Bzrk Apocalypse (10 page)

icked. Panic? Lystra, panic?

But in the end the cops couldn’t prove a thing.

There wasn’t a lot in the way of a social services department in

Tulsa, but a shrink was tasked with testing her.

“She’s a very difficult subject,” he had reported. “Hard to test.

Her IQ is very high—very smart, very quick—so she knows how to

answer, how to avoid setting off alarm bells. But my instinct tells me

she’s concealing something. At times I got the impression she might

be hearing voices. Phantom voices. She may just be traumatized. Or

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she may be schizophrenic but with enough control to hide it.”

Lystra was the sole heir to a million-dollar life insurance policy

that was doubled due to the fact that the death had been an accident.

Double indemnity, they called it.

Two million dollars. She’d been unable to touch it until she was

eighteen, and at that time other family members had petitioned the

court to examine her psychologically again.

The court had found her legally sane.

The voices in her head had congratulated her on the finding.

On her eighteenth birthday, Lystra had filed papers to form the

Mad Alice Holding Company. And she’d gotten her first tattoo. She’d

told the tattoo artist, “I want my adoptive parents, like in this picture.

But I want them to be screaming.”

The tattoo artist had been reluctant, but an extra thousand dol-

lars had cured him of all doubt.

The placement she’d chosen was strange. Her stepmother was

beneath one breast, so that she seemed to be smothered by the weight

of it. Her stepfather, also screaming, was beneath the other.

Once both tattoos were complete, they began to speak to her.

They wept, sometimes. Other times they threatened. She heard their

voices so very clearly. If she stripped off her shirt and her bra, she

could see their mouths moving as they cried out in pain and despair.

But they could be useful, too, the talking tattoos. It was the dead

Mr. Reid who suggested using her inheritance to buy a small, failing

medical testing company outside of Washington, D.C.

So the Mad Alice Holding Company was dissolved and a suc-

cessor corporation formed as an Isle of Man company, exempt from

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MICHAEL GRANT

most supervision. And then, another stroke of unusual luck: a mid-

size competitor in the medical testing field had suffered a catastrophic

hacking that had spilled the records all over the Internet.

Lystra Reid bought the stricken company and brought in the

best security people around to ensure that a similar fate would never

befall her. The result was a medical testing company, Directive Medi-

cal, which had never suffered a successful break-in, while—not so

strangely—security problems plagued her competitors.

At the age of twenty-four, Reid controlled a third of the indepen-

dent medical labs in North America, as well as significant portions of

other markets around the world.

It was amazing what you could learn from data mining the

health records of more than two hundred million people worldwide.

You could, for example, learn that the wife of a brilliant medical

researcher named Grey McLure had a rare cancer. And you could

learn that this McLure fellow was suddenly in a desperate search for

living cell samples. And with just a bit more work you could discover

that he was also looking for a wide range of animal tissue samples for

a very secret project of some sort.

Lystra hung up the phone, indifferent really to the current

spreadsheet drama from her office. It didn’t matter. There was no

future to worry about. She swallowed the last of the bourbon and

stood up to stretch. The marina was nestled between Tiburon and

the adjoining Belvedere Island. Unpretentious yet extremely expen-

sive homes rose on a cute little hill to her left and up the longer,

wooded slope of Belvedere to her right. Looking south through the

forest of masts, she could see San Francisco. Fog was rolling out,

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revealing the city, all muted pastels and off-whites.

It was all in all a beautiful location, with sailboats and ferries and

container ships passing by in review. A genteel, civilized, prosperous

place.

And all of it about to come to a terrifying end.

It had been good to watch Janklow go mad; he had annoyed her

on more than one occasion. She wanted to get a few tastes of the

madness out here in the real world—before the final chapters, which

would force her to hide out and watch it as well as she could via elec-

tronic means. The personal, real-world experiences would help her to

enjoy the next step.

“All done?” the waiter asked, coming to clean her table.

“Soon,” she said.

77

EIGHT

The first thing Bug Man had asked was, “Where are we?”

Bug Man had flown on a private jet before. He wasn’t indifferent

to it, but he wasn’t overly impressed, either. George had not told him

where they were going but had retreated into a book, remaining sul-

len and uncommunicative.

Bug Man saw a city in the distance. It was all tan walls and terra-

cotta roofs, a large blur extending far out in every direction, reaching

beneath the jet with roads full of small cars.

“The former center of the Earth, once upon a time. The Eternal

City,” George had said.

“Yeah, which is what?”

George sighed. “Your education is deplorable. The Eternal City is

a reference to Rome.”

“Rome? That’s like, Italy, right?”

George managed not to roll his eyes, but only just. “Yes, Italy, Bug

Man. Pizza, pasta, wine, priests, fashion, Rome. The Coliseum,” he

added. “Gladiators and all of that.”

“I saw the movie,” Bug Man said. “Also, I played the game. Not a

great game.”

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“No?” The plane took a little lurch as a crosswind hit it. “What

makes a good game?”

Bug Man had been much more sure of his ground on this topic.

He didn’t know much about history, but he knew games. “A good

game? That’s one where you can’t stop playing it, even when you’re

asleep. Whatever you have to do that takes you away from the game,

all you’re thinking about is getting back into it.”

“Hard?”

“It’s not about hard. Yeah, it has to be challenging. Can’t be so

easy it’s over in five minutes, right? But it’s not just about hard; other-

wise, you could play online chess or work a Rubik’s cube, man.”

He heard the grinding of the landing gear coming down.

“Why are we in Rome?” Not that he was complaining. He’d been

locked away for several days in a safe house in the emptied-out Lake

District before George had come to retrieve him. He’d been about to

lose his mind looking at rain falling on green hills.

“We need a good twitcher. A nanobot twitcher.”

“Where’d you get nanobots? The people you work for don’t do

nanobots, and I am not doing any biot bullshit. I saw what that did

to Vincent.”

“Nanobots,” George reassured him. “We came across some, and a

portable controller. Compliments of a former friend of yours.”

“Burnofsky?”

George laughed and didn’t answer. He rolled into the nearest seat

and motioned Bug Man to buckle up.

Bug Man didn’t exactly miss Burnofsky. The old man was an

unreliable, unpredictable, sometimes cruel degenerate. But he and

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MICHAEL GRANT

Bug Man had played a great game. The greatest game Bug Man would

probably ever play.

God, that was a depressing thought. Was it all downhill from

here? He supposed that would depend on just what George here had

in mind.

“What do you want me for?” Bug Man asked, but the question

was lost in the impact of tires on tarmac. The jet rolled down the

taxiway to a waiting car.

Bug Man walked down the steps to the tarmac—it was warmer

out than it should have been for this time of year. Was Rome always

warm? He had no idea. The sun was setting, and all he could see were

featureless hangars and repair sheds. In the distance was a Fiat sign,

and beyond that a billboard for what looked like a juice drink.

“I don’t speak Italian,” he said.

“You won’t need to,” George said. “Get in the car.”

Bug Man did not like that, the bossy tone. He needed to draw a

line right here and now, before he was driven off to wherever. “Tell me

what we’re doing here, dude.” When George looked evasive, Bug Man

held up one hand, cutting him off. “No, man, now. Right here, right

now. Enough playing around.”

George nodded, as if expecting this. As if he’d have preferred to

do it somewhere else, but okay, if his impatient young friend insisted.

“The Pope,” George said.

“The Pope? The freaking Holy Father?
The
Pope? What about

the Pope?”

“You know he’s in Rome?” The question was obviously insulting,

spoken as it was with more than a trace of condescension.

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BZRK APOCALYPSE

“What’s with the Pope?”

George dropped the snarky look and got serious. “You are wanted

by MI5. A word from them and every other intelligence and police

agency on Earth will be looking for you. And of course, the Arm-

strong Twins want you dead.” He stepped closer, put his face right

up close to Bug Man’s face, close enough that Bug Man could have

told you the man’s toothpaste brand. “But forget all of that, because

we have a fellow named Caligula. A charming name, I’m sure you’ll

agree. He already knows your name. A single text from Lear to Cal-

igula and your death is assured.” He held up an index finger. “I don’t

mean that you will
likely
be killed. I mean that you will without the

slightest doubt be killed. Caligula has never failed.
Never.
”

Bug Man swallowed. He knew the name. He knew the reputation.

And he did not like the fact that Caligula knew what he was about.

“As to what you are to do, Anthony ‘Bug Man’ Elder, you are to

retrieve a sample. A few cells. That is all. And then you will be free to

go. We won’t protect you, but neither will we harm you. And you’ll be

paid. A hundred thousand pounds.”

“Cells?” Bug Man asked with a dry mouth.

“Cells. A tissue sample. From the Pope. And it must be done

quickly.”

“The Pope. Tissue samples.” Bug Man let this sink in. George

waited, expectant, curious to see whether Bug Man would put it all

together.

“Jesus,” Bug Man said. He let loose a short, sharp bark of a laugh.

“Jesus bloody Christ on a cross.”

George got a dreamy look on his face. “See, Anthony, control is so

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MICHAEL GRANT

much easier when you don’t require the victim to carry out complex

actions. Reduce it to the binary and it’s all more efficient and effective.”

Bug Man nodded, seeing it—and fearing it. “You don’t even need

Caligula anymore. You just need a tissue sample.”

George threw back his head and laughed, showing teeth that had

had many encounters with dentists. “I quite like you, Anthony. I’d

have done this later, not here on the tarmac, but you’re such a clever

boy.” He pulled a small plastic bag from the inner pocket of his jacket.

From it he withdrew a vial and a Q-tip. “I’ll just swab the inner cheek,

if you don’t mind.”

Bug Man did mind. He pulled away.

“Oh, it’s far too late for that, Anthony. You’re in. Like it or not.

You haven’t a friend in the world, and so many people want you dead.

Turn and run and I’ll let you go, but Caligula will get to you if the

Armstrongs don’t find you first. Now open wide.”

Bug Man opened his mouth. George swabbed his inner cheek

with the Q-tip and sealed it in the vial.

“We won’t create the biots unless you make it necessary. You have

Lear’s word on that.”

“Lear’s word,”
Bug Man said bitterly.

“You are not in a position to argue, Anthony. You are lost and

despised and scheduled for destruction. And now, you are BZRK.”

He grinned and made an ironic power salute with his fist. “Death or

madness, kid. Death or madness.”

The Starhotels Michelangelo didn’t look like much from the outside;

in fact, it looked like any number of the wearily functional, ’60s-era

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buildings that deface Rome. Inside it was moderately posh, and Bug

Man was hustled into a large suite with a balcony.

The balcony had a very nice view of the dome of Saint Peter’s

Basilica. (And a red-trimmed Total gas station in the other direction.)

The walls of Vatican City were just four hundred feet away.

There was also a nice little restaurant serving—unsurprisingly—

Italian food. The TV featured the BBC and CNN International as well

as other non-Italian fare, and there was WiFi, but it was a bit slow.

From here Bug Man could easily manage nanobots within Vati-

can City. But what he needed was a pathway. X to Y to Z to the Pope.

And then back out with a dozen or so cells.

“Don’t leave this room,” George instructed. “Except for lunch,