Vox(73)

Delilah Ray, the botanist who designed my garden and talked politics and pie recipes, looks up at me through a veil of confusion and noncomprehension. “Fine twinkles, today. Cookie for your thoughts and when the Red Sox gossiping and galloping, I don’t know. There’s going to be hypertension!” Her speech is fluid and unencumbered and meaningless.

I hope to change this.

Looking back, I can never recall whether I expected success or failure, but in my dreams I’ve always imagined the old woman’s first words that would hold real meaning since her stroke. As I fill the syringe with fluid from the single vial, I realize my hands are shaking.

“Here. Let me.” It’s Lorenzo. I was so lost in my memories, I didn’t hear him come into the lab.

He takes the vial and syringe from me and expertly draws out the prescribed quantity of serum, according to Lin’s instructions. He taps it twice with the knuckle of his first finger and holds it up to the light.

I look a question at him.

Lorenzo nods to Morgan, signaling that it’s time. As the orderly wheels Mrs. Ray into the room I’ve prepared, Lorenzo takes my arm. And he shakes his head no.

The Gold team—whoever they are—have the serum and the formulas.

“All right,” I say. “Let’s get to it.”

“I have tickets,” he says quietly.

“Tickets for what?” Morgan has poked his nose out of Mrs. Ray’s room.

“For the symphony next weekend,” Lorenzo lies. “Beethoven, you know. Hard to get if you’re not on the A-list.”

“Well, I don’t care about your A-list or your symphony,” Morgan says. “We’re waiting in here, and I have other meetings.”

“Sure you do, Morgan. Big wheel like you,” Lorenzo says. He’s almost snarling.

I put away thoughts of flight, at least for now, and walk into the sterile room with Lorenzo close behind me. Mrs. Ray is regarding Thumper with a quizzical look, as if she’s remembering something.

“Beauty is as beauty does and crops of corn. So silly,” she says.

The orderly reaches down and gives her a reassuring pat on the back. Morgan smirks. Lorenzo and I exchange a look.

I know what he’s thinking: an entire city, country, continent, of this. A modern-day Tower of Babel, except instead of being caused by some invisible deity, the confusion will happen at the hand of a very visible man, one who enjoys being on television and who has tasted the power that comes with millions of blind followers but still wants more. One who has no idea of the hell he’s about to unleash.

Reverend Carl Corbin must be insane, truly insane. Has he thought ahead to the inevitable outcome? Does he realize the havoc, not only in Europe, but everywhere, his plot will wreak? Supply chains—gone. Banks and stock markets—gone. Mass transit, any transit, really, other than foot traffic and the occasional horse—gone. Factories—gone. Within weeks, most of the world’s population will die of hunger or dehydration or violence. The ones who are left will be eking life out in a twisted Little House on the Prairie existence, building from the ground up, one haystack and corn silo at a time.

Maybe that’s what he wants, though. Maybe Carl Corbin and his Pure Blue followers aren’t as insane as all that. They certainly aren’t too insane to wield the strings from which President Myers dances.

“We’re ready, Jean,” Lorenzo says, holding out the syringe. “You do the honors.”

I take it from him, inspect the fluid for any remaining bubbles of air—such a necessary substance, unless it happens to work its way into Mrs. Ray’s cerebral circulation—and remove the plastic cap.

Morgan licks his lips as I insert the needle into the catheter, holding my breath, and steadily depress the plunger.

“You’ll be fine, Mrs. Ray,” I say.

The room has become a sauna, heavy and hot and airless.

Beside me, Lorenzo starts a stopwatch, and we wait, all eyes on the woman in the wheelchair.

It seems hours, but I’m told only ten minutes have passed when Delilah Ray checks the catheter, rubs at a spot on the left side of her graying head, and turns to the plexiglass box holding Thumper. “What a lovely rabbit that is,” she says. “A cottontail. Used to have a whole warren full of them when I was a girl.”

The air in the room clears like the tropics after a monsoon.





SIXTY-TWO




I feel like celebrating. Or dancing. Or turning cartwheels down the empty hall of the lab. I feel like champagne and chocolate and fireworks.

I feel, just a little, like a god.

Also, I feel my life may be over.

Morgan leaves us after a brief conversation on his phone, most of which involves references to “my team” and “my project” and “my work.” He’s still smirking as he walks past us and out the lab’s main doors, calling for the orderly to pick up his pace and take Mrs. Ray back to her nursing home. Morgan, of course, has more work to do.

“So,” I say, turning to Lorenzo, “I guess that’s it.”

“Not necessarily.” His eyes move to the refrigerated cabinet where six vials, all labeled with the red X of death, remain.

“No way,” I whisper.

“It’s the only way,” he says, and the very words I spoke to Patrick last night play over in my head, a broken record of Would you kill?