ViraVax

by Bill Ransom

  “Never use an elevator if there’s a fire in the building,” his father warned. “The shaft is just a big chimney, the smoke will kill you. Otherwise, remember if you’re stuck in a building, there’s a way out. At the top of the shaft, there’s usually an access door to another floor or to the roof.”

  The Colonel showed Harry the doorknob, opened it, and there was the bright light of day at the top of the world. He closed the door.

  “Remember,” he went on, “from an elevator, there’s a way into the shaft. From the shaft, there’s a way out. If nothing else, you can reach the doors to the floor above you and pry them apart.”

  Later, waiting out a roadblock on the way home, his father had told him something else.

  “Everything is a trap,” he said. “Before you leave the entrance to any room, make sure you have an exit. Before getting into a car, make sure it has door handles inside. Remember, every window is an escape if you can break it.”

  Only lately did Harry realize how differently he and his father saw the world. Harry saw a window as a way of enjoying the outdoors without the bugs. His father saw it as an opening for snipers, a source of deadly fragments, an escape hatch.

  “Shit!” Harry said, and snapped his fingers. “Window!”

  “What window?” Sonja asked.

  That two-way mirror is a window, he thought.

  Harry hurried into the bathroom without answering, put his face to the mirror and peered through.

  Gone!

  The spy crew had shut down and left.

  “Harry?” Sonja asked. “What are you doing?”

  He put a finger to his lips and shooed her out. Harry inspected the mirror and found that it was installed within the structure of the wall itself—nothing to pry or unscrew. He returned to his bowl in the other room, picked out three balls of rice paste that he’d formed there and handed two of them to Sonja.

  “Cover the lenses in here, just in case,” he said. “I’ll get the one over the bathroom, you get the other two. Make it as fast as you can. Ready?”

  She licked her lips and nodded. “Ready.”

  By the time Sonja covered the second lens, Harry was swinging his chair into the bathroom mirror. His muscles fought back, twitching and trembling. The chair bounced away, cracking the mirror but not breaking it. He recovered his balance and caught a glimpse of his reflection hefting the chair. What he saw made his heart race.

  God! he thought. I thought it was Dad!

  The tousled black hair, the fierce grip on the chair, the hot, focused anger in his gray eyes, all completed the image. This was his young father during their workouts in the gym. Or, later, his drunken father shattering the kitchen cupboards. Harry swallowed hard and hefted the chair again.

  This time Harry placed his feet wide apart, took a deep breath, and as he let it out, he swung the chair into his father’s twisted image with everything he had.

  Two of the legs punched through the laminated glass but Harry’s own rubbery legs dropped him to the floor. He reached up and enlarged the holes by pulling out the shards. He got out all the big ones, draped a towel over the sill and squeezed himself through, headfirst. He fell, panting and sweating, between two monitor stations.

  He gestured Sonja over and helped her through, and the two of them made it with only a few nicks and cuts.

  “Nobody here,” he whispered.

  “And no alarm,” she answered.

  “None that we can hear, anyway.”

  The room appeared to be the workstation for three or four people. All was silent except for the slight whirr of the air-conditioning fan. The little room was crowded with its three terminals and four desks, as though at least half the equipment was there for temporary storage. Sonja started for the door.

  “Wait,” Harry said. “There might be an alarm on the doors. Let’s see what we can do from here, first.”

  “Like what?”

  Harry saw the fight-or-flight gleam in her eyes and noted that she was getting better cooperation from her muscles than he got from his. He waved his hand to indicate their surroundings.

  “Like get this elevator running to get us topside.”

  Sonja rolled her eyes. “This thing’s the size of a decent house,” she said. “You’re worried about me opening a door—and you think nobody will notice if you fire this thing up?”

  “Any better ideas?”

  She pointed to the computer terminals in front of them.

  “If they’re shut down for the Sabbath, maybe we can call somebody, let them know where we are. You’re the networks whiz, aren’t you?”

  “Thank you for the recognition.” Harry bowed slightly. “First, let’s find the access hatch, so we have a back way out in case we’re spotted.”

  “You’re right,” Sonja said.

  She tiptoed to the door, cupped a hand to her ear and held her breath. “Nothing that way,” she reported.

  “Chill,” he said. “Looky there.”

  He pointed over her head, to the maintenance hatch in the ceiling over the doorway.

  “Help me drag this table over there,” he said.

  It wasn’t that easy. The table, like the desks and other heavy furniture, was bolted to the floor with wing nuts. When they unbolted the table and slid it across the doorway, Sonja discovered that the table could be bolted into place to block the door.

  “If we can cover that hole we made in the mirror, too,” he said, “we can make it mighty tough on anybody who tries to come after us.”

  Harry set a chair atop the table and coaxed the hatch screws out with the handle of his spoon. Sonja unbolted one of the desks, turned it on end and leaned it against the window.

  “With or without alarms, somebody will be on our tails,” Harry muttered. “They’ll check their monitors, or deliver dinner.”

  Sonja grunted him an acknowledgment, then slid the remaining desk snug against the first and bolted it down. Only two of the legs lined up with the holes for the bolts, but Harry could see that it would take a superhuman effort to knock her blockade free.

  “Nice job,” he said with a smile.

  “Thanks,” she smiled back, dusting off her hands. “How does it look up there?”

  “High,” he said, giving her a hand up. “Very high. But I suppose a hotshot pilot like yourself won’t be intimidated.”

  Sonja stood on the chair and poked her head and shoulders through the hatch. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s a long way up. This is huge. I’ll bet the whole Pan Am Hotel could fit in here.”

  “If it worked like it’s supposed to, it would be impressive,” Harry said. “My dad said that they have crews on these things every day because of the contractor rip-off.”

  “Yeah,” Sonja said, “but not on the Sabbath. Sure is black.”

  She ducked back inside and stepped down from the chair.

  “I suppose you want me to carry you up there,” she joked.

  “Now, that thought terrifies me,” he said. “I want to try these terminals. We’re going to need the cavalry and they need to know where to look.”

  Sonja pulled on his sleeve.

  “Let’s just go” she whispered. “Somebody will check on us, and I want to be gone when they do it.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Harry said, turning to the nearest console. “If I can get outside, I can get a message to the Agency. If anybody can crack this place, they can.”

  “All right.” Sonja’s lips were tight with disapproval. “Do it.” Then, as Harry switched on the nearest terminal, she added, “My dad told me that he used me for his password. Maybe my name will work.”

  When the machine asked, “User ID?” he responded, “Sonja.”

  “Invalid ID,” it responded. “User ID?”

  “Try ‘Louise,’ “ Sonja said. “That’s my middle name.”

  “Invalid ID. User ID?”

  “I have a number that will get us out,” Harry said. “The number Major Scholz gave me. But the dzee might inter
cept the message. If you’re ready to make a run for it, I can . . . ”

  “Try my birth date,” she said. “Let’s save ourselves all the running room we can. Use your access if we hear them coming. Try 1/12/00.”

  That didn’t do it, either, but on a hunch Harry typed, “SLB011200.”

  The voice-box responded, “Hello, Red. Your last access was 18 February 2015, at twelve twenty-four. You have fifty-six files in personal folders. Eleven messages waiting. Go to?”

  He got Red Bartlett’s personal log.

  “Harry, send your message and let’s go! They might use gas, like last time, and a pile of furniture won’t stop it. . . .”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, “I know. No problem. Let me try something here.”

  He saved the Bartlett log to a file called “Out,” then navigated himself out of the local network that tied this set of computers together. In less than thirty seconds he broke through the greater networks of the Level Five system, then into the corporate mainframe topside. From there, he thought he had a line to the outside.

  If nothing else triggered an alarm, he thought, this will.

  The viewscreen announced, “Welcome to Telcom. You have three unretrieved messages and one memo in storage. Read, Download, Help, Exit?”

  Sonja touched the top of the viewer, and Harry saw tears welling in her eyes.

  “If he left a memo, it would be a holo of himself,” Sonja said. “It would have to be right before he died. Show it.”

  “There isn’t time,” he said. “I’ll get it into the block with his other files and we’ll take it out with us.”

  Harry dumped the files, memo and messages to block. He addressed the block to Major Scholz’s Agency number and pressed “send.”

  The electronic voice reported, “Message sent one hundred percent error-free. Send another?”

  “Got it!” he said, and the first thump of a fist hit the blockade across the room.

  Harry unclipped the data block from the Litespeed and tossed it to Sonja. He typed “Y” to send another message.

  “Harry, please!”

  “Get moving,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  He turned so she couldn’t argue and typed, “SOS SOS SB & HT held fifth level ViraVax up shaft.” He hit “send” and followed Sonja out the hatch as fleshy blows rained down on the door behind them.

  Chapter 35

  Dajaj Mishwe knew that mercy was no survival trait, and he doubted that he would have shown the Caseys mercy, anyway. Mishwe was a believer, and he was the sword arm of the Archangel of Wrath. Blasphemy and betrayal had no place in the Garden of Eden, and their agents had no place amongst the faithful. So far, only Dajaj Mishwe had remained faithful to the God of Eden. The Caseys, the missionaries, all of the rest, had sold out to petty politics or cash. Vermin, barely fit for sacrifice on an Angel’s sword.

  Each missionary took possession of twelve Innocents and called themselves Children of Eden. Eden required work, it was a prize to be won. Mishwe had seen how the faithful used those Innocents to stuff the corporate coffers and quench their secret lusts. Selling the labor and the organs of their twelve Innocents was greed in God’s eyes, but Casey’s eyes never blinked.

  Missionaries who forced their Innocents to wait on them were slothful, disgusting beasts hardly worthy of sacrifice. How they would bellow at the burning!

  Bartlett had been correct to call it slavery in his memos, while Casey had preferred the euphemism “genetically induced symbiosis.”

  Mishwe knew all along it would be a Sabbath-day accident, catching the Caseys and their missionaries topside. Mishwe had his plan in force for months, and executed each stage with precision, purified with the sweet scent of sacrifice to the Lord. Good Friday was a time of entombment, and Easter a sign of resurrection of the faithful, a perfect symbol of his intent.

  Now that the two Caseys steamed on the charred carpet, and the rest of the staff disintegrated into a stinking muck around him, truly there was no turning back. Within moments the first two levels would be sealed off and rendered lifeless. His precious creations, Harry and Sonja, awaited him, safely sealed off in the elevator on Level Five.

  He knew that it was unlikely that Chang would take the sacrificial drink with the others. She was a pagan, in resistance to her indoctrination at the Master’s university, and for this good sense he almost admired her. Her work was meticulous, elegant, and Mishwe regretted that she would not live to see the transformation that her Sunspots would bring to his new world order, his Garden of Eden, his Earth.

  Even if Chang and some outsiders survive, she’ll get the blame, he thought. And no one topside will survive for long.

  The thought was very nearly a gloat, and gloating lacked dignity. Mishwe breathed deeply, a cleansing breath, and washed the thought away. His every act, his every thought and dream, must be framed in dignity or all was for naught. Adam and Eve lied to the Lord and their dignity fell away from them, leaving them a pair of ignorant grub-eaters in the desert.

  At first glimpse, the Lord commanded His Angel to drive those lying bags of carrion from the Garden, cloaked only in the shame of their true nakedness, their lack of dignity, their lie.

  Mishwe abhorred the lie as the ultimate cowardice, the seat of all betrayal, God’s reason for weeding humanity from His Garden in the first place. Neither liars nor lies would desecrate the new Eden. It was time for the Angel of Eden to heft his sacrificial sword, his hot blade of purification. Darkness would be his ally, along with the tools and opportunity provided by the Lord Himself.

  Mishwe activated the correct toggles within his gloveware, then paused a moment. The pause was not out of reflection upon the immensity of the act he was about to commit, but a moment of appreciation for his hour come round at last.

  Thanks to Marte Chang’s innovations, Meltdown slept on in the mitochondria of every staff member and Innocent. It hibernated now in the monthly shipment of vaccines distributed to the outside world, a shipment that lifted off from La Libertad’s airport just hours ago. Soon a few hundred thousand humans would be infected, to die under the first harsh scrutiny of the sun.

  Those who were not infected by the doctored vaccine would perish soon enough, for Mishwe had added a few twists of his own to the brew. The steam from their combustion carried the new infection. This design would prove to be the most highly contagious, quickly moving AVA ever made.

  Forty days and forty nights, Mishwe estimated. Then the soil of the Garden must lie fallow awhile, awaiting my Adam and Eve,

  With his preparations, Mishwe and his two charges could live nicely at Level Five for five years, ten years, even more. His weapon was human-specific, sparing the other animals of the Garden. Only Marte Chang could identify the base, and she would not live to do so.

  At the touch of a toggle, the lake behind the dam would be unleashed. The cleansing waters would wash the topside facility to the sea and scour the ground to concrete. The world would presume the entire facility lost. And the world, at least its corrupted version of humanity, would not last the month.

  Dajaj knew that he and his Adam and Eve could live forever at Level Five, sealed off in the perfect ecology he had developed. But they would not have to hide forever. In two months the danger would pass. Six months should clear the stench of the dead and they could step out into a world of fresh air and opportunity. Truly, the Garden of Eden.

  His sword would have beaten itself into a plowshare long before then. Meanwhile, cradled in the cellular fluids, Meltdown would spark a conflagration that would make Nero look like a child waving a sparkler against the night.

  Mishwe imagined the holy moment, now at hand, when everyone at Level One and Two burst to flame, becoming candles to light the way of the Lord. He flicked his right index finger inside his gloveware, and relaxed. The preinfected would die today, killed by ice water with no more sensation than an electrical snap in the solar plexus.

  Dajaj began the seal-off program for the top two levels, spiraling the
precious life support inward, downward, to maintain the core for the Angel of Eden, a support crew of selected Innocents and his Adam and Eve. Like a body in mortal danger, Mishwe did it methodically, regretlessly.

  If his plan went wrong and they dug him out, he would be a hero for his quick action at containment and for broadcasting the proper Mayday messages. All hardware of the world would remain intact, displaying the same discrimination as the old neutron bomb but without the mess. The Garden came with an infinite supply of free tools.

  Mishwe wanted to kill Marte Chang and Colonel Toledo himself. Chang, because his plan could not abide her accidental survival. She was a smart one, perhaps even smarter than himself, and he knew she could easily construct a vaccine because she developed the vehicle. No one else would have the luxury of this head start. Toledo he wanted just because it would feel good.

  He shook off the feeling, reminding himself of all the histories that went wrong because someone chose the path that felt good over the true path, the well-laid plan. Mishwe reaffirmed that his history would not be one of those.

  The body that waits, loses.

  He triggered the timing devices at the dam and felt like a sporting figure, come out on the playing field of the gods. Mishwe wondered if he would feel the departure of all those souls, as an amputee feels the limb cramp at night, as a mother grieves over the entombment of her sons.

  Did they have souls?

  The Innocents, of course, did not. But the missionaries shared in the knowledge of good and evil, the ultimate failing of Adam and Eve. To be soulless, and to sit in judgment on good and evil, that is the ultimate enemy. It must be destroyed at once.

  Mishwe had to make sure with Harry and Sonja. He wanted to believe that he’d been faithful to them, his chicks. That he’d thought of them daily, done everything possible to keep them within observation range. He hadn’t, and he’d agonized over his remission, and if this rare squander of feeling came to naught, if he created an infidel—worse, a devil—and squandered feeling on it, then surely there was no god merciful enough to save him.