Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He jogged back to his truck for the tool kit, rummaging and clanking around until he found a large wooden-handled screwdriver. Returning to the back window, working quickly but carefully, he jimmied the frame open without breaking the pane. He supposed that living in the country gave Alex a sense of security, enough that he wouldn’t have sophisticated locks. On their ranch in Wyoming, Todd’s parents rarely bothered to lock their doors.

  Crawling through the window, he found himself in the clean hall back by a washer and dryer; he smelled the old perfume of laundry detergent, but saw no clothes in the plastic baskets piled on top of the dryer.

  “Alex?” He hurried through the house, looking from side to side. All the lights were off, the curtains drawn, leaving the place in gloom. He kept expecting to find Alex crumpled on the floor, perhaps bleeding. Moving from room to room, he hastened his search. Nothing.

  Alex’s truck was here, the doors were locked, the horses had been left unfed for days, but they were both here…. Alex did not seem the type just to wander off.

  Todd stood in the large living room next to the wet bar and looked out the bay windows in back. He debated saddling up one of the horses to go search the riding paths. What if Alex had gone out after dark, after Todd left, troubled by the horse ride and the conversation, the resurrected memories? In the dimness, Alex could have stumbled and broken his neck, or fallen into a ravine, or had a heart attack.

  But the house seemed to be holding secrets, shadows hiding around corners. The air felt cool and sluggish around him, as if it had not been disturbed for some time.

  A faint, gritty odor made him look at the fireplace, to see a rumpled pile of papers and ashes, a solid stack of lab notebooks with burned edges. The crisped, bubbled outline of a blue-and-gold Oilstar logo adorned one of the cardboard covers. He brushed aside the black metal mesh screen. Black flakes of ash curled up from the consumed papers.

  A gnawing sensation grew at the pit of his stomach. On the phone Iris had told him she suspected something terribly wrong with the spread of Prometheus, but she wanted to talk to Alex before she raised any alarm. Why would Alex burn a pile of old notebooks, when he could just throw them away?

  Unless he didn’t want anybody to find them.

  “Alex?” Todd called again, then swallowed a lump in his throat. His stomach fluttered, then sank as he grew more certain he would not find the microbiologist. At least not alive.

  He walked down the narrow hall to the bedrooms, past the bathroom which smelled mildewy from old soap and clean guest towels. The floorboards creaked under his cowboy boots as he continued to the back rooms. The bed in the master bedroom was made, but the bedspread rumpled and the pillow cocked sideways, as if Alex had lain on it for a while before getting up and going somewhere else.

  On the nightstand, next to a clear glass half full of water, lay a bulky old Smith & Wesson double-action revolver. Todd recognized it as one of the older models, 1930 or 1940, but it had been recently cleaned. He could smell the cold, hard metallic aroma of the firearm.

  Todd went cautiously to the bedside and picked up the weapon, wrapping his palm around the handle-grip. The Smith & Wesson felt slick, but Todd realized it was his own sweat. He sniffed the barrel, but smelled no acrid gunpowder that would tell him it had been fired recently. He couldn’t understand why Alex had taken the gun out, then left it lying around the house. Had he lost his nerve over something? Todd wet his lips.

  When he turned back to the hall, Todd saw that the door to the other bedroom stood shut, as if closed against prying eyes. Todd gripped the cold doorknob and hesitated.

  “Alex? Are you in there?” he said, then knocked lightly.

  After a moment of silence, Todd took a deep breath, then pushed the door open slowly, expecting it to creak, afraid something might jump out at him.

  The miniblinds had been drawn, leaving the muffled room awash in watery gray light. Before Todd’s eyes could adjust, he smelled a dry, sour smell of wrongness, the lingering pit-of-the-stomach twist of death, the stench of dried flesh.

  Alex sat on a padded kitchen chair in the middle of the room, slumped and motionless, as if gravity had slowly sagged him.

  “Alex!” Todd said, then snapped out of his sluggish shock. He slapped the wall twice before he found the light switch. Sharp yellow illumination sent the shadows and murkiness fleeing. “Awww, jeez, Alex!”

  Todd took two steps forward and stopped. Alex Kramer rested in a rubbery position, as if his joints had turned liquid for a moment, then frozen into place with rigor mortis. His skin had the grayish, mottled appearance of someone who had been dead for a day or so.

  His head had cocked forward on his neck, resting his chin and his neat peppery-gray beard against the base of his throat. His eyes were squeezed shut, surrounded with the cobwebs of wrinkles.

  He wore comfortable clothes, faded jeans, a work shirt, no shoes and grayish-white socks. In his lap he clutched his eyeglasses folded in one hand. The other hand gripped a picture frame, turned face down against his jeans.

  Todd stepped forward, clumsy like an intruder, but driven. He reached out for the picture frame, but then the pointed toe of his boot kicked something that rattled hollowly on the floor under the chair.

  He bent over and picked up three dark-orange prescription pill bottles. Todd didn’t recognize the names of the drugs, but they sounded like high-strength pain killers. Under a strip of bright cellophane tape, the date on one prescription label had expired five years before.

  The pieces fell into place, rattling like bones in an empty cup. Todd pictured Alex taking out the revolver in the master bedroom, lying restless on the bed, agonizing over his decision to kill himself, and then eventually choosing another way, a method that was not so violent. But ultimately just as effective.

  Todd stood on creaking knees, blinked his stinging eyes several times, and touched the picture frame in Alex’s lap. He lifted, then pried the photograph free of the dead man’s grip. It showed a handsome woman, classy-looking, with short hair and subtle, careful makeup. She wore a secret smile that seemed to slide right past Todd, as if she had directed it at someone else.

  “Why the heck did you have to do this, Alex?” Todd whispered, squeezing the brim of his cowboy hat in his left hand. “Nothing could have been that bad.”

  On the walls in the memorial bedroom, the other photographs, certificates, documents, seemed to hum with background noise, ghosts and memories, frozen moments that Alex had trapped in this room and had refused to set free. And now he had burned all his notes on Prometheus, then gone to join his family.

  Todd stood up, his head spinning but his body unable to move. Finally, with one last glance at Alex, he went to find a phone so he could call the police, Oilstar, and Iris Shikozu.

  Chapter 29

  Iris Shikozu felt like she was stuck on the Titanic, knowing it was doomed to sink but unable to do anything.

  Aside from the muted chugging of the vacuum pumps and the air conditioner in her lab, she heard no students out in the hall, no clicking of shoes as people walked by, not even the distant sound of a professor droning on in a lecture room. She hadn’t even bothered to turn on the stereo not since Todd had told her that he was going to Alex Kramer’s house. She wished he would call, if for no other reason than to confirm what she had uncovered about Prometheus and the transportation breakdowns.

  Genetic assays had proved that Prometheus was destroying gasoline as well as devouring the Zoroaster spill. And the actual microbe Alex Kramer had provided for the spraying operations was very different from the innocuous control sample he had given Iris for initial testing and verification.

  Through Francis Plerry at Environmental Policy and Inspection, Iris had urged a drastic crackdown on gasoline sales and transportation beyond the Bay Area, at least until they could determine the spread of the Prometheus organism. But the governor had refused to take an action that might cause a panic.

  Iris spread the word anyway, hoping someone
would refute her results; but every one of her colleagues came up with the same answer. Several of the other researchers immediately saw the implications, and everyone started making phone calls.

  Random samples of gasoline were infected with Prometheus hybrids. Unexplained breakdowns were reported across the state, and the contamination was spreading exponentially from gas tank to gas tank, filling station to filling station. On the news last night, Iris had seen a story about rashes of mechanical failures popping up in Chicago, Denver, and Dallas. It was a plague, plain and simple. A petroleum plague.

  In a fit of panic, she went to the small lab sink next to the coffee pot and scrubbed her hands three times with a bar of harsh pumice soap. If this microbe metabolized octane so voraciously, it might eat the shorter-chain hydrocarbons in her own body. She looked over the instruments she had touched. The organism might start breaking down other polymers.

  She grabbed her old styrofoam cup and poured herself more steaming coffee, sipping it black as she fought to keep her hands from trembling.

  The phone shrilled at her. Nearly spilling her coffee, she wove her way around the cluttered equipment and grabbed the phone on the third ring, breathless. “Hello?”

  “Iris, this is Todd.” He sounded too serious.

  “Can I talk to Dr. Kramer? This is really important!”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” She stopped, unsure of what to say. “How can he just drop dead and leave us with this mess?” Iris set her small mouth, then sat down in a creaking old office chair behind her desk. She knocked papers aside to clear a spot to rest her elbow. “Todd, you have no idea how serious this is! Kramer did something to his Prometheus—”

  “I know. Alex burned his notes at home, then he killed himself. You should see all the cars breaking down on the roads. Whatever he did, it’s spreading like crazy! I thought he promised it couldn’t become airborne.”

  “Right now,” Iris said, a thick lump of panic rising in her throat, “I don’t believe much of anything Dr. Kramer promised.” Trying to remain calm, Iris picked up a pen and tapped it nervously on the surface of her government-surplus desk. “I’m pretty sure Prometheus is being spread from gas station to gas station. As a contaminated car fills up, it leaves some of the microbes on the nozzle. Everyone else who gets gas there picks up the infection.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?”

  “Right now we need to quarantine the area, the whole state of California if necessary. And the faster we act, the sooner we can stop it from spreading. Cars can’t run very long if their gas is infected, so that puts an upper limit on how far they can transport it. If we can get the police to close down the state borders—”

  “What about airplanes, or ships?”

  “Prometheus is fairly specific in attacking octane only,” said Iris. “I’ve got to go, there’s too much to do, too many people to contact. This is going to be rough.”

  Todd was silent for a moment. “I’m at Alex’s place, and I’ve got to wait for the police and the coroner. I think… I think he’s been planning this. He asked me to take care of his horses a few days ago.” He hesitated. “How else do you need me to help?”

  Her mind raced ahead, prioritizing which agencies to contact. She found her hands shaking—with excitement, or fear? She had too many things to do. “Uh, I have to get through to Oilstar management. There’s really no one I can depend on….”

  “Do you need me down in Stanford?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Her answer came too fast, and she realized that she did want him there, if nothing more than to provide comfort while she was trying to sort through this emergency. If only she had more time!

  Then she focused on what he was saying and interrupted him. “No, wait, no telling how long any of our vehicles is going to last. You might have a hard time getting all the way down here.”

  “You just start coordinating how we can go after this thing. I’ll worry about me,” Todd said. “And hey, if you need a contact at Oilstar, I’ll march right into Emma Branson’s office even if I have to knock over the receptionist. Don’t you take any grief from anyone either.”

  “Do I usually?”

  A pause, then a chuckle. “No, I don’t think so.”

  As she hung up Iris was already going over the details of what had to be done. If this was truly a plague, there had to be contingency plans at the Centers for Disease Control, the National Military Command Center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency—dozens of places that should be able to offer her guidance.

  Francis Plerry. She had to go through him again. He wouldn’t be much help, but he could set a few wheels in motion. At the very least he should have access to the governor in Sacramento. Iris looked for her rolodex, found it behind her mammoth-sized CRC Handbook of chemical data, and fumbled though the white cards until she pulled out Plerry’s number. The first time she dialed she got a busy signal. Damn!

  Picking up her cup of coffee, she took a big gulp that stung her tongue and dialed again. The ringing seemed to go on forever before a brusque female voice answered and put her on hold.

  She reached for her coffee again. Seconds ticked away. How long would it take for the governor to impose a vehicle quarantine that would make the Med-fly incident look like a joke?

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Plerry? This is Iris Shikozu, from Stanford—”

  As she started to speak, the white styrofoam of her coffee cup turned spongy, as if melting. Then it sloughed over her fingers. Warm liquid splashed down her blouse. Iris jumped back, shaking her hand and staring at the cup.

  The coffee wasn’t that hot. What could make the cup break down like that? Something that broke down styrofoam… hydrocarbon polymers….

  She felt her knees turn watery.

  Plerry’s voice came from the phone, now on the floor. “Hello, Dr. Shikozu? Are you all right?”

  Iris stood transfixed, staring as the cup turned into a frothy white foam with a faint, muffled crackling sound in the puddle of coffee on the floor. She slid off the chair and fell to her knees. “Oh, no.”

  “Dr. Shikozu?”

  Iris dipped her fingers in the gooey remains of the cup and plucked at the white, fizzing strands. The Prometheus vector was no longer confined to direct physical contact.

  The microbe now attacked petroleum plastics as well as gasoline.

  And it was airborne.

  Part II

  BREAKDOWN

  Chapter 30

  Navy Lieutenant Bobby Carron stepped out of the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters and craned his neck, looking into the crisp, cloudless sky. A perfect day for flying. In a few hours, he and his partner would be strapped into their identical A/F 18 fighters, blasting off from the China Lake Naval Weapons Center in the bleak California desert, and roaring across the country.

  In the early morning light, Bobby stretched his arms to toss off the last remnants of sleep. The flat military base opened up to a panoramic view of the cracked, dry lake bed—”beautiful downtown China Lake”—that spread out undisturbed for miles, white and dazzling. Chemical plants around nearby Trona scooped and processed the powdery wastes, but the U.S. Navy had claimed a chunk of the desolate landscape for its own use.

  Bobby felt rested and ready for the cross-country mission. He had a few hours until “wheels up,” but he had errands to run before his week-long absence from the base. The scheduled time was the latest they could leave and still be cleared all the way to Corpus Christie, Texas. If they took off early, so much the better—more time for beach, surf, and babes.

  Overhead, an experimental aircraft lit up its engines to break the 6 A.M. silence; flames shot out 20 feet behind the distant jet’s engines as afterburners kicked on.

  A door opened down the hall. Bobby saw a head crowned with a shock of red hair. Bobby grinned. For once he wasn’t going to have trouble getting his buddy Ralph “Barfman” Petronfi out of bed. Ever since they had been roommates at the Naval Academy, Petronfi could s
leep through anything—except on a flying day.

  Bobby whistled. “Hey, Barfman.” Petronfi’s propensity for tossing his cookies while flying was legendary.

  Barfman turned sleepy eyes to Bobby. “Hi, Rhino. Ready for the beach?”

  “Soon as I clean up my jeep. Gotta grab some breakfast.”

  “I’ll file a flight plan. Want to leave early?” Barfman said.

  “If I can get everything done.”

  “I’ll preflight us at the squadron.”

  “That’s a rog.” Bobby ducked back into his quarters to pull on his gray flightsuit from the narrow closet, patting down his many pockets to check that each held its appropriate map, keys, wallet, pen, chewing gum. Bobby went out again, hiking to the Officer’s Club to gulp down a breakfast of eggs, warmed-over steak, and powdered orange drink—a breakfast high in protein so he wouldn’t need to take a crap during the day’s flight alone in a cramped cockpit. Barfman usually fasted before a long flight, which kept him from puking into his oxygen mask if they encountered any clear-air turbulence.

  Bobby grabbed his nylon flight bag on the way to the mud-spattered jeep. He had packed the night before—swim trunks and two changes of jeans and cotton shirts. The Naval training base near the Texas beach was a favorite roost for cross-country crews, complete with surf and bikinis. Bobby had a nice life, flying every day, living on flight pay, no kids, no alimony. Once in a while he missed playing football, but flying made up for it.

  Parked in the weedy gravel lot, his black jeep was plastered with muck from a weekend of four-wheeling around dry Owens Lake. He loved doing doughnuts out in the brackish standing water and spraying salt and powder in a rooster-tail behind him. He didn’t want to waste time washing the jeep right now, but he knew how much damage the alkali mud could do to his paint job. With a little time until the preflight briefing, Bobby decided to use the base’s self-service wash three blocks down the street.