It takes a little extra work to pull her off.
She keeps feeding while she swings her fist around, trying to force me back, but I get an arm around her neck and manage to wrench her face from Amanda’s arm. She’s pretty pissed about that and looks to kill me for it, then her eyes kind of roll up and she goes to all four and crawls away and curls up and goes to sleep.
So I get to live another day.
Or another minute anyway.
Time will tell.
– I’d say, if anyone was asking, I’d say he’s working for Predo on this one.
– Shut up, Philip.
– Just I’m saying is all, how those enforcers didn’t exactly beat down the door to get after him is all.
Amanda stops flicking through the slides that zip across her monitors.
– How about that, Joe, are you working for Predo again?
I pause in my rummaging.
– Yeah, afraid so. He’s getting ready to raid the place. I’m supposed to get some quick intel, get out and let him know if there’s anything in here to worry about.
She starts flicking through slides again.
– See, Philip, nothing to worry about.
Phil rocks back and forth in his chair.
– Man, there are like sooo many things in what he just said that I can worry about.
I hold up a carton of shitty clove cigarettes that smell like candy.
– Is this all you laid up?
She glances over.
– Yeah. Help yourself. I totally gave up on that bad habit.
I think about it. I will admit that much, I do think about it. Then I drop the carton back where I found it and grab a bottle of Scotch instead.
– You give up this bad habit?
She shakes her head.
– No. But I’m a total lightweight these days.
Sela is still sleeping, but I cut a path well around her anyway.
– Yeah, wonder why that is.
Amanda fingers the edge of the bandage she put over the fresh cut in her arm. Both arms have several more similar wounds, from well-healed to barely scabbing.
– Don’t be an asshole, Joe. I mean, don’t be that kind of asshole. I mean, please, am I going to let her starve?
I twist the cap from the bottle and find a couple dirty glasses in the mess on her desk and pour a couple drinks.
– That would be my plan.
She takes a glass from me.
– No it wouldn’t. I mean, say it if you need to, but no, that wouldn’t be your plan.
Phil looks up when he hears liquid hitting glass and comes over.
– Yeah, Joe’s plan would be more like to just shoot her.
We both look at him.
He shrugs.
– I’m just saying, but I don’t know anything, so I’m just saying.
He points at the bottle.
– Um?
I drink what’s in my glass, refill it, set the bottle down and find a chair.
– Help yourself, Phil.
I take a sip.
– What we got going on tonight, it won’t happen again.
That worm, I was waxing poetical about, it’s fucking here. Looking at Amanda in her dirty jeans and filthy lab coat as she stares at her monitors, I can just about see it behind her eyes.
Something’s eating her. And I don’t mean Sela.
– I can barely look at you, Joe.
– What’s that mean?
She flicks a couple more slides across her screens.
– I mean, Joe, I mean, come on. We’ve been through so much together. I mean, would I even be here without you. I don’t mean like would I be alive, because, yes, yes, I’d have been dead years ago without you. I mean, would I be here?
Still looking at those screens, she flips a hand, taking in the circumstances.
I empty another finger from my glass. Ha ha.
– Don’t blame me, kid. You got yourself neck deep.
She shakes her head.
– See, and that is why I can barely look at you. Because after all this, you’re still this person I don’t even know. This thing I don’t even know. Gah. I hate it.
I’m watching the screen myself. Those slides. Some I can tell are blood cells. I’ve seen that kind of thing before. White and red. Little blobs and little donuts things. Other stuff she’s looking at, I don’t know. Could be explosions in space, could be sculpture, could be deep-sea spine creatures, could be mold. Could be anything.
But knowing the girl, they’re all viruses. That’s her bag.
Viruses and the Vyrus.
I look into my glass.
– What’s to know.
She giggles.
– Joe.
Giggles some more.
– Oh, Joe.
Gets ahold of herself.
– If you only knew.
I take a drink.
– Har-dee-har-har.
She spins her chair to face me.
– Spying for Predo.
– Yep.
– Again.
– Yep.
– I mean.
– Yep.
She waggles the fingers of her left hand.
– You didn’t have to do that, Joe.
I set my glass down, go for my tobacco.
– What’s that?
She folds her left pinkie, thumb and most of her ring finger into her palm.
– You didn’t have to sit still for Predo doing that to you.
I flip the pouch at Phil, quietly shaking, drinking his booze and staring at Sela.
– Make yourself useful, Phil.
He picks up the pouch and starts to roll one.
I look back at Amanda.
– I’m sorry, you were suggesting what craziness now?
She unfolds her fingers.
– I was suggesting that you went to some odd length to convince Predo you were desperate and would, I mean, you know, do his bidding.
– Lady.
I snap a finger that has a thumb to work with and Phil hands me my smoke.
– You find new ways of being crazy every time I see you.
She turns to her screen.
– Joe Pitt lets himself be captured by Predo. Lets himself be tortured. All so he can convince Predo to send him in here. And make sure I’m OK.
She giggles.
– And I’m not even your type.
I light up.
– Know what’s funniest about how wrong you are?
– Tell me, Joe, I mean, tell me.
I blow smoke.
– It’s that the missing fingers are supposed to make you believe Predo really tried to kill me and I just barely got away.
She tosses some hair.
– Well sure, but I’m talking about subtext.
Phil comes for the bottle and pours himself another.
– You are both, I’m just saying as a casual observer and not like an expert or anything, but you are both in need of some, what I’d call, some serious help.
She flicks to another slide.
– We have some strange history, Joe and me.
The bottle is almost empty. Not that it took very long.
Sela’s breathing has changed, become less peaceful. I’ve wandered around the room and looked at most everything I can, but I still can’t get a look through the half-open door into the living quarters. Phil’s nodding, not quite passed out, but not for lack of trying.
Amanda’s getting weirder as she gets drunker.
And she’s talking. And talking. And talking.
– So for a while I went on this other trip. I mean, OK, the Vyrus, it just won’t make sense. It won’t behave at all virusy. Yes, OK, yes, it lacks the ability to reproduce on its own. Yes it accesses healthy cells so it can get at the machinery it needs to reproduce. But there’s no, like, modus operandi. Like, take a normal virus, it might do all kinds of stuff to get into a cell. It might pretend to be another cell. It might just jump out from behind something and attack a cell. It might, just, you know, like, anything. But like just one thing. OK. And, the Vyrus, it does everything. Watch it long enough, take enough samples from enough infecteds, you’ll see it do everything.