Eden Plague - Latest Edition (54 page)

Each package contains a simple bottle of a miracle solution. Less than one milliliter of this liquid will cure anyone injected with it of almost any known disease. You don
’
t have to take my word for it. Just give that tiny amount to any patient, any person, with a terminal illness, anyone who volunteers. As far as I have been able to tell, it has a one hundred percent success rate.

If you run out of the cure, then there is an easy solution. Anyone who has been cured already can pass the cure on through blood or saliva or any other bodily fluid. Once you are confident of its power, all you have to do is pass it on.

If anyone tries to hoard the cure, don
’
t worry. Don
’
t do violence. Just seek someone out that has been cured, they can pass it on to you. Share a drink, or a mint. Kiss them if you know them well enough. If you are a medical professional, use a syringe or a swab or an inoculation gun. It doesn
’
t matter. And if it doesn
’
t work, try it again. Because miracles really do happen.

Good night, good luck, and welcome to a better world.

***

I woke up from the nightmare again, the nightmare where I could see the food behind the glass but I couldn’t reach it. I stumbled over to the bathroom faucet, drinking cup after cup of water. My dinner was long gone and I couldn’t convince them that I needed more calories. Or maybe they wanted to study me in this state of starvation. I looked in the mirror, seeing a concentration camp victim already.

They came in from time to time in their hazmat suits and took blood or saliva swabs. They did biopsies of my liver and other organs with painful needles; they cut me and watched me heal. Each time I spoke to them, calling them by name if I could, trying to make them see me as human. Eventually they put a leather gag on me.

The promised tortures hadn’t yet materialized; I suspected Jenkins had bigger fish to fry for a while. I just had to make it through day to day.

They had been kind enough, if that was the word, to re-break my bones and straighten me out. They used no anesthetic and they recorded the whole procedure, hooked me up to all sorts of electrodes and machines. At least they fed me then.

I lay back down, but I had a hard time sleeping. Because I was awake, I heard the rattles of bullets ricocheting like marbles in a bathtub, the muffled thuds, the thump of something hitting my locked door, the yelling and screaming faint through the soundproofing. I sat up in bed, waiting for whatever came.

The door swung open abruptly, revealing a tall, thin figure, backlit so I couldn’t see his face; but I knew the posture and the way of moving.

“Have you come to kill me, Skull?”

He stepped into the room but left the light off. There was an MP5 submachine-gun with a long suppressor in his hand.

“I ought to. It’s your fault Zeke is dead.”

“How do you figure?”

“If you’d just have gone with them, if you’d never run and asked for Zeke’s help, none of this would have happened.”

“It’s because of me he was alive at all, if you want to trace a chain of causality. I put him back together on a Kandahar mountainside, and I killed fourteen Taliban at close range doing it. Maybe ten other guys in the world could have done that, and I paid for it later. I didn’t kill him, Skull. But if it eases your pain, then shoot me now. I’m ready.”

“I’m not going to shoot you. I’d have done that back in the cave if I was going to. Do you have a death wish? Why are you even here? You could have just sent the stuff around the world and escaped. Why did you get yourself captured?”

“Because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

He snorted in disbelief.

“Okay, how’s this. Maybe I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. Maybe I wanted to distract them from the real plan, let them think they’d won. Maybe I wanted to provoke them to rash action, which I did, God forgive me. Maybe I deserve to be punished; I did murder Jenkins, and I brought on the death of a couple hundred thousand Angelenos. Maybe the people that have been experimenting on me need to see the truth, despite the lies. Or maybe the world needs a martyr, a symbol to rally around.”

“You really are full of yourself, aren’t you? God damn you and your martyrdom and your symbol and your sainthood,” he snarled. “What’s with people like you? You don’t live in the real world.”

“I live in the world of ideas now, because that’s what changes worlds.”

“Oh, you make me sick. Get up and come with me. I’m not going to let them win even if you want them to.”

“The old me would tell you to go to hell, take that weapon from you and do what I promised the last time you had me at gunpoint. The new me…just says no, I'm not coming with you. The new me isn’t afraid anymore. It doesn’t mean I’m a saint. It just means I consider myself already dead, so you can’t scare me. Nobody can. And that scares you.”

He cursed me then, words he wanted to wound and hurt, but I was beyond the sticks and stones. I wished I could help him. I wished he would accept the gift, and surrender all that pain and hate and anger. But for some people, that pain and hate and anger is who they are, is all they are, and they can’t give that up.

He turned and went away muttering and cursing, defeated by my refusal to be intimidated. He didn’t kill me, so on some level I think he knew I was right.

I understood. I forgave. I was glad, because it meant he had a conscience after all.

I was also glad he left the door open. Perhaps if I’d been stronger I could have stayed, but I found that given the way out, and the cost of staying, I wasn’t strong enough to remain to be tortured and dissected. Maybe that’s what was supposed to happen. Maybe staying would be the coward’s way out after all. Maybe I had more work to do.

I followed him out at a distance, past a sad trail of bodies. It grieved me to see his killing rage, but as someone had once told me, no man can live in another man’s heart.

Interstellar space, 1.6 light years from Earth, velocity .17C.

The organisms on the Meme scout ship were known by their functions. Thus,
Commander
was awakened earliest, and was the first to begin processing many thousands of planetary revolutions-worth of stored data from the target world. Some time later, two other organisms joined it in consciousness, to digest with Commander. They were designated
Biologist
and
Executive
.

It was two full revolutions more before they felt the need to confer. The Meme were meticulous beings, and they examined the data in detail, scanning from the moment their Lightbearer probe had deposited the Adversary Worm onto the target world thousands of cycles ago, until the moment of anomaly.

Commander was first to speak, as was proper. “Biologist. Explain the existence of these sentients. Why did the Adversary Worm not corrupt them sufficiently to reduce them to animals?”

“I cannot explain at this time, Commander. We must continue to process the stored data, and analyze. Perhaps the data will yet relate their fall.”

“Noted. Continue.”

A half a revolution later the Commander spoke again. “I am processing data from circa timepoint minus 3000. The sentients formed large collectives, developed symbolic communication, built permanent structures, and made organized war upon each other. They grow more numerous.”

Biologist replied, “I do not yet have sufficient data to form a conjecture. The Watcher probe is limited in its ability to sample at its orbital distance, and it is only transmitting Level One data.”

“Why do we not have Level Two data? Was the Level Two worm not deployed?”

“Unknown. Each perihelion brings more detail. I will continue to process.”

Executive also waited, and listened, and processed.

While the subordinates were by nature creatures of logic and of very even temperament, Commander was by design less so, having been given more flexibility and motivation to address threats, anomalies and irritations. Thus it was only another revolution, a mere moment to the deep-thinking beings, before Commander spoke again, hardly able to contain itself. By the standards of its race, it was agitated. Its protoplasmic body, huge with age and genetic knowledge, shook within its containment tank.

“I am processing data from circa timepoint minus one hundred. The sentients have developed control of basic electrical forces including electromagnetic communications, internal combustion, and atmospheric flight. The level Two worm must have failed.”

This time it was Executive that responded. “I have been digesting the data as well. I have begun constructing courses of action using the resources at hand.”

“Those resources are very limited. This is a Survey craft, not a Destroyer.”

Executive and Biologist exchanged fleeting thoughts of concern, or perhaps amusement. Commander was sometimes given to redundant statements of well-known fact. The two remained indulgent.

Biologist responded, “Let us continue to digest data. Approximately one hundred target-revolutions will bring us to data-timepoint zero. Then we will have maximum information and can formulate strategy.”

“We must formulate an effective strategy to reduce them to animals. The Race must not Blend with fully sentient beings, or we shall lose who we are. Yet they must be clever enough to be trained to serve. We must prepare Level Two phages for deployment.”

But it was only a fraction of a revolution later that Commander, after processing data from only some fifty cycles ago, exclaimed, “They have harnessed atomic forces for weaponry and research!”

“Yes. Adjusting projections and strategies. These sentients have grown dangerous.” Executive mused momentarily that it itself was now beginning to make obvious and pointless restatements of known fact.

“Artificial orbiting objects! Interplanetary probes! Nuclear weapons numbering thousands! Digital computing devices! Biological informatics and life-code engineering! We must prepare Level Three phages!”

“Calm yourself, Commander,” soothed Biologist. “We have now processed the record until target-data timepoint zero. They are still primitive. Even now, Executive is developing strategies. I am digesting data from our Watcher. And even better, I have an ever-growing store of information from the sentients themselves, broadcast by electromagnetic carrier waves into space.”

“But we are still at least fifteen revolutions from arrival. In that time, who knows what capabilities they will have developed? Remember Species 447? It consumed thousands of revolutions of time and untold racial resources to reduce them to animals. I do not wish to be brought before the Assembly for failure to subdue this species.”

Executive interjected, “Let us continue to study and plan. It appears by my preliminary trend analysis that these sentients may still reduce themselves to animals of their own volition between timepoint zero and our arrival. If not, we will assist them to do so. And we have yet to gain access to the more recent Watcher Probe logs. Their records end some 4000 cycles ago.”
For unknown reasons.

“I agree with Executive, Commander. Let us apply our best efforts and we may yet avoid censure.”

Commander released the Meme equivalent of a long sigh. “Accord. I will compose a lightspeed communication burst to the nearest Conglomerate ship, detailing the situation and requesting advice, along with all of our data. We should receive an answer in approximately seven revolutions. Biologist, what is the designation of this new sentient?”

“Commander, designation is Species 666.”