Across the table from Clara sat Etienne Faneuil. His body may have been twenty years old, but the leer on his face belonged to a disgusting old man who should have died years ago. And now that he'd returned from his travels and gone into hiding, she had to share a lab - and the results of her research - with the psychotic son of a bitch. Clara shuddered.
She studied Pan.
Though it had been months, Clara had yet to feel at ease with this new Pan Rudo, this tall young man with the strawberry blond hair. Resemblances to whom he'd been remained - the fine bones, the violet-blue eyes, the mannerisms - but she couldn't help but feel as if she were dealing with a stranger who pretended to be Uncle Pan. And the way he'd used a wild card power for his own gain seemed wrong to her. More than her father ever had, Pan Rudo had had a vision.
First Papa, she thought, and now Uncle Pan. My icons are toppling off their pedestals all around.
Horvath slammed his hand on the table, apparently in response to something the man next to him said.
"Bugger that!"
Clara jumped, startled from her reverie.
"We have to do something about Durand. Now!" He turned to Uncle Pan, who was leaning over, whispering with Faneuil. "What will you do about it, Rudo?"
"And what about von Herzenhagen, for that matter?" Eric Fleming asked, from the other end of the table. "He's cozy with some of my connections - if he turns like Durand has, I'm finished. We have to do something. Assassinate him, if necessary."
"The hell you say," someone else said. "We should break him out. Pay someone off - whatever it takes. He's no traitor. And we need him."
Clara glanced at Faneuil at the mention of Durand, and the implied, possible assassination attempt. He didn't twitch an eyelid. No lingering feeling for his old flame. It figured.
Eric scoffed. "No one is indispensable. Not even you, Carruthers."
"Hartmann is the real threat," the Central American generalissimo said. "He knows far too much. Even as a joker he's dangerous."
Twenty arguments erupted at once. Clara buried her face in her hands. Sparks crawled behind her eyelids: incipient migraine. Not now, she thought.
She hated this. Why couldn't they leave her alone to do her research, and leave her out of these horrid wrangles?
Uncle Pan said, "Enough." It cut through the pandemonium like a scalpel through flesh. Voices died away and everyone turned to look at him - with a few nervous glances at Johnson, who had moved over to flank Pan, his semiautomatic visible beneath his arm.
"Stop this bickering. Listen to yourselves. You sound like frightened old women."
Embarrassed looks were exchanged as his words were translated. Even Horvath looked sheepish.
"Senator Hartmann has been neutralized," Pan went on. "As for the rest, the questions you've all raised need to be resolved, but now is not the time. I've summoned you here for a specific purpose." He paused. "This is a critical time for us. The forces that oppose us have struck some serious blows, and everything we have striven for so long to accomplish is in danger of coming to naught. We must combine our efforts now for a decisive strike, before they can stop us.
"I have summoned you here to reveal to you the existence of a secret weapon - one which promises to put success within our grasp."
That got their attention. Uncle Pan glanced briefly at Clara. She gave him a nod.
"To describe this weapon," he said, "which will wipe out the curse of the wild card, I give you the woman who has developed that weapon: the weapon that will trump the wild card once and for all, and put an end to the contamination of the human race. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the world's leading virologists, Clara van Renssaeler."
A delay while interpreters whispered. Then a murmur rose. The rumors about her father had spread, then. The color came up in Clara's cheeks. She gathered her notes and stood.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Eight pairs of eyes. All held in a net of wrinkles. Why does power always come with age? Normal human eyes. Widen the focus to include the faces. Seven men and one woman. An expanse of aged white skin wrapped tenderly in expensive fabric. Power also surrendered slowly to the fretful demands of equality.
Dr. Bradley Latour Finn shifted uncomfortably. He was standing, an unruly schoolboy called before the assembled faculty of an expensive boys' school, but of course that wasn't the case. He was standing because the tall leather chairs which surrounded the oval table had never been designed for centaurs, not even pony-sized ones.
The Board of Governors of the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic shifted, too, and exchanged glances. The chairman rose, and extended a soft, manicured hand. Finn stepped forward to accept it. His own hand was equally well manicured, and, he noticed with some distress, as soft.
"Thank you for coming in today. It's clear some kind of permanent arrangement must be made. Although the requisite seven years hasn't passed to consider Doctor Tachyon deceased, the patients and staff of the Jokertown Clinic need a leader. In these troubled times the ad hoc administration which you cobbled together just won't do."
"Like I said, Mr. Wily, I'm a joker. I'm a doctor. And I'm your guy."
There were polite smiles around the table, and Finn felt a presentiment of danger. Dismissed it. Of course he would have preferred to have them leap up and anoint him on the spot, but it was only in movies (and not the kind his dad made) where that happened. Bradley nodded politely, reared slightly so he could execute a sharp spin on his hind feet, and exited.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Clara started out with a primer on xenovirus Takis A, the wild card. With a few graphics and two or three scanning electron microscope photographs, she described how the virus incorporated itself into the human genome and commandeered the cell, causing changes that led to the now-well-known outcomes: death, deformity, or, for a lucky few, a great psychic or physical benefit.
"I have developed a virus," she said "that penetrates the human cell wall and seeks out the wild card initiator sequence in the DNA - the location where the wild card first insinuates itself into the human genome. If my virus finds the wild card, it will destroy the cell and spread to others, leading to the death of the person infected."
"What effect does the virus have on non-wild cards?" one man asked. It was Casaday. "Is there any risk?"
"Absolutely not. My virus will attack the DNA only if the wild card is present in the genome. People untouched by the wild card are safe. The virus will be carefully engineered so as not to harm anyone but the intended target." She sensed Uncle Pan's gaze on her and avoided a wince; the "will be" was a slip-up. Perhaps no one else would notice. "The scientific name for my virus is necrovirus Takis. In the lab, we've dubbed it the Black Trump."
Loud voices broke out, and Uncle Pan had to call twice for silence before she was able to continue.
"Now," she went on, "your next question might be, why is such a drastic solution necessary?" She looked around at the several dozen eyes focused on her, and wondered whether these people cared at all about the lives that would be lost.
Hartmann's allegations on Peregrine's Perch had shocked her. She'd known that things like that went on, but she couldn't believe all of what he'd said was true. For every Etienne Faneuil or George Battle in the organization, there were ten dedicated, principled people like her father and Pan Rudo and herself.
"Any humane researcher would seek to cure the wild card," she said. "Not kill those poor souls who are already suffering from its effects."