She nodded her head at the orange polarity curtain and asked the shepherd, “He’s through there?”
“Indeed, indeed, indeed. A nurse placed a chair in his room for you—situated directly in his line of sight.”
“Because you shut off his motors?”
“Precisely. You may move the chair forward or backward if you’d like, but you must remain on the same axis. He can’t turn his head, but he can refocus to different distances.”
“Okay.”
“I shall observe the encounter on that,” he said, pointing to the mote aquarium that floated before the couch. “Unless you object?”
“Please watch. Let me know if I mess anything up. Should I…is he ready to…?” She let her sentence trail away with a look at the curtain.
“Please proceed. The curtain is open.”
On long thin legs that had been warped by horse saddles, the passage of time and a predilection for sitting Indian-style in Japanese restaurants, Mrs. Albren approached the door.
The moment her right shoe pressed a sensor in the rug, a chime rang on the far side of the curtain. A voice that sounded like the rich baritone of a mote aquarium announcer said, “I’m stuck.”
Mrs. Albren hesitated, looked at Mr. Johnson (who was seating himself upon the suspended couch) and asked, “Is that Edward?”
“Indeed.”
“It doesn’t sound like him.”
“I’m stuck,” called the voice from beyond the orange veil.
“That is the standard-issue male voice for model 8M. His software has yet to be tuned to the particulars of his speech patterns.”
“You’ll do that if he gets better?”
“We will.”
“Okay.”
Mrs. Albren looked at her foam-rubber shoes, righted the strap on her left shoulder, inhaled deeply and stepped toward the polarity curtain; the fabric furled itself into the top of the frame, retracting like an exhausted party favor. The septuagenarian walked into the room beyond.
The oval-shaped chamber was adorned with sepia wallpaper that depicted windblown flowers, falling leaves and flying birds, all moving fluidly in serene loops of action. Lit by three ice lights that floated beneath the ceiling was a model 8M chromium mannequin. The inert machine, clothed in a light blue hospital gown, sat upright in a bed. An empty wooden chair stood on the floor two meters beyond its flesh-colored toes.
Unable to do anything else, Mrs. Albren stared. The curtain unfurled behind her; its sound was a dull rumple.
“Who’s here?” inquired the mannequin. According to Mr. Johnson and Dr. Kreussen, this inert, chrome-plated machine with gelware extremities and the voice of a stranger was her resurrected husband.
“I know somebody’s in here with me,” the machine said. “I can see your shadow. Or is that the boom microphone?”
Mrs. Albren saw that her shadow had fallen upon the back of the wooden chair.
“Edward?”
“Who’s there?” asked the mannequin. The strange voice was hostile.
Mrs. Albren walked to the chair, sat down and looked at her husband. The mannequin’s hairless face (like its hands and feet) was made of flesh-colored, touch-sensitive gelware; two inscrutable lenses stared forward from between the mask’s unblinking eyelids. She tried to think of something to say to the machine, her husband.
Buried larynx speakers inquired through an unmoving mouth slit, “Mrs. Glawski…is that you?”
A fist squeezed Mrs. Albren’s heart; she clasped her knees with the throbbing tips of her fingers and damned the tears that burned her eyes unshed. She tilted her head down, the inexorable progress of time her loathed foe.
Unable to speak, the old woman shook her head in denial. When her voice finally returned to her, she said, “My mother died twenty years ago.” She lifted her face and gazed upon the mannequin. In a small voice, she confessed, “It’s me. It’s Jennifer.”
The mannequin stared forward, inscrutable. Mrs. Albren smiled, hopeful, yet aware that the expression would emphasize the wrinkles she had acquired during the thirty-nine years since he had last seen her. The apertures in the mannequin’s ocular wells dilated; pristine lenses slid in their housings, mechanically arranging light for the human mind within.
“This fucking movie just keeps getting worse and worse.”
In that instant, Mrs. Albren was destroyed.
Chapter II
A Murderer’s Encore
Alicia Martinez, wearing a black business suit and hard shoes, hurried up the stairs, down a passage, through a living wall, past seven perplexed peers (and a mote aquarium filled with warfare), and up the high hall, bearing an anger that would soon explode in a deluge of vitriol.
“How dare they!” the thirty-three-year-old woman shouted, while the muscles in her legs carried her heated thoughts and two clenched fists to the living wall outside the executive meeting chamber of Steinberg, Goldman, Taliq, Shabiza and O’Brien, LWC. She thrust her right hand forward, and the unyielding surface jammed her fingers. “Unlock the goddamn wall!” She slapped the palm of her left hand against the barrier.
Alicia Martinez had blazing words with which she intended to lash these unconscionable men.
Three pitches rang in the air; the wrathful woman strode through the living wall and into the beige executive chamber.
Seated in buoyed chairs were the three active partners of the firm, Morton Goldman, Safan Taliq and Paolo O’Brien, and two assistants whose hands were clasped to the studded hemispheres embedded in the oaken table. Sunlight poured in through the wide oval window, obliquely chiseling the conspiracy and warming the plush, spice-scented leather upholstery.
Alicia spat at her employers, “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“She’s angry,” O’Brien said to Taliq.
The Arabic man shrugged, causing his viridescent suit to scintillate.
“Morton,” Alicia said to her former mentor, “you don’t have a problem with this?”
“I have lots of problems,” Goldman replied, motioning to the artificial hair that concealed his previously bereft scalp.
“This’s exactly why people don’t like Jews.”
“They don’t?”
Taliq nodded in agreement with Alicia’s claim, and Goldman feigned shock.
“Morton! Don’t you dare make light of this.”
“If you are going to make anti-Semitic remarks, I’d prefer you called me Mr. Goldman.”
Taliq and O’Brien laughed—every Jew thought he was a comedian—and Alicia saw white crackling fire. For a moment, all the words that she knew were obliterated by her private inferno, and the physical urge to do violent things clouded her thoughts.
The partners looked nervous beneath their calm exteriors.
“Have a seat,” said Goldman, motioning to an empty chair.
“That won’t change anything,” she said, as if accepting a chair might intimate accedence.
Goldman flashed the palms of his big hands and nodded his artificially decorated pate.
“Please sit, Mrs. Martinez,” said Taliq, whose thin-lipped mouth was embedded in a silver goatee that was a perfect equilateral triangle.
Alicia sat in the proffered leather chair, smelled its luxurious scent, and was irked by how comfortable it was. (The avenue of anger had many detours.)
“Have some water,” said Goldman.
“Don’t you dare pretend that this isn’t wrong. Really wrong.”
“First, water. Take a moment to calm yourself, and then let’s discuss the particulars of this case. We will listen to everything you have to say.”
Paolo O’Brien, calm, handsome and thirty-one (two years younger than Alicia, but already a partner in the fi
rm), poured a glass of water, walked it around the table as if it were an elderly person and placed it in her hand. She drank, set the glass down and opened her mouth to speak.
Goldman started first. “Corpus Chrome, Incorporated is our client. We have worked for them exclusively for eight years. They paid for this room. They paid for these chairs. They paid for this building and the water currently traveling down your esophagus. They pay all of our salaries, at a rate fifty percent above those of our contemporaries in international litigation.” He looked at the flickering fingers of the assistants. “And they pay for the transcriptions of all of our meetings.”
“I’ll say what I came here to say,” replied Alicia, a crease of anger upon her forehead like an auxiliary frown.
“Undoubtedly,” said Goldman. “I just wanted you to pause and consider the permanency of your words.” His eyes went again to the assistants. Their typed reports were fifty pages long each day (after editing) and extraordinarily detailed; the lightning readers employed by Corpus Chrome, Incorporated could assimilate a full day’s information in less than five minutes. (Visual, audio and mote recording took far longer to appraise.)
“There are other jobs,” Alicia said, righteously burning, “ones that do not involve an unethical law firm, contracted exclusively to an immoral corporation.”
“You left out the word ‘evil,’” said Goldman.
O’Brien laughed.
Alicia wondered if the kind and caring man who had been her mentor ten years ago still dwelt somewhere within this Morton Goldman.
She doubted it.
“This situation with Derrick W.R. Dulande is deplorable,” said Alicia. “How can the firm even consider getting behind this idea?”
“We are not ‘getting behind this idea,’” Goldman said, musically reshaping her statement as if it were a balloon animal. “Corpus Chrome, Incorporated has decided to re-body a man executed by the state of Florida thirty-two years ago. We are exploring the legal restrictions and obligations for CCI, because they are our client.”
Alicia venomously replied, “If you ply your courtroom theatrics on me, I will smash this glass and make you eat the goddamn shards.”
Goldman raised an eyebrow.
Taliq’s lacquered nails tapped the folded arms of his scintillating suit, and his face was dark and wary.
The woman continued, “Derrick W.R. Dulande is a murderer and a rapist.”
“Was,” Goldman said.
The remainder of the water slapped his face.
Alicia slammed the empty glass down upon the wooden table, shook her head and glanced at the assistants’ flickering fingers. Did they describe how Morton’s red face shone with moisture, as if burnished; how contempt roiled beneath his seemingly aloof gaze; and how droplets beaded in his thick black eyebrows?
The Jew took a handkerchief from his blue jacket and wiped his wet visage until the cloth had absorbed and evaporated the insult. Calmly, he said, “This is precisely why O’Brien has his name on the door, and you do not. It certainly isn’t because he’s more capable.”
O’Brien’s face was inscrutable: It was impossible to tell if he felt that he had been insulted. Taliq suppressed a smile. Alicia hated the Arab.
Goldman resumed his lecture, his voice deeper than it had been a moment ago (another courtroom affectation). “Derrick W.R. Dulande’s parents had his brain submerged in liquid nitrogen less than twenty seconds after he was pronounced dead in order to minimize the possibility of brain damage.”
“That would’ve been a pity.”
“Mr. Dulande is in the top point-one percent of healthy candidates for resurrection. CCI has decided to re-body him, and they will. This is private enterprise: There are no laws—inchoate or implied—governing which cauliflowers CCI may choose and which sit in the icebox. Our work in this particular case is merely due diligence.”
“Perhaps there should be some laws governing CCI,” said Alicia. “Hoarding and monopolizing resurrection technology isn’t terribly ethical.”
Goldman said, “CCI created the interface, and we represent their interests.”
Alicia shook her head. “Morton…this is wrong. Thousands of people—individuals who could benefit society—better deserve a second life in that mannequin. Jesus Christ, anybody does! This is exactly why the Global Senate put a ban on cloning—so private organizations couldn’t play God.” She calmed herself, but the vitriol remained. “There could not be a worse, less ethical choice than Derrick W.R. Dulande.” The name sat like early-morning saliva upon her tongue. “Why? Why now, and why him?”
“His mother has bone cancer and will die within the next few months. She wants her son to be re-bodied.”
Alicia inquired, “Exactly how much money does Mrs. Dulande have?”
“Twenty-nine billion globals,” said Goldman.
“Christ.”
“CCI asked for ninety-seven percent of the Dulande estate in exchange for the mannequin. Mrs. Dulande accepted the offer this morning. That was when we were notified.”
“This is absolutely disgusting.”
Goldman continued as if she had said nothing. “CCI specifically requested the services of our top attorney: They want you to make sure that the injunctions are killed and that this deal is properly—and expeditiously—closed. Dulande’s legal team has already drafted a contract.”
Alicia was speechless: Her incredulity momentarily knocked the legs out from beneath her anger. She could not stomach the thought of working at a firm that would facilitate this indefensible deal, much less apply herself to it personally.
Before the clicking fingers of the assistants and the narrow eyes of his two partners, Goldman formally inquired, “Alicia Martinez, do you feel that you will be able to facilitate this deal to the best of your abilities, wholly and without bias?”
Horrified, the woman looked at her former mentor and contemplated which ethnic and personal epithets to fling at him before she stood and forever left the firm. She was about to spew the vitriol of the righteous when Morton Goldman winked at her. The flashed eyeball escaped the attention of everybody else in the room.
Taliq said, “We will put Klein and Sing on this case if you decline. Their record is not as impressive as yours, but they are good.”
“I will facilitate this deal,” she said to the active partners of Steinberg, Goldman, Taliq, Shabiza and O’Brien, LWC. “We all have to do things we find distasteful, and I know that this is important to the firm.”
Alicia felt that her clandestine obstruction of this odious deal would be the first time she had truly done anything to better the world since her days as a public defender. A piece of buried detritus warmed within her chest: the dull coal of pride.
The satisfied manner in which Morton Goldman clasped his hands together and reclined in his scented-leather chair showed her that he felt exactly the same way.
Chapter III
The Elasticity of Cat Vertebrae
Champ Sappline, his shadow stuck to his feet, crossed the street and approached a metal door, which was housed within a wooden frame that had been painted over so many times that it looked like molten candle wax. Bolted to the wall with violence was a placard that read:
This Building Has Been Classified Antique (SO-3100L24-54-X), and the Owners are Not Responsible for Any Injuries Sustained Herein, Whether Caused Directly or Indirectly by Antique Conditions.
All Persons are Required to Fingerprint an Agreement of Burden Acceptance Prior to Ingress.
Any Person Who Enters Without Compliance is Trespassing and has Voided His or Her Legal Claim to Remuneration (and Will be Fined).
Champ pressed the tips of his right thumb and index finger to the obsidian-glass ovals beneath the waiver. The door buzzed like an irate hornet and slid into the floor
, where something cracked.
The forty-two-year-old man walked into the mail alcove, which smelled like dust, animals and pizza. He looked for an elevator, but instead saw an unclean and narrow stairwell.
Mentally, he cursed Candace.
The blonde man pulled long hair back from his handsome face and began to climb the stairs of the old Nexus Y apartment building.
Mote aquariums, barrage metal, string jazz, bounce, dogs and live human arguments resounded behind closed doors that were equipped with scratched lenses and customized print locks. Champ plucked a Purpureal tube from his blue jeans, raised it to his lips, sucked a trilling B-flat and tasted cardamom. The mist was not powerful enough to impair behavior (the manufacturers took their psychotropics to the exact edge of legality—a little further each year), but it was strong enough to pat him on the back and say, “Well done, sir!” He then replaced the vapor tube in his jeans.
Sweat beaded above his upper lip as he climbed the third flight of stairs, and he grew lightheaded, almost as if the air had thinned during his twenty-two-meter ascent. Champ’s foam-rubber boots squeaked upon something viscid; he looked down and saw the circular stain left by a suicidal pizza that had landed face-down. (The coroner had apparently decided to remove—and eat?—the carcass.)
The blonde man ascended the fourth flight of stairs, crossed a landing covered with broken eggs and silver paint, climbed the fifth and walked into the sixth-floor hallway.
The passage was illuminated by blue sunshine that struggled through a trio of grimy skylights. Upon the nearest of the clear plastic panes lay the splayed corpse of a turkey pigeon, whose head had been splashed with bleach. Champ looked away from the murdered bird and down the long hallway, the green walls of which looked like the icing of a dismal Christmas cake.
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