Soulminder

by Timothy Zahn

  But those neuropreservatives had to be administered within a very few minutes of body death. If they weren’t, if the brain tissue deterioration was allowed to progress past a critical point, then there would be no functional body left for him to return to.

  At which point—living soul or not, Soulminder magic or not—Walker Lamar would be effectively dead. The trap would have to be turned off, and his soul would depart. Going wherever it was souls went.

  “You ready?” Ng asked.

  Blanchard shook away the introspection. “Sure,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. Of all the difficult parts of this job, dealing with floaters was easily the worst. “What do we have on the floater?”

  “Name’s Jack Thornton,” McGee told her. He was standing off to the side, next to the tech seated at the transfer room’s MiNex terminal. “Fifty-one, professor of electrical engineering at Caltech, lives in Pasadena. Lives alone, unfortunately—divorced—so no possible help there. He triggered the trap just over two and a half minutes ago.”

  “From the lack of signal,” the tech added, “best guess is that he’s under water somewhere.”

  “Right,” Blanchard nodded, the tightness in her stomach easing a little. In her past experience she’d always found middle-aged highbrow types relatively easy to deal with: generally polite and disinclined toward anything as undignified as hysteria.

  Of course, none of those she’d dealt with had been freshly dead. “How long?”

  “We’re ready,” Ng said. “Stand by.”

  On the console behind him lights changed color … and, with a suddenness that Blanchard was never quite prepared for, Walker Lamar’s body jerked alive. “Wha—wha—?”

  Blanchard turned her head to peer straight down into the confused face. “Dr. Thornton? Jack? Can you hear me?”

  The eyes focused uncertainly on her. “Who—I mean, where—?”

  “You’re in Soulminder Los Angeles,” she cut him off. “There’s been some sort of accident. Where were you when it happened?”

  The forehead creased. “Where was I … ?”

  “You were in some kind of accident,” Blanchard repeated. That was only a guess, but a fairly safe one. And from the almost-foggy look in his eyes— “Had you been drinking earlier? Did you drink and then get in your car and drive somewhere?”

  A sudden look of horror flooded his face. “It wasn’t a dream,” he hissed. “It was—I was dead.”

  “Jack, your body is missing,” Blanchard told him, putting steel into her voice. If he slid off into panic or denial now, their chances of saving him would go straight to zero. “It’s missing, and your Soulminder wristband isn’t signaling its location. We need to know where you died, and we need to know it now.”

  For a long second she thought it hadn’t worked. Those eyes stared at and through her … then, abruptly, they gave a little twitch. “I was coming back from Coldbrook,” he murmured. “Along Thirty-nine.”

  The tech at the console was already punching keys, and a second later the full-wall display behind Ng lit up with a detailed map of the San Gabriel Wilderness and Angeles National Forest regions. Highway 39 snaked through the middle of it, and at the lower middle— “Had you passed the San Gabriel Reservoir yet?” she asked. “Jack?”

  The eyes defocused again. “Yes,” he said, his voice stronger and more sure of itself. Starting to catch up with the emotional shock of it. “And … yes, I’d passed the Morris Reservoir, too.”

  The map display shifted, enlarged. “Gotta be the river,” someone said.

  “Do you remember anything else, Jack?” Blanchard asked. “Anything that might help us to find—”

  “I went off the road.” A hand came up, seized her arm in a panic grip. “I went off the road, and the river was there—oh, God.”

  Blanchard reached her free hand over to grip his. “It’s all right,” she assured him, hoping fervently that wasn’t a lie. On the display a small white circle had suddenly appeared, heading toward the target zone from downtown Los Angeles. “It’s all right,” she repeated. “An emergency team’s on the way.”

  “I must have drowned,” he whispered. “Oh, God. Oh, God. I drowned. I’m dead.”

  Blanchard clenched her teeth. Thornton was losing it again. Hardly surprising, under the circumstances, but in her mind’s eye she could see the adrenaline surge that all that panic was pumping into Walker Lamar’s body …

  She caught Ng’s eye. He nodded back, the hypo already prepared. “Now, just relax, Jack,” she said soothingly, keeping her grip on his hand. “We’re going to have to let you go back into Soulminder for a little while. But it’ll be all right.”

  The eyes looked at her, not understanding. She braced herself for the reaction when that understanding finally came.

  It did, and the eyes were suddenly filled with shock. But by then it was too late for any reaction. Ng withdrew the needle from the other’s arm, and with welcome anticlimax the eyes rolled up and the grip on Blanchard’s arm loosened.

  Walker Lamar was dead. Again.

  Blanchard took a shuddering breath and lowered the limp arm back to the table. Out of the corner of her eye she saw McGee step to her side, his stance that of someone who wanted to talk. “What are his chances?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Ng.

  “Thornton’s? Hard to say.” He looked over his shoulder at the map display. Already the circle marking the rescue team was almost to the suspected accident site. Dimly, Blanchard wondered what kind of speed that helicopter was making. “The water there should be pretty cold, which will help slow down neural deterioration,” Ng added, turning back to Lamar’s body.

  “At least they won’t have any problem finding him,” McGee put in. “Not now. His wristband can’t transmit far enough through water to reach the satellites, but the rescue chopper’s detector will pick it up at least a mile away. At that point”—she sensed him shrug—“it’ll be a matter of how fast the team can pull the body out of the car and get it onto neuropreservatives and life-support.”

  Blanchard nodded. McGee’s politely confrontational stance hadn’t changed. “I presume you want to talk about Walker,” she said.

  She looked at him in time to see his lips pucker. “This makes at least four times we’ve seen him wandering around in the wee hours,” he reminded her.

  “I can count,” Blanchard growled. “Has it ever occurred to you that it might be nothing more than an occasional touch of insomnia?”

  McGee’s eyebrows lifted. “It has, yes. But I somehow doubt you’d be quite so defensive if that was all there was to it.”

  Blanchard dropped her eyes to Lamar’s motionless face. His motionless, dead face. “This happens to people in high-stress occupations,” she said doggedly. “He’ll get through it okay.”

  “Probably. Question is, will you?”

  She forced herself to look back at him. To meet that steady gaze. “I’ve done things that were lots harder than this, Mr. McGee. My year as bottom-rung police psychologist in St. Louis, for obvious example. Compared with getting into a serial killer’s head, handling a Professional Witness is a stroll through the park.”

  For a moment McGee studied her, as if somehow divining the nightmare she’d been having when he’d woken her up. But then a timer on the console pinged gently, and one of the techs handed Ng a fresh hypo, and—almost reluctantly, she thought—McGee turned his attention back to Lamar’s body. “If you say so,” he said. “If I were you, though, I’d watch out for muggers on this particular stroll. Serial killers may scare the pants off you, but at least you never had to watch any of them die over and over again.”

  Blanchard didn’t reply. Behind Ng a set of indicator lights flicked on, indicating that the neuropreservatives that had protected Lamar’s brain and nerve cells from damage during the crucial first minutes of his induced death had now been adequatel
y flushed from his body. Ng double-checked everything, then nodded to the tech at the Soulminder console. The latter nodded in return, touched a switch—

  And with a shudder that ran up his entire body, Walker Lamar returned to life.

  “Hi,” Blanchard said, forcing a casual smile onto her lips as Lamar’s eyes focused on her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh—” the eyes defocused again, just for a second. “Fine. I guess. Fine. I guess.”

  “Then I guess you must be fine,” she said, striving for a note of levity. “Doctor?”

  “Everything looks good,” Ng nodded. “Blood pressure’s a little high, Walker, but that’s a normal part of your post-transfer profile.”

  “Great.” Blanchard found Lamar’s hand and squeezed it. “So. Excitement’s over; I guess it’s back to bed for—”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Lamar interrupted, twisting his head to look at the map display.

  “They’re pulling the body out of the car right now,” the tech at the communications console spoke up. “Everything else is ready.”

  “They probably won’t know for sure for at least an hour,” Blanchard reminded him. “Maybe longer. I’m sure that if you ask Mr. McGee he’ll have someone wake you up whenever they have something.”

  Lamar looked at McGee, as if only just noticing his presence. Then he shrugged, a strangely jerky movement of his shoulders. “Yeah, well … I’m not all that sleepy. I guess I’ll just hang around.” Abruptly, he sat up all the way, swinging his legs clumsily over the edge of the table. “Maybe I’ll take a little walk first,” he added as Blanchard and McGee each grabbed an arm to help steady him. “Get used to having legs again, and all that. Unless you need me here, ’cause I could stay.”

  Almost word for word the same speech he always gave. Behind her smile, Blanchard felt her teeth clench up. Needing some time alone to recover from such an experience was neither abnormal nor unhealthy. But to try so hard to pretend he didn’t really need it was something else again. “No, go ahead,” she told him. “Someone’ll call you as soon as they know about him.”

  “Don’t worry,” McGee said soothingly. “Dr. Thornton’s got a really good chance.”

  “Thornton,” Lamar said thoughtfully, almost as if tasting the sound of the name. “I knew someone named Thornton once.”

  “Doubt it’s the same one,” the tech at the MiNex terminal shook his head. “This one’s named Jack, fifty-one, works at Caltech—”

  “You can get all the details from Thornton himself later,” Blanchard cut the tech off, throwing a warning glare in his direction. There was still a fair chance Thornton’s brain had gone too long without neuropreservatives to be savable, and if that happened she’d rather Lamar have known the man only as a faceless shadow. “For now, I really think you ought to go to bed,” she added. “Don’t forget we’re due in court at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Lamar’s lip twitched, just a bit. “Yeah. Right.”

  Blanchard squeezed his hand again. “Okay. So, I’ll see you then. Sleep well.”

  “Sure.” Lamar seemed to brace himself, then lurched forward, landing on only slightly unsteady feet. With a vague sort of wave over his shoulder, he shuffled to the door and left.

  Blanchard took a deep breath, exhaled it silently. She’d been with Lamar ever since he’d joined the LA Pro-Witness program eight months ago … and much as she hated to admit it, down deep she knew that McGee was right.

  Lamar was starting to lose it.

  “I think maybe we ought to recommend to the D.A.’s office that they pull him off,” McGee said quietly from behind her. “Whether he likes it or not.”

  Blanchard turned to face him. “We can’t do that,” she said. “If he quits in the middle of a case, they won’t let him come back.”

  McGee snorted gently. “I submit that his mental health is more important than his job.”

  “I submit the two aren’t separable,” she countered tartly. “I don’t know if you’ve read his file, but this is the first job Walker’s ever had that’s had even a scrap of public dignity associated with it. You tell him he can’t handle it and throw him out, and his wallet won’t be the only thing that suffers.”

  “Fine,” McGee said. “Then just get him a leave of absence or something. I mean, we are Soulminder. The right word to the right person ought to be able to bend city policy a little.”

  Blanchard shook her head. “Not this time. The D.A.’s office is very jealous of its turf here. And very sensitive to suggestions that Soulminder might be quietly running their Pro-Witness program for them.”

  McGee sighed, his gaze flicking over her shoulder to where Lamar had exited. “I don’t like keeping him on, Doctor,” he said quietly. “Not in the shape he’s in. I really don’t.”

  “He’ll make it,” she said, forcing conviction she didn’t feel into her voice. “As soon as the Holloway case is wrapped up I can get him some off time.”

  “You really think he’ll last that long?”

  “Of course he will,” Blanchard growled. Abruptly, she was tired of this conversation. “All the pre-trial stuff is over. Holloway will testify and be cross-examined tomorrow, and that’ll be it until he comes in for the verdict and sentencing.” And then, she reminded herself with a sort of dull bitterness, his soul would be released from the trap and go … wherever it was souls went. That wasn’t something she liked to think about. She certainly didn’t want to talk about it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be in court tomorrow.”

  “You want me to wake you if Thornton makes it?” McGee called after her as she headed for the door.

  “Don’t bother—I’ll read about it in the morning.”

  She was still awake an hour later when the news came over the MiNex console that the team had indeed gotten to Thornton’s body in time.

  The line went flat, and Walker Lamar was dead. Again.

  “It’ll be just another minute,” the doctor told the assembled officials.

  “Fine,” Judge Harold Grange nodded, his face and voice glacially calm. In contrast, Assistant D.A. William Dorfman looked almost bored, while Defense Attorney James Austin seemed hawk-eyed alert. Watching for a mistake, Blanchard decided, some legal technicality he could use in his appeal.

  At least she assumed that was his strategy. From what she’d heard of Holloway’s discussions with the D.A. that was probably the only chance Austin’s client had.

  “Ready,” the doctor said briskly. “Here we go.”

  The indicator lights changed colors, the biotrace lines became squiggly again, and on the transfer table Lamar’s body came back to life.

  The judge took a step forward. “Michael Holloway?” he asked.

  The eyes had been gazing at the ceiling, studying it as if he’d never seen self-cleaning ceramic tile before. Turning his head, he looked at the judge, the same oddly rapt look in his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. He licked his lips, first the upper and then the lower; licked them both again as if savoring the experience. “Yes,” he repeated, louder this time.

  “It’s time.” The judge turned back to the two lawyers. “Let’s go. Get everything signed,” he added to the young clerk standing over by the readout console, a sheaf of legal papers clutched in her hand. Without waiting for a reply, he strode to the transfer room door and headed out.

  Ten minutes later, in the new courthouse that had been built next door to Soulminder Los Angeles for just this purpose, the case of People v. Battistello was reconvened.

  “The people,” Dorfman announced, “call Michael Holloway to the stand.”

  Beside him, the witness got to his feet and stepped to the stand. His eyes, Blanchard noted from her seat behind the prosecutor’s table, continued to dart all around the room as he was being sworn in.

  “State your name for the record,” Judge Grange said.

  He s
ettled himself gingerly into his chair, leaned forward toward the microphone. “Michael Andrew Holloway.”

  Judge Grange shifted his attention to Dorfman. “Are the people prepared to prove that this is indeed Mr. Holloway speaking?”

  “Yes, your honor.” Dorfman half turned. “The people call Katherine Holloway Ross and Lisa Holloway Davis.”

  Two well-dressed women in their forties stood up and came forward, and Blanchard felt a little of the tightness go out of her stomach. She’d argued strongly with Dorfman that he use Holloway’s sisters rather than his brothers, but up until now she hadn’t been at all certain the prosecutor would follow that recommendation. The confirmation procedure could be devastating for everyone involved, and in her admittedly limited experience she’d found that women tended to handle the emotional trauma better than men.

  The two women had arrived at the bench now, flanked by the opposing attorneys. “As per federal statute concerning Professional Witness testimony,” the judge said, his gaze shifting back and forth between the women, “the first three questions from each of you will be public, and on the public record. All others may, if either or both of you so choose, be confidential between yourselves, the witness, and the court. Those questions and their answers will be sealed by this court against any and all public disclosure, except in extraordinary circumstances. Do you both understand?”

  They nodded. “Then you may proceed,” the judge said, swiveling his microphone around to face them.

  There was a second of hesitation. Then, the elder of the two women stepped up to it. “Mike,” she said, her voice trembling just a bit. “When you were ten, we all drove to Florida—do you remember? What did Jonathan say that had all of us in hysterics, and where was he when he said it?”