Germline: The Subterrene War: Book 1 (40 page)
Lightning flashed in the distance, toward the ocean, and a few seconds later came the crack, making me flinch involuntarily. Suddenly the lights flickered back on. Almost at the same time, my phone went off, and I ducked through the curtains, back into my room, where I grabbed it before the third beep.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end spoke perfect English, and I recognized it as the concierge’s. “Mr. Wendell, there’s a young lady here to see you. Shall I send her up?”
My throat went dry. I wanted to say yes, and tried, but I couldn’t figure out the word until finally it came out in such a hoarse whisper that I would have sworn that someone else had said it.
“Fine,” he said, “she’ll be there momentarily.”
Time went into slow motion, and as soon as I hung up, my feet shuffled across the floor, bringing me slowly toward the door until I stopped ten feet away, pausing to catch my breath and figure out what to say. I’d just decided on saying “hi” when someone knocked.
She stood in the doorway, smiling, and wore a minidress and some kind of combat boots, making me realize I’d underestimated how amazing she looked. “Hello, Oscar.”
“It’s not Sunday.”
“I couldn’t wait until Sunday.”
“Good for you.”
It took me less than a second to carry her to the bed and toss her there before climbing on top, and we kissed for a long time, until she stopped me.
“I’ve been here two weeks.”
“What?” I asked. “Why didn’t you come find me?”
“My sisters took me in, made me see a special Thai doctor—one who reverses our spoiling and fixes everything, things the French medication didn’t. It was… painful. But everything is OK now; they have wonderful doctors here.”
I pushed her dress up, barely able to control myself, but she stopped me again.
“Wait. There’s something you have to know.”
“What?”
“I can have children now.”
And that was when I decided to have my first kid. Having Sophie was like sinking into a dream that I never thought would become real, but did, and then once I got it, I realized that the real thing was even
better
than the dream. She moaned and I went faster. She grabbed my arms in that grip of hers and I bit her neck until she cried out, and when it was all over, we just stared at each other for about an hour.
“Let’s keep doing that until I’m pregnant,” she said.
“Yeah. Let’s.”
“And don’t leave me. Ever.”
I
t’s been ten years and the cockroaches still visit me. You never get rid of the things entirely, and that’s another shitty thing about war: it leaves a mark like a scar, which fades over time but never really goes away, except that
this
scar is on your soul. Sophie knows enough about the roaches to leave me alone when they come, and usually I crawl into bed or curl up in a corner of our house to cry it off, but the really bad ones come at night to force me awake with the sudden realization that nothing will ever be OK again. But it doesn’t happen as often as it used to.
I got a call from Dan once, a few months back, and he said that he’d gotten married and they’d like to come to Bangkok for their honeymoon. “Sure,” I said. It was a decent time, but we left them alone for the most part, because neither of them was totally cool with Sophie, and it pissed me off, but Sophie didn’t mind, because to her Dan didn’t matter. And he told us about the Brit. The guy had stayed in the Legion and got his wish—a return to Africa, where an APC ran over him in the darkness of some mosquito-infested shithole. Dan didn’t know what
had happened to the kid, and I never found out—probably never will.
The simplest way to explain all this—what I learned and what it all meant to me—came from a drunken Australian I met in a local bar one night, when he asked me about my scars. I told him how they happened and he laughed.
“Why’d you go to war if you didn’t have to, mate?” he asked.
“I wanted to see it,” I said, “to experience it, like maybe it would make me a better person, like maybe I’d grow up.”
“And did you?”
“Yeah. In a way.”
“To hell with that, mate. You’re just crazy. You know how I know?”
I shook my head. “How?”
“Because there are heaps better ways to grow up, mate.
Heaps.
”
There wasn’t anything to say, because he was right. Sophie and I have two kids already, and if there’s any way to do it, my plan is to have them grow up the easy way. If I can do
that,
maybe they’ll never meet any cockroaches.
This book wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my wife, Carolyn, and the understanding of my children, Liam, Lily, and Reece. Thanks also to my mom and my sister. Special appreciation goes to Alberto Patiño Douce (who taught me to think), Gena Harper (who taught me to believe), and John Swegle (who taught me the value of money). Others were equally instrumental in getting
Germline
out: Nick Mamatas, for critiquing the original novelette; Lou Anders, for introducing me to so many in the genre; DongWon Song, my editor, for working with an unknown; and my agent, Alex Field, for believing in
Germline
from the start. Last I’d like to thank Edmond Chang, who deserves special recognition because he taught me how to write; for that there are no adequate words of thanks.
For George Plimpton, and Kevin, and Scott.
T. C. M
C
C
ARTHY
earned a BA from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of Georgia before embarking on a career that gave him a unique perspective as a science fiction author. From his time as a patent examiner in complex biotechnology, to his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, T.C. has studied and analyzed foreign militaries and weapons systems. T.C. was at the CIA during the September 11 terrorist attacks and was still there when US forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, allowing him to experience warfare from the perspective of an analyst. Find out more about the author at
www.tcmccarthy.com
.
If you could go back and give advice to the sixteen-year-old T. C. McCarthy, what would it be?
You’ll be bald by thirty-six, so enjoy having hair now.
Give a brief arc of your writing career; how’d you get started?
Look, I’m no different than any other writer; I’ve always written. But what’s more important is that I’ve always read. Magazines, comic books, graffiti, and books—you name it and I’ve read it. Childhood meant California—Bay Area—and our mom had this thing about no television, so she threw it away, which meant we could either go home with a latchkey or trip it to the library (riding a bike), where we’d read for a while, then throw water balloons at cars. There was a lot of running from neighborhood bullies too, and, after that, more reading. So by the time I picked up a pen (we didn’t have computers in the ’70s and early ’80s, and forget about having access to a
typewriter), I’d already gotten that sense of story. Constant reading branded it into my brain. And story-sense provided enough juice to keep me going through the early stages, when writing was about fumbling with words more than working with them, but to be honest, the story-sense was a curse at first. I knew the kinds of stories I wanted to write. But that’s not the same thing as being able to put the words on paper, and it took twenty-five years of practice before I wrote anything worth reading, let alone anything someone would buy.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given when it comes to writing?
To not become a writer. George Plimpton gave the commencement address at my high school, so what did I do? I walked right up to the guy and said,
Mr.-Plimpton-I’d-really-like-to-be-a-writer-can-you-give-me-any-advice?
Like he’d never been asked
that
before. Well, George gets this look on his face, like he needs to find the can, and then takes a deep breath before shaking his head. And that voice; you know the one: pompous and arrogant but with the chops to back it up, so you just let it steamroll. “Don’t do it,” said George. “There are far too many of us in the world already and you’d be better off going into banking, or being a doctor or lawyer.” What in hell did you say to something like that?
Except…
Plimpton was right. UVA’s creative writing program denied me entry (I submitted science fiction as a writing sample, which apparently was a big no-no), so the dean gave me permission to drop out and surf Australia; I gave
up on the whole English major/MFA thing. Still, here’s the thing: I wrote. Never stopped. By then someone had invented a thing called a PC, then the laptop, which made writing easy, and my eventual path as a PhD student and scientist primed me with all kinds of material that I never would have gotten had I concentrated on being “a writer” from the first day of college. Here’s to you, Plimpton.
You’ve written short stories for literary, horror, and science fiction venues. What gives? Can’t you just pick one? Which do you like best when it comes to short stories?
First let me caveat my answer: I have a lot to learn. There are plenty of writers out there who can define what literary fiction is, and I’ve read the blog wars over the Academy snubbing genre writers, etc., but these discussions are beyond me. So right now, none of that stuff matters; I write and read. Sometimes I feel a mainstream/literary story in my gut, and it just comes out, and I’ve had success with those, having published in
Per Contra
and
Story Quarterly.
I’ve only written two literary shorts, so that’s a one thousand batting average! In fact, I wrote my first literary story because my SF had been rejected so often from pro venues that I was furious and decided screw it—time to write something else. In contrast to the SF venues, a professional-rate online magazine bought that short story within a month of my submitting it. What the hell does that mean?
And no, I can’t just pick one genre and don’t have a favorite—anything goes.
Who is your favorite author?
Here are my favorites by country:
USA: Ray Bradbury, Michael Herr, Joe Haldeman
UK: Hector H. Munro, George Orwell, John Christopher
France: Guy Sajer
Russia: Artyom Borovik
Kazakhstan: Kanatzhan Alibekov
Israel: Ron Lesham
You have a day job and a family; when do you write?
On my days off, but usually between eight and eleven p.m. and four and seven a.m. I get very little sleep. Maybe that’s why so many of my stories and books tend to be dark.
The protagonist in
Germline
is an interesting character with some major flaws; how did you choose that guy, and what went into fleshing out Oscar Wendell?
I’ll never reveal everything about that process; it was personal. But Oscar is like a lot of people I’ve known growing up, especially in a world where children are exposed to drugs at an early age. For guys like Oscar it’s too great a temptation. I mean, of course people will take or drink “stuff” that makes them forget that they’re embarrassed to dance in public, makes them uninhibited when it comes to talking to the opposite sex, and makes them, essentially, fearless. These, however, are lies. In the case of Oscar, addiction prevents him from learning fundamental
principles “normal” people take for granted, like the fact that using war as a springboard to fame is insane. Oscar, however, is lucky. I’ve known plenty of people who go down a similar path and don’t make it back alive or, if they do, are just damaged goods. I wanted a character that overcomes all that; in a way,
Germline
is a coming-of-age story (albeit an unusual one).