Филип Керр - The Second Angel

‘Dallas. Just Dallas. Is he still alive? Your father?’

Gates shook his head. ‘Nah. He was forty-four when he died. Good age for someone with bad blood. He was one of the longer lived ones.’

‘And you? How old are you?’ asked Dallas.

‘Thirty-nine. I figure I’ve got maybe another four or five years. But who knows? That’s the thing about P2. The way it stays dormant in your bone marrow for all that time, it’s like the creature in the story about Theseus. The one in the labyrinth?’

‘The Minotaur.’

‘You feel like one of those young men and women that were sent as a tribute from Athens to King Minos as a peace offering. It’s like you’re standing outside the labyrinth, about to be shut in there, with the monster, and you know it’s waiting for you somewhere in the dark, waiting to get you, but you don’t know where and you don’t know when.’

Dallas nodded sympathetically. He had never before had a conversation with someone who had the virus — not to his knowledge, anyway. And it interested him that Gates should have chosen the labyrinth and the Minotaur as a metaphor for P2 and its characteristic hidden, dormant aspect — the so-called Sleeping Dog, or latent, phase of the disease. [68] The establishment of a latent infection is central to the success of P2 as a human pathogen. Latency permits persistence of the virus in the presence of a fully developed immune response, although no incidence of lifelong immunity has ever been recorded. Reactivation of latent virus results in the Three Moon phase, as has already been described; however, the molecular mechanisms for such triggering are not understood. It is during the latent period that the virus is passed on — usually through the exchange of bodily fluids. Worryingly there have even been cases involving airborne infection.

‘And now here you are with your golden thread,’ said Gates.

‘Somehow I can’t really see myself as Ariadne,’ said Dallas. ‘But there will be a labyrinth. And there is a kind of creature. A robot, anyway.’ He explained a little of the Byzantine way in which most blood banks were designed and built and how architects of such high-security environments, like himself, were always vying with one another to create something of utmost complexity and esotericism.

‘I think it’s fair to say that despite our being armed with my unique foreknowledge into the way our target blood bank operates, this will be as hazardous an undertaking as anything to be found in classical mythology.’

Gates shrugged. ‘How else do you get to be a hero?’ he said. ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

How else indeed? What is a hero? It’s only recently that the elements of nobility and self-sacrifice have come to seem important in defining what makes someone a hero. But it was not always thus. In classical times the hero cult included many master thieves. Did not Jason steal the golden fleece? Was it not Heracles who stole the girdle of Queen Hippolyta? And Theseus, who has already been mentioned here — was it not he who stole the golden ring of King Minos, not to mention the actual person of Helen, the daughter of Zeus and, later, the captive of Troy? If myth is a language, then theft is one of its most important nouns. However, the really important factor in the semiotics of heroism is the notion of ordinary men and women, noteworthy because of their actions, becoming superhuman — ultimately, even gods. [69] For example, witness the temple of Heracles in Cadiz. Even those ancient heroes who did not become gods were often worshipped by their descendants — for example, Theseus in Athens. Descent is the key element here. Who and how they are survived. That is what matters if a memory is to be worshipped and a name venerated. Descent. All such mysteries shall presently be revealed. ‘Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy,’ wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. But the present author will give you something much more inhuman than mere tragedy. I will show you a story of men and women rising above their very human condition, in the truly heroic sense. I will show you a completion.

Be sanguine. That’s what the director had told her, and Ronica took this to mean that she should aspire to the mental attributes characteristic of the sanguine complexion, in the medieval physiological sense of that word, in which blood predominates over the other three humors. In becoming courageous, hopeful, confident, even amorous — for blood is always lusty — she would overcome any obstacles in her path. To this end, she dosed herself with a couple of tabs of Connex [70] Connex. A cognition-enhancing drug that works by making the synapses that connect neurons more responsive to natural chemical signals triggering concentration and learning mechanisms in the brain. Connex stimulates neurons to receive more of the glutenate molecules that carry electrical signals across brain synapses. In clinical tests, eight out of ten people who took Connex doubled their scores in tests of short-term memory recall and learning. the minute she was alone in her office. Ronica figured it was best to be fully prepared for anything that her new mission might throw at her. This was her big chance to shine in the director’s line of sight, so she didn’t want to make a mess of it. And there was nothing quite like Connex for boosting your sense of self-confidence. It was much better than cocaine, and the effect much longer lasting. The drug was not without side effects: High doses of Connex could cause powerful hallucinations, while even small doses could assist in the creation of vivid sexual fantasies. Minutes after swallowing the drug, Ronica was the willing victim of a reverie as vivid and lickerish as the most sensational dream.

The ringing phone returned Ronica’s amplified thoughts to her office. Still able to taste the man in her fantasy, Ronica picked up a thin, flat disc and stared into its reflective surface. As soon as she touched the disc, the ringing sound — more like someone stroking the rim of a wineglass than a bell — stopped, and the reflection of her own lightly perspiring features was replaced with those of the director ordering her back to his office.

‘Right away, sir,’ she said as his face vanished from the phone. Holding onto the disc in her fingers, her reflection on the phone’s polished prismatic surface bisected by a laser-thin spectrum that made a livid scar across her face, Ronica checked her appearance, wiped her cheeks with a sheet of nanotissue, [71] Kleenex nanotissue. Tissue that is designed to have a second life soaking up toxic chemicals in ground and water. took a deep breath, and stood up. There were times when she thought Connex should be remarked as some sort of aphrodisiac. She straightened her clothes, and went to find the director.

With its many faux fenêtre English landscape paintings (he owned all of the originals) and its antique furniture, the director’s office was like the drawing room of a beautiful country house. It didn’t matter that she had been there not half an hour earlier; Ronica found herself once again mesmerized by Simon King’s good taste, overawed by such a conspicuous display of wealth. She estimated the desk alone had probably cost more than her apartment.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said impatiently. ‘Come in, come in. This is the girl I was telling you about.’

Ronica hardly minded the fact that by describing her as a girl, and not a woman, the director was in breach of employment and gender legislation, as she walked across the thick Persian rug toward an ornate sofa. He was the director after all, and as far as Ronica was concerned, he could have called her anything he damn well liked. It was a moment or two before her distracted senses registered that Rimmer was already sitting on the sofa scowling at her. As she turned to sit alongside him, the director raised a hand bearing an enormous cigar — smoking in the workplace, another breach of employment legislation — in the air.