“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Blauwitz eagerly.
“You can’t be serious,” said Miller. “Biological weapons are prohibited for a reason—they’re unethical, they’re inhumane, and this one in particular is both degrading and offensive on top of that, to about twenty different minority groups. We’d be the mustache-twirling pariahs of the entire world community.”
“Biological weapons aren’t reversible,” said Ira/Moore. “ReBirth is. A week or so of lying on the ground, blind and too weak to move, and then they’re back to normal, in whatever body they choose.”
“Some of them would die,” Miller insisted.
“It’s a war,” said Ira/Moore. “Some of them will die no matter how we choose to invade. This way it’ll be relatively few of them, and they won’t die violently, and everyone who doesn’t die can be a hundred percent better four weeks later with no lasting effects.”
“You don’t call rewriting your DNA a lasting effect?”
“They’ve already rewritten their own DNA by becoming Lagbaja,” said Blauwitz. “Hell, we could turn them back into Lagbaja if they really want to; by then it won’t matter.”
“How are we going to know which ones to prosecute?” asked Clark. “By the time we start making arrests nobody in that complex will even have an identity anymore. Are we just going to pick up the best-dressed Tobies and hope they’re the executives?”
“Arrests are a secondary concern,” said Ira/Moore. “We want ReBirth, and the means to make more of it.”
“I like the plan in theory,” said General Clark, “but without any blank lotion it’s impossible to carry out.”
“There’s plenty of blank lotion on the black market,” said Ira/Moore. “Surely there’s enough room in our budget for that? It’s cheaper than sending soldiers.”
“But then why invade at all?” asked Miller. “If we can get blank lotion on the black market we can ignore this whole offensive debacle completely.”
“We’re invading because having ReBirth is only half of our goal,” said General Clark. “The other half is making sure nobody else has it. Everything Senator Moore has suggested we do to São Tomé is something that an enemy nation could do to us, and that makes ReBirth the most powerful weapon since the atomic bomb. Even more powerful, because it can be used to destroy a people while leaving their infrastructure intact. Imagine a Russia, or a China, or an Iran, with the ability to turn the entire American population into Toby the cancer patient. We’re planning to save the people of São Tomé afterward, but no invading power would give us the same courtesy. Two weeks and we’re too sick to move, four weeks and we’re dead, and every last bit of land, technology, money, and natural resources we’ve ever had are just lying on the ground for a conquering force to march in and take. They could live in our houses and drive our cars. If you question the need for the American government to be the sole owner of this technology you are a brainless jackass unfit for your job.” The general’s voice was like ice, and her eyes seemed to scorch the room like lasers. She stared for a few more moments, then turned to Blauwitz. “Put this into motion. I want Toby’s DNA in every human cell on that island within four days, and I want us in undisputed possession of São Tomé one week later. This meeting is adjourned.”
42
Saturday, September 15
7:30 P.M.
Yemaya Foundation, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
90 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Lyle squeezed into the back of the room, shoulder to shoulder with several dozen copies of himself, and realized that he’d never been more uncomfortable in his life. The room was filled with Lyles, his own face and hair and size and weight repeated on nearly two hundred people, differentiated only by their clothes. Their features, of course, were subtly different—ReBirth didn’t make exact duplicates, just identical twins based on the same DNA—but that only added to the creepy vibe that hung over the room, making Lyle sick to his stomach. When everyone looked so similar, tiny variations became prominent, and as Lyle scanned the room he saw some with a slightly sharper nose, or a narrower mouth, and he couldn’t help but study the way that their different clothes and haircuts changed the overall look of his face. He studied each face in turn, over and over, until it became too much. Looking at Guru Kuvam was a welcome respite from the sickening sameness.
“You are not criminals,” Kuvam was saying. “You have a criminal’s blood, and a criminal’s bones, but so does every child of a wayward father, and we do not blame a child for his father’s actions.”
Great, thought Lyle, another speech about how we’re all innocent because we’re not the real Lyle. Fat lot of good that does me.
Kuvam held meetings almost every night now, whenever he wasn’t on TV, or out preaching in hospitals and prisons the new path he called the Light of Life. Lyle had been talking to every pseudo-Lyle he could find, trying to figure out who had sold them their faulty lotion, trying to trace it all back to the source, and more and more they mentioned these meetings, a kind of self-help group for Lyles with Kuvam as their therapist.
“What the world does not realize,” said Kuvam, “is that we are all connected—all living things are tied together in an unbreakable web of power, and not just living things but rocks and trees. Nature, and the vast reaches of space beyond. What are human beings but chemicals? Water and salt and carbon, iron in our blood, energy from the sun filtered through the chlorophyll of plants and into our bodies as food. And this energy is not the only part of us that comes from the stars—every mineral in our cells comes from the depths of the earth, and the earth was formed by particles of matter thrown out by distant stars and supernovas uncountable millennia ago. We are ancient beings, composed of the very stuff of the stars, the shining children of the universe.”
The guru paced the small stage as he spoke—a nervous habit Lyle hadn’t seen in him during their first meeting, and he wondered who this man had been before he had rewritten himself with Kuvam’s face and body.
“And if everyone is connected in a web of light and stars and blood and life,” the guru continued, “then we are all the same. I am the same as you, and you are the same as me, and we’re both the same as the richest man in the world and the poorest child in the gutter. We are different faces on the same all-encompassing being, different manifestations of the core, primal force of light and life. And if we’re all the same, what does it matter if you’re you or me or Lyle or anybody else?” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd, and Lyle was surprised to realize that not everyone in the room was ignoring Kuvam’s New Age nonsense. “You’ve always been you, and you’ll always be you,” Kuvam continued, “but you’ve always been Lyle, too. It doesn’t matter what you look like, because that doesn’t change who you are, because you still are, and always will be, us.” Another murmur of approval. “You are no less than you were before, you’re greater. You’ve gained knowledge, which is light, which is life. And if everything is light and life, then you have gained everything.”
The crowd was excited now, calling out affirmations of the guru’s words, and Lyle realized that this wasn’t a self-help group, it was a religion. He frowned, wondering how so many people could fall for the same ridiculous story, wondering if maybe the nature of Lyle conversion—of unwitting nobodies duped into buying the wrong thing—self-selected for a group of gullible people with malleable minds.
But the more he looked at the roomful of doppelgängers—the more he saw his own face lit up with two different shades of desperate hope—the more he realized that they weren’t dupes, and they weren’t nobodies. They were people whose lives had been ripped away, whose face and identity and entire sense of self had been destroyed. They were nodding and smiling and shouting approvals because Guru Kuvam was the first person, and maybe the only person, to tell them they were okay, that they weren’t freaks and criminals. The world hated Lyles, but here they were kings.
“I have a special guest today,” said Kuvam, and Lyle wa
s immediately embarrassed by the thrill of hope that shot through his chest: Is it me? But he gestured to a man offstage who stepped in front of the crowd with a friendly smile. “This is Tracy Erickson,” said Kuvam, “a representative from the ACLU.”
There was a smattering of applause, and Tracy began to speak with a firm, impassioned voice. “Thank you, Guru, for this opportunity. My name is Tracy, like he said, and I’m an assistant legal council for the American Civil Liberties Union. You know us, we’re the weirdos always suing somebody or other for oppressing cannibals or neo-Nazis or something like that.” There were a few laughs, but most of the crowd seemed confused at the sudden change in tone, and Lyle assumed that many of them, like him, didn’t know where this was going. “We handle thousands of cases a year,” said Tracy, “protecting civil rights for everyone in the country, but naturally it’s only the controversial cases that make the news. And we take the controversial cases because somebody has to. Because everybody, no matter who they are, no matter what they’ve done, deserves to be treated like a human being. You’ve probably experienced this yourself in the last few weeks, haven’t you? You got some bad ReBirth, turned into Lyle, and now all of a sudden you lose your job, you lose your health insurance, maybe you lose your family or your bank account or your car. Everywhere you used to go, everything you used to do, you can’t, because you have the wrong man’s face, and you can’t go anywhere to complain about it because the substance that gave you this face is a biological weapon and you could be branded a terrorist just for possessing it. Many Lyles have, in fact, been arrested, but frankly there’s too many of you now for the cops to bother with. Thousands of Lyles around the country, maybe tens of thousands, and hundreds more every day.”
The mood in the room turned angry, not at Tracy but at the realities he was bringing back to the front of their minds. Kuvam had made them feel better for a moment, but at the end of the meeting they would still have to go back into a world that hated them. Many of them, like Lyle, might not even have homes to go to.
“That’s where we come in,” said Tracy. “You can’t fight for yourselves, and no one will fight for you, but we will. The ACLU has opened a case to fight for Lyle rights—not just a case, but a campaign. Today we began raising funds, and first thing Monday morning we’ll hit Washington with lobbyists and interest groups, with private meetings with some of our oldest friends in the government, and with public meetings all over the country to raise awareness and sympathy for your cause. Within the next few weeks we’ll roll out a series of nationwide advertisements, including TV and web, to call attention to the injustices happening to Lyles every day.” He grinned, and Lyle could tell he’d arrived at the crux of his speech. “And this is the best part. Cases like this tend to have a lot of negative inertia, just by nature. People don’t really ‘see’ civil rights violations until they’ve been personally hurt, and the criminal angle is another hurdle on top of that. But you have one thing going for you that will make this case completely unlike any other—volume. There are so many of you, and the number is growing every day; it’s going to be on everyone’s mind, on everyone’s lips, and it’s going to gain us a lot of traction. Tens of thousands of people being discriminated against because of their DNA. You realize what you are? You’re a racial minority. People deny you jobs and loans and even service in stores and restaurants, not because of what you do but because of what you look like. That is blatant racism, and that’s something that will get the world on your side.
“Starting Monday, we propose legislation to have Lyle Fontanelle recognized as an official minority group, with all the rights that come with it.”
43
Sunday, September 16
9:31 A.M.
New York
89 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Larry, Susan, and Tony/Lyle sat around a small motel table, dressed in yellow hazmat suits and measuring bits of Lyle lotion into small, clear gelcaps. On the dresser nearby a small TV filled the room with faint blue light that made their suits a sickly green.
“This is Giancarlo Finotto with BBC World, on site at one of the most daring robberies in European history, and an aftermath so shocking it has shaken the Christian world to its core.”
“Turn this up,” said Susan, “I want to hear it.” Larry reached over to poke the TV with a thick, rubber glove, then went back to his work as the report continued.
“Early this morning, at approximately 4:24 a.m., a group of what appear to be black-clad commandos broke into the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and stole the Shroud of Turin, allegedly the burial shroud of Jesus Christ and said by many to depict the image of his face. Barely an hour later, someone posted this video on YouTube claiming credit for the theft.”
An Internet video filled the screen, with a play button and a progress bar floating near the bottom. In the center of the video was a man in stark silhouette, his face invisible, standing in what appeared to be a white, plaster room. He spoke in English but his accent was South American.
“I am a representative of a multidenominational Christian organization called the Holy Vessel, and I speak on their behalf when I apologize for this crime we have committed. The Lord has told us thou shalt not steal, and yet we have, and for that we will beg His forgiveness when He returns in His glory.” He held up the Shroud in front of him, in a small spotlight that showed only his fingertips in blue rubber gloves. “The Shroud of Turin bears small drops of blood, left on the fabric from the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even now our scientists are analyzing samples of this blood, reconstructing a full DNA sequence, and when they are done we will apply that DNA to a sample of blank ReBirth.”
Susan gasped. “Holy sh—”
“Do not blaspheme,” said Tony/Lyle.
“Quiet,” said Larry. His earlier disinterest was gone, and he stared intently at the TV.
The silhouette set down the Shroud, picked up a Bible, and read a passage. “The Scriptures tell us: ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth,’ and we have spent centuries preparing for His return. But the Scriptures also tell us: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.’ Can the Lord return without our help? The Lord can do anything. But the path He follows is winding and long, and each new turn delays His coming. It falls on us to make that path straight, to prepare His way and hasten His road, and then ‘the Son of man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to His works.’” He set down the Bible. “Do not be found wanting when your God walks again upon the Earth, for He shall come with fire and with brimstone to slay the unrighteous. Amen.’”
The video ended, and the camera cut back to the reporter. “The authenticity of the Shroud of Turin has been hotly debated ever since its discovery,” the man said, “and there is no guarantee that the Holy Vessel will be able to produce a man genetically similar to Jesus Christ. It is also possible, though, that this may be a moot point: Christian theology has one of the most destructive apocalypse scenarios in the world, and if this or any group determines to play that scenario out, there’s no telling what might happen. Giancarlo Finotto, BBC World.”
“Why are people so stupid?” asked Susan. She stared at the TV a moment longer, then threw her lotion syringe at the screen. “Why doesn’t anybody get it?!”
“What I want to know,” said Tony/Lyle, “is who beats us?”
Larry cocked his eyebrow. “Who beats who?”
“Christians,” said Tony/Lyle. “I’m Irish Catholic, born and raised, proud child of all the hellfire and damnation you could ever want, but this guy says we’re just ‘one of the most destructive’ apocalypses. Everything I sat through in Sunday school, and we’re still only ‘one of the most destructive’? Who beats us?”
“Probably the Norse,” said Larry. “In the Christian apocalypse all the bad guys burn but all the good guys get saved, plus God’s still alive at the end of it. In Ragnarök everybody k
ills everybody—humans, trolls, giants, dragons, everybody, all up close and personal.” He mimed a close-range stabbing. “Even the gods get shivved in the ribs. There’s only two people left, and they start a new world.”
Susan seemed to be ignoring them, still watching the TV.
“Wait,” said Tony/Lyle, “that’s their end of the world—the Garden of Eden? That’s, like, the worst science fiction cliché ever.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a cliché when the ancient Norse based their civilization around it.”
“They based their civilization on drinking and beating people up,” said Tony/Lyle.
“Makes you wonder why it’s not a more popular religion,” said Larry. “And it’s not exactly the Garden of Eden, by the way—the two people are there, but they don’t necessarily live, they just … start a new world.”
“They’re dead?”
“It’s Ragnarök, haven’t you been listening?”
“How do they start a new world if they’re dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re going to cause a holy war,” said Susan. She paused the TV, eyes unfocused. “We’ve tried to dissuade them from using the lotion, and all they’re doing is using it more.” She’d picked up her syringe from the floor, only to stare at it, think for a moment, and then thrown it violently across the room. A moment later she threw the gelcap she’d been filling, and a moment after that she swept her arm violently across the table, smashing bottles and vials and knocking it all to the floor.