So, there I was, with a needle in my arm. No, not in the execution room of the penitentiary. At a portable setup rigged in my “business partner’s” laboratory. So that he could do his research thing by taking advantage of knowing exactly when and how I would die.
Was I guilty? Hell, yes. Of murder? Hell, no. But my problem was that I had a history of aliases and shady dealings. Which was why Norman Pitcher—Professor Norman Pitcher, watching this happen in his own lab—had first recruited me. Ten years ago, I was on parole, in a half-way house when Norman went looking for me. Looking for me? He was a distant cousin; not by blood but by marriage. And he knew enough about my past and my aliases that he thought I might suit his needs. He’d first found me at the coffee house where I was working.
If this is true—if the information from our experiences is imported into this neighboring universe, then it must be pulled from that side, rather than pushed from this one.
He’d walked in, not looking any different from any of the other SoHo coffee addicts. Mid-50s looking with wispy straw hair flying around a bare crown; faded jeans; dress shirt; black suit jacket; rimless glasses. So similar to all the other middle-aged men still addicted to over-priced coffee that I hadn’t noticed him, even when he was at the counter, until he called me by name.
“Alex Grey?” he asked.
My real name. I was going by Zack Blanco by that time. So that got my attention. Real fast. “Do you have a badge?” I asked.
He smiled sheepishly. “No. We have a familial connection. When is your shift complete? That is, when could we speak briefly?”
“I’m on 4-to-8,” I said, “And then straight back to the halfway house.”
“Would you be permitted to make a detour in the case that the conversation could center on an improved employment situation?”
At that point, I wasn’t sure if he was going to actually offer me a job, or only discuss one as a work-around. But, maybe… “Could be,” I said. “Would this discussion involve dinner?”
“It can, yes,” he said.
“Fine, then,” I said. “Meet me back here at 8; we’re open 24/7, so you wouldn’t be waiting around outside.”
“Very good,” he said. “And, also, I’d like to try one of those lattes; a very large one.” Then he left with his coffee.
Later, over dinner, he explained what he was up to; and where I might fit in. Kind of creeped me out, the first time I heard it. But when I thought about it a little, I couldn’t say I wasn’t interested in helping. Not just for the money; and not just for the challenge; but I wanted to know, too. I think everyone alive, everyone who knows that someday they’ll die, I think everyone would want to know.
Anyway. He was waiting for me on the corner outside the coffee bar. Sixth and Varick—neighborhood full of big ware-housy-like buildings lining the approach to the Holland Tunnel. Very industrial. When I was getting released to the halfway house, I did some reading up on where I’d be. What I read said that there used to be a lot printing companies in those blocky buildings, back when you had to print a whole lot of copies for printing anything to make sense. Now a lot of those buildings were being used for storage, since, even when you want something on paper, they can run it off for you one at a time.
We walked up to a place on Downing and Bedford.
“Will this do?” Pitcher asked. “You should be able to get back to Chelsea on the 1 Train or the C or E around the corner.”
I nodded. The halfway house was in a townhouse in Chelsea where the landlord defaulted on his taxes and was seized by the City. None of the neighbors realized what it was. They would see only men coming and going, and I guess they assumed we were all gay, given the neighborhood.
People make assumptions about me all the time. I stopped caring about that in jail.
We walked in, sat down. Then, “How often do you think about what happens when you die?” Pitcher asked, over soup.
“Mostly, I spend most of my time thinking about how to survive,” I said. I thought about it once in a while. Not my problem just now; and when it became my problem, there really wasn’t much I could do about it.
“Fair enough,” Pitcher said. He looked down at his hands, and went quiet for a while.
Great relief to me—I just dug into my burger and fries. Talk about a burger! This wasn’t a fast-food joint, but an upscale place. They made hamburger out of prime quality sirloin. And homemade shoestring fries. Not the kind of place I would’ve spent my own money on.
“Perhaps I should approach this from a different angle,” he said. “Maybe I should tell you something about myself, and from there lead into what I am hoping you can do for me.”
“OK,” I shrugged. I felt ketchup drip down my chin and I reached for the napkin.
“I am a high energy physicist, specifically particles and strings; I have a position at CUNY on 34th Street, when I am here in New York. I spend a significant portion of my time at the LHC, and some other time in Chicago. My published research, at this point, has focused on the detection of negative matter.”
“Negative matter?” I asked. “You mean anti-matter?”
“Anti-matter is different,” he said. “Anti-matter is particles with opposite charges. Negative matter interacts with space-time in the opposite way from regular matter.”
“Right. Of course,” I said, not understanding in the least.
“Not important right now,” he said. “But another interest of mine is near-death experiences.”
“The tunnel, the light, the relatives’ voices?”
“Yes. That’s it exactly,” he said. “What would you say if I said I had a hypothesis of what could be happening there?”
“I would say that I bet they’ve got a whole file—that they’ve completely figured that out—and you could probably find out about it in New Mexico,” I said.
“I doubt that,” he replied. “They only handle extraterrestrials.”
His expression, tone of voice, matched mine a few minutes ago when I made like I understood about the anti-negative whatever it was.
I was starting to like this guy.
He went on. “The key thing is, I have an experiment that I could conduct on death or near-death.”
I thought about that. If he was talking about trying to run some kind of experiment on someone when they were dying, he’d have to know exactly when and where someone was dying. And, really, the only way to really know that is to kill them yourself. I said, “How are you going to do that without putting yourself in line for a needle yourself?”
He smiled, and nodded. “That’s exactly what I need you for.”
I still wasn’t sold on the whole idea by then; so he had me come up to this place in Morningside Heights—some big warehouse-sized lab at 135th, west of Broadway. Some big research complex they’d built in the 2010s—I’d read about the big fight that had gone on before they built it. There’d been a bunch of business out there that had put a good fight against the universities, but had ended up losing; and they built this whole new big research complex.
A girl in faded blue jeans and a blue sweater met me outside the building.
“You’re Zack?” she asked. I couldn’t help noticing that her eyes matched her jeans.
“That’s me,” I said. “Who’re you?”
“Joanne Marshall; I’m a post-doc with Professor Pitcher’s group.” She looked me up and down, trying not to look like she was checking me out. I’m six feet, and I wear a 42 jacket and 30 waist; women do that a lot. The way I saw it, I wouldn’t have a chance with her anyway. I figured she assumed I was an idiot, because I only went to a State College and never graduated. Never mind about the 10 years I spent killing time working my way through the NYPL’s online collection.
She led me past the front desk, and down two flights of stairs to a mid-level basement. The lab looked to take up at least the entire building block. At least? I couldn’t tell, it looked like there could have been parts extending further underground. But I couldn’t tell from the office area where Joanne led me.
We were waiting in an open area, maybe 20 by 20, surrounded by lab benches, some kinds of shiny equipment I couldn’t recognize, and lots and lots of computer screens, and computer pads laying around on the tables. Off to the right were a row of offices with white doors and glass walls. In the third office, through the glass, I could see Pitcher talking to a tall, reedy man in a lab coat. He saw us through the window, and wrapped up his conversation. He opened the door and let the other guy out. Then, “Zack. Good to see you. Come in.”
“You’re up,” Joanne said to me. “Good luck.”
Good luck? I thought, with this guy? He didn’t come out to where I was, just stood in the office threshold, waiting for me to come to him.
I walked into the office. Maple-colored door and glass wall facing the lab area. Big blank white cinderblock wall on the other side. We were underground, so, no window. Ergonomic white L-shaped desk; the side facing the wall to the right was plastered with computer monitors; the wall to the left had one really big monitor. On the desk, a traditional keyboard on the right side. A few animated picture frames, and also a computer pad on the main part of the desk. Two comfortable chairs in front; a weave-task chair behind. Pitcher himself was in jeans with worn shoes and a dress shirt about a size or two too tight, covered with a lab coat. “Nice digs,” I said.
“They are,” he said, “but not because of the furnishings.” He paused. “And, thanks. And I am gratified you could make it. I think this will be a very interesting partnership.”
“I haven’t quite agreed to that yet, doc,” I said. Wasn’t sure why I started calling him “Doc.” Must have been the lab coat. “I came down here to find out first what it is you want. Then I’ll decide if I’m in.”
He smiled broadly, and motioned toward one of the guest chairs. “Oh, I am certain after you see what this is about you’ll want to be a part of it,” he said. “Please have a seat; I have something I want to show you.” He sat down in the desk chair, and picked up the tablet. The lights went down, and the big monitor to powered up. “I want you to see this—this is still rough; it is something I have been collaborating with Cosmos.com on.”
“That who the other guy was?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Pitcher said. “We were going over the next step in this—we’re working on a three-part series they’re going to stream. This bit is only about five minutes long and it’s written for a general audience, so I hope it can explain a bit more about what we’re working on here than I can.” He touched the pad and started the clip.
What it talked about, with a lot of snazzy computer graphics, was how what they used to call dark matter and dark energy really are another universe butting up against ours. That the two universes are so close that pieces of them interfere with each other.
Pitcher touched the tablet again and the lights came up. “So?”
“Interesting,” I said. “Should be popular. Not sure what it has to do with me, though.”
“Right,” he said. “Now, the other areas I work in. I have also been working on a quantum string/complexity theory of consciousness.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” I said.
“Right. Suffice it to say that all it is is looking at pieces of the fundamental structure and motion of the universe that, if we’re right, give rise to self-directing and subjective consciousness.”
“What’s that have to do with the alternate universe stuff?”
“Well, I assume you’ve heard about near-death experiences?”
“Yeah, sure I have,” I said. It’s a cliché, the tunnel and the light and all that.
“What if, when you die, your consciousness goes to that other universe?” he asked. “That’s the question I am working on—at least, in my free time.”
“Yeah, but, that would have to be just speculation, right? There’d be no way to really find out.”
“There could be a way,” he said. “Theoretically, it should be possible to create a wormhole through. However, trying to make a wormhole from this universe to that one would take more energy than humans are likely to have for millions of years. My thinking is this: If this is true—if the information from our experiences is imported into this neighboring universe, then it must be pulled from that side, rather than pushed from this one; and the attendant wormhole must be like a valve—easy to open from that reality, very, very hard to open from this one. So what I want to do is, when the passage might be open, send a small probe through.”
“You mean, like the Aphrodite probe that they just sent to Venus?” I’d seen that on the news. Thing was nothing more really than a balloon, floating in the clouds over Venus. They said they might be sending astronauts to meet up with it at some point.
“Similar in intent,” Pitcher said. “Much different in construction.” He touched the pad again. On the monitor, there was a model. It was a bunch of colored balls, stuck together, spinning. “A collection of entangled particles—entangled with particles at the other end of a fiber optic pipe, that is. From which we can collect data. This model here is just a collection of stabilized quarks—this isn’t even the size of a proton.”
So I was walking this through my head. You send this thing through this wormhole, and you find out—I guess you find out what Hell is like? I suppose if I was more of an optimist, I’d say Heaven. Well, really, I’m a realist—split the difference at Purgatory or Limbo.
But if this tunnel only opens from the other side… “So, wait. If you were going to do this, you’d have to know when this valve was going to open, right? So, really, you’d have to be there when someone was dying or having a near-death experience.”
Pitcher slapped his desk and nearly jumped out of his chair. “That’s it! That’s it exactly! You’ve got it. And now you see the trickiest part of this experiment. How do you predict one of the unpredictable things?”
“What about executions?” I asked. They didn’t apply the death penalty to much; but even getting toward the 22nd Century, we had it.
“I investigated that,” he said. “I could not get any Department of Justice—not in the 15 states with a death penalty or the Federal—to allow this experiment.”
“So what is that you wanted me to do?” I asked. I was really hoping by this point that he didn’t want me to kill anyone, either. I ran a Synthiate lab and an Internet numbers ring from my dorm room in college. I was decent at the chemistry and very good at the math. That was enough to get me 10 years in state prison, with another 10 of probation still hanging over me.
“I would like you to infiltrate the hospice at the New York Teaching Hospital. And I’ll pay you a research stipend of 100,000 Unios per year until we can conduct a complete experiment.”
I narrowed my eyes. Good money. But… “That’s a generous number. But that’s not going to work. Even in a hospice you can’t tell the exact time someone’s going to die.”
“Unless they’re opting for assisted suicide,” he said.
Assisted suicide had become legal in 2032. Had to be performed under strict controls—there were legal requirements and checks. Sounded like a good idea in theory. Except that it was missing a key real-world fact. Pitcher seemed so caught up in his particles and his big questions that he was missing how things really play out.
“Not going to work,” I said. “People go for AS when they’re in pain. When they’re in a hospice—if they’re doing it right—they shouldn’t be in pain. And I’d assume that the outfit at New York Teaching is pretty good.” As it is one of the best hospitals in the world.
Pitcher sat back down, slumped in his chair. He looked away, disappointed. He apparently hadn’t thought this through in terms of how people act.
I turned the other way, and looked out the window-wall to the common lab area. Joanne was holding court—smart, pretty girl surrounded mostly by men. I thought about what her life would be like if she suddenly found herself in a female-dominated domain; having to compete for men’s attentions instead. Would be a big change. And from this, I was thinking about what would inspire someone to want to get an AS. Frustration with loss of abilities? Pain? What? Maybe being in aggressive treatment that wasn’t working? Maybe in experimental treatments? No, on that. They’d probably be screened out. But: Someone almost certainly terminal, but not certain enough that people around him—or her—would be pushing aggressive treatments.
And with most cancers and heart disease under control, what did that leave? Alzheimer’s? Maybe that would be the place to start—neuro research. I turned back to Pitcher, and said: “So. What if someone was forced into treatments they didn’t want? Maybe something experimental on something still terminal? Maybe someone like that would opt for an AS while they still had their minds.”
Pitcher looked at me; the idea catching fire across his puffy face. “Yes. That could be it. An experimental neuroscience ward?”
“Yeah. Something like that,” I said.
“So, not the hospice at New York Teaching. But the Neurology wing… I’ll do a literature search; make sure it’s the best place. And I still have a contact in the HR department at the hospital.”
And that was how I wound up working as an orderly at the Meryl Pavilion for Neurological Disorders at the New York Teaching Hospital in lower Washington Heights.
