The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller

by Pierre Ouellette

  “No.”

  “ ‘We’ve got to cut the loss fast.’ Problem was he didn’t follow his own advice. He made the big mistake of letting it drag out, and it’s not going to be ours. We need to act quickly and decisively. Get the best contract people and make it happen.”

  “I’ll do it, but we have to understand that it may not be enough. The longer the Bird’s loose with what he knows, the bigger the potential for more leakage. I think we need the fallback plan.”

  Zed shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stalks back toward his desk. The fallback plan happens in stages. During the first stage, demolition charges are put in place to destroy the core facility. In the second, Zed is evacuated from his residence atop the mountain. In the third, Arjun initiates demolition and joins Zed at a remote location. All the contract personnel are left to fend for themselves. Their loyalty lasts only as long their paycheck, and they’ll cave at the first sign of serious aggression. “All right,” Zed responds. “Let’s get on it.

  Zed plops back into his chair after Arjun leaves. He finds one consolation in the current crisis. Autumn. Circumstances will soon demand that his life on Mount Tabor come to an end. He’ll be free to move on and start over with her.

  ***

  “Well, now,” the Bird says with a tepid grin as Rachel steps out of the car. “Why am I not surprised?”

  The Bird, Lane, Rachel, and two vehicles form an oasis in the center of a paved desert nearly two square miles in area. Long ago, virgin automobiles and weathered shipping containers covered its dark asphalt surface. Now only the huge gantry cranes remain, standing watch over the barren expanse and all that it represents in terms of lost trade, lost commerce, and lost souls. No cameras here. No microphones. Only a cloudy breeze off the Columbia River, its waters hopelessly poisoned by the disaster upstream at Hanford twenty years back.

  “We so seldom see each other,” replies Rachel to the Bird. “I wonder why.”

  “I take it that Harlan believes in the separation of church and state,” Lane observes as the pair warily assess each other. “I think this might be a great time for a meaningful dialogue. Let’s start with what you have in common.”

  “Simple,” the Bird says to Rachel. “Your boss seems to be preaching one thing to your adoring followers, and doing quite another. Looks like he’s found a higher power. Tough to compete with life everlasting, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So how did all this go down?” the Bird asks, turning to Lane. “How do you know what you know? And why do think your brother’s up there?”

  “He was the key scientist in developing the technology,” Lane says.

  “He thought they were going to kill him to keep the project secret,” Rachel adds. “So he came to me and wanted to make a deal with Green for protection, but Green sold him out.”

  “Yeah, Harlan seems to have a real knack for that,” the Bird observes. He recalls the special job they did for Green, the guy they kidnapped from the bar in the War Front, the really smart guy, the guy they had to keep drugged. It has to be Lane’s brother, but he keeps his silence on the matter. “I know for a fact that our Mr. Green recently made a little unscheduled nighttime visit up to Mount Tabor,” the Bird adds.

  “I also would like to make an unscheduled visit and ask about the current whereabouts of my brother,” Lane says.

  “Why think small?” the Bird replies. “We go in and hold the place up for ransom. All that technology has to be worth a fortune. I mean, how much will people pay to have teenage balls forever?”

  “I think we need to think this thing through a little more thoroughly,” Lane cautions.

  “Maybe we should simply confront Harlan,” Rachel suggests. “That could give us some bargaining power, and bring Mount Tabor down without a fight.”

  “I don’t know who’s in charge up there,” Lane says. “But when they tracked me down in Pima, they weren’t interested in negotiating.”

  “Suppose we all go away and give it some thought,” Rachel says, “and then meet back here tomorrow. Same time, same place.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” the Bird says. “That’s it. If nobody’s got a better idea, we’re going in.”

  ***

  “I don’t like the lobe.”

  The Bird points toward his right ear as he takes a sip of custom-ground Peruvian coffee brewed in the little shop on Twelfth Avenue in the Pearl. A half-eaten cantaloupe rests on a plate in front of him, a dish with an artful glaze fired in a kiln somewhere far south of here. Behind him, a half dozen customers sip coffee and munch on pastries. All large, male, and part of the Bird’s security team. They are a bad fit amid the tasteful décor and cheerful lighting, but the Bird couldn’t care less, and staff here cares very much about what the Bird thinks.

  “We’ll get you a better one when we get a chance,” Lane tells him. “But right now, just think of it as cheap insurance.”

  “Did you get a good look at my old lobe? Gold plate. Microcarving of an eagle. Scrimshaw deluxe. Little diamonds in each corner.”

  “What did you do with it?” For an instant, Lane thinks he might have just put it in his pocket, leaving a dangerous trail of digital crumbs behind him. Lane has to marvel at the strange mixture of shrewdness and recklessness that simmers inside this man.

  “I left it back at my place.” The Bird points his thumb over his shoulder out the window toward a tall building two blocks down. Its tasteful earthen veneer mutes the light from the morning sun in the cloudless sky. “A safe in the wall. You just can’t trust the help anymore.”

  Lane has to wonder why someone like the Bird is concerned about theft by the domestic staff. He lets it remain a mystery.

  The Bird stands. “Let’s get back. I need to feed Rocky before we take off.”

  They walk out into the morning air and start down Twelfth. That’s when Lane first hears the sound: a kind of fizzing, like uncorked champagne, or the froth atop soapy dishwater.

  The Heliraptor, a suicide machine born of global industry: avionics from Tel Aviv, airframe from Korea, firmware from Palo Alto, engine from Hanoi. A one-way expression of explosive mayhem in the extreme. It claims its ancestry from the predators, the drones of old that circled lazily then dived for the kill with missile fire, then returned to base, hardware intact, investment preserved. Not so with the Heliraptor, an unmanned helicopter designed for the most sensitive of missions, where traceability was not an option. After launching its two missiles, it briefly confirmed the results and self-destructed.

  On this clear morning, one such machine skims over the rusted framework of the Broadway Bridge on its way to the Pearl.

  “If we have to force our way up into Mount Tabor, it could get pretty ugly,” Lane tells the Bird as they walk the first of two blocks back to his penthouse. The security trails them from a discreet distance down the block.

  “We don’t how well the place is defended,” Lane continues. “If the gate is any indication, it could be tough. And if my brother’s up there, he could get in the line of fire.”

  The Bird shrugs. “Not likely. He’s high-priced merchandise. They’re not going to put him where he’s going to go down.”

  “And what if they do?”

  The Bird stops and glares at Lane. “Tell you what, I’m going make you a very special deal just to get you off my back. If we go in, you go in first. I’ll give you a chance to fish him out before things get heavy. Satisfied?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Lane turns his head east toward the river, where the fizzing has suddenly gotten louder.

  The Heliraptor skims between two buildings on Tenth Avenue. Its powerful electric engine makes hardly a sound. The only noise is the effervescent beat of the rotor blades slicing the air. It measures about thirteen feet in length, and consists of nothing but a bare frame of carbon fiber with a small crossbar holding the missiles. Two high-res cameras peer forward, and a container about the size of a shoebox holds the electronics, which chatter with a sa
tellite overhead in the tranquil blue. And within this container, a specialized, proprietary circuit performs its function with superb accuracy. Out of all the lobes hung on all the humanity below, it isolates the Bird’s.

  The Heliraptor pilot sits in a darkened room in Bangkok and watches the video feed off the satellite link. Raised on Xbox and Playstation, he views the image in distant and abstract terms. As the target building comes into view, the display puts up a semitransparent circle indicating the location of the Bird’s lobe in the penthouse.

  Rocky performs an atavistic calculation that equates the rotor’s buzz with a swarm of highly edible insects. The armadillo scampers through an open door and out onto the deck, where it hops up on a piece of lawn furniture. It spots a giant black bug, something like a dragonfly, quivering motionless in the air not thirty feet away.

  “What the fuck is that?” The Bird’s jaw drops slightly after he asks the question. He and Lane halt on the sidewalk to behold the strange craft hovering a block and a half away and a dozen stories up. A helicopter, too big to be a model, too small to be the real thing. Everybody on the street has stopped to stare.

  “Hey, it’s up by my place,” the Bird observes.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Lane says. “It’s found your lobe.”

  The last thing the armadillo ever sees is the flash and twin streaks screaming toward the penthouse. Each missile carries a warhead designed to spread a horrible fan of shrapnel across an arc of nearly 180 degrees. The fan’s vertical spread is highly constrained and focuses the damage into a narrow plane that concentrates on the penthouse floor. When the warheads explode, a million metal shards perforate, puncture, and shred every square foot. Sheared wiring creates electrical arcs near punctured gas lines that feed the Bird’s industrial-class stove. A great ball of flame and smoke belches out of the kitchen and onto the deck.

  At the same instant, the Heliraptor explodes in a brilliant flash that creates a sphere of debris that slams into the street and the surrounding buildings. Windows shatter. Vehicles crumple. Spectators collapse under a spray of shrapnel.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Lane looks over to see the Bird’s jaw fully slack and his eyes bulging, a rare snapshot of shock and fear. But only for an instant. The Bird turns to Lane with a red rage already spreading across his face. “They fucked with me, Anslow. They fucked with me big time.”

  “We’ve got to get you off the street. There may be follow-up.”

  The security detail rushes up and forms a phalanx around the Bird and Lane. Together, they start wading through a crowd of stunned onlookers on the sidewalk. Sirens fire up in the background.

  “Green,” the Bird declares as they move away from the calamity. “He told ’em I wanted in, and they tried to take me out.”

  “Could be,” Lane says.

  “He knew they’d try to take me out.”

  “Maybe so,” Lane responds.

  The Bird takes out his handheld and says “Green” into it.

  “You might want to wait on this,” Lane suggests. “You’re tipping your hand.”

  “Yeah? Well the other guy’s got nothing left to bet,” the Bird says. “So who gives a fuck?”

  The Bird extends his free hand palm up. His call went through. “Hey, Green.” He stares at the handheld, which is sending video of his face to Harlan. “Wanna see something?” He turns the handheld camera toward his building, where the entire upper story is now engulfed in flames, then back to himself. “That’s where I live, Harlan. And you know what that means, asshole? It means you’re dead meat.” He shoves the phone in his pocket and starts down the street at a furious pace. Lane lengthens his stride to match.

  “He can run but he can’t hide,” the Bird declares. “Not on my turf.” He gets back on his handheld. “I want Street Party headquarters and the neighborhood sealed tight—right now.”

  ***

  “We just got a break, Rachel. A really big break.”

  Harlan appears genuinely excited as he ducks his head into her office. “Grab your coat and your keys. We’ve got to move on this right now.”

  “Move on what exactly?” Rachel asks as they hustle on down the hall. Harlan had surprised her. He seldom talked to her this early in the day.

  “Can’t tell you. Not yet. We have to do this on the QT or it won’t work. We need to agree to the terms before it goes public.”

  Rachel sorts through this precipitous development as they leave the Street Party headquarters and head to the parking lot in the rear, where they keep an SUV for private use. Its tinted windshield and smoked windows provide an anonymous ride. What’s he up to? She finds out as soon as she pulls the vehicle out of the lot and heads down the street.

  “Sorry I didn’t let you in on this earlier,” Green apologizes. “I’ve been negotiating with the corporation that owns Mount Tabor. They’ve agreed in principle to move out and let the land be returned to the public domain. It’s a huge victory. All the demonstrating, all the speeches have finally paid off.”

  “Very impressive,” a slightly dazed Rachel responds. Could it be true? Green might have talked them into moving their rejuve facility somewhere more secure. Everybody would win. The corporation, whoever they were, would look publicly spirited for donating the land. Green would reinforce his image as a populist hero. And they would all grow forever young with nobody the wiser.

  “So where to?” Rachel asks as she turns onto a main street.

  “The gate at Mount Tabor.”

  “We’ve got Street Party people up there demonstrating right now,” says Rachel.

  “That’s why we’re in a vehicle with no-peek windows. Don’t worry. They know we’re coming and we’ll be waved right through.”

  Harlan spends the balance of the fifteen-minute ride discussing how to present this momentous development to the media. It’s too big for the Feed to ignore and will probably run on dozens of news channels. The more he talks, the more Rachel hopes it’s all true. Such is the primal force field of Harlan Green.

  At the heavily fortified gate, they arrive unrecognized by the protestors and a simple lobe scan is all they need to drive on through. Immediately inside is a small military base of some kind. As they start up the hill, Rachel spots what appear to be bunkers among the trees, but the higher they climb, the less fortified and more parklike the place becomes.

  “Now that we’re straight on the media strategy, all you have to do is drop me off,” Harlan informs her. “We need to work in parallel to pull this thing off. You go on back to the office and start putting a detailed plan together. I’ll phone you when I’ve got the deal done and signed. It might take quite a while, so don’t worry—and keep a lid on it, a big lid. At least for now, okay?”

  Rachel nods. She keeps looking down at their shifting position in the map display on the vehicle’s navigation system. Depending on what happens, it might be useful information.

  “How do we know where we’re going?” Rachel asks.

  “They said it’s near the top. Someone’s coming out to meet us.”

  They come over a crest and round a gentle curve. On their right, a massive concrete structure juts from the hillside, broken only by a large loading gate and a nearby door. Both entrances are constructed of heavy steel. As Rachel pulls into the parking area, the door lifts up vertically and a man emerges with dark skin and a small frame. If Rachel had to guess, she’d say he was Indian.

  Green opens his door the moment the vehicle stops. “I’ll take it from here. Just wait for my call.”

  Rachel gives a wry grin as she watches Harlan walk off toward the slight man standing by the door. He didn’t even bother to bring a computer or a briefcase. Not like him. Whatever just happened must have happened really fast.

  Chapter 27

  The End Is Queer

  “Good evening,” Zed greets Autumn as he enters the grand dining hall atop Mount Tabor. The fading light from the west casts a soft light on Autumn through the big windows. “How are you?” he continues.
It sounds mechanical and formal, but it’s the best he can do.

  “I’m just fine,” she answers with a polite coolness.

  Zed masks his disappointment and steals a glance at his reflection in the large mirror on the far wall, which is paneled with Tasmanian blackwood. He appears to be about forty, and constantly confirms it in every mirror he encounters. His head is still shaved, waiting for his hair to catch up with the rest of the process, but it gives him a look of rugged masculinity. He is still struggling to adjust to his shifting musculature, so his movements are somewhat awkward.

  “I know I’m a little clumsy, but that’ll pass,” he explains.

  “I know.”

  Of course she does. She went through the same readjustment. So what can he say to draw her out? The entrance of two waiters interrupts his rumination. Wine is poured. An appetizer of smoked salmon arrives.

  The waiters depart and they consume the appetizer in silence. The table seats fourteen, and they sit opposite each other in the middle. Two place settings amid a barren plain of polished rosewood.

  “How was your flight over?” he asks.

  “Pleasant.”

  After a long silence, his patience is spent. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “And just what would you like to hear?” she asks him in the most patient of tones.

  “Maybe we could start with the obvious: That I’ve changed considerably since the last time you saw me.”

  “Should I be surprised?”

  “No, but you might be a little more excited about it.” Zed pauses and closes his eyes to compose himself. “Nobody else shares what we do. Nobody has lived so long and been given a second chance. All the wisdom we’ve accumulated can now be applied while we’re young and healthy. You can have the children you never had. You can travel to where you never went. You can learn everything you never had time for. You can savor those experiences in a way you never could before. Think of it.”

  “I have thought about it quite a lot, Mr. Thomas Zed.”