Aftershock & Others: 19 Oddities

by F. Paul Wilson

  “COPPE.”

  He nods and we pull in opposite the Continental door. I pay him and hurry to the ticket counter. I tell the pretty black girl there I want first class on the next flight out.

  “Out to where, sir?”

  Good question.

  “COPPE.”

  She punches a lot of keys and finally her computer spits out a ticket. She tells me the price. I’m dying to know where I’m going but how can I ask her? I hand over my American Express. She runs it through, I sign, and then she hands me the ticket.

  Cheyenne, Wyoming. Not my first choice. Not even on my top-twenty list. But if the Answer tells me that’s the best place to be, that’s where I’m going. Trouble is, the flight doesn’t leave for another three hours.

  I’m here. Now what?

  The drinks I had at the airport and the extra glasses of Merlot on the flight have left me a little groggy. I wander about the nearly deserted terminal wondering what I do now. I’m in the middle of nowhere—Wyoming, for Christ sake. Where do I go from here?

  Easy: Trust the Answer.

  I go outside to the taxi area. The fresh air feels good. A taxi pulls into the curb. I grab it.

  “Where to, sir?”

  This guy’s American. Great.

  “COPPE.”

  “You got it.”

  I try to concentrate on our route as we leave the airport, but I’m not feeling so hot. That’s okay. The Answer’s taking me in the right direction. I trust it. I close my eyes and rest them until I feel the cab come to a halt.

  I straighten up and look around. It’s a warehouse district.

  “Is this it?”

  “You told me 2316 Barrow Street,” the cabby says. He points to a gray door on the other side of the sidewalk. “Here we are.”

  I pay him and get out. 2316 Barrow Street. Never heard of it. The area’s deserted, but what else would you expect in a warehouse district on a Sunday morning?

  Still, I’m a little uneasy now. Hell, I’m shaking in my boxer shorts. But I can’t stand out here all day. The Answer hasn’t let me down yet. Got to trust it.

  I take a deep breath, step up to the door, and knock. And wait. No answer. I knock again, louder this time. Finally the door opens a few inches. An eye peers through the crack.

  A deep male voice says, “Yes?”

  I don’t know how to respond. Figuring there’s an implied question here, I say, “COPPE.”

  The door opens a little wider. “What’s your name?”

  “Michael Moulton.”

  The door swings open and the guy who’s been peeking through straightens up. He’s wearing a gray, pinstripe suit, white shirt, and striped tie. And he’s big—damn big.

  “Mr. Moulton!” he booms. “We’ve been expecting you!”

  A hand the size of a crown roast darts out, grabs me by the front of my jacket, and yanks me inside. Before I can shout or say a word, the door slams behind me and I’m being dragged down a dark hallway. I try to struggle but someone else comes up behind me and grabs one of my arms. I’m lifted off my feet like a styrofoam mannequin. I start to scream.

  “Don’t bother, Mr. Moulton,” says the first guy. “There’s no one around to hear you.”

  They drag me onto a warehouse floor where my scuffling feet and their footsteps echo back from the far walls and vaulted ceiling. The other guy holding me also wears a gray suit. And he’s just as big as the first.

  “Hey, look,” I say. “What’s this all about?”

  They don’t answer me. The warehouse floor is empty except for a single chair and a rickety table supporting a hardsided Samsonite suitcase. They dump me into the chair. The second guy holds me there while the first opens the suitcase. He pulls out a roll of duct tape and proceeds to tape me into the chair.

  My teeth are chattering now. I try to speak but the words won’t come. I want to cry but I’m too scared.

  Finally, when my body’s taped up like a mummy, they walk off and leave me alone. But I’m alone only for a minute. This other guy walks in. He’s in a suit, too, but pure white; he’s smaller and older; gray at the temples, with bright blue eyes. He stops a couple of feet in front of the chair and stares down at me. He looks like a cabinet member, or maybe a TV preacher, but he carries a black cane.

  “Mr. Moulton,” he says softly with a slow, sad shake of his head and a hint of a German accent. “Foolish, greedy, Mr. Moulton.”

  I find my voice. It sounds hoarse, like I’ve been shouting all night.

  “This is about the Answer, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Look, I can explain—”

  “No explanation is necessary.”

  “I forgot, that’s all. I forgot and used it. It won’t happen again.”

  He nods. “Yes, I know.”

  The note of finality in that statement makes my bladder want to let go.

  “Please…”

  “We gave you a chance, Mr. Moulton. We don’t usually do that. But because you came into possession of the Answer through no fault of your own, we thought it only fair to let you off the hook. A shame too.” He almost smiles. “You showed some flair at the end…led us on a merry chase.”

  “You mean, using the Answer to get away? What did you do—make it work against me?”

  “Oh, no. The Answer always works. You simply didn’t use it enough.”

  “I don’t get it.” I don’t care, either, but I want to keep him talking.

  “The Answer brought you to an area of the country where we have no cells. But the Answer can’t keep you from being followed. We followed you to LaGuardia, noted the plane you boarded, and had one of our members rush up from Denver and wait in a cab.”

  “But when he asked me where to, I gave him the Answer.”

  “Yes, you did. But no matter what you told him, he was going to bring you to 2316 Barrow Street. You should have used the Answer before you got in the cab. If you’d asked someone which cab to take, you surely would have been directed to another, and you’d still be free. But that merely would have delayed the inevitable. Eventually you’d have wound up right where you are now.”

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  He gazes down at me and his voice has all the emotion of a man ordering breakfast.

  “We are going to kill you.”

  That does it. My bladder lets go and I start to blubber.

  “Mr. Moulton!” I hear him say as he taps his cane. “A little dignity!”

  “Oh, please! Please! I promise—”

  “We already know what your promise is worth.”

  “But look—I’m not a bad guy…I’ve never hurt anybody!”

  “Mr. Nickleby might differ with you about that. But don’t be afraid, Mr. Moulton. We are not cruel. We have no wish to cause you pain. That is not our purpose here. We simply have to remove you.”

  “People will know! People will miss me!”

  Another sad shake of his head. “No one will know. And only your broker will miss you. We have eliminated financiers, kings, even presidents who’ve had the Answer and stepped out of line.”

  “Presidents? You mean—?”

  “Never mind, Mr. Moulton. How do you wish to die? The choice is yours.”

  How do you wish to die? How the hell do you answer a question like that? And then I know—with the best Answer.

  “COPPE.”

  He nods. “An excellent choice.”

  For the first time since I started using the Answer, I don’t want to know what the other guy heard. I bite back a sob. I close my eyes…

  1996

  If we call 1994 The Year God Laughed, and 1995 The Year of Vaporware, what can we call 1996?

  How about The Year Without a Short Story?

  For the first time since I began writing in the late sixties, I went a whole year without producing a single short story. Blame the interactive work. It devoured not only time but ideas as well.

  But let’s not dwell on that. Let’s
call 1996 The Year of Fools. (You’ll understand soon enough.)

  Things started off well with the publication of Virgin. Mary had a ball going to signings.

  Matt and I started meeting with Sharleen Smith who ran the SciFi Channel’s Web site. We were discussing ways to bring our idea of an interactive deep-space adventure to the Internet.

  In February I signed two film options. One for The Tomb that landed at Beacon Films, and another with LIVE Entertainment for The Select. (I’d previously turned down an offer from Touchstone I’d thought too low.)

  About this time Matt and I conceived the idea of a series of novels based on the FTL Newsfeed stories we’d been creating. The spots were being scripted, filmed, shown, and then filed away, never to be seen again. We wanted something a little more permanent for our better story lines, and knew they’d translate well to print. Since the SciFi Channel owned all rights, we’d need their okay.

  So one day in February Matt and I and a network representative who shall remain nameless pitched the series to Susan Allison and Ginjer Buchanan at Ace. They liked the idea. Matt and I hammered out a proposal and brief outlines of the first couple of books. Everyone was happy…until the ScifiChannel announced the enormous licensing fee it wanted—so exorbitant that it wasn’t worth Ace’s effort to publish the series. Matt and I tried to explain to anyone who’d listen that this was the only after-market they’d see for FTL…this was found money. They wouldn’t budge. The deal died.

  Fools.

  I passed the first hundred pages of Nightkill to Steve Spruill for his turn with the writing, then faced the problem of starting the final medical thriller of my three-book deal. I was blanking on a medical plot, but I had this neato-keen idea for a techy thriller. I knew of only one guy who could handle the job of protagonist…a guy I’d left bleeding to death more than a decade before: Repairman Jack. But the contract called for a medical thriller. I shrugged and had a doctor hire Jack to find Christmas toys stolen from some kids with AIDS. I titled it Legacies. I was off and running with Jack again. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  The Mirage CD-ROM project was picked up by AND Interactive, an intensely talented group of artists and programmers with an office near Beverly Hills. We felt they’d do a great job.

  On one of our L.A. trips Matt and I met with the folks at Digital Domain. Their boss, James Cameron, was planning on making a film about the Titanic disaster and they were looking to do a related interactive CD-ROM. This was what I call a look-see meeting where you sit around and chat interactive philosophy and try to get an idea if this is someone who’s going to be fun or pure hell to work with. We liked Digital Domain.

  In June we met with Jed Weintrob of Orion Interactive. In a strange twist of the film contract, Orion Pictures had wound up with the interactive rights to Stephen King’s The Dark Half, making them the only company in the world with such a hold on a King property. Jed wanted Matt and me to script and design The Dark Half Interactive. We said that would be cool, but we needed to check with Steve first.

  I’ve met Steve a few times, had brief conversations, but we’re not buds by any stretch. Yet, one writer to another, I felt an obligation to clear the project with him. Matt and I agreed that if he didn’t want an interactive Dark Half, we’d walk away. I faxed him the details. He called back and said go for it. I promised him a kick-ass game.

  We signed on to Dark Half Interactive (DHi).

  We also signed on with Disney Interactive to script and design something called MathQuest with Aladdin. Disney was going to use Aladdin to teach math via an educational CD-ROM. The challenge was to find interactions that taught number concepts without putting numbers on the screen. Math guru Marilyn Burns would be overseeing the project to make sure the interactions taught what they were supposed to. Marilyn is a sweetheart but a tough cookie. Matt and I would knock ourselves out coming up with cool concepts and she’d shoot them down if they didn’t meet her teaching standards.

  I have to hand it to Disney. They spared no expense on this project. They wanted to produce a truly valuable educational tool.

  The MathQuest meetings would alternate coasts—one round in the Hyperion offices in Manhattan, then another at the Inn at the Tides in Sausalito, then back to NYC. (We even had one round in the Adirondacks.)

  Between these trips, Orion was flying us back and forth to their headquarters in Santa Monica and over to London to meet with Bits, the company they’d chosen to develop and program DHi.

  My frequent flyer miles were going through the roof.

  And along the way I was writing Legacies and my parts of the DNA Wars novel. Steve finished the second hundred pages of Nightkill and it was my turn again. I told him I couldn’t possibly and that he should take the next hundred pages; I’d finish her up. He said fine. (Whew.)

  Then Digital Domain called and said they wanted to hear our ideas for an interactive CD-ROM based on Cameron’s upcoming Titanic movie. We’d be pitching to Cameron himself. They sent us scripts and plane tickets.

  Once out there in Venice, Rob Legato showed us all the effects they’d be using, then took us out to the model shop at Playa Vista where we saw the wonderfully detailed scale models of the Titanic and its tugs. We were in awe.

  The next morning we met with Cameron. Matt was a longtime Titanic buff, and I was one too by the time of the meeting. Cameron was intense, very much in command, and a detail fanatic, but the meeting was a lovefest—we were completely simpatico on the approach to the design and story line of the CD-ROM. Using characters from the script, we wanted to link the sunken wreck in the present with the voyage in 1912. Cameron loved it. As far as he was concerned, we were a go. Digital Domain Interactive would produce it, but we had to clear it with Fox Interactive which would be a partner on the project.

  And that was where we hit a snag. The callow twit who was to oversee it from the Fox end kept asking us, “What do I shoot?” When we talked about underwater experiences aboard the wreck and exploring the debris field for items that would link up to shipboard interactions, he’d say, “Will there be a shark I can shoot?” (I’m not making this up—I couldn’t make this up.)

  That attitude, plus the wonderfully rendered Titanic: Adventure Out of Time from CyberFlix that came out two months later, sank the project. (Sorry.)

  My only consolation is imagining how that twit at Fox must have been kicking himself for not having a tie-in on the market—with Leo DiCaprio’s image and voice to bring in the girls—while the film was racking up a billion in ticket sales.

  Another fool.

  On August 14 we did our usual hanging around at the FTL shoot in case they needed script changes. We didn’t know it would be the last. Shortly thereafter we received word that FTL was being canceled. SciFi Channel was moving more into original programming and it wanted to devote our budget to more commercial uses. We weren’t terribly surprised. The show had lasted almost four and a half years, a good run by any standards. The stories had run the gamut: hokey, silly, funny, touching, mysterious, compelling, suspenseful. We’d run cameo appearances ranging from Timothy Leary to Peter Straub; our coup was bringing in Professor Irwin Corey to explain Israel’s faster-than-light hyperdrive. Our only regret was that we hadn’t been notified before the last shoot—we would have tied up some of the story lines.

  On October 4 we attended the farewell party for FTL’s crew and recurrent cast members. A great group.

  In the fall, AND Interactive ran out of money. The Mirage interactive was vaporware again.

  The rest of the year was a blur of book tours for the Mirage hardcover and the Implant paperback, business flights to London and L.A. and San Francisco, personal trips to Savannah, Cozumel, and Bermuda, and writing, writing, writing—finishing Nightkill, and pushing along on Legacies and DNA Wars.

  On Friday, December 20, the last spot aired, and FTL Newsfeed was history.

  1997

  We might call this The Year of Entropy.

  Matt and I alway
s piggybacked extra meetings onto our L.A. trips. If one company flew us out, we’d use the extra time to meet with others. Sometimes it got crazy.

  To give you an idea, here are three consecutive e-mails I sent home from our first trip of the year, riding on Orion Interactive’s dime.

  Wed - 1/29/97

  60 degrees at 7 a.m. today. Did a 30-minute walk in T-shirt and shorts past the Santa Monica Pier and along the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. We spent the morning in story conference at Orion/MPCA (at the corner of Ocean Avenue and the terminus of Santa Monica Blvd) with Jed Weintrob. Had lunch (grilled marinated chicken breast sandwich) in an Argentinean place called Gaucho. More story conference in the afternoon until 4. Wrote a couple of pages on the novel until Jed picked us up and took us to dinner at Typhoon (a Thai-Korean-Vietnamese restaurant) at the Santa Monica airport. Incredible food…we had crickets fried in fresh garlic and pepper for an appetizer…surprisingly good…you might call them land shrimp. Back to the hotel by 10:30 to sack out.

  Early meeting tomorrow. The Santa Ana winds are expected, clearing the air, supposedly bringing the temp to 80.

  Why are we living in the northeast?

  Thur - 1/30

  Up at 5 a.m. to work on the novel. Matt called around 7 and I did the shorts/T-shirt walk for 30 min. while he ran. I went up Santa Monica and down Broadway today.

  Talked to Barry Rosenbush re: scripters for THE TOMB. Seems they’ve narrowed the field to 2—he and Bill Borden favor one (I know him), while Beacon Films favors another. The battle is on. Should know in the next week or two.

  Back to Orion and worked out interaction mechanics most of the a.m., then played Shadows of the Empire and Tomb Raider to study gameplay and graphics. (Yuh! This is work.) Had lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s (had to move to get out of the sun so I wouldn’t get burned—AND THIS IS JANUARY 30th!!!!!). Presented our morning’s work to the guys, then…