The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  Along that barrel, beyond Chopper, he can see Gloria with the child attached to her waist climbing out of the river. This should be it. She should be safe.

  Chopper holds the torch in front of him and lowers himself to the blown-over trees. Farley can see the tangle of vines that Chopper will light. Farley can see what will happen. Either Gloria will burn right there before him, or she’ll fall into the river and be shredded to pieces in the rapids.

  And what will happen to Chopper? His closest friend? Since the day they met, Chopper has been at Farley’s side. In the instant, Farley feels a great pang of guilt. Farley has taken Chopper for granted the entire time they’ve known each other. He always assumed Chopper would help him, assumed that Chopper understood how Farley felt about him, assumed that Chopper’s eccentricities were the quirks of genius. The guilt brings an image of his friend in pain. Chopper was always in pain, he always needed help but would never admit it. If Farley had been a better friend, worthy of the friendship that Chopper offered, he’d have gotten him the help he needed. Instead, Farley took Chopper for granted.

  Farley tightens his finger on the trigger. Until yesterday he had never fired a weapon. Of course, it was easy. It only took three shots to get a feel for the kick and the imperfections in the angle of the barrel and to learn how to compensate for them. From that point he was able to hit pretty much anything he aimed at, as he’d always expected. It was a simple equation of manual dexterity and eyesight—two of Farley’s strongest qualities. Combined with agility, you get a natural athlete, a surfer, a sailor: Farley.

  The gun is soaking wet. Farley is acutely aware that if water has leaked into the bullet casing, nothing will happen when the firing pin comes down. That nothing might happen, that pointing the weapon at his friend and pulling the trigger is in no way certain to cause a projectile to emerge, gives Farley the minuscule doubt that he needs. Without that doubt, he will later wonder, could he have pulled the trigger?

  In that instant, he surrenders his will to that of the laws of nature. Let nature dictate the result of pulling the trigger.

  The casing hasn’t leaked. The rifle bucks, precisely as it did yesterday. The concussion of the little explosion is lost in the sound of fire and water.

  Chopper squats over the fallen trees, lowering the torch. The bullet hits him in his right shoulder. The same shoulder that he injured when Moby-Dick threw him against the ship. He twists around, maintaining his grasp on the torch. He looks up, surprised.

  When he sees Farley, his eyes open wide and he cocks his head to the side. In the sixteen years that Farley and Chopper have been friends, Farley has never seen this look. Farley has never seen Chopper surprised.

  For an instant, Farley believes it is over. Now that he has Chopper’s attention, everything will settle down. Together, Farley and Chopper can continue their mission. It is an absurd thought, of course, one that will later flash through Farley’s mind and leave trails of shame and humiliation, but Farley believes it for an entire second.

  Then Chopper shifts the torch to his left hand and turns away.

  Farley reorients the rifle and pulls the trigger again. He misses. He lowers his aim and fires again. This one catches Chopper in the lower back. The torch drops to the side, resting precariously on the granite. Chopper falls over the barrier into the rapids.

  Gloria doesn’t hear the shots ring out. They’re drowned by the sound of water splashing through the rocks and the crackling of dead branches as she pulls her way out of the rapids. She sees Chopper fall, though.

  The hard part for her to thread together is not that she and Iara are finally safe from Chopper. No, what’s jumbling through her mind like a stick being battered through the rapids and finally down a waterfall is that Farley’s no longer dead. He’s running toward her along the big granite wall.

  Iara has already climbed her way to shore. Farley points to a safe place and she walks toward it.

  Gloria crawls along the trunk of a dead tree. When she clears the water below, she sets one foot on the rock and slowly lowers herself to safety. Farley is there. His beard is really long now.

  He grabs her forearm and guides her. At his touch, the words cease again. Now it’s all images, sounds, scents, and impulse. She drinks Farley. Wrapping her arms and legs around him. Then it’s just smoke and bright and loud again.

  Farley perceives Gloria’s response as shock. He carries her back to the little girl. Once the child’s hand is in his, he looks downstream for the first time. He half expects to see Chopper treading water just beyond the rapids, laughing at the big joke. He always did have a twisted sense of humor.

  There’s no sign of Chopper.

  There is, however, fire. Behind him, the island is engulfed. On one side, the flames are already starting to subside, their thirst quenched. On the other side, the fire is fresh and working its way upstream. Downstream, past the vestiges of broken granite that cause the rapids, the river is wide and calm. Another sound draws his attention. The bright red plane swoops down and its pontoon feet splash into the water, kicking up a wake.

  Farley sets Gloria down, picks up the child, and leads the way along the riverbank, through the smoke, around embers, and into the water. The three of them swim to the plane. O’Reilly pulls the child out of the water as Farley helps Gloria onto a pontoon and then pulls himself up. They climb into the cockpit.

  Farley says, “We have to find Tahir.”

  O’Reilly shakes his head, pulls the yoke back, and launches the plane forward. It takes off and climbs at an angle that triggers the stall alarm. O’Reilly pushes the limits of the aircraft, gritting his teeth as he ascends at the highest possible angle.

  The entire island is visible from a thousand feet, and it is engulfed in flames. Flames smear across the legs of the river that surround the island.

  Farley yells at the pilot, demanding that they search for Tahir. O’Reilly ignores him.

  Gloria spends months in and out of hospitals. A dermatologist–plastic surgeon uses peeling techniques combined with focused applications of Botox to treat her burns. The blisters fade away, leaving scar tissue where freckles will form. Farley volunteers to keep a watchful eye on those freckles for the rest of her life. CT scans, PET scans, and MRI images of her brain don’t isolate the damage caused by the sensory deception overdose. The neurologist assures her that her brain will find ways to work around the injuries. Now and then, stressful events trigger attacks—periods of minutes to hours when her mind is overrun with sensory data to the point that she loses the ability to think. But she can already feel progress. Her attacks come less and less frequently, though for the rest of her life bright lights will trigger auras, crashing sounds will cause tinnitus, and certain smells will be unbearable. Each such event will lead to throbbing pain behind her right eye, migraine headaches.

  A month after their return to Santa Cruz, Farley and Ringo meet up with Bupin to watch a live news report from the French Riviera as the VISHNU barge delivers hundreds of barrels of radioactive waste to the coast of France. A Greenpeace ship greets the crew. It’s easy to make out Spencer on the deck, and there’s Manny at his side.

  There are now a dozen VirtExReality Arcades, and Ringo is VirtExArts’ director of creative development. So fans can now don their favorite superhero’s leotard, climb into a VirtExReality chamber, and rescue as many distressed damsels as they like, though Moby-Dick continues to be the best seller. When Nintendo and Electronic Arts were on the precipice of prototyping their own VR systems, Bupin arranged technology licenses with Sony and Microsoft, and Farley has signed them. It levels the field among the rivals, though VirtExArts is still the only company that offers the full VR experience in converted sensory deprivation chambers. Next month there will be another opening, two really, one in Anaheim and one in Orlando, where visitors can be Bambi, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, or even Winnie-the-Pooh.

  In the first two months back, Farley and Iara spend their time either sitting with Glor
ia in hospitals, filing forms at the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service—it will take five years to convince the INS that Iara is truly an orphan available for adoption—or sailing in Monterey Bay. Gloria protected Iara from the fires so well that she was released from the hospital after a check-up, the first one of her life.

  On their first day alone together, Farley and Iara row out to his anchored sailboat. He tries to make her wear a life jacket. Since they don’t share a language, he can’t reason with her. He’s certain she understands why it’s necessary, but she refuses to wear it. The Captain never made Farley wear one, so he gives up after the third try. As soon as they’re on the boat, Farley pantomimes the physics of sailing, indicating how the wind pushes on the sails and the current pulls on the boat. She stares at the water for a few seconds and then points one hand in the direction of the wind and the other in the direction of the current. He sits her next to the gunwale and hands her a jib sheet, and that is all the instruction she needs to master the song of wind and sail.

  Farley and Iara paint Chopper’s old room together. She chooses different shades of green for the walls and brown for the trim. Farley uses a roller and she uses a brush. The result is like an abstract mural of a rain forest. She picks out a bunk bed and a couple of bright red beanbag chairs, and Farley chooses a nice oak desk for her.

  She cries at bedtime, so Farley brings that guitar upstairs, the one that Chopper used to say was taught to sing by humpback whales. Sometimes Farley cries with her. It will be a long time before he manages to separate the anger he feels for Chopper from the love.

  It doesn’t take Iara long to pick up enough English for them to communicate. She has a sharp sense of humor and an appreciation for practical jokes, but what really develops her language skills is her desire to argue every issue.

  She reminds Farley of another little kid he once knew whose parents died, and like the Captain before him, Farley’s pretty sure that as long as she knows how to sail, she’ll be able to wing the rest.

  Today Gloria is being released from the care and torture of her dermatologist for good.

  Farley and Iara have a basket of fruit stashed in the sailboat. The two of them bathe Gloria in her prescription sunscreen even though she’s going to wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat that ties under her chin.

  Farley rows the three of them out to the sailboat. Gloria insists that Iara wear a life jacket. Farley has dreaded this instant. So far, he’s managed to shield Gloria from the banshee-like attributes of Iara’s character.

  He tosses a life jacket to Iara and says, “Put this on.” He uses his most authoritative voice. The one that no employee or colleague has ever failed to obey. First, she pretends she doesn’t understand him, and then she tosses the life jacket into the water.

  Gloria sits and watches the exchange, smiling but not saying anything.

  Farley can feel his face turning red. It feels like a big moment for the three of them and he doesn’t know how to recover. Plus, he’s planning a somewhat larger moment once they’re on the sailboat.

  Gloria stares at Iara, who is looking away. Gloria’s dimples evaporate. Her lips become a thin line. Iara finally looks at Gloria. When their eyes meet, Iara puts her thumb in her mouth. Gloria raises her right hand and points her index finger at the life jacket, which is now floating about ten feet behind them. Iara’s chin sinks to her chest. The only times that Farley has ever seen this child in any state but confident or defiant is when she cries at night.

  Gloria raises her left eyebrow and jabs her finger toward the floating life jacket.

  Iara jumps out of the boat and swims straight for it. She swims back to the dinghy and hands the life jacket to Gloria. Farley pulls her back aboard the dinghy and watches a miracle take place: Iara puts the life jacket on and ties the straps.

  Gloria’s dimples return and she pulls Iara into a hug. Farley watches Gloria hug and kiss and fuss over Iara as he rows the rest of the way to the sailboat.

  An hour later, Iara is in her place with the jib sheet in hand, still wearing the life jacket. The boat leans away from the wind and the three of them counterbalance it. Farley’s near the stern with his arm around Gloria. Other than the sounds of the wind in the sails and the sea splashing against the hull, it’s quiet.

  Gloria finally broaches the subject. Though they’ve shed plenty of tears, this is the first time they will address the big question. She says, “Do you think there’s any chance that my father or Chopper could still be alive?”

  Farley looks to the horizon and takes a breath. “You know, I can’t imagine how Tahir could possibly have survived that explosion. The whole island went up in seconds. But every time I’m about to accept that he’s dead, I remember what he said to me that night. I was asleep on the cave floor when I heard him. He threw the cell phone down, and when I told him I thought he was dead, he said something like that Mark Twain quote, that he’d been reported dead many times, and, well”—he pulls Gloria closer—“I don’t think he could have survived, but if anyone could…”

  “How about Chopper?” Now she turns and faces Farley. “Do you think Chopper could still be alive?” Her voice quivers.

  “I shot Chopper at least twice, and he fell back, headfirst, into the rapids. After I got you two, I looked and there was no sign of him.” Farley speaks louder than necessary. “But it was Chopper, badass almighty. How could a couple of gunshots have killed him? Every morning when I walk into the kitchen, I look out that window and I half expect to see him sitting on the bluff, suckin’ on a barch. Really, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”

  “What would you do if that happened?” Now her voice is steady.

  Farley is silent for over a minute and then says, “I have no idea.” He shakes his head and still speaks too loudly. “I just don’t know. What happened to him? It’s like he was a time bomb. When I think back on him—even back to college—I feel like I should have seen it, I should have gotten him help.” Now he looks down at Gloria and she up at him.

  “What would I do if he showed up tomorrow morning? Gloria, I’m a scientist. I understand how things work. I don’t believe in good and evil, I believe in motivation and incentive and I believe in sickness and health. Mental illness is the worst of any kind of illness because it’s so hard to find empathy for someone whose illness makes them do rotten, horrible things. When someone has cancer, no one blames them for being sick. Same with Alzheimer’s and dementia; punishing them won’t help. Blaming them is stupid. What makes schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder or whatever Chopper suffered different? He needed treatment.”

  Farley furrows his brow and he looks at Iara. He reaches across and cups the child’s chin. She pulls away, still concentrating on tuning the jib. He says, “If I could go back in time, I’d get him help. I’d get him the best team of psychologists and neurologists on earth. I’d save him.” Now he speaks quietly, just over the sound of the wind. “So I guess that’s what I’d do if I saw him tomorrow.”

  Gloria said, “Farley Rutherford, you’re a good man.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I don’t know either.” Then she laughs and the tinkling sound of her laughter, half giggle and half belly laugh, blows the gloom away from them, away from that boat in that water, away into the wind and the wake behind them. “But I know one thing for sure. I wouldn’t go down on the bluff and sit next to him.”

  They’re silent again. Since returning from the Amazon, Gloria doesn’t talk as much. They like being silent together. There is contentment in their silence.

  As the boat passes Opal Cliffs, the wind shifts. The jib ruffles and Iara yanks on the rope when she should give it slack. Her English is getting better every day, and she’s learned it all from Farley. As the jib ruffles louder and the boat leans farther, she says, “Oh, shit!”

  Gloria laughs like she hasn’t laughed in a very long time.

  Farley shrugs but doesn’t say anything. After al
l, the best way to learn how to sail, which is the best way to learn how to live, is by sailing. Iara recovers and the boat is righted.

  Farley takes an orange from the ice chest, peels it, splits it in three, and hands the pieces out. Then he reaches into the ice chest again and takes out a small box.

  He sets the box on Gloria’s thigh. It’s covered in navy-blue velvet. The wind blows it off and she has to reach down to retrieve it. The box is wet now and Farley’s laughing. She opens it. It’s a ring, of course. It’s gold and it’s the shape of a sperm whale curled in a circle. There’s a tiny sapphire in the whale’s eye and a diamond set like a spout from the whale’s blowhole.

  Gloria stares at the ring without saying anything.

  Farley feels uncertainty invade his heart. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might say no. He says, “We already have the kid, I just figured, you know…”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Please indulge me as I express my appreciation for the help and support of a few people.

  Yanina Gotsulsky, Ann Clark, and Tamim Ansary made me a novelist: Yanina (author of The Speed of Life and editor-in-chief of Numina Press, LLC), by providing opportunity; Ann by helping me believe it was possible; and Tamim (author of Games without Rules) by teaching me where to find “the juice” in suspense fiction.

  I got terrific feedback on early drafts from the authors: Barry Willdorf (Burning Questions), James Warner (All Her Father’s Guns), Steve Meloan (The Shroud), Evan Karp (Litseen.org), Chris Cole (The Speed at Which I Travel), Robert A. Burton (A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind), and my friend Michael Vinson. My agent, Laurie McLean, recognized early on what I’m trying to do and started helping me do it long before I became her client.

  The publication of this book by 47North can be traced to Rob Kroese, who so liked my first novel, The God Patent, that he recommended it to his editors. Then, one summer day I got an e-mail from David Pomerico at 47North asking if I had anything else in the tank. David showed tremendous faith in my work by acquiring The Sensory Deception. My editor at 47North, Christopher Cerasi, did a terrific job guiding me through a major revision, and the copy editor Katie Parker rescued me from my own incompetence.