But the pneumatically sealable sliding doors had made sense, security-wise; they could be opened remotely for speedsters like Rush, or sealed individually or all together to put the Dome on total lockdown in a second; the place was a fortress securable on every level and even room-by-room. Regardless of the reason for them, Max still smiled every time he walked through one.
But not today. “Does this have anything to do with the rabies bio-attack we’re staring at?” he asked Astra as soon as Blackstone’s office door shished closed behind him. “Because if it doesn’t, my captain wants me back yesterday.”
“It does,” Blackstone answered for her, looking up from his pad. “I’m sorry to hear your RL-A test came back positive. Detective, this is Director Maddison Clemens of the CDC. Dr. Clemens, Detective Fisher is one of the lead detectives in the CPD’s superhuman crimes unit.”
Max nodded to the doctor. “Nice to meet you, Doc. First, can I say that’s the fastest test result I’ve ever heard of?”
She stood and shook his hand. “That’s because we’ve got enough techs to staff a dozen labs and they rushed yours. Astra tells us that you have a secret?”
“Yeah, I do. Can’t see what it has to do with this.”
Blackstone waved him to the only unoccupied chair. The man might be the team-leader of the premier US superteam, but he didn’t go for the big executive office. Max liked that.
“Even with your permission she hasn’t told us anything else.” The white-haired magician smiled thinly. “Other than that you’re unkillable but not invulnerable. Can you explain that utterly cryptic statement?”
“Sure.” Max had decided that before leaving the precinct. “Mind if I vape?” At Blackstone’s nod he blew a cloud with his new stick. This one was the size and shape of his old cigs, but still too heavy and he missed being able to just leave it hanging on his lips. “So Astra’s really told you nothing?” He waved away her protest. “Sorry, kid. I trust you, it’s just that it might have been easier coming from you. Where to start?” He took one last draw and put the stick back in his jacket.
“What it’s all about is, I’m a fictional character.”
Blackstone actually blinked, and Max smiled at the little victory. “Detective Max Fisher was a burned out, hard drinking, hard smoking, cynical Chicago copper. Great at what he did, and a miserable bastard. He had nobody and if he got somebody they either died or turned out to be the bad guy. The crime-noire genre was pretty burned out itself when the Max Fisher books got published, and only three of the series made it to print. That was about fifteen years before the Event. Anyway, the small press that published the stories went out of business and the writer died around nine years ago without writing anything else, so he never built a fanbase.”
He shrugged.
“One expert thought I might be a self-propagating thoughtform created by the writer in a breakthrough before he died, kind of like those little flying lizards your new girl has. I’m not. Nobody made me.”
“Then what are you?” Astra asked, and his smiled widened to a grin. The kid had known about his fictional status for close to three years and kept quiet about it, but even she didn’t know the next bit. No-one did but Abby. He looked at the ceiling.
“Shell, I know you’re listening. No record of this, got it?”
“Rodger dodger, Fisher. Mum’s the word.”
“Thanks, kid. No details, I don’t want to get family I don’t even really remember involved if someone ever finds out and wants to use them as leverage. But last year Abby—that’s Dr. Abigail Sinclair, our Chief Medical Examiner—got onto a case with me that took us to out of town. Took us to a place I knew without remembering. That led to my asking the question in ways I’d never asked it before, turns out I’m a breakthrough who escaped a fatal genetic disease by imagining myself another person as a kind of escapism. I’d been dying of something congenital and chronic, reading old paperbacks by the boxload from yard sales and one of those boxes was full of crime novels, including the three Max Fisher books. Lord knows why, but I fixated on that sad sack.”
“What triggered your breakthrough?” Astra asked softly.
He shrugged. “A severe episode, maybe the fatal one, plus the meds I was taking to fight it. My caregiver walked into my room in the morning to find Detective Max Fisher sitting there in a fugue state and wearing pajamas that didn’t fit. She recognized me from the covers.”
He chuckled as they tried to wrap their heads around that. How hard was it, really? After all, they had Ozma downstairs. Maybe she didn’t have the same story, but maybe she did. Blackstone and the doc looked completely boggled; Astra just looked like she wanted to wrap him in a big hug. “And what did you do?” she finally managed.
“Me? Nothing. I was too busy fuguing—I don’t even remember that period. Let’s just say the DSA figured out what I was, arranged with the CPD to hire Detective Max Fisher. They gave me a legally fabricated backstory that matched my memories, and they got an unkillable, relentless, incorruptible detective. It worked; when my life started following my backstory I stabilized into the Fisher identity, stopped fuguing.”
“Do you remember your true history now?” Blackstone asked, sounding only mildly curious.
“Not really. I recognize things, but no associated memories attach to them. But I see stuff in the books that isn’t my life now—it’s helped me change some things.” He held up the vape-stick. “I’m off the cigs, don’t drink as hard, stuff like that.” He shrugged again, sitting back.
“This is all very fascinating,” the doc said finally, “but if you’re unkillable, how does it help us?”
“Astra said you needed somebody who was going to die but not permanently, and I sure as hell don’t. I’ve been killed a few times. Shot, broken in half once, got blown up twice yesterday. I just ‘reset’ when that happens. I’ve been lucky so far—no witnesses who’ve spilled my little secret. Unkillable isn’t unstoppable. You said the test was positive? Am I going to die again?”
The doc nodded. “You haven’t presented symptoms yet, so we could possibly save you with the anti-rabies protocol, but we don’t have enough for a tenth of the people likely to be infected.”
“Well that blows. How can my impending demise help you?”
That turned out to be the dumbest question he’d possibly ever asked.
“You don’t have to do it,” Astra hasted to reassure him when they finished explaining the crazy proposition.
He took a deep drag on his stick, sighed. “Damn right, I don’t. Sounds like it’s going to be painful as shit. I could just end myself quick, reset to the pink of health. I won’t. Kid?” He had to tell her sometime. “Jenny’s dead. So’s Wyatt.”
She covered her mouth, blue eyes wide and filling with tears. “How?”
“Wyatt in the vehicle lot when the bomb went off. We don’t know that for sure, we haven’t had time to identify all the pieces yet, but he’s missing and I know he went out there before. Jenny in the fight south of yours.” He hadn’t even seen her go down—just one of the boys and girls that died in the blue wall they’d made between freaking armed green zombies and escaping civilians. “And now you’re telling me that whoever killed my friends and half the precinct has kicked off a freaking rabies plague? Whatever I need to do, I’m in. And afterward we’re going to talk.”
Chapter Nine
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM 378
To: The Vice President, The Secretary of State, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Superhuman Affairs, The Secretary of Homeland Security, The Director of the National Intelligence, The Director of Central Intelligence, The Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, The US Attorney General, The US Department of Health and Human Services, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader.
Subject: Declaration of Emergency
Pursuant to the verification of a modified Rabies Lyssavirus virus (named Variant A) in persons present in the Chicago attack, I am initiating Operation Bio Shield. Operation meas
ures include: 1) Granting the CDC full civil authority in the City of Chicago. 2) Authorizing an immediate national draft of all biological Verne-Types with expertise related to biological agents. 3) Directing state governors to cooperate with the US Military where needed to insure containment. 4) Mobilizing additional medical assets to the targeted region. (See attached document for full list of measures.)
I will be formally requesting that Congress expand the National State of Emergency, granting federal agents authority to detain any person for such period as is needed to ensure containment of the Rabies Lyssavirus A virus, and to deputize such persons as needed to carry out this directive.
From: Jennifer Touches Cloud, President of the United States.
The room at Northwestern Memorial was white and sterile, silent machines and empty restraint-rigged bed waiting for Fisher and Nurse Boyle. Checking it out on the other side of the observation window, Hope shivered. It looks like an execution chamber.
Which wasn’t true; the thought was just the shadow cast by knowing they were probably going to watch Fisher die there. “How long is it going to take? Seconds? Minutes?”
Ozma turned from her consultation with Dr. Clemens. “One full dose will last a day, subjectively, which they will experience in roughly two realtime hours.”
“I expect the whole process to take at least nine hours, our time,” the CDC doctor and director clarified. “Both the detective and Nurse Boyle will be taking their first doses together. Lei Zi has already taken her first dose and is under observation. Unwillingly.”
Hope laughed shortly; their fearless field leader had objected strongly to being chosen to be the infected test subject given the vaccination-HRI protocol and magically accelerated to speed-test the effectiveness of the protocol on the new strain. Blackstone had shut down her objections by pointing out that, even if the protocol worked, the city was going to be experiencing a mass outbreak of rabies madness in days at best and she’d be desperately needed.
“Nurse Boyle will be able to take care of the detective, but we’ve also got what he’ll need to put Detective Fisher in a medical coma if the symptoms get too rough. The sensors will tell us all we need to know about what the virus will be doing to his brain.” The CDC director gave Hope a look both professional and maternal. “It’ll be a long watch and the observation will be one way. You don’t need to stay.”
“I won’t.” Hope hugged herself. “But Fisher— A friend should be here.”
The doctor nodded like Hope’s answer didn’t surprise her. “They’ve just finished injecting the sensors and drawing his blood. They’ll be in in a moment.” Her timing was perfect; the door opened and Fisher and his nurse walked in. Fisher wore sweats instead of the usual hospital gown. Shell had laughingly told Hope he’d flat out refused to go with a lot of the hospital’s policies. He’d even kept his vape-stick.
“Camera check,” Shell informed everyone, and Hope looked at the monitors. The center monitor lit up to display the scene in the room with a time-lag, the door just opening and Fisher and Boyle entering. “I’ll be able to slow and play chosen time stamps, Doc, so Fisher and his keeper will be able to report verbally. I’ll have my eyes on them. If something unexpected happens, I’ve got options.”
“Thank you, Shell.” Dr. Clemens had taken the revelation of Shell’s AI-status in stride, and obviously knowing how fast computers could process data she had no problem believing that Shell could track and react to whatever happened in the room.
If only it made Hope feel better. She hit the mic button. “Hey Max, how are you feeling?”
He looked at the window. “Tired. The bed looks good and two or three days on my ass sounds like a bonus.”
Dr. Clemens leaned over the mic. “Is everything ready, Nurse Boyle?”
“All set, doctor.” Neither of them could see through the glass, but he held up the first pair of vials for their inspection. “So what does this ‘potion’ taste like?”
“Sweat and running shoes, Nurse Boyle,” Ozma answered seriously. “I recommend overwhelming your taste buds first with the peppermint oil drops I’ve provided. The bottle is on the table beside you and a couple of drops on your tongue will do.”
“And what magic do the drops provide, your majesty?”
“The power to not gag on sweat and running shoes, Nurse Boyle. You’ll be glad for the drops, I promise you.”
Max laughed, grabbed the bottle. “Thanks, princess. Cheers.” Two drops on his tongue and his eyes watered. “Hoo! I’ll be tasting mint for lunch!” Nurse Boyle took his drops, and they raised their potions. “Kid? See you on the other side.” They drank and accelerated into a familiar eye-twisting blur.
“And they’re off,” Shell said softly as a digital readout began flashing the speeding minutes.
Maddison watched the blurs and shook her head. Only capes would come up with something like this. And about those capes . . . She turned to the tiny armored blonde beside her. The girl’s public cape record was impressive enough—and that was before Director Kayle had told her, in no uncertain terms during her in-flight briefing, to listen to the girl. She could see what “the girl” was trying to do with the armored costume and the huge metal mallet she carried everywhere (though she didn’t think the cheerleader skirt helped much) but… Lord, she looks like she should be worrying about Homecoming and prom dresses.
“Okay, it’s begun,” she said. “You’ve come and shown your moral support, and since there’s absolutely nothing you can do, I’m telling you in the nicest possible way, get out of here.”
The girl looked to her teammate and Ozma—Ozma! And in what sane world am I working with a magical princess from a children’s story!—nodded. “Fisher is in my hands,” the impossibly beautiful blonde assured her leader. “Go see Mal and the others.”
Astra jerked a nod, gave the room beyond the glass a last look, and left. The door shut softly behind her. So, take the century-old wizard’s royal apprentice at her word, got it. Maddison sighed. A fictional fairy-blooded princess was using magic to help her observe the death and reset of an equally if not so famously fictional police detective, to study a virus created using unreal technologies crafted by an unknown but definitely evil mad scientist. Just one more day in the insane post-Event world. “God is a homicidal maniac and if I ever meet him I’m going to beat him to death.”
“I’m sorry?” Perfect lapis-blue eyes focused on her and Maddison felt the weight of the girl’s regard. Then she smiled. “My goddess and ultimate progenitor is the Fairy Lurlene, and I’ve had occasion to wonder what she was thinking with certain aspects of Oz. But your dissatisfaction sounds more emphatic.”
Maddison crammed her frustration down with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry. Sometimes the weirdness of it all still gets to me.” She waved at the room through the glass. “It wouldn’t be so bad if so much of it wasn’t so dangerous. We had to worry about stuff like this before the Event, but . . .”
“It wasn’t like this?”
She leaned back against the station. “This is my third field trip just this year, and it isn’t the worst. And no, the public doesn’t know about the other two. One was a potential omega-virus. The other one was a viral curse—it took us too long to figure out it wasn’t biological at all.” She snorted. “It says something that I’m grateful that this one is probably only going to kill a few thousand people if we don’t stop it. And I don’t think we can. Not soon enough.”
Ozma considered her thoughtfully, eyes full of more understanding than should be possible in her young face. “I suppose it would be easier to be an atheist than a theist, in the face of our reality. One doesn’t need to interrogate nature’s motives then, no matter how inexplicable the working of the world may be. But I find that existential discussions are best left for garden parties. Nick Chopper was especially good at them.”
“Nick Chopper?”
“The Tin Man. ‘Is a man still a man, if not one ounce of blood and bone is left in him?’” Ozma laughed,
a ridiculously melodic sound, like crystal bells. “And yes, that’s just what Hope looks like when I say such things. No, her eyes get rounder. And then she reddens because she thinks she’s being impolite. But to turn us back from tin philosophers and garden parties, although we must have one soon . . .”
“Right.” Maddison shook herself, turned to the window. “Shell, tell us what’s happening?”
“Inside the room, outside the room, or cosmically?”
“If I want jokes I’ll go to a comedy club.”
It was going to be a long day.
Guided by one of Shell’s virtual icons, Hope found Mal and a full room. Riptide, Watchman, and Crash sat with their injured teammate, the four of them watching TV. And not for entertainment; Tammy Wen of Chicago News looked professionally grave and serious as she ever had.
“The CDC has verified quarantine conditions in Chicago and identified a modified rabies virus as the pathogen. Due to the virus’s effects CDC Director, Dr. Maddison Clemens, has announced that all known superhumans in the infected region will be tested first, with those who test positive detained until treatment is effective. The CDC has yet to release estimates of how many are so far known to be infected, but has assured the public that outside the restricted zones infection by the virus can be avoided using precautions equivalent to those taken to avoid common STDs.” Below her on the screen, scrolling red text displayed CDC contact numbers and sites.
“Chicagoans who have not been contacted and who believe they may be infected are encouraged to call their local police hotline for information—”
Mal turned off the sound and put the remote down. “Hey, boss. Doing a morale visit? I think they need it more outside.” The lower half of his body had been covered by a kind of tent, and Hope didn’t know if it was for medical reasons or to keep him—and everyone else—from staring at his stumps. He saw where her gaze went and grinned. “I’ve run out of one-liners, boss, but I’m going to live. I’m even going to dance—Vulcan’s whipping up my new legs down in his forge.”
Repercussions (Wearing the Cape Book 8) Page 9