After Death(6)

Often he likes to walk. People who move through their days at high speed, always boxed in a vehicle, do not see the intricate details of either the natural world or the world that humanity has built for itself. The less they see, the less they understand, and the more likely they are to live in a bubble of unreality.

On this occasion, however, he has many miles to cover and a promise he hopes to keep before dawn.





TEN DAYS EARLIER: BEAUTIFICATION RESEARCH



The food in the cafeteria is less tasty than army K rations, but at least the ambience is better than the crumbling and cratered streets of some butt-of-the-world city where the meal would likely be interrupted by a firefight. Considering that this facility is a public-sector–private-sector partnership between the Internal Security Agency and two technology firms, each valued at more than a trillion dollars, it’s unfortunate that the food service is provided by the government rather than by the human resources division of one of the tech companies, which would have a better understanding of nutrition and flavor. Employees have no choice other than to eat lunch here, because before leaving the premises, they must undergo a seventy-five-minute decontamination that no one wants to endure twice in one day. Lunch boxes from home are forbidden for reasons known only to the bureaucrats who devised the protocols and who labor in a warren three thousand miles away, where no one can make contact with them.

Michael sits at a corner table with his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry, who may be the only immunologist in the United States who is also a specialist in cerebrovascular function and the blood-brain barrier, six feet five, two hundred thirty pounds, and African American. Shelby, a genius, earned his first medical degree when he was twenty-two, but Michael possesses just slightly higher than average intelligence. Shelby plays the piano, violin, and saxophone. Michael has mastered the harmonica. Shelby has the face of a movie star—Michael not so much. They have been best friends for thirty-eight years, since they were six and their families were neighbors in a lower-middle-class community where, for different reasons, Michael and Shelby were viewed as nerds by most other kids.

Shelby, the senior biological scientist on this endeavor, has authority equal to that of Dr. Simon Bistoury, who serves as the reigning technology expert. Bistoury is a true believer in what they are doing here at the deceptively and absurdly named Beautification Research Project. Shelby, however, is profoundly skeptical about the wisdom and morality of this work, a point of view he has concealed in order to be in a position to go public and blow up the entire scheme if that becomes necessary. If he does so, he will be risking financial ruin and imprisonment, as will Michael, who was brought into this undertaking by Shelby to serve as chief of its security team. In this age when the fruits of corruption and the pursuit of power at all costs seem to motivate too many in the highest echelons of society, Shelby and Michael are no less outsiders than they were as kids; most of those in the current ruling elite would dismiss them as nerds if only they knew what principles guide them.

They never discuss their status as potential whistleblowers; at the moment, here in the cafeteria, they are discussing Shelby’s romantic longing for a woman, Nina, whom he’s met just three times and has not yet asked for a date. He encountered this jewel in her capacity as the accountant handling payroll and taxes for his cousin Carl, who owns three laundromats. Shelby was charmed not merely by her looks, but also by her intelligence, wit, and industriousness.

“So,” Michael says, “instead of asking her on a date, you hire her as your accountant. I’m not sure if that’s smoother than it is dumb, or dumber than it is smooth, or not smooth at all.”

Shelby has an unconscious habit of rolling his eyes as an acknowledgment of his mistakes and shortcomings. “Yeah, well, I’ve never handled rejection well. I curl up and suck my thumb.”

“You’re tall, dark, handsome, successful, amusing, and reputed to be smart. No woman is going to reject you.”

“I had plenty of rejections before I met and married Tanya.”

“Back then you were just tall, dark, handsome, amusing, and reputed to be smart. You weren’t successful yet.”

“I was too tall, broad as a truck, big hands like a strangler for hire, with a tendency to glower. I’m still all those things.”

“Just smile, and your face lights up, cute as a kitten.”

Shelby’s eyes roll in their sockets as if he’s one of those novelty dolls with counterweighted eyeballs. “That’s just it. When I’m around Nina, I’m so worried about making a good impression that I forget to smile. I’m so nervous and earnest, I look scary.”

Pushing aside his plate of half-finished creamed beef on whole-wheat toast with carrots and red-beet slaw, Michael shakes his head. “It’s a mystery how you produced two children with Tanya.”

“Tanya wasn’t just beautiful. She was uncannily insightful. Ten minutes after we met, she knew me better than I knew myself.”

“Maybe this Nina also knows you better than you think she does, knows just what a prince among men you are.”

Shelby swallows a forkful of beet slaw, and his face puckers. He washes the slaw down with iced tea, and his face puckers again. “Don’t you think that’s more luck than any man should expect—to meet two women who totally get who he is in his heart?”

After pretending to think about that, Michael says, “Are there really stranglers for hire?”