"So this is all about defeating the Elementals?" Jamie asked.
"That's our main priority, now," the President answered smoothly. "But clearly, having a force of augmented humans will give us a big advantage in dealing with terrorists and enemy states. It might even allow us to reduce crime here at home. As long as the creation of superhumans is a carefully controlled and selective affair, it could be a great boon to our society."
"Your own private army of augments."
All good humor fled the President's face. "Jamie..." She took a moment to dial back the hard scowl that was forming. "Nothing I do is for my private benefit. I'm not establishing some kind of permanent, personal fiefdom here protected by a band of mercenaries. I have only two years left of my second term, for God's sake. And if we don't defeat the aliens" – she paused to meet Jamie's stony gaze – "which we wouldn't have to do if you'd honored your promise to leave, then none of us will have much time left. I think we both need to set aside our differences and do whatever's necessary to save our country and our world."
Jamie had been expecting her to bring up her failure to sacrifice herself, but the President's words still stung like a hard slap in the face.
"What I'm suggesting," said President Tomlinson, "is that you and your daughter come into a lab for a day or two, and we'll get to the bottom of how your nanovirus infected your daughter. No trickery, no deceptions, no attempts on your life, I promise you."
"Why would I trust your promises?"
"I don't believe I ever actually lied to your face. Deception, yes, but even when we tried to kill you, before I gave the order I asked you if you were willing to die, didn't I?"
Jamie searched her memory, unable to believe that this woman hadn't lied to her face at some point, but to her frustration nothing was coming to her mind. But what did that really matter now?
"But you wouldn't hesitate to lie if you thought that was for the good of the country, would you?"
"I plead guilty to that charge." President Tomlinson's smile turned acrid. "What true public servant wouldn't? Look, Jamie, you want to think I'm a bitch, feel free. But you know I'm right. This is bigger than you and me. This is about survival. You want assurances that I'm not plotting another assassination on you? Fine. I'll show up at the lab in person. That way you can reduce me to ashes if we try anything. Would that work for you?"
Part of Jamie wanted to hate her. Right now she'd even settle for some mere loathing. She couldn't agree with President Tomlinson's views, but she couldn't help understanding where she was coming from. She'd had to make some morally dubious hard decisions herself. One of the hardest was deciding not to die for the supposed common good.
"When do you want to do this?" Jamie asked.
"As soon as possible – given we don't know when the Sword of Damocles will fall."
Chapter 18
GOOD TO HER WORD, President Tomlinson and her large security detail met Jamie and Kylee in the basement of DARPA's Biotechnology Lab in Arlington Virginia. Jamie detected no sign of an ambush or anything else untoward as the white-suited scientists swarmed over them, poking and prodding and guiding them through a series of diagnostic machines.
Attempts to obtain DNA, blood samples, and imagery from inside their bodies ran into immediate roadblocks as neither needles nor Xrays nor sound waves could penetrate even their first layers of skin. Mouth swaths produced no detectable cells. More private probings also produced no cell samples. Neither did Jamie nor Kylee's spit contain any nanoviruses or cells of any kind. The same factors that made them so invulnerable, the scientists concluded, also prevented them losing cells. They hypothesized that some regulatory factor stopped them from losing nanites.
A breakthrough of sorts occurred when one of the scientists suggested that Jamie attempt breaching her own skin. With steel-eyed concentration, Jamie sliced into her forearm with a fingernail, managing to produce a droplet of blood. The cut healed near-instantaneously, and the blood either vaporized or was absorbed back into the skin before a sample could be had.
But the scientist in charge, Dr. Elena Lane, had an idea.
"Given the difficulty of drawing blood and the speed of wound healing, a blood transfer seems highly improbable," she said. "But you cried near here, didn't you, Mrs. Shepherd?"
"My tears hit her face –" That image and a sudden revelation struck Jamie. "A few of them landed in her open eyes!"
"Let's test your tears, then."
Jamie had never cried on demand, but as the lab assistants waited with sample tubes and cotton swabs, she found it surprisingly easy to think of heart-wrenching things. Soon she had a nice batch of tears rolling down her cheeks. Kylee, apparently not lacking in sad reflections, cried with her. Their tears were quickly harvested by attentive lab techs.
"We have identified the nanovirus in the tear samples," Dr. Lane announced shortly afterward, to a smattering of applause from the techs and scientists.
Dr. Lane tried to press them into producing more tears, but that well soon ran dry. They were then escorted up to President Tomlinson's suite in the upper floors of the towering building, where they conferred in a private room.
After thanking her, the President said she was hopeful that Jamie and her daughter would provide more tear samples on a semi-regular schedule in the future.
"I know it's annoying to be asked, and we'll try not to be too much of a pest about it," said President Tomlinson, "but I hope you'll agree there are worst things to be asked to do than crying for your country." Her smile drew a meager response from Jamie and her daughter. "And you will be well-compensated. Shall we say, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each per sample?"
Jamie's smile was both disbelieving and guilty. The taxpayers paying her and her daughter a half-million dollars to cry? That had to be a first. And Jamie had no doubt she could ask ten times that and draw little protest from the President. After all, it wasn't her money, and what price could you place on a superpower? But she felt guilty enough accepting that payment. Knowing how she could transmit the super-virus was quite a rich compensation in itself, she thought. While the President was creating her super army, why couldn't she create her own tribe of augmented individuals?
"Incidentally," said the President, "I expect you'll want to share your gifts with the people you care about as protection, but please limit that to people you can trust not to spread the nanovirus. Every person you infect could in turn infect another, and so on. We could soon have a plague of superhumans, and I think you know how destabilizing that could be."
Jamie sighed to herself. She should've known Tomlinson would think of that and try to cut it off. Though she had a point. Once even a few people had changed, proliferation seemed inevitable, though she was fairly confident that the people she had in mind could be trusted to keep it to themselves. Still, all it took was one person who shared it with the wrong person. Not that she, having come from a world where the vast majority were augments, found that prospect as troubling as the President did.
"Okay," Jamie said. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm kind of curious what people you'll choose, too, Madame President."
President Tomlinson smiled. "Good, patriotic, loyal, law-abiding Americans, of course."
JAMIE DIDN'T find it so easy herself to choose who would get the super nanovirus. Dennis and her dad were no-brainers, but after that, her choice-making process got murky. Tildie, because she was practically begging her for it. Terry Mayes, because his body desperately needed it. But anyone else was a question mark.
Another question mark attended the powers that her "chosen ones" would receive. None of the DARE scientists had developed any more than fuzzy hypotheses about how or why the alien nanovirus manifested differently in different people. The only constants were an imperviousness to disease, increased strength, and resistance to injury – and the last two varied so widely that they could hardly be called constants.
Kylee happily volunteered to cry into Terry Mayes' eyes without disclosing that she was
spreading the nanovirus. Dr. Lane had speculated that the nanovirus could be transmitted by dropping tears on an open wound – something that they would soon be testing on their "selectees" – but that probably wouldn't be an option with Terry. Thomas and Grandma Mayes would suspect if not downright believe that Kylee had a hand in Terry's transformation, Jamie thought, unless it was a lot less dramatic than on her world. But just the healing of his bone disease itself would be pretty damn dramatic.
How would things change between her and Dennis once he'd changed? What if Cal turned into someone strong enough to challenge the government? Would Tildie become a caped cliché superhero?
Then there was the rest of her team: Belinda "Hot Time," Greg "Hulk" Horner, Jake Culler, Kyle "Sandman," Jeremy "the Blur" Wilson, Jay Utrecht the teleporter, Dana "Ice Queen," Barry Apple (particle beam), Kim-Ly Klein... Jamie paused on the last name. Kim-Ly. While the rest of them had been limited by what they could see or hear in the moment – well, Tildie a few moments ahead – Kim-Ly could look ahead and sideways. She could sense what others couldn't see in either the present or in the days or even weeks to come.
And the problem we have now is that we can't see our enemy and don't know what they're planning.
Kim-Ly, Jamie thought, might offer a solution. As annoyingly vague and inconsistent as her visions or premonitions could be, she still had saved their butts more than once. A good place to start rebuilding the team would be with her. Assuming Jamie could find her. For all she knew, Kim-Ly might never have entered the U.S. on a student visa as she'd had in her world.
So Dennis, Dad, Tildie, Terry Mayes, and Kim-Ly for sure. She could hold off on the others until she'd seen how things with President Tomlinson and her super-soldiers worked out. At this point, she had no clue how it would. Another reason to try to resurrect Kim-Ly the psychic. Of course, there was no guarantee she'd become a psychic.
But first things first. Jamie wasn't surprised when Dennis was less than enthusiastic about making the change. What if he changed in a way that made them less compatible? Jamie couldn't think of any known transformation that would cause that. In fact, any transformation she'd ever known or heard of would make them more compatible, if for no other reason than he'd be less likely to die from something she accidentally did to him. If they were lucky, he might even become strong enough to meet her as more of an equal.
What finally decided Dennis was his desire to help protect his daughter and to improve his chances of survival if the shit hit the fan. Lying in each other's arms that night, both self-conscious and more than a little apprehensive, Jamie channeled her inner sadness once again – and was surprised when Dennis joined her. Their tears co-mingled, and afterward, ever so gently, so did their bodies.
Dennis developed flu-like symptoms during the night, with nausea just short of vomiting, and the next morning had no interest in getting out of bed. Jamie served him his favorite sick-food, chicken noodle soup, laboring hard not to worry too much. The nanovirus was just doing its job. The superpowers might not show up until the next day or even later. That was the common experience every augment Jamie had ever talked to had shared. They just had to hang in there and wait.
Kylee embarked on her secret mission of mercy to the Mayes. Jamie didn't envy her having to find some pretext to share her tears with Terry under the watchful eyes of Grandma Mayes. She was a smart girl and hopefully would find the right moment.
Jamie flew out of Grand Forks in a darkening mist for a quick trip cross-country to Tildie, leaving Dennis in his bathroom with a hot cup of herbal tea and the Wimbledon on TV. Kylee would be back soon to fill the nurse role as needed.
Arriving at Tildie's, Jamie learned that her friend had taken her excitement over becoming "super" to the next level. She'd actually had a costume designed by a professional seamstress friend: red, purple, and gold, with an attached mask that had a slit for her eyes that was sprinkled with gold, as if she were wearing unibrow eyeliner.
"I can't believe this is actually happening," she gushed, hugging Jamie and planting a wet kiss on her cheek. "Cry me a river, baby! Or am I being insensitive?"
"Totally insensitive." Jamie smiled. "But I'm not sure that's enough to make me sad. I'm kind of saddened-out these days, if that's a word."
"Remember that stew I made that first time you visited?"
"I've been trying to block it out of my mind." Tildie wore her lack of culinary skills as almost a badge of pride.
"How about if I told you I was going to defrost some for lunch? Is that bringing on some sadness?"
Jamie laughed. "I can definitely feel some sadness starting. Or maybe it's dread?"
Jamie eventually managed to work up tears without a bad meal assist. She suggested that Tildie go easy on food for the next day or two – especially the home-cooking.
From Portland, Jamie journeyed south into California, to the place her internet search for Kim-Ly had led her: the University of California at Davis, where she was a graduate student in bioengineering. By some coincidence, Jamie also had a listing for Jake Culler in nearby Sacramento, owner of Culler's Precision Automotive – one of the easiest people from her team to track down. A bit of digging had revealed that he was an ex-Marine, just as he had been in her world. Jamie was toying with the idea of seeing him, but not committed. She'd see how things went with Kim-Ly first.
Jamie's internet search ran aground on the specifics of Kim's location on any given day. She visited a possible home address, but no one answered the door. She'd been reluctant to use the email her search had uncovered because that would cue the NSA and President Tomlinson of a possible relationship between them, but then they probably were observing even her searches, so she decided to go for it and email her: Hi, I'm Jamie Shepherd. I work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I wonder if you'd be willing to meet somewhere and talk about your future.
Now it was a waiting game.
She called Dennis and Kylee, and learned that Dennis was feeling better and that Kylee had succeeded in depositing a tear into one of Terry Mayes' eyes with a finger. If that didn't prove adequate, she'd try again.
Without anything better to do, Jamie decided to visit Jake Culler's car repair shop, though she doubted things would go any better with him than with his bullheaded buddy. But at least it might be kind of amusing. She could use a little humor – the crying routine was growing old.
She departed Davis and dropped down in West Sacramento. She strolled up to a car repair garage that was neither new nor old, one of those places that might or might not have decent mechanics – a Holy Grail quest of her husband's until he'd mastered basic engine mechanics enough to do most of the work himself.
Jake, dressed in jeans and a stained T-shirt, emerged from the work area in a heated conversation with a young man in grey mechanic overalls.
"I don't want to hear excuses, Ted," Jake growled. "We don't do half-ass shit here. You want to do half-ass, there's plenty of other shops that love that shit. Otherwise, man-up and fucking make it right."
"But that means taking apart the whole trannie – "
"What – do I look politically correct? Take the 'trannie' apart. Hell, build it from fucking scratch. Just get it done or don't be here when I get back."
Culler stormed past Jamie, and then, in a delayed reaction, slowed down and turned around. Jamie was smiling at him.
"Sounds like you have a lot of integrity," she said.
Jamie watched the anger in his face battle with more amiable emotions, finally settling on a thin smile.
"When it comes to cars, anyway," he said. "Something I can help you with, Miss...?"
"Jamie Shepherd."
"You got a car problem?"
"More like a life problem."
"Really?" His eyes narrowed. She could hear his gears spinning, trying to make sense of her. "I was just on my way out to grab a bite. If you want to tag along, you can tell me about it."
"How about I buy you lunch?"
"Better and b
etter."
He extended an elbow, but noticed the grease on his forearm and withdrew it. "Why don't you let me wash up a bit, and we'll go somewhere. I'm Jake, by the way." He held out his hand. "Jake Culler. Proprietor of this place."
"Good to meet you."
He slipped into a side office, returning with his face and arms scrubbed and his short blond hair freshly spiked.
"There's a greasy spoon around the corner that's not too bad. Or we could do fast food? Jack in the Box?"
"Jack in the Box works for me. And then maybe we could go somewhere to talk?"
"Going to give me a hint what this is about, Jamie?"
"I will. When we're somewhere a little more private."
"You're making me awfully curious, mystery lady."
"You have no idea how mysterious."
Jake's chuckle sounded somewhat flat. Outside, he directed her to his car, a shiny red Pontiac GTO muscle car that Jamie thought fit him perfectly. The rumble of its engine when he started up was the purr of a big jungle cat.
"Nice," she said.
"Glad you like it."
They rumbled into the Jack in the Box drive-through, and departed with chicken sandwiches and fries. Déjà vu with his parallel world friend, Greg Horner, Jamie thought.
"There's a park nearby?" Jake ventured.
"Do you live around here?"
"Ten minutes."
"Why don't we go there?"
Jake grunted out a laugh. "Why don't we indeed? I have another idea. Why don't you tell me what this is about? I'm a good-looking dude, no question, but not so handsome a pretty lady I never met is gonna ask me to take her to my place. Not before I even get a chance to use my best lines."
"You're not that handsome and I doubt your lines are good enough," said Jamie with a soft laugh of her own. "No, this is about something else."
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