Lost Souls

by Seth Patrick

  ‘Suspension still means fighting, Never. I don’t have any fight left in me. Thorne’s right about the Afterlifers. They’re strong, and if we behave like we don’t give a damn for their concerns, it’ll just fuel that strength. But right now, all I can think of is David Leith and his mother. I can’t be in that position again. I can’t. Because if I am, I’ll do exactly what I did this time, and the FRS will take the hit. I can’t trust myself to do what needs to be done to protect the FRS. I can’t watch that happen and know it was my fault.’

  ‘You’ll change your mind,’ said Never, stunned. ‘By tomorrow morning, I guarantee it.’

  Jonah put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. ‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I mean it.’

  They looked at each other for a few seconds. Eventually Never looked away, and nodded. ‘I guess you do,’ he said.

  ‘But if you do change your mind, Jonah,’ said Hugo, walking over to them, ‘if you do, your desk will stay right where it is. However long that takes.’

  Jonah nodded. He spent a moment gathering his few belongings in a plastic bag, while Hugo and Never stayed silent. When he had finished collecting his things, he turned to find his way blocked by Never.

  ‘Can’t I talk you out of this?’ said Never. Jonah shook his head. ‘Do you want a hand taking your stuff back to your apartment?’

  ‘I’d rather just go home alone.’

  ‘OK,’ said Never, reluctantly. He stepped forward and hugged Jonah.

  ‘It’s not like I’m leaving the country.’ Jonah could feel his eyes starting to water, and he could see Never’s doing the same.

  ‘You’ve, ah, got something in your eye,’ said Never, and Jonah just nodded.

  Then, Jonah Miller walked out of the FRS. Going down the stairs, it seemed like he was in free-fall; that he’d jumped from the roof and was taking a long time to hit the ground.

  8

  When Jonah got back to his apartment he tried to call Annabel. She didn’t answer, so he sent her an email to tell her what had happened. By noon he’d still not heard back, but the events of the previous twenty-four hours were catching up with him. Numb and exhausted, he crashed on the couch.

  He was woken by his cat Marmite, licking his nose and purring. Feeding the cat had been the only thing he’d had any success with when he’d got home that morning, and it was already time to do it again. The clock on his wall showed just past 5 p.m.

  ‘Come on,’ Jonah told the cat, his own stomach grumbling. He fed Marmite and put two slices of bread into the toaster. When they popped, he looked blankly at them for a moment, wondering when the toaster had started making a buzzing sound. Then his brain kicked in enough for him to realize someone was ringing at his door.

  He shuffled over to the intercom.

  ‘Hi, Never,’ he said. Who else would it be?

  ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘Sure. I warn you, I just woke. Might be a little vague.’

  ‘No problem. I brought a surprise.’

  ‘OK,’ said Jonah, too foggy to give it any thought. He buzzed Never in at the front entrance, then checked his cell phone for anything from Annabel. There was nothing. Whatever his feelings for her, they were fighting with a general irritation over how hard she was to get hold of – or more specifically, how often she seemed to be avoiding him. It was bad enough at the best of times, but right now it drove him crazy. His finger hovered over her number, ready to give her another try, but then he shook his head. He switched his phone off and threw it over to the couch, ignoring it as it bounced onto the floor. For a moment he felt curiously better for it. He wondered just what that meant for the health of their relationship.

  Three loud knocks announced Never’s arrival. Jonah opened the door, his sleepy face brightening when he saw who else was there.

  ‘Sam!’ he said.

  Sam Deering, the man who, until his retirement the year before, had run the Central East Coast FRS, was one of the few people besides Never and Annabel that Jonah was close to. Sam had been in Jonah’s life since he was fourteen, when the death of Jonah’s mother had simultaneously orphaned him and revealed his revival ability. He was the nearest thing to a father Jonah had.

  ‘When I heard what happened I thought you could do with some company,’ said Sam. ‘Whether you want it or not.’

  Jonah mock-frowned at Never.

  ‘What?’ said Never. ‘I just happened to be on the phone to Sam, so of course I mentioned it.’

  ‘And what did you just happen to be on the phone to Sam about?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Never. He shrugged. ‘Give me a minute, I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Get your ass inside, Geary,’ Jonah said, shutting the apartment door.

  ‘It’s been a while, Jonah,’ said Sam. ‘You should call by more often. Helen and I like to see you.’

  Jonah did a quick mental calculation. The last time he’d caught up with Sam had been three months before, when Sam had come back from a revival conference in France and had invited Jonah and Annabel over to his house for a meal. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Maybe next time Annabel’s here,’ said Sam. ‘How’s that going?’

  ‘Fine, I guess,’ lied Jonah. ‘She spends most of her time travelling. She’s been out on the West Coast for a few months tracking down leads for the story she’s building about Andreas.’

  ‘Still on that, huh?’ said Sam. As far as Sam was aware, the events of the previous year had been exactly as Jonah, Never and Annabel had told the police: that Michael Andreas had invited Annabel to attend a fundraising event; the event was then targeted by Afterlifer-supporting terrorists.

  There was an element of truth to it, although it hadn’t exactly been a fundraising event, and the ‘invitation’ had involved the three of them being rounded up by Andreas’s security staff and brought to the Reese-Farthing Medical building under duress.

  ‘Yeah, she’s still on that,’ said Jonah. ‘I don’t get to see as much of her as I’d like.’

  ‘Well, she’s good for you,’ said Sam. ‘Helen’s keen to have her over for dinner again.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be here in a couple of weeks,’ said Jonah. ‘We’ll take you up on it. So, you guys want a coffee or something?’

  ‘No,’ said Sam, smiling. ‘I’m here to treat you to a meal and get you drunk.’

  *

  When Sam asked Jonah where he wanted to eat, he opted for Mexican and knew exactly why. After any revival, there were fragments of the revived subject left behind, the smallest traces of them; pieces of second-hand memories, quickly fading.

  David Leith had loved burritos and it was the first thing Jonah had thought of.

  So they headed out to a Mexican restaurant, Jonah outwardly in good spirits. Sam and Never took that as a sign that he was bearing up well; Jonah didn’t tell them that it was mainly due to the sensation of free-fall which hadn’t left him since he’d walked out of the office. For what might be the last time, his mind yelled at him. He was simply too dazed to be worrying much about his future.

  Inevitably, talk turned to nostalgia for the early days of the FRS itself, something that Sam Deering had largely been responsible for creating. It had been Sam’s foresight that had led to the research that put forensic revival on a firm foundation. When revival had first appeared, an international research effort had been set up at an old US military site. Known as the Revival Baseline Research Group, the intent – and the expectation – had been to find out how revival worked, and what it meant for humanity. Everyone had thought it heralded something profound, some new, deeper understanding of the human condition.

  Instead, there had been nothing but frustration.

  As the senior researcher, Sam Deering had chosen to sidestep the theology that so preoccupied others, and instead look to the empirical considerations, the areas that research genuinely could examine. After all, he’d reasoned, physical phenomena like gravity and magnetism are thought of as ‘understood’, even when their
underlying nature is a mystery. Empirical science is precisely about quantifying the properties of something that is, at first, mysterious. Thus tamed, the mystery is forgotten, even though it’s still there, underneath. That, Sam believed, could happen with revival, too.

  The research effort became known just as ‘Baseline’; by the time public funding dried up and it was brought to a premature conclusion, people no longer looked at revival as an inevitable pathway to ultimate truths, or to the meaning of life.

  It was a tool, the same as any other. And it had its uses.

  *

  In the middle of the meal Sam went to the restroom, leaving Jonah and Never alone for the first time that evening.

  ‘Have you told Annabel what’s happened?’ asked Never.

  Jonah shrugged. ‘I left her some messages, but couldn’t get hold of her.’

  ‘Right,’ said Never.

  Jonah didn’t like his tone. ‘Out with it.’

  ‘I . . .’ started Never, but then he stopped. ‘This isn’t the right time.’

  ‘Out with it.’

  ‘I don’t like seeing you this way. Every mention of Annabel, you wince. You need a serious chat with her. If she’s so distracted by this fucking quest she’s taken on, then, well . . . she needs to take a break from it. All I’m saying is the girl has issues, and unless she sorts them, every time she’s here she’ll just look like she’s counting the hours before she can go again. And I see it in your eyes, you know she is.’

  Jonah took a deep breath and nodded. ‘When she relaxes, it all feels right. And I know we could make a go of it, if that was how she always was.’ He looked up at Never, miserable. ‘But that happens less, every time I see her. Since the last time she came I’ve been waiting for the break-up phone call. Whenever she rang, I was bracing myself for it.’

  ‘Christ, Jonah,’ sighed Never. ‘There’s nothing I can say, except good luck.’ He paused, both of them taking a long, wallowing swig of their beer. Then he looked up and grinned. ‘But I can get you massively drunk. And if ever a night called for it, it’s this one.’

  Jonah frowned, then laughed. ‘I think that’d be a good idea.’

  Meal finished, Never cajoled Sam into joining them in their self-destruction. ‘One or two, maybe,’ said Sam, ‘but no more.’ Jonah saw the glint in Never’s eye.

  Two hours later, in a bar three doors down from the restaurant, Jonah was at the sweet spot, feeling disconnected enough to have stopped worrying much about either his job or Annabel, but not so drunk that he couldn’t appreciate the feeling. He wanted to keep it going as long as he could, and decided to make the next beer his last and fend off Never’s undisguised goal of total obliteration.

  Sam brought the conversation around to Never’s love-life.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ said Never. ‘And to be honest, I’ve stopped looking. For a while, anyway. I’m hoping that will somehow make it happen. But I think that might be like stopping buying food and expecting things to just grow in your fridge.’

  ‘I’ve seen your fridge,’ said Jonah. ‘Things do grow there.’

  ‘Well, I’ve quit looking,’ said Never. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’

  ‘You did hit on the new woman in Admin at the Christmas party.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Never. ‘She liked the Belfast accent. Didn’t like the actual words, though.’

  Sam smiled. ‘I suppose you do need someone with a well-developed sense of humour.’

  Sam and Jonah’s laughter took a while to settle down, fuelled by the stern look on Never’s face.

  ‘Guys, I’m going once I’ve finished this beer,’ said Sam. ‘If I go now, Helen will be amused when I stumble in. Any more, and she’d not take long to be unamused.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Jonah, although Never grumbled.

  Sam fidgeted a little, and Jonah had an idea that he was going to raise an awkward subject. He wondered which it would be – Annabel, or work.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Sam. ‘I know you will. Wait until the dust settles, then go back to what you do best.’

  Jonah smiled, realizing that the great thing about being a little drunk was how easily he could convince Sam that there was nothing to worry about. ‘Thanks. But with the way the Afterlifer things are going, private work would be far less of a headache.’

  ‘All this Afterlifer nonsense will settle down,’ said Sam. ‘It’ll blow over in a matter of months.’

  Raising an eyebrow, Never leaned forward. ‘You confident about that? From the FRS perspective things are getting hairy very fast, and no end in sight.’

  ‘I’m confident,’ said Sam. He tapped a confidential finger to his nose. ‘I’ve heard things, in the last few weeks. A few rumours.’

  ‘What kind?’ asked Never.

  ‘That there’s something on the horizon.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Never. ‘They’re going to cripple the FRS with legislation.’

  Sam nodded. ‘They want to, sure, but I don’t think the FRS has much to fear from what’s coming.’

  Jonah sat forward now. ‘You know what’s on the way, Sam?’

  ‘I hear things. I can’t say much, but I think the FRS will be in a better position in the long run.’

  ‘So if it doesn’t kill us,’ said Never, ‘it’ll make us stronger?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘I’m confident this country will make the right decisions.’

  ‘Well,’ said Never, ‘the Afterlifers want to make the public wary of revival all over again, and they’re suddenly doing a fine job of it. You remember what it was like in the early days of revival? The public supported it in the end, but they easily could’ve gone the other way. What if the Afterlifers keep the momentum going, if they manage to bring all that fear roaring back? You really think this country will make the right decisions in a climate of fear?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ said Sam.

  ‘Put it this way: witch-hunts don’t make for good laws.’

  Sam shook his head. He smiled, even though Never was scowling. ‘The Afterlifer bubble is about to be comprehensively burst, Never. Trust me.’ The scowl didn’t shift from Never’s face. ‘Really. When I said things would blow over, it wasn’t just the new legislation I was talking about.’

  Now the scowl shifted. Never and Jonah were both listening eagerly. Sam just sat there, his smile enigmatic.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Sam,’ said Never. ‘Either spill the beans or buy another round.’

  ‘OK, OK. I heard something from Stephanie,’ said Sam. ‘Stephanie Graves.’ He looked at Jonah, and Jonah nodded.

  Stephanie Graves had been a researcher at Baseline, and had also been responsible for the wellbeing of the revivers there. She’d been the one to understand much of the psychological trauma that revivers could suffer, and had developed widely used treatment methods.

  ‘I didn’t think you were on speaking terms,’ said Jonah.

  Sam shrugged. ‘She left Baseline because she didn’t like some of the . . . companies I’d allowed into the project.’

  He didn’t need to be more explicit: CIA, NSA, and other less official agencies had all had their hand in the revival research at Baseline. Indeed, the work that had led to Michael Andreas’s death had originated in secret military research, attempting to exploit revivers as a kind of infallible lie detector. Jonah’s greatest fear in the past seventeen months had been that those agencies would come knocking, eager to learn just what Andreas had been up to. He didn’t imagine they’d be fobbed off as easily as the police had been.

  Pain sparked in Jonah’s chest at the thought; it had been an employee of one of those agencies who had put the bullet there.

  ‘Stephanie was right, of course,’ said Sam. ‘My decisions had undermined what Baseline stood for. I refused to talk to her for years, because I refused to accept I’d been wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘But that’s old news. The point is, two weeks ago Stephanie got in touch and told me something as a professional courtesy.’

  ‘She t
old you what?’ said Jonah.

  Sam lowered his voice. ‘This goes no further, OK?’

  Jonah and Never both nodded, wide-eyed.

  ‘The Government is reopening Baseline,’ said Sam. ‘In part, it’s a way to mollify the Afterlifers, because they’ve been harping on about how little we really understand revival. They’ve been blaming the absence of research over the eight years since Baseline finally shut down, but really it was a cheap hook to hang their arguments from – they thought the money wasn’t there, and they didn’t expect their bluff to be called. But it has been. That’s why the legislation will be good, because it’ll be ongoing and evidence-led.’

  Jonah shook his head, thinking about how all the previous research had hit dead-ends. ‘They really think it’ll get anywhere?’ he said.

  ‘Stephanie does,’ said Sam. ‘She told me the funding is considerable, and the technology needed to study revival has developed well beyond the level it was at before. She’s been making progress herself ever since she left the original Baseline. That’s why they brought her in. Nobody else in the world knows more about where the most promising areas of research are.’

  Jonah had been treated by Stephanie not long before the Andreas situation came up. He remembered her bemoaning how little money and equipment she had, yet still managing to get serious research done. ‘And you think this bursts the Afterlifer bubble?’

  ‘Absolutely. It takes away all their momentum. And there’s something else, Jonah. They’ll want all the best revivers in the world to take part in the new research.’

  For a moment, Jonah was stunned. It wasn’t something that had occurred to him, but maybe this was it. Maybe this was what he needed. Then he remembered: ‘Except that I’m now officially disgraced.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. They might not come to you directly, but if you want to take part, I hear they’ll move mountains to get the best people.’

  Going back to Baseline, he thought, and the feeling that hit him was so unfamiliar it took him a second to place it.

  Optimism.

  *