The Postmortal

  “Keep your scope trained on him,” Ernie said. “Don’t make it look like you’re hesitating.” I opened my left eye and could see Ernie surveying every window and shrub in the compound. His eyes darted around manically, looking for a scope trained back on us. He whispered to me, “Do you see the small shrub by the air conditioner, at eleven o’clock?”

  I looked with my left eye. I saw the shrub but nothing obscured by it. “I see it.”

  “On three, turn and fire at it. One shot. Then we run. Ready?”

  “No.”

  He gave me a second. “Are you ready now? Fire it.”

  I turned and fired wildly at the bush. I heard someone shout an obscenity above the rustle. A countering shot rang out from the general vicinity. The man in the bedroom never moved. We booked it for the wall and scaled it with relative ease. I heard another shot, but we were already over and making for the plug-in. We saw the massive cast-iron gate begin to swing open behind us, and we drove like hell. Soon we found ourselves stuck in a blissful midnight traffic jam, close to the center of town. I’ve cursed the fast-spreading crowds for the longest time. I won’t be doing that for a while.

  We got back to Falls Church and told Matt that our client tried to steal death. He didn’t care much about that. “You got his money, right?”

  Ernie threw the wad of hundreds on the glass table.

  “Perfect,” Matt said. “And our little newbie here smelled the rat? That’s excellent. That’s just why we brought you in, Johnny Boy. Congratulations. You get to pick up Chinese for us.”

  He promised us no more off-the-cloud killing, but today still felt more like the beginning of something unwanted, not the end of it.

  DATE MODIFIED:

  4/1/2059, 4:23 A.M.

  “You look just like me”

  I hadn’t seen David in person since he was one. I’d seen him on the WEPS. Spoken to him. I remember seeing his face on my screen when he was three or four. Kids that age, they have this thing where, when they see something they really like, they open up this wide smile that employs the maximum effort from all their facial muscles. You get the feeling that if they could stretch the corners of their mouth from the West Coast to the East, they would. They’re so purely happy that their faces can’t even accommodate an expression bright enough to convey it. This usually happens in the presence of ice cream. I know no adult who can smile like that. I remember David used to be excited to see my face, regardless of the time of day or year. But gradually he grew up and his world expanded, and seeing my face beaming in from Ecuador, or wherever I was, proved more of a waste of his time than a special treat.

  I followed his high school basketball career religiously (he was twice the player I was). That was my way of staying close to him—through his team’s status updates and game wraps. I didn’t see him so much as I covered him, obsessively. I happily barged in on his feed from time to time to give unsolicited advice about women or how to properly tip bartenders. Sometimes he’d reply, and the fact that he did would make my hair stand on end. Other times he’d brush it off and carry on. That’s how he was. I never resented him for it.

  Sonia asked if I wanted to see him for his birthday. I hadn’t spoken to him in more than seven years—a time span in which he had become, according to his mother, an extremely devout collectivist and Church of Man emissary. This was the first such invitation I’d been extended since returning to the States. (I didn’t want to come back and barge in on David with no invite. I preferred to let it breathe). I happily took up the offer.

  I remember when David was a baby and he’d sleep in the room adjacent to mine in my old apartment. There was a laminated construction-paper cutout of a bear on his door, with his name written on it. Whenever I walked by that door while he was asleep, I’d always stop for a moment and look at the bear. I felt like I was outside the dressing room of a rock star when I did that. I was such a fan of his. Standing outside his door felt like standing outside the door of someone I was desperately eager to meet. The kid in all the pictures is behind that door! That feeling never waned, especially as he grew up and we fell out of contact.

  And so, preparing to meet David once more after so long took on the feeling of getting backstage passes to an Elvis concert. I felt that same sort of giddy terror. I rehearsed everything I wanted to say to him. I imagined every possible retort he could make, kind or cruel. I laid out my clothes for the day and waffled about what I’d wear. I never do that. I was not myself.

  Nate and Sonia had moved to Morningside Heights after Hurricane Jasmine destroyed downtown. The BoltBus took twelve hours to get to Port Authority, but the WEPS kept me occupied throughout. I sent David a few pings about my impending arrival, but he didn’t reply. I nursed a small flask of scotch to help speed up the clock. When the bus finally arrived, I stepped down into a dense thicket of bodies in which I found myself in constant danger of being snagged. I hadn’t been back to Manhattan since it was made entirely pedestrian, and the difference was jarring. Nothing felt familiar when I stepped out of the station. I felt like I was in a city that had been airlifted in from China. Everyone around me moved as fast and true as bullets. There was no knocking them off course, and I repeatedly found myself in their oncoming path. The bikers blew up and down the avenues as if on rails. I spotted a subway entrance and began negotiating my way through the throng to get to it. Years on the road with Keith have calloused my nerves. Bodies may bump against me. So long as they aren’t penetrating me, I’m fine and dandy. I get the hang of things.

  I squished myself into the third train that arrived and emerged in Morningside Heights to find relatively calmer waters as I made my way to the address. Sonia opened the door. She had a baby bump.

  “Holy shit!” I said.

  “Come in quickly.” She was alone. David was out with his half sister and Nate, having a slice of pizza.

  “How far along are you?”

  “Five months.”

  “So you’re going 2G. That’s great. I couldn’t be happier for you.”

  She slumped onto the couch and put her hand to her forehead.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “It’s getting harder each day to hide it, John. I’m running out of empire-waisted clothing. I tried wearing a sari the other day and I looked like I was going to a toga party. I knew when Nate and I decided to do this that it wouldn’t be easy. But these next four months, these are gonna be rough. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I’ve already gotten a few looks.”

  “It’s New York. People give you dirty looks just for breathing.”

  “That’s the problem. I can feel their eyes on my gut. I can hear their minds working: ‘Oh, Christ. Another mouth to feed.’ You know they killed another pregnant woman in Queens a week ago? A big horde of scumbags just ran right through her.”

  I patted her on the thigh. She gave me a look of gratitude. Long ago, all the signs of affection Sonia and I displayed for each other had become unmistakably fraternal. “You’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said.

  “What matters is that you have people around you to help you feel secure, even if you can’t truly live inside some big force field or something.”

  “I need a force field. I may not leave the apartment for a good long while. I may even deliver the baby here. I just expand the WEPS and project a mountain range on the wall, and then I don’t get cabin fever.”

  “How does David feel about all this?”

  “Protective. Like you. He wants the baby to be baptized in the COM, of course.”

  “Did you agree?”

  “Oh, sure. Nate and I have gone to some church stuff with him. It’s not so bad. It’s all perfectly normal. I know the sects get all the attention, but the church proper is pretty harmless. The baptism is no big deal. There’s cake. Cake is good.”

  I went to the kitchen and grabbed her a glass of water and some dried apricots. I heard the lock being turn
ed from outside the apartment. I gripped Sonia’s water glass tightly, to keep from spilling it at the sight of David. The door opened, and the three of them walked in. There he was. Right there. Right in front of me. I stared at him. I couldn’t help it.

  “Jesus,” I said. “You look just like me.”

  He shifted uncomfortably at the remark. I had seen him on screen for virtually all his life. The ads always tell you that using WEPS is like never leaving home or whatever. But there’s no substitute for real, live presence. In front of me, he existed in two separate states: as the man before me and as a living memory of the screaming infant I saw pulled from his mother’s body ages ago. I felt small. I rushed to fill the vacuum. “Would you guys like some water?”

  “Sure,” David answered. Just hearing one word out of him felt surreal. I wanted to capture it and put it in a jar.

  I ran back to the kitchen to fill the water glasses. He looked like me, only slightly bigger. More muscular. Like an improved version of the original product. I certainly didn’t feel like his father. I felt like his mere shadow. I had no sense of paternal authority over him whatsoever, as my dad had had over me. A colossal feeling of immaturity pulsed through me. He was twenty-nine now. I was twenty-nine now. I felt like I was five. The realization of twenty-eight years of neglect collapsed on me like a rotting building. I saw in my mind the ghost of a child suffocated in his own crib. The permanence of it all lay bare in my psyche, inescapable. The burden of finality. I wanted to shrink down to nothing.

  I came back. Nate, Sonia, and Ella dove into the conversation, to keep things feeling natural. I chimed in from time to time, but everything that came out of my mouth felt wrong when I said it, like on a terrible first date. I pined for alcohol. I wasted no time. It was worth risking David’s judgment to dilute the awkwardness. “David, would you be interested in getting a drink?”

  He deliberated for a moment that seemed to forever elongate. Finally, he said a small okay, and we were riding silently down in the elevator. There was an Irish pub nearby. We were early enough to avoid the 2:00 P.M. drinking rush. He sat at a table while I ordered the drinks. He asked for a mineral water since he didn’t drink alcohol. There’s that moment, any time you’re about to sit down at a bar with someone you’ve been looking forward to seeing, when you rush to the bar to grab the drinks to prolong engaging with them, because you’re still a touch nervous for whatever reason. Half my beer was finished by the time I sat back down. David wore plain khakis and a denim shirt emblazoned with a COM crest.

  “You’re living in Virginia now,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “Mom says you’re an end specialist.”

  “Technically, no. I’m the consultant who tags along. I handle the paperwork and the interviews. Another guy handles the actual specialization.”

  “So you kill people.”

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  More awkward silence. I scanned the menu for food to busy myself. I had no plans to order anything. The horrible thought occurred to me that had it been up to me to decide twenty-nine years ago, he wouldn’t be sitting with me at all. My guts ached.

  “You don’t seem comfortable around me.”

  “It’s not you,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable around myself. And sitting here now, across from you, I feel unnatural. I am unnatural. All I can think about is how sorry I am and how little my regret helps you.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. That’s all understood and digested.”

  “That’s far too generous of you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s what the church teaches us. It teaches us that the goodness and selflessness of man will always rise to the surface. Man is gifted in that way. I knew we’d have this conversation at some point, and I knew it would be fine. I knew it was only a matter of time. Every man eventually aims to redeem himself.” The conversation began to turn. A low warmth. He took my hand. “I’m fine, John. I’m just fine. You may find this hard to believe, but you’ve helped me. It’s true. I was thinking about this just before you arrived. I realized I was destined to become a messenger of man because of you. I grew up without my father, and yet I have a father. I have Nate, who is a wonderful man. I have a wonderful mother and sister. I have another beautiful sister on the way. I have a girlfriend I love very much and will marry one day. And I have the church. I have so much. I have a support system with endless backups. And it’ll never go away. Ever. Because the church will never die. I have a heart, but it’s not inside my body.” He gestured outside. “It’s out there. You’ve proven that. You made yourself superfluous to my life, and yet here I am. At peace. Happy. Able to sit with you without rancor. That’s a miracle, John. That’s a miracle this church performs every day.” He squeezed my hand fervently and looked me over with great curiosity. “You should join us. You look . . . You look lonely. Disconnected. Are you lonely?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really think about it.”

  “Our northern Virginia parish is the second largest in the entire nation. Reverend Swanson’s church seats over five thousand people, and yet they have an overflow at virtually every service. Think of that. Think of what it would be like to know all those people are by your side. Thousands of unseen forces that you never even knew were there, guiding you through the world. Billions perhaps.”

  “I’m not sure I need quite that many.”

  “I’d say you need some. They could give you a job. A proper job. You wouldn’t have to be an end specialist anymore. You wouldn’t have to help kill people and live in that grimness. I can see it in your eyes, and you’ve only looked at me three times. I can see . . . resignation. You have skills that could serve the church in a much more productive way. There is an insurgency out there murdering people. Trolls that are maiming and disfiguring people. Acts of evil. Acts of extreme cruelty to other men and women. Violations of the holy vessel. The church has proclaimed a mission to put an end to this, and you could be part of it. Tell me that doesn’t appeal to you more than what you do right now.” David noticed the speed-bump scar peeking out from under my shirtsleeve. He let go of my hand and brushed it gingerly. “You could fight with us.”

  I wanted to say yes, but the truth was that his recruitment made me terrifically uneasy. I grew up believing that religion was a cover people used, and I’ve never been able to shake that. Even now, though David was being so open and kind, I instinctively resisted. He was talking to me more like a customer than a blood relative. “This is a wound I avenged a very long time ago,” I told him. “Much to my detriment and yours. More than you know. I want to join you, David. But I can’t. I’m not a lost soul. I didn’t stumble into my new job. I chose it. I saw my father—your grand-father—get the cure and regret it. Deeply. I saw him welcome the ravaging of his insides by cancer because it was the only solution he felt he had. I don’t wish that on anyone. And his curing was my doing. I goaded him into it. I never told you that before, but it’s true. There are people who feel as if they have led a complete life and need no more of it, and if I can be the one who brings their existence to a proper and fitting conclusion, then I relish that opportunity. I work for those who have the good fortune of knowing their exact destiny. Maybe by serving them I can finally figure out what mine is.”

  “You feel incomplete?”

  “Every second. Given my track record as a father, I may walk this earth a very, very long time before feeling otherwise.”

  He looked disappointed but not deterred. “Go to a service. Just one. Go without prejudice and see the church. If it’s not what you want, fine. I won’t begrudge you that. But I ask you to go just once. So that you see where I’m coming from. Is that fair?”

  I nodded my head. “Of course.”

  He got up. “There will come a time when you will need the church. I know you think that’s bullshit, but it’s true. It has precisely what you’re looking for. And when that time comes, I’ll be there to welcome you. I promise. The church is the future of all men
.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “I wish you nothing but serenity.”

  He walked out and my body loosened. I took a sip of beer and felt more like myself again. Relaxed. I felt eager to return home to Virginia as soon as possible.

  DATE MODIFIED:

  6/3/2059, 4:35 A.M.

  Alison on Stage

  I had another dream about Alison. Every time I dream about her, I never see the fully grown woman who learned to love me right before she died. I always see the one from eighth grade, the version of her that turned me away no matter how desperately I tried to curry her favor. Tonight I saw her in an empty playhouse. We were just outside the main auditorium, in one of those red-velvet-lined, ramped hallways with periodic entrances to the theater rows. Such was my excitement at seeing Alison in the dream that I ran to embrace her and accidentally knocked her down to the floor. When I went to give her a lift, she remained stuck there, fastened to the ground. No matter how hard I tried, she stayed glued in that position. She began speaking to me, but everything she said was barely audible. When I leaned in to try to make out what she was saying, she disappeared. I could see through a door that she had teleported over to the main stage and was warming up with an orchestra, a cello in her hand (she played no instrument in real life, as far as I know). I tried to get in to see her but was rebuffed by the usher for not having a ticket. A throng of concertgoers rushed in front of me and quickly erased her from my view, sweeping me back farther and farther until I was standing in a pond somewhere. Another country. Water up to my knees. Alison gone.

  It’s not just my subconscious that delights in torturing me about her, even after all this time. It’s been long enough now that my brain has started to wonder, independent of my own commands, what our relationship would be like if she were still alive. Sometimes I wonder if we would have grown bored of each other. Sometimes I think the fact that she died is the reason I’ll never stop loving her. She wasn’t around long enough for me to grow tired of her personality or her appearance. Every relationship seems to lead to that end. She said it herself. She left me just as my mind had perfected her. The prime condition of love. A simple glance from her was enough to send my body into a frenzied state. There was never enough time for that feeling to go away. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a good thing. I despise myself for thinking that.