August

June 14

Phidias was left alone during most of the day now; in the mornings, there was a group breakfast on the main veranda, but afterwards the others scattered for work and Caddy was occupied with lessons. Mostly, he busied himself with reading, avoiding the eyes of the chaperones and eunuchs scattered throughout the estate, and trying not to be nauseous. Henrik came, incidentally during the day, fussed over Phidias, and left, commenting all the time that for such a high-risk pregnancy, his carrier husband certainly seemed to move about the house a lot.

So today, deciding to take things easy, Phidias was sitting alone in the library, a mug of lukewarm ginger tea resting beside him as he pored over a text on ancient Roman culture. His glasses, which he wore only rarely now, slipped down his nose, and he straightened them just in time to look up and see his son running into the library towards him.

"Dad! Dad!!"

Caddy, moving at a fast break, was dogged by two young boys who looked to be about 13 and 9, and were dressed in loose linen pants and shirts. The trio barreled across the shiny marble floor towards Phidias, who startled a little and moved to get up.

"It's OK, Phidias!" a voice called out from around the doorway, followed by a reveal of Mahir just afterwards. "They're not wild animals who have broken into the house - it's just my sons."

Phidias relaxed again. The three had skidded to a stop in front of him, and both boys were grinning up at him.

"Hi! Are you Caddy's dad?"

Mahir crossed the room to interrupt, gesturing vaguely with his hands.

"I apologize for their exuberance, Phidias. They get it from Anthony, and I've never been quite able to train it out of them."

Mahir stopped just behind the group of children and grinned down at his friend. "So these are my sons - Khalil and Tony. Khalil's the little one."

Phidias waved shortly at all of them.

"Hello."

The boys glanced at each other, then at their carrier parent.

"Speak." Mahir prompted them, and they turned back to Phidias.

"Hello!" the pair chorused.

Mahir smiled proudly, then waved his arms at all of them.

"Alright, you've met him. Now shoo. Phidias is tired and he needs his rest."

The two little boys nodded solemnly, then grinned, looking for all the world like miniatures of both their parents.

"Bye, Dr. Phidias! Bye, Baba!" The elder, Tony, turned to Cadmus. "We're going out to the orchards. Are you coming with us?"

Caddy's eyes widened in delight, but then, remembering himself, he turned to his father.

"Dad?"

Phidias looked to Mahir, who shrugged.

"It's safe enough."

Phidias nodded.

"OK. But be safe. Play nice with each other."

Tony nodded seriously.

"I'll take good care of everybody, Dr. Phidias. I promise."

Phidias grinned weakly, and Mahir smiled proudly before shooing them off again.

"Good, good. Alright, go. To the orchards, and no farther. Remember you have Cadmus with you. Come back at dinnertime."

The boys grinned at their carrier parent and dashed off, Caddy following after them as fast as his long robes would allow.

When they were gone, Mahir seated himself next to Phidias on the cushioned bench.

"And how are you today, Dr. Angstrom?"

Phidias shrugged.

"Fine. A little ill. Achy. Hungry."

Mahir nodded.

"It's the heat. I ate incessantly with Khalil, when we were here. And I was always nauseous. With Tony, not so much. You've been sick again?"

"It comes and goes."

"Well, I've got something to take your mind off of it."

Phidias lifted his brow.

"Oh?"

Mahir nodded and gestured with one arm, the light fabrics he wore swirling around him.

"Your husband would like me to take you on a little trip. He wants to see you in his laboratory."

Phidias' expression shifted between surprise and apprehension.

"Why?"

Mahir shrugged in the casual way he had and stood up, encouraging Phidias to follow.

"Who knows? An afternoon tryst? Just come on, let's go."

Phidias shook his head.

"No."

Mahir tilted his head.

"No?"

"No. Tell me why he wants me and I'll come."

Mahir looked bemused.

"He's your husband. He - "

"Tell me what he wants me for," Phidias repeated, slowly but with meaning, "And I'll go."

Mahir raised an eyebrow and sat back down.

"He wants to run some preliminary tests."

"On what?"

Mahir hesitated, and Phidias wondered if the facts were really so secret, or if Mahir simply didn't really know.

"On the fetus. And you. To make sure you're both doing OK."

Phidias shook his head.

"The doctors already did that. They took seven different samples from me and it all got sent off to the main hospital in Al-Kuwayt. That was only a week ago. So there's something else."

Mahir fiddled with the tatting of his natori and was silent. Phidias shrugged and picked his book back up.

"I'll ask Henrik at dinner, then."

Mahir's head jerked up, his face tense. Ah, Phidias thought, that was interesting. It meant Mahir was afraid. Which meant one of two things: either Mahir had been assigned to bring him and was frightened of failure in his mission, or else Mahir had had strict orders not to arouse Phidias' suspicion, and now he had. Either way, it meant that Mahir was answering to someone, and was now reacting negatively to the possibility of some sort of recourse for things not going according to plan (on his end, at least).

"Well, it's not the same kind of test, Phidias." Mahir had regained his composure, and the smooth voice had returned. "This one's genetic. Far better than they could do in the labs in Al-Kuwayt. Henrik just wants - he's trying to see if the baby might be a carrier-in-womb, that's all."

Bewilderment took over Phidias's expression.

"This soon? But it's maybe a few weeks, at best. He can't tell this soon."

Mahir held Phidias's gaze evenly.

"Henrik can tell."

Phidias didn't know what to make of this.

"It's just one test?"

Mahir nodded brightly, but his hesitance to speak betrayed the lie.

Phidias shook his head.

"Lying. How many tests?"

"Maybe three. Some minor sample harvesting."

Phidias sat back in alarm.

"'Sample harvesting'?"

Mahir tried to soothe him.

"Just some swabs. Henrik needs new carrier tissue to replicate the - "

Mahir stopped abruptly, and there was silence. Phidias could see the tension writ into the other carrier's body, the way his eyes looked away and fingers grew tense against themselves. Phidias prompted him.

"The...?"

Mahir tilted his head.

"I'm sorry?"

Phidias frowned. He hated this game.

"The what? You were saying something."

Mahir shook his head.

"Sorry, you must have misheard me."

Phidias felt angry for just a thread of a second, then he calmly turned back to his book and ginger tea.

"Tell me or you go back to Henrik without me."

Mahir's eyebrows knitted together in worry.

Ah, Phidias realized, so it's Henrik he fears.

Mahir narrowed his eyes, bit his lower lip, then released it.

"He needs fresh tissue to replicate the Phantom." he told Phidias, as matter of factly as if he had just been asked how the weather was.

Phidias froze. His throat swelled too much for him to speak. His stomach lurched into his lungs and his brain thrashed against the sides of his skull. The Phantom? He had heard of it, sure. All carriers had. But it was just legend - modern myth. Unrealistic. Impossible. Phidias had even considered writing a paper on the subject before, in his former life. The Establishment and Evolution of a Modern Mythology: The Carrier 'Phantom'.

To think it was one thing - to hear it, another.

"Henrik makes the Phantom?" he managed, sounding as lost as he felt.

Mahir nodded slowly, and looked annoyed.

"How did you think all that business with Ghali came about? You can't be that oblivious, Phidias."

Phidias began to stutter out a response, but Mahir interrupted. "Now, don't go telling him I told you. We only all agreed on it last night - your getting full clearance. And I think he wanted to tell you everything himself, so that you would understand."

Phidias felt himself pale, and his head swam a little. Mahir watched him closely.

"Phidias? Are you OK?"

Phidias recovered enough to take a swig of his tea and set the mug down.

"I'm fine. Take me to Henrik."

~:~

"No, Danny. We're not going back. We're not ever going back."

Sheridan was near tears, but Soyinka felt there was little he could do to comfort him just now. He was still in shock himself.

The past three days had been a whirlwind. Aaron had left for home immediately after his meeting with Mac Scarborough, the little yellow paper still fluttering in his pocket like some crazed bird. He'd taken the train, not driven, and as he stood on the platform counting the minutes until he'd be back at home with Sheridan again, Aaron had deeply regretted that decision.

Neither James nor Harley had been home when he'd arrived, and that may have been for the best, because Aaron Soyinka knew his own rage, knew the depth of his anger at Harley for endangering Sheridan, and at James for just...being, and knew that the confrontation would have been horrible.

Instead, he'd gotten home and begun packing immediately, violently, wildly, until Sheridan came running in and begged him to stop, taken vases and ornaments and precious artifacts from his father out of his hands.

"Please!" he'd cried, not understanding his husband's anger, "You'll break them."

Soyinka had felt guilty then, but it had been too much to intake all at once, and Sheridan was too innocent and too available, so instead of showing him the paper, Aaron had just taken his carrier wife to bed and fucked him into silent senselessness.

~

In the morning, he hit Harley in the face, and didn't stop hitting him until Sheridan and James came running to pull them apart. Harley looked bewildered, and Aaron had just hissed "yellow sheet" which Sheridan didn't understand, but apparently Harley did because he relented and staggered backwards, ashamed.

James had relented, too, and hidden behind his husband.

Sheridan had been too preoccupied with getting an enraged Aaron up the stairs to worry about it.

~

"What happened?" Sheridan had asked, more than once.

"Disagreement." Soyinka had grunted out because he hadn't had the heart to tell Sheridan the truth. Hadn't had the heart to break the news that James was not his friend, never loved him, just was a madman with an insatiable hole inside of him that could only be filled with flesh.

"Harley's a dick. That's all."

Sheridan frowned and shook his curly head.

"But that dick's still your friend. One fight can't end a friendship, you know? James and I fight, really bad sometimes, but we're still friends. We still stay together. We still love each other."

Aaron had looked at his carrier more accusingly than he'd meant to then, but only because the thought has risen in his mind, the question: How much does he know? and then he immediately shut that line of thought down because Sheridan was too innocent and too perfect to have ever gone that way.

"Harley and I aren't friends. We're not anything to each other any more."

Even saying that hurt, but putting Sheridan in danger hurt more. Better one broken heart than two.

They moved on, temporarily, to a room on the third floor of the B&B where the two of them had first met. Sheridan stood in front of him, wearing one of Aaron's sweaters (two sizes too large for him, but he favored it) with his eyes brimming and lower lip trembling.

"But, Aaron, please - he's my friend! He's my only friend, and you can't just take him away from me like that!"

Aaron Soyinka shook his head.

"No, Sheridan. We're not going back."

Sheridan felt the himself push beyond the pale, beyond the breaking point and into the realm of raw anger.

"But, Aaron, I - "

"Sheridan, no! Dammit! No calls, no visits! We are not going back. Not now, not later, not fucking ever! Do you understand me?!"

Sheridan froze, then seized up and his breath hitched like he couldn't find it and he finally did and it was awful.

Shaking his head, his hands, his whole body, he turned his rage in full on Soyinka.

"Fuck you, Aaron, fuck you!  You sick son of a bitch, you selfish child of a man! I never thought you were like this; I never thought you were this cruel, but you are! You're just as sick and evil and mean as the rest of them. You think you're better, but you're not better - you're not better than anyone. You're an obsessed, insecure pseudo-intellectual who can't control himself or his emotions and lets his carrier suffer as a result. I fucking hate you, and I will never forgive you for this! Do you understand me? Not now, not later, not fucking ever!"

Soyinka felt each of these arrows pierce him, and wanted to raise a shield to defend himself, but found himself unable somehow. He took the abuse.

"Sheridan, I'm sorry."

"Fuck your sorry! You made me move out! You made me pack all our shit! You took my only friend! My only fucking friend!! Fuck..."

Sheridan took an angry minute to collect himself, then simply looked at Soyinka, shook his head, and ran out of the room.

Aaron watched him go, torn between letting him leave and wanting him back. The suite they were staying in was not very large - two rooms and kitchenette - and so the carrier could not have gone too far.

Perhaps I should tell him, Aaron thought, not for the first time. But that would be too much. This was already too much. For a newly changed carrier and a barely-made babe, this was already too much.

Soyinka scolded himself. If he'd had his wits about him, he'd had thought of a better way to do this. Come back to the house and taken Sheridan on vacation somewhere, maybe England. Found a job there and never returned. Not come home angry, making an incomprehensible scene.

But that was what had happened. And what was done was done. They could only go forward.

~:~

They took the interior route to the laboratory - through the labyrinthine tunnels that stretched out beneath the basements of Wafra, until they were arriving above ground again, in a silvery hallway that looked sterile and empty.

"This way."

Mahir led eagerly, Phidias trailing behind. From the speed of his walking and the merry chatter he kept up, Phidias could tell the other carrier was excited about where they were going. Remarkable, he thought, how much passion the group of them had for this place.

"My darling!" Henrik looked up from where he was bent over some notebooks to hold his arms out to his carrier wife. "Come, see my office."

Mahir hung back a little, uncertain whether to stay or go.

"Thank you, Mahir, for bringing him."

It was a clear dismissal, but Mahir lingered for another minute.

"Henrik, could I just maybe - "

"Mahir." Henrik's voice was gentle, but implacable. "Anthony has told you no."

Mahir clenched his fists.

"We're supposed to be a team, you know. He's not the boss."

Henrik stared him down for a long minute.

"He is your husband, Mahir. Not me."

After Mahir had left, Phidias turned to Henrik.

"What was that about?"

Henrik shrugged it off.

"Mahir's no longer allowed to work in the lab interior. Anthony felt the lab conditions were too dangerous. He's not yet adjusted to that."

Henrik led the way through a set of glass doors which buzzed, then swished open at their approach.

"Advanced biometrics." Henrik explained. "I had them programmed to your settings last night."

Phidias looked duly impressed. Henrik led him into a windowless office with a large, cherry oak desk in the middle of it. He gestured to two gray leather chairs.

"Sit, please. Let's talk. I'm sure you have questions."

Phidias did sit, quickly. The air in this room felt stuffy, and it made him feel queasy again. He swallowed it.

"So what is it, exactly, that you do?" Henrik took a breath to answer and Phidias held a hand up. "And give me a real answer, please. Not the party line."

Henrik inclined his head.

"Alright. I'm a scientist. I research carrier genetics. Have for many years. I find solutions to genetic problems, and I sell these solutions to various entities."

Phidias hesitated.

"Did you make the Phantom?"

Henrik raised an eyebrow.

"Now who put that idea in your - "

"I'm not stupid, Henrik. You changed Ghali with it, didn't you?"

Henrik inclined his head and Phidias took several deep breaths to steady himself.

"Do you sell it?"

Henrik's mouth quirked up into a wry grin.

"No. In fact, I am paid handsomely not to sell it."

"Why?"

Henrik shrugged.

"Power. Control. Nobody wants the other side to win."

"Who pays you?"

"Your government. Several governments."

Phidias paused.

"Including your own?"

Henrik just smiled.

Phidias swallowed again.

"May I have some water?"

Henrik jumped to his feet.

"Of course. Are you feeling alright? You've eaten, I presume? Are you sick again?"

Phidias shook his head.

"I'm fine. Just...water?"

Henrik crossed the room to a mini-bar and retrieved a carafe of water. He poured some into a glass, which he trotted back over to Phidias. He waited patiently while Phidias drank.

"More?"

Phidias shook his head.

"So you work on a team? With Mahir and Tyson and Everett and all of them?"

Henrik nodded.

"Did you all create the Phantom together?"

"You presume that we created it at all."

"Did you?"

Henrik shrugged.

"90% discovery. 10% creation."

Phidias's heart was pounding. His palms felt sweaty.

"So did you make the plague, too? This whole thing? Is the whole world your creation? Did you kill all those people?"

Henrik's eyebrows lifted, and he laughed.

"Flattering to know that you think so highly of my abilities, Phidias, but no. I am not responsible for that much."

Phidias nodded. At least that fear was assuaged.

"But you make the shot for it, don't you? What else do you make?"

Henrik hesitated.

"A vaccine."

Phidias' eyes widened.

"You can stop the Change?"

"Not stop it, not reverse it - only prevent it."

"Did you take the vaccine?"

"Of course."

"Did Anders?"

"Yes."

"And the rest?"

"Except for Mahir, Amin, Tyson, and Denis. They took the change."

Phidias was bewildered.

"Why?"

Henrik lifted a corner of his mouth.

"Any truly good scientist tests his creation on himself."

He looked away, reflecting. "Also, they had some idea of creating a world for ourselves here. Mahir and Anthony were already in love, and Denis and Josef were not far behind. Amin was a surprise. And Tyson...that's new."

"And Ghali?"

Henrik's face darkened.

"Ghali was never intended to be a part of any experiment at all."

This seemed to be a sore spot, and so Phidias left it. There was a more pressing question in his mind anyway.

"Am I a part of your experiments?"

Without pause, Henrik answered.

"Yes."

Phidias felt the floor spin out from under him. He managed to stay upright in the chair.

"How? Tell me. Everything."

Henrik looked troubled.

"You changed. Cadmus changed. The circumstances were unusual - two close relatives, living together, changing so close to one another. It has been theorized that an element of the change is environmental - if the senses are overwhelmed with male presence, certain sequences can be flicked on or off, triggering the change. That couldn't have been the case with you and Cadmus. Close relatives almost never change, and certainly not within the same year."

Henrik was mostly thinking aloud now.

"There may be something particular about the two of you - something innate that yields the change all on its own. If so, it may represent a new shift in the direction of the condition. If the process is changing, the Phantom may become obsolete. I need to observe you both, to understand. To try to see if a new pattern is emerging."

An awful thought suddenly struck Phidias in the center of his chest.

"So is that the reason you married me?"

Henrik's face took on a look of shock, then a slight pain. He shook his head.

"No, Phidias. Certainly not. I married you because you are handsome and interesting and exceedingly clever."

"And an ideal test subject."

"Phidias, that's not it."

"But it's part of it. It's the reason you courted me."

"Phidias - "

"Admit it, Henrik!"

Henrik leapt to his feet, knocking a sheaf of papers to the floor as he did so.

"IF I HAD WANTED YOU, Phidias, no government in the world would have denied me that. I would have given them your name and you would have been delivered to my doorstep." Henrik snapped. "I didn't need to waste time with scientific lectures and expensive dinners. I didn't have to marry you to get what I wanted."

Phidias felt struck, not only by Henrik's anger, but also by his husband's casual admittance of his own power. The room swirled a little around him; he felt light-headed.

"OK. OK." he swallowed, trying to get a grip on himself again. Henrik had calmed down, and was now leaning against the desk looking embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

"It's fine. I didn't - it's fine."

"Are you OK?" he asked, concerned.

Phidias nodded.

"Yep. Yeah, I'm fine. I have another question."

Henrik's brows came together.

"OK. One more and then back home to rest. You are getting pale again."

Phidias licked his lips where they felt dry.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

Henrik took a deep breath.

"Because there's a problem." he frowned. "We think the virus leaked."

Phidias' eyes widened.

"Leaked? Where? How?"

Henrik frowned deeply.

"We don't know. The only ones with access to our work are the original team, including myself. And," he hesitated again, "- and also Amin."

Phidias looked confused.

"Amin was not part of the team?"

Henrik tilted his head indulgently.

"Now, Phidias. That's four questions too many. Come, it's rest time."

"No! No. Please, Henrik. Just tell me all of it now."

Henrik seemed to consider this, then spoke.

"Amin was a street child. Cary took him in when he was 17." Henrik hesitated. "It was...a questionable situation. But they persisted. He had Amin's loyalty, for who knows what reason. Eventually, he insisted on bringing him into the circle. Although he had no training, he could run certain things for us - go into the communities near here, blend in, ask questions, gather certain things we needed. He was useful, and we let him stay."

"And now you think he's the leak?"

Henrik shrugged.

"There may even be no leak. It may all be some fool's fanciful fairy tales."

Phidias stared at him.

"Explain."

"Two days ago, a man confessed to murder. Under interrogation, he said that it had been done to protect a secret formula that had been told to him - the recipe, so to speak, to initiate the Change."

"Another Phantom."

Henrik gave a short nod.

"The man does seem to have an unusually high occurrence of carriers in his immediate vicinity."

"What's his vicinity?"

Henrik frowned, trying to remember the details.

"A town called Woodacre. It's a compound, I think. Part of some cult they call Dothan."

Phidias struggled to try to place the name. It sounded familiar, somehow...

"So you think he might be telling the truth?"

"I plead with the universe that he is not."

"Why not?"

Henrik looked at Phidias, exasperated.

"War. Destruction. Societal collapse. Riots. Genocide. We are the limiting element in a formula that includes every single living human in the world, Phidias. But if a new reagent were added, if the balance of the formula were to change..."

Phidias swallowed.

"So what are you going to do?"

"Invalidate him. Prove his virus is false, or invalid, or obsolete."

"And if it's not?"

"Make it so."

"How?"

Henrik raised an eyebrow.

"I was hoping that you and Cadmus and the baby could help me with that."

Phidias nodded, then swallowed.

"So what if it doesn't work? What if I'm not anything special? What if you can't make a new, or a better virus, or if nothing else is changing?"

Without taking a breath, Henrik responded,

"Then we destroy Dothan."

~:~