“She’s still breathing,” said Ian, who still hadn’t internalized the meaning of immortality. “What the hell could have happened to her? I mean, I can tell what happened to her,” he added, pushing aside a bit of wreckage. “The van exploded with Tonto in it, and she’s out cold. But — but she doesn’t seem to be hurt. She’s just . . . lying there, asleep. After being in an explosion. How does something like that happen? How does —”
“She seems fine,” said Zeus, crouching over the rubble. “There’s not a scratch on her. Well, apart from the burn on her wrist, I mean.”
Ian looked at Tonto’s wrist. The skin was charred in a pattern that looked like fingers, as though a white-hot metal gauntlet had been gripping Tonto’s arm and seared her flesh.
“Give me your robe,” said Ian.
“My what?” said Zeus.
“Your robe. Tonto needs it.”
“But I’ll be naked.”
“You’re already naked under your robe,” Ian reasoned. “Besides,” he added, flushing slightly and gesturing toward Tonto, “Tonto’s a bit — well, you know, if people see us—”
Zeus grumbled and shrugged his way out of his robe. He wasn’t precisely naked underneath, having fastidiously followed the matron’s admonition about fresh underpants. The removal of Zeus’s robe revealed several large blocks of muscle that jostled for position as he moved, achieving a fair approximation of high-speed continental drift.
Napoleon Number Four gave Zeus an appraising look, and grinned.
Zeus blushed and shuffled his feet.
The street was suddenly filled by a sound like fingernails on a blackboard, and the air behind the recumbent Tonto split open, forming a rift. A tallish man stepped through it — a man wearing a long green overcoat, a wool hat, and a pair of aviator’s goggles. He was holding a smooth, metallic staff. The rift sealed as he stumbled through it, his clothes smoking slightly.
“Where’s Brown?” he asked, sharply.
People who haven’t previously witnessed Instantaneous Personal Transport often react to it with a certain amount of surprise. Ian did so now, by saying “buh,” and falling backside-first onto the pavement beside Tonto.
“Are you ’im?” gasped Napoleon Number Three, staring at the new arrival. His eyes widened into an expression of unconstrained religious fervour.
“Him?” asked the new arrival, arching an eyebrow. “Could be, I suppose. The name’s Llewellyn Llewellyn. Eighth Street Chapter. But I probably shouldn’t have said that. Whatever. I have to get a message to Ian Brown and get my arse back to the wild before Socrates knows I’m here.”
“Wait? Socrates? Who?” stammered Ian, clambering to his feet.
“Ah, Brown. There you are,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. “Good man. I didn’t see you on the ground. Never mind about Socrates, mate. He’s been after me ever since the gang and I kidnapped y— uh, well — he’s been after me for a while. But Norm sent me here to —”
“Who’s Norm?” said Ian.
“Ah, right. You don’t know Norm. Well — never mind that now. He’s not important. Well, he is important, but you don’t need to know about him. Not now, anyway. This is important: I’m supposed to tell you to go to Vera.”
“Who’s Vera?”
“Dammit, Brown,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn, “don’t you know anyone? It’s just Vera, okay. Vera. Norm said your guide would know her. She’ll take you to Vera, and Vera will — wait, where is your guide, anyway?” Llewellyn Llewellyn asked, finally taking the time to survey his surroundings. His eyes eventually fell on Tonto, lying motionless in the street.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Not good. Not good at all.” He looked around from Tonto to Ian, from Ian to Zeus, and from Zeus to the Napoleons. He appeared to decide that, while Tonto’s current state might pose something of a problem, this problem wasn’t Llewellyn Llewellyn’s.
“Right then,” he said. “I said I’d give you the message, and I did. It’s been a slice.” He reached into a pocket of his overcoat and withdrew a small metallic cube covered in raised, squiggly markings. He pressed a few of the markings. The cube started to glow and hum.
“Wait!” Napoleon Number Three shouted over the rising hum. “Don’t you . . . don’t you ’ave somezing for me? Une message, perhaps? I was told to wait for a man — a man ’oo would take — er, ah . . .” he eyed Ian for a moment before continuing, “. . . a delivery from me and zen set me on ze path. Are you ’im?”
“Sorry, mate,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. “No time to play with the kooks. Don’t know anything about any delivery, and I don’t have any message apart from the one about Vera. Don’t even understand why Norm took such an interest in you lot. Nutty as squirrel shit, if y’ask me.” He pressed two sides of the glowing cube, which was now emitting an eardrum-searing screech. It pulsed brightly three times before discharging a burst of light. The light consumed Llewellyn Llewellyn.
The light faded, and he was gone.
“Bloody hell!” said Ian.
“Wow,” said Zeus, tugging on Ian’s sleeve. “That was a mobile IPT emitter. They’re really rare. Rhinnick told me about ’em. He said that only the richest people can aff—”
“What do we do now?” asked Ian, cutting him off.
“How should I know?” said Zeus.
“Well we’ve got to get away from here, I suppose,” said Ian. “Uh . . . Zeus, help me with Tonto — we’ve got to wake her up. If we can’t, you’ll have to carry her. Napoleons — uh — you guys keep a lookout for Rhinnick. Yell if you see anyone coming.” And with that, Ian and Zeus squatted beside Tonto, trying their best to shake her awake without causing an undue amount of jiggling.
Napoleon Number Four ran off toward the gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rhinnick. Napoleon Number Three remained in the street, fidgeting with his knife a few metres away from Ground Zero.
Napoleon Number Three started to pace.
He was disturbed. More than usual, that is. The appearance and disappearance of this Llewellyn Llewellyn person had upset him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. The silk-suited man had promised that a man would appear, take Ian, and tell Napoleon Number Three what he must do in order to take his next steps on the path to glory. This Llewellyn Llewellyn fellow had appeared — he’d come out of nowhere, just as the silk-suited man had promised. But he’d given a message to Ian — to Ian — and said nothing about Napoleon Number Three. And he hadn’t taken Ian with him. None of this made sense.
Napoleon Number Three had been so certain — so certain that his meeting with the silk-suited man hadn’t been one of his episodes, one of those unsettling flashes of memory from past lives. He had two past lives, actually — at least so far as he could remember. That was rare among princks, but not unheard of. The difficulty for Napoleon Number Three lay in separating both of his past lives from each other and from his life here in Detroit. That was tricky. Some memories clearly belonged to his current life, a life in which he was called Napoleon Number Three and lived in the hospice. Others belonged to Bonaparte, an emperor, a commander, a leader of millions. He liked those memories best. They felt real. They felt right. But there were other memories, too — memories from another life, memories that came to him in the night, when he was alone in the dark with his knife, Alice, or whenever he saw a beautiful woman laughing. Laughing at him. That’s when he remembered his second life, a life he’d lived after being Bonaparte but before his life in Detroit. It came in disconnected flashes, flashes of steel and spurts of blood punctuated by high-pitched screams, scented with the odour of sweat and cheap perfume.
He couldn’t recall the details of that life. He couldn’t even recall his name. But he seemed to remember that people had called him Jack.
The Napoleon who called himself Bonaparte — not Jack, not Napoleon Number Three, but Bonaparte — shook himself back to the present.
Thi
s wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. Someone was supposed to meet him. A man in black body armour, that was it. A man who’d say the secret words, take Ian, and tell Bonaparte how to take the next step on the road to destiny. But there was no man in black. Just the charred carcass of an exploded van and a street that was in distressingly short supply of men in black. And a naked girl. Was she taunting him? Was she teasing him? They all did that, eventually — all of the women, always smiling at him, having a laugh at his expense —
No.
Not now. Not here. That was a different life.
He’d have to improvise, now. He’d have to rely on Alice.
It was while Bonaparte was sorting through these thoughts that Rhinnick came skidding around the corner, through the gate, and toward the spot where Ian and Zeus were fussing over the still-unconscious Tonto. In typical Feynman style he launched immediately into a long-winded speech at auctioneer’s pace. It began with the words “Where in bloody blazes is Tonto” (who was, it transpired, currently blocked from Rhinnick’s view by a crouching Zeus), passed quickly through “You can’t rely on anyone these days,” and concluded rather abruptly with “Good gracious, what are you doing with that knife?”
“Back away from ze girl, slowly,” said Bonaparte. He was standing behind Rhinnick with a knife held flat against Rhinnick’s throat. His eyes were darting left and right. It goes without saying that he looked insane. He was wearing a terry-cloth robe and standing in a street outside of a mental hospital. But he looked more insane than usual. He looked deranged.
“Tie up ze oaf,” said Bonaparte, using his free hand to remove the belt from Rhinnick’s robe and tossing it to Ian. “Do eet now, or I swear eet will be years before he recouvers. You will ’ear ’is screams in ze night for decades, you will —”
“Don’t you hurt him!” screamed Zeus, suddenly clambering to his feet and pointing at Rhinnick. “Don’t you hurt my Rhinnick!” he bellowed. The huge man looked unhinged. He seized tufts of his own hair and seemed to be on the verge of bursting through his skin. Ian managed to hold him back, pushing with all his might against Zeus’s heaving chest.
“No, Zeus — no!” shouted Ian, struggling to keep Zeus at bay. Zeus stepped backward, clasping a hand over his mouth, crying and sputtering incoherently.
“Everybody stay calm,” said Ian, keeping one hand on Zeus’s chest while pointing the other — the one holding Rhinnick’s sash — at Rhinnick and Bonaparte.
“Might I offer a suggestion?” said Rhinnick, trying his best to keep his Adam’s apple from brushing against the knife. “It seems to me that now is not the time for shuffling about and saying ‘oh, ah.’ On the contrary, the time has come for you to hie for the hills. Don’t give me a second thought. You know, I’ve never been sure of that phrase, second thought —”
“Be quiet!” snapped Bonaparte. “Be quiet or I’ll ’ave your tongue.”
“Yes, yes,” said Rhinnick, “I’m sure you will. But in the meantime, Ian, I recommend fleeing, postey-hastey. Have Zeus carry Tonto. And don’t fuss about yours truly. I’ll be fine. The Author will need me in later chapters. I’m sure I’ll be grrnk.”
He didn’t actually say grrnk, but he did go grrnk. It was the sound he made as Alice slid quietly into his left kidney. Only Bonaparte looked happy about this event.
Zeus howled. Ian struggled to hold him steady.
“Stop right there!” shouted someone stepping through the hospice gate.
It was one of the Hospice Goons. He was leading four of his fellow guards up Sanatorium Drive, clearly intent on putting an end to the Great Escape. They were wielding billy clubs. They looked enthusiastic about them.
“Stay back!” shouted Bonaparte. “Stay back or I’ll slit Feynman’s zroat . . . er, ’is troat . . . gah! . . . I’ll cut ’is neck!”
The Goons seemed remarkably blasé about threats against Rhinnick’s person. “Just calm down,” said the lead Goon, twirling his billy club in a “please, don’t calm down” sort of way. “Everybody make nicey-nicey and we’ll all go back to your rooms.”
The Goons stepped closer.
What followed was one of those watershed moments — one of those brief stretches of time that can take one’s life in any number of directions depending upon the choices that one makes. In fact, in a thousand different dimensions, a thousand different things happened as a result of choices Ian Brown made now. In one dimension he just stood there, feeling stymied, until the Goons arrested all and sundry and wrote the event off as just another day in Detroit’s mental health service. In another, he dove toward Napoleon Number Three, sadly misjudged the distance, and managed to put the prat in pratfall, ultimately allowing Bonaparte to escape and embark on a widely publicized spree of creative stabbings. In yet another, an extremely improbable chain of events led Ian to enrol in a school for novice witches and wizards where his companions included a precocious little girl, a red-haired boy, and an illiterate, alcoholic giant. If Schrödinger’s cat has taught us anything, it’s that every conceivable (and even inconceivable) outcome of a given course of events actually does occur in one of the infinite dimensions separated only by the ephemeral veil of bosons, tachyons, quarks, and other scientific gew-gaws that are thought to explain all inexplicable things.
In most universes, of course, Mother and Father Schrödinger never met. They never raised an impertinent son who would shut helpless cats in boxes just to prove a point about physics.41 In those worlds, everything carried on in sensible and predictable ways. In fourteen of the countless worlds in which Schrödinger did exist, he went on to become the author of this book. In these unlucky dimensions, the outcome of Ian’s fate is not determined in advance, but is decided randomly when the reader turns each page. Indeed, if the final outcome of Beforelife displeases you, it’s quite likely that you inhabit one of these Schrödinger-as-author dimensions, and that you have only yourself to blame when your causality-altering page-flipping yields results you find unpretty.
In most dimensions we will now return to the previously existing narrative structure.
Ian panicked. At least, that’s how he’d explain things, later. He must have panicked. That was the only explanation. There were too many cards in play — it was like playing Brakkit with fourteen extra decks. There were too many possibilities. He wanted to run, he wanted to take Tonto and find Penelope. He wanted to solve the mystery of the mindwipe, or prove the existence of the beforelife, or do whatever he had to do in order to reunite with his wife. He had to find this Vera person. He wanted to save Rhinnick. He wanted to stop Napoleon.
Ian liked rules, and liked to obey them. But there weren’t any rules for this scenario. There was no plan. The situation was too . . . too messy. It was like a stew with too many mismatched ingredients. Once it’s cooked, you can’t save it — sometimes the only thing you can do is toss the whole thing into the toilet and give it a flush.
Ian needed a flushing option.
Ian looked at Zeus, who still looked savage, frantic, terrified, enraged. He was growling and gnashing his teeth at the man who held his master. He looked at Tonto, who had started to stir a little, but still lay helpless on the pavement. He looked at Rhinnick, who, despite the blood oozing down his robe, shot Ian a wide grin and gave an encouraging thumbs-up.
A voice in Ian’s head suggested looking at Zeus again.
Ian looked at Zeus again.
It has been said that, come the revolution, or when the effluent hits the fan, anything close to hand can be a weapon. A Harrington T-50, a book called Cranial Trauma, even the frayed sash of a white terry robe. Your typical human can, when charged with enough adrenaline, see the martial possibilities in an armchair, a knitted doily, or even an unwashed head of lettuce. And as we have noted elsewhere in this volume, Ian was your typical human.
And he was holding a loaded Zeus.
Zeus probably hadn’t been a dog, had he? No
t really. I mean . . . dogs don’t become humans in the afterlife. Do they? Of course not. Not even really, really good dogs. But Zeus believed he was a dog — or rather, that he’d been one in the past. He still had doggish traits. He was a giant with all the instincts of a terrier. A rat-killing, postman-chasing, ankle-biting, steel-trap-jawed, deceptively vicious, fight-to-the-death terrier.
Ian wondered, momentarily, if there was a special corner of hell reserved for those who take advantage of someone else’s mental illness. Probably not. He’d already died. If there was a hell, he was in it.
Ian stepped back from Zeus and cleared his throat.
“Zeus!” he shouted, doing his best to sound authoritative, pointing first to Bonaparte, then to the oncoming Goons. “Zeus!” he shouted —
“SIC ’EM!”
* * *
41Some readers may object that Schrödinger never, in fact, did this. This may be true in your universe.
Chapter 21
Picture a spiral minaret — or rather, a Spiral Minaret — a structure so mindbendingly massive that it calls for capital letters and italics. It looms heavily over a densely forested landscape, its topmost tiers inspiring nosebleeds and giving the overall impression that some overachieving pharaoh commissioned a wedding cake to the gods. At its base, it is surrounded by squat barracks and low outbuildings featuring architecture and finishings calling to mind glorious curries, intricate writing, and that piercing, flutish musical instrument that sounds like a debagged set of Scottish pipes.
Now picture a slim, black-skinned man standing atop this minaret, leaning out over a long, curving balcony. He’s brushing his teeth. The man is Abe: Abe the First, Mayor of Detroit, Firstborn of the River, Eldest Ancient, Guardian of the City, and, as noted a moment ago, Brusher of the Mayoral Teeth. Judging by beforelife standards he looks to be about forty-five years old. But if you’re familiar with Abe’s biography, you’ll know that his next manifestival will be his 18,183rd.
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