The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (50 page)

In the mid-1980's some home drug manufacturers had made a uniquely unpleasant discovery. If they were manufacturing MPPP, a powerful synthetic heroin
substitue
, and they cooled the preparation too rapidly at a critical step, a slightly different compound called MPTP was formed along with the dope. This compound delivered a horribly sinister side effect: It homed in on a particular group of cells, the unique brown neurons of the
substantia
nigra
, and killed them. Nobody knew exactly how or why this happened in 1985, though Prime Intellect said it was because the drug was converted into an enzyme which triggered the cells to release too much dopamine at once, leaving them with an insufficient supply to power their unique metabolism. In any case the damage could not be repaired, although a useful treatment was discovered a few years before the Change.
When a decision is made by the neurons of the cerebral cortex to move a group of muscles, it is the
substantia
nigra
which relays this command to more primitive parts of the brain. This is its only function. The result of destroying it was an instant and complete form of Parkinson's Disease, or
Paralysis
Agitans
, a total and permanent paralysis of the voluntary muscles. Nothing else was affected; the victim could still see, hear, feel, understand. The body maintained itself. Breathing, heartbeat, digestion, and a thousand other important functions were unaffected. They just couldn't perform voluntary movements. They couldn't run, walk, sit up, smile, talk, or even blink, except as a reflex action.
At the time Caroline heard of it she had summoned glassware and created the drug by honest chemical synthesis. She had spent half the hypodermic on herself, and found the effect to be appropriately terrifying and complete. And after Prime Intellect had done its duty and restored her to health, she sent the other half of the hypo into storage to wait -- for three hundred years as it turned out -- until she was ready to use it.
Now the contents of that hypo were where they belonged, in
AnneMarie's
body, and as she held her nurse's naked body against her own and felt the
AnneMarie's
muscles slowly locking, she began to feel excited. Well, if Death could give her sexual feelings, why not vengeance? Fred would find it amusing. He would say Caroline was coming along nicely, in fact.
As
AnneMarie's
body froze, her eyes widened. Caroline could easily read the message those eyes desperately telegraphed --
I can't move. Help me.
Caroline patted
AnneMarie's
cheek and nodded. "That's right," she said, and smiled.
She spoke a word, and a squat cylinder popped into existence behind her.
AnneMarie's
eyes showed puzzlement, then horror as Caroline demonstrated the torch, which was Authentic down to the brand name emblazoned on its propane tank. Caroline lit it and adjusted it so that it made a bright blue flame which hissed evilly, then she aimed it ever so gently at
AnneMarie's
big toe.
For the only time in her long, long life, Caroline used Prime Intellect to tune in on another person's emotions. She felt the chemicals coursing in her bloodstream that were flowing in
AnneMarie's
; tasted her panic, shook with her terror, felt the faint echo of her agony. In fairness, Caroline made the sharing complete, so that
AnneMarie
could know of her satisfaction, her arousal, her delight.
It took a very, very long time to kill
AnneMarie
.
Caroline, who was usually on the receiving end, had become an expert at making it last.
 
That wasn't the end of it, though. If it had been, Prime Intellect would have had no reason to clamp down on the use of the Contract.
AnneMarie
had entered into it willingly if stupidly, and few who heard Caroline's story could doubt that she had had it coming.