Project 137

by Seth Augenstein

  The record showed Shiro Ishii had stayed for thirty seconds and left no other trace, like he had just poked his head in the door, sniffed the air, then left again. This phantom had visited, then disappeared, illegally wiping away nearly every trace. Something creeped along my neck, like an invisible entity had smelled my sweaty skin. I turned. But nothing was there.

  I shut the terminal down. I walked out down the hallway to the elevator, which took me up to my office. I hung my coat on the hook, took the token stethoscope off from around my neck, and I swapped it for my lucky test tube off the wise man statue on my desk. I sat down at my desk, rubbing the smooth familiar necklace between my fingers. I rocked a bit back and forth in the chair, which squeaked its well-worn grooves. Shiro Ishii, Shiro Ishii, Shiro Ishii. I couldn’t place it, but the name bounced around in my brain. I leaned over the computer and searched my contacts on Amicus—I’d reluctantly joined the network after the medical journals started publishing there—but nothing came up. I did a search of the Library of Congress’ skeletally reconstructed archives. To my surprise, something was filed there: one short entry for Shiro Ishii, listing him as a doctor who had been part of Japan’s Imperial Army during one of the world wars of the 20th century. A doctor who had died of throat cancer in 1959. Nothing more than that—no other information seemed to be left in the archive. I racked my brain to remember which of those wars the Japanese had fought in, and who had won. So much had been lost in the Blackout, that gigantic push of the reset button a decade earlier—everything from holy texts scanned and stored in databases, to symphonies digitized on servers had been wiped clean out of existence in the blink of an eye. Some thousands of years of learning were all zapped by an electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere, cause unknown. Even the Library of Congress hadn’t recovered its priceless treasures of wisdom—and probably never would. Some history just didn’t exist anymore. Most of Shiro Ishii’s life was lost to history, other than his date of death.

  “I guess this can’t be our guy,” I told the empty office. “Unless he’s a ghost.”

  Betty walked in, her palm extended. It was bandaged from glass cuts. I dropped the portable drive into her hand, and she stuck it in her coat pocket.

  “You’ve got some serious technology there,” I said. “Better than mine ever was.”

  “Of course it is, Joe,” she said. “Everyone updates theirs every week to keep ahead of the security changes. Everyone except you and the Old Man. There’s a custodian down the hall who does it on the side.”

  I scoffed.

  “We have a janitor who hacks into government security systems?” I said, shaking my head.

  “The young guy always tinkering with the JiffySpiff,” she said, crossing her arms in front her. “I can’t remember his name—but he talks like he’s a doctor. The one with the wart on his nose. It’s the twenty-first-century Joe, the era of the common man, democracy, crowd sourcing, all that. We’ll get you a new drive from him, and we’ll keep it updated this time. So…did you figure out what killed the little perv?”

  “No idea,” I said. “Hey—we don’t have a person named Shiro Ishii on staff, do we?”

  “No—I would remember a name like that. Sounds familiar, though. Was he that guy on the last season of How Low Can You Go? The one who connected the wires to the car battery, kissed his wife, then proceeded to—”

  “No, I don’t think he was on that stupid show,” I said, cutting her short. “He’s a man who’s been dead for a hundred years. I’m just wondering how he got into that room in the middle of the night for thirty seconds, without any cameras seeing him, just before the kid died.”

  “Has to be a blip or something. No one has that kind of clearance,” she said, turning toward the door. She smirked. “Not even ghosts.”

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “I have to prep Culling for the night shift. Remember?”

  “I forgot. Have a good time,” I said. “Hell, he might be a really nice guy once you get to know him. He could even be an eligible bachelor. Husband number two, perhaps?”

  Frowning, she held up a ringless hand, showing a discolored band of worn skin around her fourth finger.

  “Even if he wasn’t a creep, one marriage was enough for me,” she said. “You know what they say: ‘Once a philosopher, twice a pervert.’”

  I laughed.

  “I’ve never heard that before. I like it. Where did you get that?”

  “A paper book my grandfather read to me when I was a kid before the Blackout. Some French thing, philosophy or something. Anyway, wish me luck.”

  She walked out. I turned off the lights and left the room. The hospital cleared out quickly—people in suits and sweatpants, administrators and doctors and patients, all streaming toward their cars in the main parking lot. It was always like this, once the Bureau regulations had limited the hospital’s operating hours. I walked to the auxiliary lot, where my little roadster was plugged in to the natural gas port. I removed the hose, coiled the cord into the trunk, got in the car, and maneuvered through the traffic to the ultrahighway.

  The news was practically the same as Saxas’ broadcast from that morning. The East Asian Federation issued several statements that any interference in their economic sphere of influence would not be tolerated ahead of the big international conference; the debate over the outcome of the War on Cancer continued; the missing-persons epidemic had not been solved over the course of the day; and another fiery crash on the ultrahighway was blocking traffic, dead ahead of me.

  I tapped the steering wheel, turned the volume down, and thought about the dead man who walked the hallways of my hospital.

  FUNERAL

  Japan, 1946

  The mourners filed into their seats dutifully. Some even managed to slump their shoulders and fix their faces in grimaces of grief. Only a few snuck looks over their shoulders at the apparition of the dead man staring down at them.

  The ceremony was planned with an austere simplicity. The grieving family and friends were expected to arrive in Shibayama by train or bus and walk the half-mile to the house. There they would be greeted by the dead man’s wife and his two brothers and ushered to the backyard. Once enough of the invitees had filled the seats, the priest was instructed to light the incense and start the prayers, regardless of attendance. It was all expected to proceed by noon and be over before two. A short lunch would be served, with diced fruit.

  But nothing had gone according to plan. Too many mourners had been stopped at the village train station and detained by the American Occupation authorities, the giant men in their khaki shirts and helmets and armbands. Several dozen guests had been left to wait for authorization at a small regional office, as three large Americans carefully inspected their papers and travel passes. By the time two o’clock rolled around, there were still not enough people to fill up any of the rows of seats. The diced fruit sat soggy in the bowls.

  But the priest, hands folded across his kimono, kept glancing up to the attic window of the house. Through the hazy windowpanes, he watched the dead man smoking cigarette after cigarette. By the time three o’clock rolled around, the apparition above gave the priest the signal—two strokes of the hand, like a flick-swish of a sword—and the ceremony began.

  Lighting the incense, and intoning the prayers, the rest of the mourners suddenly arrived from their detainment in the village. The seats were filled. Everything proceeded, even though the priest’s voice kept cracking a key upward, like a teenage boy. He continued on and on, vouching for the departed soul who stared down upon them, inhaling cigarette after cigarette with worldly breath. The priest burned more incense and spoke on. The mourners fidgeted.

  Two hours passed, and the rumbling of empty stomachs could be heard in the rows. The priest continued, even as a few American uniforms appeared at the gate to the yard, peering curiously at the proceedings. The priest had his eyes closed, his voice wavering, not seeing the signal from the dead man in the window up above. The deceased
furiously waved at him, but the priest’s eyes remained closed. Finally the dead man reached out and rapped on the window. The holy man’s eyes opened. The signal relayed, he finished his chant, stepped back, and pulled back a shroud, revealing an oven. Through the door the crowd could see a casket. Two men rushed in from either side and lit a fire, which smoked and grew until flames were licking the edges of the coffin. The priest looked up, and the dead man nodded in approval.

  The holy man then announced to the crowd that if everyone would please follow him they would adjourn to the porch for lunch. A hum of confusion rippled through the crowd, since the sun had already set beyond Tokyo, and it was much closer to dinner than lunch. But they dutifully followed the priest down the rows, nonetheless. None looked up to see the man smoking at the window of the house, looking down upon the people who had mourned for him for hours. They filed into the house, where they started to pick at the mushy pears, watery berries, and pulpy persimmons.

  Once they were safely inside, the dead man softly descended his back staircase, taking a glance into the empty back yard, then stepping outside. He walked to the stove and contemplated it. The ceremony should be enough to satisfy the Americans and the detectives who had come around asking for him. The stupid Americans wouldn’t even know him, without his moustache and his uniform. He lit a cigarette as the coffin collapsed into embers and stared at the flames.

  “General Ishii?” came a voice, in English, from behind.

  The dead man froze. He slowly turned.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  Four men were there, three of them were Americans in uniforms. The biggest one stepped forward. He was bulky and bearded, with the bloat of the drinker around his jowls. He smiled, and his face stretched taut with natural health. He bowed.

  “General, sir, we have been looking for you for quite some months. My name is Norbert Fell, and I come on behalf of the U.S. government. We’ve come to speak to you.”

  A small Japanese man at the American’s shoulder translated, rapid-fire. Ishii nodded.

  “Speak about what?” he asked in Japanese.

  “We want to talk about the war,” the American said in English, which was translated, too.

  Ishii smiled broadly, pulling his kimono strap tighter, sucking on the cigarette with a grimace.

  “The war is over, friend,” he said. “Not sure if you heard.”

  Fell laughed.

  “And you’re not dead—but apparently your friends and family did not hear the news,” Fell said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the house. In the window Ishii could see the mourners, some of whom stared out the window at the giant American talking to the dead master of the house.

  “Good point,” Ishii said. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed it at the American. “I stayed in the shadows until now, for the safety of my family. But now I’ve been seen. Now you know the truth of my survival.”

  Fell nodded, switching his briefcase from his left hand to his right.

  “General, sir, there is much to discuss. Much business to attend to,” he said. “If your funeral is still going on, is there someplace we can go to discuss further?”

  Ishii dropped the cigarette end and ground it out with a slippered foot, shaking his head. These Americans would not go away easily. And there was nowhere to run.

  “I suppose I must play host, now,” he said, looking at the people milling through his house. “Perhaps you can return here next Tuesday?”

  “We must insist we meet again in Tokyo,” Fell said, holding out his hands like he was offering him a large gift in his arms. “We prefer to speak with people at the Occupation headquarters. It takes us too long to get to Chiba, with all the military traffic on the roads. Please do us the honor of coming to us.”

  Ishii nodded, then turned back toward the blaze, where the embers of the coffin and the effigy inside were burning out. As he and the American watched, the wax and paper figure inside the pieces melted away to nothing. Ishii laughed at the absurdity and waste of it. Fell laughed, too—an empty laugh that was part predatory.

  “Life begins anew, you know,” said Ishii.

  “I suppose it does, General Ishii,” Fell said. “I suppose it does.”

  A FISHING EXPEDITION

  U.S.A., 2087

  I planned for a quiet Saturday, I really did. I would sleep late, eat a big breakfast, and go fishing with my best friend. But I woke early, to the sounds of retching. Mary was huddled over the toilet, one hand holding her braids back, the other gripping the bowl’s rim. Something about her recent struggles with the pregnancy made my gut recoil. She would be shouldering the burden of motherhood, and there was nothing I could do to help her. I could only crouch and stroke her hair.

  “Of course I’m alright. Only morning…sickness,” she barked, shoulders heaving. “No worse than the vaccines the Corps administered before Iran. Go make coffee or something, just don’t let me smell it.”

  I went downstairs, pressed a button on the wall, and exactly one liter of steaming coffee flowed into the dispenser. I listened to the echoes of my wife puking as I stared out the open window. The pretty birdsong of the summer morning was in a strange rhythm with the sound of sickness above. Retch and tweet; gurgle and chirp. Overhead the shower gushed on. My Atman rang with a videocall. I answered it. A weathered, bearded face with tattoos around the neck and a ballcap covering the burgeoning baldness appeared on the screen. It was Lorenzo Lanza, my best friend since kindergarten.

  “My man,” I said.

  “Hey bro,” Lanza answered. He scratched at the thick beard along his jaw. “You ready?”

  I shrugged.

  “You might have to give me another hour. Mary’s sick.”

  Lanza guffawed.

  “Marines don’t get sick. Especially Sgt. Mary Smith Barnes,” he said. “So do what you got to do. But be outside with your pole in five minutes.”

  I knocked and shouted into the bathroom door. Over the roar of the shower Mary hollered she was fine, and that I should get out of the house for a while. I didn’t argue. I grabbed the old rod my father had given me that last Christmas when I was a teenager who still had parents, a happy memory stained by everything to come right afterward. I angled the pole out the door as the big red pick-up truck pulled into the driveway. I waved and walked up to the cab, slid my gear in the bed and climbed in.

  My buddy Lorenzo Lanza sat hunched over the wheel. Six-foot-three, two-hundred-fifty pounds, all muscle. Tattoos swirled on every limb, tribal barbed wire and vine that I knew linked up to a concealed Marine Corps seal inked over his breastbone. The tattoos were so black they stood out on his brown skin. When I closed the door behind me, we punched each other. My arm went completely numb. My friend was unfazed, as usual.

  “I’ve been looking forward to getting out on the river for weeks, my man,” Lanza said.

  “A cop and a doctor—we’re the two busiest people on Earth,” I said. “It’s amazing we ever get out to the spot.”

  “It’s been crazy since I made detective,” my friend said ruefully, nodding, turning down the street and to the west. “One year, and three spree shooters. It’s like it never stops. But at least they had the common courtesy to kill themselves so we could wrap up the investigations quickly.”

  Moments of silence. Lanza cleared his throat.

  “So, Mary was sick?” he said. “She’s better now?”

  I looked over at him pointedly.

  “She’s great. It’s just morning sickness. She’s going to be a mom.”

  Lanza whooped. The car nearly swerved off the road as he smacked my arm.

  “Holy shit, man! That’s terrific!” he said. “So who’s the lucky father?”

  “Whoever he is, I hope he pays for college,” I said, deadpan.

  Lanza laughed and slapped me on the back, a little too hard. It stung, and I marveled once again at his strength.

  “Damn, Joe! It’s about time—what’s it been, seven years of you guys
trying?”

  “Seven years, three months and one week,” I said. “But who’s counting?”

  “That’s great, man,” Lanza said. “Having the first kid is perfect. The beginning of everything—so many moments that you wish you could just stop time and live in them forever. You know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “You will. Trust me—I’ve been through it three times,” my friend said. “Of course, then they grow up to be little brats who run off with their mother to the West Coast during the divorce, and you end up so broke you can’t afford the whiskey to get you to sleep. But maybe that’s just me.”

  I patted his shoulder gently. Lanza took a deep breath, shook his head, wiped at his eyes.

  “But for those first few years, it’s magical. It actually changes your brain. They’ve done studies and stuff. You’re a doctor, you should know this.”

  “I can hardly wait for changes to my brain,” I said, scratching my head.

  We merged onto the ultrahighway, heading west. A holographic condom ad—shaped as a big erect penis—hovered faintly over a strip mall in the bright morning air. Lanza flipped on the satellite radio and found an old favorite song of ours from high school. We sang together. It was something we always did, even though we sounded terrible. Lanza did the silly falsetto parts, I the baritone. Our highway exit came up quick, and Lanza made a sharp turn off the highway. We drove around a rickety fence, rusted and swaying in the breeze, a sign warning trespassers to keep off the last remaining public lands in the Garden State. We passed the still-smoldering acres of trees from the massive forest fire from what Lanza said the cops were calling the Cruzen Fireball. We crossed into the ashen landscape at the heart of the state forest. Utter devastation was all around, ashes and piles of dead things. We turned onto smaller and smaller roads, rutted with the late summer monsoons, driving parallel to the Messowecan River, the blackened tree-husks blurring by and the waterway winding slow beyond. Lanza flicked one cigarette out, lit another. The truck veered onto a washboarded dirt path, winding north and chasing the river farther and further into the skeletal woods. We stopped at a turnoff near a thicket in the bend in the river. The willow tree drooped along the banks, a long survivor of the blaze. It was the spot, our spot. Lanza turned the engine off, then inhaled deeply.