Greg Bear - Mariposa

"Even before I did," Rebecca said.

"During treatment… the vice president became briefly vulnerable. He told me things. Awful things. I regret ever hearing those words. The Quiet Man thought you would inform the president. That hasn't happened yet, has it?"

"No. Who's the Quiet Man? What's his real name?"

"I don't know. He worked for Price, too. But he stayed in California-in La Jolla, I believe-and sent his workers overseas. I was scheduled months ago to give a presentation at the COPES conference in Los Angeles-but bowed out the day before the bombing. I was still on the schedule."

"The bomb was meant for you?" Rebecca asked.

"For anyone Price no longer trusts. Or perhaps just as a warning, or a disruption. I don't know."

"You're still pointing the gun at me."

"I am," Plover said, and looked down with wide eyes, flexing its grayish shine in the single light.

"What did Quinn say, when he was vulnerable?"

Plover shook his head. "This room could be bugged."

"It isn't," Rebecca said, but sensed Plover wasn't going to say anymore on that topic.

"What's your connection with the courier, Nathaniel Trace?"

"One of the seven programmers. They've also experienced side effects. Your group received an even smaller dose."

"Are we all going to turn into homicidal maniacs?"

"I want to doubt it, I need to doubt it," Plover said. "It would take years to know. Epigenetic testing… learning which genes are clamped in which individuals, and how that effects their behavior… still at an early stage. I'm tired. I've told you all I know."

"Has anyone in the third group experienced problems?" Rebecca asked.

Plover became even more agitated. Rebecca considered a feint and an attempt to take away the gun.

"I don't know. I don't know! It's like an ocean of sewage, spreading out in a huge wave. And for Price, Mariposa is an atomic bomb smack in the middle of that ocean. Pwoosh."

Plover threw out his free hand and flicked his fingers, spattering metaphoric shit.

Startled, she missed her chance to go for the gun. "Someone called to say you'd be coming. The Quiet Man?"

"I don't know who else it could be. He protected me, found me a place to hide and offered me advice I thought was sound. I trusted him. Because of him, I am still alive."

"He didn't protect your wife."

"That was before I trusted him. But I don't trust anyone now. I even regret giving you those files…"

He pointed the Luger squarely at her chest. "If you die, now… Price…"

"You did it to avenge Madeline's murder."

Plover tried to pull himself together. "I wanted to inform you, as one of my patients… It's all so tangled. When this is over, if I can continue my research-if the good guys win," and he afforded Rebecca a small, shy smile, "Mariposa will be the greatest boon to humanity since fire. Think of it. Sanity for all. But first… we have to climb over this wall and get to the other side. I'm glad I did it. I had to. The Quiet Man was right, bomb or no bomb. You're the one with the connections to stop Axel Price. Please do it. For Madeline."

Plover got to his feet, then backed across the room and opened the door.

He closed the door behind him.

She heard his footsteps going down the hall. After that, silence. She opened the door and looked out. Baumann was still away from his post.

Nobody had replaced him.

She closed the door and sat in the half dark, blinking, bringing her breath under control. She could end up like the broken man she had interviewed this morning. She could end up like the programmers, wherever they were, whatever their symptoms might be-and the odd Mr. Trace, who at least had shown some sort of courage and even, possibly, compassion.

It all sounded incredibly nasty and unpredictable.

How would she feel when… if, it began to happen?

36 HOURS

Lion City, Texas

A light breeze blew grit and silt from Mexico, leaving brown streaks across the Texas sky-the ragged hem of famine's cloak.

William Griffin parked the old Chevette at the dry grassy margin in front of a small bungalow and kicked down the emergency brake, then sat for a moment, head bowed, steadying his nerves.

His next action would be the first bead on a bone rosary of sacred violations. He-a special agent-was going to assault a sworn peace officer. After this, he could never again hold himself above the criminal; he was part of that world, one of them…

Undercover and way outside his known universe.

He peered through the rivulets of dust on the windshield, sweeping up the shadowy details of the sleeping neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Lion City: a loose scatter of dusty yards and screen porch houses, oaks and dogwood, boarded-up auto shops, a shuttered feed store, a recycled tire store-hard times.

On a dirt lot across from the house, idle truck trailers and big rigs stretched out silver gray in the promise of dawn, surprisingly pretty, though covered with dew and a film of mud.

A rooster strutted across the dusty patched asphalt of Farm to Market Road.

Nothing but the rooster and William.

William had met his new partners two days ago and explained the switch-out. The agent formerly in charge of the Little Jamey operation, codenamed Vanilla Extract, had been unexpectedly reassigned to Alameda.

William had been in on the secret planning of this whole operation and was in cahoots with agents in D.C.

He was immediately accepted. Some of the agents had heard vague rumors about Mecca and admired that kind of rogue reputation.

He seemed to fit right in.

A heavy-duty Econoline van, gray and green, windows thick-meshed and interior customized for prisoner transport, had been parked under a dying oak tree far down the driveway. Block letters on its rear doors read "PerpTrans."

He touched the temple piece of his MacArthur-style spex and murmured, "Let's wake him up."

William rolled down his window. He heard a phone jangle. After four rings, someone picked up. William caught a bit of the dialog through his earpiece.

The man in the house was half asleep.

Wrong number.

William heard the heavy clack-ka-ching from inside the house even before the grid passed along the angry words: "Well, goddammit, it's five a.m.!"

A message tickered in the corner of William's lightly tinted spex:

Time. Bring leash.

William gritted his teeth and got out. A bit of sand had lodged under one eyelid but there was nothing he could do; seconds counted. He walked up to the porch and sliced through the screen with his pocket knife, flicked up the hook, then swung open the screen door with a ghostly creak.

The brass monkey knocker was mounted on the inside door. Red glass eyes glowed in the leering face. The banner over the knocker read, "Welcome to the Monkey House."

He lifted the monkey's paw and rapped.

"Who's there?" a grating voice asked.

"Travis Coolidge, Lion County jail. I'm to ride in with you. I have the itinerary for this morning's transfer."

"Well, hell. Something's changed?"

The door opened and William faced Eddie Mallom. Mallom blearily eyed William, recognized a cop when he saw one, and swung the front door wide. "Anything different from what we got faxed last night?"

"Just me."

The brass paw rattled. "Jesus. We're not due for another hour and a half. You coulda let me sleep in."

Mallom was in his mid-thirties, a bachelor, about William's height but skinnier, slope-shouldered but not a weakling judging by the rope-knot muscles that poked from the sleeves of his T-shirt. His face was lean and grizzled with a thick morning beard.

William and his new partners had closely watched their respective clients all last evening. There had been an employee toot at the local BBQ. The PerpTrans boys had left around two in the morning, barely three hours ago.