Precursors, Part 2

Notice:  This story has been rated "NC17" for adult language, nudity,
sexual content, graphic violence, and explicit smoking.  You have been
fairly warned.

Copyright 1998 by G. M. Sullivan.  All rights reserved.  This story may
be copied and distributed for the uncompensated amusement of others
only.

Author's note:  This story is the next in the series begun in "Hybrid
Vigor" and continued in "Eschaton Boulevard" and "Absolute Power."  Its
action brackets two earlier stories, "Dying for a Cigarette" and
"Phoenix Ascending."  If you have missed any of these tales, they are
all archived at
"http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/lsh/stories/byname.html."   I recommend
them to your attention for a fuller enjoyment of what follows.

Dedication:  To the first smoking woman who will E-mail me after she
reads this story.


"Precursors," Part Two of Four


5.  Peachtree Club, Atlanta, Georgia, September 22, 10:41 PM EDT

"It's out of the question, Rebecca.  There's no such protocol for the
therapeutic use of MRI.  The med staff would raise hell with the
executive director.  No."

Rebecca smiled at the speaker across the red table.  She had tried for
two weeks to arrange this meeting with her boss, Maasha Bieloski, MD,
Ph.D., and director of the CDC's Epidemiologic Investigation Service.
The venue was an upscale club where Atlanta's movers and shakers often
met to discuss important issues in a highly discreet environment.  This
booth was certainly private; they saw no one besides their silent
waiter, and him but seldom.

Maasha was an attractive woman in her mid-40s, and she used that fact
to good advantage.  She always acted and dressed in a professional
manner, but with an eye to enhancing her feminine charms.  Attractively
styled black hair, trim-but-ample figure, and sensuous lips lead the
parade of assets.

Rebecca regarded those lips and thought that Maasha would make a superb
smoker.  Small chance of that without some serious help...

Not replying to Maasha's objections, she instead fetched a Premium 100
from her purse and lit up.  It was her first cigarette of the evening.
She made a show of the puff with an open-mouthed smoke display before
inhaling, though she blew the exhale well away from her disapproving
companion.

"And I've been meaning to ask you..." Maasha started.

"About what?" asked Rebecca, her words punctuated with more exhaled
smoke from the first puff.

"How can you DO that?  A woman with your education, and in the health
care profession?  You've been reasonably discreet, most times..."
Maasha's pause artfully recalled their previous discussions about
Rebecca's smoking in Mary Lou's suite.  "But it's certainly no secret
among the staff.  Those long lunches downtown, and those 'walks' you
take in the afternoon.  It could reflect poorly on an organization like
CDC.  Our general employees have no such privilege."

"I've been meaning to speak to you about that..." said Rebecca.

Maasha was angry now.  "Speak to me how?  Allow smoke breaks?  Build a
ventilated lounge, perhaps?  You know how the current administration
would react.  Federal regulations prohibit smoking within 50 feet of
our doors, and that's too damned close for me!  Not to mention how the
media would exploit it...CDC, an organization dedicated to eradicating
a health-destroying habit, actually permitting...?"

Rebecca interrupted gently, exhaling another large puff and in Maasha's
direction, this time.  "Did you ever hear the phrase, don't knock it
until you've tried it?"

"I haven't tried jumping off a building, either, but it's not on my
list of things to do," she said, but something in her eyes indicated an
opening to Rebecca.

"So you never smoked, ever?"

Maasha sighed.  "Look, I'm quite a bit older than you, Rebecca.  When I
was an undergraduate..."

"You smoked."

"Only for a year or so," Maasha admitted with evident reluctance.  She
took a reinforcing sip of white wine.  "That was in '69.  Believe me,
you have no idea how things were in those days, about smoking, sex,
drugs, or whatever.  I'm not inhuman.  Even back then, though, it was
considered a minus for pre-meds, so I gave it up."

"Reluctantly."

Maasha took a larger gulp of wine.  "Yes it was tough, if you must
know!  As I said, that was another time, another world.  I haven't
thought about it in years.  Not, in fact, until you..."

"Came along, smoking the anachronistic, vile weed," Rebecca finished.
She took a lingering puff and let smoke mysteriously veil her next
words.  "Suppose I told you that the cigarette I'm smoking is not at
all harmful, either to you or me?"

"I'd say you were letting your addiction cloud your good scientific
judgment," said Maasha, sipping wine once more.  She examined the empty
glass as if just now realizing she had overindulged.  She was a woman
unused to any unhealthful pursuits, and this had been an
uncharacteristic second glass.  She marshaled her compromised forces to
continue the defense.  "It looks and smells just like any other
cigarette.  Don't tell me it's marijuana!"

"No, not that," Rebecca said, laughing smokily.  "Just my homemade
blend of tobacco and a toxic antagonist, in a manner of speaking."

"It looks like you took that from a pack of standard production
cigarettes, "she said skeptically.  "What did you add?"  Despite her
tone, Maasha looked somewhat interested.  Both her wine intake and
sense of isolation from CDC observers was having an effect.

"I won't say another thing unless you try one," said Rebecca, lighting
another cigarette.  "Some things you just need to experience for
yourself."  She pushed that thought at Maasha for all she was worth.
There would never be a better time.

"All right," said Maasha, giving in to the wine and giggling at her
foolish impulse.  "No one will see me here.  Our little secret,
right?"  She reached for the pack and took a cigarette.

Rebecca extended a light, accompanying it with a cloud of smoke.  "Our
little secret."

Maasha's early smoking experience showed as she accepted the light and
leaned back.  Clearly intending a shallow puff, she switched gears
fast, drawing heavily and inhaling deeply instead.

Rebecca watched for the familiar signs of stimulation, pleasure, and
arousal.  She was not disappointed.

"Oh my," said Maasha.  "Oh my!"  The last two words were wrapped in
smoke, and she exhaled a large cloud before continuing.  "What in god's
name did you...did..."  Maasha stopped for another puff, then another,
and yet another, each deeper and longer than the last.  She was soon
wrapped in her own white haze, mirroring and merging with Rebecca's.

"I'll tell you everything, I promise.  You should come home with me
tonight, though.  It will make things much easier.  Afterwards you'll
understand my treatment plan for Mary Lou."

Maasha was too absorbed in her smoking to reply in words, but she
nodded passively.  The air in the booth soon grew dim with their
exhalations, which continued to eddy and swirl even after the two women
had left.


6.  Near Baxter, Wyoming, September 22, 3:37 PM MDT

It was already too late when he noticed the children standing on the
tracks.

Engineer Thom Whalen engaged all of the braking systems anyway, bracing
himself against deceleration as the hundred-car westbound freight began
shedding its immense momentum.  The heavily-laden containers groaned
and bumped behind him, their speed decreasing unevenly, and he fought
to keep the train on the rails.

The tension was making his eyes play tricks.  The three kids seemed to
be retreating in front of the engine, keeping a steady distance only a
few yards ahead.  Certainly they must have been swept under the
grinding wheels long since and cut to bloody pieces.  A tragedy beyond
reckoning, but he couldn't help mourning his lost career as well.  Why
in god's name would anyone play tag with a speeding train?

It took a good 15 miles to bring the train to a complete stop.  Well
before that Whalen was climbing down from the engine, fearing what he
might find caught beneath the huge steel wheels.

He saw no blood or severed limbs caught in the gearing.  What he did
see was far stranger, and provoked as much wonder as concern.  The
three kids were visible far down the length of the train and appeared
to be breaking into a car.

Other trainmen appeared from various egresses and soon jointed Whalen
in a mad dash toward the source of the disturbance.  Anger was rising
to replace other emotions.  This would be stopped immediately, and
someone called to account.  Union Pacific was not forgiving of delays
and even less so of lost loads.

This was no longer the wild west and the days of armed train crews were
not even a memory.  Thus it was understandable when the men hesitated
to act after they reached the scene of the bizarre robbery.

Three slightly-built teenaged girls had somehow shattered the lock on a
box car.  The massive door had been shoved aside.  As the crew watched,
large crates and boxes flew like weightless baubles from the car's
interior, some breaking open when they struck the hard prairie soil.

"What the hell...stop!  Now!" shouted Whalen.

They didn't stop.  The oldest of the children glared at the him
warningly from the car's entrance.  "Stay out of our way and you won't
be hurt!" she said.

Whalen and his colleagues made only one attempt to interfere.  A
brakemen tried to grab little Cindy while she was burdened with a large
crate.  He quickly found himself hurled 20 feet away, and after that
the trainmen just stood and watched from a safe distance, not speaking
a word.  None was inclined to risk his life for mere cargo.

The girls looted the train at their leisure, ferrying tons of supplies
in relays far into the surrounding hills.  To the crew, the three
seemed to shimmer and vanish at times, covering great distances in
sudden leaps and abrupt dashes.   When the girls had all they wanted of
the train's load they started in on the cars themselves, tearing loose
huge sheets of corrugated steel and taking those as well.

After they were done, the oldest girl approached the trainmen.  "Sorry
about this," she said.  "But we need the stuff worse than Baxter.  If
anyone asks, just say that the Blessed take care of their own."

Then the children were gone, like magic.  Whalen and his crew were left
standing on the prairie by their shattered train, open-mouthed and
alone.


7.  Savannah Apartments, Atlanta, Georgia, September 24, 9:11 AM EDT

"How are you feeling, Maasha?"

"Better, but I could use a cigarette."

"Try the box on the coffee table."  Rebecca was glad to see her boss
looking well...indeed, well was much too mild a word now.  Maasha was
sitting on a plush but deep-discounted couch, wearing only bra and
panties, and already looking at least ten years younger.  Her figure
had firmed up, her skin had that baby-soft smoothness common to HSCs,
and her hair now obeyed her will like a living thing.  Rebecca would
have to help her tone it down at little, to avoid attracting too much
attention when they returned to CDC.

Maasha lit her cigarette and puffed gratefully, careful now not to
overwhelm the ephemeral object in a single drag.  She blew a flood of
smoke over the coffee table, a look of satisfaction spreading on her
face.  One photograph of that and her career would be over, thought
Rebecca.  Interesting that all the HSCs she knew had kept
smoking...they had no real need to.  It was a subject for further
study.

Also needing further study was the extreme difficulty Maasha'd had
during the conversion.  She had slipped into the early phases of
anaphylactic shock that first night, before the transformation process
had properly begun; a very serious and potentially life-threatening
allergic reaction.  It was fortunate that Rebecca had some medical
supplies in the house.  Otherwise, it would have been the hospital for
Maasha and lots of awkward questions later.

Rebecca had known that not everyone would "take" to the hybrid as
easily as she, Mary Lou, Shelly, and Melissa had.  In any large
population, some would be entirely unaffected and some would become
seriously ill.  However, Rebecca had not thought to encounter a
negative reaction so soon and among so few exposures.  If this was a
more common reaction than she'd calculated, there were a lot of deaths
coming...and all would be for Rebecca's account.

It was worth the risks.  It was even worth a few inevitable deaths.  It
had to be.  The benefits would be so great that almost any price was
insignificant in comparison.

Rebecca sat next to Maasha on the couch.  Both women were displaying a
lot of bare flesh, but between Maasha's illness and her apparent lack
of interest in all-female sexuality, nothing had developed along the
lines of Rebecca's relationship with Melissa.  It was just as well.
Their relationship at work would be challenging enough without sexual
complications.

Rebecca took a cigarette of her own as Maasha was exhaling another
looming cloud.  "What do you think of smoking now?" Rebecca asked,
showing a sly smile.

Maasha turned to face her, thin trickles of smoke escaping her nose and
accompanying her words.  "You really can't compare this with smoking by
the general population.  And I've never been so sick in my whole damn
life!"  Maasha smiled to soften her words.  "But your point has been
made.  Some of us had definitely lost touch with the simpler pleasures
in life...and perhaps misjudged our risk-benefits analysis just a
little ..."

Both women laughed at this, Rebecca's last inhale escaping prettily as
she did so.  "Well, those old analyses will be history soon...!" said
Rebecca.

"So you told me."  Maasha exhaled her last puff in concert with
Rebecca, the merged smoke gathering over the couch.  "I won't insult
you by asking if you really thought it through first.  I know you did,
and you're a hell of a lot brighter than I am, even now.  But it makes
me wonder..."

"About...?" Rebecca's smile slipped just a bit.  There were some
aspects to the coming HSC outbreak that she had settled in her mind
long since, like secrets entered in a locked diary.  She had tried to
throw that key away.

Maasha helped herself to another cigarette and let exhaled smoke
emphasize her next words.  It was such a natural gesture for her,
thought Rebecca.  As shame she had quit for so long...

"What do you think is really going to happen when we're all geniuses,
Rebecca?  When we can all bend steel in our bare hands?  Will that make
us better people?  Wiser?  More loving?  Or will it just make us better
at...well, at all the nasty things we do now?"

Rebecca blew smoke in a rush, hiding her uncertainty.  "I think so, in
the long run.  I hope so.  Look at how things were going without these
benefits.  What was our real chance for survival in a hundred years, in
a thousand?  How could we not take the risk?"

"We didn't take the risk.  You did."

To that, there was no good answer.


8.  Various Locations, October-December 1998

Once again, something was wrong in Wyoming.

A Union Pacific "trouble" report made its way by tortuous paths past
many eyes, reaching far beyond the corporate headquarters of the
railroad.  Long after Thom Whalen and his crew had been reprimanded and
forgiven, others were analyzing the events, collating them with earlier
reports, and reaching conclusions.

It was a slow process, encompassing many bureaucratic layers and
crossing the desks of many potential decision-makers.  Most of them
took no action, but none neglected to add comment or speculation.  The
ever-larger data-packet moved inexorably, accumulating supposition and
inaccuracies as it went.  Its final destination was the Pentagon's
office of Domestic Terrorist Countermeasures.

As always, official action would be slow in coming...but come it
would.


9.  CDC, Atlanta, Georgia, September 27, 1:31 PM EDT

The magnetic resonance imager was housed in a concrete bunker set well
away from the main CDC buildings.  The separation was necessary.  MRIs
produced a pulse effect similar to (though not as strong as) a nuclear
detonation, capable of frying pacemakers and damaging other electronic
devices.

Rebecca stood near the lone technician inside the low structure.  Mary
Lou lay quietly on a long white platform resting on rails leading into
the MRI's huge cylinder.  It was extraordinary that no attending
physician was present.  But then, a lot of extraordinary things had
been happening at CDC lately.

Any tensions remaining between Rebecca and her boss had diminished
considerably following Maasha's conversion.  Rebecca and Mary Lou had
even shared a cigarette outside the MRI enclosure, on CDC grounds,
before entering.  There was still a long way to go;  Federal
regulations could be discreetly bent, but not openly flaunted.  The CDC
Director was not a convert and unlikely to become one.

Maasha herself had cut the physician's orders permitting Mary Lou's
unorthodox treatment, despite the fact she not had not practiced
medicine for more than ten years.  Rebecca had also been permitted to
tinker with the mechanism and settings of the MRI in ways that the
manufacturer never intended.

Rebecca was still not sure this would work.  Despite long hours of
research, she did not completely understand how the central nervous
system of an HSC worked, or in what precise ways it was affected by
electrical and magnetic fields.  She really needed help, help from
other well-educated HSCs that was as yet lacking.  Waiting, though, was
not possible.  Mary Lou's patience was not unlimited.

The small girl was trembling where she lay, a frightened deer likely to
flee at the slightest excuse.  It had taken Rebecca five hours of
careful reassurance before she could persuade Mary Lou to come to the
MRI building, another half-hour to get her to lie on the table.  It had
to be now.  Rebecca prayed that the girl was not claustrophobic.

"Dr. Engleman, I think we need to recalibrate the machine.  I'm getting
some screwy readings."

"Please proceed, Bret.  If you check the orders, you'll see that
special modifications were required for this case."

"OK, Doc, it's your funeral.  Or hers."

"Hush!" said Rebecca.  Fortunately, Mary Lou kept still.

The table began to move slowly, taking Mary Lou into a small opening in
the thick cylinder.  So far, so good.  Huge flywheels buried beneath
the building started to spin, lending their stored energy to the
enormous electrical requirements of the MRI.

"Positioning completed," said the technician.  "Field building to 10
K-gauss.  The first image will appear on the monitor to your right,
Doctor."

"Just keep the field steady at 10, please."  Rebecca was shaking almost
as badly as Mary Lou.  The theory was good, she knew.  Mary Lou's brain
had been damaged by electrical shock.  The intense magnetic field of
the machine would induce an electric current in Mary's Lou's
superconductive nervous system which, if phased exactly right, would
restore the damaged "circuits" and heal her.  Atomic surgery was a
better solution, but no such facilities existed, yet.  This would have
to do.

The image on the monitor showed Mary Lou's brain abnormalities quite
clearly.  Bret, though, did not have the training to interpret them.

"Repositioning for the second series," he said.  "They'll show up on
monitor four."  Bret had no idea that the images were largely
irrelevant.

"Wait a minute.  Field building to 20!  Doc, the machine can't go that
high!  What the fuck..."

Rebecca grabbed his shoulder in a crushing grip, silencing him for the
moment.  This was not in the script.  Mary Lou herself must be
generating a sympathetic field...or an opposing one.

"Mag field at 30! At 40!" Bret was shouting.  "Shutting down!
Shutting-"

The MRI exploded.  Her nerves tuned to their highest speed, Rebecca had
just enough time to shield Bret with her body.  She felt metal shrapnel
shredding the lab coat, penetrating her back to a dangerous depth.
Concrete parted with a sound like tearing sheet metal, and dust rose to
obscure any possibility of clear sight.

As soon as she was able, Rebecca untangled her blood-drenched form from
the stunned but unhurt technician.  The dust was settling.  There was
no fire since there was nothing to burn.  MRIs were not designed to
explode.

Sunlight poured through enormous gaps blown in the five-foot thick
concrete walls.  The MRI cylinder was entirely gone, reduced to metal
flinders.  Scraps of the sliding table remained, dotted with a few
drops of blood.  Of Mary Lou there was no other sign.  No sign at all.

"D-Doctor, are you, you hurt bad?" said Bret, shaking dust from his
clothing.

Rebecca did not answer.  Instead she fell limply to the floor.


10.  Maimonides Memorial Hospital, Somerset, New Jersey, October 11,
7:22 AM EDT

She had miscalculated badly and paid the price.

Both of her legs were still in casts and pained her miserably.  She
resisted taking any narcotic medication.  The discomfort served as a
reminder of her failure and tasks yet to be finished.

After her injury, Washington had officially relieved her of any
responsibility for the case involving Shelly and Lucy.  The feds were
pursuing a new lead somewhere out west.  Probably related to BETA, she
thought.

"Just relax and get better," they had said.  "Report back when you're
ready for reassignment."

Bullshit.  She had fucked up royally, and would be damned if she'd let
it rest there.

All throughout her career she had struggled to prove herself capable in
a male-dominated field.  She'd undergone basic and advanced training at
Fort Benning, further training at Quantico (though she'd declined the
suggested transfer from the Army to the FBI), and yet more training in
less well-known places.  Always at or near the top of her class.
Always able to hold her own with any male trainee.  And all for
naught.

Her field assignments were invariably "appropriate" to her sex.  Sexy
and alluring yet a highly-trained killer, she had been forced to endure
the embraces of many a foreign slimeball.  What a valuable tool she
was!  Who would ever think that an attractive woman could suddenly
strike out with deadly force, ending yet another threat to the
so-called free world?  No one, especially not her assigned enemies,
ever took her for anything but a sex toy until she proved otherwise
through violence.

She longed to see real combat, armed opposition, so she could prove
that real threats did not frighten her.  She wanted enemies who took
her seriously and shot back.  No dice.  "Policy" forbade that option.
She'd have to be patient; policy would change one day and she'd get her
chance...sooner or later.

Fuck patience.  She was 29 and would not keep her physical "edge"
forever.  There was already pressure on her to take a promotion and a
desk job.  The Pentagon and Congress both would love to see her with a
full-bird on her collar and in charge of male commandos.  It'd be a
great boost for the Army's PC image.  She'd be damned if she'd settle
for that before making her mark in the field.

Breeling wished she could smoke here.  Fuck these damned hospital
regs!  She'd rather be recuperating in a nice, smelly tent.

The current case had been a great opportunity.  She'd been tapped for
the assignment because the FBI had fucked up and the known suspects
were all women.  Then she'd committed the same stupid mistake her
employers always made; she'd underestimated the bad guys simply because
they were female.  She deserved exactly what she had gotten for such an
unforgivable error.

She would be out of these damned casts and the hospital in a few days,
maybe a week.  Then would come an long period of physical therapy and
getting back in shape.  After that she would certainly not be going
back to Washington.

Callaghan, damn his dead eyes, had been right.  These perps had
extraordinary powers, powers they had not been born with or gotten
through any sort of training.  She'd find out how and why.  Then she'd
get herself some of that action, if at all possible.  After
that...well, we'll see what we shall see.  All the perps would go down
if need be.  And once that was done...

Lt. Kathy Breeling would be writing her own ticket.

End of Part Two

Previous part | Next part