The Pedestal

by Daniel Wimberley

  Executing file pedestal.exe.

  Gunn begins punching me in a bone-jarring frenzy, as if he can somehow sense that the moment is irretrievably slipping through his fingers. With each blow to the head, my vision dims. “Just kill him,” Fiona pleads, and for a moment I’m flooded with burning hate. “You know I can’t,” Gunn hisses. “Get up front and engage the jammer.” He catches me with a clean right cross to the jaw, and the world fills with black stars, which suck at the light and swell like black holes.

  At a run, Fiona disappears into a control chamber at the front of the shuttle. A second passes, then another. Though hurt, my head is clearing. Gunn locks eyes with me, probing for some sign that my inner workings have been interrupted. Arthur’s program stalls; my retinas alight with connection errors, weighing down my spirits like Jovian gravity. Just as quickly as they were born, my hopes blink out of existence.

  Fiona reappears and announces, “It’s on.” I stare at the ceiling with my best poker face, but Gunn sees through it. Smiling, he manhandles me into a seated position, rubbing and flexing the pink knobs of his swelling knuckles. “Cripes, that was close,” he says with a relieved chuckle. He offers this observation to me, it seems, as if I’m supposed to nod my head in lighthearted agreement.

  Without warning, the shuttle gains momentum, and Gunn’s smile falters; the whine of the shuttle’s twin engines rises to unfamiliar heights as old warehouses and private airfields begin to race by.

  Gunn turns to Fiona with a sharp rebuke. “What’d you do? Why are we speeding up?” Fiona pales with uncertainty. “I don’t know, I just…” She dashes to the control chamber, footfalls vibrating through the floor.

  Suddenly, our center of gravity shifts dangerously off kilter as the shuttle confronts a corner too quickly. Gunn teeters on his feet, grabbing at a luggage rack overhead to remain standing. A second passes and it feels as if we’re about to roll. Instead, the shuttle straightens and stabilizes on its axis. Still, we don’t lose velocity.

  “It’s the nexus jammer,” Fiona calls out, voice ringing with growing panic. “I think it’s interfering with the shuttle’s navigation link.”

  Gunn bolts to her aid, cursing the “Chinese piece of scrap” with each step. He disappears into the control chamber, and for a scant moment, I consider the wisdom of trying to lock them both in. Even as I contemplate this, the shuttle begins to slow. Looking around, I realize just how old the vehicle is; the once-white interior moldings have yellowed with time. The seat cushions are quilt-like with worn, vinyl patches. This thing could easily have retired from public service ten years ago or more. Now that I’m paying attention, I notice that a fine, faraday mesh has been applied to the interior; but it’s a sloppy installation—frays of thin copper wire protrude here and there, trailing like wisps of shimmery hair.

  I rise on wobbly legs and peer out the window, placing a trembling hand against the scratched resin for support. Outside, the scenery has transitioned to old refinery tanks and stacks of rusting shipping containers. The vehicle encounters a bump in the road, and I feel the window panel give a little under my hand. My gaze slips to a lever set into the base of the window frame. There, a small red sticker reads, “Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound.”

  “Sit down, you little twerp,” Gunn snaps from the doorway at the end of the aisle, but I pay him no mind. Sparks are popping in my head burning holes through the cloudbanks of my rattled brain.

  I reach out and rotate the lever with detached curiosity.

  “Don’t you freakin dare,” Gunn bellows. I turn to smile at him just as he begins a clumsy scamper toward me, propelling his considerable girth forward against the seat backs along the aisle.

  Crawling bodily onto my seat, I lean into the window and give it a single, desperate shove. With a sucking pop, the panel falls away, granting entry to a wind of hurricane-like ferocity. An alarm trills, blasting through the wild rush of air with piercing tones. Just as Gunn grabs for me, and before instinct can betray me, I hurl into empty space.

  My shirt immediately catches on something, and my body hinges back toward the shuttle, bouncing against its outer shell. For a brief moment, I hang there, confused, watching the ground whiz by like an endless conveyor belt. But then I feel strong hands hauling me back in, and I kick out my feet in frustration. One buries itself into something soft.

  And suddenly I’m falling.

  The concrete rushes to meet me and I feel a leg snap in greeting. My body tucks into a ball, arms enfolding my head, knees cinching into my stomach. The pavement rushes by, clawing at my skin, skipping angrily against my bones.

  Soon the spinning world begins a merciful fade to black, a color that ushers in neither pain nor pleasure—merely stillness and relief. I feel a tickle in my consciousness as my implant awakens and busies itself with some forgotten task. My body impacts with a curb and a hundred swords pierce my ribs.

  It doesn’t matter, the pain. Despite it—and maybe even because of it—I’m smiling. For the first time in my life, I’ve done something that might just make a difference. It doesn’t bother me at all that I can’t remember what that is, even less that I won’t live to see the result; it’s enough to have done it, to have faced the pain I’ve always been afraid of and to have remained resolute.

  I welcome the emptiness now. I chose it, just as it chose me.

  An unpleasant stinging calls me to the surface, but it’s small. So small, I can’t bear the notion of crawling from my pillowy darkness to fully acknowledge it.

  “Is he dead?” a small voice asks, white light peering down at me as if through a pinhole.

  “Close enough,” is an even smaller reply. The blackness flickers red as the stinging becomes something duller, something harder to ignore. But I persevere, pushing away the color and drawing blackness about me like a warm cloak.

  A watery mumble from far, far away.

  “Mind your business, buddy,” says a passing breeze.

  There’s a pinching now, but it can’t be my pain. It’s just too small, too distant to do more than send a ripple across the void.

  “Hurry up,” whispers the tiniest, faintest voice that ever was. “I hear a siren.”

  Yes, hurry up.

  The soft down of the void calls to me, drawing me back into its loving bosom. My senses fade, and all is still now.

  I regain consciousness in what appears to be a hospital—but I’ve fallen for that before. Outside my door, the hallway is bustling with excited chatter. A doctor peeks in; finding me awake, he steps briskly to my bedside.

  “Mr. Abby, how are you feeling?”

  I look at him, mind murky, ears ringing. He looks familiar, but I’m not completely here yet. “Do you remember me?” he asks. I look at him closely—he blurs in and out of focus, yet I have no doubt that I know him, even if I can’t place him.

  “Yeah. Not your name, though. Just the face.”

  “Good, that’s good. I’m Dr. Seymore. You were admitted to my care this morning with some pretty significant injuries.” He pauses to make sure I’m following him; I am. With every second, things are coming back with more clarity.

  “Gunn? Fiona?” I croak.

  “Don’t worry about them right now. That situation is under control.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Abby,” Dr. Seymore says. “I’ll let the authorities go over that with you in a little while. Right now, I need to address your physical well-being. And you’re still in the woods.”

  “Am I dying?” I whisper. It certainly feels that way.

  “Well, no. Not exactly. You’re pretty banged up. Nasty head wound, plenty of broken bones. But those should heal up quickly. Not to minimize your injuries, but you have a more pressing concern at the moment.”

  “I do? What is it?”

  “Well, to be blunt: it’s your NanoPrint. It’s been removed, and not with much precision.”

  For a moment, I’m awash with déjà vu. I look at him, remembering more and more hi
s plump face. The moustache is gone, thank goodness. He smiles, and his genuinely caring nature cuts through time; he’s a sight for sore eyes. “Seems like that’s been happening a lot on your watch, Doctor,” I point out.

  He laughs and shows me his palms. “No argument here. Now, Mr. Abby.” He peeks over his shoulder with abrupt nervousness and, finding no one in earshot, lowers his voice conspiratorially. “What should we do about your NanoPrint?”

  A groan passes through me. The very thought of breaking in a new implant—regrowing nerve filaments for the next decade, reconfiguring globals and profiles that have taken a lifetime to refine—makes me want to vomit. But what can you do? I give the doctor a muted shrug. “It’s not like I have much choice. Can’t function without one, right?” I remark tiredly.

  The rotund doctor chuckles appropriately and then begins rocking on his heels, appraising me curiously. For a few seconds, he just looks down on me, smiling a weird, pensive smile that reminds me of Stewart. Then, nodding to himself, he swallows and takes a deep breath. “You’d be surprised,” he says in a voice burbling with excitement like a soft melody.

  For a moment I’m not sure what to make of this—neither his mannerisms nor his words make much sense—but understanding does eventually sink in, and once it does, I can’t help but wonder how in the world I ever missed it. Even in my groggy state, it’s just so obvious now.

  “Oh, man,” I mumble. “You’re a crank dodger.”

  He gives me a shrug, coupled with a twitchy grin. “Afraid so,” he whispers, patting his pants pocket, where his disembodied NanoPrint must reside. A flicker in his smile betrays that he’s already second-guessing the wisdom of this confession.

  “Don’t worry, Doc. Your secret is safe with me,” I promise.

  His smile gains a firmer footing, and I think we both must feel a little better. “Good to know,” he says. “So, now that you know your options, Mr. Abby, what would you like to do about your implant?”

  I lie back and close my eyes, smiling with strange relief at the calm, uninterrupted flow of my thoughts. “Not a thing, Dr. Seymore. Not a single thing.”

  On the upside, Arthur’s program worked its magic like a charm. Though only time will show just how brilliant it was, it sparked an immediate wildfire of fuss. On the downside, the program seems to have positioned me at the center of scrutiny; government officials swarm over me like angry flies for the next several days. They squeeze me for every detail I can muster about my experiences with Fiona and Palmer Gunn, who remain on the run.

  Not surprisingly, my relationship with the government proves to be all give and no take. I’m given absolutely no information in return for my cooperation. When Gunn is finally captured at a private club, I learn the details from a gabby nurse rather than from the investigators who have promised to keep me in the loop.

  Still no word on Fiona.

  The building super has to let me in to my apartment, since I no longer have an implant to verify my identity. Actually, I more than half-expect my condo to no longer be my own—after all, I’ve been gone for the better part of a year. If not for my savings, my monthly autodraw against the lease would’ve failed at some point, and my belongings might’ve been recycled.

  “Good grief,” the super gesticulates as I stand in his doorway. “I saw you on the news a couple of days ago, but until this moment I didn’t recognize who you were!”

  “I’ve been on a little diet.”

  A few minutes later, I’m standing in my condo with the door open behind me. I linger a few feet into the entryway, statuesque, held upright by luck and gravity. I can’t explain it—I’m afraid to go forward into this strange capsule of modern convenience that I once called home. It doesn’t draw me in like an old friend—it holds me at bay with a cold hand, as if it somehow knows I’m not the same man who left here so many months ago. I push inside anyway.

  The place is less trashed than I left it, thanks to my automaid, but at some point I’ll need to do some serious spring cleaning.

  A long, hot shower does wonders for my aching bones. I’m grateful that modern medical technology has the ability to heal bones so quickly, but the accompanying aches are unbearable without the pain management services of an implant. Dr. Seymore has kindly provided a bottle of pain tablets, which are supposed to help. Unfortunately, they’re so large I can’t imagine how I’m supposed to swallow them.

  After a quick shave, I feel a little more human—and very emotional. In my dresser, my clothes are dusty and stiff. Actually, my entire wardrobe is useless. I’ve lost twenty-five pounds since the last time I bought clothes, and they weren’t pounds I could afford to lose. I pace the condo in my boxers, looking at this and that, my mind bobbing to and fro to connect the dots of time, dragging memories from the forgotten caverns of my former life.

  I find myself standing in front of mirrors throughout the condo, taking in the disturbing gauntness of my abused body, wondering, How long have I looked like this? I’m not only frightfully thin, my eyes are piercing. They’re haunted. The boyish naiveté that has always been a fundamental element of my appearance—for better or worse—has been bleached away, exposing a hard, even cold, wisdom.

  Despite my initial impressions of Mars, when I thought it a remarkably beautiful place, I’ve grown to loathe it. Everything on Earth seems unimaginably beautiful by comparison. There was a time when I took that beauty for granted—and why not? It’s everywhere on this planet—but I can’t do that anymore. To look at me is to know that I no longer belong here, that I’m no longer fit to mingle with beautiful things. Against my will—and outside of my awareness—I’ve been infused with ugliness, the ghostly drabness of Mars that I learned to despise. So I will drink up loveliness like a man dying of thirst, and I won’t waste a drop.

  I sit at the foot of my bed wondering what I’m supposed to do next. My doorbell rings, a shrill tone I can only equate to a dying animal.

  I vaguely recognize the inspector from my interrogation following Stewart’s death, but I don’t bother intimating this. “Mr. Abby?” he says, his voice arcing to a question mark.

  “That’s me,” I say. He pores over my features, into my eyes, and hesitates. “I know, I’ve looked better,” I admit. Only, just as the words pass my lips I realize that he’s not merely taken aback by my unhealthy appearance; he literally doesn’t recognize me. I remember him now—Rackley, right?—but he’s not able to reconcile what he sees in front of him with the man he was so interested in last year. I’m a shell of my former glory, and it didn’t add up to much before. It doesn’t bode any better for me that I’m standing here dressed only in my boxers.

  I invite him in, and he declines. “Just wanted to drop this by to you. We recovered it this morning from one of Palmer Gunn’s confiscated properties.” He holds out a small plastic bag, and I reach out to accept it.

  It’s my NanoPrint.

  “I suggest you make arrangements to have it implanted again very soon,” he warns. “You wait too long and it’ll deactivate on you.”

  I nod blankly, staring at the tiny gizmo in my hand—an invention that has been my crux and my salvation, my strength and my weakness. I mutter my thanks, and Inspector Rackley makes a hasty exit.

  Well, that’s one way to clear a room—just strip to my boxers.

  I use the toilet and set my NanoPrint on the counter by the sink—wait, reverse that.

  Bedtime, take two.

  A knock on the door. This time it’s my neighbor, Mrs. Grace. Thankfully, she’s old enough to have seen it all and doesn’t even notice that I’m more than half-naked. Before I can mutter any sort of a greeting, she snatches me into a heavy embrace, squeezing me hard enough to pop my joints.

  “I was sooooo worried about you!” she cries. “I just knew something had happened to you and I’d never see you again.” When she releases me, her eyes are spilling tears. And—to my surprise—so are mine. This marks the first physical contact I’ve had with another human being in more than ten
months. Excluding beatings, anyway.

  Mrs. Grace invites me over for dinner, with the caveat that I put on some clothes—and I don’t mean just any clothes; Mrs. Grace is a devoted disciple of dressing for dinner. Unfortunately for both of us, my clothes hang off me like dusty tarpaulins. I savor a plateful of roast beef and potatoes, wishing my shrunken stomach had room for it all. She’s a talker, Mrs. Grace, yet she still manages to put her food away faster than me. I feel so heavy, like my extremities are invisibly mired in elastic. Although it was less obvious at the hospital, this sensation has become more and more noticeable.

  “You need to start beefing up, Wilson. You’ll never get a girl to marry you looking like this.”

  I have to laugh.

  “I’m serious,” she says with a motherly frown. “Don’t they have a muscle-stimulus add-on for the implants now?”

  I shrug noncommittally. “First I’ve heard, but I’ve been out a while. Besides, my implant isn’t much help at the moment.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks, but then her eyes lose focus for a moment, and I realize she’s connecting to my NanoPrint. “Oh my goodness,” she observes. “You’re here, but our NanoPrints can’t shake hands!”

  I slide back a loose sleeve and give her a peep of my scarred wrist. “Yeah, I gotta get that fixed.”

  Mrs. Grace covers her mouth and coos like she’s seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time.

  “You know, my husband Charles—rest his soul—had quite a physique.” My excised implant is forgotten.