Authors: Daryl Gregory

Afterparty (40 page)

“But here’s the crazy thing. Four other women I’d never met burst in and saved me. I didn’t get a scratch. Afterward, they gave me a slip of paper. You know what it said?”

He smiled.

“Half of EMDC is on Numinous,” I said. “The male units, the female unit I was in—paper is flowing through there every day. Some of the guards are converts. They think it’s their duty to spread the word. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your chemjets was running in a back room.”

“It’s been known to happen,” Gil said.

“The first time I ever saw one of them was in a church in Toronto. I thought, Edo built this. I thought only a rich man could afford to make it.”

“Churches raise money,” Gil said. “That’s what they do. Even peasants can build a cathedral.”

“But you’re losing control,” I said. “Numinous may have started in the prisons with you, but it’s out there on its own now. It’s a party drug. Frat boys are getting religion.”

“We never wanted
control
,” Gil said.

“What
do
you want?”

He smiled deprecatingly. “For people to know me,” he said. “That’s why I sent the printer and pictures to Edo, so that he would see what I was doing, and share. I wanted him to know me. And you as well, Lyda.”

“I know you,” I said. “You’re not a god; you’re a symptom. Now that people can get the drug outside of your church, it’ll lose its mystique. Once people understand how NME affects the brain—”

“It won’t make any difference,” Gil said. “The more people hear of it, the more people will try it—and then they’ll never go back.”

“Unless they overdose or die,” I said. “Numinous can’t escape the physics of tolerance. People will stop being able to feel God’s love as intensely as before, and they’ll have to ramp up the dosage. It’s already happening.”

“Then we’ll print more,” Gil said.

“Jesus, Gil, you want more overdoses? Freaks like us? And what about the people who can’t get the drug after they’ve used it? Emergency rooms are already filling with Francines, looking for a shortcut to the afterlife.”

“Francines?”

“A girl. She was the first person I met from your church. She killed herself after she went into withdrawal.”

“Was she so happy before she came to the church?”

I didn’t want to answer that.

“People
need
the divine in their lives,” Gil said. “Science is a pale, unconvincing story compared to faith. You offer nothing—a mind that dies with the body. Numinous offers a living god. A god of love.”

“You’re an obese IT geek who overdosed on an experiment.”

He laughed hard. “Formerly obese,” he said after he’d recovered. “But yes, that’s true.” He wiped away a tear of laughter. “Nobody jokes with me anymore. Too awestruck.”

“I knew you when,” I said. “If you’re God, we’re all screwed.”

Gil caught his breath. “Don’t be afraid of what’s coming,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right. Think of those prisoners who saved you. Think of the old Gil, the old Edo and Lyda—even Rovil. Even if it’s just a drug, and I am lying to you now about being a deity—aren’t we better people than we were before?”

THE PARABLE OF

the Faithful Atheist

There was a scientist who did not believe in gods or fairies or supernatural creatures of any sort. But she had once known an angel, and had talked to her every day. Mostly they argued, often about whether or not the angel existed. The scientist finally won the argument by trapping the angel inside a prescription bottle.

One day, two years after the angel had been captured, the scientist grew curious and decided to look inside the bottle. She opened the lid and peeked inside. She saw nothing but pills. Then she tossed out the pills. But still the angel was nowhere to be found.

This confused the scientist, and also saddened her.

Sometime later, in the middle of winter, she went walking in the woods, and came upon a man sitting on a rock. The snow was piled all around him, and he looked like he’d been there for some time. He was a white man with ruddy skin and a great halo of gray hair.

The scientist stopped, and was very afraid. She had seen this man twice before, once in a city in the north, and once in another city hundreds of miles away to the southeast, and now here, in the northern woods. He did not look like the kind of man who could afford airplane tickets. He was dressed in many layers of clothing. The outmost coat was crusted with snow and dirt. Below were jackets, fleeces, sweaters, dress shirts, and T-shirts, each layer older than the one above it, like geological strata. At the man’s feet, resting against the base of the rock he sat upon, was a bulging black garbage bag that the scientist assumed contained all the man’s worldly possessions.

The scientist overcame her fear and marched up to the man. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she said.

The man said nothing. He sat on the rock, looking down at his black bag.

“You think this is funny?” the scientist said. “This magical hobo shit? My god, why didn’t you make yourself black, too? I mean, Jesus, what’s the point?”

The man became very still. His skin grew pale as porcelain. Hairline fractures appeared, and then began to split wide. Light burned through the seams, and the scientist fell back, holding up a hand against the light. With a sound like a crack of thunder, the man’s outer shell shattered and fell away, clothing and skin and hair crackling like glass, until the angel was revealed.

“Behold,” Dr. Gloria said. For that was the angel’s name.

“You are such a fucking drama queen,” the scientist said.

“I told you I would be with you always,” Dr. Gloria said. She stepped down from the rock and flexed her wings. In her hand was a notepad bursting with hundreds of pages.

“That trick at Edo’s,” the scientist said. “That thing with the sword? I know why you did it.”

“What trick?” the angel said innocently. She blew some snow from the top page on the pad.

“What do you have there?” the scientist asked.

“Oh,” the angel said. “I’ve been working on a book of parables.”

—G.I.E.D.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge that I am a lucky man.

For example, I have in my corner the agent Martha Millard, whose enthusiasm for this book when it was nothing but a synopsis got me fired up to write it.

I am extremely fortunate to have David Hartwell as my editor. He was an early supporter of my short stories, and then insisted that I send him the early chapters of this book. Somehow he saw some potential for a novel despite their disheveled state. He introduced me to the fine people at Tor, including Alex Cameron and Marco Palmieri, who helped put this book together.

The right books fell into my hands when I needed them. I’m indebted to the work of the neuroscientists Antonio Damasio, V. S. Ramachandran, and Oliver Sacks, as well as to that of the philosophers and scientists Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Wegner.

This book wouldn’t have been completed without three retreats that came along at the best possible time, in the company of the right people, in three inspiring locations. The book was begun on a beach on the Atlantic, with C. C. Finlay and the Blue Heaven crew. The final sprint on the first draft took place in a cabin in the Poconos, alongside Matt Sturges and Dave Justus. The second draft was completed within spitting distance of the Pacific, at Patrick Swenson’s fabulous Rainforest Writers Retreat.

But I am especially lucky to have such great friends and family who read this book in draft form and offered advice. My thanks to these readers, in geographical order from east to west: Kathy Bieschke, who lives right here in our home; Gary Delafield, Elizabeth Delafield, and Mary “Gold Star” McClanahan in State College, Pennsylvania; Kevin McCullough Wabaunsee of Chicago, who shared his experiences working in a neuroscience lab, including the secrets of rat sacrifice; Kurt Dinan in Hamilton, Ohio; Dave Justus and Matt Sturges in Austin; and Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead in Seattle. Adam Rakunas, in far-off Santa Monica, not only read the book, he allowed me to rustle the miniature bison from his story “Oh Give Me a Home” and shrink them to apartment-sized critters.

In a surprise twist, the best copy editor on the planet, Deanna Hoak, moved to my little town so we could go over the manuscript in person.

Finally, Kathy, Ian, and Emma put up with me when I was distracted and missed me when I was gone.

See? Damn lucky.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

AFTERPARTY

Cover art by Getty Images

Cover design by Base Art Co.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

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®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Gregory, Daryl.

Afterparty / Daryl Gregory.