Dead and Alive

Abruptly the rain fell away behind them and the two-lane blacktop state route lay dry ahead. By driving out of the storm, seemingly swifter than nature in a rampage, Carson enjoyed the illusion of even greater speed than she had actually managed to squeeze out of the Honda.

She raised the bottle of never-sleep-again cola from between her thighs and took another swig. She recognized the signs of noncritical dehydration caused by caffeine: dry mouth, dry lips, a faint ringing in the ears.

In the passenger seat, playing imaginary drums with imaginary drumsticks, Michael said, “Maybe we shouldn’t have exceeded the recommended dose for the caffeine tablets. Already I have NoDoz nostrils.”

“Me too. My nasal passages are so dry, it’s like I’m breathing air that came out of a furnace, it has just a little burn to it.”

“Yeah. Feels dry. But this is still Louisiana, so at a minimum it has to be ninety percent humidity by state law. Hey, you know how much of the human body is water?”

“If it’s the time of month I retain it, I’d say ninety percent.”

“Sixty percent for men, fifty percent for women.”

She said, “There’s proof — women have more substance than men.”

“It was an answer on Jeopardy!”

“I can’t believe you watch TV game shows.”

“They’re educational,” he said. “Half of what I know, I learned from game shows.”

“That I do believe.”

Moss-draped live oaks on both sides of the road formed a tunnel, and the headlights flared again and again off what might have been colonies of phosphorescent lichen on the fissured bark.

“Do you have to drive so fast?”

“Fast? This heap of Vicky’s isn’t good for driving anywhere except in funeral processions.”

Carson’s cell phone rang, and she fished it out of an inside coat pocket.

“O’Connor,” she said.

“Detective O’Connor,” a woman said, “this is Erika Helios.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Helios.”

When he heard the name, Michael popped up in his seat as if he were a slice of bread in a toaster.

Erika Helios said, “I believe you may be aware of who my husband really is. At least I think he suspects you know.”

“He knows we know,” Carson said. “He sent two of his New Race assassins after us yesterday. Cute couple. Looked like dancers. We called them Fred and Ginger. They blasted their way through my house, nearly killed my brother.”

“Sounds like Benny and Cindi Lovewell,” Erika Helios said. “I’m of the New Race, too. But I don’t know about Benny and Cindi being sent after you yesterday. Victor killed me the day before yesterday.”

To Michael, Carson said, “She says Victor killed her the day before yesterday.”

“Who’re you talking to?” Erika asked.

“My partner, Michael Maddison.”

Erika said, “I know it sounds unbelievable, someone telling you she was killed yesterday.”

“Thanks to your husband,” Carson said, “there’s nothing we find hard to believe anymore.”

“I’ll believe any damn crazy thing,” Michael agreed.

“Victor sent my body to the dump. Do you know about Crosswoods Waste Management, Detective O’Connor?”

“It’s right next door to the tank farm where he’s gonna crank out six thousand of you folks a year.”

“You are on top of things. I figured you would be, if Victor worried about you. Nobody worries Victor.”

“Mrs. Helios, how did you get this number?”

“Victor had it. I saw it on his desk pad. That was before I was dead. But I have a photographic memory. I’m an Alpha.”

“Are you still dead?” Carson asked.

“No, no. Turns out, most of us he sends here are for-sure dead, but a few of us who seem to be dead … well, there’s still a trace of life energy in us that can be brought back to full power, so we can heal. They know how to save us here at the dump.”

“Who is they?”

“Those of the New Race discarded here but alive again. I’m one of them now. We call ourselves the Dumpsters.”

Carson said, “I didn’t know you people had a sense of humor.”

“We don’t,” Erika said. “Not until we die and drop our program and then come alive again. But this may be gibberish to you. Maybe you don’t understand about our programs.”

Carson thought of Pastor Kenny Laffite coming undone at his kitchen table in the parsonage, and she said, “Yeah, we know about that.”

“Oh, and I should have said, I’m Erika Four. The wife with him now is Erika Five.”

“He moves fast.”

“He’s always got Erikas in the tanks, just in case the latest one goes wrong. Flesh is cheap. That’s what he says.”

“Thank God for NoDoz and triple-threat cola,” Carson said.

Erika Four said, “Excuse me?”

“If I wasn’t pumped with caffeine to the eyebrows,” Carson said, “I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this conversation.”

“Detective, do you know you can’t trust anyone in the police department, so many of them are Victor’s people?”

“Yeah. We’re aware.”

“So you’re on your own. And here in the parish where the dump and the tank farm are located, every cop and most of the politicians are replicants. You can’t win this.”

“We can win this,” Carson disagreed.

Nodding so rapidly that he looked like an out-of-control bobblehead doll, Michael said, “We can win. We can win.”

“His empire is imploding,” Carson told Erika.

“Yes. We know. But you still need help.”

Thinking of Deucalion, Carson said, “We’ve got some help you don’t know about. But what do you have in mind?”

“We’ve got a deal to propose. The Dumpsters. We’ll help you defeat him, capture him — but there’s something we want.”

CHAPTER 45

Victor never entered the Hands of Mercy directly. Next door to the hospital, which now passed as a ware- house, a five-story office building housed the accounting and personnel-management departments of Biovision, the company that had made him a billionaire.

In the garage under the building, he parked his S600 Mercedes in a space reserved for him. At this hour, his was the only car.

He had been put off his stride by the business with Erika Four on the phone and Christine not knowing who she was. In moments like this, work was the best thing to settle his mind, and perhaps now more than ever, numerous issues required his attention.

Near his parking space was a painted steel door to which only he possessed a key. Beyond the door lay a twelve-foot-square concrete room.