The Leap, page 17
Lukas Adler lived in an isolated neighborhood out past Genesia. He’d bought several deserted houses, had them ripped down, and had his own very plain house, surrounded by acres of nothingness, built in their place. He could’ve lived anywhere, but instead he lived here, outside an area he referred to as the Flats. And his house was nothing special—an unimpressive single-story structure with no personality unless plainness could be considered a personality. But he had a lovely pool, also quite plain but just the right size and shape, in the backyard, and he and Althea had had many good times in that pool.
Lukas was sitting at the pool’s edge, his feet and lower legs in the water, when she arrived. He saw her and slipped into the water and started doing laps. The man could swim. He’d been some kind of a champion swimmer in school and he still had the technique. He was a pleasure to watch, a fact his agent was also aware of, and Lukas was sometimes booked in fabulas where he could show off his near-naked body and swimming prowess.
Here at his home, he was completely naked. Althea stripped and dived in, meeting him at the far end of the pool just as he did his elegant turn.
He surprised her—not an easy thing to do and something he’d never done before—stopping his laps and embracing her, kissing her, pulling her under the water with him. She wrapped her legs around him as they descended, surrendering to each other’s needs, and as they ascended their bodies merged. The air Althea breathed into her lungs seemed almost unnecessary, as though she needed only the water, only Lukas’s mouth on hers, only her body enclosing his.
They continued, under the water then rising to the surface, for what was both an eternity and an instant. This was new and stimulating and Lukas was surpassing all his previous performances. Althea’s headache dispersed itself into the water, her boredom cured itself, and the script of her next fabula burst full-blown into her consciousness.
After she and Lukas were done, he went back to swimming laps and Althea lay on the cool pavement near the pool’s edge, watching Lukas and working out the casting of her new creation.
Lukas would portray a version of Morris—a better-looking version and one more willing to take risks, to push anything and everything beyond its supposed limits. He’d be trying to overthrow the head of the tech company where he worked. Charley would be the obvious choice to play that role but he was a terrible actor and even if he weren’t Althea would never give him the opportunity.
No, the actor playing Charley would be Nolan East, a real-life rival of Lukas’s. Their mutual animosity played out well when they were in the same production together. No need for acting there.
Charley, played by Nolan, would, by a serendipitous event, stumble onto the creation of a computer virus that would affect the user directly, stimulating an obsessive need for another user. The two infected parties would be inexorably drawn to each other, and in order to be together they’d destroy their former lives and professions and anything else getting in the way of their relationship.
Morris, played by Lukas, would find the program and change it in very subtle ways. Soon the edited programs would be causing their users to not just destroy but to murder anyone who got in their way, and when the two obsessed users finally got to be together, they’d kill each other as well.
The part of Althea would have to be played by Olyn Gil, an actor even more popular and beloved than Lukas was. Olyn had played Lukas’s devastated ex in Keeping the Promise and the audience adored her. Here, in the new fabula, Althea, played by Olyn, would be the only person who could save the world from this insidious program, which was upending lives and decimating the population. As the effects spread, Olyn would be under more and more pressure to solve the problem and save humanity.
Yes. Good. Althea would work out the details later, after she got home. This was a surefire hit and she couldn’t wait to get started on it. The most delicious aspect was that she herself would be portrayed as the world’s savior.
Who would play Beryl? She’d have to think about it. Someone the viewer would have little sympathy for. And of course Oliver deserved to die and he’d be depicted as a villain. Juno’s character would be absent from the fabula. She was unnecessary.
Ah, this was all falling into place.
Althea turned onto her back, letting the cool pavement and hot sun sandwich her body in their embrace. Ever since her illness at Tuigen, her body had been not quite right but today she felt grand. Coming out here to see Lukas had been an even better idea than she’d planned, as now she had something new to work on, something that would write itself and would increase her substantial fortune.
One thing continuing to bother her was Charley’s attitude. He hadn’t been affected by his lover Beryl Carson’s death. And he almost seemed to have enjoyed Althea’s illness, her discomfort.
Oliver Hirata. Kaj Banerjee. Beryl Carson. Even Althea couldn’t say she minded any of the deaths too much.
She shielded her eyes from the devastating sunlight out here in the middle of nowhere where Lukas had decided to live. He’d told her once that he had to get away from the scene, that it was all right while he was working but when he wasn’t he wanted peace and simplicity, two states of total disinterest to Althea.
The sun seemed to split into three pieces while she was trying to avoid it. Her throat emitted a strange noise.
“Althea.” She could hear Lukas’s voice but couldn’t place where it was coming from. She tried to turn over onto her side and couldn’t.
“Come back into the pool. You’ll get burned lying there.”
Someone Althea recognized but couldn’t place attempted to answer.
Water. Was that rain?
“Althea. Are you all right?”
Morris could be so nice sometimes. They’d had a picnic together but now it was raining.
“Althea!”
People who could drift away from you were so tiresome. It was better if they came toward you, even if they were forced to.
The sun broke apart, trailed by a black hole that devoured the object known as s-k-y.
A voice with no location. Frantic words. Unidentified sounds.
How the black hole welcomes its devotees.
Chapter 24
Ethan had started a handwritten journal, keeping track of his own hour-by-hour experience. So far there wasn’t much to say. He was exhausted, but getting two hours of sleep out of every thirty or forty wasn’t sufficient. Sleep, though, was the enemy, creeping up on you just as you were losing awareness, enveloping you, taking you away from what was important.
Maizy Newell had the infection. She was still alive although unconscious. The doctor at the Genesia Clinic kept referring to her as being in a coma, but Ethan thought that was a misnomer. Maizy seemed to have some awareness, although it was difficult to pinpoint. She’d responded with a grunt when Ethan came into her room, and although that might’ve been a coincidence, he didn’t think it was.
After her test results had come back, Ethan asked the clinic to isolate her, explaining that she had a contagious disease whose impact was still being investigated. The clinic had complied, moving her to a private room before he arrived there.
He sat down in the chair next to her bed and spoke with her.
“Maizy, this is Ethan Stiles. I’m a doctor and I’m doing research into the microbe responsible for your illness. I’ve run several tests and your results are similar enough to others’ who’re infected that it seems clear all of you have the same thing.”
Maizy’s left hand moved slightly. This was definitely not a coma. She was unconscious but she was trying to communicate.
Ethan reached over to the bed and took hold of Maizy’s hand. He wouldn’t think of touching anyone else now that he knew he was infected—he’d had his assistant take all of Ziva Walls’s samples—but it was doubtful he could further infect Maizy Newell, although there were viruses whose potency increased the more you were exposed to them.
Ethan was careful, wearing full protective equipment, including a hood. His gloved hand held hers.
“Maizy, if you can hear me, press on my palm.”
Nothing happened, so he demonstrated what he meant, pressing on her palm. Still nothing.
“I’m just going to keep talking if you don’t mind. It’s pretty lonely in here and maybe you could use a friend.”
No response.
“I have the same infection you do. What’s fascinating about it—and even though you’re not a scientist I think you might find this fascinating as well—is that it’s not a regular kind of virus, like when you get a cold. This is a computer virus. Weird, don’t you think?”
Her hand twitched inside his. Maizy Newell was definitely not in a coma.
“What’s even weirder is that I’m not the one who figured this out and neither did my oldest friend, Jonathan Lee Summers, who’s a code formation expert. Instead, an investigator who used to be with the Osada City Joukko had the idea, and I’m convinced she’s correct.”
He waited for another response but got nothing. Maybe this wasn’t so interesting to Maizy Newell. Maybe he should be talking about the latest popular fabula, if only he’d known what it was, or giving her encouragement that she’d recover, which she might not, or telling her a few outrageous jokes.
“The investigator who came up with this idea used to be my girlfriend but it didn’t work out. Now we’re friends. Someone”—he didn’t want to say Ziva’s name, which might upset Maizy—“told me your former boyfriend lived at the Normandie. Oliver.”
Ethan felt the slightest tap on his palm. A bead of sweat ran down Maizy’s check and past her chin.
“Maizy, is it all right if I talk to you about him?”
No response. Ethan wanted Maizy to wake up but he didn’t want to push too hard.
“There’s a beautiful flower arrangement here in your room. There are many people who care about you.” He didn’t know if there was any truth to this, but a person needed to know that someone else cared, and, according to the official records, Maizy had no family.
“I know you work at the Normandie and I wondered if you had any idea what Beryl Carson might have been doing there. If you were on the desk when she arrived or if she was often there.”
A sigh escaped from Maizy’s half-open mouth.
“Maizy, if you think of anything, even if it doesn’t feel significant, please let me know. I need all the help I can get to solve this thing.”
As hopeless as the request sounded at the moment, maybe something would come of it. When Ethan had been a resident working at the hospital at Keff, he’d witnessed many seeming miracles. And patients often remembered what was said to them when they weren’t fully conscious.
He started to pull his hand away and felt Maizy’s hand move.
“I’ll stay awhile longer.”
Ethan stayed for another two hours, falling asleep, his head arched back over the chair where he was sitting. When the nurse came in to check on Maizy, Ethan woke up with a start. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. His hand was at his side now, no longer holding Maizy’s.
Maizy’s head was turned away from him.
“Did she wake up?” the nurse said.
“No, but she did move—she’s changed position—and she responded to a couple of my questions.”
“I told the doctor she’s not comatose, but she doesn’t do anything while he’s here, so that’s what it says on her chart.”
Ethan told the nurse to comm him if anything changed in either direction.
Out in the hall, away from Maizy’s room, the nurse said, “Aren’t you the medical examiner? Are you related to Maizy? Her records don’t indicate anyone.”
“Yes—and no. I’m researching the disease she might have.”
“I see.”
“Be careful when you’re in the room with her. We don’t know how contagious this thing is or how the contagion spreads.”
“I’m always careful. Have to be. Say, if you’re researching a new disease, I’ve got another patient you might want to take a look at.”
“Yes.”
Ethan and the nurse went to the changing room and put on new protective equipment, then the nurse led him down the hallway to another isolation room. This patient was covered by a tent.
“They’re calling this an anomalous allergy, but, well, you’ll see. This is beyond any simple rash.”
Ethan and the nurse stood outside the tent. The patient, a young, fit man who was asleep, had a reddish-purple rash, assuming it was a rash, on his neck and shoulders. It stopped before his biceps then reappeared on his forearms, where it was more blue than red.
Ethan read the nurse’s scroll, taking in the man’s history. Then Ethan saw his name: Jordan Fields.
“I have to go,” he said. “Thank you for showing me this patient. I’ll include him in my research. My assistant will be around to take samples later.”
Ethan stripped off his protective gear and fled the clinic, running back to the morgue’s lab. He commed Sean.
“The guy who’s going to fix your roof.”
“What about him?”
“How much contact have you had with him?”
“Ethan, what’s the matter?”
“He’s in the Genesia Clinic, down the corridor from Maizy Newell. I think he might have this thing.”
“No. I just saw him a couple of days ago.”
“He’s in the hospital. Has a unique rash.” He didn’t add that they couldn’t contain it or that, judging from the rest of his test results, it might kill him.
“But—Maizy doesn’t have a rash. Does she? And the others—”
“We have no idea what this pathogen’s capable of or how it might affect anyone or—”
“What about Ziva? Did you get her test results back yet?”
Ethan checked his scroll. “Not yet.”
“I’d better go. I have another couple of floors I want to get to before I stop for the night. Then Jonathan Lee and Patterson are coming over. Why don’t you come?”
“I see you more now than I did when we were dating.”
“I’ve thought of that too.”
“Maybe you’ve got something in your ‘archive’ that could help us.” Ethan thought he sounded desperate. He was desperate.
“Maybe I do. I’ll check.”
But Ethan didn’t make it over to Sean’s. Instead he was back at the Genesia Clinic, where a new patient had been admitted, and Axel Booth, the doctor assigned to her case, wanted to consult with Ethan. Also, Booth thought Ethan might want to see a future autopsy while the corpse was still alive. Or as though alive, if this was life.
It wasn’t until Ethan got to the clinic that he learned the patient was Althea Pierce.
Chapter 25
The last day and a half had been torture. Ziva hadn’t been able to eat, sleep, think, or even talk. Her thoughts were uncontrollable and her feelings were worse. When she saw Ethan’s comm she hesitated before reading it. But surely he wouldn’t leave a message if the news was bad, would he?
The message was simple: You’re fine. Comm if you have questions.
She commed him.
“What does it mean that I’m fine?”
“Ziva, you’re fine. All your test results are normal.”
“But Sean said you don’t even know what this is, so are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Something in his tone of voice made her suspect there was more he wasn’t saying.
“But I could still get it.”
“Unknown. You might be immune. You’ve had a great deal of exposure to others who had this and you spent hours in Banerjee’s apartment and you have no signs of it. You should be reassured.”
“I’m not reassured. I’m scared. Is Sean really okay?”
That had kept her up last night—thinking she’d exposed Sean to this deadly disease when she didn’t have to. Who cared if Morris was missing? He probably wanted to be missing. People were dying. Sean had said she was fine, but Sean had a way of not revealing too much about herself. Maybe she was lying.
“Sean’s fine.”
Zee didn’t know what to do with everything swirling inside her. She’d been upset yesterday when Ethan hadn’t taken her samples himself. He seemed to be avoiding her. Then she realized why.
“You’ve got it, don’t you?”
“Ziva, you have other things to concern yourself with.”
“I’m concerning myself with you.” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t get any more involved in this mess than she already was, but she liked Ethan Stiles, maybe more than liked him, and she couldn’t stay silent.
“That’s very kind of you.”
“No, damn it, it’s not. I’m not being kind. I’m concerned.”
Ethan laughed. “I’ve never heard anyone slice those two concepts apart quite so easily.”
“I’ve never heard anyone avoid answering a question quite so adeptly.” She waited, something she’d been forced to do for the last day, so she had recent practice in this previously unknown art.
“Ziva.”
“Ethan?”
“I’d better get back to it.”
“All right, Dr. Stiles. Tell me what I can do to help.” Now she was sure he was infected. Why else would he refuse to say anything?
“You could give Sean a hand in the Normandie. We have to get as many people tested as we can.”
“I’d already intended to. I was just waiting to find out my status. Didn’t want to infect anyone.”
“We’re not sure if this passes from person to person.”
“You mean everyone who has it got it from their computer? Sean said something about this, but it seems, well, improbable.”
Sean was a good investigator, but some of her ideas seemed a little out of line with reality. She’d told Ziva some wacky details about images or designs or microscopic whatevers but Ziva’d been too worried about everything going on to focus on the details.
“It is improbable but the more research we do, the more it seems it could be the source.”
“I’m not turning my computer on again until this is over.”
