“Well, it’s come. Now get out of here.”
“Can I at least keep you up on what’s happening? I’d feel a lot better if I knew you were taking an interest.”
“Yeah, sure. I’d appreciate that. In the meantime, I’ve some light reading to catch up on.”
• • •
It took less than a week for Greshner to get back to her.
“You’d better get down here,” he said. “I think there’s something here you might like to see.”
“Bill, I agreed to be your listening post but coming down there wasn’t part of the bargain. Besides, I’ve got more important things to do with my days.”
“Oh really? Like what?”
“Well, let’s see. Yesterday, I discovered a neat little zoo on the East Side. A mini-zoo really, with cloned mini-animals. And today I planned to go to the university library and bone up on my mythology. It’s something I’ve neglected shamefully. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, there’s an exhibit of gravity-free Japanese rock gardens. So…”
“Are you finished?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, get down here on the double. It’s important. No, strike that. It’s not important – it’s crucial.”
• • •
The first person Pedersen saw when she arrived at the lab was a barely recognizable Quisted, haggard-looking and completely worn out. He smiled wanly and held out his hands almost in a gesture of surrender.
“Hello, Anne,” he said, without any of his usual bravado. “Glad you could make it down.”
“Dr. Quisted,” she said, then turned to Greshner who had just come running up. “Well, Bill. What does our esteemed Dr. Quisted have for us? Gonna show me a little laser slice of the beastie? A milky solution where it hangs in and out of the crystal-liquid state? Oh right. The massive shock treatment was a success, but the patient died. Right? No. Well, then, it has to be the deprivation tanks. Let me see. He cut it off from all sensation and it starved for lack of affection.”
“Anne,” Greshner said, touching her arm as the three of them walked towards the lab, “you’re being mighty dogmatic.”
“I guess that’s about what I deserve,” Quisted said. “It’s just that…it’s just…” At this point, he seemed almost on the verge of tears but then pulled himself together. “I was drooling to get my hands on that experiment – I don’t deny it. But…and you have to believe me…I was also concerned with the way we were treating it. Like it wasn’t just another problem for the lab to solve. Like there was something there that went beyond that.”
“And so,” Pedersen said, “you decided to reintroduce the strict standards of the scientific method.”
“Anne,” Greshner said, “Dr. Quisted subjected it to all the tests you mentioned – and some that are not quite on the up-and-up list. And—”
“And nothing happened,” she said.
“How did you know that?” Quisted asked. They were in front of the door to the lab.
“Call it predictive ability on prima facie evidence. Better known as being able to read the bags under people’s eyes. But I didn’t have to be hustled down here to learn that. So, unless you have something else to say, I’m off to visit the rock gardens.”
“That’s the least of it,” Greshner said, looking at Quisted.
“You go ahead,” the older man said, rubbing his eyes. “I still find it difficult to believe.”
“Anne, when I entered the lab this morning I found someone inside.”
“Inside the room?”
“Inside the box, Anne. Inside the box.”
“Oh? Anyone we know?”
“Red.”
“Red? You mean the janitor?”
“That’s right. I have no idea how he got in there but he was lying face up, peaceful as you please, eyes closed and hands crossed over his chest.”
“At first,” Quisted said, “we assumed he was either dead or in some comatose state, because we couldn’t wake him. Or even get close enough to wake him. And the info-laser indicated no heart beat or brain-wave emanation.”
“Only the familiar three-beat light pulse we’ve been monitoring all along,” Greshner said.
“We worked on him all morning,” Quisted said. “About an hour ago, we decided to take a break. When we came back, he was gone.”
“Gone?” She looked from one to the other.
“Vanished,” Greshner said. “Nowhere to be found. We’ve had people turn the lab upside down. We even sent a security guard to his apartment. Nothing.”
“Anything left behind?” Pedersen asked.
“Funny you should ask,” Greshner said, taking a postcard from his pocket and handing it to Pedersen. “Found next to the box. Must have fallen out of Red’s pocket.”
The postcard featured a red-lipped tongue-hanging-out totem pole with the inscription: “Legacy Pole at Windy Bay.”
“Can I hold on to this?” Pedersen asked.
“Sure,” Quisted said. “Our tests on it show nothing out of the ordinary.”
Greshner pressed his palm against the wall and they entered the lab. Taking a deep breath, Pedersen felt a familiar rush at the sight of the box.
“So,” she said, as she walked towards it, “let’s see if I can recap. Dr. Quisted tries everything short of a controlled nuclear device to pry some information from this thing. And fails utterly, miserably, completely. Along comes Red the janitor and he is able not only to break the security code for this room but to wangle a trip inside the box without so much as lifting his finger. Then he disappears, not necessarily from the face of the earth but at least from this corner of it.”
“There’s something unnatural going on here,” Quisted said, looking at Pedersen. “At first, I was desperate for it to be your fault, some miscalculation you’d made, some simple oversight.”
“You’ve been looking for that miscalculation ever since Dr. Levitt handed the project to me. Well, in a way, I’ve been hoping it was my mistake, too.”
“What do you mean, Anne?” Greshner asked.
“Bill, from what you’ve told me, I gather Red was probably leaning over the box – like so – when…”
“Anne! Be careful!”
Both Greshner and Quisted rushed up when they saw what she was about to do. But it was too late. Her centre of gravity was already too far forward and she toppled over on to the box. However, she remained there less than a second before bouncing back to her original position.
“Damn!” she exclaimed. “I thought for sure I’d be accepted this time.”
“Anne!” Greshner said, holding her arm for fear she might try it again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Pedersen smiled and gently passed her hand over the force field that protected the box from invasion – or intrusion.
“Neither of you get it yet, do you?” she said. “That’s because even the best among us are so caught up in our own little worlds, we can’t imagine anything outside of them.”
“Anne, are you seriously saying—?”
“That innocent little pulsing box trapped within its own anguish – or whatever – is here to announce the end of our world as we know it—”
“But that’s sheer nonsense, Anne,” Quisted said, turning his back as if no longer wishing to look at the object of his perplexity. “Total madness. I can accept the fact it’s something we’ve never encountered before, perhaps a peculiar local twisting of certain of our laws, a singularity of the kind some of the more outlandish probability rules have even predicted. But to go from there to the end of the world is to give credence to the worst kind of rabble-rousing post-millennialist preaching.”
“Ah, but I didn’t say the end of the world. I said the end of our world as we know it. Our world defined as that construct we’ve put together through constant testing and reiteration of cause and effect.”
“Anne,” Greshner said quietly, “before you go on, there’s one question I’d like to ask. How do we prove it? And, when we have proved it
, how would we know that it would stay proved?”
“Well, we could line up all the humans in the world and have them take turns hurling themselves at the box. Or, we could start by asking ourselves what Red has that I don’t.”
“Off the top of my head,” Greshner said, “I would say an obvious physical deformity, a bad stutter and an IQ between 80 and 100 points lower than yours.”
“But then again, has it occurred to you it may not be proof we want?”
“My God,” Quisted said. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This smacks more and more of a religious initiation. Next, we’ll be bearing witness and setting up of a shrine to the gods of chance.”
“Not the gods of chance, Eric. The gods of fate, perhaps. And hope.”
“Hope, chance, fate – gobbledygook that has no place in our world. Not if we’re to live by the hard and fast rules it’s taken centuries and countless lives to develop. Are you saying we’re to give all this up because some box doesn’t seem to operate by the same rules? That’s insane. Next, you’ll be telling us we should go back to killing our first-born and burning witches.”
Pedersen shrugged her shoulders: “What about you, Bill?”
“I’m confused, Anne. For one thing, I don’t know the implications of what you’re saying. For another, I can’t imagine any other world but this one.”
“Well, that’s honest anyway.”
She turned and headed for the door. Greshner joined her, leaving Quisted to stare at the box.
“What now, Anne?”
“Now? I’d like to get down to the library. There’s some reading I have to catch up on. Why don’t you come around at about eight? I might have something for you.”
• • •
At the Robarts Library, Anne took down some books on mythology and sat at an empty desk. She started reading, but then drifted off into thoughts of what she’d be doing from that day forward, convinced her time at Levitt Labs was over. She spent several hours this way, alternating between the reading material and watching the plasterers and bricklayers who dangled from flimsy scaffolds to repair the library’s ever-crumbling façade. One more building being eaten away. They call it acid-rain climate change ozone depletion, she mumbled. More like the decay of logical constructs.
“The key to this whole thing,” she said to Greshner later that evening, “is Red. I’m certain of it. And I’ve got to find him.”
“You mean we’ve got to find him, don’t you?”
“No. Just because I’m through doesn’t mean you are. You’ve got a great future at Levitt Labs.”
“Anne, you must be joking. I’ve handed in my resignation.”
“You silly boy, you,” she said, touching his face. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad.”
“Good. That makes two of us.”
“But none of it will do us any good unless we can track Red down. Damn! He couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.”
“Why not, Anne? If this box is what you’ve been hinting at, then anything’s possible.”
“There still have to be reasons for things. It might not be what we’re used to but a teleology, a purpose, has to be there. Look, if we discount the idea of a coincidence between Red’s lying down in the box and his disappearance, then we have to assume the box has something to do with the disappearance. Right?”
“Of course,” Greshner said. “Red is where the box has sent him.”
“Shit!” Pedersen said. “Where are those printouts?” She searched around until she pulled out the pile of printouts and scattered them on the living-room floor.
“What are you looking for?” Greshner asked.
“This,” she said, handing him one of the sheets.
“This? It’s just a description of the box. We’ve been over it dozens of times.”
“That’s right. And missed it each time.”
“Missed what?”
“Remember I said something obvious? Read what it says under Location Found.”
“It says: ‘Queen Charlotte Islands.’ So?”
“So! Tell me, what’s on the Queen Charlotte Islands?”
“Anne, all I know is that they’re on the west coast of British Columbia, near Alaska.”
“That they are,” Pedersen said. “And they just happen to be the ancestral home of the Haida people. In fact, they’re now officially called Haida Gwaii.”
“Okay, but what—”
“Recognize this?” Pedersen asked, opening up a book on Native American mythology.
“What am I looking for?” Greshner said. “I see a bunch of log cabins, totem poles, boats and what looks like furniture.”
“The design on that bentwood box,” Pedersen said. “Look familiar?”
“Holy fuck! That’s the same design as on our box.”
“Yep,” Pedersen said. “And I bet you that’s where Red is.”
“Okay, Anne. But even assuming we’re on the right track, those islands must cover a lot of territory. How exactly are we going to find Red?”
“This is where we’re going to find him,” Pedersen said, taking out the postcard.
• • •
It was easier said than done. When they landed at Sandspit Airport on Moresby Island and asked about getting to Windy Bay, they were informed that only tour boats went to Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve – unless they were willing to kayak in the open sea. And, because it was considered sacred land, only a limited number of tourists were allowed in daily.
“But we’re not interested in a tour,” Pedersen said to the person behind the information counter. “We’re going there to meet someone.” She pulled out the postcard. “We shouldn’t be there for more than a few hours at the most.”
“Well, you can always charter a float plane,” the information officer said and handed them a brochure with a list of float plane operators. “And, if you’re not planning on going inland, you can skip the orientation course.”
• • •
The view from the float plane was…other-worldly. On one side, the endless grey-blue of the Pacific Ocean; on the other, hundreds of dark-green islands in an archipelago of thundering water, dark looming temperate rainforests, and fog-misted mountain tops.
“I can see why the Haida want to preserve this,” Pedersen said. “It’s what Eden probably looked like.”
“Yeah, Eden with vicious storms, bear warnings, and the occasional cannibal.”
“Hey, nothing’s perfect.”
“What if he isn’t here?” Greshner said.
“We’ll enjoy the sights and leave. No harm done.”
The plane landed in front of a barren, rock-encrusted landscape. As Pedersen and Greshner were taken ashore by boat, they could see the eelgrass and kelp forest ferns waving in the water beneath them. And, ahead of them, looming more than 40 feet into the sky, the Gwaii Haanas Legacy totem pole.
“We’ll come back for you in four hours,” the guide on the boat said after depositing them on land. “Please be ready to leave.”
• • •
It was dusk and they had been standing in front of the pole for several hours when a figure emerged from behind it and walked towards them. In the dim light, it appeared as if the figure was shimmering or changing shape with each step it took. As if it had arms and legs one moment and wings, feathers and claws the next. But as it came nearer there was no doubt it was Red, although a Red who no longer stooped over.
“Greetings, friends,” Red said with a smile and without a stutter. “Welcome to Hlk’yah GawGa. Or Windy Bay, as the colonizers might call it.”
“Is that really you?” Greshner asked.
“As you can see, I’m a new man,” he said.
“But…how…?”
“Dr. Pedersen. Naturally you must have a lot of questions. But before we get to them, you should know that you have been chosen for a special mission.”
“A special mission?” Pedersen said. “Why me?”
“I don’t know,” Red
said. “I suppose it’s because your mind is more open than your colleagues.”
“More open to what?” Pedersen asked.
“To what I am about to offer.” Both Greshner and Pedersen stared at him without saying a word. “The promise of a new world.”
“I don’t understand,” Greshner said. “Who can make such promises?”
Red took a crystal sphere about the size of a baseball out of his pocket and held it out for Pedersen.
“Take it, Anne. Don’t be afraid. With it, you can bring light to the universe. With it, you’ll release humans from necessity, from the weight of laws, from decay, from death itself.”
Pedersen took the ball. It pulsed slightly and tingled but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Bring it back to its proper home.”
“The box, right?” Greshner said.
“Exactly. All you have to do is roll the sphere into what you call the box. The rest will take care of itself. And don’t worry about getting it through airport security – the ball will not be visible when it’s not in Dr. Pedersen’s hand. Any questions?”
“Yes,” Greshner said as Pedersen shook her head and continued staring at the ball. “You’ve explained why Dr. Pedersen, but why you?”
“Why me? I don’t know. I do know that I will be responsible for ushering in this new world. That my powers will include the ability to shape things – in a way that you would consider magical and thus impossible. I will be me – and not me. I will be a hemlock needle, an infant, a sharp-beaked bird. I will be here and I will be everywhere.”
“What…what will this new world look like?” Pedersen asked.
“Look around,” Red said. “Here everything has a purpose. Even decay.”
“One last question,” Greshner said. “Why don’t you finish the job yourself? Why bring us in at all?”
“Because the moment I took my place in the box,” Red said as he slowly walked away, starting to shimmer and change shape once more, “I could no longer perform the tasks of this world. Only you can do that.”
“And what happens,” Greshner shouted at the receding figure, “if we can’t deliver the sphere, if we have an accident or something along the way?”
The Photographer in Search of Death Page 11