Bad Dreams (39 page)

‘Anderton. I want to speak to Anderton.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Woolbridge. Lynch hoped the policeman would prove a good investment.

‘You have him?’

‘He’s here.’

He did not waste words on a reply. The police were standing around outside what he knew from the maps he had studied in the chopper to be the School of Chemistry. There were groups of students loitering, rubbernecking. Rumours would be all over the shop by now, no doubt about that.

‘Woolbridge, we have to contain the spread of information. See to it.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Get these surplus personnel out of the way. I don’t care how. Bomb threat. Declare this a high-risk AIDS-infected area. Just do it.’

The policeman scurried off to talk to his men. Lynch’s own team should be here within the hour. UCC had the resources the situation called for, and the government contracts that would ensure them a free hand in deploying them. In the background, Lynch spotted the pair of armed officers he had requested. They were not doing anything particularly useful, but they were there, just in case. The cops would be out of it soon.

The UCC chopper circled the campus once, and withdrew. For the moment, Lynch was on his own.

Inside the building, there was a large irregular bloodstain on the tiling. It was like being home.

The police had let him in unopposed. That was sloppy, but it saved him time.

‘Anderton?’

His voice echoed around the corridors. Of course, the place would have been evacuated. There was an answering shout. Lynch walked towards it.

Through several doors, he found a man he recognized from his file. Dr Xavier Anderton, Head of Research on the Leo Project. UCC were using signs of the Zodiac this year. This should have been the Cancer Project, but someone in public relations had nixed that. Not that PR should have been overly bothered about the image of this sort of work. The whole point was that it should not have one.

‘Lynch. You know what I do.’

‘Indeed,’ said Anderton, a reedy, youngish-looking nonentity. Lynch knew he should not underestimate the man. He had probably killed more people than Lynch in his time.

‘I understand you have a situation here.

Anderton laughed bitterly. ‘That’s one way of putting it, Lynch.’

‘Have you guesstimated the damage?’

‘That’s difficult. We have some lab animals at liberty, and some unidentified infectees.’

‘What have they got?’

‘We don’t have a name for it. Batch 125 is as good as any.’

Lynch knew Anderton was near the edge. There were two other people in the room, who must be Carson and Finch. They were in no better shape. For a moment, Lynch considered terminating the expendables, but he knew that would have a psychologically damaging effect on Anderton. For the minute, he needed the scientist.

‘Batch 125? What have you got on that?’

‘Not much. It wasn’t very promising. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to…’

Finch came in, excited in spite of herself. ‘But what it does might be interesting, Mr Lynch. It’s not Leo exactly, but there might be a whole other line of research in it.’

Lynch waved a hand.

‘Okay, okay. I don’t want the advanced stuff. Give me the basics.’

Anderton picked up a petri dish. The agar jelly was discoloured, greyish.

‘This is more or less Batch 125. We ought to label it 126, since it was cooked up after our initial session, but it is as near as dammit what we used the first time round.’

It did not look impressive, but Lynch knew that nothing did until it killed or cured you.

‘It’s a virus. Well, this is a virus. 125 certainly was when we shot it into the animals, but there’s some evidence that it might have gone crystalline on us in the system. It does different things to different subjects, seemingly at random.’

‘Symptoms?’

‘Total cellular trauma, in one case. Accelerated growth and vitality in another. The only constant seems to be increased aggression, and even then you have the choice of directing it inward or outward.’

‘Can humans catch it?’

‘We don’t even know if it’s a disease, Lynch, but for your purposes I think we have to assume they can.’

‘If you don’t know it’s a disease, I’m assuming you haven’t even thought about a cure?’

Anderton did not look happy. ‘As you know, UCC gave us some parameters to work in. Leo is supposed to be virulent in the extreme, resistant to all forms of counter-treatment. We seem to have been able to lick that part of the problem.’

‘So it can kill us but we can’t kill it, eh? Congratulations, that must be a miracle of science.’

‘I don’t think you’re being fair,’ said Finch. ‘We were working to specifics…’

‘…just obeying orders, I know. Me too, Miss Finch. Now you’ve spilled something, and I have to mop it up. That’s the way it goes.’

‘Who did you take machismo lessons from, Lynch? Clint Eastwood? Rutger Hauer?’

He slapped her, hard. She was surprised.

‘Caught you, didn’t I, Miss Finch?’

She sobbed twice, then got herself under control.

‘As you probably know, this is serious. The police are involved, but their part will soon be over. UCC have a team coming. Dr Anderton, you’ll get whatever you want. You have the best facilities possible here, and I understand they’re pulling some people off Aries and Libra to back you up. I just hope something good comes out of this. If there are any casualties, we’ve got rooms in the University Infirmary at our disposal. Now, I’ve got to go and make the Vice-Chancellor eat shit. I want you to know that this is a genuine fuckup, and I’d like you to think only in terms of damage limitation, you understand?’

He left them to it. Some people had no idea.

* * *

Robyn Askew was detailed to make breakfast. She was a veggie, but Rote, who admitted that human beings were carnivorous animals, insisted she cook him up a panful of bacon. Best breakfast in the world, the British fry-up. Five or six rashers of streaky, a couple of burst-yolk eggs, some optional button mushrooms, half a tomato grilled to a hot lump, and a slice of deep-fat-fried bread, with ketchup and strong tea. Robyn might get broody about it and Dave Higgitt was with her – a vegan who refused dairy products and any food so much as scraped against an animal – but Doug Templeton was on his side. Even if he had not been, Rote would have outvoted the others. Ever since he went underground, his unit had been under his total command. It was the only way.

Higgitt was spinning the tuner on the radio, trying to catch all the local and national news bulletins. It was unlikely they would make the BBC, but the independent local station ought to carry a report. Rote almost wanted them to have been identified. Eventually, when he was well out of the area, he would issue a statement claiming responsibility. Since putting out the eyes of the Duke of Bastardfordshire or whatever he called himself, the cell had not had a decent follow-up action. He was glad that there had been a chance to cause injury. The media always ignored actions that did not cause injury.

‘Where’s Chocolate Charlie?’ Rote asked. The black youth – too dangerous and broody by half, he thought – was missing.

Templeton stabbed this thumb up towards the ceiling, and licked his lips.

‘Poking Cazie,’ he said through a grin. ‘She likes her meat dark.’

That was typical of the unreal little slut. Rote knew from the first she was not serious about the cause. She was in it for weird kicks. Weird fucks. Cazie was a dilettante debutante. He knew the type. They oohed and ahhed over cuddly-wuddly ickle-wickle cutesy furry animally-poohs, and copped out when it came to an action.

Cazie had fucked up last night. She had been as much use as a bad case of genital warts. And her tagalongs had been no better. Thommy and Clare.

Higgitt turned off the radio, disgusted. Cazie and Derm were making a lot of noise. Templeton laughed, and Robyn looked disgusted.

Rote had had to make do with Clare, but he had really wanted to pour the pork to Cazie. It was just that he knew he could take Thommy, but he was not sure of Derm. He could win in a fight, but there would
be
a fight. Thommy was a spineless piss-heart, and had backed down with a shit-eating smile at the first sign of real pain. Derm might have required more sweat and bruising.

Next, Rote would try for a major coup. An action against a zoo, or a circus. Maybe Cruft’s or the Horse of the Year Show. People were hurting animals all the time, and he ached to hurt them back.

The noise upstairs was ridiculous. At first, Rote thought Cazie was just a screamer. Then he realized it was Derm who was screaming.

‘Shit,’ he said.

The four of them jammed the stairs together, and jogged up towards the landing, towards the nerve-scraping screams.

* * *

As Eddie Zero woke up, he fumbled on his bedside for a cassette from his shoebox, and slotted it into his deck. He could not get up without rock ’n’ roll. It was The Coasters, ‘Poison Ivy’.

The music got to him, and he rolled out of his single bed. He sat in his vest and Y-fronts on the edge of the bed, and looked around his Hall of Residence room. A life-size Elvis poster sneered at him from the back of his door.

He stumbled over to the wash-basin, and splashed cold water on his face, wiping the wet into his greasy hair, shaping his quiff. He skipped shaving, but took the trouble to sluice out his mouth with soapy water, forcing it between his teeth. He was out of toothpaste.

The Coasters got onto ‘Bad Blood’.

He supposed he had resigned from Campus Radio yesterday. He remembered telling Posie Columba what she could do with the middle of Friday nights.

He took out his drainpipes and forced himself into them, sucking in his stomach to tighten the belt. He tied his bootlace tie in the collar of his knife-point collar-tip paisley shirt, and got into his embroidered waistcoat. At least he was looking like something.

‘Yakkety-Yak.’

There was a scratching at his door, and he wondered who it could be. Nobody ever bothered him on campus. Unless it was some snotnose wanting to borrow milk.

And why couldn’t they just knock, for the sake of Carl Perkins?

He opened the door, and there was no one in the corridor. The scratching, he realized had been at the bottom of the door.

He looked down, and saw a rabbit nestling on his pink-socked feet.

‘Riot in Cell Block Number Nine’.

* * *

Rote was out of the way by the time Cazie got to the door. He was quick. She would have to stretch herself to get him.

His top soldier was not so well prepared. Rote had slammed past him, pushing him against a wall. Cazie saw exposed throat and reached for it. Flesh parted like overcooked pasta, and she grabbed a fistful of tendons and nerves.

Holding the man as if by his shirt collar, she whipped him around, and swung him into the wall. She let go and he crumpled.

She was still hungry, and there was bacon frying below. She looked at the knotty red mess in the dead man’s throat and was tempted.

But there was no time for that. She had three more people to take care of before breakfast. She knew now how much better than them she was.

She also needed a bath and clothes, but this business was bound to be messy, so for the time being she just put on her old dressing gown. It was already torn and bloody, so more mess would not matter.

Downstairs, where they had retreated, they were talking about her. Rote was the dangerous one. She would go for him first.

But Rote was clever. He sent his other man upstairs for her, with a jemmy. The weapon, of course, was already blooded.

She remembered the sound she had heard when Rote had hit the security guard last night. It was a good sound.

Excited, she squared off against the man in the hallway. He paused, put off by the sight of his comrade gurgling his last, and began to swing the jemmy in calculated arcs before him.

She was cool, and did not hiss and claw the air.

‘Girlie, you’re dead.’

With lamentable slowness, he jabbed the jemmy at her like a sword. She just reached out and took it.

‘Do you want to see some magic?’ she asked.

She bent the jemmy into an oval, but it cracked at the top and spoiled the effect. She threw it at the man as he came for her, and raised a blood-filled bruise on his forehead.

He covered his head with his hands, but she had him anyway.

Cazie kicked out, and snapped the rail off the top of the bannisters. The landing was lined with jagged wooden pickets. She took Rote’s man by his elbows and forced him backwards, down onto the spikes. Three came up through him, bringing dark squirts of blood and trails of offal. His arms came away from his face as his eyes filled up with the red stuff. She kissed him, not like she had kissed Derm, but out of friendliness. He was dead now and could not do her any harm.

‘I’m coming down now, Rote. Ready or not!’

Giggling like a girl, she tripped past the dead people and went down the stairs. Her back teeth hurt, as if they were just coming through. She knew who she was now.

The woman was no problem. Cazie just hugged her to death. Her back snapped like a breadstick. Cazie left her in the kitchen, and went looking for Rote in the Action Room.

The light was off down there, and Cazie could hear him in the dark. She could hear things she had never heard before. The whisper of breath, the beating of a heart, the slightest rustle of cloth.

She paused at the head of the stairs, and brought her thumbnail up to her mouth. It was tougher than she thought, and she could not chew it. She nicked her tongue, and tasted her own blood. It gave her a cocaine rush, and she had to steady herself.

Rote came for her while she was off balance, grabbing her ankles and pulling her downstairs. Her spine jolted as she slammed against every step. She felt a series of forceful blows to the chest as she lay prone on the stairs. She did not lose her wind, but she was dizzy.

She realized she could see in the dark now. Rote was bent over her, teeth bared like a cartoon monster. It was almost funny.

He held her down with a knee in her stomach, and ripped her robe open. His hand came down as fast as even she could move, and he had her by the throat. She knew it was no use snarling at him. He would not be impressed.