Chapter Thirty-Five: Connections

Blinking back the bright light, Jacob Boyle surveyed the contents of his refrigerator without comprehension. Once again Bryson had drunk him under the table and he regretted it. Actually, he enjoyed the various dives they had found. There was Bereshit, there was Acrasia. Strange names but it was a strange neighborhood. Still, whiskey was whiskey and he liked sitting on a barstool in the dark dank air chasing shots of Paddy with tepid, malty ale. The next day was always murder, a crack in the head and ears stuffed with putty. Ass mouth. His father would have said she had a wooden leg. Well, a wooden leg is a fine thing if you can cash your liver in for a new one. But he had to live with his old decrepit organ till it gave out and then, if he were lucky, it would be a morphine drip.

Then there was Trinh Ma’s temper to deal with. His arrival home always caused a storm, if he didn’t enter a storm in progress. When he was drunk he would duck out by heading directly to the room they shared with Agatha, Maria and Nero, collapsing onto the bed and sinking into a slumberous noman’s land terminating in a snore.

The milk cartons repelled him; the chalky blue liquid was an insult. Margarine was too yellow and flavorless, adding only a slick of salty grease with a ghost of butter. The bread was almost gone; there was just enough for Medea’s sandwich.

“Whuddya doin’ in the fridge? Do I gotta yank your head out?” Trinh Ma asked.

Boyle groaned and looked at his wife’s hard, pock marked face.

They were dressed in identical clothes, loose grey sweats, his a little short in the leg. “I’m late,” he said.

“Cause you stayed out late drinking with that cunt you work for.”

“She ain’t a cunt.”

“If that cunt can keep you out drinking late why can’t she let you come in late? Ever think about that?”

“I said what she ain’t.”

“She’s a puke, every one of them. Blech. And we ain’t outta this yet. Where’s all the money you promised? Huh?”

He turned his attention back to the fridge and bent down beneath the counter top to rummage for a chocolate yogurt, presenting his ass to his wife and said, “You don’t understand how these things work.”

“What I understand is that we got nine kids and only one of ‘em in school.”

He stood and stared wearily at the package of yogurt. Blurred writing came in and out of focus. “Is this stuff expired?”

“Not for four years.”

“How can this be good for you? It’s like a fucking fossil. I’ll tell you what. You know where they live to be a hundred without fake fucking organs and genes and shit? In the Caucasus, that’s where. If they don’t blow you all to shit. And do you know what? They eat yogurt. I had it when I was there. This here, this?” He held out the container. “This is shit, that’s what.”

“So starve yourself, see how old you get then. Who cares.”

“I’m making coffee,” he said, setting down the yogurt and running water into the kettle.

“Congratulations.”

“You wanna cup?”

“Make one for me too,” came a high, female voice from the other room. Then a shriek and Nero and Little Guy raced into the kitchen firing pretend guns from composite space trucks, pew–pew–pew!

“Yeah,” Trinh Ma said.

Boyle opened the yogurt, took a bite and poured hot water from the kettle into a French press.

Medea stood in the doorway. She was taller than her parents, and pretty, without the hard, defeated look of her father or the leathery, prematurely aged look of her mother. But neither of them looked that way at seventeen either. She had hair bleached and dyed till it was like brass, milk chocolate skin and morose eyes. She looked disdainfully at the collision of her space-weapon toting siblings, winced with every shriek and stood near her father, who spooned the yogurt into his mouth like medicine and poured out three cups of weak coffee. She dumped in a heap of Sweet and another of CreaMate and followed Boyle out to the table.

Boyle looked at Medea and realized, in a slow, aching kind of way, that something was wrong. Times like this he felt like a constitutional monarch, deprived of all power, but still responsible for hearing grievances. There was always something wrong in his kingdom, after all. He could tell as surely as if it were himself. He knew all the sighs and looks. With Medea it was ambition. She had showed signs of intelligence from the first. His family had thrown up its share of smart ambitious people over the years, but none had been in a position to do anything about it, except lead a life of crime. Trinh Ma too. So they recognized it in their daughter. At four she organized neighborhood kids into putting on plays she had ‘written’, not knowing yet how to read or write. But she scribbled out long plays and letters and stories with crayons on scraps of paper she taped together.

They had the right to send her to school free, but rather than just throw her into the local school they got her into special schools at each level and pushed her hard to read and study. Medea thrived, especially when she was young, but the better she did the more alien she became. Increasingly from the age of ten on she and the rest of her family viewed each other across a divide that could only be breached by love. Now she was in an advanced high school in the city, which drew, in gifted children from the entire region. The tension was nearly unbearable. Each day she came home late and screamed and vomited for an hour. She had temper tantrums or retreated into a silent stare that turned her eyes black. Then there were the sarcastic comments, the bitter denunciations of all that they stood for. Some days she spoke nothing but German. Very rarely the tension became too great and she would break down. The divide was breached. She needed to be with her people again. Boyle could feel it coming. He briefly considered hiding somewhere, even under the table, but he didn’t budge. What else was he good for? He couldn’t give her money, he couldn’t teach her anything. All he had was an ear.

“How’s school?” he asked.

She scowled and drank her coffee. He watched her thin lips tremble. Tears welled up in her eyes. Trinh Ma yelled, “Get the fuck outta the kitchen if yer gonna run around blowing shit up. Beat it!”

She shooed Little Guy and Nero out with a broom.

“I just can’t fucking think in this place,” Medea said.

“I’m sorry,” Boyle said guiltily, looking at the time. He was going to be late but he could hardly get up and walk away from her. “I’m trying everything. I mean, I’m gonna have to do some bad shit just to pay for this.”

“It’s always about you, isn’t it? This fucking family!” She started to cry in earnest now. “I can’t fucking take it, the noise, the filth, the stupidity. I can’t compete.”

“With what, the noise?”

“Don’t be a fucking jerk daddy, even you’re not that stupid. It’s the other students. I’m never going to college. I’m gonna end up here, like you guys, where it stinks like methane and you walk around with a headache all the time.”

“But you’re an A student.”

“A minus, B, you mean. How am I supposed to compete with them? They’re rich, they come from quiet homes that aren’t dirty and don’t stink of shitty diapers, they aren’t full of junk, where kids have their own beds in their own rooms.”

Now he was pissed. “You should be proud!” But as he said it he cringed and looked at her with shame. He took her hand. “I’m sorry Medear, I didn’t mean ta say that. You’d have to be a fucking idiot to live like this if you had a choice.”

“They’re better than me daddy. I can’t compete against smart genes.”

“So what about that? Where the fuck you think they got those smart genes? I seen it happen. They get ‘em from people like you, they call ‘em naturals, smart people who sell their genes so those rich fuckers without a brain in their heads can have smart kids. And there’s all kinds of smart. Me, I worked under CO’s with all that shit, smart genes and genes for blue eyes and little noses and big dicks. Fuck that. They were morons. No one respected them. Who did all the work? You’ll see–you get out there and tell me who does the work. No one’s better’n my baby. You’re gonna go ta college. I mean, what are they up against? Look at you, you’re smart, you’re pretty, comin’ from a shit hole like this. You ain’t failin’ nothin’. Don’t even think about it.” She shrugged and drank her coffee and then looked at him and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I gotta go,” he said. “Late.”

It bugged him all the way to the office. It wasn’t right she had to feel that way but what else was the kid supposed to do? It was true. She couldn’t compete with them, not without connections. All that he and Trinh Ma did was futile. There was no point in telling her that. How could he? And there had to be a way. If she’d made it this far, she could go the distance. He was just running out of things to tell her. He didn’t understand. It was scary, throwing them out into the world like that. The world screwed you bad. You love your children and try to protect them and they grow up and go out into the very place that ripped you to pieces. Any minute they could die, or just live out their lives in misery. Marry a wife beater. OD on bad dope in a dirty toilet somewhere or throw tricks for work. Once they were adults it was all over. You got six good years, between the shitty diapers and the hatred. Medea did her best to teach the young ones. She was conscientious and now she was learning it didn’t mean a thing if you were good or bad. All the shit you teach them they find out is just that, shit. If he could just get a little more cash. If that meant whacking somebody, then so be it.

Spying on Bryson sucked. What a putz he was to take the bait from Bradlee. The guy was an idiot. Bryson was straight work. The apartment he rented was cold and wet, roach infested. You could hear the rats running in the walls, you could smell the bugs. Flying roaches got tangled in your hair. But she showed up, sat at her computer till she started to sweat, her white hair damp and lank, and she didn’t complain. Six or seven hours a day they sat there and not once did she say a thing against Monozone or the boss. All she talked about was the test, or her husband upstate. Sometimes she told him stories about growing up in a castle. She could be very funny. He understood half or less of what she said. It was the brass who had their heads up their asses.

The amphibatrain disgorged him at the Monozone stop and he submitted his hand and eye to the bIoMEtrisCAN at the door and took the packed associate support elevator and two laterals to their offices. It was crazy how simply she lived. She slept on a futon an inch thick with a single black sheet. In the morning he found her dressed in a tunic and a lab coat, seated at her desk, staring at the streaming data on her screens, speaking in the low, clear voice computers like to hear. And that was how he left her at the end of the day.

They could have done a lot of the work there in the lab but she liked to get out and travel, said she liked the feel of the neighborhood. There was a sort of unease and regret about her. All that money and it was the same deal. It was something he’d never considered before. Maybe she missed her husband. Maybe it was just the usual, bad choices, the death, the rotten world. Money couldn’t make that go away, it just padded the cell.

“Morning Boyle,” she said without looking away from the screen. “Coffee’s strong and fresh.”

“I need it.”

“I’ll bet.” She looked up and smiled. “Don’t worry. You didn’t tell me anything bad, just how much you love your wife.”

“How I pay for it! She got me by the balls.”

“Sit down. Bradlee wants you to work with him today.” He looked away. “Something wrong with that?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I don’t give a shit. I mean, I’d rather work with you, but whatever. Forget about it. I can deal.”

“Now Boyle,” she said seriously, “I can tell something’s wrong.”

Boyle sat on the edge of her bed and drank his coffee. She turned around in her chair and leaned back, looking at him. Her eyes were like the sky in summer just after sunset. Dark rings surrounded them.

“It’s nothing, just Medear is all. My daughter.”

“She’s the oldest? The one who’s in school?”

“That’s right. She’s so goddamn smart, you know? She freaks me out. I don’t understand her. She’s always near the top but she’s like, it ain’t good enough.”

“That’s how it feels. Tell her she is.” “That’s what I said. I say to her all the time, ‘Don’t sell yourself short, you can do anything.’ But I half don’t believe it myself.”

“She’s up against a lot.”

“She’s afraid she can’t compete. We got no connections.”

“Well, she’s competing. Look where she is.”

“That’s just what I say.”

“You’re a good father, Boyle.”

He blushed. “It ain’t right to say that. Not till they’re all grown up. It ain’t over till it’s over, right? I just hate to see her all upset like that. I mean, those other kids, they got smart genes.”

Bryson, upon hearing the words, visibly changed. Her back was up, she became fully engaged. “What bullshit. Tell her that’s just a load of shit. You can’t genetically manipulate intelligence; it’s never been proved. Where do you think they get those ‘smart’ genes? Dogs? They don’t synthesize them in the lab, I can tell you that.”

Boyle slapped his leg and sat upright. “That’s just what I said!”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

“I’ll talk to her. Where’s does she want to go to college?”

“She wants to be a doctor.”

Bryson nodded her head. “My best friend is Chief of Psychiatric Research at Cornell Medical School. I’ll talk to her about Medea, set up a meeting. She doesn’t have to worry about a thing. Can she get a hovercraft?”

Boyle wondered if Bryson had lost her mind. He was too embarrassed to say anything but couldn’t hide the look on his face.

Bryson sighed. “I’m sorry. Look, has she got some nice clothes?”

“You bet. She dresses like they do on TV. The guys are all over her like flies on shit but she won’t have nothing to do with trash.”

“She’ll have to wear more than that.”

“No, I meant she wears shirts and pants and everything, it’s just that they’re nice, not like crappy suits and shit.”

She reached into her tunic, and brought a small sack out from between her breasts from which she pinched something. “Here, take this.” Casually she handed him a diamond and replaced the sack. “It’s our secret.”

“Holy fucking shit,” he said, staring at the tiny stone. “You don’t mean it.”

“It should cover a couple of sets of clothes and a hovercraft rental. Tell her to see Doctor Velodia at Cornell. I’ll set it all up. She’s gonna get in, I promise. Smart genes. Holy christ, just the limit of human stupidity. There is no bottom to it, it just goes on and on.”

Once Boyle was sure she was done he asked, “How do I thank you?”

“That’s just fine.” She had a look of finality and he knew that conversation was over.

“So, how many today?” he asked.

By how many he meant how many of the guinea pigs had died in the night and would they be picking them up. She swung around in the chair and spoke rapidly to the computer. The screens flashed and cascaded, charts, numbers, maps and faces. She called up Vital Signs. “Five fatalities.” She scowled. Early in the morning Gametria loaded the dead into the back of an old green panel van with a donut painted on each side, Bart’s Breakfast Wagon written in gold along the top edge. They dumped the bodies around town so there would be no way of knowing where and how they had died. Once they had figured out what was going on Boyle approached the driver and bribed him to sometimes dump the bodies in a vacant lot a few blocks away. Then he and Bryson would drive into town in Bradlee’s car and load them into the trunk and back seat if necessary. Not something

Bradlee liked much, either them taking the car without him or having corpses on the upholstery. He was afraid they’d leak but they were always tightly bound and fresh; they didn’t even stink yet. Boyle hated the swaddled white figures piled up in the weeds like puppets. Robbing graves was a bottom he had never touched.

“What about 1441?” he asked. Number 1441 had been in their test for ten days. He had very high dose levels, four pills a day, sometimes even five. Field measurements indicated he was a long-term abuser. It was the most hopeful sign yet, exactly what they were looking for.

“Alive and kicking,” she said. “That makes it a record.”

“Well doc, when do we pick him up?”

She thought about it. “Let’s give it time.”

“What if he croaks?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. This is all so depressing. I wonder what’s the point.”

“Doc, you said so yourself. You wanna save lives.”

“But isn’t it really pride, Boyle?” She turned in the chair to face him. He avoided looking at her directly; there was something disturbing about her eyes. He didn’t know what to say. You just did what you had to do, whatever you were good at. She was good at making drugs. Not everything works out. Then the people sold the drugs and they didn’t ask questions. Who cared? People got hurt and killed all the time. “Pride? I don’t know doc. Ain’t there nut cases out there alive because of your drug?”

“I guess.” She turned back to the computer. “But not for long. It’s all bullshit Boyle. All my life, I’ve acted the part, pretending I was free. But I’m not. I’m a slave.”

Boyle stood. “Whatever you say doc. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Sure. When you get back, let’s go to the apartment.”

Green, red and blue lights wiggled on her face as her wrinkled hands played over the screens and she spoke softly, eyes open wide and hair hanging down across her cheeks. “Yeah, but no drinks tonight, I gotta fuck my wife.”

“Is that a sabbath commandment or something?”

“Nah. My balls hurt. If I don’t shoot bullets I feel like shit.”

“You’re a good man, Boyle.”

“And doc. About Medear. I–”

“Forget about it Boyle.” She looked up at him and her face changed color, her eyes danced with his. “It’s the least I can do.”

Bradlee’s secretary kept Boyle waiting for ten minutes, so he spent the time looking at her. She was a nice piece of work, young, dark and tall. He wondered what she was doing behind a desk all day. What did a neck like that smell and taste like? Women like that, they were stiffs. She didn’t even make his dick hard. Bradlee opened the door. “Well Boyle, just in time. We’ll be out most of the morning, Cindy. I’ll return calls after my siesta. Let’s go, Boyle.”

“Where to, boss?”

“Bring my car around. I’ll meet you in front.”

Bradlee’s car freaked him out. It was huge and it smelled of leather. There was something about leather that reminded of things he couldn’t remember. War smelled like leather. Not battle, but the officers. Horses and leather and boot polish. And they drove around in staff cars like that at HQ. Motorcades with little flags flapping and self-important old men stepping out into sunny, desolate bases under an adjutant’s umbrella. Every time he took it into town Bradlee accused him of messing it up, of getting margarine stains on the steering wheel or changing the controls. He swung the door shut and started it up. That part felt good, the engine’s silent power coming to life, the ease with which he backed it out and drove around to the front entrance. Bradlee descended the broad granite steps and rapped on the window. That meant move over. He scooted into the passenger side and Bradlee got in, checking over the controls. No, Boyle hadn’t fucked with anything. There wasn’t time. Bradlee and his attitude.

The sun was dying behind thin grey clouds and drizzle. The early warmth faded into chill. Boyle leaned back in the enormous seat.

“Put on the seat belt.”

He did as he was told and looked at his ashen, dapper boss. Bradlee never changed. He smelled of lavender water. His hair was perfect, ironed, as was his mustache. He drove into town, turning up Third Avenue. Glass highrises boxed them in. Hovercraft bounced around overhead but the streets were quiet.

“Where are we going?”

“Mt. Sinai, Columbia Presbyterian and then Bellevue.”

He wasn’t going to start asking questions. The muted world passed by. Bradlee pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital, a forty story ceramic, glass and carbon tower with pink composite facing in the shape of Arabic script. Light raced around on the surface. Guards in CellPack helmets and silver armor with detonator rifles escorted them to the revolving doors.

At the elevators Bradlee said, “This visit is a bit of a surprise, Boyle. You back me up, with a little force if necessary. We’re after information here and we want to explain in no uncertain terms that Paregane is safe and effective. You understand?”

“Sure.” Don’t break anything, just scare the shit out of the bastard.

They got off the elevator and walked down a wood paneled hall with a crushed stone floor, Boyle’s gum soled brogues clumping along just behind Bradlee’s silent, charcoal crepe slippers. They came to a ten foot silver door with a gold eye unit in the center. Seated before this door, behind a jade wedge with spindly steel legs and a photon cube was a receptionist, a ghostly man with synthetic yellow hair formed into a busy, but contained, hive above his marginal head.

He looked up at them, bored, superior.

Bradlee smiled and waited a beat before saying, in his calmest, most menacingly mellow tone of ingratiation, “Tell Doctor Greaves that Owen Bradlee is here to see him.”

The man’s expression of disdain hardened. Boyle leaned down onto the narrow stone ledge, rocking it slightly. An inch away from the frail grey face he said, “Mr. Bradlee ain’t into waiting.”

Boyle’s hot breath hit his cheek and the receptionist flinched. “Doctor Greaves is in a meeting.”

Bradlee’s teeth flashed like marble in the sun. “Well then, Mr. Boyle and I will wait for him in his office. Come Boyle, let the young man catch his breath.” Boyle stood erect and loosened his tie.

Doctor Greaves sat at an empty desk speaking into a dictaphone, popping the little white text bubbles with a pencil as they formed on the titanium lip. He stood and glared. “What the hell. Who are you?”

Boyle strode forward, pointed his hand at the chair and said, “Sit.” Greaves looked indignant.

Bradlee hung back, hands in his pockets. “Do as he says Doctor Greaves, I’m Owen Bradlee.” He drew the terminal syllable out. Greaves’ eyes saucered and he fell into the moss-colored, leather wing back chair. He was a man in his sixties, with black hair, healthy caramel skin, a full mouth and a mustache that grew like a hedge up into his large bent nose. His suit cost a week of pay, white silk layered with taupe and charcoal cotton, precious metal cuffs and lapels. Bradlee took out a cigarette and said, “I hope you don’t mind if I smoke?” Greaves’ eyes spit contempt. “Good.” Bradlee sat down in the spare metal client seat and Boyle stood beside him. Bradlee lit the cigarette and took a few drags. He smiled affably and his eyes welled up with water, turning pink. “Doctor Greaves, I’m sorry we haven’t met before. I made every effort of course when I first came on board, but we all lead such busy lives. I believe you know Doctor

Bryson?”

“We’ve met briefly, over the years.”

“Ah. But you were both post-docs at Cornell in the thirties.”

He rolled his eyes. “Cornell is a big place.”

“Of course it is but the field is small.”

Greaves conceded the point with a nod. Boyle stared at him but he wouldn’t look at Boyle. Scared. He searched his body for a good place to start. The nose was kind of obvious, but noses bleed a lot.

Bradlee continued. “So you know Doctor Bryson personally and you know her reputation. I’m sure you also know that her latest creation, Paregane, is doing bang up business overseas. I’m sure you’re very thorough and keep up with the literature.”

Greaves made a face that said go on.

“I’m sorry to bore you Doctor Greaves. Now, your department here operates a dozen or so psychiatric facilities, inpatient, outpatient, emergency clinics, mobile therapy and the like; you’re under contract to some of our most prominent companies. Why is it then that not one of these facilities is prescribing Paregane?”

“I’ll have to look into it.” He swallowed.

“I already have.”

“We’re under no obligation–”

“I disagree.” The ash fell off Bradlee’s cigarette onto the desk. Greaves frowned and opened a drawer, sliding a shot glass towards Bradlee. “Thank you. Monozone has served you well over the years. You’ve been invited to all the conferences, every one. We funded your postdoc, and we gave grants to this department on five different occasions. Does that not oblige you?”

Doctor Greaves’ face creased. He wiped his forehead. Boyle looked at his ears. Big fleshy handles of nerve and cartilage. “There are…problems, Mr. Bradlee.”

Bradlee sat back in his chair. “Hmmm. What sorts of problems.”

“Mortality rates! Don’t pretend Mr. Bradlee.”

“Wherever did you get that idea? Are there any published studies?”

“You know there aren’t and what difference would it make if there were? I’m not going to endanger the lives of my patients because a drug salesman tells me to.”

Bradlee chuckled and rubbed his mustache. Boyle took his eyes off the man and looked briefly at Bradlee. Uh oh, he thought. Here it comes.

“Drug salesman. One of those worried little men who go from place to place in a shabby hovercraft with a suitcase full of samples?”

“No shame in it, we all have to make a living.”

“I see. Well Doctor Greaves, I’d like to make it clear to you that from now on Monozone expects you to show a little more enthusiasm for our product. I’m sure you know we have a council seat.”

Greaves was angry now. “Yeah, so what.”

“Most people would see the advantage of cooperation. Boyle? Can you try to explain to Doctor Greaves what we mean?”

Boyle’s heart beat a little faster. Greaves was a fucking idiot. Here was Bradlee making it easy for him and he has to spit in his face. He looked him over again and assessed what it would take. Sometimes these powerful motherfuckers think they can take pain. No one can take pain. He leaned close to the doctor and said, “It’s like Mr. Bradlee says, doc. You owe it to Monozone to cooperate. Be a team player. That way, when the teams wins, you win.” He reached out and grabbed Greaves’ ear. “But when it loses, so do you.” He twisted the ear till it turned bright red and pushed his head down on to the desk, Greaves screaming out Ah and Oh and Help. Boyle twisted harder and crushed him with his elbows. No! No! Stop! Please! Boyle kept it up till he couldn’t talk and was gasping and drooling onto the desk.

“That will do Boyle,” Bradlee said, one leg crossed on the other, stabbing out his cigarette on the desk and pushing the shot glass back to Greaves. Greaves panted and felt his mangled ear with a trembling hand. “Well Doctor Greaves. Maybe you’d like to explain why none of the major psychiatric research hospitals are prescribing Paregane.”

Greaves tended to his ear and said nothing.

“Well, if there is collusion, Boyle and I will take care of the situation. You see, for the system to work we need an even playing field. You understand? As for mortality rates, you have nothing to fear. There is no probable link between Paregane and any known fatality. The few lawsuits filed have been, er, settled out of court. We’d be happy to help you settle any malpractice dispute that should arise in connection with Paregane.”

At Columbia Presbyterian, Boyle had to chase Doctor Dykstra down the hall. He hated going after a woman (an older woman at that) but Bradlee was his paycheck and that was life. She was fast but he was faster. He grabbed her by the hair (natural) and with a good hard twist brought her to her knees. Orderlies and nurses stopped what they were doing and watched him drag her, screaming, into the office where Bradlee again made his sales pitch. Dykstra had a mouth on her and spit venom at Bradlee but the prospect of Boyle’s pinch eventually worked and she agreed to resume prescribing Paregane.

“Why did you stop prescribing Paregane?” Bradlee asked.

She breathed heavily through her nose and rubbed her head. “That’s obvious. It kills. I don’t kill my patients on purpose. The literature from Monozone said it was non-addictive and free of side effects. I think we both know that’s a heap of shit. There was a conference in September, the Lackawanna Psychoanalytic Association. It wasn’t hard comparing notes.”

“But it was just coming on the market then. How could you compare notes?”

“I don’t remember now. But it was all the buzz.”

“That’s collusion. A violation of interstate commerce.”

“Screw interstate commerce.”

“But you will cooperate?”

“I don’t give a damn, yes.”

Doctor I.V. Bunny Lang at Bellevue began affably enough, quietly eating the crumbs of a corn muffin off a glass napkin. She had big round eyes, a slightly crooked nose and the long, narrow face of a goat. Once she realized what they were after though she turned stone on them.

“Isn’t it true,” Bradlee said, “that you have a synthetic penis attached to your clitoris?”

She looked startled and said, “What’s it to you?”

“Indeed, the real questing is what’s it to you?”

Boyle took out his knife and dropped it point first into the desk, where it stuck and wobbled. “Stop that!” she said. He picked it up and dropped it again.

“Tell me about the Lackawanna conference in September.”

“What’s to tell?” Boyle thunked in the knife a few more times, making a tight circle of holes. “Oh, you mean in Pennsylvania.”

“Why wasn’t Monozone invited? I didn’t even know about it.”

“Why would you? You’re a pharmaceutical. That was a talk therapy conference, you know, Freud, Jung and Lacan. Princeton, Dartmouth, Rutgers and Bowdoin sponsored it I think. I got a call from a colleague suggesting I attend. There were lots of us, from all over the country.”

“What colleague?” Bradlee’s voice was quite low and his eyes were red.

“I told you already, I’ll prescribe the drug.”

“But I can’t help but wonder if we have a bigger problem here.”

“Your problem isn’t with us, it’s with the drug. It’s as addictive as anything out there and it’s killed thousands of people. Fix it and we’ll prescribe it.”

Bradlee looked very sad. Who died, Boyle wondered. “Who invited you?”

“What difference does it make?”

Boyle seized her crotch and felt for the big synthetic cock, crushing it. “It’ll come off in my hand Doc.” She bit her lip so hard it bled and she shut her eyes tight, taking it.

“All right, Boyle.” Boyle released her.

“I want that name.”

“I don’t seem to remember.”

“Cut it off, Boyle.”

Boyle assumed he wasn’t supposed to actually cut it off but he grabbed the knife and tried to pull her out of the chair. As he did so he felt himself being lofted off of his feet and thrown through the air. He landed on his back and all his bones shook and shattered. He looked at the ceiling. It swam around in circles. Doctor Lang stood over him, his knife in her hand, snarling. Oh fuck. His stomach hurt, his head hurt, his back was out.

“You wanna piece of this?” she asked, pointing at her crotch with the knife. “Dream on.”

Boyle stood up and kicked the knife out of her hand. Her green eyes flashed wild and she crouched back like a cat. He kicked at her head and she threw him back on the floor. They wrestled. She was like one big coil of muscle, he couldn’t get a grip. When he finally pinned her down she spat in his face and hissed. Boyle wondered where the fuck Bradlee was.

Bradlee stood by calmly watching. He pulled a gun from his suit pocket and pointed it at her head. He shut one eye and made as if aiming it carefully. “I want the name.” Boyle looked down at Doctor Lang and swallowed hard. Bradlee was a little behind him and he figured if Bradlee wasn’t a good shot he was in the line of fire. He hated when people pulled guns on each other. It always ended badly.

“Fuck you!” she said.

What now? Bradlee couldn’t just gun her down in her office. It was a stalemate. Bradlee stood down. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll be back.”

They drove for a while in silence, the mood grim. The day had begun with promise but the tactical defeat depressed them both. Boyle’s stomach groaned. He wanted to eat something. Violence always made him hungry.

“You did well there. We couldn’t possibly know that mousy little shrink was packing a pecker like that.”

“Mousy? She looked like a goat.”

“Why would she lie?” Bradlee asked.

“You got me boss. I woulda talked.” Bradlee glared at him. “Look, no one knows how they’ll do.”

“You’d think the threat of cutting her cock off….” Bradlee said.

“They ain’t as attached to theirs as we are to ours.”

Bradlee considered the question and rubbed his chin. “Well, I suppose she could always get another.”

“That’s just what I mean. Mine is my best friend. You don’t get rid of a best friend just because you can always get another.”

“That depends on why she got it in the first place.”

“You mean if like her girl friend made her get it, she’s not as committed.”

“Or her boyfriend.”

“Why?”

“Think about it Boyle.” Bradlee looked over at him and chuckled as Boyle’s face soured. Then, abruptly serious, he said, “I think we have a mole.”

“Could be.” Boyle rubbed his neck. He felt like he’d been broken in a nutcracker.

“Something’s wrong Boyle. This conference was arranged by someone. It happened before there were even rumors. Maybe one of the people we transferred to Hong Kong. Someone in marketing. Bryson hasn’t said anything, has she?”

Boyle looked away, his eyes dark. “She’s straight boss.”

“I know, but we’ve got to cover all our bases. She might have said something to someone else. An indiscretion.”

“I ain’t heard it.” He stretched around. “Fuck, she gave me a work out. I ain’t been thrown like that in years.”

“You earned your money today Boyle.” He chuckled some more.

“She really was spirited.”

“Like wrestling with a python.”

“Hmmm, sounds like fun. If it weren’t for that dick of hers I’d ask her out. Sleeping with the enemy, eh? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“My back’s a little fucked up.”

“Sleep on a board Boyle and no fucking for a week. I need you in good shape.”

They crossed the river. He watched the hovercraft bobbing over the water, taking off and landing from roofs scattered around the shore of the East River. Medea had never been in one before. She would probably be excited. The first time he took one was in Azerbaijan when he was her age, or close to it. Scared the shit out of him. They took off into a dust storm, flew under instruments to a small village. His first action was over in twenty seconds. They landed and the commando team went out. Twenty seconds of automatic weapons fire and a bunch of mortars. They sent him out to set fire to the enemy dead. One of them was still alive; he could see it in his eyes, though he didn’t move. When the fire roared up off of his body he arched his back and screamed. Boyle dreamt of it for days, awoke screaming, the smell of cooking human flesh strong in his nose. But that was just every day. The really scary shit were the dogfights with pistols, and playing chicken. That and never knowing when you’d be surrounded by enemy craft. Flying the two man hovercraft was like being swung around on the end of an elastic cord. Bradlee pulled up to the curb in front of Monozone. Boyle decided it would be a good time to ask about a bonus. “I got roughed up pretty bad boss. You guys said something about a bonus.”

“Hm?” Bradlee asked.

“You know, making it worth my while.”

Bradlee frowned. “We already pay you.” He gazed out the window.

“I suppose, a hardship bonus. I’ll notify HR to add a thousand bucks to your next paycheck.”

“Thanks, boss,” he said.

Bradlee got out of the car and leaned in at the window. “Bring the keys around to my office.”

Boyle watched him go slowly up the stairs. He was not a happy man, Boyle concluded. He looked like someone who knew things were going bad and who had a premonition that they were going to get worse. And Boyle knew what that meant. More work and, hopefully, more bonuses.

Bradlee flopped down in his chair and looked at the t.v. screens. The day’s events had exhausted his enthusiasm and he couldn’t stand to watch them or even think about what was happening. Things continued to drift into unintended directions.

The stock-still traded high, only not as high as before. That was easy enough to explain, but they had to maintain future earnings reports. And they had the council seat. He sat behind Fripp at deliberations, feeding him policy positions prepared by his staff. And that gave Valdez an ear and a voice in the room. He was where he always planned on being, in the center. He and Valdez were able to push through plans for the aqueduct out west. Valdez was in talks with Milt Spahn and Jock Two Feathers for finance and political influence with the Haudenosaunee. The profit potential was staggering. But he felt things slipping even so. It was a twitch of the nerve, a tick in the stock price, a word here and there. Bryson feeding Valdez that crap about GMZ loyalty. He couldn’t control everything. It wasn’t like her to blow a deal, but she was drunk and the place seemed to have an ill affect on her. And she had no patience for the people. Hell is other people. Others around him lacked his discipline even if they shared his agenda. Fripp was dangerously stupid.

Paregane itself could go either way. Legit sales were declining globally. Illegal sales were robust but police, doctors and lawyers were closing in. Some local law enforcement contractors were agitating for a ban. Instead of curing absenteeism Paregane seemed to encourage it. Groups of indifferently jolly users gathered during the day in parks to fish and talk. There were clubs meeting in cafes. Then there were the lucky day parlors scattered around with their own security arrangements. So far only the rich were using it recreationally, and those sales were important, but the situation was unpredictable. It was absolutely necessary that Bryson fix Paregane before it was too late and yet she, who was usually so enthusiastic about work, seemed to be dragging her feet.

He didn’t like to see her depressed. The whole point of Bryson was buoyant cynicism. It nagged at him, piqued his desire and always had. In the end she was his greatest investment. Well, she and Valdez. But Valdez was working him as much as he was working her. With Bryson it was personal. She just hit a certain spot no one else did. He didn’t know what to call it. The feeling was the one mystery in his life, a little spark that lived in the endless fog of existence. He could sit still for years watching those around him, till the time was ripe for a move. The corpuscular, grey prospect, the gradient of opportunity, these he moved through by osmosis and motility. Stillness, observation, sudden decisive action. It had played well. But in the fog there was the spark, the white hot of her hair and the blue corona of her eyes flaring over the rim of a martini.

He opened the top drawer of his desk and looked at the electraweave brochure he had received from New Zealand. Mountains, majestic, craggy, covered in snow. Closer views revealed a stone chateau, surrounded by emerald pastures and backed by the white peaks. He smiled, weakly. Well, it was a fallback position, he thought ruefully, eyes swelling. He had never intended to end his days in exile, but the money was there and now he owned a place he could defend, far from the reaches of state or vengeful Monozone and military accomplices. There was room there for Bryson, too. He would not directly ask her to go, but when the time came, she would. That is, if she could be persuaded to leave Leonard behind.

He shut the drawer and the office shrank to the size of a dot and agitated him in the solar plexus. He checked the Dow, Monozone stock. For months it had pulled the Dow higher but now it was down two points in heavy trading. A few big holders had unloaded their shares. If he could find out who they were he might have Boyle break their legs. There was something up, a rat. Whoever it was would pay for it. Chateau or no chateau he was not going to go down without a fight. He would prevail.

The dot pushed in on him, the chatter and glare of the tv’s was repulsive. He couldn’t follow the data stream. His thoughts became paranoid, chaotic, vengeful. He had to get control. He shut his eyes but the dot was there. There was the spark who was Bryson and the dot. It opened up into a tunnel, a black despair that was the little black dot he walked around with consuming him. Abruptly he stood up and ahemed loudly, like a horse, which cleared the field of vision and restored his thoughts. He had to unburden himself. He had to do something. Bradlee stood and went to Bryson’s small lab.

Boyle was seated at the black counter along the wall eating out of a box of donuts, scattering crumbs on a sheet of gold electraweave spread out before him, and Bryson was at her computer. Bradlee nodded to Boyle. He stood and said, “Hey boss,” following him into Bryson’s room.

“Good lord,” Bradlee said, sitting down on the hard bed. “You’ve got to do something Bryson. The numbers are alarming.”

Bryson didn’t even bother looking up from the screen. She didn’t give a damn. “I told you so,” she said. “Everyone did. Even that big ass from marketing, Martin Bruce, did. But no, you people knew better.”

You people knew better. What was he, just one of you people? His throat trembled. Damn, he thought. He hated to feel this way, his body taking on a life of its own. Anger is counter productive, it makes one sloppy. He sniffed hard, gave a dry cough and blinked. “Please Bryson, you must have one person out of all the thousands you’ve dissected and tracked who might give a clue as to how to fix this thing. Otherwise we might as well hang it up and move to New Zealand.”

The lights oozed around on her face. She was implacable. The woman sensed need in others as if it were the smell of shit. Just two microns of fear put on twenty kilos of confidence. She didn’t budge but he saw the smile play on her lips, the same one she got when he asked her home with him and they both knew she would come but she was going to jerk him around first.

“What makes you think there’ll be one in a thousand?”

It was like walking over slippery stones in a swift river. He got his balance and said, “Because you told me that you could. You begged to have this. It wasn’t my idea, after all.”

“No, your idea was to kill ten thousand or so people and walk away with the money.”

“This is not the point. The point is that we, together, decided that a back up plan, fixing the er, statistical glitch, would be prudent for many reasons. What I am asking, as your project manager, is, have you made any progress in understanding why a small percentage of Paregane users die for no apparent reason at all?” Bradlee felt himself glaring but he kept his voice even and low.

“Sure,” she said. “There’s one.” She flashed through various screens and said, “Him.”

Bradlee got up and leaned over her shoulder, his nose resting near her hair. The fragrance made his heart beat. He looked at the screen at a tall, kindly looking man with dark reddish skin walking into what appeared to be a five-story seashell, a conch. Bryson touched another screen. Now they were in a room decorated like a garden with tables. The man sat down at one of these tables and a naked man with a black waiter’s apron stood talking to him. “This is the lucky day parlor?”

“Gametria it’s called. This is the cafe. The upper floors have these weird spaces made of rocks and water where people take transcryptasine.”

“How ever did you ever get cameras in there?”

Bryson laughed. “Boyle’s friend Zack came up with it. We sent synthetic flies and bees in through the windows. Bugs with bugs. They fly in and then we guide each one to a position on the ceiling or a window, some place inconspicuous, and they begin broadcasting.”

“It gives one pause to think that the plague of six legged creatures we endure might be alien surveillance devices,” Bradlee said. “So who is this man?”

“Number 1441. Ten days ago he showed up and purchased a supply. He came back three days ago and now here he is again. He’s a four pill a day user.”

“And he lives there?”

“Nope.” She clattered at the keyboard and mumbled. The screen filled with a schematic of Manhattan. “He lives, up here,” she said, pointing to the northwest corner of Central Park. That expanded and the cursor blinked in the middle of a wood. “He was last here. Most of them live at Gametria and of those, if they use four times a day, all of them die. Not 1441 though.”

“Bring him in then,” Bradlee said, standing erect and looking at Boyle, who was munching a chocolate donut back near the bathroom and staring into space.

Boyle shook his head. “Not so fast, boss. We gotta figure out how. Gametria’s got security. It would be a gun battle for sure and we’d blow our cover.”

“Then take him in the park.”

Boyle appeared to shudder. “I ain’t takin’ him in no park.”

“He doesn’t look so belligerent. A bit of a mess, a little wild with the beard and hair but the clothes look like a good brand, if stained.”

Bryson turned around. “They’re very strong. We watched a mugging.”

“It was ugly, boss.”

“What happened?” Boyle shook his head and got that grim look he got when he didn’t like to describe something. “My god Boyle, just say it.”

Boyle’s face twitched. “I don’t like to say it. The guy beat the mugger down. It was like, I dunno. Weird. That’s what. I mean, I seen plenya beatings, given a few myself, but this was….”

“Relentless,” Bryson said dully. “He just dominated the mugger. Seized him, beat him with one fist while grabbing onto his collar with the other. His head was crushed by the blows. Then he dropped him to the ground and walked into Gametria.”

“The whole point here boss is we gotta take him alive.”

“We need a strategy,” Bryson added.

“No time for that.” Bradlee folded his arms across his chest and looked at them. “Is that clear? Pick him up and bring him in, sedated. Whatever it is that makes this man live, I want to know.”