“That,” said Cynthia, “was amazing.” She looked at Lyle with something almost like respect. “Watching him stand up to the General Assembly was one thing, but telling a woman he likes that she’s wrong about something? I’m impressed, Fontanelle.”
Lilly raised her eyebrow. “A woman he likes?”
Lyle did like her, though not in the way he’d liked Susan. Maybe that’s a good thing, he thought. Susan was young and beautiful, but she was also … well, he didn’t know what else she was. A political activist, and a college student, and an intern. He’d been infatuated with the idea of her, but knew almost nothing about the woman herself.
Lilly, though, had become a friend.
“What can I say?” said Lyle, trying to brush it off. “I spend all day with two women, and one of them is…” He almost said “Cynthia,” but it felt too cruel. Especially since she’d just complimented him. “A model,” he said instead, though he cringed the instant he said it. Lilly was beautiful, yes, but he liked her for so many more important reasons.
“Well,” said Lilly. Her attitude was stiffer than a moment ago. “There you go.”
Lyle felt like he’d punched her in the stomach, and didn’t know how to take it back.
“We can’t get out by land,” said Cynthia, changing the subject. “I’ve got a yacht in the Chelsea docks, but I don’t know if I can make it through the city. We have to rely on Washington to come and get us, but they’re taking so long.”
“This is the United Nations,” said Lilly. “They won’t just forget us.”
“We can hope,” said Cynthia, still hunched over her coffee, her eyes distant and lost in thought. “If and when they do arrive, I definitely wouldn’t count on them taking a junior receptionist when they go. It’ll be vital personnel only.”
“Then we need to make sure we’re vital,” said Lyle, and stood up with a stretch. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to observe the General Assembly for a few more years.”
“Good luck,” said Lilly. “I hope the shower line’s not too long.”
“And wash your backbone while you’re in there,” said Cynthia. “You’ve never had one before, and I expect it to be a little confusing at first.”
Lyle walked away, thinking. He’d never thought of himself as being spineless, but the last few months had changed his perspective and he couldn’t deny that he had been. He’d run from confrontation, he’d said yes to ideas he’d hated just to avoid an argument, he’d gone along with their horrible scheme to sell ReBirth just because … Because it was the path of least resistance, he thought. But he was different now, and it had taken Cynthia to make him see it.
Sure, he thought. Perfect timing. I grow a backbone just a couple of months before it doesn’t matter anymore.
The thought made him frown—not the thought, but the wording. A couple of months? Can I really quantify it like that?
If the world really ends—if all our worst fears come true—how will we know? Is it a nuclear bomb? A public announcement? Gods and angels and fire and brimstone, and the Earth rolled up like a scroll? Or will we just wake up and it will be over?
When the world ends, what’s going to take its place?
55
Monday, December 3
2:32 P.M.
United Nations, Manhattan
11 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“The thing we’ve failed to consider is that none of these solutions might work at all,” said Mexico. “ReBirth is out there, and it’s going to stay out there, and there’s no avoiding it. Every plan we’ve come up with either ignores it, or tries to defend against it. Maybe it’s time to embrace it.”
Lyle tried not to roll his eyes. He’d been in the UN building for nearly a week now, shot down a hundred flawed theories, listened to a thousand broken plans that nobody could agree on. A mob had rushed the fence again on Sunday, and this time someone actually made it over the top before getting shot through the head by a guard. The mob had shot back, and the guards had been forced to retreat; only tear gas and snipers had dispersed them in the end.
Lyle was fed up with the assembly’s indecision, but on the other hand … what were they supposed to decide? How were they supposed to find a solution to an unsolvable situation? And worse yet, how were they supposed to stop trying? The Chinese-Russian war raged on, Southeast Asia was on the brink of at least five wars of its own, and South America formed new nations and alliances so fast the U.S. State Department had stopped trying to keep up. The world was a mess, and if there was any way out of it these twenty men were the most likely to find it. They couldn’t give up, and yet they couldn’t win. Lyle was trapped in a hell of political boulder-rolling.
“We’ve already talked about embracing the lotion,” said Tanzania. “We spent two entire days last week embracing the lotion, and every scenario was another disaster. Are we talking in circles now?”
“We’ve been talking in circles the entire time,” said Estonia.
“We’ve only talked about embracing the lotion as a weapon,” said Mexico. “I’m talking about accepting and accounting for the realities that ReBirth has thrust upon us. Everyone in this building drinks bottled water, because the water system outside has been contaminated with ReBirth. People all over Manhattan and Upstate New York are turning into Dr. Fontanelle, or into other people, whether they’ve ever used the lotion or not. We’ve had similar reports from Tibet, Russia, Brazil, India, Australia, and today from Mexico City.”
“And that explains his sudden interest,” said Bangladesh. “Some of us have been trying to talk about this for days.”
“Then let’s talk about it,” said France. “There’s ReBirth in the water—that’s a reality. What do we do about it? Can it be filtered out?”
Twenty heads all turned to Lyle, and he shook his head helplessly. “You think you’re the first people to think of that? Unless these lotion dumps were deliberate contaminations, which I doubt, they almost certainly happened through normal sinks and drains and toilets that lead straight back to the standard reclamation plants—which, obviously, did nothing. We could try to augment the filtration process with heat or chemicals or other things, but honestly most of these plants already do pretty much everything they can do without harming the human population, so no, I doubt there’s any way we could get this out of the water supply.”
“If we can’t filter it out of the water system,” said the Philippines, “maybe we can kill it in the body. It’s a virus, right? So can’t we use some kind of antibiotic?”
“Antibiotics are for bacteria,” said Lyle.
The Philippines glared. “Obviously I mean whatever the viral equivalent of an antibiotic is.”
“That’s called ‘plenty of rest and chicken soup,’” said Lyle. “There is no viral equivalent of an antibiotic—a vaccine, maybe, but that could take years to develop, and there’s no guarantee it would even be possible. The way this retrovirus turns everything into itself, a vaccine might strengthen it instead of kill it.”
“But it might work,” said Germany. “We don’t know until we try.”
“If it could be cleaned from water, it would have been,” said China. “If it could be attacked in the body, somebody’s immune system would have stopped them from cloning. None of these things have happened. We need something concrete, and we need it now.”
“We haven’t talked about the future yet,” said India.
