Life on the Preservation, US Edition (33 page)

The apartment assumed a deathly quiet.

He stood in the middle of the room, bleeding, breathing hard, completely surrounded by pieces of his paranoid mind. Only it wasn’t paranoia. His city was burning.

But not his safe box.

In here it felt like XXX GIRLZ: that same eerie, muffled silence.
Bound in camouflage
, the Curator had said. The fat man had the power.

Maybe Ian did, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

M
IDNIGHT IN THE
Fortress of Goya.

Shadows spun out of every surface left unpainted by Ian’s spray cans and markers, out of the desk and bed and random debris of Ian’s life. Worms twisted in his stomach. He kept his eyes open through the light shift, standing solid in the center of the room.

Advent.

His ‘Black’ paintings remained – unfaded.

“Check this shit out,” he said to no one, looking around at the walls, as if it were work somebody else had put up. He remembered the weirdly compelling pictures in the Noble Gallery, the magnetic alienness and familiarity of them.

In the bathroom he picked a tiny fragment of window glass out of the skin below his right nipple, dampened a corner of threadbare bath towel and started to blot the blood off his chest and stomach. Contorting himself before the mirror, he craned his head to get a look at his back. There was a red burn the size and shape of a fried egg just below his right shoulder blade. The Hunters had reduced XXX GIRLZ to a smoking crater and all Ian got was this lousy burn.

In the living room he racked up the blinds on the routine morning. The window was restored. He pushed it up. Fresh, cool air breezed in. His Chief stood wheel-cocked in the alley. Situation normal. Just another Advent.

When the Hunters blew up the strip club that should have been
it
. Whatever machines were maintaining the Preservation should have blown up, too. Instead, everything went on. And the Hunters burned the whole city down. Again. Except for Ian’s safe box apartment.

Bound in camouflage.

That fat alien had called him something. What was it? Ian grinned. “I’m a fucking
Lens
.”

He was kicking around the clothes on the living room floor, looking for a minimally rancid t-shirt, when a second realization hit him like a hammer: the other guy in the in The Noble Gallery, the one whose back had been to Ian – that guy had
been
the alien. The
Curator.

So he moved operations. That’s why destroying the strip club didn’t destroy the Preservation machines.

Got it.

He yanked the big closet open. Standing on tip toes, he reached way back on the high shelf. His fingers touched the shoe box, teasing it out until he could get a grip on it. He had made sure when he put it there in the first place that it wouldn’t be easy to reach. The box was heavy. He flipped the lid off, lifted out the oily towel-wrapped object, unrolled it on the bed.

His father’s .38 Police Special. Suicide toy. Only this wasn’t about suicide. This was about
life
.

XXXX GIRLZ
STOOD
tawdry but intact. Ian slowed the Chief as he rolled by. At the next block he goosed the throttle and leaned into the turn. He parked a couple of streets over, out of sight of the Noble Gallery, and walked the rest of the way.

It was still very early. Both the gallery and Biblio were closed. Ian slipped behind the gallery. He was not one hundred per cent certain. But it didn’t matter. If it was just another fake guy in there, another android, Ian would know it immediately. And even if the guy called the police on him, so what? Worst scenario: Ian gets locked up for a few hours.

A featureless metal door confronted him. He couldn’t tell if it was rigged with an alarm. In any case, there was no way to force it open, even with a pry bar – which Ian didn’t have, anyway. He would have to wait until the place opened.

He started to turn away, and something went thud on the other side of the door. The bastard
was
in there. Ian withdrew the revolver from the waist of his jeans, planted himself square in front of the door. He held the gun behind his back and knocked, waited, knocked again, with more force. Was this really the right way to confront an alien from another planet? Knock first?

After a moment the dead-bolt snapped aside and the door opened.

A pudgy man in khakis, navy blue pullover and black baseball cap stood before Ian, holding a mug of steaming hot tea.

It was him.

Ian pointed the gun. “I know you. You’re the Curator. No bullshit.”

“I was the Curator,” the man said, unperturbed. “But not any more. Now I am simply Charles Noble.”

Ian pushed the barrel against his chest. It left a little oily ring on the cashmere. “Back inside, ‘Charlie’.” He followed him and kicked the door shut. They were in a small living space. Sink, microwave oven, little gate leg table with two chairs, Persian carpet and three shut doors. Ian’s right eye started to throb, like the beginning of a drilling headache.

He said to the Curator, “They blew up the strip club on the last Advent. How come nothing changed?”

“What would change?”

“The Dome, the Preservation – why didn’t it disappear? Did you move the generator or whatever it is over to this building?”

“There is no generator.”

“Then what makes everything go?”

“Mr. Palmer, I already told you what makes everything ‘go’ on the Preservation.
You
do. Here, come with me. I wish to show you something.” Not intimidated in the least by Ian’s deadly weapon and the position of power it inferred, Noble turned and walked through the nearest door. Ian followed, irritated that he wasn’t in charge.

They entered the gallery proper. Canvases covered most of the wall space. Ian glanced around but kept his attention on Noble. The paintings represented everything from a mundane pair of red sneakers to a vicious, snarling mongrel dog trapped in a giant soap bubble. A few pieces of sculpted art squatted on display pedestals. One, fashioned in molded acrylic, resembled an anthropomorphic jellyfish wearing a John Steed bowler: Drifter / Not For Sale.

Noble swept his arm grandly, “Do you see anything you like?”

Ian pressed the heel of his hand to his right eye. The pressure did nothing to relieve the throbbing pain. “Listen. I know what you are. You
told
me, for Christ’s sake. So cut it out. I want to know how this thing works and then I want you to make it stop working. That’s all. You have no right to
fuck
with me.”

“If the Preservation stops, so will all of us who dwell here stop. I have a counter proposal. Together, we might effectively shield the entire city from future Hunter attacks. I can’t do it alone, but with two Lenses it might be possible.”

“I thought you weren’t going to fuck with me.”

“Not my intention, I assure you.” Noble cleared his throat. “Are you certain you don’t see anything you like? It might... relax you.”

“Corporate art is shit,” Ian said, stating one of his cherished knee-jerk opinions, though he knew that what surrounded him in the Noble Gallery was anything but corporate.

“Are you quite certain?”

Noble had one of those big open faces that invite generosity. A face full of good will and interest in people and life. Despite himself, Ian didn’t want to disappoint a face like that. It was the Curator’s face but the lingering element of alien coldness was gone. Ian sighed, lowered the gun. “I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.”

Noble poured a glass of white wine and handed it to him. “I know it’s early, but I think you could use this.”

Ian brought the glass to his lips. The wine slipped cold and crisp over his tongue. He didn’t really want it, but it was so good he took a second taste, this time holding the wine in his mouth a moment before swallowing.

“Acceptable?” Charles said.

“Whatever.”

“Very good.” Noble smiled and nodded at him, encouragingly. “You’re quite right, you know. At one point, you might say, I was in charge of a somewhat larger establishment than this – the Seattle Preservation. At any rate, I
thought
I was in charge. And every time a real customer manifested, I would immediately reject him. I believe I was
afraid
of the real customers.”

Ian drank his wine. He felt light-headed. The throbbing ache behind his eye subsided, minutely, with the introduction of alcohol. “Who did all these pictures?”

“I fill my gallery with the borrowed inspiration of those with whom I share the city. Their memory matrices are rich with personally significant images. I retrieve the image, alter it with therapeutic intent, and manifest it in my gallery. My walls are never bare and works change from Advent to Advent. No one can resist a work of their own imagination, especially if they are unaware of its origin.”

“You steal art from people’s brains then sell it back to the victim?”

Noble chuckled. “The truth is, everyone is more than delighted with the arrangement. Not that they know what the situation is. I’ll tell you what, though. I’ve had a splendid week, so I’d like to make you a gift.”

“I don’t want any of this shit.”

“Of course you do. Here, have a look.” Noble gestured with his open hand and Ian followed the gesture. On a small rectangular canvas there was rendered an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub. It stood in an obscurely shadowed room subdued by dun and oxblood brush strokes. The tub itself was almost translucently blue-white – a tub made of bone china. It brimmed with cerulean water afloat with rose petals.

“You approve?”

Ian approached the thing, impelled by soothing currents that seemed to flow between him and the canvas.

“It’s yours,” Noble said.

“I said I don’t–”

“Yours in the purest sense.”

Ian forced himself to look away. He raised the gun. “Don’t even
try
to mess with me. My girl is gone, you threw my best friend and my sister out of here on the last Advent, and you’d do the same to me, if you could.”

“But I can’t. And you’re wrong about the others. I didn’t reject them. You did.”

“That’s
bullshit
.”

“It’s the simple truth. Your Lensing ability has always been stronger than mine, and this Preservation belongs to you, not me.”

“You’re crazy.”

Noble shrugged.

A man with black wavy hair and olive skin, barefoot, wearing slacks but no shirt appeared in the doorway to the living quarters. “Charles!”

Ian swung the revolver at him. “Who are you?”

The man’s eyes widened. “My God, who are
you?
”

“It’s all right, Curtis,” Charles said. “Come here.”

Curtis went to Charles and the men held hands, a united front. Ian experienced a ripple of irrational jealousy: These two guys, neither one a human being, standing there like they
meant
something to each other. Maybe they did.

“There isn’t any money, no safe, if that’s what you’re after,” Curtis said.

Noble smiled sweetly at his companion. “He doesn’t want money, Curtis.”

“What
does
he want, then? And why does he have that
gun?
”

Ian lowered the revolver. “Take it easy. I’m not going to shoot it or anything. I just… I want. I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Noble said, “More wine, perhaps?”

“No–” Ian’s eye began to ache massively. He brought his hand up to cover it – and stopped. A red light shone on his palm. “What–?” He dropped the hand and the light rayed out, painting a sickle on Charles Noble’s chest.

“They’ve come,” Noble said. “They used you to find me.”

The building began to shudder. Ian’s bathtub painting slipped from its hook and hit the floor, the frame cracking apart. ‘Drifter’ teetered on its pedestal. The lights flickered.

“Earthquake,” Curtis said. “We have to get
under
something.”

Ian looked at the ceiling. “No. It’s the Hunters, isn’t it? They’re going to destroy the Preservation machines.”

“There are no machines,” Noble said. “Only a focusing Lens. You.”

Ian dropped his gun and made for the front door. It was locked. He fumbled at the latch, flung the door open and ran into the street.

A brilliant light flashed and spun directly over the Noble Gallery. Ian threw his hand up to shield his eyes. A hot whirlwind tore at his clothes, threatened to sweep him into the air. The gallery exploded, then, and Ian’s body rode the expanding fire bubble for an instant before the heat disintegrated him.

Bodiless, Ian found himself hovering above the city. The great Dome turned white and then imploded, a collapsing shell. Ian felt the collapse as if it were himself collapsing. Concentric shockwaves rolled over the surrounding landscape, obliterating everything they encountered.

PART THREE

“When two people dream the same dream,

it ceases to be an illusion.”

PHILIP K. DICK,
THE UNTELEPORTED MAN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

OCTOBER 2011: IAN PALMER

I
AN THRASHED AWAKE
, his bed a drowning pool. The sheets tangled around his arms and legs, holding him under. He kicked free, sat up, and discovered a monster headache. The pain was so intense it blurred his vision. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows planted on knees, head cradled in his hands, and waited. Eventually the headache subsided sufficiently to allow him to stand. Stepping delicately, as if his head were a brimming tea cup, he made his way to the bathroom. From the medicine cabinet he took down an economy-sized bottle of aspirin, twisted and pried at the child-proof cap until it popped free, shook four of the little white tablets into his palm and washed them down with tap water.

He remembered everything. He remembered the future.

The events on the Preservation appeared in sharp focus, like the memory of a super-dream (or psychotic episode), each detail rendered in hyper clarity, the ultimate piece, put up on the wall inside his own head by alien forces. Were Zach and Vanessa remembering, too?