Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (41 page)

In the Garden Hollow cafeteria, Laura took a break from the
drudgery and tension of the lab. In addition to matching possible blood
donations for Herk, she was screening newcomer samples for deadly viruses and
recessive genes. A pretty woman in scrubs with luxuriant black hair sat next to
her on the bench. At one point, Laura would have killed for Asian features like
that. The air smelled like flowers. The woman held out a hand, exerting Empathic
influence to make herself more likeable. “If things work out, I figure we’re
going to be spending a lot of time with each other. I’m Kelly.”

“Laura Zeiss Llewellyn,” she said,
refusing the hand.

“I know who you are, princess. We
all
know.”

“I’m sorry. Have we met before?”

Kelly nibbled at a cluster of
grapes. “You presented at a few conferences I attended. I think your work is
brilliant but find you personally repugnant.”

“Then why—?”

“Our boys have become pretty
inseparable, and I want to make an effort for their sake. Hell, I actually like
Stu. He’s a good influence on Mo—well trained.”

Laura smiled. “Empaths always like
him.” She took another sip of the bitter mockery they called coffee. It was the
only brew she was likely to get for the rest of her life, so she might as well
learn to adjust. “So what do you hate most about me?”

“The way you treat your lab
assistants. You run them ragged. Mei Lyn had to work sixty hours a week, and
you fired her for not getting her job done.”

The smile vanished. “I work over
seventy myself, and I fired her because a disk drive disappeared from a lab she
was responsible for.”

“Maybe the disk wouldn’t have
disappeared if you’d been a little nicer. You Moris think you own people.”
Kelly squinted when she said the name.

“I’m not a Mori.”

“Prove it.” Kelly looked both
directions, making certain no one else was listening. “Before we reach the
Saturn nexus, we might hear some news from Earth about your old family. All we
ask is that you don’t get involved.”

“We?”

“Nyx.”

Stepping over to the sink, Laura
stood and rinsed her cup. She poured a second cup to go. Kelly followed.
Outside, Laura whispered, “When we entered
Sanctuary
, we gave up all our
old allegiances and nations.”

“I intend to. Nyx has served its
purpose. We’re disbanded now. Every trace of the organization has been
obliterated,” Kelly replied. “From now on, we’ll smile and become the good
neighbors you need, but you need to keep quiet. You don’t have to lie. Just
don’t volunteer anything.”

“Or what?”
I could break you
with one hand.
Of course, Artemis was on security duty and glowered at her
from the entrance to the tunnels.

“Secret for secret, princess. You
almost lost your boy toy after the last exposé. What if I told him more of what
you’ve done? Things even your Grandfather would be ashamed of.”

Laura mixed honey into the cup. “I
think we should foster an atmosphere of polite respect in these formative days
of our community.”

“That’s what I thought.” Kelly
smirked.

Raising the mug, Laura said, “I
have to take this coffee to Aunt Mary.” Nyx held Mary in as much reverence as
the Brazilians gave Mercy. Maybe that respect would keep them at bay,
considering that Mary was living with her now.

“You know, if you are pregnant,
they won’t let you into stasis with the rest of the command crew,” Kelly said,
her voice tinged with amusement. “You’ll age normally while your mother stays
frozen in the saucer. You could be older than grandma by the time we arrive at
the colony world.”

Laura winced. “I haven’t told her
about the baby yet.” Each talent had only a 50 percent chance of transmission
to the child. Between her skills, Auckland’s, and Lena Maurier’s, they could
handle a male multiple with complete safety. “I want the child to survive the
critical first ten weeks and determine the gender before we tell anyone.”

“Right. Stu shared everything with your
other
mother already.”

Which means I have until he
returns to break that tidbit to Mira, or she’ll be offended.
“Thanks.”

Laura walked to the farmhouse,
intending to check in with Mary, feed the chickens, and head back to the lab.
When she spotted her father on the front porch, he seemed to have aged years in
the last day.

“Oh, God. What’s wrong?” Laura put
the coffee on the wicker table beside him.

Conrad set down his computer pad.
“Kaguya survived, but she has hysterical blindness. She pushed the Ethics Page
too far, and it pushed her back.” Laura hugged him, as much for her comfort as
his. “It’s my fault. Being circumspect is not in her nature. She’s more the act
first, determine legality later sort, but a few accidental deaths are the least
of our problems now.”

“Who died?” Laura demanded, pulling
back.

“Sif and Onesemo. Everyone but Stu
from that team is going to be in a pod or hospitalized.”

“How?”

“Details are still sketchy, but I
think he only killed one person himself. Between Mo, Kaguya, and Risa, we
killed about fifty-five others.”

Laura collapsed into the empty
chair. Stu was going to be devastated. “At least we have a full crew, and Herk
is going to make it. I mean, he’s never going to work again, but we take our
victories where we can. He’ll live to see the new colony.”

“Stu will be here in a few minutes.
I’ll do the debriefing myself. Mira would be better, but she’s our only
qualified pilot at the moment. She’s been dodging searchers and missiles since
we retrieved Mary. Don’t worry. Escape is one of our core competencies now.
Long term, we’ll train the two pilots from the NERO ship and one of the people
from the Antarctic group. Over the next few months, we’ll be flying a slingshot
course around the sun to sneak out to the Saturn nexus.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“We’ve arranged for the two of you
to take a week-long honeymoon. You’ll have Exile Island all to yourselves. No
comms, just healing. He’s earned it.”

She nodded. Then suspicion crept
in. “Who suggested no comms?”

“One of the nurses … Evangeline.”

She’s Nyx, too. Why are they
trying so hard to get rid of me?
“What are we hearing from Earth?”

“Not much. Everyone has been too
busy absorbing the new arrivals to wade through all the newscasts.”

He was evading the question. She
grabbed her father’s arm. “Something critical is happening related to the
Moris.”

“Something triggered the Seven
Seals. Critical supplies and tasks all over the globe have been disrupted. The
new plague sounds nastier than anything Moses called up. Mori is a twisted
bastard.”

Laura stared in shock. When she
could speak again, she said, “Commander, as a member of the planning team and a
senior member of the security staff, I would like to request two things. First,
let me sit in on the debriefing. I can offer insights into Koku as well as calm
Stu.”

He raised an eyebrow at the sudden
formality. “Sounds reasonable. And the second?”

“Arrest Kelly Quinn as a suspected
terrorist agent. Don’t let her communicate with anyone. She’s very persuasive,
and when she finds out Mo is dead, she’ll have nothing to lose. Have Snowflake
keep an eye on the other members of Nyx.”

“Why?”

“Nyx foresaw this disaster and
asked me to do nothing. I think they wanted me to distract Stu as well. One of
us can probably prevent or slow the effects of this disease. As plagues aren’t
my specialty, my guess is that Koku let something slip to Stu.”

Zeiss nodded and ordered a security
detail for the couple, broadcasting the request via his badge. Monty, Joan, and
Mary all volunteered. Then the commander called the starship’s pilot. “We can’t
leave yet, babe. Your daughter wants to help stop the epidemic on Earth.”

Mira cursed, but yielded to her
family’s conscience.

Laura didn’t particularly feel the
need to help people who were trying to kill them, but she knew Stu would.
Preventing plague deaths would ease his guilt over whatever happened to Mo. She
owed him that much.

When Stu appeared on the yellow
brick path to their home, Laura ran to greet him. He was overjoyed to see her
but still wracked with grief and horror. She wrapped her arms around him and
refused to let him speak. “Shh. You’re home safe. That’s all that’s important
for now.”

After he had calmed, she led him to
the living room sofa and held his hand during the entire interview with Conrad
Zeiss. Laura didn’t ask questions, choosing to sooth and encourage her husband
where necessary.

Once Stu ended his story with his
arrival home, he asked her, “What do you think?”

“Corporate computers triggered the
revenge sequence based on information from the lunar Koku. Nana wouldn’t fall
for a trap like that. Someone lied to Koku to induce a cascade. Show me the
communications logs.”

Laura pointed to several mismatches
between Stu’s story and the logs. “Sif was the source of the bad intel. She
probably also disabled your shuttle’s long-range communication to prevent you
from checking the facts.”

“Was she still working for the
Chinese?” asked Zeiss.

“Nyx,” Laura replied. “I just need
to find out why. How soon can we download those Seven Seals files from Koku’s
data vault?”

Her father shrugged. “The AI is
reformatting, global communications are in chaos, the data vault is huge, and
we can only stay in one location for a short time before we have to dodge. Who
knows? Don’t expect anything in less than eight hours.”

“I’ll check in after four,” Laura
said.

Stu said, “You’re Mira’s daughter
all right. What did I get myself into?”

Zeiss snorted in amusement and
tried to suppress a smirk.

Standing, Laura led her husband
from the room. “Right now, you’re getting into bed. You need your rest if
you’re going to take a shift piloting to give Mom a break. Any objections?”

The men remained silent.

“I didn’t think so.”

All non-medical personnel were confined to quarters as the
ship maneuvered to avoid detection. Mira tried to limit the turns and
acceleration to 1.2 gravities, but at one point, the creek actually flowed
backwards.

Staring at the wall, Laura couldn’t
sleep. She used her pad to download the World Health Organization feed that the
NERO ship had subscribed to in order to track quarantines. The outbreak seemed
to have begun just over a day ago. Since then, men had dropped dead from
mysterious causes in airports around the world: Riyadh, Tehran, Jakarta, Rome,
Bangkok, Rio, and Washington DC. Authorities also found suspicious empty
aerosol dispensers in public places in Russia, China, Nigeria, India, and the
Philippines, as if someone had taken a shotgun to a map. Islands and moon bases
were on lockdown. At the four-hour mark, she plodded out to the kitchen so she
wouldn’t wake the others. Snowflake couldn’t aid her because she was too busy
adjusting internal systems to minimize the effects of the dodging. Indeed,
Sojiro was the only transcended human not engaged in the hunt. Having spent thirteen
years immersed in the ship’s systems, the artist and programmer didn’t like to speak,
but he responded well through the art on her pad. She felt like a witch
summoning spirits to aid her.

“What did you get from the data
vault?”

Sojiro displayed a menu of increasingly
harsh reprisals.

Laura clicked on each seal to read
the overview. The Seven Seals were supposed to be so horrible no one would ever
risk them. Yet, someone had recently added a new extreme, called the Last
Trumpet, to signal the final judgment of mankind. Mori owned one business that
specialized in cleaning airports and plane interiors between flights. A second
business owned a string of strip clubs near international capitals.

Rio and Jakarta weren’t on the
ground-zero list. Still, reformatting Koku had never been the goal. The mission
to Dark Lab Seven had been a means to trigger the final failsafe. “Whose
digital fingerprints are these, the ones who added the Trumpet code?”

Sojiro displayed a photo of Eowyn
and a hero with a cape on.

“So she kept a superuser back door
into the system?” Laura paced as she chewed this over. “She couldn’t use the
back door herself and couldn’t tell anyone else after the Ethics reformatting.
That means she had to have told someone about Koku before reading the Page.
Since then, someone has been influencing her to write more theoretical-scenario
code like she did for the radio telescopes. The same people probably also egged
her into pulling a gun on Kaguya.”

Kelly’s photo appeared, along with
her Empathy rating and failed psych evaluation.

“Yeah. That was my conclusion, too.
She destabilized her own sister and had to flee the planet in order to sound
the Last Trumpet. Who is Kelly trying to destroy?”

Blank screen.

“Open the Last Trumpet
genetic-blueprint file.” When she saw the DNA chains on the screen, her face
went numb. “My signature is on this at least three different ways, but I never built
a plague. What else can you find about the Last Trumpet?”

Sojiro displayed a three-hour
countdown and a count of data pages.

This is like drinking the
Pacific through a cocktail straw.
“We can’t wait that long. Send everything
we pulled from the vault except the Trumpet to the UN Security Council.
Hopefully, they can minimize the damage.” Laura withdrew a data device from a
belt hanging in her improvised closet. “These are my private notes from Mori
Biotech. Upload them into protected storage.” She jammed the belt device into
her computer pad and entered her personal decryption key. “No one else sees
these, not even my parents.”

At the mention of parents, Sojiro
displayed an image of Kaguya in the stasis chamber.

“I know I haven’t been to visit
her. I can only deal with one imbalanced relative at a time. I haven’t forgiven
her yet for what she did to Stu.” Once the transfer completed, she ordered,
“Search my notes for a match.”

Blank screen.

She circled a particularly familiar
cluster. “Look for matches or even partial matches to this segment. It has to
do with the Collective Unconscious.”

The pad played elevator jazz for a
few moments. Then it displayed her last CU patent with the words “98 percent.”

“Right, I tweaked this part for
years. It’s what makes CU want to spread, almost like it’s aware. Shit. If they
did this to a disease, it’s going to cover the whole planet.”

Pictures of Hitler and Stalin
appeared on the pad.

“Yeah. Someone is a true believer.
I have no idea how to block this virus, although the !Kung tribes of the
Kalahari may have a natural immunity. Even empaths can’t see them through the
CU. They claim it has to do with some mystical healing ceremony for star
sickness. Walk through the file history and see when this gene-splice version
may have been copied.”

When Sojiro limited the date range,
she said, “This was definitely from the disk Mei Lyn stole. Let’s find out what
they’re spreading.” She circled two other grafted segments. “Search only file
versions during that date range. Recover deleted files if you need to.”

The match, when it came, shocked
her. The file title was dramatic, typical of her teenage years—DeathToTyrants.
The image was a pale horseman of the Apocalypse.

The woman’s voice made Laura jump.
“I thought you said you didn’t design plagues.” Aunt Mary stood behind her in
one of Mercy’s t-shirt tops and a pair of slacks.

Laura shut off the computer and put
a hand to her chest. “You scared the dickens out of me.”

“Tell me what’s happening, or I
wake Stu.”

“Come with me to Kelly’s cell in
the saucer,” Laura whispered. “I’ll explain on the way. I’ll even tell my folks
when they’re not fighting to keep us all alive, but please don’t tell my
husband.”

Mary tapped her badge. “Snowflake,
until I say otherwise, keep a security log of my interaction with Laura. If
anything happens to me, broadcast the log to the entire ship.”

“Do I intimidate you?”

“Yep.”

“Coming from you, that’s a
compliment,” Laura said.

“Could I borrow that belt? This
shirt fits like a tent.”

****

In the dim light of early morning, Mary followed Laura to
the summit of the Counterweight Mountain. When no one could overhear them,
Laura explained, “DeathToTyrants wasn’t a disease. Well-behaved viruses don’t
tend to kill hosts. Their goal is to steal DNA and spread copies of themselves.
This one is a fast-acting bullet with a self-destruct mechanism to hide the
cause. The victim’s own dying process wipes out all trace of the pathogen.”

“A weapon for the perfect murder.”

“In a fit of anger when I was
fifteen, I adapted it for my grandfather. It was never supposed to see the
light of day. I shredded the notes. I don’t know why I kept the diagram.”

“What did Tetsuo do to you?” Mary
asked sympathetically.

“He never asks for what he can’t
take. When I refused to craft something unethical, he put my mother Kaguya in
solitary confinement until she was clawing at the walls, fingertips bleeding.
Then he let me feel the panic she was experiencing.”

“Why didn’t you use the weapon and
save us all a lot of trouble?”

Laura halted on the final staircase
up to the saucer’s resting place. “Because when my mother was lucid, the first
thing she babbled about was my father coming back to rescue us—how moral Conrad
was. If I stopped Mori’s heart, the charter wouldn’t allow me to go into space.
I’d never have a real family.”

“So there are things even a lawyer
won’t do,” Mary said.

“I never gave it a delivery system.
It was safe!” Laura clenched her jawed to calm down. “Someone cobbled together
years of my work into a Frankstein’s monster called the Final Trumpet. I might
be able to neutralize the pathogen by inducing hypothermia in the victim, but
that’s not practical on a large scale, especially when there aren’t many
symptoms. We need to prevent the spread. I’m missing one more piece before I
can attempt to counter the epidemic. Earth has shut down every major
transportation hub, but that won’t slow the Trumpet. Are you part of the
problem, or are you going to work with me on the solution?”

“I’m not a biochemist. I’m not even
rich anymore. What can I do?” Mary asked.

“Get Kelly to open up. Talk to her
about her motive and find out what else Mei Lyn stole from our lab. She hates
me, but you can do no wrong.”

“You’re saying that Mater Nyx
created this plague? That explains why they partnered with Earth First—to
distribute the Trumpet. A plague of this magnitude eliminates the polluters,
the oppressors, and solves the food crisis. Mother Earth can recover in peace.”

That explained Rio and Indonesia,
deforestation capitals of the world. Earth First was working its way down an
ecological hit list, adding to the Mori plan. Laura cursed and ran for the
saucer. They had less time than she originally thought.

****

Laura waved to Mira and Conrad as she floated through the
control room. “Mary wants to question the prisoner.”

Zeiss monitored ships sensors for
signs of Earth pursuit. Colonel Dahlstrom sat beside him, learning the ropes.
“Fine. We can only hold her for twenty-four hours without charges.”

“You’ll have them soon. Snowflake,
unlock the brig.” The brig was merely a sparsely furnished bedroom along the
rim of the saucer that only members of the planning committee could open.

Mary stopped Laura at the door.
“Stay out here.”

“That woman is dangerous. You at
least have to let me eavesdrop.”

“Suit yourself. Snowflake, allow
Laura to listen to the audio feed from my badge.” Mary took her hand.
“Remember, I have to sound like I’m on her side to get her to talk.”

Laura inserted her earbud and
stepped out of view.

Mary entered the brig alone.

“Ms. Hollis, to what do I owe the
honor?” asked Kelly, oozing charm.

“Save it,” snapped Mary. “The UN
wants us to hand you over for crimes against humanity. Trumpet did a lot of
damage before Laura gave them the vaccine.”

Good acting
, thought Laura,
eavesdropping.

“That bitch. We warned her.”

“I’m on the hot seat for funding
you. I’m your only advocate up here. Tell me why you did it, just between us,
and I might be able to get the sentence commuted to exile.”

Kelly snorted. “The people of Earth
knew this was a test, and they failed. A man from the stars dropped into their
laps and offered the secrets of the universe. All he really asked in return was
for Earth to stop rape. Your nephew was our richest, most charismatic advocate
ever. He owns a fifth of space, for God’s sake. The good old boys would rather
kill him than even hold a vote on the subject. They were never going to give us
equality or let us travel somewhere that had it. We did what we had to do to
bring about change.”

“And they dismissed the world’s
richest woman in the blink of an eye.”

“Exactly. After twenty years of
work. How did they find out about Trumpet so soon?”

“Stu read everything from Koku’s
data vault on the moon. Kaguya gave him complete access,” Mary lied.

“The damn Boy Scout. At least the
bastions of patriarchy will know what a woman’s wrath is capable of.”

“You started with the organization
that kidnapped you.”

Laura almost felt sorry for the
woman.

“When their leaders joined the
government of an oil-producing country, somehow they could claim to be
magically reformed. We infected the whorehouses they use, the ones where Allah
doesn’t see. We see everywhere, and we don’t forgive.”

“Yes. Stu told us everything.
However, that wife of his withheld a few things. Maybe you could defer a little
blame onto her. She explained how CU made DeathToTyrants so effective, but she
claimed to have a memory lapse about the rest of the virus.”

Kelly barked a laugh. “It’s called
Fucked Stupid!”

Mary smiled. “Okay, now I’m
intrigued.”

Laura sank to her knees.

Kelly teased with some of the
details. “That was the title of the signature perfume she designed. Your niece
is probably the biggest biochemical genius in this century.”

“Stop.” Laura couldn’t force enough
air through her lungs.

“She invented this perfume that
temporarily lowers a man’s IQ by thirty points to make him easier to seduce and
manipulate.”

Her aunt laughed. “Great idea, but
for most men, that’s called an erection.”

Kelly shook her head. “No. In the
initial trials, if the man got an erection, he passed out from lack of blood to
the brain. Then she could take anything she wanted. When the man woke up, he
was convinced he’d had the best sex ever.”

Laura pushed on the door, but
someone had locked it again.

Mercy’s voice in her ear said,
“Wait.”

Mary crossed her arms. “What does
this have to do with the Trumpet?”

“That’s the brilliant part. She
used the Override gene to develop drugs that only work on men. Women are immune
to the final judgment.”

“All of the prototypes have been
destroyed,” Laura blurted to whoever might be listening. “That product never
went into production. I only toyed with it because Grandfather was going to
kill those men if I didn’t find another way.”

Kelly couldn’t hear her and kept
talking. “After the UN outlawed experimentation with Overrides, Laura destroyed
all her notes.”

“Which was why Mei Lyn had to steal
her disk drive before that was erased, too.”

“Exactly. We never could reproduce
the perfume, but with practice, we were able to duplicate the immunity effect.”

That’s why Kelly had needed so
many samples from Mo.