The Guardian Angel

by George Lazăr

  Even with Norton’s perfect parts, the surgery was touch and go. Bolden didn’t awake from it for hours, and when the implications of his continued existence struck him, the anguish descended deep into his soul.

  “You’ve… you’ve killed him… You bastards!” he murmured and fell back into the void.

  The next time he woke, the questions were more pointed.

  “Did he suffer?”

  “No, not at all,” the colonel said, before launching into a defense of their actions. But Bolden would have none of it, and his agitation attracted the attention of the medical staff. The doctors administered a sedative through his IV line, and Bolden drifted away again. During the following week he fell into a chemically induced haze where nightmares and remorse haunted him.

  Two weeks after the heart transplant, the surgeons decided he was strong enough to undergo the kidney transplant. They transferred one and, since he didn’t show signs of rejecting it, after two more weeks, they opened him up and put in the other one.

  Bolden couldn’t take the nightmares anymore. In his dreams, he saw Norton’s face, his eyes fixed in an accusatory stare. The dreams were becoming ever more realistic, and a few days after the transplant of the second kidney, he woke up and tore the IV lines. He stumbled out of bed, ignoring the alarms of the medical equipment, and headed purposefully towards the window.

  He wanted to open it, jump out and end the remorse. He grabbed the handle, but he couldn’t manage to turn it. Bolden slumped to the floor in anguish, collapsed on his side and dropped his head to the cold floor. He cried for Norton, but most of all he cried for his inability to carry on with his intention. Through his tears, he saw Folder looking at him calm and unaffected.

  “It’s not normal,” he cried. “It’s not normal to kill my child so that I could live. Parents shouldn’t bury their children. What kind of monster have I become? What’ve you turned me into, Folder?”

  The colonel helped him get up and walk towards the bed. He held him while he lay down and waited with him until the two doctors with Asian eyes came in a rush to fix back his IV lines and the monitoring sensors. Finally, they tied his body and limbs to the bed with a few wide straps, immobilizing him.

  “They feel no remorse,” said Folder, looking at them. “They’re the best specialists in transplants. They don’t even understand a word we’re saying. And they’re not interested either, if they’re paid accordingly.”

  The colonel held his hand, lightly tapping it in a soothing manner.

  “You’re not a monster,” the colonel told him. “You’re only a man who wants to survive. That’s all.”

  “But I’ve murdered my son!”

  “If it helps you in any way, it wasn’t you who killed him, it was them,” Folder said, pointing towards the door through which the doctors had just left. “Blame them if it makes you feel better. You see, you’re giving a perfect example again of typically human hypocrisy.”

  Utterly amazed, Bolden forgot to cry.

  “Hypocrisy? I refused! You know that!”

  The colonel dropped Ian’s hand and got up from the bed.

  “Cut the nonsense,” he said without looking at him. “The Device showed absolutely nothing just now. You weren’t in any danger. When the medical alarms started, I waited a little before coming here. So did the doctors. We watched you on the video surveillance cameras, saw your little act. But even if you’d been serious about suicide, you wouldn’t have gone through with it, and you knew that in your subconscious. You wanted to absolve yourself, but you were waiting to be rescued. That’s why we didn’t come straight away. You had to understand that by yourself.”

  Bolden said nothing, confounded by the colonel’s outburst.

  “You didn’t give a damn about the hundreds of people who died when that plane crashed in Queens. You didn’t care about the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by that tsunami. Do you expect me to believe that you truly care about the death of one man, even if that man happens to be your son? Look, Ian, I know you better than you can imagine. And you’re a survivor. I know you’ll do everything it takes to stay alive.”

  “I chose to die. Me, not Norton,” Bolden cried out, exhausted. “That’s exactly what I wanted and you should have obeyed my order.”

  The colonel smiled.

  “We’ve invested a great deal in you. A great deal. We’ll sacrifice whoever it takes to keep you alive. We know you so well that we can almost read your mind. Do you really think we would have done all this if there was the slightest possibility that you wouldn’t agree to sign the contract with us? Are you under the impression that, at some point, we doubted your scruples would prevent you from doing absolutely everything it took to stay alive?”

  The colonel picked up a helmet bag like the ones fighter pilot’s use and removed what Bolden recognized as a 3D simulator helmet. “Here,” Folder said, “he can explain it better than I can.” Together they fitted it to Bolden’s head.

  Atalai appeared in the projection, walking through a gorgeous garden. He stopped in front of Bolden and waved hello.

  “There are moments in life when you wish you hadn’t been born,” he started. “Or moments when you have to make decisions you don’t want to make because you will affect the lives of many people. While managing my companies, I was forced many times to fire people, although I knew very well they had to pay the loans for their cars and the mortgage on their houses, their kids’ schools and all the rest.”

  He stopped and picked a rose. He smelled it, closed his eyes and held his breath. His face took an expression of beatitude. As the moment passed, he raised his eyelids and smiled slyly.

  “Don’t think I didn’t feel sorry to betray their trust. But that was nothing. I’ve suffered even more when, in order to stay alive, I had to agree in the face of clear evidence that the simple fact of staying alive meant that others, sometimes many others, needed to die.

  “Take this rose. If it weren’t for me, it would’ve carried on with its ephemeral existence for a few more days, and then it would’ve lost its beauty and withered. By picking it, I’ve shortened its life only to satisfy my momentary pleasure. I’ve admired it and enjoyed its scent. Was it worth it? Obviously, if the rose could speak, it would say no. But I decided otherwise. Do you understand?”

  Atalai stopped looking into his eyes and went on walking through his garden. He delicately tore the rose’s petals, one by one, and scattered them on the neatly trimmed, thick grass. When he was done, he threw the stem away carelessly.

  “I’ve discovered by myself and in a pretty rough way that everyone cares about their own lives. Everyone – no exceptions. If they could choose, they would choose themselves. It’s something we’re endowed with by nature, or by God, if you’re a religious man. We have life and we must do everything we can to keep it. That’s just how we’re built and, no matter how much we wanted, we can’t fight it. Your life has a price for everyone around you. But for you it’s priceless.”

  Ian knew it was useless to answer him, but he wanted to contradict him.

  “You are watching this recording because the person who is guarding you has reached the conclusion that you are going through a difficult time, similar to the one I went through. You must decide if you want to stay alive or if you want others to live. It doesn’t matter how many they are or how close to you they are. If it helps, imagine you are a soldier and you are among enemies who are out to kill you. It’s you or them – would you hesitate for one moment? Do you think that if the people around you found out what you caused, you would survive? You are their enemy. They are your enemies. It’s a battle in which you are defending your life. So…”

  In the background of the recording, the whistling of the wind could be heard. Coming from somewhere, the murmur of flowing water was discernible. Atalai’s voice faded as the drugs started working again.

  Once again, peace and quiet returned to Bolden’s sleep, induced artificially by the anesthetics. The attempted suicide, ha
d served a purpose. His psyche was relieved and the nightmares were reduced. Over time they would pass, much to Folder’s relief. But the truth was that Bolden had calmed down through the belief that his son lived inside of him.

  He thought many times of the plane crash and the tsunami. Folder insisted that Bolden had caused those deaths, and yet no matter what the colonel said, he hadn’t felt guilty. There were logical explanations in each case. A terrorist had taken down the airplane. An accident caused by a sailor had unleashed the tsunami. Those events would have happened with or without him.

  Or would they?

  There was also the number of victims, which was irrationally large. Like most people, he could accept one or a few deaths at once, but in the case of catastrophes of such magnitude he wasn’t prepared to do so. No one was.

  The large number of deaths involuntarily led him to think of his fortune. Years before, an acquaintance of his had told him he couldn’t grasp the amount of money the Boldens possessed. The man could comprehend the significance of a few thousand dollars – a monthly salary – or of a few tens of thousands – a good car – or of a hundred thousand dollars – a house. But his concept of a million dollars was purely theoretical, and billions of dollars were a mystery.

  Money was like people’s lives. With money he knew exactly what he could do and what he could obtain. The same went for the lives of others, even with Folder’s life, the man who was guarding him from death. But not with his own life, that, ever since he had encountered The Guardian Angel, had completely changed its course.

  If his life ever had one, that is,…

  Chapter 16

  Two months after that, he learned to walk again and his life began to re-enter a trajectory that felt normal – to the extent that anything in Bolden’s life could ever feel normal.

  “I’ve started to grow weary,” Bolden confessed to him one day as Folder pushed his wheelchair through the park outside the Guardian Angel medical facility. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to live with the fear that it may happen at any time.”

  The colonel didn’t believe him.

  “You’ll never grow tired enough to want to give up living. You’re on Level Five. Only the third client to reach this phase. We must increase our forces a great deal.”

  “Come to mention it, how long can I afford this? I think your last bill hasn’t left me much, if it hasn’t ruined me completely.”

  The colonel stopped the wheelchair in front of a bench. He pointed it towards the bench and blocked its wheels before sitting down, facing Bolden.

  “Ian, you’re loaded. Almost one percent of the Earth’s population is working directly or indirectly for you. Your transplants have been successful and you’ll soon be healthy again.

  “But there are some matters that may require your attention. Your employees at Green Clean are threatening a strike. The board of directors recommends negotiations first, but the situation is delicate, especially now that the Chinese fleet has surrounded Taiwan. There are rumors that our fleet in the Pacific received orders to move in on the area. But that is another issue. A more pressing matter is that, if your people go on a strike, you’ll have to pay penalties to the Space Elevator because you won’t be able to exploit the transport capacity you’ve obtained the license for…”

  Bolden became gloomy; his companion had mentioned transplants. He made a sign, waving his hand carelessly, as if he were driving away an annoying fly.

  “Are you kidding me? Or are you trying to divert my thoughts? What do I care about the fleet, about Taiwan or China, about some labor contract? Give them whatever they want; increase the salaries. Any of them, even the poorest wretch, has what I don’t: the opportunity to lead a normal life. If I could choose, I would change places anytime.

  “Are there many like me? Tell me, I have a right to know,” Bolden insisted, seeing the colonel’s hesitation. “You’ve said there were few who have survived until this phase. I would like to meet someone like me. It’s important to know that this isn’t happening just to me. That there are others.”

  The colonel stretched his arms on the back of the bench.

  “You know, Ian, we’ve talked about this. You simply can’t meet with those like you. If you got close to each other, it could be like critical mass in a nuclear bomb. I don’t even want to think what could happen.

  “One of our scientists came up with a sort of scientific explanation. You and the people like you distort the time-space continuum. This time-space continuum is trying to eliminate the disturbance and, implicitly, the disturbing element – you.

  “Did you understood anything I just said?”

  Bolden shook his head.

  “Neither did I,” Folder comforted him. “Let me put it differently. Your life is like a rubber band. Every time you’re supposed to die and you keep on living, it’s like you’re pulling that rubber band behind you. The longer you live, the greater the tension you create, the more destructive the potential energy stored around you becomes.”

  “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” Bolden recited, the source of the quotation lost to some broken synapse.

  One of the guards’ cell phones began buzzing. He whispered something and stood up at the same time as his chess partner. They split up, heading in two different directions.

  “If you were to meet someone else like you, the combined distortion of the space-time continuum would not only double, but increase like a resonance effect – the way soldiers marching to the same cadence bring down a rickety bridge, while the same number of soldiers walking at individual paces would cross safely. The force that is trying to kill you would be unstoppable. We’re not prepared for something like that.”

  Bolden unlocked the wheels on his chair, rolled himself backwards and then slowly toward the alley. Folder stood up, took a few steps and reached him.

  “Why can’t I at least talk to them?” Bolden finally asked, breathing heavily from the effort of moving his chair. “I could use any communication channel. It would be enough. At least that.”

  The colonel got behind the chair and started pushing it lightly. He pointed it towards the entrance to the clinic.

  “Some think that even communicating would initiate the resonance effect. That’s why we must isolate you again.”

  Bolden stopped the wheels of his chair with both hands, making it brake suddenly. He tried to stand up, but failed.

  “Isolate me? Why?”

  “Interferences, Ian. Resonance. Every man has a destructive potential, even if he dies when he is supposed to. It’s something typically human. Actually, it is something specific to all living beings. With humans it’s more complex, much more complex. And interferences between your destructive potential and that of the others can appear everywhere. We don’t have the necessary experience to protect you at Level Five. The experts think it’s best that we put you in a Calming Zone again. A strict one. We’ll have to isolate you completely.”

  “But why aren’t there interferences with you or with the doctors?”

  “You don’t interfere with all human beings, of course. For example, you don’t interfere with me, it’s proven. We verify everyone who gets close to you, even if it takes a lot of time and effort to recalibrate the Device. We couldn’t possibly check everyone you had contact with if you weren’t isolated. If we left you on your own, like we’ve done until now, you might accidentally run into someone you could enter into resonance with, even if that person isn’t necessarily someone we’re guarding. These types of phenomena are detected by the Device only at the last moment. We’re left with practically no time to intervene.”

  “So why weren’t you worried about this before?” Bolden shouted in despair.

  “You weren’t at Level Five before,” the colonel told him with true sadness.

  Chapter 17

  The old bunker was a relic of the Cold War, built in the 1960s as a part of a federal program called Phoenix. The program specified the construction of a hundred and
forty large underground shelters near the most important American urban centers. From them, like the legendary Phoenix, a million Americans and their shelter-born children were to emerge after the radiation faded from a global nuclear exchange, re-establishing a new civilization from the ashes of the old.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  But then an assassin killed Kennedy and the funds for Phoenix were redirected to NASA. Fourteen of the secret shelters remained, in various stages of completion. The one near Los Angeles had reached the most advanced stage of construction before being mothballed. In the seven decades since, Los Angeles had spread enormously, becoming an unimaginable urban agglomeration.

  Only one place remained unconquered by sprawl: Topanga State Park. There, hidden from the world lay the entrance to the bunker. It was surrounded by a tall and well-kept barbed wire fence. Trespassing was strictly forbidden.

  Through secrecy and lousy record-keeping, the original contents and plans for the bunker had been lost to time. But the Army never gives up easily on any of its assets. It took some serious political capital for Colonel Folder to obtain the bunker for his client, Ian Bolden. He refitted it with the help of the same construction company that had built it.

  “You mean this place belongs to me now?” Bolden asked as they toured the facility for the first time.

  “Let’s just say I’ve rented it on a long-term basis.”

  It was, in fact, a small underground town, structured on three levels. After the main passageway that cut obliquely through the side of the mountain would have been sealed off, the access would have been through a tubular shaft in which a high-capacity elevator should have been installed. This would have happened after tens of thousands of people, carefully selected by the FBI, would have taken refuge with their families.

  The elevator had never been installed, but the concrete tube still connected the levels. The outer end of the elevator’s shaft had been covered with a transparent Plexiglas dome through which one could glimpse a patch of light during the day.