The Nervous System (16 page)

Sigh. All this wasted energy. And for what? My damaged paw aches in anticipation of ill weather.

Fine, we're coming off a bit shabby in our converted airport shuttle, but I've seen worse when looking legit really counted. At least the mustard-colored electric van bears the biohazard tribal tattoo. A single cop moving out into the street to flag us down, fat, red-faced, jaw flapping.

A whole lot of complicated shit went down back in K-town in a very short amount of time, and I don't ever particularly want to read the fine print.

A pencil sketch:

I had a wax cast made of my teeth. Which I might add are like the Roman Forum in that they remain stunning, but a mere suggestion of their former majesty.

As I lay there in the dentist's chair waiting for the mold to dry, I was informed about a biological “incident” at the Main Branch Library. I was further informed that no such incident had in fact occurred, but that I would be amongst the unit responding to this hoax.

Returned to an underlit room at Club Enjoy to “rest,” Rose no longer in evidence, where I was unenthusiastically offered an “enjoy massage” by a bony teenager with mournful eyes. I declined as gently as possible. She left, and I was alone.

At this point I experienced another freeze, during which I was convinced the area I inhabited was under siege. Not finding any physical clues as to my current situation in the unfamiliar bathrobe, nor in the foreign room, I effectively barricaded the door by disassembling one of the wall couches.

When forced open I attempted, nearly successfully, to throttle a large Korean man with the terry-cloth belt from the bathrobe. I was subdued and reminded of my location and current condition. Whereupon I did my best to apologize, which was lost in the rush to get me into a Chinese version of a yellow Tychem-encapsulated chemical head-totoe bodysuit, of the type I had worn in the military, the kind of suit I coveted and privately longed to be buried in.

At Walter Reed I as much as insisted I be outfitted in such kit at all times, which probably jacked up my ranking on the kook chart in a big way.

Additionally, the Koreans issued me a pair of “athletic” shoes, which I very reluctantly accepted. Picky about my kicks.

Prior to this, the surly Kim had returned my weapon wordlessly, and I was informed by an older man that Kim would not be leaving my side for the foreseeable future. The prospect of this seemed not to thrill young Kim to the degree it might, had he known me better. Hell, I can be a motherfucking blast. But you all know that already.

I was informed an agent would meet us at the library and facilitate things.

Before the helmet was lowered on me, I made sure to take another pill. Who knew how long it would be before I next had a chance to do so?

As I was hustled out the front entrance, duly impressed at the level of organization and the speed at which this had all come together, I blinked in the diffuse sunlight, amongst a group of a eight identically clad jokers. I did not see Rose again.

My eye was then drawn to a small clutch of soldiers around what appeared to be a charred, still smoldering body. Mostly Chinese, and two Cyna-corp dudes, both vibing authority, one peering at the body sideways, hands on his hips, the other with his back to me, mumbling into a walkie-talkie.

The weirdly untouched wing tips on the corpse looked very much like my own Florsheims.

Wonder where they got a black guy.

Tried to get a better look, but before this was possible I was boarding the shuttle bus, idling noisily, and off we went, the driver in a hurry, not bothering to secure the door.

_______________

The fat cop intercepts our crew, arriving in midsentence, hoarse-shouted Brooklynese: “… said cut that fuckin engine! Now, what I wanna know is what took you so goddamn long, but never frickin mind already! Who here speaks English and who does not speak fuckin English, show of hands! Aw, fuckin forget it! Look now, we got us an alleged, said SUSPECTED, biological hazard. If you ask me, a much-ado-about-nothing kinda deal, but what the fuck do I know! I want you boys in and out as quick as possible with this thing cause we got other situations percolatin elsewhere, so let's fuckin get on with it! And don't forget who got jurisdiction here, you people talk to uniformed NYPD and ONLY uniformed NYPD, this is a City operation, not some private-sector shit, now let's move out!”

We do so, me thinking, damn, this guy is old-school, the kind of provincial street uniform we used to goof on and outrun up in Morris Heights, Keystone Kops–style. I'm stunned his kind still roams this earth.

Somebody swings wide the rear doors and we're pulling out shoulder-mounted thermobaric weapons, SMAW-NE. Oh boys, kindly handle with fucking care. Used to call these babies “bunker busters” in the sandbox, and I don't have to do any math to know it would be a very unfortunate thing to have such a weapon go off in the confines of the New York Public Library.

But I reckon this is how they clear a room, if they're scared enough. That's certainly how we did it back when: came up on an enclosed space thought to contain hostiles, you just hit it with one of these bitches first. Only then you took a look-see. And what you saw was generally nothing but ash.

Which is probably just as well. Cause more than likely it wasn't insurgents you just incinerated. Kids. Schools. Makeshift triage stations …

Mentally salute my lions as we jog up the stairs, the Cyna-corp people hanging back and letting the locals sort this one out, giving the scene a wide berth, uncharacteristic of them … Fat cop is still bellowing, apparently there's some sort of territorial issue with respect to which outfit “owns” this particular situation. Feels mad intrusive to have all these costumed jackasses up in what has become my house, and I need to remind myself that this is a public space, others have the right to soak up its energy as well. Within reason. Once I get a leg up I'm gonna kick 'em all to the curb, and enjoy doing it.

“Decimal.” A lone female cop in a gas mask has materialized near me, not looking in my direction. “Confirm by tapping your helmet with your right hand, okay?”

She has a West Coast lilt that dips up at the end like she's always asking a question. Am I that easy to spot? Guess I should calibrate my limp. I tap my helmet as requested, though I have to think left, right, shit.

Quip, in blackccent: “Sheet, I don't know nothing 'bout nobody, occifer.”

“Gonna ask you to not speak, okay? Here's what's gonna happen, okay? Koreatown sent me, okay? I escort you people into the building, and from there you're to proceed upstairs unaccompanied. Apparently you're on point. Okay? If that's clear, tap your helmet once more.”

Tap tap.

She raises her radio, there's a static fart, then: “We're moving, copy.”

Through the doors, into the empty atrium, eight yellowsuited individuals and one officer of the NYPD. Cathedral arches make beautiful shapes overhead.

Once inside the cop ushers me to the stairwell. My crew inspects their weapons with focus. It gets quiet in a hurry, this marble is thick. A man I believe to be Kim nods slightly in my direction.

“Okay,” says the cop in a low voice. “Here's the Cliffs-Notes, okay? I've been the liaison between Cyna-corp and Koreatown for the last six months so I have special access, okay? We disabled the cameras on the upper floors and audio throughout the building. They're working to get them back online, okay? So whatever it is you need to do, which is none of my business, you better do it fast. If you attempt to finger me I'll deny we had this conversation. Okay?”

“No worries, sugar. I'm all about discretion. And by what name do I call thee, fair lady?”

“Officer Fucking Friendly, okay, smartass? Now, this has to happen fast. So listen up, okay?”

I listen up.

“Okay. The incident report indicates a single specimen, okay? I should know, cause I placed it myself, okay? But you know how that goes—if you see one, there's sure to be a whole mess of them nearby, this will be their assumption. Okay from here?” Neither her tone, nor the shiny black plastic mask, nor the reflection of my own headgear in her goggles, reveal anything I can grasp on to.

Specimen? I twitch my head. Mount the stairs.
My
goddamn stairs. Round the corner, ascending the second flight I lay the SMAW down. Specimen? Well hey, whatever I might stumble on, I don't want to bring that amplitude of death jazz into my place of peace, it portends crazy ill.

Rather, I fumble with my straps and zippers, tough going with my half-broke paw, and at long last withdraw my CZ, which strikes me as much more to scale here. Rack a bullet into the chamber and carry on.

Yeah, my stairs, my halls, my floors, my silence, broken only by my respiration, Darth Vader–loud in this spacesuit. But this very structure, my
space
, violated by any number of interlopers, all of them respectless, all of them unwelcome.

Come around the corner and go into a crouch. Sight this way and that, plenty of midday light, visibility clear all the way down the hall. Don't know what I'm looking for, could be an extremely small object, but all appears undisturbed. My improvised wall lights are out, remind me to check the generator. Get an eye-drop of sweat, which I blink away.

Nothing.

I check doorways, thinking about nooks and crannies but none come to mind, try to get a gander under the long display cabinet against the wall of the corridor …

Movement. Hadn't seen it before, but hitherto motionless something that had been poised in the windowsill drops to the floor.

Get an adrenaline kick, hard, as I bring the gun in line with the thing. Down the barrel I peep: a cat.

A house cat. Like a generic cat. A mottled-gray domestic shorthair. Just as quickly as the fight-or-flight rush came, it's replaced by fragile relief.

Do I shoot it? Of course not, though this creature could give a feline fuck either way. It's taking its own time sashaying in my direction, then describing a slow circle, tail aloft, and I find myself pointing an automatic weapon at a kitty cat's asshole.

A freaking cat. I jam my gun in a belt loop on this clown suit, unlock my helmet, and haul it off as I stand. Jackass that I am. Take this opportunity to swallow a pill.

So the Koreans dropped a cat in here, that's what brought about this ruckus. Pretty crafty.

Let me clarify some things that might not be obvious, and pardon the jargon. I've read up on this here subject.

In brief, taking us back to 1985, domesticated cats in China were ID'd as the incidental host animal for a nasty hemorrhagic fever epidemic. Transmission was carried out via fleas. All very simple. It was perhaps the first observation of the house cat as a carrier for medium-scale outbreak. Not far behind were typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and H1N2, all of which were found to be transmitted, among other routes, via feline fleas.

Which brings us to the superflu pandemic of 2013, otherwise known as H3N3, responsible for perhaps four million deaths worldwide.

Prior to H3N3, the cat was known to be a secondary host, which is to say that the organism hosts the virus for a brief stretch of time, but is not the source from which the mature virus emerges.

This all changed with the H3N3 pandemic, in which domestic cats from Damascus to Des Moines were found to be primary hosts. That fact changed the game.

Governments in all corners of the globe enacted aggressive feline euthanasia programs, in which most militaries wound up playing a large part.

Not exactly proud of this, but I have no emotional response when I recall participating in the mass gassing of house cats outside of Thessaloniki. We used a crop plane, and amused ourselves picking off the dazed survivors as they tried to claw their way out of the hole we'd dumped them in.

That event either actually happened or is a figment of some perverted technician's brain, inserted at the National Institutes of Health. Doesn't matter.

And the fact remains that I am immune to this particular feline-borne strain. I was inoculated against my will at NIH during my captivity there as part of a test run of the never-distributed vaccine.

In the now, the cat disappears into the Rose Main Reading Room. There's something … I inhale. I sniff the air. I really suck it in, heat going to my head.

Cellulose. Carbon. Burning. Paper.

Drop my headgear and I am running, though I can no longer feel my extremities, my peripheral vision is neutralized, and I'm plunging down a cloudy and narrow tube, begging any god to exhibit mercy, if any goodness and kindness remains in the intelligences that monitor this vile dimension, please let it not be so.

Between the columns of the entryway, I do not have the will to look directly at the darkened expanse that is the left half of the great room. I peer to the gilded ceiling, heavenward to the frescos, renditions of clouds moving in on a blue, blue sky …

Reduced to powder … many hundreds, many thousands of books.

It's so vastly worse than I could have conceived, I experience a kind of minifreeze. A wedge of time, don't know how long, slides away, and I come to on my knees, my hands quivering in drifts of silt and small irregular pieces of leather, the debris still radiating heat that finds its way through my protective suit.

This action, this meticulous desecration, is a recent one.

A second wave of anguish hits my stomach as I absorb the realization that this, very specifically, is the sum totality of my own work. Untold effort. But fuck me, fuck that. Irreplaceable things, irrecoverable. Singular items obliterated. The dizzying permanence of this.

Titles and covers flip through my brain at random, I am thinking of the second category in 000, this is the subsubheading “Knowledge,” contained therein is the one and only first edition of the English translation of Immanuel Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason
, dated 1782, bound in a very early example of “straight grain” Morocco goatskin by the great Roger Payne in London.