He looked at the shower, listened to the water hiss down, a curtain of white noise drowning everything out. He couldn’t even hear the three intruders anymore, and for a moment he closed his eyes and imagined they were gone, and everyone was gone, and everything, and he was free. He didn’t have to turn himself in or go to jail or anything. He couldn’t hear a sound.
And they couldn’t hear him.
He looked at the shower again, then the window. What do I want? Not jail, and not to help the government make ReBirth for who knows what new power scheme. He knew what he didn’t want, but what did he want? He wanted to people to listen—to finally stop thinking about themselves and listen to him, to all the ways he knew ReBirth could be good and helpful. All the ways it could save the world. Maybe he’d get a chance to do that in prison, but he’d have better luck out here. Kuvam was dead—why couldn’t Lyle step up and start helping people in the same way Kuvam had?
Lyle made up his mind in a flash, and dressed quickly in his grandfather’s old clothes. He pulled on his grandpa’s shoes and eased the window open, jumping out and catching on the roses as he tumbled past them. He ran to the back fence, glancing back at the dark house, searching in the dark until he found the irrigation channel—a narrow, bricked ditch behind the bushes that hadn’t seen real irrigation water in years. He glanced again at the house, then pushed his way into the ditch and disappeared into the darkness.
34
Thursday, July 12
9:22 A.M.
Pressroom, the Capitol, Washington, D.C.
155 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“Thank you for coming,” said the speaker. “I’m Senator Eric Moore, special liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. It is with a heavy heart that I approach you today with a very grave announcement. This is not something we do lightly, but under the circumstances we have no choice. Please allow me to set the stage with a couple of news stories.”
He opened a slim leather binder and began reading. “On Thursday, July eleventh, reformed rapist Clay Burgener returned home from work, reached for his doorknob, and found it smeared with something white and viscous. Forensic tests show that the substance was an imprinted sample of ReBirth hand lotion. One of Burgener’s victims was found by police just two blocks away, and confessed to planting the lotion in the hope that Burgener, transformed into an attractive woman, would be raped, as well, and thus experience the same hell he’d forced so many women to endure. The woman is awaiting trial; Burgener is under close hospital supervision, and has already shown signs of increased estrogen production.”
The crowd said nothing, tense and nervous. They’d heard this before—they were waiting for the announcement at the end. Moore surveyed them carefully, then turned the page.
“On July seventh, at approximately eight thirty in the morning, Brian Yancy arrived at his high school in Casper, Wyoming, dressed in a black trench coat and heavily armed: not with guns, but with ReBirth. Over the course of the next half hour he sprayed and infected nearly thirty-seven students with lotion that had been imprinted with his own DNA. When police, wearing hazmat suits, finally subdued the teen, he told them he was sick of not fitting in at school, and wanted to let the rest of the students know what it was like to be him.”
The crowd sat in uncomfortable silence. Moore turned the page. “One more. That same night, late in the evening, the Codwell family of Bamberg, South Carolina, was attacked by men in traditional Ku Klux Klan attire; Tyler Codwell, his wife, Marylou, and their two children were all dragged out on the lawn, tied down with baling twine, and sprayed liberally with ReBirth. An anonymous letter to the local newspaper stated, and I quote, ‘God has given us the means to cleanse His earth.’ Similar incidents were recorded on July ninth and tenth throughout the country, targeting Mexicans, Arabs, and in one case, whites.”
Moore closed the binder, stared at it a moment, then looked up. “ReBirth was introduced with a lofty potential, but day by day, story by story, the dregs of our society are proving its true use. As of this morning, the FDA has reclassified ReBirth from an herbal lotion to a biological weapon.” A buzz of urgent whispers rose up from the crowd, and Moore raised his voice. “Effective immediately, anyone possessing or using ReBirth, in any capacity, will be considered a terrorist and a threat to national security. All stock owned by stores or suppliers will be confiscated; all manufacturing facilities will be shut down and their assets held indefinitely. The originators of the product, the cosmetic company NewYew, will be closed down immediately, its remaining executives arrested, and its records seized for federal trial. The U.S. government will not see its citizens sprayed, tortured, and remade by this or any other harmful biological agent. That is all.”
The pressroom exploded in noise, journalists leaping to their feet, hands raised, shouting for attention. Moore held up his hand for silence, but a man in the back stepped into the aisle.
“How can you even think about doing this?” asked the man. “ReBirth may have some bad uses, but it is still the greatest medical breakthrough in the history of our species. We can cure cancer with this—we can live forever. You are shutting the door on our very future.”
Moore eyed the man carefully. There’s something wrong with him, he thought. That’s not a journalist’s question. He wore a brown hat and had long hair that obscured his face. Moore glanced to the side of the stage, locked eyes with one of the security team, and nodded almost imperceptibly toward the suspicious man. The guard faded back into the rear halls immediately, speaking into his wrist. Moore looked back at the man in the audience.
“We are restricting ReBirth the same way we would choose to restrict any technology of similar power,” said Moore. “X-rays are an invaluable tool for doctors and dentists, but that doesn’t mean we let just anyone play around with them. We have to have rules, or the world falls into chaos.”
“And is it not chaos that you threaten with this announcement?” asked the man. He stepped forward, walking slowly toward the stage. Moore’s mental alarms clanged wildly, and out of nowhere a swarm of black-suited security guards surrounded the man on all sides. Their weapons weren’t drawn; they were waiting for the man to make a move. He stopped and smiled benignly.
“You think I’m here to harm you,” he said, and shook his head. He pulled off his hat, and with it a wig, exposing softer, browner hair underneath.
I know him, thought Moore, I just can’t put a name to it …
“I am not here to bring death,” said the man, “but life, for I am life—the energy of the universe made form and flesh.” He took off his glasses; his name was on the tip of Moore’s tongue. “It is ReBirth that has saved me,” said the man, “and so it will save us all.” The shock of recognition hit Moore like a speeding truck.
“Kuvam,” he whispered.
The guru dropped his costume and raised his arms, turning slowly so the full crowd—and every camera—could see him plainly.
“Behold!” he shouted. “I am Lazarus, risen from the dead. I am Siddhartha, Elijah, and the phoenix in his ashes. I am the sun that sets and the sun that rises again.
“I am the new day.”
35
Thursday, July 12
9:51 A.M.
An unknown safe house, Brooklyn
155 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“They’re taking it all for themselves,” said Susan, seething with rage. “Did you hear what he said on TV? Not ‘destroy your lotion’ but ‘give your lotion to us.’ They’re stockpiling it!”
“At least they’re getting it off the streets,” said Larry. “That’s good, right?”
“That’s terrible,” said Tony/Cynthia. “I still need to get out of this body.”
“Getting it off the streets doesn’t count if all they do is put it somewhere else,” said Susan. “It needs to be destroyed, and that’s never going to happen if the most powerful government in the world holds a massive depot of it! Can you even imagine what the CIA could do with that stuff? The NSA? It’s not a beauty product or a biological weapon, it’s the greatest tool of espionage the world has ever seen. They could replace anyone who speaks out against them—they could replace foreign leaders.” She kicked the tray table her breakfast was sitting on, scattering it across the room. “What’s going on? This makes me so angry!”
“Getting angry doesn’t solve problems,” said Larry. “Acting on anger solves problems.”
“You’re right,” said Susan. “We need to act. We need to protest. NewYew has bigger problems now than trying to kill us, so let’s go public—let’s picket the steps of City Hall—”
