The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

  “This is Shea.”

  “Toby, this is Daniel Dixon, the guy covering the Lazarus Project.”

  “Really? What brings Daniel Dixon to be calling me?”

  “Well, there’s a lot breaking around the project today.”

  “Yeah, I saw the bishop on the noon news.”

  “There’s more, and I’ll be writing a bunch of it. But there are some things I won’t have time to get to. You’ve done good work, I thought I’d throw you a bone.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  I looked around the room. “Oh, you’ll definitely thank me, Toby. For starters, Jeremiah Rice is gone. Vamoose.”

  “No shit?”

  “There’s more. If you give me your e-mail address, first thing tomorrow I’ll send you the location where he’s hiding.”

  He told me the address letter by letter. “What’s your angle on this?”

  “Can’t say, Toby. But it’s real. Just call the project, ask to speak to Jeremiah, and listen to the stalling and stammering.”

  “All right, I’m on it. Thanks.”

  “No charge.” I put the phone down gently. It felt damn good, to spin this place back in the direction of truth at last. To start the world dancing to my tune for once.

  I decided to make two more calls, one to the Herald and one to the TV station that got us into the Red Sox game. Then the reporters’ e-mail addresses went into my pocket for use the next morning, and out came my trusty old thumb drive. I plugged it into the side of Gerber’s machine, and with three clicks started the process of downloading that new folder into my permanent possession.

  The computer told me the process would take approximately two minutes. What the hell, I figured. I reached over for the headphones and clamped them snug on my noggin. A song was just ending, in an ever-quieter fade. I just sat back, put my feet up, and waited with the silence to hear what was coming next.

  CHAPTER 36

  The Last Egg

  (Kate Philo)

  When I emerged from the bedroom that morning, he was sitting on the couch right where I’d left him the night before. Only the book in his hands had changed, A Tale of Two Cities now, with Jane Eyre on the coffee table.

  “Good morning, Jeremiah,” I said in a sunny voice. “How did you sleep?”

  “Just fine, thank you,” he said, standing, a finger holding his place in the book.

  We were such liars. I could see the blanket folded exactly as I’d left it. The pillow at the end of the couch bore no imprint from his head. But then, his free hand looked steady, calmer than the night before. A good sign? No way of knowing.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you,” I said. “I’m just going to make a pot of coffee.”

  “Can I be of any help?”

  I pressed my palm to his chest. “Just read, friend. I’ll be right back.”

  “Your hair . . .”

  “What about it?” I said, pulling it back.

  “No, no, leave it down.” He waved a hand.

  “Really?”

  “Please. It is a delight of femininity.”

  A what? I stood there mute, an awkwardness until he sat again. Finally I started for the kitchen in the back of the apartment. From that day forward, I never put my hair up again. Say what you may about his influence on me in those waning days, I make no apology. The scientist, the credible adult . . . as a result of his compliment I abandoned those appearances forever.

  After a moment I snooped from the hall. Both of his feet were jiggling like he’d had twenty cups of coffee. So much for steady hands.

  So far, I believe I’d done fairly well with concealing what Billings told me. Jeremiah was pleased enough with his boots not to notice my mood when I returned to the apartment. I’d cried good and hard when I went to bed, but don’t think he heard me. I resolved, while brushing my teeth, to hide my emotions behind calm to the utmost of my ability. So I went about filling the coffeemaker with water, grinding beans, humming to myself as if it was only my friend Meg from Baltimore in the other room, and we were planning to spend a leisurely day at the museums.

  What were we going to do with this day? How should we use the time we had left? Should I tell Jeremiah what was happening? Oh, he would know soon enough. What matters most when time is running out?

  The physical sensation, there in the kitchen, was that I had no feet. Gravity might be tethering me to the ground, but somehow no actual contact was occurring. Then the coffee was ready; I poured myself a hot mug; I opened the fridge for milk. What I saw brought my full weight right back to earth.

  One egg. The yogurt was gone, lettuce, all the fruit, cheese, leftover Chinese. Everything else was gone, except one egg in a bowl. I took it out, weighed it in my hand.

  “I apologize, Kate.”

  I started at Jeremiah’s voice. He stood in the doorway with a melancholy face.

  “I was famished last night. All night. It’s hard to explain. Embarrassing, too, that I ate nearly everything. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, wrapping my fingers around that egg. “I told you already, you’re welcome to anything in here.”

  “But I finished all sorts of things, Kate. Your cereals, bread, crackers.”

  “We’ll just go to the supermarket. It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m hungry all the time now.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me.” I could have told him then, perhaps I should have. But I turned away, splashed the last of the milk into my coffee, took a hot gulp. I do not want to lose you. “I’ll tell you what, Jeremiah. Why don’t I fry this last egg for you right now?”

  “No, Kate. I appreciate your offer, but you see I deliberately held back on that. In view of my eating so much already. I saved that egg for you.”

  “That’s just silly,” I said.

  “It’s not. I want you to have it.”

  “Jeremiah, we can go buy three dozen eggs as soon as I finish this coffee.”

  “That’s fine, and very generous of you, provided you eat that one first.”

  I stared down into my coffee mug. He was trying to be generous, with no idea what his appetite signified. It was all as Billings had said. My heart felt like a black scribble. “Why don’t we compromise?” I said. “I’ll cook the egg, and we’ll share it.”

  “Kate, when have I been in a position to give you something? I honestly would prefer if you had it, the whole thing. Please.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Now you listen here, Jeremiah Rice—”

  There was a loud banging on my front door.

  “Hold on,” I called, setting the egg on the counter. I hurried to the entry. I’d rented that place for almost a year, while spending nearly every waking hour at the project. This was the first time anyone had knocked on my door. “Who is it, please?”

  “Toby Shea, Boston Globe. I’d like to speak with Jeremiah Rice.”

  Panic seized me. I had imagined our accelerating misery as a private matter, something the two of us would experience quietly together. At once I felt all sense of security turn into vapor. “I need a minute,” I said. “I’m not dressed.”

  I hurried into the bedroom, peered through the curtains. I couldn’t see the front door from there, but a TV truck was pulling into a space across the street. Meanwhile a woman with a notepad was marching down the sidewalk from the other direction. A photographer juggled his equipment while trying to catch up with her.

  Back in the kitchen. Jeremiah stood where I’d left him. “You look frightened. What is the matter?”

  “We have to get out of here. Grab what you need right now. We’ll come back later for the rest.” I threw a few things into a backpack, jammed my feet into sneakers, jogged back to the hall.

  “Dr. Philo?” There was more knocking. “I’d like to come in now, please.”

  “Just one more second,” I called.

  Jeremiah had pulled on his high, brown boots. I took his arm, pulling him to the low window of the kitchen. “Be right the
re,” I yelled.

  He gave me a puzzled look. “Why are you not answering the door?”

  “You remember those paparazzi I described to you?”

  “Is it them?” Jeremiah stood so openly, listening, trusting. It was all I could do not to throw my arms around him.

  “Not quite. But there are other people who could intrude in our lives, too.”

  “I don’t understand. I’ll do another interview. We’ve not done anything wrong.”

  “That doesn’t matter. They will stop at nothing. They chased a princess until her car crashed and she died. Now they are after us. Please trust me, and come on.”

  Easing the window open, I stepped out onto the fire escape. The alley behind my apartment was narrow: trash bins, locked-up bicycles, the backs of houses on the next street. It was another sun-struck day, no clouds in any direction. There were no reporters in sight either. Jeremiah climbed out next to me.

  “Not a word,” I whispered. “No speaking till we reach my car.”

  He nodded. I tiptoed down the metal stairs, feeling his weight descend behind me. Now began the chase, the time of us two apart from the world.

  Not until we’d gone two blocks did I realize. We had left that last egg behind.

  CHAPTER 37

  Everything Else

  (Daniel Dixon)

  Imagine a surgeon lying on the operating table. A teacher curled in a too-small student desk. A chauffeur sitting in the backseat. A chef at a table, waiting for his food.

  That was yours truly, on the sunny morning when my days as a magazine writer came to an end. Instead of covering the news, I was making it. Instead of being a spectator, I was the spectacle. The first reporters trickled in to the hotel conference room, and I decided not to watch Carthage-style, from offstage. I came down among the chairs.

  “What’s this all about, Dixon?” one of them asked.

  “You are not going to believe it,” I said. “You are just not going to believe it.”

  I had witnessed the scene thousands of times, how reporters settle themselves, TV people acting like they own the goddamn place, print photographers ignoring the rows of chairs while they clamber for an interesting angle. An editor I recognized from the Herald gave me a wave. He’d brought a couple of interns, as young as spring chicks, though one brunette among them was leggy enough I would have been happy to take her into a back room and treat her like a grown-up. Peaches, peaches, peaches. So I’m a pig; sue me. Even the Phoenix sent someone, butch-haired and wearing a peasant dress, as you might expect from an arts weekly. Like as soon as this was done she was going out to pick potatoes. She probably played for the other team anyway, if you know what I mean.

  The crowd was maybe not as large as I’d hoped, but big enough. I was relieved to see no one flying the flag for the Lazarus Project. That meant none of the contradiction I’d worried about. I’d rather tell my whole story, let them do the denying and explaining.

  The early signals were good. Toby Shea was not there, nor the others I’d e-mailed that morning. I could just imagine what they were interrupting, at the little love nest across town. Better yet, if the sweethearts bolted, a phony reincarnated man running off with an attractive woman, the tabloids would go crazy. Better than a congressman’s underwear, because it would give the lunatic media the thing it likes most of all: a chase.

  At six minutes after the hour, Carthage’s preferred lateness for starting these things, I went to the front and called hello. The reporters murmured their way down like a crowd in a theater. I picked up my projector remote. Damn if I wasn’t nervous. I always hung with the gang, giants and hacks equally, scribbling whatever the fool at the front of the room happened to be raving about. Now I was the one up front, hoping not to be the fool myself. I scanned for that brunette to calm my nerves, but couldn’t spot her. I felt like a cliff diver, peering over the edge at the water way down below. Then I jumped.

  “Thanks for coming, ladies and gentlemen. I know you’re here because it’s your job, but I think you are also going to enjoy yourselves. First, though, I have to apologize. We all pride ourselves, in the news biz, on being skeptical, right? Suspicious, hard to fool, independent in our ideas? Even so, sometimes we get duped. I asked you all here because I was duped. And I think I have some responsibility for you being duped, too.

  “In the last eleven months I have filed more than two hundred bylines on the Lazarus Project. You’ve picked up those stories, localized them, adapted them for your readers and audiences, printed the photos, played the videos. And along the way, we have collectively tricked the public into believing in something that does not exist.”

  A hand shot up at the back. “What does not exist? Can you clarify, please?”

  “Relax, you’ll get the full story. Or as close to the truth as I can come at this point. I’ve prepared four proofs and I’m going to lay them right out for you.”

  The hand rose again. “Proofs of what, though?”

  “Damn, buddy, did you forget to pee on the way in here?” Everyone laughed at that, and I could feel my guts untying. “Easy, okay? I’m going to give you proof that the Lazarus Project is a fake. A phony. The whole shebang.”

  I felt the in-breath. I saw their eyes widen, their backs straightening in the chairs.

  “Now your skepticism is in full gear. You’re not going to believe me, because you already believe them. And what I wrote before. That’s fine. Just let me start, and you judge for yourselves.”

  I nodded at the hotel guy in the back of the room, who lowered the lights. When I pressed a button on the remote, the first photo went up on the screen. It felt like a lifetime since I’d snapped it, on the bridge of that ice-crusted research vessel: Captain Kulak and Dr. Kate standing at the front window, looking out at a spotlit wall of white.

  “This is the night we found the iceberg that allegedly contained Jeremiah Rice. When I snapped it we had been near the berg for about twenty minutes. What do you notice about Dr. Kate Philo in this photo?”

  I remembered the first time I looked at this pic. I enjoyed seeing her sweet backside in that tight diving suit, dead center. But now all I saw was the diving suit.

  “What you have here is a researcher, supposedly just awakened in the middle of the night. Now, this is one of the coldest places on earth. No one wants to dive unless it’s totally, absolutely necessary. You can die in an instant.

  “So let me ask: How often do you all get out of bed and put on specialized clothes? Anybody here this morning slap off the alarm and then dress in football pads? Anyone here wear a flak jacket while brushing your teeth? Then why would a scientist start her day by donning diving gear, unless she already knew that she’d be going into the water?”

  “What are you saying here, Dixon?”

  “I’m saying that they made mistakes, that they left a trail.”

  “Yes, but a trail of what?”

  “Decide for yourselves. And let me clarify, right up front, that I don’t think all of them are in on it.” I shuffled a little while talking, it seemed to calm my nervous energy. “Some people at the Lazarus Project are doing an honest job based on what they’ve been tricked into believing. But the central crew is just a pack of actors.”

  “You realize how defamatory that accusation is?” that same reporter persisted.

  “Easy, tiger.” I wagged my fingers at him. “Four proofs. Hold on to your hats.”

  The first proof concerned interruptions in documentation. I showed them the video of the digging at the ice, which ended when Jeremiah’s hand was revealed. They’d seen it before, but not in slow motion. Now everyone could see how it blips, how in the instant the hand ought to be visible, instead there is a rush of divers, the screen fills with bubbles, there’s a minuscule skip in the tape, and only then is there the hand.

  “Let me show that again.” I froze one second before the skip: Dr. Kate’s glove at the lower right; then one second after, and her hand was higher. “Now, sure, the diver could have accide
ntally shut off his camera for one second, because of the jostling, then turned it right back on. It’s possible. But it looks to me like the video has been doctored.”

  I heard them rustle in their seats, so I hurried to the day of reanimation, and the moment Dr. Borden gave Jeremiah the full blast from his electric panel. The lights went out. Billings yelled. The lights came back and there was Jeremiah, breathing. Again the editing was plain to see. And the blackout was so basic a stunt it seemed amateurish.

  “How we doing?” I said, because the crowd had gone quiet. No one answered.

  “Okay, proof two. A man from 1906 should not know things from today. But what if he does? I’m showing little things here, I admit. But these are brilliant people, and a well-oiled deception. Still, even geniuses make mistakes. The little things add up. Let’s watch some baseball.”

  I showed them Jeremiah’s pitch, the ball smacking the catcher’s mitt. “You get it? The mistake is that he was way too good. In theory, at this point the guy has been unfrozen for two months. Come on. He must have played college ball. Otherwise aren’t we seeing unreal heat for a guy who hasn’t thrown in a hundred and ten years?”

  A few people chuckled at that. I was rolling. “Now check this out.”

  I pressed play, and there was the TV station’s footage of Fenway Park, everyone on their feet, giddy from beating the Yankees. They’re singing “Tessie” with gusto. Then the camera zooms in on Jeremiah, and he is mouthing right along with the words.

  “Pretty neat trick, right? How does a guy born in 1868 know the words to a song the fans started singing in 2006?”

  “Jesus H,” said the hippie from the Phoenix.

  “I know, right?” I replied. “Now let’s hear it from Jeremiah Rice himself, or whatever his real name is.” Then I showed a bit the good folks at Fenway had allowed me to copy from their security cam. It showed that lady accosting Jeremiah. He holds up his hands like he’s being robbed and declares, “Yes, that’s what I am. A fake.” Out of context, sure, but I felt clever enough about that clip that I played it again anyway. “Yes, that’s what I am. A fake.”