Engineman

by Eric Brown

  “Of course—fascists who ruled Germany in the middle of the twentieth century and again in the twenty-first.”

  The old woman was nodding. “Well, these people are every bit as evil.”

  Ella raised the glass to her lips. This time, the tequila went down as smooth as honey.

  The door from the bar swung open, startling her. Three men entered the room. They wore peasant’s jackets and their faces were blackened. Ella noticed that the left sleeve of the first Disciple’s jacket was empty, flattened and pinned to his side-.

  “There she is,” the old man said, coming in behind them.

  The one-armed Disciple regarded Ella, then grabbed her arm and roughly turned it over to reveal her tattoo. Far from acting as she might have expected a rescue party to behave, these men seemed nervous, suspicious—perhaps with good reason, if half the things the old woman had told her were true.

  The Disciple nodded. “Very well. This way.” They turned and hurried through the door. The old woman hugged Ella. “You will be well with them, little one. Do not be scared!”

  A trap-door behind the bar gave access to a flight of steps, descending into the darkness. Ella was pushed down after the first Disciple, and the two others followed. By the light of an ancient paraffin lamp she made out a stretch of water and a small fishing boat. She was bundled over the gunwale. A hand gripped her chin and her head was pulled back. Something cold and metallic touched her temple.

  “One word, one wrong movement... the slightest sign that you work for them, senorita...”

  * * * *

  Chapter Six

  Bobby Mirren was the Time-Lapsed Man, or the Man Who Lived in Two worlds, according to the headlines of some of the trashier journals which ran stories on him a decade ago. In fact, Bobby liked to think of himself as the man who lived in four worlds. He lived nominally in the present, and more substantially a day in the past; he lived a rich life in his memories, and an even richer life anticipating the future. Some part of him was in contact with the numinous reality of the nada-continuum, a tenuous and subtle contact like two spheres touching but never interpenetrating, a contact which promised that some day he would merge, become one, and in so doing totally fulfil himself. On the edge of his consciousness when he meditated he was aware of a sweet calling.

  Now—though the word was largely meaningless to Bobby—now he sat in his armchair in his bed-sitting room. What he could feel, the threadbare arm of the chair beneath his hand, was out of context with what he was experiencing from yesterday. One day ago he had an open book on his lap and was finger-reading the Braille translation of a Buddhist tract. Now he could see the great tome spread across his lap, could see his hand speeding along the dotted lines, but he could not feel the weight of the book on his lap nor the raised pointillism of the Braille beneath his fingertips. His lap was empty and he could feel the material of the armchair beneath his fingers. He laid back his head and closed his eyes, and he continued to see what his eyes had been directed at yesterday, the book, the carpet before his feet, the far wall... He heard the sound of a flier passing overhead, but knew that the vehicle had passed by a day ago and would be long gone by now.

  Bobby Mirren’s every sense, with the exception of his sense of touch, was lapsed by almost twenty-four hours. What he saw today he had looked at yesterday; what he heard now first came to his ears a day ago. Similarly with his senses of taste and smell; he would eat a meal today, and, although he would be aware of the texture of the food filling his mouth, it would be tasteless — until the following day when its taste would flood his mouth. He compensated by taking his meals at the same time each day, so that he could taste yesterday’s meal while eating today’s. In the early days he had experimented—eating steak and then the following day at the same time eating strawberries, so that he would taste the bloody meat while having the sensation of chewing the soft fruit. He had experimented too with the other odd phenomena of his unique condition. He would set off and walk through the streets of Paris, feeling his way around the masonry and railings and glass shop-fronts like a blind man—the difference being that, although in his fumbling hesitation he might have appeared blind, he was in fact seeing what he had looked upon the day before: the interior of his room, a vid-documentary, a meal he had eaten... The following day Bobby would remain in the apartment and finger-read a religious tract, while visually and aurally experiencing his trip outside the day before. The dichotomous sense of experiencing two different realities, both just as unreal, had given him, after the initial, nauseous surge of disorientation, a cerebral thrill, an intellectual high, which he tied in with his wide reading in Buddhist philosophy: simply, that this life with an illusion—and he had been vouchsafed, for some reason, the condition that made this obvious. The strange sensory anomaly, which most people would consider a curse, Bobby from the outset looked upon as a blessing, a sign from beyond this reality that he was special, even chosen.

  He was the only time-lapsed man to have survived. There had been five beside himself in the last couple of years before the closure of the bigship Lines. The first two Enginemen, Black and Thorn, had died after just a few days of hospitalisation and observation. The following three had lasted months. All five had drifted irrevocably into comatose states, and then passed from this existence to the next.

  But Bobby Mirren had survived.

  He recalled his final shift in the flux-tank as if it were yesterday. It would have been his last push anyway, even if he had not succumbed to Black’s Syndrome. The Javelin Line had been bought out by an interface organisation, and portals were to replace bigships in the sector of the Expansion served by his Line. He, along with every other Engineman, had been at first incredulous and outraged at the news that the ‘ships were being phased out, and then when the fact and its implications sank in, psychologically devastated. Enginemen lived for the flux; it was what made their lives worthwhile, a contact with the infinite that nothing—no amount of worship, prayer or study — could replace. Bobby had gone into the tank for the last time hoping that he would die a flux-death, so as to be spared the years of terrible deprivation. In the event, he almost got his wish.

  It was a haul like any other, a three day push from Earth to Reqa-el-Sharif along the spiral arm. He had jacked-in and laid on the slide-bed with the usual reverence that the ritual called for, but with a sense of poignancy also that this time would be the last. He had slipped into a trance as he entered the tank, suddenly aware of the vast, numinous infinity of the nada-continuum, and his part in it; a tiny, insignificant speck of life. He wanted nothing more then than to cross the cusp all the way and become one with the sublime.

  Then—and he had been sure that some part of him experienced it at the time, sure that it was not a retrospective illusion—he was conscious of a presence within his mind, a crawling, probing heat that seemed to be investigating the many layers that made up his being. He felt areas of his brain closing down, becoming stagnant—and he received the distinct impression that he was being stripped down to his essence, his basic animal self, before being accepted more fully than ever before into the continuum. He was dimly aware of a consciousness at work within him, a guiding intelligence behind what was happening, which was benign and had only his well-being at heart.

  On the very edge of his awareness he heard the intelligence, calling to him...

  Then with a sudden, terrible wrench, he was ejected from the flux-tank. He felt his body being manhandled from the slide-bed, the medics giving him a thorough examination—but all he could see was darkness, and all he could hear was the quiet humming that accompanied the process of en-tankment... He had read about Black’s Syndrome, and he knew then that he was its sixth victim.

  Bobby had spent almost a year in a private medical institute in New York, his senses lapsing by a few minutes each day, until the time they ceased their drift and halted at almost twenty-four hours. He had been quite prepared for death—he had after all experienced the wondrous realm that followed�
��but, a month after his senses had stabilised, he was told by the medics that he had survived, could lead an almost normal life, and part of him had been disappointed at the news, cheated at the thought of being unable to follow the other sufferers of the Syndrome to a better place.

  He had tried to find out what, medically, neurologically, had happened to him—but the medics, although they blustered, had no real idea. They talked of malfunctions in the tank-leads which had affected certain areas of the brain, and gave Bobby lectures on complex neurological dysfunctions which meant nothing at all to him.

  The very fact that he had undergone the mysterious transformation and survived convinced him that he had been affected for a reason—this and the fact that ever since his final push he had been blessed with a greater recollection of being united with the infinite. Usually after a push, the fleeting, elusive awareness lasted only hours, but with Bobby it continued, so that even now all he had to do was relax, meditate and concentrate, and he would experience again some measure of the rapture of the union. At these times he could almost hear the calling, a signal from the intelligence that had tried to ease him into the continuum ten years before.

  He had come to Paris, moved into his brother’s apartment, and after the sickening, sycophantic attention of the media during which he became a nine day wonder, eliciting pity, proposals of marriage—even death threats from a Muslim sect who considered his claims of contact with a higher force as blasphemous — he had settled down to a quiet life of study.

  Over the years he had read widely of all the various mystical religions on Earth, and several from beyond, but always came away dissatisfied, aware that none of them addressed what he had experienced while in flux. Even the Disciples, who he had joined when becoming an Engineman, were too obsessed with ritual and dogma. He had stopped looking for answers in human religions, realising that he had experienced the ultimate truth in the nada-continuum and occasionally in meditation—and merely read Buddhist and Disciple tracts out of interest, a second best as there was no real codified treatise to explain the continuum; it merely was...

  Now, Bobby saw what he had looked at yesterday—his vision dictated by the movement of his eyes almost twenty-four hours ago: the book, the carpet. As he watched, he saw his hands close the great book, its cover the size of a trap-door, and hoist it over the side of his armchair to the floor. He sat upright now and experienced his vision tilt dizzyingly as he had leaned over the arm of the chair. He watched his hands return and settle on his knees. He recalled that he had sat like this, in silent contemplation, for fifteen minutes. He thought back a day, and realised that he had been watching and listening to, from the previous day, a vid-disc documentary about the exploration of a newly discovered planet in the Crab nebula. He had stopped his reading when the programme started, to give his full attention to the vid-screen. He could not read normal printed books, newspapers or magazines; unable to see these in real-time, he could not train his eyes to scan the exacting lines of print. He fared much better with the vid-screen, where the visual target was much larger—he’d rest his head against the wing of his chair and stare straight ahead. He tended, though, to watch only hired documentary discs on the ‘screen, bored by the combination of brutality and triviality of the networked programmes. He spent a lot of time listening to the radio and his own music pins. He remembered that yesterday at six he had put some music on the player, Tibetan mantras followed by a classical symphony, lay down on the bed in the corner and closed his eyes—while continuing to watch a news programme about the decline of Europe. Now he snapped open the glass cover of his wrist-watch and felt for the hands. It was almost four. In two hours he would get up, put some music on the player, and go and lie down, while listening to the music he had selected yesterday; tomorrow, he would repeat the process, and duly enjoy the music he would select in two hours... Unlike everyone else in the world, Bobby could not spontaneously gratify his desires—to see a film, listen to music, taste a certain meal, or whatever. If he wished to listen to a mantra or a symphony, or taste a favourite food now, this second, it was of course impossible. He would put the music on, or eat the food today, and listen to the music and savour the meal a day later. In the early days he had found this frustrating. He was accustomed to it by now, had become practised at looking forward to whatever experience he had selected for himself the day before.

  When four o’clock approached, Bobby was ready.

  Yesterday at this time he had climbed to his feet and left the room. Now, as soon as he saw his hands move to the arms of the chair and begin to push himself up, he matched the movement with hands he could not see, and stood smoothly. It had taken months of practise to synchronise today’s movements with yesterday’s vision—for a long time he’d swayed like a drunk, and often fallen over. Now it came as second nature to him.

  He walked across the room to the door, seeing what he had looked at the day before—substantially the very same scene he would have seen now if his vision had been normal. When he opened the door yesterday, his hand had lingered on the worn wooden handle, feeling the grain of the wood in his hand. The day before yesterday he had foregone his habitual routine, he recalled, and had climbed up to the roof. He remembered that yesterday at this point, with his hand caressing the door handle, he had been looking out across Paris towards Orly in the north, and the distant glow of the interface. Now, movement and vision were satisfyingly synchronised. He saw his hand holding the handle, and in real-time he held the handle, pulled back the door just as he had yesterday, watched it move towards him, stepped back and then proceeded from the room.

  He followed his vision of yesterday across the gloomy hallway. The day before, he had paused for a minute outside his brother’s bedroom, before entering. Today he did not want to enter the room on the off chance that Ralph would be awake and would wish to ‘chat’ with him—not verbally, on Ralph’s part, but with a touch-language he would tap out on Bobby’s palm.

  Now Bobby deviated from the visual route he had taken yesterday. He turned towards the kitchen and felt his way along the wall until he came to the door. He felt his way around the kitchen until he came to the cooler, and pulled it open. In effect, he was doing all this blind, as he was watching what he had been looking at yesterday. Twenty-four hours ago, he had opened his brother’s bedroom door and, unable to hear himself, slurred, “Ralph, it’s only me.”

  Now, in the kitchen, he heard the words. He felt for a beer in the cooler, pulled out the bottle and chugged down the ice cold liquid. He saw the interior of Ralph’s bedroom, the bed and the tangled sheets and Ralph, lying in his shorts on his back, staring at him. Sometimes, around this time, Ralph would be getting up for an early evening shift, and they might eat together and ‘converse’.

  He enjoyed the feel of the beer coursing down his throat. Tomorrow he would taste it.

  Yesterday he had stood at the door, unable to see whether Ralph was in bed, or had left for work — watching, still, the skyline of Paris from the day before. Now he held the cold bottle in his hand and tracked his erratic vision of the day before. Ralph was looking at him, Bobby could see peripherally, with no expression on his face.

  He had not seen his brother smile in years. Ralph was forever pale and haggard-looking, often unshaven. His gaze carried that habitual, haunted look of the most severely affected Enginemen. Whenever Bobby saw his brother, he had the urge to hug him, tell him that all would be well—but of course by the time Bobby ‘saw’ Ralph, a day had passed and it was too late, and of course Ralph would have ignored his religiose declarations anyway.

  Bobby took another swallow of beer, felt its iciness cut his chest in two.

  Ralph, still in bed, sketched a wave. “I’m sorry, Bobby,” he said a day ago, the words coming suddenly while Bobby had turned from the room and felt his way out, assuming Ralph had already left for work. “I’ve had a long shift and I’m not on till ten. I’m trying to sleep, okay?”

  At least, thought Bobby, he had said somethin
g so that I’d hear his excuse today, rather than feigning sleep.

  They had drifted apart over the years, and more was to blame than the difficulty of maintaining a relationship due to Bobby’s condition. Years ago they had both pushed ‘ships for Lines based in Paris. They had seen each other frequently, toured the bars and jazz clubs together, attended parties and shows. The fact that Bobby had believed back then, and Ralph had not, had done nothing to deter their friendship. They had more in common than not, and they had genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. Every time Bobby’s ‘ship phased-in, the first person he would contact in Paris would be his brother.

  It had seemed natural that he should accept Ralph’s invitation, almost ten years ago, to come and live in Paris on his discharge from hospital. Since then they had lived their own, separate lives. Bobby tended to absorb himself in his books and meditation, and Ralph...? Ralph read a little, watched a little vid-screen, drank. He seemed constantly depressed, apathetic, living only for a dozen bottles of beer daily and his shift at Orly, which he hated. They had both, at times, attempted to talk openly and seriously to each other, but Bobby’s wholehearted acceptance of an afterlife had often run aground on Ralph’s uncompromising atheism. They no longer had any common ground.

  Bobby thought back to their childhood in Sydney, their father, a severely materialist nuclear scientist working on Australia’s first fast breeder reactor programme. Their mother had died when they were too young to recall her, and their father had been over-strict, ruthless in his punishment for minor misdemeanours he considered grave. Ralph, the eldest and least strong-willed of the two boys, had kow-towed to his father, perhaps even subconsciously taken on board his secular world-view. Bobby, on the other hand, had rebelled, stubbornly studied religion, looking for the right one until he became an Engineman and discovered the creed of the Disciples.