Burn (22 page)

“I thought they were worried about contamination. They . . .”

Grace exhaled in disgust. She wasn’t listening. Harry’s father was not a welcome topic in Grace Toledo’s house, even when she brought it up. This time she skipped the usual blistering diatribe that she kept warm for Rico Toledo.

“You’ve been engrossed in your research,” she said, “so you haven’t been on the newswire. Churches are burning up all over this country—Catholic and Gardener. The Agency releases say it’s a bombing war, but . . .”

She doesn’t know,
he realized.
Or she’s in big-time denial.

Denial was something that Dr. Olsen covered with him in their videophone conversation earlier today.

She shrugged, and audibly choked back a sob. Harry finished for her.

“It’s really the Meltdown virus.”

“The Agency already thinks anyone associated with ViraVax—and that now includes you and Sonja—is more important than ever, and more in danger than ever,” Grace said. “Even from our own people.”

“‘Our own people,’” Harry muttered.

“What do you mean by that?” Grace snapped.

“Sonja and I, we’re not like anybody else alive,” he said. “It just gives a different meaning to something like ‘our own people.’”

“Then that leaves me out, doesn’t it?”

“Is that how you want to feel?” Harry challenged. “You and I have gotten through all of this so far because we stuck together. Do you think it’s all hopeless now? Is that why you’re down?”

Grace dried her eyes on the sleeves of her T-shirt, a child-like gesture that showed Harry just how vulnerable his mother was, and how much he wanted to protect her.

“I’m down because I wanted us to have a nice life here, and now it’s all ruined. Forever.”

His mother put her arm around Harry’s waist and they walked to the smoldering remnants of the bonfire that off-duty security had built at the edge of the compound. Harry kicked the charred pieces together and, as the fire caught, they watched a spiral of sparks ride the thermals into the night. Harry saw movement among the coffee trees.

“More security,” he whispered, nodding towards them. “It’s going to be like this for the rest of our lives, isn’t it? One kind of prison or another.”

“One kind of prison or another might just save you from this virus,” Grace said. “Don’t be so harsh with these people right now. They’re doing their best for you.”

Harry didn’t feel the fear that he knew he should feel over this obvious setback to their freedom or to the update on the virus. He knew now how stressed he’d been waiting for the other boot to drop, and now it had.

“At least you’ll be closer to Marte,” his mother added.

Her voice was softer, fishing for response, but Harry didn’t reply.

Chill,
he thought.
Now maybe we can get something done.

The something on his mind was noble, but the stirrings in his body were slightly less than that. At least his
body
believed there’d be a future, even if his mind had serious doubts.

Chapter 32

“There aren’t any sides anymore,” David said.
“No!’ Marita said. “And we didn’t try to make sides. It just happened.”

—Ernest Hemingway,
The Garden of Eden

Sonja Bartlett undid the long French braid and brushed her blonde hair straight down over her breasts. Sometimes the brush flicked the top of a breast and sometimes a nipple, and by the time she was done the tops of her pale breasts glowed an angry red. She brought out the scissors while the bathtub filled with her lavender bubbles.

Sonja eased herself into the steaming bath and reached down the hand mirror from the back of the toilet. She soaped her hair, rinsed it and shut off the faucets. She propped the mirror across the faucets and lay back into the hot luxury. No matter how hot and humid this country got, Sonja still found a hot bath the only way she could unwind.

Her dead father’s comb lay in the soap dish, and when she cut off her hair she used his coarse comb to keep her work more or less even. He’d had springy, red hair and hers was straight blonde, nearly white, identical with her mother’s. After his death, she had picked a solitary red hair out of his comb and put it into an envelope. The envelope waited in the bottom of her underwear drawer for her to buy the proper locket she’d promised herself.

This
is
my mother’s hair,
she thought.

Sonja piled her long, blonde hair neatly on the floor next to her tub and tried to ignore the fact that the Agency recorded her every move. She tried to ignore their prying eyes but, in fact, she was drunk for the first time in her sixteen years and she had discovered already an age-old truth: drinking to forget never works.

And for sixteen, she had so much she wanted to forget. Two planes had crashed while she sat at the controls, one while she fled a nightmare epidemic of a thousand bodies melting from their bones. The lavender of her bath helped cut the stink of her memory, but it didn’t cut the memory itself. She knew, now, what all combat vets learned, that death is the only complete perfume.

Two
lagartos
chattered from the wall above the toilet, then skittered together for a quick mating. The female accommodatingly moved her tail aside and when the male finished he performed a half-dozen triumphant push-ups. The female raced after a spider in the corner, and the male continued his push-ups.

Sonja piled a hatful of fragrant bubbles onto her head, then submerged herself to rinse them off.

“Sonja?”

Yes, her mother would be worried. Sonja was having trouble facing the woman who was and who was not her mother ever since she found out what she’d begun to call “The Clone’s Truth.” She had the same trouble facing Harry Toledo. In fact, she couldn’t seem to face anyone. She sipped another mezcal.

“Sonja? Are you all right?”

Sonja started to giggle uncontrollably.

“Sonja!”

“Yes, Mother, my twin?”

There was a pause, and Sonja could envision her mother’s sigh.

“I was afraid you’d drowned in there. Sergeant Trethewey is here to see you.”

Sonja placed two handfuls of bubbles onto her breasts and admired them in her mirror. Her first inclination was to tell her mother that she didn’t want to see Sergeant Trethewey, or anybody else, ever again. But then she thought of how much she’d wanted to talk with Harry—
really
talk, not just plan—the last couple of days even though his presence reminded her of the ViraVax horrors. Besides, now he was always working for Marte Chang, and he got disgustingly dewy-eyed when he talked about their work. Harry had been ignoring Sonja, too, so he hadn’t noticed how she had been avoiding him. And everyone else. She’d gone to the pour to see ViraVax buried in concrete and to steal a chopper, not to socialize.

“Sergeant Trethewey?”

Her mother must be desperate. She would never let Sonja talk with men, particularly enlisted men, unless she thought it was a last-ditch effort. Or maybe she saw that Trethewey was a nice guy who had helped Sonja get a lot of free flight-trainer time. Never once had he made a pass.

“Sonja?”

“Yes, okay,” Sonja said, raising her voice. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“That’s great, honey. We’ll be in the kitchen.”

Sonja let herself slip under the surface of the hot bath, then sat up and rinsed her close-cropped hair with the sprayer. The haircut made her look older, tougher. When she narrowed her eyes at the mirror, she imagined that she looked like Colonel Scholz.

Okay, Sergeant,
she thought.
Let’s see what you’re really made of.

Sonja drained the tub and toweled herself vigorously. The muggy Costa Bravan night overwhelmed the bathroom fan, and sweat replaced bathwater on her livid skin. Only a few rooms of Casa Canada were air-conditioned, and the bathroom was not one of those.

Sonja wrapped herself in a fresh towel, left her hair in blonde clumps on the floor and steadied herself on the door handle before facing her mother. She took three deep breaths, as her mother had taught, and listened to the clatter that filled her house.

I’ll sleep in the hangar from now on,
she thought.
Whether they like it or not

Casa Canada had become a homeless shelter for Agency Operations, and she bitterly resented this most recent violation of her life. Sonja Bartlett was an unhappy girl determined to spread this unhappiness like a deadly virus among these invaders that dogged her every move. She tucked her towel wrap tight, lifted her chin and threw open the bathroom door with a crash.

Nancy Bartlett stood in the hallway, massaging her temples with long, slender fingers. Her blue eyes were rimmed in red from crying and from exhaustion. She wore her long blonde hair gathered back in a loose braid, tied with a blue ribbon. As Nancy’s eyes widened in shock, Sonja ran her fingers through her hair stubble and giggled.

^“
Oh, baby, what have you done to yourself?” her mother asked.

“It’s the new, streamlined me,” Sonja said. “Like the women in that Seattle band you like so much, Genital Puppets.”

“You know I hate that band,” Nancy said. “Why are you doing this now? We’ve been through so much. . . .” She stopped and rubbed her forehead again. “I feel so rotten, and they want me to go back to the States in the morning. . . .”

Nancy sniffed, stepped up to Sonja and sniffed again.

“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” she asked. “Where did you get it?”

Sonja shrugged.

Might as well admit it.

“Down at the hangar,” she said. “Mr. Marcoe always keeps a couple of bottles hidden down there.”

“Sonja, we still have a lot to do. . . .”

“You
have a lot to do,” Sonja said. She put out a hand to steady herself against the wall. “I have nothing to do but wait for them to take more blood, more tissue and samples of everything that goes in and comes out.
That’s
my life, Mother, and I can’t stand it. . . .”

Just then, Nancy Bartlett gasped, clutching at her chest and throat. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and before Sonja could react her mother dropped to the floor in a heap. Sonja knelt down to help her mother, and felt the telltale heat radiating through her clothes.

“Oh, no!” she whispered.

Sonja didn’t dare call anyone because she didn’t want others exposed. Without hesitation she grabbed her mother under the armpits and dragged her into the bathroom.

It took two tries for Sonja to get her mother into the tub, and by that time tissue had already sloughed from Nancy’s arms and her face sagged in a way that betrayed more than exhaustion. Sonja opened the cold water faucet all the way and held her mother’s head as the tub filled.

Sonja began to cry when she saw it was hopeless: her mother leaked away from her bones, out of her clothing and formed a gray scum on the surface of the tub. At the worst, bubbles roiled through the water and Nancy’s scalp and right ear came off in Sonja’s hands as she tried to keep her mother’s head above water. Finally, she had to let her go.

Sonja sat on the floor with her back to the tub when Sergeant Trethewey appeared in the doorway.

“Sonja, my
God!”
was all he could say.

The tub water flowed over and spilled the stinking debris of Nancy Bartlett across the bathroom floor, mixing with the huge clumps of blonde hair that Sonja had left behind. Sergeant Trethewey became the bravest man Sonja knew when he stepped into the mess, reached past her and shut off the water.

Chapter 33

Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though
calm . . . even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax,
and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken.

—Miyamoto Musashi

Harry Toledo rubbed Marte Chang’s shoulders and watched her fall asleep in the reflection of her dead screen. He lightened his touch, but continued working his fingers between her shoulder blades. His left hand cradled her forehead while his right kneaded the strain out of the back of her neck. Neither of them had slept for two days, and Harry tried to pass some energy through his fingers to the exhausted body of the virologist.

“I love it when you touch me,” she said.

“You’re supposed to relax. Ten minutes, remember?”

Harry had never really touched a woman before. Not like this. Marte stayed quiet, and he worried that he’d offended her. At twenty-six, she was ten years older than Harry. He’d grown up in Costa Brava and loved the flirty eyes of the latina women. Marte Chang flirted, too, and something more.

She’s a goddamn scientific genius.

All his life, everybody thought it would be Harry and Sonja. Even Harry thought so, especially when they were locked naked in that decontamination chamber at ViraVax. But since their escape and the revelation that they weren’t . . .
normal,
the two of them had avoided each other for the first time in their lives.

Marte was easy to talk to, she actually
listened,
and with Harry’s teamwork on the satlinks and the webs she had cracked the code of the Deathbug.

Codes,
he reminded himself.

Several codes, all marvels of molecular manipulation, a puzzle-code, these fragments worked together in a cascade effect to fool the immune system. They tricked the cell into betraying its own mitochondria. Now Marte had to find someone to manufacture an antidote, and the working conditions put on them by the Agency made that impossible. But Harry had a plan.

If the whole world knew about it, there wouldn’t be any need for secrecy,
he thought.
Then every virology lab in the world could get going on this.

Tonight, when the Agency vans showed up with more techs and the equipment, Harry noticed that the usual security gates for the computer linkups had been left behind. Casa Canada was a madhouse of confusion, and he was sure that he could get the word out. But it had to be the right word, to the right place.

Harry worked his fingers back down Marte’s neck, across her shoulders, and he kissed the top of her head as he finished. Her hair was oily after three days without a shower, and smelled of sweat. But it was
her
sweat, and sweet as plumeria to Harry.

“It’s time,” he said.

“You know, you’d better be careful doing that,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I could wind up in a lot of trouble with your parents.”

“Chill,” he said. “It might be a relief to them if I got in trouble for something normal.”

“Don’t tempt me, young man,” she said.

She spun her chair around, stood to stretch, and Harry kissed her. Much to Harry’s surprise, she kissed him back.

“Well,” she said.

“Yes, well.”

They kissed again, and this time she pressed herself tight against him and caused quite a jam-up in his jockey shorts. The techs would be back any minute, but Harry and his body didn’t care.

Casa Canada was a large French Colonial home in the heart of several hundred acres of coffee. Marte’s Litespeed and peripherals were installed in a sitting-room just outside Harry’s bedroom. He had fantasized for two days about how to get Marte into that bedroom. She had gone from ten kilometers to three meters away in a matter of hours, and now that she was this close Harry didn’t know how to ask.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to ask.

“Harry,” she whispered into his neck, “we don’t have much time.”

“No,” he sighed. “We’re lucky to have this.”

She kissed him again, running her hands down his back, his hips and up his thighs. She grasped his belt buckle and tugged.

“Which way to your room?” she asked.

“Right there.”

“Does it lock?”

“Yes.”

Marte pulled Harry by the belt buckle into his room and closed the door. Harry flipped the latch, and Marte already had his belt undone and his zipper unzipped. Harry thought he’d explode when she kissed his belly just above his pubic hair. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he pulled her blouse out of her pants and over her head without unbuttoning it. Her small breasts jiggled in her bra as the blouse came free.

Marte kissed him again, then skinned his T-shirt off and pressed herself against him. Somehow she had already slipped out of her bra, and her firm, brown nipples drew little circles on his chest.

Harry fumbled with the catch on her pants, so she unhooked it herself and they stood there, holding tight, naked except for their shoes, socks and shorts bunched around their ankles. Harry glanced at his bed and saw that, as usual, it was covered with books, papers, disks and cubes. He grabbed a corner of his bedspread and dumped everything onto the floor. It didn’t matter; they never made it to the bed.

Marte sank down onto the lamb’s-wool rug and pulled him with her. She kicked off her shoes and got one leg out of her shorts as Harry struggled to kiss her and get out of his things at the same time.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Yes, okay,” he whispered. She was so small, and he felt self-conscious about pressing his full weight on top of her. “Am I smashing you?”

“Smash me,” she said. “I’m not as fragile as you think.”

He kissed her and her little tongue flicked around his lips, tapped the end of his own tongue. He kissed her hard brown nipples and nuzzled her belly before Marte pulled him up to her and slipped him inside.

They lay still for a moment, tapping their tongues and catching their breath. Harry was afraid to move because he knew he was right at the verge of bursting through. Marte had almost triggered him off when her fingers explored him lightly, and he didn’t want to ruin things for her. Her body gripped him in a tight, fierce heat that he felt pulsing hard around him.

“It’s all right,” she said, as though reading his mind. “It’s all right.”

He moved slowly, then, once, twice and heard the small sucking sounds of her passion as she trembled against him, her legs locked against his hips. Then what little control he had was gone, and Harry poured out of himself in tremendous bursts while Marte moved on him in a near-fury until she fell back with a little cry, racked with spasms that clutched him even tighter inside her.

In the dim light he saw her, eyes still closed, as she smiled broadly and started to giggle. He had been supporting his weight on his arms but she pulled him down to her, still giggling, and rocked him on top of her tight in the grip of her thighs.

“You feel so good,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she giggled, “I do.”

He kissed her, but she started giggling again and nestled her face against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so
happy
to feel
good
for a change, you know?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and kissed the top of her head. “Yes, I know. Thank you, Marte.”

“Thank you’? My, aren’t we polite?” Marte tilted her head back and looked him in the eye. “Well, Harry, thank
you.”

“You probably guessed that it’s my first time.”

“I guessed . . .
hoped
that it was,” she said. “It’s my first time being somebody else’s first time, and I wanted it to be nice for you.”

They kissed, long and soft. Marte’s body shuddered in another spasm, and in spite of himself he slipped out of her.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to throw you out.”

Then someone pounded on the door.

“Harry! Harry! Are you in there?”

It was Joe Clyde, the SEAL team medic.

“I’m here,” Harry said, holding Marte tighter. “What’s up?”

“There’s been an incident here in the house. Are you alone?”

They rolled apart and Harry grabbed for his shorts.

Marte, too, struggled with her clothes.

“I’m here, Joe,” she said. “Marte Chang. It’s just the two of us.”

“Jesus! Listen, stay put for now. We’re just trying to get a fix on everyone and some new orders. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Who was it?” Harry asked, but Joe Clyde was already gone.