A Paradigm of Earth (36 page)
He expects me to co-operate even with this,
she thought, wonderingly, furiously, and then she felt the cool air against her sweat-drenched body as Katy, Ace, and the two cops from outside pulled John away. She struggled to stand, feeling for the first time the shocking amount of pain in her hand.
she thought, wonderingly, furiously, and then she felt the cool air against her sweat-drenched body as Katy, Ace, and the two cops from outside pulled John away. She struggled to stand, feeling for the first time the shocking amount of pain in her hand.
Recalled to herself, but distantly, a tale told by an idiot, she looked down and was coolly annoyed at how wrong her hand looked, cut into two pieces like that, and bleeding hot dark red. With the other hand, she pulled it into its correct shape, held the burden of pain tight against her chest, and the blood stained her white silk shirt. Blue took her wrists and replaced her palliative hand with a hot blue grip. “Think!” Blue said urgently. “Think it shut. Hurry!”
Her blood was dribbling onto Blue’s saffron silk sari. Morgan tried to pull it away, but Blue held tighter, and Morgan saw there was blue blood there too, and that the two bloods intertwined.
“You’re hurt!”
“I can fix that. You have to help me fix you first, before your hand forgets being whole. Hurry!”
Together, they went into her hand and laced it together as it had been before, and Morgan understood the urgency when she felt herself adapting to the injury almost too quickly to reverse it. They did not fully finish before the forgetting happened, so there was still a shallow furrow, seeping blood, that took a series of butterfly closures and a bandage, put on by the police medic while across the room, other police fought to get John out of the doorway, his manic strength a reality (though the distant commentator within Morgan thought,
there seem to be a lot of clichés involved in madness)
, until they had to call the medic over to sedate him, which he did as they read John the new Rights Code Warning, Mr. Grey of all people shouting it above John’s wailing.
there seem to be a lot of clichés involved in madness)
, until they had to call the medic over to sedate him, which he did as they read John the new Rights Code Warning, Mr. Grey of all people shouting it above John’s wailing.
The medic turned to Blue and put another butterfly bandage-strip on the slice across Blue’s face, but Blue pulled it off angrily. “You’ll have a scar there if you’re not careful,” said the medic, seemingly indifferent to the magpie iridescence of the dark blue blood and the meaty lapis glister of cut blue flesh.
“I want a scar,” said Blue, still angry. “This world is
supposed
to leave marks on me. I want something to
show!”
and Blue lifted a hand still stringy with Morgan’s blood and rubbed the blood in the wound. Morgan thought of scarification rituals, and wished her own wound had been a little more Heidelberg, it was such an effective gesture. Blue caught the thought and laughed.
supposed
to leave marks on me. I want something to
show!”
and Blue lifted a hand still stringy with Morgan’s blood and rubbed the blood in the wound. Morgan thought of scarification rituals, and wished her own wound had been a little more Heidelberg, it was such an effective gesture. Blue caught the thought and laughed.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Blue said, as the medic, unimpressed, pushed Blue’s hands aside and placed another strip of adhesive. “I didn’t mean to become so primal when I became human!”
Morgan gave a soft snort, and, hearing John protesting in something more like his usual whine, walked out into the corridor. She stood against the wall by the stairway and watched the grey man deal with John’s petulant demand for a lawyer, a doctor, release … until Mr. Grey gestured impatiently for the officers to take him out.
When they reached Morgan, the police holding John by both arms, looking like something out of a television movie, and proud of it, all she could do was look at him. One of the officers was Ace, which Morgan realized for the first time was odd—hadn’t Ace been transferred back to the Atrium? John met her eyes for a second, then turned his gaze down. She got the feeling, a familiar one with John, that he was going to scuff the toe of his shoe like a naughty schoolchild caught out of bounds.
“Why on earth … ?” she said reflexively.
“I can see you don’t see it my way,” he said.
“John, you tried to kill me. Am I supposed to like it? No, I don’t see it your way.” She paused. “Come to think of it, I never have. But videotape is different from all this, John.”
He was silent.
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Why should it be? Everything can be made into a movie if you use your head.”
“Thinking life is a movie is a little different than playing director in other people’s lives.”
“You don’t understand. Why should you? You haven’t made anything.”
Morgan thought of the struggle to remake her soul. She thought of Blue. Then she laughed, freely and with a gust of pleasure.
“I have made the world, John. What else do I need?”
Her grey man put his hand on her shoulder.
“Let it go,” he said. “It won’t make sense to him.” With an impatient jerk of his hand, he ordered the officers to move John away.
Russ was standing in his doorway, sleepy and alarmed, dressed only in his sarong. The grey man looked at him irritably. “And you, you idiot. After what you did to the GovNet, I’ll have to take you too. It’s going to be a pain in the ass trying to defend yourself with your confession on tape, you fuckwit. Get your clothes on.”
Russ, surprisingly, grinned. “Hey, Mr. Grey, we have the best human rights lawyers in Canada on retainer. You’ll have a run for your money.”
“Not my problem,” said the grey man. “If I had my way, you’d get a medal. But I’m not the only one who listens to the recordings made here, popular mythology aside. Do you want to hit the cells in Asean drag? You’d be popular. Get your clothes on. Hurry. I’m in a real bad mood, here.”
John was still there, swaying now, the tranquilizer robbing him of volition. Ace was having a hard time fastening the stun collar around his neck. “Didn’t I tell you—!” began the grey man, but just then she finally snapped the buckle and they pulled John into motion.
“Goodbye,” said Morgan automatically, then shook her head disgustedly.
“Goodbye,” John said just as automatically, and his wide smile was automatic too.
Goodbye? She turned away into her room. There were splashes and spatters of blood—red, blue, and mixed in an odd rich plum color—on the hardwood, and the rug was wrinkled, but unbelievably there was no other trace of the conflict except on her shirt and Blue’s. The sun, however, had risen, and was sending a low ray through the stained-glass piece. Morgan walked over to the window and touched it. Her finger left a mark in the dust that had settled on its surface in the many months since she had first seen it there. While she was rubbing it against her sleeve to clean it, the leather cord holding it suspended broke.
Now she began to shake and to cry, holding the little circle clenched in her hands. The warm hands surrounded hers, took the amulet away. She rubbed the tears away and looked at Blue, who now walked to the desk, looked in a drawer, pulled out the scissors.
Lifted a long lock of that hip-length blue-black hair, Blue cut it close to the head. Plaited it somehow with fingers too fast to show a pattern. Threaded the strand through the hole in the little mosaic, tied it, put it back into Morgan’s hands.
“Here is your little world back,” said Blue. With a half-sob, Morgan took it, reached up, hung it on the little nail in the windowframe, and as she did so, she started to cry again, for the eternal breaking of her little worlds. Blue’s arms encircled her, she was held again to the warm shoulder while she tried to puzzle what was going on with Russ, failed, felt the pain in her hand, thought of John’s attack again, failed to find purpose.
What was he thinking?
She shook her head. In the confusion, she had caught only a few of his snarled words. She would have to ask to listen to the tapes, but even then, would it make sense? Meanwhile, she felt the strangeness, so similar to the sense of loss with Jakob, so like another friend lost. But—
not much of a friend,
the relentless voice of her intelligence interjected;
all you’ve lost is what you thought he was. Which is your problem, not his
. Morgan snorted.
Okay, so I’ve lost a homicidal maniac. Great. And it’s been his turn to do the dishes for three days. With Russ going too, now I suppose I’ll have to.
She shook her head. In the confusion, she had caught only a few of his snarled words. She would have to ask to listen to the tapes, but even then, would it make sense? Meanwhile, she felt the strangeness, so similar to the sense of loss with Jakob, so like another friend lost. But—
not much of a friend,
the relentless voice of her intelligence interjected;
all you’ve lost is what you thought he was. Which is your problem, not his
. Morgan snorted.
Okay, so I’ve lost a homicidal maniac. Great. And it’s been his turn to do the dishes for three days. With Russ going too, now I suppose I’ll have to.
I’ll do the dishes,
Blue told her, but she was too tired to do more than snort again. Blue drew her down to the bed, lay down with her, warm against her from knee to neck, holding her. She relaxed against the comfortable form, felt the blue hand come to stroke her cheek, slowly and calmingly, like petting Marbl. Far away she heard the door of the room open, then after a brief rumble of voices close again. As quickly as that, she slept.
Blue told her, but she was too tired to do more than snort again. Blue drew her down to the bed, lay down with her, warm against her from knee to neck, holding her. She relaxed against the comfortable form, felt the blue hand come to stroke her cheek, slowly and calmingly, like petting Marbl. Far away she heard the door of the room open, then after a brief rumble of voices close again. As quickly as that, she slept.
When she wakened, Blue was watching her, smiling.
“I was asleep!”
That’s dissociation for you.
That’s dissociation for you.
“Yes.”
But necessary, to rest.
But necessary, to rest.
“But no dreams.”
“There were some angry ones, but I took them away. I can give them back later. You were too tender right then.”
“Blue, tell me, something I never thought to ask until now. If you learned nothing on the ship, how did you learn to project and receive thoughts? To reach into us like that?”
“I don’t know. It started right at the beginning, but it was vague. When I saw you, it got sharper, so I knew I should try to get them to keep you. It became stronger and stronger after you taught me to dream, but it was kind of patchy, like storm clouds. Sometimes I just got thunder or lightning and no rain. I don’t know if it was an accident, something caused by … I don’t think I was supposed to have that effect.”
“No. I imagine not. You were supposed to record. None of the others have it—”
The blue face closer and closer, the mouth on hers for a moment. “I love you, Morgan. Strange, it is terrifying, isn’t it, this humanness? Much harder than people with knives, in one way. They are so simple. You just fight them. With this, you have to—surrender?”
She nodded and smiled. “Or, accept.” She touched the face, then got up slowly. Marbl was lying curled up on the corner of the bed. Morgan ran a hand down the smooth fur.
“I expect there is something I should be doing with the cops. I’ve kept them waiting.”
“I told them to come back later. Your grey man was very nice about it.”
Glancing out the window, she was shocked to see she had slept the day away. Outside it was the gloaming, the heavy twilight Morgan used to hate. Now she only regretted the sun was no longer splitting through the stained-glass prairie. Blue was turned to Marbl, stroking her paws. The cat flexed her feet around the blue fingertips, tightened pawpad muscles to curl her toes tight against blue fingerpads, and purred.
“Morgan,” said Blue quietly. “I think that soon they will be taking me back. I can feel something. Getting closer. I hope that telling you now was not wrong.”
Morgan shook her head. “No, I think it is time to know everything. This can no longer be a house for keeping secrets.” Blue nodded.
Morgan opened the door and went out into the world.
My home’s across the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I never expect to see you any more …
Before they left town, McKenzie debriefed Morgan, Blue, and the others from the house.
“Make sure they don’t kill him,” Morgan said. “He’s crazy. He needs treatment.”
“Capital punishment is the new law of the land. He murdered three people, and one was a cop.”
“There must be a way.”
“This from you? He would have killed you.”
“This from me.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Blue had another take on John: “He is broken. I felt it when I was touching him. Before then, I didn’t know anything about him, but I felt a great deal when he was so wild. He is fully broken.”
“What do you mean, broken?”
“I mean, not nutritional. Poison. The badness is all through his thoughts. There is nothing that does not act from it. To fix him, everything will have to stop and start again. Like what happened with me.”
“Why the hell didn’t you know this sooner?”
“Look—” said Blue impatiently, then stopped. “Listen to me. I sound like—”
“Don’t try to distract me. I’m not the only one who wants to know. How you knew anything at all, how this ESP works—and why you didn’t know right from the beginning. Give it your best shot, Bluebell.”
Blue stood and paced in the small office, stopped to stare at and prod the crinkled Mylar surface of the wallboard. Looked in the shiny surface of the bookcase doors.
“Will you fucking
stop that?”
Grey snapped.
stop that?”
Grey snapped.
“I’m sorry,” said Blue. “I don’t mean to make you more angry. I am angry too. I do know why I never felt it. Because he never touched me before. He never actually put his hands on me at any time, ever. Such a small thing, and we didn’t notice. It seems so stupid. I told Morgan this but she made sure you weren’t listening then: I couldn’t hear everyone the same.”
“But you had this flash of insight. It’s even on the tapes. ‘So
that’s
who it is.’”
that’s
who it is.’”
“No. When we understood, just before he attacked, it wasn’t because I heard him. It was easier than that. We just remembered everything he had said—and figured it out.”
“Figured it out,” said the grey man softly.
“Yes. Like you did. If he said that, did this other, lied about yet another thing, and we finally knew what he had said and done with each of us—it meant he must be—well—even pathological liars lie for a reason. But it was clear that he cared for no-one, and that he didn’t care if what he did caused pain.”
“Do you mean he is a psychopath?”
“Maybe. Or that he is just evil. The effect is the same. He thinks he is the king of the world.”
“God?”
“Oh, no, John doesn’t believe in God. He believes in vid.”
Later that week Andris saw Mac going by in the hallway and called him into his office. “I want you to remember the discretionary powers our watching brief gives us. I’ve been informed that this case is not to come to court.”
“That’s vigilantism,” said the grey man.
“It’s vigilantism if civilians do it. If we do it, it’s
realpolitik,”
said Andris. “Those are my orders. If you refuse to deal with it, I will have to, or else someone will supplant us.”
realpolitik,”
said Andris. “Those are my orders. If you refuse to deal with it, I will have to, or else someone will supplant us.”
“No,” said Mr. Grey. “I understand you. This is my responsibility.” He carried on from Andris’s office to the lab.
A few days after that, he went to see John Lee again in his secure cell. He watched the monitor covering John’s cell for about half an hour before he leaned over and turned off the central breaker. The whole floor was plunged into unrelieved darkness for a second until the emergency solar kicked in and the hard bleak emergency lights came on. The self-contained cell locks still glowed active, but the monitors stayed dark. Jeffrey Bryant, the tech on duty, nodded, leaned back in his ergonomic chair, looked at the ceiling, and turned on the chair’s built-in massage function, which like the locks ran independently of the main power grid.
“Later, mon,” he said tranquilly, and closed his eyes. The grey man went across the dim open space between the cells and stood before John’s cell. Without opening his eyes, Bryant—Jeffrey; now that Salomé was sleeping with him, Mac supposed he would have to call him Jeffrey—buzzed the grey man into the cell.
As he had been doing for the last half hour under Mac’s view, and for hours every day as Jeffrey and the others had reported, John sat in the corner making notes about his documentary. With no paper or pen, and knowing he was being recorded, he was merely murmuring them in a clear, low voice. He did not seem to have noticed the change in lighting.
“You might as well stop,” said Mr. Grey. “The camera and tape are off because of the power failures.”
“What about my civil rights?” said John.
“Dream on,” said the grey man. “That was when you were civil. You are now in my hands. You have no rights.” He thought of Rahim, his last
disparu,
who still cooled his heels down the hall; there was an eerie similarity of sociopathy, though as far as they could find out, Rahim had not murdered anyone in the service of his art.
disparu,
who still cooled his heels down the hall; there was an eerie similarity of sociopathy, though as far as they could find out, Rahim had not murdered anyone in the service of his art.
“Time to tell the truth,” said Mac. “And you don’t have much time at that. The power outage will be over in ten minutes or so. What kind of shape you’re in afterward depends on how fast and how smart you talk now, off the record.”
John looked alertly at him. “Tough guy.”
“That’s what they tell me. Start with why you attacked Morgan.”
John’s look sharpened and a wily slyness infused it. “Ooh, I see. It’s
Morgan
you care about. Not Blue at all. You have a case for Morgan! Don’t you? You’re not an otherfucker at all!” Seeing something in the grey man’s expression, though Mac was sure he hadn’t moved a muscle, John began to bluster. “Don’t you do it! You’re alone in here with me, you know. The odds are—”
Morgan
you care about. Not Blue at all. You have a case for Morgan! Don’t you? You’re not an otherfucker at all!” Seeing something in the grey man’s expression, though Mac was sure he hadn’t moved a muscle, John began to bluster. “Don’t you do it! You’re alone in here with me, you know. The odds are—”
Mac picked him up by the throat and the belly, his small hands like iron claws. “—even,” John finished weakly, voice still on autopilot.
“You are lucky,” said the grey man, “that I
am
civil, and that I am governed more by love than hate, and more to the point that I am in a hurry. I could kill you right now, but I don’t have the patience for a cleanup. But I’ll do it anyway if you jerk me around. I have absolute power over you. Do you believe me?”
am
civil, and that I am governed more by love than hate, and more to the point that I am in a hurry. I could kill you right now, but I don’t have the patience for a cleanup. But I’ll do it anyway if you jerk me around. I have absolute power over you. Do you believe me?”
John shook his head minutely before converting it to a nod—not very practiced at hard interrogations, where his wits and his charm weren’t the only ingredient of success, Mac thought coldly. Mac slammed him a couple of times against the flaking pink bulkhead, almost idly. John was struggling now, so Mac tightened his left hand’s grip on John’s thin throat. John calmed gratifyingly. Mac let him drop back onto the pallet. “Do you believe me?” he repeated.
John nodded.
“Fine. Begin now.” The grey man reached into his pocket and keyed the remote, so that at the desk the monitors would come to life, the recording start again. “Why did you attack Morgan, and not Blue?” he began.
“I didn’t want to. I liked her. She was cute. Kinda mean, but I like that in a woman. She would have been good, once we got together. She was getting normal, too, with Sal, but Sal was threatening me, had to go. Luckily she went with Russ. But then it all fell apart. Russ started with Jakob, so she was going to get dumped for a guy. I got rid of Jakob but it didn’t make her go back. She went to Delany. Then when Russ went with Delany instead of her, she had nobody else but me or the bug. And she didn’t …”
“She didn’t like you. But why not kill the bug?”
“There’s always another bug if you do it that way. This way, she’s dead, I don’t have to worry about her, and bonus, the bug goes back home mad. Icky aliens stay away, etc. Besides, Blue had to be there at the end. For the documentary.”
“You had it all thought out.”
“Yeah. Sell it on vid and virch. Make me rich. It’s a good plan.”
“Ending with you rotting in jail for life.”
“It’ll be poignant. Within two years, there’ll be a Free John Lee lobby. Six years, max, I’ll make you a bet, I’m out.”
“Except you killed a cop. If we let you get to a public court, you get capital punishment for that, even if not for Jakob and Yuji-san.”
“Appeals, no problem. Cap-pun has been back for ten years, everybody’s still hung up in appeal.”
“You’ll be on death row. How do you suppose your documentary will get finished and marketed? Criminals aren’t allowed to profit from a crime.”
“Oh, there are ways.” John’s eyes flicked sideways slightly, then steadied again, but with the tell, the grey man knew where John didn’t want him to look—at the wall near where he sat, where with the plastic cutlery, he had been carving the plaster away from the lines of the cell’s vid and power feeds. The feeds were starting to emerge from the wall like an addict’s tormented vein. Mac’s hand was still in his pocket, and he pressed the remote again, sending the recording back into the dark.
The grey man reached into the inside pocket of his suit, pulled out the syringe case. The injector inside it was one of the new type, far more secure than a needle. Easy to administer, and negligible risk of detection, or, he should be thinking, of infection.
John was suddenly still and, for the first time, showed himself afraid. “What is that, man? What are you gonna shoot into me?” He scooted back into the corner of the sleepshelf, pulled in his arms around his bent knees.
“I don’t think you’ll be making your vid,” said the grey man. He reached out, pulled one of John’s legs. John tried to kick him away, but Mac’s hands were strong.
“Hey, come on, I got a news permit, I kept your stupid code of silence, I did everything right, I did it all by the book!”
The injector hissed. “When you learn how to read again,” said Mr. Grey quietly, “I hope you read different books.”
He pocketed the syringe and toggled the remote again. “Bryant,” he said, “call the doc. He’s going into fugue again. We can’t get anything out of him in this state.”
“Mr. McKenzie, the surveillance cutting in and out in the power failure, but I think I got some footage of him talking about who he killed.”
“That will do. Buzz me out,” said the grey man, and he walked out of the cell, leaving the door open for the doctors. Behind him, harshly lit by the greenish emergency floodlight, John still pressed into the corner, shaking, blinking, and safe.
At the desk, the grey man too was shaking. He reached for the breaker again, but Jeffrey gently pushed his hand away, turned the switch himself. “Look, mon,” he said. “Power come back on with just me flicking the breaker. What’s wrong with this system today? Just when you need it, a system break down.”
Behind him, John, safe from capital punishment, blinked and swayed.
“Thanks, anyway,” said McKenzie, and went up to pack for a country holiday.
At the end of their time, Morgan wanted to make every moment with Blue count, make something special for her memories. She and Blue took Russ’s white car and drove into the spring landscape, Blue in pinkface to avoid notoriety, Morgan with her hair severely in a bun and wearing sunglasses covering most of her face, and Mr. Grey a kind of Mr. Talbot in the car behind, with his bevy of angels to watch over them from afar. After a few hours, Blue drove. Another human regulation broken, Morgan thought. She was tired, and very sad. She had had everything, what more did she want?
I want to keep it,
she thought
. One last obstacle to grace.
I want to keep it,
she thought
. One last obstacle to grace.
I’m not practical
, she thought.
, she thought.
“It seems to me,” Blue said, “—or maybe these are thoughts that came from you, because I remember floating through them while we were tangled up in making love—that this state of being human has a built-in paradox. If I look in one direction, I can encompass infinity. If I look in another, I come up against my limitations immediately. It all made sense then, but now I think: so what is my capacity? Infinite, or bounded?”
“You ask easy questions! What do you think philosophers and skeptics have been studying for all of human history? That’s why so many mystics try to transcend their bodies,” said Morgan. “They want to leave the limitations behind. For me, there’s an essential problem in that: we are what we are because of what we are. The infinite grows out of the bounded. Our minds and souls exist because our bodies exist, and our bodies are inhabited by our psyches. Leave one half behind and we are no longer human, and not inhuman in a way I admire. I want to integrate, not disintegrate. Not that I’ll have time in this lifetime, but I’m working on it.”
At the lodge in the foothills where they would be staying the night, they sat on the deck and watched the sun set behind the mountains. The interface of earth and sky was so sharp that it looked like stage scenery against a cyclorama, a skycloth. She said this to Blue.
“But it is dimensional,” Blue said, smiling.
“Oh, I know. You can ride forever and not reach the horizon. That’s the ‘infinite’ in your equation. Think of it as a Cartesian grid. One axis is bounded at 1. The other goes out forever.”
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