Taji's Syndrome (37 page)

“Yes, among other things,” he said, and smiled impishly. Since he had a pixie face, this did not seem wrong, and in spite of herself, Gail smiled.

“You look funny,” she said.

“So they tell me,” he agreed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling as she had done. “I like the one of Alain Wilding,” he said, indicating the provocative young Canadian actor who had risen to astronomical heights in the last two years.

“I like John Castle,” she said, choosing the middle-aged British actor rigged out in eighteenth-century laces and velvet. “I like it when he smiles.”

“Why him?” Loren asked.

“I told you: I like his smile. He doesn’t do it very much and when he does it’s special. Most of the time, he does a sly grin. His smile isn’t sly at all.” She cocked her head as she studied the poster, her face thoughtful. “I saw the movie that’s from. He was sneaky. I liked it.”

“We can get it for the video equipment, if you like,” offered Loren.

“I don’t know,” she said dreamily. “Sometimes remembering is better.” For a few seconds her eyes were far away, on scenes only she knew.

Loren nodded. “Yes, sometimes it is.”

Gail was quiet again for a short while; then, while she continued to stare absently at John Castle’s picture, she said distantly, “My mother’s best friend—Erin Donnell?—two of her kids died of TS, and now she’s got it. She told my mother that I’m worse than a murderer.”

“When did this happen?” Loren asked, keeping his voice level. He had been prepared from the beginning to hear this and worse; though it distressed him, there was no reflection of that in his manner.

“The day before I left to come here. Mom was upset and she yelled at me and at Erin and then she called Dad and yelled at him, too. She’s been yelling a lot since he moved out.” It was as if she were talking about something slightly boring that had happened long ago, not the disintegration of her family. “Mom’s tested positive for TS, too, hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Loren softly. He sensed rather than saw the powerful emotions behind Gail’s apparent lack of interest. Steven Channing behaved much the same way.

“Does that mean she’s going to die?” Gail’s voice had shrunk to a whisper.

“We’re all going to die. It’s merely a question of how and when.” He hesitated, uncertain of how best to proceed. Then he took a chance. “You know, for about fifty years, we forgot how vulnerable we are. We had vaccines and antibiotics and all the rest of the pharmacological weapons to stop things that used to kill regularly. We were getting somewhere with cancer and had a handle on heart disease. And then along came AIDS and reminded us that we can’t hold off dying forever. As soon as we got that under control, TS shows up, and the increase in such puzzling diseases as polyarteritis. The Tunis Flu Two and Three wasn’t in quite the same league, but it left its mark.” He waited to see what she would do. “Illness happens to people. No matter what we do, we can’t get rid of it.”

Gail huddled more deeply in her beanbag chair. “So we’re part of a long string of disasters?” She flung the question at him like a gauntlet.

“No,” he countered. “No. That’s not it at all. I was hoping to show that you aren’t responsible for the disease you carry, that disease is a fact of life.” He shrugged.

She started to tremble as if she were suddenly very cold. “I don’t want to think about that. It makes me mad and sorry. I don’t like anything like that. I just want to get better and go home, and not have anyone else die from TS.”

“That’s what we’d all like, Gail,” Loren said. “That’s what we’re trying for, all of us.”

“But how can I go home if my Dad’s gone and my Mom’s dead?” she wailed. “What’s the use.”

“Your Mom isn’t dead yet and your Dad hasn’t vanished.” He trusted that Brandon Harmmon would relent and call his daughter in the next few days. “When you talk to him, you can ask him how he’s doing. He cares about you, Gail, and he cares about your sister. You know how important he is to you—you’re important to him, too.” He devoutly hoped this was so.

“He won’t call,” she said miserably. “He told Mom he didn’t want to have any contact with me. He said it’s my fault that Eric’s dead, and it is,
it is.
Eric had TS, and he had to get it from me. Maybe Adam and Axel are right, and this is God’s punishment on us.”

“Why would God be punishing you?” Loren said, going warily now, for he was not having much success with the religiously rigid Barenssen twins.

“Because of the wickedness of the world. That’s what they say. If the world wasn’t sinful and wicked, there wouldn’t be any TS or anything else bad. They said that the only way to get rid of TS is to repent and pray for all the sinners who have visited this on the world. They said praying is the only thing that can help. They prayed until ten o’clock last night. Four hours they prayed, and they said it isn’t enough.” She scrunched into a fetal ball, letting the chair surround her.

“Do you think that having TS will cure wickedness?” Loren asked.

She hitched up her shoulder, and did not answer directly. “Mason got mad at them. He said that it was bad enough that we carry a disease, but it doesn’t make any sense to confuse a disease with moral judgments.” She wiped her nose. “Sometimes Mason’s as strange as Adam and Axel are.”

“And how does that make you feel?” he asked.

“Will you stop those dumb shrink questions?” Her face turned more sullen. “What if they
are
right, and God
is
doing this to us? What if we can’t ever cure it, and almost everyone will die because of us?”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Loren, wanting it to be so. “We’re finding out more about TS every day, and we think we can slow it down, if not cure it completely. We developed the AIDS vaccine, didn’t we? Then we can develop a TS vaccine, too.”

“Are you really sure?” Gail moved so that she no longer looked in Loren’s direction.

“Yes. If I weren’t sure, I wouldn’t have volunteered to work with you.” He spoke calmly, but it was an effort. It had been agreed at the start that only those who tested positive for TS would be accepted to work with the carriers, and that they would have to sign a Public Benefit contract. Loren had wanted the carriers to know that, but a decision made higher up in the NCDC had vetoed his idea. He was more convinced than ever that the kids had the right to know.

“What if you get it? What if you die?” She directed her question to the opposite wall. “I heard that Alain Wilding has TS. That’s why they’re doing reruns of his old shows all the time.”

“Yes, he does,” said Loren after a slight hesitation. “He’s doing Public Benefit.”

“That started during AIDS, didn’t it?” she asked, still facing away from him. “There was that big suit, wasn’t there? My Dad said that it was pressure politics and that . . . that no responsible adult . . .” She frowned, trying to recall her lawyer father’s explanation of something she had not understood at the time and only partially grasped now. “He said it was about individual rights and civic responsibility. That someone would have a civic duty to report contaminated water and if they didn’t, it would be their fault if people got sick and died. He said that people sick with AIDS had a responsibility to help in getting rid of it. He said the Supreme Court had done the right thing.”

“Yes. It probably would have taken longer to get the vaccine if the Public Benefit contract hadn’t been okayed by the Supreme Court.” He paused. “Your parents all signed Public Benefit contracts for you and for themselves.”

“That’s what Mom said. Dad got mad at her for doing it.” Abruptly she turned and looked at him. “Sometimes I want to scream.”

“Go ahead, if you like,” he said.

“No,” she decided after considering it. “That’s dumb.”

“You might feel better if you did,” he suggested.

“It wouldn’t do anything.” She struggled out of the chair. “I want to get some lunch.”

He had the good sense not to push his luck with her; he patted the beanbag chair he was in and asked, “Mind if I tag along?”

“If you want. It’s probably going to be spinach and eggs again.” She made a face.

“And cornbread muffins,” he told her.

“Oh.” She considered that information. “That’s not too bad, then.” Without waiting for him, she went to the door.

After a moment, Loren heaved himself out of the beanbag chair and followed after her.

—Weyman Muggridge and Jeff Taji—

“Well,” Weyman sighed as he looked at the printouts. “I guess the other shoe’s dropped.”

Jeff could think of nothing to say. He shook his head at the figures and caught his lower lip between his teeth. Finally he spoke. “It’s very early. It might take a long time to develop. Portland’s coming up with things that seem to slow it down.”

“Tell that to Max Klausen,” Weyman snapped, then stopped. “Sorry. Cheap shot. Max was a real hero.”

“Yes, he was. And his research has been paying off. You’ve seen the projected curves. They’ve doubled the time for second stage development, and that’s real progress. You’ll qualify for the program.” He wished he had more encouragement to offer. “We caught this early enough that we can probably slow it down some more. The developmental time can be—”

“It fucking well better take a long time to develop.” He slapped the printouts down on his desk. “I’ve got plans that do not—emphatically do not—include TS.”

“There’s always a risk,” said Jeff for want of anything better.

“That’s comforting,” said Weyman sarcastically. “Look, I just promised a very wonderful lady that I would not leave her. I’m going to keep that promise; don’t ask me how.”

“I hope you can keep it,” Jeff said with great sincerity.

“No hope about it, Jamshid.” Weyman rarely used Jeff’s Persian name, and only when he was making the strongest possible point. “I am going to keep my word.”

“What about a Public Benefit contract?” Jeff suggested.

“I don’t think so. It takes too bloody long, and I don’t want to lose a minute. I think I’m going directly to the lab and start kicking some ass.” He touched the printouts with the tips of his fingers, as if the information on the pages was as dangerous as TS itself.

“The lab here?” Jeff asked, thinking of the pressure that had been put on them in recent months.

“Hell, no. I’m going back to. San Diego. It’s a major outbreak site, and there are all those military labs there. I want a general access order for all the military installations; that way I can get three or four separate experiments going at once without any risk of crossbreeding. I can even set up adversary experiments and save us all some more time.” He tossed his head. “What about transfusions? How’s that going?”

“It seems to help with those who don’t have type-O blood. With type O, most of the time, it doesn’t do much good.” Jeff felt renewed puzzlement as he reported this. What was it about TS that was so mysteriously linked to blood type? None of the experiments so far had provided any clue. He thought of those survivors they had located and recalled that none of them had type-O blood. It was one of the oddest parts of this perplexing disease.

“What’s on your mind?” Weyman asked, cutting into Jeff’s thoughts.

He sighed deeply before answering. “I keep thinking that we’ll find something so obvious that we’ll all be outraged that we didn’t see it before. But that’s wishful thinking, isn’t it? A disease like this one never gives you dramatic solutions. You assemble minutiae and sift through it, and you’re left with little bits of this and that which might or might not fit together.”

“Welcome to medical research. And at least you’ve got a good track record for minutiae-sifting. You found the culprit behind Silicon Measles.” He clapped Jeff on the shoulder. “You defined the nature and parameters of TS. I’m depending on you to come up with the solution.” It was apparent that Weyman was only half-joking.

“Thanks,” Jeff said heavily.

“By the way, I hear you’re going to do an interview with John Post next week, national coverage.” His smile was not a happy one, all teeth and no eyes.

“Yeah. Lucky me,” said Jeff. “For once Patrick Drucker turned down a TV appearance. That’s not real promising.”

“It’s rare,” Weyman said with a sardonic quirk to his brow. “Have you got advance information on the show?”

“Enough,” said Jeff. “I’m trying to think of how to explain TS without making it sound worse than it is.”

“What would make it worse?” Before Jeff could speak, Weyman went on, “You mean, it could be caught by kids under puberty? It could have no recovery at all instead of about twelve percent, so far? You mean that maybe the government wouldn’t be up to something with the few survivors we know about? By the way, are you going to get into the question of the disappearing survivors, or are you going to save that for later?”

“John Post tried to get an interview with a survivor, and the only one he’s been able to reach is Irene Channing; she’s not being permitted to speak because one of her kids is a carrier, and there’s already been a provisional ruling that the names of the carriers will not be released to the public.” He held up his hands to show he was helpless.

“They’ll find out. You wait. One of those supermarket tabloids will have a cover story, and then a month later,
Time
or one of the other super-legits will report on it, with all kinds of legally hedged language, but everyone will know about the carriers. Period.” He looked at the printout. “Right now, I’d be on the reporters’ side, but that’s right now. In a week or so, I’ll be on the kids’ side again.”

“They’re going to need it,” Jeff said gloomily. “By the way, Theresa Ann wants to get a few more samples from—”

“Oh, no!” Weyman moaned dramatically.

“Oh, yes,” Jeff said firmly. “You’ve been following her work; she’s demonstrating how TS works on the blood, and that is very likely going to be the key to controlling this stuff.”

Weyman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Theresa Ann is about the best we’ve got on the DNA squad,” he allowed, “but that woman makes my skin crawl. I don’t think she knows there are human beings attached to the tissues samples she’s so enamored of.”

“Probably not,” Jeff allowed. “But those tissues samples are holy relics to her, and she’s worked a few miracles before.”