Immortal (25 page)

I guess one of the reasons they keep bringing me into the lab and trying out new tests on me—and I swear, these lab guys are more creative than Torquemada when it comes to designing things to do to the human body—is because of cancer. Seems their issue is I haven’t ever had it, and this is some kind of problem. I never gave it much thought before, but I’m not a scientist, am I?

   
The problem is that cancer isn’t something the immune system can fight. This was news to me, and please don’t ask me why or how this is the case, but apparently it is. I’m taking their word for it.

Viktor was abuzz this morning because someone named “Warren” had had a brainstorm the night before. (I don’t know which one Warren is. I can barely tell most of them apart outside of Viktor.) The solution is amazingly simple. If they’d asked me the right way, I probably could have figured it out for them. The answer—I’m older than cancer.

That’s only half of the solution, because it only explains genetically acquired cancer. Cancer via exposure to a carcinogen is a different problem. Still, pretty funny, no? After all those tests?

*
 
*
 
*

The view from the rooftop of Clara’s building was impressive, and even more so when she pulled a telescope out of that magical closet (her dirty clothes were still stacked up in there) and carried it up. I had initially planned to use it to see firsthand how the investigation into the “massacre by the lake”—as the papers were calling it—was going, but unfortunately the row of buildings across the street blocked most of Central Park. So instead I used it to focus on things at random and to kill time.

It had been three days since I’d fled from the park to Clara’s apartment, and except for the roof, I hadn’t gone anywhere. She was good enough to run out and pick up things for me—extra clothes, some food—everything but liquor. Apparently, at some point, I made an irrational statement about quitting for a while, and she had far more resolve about it than I did. She compensated with ridiculous amounts of sex. It was a fair exchange, and probably healthier, too.

“What are you looking for?” Clara asked. She was shivering behind me, in the open door. It was a particularly cold day. The threatening snow I’d seen from the Central Park bench had manifested the following morning, which I had to think made the murder investigation all that more hellish, and the thermometer hadn’t risen enough since to make a dent in the accumulation total. But it made the top of the city look nicer, which never hurt.

I’m always amused by the way people today react to snow. Six inches? Gimme a break. You want to talk snow? I lived through half an ice age, for Baal’s sake. Two feet on a good day. And I’m talking about in Northern Africa. Imagine what Europe was like.

“I’m just looking.” I was cold, too, but it was something I could tolerate. “This city is a marvel,” I lied.

“It was a marvel yesterday,” she complained.

I looked up from the eyepiece. “I won’t be long. Go on down if you like. Make some coffee.” It was the third time I’d offered a variation of this statement. Once more and she’d think I was hiding something.

Clara looked hesitant. “Yeah?”

“You worried I’m going to jump?”

“No . . . it’s just odd. Standing up here in the cold and eating raw mushrooms.”

“You want to try one?” I asked.

“God, no. Maybe fried.”

“They’re good like this.” Actually, they’re dreadful. Never liked mushrooms, even when I was foraging for a living. (Truffles I’m fond of, but you don’t much find those anymore.) I popped one into my mouth and made a happy face.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “Okay, I give up. I’m going in. Don’t be long.”

“Only until sunset,” I said.

She backed in through the door and pulled it shut.

It was about time. I counted to ten and then walked to the edge of the roof.

“Iza?” I said in a normal voice. One might think it impossible, given their incredibly small ears, but pixies have good hearing. I put the bag of mushrooms down on the roof and waited. A moment later she alit beside the bag.

“There you are,” I said.

“Lady gone?” Iza asked. It had taken me fifteen minutes yesterday to explain to her that she couldn’t appear when Clara was around. Not that I didn’t trust Clara. Well, okay, yes, that was exactly why. I’ve never been able to get Nampheta’s betrayal entirely out of my head, so the first sign of dissembling and I turn into Secret Agent Man—even now, four thousand years later.

“She’s gone inside,” I said. “Is that for me?” Iza was carrying a small metal device.

“Uh-huh.”

I took it from her and flipped it around in my hand. It took a couple of minutes to figure out that I was looking at a digital recorder. My, but we’d come a long way since papyrus.

“How’s it work?” I might as well have asked the mushrooms.

“Don’t know,” she managed to say, her tiny mouth being full. There is a certain inexplicable fascination inherent in watching a pixie devour an entire bag of mushrooms. Like the ant carrying several times his body weight, pixies can consume astounding quantities of fresh vegetables. I suppose they burn it all off immediately. I’ve never seen a fat pixie.

After fiddling with the seemingly button-free recorder, I realized the entire front portion was hinged, and so I squeezed it and heard a little click, and then Tchekhy’s voice. I held it up to my ear.

He jumped right in. “Provided the information you have provided me with is accurate, the girl you met is indeed Clarabelle Wassermann. She was truthful as well regarding her status as a registered student at New York University, but according to her running transcript, she has not attended classes for two semesters. She is the fourth child of a very wealthy family from Connecticut, which pays for the credit card she uses exclusively.”

I didn’t even want to know how many laws he broke to find all that out.

“I cannot definitively ascertain whether she is the individual behind the MUD character we borrowed, but that account is still disabled, and I have seen no recorded attempts by the owner to access or reactivate the account. This would appear to parallel your request that she not contribute.

“As to your question regarding this Cult of the Immortal she spoke of, I did find a private chat room log bearing such a title within the MUD. The discussions there appear innocent, if not a bit banal. Based on certain anatomical speculations, it is apparent these persons have not met you.”

Nice.

“Another detail which might bear some interest. I found a monthly fee on her credit card for an organization called All-Mother. Based on their web site, it is some form of proto-feminist group. I did not probe too deeply as it appears they have a very persistent firewall, but I can if you wish. Beware militant feminists, my old friend.”

I found it hard to believe there was any firewall Tchekhy couldn’t get past with a little work. Could be he didn’t try hard enough. Or he thought it was a dead end. He was probably right.

“As to the other matter, I tracked the ownership of the MUD as far as I could. I am afraid I could not put a name with the email, but I can tell you the trail does end at Securidot to someone within that company with access to the email administrative files. And, as I am sure you are curious, other than the MUD I could not find anything connecting Ms. Wassermann to Securidot.

“If you need any additional information you may send this device back with your . . . pixie. Click thrice rapidly to record, once to stop. I hope this finds you well.”

So Clara checked out, Securidot was probably a dead end, and I should beware militant feminists. Not the kind of information I was hoping for but it would have to do, unless I felt like spending a week passing the tape recorder back and forth. I wasn’t going to risk visiting Tchekhy directly, not after almost leading a demon straight to him. At least I was reasonably sure nobody could find me at Clara’s. If they could, they already would have.

I needed to find out more about Robert Grindel. Tchekhy wasn’t convinced that Grindel was the man behind the curtain, but Tchekhy is an old cold warrior at heart and thus would always be inclined toward blaming a government apparatus whenever possible. (And he did have some historical precedent to fall back on.) I was less conspiracy-minded, preferring to put my stock in the proverbial wild-eyed madman. Grindel seemed like the type.

The question was how to research without leaving the apartment. I would need Clara’s laptop. And possibly Clara. I just had to convince myself I could trust her.

Iza had finished off the mushrooms and was buzzing around with renewed fervor.

“Shouldn’t you wait a half hour before you do that?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“I go back?” she asked.

“Not now,” I said, pocketing the recorder. “Thank you, Iza.”

“All done?”

“If I need you, I’ll leave some mushrooms up here. Okay?” Because you never know when a pixie will come in handy, especially a tame one.

“Okay.” Without so much as a fare-thee-well, she buzzed off. Whoever said ignorance is bliss had been talking to a pixie.

*
 
*
 
*

“You freeze anything off?” Clara asked as I re-entered the apartment with the telescope in tow. She was sitting at the kitchen counter eating a slice of cold pizza and reading the laptop screen. Stark naked.

You can draw your own conclusions regarding a woman who prefers to walk about her curtain-free apartment without a stitch on. My thoughts drifted between wondering what deep-rooted factors from her past led to such exhibitionistic behavior and quietly applauding my good fortune. I could only imagine what the people in the building across the street thought.

“No frostbite that I’m aware of,” I said as casually as one can when speaking to a naked woman. “What’cha doing?”

“Reading my mail,” she said. “Got about a hundred inquiries about you from the MUD folks. And the boards have gone nuts over the Central Park massacre. Since everybody knew you were there, the consensus seems to be that you’re dead, and that’s led to a massive freak-out regarding the philosophical consequences of a dead immortal. It’s pretty interesting. You sure I can’t respond?”

“Please don’t,” I said, unbuttoning my shirt.

She pushed away the laptop. “Again, why?”

“I told you. Somebody is after me and I don’t know who.”

“You know that sounds kinda paranoid, right?”

“You were there,” I said. “How many more armed men do you think would have shown up if we stuck around? Aside from the police?”

“I know that, but it’s not like my web access can be traced.”

“They’ll find the building,” I said. “That’s close enough.”

She sighed theatrically, in a manner reminiscent of Marie Antoinette. (I’ve found while women’s faces tend to be fairly unique, their expressions of exasperation are often not.) With youth comes restlessness. In the last forty-eight hours we’d had six versions of this conversation. I was putting up with it because I sort of liked her a lot. Same as with Marie.

“Hanging with an immortal not as exciting as you thought?”

“No, Adam, it’s not that. I don’t understand why you’re just . . . waiting. If somebody is after you, do something about it.”

Having attained total personal nakedness myself, I walked past her to the refrigerator for some water and a decent pregnant pause while I tried to find an analogy that fit the current century and get me out of the conversation at the same time.

“I saw a cat pin a mouse behind a radiator once,” I said, having chosen the first clunky analogy I could think of. “The cat couldn’t reach the mouse and the mouse had no place to go except out from behind the radiator.
Détente
.”

“Okay.”

“So the cat just sat there and waited for the mouse to panic and make a break for it. For hours.”

She closed her laptop and fixed me with an arch look. “And you’re the mouse.”

“And the best thing to do is not panic. Plus, I can wait for a very, very long time.”

“You just made that story up.”

I smiled. “How could you tell?”

“You would have saved the mouse,” she declared confidently.

“You know me that well, do you?”

“I do.” She got off the chair and walked around the kitchen bar and up to me until our bodies were just touching. It might have been mildly exciting with clothing. It was considerably more so without. “You would have rescued the mouse because that’s what you do. You’re the hero.”

“Not
a
hero?” I asked. “
The
hero?”

“That’s right.” She took the water bottle from my hand and put it down on the counter. “You’re the one who comes to the rescue. The knight in shining armor.”

“I was never a knight.”

She lifted her leg and wrapped it around my hip, pulling herself onto me. “Liar,” she whispered.

*
 
*
 
*

Much later, after a lengthy and elaborate workout that involved every flat surface in the apartment and about half of the vertical ones, we lay together on the bed and enjoyed a little post-coital peace.

“What was your first name?” Clara asked from her position under my arm. Her breathing had been so regular I’d thought she was asleep.

“When?”

“In the beginning.”

“I didn’t really have one.”

“Everyone has a name. You didn’t grow up in a preverbal society.”

I sat up and looked down at her. “How do you know?”

“Because,” she said, rolling onto her back. “You have the capacity for language. Did you know that if you don’t introduce language to a person by the age of twelve, they never develop it?”

“Now who’s making things up?”

“I did not make that up. I’ll show you the study.”

“Well, then they just made it up,” I insisted.

I have a real love/hate relationship with science. On the one hand, I can speak from personal experience that scientific and technological advances have made life a whole hell of a lot easier in just about every way imaginable. (Just two words illustrate that point amply—indoor plumbing.) But I also remember when science meant bleeding people to get the sickness out of them, boring holes in heads to free the evil spirits, and serving powdered human remains to cure gout. If there’s one thing I’ve been thankful for in my many years, it’s that I never had to experience the hundreds of dubious medical solutions offered for the supposed benefit of mankind.