World War Moo (7 page)

Enough moping
, Tony thought, and slapped his hand on the table. “Right, let's get on with it. Tim, please tell me you've made some progress.”

Tim stood up and tugged on his tie. “Actually, we think we've tracked down the part of the brain the virus targets.”

Tim nodded at his assistant, who handed out briefing papers. This was the first time Tim had done anything other than look vacant when asked about the virus, so Tony eagerly snatched his up. His face reddened as he looked at the top page. In the death ray scenario this would have been the point when he incinerated the muppet. He pulled out his wallet and opened it: Mr. Spock's impassive face regarded him from alongside pictures of his wife, Margot, and daughter, Vanessa.

This is your reflection
, he thought.
You are calm. You are in control
.
You are Vulcan.

Tony had been relying on Spock to calm him for over forty years. When he was a boy, his parents had done nothing but argue; his mother had been fond of telling Tony he was the product of a burst condom and the reason they were so miserable. He was always on edge, waiting for the shouting to start. He was seven years old when the first episodes of
Star Trek
aired on the BBC. He became entranced by Spock, whose calm angular face radiated magical tranquillity amid the bright, fuzzy colors and exotic aliens. No matter how chaotic the situation, Spock remained untouched by fear and despair. He would never cower in the corner as crockery flew. Tony's curly hair frustrated his plans to give himself a bowl cut, so he started plucking on his ears and eyebrows in the hope they would develop into Spock-like points. When the physical transformation didn't occur, he practiced steepling his fingers and raising his eyebrows until, after months of repetition and fierce concentration, these gestures started to calm him in moments of stress. After his father left for good, his mother still blamed Tony for ruining the marriage, so he had plenty of reason to carry his emulation of Spock through his teens and on into his adult life.

Now it felt like he was catching up on a lifetime of unspent ire. The virus slumbered inside him, fingers curled loosely around his brain and ready to squeeze. Already he could feel the pressure, although it was nothing compared with the iron grip exerted in the presence of the uninfected. It was worse when the hold of his conscious mind loosened and the virus was given free rein in his dreams. They couldn't be called nightmares, for he was the monster that bit and tore—although the savage joy he felt in the dream turned to gut-wrenching sickness when he awoke and wrestled for control of his mutinous mind. His need for Spock had never been greater.

Tim adopted a lecturing drone as Tony summoned up Spock to fight off his rising temper. “We suspect the virus targets the amygdala, which is part of the primal limbic system. Animal studies have shown that stimulating the amygdala, or more properly amygdalae, since we have one on each side of the brain, increases sexual and aggressive behavior. It also seems to control fear.”

Tim paused, waiting for acknowledgment. Tony, fingers now steepled and right eyebrow straining upwards, didn't respond. The delay seemed to send Tim into a trance, and his assistant had to nudge him.

“Where was I?” The assistant pointed to a line on the sheet of paper Tim was clutching. “Super. So, the olfactory bulb, in fact all our sensory apparatus, is directly wired to the limbic system. We believe that when the scent of the uninfected is fed into the amygdalae, the virus activates, prompting increased aggression, heightened sex drive, and lack of fear.”

Tony, whose invocation of Spock had calmed him down enough to speak, said, “And how does this explain that people are still angrier when the uninfected aren't around?”

“The virus rearranged the furniture when it moved in, so there are bound to be residual effects.”

“Do you have any evidence of this?”

“It's still a theory. But it all fits. Birds don't have amygdalae, which could explain why the virus didn't affect them. Mammals do. Plus women have smaller amygdalae and larger prefrontal cortexes.”

“This is getting too brainy for me,” said Glen. “Can someone explain it in layman's terms?”

“Think of your amygdala as a dog and your prefrontal cortex as its owner,” Amira said. “Women have a French poodle…”

“Hang on,” Glen said. “Don't be fooled by the fluff. Poodles are vicious little bastards. Nippy. Treacherous. Yelpy. Just like a woman in fact.”

Amira kept her cool. “Fine. Then women have a well-trained golden retriever on a strong leash. In men, it's a slavering pit bull on a tattered piece of string held by a pissed-up skinhead.”

“Good analogy,” Tim said. “Like Amira said, in most cases the members of the fairer sex do seem better able to keep a lid on their tempers.”

“I thought that was because they didn't have any balls,” Glen said.

“Why don't we just snip off your shriveled scrotum in the name of science, then?” Amira said sweetly. “You could definitely use a bit less testosterone.”

Glen's ears wiggled, driven by his grinding jaw—a sure sign he was heading toward an explosion. Fortunately, Tim got back on topic before it could escalate into Glen lobbing furniture around.

“Testosterone may be a factor,” Tim said. “But I want to point you to teenagers as another example. Puberty brings about rapid development of the limbic system, but the prefrontal cortex takes years to catch up. This is what causes all that erratic emotional behavior: the anger, the mood swings, the desire in boys to hump anything that moves.”

“So the virus has turned people into teenagers,” Tony said. “What's your solution? Ground everybody until they learn not to be snotty brats?”

“We're thinking we could remove the amygdalae in a few test subjects to see if it makes a difference.”

“Do we have any neurosurgeons capable of doing this?”

Tim scratched his nose with the electronic pointer he'd forgotten to use and recoiled as the laser shone into his eye. “Not exactly,” he said, blinking. “But we could figure it out.”

“So what does this amygdala look like?”

Tim squinted at the screen. “Kind of like a peanut?”

“Better not do it on yourself, then. You'd remove your whole brain.” Tony tossed the report down. “If you're going to cut and paste from
Wikipedia
, make sure you delete the bloody logo. You just googled a few key phrases and came up with this, didn't you?”

Tim fidgeted with his glasses. “Well, yes, but it does make sense. And
Wikipedia
is a valid source.”

“For lazy cretins. Anyway, if by some miracle you were right, could you treat it with drugs, or are you proposing we crack open the head of every man, woman, and beast in this country?”

With a longing look toward his chair, Tim said nothing. Tony massaged his temples. While Tim was clearly a grade-A buffoon, there did seem to be some logic to the theory. Plus the clock was ticking louder and faster every day. They needed to find a solution or face obliteration. Better to pursue a possible dead end than stand looking down the alley, not sure if it led somewhere.

“Fine, give it a try,” Tony said, now feeling more fatigued than angry. “What else do we have?”

“There is this,” said Frank Maybury, a former chief inspector now serving as secretary of state for the Home Department and the only other member of the cabinet who'd shown he could do his job.

He slid a piece of paper up the table. It was a pamphlet calling on people to resist the virus and giving some techniques to maintain calm. Some of the strategies appeared to be based on the tenets of Buddhism, although Tony didn't recall Buddha encouraging people to get thoroughly stoned and have frequent sex to release calming endorphins—or in the case where no partner was available, masturbate regularly to achieve the same effect. If Buddhism had advocated that, it probably would have supplanted all other religions centuries ago.

Amira grabbed the leaflet. “Resist: You Are More Than Your Urges,” she read out loud. “Don't think much of their tagline. I'd have gone with, ‘Meditate. Vegetate. Copulate.'”

“Why are they telling everyone to have sex?” Frank said, with a significant look at Amira. “Most of us don't need any encouragement.”

Amira blushed and hid behind the leaflet. Tony's mood lightened. There was indeed no need to promote hanky-panky. The frequency and intensity of sex with Margot had exploded since the virus came along, and when he walked through his offices at Number Ten Downing Street he would often hear broom cupboards and meeting rooms vibrating with the moans and thumps of quick knee tremblers. From the way the men's loos never seemed to have any toilet paper, it was pretty clear there was a significant amount of solitary activity to boot. He never flagged it up. People needed a release, and as long as it was consensual or the soloist managed not to splash on the toilet seat, he didn't have an issue with it.

“Where'd you get it?” Tony said.

“A patrol caught a bloke with a bag of them.”

“I don't recall handing out flyers being illegal.”

“They saw him in a garden in the middle of the night and thought he was a burglar. We only found out what'd he been up to after we nicked him.”

Tony turned the leaflet over. He knew from his own experience it was possible to slow, if not entirely stem, the tide of anger. Yet could an entire nation be trained to resist? The majority, once lucidity returned, were filled with shame at the acts they'd carried out but were still unable to resist when another uninfected person came within range. Now the uninfected were all gone, some—like this insane Blood of Christ group that was causing so much trouble—still allowed their tempers to turn to violence or simply used the virus as an excuse for preexisting psychotic tendencies. The average punter was struggling to keep calm. Others seemed barely affected. Amira was a perfect example of this last group: always cool and collected. Tony had never seen her take a pill.

Glen, who also didn't take any sedatives because “the anger gave him an edge,” showed exactly what he thought of the leaflet. “Great idea. Let's all sit cross-legged and wish the whole thing away. In fact, let's start distributing candles and incense. Maybe chuck in a few
Best of Enya
CDs and free passes to a spa. I'm sure that'll do the trick.” He looked around the table. “You know how strong this virus is. You know the things we've done. If one of the uninfected came in that door right now, you know what would happen.”

Tony knew, all right. No matter how hard he tried, he would never forget what the virus had turned him into. He'd never asked the other members of his cabinet what they'd done in those awful early days, as he was sure they wanted to forget just as much as he did. From the stricken looks on their faces—Amira aside—he knew it wasn't good.

“In the unlikely event everyone learns to control it, we'd still be an infection risk,” Glen said. “Do you really think they'll let us live out our days in splendid isolation when we're all carriers?”

Even Amira, who often sparred with Glen just for the sake of it, didn't argue that point. Each and every person in Britain was a threat and would remain so until a cure was found, if it ever was. Glen stood up, holding his briefcase, and walked to the head of the table. The brightness of the monitors haloed his head, cloaking his face in shadow.

“I have a plan,” he said. “One that will actually work.”

Tony had a feeling that the plan would involve large explosions of some sort, but he couldn't shut Glen down after having given others a shot at presenting a solution. “Let's hear it.”

“First, can we agree that sooner or later—most likely sooner—the UN is going to give the go-ahead for every living thing in Britain to be obliterated?”

Everybody nodded.

“And do we agree we'd much rather this didn't happen?”

The nods were more emphatic this time.

“Great. Next, what's their motivation for doing this?”

“They don't want the virus to get out,” said Frank, stating the obvious.

“Bingo. So, we take away their motivation.”

“We've been through that,” Tony said. “The only way to take away their motivation is to cure it or assure them it's contained long term. That's what we're trying to do. Rather ineptly so far, I might add.”

“There's another way to take away their motivation.” Glen reached into his briefcase and threw his own set of briefing papers onto the table with a heavy thud. “We spread it.”

The silence that filled the room could only have been more stunned had Glen announced he wanted to live out the rest of his life as a woman and whipped off his uniform to reveal a basque, miniskirt, and stockings. Nobody reached for the papers, so Glen pressed on. “Tony, I'd like to quote what you said during your CNN interview, ‘Would everyone having the virus be such a bad thing? If we all had it, there would be no need for violence.'”

Tony, still struggling to get his brain to come up with some response to relay to his slack mouth, remembered the comment. It had been an off-the-cuff remark, not a policy recommendation, and he'd realized it was ill judged as soon as he said it. Now it was being tossed back in his face.

“In that spirit,” Glen continued, “I propose we refit our Trident missiles with refrigerated warheads filled with blood collected from soldiers and fire them at Europe. We can have infected blood raining down on Paris, Berlin, and Rome within a few minutes, too quick for them to respond. They'll assume the lack of a mushroom cloud means the missiles were duds or simply a warning of our capabilities. It'll take them a while to figure out what really happened, and when they do there'll be no point in launching a response. The virus will be out, and they'll be too busy trying to contain it. Plus, they'll have more motivation to find a cure, or everyone will be infected.” Glen paused, his teeth shining white in the dark shadow of his face as he grinned. “Now, any comments?”