Greg Bear: Blood Music

She slept, surrounded by blackness with patches of stars showing between the outlines of the pipes. And when, in the middle of a warm dream about shopping for clothes, she awoke-

Something was wrapped around her. She stroked it drowsily—soft warm, like suede. She fumbled for the flashlight and flicked it on, running the circle of light across her covered legs and hips. The covering was pliable, light blue with indefinite green stripes—her favorite colors. Out from under the covering, her arms and head were cold. She was too sleepy to question; she pulled the cloak high and slipped back into her dreams. This time, she was a young girl, playing in the street with friends from years ago, friends who had since grown up and in many cases, moved away.

Then one by one the buildings were torn down. They all watched as men with huge sledgehammers came along and knocked the brownstones down. She turned to see how her friends were reacting and they were all grown up, or grown old, receding from her and calling for her to follow. She began to cry. Her shoes were stuck to the pavement and she couldn’t move them. When all the buildings were gone, the neighborhood was a level lot, plumbing sticking up in the air, a toilet leaning crazily on a pipe where some upper floor must have once been.

“Things are going to change again, Suzy.” Her shoes loosened and she turned to see Cary, embarrassingly naked.

“Jesus, aren’t you cold?” she asked. “No—it wouldn’t matter. You’re just a ghost.”

“Well, I suppose,” Cary said, smiling. “We just all wanted to warn you. You know? It’s all going to change again, and we wanted to give you a choice.”

“I’m not dreaming am I?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “We’re in the blanket. You can talk to us when you’re awake, too, if you want.”

“The blanket…all of you? Mom and Kenny and Howard?”

“And lots of others, too. Your father, if you want to talk to him. It’s a gift.” he said. “Sort of a going-away present. We all volunteered, but then there’s a lot more of me, and all the others, than we strictly need.”

“You’re not making sense, Cary.”

“You’ll make it. You’re a strong girl, Suzy.”

The dream background had become nebulous. They both stood in orange-brown darkness, the distant sky brightening to orange as if there were fires on the horizon. Cary looked around at the surroundings and nodded. “It’s the artists. There are so many artists, scientists, I kind of feel lost. But I’m going to be one of them soon as I decide. They give us time. We’re honored, Suzy. They know we made ’em and they treat us real good. You know, back there,” he gestured at the darkness, “we could live together. There’s a place where all of ’em think. It’s just like real life, the real world. It can be the way it used to be, or the way it’s going to be. Any way you want.”

“I’m not joining Cary.”

“Nah. Didn’t think you would. I didn’t really have any choice, when I joined, but I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t have ever been as much in Brooklyn Heights as I am now.”

“You’re a zombie, too.”

I’m a ghost.” He smiled at her. “Anyway, part of me’s going to stay with you, if you want to talk. And another part’s going away when they change.”

“It’s going back the way it was?”

He shook his head. “It’ll never be the same. And…look, I don’t understand all this, but it won’t be too long before there’s another change. Nothing’s ever going to be the same.”

Suzy looked at Cary steadily. “You think being naked would tempt me?”

Cary looked down at his image. “Never thought about it,” he said. “Shows you how casual I’m getting. Can’t you change your mind?”

She shook her head firmly. “I’m the only one who didn’t get sick,” she said.

“Well, not the only one. There’s about twenty, twenty-five. They’re being taken care of, as best we can.”

She preferred being unique. “Thanks a lot,” she said sarcastically.

“Anyway, wear the blanket. When the change comes, wrap up in it real tight. There’ll be a lot of food left over.”

“Good.”

“I guess you’re going to wake up now. I’ll get out of the way. You can see us when you’re awake, too. For a while.”

Suzy nodded.

“Don’t throw it away,” he warned. “Otherwise you’ll get hurt.”

“I won’t”

“Well.” He reached out and touched her crossed arms with a spread palm.

She opened her eyes. Dawn was pale orange-gray above the pipes. The surface of the dimple and the pipes themselves were cold.

Suzy wrapped the blanket tighter and waited.

Paulsen-Fuchs stood in the observation chamber, leaning forward on the table, eyes lowered. He had had enough of staring at what lay on the cot in the containment lab.

Bernard had lost his human form in the early morning. The cameras had recorded the transformation. Now, a gray and dark brown mass lay on his bed, portions extending to the floor on two sides. The mass moved fitfully, sometimes experiencing a short, violent shudder.

Before he had been confined to one position, Bernard had picked up the portable keyboard and carried it with him to his cot. The telephone cord-wire issued from the side of the mass. The keyboard itself was somewhere under, or within.

And Bernard was still sending out messages, though he could not speak. The monitor in the control lab recorded a steady flow of words, Bernard’s record of his transformation.

Most of what came from the keyboard was virtually unintelligible. Perhaps Bernard was very nearly a noocyte himself.

The transformation didn’t make Paulsen-Fuchs’ decision any easier. The protesters—and the government, by not exercising authority to prevent them—had demanded that Bernard be killed, that the containment lab be completely sterilized.

They were over two million strong, and if their demands were not carried out, they would destroy Pharmek brick by brick. The army had said it would not protect Pharmek; the police had abrogated their responsibility as well. There was nothing Paulsen-Fuchs could do to stop them; only fifty employees were left on the grounds, the others having been evacuated for their own safety.

Many times he had considered simply leaving the facility, going to his home in Spain and isolating himself completely. Forgetting what had happened, what his friend Michael Bernard had brought with him into Germany.

But Heinz Paulsen-Fuchs had been in business too long to simply retreat. As a very young man, he had watched the Russians enter Berlin. He had put aside all vestiges of his unenthusiastic Nazi past, tried to be as nondescript as possible, but he had not retreated. And during the years of occupation, he had worked at three different jobs. He had stayed in Berlin until 1955, when he and two other men had started Pharmek. The company had nearly gone bankrupt in the wake of the thalidomide panic; but he had not retreated.

No: he would not abrogate responsibility. He would flip the switch that would send sterilizing gases into the containment lab. He would instruct the men with the torches who would enter and finish the task. That would be defeat, but he would at least stay, and not hide out in Spain.

He had no idea what the protesters would do once Bernard was dead. He walked slowly from the observation chamber, into the control lab, and sat before the monitor on which Bernard’s message was appearing.

He ran it back to its beginning. He could read fast enough to catch up with the words. He wanted to review what Bernard had already said, to see if he could make sense of more of it.

Bernard’s final electronic diary entries, beginning 0835