Doomware

  “I’m sorry. He called you dad. I just assumed.”

  “It was his idea.”

  “You should start to feel drowsy now.”

  His eyelids became heavy and the pain lessened. He desperately wanted unconsciousness, but something was niggling at him, something he was reminding himself he needed to say.

  “Your weapons … don’t let the boy touch them,” he said, but that wasn’t it: still the niggling feeling denied him sleep.

  “You’ve got permission to pass out, private,” the soldier said.

  Then he thought of it: he hadn’t thanked the soldier for saving his life. Before he could tell him, his eyes closed and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 28

  D + 336

  When he woke a shaft of brilliant sunlight was emanating from a chink in the curtains. He felt numb all over, a pleasant kind of numbness that spoke of trials over and recoveries under way. The boy was curled up beside him asleep, and he let his gaze rest on him for a long while, watching the undulation of his breathing, taking in the outline of his features as if he’d never seen them before. He felt enormous love for the child, even more than before, a relaxed, natural kind of love the likes of which he’d never experienced.

  Eventually he tore his eyes from the boy and looked at the shaft of sunlight. It too he studied as if it was something new: the shimmer of suspended dust particles, the variations in the rays’ light intensity, each a mere ghost of its source. He was struck by how incredible a thing the sun was, how incredible the universe was – the incredibility of existence itself. It was too incredible that the universe still existed, that within it the sun was still shining, and that he was still here to pay witness to its light.

  His right hand was in some kind of cast, and his left arm had been bandaged from wrist to elbow. It looked expertly done; the soldier obviously had medical training. Shawn’s father’s ring was back on the ring finger of his left hand, presumably placed there by the boy.

  He was tentatively examining the bandages when the soldier walked in. Gone were his cap and sunglasses, revealing dark-blond hair cut short and soulful brown eyes. He was wearing a khaki singlet, exposing tanned, muscular arms and broad shoulders, one of which sported a tattoo of a man hanging upside-down from the bough of a tree. Encircling the opposite arm was a depiction of a snake devouring its own tail.

  “Morning,” he said, smiling. “How do you feel?”

  “Not too bad considering.”

  When David spoke his eye socket ached, a reminder of the punch that had knocked him out. The boy stirred, but didn’t wake.

  “I kept you dosed up,” said the soldier. “You should start on oral painkillers in a couple of hours, but first thing’s first: your prophyl’s.”

  The soldier pointed towards his prophylactic pills and a glass of water waiting for him on the bedside cabinet before helping him into a sitting position. They took care not to disturb the boy.

  “Thanks,” David said. “What time is it?”

  “About midday.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember your name.”

  “Tarot.”

  “That’s it. Is that your first or second name?”

  “First. Tarot Dugas’s the name.”

  David swallowed one of his pills with a large gulp of water. “Unusual.”

  “That’s my parents for you,” Tarot said as he took a seat.

  David noticed that the soldier had a slow, unhurried way of talking, like a drawl that was soothing on the ear. This was mirrored in the way the man moved.

  He downed the rest of the water, sating his thirst.

  “Thank God I got to you when I did,” Tarot said. “I heard you for miles along the motorway. I almost didn’t stop: thought you were one of them. Lucky there was so much pain in your voice.”

  David gave a humourless laugh. “Yeah, lucky.”

  “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”

  “You were walking the motorway at night?”

  “It’s the best time. There’s less lighting, and whatever’s happened to their eyes means their night vision isn’t up to much. You’ve got the advantage as long as you’ve got a decent pair of glasses.”

  “I see,” David said, nodding absent-mindedly.

  “I’ve been on the road for a while, started out in Northumberland. I’ve learned a few things about when’s best to travel.”

  “You walked here from Northumberland?”

  “Yes, well, part of it I drove, until I ran out of petrol. I travel light, sleep wherever I can.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “For the coast. Thought I’d see if I could make it across to France … look for other survivors on the way.”

  “Have you found any?”

  “You’re the first. And I have to say, I can’t believe one of you’s not acy’.”

  David looked at the sleeping child. “He’s a miracle boy all right.”

  “The poor kid was worried sick about you.”

  “I’m fine,” David said dismissively.

  “Your fingers aren’t as bad as I thought; they should heal in time. It’s those bites I’m worried about.”

  David peeled back one side of his shirt, exposing the dressings underneath. “These are all bites?”

  “Most of ‘em.”

  David stared at the patchwork of dressings. He couldn’t recall being bitten that many times. Had he passed out again after all? Or had he blocked it out?

  “You should stay on antibiotics for at least a week,” Tarot said. “There’s no telling what kind of bugs are in their saliva. I cleaned you up as best I could but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  David took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know how to thank you…”

  “You don’t have to,” Tarot said, and he nodded towards the boy. “He’s thanked me enough for both of you.”

  David smiled. “He’s a great kid.”

  “Yes he is. He reminds me of my son, back when he was that age. The resemblance is quite striking actually. When I first saw Shawn I…” Tarot stared off into the distance for a moment, before recovering himself. “I guess it took me back is all.”

  David almost couldn’t bring himself to ask. “Was he…?”

  “He was cyber’ … along with his mother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Tarot smiled, but his eyes didn’t smile along with him; there was only sadness there. “He was barely into his hundreds.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I lose track of the lesser years but I’m in my ninth century.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I fought in the Gene Wars.”

  “No!”

  “And the Five Islands’ War.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “People like you and me have been around that long, y’know?”

  “No, not your age; I’m shocked they let an acy’ fight. How the hell did that happen?”

  “I volunteered, and when they refused me I volunteered again, and I kept volunteering until they ran out of excuses. They didn’t like it at first, but they got used to it.”

  David stared, open-mouthed. He could only imagine the obstacles Tarot must have had to overcome to be accepted in the armed forces. Even by the time of the Gene Wars an acybernetic soldier was unheard of. On top of that, he’d gone on to have a wife and child, like any normal person. His saviour was more than just a man: he was a miracle.

  “That was all centuries ago,” Tarot said. “I haven’t been a soldier in a long while, though I suppose I’m one again now.”

  “Where’d you get so many weapons?”

  “Army bases. They always keep a store of old-style equipment in case of malfunctions with the tech stuff. I doubt they had this in mind though.”

  “I’m hopeless with a gun.”

  “I use glasses with targeting aids. And lasers. I cheat.”

  “You’re the first acy’ I’ve ever met.”

  Tarot nodded, looking uns
urprised. “I’ve met a few in my time. Not all of them were the kind of people you’d wanna meet. How old are you?”

  “I’m a hundred this year.”

  Tarot sighed. “Just a baby.”

  David looked at him and looked away, unsure how to react. He didn’t feel like a baby; he felt older than the hills.

  Tarot must have sensed his discomfort. “I didn’t mean anything by that; anyone under a hundred seems like a whippersnapper to me.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “So you and that big guy last night had history,” Tarot said. It was clearly a statement, not a question.

  “Shawn told you?”

  “Only the basics.”

  David gave him a history of the pre-virus torment he’d had to endure at Varley’s hands, concise but leaving nothing out, detailing the various ways Varley had heaped abuse on him in ways only a fellow acybernetic could fully understand. Tarot was a good listener, attentive and accepting, his only comment being that strong bodies and weak minds often went together.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am not to have to worry about him any more,” David said.

  “I’m happy I could oblige.”

  “Y’know, I’m sure I’d just started begging for help last night … begging God … and then you appeared. How much of a coincidence is that?”

  Tarot was inscrutable. “That’s quite a coincidence.”

  “But I suppose without Varley we would never have met, would we?”

  “That’s right. I’d probably have kept walking right on by you through the night.”

  Their eyes locked and something indefinable passed between them, as if borne by some spell hovering in the air between them, connecting them. David couldn’t help thinking what a shame it would have been had this man walked on by through the night, and not just because it would have meant survivors remaining ignorant of each other’s existence.

  At that moment the boy woke up and the spell was broken. Shawn sat up and looked around groggily. He smiled when he saw David was awake and snuggled up to him.

  “Tired, little man?” David asked.

  The boy nodded.

  “Too much excitement for ya, eh?”

  “Are you going to live with us?” Shawn asked Tarot, with disarming bluntness.

  “Well, I haven’t been invited by the man of the house yet,” Tarot said, smiling.

  David felt like a bad host. “Of course you’re welcome to stay; it goes without saying.”

  “I’m just teasing you. I’ve kinda set up base across the hall. There’s plenty of room there and I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Okay. Whatever you think is best is fine with me.”

  “You hungry?” Tarot asked as he got to his feet.

  “I can get myself something, thanks.”

  Tarot held his palms out. “I’m offering.”

  “I don’t want you waiting on me.”

  “You need rest. I’ll fix something for all of us.”

  David didn’t have the strength to argue. Tarot reached into his pocket and handed something to Shawn.

  “Can you look this up for me?” he asked him. “I’m not sure of the name.”

  The boy studied the object: a syrette with a label on it. “It’s a co - ag - u–”

  “Coagulant,” Tarot finished for him. He took the syrette back and tousled the boy’s hair. “Thanks, little guy.”

  * * *

  It was only fitting that there should be one last kick in the teeth from Varley, a final parting shot from beyond the grave. It started that afternoon with a dull headache behind his eyes. Within hours he had a raging fever.

  He couldn’t bear for the boy to see him so ill and asked that he go to bed early, which he did without argument. Minutes later he vomited for the first time, bringing up the entire meal Tarot had fed him earlier. They searched his bandages and dressings for an obvious site of infection and found nothing. Tarot hovered over him, patiently meting out painkillers and antipyretics and encouraging him to drink.

  He dozed for a while, a dream-filled half-sleep which made him feel worse. Tarot took his temperature at around midnight, and when he saw the result he couldn’t stop the shock from registering on his face. He disappeared and returned a minute later with a china bowl and a flannel.

  “Keep still,” he said.

  He dipped the flannel into the bowl before pressing it to David’s forehead. The relief was instantaneous. The bowl was full of ice water, and the cold fabric against his hot brow was like an avalanche of snow smothering a campfire. David breathed deeply, his eyes tightly shut, letting the water run over his burning eyelids, thinking how only another acybernetic would have known to do such a thing.

  “The antibiotics don’t seem to be working,” Tarot said. “This might be viral rather than bacterial.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Where’s the nearest hospital or health centre? I’ll go and get some antivirals.”

  “I feel a bit better now you’ve done that,” David said, referring to the cold flannel on his forehead.

  “Your temperature’s way too high. I can’t bring it down. Nothing’s working.”

  David opened his eyes. “Don’t go outside … not now.”

  He could feel the pleading in his own eyes. If he’d had the courage he would have said “don’t leave me alone” rather than “don’t go outside”, but Tarot got the message as surely as if they’d both been cybernetic.

  “Okay,” he said.

  After a fresh dose of painkillers took effect he slept for an hour and a half and woke into hell. He was shivering but red hot all over, to the point where he imagined setting the bedclothes alight, teetering horribly on the verge of delirium. He’d never been so ill in his life. The cold hand of death seemed to be groping for him through the fire of fever, and he felt quite certain that he was going to die. Varley’s final gift was the ultimate booby prize, the ultimate revenge: another dose of torture courtesy of the germs in his stinking spit, followed by death after all.

  Tarot was dozing in a chair, his head resting against the side of the wardrobe. He jerked awake when David started retching and hastened to position a receptacle for the vomit, of which there was none left to bring up. He replenished the ice water, but when he touched the flannel to his forehead this time it was like trying to douse an inferno with the contents of an ice bucket. David grabbed his hand and latched onto it, their thumbs locking together.

  “Listen to me,” he gasped, knowing that a desperate resignation had replaced the pleading in his bloodshot eyes. “Last night, when I said Shawn wasn’t my son, I didn’t mean it. He is my son. He’s your son too, you understand? He’s everybody’s son. He’s the future of this world – if this world even has one. D’you understand me?”

  “Take it easy.”

  “No, listen to me. I want you to promise me you’ll take care of him if I die. Promise me.”

  “No.”

  David glared in angry disbelief. “Why not?”

  “No promises. They’re not worth the breath they’re spoken on.”

  “That’s not a goddamn reason!”

  “Okay, because firstly you’re not going to die ‘cause this’ll pass in time,” Tarot said, keeping his voice in that same slow, reassuring rhythm, “and secondly ‘cause I don’t need to promise anything: you know I’ll take care of him.”

  David felt his jaw quivering. He didn’t know whether to cry on Tarot’s shoulder or punch him in the face. “Say it just so’s I’ll feel better will ya for Chrissakes?” he seethed through gritted teeth, squeezing his hand, the pressure of it an implicit death grip. “Just say it. Please.”

  Tarot hesitated, fighting with himself, before he said very slowly and deliberately, “I promise you I will take care of the boy if you die.”

  David released his hand. “Thank you,” he said breathlessly. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  By morning David’s fever hadn’t improved and Tarot announce
d he would go outside to search for antivirals. The boy wanted to go with him, and David raised no objections. It was a mark of the confidence he felt in Tarot that he didn’t veto such a thing outright, despite his illness. Tarot had far better weaponry to protect the boy with after all, and a soldier’s training to go with it. When they were leaving he couldn’t help thinking he might be dead by the time they got back, and he almost choked on the lump in his throat.

  He shuffled to the bathroom cradling his hand like a war wound, every part of him aching. He felt like the walking wounded, or the walking dead like the rest of the human race. He hardly recognised the face staring back at him in the medicine cabinet’s mirror. The bruised skin. The haunted eyes. The hollow cheeks. All the little wages of physical pain.

  Opening the window, he stood and let the blast of cold air wash over him. Outside the street was littered with zombies, Varley’s body among them, the knife gone from its hand and its stomach cut open by a scavenger. He felt nothing but contempt for the thing, could have quite happily danced on the disembowelled cadaver had he not been so ill. He was still torturing him even though he really was dead now. Only Marcus Varley could have managed something like that. The bastard.

  He went back to bed and drifted in and out of consciousness. At some point Tarot returned and made him swallow a couple of red capsules that were so huge he gagged on them, but he was so far gone he barely noticed. He did note the concern in Tarot’s eyes, the fear that he might die he couldn’t quite mask entirely.

  Lost in his own world of pain, delirium took him. He moaned out loud, hands clawing at invisible foes as crazy thoughts and images careered through his mind. He became Keats on his deathbed, and Tarot was Joseph Severn, watching helplessly as his died of consumption – literally consumed from the inside out. It might have been this that made him writhe and twist, clutching at his chest and stomach as if he believed there were living creatures beneath his skin.

  Tarot kept the boy away. He mopped his brow and poured water into his mouth, limiting his movements protectively when he started thrashing about too much, trying to prevent him from damaging his fingers further.

  There were periods of lucidity. At one point he pushed Tarot away feebly, gasping, “Leave me alone, leave me! This could be contagious … You could be in danger.”