Richard Powers - The Echo Maker

Mark raised his unwired hand. “I promise to tell the truth…etcetera, etcetera. So help me, Gosh.”

They looked at pictures together. Weber flipped through Karin’s photos, watched the bobbing needle, and scribbled down numbers.

“Hey! The Homestar! That’s my house. It’s a beautiful thing. They built that sucker to my personal specifications.”

The needle danced again. “There’s Duane-o. Look at that pudgy bastard. Knows a lot, even if he’s not the race’s brightest bulb. And that’s the Rupture. Check the cue technique. You’d want this guy on your side, in any — you know — situation. If you’re looking for your overall good times, these are the two to call.”

The picture of his sister — Karin as Goth vampire — produced little conductance. He closed his eyes and pushed the picture away. Weber fished. “Anyone you know?”

Mark looked down at the four-by-six glossy picture. “It’s…you know. The daughter from the Addams Family.”

The needle flickered at the picture of his great-grandfather. “The patriarch. This guy? He was sitting in that sod house when he was a kid, and a cow came crashing through the roof. Good times, back then.”

The IBF packing plant produced an anxious twitch. “That’s where I work. Christ, it’s been weeks. I hope to God they’re holding my spot. You think?”

Conscientiousness outliving its usefulness: Weber had seen it hundreds of times. Twenty years before, his eight-year-old daughter, Jessica, almost killed by a burst appendix, came back to awareness frantic that her oral report on the honey-dance of bees would be late.

“I can’t lose that job, man. It’s the best thing to happen to me since my father died. They need me to keep those hoppers going. I’ve got to get in touch with the boss, ASAP.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Weber told him.

The needle spiked again with the picture of Mark’s attendant. “Barbie Doll! So, all right, I know this Gillespie woman is like practically your age. But she’s still great. Sometimes I think she’s the only real person to survive the Android Invasion.”

He responded to the picture of Bonnie Travis as well. In fact, watching the meter as Mark studied her picture, Weber made out something Karin Schluter hadn’t mentioned.

Mark nodded at the photo of Cattle Call. The needle failed to suggest that Mark associated the local band with the anxiety of his last intact night. “These guys are okay. They’re not ready to play Omaha, or anything. But they’ve got a groove and a little bit of the High Lonesome, two things that aren’t easy to combine, I’m telling you. I’ll take you to hear them, if you’d like.”

“Might be interesting,” Weber said.

For Mark’s parents, another flat line. Mark stuck his unwired hand up underneath his knit cap, stretching it from the inside. “I know what you want me to say. This one looks like Harrison Ford, pretending to be my father. This one — somebody’s idea of my mother on a good day. But not even in the minor-league ballpark, really. Hang on a minute.” He gathered the stack of pictures and crumpled them. “Where’d you get these?”

Stupidly, Weber wasn’t ready for the question. He ran through the possible lies. He rested his face on his fist, looked Mark in the eye, and said nothing.

Mark grew frantic with theories. “You get these from her? Don’t you see what’s going on? I thought you were supposed to be some famous East Coast freak of intellect. She steals these good pictures from my friends. Then she hires actors who look a little like my family. Snaps a few shots. Boom! Suddenly, I’ve got a whole new history. And because nobody else knows any better, I’m stuck with it.” He slapped the picture of his parents with the back of his hand. He threw the stack of pictures on the table between them and tore the electrode leads off his fingers.

Weber picked up the photo of Mark Schluter’s father. “Can you say what exactly doesn’t seem…?”

Mark plucked the photo from his hands. He tore it down the middle, neatly bisecting his father’s head. He offered the pieces to Weber. “A gift for Miss Deep Space…” A gasp came from the hall. Mark scrambled to his feet. “Hey! You want to spy on me, come spy…” He swung toward the door, ready for a chase. Karin tumbled into the room.

She brushed past him and snatched the torn photo pieces. “What do you think you’re doing, tearing your own father?” She threatened him with the scraps. “How many of these do you think we have?”

It stopped him in place. Her sheer rage baffled him. Docile, he stood by as she fit the scraps together and inspected the damage.

“It can be taped,” she declared at last. She glared at her brother, shaking her head. “Why are you doing this?” She sat down on the bed, shaking. Mark sat down again, too, chastened by something too big to dope out. Weber just watched. His job description: watch and report. For twenty years, he’d built a reputation on exposing the inadequacy of all neural theory in the face of the great humbler, observation.

“What are you feeling right now?” he asked.

“Anger!” Karin shouted, before realizing the question wasn’t for her.

Mark’s voice, when it came, was even more mechanical than his eerie baseline. “What do you care?” He tilted his head toward heaven. “You don’t understand this. You come from New York, where everybody’s God, or something. Out here, people…My sister? She’s weird, but she’s my only ally on earth. Me and her, basically, against everybody. This woman?” He pointed and snorted. “You saw her try to attack me.” He sat down at the testing table and started to cry. “Where is she? I just miss her. I’d just like to see her again for five seconds. I’m afraid something may have happened to her.”

Karin Schluter echoed the moan. She raised her palms and took two steps toward the door, then stopped and sat down. The tape recorder was running. A part of Weber was already writing up this uncanny moment. Mark sat fiddling with the GSR meter. His eyes cast terrified looks around the room. He held the electrical leads in one hand. Then, as if convulsed by current, his fist clenched and he sat up. “Listen. I just had an idea. Can we try something? Can you just…?”

Mark offered Weber the leads. Weber thought to refuse, as affectionately as possible. But in two decades of field research, no one had ever refused his testing. He smiled and attached the contacts to his fingertips. “Fire when ready.”

Mark Schluter slid his pelvis forward. His limbs flailed like the blades of a tin windmill. From his jeans pocket he extracted a crumpled note. At the sight of it, his sister groaned again. Mark fixed his eyes on the meter. He unfolded the paper and handed it to Weber. In a frantic, leaky hand, almost unreadable, someone had scribbled:

I am No One

but Tonight on North Line Road

GOD led me to you

so You could Live

and bring back someone else.

“Look!” Mark cried out. “It moved. The needle jerked. It went right up to here. What does that mean? Tell me what that means.”

“You have to calibrate it,” Weber said.

“Have you seen this note before?” Mark kept his eye fixed on the meter. “Do you know who wrote this?”

Weber shook his head. “No.” Pure alien curiosity.

“It moved again! Man. Please don’t jerk me. We’re talking about my life , here.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you. But I don’t know anything about it.” Even to himself, he sounded fake.

Disgusted, Mark waved for him to remove the finger clips. He pointed toward the bed. “Hook her up.”

Karin was on her feet, both hands slicing the air. “Mark, I’ve told you all I know about the thing a hundred times.”