Corrupting Dr. Nice

by John Kessel

  "Hard for me to tell inside that armor."

  "You Would Like For Us To Remove It, Would You?" There was a silence. The cop was probably running Owen's image through an identity check. Finally he said, "Okay, Mr. Pets. Tell Us What Is In The Truck."

  "In this truck?"

  "You Have Another Truck?"

  "No. This is the only one."

  "Then This Must Be The One We Are Asking About."

  "That's true."

  "And . . . ?"

  "And you want to know what's in it?"

  "That Seems To Be The General Drift Of Our Inquiry, Yes."

  "Well . . . it's full of iguanas."

  "We Peg Pardon?"

  Owen nodded rapidly. "Rare iguanas. We're moving them from the warehouse in Bridgeport to the outlet in Willimantic. For the exotic pet fair at the armory."

  "The Exotic Pet Fair."

  "Yes. We'll have exotic pets from all over New England, from aardwolves to zebus. Ms. Zume and I have cornered the market in the flesh eating Central American iguana, the Honduran 'Nice.' Would you like to see one?"

  "We Think We Had Better."

  "Good. We can give you a very good price on one, show quality."

  Owen moved around to the back of the truck and began to enter the combination on the lock. His story made the film company lie he'd tried out in Jerusalem seem like sweet reason, but Gen was curious to see how it would play out.

  "You probably won't need any gloves," Owen said. "Your armor should protect you. Once they fasten on your hand they won't let go. But the venom's not that harmful to most people. Only twenty percent suffer any permanent nerve damage." He snapped open the lock and grabbed the handle. Inside the truck, Wilma thumped against the door.

  "They don't much like being cooped up," Owen said. "Calm down in there! Darling, will you hand me a pair of number three gauntlets from the case in the front seat?"

  "These Animals Aren't Caged?" the trooper asked.

  "Cages just make them mad. Stand back a couple of steps in case one of them launches himself at you."

  "Wait!" the trooper's voice boomed. "Now I Know Who You Are!"

  Gen got ready to run. But Owen would never leave Wilma behind.

  “I MUST CRANCH,” the trooper said. He stood rigid for a moment, then lifted his hands, grabbed hold of his helmet and gave it a sharp twist to the left. The seal broke and he pulled it off. The trooper let out a shuddering breath, then brightened. "You're Dr. Owen Vannice, the paleontologist!"

  Owen looked poleaxed. "Yes, I am."

  The trooper smiled. His pinched face was puny inside the massive powered suit. "The iguana thing tipped me off." Deprived of corporate direction, without the voder, he had a piping New England accent. He stuck out his unweaponed hand. "Officer Emil Wheeler."

  Owen took his hand, then winced from the suit's powered handshake. "Ouch!"

  Wheeler let go in dismay. "Sorry! You all right?"

  Owen rubbed his bruised fingers. "I guess so."

  "I can get you some mousse for that hair." The unincorporated trooper bounced with enthusiasm. "What a break this is! I've wanted to talk to you for months. Paleontology is my hobby."

  "You don't say."

  "Sure. I've read all of your papers. See, I have this theory about the relative decline of sauropods vs. ornithopods during the late Cretaceous. It has nothing to do with stomach grinding. It's all about dinoturbation . . ."

  "Really. You must send me some of your notes sometime. Call my net-simulant."

  "Oh, I have no notes." Wheeler tapped his riot gun against the side of his head. "It's all up here."

  "Remarkable."

  "See, I was thinking I could tell you my theories, and you could write them down. With your degrees and all, you could get them published I figure. We could do it as a collaboration. I'd be glad to share billing on the final papers."

  "I'm awfully busy right now. Several experiments going at once. These iguanas--"

  "Oh, it wouldn't take much time. I've got it all worked out. The key to understanding my theory is the relative abundance of ceratopian--"

  Owen muttered something. Then he rounded on the cop, throwing his elbow into the man's face. Wheeler went sprawling. Nimble as a cat, Owen wrenched the riot gun out the trooper's forearm clip, snatched up the hypo gun, and popped him in the neck with the sedative. The cop's eyes glazed and he went unconscious. Owen stood above him, swaying. The riot gun slipped from his fingers.

  At this moment it was Gen's instinct to run for the hills. What would Emma Zume do? she asked herself.

  She knelt over the supine trooper. He was breathing fine. "Owen, I don't think it's a good idea to attack police officers. What was that about?"

  "Bill!" he moaned. "I was grumbling about how I'd never get rid of this guy. My AIdvisor took over. We had better get out of here."

  "And leave the trooper out here by the road?"

  Owen looked sheepish. "I'm sorry. You're right," he said.

  "Come on," Gen said. "Help me move him."

  Owen grabbed the trooper’s metal boots. “This is terrible! I should never have lied about the iguanas.”

  “Perhaps he’ll sleep it off in the car."

  Owen dropped the trooper's feet. He snapped his fingers. "And we can make a statement!”

  "Pick him up, Owen."

  Together they dragged the officer back to the car and propped him up in his seat. He weighed a ton.

  "Go ahead, talk," Gen said, indicating the monitor.

  "An unavoidable interruption in Trooper Wheeler's shift," Owen told the car's camera.

  "Maybe you should use your wallet."

  Owen took out his wallet. He attached it to the info reader in the dashboard and downloaded his identification. "I've got an idea," he said. Gen watched him type in a substantial contribution to the corporation's retirement fund, a bonus into Emil Wheeler's monthly paycheck, and a personal message: Sorry about that, Emil. Call me and we'll do that paper together.--Owen Vannice.

  "What good is that going to do?"

  "I'm the son of the fifth richest family in North America, Emma. I have privileges. Let's go."

  Gen reached over to the car's utility box and pulled out a tube of official Connecticut Corporation Police Mousse and a comb. She handed them to Owen. "Fix your hair."

  #

  Wilma had quieted down by the time they got back on the road again. It started to rain, heavily.

  "Ms. Talikovna's leg was right," Gen said.

  Owen turned on the wipers. His face was so long he looked like a horse. "My night for running into insane paleontologists," he muttered.

  "Maybe there's a correlation," Gen said.

  "Study the past--lose your mind," Owen said morosely. He turned to her. "I didn't mean to sound arrogant back there. I'm not really the kind of person who enjoys breaking the law."

  He was so amusing when he turned naive it was hard for Gen to keep from teasing him. "What are you going to do about Wilma?"

  "I need to find out who's tampering with her, and why."

  "Owen, if you can’t find out what’s wrong with her, and if you can’t keep her safe in your lab, and if you can't keep these mysterious intruders out, maybe it would be better for all concerned if you took her back to the Cretaceous.”

  “If my care were not being undermined, she would be fine.”

  Gen decided to poke him a little more. "Lance told me the reason you thought you knew me was that you met this woman who's been impersonating me."

  "She didn't claim to be you."

  "You met her in ancient Jerusalem? I thought you were concerned about Wilma. Not looking for new women to conquer."

  Owen kept his eyes on the road. "I was stuck in Jerusalem because of a breakdown of the time travel stage. I was holed up in a suite with Wilma and decided to get out on a Roman tour."

  "You didn't worry what would happen to the dinosaur while you were out chasing this woman?"

  "It wasn't like that."

  "
You seemed pretty startled when I showed up on your phone screen. Why would you expect her to even remember you if you weren't involved with her? Why would you remember her?"

  Owen looked at his hands. "I admit it, I was attracted to her."

  "Attracted. Did you collide?"

  "She led me on. She and her father--she called him her father. But I saw through her. We had a fling, it meant nothing. It might have meant more, but she was playing me for a fool. The reason I wanted to see you is that you're the genuine article. Not a fake."

  "You hardly know me."

  "I know that, unlike Genevieve Faison, or whatever her name is, you stand for something more than your own self interest. The work you're doing means something. You have principles. Genevieve may have made herself look like you, but behind that pretty face she's corrupt."

  "Did you tell her this to her pretty face?"

  "I told her what she needed to hear."

  "She must have been shocked."

  "I wouldn't know. The woman's a con artist. Everything about her, down to her appearance, is a lie. You never met her."

  Well, that helped. Seeing him with his big pet, worrying about state troopers, she had almost let herself like him again. She ought to thank him for reminding her of his callousness.

  Why, then, did it hurt?

  "No," Gen said. "I never met her."

  SEVEN: ROSETHRUSH AT WORK

  The cold Andean air was a shock after the travel stage. They crouched behind the building and got their bearings. The late afternoon sun glared down into the plaza of the Inca town of Cajamarca, casting long shadows of the four thousand brightly costumed Indian retainers and the knot of Spaniards who were parlaying with the Sapa Inca.

  The tour leader had chosen the moment of confrontation for their intrusion. After waiting all day for Atahualpa to make his appearance, scared to death that he might come armed, the Spaniards were now intent on the negotiations. It looked as if their ambush might work, and they held themselves ready for Pizarro's signal to attack. They were in no shape to spot intruders from the future. It was the sixteenth of November, 1532.

  In the buildings on two sides of the plaza hid the Spanish infantry and cavalrymen; on the third side the harquebusers stood by their guns preparing an enfilade.

  Father Valverde handed his bible up to Atahualpa, borne on a golden litter by eight men in cloaks of green feathers. The Sapa Inca opened the book, leafed through it. He held it to his ear. He threw it to the ground at the Spaniard's feet, spat out some scornful words in Quechua.

  "Ready, now," the tour director said.

  Rosethrush didn't want to do it, but she felt herself switch off the safety on her gravity feed 8 mm assault rifle and flip down the visor on her helmet.

  The priest, face purple with rage, snatched up the Bible and stalked back through the impassive rows of Indians. "Blasphemy!" he shouted to Pizarro. "The words of Christ mean nothing to him. Attack, and I'll absolve you!" Her language mod was working well, and the archaic Spanish was transparent.

  "Santiago, and at them!" Pizarro bellowed, waving his sword.

  "Santiago!" the Spanish soldiers yelled, and rushed from their hiding places in the stone buildings around the square, beginning the fabled massacre that would lead to the fall of the Inca empire.

  Except this time the Conquistadors were the focus of an intervener's special organized by Extreme Tours of Atlantic City. Before the Spaniards had killed their first dozen Inca retainers, the guide waved the tourists on. "Rags and bones!" he shouted.

  Rosethrush dashed out into the crowd, assumed an attack stance with her weapon at her hip, and sprayed an arc of bullets into the backs of the Spanish infantrymen. Their steel armor was useless against the kevlar-coated rounds. The first one who turned on her lost his arm in a spray of bloody fragments. Her stomach heaved.

  The Indians were just as shocked at the Spaniards. They crouched, they ran, eyes wide with fear; a lot of them were taking friendly fire. She dashed forward. One of the Spaniards managed to turn his sword on her; she felt the blow but the edge skidded harmlessly off her assault vest. She kneed him in the groin, shoved the rifle into his gut and ventilated him.

  It looked like the tour group was going to set a new record in the Atahualpa rescue, when Rosethrush felt a blow to the back of her head and was knocked to the ground. The rifle skittered out of her reach. She rolled over and looked up into the hooves of a rearing horse. The guide had told them the Spanish cavalry would be on the opposite side of the plaza. Instead the Spaniards were behind them.

  The horse’s hooves came down on her. A tremendous blow, searing, splintering pain. And then she couldn't move her legs. She lay on her back, trying to raise herself on her arms, watching the other tourists struggle against the surprise attackers. The tour director and his lieutenant sprinted for the cover of the buildings, stumbling over fallen Indians. One of the Spaniards stooped over Rosethrush, ripped open the visor of her helmet, and holding the hilt of his sword two handed over his head, stabbed it down into her face. Everything went black.

  Out of the blackness arose an ominous 40-cycle hum, then the title:

  THE INCA TOURIST MASSACRE

  WHOSE FAULT?

  Rosethrush fumbled for the switch, turned off the VR rig and pulled the headband off. She blinked in the light of her office, massaging her forehead where she'd just had a sixteenth century sword driven through her skull. No matter how disgusting she found it, she had to admit it was great pix, the ideal opener for the special on time exploitation.

  She had to decide whether to go with it. Certainly it would be better if such tours were outlawed. Sure they made money, but they pandered to people's worst instincts. And they were raw meat for protesters. Incidents like this massacre gave capitalism a bad name.

  On the other hand, interveners tours drew attention away from more subtle forms of time exploitation, which would only be the next targets if extremes were outlawed.

  And finally, the situation presented Rosethrush a temptation. She could count on a huge audience for the Inca Massacre exposé. The straitlaced public that would never think of indulging in such a tour could wire in and exercise its prurience and moral outrage at the same time.

  The curse of the modern age was the contradiction between public propriety and private vice. Rosethrush was chair of the industry's censorship board. Did she want to profit from that contradiction? Could she afford to court a conflict of interest?

  She put the decision off and turned to some more mundane work. On her desk was a quarterly statement on Harmony's pharmaceutical branch. Ralph had sunk deep money into his latest project, to create new antibiotics using microbes from the past. He hadn't told Owen, but he was counting on the Cretaceous station to provide specimens he could use.

  Owen was too busy to care anyway. He had Wilma established at the College of Advanced Thought. Thornberry's gardener had fallen to his knees in prayers of delivery, and the re-landscaping had begun. Owen's nighttime excursion with Wilma, culminating in the filmed encounter with the state trooper, had made a pretty good flare in the continental media. This, preceding his testimony in the Zealot trial, had renewed his celebrity.

  But though Simon's trial was approaching its climax, it had not provided the juice Rosethrush had expected. She had thought that when the trial began, a public debate on time exploitation would follow. No such luck. Maybe Owen's appearance would boost ratings, but she had her doubts. Knowing her son, he would probably just answer the questions. As dense as neutronium.

  His mind was completely set on convincing Emma Zume of his worthiness. Rosethrush could not peg Emma. She had certainly charmed Ralph, for instance. For the most part she seemed the kind of idealistic, ultimately ineffectual person who would make a good match for her son. It was better for a woman to be beautiful than smart, because most men could see better than they could think--but Rosethrush suspected there was an edge of hard intelligence beneath Emma’s idealism. Or was she giving Emma credit for intelligen
ce simply because nobody could really be more naive than Owen?

  Regardless, whether he realized it or not, it was inevitable Owen would pop the question to Emma some time soon. Now if only Rosethrush could only figure out some way to work Wilma into the wedding.

  Her intercom buzzed. "Mr. Parker is here to see you."

  "Thank you, Gracie. Please send him in."

  Ralph had once described Parker as the kind of man only Thomas Hobbes could love: nasty, brutish and short. He had been one of the earliest trendsetters to go shabby, refusing to twank himself handsome. "How are you, Mrs. Vannice?" he said.

  Parker's big-shouldered electric blue lamé jacket hung to his knees, over a gold shirt and flashing red tie. He pulled a stick of Force out of his pocket, unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth. A man who chewed personality gum during a negotiation was no contest.

  "Fine,” she said. “How was Mars?"

  "The tour broke even, and I suppose it was good publicity, but otherwise it was a bust. No night life. Frankly, I don't see the point of spending any resources colonizing another planet. At least if we go into the past there are people around we can use."

  "That's the point about Mars--there are no people, so there are no politics."

  "No politics? You should see those crazy immigrants. Ten minutes after they arrive they’re calling themselves Martians, wanting to set up their own government."

  "They get surly and we cut off their oxygen. That's another reason for sending them to Mars. They're going to be dependent on us for a long time."

  "I thought the idea was to get rid of the dependent, not to keep them that way. History is a better investment."

  "I forgot," Rosethrush said, "you’re the expert on handling historicals."

  The dig had no effect. Parker had been a propaganda officer in the 1775 M-U before an uprising there shut down the entire project, abandoning an oil refinery and wasting five years of groundwork. Largely because he had done nothing to insulate the historicals from cultural dislocation. Just like a man to let his appetites rule while business went awry.

  But Parker had come out smelling like a rose, largely because he'd brought back with him an 18-year-old version of Wolfgang Mozart, who stormed the charts with his genuinely new pop sound. Now Parker headed his own entertainment cartel. The heart of it was Anachros, the supergroup. Mozart on synthesizer, with Franz Liszt keyboards, Sappho doing vocals, Jimmy Blanton playing bass, Sidney Bechet blowing sax, and an AI drummer. But Bechet has just quit, and Parker was looking for a new sax. Rosethrush had John Coltrane under contract.