Elizabeth Hand - 12 Monkeys

“Come on,” Kathryn grabbed Cole and began hurrying to where a red canopy heralded the entrance to Bloomingdale’s. They ran inside, nearly tripping over a woman holding a glass tray heavy with perfume flagons.

“Hey—!”

Kathryn went on, heedless of the looks they were getting from well-dressed customers. Cole followed her, blood spotting his shirt as he dabbed at his mouth with the soaked handkerchief. Kathryn pulled up in front of a startled clerk in an oversized cashmere sweater and bow tie.

“Men’s clothing?” she demanded.

The clerk stared at her, then frowned and pointed to an escalator. “Second floor. To the right. But — can I help you?”

“No!” Kathryn called over her shoulder. She dragged Cole toward the escalator. He stumbled, clutching at the rail as the steps moved upward through billows of gossamer angel’s hair and tinsel garlands.

When they reached the top, Kathryn plowed on without hesitation, until they reached a display of haughty male mannequins in paisley flannel briefs.

“Here,” she said. She began pacing through rows of shirts and sweaters and trousers, stopping momentarily at a sale table to toss several things in Cole’s direction. He caught them clumsily, still following her blindly. A few yards away, behind a register, a clerk with the offended mien of a recent Harvard grad watched them with growing suspicion.

At a display for resort wear Kathryn tore a Hawaiian shirt from its hanger, grabbed the other things from Cole, and strode to the counter.

“… and this.” She glanced at the clerk, started to venture a smile, but thought better of it. Instead she turned to Cole. Anything else?”

But Cole wasn’t there. He stood several yards away, staring with huge frightened eyes at an immense Christmas tree. It loomed above the aisles of clothes and eager shoppers, branches laden with blown-glass globes and translucent crystal birds, delicate chains of gold and green, and crimson stars. At its very top was an angel with the pure face and spun-gold hair of a Renaissance painting, her outstretched arms shadowed by a pair of silvery wings. Cole’s mouth parted as he gazed into her face, watching in resigned dread as her porcelain features crumbled and fell like snow upon his upturned cheeks, while overhead pigeons flapped noisily into the gloom of a disintegrating building.

“James.”

Cole turned, still not seeing Kathryn where she stood at the counter with clothes heaped before her. Apologetically, miming annoyance, she looked back up at the clerk.

“I guess that’s it,” she said with false cheeriness.

The clerk flashed her a chilly smile. “Shall I put that on your account, ma’am?”

“No.” She thrust her hand into her purse. “I’ll pay cash.” The clerk gaped as she began peeling bills from a huge wad. “What floor are the wigs on, please?”

The clerk rang everything up and began folding it neatly into sheets of tissue.

“That won’t be necessary,” Kathryn said, shoving the clothes into the waiting shopping bag. She turned and fled across the floor to Cole.

“Merry Christmas,” the clerk called after her with a grimace. As they stepped onto another escalator, he reached for the telephone.

Night. The waning moon cast golden streaks upon the bare brown lawn in front of a warehouse, momentarily ignited a torn magazine cover lifted by the wind. Shadows gathered in empty windows covered with steel mesh and cardboard. In the parking lot sat a dirty white van, painted with grotesquely large silverfish and cockroaches and what looked like gigantic crabs, their antennae waving.

Inside the van, light flared as a flashlight played across a small circle of excited faces. Moonglow sifted through he window, gilded the smooth curve of Teddy’s shaven scalp, the ankh tattooed on his cheek. In the near-darkness the ghostly faces of the other five activists hovered above their black-clad torsos.

“So then he goes into this incredible riff about how his shrink, like, replicated his brain while he was in the nuthouse. Turned it into a computer.”

Teddy laughed, delighted at his own incredible tale, and leaned back on his haunches. A heavy leather belt circled his hips, weighted down with socket wrenches, hammers, and a heavy welding torch. The others were freighted with similar paraphernalia: pipe cutters, flares, rock-climbing gear.

“And Fale believed it?”

Teddy threw his hands up. “Oh, you know Fale! He’s like, ‘If you guys get nailed — and I’m sure you will — I never saw you before in my life!’”

Laughter all around, cut short by a sharp, rhythmic series of raps on the side door.

“Whoa, Nellie,” one of the women whispered, and quickly slid the door open.

In the moonlight stood Jeffrey, grinning broadly. “Good morning, campers!” Behind him, three more activists staggered out of the darkness, lugging a huge, squirming black garbage bag.

“Awwwrighhht!”

“Far out, man…”

Teddy leaned out, helped pick up the writhing bag and maneuvered it into the van. It lay quivering on the floor, like a gigantic pupa. Jeffrey and the other activists scrambled through the door, pushing their way to the front.

“Let’s do it!”

The van shuddered to life, lumbered out of the parking lot and up onto a nearby entrance ramp to the freeway. The garbage bag continued to squirm and groan as Jeffrey crouched by the front seat, using a penlight to trace a route on a city map.

“Okay, that’s stage one,” he announced dramatically, pointedly ignoring the bag behind him. “In stage two, Monkey Four is over here—”

Teddy and several of the others watched the twitching bag with growing dismay. “What’s the harm of opening it?” Teddy asked, once they were safely on the highway. “His eyes are taped, right?”

Jeffrey looked up, shrugged cheerfully. He thrust his map into the driver’s lap and leaned back over the bag, grabbing it with both hands and ripping it open. Black plastic fell away to reveal the trussed figure of Dr. Leland Goines, his mouth and eyes covered with silvery duct tape.

Jeffrey grinned wickedly. “Want the full effect?”

Before anyone could reply, he ripped the tape from his father’s mouth. Dr. Goines moaned, his blind head tossing back and forth, then cried out hoarsely.

“Jeffrey? I know it’s you, Jeffrey. I recognize your voice.”

Jeffrey put a finger to his lips and looked around, commanding the others to silence.

“ Jeffrey? ” Dr. Goines’ tongue flicked out over his dry mouth. His body shook with a spasm of coughing. “Very well. I know all about your insane plan. That woman — your psychiatrist — she told me.”

Jeffrey raised his eyebrows in surprise, fought to keep his dismay from showing as his father went on, his blinded face eerie in the dimness.

“I didn’t believe her — it seemed too crazy even for you. But, just in case, I took steps to make sure you couldn’t do it. I don’t have the code anymore. — I don’t have access! I took myself out of the loop! I don’t have access to the virus . So go ahead — torture me, kill me, do whatever you want. It won’t do any good.”

Above his now-still figure the other activists drew together, exchanging puzzled, even frightened, looks. Jeffrey turned to them, throwing his hands up in mock horror.

“ The loop? ” he cried. “The loopy scientist takes himself out of the loop? ” He laughed, loudly and incredulously, as Teddy and the others moved to the other side of the van.

Dr. Goines’ head spun, following the sound of Jeffrey’s voice. “I would never let myself believe it,” he said, his voice as thin and shrill as an old woman’s. “I mean, I could never truly believe it — my own son — but I know it now…”