by Greg Dragon
“Don’t you want to retain it for when you go to court?”
“Court? What on earth for?” Dr. Graves continued to read while he spoke.
“To sue both of them for libel. They are accusing you of ridiculous things you never even intended on doing.”
“Bah! I’ve read enough of their tripe.” He tossed the unread pages into the fire and paced in front of the fireplace. “I need to keep them from publishing it somehow.”
Professor Adams tapped the ashes from his pipe into his palm and then blew them into the dust bin by his chair. “I’m afraid life is full of compromises. What if we could convince them to write it as a novel instead?”
Dr. Graves stopped in mid step and stared at his mentor. “Fiction? Then my name and Elani’s and the six Club members’ names would not appear in their book of lies?”
“Precisely.”
Dr. Graves settled into the chair that had formed to his contour because of his long hours of sitting in it. Gerald arrived and served the tea. Its warmth dispelled the last of Dr. Graves’ fears.
* * *
Professor Adams let Dr. Graves eavesdrop on his conversation with his grandniece, Jennifer Clydesdale. “Excellent job of obtaining the first part of the manuscript, my dear.”
Jennifer’s impish smile filled the screen of the visionphone in the professor’s lap. “Should I try and get the ghostwriter to have me critique some more of what he is writing? He is rather tight about his money, but maybe he can have the other chap pay for it?”
“No, that shall not be necessary. However, we need you to convince them to write it up as fiction instead. Tell them it is libelous and if any of the characters can be identified by any readers, they will sue them. There are a total of at least eight potential lawsuits they could endure.”
“That may take some real doing.”
“Give them the name of my solicitor. Say you consulted him and it is his opinion it is libelous as currently written.”
“Will do. Goodbye, Uncle Henry.”
“Indeed.”
Professor Adams let Dr. Graves doze for a quarter hour before rousing him from his nap.
“Have you given any further thought to my offer?”
“Yes. I think I’m finally ready. Are you certain what you do will change me enough so Elani will come back to me?”
“My computer is certain the procedure will be successful.”
“Then let’s get it over with.”
* * *
Professor Adams’ lab filled the entire attic.
After Dr. Graves settled onto its lone bed, the Professor injected anesthetic into his arm to reduce his respiration to five breaths a minute. The bronze colored helmet he slid onto his sleeping patient made him look more machine than human because of the wires that ran from it to a computer.
He instructed the computer to remove all memories of Elani’s threat of permanent separation from Dr. Graves’ mind and then climbed down the narrow stairs from the attic to the second floor hall.
He unlocked the smallest bedroom’s metal door and poked his head inside. “Hurry up. It’s time for you to get dressed. Meet me in the library.”
Two hours later, the computer sending pulses into Dr. Graves’ mind detected no memory Professor Adams had defined as unacceptable.
His eyelids fluttered open. After removing the helmet, he dropped his feet from the bed to the hardwood floor, yawned, and stretched. The bed seemed to pull Dr. Graves back onto it, but aromas of baking lamb, carrots, and potatoes motivated him to descend two floors.
Thirsty, he stopped at the library to ask his host if he might have a drink before dinner.
“I was wondering if…” Dr. Graves stopped inside of the doorway to the book filled room. “Elani? Is that you or just the solidgram of your likeness?”
She walked over to him and placed her slender arms around his neck. The familiar scent of her soft hair and touch of her lips on his cheek made Dr. Graves feel lightheaded.
“You won’t need your solidgram any longer. Professor Adams called and told me how much you would change, thanks to his procedure. So I traveled here ahead of time to surprise you. I’ve decided never to leave you alone again, darling.” She took his arm and steered him toward the dining room.
Professor Adams rose from his chair and smiled.
Best android I’ve ever programmed. And thanks to Dr. Graves’ session with my computer, he shall never know the difference between Elani the android and the real Elani. It’s so fulfilling to fill his remaining years with joy. I love being a creator.
33
Brent Fulsome pushed the button of the Master Disguiser unit in his shirt pocket. This thing better work or I’m in trouble, he thought. At the first plate glass window he had seen in months, Brent paused to see his reflection.
Even Mom wouldn’t recognize me, if she were still alive.
He walked past businesses where he had worked and hung out with friends as a teenager. After making one left turn and two right turns, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. Satisfied that no one had followed him, he retraced his steps half a block and knocked on the front door of the smallest house he had passed since entering the city.
“Who is it?” A voice rose through the mail slot in the front door.
“Brent. Let me in, Roger.” Brent turned off the switch of the Master Disguiser unit, which returned his appearance to normal.
The door slowly swung open and a hand grabbed Brent’s plaid coat and pulled him inside.
“You’re supposed to be dead. What’s going on?” Roger peeked through the curtains of the sole window that faced the street.
“Never mind. I need your help.”
“I figured as much. You always do.”
Roger led Brent to his basement, the only room he considered private in his home. Its walls and ceiling were covered by lead he had melted and applied with paint brushes, a thin coat Roger believed adequate to shield conversations from snoopy government officials or worse yet, snoopy neighbors whose gossip could prove just as damaging.
“So where you hiding out at? I heard you took your daughter out of town to put her out of her misery because of that disease she had. You know, the one that killed her mom. Uh, she is dead, right?” Brent’s icy stare silenced Roger.
“Have to plead the Fifth Amendment on that one. What you trying to do, incriminate me so I’ll get busted? Are you working for the feds now?” Brent sat in an easy chair and propped his feet up on the small table in front of it.
Roger shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss. What is it you need this time?”
“Some ammunition. I know you have the right kind because it’s for that rifle you sold me.”
Roger turned and leaned against his gun safe. “Why would I still have that kind of ammunition? I don’t need it anymore because you bought that gun.”
Brent picked up one of the empty beer cans from the table and threw it. Instead of hitting his friend in the head, it bounced off of the six-foot tall iron safe.
“All right, no reason to get huffy. If the government would just let ordinary citizens have laser weapons you wouldn’t even be here bugging me. It’s not fair that only the military and law enforcement get to have them.”
“Quit changing the subject. I saw that you had another rifle of the exact same kind you sold me when you opened that safe to sell the other one to me six months ago.”
Roger gently banged his head against the safe’s three-inch thick door.
“Before I open the safe, what can you give me for two boxes of ammo? That’s all I can spare. You know I can only buy one box every three months because of those damn federal laws. Any more than that and I could go to prison for ten, maybe twenty years.”
Brent reached up to his shirt pocket and turned the Master Disguiser unit back on. As Roger watched, the face of his surprise visitor seemed to contort and then blur. When it came back into focus, he thought a stranger sat in his favorite chair.
“What the…ho
w’d you do that?”
Brent switched the unit off as he pulled it from his pocket and handed it to Roger.
“This thing cost me plenty when I was living in SLD. I got it on the black market.”
“Yeah, I reckon so, something that good has to be illegal. Can it fool all those facial recognition programs the government uses?”
“Yeah, which means it’s worth at least ten boxes of ammo. You got that many?”
“Let me try it out first. How’s it work?”
“It sends out some kind of hologram onto your face and has to be no more than a foot from your face for it to work right. Here’s the switch.” Brent pointed.
Roger walked to a mirror that hung on the wall next to the safe and turned the unit on. He grinned when his face was replaced by one he had never seen.
“I’ll give you six boxes of ammo for it.”
“Nine boxes.”
“Eight.”
“Okay. You win.”
Brent stood and snatched the unit from Roger. “One other thing, I have to use it one last time while you walk with me out of town so no one can recognize me. You’ll get it back once we reach the woods.”
34
Mystified by Dr. Graves’ disappearance from his South Dakota home, Bud decided to revisit The Club member who lived closest to SLD.
Though it was autumn, Baja California baked under the afternoon sun. With the outside temperature in the mid-nineties and the inside of the non-air-conditioned cab even hotter, Bud began to wonder if this climate had contributed to Ramon Zappista’s mania. After arriving at Ramon’s villa, Bud paid the driver and added a small tip that made him curse in Spanish as he smiled and lifted the brim of his sweat-stained cap.
The temperature dropped twenty degrees after Bud stepped inside of the villa’s six-foot thick adobe walls. When the man who met him at the front door offered to take Bud’s leather briefcase, he wrapped both arms around it.
“No, thank you. I can carry it myself.”
“My name is Carlos. I am Senor Zappista’s live-in caretaker.”
“I’m Bud Lee. Ramon should be expecting me. I arranged this visit through his doctor. How has he been doing?”
“The doctor says his progress is slow, but improving. Ramon’s biggest improvement came after they used laser surgery on his brain to fix it.”
Bud’s doubts ebbed when Ramon greeted him on the hacienda’s patio.
“Buenos Dias, Senor Lee.” He grabbed Bud’s hand and pumped his arm. “So good to see you again. I’ve been meaning to write and thank you for bringing my music to me while I was in the hospital. I don’t think I would have survived my stay there without it.”
Bud noticed the stacks of albums next to the computer on the round metal table where Ramon worked. “So you’re back working as a music producer again?” He picked up one of the album’s one-inch square plastic covers. A hologram of the band’s members materialized and then faded.
“Yes. My doctor wants me to return to work very slowly. So far I’m up to three hours a day, four days a week. He said I must ultimately limit myself to seven hours a day, six days a week or I might have another manic episode, like the one that sent me to the detention center. He says I must maintain a six day workweek with one day off for life.”
Bud stared at the five pill containers next to the albums.
“Those are my prescriptions. The medicine saps my energy. Where are my manners? Something to drink for you? Sorry, but the doctor made me get rid of all the alcohol.”
Bud accepted an iced tea from the small refrigerator on top of a mahogany bar next to the pool. Its exotic flavor and genetically modified caffeine revived him. “I really don’t have much time, Ramon. Do you remember anything yet about Dr. Graves or The Club?”
Ramon bobbled his head. “Sorry. The doctor said mania like mine was can erase memories. Maybe that’s why I still don’t remember?”
“Maybe.”
The computer that ran the house per Ramon’s doctor’s orders sounded a ringing bell for thirty seconds.
“That means work time is over. Time for some fun in the water. Let’s go.”
Carlos drove the woodie station wagon to the nearby beach. He parked it under a patch of three palm trees and then lay in their shade on the sand for a short siesta, a welcome break from one who seldom relaxed. Ramon and Bud waded barefoot into the warm salt water. When Ramon pointed at shells or starfish he said would be worthy souvenirs, Bud crammed the smallest specimens into his jeans pockets.
“I can’t go surfing for another eleven months.” Ramon skipped a flat rock into the surf. “The judge took away my surfing license for a year just because I didn’t obey the drone that told me to stop surfing.”
“I hate to keep bugging you, but if any memories of Dr. Graves or The Club come back to you, could you call me right away? It’s very important. I know someone else who needs help.”
“Sure. Punch your number into my computer.” Ramon removed a chain from his neck. A blue Saint Christopher’s medal and waterproof two-inch square computer dangled from it.
Bud took the chain and admired the slender computer, which weighed less than the medal. As he entered his phone number, the flashing time on the screen jarred him. “It’s already 3:20.
My train leaves at 4:10.”
* * *
The woody pulled into the station’s parking lot at five minutes past four. As Bud jumped from it, Ramon grabbed his arm.
“Wait, I forgot to show you a picture of my fiancée.”
Bud heard a conductor yelling for passengers to board. “Some other time, I can’t miss my train.”
* * *
A few miles before the train reached Tijuana, Bud’s visionphone signaled an incoming call from Switzerland.
“Hi, Bud. How are you?” Patrice Oldefarmer’s mother asked. Hope filled her face and voice.
“Hello, Mrs. Oldefarmer. Is Patrice feeling any better?”
“That’s why I called. She wants to see you.”
35
Mrs. Oldefarmer insisted she would only allow Bud to have face to face contact with Patrice. When Bud balked at her restriction, she offered to buy him a roundtrip ticket from SLD to Bern. He caught the next flight with an available seat.
Enough snow had fallen since his last visit that Bud needed a snowmobile to traverse the windy trail from the village to the Oldefarmers’ cabin. The closer he came to it the faster his heart beat.
As the cabin came into view, Bud pushed the snowmobile’s fifty-two horsepower engine to its top speed. Its treads dug so deeply they clanged against the rocks buried under the two feet of snow. Realizing too late that braking on snow was a skill he did not have, he turned the wheel and slid sideways for the last thirty feet. The snowmobile’s engine sputtered and died next to the cabin’s log walls.
Bud removed his gloves and helmet. A tapping sound tilted his head upward. When he saw a smiling Patrice waving through the picture window in the loft, Bud dropped the helmet and gloves and barreled through the front door without knocking. Patrice’s mother dropped the tray of cookies she had pulled from the propane fed oven and scolded him.
“Where are your manners, Mr. Lee? I…” Bud’s pleading look stopped her. “Go ahead upstairs. She’s waiting for you.”
Bud climbed the pine stairs two at a time. His momentum into the loft left him tottering over Patrice as he waved his arms to regain his balance. She applauded his entrance.
“Welcome back to Switzerland, Bud. Mother tells me this is your second time to visit our chalet, yes?”
Bud nodded, uncertain about which of his dozens of questions to ask first. He sat in the rocking chair after Patrice pointed at it. “Do you remember –” Patrice’s uplifted palms cut off his query.
“Mother has already told me the story you told her when you last visited us. I’m sorry, but I remember none of it. Maybe I have a doppelgänger? They say everyone has one. Anyway, the doctor says I should be able to return to my job in anothe
r few weeks. Isn’t that grand?”
“But…”
“However, you might find this to be of interest to you. Sorry I made you come all the way here to see it, but I had to be sure you are serious about your story and not some crazy man.”
She turned her laptop computer so Bud could see its screen. He gasped at the photo of the six Club members.
“I can’t remember taking it but judging from the angle of whatever was used to take it, I must have held the device at arm’s length. Notice how my arm is lifted up in the photo?”
“But why didn’t your mother show me this when I came here before?”
“She did not find it until after you left. She’s not very familiar with my computer. But after she found it, she showed it to me and said I smiled because I saw him.”
“Him? Which one?”
“Ramon Zappista, of course. Who else? Mother told my doctor how I smiled. He used the photo to track Ramon down in Mexico. After explaining my condition to Ramon, the doctor arranged for him to talk to me by visionphone. Mother says at first I just smiled, but by his tenth call to me, I said a few words. We’re getting married.”
“What?” Bud jumped to his feet as he remembered Ramon’s offer to show him a photo of his fiancée. “I don’t believe it.”
Patrice held out her hand. A slender gold band that supported a diamond rested on her shortest finger. “Silly Ramon. He sent me an engagement ring too small for my ring finger that barely stays on my little finger.”
36
Bud waited until he arrived at Atlanta International Airport before he called Tim. At first, Tim thought his ringing smart watch was part of a dream in which Bethany was calling him. But after Moose meowed in his face and rubbed her cold wet nose on his cheek, he wanted to shut it off because he saw Bud’s face.
