Longer

by Michael Blumlein

  He slipped his gloves back on.

  The inner glove was made of Pakkiflex2, and was like a second skin. The outer glove was leather: tough and grained. He resumed his climb, secure in the knowledge his hands were protected. He planned to summit, then take the backside down, which was a longer route, but more gently sloped. Descending the cliff itself would be quicker but dangerous.

  The lone fulmar reappeared, and dove at him, coming close to impaling his head before veering off. It squawked and dove again, hovered, then deposited itself on a nearby rock, and proceeded to read him the riot act. He soon discovered why.

  Huddling in a shallow saucer of grass was another fulmar. A male, and obviously unwell.

  He stopped immediately, crouched down, and held that position. The female fulmar squawked, flapped its wings, and shifted uneasily. The male made not a peep. Its eyes were clamped shut. It was shivering.

  Dashaud removed his gloves and inched a hand toward the bird. He felt vibrations in the air before even touching the creature. He felt much more when he laid his palm gently on its back: a huffing and puffing, an ebb and flow, a back and forth, but something more purposeful, too, like a tug-of-war, with life on one side, death on the other. Death appeared to have the upper hand.

  Instinctively, he enfolded the trembling bird in his palms.

  Its mate eyed him uneasily.

  Fulmars mated for life. If the male died, the female would be a widow. Her mate’s death would be the signal; she’d know widowhood by the presence of his lifeless body. If Dashaud took him away in an effort to save him, she’d have a widow’s life without knowing how or why. Without certainty. She might wonder: was he still alive? Doubt might gnaw at her peanut-sized brain.

  A gnawed-at brain, whatever the size, was the source of countless troubles. Dashaud had taken a solemn oath to cause as few as possible. He could leave the dying bird, and let nature take its course. Finish his climb, his ambition since childhood. He could see the summit from where he crouched.

  Any hope of saving the poor creature rested on doing something soon. He peered down the way he’d come: the face was nearly sheer, the drop hundreds of feet and precipitous. It had been steep getting up, but it would be steeper going down. Always steeper and riskier descending.

  He loved life. How could you not? And fulmars were plentiful.

  What should he do?

  He thought of Cav, his friend and mentor, whom he admired above all men, and would soon be seeing in the flesh. Cav would be slow to intervene. He would wait and observe.

  He was waiting now. For what, he wasn’t sure.

  “A sign? An epiphany?”

  They had spoken not two days earlier. Pleased to hear from his orbiting pal, Dashaud had become concerned when the conversation took a turn.

  A dark one, in his opinion. Suicide was dark.

  “You’re depressed,” he said. It was the first thing that came into his head.

  Cav considered this. “Am I? I don’t feel depressed. I feel quite sane.”

  “You want to end your life prematurely. You want to do something totally unnecessary. And not just unnecessary, but damaging. Hurtful. Harmful. How can that be sane?”

  “It’s my life,” said Cav.

  “You took an oath to do no harm.”

  “It’s a paradox, isn’t it? A thorny riddle.”

  “It’s not a riddle at all.”

  “A dilemma then.”

  “No harm includes no harm to yourself.”

  “Does it? I’m not so sure. And what constitutes harm? What I’m contemplating feels more positive. More an acknowledgement. An acceptance.”

  “You ask too many questions. You spin them out of thin air. You love to stir things up.”

  “I’m a troublemaker?”

  “Yes.”

  “But am I crazy? That’s the question. Tell me the truth.”

  Dashaud had no trouble with this. “Yes.”

  “In what way? Be precise.”

  “You’re bullheaded. Argumentative. You love to provoke. You go off on tangents.”

  “Guilty as charged. But crazy?”

  “You make me crazy.”

  Cav grinned. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

  “Likewise. Though I’m not thrilled with the circumstances. Please tell me it’s just talk.”

  Cav deflected the question. Enough for now. “You juved.”

  “You knew I was going to.”

  “How was it?”

  “Not bad. Fine. Easy.” Not true, but considering the topic of conversation, Cav hardly needed to hear it. “I feel good.”

  “You look good.”

  “You look old.”

  “I am.”

  “How’s your ticker?”

  Cav shrugged.

  “It could be brand new.”

  “Understood. And then?”

  “Sixty more years,” said Dashaud.

  “Of what? Doing the same thing over again. Looking in the same mirror day after day. You reach a point of diminishing returns.”

  “Not my experience.”

  “True nonetheless.”

  “That’s possible. Also possible: you’re full of it.”

  “I’m not afraid of dying,” said Cav.

  Dashaud was neither surprised nor particularly impressed. He’d seen his share of dying; his line of work guaranteed he’d see more. More men and women who met death fearfully, but many more than that who, for better or worse, welcomed it.

  “Good for you,” he replied. “But this isn’t about that. It’s about taking your life.”

  “It’s about taking control of my life.”

  “By committing suicide.”

  “By letting nature run its course.”

  “You know something, Cav?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I hate talking to you.”

  Cav threw up his hands. “I understand completely. I get tired of listening to myself. Days go by when the only thing I wish for is silence.”

  To Dashaud, an ominous choice of word. “Do you have an actual plan?”

  “A number.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m mulling things over.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Am I serious? Yes. Am I ready to pull the trigger? No.”

  “So there’s hope.”

  “Either way. Yes. Always.”

  Dashaud felt better. Worried, yes, who wouldn’t be worried, but not quite so alarmed. This was a Cav he knew. A familiar Cav, tossing out an idea, inviting reaction. The discussion could last for months. Years. Humor sometimes helped. Close-mindedness rarely did.

  “So. Two and out.”

  “It’s an option.”

  “It’s a waste, you ask me. But you’re not.”

  “Helps to talk.”

  “Glad you called.”

  The two of them fell silent.

  At length Cav cleared his throat. “There’s something else. I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You can start by describing this enhancement of yours.”

  “I’m still getting used to it.” He described his experience so far. “Sometimes it feels like a whole new sense. Not merely an improved one. I recognize things that I couldn’t. That didn’t exist to me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Pressure gradients. Vibrations. Big and little energy fluctuations. Nothing’s at rest, Cav. Nothing. Everything’s in motion.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Motion and countermotion. Back and forth. Peaks and valleys. Steady streams. Though mostly not steady.”

  “Transitioning. Balancing.”

  “Yes.”

  “The song of life.”

  “Not just life. Everything.”

  Cav leaned in excitedly, until his face took up the whole screen. “Can you distinguish living from nonliving?”

  “Easily. Who can’t?”

  “There’s some disagreement on board.” He explain
ed what they had, and what they’d done. What they knew, and what they didn’t.

  “You believe it’s alive,” said Dashaud.

  “Not only alive, but a new form of life. One we’ve never seen.”

  “Sentient?”

  “Unknown.”

  He had a look. Dashaud had seen it before.

  “I need you here,” said Cav.

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “How?”

  “It’s been arranged.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But first there’s an errand I want you to run.”

  * * *

  It turned out to be a blockage in its gullet, a little external growth of tissue that closed it like a purse, making the bird unable to swallow. Dashaud removed it that evening, in a delicate operation made easy by his magical fingers. He released it the next day at the cliff, the female nowhere in sight. As he walked away, it took to the air, wheeled in a lazy circle, as if to test its wings, then headed out to sea. The day was overcast. The water, gunmetal gray. A mist hung in the distance, and before long its small white solitary body was swallowed by it.

  The following day he left Iceland and flew to Denver, got a car and drove south along the Front Range, then farther south, then west. Cav had given him an address outside a town called Cinder Knife. The way it worked, he’d talked to someone, Cav had, who’d talked to someone else, who’d talked to a third person, who’d contacted the seller and confirmed. Making the trail all but impossible to follow, in the event someone got a stick up their ass.

  The town was one block long and all boarded up, swept by the gritty desert sand and mummified by the hot, dry air. It could have been a hundred years old. Could have been two hundred. Dashaud blew through it, then had to slow down as he wound his way across the high plateau, past scrub, black rock, and a labyrinth of rutted dirt and gravel roads to a mailbox that sat atop a twisted and charred juniper stump. Behind it a tall pole with a security cam. Beside it a crushed rock driveway. He drove to the end of the driveway and got out.

  The sun nearly knocked him over. The heat was brutal. He got his cap, then looked around.

  In front of him was the back end of a double-wide, with a short flight of stairs leading to a door. Off to the side was another, larger building with cinder-block walls and a corrugated sheet metal roof, topped by a swivel-mounted cam. The place belonged to two brothers, he’d been told. One was a successful writer who had died some years earlier, under somewhat shady circumstances. Suspicion had fallen on the surviving brother, but nothing could be nailed down. In the end no charges were filed.

  The brother was said by some to be reclusive and misanthropic, though others pointed out that three-quarters of the local citizenry fit that description. Chances were he was perfectly likable, to someone anyway. He made a living designing and building things: water towers, personalized surveillance equipment, computer arrays, and, most important for the purpose of Dashaud’s errand, cooling systems.

  He materialized silently, like an apparition. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a holstered pistol. Asked for ID.

  Dashaud handed it over.

  He studied it, then gestured. “Your cap. Off.”

  Dashaud removed it. Got his photo taken for at least the third time. SOP, he guessed, though his size and the color of his skin still made some people nervous. Not many, not now, not here in the twenty-second century, what some were calling the Age of Yes, Finally. The Age of About Time. The Age of Long Overdue.

  The guy flicked his eyes from the fish-eye nestled in his palm to his visitor, awaiting confirmation. He had deep-set eyes, a wiry frame, and a pendulous beard. At length he gave a nod and pocketed the device.

  “You’re the guy who made them,” he said.

  “One of the guys. There was a team.”

  “You headed it.”

  He’d been criticized and demonized in the past, more times than he could count. Used to defend himself, in shouting matches if necessary. Finally learned to thicken his skin and not rise to the bait. Ignorant people didn’t come to learn. Hypocrites didn’t want to be educated. All they wanted was to point the finger of blame.

  “Long time ago. Unique situation.”

  “You did what you were told.”

  “I did what was right.”

  “You volunteered.”

  Actually, he was picked. “Yes.”

  “No questions asked.”

  The guy had it all figured out. Dashaud had heard it a hundred times before. He glanced at the holster, which appeared to be homemade, then the gun.

  Cav had mentioned the man was eccentric. He’d said nothing about the prospect of being shot.

  “You alive during the Hoax?” he asked.

  A dip of the chin.

  “Then you know how it was.”

  “Not much different today.”

  An interesting observation. Save for two small clouds, three buzzards, and a faraway plane, the sky was clear. Not a thing in it you wouldn’t expect. Had been that way for over fifty years. Smart money said it would stay that way. You had your skeptics, naturally. Your holdouts. Your crazy-ass contrarians.

  “You know something I don’t?” he asked, hazarding a friendly grin.

  The guy’s eyes narrowed. His finger twitched.

  “Let me try that again.”

  “You’re making a joke.” He looked bewildered. Slowly, comprehension spread across his face.

  Next thing Dashaud knew, his hand was being gripped and eagerly pumped up and down.

  “Cantrell. Abel. It’s an honor to meet you. Didn’t recognize you at first.”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “Skin color didn’t match. You look lighter than your photo. Threw me off. You know how it is. Can’t be too careful. Let me show you around.”

  Dashaud turned out to be something of a hero of his. Once over the recog hump, he got the red carpet treatment, beginning with the house, then the grounds, an acre and a half of high desert with an unobstructed view of more of the same, all the way to the horizon. The tour ended in the other building on the property, the workshop, which was the jewel box, and dwarfed the house.

  Big, airy, neat, and bright, with four large stainless-steel tables on the ground floor, two more on the upper, equipment of every sort hanging on pegboards, resting on overhead racks, standing on edge against walls, and hidden in meticulously labeled cabinets and drawers. On one of the tables was an open metal box stuffed with wires and circuit boards, with a sleeve jutting out that connected to a jointed arm that ended in a cup with a rubber ball. (A game of catch? Batting practice? His host didn’t seem the type. Of fetch? More likely, but with what? He’d seen no pets.) On another was version 3.4 of his patented, custom-made, automated feline feeder, adapted to the outdoors to service ferals, and equipped with mo detection and facial analytics to exclude skunks, raccoons, opossums, rats, and other party crashers. It was working well except for the opossums, which were somehow eluding the software.

  “Maybe they’re playing possum,” suggested Dashaud.

  Cantrell gave him a look. “What else would they be playing?”

  Industrious, inventive, and literal to a fault. Dashaud loved the guy. He was there for a reason but didn’t mind putting it off.

  Cantrell moved the metal box, then returned to the table, which was bolted to the concrete floor. He pulled out his handheld, entered a code, and a tawny, green-eyed tabby appeared on-screen. He touched one of the tabby’s eyes, swept his finger to an ear, then a paw, then repeated this in reverse. After the third time the tabby mewed, and scampered offscreen. Cantrell stepped back. Four previously hidden seams appeared in the floor, which opened like a door. The table swung up and over to reveal a set of stairs.

  “My hideaway,” said Cantrell.

  “They’re down there?”

  “Safe and sound. Go ahead. Light’ll come on by itself.”

  He hadn’t set eyes on one for years. Had made h
is peace. You did what you did. In hindsight everyone was guilty of something.

  He started down.

  The light came on.

  Water under the bridge.

  He reached the bottom.

  The losers were the ones who never did anything.

  The room was cave-like. A refrigeration unit sat on the floor in front of him, connected via hose to a cupboard-sized stainless-steel panel mounted on a wall.

  They were in the panel. Had to be.

  His heart was in his throat.

  Cantrell was right behind him. “Excited?”

  He shrugged.

  “Guess that’s a yes. Let’s not prolong the suspense.”

  He strode forward, put his hand on the panel, then paused, prolonging it. “Not that there is any. Don’t get the wrong idea. They’re in tip-top shape.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “You bet they are. Couldn’t be better.” He ran his finger along the panel’s edge with evident affection. “I check them regularly. I have a system. You don’t want to take too long. Don’t want to risk disturbing them.”

  One by one he released the panel’s clamps, and slowly removed the cover. There were three of them nestled behind a thick plate of glass, curled like commas, barely touching, suspended in translucent fluid, with no room to spare.

  Dashaud’s stomach lurched.

  His mind rebelled. He took a step back, repulsed.

  What had he done?

  And yet.

  When was progress ever black and white? How else did men and women advance?

  They were hideous. Appalling.

  But beautiful, too.

  Beautifully conceived, designed, and executed. He couldn’t forget the day they came to life. His pride and joy.

  His creations.

  Cantrell was champing at the bit. “So? What do you think?”

  “They’re hibernating?”

  “Of course.”

  He had a welter of emotions, which he cloaked behind a professional veneer. “Fully functional?”

  “Will be, once they’re thawed out.”

  Naturally, he’d say this. “How cold do you keep them?”

  “Cold as I can without harming them. Just above freezing. Never lower than point-three, higher than point-seven. Narrow range.”

  “You made the cooling system?”

  “All of it. Cooling, housing, electronics.”

  “Impressive.”