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I had an epiphany.”
    “You are a fortunate man, to have such a
wife.”
    “I am.” Markis stood up to match Spooky
across the table, putting down his stogie. “My reports say you have
a good woman, too.”
    “Good? I’m not sure that’s the right term,
but…loyal, entertaining, and effective, yes. An excellent match.
But now we are just exchanging pleasantries, and I am very tired.”
Spooky made as if to grind out his cigar.
    Markis leaned back in his chair, interlacing
his fingers behind his head, his elbows spread to the sides. “I
remember when we used to just shoot the breeze. Be a shame if we’re
beyond that simple pleasure now.” His eyes were wide, and held
something Nguyen could not completely fathom.
    Spooky paused, momentarily astonished. Then
he tried to put himself in the other man’s place. Loneliness had
seldom been the Degar’s affliction, but Markis was a social man, a
white knight from his earliest days. Now he sat atop a political
pyramid that precluded him from relaxing with anyone except his
inner circle – who these days comprised mostly women. Cass, Elise,
Shawna, Millie…there was Larry Nightingale, but he was the only one
of the original A-team available. Vinny and Skull and Zeke were
dead, and Spooky had left Markis’ side.
    “I understand, my friend.” Spooky sat back
down, putting his feet up on the table, and asked, “We have
beer?”
    “I’ll send for some.” The Chairman of the
Free Communities stuck his head out the door and called for a
couple of six-packs, an unconscious smile on his face.
    “Remember how Skull could spin a bottle cap
with his fingertips like a Frisbee?” Spooky set his first metal lid
between thumb and middle finger and snapped it toward Markis. It
flew in an arc and struck his target in the chest.
    “I do! Looks like you mastered the
skill.”
    “It took me some time. I couldn’t let him
show me up, after all.”
    When the beer arrived the Chairman of the
Free Communities Council slid one of the cans across to his old
comrade, a man he hoped would soon be the absolute ruler of
Australia. Then he ordered the weather shutters that covered the
large window opened, allowing in the glow from the southern
aurora.
    Under unearthly ribbons of dancing light,
they reminisced late into the Antarctic night.
     
     

 
     
-4-

    Spooky’s trip back to Sydney was much more
comfortable than the ride in the drone: first class on a Quantas
jetliner out of Johannesburg. If not for his warring thoughts, he
would have enjoyed it, though the plane was full for a Sunday. He’d
been escorted on, VIP-style, at the last minute, as certain as it
was possible to be that his enemies had not had time to act against
him from this end.
    As always, he had a plan for the other.
    Not since before the Eden Plague repaired the
brain damage he did not know was there, had such an easy decision
seem so difficult. He wondered what had made him agree so quickly
to seize Australia. Impulse? Since when have I been impulsive,
or anything less than self-serving? The whole thing smacked of
sentimentality, something he had sworn to expunge from himself.
    Now he wished he’d taken a trip up to
Carletonville with Daniel, to see Elise and her team of
biopsychologists, to delve more deeply into the Plague’s true
effects on the brain and mind. He’d always assumed that the virus
had remade him once, from something into something else, when he
had contracted it. Now he began to wonder if the process had ever
actually ended, or was ongoing.
    And if it continued in him, then it did so in
others? What would that mean, for himself, and for humanity’s
evolution? Though that was perhaps the wrong word, as the virus was
most assuredly a product of intelligent design.
    He had agreed to seize power, but now he
wished he hadn’t, so strong was the lure of self-discovery.
Brutally, he forced that concern down.
    Plenty of time for that when we beat this
Destroyer.
    Even so…when was a Psycho not a