Afterlife Crisis

by Randal Graham

  And provide intel it did, in heaping measure! Poring over the article, I learned that Isaac was not only the Grand Poobah of scientists at Detroit University, but also the patron saint of high-tech entrepreneurs. He’d made sackfuls of the right stuff by churning out new types of I-Ware at regular intervals, and he’d dabbled in what is known as “social media,” creating various platforms with catchy names along the lines of I-Chat, I-Spy, I-Chirp, and whathaveyou, sites which seemed geared toward keeping folks updating their I-Ware and acquiring the latest gizmos he’d invented. It was clear that one could never accuse this Newton chump of being shortsighted. Having taken the step of commercializing his scientific scribblings, the chap was now sitting on piles of gold and as rich as Creosote, if Creosote is the oofy chap I’m thinking of.

  Not long after I’d finished my spot of intel gathering, flipping through every page of the Times lest I miss some relevant slip of rapportage, I boarded the bus and set sail — or rather wheels, I suppose — toward the next waypoint on the Feynman grand tour.

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am the most devoted and forgiving of the Author’s disciples and never one to serve in the role of literary critic. But one does have one’s preferences. If it had been up to me, for starters, I’d have cheesed the IPT revision and left the teleporters in place until Our Hero had made his way to and from the university. I mean to say, this would have saved me a longish ride in an omnibus which had, based on all available evidence, a long and storied history of transporting the great unwashed hither and thither as they carried bagged lunches featuring cabbage rolls, cheese, and improperly sealed sardines. And to suggest the journey passed quickly, featuring only pleasant scenery and a musical montage or two, would be to stretch the bounds of credulity. It was long, it was dull, and it came within an inch of abrading the Feynman spirit.

  Teleportation had, hitherto, caused many an anxious moment for the uninitiated traveller — the sort who grows queasy at the prospect of fading out of existence in Spot A and reassembling in Spot B without all of their bits intact or with their limbs and other anatomical whatnots rearranged in some surprising and inconvenient manner. But weighed against trifling fear was the irritation of a road trip which involved sharing a bathroom with the sort of people who share bathrooms.

  And so the long day wore on, featuring self nestled into seat 9C, about midway between the bus’s stem and stern, cheek-by-jowl with an assortment of transit-goers who were similarly desirous of making their way to the university. My fellow passengers included a brace of eager-looking students, a handful of slump-shouldered workers, a pair of Napoleons gabbling away in their heathen lingo, and a dozen or so others who, whatever their individual merits, struck me as the sort of people who manage to make their ways through life’s journey merely blending into the background. It was while I sat in a reverie, reflecting on the effective camouflage provided by humdrumishness, that a siren pierced the usual din of bus travel and gripped the Feynman senses.

  The bus pulled over. Its front doors opened. And when they did, they admitted two of the surliest-looking policemen it has ever been my displeasure to smack into — the sort who chew tin cans for dinner and refer to their respective biceps as “the guns.”

  They goose-stepped down the aisle, right past yours truly without even glancing in my direction, and then stomped to a halt several seats behind me.

  “What have we here?” demanded one of them, sticking to the constable’s handbook of easy-to-memorize repartee.

  I swivelled the bean. And in doing so, I saw that these two gendarmes had positioned themselves adjacent to the Napoleonic chaps in row 12, seats A and B.

  The Napoleons seemed to take no notice of them, but persisted in jabbering away at high speed. It’s their way. Show me a pair of Napoleons back and forthing in their gibberish and I’ll show you a pair whose attention cannot be gripped by any measure short of beaning them with a baguette.

  “I SAID, WHAT HAVE WE HERE!” bellowed the shorter and larger-headed specimen of Detroit’s finest.

  “Looks like a pair o’ Napoleons,” said his taller, thicker, and duller-eyed companion.

  “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” said Napoleon 12A, at last perceiving that he was abutting the Full Majesty of the Law. And I remember thinking he was getting off on the wrong foot. I mean to say, you can’t go around qu’est-qui-se-passing at policemen in Detroit, or rather you can, but only if you’re keen on being hauled off to the nearest hoosegow for a bevy of unscheduled cavity searches.

  “Sounds like Napoleons, too!” said tall and dull.

  “Yer comin’ with us!” said the shorter specimen, whose face looked like it had been carved by a sculptor who’d studied her craft by correspondence and gave up before lesson three. He gripped a Napoleon by the shoulder and hoisted him up.

  “Now see here, officers!” said a loudish, officious-sounding voice, registering no small measure of pique. And you can imagine my surprise when, after a moment of reflection, I realized this officious voice had issued from me. This sense of surprise was heightened by the discovery that, on uttering my remarks, I had risen imperiously from seat 9C and stepped within a confrontational pace or two of these specimens of Detroit’s Thin Blue Line.

  “Ho!” said short and sculpted, raising his one face-spanning eyebrow in my direction.

  “Ho!” said tall and dull, flexing an arm or two.

  It was at this point, when I found myself in close proximity to these rozzers, that something struck me as rather odd. As I was standing there, looking up at one and down at the other, it registered that these were no run-of-the-mill policemen. A man of my irregular habits meets his fair share of coppers on life’s journey, and he cannot help but come to recognize certain traits, or commonalities, which are shared by every member of The Force. On close inspection, these two specimens didn’t square up with the specs, both featuring too little forehead and too much neck, each of them having been fashioned more along the lines of back-alley bruisers or Hospice Goons than graduates of the constables’ academy. And there was a certain . . . how should I put this? . . . a certain ogreishness about them. A sense of knuckle-dragging, glassware-chewing menace coated with a thickish layer of dull, species-hating whatdoyoucallit — a trait which I had not hitherto associated with the folks in blue. In sum, the two exhibits now confronting me seemed less apt to “serve and protect” than to hector, vex, and abuse.

  “Mind yer business,” said the short one.

  “But officer,” I began, “you can’t simply barge in here and—”

  “But officer nuthin’,” he retorted, which rather derailed my train of thought. “We have a warrant. A warrant fer the arrest of any an’ all Napoleons found travellin’ to or from Detroit Mercy. Since these two ’ere are Napoleons, and this ’ere bus is headin’ from Detroit Mercy, we has what you call ‘judicious authorization’—”

  “Joo-dish-ull,” suggested his colleague, with some effort.

  “Judicial authorization to take these ’ere two in fer further questionin’.”

  He flourished a piece of official-looking paper and then tucked it away instanter, precluding thorough inspection.

  He could have displayed the thing all day. We Rhinnicks have a wide array of skills at our disposal, but distinguishing a bona fide warrant from something pulled from a fortune cookie is not among them. So I made a vaguely impressed noise, doing my best to sound tentatively satisfied while still preserving a hint of the wary skeptic.

  “Admitting, for the nonce,” I offered, adding a magisterial spin to the voice, “these two persons are Napoleons, you are mistaken in thinking they’ve come from the hospice. I’ve spent a good deal of time in Detroit Mercy and am well informed of the current personnel. Indeed, I’m presently engaged as a professional consultant by the chief Quack-in-Residence, Dr. Everard M. Peericks,” I added, mustering as much hauteur as I could manage in the circs.
r />   “Them bein’ Napoleons, and them bein’ on this bus, is enough for us to take ’em in.”

  “On what charge?” I demanded, for I’d read a few procedurals in my day and knew this was the sort of question one could use to stymie a cop.

  “That,” said short and sculpted, “is none o’ yer business.” And on saying this, he met my gaze with a look which was pregnant with the suggestion that I was approaching a line it wouldn’t be wise to cross. “Now you just turn yourself around, set your arse back in yer seat, and mind yer p’s and q’s so as we don’t find a reason to bring you in, too.”

  I saw the force of his argument, largely because there was so much of him. I mean to say, a pair of undernourished pipsqueaks would have found me less cooperative. The same calculus must have escaped the chump seated across the aisle in 12D, for he now stood, brushed a speck of imaginary lint from the sleeve of his corduroy jacket, and gave speech. And what he said was this:

  “Pardon me, officers, but I’m afraid that’s not right. I’m a second-year law student and—”

  On the cue “law student,” the taller officer drew back his arm, preparatory to hauling off and striking the student across the mazard — a project which I imagine he would have carried to fruition had it not been for the sudden appearance of several dozen small screens being held aloft in roughly half of the hands found on the bus.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever ridden a bus, but if you have, you might be less surprised than I to learn that every rider seems to carry a handheld computing thingummy, possibly with a view to avoiding eye contact with fellow travellers. I could see at a glance that many of the doodads wielded by my busmates were part of Isaac’s I-Ware line, they having been featured in the article I’d just read. And I recalled from my perusal of the Times that these handheld gizmos came equipped with what are known as “high-def cameras,” instant uplink access, and a host of other features which, in the present context, added up to a dirty cop’s least favourite two-word phrase.

  “Public scrutiny!” I announced, rather pleased with myself and my fellow travellers. And my oration was punctuated by the clicks and bloops and other sound effects which meant pictures were being snapped, statuses were being updated, and what I had hitherto written off as anti-social media did its bit for the rule of law.

  This seemed to cast a spell on the officers, if they were officers — something which seemed increasingly unlikely the more I observed them.

  “Everybody back off!” shouted the taller of the pair, cracking a knuckle or two and flexing his arms, doing his best to silverback us into submission.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever lain awake at night somewhere outside the city and observed the twinkling of stars, but the sudden flash of datalink cameras had much the same effect. Dozens of pictures were taken in a snap, as the expression is, and I imagine just as many were posted to I-Sight, I-Book, I-Chirp, and I-Chat, four of the more popular fora created by Isaac Newton for the sharing of pictures, ill-thought-out political opinions, outright lies, and anonymous critiques of one’s fellow persons.

  “Erm,” said the shorter of the two . . . well I can’t keep calling them “officers,” can I? “Galoots” seemed more appropriate.

  “Erm,” echoed exhibit B.

  “We’re bein’ recalled!” announced the shorter slab of damnation.

  “Recalled by whom?” I asked, much interested. “I’ve only met you just now, and haven’t much to recall about either of you, apart, perhaps, from the scent and general air of misanthropy — if misanthropy’s the word I want.”

  “Recalled to the station!” he announced. “The call just came in over my earpiece.”

  “But we ’aven’t got earpieces, Phil,” said the larger and thicker thug.

  “Yes we do! And don’t call me Phil. And we’re goin’ to leave now, without these two Napoleons, on account o’ we’re bein’ recalled to the station where,” he added, a bead of persp. erupting above his nose, “we can double-check with the sergeant about our orders, neither of us wantin’ to do anythin’ inappropriate or newsworthy.”

  “Oh. Right!” said tall and thick.

  And so saying, he joined his fellow thug in what is known as hightailing it from the bus, leaving the rest of us in peace and all of a twitter.

  We remained all of a t., speculating on what we had seen, until the bus finally hitched up at its final destination, viz, Detroit University, where I and my fellow travellers disembarked with mutual expressions of esteem and gratitude for having come to journey’s end in relative safety.

  The two Napoleons, for their part, slipped off the bus and buzzed off I know not where, passing out of the Feynman orbit forever. At least I thought they did. I lived under this naive misapprehension for several weeks, blissfully unaware of the dire circumstances which would cause us to foregather in later chapters.

  Chapter 6

  Detroit University’s Central Campus is one of the more picturesque blobs of real estate you’ll find on any list of points of interest in Detroit. Apart from the grand old buildings featuring clock towers, spires, domes, and other architectural features suggesting higher education, the campus was home to well-manicured lawns; flowering trees in full bloom; artificial ponds; and a whole host of birds, bees, squirrels, and other fauna doing their thing. It was, in short, a green and pleasant land which any honest alumnus or alumna would be proud to name as his or her alma mater.

  While you might not know it to look at me, I myself am an honoured alum of ol’ du. Thrice over, in fact. After spending a few years tootling around in a general arts program and receiving my first degree, I took two shorter diploma programs — one in literary composition, doing the Author’s work, as it were — and the second in first aid, being one of the less popular programs at DU, given the basic facts of biology in Detroit. But the point I mean to drive home is that my association with the university had been a long and happy one before it became forever etched in the Feynman memory as the place where my pal Zeus had lost his marbles. For it was here — in a buffet line at Conron Hall, to be precise — that Zeus and self had found ourselves in the crosshairs of the assassin Socrates, whose memory-wiping bullets had penetrated Zeus’s hide, causing the latter’s memories to disappear more quickly than a nest egg in a casino — an incident which, I think you’ll agree, could cause even the most jocund soul to drain the bitter cup. And while this spot of unpleasantness had cast something of a gloom on the nostalgia I’ve always held for old DU, I must admit that seeing it now, with the cherry blossoms blossoming and the birds fooling about in their winsome way, the old fondness resurfaced. I still like the old joint, despite recent associations. And besides, it’s not as though you can blame the entire academy for the hideous fallout of the Socratic Method.

  My specific destination on this day was the physics department, housed in the old science building at the end of “Scholars’ Walk,” a yew alley liberally besprinkled with park benches, bird baths, and bits of statuary depicting men and women who, despite the graceful lines and noble faces carved by the sculptor, probably had something or other to do with university administration. It wasn’t long before I reached the end of the yew alley and fetched up at my destination. After this it was a simple matter of obtaining directions from a student here and a caretaker there until I zeroed in on an impressive door marked Professor Isaac Newton, OA, Lucasian Chair of Mathematics.

  So far, so good, I remember thinking.

  “You’re here for the Lucasian professor?” said a voice from astern. I one-eightied on the spot and saw the voice belonged to a bespectacled young stripling of the thin and pimply variety.

  “You’re here for the Chair?” he said.

  “I am.”

  “Well, he’s not there. He’s in one of the lecture theatres. That’s where you’ll generally find him. He likes to work things out on the boards,” he explained, middle-fingering his glasses up to a higher
spot on his nose. “I can take you there, if you like.”

  “Lead on, officious youngling!” I riposted. And within the space of a few ticks this kid had chivvied me through various hallways, staircases, and quadrangles until we hitched up at what I might rate as the most impressive set of oaken doors I’d ever glimpsed. And as these doors currently stood in what you’d call the “ajar” posish, I could see beyond to the object of my quest.

  Isaac stood there, not ten yards from yours truly, scribbling numbers, letters, and squiggly things on a blackboard already bedecked with arcane symbols. After only a moment’s reflection, I was nimbly able to recognize this as maths.

  My pimply guide said something I didn’t bother to listen to and shoved off.

  I cleared the throat.

  Isaac swivelled his bean.

  It was, I could see, the time to lock horns with my prey.

  He stared at me for a moment. We both blinked. I was on the point of speech when he beat me to it.

  “Oh, there you are!” he said, beaming. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I was absorbed by a bit of work on waveform collapse and quantum decoherence and rather lost track of the time. Come in, come in, come in!”

  I need scarcely say that this exuberant welcome, to one who barely qualified as more than a passing acquaintance — not to mention one whom Isaac must have regarded as being aligned on the opposing side of life’s Parcheesi board — warmed my heart a good deal. It was with a feeling that this Isaac’s attitude did credit to academic hospitality that I followed him across the lecture theatre and through a nearby door into a large adjoining room liberally cluttered with worktables, beakers, microscopes, and assorted doodads not readily described by one whose talents, however diverse, do not include the taking of accurate inventories in labs. The room also featured a couple of well-stuffed wingback chairs flanking a big bay window overlooking a nearby garden. It was toward these chairs that Isaac steered me now.