CHILLER

by Gregory Benford

  —Andrew Marvell

  “To His Coy Mistress”

  1

  KATHRYN

  The view of Niagara Falls was stunning, with frothy cascades tumbling all the way around her room, but Kathryn had to turn off the sound to concentrate. Alex sat beside her bed, holding her hand and relating a complicated story that made very little sense. It didn’t help that he was already using slang like “croakers” and “wirehead,” assuming they were obvious.

  “Whoa—start over. Lomax started out a hero in all this?”

  “Sure, he was called in when the attending physicians couldn’t figure what to do with George.”

  “George as a boy.”

  “Right, he was eleven or so. Lomax had these experimental drugs developed by Vitality Incorporated. He tried freezing George down further, below what that cold lake had done. The kid had been in the water over an hour and a half. Then Lomax injected his drugs and slowly warmed George back up.”

  “For how long?”

  “Took days, the old records show.”

  “Why did we take months, then?”

  Alex looked at her with fond indulgence. “We were hundreds of degrees colder, with lots more damage. So anyway, George comes out of it, only he’s frapped.”

  “Which means?”

  “Sorry, that’s some current slang. It means he’s damaged goods. Synapses screwed up or something. The trauma of drowning, too. But Lomax, he figured he could work on George, repair most of the damage.”

  “He was sure wrong about that.”

  “Lomax did fix it—but only by using drugs that suppressed some of the memory sites in George’s right brain lobe. Something made the drugs accumulate in sites of the brain. That had some side effects, mostly in aberrant behavior. George had blocked out memories of his drowning and a lot about his parents. Part of him kept trying to fill that in.”

  “Look, I don’t care about the personal problems of that slug.”

  Alex sat back reflectively. His face and arms were heavily purpled with bruises from the fight with George two days before. “I know how you feel. He killed me, remember.”

  “I wish you’d have really drowned him this time.”

  “I lost him in that pond, or sure, I probably would’ve.”

  “Fernandez would have pulled him back, pretty likely.”

  “Right. I have the feeling it’s hard to die nowadays.”

  “Lomax saved George in the seventies, you said. How come you never heard about it?” she asked.

  “George’s problems would cast a bad light on the whole method, hurt the Vitality stock, wreck his research plans. This was an ambitious guy, Lomax. He fixed as much as he could, arranged a regular series of drug therapies for George—and then got rid of him.”

  “Into those foster homes? Sounds pretty terrible, I have to admit.”

  “Lots of foster homes are fine. Lomax knew how to get George labeled ‘mildly dysfunctional.’ George got shuttled into some homes in Arizona, to keep him out of the media eye in California. Lomax kept his distance, checked on the kid now and then. He knew George was developing psychotic patterns, but that would reflect back on him, so he stayed low and waited.”

  “How does anybody know this stuff?”

  “Stern went after the foster parent records. Plus some stuff the cops turned up in Lomax’s own private files. I guess he was just minimizing the threat to Vitality, and to his own reputation. But then he got worried about Immortality Incorporated and saw a way to use George to do us in.”

  Kathryn lounged back, letting her bed massage her. She had a lot of bumps and bruises from the fight, too, and all the wonders around her didn’t do much to erase the aches. Maybe a few more miracles lay down the road. Or maybe, by cosmic justice, into every life some pain must fall. “So he used Reverend Montana. Keeping his distance.”

  Alex nodded. “Montana says he didn’t know about George’s past, at first. He was happy to take on the job of harassing us, though, doing a favor for his older brother. It meant big bucks from Vitality, too, when the Rev was starting to have funding problems. I guess his line of patter wasn’t working out all that well, after all. Seems Lomax had been making little donations all along, figuring he could manage the religious objections to cryonics that way. Montana says he really thought George would just pull some pranks, sabotage, stuff like that. Montana didn’t realize George was psychotic until it was too late.”

  “I see. When that happened, Lomax told him to shut up, that Montana would take the blame if George got caught and confessed.”

  “So Montana says. I think he’s telling the truth—he’s too scared to lie very well. After all, what could Montana do? He was out on a limb before he knew it. That Karen Bocelin woman—the one Lomax used to keep tabs on George? Stern figures she did something wrong, reminded him of his drowning somehow, and he killed her. With her gone, there was no obvious connection to Lomax anymore.”

  “And that’s how Lomax got the good Reverend to help him kill me,” Kathryn said bitterly. “I’m getting some memories of it now, from seeing Montana again. Fragments.”

  Alex leaned over and gingerly slid his arms around her. That helped, but the blades of darting fear made her shudder. Those lost memories were in fact an accidental kindness, filling in a stark moment that she would otherwise always wonder about. She hoped no more returned to her. But something told her that her dreams would seethe with jagged images for a long time.

  “So all this was because Lomax wanted to be the man who conquered death,” she said.

  “Lomax alone, that’s the key. He hated it, I guess, when despite George, despite everything, I2 kept on doing research using Susan’s methods.”

  Kathryn grinned maliciously. “And got a lot of public sympathy from our deaths, from the spooky idea that the victims could return to point a finger at their murderer. Pretty gaudy stuff.”

  Alex smiled, obviously pleased to see her being cheerful again. He gave her a careful hug and nuzzled into her neck.

  The mere sight of George would have been bad enough, she thought, even without all the violence. In some sense, revival from suspension demanded that the mind sort itself out at deep levels. The worst traumas might not be the visible ones. George himself was clear evidence of that. The human body was a marvelous machine, but it was still better understood than the vastly more complex mind that rode atop it.

  Dr. Blyer was keeping them away from the media entirely, not even allowing them to see the coverage on their wall screens. Even Detective Stern had gotten only one interview after the assault. So as she glanced up from nuzzling Alex’s neck, Kathryn was surprised to see Niagara Falls wither and a full-size image transmission take its place.

  She gave Alex a squeeze and murmured. “We have company.” It was a moment before she recognized the grinning, matronly black woman who seemed to be standing a few feet away as Sheila, from Fashion Circus. Kathryn blinked, then cried out in incoherent surprise. Sheila looked older and wiser and yet somehow the same.

  “My, I’m glad to see that some things in this world don’t change,” Sheila said with a chuckle.

  Alex looked startled and released Kathryn, but recovered nicely. “Yeah, you’re still interrupting us just as the going gets good.”

  Then he looked sheepish. Kathryn knew just what he was feeling. This was an awesome event, being revived, and all the staff here were appropriately solemn. But to Alex and Kathryn, Sheila was the jazzy girl they had known just a few weeks ago, and that Sheila didn’t have a solemn bone in her.

  “Y’know, it’s amazing—you two really are the same as back then,” Sheila said. On Kathryn’s wall she turned and walked across to a tan overstuffed couch and sat down, the camera somehow knowing to follow her. She was in a spacious, airy house. “Hard to believe. After all the times I thought of you…”

  Her voice trailed off, and for a moment a kind of awed sadness came into the familiar yet lined face. Kathryn, determined to keep things light, said, “I se
e you haven’t given up your passion for high heels and leather skirts.”

  Sheila brightened. “Heels, sure—I got all dolled up for this. I been calling you every day. They say nobody lower than the pope gets through. Then this Dr. Blyer calls me, says he wants to wall me right into you. But leather? Nobody wears that anymore—this is synth. Looks the same, wears better, and the animal neuros don’t nag you.”

  Kathryn made a mock grimace. “My Lord—I’ve got to learn thirty-eight years of fashion!”

  Sheila waved a hand airily. “Naw, two days in the shops, and you’ll be givin’ them tips. All anybody needs is to know the last six months—before that, it’s like the pharaohs wore it, for all most people care. This is the thirties look, puff shoulders and all, dancin’ round again.”

  “Come on, spill. What’s happened with you?” Kathryn had been uninterested in the standard briefing tapes, full of recent political and economic history and slabs of facts, but catching up on friends was different.

  “Lots. Let’s say that if I had it to do all over again, I’d make the same mistakes—only sooner.”

  “You aren’t starving,” Alex said, gesturing at the house they could see behind the couch. It seemed to stretch to the horizon, a coordinated symphony of fabrics, glass, and rich woods.

  “Wish I was. I’d have some hope of getting into a size eight again. I’ve got a little clothing operation, brings in the pocket change all right.”

  “I knew it! Remember, we used to talk about starting up a chain where a woman could get sharp clothes, not just knock-offs? At reasonable cost?”

  “Yeah, we did, and after you were—well, gone, I guess is the word—I finally got my squeezers on and did the dance.”

  “So you own the business?” Alex said.

  Sheila lounged back, letting a grin play across her broad features. “Yep—all of them. Got seventy-eight outlets for Steppin’ Out.”

  Kathryn was thrilled. She realized that she had been hanging back from really engaging this world, out of a vague fear that it would lie beyond her abilities. Sheila made it seem possible, though. They talked for several moments about the business, and little seemed to have truly changed since the Fashion Circus days. Sheila had a wry amused attitude toward it all and shrewdly studied them both. Then she said quietly, “Kath, you’ve got to remember, the future is always going to be a lot like the present. People don’t change as fast as their toys.”

  “Enough philosophy. How about the real stuff?” Kathryn asked.

  Sheila winked. “Ah, I know this gal—time to dig the dirt.”

  “There must be plenty,” Alex said.

  “Only maybe a mountain range or two. One thing I learned, the two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success.”

  Kathryn shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You always knew how to handle yourself.”

  “Let’s say I learned that a husband’s there while the marriage is on, but an ex-husband you’ve got for life.”

  Kathryn grinned. This was the old Sheila all right, irreverent as a whoopie cushion. The world seemed a lot more comfortable with her in it.

  “I see a surfboard stashed in the hallway behind you,” Alex said. “That’s not your style, so there’s a man around somehow.”

  “That’s Alex’s—my son.” Sheila raised her eyebrows. “Right—I named him after you. I remarried, been that way for eighteen years.”

  Somehow this made Kathryn’s eyes mist. The incredible collapsing perspectives of life and time overpowered her emotions at times. But the dominant emotions were good—not of the still well-remembered past, now lost, but joy and wonder for this strange present, so rich in possibility.

  “I snagged a big fellow, name of Albert. And that’s what I call him, not Al. He’ll be home soon from the office, you’ll see him. I had him zap you over some contracts to look at, get the jump on the competition.”

  Kathryn looked confused. “Competition?”

  “Why, everybody’s going to be trying to hire you. You’re famous, gal. I figure that’ll wear off, though, and I been looking for a new buyer in the high-fashion end of the operation. Want it?”

  Kathryn blinked. “Uh, I guess so.”

  “Pays two twenty-five plus expenses. I’ll be working with you and—”

  “That’s two twenty-five thousand?” Alex blurted.

  “Sure. Hey, you think inflation froze up while you did?” Sheila grimaced in mock alarm. “Man, I can see you two are gonna need an agent. You might as well soak the media for some walkin’-around money. Famous folks, they got to leave big tips, y’know.”

  “My lord.” Kathryn remembered suddenly that she had borrowed money from Sheila to make the down payment on her own suspension. Well, she could pay it back. Late, but in full. She held Alex’s hand tightly. All this was daunting, and she would need him. They would need each other.

  Sheila gave her a wise, warm look. “Hey, it’ll come natural to you, believe me. One thing I’ve learned for sure, it’s possible to live happily ever after, all right—but only on a day-to-day basis.”

  2

  ALEX

  The vault was bright, high-tech, and oddly chilling.

  Alex followed Stern among the gleaming steel canisters, marveling at the old fittings, heavy valves, thick lines—and especially, the enormous double-jacketed liquid nitrogen vessel that dominated one wall. His heels sank into thick carpeting, scented and air-conditioned mild air brushed his cheek, and except for the absence of windows there was no way to tell they were deep underground.

  “Lomax built it right into the foundations?” Alex asked.

  Stern gestured at thick concrete footings along the cream-colored walls. “I guess he didn’t want any sign from outside that the mass of the house was carried by these. So he had it planned back when the buildings went up. The county’s blueprints show this as a big wine cellar.”

  Alex sniffed. A musty, still quality to the place. “Well, he did store for long term.”

  Stern scowled. “I figured maybe you and Mr. Constantine could tell us something about this gear. It’s pretty old.”

  Ray was still staring in disbelief at the long, low-ceilinged room. He was slightly heavier than Alex remembered from the far past, but his face held the same laconic skepticism, beneath the heavy lines and erosions of age.

  “Primitive,” Ray said. “Kinda clunky. And amazing.”

  Alex realized that this gear lay nearer in time for him than for Ray. He could even recognize some of the brand names on the piping and valves. “Well engineered for the time, though. Top of the line. Must be an automatic control system.”

  Ray bent over to inspect the couplings, his movements a bit fragile. “Looks like. Catch those electro-servos over there, ought to be in the Smithsonian.”

  “Control of what?” Stern asked.

  Ray gestured. “These lines carry the liquid nitrogen from that big vessel. The system must top off the nitrogen in the canisters.”

  “You guys had stuff like this?”

  Ray nodded. “Better done, sure.”

  “So the people in here, you figure they’re still preserved?”

  Ray shrugged. “Hard to say. I wouldn’t trust any machinery for decades.”

  “Lomax’s records say he had an attendant for this. ‘Wine steward,’ it says. Looks like he’s skipped. We’re trying to find him.”

  Alex said, “He probably just tended the refilling. It’s a simple job.”

  Stern leaned against one of the polished, curved canisters. Ray wandered slowly away down the aisle. It was a big room, and there were at least a hundred whole-body cylinders here, lying horizontal in long rows. Stern looked pained. “Alex, I was thinking you might look this over before you spoke to any of the media. Maybe if you break the story, things will be a little easier.”

  Alex was still taking it all in, and he didn’t follow Stern’s diplomacy. “Easier?”

  “We looked pretty bad, letting Lomax get George onto the Vitality-Imm
ortality grounds. There’s a big clamor about it. Way I figure, you meet your first press conference and show just what Lomax was doing, how slick his operation here was, it takes some of the heat off all of us.”

  “Off you.”

  “Hey, off you, too. Immortality Incorporated comes out the angel in all this. Probably you guys can sue Vitality for every buck they’ve got left.”

  “Sue?”

  “Harassment, persecution, the works. Lomax used Vitality corporate research to control George. He developed that spray as a side product of a Vitality product. A nasty little combo, brewed up by corporate technicians. Not easy to trace. And Lomax was planning to shoot George, cover his tracks. Then there’s misuse of corporate functions, every bit of it. And all directed against you, against Immortality Incorporated. Plenty of lawsuits there.”

  “Look, I’m not interested in games like that.”

  “Vitality and I2 are still separate corporate entities, y’know, even though they’re close collaborators throughout the whole cryonics industry.”

  Alex gritted his teeth. “No.”

  “Fine, fine,” Stern held up both hands, palms out. “So take it easy, just have a look around. Tell us how Lomax might’ve set this up.”

  Alex realized that he was being courted, to keep his criticisms of the police tempered. Did he care? He felt disconnected from the strains and countercurrents of this age. A prince from a distant, frozen land.

  Time enough for political stuff later; right now he wanted to study this incredible place. “Let Ray and me nose around awhile.”

  “Sure, have at it.”

  Each canister was sleek, sculpted, chromed, the look of old-fashioned futurism. Maybe that had been more convincing to big-time movers and shakers, back in the waning decade of the long-gone twentieth century. Each had a curved transparent plate in the top. Alex bent over one and peered in. The bright overhead fluorescent cast a pale radiance across a seamed, still face only an inch away. Liquid nitrogen was clear, invisible, and Alex could see tiny crinkled lines in the face of Salvador Dali. The theatrically upturned moustache, the imperious jaw, were unmistakable.