Майкл Бламлейн - Longer

“I’m mulling things over.”

“Yes or no?”

“Am I serious? Yes. Am I ready to pull the trigger? No.”

“So there’s hope.”

“Either way. Yes. Always.”

Dashaud felt better. Worried, yes, who wouldn’t be worried, but not quite so alarmed. This was a Cav he knew. A familiar Cav, tossing out an idea, inviting reaction. The discussion could last for months. Years. Humor sometimes helped. Close-mindedness rarely did.

“So. Two and out.”

“It’s an option.”

“It’s a waste, you ask me. But you’re not.”

“Helps to talk.”

“Glad you called.”

The two of them fell silent.

At length Cav cleared his throat. “There’s something else. I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“Tell me.”

“You can start by describing this enhancement of yours.”

“I’m still getting used to it.” He described his experience so far. “Sometimes it feels like a whole new sense. Not merely an improved one. I recognize things that I couldn’t. That didn’t exist to me.”

“Such as?”

“Pressure gradients. Vibrations. Big and little energy fluctuations. Nothing’s at rest, Cav. Nothing. Everything’s in motion.”

“I believe it.”

“Motion and countermotion. Back and forth. Peaks and valleys. Steady streams. Though mostly not steady.”

“Transitioning. Balancing.”

“Yes.”

“The song of life.”

“Not just life. Everything.”

Cav leaned in excitedly, until his face took up the whole screen. “Can you distinguish living from nonliving?”

“Easily. Who can’t?”

“There’s some disagreement on board.” He explained what they had, and what they’d done. What they knew, and what they didn’t.

“You believe it’s alive,” said Dashaud.

“Not only alive, but a new form of life. One we’ve never seen.”

“Sentient?”

“Unknown.”

He had a look. Dashaud had seen it before.

“I need you here,” said Cav.

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“How?”

“It’s been arranged.”

“Excellent.”

“But first there’s an errand I want you to run.”

It turned out to be a blockage in its gullet, a little external growth of tissue that closed it like a purse, making the bird unable to swallow. Dashaud removed it that evening, in a delicate operation made easy by his magical fingers. He released it the next day at the cliff, the female nowhere in sight. As he walked away, it took to the air, wheeled in a lazy circle, as if to test its wings, then headed out to sea. The day was overcast. The water, gunmetal gray. A mist hung in the distance, and before long its small white solitary body was swallowed by it.

The following day he left Iceland and flew to Denver, got a car and drove south along the Front Range, then farther south, then west. Cav had given him an address outside a town called Cinder Knife. The way it worked, he’d talked to someone, Cav had, who’d talked to someone else, who’d talked to a third person, who’d contacted the seller and confirmed. Making the trail all but impossible to follow, in the event someone got a stick up their ass.

The town was one block long and all boarded up, swept by the gritty desert sand and mummified by the hot, dry air. It could have been a hundred years old. Could have been two hundred. Dashaud blew through it, then had to slow down as he wound his way across the high plateau, past scrub, black rock, and a labyrinth of rutted dirt and gravel roads to a mailbox that sat atop a twisted and charred juniper stump. Behind it a tall pole with a security cam. Beside it a crushed rock driveway. He drove to the end of the driveway and got out.

The sun nearly knocked him over. The heat was brutal. He got his cap, then looked around.

In front of him was the back end of a double-wide, with a short flight of stairs leading to a door. Off to the side was another, larger building with cinder-block walls and a corrugated sheet metal roof, topped by a swivel-mounted cam. The place belonged to two brothers, he’d been told. One was a successful writer who had died some years earlier, under somewhat shady circumstances. Suspicion had fallen on the surviving brother, but nothing could be nailed down. In the end no charges were filed.

The brother was said by some to be reclusive and misanthropic, though others pointed out that three-quarters of the local citizenry fit that description. Chances were he was perfectly likable, to someone anyway. He made a living designing and building things: water towers, personalized surveillance equipment, computer arrays, and, most important for the purpose of Dashaud’s errand, cooling systems.

He materialized silently, like an apparition. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a holstered pistol. Asked for ID.

Dashaud handed it over.

He studied it, then gestured. “Your cap. Off.”

Dashaud removed it. Got his photo taken for at least the third time. SOP, he guessed, though his size and the color of his skin still made some people nervous. Not many, not now, not here in the twenty-second century, what some were calling the Age of Yes, Finally. The Age of About Time. The Age of Long Overdue.

The guy flicked his eyes from the fish-eye nestled in his palm to his visitor, awaiting confirmation. He had deep-set eyes, a wiry frame, and a pendulous beard. At length he gave a nod and pocketed the device.

“You’re the guy who made them,” he said.

“One of the guys. There was a team.”

“You headed it.”

He’d been criticized and demonized in the past, more times than he could count. Used to defend himself, in shouting matches if necessary. Finally learned to thicken his skin and not rise to the bait. Ignorant people didn’t come to learn. Hypocrites didn’t want to be educated. All they wanted was to point the finger of blame.

“Long time ago. Unique situation.”

“You did what you were told.”

“I did what was right.”

“You volunteered.”

Actually, he was picked. “Yes.”

“No questions asked.”

The guy had it all figured out. Dashaud had heard it a hundred times before. He glanced at the holster, which appeared to be homemade, then the gun.

Cav had mentioned the man was eccentric. He’d said nothing about the prospect of being shot.

“You alive during the Hoax?” he asked.

A dip of the chin.

“Then you know how it was.”

“Not much different today.”

An interesting observation. Save for two small clouds, three buzzards, and a faraway plane, the sky was clear. Not a thing in it you wouldn’t expect. Had been that way for over fifty years. Smart money said it would stay that way. You had your skeptics, naturally. Your holdouts. Your crazy-ass contrarians.

“You know something I don’t?” he asked, hazarding a friendly grin.

The guy’s eyes narrowed. His finger twitched.

“Let me try that again.”

“You’re making a joke.” He looked bewildered. Slowly, comprehension spread across his face.

Next thing Dashaud knew, his hand was being gripped and eagerly pumped up and down.

“Cantrell. Abel. It’s an honor to meet you. Didn’t recognize you at first.”

“Do we know each other?”

“Skin color didn’t match. You look lighter than your photo. Threw me off. You know how it is. Can’t be too careful. Let me show you around.”

Dashaud turned out to be something of a hero of his. Once over the recog hump, he got the red carpet treatment, beginning with the house, then the grounds, an acre and a half of high desert with an unobstructed view of more of the same, all the way to the horizon. The tour ended in the other building on the property, the workshop, which was the jewel box, and dwarfed the house.