Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (32 page)

“Nothing we've noted.”

***

“The world breathed its usual sigh of relief with the uneventful departure of the Horvath
tribute ship. One person who breathed a particular sigh of relief was Tyler Vernon, the
maple syrup king, who is joining us from his aptly christened Lair in New Hampshire. Good
morning, Mr. Vernon. How's the weather down there?”

Tyler had his own TV crew, thank you very much, and had set up position on the command
platform of the Lair so the backdrop was the plasma screens, now all set to shots of
various space projects. The shot was also from a slightly down angle so he didn't look
quite so short.

“Sixty-eight and clear, Courtney,” Tyler said, smiling. “How is it in New York?”

“Nice to be able to hide in an underground bunker,” Courtney replied, smiling with an
equal lack of honesty.

“Every evil madman has to have his lair, Courtney,” Tyler said. “It goes with the orbital
death ray. Which I understand is the plot of the next James Bond thriller in which the
villain is short, bald and wears a goatee.”

“I'm sure that has
nothing
to do with you, Mr. Vernon,” the reporter said. “On the subject of the Horvath, though,
they really don't like you.”

“Which is why I have an underground bunker, thank you,” Tyler said. “I'm pretty sure if I
was out in the open they'd make a 'mistake' in their targeting. Since I don't want any
innocents injured, here I am. For a communalist society with a positive lack of
individuality, they sure can pick out individuals to dislike.”

“From lumberjack to financier, mining conglomerate owner and wealthiest man in the world
must be challenging,” Courtney said. “And now you've bought MGM studios? What are your
plans there?”

“I'm pretty much of a hands-off kind of guy, Courtney,” Tyler said. “MGM was, as many
people and businesses are, suffering from the continued tough economy. But it's a great
long-term investment in my opinion. Most of what I'm going to be doing, directly, has to
do with investments in their technological side. Getting more and more of their film
library available for distribution through the internet, that sort of thing. Remember, I
might have been a lumberjack before I discovered the maple syrup connection, but my
background is IT. I'm not going to be tinkering on the creative side so much as helping
the studios get more invested in the future.”

“So you're not planning on directly choosing shows or movies?” Courtney said.

“Courtney, I've got a building space based industry, a large scale agricultural concern
and inter
stellar
security issues,” Tyler said. “Do I
look
like I have time to read scripts or go to sets and look over directors' shoulders? I'm far
more interested in its film library. For that matter, I bought a number of movies from
your own parent corporation and I'm not telling
them
how to make movies. I'm sure your friends in the movie business will be happy to know I'm
not planning on making them remake
The Sands of Iwo Jima
word for word, line by line and motion by motion. I've got much bigger fish to fry.
Including a new asteroid, another potential earth killer, which we're looking forward to
turning into inexpensive raw materials to help with the commodities metal shortage on
earth and get the economy turned back around.”

“Well, it's been a pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Vernon.”

“My pleasure as well, Courtney.”

“And that's the word from the Maple Sugar King,” Courtney said, smiling at the camera.
“And now the orbital mining king and if his underground lair is any indication,
our
future king. This is Courtney Courtney with CNN...”

***

“Wow,” Colonel George Driver said. “She really doesn't like you.”

“Nobody,” Tyler said, “and I do mean
nobody
in the entertainment industry likes me. Okay, I suppose there are a few. But by and large,
the MSM absolutely hates my guts. Even Fox is barely neutral.”

“And was it just me or was she being pretty... She seemed to make
you
out as more of a threat than the
Horvath
.”

“It wasn't you,” Tyler said, reading a report and not looking up. “I'm what her culture,
her tribe, has long seen as the bad guy. Wealthy, self-made, conservative. White. Male.
I'm a more comprehensible evil, and it is viewed as
evil
, than the Horvath. Also easier to kick around because they know, deep down, that I'm not
going to use the SAPL to burn the CNN building to the ground. There's a touch of Stockholm
Syndrome in the whole thing, I swear. They were like that with the terrorists. In that
case, they used the fact that they were a downtrodden culture as an excuse but I'm coming
to the conclusion, based on the way that they treat the Horvath, that it's some sort of
automatic submission in contemporary urban liberal culture. Oh, they protest their
butts off
,but not against something, some group, that they actually view as dangerous.”

“I see what you mean,” Colonel driver said. “But I don't understand it.”

“I don't understand it, either,” Tyler said, looking up. “Not if you mean emotionally. I
can intellectualize it, but I don't
understand
it. Nor do they understand me. Or you for that matter. The difference is, I
try
to understand them. They don't even try to understand me. They see
my
motivations as being
theirs
. I'm rich because I'm greedy. I have power so I must be ambitious for domination.
Control, maybe. Domination
qua
domination, no. They think, the people at MGM think, that I bought a controlling share so
that I can change the creative culture at MGM and make it more in line with my personal
politics.”

“That's what
I
thought for that matter,” Colonel Driver said.

“Heh,” Tyler replied. “I bought MGM as another experiment. And I
am
interested in changing cultures. Just not
ours
.”

It started, as it generally does, with front-line medical practitioners.

Dixie Ellen Pfau was 27 and a team-lead intern at the Mayo Free Clinic in Rochester,
Minnesota. With green eyes and long brown hair she kept in a careful bun, she had, until
becoming an intern, been almost whipcord thin from daily runs.

Dixie's father was on permanent disability from the only job he'd ever had, working at a
3M mill after he dropped out of school. Dixie's mother worked, when she worked, in retail.
Generally as a checker in grocery stores or a convenience store clerk. Dixie had two
brothers and a sister, all younger. Her younger sister had three children already. When
other interns talked about their family she changed the subject and she used her schedule,
which for the last few years had been very full, as her excuse for not having talked to
anyone in her immediate family for three years.

She had graduated, valedictorian, lettered in track, amazingly unpregnant, from Rocori
Senior High School in Stearns County, MN, where the teenage pregnancy rate was seventeen
percent and the drop-out rate was thirty percent.

Valedictorian of Rocori SHS and a 1538 SAT had not been enough to get Dixie into a
top-flight college. It had been enough to get her a full scholarship to University of
Minnesota where she graduated, cum laude, with a degree in microbiology. Then had come
medical school where she still managed to run six miles every day.

As an intern, however, personal fitness took a back-seat to simple survival. There was a
move afoot to disband the half basic-training-hell half slave-labor that comprised the two
year internship required to become a resident which was, in turn, required to get an MD.
There simply were not enough people willing to go through the process. Especially since
with the rise of HMOs and now increasing levels of governmental payment scales, intrusion
and 'support', it didn't pay for beans even when you did get your MD. Dixie was looking at
$130,000 in student loans and a net take-home of $50,000.

Which was why, just as soon as she got out of internship hell, she was planning on getting
a specialty degree.

Friday was her light day. She arrived at the sprawling Mayo facility at 6AM, changed into
scrubs and started rounds. At 9AM she went to the free clinic where she would work until
9PM. Then back to the main hospital until midnight, if she was lucky enough to get out on
time, then to herÑsharedÑapartment. Saturday she had duty for 24 hours.

And to make matters even better, since she had completed her first year of internship she
now had four brand new interns, who couldn't figure out how to put on a Band-Aid
straight
, to train.

At the moment, though, she was doing rounds. The process was so simple she could do it,
had done it, in her sleep. People who couldn't afford private general practitioners or who
thought they were dying and couldn't get into their private practitioners, came into the
Free Clinic. It wasn't exactly free, but it was close. It was, at the least, cheap.

Most of them weren't, in fact, terribly sick. Given that the medical profession was trying
very hard to keep anti-virals from becoming as useless as antibiotics, there wasn't much
to be done with influenza. Besides, by the time people came to the clinic they were
already fully symptomatic and throwing anti-virals at flu at that point was pointless.

Cuts, scrapes, flu, colds, hypochondriacs, people with minor urinary tract infections they
were positive were the first signs of syphilis. That was the general run of what came
through the clinic. That and people where Dixie's job was just to hold off the reaper for
another day or month or year, old people who were headed down that long, greasy, ramp.
Half the time they just wanted somebody to tell them they weren't dying today. They
generally tried to avoid Dixie if they knew the drill.

If her initial diagnosis indicated something life-threatening she referred the person to a
specialist and they were off her plate. The rest was slap a band-aid on, prescribe some
pretty useless anti-biotics and move on.

Walk to the room, take down the chart, check the information provided by nurses who,
generally, had been doing this longer than Dixie, from many of whom she'd learned most of
her skills, walk in, say hi, double check the basic diagnostic information, write a
treatment regimen, walk to the next examination room. Repeat again and again and again
until you collapse. Start all over again the next day.

She took down the chart and glanced at it. Female, 47, Caucasian, overweight. Slight
fever, otherwise normal vitals. Patient had a small lesion on the inner left wrist. No
sign of injury. Area inflamed indicating infection. No report of pain.

Dixie walked in and nodded at the woman.

“Hello,” Dixie said, speaking quickly and smiling brightly. Don't let them get a word in
until you have to or women like this would talk all day. “I'm Doctor Pfau. You didn't
sustain any injury?”

“No,” the woman said, holding out her hand with the wrist up. “It started like a little
pimple thing. I popped it but it won't heal. I think it's a spider bite...”

“Possible but not life threatening even then,” Dixie said, looking at the spot. She had a
sudden moment of dŽjˆ vu and paused. Her day was filled with cuts, scrapes, lesions and
every damned thing else people could do to themselves. But she had seen something very
similar recently. She'd have to check the database. “Even if it is a spider bite, the
problem is usually the infection rather than the toxin. I'll prescribe an antibiotic and
you'll need to keep it treated until it clears up. Okay?”

“Okay,” the woman said. There was always that flash of relief. They weren't going to die
today. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Dixie said, scribbling on the chart. Since she was an intern, she did
the process herself. Express and a quick swab of betadyne cleared out the slight pus in
the area and it could be covered by a medium adhesive bandage. Remarkably, there didn't
seem to be any pain. An infection like that was normally at least slightly sensitive. That
triggered the memory. She'd treated an
identical
lesion two days ago. Same spot, same size, same lack of pain response. Which was one of
those coincidences you run across with a million sick monkeys.

“There you go. I've filled out a prescription for antibiotics and the nurse will give you
a tube of antibiotic cream and some bandages. If it doesn't clear up in five days, come
back in and we'll take a closer look at it. If it increases notably in size or becomes
extremely painful come in immediately.” There was a slight possibility that it was the
bite of a brown recluse which could be a problem. Ditto necrotizing fasciitis. There were,
in fact, three hundred and eighty-six different diseases, many of them life threatening,
that it
could
be. A well versed hypochondriac could probably list every one. None of them, however, were
likely. And most would respond to the treatment.

“Thank you, Doctor,” the woman said.

“Again, you're welcome,” Dixie said, scribbling the treatment on the chart. “And we're
done. Don't get this wrong but I hope I don't see you again soon and I'm sure you feel the
same.” She smiled to show it was a joke and walked out of the room.

Two hours later she pulled down a chart, wishing she could take a break and get a run in,
and paused.

Male. 23. African-American. 5' 7". 135 lbs. Slight fever, otherwise normal vitals. Small
lesion on the inner left wrist. No sign of injury. Area inflamed indicating infection. No
report of pain.

Okay, three no-pain response lesions in three days was odd. Three in exactly the
same spot
? The term 'epidemic' sprung to mind and she dismissed it. The problem was... She realized
she didn't know what she was dealing with anymore. There were hundreds of infections and
parasites that could cause the basic symptoms. However, with the exception of the brown
recluse, most of them were tropical. Or in the case of syphilis, sexual. And although a
few of them were location specific, syphilis again for example, none of those were the
underside of the left wrist. She checked again. Yeah, it was the left.