Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction

by Nalo Hopkinson

  They find the whole thing pretty funny. They don’t think about what it implies, the terrible fragility of all the interconnected systems that constitute their everyday world. And they’ll be laughing less in a few minutes: from where you’re standing, on the edge of the crowd, you can see a squad of police in riot gear coming down University double-time, from the René-Lévesque Station. They’re not going to pull any punches; they’ve put on their gas masks. Time to resume your walk. You move away, not running but walking fast, towards Place des Arts and you slip into the nearest metro entrance. Another little tour through the underground shopping mall, where one can spend entire days in pure consumer ecstasy sheltered from inclement weather and politics — until the day, inevitable and likely close at hand, when someone will manage to slip some Sarin gas or some other similar goodie into the ventilation system. Who knows, maybe today? No, it would take something worse than not-even- Islamist terrorists pirating the airwaves for people to rush en masse into the underground city and make it worthwhile.

  When you come to the escalator, you dig into your bag for a handkerchief, drop your wallet, half turn around as you pick it up again, and turn back to continue on your way. Your unshakable shadow is still there, and he is not the usual tidy little young man bundled up in his big brown parka, the one from Cryovital in-house security, whom you call “the Student” and sometimes almost feel like inviting for a coffee, just to see the look on his face. This one’s taller, stockier, too neutral. And above all too expert, compared to the Student. For three days he’s been following you, going to work, returning home, and he’s changed tactics three times.

  Following you. For three days: since Jorge and you began the new experiments.

  I am in the compartment. I look at the buttons that control departure. Here, there are two. Red. Green. I hear his voice. Why do I still hear his voice? I shouldn’t be hearing his voice. There’s still time, Kathryn. I press a button. Green. The gas fills the compartment.

  I am in the compartment. There are no buttons. I’ve programmed everything. I hear his voice. Again. I shouldn’t be hearing his voice. Kathryn, don’t do it! The gas hisses into the compartment. The voice fades.

  The two electrodes touch the red, glistening surface. Jorge’s voice: “Clear!” The little heart convulses. Starts beating steadily, resurrection confirmed by the audio output and the regular graph on the monitor, which the camera has zoomed in on. Enthusiastic exclamations, the voices of the girls, of Gilles and Branchet, applause. Black.

  The light returns in the little conference room.

  “It’s been a week, and the organ is still functional,” concludes Jorge, who does not even try to hide his elation. “All the parameters are optimal, you have the data. The next step, obviously, is implantation.”

  Carol Cooper once again leafs through the file folder open in front of her. “Congratulations, Jorge, and congratulations to you all. These are extraordinary results.” She looks up and winks at them. “This is Nobel material, if you want my opinion.” Little discreet laughs around the table, but they know she is perfectly serious: they are aware of what they have accomplished.

  “Especially if the implantation is successful,” Frölich adds. “But maybe it’s still a little early for that. We can’t begin the surgical phase without at least having a replacement organ, so as not to slow down the process if the first operation fails. It was after all your fourth try. How much time do you need to produce another reliable organ?”

  “The three other hearts did not last as long after resuscitation, but they all passed the thawing stage successfully,” Jorge immediately says, a clarification that sounds like a protest — they talked about it before presenting the report, he wants to move forward as quickly as possible.

  Branchet stops him from continuing by laying a hand on his arm: “I’d say one month. And if this heart quits in the meantime, that will be good to know too,” he concludes, more for Jorge than for Cooper or Frölich.

  “The thawing process has indeed been perfected, Carol,” Frölich remarks pensively. “Perhaps Jorge and part of the team could continue working with the sphere that Jorge knocked together, while Richard and the others prepare the organs for transplant with the other part of the team.”

  Jorge frowns. “Work on what?” Frölich suggested nothing of the kind during the preparatory meeting. And he doesn’t make a habit of being conciliatory.

  “Well, I for one would be curious to know if the technique you’ve developed for organs taken from our rabbits would work with intact subjects. Aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

  Jorge stares at him for a moment, incredulous, then shrugs. “Even if it worked, it would go nowhere, it wouldn’t be applicable to humans. The radiation levels…”

  “It would still be interesting to know if and how it would work,” Frölich interrupted nimbly. “Maybe it could lead to something.”

  From the way he crosses his hands on the table, it is clear that Jorge is starting to get irritated.

  “Since when has Cryovital been involved with corpsicles? That’s not what I was hired for!”

  “But you were hired,” Carol Cooper remarks in a soft, cold voice — effective; she’s unequalled when it comes to putting the serfs in their place.

  He looks down at the table; the little muscle quivers in his jaw. Time to jump in. You in turn cross your hands on the table, arranging yourself so that your elbow touches his. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him turn his head towards you.

  “I would be interested in working on that with Jorge. I’d already asked myself the question, I must say, with Brangden.”

  And then you turn towards him, with a light poke of your elbow, a pressure invisible to the others. His eyes widen a bit. He pretends to think for a few instants, then to give in: “Why not?” he says a little sullenly. “They’re your rabbits.”

  I am in the compartment. I look at the buttons that control departure. Here, there are two. Red. Green. I hear his voice. Why do I still hear his voice? I shouldn’t be hearing his voice. There’s still time, Kathryn. I press a button. Green. The gas fills the compartment.

  I am in the compartment. There are no buttons. I’ve programmed everything. I hear his voice. Again. I shouldn’t be hearing his voice. Kathryn, don’t do it! The gas hisses into the compartment. The voice fades.

  I am in the compartment. I look at the button. Only one button. Green. I hear his voice. Again. I shouldn’t be hearing his voice. Kathryn, don’t do it, there’s still time, we can help you. I press the button. The gas hisses into the compartment, the voice fades in the distance as the sphere closes.

  Either Cryovital has reinforced staff security, on principle, because of the first results with the cryogenic organs, or else, which would be more of a nuisance, someone, somewhere, knows and suspects — but suspects what at this stage? After all, there can’t be another Voyager in the loop. In all your transitions, this has never happened. And according to all the archives in all the Centres you’ve passed through, according to what they say, two Voyagers have never been on the same planet at the same time. Theoretically possible, given the random operation of the Bridge — but, for reasons still unknown, it has never happened. In the same universe, perhaps, surely — but still unverifiable.

  In any case, this will have to be cleared up, the possible collateral interference will have to be limited. You’re ready for it. It’s not the first time.

  You head towards the metro, run down the escalator to catch the train you hear arriving, which is normal — even though you almost never take the metro. The tail does the same, you see him get in the next car. You get off at Beaudry station, and you take Maisonneuve towards your street, which is normal. You turn onto Montcalm, which is normal. You come to your house.

  You keep walking.

  Not normal! That must have grabbed the attenti
on of the tail. You cross René-Lévesque Boulevard then you go down the street to the place where Montcalm changes into a dead-end. There is a construction site, which is poorly lit, plus kids have taken out the nearby street lamps with slingshots. You slip under the rather symbolic hoardings to lose yourself in the labyrinth of construction materials.

  He follows. And he looks extremely surprised when you stand up in front of him with the taser you had cobbled together and have just taken out of its hiding place.

  He’s still twitching as you carefully tie him up, you search him — relieved: you took a chance that he wasn’t in radio contact with anyone, and this turns out to be the case; a normal shadowing, so to speak. Whoever this guy’s bosses are, at least they have no suspicions about the identity of Katrijn Verbrugge.

  You gag him with your tightly knotted scarf, you open his parka, then his pants, which you pull down over his hips along with his underpants, and when he has completely come to again — the cold helps — you show him the taser, then you apply the electrodes to his shrivelled testicles, without pressing the button.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions. You will answer them when I lift the gag. Nod for yes.”

  He stares at you, more furious than terrified.

  “Three seconds. Three. Two. One.”

  When he has stopped thrashing, you begin again, still very calmly: “I’m going to ask you a few questions. You will answer them when I lift the gag. Nod for yes.”

  He nods. Must have decided it’s the smart thing to do, that the questions will be revealing. Any excuse not to get his balls fried. You remove the gag with one hand, without moving the hand that is holding the taser. “Who are you working for?”

  “C.I.A.”

  Already?

  “Who at Cryovital?”

  “Frölich.”

  Frölich is the mole. The right-hand man, the performer of lowly tasks. Cute.

  “The new experiments?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Lifeline involved?”

  The man says “yes” with a slight delay, turning his eyes away. He’s lying. Or rather his government is. Do they take you for an idiot?

  You’re suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of leaden weariness. Doesn’t matter who’s involved, really. Because, yes, they do take you for an idiot. And you have to remain an idiot.

  To ease your conscience, you ask anyway: “Who else?”

  By the way he reacts, this question is revealing, but of what? What else?

  “Russian mafia. You were being protected.”

  Does he realize he’s talking in the past tense?

  Don’t give him time to think. Don’t give yourself time to think. Drop the taser, place your hands on either side of his head, the leather gloves provide a good grip and, in one twist, break his neck.

  Then, disguise it all as a mugging that went badly, flight, fatal fall in the dark construction site. No need to be plausible — the taser marks will be enough to feed the usual paranoia, and they will have plenty of choices: the Russian mafia, another rival secret service — or even an ally. Why suspect Katrijn Verbrugge, the idiot?

  Katrijn Verbrugge goes home. She takes a shower, a long one, she grabs a fast bite of anything, she goes to bed. You know what you’re going to dream.

  Orange, musk, vetiver — he’s just come into your office, and is bending towards you, leaning on his outstretched arms, his back to the camera.

  “Do you have the new data, before we begin, Dr. Verbrugge?”

  You stand up, back to the other camera, and shove a sheaf of papers into his hands. Invisible to the cameras now. He pretends to read them, writing in pencil in the margins and remarking out loud: “Ah, that might be interesting. This too.”

  You read upside-down: Must. Speak. To. You.

  You take back the papers and mark them: “That too, there.” OK.

  You bump your styrofoam cup. Very black coffee spills over the sheets. A little panic, exclamations, search for kleenex, you sop it up as best you can. “The copy is at Frölich’s place?” “Yes, of course.” And the file on the computer. The sodden sheaf of papers is consigned to the wastepaper basket, the last step before the shredder.

  “I think we’re starting to get a bit frazzled,” says Jorge with a sigh. “For two weeks we’ve been on edge with all this, and now they’ve stuck us with this new research! What would you say to a little constitutional, Dr. Verbrugge, instead of the café, before heading back to the lab? It’s not too cold, we could eat outside.”

  You don’t accept immediately, as a matter of form — don’t change behaviour too quickly, that would attract their attention. While your relationship with Jorge has become more relaxed since the evening at the Branchets’, it is still limited to work: you refused all his subsequent invitations. With mimed indecision, you glance around your disorderly office, where big photographs of forests do not make up for the absent windows. Then you run a hand through your hair and you suddenly decide: “Oh, okay, yes. A little walk would do me good.”

  You go back up to the ground floor and go through the security check point to go out on the boulevard. There’s no lack of fast-food in the Technocity, there’s plenty of choice, and the rush is over — it’s well past noon. You serve yourself quickly, and go out again, without exchanging a word. One of your shadows came in behind you, the two others (yours) crossed the boulevard, one is pretending to view the river, and the other is feeding the seagulls.

  You go out again, you continue for a while towards the little central park of the Technocity, then Jorge changes his mind and finally you both cross the boulevard. So does he know you’re being watched, even outside Cryovital? You don’t go down to the landscaped embankments, but continue along the boulevard. If he thinks you can’t be heard because of the rumble of the traffic, he’s very naive. In any case, they’re certainly not bugging you; they just want to make sure that nobody kidnaps you before they do it themselves.

  But no, nothing that melodramatic: Cryovital can surely be convinced to cooperate.

  He always eats his fries first. At a pace that says a lot, today, about how edgy he is. “They can’t do that,” he mutters finally. “A waste of time!”

  You bite into your chicken sandwich, and mumble a reply through your mouthful, with the greatest conviction: “Failure. Can be arranged.”

  He looks quickly at you with surprise, but relief. “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Need anything?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  He hasn’t stopped staring at you, and his surprise has taken on another nuance. You seemed to understand very well what he was getting at, just now — how is it that you, that Katrijn Verbrugge, the quiet one, the mild-mannered one, caught on so quickly? How come she’s prepared to sabotage without hesitation the back-up sphere, during the experiment, and is so sure of being capable of doing it? He won’t want to take the risk of asking you for details here. But he’s curious about you now, another kind of curiosity. It happens to all of them sooner or later. Too bad. He will soon have other topics to ponder.

  Because, of course, when the voltage surge blows the transformer, and cuts the current in the magnetic field winding, and triggers the mini-fire that renders the back-up sphere unusable, the rabbit is not incinerated, irradiated, or disintegrated. Impossible to disguise the data: the rabbit has disappeared. Gone, the rabbit, vanished, not one hair left, not one drop, not one molecule. After an intense, futile brain-storming session with the whole team, you will remark, with a mixture of exasperation and discouragement: “Well, the creature must have jumped into another dimension, that’s all there is to it!”

  And someone, likely Frölich, will laugh. But you know that it will not have fallen on deaf ears.

&nbs
p; The homestretch now. As predicted they have come to the conclusion that it was the abrupt disruption of the magnetic field during the power failure that caused “the phenomenon.” They have transferred the tests on the animals to the only sphere that is still usable, the main sphere, in spite of Jorge’s protests. “Don’t you want to clear up this mystery?” Frölich retorted, with disingenuous surprise. “Come on, it’s potentially a lot bigger than transplant cryogenics. It might be teleportation!”

  They decided to try it with primates; no reason to wait any longer. You protested too. You’ve gotten closer to Jorge during the last week, and not only because of the intensive speculation sessions in the lab after each disappearance of an animal. You have begun to fake a budding amorous relationship, almost without consulting each other, by mutual agreement — he made the first move, you followed his lead, that gives you reasons to be together outside the lab, shielded, you hope, from prying ears.

  It is not only pretend, of course. He likes dangerous women, and he has suddenly guessed that you’re one. Turn about is fair play. You were the one who liked dangerous men, back then, right? No hint of danger in this poor Jorge, and yet he lived close enough to it in his Balkan adolescence. He knows after all that you’re being followed — you agreed when he remarked on it: “They’ve been doing it for a while.” Don’t feel the need to conceal as much now, what’s the point, and it attracts him even more, this other Katrijn who is revealing herself as the days pass. He asks you to dinner, he takes you skating, you even go to the movies to see subtitled foreign films, it must drive your shadows crazy, but you don’t care. Given the tension these days in the lab, you’re entitled to let off a little steam, aren’t you?

  Now that the cat is out of the bag, or rather the rabbit, the mafia or its legitimate American counterparts must be drooling, but maybe they’re waiting for the primate tests, or else their negotiations with Cryovital are more complicated than they thought. Doesn’t matter. You’d almost like them to try kidnapping you, you imagine the look on dear Jorge’s face when you take out your attackers without breaking a fingernail. You’ve changed, for the better, Branchet observed with amused, quite paternal approval: you dress more provocatively, you wear a little makeup, you speak up more easily in meetings. Not that there is much to say: the rabbits and mice have disappeared and they still don’t know why. No rabbits have reappeared in their common cage — it would take a super-rabbit, a mutant rabbit, one that would be capable of wanting to escape all those tortures — no one would realize it anyway, except for you who feeds them, and you would have gotten rid of it discreetly, late at night. But you’re not going to wait till they switch to primates: it would be more difficult to cover up if some of the chimps in the batch — there are always some — returned to their prison, poor creatures so traumatized that it’s the only place their rudimentary brains allow them to return to, where they feel safe. Everything is ready, or almost, all that is left is to wait for the right evening, the right night, the night you let Jorge take you home, and kiss you, and so forth.