The Messiah Choice (1985) (47 page)

Bonner chuckled. "Sure. There was never any question of that. Data was always backed up to three remote units every time it was sent or received. It's not as efficient, but the company goes on, as even Sir Robert knew it would when he put that erase program in SAINT."

MacDonald started. "You mean there are three more SAINTs?"

"No, no. Although the Japanese have several that are somewhat SAINT-like, we don't, and even they lack whatever it was that was added to those circuits by Sir Reginald. But, some day, there's going to be another SAINT, or even worse. Nothing is more certain than that you can not un-invent something once it's been invented. Eventually, when we've sanitized and rationalized the data as much as possible, we'll issue a big public report on SAINT's perversion and madness in the hopes that it will be guarded against in the future, but we can only warn."

"There aren't many nuclear power plants any more," MacDonald pointed out. "It scared too many people."

"Uh-uh. If you think that, you're deluding yourself. Nuclear power died because it became too expensive. Fusion remains in small laboratory and prototype units for the same reason. It's not the same with computers. SAINT was no larger than the average bedroom in a one room apartment.

Not too many years ago, to get that kind of power and storage would have filled up half the world with chips and circuits. This is a technology that gets cheaper every day, and all it really takes is time and enough money to put together folks smart enough to build it."

"Then—it was all for nothing? All of it? The next time it'll be a dozen SAINTs, or a hundred?"

"Perhaps. We set them back, that's all, like we always have so far. We took out key leaders and some of the best minds likely to serve that sort of cause, but we didn't take out the enemy.

Violence is down. Random, insane violence is way down, and even the official kind—wars and very violent movements—is back to its old slow bloodletting levels, for the moment. Our own forefathers bought our generation with their blood and their lives. You, Angelique, Bishop Whitely, Lord Frawley, and the others bought the next generation, but they, too, will have to fight or lose. It's a hell of a system, and lord how it costs, but it's the way things are run around here and we're stuck with it."

The President of Magellan got up and looked like he was preparing to leave. "You know," he said, "you'll always be on the payroll. Not much salary, but your expense account is higher than mine. A plane is waiting for me. I have to go. You remember, though—anything you want, anything you need, is no problem. You just tell us. It's the least we can do."

"What I want and need is beyond even Magellan's capacity, I'm afraid," Mac Donald said sadly.

Bonner stared at him for a moment, then scratched his chin and said, "You can't be a businessman or a politician, and I'm both, and ever expect a pat hand. Happily ever aftering is for fairy tales. This was more of a—morality play. In a fairy tale, the brave company endures many trials and terrors to fight the dragon holding captive the princess, and when they slay it, finally, the prince and princess go riding off into the sunset. Now the poet sees the struggle as the thing and the fight as really inconsequential. Folks like me look at it and say that if the damned monster was so easily disposed of, he probably wasn't what he was cracked up to be in the first place. No, the old mythologies, for all their monsters and gods had a much better view of the way the world is run. In them, the fight was as important as the struggle, the threat as horrible as its name, and when the dragon fought it fought well and gave the prince and princess terrible wounds. They kill it, but their wounds are severe and never really heal. There's always been a high cost to anything worthwhile. Saving the kingdom which could not save itself has to be first priority, but somebody's got to pay."

MacDonald looked at him glumly, but said nothing.

"It seems to me that you accept the cost, and by the wounds remember the evil but also remember the accomplishment they bought and paid for. You take what you have left, and you do the best you can, out of respect for those who got you through. Somebody cared enough to make sure that both you and Angelique were so coated with some kind of goo that you managed to survive the heat of the eruption itself. Somebody also got that cross over Angelique's head when it might have saved them, instead. Seems to me that your lives were bought with an even heavier price. Seems to me you lost sight of that girl in that wheelchair, all paralyzed from neck to toe, who you were attracted to because she wanted to get on with life and do what she could rather than sink into what she couldn't do. Maybe you ought to think about that."

MacDonald smiled, and wished he could grab the man's hand. He was emotionally touched by the speech, which struck at the very heart of his own dark thoughts and fears. Instead, all he said was, "I didn't know you were a philosopher and a poet, sir. Thanks."

"I'm not," replied Bonner, reaching for the door. "I'm a businessman and a politician. I steal only from the very best." And, with that, he left.

They noted an improvement in his attitude after that, a deep down decision that maybe he did want to live after all. A day later, they sent in Dr. St. Cyr, the King's Rook in their guerrilla organization inside the company. The Jamaican professor was as kind and strong as always.

"The kinds of medical wizards they have on your case are like no others in the world," he told MacDonald, "but, like most experts, their bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. They've got psychiatrists and psychologists all over the place, and if you want them they're available, but it was thought that you just needed some plain talk from somebody you knew."

"I appreciate that," responded the man in the plastic case. "All I've wanted all along is some plain talk and a little truth, like when I'm going to be out of this thing and out of here."

St. Cyr sighed. "All right. First, let's talk injuries. You know some, but I'll give you the litany."

And a litany it was—of broken bones, severe external burns, weakened and scorched lungs, and the like. "All of those have responded well to treatment, and the artificial skin has taken to you like a glove. It's bonded so well you'll never know which is which, and in a few years normal wear and tear will cause it to be unnoticeably replaced with your own. You'll need exercise and a physiotherapy program, since your muscles are nothing right now, but six months from now you'll even have all your hair back, at least on your head, or so they tell me. It's snow white—I can see the fuzz—but it's growing out rather well."

He nodded. "And when does this start?"

"Tomorrow, if you're willing. All things considered, even if we accept the miracle of your survival, you should be horribly crippled and disfigured. You aren't. With therapy and some time you'll look and be able to do pretty much what you always did—with one exception."

He'd known it, but he'd still dreaded it being spoken.

"I know you suspected, but couldn't tell for sure with all that automatic apparatus clamped on down there. This isn't easy to say, but the Dark Man took what you thought he took, and it's still beyond medical science or anything short of what blew in that volcano to restore it to you."

"I—knew. Doctor Bonner as much as told me."

"All right. When they were operating down there, they had to make some decisions very fast.

They found enough tissue from the scrotum stuffed in there to graft some of this incredible artificial skin to match. They couldn't ask you, naturally, so they went ahead and formed a vagina and a clitoris like they do for trans-sexuals. It's an old procedure. But so far they've been maintaining your normal male hormone levels. The whole area has formed and mended well, but they have to have a decision before starting any program of rehabilitation with you. You can still attain orgasm, but not in the old way. They can construct a living prosthesis there out of the artificial stuff, but there would be no feeling in it and there's no prostate left. Or they can change the hormones and introduce permanent peptides into your brain that would turn you physically and probably emotionally but not genetically female."

"Huh? What do you mean, 'emotionally?' "

"My boy, they know enough about neural receptors now that they could introduce a substance that would make you fall madly in love for life with the next person you saw."

The idea frightened him.
The next battlefield for the enemy?
he wondered. The idea frightened him even more than SAINT.

"Let me think about it. See myself as I am. But—what about Angelique? They wouldn't tell me anything at all except she was recovering and they refuse to let me see her."

"You will. She's needed more help than you, not so much for the outside as for the inside.

When
she
thinks she's ready, you'll meet her." He paused for a moment. "This isn't the worst of it, though."

He grew suddenly concerned. "What?"

"Nine hundred and thirty one men, women and children were evacuated to make way for their doings and held pretty much incommunicado at an old French army base in Guyana leased for the purpose. They're not prisoners any more, and it's been impossible to keep the press away from them. Bonner has managed a very smooth, scientific line complete with the mad computer warnings, but there's a worldwide hue and cry against all large computers. Magellan will survive, but only because it does so little business directly with the public and so much vital to governments, but the whole story is coming out and being splashed across the newspapers and television stations of the world. Even Tass, which is showing how huge capitalistic monoliths, in the name of profits, let such a thing happen beyond the control of weak western governments.

Naturally, you and Angelique could hardly be kept out of it. An old associate of yours who calls himself 'Red' has already sold the story of you and he being chased by a monstrous thing to Hollywood for a good sum."

"Well, I guess it was inevitable. Doctor Bonner was setting things up when he was here, I guess. He knew they couldn't keep a lid on it. So what's the problem?"

St. Cyr sighed. "Well, money and muscle has kept them out of this hospital, although they've tried, but this isn't a country where secrets are easily kept and this is a pretty large hospital. It's one thing for you to have your private agony, a wound of war, but it's not private now. It's an enormous story, you know. Everyone who reads or watches television knows what happened to you, and also knows Angelique's problems. The
Enquirer
even paid a bundle to interview your ex-wife on what she thought of it and what kind of lover you used to be. The same goes for Angelique, of course, but it's a different sort of case there."

The implications of it all hit him now, and he groaned. There would be no anonymity, no privacy, ever. Even when it had cooled down and become old news, everyone he'd come in contact with would know.
"Hey, what's it feel like to be castrated?" "Hey, when you gonna grow
breasts?" "Oh, I like being out with a celebrity. You're the only guy I feel really safe with."
Jesus!

"The company will provide good security, but sooner or later you're going to have to face this. I thought you ought to understand, before making your decision."

He sighed. "What would
you
do?"

"Well, I can't comment, and at my age it wouldn't make much difference, but it's far easier to be one thing than neither, socially. With hormone, peptide, and plastic surgery you would appear normal and fit into society as one thing. A change of name and location, a false background, and you would be able to have a private life. Even without the change, you'd be ten minutes of old news then instead of a continuing. ..."

"Freak. Yeah, I know.
Shit!"
Normal, huh? To them, perhaps, but not to himself.

It was several days of exercising before he could manage even to stand with a walker, and he couldn't go far, but he did manage to look at himself, naked, in a full-length mirror. St. Cyr had been right—aside from what appeared to be a permanent new dark reddish complexion and white hair, whatever damage had been done to him had been so skillfully rapaired he could hardly believe how little he'd changed. He looked at himself, and tried to imagine himself as a woman, and failed miserably. All he could do was look at it all and cry.

But he knew he'd always be Gregory MacDonald, not Georgette or whatever, until he died, and he so told his physicians.

The therapists were excellent, and he was on solids in a week and walking where he pleased within the month, although it would still be some time before he was absolutely right. He could, in fact, go to outpatient soon, although the truth was he had no idea where the hell he was to go now that it was over.

Father Dobbs paid him a visit near the end of the eighth week after he'd been freed of his devices. He'd been busy filling out forms and writing official reports and it had taken up a lot of his time and taken his mind off things.

He was glad to see King's Bishop, even if the title elevated him a notch, but he knew that Dobbs had not come all the way down to Port of Spain just to see him.

After the usual pleasantries and small talk and comments on how fit he looked, the priest got around to the point. "She wants to see you, my boy. She wants to see you very much, and the doctors think that it will be the best thing for her."

He was instantly excited, but he came down fast. "Does she—know about me?"

"No. We thought you should be the one to tell her. It's a hurdle you've already faced, and she must now."

He nodded. "How is she?"

"Well, she is as fit as she will ever be. There is no trace of the old paralysis, but she had extensive internal injuries. One of the bullets that struck the Bishop passed through into her right hand at an odd angle, and she's got only limited control of the hand and she's lost two middle fingers on it. Her scars aren't disfiguring, but they dwarf yours. She broke bones in her hip and pelvic region when she fell—repairable, but because of the time lost she'll always walk a bit stiffly. She claims that these are small prices to pay for having full muscular control, but we know it's bothering her. Of course, she'll need continuing physical therapy and medication for a while, as will you."