The Live-Forever Machine (19 page)

At last he hauled himself up onto a narrow catwalk and sprawled out on the damp metal. In his mind’s eye he saw Chris tumble into the rushing water before the cry had even fully escaped his lips. Without warning Eric’s stomach and throat contracted. He retched once, twice—but there was nothing there.

Chris was dead. The truth came to him in a wave of nausea. The old things, all the dates—they weren’t important. He’d been fooling himself. It was the people. That’s what was important about the past. Had been all along, but he’d never seen it. It was the people who’d lived in those times, it was the people who’d made the old things. It was people living through history, creating an enormous chain with the people living now.

All those years memorizing dates and facts, and the real mystery was people. His mother, his father. That was what he’d wanted all
along—to understand them. And Chris, too. But it was too late now. The answer was right in front of him and he’d lost it.

He pushed himself into a sitting position. He took deep breaths and felt his stomach slowly begin to uncoil. He stood. His legs wobbled beneath him and he touched the wall for balance. He had to get to the surface. If there was even the tiniest chance …

He started walking unsteadily along the catwalk. The sound of water was a whisper below him now. He turned down a long tunnel. His sneakers slapped through the water pooled on the concrete floor. Rats darted from the shadows. He chose tunnels at random. His only rule was to climb every iron ladder, every set of steps. Eventually he had to break the surface of the city. He was falling asleep on his feet and dreaming. From the corner of his eye he saw a television set glowing at the end of a long corridor, a storm cloud of bats swooping towards him, an alligator’s tail flick out of sight around a bend. Once he thought he saw Chris and couldn’t keep himself from calling out into the emptiness, staggering after the mirage.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t …” He was muttering, unable to stop the words. “You didn’t want to come. Dad, it’s like a maze down here. Were
you really down here once? How did you find your way out?”

A low-hanging cable struck him in the face, and he reeled back in shock, whimpering uncontrollably. Dad, come and get me, he pleaded silently. Right now, don’t wait a second longer.

He bit his lip to stop from crying, told himself to keep moving. He had to tell someone about the accident, to get help before all hope was lost. Half doubled over with fatigue, he staggered along. Must look like Jonah, he thought suddenly. Look and talk like Jonah.

“ ‘… saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually …’ “

Eric paused and shook his head sharply from side to side. Had he said that? He looked back over his shoulder, squinting down tunnel openings.

“ ‘And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven were covered …’ “

It was definitely another voice.

“Alexander?” he said, his voice a dry crackle in his aching throat. Suddenly dizzy, he slumped against the wall. “Alexander? Is that you?”

“ ‘… fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered …’ “

Maybe Alexander would be able to help him find Chris; maybe
he
would know about the drains, where they emptied.

“Here!” he called out. “I’m right here!”

Where is he? Eric thought. Come on! But when he saw the silhouette moving towards him, he realized it wasn’t Alexander. Too short and stocky.

“ … made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged …’ “ The figure was throwing his arms expressively out before him as he spoke. And there was another person. Two of them coming towards him.

Eric blinked, trying to keep his focus, but it was all dissolving before his eyes, seeping away from him.

“ ‘The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained …’ “

He came to in a panic. Forcing himself up with his elbows, he looked wildly around. It was dark, and he was lying on an old inflatable mattress on the concrete floor. There were other people in the room, and a man was sitting
beside him, watching him. Eric studied his face: it was the fire-and-brimstone preacher from the street corner. So that was who’d come for him in the tunnels.

He still felt as if his head were filled with sand, but at least he knew where he was. He could see the huge junk pile against the wall, and all the crazy contraptions the vagrants had made. Brushing the hair away from his forehead, he realized that his hands were bandaged. Burns, he thought. Burns from the hot pipes.

The fire-and-brimstone preacher was pressing a tin can into Eric’s hands. Take it. He took a cautious sip—water—then drank greedily.

“Jonah,” he said. “Is he here?” Maybe Jonah would know where to look for Chris.

The preacher shook his head.

“Got to go,” Eric said, pushing himself into a sitting position. The man held him back, gently, but with surprising strength.

“I’ve really got to go,” Eric said, feeling dizzy again. “My friend fell. Into the storm drain. Someone’s got to know!”

“Wait here. You’re too tired,” the streetcorner preacher said, and Eric was surprised at the reasonable and calm voice. Eric was the only one who sounded crazy around here now!

“But you don’t understand,” he insisted.
“Chris might be drowning!” He thought he was going to cry again. How could he ever explain this? Chris’s mother, his own father? All Eric’s fault.

“Whatever will happen has already happened,” the preacher said soothingly. “Rest here.”

Eric slumped back against the mattress. At the other side of the room, two of the underground people were building a couch, hammering together old planks and bits of broken furniture for the frame. Eric watched them blankly for a while. He had to get out of here.

He was about to get up when Jonah shambled in, carrying a plastic garbage bag over one shoulder and ranting about fish and rain and his biggest catch ever.

“Fisher of men!” he cried out triumphantly.

A second figure came into the room behind him, and in the low light Eric caught the glimmer of blond hair.

“Chris?”

He pushed himself to his feet before the preacher could reach out to hold him back. Soaked to the skin, looking slightly dazed, trying to towel that blond hair dry with one hand was Chris. Eric was across the room before Chris had recognized his voice.

“Oh, man, it’s you!” Chris said. “I thought it was one of these other guys trying to get me in a headlock!”

“How?” Eric demanded, still gripping Chris’s shoulders and shaking him as if not quite convinced his friend was really there.

“It was hell down there,” Chris said. “Backstroke for half an hour.”

“What happened?”

“It was weird,” Chris said, running a hand through his dripping hair. “I just got rushed through the drain, really fast—I couldn’t really swim at all, just kept my head above water. Then the drain dumped out into this big reservoir, and I got squashed up against a net—can you believe it? A big fishing net stretched across the reservoir! Guess who?” He jerked his thumb in Jonah’s direction. “It was utterly intense! And there were fish caught in it, too! So I kind of climbed along the net to the side and pulled myself out.”

“Fisher of men,” Eric said, and suddenly he was laughing, too happy and exhausted and relieved to stop.

“Yep,” Chris said. “He showed me the way out. That place filled up like a tidal wave went through there. Hey, what happened to your hands?”

Eric looked down at the bandages, and then he began to tell Chris everything that had happened.

“You did it, then!” Chris said with a grin. “Coyle must’ve drowned. You did it!”

“What do you—?” Eric didn’t understand.

“He
drowned
. If he drowns a second time he’s unmade. Right?”

Eric hadn’t even thought about it. There’d been too many other things clanging through his head. He nodded slowly. Ending someone’s life, even someone insane and dangerous—it wasn’t something you could be proud of. But they’d done it. They’d saved the museum. Still, it didn’t seem anywhere near as important as having Chris in front of him right now.

“Do you have it?” Chris was asking Jonah. “The scroll.”

Jonah dropped his garbage bag to the ground with a soft thud. Sticking out the top was the tip of the white canister. He pulled it out and examined it in his hands.

“Strange fish,” he said. He didn’t seem to want to give it back, and Eric was tempted to let him have it. He’d keep it safely hidden away in his garbage bags forever. No one would ever know about it. And it was a dangerous thing, an unnatural thing. No one should live to be that old. But Eric knew he had to return it. He’d
made a promise. He held out his hand, and Jonah reluctantly gave it back.

“Thanks,” Eric said, and it suddenly occurred to him how much there really was to thank Jonah for—the hook, the fishing net—but Jonah didn’t seem very interested. He had shuffled over to the junk heap and was rummaging through it. The streetcorner preacher was sitting against the wall, mumbling prayers.

“We should get out of here,” Chris said. “It must be pretty late. Your Dad’ll be worried.”

Maybe, maybe not, thought Eric. He felt deflated. What would they have to say to each other? He looked back at the two people working on the couch. The billboard lady was weaving together old bits of clothing and fabric for the upholstery.

It was as if a key had suddenly opened a lock in his mind. Maybe that was something he could tell his father. He could tell him about the underground people and the way they saved up the old things so they could make new things out of them. Who knows, he thought—it might work, it might not. But it’s worth a try.

Jonah nudged past Eric and began unpacking his plastic bag, proudly throwing huge fish, one after the other, onto the floor.

“Come on,” Chris said. “Let’s get out of here before he asks us to stay for dinner.”

Alexander snatched the canister and inspected the contents, wheezing heavily. Then he laughed—a dry, hollow croak. His eyes blazed.

“And Coyle,” he said, looking back to Eric. “What of Coyle?”

“Gone,” Eric said.

“Gone?” said Alexander, and there was an edge of alarm in his voice. “What do you mean? Tell me everything.”

“We found Coyle. He was down there translating the scroll. He had a computer doing it for him, just the way Chris said he would.” He felt sick telling it, and wanted to stop. He had to look away from Alexander’s hungry eyes and force himself to continue. “We wrecked the computer and got the scroll and ran for it, but Coyle had some sort of gun that made lightning. The only way to get out was a pipe over the storm drain. Coyle took a shot at Chris and he fell into the water.” He paused, sick. His friend, falling.

“Yes, yes, and then what?” Alexander said impatiently.

Eric looked at him with disgust. He really
didn’t care, did he? What would it mean to him anyway, someone dying? People came and went like insects.

“What else?” Alexander prompted him.

“I opened the floodgates. The water crashed over everything, his machinery, everything. Him, too.”

“Did he drown?”

“He must have. It was like a tidal wave.”

“You unmade him,” Alexander said softly, disbelief in his voice.

“I wasn’t really thinking,” Eric replied. “It was the only way to stop him.”

“To stop him—!” pressed Alexander. “To recover the scroll—that was your only task! You unmade him! Do you realize the magnitude of this?”

Eric stared in repulsion. “He was going to kill you,” he said as calmly as possible. “And he was going to shoot me if I didn’t give him the scroll, and would certainly have shot me anyway afterwards. He almost killed Chris.”

But Alexander didn’t seem to be listening. “He was more than sixteen hundred years old,” he muttered. “He walked through history with me.”

“You’re crazy,” Eric whispered. “He would have unmade you in a second!”

“You’ve wiped out two thousand years!”

“You’re just as bad as Coyle,” said Eric angrily. “All Coyle cared about was his machines and his future, and all you care about is your old things. Neither of you ever cared about anything else! Coyle was just another artifact to you, an old vase or statue. Chris almost
died!”

“You have no understanding of what you’re saying,” Alexander mumbled, turning away. “At least now the museum is safe.”

“If Chris had died,” Eric shouted, “it wouldn’t have been worth it at all!”

“You don’t believe that,” Alexander said with a smile.

Eric looked into his ancient eyes.

“Yes, I do.”

Late evening. The plummeting raindrops made liquid craters in the flooded street. A whirlpool sucked noisily above a storm drain grate. Cars had been left abandoned at the roadside. Eric took a deep breath, what felt like his first in days. Finally it was cooler. He’d showered at Chris’s apartment and Chris had given him clean sweats to wear home. He’d carefully peeled the bandages off his hands. There were patches of red, blistered skin on his palms and across the backs of his fingers.

He took his time. He could see lights on in the living-room window. He pulled out his keys and opened the door. There was a nervous stirring in his stomach. What if nothing had changed? What if they still couldn’t talk?

His father was sitting at the typewriter.

“Been out with Chris?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I heard there was a gas leak here today.”

“This morning. They closed it off, I guess.”

His father looked back at the limp page curling out of the typewriter.

“Can’t finish it,” he said tiredly.

“It doesn’t matter.”

His father looked at him strangely. For a moment, Eric’s courage faltered, but he knew it had to be now.

“Why did she do it? Kill herself?”

No answer. Eric felt a brief flash of fear: was his father going to get up and leave the room?

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “There were probably hundreds of reasons or none at all. I don’t think I made her happy, or at least she wasn’t happy with me.”