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I slammed the newspaper onto the table and grabbed the phone, ready to scream at Nathan. Did you see the picture in the paper? That man had a hole in his head. Peter was dead, Nathan. Peter was dead, and you couldn’t bother to phone me?
I didn’t finish the article. I shredded the newspaper instead and fed it bit by bit to the flame of my lighter. The back of my mind squirmed, and headache set in. Damn it. I didn’t need this. Not now.
I left the kitchen for my room and pried up the loose floorboard under my bed, removing the wooden box it concealed with trembling hands. I had hoped, but the box was too light. I couldn’t put it down, so I brought myself to open it. Just as I thought—nothing.
My head was pounding. Damn it, I needed Nome. Now that Peter was out of the deal, perhaps Nathan would divide his shares among our group. He wouldn’t give it to his family, would he? They could sell it and make themselves rich, but Peter’s wife had a steady job. They didn’t need the extra money. She wouldn’t take for herself what we so desperately needed. He’d better come around today.
I milled around in the kitchen, trying to tape my fraying nerves together. I had work today, and my boss had made it clear that if I didn’t show up in four hours I wouldn’t have work tomorrow. Nathan knew my schedule. He also knew I was out. Was he toying with me? Why? When is he coming?
I reached for the phone on the table, misjudged the distance, and brought the unit crashing down on top of me. Damn it! I didn’t have time for this! I pulled myself out from under the table and crawled to the phone. Shit. Now I had ash on my work pants. It wouldn’t matter, though, if I couldn’t go to my job.I finally grabbed the phone and punched in Nathan’s number. My brain dimly registered that my phone wasn’t normally red.
“Hello?”
“Nathan!”
He answered coldly. “Yes?”
I paused. You killed Peter. I need Nome. “When are you coming over?”
“You know how this goes, Steve. I work when I work, and not any faster or slower. You’ll survive.” He hung up before I could howl.
I curled my hand into a fist, forgetting that it held the phone. Damn it, Nathan. Damn it…
Disgusted, Nathan left my room and returned a few minutes later with water and two pills. He sat hard on my chest and pried my mouth open while I thrashed. Deftly he shoved one pill, then the other down my throat and held my jaws closed until I swallowed. He remained sitting, pinning my arms to the bed while avoiding my teeth, for nearly an hour. It wasn’t out of kindness, though. He could care less if I ripped my apartment to pieces. He simply knew that if he left after saving me I would have killed him.
Nathan released me after my eyes slid from gold back to their unremarkable green. My brown hair was matted, my shirt soaked through with sweat, but my muscles were relaxed: I was finally under control. He stood and grabbed his coat from the nearby chair.
“You have work in an hour, Steve. And after work at seven, you will meet Rahb at the station in the Lenar District for instructions. You’re part will be largely the same, but our objective will be slightly different this time.”
I slowly moved to a sitting position, considering the implications. “We didn’t get enough Nome, did we.”
“The lab had already been raided this week. Once they discovered what was taken, they kept some samples for themselves to continue drug testing and shipped the rest to the Lissler Research Center. We ended up taking the leftover samples, which were doses meant for the smaller animals. After the previous attack and the fiasco last night, they won’t be doing open testing for much longer.”
I considered mentioning Peter, but realized I didn’t have the strength to broach that topic. Nathan could dodge any accusation, and I had nothing to back up my claim anyway. Peter was dead. And I would be too if I didn’t get over it.
“So,” he said, waiting for a response.
I sighed. Sometimes he knew too much. “How are we going to get Nome now?”
“Other groups in various cities have been more successful than us in aggregating sizable amounts of Nome. Some of these groups are also largely uninfected. So, of course, with the demand for the drug being high, they’ve begun to make a profit for themselves.”
I stiffened. “Nathan, do you know how much money they could be asking for? For one dose? We can’t possibly afford to buy from them!”
“I’m not stupid, Steve.” Nathan unfolded his coat and put it on as I’d always imagined a scientist doing: too methodically. “I know we can’t afford it. That’s why we’re going to steal it from them.”
Steal it from them.
What?
“Nathan, do you know what you’re suggesting?! Sure we can steal from under-funded research buildings, but steal from them? From professional thieves?” I ran a hand through my hair. “God, Nathan, we might as well kill ourselves now!”
“Continue questioning me and I will gladly oblige,” Nathan said quietly. “But as it is, you have work.”As I glanced at the clock, he removed a pistol from his coat pocket and dropped it on my desk. “One shot, as usual. It’s you or it’s us. And by now you know enough about how things work to know what happens if you refuse the choice.” Nathan looked at me pointedly.
He left the apartment, and I didn’t bother asking myself where he got a key. I looked down at my pants instead, and went to my closet to find something clean. I washed my face. I brushed my teeth. I walked to the bus stop looking, for once, presentable. I left the gun on my desk.
Not that the gesture really mattered. I already knew what I was going to do. I just couldn’t bring the gun to work.
I saved the program, shut down the computer, and set myself to organizing my work area. Everything neat, I left my desk and glanced at a calendar of events on the wall. Bill and Megan had ordered me to attend the company picnic with them this weekend, seeing as I hadn’t been to any other social occasion. If tonight worked out, maybe I would. I resumed my walk toward the hallway. Perhaps I should bring Peter’s family with me.
I waved at various coworkers and opened the door to the hall, my head full of plans for the picnic. Glossy brown and bright gold caught my eye, however, and I slowed my pace as I walked by the long row of Employee of the Month plaques. They were meaningless at first, but the farther I went, the more names I recognized. Jessica, Ashley, David, blank. I blinked and sighed. The spot for this month was empty, but I knew my lack of attendance would cost me the award, just as it had every other time. If only I had enough Nome. I hurried out of the building and boarded a bus for Lenar.
Rahb was waiting close to the stop, an unfolded umbrella in his hands. I made my way over and followed him into a crowded diner where we sat down at a center table. A waitress came and took Rahb’s order for two coffees, and we spent some minutes in silence. Mugs appeared, and I watched and wondered as Rahb took a sip. Caffeine interferes with Nome.
Guess I had to start it. “What am I doing?”
Rahb made a face as he set down the coffee and stirred in some sugar. “Largely what you do every time. You start the attack, then you call my group so we can move into formation.”
“Is that all the information I get?”
Rahb stopped stirring and looked up at me with hard eyes. “Timing’s going to be critical, Steve. If you don’t make that call immediately—right after you shoot—there’s a good chance we’ll be caught in crossfire.”
I closed my eyes against the nausea and breathed. “Where and when?”
“Across the street near the phone booth at one.” Rahb reached into a pocket and spat a bag of coins onto the table. “If for no one besides yourself, make that call. None of us want to die.”
I pulled my trench coat close, shrugged off the rain, and walked as fast I could toward the phone booth across from Mickey’s Family Dining. Once my soaked self was inside the glass, I pulled the coin bag out of my pocket and fished around for change. A nickel, two dimes…ah, damn it. Damn it! I was five cents short. I quickly scanned the floor, hoping for a nickel, a few pennies, anything; but I found nothing more than a few damp wads of gum. Fuck. Trust Rahb to be careless. I should have prepared for this.
I glowered at the rain, a panicky feeling rising in my throat. My job was screwed up. I had to make this call within the next few minutes, but I was fucking five cents short. Not to mention that the capsule was only good for five hours, and we were sliding into hour six of the operation. Just a little longer and it would take me again, the red miasma, the heat, the fire in my brain…
Suddenly the blurred light of Mickey’s neon sign caught my eye. I wasn’t supposed to be seen, but if I didn’t make the call I’d have a few lives on my conscience and possibly worse things to deal with. Already my hands were starting to throb. Just get in there and do it. Go.
I burst out of the box and pounded through the rain, pushing past an old man on the street. He went limp under my hands like wet cardboard under a baseball bat. My stomach churned, and I tasted bile. The red sign danced in the droplets.
Step, step, step, finally, the door. I heaved, sent it flying open. Everyone looked up as it crashed into the wall. A waiter cautiously approached as I stood panting, looking not unlike a wet dog. I snarled at his eyes. They were wide—light. Laughing. Frantic, I turned to the nearest child, claws poised. I would survive this episode, but Nathan would surely kill me.
And suddenly some part of me knew how Peter had died.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.
“I must admit, I am surprised. Even I didn’t think you’d come to so fast.” Nathan was sitting in a chair, almost casual, pretending to read a magazine boasting a picture of the HIV virus.
I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “Nathan, what am I doing here?”
“You mauled a little girl, Steve. Someone had enough sense to phone an emergency service, so she’s busy dying in hospital comfort instead of in a restaurant. And so you are here.”
Being part animal, I wasn’t sure if I still had a soul—but having one would explain why it wasn’t my body that felt so violated.
“Nathan… You’re going to help me…right?”
He smiled derisively. “Think a little, Steve. They have cameras. They’ve probably got fifteen different people watching us right now. Besides. Helping you escape a hospital would be a felony. You know the law.”
“Nathan, you can’t just leave me here. We’re part of a group.”
“Actually, Steve, we don’t have anything in common.”
“What do you mean we don’t have anything in common? We both transform, don’t we?”
He closed the magazine and returned it to the nearby rack. He stood up, straightened his coal-colored suit, and walked over to me with his hands in his pockets. His brown eyes met with my green ones, and I saw creases of laughter around their edges. My stomach dropped. “You’ll have to remind me. When did I ever give you reason to think that?”
My mind raced away, desperate to avoid the conclusion. “Nathan, you helped us survive! You helped us lead normal lives! You knew that the government gives us the death penalty for something we couldn’t naturally control, and you knew it wasn’t fair!”
“Or is it?” He smiled menacingly. “You have to look at it this way, Steve. If you didn’t have Nome, half the people in this town would be either dead or like your friends right now. Rational humans until they feel the moon’s pull at their genes, and uncontrollable, murderous animals afterward. No one wants to live in fear.”
“But we do have Nome! It may not be a huge amount, but we still lead relatively normal lives!”
“Don’t fool yourself. What was the point of last night’s operation? It was successful, by the way. So, continuing in that fashion, my group will have a way to get Nome for a few months longer. Maybe a year. But it won’t much matter after that, since I’ve discovered that the werewolf virus is mutating. I’ve noticed low levels of mutation in Sarah and Logan, but the virus inside you is changing at an incredible pace. Have you been keeping track of the moon’s phases? Did you know that tonight is the new moon?”
I stared straight ahead, keenly aware of my DNA’s dance with the virus. This activity wasn’t normal? Oh god.
“You probably haven’t noticed, Steve, but I’ve had to give you larger and larger doses of Nome to keep you calm for the normal five hours. Soon your body will resist its effects completely. And then what’s to stop you from spreading the virus? From making other immune werewolves?”
My body felt strange. The movement stopped, and there wasn’t pain or red or buzzing. There was….silence.
“This is a nation-wide problem, Steve. How many other people do you think are housing the virus, each possibly with a different mutation?” His eyes took on a strange glint. “And if they put you down, you’ll be one less case to deal with.”
“Nathan.” The room was out of proportion. He was close, too close, breathing down my neck. “Nathan. I will not die.”
He chuckled, turned to pick up his briefcase. “Somehow, I doubt that, Steve. You’re too dangerous to be left alive.”
“Don’t leave, Nathan.” He walked across the room.
“Nathan, I said don’t leave.” He opened the door.
“I said, don’t fucking leave!”
I threw myself from the bed at Nathan, teeth gnashing, aiming for the throat—and went immediately limp at the electric shock.
Satisfied, he closed the door. He walked to the foot of the bed and dropped his briefcase emphatically. “The doctors are smart, I’ll give them that. The harder you struggle, the bigger the shock you’ll receive. They didn’t know what you were capable of.”
I jerked, twisted, got shocked, no good. It was too silent. “If I’m getting stronger by the minute, they can’t hold me for long. It’ll be easy to break out after I change.”
It would have been true enough in normal circumstances, but he knew I was lying. My voice said calm while my body said panic. And it amused him. “As I said, the doctors were smart. You should’ve seen their faces at the color of your blood when you first arrived. They recognized what it meant and took good precautions. If you became too violent, the shock was supposed to have killed you. No one would have asked had you died before a court sentence.” He leaned across the bed, grinning at my face. “They didn’t think about how the virus has mutated inside of you, though. That, in your madness, you could move past the shock and tear down everything that held you. But how could they? They don’t know you. So I took better precautions. Since you won’t be fully transforming for at least forty-eight hours, even the disease’s new instinctive level won’t free you from this bed. And by then, they’ll have decided what to do with you.”
I looked at the IV, and Nathan smiled as my eyes went wide.
Nomephemen. Eight doses of nomephemen was being pumped into my body.
Wait. Wait a second.
“Nathan?” I swallowed. “Nathan? How the fuck did you get so much Nome?”
In fact, how the fuck did he know so much about the disease? How the fuck did he know I was the catalyst for the virus’s mutation? How the fuck did he know exactly how to deal with me? Only a scientist would know that.
Shit.
“You make it. You make the Nome. You have open fucking access to it, and you make us risk our fucking lives to fucking get it?!”
He stood straight again, that calm malevolence more dangerous than I could ever be. “Someone had to study you.”
I stared at him. “You bastard.”
He picked up his briefcase and grinned a last time, pressing a button on the wall before he left. Seeing his smile, I decided we were more alike than he realized. I was a dangerous werewolf, but he didn’t need the disease to be just as deadly.
I fought the doctors hard when they came. But I don’t remember anything after seeing red.
