The Curiosity

by Stephen Kiernan

  “Hm.” One of his hands fluttered up. He stuffed it in his pocket. “We need to go.”

  “Yes.” I stood, my chair trumpeting on the floor as it slid back. “I’ll have to square things away with Carolyn.”

  He led the way into the hall. “Let’s pack our things first.”

  “Okay. But we don’t have much time.”

  Jeremiah stopped short then, so quickly I bumped him. He took both of my hands in both of his own. He spoke in a solemn voice. “I know.”

  So there it was. Unsaid, but somehow said. I raised one hand to touch his cheek. “I know, too.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Those Who Still Believe

  (Daniel Dixon)

  Last time I was in a hospital, it was the night my parents died. The docs admitted me for observation due to smoke inhalation. But I understood it was actually so they could help me handle a diagnosis of permanent orphanhood. Really, though, what help can there be? They gave me sedatives, so I did my crying quietly. The drugs lasted till the next day when my aunt and uncle picked me up and brought me to their house, where I lived four more years till college. It was never home, it was never supposed to be home.

  I’m not singing any blues here, we all get our share. Only trying to explain why, when I hopped off the T that morning and made my way to the main entrance of Mass General, I found myself hesitating on the threshold. The white stone exterior held so much glass I could see the giant paintings inside. I just stood there a minute.

  There was no question of whether to go in, of course. While the regular media were busy chasing the missing phonies, no one had thought to pay a visit to the person who’d already paid a physical price for their lies. Only yours truly.

  Was it creepy, door-stepping him in the hospital? Was it overboard to bring a camera? I answered myself with the reporter’s most reliable consolation: it would make a great story. Anything is permissible if it makes a great story.

  The woman wearing a “volunteer” tag at the welcome desk could have been four hundred years old, but she looked up the room number and pointed me toward the elevators with cool competence. The young thing at the fifth-floor nursing station was too skinny for my taste, looking like she needed six months of square meals. But her directions had a little surprise at the end.

  “Four doors down, sir, but please keep it brief. He already has someone with him.”

  Well, that frosted me. Scooped after all. As I drew up to the half-closed door, though, I recognized the British accent of the voice chatting inside.

  “Transfusion?” Billings coughed. “Of course. Brilliant.”

  “Hello, gents,” I said, swinging the door back.

  It was like entering a walk-in freezer. Gerber took one look and rolled onto his side, staring at the opposite wall. Billings drew up like a cat flaring his fur to look bigger.

  “Hey, guys, I just came by to see how the patient is doing.”

  Billings pointed. “With a camera?”

  “I take one everywhere, you ought to know that by now.”

  “Parasite.”

  Enough of him. He wasn’t the one I came to see anyway. But Gerber, on inspection, looked like a prizefighter who should have retired three bouts ago. His eyes were blackened, he had a strip of stitches across his cheekbone, and one wrist was in some kind of splint.

  “Whoa,” I said. “You look like hell.”

  “So says Mr. Sunshine,” Gerber replied, still studying the wall.

  “You have some nerve, coming here,” Billings said.

  “Give it a rest,” I answered. “Here I am, all right? Deal with it.”

  Billings started to speak, then shut his mouth without a word.

  “Tell him about the song,” Gerber croaked. “Start there.”

  I resisted the urge to pull out a notebook. “What are you talking about?”

  Billings sniffed. “That ‘Tessie’ song you wrote about. You only did enough homework to find out they started singing it at Red Sox games a few years ago. But they sang it in Judge Rice’s time as well. It was from a Broadway show.”

  “You can’t possibly still believe? Even now?”

  “Don’t be daft,” Billings said. “The facts are plain. Your ideas are mere speculation.”

  I crossed my arms. “So now I’m supposed to believe he remembered the words for over a hundred years?”

  “And while we’re on the topic of shoddy reporting,” he continued, “I’ll have you know that I was wearing diving undergear that night at the iceberg, too. You didn’t notice, because mine wasn’t the backside you were ogling.”

  “Look.” I gave a monumental sigh. “There is no way at this point that you or anyone is going to change my mind about all of this.”

  “Nor would I waste my breath trying.” Billings pivoted his head back to Gerber like a tank turret fixing on a target. “You were speaking of hemoglobin.”

  “For O2 saturation,” Gerber said. He sounded spectacularly tired. “Transfusing two units ought to be enough. More blood volume means more oxygen transport. The frenzy should pass, we’ll break the cycle, and Judge Rice can live to inspire the tabloids for another day.”

  “If you can find him,” I scoffed. “That guy is as vanished as Amelia Earhart.”

  “I’ll follow the paparazzi,” Billings said. “I have a trusty old motorbike. Also a certain debt that needs repayment. And now”—he approached Gerber’s bed—“you rest. You’ve done your part.” He turned for the door. “Two units. I’ll find him.”

  “Thanks,” Gerber said, almost in a whisper, but Billings was gone. I tried to picture him on a motorcycle, helmet and leathers, and it did not compute. The man was too much of a pudding.

  We had an awkward silence then, Gerber and I. The nurses’ call button rang a few rooms away. Someone hurried down the corridor, rubber heels squeaking on the linoleum. Gerber picked at his blanket.

  Finally I was the one to break. “I want you to know I believe you had no part in the fraud. They duped you, just like they duped me. I think you are on the up-and-up.”

  Gerber laid his hand flat. “You know nothing.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me,” I said. “I was the one who ran for help, when they all went berserk on you.”

  Gerber blinked a couple of times, and I thought his eyes might be brimming. I couldn’t imagine why. A sore wrist? A couple of stitches? What was there to cry about?

  “Remember that bike helmet Judge Rice gave me, the one you teased me about?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What about it?”

  Finally he faced me head-on, and his look was solid ice. “If I’d been wearing it that day, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Kinds of Politeness

  (Erastus Carthage)

  I’m sorry, sir,” Thomas says, standing in the doorway and wringing his hands. “The printer is broken. A problem with the ink.”

  You are facing the mirror, retying your necktie. “For God’s sake, Thomas, use your brain. Does this place only have one working printer?”

  “Of course not, sir. But you insisted on keeping your computer separate from the network. You’re not linked into anything else.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to eleven, sir.”

  “Plenty of time. We have till six minutes after.”

  “What would you like me to do, sir?”

  You finish knotting, it’s perfect, good enough for a banker. You lift the remote. “I would like you to deal with it.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  So he departs, and you command the television on. It remains tuned to the news channel that has found delight in your misfortune, the one which presented that fool’s nonsensical allegations as certain facts, and the one that you have not been able to tear your eyes
from for the past five days. You wonder if they will have the temerity to cover your rebuttal speech that morning. If they do, would that be evidence of fairness, or gall?

  As if in answer, the station breaks to the latest developments about you. Their position is evident even without sound, because of their symbol for this coverage, pasted electronically in the upper right of the screen: the Lazarus Project logo, standing on a house of cards, with one wall fallen inward. Subtlety is not this channel’s strong suit.

  But then, what developments could there be? Dixon has made no new allegations, despite repeating his initial claims for five days on every talk show and news program with a chair large enough for his hefty carcass. Meanwhile your press event hasn’t even begun. How can there be developments without you?

  The answer is a clip of Gerald T. Walker, vice president of the United States, standing at a podium in Wisconsin. Oh, wonderful. A candidate, that most appetizing of human creatures, weighing in with his considered opinion based on the manufactured version of a fraction of the story. You do not bother to raise the volume, just wait for the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

  And there it is: Walker withdraws Lazarus Project endorsement, demands “verification of reanimation claims,” calls for audit of all federally funded research.

  Tidy as a birthday present, and maligning not just you but every scientist in the country. He also conveniently forgot that this was a private lab, recipient of not one penny of federal coin. Here you thought reason had triumphed over emotion back in the era of the Enlightenment. Apparently the vice president neglected to study history, a crime he would hardly be the first politician to commit.

  “Thomas.”

  “Sir?”

  There is such a pleasure in how punctually that young man presents himself for duty. “Do you have that printer working yet?”

  “Almost, sir. Apparently it’s a toner problem, and we’re tracking down a replacement cartridge.”

  “Fine. Please reopen my speech. We must add a reply to the vice president.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be right in for your dictation.”

  It takes but a moment, adding three sentences about Walker jumping to conclusions, how he will change his view once the facts become clear, and how the public would do well to follow that example. Thomas hurries off to update the document.

  You stroll to the window, gazing down on the street. Your “fans” are gone now, alas. Boston’s police, who, given the marathon bombing, deserve a medal for patience with these protesters, finally tired of them. Particularly after what they did to Gerber. A nuisance to have your top scientist hospitalized. It’s a little thrill to imagine the protesters following the paparazzi, chasing the chasers. What a donnybrook could result should anyone locate those two absconders. Yet you liked having the crowd below, the motley opposition, a reminder of the world’s cavernous ignorance.

  Today is an opportunity to shine the light of reason into one corner of that grotto. This is going to be the lecture of a lifetime.

  Your strategy is flawless. Instead of wasting precious time dismantling Dixon’s flimsy fabrications, you are going to address the real issues, the scientific substance: discovering hard-ice, methods of reanimation, and above all, how Subject One was a predictable link in a long chain whose end remains nowhere in sight, beyond the horizon. Forget the allegations of a troll, let reality do the persuading. If these reporters have five brain cells among them, they will understand where rightness, factual rightness, lies.

  You check the television again, and there is that house of cards once more. You capitulate, and turn up the volume.

  “ . . . Chinese laboratories saying they have duplicated reanimation of shrimp found in hard-ice. The officials added, however, that their findings proved conclusively that this process could not work on human beings.”

  The program cuts to a man in a white lab coat; his face is familiar. He has an Australian accent and speaks with a frown, as if solemnity confirmed credibility. Yes, he worked here; you fired him for something or other. “The wide range of tissue densities in a human body,” he declares, “makes uniform melting a physical impossibility.”

  “But we did it,” you tell the idiot box. “We did it right here.”

  “It is true for all primates,” the man continues. “A person is not a petri dish. A chimp is not a shrimp.”

  You mute the television. A lie delivered in rhyme, science reduced to an advertising jingle.

  Not for Erastus Carthage. No, now is your moment to manifest the opposite. Today the media will receive a tutorial on cell biology, on glycogen stores and oxygen retention. A dash of physics, a brief explanation of magnetic fields, and they will be submissive playthings. It will take some time, granted. Two hours, perhaps, but they will learn something every minute. This is your moment to show the world the power of reason, the rarefied realm you have inhabited virtually all of your life. How could they resist the muscularity of logic, the firmness of facts, the elegant strength of a proof?

  “Thomas.”

  “Sir?”

  Good lad, ready as ever. “The time, Thomas?”

  “10:55, sir.”

  You wave him in. “Again please. Events compel us to add a few more sentences.”

  Twelve times you have addressed the media in a formal conference like this, twelve times since your discovery of Jeremiah Rice in the Arctic Ocean. Well, not yours literally, but indirectly so. On each occasion there was this moment, just beforehand, in which you stood slightly offstage and listened to the murmur and din. Their energy was like oxygen to you, their curiosity like food.

  Yet this time the assemblage is silent. It’s a puzzle. You stand at the edge of the atrium, one hundred chairs arranged in rows before the podium where you will put the allegations to rest, and ponder: Why are there no conversations? No greetings from one scribbler to another? No calling from reporter to cameraman about the light or angle?

  “What do you make of it, sir?” Thomas stands at your side.

  “I’m assessing it myself.”

  “Your speech is ready.” He offers you a manila folder. “The printer was still a problem, so try not to touch the part of the pages where there is text. It could smear.”

  You raise an eyebrow. “Thomas.”

  “I know, sir, and I apologize.”

  He remains, leaning forward, and you wonder if he is in one of his moods, hoping for a compliment. He will have to wait. Ink that might smear does not warrant praise. Instead, as you take the folder, he clears his throat. “Do you think, sir, if you consider the present predicament . . . is it possible that we’ve made any mistakes along the way here?”

  “Thomas, I’m surprised at you.”

  “Not in the science, of course. No one else on earth could achieve what you have. I only mean, here we are, defending our work. I thought we were miles beyond all that.”

  “Are you finding fault with me, Thomas?”

  “Sir, you know that is not the case.”

  You flip open the folder, run pages under your thumb as a dealer strums through a deck of cards. “Absolutely not. You are about to witness our moment of triumph. And as for those times when you erred, Thomas . . . well, I want you to know that I forgive you.”

  “What?” He recoils. “You forgive me?”

  “I do. After all, just look at them out there.” You point the folder at the reporters and photographers. “See how courteously they are behaving?”

  “Yes.” His throat is tight. “Like guards politely escorting a man to his execution.”

  “Bosh.” You chuckle. “Thomas the worrier. Just watch. This is the moment when the power of our desire for knowledge enlightens multitudes. It will be splendid.”

  Thomas takes two steps back. “Good luck, Carthage.”

  What an odd tone. It must be the pressure. No matter. He’ll be fine. Y
ou march into the briefing room, as confident in your power as you were on the day you first introduced Subject One to the world. This time, though, the source of your certainty lies deeper. It resides in your long reverence for the scientific method, and in the unending capacity of reason to improve the world. At the podium you open the folder, fill the water glass, arrange the papers. The room remains silent, which you presume to be deference. Then someone coughs and it sounds like a bark. You peer in that direction, but cannot tell who made the noise.

  Only then do you realize. The atmosphere in this room is unlike anything you have encountered before. A whiff of coldness, a hint of hostility. Some of the reporters are scowling. Others trouble you more by their inattention, checking cell phones or gazing out the atrium windows. You wonder if you should trim your lecture. If you should refute Dixon directly—though it would mean stooping, and you do not stoop.

  You wish them all good morning. No one replies. Quickly you reorganize the morning’s plan in your head. Half the science, then Dixon. But which do you omit, hard-ice or reanimation? Which of his charges should you ignore, and which address directly?

  Buying seconds to make these decisions, you take a sip of water. As you set down the glass, however, you notice that the pages have indeed marked your hand. Letters, in reverse as though in a mirror, appear in dark black ink on your thumb and wrist.

  Immediately you pull a tube of sanitizer from your jacket pocket. These newspeople will have to wait a moment. You could no more address a crowd with dirty hands than without trousers on. Thus you take the time to rub thoroughly, fingers and palms.

  Half a minute passes, an eternity before a crowd. You glance toward the doorway. Thomas is gone. Likely the pressure was too much for him. Still, Borden is there. A heart desires to beat. The reporters fidget, but you will make it worth their while. Putting the lotion away, you collect the papers, tap them on edge into order, and clear your throat. You have your faults. Everyone does. But for reasons the world will never know, which are your deepest and oldest truths, you have never exaggerated, nor taken short cuts, nor misrepresented the least thing. It is humiliating at this hour to profess publicly beliefs which all your life you have vigorously lived. But there it is. And here they are.