you can see an awesome beauty, a glimpse of something so radiant that it
gives you joy.
But will this radiance remain in Toby if he is redesigned by Wyvern
scientists, if a radical physical transformation is attempted?
“He’s got a future now, ” Manuel said.
“Don’t throw your boy away, ” I pleaded.
“I’m lifting him up.”
“He won’t be your boy anymore.”
“He’ll finally be what he was meant to be.”
“He already was what he was meant to be.”
“You don’t know the pain, ” Manuel said bitterly.
He was speaking about his own pain, not Toby’s. Toby is at peace with
the world. Or was.
I said, “You always loved him for what he was.” His voice was sharp and
tremulous. “In spite of what he was.”
“That’s not fair to yourself. I know how you’ve felt about him all these
years. You’ve treasured him.”
“You don’t know shit about how I felt, not shit, ” he said, and he poked
the air in front of me with the club, as if driving home his point.
With sorrow as heavy as a rock on my chest, I said, “If that’s true, if
I didn’t understand how you felt about Toby, then I didn’t know you at
all.”
“Maybe you didn’t, ” he said. “Or maybe you can’t bear to think Toby
could end up with a more normal life than yours. We all like to have
someone to look down ondon’t we, Chris? ” My heart contracted as if
around a thorn. The ferocity of his anger revealed such profound terror
and pain that I couldn’t bear to respond to this mean-spirited
accusation. We had been friends too long for me to hate him, and I was
overcome only by pity.
He was mad with hope. In reasonable measure, hope sustains us.
In great excess, it distorts perceptions, dulls the mind, corrupts the
heart to no less an extent than does heroin.
I don’t believe I’ve misunderstood Manuel all these years. High on hope,
he has forgotten what he loved and, instead, loves the ideal more than
the reality, which is the cause of all the misery that the human species
creates for itself.
Descending footsteps sounded on the stairs. I looked toward the hall as
Feeney and the other deputy appeared in the foyer. Feeney went into the
living room, the other man into the study, where they switched on the
lights and dialed up the rheostats.
“What’s the second thing you came here to tell me? ” I asked Manuel.
“They’re going to get control of this.”
“Of what? ”
“This plague.”
“With what? ” Bobby asked. “A bottle of Lysol? ”
“Some people are immune.”
“Not everyone, ” Bobby said as glass shattered in the living room.
Manuel said, “But the immune factor has been isolated. Soon there’ll be
a vaccine, and a cure for those already infected.” I thought of the
missing children, but I didn’t mention them.
“Some people are still becoming, ” I said.
“And we’re learning there’s only so much change they’re able to
tolerate.” I strove to resist the flood of hope that might have swept me
away.
“Only so much? How much? ”
“There’s a threshold … They become acutely aware of the changes
taking place in them. Then they’re overcome by fear. An intolerable fear
of themselves. Hatred of themselves. The self-hatred escalates until .
.. they psychologically implode.”
“Psychological implosion? What the hell does that mean? ” Then I
understood. “Suicide? ”
“Beyond suicide. Violent … frenzied self-destruction.
We’ve seen .
.. a number of cases. You understand what this means? ” I said, “When
they self-destruct, they’re no longer carriers of the retrovirus.
The plague is self-limiting.” Judging by the sound, Frank Feeney was
smashing a small table or chair against one of the living-room walls.
I guessed that the other deputy was sweeping Sasha’s bottles of vitamins
and herbs off the shelves in the study. They were dutifully teaching us
a lesson and respect for the law.
“Most of us will get through this all right, ” Manuel said.
But who among us will not? I wondered.
“Animals, too, ” I said. “They self-destruct.” He regarded me with