by Thomas King
Four acres set on the side of a cliff, with a flat, one-acre building site perched above a private beach, a sea cave, and a 180-degree view of the western Pacific.
The day that he and Olivia had walked the boundaries, a black bear sow and two cubs had appeared out of the fog and then slipped away, primordial ghosts come back to see what had happened to their forest.
Dorian had seen the bears as a good omen, a ceremonial passing by the old order to the new. Olivia saw them as a potential nuisance.
“They’ll get into the garbage,” she had said. “There’ll be no end of bother.”
DORIAN closed the magazine and began counting the barren trees along the lake, trees that would never come green again. It was our own damn fault, he reminded himself, not that finding blame in the obvious was of any value.
Or consolation.
The car left the lakeshore and turned onto the access road to Tecumseh Plaza, world headquarters of Domidion. At ground level, there wasn’t much to see, just a bunkered arrangement of concrete low-rises that was supposed to resemble a circle of Native longhouses.
Unlike the other corporate monuments that dominated the skyline of the reclaimed waterfront, Domidion had been built down, ten storeys into the earth, accessible only through a series of long, angled tunnels that led to the underground parking levels.
All part of the new world protocol.
If you were supposed to be in Tecumseh Plaza, you knew where to go. Otherwise, you had no business being there at all.
The limousine dropped into the tunnel reserved for upper management. Dorian took the pass out of his jacket. Even the head of Domidion had to run the gauntlet of security checks and retractable crash barriers. On occasion, he would time the process and was always reassured by the delays. It was an illusion, of course. Fear had made us cautious, even paranoid, Dorian acknowledged, and it had made us vigilant.
It just hadn’t made us safe.
Aristotle had said that we make war so we may live in peace. Dorian wondered if the old Greek had ever realized just how wrong he had been. We make war so that we may destroy our enemies. We make war so that we may control resources and markets, and make money.
WINTER Lee was waiting for him when Dorian stepped off the elevator. Winter was the perfect corporate executive. Educated. Constrained. Precise. Youthful. No matter what time Dorian arrived at the office, Winter was there, ready to go to work.
“A new outfit?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dorian appreciated Winter’s attention to style. Today she was wearing a white cotton blouse, a black wool and raw silk skirt, and matching jacket. On her lapel was a jet brooch with thin alabaster diagonals.
Winter’s psychological profiles continued to be mildly disturbing, but Dorian knew that, while successful people and the insane often wandered off into dark areas, the Winters of the world could always find their way home.
“What do you know about Tecumseh?”
“Shawnee. Late eighteenth, early nineteenth century,” said Winter, without breaking stride. “Organized an Indian confederation to oppose European expansion. He was killed in the War of 1812, when the British deserted him on the battlefield.”
“And the plaza is named after him.”
“It is,” said Winter.
“Ironic, don’t you think?”
“There’s a peace prize named after Alfred Nobel,” said Winter.
“Touché,” said Dorian.
“Dr. Toshi’s office called,” said Winter. “They want you to ring them back at your earliest convenience.”
“The market?”
“Down,” said Winter. “New York, Toronto, London, Tokyo. Oil has dropped to ninety-six.”
“Good news would be appreciated.”
“Noted,” said Winter.
THE fourth subfloor of Domidion was a geometric arrangement of heavy glass partitions. There were no windows to the outside, because at over fifty feet below grade, there was no outside. But neither were there interior walls, at least not in the conventional way. All the offices were glass boxes. You could see everyone and everyone could see you. The only rooms that had any privacy were the bathrooms, and even here, strategically placed cameras recorded who came and went, though not what they did.
At least that was what everyone was told.
DORIAN sat down at his desk and brought up The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and The London Times on separate monitors.
“The Zebras? Again?”
“Yes, sir,” said Winter.
Dorian scrolled down the lead story in the Globe. “They’re circulating personal and corporate credit card numbers on the Internet?”
“Along with names.”
“Are we affected?”
“We’re looking into that.”
“This Zebra thing is getting out of hand.” Dorian entered his password into the computer. “I need a PAM environment.”
“PAM is running,” said a compliant, female voice. “Please confirm.”
“Confirmed.” Dorian turned away from his computer and faced Winter. “So, aside from anarchists in stripes, what else do we have?”
“Three items.” Winter touched her tablet. “An American army recon unit found a ‘Chinese laundry’ near Chaman.”
“Another one?” Dorian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What the hell did the French do, give away franchises?”
“Anthrax. Botulism,” said Winter. “Several nasty flu cultures.”
“Don’t suppose it was a Class A lab? Just a plastic tent with a sink and a microwave?” Dorian could feel the beginnings of a cramp in his left leg. “Maybe we should give these assholes the proper equipment, so they can do the job right.”
Winter stood in front of Dorian’s desk, her skin glowing like soft wax in the low light. Her lampblack hair, pale-blue almond eyes, and wire glasses made her look like a university student.
Or a sociopath.
And not for the first time, Dorian had the curious feeling that he was looking in a mirror.
“Are you telling me that the cultures were ours?”
Of course, there was really no way Domidion could keep track of every virus and bacterium that the corporation shipped around the world. Cultures sold to the Japanese for research might be resold to the Italians, who might trade them to the Saudis for oil, and from there no one knew where they went. Not the corporation’s fault that product occasionally fell into the hands of madmen.
Certainly not the corporation’s responsibility.
“The second item?”
“Yes,” said Winter. “That would be the Anguis.”
Dorian had only seen pictures of the Anguis. It was one of a dozen heavy-capacity barges that Domidion ran under a Bolivian registry and flag. Six months ago, the ship had left Montreal on a routine run to dump a mountain of toxic waste and incinerated biohazards into the ocean.
But before the Anguis could drop its load, the bright lights in Ottawa passed a law that prohibited the disposal of hazardous waste in this manner. So the barge turned around and came chugging back to Montreal.
Where provincial officials refused to let it land.
Quebec, as it turned out, had no objection to garbage leaving the province, but had strict laws prohibiting it from coming in, and the Anguis was ordered to vacate the St. Lawrence Seaway and find another port of call.
“The ship’s been found?”
“No.”
“I thought we had decided to stop looking for it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “At the January meeting of the Board.”
By the time the barge cleared the headlands at Gaspé, the newspapers and networks had picked up the story. In a media minute, there wasn’t an anchorage on the Eastern Seaboard that would give the ship safe haven, and the Anguis became a ship without a country.
It should have been a relatively easy matter to find someone who would take the waste. In the past, the corporation had always been able to find poor countries
and desperate governments who needed money.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The crew,” said Winter. “There’s the question of a compensation package.”
“Filipinos? Russians?”
“Taiwanese.”
Domidion had initially struck a deal with Haiti. But by the end of the first week, the barge had become such a powerful symbol of what was wrong with North American culture that not even the Haitians were willing to take it. Up and down the coast the Anguis went, an orphan looking for a home.
The barge had been off the coast of Brazil when a rare subtropical cyclone punched its way out of the Caribbean. Subtropical Storm Nora did only minor damage to the coastline, but when the storm finally settled down into a series of cranky squalls and tropical depressions, the Anguis had vanished.
“I suppose we could announce some kind of package.”
Winter looked at her tablet. “Shall I have accounting put the figures together?”
“Let’s start with the announcement,” said Dorian. “We can revisit compensation itself at a later date.”
“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “Revisit at a later date.”
The only thing that had really mattered was that, when the barge broke apart and sank with her load of biologicals, she be as far away from Canada and the U.S. as possible. Off the coast of Cuba, though that was a little too close to Florida and the Gulf. Argentina or Chile perhaps. Or any of the other Central and South American countries that had not supported North America’s trade and peace initiatives.
An accidental sinking was the best possible outcome. The Anguis was insured, and its mountain of waste would wind up at the bottom of the ocean, where it belonged.
“And the last matter?”
Winter shifted slightly. “Dr. Quinn.”
“Quinn?”
“Dr. Gabriel Quinn,” said Winter. “Head of Biological Oversight.”
“Ah, you mean Q.” Dorian waited to see if Winter recognized the reference. “From Star Trek? The television show? There was a character named Q, who knew everything there was to know about the universe. In Biological Oversight, they call him Q.”
“I see,” said Winter.
“Man’s a genius with bacteria and viruses.”
“He’s gone.”
Winter was precise. Dorian liked that about her. No frills. No adornments. No sound bites. No platitudes. No half answers. No guesses. In many ways, Dorian imagined that Winter could well be the prototype for artificial intelligence.
“Gone?”
“Disappeared.”
Dorian glanced at the monitor to make sure the Passive Audio Masking system was still running.
“Dr. Quinn was to have returned from vacation on the twenty-fourth,” said Winter. “That was a Friday. On Monday, he failed to show up for work.”
Dorian closed his eyes and tried to bring the biochemist’s face into focus. There was an enormous aquarium that stood in the main foyer. At one time, there had been a single turtle in the tank, and, each day, Gabriel would eat his lunch and watch the turtle as she swam back and forth in the long rectangle of water.
Dorian had never asked Quinn about the tank and the turtle, but he supposed that sitting and watching was somehow soothing.
“The twenty-fourth was over three weeks ago.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no one noticed that Quinn was missing?”
“There was some confusion,” said Winter.
“Is there anything to suggest that we have a problem?”
Winter blinked once. “Domidion scientists aren’t supposed to disappear.”
No, thought Dorian, Domidion scientists were definitely not supposed to disappear. They’re supposed to be brilliant, and Dr. Gabriel Quinn had not disappointed. Under Q’s tenure, Domidion had developed several bacterial and viral strains that had changed the face of agribusiness.
And of warfare.
It was one of the small ironies of biology that an organism designed to increase crop production could also be modified to destroy nations.
“I sent you a file,” said Winter. “There are images you’ll want to see.”
Dorian leaned back in the chair. “Is this going to complicate my day?”
“Yes, sir. I expect it will.”
Dorian moved his mouse and opened a folder marked “Quinn.addendum.”
The file contained photographs. The first image was of a small, nondescript house. Dorian remembered that his grandfather had owned such a house.
“Postwar bungalow.”
“Yes,” said Winter. “I believe it is.”
Dorian smiled. “Are you trying to depress me?”
“This is the house Dr. Quinn was renting.”
“Quinn was renting?” Dorian scrolled through the photographs. “And these are?”
“As I understand,” said Winter, “these are the rooms in the house. The walls, to be precise.”
“Quinn did this?”
“Every wall,” said Winter. “The landlord called our Community Liaison office to complain.”
Dorian remembered the day the turtle disappeared. A large sea turtle, as Dorian recalled, with a strange indentation in its shell, as though it had spent its life bearing a heavy load. Along its neck was a dark red slash. When Dorian had first seen the mark, he thought the turtle had been injured. But it wasn’t blood. Just a colour abnormality in the rough skin near the creature’s head.
The reptile wasn’t of any value. Still, things weren’t supposed to vanish from Domidion. Security had investigated, had issued a memorandum concluding that the turtle had somehow climbed out of the tank, wandered off somewhere, and died. It was the only explanation that made any sense, the only explanation that satisfied everyone.
Gabriel, Dorian recalled, had continued to eat his lunch in front of the empty tank with its blue water, thin green plants, and bright white sand, as though he expected the turtle to return.
Dorian stared at the images on the monitor. “He wrote on all the walls?”
“We think it’s a list,” said Winter.
“A list of what?”
“We’re not sure,” said Winter.
“Chernobyl. Idaho Falls. Chalk River.” Dorian read the names on the screen. “Pine Ridge, South Dakota?”
“It’s an Indian reservation,” said Winter. “It was used as a bombing range during World War II.”
“Rokkasho and Lanyu?”
“Nuclear and biological waste dumps.”
“Renaissance Island.” Dorian’s face softened, as though he had run into an old friend. “The Russian anthrax facility.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has Security seen these photographs yet?”
“Security took the photographs.”
Dorian tapped the screen with his finger. “This is disturbing.”
“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “It is.”
The image on Dorian’s monitor showed a four-burner electric stove and a green refrigerator. On the wall above the sink, Gabriel had written “Bhopal” and “Grassy Narrows.”
“Do we know what any of this means?”
Winter’s eyes remained passive. “The Board was hoping that you might have some ideas.”
The fatigue had returned. Dorian rubbed his neck and dug his thumbs into the muscles at the base of his skull. Perhaps a little pain would chase the weariness away.
“If you scroll to the end of the photographs, there’s one that you should see.”
“I’m supposing that this isn’t going to be good news either.”
“No, sir,” said Winter. “I don’t believe it is.”
Dorian worked the mouse. Each new photograph was of another wall on which Dr. Quinn had written. Except for the final photograph. That photograph wasn’t of a wall at all.
“That’s the front door,” said Winter.
Dorian sat up in his chair. Suddenly the fatigue was gone.
“The front door?”
“So far as we can t
ell,” said Winter, “this is the last thing that Dr. Quinn wrote before he disappeared.”
Dorian stared at the monitor. “Who’s Quinn’s number two in Biological Oversight?”
“Dr. Warren Thicke.”
“All right,” said Dorian. “I want Thicke in my office at ten tomorrow. I want to know where Quinn went on his vacation. And I would like us to find him as quietly and as quickly as possible.”
FOR the rest of the morning, Dorian worked his way through the papers on his desk. Yet try as he might, he couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the jobs at hand. He had had days like this before, days when even the optimism of science and business couldn’t carry him past the suspicion that the world had somehow slipped through his hands. Such concerns would pass, of course.
They always had.
Maybe it was time to do something about the empty aquarium in the lobby. There had been talk about fish. He had even ordered an illustrated catalogue, had been tempted by the colour plates of the salt-water species. But, each time Dorian tried to imagine schools of blueface angelfish, cinnamon clowns, green chromises, flame hawkfish, and black tangs all swooping and darting about, the thought of all that motion and flash left him feeling disquieted and anxious.
The turtle had been trouble enough.
He never understood what Gabriel had seen in the turtle.
The animal had spent its life bump-bump-bumping against the glass, as though it expected to find a way to escape.
Then somehow, unexpectedly, it had.
And it was only after it had vanished that Dorian realized just how much he appreciated the simplicity and silence of empty water.
3
SONNY STANDS BY THE POOL, THE TOOL POUCH HANGING ON his hip, and looks out over the beach. On a clear day, you can see all the way to eternity. That’s what Dad says. From here to eternity. Right now Sonny isn’t trying to find eternity. He’s watching the old guy lying on the beach.
Pretending to be dead.
Again.
The first time the old guy pretended to die on the beach, Sonny had raced down to collect the salvage.
Pants.
Shirt.
Shoes.
The jacket with the feathers and the tipis stitched across the back.
