Immortality (34 page)

Something from the rear began to rattle. Mark looked back at his samples to make sure nothing had broken free. The first round of traps had captured infected COBIC at three percent of the sites. He expected the same would be true for this lot. He planned on examining each bacterium sample for subtle differences, a mutation that might explain why some people died and others lived. At least that was the general idea. It was a competing theory against Kathy’s computer model, reasonably good science, and would probably take him months to complete. As far he was concerned, that was all right. With any luck, there would be no need to finish the research. Let someone else find the cure. He had a vague second plan to see how much alcohol and sedatives it would take to erase the memory of your average Nobel Prize winning scientist.

What would be the loss? He had nothing more to contribute. Kathy had been doing fine before he’d shown up, and she would do fine with him out of the picture. She’d found a second Harold N., a 43-year-old woman named Gloria Martinez. In the center of a kill zone, the woman had held her children in her arms while they and several friends and relatives had died around her. There was clearly something medically unique about this woman. She was already at the CDC in Atlanta undergoing a battery of tests. It was possible she was a walking, breathing cure for the plague.

Mark felt thirsty. He got up to retrieve his flight bag. Thankfully it hadn’t wandered far. The bag had been snagged by a row of bolt heads twenty feet aft. He sat down and strapped back in. Deep inside the bag was a fresh pint of gin, an airline sized mini-bottle of vermouth, and a water glass stolen from the officer’s mess. He was, if nothing else, developing into a discerning drinker and had planned on self-medicating himself for the ride. The alcohol was his in-flight relaxation and entertainment system.

Mark discovered it required a certain skill to make a martini in his lap on a moving jet. He took a sip and decided it was worth the trouble. He heard Kathy say something but couldn’t catch the words. The jet engines were loud enough to make talking difficult. He was surprised that Kathy had said anything. He’d expected the silent treatment once she saw him drinking. He now had the option of leaning closer and hearing her rebuke or pretending not to hear. Talking would lead to a fight. He leaned closer to speak into her ear.

“What did you say?”

Kathy’s parka stuffed shape pressed against his shoulder. In that outfit, she was like a nicely stuffed down pillow.

“I said, ‘You got your doctorate from UCLA didn’t you?’”

Mark was confused. Where was this going?

“Ahuh,” he said.

“Mine was Harvard Medical.”

“I know. I read your bio,” he said.

“Were you on scholarship?” she asked.

“No, UCLA was almost free back then. Plus I worked part-time. Took me a few extra years to earn my undergraduate.”

“I had a full scholarship that included room and board.”

“Lucky you.” What was her point?

“When I heard you were coming to advise us, I went out and read the entire set of research papers that led to your Nobel Prize.”

“You’re kidding. There must have been thousands of pages. I don’t think I’ve even read them all, and I wrote them.”

“I have to admit I was searching for flaws,” said Kathy. “I wanted to find something to make us more equal.”

“And...” said Mark.

“It was brilliant.”

“Wow, I mean thanks. Would you like a drink?”

“Sure.”

Mark was baffled by the change in her. From his flight bag he pulled the bottle of gin and wondered where he would find a second glass. She took the bottle from his fingers and swallowed a couple gulps. He saw her eyes water up. She took another sip, this time smaller, then handed the bottle back.

“Can I be honest with you?” she said.

“Anyone that can drink gin straight from the bottle can say whatever she wants.”

“I know that your feelings are overwhelming you, but there are other things even more important. You know COBIC better than anyone.”

“Look, Kathy, you don’t need my help. Never did. I’m not a medical doctor. I engineer microbes and poke around in fossil beds. I know in detail how bacteria work inside the human body, but so does every first year med-student.”

“That’s so much bullshit. You’re the one that precisely identified this strain of bacterium. You’re the one that discovered an object inside its nucleus that will probably end up being the disease vector itself. You’re the one that came up with a way of collecting this strain of COBIC and more, much more. I ought to beat you silly for saying you’ve contributed nothing.”

“Sorry honey, I won’t do it again.”

“Can you be serious for one minute? We need you. What we’re doing will lead to stopping this killer. Probably hundreds of groups around the globe are working on this bug; but we’re the ones who found it, and we’re the ones who have the best shot at figuring it out.”

Kathy opened the bottle of gin and took another sip. What could he say about this lecture she just gave him? Surprisingly, it left him feeling good; and judging from her expression she’d meant every word of it. She looked like she was ready to hit him if he disagreed with her one more time.

Most of gin was gone. The conversation had long ago drifted to more personal topics. Mark felt a solid glow from the alcohol, but it was nothing compared to how good Kathy was making him feel. She’d told him about one of her fantasies, getting a small horse ranch with an apple orchard and a stream. He’d told her about the high of winning a Nobel Prize, and his guilt about the way he’d ruined his marriage to Julie, and how it was now too late to even apologize.

“I can understand some of what you’re feeling,” said Kathy. “I was eight when I lost both my parents. I felt that somehow it had been my fault. If I’d only been a better kid, if I’d only kept my room cleaner or not had bad thoughts, then maybe God wouldn’t have taken them from me.”

Mark found himself looking at Kathy and seeing the person inside for the first time. He liked what he saw and that scared him. His heart was beating faster than it should have been. He was past scared; he was ready to run. He changed the subject amid a flurry of conflicting emotions. He tried to talk about safer things; but after a short period of time, he had drifted back to what was troubling him… or was it Kathy who had steered the conversation along?

“You know they’re in my mind every minute of the day,” said Mark. “Not a moment goes by that I don’t play the ‘what if game.’ What if I’d let Gracy fly out to Atlanta? What if I’d told them to leave L.A. right after New Jersey was hit? What if…”

His voice cracked. Mark stopped talking. He realized he was on dangerous ground and close to losing it. He wasn’t going to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t dwell on this guilt.”

“Don’t apologize.”

The ride had gotten rough several minutes ago. Turbulence was buffeting the airframe. Kathy had been rocking back and forth with the sway of the jet. The motion had been bringing her face closer and father away. For a moment he thought he was going to kiss her. He was certain that a kiss was the farthest thing from her mind. She picked up his hand and squeezed it.

Mark’s PDA phone vibrated. He fished the gadget out his pocket. There was no call coming in, it was an e-mail alert. Someone on his personal alert list had sent him e-mail. The message was from Professor Karla Hunt. It had been over a week ago that he’d e-mailed her the classified pictures of seeds. She was a leading expert in biomedical engineering. Her research was the direct interfacing of computers with the human brain. Her dream was to create prosthetic vision and hearing. She had achieved limited success with prosthetic vision. The e-mail was almost a week old and marked as spam. There must have been some kind of foul up in an e-mail server somewhere. The message itself was short and took Mark’s breath away.

Hi Love,

Looks like some kind of next generation, carbon-based nanotech circuitry. Something like the molecular computers IBM has been messing with. So what is it? Is this something IBM cooked up? Computer controlled micro golf balls? What? Did I win the prize?

Cheers,
K

Sarah had been staying at the Boarburg Inn for over a week. Marge, the owner, front desk clerk, cook, and maid, had proved to be a mountain of emotional support. Sarah was grateful. She hated lying to Marge about how she’d gotten here by crossing a quarantine line, but that had been the only lie and Sarah had taken solace in that. When Sarah told her she was a cop, Marge had acted as proud as if Sarah was her own child. The price for the room dropped to thirty-five dollars a night and food was on the house.

Sarah sat on the front porch sipping her third cup of coffee and thinking. She had been conducting this same ritual for the past few days – greeting the morning light. An orange sun was rising through tree branches casting everything in rich fall colors. She was thinking about her dream of a ghost town Los Angeles. How could she have known while hiking in the middle of a forest what was happening on the other side of the country? If it had only been that one time, she could have rationalized it away as coincidence; but what about her premonitions of New Jersey before it was hit?

The word
premonition
scared her, but what worried her even more was this impulse she felt, this deep urge to go south. It was a powerful need, almost like hunger. She wondered if this was anything like the instincts animals felt when it came time for them to migrate south. At times, she could see the entire route she would take; and at other times it was nothing more than an impulse to flee. Was she running from the plague like an animal fleeing a burning forest or was it more mysterious and less specific like responding to the sense of a warm place to nest that was far away? Sarah rose to go inside. She needed Marge’s help and advice.

The street was empty. The air nipped at her face. Sarah zipped her goose-down coat to the collar. Dried leaves blew past. There were small patches of ice on the ground. She was on her way to talk with someone named Hank Swenson. He owned the local Exxon and used car lot. Marge told her to warn Hank he’d better give her a good deal on a car, or his days of half price meals were over. Ralph had stayed behind with Marge who now loved the dog. When Sarah had left, Ralph was in the process of making a bowl of leftover stew disappear. Sarah had called to him. He’d looked up at her and then went back to the stew. Oh well, doggy love only went so far when stew was concerned. Marge appeared to be getting ready to give him seconds. Sarah smiled to herself. Ralph would miss Marge as much as she would.

Hank Swenson turned out to be nothing like what Sarah expected. Instead of a gangly auto mechanic, he was a stocky blond in his early fifties and spoke with an accent. At first she’d thought his moving into her space while talking was part of his European upbringing, but then he’d started with the hands. He kept touching her arms or shoulders. Sarah put up with it in the hopes of getting a car she could afford. She was prepared to spend most of the six hundred and twenty dollars she had. She could find work once she got farther south. His only car in her price range was a twenty-year-old half rusted Ford. The price scribbled in soap on the windshield was seven hundred dollars. Gusts of cold wind buffed her face and hair. Hank’s nose was red from the cold.

“Sarah, you know I like you,” said Hank. “I just can’t let the car go for five hundred. It’s ugly but it runs like a watch.”

“Five-fifty,” offered Sarah. “It’s as far as I can go and I really can’t afford that.”

“Maybe we can work something out?”

Hank Swenson put his arm around her waist and started to walk her away from the car. Her body stiffened.

“Let’s go inside. It’s getting nippy out here. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable in my office.”

His fingers were now curling around her hip. Sarah looked back over her shoulder at the junk heap of a car. What was she going to do? She needed to leave and she needed a car. Her legs froze when she saw the office door. Hank continued trying to inch her forward.

“I’ll give you six hundred and twenty dollars,” said Sarah, hoping she could do cleaning work for Marge to earn back some of the money before leaving.

“There’s only one way to drive off in that car for six hundred and twenty dollars,” said Hank.

He skillfully backed her against a wall. The alcove for the doorway was concealed from the street. He tried to kiss her.

“Get off me!” yelled Sarah.

She pushed at him, but he was heavy and strong.

“Be nice,” said Hank. “You can have the car for five hundred if you’re nice.”

He kissed her neck. Tears were streaming from her eyes. She was angry and breathing through her teeth. The emotional burn, instead of clouding her thoughts, added a peculiar detachment. In her mind was the remembered voice of one of her police instructors and diagrams of karate moves that were almost like dance steps. Sarah worked one of her legs into a crossed position behind her attacker’s calves and planted her foot firmly on the ground. Hank seemed to react as if her change in body position was sexy.

“Up yours,” she hissed.

She slapped both his ears at the same time. The dual blows hopefully ruptured his eardrums. Hank yelped and grabbed his ears. Taking advantage, Sarah brought up an elbow ramming it into his nose. The blow knocked Hank off balance and covered his lips in blood. He teetered backward tripping over her leg which she’d planted behind him; his feet were swept from the ground. The man went down hard. His head crashed into the doorframe. He was hurt. Seeing him in pain felt great.

“Cunt!” he groaned. “You get t...”

That was all Sarah heard as she was running from the lot. Her tears dried almost at once. Her heart was still racing as she slowed to a walk.

“That bastard!” hissed Marge.