by Jim Stark
Steve had specifically asked Victor to do that, suggested very strongly that he allow Winnie to listen to the tapes, to see if she thought the ideas that were in there could help the international community deal with the LieDeck. Victor had been intransigent. He just wouldn't, or couldn't, bring himself to face the urgency of the world situation. Steve felt Victor had become paranoid in his expectation that the tapes would make things worse instead of better, but it was difficult to challenge the fears of a man who spent more than a decade hiding from the CIA and had only recently survived an assassination attempt from the RCMP, acting for the WDA! Alphabet soup, he thought.
Of course Victor would have LieDeck-verified his attitude, to make very sure that he wasn't just ducking out from under a crushing heartache, avoiding personal responsibility for the death and chaos of the past few days. Steve was sure of that. He respected Victor enough to know that his opinions were sincerely held, even if they were misguided. But that admirable character trait was cold comfort in a world that was rapidly becoming un-Velcroed at the seams.
After talking the matter through a number of times, alone and out loud, making use of LieDeck-verification, Steve felt sure those three tapes should have been handed over long ago—to someone. In fact, he had decided to talk to the Whiteside lawyers, tomorrow. He saw no choice but to get the courts involved, if that's what it took to shake the inventor out of his complacency. He wanted to tell Victor about his decision, but he felt it might be best to do that on the end of the dock, in the quiet of Wilson Lake, with warm breezes and birdcalls to soften the blow and facilitate a compromise. You never know, he thought. Maybe he's finally ready to change his damn position. At least he sounds like he's ready to reopen the issue.
"Would you mind if I—uh—made a phone call?” he asked.
"Not at all,” said Victor.
It took him three tries and a helping hand from the Patriot field office on the estate, but he was finally able to learn that Sister Beth was in the Ottawa Civic Hospital, under observation, lucid, calm, and in the company of friends, family, and fellow nuns. “Yes,” a doctor told Patriot, “she could take his call."
"Oh, hi Beth. It's—uh—Steve here. I just wondered..."
"Hello Father,” said Beth, with a strangely vacant voice. “I'm fine ... now. I just kind of ... lost it there for a while yesterday. Wait a sec, okay?"
Steve waited as Beth said her goodbyes to visitors, with her hand over the receiver. “They were just leaving anyway,” she said as she came back on the line a few seconds later. “I'm glad you called."
They spent several minutes talking about the late Bishop Doyle, in respectful tones. Steve felt several twinges of guilt that he hadn't accepted Bill as a full-time challenge from the moment they became roommates, or rather from the moment they both became refugees—from the Church, from faith in God, from the dull illusion that had defined the entire playing field of their lives in the pre-LieDeck era. He knew that he was reading between the lines, but every time Sister Beth spoke of Bill Doyle, her subdued manner and an unfamiliar social distance in her voice seemed to whisper, “It's partly your fault."
"You shouldn't say you lost it,” he said after Beth used the term for the second time. “A friend died ... you prayed for him ... that's all."
There was silence from the Ottawa Civic, and Steve's mind filled with guesses as to what his favorite nun was thinking, feeling.
"I heard on the radio about the note he left,” she said finally. “I'm not so sure I agree with him ... you know, literally ... but..."
"What ... exactly did it say?” asked Steve, hoping that the knot in his stomach wasn't obvious.
"That the LieDeck was the work of the Devil,” said Beth. “You didn't know that?"
Steve was greatly relieved. The police captain had reluctantly agreed to withhold the second sentence—"May God have mercy on my soul, and yours, Bishop Sutherland"—on the grounds that it might lead some people to conclude that Steve had somehow been a cause of the death. “I knew,” he said quietly.
"Did you pray for him?” asked Sister Beth. “For his soul?"
"Yes, I did,” said Steve without hesitation, hoping desperately that she didn't have a LieDeck hooked up to her phone. “I'm ... not so sure that my prayers get listened to any more,” he added, without bothering to explain whether he meant “God doesn't listen to unbelievers” or “there's no God to listen."
He really didn't want to have this conversation over the phone, but he didn't have the time to do it in person if he was going to pry those tapes away from Victor. Actually, he didn't want to go through this with Beth at all. He wasn't even sure what “this” was, or what his exact intention had been in calling her. “Do you ... want to know ... about your faith,” he finally managed, nervously.
"You must be psychic,” said Beth, the first flash of the old Beth so far, the one with the ready smile, the quick wit, the untiring love for humanity, the relentless servant of Jesus, whose ring she wore like a proud wife. “I've thought it through, carefully, a bunch of times, and yes, I do,” she said. “Do you have a LieDeck? I mean there? With you?"
Steve didn't have one of the suction-cup mikes to stick on the car phone and jack into his LieDeck. He asked Beth to wait a moment while he checked on procedure.
"Just hold the mike holes in the casing directly onto the ear end of the receiver,” said Victor. “You'll have to use two hands and sort of squish your ear in there, but it'll work."
"I don't have to hear what she says,” said Steve. “And I think she would prefer this to be private."
"Better yet,” said Victor. “Just slap them together. You got it set on beeper?"
Steve stared at the other buttons on the Dictaphone casing. It was set for the beeper mode, but the on/off button was in the “off” position. He was tempted to leave it there, but he realized that Beth could easily test the thing by saying her name was Tanya, or whatever. And it would be foolish to risk their friendship, if indeed they still had one, by trying to deceive her, even with the best of intentions. She'd only repeat the test later, and then Steve might have her suicide on his conscience ... as well, he almost thought.
No, he had to go through with this, and this was likely the bedrock intention behind his call, the motive he'd been unable to identify earlier. His road to sanity was to lose his faith. Hers would probably be to not lose it.
"I won't be able to hear what you say,” he said as he explained how he had to press the LieDeck up against the phone. “It's set on the beeper mode, okay? Are you ready?"
She was, and Steve said just to whistle when she was done; he'd hear that. Sister Beth could hail a cab from a block away with that whistle, the one she did with two fingers between her teeth, the one she'd often used to get a hundred kids to shut up in the mess hall at Catholic Youth Camp.
He made sure the plastic on plastic made a clunk, so Beth would know that the device was there and his ear wasn't. Seconds later, he heard a beep. It's a good thing I didn't leave it turned off, he said to himself, assuming she was testing whether the LieDeck was working. Then a heart-bending chill swept over him. Unless she just failed the test of her faith, he thought. Twenty seconds later, he heard the whistle.
"Uh—hi,” he said carefully as he removed the LieDeck and put the phone back to his ear. “So—uh..."
"I believe in God,” said Beth quietly. “And I'm sure He believes in you,” she added.
Steve dropped his brow into his free hand and struggled with the question of how to respond to that. Before he could make a decision, Beth spoke again.
"God be with you, Steve,” she said lovingly. “I hope you find your faith again some day.” And with that she excused herself and hung up, pleading fatigue.
Steve clicked off the phone, paused, pinched his temples, and let his heart decelerate. Then he turned off the LieDeck and put it back in the pocket of his suit jacket. Life's a bitch, he thought. He had lost a faith that he never really had, and yet he was inexplicably depress
ed to have done so. He had lost his friend Bill Doyle. And he'd lost much of his self-confidence, even with the LieDeck now there for course corrections.
And now, my oh my, how the course of events had changed! He had transferred his love, his loyalty and his hopes for the future onto Annette Blais, a woman twenty years his junior, a wonderful and precious person with whom he had precious little in common, if the truth be told. “The odd couple, they'll call us,” he said weakly.
"I beg your pardon?” said Victor, from under the blue cop's cap.
"Nothing ... nothing,” lied Steve.
Chapter 59
STICKS AND STONES
Nick Godfrey stood at his office window and wondered how much more his aging heart could take. He had just been told that nobody had gone to church today ... well, hardly anybody ... and this only a week after Easter. God was wherever and whatever He had always been, Nick supposed, but faith in God was clearly dead, slain, not by the darkly carved gambits of a neurotic existentialist, but by a microchip, by the microchip. Same thing, he thought as he watched a soldier arguing with a would-be tourist on the concrete below.
There were little clusters of hard-core believers throughout the capital and all over the country, praying fervently for those who had abandoned the Lord. They were calling on the government to “ban the LieDeck for God's sake.” However, most former believers had elected to just endure their embarrassment and move ahead with life, relegating their past flirtations with religion to that special internal sub-basement that humans reserve for unmentionable memories.
The TV networks had LieDeck-verified past performances of all active televangelists and chucked the lot of them off the air because they didn't believe what they preached. Personally, the Prime Minister thought the country would be far better off without those oddballs, but he mourned the collapse of all the mainstream churches, worried about the long-term implications of that. Take away God, and people won't know how to deal with life, or death, he said to himself, and those two things are hard enough to get right even with God around to help steer things.
Yesterday, Godfrey had ordered his minister of culture to issue a statement, what he had called a “LieDeck advisory,” assuring Canadians that belief in God was a completely private matter, a valid exercise of free will, never mind what the LieDeck device had to say about such things. The impact of this initiative had been negligible, partly because the Minister of Culture had no actual job under martial law. The media commentators had ridiculed the advisory, claimed that the Prime Minister was treading where angels would fear to tread ... if indeed there were angels. The media had also restated the historical reasons for the separation of church and state. In effect, even though people knew that the verdicts of the LieDeck had nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of God, they also seemed to accept that if your profession of faith got beeped, then you just did not believe—point final.
The people out on Wellington Street seemed to be moving along as usual, dodging cars, disciplining naughty children and trying not to notice the soldiers. I'm not losing control, Godfrey said to himself, I'm just getting damned mad. “There's a huge fucking difference,” he said aloud as he marched back to his desk. His LieDeck endorsed that minor distinction by its silence. Whatever I just thought had to be true, he thought as he cast another admiring glance at his own, highly treasured LieDeck. He reviewed what he had most recently thought, and concurred with the judgment of the device. There were ... pals now, colleagues, comrades in arms, Nick and “Helen,” as he had privately dubbed his mechanical conscience. She was something else, that woman! But time enough for pleasurable thoughts later.
"Jacques, did that tape get here yet?” he shouted at the intercom.
"Security called to say that the guy from the CBC just came in the front door,” said his chief of staff. “He'll be up here in about a minute."
Bertrand Joly was in the PM's private office bathroom, trying mightily to have a bowel movement. He had gotten used to the ribbing at RCMP headquarters when he had to duck out of meetings, but irritable bowel syndrome was no laughing matter. The stress of the LieDeck Revolution was making his life unbearable. “I know what's on the tape already,” he yelled through the door. “Go ahead and watch it. We'll talk after."
"You ... okay in there?” hollered the Prime Minister. He needed for Bertrand Joly to be okay, today of all days.
"Jesus Christ, Nick,” he yelled, “if I was okay would I be in here grunting my fucking life away? Gimme a break!"
"Here it is,” said Jacques Lafontaine as he entered the office. “You want me to put it on?"
"Put it on, sit down and pay attention,” said Godfrey. “I want your reaction and your advice."
He did as he'd been asked ... told. He resented being ordered about that way, but that was “just Nick,” or so everybody said. Jacques Lafontaine was a seasoned political pro, a loyal “organization man,” not a shrink. The problem was, somebody had to evaluate the thing because it was scheduled to be shown at ten o'clock on the CBC's The National ... unless Nick Godfrey issued a gag order.
The black screen turned white, and then the pretty face of a young girl appeared. The light was poor, and the teenager seemed to be having trouble getting her dad's camcorder to sit on the dashboard of the car. The only sounds were muffled curses, and the engine ... running. The teenager was distraught, but obviously determined. When she finally got the camcorder organized, she settled back into the passenger seat, coughed, wiped away the remnants of tears and cleared her throat.
"Okay,” she said, “I don't know how much time I have, so here goes. I'm checking out, okay? I got this situation I can't deal with, and I'd like to talk about that if I had time enough, but I don't. It doesn't matter much anyway, to anybody but me.
"What I want most is for my death to mean something, you know? That's why I'm making this tape and telling my mom to give it to the TV, so the government will do something. I mean, I'm the third one just from my school to check out in the last week, and there's gonna be more, eh? A guy from my dad's office did it last night. And this friend of mine's aunt? She did it two days ago. I know the TV doesn't like to talk about suicides because then maybe some other assholes will just do it too, like copycats, but something really gross is happening here.
"I got an email from this friend of mine out in Kamloops and he said the same thing is going on out there, and my boyfriend talks to this guy in Trois Rivières on ICQ, and he says it's the same down there. There was this guy at our school that sprained his ankle in gym, and he went to the hospital and got to talking to this orderly who tells him there was twenty-two attempted suicides came in yesterday, just at the Civic. So you put this on TV okay Mom? Because I'm telling you, there's something bad going on in Canada and the government should be doing something about it and they're not.
"I figure it's just people who can't deal with reality, you know? I know that that's my problem, and I got nobody to talk to. A couple of days ago we got a free LieDeck at our school, from the government, but a lot of good that does if there's nobody you can really talk to without feeling like a lamer. All of my teachers live like on another planet, and my parents are all fucked up in their own lives, because of the LieDeck, mostly, so I'm taking the easy way out.
"Yeah, that's what it is, you know, the easy way out. You go over to Canadian Tire, you buy a couple of yards of large hose and a clamp, you borrow a car and bingo, all the pain goes away. I guess the thing that pisses ... that pisses me off is I could have gotten talked out of it, eh? But I ... needed ... some ... jeeze ... this carbon monoxide stuff is like dope ... I'm getting ... so tired ... I ... I gotta say this fast ... it's ... my dad..."
There was a pause of five seconds. The Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff found themselves holding their breaths, wanting to reach out and twist that key in the ignition.
"Me...” she resumed weakly, “me and my sister ... ever since I was ten ... he's been ... he's ... he ... he..."
Her ey
es closed. There were a few more minor movements on her lips that gave the appearance that she wanted to keep talking, but it wasn't to be. Nick Godfrey and Jacques Lafontaine leaned forward to see better, to hope. She was still breathing, they could see that, but she wouldn't be for long.
Lafontaine turned off the tape and the television. He put his head in his hands and wondered what he ought to feel. “A normal person would be crying now,” he said. “I'm just numb."
Godfrey had been standing behind his chief of staff. He put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Maybe a real man would decide to throw out the God damned rule book and do something radical,” he said. “Ideas, Jacques, I want ideas."
"I'm dry,” said Jacques apologetically. “I'm never dry, but now I'm ... dry. I just..."
Bertrand Joly came out of the washroom, looking pale. “We gotta do something,” he said as he eased his body onto the couch. “What the fuck are we going to do, Nick?"
Godfrey walked to the window and stared at the uniformed soldiers who surrounded Parliament. “Well,” he said, without turning around, “I've got something akin to absolute power under martial law, and I'm standing here like a fucking brainless fool, powerless to do anything. What's the latest count, Bertrand?"
"Over seven thousand,” he said languidly. “Can't bury them fast enough. And there's another nine thousand or so miscues, people who tried and blew it. Apparently citizens of Canada are inept at offing themselves. Christ!"
"That's it,” said Godfrey as he wheeled around, his face nothing less than a light bulb. “Jacques, book me a half hour of prime time, say eight p.m., national, all networks, and I want them to use that little line that they make run across the bottom of the screen to give storm warnings and so on to tell people it's coming up at eight o'clock, and I want every God damned radio station in the country to run promos about it. That gives us two and a half hours to come up with a plan. Better yet ... never mind all what I just said ... tell the Press Gallery that I'll be down there shortly. Hell, we could lose another hundred citizens by eight o'clock. This has got to stop ... now."
