Brian Stableford - Busy Dying.pdf

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BRIAN STAPLEFORD - Busy Dying
HE COULDN'T REMEMBER whether he'd ever been to that particular spot before, but
the open plaza looked vaguely familiar. As he climbed the ugly centerpiece of
the fountain, aiming for the pagoda-like roof above the bug-eyed gargoyles, he
seemed to be reaching for familiar footholds. They were already shouting his
name, but that didn't mean a thing; he supposed that he'd be recognized in any
of a hundred cities, in any of four hundred malls. He was quite a celebrity.
By the time he reached his selected coign of vantage a thousand people were
converging on the fountain. The design of the atrium was such that the crowds on
the second, third, and fourth floors had as good a view as the people at ground
level, and the escalators were crammed with excited gesticulators hoping that
the moving stairways wouldn't carry them too far before the show began.
He checked his watch. Give it ten, he thought, beginning to count down.
He knew there were a dozen security cameras on him and that anyone in the crowd
with a camcorder would be pointing it at him already, but the CNI were probably
all ready to go with an injunction against any mall in this or any other city,
and you couldn't trust amateurs to produce A-1 footage even with today's
technological aids. He figured that ten seconds ought to be enough to bring down
a few newsdrones. Even the networks posted drones in mails these days, and not
just because of him. Malls were the commercial arteries of the nation, and
mallnews was always a big item in the human interest slots.
At five he uncapped the can, and threw the cap into the crowd so that the kids
could fight over it. At seven he began to pour, so that he would be ready to
drop the can into the rippled pool of the fountain at nine.
Smoothly, with practiced competence, he struck the match with his fingernail. Is
that slick, or is that slick, he asked himself. He had always cared about
matters of style.
His sneakers were still squelching and the legs of his pants were soaked from
his dash across the pool, but he knew it wouldn't matter. The rest of him was
soaked with something infinitely less inclined to dampen the spirits.
The flames came up about him with an audible whoosh, and black smoke billowed
forth. For a second or two -- but it might have been an olfactory illusion -- he
thought that he could smell his own flesh burning.
Wow, he thought.
Wow! Wow! Wow!
When her bleeper went off Margaret Percik woke up with a sudden start, surprised
and slightly guilty about the fact that she'd nodded off.
She didn't need to check her wristphone; it was Emily signaling that Walter
Murray was recovering consciousness. She hurried, intent on arriving before he
removed the skimskin sealing his eyelids, but she needn't have bothered. The
monitoring devices had blown the whistle on him but Walter was playing possum.
He hadn't moved a muscle; he was probably playing for time while he tried to
figure out who and what and where he was. Thanks to him, doctors now knew that
death usually caused temporary amnesia, and he had had enough practice dying to
have developed habitual methods of dealing with the condition.
As she checked the instruments she felt sure that he was tracking her movements
with avid ears. He flinched, though, when Emily checked his waste-disposal
tubes. She carefully peeled the skimskin away from his eyes, and he opened them,
blinking against the light. He had to close the lids again for a second or two,
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but when he could keep them open they focused readily enough on her face: no
lasting damage there.
He looked up at her without recognition. Emily moved to the head of the bed so
that he could study them both. She and Emily were as handsome as one another but
not in the least alike, in spite of the fact that they were wearing severely
clinical white coats. Margaret was dark and stem and so comprehensively imaged
for authority that she was almost austere; Emily was fairer and softer and
decorated. Nobody was supposed to be able to tell a woman's age anymore, but
that was bullshit. Wrinkles or no wrinkles, Margaret knew, it was obvious to
anyone with half an eye that Emily was an absolutely authentic twenty-one,
whereas she herself was fifty-five and then some.
Margaret darted a quick glance at Emily, to make sure that she was paying
attention. It was important, according to their agreed procedure, that they both
looked at him without the slightest trace of sympathy or admiration.
"Can you remember who you are?" Margaret asked.
There was a twenty second gap before he replied. Finally, he said, "I seem to
have temporarily misplaced my name. I'm sorry."
"You were very lucky, Mr. Murray," she said. "If you hadn't fallen into the
fountain. . . . "
That drew a slight reaction -- as if the horror of it had hit him like a punch
in the gut, although he couldn't quite fathom out why the thought was so
horrible.
"What fountain?" he said, in a puzzled fashion. "Murray, you say? Is that my
name -- Murray?"
"You shouldn't play with fire, Mr. Murray," said Margaret, as sternly as she
could. "It isn't like the knives and the ropes. We can regenerate burned
brain-tissue, but not the field-states which inhabited it before it was burned.
Try this one again, Mr: Murray, and you might come back first cousin to a
cabbage. I guess you already qualify as a zombie ten times over, but this time
you were just a few seconds away from being a hundred-forty pounds of fresh meat
with vacant possession. As I said, if you hadn't fallen into the fountain. . . .
"
"Do I know you?" he asked.
She did her level best to look at him as though he were some kind of insect
crawling around the drawer where she kept her underwear.
"Yes, Mr. Murray," she said sourly. "You know me. And you also know Mr.
Stepanova. He's waiting for a call to tell him that you're awake. He has some
news for you."
She picked up a remote from the instrument-console beside the bed and punched
out a sequence; the wallscreen at the far end of the room flickered blue,
displayed the relevant codes, and then dissolved into a picture.
Stepanova had been waiting to make the call; Emily had bleeped him at the same
time she'd bleeped Margaret. He was looking straight into the camera, as
purposefully as any man could. He'd been chiseled for it, but it wasn't an
overly impressive job. Every man of a certain age went in for that kind of
power-dressing of the features, and it rather nullified the effect.
"You're busted, Murray," said Stepanova, with a bitter wrath he did not need to
feign. "This is the end. We've got an injunction from the Supreme Court banning
you from making any further use whatsoever of any product manufactured by the
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Confederation which is not on open sale. I have a court order requiring you to
hand over all the nanotech equipment which you removed from our laboratories.
Your lawyers may have built an effective dam against the possibility of your
being certified insane and straitjacketed, but this is nice and simple and
utterly unbreakable --and to be quite honest, I think your guys are losing heart
now that your bank account is in the doldrums. One more suicide and you are
under house arrest for ever and ever a-men. You're out of it, Murray
--understand? It's over."
"I'm sure you mean well," said Murray, mildly. "But I'm afraid I don't know what
you're talking about. Do I know you?"
Stepanova frowned, as if he suspected that he was being ribbed and didn't like
it -- although Margaret had told him exactly what to expect. She keyed the
cut-off on the remote, lest Stepanova should start a pointless argument with her
patient. Then she handed over the instrument to Murray. He looked at it for a
second or two, but then nodded, as though he were glad to find it perfectly
familiar. He handed it back. "That I recognize," he said.
"But not me?" she countered.
He shook his head. "I'm Dr. Percik," she said, still straining to be as stem and
cold as possible. The theory was that she had to avoid providing any comfort
that might be construed as approval, and thus as encouragement to repeat the
behavior that had brought him to this; apparently it was still standard practice
in welcoming attempted suicide victims back from the brink. Personally, she had
no faith whatsoever in its efficacy in Walter Murray's case, but she was under
some pressure here from her peers and other interested parties, who were far
more interested in making him stop than in figuring out why he kept doing it.
"How am I, doctor?" he asked, flatly.
"As well as can be expected," she retorted, bluntly. After a slight pause,
during which she nodded an answer to Emily's unspoken question, giving the nurse
permission to leave the room, she added: "Stepanova means it, you know. By the
time I've collected my fees you'll be as near to flat broke as you can get. The
media won't bail you out this time; CNI have them all tied up in red tape. No
one wants to talk to you -- no one who'll pay you for the privilege, anyhow.
Your lawyers aren't even going to try to fight CNI's injunctions. You've finally
succeeded in cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may be famous, but
you've no job, and if you do anything -- I mean anything -- which involves the
use of prototype nanotech you'll be off the net for a long long time. Have a
little patience, Walter, and you may be able to live happily ever after. Kill
yourself one more time, and they'll see to it that you die of old age. I have no
axe to grind, you understand -- I'm out of it too. That's the last face you'll
ever get from me. From now on, you get your medicaid on credit. Basic treatment,
for which you have to stand in line."
"You have a great bedside manner," he remarked. It was impossible to judge how
disoriented he was, and how much he understood of what was being said to him.
The idea was to get the message across before he recovered his memory and his
resistance.
"It's difficult to be polite to a king-sized pain in the ass," she told him. She
narrowed her eyes speculatively, and she said: "If you have got more stolen
nanotech squirreled away, you'd better hand it over. However you came by it
originally, it's no longer legal for you to have it in your possession. Just
tell me where you stashed it, and I'll take it from there."
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Everyone's closed ranks, Walter," she said. "We're not going to let you die
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again. We're not going to let you destroy yourself. This time, you really have
to get your head together, okay?"
He just looked at her, meekly, as if he couldn't understand why she was talking
to him that way. She couldn't tell whether, or to what extent, he was putting it
on. Perhaps, she thought, it might be best if his memory didn't come oozing
back; maybe all he needed was a fresh start. She felt slightly ashamed of the
thought which came immediately afterward, which was: But then we'd never figure
out just what the fascination was. Damn Stepanova and his injunctions -- there's
a mystery here which we ought to be trying to solve.
She tried to look daggers at him one more time, just for luck, and then stalked
out of the room.
WHEN THE bleeper sounded again she woke up without a start, filled with a dull
sense that there was no escape. This time it was the automatic signal which told
her that Murray had activated the telescreen in his room. She had arranged a
tap, in the interests of scrupulous medical care.
The face which was staring out of her own telescreen inevitably seemed to be
looking her in the face, although it wasn't. It wasn't even looking Walter
Murray in the face: it couldn't, because it was a recording, doubtless
programmed to call him in the early hours of the morning, when no one was
supposed to be eavesdropping.
"Hello, Walter," said the caller -- who wore, of course, Walter's previous face.
"Who the hell are you?" the real Walter replied, his voice slightly distorted by
the bug she had placed to catch it.
"I'm your answerphone AI," replied the caller. "Extensively elaborated and
reprogrammed by your good self, for exactly such emergencies as this. Don't
worry -- you just have a slight touch of amnesia. At least, I hope it's slight.
It'll probably all come back to you in a day or two, but I'll give you all the
help I can. That's what I'm here for. Mostly I'm just a playback device, but I'm
rigged for simple questions and answers. Interrupt me whenever you need to. Your
name is Walter K Murray; the K doesn't stand for anything longer, it's a
one-letter middle name in its own right. You used to work for CNI -- that's the
Confederation of Nanotechnological Industries -- on the Safety Commission. Your
official title was Volunteer Subject, but in everyday parlance you were a
guinea-pig or a stunt man. You got fired a year ago for excessive attention to
duty -- at least, that's your version. Stepanova cooked up a charge sheet which
had everything from petty pilfering to reckless endangerment and bringing the
good name of the organization into disrepute, but it was mostly false. Are you
with me so far?"
"Not quite," said the real Walter, awkwardly. Margaret wished she could see his
face, to judge how he was taking it in, but it hadn't seemed worthwhile to plant
a spy-eye in a darkened room. The image on the screen flickered slightly as a
new subroutine engaged.
"It's okay," said the AI, gently. "Take your time. I guess you really messed up
the old brain cells this time. What did you do?"
"I don't know, exactly," he said. "Something about playing with fire and falling
into a fountain. My doctor isn't very helpful." He sounded sincere, but Margaret
knew that it might be an act.
"You should watch the news," said the AI. "All you need to do is call up the
relevant vidclippings. All your suicides are on tape."
"All my suicides? How many are there -- and why aren't I dead?"
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"You've killed yourself ten times to date," reported the AI, dutifully.
"Why would I do that?" said Walter, who should have known better than to confuse
an AI with a new question while one still remained unanswered. Anyway, AIs were
a lot better with whats and wheres and whens than they were with whys -- all he
was going to get was more data, not expert psychoanalysis.
"Your duties as a volunteer subject," said the AI, painstakingly, "involved
prototype medical nanotechnologies whose purpose is to enhance the body's powers
of self-repair. Their function is to assist in the rebuilding of damaged tissue,
to promote the healing of wounds and the regeneration of lost material. To put
it simply, your job was to sustain injuries of gradually increasing degrees of
seriousness, so as to explore the capacities and the limits of the nanomachines
that had been injected into your bloodstream. These included anesthetic enems as
well as the repair enems. You were good at your work. You liked it better than
most -- maybe better than anyone. You were part of an elite group, working with
the most advanced prototypes.
"When you first began to exceed your brief the guys in charge were enthusiastic
-- they encouraged you. The back room boys were quite delighted with you, and
probably still are. The company men were avid to go with the flow, and the CNI
let them; they didn't see any harm in the media attention you got. The first
time you came back after being certified dead the euphoria was universal. The
CNI brass were as interested as everyone else. It wasn't until the fifth that
Stepanova stepped in, talking about turning the CNI into some kind of circus. He
was too late, but he's certainly tried to make up for lost time. Do you need
more detail on all of this? I've got two more programmed levels, if you do."
"No," said the man in the bed, faintly. "I think it's coming back now, a little.
Testing the limits. That's what it was all about. Testing the limits. Exploring
the unknown. Boldly to go where no man. . . They're trying to stop me, aren't
they? They want to stop me."
"Yes they do," answered the AI. "They're trying to stop you, now. But it's okay.
You've always been one step ahead of them. Don't worry about a thing. They'll
have to send you home in a day or so. Once you're back home, we can sort
everything out. Just hang in there, and take it easy. That's all you have to do.
Do you want more information?"
There was a long silence before Walter said: "No. Not now. Thanks . . . I mean .
. . yeah, that's all. Sign off, okay?"
"We'll talk again," promised the AI. "Come home as soon as you can."
The image cut off abruptly.
Margaret pursed her lips as she lay back on the pillow. The AI was tight; she
had to send Walter Murray home once he was okay physically. Amnesiac or not, he
was perfectly lucid. There was no way she could have him put under restraint, as
Stepanova had more than once asked her to do, even if she wanted to -- and she
didn't. That wouldn't be a solution, to Walter's problem or to hers.
She sighed, and lay down in the darkness once again. What is it about dying, she
asked herself, although the unanswered question had long ago gone stale, that
keeps beckoning him? Why is it that every time he gets his memory back he also
recovers all his determination, all his cunning, and all his secretiveness! Just
what the hell is going on inside that strangely twisted mind -- and what does it
augur for the future, when the products he's been testing come marching
triumphantly into the marketplace!
She wondered if similar questions were going through Walter's still-confused
mind -- and whether he was finding it as difficult to slip away into sleep as
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