He just stood there, staring at me while his faceplate steamed up.
“What?”
“Uh. …”
Whoops. I hadn’t bothered to towel off all of the oatmeal. The robe was stuck to me here and there. I pulled it tighter, which was the wrong thing to do. Made his eyes bug out.
I snapped my fingers in front of his faceplate. “Hey! Fox! What … Do … You … Want?”
“Ma’am, if I tell you that … I’m afraid you’re gonna shoot me.”
Which is as close to a compliment as I’ve had in the last seven years, up here on the mountain. Yeah, so I glanced at the crossbow. I’ll admit that, but just for a second. Then I sighed. “I promise. I will not shoot you. Okay?”
Bozo nodded, but needed another half-minute or so to get back to the point. “Um, sorry to bother you.”
“Which you did because … ?”
“Oh. I, uh, I got a prelim diagnosis. On the house.”
“And?”
He had to yank his gaze upward to meet my eyes, but he managed it. “It’s … not an allergy.”
“Okay. What is it, then?”
“Well, um, listen. I took a look at the specs on this house. You may remember that Bi’Ome had to alter the house’s immune system.”
I nodded. “Yeah, so it wouldn’t react so strongly to all the things that make me sick.”
“That’s right. They, ah, we had to selectively cripple the antigen-recognition system, so that it wouldn’t react to … well, all sorts of things. Especially the man-made stuff—plastics and paints, and perfumes, insecticides—”
“Of course,” I said, getting a little impatient, I do admit. I mean, the man was standing there in a silk and cotton moonsuit, just so that he wouldn’t set me off.
“Well, that meant reducing the immunities that you’d already acquired to certain natural … biological hazards.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “Has my house been poisoned?”
“Technically, no!” Reynard answered.
“Then what the devil is wrong?”
“The house is infected.”
What? I stared at him. He mostly stared at the floor. Despite the faceplate, I could see how red he was. Like he was sick.
“Infected with … what?”
Reynard flicked a glance upward, then fled my gaze again. “At first, I thought it might be a herpes virus—”
“Herpes?!”
He jumped when I hit high C, but I just couldn’t help it. I screeched at the man. “Are you trying to tell me my house has a social disease? My house has never had sex!”
“I, uh, well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” answered Reynard, “but, um, that’s not exactly the virus I’m talking about.”
Huh? But … a thin shred of memory fled through my mind. What I’d thought was a dream. Erotic, sensual—surely that hadn’t been real?
Paralyzed by the sudden suspicion that my house might have more of a social life than I did, I glared at Reynard. I spoke softly, for fear of cutting my own throat with the razor’s edge of anger slicing at me from the inside out. “So what are you talking about?”
“Varicella zoster.”
Zoster? I’d heard that before. But I couldn’t quite make it click. “Vari-what?”
“It’s a childhood disease. Used to be. Hardly anyone gets it these days because most kids are immunized.”
“Most kids,” I repeated, arms akimbo. I found myself leaning forward. With reckless daring, I went right on leaning, ignoring the fact that my robe had flapped open. In fact, I took a giant step closer before I demanded, “What about houses?”
Reynard licked his lips. “We, uh, we didn’t think there would be any need. The odds against exposure, up here—”
Right. “Exposure—To—What?”
Then the Latin words clicked, somewhere deep down in my memory. Oh, no. I backed off again, staring at him. I threw wild glances at every wall. Every pale, red-speckled, minutely blistered wall.
“Dewdrop on a rose petal” … that’s how my mother’s medical books had described the rash. I rounded on Reynard. “My house has … chicken pox?”
He shrugged again. “There’s, um, a blood test we can run. To make sure.”
I shook my head, willing my hands to stay put on my hips, to remain fisted. I would not give in, not to the itchiness or to the need to slap the living shit out of this so-called tech aide. “Don’t bother. Just treat it.”
“Well, I, um …”
“Honest to God, I can’t take much more of this,” I told him, squirming. The oatmeal solution on my skin was drying up. My bathrobe was stuck to the stuff, so my every move tugged at it, making everything itch all the more. “Do something!” I pleaded.
“I can’t.”
“But—”
“The only treatment available is an antiviral—acyclovir, but it has to be started within the first twenty-four hours after exposure. Three or four days ago it might have done you some good. But it’s too late now.”
“Too … late?”
The white hood nodded. “The virus has already multiplied. It’s everywhere. All we can do now is—”
“Oh, God,” I whimpered and sat down, right there on the floor. The furry rug and my behind were both so inflamed, I began to rotate, pushing myself around in a circle with all four hands and feet. The wiry fur did a wonderful job of scrubbing my arse, but it didn’t help one bit overall. The resulting friction just made the house and me itch even more. I began to weep. “Go away, will you? Just go away.”
Ever so quietly, he did.
When he was gone, I made myself get up again. I could hardly walk for the need to bend over and scratch the floor with my fingernails. But that would only make things worse, so I tottered toward the lavatory, randomly raking the walls as I went, intending to dive right back into my warm oatmeal bath.
Never made it, though.
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
The freaking house alarm went off. It scared me half to death. I fell over, then rolled around on the carpet as that set off more of my skin and I tried in vain to scratch everything at once. What with the frenzied boogaloo going on, I didn’t realize what had happened, not till I noticed the flashing lights. Oh, boy. The whole friggin’ wall screen had lit up, the background crimson, the space taken up by a single word:
QUARANTINE!
It was a notice from the Health Department, putting me and mine under full quarantine for ten days. As if I could leave.
I goggled. I crawled toward it. I slapped at buttons and entered the reset codes, and then sysop codes, and got nowhere. My house’s smartnet was no longer mine to command. The county had taken control of it, of everything. Swearing, I got up all over again and staggered toward the front door. “That little son of a bitch! The nerve!”
I flung the front door open, groping for my crossbow as whiffets of cold air threw last year’s leaves in my face. I peered through the fingers of one hand, trying to take aim, intending to plant one in his tiny heinie, but stopped when I saw even more flashing lights on my front gate. On his bike, too. His hazard lights were flashing, and so were his headlights. Likewise, something on his bike’s handlebars pulsed in lurid scarlet. Then his horn started beeping.
He bent over, staring at some kind of screen on the bike, oblivious to me and my outrage. Then, ripping his cleansuit’s helmet off, he flung it down. He swore at the bike, ran three steps forward, and kicked the helmet a full forty yards down the driveway.
Bad Idea. As the helmet sailed past the gate, more flashing lights appeared. “Warning!” the house cried. “Perimeter armed! Do not pass posted limits! This house is now under quarantine!”