Darwin's Children Part 2

"Itching is my life, Christopher," she said. "I'm reading Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre. I think, when they come here to make the movie, down here deep in the Earth, as they will, don't you know, that I will play Mr. Rochester's first wife, poor thing." Despite the swelling and the bandages, Mrs. Rhine's smile was dazzling. "Would you call it typecasting?" I think, when they come here to make the movie, down here deep in the Earth, as they will, don't you know, that I will play Mr. Rochester's first wife, poor thing." Despite the swelling and the bandages, Mrs. Rhine's smile was dazzling. "Would you call it typecasting?"

"You're more the mousy, inherently lovely type who saves the rugged, half-crazed male from his darker self. You're Jane."

She pulled up a folding chair and sat. Her living room was normal enough, with a normal decor-couches, chairs, pictures on the walls, but no carpeting. Mrs. Rhine was allowed to make her own throw rugs. She also knitted and worked on a loom in another room, away from the windows. She was said to have woven a fairy-tale tapestry involving her husband and infant daughter, but she had never shown it to anyone.

"How long can you stay?" Mrs. Rhine asked.

"As long as you'll put up with me," d.i.c.ken said.

"About an hour," Marian Freedman said.

"They gave me some very nice tea," Mrs. Rhine said, her voice losing strength as she looked down at the floor. "It seems to help with my skin. Pity you can't share it with me."

"Did you get my package of DVDs?" d.i.c.ken asked.

"I did. I loved Suddenly, Last Summer Suddenly, Last Summer," Mrs. Rhine said, voice rising again. "Katharine Hepburn plays mad so well."

Freedman gave him a dirty look through their hoods. "Are we on a theme here?"

"Hush, Marian," Mrs. Rhine said. "I'm fine."

"I know you are, Carla. You're more sane than I am."

"That is certainly true," Mrs. Rhine said. "But then I don't have to worry about me me, do I? Honestly, Marian's been good to me. I wish I had known her before. Actually, I wish she'd let me fix her hair."

Freedman lifted an eyebrow, leaning in toward the window so Mrs. Rhine could see her expression. "Ha, ha," she said.

"They really aren't treating me too badly, and I'm pa.s.sing all my psychological profiles." Mrs. Rhine's face dropped some of the overwrought, elfin look it a.s.sumed when she engaged in this kind of banter. "Enough about me. How are the children children doing, Christopher?" doing, Christopher?"

d.i.c.ken detected the slightest hitch in her voice.

"They're doing okay," d.i.c.ken said.

Her tone became brittle. "The ones who would have gone to school with my daughter, had she lived. Are they still kept in camps?"

"Mostly. Some are hiding out."

"What about Kaye Lang?" Mrs. Rhine asked. "I'm especially interested in her and her daughter. I read about them in the magazines. I saw her on the Katie Janeway show. Is she still raising her daughter without the government's help?"

"As far as I know," d.i.c.ken said. "We haven't kept in touch. She's kind of gone underground."

"You were good friends, I read in the magazines."

"We were."

"You shouldn't lose touch with your friends," Mrs. Rhine said.

"I agree," d.i.c.ken said. Freedman listened patiently. She understood Mrs. Rhine with more than clinical thoroughness, and she also understood the two feminine poles of Christopher d.i.c.ken's busy but lonely life: Mrs. Rhine, and Kaye Lang, who had first pinpointed and predicted the emergence of SHEVA. Both had touched him deeply.

"Any news on what they're doing inside me, all those viruses?"

"We have a lot to learn," d.i.c.ken said.

"You said some of the viruses carry messages. Are they whispering inside me? My pig viruses . . . are they still carrying pig messages?"

"I don't know, Carla."

Mrs. Rhine held out her dress and dropped down in her overstuffed chair, then brushed back her hair with one hand. "Please, Christopher. I killed my family. Understanding what happened is the one thing I need in this life. Tell me, even the little stuff, your guesses, your dreams . . . anything." Christopher. I killed my family. Understanding what happened is the one thing I need in this life. Tell me, even the little stuff, your guesses, your dreams . . . anything."

Freedman nodded. "Good or bad, we tell her all we know," she said. "It's the least she deserves."

In a halting voice, d.i.c.ken began to outline what had been learned since his last visit. The science was sharper, progress had been made. He left out the weapons research aspect and focused on the new children.

They were remarkable and in their own way, remarkably beautiful. And that made them a special problem to those they had been designed to replace.

5.

SPOTSYLVANIA, VIRGINIA.

"I hear you smell as good as a dog," the young man in the patched denim jacket said to a tall, slender girl with speckled cheeks. He reverently set a six-pack of Millers on the Formica countertop and slapped down a twenty-dollar bill. "Luckies," he told the minimart clerk. hear you smell as good as a dog," the young man in the patched denim jacket said to a tall, slender girl with speckled cheeks. He reverently set a six-pack of Millers on the Formica countertop and slapped down a twenty-dollar bill. "Luckies," he told the minimart clerk.

"She doesn't smell good as good as a dog," the second male said with a dull smile. "She smells worse." a dog," the second male said with a dull smile. "She smells worse."

"You guys cut it out," the clerk warned, putting away the bill and getting his cigarettes. She was rail thin with pale skin and tormented blonde hair. A haze of stale cigarettes hung around her coffee-spotted uniform.

"We're just talking," the first male said. He wore his hair in a short ponytail tied with a red rubber band. His companion was younger, taller and stooped, long brown hair topped by a baseball cap.

"I'm warning you, no trouble!" the clerk said, her voice as rough as an old road. "Honey, you ignore him, he's just fooling."

Stella pocketed her change and picked up her bottle of Gatorade. She was wearing shorts and a blue tank top and tennis shoes and no makeup. She gave the two men a silent sniff. Her nostrils dimpled. They were in their mid-twenties, paunchy, with fleshy faces and rough hands. Their jeans were stained by fresh paint and they smelled sour and gamy, like unhappy puppies.

They weren't making much money and they weren't very smart. More desperate than some, and quick to suspicion and anger.

"She doesn't look inf.e.c.kshus inf.e.c.kshus," the second male said.

"I mean it, guys, she's just a little girl," the clerk insisted, her face going blotchy.

"What's your name?" Stella asked the first male.

"I don't care you should know," he said, then looked to his friend with a c.o.c.ky smile.

"Leave her be," the clerk warned one more time, worn down. "Honey, you just go home."

The stooped male grabbed his six-pack by its plastic sling and started for the door. "Let's go, Dave."

Dave was working himself up. "She doesn't f.u.c.king belong belong here," he said, wrinkling his face. "Why in s.h.i.+t should we put up with this?" here," he said, wrinkling his face. "Why in s.h.i.+t should we put up with this?"

"You stop that language!" the clerk cried. "We get kids in here."

Stella drew herself up to a lanky five feet nine inches and extended her long-fingered hand. "Pleased to meet you, David. I'm Stella," she said.

Dave stared at her hand in disgust. "I wouldn't touch you for ten million dollars. Why ain't you in a camp camp?"

"Dave!" the stooped fellow snapped. the stooped fellow snapped.

Stella felt the fever scent rise. Her ears tingled. It was cool inside the minimart and hot outside, hot and humid. She had been walking in the sun for half an hour before she had found the Texaco and pushed through the swinging gla.s.s doors to buy a drink. She wasn't wearing makeup. The others could see clearly whatever the dapples on her cheeks were doing. So be it. She stood her ground by the counter. She did not want to yield to Dave, and the clerk's halfhearted defense rankled.

Dave picked up his Luckies. Stella liked the smell of tobacco before it was lit but hated the burning stink. She knew that worried men smoked, unhappy men, nervous and under stress. Their knuckles were square and their hands looked like mummy hands from sun and work and tobacco. Stella could learn a lot about people just by a sniff and a glance. "Our little radar," Kaye called her.

"It's nice in here," Stella said, her voice small. She held a small book in front of her as if for protection. "It's cool."

"You are something something, you know it?" Dave said with a touch of admiration. "An ugly little t.u.r.d, but brave as a skunk."

Dave's friend stood by the gla.s.s doors. The sweat on the man's hand reacted with the steel of the handle and reeked like a steel spoon dipped in vanilla ice cream. Stella could not eat ice cream with a steel spoon because the odor, like fear and madness, made her ill. She used a plastic spoon instead.

"f.u.c.k it, Dave, let's go go! They'll come get her and maybe they'll take us, too, if we get too close."

"My people aren't really inf.e.c.kshus inf.e.c.kshus," Stella said. She stepped toward the man by the counter, long neck craned, head poking forward. "But you never know, Dave."

The clerk sucked in her breath.

Stella had not meant to say that. She had not known she was so mad. She backed off a few inches, wanting to apologize and explain herself, say two things at once, speaking on both sides of her tongue, to make them hear and feel what she meant, but they would not understand; the words, doubled so, would jumble in their heads and only make them angrier.

What came out of Stella's mouth in a soothing alto murmur, her eyes focused on Dave's, was, "Don't worry. It's safe. If you want to beat me up, my blood won't hurt you. I could be your own little Jesus."

The fever-scent did its thing. The glands behind her ears began to pump defensive pheromones. Her neck felt hot.

"s.h.i.+t," the clerk said, and b.u.mped up against the tall rack of cigarettes behind her.

Dave showed the whites of his eyes like a skittish horse. He veered toward the door, giving her a wide berth, the deliberate smell of her in his nose. She had snuffed the fuse of his anger.

Dave joined his friend. "She smells like f.u.c.king chocolate chocolate," he said, and they kicked the gla.s.s doors open with their boots.

An old woman at the back of the store, surrounded by aisles jammed with puffed bags of potato chips, stared at Stella. Her hand shook a can of Pringles like a castanet. "Go away!"

The clerk moved in to defend the old woman. "Take your Gatorade and go home!" she barked at Stella. "Go home to your mama and don't you never never come back here." come back here."

6.

The Longworth House Office Building WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

"We've been over and over this," d.i.c.k Gianelli told Mitch, dropping a stack of scientific reprints on the coffee table between them. The news was not good.

Gianelli was short and round and his usually pale face was now a dangerous red. "We've been reading everything you sent us ever since the congressman was elected. But they have twice as many experts, and they send twice as many papers. We're drowning in papers, Mitch! And the language language." He thumped the stack. "Can't your people, all the biologists, just write to be understood? Don't they realize how important it is to get the word out to everybody?"

Mitch let his hands drop by his sides. "They're not my people, d.i.c.k. My people are archaeologists. They tend to write sparkling prose."

Gianelli laughed, stood up from the couch and shook out his arms, then tipped a finger under his tight collar, as if letting out steam. His office was part of the suite a.s.signed to Representative Dale Wickham, D., Virginia, whom he had faithfully served as director of public science for two of the toughest terms in U.S. history. The door to Wickham's office was closed. He was on the Hill today.

"The congressman has made his views clear for years now. Your colleagues, scientists all, have hopped on the gravy train. They've joined up with NIH and CDC and Emergency Action, and they pay their visits mostly across the aisle. Wilson at FEMA and Doyle at DOJ have undercut us every step of the way, squirming like puppies to get their funding treats. Opposing them is like standing outside in a hail of cannonb.a.l.l.s."

"So what can I take home with me?" Mitch asked. "To cheer up the missus. Any good news?"

Gianelli shrugged. Mitch liked Gianelli but doubted he would live to see fifty. Gianelli had all the markers: pear shape, excessive girth, ghostly skin, thinning black hair, creased earlobes. He knew it, too. He worked hard and cared too much and swallowed his disappointments. A good man in a bad time. "We got caught in a medical bear trap," he said. "We've never been prepared. Our best model for an epidemic was military response. So now we've had ten years of Emergency Action. We've practically signed away our country to Beltway bureaucrats with military and law enforcement training. Mark Augustine's crew, Mitch. We've given them almost absolute authority."

"I don't think I'm capable of understanding how those people think," Mitch said.

"I thought I did, once," Gianelli said. "We tried to build a coalition. The congressman roped in Christian groups, the NRA, conspiracy nuts, flag burners and flag lovers, anybody who's ever expressed a shred of suspicion about the guv'ment. We've gone hat in hand to every decent judge, every civil libertarian still above ground, literally and figuratively. We've been checked every step of the way. It was made very clear to the congressman that if he threw up any more dust, he, personally, all on his lonesome, could force the president to declare martial law."

"What's the difference, d.i.c.k?" Mitch asked. "They've suspended habeas corpus."

"For a special cla.s.s, Mitch."

"My daughter," Mitch growled.

Gianelli nodded. "Civil courts still operate, though under special guidelines. Nothing much has changed for the frightened average citizen, who's kind of fuzzy about civil rights anyway. When Mark Augustine put together Emergency Action, he wove a tight little piece of legislative fabric. He made sure every agency ever involved in managing disease and preparing for natural disaster had a piece of the pie-and a very smelly pie it is. We've created a new and vulnerable undercla.s.s, with fewer civil protections than any since slavery. This sort of stuff attracts the real sharks, Mitch. The monsters."

"All they have are hatred and fear."

"In this town, that's a full house," Gianelli said. "Was.h.i.+ngton eats truth and s.h.i.+ts spin." He stood. "We can't challenge Emergency Action. Not this session. They're stronger than ever. Maybe next year."

Mitch watched Gianelli pace a circuit of the room. "I can't wait that long. Riverside, d.i.c.k."

Gianelli folded his hands. He would not meet Mitch's eyes.

"The mob torched one of Augustine's G.o.dd.a.m.ned camps," Mitch said. "They burned the children in their barracks. They poured gasoline around the pilings and lit them up. The guards just stood back and watched. Two hundred kids roasted to death. Kids just like my daughter."

Gianelli put on a mask of public sympathy, but underneath it, Mitch could see the real pain.

"There haven't even been arrests," he added.

"You can't arrest a city, Mitch. Even the New York Times New York Times calls them virus children now. Everyone's scared." calls them virus children now. Everyone's scared."

"There hasn't been a case of s.h.i.+ver in ten years. It was a fluke, d.i.c.k. An excuse for some people to trample on everything this country has ever stood for."

Gianelli squinted at Mitch but did not challenge this appraisal. "There isn't much more the congressman can do," he said.