The Intruder (8 page)

"I'm so glad you could make it, Jeremy," she said, pumping his hand. "My name is Phyllis, and this is my class," she waved to the students, who meekly smiled. "Did you have any trouble finding the place? Well no, of course not, because you're here on time. That's great. You already know Dr.
Berry
, I think. Can I get you something to eat?"

Jeremy smiled at the torrent of babble and allowed Phyllis to lead him to the refreshment table. He picked some sort of fruit-filled cookie as Phyllis told him who made what, what Jeremy might like, and gee, isn't he old enough to make those decisions for himself.

Phyllis continued to pour out a stream of words as Jeremy smiled indulgently, and nodded and grunted when she seemed to need encouragement. Esther, back home, had a similar manner. She was pleasant enough, in small doses.

The flow of words was suddenly stanched as Phyllis ushered him into his seat and handed the class over to the students. Phyllis retired to the back and continued to unload her daily supply of words in whispers to Dr.
Berry
. Jeremy prepared for the worst, expecting to be asked embarrassing questions about mating rituals, or some other sociological nonsense, but there was none of that. The students wanted to know what school was like in the Community, and how the founders of the Community were able to resolve tensions between the secular and religious elements of their culture, and whether it had really worked. They wanted to know how criminals were handled, which made him a little nervous, and about taxation, and decisions on spending public money. Jeremy often turned the questions back on the students, asking them how the same issues were handled in Society. 

The 50-minute class was over too soon, and Jeremy wished they could continue, especially since that constituted the extent of his work-load for the day. The students promised they would have some tough follow-up questions next time.

"You did a great job, Jeremy," Dr.
Berry
said after she managed to pull herself away from Phyllis.

"Thanks. You know, I didn't expect to see you hear today." He tried not to sound suspicious.

"I'll let you in on a little secret. I organized this school program for newbies, and I like to come along from time to time to make sure it's working okay. It's not technically part of my practice, but it helps me a lot."

Jeremy nodded his head, looking down at the floor. After an awkward pause he said, "One thing that didn't come up in the discussion today was personal privacy. People in the Community can be fairly zealous about that."

"And you don't like being in diagnostic mode," she quickly interjected. "I understand. Let me make you two promises. First, I won't pry into what you're doing. I'm too busy for that kind of thing anyway. But I do need to maintain the connection so I can run some standard analyses on how your implant is functioning. It's just medical data. I don't know or care what it is you're doing with your implant."

"But you can see, if you want to," Jeremy clarified.

"I can, but I don't, and I won't. I have hundreds of patients, and I can't spend my time monitoring what all of them do."

"And the second promise?"

Dr.
Berry
smiled. "I'll turn you loose as soon as I can. I'm obligated by law to keep you under supervision for at least a week."

Jeremy sighed. "Okay. I'm not thrilled with the idea, but if that's the way it's gotta be ...."

Dr.
Berry
grimaced
and nodded. "I'm afraid so. If you want to get an implant as an adult, those are the rules."

Promises, promises.

Well, maybe that's the end of it. If I don't see those things again, it really doesn't matter if she can monitor me for the next week.

Curiosity would have to wait. The prospect of Dr.
Berry
suspecting that he had implant psychosis was worth putting it all behind him. Submitting himself to the care of a psychiatrist was about the scariest thing Jeremy could imagine, since they had the ability to take away his independence -- even independent thinking -- with their "therapy." 

*
             
*
             
*

Jeremy had the rest of the day free, and nothing much to do. He didn't know anyone to meet for lunch, or, for that matter, any idea where to go. And besides all that, his late breakfast made lunch seem unnecessary.

He absentmindedly checked the university site on his implant, just to look for inspiration, and noticed a reference to the
Washington
subway system. The visual effect as he moved from one hole site to another took some getting used to. The implant desktop remained motionless, floating a few feet in front of him, at head level, just to the left, but the graphic display of most sites had 3-D elements. If he watched the display too closely as he was linking to another site, it seemed as if he was moving through his implant desktop. Images flowed off the screen as if he was flying toward, and then past them.

Viewing the hole location for the subway was an experience somewhere between watching a model train and riding in one. When Jeremy queried the site on how to get from the university to the Armory and Alehouse, a video showed a map of the city, highlighting each location. It zoomed in on the stop closest to the university, showing what the street entrance looked like, how frequently the trains ran, with a host of related video clips, including a view of the tunnels as the train sped down the track. 

Hovercars accounted for most area traffic, but the subway still moved a substantial portion of the local population. The cars were clean, and the fare was less than half the going rate on a hovershuttle.

Since it was the middle of the day, traffic was light. Jeremy called up a few hole pictures of Metro operations during rush hour and was glad he had missed it. Things were never that crowded in the Community, except maybe at the Spring dance.

Jeremy descended the entrance tunnel and waited on the platform. A silver and black train arrived in a few minutes. As he got aboard and glanced around at the passengers, something caught his eye. A fiber of insulation from the overhead panel dangled down from the ceiling, a machine screw caught on its end. It was the first sign of disrepair Jeremy had seen in any public facility, and he knew that it wouldn't last long. A cleaning robot would eliminate the string and report the misplaced screw to maintenance.

He watched the screw as the subway car sped through the tunnels. It swayed to one side, then the other, as the car took a
wavy
path to the next stop.

At the next stop, Jeremy watched the passengers get on and off. The man in the flight jacket brushed past the woman in the blue coat, seemingly unconcerned that she had a conscience, and a soul, or that a bright word might make the difference between hope and despair. Few made eye contact, and no one spoke. But Jeremy saw the loneliness in the woman's eyes and thought he'd break taboo and speak to her. He rose from his seat and headed in her direction, and then noticed something funny a few meters ahead of him on the train. It made his heart stop.

It was the form of a man, floating horizontally in the air -- another of his ghosts. It lay just above and behind a woman who was seated, facing away from Jeremy. The ghost appeared to be studying something intensely, but Jeremy couldn't decide what it was. The woman was completely oblivious.

Jeremy closed his left eye and studied the empty space with his right. He could see no sign of the creature. He considered asking if anyone else on the train could see it, but he didn't want to look like a fool.

The thing was facing away from him, and Jeremy had a sudden urge to touch it. He got up and wandered toward it as casually as he could manage. He stood right next to it, and then he noticed something odd about its movement. The subway car took a sharp right turn and Jeremy almost lost his balance. He remembered the screw. But unlike Jeremy, or the dangling screw, this image wasn't affected by inertia. It remained completely still relative to the wall of the subway car, despite the irregularities of the ride.

The car stopped at his station and the doors opened. Jeremy reached out and put his hand through the image, then he turned and got off the train without looking back.

As he came out of the subway station near his hotel, he configured his favorite search engine to look up everything available on angels.

Chapter 5

When Jeremy walked into the restaurant at five after eight the next morning, he was thankful to see Hanna in her usual seat. He had ordered his breakfast through his implant and knew it would be waiting for him in the autodispenser, but he didn't know how to get it out. Of course he could download the instructions, but instructions were never any good because they were always written by people who understood the process too well. Instead of saying "open the big orange door," it would say "open the dispenser lid," and there would be five things that might qualify as a dispenser lid. 

"Hi," he said as he took a seat opposite Hanna at a small table.

"Good morning, Jeremy. No breakfast today?"

"No. I'll eat just as soon as you tell me how to get my food out of that contraption over there."

Hanna rolled her eyes, but explained anyway, very carefully. "You just open that big door, the orange one, put your right thumb on the big button-shaped thing that says 'identification plate,' and the inside door will open up. Your order will be inside."

"Sounds easy enough, but please don't watch me, okay? I'm tired of being a spectacle in this place." Hanna laughed and hid behind a book.

The dispenser worked just as Hanna described, and he was back in a minute, handing her a muffin and a bowl of fresh fruit from his tray. She gave him a grin and picked at the fruit.

"Thanks, Jeremy," she said.

As Jeremy opened his coffee and unwrapped his muffin she continued. "So, my friend MacKenzie told me about you. She's in that sociology class you've been visiting. She said you did a good job."

"MacKenzie" is a girl?

"I'm flattered that you asked about me," he said, looking squarely into her eyes, noticing how the blue gave way to bright green around the edges. Her eyes seemed to sparkle under the attention. "And I'm glad she gave a good report. I didn't expect to like the class, but I did."

Hanna's cheerful face took on a serious aspect. "Yeah, I suppose you would be a little nervous about it, huh? It must be weird to be in a totally different culture, and then to be placed under a microscope. But," she continued with a happier expression, "I think this is a great way for you to learn the ropes. You can ask them about Society stuff while they ask you about the Community."

"Yes. It was helpful," he said.

"Feel free to ask me anything you want to know. I won't bite."

"I wouldn't mind," he said, and then, seeing her confused expression, shook his head. "Never mind. But let me take you up on your offer. My first question is, why do you have a book? Are some titles not unavailable on the hole?"

"Just about everything is available, although some things are expensive, so if you can get your hands on a book you can save some money. But this one you can get for free," she said, patting the left hip pocket of her oversized vest. "I just like real books. They're easier on the eyes."

"So do I. Can I see it, if you don't mind?"

"Sure," she said. She reached into her pocket and handed Jeremy an exquisitely bound, leather volume. It was the perfect size for a coat pocket, felt substantial in the hand, had gilded pages, a satin marker and an embossed title. Jeremy thought it was a Bible, but it was titled "Call to the Unconverted," by Richard Baxter. He'd never heard of it, but the title scared him.
Is she some kind of religious nut?
he wondered.

"I'm taking a class in English Puritan theology and this is one of the books we're supposed to read," she said. "I saw the title in my pastor's library, so I thought I'd read the real thing, instead of burning my eyes out on my implant."

Jeremy smiled at her as he glanced at a few pages.

"I'd noticed that your eyes don't wander, like a lot of people's do."

Hanna
grimaced
. "It used to be a sign of poor discipline -- 'implant eye,' they called it, and you were considered somewhat of a slob if you couldn't control it -- but people seem to have given in. Not me."

Jeremy looked up and smiled again as he paged through the book. He was a very fast reader, but this book made for heavy work. Baxter's style seemed tedious, and the subject didn't interest him at all, but the book itself was a beautiful thing. The text was in a flowing script that forced the reader to take it slow. It might even have been hand-written.

He handed it back.

"I wouldn't have suspected that an anthropology student would have to take English Puritan Theology. It sounds more like something in a divinity program."

"You're right, it's not in my curriculum. It's actually a class offered at my church."

That brought to mind his late-night study from the day before. "Do you know anything about angels, Hanna?" he asked in a subdued voice, looking down into his food.