The Good Humor Man by Andrew Fox

Author:Andrew Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2009-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

I check into a room in a nicer part of Overtown; “nicer” being purely relative. According to Ms. Bonnabel, the crowds don’t begin hitting Lansky’s until after eleven P.M. I still have a few hours. I want to talk to Harri, hear how she’s progressing in the fight against Metaboloft.

She picks up just after the fourth ring. “Harri, it’s Louis.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Good. I was wondering when you’d check in next.”

“Is this a good time for me to be calling? Do you need to get back to me?”

“It’s all right, Louis. It’s all fixed. I got a friend to doctor up my phone. If anybody’s listening in, all they’re hearing is static and bits of prerecorded conversation.”

“Wonderful. Have you had a chance to see my father?”

“Last Sunday. He wanted to know when you’d be coming by to see him.”

“Are they giving him the high-calorie supplements I prescribed? Is he still losing weight?”

“They’re feeding him the supplements, even though he hates the taste. He’s still losing, but the rate of loss has slowed considerably. That head nurse you spoke to has started giving the supplements to all the patients on the ward. It scared me to see them. I’ve been fighting the spread of Metaboloft for the past eighteen months. But I’ve never seen the vanguard effects so up close and personal.”

I try to sound upbeat. “How’s the fight coming?”

“Honestly? Like shit, Louis. I feel like a quadriplegic who’s been ordered to perform a trapeze act. We still don’t have the tools to even begin working.”

“What about those databases that were supposed to come from India and China?”

“We got them…”

The hanging pause at the end of her reply makes me nervous. “And?”

“They’re useless.”

“I thought you said those databases would take months to completely mine?”

“You don’t have to examine every object in a Dumpster to know what’s in there is garbage. Almost a third of the records in the databases were stripped. Empty of useable data. Another fifteen to twenty percent were corrupted with viruses. It’s out of our hands now. The State Department is reviewing their options. The Chinese and Indians aren’t exactly our bestest buddies. State’s trying to decide whether this was an official provocation.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think the Chinese or Indians had anything to do with this. Metaboloft may not be an immediate threat to them, but give it three, four years, some of those spores are going to make their way across the ocean and take root.”

“Then who? Who would want to do this?”

“If I knew that, I could alert the authorities and we’d be on our merry way, wouldn’t we?” The sarcasm and fear in her voice sting. “I think it’s someone inside, Louis. Inside the company. This isn’t the first time ‘accidents’ have slowed us down.”

“Have you reported your suspicions to anyone above you?”

She snorts with a derision that shoots straight through the phone line. “Think about it — I’m breaking every corporate secrecy policy talking with you, on the chance that the company that prints my paychecks could be doing something potentially genocidal.

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