I also heard from my friend and lawyer, Holly Carter. She says we have to sit down when I get back and have a serious discussion if I still plan to go ahead with this brain download.
“We’ll have to draw up a whole new will,” she said. “You’re going to have to leave your future self a little something to live on, that is, in the event that you are, in fact, brought back to life.”
“Uh-hum,” I said. It sounded like something from Star Trek, and even though she was speaking in a very grave tone, I couldn’t take her seriously.
“You know you have the option to specify,” she continued, “whether or not you’d even want to be revived, and if so, when. That is if they ever get it working right. At the moment they’re not even close.”
“Uh-hum.”
“You are also free to declare, ‘For Medical Emergencies Only,’” she went on, “which basically means they’ll only use the backup brain if you suffer memory loss or a stroke or some other sort of brain damage. But then again, they’re still far from having the technology to do that, and they’re not likely to get it up and running in either of our lifetimes. Still, it’s just a precaution, even if you don’t want to be brought back to life, which I don’t think you do. Am I right?”
“Uh-hum.”
“Jim!” her voice blared over the receiver. “You have to listen to me! This isn’t just some sort of Frankenstein fan-fiction fantasy. This is really happening. When you are through with the procedure, there is going to be a real-life, honest-to-goodness copy of your brain sitting on a microchip somewhere, and heaven knows what could happen if you don’t take precautions to protect yourself from fraud or theft or God knows what else!”
“Look, Holly,” I said. “You’ve been my lawyer a long time. And a good one. The best. You got me out of a real mess back in the old days, and so I’m going to just go ahead and do whatever you tell me to do, okay?”
“Then I’m telling you not to get your brain downloaded in the first place.”
“I mean after that,” I said.
“Well, this isn’t my area of expertise, you know.” She sounded exasperated. “We didn’t have this kind of thing when I was studying law.”
“I trust you anyway,” I said.
“Listen,” she began measuredly, taking a deep breath. “We’ll sit down and talk it all through when you get home. I’ll bring along a friend who knows a hell of a lot more about this sort of thing than I do, and he’ll make sure we don’t miss anything. In the meantime, just make sure you mail that chip to Humanity Co. for safekeeping, okay? And, Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
I asked Holly to e-mail over some of the transcripts from the Lambert-Keaton trials since I don’t remember a lot of the specifics. After taking the witness stand in Paris in 2039 to testify against my wife, I was summarily handed over to the US attorney general for further questioning.
Apparently I shouldn’t have been in North Korea either.
They held private hearings. Holly Carter signed on to the case in my defense, thank God. I was lucky. Holly was at the top of her game back then. A thirtysomething powerhouse of a woman with a biting wit and a body to go with it. I sort of had a thing for Holly, still do.
The transcripts she sent over don’t convey the actual tone of the trial. On paper, it all looks very dry. Clinical.
The fact of the matter is that it was terrifying. And nasty. I thought I was going to prison for good. And Rowan Krasimir with me. And the kid, Dustin. And Greta’s ghost.
Thank God for Holly Carter. And the president of the United States, whom, at the time, was blamed for the California Water Crisis and Fetter’s Rot and the collapse of the world economy. Poor guy. All of that was already under way long before he took the oath of office.
I felt bad for the schmuck.
He must have felt pretty bad for me, too. In the end he commuted my sentence, what little of it there was left to serve when Holly got through with it.
The president felt very indebted to me, you see. A lot of people did. They were chanting my name in the streets outside the courthouse in 2039.
In a surprise turnaround, the president was reelected in 2040. He had been mistakenly credited with driving the country into the ground in 2039, and, soon after, was mistakenly credited with its miraculous recovery, and that was the saving grace of his reelection campaign in 2040. So you can really say I was the saving grace of his reelection campaign in 2040.
I couldn’t vote for him that year because I was serving time in a federal penitentiary. Nevertheless, he voted for me. He voted for my get-out-of-jail-free card.
The prosecution was a mousy fellow from the offices of the US attorney general. His name was Erich Lambert. Holly Carter was a partner at the legal offices of Keaton Billings & Carter, and, thus, the whole tedious string of hearings, starting on February 22, 2039, in Paris, France, and ending on September 19, 2039, in Washington, DC, were collectively called the Lambert-Keaton trials. Below is some of what I am reported to have said during the hearings:
My name is Jim Lorenzo Frost.
Yes, to Greta Van Bruggen on April 20, 2012.
In Paris.
No, I started working for Happy Happy Happy Message Runners, Inc. in 2006. I didn’t meet Greta until 2011.
Yes, she got a job in Livermore, California.
I wouldn’t say that, no. We filed all the appropriate documents with the US Department of State. The prosecution has a copy of her visa.
Yes, she did. And she filed for citizenship on January 27, 2025.
No, she died before it went through.
Yes, Rowan Krasimir.
No, I wouldn’t say I was employed by him, per se. I was more of an independent contractor.
Fifteen years, on and off. My last assignment was March 11, 2025.
Cash, yes.
For the particular mission under investigation? Fifty grand.
Oh, sorry. Fifty thousand US dollars. Is that better?
I suppose that does sound like a lot. But, ask yourself, how much would it take to persuade you to go to North Korea for five days?
Yes, five days.
No, it was a perfectly legitimate tour company.
Koryo Tours.
They are based out of Beijing. They escort tourists into North Korea. It’s a five-day, all-inclusive vacation package. Eighteen hundred dollars, I think. They provide you with accommodation, food, and transportation.
Our guide? He told us to call him Mr. Mok.
I don’t remember the names of the other guides.
Yes, two other Americans.
No, I had never met them before the trip.
No, they had no affiliation with Rowan Krasimir.
No, it was just me.
With Greta? That would have been nice, but Greta couldn’t go.
Well, as you yourself already know, she was on the Koreans’ radar. They were on the lookout for her. So Rowan grounded her.
Yes, grounded. That’s what Rowan says when he has to pull an agent off a mission.
No, I was never grounded.
I wasn’t an agent. I was what they called a “sandwich guy.”
That just means I ran deliveries. A middleman, to throw off the scent.
No, I didn’t know anything about it for years. I just did my job, took the money, and didn’t ask questions. I was the ideal sandwich guy. I should have won Sandwich Guy of the Year.
No, sorry, that was a joke.
North Korea?
That was in August of 2011, I think.
Yeah, I suppose you could call it a promotion. But I didn’t consider myself a quote-unquote agent.
By definition, yes.
Okay, yes. In that one particular instance—yes, I guess I was an agent.
No, never again.
No, she never went on another mission either. She worked as a researcher at InfraGen Tech after that. I already went over all of this with the French Ministry of Justice.
Fine. B
ut may I have a glass of water?
I’ve already said North Korea was my only mission.
As an agent, yes.
North Korea, yes. Listen, if you’d like to tell me how you want me to say it, I’m perfectly willing to cooperate.
Very well then. I acted as an agent on one and only one occasion. On said occasion, I was sent to North Korea. Is that better?
You’re welcome.
After that, I went back to being a sandwich guy.
North Korea? It was nice.
I’m not trying to be funny. I’m telling you the truth. It was nice. At least what we got to see of it.
No, you have to stay with an escort the whole time.
No, they don’t let you leave the hotel.
No, not without an escort.
No, of course not.
No. You can’t go anywhere on your own.
I was never on my own.
I didn’t have to be alone to complete my mission.
Somebody just gave it to me.
I don’t know. Some guy I’d never seen before.
Of course I was expecting it. What kind of agent would I be if I wasn’t expecting it? Everything was prearranged, as Rowan has already testified.
Who? Some Korean guy in a metro station.
No, I didn’t catch his name. I barely got a look at his face. There wasn’t time to do anything except stuff the thing into my pocket.
We did not exchange any other communication. He bumped into me in the station, slipped the baggie into my hand, and hurried off.
No, that was it.
I guess that was the second day.
After that? I finished the tour, of course. What else could I do?
Photographs? Sometimes, yes. But the guides delete any pictures they don’t like.
Souvenirs? A couple. But they go through everything before you leave the country.
Oh, that was the easy part. I put it in an ice cooler.
Yes, an ice cooler.
Of course they searched it.
Well if I told you that, I’d be spoiling the fun, wouldn’t I?
I’m sorry, Your Honor.
Show you? Do you have an ice cooler?
This is one from InfraGen Tech? That’s perfect. Here, give it to me.
All right, let me just…There you go. See?
Yes, well it wouldn’t register on a metal detector, would it?
That’s what the sandwich is for.
Yes, but you would never know. It’s very clever, isn’t it?
Well as far as I can tell, nothing about it is technically illegal.
Oh. That.
No, it’s not mine. Well, it belonged to me. But it’s not my real passport.
Yes, that is my picture.
You want me to read it aloud?
The name on the passport reads, “Alex Whittier.”
My name is Jim Lorenzo Frost.
The maximum sentence for forgery of a US passport is fifteen years in a federal penitentiary. The maximum sentence for tax evasion is five years plus a quarter million in fines. I was sentenced to three years with minimal fines. Thanks to the cunning of Holly Carter.
I was released in less than sixteen months. Thanks to the clemency of the president of the United States.
He’ll go down in history as the president who got us out of the Dark Ages. For a man who was blamed for lobotomizing California, that’s a pretty decent epitaph.
I’ll go down in history as the unlikely hero who saved the world. Just goes to show that you can’t count your chickens—ever.
CHAPTER 31
THE WHOLE CLAN took a field trip to the FedEx center in Quartier de la Madeleine this morning. Eugene is done with the first draft of his book, and his agent wants him to send a hard copy via FedEx, since he doesn’t trust the Internet, or the US post office, for that matter. Eugene’s agent fears the government is tracking his every move. He used to be a member of the California Secessionist Party, or so Eugene tells me.
My so-called agent, Sam Getz, won’t deal in anything but e-mail. He says it’s the greatest tool an agent has. “It’s a great way to tell people what you really think without having to wait around to see the look on their faces,” he said to me once. But he recently said he doesn’t want to hear from me again until I’ve got at least eighty thousand words.
“You’re a hero, Jim!” he said. “You’ve got to give your readers something weighty they can really hold in their hands. That’s what the people who read this kind of shit really want.”
I just want to know who the hell thinks they’ve got eighty thousand words worth a damn to say about themselves?
This morning we also FedExed a package for Maggie, who used her allowance to purchase a large mounted watercolor for fifty-five euros from a locally acclaimed street artist named Charles Gaubourg. She has something of her grandmother’s appetite for art, it seems.
The watercolor is shipping to their Manhattan loft, where a neighbor has agreed to sign for it.
I packed a few things for Eliza in a separate box destined for California. It was a fifty-euro surcharge to send the package express. But Eliza insisted.
“You don’t want your brain bouncing around in the back of a pickup truck as it hits every house in the Tri-Valley area,” she said to me on the phone after the procedure was done. Finished. Kaput. I hadn’t yet made it out of the ersatz offices of Dr. Pierre Lavoie; the anesthesia was still thick in my bloodstream when she called. “Get that microchip on a direct flight to San Francisco. I won’t leave this house until the FedEx guy knocks on my door.”
Did I mention that Eliza doesn’t have a job? Her husband is paid big bucks to travel all over the world negotiating water trades.
Eliza added, “And make sure you get a tracking number. Okay, Dad?”
I packed a few other surprises for Eliza, partly for my own amusement and partly because I can’t bear to have sentimental knickknacks lying around our Paris apartment, stirring up ghosts.
Can you guess?
Yes, Greta’s urn is in there, to satisfy my dear little Eliza’s lifelong wish to have a relic of her mother to cry over, over and over again. And…
Bentley the Stuffed Crow himself! What I wouldn’t pay to see Eliza’s face when she opens up that little Wunderkammer.
Speaking of sentimental knickknacks, after the Lambert-Keaton trials, they let me keep one of the red coolers. I never travel without it. In another time, it would have been perfect for smuggling hash across international borders. But now I use it mainly for cigarettes. I don’t smoke much. Maybe a drag or two every few weeks. Eliza would have my head if she ever found out. That’s what killed her mother, after all. But in Paris especially, the smell of unfiltered Pall Malls brings back memories.
I don’t know if this is the same cooler I took to North Korea—the famous cooler. They tell me it is. There were at least four or five dozen coolers just like it designed and manufactured somewhere in the subterranean laboratories of InfraGen Tech. I never knew where exactly.
I did, however, get to see the insides of the SHEM Project. Twice. The first time was with Dustin, the kid, on his motorbike, when I met Rowan Krasimir and he explained my assignment in North Korea. The second time I drove myself. Admittedly, I got turned around a couple of times on the way up. Every wind turbine was the same as the last, and with no other buildings or structures to guide me, the roads in every direction blurred together like some sort of hallucination out of Alice in Wonderland.
Finally, after a few detours that landed me at the foot of a private farm or the entrance to a cattle ranch or another dead end, I rounded a nondescript corner and saw the fifteen-foot barbwire fence and the little industrial guardhouse that I remembered from my previous visit.
The guard was a different fellow than before. He stepped out of the guardhouse with his hand on the holster of a Glock 22. He eyed my BMW suspiciously. I’d been driving the same car for almost six years, but I’d kept it in mint condition. One thing my dad had ta
ught me was how to take good care of a car.
He stepped up to the driver’s-side door. I rolled down the window.
“Jim Frost,” I said, and I flashed my driver’s license. “I should be in the system.”
The guard nodded like he already knew all about it, or he didn’t care one way or the other. He leaned forward and peered into the rear compartment. The red cooler was sitting perfectly centered on the backseat.
The guard registered no look of recognition or confusion or alarm. Nothing.
“Could you pop your trunk, please?” he said gruffly as he stepped around the car.
I complied. After all, he had a gun, and I didn’t.
“One moment,” he said, slamming the trunk shut.
Then he reentered the guardhouse and returned with a yellow pass.
“No visitors after six o’clock,” he said. “Make sure you sign out as you leave.” And he opened the gate.
I parked at the top of the hill in a spot that was labeled, “Visitor Parking Only.” I was jet-lagged and tired from my all-inclusive stay in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And I smelled like crap seeing as I’d come straight from the airport.
I had been gone almost a week, but it felt like an eternity. North Korea was no place I’d ever choose for a getaway. And although it was, in essence, a vacation, with sight-seeing and gourmet dinners and luxury hotels, the experience of having someone looking over your shoulder every time you needed to take a piss wasn’t exactly my idea of a holiday.
The whole time I’d posed as Alex Whittier from Twin Falls, Idaho. I played the part of a young, single graduate student traveling abroad for the summer. To keep it simple, I said I was getting a master’s in physical education. Easy enough. The other two Americans were single men, too, both in their late thirties or early forties and best friends since birth. They called themselves “international thrill seekers.” They had just finished climbing Everest. They said North Korea was a pit stop on the way to Alaska, where they were going to try their hands at king crab fishing.
They reminded me a lot of my dad’s best friend, Rick Milliken, the notorious treasure hunter.
The tour group was made up of only twelve people. The nine others were from Canada and Australia. I didn’t get to know any of them very well. I kept to myself and said as little as possible so as to remain inconspicuous. I was, after all, incognito.
Do Not Resuscitate Page 16