The Traveler's Companion

by Chater, Christopher John

  “That’s treason!”

  “Insubordination, maybe. But how would he ever prove it?” she asked.

  “He wouldn’t need to prove it. He’d find other creative ways at getting back at me.”

  “You’re afraid of him? You have eternity at your fingertips and you’re afraid of a little bald man? He doesn’t have half your intelligence.”

  “He’s my superior.”

  “He’s a moron. And if he gets control of the Zone, reality will suffer. You know that,” she said.

  “I can’t!”

  “Why? Because of the tacit agreement you two have? You get to use your robot to mindfuck men into loving it and he gets to pounce on a genius. You wanted to prove to the world that a man could love a machine. You wanted to show everyone how random and meaningless love is. How stupid men are when it comes to women. You want other men to know what it feels like to have a broken heart. To go insane, like you did. You want them to know how it feels so you don’t feel guilty about abandoning me,” she said.

  “I wanted to save lives. Your life.”

  “You want to inflict pain, Doctor Iverson. That’s why you made that Frankenslut. Your pain manifested. As deadly as any semi-auto. A different type of collateral damage, but just as awful,” she said.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to get rid of the director.”

  “But I can’t!”

  “Then he uses you and Angela as his lapdogs and he eventually gets control of the Zone. It’s that simple.”

  “I may not even be able to stop Mister Go!”

  “You have a better chance with the director out of the picture. If you fail, at least the CIA doesn’t get control. You know that would be a nightmare. The world would fall apart.”

  “Damn it! I can’t believe I’m actually considering this!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Against his better judgment, he finally agreed to take Beth down to the Wharf. They took a cab, and Iverson noticed that the driver was running the meter hot. He tipped him anyway because money was easily manifested here, but he didn’t like the idea of rewarding dishonesty. He had to keep an eye on the ephemera.

  The restaurant they went to had a view of the bay, but it took forever to get a table. The place was packed. The service was deplorable.

  Beth ordered clam chowder and a salad. Iverson ordered fish and chips.

  He wondered if this was how it would have been if they had come to the city while she was alive. Would he have taken her to a tourist trap to eat fried food?

  Iverson’s food came in a red plastic basket. Her soup came in a bread bowl. After her first bite, she looked up at him and smiled.

  What does she want? he thought.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, uncomfortable with the lie. It had been a few decades since he’d had to lie to protect someone’s feelings. It would take some getting used to.

  “Have you thought of how you’re going to get rid of the director?” she asked.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. When he took a bite of the fish, it was so hot that he almost had to spit it out. He tossed it around with his tongue until it cooled. A blister was already forming on the roof of his mouth.

  “You know he has a thing for Angela, right?” she asked.

  “He knows she’s not human. Unless she was targeting him, there should be no emotional connection.”

  “The idea excites him, I guess. Maybe he had a distant mother.”

  He sighed and said, “Impossible.” Before his next bite, he dipped the fish in the ramekin of tartar sauce. He hoped it would cool it down.

  “If Mister Go found out about them, it’d be over. He wouldn’t challenge the director for Angela’s affection,” she said.

  “The director is not interested in Angela. Please stop,” he said with his mouth full of food.

  Beth turned to look out the window. A ray of golden sunlight was coming through the Plexiglas, imbuing her with a yellow glow.

  She wouldn’t last much longer.

  In the center of the table there was a plastic bottle of malt vinegar with a pointed top. He added some of it to the ramekin of tartar sauce.

  “No one is better than you in the Zone, Ryan. Look at your wedding ring. It’s been how many days now?”

  “Fluke.”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “Can’t we talk about something else?”

  “Of course. What would you like to talk about?”

  “Anything other than the director.”

  “Can we talk about us?”

  “There is no us. There’s only me, and I think I’m going insane.”

  “You’re not going insane. You’re fine. You’ve haven’t felt this good in years. Thanks to me. I’m giving you your strength back.”

  “You’re making me insane. I turn into a lunatic when I see you.”

  “Not me. The other Beth.”

  “Forgot there was a distinction.”

  “She needs to go,” she said, putting her hand on his knee. It was like she was asking him to fire the housekeeper.

  “I didn’t create her consciously.”

  “I think if we spent more time together, you wouldn’t think of her at all.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t even know how I created her.”

  She was about to take a bite of the salad when she stopped. She put down the fork, brought her napkin up from her lap to wipe her mouth, and then said, “You made a mistake, Ryan. You left her. You didn’t go to see her once after her surgery. But now it’s time to move on.”

  “She hates me, right? Tell me the truth?”

  She laughed at him and said, “What is this, fourth grade? She doesn’t hate you . . . exactly.”

  “Then what? Why is she here? What does she want?” He tossed the fish stick into the basket. He hadn’t been hungry in the first place.

  “Stop worrying about her,” she said. She affectionately placed her hand on his.

  “I wish . . . I had done things differently. Damn it.”

  She sat up in the chair, leaned over the table, and kissed him on the cheek. Her breath smelled of clam chowder and vinaigrette dressing.

  How long would she last?

  It was dark out when they left the restaurant. They walked along the pier with all its shops and stopped to stare at the seals, listening to their cacophony of yelping. Some were just sprawled out on the wooden docks like slugs; others howled at the heavens as loud as they could. He felt like he was on a date, and the awkwardness reminded him of a woman he had gone out with a decade or so after Beth had died. She was a biologist on his team, back when Angela was just a child. They had been working to get digitally recorded electrical brain activity to move one of Angela’s hands. This was before the brain cell technology had been installed. Angela was basically a cloned corpse on life support.

  This other woman, Dr. Mena, had asked for a ride home that night. They had gotten Angela’s hand to move. One finger rose to point. It was an exciting time. He made love to her in her bed that night, but he didn’t feel a thing. He only ejaculated because it seemed like the polite thing to do, purely scientific sex, coitus by the numbers, numb the entire encounter. Had there been an fMRI available, he would have shown activity in his insular cortex, the region of the brain that registers pain.

  After that night, he never saw her again outside of work. He avoided her like the plague. It was obvious to him and everyone else that he was still in love with his wife. It had only been a decade since her passing. Too soon. Why bother trying to find someone else?

  He and Beth joined a crowd watching a street performer. The performer held a torch to his bare back without scorching his skin. The flames wrapped around his lower torso like a sash, and the smell of burnt hair wafted over to them, yet the man was clearly unharmed. Iverson wondered if the performer had covered his body with
some type of flame retardant. He wished there was something comparable for the emotions. Unfortunately Iverson had never thought of a defense against romantic attachment, only a killer offense.

  After a few minutes, they tired of the performance and walked away.

  “Why don’t we take the streetcar home? If we transfer to the cable car, it’ll drop us off right in front of our house,” Beth said.

  Our house?

  As they walked through a poorly lighted area on their way to the streetcar, a teenager ran up to them wielding a pistol. This punk had no idea he was about to mug his God.

  Iverson froze. It had happened so fast. If this kid squeezed the trigger, he’d be dead. There was no way to heal a bullet to the brain. In these situations, he had always heard to just do what they asked. Don’t try to be a hero. Give them what they want and pray they’ll go away. What else could he do?

  Just as Iverson was reaching into his back pocket to get his wallet, a moment of clarity came. He could stop this kid. While pretending to hand him the wallet, he imagined the boy was holding a red rose instead of a gun.

  The young man gasped, shocked by what had happened. The gun was gone. He was now offering them a flower.

  Iverson extracted a five dollar bill from his wallet, and exchanged it for the rose in the teenager’s hand.

  “Now get the hell out of here,” Iverson said.

  The kid took the money and ran.

  “Wow,” Beth cheered. “That was amazing!”

  Iverson handed her the rose, trying not to let her see that his hand was shaking. Though it was now over, the adrenaline was still pumping through him. He was still terrified. A fourteen year old kid had terrified him, a god.

  “Why didn’t you just get rid of him?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You didn’t want to hurt him, did you? He’s just a kid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could’ve ended him, but you chose to teach him a lesson instead.”

  “I froze, plain and simple,” he said. “He’ll get what’s coming to him eventually and you won’t see me shedding any tears when he does.”

  She put an arm around him, “I think you’re very brave and very compassionate. Your people don’t know that they have the best God in the universe. You’d risk your life even for the worst of them.”

  When they got to the streetcar, Iverson paid for two fares. It was packed with people. Beth had found a seat, but Iverson had to stand and hold onto the handrail, getting elbowed and molested by strangers.

  The encounter with the mugger was over, but now he was angry by what he had been put through. He was drunk with fantasies of beating the kid senseless. It didn’t make him feel like the compassionate Buddha Beth was making him out to be. These thoughts, which he hadn’t experienced since his youth, had to be because of her. Testosterone. He was protective of her. She was turning him into one of Angela’s punch-drunk boyfriends. Would he next bash someone’s face in just for looking at her?

  “Do you know where our stop is?” he asked.

  “We get off at Powell Street and then transfer to the cable car at Union Square.”

  At every stop more people got on the streetcar, packing in like sardines. Iverson was on the verge of a claustrophobic fit when Beth stood up from her seat and put her arms around him. She began kissing his neck, his jaw, his cheek.

  “Please don’t,” he said.

  It was now clear to him. What Angela was doing to C.C. Go, Beth was doing to him. She was trying to activate the ventral tegmental part of his brain and get it to flood his caudate nucleus with dopamine. As good as any finely cut Colombian cocaine. How would he resist?

  Psychologists described romantic love as a mental projection. To them, the mind was a combination of male and female archetypes, animus and anima. Men projected their feminine side onto women while women projected their male side onto men. It was literally like a projector onto a white screen. This blaring internal beam flooded the object of a person’s affection with a pool of perfection, practically drowning out the real personality. Like good make-up, it highlighted strengths while concealing weaknesses. Sometimes the projection would commingle with other mental symbols, like the image of one’s parents. Beth saw her father in Ryan. Ryan saw his mother in her. They both saw a beautiful, caring nurturer with whom they could have sex. Psychologists had said that a projection could endow one with the energy of a titan. Keats, Byron, Shakespeare, maybe they had all said the same thing, just in another way.

  Projecting onto a fake Beth would have bad results. Romantic love was a neurotic state. Like a spotlight on an emcee, it made one totally focused on one person. It was nature’s way of keeping people together long enough to reproduce and nurture their young. Iverson’s Hallmark card to her should read: “Because of a psychological condition necessary for propagating the species, I can’t help but to want to be with you.”

  Iverson physically tried to push her off him. “Stop,” he said in a loud whisper. He didn’t want to cause a scene. He didn’t want to project his anima onto her.

  Beth just smiled and continued to kiss him.

  * * * * *

  When they got home, Iverson checked his pockets and realized his wallet was gone. Someone on the streetcar must have picked his pocket. Whoever had stolen it would dissolve before they had a chance to use whatever was inside. They would vanish and his wallet would be lost in the dark matter for all time.

  His first thought was to laugh it off, but he wondered if maybe all of this was happening for a reason. Was the Zone trying to reject him the way the body would a virus? If at every turn he encountered hostility and thievery, maybe this place didn’t want him here. One more reason the Zone isn’t meant for people, he concluded.

  Beth said she was tired so Iverson offered her the master bedroom.

  “We’re married, Ryan. We can share a bed.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Are you dedicated to your unhappiness?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “In twenty-five years, how many times have you gotten laid?”

  “That part of me died along with my wife.”

  “But I’m right here.”

  “You’re not her.”

  “It’s okay for you to think I’m her, to enjoy the fantasy. Can you honestly say that a part of yourself hasn’t been reanimated along with me?”

  “Your being here makes it harder for me to move on, not easier.”

  “Come to bed with me, Ryan. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “My brain will produce oxytocin and vasopressin, which will essentially cement a bond between us and cause me to be emotionally involved and incapable of fulfilling my duties. The people in my reality who have entrusted me with their safety will be put in harm’s way.”

  “Congratulations. I’ll bet you’ll get an award for your sacrifice. I hope it’s worth it.”

  Iverson abandoned her in the hallway and went for the guestroom. He didn’t regret his decision, being with her was already confusing enough; he didn’t need to complicate it more by entering into a physical relationship with her. Just being in her presence was enough to compromise his objectivity, but as long as he kept her at a distance, his decision making wouldn’t be completely impaired.

  When he opened the guestroom door, he was initially shocked by how crowded the room looked. And there was Beth, on a hospital bed that barely fit in the room with the other furniture. She lay in a coma, her frail body covered by a yellow hospital blanket.

  With a thought, he was able to clear out some of the furniture in the room. He pushed the hospital bed against the wall.

  He put his ear to her chest. He could hear the beating of her heart. He could feel the rhythm of life within her. With the power the Zone had given him, he could now wake her up. He could save her from her coma the way he had spent his life wishing he could. He could wake her up with a thought, but if he brought her out of the coma how woul
d he handle two Beths?

  He made her as comfortable as he could and then he manifested a chair in the corner of the room and sat down to watch her.

  Something about being with this Beth made him fell calm. He reveled in the feeling for a while before questioning it. Healthy Beth filled him with nervousness, scared him. This Beth had the opposite effect; in fact, sitting with her now was the best he had felt since entering the Zone, maybe the best he had felt in years. A part of him had always believed he had abandoned her after she had slipped into a coma. The guilt had slowly eaten away at him over the years. After she had died, he knew the attempt to cure her was an excuse to run from the helplessness he had felt. He should have stayed. Now he could.

  * * * * *

  Feeling refreshed and centered, Iverson brought up the sun. He left the guestroom, locking the door behind him, and went to check on Beth in the master bedroom. She was out on the deck drinking coffee.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asked.

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “Surprised I’m still here?” she asked.

  “A little.”

  She winked at him. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

  “I should probably go see the director and apprise him of the situation. That I—we have a thing with Mister Go,” he said.

  “Is that tonight?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’re not going to take my advice, are you?”

  “What advice is that?” he asked.

  She smiled while taking a sip of coffee.

  “I’m going to take a shower and then I’ll be off,” he said.

  “What should I do about a dress for this evening?”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.”

  She sighed, “Excuse me, but I’m not leaving it up to you to pick something out for me. I’m not fond of having to ask for a line of credit, but it’s better than relying on your fashion sense.”

  He reached for his back pocket, but remembered his wallet had been stolen.

  He shut his eyes, and after a moment’s concentration, he handed her a briefcase.

  She put it on her lap and flipped open the latches. Inside were neat rows of hundred dollar bills. She looked up from it and said, “Ryan, someone’s going to think I robbed a bank.”