Immortality (66 page)

Mark leaned against the doorframe and slid to the floor. He laughed from a kind of madness that grew close to sobbing before he was finally still. He wiped water from his face with his hands. He looked at his office window. It was dark outside. He glanced at his shelves and the broken shards of his best fossil that had, until recently, been whole. He was failing. This last attempt had been twenty-five capsules. He recognized that his mind was filled to capacity with brand new memories which were dimming with each passing second, but they were all just a random collection of things that his subconscious had sought.

He was running out of psilocybin and hope. He didn’t have an unlimited number of tries left in him. His brain felt abused and sore, if that was even medically possible; and he was rapidly building up a tolerance to the drug. While it still sapped his body with undiminished impact, each new dose was having less effect on his mind. He suspected his body might have fewer tries left in it than the remaining psilocybin would even permit. He needed to open that more potent conscious channel and use it for all it was worth. So far, all he’d been able to do was open the thought-interface by swallowing a drug and then standing back and letting his subconscious take control, if ‘take control’ was even the correct term. His subconscious was a primitive creature seeking only pleasure. There was no logic or organization, only a wandering search for what it desired. He had access to a storehouse of information beyond human comprehension; and all he could do was fall into a drug induced trance and hope for success when he woke up. He suspected the repetition of a single question, ‘the prayer,’ only worked because repetition was a way of planting a subliminal question in his mind. Once the subconscious was in control, there was a slightly better chance that it might continue with the implanted question, as if it were a habit or nervous tick, and by doing that, unintentionally present the question to the thought-interface. The technique was a very unreliable way of obtaining information. It was like whispering in a toddler’s ear and then hoping the child would repeat the question hours later to a adult instead of playing with toys.

Mark needed to make this next attempt work because he might not be able to mount another. The time had come to risk it all, and he needed help standing by when he did. He couldn’t involve Kathy; so that left only Sarah, who had no medical training other than first aid. He had enough psilocybin to triple the dosage on a last attempt, and Sarah had even more; but with his growing tolerance, all of it might not be enough. He needed a more powerful drug. He needed something strong enough to permanently fry a brain that was not protected and repaired by nanotech seeds. He needed to cause enough damage, so that rebuilding would construct the improved interface; or at least that’s how his theory worked.

Medical studies listed eleven days as the record for going without sleep. Mark was close to five days with little sleep other than short naps. The nanotech repairing his body had to be helping, but it wasn’t enough. Somehow he was keeping his eyes open, but they felt hollow; his entire body felt hollow. Everyone was noticing his disintegration. How could they miss it? Kathy had first begged and was now furious that he wouldn’t allow himself to be examined. She thought something was wrong with him because of the high concentration of seed infection he carried. If she only knew, thought Mark.

The clock read two in the morning. Mark was waiting for Sarah to arrive at his office. Sitting at his desk, he stared at the television with the sound turned low. The local news was displaying long lists of people who were at different Atlanta shelters. The rate of kill zones was still increasing around the world. While the re-attacks were small when compared to the original strikes, what they lacked in size was compensated for in rapidity. Mark could feel the pace increasing in the march to near-extinction of the human race.

With all he’d tried, Mark had gained no understanding about why the god-machine was exterminating mankind or if extinctions like this had occurred before. Desperation and instinct were now driving him. Oddly, by running on pure emotion instead of logic, in some ways he was more focused and determined than ever. He was ready to risk everything in a final attempt to learn enough to halt the machine. He knew all his objectivity was gone, but soon almost all human life would also be gone. Any risk was justified.

Sarah had proven to be far more helpful in ways other than just being prepared to pump him full of antidote in case the worst occurred in the next few hours. Mark’s ability to think lucidly came and went. He was easily distracted and, as a result less capable of sustaining a train of thought from beginning to end. He knew sleep would help cure this, but real sleep would only come when he stopped using the drugs. Sarah was becoming his mental crutch. He knew he might be putting too much trust in her. She could be manipulating him, but there was no evidence to suggest it. She’d been the one who’d shown him how to contact the god-machine and now she’d given him a new key to unlock the interface. In the next hour, he would find out if that key was going to work.

Mark had discovered the lab pharmacy had two ounces of pure liquid LSD that had been in storage for years. Release of any controlled drug required electronic authorization by Carl. That had seemed like a roadblock until Sarah had snuck into Carl’s office and returned with a username and password. Mark had asked how she’d done it, but all he got for a reply was a smile and that it was her police training paying off in mysterious ways.

Mark stared at the transparent eyedropper bottle. The small bottle could be his key to the thought-interface. The bottle sat on his desk in front of the television screen. He could see blurred colors from the screen reflected within the bottle containing liquid LSD. It was as if the reflected colors were bottled hallucinations that the drug would induce. The liquid LSD looked like water and seemed as powerless; but Mark knew that each drop was enough for fifty to three hundred doses, depending upon desired strength and individual tolerances. Two ounces was enough to send a small town on a twelve hour journey into ‘Alice in Wonderland.’

Next to the bottle of LSD was a capped syringe of antidote. Each day he injected himself under the skin with insulin using a very short thin needle. He figured he could work the longer needle on this syringe into a vein without too much trouble if had no choice and was conscious. Hopefully Sarah would be able to inject him if things went badly. Inside the syringe were fifty milligrams of chlorpromazine, a mild anti-psychotic drug with the ability to rapidly block the effects of LSD. If Sarah was unable to handle it or anything worse happened, Mark was consoled by the fact that he was in a building full of doctors who were one scream away.

He picked up the eyedropper bottle of LSD. He’d decided to follow in a long tradition by using a cube of sugar as the messenger of this drug. His hand was a little shaky as he tried to hold the dropper over the cube resting in its open wrapper. He squeezed lightly and watched as a single drop of liquid fell and was absorbed into the cube. He squeezed again and left a second wet spot on the cube. That was it – the two drops he’d decided upon – a dose approximating one hundred hits of very powerful acid. The dose was not enough to kill; in fact it was apparently almost impossible to fatally overdose on LSD. The best information he could find indicated that for someone of his body weight, it would take fifty-thousand doses. He’d have to drink half the bottle before he was at risk; and that was not even considering the mitigating effects of the nanotech inside him. Mark looked at the sugar cube sitting in its unfolded wrapper on his desk. He had to make this risk pay off. He positioned the dropper over the cube and squeezed out ten more drops. His heart was beating fast. He knew he was out of his mind. There was a soft knock at the office door. Mark got up to unlock it. He let Sarah in and then locked the door behind her.

“I got the food you wanted,” she said.

He could smell the cheeseburger. All he’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours were a few crackers. The psilocybin had made eating almost impossible; it killed any appetite and left his stomach feeling weak long after the drug had worn off. He needed to eat before taking the LSD. Once he was under, and for hours after he recovered, there was little chance he’d eat anything. An average LSD trip took twelve hours. The one he was going on might last much longer.

Mark chewed another bite and forced himself to swallow it. The food had lost all appeal. Two bites of burger and he was done. His stomach was in knots. It was ridiculous that he’d even imagined he could eat. There was no point in delaying any longer. The time had come to see what this LSD would do to him. He got as comfortable as possible on the couch by taking off his sneakers and arranging some pillows under his head. He had a vital signs monitor set up on the opposite end of the couch so both he and Sarah could watch it. He hoped the monitor wasn’t necessary; but just in case he was wrong about the physical risks, the equipment might save his life. He peeled back the adhesive on electrodes and placed them on his chest and temples then plugged the cables into jacks on the front panel. Rhythmic patterns of his life began being sketched across the small screen. The only light on in the office was a desk lamp which cast an oval of pale yellow wide enough to cover the couch. Sarah sat down on a chair that was directly beside him and handed him the sugar cube which was still in its open wrapper.

“If there’s anything you haven’t told me, now’s the time,” said Mark.

“About what?”

“The god-machine. I get this feeling you’re holding something back.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Sarah had looked him directly in the eyes when she’d denied it. Her pupils were dilated but not the wide-eyed dilation of psilocybin at full strength; it was the look of someone coming down. Mark didn’t fully believe her answer but he had to trust her.

“I’m a little scared,” he said.

“Me too,” said Sarah. “You’d have to be crazy not to be frightened.”

It wasn’t until after he’d put voice to his feelings that he realized how scared he actually felt. He thought about his wife and child and then about Gracy. How many times had he relived finding Gracy’s obituary photo? The room at the commandeered elementary school had been dank and smelled of despair. Her picture had been in one of the thousands of boxes stacked to the ceiling on shelves. How many more rooms would be filled before the god-machine was through? Would anyone even be left to file the last boxes? The heart monitor was displaying a rising pulse rate. Mark stared at the sugar cube, turning it over in his fingers. This was his last chance to quit before gambling everything, but he knew he was going forward with it.

He opened his mouth, set the LSD on his tongue, and began sucking on it. He felt the sugar cube dissolving, the gritty sweetness washing around in his mouth. He thought he tasted something medicinal lurking within the sugar, but it was probably all in his mind. He sipped some coffee to wash any residue down. There was no turning back. He closed his eyes and began repeating the prayer, the same question he’d been asking for days.
Why are you terminating the lives of homo sapiens during the current extinction cycle?
He could still see Gracy’s photo in his mind.

Time seemed to drag on as he waited for telltale signs of the drug taking hold. If LCD was anything like psilocybin, the effects would start with colors and patterns appearing in his vision. His mind wandered. He caught himself and turned his thoughts back to the repeated question.

Mark felt pleasant tingling over his skin. Was something happening? A faint splotch of color like a Rorschach inkblot began fading into view from the darkness of his closed eyes. More colors soon joined the first. There were sounds like rustling autumn leaves and a sensation of wind. The experience was peaceful.

His heartbeat stuttered then returned to normal. The vital signs monitor chirped. He focused nervously on his heart. Each beat was all that separated him from the grave. He was scared and waiting for something more to happen. The irregular beat came back and stayed. The vital signs monitor chirped small warnings intermittently but not steadily. What had he done to himself? Were his calculations wrong and this was a fatal overdose? Before he could complete another thought, a pain stabbed into his chest and went down his arms. The monitor emitted a steady tone. Gracy appeared before him as real as anything he’d experienced during their life together. She was wearing the clothing from the Red Cross picture. Tears were drizzling down her cheeks, taking some of her makeup with them. She was an apparition, both beautiful and terrifying.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked. “You knew I wanted to go with you to Atlanta.”

Mark’s body was racked by the pain in his chest and arms but his mind was somehow lucid again. He was no longer thinking about his heart and could no longer hear the monitor. Instead, he was mesmerized by Gracy in the same way a bystander might be spellbound by a fatal auto accident.

“I couldn’t take you,” he said. “I wanted to.”

“Liar! You didn’t want to take me. You wanted me to die so you could be with that slut.”

“No… No… I didn’t. I swear to you, I never…”

“I didn’t deserve to die,” she interrupted, “but traitors like you deserve to be slaughtered.”

The venom in her was completely out of character. Her voice sounded different. She was possessed. Gracy was morphing. Her eye sockets were changing. They were growing wider and turning into pink little mouths full of perfect tiny white teeth! When she blinked the eye-mouths opened and closed. This was insane. He could feel the LSD burning in his veins and his heart like liquid fire. The drug was pouring into his brain, turning nerve tissue into acid-dissolved slush. Some incomprehensible image appeared in his mind. He blacked out for a moment and then came back.

“Help me!” he cried. “Sarah… Help me!”

“No one can help you,” said Gracy. “No one can hear you.”