Rift (26 page)

“Cameron,” she says, moving quickly to the bed. “Honey, are you all right?”

“I think so. What time is it?”

“A little after seven thirty. Does your head hurt? Are you dizzy at all?”

“No. But I'm a little stiff. How long have I been lying here?”

“Since yesterday around noon. Eighteen hours or so.”

“Eighteen hours! Again?”

“You don't remember anything?”

I do remember something, maybe it was a dream, but I don't know.

“I was having lunch with Cameron. That's the last thing I remember.”

“He wanted to take you to the hospital, but we couldn't risk it. A friend came by, a doctor. He said all we could do was wait.”

“Where are the others?”

“Lee and Cameron are in the next room. Clay is running errands.”

“Did you stay with me all night?”

“Yeah. I was awake most of the time watching you. You didn't move all day, but after nine or ten o'clock last night you started to toss and turn. You screamed a couple of times—scared me to death—and once you yelled something about fire. It was kind of creepy. I never heard anyone talk in their sleep before, at least not so clearly.”

I sense something, a memory just outside my reach, something about fire or an explosion. Something that seemed wrong, like betrayal. Whatever it is, it's turning the skin on my arms to gooseflesh.

“Can I get you some water?”

“No, but I do have to pee.” Actually, my bladder feels full enough to burst. But when I pull my hands backwards and attempt to push myself off the bed, I don't feel anything. My arms move, and I see the hands going in the right direction, but there is no sense of control between them and my brain.

I roll over and shake my right arm violently. The hand moves before my eyes, but I can't feel it.

“Cameron, what's the matter?”

“I can't feel my hand. The whole arm is numb to the elbow.”

“You probably slept on it wrong.”

“Yeah, but the other hand feels the same way.”

I roll over and try my other hand. Nothing.

“Goddammit.”

“They're asleep,” Crystal says. “Get some blood into them. Stand up and let your arms hang at your sides.”

I wiggle toward the edge of the bed. My feet nearly trip over each other, but somehow keep me from falling over. Balance, I've learned recently, is easily taken for granted. Never before have I been so concerned—and thankful, when it's working properly—for that innocuous fluid somewhere inside my inner ear.

“Better?” Crystal asks.

Already I feel blood draining into my hands and fingers, awakening cells that had felt dead.

“Yeah.”

“Feel like taking a shower? The water is hot, and we bought you some new clothes yesterday.” She points to a large Dillard's bag beneath the vanity.

“I guess so.”

She steps back into the bathroom and grabs her used towels. As she walks out again, a pair of panties falls to the floor. They are tiny, lacy, a thin sheaf of material that would snap any man to attention. When she bends to pick them up, the lapels of her robe fall open, and through them her breasts are plainly visible. Full and tanned and beautiful. I cannot help but stare.

And of course Crystal catches me.

Our eyes lock for a brief, electric instant, though it seems to last much longer, and then she walks to the bag of clothes. Smiling, she pulls out an orange tank top and khaki shorts.

I step past her and into the bathroom. Close the door behind me. A few moments later, I'm standing beneath a curtain of steamy water. Thinking. Feeling sorry for myself.

Crystal couldn't possibly want anything to do with me. But what if I'm wrong? Did I just miss my chance? I could have . . .
we
could have . . . I think I'm in love with her. So beautiful, intelligent. What if I'm not that sick? What if a doctor can help me? Could Crystal and I, later on, of course, after the assault, could we have something together?

Ah, shit. I heard what they said. About platelets and white blood cells and the digestive problems. I heard all that. But this only confirmed what I've known for some time now. That I am dying. On the golf course, the day after I arrived in Phoenix, I knew something was fundamentally wrong with me, and I tried to deny it, tried to tell myself that I would be okay, that I would heal just like always. I tried to tell myself that nothing was so serious that I might actually die.

But that was a lie.

I
am
going to die.

Do you know the urban legend about a man named Jerry, whose attitude toward life is uncommonly positive? Well, let me tell it to you. Jerry always smiles, always has something good to say, always tries to do right by everyone. It is his belief that every encounter in life presents us with a choice, a point where we can decide to look upon the positive or negative side of that encounter. And one day, when he is shot by a burglar, Jerry is rushed to the hospital with a devastating prognosis: He is not expected to live. Bullet fragments are scattered throughout his body. And when the operating doctor, going through the motions, asks if he is allergic to anything, Jerry says, “Bullets.” Everyone in the ER has a good laugh at that, and then Jerry says, “I have a choice now: to live or die. I choose to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

And because this legend was written to promote a good attitude, Jerry, of course, lives. But happy stories like this are bullshit, chicken soup for the fucking weak-minded, for the losers who think positive thinking can overcome physiology. I am not going to live. There isn't enough good cheer, there aren't enough smiles in the world to prevent that now. I can't even begin to comprehend the end of a life, can't understand what will happen to the consciousness that is me. My understanding of the universe does not reach that far.

But my inevitable demise doesn't have to be fruitless. Just because I can't change the ending of this story doesn't mean I can't shape it. All I need is the courage to channel my fear, the resolve to hone my anger at Batista into something sharp enough with which to stab.

And perhaps a little help.

         

Crystal is not in the room when I finish my shower.

I find a bathing suit among the clothes she bought for me—a red-and-blue number with
POLO
stitched in large white letters on the side. I don't know if I'll be able to swim, but a few rays of sunshine would feel good right now.

The pool is long and rectangular. A fortyish couple sit at one corner—a beached walrus of a man with his ninety-pound wife—and a long-legged brunette in a green bikini basks at the opposite corner. I find a chaise lounge between them and lie down on my back. Sunshine washes over me.

For a while my mind flips through the events that brought me to this situation. My trek down the flooded washout, the vigilante convenience store clerk who pounded me with his soft fists, those few moments in the transmission portal before everything went dark.

Strange how that last memory, and all others that precede it, aren't really mine. I can remember things that never happened to me, not to this body anyway. You could say I am a reincarnation of myself. In fact, you could say I was born only four days ago. But from what? From what was I born?

I don't understand quantum teleportation as well as Lee does, but I did gather that one set of particles transfers its properties to another set of particles, essentially destroying the original and re-creating it somewhere else. True teleportation is achieved with this method, not replication, although its success so far has been limited to photons and other ridiculously small atomic elements. NeuroStor's process is something altogether different. There are two Cameron Fishers in the world because they do not, in fact, teleport anything. It's replication, pure and simple. Scanned data is sent from one place to another, where it re-creates a copy of the original. But how? What sort of scanning process do they use?

“Hey, Cameron.”

Involuntarily I jump, brought out of my trance by the sound of Crystal's voice, and sweat burns my eyes as I open them.

“That girl over there is checking you out.”

I look over at the brunette in the green bikini, but of course she's not looking in my direction.

“Right,” I deadpan.

“I'm serious. She keeps glancing over here. I watched her on my way from the room.”

Crystal's white bikini is tiny and beautiful. The bottom rides high on her hip and makes her legs look a mile long.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the other day you were trying to convince me that you were too old to meet someone. And I'm calling bullshit.”

“I appreciate what you're trying to do,” I tell her. “But you've got to know I'm not really that concerned right now about my ability to pick up women.”

She looks away from me.

“Look, Crystal. You know I . . . I really . . .”

“You really what?”

The words are right there, I know what they are, but I can't make them come out of my mouth.

“It's hotter out here than I thought,” she says, and moves to stand up. “Maybe I'd be more comfortable back in the room.”

I reach out and grab her wrist. “Don't leave.”

“Then make me want to stay.”

“Sit down.”

Crystal relaxes and combs her fingers through her hair. Now is the time I'm supposed to say it to her. Whatever it is I think I should say, now is the time to do it.

But I can't.

Jesus Christ, it's like I'm in fucking junior high again. I can't count how many girlfriends I missed out on back then simply because I was too frightened to act upon what we were both thinking. Because if you aren't man enough to tell a woman how you feel about her, why would she want to have anything to do with you?

My excuse now, of course, is that I've been married for fifteen years. I can't remember what the hell I'm supposed to do or what I'm supposed to say. But I don't think Crystal gives a shit about that.

She looks away from me again, so I just blurt it out.

“I like you, Crystal. A lot.”

When she looks back at me, the sparkle in Crystal's eye is bright enough to light up the city of Houston for a year.

“I like you, too, Cameron. A lot.”

“I can't say I understand why.”

“Why analyze it? Is it too much to just accept when a girl's attracted to you?”

“It's just that, well, considering my physical condition . . .”

“Cameron, that doesn't matter to me. Oh, I suppose it should. Neither of us knows what's going to happen to you, after all. But that doesn't change the way I feel about you. In fact . . .”

She trails off.

“‘In fact' what?”

“Well, you were an accountant before, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it certainly didn't prepare you for what's happened during the last few days. And you haven't backed away from any of it. You've been really brave.”

“Thank you,” I answer, even though I don't think “brave” is the way to describe how I've been feeling or acting.

Crystal leans forward and puts her hand on mine.

“That kind of thing really attracts a woman.”

Now what am I supposed to say to that? If Tom was around, he would probably toss out something like,
Moron! She's throwing herself at you! Take her back to the room and fuck the shit out of her!

But do people really do that? Do people really make the leap from civilized conversation to
Let's go back to the room and fuck
? I've slept with five women in my life, and none of them accepted me into their beds before several dates and plenty of get-to-know-you. There have been other opportunities, of course—alcohol-induced make-out sessions at college parties; the inevitable, pathetic come-ons that occur at accounting industry conventions—but I've never actually stepped across that line. What do you say? How do you make the transition?

“Crystal,” I say finally, “everything about you is the kind of thing that attracts a man.”

Now she just stares at me. Her eyes are so blue, the color of a bright summer sky, and so full of intelligence. Calculated intelligence. She leans toward me and I toward her. I see my reflection in those beautiful eyes, I see myself as how she must see me, and—

I jerk away from her. Again.

“What's the matter?”

“What's the matter? What the hell is happening to me, Crystal? I heard you guys while I was asleep. About platelets and white blood cells and hemorrhaging. Am I going to die?”

She straightens and crosses her arms over her breasts.

“I don't know, Cameron.”

“But what do you think? What did your doctor think?”

“If you heard him, then you know.”

Even though I've guessed as much, my hands shake as I ask the next question.

“How long does he give me?”

“A couple of weeks. Maybe a month.”

Weeks. A month.
How can I begin to believe such a thing? People don't really die, do they? I mean, it's just a big act, right? The earth is only so big, a fixed ecosystem, so when humans reach a certain age, we're shipped off to another galaxy, another dimension. Tell me it's true. Tell me we're sent to a place where we grow young, where we become children again.

Oh, please tell me something.

“I'm sorry, Cameron. I really am. But that's just one doctor's guess. He doesn't know. No one knows anything for sure.”

I lie down on the chaise lounge and look up at Crystal through squinting eyes. From here she is nothing more than a silhouette before the blazing, white sun.

“It doesn't matter what's wrong with me,” I tell her. “Because this whole thing is going to fail anyway. Clay's plan is so simple it borders on childish, and the resources earmarked for the ‘assault' tomorrow seem meager at best.”