Larry shrugged, and Susan started gathering up the fallen lotion. “It’s not about quantity,” she said, “it’s about precision. We don’t turn everyone into Lyle, we turn key people into … someone. I don’t know who yet, but if it’s the right people and the right DNA, we can get our message out there.”
“The world’s already full of genetic terrorists,” said Larry. “Every politician in the country wears a hazmat suit, everywhere they go. Who can we hit?”
“I’m working on it,” said Susan. “For now, we recruit. I have friends from some of the protests I did in college—activists, rebels, that kind of stuff. They’ll help us.”
“And what about all this stuff?” asked Tony/Lyle. “We still have gallons of Lyle lotion that we could get arrested just for looking at. I don’t want to haul it around, or leave it somewhere as evidence against us.”
“So we flush it,” said Susan. “We smash the bottles, burn the rug, and dump the lotion down the drain.” Her voice was quiet but fierce. “And then we change the world.”
44
Wednesday, September 26
6:27 A.M.
Ayra de Menezes Hospital, São Tomé
79 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Carl Montgomery had the plague. It had swept the entire island in just a few days, rendering everyone—even the natives, who should have been immune—practically too weak to move. It hit adults the worst, causing them to void their bowels and bladders in an almost constant stream. Several had already died of dehydration, but only the servants; Carl and his son were receiving the best care money could buy. Even with that, though, they were immensely ill. Even the doctors were sick.
“We need to go to a real hospital,” said Jeffrey. His voice was weak, barely audible from the far side of the room. “We need to go to Lisbon.”
Carl summoned all his strength to tell him off. “I didn’t build a palace on an island with no extradition just so I could extradite myself.”
“We’re going to die,” whispered Jeffrey.
“I don’t die,” Carl snarled, and forced himself to sit up. His hands gripped the bed railings fiercely, and he smiled viciously. You can’t take my strength, he told the plague. Kill everyone on this island, and I’ll still be here.
“Is that the nurse?” asked Jeffrey.
“It’s me, idiot,” said Carl. He had remade himself as a copy of his son, young and healthy, but now that the plague had come he was back in his wheelchair again. No matter: he’d been weak before, and he’d still built a company that practically ruled the world. He could get through this, too. He found the control stick on his wheelchair and drove it out the door and into the hallway. He bumped against something too low for him to see, an obstacle in the middle of the hall, and when it moaned he realized it was another patient, or maybe a nurse or doctor, too sick to move. “Get out of my way,” he rumbled, “some of us have things to do.”
His eyes were failing, too, but he could see that the hallway was littered with bodies. Pale bodies, when they should have been brown. He rolled back toward the nearest one, peering closer, and recognized his private nurse. Well, almost: his body was shriveling, and his skin was discolored. Splotchy, and almost pink in places. What plague was this?
And then it hit him, and he roared in debilitated rage. This was no plague.
This was ReBirth.
Someone had infected the entire island—Carl’s island—with ReBirth, turning everyone on it into somebody so small and weak they couldn’t resist. And whoever it was would be invading soon; it couldn’t possibly mean anything else. Carl would find who’d done this, and he’d make them pay.
Who was he turning into? Somebody small, he knew, because the adults were shrinking. Somebody weak, by the same reasoning, and judging by his failing vision it was somebody blind, as well. But there was something else in the DNA, hidden under the rest. Not just size and age, but a sickness—something devastating deep in the genes. Worming itself into him cell by cell. He had to reach the factory in time; he had to get new DNA before it all came crashing down.
He waited in front of the elevator, his crumpled reflection staring back from the shiny metal doors. He’d seen that face somewhere … was he turning into someone he knew? The doors opened, and the image disappeared. Carl drove in, gasping for breath, shoving a fallen body out of his way with the rubberized bumper of his wheelchair. The interior of the elevator was mirrored, and as the door closed he saw his image again, surrounding him on every side, repeated a thousand thousand times into the endless distance of the parallel mirrors.
Wisps of old man’s hair clinging to the top of a round, sickly head. Sunken eyes. Oxygen tubes curving around his ears and into his nose. He’d seen that face, or a hundred like it, every day in his NewYew office for years. A little bald child.
“I have cancer,” he said.
The doors opened, and he tried to back up, but the way was blocked by something the electric motor wasn’t strong enough to push. More bodies, filling the hallway, stacked two deep by the elevator as if they’d been crawling toward it for help. He pushed the control stick as far as he could, but the chair wouldn’t move. He stared at the mirrored walls of the elevator, and the little boy with cancer stared back. Carl screamed in rage, a hoarse, impotent whisper, and on every side of him an endless line of dying reflections screamed in silent unison.
He pulled himself forward, lowering himself out of his seat, determined to crawl to the NewYew compound if that’s what it took. The IV tube pulled loose with a painful pinch, and when he flopped to the floor the oxygen tube ripped free from its tank. He gasped on the floor, his vision dimming, the cancer eating him alive. His arms seemed hollow as he reached forward, trying to crawl over the legs of a little fallen replica of himself. The world swam in his view; his ears roared like seashells. He dragged himself forward an inch. His sphincter fell apart, liquid excrement dribbling down his legs and soaking his hospital gown. He dragged himself another inch.
He choked, gasping for air, and reached toward the door.
45
Friday, September 28
3:45 P.M.
The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
77 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“They don’t have it,” said General Blauwitz. A still photo of his face filled the screen on the wall, and his voice echoed tinnily through the room. “They have manufacturing facilities, they have other kinds of lotion, but they don’t have blanks.”
General Clark frowned. “Have you looked everywhere?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Ira/Moore. “Why would they not be manufacturing blanks? For storage, if nothing else?”
“Obviously there might be samples somewhere,” said Blauwitz, “and we’re still searching, but I’m telling you: they were not manufacturing blank ReBirth anywhere on this island. I don’t think they even knew how. Where we expected to find blanks we’ve found vast stores of inert ReBirth, chemically identical to the stuff we’ve tried and failed to make on our own.”
