The Eidolon (17 page)

I meet myself at last.

I
HAD A
dream about death. It wasn’t a bad dream, and, like all dreams, it made sense at the time.

There is no judgement. There is no fear, or suspicion, or criticism, because how can you feel these things towards something else when you and the other are the same thing? When you are the same thing you’re part of a greater whole and you see that the ‘I’ that you knew before was only an illusion, a vehicle of life and consciousness. All the things that once concerned the ‘I’ no longer matter, because they’re all just experiences. It’s something beyond pain and suffering, and hardship and cruelty, it’s beyond happiness and excitement and pleasure. There are no words to describe it, because it simply is all that is. But it’s a wonderful thing to know you are a part of it, this ultimate communion.

We share that moment of understanding, like old friends who have long since said all that needs to be said and are comfortable with the silence between them.

S
OMETHING GRASPS MY
shoulder, powerful, insistent.

Leave me. Let me stay
.

But it won’t let go, it’s wresting with me, dragging me up from the depths of my peace. I feel the stillness, that perfect emptiness, flooding from me, and the snowstorm of light goes out.

I am standing on a pebbled shore. Don’t ask me how I got here, or where it is. In the distance the searchlights from the rescue boats scour the unsettled, murky waters. Heavy clouds unravel from the west and the low sun illuminates their underbellies with an eerie, orange glow. The restless gulls call and swoop in the last of the light. I turn to see a small crowd nearby, people I don’t know. Standing in their waterproof jackets, hoods up, huddled around something on the shore, watching in silence. I move in to look. A man with a bushy beard and red cheeks is kneeling over a body, pumping the chest with a firm, steady rhythm. He looks up and says, “How long?”

“They say less than ten minutes,” says a middle-aged woman at the edge of the crowd.

I inch closer, peering at the body.

My muscles seize as the world rushes at me in that single, nauseating vision. I stumble backwards, my legs losing their footing on the pebbles, and I hear my own voice whispering, “No, no, no...” I shake my head. My breaths come in spasms, but make no mark on the cold, coastal air.

“Robert,” says a voice from behind, “it is you, lad.”

I spin round. “Casimir? What the fuck!” I back away from the old man. He’s standing in front of me, looking at me. He’s
looking
at me. “What is this?”

Casimir watches me with a level gaze, but says nothing. I squeeze my eyes shut and when I look up again the ridiculous vision is still there. Casimir, the man I lowered into the ground only a few days ago, standing calmly before me, and the crowd huddled around the cold, pale body. I hold onto my stomach, certain that I’m going to be sick. My breaths come in slow, deep waves from the pit of my gut.

The man who’s pummelling the body’s chest spits through gritted teeth, “Come on!” The crowd stares on, whispering amongst themselves. I edge closer, I have to be certain.

My own face, cold and sunken and the colour of death. The lips light blue, the eyes half open and glazed with a light mist.

I collapse to my hands and knees, and retch.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Robert,” says Casimir. “It’s up to you. You can hold on, or you can let go. It’s up to you.”

I look up at him. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?” I stagger to my feet, the world swaying beneath me.

“Your lifeline.” He nods towards my right hand. “It’s your choice.”

I feel something on my palm and I stare as the thing takes form. A fine silvery cord, pulsing and fading, pulsing and fading. It feels like silk in my hand. My eyes follow it, to the corpse lying on the stones, to the middle of its chest. My fingers close round it.

“What happens if I let go?”

“You already know.”

It comes back to me. That feeling I had in the dream about death. Nothing comes close. I didn’t want to lose it; I resented that I did. But what if it isn’t like that? What if it’s not alright? What the hell do I know about this? I used to think I knew. I used to speak about it with conviction, like it wasn’t something to worry about. Maybe I even thought that it wouldn’t really happen, not to me. Now I know the truth: I don’t know anything.

My grip on the cord makes my nails dig into my palm.

“I can’t do it,” I whisper. My whole body’s trembling. “I can’t do it.”

Images flash in my mind: all those things I haven’t done, I haven’t even begun. Cora. The stone in my chest swells and shatters as my life with her slides out of reach. It’s so clear to me now, what matters most and what doesn’t. Why couldn’t I see it before? How many opportunities did I squander because I always thought there would be more time? But there’s no time. There’s no more time. Not a minute of it now.

My fist closes around the thread. I’m not giving up, I can’t give up... this is insane...

“And if I hold on?”

“Then you go back.”

I look down at the sweaty red-faced man whose locked fists continue to pump my chest.

The lifeline tugs at my hand, yearning to break free.

So this is it.

I’m standing at the edge of the Big Secret. We’ve seen what lies beyond the solar system, we’ve conquered illness, we’ve split the atom. But death? It’s a dark, uncharted land that lies foreboding in the distance, until the day it comes to you. All the certainty of a lifetime fades away when it comes to your door, because it is a visitor that will not leave.

The waves rush in and reach to take back the pebbles on the shore, as the amber dusk takes back the daylight. Everything ends. That’s just the way of things.

But I’m not ready.

Not yet.

I turn to Casimir. “I’ve more to do.”

He studies me for a moment, a smile settling on his lips. “If that’s what you choose.”

I
HAD A
dream about death.

It disentangles itself from my mind as I begin to stir, and I have that feeling that you get when you try to hold onto a dream, because something in it made sense, something you don’t want to lose. But already it’s fading. Bits of it come back, like the echo of a memory. Casimir was there. The rest, I think I’ve forgotten.

I knew someone who told me once that his best mate died of leukaemia. They were both into karate and used to spar in the dojo every Tuesday night. One night, this guy, Gerry, had a dream that they were sparring away and his best mate, the one with leukaemia, said to him in his dream, “Thanks for coming to see me when I was in hospital. It meant a lot to me.” And they carried on sparring. Then the phone rang and woke Gerry from his sleep. It was the call to say that his friend had just died. Nice story, I said to Gerry. You’ve gone soft in the head, I thought.

What else was in this dream of mine? Something about a silver thread, letting go. Something about unity, oneness.

Oneness? For Christ’s sake, Robert.

M
Y CHEST CAVES
in over and over, like I’m being punched repeatedly on the same fresh bruise. A fierce sense of suffocation grips me – I try to breathe but no air shifts into my lungs and the pain is so intense it feels like my chest is being ripped open from the inside. Death hovers nearby, holding its breath.

Fuck you, Death.

I gasp air into my lungs, like a first breath, and it makes me cough so violently that I spit out a plug of mucus and vomit, my head swimming in a sea of nausea, the world a blur.

But I’m breathing, I’m breathing.

I’m alive.

T
HERE’S AN IRRITATING
beep. There’s the stench of plastic and something on my face, digging into my right ear and the bridge of my nose. I can hear my own breathing, like I’m in a tunnel.

Did you hear me? Turn the beep off.

I open my eyes, but it’s all a blur. Two blurs, to be exact, one standing on either side of me, looking down.

“They dragged him out of the sea.” A woman’s voice. Young. “He had no output on scene. Some local gave him CPR and got him back. He was GCS 9 on arrival, temp thirty-two, saturations maintained at ninety-five on twenty-eight per cent oxygen. Pan CT was normal. He doesn’t seem to have any focal neurology, at the moment.”

Hey! Get off!
A finger in my eyes, forcing my eyelids open. The blur on the right leans closer and is obliterated by a white light that slices into my brain.
Turn that light out, you bastard!

“Any signs of aspiration?” A man’s voice, ignoring me completely.

Excuse me? Did you hear me?

“No, chest is clear. He must have had laryngospasm – he’s lucky...”

TURN THAT LIGHT OUT!

The light goes out.

“Any family?”

“Not with him.”

The thing on my face pushes closer, digging into my cheeks, pinning me down. An alien thing attached to me... stopping me breathing... Oh, God, I’ll wake up and have one of them inside me, ready to burst out.
How can you just stand there and watch this?
I reach for the alien, pulling it from my face, but its tentacles grip my cheeks and it squeezes itself back on.

“Calm down, Robert, it’s alright.”

Calm down? It’s alright? What part of this is alright? There’s a plastic alien on my face! Whose side are you on?

I struggle against the fist gripping my arm.

“He’s already pulled one line out.”

“I’d keep him sedated for now.”

The blurs begin to fade and the will to fight washes away from me in a tide of indifference.

I
WAKE UP
to the scent of Dettol and alcohol wipes, the stench of artificial cleanliness. The room is white and yellow, optimistic. White walls, yellow curtains, looking onto hills and a lake. A white wooden bedside cabinet sits to my left with a tall bulbous blue glass on top, next to a blue ceramic jug. A phone and two remote controllers sit on the cabinet. There’s a single white orchid in a slim white pot on the window sill. I can’t tell if it’s real or fake. If it weren’t for the observation chart hanging by a hook beneath the windowsill, I wouldn’t have said this was a hospital.

“It’s good to see you awake, Mr Strong.” I turn towards the voice on my right.

Victor Amos is sitting there, immaculate in his dark woollen coat and purple silk scarf, his hands clasped on his lap. “I’m encouraged to hear from your consultant that you’re making a full recovery. How are you feeling?”

I sit up and the room spins. “I’m not sure, yet.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear of the accident.”

“The pilot?”

Amos shakes his head and averts his gaze. “I have launched a full enquiry into the incident. They’ve recovered the black box.”

“Maybe you should start with your staff. Abrams, your aircraft engineer.”

“I already have. He admits he may have failed to tighten the filler cap for the main rota gearbox.”

“Sounds like a fairly fundamental oversight.”

Amos nods. “Abrams was misguided. A frustrated engineer who felt he knew better. He found out about our intentions in CERN, and didn’t see eye to eye with our philosophy. It’s the reason we’re so strict about sharing information on a need-to know basis only. People make assumptions without being in possession of all the facts.”

I stare at him. “He did it deliberately?”

“Robert, you’re going to make a few enemies in this line of work. Very few people could ever understand the magnitude of what we’re facing and why we have to do this. It’s important that you realise that you’re acting in their best interest. But don’t expect them to thank you for it.”

“What if Abrams blows the whistle?”

“He won’t.”

I’m about to ask why, but decide against it. I don’t have the stomach for it.

He watches me for a moment. “You’re a very lucky man, Mr Strong. Someone must be looking out for you.”

The thought makes me uncomfortable, reminding me of the dream. Perhaps Amos senses it as he frowns a little. “Do you remember much about the accident?”

“Not really.”

“Probably for the best. It’s been quite an ordeal.” He scrutinizes me and seems to be considering what to say next. “I think you’ve been through enough, Robert. I’m sure your father would be willing to work with whoever we send; I suggest we find someone else to take your worm to CERN.” His choice of words makes me shiver.

I sit up and the room spins. “No. No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s only been twelve hours since the crash, Robert.” He gets to his feet. “I think you should concentrate on recovering. You’ve already made a vital contribution to the project and I will see to it that your payment is delivered in full, as a mark of my apology.” He turns and walks towards the door.

“Wait!” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and the room swims about me. “I want to do this – I’ll be fine, really.” I’ll be fine, will I? I’m dizzy just sitting up. They say that the mind is a powerful thing. This must be what they mean, because right now, there’s no possibility of someone else taking my place on this – it’s too important. Besides, it leaves me cold to think of someone else meeting with Elliot Strong and working with him. No matter how rough I feel.

Through a spinning blur, I see Amos glance back. “I admire your commitment to the task, Robert, but we don’t have much time.”

“I said I’m fine.” I slump back down onto the mattress and the room stops moving as Amos returns to the seat.

“I know your father would be very proud of you.”

He lifts a brown envelope from the floor beside him and lays it carefully on the bed. A replacement for the one Dana gave me. “Inside is the memory stick programmed with your worm.” There’s that word again.

“It’s Mr Y’s worm, really.”

“I think you should take the credit for the idea, Robert. Mr Y is a genius in his field, but this is your brainchild.”

I open the envelope and find a USB stick attached to a nylon cord, presumably so that I can wear it around my neck. “Our engineers will know when it’s released – they have made a little modification that keeps them informed of your progress.” I put the stick back and take out an electronic notebook.