“It’s fascinating really, that little tome, isn’t it?” said Orbus. “Apparently, though I can find no other reference to the practice, the Wyoming housewives of the World War II era would place these specially bred beetles down on a silk stocking that had a run in it, and the beetle would actually walk up the stocking and knit the bloody thing together with its fossorial legs.”
“Wow, amazing,” said Tess, continuing to leaf through the book. There was an odd silence in the room.
“Something wrong, Tess? You aren’t looking for this, by any chance?” She looked up at Wayne Orbus just as he was closing his desk drawer. He had papers in his hand and he held them up. With a sinking heart, Tess saw the NSA seal at the top.
Tess would have gulped, but she couldn’t seem to move a muscle. She could see a slight movement from Richie, though, out of the corner of her eye.
Orbus observed Tess carefully, his smile finally gone from his face. “Alfred seemed to think you had somehow found out about this, but I’m afraid I did not believe him. I will have to apologize to the poor fellow.” The temperature in the room was suddenly colder. “Did you get the information from Peter Barrett? God knows how that dilettante found out.”
“Found what out?” Tess stalled. “Do you know where Peter is? Is he okay?”
“Peter is in Australia at the moment, where I need him to be. He knows he has to do what I need him to do, when I need him to do it. You must know, as intelligent as you are, that Peter is nothing but an empty suit.”
“Don’t you mean more like a mended suit?”
“I beg your pardon?” He looked at her quizzically.
“I mean, I couldn’t help noticing that all his suits were mended, in the same place too. Every single one of them had slits in them.”
“Tess, I think we …” warned Richie.
But somehow, even though she knew it was not the wisest thing to do, she could not stop herself. “Recently I found a slit in my own coat, right after meeting with Alfred at the WOOSH offices.” She held her breath.
Orbus nodded, and then sighed almost apologetically. He leaned back in his chair. “Alfred is a very loyal follower, one of my most devoted. He brought me the book you have in your hands. He’s always on the lookout for things I might not have in my library regarding beetles. However, he has some … quirks. He did not like Peter. Felt I should never have enlisted an outsider. The ‘slits,’ as you call them, were an homage to a particular kind of beetle, I’m afraid.” (“Homage to a Beetle”—isn’t that a song? Tess thought, her mind starting to swim.) “There’s a species of beetle that I had developed years ago—never mind why, it was a failed experiment; they can’t all be successes—that would eat anything that had wool fiber in it. Interestingly enough, it was sort of the opposite of our Wyoming friend, when you think of it. This beetle would walk in a straight line and leave a gash, rather than repair one. Alfred had some of these beetles years ago, as pets, when he was helping me in that capacity. Now, I’m sorry to say, since I took his beetles away, he uses a razor blade, or something of the sort, I imagine. When he feels threatened.”
“Peter mentioned something about an unbalanced ex-girlfriend doing it,” said Tess, trying to absorb what Orbus was saying. He was so matter-of-fact about it all that she was having a hard time grasping it.
“Peter Barrett was under orders from me to keep Alfred’s idiosyncrasies … to himself. Although I have no doubt that Peter has had many unbalanced paramours,” he said, chortling. But why would Peter go along with Orbus on all this? Tess thought. It couldn’t have been just the money.
Richie was sitting forward on the sofa, watching Tess and ready to run for the hills, she could tell. All she had to do was give him a sign. But for some reason Tess felt that now that she was here, she had to see it through.
Orbus stood up and walked to the door. “Now if you will both follow me, please. I very much want you to see the laboratory downstairs.”
Richie and Tess stood up. Tess began to follow Orbus and felt Richie’s hand grab hers. She glanced at him. His eyes were open wide and he was shaking his head a little as if to say, “No way we are going into the basement with this guy.” Tess squeezed his hand in a reassuring way and nodded an “it will be okay.” But as she followed Wayne Orbus down the winding stone steps, and the insect hum got louder, she wondered, not for the first time, if she had lost all sense of self-preservation.
The staircase led down to a huge room with several thick square columns evenly spaced throughout an otherwise open area. There were six or seven men and women in white coats, obviously the lab workers, standing or sitting at various stations along eight long narrow tables. The tables were cluttered with computers, beakers, and other equipment. The room smelled slightly of formaldehyde. The sound of insects was very loud, and Tess and Richie could now see, around the edges of the rooms, movement within large cages and aquariums lining the walls. There were no windows (the lab was probably below moat level) and the whole room was illuminated by halogen lights. The lights came from the floor as well as the ceiling, making it incredibly bright. Some of the insect cages had black cloths over them, some were merely screened, some looked like just big wooden boxes.
Orbus was smiling again, the smile of a proud papa. “I have many more species, species I can say without false modesty I have created myself over the years, which live in what used to be the estate’s garages. But here is where my current work takes place.”
Richie and Tess were huddled close together, looking around in a mixture of fear and awe. Orbus faced them.
“Tess, do you believe the Maya had it right, and that the Earth is going to face major cataclysmic changes on December 21?”
Tess looked up at him, calculating what to say. A lot depended on it.
“Well, it certainly seems like it might, from everything I read.”
Orbus nodded. “As you know, that eventuality is something we have been planning for for years, and we think it will ultimately save mankind, allow him to start over, and do it correctly. And when these NSA blueprints fell into my hands, Tess, it was like providence!” He spoke the word “providence” so loudly that all the lab workers looked up, and Tess could swear that some of the beetles even stopped buzzing. He lowered his voice again. “Because sometimes we are not here merely to watch a prophecy unfold, sometimes we are meant to be a part of the prophecy!”
Tess snuck a look toward the stairway and to her dismay saw a large man, dressed in all black, standing in front of it with his arms crossed in front of him. Tess looked at Richie. Richie was doing well maintaining a placid expression but she could tell his eyes were saying, “Shit!!”
“There’s no sense in trying to pretend you didn’t know about this computer virus project, Tess,” Orbus went on in now fatherly tones. “I nursed a small suspicion, because of Alfred, but I knew it for certain the minute I saw you with the book. Come to think of it, as you are much more intelligent than Peter—perhaps you are the one who told him, not the other way around. I must say, that would be ironic indeed, since I had him moved to Australia, in part, precisely so he would not share this information with you. I never worried about Peter causing trouble with the authorities. He is too cynical and self-involved to believe or care that this kind of endeavor could ever be realized, but you”—Orbus peered into her face—“I can see that you have more imagination. Isn’t that so?”
“I would never doubt your abilities, Mr. Orbus.” Tess said, trying to keep her composure, sound neutral, flatter him, even though everything inside her was telling her to get the hell out of there.
“Hmm.” He scrutinized her and then glanced over at Richie. Tess did not dare look at her friend. “Well, since you are both here … I do so love showing people my work.” He walked over to the nearest table. Tess and Richie could do nothing but follow.
“The NSA document may not have been extensive, but it was quite thorough in outlining and diagramming the proposed method of synthesis between insect DNA and spe
cific microchip-conductible electrons … .” Orbus walked from station to station, speaking in a scientific jargon Tess could not understand. The other people in the lab seemed to take this all in stride, as if he gave tours down here on a regular basis. They all pretty much kept working at whatever they were doing.
“… the dung beetle,” Orbus was saying, with a great look of delight on his face. “That was the one we chose. Its insatiable appetite for fecal matter, I also thought, was perfect.” Orbus reached over and took a long tong-like instrument, uncovered a tank, reached in, and came up with a scrambling inch-long, black beetle. “Scarabaeus viettei,” he said. Tess’s skin crawled, but she tried not to show it. “Dung beetles have always played a remarkable role in agriculture. By burying and consuming dung, they improve nutrient recycling and soil structure. Tess and Richie, don’t you see the beauty of it?” Orbus’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. “This micro-organism we are inventing will take the shit mankind has made out of the world and rejuvenate it!”
He really was a madman. Tess tried to keep a positive, interested look on her face.
“We intend to release the formula into the system at several dozen key digital hubs at 11:59 p.m. on December 20.” He dropped the beetle back into its tank. “My people tell me the bug will spread so fast that major metropolitan areas will be paralyzed in approximately twenty-four hours.”
He turned to them. “Now, the question is, what are you two going to do about it? Have you already gone to the police, I wonder? They probably wouldn’t believe you. Still, you two could cause a problem. What should I do with you?” His eyebrows no longer seemed wild and whimsical but, under his deeply furrowed brow, appeared more like wispy little snakes about to strike.
Tess darted a quick look at the guard in the stairwell, who had unfolded his beefy arms, and one at Richie, who from his body language, seemed itching to find a tool to hit Orbus over the head. Tess knew there were too many people here and they would never get away. And that even if they did, they’d be looking over their shoulders for months. Tess racked her brain for what to do. Always humor the host, her mother used to say.
“Anything you like, Mr. Orbus,” Tess answered sweetly. “Don’t you know that we are only here to help? Haven’t you figured that out?” Please, Richie, follow my lead, she pleaded silently.
Orbus’s blue eyes were now boring into hers. “I would be most grateful for you to explain that,” he said.
“Look, may we sit down, please?” she said. This wasn’t just a ploy—Tess could feel her knees weakening. Somewhat taken aback, Orbus motioned them over to some stools next to a table that was more or less empty, and the three of them sat down—Richie and Tess on one side, Orbus on the other.
“Mr. Orbus, why do you think I came all the way out to Suffolk? Do you think we would have just walked in here by ourselves if we were trying to stop you? Didn’t you say you knew I was smart?”
“Hmm. Continue,” said Orbus, studying her closely.
“I’ll admit to you when I started this project I thought the whole thing … I mean, WOOSH … was totally crazy,” said Tess. “But the more I learned, the more I started believing. I even went to Mexico so I could talk to the Maya myself—I mean, the ones who are still there.”
Richie, getting where Tess was going, nodded. “I can attest to that. She even got me believing.”
“It’s obvious the world is about to self-destruct anyway,” said Tess. “I myself was living life in the exit-only lane. I had lost my job, my boyfriend, my family.” She was hoping to offer Orbus the perfect profile of a potential convert. “Frankly, I feel the Industrial Revolution came too soon; humans were not spiritually evolved enough to handle it, and now the mess we have is irreparable. We have no choice but a do-over. So when I heard about the NSA computer bug formula … Okay, I admit I was scared at first but”—she looked at Richie and put her hand on his arm—“as I told Richie, if there’s one thing I feel has ruined all of human interaction, human emotional life, the whole human journey, in fact, it’s computers.”
Richie blinked, then nodded. “Everyone is brain-dead,” he said. “Literally. There are brain-mapping studies that show people’s brains have been rewired. Only one in fifty ten-year-olds has ever climbed a tree. Computers!” He made a gross hocking sound, which Tess thought might be overdoing it. Orbus eyed him curiously.
“But my real epiphany came,” Tess said quickly, “when I actually got an audience with one of the thirteen crystal skulls—you know, from the Pleiades? What I saw that evening convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt. The world is headed for a rebirth, and that means most of what has been built has got to go, to make room. You can’t make an omelet …” Okay, now she was overdoing it. “Mr. Orbus, we came here because we want to support you. I know I was hired freelance, but I was hoping to really join you.”
“We both were hoping to,” Richie said.
***
Tess and Richie did not exchange one word on the ride back to the Ipswich station. They both looked out their windows in the Bentley as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But as soon as the chauffeur was completely out of sight, they grabbed each other and started talking at once.
“Oh my god, I thought we would never—”
“You were so brilliant when you—”
“Can you believe he really bought it that—”
“That whole crystal skull thing, I think that did it—”
Tess had bet on Orbus having a big enough ego to believe he had two more followers, instead of enemies, and it had paid off. The man had hugged them, and had given both of them pamphlets containing instructions on what to do to prepare before the Big Day and details of the locations of what were to be the WOOSH outposts around the world. Then he had let them use the restrooms and had sent them on their way.
“God, I was afraid we were going to have to go through some weird initiation or get tattooed or eat beetle juice or something,” said Richie. “You know, there was a part of me that really did think you were hallucinating all this, Tess. Do you think the stuff he’s making will really work? It didn’t exactly look like a state-of-the-art biotech lab or anything. Maybe he’s just an eccentric who thinks he’s doing real science?”
“I don’t know. All I know is we still don’t have any proof. But at least now I am sure of what he plans to do. I no longer have to think it’s just my paranoia. After seeing all this, I am going to keep trying, go to Washington, whatever it takes.
“I have a feeling you are going to get someone’s attention this time,” said Richie with a mysterious smile.
***
Tess and Richie sat at a corner table at the Café Rouge at Heathrow. They had gotten to the airport too early, but when they had gotten back from Ipswich Richie had been incredibly anxiety-ridden, uncharacteristically so. So they had collected their bags from the hotel and hightailed it to the airport.
“Richie, is there something the matter?” Tess said, pouring a hefty amount of cream into her coffee, the way she always did with coffee whose taste she could not trust, “You’re all fidgety. There is no question this has been a weird trip—the whole thing has been totally, horribly unsettling and I know it’s scary, but when we get home we can keep trying, we can go to D.C., we can … Richie, what is it, what’s wrong?”
“Tess, I wasn’t going to tell you this. I didn’t want to freak you out.” He certainly looked just that: freaked out. “I also thought if I got caught, then you would have better deniability.”
“What do you mean? Caught doing what?”
“Okay, I’ve done something. It was kind of on impulse—I thought it was the right thing but now I think we might have a problem. I didn’t really think it through.” He leaned forward, looking around nervously to make sure no one was within earshot.
“What?” Tess exclaimed.
“Shhh.” Richie motioned for her to be quieter. “The thing is, I … swiped some of it.”
“Swiped some of what?”
; “The stuff—Orbus’s concoction.” Tess’s mouth fell open and she was speechless.
Richie was smiling, though nervous. “It was so not like it is in the movies, Tess. Remember when we went to the bathroom, there was that little anteroom there? Well, while I was waiting for you, I was left alone, which I could not really believe they would do, and I was looking over at this cabinet on the wall. And the crazy thing was, this cabinet was very similar in design to one I made last year, which had seamless doors, and all kinds of compartments you can’t see. It was inspired by the Japanese … but never mind that. Anyway, I was just staring at it and I suddenly just knew how it would open. So I went and tried one of the doors just for the heck of it. You have to put pressure on two precise areas of the wood.”
“Oh my god,” said Tess
“When the door clicked open, I could see there were rows and rows of vials of this dark liquid on the inside shelf, and there was one row that wasn’t quite filled up. And I didn’t think—I just took one. I am hoping nobody will notice it’s gone.”
“Jesus Christ. You are Batman,” said Tess. “You are the Green Lantern.”
“Of course, we don’t know if it’s the formula …”
“But, Richie, there’s a good chance—since it was in the basement, right next to where they were all working! Though you’d think they’d have it under lock and key … . God, Richie, is it — you know, well sealed? Doesn’t it scare you, just having it on you?”
“No, it’s one of those vials-within-a-vial. But the problem is, I never really thought about how to get it on the plane. We can’t very well carry it on with us. It doesn’t exactly look like shampoo and I think it’s over the ounce limit anyway.”
Etiquette for the End of the World Page 22