Dead Lines, A Novel of Life... After Death

by Greg Bear

  There were footprints in the dust beside the lower bunk, the marks of big, old-fashioned shoes with flat soles. Peter could not help himself. He bowed his head and rubbed his eyes, just to take a better look, whatever the consequences. The footprints moved, sliding about slowly on the concrete. They kicked up low, dark puffs. Peter pulled away his hands. The footprints were not Kreislers or Weinsteins.

  Different shoes, a different time.

  Changing space. Faster than light. That isnt impossiblemaybe dangerous? Peter asked abruptly, hoping he wasnt sounding like a complete idiot.

  We never feel it, Kreisler said. Trans reaches below our world, lower than networks used by atoms or subatomic particles, to where it is very quiet. Down there is a deeper silence than we can know, a great emptiness. Huge bandwidth, perhaps infinite capacity. It can handle all our noise, all our talk, anything we have to say, throughout all eternity. Even should we expand to populate entire galaxy, we can never hope to fill it. He approached the white board with marker in hand. Are you mathematician, Mr. Russell?

  Peter thought he had heard that silence, soothing and peaceful. Not sos youd notice, he answered after a pause. His eyes stung. Weinstein was catching on that something was wrong, but seemed determined not to queer their deal.

  Kreisler laid the marker down with a look of amused tolerance. You can take our word for it?

  Why not? Peter said. Despite the delusions, the footprints, his attempts at self-sabotage, he knew this was his last chance to snatch the ring and win a prize. And there was something in Kreislers attitude that drew him in.

  Do you have an attorney to handle your side of the deal? Weinstein asked.

  I have an agent, Peter said, just managing to avoid a hiccup. Weinstein was watching him like a hawk. Sorry, but I still don't have a clear picture of what you want. Commercials? Previews for trade shows? A documentary?

  All perhaps, in time, Kreisler said, encouraged. First we start with low-budget promotional video. Something to present to companies with whom we wish to partner. Perhaps later we edit to a tantalizing commercial, thirty-second spot. We emphasize universal need, practicality, how solid are the patents. He smiled. We have never designed such a rollout. We would like to hear concepts.

  Well be starting with just one short media component and in time work it up to an entire campaign, Weinstein said, still focused on Peter. As Arpad says. Drum up partners and investors. Cash is going to be slim for a month or so. You'll have your finders fee . . . Well write you the finders-fee check before you leave here today. Pretty substantial. Five grand.

  Ten, Peter corrected.

  Right. Weinstein did not miss a beat. Can you coast on that for a while? During the conceptual phase. Once we get our bearings on our relationship and firm up the contract, we can put things on a more professional footing.

  Peter did not like that sort of arrangement, but he had no choice. He hated desperation, and hated begging worse. I can cruise on the check for a while, he said. But I will need a cash advance. I'm pretty short. He did not say, I helped pay for a friends cremation.

  The tension seemed thick, and then Kreisler began to snicker. He broke into a guffaw, and Weinstein joined him.

  Terrific, Peter thought. Red-eyed, acting half drunk or crazy, then hitting them up for a loan. Ive become local color. The true smell of old Hollywood.

  We have some petty cash, Weinstein said when their laughter slowed. He lifted his hands and explained to Kreisler, His friend died last week. He's also up here to attend the wake. It's been a rough time.

  Sorry, Peter said.

  Not at all. We are sorry, Kreisler said. Loss of friend, that is worst.

  Weinstein opened his wallet and gave him three hundred dollars. All Ive got except grocery money.

  Kreisler pulled out his own wallet.

  More than enough. Thanks. Peter folded the crisp new twenties. I'lldrive home and get to work. When should we talk again?

  Soon. Trans will be good for reaching you, no?

  Of course, Peter said.

  And for our next meeting, in a week or so, well spring for airline tickets. Coach, I'm afraid.

  Kreisler said good-bye, returning to his desk and piles of papers. Weinstein walked Peter out of the cell and the block of offices.

  Kreisler likes you, he said. Thats good. He can be thorny. It is so damned difficult to teach great people how to do great things. Weinstein tapped his cranium and put on a conspiratorial look. Want to see something truly cool?

  He led Peter deeper into the building, down a long corridor lined with windows covered with thick wire. They passed other Trans employees, sitting in converted cells, gathering around tables in former guard stations made into meeting rooms, sharing open boxes of pizza. A low buzz of talk and activity. Weinstein exchanged greetings with a few young men and women hustling from place to place. All had bags under their eyes.

  It's part of our rental block, centrally located to all our spaces, available, and, well . . . empty, Weinstein said. Absolutely glowering with history. Could be wonderful material for a promo. Besides, we didnt know what else to do with it. It's not as if were going to open it to tourists, right?

  Peters eyes stung with the effort of not blinking. He followed Weinstein around another turn. They passed an old steel door marked MEDICAL EXAMINER ONLY. The next door, spaced along the outside of a gentle curve, carried a placard saying OBSERVERS. A third door immediately adjacent, also along the curve, was marked GOVERNOR/WARDEN. All three were padlocked.

  We keep server farms in these rooms, Weinstein said. Earn extra money running corporate Web sites and advertising ventures.

  Spam? Peter asked.

  Spam, Weinstein confirmed without any trace of embarrassment.

  They approached a portable privacy curtain on wheels. Weinstein shoved the curtain aside, knocking loose a plume of dust. Through a heavy iron gate, chained and padlocked open, they entered a short hall. In passing, Weinstein jangled the chain with a swipe of his hand. More dust. Great place for a Halloween prank, don't you think?

  Peter slowed and then stopped as the hall abruptly opened into a high-vaulted space. He looked across and up and slowly spun full circle, surveying an octagonal turret over seventy feet across and eighty feet tall, topped by a high cupola. Dark iron beams supported the peaked copper roof. Between the beams, small windows set all around permitted a haze of light to suffuse the upper air.

  Motes flashed in the distant rays.

  They used to call this the chancel, Weinstein said, his voice sliding into uncharacteristic reverence. He stepped to one side. Like around an altar. Are you Catholic?

  Peter reluctantly drew his eyes down from the tiny spill of daylight. Pressing close to the opposite wall, resting on a concrete foundation, almost lost in shadow, stood a hexagonal chamber with it's own smaller peaked roof, like a bizarre, diminutive chapel. An iron rail formed a half-circle around the chamber. The floor beyond the rail was divided by grated black iron drains, a sinister ornamental border. The chamber walls were plates of riveted forged steel enameled a sickly green. Three thick glass windows set in bolted frames afforded a view of the black interior. Someone had mounted a bumper sticker on the middle window. It read: HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS. Peter saw nothing else inside the chamber but a few blinking lights: red, white, and green.

  To Peters left and facing the chamber, three long single-pane picture windows dominated the concrete inner wall. All were curtained on the inside. The curtains were drawn. Peter deduced that the doors along the convex outside wall opened to rooms behind these windows. He imagined special visitors walking into the rooms, concentrating their view until they saw only the chamber. Focusing on the death to come.

  Voil Weinstein said. What kind of spin can we get from this? Out with the barbarian past, in with the bright, gleaming future. Out of death comes talk. Something like that. You're the artist.

  Peter looked up, stuck his hands deep into his pockets, turned around again. He did not know what to s
ay.

  They used to treat this whole place like a church, Weinstein said, eyes still bright. Except the priests wore Sam Brown belts and thirty-eights and the penitents wore orange suits and shackles. Processions. Step by solemn step. Everything but organ music. Now it's ours. Well, we rent it anyway.

  Peter tried to imagine this awful place as ones last stop on Earth, a prisoners last view of this world; antique, lightly corroded, filled with crude, scientific efficiency. Tear it down, he said, swallowing a lump.

  Beg your pardon?

  Id bring in the wrecking ball. Break it to pieces.

  You don't think we can use it?

  Peter made a sick face. He knew a little about capital punishment, had read up on it while brainstorming ideas for horror films. Watched Susan Hayward being led to this very chamber, or one just like it, reconstructed on a Hollywood set. I Want to Live. Paying state employees to turn human beings into limp meat.

  For a moment, he forgot not to blink. As he closed his eyes, seeking blessed relief from the dryness, the pain, the chamber, he saw:

  Nothing.

  Just the dim, descending sunlight, reddened by the blood still pulsing in his eyelids.

  But below the calm, like magma below a dormant volcano . . .

  Stop it, damn it. He blinked several times. Nothing. Nothing yet. He took a deep breath. Seeing the death chamber had to force everything into a brutal perspective. You're still alive. Get on with it.

  Well, fuck, what do you do with a place like this? Weinstein asked. Give it the high-tech finger, I say. So we put our heart in there, the heart of Trans, the most advanced piece of electronic equipment on Earth, Arpads transponder. We didnt even have to upgrade the power supply. And you know, they never did use the electric chair. Just hanging, gas, and lethal injection. Weinstein swung about and tapped the chambers thick window. You can almost see them in there, can't you?

  Peter glanced away.

  Strapping them down. Weinsteins eyes widened with speculation, and his throat bobbed. Letting the pellets dropisnt that what they did, way back then? Gas spewing up from tanks of acid. Cyanide. Or being strapped to the table, letting the doc pinch up your artery, insert the needle. Did it sting? Did they use alcohol first, to clean the skin? What was the point? The patient didnt have to worry about infection, right? He was really into it now.

  With some embarrassment, Peter observed that Weinstein had a small but obvious bulge in his pants.

  Weinstein pointed up at the iron arches. I don't think they ever hung anybody.

  Not in here, Peter said, feeling ill. They built scaffolds outside.

  BACK IN WEINSTEINS office, the young man wrote him his advance check, returned Peters Trans unit with a magicians flourish, and said they would be speaking again soon.

  They had a deal.

  Outside, Peter blinked regularly as Weinstein escorted him to the guard booth. He could not make out the faint black-and-blue world beneath the daylight. They shook hands firmly and Peter returned his pass to the guard.

  We must be brave, Weinstein proclaimed.

  Right, Peter said.

  Trans is just like walking on the moon. Thats what Arpad says. Weinstein shook his head in almost frenetic admiration. You should write that down. Sheer genius.

  CHAPTER 17

  WITH MONEY IN his pocket and the Porsche full of gas, he sped south on 5, intent on getting to Los Angeles as fast as he could. The bland straight miles on the freeway and the steady controlled rasp of the Porsches air-cooled engine worked like solitude and music, or should have, but Peter was certain he was losing his mind. The more he racked up the miles, the less he knew whether he was coming or going, seeking or fleeing.

  He talked the situation over with himself, glancing at his eyes in the rearview mirror, before he grew tired of rehashing the facts or his perception of the facts.

  It had all begun with Sandaji in Pasadenaor earlier, at Salammbo.

  It had all begun with Phil.

  The truck-rutted asphalt of the freeway played rhythmic hell with his tires. Sandaji, Salammbo. Sandaji, Salammbo.

  Lydias cast-off emotions, as if even living people could manufacture ghosts.

  The eel shadows so eager to get into Phils bedroom.

  The eroded figure and the phantom children at the beach.

  Peter tried to hum a tune. Suddenly, he needed music. The radio had been broken for years, but only now did he miss the chatter and noise of the busy outside world, talk shows, pop music, religious sermons. The air was full of information, and all you needed was a receiver, but his radio was broken.

  Until now.

  I do not know what the hell I am trying to think, here, he shouted, and rolled down the window just to feel the Central Valley air blow past. The interior of the Porsche became a resonant, pulsing bellows. I am not a radio. I am not tuning in to another world.

  He took a break at a rest stop and got out of the car, stretched his legs, watching people walk their dogs on the designated grassy field. He restlessly tried to avoid staring at anything for very long.

  What if some of the things you see every day arent really there? What if they just look normal? You seldom compare notes with anybody, do you? You don't bring along a video camera and record every minute of your daily life to see what you might have seen that wasnt there after all.

  He dipped his head. He was doing it again. Oh, crap, he murmured under his breath. None of it makes sense. I'm losing it. I'm afraid to get back into the saddle.

  An elderly woman came into hearing distance and he clamped his teeth. White-haired, wearing a flower-print dress and antique white nurse pumps, she had pink hearing aids tucked up in both ears like little plastic mushrooms. A Pomeranian on a short, taut leash tugged her forward.

  Nice day, she said, nodding pleasantly. The dogs tongue hung out as it pop-eyed frantically at the bushes, eager to move on. The old woman awarded Peter a grandmotherly expression, mouth shaping a pleased simper, head nodding slightly as she looked at a point just beyond his left arm. The Pomeranian husked and strained. The old woman lifted her gaze back to Peter, expression full of matronly congratulations. Lovely, she said, and then, with a jerk on the leash that made the dog gag, moved on.

  Peter stopped and made a one-eighty. The woman was solid, real. The Pomeranian was fluffy and orange and ridiculous. He stood for a moment, and the despair burst. A chuckle came out gentle, not harsh, from deep in his chest. Life was too weird. A way with the ladies. Phil would have seen it immediately. He could almost hear Phil in his head, You remind her of someone. An old beau, maybe. The best orgasm she ever had, sixty years ago, you bastard you.

  And as for the rest of the morning:

  Nothing unusual; just concrete walkways, lawn, small trees, brick buildings, a volunteer coffee booth manned by two fit-looking gents about his age but looking older and happier, people walking, dogs walking, kids running.

  A rest stop. Real and solid. Nothing more.

  He felt like squaring his shoulders but instead just took a deep, easy breath. He had a job. He had work, finallydecent work that could put him back on top.

  Maybe it had been self-sabotage, maybe not. But whatever, maybe it was over.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE PORSCHE STOWED in the garageit had made the long trip in high old style, he was proud of it, would have liked to stuff it's noble nose into a big old bag of oatsthe house in good shape, no burglaries, everything quiet, calm; Phil scattered to the ocean, back to the carbon cycle, the best anyone could do for him now; Peters mind sleepily going over schemes for how to promote a new kind of telecom productand wasnt that rich, he was so out of it he could be trendy again, like string-bean tiesand the porch smelling of late-summer jasmine; the blackboard by the Soleri bell empty of new messages, his answering machine silent and empty of calls; nothing to stop him after the long long drive from simply peeling off his clothes and climbing into bed, no shower on the way, he did not stink so badstill smelled of Jessies soap, in factso tired. A
warm spot in his heart for good old Phil, dammit, he had done his duty to his friend, there would be missing him and maybe more tears later but that part of his life had to be over. Shirt off, pants halfway down, he stopped by the full-length mirror. His chest-hairs were gray and he wore loose boxers now rather than BVDs because BVDs made his balls ache, he had a tight little paunch that wouldn't go away, but life was not over, far from it. He was tired. He had done well, dammit. He had a job.

  He crawled into the unmade bed, then reached down to peel off his socks. Still flexible. He could reach his ankles. He could still please a woman in bed four or five different waysmore if they were inclined to be creativeand that was good.

  It would come. All that was good would return, a second summer for Peter Russell.

  He pulled up the sheet, all he needed on this warm night. A breeze blew outside, fresh and welcome; the wind chimes in back tinkled. Bed felt so good. He was well into a dream about set construction and actors when someone knocked on the front door, then donged the Soleri bell. He was a light sleeper. He had to be, the house was old and easy to break into. He hated thieves.

  He pulled on a robe and went to answer, feet slapping bare against the parquet and then the tile. He stared through the glass at Carla Wyss, rubbed his eyes, and opened the door.

  Carla returned his stare and then looked down at her feet, her knees, like a little lost girl. The bastard, she said. It's over.

  Whats over?

  I'm an idiot. I'm too old.

  You're not too old, Peter assured her, yawning. He opened the door wider. What happened?

  What always happens. This time, even stupid old me knew it was coming, and I was ready. I clobbered him. I scratched his cheek. I screamed. I became such a bitch, Peter. The tears began, dampening her cheeks as she stood pigeon-toed on the tile floor in her leather miniskirt and white blouse and lace net nylons and high-heel black pumps. Am I a bitch?