Greg Bear - Darwin's Children

Miss Kinney nodded, going along for the moment.

“We’d switch out a runner and a channel each time. In a couple of hours, I bet most of us could sink baskets really well, and if we added up the points, the teams would have more points than if they, you know, fought with each other.” Stella thought this over very earnestly for an instant and her face lit up. “Maybe a thousand points in a game.”

“Nobody would want to watch,” Miss Kinney said. She was showing her exhaustion now, but also making a funny little grin that Stella could not interpret. Stella looked at the blinking red light on the nosey on Miss Kinney’s belt. Miss Kinney had turned off the nosey before practice, perhaps because the girls often triggered its tiny little wheeping alarm when they exercised, no matter how much self-control they displayed.

“I would watch!” Celia said, leaning into the words. “I could learn how to train people in motion with, you know, signs.” Celia glanced at Stella conspiratorially, and undered, / Signs and smells and spit, eyes that twirl and brows that knit. It was a little song they sometimes sang in the dorm before sleep; softly. “That would really be fun.”

The other girls agreed that they understood that sort of game.

Miss Kinney lifted her hand and twisted it back and forth like a little flag. “What is it? You don’t like competition?”

“We like push-pull,” Stella said. “We do it all the time. On the playground, in the walking square.”

“Is that when you do those little dances?” Miss Kinney asked.

“That’s mosey or maybe push-pull,” said Harriet Pincher, the stockiest girl in the group. “Palms get sweaty with mosey. They stay dry with push-pull.”

Stella did not know how to begin to explain the difference. Sweaty palms in a group touch could make all sorts of changes. Individuals could become stronger, more willing to lead, or less aggressive in their push to lead, or simply sit out a deme debate, if one happened. Dry palms indicated a push-pull, and that was less serious, more like play. A deme needed to adjust all the time, and there were many ways to do that, some fun, some more like hard work.

Rarely, a deme adjustment involved stronger measures. The few attempts she had seen had resulted in some pretty nasty reactions. She didn’t want to bring that up now, though Miss Kinney seemed genuinely interested.

Adjusting to humans was a puzzle. The new children were supposed to do all the adjusting, and that made it hard.

“Come on,” said Miss Kinney, getting up. “Try again. Humor me.”

Pathogenics Centers

Viral Threat Assessment Division

Sandia Labs

NEW MEXICO

“We trade a lot of aptronyms to let off steam,” Jonathan Turner said as he spun the golf cart up to the concrete guard box.

“Aptronyms?” Christopher Dicken asked.

The sun had set in typical New Mexico fashion—suddenly and with some drama. Halogen lamps were switching on all over the facility, casting the plain and often downright ugly architecture into stark artificial day.

“Names that suit the job. I’ll give you an example,” Turner said. “We have a doctor here at Sandia named Polk. Asa Polk.”

“Ah,” Dicken said. The guard box stood empty. Something small and white moved back and forth behind smoked glass windows. A long steel tube jutted from the side. He used a handkerchief to wipe sweat from his cheeks and forehead. The sweat was not just from the heat. He did not like this new role. He did not like secrets.

In particular, he did not like stepping into the belly of the beast.

Turner followed his gaze. “Nobody home,” he said. “We still use people at the main gates, but here it’s an automated sentry.” Dicken caught a glimpse of a grid of purple beams scooting over Turner’s face, then his own.

A green light glowed beside the gate.

“You are who we say you are, Dr. Dicken,” Turner said. He reached into a small box under the dash and took out a plastic bag marked BIOHAZARD. “The rag, please, Kleenex in your pockets, anything used to sop. Nothing like that is allowed in or out. Clothing is bad enough.”

Dicken dropped the handkerchief into the bag, and Turner sealed it and slipped it into a small metal drop box. The concrete and iron barriers sank and drew back.

“In accounting, we have Mr. Ledger,” Turner said as he drove through. “And in statistics, Dr. Damlye.”

“I once worked with a pathologist named Boddy,” Dicken said.

Turner nodded provisional approval. “One of our arbovirus geniuses is named Bugg.”

The cart hummed past a dark gray water tower and five pressurized gas cylinders painted lime green, then crossed a median to a fenced enclosure containing a large white satellite dish. With a flourish, Turner did a 360 around the dish, then drove up to a row of squat bungalows. Behind the bungalows, and beyond several electrified fences topped with razor wire, lay five concrete warehouses, all of them together code-named Madhouse. The fences were patrolled by squat gray robots and soldiers toting automatic weapons.

“I once knew a plastic surgeon named Scarry,” Dicken said.

Turner smiled approval. “An auto mechanic named Torker.”

“A nuclear chemist named Mason.”

Turner grimaced. “You can do better. It may be essential to your sanity, working here.”

“I’m fresh out,” Dicken admitted.

“I could go on for days. Hundreds and hundreds, all on file and verified. None of this urban legend crap.”

“I thought you said just personal acquaintances.”

“I may have been handicapping you,” Turner admitted, and pulled the cart into a parking space marked in cargo letters on a white placard: #3 madhouse honcho. “A gynecologist named Box.”

“An anthropologist named Mann,” Dicken said, peering right at the sunning cages for the more hirsute residents of the Madhouse, now empty. “Mustn’t let down the team.”

“A dog trainer named Doggett.”

“A traffic cop named Rush.” Dicken felt himself warming to the game.

“A cabby named Parker,” Turner countered.

“A compulsive gambler named Chip.”

“A proctologist named Poker,” Turner said.

“You used that one.”

“Scout’s honor, it’s another,” Turner said. “And I was a scout, believe it or not.”

“Merit badge in hemorrhagic fevers?”

“Lucky guess.”

They walked toward the plain double doors and the white-lit corridor beyond. Dicken’s brow furrowed. “A pathologist named Thomas Shew,” he said, and smiled sheepishly.

“So?”

“T. Shew.”

Turner groaned and opened the door for Dicken. “Welcome to the Madhouse, Dr. Dicken. Initiation begins in half an hour. Need to make a pit stop first? Restrooms to your right. The cleanest loos in Christendom.”

“Not necessary,” Dicken said.

“You should, really. Initiation begins with drinking three bottles of Bud Light, and ends with drinking three bottles of Becks or Heinekens. This symbolizes the transition from the halls of typical piss-poor science to the exalted ranks of Sandia Pathogenics.”

“I’m fine.” Dicken tapped his forehead. “A libertarian named State,” he offered.

“Ah, that’s a different game entirely,” Turner said.

He rapped on the closed door to an office and stood back, folding his hands. Dicken looked along the cinder block hallway, then down to the concrete gutters on each side, then up at sprinkler heads mounted every six feet. Long red or green tags hung from the sprinkler heads, twisting in a slow current of air flowing north to south. The red tags read: caution: acid solution and detergent. A second pipe and sprinkler system on the left side of the corridor carried green tags that read: Extreme caution: chlorine dioxide.