“It’s like a party,” said Tonto. “You come to the river, reflect on your past, make resolutions, that sort of thing. And you help the newly manifested out of the water. You can serve as their guide for a few months, if you’re willing. Help them integrate into —”
“Sorry, uh . . . Tonto,” said Ian, “but I think there’s been a mistake. I wasn’t manufactured by any river —”
“Manifested,” said Tonto.
“Right,” said Ian, “Manifested. I wasn’t. I’m not sure how I ended up in the river at all. I was standing on Platform Six with Penny. It was midnight. We were . . . we were waiting for the train when I —”
Ian stiffened as though he’d been ambushed by the memory. It suddenly struck him that he was unusually fit for someone who, by all rights, ought to have been a reddish-brown smear spread over several yards of track. He patted various parts of his body as though searching for missing keys.
“I’m not even injured!” he announced. Ian still felt like he’d been pounded by a gorilla with a grudge, but all of his parts were still attached and, as far as Ian could tell, up to factory specifications. He goggled around the landscape with the bewilderment of a puppy whose master has faked a throw. “But how did I get here?” he said. “I . . . I was hit by a train and then . . . and then I was under water. But then how . . . I mean why . . . I mean . . . I just . . . where’s Penny? Where are we?”
This was followed by a medium-sized bout of hyperventilation.
“It’s all right,” said Tonto, patting Ian’s arm. “Don’t worry about any of that. Just try to be calm and listen. All those things you think you remember — everything that’s upsetting you — none of it’s real. You’re just experiencing shared memories. They can be confusing. Try to ignore them. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Her voice was remarkably soothing. A bit like Penny’s, really.
“But the train,” said Ian, catching his breath, “and Penny, I’ve got to get back to —”
“Forget all that,” said Tonto. “I’m going to tell you something important, Ian, so listen carefully. The memories you think you have, your memories of the train, your wife, anything else you think you remember — those memories aren’t real. Don’t worry about them. They’re just bits and pieces of other people’s lives; foreign memories that have jumbled up in your brain and made you think they’re part of your past. But you haven’t got a past. You’re brand new. Freshly manifested today. Just try to ignore whatever memories you think you have. They’ll fade in time.”
Ian responded with a bug-eyed expression that was equal parts confusion and disbelief — the sort of face you’d see on a man who had just been mugged by a gang of penguins. He’d heard some far-fetched stories in his time, but this one was a contender for the gold medal. Manifestivals? Shared memories? Complete nonsense, thought Ian, though he was too polite to say so. He was Canadian, after all.
At least, he thought he remembered being Canadian. But if your memories weren’t real, how would you know?
Ian abandoned this particular line of thinking out of loyalty to Penny. Penny was real. Ian knew it. His life with Penny had been real. Penelope had to be real.
By the time Ian’s attention snapped back to more immediate matters he found that Tonto had already led him a stone’s throw away from the river. They now stood on a grassy embankment overlooking their destination.
This particular destination wouldn’t rank highly on the list of things you’d expect to see on The Other Side. It was a parking lot — the sprawling species of parking lot indigenous to the outskirts of amusement parks and suburban shopping centres. It was populated with cars, trucks, and buses of every description, as well as dozens of smiling people chatting amiably and carrying on as though they’d all just enjoyed a day at the beach. Their obvious cheeriness threw Ian’s mood into sharp relief.
The effect wasn’t lost on Tonto.
“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling warmly. “Just trust me. Your confusion will pass. Sometimes it takes time to sort through the memories you absorb in the neural flows.”
“Neural flows?” said Ian.
“The currents that carry memory. Basic knowledge, instinct, that sort of thing. All the things you know when you manifest. It’s how you know how to speak, read, and write. It’s all explained in here,” she added, slipping the knapsack off her shoulder. She unzipped the bag, rummaged through its contents, and withdrew a three-ring binder with the words “Manifestation Field Guide, DDH” on its cover. She thumbed through several pages until she found the relevant passage.
“It’s right here,” she said, indicating a paragraph under the heading “Neural Flows”:
The river carries with it partial copies of the memories, experiences, and rudimentary knowledge of anyone who enters the water for an extended period of time. Officials from the Department of Hygiene ensure that the river is adequately supplied with updated memories at all times, ensuring well-stocked neural flows for the newly manifested.
“That’s you,” Tonto added, beaming at Ian. She turned her attention back to the guide:
The memories in the neural flows nourish the newly manifested as they form in the river’s depths, providing them with knowledge, instinct, and basic skills they’ll need to become productive citizens. In many cases the memories supplied by the neural flows can cause the newly manifested to experience confusion and anxiety. These effects typically pass within several hours of manifestation.
Tonto closed the binder and smiled. “It’s like I said. Your confusion is perfectly normal. Nothing to worry about at all. You’ll be fine within a few hours.”
If you wanted to choose this specific moment to describe Ian as nonplussed, you wouldn’t be wrong. He was utterly nonplussed. Absolutely bereft of plusses. There wasn’t a plus to be seen for miles.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “and I’m sure you’re trying to help . . . but . . . but that’s just crazy.”
Tonto appeared to take this assessment without offence, so Ian continued.
“I mean, all those people,” he said, looking back down the embankment, toward the river. “You’re saying they all share my memories? That they think they lived my life? That’s impossible. That’s —”
“Not exactly,” said Tonto, “but —”
“And look at her,” Ian continued, pointing toward a white-robed guide fishing a baby out of the water. “Look at that baby. You can’t expect me to believe that we have memories in common, or that the river has taught her to read and write or made her believe she’s married, or named Ian, or recovering from a train wreck, or —”
“Don’t be silly,” said Tonto, still beaming. “The river manifests different people at different stages. We don’t know why, but that’s how it happens. Babies have spent less time in the currents, so they’ve absorbed fewer memories. And the specific bits of memory you think you have are unique to you; everyone else has different ones. It’s all explained in the guide.”
She instituted a brief stage wait while thumbing through the binder until she found a helpful blurb:
A newly manifested adult has been exposed to billions of memory streams by the time he or she is fully formed. What the newly manifested perceive as “memories” rarely comprise the actual memories of any particular individual, but are instead recombinant images which the mind constructs from the neural flows absorbed during the manifestation process.
“Take that wife you mentioned,” said Tonto. “She’s probably not even a real person. More of a composite memory; something made up from the memories of hundreds of people who’ve been in the river. What the guidebook calls a ‘construct.’ She’s an image your subconscious mind has constructed from memories it picked up in the neural flows; a way of helping you understand ideas like ‘wife’ and ‘family.’”
Ian gave Tonto a look that could best be described as plaintive, exasperated, exhausted, and disbeli
eving. It typically takes a practised face to managed a four-adjective look, but Ian did it on his first try.
“But I remember Penelope,” he insisted. “She’s real. We’ve been married for eight years. We live at thirty-nine Chamberlain Street in Linwood, near Toronto. We have a cat. She’s the director of an investment firm — Penny, I mean, not the cat. She has wavy brown hair and a freckle behind her ear. And she always smells like oranges. Her perfume does, I mean, but she always wears it. Fresh oranges. She loves Vivaldi and disco music. She drinks too much coffee. She goes to Pilates class on Fridays. She hosts a book club every second Wednesday. Her favourite book is that one about . . .”
Tonto’s demeanour grew darker as Ian rattled off a litany of Penelope-centred trivia. He’d gotten around to Penny’s favourite meal (salmon steak with dill and asparagus) when Tonto finally interrupted.
“I’m so sorry, Ian,” she said, pausing briefly to bite her lip. “I . . . I hadn’t realized how serious this was. Just hold on.” She dipped back into the knapsack and rummaged through it again.
“What do you mean, serious?” said Ian, trying to peek into Tonto’s bag.
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” said Tonto. “It’s just that your memories shouldn’t be as, well, as detailed as you’re describing them. They’re usually just general impressions, a few scattered images. What you’re describing sounds too . . . well . . . real — it’s as though you’ve imagined a full life before your manifestation.”
“I didn’t imagine it!” said Ian.
“It’s okay,” said Tonto, still rifling through her bag. “It’s in here somewhere. Something they told us about at the training seminar. It’s called ‘BD.’”
A moment later Tonto fished a glossy pamphlet from her bag. It featured a picture of three smiling, attractive people wearing white terry-cloth robes. Its title was “BD and You: Making the Right Choices.” Tonto skimmed it quickly.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” she said, glancing up as she searched for a relevant section. Ian could tell she was doing her best to sound reassuring, but her expression telegraphed concern.
“Here we go,” she said, singling out a passage.
Beforelife Delusion: In some instances, accounting for roughly one manifestation in 6,000, the memories and experiences carried by the neural flows combine in ways that are particularly uncomfortable and confusing for the newly manifested. This may, under certain conditions, result in a Beforelife Delusion. The pre-conscious mind of a BD patient knits shared memories together into what seems, to the newly manifested, to amount to a coherent, fully rendered past life. People exhibiting this disorder perceive their inherited memories as the events of their own lives, rather than as collective knowledge passed along by the neural flows.
She closed the pamphlet and gave it to Ian.
“What it boils down to,” said Tonto, “is that people with BD are born believing in preincarnation. They think that they’ve lived full lives before their manifestation. It’s all a delusion, but it really feels convincing. Try not to focus on that, though. And don’t worry. There are people who can help you sort things out.”
“But I did live a full life,” Ian protested, “forty-three years of one, I mean. It’s not a delusion. It’s my life. It’s all that I —”
“I’m sorry, Ian,” said Tonto, “but . . . well . . . how would you know? How could anyone really tell the difference between a memory and a delusion? But look at it logically. What sounds more likely to you: that you’ve been hit by a train, escaped without any injuries, and magically appeared in a river, or that you’re suffering from a documented mental condition that thousands of people have had before you?”
She had a point there, really, but Ian stuck to his guns.
“I just know it,” he sulked.
He couldn’t explain why he knew that his memories weren’t delusions — he just felt it in his bones. It was as though there was an increasingly persistent voice in Ian’s head shouting that Tonto couldn’t be right. She just couldn’t. Ian had lived in Linwood, married Penelope, wiled away the years as a civil servant, and been killed by the midnight train to Union Station. And then he’d somehow ended up in the river. But if there was a way for Ian to get from Union Station to, well, here, wherever here was, then maybe there was a way for him to get back. To find Penny. Or maybe just send her a message. He had to be able to reach her, somehow. All that Ian had to do was find the way.
But where to begin?
The voice in Ian’s head suggested that, for now, at least, the best thing Ian could do was bide his time, stick with Tonto, and try to figure out where he was. Further support for this particular plan came from the fact that Ian was too exhausted to come up with anything else. So Ian closed his mouth and gazed down the embankment toward the river, staring toward the spot where Tonto claimed he’d been born just moments ago; the river that was supposedly the source of all of his memories, the source of his feelings for Penny, and the cause of his — what had she called it? — his Beforelife Delusion.
Ian watched a number of guides helping the newly manifested out of the water. None of the other new arrivals seemed distressed. Not in the least. Ian was sure he could see a number of them smiling, slipping into their terry-cloth robes and being led contentedly up the embankment.
“I don’t mean to upset you,” said Tonto. “Try to be calm. Let me take you to people who can help.”
Ian stared across the river. He couldn’t see the other side. This had to be one of the widest rivers he’d ever seen. In the distance, where the opposing bank should have been, roiling thunderheads filled the horizon.
Ian surrendered to exhaustion, took Tonto’s hand, and let her lead him away.
They crossed the parking lot and approached a large yellow SUV parked at a lamppost. It wasn’t a make or model that Ian recognized. Come to think of it, Ian couldn’t place the make or model of any of the vehicles he could see.
Tonto unlocked the doors and helped Ian into the back seat. He was about to buckle up when he caught a glimpse of a nearby sign.
Lot 48b, Styx West, Zone 12.
Ian blinked and read it again.
Styx West.
“The river,” he said, trying his best to remain calm. “What’s the name of the river?”
Tonto climbed into the driver’s seat and adjusted her rear-view mirror. “People mainly call it ‘the river,’” she said, glancing back at Ian. “But its proper name is the Styx.”
Ian blinked again and swallowed. He rifled through his mental filing cabinet for the folder labelled Ancient Greek Mythology. And then he found it.
The River Styx.
He sat bolt upright and goggled out the window. “Just hold on,” he said. “You expect me to believe that I’ve died and crossed the Styx? And next you’re going to tell me this is Hades, and everyone here is dead, and that I’m just supposed to —”
“No, Ian,” said Tonto, exhibiting a touch of exasperation, “I don’t expect you to believe anything like that. I never said you’d died. That’s crazy. People don’t die. Belief in human death is just a side effect of BD. The pamphlet says so. You were manifested less than an hour ago by the River Styx, you haven’t died and you never will. And I don’t know what you mean by Hades.”
“The name of this place,” said Ian. “Where are we? Just tell me where we are and I’ll go wherever you like.”
“We’re in Detroit,” Tonto replied, starting the engine. “Just relax and let me take you to the hospice.”
* * *
1Think nursery rhymes, but graver. And more cryptic.
2All right, the chess club, if you’re going to be picky about it. A kinder reader might allow Ian some post-mortem artistic license.
3Sixteen pages, if you account for the excised bit about Ian’s past. It’s important to keep track of these things.
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Chapter 2
Detroit’s City Hall is one of the four ancient wonders of the universe.4 It is an architectural marvel: an enormous, sprawling structure, its outer walls standing thirty-six metres high and encompassing three square kilometres of prime downtown real estate. The building features a crystalline spire projecting 120 metres over the city from the roof of the Council chamber and, during sittings of the Council, the spire projects an iridescent beam of retina-burning blue-white light into the heavens. It was meant to represent the blazing fires of enlightenment guiding the councillors at the helm of the ancient city. Instead it gave the impression that City Hall was raising its middle finger to Detroit.5
Within City Hall, much of the work of governing Detroit — sprawling city-state and centre of the universe — is carried on by an army of municipal officials. The building’s northern wing holds the offices of hundreds of civil servants all engaged, in one capacity or another, in the collection or spending of taxes and the taking of unscheduled breaks. The eastern wing is home to the city’s centralized judiciary, and the western wing, with its great rotunda and amphitheatre, is reserved for ceremonial functions. The building’s southern wing affords an unparalleled view of the River Styx and houses the office suites of Detroit’s three hundred councillors. The topmost floor of this wing houses the offices of the mayor and, because the mayor has always liked to be near his work, the mayoral suite.
On this particular night a man in a black silk suit strode purposefully down a darkened corridor in City Hall’s central core, the only sound the metronomic percussion of his hard-soled leather shoes on the marble floor. He strode with single-minded resolve, his pace not altering as he swept past the mayor’s personal collection of rare antiquities — Detroit’s single greatest repository of treasured works of art, now displayed on permanent loan to City Hall. He turned a corner and stepped between a large bay window and the enormous oaken doors that marked the entrance to the City Council’s Chamber. His shadow loomed menacingly across the chamber doors.
Beforelife Page 2