Flesh and Blood

by French, Jackie

  ‘Wives?’ said Neil.

  Suddenly it struck me, as it hadn’t before. ‘You mean you …’ I searched for the word, ‘mated with the birds?’

  Another giggle. ‘It was Great-grandpa’s idea. It saved money, you see. He had the first birdie made and had his sperm changed too, so he could impregnate them.’

  ‘But … but how did he have Norm children then?’ Surely, I thought, this man and his brothers hadn’t been hatched from an egg.

  ‘Clones. We’re all his clones.’ The wrinkled face showed genuine grief. ‘It’ll only be my clone after this. It won’t be the same. It should be the same but won’t. I’ve never been alone before, you know.’ The shadowed eyes looked suddenly pleading. ‘Will you stay with me? It won’t be so lonely if you’re here.’

  ‘Bill,’ I tried to keep the revulsion from my voice. Birds and men, the siren’s face, a cage of sex slaves and then he sold their dung … ‘We can’t stay with you …’

  ‘But you must!’ He was gabbling now. ‘You can’t leave me alone, alone, alone …’

  ‘We might have the sickness too,’ said Neil gently. ‘That’s why we wear these suits — to stop us infecting people.’ And birds, I thought. ‘As well as to stop being infected if we don’t have it. We have to go to the City, to get help.’

  The mad, sad face gazed at us. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No!’

  I tried to think. Normally they wouldn’t let Bill into the City, even if he were sane. Whatever modification he and his brothers shared must have been Proclaimed. But he’d survived the plague. His blood would have antibodies that City researchers could use. He was what we had been hunting. ‘Come with us,’ I said urgently. ‘Then you won’t be alone.’

  ‘And leave my birdies?’ There was a different note of fear now. ‘I couldn’t leave my birdies! We never leave! The floaters take the dung, people deliver the supplies. There’s lots of supplies.’ He was imploring now. ‘Realcoffee, chocolate, anything you want. There’s lots of credit in the birdies’ dung. You don’t have to go! I won’t let you go!’

  ‘Bill, please, we’ll die — and wake again — if we stay here.’ May as well bung it on, I thought. It might even be all too true. ‘You have to let us go to the City.’

  I thought he was going to refuse. He was mad, he was evil — surely what he and his clones had done was evil, imprisoning this beauty as their slaves — he would never let us go.

  But instead his body drooped, his lower lip trembled like a child’s about to cry. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you out.’

  ‘Then open the dome’s door,’ said Neil.

  Bill shook his head. ‘Not till you’re there,’ he said. ‘The birdies will fly out if I open it too soon.’

  I bit my lip. We had to trust him. If he didn’t open the door as promised we would have to come back anyway and try to convince him again. Or try to escape somehow.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and tried to put all the gratitude I could into my words. ‘If we live we’ll come back. I promise we’ll come back.’

  He brightened.

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I felt Neil’s glance on me. I would never, never willingly come back here. But surely this creature didn’t deserve truthfulness.

  ‘We’ll be back soon,’ I added.

  Neil opened the container’s door. I gave the man at the desk one last bright false smile and followed Neil.

  chapter 35

  Night had fallen since we’d been in the room. The top of the dome was dark. The floor, though, was lit by innumerable small glows — some source of light that shone up through the holes.

  It was difficult to see the path now, or rather to make out which of the many paths we’d come by. But Neil took the one opposite the door, which was the one I’d have chosen too, so I followed him and crossed my fingers.

  ‘Lady. Lady. Lady.’

  I looked up. It hadn’t occurred to me that the birds might speak, despite the human faces.

  ‘Yes? What is it?’ Stupid, I thought, stupid. They’re dying of the plague and trapped in a dome and I ask what’s wrong!

  ‘Lady. Lady. Let us out, lady.’

  The voice was throaty, like a cockatoo’s, and as emotionless as a cockatoo’s too, but the enunciation was clearer and the desperation in the face unmistakable. ‘Please let us out, lady.’

  ‘I …’ I stopped and looked at Neil. If Bill did open the door we could prop it open. He’d have to run and close it manually and in that time surely most of the birdwomen could escape.

  How many of them were there, I wondered. A dozen? A hundred? A hundred plague-carrying birds flying across the landscape.

  No, I couldn’t do it, and I saw in Neil’s face that he couldn’t either.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘You have a disease. It might spread even further if we let you out.’

  The face looked uncomprehending. ‘Please, lady. Fly free. Fly free.’

  The lack of emotion was even more heartrending than pleading. For a moment I hesitated. The plague had spread already. What was one more source of infection?

  But if, as I believed, the plague had started here, in this horror of human–bird contact, then perhaps there was a worse mutation waiting to spread. And every extra case was its own tragedy, no matter how wide-reaching the plague was already.

  ‘We’ll be back,’ I said, and this time I truly meant it. ‘We’ll make sure you fly free.’ If they were still alive, I thought. But if they’d lived this long some must be immune, and it was that immunity the City needed to study.

  I almost laughed. I could keep both my promises. ‘Someone will come,’ I said. ‘They’ll take you away. You’ll fly free. Soon.’

  ‘Soon. Soon.’ It seemed to be a question. I nodded. The birdwoman gazed at me for a moment, then flapped her wings and soared upwards through the branches.

  Neil looked at me. ‘They’ll take them to the City for testing,’ he said. ‘They can’t fly free there.’

  ‘Yes they can.’ Suddenly I was desperately tired. ‘They can chip them and send them Virtual. They’ll imagine they’re flying free, that they have all the sky in the world. I can make sure that happens, at least.’ I had the contacts back in the City, I had the money to make it happen, I had the technical know-how to ensure it. Not a big procedure at all. Ten minutes and it would be done.

  We owed the birds that at least.

  We were at the door now. The shut door. I pushed at it, then looked up, trying to see a monitor, but the camera must have been well hidden.

  How was the door’s comsig hidden? Linked to a retinal scan maybe? Surely if I worked long enough I could find a way to override it. But even the thought of another ten minutes here filled me with horror. And what if another dead bird attacked?

  ‘Bill,’ I pleaded. ‘Bill, please …’

  The door opened.

  ‘Remember!’ It was Bill’s voice, from an amplifier, not the birds. Suddenly he seemed more piteous than evil. It had been his great-grandfather who had planned this slavery, not Bill. But Bill was his clone … ‘I’ll remember’ I choked, and stepped outside.

  Blessed opened door. Blessed fresh air. Blessed night-time, soft on the skin. I took three steps, heard the door shut behind me and then I ran, using the dim light from the dome for guidance, over to the floater. I pulsed the door open as we approached. I scrambled in, with Neil beside me.

  He didn’t ask why I’d run. He knew. He just hugged me, or I hugged him, as we felt the lift of the floater around us, as it headed up then south-east towards the City.

  chapter 36

  ‘Michael!’

  ‘What is it?’ Thank goodness it was RealMichael, not his Virtual answer service. ‘Danny, for Pete’s sake, what ——’

  ‘Listen. Please. Just listen. Put it on record mode too.’

  So he listened as I stammered and cried and tried to explain. He listened without comment, for which I was infinitely grateful, without asking if I was sure
or asking me to repeat what I’d said. Dear Michael, I found myself thinking for the first time in two years. You know when to ask questions and when to shut up.

  It was unimaginably good to be dealing with someone who knew me, knew me as well as Neil, even if differently, the sort of knowledge you gain by sharing your childhood with someone.

  My memories are your memories, I thought, as I watched Michael’s face thoughtful on the screen, and suddenly all the barriers I had erected two years ago fell down and I knew how much I had missed him, liked him, how much I shared with him.

  ‘And that’s it,’ I finished wearily, hardly conscious of Neil’s arm around me.

  Michael nodded. ‘Exactly. That’s it indeed. Do you mind if I put this on replay for the Mediteam?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I’ll send a team out pronto and bring them all in. Yes,’ as my mouth opened to speak, ‘I’ll make sure they’re all put on Virtual loop.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Most of the City spends part of the time in Virtual at the moment. We’re still trying to keep things seem as normal as possible.’

  ‘How are things? Really?’

  ‘Not too bad. We caught it in time here, I think. Infections are right down. It’s the Burbs that are the worry now. It’s spreading like wildfire there. And the Outlands. It’ll keep spreading there.’ He shut his eyes for a moment and I realised he was as tired as me. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Michael, we’re coming in.’

  chapter 37

  We ate. It was important to eat, even if we weren’t hungry, even if I felt I’d never be free of the smell of bird dung, the penetrating whiff of ammonia, of mouldy feathers, of captivity.

  But slowly the normality of bread and cheese and apricot jam soaked into us and the taste of Realtea from the floater’s dispenser. I sipped my second cup and looked into the darkness. Stars and a cheese rind of moon, and no lights below us. I wondered if there were more utopias down there where lights might have shone in better times, that had been struck by sickness now. We would pass over them in the night and never know.

  I finished the tea and moved closer to Neil. He put his arm around me.

  ‘We should call the Clinic,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘I know. Link it up on manual, will you? We can watch the screen together.’

  I pulsed and felt Dr Meredith’s comsig flash before me. I pulsed it onto manual and her face filled the screen, default mode at first, the old lady kneading bread in her kitchen, then her Realface took its place.

  She smiled. It was a reassuring smile that faded only a little when she saw our suits.

  ‘Yes,’ I said to save her time, ‘we may have been infected.’

  She took it calmly, nodded, her chin sinking into the wrinkles at her neck. ‘You don’t know yet?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’ll see.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘what about Mel?’

  The smile broadened. ‘She’s very well.’

  ‘You mean … you mean the operation was a success?’

  ‘Partly a success. The patient is still alive. Not conscious yet, but that’s to be expected. But her vital signs, her brain waves — I think I can promise you that there will be some improvement.’

  My mouth opened, but she answered my question before I could ask it. ‘No my dear, I can’t tell you how much improvement. I would imagine that at least she will be conscious of her surroundings. Given what she was,’ the smile grew wry, ‘that is a major achievement. But whether she will recognise you, much less regain her former abilities and memory — well, there has only ever been a very small chance of that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I wished I knew how to make my gratitude plainer. ‘Can we see her?’

  The image shifted. There was a bed and monitors, so familiar from those weeks in the Clinic that I shivered, and Mel, white-faced and shaven-headed in the bed.

  She looked … different. It wasn’t just the rigours of the operation she’d been through. She looked somehow more herself already.

  I was imagining it. I had to be imagining it. But I was still sure it was true.

  The doctor’s face reappeared. ‘If there’s any change,’ she said, forestalling me again, ‘we’ll let you know at once.’

  ‘No,’ I said and struggled with my tiredness to explain. ‘We’re going in to the City. There are better facilities there if we’re infected. They’ve recalled my banishment. I’ll be able to Link into the CityNets. I might find something useful.’

  ‘I see, if I try to Link with you they may trace the Link. Is there some other way I can get a message to you?’

  ‘Call Theo at the utopia.’ I flashed her the comsig, though she probably already had it. ‘Or if you need to be really discreet, call Black Stump,’ another comsig flash, ‘ask for Ophelia, and get her to send a message to Theo.’

  ‘Very well.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘If you are going to Link in with the CityNets they’ll know that someone has restored your abilities.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not who or where. I’ll be careful. I promise.’ I thought fleetingly of Michael, who had known about my restoration all along. But he hadn’t asked where it had been done. Yes, I trusted him, I thought. Finally I trusted him again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said once more. ‘I don’t know how to thank you. For everything.’

  ‘No need to thank me.’ There were dimples in the wrinkles now. ‘You’ve given me your genes and a challenge. Several challenges. It’s enough.’

  The screen blanked out.

  chapter 38

  The floater flew through the night. Neil called Elaine, but there was no answer, just an image of her face taken years ago, brightly asking us to leave a message.

  ‘I’d better call Theo,’ said Neil. I wondered if my face looked as white and strained as his.

  ‘Neil, she can’t be sick already can she? The incubation period is twenty-one days.’

  ‘Assuming she didn’t meet someone infected before the Centaur,’ Neil pointed out. ‘She goes over to Dusty Springs and The Temple regularly to give people their shots. Who knows who she’s come in contact with.’ Neil shut his eyes briefly as he called up Theo’s comsig. I felt the faint trace of him in my mind as he Linked, a warm glow that was unmistakably Neil, but resisted the urge to open the Link wider.

  We needed time, I thought wearily. Time for Neil to grow into his powers, to explore how far they’d take him, time for us to get to know each other on that level too. But time might be the thing we had least of.

  Theo’s face filled the floater’s screen. He looked older, and even more tired than usual. He also wore an isolation suit.

  ‘Theo! What’s wrong!’ I could hear the fear in Neil’s voice. ‘I tried to get Elaine but there was no answer.’

  ‘She’s busy.’ A faint smile. ‘We’re all busy. But don’t worry. No-one from here’s gone down with it yet.’ I caught the faint emphasis on ‘from here’.

  ‘But there’ve been other cases?’

  Theo nodded. ‘Four so far. Elaine’s looking after them here in the isolation unit. I’m helping as best I can. Tavish and Mackenzie are out with the floaters; we’re trying to do a patrol twice a day to bring in anyone nearby who’s sick.’ He looked at us gently. ‘I gather the source of the infection this time was a Wanderer from the Burbs. He visited half a dozen utopias before he went down with it. So there’ll be more cases.’

  Of course there would be more, I thought. Outlanders can’t isolate themselves in self-contained airlocks like the City. And then suddenly it struck me — Theo wouldn’t know, none of them would know about the zombie effect after the plague had killed its victims.

  ‘Theo,’ I said urgently. ‘Has anyone died yet?’

  He blinked at my tone. ‘No.’

  ‘Theo, it’s important. When they die you have to burn the bodies at once, or restrain them somehow.’ I tried to explain, my words growing more and more halting
from tiredness. Finally Theo nodded. He looked at Neil. ‘Compost?’ he enquired.

  Neil nodded. ‘Compost should do it.’

  I looked from one to the other. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The utopia’s waste is high-pressure composted,’ explained Neil briefly. ‘Kills all pathogens, breaks everything down to fertiliser. It’s probably as safe a way of disposing of bodies as you can get.’

  ‘They won’t get out?’ I had a sudden horror vision of zombies stumbling around the utopia, through Neil’s orchards …

  ‘No,’ said Neil quietly. ‘They won’t get out.’ He looked back at Theo. ‘We’re heading in to the City,’ he added.

  Theo looked relieved. ‘Are you? Good.’

  ‘Is it?’ I felt guilty suddenly. ‘Should we come back instead? Help with the sick?’

  ‘No,’ said Theo gently. ‘You can do more good there. You know you can.’ The faint smile reappeared. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Humans conquer the world. I don’t suppose there is a single natural savage animal left on earth, in the universe perhaps. You’ve killed them all. And then a virus appears and you’re all helpless.’

  ‘Don’t you count yourself as human too?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Theo answered simply. ‘I’ve walked among humans, loved them, worked with them. But I’ve always been an outsider.’

  I wanted to say, ‘What are a few vampire genes?’ But Theo was right. If he felt non-human, then he was. I supposed that when you looked upon each human as a potential meal as well as a potential friend, it was inevitable.

  Neil and I had known that Theo was a vampire for two years. But this was the first time he had referred to it since then. ‘Theo,’ I began, then stopped. I had no words for the things I wanted to say to him. I still wasn’t used to putting emotion into language. All I could say was, ‘We love you Theo. Take care.’

  Perhaps it was enough. His face brightened. ‘Take care, both of you,’ he said. ‘Neil, you have given me so much joy. More than any son of my body ever could have, because he’d be what I am too. I hope …’ he stopped. He smiled again. The screen went blank.