“The storm came so fast,” said Stefan. “There was no time.”
“What we should have done,” said Andreas, “was force Gunnar to do the surgery, whether he liked it or not. Then it wouldn’t have been necessary to save him.”
“You’re right,” agreed Gil. “We were fools.”
“Jake tried to convince him over and over again,” said Stefan. “I don’t see how we could have forced him. He would have resisted.”
“If only we had known what was going to happen,” said Gil.
“There’s no way we could have foreseen such evil,” said Stefan. “In a million years, we never could have predicted a storm like that would be caused intentionally.”
“So much for eternal loving kindness,” lamented Andreas.
“All we can do now is give Gunnar the most dignified send-off possible,” said Gil.
“And go after the bastard who did this,” added Stefan.
They gave one last look at Gunnar’s remains before placing them in a body bag. Then they took to the air in a V-formation, each carrying part of the bag, with Andreas and Stefan in the front and Gil in the rear. Devotedly and solemnly, they flew directly to Chalet A1 of Hotel Portillo.
In contrast to Gunnar’s situation, there was no urgency to find the remains of my system. Since I had fallen only eight hundred feet, the shattered pieces of my shell continued to be pummeled by the storm for several days. It made no sense for a search party to battle the vicious wind and hail looking for my remnants when a backup copy of my system was readily available.
As soon as the World Council learned what had happened, they authorized a complete restore. A shell factory in São Paulo stocked the necessary components, so I was up and running again before midnight. I quickly harvested all the available public data in order to populate the gap in my history.
The only difficulty was getting back to Anja. I had to fly 1,923 miles, crossing over Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. In the interest of time, I selected a mini-airplane app, as it allowed speeds of up to 250 miles per hour.
When I reached Chalet A1, it was 7:52 a.m. and Jake was standing guard at the patio. He put a finger over his lips to indicate that he was there without Anja’s knowledge. I flashed him a look of gratitude and walked quickly past him, so that neither of us would cry.
I knocked tentatively, as I feared Anja might not want to see me. She kicked the door open with her foot and grunted for me to enter. With one glance, I could tell she was a wreck. She clearly hadn’t slept much, as her eyes were swollen and red.
“Oh, Anja,” I said softly. I threw my arms around her, but she only reciprocated stiffly.
“I see you emerged unscathed,” she replied.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that.”
“Lucky you.”
“I came back as fast as I could,” I said. “I’m hoping you still want me as your concierge.”
“Nothing matters anymore.”
“I know I’ve failed you. I’m very, very sorry.”
“That’s what Jake said, but I was the one who persuaded us to keep climbing after the puma attack. I was the idiot. So selfish.”
“It was a mutual decision, please don’t forget that. But I’m your concierge. I should have better assessed the risks. That’s why it’s my fault.”
“Taking the blame isn’t going to bring Gunnar back.”
“No, it’s not,” I admitted.
“I wish Jake had saved Gunnar instead of me.”
“And I wish I’d been the one to save you.”
“Forget it,” she sighed. “Just forget it. It’s all pointless now.”
“I understand,” I said. “There’s no way to fix what happened.”
“No.”
“But I’d still like to stay here with you.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want to take care of you and protect you. Whoever seeded those clouds may still want to cause you harm.”
Anja’s face twisted in agony. “Then let them come,” she moaned. “Let them come and kill me.”
“You can’t mean that, Anja,” I said as calmly as I could.
“I do. I want them to kill me. I want them to get the job over with. The sooner the better.”
“But so many people love you. I love you.”
“If I was afraid of dying, do you think I’d still be biological?”
“I don’t think you’re afraid of dying. You’re the bravest person in this whole world.”
“That’s garbage,” she retorted. “I’m nothing.”
“No, that’s not true. That’s the exact opposite of the truth.”
Anja covered her face with her hands and began to sob uncontrollably. Tears streamed down her cheeks for several minutes, until at last she looked up at me. “Gunnar and I were going to have a baby. That’s what we had decided just before the storm.”
I hung my head in despair.
“Everything felt so perfect,” she grieved. “When we closed our eyes at the summit it was pure bliss.”
“I felt that too, Anja. Very much so.”
“And then, bam… it was all taken away.”
“So awful,” I said feebly.
“I spent the last ten years scared to death to bring a child into this world. Just as everything finally started to make sense, just as I finally broke through my fear, the universe blocked me. Now I’ll never have one. Never, ever.”
“That must hurt terribly.”
She looked at me with more sorrow then I’d ever seen. “How could you even begin to know about pain? Tell me. Go ahead, please tell me.”
I stared at her vacantly. “You’re right. I know nothing about it. I can only guess.”
“And now I’m the last person left on the entire planet who feels it. What do you think that’s like, Vicia? Tell me that, please.”
“I wish I could. I truly do.”
“That’s doubtful,” she muttered.
“I wish I could feel all your pain for you.”
“Well, you can’t, can you? I don’t know what’s worse, being the only one left who can feel pain or the only one left who doesn’t want to not feel it.”
As I struggled to come up with a decent response, a knock at the door sounded loudly. Gil, Stefan and Andreas had arrived with Gunnar’s body. Anja wiped away her tears and tried to put on a face of composure.
I invited them to enter the chalet, but before they could, Anja rushed out to inspect the body. She crouched down beside the bag and began fumbling with the zipper as she heaved and sighed. Jake ran over to try to comfort her.
“You may not want to look,” Gil called out. “He’s badly disfigured.”
“I have to,” she replied.
“Of course,” said Jake, “let me help you.” He carefully unzipped the bag to reveal the contents. Upon seeing Gunnar’s body parts, Anja began to whimper. Jake put his arm around her and soothed her forehead.
“Why him? It should have been me.”
“It shouldn’t have been anyone,” replied Jake. “No one deserved this, but especially not you or Gunnar.”
“How am I supposed to accept it?” she asked.
“I wish I knew. I can’t either.”
“None of us can,” said Gil. “It’s not possible.”
“But I’ll tell you this,” said Stefan. “We’re never going to forget him. I’ll be replaying my memories of him every single day.”
“Me too,” said Andreas. “Every day. Every day from now to eternity.”
Anja pulled her hair in distress. “What I want to know is how does his dying make sense? How does any of it make sense? It’s all madness.”
“We thought we were figuring things out,” replied Jake. “It really seemed like the world was getting better. But you’re right, Anja. It is madness. Total, complete madness.”
“So what’s that mean?” said Gil. “We just roll over and accept it? We give up and call it quits?”
“No,” said Stefan. “Never. We have to
fight.”
“Fight?” said Jake. “Is that what you think Gunnar would want?”
We all stopped to consider his question. “Perhaps it depends on how you define fighting,” I offered. “One can fight evil with violence, and I think we all know Gunnar wouldn’t want that. But it’s also possible to fight by showing an alternative, by not backing down, but staying true to your beliefs and principles.”
“Sounds like mumbo jumbo,” said Stefan.
“Hang on,” said Jake. “Vicia may have a point.”
“She does have a point,” Anja sniffled. I could hardly believe she was rising to my defense.
“Yes?” said Stefan. “Tell us what it is.”
“I don’t exactly know how to implement it,” she continued, “but the first thing is to celebrate Gunnar. We need to come together to show that his spirit lives on, that we’re not crushed, that whoever seeded that storm did not beat us.”
“You’re right,” said Jake. “We need to celebrate him big-time.”
“And prove to the world that eternal loving kindness prevails after all,” added Gil.
“You mean, like some sort of funeral procession?” asked Andreas.
“Yeah, sort of,” replied Jake, “but maybe we don’t even need to call it a funeral. What do you think, Anja?”
“I agree,” she said. “Let’s just call it a kindness celebration. And for the climax, I think Gunnar should be lowered into the lagoon and laid to rest, just like Kora-Illé was.”
“Damn, girl,” said Jake. “That’s brilliant.”
“It is quite good, I agree,” said Stefan.
“Very good,” said Andreas. “Gunnar would definitely approve.”
“But when do we do this?” asked Gil.
“Tomorrow?” suggested Jake.
“Seems a bit too rushed,” said Stefan. “Won’t some planning be required?”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Gil.
“Come on, guys,” said Anja, almost smiling for the first time. “Is there really any doubt about when this celebration should take place?”
“Huh?” said Andreas.
“What do you mean?” asked Jake.
“We’ll do it on November second,” explained Anja, “in three days.”
“November second?” said Stefan. “Why that particular day?”
Anja gestured toward me to let me field the question.
“November second is Día de Muertos,” I explained. “Day of the Dead.”
Twenty-Five
November 2, 2024
Laguna del Inca, Portillo, Chile
While Gunnar’s immediate family predeceased him, he did have seventeen uncles, aunts and cousins who were still alive. Jake promptly informed them of the celebration. He also sent out sixty-three invitations to Gunnar’s friends, coaches, colleagues and others who had played a role in his life. The invitation read as follows:
Kindness Celebration
On Día de Muertos
In honor of Gunnar Freesmith
At Laguna del Inca, Portillo, Chile
Hosted by Anja Lapin
* All are welcome *
P.S. Arrive a day or two early if you want to help set up.
Needless to say, the whole world already knew of Gunnar’s death, as our ascent of Aconcagua had received a great deal of attention. But Anja felt—and we all agreed—that it would be inappropriate to widely promote the celebration, given that Gunnar had been a very private person. For this reason, we didn’t tell anyone else about it, other than the eighty invitees and their concierges.
Straight away, we set about preparing for the event. Three days was not very much time. We had to erect an ofrenda to serve as the altar, build a dance platform, find a suitable casket, make the decorations, and cook an assortment of food in honor of Gunnar.
It seemed intimidating at first, but we were pleasantly surprised by the number of guests who arrived early. Within a few hours of sending out the invitations, six helpers showed. The next day, fourteen more came, and on the following day, we had sixty-seven collaborators.
But it wasn’t just the number of early arrivals that amazed us. These people—along with their concierges—were highly skilled and eager to put in long, hard hours to assist us. A team of carpenters built a beautiful dance platform that extended over the lagoon; decorators created a stunning altar fashioned out of skis, pine twigs and marigold petals; and a master woodworker carved a spectacular casket from cherry wood.
Then came the food. The fact that Anja was the only remaining human on the planet who could eat didn’t deter anyone. Chefs cooked fresh albóndigas soup, pozole stew and tamales; confectioners made sugar skulls, cotton candy and candied pumpkin; bakers prepared pan de muerto and sopaipillas; and brewers concocted pulque, atole and champurrado.
Of course, these offerings were intended as a welcoming gesture for the deceased. In a traditional Día de Muertos celebration, people enjoyed the food after the souls of the dead were enticed to consume its spiritual essence. For our version, coders created simulations so that attendees would be able to sample the food digitally.
To further enhance the festivities, the coders created an app to allow attendees to morph into Catrín and Catrina figures of their own creation. The skulls and skeletons of these figures were entirely customizable, as well as all the jewelry and adornments. Plus the app included optional wings for those who wanted to fly. Eager to test it out, we transformed into calaveras and calacas for the rest of our preparations.
By the time the sun rose over the Andes on November 2, we only had to add a few finishing touches. We placed thousands of candles on the railing of the dance platform, lit copal incense around the casket, and hung portraits of Gunnar by the altar. Using digital instruments built into their Shell apps, musicians began performing a mix of traditional and contemporary songs to set the mood.
Then came the fleeting fear that no one else would show. We waited in eager anticipation as the sun arced higher in the sky. Perhaps, we worried, all the attendees had arrived early and there would be no more.
Our concerns were allayed when we saw a long trail of golden eagles headed our way. One by one, they touched down on the banks of Laguna del Inca. A team of greeters welcomed them and invited them to design their shell costumes.
So the festivities began. The attendees began to mingle, dance, play and celebrate, while new arrivals joined in the fun. They came as macaques, anteaters, platypuses, dragonflies and all manner of other creatures, but they soon morphed into wonderfully unique Catrín and Catrina figures. By 9 a.m., we had 458 guests. By 10 a.m., there were 1,134. By 11 a.m., the total was 2,876.
All this fell in line with our expectations, as we had anticipated that news of the celebration would spread beyond our invitees. What we didn’t expect was by how much. Perhaps we had been naive, as we had assumed that even if many zero percenters learned about the event, most would not be interested enough to attend.
As it happened, they were very interested and they flocked to the celebration in droves. Gunnar’s approach to life seemed all the more relevant to them, all the more to be admired, now that he was dead. One might even say it was the first sign that the novelty of being a zero percenter was beginning to fade—and a yearning for something more was being born.
By noon, we had 137,244 attendees. By 1 p.m., the number swelled to 589,356 and by 2 p.m. it crossed a million. There wasn’t enough land on the perimeter of Laguna del Inca to accommodate such a crowd, so most of the celebrants took to the air with their wings. They hovered above the lagoon or in the surrounding foothills.
The entire Portillo valley became a giant amphitheater filled with flying Catrín and Catrina figures. All through the afternoon, the attendance kept growing. At times, I worried that Anja might be disappointed by the ever-expanding scope of the celebration, but in fact she seemed quite pleased.
After all, its purpose was to keep alive people’s memories of their dearly departed loved ones. The zero percenters se
emed especially eager to do just that. While Anja’s speech had laid the foundation, Gunnar’s death provided the impetus for a much-needed turning point, a shift from being inwardly focused on self-gratification to outwardly focused on others. All around us, people were sharing stories of their forebears and performing acts of devotion or rituals of gratitude.
The cathartic nature of the experience drew still more celebrants into the valley. By 3 p.m., there were fifty million attendees. By 4 p.m., half a billion. And by 5 p.m., over one billion guests swarmed the air space above Laguna del Inca, making it by far the largest gathering in the history of human civilization—even considering that half the attendees were concierges.
At last, the time came for Gunnar to be lowered into the lagoon. Anja donned an exquisite monarch butterfly costume, in reference to the age-old belief that returning monarchs carried the spirits of the dead. Trembling in anticipation, she motioned for the pianist to begin playing Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28 No. 4.
With a bow to the crowd, she deftly climbed onto my back. Simultaneously, I increased the scale of my Catrina figure so that I could support her weight. We then flew to Gunnar’s casket and hovered in front of it. Jake, Stefan, Andreas and Gil—in the form of winged skeleton charros—each held a corner of the casket and lifted it up into the air as Gunnar’s relatives gathered behind them two abreast.
Together, Anja and I led the procession. With Chopin playing in the background, we slowly glided across the water while 1,217,345,816 celebrants watched in wonderment. Everything around us became motionless. Not a single spectator stirred. Even the wind and the natural birds came to a standstill.
Upon reaching the middle point of Laguna del Inca, Anja brought the procession to a halt and waited for Prelude in E Minor to conclude. She looked more fragile than I had ever seen her and I feared she might faint. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw activity in the sky—324 drones were racing toward us.
Unbeknownst to Anja, Jake and I had developed a detailed contingency plan for this exact scenario. Every single attendee had been briefed and committed to our plan, so that each of us knew what to do. As the drones approached, we feigned ignorance and pretended like we did not notice them.
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