by Killing Time
“Destruction of the ozone layer over a confined area!” Fouché shouted back. “The Americans were never able to keep the hole stable or to close it when they wished!”
“And you can,” I said, astonished. “But where is the damned thing?”
“The projecting unit is on Malcolm’s island in the North Sea! It operates through a series of satellites—Tressalian satellites!”
Suddenly and from all too close came the sharp report of small-arms fire. With a speed that shocked me, Fouché almost flew in my direction, enveloping me in his big arms and then gracefully rolling with me behind some nearby rocks. When we looked up, we saw that the shots had been fired by a man who was trying to keep any more people from boarding his already overloaded helicopter, which in a few seconds took off and began a flight toward the southeast.
“Do not stand,” Fouché said, “until we have received the all clear from the colonel.”
Breathing hard and shaking my head, I studied my companion for a moment. “Julien,” I gasped, “what the hell are you doing here, anyway?”
He smiled again. “Saving your skin, just at the moment, Gideon.”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “What are you doing out here with this bunch? You were one of the most renowned and respected scholars in your field.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “And one of the unhappiest.” Then, catching sight of a signal from Colonel Slayton, he pulled me up. His voice softened somewhat as we continued to move forward through the dust and the heat toward the target tunnel’s entrance. “You see, Gideon, my wife was one of the first victims of the staphylococcus epidemic.” I tried to express my sympathy, but he quickly waved me off. “There were many millions who shared my tragedy. But what troubled me most was that she had predicted the manner of her own death years earlier. She was a surgeon, you see. And she had repeatedly told me that economic pressures were causing her colleagues and their nursing staffs to attend to so many patients that they had begun to ignore fundamental practices that took up precious minutes—such as washing their hands. Did you know, Gideon, that the breakdown of hospital hygiene was the single greatest cause of the ’06 plague? And why? Why should people like doctors and nurses, people with lives dependent on them, feel such pressure?”
He spat at the ground, anger mixing with his sorrow. “Because our world had sanctified the goal not of success but of wealth. Not of sufficiency but of excess. And nothing has embodied and propagated that philosophy more than the Internet and all that has followed in its wake. All that mindless, endless marketing of useless goods to those who do not need them, who cannot afford them—until one day compassion is utterly destroyed by avarice gone mad. Politicians, insurance companies, and, yes, even doctors and nurses become so madly bound up in the desire for profit and acquisition that they forget that their first duty is to serve and to heal. They neglect every fundamental principle and practice—even something so simple as washing their hands …”
So there it was. Of all the people on the ship, Fouché was the one whose reasons for participation I hadn’t yet been able to fathom, simply because molecular biology didn’t seem to have any obvious connection to the business of revising history and combating the information society. And, as it turned out, it was less a professional imperative than a personal one that had driven him into this active exile.
“At any rate,” he went on, “when I was a teacher to Malcolm and les frères Kuperman, I at first thought them simply an amusing collection of university pranksters. But when I later learned how deep their convictions ran, I decided I would cast my lot with them. And perhaps if we succeed—perhaps if Malcolm is right and the great body of the world’s people can be shown the dangers of this age—then perhaps also the deaths of the millions in such nightmares as the epidemic will mean something.”
His eyes went narrow as he continued to watch the others, and then his voice picked up strength: “Ah! We are cleared to enter the tunnel, I see. Time for you to make your first appearance on the grand stage, Gideon!”
The events of the next hour or so were a strange but exhilarating combination of a visit to a hospital for the criminally insane and some boyhood adventure tale brought to life. Leaving the Kupermans to stand guard at the tunnel’s entrance, Slayton, Tarbell, Fouché, and I made our way down through the Islamic terrorists’ labyrinthine underground lair to an enormous chamber that was hung with silk banners. Against the walls of the chamber sat a collection of young women who appeared, through their veils, to be extremely beautiful, along with a dozen children. And atop some cushions placed on a plush carpet in the center of the space reclined its sole male occupant, that internationally infamous character who went by the rather ambitious name Suleyman ibn Muhammed. From the look of things in the chamber I guessed that ibn Muhammed was a firm believer in polygamy; and from the look in his eyes, I could see that he was also quite a disciple of opium, the sickly sweet smell of which mingled with the strong scent of earth to produce an oppressive atmosphere around us.
It was obvious that ibn Muhammed was in a deranged state, so I focused my attention on his women. Speaking through Tarbell—who turned out to be a master linguist, in keeping with his work as a consummate forger—I described what was about to happen to the countryside around them, using what imagery concerning divine fire I could remember from a college reading of the Koran. As I was speaking, the temperature, even that far underground, continued to rise at an alarming rate, and I pointed out that this had nothing to do with the Americans, which meant that if the women and children died, they would not enter Paradise as martyrs. Ibn Muhammed tried to voice protests but could make no sense; and so eventually the women took their children and followed us out, boarding one of the last vehicles to depart the area and leaving their leader behind to bake in what would shortly become an underground oven.
Our team got quickly and safely back aboard our vessel, to be greeted by Malcolm, whose condition was much improved. As the ship began to withdraw to the north, he asked a flood of questions about the mission, but I for one was utterly spent and told him that I couldn’t possibly talk without getting some more substantial rest than I’d had that morning. Stumbling back through the corridors and into my quarters, I found them darkened, save for the glow of a lone candle that was sitting on an antique night table—
And by the light of that singularly low-tech implement, I could see Larissa waiting in my bed, naked under a comforter and smiling her most charming smile. Ordinarily this would hardly have been an unwelcome sight; but given all I’d heard that morning, there was nothing ordinary about the situation.
Larissa instantly read the trepidation in my face. “Oh, dear,” she sighed, the silver hair wafting around her face and the dark eyes glittering. “The boys have been talking, I see.”
“Yes,” I said.
She studied me carefully, and behind the coyness I thought I could see genuine disappointment. “Scared you off, did they?”
I shook my head. “Not necessarily. But I’m curious, Larissa. You see, they didn’t tell me the only story I really need to hear.”
“Oh?” She dipped a finger in the candle’s pooling wax. “And which one might that be?”
I took a tentative step inside the doorway. “What drove you and your brother to do all these things? Originally, I mean. I’m sorry, but I am a psychiatrist—you must’ve known that I’d ask. Surely Malcolm knew.”
Larissa just kept smiling. “Yes. We both did. Well …” She lifted the comforter that covered her. “You’d better come to bed, Doctor, and let me explain.”
I stepped fully inside and closed the door to my quarters just as, in the distance behind us, the first of the pilotless American fighter-bombers began to release their payloads, raining cataclysmic destruction down on the now-burning Afghan plain.
C H A P T E R 1 9
That man’s brutality conceals itself behind a respectable face more often than an evil one should come as news to no one, though I’ve never fou
nd it any less sad or infuriating for being so apparent. Having passed my own childhood among socially admired but covertly violent adults, I’ve always felt a particular kinship with those who have not only suffered abuse but suffered it at the hands of people who are deemed in some way estimable by society at large. Which is why, I’m sure, my comradeship with Larissa and Malcolm Tressalian was cemented so firmly during our journey north that morning. Among the many cases of childhood horror that I’ve investigated, theirs remains the only one I can call truly unique; and if ever there were a story guaranteed to rouse the familiar pangs of sorrow and outrage in my heart, the one that I listened to Larissa tell in the candlelit stillness of my quarters was it.
As I’ve mentioned, Malcolm and Larissa’s father, Stephen Tressalian, was one of the first and most powerful leaders of the information revolution. A celebrated prodigy as a child, the elder Tressalian went on in early adulthood to design the hardware and software for an Internet routing system that became standard international equipment and the cornerstone of his empire. The achievement brought him fame, wealth, and a wife, a beautiful film actress possessed of that polished but no less pedestrian form of mental facility that so often passes for intelligence in Hollywood; and further dramatic innovations in the field of information delivery added even more stature to what had already become a household name.
From the beginning Stephen Tressalian was portrayed in the media as somehow nobler than the average information baron. He spoke about the social and political advances that information technology was supposedly bringing to the world often, publicly, and well—well enough to have legions of admirers among not only international business and political leaders but rank-and-file Internet users, as well. There was much tabloid interest, therefore, when the technocrat and his bride announced the birth of their first child, a boy, in 1991. As a toddler Malcolm displayed a precocious brilliance that equaled his sire’s; yet that ambitious man was not to be satisfied with a son who could merely match his own achievements. Unlike most fathers, Stephen Tressalian longed for an heir who could outstrip him, believing that such would only add luster to his own legacy. And so he began to cast about for ways to artificially augment Malcolm’s nascent genius.
By sinister coincidence, during the mid-1990s scientists at various universities and institutes were tampering with the genetic structure of intelligence in mice and other small animals by altering the bio-chemical mechanisms that controlled learning and memory. Responsible researchers shielded both their work and its as-yet-inconclusive findings from the general public, reminding the curious of the eternal biological verity that mice are not men. But rumors about the studies began to circulate, and before long there was irresponsible speculation about the possibility of genetically treating human children—whether in the womb or after birth—to enhance their ability to comprehend and store information.
For the right price, then as always, scientists could be found who were eager for a chance to experiment, even if illegally; and thus it was that Malcolm, at the age of only three, found himself entering a small private hospital in his family’s home city of Seattle. The official explanation, formulated with almost incredible cunning by Stephen Tressalian and the gene therapist he had selected, was an attack of the new strain of antibiotic-resistant bacterial encephalitis that had been popping up in various parts of the world. In well-rehearsed, utterly convincing statements that prompted widespread public sympathy, Tressalian and his equally ambitious wife tearfully announced that Malcolm’s case was so severe that he might emerge from his hospital stay with permanent neurological damage: an actual and distinct possibility, of course, given the experiments that were about to be performed on his mind.
I still shudder to think what those weeks must have been like. At first the treatments seemed to go well, and Malcolm exhibited a radically expanded mental capacity: a disorienting enough experience for a three-year-old. But then, midway into the course of the injections, his body seemed to rebel. Primitive functions—breathing, digestion, balance—became impaired, and there were unexplained bouts of terrible systemic pain and headache. The gene therapist had his own theory as to why—the human brain was not possessed of infinite resources, he told Stephen Tressalian, and with so much neuronal activity going to higher functions, there was the distinct possibility that the autonomic systems were being starved. But he was no physician, and Tressalian was too committed to his plan (as well as too afraid of being found out) to bring in any specialized medical help. Then too, despite all the terrible side effects, the boy’s intellectual powers did continue to grow at an exponential rate, producing results that eventually satisfied even his father. After three months Stephen Tressalian called the project off, telling himself, his wife, and anyone else who knew about the work that it had been a gift for his son as well for genetic research and the future of mankind.
Small matter that when Malcolm emerged from the hospital—his arms gripping a pair of pathetic little crutches that had to do the work of his suddenly disobedient legs, and his hair mysteriously turned almost silver—he was faced by a crowd of reporters whose expressions of horror he was now entirely wise enough to comprehend. What was important was that the boy would be brilliant—no, was brilliant—and that the next time Stephen Tressalian engaged in such an experiment he would be armed with enough data to do a far better job.
For there would be a next time. Soon after Malcolm’s release his mother became pregnant again, and this time it was she who entered the private hospital, as Stephen Tressalian’s gene expert had determined that Malcolm’s comparatively advanced stage of physical development had had something to do with his adverse reaction to the therapy. The fetus that would become Larissa received a refined course of injections in utero, and the change seemed to do the trick: when she was born her body exhibited none of her brother’s physical disabilities, while the power of her mind was quickly revealed to be astounding. In addition, her beauty from the first looked to exceed even her mother’s. In every way, Larissa seemed the living vindication of all the risks her parents had taken.
Of course, there was the strange matter of that silver hair, with which Larissa too had been born; but Stephen Tressalian refused to see this as anything other than a coincidence and emphasized the differences between his two children rather than their similarities.
“He never even suspected the most important thing that Malcolm and I had in common,” Larissa said, as we lay on my bed together. Yes, together: for her story had quickly transformed my uneasiness about her work as an assassin into an emotion that ran much deeper than the infatuation I’d felt to that point.
“Which was?” I murmured, touching her silvery locks and looking deep into her ebony eyes.
She looked at the ceiling rather blithely. “We were both a little mad. At least, I can’t think of any other way to describe it.”
It didn’t seem an entirely serious statement. “I’m sure you were,” I said in a tone to match hers. “And your parents never suspected?”
“Oh, Mother did,” Larissa answered. “The entire time we were poisoning her she kept screaming to Father that she knew we were killing her and that we were both insane.”
I propped myself up on my elbows and dropped the bit of her hair I’d been toying with. “ ‘Poisoning’?”
But Larissa didn’t seem to hear me. “Father never would believe it, though,” she went on. “That is, not until we pushed him out of the airplane. Then—just then—I think he realized that there might have been something to it …”
C H A P T E R 2 0
I sat up on the bed. “How old were you?” was all I could think to say.
Larissa’s face screwed up in a childlike fashion. “I was eleven when we took care of Mother. The business with Father happened about a year later.”
Utterly at a loss, I found myself reverting to the role of psychiatrist. “And did they—was it—premeditated?”
She glanced at me a bit dubiously. “Gideon, everything Malcol
m and I do is premeditated. It’s what we were bred for. But if what you’re really asking is whether or not there was provocation, then the answer is yes, there was.” She looked at the ceiling again. “Rather a lot, actually.”
I kept watching her, retreating further into professional objectivity yet somehow angry with myself for the reaction. “Such as what?” I asked.
She suddenly gave me a small, genuinely happy smile and pulled me back down against her warm body. “I like sleeping with you,” she said. “I wasn’t sure I would.”
I returned the smile as best I could. “A gift for flattery was not, apparently, the primary goal of your genetic engineering.”
“I’m sorry,” she laughed. “It’s just that—”
“Larissa,” I said, touching her mouth. “If you don’t want to tell me about it, you don’t have to.”
She took my hand. “No, I will,” she said simply. “It’s really not very complicated.” She turned to the ceiling again. “Father’d bred me to be smarter and prettier than Mother—so I suppose it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise when he decided that he’d rather have sex with me than with her.” I winced in shock, but Larissa proceeded with a detachment not uncommon to victims of such trauma. “She thought it was my fault—he’d have sex with me, and then she’d beat me for it. Malcolm always tried to stop both of them. But he’s never had any real physical strength.” Her eyes glistened with profound love and admiration. “You should have seen him, though—swinging those crutches at them, calling them every evil name imaginable.”
“Which they deserved,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Cognitively, as they say. Emotionally—it’s a bit trickier. So—eventually we decided we’d just have to get rid of them. Mother first, because she was not only vicious but completely useless. Father—well, we had to wait, to let him finish building the satellites.”