by Karen Haber
“I did, for about five minutes. That’s all it took to convince me that New Mexico was a verdant paradise by comparison.” His voice was huskier than I remembered and he squinted now as though he found most light too bright.
“Rick, I never expected to see you again.”
“I know.”
Even now, years and miles distant from our reunion, I’m caught up in the emotion of that moment. All the dizzying ambivalence I associated with my brother comes swirling back to confuse me. The love—and the anger. Gods, how I miss him! And how thankful I am that he is gone.
“Little brother,” he said. “It’s really good to see you. Been a long time. I hope you’ve come ready to work.”
I stared at him, nonplussed. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve got lots to do.”
“Like that sharing I just participated in? Do you mind telling me just what the hell was going on in there?”
“A little mind linkage, that’s all.”
“You’re not supposed to be holding a group sharing for nonmutants.”
“Not supposed to?” His casual tone grew sharp. “According to which supreme authority? Did you come here to quote me chapter and verse from the Book? Don’t be a jerk, Julian. I’m not hurting anybody.”
“No? Do these people know you’re influencing their moods and emotions? Perhaps toying with their very personality structure? We’re still not certain just what effect a group sharing has on nonmutant participants.”
“Then if you don’t know, why worry? Get off my back, little brother. Mutants have been hoarding these abilities for years. And how did it benefit them or anybody else? I make these people feel good, and better than good. What’s wrong with that? They deserve it. My God, if I had known that you were going to be such a tightass I would have sent you straight back to your hospital and your nice, safe rule book.”
Within five minutes of greeting we were already back into our old antagonistic pattern! I couldn’t believe it. I glared and my brother glared back at me until footsteps in the hallway broke into our private dispute.
Two B.W. staffers in green jumpsuits straggled toward the front doors: a tall, big-boned blond woman and a slight, slender man wearing a stained brown cowboy hat.
“Good night, Rick,” the blond said. “Thanks for reminding us. We need not be alone.”
“We share and are shared,” the man piped up. “We will never be alone again.”
They giggled like teenagers and clasped hands.
Rick waved carelessly to them as they passed. “Good night, Rod, Kate.”
“Don’t you see?” I said when we were alone again. “Now they’re quoting the scripture to you.” I paused, expecting an angry response.
Instead, Rick sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you, Julian. Let’s get something to eat, okay? I know a decent Mexican restaurant in town. We can talk there.”
“I’ll drive.”
“Don’t bother.” He touched me gently on the shoulder.
I felt a wave of dizziness and nausea as the walls began to slip and spin. The floor dropped away. I fell and fell, hurtling through black space, an airless void. Blood pounded in my ears. My mind gibbered like a chimpanzee in a space capsule. I couldn’t breathe, I was being flayed and shattered, I was being crushed between planets—
3
“here we are,” rick said.
We were sitting in a booth in a long dark room whose only illumination was the crylights flickering on every table. The air was filled with spicy aromas and tinkling guitar music. Holograms of piñatas dangled from the ceiling, strange dark shapes that seemed to move slowly in the overheated air, spilling open and then retracting each shower of gold, over and over again.
My head stopped spinning. It took another minute for my stomach to settle down.
“Fun, huh?” my brother said.
“Not what I would call it, exactly.” I punched up a hypo from the tablemech and, hands shaking, pressed it against my arm. The shot of alcohol steadied me. “Next time warn me, will you? Otherwise I can’t vouch for my stomach on the return trip. That was a wild ride.”
He grinned. “You get used to it.” Despite his jaunty good humor he looked worn and pale. I regretted my hasty outburst of moments ago.
“Rick, what’s happened to you?”
“Do you want the whole tale, unabridged and uncensored?”
Eagerly, I nodded.
My brother leaned back, took a deep breath, and launched into the story of his six-year odyssey.
He had roved through the West, stopping here and there at tiny outposts and small towns. Inevitably, his presence drew the curious, the helpful, and the intrusive and he was forced to move on. He lived this way for nearly a year before he came to New Mexico and stayed.
Food and water had never been a problem: he could summon what he needed. And shelter was easily solved as well. But he had no way of dealing with the dreadful loneliness, not even with the help of his superior mutant skills.
His time was spent scavenging, roaming over the badlands looking for abandoned skimmers and other machinery with which he could tinker to build screenbrains. These he used to power three-dimensional sims that were programmed to keep him company and to monitor news vids. He stole tapes of the music of his beloved Beethoven. And for a while, he time-hopped through his visions. That distracted him and allowed him, briefly, to have the illusion of reentering society. But these were pale shadows, not very different from vids. He could neither participate in what he observed nor be seen as anything more than a ghost.
In lonely desperation he began to cast his farsight upon the town fifty miles to the north. The folk who lived there had become accustomed to the presence of a hermit in the hills and from time to time they left out food and tools for him. In turn, he provided protection for the town whenever it was needed, pushing back a hailstorm, frustrating a greedy developer, even shoring up the crumbling walls of the town hall. He cared for the townspeople affectionately, even possessively, but stayed away, watching them from the distance with obsessive hunger. Until the day that he found the little girl and the wrecked skimmer.
Once he had saved her he decided that there was no turning back. He would take the risk of human encounter and range over New Mexico a bit to see where else he could help out. In his travels he came upon the Smithsons and others like them. Before he knew it there were shrines being set up along the roadsides and vid ads pleading for him to reveal himself. Finally, one afternoon, he summoned his nerve, walked up the slate walk of the Smithsons’ ranch, and rang their doorbell.
“Rick,” I said. “Aren’t you worried?”
He levitated a toothpick from the holder on the table and inserted it into his mouth. With studied casualness he said, “About what?”
“This little group that worships you so much.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Can’t you see what’s happening?”
“What do you mean, Julian? I don’t see boogeymen under every chair. I’m not a pessimist. That’s the antithesis of what I’m trying to do here. But I look around me and all I see is crap. People going hungry everywhere. Technology outstripping our ability to make use of it. Governments and religions getting far too big and becoming even more unresponsive. They’re in business just to perpetuate their own authority. They don’t answer the needs of the people. Not their REAL needs.”
“How do you know?”
His eyes glowed. “Because I can hear and see what people think. What they want. What makes them tick like a bunch of sad clocks. There’s way too many unhappy people out there, Brother. I always knew it, always felt it. I was one of ’em. But now I want to do something about it.”
He leaned closer. “I’m going to heal them, Julian. I know how to reach in, to take the hurt away, to make it better. I’ve got to do it, little brother. Got to. You’re a healer. You should understand. Just imagine a cleansed society, Julian. People without their pain, their
envy, or their anger. I’ve seen it, you know.”
“In your visions?”
He nodded. “It can happen. We can make it happen!”
What he said sounded elegant and noble but the fanatic light in his eyes frightened me. I knew how dangerous saints could be, especially if they were also supermen. “But, Rick,” I said, “what if people don’t want you reaching into their heads—”
“Their pain distorts their thinking. They’ll thank me for it later. Most people don’t know how to look out for their own best interests anyway.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’re just going to heal people whether they want you to or not? What about personal privacy? Your followers may not care about it, but don’t you?”
“Once I heal them they’ll be grateful for what I’ve done.”
I made one more try to reach him. “Rick, you can’t just reach inside people’s heads without their permission.”
“Why not? The more people I heal, the better.”
“Is that what you hope to accomplish by holding these souped-up sharings for nonmutants?”
“Sure. The mutants have hoarded their skills long enough. Their healing powers belong to everybody, not just a select group of golden-eyed elitists. Besides, all I’m really doing is making some therapeutic linkage and goosing a few pleasure centers.”
“That’s all? Rick, do you realize how dangerous it is to monkey around with people’s minds? Do you really want to encourage this cult?” My voice was getting loud, too loud.
Instead of looking annoyed, Rick seemed amused, almost condescending. “Julian, how can I think anything other than what I’m doing is fine? Why should I? Don’t you spend years working with your patients trying to imbue them with the kind of attitude that I already have? Besides, who said it was a cult? Not me. I want it to be a service organization.”
“Your own private Lions Club? Rick’s Brothers and Sisters of Mercy?”
“Why not? Do you see anybody else doing anything even half as useful? Maybe I could actually do some good. Atone for old sins.” Now he was less amused, openly challenging. “You were the one who told me to do that, remember?”
“Creating a nut cult isn’t exactly my idea of making amends for murder!”
I was sorry for the words as soon as I had spoken them. But it was too late. I sat there braced for the explosion. But it never came.
Instead, Rick gazed at me thoughtfully and his voice, when he spoke, was sad rather than resentful. “You still can’t forgive me, can you? I’d hoped that you, more than anyone else, could. But I guess I’m being stupid.” He leaned toward me and his tone changed, took on an almost pleading note. “So much time has passed, Julian. So many things have happened. I’ve been atoning for my crime, really, I have. And that’s what I’ll devote the rest of my life to doing. I promise you.”
For a moment we were both silent. I was upset and confused. Why couldn’t he have just stayed out in the desert and left me alone? I was more comfortable helping other people tame their personal demons than struggling with my own anger, ambivalence, and regrets. I gazed across the table at the messianic stranger wearing my brother’s face and wondered who he was.
He broke the silence. “Y’know, I’ve followed your career, Julian. You’ve done well.”
I sat up, surprised. “You have? How?”
“I’ve got my ways. Oh, yeah, I kept tabs on one or two people. Saw you making strides, getting your medical certification and all that. I was glad for you. You’re a talented, successful therapist. Just as you wanted to be.”
But be careful what you want, I thought. “So,” I said, “are you suggesting that the doctor who helps others heal their old wounds should heal himself of the past? Encourage you in this wild plan? I’m sorry, Rick. It’s not that easy. I can’t let go of what happened, at least, not as easily as it seems you have.”
“Don’t be stupid, Julian.” His eyes flashed with a fragment of his familiar old rebellious spirit. “I carry Skerry’s death around with me like a brand, inside, always burning.” His voice turned hollow. “Whenever I close my eyes I can see him lying there and hear Alanna crying.” He paused and his expression softened. “Have you talked to her?”
My stomach knotted. Alanna was someone I didn’t want to discuss with him. With him, especially. “Once or twice over the years. Narlydda took it pretty hard. Alanna had to take over managing her affairs.”
An odd smile twisted his mouth. “Just what she most dreaded having to do.” He shook his head ruefully. “When I make a mess, I make a good one. Did she ever marry?”
“No.”
“Any lovers?”
“I don’t know.” I was getting irritated now. “Why? Thinking of looking her up?”
“No. No. All that’s behind me now. It’s none of my business, I know. I was just curious, that’s all.”
I punched the mech’s button and it spat out the bill. But as I reached for my wallet, Rick waved me away. “It’s taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“These folks know me and the food is gratis.”
“How nice.” The uneasiness came sneaking back, sliding down my spine vertebra by vertebra. “And how do other people pay you off?”
“I don’t ask for payment, Julian.”
“Just devotion? Worship?”
He looked positively nonplussed. “Why are you so hostile, little brother?”
“Oh, come off it, Rick. This is a dangerous situation. I can see that even if you can’t. Things could get completely out of control here. And knowing you, they probably will.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? Or are you just driven by guilt?”
That stung him. “Save your damned head-shrinking for your patients, Doctor!”
“Rick, listen to me. You’ve got to give this up. Please. Disband Better World and go away—go back to Mars.” I was willing to beg, even bribe him.
“Leave? When I’ve finally found the way back?” Rick glared at me, and for a moment he was the brother I remembered, quick to flare, quick to forgive. But the moment faded. “No, Julian, I’ve paid in my own time and sweat and tears so that others may be spared their pain. I’m here for them now. They don’t know it yet. But they will.”
His crazy words struck me with the force of physical blows. “Rick, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“It couldn’t be clearer to me.”
“Hitler had a plan, too, you know. He thought he was helping people, too.”
Anger smoldered in his eyes now. “Look, either help me or butt out, Julian. I began this without you and I can maintain it without you.”
“But—”
“You came looking for me. Well, you found me. You’re welcome to stay. But I won’t listen to your cockeyed analogies. I know what I’m doing.”
“You may think so.” Fear had transmuted into fury, making me completely heedless of what I said. “But it seems to me what you’ve got here are all the symptoms of a massive psychosis. I think you need help, Rick.”
“And maybe I don’t give a damn what you think.”
We glared at each other. Only Rick could get me this angry, so angry that I could barely hear the thin, high voice of sanity whispering at me to calm down. I had to get away from him, away from his strange visions and crazy mission.
“Julian, wait—”
The door slammed on his words and I was out in the freezing night. My breath made thick, almost opaque clouds of moisture. I stumbled along on the icy pavement, cursing the Mutant Council and all its skulduggery.
A full moon lit the plaza with cold blue light and for a moment it was almost peaceful. But a high squealing sound cut through the air, getting louder, setting off a fusillade of barking from the neighborhood dogs.
A silver skimmer rocketed around the corner, lights off, motor whining, and headed straight for me.
Julian, get back!
Rick’s mindspeech was loud and coer
cive. But before I could act the skimmer bore down on me. I was trapped against a wall. Everything slowed, slowed, almost stopped. Each beat of my heart, each lungful of breath, every eye blink took an eternity. I was going to die. Right here and now. It was absurd.
I felt faint, lighter than air. Then I realized that I was lighter than air—I was floating high above the plaza, shocked into awareness by the freezing cold. Far below, I saw my brother moving swiftly across the plaza. But he hadn’t been there a moment ago, had he? The skimmer had come to rest against the building and Rick was pulling the occupants out of the car: two teenagers, a girl and boy, drunk and giggling.
“Hey!” I called. “Rick, let me down.”
My brother whirled. “What? Oh, sorry.”
I floated to the pavement like a leaf in the wind.
“I was distracted by trying to keep these two damned fools from killing themselves. And you,” Rick said.
With a groan the boy was quickly and extravagantly sick over his girlfriend’s green leather boots.
“You gork!” she cried. “Those are my sister’s best boots!”
“That’s gratitude,” Rick said. “If you’re not careful it can get all over you. Now why don’t you two tell me who you are?”
“You’re not the police,” the girl said. Defiantly she tossed a hank of dark hair over her shoulder. “Billy, we don’t have to tell him anything.”
“I don’t think Billy is going to be able to say anything for a while,” I said.
Billy turned and puked on the skimmer’s silvery fender.
“Not on the skimmer!” the girl cried. “You scurfy jerk, I told you not to drink so much.”
Rick snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Hey, I know you.”
She gave him a frightened look. “No you don’t.”
“Oh, yes I do, girlie. You’re Mayor Stewart’s daughter, aren’t you? And I know she’s out of town. Is that Mommy’s skimmer?” He chuckled. “I’ll bet it is. Since when do fourteen-year-olds get driver’s licenses?”