The Pedestal

by Daniel Wimberley

  Arthur pauses and takes a deep breath, peeking over his shoulder to make sure he’s still alone. The diluted odors of urine and tile cleaner fill my nose, and I see stalls behind him. Is he in a public restroom?

  “Gotta apologize for the venue; privacy is a rarified commodity in this building. Anyway, whew! Kind of a bleak, longwinded preamble, huh?”

  He peeks over his shoulder again and back again. This is a nervous Arthur I’ve never seen before.

  “So here’s what’s happening: IDS has a regular soup kitchen going; more than a decade ago, the same people we rely on to protect the nexus got their claws in us, and they’ve been squeezing us for ransom ever since. And unfortunately, it gets worse. Lately, I’ve had some very heavy people leaning on me—you remember Premiere Global, right? Bunch of sweethearts, let me tell you. Anyway, they want me to slip something past nexus security, and the word no doesn’t appear in their vocabulary.”

  Arthur’s cheeks burn red, as do mine; he’s given in to their demands already, I know, and I can see that he’s ashamed. Lord, this man gave up his most prized possession to protect me—his integrity; it stings to see how deeply that sacrifice pierced him in life, because even on my best day, I’ll never deserve it. I feel a sob collecting in the back of my throat, curling into a little ball that refuses to be swallowed.

  “I don’t have time to explain anything in detail,” he apologizes, “but what I can tell you is that things heated up about a week ago. One of these lovely parasites—our good and faithful vice president, if you can believe it—just up and doubled her monthly demand. Out of nowhere, I mean—I guess campaign season is upon us again. Next thing I know, others have found out and decided to follow her lead.

  “So, now we’re stuck, Wil; IDS can’t maintain those kinds of payouts and still turn a profit, but without the blessing of these bloodsuckers, we’re dead in the water. Once Premiere figures this out, I have a feeling they’re gonna try to take me out; I figure I’m more of a liability than an asset to them, now.”

  Arthur sighs, stress glistening on his forehead like drops of morning dew. “There’s something else, too: I’ve been doing some research—the kind that might well get me into trouble, I’m afraid—and I stumbled across something huge. I found a link between Vice President Carlisle and an exceptionally unsavory character.” Arthur swallows and blurts a jittery guffaw. “Crank, I never saw this one coming: her stepbrother? His name is Palmer Gunn—I’m guessing you already know who he is, so I won’t belabor his significance. Naturally, Carlisle has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover this up. Imagine what that kind of information could do to her if it was made public! Anyway, the evidence is still out there in the nexus—for those of us who know how to be thorough, I mean. It’s all in the files, Wil.

  “So, one of two things needs to happen, now: either we fold up tent, or we do the one thing that might still save this company: we have to—I have to—blow the whistle.”

  He tosses his head back and looks at the ceiling for a moment and says, “Crank, I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Running tremulous fingers through a shag of silver hair, Art smiles sagely. It’s a sad, defeated smile that unleashes the sob within me in a sharp gust. How I miss that man!

  “Okay, so tomorrow morning, I’m going to release a set of data packets on the nexus. They’ll be anonymous, but that won’t fool anyone for long. If all goes as planned, they’ll flood the media torrents before anyone can interfere—and everyone in the Unified World will know exactly what these people have been up to. I wish I could be sure that IDS will survive this—even if every detail falls into place flawlessly, there’s no guarantee we won’t go under while the government tries to piece the evidence together. But I’ve gotta do something, you know?”

  Clearing his throat, Arthur grimaces slightly. He grunts as if recovering from a kick to the diodes, then looks down. His left hand—no, I guess it’s actually his right—seeks out his other arm and begins kneading at its bicep, perhaps rubbing out a sore spot.

  “Okay, so there it is,” he says with a weary grimace. “If you’re watching this, it’s likely that I didn’t succeed. But you still can, and here’s how: if my files have all made it across, you’ll find an executable named pedestal. Execute it from your implant, and the program will do the rest—it’ll scourge the nexus like wildfire.”

  At once, his face softens, abruptly drained of the adrenaline which has been driving his monologue thus far. He looks so alone, so vulnerable. My heart breaks to see him like this; though he was alive and kicking, I know his mental state was eclipsed by the deterioration at work in his body. Man, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

  “I know this is a lot to ask of you, Wil. Maybe it’s too much—I guess that’s for you to decide. If you don’t want to be a part of this, no one’s gonna blame you—least of all me. And if that’s your prerogative, the best thing you can do is delete these files. Every last one, Wil—no souvenirs.”

  He looks away from his reflection now, eyes settling on his wringing hands.

  “I know you must feel betrayed that I’ve kept this from you for all these years, and I’m truly sorry. It hasn’t been an easy secret to keep, believe me. There’s no one I trust more than you—”

  Without warning, Arthur spins to look at the bank of stalls, gaze snapping to and fro. “Who’s there?” he barks, breathing heavily again. His behavior seems manic to me, verging on explosive; I’m flushed with unbearable guilt that he’s become so rattled, and that I never knew. “I said who’s there!” he shouts.

  Suddenly, the entrance door creaks open off to his side; with blurring speed, Art swivels his head toward it. “Well, well,” an obnoxious voice intones, “I thought I smelled an old fart.”

  My mouth drops open. Through Arthur’s eyes, I’m watching myself—albeit a younger, healthier, and better-dressed version—strutting into the bathroom like a miswired fool. “Guess who just got IntelliQ approved for portal testing?” I spout through a smirk. Arthur’s gaze—and therefore my field of view—snaps back to the stalls, where a door is creeping open.

  “C’mon, Art. Don’t hate me because I’m efficient,” my digital self says. “And beautiful.” But Arthur’s glued to that stall door, huffing like he’s been running sprints. He takes a step toward the open stall, and when he peeks in, I nearly shout in dismay from my bed.

  I recognize the neatly plucked eyebrows first, then the fat cheeks.

  “So we going, or what?” I say—the recorded me, not me—“Gizi’s or bust, Art.”

  “Sure,” Arthur replies, eyes still locked on Keith; my ex-boss lingers in the protective seclusion of his stall, wearing a lipsticked Mona Lisa smile. One look into his reptilian eyes reveals that he knew exactly what was coming—that Arthur would depart the equation soon enough; I feel like I might vomit. “Let’s get going, birthday boy,” Art says, snatching an absorbent towel from a dispenser by the sink. As he wipes the sweat from his face, the recording ends, disengaging my senses to the unlit throw of my dorm.

  It was a long time ago, but I remember that day well. We had a nice lunch at Gizi’s—I had manicotti, Arthur: fettuccini alfredo; I recall that Arthur even ordered me a little cupcake with a candle in it and conned our waitress into singing Happy Birthday. Back at the office, we finished out the work day as usual, with me none the wiser to his demise. Later that evening, Art bowed out early from an impromptu poker game at my apartment because he wasn’t feeling well.

  The next day he was dead.

  I’m crying profusely now, hot tears cutting rivulets down gaunt cheeks. I’ve always disliked Keith, but it seems I was too morbidly fascinated with his eccentricities to discern the larger truth—that he truly was a malevolent fiend, with no moral compass and no respect for human life. If I had the means, I’d risk life and limb hitching back to Earth just for the pleasure of kicking the snot out of that androgynous pile of rotten circuit scrap. He once warned that I’d regret calling him out, that I’d wish I could take
it all back.

  He was wrong.

  My only regret is that I let my social sensibilities keep me from doing more than smarting off to her—I mean him. It.

  Breakfast is a tram wreck: Rogers is teetering on the verge of vomiting, and keeping from falling asleep in my eggs is quite a feat. Cutterly cackles as he chews, grinning broadly at the misery of his pathetic underlings; You’ve brought this on yourselves, his smile seems to chide. I’m relieved that he seems to have forgotten our hallway run-in last night, yet I haven’t stopped thinking about what lies in store for me once Grogan returns.

  After breakfast, Rogers unpacks his proverbial luggage in the kitchen sink; he seems to feel better afterward, except that—big surprise—now he’s starved. Cutterly has little sympathy, though; the breakfast ship has sailed, so Rogers’ll just have to wait until lunch.

  There’s a lot of work to do this morning—operations may be officially on hold, but the Queen hasn’t slowed down production for our sake. We pass the morning down the usual checklist of pod-picking and garden cleanup, bickering all the while. In the short time since Fiona left us we’ve already slipped into gross inefficiency. I guess we took her direction for granted—

  Pick that one right there, please.

  Leave that one until tomorrow; it’s not fully developed yet.

  —and without it, we find ourselves taking liberties that I suspect she would never have tolerated.

  No one’s interested in killing himself over the seedpods, yet they’ve been growing higher and higher up the tree with the passage of time, as if the Queen derives some pleasure from making life more hazardous for us. Incidentally, if you’ve never attempted to climb a tree in an atmospheric suit, let me assure you that it’s much more challenging than you might imagine. Nevertheless, we gather what we can; maybe we pluck some that aren’t quite ripe, and maybe we leave behind a few that are.

  I guess we just don’t care.

  In our defense, it’s not like our jobs come with any built-in gratification. Unlike Fiona, spending our waking hours in the company of killer hybrids doesn’t fulfill a lifelong dream; nor does a single one of us care about the advancement of science, particularly where these vegetative freaks are concerned. Save for survival, we have no personal stake in our activities here.

  Accordingly, we make do with the bare minimum of effort, carrying out our meaningless tasks with the zeal of robots. Lazy, sloppy, grudging robots. Okay, now that I’ve said it aloud, I realize we sound more like grumbling kids at self-esteem camp, the ones who only show up at all for the free food. Blessedly, I’m too tired to feel ashamed.

  The next several days flip by like carbon copies. We’ve become a quiet bunch, lost in our respective thoughts regarding the barrenness of our future. I can’t speak for the other guys, but I’m feeling very aware that Fiona was the celestial body whose gravity kept us all in the same orbit; without her around, we’ve drifted into disconnected trajectories, and who knows if we’ll ever cross paths again.

  Each of us mourns Fiona’s absence in his own way—some more intensely than others— and I wonder if our indifference to busywork isn’t fallout from her leaving. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with me. If Cutterly and Rogers weren’t here to ogle me along, I’d probably sulk in bed until my limbs shriveled up like jerky.

  Grogan returned this morning, and he wasn’t alone. Four PRMC “consultants” have joined us and are presently poring through the campus with a fine-toothed comb. Officially, they’re here to streamline operations, to promptly retool the facility for full-scale production. Based on what I’ve seen so far? They’ve come all this way just to throw dirt in our faces—“This doesn’t meet minimum code requirements,” and “That conflicts with Interplanetary Settlement Safety code ten sixteen point four.” Bunch of cranks, as if PRMC even bothered to put us through any training before putting us to work. Of our original group, only Fiona and Grogan have so much as laid eyes on a representative of our employer.

  Until today, that is.

  The worst of it is my new roommate. With all the new bodies, we’ve had to play musical rooms a little; Rogers and Cutterly are now sharing a dorm—let me tell you, that didn’t go over well—two of the new guys are bunking together in what was once Cutterly’s room, another has taken over Fiona’s old room, and I’m sardined with a mammoth, muscle-bound crank named Skelly. He snores and farts in his sleep, and that’s truly the best I can say about him. One other thing, though: sometimes if I look at him long enough? A faint, familiar bell tolls in the recesses of my memory. But then he smirks, remarking something snarky, like, “You guys have really made a mess of this place,” and whatever familiarity I felt a moment before vaporizes into childish brooding.

  You’re the one poisoning the air supply, Farthead.

  On their second day here, the four stooges accompany us to the mother tree to oversee the morning harvest. I hate working with people breathing down my neck—once upon a time, Keith used to do it whenever I let a deadline get too close, and it drove me crazy, then—but these guys have it down to a meticulous science. They’re always there—even if I manage to forget it for a moment—just watching pensively, waiting for the tiniest excuse to belittle my efforts. It’s clear to me that these cranks aren’t interested in making better employees of us; they point out our shortcomings with relish, yet share no corrective wisdom. I suppose they might be building a case to have us replaced—maybe back on Earth, some NFL team’s only chance at dodging prison for a regrettable gangbang is a stint on Mars.

  Stranger things have happened, right?

  Nevertheless, climbing a predatory tree on Mars when you’re nervous is never a good idea. But what can I do? When the first of the Queen’s seedpods bursts, I happen to be perched precariously in her branches—only a few feet away from the explosion—something like ten feet off the ground. One of the consultants is admonishing me for this risky and ill-planned solution to plucking high-hanging fruit when a blast like gunfire sets my ears to ringing; seeds pelt off me hard enough to sting right through my suit.

  I react.

  Dropping to a crouch, I throw up my hands to shield my face. Alas, built for more substantial gravity, my muscles grossly overcompensate. I feel the sharp tug of a sheared branch on my sleeve as the overzealous kinetics of my body betray me.

  Somewhere in my little pea-brain, I know I’m in trouble. But it’s too late to change my mind. My mass is already committed to motion; momentum has already been established. The fabric of my sleeve rips with a sound like the biting of an apple. An instant loss of pressure deflates my suit, hissing against my stinging ears.

  Ten months on Mars is nothing to sneeze at, yet it can’t even begin to compete with a lifetime of primitive, earthly instinct. Adrenaline takes the reins and commands me to act. I obey—opting for flight over fight—stepping back and away from the commotion.

  Into the comforting safety of thin air.

  For once, I’m thankful for the diminished gravity here. My impact with the ground hurts, yet it’s mercifully understated—more like tripping over a curb than falling from a tree. That’s not to say that I’m out of mortal danger, however. Panic burns my cheeks as stark reality dawns on me: I have precious seconds to live, barring some sort of superhuman intervention.

  This is it, I realize; this is my Montague moment—a single, damning mistake that will end my life. I zigged when I should’ve zagged, and there is no such thing as forgiveness.

  Desperately, I struggle to plug the hole in my sleeve with a fat, gloved hand; the rush of air from my helmet reduces to an irregular hiss, but it doesn’t stop.

  This really is it.

  Martian winters are a six-month affair without a single redeeming quality—no snowmen or hot chocolate, for example. More to the point, it’s something like seventy below outside. With my air all but gone, I’m sucking down more freezing carbon dioxide than oxygen; my lungs are simultaneously burning and starving to death.

  And to make things worse
, it’s getting too dark to see much. Is it really nighttime already?

  There are few places I prefer to avoid more than the infirmary. Yet here I am, nursing the worst headache of my life. My lungs are sore, but they’re medicated and recovering nicely. No concussion, incidentally, just a bad case of whiplash. Actually, my only real concern is my arm; an area the size of my palm was frostbitten deep into the muscle of my forearm—a little Martian kiss, Rogers calls it. Though it’s heavily bandaged now, I’ve been assured it’ll heal quickly. In fact, the wound isn’t supposed to scar much, thanks to hourly administrations of some acrid stem-cell ointment. Considering the severity of the wound, I find this prognosis a little hard to believe. Drawing from the confidence of my coworkers, though, I’ve become cautiously optimistic. I guess we’ll see what we see.

  The least of my long-term concerns—and the one thing I can’t seem to rise above—is the unbearable pounding in my head. Ironically, we can reattach a severed limb here if need be, yet the best we can come up with for a headache is some aspirin.

  Skelly’s been hanging around more than I’m comfortable with. My first impression was that he was genuinely concerned for my well-being—probably from a liability standpoint, since my injuries were sustained on his watch—but I realize now that he’s waiting. For what, exactly, I can’t say.

  Cutterly tells me that once the first pod exploded, a chain reaction ensued and eight others burst in rapid succession. Fortunately, no one else was hurt and—aside from me—everyone walked away no worse for the wear. The seeds, on the other hand, are everywhere; apparently, they’ve even managed to slip into the joints of our atmospheric suits and hitch a ride right past the sanitation blowers, which is no small feat. From what I hear, Skelly washed one out of his hair, and Rogers found one between his toes on the evening of my accident. Obviously, they’re sticky little things.