The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller

by Pierre Ouellette

  He turns to Rachel. “Don’t worry. In the end, we’re going to win.”

  Rachel nods in confirmation. Yes, they were going to win, but win what?

  A gray carpet of stratus occludes the late afternoon sun, and a chill creeps through the fall air. A small breeze comes up off the pond and blows the scent of fermented plant life over Lane as he walks along the cinder path. He wears only a cotton shirt and the wind raises goosebumps on his forearms.

  He considers heading home, but spots her up ahead. Autumn West. She sits on the bench, camera in lap, gazing out over the ripples that wrinkle the water’s cloudy green surface. A sweatshirt and sweatpants flow loosely over her. She doesn’t seem to notice as he walks behind her and sits at the bench’s opposite end. The breeze threads gently through her unbound hair.

  “Are you waiting for your feathered friends?” he asks.

  She manages a small smile and slowly turns her head toward his. “They won’t be coming today,” she declares.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  She turns back toward the water. “I’m sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure I could tell you. I knew the moment I arrived.”

  “Is it the wind? The color of the water?”

  “It really doesn’t matter. What counts is that they’re not coming.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “Not anymore. I guess you could say that I live beyond reach of expectations.”

  “That’s a good place to be—at least I think it is.”

  “And just what are you waiting for, Mr. Durbin?”

  “You mean right now?”

  “I mean anytime.”

  “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  “Most of us spend most of our lives waiting for something. The last thing we wait for is to die. After that, we’re through fidgeting in line. No more treading water. It must be a good feeling, don’t you think?”

  “I would imagine so. But that’s all I can do: imagine.”

  “Then I guess that’ll have to get you by, at least for now.”

  The thud of running shoes interrupts their conversation. Two pairs, coming up the path from behind where Autumn sits. She indicates no interest and stays focused on the water. The runners appear from behind a curtain of reeds and cattails.

  It’s Linda Crampton and a young male companion. Her drill-bit eyes go first to Autumn and then to Lane. They drip venom. She becomes a muted mask as they hurry past and down the path.

  Lane sighs. By sitting here with a beautiful woman less than half Crampton’s age, he’s managed to overlay her previous suspicions with a scalding layer of narcissistic animosity. His stay in Pinecrest may be coming to an abrupt end.

  Autumn turns to him once again. “Something wrong?”

  “Not really,” Lane lies. “It’s just getting a little chilly. I should have worn a sweatshirt or something.”

  “Maybe you need a hot cup of tea.”

  “You could be right.” Oh well. Maybe he can salvage the remains of the day with this very attractive and strangely oblique girl.

  She stands and shoulders her camera. “I live close by.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Linda Crampton steps out of the shower and towels down her pampered skin. Her hair will have to wait. She dons a bathrobe of blue silk with the ghostly imprint of a solitary rose on the back. The boy toy is already in bed and looking at her expectantly as she strides through the bedroom and down the hall without comment. Too bad. He’ll just have to pout until she takes care of business.

  In her home office, she drums her fingers on her desktop while the secure video link to Mount Tabor is established. Arjun Khan comes up on the screen. “Yes, Linda. What can we do for you?”

  Crampton bristles inside. Khan always says “we” to remind her that he is the sole representative of Thomas Zed. “I think we might have a security issue.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “A man moved in here a few days ago named Allen Durbin. He was curious about the Institute, so I gave him a tour, the usual stuff. He started asking questions, way too many questions. Then, at dinner, he wanted to know about the crash.”

  “Now, you weren’t trying to seduce him, were you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I was trying to do. He wanted to know if I knew any of the people on the plane.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “Absolutely nothing. But that’s not the end of it: When I went running today, I saw him down by the pond talking with Autumn.”

  Arjun pauses to absorb. “I see.” He absently strokes his chin. “If you took him to the Institute, it means that you have video and a lobe scan on him.”

  “I do, and I’m sending them to you right now.”

  “Let me take a look, and then talk this over with Mr. Zed. I’ll get back to you. Don’t have any more contact with him unless you have to. We need to play it safe until we know what’s going on.”

  “And how long is that going to take?”

  “Not long. I’ll be in touch.”

  Arjun disappears from the display. Crampton curls her fists into anxious balls. Originally, six of them had full knowledge of the project and now three of them were dead, by design. That left only Zed, Khan, and herself.

  And maybe that was one too many.

  The windows in Zed’s office become semiopaque as Arjun brings up the security video from the Institute. The old man shifts in his chair, seeking the comfort that never comes, as he faces the screen. His mind drifts back over the evolution of surveillance imagery in his lifetime. Drawings of pen and ink, fuzzy monochromatic photos, color telephoto shots, low-res security cams, and now this. The video of the lobby is almost brutal in its clarity, a hyperrealistic representation of an alternate reality. The Feed won’t use it. The Feed peddles the stuff of dreams.

  “Here he comes now,” Arjun narrates.

  A trim man in his late forties stops at the security post at the Institute for the Study of Genetic Disorders for a lobe scan. The resulting data comes up on a display next to the video.

  “He scans as Allen Durbin, and someone’s done a good job with his personal stats and history. It all cross-checks, even through Homeland.”

  “Keep looking,” Zed advises. “We’ve got to be sure. Especially with the Green thing coming up.”

  He curses his luck. Earlier in the day, it looked like the whole Dr. Anslow business was going to be nicely resolved. They’d received a highly secured communication from the politician Harlan Green. It seemed that Green was holding Anslow in what he called “protective custody.” After the scientist had related in some detail what was going on up on Mount Tabor, Green suggested that he and Arjun and Zed meet to discuss the issue, which was a good sign. If he’d wanted to use it as political ammunition, he would have screamed it out over every media channel that would listen. But he didn’t. It seemed that under his populist veneer, Harlan Green was a man who could be reasoned with, maybe on a grand scale.

  But now there was the brother, the cop, who might be something more than just a street tough. If Allen Durbin and Lane Anslow were one and the same, they had a major breach to deal with.

  Zed feels a sudden wrenching in his chest. His heart twists and tumbles and spins in a bottomless dive. He grabs the edge of his desk for support and holds on desperately. His implanted monitor is already screaming a wireless warning to the medical staff. They will be here in seconds. He tries to breathe calmly and regularly, as if his heart will heed the example of his lungs and get back to business as usual. But the erratic tugging, thumping, and tumbling rolls on, with no relief.

  He hears the welcome stampede of footsteps and the roll of the rubber wheels. Powerful arms lift him gently onto a gurney, and electric scissors cut away his shirt and sweater. Electrodes and sensors descend onto his chest. In the circle of faces, he sees Arjun, his physician, and several nurses.

  “Don’t worry,” his do
ctor assures him. “We’ve got it under control. You’re going to be just fine.”

  Sure he is. Just fine. Bullshit. He’s dying. Again.

  Chapter 14

  Road to Rio

  Autumn’s house catches Lane off guard. It’s no more than a cottage, with weathered wooden shakes for both siding and roof, and a simple wooden porch two steps up from the turnaround. A small barrier of sand, rocks, and plants separates the structure from the forest beyond, and bougainvillea hangs from two big pots on the porch. Autumn hasn’t bothered to lock the door, and they walk right in.

  Lane finds himself in an open space with kitchen, dining room, and living room all visible. Cedar planking lines the walls and he can smell its dry, red perfume as he follows her. Several paintings hang in the living room, lit by spots in the naked rafters. One is clearly classical, the others modern. Coarsely woven rugs spill across the pine floors at energetic angles, and the furniture is of simple design and earthen tone.

  “I think I’ll call you Mr. Durbin. It has a nicer ring to it than Allen. Do you mind?” she asks as she heats water for tea.

  “Not at all,” he answers. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Longer than I care to remember,” she says as she watches the teapot as though it resided somewhere out near infinity.

  Lane doesn’t pursue it. He still doesn’t have a fix on her and proceeds carefully. His attention returns to the paintings he noticed on the way in. A large one dominates the far wall. Something about the colors, the geometric sprawl.

  “That painting,” he says. “The big one. I’d swear I’ve seen it before.”

  “You probably have. Online and in print somewhere. It’s a Diebenkorn.”

  His high-rise lover with the cop fetish had several coffee-table books he’d thumb through while she watched the Feed. One was a survey of modern art, and that’s where he saw it. “You’re right. I saw it in a book.”

  “It’s one of the Ocean Park series. You can see a little Matisse in it, but then he goes somewhere else entirely.”

  Something under the picture’s surface seems to be shouting at Lane, taunting him. “It’s a landscape, isn’t it?”

  “You got it,” she replies. “Diebenkorn lived in Santa Monica and worked with the light and oceanfront he found there. His painting kind of hovers between abstraction and reality.”

  “So you obviously like that kind of thing,” Lane comments.

  She puts tea bags into a pair of cups. “There was a book a long time ago that had a crazy Indian who thought he could walk into a painting and actually be there. I don’t think he was crazy at all. Sometimes I walk into that picture and stay there for the longest of times. When I’m there, it seems like there’s not really any time at all.”

  She pours hot water over the tea bags. Outside, the sun breaks through the clouds and spills in through the windows. As sometimes happens in early fall, it brings instant warmth. She looks out into the light as she puts the cups on a tray. “Good. Now we can sit outside.”

  She picks up the tray and they head out through a set of French doors between the dining room and the backyard. They lead to a round table and chairs on a wooden deck elevated just a step above the ground. Beyond is a rock-lined garden where flower beds alternate with gravel walkways.

  As Lane follows her, he tries to get some kind of bearing on her physical presence. The soft slap of the sandals on the planking cuts an aural trail through the chirping and buzzing from the forest. She moves with a fluid grace that seems to transcend space and time.

  “There we are,” she says as they sit down. “Sugar or cream?”

  “No, thanks.” Lane steals a private snapshot of her as she concentrates on pouring his tea. She wears a bandanna with a blue flower print that pulls her hair back, and she has only a spare application of makeup. He rapidly explores the contours of her face, neck, and ears, looking for something he can’t find.

  “How did you get interested in art?” he asks.

  “It started when I was a child. On trips to the city, my mother would take me to the museum. I always loved it.”

  “You lived out in the country?”

  “In a small town in Nebraska.”

  She leans forward, shifting her weight off the chair back and onto her elbows, which rest on the table. A simple motion tracing a graceful curve through the low heat of the afternoon.

  “And what about you, Mr. Durbin? Where did you grow up?”

  “Fuller Bay,” he answers from off in the twilight. What was he saying? How did he get here?

  “And where’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s up in Washington,” he replies as his normal sensibility returns. “Actually, we lived in Seattle, but that’s a long time ago.”

  “It can’t be that long. You’re not that old. What are you? Mid-forties?”

  “Yeah. Mid-forties. Which is pretty young around here.”

  He watches her for a reaction, but she remains supremely detached. What’s she doing here? She’s far too young, she has no peers.

  “I suppose so,” she answers.

  “I think I heard that someone could hang on until about a hundred and twenty. Do you think any of us will make it that far?”

  She sips her tea. “Possibly. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

  Lane shrugs. “Somehow, I don’t think my clock is wound tight enough to get me anywhere near that.”

  “Would you like to live that long if you could?”

  “It all depends on health. I’d rather die in battle than retreat, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “No. No kids.” He thinks of the empty house, the interior all cool and dim.

  “Do you have unfinished business of some kind?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happens when it’s finished? What then?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” And with good reason. These days, only the wealthy have plans and dreams that extend beyond next week. The alchemy of history has transmuted the golden years into lead.

  Autumn puts down her tea. “Pace yourself, Mr. Durbin. You’ve got a long way to go. There’s really no hurry.” She pushes back her chair and stands. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to excuse me now. I always take a walk this time of day.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone. Can I call you a shuttle?”

  “No, I’ll take care of it,” Lane says as he rises. “Could we continue this conversation another time?”

  “Not this one,” she says. “But maybe another.” She holds out her hand. “Goodbye now.”

  As Lane takes her hand, it feels almost unnaturally cool. “Thanks. I’ll show myself out. Have a nice walk.”

  Lane can feel her presence fade as he walks back through the house to the front door and out onto the front porch. He stops and looks back through the screen door, which lets him see all the way through the French doors into the garden and out into the woods.

  He continues to watch for several minutes, standing in the resurgent warmth and buzz of insects. She’s gone. He can almost hear the hoarse whisper of the dry grass as it gives way beneath her sandals. A carnal moment flashes its beacon and he desperately wants to follow, to stalk her through the forest and then fall with her to the soft earth.

  The beacon fades. Lane is left with the porch, the warm afternoon, the insects. He steps forward and tries the screen. Still open.

  Once inside, he moves slowly and carefully, and has the odd sensation that he’s actually floating a hair above the floor. To be on the safe side, he walks through the house and garden, and checks the path to the woods. Nothing but chirps, buzzes, and floating seedlings. She’s really gone.

  He goes inside and roams through the place with a practiced eye, finding next to nothing. No computer. No personal effects or paperwork. No mementos of times gone by. No messages or outgoing numbers on the phone system. It’s as if Autumn West doesn’t really live here, yet obviously s
he does, with dishes in the sink, unmade bedding, and clothes in the hamper. He’s never seen anything quite like it.

  Only one item floats above this sea of anonymity. A framed picture on her nightstand, a color photograph of dubious quality. She smiles at the lens, and appears just a few years younger than now. She wears a thick coat, and a wool cap, and the background reveals a series of storefronts in the classic style of small-town America.

  Lane gets out his handheld, sets the camera at max resolution, and captures a picture of the picture. He wants to know more, but not as much as he wants to find his brother. Autumn West is a detour Lane simply can’t afford to take.

  He goes out the door to the porch, where he scans the landscaping and finds a decent spot. He pulls a video nanobug from his pocket and pushes it into a convenient stone crevice.

  He promises himself that she’ll remain a diversion, an entertainment, a distraction. Nothing more.

  A little squadron of spent leaves flutters by the kitchen window, twisting in the morning sun. Lane tracks their path as he waits for the coffeemaker to finish. The device is superautomated, with several “gourmet” settings that are lost on him. A polite beep signals the end of the process, and he pours a cup and sits at the kitchen table with its roughly polished hardwood top. Upscale rental furniture sprawls out around him, all cleaving to some consistent sensibility in the mind of some interior designer, the ghost of good taste.

  The silence and cruel façade envelop him as he sips. The pseudo-home of Allen Durbin, the pseudo-home of Lane’s family that never was nor will ever be. He shakes it off and opens a connection between his laptop and his handheld. He’s sure it can be plucked out of the home’s wireless cloud and delivered afar, but he’s willing to risk it. While the connection initializes, he plays with the pieces in his head. Johnny, Ms. Crampton, the Institute, Mount Tabor, the plane crash. They slither about like drops of oil on hot metal, skittering, colliding, bouncing, but they never settle into a coherency.