The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller (32 page)

“Well, we’re home,” he says. “Let’s have you talk to the boss.” He addresses one of the men in the chairs. “Norman? I’ve brought a newcomer. Seems a decent-enough fellow. Worked in the kitchen with me today. Needs a place to stay.”

“Have a seat,” Norman offers Lane as he points to a vacant chair. “You’re brand new, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m brand new,” answers Lane as he sits down and watches Sam shuffle off between the planes. A dark brown beard covers Norman’s face, but the advancing squalls of middle age drift out from his eyes and flood down his spare cheeks.

“So what brings you here?” Norman asks, his eyes playing out the humorous irony in the question.

“A midlife crisis,” Lane replies. “I was looking for a second career. Something exciting and far from home.”

Norman smiles softly. “And have you found it?”

“What more could I ask?” Lane answers dryly. “Adventure and opportunity in a truly exotic location.”

“And what was your former occupation?”

“According to the prosecution, it was homicide, but you know how that goes.”

Norman doesn’t press the issue. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Anslow. Lane Anslow. It would seem that I’m currently without accommodations. Can I bunk here tonight?”

“Don’t see why not,” Norman says as he points backward with his thumb. “Fifth plane down is empty. It’s yours. You pay one coin a week to the squadron.”

Given his present wage, he’ll miss a meal each week to make the payment, but Lane decides it’s better to suffer in silence at this point. “Thanks. Just one question.”

“Shoot.”

“What gives you hope in here? How do you go on?”

For the first time, Norman breaks into a full-fledged smile. “You know that gate you came in through?”

“Yeah.”

“Every morning, very early, people wheel the carts out there. They drop off the garbage. They pick up the day’s supplies. But someday, maybe not too long, they’ll find the gate open but no supplies there. Then they’ll tiptoe out into the security zone and notice the genius dogs are gone. Then they’ll go a little farther and find they don’t draw any fire from towers. Then they’ll reach the outer gate at the far side of the zone, and they’ll find there isn’t anybody there. Then they’ll come back, get tools and more men, and they’ll rip the gate down. Then it’ll be over. Just like that.”

“You really believe that?” Lane asks.

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Civilization runs on big ideas, and this one is fresh out. The world outside those gates is like a giant car coasting with a dead engine. Sooner or later, it’ll come to a halt. Good night, Mr. Anslow.”

The streetlights still shine here. The sidewalks show no signs of buckling. The parking strips remain green and newly mown. Fresh paint covers the older, but well-maintained houses. Their porch lights beckon.

The Bird looks out a second-story bedroom window from one such house. He knows that the entire neighborhood is a façade, a heavily secured fortress to protect the residence of Harlan Green, directly across the street. As the leader of the populist Street Party, Harlan has no choice but to live here on the East Side. After all his raving about commercially secured communities, it would be utter hypocrisy for him to live in one. As an alternative, the party has created a contradiction, a gate that isn’t a gate. All the houses for several blocks around are populated by heavily armed members of the palace guard. The Bird ought to know, because even though the palace guard reports to Green, they all come from his ranks and remain on his payroll.

But the two armored SUVs now parked in front of Green’s house have nothing to do with the Bird’s payroll. Even more annoying, they arrived here on short notice. An hour ago, his people received a brief message from Green himself to let them through when they arrived. The Bird was informed of this message while watching yet another remake of
Scarface
in his penthouse condominium in the Pearl. He came all the way across town to assess the situation.

As he watches, Green appears, flanked by two men. The trio descends the porch steps and heads for the second armored SUV. The Bird doesn’t like that these two men are not his men, that these two SUVs are not his SUVs. He watches suspiciously as Green climbs into the backseat of the rear vehicle.

Two similar vehicles recently showed up to transport that comatose prisoner of Green’s to a “permanent facility.” Just like now, no other information or advance notice was given. That time, the Bird let it slide. The captive was a nuisance and he was glad to be rid of him. But not this time. He’s already arranged to have the vehicles shadowed when they exit.

“They’re here,” Arjun informs Zed on the video link to his hilltop residence. The large door on the front of the Other Application has opened to admit the two SUVs. They drive through and roll to a halt on the vast cement floor. Green exits alone, and the two vehicles circle around and drive out.

“I’ll be there presently,” Zed informs Arjun over the video. “Go ahead.”

Arjun leaves his office and walks across the floor to Green, who is taking in the scale of the place. “Good news,” he announces as he reaches the grinning politician. “We’ve had a positive outcome on the Phase Two test.”

“Glad to hear that,” Harlan says. “And where is Mr. Zed?”

They reach Bay 3 and Arjun opens the door. “This is where treatment takes place, mostly under computer control.”

They walk into a maze of instrumentation, tubing, and wiring. The bed in the center seems almost like an afterthought.

“So this it,” Green says. For the first time, he is confronting the enormity of the process.

Arjun nods. “This is it.”

“So, what do you think?” Green and Arjun turn to the voice of Thomas Zed, who has just walked in behind them. “You ready?”

Green doesn’t take the bait. “Tell me this: How tightly can you control the extent of the rejuvenation?”

Arjun supplies the answer. “It has yet to be precisely determined, but we estimate that a minimum treatment would remove about five to seven years of aging. Of course, you can do more with subsequent treatments.”

“Of course,” Green repeats. “For now, five to seven years sounds just about right. How soon can we start?”

Arjun opens his mouth to protest, but Zed cuts him off.

“How soon do you want to do it?” Zed asks.

“The sooner, the better.”

“We’re going to need some samples first.” Arjun says.

“What kind of samples?”

“DNA, blood, urine. The usual.”

Green shrugs. “All right, have away.”

“Excellent,” Zed declares. “Just stay right where you are. We’ll send in a technician.”

“I’m not sure you should’ve agreed so quickly,” Arjun tells Zed as they walk back over the wide cement expanse toward his office.

“The sooner Mr. Green participates, the sooner he’s committed to our course of action,” Zed says.

Arjun nods. “Which leaves him no option but to continue indefinitely.”

“Quite right,” Zed agrees.

***

Harlan Green shuts the door behind him as he enters Rachel’s office. The room goes silent as the bustle of the Street Party office staff is shut out. He likes the dramatic flare associated with this move. It always presages something of exceptional import—at least to him.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asks Rachel as he slides into the chair on the far side of her desk.

For an instant she thinks he’s about to disclose whatever he’s doing with the people up on Mount Tabor. She recovers. “Of course I can keep a secret. If I couldn’t, I don’t think I’d be here.”

Green smiles agreeably. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“So what’s up?” she asks.

Green assumes an expression of faux embarrassment. “Now, don’t laugh, but I’ve decided to have a little plastic surgery. Nothing serious, just a little touch-up work. Goes with the job, I guess. The public has expectations and you need to meet them if you’re going to stay on top of your game.”

“Yeah, I guess so. How long are you going to be out?”

“Just a few days. Nothing that will hurt the schedule.”

“When are you going in?”

Green gets up to leave. “Right away. They had an opening,” he explains. “Anybody asks, I’m in conference off-site and unavailable. Got it?”

“Got it.” The son of a bitch. He’s done it. Beyond a doubt, he’s made a deal.

“When you get back, will you have swelling or anything? Maybe we should control your media exposure for a while.”

“Don’t think so. Like I said, this is just a touch up. We don’t want to call attention to it. Let’s just make this business as normal.”

Normal, she thinks as Harlan leaves. Maybe for him, but not for her. His absence will give her a brief window of freedom, and she’d better make the most of it.

***

The armadillo resembles a perverse assemblage of pig, turtle, and raccoon in a single animal. The size of a large cat, it curls quietly in the Bird’s lap as he absently strokes its armored shell.

No one dares to mock his armadillo. Least of all, the wheelman, who is torn between the novelty of the animal and the spectacular view out the condo’s window atop the Pearl.

“You know what makes this a really smart animal?” the Bird asks the wheelman.

“No, I don’t,” the wheelman cautiously admits.

The Bird taps the armadillo’s shell with his index finger. “It starts making its own protection before it’s even born. Now were
you
that smart?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Well, neither was I. But I caught on pretty fast.” The Bird points to some video footage on the Ultrares display that hangs on the wall near them. It shows two SUVs stopping at the elaborate security gate that guards the entrance to Mount Tabor. “You’re sure this is them?”

“We never lost contact,” the wheelman responds. “They were in eyesight during the whole trip. The camera caught it all.”

The video shows a Mount Tabor guard in full body armor coming out of a blast-proof bunker to talk to someone in the lead SUV carrying Green. The gates open and the vehicles disappear into the dark interior beyond the brilliant floodlights.

The wheelman uses a remote to open a second video. The vehicles exit the same gate at a high rate of speed and rapidly leave the frame. “The elapsed time was just over two hours. They came straight back to Mr. Green’s compound.”

“Did he spot you?” the Bird asks while stroking the armadillo’s shell.

“Not likely. What you see is telephoto from about seventy-five yards.”

“Good,” the Bird comments as he lifts the armadillo to a more upright position. Its slender snout twitches as it sniffs the air. “Rocky’s hungry. You want to feed him?”

“Sure. What’s he eat?”

“Ants.”

The wheelman appears stricken. “I don’t have any ants.”

The Bird explodes into sadistic laughter. The armadillo partially retreats into its shell. “You know what?” he tells the wheelman. “Neither do I.”

In a flash, he turns from tormentor to benevolent patriarch. “How long you been with us, son?”

“Seven years.”

“Excellent. And let’s hope you’re here for a very long time. You know the best way to make that happen?”

“What’s that?”

“Forget that any of this ever happened.”

“I’ve already done that, sir.”

The Bird pastes on his best paternal smile. “Smart guy. Talk to you later.”

The wheelman leaves. The Bird scratches the armadillo behind its ears and gazes out the window. Mount Tabor pushes up out of the sloping urban plain in the distance.

“Okay, I’ve got it from here,” Harlan Green tells the two bodyguards. He knows they report directly to the Bird, and the sooner he’s out of their sight, the better. “Thanks.” He joins the line for the screening process at Portland International Airport. The security men wait and watch him as he progresses through the body scanner and baggage imaging. He wonders if they’re suspicious about him taking a commercial flight. Probably not. But their boss is another matter: The Bird lives in a sustained state of suspicion, and will note Harlan’s sudden travel arrangements with great interest. No matter. Green’s already constructed a plausible story about the need for an occasional trip using public transport to avoid charges of hypocrisy and elitism, especially given the purported nature of this particular journey.

When he clears the screening area, he carefully surveys the spot where he parted ways with the bodyguards. They’re gone.

He walks back out into the main airport lobby and hurries down the main corridor to exit the building.

After a brisk ten-minute stroll, he is cleared through a small, unmarked building and out onto the tarmac, where a sleek helicopter awaits him.

Transportation, courtesy of Thomas Zed.

“Five coins,” the merchant says as he lounges in his canvas chair in the shade of the great wing. “An excellent bargain. A very fine product.”

The main blade of the handcrafted multitool gleams in the noonday sun as Lane inspects it. The design is ingenious, especially when you consider that all the materials were scavenged from dead airplanes and then fabricated and assembled with handmade machines.

“Could I put it on layaway?” Lane asks.

The merchant gives him an incredulous look that collapses into a brief burst of laughter. “Of course. You give me five coins and I lay it down and you pick it up. Now what do you say to that?”

Lane looks over to the big fuselage that holds the kitchen. “Back to work. See you later.”

“Always a pleasure,” the merchant replies with a jovial wave. Lane walks through the milling customers toward the kitchen plane and inhales the odor of fried pork floating on the dry breeze. He steps through the fuselage door and into the kitchen, where Sam is bent over a kettle full of dishwater. He’s about to address Sam when he sees the two shadows falling across the metal floor behind the old man, and whips around to look up at the flight deck. Two men gaze down on him from the pilot and co-pilot seats, the same two men he encountered yesterday in the crowd.

Sam turns and smiles. “Lane, we have visitors.”