Idempotency (37 page)

The two didn’t talk for another ten minutes. They sat in silence, their eyes playing a sheepish game of tag. Korak slumped in an ornate upholstered rocking chair, wearing thick flannel pajamas that made a tranquil shuffling sound as he rocked gently. Behind him a window was cracked open, streaming in an icy air off the cool waters of the Queen Charlotte Sound. The wind wasn’t so much as blowing as it was attempting to fill any warm voids it could find, and that was how Korak felt about himself. He had been whittled away to simply a warm void. Lacking any clear direction or purpose. He began to whisper an argument with himself.

“What did you say?” asked Kya.

Korak looked up at her hologram. “Nothing, sorry. I was talking to myself.”

“You seem to be doing a lot of that lately. It worries me, Reverend.”

“Don’t be worried.” He looked at her. A glowing light emanated from behind her, accentuating her brown skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Dansby earlier? And Coglin, dying! I had suspected he was battling an illness, always coughing and wheezing, but terminal . . .”

“Korak, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I—” She stumbled over her words, looking down at her feet. “It was Coglin. It was always Coglin. This will ruin my career, not to mention my standing in heaven. Look, I’m no saint, and when I took this job I knew there would be some moral . . . discrepancies, but I didn’t realize I would be destroying a soul. The science had excited me. And Coglin was so convincing—I would be breaking ground, ‘working outside the purview of US regulations.’ It was so tempting. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the money had a lot to do with it. They are paying me several lifetimes’ worth of money. I won’t have to work for a thousand years. I never considered what could go wrong. But now, the way my contract is structured, if I back out I’ll be ruined; I’ll never work again. Not to mention Coglin’s veiled comments about my life being in danger.”

She snickered bitterly, then added, “It’s hard to fully admit to yourself just how deep the hole is that you’ve fallen into when you’re still falling.”

The edges of Korak’s mouth turned down apologetically. “I understand. I don’t mean to judge you. In any event, thanks for telling me about his plan. I’ve been questioning my own feelings. Coglin knew he couldn’t manipulate me the way he does everyone else—he’s never held the same sway over me as he has others. That’s why he kept me in the dark on this.” As he spoke, Searle became angry. “Dammit! I knew something was wrong about the Dansby situation.”

Shaking his head, he turned his thoughts back to her. “I get it, I understand. You didn’t fall into a hole, you were slowly lowered by a snake of a man, tempting you with everything you wanted: money, power, knowledge, freedom. He kept dangling new desires in front of you until they clouded your perception. So when he told you of his true plan to continue living through the destruction of another human being it didn’t sound entirely crazy at all. It probably made perfect sense.”

Several minutes of silence passed, during which Kya didn’t allow her swollen eyes to meet his. Yes, she might have been slowly lowered down, but it was ultimately still her fault. She allowed it to happen. She wanted so badly those things that Coglin had tempted her with. He knew just what levers to pull. Coglin’s best weapon was instantly deducing those things for which people wanted most. Korak had wanted purity, peace in a nascent and chaotic technologically enhanced world—Coglin had sold him that vision. Kane wanted praise, leadership, morality . . . sold! Loyalty was just a want away. Each member of the flock wanted something; Coglin merely had to sell it to them and they followed blindly.

After the sale had been made, Coglin’s electric passion highlighted his unwavering vision: a more wholesome world, a world of morality, a godly world. A world where people would receive a renewed sense of self and purpose; a world where every person would have the chance for redemption; a cleansing of sins.

Even Dr. Kya Okafor had begun to want Coglin’s vision. She had started working for Coglin for beneficent reasons, the drive to posthumously save her mother through her work. But there were other reasons—money, knowledge, and power—that held sway, too. Coglin would use all of these to his advantage and it wasn’t long before his vision became hers. A new morality, for herself, for the children she hoped to have, for humanity. Coglin was selling bread, fish, and water to starving travelers in a desert. As Coglin lowered Dr. Kya Okafor into her hole, she didn’t even notice—she didn’t want to notice. He kept feeding her what she wanted and that’s all that mattered.

But the veil had cracked in the past few months. Maybe it was her newfound friendship with Reverend Searle that had started her questioning—challenging beliefs was always easier in a group; after all, that’s how religions were started. Or maybe Coglin had simply gone too far this time. Ultimately, it didn’t matter; she had helped destroy a perfectly good man in Dylan Dansby. Destroy him! It wasn’t officially murder, but it may as well have been. Call a spade a spade, she thought.

“What did you say? What about a spade?” asked Korak.

“Oh, nothing, I guess I’m starting to talk to myself now.”

Korak shifted in his seat. “When does he intend—”

“Korak, do you think Coglin was behind the scrambling of Randy Dansby? I’ve heard conspiracy theories before, but I always dismissed them—but now . . .”

Searle shrugged. “Good question. Now that I know what he’s capable of . . .” He shook his head, “I would assume he was behind it—him and your predecessor. The failure of Randall Dansby’s scrambling would certainly explain your hiring and your predecessor’s firing.”

There was another moment of silence, of thought. Searle broke the unease as his voice rose a notch. “Kya, how much time does Coglin have left?”

“Weeks? Days? I don’t know. He’s very ill.”

“Do you know his plan once he’s verified that his personality has transferred?”

“No, I don’t know that, either. Dansby will come out of his first deathTrip tomorrow. If it’s successful—”

“Do you think it will be?”

“Hell if I know! This isn’t science. This is madness. A shotgun attempt to reprogram a human being.” Her anger softened, and she continued, “Coglin’s demanding I tell him whether it worked or not as soon as Dylan is awake, but that’s impossible! And if it does work, I would assume he would then transfer all of his NRS shares to Dylan at that point. Right?”

“No. He would have to do it more cautiously than that. If he wants Dylan—as himself—to infiltrate SOP, he wouldn’t want anyone to know Dylan had been given ownership of NRS, which would immediately set off alarms. I’m guessing he’ll set up some type of anonymous trust. A delayed transfer. But he must know that the board has been considering me to be his replacement. Perhaps he’s okay with that. Keep me close to him. He would assume I wouldn’t interfere with the grand vision, though it must kill him to cede control, even if it’s merely temporary.”

“What are you going to do, Korak?”

“I don’t know. I need to reflect on this. I need to pray—I still believe in prayer. Not even Coglin can ruin that. I’ll send you an encrypted message tomorrow. You must contact me immediately if anything changes. And Kya . . .” He waited until she looked him in the eyes—her dark-brown, piercing eyes. “We will make this right. We’ll climb out of this hole together, with the help of God, and with our eyes wide open.”

Dr. Kya Okafor stopped trying to hold back her tears, and let them fall with ease now, ignorant of their long journey to the ground.

“You didn’t have to be here physically.”

“You’ve mentioned that to me, Dr. Okafor. Several times, actually. If I didn’t know better, I would begin to suspect you don’t want me here.”

Reverend Coglin leaned heavily on a worn cane made of zebrawood and began clacking it against the metallic floor of the lift that was taking the odd pair away from the ship—the same ship on which Dylan had entered the Titus facility.

“My point, Reverend, is simply that you are quite sick, and any travel will be extremely hard on your fragile body.”

“Well, let’s hope that isn’t an issue for much longer. Any change in my surrogate’s condition?” The doctor began to answer, but Coglin cut her off. “How far is he into the third deathTrip?”

This time Dr. Okafor waited a beat before answering. “About 40 percent, as of thirty minutes ago. There’s no change in his condition. Activity in his frontal cortex is spiking dangerously high, but as we’ve discussed ad nauseam, this is to be expected.”

The lift hissed to a halt, and a double sliding door opened upon the grand glass-canopy entrance to Titus. Standing in front of Kya and Coglin were a half-dozen people who immediately began scurrying about, picking up luggage or appearing to look busy. Kane stood and monitored his employees. In front of him, an assisted walking device balanced perpendicular to the floor, empty, waiting for Coglin, who brushed it off with barely a glance as he started clacking his way down the expansive hall.

“Dr. Okafor.”

Clack.

“I want to make my expectations crystal clear—”

Click.

“—so that when you are fired—”

Clack, click.

“—either by me, my surrogate, or—”

Clack.

“—Mr. Kane here, should anything happen to me—”

Click-clack.

“—there will be no surprises.”

Clack.

“My expectations are that I have hired a doctor—”

Clack-click.

“—who will exceed expectations.”

Clack-click.

“Exceeding expectations is a core value of NRS.”

Click.

“This value is what made our corporation one of the one hundred largest corporations in the world.”

Clack.

“And if you do not learn this core value—” a final clack
of the cane rang in the dead space around them as Coglin turned to peer directly at Kya “—you will not be with us much longer.”

Coglin began walking down the remaining hallway, leaving Kya behind, no longer stunned but clearly steaming.

Over his shoulder, Coglin yelled, “And telling all your secrets to Korak Searle won’t help to save your job.”

This final comment caused Dr. Okafor’s mouth to hang open for many seconds. Minutes later she sent a four-word encrypted message to Korak, which read:
He knows
we’ve talked.

“Islands were God’s way of imprisoning humanity before we obtained intelligence.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Have you heard of the term
landlocked,
Mr. Edenshaw?”

“No, can’t say I have, Mr. Searle.”

He grimaced a response.

Korak Searle stood atop a lookout at the center of an ancient landscape that most people on the planet would have assumed only existed in fairy tales. Long since dead, this once-great archipelago now struggled to keep its head above water. From its surface, a thick padding of foliage pushed down on the old mountain, covering every morsel of its dirt and rock with an oppressive moss, dense pine trees, and an endless supply of ferns—so many giant, anachronistic ferns—all of which held vast supplies of water within their root systems and ever-multiplying leaves. Heavy water, pushing down on the old mountain, always pushing, and yet the mountain never complained. It simply eroded.

Perhaps this was why Korak felt such a kinship to these islands. Was his life any different? He was always being pushed down upon by society . . . not to mention the esteemed Rev. Edward Lee Coglin. Still biding his time, Korak was a ceaseless worker, consistently pushing forward. Two steps forward, one step back. He never gambled—that was Coglin’s job. He was the rock, the mountain, the island. He could be counted on. He was reliable. He was pedantic.
Persistence would bear the most sustainable crop
, he was fond of saying. For decades now his resilience had been a sense of pride. He would be the tortoise that would win the race. Slow and steady. And yet . . .

He was eroding. He felt it every minute of every day. A voice had risen within him long ago, the slithering, sneaky voice of doubt. He’d fought it for years, but the voice was just as persistent as its master. It was a voice that he did not initially recognize, but he was recently beginning to feel a unique kinship with it. The slithering voice had started decades back, subtly asking the questions:
At what point does your hard work pay off? How many more years must you erode before the payout? Will it even be worth it at that point?

While Korak and Coglin shared the same vision—a world steeped in purity—the two had come to this desire in very different ways. Coglin woke up one day having seen the spotlight of God shining down on him directly. He was possessed—literally, in his own mind—and he would take any chance, go any distance, break any rule, to see His vision through. Korak, however, was born with the light of God at his side—a soft, frangible light, like that of a flickering candle. His life had been a constant fight to protect the light—to ensure it never went out. He would guard it against the wind, fuel it when it hungered, and provide it oxygen to breathe.

Born a Protestant pastor’s son, Korak Searle had been raised in a small town in upstate New York. His parents were loving and strict. Their rules were absolute. Korak was quick to fall in line. His second family was the church, and he followed in his father’s footsteps when he chose to attend Houghton College in western New York. It wasn’t long before he had his own small congregation.

Life had been simple, mapped out. The map included marriage, and so he eventually married. But the map went awry, as real lives so often do, when his wife was unable to bear children. Decisions were simple, as dictated by the rules they lived under. Though advanced medical procedures could have been attempted with great chances for success, the couple rightly chose to eschew those unnatural options. If God wished them to bear children, they would do so. If not, then Korak’s view was clear: he would focus on his flock.

Searle did just that, as the children never came. Wishing to affect more positive change for a dying religion, he set out for New York City. As a youthful, powerful speaker, Searle had no shortage of job opportunities in the Church. His stock was high in a dying industry desperate for vibrant talent. He began preaching to one of the largest city congregations. And while the congregation was active, it too was dying of old age and infertility.