Corrupting Dr. Nice

by John Kessel

  "Where is your son now?" Gen asked Simon hastily.

  Simon turned back to them. "I don't know. He was not a part of this, and I hope he is keeping himself hidden."

  Across the room, Jephthah's voice was rising. He gripped the phone in his fist, shouting into the mouthpiece, then threw it against the wall. Jephthah watched it hit the floor.

  "What's the matter?" Simon asked.

  Jephthah scowled at him. "They say the hovercraft has broken down. The functioning craft were all sent to Salim, they say. The assault on the field left all of them damaged. They ask if we will take a van."

  "A van?"

  Jephthah stormed over to Simon. "Why are you surprised. They are toying with us, setting us up. When they attack, who will you be aiming that rifle at? What will you be doing?"

  “I will be dying, like you.”

  Jephthah cursed. "I saw you talking with this whore. Do you want her?”

  “Do not insult me.”

  “You are the one who associates with these scum. You are the one who likes their blasphemous music." He stormed back and forth in the room. “How did they know we were in here! You bungled it.”

  “You know as well as I it was Halam's job to wreck their security system. But the hotel AI must have a source of information not connected to the security system."

  “You are their source of information!”

  "I am not."

  "Prove it to me.” He pointed at Gen. “Shoot her."

  Simon said nothing. The nervous zealot boy watched. Bauer, awake now, raised his sleepy head. Owen shook off Gen's hand. She saw his eyes coldly flick back and forth, measuring distances.

  "This is mad," Simon said. "They will exterminate us.”

  Just then, with a whir, the air conditioning came on again, and cool air blasted down from the vents in the ceiling. With the cool air came a pungent mist. Jephthah exclaimed something and ducked, as if he could evade the gas by crouching. From the corridor came shouting, and a dull concussion.

  With her first whiff of the gas, Gen felt her mind sway. She grabbed for Owen. Instead Owen evaded her and grabbed the animal carrier. "Kill them. Kill them all!" Jephthah shouted.

  Simon turned to the hostages. Owen swung the case toward him, skidding it across the floor, and Simon stumbled. Jephthah squeezed off a rifle burst that riddled the carrier. Owen leapt forward, twisted, kicked the rifle from Jephthah's hands, whipped around and, graceful as a dancer, snapped his fiery red mood boot into Jephthah's kneecap. Jephthah's leg bucked and he fell.

  More concussions from the corridor, and the lights went out. In the eerie glare from the red emergency lamps, a couple of the zealots straggled back into the room, falling to their knees as the sleep gas took hold. Owen whirled, swaying. Simon, facing Gen, raised his rifle.

  Owen stood frozen for a second, his face contorted. Gen lost her balance and went down, feeling the heaviness in her limbs increase. Her cheek touched the cold tile floor. In slow motion, Owen lurched toward Simon. This time it looked like Bill was finally going to get someone killed. "Shoot her, shoot!" Jephthah, on the floor, gasped.

  Simon raised his rifle, slipped his finger inside the trigger guard. His eyes glinted in the darkness, and Gen wondered who he saw when he looked at her. Owen threw himself between Gen and the rifle.

  Simon let the gun drop, turned, took a step and fell over. Owen sprawled on the floor behind him. Gen noticed the blood, black in the red emergency light, seeping from the riddled animal. Then she closed her heavy eyelids and fell asleep.

  She was wakened by a gas-masked man in a hotel security uniform. It must only have been minutes later. He held his thumb on the inside of her elbow where he had just given her some injection. She was lying in the hallway. The lights were back on. The doors at the end of the corridor had been blown open and men in masks and mesh body armor were dragging the handcuffed terrorists aside, lining them up on the floor like cordwood. "Are you okay, ma'm?"

  Owen pushed past the man. He bent over her. "Gen!"

  "I'm okay. But your dinosaur!"

  Owen looked sick.

  "I'm so sorry. Maybe she's not hurt too badly."

  "That case looks pretty shot up," the security man said. Owen looked at the animal carrier. The pool of blood was larger. The sign, "Live animal," scrolled around the top.

  They heard a faint rustle from inside. “She’s still alive!” Owen said. He stumbled over, opened the case.

  Inside was a dying dog.

  TWELVE: HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO

  The time stage was up again, for special purposes only. A curfew was imposed and tourists were confined to the hotel. Squads of Saltimbanque mercenaries from 12th century Spain, wearing desert uniforms, arrived and were posted to key spots in the city.

  Right after the troops came a horde of media reps. Bauer, Gen, August, and Owen were mobbed. August and Gen asserted their rights as privateers to remain unharrassed by any electronic data transmission system. The Saltimbanque Company, only too eager to minimize the negative publicity, backed them up. But they could not avoid scheduling a press conference.

  Fortunately, they had Owen to take the heat. It turned out that, thanks to Bill's warning, the hotel had installed a video bug in Wilma's carrying case. The entire hostage crisis, including Owen's heroics, was captured on disk, and had already been released to the media. Once they found out he was the son of Ralph Siddhartha and Rosethrush Vannice, the hype doubled. When they discovered he was carrying with him the first live dinosaur to be retrieved from the past, the hype went exponential. The net hawks were ecstatic.

  The afternoon edition of the Herald Tribune ran the vid of Owen shattering Jephthah's knee on the first page. A feature Hollywood Grapevine already had in the pipeline about Owen's mother was ripped apart to turn him into the lead. The Saltimbanque lawyers subpoenaed Owen's testimony for the trial of the zealots. Fiberoptic Life wanted to recreate the hostage situation for their wireheads. The university frantically messaged him to find out whether the specimen was all right, and when Owen returned the call his v-mail log recorded 8916 messages.

  That evening's debate on Historical Equivocators of the Future degenerated into a shouting match between those who wanted to ship all the Zealots to some particularly unpleasant M-U, and defenders who called for stricter regulations on settlement of the past. Back in 2062 the twenty-three-year-old version of Jesus was contacted during his public appearance tour about his knowledge of Simon and Jephthah, but claimed he had never met the men. From his retreat in Costa Rica, the older version, Yeshu, would not comment.

  Fresh out of the infirmary, Owen, the simulflesh bandage over his eye still a little tender, faced the press corps.

  "How did it feel to be threatened with death?" a stringer from Alternative Decay asked him.

  "Perhaps the zealots were not really revolting," the reporter from Moral Quietus suggested to the head of Saltimbanque security. "After all, they could have been after Dr. Vannice's dinosaur."

  "Isn't it true," the woman from Secrets! asked hotel manager Eustacia Toppknocker, "that one of the historicals on the hotel staff had seen the creature the previous day?"

  "Sure nobody was killed," the munitions editor from Hour of Carnage remarked wistfully, "but several of the Zealots were seriously wounded, and the hostages were put at risk."

  "Was the counter-assault even necessary?" asked Rupert Bignose of the Times op-ed page. "I blame the permissive policies of the 1960s."

  The crime reporter from PMLA pressed Owen further. "If they were so intent on harming you, why didn't this zealot Simon pull the trigger when he had the chance?"

  When Owen got fuddled Bill whispered plausible answers in his ear and reminded him of the names of the reporters. He survived the tidal wave of attention, but somewhere in this madness lost track of Genevieve and August. Ms. Toppknocker agreed to let Owen keep Wilma in his rooms for the remainder of his stay, offered to wipe out his hotel bill and provide him with daily security.

  Fi
nally, exhausted, Owen made it back to his suite. He identified himself to the security guard, went inside and locked the door. Loosening his tie, he went to the bedroom reserved for Wilma. She was snoozing on a pallet of satin quilts. She had polished off several tubs of oatmeal. Owen crouched over her, and she lifted her head and nuzzled his neck. Her eyes looked clear. The pebbly scales of her head were warm and dry. He patted her until she settled down again, then closed the door and went to his own room.

  For one thing, he had to change his boots. It seemed that in the assault on the kennel, some of the cages had come open. Dazed after his recovery from the sleep gas, Owen had stepped on a gerbil.

  When he checked his logbook there was a message from his mother.

  WHATEVER YOU DO, OWEN, DO NOT SELL YOUR STORY TO ANY MEDIA REPRESENTATIVE. TELL THEM FULL RIGHTS TO ANY MULTI-SENSUAL SIMULATION, REPRESENTATION, RECREATION, WORDS, PICTURES, EPIC POETRY, SUGGESTIONS, SPECULATIONS OR THOUGHTS ABOUT OWEN BERESFORD VANNICE OR ANY CREATURE IN HIS POSSESSION ARE THE SOLE PROPERTY OF ATD PIX LTD.

  NICE CROSS-KICK. FATHER SENDS HIS REGARDS.

  ALWAYS YOUR AGENT,

  MOM

  Owen filed the message and hooked into the hotel system to try to find out what had happened to Gen. This time the Faisons were not even listed as guests.

  "I wonder where the Faisons are?" he muttered.

  =Skipped town as soon as they could.=

  Owen remembered staring down the barrel of Simon's rifle, unable to do anything more than watch helplessly as Bill jerked him around like a puppet, believing that Wilma was shot full of holes, that he would never get to see whether his experiment would work out, that he was going to die in a few seconds--and all he could regret was that he would never kiss Genevieve Faison again. Gen wouldn't leave without talking to him; they had too much unfinished business. Her bravery under the hostage ordeal was something he would never forget. A man and a woman who had gone through what they had gone through together couldn't be kept apart. They could overcome any obstacle.

  Besides, she had shown him how to dance.

  How could he ever get back to normal? Prepare himself to meet his parents, end the media circus, and get back to work? He took a shower to wash away any video bugs the reporters might have sprayed on him. He put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth. The man in the mirror looked pretty much like the same person he'd been the day before. He cursed himself for not sticking with her after their rescue. But he knew he was going to see her again. He'd spend whatever it took to find her.

  When he went back out to the bedroom, Genevieve stood in the doorway.

  "Gen!"

  =Don't panic,= Bill said. =I'll alert security.=

  "No!" Owen said.

  "Is that 'no' for me or for Bill?" Gen asked.

  Owen pushed past her to look out into the suite's living room. How had she gotten in? "What happened? Where did you go? What are you doing here?"

  Genevieve waited for him to calm down. Her auburn hair was down around her shoulders, and in the sideways light from the bedside lamp, Owen had never seen a more beautiful woman. "Did you think I could leave without seeing you again?" she asked.

  "I was afraid so."

  "Well, you were mistaken."

  Owen kissed her. She melted in his arms. After some time she pulled herself away.

  "Owen, I have one question," she said softly. "When Simon was about to shoot me, you threw yourself between me and him. An AIdvisor would never do that, would he?"

  =She's got that right, anyway.=

  "No. That was my doing."

  "What were you thinking?"

  "I wasn't." He kissed her again. He couldn't tell how long this one lasted. His head spun, and he wondered he was suffering some aftereffects of the sleep gas. Just before he passed out entirely, he forced himself to be responsible. He was not just some guy: he was Dr. Owen Vannice. He put his hands on Gen's shoulders, and held her at arm's length. "Genevieve, Genevieve--I want you to listen to what I've been trying to say to you since the dance."

  =Good idea. Keep this in the talking stage.=

  "First, I'm glad you're here," Owen said.

  "I certainly hope so."

  "Though it's unseemly--if anyone knew, it might ruin your reputation--"

  =What reputation?=

  "--and though we've known each other such a short time, I have felt an instinctive understanding between us from the first moment I saw you."

  "Falling off the time travel stage?"

  "Well, right after, anyway. I'm a scientist, Genevieve, and I know about evolution. In their time, dinosaurs like Wilma were the highest expression of the biological tropism toward complexity. Some things are hard wired into our natures, and individuals can't go against them. We act out these scientific truths whether we are aware of them or not."

  "You're talking about instincts."

  =Don't say anything that could be construed as a legal commitment.=

  Owen held her shoulders, looked deep within her eyes. "I'm talking about love, Gen. A kinship exists between us that may be young and undeveloped, like little Wilma, but like Wilma, it has in it the programming to become very large."

  "And strong."

  "Yes--very strong. Stronger than custom, or family, or thought itself. In the end, thinking doesn't have much to do with it."

  =Thinking doesn't have much to do with this, at least. Your endocrine system's in a meltdown.=

  "Be quiet, Bill."

  =Marry in haste, repent at leisure.=

  Owen found it hard to look into Gen's beautiful face and keep talking. Her perfume was faint but intoxicating. He imagined the lake and the Apatosaurus nests outside Vannice Station, and the words came back to him. "In this case, instinct brought me to an inescapable conclusion. We were meant to be together. So you're right. When I threw myself in front of that rifle I wasn't thinking. I haven't been thinking for the last three days! The best three days of my life."

  There, he had said it. Now he had only to wait for her reaction.

  Genevieve reached up and took his hands from her shoulders. His heart sank.

  Without letting go, she pulled them around her waist. She pushed him toward the bed. "Maybe you should try not thinking more often."

  "I--I like to think."

  =I wouldn't brag too much about your ratiocination right now.=

  "Thinking has it's time and place." The backs of Owen's legs hit the bed and they fell over onto it. She pulled his pajama shirt off his shoulder.

  "Then--you understand?" Owen asked.

  "I think so."

  "I'm--I'm sorry about your father’s dog."

  Gen propped herself up on her elbows to look him in the eyes. "Yes. That was sad, wasn't it. Now I have some things I want to say."

  =I could have her in a half nelson in a second, boss!=

  "Don't do that," Owen said.

  "You can't stop the eternal conversation, Owen." She kissed his cheek. Her hips pressed against his, the fabric of her dress rough against his chest, and he felt her warm breath against his cheek. "The conversation that's been going on between men and women since the beginning of time." She kissed the nape of his neck. "And we're part of it." She unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest. "Don’t you feel like you're part of that conversation, now?"

  "Conversation? I--I suppose so. Though I don't feel much like talking."

  =I don't like your blood pressure readings, boss! Heterosexual relationships that begin with high intensity physical encounters inevitably face an early crisis.=

  "Neither do I. But there's just one more thing I have to say, Owen."

  Her perfume made his head spin. He wondered if she could feel his heart race against hers. "What's that?"

  =I'm not kidding. Forty-seven percent of such encounters--=

  She leaned still closer, and whispered in his ear. "Bill. Go away."

  She reached out and turned off the light.

  THIRTEEN: THE AWFUL TRUTH

  When Genevieve came back to her
room early the next morning, August was out. Humming to herself, she showered and dressed. She decided to wear her white dress with the broad hat. Why not white? She felt like a new woman.

  August came in while she was adjusting the hat. "I don't suppose I ought to ask where you were last night."

  She tugged the brim a little lower over her eye. "You know where I was."

  "It's a lucky thing that he's drawn most of the media attention. But if you spend much time with him, some of it is going to rub off on us. I think we ought to leave as soon as they open up the time travel stage for tourists."

  Telling her father was something she had not planned out. It was harder than she imagined. She stood there, irresolute. "That makes a lot of sense," she said.

  "You know I ought to be angry with you," August said. "For twenty years, nobody has crossed me as badly as you did yesterday."

  Still she could think of nothing to say. August watched her. Finally he spoke. "You really love him, don't you."

  Surprised, she said, "Yes, dad, I really do."

  August sat down on the dressing table chair. He looked tired. "You know it will be hard, loving that young man."

  "He's just naive. He hasn't seen much of the real world."

  "He's too old to be that naive. These permanently innocent types can have a nasty side."

  She turned. "What do you mean?"

  "How do you think he's going to react when he finds out your profession?"

  "I'm not going to keep any secrets. I'm meeting him for breakfast, and I'm going to tell him."

  "I hope he loves you as much as you love him."

  "Oh, August, stop fretting. I want you to have dinner with us tonight. We'll talk it all over. There's no need for you to continue living this way, you know. You're going to end up all alone, in some hotel, practicing three card monte."

  August stood, tugged his jacket straight, turned away from her. "What makes you think, just because you've gone soft headed, that I want to give up my career? I was conning marks before you were a gleam in your mother's eye, and I'll be doing it after you've been buried under a pile of Junior Leaguers--a fate, I might add, that strikes me as rather worse than death."