Just a Couple of Days (38 page)

 

135
I was not the only one who recognized that the Pied Piper virus had double-crossed its designers. Whereas I was
amazed and amused, however, General Kiljoy was flabbergasted and furious. “What the hell is this?” He kept snapping and growling at no one in particular like a rabid crocodile as he paced hither and thither in a dither, all the while flashing peace, love, freedom, and happiness from his forehead.

“What does it matter?” Miss Mary said with an icky grin as she mashed out a cigarette butt. “They can't leave the city anyway, and soon it will be sterilized.”

“What the hell is this?”

“General, she's right.” Tynee stood to address him. “The situation is under control.” Tynee had to gallop alongside General Kiljoy to match the pace of his strides. He looked like the cartoon Chihuahua trying to keep up with the bulldog. True to the image, General Kiljoy shoved Tynee away from him. He pushed him so hard that Tynee toppled over the back side of the sofa and landed spread-eagle on the cushions, sprawling all over the place like an overdeveloped city.

“Goddamnit!” Tynee roared after he'd regained his balance and stood back up. “Touch me again,” he threatened, but was so flustered he could muster no menace with which to complete his warning.

General Kiljoy wasn't listening anyway. “It doesn't work, can't you see? This field test is an absolute failure. The Pied Piper virus is useless. I've spent the last thirteen years of my life directing a project whose grand achievement just blew up in my face.” His lower lip trembled. “This was supposed to be the ultimate weapon, my enduring contribution to ensure the security of our way of life.” He turned and stumbled to the bathroom, from which he did not emerge for some time.

Good riddance. In his absence, no energy was expended
concerning ourselves over his little occupational crisis. His whiny panic attack had been an irritating distraction from the curiosities on the viewscreen. And anyway, perhaps it was for the best that he did not witness the further adventures of this rowdy band of city folk.

Followed by the spy plane's camera, the dancers bolted away from the city at an all-out sprint, not a lope or a jaunt, but a barreling getaway, a split-beating hasty retreat. What is more, their get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge dash was sustained long enough to trip an Olympian's ticker. They tore along at the edge of control, feet scarcely touching the ground, limbs barely keeping up with the spirit. If you've ever flown down a hill on twenty-foot strides and accelerating, perhaps you can imagine the wings on their heels.

Haste makes waste? This mad rush of human expansion seemed to be heading toward a grisly end, tangled among the rows of razor wire and slaughtered by the heat-sensing automatic firing squad. If this was the case, they didn't seem the least bit concerned. Their rip-roaring race was punctuated by cartwheels and handsprings and other such scampering feats of acrobatic grace. Apparently, the Pied Piper virus gives one hell of a pep talk. Two months of ebbing and flowing dancing manias had licked the lot of them into supernatural shape. They looked like sprites on speed, and their double-espresso eyes, dilated pupils swelling with vim and vigor, shone so radiantly I could almost see myself reflected in them.

This, along with the collective effervescence they were currently experiencing, must account for the boundless energy coursing through them. A few sips from the seltzer of fizzing exultation and suddenly people are off their asses and running
together like wolves on the howl. Pied Piper virus or not, partaking of such a sparkling nectar makes for a divine hiccup, a cosmic catharsis of gushing goodwill, a resonant belch of peace. The supreme spiritual quest is really nothing more than the search for a volcanic and barbaric burp to share with our fellows, relieving us at last from the gassy bubble of a sour society, the heartburn of desperate loneliness that so cramps our metaphysical style.

I did not witness such a Brahmanic brap. Such a thing cannot be seen anyway; it can only be experienced. I did, however, hear General Kiljoy blowing his breakfast of aged pork and beans into the toilet through the pipes that ran past the lounge. Since the spy plane provided only a video feed, no audio, the sound of him barfing provided the sound track. He was coughing and gagging, off and on, for over fifteen minutes, and he doubtless would do so for much longer after Tynee ordered me back to my lab and informed him of what came to pass in his absence.

This is what happened. After we watched the running of the humans to the point where their antics were becoming tiresome, they ran across the freeway outerbelt and beyond, completely unencumbered by razor wire or bullets. It occurred without any fanfare on their part, but to us troglodytes, the realization of it was as sudden as a smack in the face from a passing stranger. Momentarily, the viewfinder panned down the outerbelt and the source of this breach was revealed.

There, a mile or so down the freeway (and elsewhere around the city as well, it was determined later), and occurring with very little resistance by the automated military hardware, a posse of renegade eighteen-wheelers was systematically and successfully demolishing the blockade.

THE BOOK O' BILLETS-DOUX

136
Tynee sent me to my room as if he were a puritanical patriarch and there had just been a swearword on TV. I trotted off to my lab without dispute, inspired and eager to record these events in my journal. I wrote furiously for the rest of the day and into the night, not pausing until I had recorded the full history of the day's breakout. Excited and exhausted, I fell asleep at my desk, only to be awakened around three
A.M.
by a forceful shove.

Roused but not startled, I blinked my eyes at the dark figure before me, a figure who had interrupted my slumber once before, months ago on Halloween morning, on my last day at Valhalla Acres. It was my long-lost bodyguard, Agent Mella Orange, and she was in no kind mood.

She clapped her hand around my mouth, rather dramatically I thought, as if I might cry out or scream. Although that is the cinematic reaction to being awakened by a stranger, all I experienced was an irritated and perplexed speechlessness.

“Shh,” she warned as she slowly removed her hand. She
needn't have, for as I've said, I was stunned into silence anyway. “Do you know who I am?” she whispered.

Still speechless, I squinted at her. She was certainly a bit more unkempt, and her eyes were so heavy it looked like she had dreadlocks for eyelashes, but her daunting beauty was unmistakable. I nodded.

“Listen very carefully. The release of the virus was intentional. General Kiljoy orchestrated it. I acted under his orders, but I didn't know what it was that I was doing. He gave me a device a month before we ever came down here. He ordered me to arm it and to activate it on his command. He gave the order on Halloween, apparently just before the four of you went up to Tynee's office. The device created a fifteen-minute deviation from this compound's automation routines. It darkened this entire compound except for a network of passages leading from the observation lounge to the garage exit, and ordered the subjects out. As far as I can tell, the deviation is completely invisible, both in the data records and video recordings. I think that's why Kiljoy eliminated Captain Down. As the administrator of this compound, he was a loose end. He knew too much about how the system worked, and Kiljoy had to be certain his tracks were covered. As for me, I was just supposed to be killed in the sterilization of this compound.”

“How did you manage to avoid that?” In my grog, I failed to comprehend the enormity of the conspiratorial information just relayed to me, preoccupied instead with irrelevant tangents.

She clapped her hand over my mouth again, just as I was yawning. “Shut up and listen. I was suspicious, so I crawled up the elevator shaft to investigate. I was on top of the elevator during the sterilization.”

I pushed her hand away from me in defiant drowsiness. “Why are you telling me this?”

She slapped her hand over my yap once more. With her other hand she held up a disk. “Your journal, Doctor. I've read it.”

Astounded, I forcefully pulled her paw off my chops. “What did you think?” I asked eagerly, blind to any ulterior motives. I had written these memoirs, after all, in a literary desert, and had developed a powerful thirst for feedback.

She shrugged and dumped her pail of water at my sand-burned feet. “A little self-indulgent.” She waved the disk in front of me. “The point, Doctor, is that I am in possession of a copy of your little diary. I could very easily make it so the others happen across this if you don't do exactly as I say. Do you understand? This is blackmail.”

I was insulted by her review of my masterpiece, so I snapped at her. “If you've read it then you know I've already attempted suicide. Why should I care?”

“I also read what you wrote yesterday. You're not suicidal. You're ‘enthralled,' Doctor.” She paused, nymphs and imps frolicking about the corners of her mouth. “By the way,” she allowed a cagey smirk. “That passage wasn't half bad.”

If her half compliment was intended to soften my defenses, it worked. After all, a parched man will chew another's dirty toenails for less than a drop of contaminated water. “How do I know you're telling the truth?”

“About that passage?”

“About anything!”

“You don't.” She shrugged. “And keep your voice down.”

“Oh. But didn't you dislike following orders from General
Kiljoy without knowing what you were doing? Are we to perpetuate this pattern of abuse? Is this to be some kind of hazing?”

She placed her hand over my mouth yet again, though this time very softly. “Save the diatribes for your opus and listen. I'm not motivating you solely through the threat of punishment, I'm offering you the promise of a reward as well.” She put the diskette inside her jacket pocket and pulled out a remote control in its place. “This replicates some of the codes on General Kiljoy's remote.” I blinked stupidly, and she continued impatiently. “Do you understand? If you do as I say, this is the key to—what did you call it? ‘The escape demanding that you pay him heed.'”

“Escape?” I snorted in dismissal. “Escape to what? The virus is loose, don't
you
understand? It's no longer contained. It'll take over this entire continent before the new year. It's a weapon of mass incapacitation.”

Agent Orange flicked the tip of my nose with her middle finger and leaned toward me. “You despise these people around you, and the weapon backfired. You're delighted with this turn of events. You think the virus liberated the human spirit, that it freed those people from what was shackling them all along, and I think you're right. I've read your book, Doctor. What I'm offering you is what you've been pining for.” She stepped back and held me in skeptical regard. “But you're all talk, aren't you? You're weak. You're a coward. You'd like to get on the bus, but you hide at the bus stop. You want to join the party, you want to dance, but when your chance comes you duck out. Maybe you'd like to think you want to dance, but given the opportunity you'd rather stay constipated, living off the rotten food in these caves
because that's secure. Or you'd kill yourself before trying for a better life.”

I cringed at her evaluation of my character and remained silent a long while, defenseless against her coercive compassion. She was right, of course, but I had my own fears of the Pied Piper virus. The original subjects, the death row inmates, went unmistakably insane, and in a hellish bad way. That was also the apparent fate of the one-tenth of the city's population that didn't survive the initial outbreak. Yes, the majority of the city not only survived but blossomed into something better, into boundlessly confident telepaths or some divinely foolish thing. But where would I fit in? I was a bootlicker of bureaucracy, a tool of technological stupidity, and a minion to my own self-importance. I was an ethical flunky. I knew my weaknesses and sins, and I was well-acquainted with my demons. I was afraid that I wouldn't make the Pied Piper's cut. I was afraid I'd end up on the losing team.

Agent Orange knelt down before me, wearing a shrewd smile. Her eyes glowed like a comfortable and confident campfire, crackling with a fierce warmth. She palmed the crown of my bald head to stop me from shaking it to and fro. “Doctor,” she whispered, her eyes flaming with intimidating sexuality. “Would you care to dance?”

 

137
Agent Orange's calculated coquetry was entirely effective at mowing down my resistance. In fact, it was probably overkill, for I didn't have much of a center from which to resist in the first place. In any case, her sly flirtations overrode my typical timid aloofness. It was her style, I think. She made me feel pleasantly combative. She didn't cast sheep eyes, she flashed
coyote eyes. She didn't play footsie, she played shove-sie. It was all deliberate and measured, but I didn't care. Let her play the svelte Svengalette and I'll play the pathetic patsy. I enjoyed the attention. She knew I knew she was vamping, but it didn't matter to her either. It was a fair trade, and much more effective than threats or blackmail. It was a comfortable dynamic, and we both knew that it worked.