Afterlife Crisis
Page 38
Well, I don’t know about you, but I could wrack the brain for a dozen years without finding a way to oil out of something like that. I mean to say, here was this loony goofball bunging her heart at the Feynman feet, stating in no uncertain terms that it was her dearest and fondest wish to link her lot with mine, and I, by holding my tongue all this time in order to keep things civil and avoid anything approaching an unpleasant conversation, had done what amounted to stoking the fires of passion. I couldn’t turn to the old disaster now and tell her that her dream wedding was going to be short one groom.
I don’t know what I would have said — I suppose “oh, ah” would have been about the best I could have mustered if given the chance, but I was spared all effort by the advent of Isaac Newton, who popped up in our midst asking if he might borrow Jack.
Zeus was the first to utter a response, still sticking firmly to the familiar watchdog script which suited him so well.
“You leave Jack out of this,” he said. “I don’t know what he did, but there’s no excuse for torturing prisoners—”
“My good chum,” I said, turning Zeusward. “This professorial chump has no interest in torturing anyone. At least, I don’t think he does. Isaac,” I said, addressing the chump in question, “what exactly is involved in making a copy of a Napoleonic bimbo’s brain thingummies? Nothing too intrusive I trust.”
“No! He won’t be harmed at all. I’ll just strap him into that chair,” he added, pointing, “and then I’ll pop the neural scanner onto his head—”
“The chair!” said Vera, making her presence known and gripping the science nib’s arm. He seemed put off by this development — whether because he disliked interruptions or preferred remaining ungrabbed by mediums, who could say — but he quickly regained his footing and addressed her.
“I assure you it’s perfectly harmless,” he said. “I’ve been using it on myself. It encodes brain patterns. It’s how I’ve been preparing the fluid—”
“Two chairs!” said Vera.
“Not two chairs,” Isaac corrected, “one chair only.”
“But you’re the Lucasian Chair of Maths!” I said.
“What’s all this fuss about chairs?” said Norm.
“It’s my vision,” said Vera.
“Vera’s a medium,” I said, bringing Isaac up to speed. “Sees the future. Also the past. Very convenient.”
Isaac didn’t seem impressed, which didn’t surprise me. These sciencey types are often skeptical and dismissive when it comes to fortune tellers and whatnot, but he should have thought of that before partnering up with Norm Stradamus, a known prophet and sayer of sooth.
“I had a vision of two chairs,” said Vera. “It came in the form of a poem.”
And this poem she proceeded to recite for the benefit of those assembled. I reproduce it here, in toto, for your convenience:
Two chairs define a man and men;
Two chairs that free and bind;
Two chairs that open worlds and free
The body and the mind;
One chair sought and held by both,
The other coveted by none;
The first chair reunites two souls
Intended to have been just one.
On finishing this recital, Vera just stood there, all bright-eyed, with an expectant look on her map, as if anticipating that this little slab of verse might win the day and cause Isaac to abandon his plans. Of course it didn’t. I mean to say, poetry never convinced anyone of anything, let alone poetry babbled at physicists in the middle of an experiment.
Isaac gave a little shrug, mumbled something unflattering about poets and fortune tellers, and moved off in Zeus’s direction.
“You can’t really blame him,” I said, speaking to Vera. “I mean, the poem doesn’t really appear to fit this situation. Which chair unites two souls? Where are the two men intended to be just one? How does Isaac’s little neural chair thingummy free the body?”
Good questions all, I think you’ll agree, and they left Vera baffled.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “The poem doesn’t really fit. But I’m sure Isaac’s one of the chairs, and I’m sure we’re on the verge of figuring out the poem’s meaning. I can feel it in my bones.”
Rather than standing there arguing with the bones of a fortune teller, I turned my attensh to Zeus, whom Isaac — through some hidden skill at rhetorical arts — had somehow convinced to hand over the goods and assist in the process of strapping the sleeping Jack in the chair.
“What in Abe’s name are you doing?” I said.
“Helping Isaac,” said Zeus. “He says this’ll be good for Jack.”
“It’s true,” said Isaac, holding a bit of heavily wired headgear which I took to be what he’d called his “neural scanner.” “We’ll take a full scan of Jack’s brain. I’ll make my serum from those engrams relating to his memories of the beforelife and his convictions relating to reincarnation and moving back and forth between two worlds. But we’ll have access to a record of his whole psyche. I’ve agreed to give that to Zeus, who can hand the whole thing over to the psychiatrists at the hospice.”
“It’ll help them treat Jack!” said Nappy. “Stop him from being so . . .”
“Stab-happy?” I suggested. “Anti-social? Downright awful?”
As the last of these words left my lips, it occurred to me that, if anyone in the world could benefit from having a record of his brainwaves recorded with a view to obtaining what I believe is called cognitive readjustment, it was the horrid little Napoleon who sat strapped before me now. I mean to say, one need only revisit my last few meetings with the chap in order to see the evidence: at least two attempts to perforate yours truly with sharp objects, a noted disregard for the well-being of others, and a marked tendency to bite the hand that fed him and make life miserable for any who crossed his path.
“Right ho,” I said. “Copy away!”
Nappy and Zeus seemed to agree, for they stepped back from the chair and let Isaac do his thing.
What “his thing” entailed was fastening the last few buckles and zips, placing the neural headgear into place, and flicking a couple of switches.
Nothing appeared to happen except that a few lights on Isaac’s computers switched from red to green, and then back to red again.
“There!” said Isaac.
“There?” I said.
“Zere?” said Nappy.
“We’ve copied his brainwaves. The computer’s sorting them now and isolating the ones we’ve targeted for the transfer. It won’t be long until the serum’s produced.”
“I really don’t think we ought to be doing this,” said Vera.
“Isaac says that this will help Jack get the attention that he needs,” I said. “Not that I’d confidently guarantee that any competent board of medical ethicists would approve the involuntary copying of brainwaves, I suppose — but I think it’ll do him good. It couldn’t make him any worse, I mean. Horrible little menace.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Vera. “Isaac is tinkering with the fabric of reality. If he can observe the beforelife—”
“Please, Vera,” I said, “desist. I see now that you’re convinced by this whole Climate Change theory that Norm and Oan keep mentioning, and you feel that Isaac will upend reality if given a chance to do so. Norm seems convinced of it, too, and he’s practically signed on to become Newton’s lab assistant. He knows what Isaac is planning. And you don’t see him running around in a panic. Chap’s busy planning a wedding. He wouldn’t be planning weddings if he thought the world would be torn asunder by Isaac’s meddling.”
And as if on cue, the soothsayer in question, accompanied by Oan, stepped forward and buttonholed me once more, renewing his insistence that I turn my mind to marital matters.
“The time has almost come, Hand of the Intercessor.”
A muffled “qu’est-ce qui se passe” coming from the vicinity of the heavily wired chair behind me, saved the day by turning the conv. away from nuptials. I, for one, had never been more pleased to hear a slice of Napoleonic lingo.
“Jack’s awake!” I announced.
“We can see that,” said Norm.
“Where am I?” said Jack, and one couldn’t blame him.
“You’re in Isaac Newton’s office,” said Zeus. “He’s helping you.”
“’Elping me ’ow?” said Jack, now struggling against his bonds. “And why am I trapped in zees chair!”
“Best to keep him strapped in, old chum,” I said, cautioning Zeus against unbuckling any buckles. “He’s apt to be a bit grumpy. Besides, there are any number of sharp objects in the vicinity, and this particular Napoleonic gargoyle can’t be trusted to leave them be.”
“Let me go!” shouted Jack.
“Eet’s all right,” said Nappy, offering words of comfort. “You’ll be free to return to ze ’ospice after zees.”
“What ’ave you done to me?”
“Nothing you’ll notice,” said Zeus. “They’ve just copied your brain patterns and—”
“My brain patterns are mine! Zey are what make me! Give zem back!”
“They only copied them,” said Zeus. “You’ll be fine. Just—”
“You ’ave no right! Set me free!”
“Isaac shouldn’t be doing any of this,” said Vera, taking a spot beside me.
Isaac, still ignoring Vera’s protests, stood fiddling with the controls of one of his large computers, and then said, “Serum production in nine seconds.”
“If you’ll just come this way,” said Norm, placing his hand on the Feynman arm, “we can get the wedding started.”
“What wedding?” cried Jack.
“Six seconds,” said Isaac.
“I don’t think you’ve all considered the consequences,” said Vera.
“We really do need you now,” said Norm.
“Three seconds.”
I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but if you are you might be in need of a headache pill or two, or perhaps something in the nature of strong spirits. I mean to say, there seemed to be six or seven different conversations going on, and none of them was particularly agreeable.
Zeus started explaining to Jack whose wedding was taking place and why he’d be viewing the spectacle while strapped into a metal chair; Vera carried on promoting her theory, if you can call it a theory, that Isaac’s plan presented a public menace; Isaac said “serum acquired,” and Norm and Oan oiled toward the Regent’s storage unit, waving at me to join them. Perceiving that the Wedding Front was the one most in need of my attention, I hopped over to Norm and Oan and made my plea.
“Are you absolutely sure this can’t wait?” I said, and if you’d care to add the word “beseechingly” you wouldn’t be far wrong. I carried on, making my speech for the defence.
“I’m sure there are others who’d be interested in attending this wedding, it being a fairly Big Deal for the Church of O. Oan’s friends from work, for example. Former hospice patients. Dr. Peericks. Why, I’m sure that a whole host of people would like to witness the uhh—”
“Blessed event,” said Norm, not noticing that I’d only just saved myself from calling the thing a cataclysm.
“Right you are,” I said, “this blessed event. Surely a whole host of people would — wait, do you hear that noise?”
Knowing me as well as you do, having waded through thirty-some-odd chapters of this volume, and quite possibly having made your way through all forty-four chapters of its prequel, you might be thinking I’d uttered the phrase “do you hear that noise” as a kind of ruse or distraction, hoping to throw Oan and Norm off my scent, as the expression is, and turn their attention to something else. But while it’s true that I did wish to call their attention to something else, it wasn’t anything that might qualify as a ruse. It was a bona fide noise.
“I don’t hear anything,” said Oan — she apparently having ears only for Feynman and wedding planning.
“Sort of a — what would you say — a crowd approaching in the distance,” I specified.
“Now that you mention it . . .” said Norm.
“What you might hear if the Mongol horde were cresting a nearby ridge, preparatory to descending onto the village below for a round of pillaging and plundering and whathaveyou. Occasional blood-curdling scream, that sort of thing.”
He heard it now. Nor was he the only one. For Oan, Vera, Nappy, Jack, Zeus, and Isaac — the whole assembled crew — tilted their heads in a curious-puppy sort of way, giving an ear to the distant rumbling.
“It does have a ‘descending hordish’ ring to it,” said Norm.
It was at this point that the true significance of the thing dawned on me, and I gave tongue.
“Did anyone think to close the elevator portal?”
Chapter 34
“What elevator portal?” said Oan.
“Teleportation thingummy,” I said. “The one through which we arrived. Something Isaac seems to have arranged to whoosh us here, notwithstanding prior claims about teleportation.”
“Now that you mention it,” said Norm, for the second time, “I don’t think anyone did.”
“Ah,” I said. “That explains it. It sounds to me like the Napoleons are coming. No doubt they’re on the Regent’s trail. Intent on exacting a bit of revenge, I’d imagine.”
Now that I see those words in print, it occurs to me that there might have been something to Oan’s claims that the universe eavesdrops on us when we give voice to our desires and then, when the inclination strikes, sees what it might do by way of answering our requests. Examining all the evidence, I’d have to say it isn’t especially competent or consistent when it comes to this desire-fulfilling service, but it does give it a go from time to time. Take the moment of present interest. I had just expressed a wish, however insincerely, that we stall this wedding disaster until such time as we could gather a few more bodies and form something of a congregation. And the universe, failing to perceive that what I really wanted was no wedding at all, presented a crowd instanter, letting a raging horde of Napoleons find their way to the elevator and make their way to ground zero, just in time to watch the vows.
One could hear that they were on the point of making their presence known, the din of their distant approach now reaching levels that shook the walls.
“Everyone stay here,” said Zeus, who always seemed to swell a bit in moments like this. “I’ll handle them.”
“But eet sounds like zere are dozens of zem,” said Nappy, making generous use of the letter “z.”
“You can’t fit an entire platoon of Napoleons in the elevator all in one go,” I said, helpfully. “They must be gathered at the other end and sending up a few at a time.”
“How many Napoleons can you cram into an elevator?” said Norm.
“Enough to tear apart ze likes of you!” shouted Jack.
“Can you close the portal now?” someone suggested. It could well have been me, but so much was going on at the present moment that it was hard for me to be sure.
“No, the Regent opened it, using her pyramidical totem,” said Norm.
“That’s a difficulty,” I said.
“I helped the Napoleons in the revolt,” said Zeus. “I fought on their side. Maybe they’ll be friendly if I’m the first person they see.”
“They don’t sound friendly, chum,” I said. “They sound riled up for war. And if they find the Regent and Norm, people whom they, rather justly, regard as the source of their recent troubles—”
“I can handle them,” said Zeus, flexing a bicep or two. And so saying, he wit
hdrew, leaving through the door to the lecture theatre and closing it behind him.
Nappy, being a Napoleon, instinctively took up a defensible tactical position, climbing atop the Regent-storage-thingummy with an armload of books, presumably for projectile purposes. Isaac stood nearby, fiddling with a syringe which, presumably, would fill the sleeping Regent with Jack’s brain patterns.
A moment or two later the sound of the coming horde of ravenous Napoleons intensified, and I perceived that a whole dungeon’s worth of the little chaps would soon be among us. I could hear Zeus shouting at them, but whatever it was he shouted was drowned out by the sounds of Napoleonic battle cries.
“We can’t let them interfere with the procedure,” said Isaac, still flicking the syringe.
“Someone should interfere with it,” said Vera. And I perceived that she and Isaac descended into something of an argument, she taking the posish that this whole Climate Change plan would lead to ruin and desolation, and he suggesting that whatever ensued would be governed by reason, stable physical laws, and the purity of mathematics, whatever in Abe’s name that means. One could see their passions were running hot, like those of attendees at academic conferences when they hear that the liquor license failed to come through and they’ll have to make do with decaffeinated coffee and diet soda.
Vera appeared to tire of the argument and took things to what one might call the physical level, for she now tried to snatch the vial-syringe-thingummy from Professor Newton’s hands. He dodged, and held it above his head in what I thought was an unsportsmanlike way, given his height advantage.
Nappy prepared a book to launch at any intruders, very decently ignoring any allegiance she may have felt to fellow Napoleons and rising to the defence of those friends who, I think we can all agree, had righteousness on their side.