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Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 2 May 94
Just left Bradley sleeping at my place and came in to check my latest tissue cultures. The new virus obliterated the wild card cultures and left the uninfected cultures unharmed.
Batch 94-04-28-24LQ, necrovirus Takis II, is what I've been looking for. The Black Trump. The real thing. Unstoppable and utterly deadly. And I wish to God I'd never conceived of such a thing.
Discovering my love for Bradley, and finding Maman again, have opened my eyes. I've been so wrong. The wild card is a horrible disease, yes. But its victims have the right to make whatever they can of their lives. It's not right for me to play God. I've been such an idiot. How could I have been so blind?
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Chin in hand, she stared at the journal entry on her computer screen for a long, long time. Then she closed the file, leafed again through her write-up of the Black Trump II test results, freshly printed, which lay on the desk beside the computer, and brushed her hair back with a sigh. She thought of the flasks of virus in the lab refrigerator just down the hall, thought of her lamia mother, thought of her centaur lover Bradley sprawled across her mattress with his arm flung over his face. Thought of what would happen if even a drop of this stuff were to touch them.
Twelve years' work, she thought. Forty percent of my life.
She exited the security software, and used the shredder function to destroy all her files on the virus. There were few; she had been careful to avoid recording any significant amount of technical detail on her research, despite the expensive security system on her PC. After a hesitation, she also shredded her personal journal.
Then she suited up in protective clothing, gathered her notes, and went into the clean room. She got out all fifteen flasks of Black Trump virus, both strains. The microwave could hold ten flasks at a time, and fifteen minutes at the highest setting would be more than long enough. She got the first batch started, used a flint on the Bunsen burner, and began crisping the analytical results and notes. She dumped the ashes into the hazardous medical waste bin.
A half hour later she was done. It amazed her, the ease and dispatch with which she could wipe out a life's work.
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Afterward, she headed to the clinic. It was still early, just after seven. The graveyard staff were still on duty and the halls quiet.
She had finished her resignation letter and was packing up her things when the phone rang.
"Dr. van Renssaeler. This is General MacArthur Johnson. I'm calling on Pan's behalf."
"Excellent. I'm glad you called; I wanted to give Uncle Pan an update. I'm just wrapping up here."
"Oh?"
"Mmmm. I'm afraid this gamble just hasn't paid off. I've decided to stop wasting my time at the Jokertown Clinic."
"On the contrary," he said. "We're all well aware of how successful your stay has been."
Clara closed her eyes, apprehensive. Calm, PC. Calm. "You have me confused."
"You've relied rather too heavily on the encryption software I had installed on your office computer, I'm afraid. Every time you saved your journal an invisible copy was made for me. I've been reporting your progress to Pan all along."
Clara gripped the desk's edge. Anger warred with terror, and, for a moment, won. "You've been spying on me, after all my years of devotion, all my hard work? That certainly tells me what kind of man you are."
"It's lucky I did." He paused. "This doesn't have to get ugly. All we want is for you to recreate your latest virus. What was it, batch 94-04-28-24LQ? Necrovirus Takis II. The Black Trump."
Clara pressed fingers to her lips. When she finally spoke, her words were calm. "I'm afraid I can't help you there. You'll have to get yourself another virologist."
"It's too late for that."
"No, I'd say it was just in the nick of time."
Another silence ensued. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll have to take other measures, then."
And he disconnected.
She dialed her father's home phone and got the answering machine. "Papa. It's urgent I speak to you right away. Pan and I have had a falling-out, and it's serious. I won't be reachable by phone, so I'll keep trying to reach you."
Then she tried his office. He was out and was unreachable.
"Tell him to check his messages at home," she told his secretary. "It's urgent."
And Bradley. If Johnson read her journal entry, he'd know Bradley was still at her place. He was in danger.
Clara dialed her phone number. But last night, for privacy, she'd set the answering machine to pick up right away, and had turned the volume all the way down.
Maybe, maybe he'd gotten up by now and by some fluke had turned the volume back up.
"Bradley, can you hear me? Pick up. Please pick up." Nothing. "Shit."
The super. He could take a message to Bradley. She called information, got his number, dialed it. No answer.
Clara bit her thumbnail, narrowed her eyes, and thought. She dialed 9-1-1.
"Operator, this is Clara van Renssaeler at 48 East 79th Street, apartment 6G. I have a medical emergency. A man has had a heart attack in my apartment. Send an ambulance right away."
She slammed the phone into the hook, scrawled a note to Bradley, to leave with the receptionist, that chicken woman. Then she grabbed her purse and ran.
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She ran all the way to the City Hall stop and shoved her way onto a packed Lexington Avenue express train. They had several minutes' lead on her, maybe more. But Johnson's headquarters were located in Brooklyn, and at this hour all the streets, tunnels, and bridges would be congested with traffic. The subways would be faster. With luck, she'd beat them.
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He woke suddenly and unpleasantly to the sound of a man's voice saying,
"Oh, God, how disgusting. She fucked him."
During his sleep Finn had managed to get himself cast against the bedroom wall. The only way up was to heave onto his back, and roll over on his other side. At times like this he was painfully aware of every ounce of his four hundred plus pounds. He heaved, and began the roll, and was stung by something hitting his belly. He managed to crane his human torso up enough to see the dart sticking up from his horse gut. Then the faces of the four men staring down at him got very fuzzy, and he slipped away into darkness. As unconsciousness took him he realized that he hadn't been imagining it. Clara wasn't with him.
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The ambulance sat at the entrance to her building, lights flashing. Relief weakened Clara's legs. She yanked the outer door open, fumbled her keys out of her purse to open the inner door, and limped over to the elevators, half doubled over with a stitch in her side.
At that moment the doorman led four paramedics from the freight elevator. Bradley was laid out on a stretcher - head, limbs, and horse's buttocks hanging off all over. They'd already started an IV and oxygen.
Her heart leapt. Too late. She was too late. They'd gotten to him. She ignored the doorman's disgusted stare.
"Oh God - Bradley! What's going on?"
"We received a call," the head paramedic said. "It appears to be a poisoning."
She lifted Bradley's eyelids; the pupils responded to light and were equal in size, but were massively dilated. Breathing shallow and rapid, pulse weak.
They loaded Bradley in the back of the van, and she hovered over him, gave his hair and mane a worried stroke.
"Where are you taking him?"
"Lenox Hill. It's the closet."
"I'll meet you there," she told them, and ran for the garage to get her car.