Hybrid (31 page)

“
So all this is about a book written by a discredited author more than half a century ago. Excuse my sarcasm, Doctor, but I find that a little hard to believe,” General McDaniels said as their Suburban screamed down the dark streets of Washington.

“It’s not about
The
Population Bomb
per se. It’s the theory behind the book: Paul Ehrlich theorized that the earth can sustain a finite number of human beings before a series of events was initiated that would ultimate lead to our extinction. He made a number of dire predictions if worldwide conditions weren’t changed. All of them proved to be inaccurate, but that didn’t stop his ideas from entering the consciousness of scientific thought. People were influenced by his theories.”

“So Avanti was a disciple.”

“Disciple is too strong a word. Ehrlich believed something and shaped facts to fit that belief; Jaime would never accept that intellectual dishonesty,” Martin said.

“So you are saying that there are facts to back this outlandish theory?” McDaniels was finally surrendering to the laws of momentum by bracing himself within the careening vehicle.

“I don’t think you fully understand Avanti, General. He’s not insane, or some nut with an idea. He is a true believer and not because he blindly accepts what he has been told or has read.” The car suddenly swerved around a corner throwing Martin against the window. “To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely convinced that he’s wrong. In many ways, our species is in as much danger as you and I are right now.”

“Sergeant, I told you to get us there quickly, but I did mean alive,” McDaniels yelled to the driver.

“Sorry sir, but we are being followed. Fairly sophisticated but not aggressive.” The sergeant answered without emotion or taking his eyes off of the road.

Martin wheeled around to look out the rear window but was blinded by the headlights of the trailing Suburban. “Who would be following us?”

“Any number of people, some good, some not so good. It will be handled.” McDaniels didn’t bother turning around and gave Martin a moment to return to his seat.” So you are a believer in this pseudoscience as well?”

“I wouldn’t label it as a pseudoscience,” Martin said nervously as he slid back into his seat.

“It’s become one. When I hear the same facts quoted by radical environmentalists and gun-toting isolationists, I have a tendency to discount them.”

“Wow, with a philosophy like that, how did you ever get through your confirmation hearings?” Martin scoffed. “People basically suck; excuse my French. They will use any tool at their disposal to advance their own personal agenda. Facts don’t lie, people do, and when you pull all those facts together, the future becomes a very scary place. I’m not just talking about global warming; I’m talking about the loss of species diversity, deforestation, the depletion of natural resources—the list is as long as your arm, and each one of those inconvenient facts has an impact on human survival, whether we believe them or not.”

“I believe in our ability to survive; it is the thing that we do best,” McDaniels answered simply.

“Then you must stink at what you do, because your job is to make sure our enemies don’t survive,” Martin laughed sarcastically again.

“My job is not to kill; my job is to protect the United States.”

“Then how are you going to protect it from the seven billion incubators that inhabit this planet and the tendency of pathogens to mutate?”

“That’s your job.”

“Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I stink at my job. We have almost no natural defenses, and what little science can do will be too little too late. HIV, Bird-flu, SARS, NIM, and all the others that came before them matured within human tissue. The greater the mass of human tissue, the greater the probability that something really nasty will develop. There are some very serious-minded people who believe that we are on the verge of a massive natural pandemic, the results of which would be death tolls in the billions. And with the way societies and economies have become so interdependent, such a disruption would lead to famines and wars severe enough to finish the rest of us off.”

“Which brings us back to Avanti. He told you that he was working outside the wishes and desires of Jeser. Do you believe him?”

“I do; I doubt he’d lie to me—that’s not his style. In some ways, he’s a lot like he was twenty years ago, he wants me to know that he was the one who engineered this virus and is personally responsible for its dissemination. He wants to be remembered as someone who had the courage to do what others were afraid to do. It’s so insane,” Nathan said softly. “He twisted the knife by telling me that he used my computer models to convince Jeser that the outbreak could be controlled. He stole them, which means that someone in my department is working for him, or them.” Martin said sadly. “The outbreak in Colorado is supposed to get the world’s attention so that the rest of the world will close their borders to the United States. That’s supposed to limit the spread of the infection.” Martin shook his head. ”They’re going to issue some demands so that they appear reasonable and then release the original virus no matter what we do.”

A moment of thoughtful silence followed. “Avanti wants you to reproduce that vaccine to slow or stop the outbreak,” McDaniels motioned towards the small vial in Martin’s hand. “To save just enough so that humanity survives, but society doesn’t.”

“One thousand doses, if he’s correct.” He gripped the bottle tighter. “I know what you’re wondering: is there time to mass-produce this? The answer is no. It would take several months to maybe a year before we could produce any reasonable quantity, and I’m guessing that if things go as Avanti thinks they will, we have two maybe three months before worldwide dissemination. At that point, there’s no stopping it.”

Reisch slept with the television on and a commercial full of screaming children awakened him. He suffered through thirty seconds of it before finally finding the remote control and turning the TV off. The sounds of the screaming and squealing children still rattled inside his painful head. American television was reason enough to condemn humanity.

The bedside clock said that it was exactly six o’clock, and to Klaus’s great relief, he found that his hand had recovered most of its function. His thinking was still a little thick, but it had improved enough that he could defend himself; at least against humans.

He began to stretch, but then stiffened; a hint of something foreign drifted across his mind. He tried to seize the trace of mental energy, but it was gone, or perhaps it had never been there at all. He was still on guard after his encounter with Amanda, and his control over his emotions was erratic. She had planted a seed of doubt in his mind, and for the first time in years he felt vulnerable. Suddenly, he took the remote control and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a hundred pieces, and after an instant of delight, he rebuked himself. He needed to stay in control; he couldn’t afford any more self-indulgent displays.

He swung his legs off the side of the bed, anxious to be up and moving, but as soon as his feet touched the floor, he knew something was wrong. There was activity all around him. Dozens and dozens of minds were awake and active.

“Military,” he said with a raspy voice. They were setting up roadblocks on all of the main roads. His mind drifted through the throng of bored and cold soldiers, but none of them knew why they were here, or why they had been issued live ammunition. He would have to find an officer or someone else of importance to find out just how much danger he was in. The problem was that taking over a mind was like shooting off a flare for Amanda; in an instant, she would know exactly where to find him, and he wasn’t quite ready for their next meeting. He waited a moment, giving destiny the opportunity to provide him with the information that he needed, but after several minutes of silence, he decided to shower instead.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and refreshed, he dropped his key on the unmade bed and left for his car. He made it twenty feet before the night manager called to him. The man was wearing a parka that was open enough for Reisch to see the same torn and dirty T-shirt that had graced his portly form the night before. He slogged through the snow in unlaced army boots, and Reisch thought he should kill the man on general principles alone.

“Excuse me,” he called, and Reisch found his mind open enough to read.
Quarantine?
The word was unfamiliar, but the fat man provided enough of a definition to make the meaning clear. “The state police told me to tell all our guests that they were to stay put.” Apparently, he had been going from room to room telling everyone about the ban on travel.

“I’m just getting some supplies.” Reisch smiled and eased the man’s mind. The night manager said something else, but Reisch had already turned for the Mercedes. The small SUV sprung into life immediately despite the cold, and he let the engine warm. No one was watching or looking for him as far as his mind’s eye could see. This was all about the virus, not about him. The Americans were finally reacting to the outbreak. After seven long years, it was finally starting.

Reisch’s smile broadened. He knew that it was wrong to take credit for this, but he allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. All his actions had been scripted by a force or an entity far beyond even his understanding, but he had played his role faithfully. His reward for success would be survival; had he failed, he would rightly perish along with the rest of the unworthy.

Reisch turned on the radio and listened as the announcer read the manifesto of Jeser. It had been written by fools. He corrected his disparaging thought; he could afford to be magnanimous in victory. They weren’t fools, just irredeemably misguided, and their time was just about up. In due course, after they had their moment in the sun, he would bring about their destruction as dispassionately as he had brought about the Americans’; he wouldn’t celebrate, or mourn their passing.

The radio reporter had been replaced by an epidemiology expert. His conclusions were a little more optimistic than the planners’, but that was understandable; it would take the Americans some time to come to terms with their imminent demise.

Within a month, American society would be in disarray. By six months, the great country would be little more than a graveyard, with a few thousand survivors wandering through the waste, struggling with their newfound abilities and searching for a purpose. Reisch would collect and direct them. He would help them discover the natural order of existence; it wouldn’t be difficult, most of them would have begun to sense it, and perhaps live by it. They would forge a new civilization, purged of corrupting concepts such as equality and democracy; the strong would thrive, and as time passed, the new species would become their own gods. Later, Reisch would repeat the process in Europe, then in Asia, and continue until humanity had been completely replaced by the Select. The key to success was to make the process gradual, with the first step being the trickiest. The United States had a lot of bombs and was the least predictable in its death-throes; it didn’t take much effort to push a button and ruin everything.

He dropped the car into gear and drove out of the snowy parking lot. The fat man was still waking people up and barely registered the Mercedes.

“Where are we going?” A tired-looking Pushkin asked from the backseat.

“I need to eat,” Reisch said simply, basking in the glow of all the frenetic activity around him. He drove under an overpass and weaved his way through town, finally stopping at a McDonalds. He bought some scalding but weak coffee along with a Mc-something that passed for food. He slowly ate, thinking about the thousands of survivors. The number was only a guess; it might be just a few hundred, or perhaps as many as a million.

“So we are finally off to Costa Rica,” Pushkin said while drifting to the front seat. “Are you going to complete the mission now, or wait? There may not be a better opportunity.”

“You know that it is not due for another forty-four hours.”

“There are a lot of people out here, and some of them are bound to be looking for you. Anticipate complications Klaus.”

Reisch paused at the mention of his given name. “Sending it now will effect containment.”

“In the end, your little bag here,” Pushkin playfully spun the black satchel, “makes containment rather moot.”

“We have to get to the end first, before we can talk about what is moot.” Reisch scored a rare debate point.

“You’re a little selective in your trust of Professor Avanti. You trust his estimates for spread of the first virus but not his estimates for containment of the second. You do remember that everything he told Jeser was a lie.”

Reisch still hadn’t made up his mind about Avanti. He first met the Ukrainian in Libya in the early nineties. Klaus had been without steady work since the collapse of the Soviets, and Pushkin had arranged for the two to meet. At first they were rather leery of one another; Reisch was uncomfortable with the Ukrainian’s reputation of radical Islamic beliefs, and for his part, Avanti was unnerved by Reisch’s reputation of violent instability. To complicate matters, Avanti was part of a nascent organization that was forming around Osama bin Laden, the Saudi hero of the Afghan resistance.