Greg Cox - A Touch of Fever

But why was Worrall making people ill in the meantime? He rested his chin on his knuckles, mulling it over. Artifacts had their own peculiar logic. You simply had to figure it out. Fortunately, he’d had plenty of practice at that. “Hold on,” he muttered. “Didn’t Pete and Myka say that they thought that healing people was making Nadia sick?”

Claudia looked up from her computer. “Yeah, I think so.” “Suppose the other glove does just the opposite? Healing Worrall by making other people ill?” “You may be onto something there, Marcus Welby,” she replied. “Sounds just twisted enough to be right.” She rolled her eyes. “And the fact that it makes sense to me just proves that I’ve been working here too long.” “Just wait until you’re my age.” He ambled over to her desk. “Any progress?” “Already?” She snorted.

“Impatient much?” “You have complete access to every database on the planet.” He glanced again at his watch, wondering if he should wake Myka to debrief her. He wanted to know if Worrall had looked healthier after he infected Pete. “How hard can it be to find one walking epidemic?” “Harder than it sounds, actually,” she admitted, a trifle sheepishly. “He’s gone off the grid in a major way. From what I can tell, he withdrew a large sum of money a while ago and dropped out of sight. He hasn’t used his credit cards for months.” Artie frowned.

“What about his cell phone?” “No recent calls. To be honest, I get the impression this guy isn’t much of a people person. He’s not even on Facebook.” She stubbornly bounced around the Internet, surfing from Web site to Web site. “He’s probably relying on disposable phones, if he’s talking to anyone at all.” “Sounds like he’s being very careful,”

Artie deduced, “which means he’s worried about being tracked or being linked to that chain of typhoid fever outbreaks.” He gave Worrall points for paranoia. “Very clever, Calvin. I should have been paying more attention to you.” “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Claudia said.

“It’s not like you haven’t been distracted lately, first by MacPherson, then by H. G. Wells. Not to mention the usual Warehouse wackiness.” He refused to let himself off so lightly. “No excuses. Not when it might cost Pete his life.” In his stint at the Warehouse, Artie had outlived most every other agent. He had seen far too many good men and women killed, driven insane, petrified, bifurcated, lost in space/time, or worse, all in the line of duty. Their diversely tragic fates weighed on him. He was in no hurry to add Pete to the Warehouse’s long list of casualties. “You know,” Claudia said, “I have to ask: Don’t we have something on the shelves that might be able to fix Pete? Maybe Louis Pasteur’s milk bottle or something?” Artie shook his head. “Too dangerous. Using one artifact to counteract another is never a good idea. Mixing their energies can produce random, wildly unpredictable results, like that time the disco ball accidentally triggered Lewis Carroll’s mirror. We could easily make Pete even worse.” “Really?” Claudia asked. “I hate to say it, but I’m not sure he’s got a lot to lose.” Artie gave her his sternest look. He couldn’t blame Claudia for grasping at straws, but this was something she needed to understand, especially if she was ever going take his or Mrs. Frederic’s place running the Warehouse. “There was an agent once,” he said gravely, “who tried to keep his bones from dissolving by ingesting a rare vial of powdered ivory.” “And?” Claudia prompted.

“You’ve heard of the Elephant Man?” She looked appropriately appalled.

“Oh. Ick.” “Ick indeed.” He trusted he’d made his point. “We have enough on our hands with Clara Barton’s gloves, no pun intended. The last thing we-or Pete-needs is to throw another artifact at him.”

“Okay,” she said. “Message received, loud and clear. No shortcuts.

It’s the gloves or nothing.” She reapplied herself to the search, zipping through cyberspace almost faster than Artie could follow.

Passport applications, tax returns, SAT scores, and library late notices flashed across the screen, one after another. Separate windows, each containing a different document or JPEG, fanned across the screen like playing cards dealt by a quick-fingered stage magician. She even called up a third-grade essay on how Worrall spent his summer vacation (getting his appendix removed, apparently). But all she found was dead ends. “Frell!” she cursed in geek. She threw up her hands. “In the immortal words of the Shat, this guy needs to get a life. How am I supposed to find him unless he surfaces sometime soon?

He’s a ghost!” He shared her frustration. Every minute that passed decreased Pete’s odds of survival. “What about typhoid fever? When was the last outbreak?” She had the answer at her fingertips-literally. “A football game in New Jersey, yesterday evening. A whole squadron of ambulances had to be dispatched.” “Who exactly was infected?” Artie asked. “The audience or the team?” “Both. Everybody.” She scanned the emergency dispatches and news bulletins. “Even the cheerleaders aren’t so cheery anymore.” Artie was troubled by the reports, which he read over Claudia’s shoulder. “This is not good. The infection rate is escalating, as is the list of fatalities. Hospitals all along Worrall’s route are filling up with dying fever patients, none of whom are responding to treatment. Worrall could be approaching plague proportions soon.” “Plague?” She made a face. “I’m guessing we want to avoid that?” “By all means,” he stated. As much as they were all understandably worried about Pete, he couldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Worrall and the left-hand glove were a menace, and exactly the kind of threat Warehouse 13 was meant to contain. “Any clue as to where he’s heading next?” “Nada,” she replied. “Nobody even remembers seeing him there. I think they’re all too busy groaning and puking their guts out.” Artie lost his appetite. “Thanks for that visual.” He put away what was left of his donut before pacing back and forth behind Claudia. “Maybe we’re going at this the wrong way.” “How do you mean?” “We know the gloves are being drawn together, and that Worrall is after Nadia’s glove. So perhaps we should focus our efforts on finding her?” Claudia connected the dots. “Because where Nadia is, Worrall is sure to follow.” “With the glove that made Pete sick.”

Artie wasn’t sure which glove they actually needed to cure Pete, but maybe it didn’t matter. “Forget Worrall for now. Concentrate on finding Nadia.” “And then?” she asked. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Find me Nadia-and that glove.” “Sounds like a plan, Stan.” She cleared her screen and started over. A blinking cursor awaited her direction. “Let’s see, if I was mystical healer with delusions of grandeur, where would I be this weekend?” “Don’t forget,” he coached her. “She may be using a new alias or stage name.” “Well, duh. Like I wasn’t going to think of that?” He backed off to give her a little space. Breathing down Claudia’s neck was not going to find an answer any faster, or at least he didn’t think so. He stretched his weary limbs. His creaking muscles and joints reminded him of just how long he had been at this. He envied Claudia’s youth and enthusiasm.

She was going to be a great agent someday-if she lasted that long.

“Okay, now. That’s more like it!” Her infectious grin boded well. New Age music tinkled from her computer’s speakers. He rushed back over to her desk. “What is it? What did you find?” “Take a gander at this, old man.” She gestured smugly at the monitor, which now displayed a Web site advertising a large psychic fair being held later today in New York’s Central Park. OVER 150 PSYCHICS,