Flypaper: A Novel

by Chris Angus

  “It’s all been arranged,” Logan explained. “We won’t thaw it entirely here. We’ll leave it encased in at least three inches of ice. It’s good it’s so small. That will make it more maneuverable. Even with the ice, it probably won’t weigh over a hundred pounds. No problem for one of the horses to carry. We’ve brought a special, insulated container to hold it—real high-tech stuff from NASA. The ice won’t even begin to thaw for many days.”

  Leeanne stood beside the body, staring at it intently. “It’s pretty eerie the way it looks. You can’t actually focus on it through the ice. I’m surprised it’s naked in this climate, though, and the skin is a strange color.”

  Alan came over beside her. “You mean as in, it’s not green? How can it be a little green man if it’s yellow?”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Leeanne said, but she squeezed him playfully.

  Marcia said, “Anything we see through the distortion of the ice, including color, could be an illusion. But Logan’s right. We’re wasting time. Let’s get to work.”

  When Diana woke, she was disoriented. This wasn’t her hotel room. She lay on her back in a bed thick with rich fabrics and silk pillows and looked about. The rest of the tiny room was poorly furnished, as though whoever lived here put all their resources into this small bed and its accouterments. She heard a woman singing softly in the next room, and then Yä Ling bustled in. In an instant, everything from the previous evening came flooding back. Or at least, almost everything.

  “How did I get here?” Diana asked.

  “Oh, you are awake! Good.” Yä Ling sat on the edge of the bed. She had on a robe and her raven hair was down around her shoulders. Diana reflected once again upon how young the girl looked.

  “Did . . . did I make a fool of myself?” Diana asked. “I can’t remember. I don’t handle liquor very well . . . Oh, my God! What happened to Huang? Did he . . . ?”

  Yä Ling patted her hand. “Nothing happened, I assure you. We took you to your hotel, but after Huang left, I decided to bring you to my apartment. It’s small, but there was less chance that Huang would bother you. I had you checked out of your hotel and your things brought here.”

  Diana was sitting up now, trying desperately to fit the pieces of the previous evening together. She must have passed out. She shuddered at the thought of being unconscious while in Huang’s clutches. How stupid could she be? Thank God, Yä Ling had apparently understood everything.

  “I think I owe you a great deal,” she said.

  “We ladies must stick together when it comes to men. They have urges they cannot control. And Huang, I think, has less control than most. Especially when it comes to a pretty, blonde American girl.”

  Diana felt her sense of camaraderie with this strange, beautiful, strong-willed girl growing by the minute.

  Yä Ling was staring at her with a puzzled look. “Yet, I don’t understand why you come here alone with him,” she said.

  Suddenly, Diana realized the seriousness of what had ­happened. If Huang now felt that she was completely out of reach, he might go back to work. She started to get up. “I—I have to return to my hotel.”

  “Maybe I misunderstand,” Yä Ling said. “Do you wish to be with Huang?”

  Diana looked miserable. There was no way to explain this strange circumstance she was in, how she needed to be both vulnerable and yet unattainable at the same time. Yä Ling had saved her once. Diana would have to be doubly cautious not to be compromised again. She began to dress, then stopped and simply sat on the bed, trying to imagine how she was possibly going to pull this off. Maybe she should just have sex with the little bastard and get it over with. She had little doubt she’d have more control over him once they crossed that threshold. But the very thought sent a wave of revulsion coursing through her.

  “I—I have my work to do,” she said weakly.

  “I think the work Huang wants you to do involves more the kind of skills I have,” said Yä Ling.

  It was a hopeless situation. “I do thank you, Yä Ling. I know a lot of women would have simply left me alone with Huang.” She hesitated. “How long have you been with Mr. Ren?”

  “Almost three years.”

  “And are you . . . happy . . . with the way things are? Please forgive me if I am impolite in asking this.”

  Yä Ling stared at her for several moments. “In China, I think, such arrangements must be more common than in America.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. We aren’t so open about it, perhaps, but people stay together for all sorts of reasons—money, sex, habit, fear, lack of alternatives—many reasons. Even married people.”

  “I will be married someday,” Yä Ling said.

  “To Mr. Ren?”

  She made a face. “No. He is necessary at this time, until I’m able to support myself or find . . . some other arrangement. But he’s not mean to me. He is very generous in fact, and I know he cares for me.”

  “Yes, but you give him something in return that you would not otherwise give him, isn’t that correct?”

  “It is a small thing,” she said, looking away. “It means nothing.”

  “Who will you marry then?”

  “I see him sometimes when I’m dreaming. He’s tall and strong. Strong of will, too. We will share many things and love each other and have children and live to be one hundred years old.”

  She spoke with such seriousness Diana almost laughed. But instead she said, “I think you really will achieve those things, Yä Ling. You’re a strong woman, stronger than me, I suspect. I’m a silly American girl who can’t even hold her brandy and fight off a rogue without help.”

  Yä Ling smiled. “I think either one of us could handle that skinny little Huang. Maybe we’ll fight him off together one day.”

  Diana laughed delightedly. “Now wouldn’t that be fun! But really, I must go. Will you walk with me to my hotel?”

  “Yes,” Yä Ling replied. “If that is what you want.”

  As they walked the early morning streets, Urumqi was strangely quiet and deserted. Only a few pedestrians were about and the usual hubbub of street vendors and laborers was missing.

  As soon as they turned onto the street with Diana’s hotel, a car parked a block away turned on its engine and roared down on them, stopping directly in front of them. Huang jumped out, and Diana cringed visibly.

  “What do you want?” asked Yä Ling.

  Huang ignored the girl. To Diana, he said, “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “One hour ago, the premier went on national television. He announced that an epidemic has struck the large cities of eastern China. He tried to assure people that things were under control, but the mere fact of his announcement has spread panic. The leaders would never admit such a thing to the public unless matters were extremely serious, even out of control.”

  “Is that why the streets have been so quiet?” asked Yä Ling.

  “Yes. The premier urged people to stay inside and to avoid public gatherings until further notice. Some obey out of habit. But I have contacts through the ministry in Beijing. Normal phone service is out, but some cell phones still work. They tell me the streets of the capital are filled with dead and dying people and that people flee the city by the hundreds of thousands.”

  Yä Ling looked terrified. “Where will they go?”

  “The only possibility is into the countryside and toward the more remote areas. Urumqi and the surrounding region will soon be inundated with refugees. Western China has a reputation for remoteness and many Chinese have come here over the years for vacations. People are sure to come this way to escape the disease.” He stared at them closely. “I’ll take you both to the Tarim dig if you want to go. It’ll be much safer there. I’ve already filled my car with extra food. Your friends, Miss Diana, should be warned as well. If anyone is to survive, it will be those who move quickly to get away from the masses of people who spread the sickness.”

  “What about your wife?” asked Y�
� Ling.

  Huang waved a hand dismissively. “She has gone to be with her parents.”

  Diana found herself unable to think. Was this some incredible ploy by Huang to get her alone again? But if what he said was true, then she had an obligation to warn the others at the dig, even though it would mean exposing Logan’s mission before the week was up. The choices were too confusing. She looked at Yä Ling, but saw only uncertainty there as well. She would have to make up her own mind. There was simply no way she couldn’t go to the dig and warn the people there. If things were as bad as Huang made them out to be, it was unlikely anyone was going to be interested in Logan and a twenty-thousand-year-old body.

  “All right, Huang, we’ll go.”

  Yä Ling backed away from them. “I must find Mr. Ren,” she said. For all her willful spirit, the girl remained attached to the one power figure she knew.

  “Go then. He’ll be leaving the city, too. Whether he decides to take his wife and family or you should be interesting,” Huang sneered cruelly.

  Diana took the girl’s hand. “Yä Ling, are you sure you want to do this? Why not come with us? You can always find Mr. Ren later.”

  But there was no controlling the girl. Her mind was made up. The only person she felt she could rely on was the man who had controlled every aspect of her existence for the past three years.

  “Yä Ling will be all right,” she said, kissing Diana quickly. “I know Ren Zhong. He won’t desert me.” Then she left, hurrying quickly down the empty street.

  Huang took the suitcase Diana was carrying and put it in the car, atop a pile of boxes filled with food. Then he held the door open for her. She could see fear in his face, proof perhaps that what he said was true, but there was something else, too. There was a look of ultimate triumph.

  Once again, she was alone with Huang.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PAULA TRUDGED WEARILY down the hospital ­corridor past scores of bodies in the final stages of the disease. Many had to be tied down, as the increasing disorientation and madness of the illness made them impossible to control. This near end point of the sickness was followed, however, by a sort of passivity that descended upon the victims. Then, for a brief time before death, they became highly suggestible and would do nearly anything they were told.

  It surprised her, when she was capable of feeling anything at all, how she could pass by this many suffering people without so much as a glance. But when mortality reached one hundred percent and there was little to do beyond offering a few palliative comforts, the will to help was sapped.

  She slipped into the lab and took a chair at a conference table surrounded by research stations, sinks and refrigerators containing dwindling stores of blood, plasma and other supplies.

  Dr. Wokowski and the remaining members of the CDC crew were already there. Only three of the original staff team of six were still alive. Also present were Dr. Zhongfa and his one surviving assistant. The mood was even more somber than usual, for the meeting had been called to discuss their remaining options. They were no longer confined. The security guards had all fled, along with most of the rest of Beijing, leaving them virtually alone in a hospital filled with over a thousand dying patients. A handful of doctors and nurses who truly felt their obligation as healers remained. But everyone else, orderlies, technicians, lab workers, and administrators, was gone.

  “The city’s in complete chaos,” Dr. Wokowski was saying. “I don’t believe we could get out even if we wanted to. The airports and train stations are closed—perhaps by order of the ­authorities—but I suspect all the pilots and engineers and support personnel simply fled. The only way out is by car, and the streets are filled with people walking or on bicycle, many of them driving livestock as they go. It’s the worst gridlock I’ve ever seen.”

  “Where would we go anyway?” asked one of the young CDC staffers. “We’ve all been exposed and probably infected. It won’t do us any good to go running about the countryside.”

  “I agree,” said Paula. “And we shouldn’t leave the country even if we could. We’d just risk spreading the disease even further. As long as we remain healthy, we should stay here and continue to try to find an answer. We have the lab facilities and God knows we have enough dying people to study.”

  Dr. Wokowski held up a tired hand. “I brought you all into this mess,” he said to the CDC workers. “For which I am most profoundly sorry. It’s no longer my place to tell you what to do. Each of you must make up his own mind. If you want to try to leave, you may do so, and no one will blame you for it. I intend to stay. So does Paula. I want the rest of you to go into the next room and decide what you’ll do without interference from us.”

  The three staffers plodded out, and they could be heard discussing things in low voices. Dr. Zhongfa and his assistant remained.

  “We will stay, of course,” he said.

  Wokowski nodded. “I expected nothing less. You and your people have been consummate professionals. The citizens of ­Beijing have been well served by you.”

  Dr. Zhongfa sighed. “It’s hard to feel that way when one is so helpless, but I thank you for saying so.”

  “Do you think it was wise?” asked Paula. “To give our own people a choice?”

  “Maybe not, but they have the right to make their own ­decisions—perhaps more so than anyone else in this city. They came here voluntarily to try to help others. To be brutally honest,” he said in a lowered voice, “I truly believe we are all dead. Our ­co-workers are simply negotiating the manner of their deaths. I’ve never worked on any illness in my career as baffling as this one.”

  “I still think,” Paula said, “that the answer lies in understanding the post-mortem rate of decay. This is something never before documented. Somehow, this disease continues to wreak its damage on the human body even after death. It’s not like normal bacterial decay, but almost as though something in the genetic code orders the body to self-destruct.”

  She was interrupted by the return of the three staffers. They sat down and one of them said in fatalistic tones, “We’ll stay. There aren’t any other options.”

  “Options or not, I intend to write up your decision in my next—probably final—report. And I’ll recommend you all receive commendations for your service,” Dr. Wokowski said.

  The young staffer who’d spoken smiled wearily. “That and a fistful of yuan couldn’t buy a cup of tea in downtown Beijing today,” he said.

  Paula stood up. “All right. Let’s get back to work. I want to conduct autopsies on the brains of the two most recent casualties.”

  “Why the brains?” asked Wokowski.

  She hesitated. “A theory I have. Some of the symptoms remind me of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.”

  “Mad Cow Disease?” Wokowski looked puzzled. “You expect to find holes in the brains of our deceased patients like the ones that make cow brains look like sponges?”

  “It’s only the wildest speculation at this point,” said Paula. “But what’s the one thing that differentiates humans from all other species on Earth?”

  “Our intelligence, of course,” answered one of the staffers. “Specifically, our ability to be self-aware.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dr. Zhongfa stared at her. “You’re suggesting there may be something in our brains that has somehow caused this infection? Something to do with our intelligence?”

  “I don’t know. Besides Mad Cow, prions are also responsible for other transmissible spongiform encephalopathy like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. We’re dealing with some new kind of infectious agent. That much is clear. No other species seem to be affected by whatever’s going on. I’m just trying to imagine what might be different about humans. Why couldn’t it be caused by misshapen proteins—prions? No one knows the precise structure of the prions responsible for such diseases.”

  “I’m not sure I accept your reasoning,” said Wokowski. “I grant you, prions are unique infectious agents. All other known infectious
agents—bacterium, fungus, virus, parasite—contain nucleic acids: DNA, RNA, or both.” He ran his hand tiredly through his thinning hair. “I just don’t know. I think it’s much more likely we’re dealing with some sort of slow-acting virus.”

  “It’s not acting slowly enough for me,” Paula replied testily. “Anyway, it’s only a theory. I have another theory, which is that if we don’t get to work, we’re probably all going to die before we can test my first theory.”

  They watched her leave in silence. After a moment, the other staffers got up and trudged after her down the long hall lined with gurneys of dying, dead, and decaying people.

  Paul Littlefield descended like a falling archangel on the small western Chinese city of Bole aboard his private helicopter. Waiting to greet him was a gathering of local officials and the religious leaders of his new mission. Everyone wanted to meet the man responsible for bringing religion—not to mention a hell of a lot of yuan—to the remote western province of Xinjiang.

  Littlefield toured the mission buildings, which were extensive. No expense had been spared. He would have shortchanged his oil refineries and pipeline before his religious undertakings. Thankfully, there was no need to be penurious in either regard.

  Ren Zhu, Littlefield’s right hand man in China, accompanied him. Zhu paved the way with all necessary permits, visas and bribes. To the Chinese, he was a walking cash register, and they wasted no opportunity to make withdrawals.

  The two men stood side-by-side as the orphans who lived at the Bole mission sang religious hymns for them. The children had not yet learned English, but they could sing the psalms by rote. Littlefield beamed. This was the next generation, the beginning of the new Christian order in China. It would eventually sweep across all of Asia, stamping out the many heathen creeds that beleaguered the continent.

  After the short ceremony, Littlefield consulted privately with Zhu for a few minutes in the mission’s small chapel. Zhu had been nervously awaiting time alone with his boss, for things were not good in China.

  “Do you still intend to travel east to visit General Zhou?” Zhu asked.