The Immortality Virus

by Christine Amsden

  As Grace neared the rail station, she once again began to use feet, knees, and elbows to make her way through the crowd. Kindness was not an option. If she were nice, she would end up walking with the crowd all the way to State Line Road, where it finally started to thin out.

  A jab to a thin man’s chest, a stomp on a man’s bare foot (What was he thinking?), and a knee wedged between two dull-eyed women to coax them aside. She was nearly to the slower moving edges of the crowd when a man with an elbow spike tried to break her nose in his attempt to get into the center of the rushing street. He had his spiked elbows extended upward in a jabbing manner, making him a danger to himself and everyone around him. He didn’t care if they came in contact with chest, arm, or face. Grace saw it just in time to sidle behind the man.

  As she stepped behind him, she made a lightning-fast decision. She took advantage of the element of surprise to grab his wrists from behind and pull them up towards his face. It helped that he was almost as short as she was, though Grace knew she could have taken on a taller man. She brought up her knee behind his, causing him to buckle, and just as the force of the crowd started moving in on them, pinning her to his back, she guided his elbow spike down on his thigh.

  The man gasped in pain and fell partway over, but the crowd caught him up and carried him away even as Grace moved over to the side.

  Elbow spikes were illegal–whatever that meant. At least Grace’s police training had been able to help today. It hadn’t helped much while she had been on the force.

  She shook free of the crowd and ducked into a tunnel. The rail that had been servicing the Kansas City area for over two hundred years still sped along at two hundred miles per hour, trying to service too many people with too few trains. It made Grace nervous. Most terrorist attacks happened on the trains. Anyone who thought that killing a lot of people would make a statement loved public transportation–The Rebellion, Pro-Death, and even The Establishment, though they never took credit. The Establishment often blamed The Rebellion, but everyone knew The Rebellion did not have nearly enough funding to account for the number of attacks attributed to them. They lived in the sewers and ate the rats, earning them the name Sewer Rats.

  There were other terrorist causes, too–too many to count, but it did not matter. Public transportation was the only way to travel except for those wealthy enough to own a hovercar and a landing pad.

  A train pulled out of the station as Grace stepped onto the platform, pushing her way to the front of the long line of people waiting to get on. A second train pulled up thirty seconds later, but a fat man pushed Grace and several other passengers out of the way in order to get on. He knocked one man so hard that his cowboy hat went flying, and he had to run after it. The fat man was the only one who made the train at their door–and he kept several people from getting off.

  “Why don’t you share some of your food with someone else?” the man in the cowboy hat shouted just before the door to the train slammed home. A murmur of agreement rippled through those nearby, but Grace did not join in. The fat man would probably develop heart disease and die sooner than he would have, thus balancing the amount of food he ate now. Grace only despised him for making her wait for the next train.

  As the third train rumbled along the tracks, Grace prepared to fight people out of the way to get on board. The train stopped with the door right in front of her, but Grace did not stop to let anyone off before swinging on board. It was inefficient, of course, but a one-woman campaign would not change the culture of public transportation in Kansas City.

  As the train began to rumble out of the station, Grace found an arm hold and held tight. A seat was open a little way down the train, but with only four stops to go, she did not want to be far from the door.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

  Grace turned towards the door and saw a small child–no more than three or four–pounding on the closed doors of the train and screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Most of the nearby passengers looked away and tried to pretend they did not hear the little girl. Only one man did not look away, but the intense interest in his eyes made Grace’s skin crawl.

  “Damn,” Grace muttered under her breath. She did not have time for stupid parents who couldn’t keep tabs on their children. They should have been carrying her.

  “Damn,” Grace muttered again, this time loudly enough that several people glanced at her. She elbowed them out of the way and managed to clear enough space to kneel down in front of the little girl.

  “Did your mom get off at the last stop?” Grace managed not to criticize the mom in front of the child, but it was a near thing.

  “Uh-huh.” Tears began to form at the corners of the girl’s eyes.

  Grace softened her voice. “Did she tell you where to meet her if you got separated?”

  The girl stared at Grace blankly. Great. Not only had the girl’s mom failed to keep hold of her daughter on the rail, but she had not even equipped the girl with any means of finding her again should they get separated. If Grace had to bet, she’d put her money on the girl not knowing her home address or vidphone channel.

  There was a police station not too far from Grace’s bank. She hated the idea, but she could drop the girl there.

  And hope they cared. Grace’s short stint on the force didn’t give her much hope that they would.

  There was nothing else to do but find the mom herself. She knew she could. Nobody was better at finding people than she was, but she had also never had a case as important as the search for Jordan Lacklin.

  Then Grace caught sight of something–a homing beacon fixed around the girl’s collar. Assuming the mother had a receiver with her, and that was a fairly safe assumption, this might not be such an untenable situation after all. Grace could simply get off at her own stop, wait by the platform until the parents arrived, and then finish her errands.

  “I’ll get you to your mom,” Grace told the little girl. “Come now, it’s okay.” Grace shot an evil look at the man who continued to stare intently at the girl. He did not meet her glare or turn away, so Grace positioned her body between his eyes and the child.

  The girl did not stop crying, but that was not entirely surprising. Grace picked her up and found that underneath her thick coat she was surprisingly light. “What’s your name?” Grace asked.

  “Luella,” she said.

  “How old are you?” Grace asked. In her experience, kids did not cry when they had to answer such important questions.

  “Four and three-quarters,” Luella told her. Grace remembered her earlier guess that the girl couldn’t have been older than three or four–she was undersized for her age.

  “My mommy said I could have a cake on my birthday,” Luella continued. “Want some?”

  “I love cake,” Grace said. “Is it going to be chocolate?”

  “Uh-huh,” Luella said.

  Luella chatted the rest of the way to Grace’s platform, at which point Grace fought the crowd to get herself and the child off the train. She did not put Luella down until they were safely away from the train and found a corner with relatively few people milling about. They had a good view of the churning whirlpools of people getting on and off the trains.

  “Is Mommy here?” Luella asked.

  “She will be soon,” Grace replied, praying to a god she wasn’t sure existed that it was true.

  One train went by…two…three…Grace checked the time on her portable. She had hoped to make it to the bank and the grocery store before starting her case, but at this rate she wouldn’t be home before dark.

  “I don’t see my mommy,” Luella whined after the fourth train.

  “Soon,” Grace said, but she was stamping her foot impatiently, wondering how she had gotten herself into this and why she hadn’t been able to simply turn her eyes away like everyone else on the train.

  The fifth train to go by produced a blonde woman with the same bright green eyes as Luella. She also carried a homing beacon receiver.<
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  “Mommy!” Luella cried upon seeing her.

  “Mommy” snatched the child away from Grace as if she’d been trying to kidnap her.

  “What did I tell you about wandering away?” she asked, shaking Luella by the shoulders.

  “Empty words if you couldn’t be bothered to pick her up and hold her when getting off the train,” Grace answered for Luella.

  The woman eyed Grace coldly, turned up her nose, and sniffed. “You don’t have a child, do you?”

  Grace felt her cheeks burn, but she stood her ground. “I got yours off the train.”

  “Maybe I should report you for kidnapping.”

  “Go ahead,” Grace said. “See if anyone cares.”

  With that, the woman turned and headed back to the train, a death grip on Luella’s shoulder and not so much as a “thank you” for Grace.

  So much for chocolate cake.

  Very few people milled around the East Overland Park Station, at least compared to downtown. There was no wave to ride out here, though there was still plenty of pushing and prodding.

  The commercial sections of Overland Park had teamed up and paid private security to keep the vagrants away from their shops. These security officers paraded around in black and green uniforms, glaring menacingly at people who were minding their own business. One turned his menacing gaze on Grace, but she only stared back until he turned away and pretended to find something better to do.

  Two of these private security officers stood outside the bank, checking the ID chips of anyone who wanted to enter. Grace presented her wrist and waited for the guard to confirm her customer status.

  “State your business.” He smiled at her. Grace thought he could have been flirting, but the smile looked mean rather than friendly. It might have been the overly thick eyebrows or the extra long teeth that made his smile look more like a snarl.

  “I’m here to make a deposit and a withdrawal,” Grace said.

  “You have five minutes before we come in after you,” he said, standing aside and allowing her to enter the building. They always said that; it was the company line, but this time Grace thought he hoped he would be able to go in after her. She shuddered involuntarily.

  It wasn’t the way he looked, Grace told herself as she walked through the door. Sam wasn’t exactly a looker, either. No, it was something else–something in the way he looked at her that made her feel like he was waiting for his chance to pounce.

  Grace pushed the man out of her mind as she strode through the bank lobby. They had not hired a decorator since the mid twenty-fourth century and the walls still boasted the neon purple that had been popular at the time.

  It was hideous, but Grace had not chosen this bank for its decorating–she had chosen it because it had not been successfully robbed in over a century. The security guards outside meant business. They did not admit people who did not have legitimate business with the bank (opening an account happened in a separate building and required an extensive background check). They also did not let anyone linger.

  With that in mind, Grace made her way purposefully across the blinding purple lobby to the first available cashier. She handed the check to the bored looking woman on the other side. “For deposit, please. And I’ll need some cash back, too.” She handed over a completed deposit slip and waited.

  “Just a minute, ma–” The woman stopped abruptly and stared at the check. “Matthew Stanton?” she said. Her hand flew to her elegant red hair. “He’s the most eligible bachelor in the city. How do you know him?” She gave Grace an unflattering appraisal.

  Grace stiffened, knowing that her brown hair and brown eyes might have been more “girl next door” than runway model, but she also knew she had what it took. Her athletic body won her many stares and plenty of dates. The fact that none of them lasted was her own choice.

  “Business,” Grace said, and then added, “Which is none of yours.”

  “Of course,” the cashier, whose nametag read “Beth” said. “I need your wrist, please.”

  Grace held out her left wrist and wondered again how some people got jobs and some people didn’t. There were millions of people who could do the job of a bank teller, many of them living on the streets or working as slave labor and worse out on the farms. Yet Beth had the job. Grace knew nepotism factored in greatly, but even those throngs who had once been middle class had too many descendants to ensure all lived well.

  “Your balance statement,” Beth said, handing a slip of paper to Grace. “Do you think you could introduce me to Mr. Stanton?”

  “What?”

  “Look, I’m still young enough to have kids…barely. He could use someone like me, and I definitely wouldn’t mind someone like him.” She fluffed her hair again and leaned over to show off her generous cleavage. “My father owns the bank, but he’s already told me this is as good as it gets for me. I can’t imagine working this job for the rest of my life.”

  Grace managed to remain expressionless, though it was a near thing. “I think you should try someone a little closer to your own age and status.” And please, Grace did not add, quit this terrible job and give someone else a shot at it. She knew ten vagrants who would do literally anything for a chance like that.

  “I like the idea of getting an old timer,” Beth said. “There’s something exotic about their wrinkles and gray hair.”

  Yeah, it’s called money.

  Grace collected her money and deposit slip and put them in her bag before sliding her coat back over it. There probably wasn’t any harm in letting Beth have her delusions. A few more decades and maybe she would even grow out of her childish fantasies.

  Unless she was lying about her age. Many women past childbearing did. They could get away with it because only the old timers looked any older than twenty-five.

  The guard was just about to peer in on Grace when she walked out.

  “Five minutes, ten seconds,” he said with a half-growl on his face.

  “Blame Beth,” Grace said. “She insisted on needless chatter.”

  To her surprise, the security guard gave Grace a knowing smile. “That one’s trouble. I tell you what, we’ll call this one a warning.” With that, he patted her on the butt.

  At another time, Grace might have hit him for that, but she thought better of it when she noticed the second security guard’s hand on his disruptor. There were some principles worth dying for. This wasn’t one of them.

  The street was getting busier when Grace left the bank. It was mid-day and workers were running errands on their lunch breaks. Grace sub-vocalized, “Traffic report,” into her portable and soon had the details buzzing into her earpiece.

  “Congestion on the blue line, the green line, the red line, and the orange line. Stay away from Quivira near 95th street where a hovervehicle crashed into a crowd of people…”

  “Landed, more like,” Grace muttered, but she didn’t have to go that way so she put it out of her mind.

  “There’s a shooter on the gray line at the Independence, Missouri stop. Five confirmed dead so far. Those heading out of the city walls through the St. Joseph gate may want to think again. Armed militia has taken position just north of that gate. Authorities aren’t sure if they are raiders or if this is a prelude to an attack by William Edgers’s forces, which were recently rumored to have taken Chicago in a violent and bloody battle.”

  “Off,” Grace sub-vocalized. Normally she would request more news on the so-called “William the Bloody,” but today she did not have time. She had a clear ride home, at least for now, but she had just passed the grocery store and remembered she was running low on food.

  A little bell jingled as Grace entered the small neighborhood store. A security guard looked up when she entered and laid a hand on his disruptor, not in menace, but to show her that he had one. He was the first security guard she had met all day who had not been pompous or arrogant, so Grace reciprocated by showing her sidearm. The guard smiled. “Damn few people know good manners anymore. You m
ust be from my generation.”

  Grace doubted it, but she said, “2320?”

  “You’re a kid,” the guard said. “I didn’t know we taught kids manners anymore.”

  “My mom wouldn’t have had it any other way,” Grace said. Of course, her mom was hoping she would use the information to catch herself a man, but that was a gripe for another time.

  Beyond the security guard stood row upon row of nutri-bars. They came in different colors and flavors, but they were ultimately all the same: Dry, hard, and with a sandpaper-like grit. No one liked them. Not that anyone had a choice but to eat them.

  The least inedible, in Grace’s opinion, were the ones in the purple packages with little bits of something that were supposed to taste like peanuts.

  They reminded Grace of dead flesh–at least, ever since she had seen the first news report about the farms. She shuddered, hoping it was all just a rumor, and pushed it from her mind.

  Grace threw a few of the orange and red nutri-bars into her basket for variety, then stood back and took a look around. Everywhere she looked, row upon row of nutri-bars shimmered at her in their shiny packages. Everywhere, except…

  Except in the very back where a man stood over a small fresh foods counter, a list of outrageous prices pinned to a board over his head.

  Grace headed that way, wondering if she could, just this once, afford some cow or pig meat. Even with the exorbitant check she had just deposited in the bank, she didn’t feel right spending money. The life of a private investigator was so uncertain. She could have a long dry spell and need the money. Her landlord would kick her out if she were a minute late on the rent.

  “Can I help you?” the man behind the counter asked. He had greasy hair and was missing a tooth, but at that moment he looked beautiful to Grace.