Rift (25 page)

Perhaps we do have something to talk about.

Stoplights, oak trees, and ugly, brown buildings roll by as we drive, and I begin to tell Cameron my story. Everything from the very first sensation after I awoke in Phoenix until I arrived in Plano this morning. I know he's heard a lot of it already, but I suppose he can identify more closely with the experiences as I tell them. I play loose with the facts when I explain how Crystal and I met, and skip altogether our encounter at the cabin. He should know these things, of course, but I'm uncomfortable speaking about them in front of her.

When we get back to the motel, Crystal surprises me by taking Lee out to get some food. “Clay probably won't come by for several hours,” she says, “and I'm hungry
now
. Besides, I'm sure you guys want to catch up.”

When they're gone, I don't know to how to begin about Crystal, but Cameron steps in to fill the silence.

“You asked about Misty before,” he says, “and I kind of fudged because I didn't want to worry you right away. But she went nuts when she realized I didn't remember anything about the transmission. She wants to sue in spite of the waiver.”

“You probably can't take the money and then sue.”

“I know.”

“Was she angry at you?” I ask him. “For going through with something that turned out so poorly?”

“There wasn't a lot of ‘I told you so.' I think she was so relieved to get me back safely that she didn't think as much about the argument before. I think she had resigned herself to losing me . . . us . . . whatever.”

“Cameron,” I say to him. “Let's get something out in the open right now. I'm, well, I don't know how to say this, really. I'm more than just sick, man. Something is drastically wrong with me, but I don't really know what it is. I don't think anyone does, except maybe Batista and his fucking friends at NeuroStor, and it probably doesn't matter anyway. There isn't any way to reverse what they did to me.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. Whatever this technology is, this scanning and reassembling that Crystal's physics friend told me was impossible, there isn't going to be any way to repair that. It's like shattering a vase into a million tiny pieces and then trying to put it back together. Even if you could get really, really close, there would always be problems. Maybe at first the vase would look fine, but at some point cracks would develop along lines that didn't quite match up, and eventually the whole thing would fall apart. I think something like that is going to happen to me.”

“You don't know that.”

“But I
do
! I can feel it, you know? Something isn't right.”

Again silence swells between us. The discomfort is tangible.

“Look, what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't. . .oh, shit. This is going to sound ridiculous.”

“What is it?”

“I don't expect you to share Misty with me. That's what I'm trying to say. Probably such a thing never occurred to you, but for me, well, assuming we survive this business with NeuroStor, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. But I'm here to tell you that I'm not going to pester you guys. I don't expect to even talk to her.”

“Cameron—”

“I'm not joking. I don't want Misty to have to deal with this. And I don't really want to either.”

“The money—”

“If you can spare some money, that's fine. I don't know how long I'll be around to spend it, anyway.”

“I was going to say that we haven't received the money yet, anyway.”

“Well, when you do, I don't expect—”

“You don't have any idea what's going to happen with this transmission sickness,” Cameron says. “It could stay the same as it is now. It could go away. You're not necessarily going to get worse.”

“If it goes away, then I'll find another life. I've sort of realized during the past few days that I was looking for another one anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You're talking about Misty? You don't want to be with her anyway, so you're letting me have her?”

I get up and walk to the window. The parking lot outside shimmers under the Texas sun.

“What I'm feeling,” I say, “is what you've been feeling for a long time. I didn't come up with this during the past few days.”

He looks at me through squinting eyes. I move away from the window and pull the drapes closed.

“I know,” he says. “But something is different with Misty and me since I got back. We realized just how far we had fallen, how we weren't talking, how we didn't really know anything about each other anymore. And we
do
want to know. Both of us.”

“Really.”

“You came to a different conclusion?”

“I guess I did. I felt like we had grown into different people. I've been wondering why neither one of us had ever mentioned getting a divorce.”

“You sure the girl didn't have something to do with that idea?”

“Crystal?”

“Of course. Sounds like you gave up on Misty because something else appeared on the horizon.”

“We didn't do anything, if that's what you're thinking.”

“You didn't have to. You know like I do that even the thought of something developing is enough to make a man question his marriage.”

“She doesn't have anything to do with it.”

“Well, that's good, I guess. Because I think she and Clay might be . . . I think they may be more than just friends.”

This hits me a little hard, unexpected, but for some reason I don't want the other me to know that. So I press on with the conversation.

“Hey,” I tell him. “It's great if you guys are talking more, if you think you're back on track again. That's wonderful news. But I don't know—I wish you could have been with me the past few days.”

“What does that have to do with Misty and me?”

“It doesn't. That's not what I meant. But I know how you've felt, how
we've
felt for so long. How we've been sitting in a cubicle twiddling our thumbs while years pass by. How we've never done anything of any consequence in our lives.”

“Until the transmission, that is.”

“But you didn't transmit.”

“Yes,” he says, “I did. I did everything to transmit that I could. Just because the technology is different from what we thought, just because you came out on the other end instead of me, that doesn't mean I didn't do it.”

“Yeah, but I don't know how to explain the transformation I've undergone since I stepped out of that portal. It's like I've thrown off shackles. Escaped the prison of my previous life.”

“So have I.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let me ask you this: What if you never get the money Batista promised?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, who knows what's going to happen after this assault Clay has planned? You might never see that money. What are you going to do for a living?”

He thinks about this before answering. “I guess I'll find another job somewhere.”

“In accounting?”

“What else?”

“But you can't do that. Batista was right when he said we'd never make it at another corporation. You have to find something else, use this opportunity to start a whole new life.”

“And what are we supposed to do about the house while I fart around looking for a new career to solve my midlife crisis?”

“Sell it if you have to. Get a job as a golf instructor. Move to Arizona or California. Misty can be a writer anywhere.”

“Don't you think that's a little rash?”

“Not any more foolish than agreeing to transmit! That's what I'm trying to tell you. Carry this thing out, man. Go all the way with it. If you get the money, that's great. But do something even if you don't get it.
Do
something, Cameron.”

This is surreal. Talking to myself like this. Only I need to remember that it's
not
really me, not if you define self as the lifetime sum of experienced stimuli. Because even though we've separated for only three days, that time apart has been the most important of our lives. And now I want him to know what I know. Feel what I feel. Because if anyone can help open his eyes, it's me.

Cameron smiles.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“I was just thinking that if you and I didn't go through with this assault that Clay has planned, I would probably get the money. I mean, he doesn't really have a lot of proof without us, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Hold on,” he says. “Let me finish. I was thinking that, but I didn't say it because I realized that if you're right, if I need to carry this thing out—if I need to do something, as you say—then I guess this is the first step toward that. Sure, maybe we won't get the money, but we'll be doing something worthwhile. Something that makes a difference. And isn't that what we set out to do in the first place?”

         

Cameron rises to go to the bathroom, and I step outside to get some air. The motel parking lot is mostly empty. The sun explodes with heat.

The moment I saw Crystal and Clay together, something told me they might be lovers. I didn't really think much of it at the time—didn't want to, of course—but now Cameron's suspicions have confirmed my own. Jealousy makes me wonder if Clay won't somehow get killed during his planned assault on NeuroStor. Or maybe be hit head-on by a tractor-trailer on his way to the motel. Or something.

Crystal didn't really say when she was going to be back, and I have no idea what Cameron and I are supposed to do in the meantime. Talk more, I suppose. But at some point we're going to run out of things to discuss. What I am right now is hungry. But I'm not really sure if I should eat, because I haven't exactly been keeping my food down lately.

When I return to the room, however, Cameron has already ordered us a pizza. “I'm starving,” he confesses. “And I don't have any idea when everyone is going to be back.”

I start to ask something, but Cameron has already thought of it.

“Sorry about the pizza,” he says. “But since we don't have a car, there wasn't much choice.”

We chat about Tom while we wait for the food to arrive. Cameron is decidedly unforgiving of our best friend at first, but relaxes his position as he hears in detail the unselfish way Tom helped me elude Ivan and Ed. I describe how well he played golf that day, even under what must have been unbelievable pressure, and I suggest that he finally had a real chance to qualify for the U.S. Open. When the pizza arrives, we are both relieved.

Plain cheese is all either of us can stand—who the hell wants to eat meat and vegetables swimming in a lake of mozzarella?—and the smell of it makes me realize just how hungry I am. We both inhale several pieces and wash them down with the root beer Cameron ordered. A sense of calm settles over me as my stomach welcomes the sensation of being full, and for a moment I think I might be able to relax a little.

But soon it becomes apparent that eating was indeed a bad idea. I stand, suddenly sick to my stomach again, and a rush of blood swirls into my head. My feet cross. They stumble on the carpet. I swoon toward the bed, my spine bending backward against a mattress corner, and then I roll onto the floor.

A voice shouts above me. My voice.

The rush fills my ears, a sound like the roar of waves rolling onto a beach. My eyelids flutter open, and I see Cameron hovering above me. He's yelling something, but I can't hear his voice above the roar.

And now red noise obscures my vision. Waves crashing inside my brain. I'm falling. Away.

Away.

         

Awake.

Voices.

This is what I hear:

“. . . be nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, that may . . . days and then seem . . .”

Now the voices drift out of my reach, pulled away from me like the tide. A moment or two later I hear them again. They come and go.

“. . . days to a week, the symptoms will . . . he . . . diarrhea and vomit blood as the lining of his . . .”

Blood? Who's bleeding? Not me.

“But we need him. We haven't even told him the real . . .”

The real what?

“. . . begin to shed . . . his bone marrow and . . . blood . . . if his white cell count . . . sores . . .”

Primal fear envelops my heart and spreads into my stomach. Distantly, I feel my bowels release, though I'm almost sure this is really happening to someone else. Who shits in bed? Not me.

“. . . lower the number of platelets, cell fragments that help blood to clot . . . hemorrhage into his skin . . . the intestines and stomach . . . probably dying . . . dying . . .”

Who's bleeding? Not me.

Who's dying? Not me.

Not me.

         

Cataclysmic thunder. Screams of the dead. White heat. Sacred fire.

         

Later now. Whispers. A moan. Quick breaths and the creak of a mattress.

“Kiss me down there,” she says. “Love me.”

A soft cry. A grunt.

“Oh, yes.”

I will myself away from this, back to the maternal comfort of sleep.

         

Later still. More voices. This time they are hollow-sounding, electric. Someone is laughing, announcing what a beautiful morning it is today, predicting thunderstorms in the Midwest, humidity in the southeastern part of the country, and here's what's happening in your neck of the woods . . . and a good morning to you from NBC 5 Today, looks like another hot one this afternoon, it's like summer again with a high in the mid . . .

I open my eyes and wait for them to focus. A toilet flushes on my left. A door opens, the faucet squeaks on and then off. Crystal turns around. Looks at me. She's wearing a terry-cloth robe. Wet hair hangs on her shoulder. The flat planes of her face are smooth and clean, the tanned skin of her high forehead more beautiful than ever. She's not wearing a single smudge of makeup. She's beautiful.