Stephen Leather - Once bitten

As I listened to Sugar's explanation, I began to realise that he was more than just a cop in a grey suit. I got the impression that he was giving me an idiot's guide to the subject and that his knowledge ran much deeper.

"Scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland discovered that brains of sociable mice are particularly turned on by oxytocin, and after extra shots of it they seem to enjoy physical contact even more. It's like they want to get inside each other, almost. But they also found that solitary mice were hardly effected at all."

"So you're saying that some mice are receptive to the hormone, some aren't?"

"It's not just mice, Dr Beaverbrook. It looks as if it does a similar job in humans. Oxytocin is the trigger for tactile contact between humans. It makes you want to hug, to hold hands, to stroke.

Levels of the hormone jump four or five times during orgasm and ejaculation in humans. It either triggers orgasm or is triggered by it. We're not sure which comes first, if you forgive the pun."

I smiled, but I was still confused. "Where is this biochemistry lecture heading?" I asked him.

Sugar linked his fingers on the desk and rubbed his thumbs together. He had big thumbs, the nails almost square. "The investigations we've done on the vampires we have suggests that at no point do they secrete the hormone. Nor is there any indication that they posses receptors which recognise oxytocin. In simple terms, the hormone has no effect. In vivo or in vitro. It does not exist in their bodies. Whatever genetic mutation it is which gives them their longevity also appears to do away with their need for oxytocin, and with it the desire to be sociable. They do not need company, Dr Beaverbrook. Nor do they need sex. I doubt if either the males or the females get any enjoyment from the sexual act whatsoever."

I remembered how Terry had been in bed, how she'd screamed, how she'd held me, how she'd touched me. Had she been acting? Had she faked it? I realised Sugar was staring at me and so I fought to control my feelings.

"So, how was she in bed?" asked Hooper. I'd forgotten he was there, so intent had I been on Sugar's speech. Hooper was openly leering at me and I wanted to punch him in the mouth. I breathed deeply and evenly and tried to relax. I didn't answer his question and looked back at Sugar.

"What he asks is valid, even if it was tactlessly put," said Sugar. "I know that what I'm saying will annoy the shit out of you, but you have to understand quite clearly what I'm saying. They don't need contact with others. They don't need sex."

"Only with their own kind, you mean."

"No, that's not what I mean. They don't need sex, period. They don't reproduce. They can't.

They're sterile. Men and women. Their sterility is at the gene level, it's nothing to do with sperm levels or blockages in Fallopian tubes or any of that stuff. Their DNA just won't recombine.

Everything looks normal, their chromosomes split just fine, but they don't combine again. The men ejaculate, the women ovulate, everything is just as should be, but no matter what you do you can't make the DNA in the sperm and the egg combine."

I began to wonder what sorts of experiments Sugar and his colleagues had been carrying out on the mutants they already had. And what they planned to do with Terry. I heard a throbbing noise from outside the building and the windows began to tremble like an approaching earthquake.

Hooper walked behind Sugar and looked out.

"It makes sense, when you think about it," Sugar continued, seemingly oblivious to the noise outside. "Humans are born, they produce children, they die. The old makes way for the new.

That's how the human race has progressed over the thousands of years we've been on the earth. If we didn't die, there wouldn't be enough room for everyone. But if your body isn't going to die, if the cells can reproduce themselves ad infinitum, it takes away the need to procreate. There is no need to replace the original. And without the need for procreation, there is no desire for the sex act."

An act, I thought. Is that what is was? An act?

"Can I see her?" I asked. The throbbing was louder now. Hooper's head was back as he looked up into the bright blue sky. He used both hands to shield his eyes from the sun.

"This could be your last chance," said Hooper, without turning around. Sugar stood up and motioned me over to the window. We stood on either side of Hooper. He was looking at a white helicopter hovering just above our building, its tail swinging from right to left as it moved down, its rotor a blur. Below most of the vehicles had been removed from the car park and a landing area cordoned off with thick yellow tape marked "Police Line – Do Not Cross." All around the perimeter were armed police and on the tops of the buildings around us I could see SWAT units in place, their rifles trained on the car park. Drivers passing the precinct building stopped and wound down their windows to get a better look, and pedestrians craned their necks upwards. The helicopter hovered and then drifted slowly down until its skids touched the ground. The pilot kept the blades turning. The side door slid open and two men in suits and dark glasses got out.

The angle we were watching from meant that we couldn't see more than a few yards in front of the helicopter, which was facing us. The police around the car park tensed and almost as one raised their weapons, seemingly towards us, but I realised they were covering somebody below us, coming out of the building. When they came into view a few seconds later all we could see was their backs, but I saw enough to know that it was Terry, surrounded by half a dozen guards. She was wearing a police robe again, but they'd also made her wear a restraining jacket, thick canvas with leather straps, the sort they use for controlling lunatics, and they'd shackled her legs together.

As the group reached the helicopter two of the guards held her shoulders and moved her around and for the first time I saw her face. Her hair was loose around her head, and her chin was up defiantly.

Another man stepped forward with a black bag in his hand and moved as if to put it over her head.

She twisted to avoid it and for a wild moment I thought she saw me. Maybe she did, I don't know, but she stopped moving and I felt her black eyes meet mine and then they forced the bag over her head like it was a lynching and bundled her into the helicopter. Three of the guards piled in after her, followed by the two men in suits, then the engine noise picked up and the helicopter lifted of the ground, circled once around the car park blowing off hats and sending litter whirling around before heading off east. Car drivers and pedestrians were standing bemused, not sure if they were watching the real thing or a movie being shot. I saw one of the drivers, a tall, thin man wearing a black Stetson, thump the roof of his red pick-up and climb back into the driver's seat, and gradually the onlookers realised the fun was over and dispersed.

"Where are you taking her?" I asked. Hooper stayed by the window as I went back to my seat. I stood behind it, my hands gripping the backrest, while Sugar sat down behind the desk and looked up at me.

"Best you don't know," said Sugar quietly. "And anyway, we can't tell you. It's on a need-toknow basis like you've never seen before. And you don't even come close to needing to know.

Classified to the nth degree."

"Why?"

"Because it's taken us a long time to track them down. We don't want to risk losing them, not until we've finished our research."

Research, he said, but from what he'd told me so far it seemed more like dissection. They were taking them apart piece by piece.

"What's the aim of this research?" I asked.

Sugar rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and then slid it round to scratch his jaw.