Beforelife

by Randal Graham

  Ian blinked in disbelief which, when push came to shove, was one of his problems.

  “He was also spot-on when he said that a world like that can’t be sustained. Too many contradictory wishes. It gets too messy. So the first of us — the most powerful — made the Styx. And we made rules; we blocked people from realizing that they could shape the world by will. And because of the way things work, that usually stops them. If people don’t think they can change the world, they can’t.”

  There seemed to be a moral lesson here, but Ian let it pass.

  “So you control everything?” he asked.

  “No,” said Abe, smiling and looking up at the City Solicitor’s shrunken form. “Think of me as the man with his hand on the tiller. I have help. Hundreds of the most powerful First Ones. They’re all helping to pull the oars. I suppose you could say I’m the one who sets their course. That’s mostly because I was here first. I guess seniority counts for something. I got used to the way things work here before anyone else showed up. So when our wishes came into conflict . . . let’s just say that the place seems to operate on a first-come, first-served basis most of the time. Experience counts.”

  “But if you were the first,” said Ian, “and if you’ve got hundreds of men —”

  “And women,” said Abe.

  “If you’ve got hundreds of men and women working with you, blocking people from — I dunno — messing around with everything, why could the two of them,” he paused, looking up at Penny and the City Solicitor, “why could the two of them do, well . . . all of that?” He threw his hand out in a wide, sweeping gesture, indicating the frozen scene.

  “They’re weird,” said Abe, shrugging. “Weird and powerful. The City Solicitor’s one of the strongest minds I’ve met since I arrived, and he’s obsessed with understanding the world’s true nature. It’s all he cares about, really. He wouldn’t accept reality as we wanted him to see it. He’s bent on seeing beneath illusions and uncovering what’s real. It’s like he arrived here already knowing how it worked, somehow, and won’t rest until he’s ‘pierced the veil of shadow.’ A useful guy to have around, though. I’ve learned more about this place by trying to stay ahead of him than I figured out in my first twelve thousand years. As for Penny — well, she’s harder to explain. She’s shouldn’t have been so powerful, for starters. I mean, she’s clever and all, and she’s incredibly strong-willed, but that sort of thing is graded on a curve. She’s not exactly off the charts.”

  Ian wasn’t entirely sure that this counted as an affront to Penny’s honour, but he felt it was in the ballpark, so he said so.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Abe, making a placating gesture. “She must have always had potential. Loads of potential. That’s why I sensed her when she arrived. But something about the way she died — the first thoughts she had when she crossed over — those thoughts gave her power. Unbelievable power. It let her override the constraints I put in place. She changed the world. I can’t explain it, not entirely. It’s almost as though she manifested with more single-minded focus than the First Ones could handle, like she was focusing all her will on a single, supremely important goal that meant more to her than — well, anything, I suppose.”

  Abe strolled in a tight circle around Penelope, staring up at her with obvious admiration.

  Ian suddenly understood. He was sure of it.

  “She tried to save me,” he said. That had to be it. That’s what she’d have done. If she’d seen him fall to the tracks, she’d have gone after him. That’s how she came to Detroit.

  Ian shuddered.

  “That’s what I’m guessing,” said Abe, smiling. “She must have sacrificed herself so you could live. Imagine how much will that takes, how fiercely she must love you. Sacrificing all that she was — everything she could ever be — just to ensure that you might live. That sort of sacrifice holds power, Ian — especially here. Here your thoughts create reality. So Penny — who already had potential — bent every scrap of her will on letting you survive in her place. She willed you to live. It didn’t work — not the way she hoped — but when the two of you crossed over, when your minds entered Detroit, Penny’s sacrifice took hold, changing the world, ensuring that everything you were, everything that made you Ian, was preserved. The river couldn’t touch you. The Styx couldn’t erase your memories. Penny wanted Ian Brown to carry on, so that’s what happened.”

  “But what about her?” said Ian.

  “I’m just guessing here,” said Abe, although he said this with the air of a person who usually guessed right, “but I imagine that Penelope didn’t expect herself to live. She meant to give herself up for you. She couldn’t really die in Detroit, because we can’t. But she took the form she thought she’d take. Just a memory. Just a voice inside your head, pushing you forward, keeping you safe. And when the City Solicitor shot you — when he released all of your memories into the river — well, you saw what happened. Pretty cool, if you ask me.”

  At this point Abe grinned an inscrutable grin, and winked. “Almost as cool as that bodyguard of yours. She was Penny’s doing, too. That final act of sacrifice gave Penelope power — so much that she could challenge me. And one of her first thoughts must have been that you needed some kind of guard. So, poof, time re-engineers itself to create a battle-ready beauty queen who’d lived here long enough to know the city.”

  “Gosh,” said Ian, staring up at Penelope and wondering what other tricks she’d unconsciously performed to keep him safe. And then a thought occurred. He fished around for the rolled-up magazine he’d crammed in his pocket when the Solicitor had arrived. He pulled it out and held it up for Abe. “So what was the point of this?” he said.

  “The OM?” said Abe, laughing. “Who knows? Probably just a stray thought that Penny had when she crossed over, or maybe a clue to help you make your way in Detroit popped back into Detroit’s past at the moment of Tonto’s manifestation. A guide that appeared with your guide. Who can say? But look,” he said, stepping through the bizarre landscape until he was face-to-face with Ian, “I know you probably have more questions, and I might even be able to answer some of them, but I think you’d probably rather talk to Penny.”

  “But how can — wait, what? — I can see her now?”

  “There’s no time like the present,” said Abe, winking. “At least, there’s no time like the present unless I decide to make one,” he added, because even an omnipotent sense of humour has its limits.

  “But the battle,” said Ian, “All the black holes and explosions and —”

  “It’s fine,” said Abe, waving a hand dismissively. “The battle’s over. Penny won. It was over before it started. I had to keep her from ending the Solicitor, but she’s fine. Let’s go see her.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. Instead he winked again, and smiled, and then rearranged reality one more time.

  Chapter 44

  We’re going to skip the reunion. Some vignettes are too embarrassingly private to be written down in a book. Just accept that there was quite a lot of hugging, kissing, crying, stammering, face grasping, and babbling of the “I’ve missed you” variety, and move on.

  Even Abe had thought it best to hide in a corner until the worst of it had passed.

  And when it was over, there had been a lengthy discussion — a discussion involving Abe, Penny, and Ian. The three of them reached an agreement. More of an understanding, really. It spelled out a lot of important things about tinkering with causality, messing around in Abe’s domain, and seeking revenge on City Solicitors (which, as it happens, wasn’t allowed). It also featured a clause or two about Penny reinforcing the psychic barriers that kept people from changing the world through acts of will, such that even someone as strong as the City Solicitor wouldn’t be quite so much of a nuisance in the future. Penny consented to Abe’s requests without hesitation. This wasn’t only because she saw the wisdom of the arrangement, but
also because, in the grand scheme, Penny had everything she needed.

  Once their business was concluded, Ian and Penny went away. Where they went only Penny could say for sure. But Ian and Penny had gone together, and that’s what mattered.

  As for Ian . . . he was happy. For the first time in a month he was actually happy. He wasn’t even slightly confused. He’d found everything that he needed. And he knew — after having had front-row seats for Penny’s apocalyptic battle — that if anything in the future ever did go off the rails, Penny could snap her fingers and set things right.

  It was comforting, now that Ian came to think of it, to be married to the anomaly — one of the most jaw-droppingly powerful beings ever to cross the Styx. Penny was practically a god. And while a lot of men might have balked at a future of peeping across the teapot at a woman who, when push came to shove, could level mountains, destroy suns, or knock the universe on its bum, the prospect didn’t bother Ian. He loved Penny. Every bit of her. Even if she could obliterate planets.

  Somewhere in the back of Ian’s mind, Ian knew that a lot of people would have found his future disconcerting. Your average person wants to feel useful. People like to be called upon to open jars, shoo away spiders, reach top shelves, and come to the rescue when they’re needed. The average person would find it daunting to be linked to a Cosmic Force that, any way you sliced it, needed help as much as a black hole needs a wristwatch.

  Your average person might be intimidated at the prospect of an eternity with Penny. But not Ian. Not in the least. For in this one, noteworthy respect, Ian wasn’t average at all.

  Epilogue

  By R. Feynman, esq.

  I don’t know about you, but if there’s one literary flaw that I can’t stomach, it’s the habit some authors have of leaving loose ends strewn about while blithely putting the pen to pasture and baldly declaring the story over. “Nothing more to tell!” they exclaim, before pouring the brace of cocktails that is the conclusion of any day devoted to literary endeavour.

  Dashed unsatisfying, what? I mean to say, having resolved the main arc and giving the hero his just deserts, a fairish number of authors leave the supporting cast in tatters, shuffling amidst the ruined shamble of their lives, scratching their heads and wondering mutely if there was a point in hitching up to the quest. Take the tale of present interest. After all of the dust had settled, after order had been restored, even the most attentive reader knew only that Ian had found his Penny, that Penny had found her Ian, and that the two of them had biffed off into the sunset. A happy ending, to be sure, and not a conclusion to be sneezed at, but one that had failed to tie a bow on any number of pressing points.

  “What about Rhinnick?” one might ask. And what, for the matter of that, about Tonto, Zeus, and Nappy? How about Vera? Open questions every one, and each the sort that any reader of sensitivity wants addressed.

  It did seem likely, to yours truly, that the prospect for any number of crowd-pleasing outcomes seemed quite good, with glad tidings for all and sundry looming gaily on the horizon. For, while a number of our recently named friends had found themselves in a spot of soup when last encountered, no spot of soup, however deep, weighs quite so heavily on the spirit with a brace of omnipotent allies popping up all over the scenery. I mean to say, a simple wave of Abe’s hand, or a twitch of Penelope’s nose, and le voilà, as the Napoleons sometimes say, everything is boomps-a-daisy.

  Not that I generally approve of that sort of thing. If there’s one way to ruin a gripping story, it’s by having a liberal hand with the deus ex machina, solving all of life’s little problems by having a godlike chump spit on its hands and do its thing. Too dashed convenient, I mean to say. Nothing for the principal dramatis personae to do but shuffle about and say, “My word, aren’t we lucky to have this god-person around to untie the remaining knots and usher in the happy ending.” The remaining castmates twiddle their thumbs and wonder what the fuss was about in the early chapters, when they strained every nerve and every muscle achieving goals that could have been sorted by a few all-powerful bimbos popping in and chucking thunderbolts at each other.

  But the point I make is this: despite the recent appearance of these supremely powerful comrades, there remained outstanding issues still to be chased into their holes. I was keen to see what the Author had in store for the likes of self, Zeus, and such other persons who hadn’t biffed off into the sunset with their ultra-powerful wives. And so it was in a bean-scratching mood that I found myself poking around the subterranean grotto, seeking answers.

  I was impaired in my deductions by the shape of recent events. Closeted, as you’ll recall, in one of those crystal, amber thingummies throughout most of the recent action, I’d failed to collar much of the gist. I’d managed to catch snippets of the Main Event through my cocoon, but its amber crust had imparted a sort of sepia-tinted tone to the panorama, lending it a more nostalgic air than it might have genuinely deserved. Add to that my twin problems of being unable to hear a dashed thing and being turned the wrong way ’round for optimal viewing, and you’ll understand my current, baffled state. I’d caught glimpses of this and that, I had observed a bit of earth-quaking, star-hurling, end-of-the-world business, but the central arc of the plot had escaped my view. And so it was a befogged Feynman who, when the amber thingummy finally saw fit to crack itself open some hours later, emerged into the grotto what-the-helling.

  By the time that I’d done my bit of butterflying and emerged from my cocoon, the grotto had been restored to a fairly stable arrangement — no stars or planets or galaxies popping in and out of the fairway — and the local population had dropped to one. No sign of Abe, no sign of Ian, no trace of Penelope or Tonto. Not even a whiff of City Solicitors or Isaacs. Only if one counted the unlucky half of Llewellyn Llewellyn — the side that had chosen the short straw and won a role as a compost heap, rather than a future as a living and breathing chump — could one declare the undersigned Rhinnick Feynman to have been anything but a solitary figure. A lone wolf, as it were, poking around the abandoned grotto, seeking clues.

  And it was while I poked about, brooding silently on the whatdoyoucallits of fate, that a polite cough in the vicinity of my flank informed me that my present status as a solo performer was in question.

  I turned. And having turned, I saw Abe, mayor of Detroit, First Man, standing a stone’s throw away and smiling kindly. I knew at a glance that this all-powerful mayor was desirous of a tête-à-tête with Feynman, there being — as I think I mentioned earlier — no other têtes around for miles.

  “I thought you might have questions,” he said, mildly.

  “Rem acu tetigisti,” I said, which seems like an odd pronouncement, but I recalled it from my younger days as an impressive-sounding phrase for “You’ve caught your target square in the britches.” Abe appeared to understand. Not surprising really — clever bloke, probably reads a lot and gets around. But before the mayor could launch into any kind of explanatory whatnot, I collared the conversation and steered it ’round to my first question.

  “Where is Brown?” I asked, in that incisive way of mine.

  “He’s fine,” said Abe. “He and Penny have gone away. They needed some time alone.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, before repeating the same question with respect to Zeus, Tonto, Nappy, Vera, and the rest of the cast and crew.

  To his credit, Abe did his level best to give me answers. He explained that several of the above-named friends and colleagues had returned to Detroit Mercy, where they awaited a reunion with yours truly. The main exception to this was Zeus who, while in mid-season form so far as the bulging thews and sinews were concerned, still had no idea who he was, his brain having been rendered null and void by the assassin.

  “Not to worry,” I assured him. “Simply wave a hand, blink an eye, or do whatever it is that you omnipotent chappies do to sort things out. Assert the old cosmic powers and restore my trusted gendarme
to his pre-Socratic state. The world could do with a spot of Abe-ish intervention,” I said.

  “I can’t,” said Abe, registering regret. And then he added some guff about “ripples across the timescape” and “the complexity of minds,” but the nub of his speech was this: while a happy ending for Zeus was not absolutely out of the question, it’d be dashed hard work to set things right, and most of the heavy lifting would, as usual, fall on the shoulders of yours truly.

  “I have a job for you,” he said. “A quest, really.”

  “A quest?” said I, the Feynman ears perking up and swivelling toward the front with interest. “Say on, O Ancient Poobah.”

  “I’ve read your files from the hospice,” said Abe. “I know you think your life is a novel. That you’re a character in a book.”

  “It isn’t merely a matter of thinking life is a novel,” said I. “It is a fact. The world is a book, the Author writes it. He prepares it for the time of the Final Draft, when His manuscript will be sent for Publication.”

  “I want you to try something,” said Abe.

  “Say on, Old Man,” said I, reflecting, as I did, that the title “Old Man” was particularly apt in present company.

  “I want you to try to think of the world as a series of books,” said Abe. “Not one novel. The part we’ve finished was Ian’s story. The sequel is going to be about you. It involves a quest,” he continued, working up to the thing, “and it won’t be easy. It’ll take a good deal of heroism, self-sacrifice, and larger-than-average helpings of penetrating intellect and palpable machismo. I think you’re just the man for the job.”

  You can imagine my reaction. No? Oh, surely. I mean to say, it was as though this ancient egg had read this recent list of traits straight from the Feynman character sketch. Here was Abe, the most powerful and well-informed man there is — not to mention an incisive judge of character — informing me that this was the time for every man of wit, strength, and sagacity to come to the aid of the party, and that there was, in his opinion, none more witty, strong, or sagacious than yours truly.