I grew angry with him. “They’re not yours to keep,” I said. “They were going to saw off my hands and feet, and I would like a chance to retort.”
“Well, aren’t you the brave one, now that we’ve come to your rescue?”
“I am through being acted upon, Reverend. I don’t trust you any more than I trust them. What are you
really
going to do to them? What if they don’t buy in? What if they don’t want to be collectivists?”
“That’s never been a problem,” he said. “Do you believe me when I tell you that we deploy methods that will not harm you but that you would never want any part of? Ever?”
“Yes. I absolutely believe that.”
“Then I’m going to give you two gifts today. The first is your life back. The second is a chance to reevaluate your life on your own, without our assistance. This is an unusual gift. We aren’t usually able to extend this sort of arrangement. Particularly for the likes of you. Because, while the trolls, and the gangs, and the organ thieves are all bad,
you
are worse than all of them. Because you have the government on your side. Because you have the public convinced that what you do is somehow acceptable, even noble.”
“And you beg to differ.”
“I do. I strongly beg to differ.” He drew closer. “I want you to stop killing people. Do you understand?
Stop
.”
“I don’t have many choices open to me outside of this job.”
“Bullshit. Any man who says he has no choice in life is just too lazy to make his own way. How much time do you waste at night justifying who you are to yourself? You don’t have to kill people, and you know it. What did you do before you killed people?”
“I was a lawyer.”
“What kind of lawyer?”
“A divorce lawyer.”
He laughed. “Well, Jesus, don’t go back into that either. If you need work, we can always provide it for you.”
“Thank you for the offer,” I said. “But I’d rather not.”
“I don’t care what you’d rather do. I’ll say it again: Stop killing people.”
“I want the Greenies back in our custody.”
“Are you thick in the head? You’re lucky I didn’t drag you out the door with them. Stop killing people. Do you understand? Otherwise we will see you again. And you’ll find yourself spending the next decade reading history books in a single room buried twenty stories under my parking space.” They began walking out. “Tell your friend. And enjoy the gift.”
DATE MODIFIED:
6/21/2059, 11:58 P.M.
“They can’t do anything to us”
My boss is a unique individual in the sense that he is so terrifically full of shit. Everything that comes out of Matt’s mouth is a gross exaggeration or an outright lie. Yet that’s an innate part of his charm. I never really believe anything Matt says, yet I often choose to believe it anyway. He’s just so damn enthusiastic about being full of shit. I’d rather buy into what he’s saying than accept the harsh reality of it all. You have to experience it firsthand to believe it. How many liars out there are so good at lying that they don’t even have to be convincing? It’s a maddening characteristic—one that was on full display when I called him after leaving the glampire house.
“Collectivists? Oh, come on,” he said. “You’re gonna let those hippies scare the bejesus out of you?”
“You weren’t there, Matt. You didn’t have the guy get right in your face and tell you bad things would happen if we kept doing this.”
“They can’t do anything to us. We’re subcontracted by the government. You’re practically a cop. If they assault you, boom! Jail. If they kidnap you, boom! Death penalty. These guys aren’t even worth a drop of sweat on your forehead. They literally can’t hurt you. It’s against their stupid religion.”
“Hurting people is against
every
religion, but people do it anyway. Those edicts are written to be disregarded, Matt. They don’t even have to hurt me. They can lock my holy vessel away in a cell for years on end. Besides, they saved our lives. Where the hell were you? How could you just send us into that ambush without any support? Without having done any of your goddamn homework?”
“I’m genuinely sorry about that, John. I am. Look, you want to take a vacation? You can take a long one if you want. No restrictions.”
“I freelance, you jackass. If I don’t work, you don’t pay me.”
“That’s true. I’ll tell you what. Take the week. Sit it out. I’ll pay you the same as if you were working. You rest, let the shock wear off, and then come see me. Or don’t, if that isn’t what you want to do. Take the week off. Take my boat, if you want. You want to use the boat for a week? You could rent it.”
“I don’t want the fucking boat. I want assurances.”
The bouncy goofiness left his expression. “You have my assurances,” he said. “Call me a blowhard all you like, but I’m telling you that you are supported by government-backed security measures that would shock you if you knew their depth. Even as a freelancer, your license makes you a very important and productive worker for the U.S. government. And what if I were to tell you that there is a very strong likelihood that your responsibilities will expand in the coming years, if not much sooner?”
“What do you mean?”
Ernie clarified. “He means hard end specialization.”
“I thought you weren’t into that sort of thing, Matt.”
“I wasn’t, until I saw the incentive program. Besides, I kinda lied to you during your job interview about being averse to the idea. Just a light finessing of the truth.”
“I’m stunned that you would be less than forthcoming.”
“I had to be nicey-nice with you, otherwise you would have walked away from the job and some chucklehead would have taken it instead. Bruce and I always pictured you as growing into the job.”
“I hate you.”
“Trust me. You won’t hate me when I finally get you a license to blow away every dipshit Greenie that dares cross your path. You’ve got a lot of demons to exorcise there, kiddo. We’ll help you out with that. For now, just take the week.”
He signed off. I turned to Ernie, who was slumped in the passenger seat. “Are you gonna keep doing this?” I asked him.
“Well, here’s the deal,” he said. “Matt’s insane. You and I both know that. But he’s loyal. And hell, it doesn’t matter if I keep doing this or not. Every door I open these days might have someone waiting to kill me behind it. That’s the way it goes, brother. This is what I do now. Once life takes you in one direction, that’s it. You’re pretty much locked in. My father was a cabinetmaker. A craftsman. He taught me that the job didn’t matter so long as you took pride and care in it. So that’s what I do. And if it turns out that the job entails blowing away a bunch of trolls and insurgents, then all the better. We all need shit to do.” He took a swig of water. “Yeah, I’ll keep doing it. But I want that paid week off too. In fact, I want two. I’m the joker that got stabbed, you puss.”
DATE MODIFIED:
6/22/2059, 3:06 A.M.
“Let it overwhelm me”
I spent the majority of today doing very little, saving my energy for the eventual call to David to explain how his people both saved and threatened me in the course of a single evening. I felt I owed David a measure of gratitude. I was also angry at him, and felt guilty for being angry at him, given that I had abandoned him. The dynamics of all this confuse me at times. I finally called just before dinner. He picked up and knew it was me from the ID: “I figured you were resting,” he said. “I didn’t want to call.”
“They threatened me, David.”
“They would never hurt you.”
“No, they made it quite clear that they have means other than physical pain.”
“Those are idle threats. Nothing more. Reverend Swanson knows precisely how well connected your industry is.”
“Why am I being threatened at all?”
“Did you really think being an end specialist would come without scrutiny, John? I was concerned. And I don’t mean that in the sense of proselytizing. I know the church isn’t for you right now, and that’s fine. But I worry about you on a human level. I worry for your safety. I worry for your peace of mind.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m fine. It’s my job to fret over you.”
“Not to be mean, but I think we both know that’s not a job you’re particularly well suited for.”
I let out a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. I more than earned it.”
“What was the last job you did? Before this attack? What was it like? Give me a window. Give me an understanding of all this.”
“You mind if I make a drink before I tell you?”
“By all means.”
I poured bourbon over ice until the glass tumbler leaked over like a pot of rice left to boil too vigorously. I took a swig and began telling him the story. I told him about a very rich man living in Herndon. His wife had just passed away, and he wanted to pass his money on to his daughter without gift taxes. He grew up in Massachusetts and he wanted to die there. So he paid for Ernie and me to go with him in a private jet that somehow had government clearance to fly. He took us to his giant compound on the shore, and he cooked this enormous feast for lunch and had all his friends and family over. There were lobsters and steamers dunked in butter and beer can chicken. Bottles of good wine all over the place. Everyone drank and talked and looked so content. Just this air of absolute comfort, like the world couldn’t touch them. The guests cleared out by three, and that’s when he asked Ernie and me to do the job.
He had us drive him to a nearby beach on Cape Cod Bay, in a pickup truck that was all sandy and rusty in the back. The tide had gone out by then, and the entire bay had emptied. You could walk from one side to the other and not get your ankles wet. We walked with him into the basin, and I could see the surface of the earth, drained. I could see the little ridges in the sand, like the surface of a crater on some distant, old planet—a crater that was once a great sea, now dead forever. I could see the little hermit crabs popping up in the tiny streams, skittering down that liquid highway because it was the only road they had left to travel.
It was clear he’d had this plan in mind for years and years. It was meticulously organized. In the flatbed of his pickup were a couple of cinder blocks with manacles attached. He told us we were to fasten the blocks to him, and he would wait for the water to come in. When the water rushes back into the bay and fills in the giant pool at dusk, he explained, you can see the sunlight bounce off the surface and watch as the dead sand gives way to an ocean of gold. Gentle, lapping ripples beckoning you on and on, until you are fully consumed. I’m going to sit here, he told us, and I’m going to wait as the water crawls farther and farther up my body, past my knees, my waist, my torso. I’m going to let it overwhelm me, until there’s nothing left. I’m going to float there as it overtakes me, then I’m going to let go and let it sweep me away. The end of my wife. The end of my parents. Like the countless dead unburdened of a future far out of their control. Life is a monument, and mine is finished. I want to leave now before all I once thought indelible is sanded down to nothing. Before I can find nothing inside myself.
Ernie clasped the blocks to him, and we stood with him while the tide lapped in. You couldn’t see it rising with your eyes, but every time you turned around the water had gained another inch. The old man didn’t flinch. Not once. Ernie waded back to shore, but I stayed there. Swimming in my clothes. Watching him stare at his final sunset. I saw the water reach his chin, then his mouth, then bubbling up into his nostrils. He never thrashed or betrayed any unease. I watched the water go over his eyes, and they never bulged. He looked like he was at home in an easy chair.
I recounted all of this to my son with an air of envy. “There was something . . . romantic about it, David. Affirming. He had something within him that I didn’t, and I won’t leave here until I find it.”
“I know where that feeling can be found,” David said.
“I don’t share your opinion.”
“You will. I’m well on my way to finding the serenity your client discovered. I daresay I’m closer to it than you are. Care to wager on who gets there first?”
I didn’t. I knew a losing bet when I saw one.
DATE MODIFIED:
6/22/2059, 8:02 P.M.
“The cure for everything else”
This is transcribed from Micah Resnick’s Sky4 report about Steven Otto:
Resnick:
Steven Otto was just two years old when his father, Graham, and six of his father’s colleagues were murdered by a group of pro-death insurgents outside his temporary lab in Eugene, Oregon. Over four decades have passed since that night. Steven Otto has asked enough questions about what happened, and gotten enough answers, to be able to construct a full, violent, searing memory of it in his mind. He thinks about his father often, and he never discourages people from bringing up the subject. That openness will serve him well in the coming years, as Steven now stands on the cusp of a scientific breakthrough that may exceed even his father’s. It’s a robovaccine that goes by the code name Skeleton Key. And it’s a breakthrough that he says he was ready to throw into the garbage.
Otto:
If you’ll just join me in the lab . . .
Resnick (narrating):
Otto works here, in an anonymously funded private lab near Portland. To enter this lab, visitors must go through what is known as a “blow shower,” a fifty-second release of cold air designed to blast away any stray hair and skin cells. We also had to wear full hazmat suits and helmets to get inside this facility. No open seams are allowed. He led us to a series of glass vials that, to the naked eye, appeared to contain nothing but clear liquid.
Resnick:
So there are robots in here?
Otto:
Very small ones, yes.
Resnick:
And what can they do?
Otto:
We’re still ironing out the kinks. But ideally Skeleton Key will be able to identify enemy viruses, harmful bacteria, and malignant tissue inside the human body, then destroy them before they ever have a chance to metastasize and do lasting damage.
Resnick:
What are we talking about here? Are we talking about curing cancer?
Otto:
Preventing it permanently, yes.
Resnick:
Heart disease? Clogged arteries?
Otto:
Yes.
Resnick:
Flu?
Otto:
Yes.
Resnick:
Can it make you thinner?
Otto:
Actually, yes. It can. We program an ideal body mass based upon your genetic blueprint, and Skeleton Key will destroy any fat cells that cause you to exceed that target.
Resnick:
Like internal liposuction?
Otto (laughing):
See, this always happens. People skip right over the cancer part and go right to the “make me thin” part.
Resnick:
So your father invented the cure for aging, and now you’ve come along with the cure for everything else.
Otto:
Well, we have a ways to go yet. But that’s the goal: to create a very comprehensive vaccine that remains operational in the bloodstream for the duration of your lifespan, however long that may be. I’m encouraged with what we’ve been able to engineer thus far. I could easily see, within the next decade, perfecting Skeleton Key and making it available on a mass scale.
Resnick:
What made you want to pursue this?
Otto:
It’s all the dog’s fault. We had this dog, Buggle. And Buggle was known to many people for being the first dog to receive the vector. But he got sick nevertheless, and this was after we had owned him for, I dunno, thirty years or so? I didn’t want to see him go.
Resnick:
You loved him.
Otto:
Of course. He was our family dog. And he was my father’s dog. So to me Buggle was this remnant of Dad. Something real that I could touch and look in the eye. I didn’t want to lose that. I wasn’t ready to lose that. You hear all these stories now about people who give their pets the cure and the pets get sick and die, and then the owners end up calling an end specialist because they can’t handle their grief. And I understand that to a degree. Anyway, rather than cope with Buggle’s sickness like a healthy person, I decided to try to cure cancer instead. So much easier, am I right?
Resnick:
Were you also driven, in a way, to top your father’s discovery?
Otto:
No. That was never my intent. My father’s discovery, as far as I’m concerned, remains the greatest scientific discovery in the history of mankind.
Resnick:
A discovery that ended up costing him his life.
Otto:
Well, no. The discovery didn’t kill him.
People
killed my father. Let’s not confuse the two. People like Casey Jarrett decided to throw him in that van and burn him to death. The cure itself meant no harm.
Resnick:
But he himself was ambivalent about the cure and what would happen once it spread.
Otto:
Oh, no doubt about that. If there’s no cure, there are no farms in Russia or insurgency or Peter Pan cases or any of those horrible things.
Resnick:
In hindsight, do you understand the motives of the people that killed him?
Otto:
I understand their viewpoint but not their methodology. The tragedy of my father’s murder was that he and the people who killed him weren’t in disagreement. They shared the exact same fears. But instead of working with my father to see that the cure was used responsibly, they decided to kill him. And that will never make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to me now. It won’t make sense to me one hundred years from now, if I’m lucky enough to still be here.
Resnick:
Do you wish he had never discovered the cure?
Otto (pausing):
Sometimes. But wishing is a fool’s errand, isn’t it? There’s only one reality, and that’s the reality that I have to deal with. I think a lot of people mistakenly hoped the cure would end not only death but also the anguish of processing death, of processing finality. I think people thought they would be able to escape that, and the opposite has proven true. They have to spend much longer dealing with their grief.
Resnick:
Are you scared the discovery of Skeleton Key will also give people a false sense of security?
Otto:
Yes. And that’s why I very nearly threw away the initial prototype.
Resnick:
I bet you never thought you’d one day be on the verge of perfecting a cure for cancer, and then wonder if it was a
bad
thing.
Otto:
I know. It’s insane that we’ve gotten to this point. But it’s a legitimate thing to think about. Is it a good thing to eliminate an illness, or many illnesses, that are devastating on an individual scale but necessary in the grand scheme of nature? And, if we’re being honest, why am I trying to develop something that will help all these other people? We now live in a world where I think many people walk around asking themselves, do other people matter? Does the rest of the world mean anything to me, or is all that matters this very small world of friends and family and colleagues that I’ve constructed for myself? It’s easy to navigate that minefield of questions and come to the conclusion that this vaccine is a bad thing.
Resnick:
So why didn’t you destroy the vaccine?
Otto:
Because deep in my heart I know you can’t stop progress. Ever. There are plenty of private labs out there working on something similar. You think Michael Ornster doesn’t have forty people working on this over at Delvair?
Sooner or later this vaccine
will
be perfected, and it is going to be used, both for good and ill. You can’t stop people from doing what they want to do. That’s a realization I had a long time ago—one that came back to me when I was standing on a bridge, ready to throw the prototype down onto the rocks below. I remembered when I married my wife . . .
Resnick:
Your current wife.
Otto:
I’ve only had one. No cycle marriages for me. Anyway, I remember all the wedding planning we did, and we were scurrying around to bakeries and caterers and God knows where else. And my wife was having panic attacks on the day of the wedding. She’d say to me, “Steve! Do
not
let the guests switch the place cards!” And she’d order the ushers to make sure all the guests signed both the guestbook and some special photo that we had placed on a table in the foyer. Of course, the guests didn’t obey any of our little commands. They switched seats and never bothered to sign the picture, and not everyone danced on the dance floor. I think after about six glasses of champagne, my wife finally decided that there was no use in trying to stop it. That she may as well enjoy the day instead of trying to make sure everyone acted exactly as she wished. You can’t stop people from doing what they want to do. They’re always going to do it. Mankind has a path for itself, a trajectory, and you can never knock it off of that course. All I can do is usher in this vaccine in the most responsible manner I can. After that I have to have faith that people will be as well-intentioned as I am.
Resnick:
But hasn’t this century been proof positive that they aren’t?
Otto:
To a degree. But there is still some good out there, Micah. Not everyone took the cure and decided to become a crazed goon. A breakthrough like this will solve the organ theft problem, at the very least. Perhaps
this
is the key to turning everything around. That’s what I have to hope for. I have to.
Resnick:
Do you wish your father were still alive to see some of the breakthroughs you’ve made?
Otto (choking up):
I wish he were still alive. Period. That’s all.
Resnick (narrating):
Steven Otto believes Skeleton Key could be ready by 2070. But just today Nobel Prize–winning bioroboticist Lars Anderssen said Otto’s timetable is wishful thinking, and that a vaccine with Skeleton Key’s abilities may never be possible. Either way, Steven Otto will continue working on his vaccine, to improve upon the cure his father gave the world. For better and for worse. As for Buggle the dog, he died from stomach cancer in September 2042.