CHILLER

by Gregory Benford

  George came out of his mesmerized concentration slowly. The window was dimming with sunset. He lit up a Camel and let its pleasure seep into him. Soon it would be time to begin.

  He spent a full hour under the truck. In the darkness at the edge of the I2 parking lot, there was little chance that anyone would spot him, but the time ticking by heightened his nervousness.

  His reading in the Garden Grove library, together with experiments on his own car, had promised that disabling the brakes would be easy. But the Ford flatbed had enormous brake drums and disc rotors, well sealed and rugged. He had to use most of his tool kit just to loosen them and get to the dual hydraulic system.

  The vulnerable spot was in the brake fluid lines. He cut them, tying the plastic tubing off with clamps, and reconnected them into a single reservoir. This added plastic cylinder had a membrane that would hold the line pressure—but only for a while. When the membrane broke, it would drain both the front and rear hydraulics.

  It took more time to adjust his depredations so that they would not be immediately obvious as soon as someone used the brakes. The many hours he had spent in auto shop in high school at last paid off.

  He slipped away into the shadows, passing up the chance to damage the telephone wires or sabotage the equipment that stood by the rear loading dock. Minor stuff.

  He needed to concentrate his energies. That meant research, care, endless dedication. Energy strummed and pulsed through him, seeking an exit, a use, a cause to match his roiling interior desires.

  He would find work for this seethe within. Labors of the night.

  Castle Rock Road snaked up from the humming traffic of Laguna Canyon. The Sunday-night exodus from the beaches ground along in the outbound lane, and George had to cut across them on a left turn to enter the oak-shaded drive. He parked at the base and walked up the steep street, studying the yellow windows tucked back among bushes, many betraying the frosted gray flicker of TV. He found Susan Hagerty’s rambling frame home of Douglas fir sheltered under a stand of eucalyptus. The planking and beams were so weathered, they gleamed like silvery slabs in the moonlight.

  He circled the house in the rough hillside terrain. A sudden loud bark from the back porch startled him, and he slipped back among some manzanita just in time to gain shelter from a gray shape that came rushing forward, yipping and snarling. It stopped at the thicket edge and barked angrily. George turned and crashed through plucking, stinging branches. He broke free and ran up the hillside, scrambling, clutching at rocks to keep his balance.

  The dog below stopped at some invisible boundary and continued its woofs and howls. Neighborhood dogs set up a chorus of yaps and yelps. George finally stopped a hundred yards up the rough hillside and sprawled beside pampas grass, puffing. He had kept up his rigorous routine of weights and running, circling the Mile Square Park three times each day, and his heaving chest came more from fear than exertion.

  As a boy he had always feared the big dogs that snarled and bit. But once he had conquered a small one, a thin Cocker spaniel, he knew then that God had given him dominion over all, just as God gave to Adam.

  That had been a great flowering moment. He had then taken to nightly wanderings from his succession of foster homes, confronting and defeating the animals he met in fields and parks. Usually he needed no cleverness to bring them within arm’s reach. There was never anything about it in the newspaper, though he constantly checked. No one ever saw a link among the sad little blood-stained patches, the wrecked carcasses left in wayside ditches.

  But the blurred gray shape had surprised him just now, sending heart-stopping gasps through his chest, shooting sparks of the old hot fear. He lay on the hillside and burned with self-loathing. It took a long time to still his labored panting, to notice the warm stain on his blue jeans where he had wet himself.

  Slowly the iron self returned, borne on a wedge of rage and disgust. Stupid, yes, stupid to not anticipate that she, who had made a dog of damnation, would not have a pet. This was the TRAVIS, CANINE entry he had seen and forgotten to track down. She intended to take that pet dog with her, have it frozen for companionship, in the icy citadel of the damned that she had been put on this earth to bring about.

  Something about this discovery brought a steely coldness back into him. He stretched out on the hillside and faced the fears that etched at him. He squeezed his eyes tight and heard the scuttling things that peopled the dark, that chirped and rustled and squeaked at the edge of hearing, sounds that had filled him with hot terror as a boy—of scaly creeping lizards and things with ropy tails and slimy red-rimmed eyes. Presences prowled the air.

  He withstood them and mastered himself. When at last he opened his eyes, he saw the skyshine brimming at the horizon toward Irvine, the collective illuminations of a million souls offered up like a glowing benediction to the infinite abyss above. He heard the strangely reassuring hiss and slur of weekend traffic on the canyon road below.

  He sat through the night, letting it seep into him, thinking, planning. He clasped his hands in his lap, like a boy in church. A wad of beef jerky in his pocket provided some flicker of strength.

  An orange flare rose above Saddleback Mountain, and to the west the dark retreated, leaving gray. The city lay snuggled against its hills, an artist about to wake up to the usual beautiful beginnings.

  He lurched to his feet, rumpled and rough-chinned, feeling a queasy slosh as he crept carefully down. He let no stone slip away to announce his coming. Halfway down to Hagerty’s home, he saw movement. He hid. Dr. Susan Hagerty pulled out of her ramshackle garage and coasted down Castle Rock Road, tires spitting gravel like bacon frying.

  Just as well. He could get closer to the house if she were gone. Homes here were hidden up narrow driveways, but sound carried well. Not a good place for him to operate. He passed a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall nestled into the foot of the big castlelike rock formation. The Jehovah’s people were on the Lord’s side, of course, but unable to see beyond their narrow doctrines, like so many. He could not count on them for help.

  As he patiently edged toward the house a mockingbird trilled in the cool shadows. Hagerty’s dog came trotting out to give him a suspicious look—a keeshond, looking smaller in the pale light, one of the Dutch dogs with peppery coat and glinting eyes. It went into a teeth-baring attack stance.

  “Here, Travis,” George called. “I’m just lookin’ round.”

  Travis growled. He kept up his soothing patter, squatting in a relaxed way. Travis’s throaty rumble slowly ebbed.

  The dog shrewdly kept its distance for a full ten minutes before it sniffed at and then accepted the offered scrap of beef jerky.

  It took ten more before the skittish creature allowed George to place a hand upon it. He gave it half an hour of crooning and petting, sitting among the pungent scents of eucalyptus as the morning dew evaporated. He rubbed the dog’s belly, and Travis happily jiggled his legs in appreciation, tongue lolling.

  More than once his hand strayed to the dog’s throat, felt gently deep into the downy coat, found the cartilage there that he knew would crumble under one swift clench.

  But he held back, fought the quicksilver desire. He needed this animal as a friend, not as another in the long trail of crushed, discarded lumps.

  The dog by this time would run and fetch a tossed stick, even jump for it in the air. But it would not let him approach the old wooden house. Very well; he did not need to. What he did need, he had already gained here.

  George walked away, past a neighbor’s giant satellite dish that seemed like the discarded brassiere of a giantess. Among the aging cottages were some fancy gothic and French country constructions, giving the aroma of instant antiquity.

  He felt a solidity of purpose settling into him in this pearly morning, a sensation of his gathering power, and of human lives as the inhalations and exhalations of God.

  FOUR

  NEW EVILS

  He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, f
or time is the greatest innovator.

  —Francis Bacon

  1

  ALEX

  He slammed shut the tailgate of the truck and climbed in beside Ray Constantine. “First call, Multitech Labs,” Alex read from his clipboard. “Big game hunt—an automated blood chemistry analyzer.”

  As Alex cranked up the engine, Ray asked, “Up for salvage? Think we’ll get it?”

  “It came in on SalNet last night. If we’re quick, we might sweet-talk them.”

  Ray squinted at the clip board. “A 1992 model—still worth something.”

  “Not much.”

  “We’re nonprofit, so if we show up first—”

  “They squint at us and say, you do what?”

  They laughed as Alex backed the truck out and nosed it onto Santiago Canyon Road. He headed south toward El Toro, among hills thick with chaparral. “I remember one time we showed up for an ultracentrifuge that a research lab had used on a navy contract. They had put it on the list of surplus gear available to nonprofit groups, but the clerk wouldn’t even speak to us.”

  Ray leaned back and folded his lanky legs against the dashboard, wedging himself in securely in case the opportunity should arise for a doze. Slanted morning sunlight heightened the creases in his face and gave him a brooding air. “No surprise there. Once I had a woman go out and spray paint GRAVE ROBBERS on the truck while I was inside trying to get some freebie gear.”

  “Damn. Actually, that’s not so bad as the fish-eyed ones who stare at you as if you were Zombie Nazis From Mars. I—”

  The truck slewed sidewise, tires screeching. Ray sat up in alarm. Alex had swerved to avoid a motorcyclist who had come out of nowhere from behind them, passing, zooming back across the divider with only inches to spare just before an oncoming car arrived. The biker was a heavy woman in a leather jacket, no helmet. With an insolent blatt, she roared off down the highway.

  “What’s she trying to do, surf on the waves of traffic?” Alex was aghast. “Geez, people get crazier all the time.”

  “The county’s nearly packed to the rafters,” Ray said meditatively, watching the motorcycle race away, blond hair streaming like a flamboyant farewell affront. “So to get a taste of freedom, they hit the last few open roads and jazz their wheels awhile.”

  Alex let out a long breath. Sudden, lancing danger brought its delayed thumping increase in pulse rate, the prickly surge of adrenaline. He mentally cursed the woman who had so cavalierly brought them all so close to a nasty accident. He remembered all too clearly that limitless, zesty bravado. Everyone knew that bravura zest when young, and most survived it.

  The thought brought forth a dusty recollection in a tingling flash. It had been a similar cool morning, one almost swanky in its richness of sun and scented air. He had been driving to a part-time TV repair job, one that had met the bills until he figured out what he was really going to do with his life. He had just broken up with his wife, and some bile had pooled in his mind, souring the comics in the L.A. Times for him, including even Calvin and Hobbes, his favorite. In a vexed, caffeine-saturated, lip-chewing mood he had sped toward a traffic signal near a high school. He saw a student in jeans and T-shirt quite deliberately slouching across, against the light, aiming a haughty, buck-toothed grin at him. As Alex had neared the hatch-marked pedestrian crosswalk, the boy had slowed his disdainful stroll even more—and then with languid grace, given him the finger. Without thinking Alex had sent his Volvo angling sideways. He had picked up the kid on the right fender, a kiss of the chrome, a brush with the paint just enough to send him sprawling.

  It had been an instant gut reaction, no mind between the impulse and the act. The kid spun off in a wild, arms-flailing whirl of bug-eyed alarm, reeling away, tripping on the curb, crashing into a hedge, banging down for an inglorious landing on his ample butt.

  Alex had stopped. The kid jumped up and began cursing him, quickly joined by several of his friends. The kid’s nonstop swearing assured Alex that there was no injury except to the vocabulary, which had already started to repeat. He suddenly realized that what he had done was probably a felony and jumped back into his Volvo.

  Speeding away, Alex had felt quick remorse and, to his surprise, deep anger—an instant rage that the kid had been so oblivious, so cocky. Paradoxically, mixed in with the shame that came later, he had felt a tart pleasure in reminding the kid, in yanking him back into the real world where the Dark Trickster always waited, infinitely patient.

  The seemingly solid world was fragile and could be shattered by a moment’s idle carelessness.

  Alex shook himself and stabbed at the radio button. A bright, completely phony woman’s voice bloomed over the speakers, chatting approvingly of the latest way to save precious water—pee during your shower. “You save a whole flush—five gallons!” the perky woman gushed. “Whatcha think of this new idea from the Water Control Board, folks? Call in your opinion right now to station KFGH—”

  Alex snapped the radio into silence and realized that the motorcyclist had released some free-floating anxiety in him. Something was not right, but he could not pick up the elusive blip at the edge of his screen. As he thought of that image, Ray’s conversation intruded into his self-absorption, and he realized the man had been talking for some time about the I2 computer systems.

  “Thing is,” Ray continued, “we can’t tell if it’s a glitch or a sniffer.”

  “Uh—why do you think it’s a sniffer?” Questions were the best way to cover your inattention.

  “Because it’s moving around. One time it fuzzes up our personnel records, then it’s in the MedAlarm, next day we’re getting error statements from our longtime archives, for chrissake.” Ray had given up hope of a doze and now produced a toothpick, sticking it at a frustrated angle between his teeth.

  “Does it do damage?”

  “A few times, yes. But mostly it’s just there, reading files or something, then gone. Our protection picks up little whispers from it, then it leaves.”

  “A moving glitch?” Alex knew just enough computer lingo to skate through.

  “Could be. Some systems ghost, dancing on the data.”

  “How about vandalism?” He turned onto Lake Forest, a boulevard with no visible lake or forest.

  “It could do a whole lot more, scrub whole directories, if it wanted.”

  “Sounds like the opening for a creep feature to me.” Ray squinted at him skeptically and Alex went on imitating the hard-sell voice of a TV producer: “See, first the tortured beings floating in the liquid nitrogen try to make contact through the computer, pushing defenseless electrons around. Got it? Then the frozen souls appear as ghosts, only real icy ones, so they freeze solid anybody they touch. Then—”

  “Awwww, that’s so bad, it just might get made,” Ray admitted.

  They slowed to find the MultiTech Labs address and passed a crowd of scruffy Latinos bunched at an intersection. This was one of the city-approved pickup points for day workers, mostly illegals. Lined, dusky faces with hooded eyes, a patient endurance. Worldwide economic integration had leveled workers. Symbol-manipulators were doing well, and in-person service industries held their own. But the unskilled of all nations now earned pretty much the same meager minimum. And all varieties seemed to end up here.

  In L.A. the cultural conflicts were east-west; in Orange County, to be different, they were north-south. Money, influence, the sheen of the new—all gravitated southward, bumping against rock-ribbed San Clemente. The upper tier of engineers and managers peered over the collective heads of the immigrants and minimum-wage replaceables. Alex said, “Y’know, to those guys, what we’re doing is absurd.”

  Ray studied their faces. “Trying to hold on, never knowing whether you’ll work the next day or go hungry, sending money back to Mexico for people who’re even worse off—” He chuckled ruefully. “And here we are, helping people try for a second life a century down the road. Seems unreal sometimes.”

  Alex liked Ray’s crooked grin, his
western accent that had no sharpness and sometimes reflectively softened into a drawl. Ray faced the world square and still retained the incredible, head-spinning optimism any cryonicist needed. As vice-president of I2 he could summon up a tough shell when the occasion demanded it, as they soon found.

  The clerk at the loading dock of MultiTech sneered when he heard the name Immortality Incorporated. “You guys think I’m going to hand over this expensive piece”—he gestured toward a big pine-frame crate—“to the likes of you?”

  “I don’t see as how you got any choice,” Ray drawled.

  “Well, I’m foreman here, and I’m to tell you I got plenty of choice,” the man said, shifting around to display his broad shoulders face on, in what appeared to be a show of bluster. The effect failed because a lot of his chest had slumped into his belly, held in by his huge American Eagle belt buckle.

  Alex had considered running a tough-cop-versus-sweet-cop routine on this guy, but that didn’t look promising. The shrewd mouth and veiled eyes suggested a motivation beyond simple dislike of cryonics. Without saying another word, Alex turned and walked through the MultiTech dock and staging area, ignoring the “Hey, you can’t—” from behind.

  Ray was with him as they tracked down the divisional super and explained matters. Economically, I2 was a bottom feeder. A rain of half-used gear filtered down through the twilight of a technological society, settling onto the shelves of salvage sheds.

  “We usually ask maybe a penny on the dollar for this stuff,” the super said skeptically.

  Alex held out his clipboard. “Here’s your Receipt for Beneficial Donation, all filled out and signed.”

  “Well… I dunno. A broker I know said he might be able to place this blood analyzer someplace.”

  “Your tax writeoff will beat his price,” Ray said.

  “Well… if that’s so, how come the foreman didn’t just sign off on it?”