Seize the Night

misguided patriotism; wads of hundred-dollar bills in prodigious quantities that only black-budget projects can provide. Furthermore, they had been impressed into the search for the troop of rhesuses and human subjects that escaped the lab more than two years ago, and on that night of violence, most had been bitten, clawed, or otherwise infected; they were in danger of becoming, so they agreed to be participants in the conspiracy, with the hope of being first in line for treatment if a cure for the retrovirus was discovered.

Manuel couldn’t be bought with mere money. His patriotism was not of the misguided variety. Sufficient fear can bring any man to heel, but it wasn’t fear that had corrupted Manuel.

The research at Wyvern had led to catastrophe, but also to positive discoveries. Evidently, some experiments have resulted in genetic treatments that are promising.

Manuel sold his soul for the hope that one of those experimental treatments would transform Toby. And I suspect he dreams of his son achieving intellectual and physical transformation.

The intellectual growth might well be possible. We know that some of the Wyvern work included intelligence-enhancement research and that there were startling successes, as witness Orson.

“How’s Toby doing?” I asked.

As I spoke, I heard a stealthy but telltale sound behind me. A drawer sliding open. The knife drawer.

When I had interposed myself between Bobby and Manuel, I’d meant only to defuse the escalating tension between them, not to provide cover for Bobby to arm himself. I wanted to tell him to chill out, but I didn’t know how to do so without alerting Manuel.

Besides, there are occasions when Bobby’s instincts are better than mine. If he thought this situation was inevitably leading to violence, perhaps he was right.

Apparently, my question about Toby had masked the sound of the drawer, because Manuel gave no indication of having heard it.

A fierce pride, both touching and terrifying, couldn’t drive out his anger; the two emotions were darkly complementary. “He’s reading. Better. Faster. More comprehension. Doing better at math. And what’s wrong with that? Is that a crime?”

I shook my head.

Although some people make fun of Toby’s appearance or shun him, he’s the image of gentleness. With his thick neck, rounded shoulders, short arms, and stocky legs, he reminds me of the good gnomes from the adventure stories that delighted me in childhood. His sloped and heavy brow, low-set ears, and soft features, and the inner epicanthic folds of his eyes, give him a dreamy aspect that matches his sweet and gentle personality.

In spite of his burdens, Toby has always been happy and content. I worry that the Wyvern crowd will raise his intelligence far enough to leave him dissatisfied with his life — but not far enough to give him an average IQ. If they steal his innocence and curse him with a self-awareness that leaves him anguished, trapping him between livable identities, they will destroy him.

I know all about unfulfillable longing, the fruitless yearning to be what one can never be.

And although I find it difficult to believe that Toby could be genetically engineered into a radically new appearance, I fear that if any such attempt were made, he might become something he wouldn’t be able to bear seeing in the mirror. Those who don’t perceive beauty in the face of a Down’s-syndrome person are blind to all beauty or are so fearful of difference that they must at once turn away from every encounter with it. In every face — in even the plainest and the most unfortunate countenances — there is some precious aspect of the divine image of which we are a reflection, and if you look with an open heart, you can see an awesome beauty, a glimpse of something so radiant that it gives you joy. But will this radiance remain in Toby if he is redesigned by Wyvern scientists, if a radical physical transformation is attempted?

“He’s got a future now,” Manuel said.

“Don’t throw your boy away,” I pleaded.

“I’m lifting him up.”

“He won’t be your boy anymore.”

“He’ll finally be what he was meant to be.”

“He already was what he was meant to be.”

“You don’t know the pain,” Manuel said bitterly.

He was speaking about his own pain, not Toby’s. Toby is at peace with the world. Or was.

I said, “You always loved him for what he was.”

His voice was sharp and tremulous. “In spite of what he was.”

“That’s not fair to yourself. I know how you’ve felt about him all these years. You’ve treasured him.”

“You don’t know shit about how I felt, not shit,” he said, and he poked the air in front of me with the club, as if driving home his point.

With sorrow as heavy as a rock on my chest, I said, “If that’s true, if I didn’t understand how you felt about Toby, then I didn’t know you at all.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” he said. “Or maybe you can’t bear to think Toby could end up with a more normal life than yours. We all like to have someone to look down on — don’t we, Chris?”

My heart contracted as if around a thorn. The ferocity of his anger revealed such profound terror and pain that I couldn’t bear to respond to this mean-spirited accusation. We had been friends too long for me to hate him, and I was overcome only by pity.

He was mad with hope. In reasonable measure, hope sustains us. In great excess, it distorts perceptions, dulls the mind, corrupts the heart to no less an extent than does heroin.

I don’t believe I’ve misunderstood Manuel all these years. High on hope, he has forgotten what he loved and, instead, loves the ideal more than the reality, which is the cause of all the misery that the human species creates for itself.

Descending footsteps sounded on the stairs. I looked toward the hall as Feeney and the other deputy appeared in the foyer. Feeney went into the living room, the other man into the study, where they switched on the lights and dialed up the rheostats.

“What’s the second thing you came here to tell me?” I asked Manuel.

“They’re going to get control of this.”

“Of what?”

“This plague.”

“With what?” Bobby asked. “A bottle of Lysol?”

“Some people are immune.”

“Not everyone,” Bobby said as glass shattered in the living room.

Manuel said, “But the immune factor has been isolated. Soon there’ll be a vaccine, and a cure for those already infected.”

I thought of the missing children, but I didn’t mention them. “Some people are still becoming,” I said.

“And we’re learning there’s only so much change they’re able to tolerate.”

I strove to resist the flood of hope that might have swept me away. “Only so much? How much?”

“There’s a threshold…. They become acutely aware of the changes taking place in them. Then they’re overcome by fear. An intolerable fear of themselves. Hatred of themselves. The self-hatred escalates until…they psychologically implode.”

“Psychological implosion? What the hell does that mean?” Then I understood. “Suicide?”

“Beyond suicide. Violent…frenzied self-destruction. We’ve seen…a number of cases. You understand what this means?”

I said, “When they self-destruct, they’re no longer carriers of the retrovirus. The plague is self-limiting.”

Judging by the sound, Frank Feeney was smashing a small table or chair against one of the living-room walls. I guessed that the other deputy was sweeping Sasha’s bottles of vitamins and herbs off the shelves in the study. They were dutifully teaching us a lesson — and respect for the law.

“Most of us will get through this all right,” Manuel said.

But who among us will not? I wondered.

“Animals, too,” I said. “They self-destruct.”

He regarded me with suspicion. “We’re seeing indications. What have you seen?”

I thought of the birds. The veve rats, which had been dead a long time. The pack of coyotes no doubt were nearing the threshold of tolerable change.