The Variant Effect Page 5

  "Backbiting is 20/20." Borland tapped his cup and then watched Tinfingers pour him another. "Easy for armchair quarterbacks and kinderkids to criticize."

  Tinfingers glowered at the use of the epithet. "Cranking made it harder to determine the right course of action."

  "Yeah," Borland said, rapping the table. "But writing down I want to poke a friend's wife." He laughed. "That's a right course of action?"

  "So, you didn't know about his wife," Tinfingers said, changing back to safer topics. "That she was stillÖ"

  "How could I?" Borland flushed. "Nobody saw them since the day."

  CHAPTER 14

  "You boys sit there and tell your awful old stories," Tina said behind the padded counter, laughing as she dropped hunks of ice in the tumblers. Bottles, glasses and chrome implements gleamed on a shelf behind her. Borland and Lovelock settled into some La-Z-Boys by the bay window. There was a low coffee table in front of them and a couch with side tables opposite that. The heavy acrylic drapes were closed, their hard golden pleats played on Borland's mind like prison bars.

  He watched Tina chatting like a wife of the way back before the day just mixing a couple of fellows their drinks. It was so simple.

  "Thanks honey," Lovelock cooed from his vinyl La-Z-Boy. "But you've got to come and chime in sometime. You were there too."

  "I couldn't stand it back in the day," Tina said walking carefully over with the drinks clinking and almost sloshing on the yellow plastic tray. She smiled at Borland handing him his. He saw the full red purse of her lips and flashing teeth, and he wondered if she stillÖ

  "You boys got as wild as those skin eating things that everyone was talking aboutÖ" Tina finished and started back to the kitchen. "It was awful."

  When she finally sashayed off to load the dishwasher, Borland and Lovelock traded old looks that were attached to the old days; the days of cranking and blackouts at old Stationhouse Nine.

  "So have you heard from Hyde?" Lovelock's eyes were serious.

  "What?" Borland shook his head wondering where that was coming from. "Why would I hear from him?"

  "After he was attackedÖ" Lovelock took a sip from his drink. "I figured give it some time... Did things not get right with you two?"

  Borland shrugged and then dug into his twitching crotch to arrange his hernias. He cleared his throat while he did it to distract Lovelock's attention.

  "It doesn't matter," he said. "Him and me, there's no love lost."

  "Yeah. Sorry for bringing it up." Lovelock reached out and smacked Borland's forearm. "But back before the day, even for the first part of it." Lovelock started to sense Borland's steam rising, so he began to stutter. "And his daughterÖah, you're right, it's all passed." He laughed. "You'd think I'd get old enough to know better."

  Borland's mind had drifted by that point, as his attention was drawn away to the immaculate condition of the dinner table, hutch full of polished plates behind, the living room andÖeverything. It was all just so-just perfect. The light bounced off polished surfaces and blinded him. And Tina, he could hear her. She was out in the kitchen fussing and banging and clattering around. Everything went into the dishwasher at its appropriate time and place and angle. She was humming a song too, but it came out tense and high and quavering.

  "And you been where doing what?" Borland said finally, turning to Lovelock's pale blue gaze. "Just screwing like teenagers?"

  Lovelock laughed at that, and shook his head and picked at fluff on his pants. "No, I just opted out, Joe. To forget." His expression fell. "I'm kind'a messed up still."

  "YeahÖ" Borland heard this over the last heavy clink of his ice cubes. He lowered the glass, frowning. "What?"

  "Well, it's like it was all yesterday," Lovelock said, threading his fingers together. "We did some bad thingsÖ"

  "Like save the world?" Borland leaned forward, anxiously unhappy about his empty glass. "We did what we had to do and we'd do it again."

  "But the skin eatersÖ" Lovelock's eyes were suddenly weary. "That was bad, and sometimes I shot first and didn't ask questions later."

  "I always shot first!" Borland said, snarling grimly. "Which brings me to this, because now I guess we have a chance to make good, if that's your want." He scrubbed his chin with the back of a hand. "OrÖwe can settle the score with our demons."

  "What do you mean?" Lovelock looked up over twisted fingers, the heavy knuckles looked swollen and raw.

  "That's why I'm here." Borland lifted his glass and licked the underside of his ice cubes. Nothing.

  Lovelock stared at him like there as a gun pointed at his heart.

  "Speaking of Hyde, which you did." Borland dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out the crumpled report. "We were both called up on special assignment." He threw the envelope on the table. "We found Biters in town."

  Lovelock bolted to attention. His shoulders squared, military stiff. For a second he resembled the old Captain and hand-to-hand man, ready for war. Then he took a couple fragile steps toward the report, aging as his knees crumpled. He stumbled back into his chair.

  "Biters?" he breathed, hopelessly.

  "Just three. They're tracing the bodies. Managed to find I.D. where the Alpha was hiding his pack. DNA too." Borland shrugged. "Takes time."

  "Biters, now?" Lovelock's eyes were dismal.

  "You only need to talk. Teach." Borland reassured. "Believe me, I've had enough of the rough stuff tooÖthat was then. But they're asking us to volunteer, Marsh, before they order us back to active duty."

  "I'm gonna be 60 for Christ's sake!" Lovelock shouted. "And what about Tina?"

  "Like I said, they need us to train new Variant Squads," Borland growled. "We're too old for more than that. We've done enough."

  "Life doesn't work that way!" Lovelock said. "I'm retired. We're retired. It's over!" He stood up and folded his hands in front of him. Then he sat back down on the edge of the La-Z-Boy.

  "But here we are." Borland shook his glass. The cubes rattled noisily. "Brass calls. The old soldiers answer."

  "Joe Borland the patriot, r-right!" Lovelock laughed, reached for Borland's empty glass and then paused shaking his head saying: "It doesn't matter what Brass wants. Tina needs me every minute of every day."

  "She'll get used to it," Borland reassured. "Just like before."

  "No she won't," Lovelock warned.

  CHAPTER 15

  "Didn't you wonder why no one had seen Lovelock the day after?" Tinfingers refreshed Borland's drink, grew a pair and had another himself.

  "I wondered more why he didn't have a TV." Borland scowled. "Everybody has one."

  "A warning sign, I guess. You can't control what's on a TV." Tinfingers chuckled. "They liked their quiet."

  "We all like our quiet." Borland relished the whiskey. Things were nagging at him inside, causing his ears to burn red-things that ran deeper than his hernias. "It wasn't like I was out tripping the light fandango."

  "No one had seen Lovelock and his wife out in public for 20 years." Tinfingers leveled that statement after he took a sip. "He'd talk to Psyche Ops Officers on the phone, and would only meet with them at his house."

  "POOs gave everybody the creeps." Borland remembered the shrinks talking to him the day after. "What do they know about the Variant Effect they didn't find in an eBook?"

  "The Psyche Operations Office was created for that reason." Tinfingers cringed. "POOs were trained to evaluate and maintain the mental health of all decommissioned and retired officers and uniforms-baggies-no longer in the field."

  Borland watched, figuring at least the kinderkid had chewed his fingers off in the name of the Variant Effect. That gave him the right to use the lingo.

  "POO was created back in the day to brainstorm the Variant Effect! Most squads had their own POOs that rode along to evaluate the situation. We lost a couple to Biters," Borland growled. "The day after, government took control of POO and filled it with doctor's degrees and social workers and cry babies. All pushing the legal playbook: Keep u
s veterans too crazy to file a lawsuit!"

  "Let's not get sidetracked," Tinfingers said, clasping his fingers with a metallic click. "The fact remains that Lovelock isolated himself."

  Borland shrugged. "No one saw Hyde either." He considered the lapse. "The day changed everybody."

  "Hyde was in seclusion for obvious reasons." Tinfingers wrote something in his notebook. "Lovelock's silence was indicative of something more."

  "There was a lot of that Post Traumatic stuff going aroundÖ Even I had a touch of it for a while." Suddenly Borland's point was made for him.

  "The Lovelocks had groceries delivered, only shopped online. The same with their banking and entertainment," Tinfingers said, his eyes suggested he was coming to his point. "Lovelock was seen out in their gardens, but he never strayed off the property. No one had seen Mrs. Lovelock out of the house."

  "Well," Borland grumbled. "Lots of people went underground the day after. And most everybody is still dealing with the long-term Variant Effect."

  "You had no idea?" Tinfingers regarded him carefully. "Your rank gave you access to all the personnel files. Lovelock's was the first name you chose."

  "I cherry-picked it 'cause Brass asked for a name in a hurry. Lovelock came to mind because he was dependable and into fitness, and MAYBE alive." He shrugged. "I didn't know jack about his wife."

  "You didn't know?" Tinfingers' eyes turned to slits.

  Borland reached out and grabbed the whiskey bottle. He poured two ounces and then tipped it back before saying: "I was as surprised as anybody."

  "He knew the penalty." Tinfingers grabbed the bottle and slid it away from Borland. "When the squads were collecting it-destroying it back in the day." He shifted the sheets in the file and displayed a photograph. Borland counted six cases of Varion in the foreground and more stacked farther in.

  "Investigators found these behind a false wall in Lovelock's crawlspace," Tinfingers said.

  Borland whistled, then stared defiantly across the table.

  Tinfingers was quiet, regarding him with crippled knuckles knitted together.

  "Hey, I didn't follow anybody home at night!" Borland said remembering the squads riding shotgun for the fire department burning details. At first they were showing up at factories and just monitoring the safe destruction as companies complied with the order. Later, they were raiding warehouses and destroying Varion shipments at gunpoint when the price of it skyrocketed on the black market. "If Lovelock was collecting the crap, it was his problem."

  "But he showed you Varion."

  "One bottle." Borland shook his head, one eye on his cup. "Right before all hell broke loose."

  Tinfingers opened the file folder and flipped a paper for Borland to view. He didn't have his glasses so had to hold it way out at arm's length. Luckily he didn't have to read it.

  "They traced the lot numbers of the Varion we found at Lovelock's place," Tinfingers explained. "And correlated them with burn raids." He suddenly looked a bit like a prosecutor resting his case. "You were on most of those raids with him."

  "He could have stole that any time," Borland said, then craftily. "You said I wouldn't need a lawyer,"

  "You don't," Tinfingers said and smiled. "But you've already said you had other interests in Lovelock's wife and she was taking the drug." He paused. "Did you turn a blind eye?"

  Borland surged up. "I wanted to screw her and that's all I was interested in-like you wrote in your notes." He swept a hand at the files, then his shoulders dropped and he crumpled back into his chair. Things went south all right.

  "I just wanted to do her. Marsh loved her, if you believe in that shit!"

  CHAPTER 16

  Tina smiled sweetly at Lovelock when he called her out of the kitchen. She swept into the living room, snatched up the empty glasses, cleaned them, and bathed fresh ice cubes in whiskey in one long continuous action.

  When she brought them back in on a bright red plastic tray she hissed and then clicked her tongue when she spied a pale ring of moisture on the table where Borland's drink had missed the coaster she'd set out.

  "Well!" she said, voice cycling up to shrill as she set the tray down and dropped to her knees to rub at the stained veneer with her apron. "I can't leave you boys for a minute before you start wrecking the place."

  "It's okay honey," Lovelock reassured, creeping up to get his drink. "The mark will disappear when it dries."

  Borland heaved himself forward to grab his whiskey and sank back to watch the matrimonial moment with a grin. It was times like this that moved his solitary existence one thin decimal point away from dismal.

  "It's not okay," Tina said, voice breaking with emotion. She rubbed, angled her head to study the tabletop, and rubbed again. "Look Marsh! We'll have to get it refinished now." She dropped her hands and chin in defeat. "And the man said it wouldn't take another sanding!"

  Lovelock got up and knelt beside her, turned his head this way and that. "It's going to be fine."

  "Then we'll have toÖget a new one." Tina's eyes filled with tears. "I can't Marshall, you know I can't." Her hands traced the sides of the table. "I need this one."

  "It's okay, darling," Lovelock comforted, with one arm around his wife he pointed at the table. "The mark's dried right out already."

  Tina stared at the spot a half minute, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Oh Marsh, thank God!" Her eyes worshipped Lovelock a second and then swung down to look sheepishly at Borland. "I'm such a silly goose, Joe!"

  "Ah hell, Tina, don't worry about it." Borland said, waving his hands. "It's a beautiful home. You can't let a couple of old slobs drink in here."

  Tina smiled. "Marshall can drink in here." Her eyes turned cold, and then filled with venom. "And there hasn't been any trouble like this for years." She looked to Lovelock who had tightened his arm around her waist and helped her to her feet.

  "Honey." Lovelock cradled his wife's elbows in his hands and turned her toward the kitchen. "Can I speak to you?"

  Borland watched them go, savoring the whiskey. They stepped inside the kitchen doorway and he overheard a hissing sound, a voice-angry and hateful. That was covered by Lovelock's crooning comfort. Borland leaned forward listening. Struggling noises? A grunt. Feet sliding on tiles? Then there were sudden sobs followed by the rattle and tap of a pill bottle being opened. More cooing from Lovelock, and then tip tap, jiggle-pop! Water poured from a faucet. Glass clinked.

  They appeared in the kitchen doorway and walked toward Borland. Lovelock's arm was slung around Tina's back. Her eyes were puffy and red. Borland noticed Lovelock stuffing something into his left pants pocket.

  "I'm sorry, Joe," Tina said finally. Her eyes did a hysterical half step at the table before Lovelock reined her in with a hug. Borland followed the look and sighed with relief. The mark was gone. "I'm such a worry wart in my old age."

  "Hell, Tina. None of us are getting any younger," Borland said and blanched at the look she fired at Lovelock. Her husband's face pinched with worry.

  "I'll let you two old, oldÖ" Tina picked up the serving tray, and wiped it down with her apron. "Old friends talk." Then she spotted a mark on her apron and she ripped the garment off like it was on fire.

  "Now I've got to do laundry!" She turned on her heel and marched toward a door by the entrance. Borland heard her feet clatter on the stairs to the basement.

  "WomenÖ" Lovelock said and smiled, trying to pass it off.

  "She okay?" Borland asked. Sweat gleamed on Lovelock's brow.

  "Yes. She just worries too much. And that gets me worrying. Then she worries." He picked up his drink. "We feed off each other." He took a hurried sip and coughed. "But you can see why I can'tÖcouldn't leave her."

  "I never met a woman that wasn't picky, Marsh," Borland said, not wanting to start threatening over pensions yet. "Besides, if she needs help, Brass could make sure she's looked after while you're at work."

  "No. No. No. No." Lovelock shook his head and took another drink. T
hen he cautiously placed his glass center to the coaster. "Nobody from outside. I know how Tina works."

  "Is this from back in the day?" Borland started to puzzle it together. "The Variant Effect. Everybody got a touch of something, right?"

  "Well. Well. Well, I wouldn't say that." Lovelock's eyes leveled as he shook his head left to right before he started nodding. "Yes. Yes, I would say that. But not so much as out there say it."

  "It presented?" Borland frowned angrily. "Didn't you get help after?"

  "We tried." Lovelock shook his head ridiculously, and Borland started to wonder if the former Captain didn't have a touch of something himself. "The POOs suggested the new drugs but that made her worse."

  "Jesus." Borland rubbed his bristly jowls, watching the basement door. "She went off Varion cold turkey?"

  "Look Joe." Lovelock suddenly sprang to his feet, nervously patting his pocket. Borland heard a distinctive rattle. "I think you can see why I can't come back. Tina needs me, and she was there for me all through the day. When you and me were out cranking and killing. She needs me now."

  Borland scooted forward, pulled himself out of his chair before tipping his glass and sucking the last of his drink from the ice cubes.

  "I wish it was that easy, Marsh."

  "What do you mean?" Lovelock remained frozen in place. He watched Borland's every move, certain the big man would cause some kind of accident or mess.

  "This isn't a request." Borland thumped his glass down on the table, a good inch away from the coaster.

  "Joe!" Lovelock moaned and jumped forward. He set Borland's glass on the coaster and rubbed at the table with his shirttail. "Maybe you better leave."

  "I'm not asking you to come back to the squad." Borland watched the man cringing on the carpet beside the table. "Brass is ordering."

  He bent and grabbed Lovelock's arm, started pulling him up.

  "Stop that crawling, man!" Borland barked, as the former captain struggled and then gained his feet.

  Borland jabbed a hand into Lovelock's pocket-the material ripped.