Just a Couple of Days

by Tony Vigorito

  “Hey there, fella!” General Kiljoy bellowed like artillery fire. “You don’t need to be checking if I have balls! See these stars?”

  “Meeko!” I commanded. “Kapow!” Meeko sat obediently, and I explained that I had been in the habit of watching old Batman reruns when I’d adopted him, and so had trained him using the onomatopoeias that covered the screen whenever a punch or kick was thrown.

  “Is that right?” General Kiljoy marveled, looking at Meeko in amazement. “Whammo!” he yelled, punching the air in front of him. Meeko cocked his head in canine confusion.

  “He doesn’t know that word.”

  “He doesn’t, huh?” General Kiljoy put his hands in his pockets and idly began playing with his privates, a practice that turned out to be a nearly constant habit of his. “What words does he know?”

  “Try B-I-F-F,” I offered. “That’s how you get him to shake.”

  “B-I-F-F?” he repeated, as if we were spelling out C-A-N-D-Y in front of a four-year-old. He looked down at Meeko, who was still sitting obediently, and swung an uppercut, yelling, “Biff!” Meeko pawed at the air, and General Kiljoy shook hands with my dog.

  “That’s very interesting how you trained your dog, Doctor.” Tynee stepped forward. “But I’m sure General Kiljoy is anxious to get our meeting started.”

  “I’m anxious for you to keep your pink panties on, Tibor.” General Kiljoy motioned Tynee back, then looked at me again. “Can he play dead?” he asked hopefully. “Does he know how to play dead?”

  “Just say B-A-N-G.”

  General Kiljoy smiled, then made a gun with his hand and pointed the index finger barrel at Meeko. “Bang!” he hollered. “Bang! Bang!”

  46 Tynee and I returned to the patio to wait for General Kiljoy, who was having a grand time pretending to shoot my dog. Meeko, for his part, yelped and threw himself down again and again, wagging his tail like he had just hijacked the gravy train. If only all animals could be so joyous when they’re shot at.

  The two of them joined us after a bit, both panting heavily. “Whooee, Doctor. You got yourself a fine hound.” Meeko sat next to him, gazing up in hopeless devotion. Anyone who paid any attention at all to Meeko won his friendship immediately, even when they made believe they were killing him.

  “He is something.” Tynee leaned forward and patted Meeko on the back. “But Dr. Fountain here, well, he can do more than a few clever tricks.” He patted me on the back, too.

  General Kiljoy studied me as if I were a teenager taking his only daughter out on a date. I smirked pubescently and shifted in my seat. “You come highly recommended, Doctor. I hope you consider our offer seriously.”

  “Not to worry, General,” Tynee gleefully interrupted. “Dr. Fountain agreed to work on Operation Small Change at breakfast this morning.”

  My smirk broadened into an all-out goofy grin, shamelessly excessive. I still had a buzz from the check I’d received.

  “Well, well.” General Kiljoy looked at me in genuine astonishment. “Congratulations! Welcome to the millionaires’ club!” He extended his hand to shake mine, but tightened his grasp prematurely, thus catching only my fingers in his bruising grip. He let go immediately, homophobic disgust coloring his bellicose features. “I’ll be damned, though,” he said, wiping his hand on his jacket. “I thought you’d be a harder nut to crack.”

  “No . . .” was all I could think to say.

  47 “Let’s get down to business then.” General Kiljoy slapped his knees. “What we have created is the ideal incapacitating agent, just as you read in the letter.”

  “An incapacitating, nonterminating agent,” Tynee echoed.

  “This sort of research,” General Kiljoy talked over him, “you may or may not know, has been going on since World War II. As we said, it originally focused on chemical incapacitants, but these always presented problems. It was impossible to guarantee dosage, so they were very unreliable in their effects and duration. The biggest issue, however, was that they required the dropping of a bomb, or at least spraying by planes, and hence were not terribly covert. Contaminating the water supply had its problems as well, since the presence of chlorine, fertilizer, and other water pollutants often reacted with the incapacitating compound. Our viral incapacitant has none of these problems.”

  “How does it work?” I asked, truly curious.

  “You’re gonna love this,” Tynee bubbled.

  “What are we doing right now?” General Kiljoy asked, squinting his eyes mysteriously.

  I looked at him, then at Tynee, who was wearing a smile that would mortify a clown. “Sitting on a porch in the woods?”

  “Yes,” he nodded, “but what else? What are you taking for granted?”

  “Breathing?”

  “No, well yes, but that’s not what I have in mind.”

  I paused, thinking, but Tynee could no longer keep the answer from kicking its way out of his mouth. “Talking!” he bawled. “We’re talking!”

  “Goddamnit!” General Kiljoy barked. “Would you keep your trap shut?” Meeko, sensing his new friend was angry, growled at Tynee, who slumped back in his chair with an affected scowl over a satisfied smirk.

  “Talking,” General Kiljoy continued, looking at me. “What our virus, we’ve called it the Pied Piper,” he chuckled, “what the Pied Piper virus does is take away a person’s ability to talk. It’s not like laryngitis, where a person can still write and understand what others say. When a person is infected with the Pied Piper virus, their entire symbolic capacity is eliminated on the cognitive level. They lose the ability to use and understand symbols, language, words, so that what we are doing right now,” he gestured around the three of us, “becomes absolutely impossible.”

  “Isn’t that ingenious?” Tynee squealed. I later learned that it was Tynee’s innovation to attack the problem from a genetic rather than chemical standpoint.

  “Symbolic capacity?”

  “We’re referring specifically to shared symbols, any designation that at least two people agree upon,” Tynee explained. “Like Italian toast, for instance. Any word, sign, gesture, or color that we agree means something. The Pied Piper virus removes the ability to share symbols. Society isn’t made out of bricks and mortar, it’s made out of shared symbols. Without communication, an enemy nation would, in a very real sense, disappear.” General Kiljoy continued, smiling with irrepressible pride. “Now, if we were at war with another nation, and if we were to destroy every individual’s symbolic capacity, that society would immediately cease to exist. If one person can’t communicate with another, they can’t coordinate their actions. The ultimate infrastructure of their society is obliterated, without a single building, bridge, or railroad being destroyed.”

  “Or a single person being hurt,” I added.

  “Naturally.” General Kiljoy was quite excited, and was rubbing Meeko’s belly in such a way as to cause him to kick one of his rear legs spasmodically. “What we like to say is,” he leaned forward and did his best impression of a Grand Inquisitor, “we have ways of making you not talk.”

  48 “The Pied Piper virus has been created?” I asked. My prosperity buzz was fast reverting to nausea as I realized the implications of what General Kiljoy was saying.

  “Affirmative.” General Kiljoy crossed his thick arms.

  I glanced over at Tynee, who was sitting on his hands in what seemed like an effort to keep his mouth shut. “You’ve been using human subjects?” I asked, loath to look directly at General Kiljoy.

  “Prisoners, actually,” General Kiljoy responded, making no effort to conceal the truth from me. “Primarily death row inmates. Naturally, it would have been impossible to develop the Pied Piper virus without observing the symptoms in humans, not to mention enhancing its infectiousness.” He eyed me evenly. “The only reason I’m being so frank with you is because of the role you must play in Operation Small Change.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Come now, Doctor. Do you think that every one of
the tens of thousands of people who have contributed to this project over the years was privileged to what I’ve just told you? This project is much bigger than any individual. People have known only what was relevant to their task. You’re receiving these details because of the nature of your task, which, incidentally, you share with a few others. As new research and findings emerge, details are shared between relevant researchers. No one knows any more than they have to, and no one knows who else is involved. Unfortunately, this system of secrecy has its drawbacks. Because so many people have contributed to the development of the Pied Piper virus without knowing what they were doing or what our ultimate goal was, we’ve created something that no one individual fully understands. Until it is understood, we will be unable to develop a cure. That’s why we’re providing access to all available data and history concerning the Pied Piper virus to a few select scientists.”

  “What happened to the prisoners who were infected?” I asked, unable to hide my concern.

  “They’re being kept underground in supermaximum security. They’re at varying stages of the disease.” He sensed my next question and continued. “It is just as we assured you, Doctor. The Pied Piper virus is not a terminating agent. The illness doesn’t directly result in death. At this point, however, it does permanently alter a person’s neurochemistry, and that’s why we need you. That’s why your country needs you.”

  “You want me to find the cure for this disease you’ve created?”

  “Or at least a vaccine. And by the way, Doctor, don’t think of it as a disease. A disease, it seems to me, ultimately consumes its host or is eliminated or kept under control by the immune system. The Pied Piper virus permanently alters the genetic structure and function of the neurons of very specific regions of the brain. Think of it as gene therapy.”

  “Gene therapy? Therapy for what?”

  “For warfare,” he replied. I rolled my eyes involuntarily, overcome with impatience at his ludicrous reasoning. He narrowed his eyebrows and continued. “I realize how tempting it is to get hung up on the ethics of this project, Doctor, but I need you to make your best effort to see the big picture, the potential for good. So try to understand the strategic necessity of what I’m about to tell you.” General Kiljoy stood up, hands in his pockets, frolicking to and fro. “You may not agree with the methods we’ve employed, but we need to be certain that you’re with us 100 percent.” He pulled a notepad from his inside breast pocket. “I’ve been informed that a close friend of yours is in custody. The owner of the speeding car you were in yesterday, Blip Korterly?”

  “What about him?”

  “For your motivational purposes, understand, we’re having him conscripted into the human subjects pool.”

  49 After incapacitating my linguistic capacity with his flaunting display of malevolence, General Kiljoy wished me a nice day (without shaking my hand). Tynee walked him to the door, where they spoke in hushed tones for a few moments. General Kiljoy appeared angry at Tynee. At one point, he poked his trigger finger into Tynee’s breastbone. Tynee returned, massaging his chest.

  “You brought that on yourself, Fountain,” Tynee reprimanded. “‘What happened to the prisoners who were infected?’” he mocked my hesitance.

  “How could you get me involved in this?” I demanded.

  “What the hell is that?” Tynee scoffed at me in dismissal. “Are you trying to assert yourself or something?”

  “These are human subjects. Don’t you realize how unethical this is?”

  Tynee faced me, odium fleering from his nostrils. “Ethics? These are prisoners, death row inmates, burdens to society. They owe a debt to society, a debt which may be forgiven through their participation. Consider it debt reduction.”

  “What?” I asked incredulously.

  “Listen.” Tynee’s nostrils flared again, slinging slugs of spite my way. “Military ethics are pragmatic by necessity. The Manhattan Project ended World War II and saved thousands of American lives. People are counting on you. And besides, you’ve already agreed to participate. The CPC,” he gestured toward the door, “is paying you a hell of a lot of money. Ethics depends on context, and in this context there are over a hundred men, soon to include a friend of yours, imprisoned underground with an incurable disease, no, an incurable gene therapy . . . condition. Regardless of how they got it, you can help them.” He passed General Kiljoy’s poke my way by jabbing me in the chest. “If you don’t, you’re the unethical one.”

  “An ethical means to an unethical end?”

  “I don’t think you understand, Fountain. Unless you cooperate, you’re now a breach of national security. That means you can be shot. Or better yet, just to make sure you don’t talk about this to anyone, they could throw you into the tank with the rest of the guinea pigs.” Tynee paused a moment. “Just do your job. If you’re so concerned about ethics, where’s your work ethic?”

  50 Any rationalization implies that the action doesn’t flow from your values. Sophia’s statement of yesterday recollected itself as the realization of my own greed emerged from the shadows, put its thumbs in its ears, and wagged its fingers and tongue at me. In defense of sacrificing commonsense ethics for self-interest, I’ve since tried to explain to Sophia in countless make-believe conversations that I would do good with the money. “I’ll be a benefactor,” I protested, “a philanthropist. Look at all the wealthy people who don’t do good with their money.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Sophia smiled patiently, persistent in her quixotic notions. “They don’t get that money by doing right, by being nice. That’s the nature of money. You can only collect it by hoarding it.”

  “But who am I to say what others will do with my research?”

  “First of all, it’s their research. You’re just a tool, an intellectual extension of their selfish intent. At what point are you prostituting yourself?” She executed a less-than-perfect pirouette, delightful nonetheless for its honesty of expression, like the raspy, cannabis-strained voice of a blues musician who can’t quite hit all the notes but reaches for them with supreme confidence of spirit anyway. “Besides,” she balanced herself, “you already know what it’s for.”

  “But if I don’t do it someone else will.”

  “Most likely,” she granted, bowing graciously. “But at least it won’t be you. You only have responsibility for your actions, for your decisions. Only you live inside your head. Only you have to confront your self-image.”

  “Okay. So what if someone took something you wrote and used it to a negative end?”

  “That sort of thing happens all the time,” she said with sad exasperation. Her smile faded like a flower closing in the face of the night, weary, guarded, but ready to smile once again at the slightest hint of sunshine, never failing to trust that the Earth will turn, as is its way. “Look at the Crusades, or the Inquisition. The Bible didn’t cause that. The message was twisted to serve selfish interests. And besides, I have to be confident that my intentions are good. Are yours, or are they selfish? Are you just looking for a license to be greedy?” I frowned, and she continued maternally. “Don’t think this is some unique circumstance. This same situation plays itself out again and again every time an idealistic youth replaces their hope and their values with practicality, and an obsolete society convinces another generation that everything’s working just fine.”

  I rolled my eyes at her histrionics. “How am I responsible for the situation of the world? I’m just trying to do the best I can.”

  “For the world or for yourself?” she replied, unoffended and compassionate. “Forgive me for sharing the hardships of ethical action with you. I know it would be easier to just do your job, watch TV, and not consider such things.” She reached forward and gave my forehead a gentle shove. “What was your first impulse in this situation?”

  “Not to do it.”

  “Well, there you are. That’s Truth. Don’t lie to yourself. Who do you think you’re kidding, anyway? You don’t respect people you
lie to, and you don’t respect people who lie to you. Look where you leave yourself. No matter which way you turn it, you’ll have no self-respect. Of course you can make yourself cozy with creature comforts, but what kind of creature will you be?”

  “Aha!” I exclaimed in my sixth or seventh rehearsal of this confabulation. “If I were to follow my instincts, I would have kissed you the moment I met you.” I congratulated myself on this reply, imaginary though it was. Sophia, however, wasn’t the least bit flustered, or if she was, she immediately pretended not to be, quite like a feline in this regard.

  “Perhaps you should have,” she said, “or at least let me know that you would have liked to. At least then the interaction could have proceeded honestly and openly.” She winked at me. “I thought you were acting weird when we met. You only made yourself awkward by trying to suppress the truth.”

  “So I should have kissed you?”

  “Not at all,” she snickered. “There are other less intimate ways to express admiration and affection. A warm smile, a bow. To have actually kissed me would have only made me uncomfortable. So we have a qualification: Trust your instincts to the extent that you don’t disturb others. Your example doesn’t change what I’m saying.” Sophia leaned forward and kissed the top of my head as if tucking me in to bed. “Make the right decisions,” she counseled, a smile unfurling on her face like a frond after the final frost. With this straightforward wisdom, she disappeared from my imagination, but not before slipping me a dandelion for luck and sweet dreams.

  51 Ethical conduct is like parachuting. It’s easier to daydream about it than to do it. Imagining it even gives me a thrill, a windblown rush of vicarious morality, a self-righteous confidence that I could do it if I really had to. However, in this situation, I had no parachute, nor even a plane, though I had no idea that an entire squadron was just beyond the horizon and heading my way. But having no real choice now, my conscience had no objections to pursuing my assignment. I was comfortable with the trusty conditional that I would have made the right decision, if only I could have.