Kevin Chong - The Plague

He appeared to her to be around sixty, but trim and youthful. As she approached she noticed his blue eyes. He had a full head of greying hair, side-parted, that was a shade lighter than his goatee. He introduced himself as Graham. “First off, I must apologize for the timing of our meeting,” he told her. “There are better cities to be trapped in. I mean, I would be happily trapped in Barcelona. This city—ugh. It’s like Hong Kong run by the Swiss.”

“No problem,” she said blithely as she took in the gold-encrusted decor. He’s not putting me up in a nice-enough hotel. “I mean, I was the one who initially delayed.” He had wanted to meet a month earlier, but she’d needed to combine her two Vancouver events.

“I hope you’re getting good material,” he said, leading them into a kitchen that looked recently remodelled. Graham offered her a coffee as she looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the pool and tennis court, there was the ocean dotted with stranded oil tankers that were hemmed in by red-hulled Canadian Coast Guard boats. Past them were the mountains in the far distance, outside the quarantine zone. Despite this opulence, Tso felt as though only a fraction of this man’s wealth was being flaunted. His leather shoes were expensive, likely Italian, but battered.

“Perhaps I can occupy you for part of this layover,” he said. Graham stood alongside her and began by explaining that he was not religious. “I wish the idea of the afterlife felt credible. Not believing in hell led me to self-indulgence. World-class stupidity! But I am preoccupied with leaving a mark.” He was divorced, childless—“There’s a shitty nephew of mine who will be sorely disappointed when he gets nothing from me”—and he wanted to spend all of his fortune creating a legacy. “I didn’t accomplish much to get so wealthy. Not blowing it was my achievement. My grandfather and father were rich, and I took over the business when my older brother developed a cocaine habit. I’ve done well simply by not screwing up.”

Some of that accumulated wealth he’d spent altruistically. He had donated to a local hospital to erect a wing in memory of his parents. A greyhound rescue foundation received a large sum in the name of his favourite aunt. “I’m a pretty good guy, within reason. I want you to know that before you get your panties in a knot,” he told her, eyes flaring with provocation. Tso ignored it. “Now I want to do something for myself.” He led her to a glass-topped kitchen table, and handed her an iPad. First there were images of a snow-covered mountainside with a mirrored glass cube jutting from it. She saw images of a room with grey concrete walls and maple floors. The lighting and displays seemed to suggest a museum, but the images didn’t look like simulations. She swiped until she found the image of a rectangular metal object which looked at first like a martini shaker, before she realized it was much larger.

“You look like someone who grew up fascinated by mummies,” he began. His eyes traced her body from head to toe. Tso felt like he was running his finger over her for dust, like she was a window ledge, only to stop halfway with a fingertip blackened by soot.

“Well, I did, but I never grew out of it,” she said.

He told her that he wanted to construct a monument in the Canadian Arctic. It would be buried a thousand metres within a mountain on Ellesmere Island. “I could tell you what I’ve already spent on this, but you’d be furious, and I don’t have time for class warfare.” Within this structure would be a sarcophagus. “When I die, my executors will have instructions to announce to family and shareholders that I have been cremated. What will actually happen is that they’ll transport my body to this location in my bespoke casket.”

The mirrored cube entrance, inspired by the front door of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, would be covered up for a century with a façade made from natural materials that would disintegrate in that time. Graham envisioned the monument going undiscovered for at least that long. He wanted it to be found accidentally by people who would not recognize it. “My best-case scenario would be for aliens to happen upon it after our species has become extinct. Realistically, people will probably find it in fifty years when the Arctic Circle becomes habitable after more climate change.”

“What do you need me for?” she asked. “You have this figured out.”

His mouth puckered with displeasure. “I have put a lot of thought into this. You get a lot of input when something like this enters your head. You get a lot of static. You don’t know my family’s line of work, do you? We’re in advertising. My work is about messaging. What I want to do is advertise to the future. But I realize I might need some outside input, you see? Come, since you want my song and dance, I need you to follow me. Come. ”

She didn’t so much as decide but feel compelled to follow him. He had the voice of a high-school principal. She was led down a corridor until they reached a mudroom—shoes, boots, scuba gear. He took her through an ordinary door to an unexpectedly grand room, about the size of a gymnasium. The concrete floor had been lowered. At the centre of the room was a glass cube.

“This is a replica of the structure on Ellesmere,” Graham told her. “It’s my playroom.”

They walked down a ramp that took them to the floor and approached the cube. Two panels swept open like the doors of a spaceship. They stepped into a dark void.

A light came on slowly and she saw that the space was decked out like the drawing room of a tony country club, with wine-coloured leather chairs and leather-bound volumes in glass-fronted bookcases. In a cabinet were family photos and a set of war medals. What stood out in this tableau were two metal caskets that lay in the middle of the room like unpacked furniture.

“We had a number of concepts that emulated ancient Egyptian and Chinese cultures,” he told her. “I couldn’t wrap my head around them. They weren’t me. But I want it to be more, you see.”

“Ancient burial sites spoke of an afterlife; they served to bridge this world to the next,” she explained. “That they were discovered was incidental.”

“I know that—I’ve hired you to tell me something I don’t know.”

“Why are there two caskets?” she asked him.

“I don’t plan to die anytime soon, even with this pandemic outside. I am going to take the long view. And, as such, there is a chance I could meet someone.” He paused to suggest an unrelated thought. “You know, I was really taken by your author photo. Obviously, photos convey a subjective truth.” When she didn’t respond, he laughed it off. “It’s a shame that I’ve gotten pickier in old age. I used to be one-size-fits-all, but now I’m looking for someone tailor-made for me, like a hand-stitched glove.”

She shivered but allowed him to enumerate the qualities of an ideal tomb mate. This gave Tso the necessary time to perform a series of calculations. How much of her consulting fee would she have to eat if she left now? How long would she be able to stay at her hotel without his financial backing? What were her chances of being locked in his sarcophagus should she rudely dismiss his project? She looked toward the door.

“I probably should have demanded more information about this project,” she told him. “I don’t think I’m the right person for it.”

His face flushed. “Wait a second—wait—I shall be the judge of that,” he stammered.

“I’m going to return your fee. Most of it now, the rest when I get out of here.”

“The money is nothing to me.”

“I should go.”

He pointed to one of the club chairs. “ Sit down. ”