White Horse

And for what? We’re all gonna die anyway. As much as I know it was his job, I think he died for nothing. He could have been here with me.”

I reach across the couch, take her hand. We sit there like that, still, watching the struggling Secret Service men try to rush the president to safety. But their hearts aren’t in it. The president is just a symbol of something that no longer exists, of dignity we no longer possess.

Pope Pharmaceuticals is a sterile tomb. My footsteps echo on the lobby floor before the high ceiling whisks them away.

The pharaoh greets me. Pope Pharmaceuticals considers you part of the family. It’s the devil inside me that makes me flip him off on the way past as I hoist my knapsack higher. I’m here with a shopping list that begins with George P. Pope.

I ride the elevator to the top floor. When the doors part, I am in the ivory tower, staring into the face of the sanest madman I have ever seen. He sits behind his vast marble desk, hands flat on the blotter. To his left sits a fountain pen in an ebony holder. To his right is a cell phone that’s as impotent as the men for which Pope Pharmaceuticals develops drugs. These are the tools of the modern villain in this new Wild West.

“We’ve got a problem,” George P. Pope says.

He looks like he wants to tell me, so I wait.

“We’re like the mice. All of us. People. Including you. What do you think? Why are you still alive?”

“Really?”

His nod is an almighty blessing. The great and terrible George P. Pope wants to hear my opinion. I can hardly contain myself.

“I know I should be grateful, but when everyone around you is dead or dying, it’s hard to find comfort in being alive.”

“I don’t give a shit about your personal feelings. I asked for your thoughts. That means I want you to tell me why you think you’re special. What’s different about you?”

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “I don’t even take a multivitamin.”

“We could cut you up and find out. You’re company property. And it’s a new world. Laws are gone. Pope Pharmaceuticals owns you. I own you.” His fingers slowly tap out a steady beat on the blotter. “I want to show you something.” He gets up from behind the desk. There’s an odd lurch to his steps, like a woman trying to walk in too-high heels. “Follow me.”

Commanding.

Inside the elevator, he pokes the keypad with a trembling finger.

“Your family?”

“They’re all dead. At least, I think so.”

“You don’t know?”

And it’s the strangest thing, because suddenly I’m standing there, telling about the day we found out Mark died and the incident at my parents’ house the last time I heard from them. I start talking and I can’t shut up. He just stands there and listens, no polite noises, no grunts or nods in the socially appropriate places.

When I’m done, I take a long breath. We’ve stopped and the doors have opened down on what has to be a subterranean level. There’s no illumination but that which comes from tubes of gas. A white, harsh light with no life in its glow.

Pope pushes past me. “I don’t care about your family. I didn’t ask for their life stories.”

“What do you care about?”

He turns, sweeps me with his ice chips. “My business. The board. Shareholders. No one else ever mattered.”

“What about your own family and your wife?”

“I don’t have family. I no longer have a wife. I have—had—employees. You can only trust the person who relies on you to eat. Have you ever been fucked in the ass?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s what family does—and friends. But employees think about their next meal, their benefits, their professional reputations, so they keep their cocks in their pants.”

After that, there’s nothing else to say. We’re in a long white hall broken periodically with doors. They have numbered plaques instead of names. The only other splash of color comes from the red of fire alarms and emergency axes. Orderly blood spatter on a maxi pad. Pope lurches left. With each step, the right side of his jacket swings as though there’s a counterweight concealed in the pocket. I keep distance between us just in case—

He’s a rat-eating monster.

—he stops in a hurry. But he doesn’t show any signs of stopping until we reach a door labeled TC-12.

“TC? Torture chamber?”

“Yes.”

I cannot read him. His face is a foreign language. The expression is there in his eyes, but I can’t grasp the truth. A torture chamber—really? What is this, this company where I’ve worked for two years? What is George P. Pope that he needs such a place?

“Do you know what I am?”

It takes me a moment to formulate an answer that doesn’t involve a stifled scream.

“A businessman?”

He nods slowly, as though his neck hurts. “A businessman, but also a scientist. I enjoy experiments. Throw a cat into a flock of pigeons and what happens? Don’t answer—we both know what happens. I like large experiments with potentially extreme results. Not this small-scale… stuff where I inject a rat and wait to see if it’s more or less likely to lose weight. My passion is the big stage.”

He lifts his hands: God displaying His grand works. “Life. Sometimes the only way to test a drug is to put it out there and see what transpires. The mice only tell us what happens to a mouse. But I make medicine for people. To know what happens to people, you must use people.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “For years, I have sought other ways. Our prison system, for one. All those forfeit lives could be put to use. Testing on real people—that’s how you get real results, solid data. Good employees—that’s what a businessman needs. Good employees—that’s what visionaries need. Give an employee enough money and he will do anything you ask of him. Particularly if he can kill two birds with one shiny coin. Jorge was such an employee. He had no morals, enough debt to crush that truck of his, and a serious grudge against you for reasons he never shared with me.”

Every muscle that makes up me tenses until I am as stone as he.

“He wanted my job for his cousin.”

“Ah. A male minority pissed off because a middle-class white woman took a job he felt belonged to his blue collar. Yes, I can see that. Entitlement is just as powerful as jealousy, although not, perhaps, as all-encompassing as lust. Interesting. Although I don’t care why he did it, only that he did. You were a wild card. I never expected that you’d hold on to the container as long as you did. And to be immune as well? A double curse. You were supposed to be exposed and spread my work like a good little incubator. Instead you sat on the thing and went to therapy.” He waves a hand when my lip twitches. “Yes, I know about all that. One of my employees farts and I know about it. Pardon me: passes gas. But my creation found a way to leap into a host body. Perhaps Jorge didn’t seal the container as tight as he should have in his eagerness to see your employment was terminated. Perhaps he touched it with contaminated fingers. Perhaps the virus grew legs and climbed out.” His laugh is chillingly sane. “Survival of the fittest.”

“You created a weapon.”

“You say weapon, I say medicine. You may not believe this, and what you believe is unimportant to me, but we started with the best of intentions. Like everyone else, we sought to cure cancer. You wouldn’t understand the science—I barely do—but sometimes it’s possible to hit an On switch when you’re aiming to turn it off. Did you ever walk into a room and flick the light switch the wrong way? That’s what we did. And the result turned out to be potentially more profitable than our original idea. Although, of course, we continued to develop that, too. More product, more money. More money, more power.”

“Is there a cure?” Hope creeps.