Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

Immortality—no reason to feel any different, they could tell you it was just your appendix out, and you’d never even know.

Hey, am I immortal, or could the whole thing be a shuck? How the hell can I know, got only Bennie’s word for it. Could be they just faked it to cool me, I’d never know, can’t trust Bennie, and that’s for sure. Well, it doesn’t make any difference, win or lose, that game’s played out. Either way, when I get back to New York, Bennie’s had it. Next show I’ll really do him in… got those tapes safe and sound to make sure I get out of here alive, immortal or not, and maybe…

Why not? Get Bennie on the line, then play the tape on the air… What can he do? Sue me for libel, when it’s his own voice libeling itself? Dunno, better check first with lawyers—tapes can be edited, faked; they’re not evidence in court. Does that mean I’d have to prove another way he’s a murderer, or else he’d have a libel case? Unless I can con him with the tapes into confessing on the air… Shouldn’t be too hard to do. Seems like he’s finally flipped all the way, the way his eyes looked… maybe I could pull it off. It’d sure be nice and tidy, but dangerous as hell if I couldn’t bluff him. Better think about that, and get some good legal advice… maybe GOP lawyers…?

The door opened, and a dark man in a white tunic, obviously a doctor, peered inside, said: “Ah! Mr Howards, he’s awake. He’s come out of it.”

And Benedict Howards followed the doctor as he stepped inside.

“Well, Palacci,” Howards said, “go examine him. Tell me if it took.”

“No need to, Mr Howards,” the doctor replied. “If he’s alive and awake now, it took. The only danger was that the antibody suppressants might not work and his body would develop an allergic reaction to the grafts. That does happen, you know, in about two cases out of a hundred. But if it had happened, he’d be running a high fever, probably in a deep coma. In fact, by now he’d most likely be dead. It’s all right, he’s immortal and well, just like the woman.”

“Sara!” Barron shouted, feeling a stab of guilt that he had forgotten. “Sara’s all right?”

“Better than all right,” said Howards, and his eyes were still mad and gleaming the way they had been in the office… How many days ago? “She’s immortal now, just like you. And like me. How does it feel, Barron? How does it feel to wake up immortal, smell that pine in the air, and know you’ll never have to die? So long as you cooperate, of course.”

“I don’t feel anything, Howards,” Barron said guardedly. “I don’t feel any different at all. How do I know you didn’t just open me up and close me, or just drop me in a Deep Sleep chamber for… How long has it been? What day is this, anyway?”

“It’s Monday,” the doctor said. “You’ve been—”

Benedict Howards raised his hand, cut the doctor off. “I’ll do the talking,” he said. “When can he get up, Palacci? There’s a few things I want Mr Barron to see. Time he knew for certain, dead certain, who’s boss.”

“With forty hours of Deep Sleep recovery, he could get up right now. Strictly speaking, it’s not really a major operation. We don’t have to plant the grafts very deep.”

“Well, then go get him his clothes,” Howards said. “Mr Barron and I have a few things to talk over in private.”

As the doctor left, closing the door behind him, Barron propped himself up against the bedstead. He felt surprisingly strong and much more in control of the situation than he did flat on his back.

“All right, Howards,” he said, “so prove I’m immortal. I’ll admit I have no idea how it should feel, but it seems to me all I’ve got is your word for it, and all your word and thirty cents’ll get me is a ride on the subway. Just remember those tapes. You gotta keep me happy to keep me cool, and you gotta keep me cool just to stay alive, and you better not forget it.”

“Sure, you and your smart-ass tapes…” Howards smirked. “When you get back to New York, you’ll mail all the copies to me and we’ll have a nice little bonfire.”

Barron smiled. He’s really flipped for sure. “What planet you say you’re from, Bennie? You prove you really delivered, and I just might let you off—just maybe, depends how I feel. But those tapes are the property of yours truly, and I think I’ll just keep ’em around to keep you—you should pardon the expression—honest. The penalty for murder is death in the chair, and you better keep that in mind.”

“I’ll try to keep it in mind, Barron,” Howards said. (But his paranoid loonie eyes were laughing. Laughing!) “And I think you’d do well to remember it too. And you are immortal, and I will prove it. I’m gonna show you everything, give you a guided tour of the whole operation. You’re gonna find out just how you were made immortal, and believe me, that’ll prove to you that I really delivered.”

“You’re gibbering, Howards. How’ll that prove anything?”

Howards laughed, and in the chill certainty behind his paranoid eyes Barron got a flash of mortal dread, knowing for certain, dead certain, that Benedict Howards was now sure he had everything in the bag.

“All in good time,” Howards said. “You’ll see. You’ll see what my percentage was in making you immortal all along. Maybe those tapes do put my life in your hands, but your own immortality is what gives you to me. All the way, Barron, I own you now, you’re my flunky now, and you’ll never be able to forget it. But wait till your clothes get here, then you’ll see. Oh, man, will you see!”

“You see, Barron, what they tell me it’s all in the glands,” Benedict Howards said as the elevator finally stopped, down in what Jack Barron figured had to be a deep subcellar of the hospital.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see a Frankenstein Monster slimy-stone passageway, he thought, as the elevator door slid open and anticlimactically revealed an ordinary white-walled, windowless, fluorescent-lit hospital corridor.

“Endocrine balance, that’s what they call it, endocrine balance…” Howards continued babbling as the two guards, with their pistols conspicuous but holstered, led them out of the elevator and down the hall. Apparently the guards already had their orders, since Howards hadn’t spoken a word to them after they had left the hospital room, just kept babbling a lot of stuff about hormones and glands.

Barron was hardly listening. Howards’ abstracted, glazed eyes, the way he kept talking a blue streak, turning his head here, there, here, like a frightened bird, convinced him that Bennie was way ’round the bend. And, he thought, all this fucking medical jargon he obviously only half understands…

But that, Barron suddenly realized, that’s the kicker. If it were all a shuck, he wouldn’t know all this stuff unless he had memorized the whole set-spiel just to put me on, and then he’d be way smoother, Bennie’s not show biz enough to pull a con this subtle off. Which means…

It’s for real; at least it’s possible. Immortality. Maybe I really got it, he’s not putting me on? Immortal! I don’t feel any different but why should I, I’m young and I’m healthy, and if it’s true, I’ll never feel different, not now, not in half a million years…

Or will I? he wondered. Bennie’s sure different, more paranoid by the minute since this whole thing started. But maybe the whole Foundation schtick was a paranoid bag for openers, and the more money Bennie’s got, the longer he’s got to live, the more he’s got to be scared shitless to lose. Which puts him exactly where I want him.