Green Eyes

by Lucius Shepard

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ said Audrey behind her. ‘I’ll get Edman.’

  Laura snuffled.

  Jocundra swallowed, gathering herself. Magnusson lay on his side, his right arm upflung across his face and wedged against the headboard, concealing all except his forehead and the corner of his right eye. She switched off the lights, and the green flickers were again visible. God, she thought, what if somehow he’s alive. She switched the lights back on. It was becoming easier to bear, but not much. She stepped around the bloody streaks and stopped a foot from the bed. His chest was unmoying. She knelt beside him and was craning her neck, trying to locate the wound, when his arm came unwedged and dangled against her knee. The shock caused her to overbalance. She tipped forward and planted her hand on the bed to stabilize. Blood mired between her fingers, and her face bobbed to within inches of a neat slice in his throat. Its lips were crusted with a froth of pink bubbles.

  One of them popped, and a clear fluid seeped from the wound.

  Laura screamed - an abandoned, throat-tearing scream - and Jocundra threw herself back and sat down hard on the carpet, face to face with Magnusson. Folds of waxy skin sagged from his cheeks, and the bacteria were in flux within his eyes. Spidery blobs of luminescence spanned the sockets, their edges eroding, gradually revealing sections of his liverish whites and glazed blue irises. Jocundra was spellbound. Then she felt something soaking her slacks and realized that the horrid paste sticking them to her thighs was a spill of Magnusson’s blood. She scrambled up and started for the door. And stopped. Laura had fallen to her knees, sobbing, and behind her stood Richmond and Donnell.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ Jocundra said, obeying the stupid reflex of lies. She pushed them away and tried to shut the door, but Richmond knocked her hand aside and jammed the door open with his foot.

  ‘No shit!’ he said, peering into the room. ‘Ol’ Doc musta tripped or somethin’, huh?’

  Jocundra decided she couldn’t worry about Richmond; she took Donnell’s arm and propelled him along the hall. ‘I think he killed himself. It’s going to be a madhouse in a minute. You wait in the room and I’ll find out what I can.’

  ‘But why would he kill himself?’ he asked, as she forced him through the door. ‘He was getting out.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She helped him lower into the wheelchair. ‘Let me go now. I’ve got to make my report.’ A flash of memory showed her the old man’s eyes, his throat, something still alive after all that blood, and she shuddered.

  Donnell blinked, looking at the wall above his writing desk. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said distractedly. He wheeled over to the desk and picked up a pen. “What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He opened a notebook. ‘I’ll figure it out.’ She knew he was holding something back, but she was in no mood to pry and no shape to field his questions. She reassured him that she would return quickly and went into the hall. Agitated voices lifted from Magnusson’s room; Laura was still sitting outside the door, collapsed against the ornate molding like a beggar girl beneath a temple arch. Jocundra leaned against the wall. From the moment she had seen Magnusson, she had been operating on automatic, afraid for either herself or for Donnell, and now, relieved of pressure, she began to tremble. She put her hand up to cover her eyes and saw the brown bloodstains webbing the palm; she wiped it on her hip. She did not want to think anymore, about Magnusson, about herself or Donnell, and so, to occupy her mind and because no one else would be likely to bother, concerned only with their experiment gone awry, she hurried down the hall to find if anything could be done for Laura.

  DON’T TELL JOCUNDRA was written on the wall in crudely printed letters about the size of a fist; the letters were not of a color but were indented into the wallpaper, and it had taken only a slight shift in focus to bring them clear. Beneath the first line was a second message: THE INSTANT YOU ARE ALONE, LOOK UNDER YOUR MATTRESS

  Donnell didn’t hesitate. He felt around under the mattress, touched something hard and thin, and pulled out a red account ledger from which an envelope protruded; the words read this now! were printed on the envelope, and inside were five typewritten pages and a simple plan of the first floor and basement. There were only a few lines on the first page.

  I am dying early for your benefit, Mr Harrison, and I hope you will therefore give my rationality the benefit of the doubt and act at once upon my instructions. If you have learned of my death shortly after its event, then these instructions apply; if more than twenty minutes have elapsed, you must use your own judgement. Leave your room immediately. Do not worry about the cameras: they are currently malfunctioning. Follow the diagram and enter the room marked X. All personnel will be doubtless involved in frantic inessentials, but if you happen to be observed, I am certain you can supply an adequate excuse. The ledger and the letter will clarify all else.

  Donnell cracked the bedroom door. An orderly rushed past and into Magnusson’s room; Jocundra was hunkered next to Laura outside the room, but she had her back to him and was blocking Laura’s view. No one else was in the hall. He eased out the door and wheeled toward the foyer, expecting her to call out at any second; he passed the foyer, continued along the hall and turned the corner. The door leading to the basement was the first on his left. He stood, wobbly on his cane, and shoved the wheelchair back into the front hall so they could not tell where he had gone. The stairs were steep, and each step jolted loose pains in his hips and spine. A dimly lit corridor led off the stair; he entered the second door and twisted the latch. Gray-painted walls, two folding chairs facing a large mirror, and a speaker and switches mounted beside the mirror. Breathing hard, he sat and fumbled out the remainder of Magnusson’s letter.

  In the event it is Dr Edman who reads this: sir, you are a great ass! If, however, it has reached your hands, Mr Harrison, you have my congratulations and my thanks.

  The ledger contains my notes on the bacterial process which enlivens us and an appendix which attempts a description of certain psychophysical abilities you will soon enjoy, if you do not already. Whereas the medical notes might be digested best at a time affording you a degree of leisure, I suggest you look over the appendix after concluding this letter.

  I am not sure what has compelled me to give my posthumous counsel, but I have been so compelled. Perhaps it is because we are microbiologically akin, or because I believe that we should have a voice in determining the course of these mayfly existences. Perhaps an arc of destiny is involved. But most assuredly it is because I. have seen (mark the verb!) in you a future of greater purpose than my past has proved. There is a thing you must do, Mr Harrison. I cannot tell you what it is, but I wish you its accomplishment.

  I have chosen this precise time to die because I knew Dr Ezawa would be in residence and would - being a good research man - wish to perform the autopsy at once. The laboratory next to this room is the only place suitable for such work. If you will turn on the wall switches beside the mirror, in due course you will see and hear all the proceedings…’

  Donnell hit the switches. A light bloomed within the mirror, and a wide room dominated by two long counters became visible; a lamp burned on the nearest counter, illuminating beakers, microscopes and a variety of glass tubing. No one was in sight. He turned back to the letter.

  … though it is likely your view will be impaired as the doctors crowd around, shoving each other aside in their desire for intimacy with my liver and lights. I doubt you will be disturbed; the basement will be off-limits to all but those involved in my dissection, and the room you occupy has no video camera. It was, I suspect, designed as an observation post from which to observe the initial recovery phase of creatures like ourselves, but apparently they chose to sequester that portion of the project at Tulane. In any case, it will take some hours at least to restore the video, and if you exercise caution you should be able to return upstairs unnoticed.

  Enough of preamble. Hereafter I will depend a list of those things I have learned which may be pertinent to your imme
diate situation.

  1) If you concentrate your gaze upon the cameras, you will sooner or later begin to see bright white flashes in the air around them: cometary incidences of light which will gradually manifest as networks or cages of light constantly shifting in structure. I am convinced these are a visual translation of the actions of electromagnetic fields. When they appear, extend your hand toward them and you will feel a gentle tugging in the various directions of their flow. The ledger will further explore this phenomenon, but for now it will suffice you to know that you can disrupt the system by waggling your fingers contrary to the flow, disrupting their patterns…

  The laboratory door swung open, a black arm reached in and switched on the overhead fluorescents; two orderlies entered wheeling Magnusson’s corpse on a dolly. Then a group of lab-coated doctors squeezed through the door, led by Dr Brauer and an elderly Japanese man whose diminished voice came over the wall speaker. ‘… matter who gave him the scalpel, but I want to know where it has vanished to.’ He stalked to the dolly and pinched a pallid fold of flesh from Magnusson’s ribs. ‘The extent of desanguination is remarkable! There can’t be more than two or three pints left in his body. The bacteria must have maintained the heart action far longer than would be normal.’

  ‘No wonder Petit’s so freaked,’ ventured a youngish doctor. ‘He must have gone off like a lawn sprinkler.’

  Ezawa cast a cold eye his way, and he quailed.

  Seeing his creator filled Donnell with grim anger, righteous anger, anger based upon the lies he’d been told and funded by the sort of natural anger one feels when one meets the wealthy or the powerful, and senses they are mortals who have escaped our fate. Ezawa had an elegant thatch of silky white hair and eyebrows to match; his eyes were heavy-lidded and his lips full, pursed in an expression of disapproval. Moles sprinkled his yellow cheek. He had a look of well-fed eminence, of corporate Shintoism, of tailor-made pomposity and meticulous habits and delicate sensibilities; but with a burst of insight Donnell knew him for a pampered soul, a sexual gour-mandizer of eccentric appetites, a man whose fulfilled ambitions had seeded an indulgent nature. The complexity of the impression confused Donnell and lessened his anger.

  ‘Actually,’ said Ezawa, ‘it’s quite an opportunity being able to get inside the brain before termination of the cycle.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said the youngish doctor, obviously seeking to re-establish himself, ‘that there’s any chance he’s still alive?’

  ‘Anyone connected with this project should realize that the clinical boundary for death may never be established.’ Ezawa smiled. ‘But I doubt he will have any discomfort.’

  The two orderlies lifted Magnusson onto the counter and began cutting away his pyjamas and robe; one held his shoulders down while the other pulled the soaked cloth from beneath him laying bare his emaciated chest. Troubled by the sight, Donnell went back to the letter.

  … I must admit I had misgivings as to my sanity on first learning this was the case. I am, be it illusion or not, a scientist, and thus the parameters of my natural expectation were exceeded. But each time I have done as I described, the result has been the same. I cannot rationalize this as being the result of miraculous coincidence.

  2) You possess, as do we all, a commanding presence. I realize you are prone to deep anxieties, insecurities, but nevertheless you can exert a profound influence on our nurse maids. Argue forcefully and you will achieve much. This may sound simplistic, but in this way did I convince Brauer to bring me files, various materials, and, eventually, to allow me access to the laboratory where I secured my means of exit from this world.

  3) Trust your intuitions, especially as regards your judgements of people. I have discovered I can discern much of a person’s general character and intent by simply looking at his or her face. It may be there is a language written in the wrinkles and muscular movements and so forth. But I have no clear idea of the process. The knowledge simply comes unbidden to my brain. It is my contention that when we stumble across someone we cannot read - our fellow patients, for example - it causes us nervousness, trepidation. I have only been able to read the other patients on one occasion: during Edman’s social. And then it was as if a light shone upon all of us, perhaps engendered by our group presence. This particular ability is extremely erratic, but I would trust it when it occurs.

  There is more, much more, all sounding equally mad. The ledger contains all the proof of which I have been capable.

  I am not overborne by the prospect of my imminent death. This body is vile and stinks in my nostrils, and the condition of death seems far more mutable to me than it did when I began these investigations. That is what most astounds me about the project personnel: they have raised the dead and see nothing miraculous about it, treating it as merely an example of technological prestidigitation. Ah, well, perhaps they are correct and I am totally deluded.

  Use this information as you see fit, Mr Harrison. I will not instruct you further, though I will tell you that had I the strength I would have long ago left Shadows. I believe that outside these walls I might have been capable of vital action, but within them I could not see in what direction I might act.

  Goodbye. Good luck.

  Donnell folded the letter. The exhilaration of his race down the hall had worn off, and his muscles were cramping from the exertion. His mind was fogged with gloomy, half-formed thoughts. The doctors blocked his view of the body, ringing the counter, leaning forward, peering downward and inward like gamblers around a dice table, and over the wall speaker came the tinny reproduction of a splintering whine as Ezawa broke into Magnusson’s skull.

  Chapter 8

  May 3 - May 17, 1987

  ‘Looking onto the top of the brain,’ said Ezawa, ‘I find the usual heavy infestation of the visual cortex… Is the recorder on?’

  Dr Brauer assured him it was; some of the doctors whispered and exchanged knowing glances. Between their shoulders Donnell saw a halation of green radiance, but then they crowded together and blocked his view entirely.

  ‘In addition,’ Ezawa continued, ‘I see threadlike striations of bioluminescence shining up through the tissues of the cerebral cortex. All right.’ He brushed a lock of hair from his eyes with the back of his hand, which contained a scalpel. ‘I’m now going to sever the cranial adhesions and lift out the brain.’

  The doctors attended Ezawa with the silent watchfulness of acolytes, bending as he bent to his labor, straightening when he straightened, bending again to see what he had removed. ‘Let’s get some shots of this,’ he said. The doctors moved back, enabling one of the orderlies to obtain good camera angles, and Donnell had a glimpse of the brain. It was resting on Magnusson’s chest, a gray convulsed blossom with bloody frills and streaks of unearthly green curving up its sides, like talons gripping it from beneath. He looked away. There was no need to watch any more, no need to puzzle or worry. Form had been given to the formless suspicions which had nagged him all these weeks, and he was surprised to discover that he had already accepted a death sentence, that this crystallization of his worst fears was less frightening than uncertainty. Veils of emotion were blowing through him: anger and revulsion and loathing for the glowing nastiness inside his own skull, and - strangely enough - hope. An intimation of promise. Perhaps, he thought, riffling the pages of the ledger, the intimation was simply an instance of the knowledge springing - as it had to old Magnusson - unbidden to his brain.

  Flashcubes popped. He wondered if they would pose with their bloody marvel, link arms and smile, get a nice group shot of Ezawa and the gang to show at parties.

  Ezawa cleared his throat. ‘On the ventral and lower sides I find a high concentration of bacteria in those areas traversed by the catecholamine pathways. Patches of varying brightness spreading from the hind brain to the frontal cortex. Now I’m going to cut along the dorsal-ventral axis, separating the upper and lower brain.’

  The doctors huddled close.

  ‘God! The entorhinal system!�
�� Brauer blurted it out like a hallelujah, and the other doctors joined in an awed litany: ‘I told Kinski I suspected…’ ‘Brain reward and memory consolidation…’ ‘Incredible!’ The babble of pilgrims who, through miraculous witness, had been brought hard upon their central mystery.

  ‘Doctors!’ Ezawa waved his scalpel. ‘Let’s get an anatomical picture down on tape before we speculate.’ He addressed himself to the recorder. ‘Extremely high concentrations of bacteria in the medial and sulcral regions of the frontal cortex, the substantia regia, the entorhinal complex of the temporal lobe. It appears that the dopamine and norepenephrine systems are the main loci of the bacterial activity.’ He began to slice little sections here and there, dropping them into baggies, and Magnusson’s chest soon became a waste table. He held up a baggie containing a glowing bit of greenery to the ceiling lights. ‘Remarkable changes in the ventral tegumentum. Be interesting to run this through the centrifuge.’

  Donnell switched off the speaker. A wave of self-loathing swept over him; he felt less than animal, a puppet manipulated by luminous green claws which squeezed his ventral tegumentum into alien conformations. The feathery ticklings inside his head were, he hoped, his imagination. Magnusson was right: logic dictated escape. He could not see what was best for himself unless he left behind this charnel house where crafty witch doctors chased him through mazes and charted his consciousness and waited to mince him up and whirl his bits in a centrifuge. But he was going to need Jocundra’s help to escape, and he was not sure he could trust her. He believed that her lies had been in the interests of compassion, but it would be necessary to test the depth of her compassion, the quality of the feelings that ruled it. Having thought of her for weeks in heavy emotional contexts, it amazed him he could think so calculatingly of her now, that - without any change in his basic attitude, without the least diminution of desire - he could so easily shift from needing her to using her.