Afterlife Crisis

by Randal Graham

  I did the manly thing and changed the subject.

  “Anything interesting?” I asked, pointing toward the datapad with the apex of my southeast brow.

  “Her real name, for starters.”

  This grabbed me. Hitherto the Regent had been known, to me at least, exclusively as “the Regent,” and I’d only met two people in my puff who chose to be called by a job description: the City Solicitor — a chap it’s always best to avoid — and this Regent. The former, whose name turned out to be Plato, probably kept his name under wraps because it sounded like something you’d name your pet dog, or perhaps a small celestial body. As for why the latter would keep her name on the q.t., as the expression is, who could say?

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Neferneferuaten,” said Vera.

  “Gesundheit!”

  “Neferneferuaten,” she repeated, and I perceived that she was speaking.

  “Never what?”

  “Not never, Nefer. Neferneferuaten.”

  “Say that again, slowly. I fear it got past me again.”

  “Neferneferuaten.”

  “Neferneferuaten, you say?” I said, testing it out on the tongue.

  “That’s right,” said Vera.

  “What kind of a name is that?”

  “The kind of name that makes you have everyone call you ‘Regent,’ I suppose. It says here that she manifested around four thousand years ago.”

  This surprised me. I requested amplification.

  “Four thousand years?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “She’s not a decamillennial, then?”

  “No. Not by at least six thousand years.”

  “That’d make her — what — a quadramillennial?”

  “I don’t think that’s a thing,” said Vera.

  “Of course it’s a thing,” I riposted. “But what it isn’t is an age associated with any special power or status. This Regent, we’ve been told, has some share of an ancient’s power,” I added, a tad perplexed. “A bit young for that, isn’t she?”

  “She is,” said Vera.

  “Then again,” I said, for one likes to be broad-minded, “I seem to recall the City Solicitor being rather youngish for one who could bend Detroit to his will, and Penelope — Ian’s wife — had been here only a few days before rising to near omnipotence, shaking Detroit’s foundations and — in what I’ve always thought was an act of civic improvement — filling the place with Tontos.”

  “That’s true,” said Vera. “So you suppose the Regent’s something of a prodigy, like them?”

  “I think the word ‘anomaly’ is mot juster.”

  Vera weighed this.

  “But she doesn’t seem like Penelope or Plato,” she said. “None of this world-shattering business.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “She hasn’t a tithe of Penelope’s power. If she did, she’d snap her fingers and render Newton a spent force, possibly puffing him out of existence, or maybe turning him into a fig. But I suppose these things are graded on a curve. Let’s call her fairly anomalous, but not so dashed anomalous as to be counted amongst the omnipotent godlike beings, say, Abe, Penelope, and Plato, who go about leaving their footprints on planets and shifting reality with their whims.”

  Vera seemed to have stopped listening, her attention having been captured by some other tidbit of information on the pad.

  “It looks like she kept a diary,” she said, nimbly scrolling through a few screens’ worth of data. “More of a manifesto, really. A lot of complaining that Detroit isn’t up to snuff.”

  “A bit of a negative Neferneferuaten, then?”

  Vera issued an “mmm-hmmm,” which I took to be affirmative.

  “She’s definitely a princk,” said Vera, still running an eye or two over the display. “She seems to remember an awful lot about the beforelife. Before she came to Detroit she was ultra-powerful. Her word was law. She commanded armies, and she had wealth beyond measure.”

  “Good for her,” I said.

  “And for some reason she expected to bring her wealth with her when she left the beforelife and rule over everyone in the hereafter.”

  “The herenow, you mean.”

  “The whatnow?”

  “The herenow. If she regarded this particular slice of terrain as the hereafter while in the beforelife, it would be the herenow now that she’s here. QED.”

  “Whatever,” said Vera, waving at me in a dismissive sort of way. “Anyway, it says she felt her wealth, servants, and status would come with her when she — well, when she crossed over into Detroit — and that she’d be worshipped and adored by the people here. With every fibre of her being — that’s how she puts it — she felt as though she’d be in charge.”

  “Bit of a letdown, what?”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Vera. “She’s rich. And she’s powerful enough to serve as a patron of the church and fund its attempts to reach the beforelife. Just not quite as rich or powerful as she’d hoped.”

  How like life, I remember thinking, and I reflected on how dashed difficult things must be for someone in the Regent’s posish. I mean to say, had she washed up in Detroit expecting to wait tables, drive cabs, tote barges, lift bales, or engage in any other form of honest, character-building labour, she’d have been over the moon to find that she was destined to become a landed proprietress with patronages in her gift. But there again, if she had manifested expecting to be a proletarian slice of the huddled masses, she mightn’t have acquired the wealth and power that she had amassed in sackfuls since her manifestation — expectations being, if you follow me, pretty foundational to the way things seem to turn out in Detroit. Aim too low, you get what you aim for. Aim too high, you risk disappointment — but even if you miss, you come out a dashed sight further ahead than you would have done had you aimed too low. The way your life turns out in Detroit seems to depend rather heavily on the way it started out. Philosophical, what?

  “Abe’s drawers!” exclaimed Vera, interrupting my spot of musing.

  “What about them?” I asked.

  “I was looking for information about the Napoleons. Where they’re being kept, for starters.”

  “What have you found?”

  “This explains what the Church of O is doing with them!”

  “We already know that,” I said, tolerantly. “Nappy explained. They’re taking blood samples and things and trying to replicate their connection to the beforelife, of all the dashed silly ideas.”

  “But there’s more!” said Vera, who had the air of one who would have danced a couple of urgent steps had she not taken a seat behind the desk. “They’re torturing them! All of them! They started with Jack, but weren’t happy with the results. They’re still trying with him, but also moving on to the rest!”

  “Egad!” I said, and I meant it. “But why? That’s the real question confronting us now, alongside ‘how do we get them to stop’?”

  “It’s all part of their plan to reach the beforelife,” she said. “They think Napoleons have what the Regent calls ‘a specific, limited version’ of the power held by ancients — the power to shape Detroit. It says here that, on some deep level, all Napoleons expect to reincarnate. At their core, that’s how they expect the world to behave. It’s a key part of their disorder. They believe they’ll be reborn. The Regent believes this expectation helps to shape the world around them but that it’s only one piece of the puzzle. The missing element is desire — you can’t just expect to leave Detroit, you have to want it.”

  “Want it?” I said, agog.

  “Think of Penelope. She didn’t expect Detroit to behave in any particular way — she didn’t know Detroit existed. She just manifested here wanting Ian to be protected. It was Penelope’s desire that changed the world to keep him safe — creating Tonto to be his guide, p
reserving his memories of the beforelife, all of the things Penelope did. The Regent thinks it works the same way with Napoleons. It’s only when they really want to leave Detroit, and somehow believe that it’s possible, that they trigger whatever process leads to reincarnation. Let me read it to you,” she added, clearing the throat preparatory to a bit of datapad reading. And what she read to me was this:

  In-depth probing has established that all Napoleons, whether conscious of this fact or not, believe that they are destined to be reborn. They manifest with the expectation that their time in Detroit is temporary, and that they will return to the beforelife at some juncture. Nevertheless, while all Napoleons do reincarnate, each one does so infrequently, generally less than once per century. Our hypothesis, based on questioning and examination of the Napoleon Jack, is that the event of reincarnation requires some trigger stimulus that presents itself infrequently. This trigger, it seems to me, is desire: A Napoleon may always believe that he or she will be reborn into the beforelife but does not do so until this reincarnation — or at least a departure from Detroit — becomes that Napoleon’s dearest wish. Only by forcing these Napoleons to wish for their own rebirth can we hope to observe the reincarnation process. This is why we have instituted—

  “Oh, Rhinnick!” she cried, setting down the machinery, “we can’t let them torture the Napoleons. Think of Nappy! They’re going to try to force her and the other Napoleons to wish they could die. They want to make their lives so hideous that they want to leave Detroit and be reborn!”

  “And when this happens,” I added, testing out the idea in the Feynman circuits, “they’ll be in a posish to witness reincarnation first-hand, jot down their observations, and have a crack at reproducing the procedure. An ingenious plan, what?”

  She didn’t subscribe to my assessment.

  “It isn’t ingenious!” she cried. “It’s horrible!”

  “Oh, that goes without saying,” I said. “Or rather it would have gone without saying apart from the fact you’ve now said it.”

  “We have to stop them!” said Vera. “We have to do whatever it takes!”

  I had not, of course, come to the Regent’s study in search of bread crumbs leading us toward another ruddy quest but had instead made the trip in search of data that would help release yours truly from his honourable obligations when it came to marrying Oan — a fate that it was my own dearest wish to escape — though whether or not I’d have accepted reincarnation to do so is something I hadn’t yet considered. But the point I’m making, if you were wondering, is that I was knee-deep in research designed to further my own interests and was now being presented with this detour — being “sidetracked,” if that’s the expression — toward a quest to free the Napoleons from their fate. And these Napoleons, as I think I’ve mentioned before, included the pipsqueak Nappy, one whom I’d long counted among those listed on the roster of Feynman pals.

  If there’s one thing for which Rhinnick Feynman has been praised above all others, it’s casting a blind eye toward his own trials and tribulations when the time comes to help a pal in trouble. Whatever rocks and hard places present themselves to Feynman, however harshly winds might blow and crack their cheeks, he scoffs and waves his troubles aside whenever he spots a pal in any species of soup. And these Napoleons were undoubtedly up to their noses in the bouillon. It may have taken half a jiffy for me to reach a decision, but no more than half a jiffy, and that only because it took a while to process all the data.

  “Well of course we have to help them,” I said. “And if this means I end up marrying Oan, well, so be it.”

  The deep emotion of this moment seemed to get the best of Vera, who rose from her chair like a pheasant rocketing out of the underbrush, and flung her arms about me, a procedure which I’d gladly have avoided. But I understood the welter of emotions and patted her head cordially, reminding myself that any greater showing of camaraderie might be mistaken for something else, casting a further seal upon the Feynman glamour and convincing this young prune — another who saw herself as a future Feynman spouse — that there could be no better plan than hearing the wedding bells ring out while locking elbows with yours truly.

  After a heartbeat or two I wriggled out of the embrace. Vera, for her part, suddenly gave me one of those wide-eyed stares you see when someone sits on a tack, and then flung herself deskward, disappearing under the thing like a diving duck. I blinked for a second or two before discovering the motive for this sudden mobility.

  Clumping footsteps. Clumping footsteps which were coming in our direction, being presently somewhere down the hall but making rapid progress toward the Regent’s study door.

  Chapter 28

  Keys jangled. Locks turned. The study door blew open. It ought to have creaked ominously, but once again pathetic fallacy, if that means what I think it does, appeared to have taken the night off.

  The clumper’s identity was revealed. At least, it was revealed to me, this famed clumper and opener-of-doors being one who didn’t himself have any idea who he really was.

  “Zeus!” I cried.

  “Terrence,” he said, and he followed this up with, “What are you doing in the Regent’s private study, Mr. Feynman?”

  Whatever it is that Isaac says holds the universe together, keeping its various ingredients from flying apart at the seams, I’m fairly certain that the one primordial constant — the singular force that makes everything tick over and gives the world its form — is the force of irony. I’ve already noted its habit of rearing its head and messing up my plans several times in this very volume. And here it was, at it again. At the moment of going to press, the core irony was this: I’d spent many a long day on the lookout for my old pal Zeus, and it was now, one of the few times when his presence operated against my policy, that he came bumbling up the hall and through the door in that galumphing way of his.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Feynman?” he repeated.

  I caught scent of an opportunity, and ad-libbed.

  “I’m looking for proof!” I said.

  “Proof?” said Zeus.

  “Of your identity. I mentioned before that you’re a longtime buddy of mine. You don’t remember this because you managed to get in a spot of bother with Socrates who wiped your brain and dished your memories. But my memories are intact, and I perfectly recollect that you are Zeus, you’re my best pal, you once lived as a small terrier, and you formerly looked upon Detroit Mercy as your principal address. I surmised that the Regent might have proof of your ID here in her study, so I came for a bit of sleuthing. No luck so far, but the procedure had just begun.”

  A look of patient understanding suddenly crossed the honest fellow’s map — a look I wouldn’t have expected.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Feynman,” he said in a cooing voice, while gently patting the Feynman shoulder with one of his ham-sized palms. “I understand. You’ve been drinking again.”

  “I haven’t!”

  “You’re pie-eyed,” he added.

  “I am not!”

  “Let me take you to your room.”

  “I’m as sober as a judge,” I protested, “one of the soberer ones, I mean, and I’m intent on proving conclusively that you’re Zeus. Perhaps I can joggle your brain cells now that you’ve had some time to get used to the idea. Have you no memory at all of your life before being press-ganged into the Regent’s service?”

  “No, Mr. Feynman. Now come with me.”

  “But . . . but . . . surely you must remember something. A pedantic little potato named Ian Brown? His super-heroic guide, Tonto Choudhury? Our own battle with Socrates and Plato?”

  He seemed to weigh this, and gave me a puzzled look, as though coming to terms with something.

  “You don’t smell like alcohol,” he said, indicative of the fact that he still had the wrong idea.

  “Of course I don’t!” I riposted.

  �
��You really aren’t drunk, are you?” he said, possibly recognizing a marked lack of the symptoms. “You really do think I’m someone you used to know.”

  “You are, dash it! Someone I still know today. Don’t you remember life in the hospice? Hours spent playing Brakkit? Sharing Room sessions? Matron Bikerack? Standing guard at the file-room?”

  “I’ve already told you, Mr. Feynman, I don’t remember anything before the Regent took me in.”

  “Your life as a terrier, then. How do you feel about cats? Or postal workers?”

  “Come with me, Mr. Feynman,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be out of your room.”

  “Of course I am,” I protested. “I’m free to move about as I please.”

  “The Regent gave us strict orders.”

  “I’m the Hand of the ruddy Intercessor! Not Prisoner Number TK421!” I riposted, recollecting how dashed easy it is to invoke a title that’s supposed to carry privilege, even when that title generally gives one the pip.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Feynman, we have orders. You’ll have to come with me. And now that I’ve found you out of your room, I’ll have to write a full report for the Regent.”

  I mourned in spirit for the poor fish, as I knew what it was to have an administrative task chucked upon you through no fault of your own. I regretted that I’d been the cause of extra tedium. But on the cue “now that I’ve found you out of your room,” he had touched upon a point of interest that I wished to explore.

  “Now that you mention it,” I said, “how did you come to find me at all? I took every conceivable precaution. I stayed out of sight, and hid my tracks. No one caught a whiff of Feynman skulking the halls.”