The Flicker Men (39 page)

She blinked.

“You're not blind,” I said.

“Time's up,” Brighton snapped. He pressed the gun harder into the side of her head.

I looked directly at Joy. Her eyes never moved. She looked directly at me.

“You're not blind,” I repeated.

No one moved for a moment. There was a stillness, like a waiting. The big man holding Joy looked at Brighton, who turned to look at me.

It was Joy who broke the trance. A jerk of her shoulder, and the big man released his hand from around her mouth and set her on the floor.

She stretched her neck, stood up straight. “Oops,” she said.

Brighton lowered his weapon. He shook his head in disappointment.

My mind raced. My understanding of her shifting. “But … that day at the lab, you—”

“Didn't collapse the wave.” She finished my sentence.

She flickered for a moment—like a brief trick of the light. “I told you,” she said in a soft voice, “don't believe your eyes.”

“But … why?”

She moved to stand near Brighton. “We watch all the most promising new research.”

Brighton broke in. “When you hired on at Hansen, it was a simple thing to plant someone to keep track of your work.”

I couldn't speak. Words failed me.

If I'd had a gun in my hand, I would have shot them both. But I didn't have a gun. I only had the sphere.

Perhaps Brighton saw it in my eye, that moment of decision. The way he'd seen it with Mercy.

“Always the hard way,” he said. He gave a flick of his hand, and two of his men lunged from the shadows. I jerked the sphere high and threw it down with all my strength, but they were too fast. One dove for the sphere, and it crushed his arm instead of hitting the floor—a scream of pain, as the sphere rolled away just as the second man dropped a shoulder into my stomach.

I hit the ground sprawling—the wind knocked out of me.

The sphere rolled across the floor as I wobbled to my feet. Mercy screamed, and then Joy rushed me, grabbing my arm. She flung me. I struck the wall and then slid to the floor. The world grayed out.

Brighton crossed the room toward Mercy, shotgun in hand. Mercy backed away and tripped over the sphere, falling to the floor.

I tried to rise to my feet, but my legs jellied. I slipped and went down hard.

Brighton stood over Mercy.

I wanted to speak, but nothing came.

Brighton crouched, gun in his hand. With his other hand, he reached out to touch the sphere. At the moment his fingers brushed it, it lit up from within. Even without electricity. Even with the hardware smashed and ruptured.

“The sphere remembers,” Brighton said.

Inside the sphere, a scene began to play—a stereographic movie. Shimmering shapes and gunfire and steel. “That's what your friend didn't understand.”

I realized then that he was speaking to me.

He caressed the smooth surface, and it played the image of Joy throwing me against the wall.

“Once it is created, the sphere remembers. It is a perfect re-creation of everything. Past, present, future. An instrument of immense power.” He turned to look at me. “It
remembers.
And what it's detected can't be changed, just as your detector results can't be changed. This is why the world cannot correct. It is collapsed in place. Pinned to existence by the fact that these results could someday be read. Would you like to see what happens next?” He smiled. “No? You'll need no crystal ball for that, now, will you?”

He removed his hand from the sphere, and it went dark again.

He rose and walked over to where I lay.

“Did they tell you the cascade was burning?” he asked. “Did they tell you eternity was an escape? Well, there's another possibility, Eric. Another inevitable outgrowth of time dilation. The cascade isn't just an escape. It's also a mine.”

He stood over me.

“A mine into time itself. A mine into the future. A mine for ideas. This world is a blur of speed, while those above barely move. It's not your fault. But that doesn't matter. You were going to create the math that was going to make the next great leap possible. You were going to unlock new technologies that others would use to open the next level of the cascade. But that doesn't matter either.”

I tried again to get to my feet, and again, my legs wobbled. I sat.

Brighton bent close, his voice a whisper. “All that matters now, Eric, is that soon you'll know more than me. You'll know if there is a hell.” He pointed the gun at my head.

There was movement behind him; I saw Mercy struggle to her knees. Brighton saw her, too, his face showing irritation.

Instead of shooting me, he turned and shot her. Her shoulder snapped back, and she spun onto her stomach, sliding across the floor. Brighton crossed the room toward her.

He stood over her and cocked the weapon, chambering another round. “This time, you'll stay down,” he said.

She was still alive, crawling a red smear across the filthy cement. Instead of backing away, she moved closer. Close to Brighton, as if eager for the bullet. As he raised the gun, she did not flinch away; instead she pivoted her body and lashed out with her leg—connecting with the sphere. It rolled across the floor toward me while all eyes followed.

I dove for it—a last chance. Its smooth surface was hot against my skin. Then I rose to my knees and with the last of my strength lifted the sphere high over my head.

This time, they had no time to react. No time to do anything but stare in horror. Brighton's mouth opening in a frantic scream, “No!”

He lunged forward, but too late.

I flung the sphere down on the cement as hard as I could.

Time seemed to slow as it smashed onto the floor—a light that wasn't light but its opposite—an unfurling blackness. Every scene from every age, a Mozart concerto in a burst of static—Brighton's eyes squeezing shut as the sphere detonated, blasting shards through our bodies along the cresting shock wave—shredding flesh, the bones of my skull sliding past each other, singing out a soundless tone while the space around me shifted, felt but not seen—like the dark feeling from my childhood—standing too close to a train whistle, as the blackness surged from the middle of the sphere. My old companion, there all along.

The silence was complete.

 

50

I woke in a white room.

I was on my back, my head spinning.

When I could, I looked around. The bed was fouled. White sheets. White pillows.

The blank white walls were familiar somehow. Like a whiteboard I'd stared at too long. I was in a hospital.

Or I was dead.

I checked my body, running a hand along my torso, but there were no bandages. I wiggled my toes beneath the cover, and the sheet moved.

I slowly slid my legs out and placed my feet on the floor. I stood for a long time, feeling the chill rise up through the soles of my feet. I was off balance.

The place smelled of sickness and disinfectant. If this is death, then Brighton was right—I was in hell. Only hell would have hospitals in the afterlife.

I'm not sure how long I stood there before a nurse walked past the open doorway.

“Nurse!” I called out.

She stopped and looked at me. Dark hair pulled back into a ponytail—an open, expectant face, clipboard in hand. She waited.

I wasn't sure what to ask at first.

She wore blue hospital scrubs and the look of someone who needed to be somewhere. She was hoping for a question she could answer quickly. I could see it in her face.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

That changed her expression. Impatience shifted to concern, and she crossed into my room. “How long?” She repeated my question back to me.

“Yes.”

“Almost a week,” she said. “You don't remember?”

“But what about my injuries?”

“We took the bandage off your hand yesterday.”

“No,” I said. I looked down at my hand, and I saw the pink skin. The old burn from several lifetimes ago. “My other injuries.”

Her eyes showed confusion. “What other injuries?”

*   *   *

I sat in a doctor's office.

He was across the desk from me, my file open in front of him. His face was young. Too young to be a psychiatrist, I would have thought, but his hair was already graying at the front, so maybe he was older than he looked. He stared at me with practiced concern. I imagined it was an expression he'd tried out in the mirror, hoping to get it just right.

“So I understand you're having some memory issues again.”

“Yes.”

“You had a bad reaction to some medication we've been giving you. We're glad you've finally come around. You seem to be responding well to the new meds.”

“How did I get here?”

“You don't remember?”

“No.”

“Memory problems are common with the medications you've been taking, but you seem particularly susceptible. I see in your file that you've had a similar reaction in the past?”

“When?”

“The file says that you reacted badly to medication in Indianapolis.”

“No, I … I need to…” Nothing came. No end to that sentence.
Need to what?
Instead I asked the question again. “How did I get here?”

“You were referred to us for a seventy-two-hour hold after being picked up by police wandering the streets. You were incoherent.”

“Police.” I tried to wrap my head around it. That's not what had happened.

“The event has been hard on a lot of people,” he said. “Some have had more trouble coping than others. Considering your history, it's not surprising that you've had more trouble than most.”

“I don't understand.”

“You're only here until you're stabilized,” the doctor said. “We've discussed this before, don't you remember?”

“No.”

He frowned slightly and wrote something in my file.

“The retrograde amnesia is a problem with you. I think we need to take you off those meds altogether. How is your mood?”

“Okay,” I said.

“What about your tremors?”

I held my hand out to check. My fingers shook.

“Not too bad,” he said.

I stared at my own hand. If he considered that not too bad, then I wondered how bad it had gotten.

“Are you seeing movement out of the corner of your eye?”

“No.”

“What about circular thoughts? Anxiety?”

“No.”

“Delusional thinking?”

He'd been building up to that one, I could tell. I glanced around the room. His office was nice, I decided. Here there were books and a nice wooden desk. He'd taken the effort. Appearances mattered. There was a window with a nice view of a lawn. Outside, there were trees and blue skies. The sun was shining.

“Just…”

“Just what?” he asked.

And I was on the edge of telling him. Spilling the whole thing. Instead, I kept quiet. I kept quiet because outside the window the sun was shining, and I wanted to feel it on my face one more time.

“Nightmares,” I said. “Just occasional nightmares.”

“About what?”

“There was a woman. Her name was Mercy. She was missing parts of her hand.”

“Her hand?” That seemed to interest him. He picked up his pen again but did not write. “We've talked about your family,” he said. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” I said. Though I wanted to forget.

“That was years ago now. You need to forgive yourself. Tell me more about the dream.”

“I can't remember,” I said, feeling dazed.

I didn't like the way the doctor was looking at me. I stood. I no longer wanted to talk. I no longer wanted to think about it.

“Am I under arrest?”

“What?” The doctor's eyebrows knitted together. He seemed genuinely confused by the question. “Why would you be under arrest?”

“So I can leave?”

The look of concern deepened. He wrote another note in my file. “Soon,” he said. “Once you're stabilized.”

I leaned forward and rubbed my temples. I thought of my mother seeing doctors like this. So sure of her delusions.

“I need to get out,” I said. “I can't stay here.”

“I don't think that would be a good idea just yet. Especially considering the events of the last two weeks.”

“What events?”

He stared at me, his gaze evaluating. “You've watched it on the news every night for the last five days.”

“Watched what?” I thought hard, trying to remember something, anything, from my time in the hospital. Nothing came.

The gaze seemed to harden. “It's been on every channel.”

“What happened? What was on the news?”

His brow furrowed again. “We're
definitely
going to change your medication. I've never seen retrograde amnesia quite this bad. This is an abnormal reaction.”

I heard Brighton's voice in my head.
You broke the world.

“What happened?” I asked. The doctor ignored me while he continued to write in his notebook, I slammed my hand down on the desk. “What happened?”

 

51

I drove up to the motel and parked the car in the front. The traffic had been a bit lighter than I remembered. That was the only difference. It felt as if a year had passed, but it had only been weeks. I walked inside.

The clerk eyed me over the top of her glasses. A middle-aged woman, with bluish hair and too much makeup.

“I had a room in this place a few weeks back, and I left some stuff behind.”

“Name and room number?”

I recognized the desk clerk, but she didn't recognize me. She'd probably seen ten thousand faces come and go through these doors. “Eric Argus. Room 220.”

“We've got a lost and found,” she said. “What did you lose?”