Robert Wilson - Vortex

“You don’t have any authority,” Meredith said.

“You can get out of my way,” Bose told Geddes, “or I can arrest you for interference, but make up your mind, sir. I wouldn’t be here at this hour if this wasn’t urgent business.”

Sandra imagined Congreve taking the call in his car, turning around, heading back to State. How long ago had he left? Half an hour, forty-five minutes? Had he gone straight home or stopped on the way? She tried not to betray her anxiety by looking at her watch.

Geddes had locked eyes with Bose, a classic stare-down, Sandra thought, but then the orderly sighed and turned to Nurse Meredith. “This man showed you his badge? His papers?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I can’t do nothing about it, ma’am.”

Geddes stepped aside. Bose, preternaturally calm, asked Meredith, “Do you need my signature?”

“If you insist on taking him you better had sign.” Nurse Meredith thrust a clipboard at him. “At the bottom. You too, Dr. Cole. Be hell to pay when Dr. Congreve gets here. It’s on you, that’s all I can say.”

Bose signed; Sandra added her own slightly shaky signature. Then she wheeled Orrin down the hallway at a brisk clip, following Bose’s long stride. Orrin had gone back to sleep, miraculously. She could hear his soft, rasping snores over the rattle of the wheels.

As soon as they were past the main door into the parking lot Sandra’s face began to prickle with sweat. A reef of clouds had hidden all the stars.

“The paperwork you gave them,” Sandra said, “was that legitimate?”

“Hardly. It’s a standard form. I just scribbled in a few of the boxes.”

“That’s not entirely legal, is it?”

He smiled. “Another bridge burned.”

“They’re going down fast.”

She took a last look back at State. She would never be allowed inside this building again. She was unemployed, she was free, and she was so frightened she felt like laughing out loud.

They headed toward the motel where Ariel Mather was staying. Orrin slept in the backseat, his body lax against the seat belt, his hospital gown spindled around his thighs. “We’ll need to get him some fresh clothes,” Sandra said.

“I believe Ariel brought him some clothes from Raleigh, just in case.”

A car passed by, speeding in the opposite direction—Sandra thought it might be Congreve’s car, though she couldn’t be sure. She spent a few moments relishing the thought of Congreve getting the news from Jack Geddes or Nurse Meredith.

“I brought his notebooks, too,” Bose said. “Orrin’ll be glad to have them back.”

“I read what you sent me. But there’s more, right?”

“A little more.”

“You still want my opinion of it?”

He gave her a curious look. “Anything you have to say, I’m interested.”

“At one point you thought the document constituted some kind of evidence.”

“Yeah. You may not have read the relevant parts yet.”

“But that’s not the real question, is it? The real question is, how much of it is true?”

He laughed, but she saw his grip tighten on the steering wheel. “Come on, Sandra. True? ”

“You know what I mean.”

“You really think Orrin’s channeling spirits from the year twelve thousand?”

“I willing to bet you’ve given it some thought. There are corroborative details in there, stuff you could have tracked down. Stuff even I could track down. Allison Pearl, for instance. Born and grew up in Champlain, New York. A truly incurious man might not wonder whether such a person really exists. But you’re not an incurious man.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As it happens, there’s no Allison Pearl in the Champlain directory.”

He wasn’t smiling anymore. “You checked?”

“Only a handful of Pearls altogether. No Allison, but there’s a couple with a daughter by that name.”

“You called them?”

“Yes.”

“Did they tell you I called them too?”

“Yes, but thank you for mentioning it.”

“Because Orrin, or whoever wrote that document, might not have picked those names out of the air—Turk Findley, Allison Pearl. I asked Mrs. Pearl whether she knows Orrin or Ariel Mather or anyone fitting their description.”

A question that hadn’t occurred to Sandra. “Does she?”

“No. She never heard of them. But that doesn’t rule out a connection. Orrin could have come across the name Allison Pearl somewhere, maybe from a neighbor who happens to be a distant relative—I don’t know. Or it could just be a coincidence.”

“Does that seem likely?”

“Compared to what? The idea that Orrin can travel in time? As far as I can tell the only trip he ever took was Raleigh to Houston on a Greyhound bus.”

“So we’ll never know?”

He shrugged.

Often in the weeks after the first encounter between Vox and the Hypothetical machines I caught myself quietly repeating my own name— Allison Pearl, Allison Pearl —anchoring myself to the syllables, the sound of them, the feeling of them in my throat and on my tongue.

As Allison, I had once read a book about the human brain. From that book I had learned the term “neural plasticity,” which means the ability of the brain to modify itself in response to changes in its environment. Neural plasticity was what made it possible for me to be Allison Pearl. It was also what made it possible for a living brain to be wired to a limbic implant. The brain adapts: that’s what brains do.

When Turk told me he had volunteered for surgery I pretended to be surprised. The implant had been an essential part of our plan from the beginning. But for the benefit of the Network’s hidden sensors I was obliged to feel betrayed, I was obliged to argue with him. So I argued. So I wept. It was a convincing performance. It was convincing because it was nine-tenths sincere. I didn’t doubt his courage, but no plan is foolproof. I was terrified of what he might become.

Shit happens, as the original Allison once wrote in her diary. No truer words, etc. For instance: the day Turk had his node installed—probably about the time he was being wheeled into surgery—Isaac Dvali came to see me, and he laid my secrets bare.

I knew from the newsfeeds that Isaac’s recovery had proceeded at an astonishing rate. Everyone in Vox Core was paying breathless attention to him now. Far more than Turk, Isaac had become what the city’s founders had hoped and believed one of the Uptaken ought to be: a living connection to the Hypotheticals—which meant the city’s promised transcendence remained at least plausible. Without Isaac, Vox was nothing but a congregation of fanatics whose faith had stranded them on a dead and deadly planet. With Isaac, it was still possible to believe Vox was a community of like-minded pioneers poised at the vanguard of human destiny.

Only days after the disaster in the Wilkes Basin, Isaac had mastered the ability to speak fluent Voxish. His motor skills improved to the point where he could walk unassisted, his body went from frail to remarkably robust, and the reconstructed portions of his skull began to look almost normal. The croaking, screaming creature Turk had known was gone. The newly and unsettlingly articulate Isaac had been released from medical care, though he still lived and slept in the rooms where he had been treated. Lately he had conducted vague but ingratiating interviews with scholars and managers, the contents of which were publicly broadcast. He praised Vox for its dedication and endurance; he expressed his admiration for the wisdom of the founding prophecies. For days now he had been traveling around the city like a tourist, sometimes mobbed by curious children whose equally curious parents hung back shyly and didn’t dare speak.