The Reaper Plague (30 page)

First he reorganized the research facility.
Edens ended up working with other Edens on projects that, while
important and vital, did not impinge on their sympathy for their
subjects. They toiled at reverse engineering, reengineering, and
reprogramming the American nanites in accordance with Nguyen’s
instructions. Injected into humanely treated test subjects, the
tiny robots healed tissue, carried oxygen, and protected cells from
the damaging effects of the cold and vacuum of space. They boosted
or slowed metabolism, they augmented muscle strength and reaction
speed, all as they had been designed to do, but subtly altered.

The most important goal for Nguyen’s Eden
scientists was to limit the nanites’ lifespan. To allow them to
reproduce, but only so many times, allowing the user perhaps three
months of full efficiency and another three months before their
pseudo-life faded, halted, and they were excreted from the body.
Once achieved, this goal would ensure both his control over the
technology, and would eliminate the chance of rogue
nano-replications finding their way out into the environment and
running free in the ecosystem.

Before they were even a reality, they called
these safer nanites Fully-Controllable Nanobots, or FCNs, and the
Edens were dedicated to improving them to the benefit of Australia,
the Free Communities and the world.

Nguyen’s smaller staff of normals and Psychos
– each implanted with a deadman charge next to his or her heart –
worked on somewhat different projects. Where the FCNs were modified
to avoid entering the brain, and to do nothing if they did, the
American CCNs – cybercommando nanos – became the basis for many
interesting experiments. Had these become known to the Edens they
would have been appalled and horrified to see what was done beneath
their feet, in the deeply-buried underground levels of the
laboratory.

Some days Nguyen would observe through the
thick glass as a dangerous new nano was tested on the Americans. He
especially liked to watch Huff as he screamed and struggled against
his restraints, experimental machines running wild through his body
for just long enough. Then the electromagnetic field would be fed
power and the variant CCNs inactivated, dialyzed out, and FCNs
reintroduced to help the man heal. Spooky enjoyed hearing Huff cry
out for mercy from this hell, but sometimes he allowed the escape
of unconsciousness.

Other days he locked everyone out of the
private observation room except for Ann, and they would enjoy his
screams together while indulging themselves
. If only Deliah
could see me now,
he thought,
she would be lost to me. To
keep two mistresses, one Eden and one Psycho, is to walk the
knife’s edge without being cut. What greater pleasure can there be
than to do what is prohibited, and not be found out…and to do it
again.

His pleasures never interfered with his
efficiency…or so he told himself. Every day he meditated and
performed an extensive set of martial-arts exercises. Twice a week
he trained with one of several masters of the combative sciences,
ensuring he kept his body hard and fit. And whenever he could, he
wined, dined, and bedded Deliah Pelapolos.

She had been resistant at first, of course.
Sleeping with the boss would be an assault on her integrity – and
his, in her view. Still, his charms and persuasions had led to
talks, dates, and eventually assignation.
Most women can be
seduced by power
, he thought,
by flattery, gifts, and the
right kind of rationalization, no matter how nice a girl they like
to think themselves. They say, ‘we really love each other, so the
rules don’t apply.’ Eventually they become so intoxicated they
cannot resist.

He even took her out to see the Orion site,
where the skeleton of Ekara’s spaceship was beginning to take
shape. Nguyen was a VIP, so given the full treatment, and Deliah
basked in his reflected power and status. She no doubt believed she
would one day be more than merely his
girlfriend
, and he did
not disabuse her of that notion…but he knew it would never be. If
she ever grew tiresome, he had many ways of making her disappear.
An unfortunate accident: yes, some particularly nasty nano, you
see. No, her body was contaminated, it has been destroyed, but her
government life insurance is quite generous and all of her
relatives will be well-compensated, including you, sir…

All in all, Spooky Nguyen was as happy as a
patient man with unsatisfied ambitions could be.

His only disruption, if one could call it
that, came in the form of one old man called Maka. An Aborigine who
accompanied the tribal warrior Kalti in his spear-fighting school,
he always sat on the sidelines of the dirt practice yard with a
look of intense concentration as the master trained his students.
Every time Spooky came to train, he saw the gnarled fellow with his
equally twisted stick.

As Spooky diligently added the native martial
arts of Australia to his extensive repertoire, sweating and
striking with his blunted spear, the wizened shaman would laugh at
the strangest times. Clapping his hands, striking his heavy twined
stick on the ground, he called out in his native Warlpiri,
incomprehensible to the Vietnamese.

Despite his resolve and concentration, Nguyen
found himself distracted, and would often be struck down by his
huge, fit opponent, or by one of the other students. He presumed it
was part of the training, to learn to be less distracted, but it
seemed particularly difficult to block out Maka's cries.

This latest session began as it always did,
with a ritual warm-up much like Japanese
kata
, or form.
Nguyen and several other advanced students followed the spearmaster
Kalti in the heavy, stomping movements. When they were finished,
instead of continuing with the training, Spooky walked over,
intending to sit down next to Maka just out of arm’s reach.

As he did so, the old man reached out with
his staff and struck at Nguyen’s foot. Instinctively the small
Asian lifted his leg and was thereby unprepared for the stick’s
hooking pull on his supporting knee, which brought him to the
ground. Slapping the dirt and rolling, he came up facing the
laughing elder.

Clever old man. I underestimated him. That
will not happen again
. He glanced toward Kalti, who also
laughed uproariously.

Aborigines had a different sense of face and
decorum than he, which was one of the reasons he attended this
training, so he did not allow himself to be offended.
I am here
to learn, and I have just learned a valuable lesson. Or relearned
it. Perhaps I am getting soft, with my power and my
mistresses.

Spooky bowed to Maka, never taking his eyes
away, and then with superb balance and awareness, stepped back to
sit down next to the old man. This time there was no movement of
staff, no test or demonstration. The two sat there in apparent
peace and harmony, watching the rest of the session. Maka laughed
and called out as usual, but Nguyen put himself into a hyperaware
meditative trance, always ready for the slightest hint of
attack.

It never came.

But his intense observation allowed him to
realize what he had so foolishly overlooked before. The old man’s
shouts and laughter reinforced or disrupted the training in subtle
ways. They refocused the energy of the combatants, much as a
kiai
did for the
karateka
, much like he himself had
used on Huff to disrupt his attack in the hangar. Like a wizard,
the shaman stood back and conferred victory on whom he wished
through a kind of psychological magic.

Yes
, he thought,
I have much to
learn here, and the first lesson is humility. The second is that
the guiding hand is the real master. And the third is that
partnership brings victory. I have been going it alone too much,
relying on myself. Using people when I should be, at least in some
cases, truly cooperating
. He turned to Maka then, looking the
man directly in his wrinkled prune-face where his eyes shone like
opals. “Thank you for the lesson, Master Maka.”

Maka merely laughed, and spoke one word.
“Dadirri,” he said, then went back to watching Kalti as he swung,
spun and swept his spear.

Yes, there is much here to discover. I have
buried myself in work, and in pleasure.

As a westerner would say: I need to get out
more.

---

Cassandra Johnstone shrugged off her thick
overparka, leaving just her down vest on, standard wear for those
at the Free Communities’ Cormack Antarctic research station. The
interior temperature was usually around 60 Fahrenheit, chilly for
those not acclimatized. She picked up her tablet from the desk of
her temporary office and read the email from Elise again.

It was couched in careful qualifications, but
it still made her uneasy.
Human subjects for Reaper Plague
trials. This is where we start sliding down the slippery slope
,
she thought.
So necessary, so important, the least of all evils,
it could save millions. What’s one or three or a dozen prisoners’
lives compared to that?
She almost slammed the thing on the
desk, but remembered how everything here had to be flown thousands
of miles, so she slid it into her jacket instead.

She wandered slowly through the building,
greeting people now and again but mostly thinking. Her portion of
the sprawling complex was a kind of genteel prison, housing
low-risk detainees who still had information to give. They called
it simply The House. She’d refused to consider using the place as
an Antarctic Guantanamo, to hold people outside the law. That
wasn’t her purpose. Everyone there was free to leave – to their own
countries of origin. None of them wanted to go back. This was their
path to Free Community citizenship and expiation of their
crimes.

In fact most of her people here were
defectors like the former commando Marquez, happy enough to have
every drop of intelligence wrung out of them, and to try to prove
their value to Cassandra and thereby the Free Communities.

She didn’t say it too loud, but one of the
important functions of The House was to recruit her own
intelligence agents, spies who could adopt new identities, return
to their native lands, and provide her with the information she
needed.

Some well-meaning people thought the Eden
Plague and its virtue effect had done away with the need for spies.
But as long as there were nations with wildly differing goals and
views of their destinies, as long as the Earth remained disunited,
the Free Communities would need to know what was going on within
the other regimes.

Maybe someday the human race will be
united
, Cassandra thought.
You’d think that the threat of
alien invasion would do it. Maybe we’ve made some progress in that
direction, but it’s not happened yet. Until it does, Cass, you have
a job.

She stopped in at the cantina for hot
chocolate, tipping a dollop of brandy from a flask into the cup as
she read the screen again. The sound of sweeping next to her didn’t
get her attention, but the man in insulated coveralls who sat down
across from her did. He held his broom handle against his cheek and
smiled at her. “
Ola, senorita. Que pasa?
”

“
Hey, Marquez. How are you
settling in?”

“
This is a vacation, Mostly
I’m bored. Getting in a lot of gym time.” He banged the broom
gently on the floor. “This sweeping is such a workout.” He gestured
at her cup. “Got any more of that boom juice?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t have
alcohol privileges yet. You know how much it costs to fly it out
here?”

He shrugged philosophically. “Fair enough. So
what you reading?”

Cassandra stared at Marquez for along moment.
“Are you hitting on me, convict?”

“
Ouch. Low blow. I was a
prisoner of war.”

“
I have a copy of your FBI
dossier, Julio.”

“
Oh.” He looked
crestfallen. “Okay, but that’s all in the past. And it was under
the Unies. They gave lots of people pardons for what they did the
last ten years. I’m an Eden now and I’m reformed. But hey…” He
spread his hands. “Even spy ladies need boyfriends.”

The comment struck Cassandra so comically
that she burst out laughing, drawing some glances. “You got
cojones
, Marquez, I give you that. Tell you what. Be a good
soldier and prove your rehabilitation, in one year you can ask me
out. Ah ah – I didn’t say I’d accept, just that you could
ask
.” She dropped the smile. “Until then, nose to the
grindstone.”

He nodded. “Okay, it’s a deal.” He stood up
to go back to work.

“
Wait a minute, sit back
down.” Cassandra stared at the email from Elise again. “Let me ask
you about something. You’ve been here long enough to get a feeling
for the rest of your Housemates?”

“
Sure, I guess.”

“
I have something here. If
I tell you, you can’t say anything. Period. Consider it your first
test of rehab. You want to hear it?”

He rubbed his scruffy chin. “Okay. I can keep
my mouth shut.”

She tapped the corner of the tablet on the
table. “This is a request for experimental human subjects, for the
Reaper Plague cure effort. I can’t for the life of me think that
anyone here would want to volunteer, and the FC doesn’t do capital
punishment, so there’s nobody on death row that might see this as
an option.”

“
They want to test the
Reaper Plague on us? The one that’s killing everybody?”

“
Yes. They want volunteers
in exchange for a pardon for all past actions.”

“
And you want me to do it?”
he shrugged. “Okay.”