Darrel Bain - Prion Promises

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Double Dragon Publication

www.double-dragon-ebooks.com

First published by DDP, October 2004

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or

distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper

print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe

fines or imprisonment.

Prion Promises

by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of Double Dragon Publishing Inc. of Markham Ontario, Canada.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic,

or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval

system, without the permission in writing from Double Dragon Publishing Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or

dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by:

Double Dragon eBooks

PO Box 54016 1-5762 Highway 7 East

Markham, Ontario L3P 7Y4 CANADA

double-dragon-ebooks.com

Layout and Cover Illustration by Deron Douglas

ISBN: 1-55404-178-3

First Edition eBook Publication October 4, 2004

PRION PROMISES

A STRANGE VALLEY NOVEL

Darrell Bain

DEDICATION

To Jamie Jones and Gregory Sorenson and to all the other policemen and law officers in the country who

protect and serve us twenty four hours a day, almost always in unseen ways, sometimes giving their lives,

and all too often providing much better service to our communities, towns and cities than our behavior

deserves.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I originally said that if I wrote another novel about Strange Valley it would probably be titled

DISPERSAL: A STRANGE VALLEY NOVEL. Up until a short time ago, I still was fixed on that title.

And then this one suddenly popped into my mind and I decided I like it better. Maybe this will teach me

not to try giving a book a title until I've written it first. At any rate, here it is, the second book in THE

STRANGE VALLEY Universe. It is not necessary to read the first book before this one. Each stands

alone and the two are related only in that they have some of the same characters and the premise of how

their prions function is the same.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Jamie Jones for educating me in some aspects of firearms and for preventing me

from introducing some erroneous information into this book. The specs on the new Urban Assault

Weapon listed in the appendix are taken from a weapon he designed, but which has not been

manufactured, at least in that form.

My thanks also go to Deron Douglas and Lida E. Quillen, two of my publishers, for their help in getting

my books out into the world.

CHAPTER ONE

Daniel Stenning was having intermittent problems seeing the big screen taking up most of one wall of the

spacious den in Tyrone Beamer's apartment, built into the Genetechnics plant owned by him. The plant

was located halfway up the “mountain", actually a large hill, that overlooked Masterville Valley . Daniel's

visual problems were caused by Lisa Berry, who was sitting in his lap. Periodically, she insinuated herself

between his gaze and the screen by placing her lips against his or tickling his neck and ear with her

tongue. He had to admit that it was much more pleasant than watching the inauguration of the new

president, what with his adjective-laden speech about “new paradigms", “reaching out generously to

others” and the like. Nevertheless, he thought they should watch it. The new president's thinking could

have enormous implications for their future.

"Do you really want to sit through the rest of this?” Lisa murmured against his lips, then slid her tongue

partway into his mouth. Strands of straight red hair tickled the arm he was supporting her with, and more

strands blurred his vision.

"We should. What he says may mean a lot for our future."

Lisa blew at the vagrant wisp of hair. “Oh, poo. He's not going to say anything in this speech that means

a hill of beans and you know it."

Dan had to admit she was right, but nevertheless...

Lisa moved back to his ear with her tongue, making him laugh, even as he felt the familiar warmth she

always induced begin to build in his body. Lisa wasn't bashful at all; very few of the Masterville women

were. She didn't care that others were in the room with them, watching the same speech.

"If you're that interested, you can watch it from bed,” Lisa whispered.

Daniel squirmed and ran his hand up the length of her bare thigh to where her shorts began. “Would we

watch?"

"You can if you like. I'll be busy.” Her tongue moved in his ear, making promises.

Daniel stood up abruptly, dumping her from his lap, but catching her hand to prevent her from going

sprawling. He drew her to him. He was learning not to be embarrassed, too. “All right, let's go."

Just as they turned their back on the rest of the group, the volume and character of the broadcast

changed abruptly. He heard screams, shouts, crashing sounds and a cacophony of voices going shrill with

excitement, all trying to speak at once. He whirled back around to see what was happening.

On the screen, Daniel could see a tangle of bodies bent over a figure, with the commentator shouting that

the President had been shot, and being overridden by other voices yelling unintelligibly. He felt Lisa

gripping his hand fiercely. The scene opened up momentarily, showing the new president laying on his

back with blood pouring from his mouth while hands and heads came into view, and receded just as

quickly. He heard cries for a doctor and other voices yelling for an ambulance. In the background, the

huge crowd that had gathered in the Washington Memorial Plaza for the inauguration was moving like a

huge erratic amoeba, with pseudopods of humanity going first this way then that, but making little overall

progress. The wail of sirens sounded in the background and became louder and louder.

Daniel didn't have to look any longer, even though he still stared at the chaotic scene. He had seen death

before and he knew that President Sheffield was a goner. The blood had been coming from a hole in his

chest directly over the heart as well as from his mouth. He found himself thinking that whoever shot him

must be an excellent marksman.

"We're in for it now,” Tyrone Beamer said.

Daniel looked over Lisa's shoulder. Tyrone Beamer, the head of Beamer research and the true leader of

Masterville Valley was shaking his head, lips drawn into a grim line.

"Why?” Lisa said. “We didn't do it."

"We'll be blamed for it, if for no other reason than that religious bigot who's going to be president now."

Daniel felt his stomach knotting in distress. Tyrone was ahead of the rest of them, as he usually was.

John Sheffield had selected Manfred Williamson as his running mate, a southern born again Christian, in

order to help pull in the votes of the fundamentalist and religious right wing of the party. Before that,

Williamson was one of the ones who had called for isolation, if not outright imprisonment, of the

population of Masterville Valley. “Mutant Atheist Prion People", he had labeled them, ignoring other

voices like the Surgeon General, who advised against any sort of pogrom. And though the people of

Masterville weren't exactly confined to the valley, one battalion of the army brigade that had been moved

in by the previous president was still in place. Theoretically, it was to keep tourists away from the area

that had been contaminated by a dirty bomb, one that a rouge cabal of the National Security Agency had

exploded close to one of the passes leading into the valley, but Daniel knew that wasn't the only reason.

They were there as the forerunner of even more troops if they were needed—and he knew who defined

“need". The media kept the valley in the spotlight because of the differences of its population from the

norm; differences that he knew could instigate violence from bigoted know-it-alls at the drop of a

politician's speech or the whim of a publicity-seeking preacher.

Daniel started to comment about Masterville taking the blame for the assassination but Lisa shushed him

by pushing him back down into the chair where they had been sitting and again plopping down into his

lap. “Just watch for now,” she said.

As it had in the past, the assassination played out on television during the long afternoon in all its gory

detail, with disoriented reporters probing at every possible ramification, like a hive of bees swarming over

a single honeycomb. The group in the apartment stayed silent as the big wall screen eventually showed

feeds of the new president taking the oath of office, his cherubic face belied by hooded gray eyes

resembling those of a lizard. There were flecks of blood spattered on the jacket of his light gray suit.

Daniel, being a natural cynic so far as politicians were concerned, was certain that he had kept wearing

the blood-adorned garment purposely, knowing it would make a great image for later use.

When the screen began showing reruns from just after the assassination, where the new president had

disappeared from view into a phalanx of limousines headed back to the White House, Tyrone Beamer

shut off the television. He got up from where he had been sitting with Marybeth Chambers, his part time

lover, and went to the bar to freshen their drinks. Daniel suspected that only the succession of crisis’ over

the last year or so had prevented them from making their relationship exclusive, or as exclusive as

Masterville people ever got. Or perhaps not; he and Lisa had been out of circulation, away from the

valley for most of those months. They could have tied the knot for all he knew, though he doubted it;

marriage wasn't a big thing here.

Tyrone sipped at his new drink as he leaned back against the bar. He said nothing, but raised bushy red

eyebrows, denoting that the subject of President Williamson was open for debate.

Daniel had a question for him immediately. “Tyrone, a while ago you said >we're in for it, now'. You

didn't mean immediately, did you?"

Tyrone rubbed at the beginning of reddish whiskers on his chin. “Hard to say, Dan. For certain, there's

going to be those who blame us immediately, not even stopping to consider how much better off we

would have been, relatively speaking, with Sheffield than with Williamson. But officially, I'd say it won't

begin right away. Williamson may be ignorant about most things, but he's no dummy when it comes to

politics. He'll let things stew a bit, then hop on us when he needs to stir up the people to get his points

across in Congress. And that's the real problem: the House and Senate are split three ways just about

evenly now between the conservatives, religionists and the moderate factions. It won't take much

agitation to swing the majority against us, and he has two years to work at it."

Lisa leaned forward a bit from her position in Daniel's lap. “Daniel and I have been outside the valley for

months, Tyrone. I can tell you, the people are jittery. Most of them still don't quite know what to think of

us, and the religious-minded are damned scared of getting infected with our prions for fear they'll turn into

atheists. They think we're emissaries from the devil. Or the fundamentalists do, anyway."

She leaned back against Daniel, making him speak past her freckles. “Lisa didn't mention that there are

lots of people who want our prions, especially for their kids. There's even a black market, despite the

penalties for selling them."

"Which means there are a few sane people out there,” Gina Lesters, one of Beamer's administrative

assistants said. “And we know about how many, since we supply the black market.” Like Tyrone

Beamer, she was a redhead. There were lots of redheads in Masterville.

Timothy Powers, Tyrone's other administrative assistant said “There's more than a few; more like fifteen

percent, maybe."

"What are you talking about?” Lisa asked, covering Daniel's hand where his fingers had begun tickling

her bare knee.

"That's our estimate of the percentage of the population who don't believe in religion at all.” Timothy said.

He ran his fingers through thinning brown hair and smiled at Gina.

"And everyone else is insane, is that what you're saying?"

Tyrone spoke for him. He grinned, making him look younger than the mid-forties he admitted to. “Look

at it like this,” he said. “Suppose that you not only went around telling people that you regularly talked to

an invisible superman, but that you did it in public. Further, suppose you claimed that this invisible

superman was responsible for everything either good or evil that happened to you and that if you were

good and pleaded with him, that he would sometimes intervene in your behalf and help you, and that if

you didn't believe this, you would be punished terribly, either in this life or when you die. Suppose that

you regularly thanked this invisible entity for your every meal in public, out loud, and talked over your

affairs with him at regular intervals, pleading for guidance. Then just think: if you called your superman

anything but God, you would be judged totally insane and locked up for the rest of your life!"

Everyone in the room burst out laughing.

"Bravo!” Eileen Tupper said, clapping her hands. She was the Mayor of Masterville, a slim woman with a

sharp voice and an angular face. “Now I know why I like you, Tyrone. You don't take prisoners."

That got another laugh from everyone but Tyrone.

"I'm perfectly serious, he said. “I believe most of humanity is slightly insane, by our standards. A belief in

invisible entities who are responsible for all the unexplained phenomena which scared our cave-men

ancestors witless came into being as a survival trait. As our distant ancestors gained in intelligence, that

was the only thing that kept them from becoming quivering hulks, just waiting for the next bolt of lightning

to strike. And it helped to alleviate the all pervasive fear of death, too. Just remember that back then,

death occurred openly, not hidden away in hospitals, and a great deal of death was violent. Thinking that

superbeings would succor you after you died helped to control the fear of death. And then, like any other

basic trait that becomes expressed in behavior, institutions grew up around it. And once established, the

institutions acted as any other group led by humans always have; they did their damndest to perpetuate

themselves. Thus we have religion, with all its quirks and irrationality. But we should also remember that

the religion genes helped humanity to survive at one point in our evolution. Unfortunately, the genes for it

are still around after we no longer need them."

"That only applies to some people, Tyrone,” Lisa said gently, then added, “but you're perfectly correct

about the rest, those where the expression of the genes that hadn't been moderated by environment. Hell,

I always feel like an alien at a human convention when I'm somewhere that praying is going on, or even

when someone insists on saying grace before a meal. That's kind of rare here, but Dan and I ran across it

a lot on the outside."

"Well, sure you feel odd. I do myself. That just goes along with the fact that so many people are

constitutionally unable to live without religion—unless they grew up with our prions, of course."

"And they can't help it, for the most part."

"True, but that doesn't help us, either.” Lisa got up and headed for the bar, knowing that Daniel was

ready for another drink. She was ready, too. This was not turning into a good day.

"We've strayed,” Eileen said. “What I want to know is how the new administration is going to treat us, so

I can prepare the city for whatever may happen.” She joined Lisa at the bar and held out her glass for a

refill.

"You're a politician; you should be a better judge of that than I am,” Tyrone said.

"You know better, Tyrone. I'm not a politician. The voters keep me in office because I do a damn good

job, that's all. You're the one who knows how Washington works."

"No one knows how Washington works,” Tyrone said. “It's gotten beyond reason."

"You know what I mean. How long will it take Williamson and his crowd of fanatics to get their act

together?"

Tyrone conceded. “A couple of months, at least, I'd say. He'll have to search out a lot of new people to

fill posts that Sheffield already had picked others for before he can do much of anything."

"Good,” Lisa said. “In that case, Daniel and I have other things to take care of.” She picked up their

refilled glasses and motioned to Daniel. He got up and took one of them from her. She grabbed his other

hand and tugged. “C'mon, Mutant Atheist Prion Person, let's go do this and that."

Chuckles followed them out of the door, but they started an exodus. Others wandered off to their rooms,

or back down the mountain, as it was called, to the city, leaving Tyrone and Marybeth alone. She

promptly draped herself around Tyrone.

"I think Dan and Lisa had a good idea. Let's go do some this and that, too. We can go over Dan and

Lisa's report later."

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DoubleDragonPublicationwww.double-dragon-ebooks.comCopyright©2004byDarrellBainFirstpublishedbyDDP,October2004NOTICE:Thisworkiscopyrighted.Itislicensedonlyforusebytheoriginalpurchaser.Makingcopiesofthisworkordistributingittoanyunauthorizedpersonbyanymeans,includingwithoutlimitemail,floppydisk,filetra...

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