Peeps p-1

by Scott Westerfeld

  “Don’t you remember Plagues and Pestilence?” Dr. Rat said, disappointment on her face. “That whole week we spent on the 1300s?”

  “Yes. But I don’t consider once in the last seven hundred years to be a lot.”

  “Don’t forget werewolves, and those bats in Mexico last century.” She leaned back in her chair, staring up into the mysteries of the squeaking row of rat cages.

  Dr. Rat’s lair sort of freaks me out, what with all the rattling cages of rodents, the brand-new textbooks and musty bestiaries, and the shiny tools lined up to one side of the dissection table. (There’s just something about dissection tables.)

  “You know,” Dr. Rat said, “there might even be some history of a cat-friendly strain. The Spanish Inquisition thought that felines were the devil’s familiars and barbecued a whole bunch of them. Their theory was that cats stole your breath at night.”

  “I can see where they got that one,” I said, remembering how often I’d woken up with all fourteen pounds of Cornelius sitting on my chest.

  “But it’s paranoid to focus on a handful of transmissions, Cal,” Dr. Rat said. “You’ve got to keep your eye on the big picture. Evolution is always cranking out mutations, and parasites are constantly trying out new hosts—some kind of worm takes a crack at your intestines pretty much every time you eat a rare steak.”

  “Oh, nice. Thanks for that image.”

  “But most of them fail, Kid. Evolution is mostly about mutations that don’t work, sort of like the music business.” She pointed at her boom box, which was cranking Deathmatch at that very moment. “For every Deathmatch or Kill Fee, there are a hundred useless bands you never heard of that go nowhere. Same with life’s rich pageant. That’s why Darwin called mutations ‘hopeful monsters.’ It’s a crapshoot; most fail in the first generation.”

  “The Hopeful Monsters,” I said. “Cool band name.”

  Dr. Rat considered this for a moment. “Too artsy-fartsy.”

  “Whatever. But this peep cat looked pretty successful to me. I mean, it had a huge brood and was catching birds to feed them. Doesn’t that sound like an adaptation for spreading the parasite?”

  “That’s nothing new.” Dr. Rat threw a pencil in the air and caught it. “Cats bring their humans little offerings all the time. It’s how they feed their kittens; sometimes they get confused.”

  “Yeah, well, this peep cat looked healthy. Not like an evolutionary failure.”

  Dr. Rat nodded, drumming her fingers on the top of PNS’s cage. She’d already drawn the rat’s blood and attached the test tube to a centrifuge in the corner of her lair. It had spun itself into a solid blur, rumbling like a paint mixer in a hardware store.

  “That’s not bad—given how many parasite mutations kill their hosts in a few days. But evolution doesn’t care how strong or healthy you are, unless you reproduce.”

  “Sure … but this brood was really big. Thousands of them.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but the question is, how does this new strain get into another cat?”

  “You’re asking me?” I said. “You’re the expert.”

  She shrugged. “Well, I don’t know either, Kid. And that’s the deal-breaker. If the new strain doesn’t have a way back into another kitty final host, then the adaptation is just a dead end. Like toxoplasma in humans, it’ll never go anywhere.”

  I nodded slowly, wrapping my brain around this. If this new strain couldn’t find a way to infect more cats, then it would die when the peep cat died. Game over.

  I looked hopefully at Dr. Rat. “So we might not be facing a civilization-ending threat to humanity?”

  “Look, cats would be a great vector for the parasite to jump from rats to humans, I’ll give you that. A lot more people get bitten by cats every year than rats. But it’s much more likely this is a one-off freak mutation. In fact, it’s even more likely you just got spooked and didn’t know what you were seeing.”

  I thought of the rumbling basement, the awful smell—maybe that had been a hallucination, but the peep cat I really had seen. “Well, thanks for the pep talk.” I stood. “Hope you’re right.”

  “Me too,” Dr. Rat said softly, looking down at PNS.

  I pulled the ZTM-47/74 off the printer. There would be many more forms to fill out that day; my writing hand was sore just thinking about it.

  I stopped at the door. “Still, let me know what you think about that video. It looked like the peep cat was being worshipped by its brood of rats. Seems like that dynamic would take a few generations to evolve.”

  Dr. Rat patted the videotape I’d brought her. “I’m going to watch it right now, Kid.” She gestured at the centrifuge. “And I’ll let you know if Possible New Strain is a relative of yours. But I have one question.”

  “What?”

  “Does he smell like one?”

  I paused to take one last sniff of PNS, catching the little fluffs of joy the rat gave off as he consumed the lettuce she’d given him. Dr. Rat knows a lot about smells, which chemicals give each fruit and flower its distinctive aroma—but she’ll never have the olfactory sense of a predator. Her nose has to live vicariously through us carriers.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “He smells like family.”

  “Well, your nose probably knows what it’s smelling. But I’ll call you when I get firm results. In the meantime, here’s a little something that might come in handy.” She tossed me a little vial of yellow liquid. “That’s Essence of Cal Thompson. Your smell. Might be useful if that brood is related to you. Just use it carefully. You don’t want to cause a rat riot.”

  It looked like piss in a perfume bottle, and holding it gave me an equally unpleasant feeling. “Gee, thanks.”

  “And one more thing, Kid.”

  I paused, half out the door. “What?”

  “Why did you use a spaghetti strainer? Don’t they give you guys cages anymore?”

  “Long story. See you later.”

  Walking down the halls of the Night Watch, I started to feel guilty.

  While I’d been talking to Dr. Rat, I hadn’t felt so bad about my indiscretions of the night before. We were pals, and I could almost believe she’d understand if I told her about spilling the beans to Lace. But as the implacable file cabinets rose on either side of me on my way into Records, I could feel the weight of my Major Revelation Incident growing with every step. It had made sense the night before, with Lace threatening to go to the newspapers, but this morning I felt like a traitor.

  On the other hand, there was no changing my mind. I still didn’t want Lace to disappear.

  When I reached Chip’s office, he looked up at me with a gaze that seemed somehow reproachful. “Morning, Kid.”

  “Hey, Chip.” I cleared my throat and brushed away the guilty thoughts. “I found out what happened. They added a swimming pool.”

  “Who added a what?”

  I pointed at the blueprints for Lace’s building still spread across his desk, half obscured by stray papers and books. “A swimming pool a few yards deep, right on the lowest level. That’s how the rat reservoir came up.”

  Chip stared at the blueprints, then at the yellowing plans of the PATH tunnel, his fingers finding the spot where the two intersected.

  Finally, he nodded. “Yeah. If the pool had a drain, that would do it.” He looked up at me.

  “There was a big hole in the deep end,” I said. “And I smelled something pretty bad coming from it. And felt a sort of… trembling. Like something big going under me.”

  “Like a subway train?”

  I raised an eyebrow. That explanation hadn’t occurred to me. “Maybe. But anyway, that hole is where the rats all disappeared when I cranked up my flashlight.”

  “The flashlight you broke?”

  “Yes, the one I broke. Who told you that?”

  He shrugged. “I hear things. Have you—?”

  “Yes, I’ll file a DE-37.” I waved the growing stack of forms in my hand.

  He chuckled, shaking hi
s head. “Man, you hunters. I break a pencil and there’s hell to pay.”

  “I can see how that’s deeply unfair, Chip. Especially if that pencil should try to kill you with its teeth and claws, or launch its brood of a thousand deadly paper clips against you.”

  Chip chuckled again, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Won’t say another word against hunters. But don’t say that Records never helped you out. We got some interesting data about your seventh-floor tenants this morning. I think you’ll find it useful.”

  “You know where they are?”

  “Afraid not. They’ve disappeared completely.” He pulled out an envelope and removed five photographs. “But this is what they look like, or did last year anyway. Probably thinner now, those of them that are still alive.”

  I recognized Morgan, her dark hair and pale skin, eyebrows perfectly arched.

  “Thanks.” I took the photos from him and slid them into my jacket pocket.

  “And one more thing,” Chip said, unfolding a printed T-shirt across his chest. “This is for you.”

  I stared at the smiling face, the sequined guitar, the good-natured belly overlapping his belt: Garth Brooks.

  “Um, Chip, am I missing something?”

  “It’s an anathema, Kid!” He grinned. “We found some online posts by a couple of your missing persons—Patricia and Joseph Moore. Both big Garth Brooks fans.”

  “And you went out and bought that thing?”

  “Nope. Believe it or not, Hunt Equipment had it on file.”

  My eyebrows rose. “We had a Garth Brooks T-shirt on file?”

  “Yeah. You know that big outbreak on the Upper West Side eight years ago? Couple of those guys were really into country music.” He tossed the shirt to me. “Wear it next time you go down. Just in case our missing persons have gone subterranean.”

  “Great.” I stuffed the T-shirt in my backpack. “Anything else?”

  “Nope. But don’t worry, we’ll keep looking.”

  “You do that. And if you find out that Morgan was into Ashlee Simpson, don’t worry—I’ve already got it covered.”

  Dr. Rat had been right about the ZTM-47/74—it was a form that made things happen. Unfortunately, they weren’t the things that I’d wanted to happen. Instead of a well-armed extermination team heading for Lace’s building that afternoon, there was only me.

  I was not empty-handed, though. I had a vial of Dr. Rat’s Eau de Cal, a Ziploc bag of Cornelius dander, the Garth Brooks T-shirt on under my hazmat suit, a new flashlight and some other equipment in my duffel bag, and a work order signed by the Night Mayor himself, instructing me to capture the alleged peep cat. That last one was why I was flying solo. Apparently, a big squad of poison-wielding attackers might scare kitty away, and kitty was needed for testing.

  So that meant me alone.

  On my way across town, I stopped at a grocery store and bought two Crunchy Tunas and a can opener. Dr. Rat’s experimental Cal extract might attract the peep cat, but I prefer the classics.

  Manny was back at the door; he gave me a knowing wink.

  “You going upstairs or downstairs, my friend?”

  “Down, unfortunately.” I slapped a fake By-Order-of-Sanitation document on his desk. Manny’s eyes widened as he scanned it.

  “Whoa, man. You’re telling me we’re getting shut down?”

  “Just the health club. We found rats, a whole bunch.”

  “Oh, that’s bad.” He shook his head.

  “Hey, there’s no reason to make a fuss. You can say whatever you want about why it’s off limits. Tell the tenants there’s a gas leak or something.”

  “Okay.” He exhaled through his teeth. “But the landlords aren’t going to like this.”

  “Tell them the extermination won’t cost anything. The city will handle it all.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’ve personally got it covered. Just one thing, though.”

  He looked up from the document.

  “I’ll need the keys to the elevator,” I said. “All of them. We don’t want anyone wandering around in the basement. Not even building staff.”

  “Really?”

  I leaned closer. “These rats … very dangerous.”

  Manny looked doubtful about surrendering his keys. But after calling the fake phone number on the fake Sanitation order, he found himself reassured by a fake city official that everything would be okay as long as he cooperated. Soon I was headed down into the darkness again.

  First, I dealt with the security cameras, sticking a piece of black tape over each of their lenses. Easy-peasy and some useful information might turn up for my trouble. If anyone bothered to fix the cameras, at least I’d know someone was paying attention.

  Opening the locker, I stepped into the cave darkness, flicked on my new flashlight, and crept down the hidden hallway. Lace’s and my footprints were still there, preserved in peanut butter, but no new ones had appeared.

  I cut open the chained-up door again, and this time when I closed it behind me, I jammed wedges into the cracks, restuffing the steel wool underneath.

  The site secured, I descended the stairs, flashlight in hand.

  The swimming pool was almost quiet.

  In the soft red glow I saw only a few dozen rats and the picked-clean skeletons of pigeons, sitting undisturbed. Apparently it wasn’t feeding time. The peep cat wasn’t in sight.

  I found my abandoned duffel bag and I transferred a few necessary items to my new one, then stepped into the empty pool. My boots trod softly across the pigeon feathers. The few rats perching on the pool’s edge watched me descend toward the deep end, mildly curious. A big fat one leaned his chin over the diving board, looking down at me.

  Without a thousand panicking rodents in the way, I could see the drain much better. The concrete around it had collapsed, and through the jagged hole was a deeper darkness that offered up a damp and earthy smell. No scent of death.

  The hole was big enough for a slender human body to slip through. Hunkering at the edge, I opened a can of cat food. The smell of Crunchy Tuna infused the air, and I heard little noses sniffing around me. But nothing came to investigate.

  Dr. Rat has a word for what rats are: neophobic. In other words, they don’t like new things. Related to them or not, I was something new in their environment, and Crunchy Tuna was too.

  I pushed a chunk of Crunchy Tuna down into the hole. A liquid splat came from below. The space down there was big; I could hear its size in the echoes.

  After a few minutes of waiting, I switched off the flashlight completely. Blind in the darkness, I hoped my ears might begin to listen harder. The few rats around me continued going about their business, cleaning themselves and squabbling. A few got up the courage to dart past me and down into the hole. They sniffed the dollop of cat food below, but I heard no little teeth daring to take a bite. They were a cautious bunch.

  Rats send chemical signals to one another, emotions carried by smells. One nervous individual can make a whole pack of rats anxious, fear spreading through the population like a dirty rumor. And sometimes, a pack will suddenly abandon a place all at once, collectively deciding that it has bad vibes.

  I wondered if the peep cat’s brood was still jittery from my flashlight blast the night before. Maybe they had left this basement forever, fleeing far down into the Underworld.

  Then I heard the meow.

  It reached me from a long distance, sleepy and annoyed-sounding, through a prism of echoes. The cat was still down here.

  But it wasn’t coming to me; I had to go to it.

  The concrete was brittle—a few solid kicks opened the hole enough for me to climb through. I lowered my duffel bag as far as possible, then dropped it. The clunk of metal told me that the floor was about ten feet below.

  Holding onto the flashlight carefully, I slipped through and let myself fall. My boots hit solid ground with a crunch of shattered concrete that echoed like a gunshot.

  I switched my
flashlight on low again.

  A tunnel stretched away into the darkness, extending as far as I could see in both directions. Decades of dust had settled in here, filling the bottom with a loose dirt floor. It was lined with uneven stones, century-old mortar barely holding them together. They were cold and wet to the touch—the tons of dirt over my head squeezing the groundwater through them like a fist around a wet rag.

  A slight breeze moved through the passage, carrying the smells of rats, earth, and fungus. Still, nothing as foul and horrible as what I had scented the day before.

  The breeze felt fresh; it had to be coming from some sort of opening at the surface. I decided to move upwind. With the air blowing into my face, I could smell whatever was in front of me without it smelling me.

  I’ve been in a lot of underground spaces in New York—subway tracks, sewers, steam pipe tunnels—but this one was different. There were no stray bits of paper, no garbage, no smells of piss. Maybe it had lain undisturbed by human beings for the century since it had been built, carrying only air, rats, and the occasional peep cat beneath the city streets. The tunnel inclined slightly as I walked, a winding stain in the center of the floor showing where rain had trickled down the slope for the last hundred years.

  Then I smelled something human on the breeze. Well… half human.

  Peeps have a subtle scent. Their feverish bodies consume almost everything they eat, leaving few smells of waste. Their dry skin exudes none of the salty sweat of a regular person. But no metabolism is perfect—my predator’s nose detected a hint of rotten meat and the whiff of dead skin cells, like fresh leather hanging on a boot factory wall.

  The breeze died and I froze, waiting for it to come again. I didn’t want my scent to drift ahead of me. A moment later, the air moved again, and the intimate smell of family washed over me.

  This peep was a relative.

  As softly as I could, I laid the duffel bag on the ground and pulled a knockout injector from the zippered pocket of my hazmat suit.

  I switched off the flashlight and began to crawl, a wave of nerves rushing through me. This was the first peep I’d ever hunted who was an absolute unknown. The only anathema I had was the Garth Brooks T-shirt, which somehow didn’t seem equal to the task. The darkness seemed to stretch forever before me, until a hint of light played across the blackness. Gradually I was able to make out the stones in the passage walls again, and my hands in front of my face … and then something else.