ALICE CLOSED HER LAPTOP AND set it aside. Then she stood and opened the blinds all the way around the room. Morning had evaporated like something volatile, and she’d been working since before first light. But now that her work fugue had snapped, the room’s darkness slapped her like an open palm. She didn’t like being in the dark. Not for a week now.
The day was bright — and, when she opened the sash, Alice found it brisk as well, the North Carolina late summer beginning its slide into a moderately cool autumn. She took a moment to feel the sun on her face, to breathe deeply. Only then, her body assured that morning had come again with its innocent light, did she feel steeled enough to make her call.
Her party answered on the fifth ring — enough that Alice was about to hang up, glad to forget about all of this for another day.
“Alice?”
“Hey, Ian.”
“Wow. Feels like it’s been forever.”
“It’s only been a week.”
“I know. That’s why I said ‘feels.’”
There was a long pause on the line. Alice wasn’t sure why. She’d covered the plague from the beginning, and she’d seen horrors in Yosemite. She, Ian, and August had blown the lid on the biggest story of the century — maybe ever — and all she could feel was a throbbing sense of regret or loss or odd malaise. As if they shared a horrible secret and vowed never to speak of it again.
“Have you been to work?” she asked.
“I have. It’s interesting.”
“Since the takeover, you mean.”
“Yes. But I guess it’s for the best. Panacea doesn’t care about making a profit, but it’s like the damage is already done. It kind of sucks. None of us had anything to do with Sherman Pope, but it’s like we all feel guilty anyway. You should see the morale around here.”
Alice could imagine. She also happened to know that nearly a third of Hemisphere HQ’s employees were dead, but had left jobs that still needed doing. Panacea had filled those slots with efficiency not typical of the government, but then again Hemisphere wasn’t just another company.
Smyth’s words followed the thought, clanging in her head like a bell: Hemisphere is too big to fail. It had, in the new zeitgeist, become the perfect embodiment of necessary evil. The company had been gutted, all of Burgess’s systems dismantled, scientists of every stripe poring over Necrophage’s now open-source documentation, Burgess himself apparently in protective custody in a prison somewhere. Everyone understood that the rank and file had had nothing to do with what Burgess’s actions, and everyone knew Necrophage still needed to flow for untold millions to survive. That surely didn’t stop employees like Ian from getting the evil eye wherever they went.
“How are … things?”
“You mean with Bridget.”
“I mean things.”
Ian laughed without humor then repeated, “You mean with Bridget.”
“I — ”
“She’s right here beside me. She’s not threatened by your calls these days.” He laughed again, but this time it felt forced. The kind of uncomfortable laugh that follows something a person wishes he hadn’t said to a person who probably won’t find it funny.
Alice heard the movement of fabric and the brush of skin: Ian likely standing, moving away from Bridget, uneasy or because he needed to speak freely.
“Okay,” he said a moment later. “Not good.”
“What do you mean?”
“She has nightmares. She’s always edgy.”
“It’s only been a week. That’s understandable.”
“She’ll barely talk to me. Like it was all my fault.”
“Ian — ”
“We’re going to be moving, too,” he said, interrupting her.
“Oh.”
“To somewhere more affordable.”
Realization dawning. “Oh,” she said.
“Bridget doesn’t like that, either.”
Alice said nothing, unsure where to go with any of it. According to what Panacea reps had said at Monday’s press conference, all designer formulations were being discontinued effective immediately. Base Necrophage would still be free, but now it would be government money, not profits, keeping the company afloat. Little room in the budget for salaries like the one that had kept the Keys family so comfortable.
“Are there going to be layoffs?”
“We’re not sure, but do the math. We’re only here to churn out Necrophage. Even the other drugs are being released from their patents, and our competitors are getting subsidies to make generics. The people Panacea put in to replace everyone who died are temps, so they lift right out. I’m not sure why half these people would want to stay anyway.”
“It’s a government job.”
Ian laughed, again without humor.
“Are you leaving?” Alice asked.
“Not sure yet. I don’t have prospects lined up, and certainly nothing that pays anywhere near what I made before the readjustments. But it’s like a morgue in here. Almost literally. Kate, Gary … I think Smyth is still around, and nobody’s blown his cover just yet. Oh, and I’m pretty sure my buddy and sometimes home invader, Danny must’ve bitten it, too. I didn’t see his name on the list for the big funeral, but they’re still … you know … sorting parts.”
Alice felt her eyes close.
“But hey. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?” Ian said, falsely bright.
For Alice, maybe. She had her nightmares, and her dream. She hadn’t been paranoid about Hemisphere; they really had been hiding something worth keeping secret. But was the world better off? Maybe and maybe not. Now it had no real champion to rally behind, no true savior. Hemisphere was now the nation’s merciful captor, who’d slit its throat then rolled its eyes and handed over a rag to staunch the bleeding.
“If you say so,” Alice said.
“Seriously. Look what we learned that could have been learned in much worse ways. I mean, what if some feral had decided to bite a necrotic in an area that wasn’t so neatly contained?”
“Ian … ”
“But now, in the new formulation, the PhageY component has been greatly increased. I guess they can be pretty aggressive with it, seeing as the disease-killing half of Necrophage can’t hurt someone who, really, is kind of already dead. I hear that now, if a jerky feral decides to bite someone who’s on Necrophage, all that new Sherman Pope flooding their system won’t make a dent.”
Alice wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t just Ian’s wallet and home life (and maybe marriage) that had taken a hit. His identity was in the gutter. Two weeks ago, he’d been working for the world’s favorite shining star of a company, near its top, proud of all he’d accomplished. Now he was a gear in a machine. Burgess was gone. Without him and with Panacea in charge, Hemisphere was just turning a crank. Government allocations went in one end, and a single, boring product was spit out of the other.
“What will happen with people like Holly?”
“You mean psychics who saw this coming but didn’t bother to warn any of us?”
Holly had warned someone. She warned Bridget, who’d used the warning without causing damage. Bobby had heard of it after the fact and established exactly why telling him before would have been a bad idea. He’d returned to Yosemite and resumed the search for his white whale, sure that Holly’s information had somehow crossed the entire continental US to reach her. Sure that modified BioFuse had succeeded after all, creating an upgraded mind amid the mindless horde.
“People on designer formulations.”
“They’ll live,” Ian said bitterly.
“August said that if you’re on a designer drug for too long and then go back to base Phage, there can be side effects.”
“Yes. Sometimes, people get depressed. Sometimes, they get despondent. Sometimes, they get bummed out. Oh! And I forgot one. Sometimes, they get sad.”
“I thought maybe — ”
“Believe me — we’d still be making Truth and Beauty and all the other designers if going off them is harmful. But Phage is Phage. I’ve learned a lot about it, now that every channel on my TV and every fucking website I visit is discussing what used to be my company’s secrets. The base is what matters. The mix-ins that come with the designers add more life-extension sorts of benefits, nothing vital. Ask Bobby. August has been giving him gene therapy manicures for years. Or ask Holly. Use your psychic mind to ask her, maybe. Because I kind of doubt August will stop making custom formulations for her, given the way he talks about Holly and her progress.” He laughed. “Shit. It’s the same exact way Bobby talks about his Golem. Like they’re superzombies.”
Alice sighed, waiting this out. She didn’t like to hear Ian so bitter, but it was hard to imagine what he was going through. She’d lost nobody and nothing. If anything, more people knew Alice Frank today and wanted to talk to her than they had before. Ian and Bridget’s changes hadn’t been as pretty.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could think to say.
“I’ll be okay. We both will. But it’s a bummer. And I lost some friends.”
“You still have me.”
“Yeah. Well, do you drink beer?”
“I drink wine.”
“Not good enough. You’re no Danny.”
“And it’s Danny you’re missing. The guy who was in your bushes, scaring your wife and daughter.”
“Danny was a good guy. Just … maybe a bit too ambitious.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Panacea took over, they did an inventory audit. They asked me about a whole shitload of designer Necrophage I’d requisitioned. I asked a buddy here to pull security footage, and it turns out Danny must’ve been using my codes. Emptying the stores, practically. But I played it off. Spouted some Hemisphere jargon and made them go away. Because fuck it. If I’d known how things would turn out, I’d’ve sold designer shit on the sly, too.”
Alice wasn’t sure, from Ian’s tone, if she should laugh or act shocked. “He was stealing drugs and selling them?”
“Good for him.”
“If you say so,” Alice said.
“Crafty kid. Smart. A total hustler. I miss him; really, I do, as dumb as it sounds. But a stupid kid sometimes, too. Because he took way too much — I guess sure it’d never catch up with him. The best lines. Must’ve made millions. Good for him. And even components, though I have no idea why he’d have done that unless he was planning to sell Hemisphere’s secrets, which I kind of doubt.”
Alice felt her mouth form a frown. “What are ‘components’?”
Ian laughed. “Just goes to show what a lovable fuckup Danny is. Or maybe was. We’ve got these superexpensive designer formulations — like Stardom, which costs the price of a luxury car each month. But what did Danny take the most of? Go on, guess.”
“How the hell could I possibly know that?”
“PhageX. That’s what he took most. What was he even doing with it?” Now Ian was laughing. It felt nice to hear, but Alice was still confused.
“What’s PhageX?”
“Come on. I thought you were an expert?”
“Just tell me, Ian.”
“It’s the stasis half of base Necrophage. It’s not even available for order. I guess my code could requisition it, but it’s only meant to go up our own chain so the labs can make Necrophage. But seriously, Danny: What the hell? And he kept going back for more, week after week.” He was laughing harder now, maybe too hard. Maybe a bit manic.
“What would anyone do with it?”
“That’s my question. PhageX plus PhageY is Necrophage. PhageX plus one of the designer mix-ins — which contain PhageY, of course, but also all that fancy stuff too — is high-end Necrophage. But PhageX is … just PhageX, I guess.”
Alice gave him a little fake laugh, but something was bothering her. Something she couldn’t articulate.
“I’ve gotta go, Ian. Nice talking to you.”
“All right, Alice. Don’t be a stranger.” And he hung up.