Afterlife Crisis

by Randal Graham

  My answer seemed to have landed well, for Norm Stradamus and Oan both seemed pleased. The Regent never seemed pleased by anything, but even she seemed to register approval. Only Vera seemed unmoved by my oration, for she once again dropped her eyes and adopted a distinctly dishraggish manner.

  “It was all hogwash, of course,” I added, not wishing to leave anyone befogged. “What the City Solicitor said, I mean. The truth of the matter is this: the Author, for whatever reason, has seen fit to equip a few select heavy-hitters with extraordinary powers, and these same heavy-hitters — folks like Abe, the City Solicitor, and Penelope — stomp around the local landscape leaving obstacles in the way of the rest of the herd. They’re simply a kind of literary thingummy. A device designed to create dramatic tension. The world isn’t, in point of fact, formed by anyone’s expectations apart from the Author’s and, perhaps, the Author’s Editor, His Publisher, and His Critics,” I added, wanting to avoid any blasphemous failure to give credit to the whole pantheon. “Now, would anyone mind connecting dots for me? What does any of this have to do with anything?”

  The Regent stepped closer. Her face darkened. Her voice took on a conspiratorial air, and she seemed to be on the point of letting me in on state secrets. “What you need to understand,” she said, gravely, “is that the City Solicitor was right. He was right about Detroit. About the nature of the world.”

  This was nonsense, of course, as I’d indicated a few ticks earlier. But rather than contradicting my host I merely nodded amiably, both out of politeness and the fact that nodding amiably is all one can really do when people start flapping their jaws about science and the nature of the world.

  “What the Regent means,” said Norm, dutifully picking up the Regent’s thread, “is that Detroit is not a physical realm. Not entirely. It’s a plane comprised of the thoughts, expectations, and desires of everyone who dwells within it. All of the souls within Detroit help to shape its basic reality.”

  “It’s true,” said Oan, eager as ever to offer a word or two of Sharing Room philosophy. “The universe listens to our wishes, and shapes itself around them! It’s this very phenomenon, rooted in the Laws of Attraction, that has led you to my side.”

  I suppressed a wince. It’s not going too far to say that it took every scrap of my own willpower, whether or not augmented by the Laws of ruddy Attraction or universes that bend to a chap’s will, to prevent myself from blanching, writhing, chafing, or otherwise revealing that this Oan’s latest pronouncement had given the undersigned the pip. But we Rhinnicks are, as I think I’ve mentioned before, made of fairly strong stuff. So I wore the mask, sank my revulsion, and bore up.

  Indeed, in this bit of the story it was almost as though there were two Rhinnicks, both displayed for the scrutiny and interest of my reading public, but only one of whom was observed by those who’d gathered in my presence. The first Rhinnick — the one who was hidden from the Regent and her gang of onlookers — was all steely-eyed skepticism, unmoved by what he was hearing, and full of confidence in the knowledge that everything presently entering via the Feynman earhole was complete and utter rot. But the other Rhinnick, the one who nodded amiably and uttered encouraging things like “oh yes” and “do tell” at appropriate intervals, was the only one detectable by those present. It was a master class in acting, if I do say so myself, and one which easily justified any number of those little, golden, anatomically incorrect graven images.

  I mean to say, it’s one thing to know that everything your host is saying is bunk, and it’s quite another to let your host know what’s on your mind. We Rhinnicks are sticklers for social niceties, and I was — whatever else one wanted to call me — a guest in the Regent’s house. It would have been the work of a moment to prove conclusively that everything she was saying was the mere babbling of an unhinged mind: if the universe was listening to my desires, I wouldn’t be standing in my pyjamas listening to a brace of loonier-than-average zealots telling me how the joint worked. But as I said, I held my tongue, not only out of politeness, but also because it occurred to me that, if I was ever going to understand what in Abe’s name had been going on in this shack of unrestrained goofiness, my best strategic move was to give the local yokels the free rein of their tongues so that they’d carry on explaining their weird ideas. They’d built their entire foreign policy on their loopy understanding of Detroit’s inner workings, and if I let them continue babbling for a paragraph or two, something in the way of useful intelligence might be revealed.

  So I carried on with my “oh yes” and “do go on” routine for at least a quarter of an hour.

  One thing I think you’ll appreciate, having made your way this deeply into the current volume of my memoir, is how dashed difficult it can be for any narrator to keep track of the goings-on while also taking careful notes about his own internal feelings, keeping the readership apprised of what I believe philosophers call the subject’s “qualia,” or what psychologists refer to as one’s subjective experience. It was for this reason that, throughout much of the Regent’s babbling, as I’d been paying close attention to my qualia and musing on what I’ve just told you about “two Rhinnicks” and my desire to hide my true, skeptical nature from my hosts, that I’d rather lost the thread of whatever had passed between those present. I was aware that the Regent had said something or other about conflicting wills and desires, and that Norm had said something reminiscent of Abe’s suggestions about the First Ones, or ancients, providing order and regulation, and that Oan, at regular intervals, had added a word or two about the Laws of Attraction. I was also vaguely aware that Vera had carried on in silence while I did my best to stifle yawns. But as I think you’ll understand from what I’ve just said, the substance of the conversation had gotten away from me. And just when I thought we’d carry on in this vein for a couple of years, the Regent finally said something that grabbed my attensh.

  “And that,” she said, “is why we have to dismantle R’lyeh.”

  “Dismantle R’lyeh?” I said, intrigued. “Why in Abe’s name would you want to do that?”

  The whole gang of those assembled looked at me as though I’d sprouted a second head.

  “It’s what we’ve just been explaining to you,” said Norm.

  “Oh, ah,” I said. “Right. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind crossing a few t’s and dotting some i’s. You were saying you had to dismantle R’lyeh — that underground warehouse of frozen ancients hidden in City Hall.”

  “That’s right,” said Norm. “We have to stop Isaac from meddling with their minds.”

  This much seemed sensible, at least. I mean to say, these chilled retirees, from everything I’d been told, had earned their rest. They’d been working in Detroit since practically the dawn of time, having popped into the joint when Abe could still be counted as a new arrival. They’d been pitching in and doing their bit to keep the place running for thousands and thousands of years. It seemed the least that one could do is leave them alone now that they’d downed tools and packed it in. Let sleeping ancients lie, I mean to say. It seemed only courteous to prevent any science fancier, however well intentioned, from bothering the somnolent oldsters with involuntary lectures delivered straight to their sleeping brains in liquid form. I registered my approval.

  “So you’re planning to ask Isaac to cheese the R’lyeh project. Fair enough,” I said, smiling broadly. “Abe speed your efforts!”

  Once again my remarks seemed to stun my audience. Norm, in particular, looked on me with a disquieting expression which seemed to combine equal parts of pity and bewilderment, a look which I found offensive.

  “We can’t ask him to stop,” said Norm, squinting at me with something resembling incredulity. “He wouldn’t agree. It’s all part of his plan.”

  “Right,” I said, stretching the word out a bit. “Isaac’s plan. I think I see what you’re driving at.”

  I hadn’t a notion of what they were talking abou
t, of course. I knew of Isaac’s plan to fiddle with quantum thingummies, but anyone could see at a g. that this had nothing whatever to do with his desire to inflict refresher courses in science and natural philosophy on a warehouseful of snoozing seniors.

  The Regent seemed to perceive that I was still befogged, for she added what she must have regarded as words of explanation.

  “Allow me to spell it out again, O Hand of the Intercessor,” she said. “The project at R’lyeh is, as we’ve been telling you, part of Isaac’s plan to change Detroit. He’s using his network to change the ancients’ minds. He taps into their brains, altering their beliefs and expectations about the nature of the world. He’s using their combined willpower to influence reality — to reweave the fabric of Detroit, all with a view to forcing the world to coincide with his calculations. Even Abe and Penelope would be powerless to stop the combined will of so many dormant ancients, acting as one.”

  “Ah,” I said, congenially, though here again I was fairly certain that the Regent was talking out of the side of her head. “I see all. Allow me to restate what I’ve gathered. Isaac Newton, irritated at Detroit’s failure to jive with his figures, is pumping ancients full of science juice in order to alter their perceptions and, through means not fully explained to my satisfaction, bring Detroit in line with his maths. And you’re against this plan. Not a fan of his calculations, what?”

  “They’re the core of the problem,” said Norm. “As we’ve tried to explain, Isaac’s calculations are rooted in a purely physical world, not the reality of Detroit. They can’t apply here — not fully. Can you imagine what would happen if Isaac succeeded in his plans?”

  The answer to this, of course, was “no, I ruddy well can’t,” for I still hadn’t collared the gist of what they were babbling about. I didn’t reveal this, and was spared the effort of coming up with something to say because the Regent beat me to it.

  “We must stop him before he goes too far. Thus far his work has focused on chemistry and physics, and the results have been far-reaching: the erasure of the IPT; his own transformation from personal secretary to Lucasian Chair. But imagine if he turns his attention to biology. Human biology. It could be the end of everything.”

  “He could bring death to Detroit!” cried Oan.

  “Human Death!” added Norm. “Human aging! Incurable diseases and mortality!”

  Caught up in their own lunacy, they’d missed the entire point about Isaac’s work being confined to the quantum realm. But you can’t explain a fundamental thing like that to yahoos who’ve gotten themselves riled up and are now frothing at the mouth. The best you can hope to do is point out any minor errors that have shoved them in the direction of their goofy conclusions. I did my best to weigh in and rally their spirits.

  “You’ve made a blunder,” I said, rather tolerantly. “A common one, too. I mean to say, you needn’t worry about Isaac switching fields, spending a year or two on physics, a sabbatical on chemistry, and a brace of terms on biology. For when you get right down to it,” I continued, dredging up one of the things I’d read in Popular Science, “it’s all just physics at its core. Chemistry, biology, metallurgy, geology — it all comes down to the laws of physics. This is why I imagine Isaac said that once he really gets down to business, he’ll be able to change everything all at once. But I’ll remind you that his changes are confined to quantum whatnots,” I added. “Nothing to worry about at all.”

  Once again I’d failed to anticipate my audience’s response, for their goofiness only intensified as the words fell from my lips.

  “We haven’t a moment to lose!” said Oan.

  “We must stop him now!” cried Norm.

  And the Regent, for her part, clenched her jaw tightly and squinted her eyes in a cold-steelish manner, coming across as more stern and resolute than anyone I had ever seen, with the possible exception of Ian’s wife, Penelope, in the moments after she’d first emerged from the Styx. The word “imposing” sums it up.

  “Inform my personal guard,” said the Regent. “We must prepare. We leave for R’lyeh tonight.”

  Chapter 25

  It turned out I wasn’t invited.

  I mean to say, when the Regent started blustering about assembling her guard, leaving tonight, storming the gates of City Hall, and trespassing upon — or rather beneath — municipal property, I’d assumed she planned to have me at her side, adding to the strength of her troops and hitching along for the ride. “Bring the Hand of the Intercessor,” I thought she’d say, “for not only is he a dashed useful chap to have on hand whenever engaged in anything which might be described as derring-do, but he’s also been to this R’lyeh joint before, he knows the lay of the land, and he’s fairly palsy-walsy with Isaac Newton. Should this Newton chap show up in person, intent on laying our plans a-stymie, who better than Rhinnick F., H. of the I., to grease the wheels?” And in response to this hypothetical invitation or command, if hypothetical means what I think it does, I’d have issued a firm and resolute nolle prosequi. “Include me out,” I might have said, had the occasion arisen. “N, ruddy O. They won’t get a smell of yours truly at City Hall.”

  I mean to say, I was philosophically aligned with the Regent and her crew when it came to the question of inflicting nonconsensual lessons in liquid form upon freeze-dried senior citizens, but our methods of responding to the situation differed. Where the Regent seemed to be planning something along the lines of storming the ramparts, laying siege to the place, and leaving no sarcophagus standing, the conviction was rapidly steeling over me that something a touch more nuanced — say, a sternly worded letter to the editor — would prove the better response. So, as I said, I planned to RSVP in the negative.

  But again, as I said before embarking on something of a tangent: It turned out I wasn’t invited.

  You might expect this to have bucked me up considerably, given that my current wish was to keep the Feynman nose out of this R’lyeh imbroglio, and this wish had now been granted. But the funny thing I’ve often observed in others, and which I now observed in me, is that it’s one thing to turn down an invitation to a binge you’d give your eye teeth to avoid, and another thing altogether not to have been on the list of those from whom an RSVP is expected. The latter alternative wounds the spirit. It leaves one feeling ostracized and crestfallen. If Rhinnick is to be excluded, let it be me who makes that call.

  The Regent didn’t even seem to have given the merest thought to inviting me along. For, on the heels of saying, “We leave for R’lyeh tonight,” she’d turned upon her heel, exiting stage right, when she looked back over the shoulder — her left, if I recall — and said, “You’ll remain here, Mr. Feynman.” A command, if you see what I mean. Not a question.

  I started to utter an objection — dashed silly of me, I know — when she’d goose-stepped out of the room with Oan and Vera in her wake, she having indicated through imperious nods and gestures that the two were to walk out with her. Norm Stradamus, for his part, stayed behind, wringing his hands and looking at me in a plaintive sort of way, like a chief executive’s toady en route to explaining why third-quarter profits aren’t quite as high as projected. Or, more accurately, like a High Priest who has to dish up a serving of awkward news to the Hand of the blasted Intercessor.

  “I’m sorry, Rhinnick,” he said. “The Regent has decreed that you’ll stay here.”

  “Decreed?” I said, trying to sort things out as best I could. “I thought you were the High Priest. Since when do Regents decree to you?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Just where does a Regent fit in the church hierarchy?” I asked, interested as always in keeping abreast.

  “She stands apart,” said Norm. “We share the same goal of building a bridge to the beforelife. The Regent has the means to help us achieve this. And any hope of stopping Isaac’s current plan will require the Regent’s powers.”

  “B
ut what are the Regent’s powers?”

  “My apologies, O Hand of the—”

  I silenced him with a gesture — a gesture which wasn’t quite as imperious as any gesture of the Regent, but it certainly fell within the same postal code. I’d had quite enough of this “Hand of the Intercessor” business, whatever privileges the title might entail, and it was starting to seem that any such privileges were few and far between.

  Norm’s hands got a bit more wringing done to them, and he carried on apologizing. He looked like a pangolin delivering bad news. Obsequious, I mean to say. Or servile, if you prefer.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Feynman,” he said. “I’d be deeply honoured to have you with us, but the Regent felt that for your own safety—”

  “My own safety?” I said, bewildered by the bearded chump’s babbling. “How’s my safety at issue? We’re in Detroit. Whatever vicissitudes befall me, life and limb are not at risk. Well, limbs are, I suppose, but they’ll grow back. It’s one of the many upsides of immortality, if you see what I mean.”

  “The Regent believes that, should the inclination strike him, Isaac Newton has the power to change whatever he desires. He could blink us out of existence. He could change our histories. He could burn the Church of O from the threads of history, or stop you and the Intercessor from ever having met.”

  It took me perhaps a quarter of a minute to sort through this, but I think I collared the gist. I was, I realized, dealing with a mind unhinged. Here was a High Priest who had drunk deeply of the Regent’s Kool-Aid, signing up without hesitation to be included on the roster of those who failed to understand Professor Isaac Newton’s plans.