Spark: A Novel (26 page)

“Hello,” I whispered in English. “Hello …” Leaning forward, I peered through a wooden grille. The other side of the booth was filled with shadows.

I was sitting in the Air France airport lounge when a news story about my activities appeared on the television screen mounted behind the bar. The one-minute segment included a surveillance video from the CCTV cameras in the cobblestone courtyard. The sunglasses and scarf concealing my face turned out to be unnecessary precautions. The infrared cameras in the courtyard had been blocked by the invisible energy emitted by my crown of LEDs. An assassin with a ball of light for a head strolled across the courtyard, firing his gun. After finishing his job, this pure Spark passed through the gateway and glowed his way down the street.

The headline on the television news story was
QUATRE HOMMES ASSASSINÉS À PARIS
. That meant Nalini had survived her leg wound. I felt no guilt or regret about killing Jafar and the three bodyguards. They were simply tiny gears inside a machine. But it bothered me that I hadn’t followed my plan. This was the first time I had ever failed to complete an assignment for Miss Holquist.

My only desire was to return to New York City and the clean, empty space in my loft. I had five cases of ComPlete stored in the kitchen cupboard and wouldn’t have to leave the room for several weeks. I opened Power-I and made a new list:

But I couldn’t think of anything that should happen after I locked the door. An hour before departure, I rented a business traveler cubicle and made a phone call to California.

A woman answered the phone. “Hello. Ettinger Clinic.”

“This …” I paused for a few seconds and then used my previous name. “This is Jacob Davis. I used to be a patient at your clinic.”

“Yes, sir. How may I help you?”

“I need to talk to Dr. Noland. I—I have a problem.”

“Would you repeat your name, sir?”

“Jacob Davis.”

A long pause while I clutched the phone handset. My Shell was so light at that moment that I could have floated away.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “But Dr. Noland is busy with patients right now. He suggested that you send him an e-mail.”

If a supercomputer was provided with the laws of physics and a description of every occurrence in the world’s history, then it could predict what I was doing right now and what I had done in the past. My decision to become a patient at the Ettinger Clinic was simply a consequence of a series of prior actions.

After I quit my job at InterFace, I retreated to my apartment, locked the door, and remained. In the daytime, I stayed in the living room and watched television. At night, particles of dark yellow light emerged from the ceiling, and then floated downward through the shadows until they were absorbed by the spongy floor.

No one was cutting my hair and I stopped washing myself and shaving. One of my credit cards was still active, and I used it to home-deliver bottles of clear fruit juice and spring water. The bills kept arriving, but I stacked the envelopes, unopened, on my kitchen table.

Thirty-four days after my revelation on Sixth Avenue, the phone rang. I assumed that it was either a bill collector or the elderly woman who kept insisting that she was my mother. The bill collectors made threats. My mother cried. It was all the same to me. Instead, it was a voice that I hadn’t heard for several weeks. A woman’s voice with bright energy.

“Hello, Mr. Davis! This is Sandy Shapiro from Marian Community Hospital. Something has come up and we need to talk. Would you please call me at—”

I picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Oh, there you are! I didn’t know if you were still living in New York City. So how
are
you, Mr. Davis? I realize that you’re no longer a patient at the hospital, but I
do
feel some responsibility for those patients who weren’t completely healed. You are definitely in that category.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.…”

“No! Wait! I have to tell you something. Do you remember your psychiatrist, Dr. Tollner? Well, he wrote a description of your case and put it up on a Web site for physicians and scientists studying severe brain injuries. Of course, he didn’t use your name and gave only a few personal details, but he did include some of your computer drawings. I don’t know why … maybe it was the drawings … but the article is generating a lot of comments.”

“And I’m supposed to read this?”

“You can if you want to, but that’s not why I’m calling. This morning Dr. Tollner received an e-mail from Dr. Morris Noland,
the neurologist who runs the Ettinger Clinic in Southern California. The clinic is for patients with severe psychological disorders.”

“My medical insurance company is about to sue me, Mrs. Shapiro. They’re not going to let me go to a private clinic.”

“Oh, but that’s the wonderful thing! Dr. Noland said that there would be no charge for thirty days of treatment. He’s never dealt with Cotard’s syndrome, but he thinks he can help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Well, that’s where I might beg to differ with you. Both your mother and your fiancée, Miss Patterson, informed me that you no longer communicate with them. Yesterday, I called Miss Colby, the human resources manager at InterFace. She said that you came back to work two months ago, sat in your cubicle for a few hours, then left and never came back.”

“I didn’t like it there.”

“Well, of course not! You weren’t really healed at our hospital. Returning to your previous life was probably difficult for you. That’s why you need to get some help. The Ettinger Clinic is world famous. It’s sponsored by the software billionaire Terry Ettinger. And it’s free for certain patients. Absolutely no cost. The clinic will even pay for your plane ticket to California.”

My Spark bounced around inside my skull as I tried to come up with a response. The only relevant fact was this: I didn’t want to be sitting in this room.

“Yes.”

“Yes to what, Mr. Davis?”

“I’ll go to California.”

The following day, when a taxi arrived to take me to the airport, I emerged from my apartment looking like a hermit who had been sealed up in a cave. I had a scraggly beard and my hair touched my collar. My fingernails were long, yellowish, and slightly curved.

And I smelled. Or, more exactly, my smell bothered others. The clinic had paid for a business-class ticket but, ten minutes after
the plane took off, the businessman sitting next to me stood up and walked over to the cabin attendant to complain. There was whispered conversation with a great deal of glancing in my direction, and then two different cabin attendants asked me questions while they sniffed. The businessman was immediately sent up to first class and I remained alone and untouched in my solitary seat.

I had run out of ComPlete, but drank bottled water and two cups of clear apple juice during the flight. Apparently, this was not enough nourishment for my Shell. When the plane landed in Los Angeles, my legs collapsed and I had to sit back down again. The cabin attendant called for a wheelchair and an airline employee pushed me through the terminal to the baggage area.

A young man who looked like a weight lifter held up a cardboard sign with my name on it. “Are you Mr. Davis?”

I nodded.

“I’m Ricky Almendarez from the Ettinger Clinic. I’m supposed to drive you up to Ojai, but you look pretty wasted. You wanna go to a hospital or something?”

“No. Get your car and bring it up to the curb.”

I slid into the front seat of Ricky’s sedan and he turned onto the San Diego Freeway. Thousands of other cars were traveling north and red brake lights flowed up the Sepulveda Pass. Peering out the window, I saw streets and parking lots with more cars. All Human Units disappeared within my mind and the city became a Kingdom of Cars; the large, shiny creatures maneuvered around each other, squatting and growling, then surging forward in packs.

Traffic began to thin out when we followed the 101 Freeway to the coast. The Pacific Ocean was on the left side of the car and on the right were eroded cliffs that looked like massive fingers clutching the earth.

I heard a whirring sound as the electric window glided downward. “Just a little ventilation,” Ricky explained. “I hope that’s okay, Mr. Davis. I’m not trying to be negative, but you kinda
smell.
”

The Ettinger Clinic was in a coastal valley filled with orange and avocado groves; this dark green mass of vegetation shivered and swayed whenever winds blew in from the ocean. I didn’t see any
walls or fences. Ornamental gardens surrounded a dozen buildings designed in the Spanish mission style with red-tile roofs, wrought-iron doorknobs, and thick walls painted white.

When we reached the parking lot, Ricky put on G-MID eyeglasses and slipped a headset onto his left ear. During their shift at the clinic, the staff were either hearing instructions from Dr. Noland or reporting on patient activities. Everything they saw was transmitted from their G-MIDs to a cloud server.

My room had white walls, a ceiling fan, and an adobe tile floor. One bed. One desk. One chair. After we entered, I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.

“Do you eat anything?” Ricky asked.

“ComPlete.”

“Complete what? I don’t understand.”

“ComPlete.”

Ricky repeated the word into his headset and nodded. “Okay. No sweat. Dr. Noland knows what you’re talking about.” He walked over to the bed and tried to take off my shoes.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

“No one touches me. Leave me alone.”

Ricky left the room and returned that evening with a case of ComPlete. I drank one bottle in front of him, and then the night nurse switched on the overhead light every two hours and watched me drink four more bottles before dawn.

I was strong enough to get out of bed when Ricky returned to my room. “I know that you don’t want to be touched,” he said. “But I’m in charge of cleaning you up.”

Ricky told me to remove my clothes and sit on a plastic chair in the middle of the room. Then he plugged in an electric clipper and handed it to me. The clipper made a buzzing sound as I pushed it back and forth across my skull. “Left … farther left … you missed a spot,” he said as clumps of dirty hair drifted down to the floor.