“Why do you keep doing that?” X asked her companion. But of course he couldn’t hear her either. He wasn’t about to let go of his grip on the back of the bouncing I train, so he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
Change
The chairman of the Conglomerate party stood in the center of his office as the light dissolved and the skyline across the Brooklyn Bridge disappeared behind a curtain of rain. A jolt of thunder sent its vibration through the Clock Tower Building.
He reviewed the details of his plan. He had reaffirmed his decision to implement the attack. He would move up the date for his procedure with Salter. The attack on the Dyscards would occur during his recovery. The idea had come to him in a dream, though the chairman of the Conglomerate party never really slept. He had nodded off in the back of the town car as it twisted through the streets of lower Manhattan. Something had awoken him. He realized what the timing of his plans should be.
If the chairman was unavailable for direction and policy decisions during the crisis, that absence would add to the chaos he had unleashed. His party puppets would have to figure out what they should do. That process alone would cripple them. It would be like an attack on two fronts. The administration would have to deal with the effects of the power hit to the financial districts of New York City, Boston, and D.C., all in the midst of a question of leadership. The chairman saw himself suddenly appear in the midst of this mayhem, recovered from the genetic procedure, a more youthful and decisive person in the face of disaster. He would restore confidence in the party while he restored the power grid and, more important, restored control and management to deal with the catastrophe and response. Then the chairman would apply his skill at crafting the information. He would admit to the Dyscard crisis, in order to direct the blame. He would use the disaster for the party’s advantage and convince consumers that the Dyscard squatters had poached the power, causing the system to overload and shut down. This would sway public opinion even further, allowing the party to gain points on political polls and boosting the people’s confidence in the Conglomerate party leadership. The chairman’s value would be apparent and his colleagues’ inadequacies just as visible, and his position as chairman would go unchallenged.
True, the chairman had work to do, but it was a strong concept, the implementation of which would be a formality. He would have to manipulate the management of a few agencies, but he had every confidence that personal greed would outweigh loyalty to the nation, the party, or to the board.
The plan’s symmetry produced a sound in the chairman’s head, a hum, and all he had to do was channel the power of the idea into the people around him. They will be the notes in my music, the chairman mused. He thought of how easy it had been to bring Salter into his opus. She had earned herself a solo. It had been her recruitment that had inspired the process. The chairman stopped right there. He did not want to get off track. Salter was nothing more than an instrument and he the maestro.
WHENEVER GABRIEL WAS feeling sorry about his situation, he would get himself to the pediatric ward in the med tent on Ward’s Island. The pediatric ward had no bright colors, no stenciled animals, no balloons. There sure were no happy parents. There were no parents at all. People who wanted to be parents didn’t reject their offspring unless there were serious complications. These babies had major problems, and their parents had gotten rid of them. The babies had become Dyscards too.
It was late, late enough to be early in the morning. Gabriel hadn’t slept and he was tired of rolling around on his cot. It was unusually hot, even for June, but then what was usual these days? It was better than the underground, Gabriel thought, though he missed Christine—every day.
“And air-conditioning,” Gabriel said out loud.
Gabriel knew they would need help in the med tent, especially on the overnight. There couldn’t be enough coverage. There never was.
Gabriel ducked through the opening in his tent and headed for pediatrics. It didn’t take him long to break into a sweat, since the sweat had a head start. He was greeted by the heady scent of honeysuckle that perfumed the predawn. He sneezed. What had been patches of ice in January were puddles now. They still reflected the spires of the Triborough Bridge, but the details dissolved with his step. Gabriel thought that the standing water could pose a problem.
As an orphan who had been raised by the state, Gabriel never thought of himself as part of a community. Even at the New York Medical Center he was an outsider doing independent work apart from the norm. But more and more the community of Ward’s Island had come around to the former Conglomerate genetic engineer, and Dr. Walters was among them. It was her observation of Gabriel on the job that had led to an increase in his responsibilities, that and the need for anyone experienced to help.
But tonight it wasn’t as if anyone were expecting him. Gabriel stepped around the divider at the end of the med tent, and the orderly on duty nodded acknowledgment and made a quick exit. Walters wasn’t going to like that, and Gabriel wondered if he should tell her, but he liked to be in pediatrics alone.
He looked around the nursery at the babies in their incubators. These were the kids that would never be given a chance. Doomed from the start, genetic manipulation gone wrong, babies who never even got to go home. That had been reason enough to make these babies the priority for A and Dee’s administration, and enough of a reason for Walters as well. Gabriel hated to think that he and Christine might be part of the reason for the babies’ being there.
There were about a dozen incubators crowded into the end of the med tent. It wasn’t the most they had ever dealt with, but it was more than the med tent’s pediatric ward was equipped to handle.
Gabriel heard a noise—weak, but in the hum of the pediatric ward the little sound made Gabriel’s heart pound. He knew it could mean only one thing. He looked up, trying to take in the whole space at once. There was a baby in distress, turning blue inside the white blanket. The baby looked as if it was trying to spit something out. Gabriel flipped the baby over as carefully as he could without disturbing the tubes that ran from the baby to the bags on the pole next to the bassinet. Gabriel massaged the baby’s belly until he found the spot he was looking for and exerted a gentle push of pressure, which caused the infant to exhale through the mouth, and a lump of mucus shot out of the baby’s mouth like a cork. The baby’s face changed from blue to red as the gasping turned into a full-throated wail. Gabriel smiled and wiped the baby’s chin, and then Gabriel gave the baby a little hug, along with a soft grunt before he flipped the baby back, not wanting to disturb the little one anymore.
“Sleep tight, sweetheart,” Gabriel said, and he kissed the air above the baby’s head.
“Go sweetheart yourself, why don’t you?” Dr. Walters said. Once Gabriel’s feet were back on the ground and his heart returned to his chest, he turned around. Walters came toward Gabriel from out of the dark.
“Nicely done,” Dr. Walters said. “With a good bedside manner, you might have a future yet.”
“I’m not going to have a future if you do that again,” Gabriel said with his hand over his chest.
“Thank you for being here,” the doctor said, changing her tone. “I don’t know why you were here alone, and I’ll find out, but I am glad you were. You saved that baby’s life.”
“For now,” Gabriel said.
“Yes, for now. But that is the idea, no?” Walters answered. “We don’t know what will happen to any of these kids.” She waved her hand across the row of incubators and pointed at Gabriel and herself. “We don’t know what the future will be, but we’re here to protect them now. This is our job,” she said. “At least that’s how I see it.” Dr. Walters spun around to face him.
“I have an additional job for you, Gabriel Cruz,” she said, and paused again. Gabriel wasn’t sure how to respond. The baby that Gabriel had helped now stopped crying, and the babies around that one settled down too.
“You have done well,” Walters said, “but they were simple
tasks. We would be entrusting you with some vital information and, potentially, some very valuable cargo.” Dr. Walters waved her arm across the nursery again and paused over the baby that Gabriel had just saved.
“We would like you to meet a friend of ours who will take you to an old train driver, who may be conducting a very special transit to transport these kids for us. We have to move them to better conditions, and the driver has the equipment we need to make the trip. If he’ll do it,” Walters said. “You’re to find out,” she said. Then she added, “Or maybe you can convince him?”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said. “I think. Can’t you contact him yourself?”
“No,” Walters said, and laughed. “This guy doesn’t take calls, or e-mail.”
Now it was Gabriel’s turn to change tone. “I mean, I am grateful for the work and responsibility you have given me, especially considering how I arrived here and from where I came. That said, I have some reservations. Can’t one of your guys do it? You don’t sound convinced that I’m your man.”
“If we are being honest,” Walters replied, “then I too have a few reservations. They do in fact go back to how you got here and from where you came. You were brought here as if you had been captured, a prisoner of war. And if rumor be truth, and I know that it never is, you were at the heart of the problem. But then there are conflicts, like the condition you were in when you arrived, and then there has been your work here, exemplified by your actions just now. I ask myself how such a gift could have been corrupted, co-opted into the Conglomerate mind-set. I find that hard to reconcile with the person who just saved this baby’s life.” She paused a second. “Even if it is only for now.
“And no, I am not convinced that you’re my man,” she continued, and sighed. “What makes you think I am looking for such a thing?” Gabriel had to smile at that.
“The driver might trust you,” Walters continued. “You’re not one of us. As for details, why would I withhold them? You’ll get what we can give and we’ll take what you’ve got when you get back.”
“Let me get this straight,” Gabriel interjected. “You’re not sure you can trust me to go out and risk my neck to meet a couple of people you don’t know and see if they will do something for you, or not, and bring you back information?”
“That sounds about right,” Walters replied.
“And why should I do it?” Gabriel asked.
“Let’s see,” she responded, “we could run through your options, but what would be the point?”
Gabriel had to admit the doctor had a point there.
“When do I start?” Gabriel asked.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Walters said. She disappeared behind the room divider between the pediatric ward and the rest of the med tent. When she came back toward Gabriel, she was followed by two of the Border Patrol.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Gabriel stepped back.
“Oh, no I don’t what?” It took Walters a second to realize why Gabriel had reacted as he had. “Don’t worry; we’re not going to interrogate you,” Walters said, “At least not in the pediatric ward. We need to go over a few things with you, and give you a message to deliver to the driver. Or, if that’s not possible, to our friend in the field.”
CHRISTINE’S BACK WAS against the wall. She had been in this apartment for years and she hadn’t changed the layout of the furniture since she had moved in, and never once had she assumed this position before—sleeping, or trying to, with her back propped up against the wall. That is, until she had started working for the chairman. Not even after her run-in with the law and management at the med center after the Cruz affair had she felt the need to watch the door. Now she did. She wanted to be ready when they came for her, the way they had come for Gabriel.
Christine hadn’t slept well in days. She looked out the window and knew she wouldn’t have to wait much longer for morning.
Her stomach rumbled but she wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten a good meal. She pressed her fingertips into her abdomen to relieve the cramps, and took a long pull from her water. She didn’t take her eyes off the door. She had to stay hydrated, but it was the water in her empty stomach that made her stomach rumble.
Christine sat up as if the wall had given her a shock.
“I haven’t packed,” she said. She hopped out of the bed and flipped on the light. She went over to the window, pulled the shades down to the sill, and then walked the few steps to the closet. She had a backpack in there, but that would be too obvious.
Christine decided on her gym bag. She hadn’t been to the gym in a while and she had to rifle through her stuff to find it. She saw the handle of the bag poking out behind the bright pink dress bag. Christine gave the gym bag a good tug, which knocked her off balance and pulled her old laptop from the pile of clothes and sent it sliding across the floor. Christine couldn’t get over how big and awkward it looked.
Her grandfather had given her the laptop computer when she was a kid. He’d given it to Christine to use in school, and in hopes that she would stay in touch with him. Christine had, and so had her grandfather with her. Some of the e-mails she had received from him had helped her get through her teenage years, and some of the e-mails she had sent him were full of ideas, dreams, and broken hearts. It made her feel better just to think back on them.
She wondered where her grandfather was now. He had to be older than eighty, so Christine had a good idea where he was. Was her grandma with him? Christine hoped so. She felt like e-mailing him. She could use him now. When no one else had been there for her—not her mother, who had been occupied with showing off the designer sister, and not her father, who had had one foot out the door—her grandfather had always been there. He’d asked her about her life and listened to her, and they had done it through e-mails on this machine.
When she had moved out of her mother’s house, she hadn’t wanted her mother, or her sister, to find them, and she sure didn’t want to delete them or throw the machine away. She swore she would reread her grandfather’s messages, and she had, but not in a long time, long enough to forget the machine was there. And now it was in the middle of the floor.
Christine felt as if security had found a bomb among her things. She looked over at her covered windows. Her eyes scanned the room. She got up off the floor, reached into her closet, grabbed a sweatshirt, and tossed it on top of the laptop before she kick-slid it toward the bathroom door. She wiped the sweat from above her lip. She was too nervous to do anything with the computer, so she did what she had intended to do: she carefully packed her essentials and headed into the bathroom, dragging her sweatshirt-covered laptop with her. She wasn’t ready to pick it up yet. She retrieved what she needed and finished packing. She walked into her bedroom and threw the gym bag onto the bed. She looked from the bed to the bathroom door.
She thought about Gabriel’s poem. She was sure that there was nothing in it about laptops, but the poem wasn’t direct either. She was going to find out. And to do that she was going to find the battery pack and the electrical and phone cables. Christine was glad to have something to do.
She went back into the bathroom. She was going to have to do this sooner or later, and the longer Christine waited, the more things could go wrong.
There was a plug for the old phone lines in the bedroom wall near the bathroom door, and there was an electrical outlet next to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Christine plugged her computer in there and stretched the phone cable out and around the open bathroom door. It barely made it. Christine pushed the on button and jumped back as if the old laptop were rigged, startled by the whir of the fan and the sequence of lights. She looked up into the mirror in the medicine chest. Her eyes were red and her face was breaking out.
By this time the old laptop was purring like a cat. A window on the screen asked for the user name and password.
Christine sighed again, her heart stopped, and the file scan began. When the computer requested a confirmation of th
e date and time, Christine realized she didn’t have much time before the town car would come to pick her up. She was too busy to be frightened. The column of icons appeared one by one.
“Okay,” she said to her reflection in the medicine chest. She double-clicked on the mail icon; the old phone number appeared in the setup box. “What the hell,” Christine said out loud, and double-clicked to continue. The dial-up connection started, and Christine almost went through the ceiling. She looked around her apartment again; surely somebody must have heard this?
It took ten seconds for the dial-up to connect, but it felt like ten minutes, and Christine hadn’t breathed until she gasped. The static evened out and the connection was made. She wondered just what it had connected to. The machine hummed, and now all Christine had to do was click again and she would be in her mailbox.
She thought of the millions of times she must have done this without thinking. She expected her click to activate an onslaught, and it did. Along with endless offers that had piled up in her old mailbox, there was a message from a number next to the name southwestbell.com. When Christine glanced over to the subject, “Follow-Up,” she was intrigued. After all, she was waiting for follow-up from Gabriel. She opened it and saw “Christine, it’s your grandpa George.” She felt like she had seen a ghost. She had thought of him, needed him, and here he was.
In that moment, all issues ceased for Christine: Gabriel, her job, the attack and investigation—even the chairman of the Conglomerate party slipped from her consciousness. And in their place the image of her grandfather grew. If she pictured her grandfather George, then her grandmother Patsy must be close by. They were always together. She pictured the house in Staten Island. The muscles in Christine’s shoulders loosened and her shoulders dropped. She let out the breath she was holding, and the knot in her gut came undone. That is, until the first note from her cell phone erupted.
The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future Page 15