by Phil Tucker
"Lee?" Selah reached out, then drew her hand back. McKnight got out, face grim.
"He's in bad shape. He stopped responding an hour ago."
Chico jogged off toward the clinic doors and Gordon pushed open his door and slowly climbed out. Selah immediately stepped forward to help, and he gratefully laid his large arm around her shoulders. He seemed to have lost weight already, his face sallow, and his eyes were no longer the jet black they had been before; now they were a smoky gray, his black irises wreathed in ashes.
"Thanks," he managed, leaning back against the car. Pinpricks of sweat were across his brow. He fumbled out the aviators that Selah had stolen for him and slid them on.
Dominique joined them and looked at where Lee lay curled with pain. She shook her head. "He should never have injected himself. God. Why did I let him carry the Serum? That was exactly the kind of stupid stunt that he always pulls."
"If it hadn't been for that stunt," said Gordon, "we'd all be dead now, most likely."
Dominique pursed her lips. A group of nurses hurried toward them, two wheelchairs pushed over the asphalt. Gordon sank into his gratefully, and two nurses began to extract Lee from the back of the car with the utmost care. Dominique immediately began to speak quietly with what must have been the heard nurse, an overweight and curly-haired woman in her forties who listened with gravity and asked pointed questions. The whole group left the cars and began to make its way to the clinic.
McKnight and Selah remained by the car. Half an hour later, Dominique and Chico returned, faces somber.
"Well?" Selah looked impatiently from one to the other.
"Well nothing," said Dominique. She looked drained, exhausted. "They're going to monitor them. Do their best to make them comfortable, provide them with all the medical attention they need. But there's nothing really to be done." She placed her hands on her hips and stared at the ground. "The Hybrid program placed them in a state of suspended transition between becoming a vampire and remaining human. A state of near biological impossibility, depressing certain key functions so that they stepped closer to death while enhancing others. Cutting off their supply of serum means that some of their systems are coming back to life, while others, like their endocrine system, are starting to normalize. It's painful. It's incredibly painful and nauseating and debilitating, and they just need time."
Selah looked back at the clinic doors. "At least ... at least we'll be close, right? In case they need anything?"
"An hour away," said Chico. He reached out and placed a hand on Selah's shoulder. "I've seen friends go through DT. There's nothing much you can do but let them work their way through it. We'll be here when they're ready for us."
"Yeah," said Selah. "All right." She shrugged and hugged herself. "I just hate it, you know? Losing people. It's all I seem to be good at these days."
"Grow up," said McKnight. It wasn't particularly malicious, but it still stung. Selah stared at her. "You're not losing people. They're either dying or leaving you to heal. And it's not that you're good at losing people. You just happen to be in a war. That's what happens. Quit with the pity trip."
Selah opened her mouth, outraged, and then snapped it closed. McKnight met her gaze with weary sympathy and raised eyebrows. Selah turned away. She struggled with her anger, and then forced it down. Hell, McKnight was right. She nodded.
"Let's get going," said Dominique. "We don't have much time."
The Brightstar Lab was an hour away in a small neighboring town, a large complex of townhouses and office buildings that housed a variety of different medical practices and privately-owned research labs. The buildings were painted in pastel hues and arranged around simple fountains, with plenty of trees and grass everywhere. It was surprisingly pleasant and bland at the same time. They escorted Dominique into one of the buildings, met with a small cadre of doctors who were very curious to meet Selah, and then waited fifteen minutes before Dominique took a battery of blood samples from Selah to begin working with. Despite her clear fatigue, she asked for them to come pick her up around 9PM, and then gave each of them a tight hug and left to get to work.
Dispirited, Chico, McKnight, and Selah grabbed dinner at a local Chinese restaurant called The Great Wall. Selah snorted when she cracked open her fortune cookie. You Will Be Showered With Great Luck! Yeah, right. From there, pleasantly full, they drove to a hotel close by and checked into two rooms, a single for Chico and a double with king-sized beds for the women.
After viewing the mandatory Safety Video that the hotel insisted all guests watch, Selah took off for a walk before sunset. There was a small park only a block from the hotel and she wandered across the grass and through the beautiful stately trees till she reached a picnic table. Sighing, she sat down and simply watched a large family play with its new puppy, three little kids shrieking and chasing it and yelling out random and improbable commands that it happily ignored. She smiled. Perhaps she could finally relax a little.
Chapter 21
Nine days passed. Selah spent her time either visiting with Gordon and a very sullen Lee, or on the net, keeping abreast of the news, how the war was developing. She made no move to publish anything in her Garden. Instead, she did research, learning as to where groups were coalescing, people unhappy with the government, with the direction the President was taking them. It was hard to find honest reporting; the vast majority of stories, especially those found on major news sites, were in full compliance with the censorship laws, painting cheerful pictures of a determined citizenry marching behind their brave and resolute leader. Still, she began to discover anonymous blogs that were hosted on overseas servers, coalitions, student bodies. There was a large groundswell of dissent, but as far as she could tell, it had yet to reach any kind of critical mass.
Dominique was gone each day from dawn to dusk, waiting impatiently for the hotel to remotely unlock their front doors and unbolt their windows so that she could slip out and drive to Brightstar. At night, she would study data, plug into her Omni, and continue to work long into the night until she became as wan and dazed as Gordon. Chico urged her to rest, to eat, but Selah and McKnight stayed silent. The weight of millions of lives rested on her shoulders and it was clear that Dominique knew it.
The General called in once every evening for an update, and each time Dominique had to tell him that she still had no idea if the vaccine would work. One day, she might announce a breakthrough and then spill technical terms at the General, who nodded as if he understood. The next, she might be in the depths of a trench, stymied, frustrated, and despondent. That's when Selah saw her worth as a scientist; it was during such times of extreme frustration that she became even more controlled, determined, and resolved.
One night seven days in while McKnight was out, perhaps fifteen minutes before curfew, Dominique pulled off her Goggles and looked at Selah, hesitating.
"What?"
"How's Lee?"
"Lee?" Dominique hadn't asked once about the pair of them. "He's pulling it together." Selah shook her head. Gordon had been available for visits after the first day. Lee had only been allowed guests the prior day. "He's lost weight. He's irritable. He curses a lot or ignores you. Spends all day watching movies. Or at least staring at them."
Dominique nodded slowly. She looked down at her hands.
"What is it?" A memory came to Selah. How Lee called her 'Dom.' How uncomfortable Dominique had been around him.
"Nothing," said Dominique. She reached up and curled a strand of hair behind her ear. "No ... nothing."
Selah watched her. Instinct told her to stay quiet. Dominique grew restless under her gaze, glanced up once or twice to check if Selah was still looking at her, and then looked away quickly. "It's nothing," she asserted again, sitting up straight. "That's good. I'm glad to hear he's starting to recover."
"What happened between you two?" Selah kept her voice gentle. "Were you guys attached?"
"What?" Dominique's attempt at surprise was weak. "No." A long pause. "I mean,
well, not attached. Briefly. At first, when he arrived."
Selah nodded. Shifted around in her chair to face Dominique, who was looking down once more. "When he first arrived for the Hybrid program?"
"Yes." Dominique seemed to wrestle with herself, fight her desire to speak. "The first two months they were in residence, they were just tested and prepped. No serum. We ... Well, we got involved. It was ... it was nice." She hesitated, looked up and blushed, "Really nice. But when the serum treatment started, of course, his sexual functionality dropped. His interest. I knew it would. I'd seen it over and over again in the apes. It's just that, well. I wasn't thinking. Didn't want to. So he started to lose interest in me. Started to become cruel."
Selah pictured Lee's face. The confidence, his calm, his detachment from everything. She could see that.
"Obviously, it didn't work out. I pulled away. It was pretty awful for a while. But he's coming off the serum now. I can't help but wonder."
Selah stood up and walked over to the other woman. Crouched before her and took her hands. Dominique looked at her, indecision and fear, hope and longing writ plain on her face. "You should go visit him. Not yet. Give him a couple more days. But come with me next time. Just the two of us. If it feels right, I'll take some time with Gordon and maybe you two can talk."
Dominique held her hands tightly and searched Selah's eyes. "It's been so long. And I don't even know if I forgive him. For some of the things he said. Things he did."
Selah held her gaze and eventually Dominique dropped it. "I might. Given what he was going through. It wasn't even him. Can I say that was him, with that drug inside him? I don't know." She sounded miserable.
"Come with me. Just a quick visit. We'll see how it goes. Lord knows he can be an ass, but look what he did, what he sacrificed to get us all here. I think you might be surprised."
Dominique bit her lower lip. Her eyes grew teary and she laughed, tilting her head back and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "God. All right. All right, in a couple of days. I'll go."
That night, Selah lay in bed and thought of the men she had met over the previous few months. Theo, with his dark majesty and compelling charisma. Cloud, brilliant and sensitive, passionate and dedicated. Tom. Gentle, soft-spoken Tom. Lee, abrasive and arrogant, heroic and cynical. Hands laced behind her head, listening to McKnight and Dominique breathing slowly as they slept, she thought of them all. Theo, his face torn by Jojo's fangs, lurching toward her to kill her. Cloud, distraught as he stared at her from the ambush he had helped Arachne lay, betraying her for fear of his life. Tom, left in the silence and cold of the shattered chopper. Lee, hunched in his armchair at the Clinic, face pasty, lips pale, a ghost of himself, a coiled shadow filled with anger and hunger.
She turned restlessly on her side and stared at the dim wall. Did she love somebody as Dominique did? She thought she had, for a moment, with Cloud. Thinking of it hurt. Felt like trying to grip a handful of razor blades underwater. Her mind wanted to shy away from the thought, from the memories. She needed to speak with him. Needed his advice on how to handle her Garden, her 'public profile.' She had felt a moment of peace and forgiveness in LA before summoning the military, had felt emancipated from all petty insecurities and fears. Now, back in the real world, things weren't as simple, as cut and dry. Did she forgive him? Did she still feel for him? Staring at the wall, she realized that she just didn't know. Her mind fought to think of something else, and exhausted, she finally conceded, turning onto her back and closing her eyes.
The next morning, Selah called Cloud. She went for a morning run, showered, ate a light breakfast of fruit and juice, and when she felt ready, when she felt collected, she put her Goggles on, entered her bare Garden, and opened a window through which to call him.
He answered on the third chime. His hair was spiked every which way and he was rubbing one eye with his left hand, staring blearily down at the window which rocked in his lap. "Hey. Selah." He was fighting for lucidity.
Selah felt a pang. Despite how clean and composed and collected she felt, it snuck in on her, under her defenses, a surprise attack. A memory of how long it took him to get going, how he had once told her that as a child he would sometimes be a somnolent zombie up until eleven the morning, dragging around school yawning and staring blankly at teachers until they learned to leave him alone. That image had always stuck with her, a tiny Cloud looking up in blank confusion at exasperated teachers who towered over him.
She sat up a little straighter. "Is this not a good time?"
"What? No. Just give me a moment. Hold on." The window rocked again as he set his Omni aside, and he left its view. A moment of subtle sounds offscreen, and then his face reappeared. "I'm going to put you on 360. Is that all right?"
"Sure," said Selah. A small green light appeared next to the window, and on it were the words, "360 Mode." Selah pressed it with a FingerTip, and her Garden disappeared. She was suddenly on his bed, in his bedroom, and Cloud was ambling toward a small kitchenette, rubbing absently at his shoulder. He was wearing a black shirt with a picture of 80's Michael Jackson screenprinted on the back, a pair of shaggy pajama bottoms and big fluffy slippers. He yawned again and pulled out his coffee grinder.
Selah took a moment to look around. His Omni was recording everything around it with extremely high fidelity. His single bed, the shelving right over it laden with electronic equipment. It was a narrow apartment, a small studio, and he'd clearly just moved in. An open closet showed a few hanging shirts, and on his desk an Omni socket gaped in the center of a number of peripherals. Morning light streamed in through a veil of huge, tropical leaves, and the sunlight had that peculiar golden, syrupy quality to it particular of Miami.
"So," said Cloud. "How's Dominique's progress?"
"Good." Selah felt a pang and regretted going into 360. She had wanted this meeting to be professional. Sitting on his bed, even if he couldn't see her avatar, was throwing her completely off balance. Would it be too much of an admission to step back into her Garden? An admission of what? Suddenly frustrated at herself, at her indecision and awkwardness, she decided to press ahead.
"Look, I called you so that we could discuss my public profile. You said it needed to be approached carefully. I agree."
"Yeah, it does." He poured some beans into the grinder, placed the cap on, and paused. "Just one moment. Might be loud." Pressed down, and the sound of a metallic tornado sprang up from within the capsule-shaped grinder. Selah's irritation grew. She forced herself to stay quiet and wait. After thirty seconds, he eased back, the grinding stopped, and he poured the powder into a small French press. A kettle was beginning to chirp and whistle, and he pulled it off the stovetop and poured steaming water into the press. Selah couldn't smell the aroma, but from the sensual way the steam curled out of the glass top, it was easy to imagine.
Cloud came back over, picked her up, and set her on a small side table. It was disconcerting; she had to remind herself that she was simply his Omni's camera. He sat on the edge of his bed. "All right." He rubbed his face once more. "I obviously don't know directly how much attention you've received, not having access to your account. But I can tell from indirect means. General Adams has me preparing the social aspect of all this, and that's involved reaching out to different organizations covertly, checking on how much support we might have, how much of a figurehead people have made you to represent their dissidence."
Selah shook her head. "Social aspect? What social aspect. We release the vaccine and we're done."
Cloud stared at her. At his Omni's screen. "What if the President doesn't want to go along with our plan?"
"He'll have no choice once we prove it works."
"No? He's in bed pretty deep with Plessy already. What if he has no choice about having to shoot it down?"
Selah shook her head again. "He won't be able to."
"Not if enough people hear about it straight away, perhaps, and support us. We need to present him with more than just the reality of the va
ccine. He's already been told about it and shot it down. We need to present him with the vaccine and millions of voices demanding he run with it. And to do that, we need to gain momentum, use the attention you've garnered and build a platform to launch the vaccine on."
Selah chewed that over. "Fine. All right. So we need people to support the news. What were you thinking?"
Cloud stood up and walked back to his kitchenette. Selah watched him, his sinuous, fluid movements. He'd been a dance major in college. He poured his coffee and added a dose of cream and a dollop of maple syrup. Stirred it and turned around to look at her.
"First, we need to have you release a statement. Something stating that you're still alive, that you're free, that the government has tried to repress you, but you won't be stopped. End on this tantalizing note, promising more information, that something big is coming that will change the war. Then I arrange a publicity tour, inviting, say, the top ten individuals out there who run influential news aggregates or whatever to have one-on-ones with you in your Garden. We prep each of them, and then allow them to get the word out." Selah was shaking her head again. "Then we plan a launch party for the vaccine, use like a virtual concert space, open admission. Make the statement and demonstration on stage in front of millions and hit the ball over to the President."
"One-on-ones? Publicity tour?"
"Yeah." Cloud took a sip of his coffee. "Exactly."
Selah tried to envision it. Smiling, making small talk, hosting strangers. People perhaps as excited as Jane had been to talk to her. Shaping a public campaign. Fielding their questions about Sawiskera, about Arachne, about Theo. Something within her rebelled.