Dreams in the Tower Part 2 (3 page)

“Reality,” he said. He may not be able to tell her the whole truth, but he wasn’t going to lie.

11

“That’ll be ten seventy-six.
Wallet app? All right, tap ‘OK’ when your total appears.”

Obliging the peppy barista,
Dellia paid for her drink and joined the second long queue at the other side of the counter. This Starbucks was one of the busiest places in Uptown in the morning and the fact that thousands of people in the city were recently out of work didn’t change that; the difference now was that instead of drinking their coffee on the way to work many of these people would be drinking it on sidewalks in the ranks of the protesters. She was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that the people around her surely noticed the unpleasant smell emanating from her body. Good hygiene was hard to maintain when you were the most wanted person in the city…maybe the world.

Since deciding that the best place to hide while tracking down the right people was right on the streets of the city that
Silte Corp had turned into its capital, Dellia had determined that spending a night at a hotel should be a rare occasion; she had only done it twice since going into hiding, and the last time was several days ago now. The other nights she had spent sleeplessly, curled up in a DART train, tensing as every would-be mugger or rapist walked by, and more recently she slept in tents alongside the growing mass of protesters camping in every park across the city. She liked staying with the protesters because they didn’t expect her to answer any questions she didn’t want to. In fact, many of them used only nicknames and were never seen without hoods or masks. Blending in with them had made hiding much easier, especially once the crowds lining the streets grew large enough that she could move through them without the constant fear of a camera identifying her. The crowd, though, wouldn’t help protect her against the secret surveillance cameras here in Starbucks.

But that line of thinking was a little
too
paranoid.

She had resolved in the beginning not to succumb to fear; she would accomplish nothing if she was too afraid to poke her head out occasionally. As far as she knew, her frenzied drive down to Austin (in a rented car she knew would be traced to her) and subsequent train ride back to Dallas with a false ID had fooled
Silte. Or maybe it hadn’t, but she wouldn’t worry about that.

“Green tea latte for Lucy.”

It was a couple of seconds Before
Dellia’s sleep-deprived brain registered the false name she had ordered with. “Excuse me,” she said, creeping through the tired people waiting for their morning energy.

Grabbing her drink, she hurried out of the shop to give those in her vicinity relief from her unwashed body. She found a table outside behind a particularly dense patch of protesters, some holding large signs that would act as a nice shield from the street and the buildings on the other side. Feeling secure, she deposited her bag on the table, tossed windblown oily hair away from her face and pulled out her tablet to pass the time while she waited; she had no idea if her co
ntact would be punctual in meeting her here. When the screen lit up it was already showing the video archive on a citizen news app called Bare Facts News, which she had found earlier. She had come to realize that the big media networks weren’t worth bothering with anymore.

It took only a single swipe to find a new report on the so-called mind virus epidemic. Fina
lly, it seemed like people were starting to make a big deal about it. Dellia put in one earbud and listened to the smooth male voice speaking over recent footage and stock photos.

“The mysterious mind virus is the new epidemic nobody is talking about. Across America, thousands lie in nearly catatonic states, while abroad major cities like Beijing, Tokyo, and Lo
ndon have already contained those infected with the virus in quarantine zones. The CDC and WHO have kept relatively quiet so far, unwilling to give definitive statements until they know more about the true nature of the disease. Meanwhile, doctors and scientists alike say we could be facing the biggest crisis in modern history. The world is at a loss to explain just what is going on, but BFN has spent the last week uncovering new information that could save your life.”

This was probably going to be a lot of speculative journalism that she did not need to hear, so she skipped ahead until a gray-haired Indian man (Dr. S.
Hunjali, MD, Viral Pathogen Expert, according to the graphic) appeared on screen. She let the video resume.

“…seems clear to me,” Dr.
Hunjali said through a vaguely British accent, “that this virus does not occur in nature, nor did the outbreak begin naturally. I am calling it the very first example of a true designer virus, and one initiated, accidentally or otherwise, in multiple regions at once.”

It took them long enough
. She had to admit, it wasn’t an easy thing to figure out—not unless you were expecting to find it. Even with Silte covering it up, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult to find that there wasn’t just one ‘patient zero’ in this case; you could trace the virus back to many geographical points of origin and find that the first reports all came from people who were at the demonstrations the night this war began. After that, all it took was some rational thinking—or paranoia—to make the jump to an engineered bioweapon rather than some undiscovered dormant strain that had been lying in wait for years and finally became active in every host at once. Even if they believed the latter, no reasonable scientist would deny that this virus was just too weird to exist in nature.

That is, unless someone was forcing them to deny it.

“This morning, we have uncovered startling new information,” the narrator said after Dellia skipped forward again. “New reports speak of patients who carry the virus but are asymptomatic for days, perhaps even weeks, and possibly contagious for the duration of this period. Doctors urge that anyone who has come into close contact with a person known to be sick should seek medical attention immediately.”

“
Shit
.” A few protesters turned at Dellia’s outburst. She didn’t care: things were happening much too fast and she was still unable to do anything about it. As she pulled out the ear bud, she thought,
Where is that damn
—

“Don’t move or look around.” She couldn’t see who had spoken. The voice, coming from behind her, was deep and muffled; she thought instantly of the men wearing masks. “Keep looking at that tablet,” the man said. “Swipe the screen if you’re DT…good. I’m your contact. Listen closely. When I say ‘go’ count to ten then stand up and turn around. Follow me to the corner. When I stop at the crosswalk you go left, take the first right across the street, stay on the left and keep going until you hear three knocks. Clear your throat if you’re ready…great. Okay—don’t walk too fast—go.”

Still not sure who had been talking to her, Dellia followed his instructions, counting silently to ten. When she stood, grabbing her backpack, turned around and began to walk, she saw that the man was short and heavyset. He was wearing a baggy black hoodie with the hood pulled up over his stooped head—ridiculous attire for late summer in Texas. She followed and did as he had told her at the corner, willing herself not to glance over at him. The protesters weren’t nearly as thick now that she was off McKinney Avenue, and she wondered if she needed to cover up like her contact. The next street, a narrow cut-through not much bigger than a back alley, was deserted; not even normal pedestrians could be seen. Not far down the street, she heard the three knocks, coming from a car so old it might have been one of the very first electric cars they ever made. As she approached she glimpsed the large man, shrouded by his hood, in the driver seat. She slowly entered on the passenger side.

“Good,” he said. “Don’t talk. Look straight ahead. We’ll be somewhere safe soon.”

He pulled the car out onto the street and drove slowly along. This part of the city was fresh with signs of the rezoning efforts that had seen hundreds of older buildings and properties replaced or repurposed. Dellia found herself wondering how many of the protesters had been victims of
that
injustice too—or if they even realized Silte Corporation had been the leading voice in helping pass the legislation. The ancient car went by some old lofts and then came to what appeared to be an abandoned garage, probably one of many that had shut down after stubbornly refusing to adapt during the e-car boom. As they pulled in, one of the heavy doors opened and then shut again once they were fully inside, submerging them in total darkness.

“We’re in,” the man said, and almost immediately dim lights came on outside the car. He got out, so
Dellia did likewise. The garage was cramped, musty with the smell of old oil. On the other side there was a decaying car that was obviously from the combustion engine era. The man beckoned and led her over to a grimy desk in the corner, sandwiched between rows of tall, rusty toolboxes and a precarious stack of tires. On the wall behind it, an iron staircase led up to a lone second-story room with whited-out windows all around it. Izza sat behind the desk, so Dellia sat in the chair opposite and looked at him head-on for the first time. The top of his face was covered in a ridiculous lacy purple mask complete with sequins and rhinestones; a black bandana covered his lower face, but he removed that to reveal a thick tangle of brown beard beneath. The skin beneath was dark.

“We can talk freely now,” he said. “I’m
Izza, by the way, formerly of the Anti-Corp.”

“Formerly?”
Had she been tricked?

“It would take too long to explain,” he said. “Just know that you’re lucky you found me and not someone in the AC or People
Against Corporatocracy or one of the extremist factions. Me and the people I work with are doing what the AC was supposed to do, before it all went to shit. You can trust us.”

She wasn’t sure she could—not completely. But after the news about the virus advancing i
nto the second stage much sooner than it was supposed to, she was willing to go against her better judgment and try to get something done. It wasn’t like she had any other options at this point. “Okay, let’s get to it,” she said.

He produced a surprisingly high-end tablet from his pocket and then unzipped his hoodie and flapped each side a few times, blasting
Dellia with a whiff of his spoiled cheese body odor. “Fucking hot,” he said. He rolled his sleeves up before continuing. “First,” he said, placing the tablet on the desk with a recording app running, “tell me everything I need to know about the mind virus. Keep it simple. I’m not a scientist or nothing like that.”

“It’s not simple,” she said, crossing her arms, “but I’ll try. First of all, I wasn’t part of the team that created it. So I’m not an expert, just so you know. I was part of the designer virus r
esearch group though, and our work from that was primarily used for the project.

“They called it a neuropathic synthetic
Rhabdovirus—that’s the same as Rabies. But we took to calling it Silvan’s virus, since it was a Silte Corp project. You can’t think of it like the flu or HIV or something: the RNA was built from scratch and this thing is smarter than anything natural. They released an active strain on the Anti-Corp demonstrators, probably infected hundreds. Basically, what it does after infection is make its way to the claustrum—that’s a consciousness center in the brain. It takes over key structures within the claustrum, creating the lethargic, apathetic state in its hosts. The crazy thing about it is it’s extremely efficient; it does what it wants to do before the host’s immune system really knows what’s going on.”

“How fast?”
Izza asked. He seemed to be genuinely interested in what she was saying, even if he wasn’t following.

“The initial strain—the one
Silte used as a weapon—was already activated and took about two days to begin affecting the brain. During this time, the victims are contagious only through direct exchange of bodily fluids, a lot like HIV. Those infected from the initial victims, however, carry a slower and much more contagious strain that can lay dormant for a week or two with no symptoms, all the while potentially spreading the virus through the air. This second stage of infection and rapid spread has come on much faster than I anticipated considering how relatively difficult it was for the virus to spread in the initial stage.” She paused to collect herself: the thought of this fact still worried her deeply.

Through the silence,
Izza said, “I think that’s good enough for now. Next question: what is the purpose of the virus? Is it specifically to get rid of protesters?”

Thinking for a moment,
Dellia began slowly, “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot. Why would they use a method with so much collateral effect? I guess that’s why the mortality rate of Silvan’s virus is practically zero, which is really just an extraordinary achievement when you think about it. They wanted something that would make their enemies docile without killing too many people who posed no threat to them; hence the decade of research on how to engineer a virus.” They had to have a grander reason than that, she was sure, but just now there was not nearly enough time to be obsessing over Silvan’s reasons for wanting to take over the world.