by Karen Haber
Next, I tried to call Star. At first all the circuits were busy. I tried again. There was no answer, and no message mech. A third try netted a “Temporarily Out of Service” notice. I couldn’t even leave a message.
Desperate to escape my own pain, I roamed through the deafening, smoke-filled inferno of Better City, throwing myself into relentless motion. I tried to help rescue victims of the fire, organize emergency services, comfort people wherever I could. Despite rescue efforts, at least seventy people died in the flames and smoke and there was nothing, nothing I could do about it. I was a level-one telepath, true, but there were limits to my abilities, and I felt them severely that night.
As I groped my way through the city, probing the ruins of buildings for any sign of life within, I was almost grateful for the urgency, the exhaustion, and the fear that blotted out everything else. Only now and then did a thought, sharpened by grief, manage to penetrate the protective layers of my weariness.
Rick. We came so close together. Why did you leave? How could you die? Just when I was beginning to understand …
But there was no answer coming and there never would be.
Near dawn, I stumbled back to the main building of Better World. Miraculously, it had escaped the inferno, untouched. I found an empty couch, curled up on it, and fell into exhausted, dreamless slumber.
I awoke to the smoking ruins of Rick’s dreams. The media descended upon us with frightening swiftness and I was only too happy to use my telepathic skills against them. But they were everywhere, poking through the smoking ruins like starved hyenas scenting fresh kill, finding their meal and surrounding it.
“Dr. Akimura,” they barked. “What now? What do you see as the future of Better World?”
“Dr. Akimura, you took control when the Desert Prophet died. Are you a prophet, too?”
“Weren’t you against Better World? What made you change your mind?”
“What are your plans?”
“There have been reports of rioting in other cities at the news of Rick’s death. How do you intend to stop the violence? The self-mutilations?”
“Can we have a statement about the hundreds of deaths around the world?”
“No comment,” I said. “No comment, no comment, no comment.” And I backed away from them as fast as I could. Luckily, I kept going until I ran smack into Betty Smithson and Joe Martinez.
“Joe, Betty, we’ve got to keep those reporters out of here. Give them some sort of statement. Find Alanna—she can help you with it.”
“Of course, Julian.” Betty’s voice held a note of respect and awe formerly reserved only for my brother. “Whatever you say. Whatever we can do to help.”
Joe Martinez nodded as well. His ruddy face was streaked with soot and he looked exhausted but he stood there as sturdily as a rock. “We’ll see to it right away.”
A splinter group of fanatics immediately claimed that Rick’s emergence and death was a sign that the world had entered its last days. There were spontaneous riots in New York, St. Petersburg, Rio, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, and Beijing. I received reports that violence was erupting in every city where there was a sizable contingent of Better World followers. They had lost their idol and were hysterical with grief and fear. The vid images were graphic, unimaginable.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not yet. After one of several forays I made into the ruins of Better City the day after the fire, I returned to B.W. headquarters and found an urgent message to call home, immediately.
My father answered the phone, pale and distracted. “Julian, thank God.” I had never seen him look so disturbed.
“What is it?” I said. “What’s happened?”
“Your mother …” His voice quavered, choked off.
I couldn’t bear it. Not another loss. No, no, no. In icy terror I begged, pleaded, and finally cajoled the story out of him: Yosh had found my mother in the kitchen at three that morning, covered with blood, weeping, incoherent. In her hand was a golden ceramic blade with which she had managed to slash one wrist. He had pulled the knife away from her, put a pressure bandage on the wound, and called an ambulance. She had received a transfusion at Cedars of Lebanon hospital and was sedated, under observation.
“The doctors say she’ll recover.”
“I’m sure they’re right, Dad.”
“Can you come out here? I could really use your help.”
I felt a stab of guilt. “I don’t know. Things are so chaotic right now and I don’t think I can really leave it all in Alanna’s lap.” I was beginning to feel light-headed and unhinged. Too many demands were being made. But how could I say no to my father? I had always relied upon him to be the strong one, the one able to cope. Now that he needed me, I was useless, no help to him at all.
The expression on my face must have said it all.
“That’s okay, son. I understand.” And, before my eyes, the father of my childhood, of my heart and dreams, reappeared, steadfast, understanding, able to shoulder unimaginable burdens with a gentle smile and a shrug. “Come when you can.”
“Dad,” I said, “I love you.” I almost couldn’t get the words past the lump in my throat.
“And I love you, Julian. Never forget that. I’ll expect to hear from you soon. I hope you’ll try to call your mother later if you can.” And with a smile he was gone, returning, alone, to his own private emergency.
The vid trumpeted the news of Rick’s death at full volume:
“Miracle Man Dies Before Thousands.”
“The End of Better World?”
“Rick, We Barely Knew Ye.”
“Mutant Messiah Stricken During Show. Followers Riot.”
After the first night I refused to watch the news. I couldn’t bear to see Rick dying over and over again, to see the city burning and hear the people screaming.
“Close Better World immediately,” was the immediate command of the Mutant Councils.
“Close Better World,” said the governor of New Mexico.
“Shut it down,” said the FBI, and every concerned citizens’ group with access to a screen and our fax number.
Well, I had certainly intended to close B.W., hadn’t I? And wasn’t the very means to end it right there in my hands? But I hung back, hesitating, for I knew human nature, had traveled its back alleys and byways. If I abolished B.W. now I feared that worse hysteria and mayhem would result than had already taken place. Better to leave it open, inactive and benign. Wouldn’t the faithful eventually lose interest? Without the dynamic allure of Rick, Better World would become a quiet, relatively inert charitable organization. No doubt even such fierce champions as Betty and Alanna would find fresh distractions now that Rick was gone. By the time I shut it down, in a year or two, no one would even notice. Such was my plan.
I slept badly in the days that followed and took to walking through Better City, past encampments of the faithful where campfires gleamed, past darkened hulks that had once been shops and cafés. Occasionally, during my nocturnal prowling I encountered a fellow telepath. I realized that these mutants must have been the same ones whose minds I had encountered in the stadium and used to build my magical circuit after Rick’s collapse. So Rick and Alanna had managed to draw a few mutants to them before the end. A good thing, too. Without them, I never could have gained even temporary control over that crowd.
Finally all the anger and sorrow turned inward. The maddened crowds quieted and disbanded, the faithful wept and mourned in private, the dead were buried, and the healing process began.
Late one night as I sat in my room, sleepless and grieving, the screen rang. I almost let the answermech take it. Then, on a whim, I answered and my heart turned a somersault of joy. It was Star, safe and sound.
“Oh, querido,” she whispered. “Finally. I have tried and tried to get through.”
“You and me both.”
“I’ve been so worried. So terribly worried for you.”
“Never mind about me,” I said. “What about you? I h
eard about the horrible riots—”
“Fine, fine. The people went crazy at the news. You can imagine.” Her eyes held mine for a moment. “How can he be dead, Julian? I can’t believe it.”
“It was awful, Star.” And I told her about that night in the amphitheater. At first I gave her the barest of outlines but she urged me on.
“Don’t try to spare me, Julian. I must share this with you. Tell me everything.” With gentle goading and mock scolding she drew the story out of me, piece by agonizing piece. By the time I had finished we were both in tears.
“I wish I could be there right now,” she said. “But you must understand how demoralized everyone is by Rick’s death. I can’t abandon them.”
“I know. At least, I’m trying to understand. But I need you, too, Star.”
“Give me two weeks?”
“All right. Two weeks.” I had made it this far. I could wait a bit longer. “But hurry.”
“As soon as I can, beloved.”
After we said good night, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of Star, that she was lying beside me, opening herself to me. I awoke happy and refreshed.
We had closed the amphitheater immediately but that didn’t prevent people from leaving flowers outside the walls until the roses and lilies seemed five feet deep. In time, the Roman theater became one of the most important sites commemorating Rick’s passage, a venerated memorial.
The official cause of Rick’s death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage brought on by natural causes.
“What was natural about it?” I demanded of the coroner who had come bustling out from Albuquerque.
She was a lean, grizzled woman with close-cropped gray hair and tired gray eyes. “About him?” she said. “Nothing. Your brother—and he was your brother, isn’t that correct, Dr. Akimura?—was extraordinary in every way. Unique. But mutants have shorter life spans than nonmutants, yes? And his was shorter than most. My guess is that he tried to put out too much energy at that sharing thing and it finished him. He looked maybe forty outside. But inside he was an old, old man.” Her expression softened as she looked into my eyes. “I’d say it was just his time to go. Rick wore himself out. He was never meant to last. The very special ones don’t.”
For a crazy moment I wanted to believe that she was wrong, that somehow Rick had been assassinated, either by Metzger’s people or perhaps by a different bunch he had angered and frightened. But I managed to keep my paranoid theories to myself. This woman had no reason to lie to me and she had impeccable credentials: she knew what she was doing. I had to accept her judgment.
The coroner’s words also forced me to face something I had only half suspected: perhaps Rick had wanted to die. Perhaps it had been his intention all along—from the moment he reappeared—to sacrifice himself for humanity and atone, at last, fully, for Skerry’s death. That would account for the frantic overwork, the denial of weakness, the overextension of his powers. If Rick hadn’t died in that stadium he would doubtless have found another place. The coroner was right. My brother had never really intended to stay. Not at all.
But Betty Smithson was less easily satisfied by medical explanations. “Rick didn’t wear out,” she said. “He couldn’t. He was perfect. He was killed—I just know it. People were frightened of him. We’ll find them, those assassins, wherever they are, and we’ll make them pay.”
“Betts, you don’t mean that,” I said. Her fierce words and wild-eyed expression were unnerving.
“You’ll see, Julian.” She nodded crisply. “You’ll see.”
Alanna seemed to accept the coroner’s verdict with discomforting ease. She was icily controlled, emotionless, almost robotic. Only her eyes seemed alive in that pale green face. But I had no time to worry about her, either.
Alanna seemed to carve her way through those sad days with ruthless energy. There was a new toughness about her. Her temper flared easily, and she wouldn’t tolerate much sentimental discussion of Rick, cutting people off quickly if they didn’t take the hint. She devoted all her attention to Rick’s funeral preparations.
His funeral was a monumental affair, carried on all the vid channels and attended by an array of foreign dignitaries. He was buried where he had died, in the Roman arena. A marble sarcophagus held his mortal remains, and an eternal flame flickered in a golden urn at the base of his tomb.
A simple phrase, “No One Is Alone,” served as epitaph. Alanna had suggested it, and both of my parents endorsed it. I didn’t agree with the sentiment—after all, who had been more alone than Rick?—but I saw no harm in using it to honor my brother.
There were speeches by government officials and private citizens, by grief-stricken true believers and glib self-serving politicos.
My mother had not recovered sufficiently to attend the funeral—she was still under heavy sedation. Yosh had stayed behind to be with her, but had shipped me a tape of a poignant, powerful dirge, “Rick’s Ode,” which he had composed for the event. It quickly became Better World’s unofficial memorial anthem.
After the ceremony, the faithful were allowed to approach the grave site. In five minutes Rick’s tomb was buried under flowers that nearly smothered the eternal flame. The enrobement of Rick’s grave in chamiso branches and white roses became a tradition that persists to this day.
After Rick’s funeral, the cleanup process began in earnest and a million questions had to be answered.
“Julian,” Alanna said. “We must discuss rebuilding plans right away.”
“Who said anything about rebuilding?”
“Don’t you think it’s time? There’s an awful lot of people living in tents out there.”
“Well, then, fine. Tell them to do it.”
“You don’t understand. They want your blessing.”
“Why me? I have nothing to do with this.”
Alanna’s smile was incredulous. “But you’re all they have left of Rick.”
“They’re wrong. There’s nothing left of Rick. Nothing at all.”
“But—”
“No,” I said harshly. “If you want to rebuild and you’ve got the funds, go ahead and do it. But leave me out of it. Do you understand, Alanna? I want no part of it. Not one little piece.”
“Fine,” she said. “If that’s the way you want it.”
The construction crews and aircranes rolled into Better City the next day, without my blessing.
I was immensely busy in those days and refused all calls, all messages, fended off anyone besides Star or immediate family who tried to reach me. It was only by chance that Joachim Metzger got through.
“You’ve got a lot of brass calling me, Metzger.”
He ignored my offensive thrust. “I understand you took control of the sharing your brother was holding when he died,” Metzger said. “Well done. I’m sure you prevented a great deal of bloodshed. And now that you’re running the show, it should be a snap to shut down the remnants of Better World.”
I stared at him, completely flabbergasted. “Since you seem to have forgotten our last encounter, let me refresh your memory,” I said. “You were considering whether or not to have my brother killed. And there are certain people who are convinced that Rick was murdered and would enjoy receiving that information.”
“You know I had nothing to do with—”
“I thought I had made it clear that all communications between us were over.”
“But, Julian—”
“No buts, Metzger. If you make any further attempt to communicate with me I’ll do everything I can to implicate you in the murder of my brother. Is that clear? Goodbye, Book Keeper.” I cut the connection, smiling.
The screen rang almost immediately—Metzger calling back?—and I let the answermech take it. Goodbye, Metzger. Good riddance and go to hell.
There was a gentle knock at the door. “Julian,” Betty Smithson said. “May I come in?” She held an armful of printouts.
“I’m awfully busy, Betts, can it wait?”
She sat down
as though she hadn’t heard my reply. “Julian, you were truly splendid that night in the arena. We have you to thank for saving us all.”
“Betty, really, I only did what anybody else would have if they could.”
“Nonsense. You were heroic, Julian. I can’t tell you how much I admire you for that.” She was looking at me in a peculiarly intense way, almost worshipful. “And you’ll be glad to know we’re getting closer and closer to the trail of those who killed your brother. It’s just a matter of time before we find them.”
Oh, Betty, I thought. If you only knew how close you’d come to having a genuine red herring thrown right down your throat. If you had just stepped into my office a few minutes sooner I could have fed you Joachim Metzger with a sprig of parsley. Aloud, I said, “Betty, you’re not serious.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes were clear blue and guileless.
“You’re just kidding about this conspiracy theory, aren’t you?”
She looked stricken, pierced to the heart. “But I thought you understood. You mean that you don’t believe it? You’ve just been pretending?” Tears filled her eyes.
“Betty, I haven’t been pretending anything. You haven’t exactly given me a chance to disagree, you know.”
“I’m sorry.” She stood up, clutching the sheaf of printouts to her chest. “I thought you really did understand. But you will, Julian. You’re of his blood. You’ll see.”
12
rick had been dead for almost a month and I was immersed in Better World business up to my neck. The more I tried to relinquish responsibilities the more tasks seemed to pile up around me. I had taken an indefinite leave of absence from my practice and hospital rounds. My life was on hold, in orbit around Better World. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that Star would arrive any day now.
Once we had agreed that she would wrap up her business in Rio and come to New Mexico as soon as possible, we spent every night on the screen planning our life together. Last night her screen had been busy and I had finally left an impatient message of love, urging her to come quickly. I could hardly wait to hold her in my arms again.