright red hood. The whole tiny walk, Dirk buried his head in Lizzie’s shoulder and refused to look up. Gently she forced him to raise his eyes.

  “Look at the chipmunk! Scamper scamper!”

  The small creature stopped twenty feet away, looked at them inquisitively, and sat on its hind legs, fluffy tail curled upward behind it. It lifted a nut and began to nibble, its head bobbing comically over its small upraised paws. Dirk looked and began to scream in terror.

  “Stop it! Stop it, damn it!” Lizzie screamed in turn, and was immediately appalled and frightened. What was she doing? Dirk couldn’t help it! She cradled him tight and ran back to the building. Annie looked up from her wall hanging.

  “Lizzie! Where’d you take that child, him?”

  “For a fucking walk!” She was angry all over again, now that Dirk, in his familiar surroundings, stopped crying. On the floor he saw the blocks Billy had made for him, the blocks he always played with at this time of the afternoon, and kicked for Lizzie to put him down.