From the article archive
World A Week: Gather II
I woke in my hotel room on the seventeenth floor with the plan to track down the rest of the versers, and see if I could figure out what was bothering me, niggling at my subconscious, this feeling of impending doom.
And tonight I was supposed to meet the three M.J.'s at the Old Spaghetti House. I wonder if they could sing tenor.
A quick shower, and I got dressed, and out to the elevator. I have only a couple changes of clothing, and it occurred to me that I might as well go clothes-shopping today if I was going to stay here a while.
Its generally best not to take too much stuff with you as you verse into a new world, because you are probably going to have to carry it. Unless there is enough magic to shrink it, or some other means of dealing with the problem.
I just tend to limit myself to a really large backpack which does have a few special pockets that I only open in certain worlds because those pockets are magical.
Downstairs, I found the lobby full, and the hotel restauraunt manned by overstressed waitresses. It seemed two different groups were in town. One, a convention for Amra, which was power meter readers, and the other, a trade show for quilters.
The first group was mostly guys, and the second mostly women, and they all wanted hotel space which was not to be had.
So I walked down the street, and found a McDonald's tucked into a four-story tall building. A rather rude man pushed past me, and got in front of me as I reached for the front door.
When I huffed, he just gave me a venomous stare out of his dark eyes, and turned away. I shrugged. I like cities, but you run up against the whole cross-section of humanity in them and that includes those with a grudge against the morning or their fellow citizens.
Eating my sausage biscuit, and sipping my "Happsi" (it tasted rather like a mild version of Dr. Pepper) carbonated beverage, and the worldwide Happsi company was headquartered in Atlanta, I walked out, and searched about with my scriff sense for targets, for other versers.
Walking a five square block of streets to try to figure out the vector changes, and the likely distances, I found one on the far western side of town, and two across the river, and one close by, and more easterly.
I figured I'd hit the western one first, and come back here to get the others.
Hailing a taxi, I had some difficulty explaining what I was doing. From the weirdness of my directions which were "Go west, and I'll give you more directions as we go.", and from the language barriers. He demanded money down first since he thought I sounded nutty.
We drove past the protestors who were out again. And that set my driver off since he evidently was from the Kingdom of Persia, and he had been busted by the police a couple times when he was totally innocent, or so he said.
But I asked him a couple questions, and he refused to admit the simple thesis that deliberately killing civilians was evil.
"One had to understand the rage of the oppressed." He said, and I looked at him narrowly from the back seat. It seemed he believed that the insults and tragedy suffered by his people made whatever the more extreme of them did acceptable.
I did not wonder anymore why the police had questioned him.
After an hour, we came to a very nice neighbourhood with tree dappled medians in the center of residential streets, and the power lines were properly buried underground, and yards were manicured acres, and houses started at five thousand square feet, and went up from there.
My driver told me this is why he had come to America so that he could get rich and have a house like this. He proudly told me he already owned a duplex that he rented and a laundry, and I just shook my head. People are weird. He hated America on one hand, and loved it on the other.
It took some circling, but I isolated my target. Stone walls, and an iron gate made it even more exclusive than the other houses.
I got out, paid off the driver, and asked him to stay a few minutes. He nodded happy with his hundred dollar bill.
Upon walking up to the gate, I realized several things. The owner was paranoid, or maybe security conscious. The wall looked easily climbed, but on closer inspection, it was made of slick stones, and I bet it had broken glass on the top of it, and I could see a tire buster that could pop up out of the sidewalk.
And the guard, dressed in black, and wearing a vest, and a HK submachine gun under his jacket looked fearsomely competent, and polite to a point.
I paused realizing I would need to change my approach strategy. No knocking on the door, and saying "Hi there."
"Please tell the master of the house that Tadeusz, also called Ghost and Stormlord, would like to talk to him."
He all but chuckled at me.
"Mr. Ghost, the owner is busy. You'll have to make an appointment."
I shifted my stance from the other side of the iron gate, and gave him a look, and suddenly his sense of humor at me being a figure of fun faded, and he gave me a hard look measuring my combat potential.
"Please give that message, and this coin to the owner. My gift for bothering him." And I fished out a solidus of gold. He examined the coin, and saw the foreign writing, and the engraving of Conan looking stern (which Conan was very good at), and weighed it in his hand.
He nodded, and summoned another guard.
A few minutes later, and I was welcomed in with apologies. Indeed, they even refused to search my small travelling backpack that I had taken with me this morning.
The winding and narrow driveway between the trees passed over a steep-sided stream, and a metal bridge that did not look to fit the idyllic setting. And then I put things in place.
The bridge could collapse, and that would leave a steep ravine about five feet deep that stretched across the property. A beautiful, and functional tank trap.
Whoever this verser was, he took his security very seriously. But evidently he knew me.
We walked counter-clockwise around the house, and looped past the olympic sized swimming pool out back, and onto a three thousand square foot patio which had a gym mat under an awning, and I saw the two Shawns duking it out with kenjutsu staffs.
They had full armour on, and they needed it as hard as they were hitting. When I got closer, they both stopped, bowed, and the better one of the two walked up to me, and shook my hand.
Lemonade was brought since it was a hot day, and we sat down on some wickerwork chairs under an umbrella.
I told him I was surprised at his set-up, and I studied him a bit to see if he was going clinical on me. Paranoia can get to you after all.
Shawn and I, among versers, at least those that are in normal contact with reality, have an unwanted competition. Whose the most ruthless verser in the land?
Both of us had sadly more than enough familiarity with causing megadeaths, and both of us were good with a sword, although with a gun or knife he beat me, and I usually beat him with magic.
But while I judge the wicked, and try to give them a chance to choose right, he tends to just deal with them, in a permanent fashion, straightaway.
"Its simple, I was getting tired of bouncing from world to world with nothing to show for it, so I began collecting small valuables as rewards for my work, and learning some magic to help me find things.
And then I arrive here, and I find..." His dop came up, after changing into some swimming trunks.
"That my alternate has started a business. Kidnap-retrieval. Bad guys kidnap, we kidnap back."
The alternate spoke.
"It was going well, but I was running into cash flow problems, and I was starting to make some serious enemies. Then Beta here, by the way, I'm Prime because this is my world, anyways, Beta here shows up with a bag full of diamonds, and the training of the ninja, and we put it together. My contacts, and my business, and his money, and frankly his greater skill, and I'm proud to say that we have the world's best KRT firm. And for charity, we have a contract with the city even though they cannot really afford us."
"And the defenses are because you have enemies." I said.
"Lots of them." The alternate said, and then excused himself to go swim fifty laps in the pool.
We talked more, and I showed him Conan's sword style, after he sent an "associate" to the hotel room to get my fifteen pound longsword. At first he found it ridiculous, but after I explained to him the special rules of that world where thrusting damage was inconsequential, and holding steel kept the swordsman from being tired, he got interested.
It was close to nightfall, and I realized the dinner was upcoming, and I would have to wait on the other versers for the next day.
We agreed to talk soon, and he sent me back with a limosine that could survive an RPG round.
Showered again, and dressed for dinner.
Met the three M.J.'s, and we talked in the light of glittering brass panels, and walked up to the buffet past a railroad caboose inside the restauraunt. It was gaudy and wonderful.
The biggest item of conversation was that the mayor was being forced to give up racial profiling, fire his police chief, and attend a seminar on "sensitivity". That last bit reminded me of some old English king having to walk barefoot through the snow, and then wait outside the bishop's house for the bishop to deign to see him, and to un-excommunicate him.
I talked about my worries, and all three of them shared them. I got their phone numbers, and left.
First thing, next morning, I tracked down a cel phone company, and got one. Then I went out clothes shopping. Due to the press of conventioneers, it took nearly an hour to get checked out of the Target store, and then lunch at Deke's.
I wanted to continue searching, but I felt tired, and so I gave myself the night off, and watched football.
This was the day I had agreed to spend with Shawn. So I visited him, and trained at his gym. David came by, and we got some of the guards to join us, and we first had a kumite with the proviso that the opponent got to choose your combat style, if you knew it.
So they made me fight a guard, Drunken Monkey style, which I'm not very good at, and I got trounced.
David got the overall championship which was rewarded by being shoved into the pool, and then that night we went paintballing.
I felt like we were wasting time that I should be spending on finding out what was going on, but Cynthia corrected me.
"This is pack-bonding time. You are learning to know each other's moves, to trust each other."
What can I say, the wolf-girl was right. And that game ended in a tie.
We had finished, all but them in a "all against all" game, and we were watching from the road where Shawn had placed himself at the edge of a steep hill covered with shale, and brambles. This guarded his back, and we thought he was somewhere along a seventy foot stretch at the rim of the hill. Even with infrared gear which had been banned in the game, we could not be sure.
Then suddenly Cynthia is charging up the hill through brambles and across shale at speeds an Olympic sprinter might manage on an open track. Shawn's double-faked us, and he is facing toward the hill rim, but as he rises, she fires wildly driving him back down with her left gun.
As near were as she is right now, its hard for her to pull a trigger with her claw-like hands, and then Shawn is back up with a string of three shots dead on target, and we think its all over, but she flings her empty gun into the path of the paintballs, and the perfection of his shooting works against him since the shots are nicely lined up for her to knock down with one thrown gun.
This is superhuman speed, and you don't absorb what happened until you replay it in your mind.
He is reloading, and she opens up at close range, and one, two misses, and three is upcoming, and he reloads, and his and her shots splash in the centermass at the same time.
She streaks past Shawn, and begins to beat her gun on the ground trying to break it, so upset she is.
"I thought I had him this time."
And David has to go over and get his rather volatile wife to calm down.
I went over to the hill, and examined it. There was no path through the brambles where she ran, and that was only partially werewolfed that she had done that attack. This world did not let her become her full, eight foot tall, car-flipping, strike faster than the eye could see engine of destruction.
The next morning, and I wished I had not gone out there. The three scriff sources, I still wanted to track down had moved drastically. They had all left the city, and I hoped they were coming back soon. Otherwise, this mission was going to be a cross-country air travel extravaganza.
I spent the morning running over to a hill that overlooked the city, and then praying over the city. As I prayed, a certainty overcame me. The doom I feared was already here. It grew like a poisenous plant seeking the sun, and then to spread wildly. But as I sought answers, I felt an opposition, from far out of the East, a power raised against me that blinded my eyes so that I could not discern the threat.
But even this told me something. For I felt sure that others prayed to their gods against me, and that meant a human plot, and not a natural disaster had come to Louisville.
And then like a hand of gold reaching out of the fog that obscured my intuition, a prompting came to me. And I began to run. Down the hill with its suburban streets, and into the city, I went. My path was long, and arduous even for me, and I felt pressure on me that hindered my steps, and mischance dogged my feet such that I nearly fell in front of a bus going down the street.
The track took me to the airport, and then to a hotel, and then past, I blush to say, but a strip club, and a Waffle House, and then it stopped, or so it seemed, but I waited. And then I ran further on to a convention center where the Amra people were clearing up, and then to the quilt show which was in its last day, and by a McDonald's I had ate at, and to the bus stop, and to a police station, and city hall, and the stadium, and then back to the airport.
Exhausted, I got a taxi home, and fell asleep on the way. Upon being awoken, I paid up, and went inside, and slept like the dead for that night, the day, and the next night.
Upon getting up, I went down to the hotel lobby, and saw a couple late-leaving quilters who were both flying home, and both of them were afflicted with red noses, and runny eyes. The flu was going around it seemed.
I checked for scriff, and (yahoo!), they were all back.
First, I tracked down Lara, and found her at the hospital cafeteria eating with her alternate. There were posted signs warning people of the flu, and requiring frequent hand-washing.
I told her of my magic run, and asked her to look into it. A handful of solidus secured her help for two days; I was right, she worked as a private detective for her own firm she had just established three weeks ago when she arrived.
"Lara Looks, Inc." was the business, and the insignia had a girl peering under a bed for the monster under the bed. Too cute for words.
Her nurse alternate thought it was funny, and laughed at my lemon-sucking expression.
A walk back toward the east, and I arrived in the Jefferson street area where I had been propositioned. A bit trepidatious, I approached one nice Victorian, and rang the doorbell.
A man in a dog collar opened the door, and thankfully, he was not the verser. But he did not want to introduce me to his housemate because of jealousy.
"Show some respect, don't come to my door, of my house, to try to pick up my man." He hissed at me, and prepared to slam the door.
I goggled at him, and then raised my left hand with its wedding ring to assure him that I was profoundly hetero, which he sneered at saying that many liked it both ways, and so on he went.
"I'm a member of the same 'social club' as your friend." I tried to say, but he did not listen.
I growled at him. Maybe I shouldn't have, but he was really getting on my nerves. He paled, and then went to get the other guy who I really, really hoped was verser.
He was, and he came stomping up to the door to yell at me for upsetting his boyfriend. That had definitely been a mistake. I apologized thrice, and endured having a finger shoved into my chest, before I finally had enough.
"Enough." And I knocked his arm aside with a snapblock. He paused, and then nodded. Both of us were tall, and muscled, and I had just told him in deeds that another finger in my chest was going to mean a fight.
He listened as I told him of my worries, and introduced myself.
"Do you know this guy?" The boyfriend asked suspiciously from the stairs which I had been chased down.
"Yeah, well sort-of. We are members of the same 'social club'." The other verser, Jack Robley, replied. "But don't worry, he's not a friend. I've heard of him, a fascist jerk."
I nodded.
"So he doesn't know?" I asked quietly, and Robley shook his head.
"Immuno-compromised, and soon to die due to the fascist policies of this government, and I tell him, that I'm immortal? No way." A dark shadow hooded his eyes, and I nodded in respectful sympathy.
"If you need anything, here's my phone number." I handed him a piece of paper, and walked away sadly.
It looked like the flu had spread to this area as well, I thought as I saw several sufferers on Jefferson Street.
Now, I got a taxi to take me across the river to Kaintuck. We went over a large bridge over the Ohio River, and down on the other side.
It was a rougher neighbourhood, but not bad, not really, with plenty of typical commercial establishments even though I only recognized a few names. Target, a department store, and Seven-Eleven convenience stores (which had vanished from my homeworld, I think), but the rest, Gogh's Bakery, Lott's (a grocery), Flickerflash Photomart, Irish Eyes gasoline were new to me.
And then I came to an industrial park. After weaving through it a bit, I found Optical Memories, Inc., a large campus with about a dozen buildings that was in the process of being renovated. Construction equipment was being used to dig new trenches connecting buildings to lay down cables, and I almost stopped when I saw MP's guarding the gate, but I got the taxi to let me out when I saw Kelly walking up to the front door.
I hollered at her, and was surprised to hear in my mind, a whisper.
*Tadeusz?* She must be skilled indeed to do telepathy in this world, I thought. She walked over, a bit oddly, and the MP who had displayed annoyance at me straightened up, and saluted.
"Let him in." And so it was done, and I got a security badge on her word since she was chief of security at the installation.
We walked into her office, and after sending out the secretary for coffee, I asked her what was going on?
Why was she working for the military?
She laughed, and assured me that none knew of versers.
"Its a bit of a long story. I arrived here, a couple months after Shawn did, but I did not meet him then, and I searched out my doppleganger for fun, and I found she had gotten in trouble. She had decided to teach in a problem school, and then came across some drug dealing, and corruption that went up to high levels, and she was in way over her head."
She turned suddenly cold eyes toward me.
"I discussed things with the principals. And that went all to pieces, since the rot went way higher than I thought. I ended up running from the FBI and the CIA for a couple weeks until we collected the info to bring down a U.S. Senator, and clear my name. Well, at that point, I got a number of offers, ones I was not totally sure it was wise to refuse, and so I joined up with No Such Agency."
The premier codebreakers of the world; I nodded in understanding.
"There I taught myself codebreaking, and learned interrogation of suspects. And best of all, when a young scientist came to the government looking to get a grant to construct miniaturized laser communication 'walkie-talkies', I was able to get him the grant, and introduce him to a young English teacher."
"You matchmaked this world's Matt and your dop from this world?" I guessed with a smile. And she grinned back.
"Best of all, when Matt versed in here, he tracked down his alter ego, and thus found me. Now, I've got the both of them working in this new facility. My Matt is here working on a disease diagnoses laser system that could revolutionize the time to begin treatment. It would almost be as good as one of those tricorders off Star Trek. And the local Matt is finishing up on his 'walkie-talkie', and the two of them are ginning up something they like to call a 'Gut Instinct', a Grand Unified Field Theory of the Universe."
"And you?"
"I run the shop here, and do the security as well to keep my hand in. Its a pain going before the Select Intelligence Subcommitte of Congress, and explaining what I'm doing here, and why they should keep funding us, and then riding herd on the Matts to make sure they don't get too excited by some odd new thought. I'm an Assistant Undersecretary for Photonics Research."
I blinked, and thought. President, V.P., Attorney general, NSA chief, Undersecretary of Reseach and Development, and my host.
"So if say the top hundred or so people get struck by lightning, then you would be Madame President, leader of the free world?"
She grimaced.
"Something like that. Lets go see the Matts."
We got up, and she took me down into the basement where a laser fusion device was being tested.
I was impressed until I heard a voice from behind me.
"It old stuff. I've got something much cooler." I turned and saw a young guy with old eyes who was wrapped around himself, or his legs were over his head and touching his lower spine.
He uncurled himself.
"Yoga exercises help me think."
And then he took me on a tour of his facility. We passed the other Matt, and the two started jabbering in what sounded like their own language, and so the verser set off on a run to another project.
Unlike talking to Graeme, there was no following the idea stream. It was disjointed, rapid, and yet somehow I felt a unifying theme.
And then I looked closer at him for he felt different than the old, calmer Matt I remembered.
And he grinned widely.
"I heard what you did to yourself at Starsong, and I wondered if I could do as much. Turned out I could not as yet, but thats for the good since it turns out your model had serious flaws in it."
He paused.
"I have a partially functional optical and quantum, if the bias supports it, which this world's doesn't, computer attached to my brain. It gives me flashes of superhuman intelligence" And then he grinned.
"Thats one of the things the other Matt and the lady in charge do is to keep me grounded. Sometimes this hookup is like riding a tornado, and I'm afraid its turned me into a bit of the stereotypical eccentric scientist. I get lost in a thought, and walk into doors."
I shivered a bit from desire and fear and worry. The desire was for having that godlike understanding back, and the fear was of having it back for with it went an understanding of one's own self that was not all that pleasant, and the worry was for my friend.
He smiled at me, and suddenly it was like the fellow I had traipsed through the playground with. His slightly manic manner calmed, and the preternatural sharpness in his eyes dimmed.
"Don't worry, Tad. I've lived with it for fifty years now. I just have to make sure I spend at least twelve hours a day off it, or I start hallucinating and seeing the answers to the Universe in the fall of leaves."
And then I looked deeper with all my psionic skill which barely touched his mind, this world was so difficult, and I found something. Wholeness, sanity on a level that went far deeper than most people ever have a chance of attaining despite years or decades of meditation.
"I understand myself far better than before, and so I've learned, at least somewhat to not lie to myself quite as much as most people do. Its the gift or curse of the computer chip in my head."
And then the other Matt came up, and led us off to see the diagnostic device. We shined a laser beam on some Happsi, a stick of peppermint gum, and on a gold solidus, all of which I concealed in my hand, or behind my back, and they shined the laser beam through my hand, but through my chest with its abundance of cyberware confused the poor program.
"But there are only three cyborgs on the planet." Kelly said laughing "So its not much of a problem."
I wondered about that 'three', and Matt filled me in as we walked back to the front door.
"Bout three worlds ago, me and Kelly landed in a cyberpunk universe. She decided to become a street samurai, hyper reflexes, triple normal strength, IR vision, a few guns hidden here or there."
I popped my titanium half-inch nails out, and Kelly popped her six inch long claws out, and we all laughed almost hysterically.
Matt walked me to an official car which they were going to loan me, and before I got in the undistinguished Chevy, he gave me a serious look.
"There's something bothering you, and I think its the same thing that's got me spending so much time in hyper-link."
"Yeah, I feel like doom is coming."
"Doom." He paused. "That's a good word for it. I can feel my mind chewing at it. You've just given me another piece of the puzzle. Talk to me later." And he wandered off to stroll under the night sky and think thoughts too complicated for mere humanity to follow.
I drove home to the hotel.
The next day, I got Lara's report. She said there had been a high incidence of flu, and she gave me a list of the hardest hit companies. A stewardess on a flight from Kazahkistan, a taxi driver usually gone to the airport, a clerk at my McDonald's, and more.
It looked like someone flew in. Spread the flu, and left. Unfortunately, they hit a lot of places where people congregated, and where people would then take the flu back home with them. Those conventioneers would spread the flu over the whole of North America.
So it looked like I had a lead on Case Zero of a flu epidemic which while important in a scientific sense was not earthshaking.
I thanked Lara who had used her nurse dop's connections at the local hospitals to find this data, and went off to think and pray some more.
I checked in with the local MJ, and it was official. A really bad flu epidemic had hit the town. I filled him in on my data, and he called in the Alchemist who had one pointed question.
"Why would someone with a bad flu travel, visit for a day, hit two totally dissimiar conventions, and leave?"
Put that way, it was doggone suspicious.
I called up Kelly and asked for new data. She had none other than China was getting miffed with America again about our supporting Taiwan, and they had kicked our ambassador out. Closed the doors of the Middle Kingdom, and hissed at us.
She was not worried. It was a typical melodramatic play for attention that would blow over. We would offer them some leniency on a trade talk, and they would be our 'good friends' again.
David had nothing, but Cynthia took the phone away from him, and told me...
"The Earth, she groans in fear." Which was nicely spooky, but did not enlighten me.
David and I went to the Visitor, and asked him for help. Magic help. He took some time off from the concert he was prepping for, and in the back stage area we worked up a magic spell.
We prepared the area, sanctifying it, and warding it. Our magics were many, and potent, of a number of different schools although we found unity in miracles, and the Visitor led us with his bardic singing to see the man who had come to the town.
Despite pressure against us, we pierced the veil of time, and I saw the man who had been rude to me in the McDonalds. We followed him as he got off the plane and wandered the city in the path I had run.
Despite his sickness, he pressed on, and did nothing but travel, and he made no real effort to cover his face when he coughed.
We followed him back to the plane the next day, and he got on. And there the trail stopped once his plane flew off for we were now in the realm of our enemies greater power. Dragons or djinn, I am not sure assailed us in the mystic vision, and broke our seeing.
Panting, we collapsed back to our normal senses, and the Visitor tipped over his bowl of water to break any connection.
Obviously, this man was up to something. But what? I wanted to talk to him, and now.
So I placed a phone call to Shawn, and got him on the job. Now he would be the kidnapper.
"Consider it done. Fourty-eight hours, and he should be in your hands." Shawn said with that determination that scared his opponents after he heard my story.
And then greatly fearing I went back to my hotel room, and slept with many nightmares plaguing me.
A soft tapping, and I thought I heard the hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen, especially one, and then I awoke with my shirt stained with sweat, and heard a tapping at my door.
Grabbing my gun, (yes, I was feeling paranoid), I went to the door, and opened it.
Jack Robley stood there with fear trembling his arms.
"Come quickly, I need your help."
And he strode away.
"What?" I asked as I grabbed the rest of my clothes, and threw them on, and then chased him down the hall.
"I need help, and my love is afraid of the hospital. And I figured you're an experienced verser, you would know some medicine."
"Right." Unfortunately, while I knew some, first aid, amputations, and some herbalism, and a few other tricks, I was not even a nurse, let alone a doctor.
"Let me get a friend."
We took his car since it was far faster than mine, a Porsche, and I called Lara who got me in contact with her dop.
We picked them both up, and went to Jefferson Street at a tire-squealing speed.
Inside, the old Victorian, I saw the boyfriend. He looked dreadful. A rash covered his face, and terribly strong flu bedeviled him, and he was barely conscious.
The nurse demanded we take him to the emergency at once. It seemed this flu was possibly measles, they had determined at the hospital, and this man was a really severe case.
When she was told he was immuno-compromised, her face became pale. And she told Robley that he should prepare for the worst.
That decided Robley who felt his companion would prefer to die at home. But, I felt something creeping up my shadow. I called Matt up and asked him to 'put his thinking cap on'.
Then I described the symptoms, in Latin, in case anyone was listening. He and I had spent some time I remembered in Second Century Rome.
"Ave et Morituri." Which is "We who are about to die salute you." or therabouts. It was what the gladiators said to the Emperor.
"What?!?" I said in English.
"I don't know, it just seemed appropos of the moment. Whatever, that is not measles. We've obviously been attacked by a bioweapon, and no one is going to use measles as a bioweapon. I'll talk to you later, I have to wake Kelly so she can talk to Washington. Also, tell Graeme to cast off from shore, now."
"Why?"
"I don't know, its just a good idea."
And then he hung up. I called Graeme, and relayed the suggestion with all the necessity I could, and he understood.
"I'm clear of the main infection areas. If the city gets cut off, I'll be a form of transport on the outside. Could probably bring in supplies and float them in without actually docking."
"But the Coast Guard would stop you from that last trick."
Graeme chuckled.
"Not this boat. They would all fall asleep at the same time for five minutes as I sailed by, or something else would happen."
I had forgotten his magic sail.
I briefed him, and then he hung up to retrieve his dop and to make sail.
Then I got Robley to take a picture of the ill man, and I wondered what to do with it, but it had seemed the thing to do. Maybe I could take it to Matt, and he could do an instant diagnoses, but then, I remembered his machine.
And I was sprinting out the door after snagging the keys and I raced across town and over the bridge.
The MP had the machine waiting for me at the front gate, and I took it, and went back as fast as I had come. I left two cops wailing futile sirens behind me as I almost flew over the bridge doing a hundred and forty.
Once there, I walked into the room where the sick man lay among brocaded ottomans and pictures of happier days. Several of the pictures were Robley's and they showed universes other than home; I bet his party guests thought they were Photoshopped.
The crowd parted, and I ran the scanner over his body from scalp to heel. And then I pressed the button to reveal the hidden horror.
*Smallpox, variety unknown. 67% similiarity to Major strain, 52% similarity to Minor strain, 11% similarity to Hemmorhaghic strain, 4% similarity to Flat strain.*
The scanner slipped softly onto the heavily carpeted floor with its overlay of Persian rugs, and I fell back to the same floor.
Dear God, let this be wrong, I prayed as tears leaked from my eyes. Meanwhile, words ran through my mind. Smallpox, virgin field epidemic, the Red Death, fatality rates were at least thirty percent, I thought from vague memory. I remembered what had happened to the Native American tribes when smallpox came to them. They had no resistance, and it slaughtered them wholesale. We might be in almost as bad a state as them.
Lara grabbed the scanner, and read it to her nurse doppleganger.
"Oh, no, oh, no." They both wept in unison. And Robley leaned over the body of his love, and began to cry without hope.
Tadeusz
And tonight I was supposed to meet the three M.J.'s at the Old Spaghetti House. I wonder if they could sing tenor.
A quick shower, and I got dressed, and out to the elevator. I have only a couple changes of clothing, and it occurred to me that I might as well go clothes-shopping today if I was going to stay here a while.
Its generally best not to take too much stuff with you as you verse into a new world, because you are probably going to have to carry it. Unless there is enough magic to shrink it, or some other means of dealing with the problem.
I just tend to limit myself to a really large backpack which does have a few special pockets that I only open in certain worlds because those pockets are magical.
Downstairs, I found the lobby full, and the hotel restauraunt manned by overstressed waitresses. It seemed two different groups were in town. One, a convention for Amra, which was power meter readers, and the other, a trade show for quilters.
The first group was mostly guys, and the second mostly women, and they all wanted hotel space which was not to be had.
So I walked down the street, and found a McDonald's tucked into a four-story tall building. A rather rude man pushed past me, and got in front of me as I reached for the front door.
When I huffed, he just gave me a venomous stare out of his dark eyes, and turned away. I shrugged. I like cities, but you run up against the whole cross-section of humanity in them and that includes those with a grudge against the morning or their fellow citizens.
Eating my sausage biscuit, and sipping my "Happsi" (it tasted rather like a mild version of Dr. Pepper) carbonated beverage, and the worldwide Happsi company was headquartered in Atlanta, I walked out, and searched about with my scriff sense for targets, for other versers.
Walking a five square block of streets to try to figure out the vector changes, and the likely distances, I found one on the far western side of town, and two across the river, and one close by, and more easterly.
I figured I'd hit the western one first, and come back here to get the others.
Hailing a taxi, I had some difficulty explaining what I was doing. From the weirdness of my directions which were "Go west, and I'll give you more directions as we go.", and from the language barriers. He demanded money down first since he thought I sounded nutty.
We drove past the protestors who were out again. And that set my driver off since he evidently was from the Kingdom of Persia, and he had been busted by the police a couple times when he was totally innocent, or so he said.
But I asked him a couple questions, and he refused to admit the simple thesis that deliberately killing civilians was evil.
"One had to understand the rage of the oppressed." He said, and I looked at him narrowly from the back seat. It seemed he believed that the insults and tragedy suffered by his people made whatever the more extreme of them did acceptable.
I did not wonder anymore why the police had questioned him.
After an hour, we came to a very nice neighbourhood with tree dappled medians in the center of residential streets, and the power lines were properly buried underground, and yards were manicured acres, and houses started at five thousand square feet, and went up from there.
My driver told me this is why he had come to America so that he could get rich and have a house like this. He proudly told me he already owned a duplex that he rented and a laundry, and I just shook my head. People are weird. He hated America on one hand, and loved it on the other.
It took some circling, but I isolated my target. Stone walls, and an iron gate made it even more exclusive than the other houses.
I got out, paid off the driver, and asked him to stay a few minutes. He nodded happy with his hundred dollar bill.
Upon walking up to the gate, I realized several things. The owner was paranoid, or maybe security conscious. The wall looked easily climbed, but on closer inspection, it was made of slick stones, and I bet it had broken glass on the top of it, and I could see a tire buster that could pop up out of the sidewalk.
And the guard, dressed in black, and wearing a vest, and a HK submachine gun under his jacket looked fearsomely competent, and polite to a point.
I paused realizing I would need to change my approach strategy. No knocking on the door, and saying "Hi there."
"Please tell the master of the house that Tadeusz, also called Ghost and Stormlord, would like to talk to him."
He all but chuckled at me.
"Mr. Ghost, the owner is busy. You'll have to make an appointment."
I shifted my stance from the other side of the iron gate, and gave him a look, and suddenly his sense of humor at me being a figure of fun faded, and he gave me a hard look measuring my combat potential.
"Please give that message, and this coin to the owner. My gift for bothering him." And I fished out a solidus of gold. He examined the coin, and saw the foreign writing, and the engraving of Conan looking stern (which Conan was very good at), and weighed it in his hand.
He nodded, and summoned another guard.
A few minutes later, and I was welcomed in with apologies. Indeed, they even refused to search my small travelling backpack that I had taken with me this morning.
The winding and narrow driveway between the trees passed over a steep-sided stream, and a metal bridge that did not look to fit the idyllic setting. And then I put things in place.
The bridge could collapse, and that would leave a steep ravine about five feet deep that stretched across the property. A beautiful, and functional tank trap.
Whoever this verser was, he took his security very seriously. But evidently he knew me.
We walked counter-clockwise around the house, and looped past the olympic sized swimming pool out back, and onto a three thousand square foot patio which had a gym mat under an awning, and I saw the two Shawns duking it out with kenjutsu staffs.
They had full armour on, and they needed it as hard as they were hitting. When I got closer, they both stopped, bowed, and the better one of the two walked up to me, and shook my hand.
Lemonade was brought since it was a hot day, and we sat down on some wickerwork chairs under an umbrella.
I told him I was surprised at his set-up, and I studied him a bit to see if he was going clinical on me. Paranoia can get to you after all.
Shawn and I, among versers, at least those that are in normal contact with reality, have an unwanted competition. Whose the most ruthless verser in the land?
Both of us had sadly more than enough familiarity with causing megadeaths, and both of us were good with a sword, although with a gun or knife he beat me, and I usually beat him with magic.
But while I judge the wicked, and try to give them a chance to choose right, he tends to just deal with them, in a permanent fashion, straightaway.
"Its simple, I was getting tired of bouncing from world to world with nothing to show for it, so I began collecting small valuables as rewards for my work, and learning some magic to help me find things.
And then I arrive here, and I find..." His dop came up, after changing into some swimming trunks.
"That my alternate has started a business. Kidnap-retrieval. Bad guys kidnap, we kidnap back."
The alternate spoke.
"It was going well, but I was running into cash flow problems, and I was starting to make some serious enemies. Then Beta here, by the way, I'm Prime because this is my world, anyways, Beta here shows up with a bag full of diamonds, and the training of the ninja, and we put it together. My contacts, and my business, and his money, and frankly his greater skill, and I'm proud to say that we have the world's best KRT firm. And for charity, we have a contract with the city even though they cannot really afford us."
"And the defenses are because you have enemies." I said.
"Lots of them." The alternate said, and then excused himself to go swim fifty laps in the pool.
We talked more, and I showed him Conan's sword style, after he sent an "associate" to the hotel room to get my fifteen pound longsword. At first he found it ridiculous, but after I explained to him the special rules of that world where thrusting damage was inconsequential, and holding steel kept the swordsman from being tired, he got interested.
It was close to nightfall, and I realized the dinner was upcoming, and I would have to wait on the other versers for the next day.
We agreed to talk soon, and he sent me back with a limosine that could survive an RPG round.
Showered again, and dressed for dinner.
Met the three M.J.'s, and we talked in the light of glittering brass panels, and walked up to the buffet past a railroad caboose inside the restauraunt. It was gaudy and wonderful.
The biggest item of conversation was that the mayor was being forced to give up racial profiling, fire his police chief, and attend a seminar on "sensitivity". That last bit reminded me of some old English king having to walk barefoot through the snow, and then wait outside the bishop's house for the bishop to deign to see him, and to un-excommunicate him.
I talked about my worries, and all three of them shared them. I got their phone numbers, and left.
First thing, next morning, I tracked down a cel phone company, and got one. Then I went out clothes shopping. Due to the press of conventioneers, it took nearly an hour to get checked out of the Target store, and then lunch at Deke's.
I wanted to continue searching, but I felt tired, and so I gave myself the night off, and watched football.
This was the day I had agreed to spend with Shawn. So I visited him, and trained at his gym. David came by, and we got some of the guards to join us, and we first had a kumite with the proviso that the opponent got to choose your combat style, if you knew it.
So they made me fight a guard, Drunken Monkey style, which I'm not very good at, and I got trounced.
David got the overall championship which was rewarded by being shoved into the pool, and then that night we went paintballing.
I felt like we were wasting time that I should be spending on finding out what was going on, but Cynthia corrected me.
"This is pack-bonding time. You are learning to know each other's moves, to trust each other."
What can I say, the wolf-girl was right. And that game ended in a tie.
We had finished, all but them in a "all against all" game, and we were watching from the road where Shawn had placed himself at the edge of a steep hill covered with shale, and brambles. This guarded his back, and we thought he was somewhere along a seventy foot stretch at the rim of the hill. Even with infrared gear which had been banned in the game, we could not be sure.
Then suddenly Cynthia is charging up the hill through brambles and across shale at speeds an Olympic sprinter might manage on an open track. Shawn's double-faked us, and he is facing toward the hill rim, but as he rises, she fires wildly driving him back down with her left gun.
As near were as she is right now, its hard for her to pull a trigger with her claw-like hands, and then Shawn is back up with a string of three shots dead on target, and we think its all over, but she flings her empty gun into the path of the paintballs, and the perfection of his shooting works against him since the shots are nicely lined up for her to knock down with one thrown gun.
This is superhuman speed, and you don't absorb what happened until you replay it in your mind.
He is reloading, and she opens up at close range, and one, two misses, and three is upcoming, and he reloads, and his and her shots splash in the centermass at the same time.
She streaks past Shawn, and begins to beat her gun on the ground trying to break it, so upset she is.
"I thought I had him this time."
And David has to go over and get his rather volatile wife to calm down.
I went over to the hill, and examined it. There was no path through the brambles where she ran, and that was only partially werewolfed that she had done that attack. This world did not let her become her full, eight foot tall, car-flipping, strike faster than the eye could see engine of destruction.
The next morning, and I wished I had not gone out there. The three scriff sources, I still wanted to track down had moved drastically. They had all left the city, and I hoped they were coming back soon. Otherwise, this mission was going to be a cross-country air travel extravaganza.
I spent the morning running over to a hill that overlooked the city, and then praying over the city. As I prayed, a certainty overcame me. The doom I feared was already here. It grew like a poisenous plant seeking the sun, and then to spread wildly. But as I sought answers, I felt an opposition, from far out of the East, a power raised against me that blinded my eyes so that I could not discern the threat.
But even this told me something. For I felt sure that others prayed to their gods against me, and that meant a human plot, and not a natural disaster had come to Louisville.
And then like a hand of gold reaching out of the fog that obscured my intuition, a prompting came to me. And I began to run. Down the hill with its suburban streets, and into the city, I went. My path was long, and arduous even for me, and I felt pressure on me that hindered my steps, and mischance dogged my feet such that I nearly fell in front of a bus going down the street.
The track took me to the airport, and then to a hotel, and then past, I blush to say, but a strip club, and a Waffle House, and then it stopped, or so it seemed, but I waited. And then I ran further on to a convention center where the Amra people were clearing up, and then to the quilt show which was in its last day, and by a McDonald's I had ate at, and to the bus stop, and to a police station, and city hall, and the stadium, and then back to the airport.
Exhausted, I got a taxi home, and fell asleep on the way. Upon being awoken, I paid up, and went inside, and slept like the dead for that night, the day, and the next night.
Upon getting up, I went down to the hotel lobby, and saw a couple late-leaving quilters who were both flying home, and both of them were afflicted with red noses, and runny eyes. The flu was going around it seemed.
I checked for scriff, and (yahoo!), they were all back.
First, I tracked down Lara, and found her at the hospital cafeteria eating with her alternate. There were posted signs warning people of the flu, and requiring frequent hand-washing.
I told her of my magic run, and asked her to look into it. A handful of solidus secured her help for two days; I was right, she worked as a private detective for her own firm she had just established three weeks ago when she arrived.
"Lara Looks, Inc." was the business, and the insignia had a girl peering under a bed for the monster under the bed. Too cute for words.
Her nurse alternate thought it was funny, and laughed at my lemon-sucking expression.
A walk back toward the east, and I arrived in the Jefferson street area where I had been propositioned. A bit trepidatious, I approached one nice Victorian, and rang the doorbell.
A man in a dog collar opened the door, and thankfully, he was not the verser. But he did not want to introduce me to his housemate because of jealousy.
"Show some respect, don't come to my door, of my house, to try to pick up my man." He hissed at me, and prepared to slam the door.
I goggled at him, and then raised my left hand with its wedding ring to assure him that I was profoundly hetero, which he sneered at saying that many liked it both ways, and so on he went.
"I'm a member of the same 'social club' as your friend." I tried to say, but he did not listen.
I growled at him. Maybe I shouldn't have, but he was really getting on my nerves. He paled, and then went to get the other guy who I really, really hoped was verser.
He was, and he came stomping up to the door to yell at me for upsetting his boyfriend. That had definitely been a mistake. I apologized thrice, and endured having a finger shoved into my chest, before I finally had enough.
"Enough." And I knocked his arm aside with a snapblock. He paused, and then nodded. Both of us were tall, and muscled, and I had just told him in deeds that another finger in my chest was going to mean a fight.
He listened as I told him of my worries, and introduced myself.
"Do you know this guy?" The boyfriend asked suspiciously from the stairs which I had been chased down.
"Yeah, well sort-of. We are members of the same 'social club'." The other verser, Jack Robley, replied. "But don't worry, he's not a friend. I've heard of him, a fascist jerk."
I nodded.
"So he doesn't know?" I asked quietly, and Robley shook his head.
"Immuno-compromised, and soon to die due to the fascist policies of this government, and I tell him, that I'm immortal? No way." A dark shadow hooded his eyes, and I nodded in respectful sympathy.
"If you need anything, here's my phone number." I handed him a piece of paper, and walked away sadly.
It looked like the flu had spread to this area as well, I thought as I saw several sufferers on Jefferson Street.
Now, I got a taxi to take me across the river to Kaintuck. We went over a large bridge over the Ohio River, and down on the other side.
It was a rougher neighbourhood, but not bad, not really, with plenty of typical commercial establishments even though I only recognized a few names. Target, a department store, and Seven-Eleven convenience stores (which had vanished from my homeworld, I think), but the rest, Gogh's Bakery, Lott's (a grocery), Flickerflash Photomart, Irish Eyes gasoline were new to me.
And then I came to an industrial park. After weaving through it a bit, I found Optical Memories, Inc., a large campus with about a dozen buildings that was in the process of being renovated. Construction equipment was being used to dig new trenches connecting buildings to lay down cables, and I almost stopped when I saw MP's guarding the gate, but I got the taxi to let me out when I saw Kelly walking up to the front door.
I hollered at her, and was surprised to hear in my mind, a whisper.
*Tadeusz?* She must be skilled indeed to do telepathy in this world, I thought. She walked over, a bit oddly, and the MP who had displayed annoyance at me straightened up, and saluted.
"Let him in." And so it was done, and I got a security badge on her word since she was chief of security at the installation.
We walked into her office, and after sending out the secretary for coffee, I asked her what was going on?
Why was she working for the military?
She laughed, and assured me that none knew of versers.
"Its a bit of a long story. I arrived here, a couple months after Shawn did, but I did not meet him then, and I searched out my doppleganger for fun, and I found she had gotten in trouble. She had decided to teach in a problem school, and then came across some drug dealing, and corruption that went up to high levels, and she was in way over her head."
She turned suddenly cold eyes toward me.
"I discussed things with the principals. And that went all to pieces, since the rot went way higher than I thought. I ended up running from the FBI and the CIA for a couple weeks until we collected the info to bring down a U.S. Senator, and clear my name. Well, at that point, I got a number of offers, ones I was not totally sure it was wise to refuse, and so I joined up with No Such Agency."
The premier codebreakers of the world; I nodded in understanding.
"There I taught myself codebreaking, and learned interrogation of suspects. And best of all, when a young scientist came to the government looking to get a grant to construct miniaturized laser communication 'walkie-talkies', I was able to get him the grant, and introduce him to a young English teacher."
"You matchmaked this world's Matt and your dop from this world?" I guessed with a smile. And she grinned back.
"Best of all, when Matt versed in here, he tracked down his alter ego, and thus found me. Now, I've got the both of them working in this new facility. My Matt is here working on a disease diagnoses laser system that could revolutionize the time to begin treatment. It would almost be as good as one of those tricorders off Star Trek. And the local Matt is finishing up on his 'walkie-talkie', and the two of them are ginning up something they like to call a 'Gut Instinct', a Grand Unified Field Theory of the Universe."
"And you?"
"I run the shop here, and do the security as well to keep my hand in. Its a pain going before the Select Intelligence Subcommitte of Congress, and explaining what I'm doing here, and why they should keep funding us, and then riding herd on the Matts to make sure they don't get too excited by some odd new thought. I'm an Assistant Undersecretary for Photonics Research."
I blinked, and thought. President, V.P., Attorney general, NSA chief, Undersecretary of Reseach and Development, and my host.
"So if say the top hundred or so people get struck by lightning, then you would be Madame President, leader of the free world?"
She grimaced.
"Something like that. Lets go see the Matts."
We got up, and she took me down into the basement where a laser fusion device was being tested.
I was impressed until I heard a voice from behind me.
"It old stuff. I've got something much cooler." I turned and saw a young guy with old eyes who was wrapped around himself, or his legs were over his head and touching his lower spine.
He uncurled himself.
"Yoga exercises help me think."
And then he took me on a tour of his facility. We passed the other Matt, and the two started jabbering in what sounded like their own language, and so the verser set off on a run to another project.
Unlike talking to Graeme, there was no following the idea stream. It was disjointed, rapid, and yet somehow I felt a unifying theme.
And then I looked closer at him for he felt different than the old, calmer Matt I remembered.
And he grinned widely.
"I heard what you did to yourself at Starsong, and I wondered if I could do as much. Turned out I could not as yet, but thats for the good since it turns out your model had serious flaws in it."
He paused.
"I have a partially functional optical and quantum, if the bias supports it, which this world's doesn't, computer attached to my brain. It gives me flashes of superhuman intelligence" And then he grinned.
"Thats one of the things the other Matt and the lady in charge do is to keep me grounded. Sometimes this hookup is like riding a tornado, and I'm afraid its turned me into a bit of the stereotypical eccentric scientist. I get lost in a thought, and walk into doors."
I shivered a bit from desire and fear and worry. The desire was for having that godlike understanding back, and the fear was of having it back for with it went an understanding of one's own self that was not all that pleasant, and the worry was for my friend.
He smiled at me, and suddenly it was like the fellow I had traipsed through the playground with. His slightly manic manner calmed, and the preternatural sharpness in his eyes dimmed.
"Don't worry, Tad. I've lived with it for fifty years now. I just have to make sure I spend at least twelve hours a day off it, or I start hallucinating and seeing the answers to the Universe in the fall of leaves."
And then I looked deeper with all my psionic skill which barely touched his mind, this world was so difficult, and I found something. Wholeness, sanity on a level that went far deeper than most people ever have a chance of attaining despite years or decades of meditation.
"I understand myself far better than before, and so I've learned, at least somewhat to not lie to myself quite as much as most people do. Its the gift or curse of the computer chip in my head."
And then the other Matt came up, and led us off to see the diagnostic device. We shined a laser beam on some Happsi, a stick of peppermint gum, and on a gold solidus, all of which I concealed in my hand, or behind my back, and they shined the laser beam through my hand, but through my chest with its abundance of cyberware confused the poor program.
"But there are only three cyborgs on the planet." Kelly said laughing "So its not much of a problem."
I wondered about that 'three', and Matt filled me in as we walked back to the front door.
"Bout three worlds ago, me and Kelly landed in a cyberpunk universe. She decided to become a street samurai, hyper reflexes, triple normal strength, IR vision, a few guns hidden here or there."
I popped my titanium half-inch nails out, and Kelly popped her six inch long claws out, and we all laughed almost hysterically.
Matt walked me to an official car which they were going to loan me, and before I got in the undistinguished Chevy, he gave me a serious look.
"There's something bothering you, and I think its the same thing that's got me spending so much time in hyper-link."
"Yeah, I feel like doom is coming."
"Doom." He paused. "That's a good word for it. I can feel my mind chewing at it. You've just given me another piece of the puzzle. Talk to me later." And he wandered off to stroll under the night sky and think thoughts too complicated for mere humanity to follow.
I drove home to the hotel.
The next day, I got Lara's report. She said there had been a high incidence of flu, and she gave me a list of the hardest hit companies. A stewardess on a flight from Kazahkistan, a taxi driver usually gone to the airport, a clerk at my McDonald's, and more.
It looked like someone flew in. Spread the flu, and left. Unfortunately, they hit a lot of places where people congregated, and where people would then take the flu back home with them. Those conventioneers would spread the flu over the whole of North America.
So it looked like I had a lead on Case Zero of a flu epidemic which while important in a scientific sense was not earthshaking.
I thanked Lara who had used her nurse dop's connections at the local hospitals to find this data, and went off to think and pray some more.
I checked in with the local MJ, and it was official. A really bad flu epidemic had hit the town. I filled him in on my data, and he called in the Alchemist who had one pointed question.
"Why would someone with a bad flu travel, visit for a day, hit two totally dissimiar conventions, and leave?"
Put that way, it was doggone suspicious.
I called up Kelly and asked for new data. She had none other than China was getting miffed with America again about our supporting Taiwan, and they had kicked our ambassador out. Closed the doors of the Middle Kingdom, and hissed at us.
She was not worried. It was a typical melodramatic play for attention that would blow over. We would offer them some leniency on a trade talk, and they would be our 'good friends' again.
David had nothing, but Cynthia took the phone away from him, and told me...
"The Earth, she groans in fear." Which was nicely spooky, but did not enlighten me.
David and I went to the Visitor, and asked him for help. Magic help. He took some time off from the concert he was prepping for, and in the back stage area we worked up a magic spell.
We prepared the area, sanctifying it, and warding it. Our magics were many, and potent, of a number of different schools although we found unity in miracles, and the Visitor led us with his bardic singing to see the man who had come to the town.
Despite pressure against us, we pierced the veil of time, and I saw the man who had been rude to me in the McDonalds. We followed him as he got off the plane and wandered the city in the path I had run.
Despite his sickness, he pressed on, and did nothing but travel, and he made no real effort to cover his face when he coughed.
We followed him back to the plane the next day, and he got on. And there the trail stopped once his plane flew off for we were now in the realm of our enemies greater power. Dragons or djinn, I am not sure assailed us in the mystic vision, and broke our seeing.
Panting, we collapsed back to our normal senses, and the Visitor tipped over his bowl of water to break any connection.
Obviously, this man was up to something. But what? I wanted to talk to him, and now.
So I placed a phone call to Shawn, and got him on the job. Now he would be the kidnapper.
"Consider it done. Fourty-eight hours, and he should be in your hands." Shawn said with that determination that scared his opponents after he heard my story.
And then greatly fearing I went back to my hotel room, and slept with many nightmares plaguing me.
A soft tapping, and I thought I heard the hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen, especially one, and then I awoke with my shirt stained with sweat, and heard a tapping at my door.
Grabbing my gun, (yes, I was feeling paranoid), I went to the door, and opened it.
Jack Robley stood there with fear trembling his arms.
"Come quickly, I need your help."
And he strode away.
"What?" I asked as I grabbed the rest of my clothes, and threw them on, and then chased him down the hall.
"I need help, and my love is afraid of the hospital. And I figured you're an experienced verser, you would know some medicine."
"Right." Unfortunately, while I knew some, first aid, amputations, and some herbalism, and a few other tricks, I was not even a nurse, let alone a doctor.
"Let me get a friend."
We took his car since it was far faster than mine, a Porsche, and I called Lara who got me in contact with her dop.
We picked them both up, and went to Jefferson Street at a tire-squealing speed.
Inside, the old Victorian, I saw the boyfriend. He looked dreadful. A rash covered his face, and terribly strong flu bedeviled him, and he was barely conscious.
The nurse demanded we take him to the emergency at once. It seemed this flu was possibly measles, they had determined at the hospital, and this man was a really severe case.
When she was told he was immuno-compromised, her face became pale. And she told Robley that he should prepare for the worst.
That decided Robley who felt his companion would prefer to die at home. But, I felt something creeping up my shadow. I called Matt up and asked him to 'put his thinking cap on'.
Then I described the symptoms, in Latin, in case anyone was listening. He and I had spent some time I remembered in Second Century Rome.
"Ave et Morituri." Which is "We who are about to die salute you." or therabouts. It was what the gladiators said to the Emperor.
"What?!?" I said in English.
"I don't know, it just seemed appropos of the moment. Whatever, that is not measles. We've obviously been attacked by a bioweapon, and no one is going to use measles as a bioweapon. I'll talk to you later, I have to wake Kelly so she can talk to Washington. Also, tell Graeme to cast off from shore, now."
"Why?"
"I don't know, its just a good idea."
And then he hung up. I called Graeme, and relayed the suggestion with all the necessity I could, and he understood.
"I'm clear of the main infection areas. If the city gets cut off, I'll be a form of transport on the outside. Could probably bring in supplies and float them in without actually docking."
"But the Coast Guard would stop you from that last trick."
Graeme chuckled.
"Not this boat. They would all fall asleep at the same time for five minutes as I sailed by, or something else would happen."
I had forgotten his magic sail.
I briefed him, and then he hung up to retrieve his dop and to make sail.
Then I got Robley to take a picture of the ill man, and I wondered what to do with it, but it had seemed the thing to do. Maybe I could take it to Matt, and he could do an instant diagnoses, but then, I remembered his machine.
And I was sprinting out the door after snagging the keys and I raced across town and over the bridge.
The MP had the machine waiting for me at the front gate, and I took it, and went back as fast as I had come. I left two cops wailing futile sirens behind me as I almost flew over the bridge doing a hundred and forty.
Once there, I walked into the room where the sick man lay among brocaded ottomans and pictures of happier days. Several of the pictures were Robley's and they showed universes other than home; I bet his party guests thought they were Photoshopped.
The crowd parted, and I ran the scanner over his body from scalp to heel. And then I pressed the button to reveal the hidden horror.
*Smallpox, variety unknown. 67% similiarity to Major strain, 52% similarity to Minor strain, 11% similarity to Hemmorhaghic strain, 4% similarity to Flat strain.*
The scanner slipped softly onto the heavily carpeted floor with its overlay of Persian rugs, and I fell back to the same floor.
Dear God, let this be wrong, I prayed as tears leaked from my eyes. Meanwhile, words ran through my mind. Smallpox, virgin field epidemic, the Red Death, fatality rates were at least thirty percent, I thought from vague memory. I remembered what had happened to the Native American tribes when smallpox came to them. They had no resistance, and it slaughtered them wholesale. We might be in almost as bad a state as them.
Lara grabbed the scanner, and read it to her nurse doppleganger.
"Oh, no, oh, no." They both wept in unison. And Robley leaned over the body of his love, and began to cry without hope.
Tadeusz
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.