“Yeah. Business school. He was quite an athlete—great runner, but also did snowboarding, motocross, and more.” She pointed at another picture. “That’s him finishing the Boston Marathon.”
“What year was that?”
She picked up the frame, flipped it over, and looked at what had been written on the backside. “Two thousand,” she said. “‘The Millennial Marathon.’” I was about to say, “Actually…” but she beat me to it: “Of course, not really—but that’s what they called it.” But then her voice grew wistful. “Last time he ever got to run it.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He’s been in his coma since 2001.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What date?”
“I don’t remember. Sometime before you and I started dating, though.”
“Which was the beginning of March, so, if you’re sure it was 2001, then that means January or February.”
“I guess.”
“You’d said they found him passed out. Where?”
“In a classroom.”
“On the U of M campus?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you know which building?”
“No. Why?”
“Was he by any chance a subject in Professor Warkentin’s experiments?”
“I have no idea.”
“Jesus.” I moved back to the couch and collapsed onto it.
“Jim? What’s wrong?”
“Menno Warkentin told me something a little while ago. He said he felt so guilty about what happened to me, he… well, he tried to kill himself, he said. It didn’t work out; he crashed his car, and ended up blind—”
“My God! Really?”
“That’s what he said. But, when you think about it, what had happened to me? According to a reading he saw on his oscilloscope, I’d lost my inner voice. But, externally, my behavior was pretty much the same as before—so that’s an awfully abstract thing to feel suicidally despondent over, even for a psychologist. And, yeah, he’d tried to fix what had gone wrong, using lasers, but that only made it worse, causing my time of… of bad behavior. But what if I wasn’t the only one who’d fainted because of Menno’s equipment? What if an athletic business student had passed out, too, and he had never recovered? That would weigh on you, month after month, if the guy never woke up, if his life had been totally ruined because of you.”
“Holy shit,” said Kayla.
“Exactly,” I said. “Holy shit.”
“What do we do now?”
“I took photographs of his paper files about his project. Let’s look through those and see if any of them mention your brother.”
We transferred the photos from my iPhone to her MacBook so that we could study them on a bigger screen, but there was no mention of Travis—or a subject TH.
“Do we confront Warkentin?” asked Kayla.
“Well, we could—but if he denies having anything to do with Travis, we’ll have tipped him off, and he could dispose of any other records that might prove it. Perhaps we should bide our time.”
Kayla thought about this, then nodded. “I’m good at that.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. A skill I learned from my brother.”
We stayed up awhile longer, but although I’d napped in the afternoon, Kayla was tired. Trying not to be presumptuous, I asked if she perhaps had a blanket for the couch; it had gotten chilly last night. She stood up, turned, faced me, held out her hand, and said, “Don’t be silly.”
We headed upstairs, got naked, and cuddled pleasantly for a while, and then separated slightly; she fell asleep before me, I think, but it wasn’t long until I nodded off, too, until—
Until I suddenly sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath.
“Jim?” I was disoriented, and the woman’s voice startled me; it took me a moment to realize who it was. She shifted in the bed, and I felt her hand on my back. “My God,” she said. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I was also sweating, the sheets damp beneath my thighs. In the darkness I couldn’t see anything except two red LEDs, glowing like a demon’s eyes.
I hadn’t had this nightmare for weeks, but it had been the same as it always was. Me in a rage, lashing out, holding a wooden torch—but, bizarrely, the flames were dark and frozen—while in front of me stood a demon, a monster, a thing that had to be stopped, that had to be punished…
I brought one of my hands to the center of my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart.
“Sorry,” I said. “Bad dream.”
“It’s okay,” Kayla replied softly as she lay back and gently pulled me down toward her, holding me. From this angle, I could no longer see the LED eyes; there was nothing but blackness.
21
“Good morning, class. So, awhile ago I asked how many of you drive to the university each day. Remember? We were talking about philosopher’s zombies? Well, let me ask the opposite question: now that the weather’s good again, how many of you walk here each day?”
A rather small number of hands went up.
“Huh,” I said. “Well, I often do. In fact, I did so today. I live about two kilometers north of here right on the Red River, and I’ll tell you, it’s way more pleasant to walk along the bank than it is to fight traffic along Pembina Highway—except for today, that is. Just as I was coming out from under the Bishop Grandin Bridge, I saw a little girl facedown in the water.”
A couple of students gasped.
I nodded and went on. “She was right by the shore, probably unconscious, and the river wasn’t moving fast today, so I could easily wade in and grab her.” I paused. “And, you know, I was going to, but, well, damn it, look at these shoes.” I stepped out from behind the lectern. “Nicest ones I own. They’re not leather—you guys know me better than that! But they’d still have gotten wrecked, don’t you think? And they’d cost two hundred dollars. So, I walked on by. You all would have done the same thing, right, if you were—wait for it—in my shoes?”
I’d seen the transition sweep across the faces as one by one the students realized it was a hypothetical.
“We do know you,” said Boris. “And if that had really happened, you would have gone in.”
I smiled. “True. But why?”
“Because the life of a little girl is way more valuable than any pair of shoes. In fact, there’s no material object you shouldn’t sacrifice to save a human life.”
“Exactly,” I said, and I looked out at the students. “So, again, suppose it was any of you—Felicity, there, I’m no judge, but those pumps look like they cost a couple of hundred.”
“Each,” said Felicity, smiling.
“Well? Would you wade in to get the girl?”
“I’d take them off first.”
“What if—”
And she had them off already.
“Okay,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “But what if you were wearing shoes like mine—”
“Puh-leeze!” said Felicity, rolling her eyes. Laughter rippled across the room.
“—and had to unlace them; there’d be no time for that. You’d have to act fast. Would you?”
“Absolutely,” said Felicity.
“Good. I knew you had it in you.” I looked around the room. “Anyone? Is there anyone here who wouldn’t sacrifice a pair of really nice shoes to save a drowning girl?”