Instantiation

by Greg Egan

  Kate returned to the parking lot footage, at the time she knew the car had departed. Natalie appeared, with the shopping bags bulging, but it was impossible to see what they contained. New clothes? Hair dye? Scissors? It wouldn’t take much for her to render herself unrecognizable to anyone but her closest friends. A clear enough shot by a public CCTV camera might still trigger a face-matching algorithm, but she’d have to be much stupider than she’d proved to be so far to offer herself up to that kind of scrutiny.

  The mall security guard had been watching over Kate’s shoulder. “That’s the woman who killed her own kids?” he asked. Natalie’s face was all over the media as a missing person, but the official line was still far from naming her as a suspect.

  “Maybe.” Kate turned to him with a warning glance; she really didn’t want to hear anyone’s opinion on what fate Natalie deserved.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  She left the mall and walked out onto the street. “Mark every retailer in a six-kilometer radius,” she told her notepad, “and give me a path that visits them all.”

  4

  Kate woke with a headache and squinted at the bedside clock. It was ten minutes to three. She groaned softly and closed her eyes, then felt someone’s warm, naked skin brush against her.

  She jerked her arm away and leaped out of bed. There was enough light coming through the curtains for her to see the man lying asleep where Reza should have been.

  She was trembling from the shock, but she tried to calm herself and plan her next move carefully. She thought of going to the kitchen and arming herself with a knife, but if there was a struggle that might not work in her favor.

  She snatched up her phone and tip-toed into the passageway. The safest thing might be to take Michael out to the car and drive away, before she even risked calling for help. But where was Reza? Any protracted scuffle in the bedroom would have woken her, so he must have been lured out of the room somehow – before being tied up and gagged, maybe drugged, maybe beaten senseless. So she had to get Michael to safety, but then return as quickly as possible, and do it all without waking the intruder.

  She walked down the passageway in the darkness, treading as lightly as she could. As she entered the nursery, she felt her skin prickling with horror, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep herself silent. She stared at the shape in the cot, afraid to raise the phone and illuminate it, but when she finally found the courage, the harsh light made the revelation unbearable. She staggered back, then fled.

  She ran into the bedroom and switched on the light. “What have you done to him?” she roared. “What have you done to my son?”

  The intruder shielded his face with his arm and then lowered it and peered at her groggily. “Kate? What’s happened?” He climbed off the bed and approached her; she flinched away from him, raising one hand with her fist clenched. She didn’t need a weapon; she’d beat the truth out of him with her bare hands.

  “Kate? Talk to me!” He stood, rooted to the spot, feigning concern. “Has something happened to Michael? Should I call an ambulance?”

  “Don’t play games with me!” she bellowed. “Where have you taken him?”

  “Are you saying he’s not in his cot?” The intruder rushed past her, out into the passageway; she followed him halfway, but couldn’t bring herself to go back into the nursery. He switched on the light, then after a while she heard him whispering, “Shh, pesaram, it’s all right.” So this man spoke Persian – or was he just mocking her? Had he bugged the house and listened to all the things she and Reza said?

  He came out from the nursery and walked up to her. “He looks fine to me. What got you so worried?”

  Kate said, “You have ten seconds to tell me where my son is.”

  “Now you’re frightening me.” The intruder reached down and scratched his hip beneath the waistband of his shorts, as unselfconsciously as if he spent every night wandering half-naked through a different stranger’s house. “Are you sick?” He reached up to put his hand on Kate’s forehead; she grabbed his arm and twisted it, bringing him to his knees.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he gasped, wincing from the pain but keeping himself from shouting, as if his greatest fear was “waking” the mechanical doll he’d planted in the cot. Kate got him in a choke-hold; he went limp in her arms, not even trying to fight her.

  “I swear I’ll kill you,” she said. “If you don’t take me to my son, I’ll slit your fucking throat and hang you from a meat-hook.”

  The man started weeping, his whole body shuddering as he sobbed. Kate stared down at his blubbering face, desperately clinging to the hope that whatever he’d done to Reza and Michael that had left him so ashamed, they were still alive somewhere. “Take me to them now, and I’ll say you cooperated. The quicker you do this, the better things will go for you.”

  “All right,” he replied. He sounded utterly defeated. For someone who’d been so brazen just minutes before, he hadn’t taken long to fold.

  Kate released him and stepped away. “So where are they?”

  He clambered to his feet. “I need to call someone. They’ll bring them here.”

  “No, no, no!” Kate spread her arms so he couldn’t get past her down the hall. She wasn’t having him summoning accomplices. “You take me to them, alone. Are they in the house?”

  He hesitated. “No. We’ll need to take a drive.”

  Kate stood in silence, trying to think. She should call for backup, get the fucker cuffed and under control. But if he stopped cooperating, what redress would she have? As soon as she got anyone else involved, there’d be no point threatening to gut him like a pig; he could sit in his prison cell, laughing, while Reza and Michael starved to death, or worse.

  “All right,” she said. “So you’d better put some clothes on.”

  She walked into the bedroom ahead of him and scooped up Reza’s phone. She’d half expected him to try to flee, but he followed close behind her and proceeded to dress in Reza’s clothes. Kate stood watching him, dazed; not only did the clothes fit him, well enough, his resemblance to her husband was striking, right down to the pattern of freckles on his shoulders and the way his uncombed hair stuck up at the side. But did the kidnappers really think that she’d be fooled by such superficial details?

  “Turn around and face the wall,” she said. He complied, and she dressed quickly.

  “Okay, I’m done. Come on.”

  “Can we take…?” He gestured toward the nursery.

  Kate scowled at him, disbelieving; she thought he was about to start crying again. “Why would we take that thing with us? I’ll put it out with the garbage.”

  The intruder stared at her. “When you get back, with Michael?”

  “Yes! It’s not a priority. Now, come on!”

  He followed her out of the house; she unlocked the car and got into the driver’s seat. He joined her, and she reversed quickly onto the street.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  “South.”

  She drove down to the corner and turned toward Gympie Road. There was no other traffic in sight, no lights showing in any of the houses. She glanced at the man, sitting meekly beside her in his borrowed clothes. “So, what was the plan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Were you going to ask for money? Or was this about fixing some case? You wanted me to tamper with evidence, or make a file disappear?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Kate laughed humorlessly. “And the idea that you could just lie down in my bed and that would buy some time to get them further away … for fuck’s sake, how stupid can you be? You might look a bit like my husband, but do you think I couldn’t tell the difference?”

  The man said, “What gave me away?”

  Kate shook her head. “One touch, and my skin crawled. So where are we going?”

  “Herston.”

  “Where in Herston? I’ll put it in the GPS.”

  “I don’t know the name of the street, bu
t I can give you directions once we’re closer.”

  Kate wasn’t happy, but at this hour the drive wouldn’t take long. If he was messing with her, she’d know soon enough, and he’d regret it.

  “How many of you are there?” she asked.

  “Just me and my friend. And he won’t hurt anyone, I promise. I’d never have got involved if it was going to be like that.”

  “So why did you do it at all?”

  “It was his idea,” the man insisted. “I just went along with it.”

  Kate frowned skeptically, but this wasn’t the time to start brow-beating the only person who could reunite her with her family. Whether he was a simpleton who’d been led astray, or a criminal genius who’d thought it was a good idea to climb into bed with her, would be up to the investigating officers to decide, then the prosecutors, then a jury. Once Reza and Michael were safe, she would need to step back and leave everything to other people.

  “How did you get Reza out of the house so quietly?”

  “My friend drugged him.”

  “With what, exactly?”

  “Some liquid he put on a cloth. I don’t know what it was.”

  Kate suspected he was lying; it sounded like something he’d seen in a movie, and if they’d tried it with chloroform Reza would have been struggling for so long it would have woken her ten times over.

  “And how did you clowns even get into the house?”

  “The spare key under the flowerpot.”

  She fell silent. That was her fault; she should never have put it anywhere so obvious.

  They were close to the city now; she could see the lights in the Aurora Tower ahead.

  “Turn right here,” he told her.

  “Past the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate turned into Butterfield Street, slowing down as they approached a small park that separated the road from the drop-off loop for the hospital’s entrance. In the early hours of the morning, there could well be visitors to the emergency department with all manner of substances in their bodies stumbling out from behind the greenery and onto the road without warning.

  “And go left here.”

  Kate brought the car to a halt. He was directing her into the hospital’s parking complex.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” she demanded angrily. “Have they been hurt?”

  “No. I promise you, both of them are fine.”

  “Then why would they be here?”

  The man said, “We need to go in. Please.”

  “Why?”

  Before Kate could stop him, he was out of the car, running back along the road and through the trees. She went after him, bewildered. The park was about the size of her back yard; he had no hope of losing her.

  She caught up with him just outside the entrance to the emergency department. She’d feared she was going to have to tackle him to the ground on the concrete, but he stopped and turned, letting her collide with him, catching her in his arms so that their bodies came together in a sick parody of an embrace. She pulled away, furious. He smelled exactly like Reza, but that just turned her stomach.

  He said, “Kate, I’m begging you, let them check you out.”

  “What?”

  “Let the doctors examine you. I can stay here with you, but you need to let me call someone to look after Michael.”

  “If you think I won’t hurt you just because there are people around—”

  The man held his hands up, shoulder high. “Look at me! If you don’t believe I’m Reza, tell me one thing that isn’t the same!”

  Kate was tired. “You’re the right build, the right bone structure. Black hair and brown eyes aren’t exactly rare – assuming they’re natural – but everything else could be done with make-up.” Hadn’t Reza himself claimed as much, joking that he could pass for his own grandfather? Had they listened in to that conversation, too?

  “Is that a professional opinion, DS Shahripour?” he taunted her. “Would you talk shit like that in court? Ask me something only Reza could know.”

  “I’m not playing this game.”

  He said, “I’m not a doctor, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. But what if it’s a stroke? If you’ve got a clot in your brain…” He put his forearm over his eyes, wiping away tears. “Please, Kate, let them help you.”

  Kate stared at him in the harsh light of the entrance. Every small, dark hair on his cheeks was precisely where she’d expect it to be. The idea that anyone outside of Hollywood would even try to reconstruct that level of detail was ridiculous.

  “Let’s go in,” she said. They were in the right place after all.

  They stepped through the self-opening doors together. As Reza was looking around to see where they should go to join the queue, Kate spotted a pair of security guards. When Reza walked forward, she veered away from him, approached the guards, and discreetly showed them her badge.

  “That man is my husband,” she said quietly. “I need your help restraining him so he can be examined, otherwise he could be a danger to himself.”

  Kate stayed a few steps behind as the three of them approached Reza together. He spread his arms in a gesture of disbelief. “What is this? Kate?” He turned to the guards. “My wife is ill. I don’t know what she told you—”

  “You need to calm down, sir,” one of the guards said firmly. “The doctors are busy, but if you wait quietly someone will be able to see you soon.”

  “No, she needs to see them! She’s the one who’s sick! Our son is in danger.”

  “Sir, if you start making threats—”

  “Kate? What did you say to them?” Reza – or whatever it was that now animated the shell of his body – glared at her in self-righteous horror.

  Kate told the guards, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Until then, you need to make sure that he gets a full psych evaluation.” They did not look happy, but they deferred to her authority.

  She turned and walked away, glancing back a couple of times as the remnant of her husband began shouting and struggling. The guards had handcuffs, batons and tasers; he wasn’t going anywhere.

  On her way back to the car she started sobbing. When she pictured Reza – the man she knew, as he’d been just a few hours before – the thought of abandoning him in this wretched state horrified her. But she had to trust the doctors to take care of him; she couldn’t stay here waiting for a diagnosis. What mattered now was finding Michael.

  As she drove north, she thought of calling the station and sending someone to the house ahead of her. But how could she explain walking out on her infant son, without sounding like she’d lost her mind? Michael had to be lying on a blanket somewhere, sleeping through all of this insanity. Maybe Reza had risen in the night and quietly hidden him, acting with good intentions in some strange twilight state before he was gone completely – saving his son from the thing he was about to become.

  Kate couldn’t stop weeping. She took her hands off the wheel and let the car steer for her as the rain began to fall. Was it some kind of Alzheimer’s, like his father? But that made no sense; even if the early-onset form could strike at such a young age, she’d never heard of it happening overnight.

  When she turned into her street, she saw a squad car outside her house, and lights on inside. She stopped and switched off her headlights, but kept the wipers running. Had a neighbor heard her shouting threats before she left?

  The front door opened and someone walked out onto the porch: a tall, blond woman in civilian clothes carrying a wailing baby, followed by a uniformed female constable. Kate peered at them through the rain, making the best of the moments of clarity after the blades had swept the windshield clear, before fresh droplets appeared and distorted everything. The woman resembled her sister Beth, though it wasn’t her. The baby was swaddled in a blanket, making it hard to see properly, but it sounded like some awful imitation of Michael.

  Had the thing in the cot not been a doll, after all? Where would such a doll have come from? Had Micha
el and Beth both gone the way of Reza?

  Kate covered her face with her hands. What could turn a human being into a walking automaton, a vacant caricature of the person they’d been? Some kind of toxin? Some kind of disease?

  When she looked again, the two women were in the squad car. The engine started, and the car drove away. But the lights were still on in the house. Someone was in there, waiting for her to arrive.

  The thing that had been Reza must have wheedled its way into making a phone call, and whoever it had called had either been fooled into taking it seriously … or had needed no persuasion, because it already thought the same way.

  Reza had been infected. Michael had been infected. Beth had been infected. How many more might there be? If she walked into that house and shared the same fate, she’d be powerless to help any of them.

  Kate started the car and reversed back down the street. After ten meters, the supervisor began chanting threats and admonitions. She said, “Shut down, you’re malfunctioning.” She kept going until she reached the corner, then she turned and drove away.

  5

  The teller machine took her card without complaint, scanned her face, then offered her the usual menu. Reza had never been in any position to cancel her card himself, but whatever his remnant had told the police, the best thing was to get her hands on as much money as possible while she still could. Kate moved some funds between accounts and then succeeded in withdrawing her entire daily cash limit of five thousand dollars.

  She sat in the car, trying to clear her head and see the way forward. It was beginning to look as if Reza and Beth, and maybe anyone else in the same condition, could pass as normal to an interlocutor who didn’t actually know them. Once he’d stopped humoring her with nonsense about the “kidnapping”, Reza had spoken coherently enough, making claims that might have sounded perfectly believable to a naive bystander. For all Kate knew, charming the hospital’s security guards into giving him a phone call had only been the start of it; he might even have been able to talk his way through an entire interview with an overworked psychiatric registrar, accustomed to more florid symptoms.