The Problem With Immortality Ch. 22

"Yes," said Heycom. "And we don't have the means to cure him."

She looked up at him.

"Even I can't help him," said Heycom. "If he is to be helped, it will have to come from somewhere else."

********

Anson continued to daydream about Jennifer. In his increasingly fragile mental state, he became convinced that Jennifer was there, in the backyard, with him. He looked up at the wooded hill behind the house. He imagined Jennifer, hiding behind a tree, wearing a brilliant white sun dress, just hiding there, watching him.

But of course Anson knew that Jennifer could not be there. Jennifer had no idea where he was. In fact, by now, Jennifer certainly had no idea even who he was. Oh, she would learn that she had been married to him for 311 years; and she would perhaps puzzle over that, for a time, but there would be no memories, no feelings attached.

The thought of it made him weep.

He remembered the time when his parents died, in an air car crash. He hadn't cried in such a long time. Ashamed, he went to the bedroom and closed the door behind him. But Jennifer was not far behind, she took him in his arms. "My love," she said, hugging him. He felt the warmth of her body against his. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, taking his face in her hands. "Anson, I'm so tremendously sorry." And then she kissed him, passionately, and while it still hurt, it was like a huge layer of regret, sadness, and remorse had been stripped away. He always loved her for that moment.

He remembered the time when he was having trouble with a case, and he talked about it with Jennifer while she was cooking dinner, and she laughed and said the problem was so simple. Jennifer was so naive! So he asked her what the solution was, and she told him, and he thought about it, and realized that she was completely right. She looked at him as that dawned in his eyes, and he saw the pleasure in hers as he realized that he appreciated how brilliant she was.

There was the time, many times, when Jennifer played the piano, or the cello, or many other instruments for him. She was so beautiful as she played, so focused on her instrument, and somehow that focus, that dedication, made her so much more sexy in his eyes. She would stare at sheet music with intense concentration, working to perfectly do justice to each note. And then this woman, this tremendously talented and beautiful thing, would produce a masterpiece out of her slender fingertips.

Anson remembered the time when they were just sitting in the living room and he was watching Jennifer read a datapad. That's all; just reading a datapad. She was wearing an ordinary white top and tight pants. She looked beautiful. Her hair was perfectly combed, her eyes were focused on the datapad, focused, concentrating, her slender arms at her side. There was nothing at all remarkable about that moment, and yet Anson remembered it, and treasured it, because it was one of those moments when he simply paused everything around him and realized once again, how lucky he was to have such a wonderful woman at his side.

He remembered the time he went ballroom dancing with Jennifer. She was dressed in the most beautiful dress! It was a replica of a 18th century gown worn by royalty. With her hair up, and her bosom jutting out, as those dresses tended to do, she looked like a princess. As Anson danced with her, he started to melt just from her smile. He loved watching her legs, how gracefully they moved when they peeked out of her dress. He loved holding her in his arms. He never wanted to let go. He felt like the luckiest man in the world.

Anson remembered when he got down on his knees and begged Jennifer to marry him. It had been the happiest moment of his life when she said yes. It was more important than being a Fixer. More important than anything.

And he had thrown it all away.

Anson tossed and turned on the third night, the third night since he had started daydreaming about Jennifer, and the seventh since he had arrived here. In a day or two Mikki would arrive to take him away, and he would have to make some decisions about what to do.

He felt warmth on him, and he dreamed that morning had come. And when he looked up at the sun, he saw Jennifer, in a brilliant white dress, perfectly framed in it.

"You are the sun," Anson whispered, in his dream. "You are my sun. You are my stars. You are everything."

She smiled at him, as if she could hear him.

Anson absorbed her warmth, her radiance. He craved it more than anything. He never wanted it to end.

At that moment he decided. He knew what he had to do.

He would enter the Dreamscape.

In the Dreamscape, he could be with Jennifer every minute of every day. Not the Jennifer whose memory of him had been wiped, but the Jennifer of the past, the Jennifer who he loved and who loved him. He could relive all of his memories of her.

His physical body would begin to rot, and decay, but he would have at least five good years in the Dreamscape. And they said that five years in the Dreamscape felt like 50 years or a 100. It was good enough for a lifetime.

"I'm coming.... I'm coming to join you, Jennifer," Anson whispered, in his dream.

But then the Jennifer in his dream, the Jennifer framed by the rising sun, shook her head. "No! No, Anson! You can't!" She started to cry.

"But I want to be with you. This is the only way I can have you," said Anson, in his dream.

"That's not true, Anson. You can have me now."

"You're gone, Jennifer. You're not really here." It pained him to say that. It really did.

"Open your eyes, my love."

"Jennifer-"

"Open them now!"

Anson slowly opened his eyes. He found that he was staring into the rising morning sun. And perfectly framed in the rising morning sun was his former wife, Jennifer Spaulding, just like in his dream.

"I'm still dreaming," Anson muttered. "This is a dream. It has to be."

"This is no dream, my love," she said, and then she reached down, and kissed him. And the kiss was so real, so physical, that Anson had no doubt.

"Jennifer?" he cried. "Is that really you?"

"It is, my love," she said, sitting down next to him.

"How.... you're gone. Your mind was erased," said Anson. "I saw it happen!"

She grabbed his hand. "No, my love, you didn't."

"But... how...."

"I almost did," said Jennifer softly. "I was lying down on the table. My brain had been mapped. They asked me if I wanted to proceed. I said yes. I felt myself slipping away from consciousness."

"Oh, my love!" Anson cried.

"And then, in those last precious seconds of consciousness, something happened. A voice within me, a voice I had never heard before, spoke, and spoke loudly. And it said one word, and one word only."

"NO!"

"No," she repeated softly. "I could not let that happen."

"And I found myself getting up, ripping off the electrodes, and running for the door, still in my operating gown."

"But... I passed out, and when I recovered, Isaac Mercola told me that you were already being processed," said Anson.

"He thought I was," said Jennifer. "He didn't know that I canceled it at the last minute. By the time I dressed and got to his office, you were already gone. He told me how upset you were, but I wasn't of a mind to pursue you. I had other business."

"What other business?"

"Doctor Hugh Pinero."

Anson looked confused.

"I overheard you talking with your assistant about a man who could give people the gift of telepathy."

"He's... he's a fraud!" said Anson.

"No, my love, he isn't," said Jennifer, and she looked at him oddly.

For a moment, they just sat silently, matching stares. Then Jennifer started to speak rapidly.

"My lips. Left breast. Left breast. Right breast. Nibbling my ear. Hair. Legs. Oh, I love you too!" and she hugged him.

"You can read my mind!" said Anson, feeling stunned, and more than a little uncomfortable.

"Yes, my love, I hear everything now. But I should have followed you first. I should have told you that I didn't get the procedure. It nearly cost you your life, and mine."

Anson sat upright. "What are you saying, Jennifer?"

"When I left you, I went straight to Doctor Pinero. I was skeptical, as you were. But he demonstrated it to me. He read my mind, Anson! He knew exactly who I was, and why I was there. That convinced me. I had the procedure done. It's only temporary, and it will only last a few more days."

"But why, Jennifer? Why did you have it done?"

Jennifer started to choke up. "To see if you really loved me. To see if you loved me so much that you would never leave me again."

"Oh, Jennifer, I never would."

"I know!" she cried. "I know that now! For three days and three nights, on and off, I sat behind that tree," she said pointing to the hill above them.

"You... you were always here?"

"I was," said Jennifer. "I read your thoughts. I picked your mind clean. All you did was think of me. Over and over. Not just the physicality we shared," she said slyly, looking at him, "but all the little things. Your love for me, your wife, on every level--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. You do love me, Anson. I know that now. And then when you compared me to the sun... when you called me your sunshine... I started to cry, Anson, I couldn't help it."

"Jennifer... why were you there for three days and three nights?"

"Because...." and her eyes were teary now. "It felt so wonderful. It felt so good. I've been wracked with so much self doubt for the past two years. To sit there, and just feel your love for me, to know that it's genuine, to be able to bask in it... I got addicted to it, Anson. I couldn't stop absorbing it. I was afraid to say something that might end it. I wanted it to go on forever."

"I want it to go on forever too," said Anson.

And she cried as she reached down and kissed him again. "And it will, my love. I have no doubt of that now."

"But what did you mean when you say your life was in danger?"

"After I had the procedure done, I briefly went to see Carl. I wanted to know if he really loved me too."

"And does he?"

"He does, Anson. He really does. But then when I came here, and sampled your love for me, it was no comparison."

"No comparison?"

"Carl is a good man. He loves me. But his love for me is like a candle. Your love for me, in comparison, is like a burning sun. Your love for me is a thousand times stronger. Carl could love me. Carl could live with me. But only you, Anson, only you need me, need me more than life itself."

"That's true, Jennifer!"

"I know that, my love, I know that now," she said, hugging him. "But my way of going about things almost led to my end. After I saw Carl, I was planning to seek you out, to read your mind and see how much you truly loved me. And then this happened."

Jennifer held up a datapad report. Anson read the headline, "Famous Fixer dies in mountaintop crash in Switzerland."

"You were dead, Anson," said Jennifer, shuddering even to say it. "They found your car on a ledge, twenty feet below the road, but no body. It was thought that you had been thrown into one of the deep caverns below. That's where they found your datapad. After two days of searching, they stopped, and you were officially declared dead."

********

Jennifer couldn't stop crying. She immediately realized that she had been responsible for Anson's death. She knew when Anson saw her, when he realized what she was going to do, to erase all her memories of him, that that was too much for him to bear. Too much pain for him to live with. So Anson had killed himself, driving off the edge of a cliff.

If only she had told him! If only she had stopped him in time!

Jennifer was inconsolable. Now all her plans were obliterated. She could go ahead and erase her memory. She could even erase her memory of this. But erased memories or not, she would soon learn that she had been married to Anson Ford for 311 years, and that he died on the day she had her memory wiped. She would make the obvious connection, and she would be haunted for the rest of her life by it. No amount of memory wiping could save her from that kind of anguish.

Jennifer felt incredibly guilty. Her selfishness, her self-centeredness, had caused Anson to die. How many times had he professed his love for her? How many times had she seen the pain in his face every time she spurned him? She should have known. Even without telepathy, she should have known.

And now she couldn't live with it. She just couldn't. The pain was too great.

Jennifer was not one to slowly get strung out on Weed, or to die an even slower death in the Dreamscape. No, she would get it done quickly, and efficiently.

She headed over to the nearest Soylent Green Recycling Center in San Diego. She purposely left no notes for Carl, or for Judy. There was nothing she could say that could lighten their burden when they found out. What she did, and why she did it, would be obvious to both of them.

Jennifer's heart raced when she went into the lobby and a robot receptionist said, "Why hello there! Are you here to have your body recycled today?"

Jennifer nodded, tears in her eyes.

"That's great!" said the robot. "Cindy here can help you with that! Just follow her!"

Jennifer was led into a room with another robot counselor. This one interviewed her to make sure she was really wanted to do this.

"You realize there is no reversing the procedure afterwards," said the counselor.

"Yeah, I'll be dead. How do you reverse that?" said Jennifer.

"That's what I mean. It's not reversible. You'll have to sign a release indicating your awareness of that."

Jennifer hated talking to robots.

"Give me what to sign," she said.

As she signed, the robot asked for her preferences.

"Preferences?"

"About what kind of music you'd like in the Departure Lounge. About what kind of holographic scenery. We have a wide array to choose from." Images swirled in the air behind the counselor.

"Fuck that. Choose anything," said Jennifer.

"Are you sure?"

Jennifer nodded. She knew what would happen next. She would be led into the Departure Lounge. She would lie on the black Departure Chair, music would play, she would see beautiful images, and then she would gently go to sleep... and never awaken.

When the robot counselor was truly convinced Jennifer had no preferences, it chose them at random, based on her psychographic profile. When it was done, a woman (an actual woman!) entered the room, and said, "Ms. Spaulding? We're ready for you. Follow me please."

Jennifer's heart started to beat rapidly. She was led to an anteroom where she was told to get undressed. She saw, through an open doorway, the Departure Lounge. Her final stop.

The black reclining couch looked ominous. All around it, though, were trees and bushes swaying in a gentle breeze, and the sounds of songbirds and a gentle harp playing in the background.

Jennifer slowly started removing her clothes. First her shirt, then her bra, then her shoes, then her pants, then her underwear. She was as naked as the day she was born. She put all her clothes in a plastic box, also with her identification and her comm unit.

And the last person who would see her alive was the attendant, Murna Feinbaum.

There weren't a lot of volunteers to be Departure Lounge attendants in Soylent Green Recycling Centers. It was felt, though that a human being, not a robot, should be the last one to escort a volunteer into the great unknown.

Murna Feinbaum was actually an eager volunteer. She felt the Earth was overpopulated, and that humanity was a stain, an infection, which was destroying the planet, and the fewer people on the Earth, the better. So she was pleased whenever she could escort someone to the Departure Lounge, to have them converted into their constituent components, to heal the Earth, according to the principals of Nurda Gababba.

Murna Feinbaum was about to take the box away containing Jennifer's possessions. when the comm unit started to beep. Both Jennifer and Murna looked at it.

The comm unit beeped again.

Who could it be? Carl, trying to reach her again? Judy? Who else could it be?

Even though her life was about to end in seconds, somehow Jennifer had to know. She reached for the comm unit, but Murna was quicker, and grabbed it first.

"Let go," said Jennifer evenly.

"Ms. Spaulding, we have a schedule to keep," said Murna Feinbaum.

"Let go, or I'll poke your fucking eyes out," said Jennifer. She wasn't in the mood to be polite.

Murna reluctantly dropped the comm unit in Jennifer's hand. Jennifer raised it up. It was a caller from Switzerland. Number unidentified.

Who did she know in Switzerland?

No one. Not a soul.

Anson.

Anson had died in Switzerland.

She opened the comm with trembling fingers, even though she was totally naked. The holoimage of an unfamiliar man appeared. And he was old! Jennifer hadn't seen an old looking man in years, except in holofilms.

"Ms. Spaulding?" said the man. His eyes widened. Obviously he saw her naked. Perhaps he could even see the Departure Lounge behind her left shoulder.

"Yes," said Jennifer.

"Are you concerned with Anson Ford?"

Concerned. What an odd word for it.

"Anson... ANSON IS DEAD!" she practically screamed, her voice cracking. She started shaking, badly.

"No," said the man, shaking his head. "Anson is alive."

"Alive," said Jennifer. Suddenly she wondered if this could be a trick. Or a dream. Or something beyond the bizarre.

And then she remembered one salient detail of his obituary.

They never found the body.

"Anson... Anson's alive?" said Jennifer, her eyes narrowing.

"At my home," said the man. "He wants you, Ms. Spaulding. He needs you."

Jennifer cried out, a primal scream that startled the attendant. But the man on the other end simply chuckled, as if seeing a naked woman scream at the top of his lungs was no surprise to him.

Jennifer gasped. When she could speak again, almost breathlessly, she asked. "Is he safe? Is he unharmed?"

"He broke a leg, but I mended it."

"Keep him there," Jennifer commanded. "Send me your location, and keep him there. Break his other leg if you have to, but don't let him go anywhere!" She didn't sign off until she saw the datastream indicating his location. Near Interlaken, Switzerland.

Interlaken?

Jennifer grabbed her clothes and ID.

"Ms. Spaulding, where are you going?" Murna Feinbaum asked.

"To live," said Jennifer.

"But your Departure Chair is waiting for you!" Murna was distressed.

Jennifer glanced at the ominous black chair in the other room, and then back at Murna Feinbaum. "Fuck that. You sit in it," said Jennifer sourly, as she grabbed her clothes, and still completely naked, marched out of there.

She had no time to waste. She chartered a stratoliner, at tremendous cost, even though it only would save her two hours or so. She had to get to Anson. She had to get to him before he did anything terrible to himself.

*********

"And when I got here, there you were, lying there, half dead to the world, thinking only of one thing. Thinking of me. Over and over and over," she said tearfully. "I had... I had planned to come out immediately, and reveal myself. But your thoughts... your love for me was so strong... so addictive. I sat for an hour, and then hours, and then time passed... and I went to a hotel in Lauterbrunnen for a few hours to sleep, and came back here, and listened to your thoughts again.... so kind... so loving... always of me... of me!" she said, and she cried as she kissed him.

"I did this for three days, Anson. It was only when you started thinking about going into the Dreamscape that I was jolted into revealing myself. Don't do it, Anson. Don't do it. I'll kill myself if you do."