by Jaspre Bark
"Great Chief don't do this, I implore you," said Cheveyo. "For the sake of our friendship, of everything we wanted the UTN to be. For the coming of the Fifth Age of Man."
"It's for the sake of all those things that I pass judgement Cheveyo," said Hiamovi, with genuine sadness. "You're a proven traitor to your own people. I'm going to expel you from the UTN for life. You're to be taken from this hall and confined under armed guard until the Neo-Clergy is no longer a threat to our people."
Ahiga nodded and Hastiin and Akecheta seized Cheveyo. Cheveyo glared at Ahiga as they dragged him from the hall. Ahiga met the Hopi's gaze. He acted as though he was unmoved, bored even by the Hopi's reaction. Inside though, he was choking on his anger.
"Brothers and sisters," said Hiamovi once Cheveyo was gone. "I know some of you were taken in by Cheveyo's promise of a Neo-Clergy reward. I know you were going to speak out with him. I don't approve of your actions but I won't have you hunted down and expelled. Now is not the time to turn against each other. That is what the white man wants. Now is the time for lenience and unity. To show we can come together in a common purpose. For this reason I give a full pardon to all of Cheveyo's conspirators as long as they give up their attempts to sabotage us, and start to work with us again."
There was a huge cheer at Hiamovi's magnanimity. Everyone clapped, stamped and whooped victory cries. Ahiga was impressed. He would have rooted out all of Cheveyo's sympathisers and put them down with brutality. Instead Hiamovi had effectively silenced them. No-one would dare speak out against the war now, or they'd be branded a traitor. Yet he'd still managed to look merciful and just while he did it. He'd forced everyone to side with him and made it look as though he'd restored unity where there'd been dissent and division.
The rest of the meeting went exactly as Ahiga had planned. He couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. He didn't feel victorious though. He just felt an uncontrollable anger growing inside him. At first he tried to ignore this, it made no sense. Then he realised where it came from.
It was the Hopi's glare as he was dragged out. Ahiga had seen that self same look before. From the most beautiful pair of brown eyes he'd ever seen. Eyes that had looked up at him along the barrel of a pistol. A barrel he'd pushed between two tender lips. Lips that could have sealed Ahiga's fate if they'd chosen to.
Instead they were wrapped silently around his gun. Ahiga still felt the recoil as he squeezed the trigger and silenced those lips forever. He still heard Fitch and Golding's laughter. "That's the end of that little faggot!" Fitch had said.
"He ain't gonna fuck with any of the 57th Street bangers no more," Golding had said. "Ain't that right Tom?"
Ahiga had dropped the gun and left the room. He vowed right then he'd make them pay. Now he was about to make good on that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cortez was tired and hungry. He hadn't eaten since the previous night and he hadn't slept since the night before. All their provisions had gone down with the whore. The brave, dead whore that Cortez couldn't find it in himself to hate anymore.
He said nothing about his hunger and fatigue and neither did Anna or Greaves. He could see they weren't taking it well. Anna was quiet and withdrawn. She walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped, hugging herself. She shivered whenever she stood still.
Anna had taken the whore's death very badly, screaming and kicking as the vehicle went over the edge. Greaves and Cortez had to pull her back to avoid the lava that splashed back up onto the bridge, sizzling as it cooled to form part of the surface. Cortez had noted, with the air of detachment he got in those situations, that this is how the bridge must have formed in the first place.
Anna had cried for several hours after that and there was little Greaves or Cortez could say to console her. They were dealing with the loss themselves. Once she'd cried the whole thing out she had just sunk into herself. Cortez couldn't think of anything to say to comfort her and not even the words of Jesus or Mohammed, peace be upon them, sprang to his lips.
Greaves was not in a good way either, he was nearly out of painkillers. Cortez could see that he was trying to ration his remaining supplies and was still walking bow legged on account of the burns on his thighs. Whenever he stood up, the scent of rotting flesh wafted off him.
Greaves had taken them around the edge of the plateau in order to come back on themselves towards the opening of a ventilation shaft in the centre. This was apparently to avoid being picked up by the lab's security. It was a favourite tactic of Greaves. Cortez was beginning to recognise them now. He no longer thought of the little guy as his employer. Cortez instinctively knew the haul that went down with the whore and her vehicle was the last payout Greaves was ever going to make and Cortez hung around now out of a sense of obligation.
He felt a little like he'd let Greaves down by getting him tortured, even if he had saved his life after that. Now he wanted to make sure the little guy stayed out of trouble in the final stages of the mission. Cortez felt he owed him that at least.
He also felt responsible towards Anna. There were few women in his life he had thought of as friends and there were even fewer Christians, especially since his conversion. But Cortez thought Anna a very dear friend, no matter what either of them believed in. He felt there was something holy about her intentions to find the virus in the complex below. He wanted to make certain that she saw this through to the end.
They sat for hours by the ventilation shaft, watching the sun go down as Greaves had been insistent they only attempt to enter in the dead of night. They said very little as they sat together. There was very little any of them had to say. Greaves had a pocket watch that he kept consulting every half hour. Timing was everything in this operation he told them.
Cortez was about to stand to get the blood flowing in his legs when Anna cried out. She clutched her stomach and writhed as though in pain. Cortez bent over her to see if she was alright and Anna, forgetting herself, clasped hold of his robes and pulled herself close.
"It knows I'm here," she said, choking out the words between spasms of pain. "Merciful father, so many of them. So hungry for me." She clung on to Cortez who did not know how to respond. He did not wish to be disrespectful of Anna, to compromise her modesty. He felt uncomfortable being so close to her, but he was the only person to whom she could be close.
To Cortez being physically close to another human being meant he was going to hurt them. He was very good at causing pain. He knew little about giving comfort. He cast his mind to the Qu'ran and remembered Muhammad himself, peace be upon him, had said, "I commend you to be good to women." While Allah had been explicit in saying: "Whether male or female; you are of one another."
She felt tiny next to him, whimpering in pain. Cortez placed his large, scarred arms around her. This felt strange to him, but not unpleasant. He didn't believe it was wrong. He was honouring the teachings of the prophets, and helping his friend.
"It's your biogenic field," said Greaves. "It can sense your proximity. I imagine if you were to examine the virus under an electron microscope you would see an increased level of activity. Something akin to excitement, no doubt. It senses in you the potential of what it might become. It feels the hunger of all life to evolve, to improve its condition and to grow more powerful."
Greaves words didn't help Anna any, but after a while the pain died down and she was herself again. She pulled away from Cortez, suddenly embarrassed by their closeness. Cortez, for his part, didn't know where to put himself either and they turned away from each other. Greaves saved them any further uneasiness by glancing at his watch and deciding it was time to crawl down the ventilation shaft.
Taking a Swiss army knife from his pocket, Greaves undid the screws on the grill. The shaft was a sheer drop, so they proceeded by pressing their palms and their feet against opposite sides and shuffling down. Cortez could see Greaves was having trouble with this. He was weak from pain and lack of food and the effort probably wasn't good for his wounds.
Fo
rtunately the vent changed direction, slanting off at an angle about twenty feet down. Greaves let go of the sides with gratitude and slid down the smooth metal of the shaft. Cortez and Anna followed suit. They crawled along the last few feet of the shaft as it became horizontal.
The shaft ended in a grill, six feet off the ground, that looked onto a corridor. Greaves snipped a hole in each corner of the grill's wire and reached through to undo the screws holding it in place. They lifted the grill off but Greaves made them wait before climbing out of the shaft.
"As part of an energy efficiency drive, the security system only ever uses a third of it's cameras at any one time," said Greaves without looking up from his watch. "They're programmed to go on and off in a predetermined sequence. If you know the sequence you can pass through the building without once being caught on camera. There's only a skeleton security crew posted this time of night, so if we're lucky, we won't run into any of them on the way there." Greaves looked up from his watch. "Right. Time to go."
Cortez helped Greaves out of the shaft then lowered Anna down without making a noise. They crept along a labyrinth of corridors, each one looked identical to the last with only the numbers on the doors varying. Greaves would stop them occasionally, look at his watch for a moment, then tell them to continue.
The whole place felt like a morgue or a hospice to Cortez. It wasn't anything specific he could put his finger on. It just felt like somewhere that people came to die.
They followed Greaves around a corner and walked straight into a wall. No doors, just a dead end. Greaves looked confused. He put his hands on the wall to see if it was real, then he looked back round the corner to check where they were. "This can't be right," he said. "This should lead to a flight of stairs. I memorised the whole map. I've got a photographic memory and perfect recall."
Anna turned and walked back down the corridor. "It's this way," she said. She was as confident and nonchalant as Greaves was flustered and confused.
"Wait," Greaves said. "Where are you going? You'll get us caught. You can't possibly know where we are."
Anna spoke in a calm voice. "I know exactly where to go. It's calling me. You might not understand this Mister Greaves, but every molecule in my body is alive with the sound of its need."
"Err, well... yes. Of course I understand. I've just never heard you talk this way before. We have to wait for this camera to go off then you better lead the way."
Cortez smiled. Greaves was not used to someone knowing more than him. Knowledge was how he kept control of things. Now they were in Anna's hands. They followed her back along the corridors and down two flights of stairs.
As they rounded a corner they heard footsteps coming towards them. Anna, Greaves and Cortez froze. Greaves glanced at his watch and then at the camera mounted just above them. He signaled that they had ten seconds until the camera came on.
The footsteps moved away and Cortez realised he had been holding his breath. Anna led them to a set of double doors. They looked impregnable. Beside them was a keypad.
Greaves inspected the keypad and nodded. "They never change," he said, smiling. "Doesn't matter what happens to the world, they use the same old security tricks. The code is a basic algorithm, with two variables determined by the number of the floor and the department. Now let's see..." Greaves started to tap away. He looked happier than Cortez had seen him in a while.
The double doors clicked then opened with a pneumatic hiss. Anna strode through them as if she was being pulled by some invisible force. Greaves was still tapping at the keypad which was now making a high pitched whining noise. Cortez was not certain if he should stay and look after Greaves or go and accompany Anna.
Greaves waved him on. "It's okay. You go after Anna. I just have to override and re-set all the codes. It's just a precaution. I won't be long." Cortez left him and hurried after Anna. She was marching past cages of rabbits, rats and mice.
The doors hissed shut behind him. Cortez hoped Greaves wouldn't need pulling out of the shit anytime soon. Right now he had to look out for Anna.
Greaves was going to do a number on their internal coding. They'd always underestimated him. That's how he'd gotten away and stayed one step ahead of them.
Using the keypad to access the whole complex's CPU, Greaves sent a counter command worming its way back through the system, changing the codes for every electronic lock in the place. It would take them three or four hours to isolate and countermand the code he'd set up, once they'd noticed. Until that time he was in control of every security door in the complex. That would hopefully give them the edge they needed to get out of the place with the virus.
Greaves punched in the new code and the doors hissed open once again. The code would change every two minutes, based on a cunning variation of the geometric theta progression. At the moment only Greaves knew what the code would be at any one time.
As Greaves stepped into the lab, he remembered a novel from a summer school he had attended in American Literature when he was thirteen. He was home from MIT and had no-one to play with. He didn't have any friends his own age and his fellow students were college kids, at best they thought him cute, at worst a victim for pranks. So his parents sent him on courses at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts during the vacation.
The novel was by Thomas Wolfe, its title was You Can't Go Home Again, which always had a special significance for Greaves, it seemed to sum up his own life. Up until this moment, when standing in the lab Greaves found suddenly he was 'home again'.
It all came flooding back to him. It was the sterile smells that did it, evoking a host of memories. His heart beat faster as he remembered the thrill of discovery. The methodical application of process and the intuitive teasing of a theorem from a growing set of results. Oh God he'd missed it.
For a second he thought he'd give anything to be back there. Making things happen, proving his theories, all of them. Proving to his father that he was more intelligent and he did have more ambition.
But that life was gone now. They'd stolen it from him, stolen his last chance to live out that dream. Now he was going to steal their prize discovery in return. Steal it and use it properly. This was his real destiny.
He hadn't realised it when he first joined their project. He was just glad to be back in research. But from the moment they employed him he was fated to take the virus and rebuild humanity.
Greaves was impressed by how well equipped the new labs were. Beyond the room with the caged creatures there were many fascinating bits of apparatus and technology. He was sorely tempted to take a quick tour of the whole facility but he didn't have time.
Anna would have gone straight to the virus. The biological imperative that now impelled her would override everything else in her brain. He had to find her and Cortez. They would need to be told how to remove the virus from containment and how to transport it out of the complex.
To his left Greaves saw a sign for a virology farm. There had been talk of creating such a facility when he had worked at the previous lab. An artificial environment in which the natural evolution of viral strains could be hot-housed and accelerated. Greaves couldn't resist taking a look, after all, it was on one of three routes to where the Doomsday Virus was contained.
He tapped the entrance code into a keypad and the door slid open. The temperature was much lower inside and there was a thin vapour of condensation in the air. Greaves peered through the mist and tried to make out the contents of the lab. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement.
Greaves peered over to the other side of the room and was shocked to see a figure wearing a bio-hazard suit. He didn't realise he was at risk of infection. He hadn't expected the labs to be manned at this hour.
"What the hell are you doing here?" the figure demanded. "How did you get clearance? What's your command sector?" Greaves had been so confident the place would be empty that he didn't know how to respond. "Tell me your rank and centre number. Who sent you here?"
Greaves su
ddenly recognised the voice. It was Joe Black Feather, the Native American virologist. He'd never worked directly with the man, but he'd seen his work. He'd been through the man's results several times on audio file. Greaves just had to hold Joe where he was long enough to get through the other exit, then he could lock him in. The man didn't have the new codes to get out, so he could be contained.
"It's just a routine check," said Greaves. "Sinnot was surprised to see you working late and sent me to check if you were taking the customary precautions." Sinnot had been project leader when Greaves last worked for them. He dropped the name, hoping that would be enough to keep Joe quiet.
"Sinnot detailed me to this shift," said Joe. "Why would he be surprised to see me working late? Who are you and why would he send you? You're not even properly suited up. Don't you know there are live specimens in this room?"
Greaves had backed up to the other door. There wasn't a keypad next to it. There were no other visible means of opening it. He would have to get quickly back out the way he had entered. Joe was walking towards him and was now directly between Greaves and the exit.
"You're right of course," said Greaves. "I didn't realise you were handling live specimens. I'll go suit up."
"How could you not realise I was handling live specimens? That's what we do in the farm. Who are you anyway?"
Joe was right in front of him now. Greaves stepped to his left and Joe moved to block him. Greaves tried to walk around him and Joe stepped back in front of him. He wasn't going to let him out until he had answers. Greaves could think of nothing to say.
He pointed behind Joe to the door. "Look here he is. Now we'll get this sorted."
Joe turned around to look and Greaves rushed him. He pushed Joe hard and he fell, taking Greaves down with him. The pain from his wounds was so great that Greaves had white flashes before his eyes. He was less steady on his feet than he realised but he was the first back on them and he bolted for the door. Joe grabbed his ankle and Greaves tried to kick him off but it was too painful. Joe started to pull him over again. Greaves cast about for something to grab hold of and his hand landed on a metal stool.