“He’s going to spread the virus by air, isn’t he?”
Gretchen sat at our kitchen counter in an almost tangible cloud of gloom. She looked as sad as a cocker spaniel pup whose favorite squeaky toy has been taken away to be washed. The poor doggy doesn’t understand that he’ll get it back. Gretchen was a lot like that spaniel except, since her blouse was stained and mis-buttoned, and she’d worn several holes in her slacks, I’d say the better analogy would be to a junkyard mutt.
“Not quite. But he’s going to try,” Travis told her. “Sweet Jesus, Alec! This mayo’s so old even I’m tempted not to eat it. When did you decide to open up the Ptomaine Palace?”
The first part of Travis’s statement was muffled, mostly because his head and shoulders were engulfed in my refrigerator while he rummaged for more calories to pack onto his waist.
“That’s the egg mayo. We must have forgotten to throw it out when we switched to the soy-based stuff. Besides, fruit’s healthier for you.”
I plucked an orange from the bowl we kept on the counter and held it up so that he could see what an actual piece of healthy food looked like.
Travis acknowledged the fruit with the barest of grunts, and turned his back on it. He unscrewed the top of the mayonnaise jar and spooned a huge dollop of the stuff onto a slice of raisin toast. It may have been due to some strange effect of the overhead light, but I’m pretty sure that mayonnaise isn’t supposed to be quite that shade of bright yellow. My revulsion must have shown on my face.
“Don’t worry.” He licked the spoon with gusto and I shuddered. “Cast iron gut. Galvanized rubber. Stainless steel. You should be more careful, kiddo. Peter doesn’t have the Whirlwind’s constitution.”
“Oh, I’ve known Whirlwind to suffer a Morning After or two,” Gretchen couldn’t resist pointing out.
“I’m so grateful that I can always count on you being there to rub my face in it,” I assured her with acid sweetness.
“Speaking of rubbing your face…what the hell were you guys doing up there in midair? From the ground–and from the photo on the front page of the Centerport Chronicle–it looked like you two were getting hot and heavy.”
“Nanoprobes,” Travis said.
“No,” Gretchen said. “I’m pretty sure it was sixty-nine.”
“Technically, it’s not airborne. Not on its own. I think he’s planning on using nanoprobes. I’ll explain if you two kids will stop bickering for a minute.”
“I’m a full-grown woman, Travis, not a kid.”
“That you are, Gretchen, my heart. That you are.”
She blushed and quickly tried to change the subject. “Is it okay to talk about this when Peter could be home any minute?”
“About what? About you and Travis having a romantic candlelight dinner somewhere?”
Her flush deepened.
“He’s holed up with the Greene Genes lawyers,” I told them, “and won’t be home until late. Seems the company could get sued for this even though it’s all because of Thanatos.”
She nodded. Evidently, she understood the machinations of the legal system better than I did.
“What’s this business about nanoprobes?”
Travis chewed lustily for a moment; a little mayo clung to one corner of his mouth. He spied a liter bottle of soda and used it to wash everything down. He drank directly from the bottle, which always grosses me out.
“Ugh. Diet.” He grimaced at the label.
“Which you could use,” I pointed out.
“That’s what was in the black tube he left behind. Nanoprobes. Inert ones, but they still make his point. The fact that he even has them suggests that he’s quite capable of carrying out his threat. I’m beginning to suspect that was part of Brad Harmon’s focus before he was killed. He was trying to adapt nanoprobes to solve his Three-Two-Three problem.”
“What are nanoprobes?” I asked.
“That’s a more complicated question than you’d suppose,” he said. “You could think of them like microscopic robots.”
“Like that old movie with Raquel Welch?” I asked. “Where they take the miniature submarine into the guy’s body and almost get eaten up by the critters in his blood?”
Travis chuckled. “Sort of. Except they’re not mechanical. We don’t build them. We grow them from living cells and ‘program’ them for a specific task.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s say you’ve got a patient with inoperable brain cancer. You program special nanoprobes to target and attack the cancerous cells. In a single syringe, you could inject a few hundred thousand of them into your patient. Then, you let them multiply into a brain cancer eating army. It’s not quite that simple, of course. You’d have to worry about the body’s immune system counter-attacking, for example. But that’s the theory at least.”
While he was talking, he used the handle of the dirty mayo spoon to scoop a huge glob of peanut butter out of a different jar and spread in onto his toast. He topped that with a couple of sliced pickles and some leftover cottage cheese.
“I think that Thanatos has developed a way to use nanoprobes to transmit the toxic variant of the Feed the World virus directly from host to host. That is, people wouldn’t have to eat the tainted food in order to be affected.”
He doused the sandwich filling with hot sauce and covered the mess with another slice of cinnamon toast. I felt my gorge rise.
“Could you reverse engineer it?’ Gretch wanted to know. “Develop a vaccine maybe?”
Travis shook his head and her expression fell even further.
“We’ll have to leave that to the folks at Greene Genes. I may be brilliant but…” He waited for compliments that never came. “…I’m pretty much a glorified engineer. I’ve got a good foundation in basic chemistry. But once you bring biology into the mix, not so much.”
“This is not making me feel any better,” she said.
“Let’s assume,” Travis went on, “that Brad Harmon already did the bulk of the work. He grew the nanoprobes and tailored them to carry the Feed the World virus. If that’s what happened, Thanatos’ job was easy. All he had to do was reprogram them. That would require some specialized equipment but as long as he was using preexisting research as a guide, and not just stumbling around blindly, he wouldn’t even need an advanced degree to understand how to do it. It’s basic lab tech stuff. And that’s exactly what was in the vial he left behind.”
“Good god.” Gretchen blanched.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist just yet,” Travis reassured her. “Thanatos is a lot different from the bad guys we’re used to seeing around here. He’s not asking for much, remember?”
“Define ‘much’.”
He ignored her.
“We should thank our lucky stars that it wasn’t someone like the Caterpillar who got his hands on this stuff.” He shuddered. “We’d be talking about wiping out humanity as a species. No, I’m even more certain of it now. This guy is strictly about the cash. And that, my little bon-bons, tells us something about him that should make us feel a lot better about this situation.”
“Oh yeah? What?” Her natural belligerence momentarily eclipsed her despondence.
“Think it through, Gretch. With this kind of technology in his pocket, he could easily get ten times what he asked for. Greed, then, is obviously not his motive. I was right in thinking that this guy needs the money for something specific. That means he’s probably not crazy.”
“That’s one point for our team,” I said.
“If I’m right, and he’s not one of the usual psychos, I’ll bet that he’s been very careful to make sure that, even if he releases the virus, it doesn’t get out of control.”
“He’s still threatening mass murder,” Gretchen said, irritated. “He’s hardly Mary Poppins.”
“While he may not object to a few deaths as, well, collateral damage, I don’t think his primary goal is killing people.”
“The stuff in that little vial would suggest otherwise.”
“That’s the interesting part,” Travis told her.
“What is?”
Gretchen was literally sitting on the edge of her chair to demand the information from him. But Travis was in no rush to alleviate the suspense. Instead of telling her, he took another huge bite out of his disgusting sandwich. I grabbed a paper towel and cleaned up the mélange of mayo, peanut butter, and pickle juice that he dripped onto the counter.
“The nanoprobes in the sample he gave us are duds,” he announced with satisfaction.
“Duds?”
“I don’t wanna get too technical so, how can I put this? He’s waving an unloaded gun. Think of the virus as being the bullets.”
“A bluff?”
He shook his head. “I’m not willing to make that wager. Not yet. I can think of too many reasons for him to do it this way. Good reasons. The biggest one is what you said earlier. He doesn’t want to risk us being able to reverse engineer the technology. Not to mention giving us an edge in coming up with an antidote.”
“Could we do that?” For the first time, she brightened.
“According to what I saw of Brad’s notes…yeah. It’s not difficult. It takes time more than anything else. Bradley’s problem with this Three Two Three bugaboo he created was never about finding a cure for the victims. The thing he was struggling with was how to make sure they didn’t get infected in the first place. Still…”
His voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him. When he didn’t continue, Gretchen cleared her throat to remind him that we were still there.
“Oh, sorry. It just occurred to me that Thanatos might be having trouble programming the nanos with the pathogen.”
“Didn’t you just say that wouldn’t be a problem for him?”
Travis shrugged.
“I’m brainstorming here, guys. Trying to come up with reasons why the nanos he gave us were empty. The only way to know for sure is for us to get our hands on a sample of the actual organism.”
“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” Gretchen looked like she was on the verge of sinking into a funk again.
“We don’t,” Travis told her. “Alec does.”
That seemed to perk her up, I’m sorry to say.
“I see…”
She looked at me in this measuring way that I did not like one bit.
“Whirlwind’s biochemistry should be able to resist the results of being infected,” Travis continued.
“Should?” The squeak was back in my voice.
“Yeah. You may not realize it, Alec, but you catch colds just like normal people. The difference is that you never have the chance to develop any symptoms. Whirlwind’s body is just that good at fighting everything off.”
I gulped and hoped I misunderstood what he was proposing. “Are you saying…you want me to let these nano-thingies get inside me?”
“You’re not some kind of alien. You’re human. You’re just stronger than normal. The thing is, see, that a nanoprobe infection isn’t a natural one. It’s strong too. I bet they’d be able to survive against your body’s natural defenses. At least for a little while. The trick will be getting you into the lab so I can get samples before your immune system kills ’em off. If my theory is correct…”
“Theory? You don’t know?”
Travis shook his head cheerfully.
“There is no way I’m gonna risk being assimilated by pint-sized Borgs.”
I turned to Gretchen for support, but she was much happier now that we had a plan, even if it was at my expense.
“We’ll have to figure out a way to get you and Thanatos together again. I haven’t yet met a bad guy who didn’t want a chance to get the Whirlwind out of the way. We only have to present him with the opportunity,” she enthused.
“This is not the top item on my bucket list, gang.” I backed away from the two of them until I hit the kitchen wall and couldn’t go any further unless I was willing to re-plaster. “Look, I’m all for plunging into a roaring inferno to rescue some little girl’s kitten. If you need someone to face down a battalion of armed psychopaths bare-handed, or to stop a runaway freight train from smashing into a bus full of nuns, I’m your guy. But we’re talking about diseases here. Serious sickness, the kind that you can’t cure with warm blankets and chicken soup.”
“Alec…”
“Don’t you ‘Alec’ me!” I retreated behind the counter. “I have no desire to end up like that blueberry girl in Willie Wonka.”
“Stop being such a baby.”
“I have a loving husband. I have a very successful business. I am a pillar of this community. Richie even gave me a plaque that says so. Hell, I was the secretary for the Chamber of Commerce for a couple of months before they saw my handwriting and found out they couldn’t read the meeting minutes. That’s a lot to risk.”
“If Travis says he can do it…”
“That is exactly my point. He did not say he can do it. He only thinks he might be able to do it.”
“I doubt it would be life-threatening for you, Alec. In a worst-case scenario if it turns out that your system can’t fight it off, you might have to eat some specially grown food for a while until we figure out how to counteract the effects.”
“Where would we get this specially grown food, pray tell?” I demanded.
It was a testament to our friendship, I think, that neither one of them would look me directly in the eyes.
“Ah ha! See what I mean? We’re not talking about a couple weeks on Lean Cuisine, are we? It’s not like I can stop into the market to pick up a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, and some frozen dinners designed for freaking mutants, can I?”
“Fine.” Gretchen stood and pretended she was ready to leave. “Don’t do it. No sweat off my back. We’ll just need to be prepared to let thousands of people die because of this maniac. Not that you should feel any guilt about that, Alec. You just sit back and keep leasing out your fancy boys while the real professionals handle it. I’m sure you won’t lose a wink of sleep over it while you’re cuddled up with Peter, all nice and cozy…”
She stopped, her mouth dropped open, and her eyes got very round. Then, she smacked her forehead with her palm as if to jostle herself out of being stupid. With an overdone performance like that, Gretchen would never come close to an Oscar nomination but, nevertheless, she made her point.
“Wait! How silly of me to forget! Peter is only human, isn’t he? Why, he might be as susceptible to this stuff as everyone else. Isn’t that right, Travis?”
Wisely, Travis said nothing.
“While Peter is lying there dying, you can just snuggle up to your award from the Chamber of Commerce. Just forget that we asked for your help. You should worry about yourself. Just go about your business.”
“Thanatos is my business,” I growled before I realized what I’d done.
Gretchen smirked, pleased with herself.
“Fine! If you want the Whirlwind to catch a bad case of Devil Scooter Flu, I’ll run right out and catch it. But…” I rounded the counter and approached her ominously. “You will never use Pete to get me to do something this stupid ever again, d’you hear me? Never ever!”
She looked so damned smug that I wanted to hit something. But there was nothing in the kitchen that could be pulverized without risking questions from Peter about how it got that way. Frustrated, and even though it was kind of girly, the only thing I could think of to release my anger was to stamp my foot. So, I did.
Gretchen made a pouty-face and stamped back. It pissed me off even more, so I stamped again. Travis stamped his foot and then Gretchen stamped two times. In spite of myself, I felt a grin blooming. Gretchen followed with a staccato of stamping, and then a war whoop, and finally launched into a full-fledged, very politically incorrect, parody of a Native American rain dance.
I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh. It didn’t matter that I might have just signed my own death warrant. The idea of Gretchen as Pocahontas was too, too funny. If Gretchen were to try to sing about the wind’s colors, all the little forest animals for miles around would cower in their dens, with their little paws clamped to their ears to block the sound.
“Now that we have that settled,” Travis chortled, “how do we find Thanatos’ lair? Or do we sit here and wait for him to show up again?”
“I may not know much about anything important--” I started to say once I got my breath back.
“That’s for sure.”
“But I have instincts. And my instincts tell me that Thanatos is gonna come looking for me.”
“How sure of that are these…instincts?” Gretchen wanted to know.
“I doubt there’s much anyone could do to stop him.”
They stood silently, waiting for me to explain. Enjoying having the upper hand for once, I waited for them while they waited. Eventually, all that waiting became too much for Gretchen and she cracked.
“Dammit, Alec. Spill, will you?”
“I speak from experience. I used to hustle, remember?”
“What are you talking about?”
It was my turn to look smug.
“That boy is just dying to get into my pants! Wild horses couldn’t keep him away.”