a shop full of cavemen and ask them to fix it. These figures…they undoubtedly show something, but we aren’t able to decide what.”
Edward removed his coat. “Listen. You have me worried now.” Vergil’s expression changed slowly to a kind of frantic beatitude. He squinted at the ceiling and pursed his lips.
“Where’s Candice?”
“Out for the evening. We’re not getting along too well right now.”
“She knows?”
Vergil smirked. “How could she not know? She sees me naked every night” He turned away from Edward as he said that. He was lying.
“Are you stoned?”
He shook his head, then nodded once, very slow. “Listening,” he said.
“To what?”
“I don’t know. Sounds. Not sounds. Like music. The heart, all the blood vessels, the friction of the blood along the arteries, veins. Activity. Music in the blood.” He regarded Edward plaintively. “What excuse did you give Gail?”
“None, really. Just that you were in trouble and I had to come see you.”
“Can you stay?”
“No.” He glanced around the apartment suspiciously, looking for ashtrays, packs of papers.
“I’m not stoned, Edward,” Vergil said. “I may be wrong, but I think something big is happening. I think they’re finding out who I am.”
Edward sat down across from Vergil, staring at him intently. Vergil didn’t seem to notice. Some inner process was absorbing him.
“Is there any coffee?” Edward asked. Vergil motioned to the kitchen. Edward filled a pot of water to boil and took a jar of instant from the fourth cabinet he looked into. Cup in hand, he returned to the seat. Vergil twisted his head back and forth, eyes wide open.
“You always knew what you wanted to be, didn’t you?” he asked Edward.
“More or less.”
“Smart moves. A gynecologist. Never false moves. I was different I had goals, but no direction. Like a map without roads, just places to be. I didn’t give a shit for anything or anybody but myself. Even science. Just a means. I’m surprised I got so far.” He gripped his chair arms. “As for Mother…” The tension in his hand was clear. “Witch. Witch and spook for parents. Changeling child. Where small things make big changes.”
“Something wrong?”
They’re talking to me, Edward.” He shut his eyes.
“Jesus.” There was nothing else he could think of to say. He thought wildly of hoaxes and being made a fool of and Vergil’s unreliability in the past, but he could not get away from the hard facts the diagnostic equipment had shown him.
For a quarter-hour Vergil seemed to be asleep. Edward checked his pulse, which was strong and steady; felt his forehead—slightly cool—and made himself more coffee. He was about to pick up the phone, undecided whether to call a hospital or Gail, when Vergil’s eyelids flickered open and he shifted his gaze to meet Edward’s.
“Hard to understand exactly what time is like for them,” he said. “It’s taken them maybe three, four days to figure out language, key human concepts. Can you imagine, Edward? They didn’t even
“The hospital,” Edward said hoarsely. He cleared his throat “Please, Vergil. Now.”
“What in hell can a hospital do? Did you figure out any way to control the cells? I mean, they’re my own. Hurt them, hurt me.”
“I’ve been thinking.” Actually, the idea had just popped into his head—a sure sign that he was starting to believe Vergil. “Actinomycin can bind to DNA and stop transcription. We could slow them down that way—surely that would screw up this biologic you’ve described.”
I’m allergic to actinomycin. It would kill me.”
Edward looked down at his hands. That had been his best shot, he was sure of it. “We could do some experiments, see how they metabolize, differ from other cells. If we could isolate a nutrient they require more of, we could starve them. Maybe even radiation treatments—”
“Hurt them,” Vergil said, turning toward Edward, “hurt me.” He stood in the middle of the Irving room and held out his arms. The robe fell open and revealed Vergil’s legs and torso. Shadow obscured any visible detail. “I’m not sure I want to be rid of them. They’re not doing any harm.”
Edward swallowed back his frustration and tried to control a flush of anger, only making it worse. “How do you know?”
Vergil shook his head and held up one finger. They’re trying to understand what space is. That’s tough for them. They break distances down into concentrations of chemicals. For them, space is a range of taste intensities.”
“Vergil—”
“Listen, think, Edward!” His tone was excited but even. “Something is happening inside me. They talk to each other with proteins and nucleic acids, through the fluids, through membranes. They tailor something—viruses, maybe—to carry long messages or personality traits or biologic. Plasmid-like structures. That makes sense. Those are some of the ways I programmed them. Maybe that’s what your machine calls infection—all the new information in my blood. Chatter. Tastes of other individuals. Peers. Superiors. Subordinates.”
“Vergil, I’m listening, but I—”
“This is my show, Edward. I’m their universe. They’re amazed by the new scale.” He sat down and was quiet again for a time. Edward squatted by his chair and pulled up the sleeve of Vergil’s robe. His arm was criss-crossed with white lines.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Edward said, reaching for the table phone.
“No!” Vergil cried, sitting up. “I told you, I’m not sick, this is my show. What can they do for me? It would be a farce.”
Then what in hell am I doing here?” Edward asked, becoming angry. “I can’t do anything. I’m one of the cavemen and you came to me—”
“You’re a friend,” Vergil said, fixing his eyes on him. Edward had the unnerving suspicion he was being watched by more than just Vergil. “I wanted you here to keep me company.” He laughed. “But I’m not exactly alone, am I?”
“I have to call Gail,” Edward said, dialing the number.
“Gail, yeah. But don’t tell her anything.”
“Oh, no. Absolutely.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By dawn, Vergil was walking around the apartment, fingering things, looking out windows, slowly and methodically making himself lunch. “You know, I can actually feel their thoughts,” he said. Edward watched, exhausted and sick with tension, from an armchair in the Irving room. “I mean, their cytoplasm seems to have a will of its own. A kind of subconscious life, counter to the rationality they’ve acquired so recently. They hear the chemical ‘noise’ of molecules fitting and unfitting inside.”
He stood in the middle of the living room, robe fallen open, eyes dosed. He seemed to be taking brief naps. It was possible, Edward thought, that he was undergoing
Edward called Gail again from the kitchen phone. She was preparing for work. He asked her to phone the
