Switchback

by Matthew Klein

  Amber Corporation was the result. It was a money-losing, research and development company that employed a dozen people – graduate students, technicians, software programmers – but in small, separate roles, so that no one knew exactly what the company was building, nor what the ultimate result of their work would be. No one, that is, but Dr. Ho, who understood exactly what he was doing, which was nothing less than changing the nature of what it meant to be alive, and what it meant to be dead.

  ‘Look,’ Ho said. ‘Did you know that the neurons in your brain live on average twelve to eighteen months? Then they are replaced by new neurons. Do you understand the implications of that?’

  Timothy said that he did not.

  ‘It means that, statistically speaking, your brain upgrades itself every three years. The neurons in your skull today are almost certainly completely different from the neurons that were in your skull three years ago. Yet you still have the same memories from childhood, the same personality, the same likes and dislikes. You’re still yourself. Human beings don’t become different people every three years. Which is rather amazing, when you think about it.’

  Ho smiled. Timothy realized that this was a rare opportunity for him, a chance to explain the work that he had labored on for perhaps twenty years, alone, unable or unwilling to share it with anyone. How many times, Timothy wondered, had Ho rehearsed this speech in front of a mirror, while driving down a highway, or while drifting off to sleep? Now, finally, he was having his Blofeld moment, explaining his diabolical plot to James Bond as the secret agent dangled by his ankles above a death ray.

  Except that Ho was a bit different from the typical super-villain familiar to Timothy. Thin and waif-like, of indeterminate sexuality, with a precious manner and neatly clipped syllables, he seemed more like an interior decorator than a world destroyer. ‘You see?’ Ho said. ‘Your personality is just software. Completely separate from the hardware it runs on. And just as we copy software from one computer to another, we can do the same with our minds, our personalities. And that is what Amber does. We preserve the contents of a human mind. We store it, back it up, put it away for safe keeping. Everything is digitized.’

  Timothy was a bit lost. He followed the doctor only partly. Of more concern to Timothy was what Ho wanted from him. More money? An introduction to other venture capitalists? Advice about how to build his business? Timothy squinted in consternation. Ho read his expression as frightened.

  ‘No,’ Ho said, ‘it’s nothing disgusting – no surgery, no wires, no holes in the head. No wet-wear. It’s basically an MRI – we simply read the electrochemical pattern that is stored in the brain. Of course it’s much more computationally intensive than a plain MRI. That’s what these are for.’ He indicated the rows of humming computers behind him. ‘It’s the opposite of three-D rendering. It’s kind of like three-D de-rendering, if you follow me.’

  Rendering, de-rendering, Timothy thought. I could use that Scotch that’s waiting for me back at home. He said, ‘I’m sorry, Dr. Ho. I’m no technology expert. I can read my email. That’s about it. Sometimes, if no one’s looking, I play online checkers. That’s my level of interest in computers.’ In truth, Timothy realized, this technology talk was a little over his head, and was boring him. Normally, if confronted with a technical matter he didn’t understand, Timothy just called the Kid into his office and said, ‘Take care of it.’

  Ho tried a different tack. ‘I met your wife six months ago. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance.’

  ‘Who?’

  Ho ignored him. ‘She had just learned she was very ill. She was dying. She heard I might be able to help. Not the way most doctors would try to help. I wasn’t going to cure her disease. But I explained to her that I could make a backup.’

  ‘A backup? Of what?’

  ‘Of her.’

  ‘Of …’ Timothy’s voice trailed off. Suddenly, the technology gibberish made sense. MRIs, wetwear, rendering … those terms were just so much mumbo jumbo. But now, with the context of Katherine’s illness to latch onto, Timothy understood what the doctor was saying. He claimed to have a copy of Katherine’s brain.

  Timothy said, ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘I made her promise not to tell you, until the process was done. You must understand, my work is not exactly complete. There are …’ He waved his hands. ‘Issues.’

  ‘What did you do to my wife?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ho said. ‘Your wife was dying, Mr. Van Bender. She had perhaps one or two months left. Then things were going to become painful. Her cancer had spread. It was in her ovaries, her colon, even her brain. She would need drugs, morphine constantly, just to make the pain tolerable. She would lose control of her bodily functions. Dementia would set in. She would begin to lose her mind. And so she made a decision while she still could make a decision. I offered her an alternative to all that.’

  ‘You offered a desperate and sick woman a fairytale … a science fiction story.’

  ‘This is no science fiction story, Mr. Van Bender.’

  ‘Are you a con artist?’

  ‘No. I’m an entrepreneur.’

  Ho sat down in front of a computer screen, tapped the keyboard twice. The cursor appeared again, a yellow blinking square.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Ho said. He typed:

  cd~/amber/v1

  amber

  ‘Pull up a seat,’ Ho said. ‘And say hello to your wife.’

  Ho typed: I have Timothy here.

  It took a moment, and then the blinking yellow cursor zipped across the screen, leaving behind a trail of phosphor:

  Hi, Timothy.

  The cursor waited, blinking, patiently.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Ho said, ‘you can type.’

  ‘You motherfucker,’ Timothy said, but he couldn’t help himself. He typed:

  Who is this?

  After a moment, new words appeared:

  Who do you think, Gimpy? It’s me.

  That was enough for Timothy. Dr. Ho was a huckster, a carnival barker, a charlatan. Timothy had no doubt that, at that very moment, one of Ho’s associates was sitting in the next room, the one conveniently blocked by the Keep Out sign, pecking at a computer keyboard, pretending to be Timothy’s wife.

  It was one of the lowest, most despicable things Timothy had ever heard of. He wasn’t sure of the angle. What did Ho hope to extract? Money, no doubt, but how? Or maybe he had already made his money from the Van Benders – that cool hundred and fifty thousand dollars that disappeared into a series of shell corporations – and this exercise was part of an escape plan, a kind of giant distraction to keep Timothy hopeful and placated while Ho and his associates had a chance to flee.

  In any case, Timothy knew that this son of a bitch had quite possibly encouraged Katherine to commit suicide. Perhaps he had convinced her to jump to her death. Perhaps he had indeed promised she would be backed up, that she would have eternal life in silicon. How desperate and frightened she must have been, Timothy thought, to be taken in by this monster.

  The cursor flew across the screen:

  I love you, Timothy.

  That was it. Timothy windmilled around and punched Ho in the face. It was the only punch Timothy had ever thrown in his life, and he felt a sickening thud, the feeling of his fist hitting a half-filled sandbag, and Ho fell backwards with a surprised look on his face, as if this was the only punch he had ever received, too. His glasses were askew – one earpiece hung preposterously from his skull like an antenna. Timothy grabbed the computer monitor and wrenched it off the table, pulling wires loose. The screen crashed to the ground, the glass panel popping out of its bevel like a high-tech jack-in-the-box.

  Timothy kicked the monitor. His shoe crashed through the screen, breaking it in two. He headed for Ho, who was scrabbling on the concrete floor, trying to stand. Timothy bent down, grabbed Ho by the white lab coat lapel, and pulled him up. Ho tried turning away, but he was off balance, and didn’t have any purchase on the floor. He
raised his hands over his face feebly.

  ‘You despicable man,’ Timothy said. ‘You lied to my wife. You encouraged her to jump.’

  ‘No,’ Ho said. ‘You misunderstand.’

  Timothy raised his fist. He thought about punching Ho one more time, but decided against it. He tossed Ho to the ground, instead. The doctor fell to the floor like a limp roll of carpet, his palms slapping concrete.

  Timothy turned to leave. He gave the computer screen, now a pile of plastic, one more kick, sending it skittering across the floor. Then he walked out.

  23

  He could not sleep.

  He tried, first by keeping his appointment with Mr. Dalmore, twenty-one years old, and then by popping a valium, and finally by falling backwards into his mattress with his shoes on, tight and sticky around his ankles.

  In the dark, the empty space on the bed beside him seemed to grow, like ink racing across a shirt pocket, sending tentacles of black outward, threatening to swallow him and the bed.

  His mind raced. His heart still fluttered, even hours later, giddy and surprised about the cold ruthless violence that had surged through him – the way he punched Ho, the snap of the doctor’s jaw, the sting on Timothy’s hand, his kick of the computer screen that sent it skidding across the concrete laboratory floor.

  And there was something else. The hoax itself. So elaborate and so perfect. When had Ho decided to carry it out? How long had he been planning it? Months? How long had he known Katherine? How long had he been toying with her, tantalizing her with the promise of eternal life? How had he convinced her to keep the entire matter from her husband of twenty years?

  It was brilliant. There was a moment – just a moment – when Ho almost had him. Almost. The off-hand display of the computers. Not too science fiction. And then the words appearing on the screen. It was as if Katherine was there, on the other side of the screen. What had she said?

  Who do you think, Gimpy? It’s me.

  And that was the troubling bit. How did Ho know her nickname for him? Perhaps Katherine mentioned it accidentally, or maybe Ho extracted it from her under more direct questioning. ‘We need to know everything about your relationship with your husband, Mrs. Van Bender, before we can offer you eternal life.’ That might have done it.

  And yet. And yet. Even as phosphorescent pixels, the words seemed so true to life, so natural, so much like her own. That was exactly what she would have said. And exactly how she would have said it. Looking down her long thin nose at him, regarding him with cool amusement: ‘Who you think, Gimpy? It’s me,’ as if he were the most stupid person in the world, but she still loved him anyway.

  Yes, it was almost as if Katherine was there tonight, talking to him.

  But of course it couldn’t have been her. Because his wife was dead, and Timothy knew that there was no bringing her back, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter what he was willing to give up.

  When sleep finally came, he dreamed: of Katherine, of Dr. Ho and his tiny spectacles, of the racks of computers, and the yellow flashing cursor. They were drunken, wild dreams, and when he woke he realized he was bathed in sweat, his shirt soaked, and that his fist was clenched, as if he had punched Dr. Ho all over again.

  24

  He rose from bed and showered.

  When he wandered downstairs to the kitchen, the answering machine light was flashing. He must have missed the call when in the shower.

  He pressed play. Dr. Ho’s voice – punctilious and effete – filled the kitchen, playing over the ceramic splashboards and making the glass patio doors vibrate. Too loud. Timothy turned down the volume.

  ‘Mr. Van Bender, this is Dr. Ho. I’m calling to apologize about last night. I can understand why you must have been quite upset. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with – with the feelings of family members, in the work I do, and I didn’t think it through. Frankly, I didn’t realize how things would appear to you.’

  Timothy noticed with satisfaction that Ho’s speech was slurred. He could picture the doctor wearing spectacles held together with Scotch tape, holding his swollen jaw as he spoke.

  Ho continued. ‘I’m calling to apologize, but I’m also calling for another reason. It is vital that you do not contact the authorities. It could mean ruin for my work, and – frankly – danger for your wife. I promise you, sir, I am not interested in any money from you. I am not trying to steal from you. I am not trying to trick you. I am simply performing the service that was requested of me. I do not want any further trouble, Mr. Van Bender.’

  I bet you don’t, Timothy thought, since you left a paper trail a mile wide showing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars disappearing from my bank account and landing in yours.

  ‘I will not call you again,’ Ho’s voice said. ‘You have my word. I will not bother you. If you want to contact me, you can do so at your own choosing. Here is my phone number.’ He gave a Peninsula phone number, and then said, ‘Again, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Van Bender. I was only trying to help.’

  The message ended, and the machine beeped.

  Timothy walked across the kitchen to the coffee maker. He spooned the beans into the drip basket, filled the carafe with water, and poured it into the machine. He had given up trying to measure. It was hit or miss now. Usually miss.

  The doorbell rang. Timothy walked to the foyer and peered out the keyhole. A pleasant-looking black woman, all smiles, wearing corn rows and a happy pink blazer, grinned back at him. He opened the door.

  ‘Mr. Van Bender?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’

  From behind her back she pulled a quarter-inch stack of papers and pushed it into his chest. He took it. ‘You just did it,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Have a good day.’ She turned and trotted down the stairs to the driveway.

  Timothy looked at the papers. It said: ‘SUMMONS (Citacion Judicial) – Notice to defendant: Timothy Van Bender; and Osiris LP – You are being sued by Plaintiff: Peter Dewer; Dewer Family Trust I’ and proceeded to list, in twelve pages, the exact nature of the lawsuit, in which Pinky Dewer was requesting both the return of his money, and damages in the amount of twenty million dollars.

  25

  At the office the Kid delivered another piece of bad news: that Refco had overnight raised its margin requirements – that is, the amount of collateral it insisted on holding while Timothy and Osiris gambled on a risky trade – and had issued a margin call. At noon it would begin to liquidate its portion of the yen trade unless Osiris could deposit another ten million dollars cash in its brokerage account. The yen, apparently, had had a busy night, rising briefly to eighty before settling down at seventy-nine.

  Refco’s demand for another ten million dollars was of course impossible to meet. Osiris’ loss had now grown to thirty million dollars since the beginning of the month. Refco rightly suspected that Osiris was in trouble, and that the trouble would only grow larger with each passing day. They realized that soon Osiris’ other brokers would issue margin calls, too, and that the last broker to do so might be left holding the bag, on the hook for millions of Osiris’ losses, without enough collateral to make good. In this game of million-yen musical chairs, no one wanted to be left standing when the Hagaku stopped.

  It was only a matter of time, Timothy understood, before the other brokers would follow suit with their own margin calls – perhaps they would do so as early as that afternoon. They would insist that Osiris buy back the yen contracts that it had sold short – but at the price of seventy-nine, or even eighty – which would turn that hazy, ephemeral, potential loss of thirty million dollars into a concrete, actual fact. Once that loss was reported to investors, that would be the end of Osiris. When investors learn that they have lost forty percent of everything they have invested, practically overnight, it is hard to convince them to stick around a while longer to ‘make it back.’

  It did not take long for the phone calls to start. As Timothy sat down at his desk, Tricia patched through Han
s Drexler, another Yale classmate, who had invested five million in Osiris a year earlier.

  ‘Hans, my friend,’ Timothy said, as he picked up the receiver. ‘How are you doing?’

  Hans had a vaguely European accent. He was actually American, but the product of Swiss boarding schools, and so sounded like he had been raised somewhere between the two continents. Perhaps, Timothy thought, on a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic.

  ‘Timothy, I am hearing some disturbing things about Osiris.’

  Which meant, Timothy understood, that he had heard them from Pinky Dewer. Pinky was now out to destroy him.

  ‘What kind of disturbing things?’ Timothy asked.

  ‘Would it be possible to get some transparency into the fund? I know August statements will arrive shortly. But perhaps you can fax me some kind of interim results? Surely you must know where you stand at this moment, give or take.’

  Oh, I surely do, Timothy thought. I stand in a pile of shit about knee high, and the elevator is going down. But he said: ‘Hans, you’ve got to be kidding me. You want me to spend a couple hours putting together make-work financials for you, instead of earning you money? August P&Ls are coming out in just a few days.’

  ‘But what I’ve heard—’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Pinky? That son of a bitch is playing hardball with me. He wanted me to cut my management fee to a half a percent. When I refused he threatened to call the rest of you and make life difficult. You know why he’s doing this, don’t you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You must have heard about his … troubles? With the takeover?’ Timothy had no idea what he was talking about. But it sounded sufficiently ominous, and vague enough, that Hans would be able to read into it whatever he liked. For good measure he added: ‘With the SEC?’