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vAMP
by Taylor Calder
For my Doki
Six months into her
infection and Victoria still hates the smell of blood.
It's just after eight in the morning in France, and her client is
telling her the exact size that items should be on the storefront page. Enough
to fit columns of three in a standard browser window. Does she get that?
Columns of three.
“Oui,” she says, “oui.” She lets them do most of the talking as a
rule so they won't pick up on her accent, but right now she can barely speak at
all. She is in the bathroom burning down to ash, or so it feels. She’s afraid
she’s going to drop the phone. Or crush it.
Keep it together Victoria, she tells herself. You really need the
money.
She tears the cap off the blood bag with her teeth. There it is,
that metallic smell. It drips down her fingers. Revolting.
She tilts her head back and begins to drink. The virus's grip on
her loosens as she does. Muscles relaxing, mind clearing, vAMP downregulating.
Relief.
Someone asks if she is perhaps having a morning glass of wine, to
a chorus of mild French laughter.
Victoria returns it. Her teeth stained red. She tells them she
missed her morning espresso and is doubling her dose to catch up. Not that it's
espresso hour for her, either; it's just after two in the morning here in her
Cabbagetown walk-up. They laugh again, but she curses at herself. She knows
nothing of the coffee culture in France. They might not even drink espresso.
The white-hot edge of paranoia presses against her neck. Any
inconsistency could lead to her getting reported, and getting reported would
lead to a lifetime of experimentation at best, and at worst…
Images from the Hive chat come to her. Bodies mutilated, burnt to
structural distortion, mouths open in permanent screams. Above the corpses, a
sign reminds the staff that any suspicious activity among family or colleagues
must be reported. The bottom corner features an image of a syringe over what
could be either a maple leaf or a stylized flame – the logo for SOQA, the
Southern Ontario Quarantine Authority. In one of them you could even see
Commandant Todde, the province’s interim leader and most valiant anti-vAMP
crusader, giving the thumbs up to a pile of freshly-burned corpses.
Victoria sucks the blood from her fingers as quietly as she can
while six thousand kilometers away, the committee discusses their choice of
font. They have always liked Helvetica, they say.
Of course, she tells them in French. Licks crusting blood from the corners of her lips. Of course.
