Xombies: Apocalypse Blues (34 page)

Read Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Online

Authors: Walter Greatshell

BOOK: Xombies: Apocalypse Blues
9.33Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Why do they keep attacking us?”
“Strangely enough, it seems to be an altruistic thing. They’re just spreading their own gospel, so to say.”
“And the kissing? What’s the kissing all about?”
“Ah, you’ve noticed that. Yes, we call that ‘Downloading’ or ‘Expiration.’ In a way, it’s the opposite of the ‘breath of life’ used in CPR. Instead of delivering air to a person who has stopped breathing, it actively
prevents
the person from breathing while feeding them a dose of morphocyte-laden vapor. It guarantees a quick, successful transmission.”
“And people
volunteer
for this?”
“These were all very old or dying men. They didn’t have anything to lose. You know what they say: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” She gave me a shrewd look. “But this is nobody’s idea of heaven. I mean please. This is just a halfway measure. What these gentlemen went in there gambling on is that we would eventually
perfect
the treatment so they could come out someday and resume their lives as Moguls, only safe from disease, aging, and death. The ultimate golden parachute. But it didn’t sit well with some people, including the head of the project. Dr. Miska sabotaged everything.”
“Sabotaged? How?”
“We think he might have been the one who let the morphocyte escape into the environment, and we know he stole the Tonic when he destroyed his lab and records and everything pertaining to Agent X, so that our chance of making the Mogul dream come true was almost sunk. But Dr. Miska was in a hurry, and he didn’t do a perfect job. A lot of material he tried to erase from his hard drive was salvaged, as well as a test sample mounted on a slide.”
“And that’s supposed to be the cure for Agent X?”
“Not so much a cure as a perfected strain, a kinder and gentler strain, one without the virulence and predatory mania conferred by this one. One that can be meted out to the righteous. It’s the carrot to top all carrots, you see.”
“Carrot top?”
“Carrot and stick, reward and punishment—those are the only ways you get people to do things. The Moguls want the Tonic so they can motivate people with something that until now has been an exercise of pure faith. It’s better than a cure, you understand. It’s literally the Holy Grail—the promise of everlasting life! And we were expecting it to arrive on that submarine of yours, so you can see why everyone’s pestering you so much.”
“You think Mr. Cowper knows where it is.”
“Well,
somebody
knows, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do everything you can to bring that information to light. Our division has jurisdiction over you only so long as we can promise results. Once Mogul steps in, it’ll get ugly. That’s not a threat, just a helpful hint.”
I shrugged helplessly, miserably. Hate was pounding in me like a drum. “I’ll try. Where is he?”
“Not in here. Follow me.”
We left the building and crossed to a different longhouse. This one had a heavy black curtain for a door, and a second one just inside. It was pitch-dark between the drapes, but once past the inner flap we entered a long narrow hall running down a row of dimly lit viewing windows.
“Don’t be nervous,” said the doctor.
“I’m not.”
Each window was a porthole into a metal tank, and each tank contained a naked blue Xombie, mounted like an insect on an exhibit stand. Steel rods had been driven through their limbs, torsos, and even heads to hold them in place. Some were immersed in water or other liquids, some were in fogs of caustic gas, and some were being frozen, sawed apart, burned, or otherwise mutilated in various creative ways. Despite these torments they were weirdly resigned, even peaceful, their smooth brows free of woe or implants—paragons of yogism, unearthly fakirs.
I ran outside and threw up in the mud.
The doctor watched me from the curtain, and said, “You know, your Mr. Cowper is depending on you. You’re his only hope. That’s what you have to get through to him.”
“I can’t,” I said, gasping. “I can’t see him like that.”
“Then he’ll be incinerated with all the others. That’s what happens here when a test subject is no longer useful. They get incinerated and tossed in the ditch. His only chance lies in us finding those research materials—then he’ll be first in line for the treatment.”
“Don’t lie to me! Stop lying to me! That’s only for those rich guys!”
“Not until it’s tested. It has to be screened on someone. Why not him?”
There was nothing to do but force myself back inside, shielding my eyes from the gallery of ravaged flesh.
“This may seem cruel,” Dr. Stevens said, “but Maenads have no consciousness of pain as we know it. The Agent X morphocyte was modeled on prokaryotes and archaea—primitive life-forms that exist in highly adverse environments—so they’re all but unkillable, however grisly this may appear. They regenerate in no time.”
“But I killed some,” I said. “On the submarine we killed a whole bunch.”
“Ah yes, your carbon-monoxide flush! We heard about that. That was good, but I hate to tell you they were far from dead. They were simply dormant, and if they had been first-generation females or neurologically intact specimens like we have here, they wouldn’t have fallen for it. Like Clinton, they wouldn’t have inhaled. You got lucky.”
Lucky,
I thought, coming to the last window. At first I didn’t see a thing, but as I reluctantly stepped closer, I spotted him crouching in the bottom of the cell, squat as a toad, his lacquered blue back turned to me. Cowper.
I clapped my hands to my mouth, moaning, “Oh no, oh no . . .” It was actually a subdued reaction, tempered by relief: At least he wasn’t mangled or hung up like a gruesome marionette! I had seen worse, let’s face it. Maybe there was even a chance he could be saved. I grasped that flimsy straw, thinking,
We’ll get through this. Just hold on. Hold on
.
“Do you want to try to talk to him?” Dr. Stevens coaxed gently. A microphone was pressed into my hand. “Just push the button to speak.”
“I know how it works.” As if preparing to jump from a high board, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. With as much calm as I could muster, I said, “Mr. Cowper? It’s—”
There was a startling thud that caused me to open my eyes. Cowper’s gargoyle leer was pressed to the glass only inches from me, his black eyes bugging out so hard they seemed about to pop like corks. He was horrible—a giant baby bird yearning for a worm. The shock made me trip backward and fall on my butt.
“Oof,”
I said.
“That’s good,” Dr. Stevens urged, thrilled. She helped me up. “Don’t worry, he can’t get out. He can’t even see you.”
I wished I didn’t have to see him. He remained imprinted on the glass, waiting, his eyeballs rolling with the slow deliberation of a man cracking a safe. Those
eyes
. They made me think of our floating compasses as they went haywire around magnetic north. They were my mother’s eyes.
Shuddering, I swallowed, and whispered, “It’s me. Lulu.” Cowper spoke:
“Lulu
.
”
His voice was a bottomless silky rasp, savoring the word. The sound of it, especially over the crackly radio, was so freakish it curdled even the doctor’s enthusiasm. Her wiry hair seemed to stand on end.
“Yes, it’s me,” I said tremulously. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course. I hope I don’t scare ya.”
His bulging eyes, undersides glistening, fixed on something above the window. He was looking at the intercom speaker, the source of my voice. Before I could reply, he asked,
“Still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Good. They treating you okay?”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“Because it can get cold in here . . . very cold . . .”
“He’s cold,” I protested.
“Interesting,” said the doctor. “I’ve never heard one complain before. It has to be some kind of ruse.”
“Are you cold?” I asked him.
“Why? Are my lips blue?”
Dr. Stevens and I glanced at each other. “I think that was a joke,” she said.
I shook my head, eyes wide, and said to him, “I’m just concerned, that’s all.”
“There’s nothing you can do for me . . . except trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Trust me to help you. That’s all I want, Lulu, for you and me to have all that we never had together, before you turn to dust and slip through my fingers. You’re dust already and don’t know it, just waiting for a breeze to come along and blow you away. I’m not what you think. You’re in the shadow of that big grinding wheel and it’s coming around. It’s coming around. But I can make you real so the bastids can’t touch you. I can take you home.”
It was awful to hear him say these things, these travesties of fatherly concern. Swallowing my grief, I forged ahead. “Fred, I need your help.”
“I’m here for you, sweetheart
.
”
“I need you to remember something. About the boat. When you were in command, did you take something from the captain’s safe?”
“Lulu, did you look into my heart?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I gave you my heart, and you didn’t even give it a second glance.”
Crumbling, I demanded, “How can you say that? I tried, but you were never there!”
Dr. Stevens put her hand over the mike, and said, “Let’s stay focused, shall we?”
I nodded, regrouping. Keeping my eyes fixed on her, I said to him, “This is important. I need to know if you took what was in the safe and what you did with it. This can help both of us.”
“Come with me. That’s all the help we’ll ever need, Lulu. That’s all I want. I know you think I’m a monster, but I’ve changed. I been blind, now I can see. I was scared like you, spitting like a cat stuck in a drainpipe because of time eating away at me, but now I know that’s not real. It’s a movie, Lulu, only a movie. You’re stuck on the screen, and you know it’s gotta end, because every movie you’ve ever seen has a beginning and an end. But it doesn’t have to. Step out of the picture and join me.”
“I . . . can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I know. There ain’t words to describe it, and all you have to go by are words. That’s the curse of the Xombie. But try to remember one last thing.”
I was weeping. “What?”
“I loved you, baby girl.”
He fell away, folding down into a crouched homunculus once again. Nothing we could do would make him move. After a while, it was hard to believe he ever had.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
A
s the doctor and I tried our best to reanimate Cowper, a few people came in through the flaps. All of them were wearing the crisp blue uniforms of Air Force officers, their head implants strangely in harmony with the other medals. They weren’t armed.
“Colonel Lowenthal,” said Dr. Stevens, sounding tense.
“Hello, Doctor,” said the leader. This was the man who had met Commander Coombs when we first arrived, but I hadn’t had a very good look at him then. Seeing him close-up, I thought he seemed very young to be a colonel—midtwenties at most—and too wispy to be any kind of military officer. He looked more like a sullen supermarket bagger. “Still no luck?” he inquired.
“I wouldn’t say that. She was able to elicit more information in five minutes than we were able to in three days.”
“Yes, I
heard
, but I wouldn’t call it
useful
information, would you?”
“Without reviewing it properly, I couldn’t say.” Lowenthal smirked. Looking at me, he said, “So this is our little Lulu. You wouldn’t be holding back on us, would you?”
“No, sir.”
“Sir!” he repeated, amused. To the man next to him he joked, “You see that, Rusty?
Some
people respect my authority around here.”
I suddenly realized where I had heard that effeminate drawl before: He was the twerp in the booth who had admitted us to the complex.
Sobering up, he said, “All right, let’s give this one last shot. Lulu, you’re in a very tough position. I realize you probably don’t have a clue about what your dad did with our property, but I’ve been mandated to find out anything—
anything
—you may know that could help us. Anything at all, no matter how insignificant you may think it is. Something your father said to you, something you overheard, and thought, ‘Hmm, that’s weird.’ Anything.”
I shook my head. “He gave me a survival kit when we first got on the boat,” I said. “After that, I didn’t see him until just before we were taken off, and he wasn’t really conscious then. It’s Kranuski and Webb you should be asking—they tortured him.”
“Oh, we’re
talking
to them, don’t worry. And we’ve examined your belongings, too. The trouble is, it’s a big ship, and there are lots and lots of hiding places, especially for an old hand like Cowper. What makes it difficult is that we don’t have a lot of submarine experts available here to help us in our search. We don’t dare let your crew loose on the sub, and if we start picking it apart ourselves we’re liable to wreck it. It’s not exactly tied up to a wharf—anything could happen to it out there. Without your help, we don’t have a whole lot of options.”

Other books

ColdScheme by Edita Petrick
Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich
The 9th Girl by Tami Hoag
Thirst No. 5 by Christopher Pike
News of the Spirit by Lee Smith
Ghouls by Edward Lee
Mahu Fire by Neil Plakcy
The Harder They Fall by Doreen Owens Malek