Cronix (14 page)

"Okay," the officer said, reading his own scrawl. "Uh, just one thing, sir, I'm not quite clear on. You turned off the headlights on your vehicle when you stepped out to buy a Coke?"

"Uh yeah. I guess I did."

"Mind if I ask why?"

A noise flickered across his memory. "The alarm was beeping,” he said. “I guess I just switched them off to stop the noise."

The cop sucked his lip, nodded. He folded his notebook, stuffed it in his inside jacket and slapped his knees.

"Okay sir, we'll type this up and get it back to you to sign. You'll need it for your legal proceedings."

"What legal proceedings?" Glenn said, suddenly alarmed.

The policeman eyed him like he was a simpleton.

"Mr Rose, there's a whole gang of lawyers out at reception just busting to talk to you." Registering Glenn's blank expression, he went on, "Well, you are gonna sue, aren't you? That machine damn near killed you. I think you could come out of this quite a wealthy man. Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say. You just got to endure the storm first." He smiled, tapped a finger to his temple in salute, and left.

Glenn stared down at his bandaged hands. He couldn't imagine being able to sign anything.

His room suddenly burst into activity. Three lawyers in winter overcoats took their turn representing themselves, trying to out-pitch each other. Mr Hamelitz promised him he was set to become a millionaire, Mr Morrow said he could file suit that very day at the county court and proffered lengthy documents for Glenn to sign: finally a Mr Baker offered his professional services, informing Glenn he had secured a six-figure sums for a client who had his right arm ripped off by combine harvester.

Glenn took their cards. The doctor said there were more lawyers outside, but Glenn pleaded tiredness. When they had gone, he lay in bed and allowed himself to conjure up images of fat compensation checks.

A hospital administrator informed him the press were asking for an interview. A city evening paper, a cable network and two radio stations wanted to talk to him about his miraculous escape from death. They had already tracked down the modest farmer who had saved him: now they wanted pictures of him standing at Glenn's bedside. Handshakes would clearly be out of the question. Photographers had already rushed out to the lone gas station on the plains to snap shots of the offending vending machine being carted away by the sheriff's office.

Glenn didn't want to talk to the press, much less have his photo taken. Who knew what London police officer might casually Google his name? The administrator nodded sincerely in acknowledgement of Glenn's all too recent trauma.

Still groggy, Glenn drifted off again.

When he awoke, the room was already half dark. He felt drugged and gummy from sedatives and sleep. He reached for the water bottle by the bed, fumbled the cap off with his teeth.

The phone rang behind him. He leaned over to answer it.

"Hello?" he said

"Lucky you." The woman's voice was tinny in the earpiece, an insect utterance from the past. Glenn dropped the receiver in shock.

"Glenn?” the woman said. “Are you there?"

He stared at the phone.

"Can you hear me? Are you alone?"

Glenn leaned down, scooped the receiver between bandaged hands and held it to his ear.

"What do you
want?
"

"You promised me. Remember that? I still need your help."

Glenn was already fumbling the phone back into its cradle when a begging note in the woman’s voice stopped him. “I still need your help. If you want to give it.” He glanced at the door to check it was shut, as though he were hiding a dirty secret.

"What? You’re a
fucking
headcase. You wanted to watch me die out there, and now that I survived, despite your best efforts, you think I'm going to just come out there and live with you for months? Lady, you’re so out of whack I can't even begin to describe ..."

The line rang dead, and he stared at the phone for a second. He eased himself out of bed and looked out the window. The lights of Holsten reached up into the night sky. Then the phone rang again.

Glenn stared at the phone.
Let it ring
. The sound was piercing, insistent.
Fuck you, bitch
. It stopped, as though he had willed it into silence.

He lay down, but got up again immediately.

"I didn't tell anyone, okay?" he told the plastic phone. It occurred to him she hadn't asked if he had. He tried to piece together the night before, but his mind balked. All he could see was headlights in the dark. He wanted something to do, somewhere to go. He thought about discharging himself. But it was late and cold, and he had nowhere to go.

He flicked on the television, flicked through the channels. The ring of the phone jerked him out of his trance.

One ring, two, three. He flicked the mute and answered: "Yes?"

A man's voice. "Mr Rose? Evening, this is Dave Morrow from Kayser and Strich. We spoke this afternoon."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. Hi, how's it going?" Glenn said. The phone call from his prairie tormentor had put all notions of lawsuit bounty out of his head. But Morrow had an apologetic tone, as though Glenn had already hired him and he was wasting his dollars.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you. I could call back later."

"No, that's okay. I just … thought you were someone else."

"Sure. Well, Mr Rose, I've been looking into your case and I'm afraid we've run into a not insignificant hitch. You see, the company in Pennsylvania that manufactured and serviced the machine that nearly took your fingers has been out of business since March this year. Filed chapter 11 on March 22, to be precise. Seems your accident wasn't the first time they'd had trouble with their machines. In June last year one of their units damn near took the fingers off a kid in New Mexico. Lucky for them the kid's family was dirt poor and settled for a paltry out-of-court settlement. But Chilcott's president, one Jay Tucker, instead of ordering a costly recall of all his vending machines, shifted all his assets to an offshore subsid and skipped the country. No one seems to know what happened to him after that, except that he shredded all company documents before leaving, including the customer list for the Auto-Chrome Seven, which was the beast that got a hold of you last night."

Glenn stared blankly at the TV. The phone made a brief beeping sound in his ear. "Which means?"

"Which means we won't be suing them. Now, the franchise holder on the Sunoco gas station subcontracted a Budfork supplier to restock the machine, but as neither was the owner of the vending unit, and neither was aware of the demise of the manufacturer and the swift departure of Mr Tucker, neither are strictly speaking liable for its operations. Now, what we can do is approach Sunoco out of court and try to come some arrangement which would avoid any embarrassment stemming from the fact that a motorist almost froze to death on one of their forecourts. But since the story is out already, it would appear that any PR damage is done, and any settlement might imply culpability in future cases."

Morrow paused to draw breath. Glenn inspected his bandaged hand. A tight knot of anger and disappointment formed behind his breastbone.

"So what does all that mean, Mr Morrow? That I'm screwed?" His new tic spasmed beneath his eyes, and he fumbled to control it with his swaddled fingers.

"Not exactly, Mr Rose. We could also go after the franchise holder, though if they don’t have specific insurance the chances of getting much out of them is slim. But my firm is willing to pursue the case if you'd like us to. On a pro-bono basis, so you don't stand to lose a thing."

"Right," said Glenn. The guy sounded a bit desperate. He found he was too tired to say much else.

"I could come around tomorrow, you sign the retainer form and we'll go ahead."

"Okay," said Glenn. On the screen of his television, a Buddhist monk sat on a rocky outcrop, dressed in robes the color of ancient wine and beating a drum. The picture briefly hooked his attention, in the abstract way television images have of intruding on the mundane present.

"Fine, then, I'll be round tomorrow at 9:30. Take it easy."

The line went dead. Glenn watched the Buddhist monk drumming silently. He put the phone back on its holder. There was a message on the digital display.
One missed call.

That beep on the line when he was talking to Morrow. Her? How had she placed the call, when the press and the other lawyers were being blocked by the hospital reception?

The doctor came in and told him he would be discharged in the morning. Did he have insurance? No? He raised his eyebrows, then shook his head slightly. Glenn felt a pang of worry: he'd have to pay cash. Christ, American hospitals cost a fortune though, didn't they?

The doctor said they'd change his dressing in the morning. Glenn barely noticed his words until the man had left: the cold world was loomed in again, pressing with its irritating demands and practicalities.

He realized he had forgotten even to ask what happened to his car.

***

Dr Porter, the unkempt head of research, was already in Poincaffrey's office when Oriente arrived for his morning coffee. The two men were deep in conversation.

“Sorry to interrupt you gentlemen,” Oriente said. The academics insisted his company was never an interruption, as Poincaffrey poured his guest a coffee. “Javan,” he said. “Ship docked in Greenwich two days ago. Which is good, because I heard shops were running low. Supply and demand is still not quite what it once was.”

Oriente sniffed the coffee’s aroma and reflected that there were distinct advantages to not living in the woods.

“I have to say, even in the Afterworlds you don’t get coffee quite like this,” grinned Porter, brushing cookie crumbs of this straggy beard and woolen jumper.

“Bob loves to exaggerate,” said Poincaffrey. “He’s a bit of a naturalist, loves being back here on Earth.”

“And you don’t professor?” Oriente raised an eyebrow.

“I have mixed feelings. To me, Earth is like a camping trip back in the old days. There’s a frisson of excitement, of course, but it’s all a little…a little shabby. You pack a few luxury items, but it’s still an often uncomfortable experience. One is not quite at home in the woods any more, eh? And yet as an evolutionary anthropologist, one can do a lot of practical field research down here.”

Porter was munching his way through the plate of chocolate cookies that Poincaffrey had put on his desk.

“But the trouble with inhabiting two worlds is that you’re never quite sure what’s happening in the other world when you’re gone,” he said.

“Which is what we were just discussing,” said Poincaffrey. “You were asking me at our last meeting, Mr Oriente, about any other strange phenomena the Afterworlds have produced. Well, there are so many, it's difficult to know where to begin. But there's one recent development that’s causing quite a stir.”

Porter looked like an ensthusiastic schoolboy showing off a bug in a jam jar. “You see, Mr Oriente,” he said, spitting crumbs, “there are myriad worlds within the Afterworlds. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, no one is quite sure, and new ones emerging every day. You can live on a reference world, where all the boring old laws of physics and gravity still apply. That could mean anything from living in twentieth century New York to hunting bison with the Lakota before the Europeans arrived in North America. Or you can opt for a world where you fly around in some shape-shifting fantasy and hunt monsters and build magic powers. It’s all a matter of choice. But there are still certain dimensions that are banned by law.”

Oriente was surprised to hear that: he had always assumed that if you were rich enough up there, pretty much anything would go.

“These are what are known as Underworlds,” said Porter

“Otherwise known as drug worlds,” added Poincaffrey.

“Precisely,” said Porter. “Of course, people simulated and improved on Earth’s drug experiences within months of the Exodus starting. Otherwise a lot of people would have been heading straight back here, I’m sure. So you can get stoned looking at an unimaginably beautiful sunset on a beautiful mountaintop up there, and the great thing is, if the drugs make you feel like you can fly, then you probably can. However, there are entire drug worlds that are illicitly built, folded into the interstices between established worlds, and very difficult to locate…”

“And what happens in these drug worlds?” Oriente was intrigued.

“Well, I have to say I’ve never been to one. But I’ve seen the reports. One of the users who I saw being interviewed said that while any 'normal' drugs experience involved taking a drug and experiencing the effects it has in transforming your consciousness, in the drug worlds, it’s like the drug has taken you, that you are part of the narcotic rather than the other way round.”

“I don’t understand…”

Poincaffrey stepped in, holding up a hand over his cup as though asking permission to speak. “I think it is rather in the nature of drugs experiences that they are difficult to explain in words. I suppose one has to have done it to even have an inkling of what it’s like. Imagine one of the mortals here trying to grasp life in the Orbiters. But the difference with the drug worlds -- and the reason they were banned -- is that they can actually dissolve a person’s personality. The mind sometimes doesn’t quite cohere again as a recognizable identity after the experience, especially if it is prolonged. People can emerge as, well, something other than human. That’s when the DPP gets involved. You can’t mess with a personality’s baseline and get away with it for long.”