Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  WOODBINE: She knew I’d get frightened and hit ‘eject’ before they got back.

  VOICE1: Who did she go back for?

  WOODBINE: For my boss. John. He made it back. She didn’t.

  VOICE1: This is your former employer, John Tamberlain.

  WOODBINE: Correct.

  VOICE1: Are you sure she didn’t make it?

  WOODBINE: ’Course I’m fucking sure. There was one life-pod left. It was a cargo boat. She gave her life for us.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): Was it a cargo boat or a life-pod?

  WOODBINE: It was a cargo boat that saved our lives.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): You and Mr Tamberlain?

  WOODBINE: Correct.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): And you were the only ones to make it out.

  WOODBINE: Like I said.

  VOICE1: See, this is where we start to break down, Daniel. The problem is that what you’re telling us isn’t the only version.

  WOODBINE: The fuck are you talking about, not the only version?

  VOICE1: For a start, you aren’t the only ones who made it out. Mr Hunter made it out, too. And he made it out in the last pod.

  WOODBINE: That’s bullshit.

  VOICE1: And your whole story conflicts with his. He claims that you and your employer were driven mad by your time at the Empyrean. That you became paranoid, and violent. That you cut off your own finger. That you drugged Ms Green so Tamberlain could go to a restaurant. Mr Hunter says he found an emergency adrenalin shot in Tamberlain’s pharmacopoeia, and used it to revive Ms Green. Then he says they escaped together to the so-called ‘last life-pod’, at which point she told him she was going back for Tamberlain. And this made him angry enough that he took off without them.

  WOODBINE: That’s total fucking nonsense. I lost this finger in a minor dispute over expenses.

  VOICE1: But you can see what we’re dealing with. And even those two stories aren’t the only versions. Can we play you some tape, Daniel?

  WOODBINE: Sure. Whatever.

  VOICE1: Let’s roll that tape. Can you set this up for us?

  WOODBINE: Well, that’s us in the escape … wait. What the fuck?

  ‘I love you, John. I always have.’

  WOODBINE: The fuck is this?

  ‘I know, I know, we’ve wasted so much time, G.’

  WOODBINE: This isn’t them, they don’t speak to each other like that.

  ‘We’ve got all the time we need, John. We’ll go somewhere.’

  ‘Yes. We’ll fly off somewhere no one will ever find us.’

  WOODBINE: The fuck is this? This is insane.

  ‘I’m going to kiss you now.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t?’

  ‘Don’t. Cos if you do there’s no going back, John. It’ll be this way forever.’

  WOODBINE: Fuck, turn that off, just turn it off, dammit!

  VOICE1: Something bothering you, Daniel?

  WOODBINE: That isn’t them. Only John was there with me. Gladys never made it back. And anyway, if you’d spent five minutes with them you’d know they’d never talk like that.

  VOICE1: But of course it’s them. They’re right there. That’s security camera footage from the life-pod.

  WOODBINE: I don’t care what it is, that’s not how it fucking happened. I was there.

  VOICE1: You were there?

  WOODBINE: Yes!

  VOICE1: And then you left. It was you and Mr Tamberlain who were ejected in the last pod?

  WOODBINE: Yes!

  VOICE1: But how do you know, Daniel? How do you know for certain you went there? And if you went there, how do you know you ever left? You could still be there. You might never have really been you in the first place.

  WOODBINE: Who the fuck are you people? What is this?

  VOICE1: It’s whatever you want it to be, Daniel. It’s your life. We’ll take a break and be right back.

  From Jonathan Tamberlain, to Ms Colette Pacifique

  Dear Colette

  How long has it been? Long enough that we’re different people. You’re not the woman I never knew, and I’m not the man I knew – if I’m honest – even less. I’m in the Far East. I’m at an airport. I visit a lot of airports these days. I find them very restful. Life in flux. People between episodes of their lives. I see them pass and catch snippets of their conversations. It makes me happy. That’s as much as I can say about where I am. I have to be careful.

  I hear your biography is out. I hear it’s actually good. I hear you sold the cine-rights. So there’s going to be a movie about my life. The Anonymous Gastronomer. That tickles me. I’m not angry about any of this. That was the old me. The person in that movie isn’t me any more than you’re me. Life is constant change.

  But it occurred to me that your movie in its current form has no ending. It ends in the middle of my life, after my abortive visit to Infinicon, with a list of equally plausible, though equally unsatisfying, outcomes. That I … well, which shall we choose? That after the Fair I succumbed to misery and threw myself into the seas of Zoraster. That I succumbed to hope and stowed away aboard a cargo ship to the High Orient. That I killed my agent and assumed his identity. That I made it to the place I’d always dreamed of visiting – a theory supported by garbled and unverifiable fragments from my notes on my visit. Well, I couldn’t bear for your story not to have a real ending. So here it is. This is the story of the closing hours of my visit to Hotel Grand Skies: the Empyrean. It is my gift to you. Are you ready?

  Good.

  I showered, dressed, wrote up my notes, and when I had no more notes to write, I waited. I was feeling surprisingly empty. But I suppose that’s how you want to feel before a big meal.

  At the appointed time I closed the book I was reading and listened for the knock on my door. It didn’t come. I noticed my watch had stopped. But it had been at least two hours since I arrived. I went to check the hall and found the door to my apartment locked. It was magnetised in place, the way the door to the Meridian Baby had been when we were prisoners. I had a sudden sense I’d never get my meal. I sat in silence for who knows how many hours. I finished the book I was reading. I rewrote most of the notes I’d written. I read the first section of the holy book in the drawer, but it filled me with too much existential grief. ‘Note the identifying marks of the Son of Darkness: Biblio Diabolorum. The Dark One’s number is 2,665,866,746,664 – of the power of ten.’

  Then I made a drink. Then I counted every object in the living room and arranged them by colour. Then the phone rang. I answered it, but there was only silence down the line.

  I had the sense that someone was coming, and that I should leave quickly. But how? I went to check the door one more time, found it open. The halls were silent. I grabbed my tie and jacket and set off walking, not knowing which way I should be going. I had my shoes back. My real shoes. I felt like a new man. I had a purpose. I had a gun, too. And you never feel lost when you have a gun.

  I enjoyed wandering aimlessly for a while, admiring some of the priceless art on the walls, before I smelled him. The scent made me stop suddenly, alert. The way a deer does when he picks up the scent of the hunter. I stood hunched in the hall. He was very faint. Almost half a mile away. The X Sanguinat 22 is old, but not elderly. Not attractive. But somehow beautiful. Bright and brilliant. The man you meet who knows more about his worst subject than you do about your best. He can recite the work of poets, and quote philosophers. But he’s more interested to know about you. He never stops asking questions. He’s curious. But you don’t get long with him. So many people want to talk to him. I met him at a private tasting on my fourth Grand Tour. A thimble-ful from a woman in white gloves who treated the bottle like an unexploded shell, and even winced as I raised the glass to my lips. He doesn’t deserve the name X Sanguinat 22, I thought. I will call him Maxwell. I followed Max through the empty halls, not caring where I was going, feeling floods of joy as he grew stronger. I followed him to where he waited, and forgot to be astonished when
I got there.

  The Undersea was not at all like I expected. I’ll save you a detailed description. I’ve wasted too many hours of my life describing furniture. But it was more like a grand old den from the High Orient than a classic Western restaurant. There were great paper lanterns. There were curtains of embroidered silk. There was a vast glass dome to crown the place, and through the dome I could see life. Angled lights lit shoals of silver. Beyond was the purest darkness. The restaurant was empty, but all the tables were set for dining. One large table in the centre had a man sitting at it. The desk master greeted me warmly by name, and took me across the expanse. I recognised the man waiting for me. His perfectly bald head perfectly balanced on his broad shoulders. A waiter came and poured me a glass of the very dark wine from the very old bottle on the table. Old music came from somewhere secret.

  ‘Hello again, Jonathan.’

  ‘Hello, Lepold.’

  ‘This is the X Sanguinat 22. There aren’t many alive, or dead, who’ve drunk it.’

  ‘I know the wine.’ Maxwell hung boldly around us.

  ‘Sit. Taste. Remark.’

  I stood motionless.

  ‘You won’t sit? Why won’t you sit? And what is that you’re pointing at me?’

  ‘It’s a gun.’

  ‘Yes, I know what the object is. But what is it? What does it represent?’

  ‘The seriousness of my intent to shoot you in the face.’

  ‘Is that so? And why would you want to do that?’

  ‘Because you deserve it.’

  The man smiled kindly. ‘Jonathan, do you know how many times I’ve been shot to death? You couldn’t guess, and even I’ve lost count. You won’t know this yet, but one of the greatest pleasures in life is to die. You know, the Harvest before last I killed and ate a copy of myself. Sit, please, this is a fine story. No? This copy woke in his bed one morning and thought he ruled the world. He truly believed he was the real me. He woke, had breakfast, strode about the place, nodding to the staff, giving orders. He went to a meeting to discuss potential new members. It was a very lively discussion. Then he had lunch, took care of some paperwork and read the day’s news. Imagine his surprise when he returned home to find his apartment sheeted in plastic, and his very self waiting in an armchair with a small – gods, what do you call those little two-headed hatchets they used to use in the old temples to kill their sacrifices?’

  ‘Stammer.’

  ‘Yes, stammer. I was waiting there with a stammer. I said, “I am the real you. And I’m going to kill you and eat you for my dinner tonight.” I put it more eloquently than that. I had a speech prepared. And do you know what he did? He laughed! What other response is there? He said, “Why that’s completely delightful! Today I’ll know what it feels like to be killed with a small axe.” And he knelt on the floor before me, and I did the deed, and I had our chef cook some of his organs for me. And I was delicious, Jonathan. So satisfying. And that’s what makes this all so very interesting. The possibilities. I can’t be certain I won’t return home after dinner to find the real me waiting with some instrument of torture. I have no certainty I wasn’t born today. Just as we can have no certainty our universe didn’t leap into being fully formed at breakfast, with a population designed by some superior intelligence to remember a prefabricated history. I don’t think you’ve considered these significant things, Jonathan. And I don’t think this weapon represents your seriousness. I think it represents your utter powerlessness.’ He signalled the waiter. ‘You’re mad we killed your little killer. We get it. But Ms Green is gone. She’s gone, and because of that I’m very angry.’

  ‘You’re angry? With me?’

  ‘Yes! This was a project years in the making. You were supposed to manage her. We chose you for that job. She had hundreds of clients, many of them more suitable for our list than you. But I chose you because I believed you knew how to manage her. I was wrong. So now I’m very angry. Gods, Jonathan, you should see how angry Rubin is. Oh!’ His eyes glittered madly. ‘He can’t believe you double-crossed him. He thinks you two had a connection. He thought you’d help him make a copy of Ms Green. But you didn’t, so she’s dead now. But she would have died regardless. She’s gone, Jonathan, and there’s nothing you can do. Now, for the final time, before I lose all patience with you. Sit. Drink. Remark. Because you are on the cusp of an awful amount of pleasure, or an unspeakable amount of agony.’

  I sat, but I didn’t put down my gun. I drank, but I couldn’t remark. I put down my gun.

  ‘Yes, I know. It hardly needs words. Words destroy perfection.’

  ‘I remember this wine.’

  ‘Do you? And do you remember me? We met aboard The Huntress. Forgive me, I eat little, but you must enjoy this soup.’ My appetiser came. It was a shallow bowl of soup, plum red. It had tiny, concave discs like corneas floating on the surface, magnifying light from the room, and it smelled like a fog rolling off the shores of heaven. I died in it. He gave me a minute. Said, ‘Yes. I know. I know. I remember. I remember the first time. This is what happens when you give an already gifted chef like Rojiibo unlimited resources, including time.’

  I dabbed my eye with a napkin. The wine steward filled my glass, but not Lepold’s. Time lapped shallowly.

  ‘You’re thinking about her, Jonathan. Don’t. She’s gone. Be in the moment. There will never be another like it.’

  No, there never would be.

  ‘Jonathan, I’m not really very angry with you. There’s still something to be salvaged from this. I am going to kill you, though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. Just because we kill you doesn’t mean you’ll be dead. We have a ceremony for all those who make it through induction. We destroy their old bodies, and welcome them to eternal life.’

  ‘Sounds amazing.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d make it. Tell me what you remember about that night aboard The Huntress.’

  ‘There isn’t much. The gas.’

  ‘Ah. Well, I am sorry about that. Good haz-masks must be customised, and we had very little time to improvise. If you’d left the boat like I told you to it wouldn’t have had to happen that way. Just tell me what you remember.’

  So I told him about my visit to the Fair. The Perisphere. The World After Dark. The sad people willingly infected with friendly sexual parasites. The woodsmen drunkenly swinging their axes at real conifer trees. The eighteen-hundred-foot-high vertical-shit-inducing pneumatic restaurants. I told him about the banquet, Lance, the aftermath.

  To All the People Everywhere …

  ‘I will shoot you in the fucking leg, Lance.’

  ‘No, the beating. Do the beating.’

  ‘Oh gods, Jonathan, that all sounds excruciating. Would it make a difference to know that Lance was most likely an agent?’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘You’re really going to have to stop using that word. We think he’s a Bear. Some of them take gender reassignment. It’s very difficult to tell, though. We know he isn’t who he said he was. We’re fairly certain he was sent to manipulate your behaviour in some way. To what end we aren’t sure.’

  ‘I don’t know what the fuck is happening any more.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not so complex when you break it down. We had a simple plan: to capture a Water Bear intact and learn about her architecture. We’ve had dead ones, but a dead brain is as easy to read as a burned book. We only knew of four ex-Water Bears in circulation, and only two were suitable candidates, and only one of the two worked for wealthy or famous clients – those we would term “induction-worthy”. Of the eighty-seven clients on Ms Green’s books, twenty-one were from the social and political elite. The Super Class. And twelve were selected as potential candidates for induction. You were not one of them.’

  ‘Oh. What number was I on the list?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You’re a critic, Jonathan.’

  ‘Forensic gastronomer.’

&n
bsp; ‘However you paint it, our establishment rates the critic only slightly higher than the Water Bear. But we put you on the shortlist anyway because you seemed to understand Ms Green in a way the other twenty candidates did not. Also, our chef Rojiibo has an affection for you.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without,” he said. But then you and your Water Bear had a major disagreement just as we were getting ready to put our plan into action.’

  ‘I tried to read her journal.’

  ‘I know. So we cut you from the list. But then Fate intervened, as it does. Someone tipped you off about our establishment. They gave you a photo. You started to pursue us rather relentlessly. We put you in a copter and dropped you in the ocean. Still you wouldn’t give up. We could have made another attempt on your life. But then we learned that your agent, Mr Woodbine, had been in contact with Ms Green after the copter incident. Mr Rojiibo said: “When the winds won’t change their mind, it means you should.” So we decided to monitor the situation and see where the winds blew you. When they blew you to the Fair, we were surprised. Even more so when I learned you’d come aboard The Huntress that night.’

  ‘You and I have different ideas of “not so complex”.’

  ‘Tell me what you remember about the party.’

  I remember a boat painted silver. I remember giant silver-painted idols. There were three separate security scans. I remember a very small man showing me to my cabin. Strange, chintzy quasi-alpine decor, just like my chalet. The thugs watched me unpack. Then they took me to a ballroom full of famous faces. There were drunk generals carving their names in furniture with hunting knives. There were members of the Kaukassian Secret Police. There were politicians, porn stars, big-ticket escorts. There was a group of gargantuan drag queens. One of them was more than seven feet tall. I thought, ‘Great fuck, what have I done? I can’t be here. I have to find her.’ The Great Butcher sat on a kind of throne, in a silk dress and gold tiara. She looked like the corpse of a Little Miss Universe contestant. She had a gold cup full of liquor and a pet hairless rat. It’s all a dream.