The Variant Effect Read online

  "What does that mean?" Hyde's shoulders sagged.

  "It means you're coming out of retirement every time I do." Borland looked away desolate.

  Hyde was silent for a second, defeated, before saying, "You were going to shoot yourself."

  Borland nodded, before whispering, "You say that like it's a bad thing,"

  "You damn drunk!" Hyde started for the elevator.

  Borland grunted and tipped his bottle back.

  ****

  PART TWO: RECRUITMENT OFFICER

  ****

  CHAPTER 11

  Borland was drying out and he didn't like it one damn bit. He had been cooped up in the interview room for two hours with only coffee and cigarettes offered on the menu. He smoked if he was good and drunk but the coffee was making him the absolute opposite of that one.

  His face was feeling numb and hot, and his guts were aching. He had been gulping the coffee and swallowing air between drinks-wishing it was booze. Every time he moved, his bellybutton tugged and cramped with pain where a new hernia had appeared after his little escapade with Hyde and the skin eaters. He had suspected it was growing before and there it was. Worst of all the damn thing made annoying squeaky, gurgling noises that were starting to piss him off so much he needed a drink.

  That was it.

  He needed a drink.

  And it looked like he wasn't getting one any time soon.

  Back when he was still coasting on the last few belts from his hip flask, Borland asked investigating officer, Tinfingers, if he needed to call in a bloodsucker. Whether it was that kind of investigation. But he was told they weren't trying to prove he'd committed any crime, they were just trying to get the facts straight. Just so they'd understand for future reference how Borland's attempt at recruiting a Variant Squad member out of retirement had resulted in a double homicide. Brass had decided that reviving the squads was a necessary but classified action after reports by Borland and his old partner Hyde said the Variant Effect was presenting again. Here we goÖmemory lane.

  That was why Brass was keeping Borland's fat ass out of retirement and giving him the job of training a squad to deal with the new threat. It was Borland's idea to mix rookie bagged-boys with seasoned professionals-if he could crowbar the latter out of their retirement homes. Pulling old officers back online looked good on paper, but most of them had gone to seed, and hadn't seen a bit of action since back in the day.

  But since the baggie recruits were coming from law enforcement, military and emergency response, their skill sets would have to be seriously upgraded to meet the challenges ahead. Chasing a druggie down a back alley was waltzing in fairyland compared to getting on the pavement with a pack of Biters in full Ritual.

  Brass ordered Borland in for questioning after cruisers and ambulances were dispatched to the scene where he had started the recruitment drive-after the situation went so far south there were penguins on it. Tinfingers had met him at the HQ processing desk and assured him they'd talk, that there were a couple of formalities when deaths were involved during the legal administering of a special officer's duties. There was no reason to worry because Brass was certain that Borland had done nothing criminal.

  That was a relief to Borland because he was pretty sure he had.

  But instead of preparing a defense, Borland spent the time struggling with the thought that he'd have to talk Tinfingers into getting him a six-pack of something cold if they were going to keep him here all goddamn week. From time to time he looked at his right hand, at the bandages there. The raw flesh across his palm was tender and swollen. That matched the back of his head. It had started to ache like he had termites.

  Tinfingers was about 30 so he was playing Tiddlywinks back in the day. He was what they called a "Variant baby." Poor buggers stewed in their mother's wombs, steeped in Varion's many chemical forms and mutations.

  While cranking up at the stationhouse, Borland and his baggies referred to Variant babies as kinderkids because like the famous sweets with the surprise inside, you never knew how the Variant Effect would present in a Variant baby until the kid had grown enough to act on an impulse. And then it was usually too late.

  In Tinfingers' case they didn't know he was Onychophagic until he grew teeth. That was the story Borland remembered. The son of a baggie who later got skinned, Tinfingers used to play around the stationhouse with big leather mitts on his hands. He was three when the Variant Effect presented. That morning his mother found him a bloody mess in the playroom, the fingers on both hands chewed down to the second knuckle. His doctors were amazed that baby teeth could do that kind of damage. Nail biters never had it so bad.

  So, leather mittens until he was old enough to be fitted with prosthetics. When he chewed the nylon and rubber digits, they replaced them with tin. Supposedly, his compulsion was under control now with other chemicals; but word around the stationhouse said the kid preferred tin fingertips.

  The door to the interview room opened.

  "Think of the DevilÖ" Borland grunted

  "And he shall appear," Tinfingers answered. He had a cardboard tray in his hands, balanced on a small pile of file folders. Coffee steamed in two paper cups-two others were empty

  "More coffee?" Borland snarled. "We weren't allowed to use torture back in the day."

  "I heard different." Tinfingers dropped the files, set the coffee down, then went back to shut the door. When he turned around he pulled a bottle of whiskey from inside his jacket. He smiled. "You prefer honey in your coffee, right?"

  He uncapped it with amazing dexterity, considering, and poured a couple ounces into the empty cups.

  Borland reached out fast and took a deep drink before setting the cup out again and pointing at it.

  Tinfingers' eyebrows shot up as he nodded. "Just don't get cranked."

  "Couple damn drinks." Borland frowned, turning the taste of whiskey around in his mouth. "Won't get me cranked."

  Tinfingers took a sip of his own as he sat down across the table. The tin fingertips gleamed in the overhead light. He pulled a slim digital recorder out of his pocket and put it on the table between them, then turned it on.

  "Everybody go gay down here?" Borland shifted in his chair, pressed his hernias back into place. He kept one eye locked on the two-way mirror on one wall. "Drinking milk?"

  "No thanks to you, a big initiative started the day after." Tinfingers took a notepad out of his suit jacket and threw it in front of him. "Not easy drying the squads out after you guys treated the last of the Biters."

  "Well, not the last I guess." Borland drank down half of his drink. The whiskey started heating up his face.

  "So I hear." Tinfingers' long face looked longer with the balding crown. His eyes gleamed under dark brows. "And that's what puts us here."

  "Yeah. Building a squad." Borland pushed his half-empty cup out and pointed at it.

  Tinfingers grabbed the bottle, capped it and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he put a tin fingertip over his lips. "I'll edit before this." He cleared his throat and began: "Lieutenant Emanuel Ortega interviewing Captain Joe Borland regarding events that occurred, March 12, at the home of retired Squad Captain Marshall Lovelock. The time now is 4:30 p.m."

  He took out a pen and clipped it to the index finger of his right hand.

  "You went out to recruit Lovelock."

  "Yeah, one of your uniforms drove me there," Borland rasped, sipping his whiskey.

  CHAPTER 12

  He told the driver to wait in the car and dragged himself out onto the sidewalk. Borland took the opportunity to adjust his hernias while he tucked his shirt back in. He couldn't hide being old and 40 pounds overweight but he could downplay the fact that he was falling apart. The thought made him wonder if he was sobering up, or if the idea of being called back to active duty had conjured up the notion of self-respect.

  He needed a drink and he knew it.

  There was no point setting Lovelock off bringing a uniformed driver with him. If he were anything li
ke Hyde, he'd be holed up playing video games and hating the world. Marshall was another Captain back in the day, and a fight specialist. This guy had studied every martial art going, even did a couple of those televised cage-matches before he volunteered for the squads when the Variant Effect came on. His military experience fighting Arabs in the army reserves and the high mortality rate among bagged-boys popped him quickly up the ranks.

  Sure he'd be almost 60 now, so had likely left his ninja days behind; but he was the best close-fighter Borland had ever seen. Lovelock knew all the tricks of the hand and foot and fist kill-handy stuff to know in a scrap, if a baggie found himself without a weapon and surrounded by a hunting pack. Borland hoped Lovelock would volunteer to train the new recruits. He didn't want to have to play the pension card again.

  The house was one of those crappy condos linked 30 in a row sharing thin pressboard and Gyprock walls located in a tight little suburb jammed between box stores at the city outskirts. All of it covered with fancy brickwork to give the owners the feeling they'd bought something remotely worth the quarter-mill they spent. There'd be three bedrooms and a single john upstairs. Main floor would have dining room and living room attached at the hip, with a kitchen opening off the former.

  Borland remembered back in the day four squads cleaning a nest of Biters out of some government-run affordable version of these row house condos. Most of one family had presented as skin eaters, a weak genetic predisposition, and broke through the wall on one side-making their way house by house along the block, killing what didn't end up joining them. There were twenty-one Biters in the pack when the squads flushed them out.

  Borland shifted his belt under his gut and straightened his new jacket. It actually was new too, given to him out of the evidence room after that screw up with the Biters and Hyde had cost him his only sports coat. Some juvies had boosted a menswear store to buy the drug of the day. He was on his way to the cruiser when the driver stopped him and ripped a price tag off the collar.

  The night before, Brass held an impromptu debriefing right after the Biter incident. The police chief was there with some muckety-muck from the Mayor's office. Hyde skipped it complaining of chest pains and was taken back to the home. Everyone thought he was goldbricking.

  The meeting ran late so Borland stayed overnight at police HQ, sleeping off a bellyful on a cot in the maintenance room. While he slept, samples were taken at the furrier building before the fire crew burned it, and Brass called another meeting for 0800 hours. Borland stumbled into the room that morning chewing flatfoot coffee. And then the whole thing took so long he had to pour shots into his cup under the table.

  Finally Brass asked Borland to suggest some names from back in the day-guys that could be called to active duty to consult-who hadn't gone ape and what. Off the top of his head he suggested Lovelock. He hadn't seen him in 20 years, but the man was solid back in the day, and last he heard was still married, which was something.

  Brass said, "Go get him."

  Borland hitched his pants up and paced over the concrete walkway to Lovelock's front door. The grass was thick and weedy to both sides, with lots of dead patches. The door opened before he got there.

  "Joe Borland you sick bastard!" Lovelock chopped the air with a sinewy hand out, wanting to shake. He took short, strong steps, lots of them, giving him a quick and youthful profile. "That moustache makes you look old!"

  "Well Marsh, imagine how old I look without it." Borland instinctively squared his shoulders and paced on the spot, mirroring the stance. He hated Lovelock for provoking the ridiculous behavior. It was the sort of thing older men did around younger men-an energetic pretense that involved sucking in guts and lifting chins.

  Lovelock was in excellent shape considering. Most of his hair was gone. His deep tan smoothed out the wrinkles in his face and accented the corded muscles at his jaw and neck. He was trim. A dark short-sleeved turtleneck and pleated slacks accentuated the look. His chest still swelled with muscle.

  Borland's was swollen by blood pressure, fatty foods and drink. It certainly wasn't pride. He reclaimed his hand from Lovelock's strong grip and deftly did up the only button on his jacket that would close.

  "So you got a drink around here?"

  "What else?" Lovelock laughed, grabbing Borland's meaty elbow and leading him quickly toward the front door. His teeth were smaller than Borland's but whiter suggesting money, suggesting more than a squad pension.

  Lovelock pulled the screen door aside exposing a cool, tight mudroom-a very tidy three by five arrangement of tiles wrapped in shadow. Borland just made out the shape of someone at the far side. It wasÖ

  "You remember Tina?" Lovelock turned and gestured. That was it. Lovelock's wife was a teacher. Good pension. A tooth fairy.

  Borland remembered more: little Tina with the big breasts. Borland had made several drunken passes at her back in the day, and had heard that he'd made many more.

  "Tina!" Borland heaved his face into a smile and spread his arms. He lied: "You look fantastic."

  She declined the hug, grabbed his hand and shook it once. That was fine by him. He'd never gotten used to the way women aged, especially the beauties. They went downhill so fast, so far. Standing beside Lovelock now, big silicon tits or not she looked more like his mother than the blonde Borland had tried to screw in several laundry rooms. She was in fairly good shape, but time had sanded down all the curves. She wore a paisley pantsuit that fit whatever form was left. There were silver bangles on her wrists that matched her necklace, earrings and the painted toenails that stuck out of her white leather sandals.

  "You're looking well," she said, in a rough-edged voice.

  "You never could lie to me," Borland answered entering and following her away from the door. He knew that Tina had egged him on back in the day, despite her protests had really wanted him as much as he wanted her. Otherwise, why would he have made the passes, in or out of a blackout? She was asking for it.

  "Well, come on in," Lovelock rasped. "Tina will make up some sandwiches."

  "How about that drink?" Borland started after Tina.

  He didn't take two steps before Lovelock spun around in the mudroom, fumbled at four deadbolts then placed an iron cross-brace under the knob.

  "You expecting Ali Babba's forty thieves?" Borland tried at humor.

  "Never can be too sure," Lovelock replied with a smile, but it fell flat when he focused on his wife. Borland saw it too. Tina's look was sharp, staring at a long steel door chain that her husband had yet to throw.

  "Sorry." Lovelock chuckled nervously. He then proceeded to undo all the locks, open the door and then shut it again, repeating the locking procedure, this time sliding the door chain in place at the last without a pause.

  "Come on Joe," Tina said. Borland turned to see a shimmer of sweat had formed over her thin eyebrows. "Let's get you a drink."

  "You still a whiskey man?" Lovelock threw an arm on Borland's shoulder and gestured to follow Tina.

  "Pretty much all there is to it," Borland growled.

  CHAPTER 13

  "So, your first impression of Lovelock was positive?" Tinfingers asked. He looked up from his notes and checked the recorder to make sure it was still running.

  "Yeah. Hey, can I get another drink?" Borland grumbled, tapping his empty cup.

  Tinfingers produced the bottle, poured him a short one.

  "I still can't believe those rookies confiscated my flask on the way in." Borland laughed. "Jesus, it's like a church around here." He took a drink, smiled as the warmth spread over his face again.

  "So," Tinfingers started, "Your impression of Captain Lovelock?" The kinderkid had not refilled his own cup. Pussy!

  "Good," Borland said, sliding his fingers along the splintered edge of the table. "He looked great."

  "Like healthy?" Tinfingers nodded.

  "Course healthy," Borland snarled. "I'm not queer on him."

  "Sure." Tinfingers jotted that down and then laughed. "You didn't know abo
ut his wife though."

  "Only thing I knew about his wife is I wanted to take a good long poke at her." Borland shrugged. "Back in the day-long and hard-that'd be me."

  "I see," Tinfingers mumbled and jotted something in his notebook.

  "Hey!" Borland pointed. "You writing that?"

  "It's on this anyway." Tinfingers gestured to the recorder.

  "Ah, too late to matter, butÖ" Borland tapped his cup again. "It's all like a bunch of boy scouts took over here."

  Tinfingers frowned. "Since the day after we've been tightening things up."

  "I noticed," Borland said, leaning back in his chair, enjoying the spreading glaze of whiskey.

  "Back in the day it was understandable," Tinfingers said. "All hell breaking loose, and everyone was caught off guard."

  "I get it." Borland straightened in his chair, contemplating a cigarette. The pack Tinfingers had offered earlier still rested on the table. Nah. The hell with it. Who needs cancer too? "I just think it's a joke, considering."

  "Considering?" Tinfingers leveled his gaze.

  "Considering just before everyone switched to Varion people were counting calories and saving trees while they were gobbling antidepressants and heart pills," he said. "Here you guys are cleaning up your act the same way and it's coming back again."

  "The Variant Effect came from Varion." Tinfingers glanced at his hand. "Varion was unsafe."

  "I know that," Borland said. "But people took it because it promised happiness without side effects."

  "I see, the easy way." Tinfingers nodded.

  "Right. It's fake bullshit," Borland snarled. "I'll take the hangover and cholesterol any day." He slapped the table with a swollen hand. "And the heart attack!"

  "It's pretty much accepted now that the cranking that squads and the public used to combat the Variant Effect did more harm than good." Tinfingers let his eyes sink to Borland's heavy lips and sweaty jowls.

  "Popular opinion," Borland rasped, "never climbed into a nest of Biters."

  "Some mistakes were made," Tinfingers continued, tapping the table with his false fingertips, "that might have been avoided, had there been less cranking."