He grinned, not a happy expression. Matt said, “Sounds like Jack Daniel’s talking.”
“Two advantages to getting drunk. You can say ridiculous things. And you can say the obvious thing.”
“What’s the obvious thing?”
“That this is not entirely unconnected with that rucking unnatural object in the sky.”
Maybe, Matt thought. But he had heard everything from hot weather to diaper rash blamed on the Artifact, and he was wary of that line of thinking. “There’s no evidence…”
“I know what organic disease looks like. This is something altogether else. This didn’t happen over the course of a month, Matt. We’re talking about days. Practically hours. Bacteria can reproduce that quickly. But if these were bacteria they would have killed us all by now.”
But if that were true—“No,” he said. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to think about that.”
“You and the rest of the world.”
“I mean it. It’s too frightening.” He looked into his glass, vaguely ashamed. “I accept what you’re telling me. But if it’s somehow connected with the Artifact—if these things are already inside us—then it’s game over, isn’t it? Whatever they want—it’s theirs. We’re helpless.”
There was a silence. Then Jim put his glass on the side table and sat up. “I’m sorry, Matt. I did a shitty thing. I came here and dumped my problems in your lap. Not fair.”
“I’d rather be scared than ignorant.” But it was late. They had gone beyond productive conversation. Matt was afraid to check his watch; he had office hours to keep in the morning. Plague or no plague. “I need to sleep.”
“I can let myself out.”
“You can sleep on the sofa, you asshole. Is Lillian waiting up?”
“I told her I might spend the night at the office.”
“Spend some time with her tomorrow.” Jim nodded.
Matt gave him a blanket from the closet in the hall. “We’re in some pretty deep shit here, aren’t we?”
“Pretty deep.” Jim stretched out on the sofa. He put his glasses on the table and closed his eyes. His unhandsome face looked pale. “Matt—?”
“Hm?”
“The blood I took? The fresh sample? The blood I looked at under the microscope?”
“What about it?”
“It was mine.”
Matt allowed his alarm clock to wake him—savoring a long moment of twilight sleep, when the things Jim had told him were still submerged, a presence felt but not explicit. Then woke to a raw headache and terrible knowledge.
It was a fine, sunlit morning. He forced himself through a shower and put on clothes that felt like 100-grit sandpaper. Rachel was in the kitchen fixing breakfast. Fried eggs. Matt looked at his plate. Only looked.
“Are you sick?” his daughter asked.
“No.” Unless we all are.
She sniffled. “Dr. Bix is asleep on the sofa.”
“He’s not due at the hospital until noon. We should let him sleep. He needs it.”
She shot him a quizzical look but let the subject rest.
Rachel believed in the power of a home-cooked breakfast, and she insisted on cooking it herself. The pattern had been established during Celeste’s illness and continued after her death, when Matt had been inclined to leave breakfast and dinner in the hands of McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, respectively. Matt had supposed it was Rachel’s way of mourning, packaging her grief in these daily rituals. By now it had become simply habit. But she did the work solemnly and always had. More than solemnly. Sadly.
Since last year, that sadness had seemed to infect all the other aspects of her life—the way she walked, the way she dressed, the mournful music she played on the stereo Matt had given her for Christmas. In her final year of high school, she had pulled a perfunctory B average—her aptitude for schoolwork tempered by a blossoming despair.
He picked at the eggs while she dressed for the day. When he saw Rachel again she was heading out the door, meeting some friends, she said, at the mall. She smiled distantly. “Dinner the usual time?”
“Maybe we’ll go out,” Matt said. “Dos Aguilas. Or maybe the Golden Lotus.”
She nodded.
“I love you,” he said. He told her so often. Today, it came out sounding awkward and ineffectual.
She gave him a curious look. “You too, Daddy,” she said. And smiled again.
It wasn’t a happy smile. It said, Are things really as bad as that? Matt tried to smile back. He guessed it was an appropriate answer. A brave but unconvincing grin. Yes, Rachel. Things are at least as bad as that.
Chapter 4
Headlines
COUP ATTEMPT RUMORS DENIED
White House sources and a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement today denying that a military coup d’etat against the administration was in the making.
Unusual movements of airborne and infantry battalions around Washington, D.C., had roused speculation in some quarters. Publication in The Washington Post of a document allegedly leaked from the office of Air Force General Robert Osmond fueled rumors earlier in the week.
Asked whether the President would address these developments in his Friday speech to the nation, a White House spokesman suggested the topic didn’t warrant further comment.
VANDALISM AT BROOKSIDE
Police are investigating extensive acts of vandalism that occurred last night at Brookside Cemetery.
Vandals apparently entered the cemetery after dark and left several monuments defaced with spray paint. Swastikas and skulls were among the crude emblems left behind.
Cemetery Director William Spung told the Observer that cleaning the headstones will take at least a week and will be “very costly.”
Police Chief Terence McKenna admits such cases are often difficult to solve. “Acts like this are usually committed by adolescents,” McKenna said. Police are considering a “Vandalism Awareness” program for local public schools.
No motive has been suggested for the crime.
“TAIWAN FLU” ON MARCH
According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the nation is in the grip of a flu epidemic.
Cases of the so-called “Taiwan Flu” have been reported from all over the country.
The disease is a mild strain of influenza and is not considered dangerous.
“You might consider stocking up on Kleenex,” a spokesman said.
Chapter 5
D.C.
The President adopted a posture of calm repose—elbows on desk, fingers steepled beneath his chin—as the Secretary of Defense was admitted into the Oval Office. “You’re looking well, Charlie,” the President said.
“And yourself, sir,” Charles Atwater Boyle responded… perhaps, the President thought, with just a touch of genuine surprise.
The truth was that Charlie Boyle did not, in fact, look remotely well. His cheeks were patchy red, as if he were running a mild fever—no doubt he was. And he appeared to be nervous about this nighttime meeting, to which the President had summoned him without explanation. Charlie Boyle had matriculated through two bastions of poker-faced reserve, the Marine Corps and the banking industry, and had kept his political balance as well as any member of the Cabinet—at least until now—but the blank exterior was itself a clue to the struggle beneath. His notoriously chilly blue eyes darted periodically to the left, as if he was consulting some presence in the air—a cue card, perhaps. Or wishing for one.