Page 7 (1/2)

Chapter 7

OPTIMUM VIRULENCE

I didn&039;t really sleep that night I never do

Sure, I take et into bed, and closedoesn&039;t quite happen My , like in those hours when you&039;re coht-headed, a fever threatening, illness buzzing at the edge of your awareness like a mosquito in the dark

The Shrink says it&039;s the sound ofthe parasite There&039;s a war inthe horned head of the beast, prying at its hooks alongits spores hidden inside transmuted red blood cells On top of which there&039;s the parasite fighting back, reprogra up us ene on, but only when I&039; in silence can I actually hear it

You&039;d think this constant battle would tear ht, but the parasite is too well made for that It doesn&039;t want me dead I&039;m a carrier, after all - I have to stay alive to ensure its spread Like every parasite, the thing inside me has evolved to find a precarious balance called optiet aith, sucking out the nutrients it needs to createBut no parasite wants to starve the host too quickly, not while it&039;s getting a free ride So, as long as it gets fed, it backs off I et fat The parasite uses the nutrients to churn out its spores in ive th and hyped-up senses

Opti and lingering - in the case of a carrier like er than a normal human life span That&039;s the way the older peep hunters talk about it: not sodoard spiral Maybe that&039;s why they use the word undead

So I lie awake every night, listening to the gnawing, calorie-burning struggle inside ht snack

That particular long night, I foundwith another flood of details I hadn&039;t even known I&039;d spotted Her right hand sometimes made a fist when she talked, her eyebrows irls back in Texas - her voice didn&039;t rise in pitch at the end of a sentence, unless it really was a question, and soreed to meet inclass Neither of us wanted to discuss things in front of her friends, and soo with talk of gristle on the wall

Nor around with cute girls e, but this was job-related, after all Besides, maybe a little bit of torture is okay I didn&039;t want to wind up like the Shrink, after all, collecting old dolls or soured it would be nice to hang out with soht Watch once in a while, souy

So I stayed awake all night, thinking of lies to tell her

I got up early and reported to the Night Watch first

The Watch&039;s offices are pretty , except older, danker, and even deeper underground There are the usual lass, and ancient wooden file drawers stuffed with four centuries&039; worth of paperwork Except for the odd fanatic like Dr Rat, no one looks rehtly motivated

It&039;s a wonder the whole city isn&039;t infected

I went to Records first In terest departular city data, and also their own paper trails going back to the days when Manhattan was called New Amsterdam Records can find out hat anywhere in the city, ned it before that, and before thatback to the Dutch farmers who stole it from the Manhattan Indians

And they&039;re not just into real estate - Records has a database of every suspicious death or disappearance since 1648 and can produce a clipping of prettyinfectious diseases, lunatic attackers, or rat population explosions published since the printing press reached the New World

Records has two mottos One is:

The Secrets of the City Are Ours

The other:

NO, WE DO NOT HAVE PENS!

Bring your own You&039;ll need them You see, like every other departhty Forht Mayor&039;s office e hunters are doing - starting an investigation, ending one, or reaching various points along the way There are foretting lab work done There are forer cages to Tasers (The fore truck , but one day I will think of some reason to fill it out, I swear to you) There are even forms that activate other forms or switch the newly forether, all these foruides our growth, and makes sure our future looks like our past - they are the DNA of the Night Watch

Fortunately, what I wanted thatwasn&039;t quite DNA-complicated First, I requisitioned so toys that you can pull off the rack Then I asked for so: ned it, who had originally rented all the seventh-floor apart noticeably weird had ever happened there Getting answers to these si ever is, down in the bowels of a bureaucracy But after only three hours, on behind the bulletproof glass, was rolled into a pneumatic-tube missile, and was launched on its journey into the Underworld with a swish

They&039;d call me when it came back, so I headed off to meet Lace at my favorite diner On the way, I realized that this was my first date in six months - even if it was only a "date" in the laement to meet someone Still, the conceptanxiety springing into action I started checking outif Lace would like the Kill Fee T-shirt I earing Why hadn&039;t I put on so less threadbare? And ith my hair these days? Apparently, Dr Rat, the Shrink, and ht Watch pals didn&039;t feel co out at the sides

After twoto stick it behindit Then I despaired of ood haircut when nothing could come of it anyway?

Lace sat down across froht before, this time over a wool dress Under a beret that was the same dark brown as her eyes, her hair still smelled like jasmine-scented shampoo She looked like she&039;d had about as ht, both of us sober, I realized for the first tiht be a few years older than me Her leather jacket was broith buttons, not black and zippered likeyou would wear to an office job My Kill Fee T-shirt felt suddenly dorky, and I hunched ether sode my scrutiny, and I droppedHoas your class?" I asked, spattering sos and bacon Before she&039;d arrived, I&039;d already consuht, I guess So about ethics"

"Ethics?"

"Journalistic ethics"

"Oh" I stirred my black coffee for no particular reason "Journalists have ethics?"

Lace cast her eyes around for a waiter or waitress, one finger pointing at my coffee She nodded as the connection was made, then turned back to me "They&039;re supposed to You know, don&039;t reveal your sources Don&039;t destroy people&039;s lives just to get a story Don&039;t pay people for interviews"

"You&039;re studying journalism?"

"Journalis if that was an undergraduate major Soe up to the lower to mid-twenties and felt myself relax a little Suddenly, this was even less a date than it had been a moment before

"Cool," I said

She looked at ht be retarded

I tried to s that my small-talkonly with people in a secret organization who pretty much only socialized with one another Of course, if I could just steer the conversation to rinderpest infection rates in Africa, I knew I&039;d blow her away

Rebecky - at sixty-seven and three hundred pounds, my favorite waitress in the world to flirt with - appeared and handed Lace a cup of coffee and athere, Cal?" she asked

"Just fine, thanks"

"You sure? You haven&039;t been eating avemy stomach

Her standard response: "Wish that diet worked on me"

Rebecky chuckled as she walked away She&039;s amazed by my appetite, but her repertoire of where-does-Cal-put-it-all jokes had shrunk to the bareto hide, there&039;s one thing I&039;ve learned: People only worry about the uncanny for about a week; that&039;s the end of their attention span After that, suspicions turn into shtick

Lace looked up fro of funny diets, Cal, what the hell happened inlast winter?"

I leaned back and sipped coffee Evidently, Lace wasn&039;t up for s?"

"My lease is up in two ht you promised you wouldn&039;t jerkyou around You should try the pepper steak"

"Vegetarian"

"Oh," I said, ed down Rebecky and ordered potato salad, while I crahtmare, and more important, the parasite hates it Peeps prefer protein, red in tooth and claw

"So tell me what you know," she said

"Okay" I cleared an&039;s cousin"

"Duh"

I frowned This revelation hadn&039;t provided the same oomph that it had onfor her"

"Again: duh, dude So you&039;re like a private detective or so? Or stalker ex-boyfriend?"

"No I work for the city"

"Cal, you are so not a cop"

I wasn&039;t quite sure how she&039;d coue "No, I&039;iene, Sexually Transmitted Disease Control"

"Sexually transmitted?" She raised an eyebrow "Wait Are you sure you&039;re not a stalker?"

I reached forone of the ite We&039;ve got a big es, credentials for dozens of city agencies, both real and ie was very i the bottorimly out at her

She stared at it for athe same shirt today as in that picture?"

I froze for a second, realizing that, yep, I hadn&039;t changed since that lanced down at my Kill Fee T-shirt and said, "What? You don&039;t like it?"

"Not particularly So what&039;s that job all about? Do you, like, hunt people down and arrest the the clap?"

I clearedmy empty plate away "Okay, here&039;s hoorks About a year ago, I was given a disease Uned a specific carrier of a certain disease I tracked down all his sexual partners and encouraged theet tested, then I tracked down their sexual partners, and so on" I shrugged "I just keep going where the chain of infection leads et enough specific information about soht For one thing, I don&039;t even know Morgan&039;s last naed "Me neither So let ot STDs? That&039;s your job, dude?"

"No, their doctors do that All I&039;m allowed to do is tell theet theive ot to do it"

"I guess Wow, though"

"So far I&039;ve spent a whole year tracking down the offspring - or rather, the infections from that one carrier" I smiled at my cover story&039;s cleverness Nifty hoorked the truth in there, huh?

"Wow," Lace repeated softly, her eyes still wide

Now that I thought about it, the job I&039;d chosen for myself did sound pretty cool A little bit of undercover work, some social consciousness, an air of illicit edy One of those careers where you&039;d have to face life&039;s harsh realities and be a good listener By now, she had to figure I was older than nineteen - e, and probably wise beyond my years

Her potato salad arrived, and after a fortifying bite of carbs, she said, "So what&039;s your disease?"

"My disease? I didn&039;t say I had a disease"

"The one you&039;re tracking, dude"

"Oh Right I&039;m not at liberty to say Confidentiality We have ethics too"

"Sure you do" Her eyes narrowed "And that&039;s why you didn&039;t want to talk in front of ht?"

I nodded My cover story was sliding into place perfectly

She put down her fork "But it&039;s one of those sexually transmitted diseases that makes people paint stuff on the walls in blood?"

I sondering if perhaps ht have a few loose ends

"Well, soe syphilis, for exao crazy It eats your brain Not that syphilis is e&039;re talking about here, necessarily"

"Wait a second, Cal You think all the people on the seventh floor ofall demented froet a lot of that kind of thing?"

"Um, it happens Some STDs can causepro the late stages of its life span and suppressed an urge to mention rabies (which was a little too close to the truth, ith the frothing and the biting) "Right now, I can&039;t be sure what happened up there But my job is to find out where all those people went, especially if they&039;re infected"

"And why the landlord is covering it up"

"Yeah, because this is all about your rent"

She raised her hands "Hey, I didn&039;t know you were all into saving the world, okay? I just thought you were a stalker ex-boyfriend or a weird psycho cousin or souys, and I want to help It&039;s not juston the wall"

I put down lad you&039;re helping I thank you, and your city thanks you"

In fact, I was just glad the cover story had h the worst of Lace&039;s suspicions I&039;d never really worked undercover before; lies aren&039;ta few more bites of potato salad, and I wondered if Lace&039;s help orth involving her So far, she&039;d been a little too smart for comfort But smart wasn&039;t all bad It wouldn&039;t hurt to have a pair of sharp eyes on the seventh floor

And frankly, I was enjoying her cohts and opinions That wasn&039;t a luxury I could indulge inevery suspicion that went through her head Saved

On top of which, I was feeling very in control, hanging out with a desirable wo a sexual fantasy every few seconds Maybe every few minutes or so, but still, you have to crawl before you can walk

"Dude, why are you scratching your wrist like that?"

"I am? Oh, crap"

"What the hell, Cal? It&039;s all red"

"Um, it&039;s just" I ransacked my internal database of skin parasites, then announced,

"Pigeon eons sit on yourand shake their feathers? Sometimes these little mites fall off and nest in your pillows They bite your skin and cause" I waved ed wrist

"E One lared out theat a few of the on the sidewalk "So what do we do now?"

"How about this? You takeand shohich apartan&039;s"

"And then what?"

"Leave that to me"

As we passed the doorman I made sure to catch his eye and smile If I came in with Lace a few nize me

On the seventh floor, she ledat a door marked 704 There were just four apartments on this floor, all the one-bedroo

"That&039;s where she lived, according to the two guys upstairs Loud and freaky in bed, they tell itive memories "You knoho lives here now?"

"Guy called Max He works days"

I knocked hard No answer

Lace sighed "I told you he wouldn&039;t be home"

"Glad to hear it" I pulled out another of the ite and knelt by the door: The lock was a standard piece-of-crap deadbolt, five turaphite, which is the saers if you fiddle with the end of a pencil, and does the sas do to repressed memories - lubricates them Two of the tumblers rolled over as my pick slid in Easy-peasy