13
The Norma-gene
Harry stepped out of the air-conditioned coolness of the Eternal Life building and into the tropical humidity of downtown New Hollywood. He heard the soft pneumatic hiss of the doors as they closed behind him, and he gave a sigh of relief.
Every time he went in there, he felt as if he was forced to cripple himself. The place was wired to the eyeballs with hidden cameras, sensors on his ka, and remote telemetry measuring everything from body temperature, blood pressure, brain wave activity, and even which pheromones he was giving off that day. Once inside, he just shut down contact with his ka and any powers that developed from it. Even out here on the street, he was careful not to let his guard down, especially today.
He scanned the broad marble stairs that led down from the door and noted with satisfaction that they were empty; no reporters, no autograph seekers, not even a grav-corder. At least, he wouldn’t have to lie his way out of any more interviews for a while. That was why he chose this little used side exit in the first place. His car was parked at the front entrance and probably knee deep in reporters and gawkers by now.
Whistling tunelessly to himself, he put on a pair of dark aviator sunglasses, pulled down the broken bill of his baseball cap, and started down the stairs. The late afternoon sun flashed like burning copper off passing grav-cars. They all stayed above the sixty foot minimum height for the city. Occasionally, one dropped out of traffic and descended to the grass-covered avenue to let out a passenger or park.
The advent of the grav-car made asphalt and concrete obsolete. Instead, the streets in New Hollywood were lush green swathes of grass with long beds of brightly colored, tropical flowers running down the middle. Low trees lined the streets. They arched over broad sidewalks, forming a protective arcade for the pedestrians beneath. On the street sides the trees were cut back to a green wall allowing grav-cars to descend and ascend unhindered. None of the cars seemed remotely interested in Harry.
Casually, he reached into his jean’s pocket and took out Doc’s note. He unfolded the crumpled piece of paper and read the short message, “Chueh’s”. He smiled to himself. It had been a while. A moment later, the smile died on his lips as he saw a man hurrying across the avenue, cutting through the flowerbeds and heading straight for him. Harry groaned and shoved the note back into his pocket. How the hell had the reporters gotten wind of where he was?
A second glance changed his mind. This didn’t look like a reporter. Not even a freelancer or stringer would dress like that. Despite the thirty five-degree temperature, the man wore heavy woolen trousers, a woolen stocking cap pulled down over his ears, and a fleece-lined leather bomber jacket zipped all the way up. His shoulders were hunched, his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets and the fleece-lined collar was pulled up around his ears as if he was freezing.
As the man got closer, Harry saw the characteristic star-shaped scars that pitted his face and the strands of peroxide blonde hair that stuck out from beneath the stocking cap. A Norma-gene! He thought they had all left for the Nevada Quarantine. He hadn’t seen one in years. When he was a kid, they were everywhere.
They had come in during the Caliphate War along with a lot of other muties, all fleeing the ovens of the Seraphim Jihad. Within a few short years, New Hollywood was overrun with muties, all seeking refuge and forced to live as outcasts on the fringes of a society that had no time for them and viewed them with suspicion, revulsion, and sometimes maybe even a little pity.
They constituted an army of the deformed, whose ancestors had lived through the genetic plague wars and the radiation burns of the Crash, and still bore the scars branded into their DNA. But even among the multitude of the deformed, the Norma-genes stood out.
It looked like this guy had been luckier than most, Harry thought. The Norma-gene plague was a broad-spectrum mutation that played countless variations on the basic Norma-gene theme. In this case, it had apparently played havoc with the bodies inner thermostat, but apart from that had left none of the grosser genetic deformities of a disease that could turn human flesh into something as fluid as melted wax and leave walking nightmares in its wake. Many Norma-genes died young, the genetic damage too extensive to repair.
On the other hand, not all broad-spectrum variations turned out negative. It was known that some Norma-genes developed almost superhuman abilities. Their reflexes were incredibly fast or their senses extremely acute. Some developed the strength of ten men while others developed paranormal abilities and were called, “weirdings”. Some were telepaths, others far-seers or fire-starters, some could teleport, or even bend space time to their will. A few never seemed to age. Maybe this guy was one of them, Harry thought. He looked to be only about thirty but might be as old as Doc. With Norma-genes you never knew and that was the problem.
Harry could still remember the scary stories that older kids whispered in his ear when he was little. “If you were bad, the Norma-genes would get you. They could call up demons and cast spells on the unwary. They possessed the evil eye and could kill with a look. They were shape-shifters and skin walkers, who took the form of animals and roamed the night seeking blood, and there was no escape because they could read your mind and knew where you were going because they could see the future; and when they caught you, they would burn you to a cinder with a look.”
They were the stuff of children’s nightmares. The residue of old horror stories left over from the Genetic Plague Wars and the Crash, when frightened bands of refugees huddled around lonely fires and gave a face to their fears, whispering about the inhuman powers of the mutant Norma-gene.
With time the stories grew wilder and more hysterical, encompassing all mutants and at last spiraling out of control into bloody witch-hunts and the holocaust of the Seraphim Jihad, where the ovens burned day and night to rid the world of its mutant stain. In the old days, he could even remember a few witch-hunts through the streets of New Hollywood.
As the Norma-gene drew nearer, Harry could smell the sour reek of urine, sweat, and cheap wine. He could see the patches and stains on the man’s clothes, the unwashed hair, and ground in dirt. Too many mutants ended up like this. The witch-hunts were history now, but Norma-genes were still shunned, mistrusted, and feared, even by other mutants.
After the fall of the Caliphate, most of the other mutants gradually returned to the Continental Quarantine, but the Norma-genes stayed behind, living as homeless derelicts on the edge of a society that had no time for shame, guilt, or recompense.
When he was a kid, he remembered seeing them creeping through back alleys, sleeping under bushes, scavenging in garbage bins, or begging with their deformities for a dollar or two to buy the next bottle, needle, or wire fix.
But that was before the Norma-gene messiah, Rielly Logan, brought his promise of salvation to the Nevada Quarantine and emptied New Hollywood of Norma-genes. So what was this guy still doing here?
“You’re Harry Neuman, aren’t you?” The man asked in that breathless, sexy, alto whisper, so characteristic of Norma-genes “I’d know you anywhere,” he added almost shyly and put a hand on Harry’s sleeve. “I’m sorry to bother you, but a lady wants to talk to you, back there,” he jerked a finger back up the street towards the corner. “She said it was real important. Gave me a twenty to come and get you.”
It was probably a freelancer who hadn’t gotten a pass to the interview, Harry thought. “Look,” he said, gently disengaging himself from the hand on his sleeve. “I really don’t have time for this.”
The derelict reached in the pocket of his torn leather jacket and took out a thin, red, Plexiglas heart. It had another clear plastic heart in its center, with a hologram of Harry and Susan with their arms around each other looking young, happy, and in love. Harry recognized it immediately. He had bought it for Susan from a street vendor on one of their first dates. He knew that if you pressed the back of the inner heart, the two figures would come holographicly alive and his voice would tell Susan how much he loved her.
“The lady said I was to give you this if you wouldn’t come. She said it might help change your mind.” The man held out the heart, and after a moment’s hesitation, Harry took it. He handled it gingerly as if he were afraid it might explode. He was especially careful not to press the back of the littlest heart. He hadn’t thought she would save something like this or even remember receiving it. He felt a curious, sinking feeling. “Take me to her,” he said resignedly.
14
Susan
The black limousine hovered near the curb around the corner and half a block down from the Eternal Life building. Its grav-units hummed softly as it bobbed gently in the down draft of traffic going by overhead. The limo was black metallic, the windows were polarized, black diamond glass, impossible to see inside. For a moment, Harry thought he saw something stir in the depths of the dark mirrored surface. An instant later a black, snarling snout lunged against the glass, slathering, fangs bared, trying to push its way through and rip out Harry’s throat. The apparition was gone even before he recoiled in shock and bumped into the Norma-gene who stood behind him.
The man looked over Harry’s shoulder. “Is anything wrong?” he asked, concerned. Harry stared at the black glass window. The apparition was gone, and his own scared reflection stared back at him instead.
A moment later, the back window whispered down and Susan leaned out smiling. She wore wrap-around, mirrored sunglasses. Her honey blonde hair was cut short beneath an elegant little nineteen forties, June Allyson hat with a black net veil. She wore a black tailored suit with a short skirt and a white silk blouse open at the throat. She wore no jewelry. She reached out a black gloved hand and gave the derelict something. He glanced at it quickly, grinned, and then turned and hurried away.
Then, she turned and looked at Harry from behind her black veil and mirrored glasses. “Hi, Harry. It’s been a long time.” Her voice was as soft and intimate as the rustle of silk sheets against naked skin. Her smile was full of promise.
Harry felt his heart pounding with conflicting emotions. He fought to keep his features impassive. Keeping himself intact, he called it. “Hello Susan,” he said and was surprised at how normal, how under control his voice sounded. “Yeah, it’s been a long time.”
Susan pushed open the door of the car. “Won’t you get in?” she asked.
Harry looked at her for a moment, at the invitation of the open door…“What can I do for you, Susan?” he asked without moving.
Susan leaned out of the door and cautiously looked up and down the busy street. “Harry, we have to talk,” she said in a throaty, conspiratorial whisper, “and we can’t do it here in the street. Please get in.”
Harry didn’t trust himself so close to her, in the intimacy of the backseat of a limo. Too many memories, too many tangled emotions, too much lost love, betrayal, and longing. “Look, Susan, just tell me what you want,” he said patiently, trying to sound both concerned and reserved at the same time.
Susan reached out and touched his hand where it rested on the door of the car. “Harry,” she said and there was so much repressed desire, regret, and longing in the way she said his name. Even through the soft leather gloves he could feel the touch of her fingers like an electric shock. He pulled his hand away. No! There could be nothing between them. She was another man’s woman now. “What do you want?” he asked.
Susan sighed resignedly and leaned back into the shadows of the limo’s interior. “I need a favor, Harry,” her disembodied voice pleaded from the dark interior of the car. “Please,” she begged when Harry did not reply.
Harry thought about the last five years, of all the loneliness, pain, and deaths he’d endured. He shook his head sadly. “I think I’ve just about used up all my favors,” he said.
Susan leaned out of the darkness. “Please, Harry,” she pleaded. “One last time.” She reached up with a gloved hand and lifted the black veil from her face. Then she removed the mirrored sunglasses.
Harry gasped in shocked surprise. “Oh no! Who did this to you?”
She looked worse than Roger. Both her eyes were black and blue with a deep gash under her right eye, as if a large ring on the fist that did all this had caught and torn the flesh. It brought to mind the image of Roger’s large fire opal signet ring with the engraved rising phoenix. He discarded the thought immediately. It was just too unbelievable.
Now that the veil and sunglasses were gone and Harry knew what he was looking for, he noticed that Susan’s face was heavily made up to cover other cuts and bruises. “Oh no, Susan!” He shook his head in pity and sorrow. At the same time, he felt a slow burn of rage, starting deep down in the pit of his stomach.
Susan’s eyes filled with tears and she looked away, back up at the glittering façade of the Eternal Life building towering in the distance. As she lifted her chin, Harry saw the angry bruises on her neck, as if someone had tried to strangle her. A blind, killing rage boiled up inside him. “Who did this?” he asked, his voice thick with clotted emotion.
Susan shook her head and refused to look at him. Tears ran down her face. Harry grabbed hold of her and turned her towards him gently. “Sue, tell me what happened,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm and controlled and not doing a very good job of it. Susan bit her lip, scrunched up her eyes, and shook her head in shame and denial. She just kept sitting there shaking her head with the tears running down her face.
It was too much for Harry. He forgot all his resolutions of keeping emotional and physical distance and instead did the only thing he could do and took her gently in his arms and tried to comfort her. He could smell the familiar scent of her perfume, the soft touch of her hair against his cheek, the feel of her body leaning against his. He knew he was skating on thin ice. He could feel the old scars breaking open, the love and its betrayal that he had tried to bury through so many deaths…and he felt something else, something indefinable, something not right.
He brushed it away and said, “Susan, you’ve got to tell me who did this? Was it Roger?” he suggested doubtfully. But then he felt the tension suddenly go out of Susan’s body, and she sagged against his chest, crying hopelessly and nodding her head.
“Roger did this?” he asked dumfounded. He’d always thought he knew Roger. The man may have been a ruthless son of a bitch in business, but Harry could never imagine him beating up Susan. It was obvious how much he loved her. Even Harry could see that. This just didn’t make sense. “Are you sure?” he asked again. “Roger? But why? How?”
She tried to talk but her voice was a whispered sniffle. She fumbled blindly behind her in the back seat of the limo and at last found a package of tissues. She blew her nose and dried her eyes, and all the time she kept her head downcast, refusing to look at him, as if ashamed of herself for letting him see her like this.
She started to talk in a painful halting whisper. “I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” she said. “I didn’t know where to go. I think he’s going crazy. He’s not the man I… married.” Her voice died away in hopeless confusion.
“Tell me what happened,” Harry said. “From the beginning.” Now, that she had started he had to keep her talking, he had to know.
“He didn’t come home after the resurrection,” Susan began in a hesitant whisper. “When he finally came back last night, he looked like he’d been in a fight. He said you did it. I guess I wasn’t sympathetic enough, or maybe I didn’t show that I believed him enough, or…Oh, I don’t know! I’d been drinking. I guess I’ve been drinking a lot lately. So maybe I said the wrong thing. Anyway, he went berserk. Oh dear God! I thought he was going to kill me!” Her voice had a sharp, hysterical edge to it. She looked up at him with her bruised eyes.
“He kept hitting me again and again, and then, he grabbed me around the throat and started to strangle me. I managed to kick him in the balls and get away and locked myself in my room. I could hear him rampaging through the house, screaming and cursing and smashing things.” She buried her face in her hands and
wept in despair.
Harry held her gently in his arms until her sobs quieted. Slowly, she got control of herself and pushed away from him. She wiped the tears from her face with a tissue and looked at him with large, frightened eyes. “I’m sorry to bother you with this, but I didn’t know who else to turn to. I had to talk to someone.
“It’s not Roger doing this.” She shook her head in emphatic denial. “It’s something else inside Roger…something wearing Roger’s body. It’s not the man I married; it’s something dark and evil and violent. It’s not Roger,” she repeated and kept shaking her head in denial.
For a moment, the memory of Roger leaning over him in the rebirthing chamber returned to haunt him. Once again Harry saw Roger’s features elongate into a snarling, feral snout, becoming one of the black wolf-like things that had chased him through death.
Suddenly, Susan stiffened and pulled back into the dark interior of the car. “I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be seen here like this. What if he sees us, or what if one of them sees and tells him?” There was a shivering note of terror in her voice as she drew further back into the interior of the car.
“One of what?” Harry asked in confusion. “What are ‘they’?” he persisted.
Susan shook her head. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “They may be watching,” she nodded at the Eternal Life building. “This is crazy! I should never have come.” She reached out to pull the door shut, but Harry grabbed it and stopped her.
“Tell me what’s going on, what you’re afraid of?” he said.
Susan hesitated biting her lip indecisively. “Can I trust even you?” she asked, looking up at him with her bruised, frightened eyes.
Harry reached up to gently touch her cheek, but she shook her head and pulled away before he could touch her.
“Sue, you know you can trust me,” he said with quiet steadfastness.
Eternal Life Inc. Page 8