The Curiosity

by Stephen Kiernan

  “That doesn’t matter. They will stop at nothing. They chased a princess until her car crashed and she died. Now they are after us. Please trust me, and come on.”

  Easing the window open, I stepped out onto the fire escape. The alley behind my apartment was narrow: trash bins, locked-up bicycles, the backs of houses on the next street. It was another sun-struck day, no clouds in any direction. There were no reporters in sight either. Jeremiah climbed out next to me.

  “Not a word,” I whispered. “No speaking till we reach my car.”

  He nodded. I tiptoed down the metal stairs, feeling his weight descend behind me. Now began the chase, the time of us two apart from the world.

  Not until we’d gone two blocks did I realize. We had left that last egg behind.

  CHAPTER 37

  Everything Else

  (Daniel Dixon)

  Imagine a surgeon lying on the operating table. A teacher curled in a too-small student desk. A chauffeur sitting in the backseat. A chef at a table, waiting for his food.

  That was yours truly, on the sunny morning when my days as a magazine writer came to an end. Instead of covering the news, I was making it. Instead of being a spectator, I was the spectacle. The first reporters trickled in to the hotel conference room, and I decided not to watch Carthage-style, from offstage. I came down among the chairs.

  “What’s this all about, Dixon?” one of them asked.

  “You are not going to believe it,” I said. “You are just not going to believe it.”

  I had witnessed the scene thousands of times, how reporters settle themselves, TV people acting like they own the goddamn place, print photographers ignoring the rows of chairs while they clamber for an interesting angle. An editor I recognized from the Herald gave me a wave. He’d brought a couple of interns, as young as spring chicks, though one brunette among them was leggy enough I would have been happy to take her into a back room and treat her like a grown-up. Peaches, peaches, peaches. So I’m a pig; sue me. Even the Phoenix sent someone, butch-haired and wearing a peasant dress, as you might expect from an arts weekly. Like as soon as this was done she was going out to pick potatoes. She probably played for the other team anyway, if you know what I mean.

  The crowd was maybe not as large as I’d hoped, but big enough. I was relieved to see no one flying the flag for the Lazarus Project. That meant none of the contradiction I’d worried about. I’d rather tell my whole story, let them do the denying and explaining.

  The early signals were good. Toby Shea was not there, nor the others I’d e-mailed that morning. I could just imagine what they were interrupting, at the little love nest across town. Better yet, if the sweethearts bolted, a phony reincarnated man running off with an attractive woman, the tabloids would go crazy. Better than a congressman’s underwear, because it would give the lunatic media the thing it likes most of all: a chase.

  At six minutes after the hour, Carthage’s preferred lateness for starting these things, I went to the front and called hello. The reporters murmured their way down like a crowd in a theater. I picked up my projector remote. Damn if I wasn’t nervous. I always hung with the gang, giants and hacks equally, scribbling whatever the fool at the front of the room happened to be raving about. Now I was the one up front, hoping not to be the fool myself. I scanned for that brunette to calm my nerves, but couldn’t spot her. I felt like a cliff diver, peering over the edge at the water way down below. Then I jumped.

  “Thanks for coming, ladies and gentlemen. I know you’re here because it’s your job, but I think you are also going to enjoy yourselves. First, though, I have to apologize. We all pride ourselves, in the news biz, on being skeptical, right? Suspicious, hard to fool, independent in our ideas? Even so, sometimes we get duped. I asked you all here because I was duped. And I think I have some responsibility for you being duped, too.

  “In the last eleven months I have filed more than two hundred bylines on the Lazarus Project. You’ve picked up those stories, localized them, adapted them for your readers and audiences, printed the photos, played the videos. And along the way, we have collectively tricked the public into believing in something that does not exist.”

  A hand shot up at the back. “What does not exist? Can you clarify, please?”

  “Relax, you’ll get the full story. Or as close to the truth as I can come at this point. I’ve prepared four proofs and I’m going to lay them right out for you.”

  The hand rose again. “Proofs of what, though?”

  “Damn, buddy, did you forget to pee on the way in here?” Everyone laughed at that, and I could feel my guts untying. “Easy, okay? I’m going to give you proof that the Lazarus Project is a fake. A phony. The whole shebang.”

  I felt the in-breath. I saw their eyes widen, their backs straightening in the chairs.

  “Now your skepticism is in full gear. You’re not going to believe me, because you already believe them. And what I wrote before. That’s fine. Just let me start, and you judge for yourselves.”

  I nodded at the hotel guy in the back of the room, who lowered the lights. When I pressed a button on the remote, the first photo went up on the screen. It felt like a lifetime since I’d snapped it, on the bridge of that ice-crusted research vessel: Captain Kulak and Dr. Kate standing at the front window, looking out at a spotlit wall of white.

  “This is the night we found the iceberg that allegedly contained Jeremiah Rice. When I snapped it we had been near the berg for about twenty minutes. What do you notice about Dr. Kate Philo in this photo?”

  I remembered the first time I looked at this pic. I enjoyed seeing her sweet backside in that tight diving suit, dead center. But now all I saw was the diving suit.

  “What you have here is a researcher, supposedly just awakened in the middle of the night. Now, this is one of the coldest places on earth. No one wants to dive unless it’s totally, absolutely necessary. You can die in an instant.

  “So let me ask: How often do you all get out of bed and put on specialized clothes? Anybody here this morning slap off the alarm and then dress in football pads? Anyone here wear a flak jacket while brushing your teeth? Then why would a scientist start her day by donning diving gear, unless she already knew that she’d be going into the water?”

  “What are you saying here, Dixon?”

  “I’m saying that they made mistakes, that they left a trail.”

  “Yes, but a trail of what?”

  “Decide for yourselves. And let me clarify, right up front, that I don’t think all of them are in on it.” I shuffled a little while talking, it seemed to calm my nervous energy. “Some people at the Lazarus Project are doing an honest job based on what they’ve been tricked into believing. But the central crew is just a pack of actors.”

  “You realize how defamatory that accusation is?” that same reporter persisted.

  “Easy, tiger.” I wagged my fingers at him. “Four proofs. Hold on to your hats.”

  The first proof concerned interruptions in documentation. I showed them the video of the digging at the ice, which ended when Jeremiah’s hand was revealed. They’d seen it before, but not in slow motion. Now everyone could see how it blips, how in the instant the hand ought to be visible, instead there is a rush of divers, the screen fills with bubbles, there’s a minuscule skip in the tape, and only then is there the hand.

  “Let me show that again.” I froze one second before the skip: Dr. Kate’s glove at the lower right; then one second after, and her hand was higher. “Now, sure, the diver could have accidentally shut off his camera for one second, because of the jostling, then turned it right back on. It’s possible. But it looks to me like the video has been doctored.”

  I heard them rustle in their seats, so I hurried to the day of reanimation, and the moment Dr. Borden gave Jeremiah the full blast from his electric panel. The lights went out. Billings yelled. The lights came back and there
was Jeremiah, breathing. Again the editing was plain to see. And the blackout was so basic a stunt it seemed amateurish.

  “How we doing?” I said, because the crowd had gone quiet. No one answered.

  “Okay, proof two. A man from 1906 should not know things from today. But what if he does? I’m showing little things here, I admit. But these are brilliant people, and a well-oiled deception. Still, even geniuses make mistakes. The little things add up. Let’s watch some baseball.”

  I showed them Jeremiah’s pitch, the ball smacking the catcher’s mitt. “You get it? The mistake is that he was way too good. In theory, at this point the guy has been unfrozen for two months. Come on. He must have played college ball. Otherwise aren’t we seeing unreal heat for a guy who hasn’t thrown in a hundred and ten years?”

  A few people chuckled at that. I was rolling. “Now check this out.”

  I pressed play, and there was the TV station’s footage of Fenway Park, everyone on their feet, giddy from beating the Yankees. They’re singing “Tessie” with gusto. Then the camera zooms in on Jeremiah, and he is mouthing right along with the words.

  “Pretty neat trick, right? How does a guy born in 1868 know the words to a song the fans started singing in 2006?”

  “Jesus H,” said the hippie from the Phoenix.

  “I know, right?” I replied. “Now let’s hear it from Jeremiah Rice himself, or whatever his real name is.” Then I showed a bit the good folks at Fenway had allowed me to copy from their security cam. It showed that lady accosting Jeremiah. He holds up his hands like he’s being robbed and declares, “Yes, that’s what I am. A fake.” Out of context, sure, but I felt clever enough about that clip that I played it again anyway. “Yes, that’s what I am. A fake.”

  The reporters were all busy writing, heads down. A few tapped maniacally on their laptops. Now I was hitting my stride. “Proof number three. The loot.”

  These were snapshots and I flipped through them rapid fire: Jeremiah trying on running shoes. A tailor holding a jacket while Jeremiah slips an arm into a sleeve. Jeremiah grinning at a jeweler while holding a gold watch up to his ear.

  “Are we going to get copies of this material?”

  “Absolutely, yes,” I said. “I’ll tell you this, too. Jeremiah has received so many goodies there is now a big locked storeroom of them at the Lazarus Project offices. I can’t guess what it’s all worth. But don’t let that loot take your eyes off the big prize.”

  I showed my photo of those men from the meeting room, waiting for the elevator. They’re all holding folders. Carthage is speaking while Thomas hovers at his elbow.

  “These guys are money,” I explained. “Potential investors. Most of them run cryogenics companies, a few are biotech. Maybe you recognize some faces. The folder contains a prospectus for commercializing the Lazarus Project’s discoveries. Basically Carthage was looking to sell out, which is acceptable capitalism but unusual science, wouldn’t you say? Oh, and the minimum entry point was one million dollars.”

  I enjoyed the silence which greeted that news. “Not all loot comes in the form of money,” I added. “Sometimes access is almost better than cash.” On the screen I flashed a photo of Vice President Gerald T. Walker and his toothy trademark grin, with his arm tightly around Jeremiah’s shoulders. There was a guffaw from somewhere in the room, so I guess I’d put the icing on that particular cake.

  “Finally, proof number four, the romance.”

  Oh, I had a quiverful of those arrows. Between my camera and the video files, I’d been stung by them a hundred times over the weeks: Dr. Kate hugging Jeremiah before releasing his straps and wheeling him to the roof. The two of them squeezing hands at the first news conference. Jeremiah and Dr. Kate strolling Back Bay arm in arm. Jeremiah and Dr. Kate snuggled against each other in front of the moving sculpture at the Museum of Science. Dr. Kate on a bench by a beach, her head in Jeremiah’s lap. “Not exactly the professional scientist–research subject relationship, am I right?”

  I kept going. The two of them on a sidewalk at night in the North End, some fat guy singing melodramatically while Dr. Kate leans against Jeremiah and moons like a teenager. A telephoto shot, the knockout of the series, in a cemetery north of Boston, the two of them so glued together it looks like they’re having sex standing up.

  “Get a room,” someone called, and people laughed.

  The last one in that sequence was the nighttime kiss outside her apartment, backlit by a convenient streetlight, as clear as if they’d done it onstage. I left that photo up a little longer, then switched off the projector like Perry Mason saying the defense rests. “I’d guess that leaves not too great a margin for doubt, does it?”

  The lights came back up. People took a minute to collect themselves. I thought about a snake digesting a fat frog it had just swallowed. That was them. Me, I felt as relieved as a gymnast who tried a hard move to finish a routine, and stuck it good.

  “So let me understand this,” said a reporter in front. “You’re saying the Lazarus Project is fake, and they concocted this scheme for money and political influence?”

  I held my hands out wide. “If the people at the Lazarus Project have a better explanation, I’d like to hear it.”

  “Why aren’t you just writing this story yourself?”

  “Believe me, I’d love to. But I’ve become part of the story. They played me, and like a good Boy Scout I passed the garbage right along. That’s why I’m handing it over to all of you. And, frankly, crossing my fingers that you get it right.”

  “This coverage has been all yours, the whole way,” said a familiar voice from over by the wall. “Why did you get it so wrong?”

  I craned my neck, and damn if it wasn’t Wilson Steele, looking like someone had pissed in his cornflakes. Which would be yours truly. How had he snuck in here without me noticing? And where did he get off asking such a sharpie?

  “Great question,” I said, stalling. I stared at my loafers, as if they had the answer. But they just looked beat, unpolished, a metaphor for my shoe-leather existence. And then I experienced the great what-the-hell of Daniel Dixon’s life. At that point, declaring my big-time exclusive to be bogus, killing my career in service of the truth, what did I have left to lose?

  “Look, Wilson,” I said. “All of you. We each have our blind spots, you know? If we’re honest with ourselves. Weaknesses we may not even know we have, but that the spin meisters and professional deceivers can spot from a mile off. There are certain events in my past that made me an excellent tool in the service of Carthage’s fantasy, even with all my experience, a reporter perfectly susceptible.”

  “What events?”

  “None of your goddamn business.” I bristled. “Besides, I’m not the only one he duped. You guys right here, you let this stay a press-pool story, with everyone writing from my filings, for way too long, and you know it. As far as I know, only one newspaper got past the walls. The rest of you went right along with the game.

  “But here’s the main point I want to make, on the record and for the record. I am not Carthage’s manipulated mouthpiece anymore. And as far as I’m concerned, all embargoes and exclusives and deals of any kind, well . . .” I laughed, I had to laugh. “Hell, they’re dead.”

  The reporters sat as still as statues, not even taking notes. It was like we were throwing a year’s work out the window, running the correction to beat all corrections, and they knew it.

  “Excuse me,” someone at the back called out. Now I have been to maybe two zillion news conferences in my career, and I cannot remember a single time that a reporter said “excuse me.” No, you bark your questions, you interrupt, manners are for sissies. The rest of the room must have felt the same way, because everyone turned, a path cleared, and I saw that the speaker was Tucker Babcock, senior political columnist at the Globe practically since the days of my first byline. If Boston had an elder statesman of th
e news, Tucker Babcock was it—from his white beard to his bushy, intimidating eyebrows.

  He brushed one of them back with his pinkie like it was the queen clearing her throat. “Walk us through it, Dixon,” he said. “Can you give us more detail on how you developed this information, and reached this conclusion?”

  Well, I have been around long enough to know what a softball like that means. The days of yours truly being some unrecognized hack were at a definite end.

  “You bet,” I said. Then I took a chair from the front row, turned it backward, and flopped into it. “So far you’ve heard the highlights. Now I’ll tell you everything else.”

  CHAPTER 38

  That Kind of Man

  My name is Jeremiah Rice, and I begin to tremble.

  Nor can I stop it either. I awakened that day to the unusual sensation of ropes coiling up and down my legs, beneath the skin. Or was it snakes? My acquaintance with those creatures was limited to the harmless slitherers basking on our garden wall of a summer’s day. Now these snakes were within me, strong, uncontrolled spasms. Over the minutes my muscles calmed, lowered to a tremor, and at last drooped as loose as sails without wind. I placed a palm on my chest and my heart had resumed its regular thrumming pace. A breeze raised the curtains into the room as though lifted by a ghost.

  It was July, the miracle of July. When we set sail in August all those years ago, I did not know that my final July had just ended. This time I knew. This time I lay back in bed, tasting the air, and it was delicious, the sour tang of ocean a few hundred feet away, and three months after my awakening, the scent of salt no longer painful.

  I had slept. After losing count, so many nights of wakefulness I longed for the peace of mindlessness, I had stretched myself beside Kate in the white iron bed of this inn, the lull of her breathing as steady and serene as the surf. Once during the night I was aware of our entangling, body to body with bedclothes between. Otherwise I had dozed into the depths, swimming deep waters, surfacing only now in midmorning.