Authors: Kim Newman
‘Hello,’ it said, ‘I love you, won’t you tell me your name…’
‘Don’t mind that,’ Lynch said, ‘It’s only 125. There are more pressing problems, Ms Flint, as I’m sure you appreciate.’
‘Wha… wha…?’
‘Hiya, cutie,’ the thing said. ‘Grab a chair and get yourself some coffee.
Ave Maria
, gee it’s good to see ya!’
Lynch took her elbow and steered her past the thing. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘Now, what’s your problem?’
‘I came because I… I don’t really know. I… we have to do something. To help these people.’
‘We’re trying. There are complications I don’t want to go into at the moment. Where’s the guy you were with?’
‘Uh… dead, I guess.’
‘There’s a lot of that about. Did he get it?’
‘It?’
‘The bug. 125.’
‘Maybe. I think he just died. You know, died.’
‘Have you got any symptoms?’
‘No. I… uh… don’t think so.’
‘No physical alterations? Peculiar mental quirks? Strange sexual urges?’
‘It’s difficult to think straight. I’ve overdosed on the unusual.’
‘That sounds like ordinary combat fatigue to me. You’re probably okay.’
Monica felt lightheaded, but could not remember her train of thought. She felt sleepy, wanted to drop off.
‘She’s immune, Lynch,’ said the thing. ‘Like you. A lot of people can’t get me, you know. Anderton never bothered to say that. Maybe 25 to 35% of you have no chance of ever coming down with me. I’m not AIDS or anything special.’
‘But why are all these people listening to that crazy bitch in Humanities?’
‘Mass hysteria. It’s not my fault. You’ve been shooting down healthy people all afternoon, probably. After all this is over, we’ll talk disease vectors and communicability and immunology and work it all out. We might even get a grant.’
Monica had caught something in Lynch’s talk with the thing.
‘Crazy bitch?’
‘We’ve picked her up on the internal bugs we dropped earlier. Cazie Bruckner. You know her?’
‘Christ, yes.’
‘Well, she’s the Typhoid Mary of this whole thing. She thinks she’s Queen of the Mutants, and is firing up her horde to come over here and storm the palace. Which is okay, since we’re ready to defend this place.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘Yeah, but we can handle her. You won’t believe this, but she’s only the second most dangerous thing we have to deal with in the next seven and a bit hours.’
The thing scat-sang ‘My ba-ba-bayby loves BANG-BANG!’
Lynch turned on it, and shouted. ‘Fuck you, 125! Get a grip on that brain tissue you’re cultivating in there. It’s running wild, going to fucking pot. If you crack up, our deal is off, you hear,
off
! I’ll fry you in napalm, sterilize the stain with super-strength Domestos and seed the field we lay you out in with salt. Knowing you, you’ll live, but you won’t think and talk and bloody whistle “Dixie” any more! You’ll be just another bug, and we fucking wiped the floor with scarlet fever you know, and bubonic plague! They were much tougher than you too! 100% susceptibility! 10% fatality. None of this pissing around. We got them!’
‘What about cancer, creepo?’
‘It’s not a virus!’
‘Neither am I, any more!’
‘Then just what the fuck are you in there in that disgusting mess of an excuse for a body, 125?’
Monica could have sworn the thing smirked with all its mouths.
‘I’m what you’re afraid of, Lynch. What you think I am, but don’t dare say out loud. I’m a fucking
monster
!’
It reared up and waved its arms and roared like a pride of lions. Teeth shone in its gaping holes. Then it sat back, and chortled like a dirty-minded little boy, fixing its gaze on Lynch, then Monica, then Lynch again.
‘So,’ it said, ‘go about your business, and call me when you need me.’
Monica was aghast, tired of disbelieving everything she saw.
‘Lynch,’ she shouted, ‘you made a
deal
with that! What did you sell us out for? What kind of a fucking ratscum human being are you?’
He looked at her. She remembered how scary his eyes were. They fairly gleamed with unhealthy light. His facial scars were red lines, filled with angry blood. His voice was calm now, his outburst of anger spent and gone.
He answered her question. ‘Ms Flint, I’m a monster too.’
Captain-Equivalent Lawrence Fairisle Willis peeled back the aluminium covering, and looked into the workings of the clock. Very clever. Solid state circuitry set in a Lucite block. He would have to chisel and melt his way in there to take the mechanism out.
07: 31: 01
He reflected that it was a good thing nuclear fission was tricky. If he was dealing with a conventional explosive, he would have to watch out for double-bind tripwires. Here, there was only one way to set off the bang, and once the clock was out of the system, it would be as safe as any suitcase with a plutonium payload.
07: 22: 43
Willis heated a scalpel over a Bunsen burner, and sank it into the Lucite like a hot knife into butter. He scooped a glob out and scraped it on the bench.
07:11: 52
The red numbers counted down.
07: 03: 00
07: 02: 59
07: 02: 58
07: 02: 57
He had had to swallow a lot today. It was a good thing he was being well paid for this. He wondered if UCC would compensate his wife if the suitcase went off. They would probably fight it in the international courts. UCC were like that. He wished he had set up his own firm, got into high-level security. There was always a demand, and the rewards were great. But he just liked the company pension plan, and the protection. He had never realized how little he mattered to the decision-makers. Even Lynch was a tax write-off when it came to the crunch.
06: 56: 23
So far, he had had combat, rioting students, some sort of plague, nuclear weapons, revolt in the ranks, Dionysian orgies, rock ’n’ roll, teenage werewolves and fifteen-foot-high monsters out of H.P. Lovecraft. He wanted to take a rest from this late, late show plotting.
06: 42: 45
At least he knew what he was doing.
06: 38: 05
He lifted another glob of melted Lucite out on the scalpel, and raised it to his mouth. He scooped it with his tongue, relished the burning heat for a moment, and swallowed.
06: 34: 18
At least. He knew. What he was. Doing.
06: 30: 53
Snip.
06: 29: 16
Oops, there goes a wire. He had meant to leave that until later. No harm done, though.
06: 28: 49
At least. Knew he. Doing. What was.
06: 28: 17
He kept on eating the Lucite. It did not taste of much. But it was filling. He could not feel anything in his mouth anyway. He had to be careful not to cut himself with his scalpel.
06: 12: 38
The red numbers kept pestering him. He wished they would just go away and let him alone.
06: 08: 37
Bastard red numbers.
06: 01: 09
06: 01: 08
06: 01: 07
06: 01: 06
06: 01: 05
06: 01: 04
06: 01: 03
06: 01: 02
06: 01: 01
06: 01: 00
06: 00: 59
06: 00: 58
He scraped and scraped. He might have cut a few more wires he did not mean to, but that was no problem, at least…
05: 58: 52
What. He. Doing. Knowing. What Was. Him.
05: 58: 51
At least…
05: 58: 50
* * *
Clare had new eyelids under her old ones. They opened sideways. Now, it was not night any more. She would have to think of names for the new colours. She did not know there could be new colours, but here they were. Not red or pink or green or orange or purple or blue. New.
Her new boyfriend was called Michael, and he was awfully nice. He had the buds of horns on his forehead, and his limbs were short and strong. They were compatible. She would never have to push him through a floor.
When Michael was not looking, she slid off the ring Thommy had given her for her birthday and swallowed it.
She would shit it out later and have done with it.
‘C’mon everybody,’ said Eddie Zero over the P.A. ‘Don’t be a spaz, go with Caz! Get your footsies over to the H block, and be with the crowd that’s loud. There’s a lady there who’ll fuse your shoes, and here, just for her, is “Killer Queen” from the sounds of the ’70s…’
Clare knew Cazie would soon have enough people with her to do the job properly. Last time, they had fucked up badly. Now, they would take the Chem Building properly, and trash the whole monument to exploitation and Evil. This was what she had got into the Movement for.
On the forecourt of the Chem Building, Lynch’s men had set up a couple of light field machine guns. And Monica saw Zombies waddling in heavy grey suits, toting flamethrowers.
‘You can’t just kill them,’ she told Lynch, aware of how stupid she would sound to him.
‘You got a better way?’
‘There’s still something left. Even the worst of them have minds. You should be able to reach them.’
‘Horsecrap, Ms Flint. Those people are gone forever… Dead. We’re just disposing of the detritus. According to 125, it’s mostly fatal. No matter how active the bastards are, tomorrow they’ll be dead. This is a lot quicker and kinder than letting the bug take its course.’
‘But…’
‘Have you seen the ones who melt? Or the ones who sprout too many new organs and turn inside out? There are eight million stories in Viral City.’
From all over the campus, she could hear rapid spurts of gunfire, shouts, chants, the ringing of fire alarms.
All this noise must be carrying. People would notice. UCC could not get another team in to seal off the whole area immediately, no matter how they hurried. This was going to spread.
Stragglers were still coming in. Men from Lynch’s perimeter details who had somehow got through the carnage, immunes seeking protection from the crazies. A couple of field medical people were checking them over for symptoms.
She left Lynch to set up his defences, and joined the medical crew. One was from Lynch’s outfit, the others were University people. The people coming in were being put in the main lecture hall. Most of them just sat quietly, and watched the lectern as if there was a talk on. If there was an opposite to mass hysteria – mass catatonia? – this was it.
There were armed men in the hall. Just in case.
The checkpoint was just a desk. Monica stood by, while a brusque nurse processed the latest arrivals. She shone a pencil light in a girl’s eyes, then looked at her hands, felt for her pulse, and stroked her face with mechanical tenderness. She nodded, and the girl was taken into the hall to join the others.
Next up was an elderly man, one of the catering staff. He passed too. But then came a young Asian in a tracksuit. He flinched when the nurse shone her torch in his eyes, and made a grab for her. Two men had him before he could connect. Monica could see his eyes were wrong.
He was snarling and howling like a wild beast, hitting out with the squash racket he had refused to give up his hold on. The men – not Lynch’s people, but campus leftovers, Monica thought – dragged the infectee off, down a corridor, and into a supply room.
‘What…?’ Monica began to ask the nurse, but she was busy on the next arrival, a sobbing, middle-aged woman.
A shot echoed, and the two men came back to their posts.
‘How many?’ Monica asked.
The nurse shook her head, and went on with her work.
Gold and Hopkins had been in a lay-by with a couple of mugs of thermos tea and the latest issue of
Knave
when the first of the calls came in.
Gold turned the centrespread of Jackie from Slough on its side, and then upside down, so her face was the right way up.
‘Wish you were real, darling,’ he murmured, slurping hot tea.
‘Pervo bastard,’ said Hopkins.
‘Garn! Look at them nipples. Big as top hats.’
Then the radio came on, and the report of a disturbance at the University got through to them.
‘…Local residents have been calling in with fairy stories about riots and shooting. Also, fires. The brigade is on their way out. Take a look will you, Zebra Golf Tango. And hit some students for me.’
‘Wilco, out, we’ll get the rubber hoses,’ Hopkins chuckled.
Gold put Jackie from Slough away, and started driving the police car.
‘I thought we were off the campus since this morning, since those London boys came in? Woolbridge pulled us out.’
‘The London boys probably started the riots,’ Hopkins said. ‘It’d be just like them to send in some superhard patrol group to deal with a pissy drugs break-in. Now, we’ll have to haul their little botties out of the firing line. As usual. Ouch, drive carefully, I’ve spilled my tea.’
‘What about the fires?’
‘Oh, some student gets pissed as a fart and breaks the glass on the alarms every bloody week. Saturday night, usually. We had a place in town – dry-cleaning shop – burned to the ground last year because every engine in the place was crawling around the campus looking for a fire. Old McKendrick’s crew just like the idea of pulling a lot of student bints out of their beds in the wee small hours.’
‘Naked, most of them? Or in those flimsy nighties?’
‘Pervo bastard.’
It was not a long drive, and they found the fire engines blocking the main entrance. There was even a real fire. The big buildings by the car park were practically blazing rubble by now, and no one seemed to be doing anything about pissing them out.
Gold wondered about the plain trucks in the car park. They did not look like the usual things you saw on the campus.
‘Where are those brigade bozos?’ Hopkins shouted at no one in particular.
‘Should we call in for assistance?’
‘Want the Professionals to come and hold your hand, boy?’
‘No, but…’
‘Listen, you sit in the car. I’ll go scare up some people and find out what’s happening. I’ll see if I can get some tea anywhere.’
‘Reg, I’m not sure I like…’
‘Sissyboy pooftah.’
There was someone standing in the headlight beams, a tall figure in a long yellow coat like the fishermen wore, with a helmet on. Lit from beneath, Harry McKendrick’s face looked like a horror movie maniac’s. He held his hands out in a stop signal.