“No, really,” said Lyle, and then another person crouched down to help. The man picked up a vial of lotion, dropped it in the cardboard box, and smiled at Lyle.
“You okay, sir?”
“Yes,” Lyle hissed through his teeth, scrambling now on his knees to collect the lotion before anyone noticed what it was. “I’m fine, thank you, please just go on”—he waved them off—“do whatever you were doing, I can manage it.”
“Wait a minute,” said the woman, staring at the vial in her hand. “Is this the … is this the stuff from TV? The stuff from the riot?”
“The cloning lotion?” asked the man. He stood up, holding a vial up to the glow of the sun. “It is. ReBirth.” He looked at Lyle, frowning. “Where did you get this? You’ve got,” he looked down, “sixty, maybe eighty thousand dollars’ worth of the stuff here.”
Lyle closed his eyes. Now I’m screwed. Almost immediately the crowd around them stopped.
“Eighty thousand dollars?”
“Is that the stuff from the news?”
“How much money did you say?”
Eighty thousand dollars retail, thought Lyle, bracing himself for the rush, who knows how much on the black market. He eyed the group tensely, his hand opening to reach for another vial—
In a flash the crowd descended like an avalanche of hands and feet, reaching and grasping and stepping on each other’s fingers and wrestling for control of the tiny vials. Lyle abandoned the last few loose ones and dove for the cardboard box, ready to cut his losses and run, but another man reached it just as he did. Lyle pulled on it vainly, trying to curl himself around it, all the while shouting “Everybody get back! You don’t understand!” but no one seemed to listen. The man yanked the box from Lyle’s hands and stepped back triumphantly, only to be mauled by a pair of women—one of them, Lyle noted, the same woman who’d first stopped to help him. Another man rushed into the fray and Lyle backed up, stunned by the frenzy, and then the traffic light changed again.
The flow of traffic shifted, cars surged forward past the melee, and too late Lyle remembered the four-ounce bottle of lotion lying in the street—not labeled for sale, and thus ignored by the crowd who hadn’t recognized it for what it was. He took a step toward it, saw a truck come barreling down the street, and dove behind a signboard just in time. The truck hit the bottle with all its weight, Lyle heard a pop, and suddenly the whole crowd was hit with an explosion of white lotion—it landed on hands, faces, and hair; it misted into the center of the crowd; it smeared from one to another as they fought. By the time the first person screamed it was too late.
“It’s all over me!”
“Where did it come from?”
“I don’t want to turn into you!”
As fast as it gathered the crowd dispersed in a thunderstorm of terrified screams. Lyle saw a lotion-smeared woman racing toward him and jumped into the street to avoid her, barely missing another oncoming car. The fear swept through the streets in a widening circle, lotioned victims shouting and sobbing as they ran or stumbled or pleaded with others for help. Some ran from them, others stopped to help, not knowing what had happened, and touched the lotion themselves. Still others dashed back into the center to grab the unbroken vials still littering the ground, and the fight started over. Nobody knew what was going on, or how the lotion worked, or what they could possibly do to stop it.
Lyle knew exactly what to do. He ran.
31
Wednesday, July 4
Everywhere
163 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
NEWSCASTER: Good evening, I’m Lisa Maxwell, and this is Channel 6 News in Milwaukee. In our top story tonight, Brett Osborne, the newly hired manager of the local ReBirth clinic, was arrested this evening after a domestic dispute with his wife, Diane. Osborne received a shipment of the so-called cloning lotion in his store, opened it early, and applied it to his wife without her consent. The police were called when the neighbors heard shouting and several loud crashes. Channel 6 reporter Carlos Lancaster is live on the scene—Carlos, can you tell us any more about what happened?
CARLOS: Yes, Lisa, I’m here at the Osborne home and as you can see, the police are still here, more than an hour after the call; the issue is turning out to be much murkier than anyone expected. We have two men here who’ve offered to talk to us: Officer Schwartz is in charge of the scene and Aaron Greer is a state attorney—they’ve actually brought an attorney to consult with the police, because this entire episode is so bizarre. Can you tell me, Officer Schwartz: this seems like a simple domestic call, so why all the confusion?
OFFICER: When we initially arrived, the first officers on the scene heard shouts and name-calling, things like that; they knocked on the door and saw the home in disarray. Several objects had been broken but no one seemed to be hurt. Our problem here is that the only crime that seems to have been committed is the original application of the lotion.
CARLOS: And putting lotion on someone would not normally be considered a crime.
OFFICER: Not normally, no, but because of the nature of this particular lotion … it feels like something illegal happened, we just don’t know what it is.
CARLOS: And you, Mr. Greer, what is your take on the situation?
LAWYER: For one thing, we don’t even know if this works. The ReBirth lotion sounds completely ridiculous, literally almost impossible to believe, and yet NewYew has obviously spent millions, maybe billions of dollars on creating and distributing it, and I can’t think of why they’d do something like that if it were all a hoax.
CARLOS: So if the lotion doesn’t actually alter Mrs. Osborne’s DNA, this is all moot?
LAWYER: It’s still a domestic disturbance, and they’ll probably be fined for bothering the neighbors, but you’re right—if the lotion doesn’t actually do anything, the fine is the worst that will happen.
CARLOS: And if it does work?
LAWYER: If does work, then.… Then we’ve got an entirely new area of law that no one has ever dealt with before. We simply don’t have the legal infrastructure to deal with this kind of crime: we could charge him with reckless endangerment, maybe, but unlawfully turning one person into another person? It’s simply unheard of. There’s nothing about this in any law book outside of … the starship Enterprise.
CARLOS: Unbelievable. This has got to be one of the craziest domestic calls you guys have ever had to make. At least for now. [Turns to camera.] Lisa, we’ll keep you updated as the story progresses, but both Officer Schwartz and Mr. Greer wanted me to stress just how dangerous this lotion can be, especially if used incorrectly or without consent. It goes on sale tomorrow, so please, everyone, be careful or you might see these guys knocking on your door.
* * *
MEG CARSON: Welcome back to the Morning Show, coming to you live from Times Square. I’m Meg Carson, and outside the window you can see the crowd is super excited about our next guest, one of the most controversial figures in America: the man known as Guru Kuvam. Joining him in our studio are Donna and Melissa Pickett, who claim that Kuvam healed Donna of cancer. Mr. Kuvam—
KUVAM: Please, call me Guru.
CARSON: Um, okay. Guru Kuvam. When this story broke just over a month ago everyone could see that Donna looked like the new twin sister of her daughter Melissa, and seeing them together here in our studio I have to say that the similarities are impossible to ignore.
[Donna and Melissa smile; they are nearly identical.]
CARSON: When your news first broke, nobody knew what to make of it, but given the events of the last few days, naturally we’re all wondering if your so-called naturopathic treatment was in fact simply a dose of ReBirth.
