Viking (20 page)

A breeze blew the rolling smoke into Abbott’s face. He choked and gagged until it
gusted away.

“Of course I got a habit myself. Broke my mom’s heart. I couldn’t stand to be around
her. Moved out as soon as I graduated. Got married, had a couple kids. Split up, got
married again. My ex died in childbirth and I ended up with all three little ones. The
new missus didn’t like that at all. Started dipping into my merchandise. Pretty soon
she was in even deeper than me. Got nailed for possession and robbery.

“I was no kind of father, so I sent the kids to live with my mom. Then she got one
of those TB strains that are impossible to kill. Didn’t look good at all. I was waiting
for my wife to get parole. We were going to work the whole thing out, check into a
treatment program together. But the TB kind of made everything more urgent.

“I took the kids back and went straight. That lasted about four months—long enough
to get a divorce and a job and get married again. Ruth. Amazing woman.”

Abbott smiled bitterly. “Once the kids had a mother watching out for them, I was
back like a dog to its vomit. Pretty soon I was doing ten years for assault and grand
larceny and dealing. Ruth stuck by me the whole time. I got a good old-fashioned letter
once a week, watched Simon’s handwriting grow up, saw Angel and James get taller in all
the pictures she sent along.

“I swore I would go straight when I got out. And I did. Ruth cried. The kids cried.
I cried. It lasted about a week.

“Then an old buddy looked me up and I was off the bandwagon again. Lived on the
streets for almost a month. Ruth threw me out. Simon spit in my face. I tried to stay
too high to notice. Ended up in a hospital. They would only keep me until the worst of
the OD wore off, not for rehab. But I had a couple days to think. Wanted to kill
myself. Came close a few times.

“Only thing that stopped me was Ruth. I’d been awful to her, and maybe suicide would
make it worse. Or maybe not. I argued back and forth, finally decided to flip a coin.
Heads I jumped in front of traffic as soon as I walked out the hospital door, tails I
signed up as a viking so they’d send me somewhere I’d have to stay straight. I figured
either way I’d be dead, and I was rooting for heads all the way because it was quicker
and easier. But it came up tails four times in a row.”

Rafa studied him keenly. For the first time he could relate to a fellow viking as
more than a despicable criminal. “So here you are.”

“Here I am. And I’ve sworn off coin-flipping.” A lopsided hint of a smile played
across Abbott’s torn and bloody lips.

Chen sighed softly, her cheeks swelling as she puffed strands of hair out of her
eyes. “You picked a pretty drastic way to kick the habit.”

Abbott shrugged. “Always knew I’d pay the piper, one way or another. Never thought
it’d end like this. But at least if I die, I die clean. Hopefully my kids will forgive
me someday.”

“And Ruth?”

Abbott’s eyes silently filled with tears. He stared into the fire.

The trio was silent for several minutes, each lost in private reflection.
Temperatures were beginning to drop. From the fringes of the darkness, a low trilling
floated, just different enough from an earthly cricket chorus to accentuate the
alienness of the environment. Chen leaned hesitantly against Rafa’s shoulder and
studied his granite-hard features for a response.

After a moment, Rafa rose stiffly and limped into the darkness without a word,
leaves and twigs crackling under the tread of heavy boots. He returned dragging some
branches with his good arm and began to methodically snap them underfoot to feed the
flames.

“I’m cold,” he said shortly, as he slumped back to his knees near Abbott.

Chen cocked her head sideways and smiled a frozen, melancholy little smile at her
feet.

Abbott grunted and gestured at her. “Your turn.”

Without looking up, she pushed back some errant strands of hair with bandaged
fingers. “I was in medical school. Wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, believe it or
not.”

“You finish?”

Chen snickered derisively. “Not hardly. I barely squeaked out a PA.”

Abbott looked confused.

“Physician’s Assistant. It’s enough to do triage in an emergency room, stitches,
broken bones, stuff like that.”

Rafa spoke up. “It’s a good training.”

“Oh, excellent. Wonderful! It got me this job, didn’t it?” Chen’s voice was dripping
with sarcasm. When nobody responded, her tone softened. “Actually you’re right. I think
I might have learned to like it.”

“What happened?”

“
Ebola-Janeiro
.”

Pity washed across Rafa’s face. “How long ago?” he asked quietly.

“Two and a half years.” Chen stared at the glowing embers by her feet as if the
conversation was ended.

Abbott looked at Rafa questioningly.

Rafa cleared his throat. “It’s a virus. Doesn’t kill you outright, like some of its
relatives. Doesn’t completely destroy the immune system, like HIV. But it’s about as
nasty as they get.”

“Contagious?”

“Not right now.”

Chen nodded confirmation. “Only during an attack, when you bleed. Or when you’re
first infected and still asymptomatic.”

“Which is how it spreads,” Rafa supplemented.

Again Chen nodded. “That’s how I got it. Same stupidity as everyone else. I was
sleeping with one of my professors. To pad my test scores.” She shook her head angrily.
“He had his first tremors during our final. Next week he was in the hospital.”

When Chen lapsed into silence Rafa again explained. “It came from
Ebola-Zaire
back in the ‘30s. Some geneticists were looking for a cure, came up with RADP.”

Still Abbott looked stumped.

“Cycle mike. Joak. Wheel of fortune.”

Now a mixture of understanding and disbelief dawned in Abbott’s eyes. “You a joak
junkie?”

Chen did not respond, so Rafa continued.

 “It was supposed to be a miracle cure. Triggered a massive immune response
that killed 99.9% of the virus within seventy-two hours. Problem was the
one-in-a-thousand survivors. Some mutated. Pretty soon there was a strain that didn’t
quite match the original genetic fingerprint. An RADP treatment would still knock it
down, but dormant populations could survive in a few infected cells, and come back for
later waves of infection.

Chen chimed in. “When RADP activates infected cells, they commit suicide to kill the
virus. But in the process they excrete a neurotoxin that gives you a sustained high.
And because the infection is never totally defeated, the high repeats itself with every
treatment.”

Abbott shook his head slowly. “Joak’s bad news. The worst. Never dealt it myself
because it scared me half to death. But I knew a pimp once. Infected all his girls,
kept them working when they were dangerous, and then made a fortune off their
customers. Till one tracked him down and blew him away.”

“It’s expensive,” Chen said in a flat voice. “Ten times as much as crack. And ten
times as illegal.”

Rafa added a couple branches to the fire. “It was ugly the way they stamped it out.
I still remember watching soldiers march down the street in a line, going house to
house. I was a kid. It scared me to death. But I guess the government had to do it or
there’d be a guy like that pimp on every corner.”

Chen shrugged. “The raids were just like joak; they eliminated almost all the
addicts and dealers. Almost all. The ones they left were more dangerous than ever. The
official story got everybody feeling safe and cheerful again, but of course the virus
was still out there. And anybody who had it was desperate to stay off the radar, so
they passed along the disease in silence. Some of them even did it on purpose, I think.
I used to wonder with my professor.”

“How did you get money?”

“Medical school’s an expensive proposition; I had enough from student loans to
survive the first episode. Thought about suing. But the good doctor was going broke in
a hurry on his own habit. It wouldn’t have done any good, and besides, I was a
consenting adult. I wasn’t much of a burglar, and I didn’t have any rich relatives.
Tried to take the second attack on my own and just about died of renal failure. So I
became a licensed, bonded call girl.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but she couldn’t
hide a slight quaver.

“They let you, you know. As long as you test clean of all the common diseases and
sign an affidavit certifying that you’re not dangerous.”

“But how could you pass the screening?”

Chen snorted. “I had loads of my own blood and tissue samples from labs and
what-not. Some of them were from my first semester at school, when I was still clean.
The tech was careless, and I swapped samples. Pretty easy, actually.” Her lips twisted.
“After my ‘job interview’ I was in business. I went to class all day, worked all night.
Made just enough money to support my habit.

“In a few months I was going nowhere and didn’t care anymore, so I nipped out of
school as quick as I could and started working at a local hospital.

“That didn’t last long. I got premium rates as a call girl, and it paid better than
a real job. Pretty soon I was doing it full time and hitting the joak harder than
ever.”

“Didn’t you get busted?”

Chen laughed bitterly. “Supervisors can only afford to hassle the cheap girls. My
customers were movers and shakers that might have sued if they knew I was infected.
Some of the regulars would have quit coming if I wasn’t available. Besides, they could
hardly admit that they knew what I had, and stay out of jail themselves.”

Abbott had been searching his memories of drug lore. “They say joakers can break the
habit if they survive a cold-turkey withdrawal. That why you’re here?”

Chen stared at him, her face a mask of shadow. Rafa shifted uncomfortably, aware of
the inevitable answer. A breeze played fitfully with the curling smoke.

“Every attack causes residual damage to the liver and kidneys, not to mention the
nervous system. Joak itself is poisonous anyway. If you’re going to break the cycle you
have to do it early. A lot earlier than I did.”

“When are you due?” Rafa asked quietly.

“They’re coming every three weeks now. I’m only good for a few more days.”

“Bring anything with you?”

Chen shook her head with feigned nonchalance, her eyes averted. “Naw. I may be
brain-dead next week, but I’m going out free.”

Rafa poked his spear point into the flames. Abbott studied his bandaged fingers.
Chen observed their discomfort and smiled sardonically.

“Not much of a happily ever after, is it?”

Neither man answered. After a moment Chen turned away from the fire and began
gathering tufts of grass and dried leaves to form a crude bed at the edges of the
blackness.

The fire was dying down into featureless night, textured only by a distant chorus of
burbling croaks and the shadowy triangle of human forms. Abbott had been covered with a
reflective blanket hours ago, and now he closed his eyes in a weary bid for slumber.
Chen completed her preparations, sank to the ground with a sigh, and remained
motionless.

Rafa gazed through the shimmering heat distortions above the embers, lost in
thought. He felt strangely ashamed. Since the decision to enlist, he’d been so caught
up in self-pity that he’d never noticed others wrestling their own demons in lonely,
no-win battles.

Sure, he’d pitched in to help Fazio. But that had been out of self-righteous
indignation more than any deep-felt sympathy. He hadn’t given a second thought to the
big man’s condition since finishing the job.

And he’d turned back to fight the crabbies. But it had been a gesture of defiance as
much as loyalty. In fact, every waking thought on this mission had bent through the
same narrow prism of selfishness that he’d been resenting in others.
Out of my way.
Leave me alone. Quit complaining. You don’t know how good you’ve got it. Mind your own
business. Shut up and listen to my sob story
. It was a tiresome, unimaginative
litany, and he was disgusted to catch himself reciting it.

Not that he could simply take it on the chin and pretend it didn’t matter. He felt
lousy and believed he had the right. But somehow he’d let himself stop caring about how
anybody else felt. Hearing Abbott and Chen was a sobering slap in the face, and
atrophied muscles of empathy and compassion began to stir.

Chen yawned. When he glanced over, Rafa saw that she was watching him with tired but
wide-open eyes. Abbott looked asleep, though it was hard to tell in the dimness.

“I’m still waiting for the Orosco epic,” she whispered.

Rafa shrugged. “Afraid I’m not much of a bard. Why don’t you catch some shut-eye and
I’ll take first watch.”

Chen rose up on her elbow and glared at him. “We spilled our guts.”

“I just don’t feel much like talking.”

“I can see that. You never do.” Her tone was flat and annoyed.

Rafa kicked at the coals with a boot.

“It’s ironic,” Chen whispered as she lay back and stared at the leafy overhang. “I
spend years bored out of my mind, listening to strange men babble
ad nauseum
on
my pillow. Then when I actually run across somebody decent with something interesting
to say, mum’s the word.”

Rafa sighed. “Convicted murderer, actually.”

Chen looked at him narrowly. “Convicted, I’ll believe.”

“Okay, then. Convicted. Same difference for some people.” He waited for more
questions, but when none came, he plunged ahead. “FBI arrested me about five months ago
for gunning down an agent. Trial was over pretty quick. Plenty of evidence. As soon as
I was sentenced I volunteered as a viking. It was better than life in prison.”

“I suppose you’re not guilty?”

“No.” It was not an emphatic shout or an angry denial. Just a flat, simple statement
of fact with the ring of truth. Rafa made no attempt to elaborate.