Out of Touch (48 page)

Tom smiled at Reggie, showing a lot of teeth, then tossed his head and looked away.

“Your own reactions, and afterward these terminals will open up to let you gauge net reaction.”

“Open up. You mean—”

“The machines in this room and the auditorium where our employees are gathering have been taken offline. During the meeting, everyone will see the same video we’re sending out. Afterward, you’ll be able to monitor web reaction, but nothing’s going out except through me.”

Howard walked in then, clearly having stalled to even take that long. After one glance at Reggie he cringed and took a seat at the far end of the room.

Reggie was staring at Phil, body tensed, jaw locked, but silent.

Phil shook his head gently, then moved toward the door. “You still have your PAD, and I’ll try to take your calls—”

Phil was out the door, and Reggie heard it lock. He stared around the conference room with its black leather chairs and cool sea foam walls. Howard hunched forward with his elbows on the table. Tom stretched back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. Still standing, Reggie moved to loom over him.

“You know what this is about. You are a spy here!”

“Don’t I wish. Unfortunately, no one paid me to avoid getting locked in this room with two rather good looking and adrenaline-strung men. But here I am.”

“You know something.”

“Of course I do.” Tom leaned forward and fluttered his eyes at Howard.

Reggie heard his voice rise, “Howard! You wouldn’t tell him anything?”

“No!” Howard protested, but Tom was standing beside him in a flash, laying a hand on Howard’s chest.

“Oh come now. Reggie won’t be jealous. I think he’d like to join in. He’s missing his teek lover, you know.”

Howard was blushing. Reggie pitched his voice lower again, “Tom, tell me what you know, or I’ll—“

“Forget it, Reggie. Tom doesn’t know anything. He’s been baiting me mentally since he came to the island. If he’d known something was happening tonight, he would have used it. This is just personal.”

Reggie realized the two were carrying on their own silent argument. “You mean you and Tom are . . .”

“He has a thing for teeks, we did it a couple times. I already knew what a turncoat he was; so it was just sex.”

“Just rather amazing sex, please,” Tom drawled

“And I thought you had a thing for Sarah,” Reggie mimed hitting his head. He remembered worrying that Howard was competition, that Sarah and he might have experimented with teek sex.

“That’s different.” Howard looked at the floor, then forced an awkward smile, “Male or female. Teep or teek or neither. You can’t have everything.”

“But after he betrayed her?”

“About when he called for calm, actually, and he didn’t know about the Chiang Mai attack ahead of time.”

“Is that why you agreed?” Tom pouted in camp amusement. “You little slut.”

The video monitor flickered as Tom tried to swat Howard’s butt. Reggie turned toward the screen as it showed, “Stand by for broadcast.”

“So none of us know what this is about?” Reggie waved toward the words.

Howard shook his head, and Tom said, “I doubt I even care.”

“That’s him!” Howard hissed as a doughy-faced, short-haired man came on screen and began to speak.

“I’m Dr. Leonard Knockham, and I hope you will look for my data on the web whether or not this broadcast is cut off. We are interrupting radio and television transmissions to tell you that at least four major governments have been hiding essential information for more than a decade. I love my country, as do most of you, but we also have responsibilities to each other, to all people. Government secrecy has caused thousands to suffer needlessly with colitis, Crohn’s disease, and various forms of arthritic and immune disorders. Perhaps for some time secrecy was justified, but recently there has been covert international testing and recruiting that could lead the world to war, or worse. Several of us, as concerned scientists and responsible human beings, have decided the lie must end, but first everyone must know why the lie exists.”

Reggie stood in the middle of the room, staring at the screen. Phil had locked him in with Tom and Howard while this Knockham spoke about—Was he jumping to conclusions?

“Among us, there have long been those with certain talents, talents which developed naturally, through genetic selection, thousands of years ago. It will be hard for many of you to believe until you have reviewed the data we are making available, but these talents include the ability to read minds, to move objects telekinetically, and to sooth and occasionally communicate with animals. Many of you may possess these potentials unknowingly. Due to changes in symbiotic organisms living on human skin, most of these talents can only be activated by increased pressure, applied simultaneously to all parts of a person’s skin.”

A bar appeared at the bottom of the screen with web addresses flowing across. Some of the sites Reggie recognized from NGOs he’d worked with, others were strange word combinations that he knew could be generated indefinitely by the anti-censorship program he’d helped devise. But the terminals by him were still deactivated.

“This increased pressure is also key to relieving the painful medical conditions, such as colitis, that I mentioned before. I would encourage everyone to take the time to fully understand the new possibilities and procedures, before using pressure treatments to control medical problems or explore other possibilities.”

“Shit,” said Tom, the image of a movie tough guy betrayed.

Howard kicked at the floor. “If he’s right, they’re going to squish us all, if they don’t just kill me first.”

Reggie said nothing. The doctor continued with his speech.

“Above all, I ask that everyone, around the world, join together to make this a day of triumph and understanding. There are those who say humans are too suspicious, too full of hate, to bear this revelation. They say it must lead to global slaughter and destruction. But I believe that our only chance of avoiding such tragedy is to face the truth with honesty and integrity. We can find new ways to live together in peace and unity.

“Finally, for those of you who are still receiving this transmission, let me begin to explain some technical details. I know you will have doubts, but full genetic explanations, along with medical and political evidence, will be kept available online. As an overview, there are symbiotes on human skin that suppress many of the older abilities. These may be called zootochloro interferoid, or ‘new zoots’ for short. While these new zoots seem to trigger some forms of arthritis and other disorders, there is also a new strain of telepathy that only works when new zoots are present on all parties involved. Government secrecy over many years has limited research into other ways the new zoots may benefit people with certain genetic variations.”

              Computer terminals in the small conference room came on with a slight hum. Reggie’s attention tore between the man still talking on the main monitor and the urge to seek data and reactions from the web. He stood, as if frozen, where he was.

“There is another strain of symbiotes on human skin, and on most every other animate or inanimate surface, called zootochloro pasuritni.”

Reggie collapsed into a chair and typed as he listened.

“These ‘old zoots’ appear to be necessary not only to the original special abilities, but also to some functions of our immune and nervous systems.”

Reggie reached a major news site as he heard Tom and Howard start typing.

“These microscopic creatures have—“

“He’s published DNA sequences,” Howard said, “They’ll be able to identify us by cheek swab.”

“What Sarah did to me. She must have known—”

“She didn’t,” Reggie said.

“Someone must have known. All those government bastards questioned me and studied me, and they never told me about “zoots”, or other telepaths—”

“The Bin Hali are threatening to bomb PAD island,” Reggie whispered.

“If China doesn’t first,” Tom said as he typed a little too hard.

“Did you guys read the data page Dr. Knockham put out?”

“We’re putting it out,” Reggie answered, “I set up the procedures to keep his data on the web, and Phil’s locked me out of our internal system so I can’t even see how it’s doing.”

“Our teep genetics are way simple compared to the older stuff,” Howard said. If I let them squish me, I might lose my telepathy, but my teek might be as good as Sarah’s.”

Reggie’s fingers collided for a moment. Had Sarah heard the news? Was she safe?

“China has no official statement,” Tom said. “Anonymous sources say they’re breeding a teep/teek army. Someone’s accused them of creating the new zoots.”

“The U.S. is getting panned too, blamed for the cover up. There are links to the AIDS vaccine scandal that say they’re recruiting teeps. They report a riot starting in D.C.” Reggie added as he checked his favorite blogs for opinions.

The video transmission of Dr. Knockham ended and the screen went blank.

“Reggie, maybe you’re a spotter,” Howard said. “They’ve got sequences for it in the old genetics. They don’t mention it showing up with the new zoots still present or working to spot the new teeps, but if teeks can work despite new zoots, who knows.”

Reggie looked at Howard. The guy was still studying Dr. Knockham’s data page. Was this what most people around the world would do? Or would they prepare for war? Or bury themselves under heavy household furniture? Reggie imagined the death count the next day from people smothering themselves to get rid of new zoots. Of course, if half the planet died in war tonight-- Reggie picked up his phone and dialed Phil.

“Let me out of here Phil. There’s work I can do.”

“I’m sorry, Reggie.”

“Let past be past. I can help keep us up and running. You know I can.”

“Your friends are new telepaths. What are you? What’s Sarah?”

“I don’t know if I’m anything. Sarah’s a teek. Maybe she could have been a new teep but she didn’t have new zoots or something. Why does it matter?”

“A teek? What happened with her and the government?”

“You knew! Did you send the car that tailed us in Jamaica? Were you reading my mind at Pizza Pop?” Reggie’s voice was rising as he thought it through.

“Wait, Reggie. I could never read your mind, and you refused to try scuba diving, so I thought you knew—”

There was another voice in the background, and then over Phil’s phone came the voice from TV, “Reggie, this is Leonard Knockham. I think we’ve made some mistakes. If your Sarah’s who I think she is, our people did send a car to Jamaica, but just to watch; we couldn’t risk being discovered then. Phil knows nothing about it or that Sarah helped me escape from England yesterday. I had no idea—”

“Is Sarah safe?”

“She should be.”

“She better be. So what side are you working for?”

There was silence at the other end, and Phil came back. “Right now, we’re on the side of free information. I can give you full access to our system and open a video conference line. But you’re probably safer staying in there. There’s some chance of rebellion within the company.”

“And the people outside threatening to bomb us?”

“We have some influential friends. Can you vouch for the people you’re with?”

Reggie looked at Tom who rolled his eyes as news scrolled across his computer screen.

Howard looked up from the data he was still studying, “If Tom tries anything, I’ll pin him against the wall for you.”

“Promises, promises,” Tom muttered without dramatic effort.

Reggie shook his head, “I think I’m safe enough in the room with them, if that’s what you mean.”

Reggie didn’t know what he wanted to ask next, so he dug into his work. The attempts to wipe their data off the net weren’t very sophisticated so far. The automated anti-censorship routines were rooting themselves firmly in cyberspace. Saudi Arabia had taken their whole country offline. China was suggesting that good citizens look to government sources and not trust corrupt capitalist media. The U.S. government was denying any knowledge of anything. So far, not bad.

Less than twelve hours after the broadcast, official statements were released simultaneously by the Chinese and American governments saying the crisis was over and peace would prevail. Reggie stared at his computer in disbelief, then turned to the video conference screen where Phil still worked at his desk.

“Is that success?” Reggie asked.

“Could be.”

“Care to tell me how we pulled this off?”

“Follow the money. Big business pulled every string they had to keep the markets stable.”

“Are they controlled by teeps and such?”

“No, nothing so direct. A few may have had unfair advantages in the past.”

“Care to let me out of here so I can get some sleep?”

Reggie had just returned to his room and undressed when his PAD rang. He picked it up expecting to hear Phil and was quite surprised to hear a terrified teenager on the other end.