He was wrapping his finger with thread again.
“They tried to make a super bug killer. A protein that would kill off all corn pests. Superresilient corn. That was in 2000. It worked. Too well. Killed off just about any bug that crawled on the corn, pest or not. Well, even the lab boys knew that wouldn’t fly in the ecosystem. But it was already out. Cry9E corn got mixed in with Cry9C, no one really knows how. And it got distributed. And it cross-pollinated. And there was what a white paper I read once called Lateral Transfer of Antibiotic Resistance Marker Genes.”
Park had leaned forward, focusing on the other man’s mouth. An insistent thrum, as if his hands were cupped over his ears, grew within his head.
Senior was pulling the thread tight, the tip of his finger becoming intensely purple.
“And that’s it. Cry9E, a designed materials pesticidal protein. We ate it. Or we ate something that ate it. Or we breathed it when it was burned as ethanol. And what it was meant to do to the digestive system of an insect, it did to our brains. It spread through conformational influence and ate holes in our brains. Innocent as all hell, trying to feed and fuel the masses, some asshole in a lab somewhere created a species-killing prion. Without even knowing it.”
He pulled the thread tighter.
“Took eight years from 2000 for it to spread, become recognizable as something clearly other than fatal familial insomnia or mad cow or CJD. And another two years for us to get here. One out of ten symptomatic.”
Park stood.
“What’s?”
He looked around the room.
“How do we? We have to.”
He looked at Senior.
“We have to. Symptomatic?”
Senior rose.
“Ten percent symptomatic. Infection rates are way beyond that level. And it’s still spreading.”
Park took one step and froze.
“People are, no one has said anything. Who knows? People are eating corn. People are.”
Senior took his empty glass to the bar.
“No one figured this out quickly. By the time anyone knew where SLP came from. It was. Hell. And what do you do? Tell people to stop eating corn? Tell them, ‘We know it’s all you have, all you can afford, and we know we can’t afford to distribute alternatives to you, so just be quiet and starve, will you?’ I saw a projection, one of these think tank types, a projection based on what would happen if someone could just kill off all the corn, spray it, something; this man’s projection combined an assumed zero yield in corn with the impact of drought on rice and ended up with mass cannibalism in less than a decade. Socially accepted cannibalism.”
He set his snifter on the bar.
“There’s no one to tell. There’s no one to save. There’s no going back. A lot of people, most of us, are going to die. It’s going to take some years, but that’s the endgame. Society, what’s out that front door, it’s going to keep breaking down smaller and smaller. People are going to get more and more afraid. They’re going to rely on what they know, what they can count on. It’s too big already, too big to stop. People, people who know, people like me, we’re just trying to tap the brakes, slow everything down, keep it as normal as possible, keep people as comfortable as possible. As long as possible.”
He took the stopper from the bottle of cognac, then put it back.
“The slower it happens, the better the chance it won’t all just crash and burn. The less people know, the lower the chance they’ll go crazy all at once and just tear everything down. And the projections on that scenario, you don’t want to know about those. If the statistics I’ve seen are half-right, there’s still a better than even chance that someone somewhere will set off a nuke before this all shakes out. And then all the models break down. No one can say who might start pushing buttons.”
He faced Park, the forgotten thread still around his finger.
“People in despair, Haas, they don’t curl up and die. They are foolish and dangerous. We’ve lost the fight against SLP It had won before we knew what it was. Now we’re fighting despair. Trying to convince people there’s a reason to watch TV, go to work, clean up after the dog, pay the bills, obey traffic laws, not go next door and kill your neighbor’s kid for playing his guitar too loud in the garage.”
He noticed the thread and began to unwind it.
“Just let them believe for a little longer that there is hope and a reason to live.”
He dangled the thread from between his fingers.
“Because some people will live. There’s an immunity. Something to do with alterations in the prion gene. Whether you’re heterozygotic plays into it. Some people are going to live.”
He pinched the ends of the thread and stretched it between his hands.
“And we have to make sure there’s something left for them.”
The thread broke.
Park finished taking the step he had started moments before.
“I’m going to arrest your son.”
Senior dropped the pieces of string.
“Haas. No. What is going to happen is my people, those former Mossad and Shabak agents that work for me, they are going to escort you from the property. At the Bel Air gates you will be photographed by the Thousand Storks contractors that handle security up here. Then you will be driven to your car. And you will go home. And you will never come back here again, or come near my son, or you will be killed. Now, I don’t expect you’ll accept anything from me. Not as a bribe, I mean, but in the way of help. Nonetheless, I would like to help you and your family. All you have to do is ask, but you must ask now.”
He stopped speaking, and nothing was said in the room for a moment, and he nodded and continued.
“As I expected. However, you had among your possessions when you were picked up, a bottle of Dreamer. It will still be with your possessions when they are returned to you at your car.”
He tightened the belt of his bathrobe.
“In this house, the main house, I mean, are many members of my extended family. They are here because I can care for them. Most of them are sleepless. Some are in the suffering. They have almost unlimited access to Dreamer. They can take a cap or two whenever they feel disoriented or in pain, and sleep and dream. And wake feeling almost like themselves. Unlike most anyone else in the world, they can do that for as long as several months, until they die. Not just the last few weeks like they do in the hospitals. Or, if they choose, if they are tired and spent and sad with the world, they can swallow twelve to eighteen caps of Dreamer at once and go deeply to sleep. The sleep lasts for several minutes to several hours, it is characterized by a general relaxation of all muscles, brain waves fall into continuous deltas, profound REM dreaming, no indications of unsettled or unpleasant dreams, and as the muscles relax further, the lungs slowly stop expanding, and the heart stops beating. From everything I have seen, it is a peaceful and merciful death.”
He stood at the door.
“As I say, that bottle of Dreamer will be with your possessions when you are sent home. It is yours. To do with what you will.”
He twisted the knob.
“Odd to think, I’d not have met you if it wasn’t for my son’s unwillingness to use a proper security detail. I’m forced to have my boys spy on him from a distance. That’s the only reason they caught wind of the man at your heels. If it had just been you, I don’t imagine I’d have gotten involved. But I saw the file on that man. Jasper. No last name. Never a good sign, no last name. Not someone you want near your family. Some of my people had it in their heads the two of you were working together. But I can see pretty clearly they were mistaken. Any idea why he was following you?”
Park was at sea now, barely treading water, so he saved his breath.
Senior patted his hair.
“Well, I wouldn’t say it was nothing to be concerned about, drawing the attention of such a man, but he won’t be an issue for you or yours. Or for anybody. And the world will be a better place without him.”