Franck Thilliez - Syndrome E

Tirelessly she continued, evidently needing to justify her actions while detailing her most heinous crimes.

“Just imagine soldiers who no longer experience fear, who can kill without remorse, without hesitation, like a single, powerful arm. Obviously, many parameters are still beyond us, especially regarding the most favorable conditions for propagating the impulse from Patient Zero. How much stress should we apply to the others? And what’s the best way to do it? But this will all eventually be figured out, mastered, and described in the protocols. With or without me.”

Sharko, impatient, kept his eyes riveted on Quinat. His fists clenched compulsively.

“We found a piece of electrode sheath in Mohamed Abane’s neck. What did you do to him?”

“Abane had survived Chastel’s ‘glitch,’ and he was a Patient Zero. Before studying his brain, I conducted deep brain stimulation experiments on him. We especially stimulated the pain centers, in order to trace curves and fill out our statistical tables. We had to eliminate him in any case, so let’s just say we got the most out of him first.”

Lucie sensed that Sharko was on the point of bursting.

“Why did you steal their eyes?” she asked in a harsh voice.

Coline Quinat stood up.

“Come with me.”

At his wits’ end, Sharko shouldered a path through the group of policemen waiting outside the room. Quinat led them to a large, clean basement. She nodded toward an old gray rug. Lucie understood; she rolled up the rug, revealing a small trapdoor, which she opened. She wrinkled her features: beneath her was pure horror.

In a minuscule crawl space rested dozens of jars in which pairs of eyeballs floated. Blue, black, and green irises bobbed slowly in formaldehyde. In disgust, Lucie held out a jar to the inspector. Coline Quinat looked carefully at the container. Something baleful shone in her own pupils.

“Eyes… Light, then the image, then the eye, then the brain, then Syndrome E… It’s all connected—now do you understand? One cannot exist without the other. These eyes are the ones through which Syndrome E was able to spread. They’ve always fascinated me, just as they fascinated Jacques Lacombe and my father. They are such perfect, precious organs. The ones you’re holding belonged to Mohamed Abane. You have in your hands a Patient Zero, miss. Eyes that absorbed the syndrome spontaneously, in a way we might never be able to explain, and that guided it straight to the brain, thereby modifying the brain’s structure. Aren’t eyes like that worth preserving?”

There was now a kind of madness shining from Quinat’s own eyes that Lucie had trouble defining. A madness born of the dogged determination of people who were willing to do anything in the service of their beliefs. Lucie turned toward Sharko, who was half hidden in the shadows, then grabbed Coline Quinat by the elbow and pulled her toward the men waiting at the top of the steps. Before putting her in the hands of the police, she asked:

“You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison. Was all this really worth it?”

“Of course! You can’t imagine how much it was worth it!”

She smiled. And at that moment, Lucie understood that no bars could ever contain that kind of smile.

“Images, young lady. Increasingly violent images are everywhere. Think of your own children, numbed out in front of their computers and video games. Think of all those malleable brains, which the preponderance of images is modifying even in early childhood. None of that existed twenty years ago. If you ever have the chance, read the autopsy reports for Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Charles Whitman, young men who walked into their schools with shotguns and fired on anything that moved. Go have a look at their amygdala, and you’ll see it’s atrophied. You’ll understand that now it’s the entire planet that’s rushing toward its own genocide.”

She pressed her lips together, then opened them again:

“Anyone. Syndrome E can strike anyone, in any home. Tomorrow, it might be you or your children. Who’s to say?”

She added nothing more. The police led her away.

Chilled to the heart, Lucie went back downstairs alone, without making any noise, as if devoid of energy, exhausted, and with only one wish: to return home, curl up in her daughters’ arms, and get into bed. Sharko was sitting in front of the dozens of eyes that were watching him, still screaming out their final anguish.

“You coming up?” she murmured in his ear. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I can’t take any more.”

He looked at her for a long time without answering, then stood up with a deep sigh.

Sharko pressed the light switch at the top of the stairs. The eyes of Mohamed Abane shone for a fraction of a second, before going out forever in the darkness of the basement.

One month later

The beach at Les Sables d’Olonne unfurled its great gilded crescent beneath the August sun. Her eyes hidden behind dark shades, Lucie watched Clara and Juliette as they carved elaborate shapes in the sand. Some seagulls spun overhead, and a tepid, calming roar rose from the ocean. All around her people were happy, sharing the slightest square foot of sand. The area was packed.

For the tenth time in less than an hour, Lucie looked back at the seawall. Sharko would be arriving at any moment. Since Coline Quinat’s arrest, they had seen each other only three times, contriving quick round-trips on the TGV that led to furtive embraces. On the other hand, they called each other nearly every evening. Sometimes they didn’t have that much to say; other times, they talked for hours. Their relationship developed haltingly and with plenty of awkward moments.

Even though they’d tried to avoid the topic, their last case had left an indelible stamp on their minds. Inner suffering would take time to heal. In the hours following her arrest, Coline Quinat had confessed everything. The names of military top brass, members of the secret service, certain politicians and scientists. An unofficial research and neurosurgery center devoted to Syndrome E and deep brain stimulation had been established in the hidden recesses of the army’s health services, thirty feet belowground. There, they studied the phenomenon, established experimental protocols, and performed surgeries. Slowly but surely, piece by piece, the think tank behind the operation would crumble. The case was far from closed, and the restrictions on military secrets didn’t make it any easier, but those who should pay would soon be made to pay. Supposedly…

Lucie turned back to her twins, who were sitting in a puddle. Given the crowds, she had ordered them to stay nearby. The girls were playing a few yards away, laughing. Water, sand, and sun—all you needed for happiness. No more video games; Lucie had thrown out all the consoles. To preserve her daughters as much as possible from the world of images, their intrinsic violence, their harmful effects on the mind. Get back to the basics, those old wood or plastic toys, manual activities, paper and paste. Everything was being lost so quickly with technological advances. In some ways, Quinat was right: the world was running headlong into a wall.

In a week, the holidays would already be over. She’d have to go back to Lille, shut herself up in the apartment, and think. Think about the future, about making a better tomorrow out of a life that moved too fast. Lucie let some sand run between her fingers, telling herself yet again that she couldn’t exist, that she couldn’t reach her full potential if she wasn’t a cop. Her job was like a gene, inextricably attached to her cell structure. It was her profession that made her Lucie Henebelle, that gave her her real identity. At the same time, she knew she could improve, be a better mother, a better daughter too. Deep down, she felt she could do it. It was all a matter of willpower.