“I’ll go too,” Curtik said.
“No, I’ll go,” Jefferson said. “You help Zora with the cleanup.”
“Not a chance, Neddy Boy. You’re much more valuable than me. I’m muscle. You’re the brains. I’ll get Brosk to the river. You know this Dr. Shafer. You have to help find her before she gets away.”
“Major Somers?” Jefferson said as he looked toward the gates. “Lendra?”
Major Somers spoke into Curtik’s implant: “I’m already shutting down the tube all around here for the next couple hours.
Lendra added: “I’m forwarding a few pictures of Dr. Leah Shafer, along with a computer simulation of what she might look like.”
Major Somers said: “Wes will escort you to the river.”
Curtik started forward, but the cutie-pie held up her hand. “You’d better turn off that shield first,” she said. “It might set off the explosives.”
Deactivating his shield, Curtik helped Brosk to his feet. The cutie-pie used the controller to assist Brosk’s movements as well.
Jefferson looked at Brosk, his face fallen in sadness. “Trogan, I . . .”
“It’s okay, Ned,” Brosk replied. “It’s going to be all right.”
Jefferson clapped Brosk on the shoulder. “I just want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed working with you, Brosk. You’re one of the best men I’ve ever met. Curtik here will take care of you. He’s Jeremiah’s son.”
Brosk blinked rapidly several times, as if trying to hold back tears or keep out the rain, and Curtik wondered what it felt like to know you were going to die soon. Brosk was holding himself together well. Would I be that brave if I was going to die? Probably. I’m a stallion.
“Let’s go,” Brosk said.
Wes moved forward, Curtik pulling Brosk along with him, while the cutie-pie walked beside them, keeping Brosk’s feet from tripping over each other.
“We’re clearing a path for you,” Major Somers said.
Wes led the way. Brosk couldn’t help much, so Curtik carried most of his weight. He could smell Brosk’s fear, could sense the anxiety, as well as the rage.
“I can tell you’re furious,” he said. “I remember feeling that on the Moon.”
“I’ve been conditioned,” Brosk replied, breathing heavily, “to want to kill her.” He took another deep breath. “I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. She drops that controller and she’ll be dead before she gets two steps away.”
“Yummy,” Curtik said as he glanced over at the cutie-pie. “So are you a bad guy or a good guy?”
“I don’t know,” the cutie-pie replied.
“Me either. I used to think I was evil, and I liked that. But now I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t think anybody’s completely evil, except for Sally2, and Sally1. But I don’t think anybody’s completely good either. Or if they are, I haven’t met them. You know anyone who’s completely good?”
Curtik laughed. “I haven’t met anyone like that either.”
Ahead of them Wes waited at Hyde Park Gate. As they approached, Curtik felt Brosk’s body tremble. Sweat or rain or a combination of both ran down his reddened face. Each breath amounted to little more than an agonizing grunt. Although Curtik hadn’t really thought about the kind of pain his father had endured the past year, the kind of pain Zora had so recently tried to emulate, he realized Brosk’s agony must be something like that.
“Good grunting,” Curtik said. “Very determined. I like that.”
“We’ll never,” Brosk wheezed, “make it to the river in time.”
“Tell Brosk,” Jefferson offered through Curtik’s implant, “that I want his butterfly collection after he’s dead.”
What? Curtik sent back.
“Just tell him,” Jefferson said. “Exactly as I said it.”
Okay. “Ned told me to tell you that he wants your butterfly collection after you’re dead.”
Brosk actually laughed, a rough sound that ended in a hacking cough. “That bastard! He’ll get nothing from me. Nothing! You hear me, Ned?” Brosk yelled.
“What’s that about?” the cutie-pie asked.
“A private joke,” Brosk said as he picked up his pace. He still relied heavily on Curtik but he’d somehow found new strength in his legs. “I’ll tell you later.” He winked and tried to grin before a wince stopped him.
As they emerged from the park, Curtik saw that the police had stopped traffic, allowing them to cross over toward what Curtik’s implant told him was Wellington Arch. Hundreds of people lined the streets. Motorists stood outside their stopped cars to get a glimpse at what was holding up traffic. Most of them held PlusPhones. Curtik checked his implant and saw that the incident had already made the news, their movements now being tracked by cameras.
Even a few weeks ago Curtik would have enjoyed watching the panic on people’s faces. Now he experienced a sort of confusion. These were the people he and Zora had been created to replace. They were lesser versions: incomplete. But he couldn’t hate them like he once had. He only pitied them. As he walked, Curtik smelled the fear in the air—Brosk’s and the cutie-pie’s, and maybe his own. Would they blow up before they reached the river? That would be so cruel.
Brosk moved like an old man as Curtik dragged him toward Buckingham Palace Gardens. The rain lightened to a drizzle, though it still felt cold.
“Need,” Brosk said, “to go faster.”
“He’s feeling an increasing tightness in his chest,” the cutie-pie said. She placed her free hand under Brosk’s jacket and felt his chest. Why did that make Curtik jealous? “But I think we’ve got some time before the explosives reach critical mass.”
“Faster it is,”Curtik said. “Hang on, you old Trogan horse.”
They increased their pace, Curtik practically dragging Brosk along, and passed Wellington Arch, keeping on the street—Constitution Hill—Curtik realized, as Wes and the police cleared the roadway.
“Talk,” Brosk said, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Distracts me.”
“Okay,” the cutie-pie said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Not me,” Brosk managed. “You two.”
“Right.” The cutie-pie turned to Curtik. “This isn’t the only problem you’ve got. Sally1 is planning to disperse her newest version of the virus in less than twenty-four hours. She says it’s unstoppable—the ultimate killing virus.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well,” Curtik said, “we’re putting our best man on it.”
“It’s no joke. Her message made it sound like she’d already set the process in motion, like it couldn’t be halted. She’s probably hidden it somewhere and installed a timer to ensure its release, regardless of whether she’s captured.”
“We already know who she is.” Curtik glanced at Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial beyond that. “CINTEP will find her.”
“So you’re really Jeremiah Jones’s son,” the cutie-pie said.
“You know him?”
“He’s the man Sally1 was worried about. He has some sort of immunity to previous versions of the virus. He’s the one we thought we had trapped in Holland Park.”
Curtik held up his mechanical hand. “That would be me. You kinda blew up my hand.”
“Oh,” the cutie-pie said. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.” Curtik tried to make it sound casual, like all the action vid stars he’d seen.
“Your new hand is kind of cool,” the cutie-pie said.
“It is, right? It’s awesome.”
They came up on the palace. Wes waved them around the corner, to where the Changing of the Guard took place. Curtik listened to Brosk’s breathing for a moment. It still sounded labored, though Curtik didn’t think it had worsened. But Brosk weaved a little now, whether from
exhaustion or agony, Curtik couldn’t say. His implant showed they were coming up on The Queen’s Gallery and Birdcage Walk, which would take them all the way to Bridge Street, past Big Ben and onto Westminster Bridge—assuming they didn’t explode first.
Brosk shivered. Was that fear or just the cold rain? Curtik wanted to ask if he was afraid of dying, but he already knew the answer. He could smell it. And yet Brosk maintained such an outward calm. Had he learned to be brave through watching action vids too?
“Keep him talking,” Jefferson spoke into his implant. “Distract him.”
Curtik turned to the cutie-pie. “So, you come here often?”
Brosk managed a laugh that sounded more like a snort.
“Seriously,” Curtik said, “why are you helping us?”
The cutie-pie shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Sally2 killed my mother. She’s insane. And Trogan helped me see what people can become, how we can achieve kindness and selflessness if we just work at it. But I suppose what it boils down to is this—I realized the Sallies were wrong. If humans are going to ruin the planet, that’s part of the natural order. All species become extinct eventually. Just in the last year we’ve lost forty species that we know of. More will follow. And I think we’ll probably die out too—unless we can become more like Trogan . . . or Devereaux. We don’t need to accelerate the destructive process. Humans are already on that path.”
“We definitely seem to be,” Curtik said as they reached Birdcage Walk, where Brosk apparently caught a second wind, for his strides grew a little longer and he no longer leaned quite so heavily on Curtik.
“Are you like Trogan?”
“Yeah,” Curtik replied. He almost said he was the next generation, better than Brosk. But he held back, partly because he knew the cutie-pie didn’t want to hear that, partly because he was no longer certain that was true. He wasn’t sure he could be this brave if the situation were reversed.
“People always,” Brosk huffed, “find a way to survive.”
“So far,” the cutie-pie conceded. “But every year that passes, we limit our options more. We grow more technological, moving further away from the planet that birthed us.”
Brosk tightened up, his muscles locking on him momentarily, and Curtik was forced to take almost his whole weight.
“We’re all going to die,” the cutie-pie said.
“That doesn’t mean we wanna,” Curtik said. “I know Brosk doesn’t wanna die. And look at all these people around us. They don’t wanna die either.”
Curtik took in the vast number of people watching them. Many held PlusPhones out as cameras, filming their every move. Many more glanced down at their PlusPhones, probably watching footage shot by their fellow bystanders, or following near-instantaneous news reports of The Panic in the Park, as his implant showed the media were calling it. A crowd clapped politely as they passed, not knowing who they were or why they were passing, but believing they were on the side of the angels because of their escort. Mostly they fixated on Brosk, supported by Curtik as he slogged along to his death. Up ahead, Curtik spotted a traffic accident. A police officer stood behind the cars, waving Curtik and his companions through a narrow lane between vehicles. As they passed, the officer nodded at them, smiling at Brosk. They found a free lane past the accident, all the cars and scooters pulled over to the side of the road.
“Look at that little kid over there.” Curtik pointed to a young boy holding a woman’s hand. The boy waved at him. “And that old woman with the cane. She wants to live as long as she can. You can see it in her face—the worry, the fear. Nobody wants to die but you.”
“Aren’t you one of the cadets who tried to blow up the Earth?”
“I’m never gonna live that down. One time, I fired a coupla Las-cannons. I was programmed to do that.”
The cutie-pie laughed: not a cruel laugh, but a shared understanding of the lunacy of the moment.
“This is bizarre,” Curtik said, “isn’t it.”
“Ironic,” the cutie-pie said, “that two people who tried to destroy humanity are now trying to save it.”
“I don’t really get irony,” Curtik conceded.
The cutie-pie laughed again. She had a wonderful laugh—throaty and genuine. Curtik joined her. Even Brosk smiled briefly. Then Brosk’s breathing became labored again, the diseased straining of lungs damaged by the accumulation of nano-explosives. The cutie-pie began to cry softly. Again she placed her hand under Brosk’s jacket, feeling his chest. This time she said nothing. When she pulled her hand back, she caught Curtik’s eye and shrugged. Brosk kept his eyes focused on the distance, as if afraid to acknowledge the truth.
“Try not to blow up yet,” Curtik said to Brosk. “I really don’t want to die.”
Again Brosk snorted. “Okay. For your sake, I’ll try. God, you’re like your father.”
“Is that an insult or a compliment?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I don’t want to die anymore, either,” the cutie-pie said, her voice quavering, tears mingling with raindrops on her cheeks. “I accept that I’m going to. And soon. I can’t stop it. But I don’t desire it any longer. It’s just that I used to think of people as unsalvageable.”
“When I was on the Moon, I never thought about humans all that much, except as something to be eliminated.”
“Me too,” the cutie-pie agreed. “I saw humans doing so many bad things, selfish things—near-sighted and stupid actions that caused unspeakable suffering to the natural world—that I thought the planet needed to be rid of them. Of us. But all animals act that way. We just have more power to control our actions than other creatures do.”
“Big Ben,” Brosk rasped. “Almost there.”
Curtik looked up. Sure enough, the landmark tower rose up before them—beyond it, Westminster Bridge, looking beautiful in the rain. Curtik spared another glance at Brosk, who stared ahead grimly. His breathing worsened yet again; he took in rapid gulps of air. Curtik thought he might explode at any moment. Clearly the cutie-pie had the same idea, for she again placed her hand inside Brosk’s jacket to feel his chest. This time her eyes widened.
“We’re not gonna make it,” Curtik said, “are we?” He could feel his chest tightening, as if the bomb were inside him and not Brosk.
“Don’t know,” the cutie-pie said.
“Let him go,” Curtik said. “I’ll take him from here.”
“No. I’ll take him. You get away, while you can. Tell your people, about Sally1, the virus.”
“They already know,” Curtik replied. “I’ve broadcast everything to them.”
“We go together,” the cutie-pie said. “Brosk and I.”
Brosk grunted, squeezing his arms tightly. Curtik easily countered the pressure. Did the cutie-pie really intend to jump off the bridge with Brosk?
“Ease up,” Curtik said to Brosk. “Come on, old horse. You can do it. We’re almost there. Hey, over there is a statue of Queen Boudicca on a chariot, crushing Romans. You wanna go see that for a minute? Nah, maybe if it was sunny. Man, it would be cool to have a chariot.” Brosk forced a grin, managing to relax his grip.
A crowd of spectators waited by Big Ben. Dozens lined the street. They stayed back, watching Wes and the police clearing a lane. As Curtik dragged Brosk toward them, the crowd broke out into applause, as if they were watching a race, and in a way, they were. They yelled encouragement as Curtik and his companions neared. Somehow their good will lent Curtik strength. He could sense Brosk deriving a benefit from it as well.
“You’re doing great, Curtik,” Jefferson said into the implant.
With increased energy they passed the crowd and came up on the bridge. They jogged along the sidewalk, past dozens of spectators, some of whom reached out to touch Brosk or Curtik. Wes moved out to the middle of the bridge, where two police vehicles sat parked on the otherwise-cleared road.
“We’ll jump when we reach the center of the Thames,” the cutie-pie said.
“Right.” Brosk managed only the single word.
Wes gestured to a spot near where he stood. “The water’s deepest here.”
Bizarre, Curtik thought. All this effort going into helping Brosk kill himself. As they neared the location, Brosk took a deep breath, steeling himself no doubt for what he had to do. The cutie-pie looked at Curtik with a sad smile and said, “Just help me get him up over the parapet and then run like hell.”
But even as she spoke, Brosk somehow grabbed her. As she fell to the sidewalk with a scream, Brosk pounced on her. He put his hands around her neck and squeezed. Curtik punched him in the side of the head with his mechanical hand and pulled him away almost without thinking. Brosk stumbled and nearly fell.
“Sorry,” Curtik said. “Could have killed you there. Not used to this hand yet.” Then he laughed. “I’m a moron.”
He pulled Brosk along with him as the cutie-pie got to her feet. She ran toward them, but Curtik held up his hand to keep her back. When they reached the point Wes had indicated, Brosk said, “Take her away from here.” Then he turned to the cutie-pie and said, “Just give me enough movement to jump. Once I’m in the water, I’ll be fine.”
Curtik lifted Brosk up over the parapet and onto the ledge. The cutie-pie stood watching, her hand on the controller.
“I should be with you,” the cutie-pie said.
“No,” Brosk replied. “You may still have information that can be helpful. Now let me jump.”
The cutie-pie moved the controller slightly and Brosk stepped off. He fell a long time, and he hit the water with a tremendous splash. For an instant Curtik thought the bomb inside Brosk had exploded. Then he realized it was just the impact of Brosk’s landing. Wes moved to the parapet and looked over the edge. The spectators on the bridge surrounded Curtik, the cutie-pie and Wes, who found themselves pressed up against the parapet. Curtik peered into the rain-dappled water.
“Where the hell is Brosk?” he asked.
“He’s going under the bridge,” the cutie-pie yelled.
“But that’s upstream.”
The Susquehanna Virus Box Set Page 113