Elizabeth Hand: 12 Monkeys

“SCIENTIST SAYS ‘IT’S TOO LATE FOR CURE.’”

A voice shattered Coles reverie. “Close your eyes, Cole.” Cole started, then obediently shut his eyes. The darkness was a blessed relief.

“Tell us in detail what you’ve seen in this room,” a woman said softly.

Cole shook his head. “In this room? Uh…”

“Tell us about the pictures on the wall,” the microbiologist said.

“You mean the newspapers?”

“That’s right,” the woman said soothingly. “Tell us about the newspapers, Cole. Can you hear my voice? What does he look like, the man who just spoke? How old were you when you first left the surface?”

“How old…?”

“Tell us,” she urged.

“Tell us,” other voices chimed in. “Tell us, tell us…”

He tilted his head back, eyes still tightly shut, his body aching with exhaustion. The bitter taste lingered in the back of his throat. He wondered vaguely if he had been drugged — he could remember so little, even now he was uncertain if he was awake or dreaming. How old were you when you left the surface? He tried not to yawn as the voices blurred and faded into one another voice, droning on and on…

“ Flight 784 is now boarding at Gate… ”

He stood in front of the observation window, watching as a 737 descended smoothly through the smoggy air, then touched down onto the runway, tires shrieking. His mother’s hand held his loosely. His father pointed at the aircraft and said, “Look — there it is—”

From behind them came a shout, then a woman’s voice, yelling. He turned, his father grabbing his free hand, and saw a middle-aged man with a thinning ponytail hurrying past. As the man turned the corner, he bumped the young Cole with a Chicago Bulls sports bag.

“Hey.” Cole frowned at the man’s departing back. A woman’s voice pierced the air.

“NOOOOOOOO!”

Everywhere there were people running and screaming, luggage skidding across the floor as they fled. Cole watched open-mouthed as a man dove to the floor, arching onto his back and staring up at Cole with panicky eyes as he cried—

“Just exactly why did you volunteer?”

Cole gasped. His eyes flew open: he saw before him the long litter-strewn table ringed with anxious faces.

“I said, why did you volunteer?” The microbiologist impatiently tapped a pencil on the table.

Cole swallowed, looked around. “Well, uh — actually, the guard woke me up. He told me I volunteered.”

The scientists turned to each other, whispering urgently. Cole tried desperately to keep his eyes open, but it was too much: the dream started to take him again. His head dropped, he could hear an intercom blaring, and footsteps…

“Cole? Cole?”

Once more the tapping sound pushed him into wakefulness. Cole started, gazing into the eyes of an earnest-looking man with silver hair and one gold earring — an astrophysicist, he had told Cole earlier. The astrophysicist nodded as he went on, “We appreciate your volunteering. You’re a very good observer, Cole.”

Cole glanced over at the microbiologist, his pencil drumming its tattoo on the tabletop. He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You’ll get a reduction in sentence.” The silver-haired astrophysicist looked at Cole, obviously waiting for him to thank him again, but Cole kept his face impassive.

“To be determined by the proper authorities,” another scientist broke in.

“We have another program,” a zoologist added. It was clear from her tone that she expected Cole to be impressed by this. “Very advanced, something quite different. Requires very skilled people.”

The microbiologist leaned across the table, his dark glasses pointing ominously to Cole. “It would be an opportunity to reduce your sentence considerably…”

“The zoologist nodded. “And possibly play an important role in returning the human race to the surface of the earth,” she said.

“We want tough-minded people. Strong mentally.” The earnest-looking astrophysicist tugged at his earring, then glanced at the man beside him. “We’ve had some — misfortunes — with unstable types.”

Cole felt a tightening in his stomach. One of the woman gazed pointedly at him. “For a man in your position,” she said, her eyes glinting, “this could be an opportunity.”

“Not to volunteer could be a real mistake,” a man added softly.

Cole opened his mouth to reply, hesitated. The microbiologist tapped his pencil impatiently.

“Definitely a mistake,” he said.

Cole stared at the pencil, the thin pale fingers that clutched it, then looked around the table at the ring of anxious faces. He took a deep breath and asked, “When do I begin?”

“Yet among the myriad microwaves, the infrared messages, the gigabytes of ones and zeroes, we find words, byte-sized now…”

Dr. Kathryn Railly stared raptly at the man perched on a high stool at the front of the room. She’d heard him read before, at another club in Philly, but tonight he was really on a roll. She adjusted her glasses, brushed a strand of dark hair from her elegantly composed face, and leaned forward, listening intently.

“…words, tinier even than science, lurking in some vague electricity where, if we listen, we can still hear the solitary voice of that poet telling us, ‘Yesterday This Day’s Madness Did Prepare; Tomorrow’s Silence, Triumph or Despair…’”

Breep! Breep!

Kathryn started, then reached reflexively for the beeper in her pocket. From their chairs, several black-clad bohos glanced at her and scowled.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and stood. Her neighbors shot her filthy looks as she stepped over their feet, picking her way through folding chairs and coffee mugs and nouveaux beatniks. “‘Scuse me, sorry…”

From his seat the poet glared at her, his voice rising. “‘…for you know not why you go, nor where…’”

Only, of course, Kathryn did know ‘where.’ In the lobby she found a pay phone and made a quick call. A second call sent her to the Eighth Precinct Station House. Detective Franki met her in the hallway. He was a man on the young side of forty, with eyes that had seen too many greasy dawns on the wrong side of town. He nodded at her briefly.

“Dr. Railly. Thanks.” Without further ado, he took her arm, propelling her down the corridor as he filled her in on the case.

“…so they get there, they ask the guy real nice for some kind of ID. He gets agitated and starts screaming about viruses. Totally irrational, totally disoriented, doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know what day it is, the whole ball of wax. All they got was his name.” Franki shoved a paper at Kathryn as they strode past crowded holding cells. “They figure he’s stoned out of his mind, or it’s some kind of psychotic episode, so—”

“He’s been tested for drugs?”

Franki shook his head. “Negative for drugs. But he took on five cops like he was dusted to the eyeballs. No drugs! You believe that?”

He paused in front of a tiny observation window. Kathryn took a breath, trying not to wince at the rank scents of urine and disinfectant. Then she leaned forward and peered through the dirty glass.

Inside the padded cell a man was restrained to a heavy steel chair. He was of average height but powerfully built, with smoothly muscled forearms and neck, high forehead, and a prizefighter’s nose. His hair was a black stubble across his scalp, his eyes blearily alert as he stared at the gray walls. Sweat trickled down his forehead, threading between bruises and welts, and a nasty-looking cut above one eyebrow. Every now and then his head would start to droop forward, as though he were falling asleep, until the restraints grew taut and he jerked upright again to stare wide-eyed at the empty room.