The Variant Effect
GREENMOURNING
G. Wells Taylor
Copyright 2010 by G. Wells Taylor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.
Cover Design by G. Wells Taylor
Edited by Katherine Tomlinson
Website: GreenMourning.com
More titles at GWellsTaylor.com and Smashwords.com
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Pinocchio had always dreamed of being a real boy.
But what a waste of time that turned out to be. Dreams teased him all night long, convincing him that things were the way he wanted them to be—then poof, gone with the alarm clock. Or they’d hang out there taunting him, just beyond his reach, only to disappear the moment he touched them. Dreams left empty shapes in his mind, and desires and need—and nothing more. They were illusions. They weren’t real. They were nothing and that made him furious because Pinocchio wasn’t nothing.
He was more.
So Pinocchio gave up on dreams. They were as useless as childish wishes and the blue fairies that didn’t grant them.
He tried to be practical. Pinocchio went to school and learned and studied and hoped that the day would come when the real circumstances, when science and technology would evolve to make such a transformation possible. Make it true. Make it real. Some genetic fix or pill or procedure would be discovered that would make him into a real boy.
But that turned out to be another dream. Another wish in need of a fairy.
So Pinocchio took things into his own hands.
Well, not his hands. He was still looking for those. He hadn’t quite found the right pair.
The hands he used instead placed his new feet into the large plastic cooler. Pinocchio pushed the severed and bagged extremities down into the ice with a plunging action that made a roaring noise—and he froze as goose bumps prickled. Careful now. Don’t want them to hear. He closed the lid with a quiet thump, and slipped its hard plastic lock into place with a click. Then he nudged the cooler with the toe of his slipper and slid it across the carpet until it rested beside his backpack by the door.
He unfolded a six-by-six vinyl sheet and set it in place under the window where a dark green garbage bag waited to be filled. The blinds were drawn. No one would see.
Pinocchio turned to look at the man on the bed. He just stood there a minute, looking.
The man on the bed was looking back at him over the bloodstained gag; his breath was coming in desperate, rapid-fire whistles. His eyes were wide and white with pain and terror. His face was sweaty and pale with blood loss and shock. He grunted weakly, promising the world.
The man wouldn’t last long, which was good. That annoying whistle was getting on Pinocchio’s nerves…
The man on the bed wasn’t going anywhere. The ropes that fastened his wrists to the headboard had held him in place while Pinocchio worked. Same as those that bound his legs with a series of tight loops just over the knees and in around the bed frame. Those knots had served a double purpose. They’d both secured the man and kept him alive during the procedures.
At first Pinocchio had contemplated taking all of the legs. It would have been faster and easier to take them off at the hips or knees, but unwieldy to transport. And he had to be careful—he g ot so excited when he found new parts. He had to be cautious, and a little extra work would keep him safe. So he had decided that it would be worth the effort to strip out the muscle, veins and nerves that belonged to the feet. And in all truth, he did not like the man’s knobby knees and hairy thighs. They had surprised Pinocchio when he first got a look at them. Their awkward and ugly design did not go with the feet.
The feet were incredible.
Pinocchio got his first look at them earlier on that heat wave day, when the man on the bed had taken off his shoes and socks to wade in a Metro park fountain. Pinocchio had been sitting on a bench nearby, alone, unhappy—trapped in a body that wasn’t his. He had been contemplating a quiet death—just ending it for once and all, when he saw the feet flash across the grass and leap into the spangled water.
Their beauty, their movement, caught hold of his spirit and lifted it up. A voice, his conscience perhaps, said: You can still be a real boy. You must never give up!
The feet were perfect: the toes were short not stubby, the arches flexible bridges from powerful heel to forefoot, and the skin was ivory. They were just the way Pinocchio had imagined they would be. And there they were, marking a pathway back to optimism, back to life and to his calling. He could be a real boy.
But he’d have to be patient. His urgency was understandable, but dangerous. So, he reined in his emotions and sat on the bench in the shade to watch the man play with his feet in the water.
An hour passed and Pinocchio followed the man on foot through the shimmering heat of the day, surprised and curious about his destination, keeping his rising excitement in check—until he found out where the man was going…
Home was a room at a rundown motor inn. Pinocchio knew the type, rented by week or month; they were accessed by an open stairway that ran up over the parking lot. There you only had to pass the neighboring units and knock. The location was puzzling. The fellow was fit and healthy. His hair was cut and clean. He didn’t fit the surroundings. Perhaps a student’s life kept him in such poor accommodations.
But the important points were: No security entrance. No buzzer.
So Pinocchio retrieved his van from the park, went home to get his equipment and had returned some hours later when the sun had set and the shadows were black.
He had knocked and the man had answered. The fellow took one look at Pinocchio, at the goggles and filter-mask and he smiled. Is this a joke?
Pinocchio gave him a long blast of pepper spray in the eyes and nostrils. The man tried to speak but choked. Pinocchio pushed him back into the room and shut the door behind them. Blind and gasping, the man swung a fist in the air and fell. Pinocchio leapt on top and trapped the man’s wrists behind his back. The fellow chewed on Pinocchio’s leather glove as the recycling bag was pulled over his head and the plastic pressed to his nose and mouth.
He was unconscious in minutes, and then…
Vivisection was time-consuming, but difficult to pass on when the opportunity presented itself. One learned so much because the stakes were high. True, he could cut corners when the subject’s survival was unimportant; but there were risks. He didn’t know the man’s life or social network. Someone with a key could have entered at any moment. And some sound did escape the fellow. Behind muffling strips of duct tape, he chewed the ball-gag to bits before passing out halfway through the procedure and Pinocchio only discovered the trouble when the fellow woke up and started choking noisily on the pieces.
He cut the tape away to help, but had to smother him again when he screamed. All that excitement despite the calming ebb of blood seeping around the tight ropes closing the fellow’s seve red calves.
Severed.
Pinocchio realized he had been watching the man too long. It was time to go.
The man sensed it. He knew, because he summoned the energy to tense his entire body, pull at his bound wrists and shake the bed as Pinocchio approached.
He hissed past new strips of duct tape as Pinocchio loosened the ropes that bound his legs—and then he bled.
Blood pumped out, poured off the sodden mattress and pooled on the carpet. The man gasped, kicked his mangled stumps in the air. Scarlet spattered the ceiling and floor. He shivered in one rigid spasm, gave a long sigh and died.
Pinocchio watched the bleeding slow to a trickle and stop.
He moved to the vinyl sheet by the window and removed his bloody clothing: gloves, surgical gown, pants and slippers. He dumped them in the center of the sheet, as he always did. Before changing into his clothes he’d bundle up the mess and bag it. He’d take it home to his apartment building to incinerate.
Pinocchio stood there a moment naked—listening.
His Variant-enhanced senses kept him safe, kept him focused on the noises outside the room and in the street. Variant protected him and gave him the strength to make his dream come true.
But he had to be careful. The authorities in Metro knew about him. He had already collected a few new parts—had been at it for some time. But recently, he discovered a tongue and took it too hastily, and from another a pair of eyes that were to die for. In his excitement Pinocchio had left a mess; and in the mess something remained that connected other scenes.
These authorities called him Pinocchio in the news-feeds, as though that would insult him. But the name was perfect. They must have guessed what he was doing, because they were right. All he ever wanted was to be a real boy.
They were looking for him, so he had to be careful. He had to be patient.
It was just a matter of time. If things went the way they did back in the day, Pinocchio would soon be free to act. The authorities would have their hands full with the Variant Effect in the public again. They wouldn’t waste time looking for him when the skin eaters formed their first hunting packs.
Pinocchio would hide in the panic, and it was just good luck that his application to join the new Variant squads had been accepted.
David White watched the flickering lights of Metro from his spacious office on the top floor of the Cousteau Building. His reflection in the glass was a dim silhouette cast by the energy-efficient lighting in the outer hall. The cityscape reflected in his half-full tumbler of scotch. He took a drink.
GreenMourning Environmental owned the Goodall Complex and used the upper floors of the Cousteau Building to house its Executive Branch.
David was its president.
He grew up wanting to save the planet, but knew almost from day one that he couldn’t save humanity too. Something had to give, and it looked like the species was going to join the other success stories in the fossil record. This was just the end result of the runaway evolution that his father used to talk about.
Something of a pop phenomenon, Jack White had been a favorite on the lecture circuit and news panels as the voice of the pseudo-science of GreenMourning. The elder White was an otherwise uninspiring anthropologist, uncharismatic but with his startling shock of premature white hair, flamboyant lecture style and love of attention, he was gold to the ratings-driven news cycles at the dawn of the digital age.
Jack White had had his son, David, late in life, the accidental product of a union between the startled older scientist and a very young doomsday groupie. It turned out that the graduate student from China had been looking for American citizenship and f ame. Ling found out the hard way that she was schizophrenic, and that her first episode would be her last when she leapt to her death from the Clarkston Bridge where it spanned the polluted waters of Metro’s Leland River.
David was three when it happened, and while it devastated the boy, it did set the stage for the exciting life that followed. Many times young David would wake in his tidy room in their cluttered Metro apartment to find his father’s old hands caressing his forehead. Back from a tour or research trip, Jack would wake him with gifts, regardless of the hour or his nanny’s protestations, and they’d talk the night away. Those discussions were never dumbed-down and in time they created a deep interest in the boy for science and the environmental impact and eventual extinction of the apex predator, homo sapiens.
By the time he was seven, David and his nanny had become Jack’s constant companions. They traveled the world. His father’s celebrity was in high demand for its ability to shine media light on any environmental issue, populist or political. His father often joked about the premium these organizations paid him to read their eulogies. David inherited much of his father’s intellect, but none of his mordant humor.
During this time, and up until he attended a Canadian University where he majored in business and minored in environmental studies, David learned about his father’s GreenMourning Theory. Scientists were quick to call it “philosophy,” and David agreed. Jack White admitted it wasn’t strictly scientific, and was more a distillation of the various available theories he had talked about and studied—an obvious conclusion that was brought together by instinctive knowledge and common sense. Natural laws were its strongest components—pointing inward at a load-bearing hub of enlightenment.
David had little patience for the theory. It was based on the psychological and emotional disconnect that occurred in homo sapiens as humans evolved away from contact with the natural world. It was a fairly simple extension on the impact of habitat loss on species but his father swore up and down that his GreenMourning Theory described the basis for all of humanity’s ills.
David didn’t buy it, though a wide selection of the mainstream audience purchased it in eBook, video download and documentary form. The touchy-feely post-baby-boomer crowd incorporated the GreenMourning Theory into their healing circles, magic drumming parties and Reiki massage parlors.
David, fresh from university and smelling profit, made overtures to his father about the creation of an over-arching business entity called GreenMourning Environmental. He sugar-coated the pitch with dreams of this business entity becoming a global organizer and fundraiser for all things environmental.
He had to move quickly though, before his father frittered away the GreenMourning profits on donations to the same non-profit organizations David mentioned in his proposal.
The pseudo-scientific elements of the GreenMourning Theory fit well with Jack White’s idealistic naiveté, and the pairing turned David’s practical stomach. It was just that sort of foolishness that had doomed the world to environmental catastrophe. Only by understanding business and the harsh realities of finance could any group hope to make a positive impact. Forget honor and trust—you had to be cutthroat. Eat or be eaten.
David took control of the company by the end of the second year, and used its considerable media weight to increase its financial holdings many fold over the next five. During that time, GreenMourning started absorbing smaller ‘like-minded’ groups, with promises of “pooling resources” only to fire the activists and sell off their assets as soon as possible.
GreenMourning Environmental had been in the process o f making a clean environment profitable when Bezo issued its first lots of Varion. It took years for the impact to be felt, and longer for it to be understood.
The day was in full swing by the time the truth became apparent. David had no illusions about what the Variant Effect represented. He had always imagined that humanity’s success would be its own undoing, and to some degree Varion was that.
The thought that people would take a drug not to control, but eradicate the emotional impact of life, the vagaries of genetics and well-springs of creation—to cure by creating a calm place in the brain devoid of natural stress—simply boggled David’s mind. With such disconnect, what would they become?
When he realized that the side effects of Varion might very well cause human extinction in his own lifetime, David decided that chance had given him the opportunity and the power to oppose those who were profiting from the process. Perhaps he could stop it.
And he had for a time, until an accident set it free again. It was coming back, stronger than before.
David smiled. Perhaps he could stop it again. He believed in the survival of the fittest.
He walked to the desk, flicked a button on his palm-com where it rested in its power station. The connection buzzed. A female voice answered.
David said: “Natasha get Brass on the phone, please.”
Beachboy sprinted along the hallway—cinderblock walls flashing by to either side. His breathing was loud and annoying, rustling and echoing in the vinyl hood. His lamps were on low—just enough light to navigate the shadows. He didn’t want to draw any attention.
It was a textbook case, as Borland would grumble. The squad had been called out to Metro Polytechnic University because students were missing past curfew—the numbers added up over the last couple of nights. Think! Borland would say. And then Hyde would hiss: History!
The university had an Olympic–sized swimming pool for its own programs and to offer as a venue for international and world-class athletes to train and compete. Beachboy knew the tunnels and dark spaces under and around the facility were the most likely places to find Biters. Again, textbook.
The whole scenario smelled of skin eaters—and they were the toughest Variant Effect to deal with. The most dangerous to fight. And experience with them often came at the price of your life.
Beachboy knew only too well. Mofo paid the bill and I wrote the check!
Even with the nightmares, he was considered one of the lucky ones. He could only believe that as long as he had a little something to take the edge off. Whiskey was nice. Tequila even better. And activity kept the memories at bay, work and fitness—anything, so he jumped at the chance to take the point while the squad held its position and awaited his report. He would relay back coordinates while he tested his hood’s new heads-up display or HUD. The mapping apparatus was unveiled at the stationhouse that morning and roundly mocked by Borland and Aggie.
But it was all by the new book for the new day. Even though the veterans warned the recruits against trusting technology, they conceded you were as good as dead without it.
It didn’t surprise him when the HUD’s GPS malfunctioned under all that concrete and water or that within a few turns and gaps of shadow, he was lost. Separated from the squad was bad, but it got worse when he heard something following him. Almost silently, hard to pick up over his own breathing, a pair of feet was echoing the movements of his own. The sound was maybe 20 yards to the rear.
He’d turned off his intercom so he could hear what was happening and what was coming up fast behind. He’d toggle it back on when he needed to contact the squad . Or when he had something to report.
Whatever was on his trail had picked up its pace like it caught his scent and was suddenly anxious for…
Skin.
He moved from his position, angling at a sprint under an archway of steel girders that stabilized the swimming pool’s walls. A quick run through shadow and then…
Was that a hiss? And that—a footstep?
Something was coming fast. Beachboy had been in worst places since the squads reactivated, but he wasn’t stupid. This was bad. The Variant presentations in Metro had grown from two or three in a month and were now averaging five in a week. He was always quick to volunteer—quick to go after any monsters that lived outside of his head.
But he wasn’t suicidal. At least, he didn’t think…
He grunted, recognizing part of the architecture that held up a long stretch of maintenance walkway. He wasn’t lost, not when he remembered the shape of the pool and building. The squad wasn’t far away. He’d figured that out after he’d given the maps in his HUD a clockwise spin and realized they were correct; they just needed to be re-configured for north and south. At one point the digital map projected a chain of Metro Coffee shops across the inside of his face-shield, and he laughed.
Don’t get cocky! He hefted his gun and poured on the speed.
But something was coming, and the low light from his hood-lamps forced him to slow—just in case—in case, he was being chased into an ambush.
Ssskin!
They aren’t that smart…are they?
A noise. Close on his heels. It would be on him if he turned. A thick concrete pillar loomed ahead. He dodged behind it, slammed his back against the cold surface and swung his shotgun high.
Beachboy held his breath, strained to hear over his hammering heart.
Footsteps. Close. Running. Closer!
And a loud popping sound. A snap! Like someone wearing vinyl—running—was it backup? Or have they got one of us?
He didn’t have time to wonder. The thing was coming too fast. It was right there!
Beachboy counted the footsteps, snarled, then whipped out around the pillar, gun level and cocked.
Nothing. Just shadow. That was stupid!
And a compact body struck him in the left side—knocked the wind out of him. Strong hands gripped his suit and gun, forced his elbows up, shoved him off balance onto the ground. His chest convulsed on dead air when he slammed against the concrete.
“Stupid!” he gasped in the dark. “Death wish!” The thing must have swung around the pillar and doubled back. For an easy kill…
But hands were on him now—pinching. A head dug into his ribs, and pushed him along the floor, wedged his shoulder against the pillar. He tried to get his gun free, but it was pinned under him.
Hiss! That was it. Next would be…
Ssskin.
And he felt his throat close up. A shiver ran through him as adrenaline surged. Stupid considering…
His shoulders wrenched painfully as the thing flipped him onto his back and his hood-lamps lit the concrete ceiling, illuminated his attacker’s slippery vinyl covering. A bag-suit!
Got one of us! A wave of terror closed his ears… the ocean roared. This shouldn’t be happening. Don’t panic! They can’t get me.
And Dancer’s face moved into the light from his hood-lamps. Her eyes were wild with anticipation as her strong hands tore and ripped at his vinyl hood—her lips were stretched back in a grimace like a smile and she snapped even rows of sharp, white teeth.
He tried to shift his weight, but his arm was trapped, the other was tight under Dancer. She was grindin g it into his chest with her pelvis. She suddenly moaned and snapped her teeth.
“Goddamn!” Beachboy blurted, kicking his legs. Dancer’s fingers clawed under his hood, hooked on his face-shield and wrenched it off its moorings.
She slid her body over his, grinding her weight, driving up and down his length as her snapping jaws nipped his neck, and then her lips opened…
And closed on his.
Her hands worked frantically—so did his now—pulling at the vinyl bag-suits, grabbing snaps and buckles, ripping Velcro open while their lips pressed and their tongues caressed. They twisted on the floor, more flesh coming free of protection. Their tunics came up; their pants slid open and down.
And Dancer’s fingers wrapped around his rigid member.
“I don’t want your skin, Beachboy!” she breathed, sighing as she sank down onto him and he thrust up into her. They moved together slowly, rhythmically against each other’s strength.
“I want your flesh,” she hissed.
They quickly built to climax. Dancer’s incisors sunk into Beachboy’s chest when she came. He didn’t feel a thing.
***
A short time later they lay on a heap of clothing and vinyl in the dark, their naked bodies still entwined.
The squads had been using the halls under the university pool to train. Some baggies liked to come in after hours for extended studies.
“That was nice,” Dancer whispered, shifting to set her head on Beachboy’s bicep.
“And then some…” he agreed.
Not long after Parkerville he’d discovered Dancer’s interest in night classes. They started out by sharpening their squad skills, and before long it turned into this. They were still using shield-names. He doubted it could ever go much farther.
“I think about Parkerville,” she said.
“Me too,” Beachboy nodded.
“And surviving. You can see why Borland and Aggie are the way they are.” Dancer went quiet a second, and then. “And Captain Hyde. Losing his daughter that way, after suffering so much. How does he keep going?”
Beachboy remembered the tunnels, remembered getting separated from Borland and fighting Biters with Zombie and Lilith. He broke from them to lead a pair of Biters away. When he returned, he guessed that Zombie and Lilith had gone after Borland.
“They never found her body; maybe Hyde hangs onto that,” Dancer said softly. “But she couldn’t have got out. The hotlink was sealed.”
Beachboy remembered finding a dead woman floating in the water with a skinned dog nearby. Her head was smashed. The broken stock of a shotgun bobbed beside her.
Beachboy grunted.
He remembered running along the tunnel, falling over Lazlo’s body—his skull was cut open. Brain gone—what? Beachboy remembered hurrying through the floodwater—a gun battle behind, and gunfire up ahead.
He saw Zombie where the tunnel opened on dim light. Then a flash, a gunshot and Zombie fell. Brass was there across from the dead baggie and witnessed the whole thing.
Borland too. He must have been standing by Zombie. His .38 was smoking. Beachboy listened to all he could stand and ran back the way he came…
Dancer’s fingernails bit into Beachboy’s cheek and ripped him out of his reverie. He turned his head toward her.
“Let’s do it again,” she smiled evilly, searching the pile of vinyl for her underwear. “But this time you be the Biter.”
“I’ll bite you too,” Beachboy said, as he looked for his boots.
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WATCH FOR
The Variant Effect:
GREENMOURNING
COMING 2011
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Check GWellsTaylor.com for more.
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