Elvissey (39 page)

"I gathered that's something you're unused to," he told
me. The square trees shivered in the warm wind; the sky
reddened in the south, over Shaftesbury, reminding me of
New York years before, when the eastern sky bled each night
as Long Island underwent its ongoing siege.

"Sometimes," I said. "Lately, yes. Thank you, Malloy."

"When I'm asked your whereabouts tomorrow, I'll verify
that you're being physicked. I'll occupy your husband after
you arrive, if Leverett doesn't," he said. "Call Doctor Harrison and see him in the morning, he'll do you right."

"I will."

An explosion blocks distant so deafened that I thought
that it had blasted overhead; tightening my grip on Malloy's
arm, I trembled even after the noise decayed. Malloy's pizzalit grin relaxed me, and I let loose of him, stepping away so
that he wouldn't perceive that I didn't want him to go. "You
ever want to relocate, I can place you here," he said, turning;
his coat winged away behind him as he aimed south. "Tallyho, Isabel. Tomorrow."

All had quieted by morningside. After waking up, calling to
appoint the doctor, and certifying with the desk that John
had already gone out, I left the hotel, thinking of Malloy,
walking through a brown haze gauzing the streets; its look
and ozone-laced scent were uncomfortably reminiscent of
the other world's atmosphere. Workers hosed cinders and
soot from the sidewalks, gutted cars were being towed out of
trafficflow's midst; damaged buildings were undergoing repair, and men in forest-green coveralls clipped charred
fronds from the palms. The cosmetic regooding underwayed
with such perfunctory calm that had I not witnessed, I could
never have pictured the past evening's events.

London's similarities to old New York evidenced all the
more, however much its citizens would have denied it; was
the similarity divergence between American Dryco and
European Dryco so great as it appeared? Dryco made its
employees part of itself against their will or knowledge, if
need be: Malloy had been with the company long enough to
become it, yet displayed a level of one-person corporate care
I'd known only with Judy; in regooded New York, how had
we worsened ourselves, bettering? Recalling Malloy's
aplomb in hazard's face, reminded of the calm so unnatural
as to be natural of those in the restaurant with us the evening before as the man afire burst in, I remembered my own
childhood numbness when confronted with such horror;
thought of my overt desire never to see what it was that John
did. At what point, for what reason, had I regained a hatred
for violence I never believed I possessed? Did regooding
make Dryco, as it made me, as it made John, only less adaptable to the world's ways as they remained, whatever our
efforts?

Doctor Harrison's office was in his residence, an eighteenth-century row house in Bloomsbury, two streets east of
Tottenham Court Road. When I called he responded as Malloy predicted, agreeing at once to see me; when I showed
at his door he allowed me entry sans word save but a brief
greeting. His examination was so gentle as to seem pediatric: he questioned, I answered; with simple tools he checked
my rates; for the first time in years I slid off an exam table
without feeling as if I'd been assaulted by robot bikers. The
doctor's face was neither dispassionate nor emotive; nonetheless I could tell when he encountered something that
troubled him.

"Give me a few minutes," he said, concluding. "The garden's out back. If you can bear the sounds of nature so early,
wait there. I'll try not to be long."

His garden was no wider than a few meters, and surrounded by brick walls overgrown with ivy below the razorwire; reclining on a wicker chaise shaded by lime trees, I
watched bees hovering over blue hydrangeas and red geraniums, and listened to sounds of siren and jet. After fifteen
minutes or so Doctor Harrison emerged, bearing two cups
of tea; handing one to me, he seated himself close by on a
patio stool and underwayed further interrogation.

"Dryco had you on Melaway?" I nodded. "Why?"

As I replied I cautioned, estimating it impossible to explain in fewer than a hundred sentences, even if I could tell.
"A business trip essentialled in an area thick with bigots. My
supervisors demanded that I be colorbled for the duration,
to lessen potential situations."

"And they had you on it for two months?" I nodded.

"Thereabout," I said. "And early on I was given that accelerant as well-"

He shook his head; entered something in his filer. "That's
unimportant. A number of agents speed up Melaway's effects without counteracting. You stopped before the tumor
was detected?"

"I'd noticed symptoms that I believed were connected," I
said. "The headaches, joint pain. Nausea, though that could
have been morning sickness-"

"It was," Doctor Harrison said. "Nausea's the least of it.
I hate to have to tell you you've been fortunate, thus far.
You've read nothing of the original Brixton studies, I'm
sure-"

"Heard of them," I said, brushing away a bee buzzing too
close to my face. "Why fortunate?"

"Two-thirds of the Brixton participants were dead within
a week after treatment began," he said. "The others died
within two months."

"I never knew-"

"They wouldn't have told you, certainly. Outside of private medical circles it's not widely known about here." He
sipped his tea, appearing to enjoy its flavor, which tasted to
me as if it had been partially derived from fish. "Allergic
reactions killed some within minutes after ingestion. The
majority developed pneumonia after the first three days of
treatment which led, inevitably, into body-wide staph infection and general sepsis. Those who survived the initial week
proceeded to develop malignancies as treatment continued,
predominantly fulminating myelomas, or gliomas such as
you suffered. Nonetheless, as the last participants went to
their graves with rosy, if tumorous, skin, the project was
considered a success though the people, sadly, were failures.
An imbecilic theory unjustly applied, I thought, as did most
of my colleagues save the ones in National Health who were
involved."

"Why was it developed?"

"As I answer, please keep in mind that Europe is not so
enlightened as America as regards some matters," Doctor
Harrison said. "Melaway was developed as a way to alleviate
the race problem. Changing attitudes proved impossible,
and social engineering's a lost art. The demand was made to
find a way to change bodies. It's inexcusable for Dryco to
have given it to you, for any reason. Unsurprising, all the
same."

"They knew I might have died the first time they plied me
with it?"

He nodded. "They had to. Supposedly adjustments have
since been made in the formula to lessen the most serious
initial effects, and I would think they at least tested you
beforehand to judge whether you were allergic or not. Fact
remains, Melaway is perhaps the most effective carcinogen
ever developed."

"What'll happen to me, longterm?"

"It's likely that tumor regrowth will occur, in the same
area as before."

"I'll be cancered again?"

"Everyone is, eventually, whether they were dosed with
Melaway or not," he said. "This can be treated again so long
as it's detected early enough. Then, of course, the pattern
repeats itself. Those participants in the study who lived long
enough to be stricken with cancer were killed, in most cases,
not by the first appearance, but by the third, fifth or even
sixth once they metastasized. There's nothing showing in
the fluoroscope as of this morning, so I'd estimate that the
growth rate has been slowed. I'd not guess that this is an
indefinite remission."

"They knew I'd be cancered beforehand?" I asked again.
He nodded.

"Without question," he said. "Your problem is, of course,
location. Each time these particular tumors regrow, they
supplant to some degree the healthy tissue surrounding.
The immune system goes, it all falls apart. I doubt I need to
elaborate."

He clasped his hands before him, leaning forward, seeming to watch bees buzz around his flowers. Hearing a plane
overhead I glanced up; saw skywriting above, white cirrusian
letters wording against the morning blue: COME TO ST PAULS
TONIGHT DO GOOD FEEL REAL. "What happens once I haven't
any brain left?" I asked him.

"The law of diminishing returns should be taken under consideration some time before that point. Elements experience halflife, there's no reason why people should," Doctor
Harrison said. "But whatever the instigative agent, the treatment remains the same. So long as the regrowth remains
encapsulate, and is found before it has a chance to spread,
it can be removed again. Up to a point. Death's inevitable,
afterward-"

"It is in any event, wouldn't you say?"

Doctor Harrison smiled; it startled, seeing a medici express emotion. "In any event. Until then, your life is up to
you as it's always been."

Mayhap that truth accounted for my equanimity; possibly
I'd been around my husband for so long that his acceptance
of endtime became mine, or at least strengthened what I
already took as given. I was surprised then, and now, how
easy it was to believe that I could work within a set deadline,
and accomplish my intentions as desired before that day
arrived. The life of others, by then, concerned me most.
"What about my baby?" I asked. "How does Melaway affect
it?"

"None of the Brixton subjects were pregnant, so we've no
precedent," he said. "Nothing untoward's immediately discernible. It's remarkable that your baby hasn't yet-well.
That there appear to be no abnormalities of any sort, thus
far. If no undetectable presences are within the fetus as yet,
then-"

He stopped; sipped his tea, and appeared set to move on
to a different subject. "Then what?" I asked. "Doctor-"

"I'd be speculating," he said. "That wouldn't be right."

"Please speculate," I said. "I'm used to it."

"There're no facts backing me. It's an idle thought,
passed through my mind. Nothing more."

"Present it as such, then-"

"The idea occurs to me that Melaway could affect a fetus
in a different or even converse manner than it does an adult.
But there's no reason to believe that this is so."

"But it's possible?"

He frowned; then smiled. "It's not impossible. But it's
nothing to put faith in. Live your life while you have it, that's
all that matters."

"One other thing, doctor," I said, standing, readying to
leave; wishing I'd never have to return to the clinic in New
York again. "You kept referring to they. Who instigated and
funded the Brixton study?"

"Why, Dryco, of course," he said. "The English office.
Who else?"

At sunset, we left for St. Paul's. Malloy, Leverett and I sat
with E in our car's rear compartment, surrounding him so
that if his nerve wavered, he couldn't leap out; John positioned himself alongside the driver, forwarding his stare.
When I arrived at Dryco that afternoon Malloy was present,
attending to late-arising problems involving security; Leverett and E sessioned hourslong, going over subtleties of
gesture and stance. John was elsewhere, and didn't appear
until a short time predeparture; I kept my distance, and he
didn't approach. His bag's tie flagged his pocket, and I
wondered if he'd been adding to his collection since we
arrived.

"What's up, over there?" Leverett asked Malloy, nodding
toward a rally at the base of Nelson's Column; dozens of
men supported on the shoulders of others graffitied its base
as onlookers chanted.

"Rite of exhibitionism, it appears," Malloy said, eyeing
the scene through our car's tinted glass. "Lundy nationals,
or some such, troubling enough to be arrested without
being shot. Poor Nels's seen enough in his time, I'd say if
you asked, not that he's able to look any longer." Gazeraising, I saw that the statue atop was headless. "Some of my
more exuberant countryfolk decapped the admiral a year ago. Can't say what their intent was. Drunk, probably, and
left in charge of the blasting caps."

We airlifted, passing St. Martin's and rounding Trafalgar
Square; with a sudden lurch we cruised east along the
Strand. Throughout the day the streets had been postered;
at sightlevel, every building and bus shelter, each treetrunk
and kiosk and newstand was papered with sun-yellow broadsheets worded with the Dryco-approved phrase, You'll See
Him. Thousands of nondescripts shuffled east along the
sidewalks beneath neon, plasmalight and windswayed coconut palms.

"Mediakill's necessary?" I asked.

"We still call it a blitz here," said Malloy, roaching his
cigarette, swiping ashes off his long coat. "Nothing more
effective where there're walkers. Not even the Beeb spits
word so effusively."

"Not that Elvii are generally allowed media access," Leverett said, interrupting as ever. Our cab swerved past and
overheaded three tripledeckers edging east, their levels
crammed topfull with pilgrims. "Production values never up
to standard. We'll change that."