Slant

by Eikeltje

  /

  SLANT 213

  Marcus Reilly answers his own front door and reacts with surprise to Jonathan's

  appearance on his doorstep. "Why, Jonathan, I thought you were less than

  convinced."

  "I had to think about it," Jonathan says.

  "You're on compassionate leave, I understand," Marcus says as they step

  into the foyer. The house is huge, bigger than Jonathan had expected,

  and is situated on five acres of prime Medina waterfront overlooking Lake

  Washington.

  "Chloe's in the hospital," Jonathan says, and no more. Marcus probably

  knows all about it, knows all about everything. Jonathan does not want to talk

  about Chloe or indeed his family or any part of his messed-up life.

  "We're in the back study," Marcus says. "The center of our little recruiting

  group. We had work to do whether you showed up or not, but I'm glad you're

  here."

  "Wouldn't miss it," Jonathan says.

  Marcus confronts him in the hall by the massive living room. Jonathan

  stares in mingled shock and admiration at a wall frieze above the long white

  couch: a pack of man-sized prehistoric monsters, dinosaurs. Their black fossil

  bones poke from the wall as if it were a veil of fog, and the animals seem ready

  to leap on whomever is in the room. For a moment, he almost misses what

  Marcus is saying.

  "There's an edge in your voice, Jonathan."

  "Ah--it's been a rough night, Marcus."

  Marcus gestures to the back of the house. "Back in the study," he says.

  "They're very sensitive, like a pack of wolves. They can sense any kind of

  hesitance and believe me, they'll pounce on it."

  Jonathan nods solemnly and visualizes a pack of fully fleshed dinosaurs in

  the study, dressed in longsuits and smoking pipes, waiting for him. He doesn't

  care. Anything would be better than what he faces now.

  "We have a lot at stake here. Even though I've vouched for you, they're

  men of independent judgment."

  "All men?" Jonathan asks.

  "All men in this group," Marcus answers.

  "Good," Jonathan says. Marcus half turns to continue their walk and Jonathan

  touches his arm. "I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm together on this. It's the rest

  of my life that's a shambles..."

  "Well, maybe we can do something about that. Give a fellow some purpose.''

  Jonathan smiles and hitches his shoulders forward, makes as if to roll up

  his sleeves. "Ready," he says.

  The walk seems to stretch forever, past room after room of cases packed

  with beautifully bound art books and rare literature, glass cabinets filled with

  ceramic figurines, high-back leather chairs; the carpet is white wool, not meta

  214

  GREG BEAR

  bolic yet clean as can be and enormously expensive. The walls are period pale

  wood, ash or birch from the twentieth century, when the house was made.

  There is no vid or Yox in evidence; even Jonathan has allowed a vid room in

  their house.

  "It's big," Jonathan says as they approach a large oaken door. Outside, sun

  has emerged again and yellow warmth glows through French doors in an exercise

  room to their right.

  "Twelve thousand square feet. Built by one of the Medina software moguls

  in the late nineties. A fiowtech classic. He had the dinosaurs installed. They're

  real fossils, not casts. Peculiar taste, but I like 'em."

  "They're charming," Jonathan says.

  Marcus opens the door. The room is blue with cigar and pipe smoke. It

  smells herbaceous, like a fire in an exotic jungle. Tobacco of this high quality

  is very expensive, however; Jonathan estimates there's about a thousand dollars'

  worth of smoke in the study. Jonathan does not smoke himself, though he has

  no objections to it. With cancer a worry of the past, a number of vices have

  resumed their place in upper-class American life.

  Five men sit or stand in the haze. They stop talking and stare at Jonathan

  expectantly. The room is small, only twenty feet on a side, and filled with

  comfortably worn older couches and chairs. Here, scattered on the built-in

  bookshelves, is a less fancy selection of real books: tattered popular novels, and

  what used to be called hardbacks, in casual disarray. Jonathan's grandfather

  would have felt comfortable here.

  Against one wall, an open shelf supports a collection of antique calculators,

  "laptop" computers less powerful than a modern dattoo, and early chemical

  film cameras, of the sort called autofocus.

  The shortest

  in the

  is brown-skinned and about

  man

  room

  Jonathan's

  age.

  He has a round, funny face with large staring eyes and a quick smile. He's

  dressed in exercise togs; they all are.

  Only two of them are currently smoking, though the ashtrays are filled with

  the wasted long butts of cigars. RRziaL Jonathan thinks.

  "So who's this, Marcus?" the short man asks. There are two men ten or

  fifteen years older than Jonathan, of Marcus's generation, though with the

  healthy, exercised, hard faces of the studiously well-off. The remaining two are

  tall and serious and younger than Jonathan, out of their social depth but game

  enough and smart enough. Four of the five are Caucasian. The short man is

  probably East Indian.

  "This is Jonathan," Marcus says. "He's our candidate for this week."

  They all murmur greetings. Then the five sit. Jonathan and Marcus remain

  standing.

  "Jonathan, do you recognize any of these men?"

  "No, sir," Jonathan says.

  "And do you recognize Jonathan?"

  / SLANT 215

  "You've been given Jonathan's CV in a cleansed form, without particulars.

  The group's personnel director has vetted the facts. Jonathan comes through

  with even more purity than most of us."

  The others laugh. Then the faces get somber. This is not funny. Marcus

  pulls out a straight-backed wooden chair and Jonathan sits in it.

  "Jonathan, we're all in deadly earnest here. I'm going to ask you some

  questions, and if you answer the way I expect you will, I'll ask you one final

  question. If you answer that with a yes, you're in and you can't ever leave...

  Our group, I mean, not the house."

  Nobody smiles this time.

  "All right," Jonathan says. If somebody were to pull out a fiechette pistol

  and ask him if he wants three of them in his chest, right now, he might answer

  yes; he feels deeply sad and betrayed and so much love for Chloe that a chill

  ache fills his body and paralyzes half his judgment. He can't think of anybody

  in his family who would not be better off if he were removed from this life.

  This is the modern equivalent of trying out for the French Foreign Legion, he thinks,

  but then doubts the truth of it.

  "Jonathan, is this world in good shape?"

  Jonathan looks up over his shoulder at Marcus. Marcus points to the five:

  face them.

  "No," he says decisively.

  "Does this world meet the standards you would set for a lively, interesting

  kind of place, a good place to live?"

  "No," he says more softly.

  "What would you say to the possibility of living in a bet
ter place?"

  "I'd like to know where it is."

  "Would you go there if you could?"

  "Yes," Jonathan says.

  "We're making that world right now," Marcus says. "A place where pioneers

  and reasonable men can raise their families in peace and security, without facing

  the hideous, soul-destroying temptations of a society mad with its own lust."

  Jonathan looks at the others nervously. The words soul-destroying and lust

  stick in his head.

  "Would you work very hard, and make some substantial sacrifices, if you

  knew you could live in a better, moral, rational place?"

  "Yes," Jonathan says in a whisper. A moral, rational place would not have

  allowed Chloe to damage herself; she would be his alone, and he would never

  have damaged her.

  "I didn't hear that," one of the older men says.

  "Yes," Jonathan speaks up, and clears his throat. The short darker man

  pours a glass of water from a pitcher and hands it to him.

  "What if the means of getting there were.., troublesome. What if you had

  to leave much of what you cherish in this world behind, to get to this better

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  GREG BEAR

  Jonathan feels like a fish on a griddle, all the juices broiled out of him. "I

  don't have much here," he murmurs.

  "This new world is not some airy-fairy dream," Marcus continues. "You

  won't get there on a magic bus or by stepping through some secret garden

  gate. We have to make this world ourselves.

  "All the men and women in this new world will have undergone rigorous

  filtering. They'll have proven themselves to be strong folks who know how to

  work hard and get along with others. The basic old schoolroom virtues. Does

  that describe you?"

  "If his CV is correct," the second older man says, "then we all believe that

  it does."

  Jonathan is relieved not to have to answer. He feels no inner confidence and

  does not know why the others should be confident of him. He keeps staring

  ahead, though not directly at any of the faces. They remain focused on him

  and his reactions.

  "You may have to sacrifice everything, even your own limited sense of what

  is right and wrong," Marcus says.

  Jonathan looks at Marcus, puzzled.

  "It's the old equation," Marcus says. "Usually formulated by madmen and

  tyrants with no moral sense. We have the moral sense to formulate the equation

  correctly."

  "All right," Jonathan acquiesces.

  '!' :'

  "You may have to give up your connections, all of your old friendships."

  Even in his present condition, this is getting spooky; what are they going

  to ask him to do, shoot his relatives? But Jonathan believes he can still back

  out. They haven't asked him the ultimate question. He truly does not know

  Cow he will

  answer.

  "It won't come instantly, this new world. It might take decades. We need

  all of your personal assets and connections in this present world, this imperfect

  world, to make it happen. But in the end.., the Earth will be cleansed, re

  newed, rebooted as it were, with a new polish and a youthful gleam. We will

  give the human race a new chance to shine forth in the universe."

  This hits something deep in Jonathan. For years, he has felt inadequate to

  deal with all the little frustrations of a world going wrong; the world has even

  pushed its tumors of corruption into his family, through his wife. It wants to

  break him. He owes it no allegiance.

  "All right," Jonathan says.

  "We can't give you any more details until you say you will join us," Marcus

  concludes. "You know me. You know I'm no monster, that we won't call for

  genocide or all-out war, that our methods will be subtle and long-term. Think

  of it as a biological and political necessity. Think of it as just giving yourself

  a little advantage by being part of the change, for once in your life, instead of

  standing outside, looking in..."

  /

  SLANT 217

  "We don't need any fancy language from you, not now. You will swear an

  oath today and sign a contract at some point, just to make things formal. I

  will ask you the question, and if you answer yes, you are in. You can't back

  out. If you do, you will be killed."

  This jolts Jonathan, though he has expected it. Two days ago, he would

  have backed away from this small room and its intent group of men, he would

  have checked with his remaining sense of self and decided this solemn craziness

  was much too much for a family man with any sense; but he is still empty

  inside. His self is too knocked-over to respond.

  "I'm ready," Jonathan says. This will do it; this will give him a purpose.

  This will bring him back.

  "Are you with us? That's the question, Jonathan. Think it over before you

  decide."

  Jonathan closes his eyes, opens them, holds up one hand as if to ask for a

  drink of water, but the glass is right beside him, sitting on the carpet by the

  chair. He reaches to pick it up, drinks, replaces the glass.

  "I'm with you," he says.

  The tension in the room should break, he thinks, but it does not. The air

  is thick with more than fading tobacco smoke. The other men stand.

  "We've all taken the oath," the brown man says. "Administer the oath,

  Marcus."

  Marcus pulls a sheet of paper from his pocket. He unfolds the paper with

  a soft crackling sound and reads Jonathan the requirements, step by step. The

  document restates what he has already heard in lawyer's language rather than

  rampant ideals, and it does not give any more details about what they are

  going to do to make this new world. Jonathan feels a little sick. It's too late

  to back out. He rises.

  "We're all of diverse beliefs and we don't think you have to swear on any

  ancient book to make a pact for the rest of your life," Marcus says.

  "Amen to that," says the round-faced darker man, and the others smile

  briefly.

  "Swear allegiance to the group, to the means deployed by the group and

  the ends sought by us all, on your life and deepest self, on all you value and

  hold dear, to forfeit all these things should you violate this oath or back away

  from our common goals."

  "I swear allegiance to the group..."

  "To the means deployed by the group and the ends sought by us all."

  "To the means deployed by the group and the ends sought by us all."

  "On all you value and hold dear."

  "On all I value and hold dear. I will . ."

  "To forfeit all these things should you violate the oath or back away from

  its goals."

  "I swear to forfeit all these things should I violate the oath or back away

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  GREG BEAR

  "Good," Marcus says. "You're now a man with real purpose in life."

  "Thank you," Jonathan says. He feels faint. Marcus supports him. The others

  smile broadly and gather around, offering him their hands. They are brothers.

  He shakes hands one by one, but his face feels cold and his whole body is

  sweating.

  "Back off, guys," Marcus says gently. "This was tough on all of us. He needs

  some room to breathe."

  "Thank you," Jonathan says.
But inside, Oh, God, I don't j%l any better.

  They have drinks in the dining room, Marcus serving from behind a small

  wet bar, dispensing excellent (so he says) single malt scotch and fine New

  Zealand and French wines. The men are all laughing and cracking jokes;

  the tension is broken. They tell their names to Jonathan and he loses all of

  the names within minutes, except for the short brown man with the

  amused face, whose name is Cadey, Jamal Cadey. He is not usually so forgetful.

  He is just very stretched.

  Cadey takes him aside. "That went rather well," he says to Jonathan. "Marcus

  tells us you have a special business degree in micromechanics. But he wasn't

  any more specific than that--and that could be anything from protein synthesis

  to full-blown nano."

  "Mostly food synthesis research. Feeding nano and people. That's what my

  company does," Jonathan says. Right now, any of these men could ask him

  the size of his prick and he'd tell with hardly a blink.

  He does not feel alive; but then, neither is he dead. This lack of any inner

  uality bothers him like a missing tooth.

  He wonders if this is how Chloe feels.