Dead City

by Sean Platt

  “Have you been to work?” she asked.

  “I have. It’s interesting.”

  “Since the takeover, you mean.”

  “Yes. But I guess it’s for the best. Panacea doesn’t care about making a profit, but it’s like the damage is already done. It kind of sucks. None of us had anything to do with Sherman Pope, but it’s like we all feel guilty anyway. You should see the morale around here.”

  Alice could imagine. She also happened to know that nearly a third of Hemisphere HQ’s employees were dead, but had left jobs that still needed doing. Panacea had filled those slots with efficiency not typical of the government, but then again Hemisphere wasn’t just another company.

  Smyth’s words followed the thought, clanging in her head like a bell: Hemisphere is too big to fail. It had, in the new zeitgeist, become the perfect embodiment of necessary evil. The company had been gutted, all of Burgess’s systems dismantled, scientists of every stripe poring over Necrophage’s now open-source documentation, Burgess himself apparently in protective custody in a prison somewhere. Everyone understood that the rank and file had had nothing to do with what Burgess’s actions, and everyone knew Necrophage still needed to flow for untold millions to survive. That surely didn’t stop employees like Ian from getting the evil eye wherever they went.

  “How are … things?”

  “You mean with Bridget.”

  “I mean things.”

  Ian laughed without humor then repeated, “You mean with Bridget.”

  “I — ”

  “She’s right here beside me. She’s not threatened by your calls these days.” He laughed again, but this time it felt forced. The kind of uncomfortable laugh that follows something a person wishes he hadn’t said to a person who probably won’t find it funny.

  Alice heard the movement of fabric and the brush of skin: Ian likely standing, moving away from Bridget, uneasy or because he needed to speak freely.

  “Okay,” he said a moment later. “Not good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She has nightmares. She’s always edgy.”

  “It’s only been a week. That’s understandable.”

  “She’ll barely talk to me. Like it was all my fault.”

  “Ian — ”

  “We’re going to be moving, too,” he said, interrupting her.

  “Oh.”

  “To somewhere more affordable.”

  Realization dawning. “Oh,” she said.

  “Bridget doesn’t like that, either.”

  Alice said nothing, unsure where to go with any of it. According to what Panacea reps had said at Monday’s press conference, all designer formulations were being discontinued effective immediately. Base Necrophage would still be free, but now it would be government money, not profits, keeping the company afloat. Little room in the budget for salaries like the one that had kept the Keys family so comfortable.

  “Are there going to be layoffs?”

  “We’re not sure, but do the math. We’re only here to churn out Necrophage. Even the other drugs are being released from their patents, and our competitors are getting subsidies to make generics. The people Panacea put in to replace everyone who died are temps, so they lift right out. I’m not sure why half these people would want to stay anyway.”

  “It’s a government job.”

  Ian laughed, again without humor.

  “Are you leaving?” Alice asked.

  “Not sure yet. I don’t have prospects lined up, and certainly nothing that pays anywhere near what I made before the readjustments. But it’s like a morgue in here. Almost literally. Kate, Gary … I think Smyth is still around, and nobody’s blown his cover just yet. Oh, and I’m pretty sure my buddy and sometimes home invader, Danny must’ve bitten it, too. I didn’t see his name on the list for the big funeral, but they’re still … you know … sorting parts.”

  Alice felt her eyes close.

  “But hey. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?” Ian said, falsely bright.

  For Alice, maybe. She had her nightmares, and her dream. She hadn’t been paranoid about Hemisphere; they really had been hiding something worth keeping secret. But was the world better off? Maybe and maybe not. Now it had no real champion to rally behind, no true savior. Hemisphere was now the nation’s merciful captor, who’d slit its throat then rolled its eyes and handed over a rag to staunch the bleeding.

  “If you say so,” Alice said.

  “Seriously. Look what we learned that could have been learned in much worse ways. I mean, what if some feral had decided to bite a necrotic in an area that wasn’t so neatly contained?”

  “Ian … ”

  “But now, in the new formulation, the PhageY component has been greatly increased. I guess they can be pretty aggressive with it, seeing as the disease-killing half of Necrophage can’t hurt someone who, really, is kind of already dead. I hear that now, if a jerky feral decides to bite someone who’s on Necrophage, all that new Sherman Pope flooding their system won’t make a dent.”

  Alice wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t just Ian’s wallet and home life (and maybe marriage) that had taken a hit. His identity was in the gutter. Two weeks ago, he’d been working for the world’s favorite shining star of a company, near its top, proud of all he’d accomplished. Now he was a gear in a machine. Burgess was gone. Without him and with Panacea in charge, Hemisphere was just turning a crank. Government allocations went in one end, and a single, boring product was spit out of the other.

  “What will happen with people like Holly?”

  “You mean psychics who saw this coming but didn’t bother to warn any of us?”

  Holly had warned someone. She warned Bridget, who’d used the warning without causing damage. Bobby had heard of it after the fact and established exactly why telling him before would have been a bad idea. He’d returned to Yosemite and resumed the search for his white whale, sure that Holly’s information had somehow crossed the entire continental US to reach her. Sure that modified BioFuse had succeeded after all, creating an upgraded mind amid the mindless horde.

  “People on designer formulations.”

  “They’ll live,” Ian said bitterly.

  “August said that if you’re on a designer drug for too long and then go back to base Phage, there can be side effects.”

  “Yes. Sometimes, people get depressed. Sometimes, they get despondent. Sometimes, they get bummed out. Oh! And I forgot one. Sometimes, they get sad.”

  “I thought maybe — ”

  “Believe me — we’d still be making Truth and Beauty and all the other designers if going off them is harmful. But Phage is Phage. I’ve learned a lot about it, now that every channel on my TV and every fucking website I visit is discussing what used to be my company’s secrets. The base is what matters. The mix-ins that come with the designers add more life-extension sorts of benefits, nothing vital. Ask Bobby. August has been giving him gene therapy manicures for years. Or ask Holly. Use your psychic mind to ask her, maybe. Because I kind of doubt August will stop making custom formulations for her, given the way he talks about Holly and her progress.” He laughed. “Shit. It’s the same exact way Bobby talks about his Golem. Like they’re superzombies.”

  Alice sighed, waiting this out. She didn’t like to hear Ian so bitter, but it was hard to imagine what he was going through. She’d lost nobody and nothing. If anything, more people knew Alice Frank today and wanted to talk to her than they had before. Ian and Bridget’s changes hadn’t been as pretty.

  “I’m sorry,” was all she could think to say.

  “I’ll be okay. We both will. But it’s a bummer. And I lost some friends.”

  “You still have me.”

  “Yeah. Well, do you drink beer?”

  “I drink wine.”

  “Not good enough. You’re no Danny.”

  “And it’s Danny you’re missing. The guy who was in your bushes, scaring your wife and daughter.”

  “Danny was a good guy. J
ust … maybe a bit too ambitious.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Panacea took over, they did an inventory audit. They asked me about a whole shitload of designer Necrophage I’d requisitioned. I asked a buddy here to pull security footage, and it turns out Danny must’ve been using my codes. Emptying the stores, practically. But I played it off. Spouted some Hemisphere jargon and made them go away. Because fuck it. If I’d known how things would turn out, I’d’ve sold designer shit on the sly, too.”

  Alice wasn’t sure, from Ian’s tone, if she should laugh or act shocked. “He was stealing drugs and selling them?”

  “Good for him.”

  “If you say so,” Alice said.

  “Crafty kid. Smart. A total hustler. I miss him; really, I do, as dumb as it sounds. But a stupid kid sometimes, too. Because he took way too much — I guess sure it’d never catch up with him. The best lines. Must’ve made millions. Good for him. And even components, though I have no idea why he’d have done that unless he was planning to sell Hemisphere’s secrets, which I kind of doubt.”

  Alice felt her mouth form a frown. “What are ‘components’?”

  Ian laughed. “Just goes to show what a lovable fuckup Danny is. Or maybe was. We’ve got these superexpensive designer formulations — like Stardom, which costs the price of a luxury car each month. But what did Danny take the most of? Go on, guess.”

  “How the hell could I possibly know that?”

  “PhageX. That’s what he took most. What was he even doing with it?” Now Ian was laughing. It felt nice to hear, but Alice was still confused.

  “What’s PhageX?”

  “Come on. I thought you were an expert?”

  “Just tell me, Ian.”

  “It’s the stasis half of base Necrophage. It’s not even available for order. I guess my code could requisition it, but it’s only meant to go up our own chain so the labs can make Necrophage. But seriously, Danny: What the hell? And he kept going back for more, week after week.” He was laughing harder now, maybe too hard. Maybe a bit manic.

  “What would anyone do with it?”

  “That’s my question. PhageX plus PhageY is Necrophage. PhageX plus one of the designer mix-ins — which contain PhageY, of course, but also all that fancy stuff too — is high-end Necrophage. But PhageX is … just PhageX, I guess.”

  Alice gave him a little fake laugh, but something was bothering her. Something she couldn’t articulate.

  “I’ve gotta go, Ian. Nice talking to you.”

  “All right, Alice. Don’t be a stranger.” And he hung up.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  EVOLUTION

  AFTER SHE HUNG UP WITH Ian, Alice called August Maughan. Something was troubling her. Something she couldn’t articulate, and that Ian would no doubt find worth mockery.

  “What would happen,” she asked, “if someone took PhageX and nothing else?”

  “Just PhageX?”

  “Right.”

  August’s voice became inquisitive. “Why would anyone do that? It’s not even available.”

  “Just intellectual curiosity, August. For an article I’m writing.”

  She could imagine August thoughtfully tapping his goatee-covered chin. Finally, he said, “Well, I guess nothing would happen.”

  “Nothing?”

  “See, back when Sherman Pope used to be BioFuse, Archibald’s intent was to ‘upgrade nature’ — to make a better body and brain, one molecule at a time. BioFuse was a gene therapy virus, and it gained access to nerve cells by bonding to a receptor on their surfaces. It worked because BioFuse had more affinity for those receptors than the natural, flagging compounds had for the same receptors. So BioFuse essentially shoved the natural process out of the way, bonded better to the cell receptors, and took over. The effect was supposed to be an upgrade of the system, kind of like putting performance tires on a race car rather than the tires the car came with. Make sense?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sherman Pope works the same way, but does so in many types of cells, not just neurons. Unlike with BioFuse, vascular decay in the infected actually lets Sherman Pope cross what’s known as the blood/brain barrier, which viruses can’t typically do, and work on both sides: brain and body. It’s also self-replicating — another thing BioFuse couldn’t do — so it can spread efficiently throughout the body to do its work. And here’s the funny thing: Sherman Pope actually seems to upgrade the body’s cells fairly well. The only downside is that it’s killing you at the same time.”

  “Sounds like a deal breaker,” Alice said.

  “It seems that when BioFuse fell flat, Archibald increased its reactivity and did a few other things I’m just figuring out and won’t bore you with. Doing so made a better BioFuse, but that better BioFuse became one of the worst plagues mankind’s ever seen.”

  “But what about PhageX?”

  “There are two components to all Necrophage formulations. PhageX is what’s known as stasis. Like BioFuse, PhageX is an engineered, non-replicating, safe virus. It basically does to Sherman Pope what Sherman Pope originally did to the body’s natural systems: PhageX has even more affinity for those cell receptors than Sherman, so the body preferentially uses it instead of SP, even though both are floating around in the same place.”

  “So far, so good,” Alice said.

  “But all Necrophage also contains PhageY, which is the eradication component. PhageY is an artificial cell receptor that looks just like the natural cell receptors Sherman Pope bonds with in order to do its damage.”

  “An artificial cell receptor?” Alice asked. “Are you telling me that PhageY is a fake body part?”

  “A very small one, yes, and there are millions in every injection. When PhageY is in the system, free-floating Sherman Pope bonds to it just like it would the real cell receptors. Once that’s happened, all that free-floating Sherman Pope — which is constantly created because the virus never stops replicating — becomes inert. It can no longer do damage, like putting a sheath on a knife. It can then be flushed from a person’s system by the body’s natural defenses.”

  “Okay.”

  “But you need both, see. If someone were only to take PhageY, they’d be flushing out all the newly-produced Sherman Pope, but then their bodies would fall apart and die because there’d be no stasis component to keep the body propped up. Do you understand?”

  Alice nodded for no one to see. “Right. I get it. Take PhageY and you cure the disease but kill the patient. But what if you only took PhageX?”

  August seemed to think. Then he said, “Well, I guess you’d get a sort of below-the-surface crumbling. The body would be superficially propped up, but they’d still be flooded with active Sherman Pope.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Well, they’d be contagious, for one. But if they were propped up by PhageX, they’d still have all their marbles and so I guess they wouldn’t think to bite anyone.”

  Something felt like it was crawling up Alice’s backbone. Something unwanted, unknowable, but somehow terrifying.

  “But even if they did bite someone,” Alice said, realizing she was asking more for assurance than for an answer, “it wouldn’t matter because the person they bit could just take Necrophage, same as normal. Right?”

  August’s pause was too long. Alice felt the creeping feeling on her spine tighten its grip.

  “Hmm. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Viruses evolve quickly in the presence of selective pressures. The body’s natural defenses might make for an excellent training ground. Like an in-vivo gauntlet.”

  “What does that mean?”

  August must have heard her fear, so he laughed and went on, giving a security-blanket answer: “Relax, Alice. Sherman Pope takes over the entire body in three or four weeks. That’s not enough time fighting for survival that the virus is required to adapt, so it’s not a problem.”

  “Oh,” Alice said, unsure if she should feel better.

&
nbsp; “Of course, if someone really could survive for an extended period on just PhageX, the virus might be forced to adapt plenty, creating something newer, heartier, and much more evolved.”

  Alice swallowed, unsure why she felt naked, like a thousand eyes were on her, assessing.

  “In fact,” August said, “in someone like that, PhageY might not even work anymore. Dosing with PhageY at that point might just cause an inflammation response that would upset the PhageX equilibrium and do … well, who knows? … in the patient or in anyone bitten.”

  Alice looked out the window. Toward the horizon. Toward the edge of Dead City. It was such a beautiful day. She wanted it to last forever. To make flowers bloom and the present moment continue, frozen, unchanging, unaffected by evolution’s subtle forces.

  On the phone, August said, “Alice? Are you there?”

  Then he said, “Alice?”

  Such a nice day. Such a fine new dawn.

  “Alice?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  DO YOU LOVE ME?

  THE SUNLIGHT MADE A JESUS beam that sliced through the trailer’s gloaming like a solid pillar. Jordache watched motes of dust dance in it, making lazy circles. She’d stood to open the blinds a moment earlier, and the day’s beauty had struck her. It only made sense to share what struck you as beautiful.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  Danny watched her, not answering.

  Jordache breathed slowly, stopping to wonder why she was breathing at all. She’d had a lot of time to think over the past few days. She was pretty sure she was dead. But then again, she couldn’t stop breathing if she tried — and it was uncomfortable when she did. She’d even tried to drown herself in the sink, just to see what would happen. She’d chickened out after nearly losing consciousness then had staggered back and practically fallen into the shower. When she’d drained the sink, the water had been pink, specked with floating bits of matter. Not her own. And she’d needed a bath anyway. Or at least a face bath.