The Chant of the Sibyl
Nov. 5th, 2007 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crows“Roque!” I found myself barking defensively into the telephone, waking to the harsh alarm of its ring. My heart was throbbing painfully in my chest... I had dozed off with my head down on the now-dormant surface of the drafting desk which, when unlit, was nothing more than a matte, gunmetal grey. Gulping down air as subtly as possible and trying to calm myself down, I focused on the voice that came through. Disappointingly, it was not Isolde.
“Ivan.” Alexander's voice floated to me, stern and even. The very tone and chill that the man spoke with was enough to sober me instantly out of half-sleep, and I straightened in my chair with a held breath.
“Yes.”
“I need to see you upstairs. Meet me in my office?”
“Yes, sure...” I hesitated, feeling displaced by my uncertainty. “I'll be right up.”
“Thank you.” The line disconnected, leaving me in muted silence. I hung up quietly, trying not to jar the air around me (or my nerves, for that matter, which were becoming more and more of a concern). I rubbed my eyes as vigorously as I could, trying to regain circulation to my undoubtedly pale and tired face until color flowered in the darkness behind my eyes. Time, again, to ascend.
Alex waited for me behind his dark wood desk, everything about his tiny enclave streamlined and efficient. He didn't speak when I entered, instead gesturing with a slender hand for me to close the door behind me and take a seat. The man wore a guarded game face as I settled across from him, unsure whether not I should wait or question the fine-featured monolith of the known scientific world.
“We're pulling the plug, as it were, Ivan.” He stated flatly, tethering my eyes with his own.
“On.. wait, pulling the plug, what do you mean?” I sputtered, leaning slightly over the desk.
“The project concerning this pathogen. Myself and some of the other senior members of the Association think it's best if the involved medical institutions work it out where they are more realistically equipped.”
I could not believe what I was hearing. I'm sure my jaw must have dropped six inches as I stared at him, entirely dumb-struck with what he was trying to tell me. It was impossible to tell if he was just on the defensive, or if he thought I was just going to understand, take it, and go. His face registered no emotion that I could read. “You can't...” was all I managed.
“Yes, Doctor Roque, I can. And there are a lot of reasons for this... it goes beyond you.”
I think he was intending to speak more, but I cut him off as soon as I could slide a word in. “No, you don't understand, Alexander... they came to us for help. They aren't equipped to handle this... we've kept too much from them as it is! Are any of these places working together? I still believe that letting it slip that any of these areas are not isolated in terms of the infection would lead to a global panic the likes of which this world we live in has never yet seen!” His marble-smooth face, younger than the years I knew he had behind him, didn't budge.
“You're exaggerating, Doctor Roque. There are a lot of factors going into this decision, from myself and others. It isn't in your hands.” The last statement he made slanted in his voice, gaining a dangerous but subtle shadow. He was threatening me...
“I'm exaggerating?” It was like I couldn't stop myself, as if I were sitting beside the door to the room, staring voicelessly at these two men betting their mortal souls. “Do you have any idea what a pathogen like this has the capability to do to our society? Even our species? And you want to 'pull the plug?' Surely you can see the absurdity in this, Maze...” Pulling the plug was an apt enough term... for soon enough, I feared, if our research ended now the human race really would be on life support. I couldn't begin to fathom Alex's motives.
His voice remained icy calm, unresponsive to my escalating outburst. “Branimir would like you to assist in importing some of your datasets for programming purposes, the general study of your field, if you're willing to do a few m ore weeks tenure with MDRA. Then we can pave your way back to Munich, although you would of course be welcome to stay in Sydney with glowing recommendations from the Association.” A small smile quirked at his lips. “Of course, a man with your reputation wouldn't need them.”
Alex was sly enough to make it read like the words should be taken at face value, an honest compliment to my capabilities and prior work. But this was a thinly veiled threat of the kind that can only come from a deeply powerful man, politically and otherwise. It was the truth... I was set for life with what I'd already done in the field, regardless as to how much work I actually wanted to continue doing for the rest of my days and, in that light, I probably looked like I had a lot to lose.
But I worked like a dog, tired and obsessive... for the sole reason that I couldn't stand the thought of global pandemic. The thought of people around me sickening and dying at some impossible rate... the few loved ones, the many strangers, the ghost-laden streets of metropolises that should have been teeming with life. This scenario had scared me more than any other thing since I was a child. When the war came around, the first real war where biological weapons had been employed, I knew I had to do everything in my power to keep something like that from happening. It felt like those inspired young days were premonition... I wanted, somehow, to be some kind of hero. It was this thought alone that carried me through the aeons of study I undertook for my degrees and certifications, all the things I learned. For now, here I was... I had commendations from a dozen governments across the globe, I'd been written about in newspapers and even books, my name would likely be mentioned in children's history classes a hundred years from now, especially if things continued like they had been before this mess.
That is, if there were any children to teach, a hundred years from now.
For now, here I was, and my plague had come to darken the earth. My plague had come, and the very people that had initially pulled me into the battle were now calling a premature and deadly retreat. Ice clutched my heart, slowing the beat to a funerary pace as I settled my hands on my knees and tried to replicate Alexander Maze's flawless expression.
“I understand.” I understood a great many things. It was difficult for me to tell whether or not he bought it, but he didn't stop me when I rose to depart.
On the way down the hall, I had to pocket my hands in my lab coat because they were shaking so badly I thought one of the other people moving blithely around in the hive of the MDRA building would notice and question me. I had no answers for my condition that I could give, and found myself once more diving down into the cold shelter of my own office, where at least I could spend a moment in private desperation.
There was a message on my machine from Isolde, hastily saying that she didn't have time to explain herself and nothing more. I spent at least a quarter hour in my desk chair clutching my head and trying to rock away the stabbing pain between my eyes.
Never before had I felt so on the wrong side of moral and ethical law. I had signed on with a full mind and heart, unquestioning to the Association's powerful agenda. I trusted what I respected, and it was such a whirling hurricane of intelligence and progress that there was no way in my mind that corruption could live in its shining light. How could I have been such a fool? With that intelligence came power, and with power comes always the capability for corruption as much as there is the capability for honesty and service. I had thought Alexander Maze to be a representation of the latter, if slightly aloof. Between my vertebrae was another growing, nagging sensation... what was he trying to protect? Mater Dei was famous for not weening funds off a tanking project in order to 'cut their losses'. If that had been in Branimir's mind to do, many of the advances in computer intelligence that he made – almost strictly alone – would never have been reached, in this lifetime or the next.
He was right, thought, it was out of my hands now whether I liked it or not. A hollowness was opening up in my chest as if someone had touched a lit cigarette to a filigree of cobwebs. I needed to go home, sleep it off, and try to forget all of those things that I knew I could never un-knot from the machinations of my brain. Maybe he was right on other counts as well? Maybe there was some excellent reason for all of this to come about that I was simply not privy too. Isolde and I were not the only people involved with the project, and everyone else who was supposedly working facets of the issue at large I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting. It hadn't been important – and now I thought I knew why – for me to have any kind of working relationship with some of the other analysts... I was the only one specifically in my field, with the close right hand of Doctor Lindman to keep me in line should I start to stray the path somehow.
It was remotely possible that Alexander Maze just knew things that I didn't... he had never been a man of excess, either materially or psychologically, and perhaps he thought I simply didn't need any immediate information or closure on the matters at hand. It was something that could come later on, after things were worked out, in the form of a gift basket and a healthy check for services rendered. Maybe, maybe...
Feeling in a trance, as if someone had drilled my skull and chemically hypnotized the sensitive, human portions of my monkey-brain, I stood stiffly and moved for the door. Yes, I would take the rest of the day off and perhaps when I woke in the morning the important parts of this fiasco would have been a nightmare. Glancing on the clock that showed on the scanner in the door frame, I realized I'd been sitting in the tomb for almost an hour and a half, staring at nothing like I'd gone completely mad.
"So how long have you known Doctor Lindman?" Alexander's voice was calculatedly cool behind me as I swung my jacket on. I turned to regard him sidelong, hanging up my lab coat with the rest of the sterile phantoms of doctors.
"Since we were students... she was my high school prom date." I smirked at that memory. "Microbiology lab partner. I guess that's how we've stayed in touch all these years... we've always been in the field."
"I see..." He replied, feigning nonchalance.
I stopped in my tracks, fixing him with a hard look. This was more to do with the clash of words we'd had earlier than my history with Doctor Lindman. As if I were having some kind of hallucination, I could see something resolving on the other man's fine-featured face. As if the words were written there, I was beginning to understand.
“Alex, I don't want to have anything to do with what you're planning. You and I both have a responsibility to the things that we know.”
"There's no sense in it, Ivan." He swept a powerful step toward me, and I found myself falling back. I was taller than Alex Maze, but he had an intensity about his person that was so tangible it made my skin ache. The glare of his eyes - glacier blue, made even more severe by the slick frame of shoulder-length black hair - was heavy on my own. "There's more to this picture than you realize now.”
I was dumb-struck one again, struggling for words like the drowning struggle for air.
"Ivan," I winced as he repeated my name, backing away another step. "You're one of the top minds in epidemiology, in the world. I know how long you've been studying this. I recognize your dedication.”
"I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"Don't think I'm casting you aside because I don't trust your opinions or your expertise. Quite the opposite. But it's too dangerous, now, for us to study any further. The infected areas are going to implement an aggressive course of quarantine and wipe it out. Erase it, Ivan. It's going to be done."
Once again I found my mouth cottony as I moved my tongue around and tried to speak.
"That's not how it works, Alexander... this is my nightmare... people are dying out there... it goes beyond us both."
He was advancing on me now, and I was retreating toward the door. Feeling the coldness that radiated through it behind me, as if the darkness had reached a beckoning finger in to tug my sleeve and cue my exit, I turned to push the door open and end this conversation. Maze shouted after me a moment later.
"I will not let you plunge this corporation into total anarchy!" His voice died on the pavement behind me as I walked briskly to my car, shut myself in, and locked the doors before starting the engine to drown the echo of his voice in my ears. He was a powerful man, I told myself. I was right to fear him.
Some of this is redundant: I reworked a scene I posted earlier on a bit and tied it to the rest of the beginning. I don't want to leave the big holes for too long or else I'll never tie them in!
Gods, I'm so exhausted... -.-
Wordcount as of November 4th: 8,017
“Ivan.” Alexander's voice floated to me, stern and even. The very tone and chill that the man spoke with was enough to sober me instantly out of half-sleep, and I straightened in my chair with a held breath.
“Yes.”
“I need to see you upstairs. Meet me in my office?”
“Yes, sure...” I hesitated, feeling displaced by my uncertainty. “I'll be right up.”
“Thank you.” The line disconnected, leaving me in muted silence. I hung up quietly, trying not to jar the air around me (or my nerves, for that matter, which were becoming more and more of a concern). I rubbed my eyes as vigorously as I could, trying to regain circulation to my undoubtedly pale and tired face until color flowered in the darkness behind my eyes. Time, again, to ascend.
Alex waited for me behind his dark wood desk, everything about his tiny enclave streamlined and efficient. He didn't speak when I entered, instead gesturing with a slender hand for me to close the door behind me and take a seat. The man wore a guarded game face as I settled across from him, unsure whether not I should wait or question the fine-featured monolith of the known scientific world.
“We're pulling the plug, as it were, Ivan.” He stated flatly, tethering my eyes with his own.
“On.. wait, pulling the plug, what do you mean?” I sputtered, leaning slightly over the desk.
“The project concerning this pathogen. Myself and some of the other senior members of the Association think it's best if the involved medical institutions work it out where they are more realistically equipped.”
I could not believe what I was hearing. I'm sure my jaw must have dropped six inches as I stared at him, entirely dumb-struck with what he was trying to tell me. It was impossible to tell if he was just on the defensive, or if he thought I was just going to understand, take it, and go. His face registered no emotion that I could read. “You can't...” was all I managed.
“Yes, Doctor Roque, I can. And there are a lot of reasons for this... it goes beyond you.”
I think he was intending to speak more, but I cut him off as soon as I could slide a word in. “No, you don't understand, Alexander... they came to us for help. They aren't equipped to handle this... we've kept too much from them as it is! Are any of these places working together? I still believe that letting it slip that any of these areas are not isolated in terms of the infection would lead to a global panic the likes of which this world we live in has never yet seen!” His marble-smooth face, younger than the years I knew he had behind him, didn't budge.
“You're exaggerating, Doctor Roque. There are a lot of factors going into this decision, from myself and others. It isn't in your hands.” The last statement he made slanted in his voice, gaining a dangerous but subtle shadow. He was threatening me...
“I'm exaggerating?” It was like I couldn't stop myself, as if I were sitting beside the door to the room, staring voicelessly at these two men betting their mortal souls. “Do you have any idea what a pathogen like this has the capability to do to our society? Even our species? And you want to 'pull the plug?' Surely you can see the absurdity in this, Maze...” Pulling the plug was an apt enough term... for soon enough, I feared, if our research ended now the human race really would be on life support. I couldn't begin to fathom Alex's motives.
His voice remained icy calm, unresponsive to my escalating outburst. “Branimir would like you to assist in importing some of your datasets for programming purposes, the general study of your field, if you're willing to do a few m ore weeks tenure with MDRA. Then we can pave your way back to Munich, although you would of course be welcome to stay in Sydney with glowing recommendations from the Association.” A small smile quirked at his lips. “Of course, a man with your reputation wouldn't need them.”
Alex was sly enough to make it read like the words should be taken at face value, an honest compliment to my capabilities and prior work. But this was a thinly veiled threat of the kind that can only come from a deeply powerful man, politically and otherwise. It was the truth... I was set for life with what I'd already done in the field, regardless as to how much work I actually wanted to continue doing for the rest of my days and, in that light, I probably looked like I had a lot to lose.
But I worked like a dog, tired and obsessive... for the sole reason that I couldn't stand the thought of global pandemic. The thought of people around me sickening and dying at some impossible rate... the few loved ones, the many strangers, the ghost-laden streets of metropolises that should have been teeming with life. This scenario had scared me more than any other thing since I was a child. When the war came around, the first real war where biological weapons had been employed, I knew I had to do everything in my power to keep something like that from happening. It felt like those inspired young days were premonition... I wanted, somehow, to be some kind of hero. It was this thought alone that carried me through the aeons of study I undertook for my degrees and certifications, all the things I learned. For now, here I was... I had commendations from a dozen governments across the globe, I'd been written about in newspapers and even books, my name would likely be mentioned in children's history classes a hundred years from now, especially if things continued like they had been before this mess.
That is, if there were any children to teach, a hundred years from now.
For now, here I was, and my plague had come to darken the earth. My plague had come, and the very people that had initially pulled me into the battle were now calling a premature and deadly retreat. Ice clutched my heart, slowing the beat to a funerary pace as I settled my hands on my knees and tried to replicate Alexander Maze's flawless expression.
“I understand.” I understood a great many things. It was difficult for me to tell whether or not he bought it, but he didn't stop me when I rose to depart.
On the way down the hall, I had to pocket my hands in my lab coat because they were shaking so badly I thought one of the other people moving blithely around in the hive of the MDRA building would notice and question me. I had no answers for my condition that I could give, and found myself once more diving down into the cold shelter of my own office, where at least I could spend a moment in private desperation.
There was a message on my machine from Isolde, hastily saying that she didn't have time to explain herself and nothing more. I spent at least a quarter hour in my desk chair clutching my head and trying to rock away the stabbing pain between my eyes.
Never before had I felt so on the wrong side of moral and ethical law. I had signed on with a full mind and heart, unquestioning to the Association's powerful agenda. I trusted what I respected, and it was such a whirling hurricane of intelligence and progress that there was no way in my mind that corruption could live in its shining light. How could I have been such a fool? With that intelligence came power, and with power comes always the capability for corruption as much as there is the capability for honesty and service. I had thought Alexander Maze to be a representation of the latter, if slightly aloof. Between my vertebrae was another growing, nagging sensation... what was he trying to protect? Mater Dei was famous for not weening funds off a tanking project in order to 'cut their losses'. If that had been in Branimir's mind to do, many of the advances in computer intelligence that he made – almost strictly alone – would never have been reached, in this lifetime or the next.
He was right, thought, it was out of my hands now whether I liked it or not. A hollowness was opening up in my chest as if someone had touched a lit cigarette to a filigree of cobwebs. I needed to go home, sleep it off, and try to forget all of those things that I knew I could never un-knot from the machinations of my brain. Maybe he was right on other counts as well? Maybe there was some excellent reason for all of this to come about that I was simply not privy too. Isolde and I were not the only people involved with the project, and everyone else who was supposedly working facets of the issue at large I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting. It hadn't been important – and now I thought I knew why – for me to have any kind of working relationship with some of the other analysts... I was the only one specifically in my field, with the close right hand of Doctor Lindman to keep me in line should I start to stray the path somehow.
It was remotely possible that Alexander Maze just knew things that I didn't... he had never been a man of excess, either materially or psychologically, and perhaps he thought I simply didn't need any immediate information or closure on the matters at hand. It was something that could come later on, after things were worked out, in the form of a gift basket and a healthy check for services rendered. Maybe, maybe...
Feeling in a trance, as if someone had drilled my skull and chemically hypnotized the sensitive, human portions of my monkey-brain, I stood stiffly and moved for the door. Yes, I would take the rest of the day off and perhaps when I woke in the morning the important parts of this fiasco would have been a nightmare. Glancing on the clock that showed on the scanner in the door frame, I realized I'd been sitting in the tomb for almost an hour and a half, staring at nothing like I'd gone completely mad.
"So how long have you known Doctor Lindman?" Alexander's voice was calculatedly cool behind me as I swung my jacket on. I turned to regard him sidelong, hanging up my lab coat with the rest of the sterile phantoms of doctors.
"Since we were students... she was my high school prom date." I smirked at that memory. "Microbiology lab partner. I guess that's how we've stayed in touch all these years... we've always been in the field."
"I see..." He replied, feigning nonchalance.
I stopped in my tracks, fixing him with a hard look. This was more to do with the clash of words we'd had earlier than my history with Doctor Lindman. As if I were having some kind of hallucination, I could see something resolving on the other man's fine-featured face. As if the words were written there, I was beginning to understand.
“Alex, I don't want to have anything to do with what you're planning. You and I both have a responsibility to the things that we know.”
"There's no sense in it, Ivan." He swept a powerful step toward me, and I found myself falling back. I was taller than Alex Maze, but he had an intensity about his person that was so tangible it made my skin ache. The glare of his eyes - glacier blue, made even more severe by the slick frame of shoulder-length black hair - was heavy on my own. "There's more to this picture than you realize now.”
I was dumb-struck one again, struggling for words like the drowning struggle for air.
"Ivan," I winced as he repeated my name, backing away another step. "You're one of the top minds in epidemiology, in the world. I know how long you've been studying this. I recognize your dedication.”
"I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"Don't think I'm casting you aside because I don't trust your opinions or your expertise. Quite the opposite. But it's too dangerous, now, for us to study any further. The infected areas are going to implement an aggressive course of quarantine and wipe it out. Erase it, Ivan. It's going to be done."
Once again I found my mouth cottony as I moved my tongue around and tried to speak.
"That's not how it works, Alexander... this is my nightmare... people are dying out there... it goes beyond us both."
He was advancing on me now, and I was retreating toward the door. Feeling the coldness that radiated through it behind me, as if the darkness had reached a beckoning finger in to tug my sleeve and cue my exit, I turned to push the door open and end this conversation. Maze shouted after me a moment later.
"I will not let you plunge this corporation into total anarchy!" His voice died on the pavement behind me as I walked briskly to my car, shut myself in, and locked the doors before starting the engine to drown the echo of his voice in my ears. He was a powerful man, I told myself. I was right to fear him.
Some of this is redundant: I reworked a scene I posted earlier on a bit and tied it to the rest of the beginning. I don't want to leave the big holes for too long or else I'll never tie them in!
Gods, I'm so exhausted... -.-
Wordcount as of November 4th: 8,017