Afterlife Crisis

by Randal Graham

  “But what’s Isaac’s angle in this?” said Vera. “I mean, why would he help you send the Regent to the beforelife? What’s this got to do with him?”

  It was at this point that I reached what the Napoleons call an impasse. I mean to say, on the heels of our swashbuckling, nerve-wracking escape from the Regent’s lair, we’d suddenly ground to a halt and found ourselves embroiled, if that’s the expression, smack-dab in the middle of a dull, dry, yawn-inducing chat about science. This put me squarely onto the horns of a dilemma. Should I, I asked myself, continue my work as the Author’s scribe, dutifully jotting down everything that passed from Norm’s lips as he explained the ins and outs of Isaac’s scientific plans, or should I write in broader strokes, merely giving my public the gist? Give them too deep an account of the whithertos and wherefores of Isaac’s ruddy plan, and their eyes may gloss over, the book might tumble from their hands, and my readers, if any, may find themselves drooling where they sit as they slip into a sleep plagued by nightmares in which they’re chased by angry lab coats and scanning electron thingummies. On the other hand, if I simply give them what you might call a bird’s-eye view of what Norm said, writing something along the lines of “never mind the details, but there’s science afoot, and you’ll have to take my word that it all makes sense,” they’ll roll their collective eyes, adopting the justifiable view that one of the minor plotlines in this volume, viz, Isaac’s scientific busy-bodying and the original mission on which Abe had sent me, never really amounted to anything or made one jot of sense. You can see the difficulties I’m facing.

  I’ve noted the same issue arising in comic books I’ve read. You hope to spend an idle hour poring over Wonderchap’s acts of derring-do, enjoying his leaps and bounds over buildings and his races with locomotives, when you find yourself mired in a series of dull, boring panels in which an overzealous writer has tried to explain the physics behind the hero’s powers, answering questions like “how can Wonderchap propel himself in a vacuum,” or “when the archvillain Wickedchump bench-presses a building, why doesn’t the whole thing buckle and crumble all around him, leaving him bathed in rubble and ruin?” Yield to the impulse to explain the principles behind these hitherto unexplained fantastical things, and you’re apt to find you can’t, so you cheat the thing a bit and find yourself hip-deep in midichlorians, or homeopathy, or genetic memory, or some other unempirical weirdness that fails the test of peer review. Pseudo-scientific babbling, I mean to say. The science fails to please the discerning eye, the fantasy is ruined, and the plot is stalled by unnecessary gobbledygook. On the one hand, you ask your public to suspend all disbelief; on the other, you try to explain why all the fantastical bits are firmly rooted in science. I think you’ll agree that authors of comic books, science fiction, or fantasy thingummies have to tread a fine line.

  In the present instance, perhaps it’s best to err on the side of crossing all of the t’s and dotting the i’s, doing my best to convey the flavour of what was said, while giving impatient readers the option of skipping down about three pages, perhaps until a paragraph or two before the conclusion of the chapter.

  Turning back to the present slab of dialogue, Vera had just asked why Isaac gave a tinker’s damn about the Regent’s perilous passage to the beforelife, and Norm was on the point of offering up an explanation. Here’s what he said:

  “That’s the ingenious bit! And it’s why we’re going to help him. Isaac’s only goal in any of this is to see what happens. He wants to see what happens when someone passes from this world to the beforelife, making careful observations and seeing what he can learn about passing information across the boundary between worlds.”

  Vera chewed on a lower lip. Her own, in fact. And she followed this up with speech.

  “I think I see what you’re driving at,” she said, which made one of us. “I mean, we already know information can pass between the beforelife and Detroit—”

  “We do?” I said, interrupting.

  “Of course we do,” said Vera. “People come here when they die.”

  “But people aren’t information.”

  “Of course they are. Information that’s encoded in DNA. And memory engrams. And — well — what you’d call character sketches. Each of us is information. It’s the same principle that underlies the idea of teleportation: transmit all of the information about an object from one place to another.”

  “Teleportation isn’t real. At least it isn’t anymore,” I said, helpfully.

  “Well, it’s sometimes real,” said Norm, interjecting. “I mean, Isaac can make exceptions. He explained it to us earlier. Not long ago he forced the ancients to believe that teleportation was impossible, which meant that it suddenly was. But half an hour ago he found he needed to make it possible again so that the Regent could, using her pyramidical totem, create the portal that brought you here. So he reintroduced the concept by changing the ancients’ minds again, and—”

  “We get the idea,” said Vera, waving off the bearded babbler before turning her attention back to me in the hope of easing my considerable bafflement.

  “The point I’m trying to make is that information can pass between the beforelife and Detroit. When Ian came through the Styx with his memories intact, all of the information stored in his brain came here from the beforelife. That information crossed the boundary between one world and the next. And when the Napoleons reincarnate, moving back to the beforelife from Detroit, that proves that information can move back in the other direction, if you see what I mean.”

  “That’s it exactly!” said Norm. “Isaac wants to observe the passage of information between two worlds. That’s all he wants.”

  “Why in Abe’s name would he do that?” I asked. I mean, I didn’t precisely care why anyone would want to pierce a veil or two between a couple of worlds, but it did strike me as an odd use of one’s time.

  Vera surprised me by stepping in and fielding this question, one I’d expected to have been grabbed by Norm.

  “Don’t you see?” she said, which was a silly thing to ask, because of course I didn’t. “He wants to replicate the process. He wants to gather information from the beforelife. Scientific observations. Measurements. That sort of thing.”

  The look on my face must have indicated that this was going to require some amplification, for she forged on, sprinkling the landscape with necessary details.

  “The beforelife isn’t like Detroit. It’s governed by physical laws. Its rules will correspond to Isaac’s math. Here in Detroit, Isaac has to make his calculations in . . . well, in a sort of vacuum. He can calculate all he wants, but if his calculations reveal anything that’s outside the collective expectations of the ancients, he can’t confirm his math by observation. He might — through his math — prove that dark matter ought to exist, or that black holes keep popping up all over the place, but if these things don’t check up with the expectations of the ancients, he’ll never observe them here, and never know if the solutions he proposed through his calculations are correct in a physical world. He can’t confirm them by observing things, because the world he observes here doesn’t conform to physical laws. But the beforelife is different. His observations of how everything works in the beforelife will advance his work and help confirm his calculations. He’ll be able to confirm his findings by measuring them against the things he sees there.”

  “And once he’s managed to take stock of the quantum structure of the beforelife, his grand calculations will be complete,” said Norm. “He’ll fundamentally understand the nature of physical laws. That’s all he’s ever really wanted.”

  Why anyone would want this was beyond me. I mean to say, I was merely hearing about the process, and this was enough to cause the eyelids to grow heavy and the mind to wander. Vera seemed keen to pursue the point, for she seemed to raise some objection or call for a point of clarification. She started by weighing in with the words “but that isn’t re
ally true, is it?” at which point speechlessness supervened, due to the advent of none other than Isaac Newton himself.

  He tottled into the lecture hall, not seeming the least bit surprised by the presence of an elevator which hadn’t been there before. And it warmed my heart to see that, unlike most people I’d met in the last few days, he seemed more than a little pleased to bump into me. Rather than curling his lip, scoffing, or pinching the bridge of his nose on catching sight of yours truly, this Mensa freak clapped his hands, unleashed a smile that any dental hygienist would have been proud of, and said, “Excellent, let’s get started.”

  And if you’re anything like me — the sort of chap who pays attention to narrative structure and whathaveyou — then you’ll know that Isaac saying anything like “let’s get things started” is likely to herald the coming of the end of the present book. Strap in, gentle reader, and prepare for the climax, denouement, and closing words.

  Chapter 33

  Within about two shakes of Fenny’s tail, as the expression is, I found myself back in the antechamber, or sitting room if you prefer, where I’d first had tea with Isaac. I could see at a g. that he’d redecorated a bit, some of the furniture having been shoved out of the way to make room for one of the cold storage units we’d seen in R’lyeh — those mechanical thingummies in which the dormant ancients slept, and into which Isaac pumped his lesson-bearing juice in order to rewire their brains and change their memories.

  This one was occupied by the Regent, who seemed to be snoring peacefully within, despite the wires and tubes and things entwined about her bean. Oan stood outside the thing, fiddling with buttons and knobs and things, until she noticed my arrival and gave speech.

  “Rhinnick!” she cried, a bit more ecstatically than I’d like, for this ecstasy suggested Oan wasn’t hep to recent events, hadn’t learned of my recent incarceration or involvement in a Napoleonic rebellion, and therefore still counted Rhinnick Feynman as a king among men and one who ranked in the top echelons — if echelon means what I think it does — of prime marital fauna. She lost interest in fiddling with the Regent’s storage compartment and floated straight at me, enfolding me in an embrace that I wasn’t able to dodge.

  “Grrnmph,” said Fenny, from the recesses of my costume, indicating no small measure of pique at having become involuntarily entangled in an unwelcome hug.

  I rather think Vera giggled at this juncture, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine why.

  “Oh, Rhinnick,” said Oan. “I’m so glad you’re finally here. Once again the universe heard my call and manifested my desires, bringing you to me just when I—”

  “Oh, rather,” I said, extricating myself from her clutches and doing my best to put an end to this unseemly public display of a. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It isn’t every day you get to observe Regents winging their way to the beforelife.”

  “A most auspicious occasion!” said Norm, pulling up alongside. He, too, seemed filled to the brim with ecstasy, and might have broken into a buck-and-wing dance had Vera not stepped in with a question.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” she asked, stepping up to the Regent’s storage thingummy.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Norm, still effervescing all over the place. “The Regent is perfectly safe. The sarcophagus is merely a precaution — Isaac theorizes that it might help the Regent keep a greater share of her memories once she achieves adulthood in the mortal world. I don’t fully grasp the science, of course. But if Isaac’s calculations are correct, which they always are, she’ll simply dematerialize and—”

  “I wasn’t worried about the Regent,” said Vera. “I’m worried about the rest of us.”

  “But why?” said Oan.

  “Who knows what’ll happen?” said Vera.

  “Isaac knows. Isaac seems to know everything!” said Oan.

  “He’s the one I’m worried about,” said Vera. “I don’t think he’s thought this through.”

  You might be expecting Isaac to have taken offence at this remark, but you’d be wrong. He wasn’t offended by the remark at all, largely owing to the fact that he hadn’t heard it. For on entering this room he’d tottered off to the far end, some fifteen metres distant, where now stood a large bank of computers which were connected by wires and cables to the Regent’s cozy compartment. He busied himself there with various knobs and switches, blissfully unaware that our little gathering was huddled around a Vera who was speaking in unflattering terms about his foresight and planning.

  “Ms. Lantz,” said Norm, showing every indication of condescension, “I’m sure Professor Newton has thought this through. He’s been thinking of little else for months.”

  “But what do you think will happen when Isaac peers into the beforelife and sees how everything works? He’ll pump his ancients full of his serum and have them change Detroit to be just like the physical world — the mortal world.”

  I don’t know about you, but I was fed to the eye teeth with this trend of everyone making more of this professorial chump’s science projects than was warranted. So I took this opportunity to oil out of the conversation. I tapped Zeus on the shoulder — the one without an unconscious Jack draped over it — and gave him one of those sideways nods you give when you want someone to sneak off with you.

  I’d hoped to slip away unnoticed, which of course was silly of me, because you can’t sneak off anywhere if your fellow sneaker, viz, Zeus, is so huge that he tends to blot out the sun whenever he moves from spot to spot. We hadn’t moved so much as a muscle when Norm Stradamus and Oan both broke off from whatever they had been saying and indicated, in no uncertain terms, that the Feynman presence was needed.

  “You can’t leave now, Hand of the Intercessor.”

  “No!” said Oan. “We have so much to prepare!”

  “Include me out,” I said. “You seem bent on pushing ahead with this neural, quantum, science business, and I hope you have a fine day for it. But that has nothing to do with me. I’m pushing off.”

  “But you can’t push off!” said Oan.

  “Oh right,” said Norm, “I’d forgotten. Terrence never received my summons.”

  “Call him Zeus.”

  “Why should I call him Zeus?”

  “Because it’s my name,” said Zeus.

  “But I distinctly remember you being called Terrence,” said Norm. “You introduced yourself to me. I’m good with names. I—”

  I pinched the bridge of the Feynman nose with one hand while using the other to silence the fathead with a gesture.

  “Please get to the point, prophetic ass,” I said, wearily. “What does the ruddy summons have to do with anything?”

  “It explained why I need you here.”

  “You aren’t hooking me up to any gizmos and sharing the Feynman brain pattern with the Regent.”

  “No, of course not. You’re needed for the wedding.”

  His words hit home like a tall bucket of icy water. At least that’s how they felt to me. Oan seemed to receive these words like rare and refreshing fruit, while Zeus seemed rather bored with the whole idea, he apparently having eyes for nothing apart from keeping Jack and Nappy safe.

  The last thing I wanted to do was ask the obvious question, I personally preferring to leave the whole subject of weddings unventilated — but conversational etiquette dictated that I pick up the thread, rather than changing the topic to politics, or needlework, or the relative merits of tetherball and knitting.

  “W-w-wedding?” I faltered.

  “Yes, your wedding to Oan,” said the prophetic fathead, stating the obv. It’s not as though a whole regiment of would-be brides and grooms was in the room.

  “But that’s months away,” I said. “If not years. No need to go on about it now.”

  “Our plans have changed!” said Oan, who looked happier than a cat who’d caught a legion of canaries.r />
  “We thought we’d have the ceremony here,” said Norm, “this evening I mean. To mark the occasion. It was Oan’s idea.”

  Well of course it was Oan’s idea, it being one of the goofiest and most half-baked notions to have ever been aired in a public place.

  “I thought the symbolism was perfect,” said Oan. “The Regent passing from our world into the beforelife, taking her place as the emissary to the Great Omega, as you formally take your position in the church, embracing your role as the Hand of the Intercessor and taking me as your spouse. We start our lives together as the Regent renews hers in the beforelife. It will make a wonderful final chapter for my book, For Love Alone!”

  I winced like I’d never winced before, and might have collapsed under the weight of events had the Author not built me of sterner stuff. Oan stared at me with a look that a starving lion might unleash on an especially toothsome zebra, and it occurred to me that a more fitting title for her book might be Eat Prey, Love.

  “It’s all so perfect!” cried Oan, still gripped in ecstasy.

  I could not subscribe to this. Indeed, it’s fair to say that I hadn’t heard anything less perfect since the last time I’d been seated in the Sharing Room listening to this very Oan harping about the Laws of Attraction.

  “But . . . but . . . surely you can’t plan a thing like this at the last minute—” I protested.

  “Norm is taking care of everything,” gushed Oan.

  I grasped the nearest straw.

  “We haven’t sent any invitations!” I cried.

  “All of our friends are here!” said Oan.

  “But the wedding dress! The sponge-bag trousers! The vows, and lawyers, and flowers and things—”

  “What matters is that you and I are here, together,” said Oan. “And that the universe has listened to our desires, bringing us to this day when we’ll finally send our emissary to the Omega. Oh, Rhinnick,” she said, beaming freely, “this will be the happiest day of my life, and I have you to thank for it. The Hand of the Intercessor! You’re making all of my dearest wishes come true!”