The infinity cure, p.10
The Infinity Cure, page 10
“There’ve been a couple of wrinkles. One of the top medical staff, Villanna Interre? Her brother’s on the speaker list. He and a couple journalists were going around saying they were looking for missing guests. We don’t know what that’s about but I decided to take Interre out of the equation until we know more. The protest gave me cover to do it. Still deciding how to handle the two reporters.
“And one more thing you should be aware of: We haven’t seen Faith Benedict since we got here. Not necessarily an issue—her staff’s been cooperating with us and hasn’t caused any obstruction—but it’s a little unusual.”
He exchanged a few more words and hung up. Just then a quiet beep indicated an incoming call. He picked it up and listened quietly, his face hardening.
“Fuck,” he said after the caller had finished speaking. “What the fuck. Those assholes are gonna be so fucked when this is all over, but right now we just need to contain the situation.” He nodded to himself. “Glad you found them and locked them up again. What about Interre?” Pause. “Shit. Okay. Keep looking for him.”
He disconnected and let his eyes wander aimlessly over the revelers as his mind raced. He made a call and gave a short debrief, disconnecting with a frustrated sigh. He stood lost in thought again, checking his ring every minute or so even though it hadn’t alerted him.
* * *
With what little energy it had after the escape, Bruno showed Louvin where Hiroe was. It expanded its awareness quickly toward and past the spot where they’d parted ways earlier and found her. Along with Demonte, they made their way to meet her.
Hiroe’s eyes lit up when she saw Louvin, and Demonte tried for a neutral expression as Louvin scooped her up in a tight hug. “All right, lovebirds,” Demonte said. “Let’s hold off on the honeymoon a little longer.” Hiroe extracted herself from the poet’s arms with a sheepish smile. “Louvin’s got a target on his back, so we’re going to have to keep a really low profile from now on. Hiroe, did you find anything out?”
She related her encounter with Villanna to stunned faces. “I can’t believe she lied to me,” Louvin said angrily.
“I know,” Hiroe said. “But at least she’s helping us now.” She pulled the other vial out. “She said this is safe to take even if you’re not infected. I already took one and it’s easy.”
“Wait!” Demonte broke in. “You took some random shit some lady you just met gave you?”
Hiroe and Louvin both looked at him with irritation. “My sister is a brilliant nurse and scientist,” Louvin huffed, apparently forgetting his own aggravation with her.
“It’s easy for you to say that,” Hiroe said to Demonte. “You weren’t in the room with that—god, it was awful. I’ve never seen someone with aquamycosis in real life. I don’t want to take any fucking chance of that happening to me.”
“I wouldn’t be taking shit that I’m not even sure the FDA knows about,” Demonte said incredulously. “Plus she said herself it wasn’t a cure, so even if it works, all it’s going to do is hide the symptoms if you do have it. You won’t even know for sure.”
“It’s just until we get through this,” Hiroe said. “If I caught it, I don’t want to start breaking out in fungus while we’re down here trying to figure out what’s happening. I’ll get checked out later and see if I do have it. If I do, there’s nothing that can be done than suppress the symptoms anyway, until they have a cure.”
She turned to Louvin, hand outstretched, offering him the other vial. “Your sister said you should do the same.”
Louvin took it, considered for a moment, then pocketed it. “I’ll wait to see if I get any symptoms, and if I do I’ll take it right away.”
Hiroe looked like she wanted to object, but she bit her lip. “Okay, so what are we going to do about the missing lottery winners? That’s the one thing we know nothing about so far.”
“I think that FBI fucker—what’s his name, Brooks?—took them,” Louvin said bitterly. “He’s an authoritarian pig.”
“But why?” Hiroe asked. “And where are they if they’re not in that building he’s using as a jail? Could Bruno help us find them?”
Louvin shook his head. “It hasn’t had enough contact with them to be able to home in on them, and besides, it has no strength right now. It needs to rest if it’s going to be able to help us at all tonight.”
Demonte broke in. “It’ll be a total crap shoot wandering this fucking maze of a house trying to find them,” he said. “And Louvin can’t be out in the open where people can see him.”
He sighed. “I’m thinking we’ll have to hide you away somewhere and go back to the party. I’ll see if anyone else saw the missing people leave or has seen them since, and Hiroe can find out what the scientists know about the disease jumping to humans.”
Reluctantly Louvin agreed, and they headed toward the hallway of empty rooms where the breakout sessions had been held.
Hiroe turned the question of the missing people over and over in her head as they walked, looking for any halfway plausible theory. She scratched her cheek absently. Then the top of her head. Then her forearm, with increasing urgency, until it broke through her train of thought. She looked down and gave a horrified moan, stopping dead in her tracks. The other two stopped and they all stared at her arm.
A small patch of sickeningly bright green fungus bloomed there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
She touched the itchy spot on her cheek and felt an unfamiliar texture, feathery and rough at the same time.
She tore her eyes away from her arm and looked up. Demonte’s and Louvin’s expressions as they looked at her face confirmed her worst fear.
Wordlessly, Louvin withdrew the vial from his pocket and injected it into a vein on his forearm. “The fuck, man?” Demonte objected, his face a mask of despair. “Clearly that shit is not working on Hiroe. What good is it to take it now?”
Louvin shrugged tensely, his eyes filled with terror. “I’ve gotta at least try,” he said.
Hiroe found her voice. “We’ve got to get back to your sister,” she said. “She might have other ways to help us.”
“Yeah,” Demonte said reluctantly. “We can’t go back to the party now. Even if this medicine was bullshit, she’s our best—well, our only option. You know where she is?”
“She was going in the direction of the infirmary when I found her before, but she got a message and said she had to go. I don’t know where to.”
“We’ll start with the infirmary,” Demonte said decisively. “Let’s get there fast, because I can’t have either of you running into anyone now.”
They reached the tunnel to the infirmary without encountering anyone and headed down it at a run. Hiroe was lightheaded but couldn’t tell if it was a symptom or her terror. Her body felt unclean, unstable. She’d never experienced this sense of being invaded from within. She stumbled and caught herself, waving Demonte away when she saw him reach for her. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
They saw an attendant in a chair, seemingly guarding a door. Hiroe hung back, her face turned away, as Demonte and Louvin approached the young aquean man.
“I need to see Villanna,” Louvin said. The man’s eyes widened and he stood up in excitement.
“You’re Louvin Interre,” he said. “Holy shit! Aw man, I’m a big fan.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Louvin said with as much politeness as he could muster. “Do you know if my sister’s in there?”
The attendant disappeared into the room, the door sliding shut behind him before they could get a glimpse of its interior. Villanna emerged less than five minutes later, wearing a hazard suit with a full hood and transparent face piece.
Her eyes widened as Hiroe turned to face her, holding out her forearm. “My god,” Villanna said. “I’ve never seen symptoms emerge so quickly after exposure, and to overpower the suppressant—I can’t believe it!”
“Is there anything you can do?” Hiroe asked, outwardly calm.
Villanna nodded, thinking. “We have some other treatments in development … they’re experimental, but your situation is so serious, we need to take some gambles.” She turned to Louvin. “Have you had any symptoms?”
He shook his head. “I took the shot once I saw what was happening to Hiroe, so I don’t know if I have it and it’s being suppressed,” he said.
“You both need to come with me,” she said. “I’ll consult with some of my colleagues and we’ll figure out the best course of action. We can handle this, I think. But we need to start now. It’s progressing very quickly in you, Hiroe. This is an aggressive form of aquamycosis and it’s going to take aggressive treatment to combat it.”
For once Louvin didn’t argue with his sister. Villanna retrieved another vial of the medicine and gave it to Demonte. “You should take it too, now that you’ve been possibly exposed to it,” she told him.
Demonte’s face was inscrutable as he accepted the small object and pocketed it. “Think I’ll wait and see if I get the symptoms,” he said. “Thanks though. I appreciate having the option.” Villanna pursed her lips disapprovingly but didn’t press the issue with him.
Louvin unshouldered the bag containing Bruno and passed it to Demonte. “Can you take care of it for me?” he asked, sounding plaintive. Demonte hesitated, then relented, hoisting it onto his own shoulder.
“I’ll go back to the party. You can find me there if you need me in the next couple hours,” he said to Villanna. “Otherwise, I’ll come check in with you when I leave it. Take care of them, okay?”
“I will,” Villanna said earnestly. “Thank you for caring about my brother.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat. Demonte nodded, his eyes turning worriedly to Hiroe, then walked away resolutely.
“Let’s go,” Villanna said to Hiroe and Louvin. They followed her into the infirmary. The door slid shut behind them and secured with a quiet beep.
Villanna led them through a nondescript white lobby into a room with several beds in a row and an array of equipment.
“Lie down and I’ll get you comfortable while I go consult with my colleagues,” she said. Louvin gasped, and the others saw with horror a small but distinct salmon-colored patch of fungus on the back of his hand. Before either of the women could say anything, a burly human attendant in a hazard suit entered the room.
“Should I get these ones processed?” he said to Villanna as if Hiroe and Louvin weren’t there.
“No no,” she said, her voice shaky but authoritative. “I’m taking care of these two. I just need them to … rest for a while.”
The attendant nodded and went to a machine with a small penlike device hanging from it. He took the device and a retractable tube unspooled. He brought it to Louvin first. “This won’t hurt,” Villanna said. “It’s just a medication to help you relax for a short time. Stress can trigger worsening symptoms, and I don’t want you to suffer more before we have time to devise a course of treatment.”
The attendant touched the pen to Louvin’s arm and it emitted a short tone. He took a clear covering off the tip of it and put a new one on, then touched Hiroe’s arm, just below the patch of fungus, which had spread an inch or two in every direction since she’d first detected it. She felt nothing when the device beeped. The attendant left without another word or glance in either of their directions.
“Get some rest,” Villanna said tenderly, speaking to both of them but gazing at her brother. “I’ll be back soon.”
She too left, and the room became quiet. Hiroe and Louvin lay on their adjacent beds, staring at the white ceiling.
Hiroe’s head swam as she relived the rapid escalation of events that had brought them here. She looked over at Louvin and nearly burst into tears when she saw a rusty reddish-orange spot marring the smooth green skin of his face, just under his right cheekbone. “I’m sorry,” she tried to say, but her voice had deserted her. His face became blurry and the room began to spin.
Something occurred to her, and she spoke with effort. “What did that guy say—what did he mean by ‘these ones’? Have there been others? You sister said it too—‘these two.’ What did she mean?” She began to feel nauseous, but then everything around her faded to nothing.
She realized her eyes were closed, and she struggled to open them. The lights in the room had dimmed, or maybe she was imagining it. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been lying there; in some ways it felt as if she’d just blinked, but her body felt languorous, as if she’d been sleeping for hours.
She raised herself to a sitting position with considerable effort. Louvin was fast asleep on his bed, his visible skin now mottled all over with noxiously colorful patches she could see even in the dimly lit room with her blurred vision.
She looked down at her own hands and arms and saw that the fungus had spread even more on her. Her skin was now almost entirely covered, with just a few bare spots here and there. She felt horrified but in a detached, dreamlike way, as if she were in someone else’s body observing what was happening to them.
Hiroe stood unsteadily, holding onto the edge of the bed for support until she felt able to stand on her own. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to go; her body moved of its own volition despite her deep exhaustion. She stumbled toward the door and slapped at it clumsily until it slid open.
A corridor appeared in front of her, illuminated by strobe-like flickering lights. She wondered if she really was dreaming or if the drugs were affecting her vision. She followed the hallway, leaning against the wall every few steps to rest and regain her balance.
It stretched endless before her, until suddenly it ended at a door, which she pushed at until it opened into a large room. The light was glaringly bright, so much that a needle of pain stabbed her forehead. She squinted and blinked, waiting for her vision to adjust.
Suddenly everything came into focus, but her mind refused to believe what her eyes were seeing. She staggered back toward the door, an inarticulate wail escaping her lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The room was flanked by two rows of rectangular trays, positioned just below eye level, each the size of a twin bed. Each held what appeared to be half-dissolved human remains, slowly melting into pools of liquid. Below each tray, a tube led to a large vat that seemed to be collecting the liquid from them.
Hiroe’s glance skittered over the carnage, partial limbs, blood, innards, and bones in puddles of viscous ooze. Her eyes settled on a tray close to her. The face of the corpse was still partially intact, and she recognized the eyes, even in their lifeless staring state, and the wisps of colorful hair, remnants of an intricately twisted updo. It was Lottie.
* * *
Agent Brooks impatiently paced the party, dodging drunken guests. He checked in frequently with his team, frustrated by their lack of progress.
He stewed over Louvin’s disappearance and the temporary escape by the protesters. He was considering making a visit to the prison to dress down the guards in person when someone entering the room caught his attention. A new course of action presented itself. He strode across the room.
“Hey, remember me?” he said cordially.
“Sure,” the man said guardedly. “You’re that fake security guy that hauled that aquean kid away.”
Brooks chuckled. “You got my number all right. Name’s Brooks. Agent Greg Brooks, FBI.” He held his hand out, and the man shook it after a pause. “And you?”
“Demonte Sanders, Static News,” he said.
Brooks nodded knowingly. “I could tell you were a reporter,” he said. “You’ve been busy tonight, huh?”
“I guess,” Demonte said in a noncommittal tone of voice.
“Look, I hope you’re not sore about that kid,” Brooks said in a reassuring tone of voice. “He’s fine, I can assure you. We have every reason to believe he’s involved in that protest, but we’re not gonna do anything to him until we learn more.”
Demonte shrugged. “I barely know that kid, just met him tonight,” he said dismissively.
“But he was with you and that lady earlier, right?”
“Yeah,” Demonte said. “They asked me to help them look around. I used to work with the lady, so I did her a favor.”
“You said some guests had disappeared, huh?” Brooks said. “Well, after you told me that, I got curious. I started looking into it myself. And you’re right—there’s a few people missing. They’re not in their quarters—they’re not anywhere that my team’s been able to look.” He leaned confidingly toward Demonte. “There’s something funny going on here, and I want to find out what it is. You know what else? I haven’t seen Faith Benedict in person since I got here. Have you?”
“No,” Demonte said. Something in his tone gave Brooks sensed he was holding something back.
“You know something about where she might be?” Brooks prompted.
After some hesitation, Demonte spoke. “The woman who was with me? She’s a reporter too. She told me she was exploring the house, looking for the missing people, and ran across Faith Benedict’s bedroom. Faith was in there and she was—well, my friend says she looked like she had aquamycosis.”
Brooks didn’t have to act shocked. He was caught completely off guard. “That’s not possible.”
“I know,” Demonte said. “That’s what I thought. But then my friend … it looks like she caught it from Faith. And she’s human too.” He reached into his pocket. “She went to the infirmary to see if they could do anything for her. One of the doctors gave me this, told me to take it in case I’d caught it too.” In his palm, a small clear vial with a rubber-tipped needle glistened.
Brooks stared at it, mind racing, digesting this new information. “But you didn’t.”
“Nah, man,” said Demonte. “I’m not about to put some shit in my body when I don’t even know what it is.”
“I don’t blame you,” Brooks said. “And you haven’t had any symptoms?”
