Текст книги "The Cure"

Автор книги: Douglas E. Richards

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

25

“SO WHAT DO you have planned today while I’m killing myself changing bedpans and dealing with asshole doctors?” said Morgan Campbell, already knowing the answer. “Staying in?”

Kyle Hansen nodded. “Another brutal day of thinking.”

Morgan shook her head as she adjusted her white nurse’s uniform, which he had to admit she filled out quite nicely. “Well, don’t hurt yourself,” she said enviously.

Sitting around thinking about quantum physics and computer logic did seem like a cushy job, Hansen knew. But he really did find it brutal most of the time. Even so, it wasn’t wise to complain to someone who had to deal with a cranky boss or physical labor. The truth was that when he was engaged in physical labor, he was in heaven compared to the torture of trying to attack a problem mentally for hours on end. It was agony. And only the occasional epiphany made it all worthwhile. Not only did these come far too infrequently, but even after he had hit on an astonishing insight to move things forward, the next unsolvable problem would immediately present itself.

He had read a description of the life of a novelist, and decided his life wasn’t too far different. Writing is easy, Gene Fowler had famously observed. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. Kyle knew this was true of theoretical physics as well. But there was no way Morgan would ever understand this, and he couldn’t very well whine about staying home in his cushy apartment suffering all day.

“Dinner tonight?” asked Morgan.

He sighed. “Maybe. Let’s play it by ear. I’ll call you around three.”

Hansen planted a perfunctory kiss on her lips and closed the door to his apartment gently behind him. They had been dating for nine months now, and he suspected they both knew it wasn’t working all that well. He didn’t believe in love at first sight, but after nine months of dense dating, and spending maybe half of their nights together, no spark had ignited. He couldn’t imagine what might change. They knew each other very well, and either they were capable of falling madly in love with each other or not—in this case not.

Which actually was a good thing when he really thought about it. Morgan seemed pretty dead set against children. Not that they had had too many talks about their possible future—another telltale sign. Her not wanting to have children was a deal breaker as far as he was concerned.

When he had been fourteen, an aunt, much younger than his mother, had moved nearby with two toddlers in tow. Until that point he had had few experiences with kids, and those few had been negative, mostly involving sitting in airplanes while unruly toddlers kicked the back of his seat for an entire flight, or having them wail nearby and ruin his meal in a restaurant.

But these two kids, Michael and Jana, had visited often and spent the night frequently. He had forged an instant bond that only strengthened as they aged. They were adorable. Endlessly charming and amusing. He had always loved dogs, but he grew to love tiny ambulating humans even more, who were always saying adorable things and who saw the world in such fresh and interesting ways.

So it was good it wasn’t working out with Morgan, because in their hearts they both knew it was time to move on. He needed to find someone with whom he could settle down, and Morgan was a trap. Comfortable but not exciting. The sex and companionship were nice, so instead of having to spend time and psychic energy on the dating scene, he could focus on his work. But if he wasn’t careful, he could find himself waking up in three or four years without anything having changed in the relationship. He needed to grow some balls and end this. It was the humane thing to do for both of them, and he didn’t think this was just a rationalization.

A loud rap on the door broke Hansen from his thoughts. He pulled it open, certain he would find Morgan standing there, having forgotten to tell him something. Instead a tall, distinguished-looking man of about forty appeared, his short hair prematurely peppered with white. “Mr. Hansen?” he said, his voice soothing and confident. Not waiting for a reply he added, “My name is Steve Fuller.”

“What can I do for you?” said Hansen.

“I’m glad you asked that,” said Fuller smoothly, with an insincere smile. And then, too fast for Hansen’s eyes to follow, Fuller’s right hand darted from his side, where he had concealed a tiny syringe, and jabbed a sharp needle through Hansen’s slacks and into his upper thigh.

Hansen felt himself go wobbly and lowered himself to the carpet while he could still cushion his landing.

“As it turns out, you can do quite a lot for me,” said Fuller, and these last words were as ephemeral to Hansen as writing on water as he slipped into a dreamless oblivion.

26

INSIDE A ROOM at the Saguaro Inn, Kyle Hansen’s mind was wrenched back into the present and his heart leaped to his throat.

At first he couldn’t grasp why this had happened, searching for a cause for this sudden arrhythmia and panic. But an instant later he realized what his subconscious, and his racing heart, had realized already: a picture of Erin Palmer was on the television he had been facing. He grabbed the remote beside him and cranked up the volume.

Erin’s picture filled the entire screen, while the unseen female anchor of the local Tucson news station did a voiceover: “… and a reward of fifty thousand dollars has been offered for any valid information about the location of Miss Palmer, who is thought to be in Arizona or adjoining states. Authorities have also said that this is not a recent photo of Miss Palmer…”

Bull, thought Hansen. The photo looked as if it had been taken yesterday.

“… so she could now have a different hair color, style, etc. If anyone thinks they have seen this woman, or has any information as to her whereabouts, please call nine-one-one, or the number on the screen.”

The message ended and returned to the morning show where a short, balding man was now talking about his toy train collection—the largest in the country.

Kyle threw himself from the bed and began dressing. As he did he heard the shower stop. He rapped on the door and then opened it to find Erin toweling off. She looked self-conscious for just a moment, even though the towel was draped around parts he had seen very closely the night before, and in his opinion were far too flawless for any self-consciousness.

“Your picture was on TV,” he blurted out. “They’re offering a reward for any information that can help find you. Which means that every cop in the Southwest is looking for you as well.”

Erin’s jaw dropped. Kyle turned away to give her some privacy as she hurriedly finished toweling off and began to dress. “How is that possible?” she asked.

“Steve Fuller must be very well connected. And he’s pulling out all the stops. You’ve done worse than threaten his life. You’ve threatened his very being. His personality. His mind. Apparently he’s taking this personally.”

“Did they say I committed a crime?”

“I came in late to the broadcast, but I doubt it. I think they want to keep you as mysterious as possible.”

“Do you think we should lay low here even longer?”

“Not unless you were wearing a mask when you checked in. You’re face is pretty unforgettable if you ask me.”

“Shit!” said Erin as the full realization hit. She was in some kind of mad death spiral. Her life had become a runaway train.

How had it come to this? She had been a model citizen all of her life until she had let Drake, in the guise of Hugh Raborn, suck her in, convince her to rethink her ethics, and break the law. And now she was in the center of a nightmare with no end in sight. But that was the danger of electing to set foot on a slippery slope. And it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been able to see that the walls of this particular slope were made of pure ice—she had just chosen to ignore this.

So she had been drawn in. Inexorably. As though in her zeal to understand and attack the condition of mind that had destroyed her family, her reason had been impaired. When the first inmate died in his sleep, she had already taken that first step from the cliff, and gravity had taken hold. She couldn’t find a way to reverse course. And even as her thinking evolved, she had gotten herself in so deep she felt she had no other option but to see it through to the end. And she had developed a relationship with a man she had thought to be Hugh Raborn, biotechnology executive.

Part of her didn’t want to let him down. And the more she expressed her concerns to him, the more zealous and impatient he became. He applied subtle psychological pressures for her to continue, so much so that her subconscious wasn’t eager to find out what he might do if she did pull the plug. Would he threaten her with blackmail?

And all the while she was continuing to immerse herself in philosophy and ethics; to evolve, grow, and see the world differently than she ever had before.

Now she was being hunted by an arms dealer intent on killing her, and by every citizen and police officer in the area.

She thought of her advisor, Jason Apgar. Of her ray of sunshine, Lisa Renner, whom she already loved, after knowing her only a short time. What would they be thinking when they saw her face on TV?

Would Erin ever be able to explain? Could she explain? After all, she had to face the truth: she was one of the villains in this tale.

And she had to admit the very real possibility that she wouldn’t live out the week.

“Kyle, I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered, now fully dressed. “I want out.” Was her life really to be cut short just when she had found someone like Kyle Hansen? She felt cheated.

Hansen sighed and gave her an empathetic nod that said, “I feel your pain,” but not one that said, “I support this decision.”

Erin stared into his eyes. “I know how much is riding on seeing this through,” she said. “But I can just give the winning gene mixture to you. I know I can count on you to check things out before you give it to Drake. I can turn myself in. Take my chances with the police. Explain everything. Do whatever time I have coming—God knows I know my way around a prison. The more I struggle, the tighter this noose is becoming, and the more criminal acts I commit in the name of staying free. And I’m endangering you as well.”

Hansen sighed deeply. “No one wishes more than I do that you weren’t caught up in this,” he said. “But if you turn yourself in, Fuller will get to you. Period. It doesn’t matter how honest the cop, he’ll have the correct paperwork to have you delivered into his hands. Look at how easily one of his men was able to impersonate an FBI agent to confirm that the treatment works. He’ll torture you to find out what you know about me and Drake.” He turned away. “And then he’ll kill you,” he finished, his eyes becoming moist as he said this, as though the thought of losing Erin was unbearable to him.

Without knowing exactly how it happened, they found themselves in each other’s arms.

“You’re right,” she acknowledged unhappily. “I know you’re right. But it’s never going to end, is it? We’ll be on the run our entire lives.” She managed to force a wry smile. “Which at this point will be very short—so at least there’s that.”

Hansen shook his head. “No. We’ll have to survive for a month or two—which won’t be easy. But once the genie is out of the bottle, killing us won’t change anything. Psychopathic Fuller would do it anyway, just out of hatred and spite. And for the pleasure it would give him. But once he’s cured, he won’t be the same man. He’ll call off the dogs.”

Erin nodded and her strength and resolve seemed to return. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what got into me. I guess it’s been a stressful few days.”

Hansen took her face gently in both hands and tilted it up, kissing her lightly on the lips. “No one has ever handled this much stress any better.”

They separated. “So now what?” she asked with a sigh. “This room could already be surrounded for all we know.”

“If that’s the case then we’re well and truly screwed. So let’s imagine we still have at least a little more time before they learn we’re here.” He paused. “Think. What do we do? You’re the brains of this outfit.” He looked her up and down. “And the beauty as well,” he added appreciatively.

“What are you?”

“Hopefully, the one who inspires the brains of the outfit to come up with an idea.”

Erin smiled. “Okay. Let’s think out loud.” She paused. “I guess the first thing is, we need transportation. We won’t stand a chance on foot.”

“We can’t use a rental car. We’d have to show our driver’s licenses, and we’d be traced right away. Any idea how to steal a car?”

Erin frowned and shook her head.

“Isn’t this kind of thing done all the time in the thrillers you read?”

“Yeah. They pick locks too. I don’t know how to do that either.” Her eyes narrowed. “And now that I think about it, transportation isn’t the first order of business, after all. We have no idea how long it might take us to figure this out. So we need to get out of here. We’re sitting ducks.”

Hansen didn’t respond. He tilted his head to the ceiling. Without a car, where would they go? They were in a sparsely populated part of Tucson with only a sprinkling of buildings and roads, and with long stretches of flat desert terrain in between. The motel was the only decent hiding place for quite a long stretch if they were on foot.

His pulse quickened as he arrived at a solution. “They didn’t show my picture on TV,” he pointed out. “The motel clerk doesn’t know me from Adam. And no one knows I visited your room last night.”

Erin looked confused. For once, her agile mind hadn’t raced ahead to the punch line.

“So let me get out of here and get a room of my own. At this motel. Then I can sneak you in. When the bad guys crash through the door to this room, they’ll find it empty. They’ll assume you ran off during the night and continue their search elsewhere, while we lay low here for another night.”

“Brilliant,” said Erin admiringly. She leaned forward and wasted an additional twenty seconds kissing him with enough passion to melt his socks.

“Go!” she said when their lips had parted.

“Perfect,” said Hansen wryly as he took the short walk to the door. “You get my motor revved up and then kick me out.”

He opened the door and surveyed the area as well as he could. He didn’t see anything suspicious. He knew it was still possible the room was being watched, but he had no other choice but to assume otherwise. He made his way to the small lobby and paid for a room, wanting to glance around furtively the entire time he was checking in, but fighting off the impulse so he wouldn’t look like the fugitive he was.

When he had been given his plastic room key, he retrieved Erin and escorted her to the new room, making sure to stay out of sight of the lobby and the petite woman in her midthirties manning the desk. Entering the new room was like a magic trick. It was identical in every way to their last one, down to the framed painting of a desert sunset hanging on the wall, except the bed was now perfectly made and the towels were fresh and folded.

“I did a lot of thinking while you were gone,” said Erin the moment the door was closed. “And I think I’ve come up with a workable plan. How much money do you have left?”

“Seventy-three dollars,” he announced after a quick count.

“That’s all?”

“I just paid ninety in cash for the room.”

She pulled a wad of bills from her pocket. “I have seven hundred and eighteen,” she said. “Or at least the various men whose wallets I took had this much. So I guess we should add petty theft to the charges against me.”

“So we have seven hundred and ninety-one dollars all together.”

“Not bad. But here is the question: Is that enough to buy an old beater of a car?”

Hansen shrugged. “Hard to imagine you could get a car that actually still ran for such a low amount. But I really don’t know.”

“It only has to run for a day,” she said. “And it can be rusted, dented, it doesn’t matter.”

“So how do we buy this hypothetical car?” said Hansen.

“We need the Internet, and we don’t have it. So you need to get the motel clerk to let you use their computer for a few minutes. Whatever you have to do. Charm her. Lie to her. Be creative.”

“And then Google ‘cheap used cars in Tucson’ and see what I get?”

“Exactly. ‘For sale by owner.’ Try to get it for five hundred or less, because we want to keep some money—just in case. Don’t bother coming back to the room after your Internet search. Just find a cheap car, and tell the seller you’ll take it if it can leave their premises under its own power. Then cab it over there.” She paused. “But make sure to meet the cab somewhere out of sight of the lobby.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Yes. Once you have the car, there’s a Walmart a few miles from here. Buy some shears and a razor so we can cut our hair. And hair dye. And see if they have any temporary tattoos we can apply. Or get an ink paint set and we can free-form it. And clothing. And anything else you can think of that can help us disguise ourselves.”

Hansen’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Maybe you’re beginning to rub off on me, but if they haven’t raided your old room yet, we can plant some things to misdirect them.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I get some black hair dye and some blond hair dye. You can cut your hair and dye it black here, while I leave an empty bottle of the blond hair dye in your old room to throw them off.”

Erin’s eyes brightened. “I like it,” she said. “Maybe we’re in the wrong line of work.” Then, with a broad grin she added, “And I like that I’m rubbing off on you. I guess we’ll just have to make sure we keep rubbing.”

27

HANSEN WAS STUNNED by the number of cars one could purchase for under a thousand dollars. There were dozens of them on the market in this general location. Some as low as three hundred and fifty dollars, which he didn’t get at all. It seemed to him they’d be worth more in scrap metal than that, but what did he know?

He found a twenty-year-old Chevy Malibu with over a hundred and seventy thousand miles on the odometer. It had faded and peeling electric-blue paint, stained, threadbare cloth seats, bald tires, crank-handle windows—one of which no longer cranked—and a nonworking air conditioner. It was hideous. If it had been a mythological figure it would have been named the Blue Medusa, and this is what he decided to call it. But on the bright side, it would allow them to remain completely off the grid. And it was only five hundred dollars, on the nose. The question was, would it actually still drive?

Hansen was relieved when he pulled it off the small slab of desert that served as a front yard to the seller’s run-down house. The car didn’t exactly purr like a kitten, but he was able to get it to sixty without any pieces falling off, so he was satisfied. If it could only continue to work for six or seven hundred miles they were in good shape.

As Hansen made his way to Walmart, his mind returned to his first meeting with Steve Fuller. And with someone who had called himself simply, Fermi.

*   *   *

HANSEN’S SENSES SLOWLY returned. He had no idea how much time had passed since his visitor, Steve Fallon—no, that wasn’t it—Steve Fuller, had jammed the business end of a needle into his leg. Just as he was about to open his eyes, Fuller waved smelling salts under his nose and he was jolted awake as though he had been hit with a cattle prod.

Hansen found himself in what looked like a glass conference room with a large oak table in the center. The man who had visited him lowered the smelling salts he had been holding and took a seat across from him at the table.

“Sorry about the abduction,” said Fuller. “But I think you’ll appreciate the necessity soon.”

“Where am I?”

“At a very secure, very secret facility. You haven’t been out for long. We used a private aircraft to fly you here from Pittsburgh.”

Hansen noted that his hands weren’t tied, nor was he restrained in any way. Was this really happening?

“What is this all about?” he demanded.

“It’s about your work, Mr. Hansen. You have some very unusual theories regarding quantum physics and quantum computing that are very much out of the mainstream.”

“If you think my theories are ridiculous, just say so. You won’t be the first. Or the hundredth. But you are the first to try kidnapping. You could have just sent a nasty e-mail and saved yourself some trouble.”

Fuller smiled. “I see you’re able to keep your sense of humor about this. Very admirable. But to continue, your unique outlook prompted you to search for a quantum signature in ways others would not have. And you found one. And you keep pressing about it. And pressing. And trying to convince other physicists around the world to take you seriously. You make a pit bull look like a toy poodle.”

“Yes, I’m stubborn. So what? I’m convinced that I’m right.”

Steve Fuller leaned forward and considered his guest for several seconds. “You are right, Mr. Hansen. There is no doubt about it. Or can I call you Kyle?”

Hansen stared at him. “You can call me anything you like if you can tell me why you’re so convinced I’m right.”

“Because you’re picking up an actual, working quantum computer. One that works on principles based on your evolving theory. The only one on Earth. One brought here by four aliens from a planet thirty-seven light years away.”

Hansen shook his head as if to clear it. He opened his mouth to speak.

Fuller held out a forestalling hand. “This is a bold statement. So I would expect a certain degree of skepticism.” He nodded through the glass wall at a man who had been standing outside the room, still as a lizard. Hansen had been so off balance and so focused on what Fuller was saying he hadn’t even noticed him.

The man walked into the room and took a seat beside Steve Fuller. He looked very average: average height, weight, and coloring. No remarkable features good or bad. Thinning hairline. About forty years old. But there was something off in the way he walked, the way he sat, the way he carried himself. Hansen couldn’t put a finger on it, but it made him slightly uneasy.

When no one spoke, Hansen decided to break the silence. “Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is unpronounceable. On Earth, I go by the name Fermi.”

Hansen’s face crinkled up in confusion. On Earth? Part of him wanted to laugh out loud, but part of him knew on some primal level that this really was an alien.

“I thought it would speed things along for you and Fermi to meet,” explained Fuller. “If a picture paints a thousand words, then a few minutes with Fermi cuts through the most stubborn skepticism.”

“I had extensive plastic surgery on my home planet, combined with sophisticated genetic engineering, to pass as a human. And as you can see, or hear at any rate, I can speak your language fairly well, with limited accent.”

As he said this Hansen realized he did have an accent, but it was subtle and impossible to place.

“But evolution has honed your mind to be a remarkable tool to understand posture, body language, and other subtle cues to your fellow human,” continued Fermi. “So the longer one spends with me the more wrong I seem. This can’t be helped. I can pass a cursory examination, and if I don’t move much and keep silent, I can go out in public, be a passenger in a car, or even an airplane. But extensive interaction, other than over an audio-only phone, doesn’t really work.”

The man claiming to be an alien was wearing a light blue button-down shirt. He unbuttoned it to just above his chest, exposing a mass of flesh about the size of a flattened-out baseball. It was repulsive.

“My genetic material isn’t exactly the same as yours, but its principles are analogous. My colleagues and I each were subjects of extensive reconstructive surgery and genetically engineered alterations during a period of over seven of your years. My species has had many thousands of years to perfect the engineering of our genetic material and can do tricks you have yet to even guess at. We were each genetically engineered to produce this growth that you see here.”

“What is it?” said Hansen, his voice betraying just the slightest hint of disgust.

“Think of it as a gill. There are trace elements of your atmosphere that are poisonous to us. And we like less nitrogen in our air. So the air we breathe is shunted through this bio-filter, ensuring we get the mixture we require.”

Hansen raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Just because the man said it didn’t necessarily make it true.

“We have vestigial appendages that are somewhat analogous to your hands,” said Fermi. “Which we’ve engineered back to functionality and converted into replicas of your hands. Even so,” he added, unbuttoning his shirt farther, “our own version of hands are indispensible to us, since they give us far better fine-motor control than the ones engineered to mimic yours.”

As he undid the fourth button down, twelve thin tendrils crept out in perfect coordination from two slits near where a belly button should have been. Hansen’s mouth fell open. While Fermi’s human hands had seemed clumsy while unbuttoning his shirt, the movements of the tendrils were fluid and elegant. He picked a pen up off the table with the tendrils, each moving independently, and spun it effortlessly in an intricate pattern that was mesmerizing.

“For us, a precision task like threading a needle could not be simpler. Your hands have greater strength, because your distant ancestors needed to swing from trees.” A small smile played over his face. “There are no trees on our planet.”

Hansen’s eyes narrowed as he considered the smile he had just seen. In addition, he remembered Fermi had nodded appropriately to something he had said. How could this be? While an alien could learn English, no alien could possibly learn involuntary facial expressions. If Hansen were impersonating an alien who laughed by emitting a high-pitched growl, he couldn’t train himself to do this if he genuinely was caught unprepared by something truly funny—he would revert to human laughter instead.

So was this just an elaborate hoax?

Despite the impossibility of mimicking spontaneous human expressions, Hansen was largely convinced it was not. There was still something off about Fermi’s mimicry he couldn’t put his finger on. And no special effect or artifice could possibly have created the tendrils he was seeing.

“You smile and you frown and you nod,” said Hansen. “If you really are an alien, how is that possible?”

“Great observation,” said Fermi, with another nod and another smile. “And great question. Through genetic engineering, our normal body language pathways have been subverted. Before I was modified, when I was amused or happy, my second and seventh tendril would wave to the left. But now, the involuntary impulses in my brain, triggered by amusement, are directed down a different pathway, causing my face to form a human smile instead. It’s all quite complicated, but it is a subroutine that is run automatically.” He sighed. “But as impressive as our capabilities are in this regard, my body language is not perfect, as you can tell. Close, but still a hair off. You can mold the bodies and brains of my species only so far into a human. To go any further, you actually have to be one. A perfect forgery is impossible.”

Hansen nodded thoughtfully and realized the very last of his skepticism had now vanished. “What do you call yourselves?” he asked.

“What we call ourselves is unpronounceable to you. We come from a planet, however, whose closest pronunciation in English would be Suran.”

“We’ve taken to calling them Wraps,” said Fuller. “And this is now what they call themselves as well. I’m not sure who first started this, but it kind of stuck. Or you might say, clung.”

Hansen couldn’t help but smile. He had had no idea what to expect after being abducted, but hearing a joke about Saran Wrap hadn’t been one of his guesses. He turned back to Fermi. “And there are four of you here? Four … Wraps?”

“Right,” replied Fermi.

The alien went on to explain how they had been transported here, basically instantaneously, and the civilization-wide effort this had taken.

“With respect to your theories, Mr. Hansen, your insight into the nature of quantum mechanics is raw and embryonic, but it’s on the right track. Your people don’t know enough about dark matter and dark energy to be able to see the proper solutions, but your theory is correct: you can get useful information from quantum entanglement, after all.”

Despite the situation he was in, Hansen couldn’t hide his elation upon hearing this from a scientifically advanced alien. He felt as though he were floating on a cloud. He had been maligned for his ideas for years. And here Fermi had matter-of-factly confirmed that the theory he so stubbornly defended against a never-ending onslaught of criticism was right—or at least on the right track. It was a vindication of his most deeply held beliefs.

Quantum physics held that particles could be in many places at the same time and could pop into and out of existence spontaneously. But one of the most counterintuitive aspects of the theory, now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, was quantum entanglement. When a pair of particles were entangled, they would take on opposite aspects when the act of observation forced them into a determinative state.

As a gross oversimplification, all particles in the universe were like spinning coins, in an indeterminate state between heads and tails. But the moment one was observed, it would randomly collapse into either a head or a tail. Quantum entanglement said that these coins were emitted and spun in pairs. And if one ended up landing on heads, the other would always end up landing on tails. Always. And instantly. Even if the entangled coins were now on opposite sides of the universe, if one collapsed to a head, the other would instantaneously collapse to a tail, somehow communicating this instruction between them far faster than the speed of light.