Greg Bear - Blood Music

“What in hell can a hospital do? Did you figure out any way to control the cells? I mean, they’re my own. Hurt them, hurt me.”

“I’ve been thinking.” Actually, the idea had just popped into his head—a sure sign that he was starting to believe Vergil. “Actinomycin can bind to DNA and stop transcription. We could slow them down that way—surely that would screw up this biologic you’ve described.”

I’m allergic to actinomycin. It would kill me.”

Edward looked down at his hands. That had been his best shot, he was sure of it. “We could do some experiments, see how they metabolize, differ from other cells. If we could isolate a nutrient they require more of, we could starve them. Maybe even radiation treatments—”

“Hurt them,” Vergil said, turning toward Edward, “hurt me.” He stood in the middle of the Irving room and held out his arms. The robe fell open and revealed Vergil’s legs and torso. Shadow obscured any visible detail. “I’m not sure I want to be rid of them. They’re not doing any harm.”

Edward swallowed back his frustration and tried to control a flush of anger, only making it worse. “How do you know?”

Vergil shook his head and held up one finger. They’re trying to understand what space is. That’s tough for them. They break distances down into concentrations of chemicals. For them, space is a range of taste intensities.”

“Vergil—”

“Listen, think, Edward!” His tone was excited but even. “Something is happening inside me. They talk to each other with proteins and nucleic acids, through the fluids, through membranes. They tailor something—viruses, maybe—to carry long messages or personality traits or biologic. Plasmid-like structures. That makes sense. Those are some of the ways I programmed them. Maybe that’s what your machine calls infection—all the new information in my blood. Chatter. Tastes of other individuals. Peers. Superiors. Subordinates.”

“Vergil, I’m listening, but I—”

“This is my show, Edward. I’m their universe. They’re amazed by the new scale.” He sat down and was quiet again for a time. Edward squatted by his chair and pulled up the sleeve of Vergil’s robe. His arm was criss-crossed with white lines.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Edward said, reaching for the table phone.

“No!” Vergil cried, sitting up. “I told you, I’m not sick, this is my show. What can they do for me? It would be a farce.”

Then what in hell am I doing here?” Edward asked, becoming angry. “I can’t do anything. I’m one of the cavemen and you came to me—”

“You’re a friend,” Vergil said, fixing his eyes on him. Edward had the unnerving suspicion he was being watched by more than just Vergil. “I wanted you here to keep me company.” He laughed. “But I’m not exactly alone, am I?”

“I have to call Gail,” Edward said, dialing the number.

“Gail, yeah. But don’t tell her anything.”

“Oh, no. Absolutely.”

By dawn, Vergil was walking around the apartment, fingering things, looking out windows, slowly and methodically making himself lunch. “You know, I can actually feel their thoughts,” he said. Edward watched, exhausted and sick with tension, from an armchair in the Irving room. “I mean, their cytoplasm seems to have a will of its own. A kind of subconscious life, counter to the rationality they’ve acquired so recently. They hear the chemical ‘noise’ of molecules fitting and unfitting inside.”

He stood in the middle of the living room, robe fallen open, eyes dosed. He seemed to be taking brief naps. It was possible, Edward thought, that he was undergoing petit mal seizures. Who could predict what havoc the lymphocytes were wreaking in his brain?

Edward called Gail again from the kitchen phone. She was preparing for work. He asked her to phone the hospital and tell them he was too ill to come to work. “Cover up for you? This must be serious. What’s wrong with Vergil? Can’t he change his own diapers?”

Edward didn’t say anything.

“Everything okay?” she asked, after a long pause.

Was it? Decidedly not. “Fine,” he said.

“Culture!” Vergil said loudly, peering around the kitchen divider. Edward said good-by and quickly hung up. “They’re always swimming in a bath of information. Contributing to it. It’s a kind of gestalt thing, whatever. The hierarchy is absolute. They send tailored phages after cells that don’t interact properly. Viruses specified to individuals or groups. No escape. One gets pierced by a virus, the cell blebs outward, it explodes and dissolves. But it’s not just a dictatorship. I think they effectively have more freedom than we do. They vary so differently—I mean, from individual to individual, if there are individuals, they vary in different ways than we do. Does that make sense?”

“No,” Edward said softly, rubbing his temples. “Vergil, you are pushing me dose to the edge. I can’t take this much longer. I don’t understand, I’m not sure I believe—”

“Not even now?”

“Okay, let’s say you’re giving me the right interpretation. Giving it to me straight and the whole thing’s true. Have you bothered to figure out the consequences?”

Vergil regarded him warily. “My mother,” he said.

“What about her?”

“Anyone who cleans a toilet.”

“Please make sense.” Desperation made Edward’s voice almost whiny.

“I’ve never been very good at that” Vergil murmured. “Figuring out where things might lead.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Terrified,” Vergil said. His grin became maniacal “Exhilarated.” He kneeled beside Edward’s chair. “At first I wanted to control them. But they are more capable than I am. Who am I, a blundering fool, to try to frustrate them? They’re up to something very important”

“What if they kill you?”

Vergil lay on the floor and spread out his arms and legs. “Dead dog,” he said. Edward felt like kicking him. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m going around you, but yesterday I went to see Michael Bernard. He put me through his private clinic, took a whole range of specimens. Biopsies. You can’t see where he took muscle tissue samples, skin samples, anything. It’s all healed. He said it checks out. And he asked me not to tell anybody.” His expression became dreamy again. “Cities of cells,” he said. “Edward, they push pili-like tubes through the tissues, spread themselves, their information, convert other kinds of cells…”

“Stop it!” Edward shouted. His voice cracked. “What checks out?”

“As Bernard puts it I have ‘severely enlarged’ lymphocytes. The other data isn’t ready yet. I mean, it was only yesterday. So this isn’t our common delusion.”

“What does he plan to do?”

“He’s going to convince Genetron to take me back. Reopen my lab.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s not just having the lab open again. Let me show you. Since I stopped the lamp treatments, my skin’s been changing again.” He pulled back the robe where he lay on the floor.

The skin all over Vergil’s body was crisscrossed with white lines. He turned over. Along his back, the lines were starting to form ridges.

“My God,” Edward said.

“I’m not going to be much good anywhere else but the lab,” Vergil said. “I won’t be able to go out in public.”

“You…you can talk to them, tell them to slow down.” He was immediately aware how ridiculous that sounded.

“Yes, indeed I can, but that doesn’t mean they listen.”

“I thought you’re their god.”

“The ones hooked up to my neurons aren’t the big wheels. They’re researchers, or at least serve the same function. They know I’m here, what I am, but that doesn’t mean they’ve convinced the upper levels of the hierarchy.”