Vortex (19 page)

“Go to hell.”

“Okay, you don’t believe me. Fair enough. Why should you? We could argue all night. But I said I wanted to help you. Or to help you help your brother Kyle, if you prefer. Now, I have to give Officer Bose his due—he’s not completely full of shit. There are folks in Houston who are involved with the life-drug trade, that’s a fact. And yes, the trade is illegal. But ask yourself—maybe you
have
asked yourself—is it such a bad thing, what they’re doing? A treatment that can add thirty or forty years to a person’s life, what’s so sinful about that? What gives the government the right to keep it from us? Because it’s bad for their, what,
social planning
?”

“If you’re trying to make a point—”

“I’m asking you to think outside the box, Dr. Cole. You’re young, you’re healthy, you don’t need the Martian treatment—that’s fine. You might feel different when that pretty skin starts to sag, when you come to the time of life when there’s nothing to look forward to but a hospital bed or a grave. Okay, not yet and probably not for a long time. But things happen. Suppose you get a bad diagnosis—not years from now but next week—stage four cancer, nothing they can do for you with ordinary medicine. Well, the life drug isn’t just for what they call longevity. You live longer because it’s inside you, patrolling your body for bad cells, tumors, all that filth. It’ll
cure
your cancer. You still want to keep that drug locked up? Condemn yourself to death for the sake of what they call
genomic security
? Pardon me if I call that bullshit.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“I’m saying, okay, you’re not in a position right now where you need this treatment for yourself. And maybe you’re such a staunch advocate of whatever-the-fuck principle is involved you never
will
want it, at least for yourself. But I want to remind you again, it’s a
cure
. It’s a cure for things there’s no other cure for. Diseases of the body. Also of the brain.”

She managed to say, a little breathlessly, “This is absurd.”

“On the contrary. I’ve seen it happen.”

“You’re talking about a criminal act.”

“I’m talking about a bottle the size of your index finger with a colorless liquid inside. Consider what it could do for Kyle. You take your brother out of Live Oaks and you administer this drug. He’ll run a fever for a while but after a couple of weeks he’s good as new, all that damaged brain tissue completely restored … or close enough that you can help him get his life back. Think about your responsibility as a doctor and as a sister. Even with the best therapy money can buy, Kyle’s wasting away—he’s half dead already, he’s dying by inches, you
know
that. So what do you? Do you let him go? Or do you do this one thing, this simple thing, this thing other people are doing every day for far more selfish reasons? Ask yourself. It’s a practical proposition. The bottle I’m talking about, I’m holding it in my hand right now. I can get it to you anonymously and safely. No one will know anything about it but you and me. All that has to happen is, you stop interfering with Dr. Congreve’s business. Tomorrow morning you get up, you drive to State, you apologize to Congreve, and you sign a document recusing yourself from Orrin’s case for conflict of interest.”

Despite the heat, despite the sweat trickling down her cheek, Sandra felt cold. The window curtains rose and fell in a fitful breeze. At the other end of the room the video screen flickered in mute hysteria.

“I won’t sacrifice Orrin Mather.”

“Who said anything about
sacrifice
? So Orrin goes into State Care. Is that so awful? A clean place to live and some daily supervision, no more sleeping on the street—it sounds like a decent outcome to me, taking the long view. Or don’t you have any faith in the system you work for? If State’s such a bad deal, maybe you should reconsider your choice of career.”

Maybe she should. Maybe she had. Maybe she shouldn’t even be listening to this. “How do I know I can believe you?”

“The reason you can believe me is that I took the trouble to make this call. Please understand, I’m not threatening you in any way. I’m simply attempting to do business with you. Admittedly there are no guarantees. But isn’t it worth gambling, when your brother’s future is at stake?”

“You’re just some voice on the phone.”

“All right, I’m going to hang up now. I don’t need you to say yes or no, Dr. Cole. I just want you to think about the situation. If you contribute to a satisfactory outcome in this matter you’ll be rewarded. Leave it at that.”

“But I—” she began.

Uselessly. The caller was gone.

*   *   *

She explained it all to Bose, surprisingly calmly—or maybe not so surprisingly, given the two glasses of wine she’d poured and gulped while she was waiting for him to arrive. Her mother, who used to take a drink or two in stressful moments, had called the effect “Dutch courage.” Sandra glanced at the label on the wine bottle. Napa Valley courage.

“Bastard,” Bose said.

“Yes.”

“He must have had you followed. And he’s well connected enough that he was able to find out who you were visiting at—what’s it called?”

“Live Oaks Polycare Residential Complex.”

“Where your brother lives.”

“Kyle, yes.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

“Well, it didn’t—I wasn’t
hiding
it from you.”

He gave her a speculative look. “I didn’t think you were. Did you notice anything while you were out there? An unfamiliar face, maybe a car on the road?”

“No. Nothing.”

“And nothing distinctive about the voice?”

“He sounded like he might be an older guy. A little phlegmy. Otherwise, no.” She had checked to see if her phone had recorded the caller’s number, but of course it hadn’t. “I’m not even sure why this person thinks I’m worth threatening or bribing. Congreve already bumped me from Orrin’s case. Any medical decision is out of my hands.”

“Unless they can compromise you, you’re still a dangerous loose end. You could testify about Congreve’s behavior if the matter came up in court. You could go to authorities with what you already know.”

“But without Orrin’s testimony—”

“At this point I don’t think these folks are worried about what he might say in court. I think they’re worried about what he saw in the warehouse and where that knowledge might lead a federal investigation, if he’s allowed to talk freely about it. Getting Orrin declared incompetent is just the first step. I expect they want him drugged and permanently out of sight. Or worse, dead.”

Sandra whispered, “They can’t do that.”

“Once he’s in internment,” Bose said gently, “things can happen.”

Well, yes. She had seen the statistics. In the past year there had been half a dozen violent assaults at the local internment camp, not to mention deaths from drug overdoses or deliberate suicide. On a per-capita basis the State camps were relatively safe—far safer, statistically, than living on the street. But, yes, things could happen. Maybe things could even be arranged to happen.

“So how do we stop them?”

Bose smiled. “Slow down.”

“I mean, tell me what I can do.”

“Let me give it some thought.”

“We don’t have a lot of time, Bose.” Orrin’s final review was scheduled for Friday, and Congreve could call it sooner if he felt pressured.

“I know. But it’s past midnight and we both need to get some sleep. I’ll stay here tonight—if that’s okay with you?”

“Of course it is.”

“I can sleep on the couch if you like.”

“Don’t you
dare
.”

*   *   *

In the morning, over breakfast, sitting at her kitchen table and watching Bose plow through the eggs she had scrambled for him, Sandra thought about what the anonymous caller had said about Kyle.

“The longevity drug,” she said, “would it really help someone like my brother?”

Last night, in the dark of her bedroom, she had told Bose about Kyle and her father. Bose had put his arms around her while she told the story. When she finished he hadn’t said anything falsely consoling—hadn’t said anything at all; he had just kissed her forehead, gently, and that was enough.

“It might repair the physical damage. But it wouldn’t restore him to what he was before. It wouldn’t bring back his memories or his skills or even his original personality.”

She remembered scans of Kyle’s brain the neurologist at Live Oaks had shown her, huge patches of necrotic tissue like the wings of a deadly black moth. Even if those areas were magically repaired they would still be blank and empty. After the treatment Kyle might be trainable, he might even learn to speak … but he would never recover completely. (Or, if he did, he wouldn’t be
Kyle
. Did that matter?)

“And,” Bose said, “the treatment would change him in another way. Once the biotech infiltrates your cells, it’s there for good. Some people find that idea abhorrent.”

“Because it’s derived from Hypothetical technology?”

“Presumably.”

“According to Orrin’s notebook,” Sandra said, “the Martians eventually abolished the procedure.”

“Yeah, well—on that subject Orrin’s guess is as good as anybody’s.”

“We still don’t know where he came up with all that stuff.”

“No,” Bose said.

“But I guess we don’t have to, right? All we have to do is keep him safe.”

Bose was silent for a while. Sandra had come to respect these silences, the cadences of his thought. She opened the kitchen window, wanting fresh air, but the breeze that blew through was hot and faintly metallic.

Bose said, “I’m worried about how dangerous this has become for you.”

“Thank you. So am I. But I still want to help Orrin.”

“I’m sorry about all this. Getting you involved in it. Short of doing what the caller suggested, I think you’re pretty much out of a job at this point.”

“I expect so.”

“And you’re not the only one. I was called into the precinct captain’s office yesterday. He said I have a choice. I can keep my distance from whatever’s going on at State Care or I can turn in my gun and badge.”

“I take it you’re not planning to keep your distance?”

“I’ll worry about my career tomorrow. We need to get Orrin out of that building. Then he and his sister can lay low until all this is resolved, one way or another.”

“Okay, great. How do we do that?”

Another evaluative silence. “You absolutely sure you want to get deeper into this?”

“Just tell me what to do, Bose.”

“Well, it depends.” He scrutinized her. “Are you willing to go back there and apologize, make it look like you’re cooperating?”

“That’s your plan?”

“Part of it.”

“All right, suppose I do go back … what then?”

“You give me a call as soon as Congreve leaves for the night. I’ll come by when I hear from you. Then we’ll see if we can pry Orrin out of the locked ward.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TURK’S STORY

1.

The “vanguard expedition,” as Oscar insisted on calling it, consisted of fifty people, mostly soldiers but including a half dozen manager-class civilians and twice that many scientific and technical personnel, plus all their gear and an aircraft big enough to accommodate us.

Allison had told me one of these vehicles could be flown by a single pilot with a nodal link. The link made it possible to gain access to the control interfaces—the real pilot was the ship itself, quasi-autonomous subsystems that enacted the operator’s intentions. Touch menus and visual displays popped up on any available surface. Exterior views were distributed throughout the cabin on virtual windows, one of them on a wall opposite the bench where Oscar and I were seated.

The view was uniformly drab until we crossed onto the mainland and approached the Queen Maud Range. There was still a trace of glaciation on the highest peaks of these mountains. The ice was clean, distilled by evaporation from the cesspool of the sea, and in the shadowed slopes it gave back a crisp blue radiance.

Coming down the windward slope into the interior desert we ran into heavy cloud and intermittent snow. I asked Oscar whether it was safe to fly under these conditions. He looked at me as if I’d asked a child’s question. “Yes, of course.”

He was visibly anxious for a different reason. Generations had lived and died in the expectation that Vox would one day meet and merge with the Hypotheticals, but it was Oscar’s generation that was confronting the fulfillment of that prophecy. By joining this expedition he had put himself at the cutting edge of the encounter. That was a spectacular piece of luck, from Oscar’s point of view—whether good or bad remained to be seen.