The Info-Narrative
By
Daniel Robert Papia
B.A., Sophia University, Tokyo, 1988
M.F.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 2002
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the School of English,
Bangor University
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i!
Table&of&Contents&
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Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………..! !iv!
Declaration!and!Statements………………………………………………………………………! !!v!
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Abstract..………………………………………………………………………………………………….! !!1!
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Part&One:!The&Info4Narrative!(A&Critical&Discussion).…………………………………3!
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The!Philosophy!of!Fact!Against!Fiction! !
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!!4!
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Reporting!and!Creating!
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!!6!
Narrative!as!a!Vessel:!!Stories!that!Inform!!!!!!!
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Plot,!Fact,!and!“Hidey!Holes”!
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!16!
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Information!as!Ammunition!!
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!21!
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Crichton’s!Issue!Novels!
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!24!
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Updating!Dinosaurs! !
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!31!
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Observations!and!Goals!
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!36!
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MiniULectures!!
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!41!
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SideUbyUSide!Comparison! !
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!49!
A!Project!to!Test!Structural!Limits! !
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!51!
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Believable!Invention!!
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!54!
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Thematic!Argument! !
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!56!
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Models!
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!60!
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Schematics! !
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!66!
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Sustaining!the!Novum!
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!68!
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Ethics:!!Sword!in!the!Stone! !
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!71!
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Literary!Evolution! !
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!74!
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Capote’s!“Nonfiction!Novel”!!
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!76!
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Mailer!and!“New!Journalism”!
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!79!
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Conclusion! !
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!85!
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Notes! !
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!86!
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Appendix:!The$Lost$Symbol!Plot!vs.!Fact!Vertical!Summary!
!91!
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Part&Two:!Motion&Sickness&(An&Info4Narrative4Inspired&Novel).………………108!
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Whiz!Kids!of!the!New!Millennium!! [chapters!1U4]!
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111!
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The!Straw!Man!!
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[chapters!5U8]!
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121!
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This!Could!Be!a!Place!!
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[chapters!9U13]!
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131!
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The!Giraffe!Factor! !
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[chapters!14U19]!
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142!
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Fighting!Isms!in!Albuquerque!
[chapters!20U26]!
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155!
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Energy!and!Weight! !
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[chapters!27U31]!
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168!
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Believing!in!Trees! !
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[chapters!32U40]!
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182!
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The!Secret!Life!of!Sheldon! !
[chapters!41U49]!
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200!
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Plants!!!
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[chapters!50U55]!
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221!
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Eyes,!Look!Your!Last?!
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[chapters!56U63]!
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232!
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New!World! !
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[chapter!64]! !
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246!
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Project!Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...!249!
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ii!
[This!page!intentionally!left!blank.]
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iii!
Acknowledgements
The author of this work would like to express his gratitude to the following mentors.
Dr. Ian Gregson…who hand-processed my application to the program when it went missing
over the summer of 2004, and who would eventually (at my request) become my supervisor and
point me in the direction of Philip K. Dick, Linda Hutcheon, the critical consideration of my own
creative work within the critical volume, and the use of the “p-word” (propaganda).
Julie MacLusky…who helped me formulate a strategy when I first arrived, took me to
Gregynog, and pushed me to write and produce a musical in my free time.
Dr. Tony Brown…who encouraged me to take a year out in 2006, brought me in to teach
undergraduate creative writing classes which allowed me to test out theories on the short story
(which, fortunately, did seem to benefit the students), and trusted me with his only hard copy of a
colleague’s critical thesis, which was very useful.
Dr. Zoe Skaulding…who taught me tricks of the trade with respect to British higher education.
Dr. Justin Edwards…who did his best to allow me to divide my time between academic and
professional considerations, and was always available to meet and talk.
Dr. Carol Rubens…who listened and helped when visa issues arose.
All of the assistance and support received will not be forgotten.
Also, thanks are due to the August 2013 examiners and chair:
Dr. Dic Edwards…whose insightful comments concerning what was relevant and what was not
have allowed the critical section of this dissertation to be a tighter and more focused work.
Dr. Kachi Ozumba…whose notes on the novel were (appropriately) a mixed bag, allowing me
to stay hopeful (many ambitions of the work had been duly realized, as Dr. Ozumba kindly
pointed out) but also to remember that good writing means rewriting, reworking, tightening,
again and again and again.
Dr. Raluca Radulescu…whose suggestions that I “not rush” the revisions were wise and
ultimately benefitted the dissertation.
Daniel Papia
!
iv!
Declaration+and+Consent+
Details+of+the+Work+
I"hereby"agree"to"deposit"the"following"item"in"the"digital"repository"maintained"by"Bangor"
University"and/or"in"any"other"repository"authorized"for"use"by"Bangor"University."
Daniel Papia
Author+Name:+………………………………………………………………………………………………….."
The
Info-Narrative
Title:"………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………."
Dr. Ian Gregson/English
Supervisor/Department:......................................................................................."
Funding+body+(if+any):".........................................................................................."
PhD
Qualification/Degree+obtained:+………………………………………………………………………."
This"item"is"a"product"of"my"own"research"endeavours"and"is"covered"by"the"agreement"below"
in"which"the"item"is"referred"to"as"“the"Work”.""It"is"identical"in"content"to"that"deposited"in"the"
Library,"subject"to"point"4"below."
NonDexclusive+Rights+
Rights"granted"to"the"digital"repository"through"this"agreement"are"entirely"nonHexclusive.""I"am"
free"to"publish"the"Work"in"its"present"version"or"future"versions"elsewhere."
I"agree"that"Bangor"University"may"electronically"store,"copy"or"translate"the"Work"to"any"
approved"medium"or"format"for"the"purpose"of"future"preservation"and"accessibility.""Bangor"
University"is"not"under"any"obligation"to"reproduce"or"display"the"Work"in"the"same"formats"or"
resolutions"in"which"it"was"originally"deposited."
Bangor+University+Digital+Repository+
I"understand"that"work"deposited"in"the"digital"repository"will"be"accessible"to"a"wide"variety"of"
people"and"institutions,"including"automated"agents"and"search"engines"via"the"World"Wide"
Web."
I"understand"that"once"the"Work"is"deposited,"the"item"and"its"metadata"may"be"incorporated"
into"public"access"catalogues"or"services,"national"databases"of"electronic"theses"and"
dissertations"such"as"the"British"Library’s"EThOS"or"any"service"provided"by"the"National"Library"
of"Wales."
I"understand"that"the"Work"may"be"made"available"via"the"National"Library"of"Wales"Online"
Electronic"Theses"Service"under"the"declared"terms"and"conditions"of"use"
(http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=4676)."I"agree"that"as"part"of"this"service"the"National"
Library"of"Wales"may"electronically"store,"copy"or"convert"the"Work"to"any"approved"medium"or"
format"for"the"purpose"of"future"preservation"and"accessibility.""The"National"Library"of"Wales"is"
not"under"any"obligation"to"reproduce"or"display"the"Work"in"the"same"formats"or"resolutions"in"
which"it"was"originally"deposited."
"
Statement+1:"
This"work"has"not"previously"been"accepted"in"substance"for"any"degree"and"is"not"being"
concurrently"submitted"in"candidature"for"any"degree"unless"as"agreed"by"the"University"for"
approved"dual"awards."
"
Signed"………………………………………….."(candidate)"
March 26th, 2014
Date"…………………………………………….."
"
!
v!
Statement+2:+
This"thesis"is"the"result"of"my"own"investigations,"except"where"otherwise"stated.""Where"
correction"services"have"been"used,"the"extent"and"nature"of"the"correction"is"clearly"marked"in"
a"footnote(s)."
All!other!sources!are!acknowledged!by!footnotes!and/or!a!bibliography."
"
Signed"…………………………………………."(candidate)"
March 26th, 2014
Date"……………………………………………."
+
+
Statement+3:+
I"hereby"give"consent"for"my"thesis,"if"accepted,"to"be"available"for"photocopying,"for"interH
library"loan"and"for"electronic"storage"(subject"to"any"constraints"as"defined"in"statement"4),"
and"for"the"title"and"summary"to"be"made"available"to"outside"organisations."
"
Signed"…………………………………………."(candidate)"
March 26th, 2014
Date"……………………………………………."
+
+
NB:+ Candidates"on"whose"behalf"a"bar"on"access"has"been"approved"by"the"Academic"
Registry"should"use"the"following"version"of"Statement+3:+
+
+
Statement+3+(bar):+
I"hereby"give"consent"for"my"thesis,"if"accepted,"to"be"available"for"photocopying,"for"interH
library"loans"and"for"electronic"storage"(subject"to"any"constraints"as"defined"in"statement"4),"
after"expiry"of"a"bar"on"access."
"
Signed"……………………………………………"(candidate)"
Date"………………………………………………"+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++"
"
Statement+4:"
Choose"one"of"the"following"options""
a)""""""I"agree"to"deposit"an"electronic"copy"of"my"thesis"(the"Work)"in"the"Bangor"University"(BU)"
"
Institutional"Digital"Repository,"the"British"Library"ETHOS"system,"and/or"in"any"other"repository"
authorized"for"use"by"Bangor"University"and"where"necessary"have"gained"the"required"
permissions"for"the"use"of"third"party"material."
b)""""""I"agree"to"deposit"an"electronic"copy"of"my"thesis"(the"Work)"in"the"Bangor"University"(BU)"
Institutional"Digital"Repository,"the"British"Library"ETHOS"system,"and/or"in"any"other"repository"
authorized"for"use"by"Bangor"University"when"the"approved+bar+on+access"has"been"lifted." "
c)""""""I"agree"to"submit"my"thesis"(the"Work)"electronically"via"Bangor"University’s"eHsubmission"
system,"however"I"optDout"of"the"electronic"deposit"to"the"Bangor"University"(BU)"Institutional"
Digital"Repository,"the"British"Library"ETHOS"system,"and/or"in"any"other"repository"authorized"
for"use"by"Bangor"University,"due"to"lack"of"permissions"for"use"of"third"party"material.!
"
"
✔
Options!B!should!only!be!used!if!a!bar!on!access!has!been!approved!by!the!University.!
!
vi!
In+addition+to+the+above+I+also+agree+to+the+following:+
+
1. That"I"am"the"author"or"have"the"authority"of"the"author(s)"to"make"this"agreement"and"
do"hereby"give"Bangor"University"the"right"to"make"available"the"Work"in"the"way"
described"above."
2. That"the"electronic"copy"of"the"Work"deposited"in"the"digital"repository"and"covered"by"
this"agreement,"is"identical"in"content"to"the"paper"copy"of"the"Work"deposited"in"the"
Bangor"University"Library,"subject"to"point"4"below."
3. That"I"have"exercised"reasonable"care"to"ensure"that"the"Work"is"original"and,"to"the"
best"of"my"knowledge,"does"not"breach"any"laws"–"including"those"relating"to"
defamation,"libel"and"copyright."
4. That"I"have,"in"instances"where"the"intellectual"property"of"other"authors"or"copyright"
holders"is"included"in"the"Work,"and"where"appropriate,"gained"explicit"permission"for"
the"inclusion"of"that"material"in"the"Work,"and"in"the"electronic"form"of"the"Work"as"
accessed"through"the"open"access"digital"repository,"or"that"I"have"identified"and"
removed"that"material"for"which"adequate"and"appropriate"permission"has"not"been"
obtained"and"which"will"be"inaccessible"via"the"digital"repository."
5. That"Bangor"University"does"not"hold"any"obligation"to"take"legal"action"on"behalf"of"the"
Depositor,"or"other"rights"holders,"in"the"event"of"a"breach"of"intellectual"property"
rights,"or"any"other"right,"in"the"material"deposited."
6. That"I"will"indemnify"and"keep"indemnified"Bangor"University"and"the"National"Library"of"
Wales"from"and"against"any"loss,"liability,"claim"or"damage,"including"without"limitation"
any"related"legal"fees"and"court"costs"(on"a"full"indemnity"bases),"related"to"any"breach"
by"myself"of"any"term"of"this"agreement."
"
March 26th, 2014
Signature:"………………………………………………………""Date":"……………………………………………."
!
vii!
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ABSTRACT
The novel is tenacious. The form continues to offer, as one critic observes, “the
most comprehensive reports that humans can deliver, of their private experiences, to other
humans.” Though overtaken by film (several decades ago) in terms of popular
consumption, and though being tested (at present) by digital presentation and distribution,
the novel has proven itself admirably resilient. This no doubt has to do with the fact that
the novel is, like the very humans whose experiences it so effectively chronicles, highly
adaptable.
Effective members of modern Information Age societies must process at least
five times the data per day as compared to just a quarter century previous. Not only have
sleeker novels evolved to fit the needs of faster lifestyles (i.e. books with more
aerodynamic structures, communicating maximal plot in fewer pages), but there has also
come into being a type of storytelling within which plot and character have become
secondary to the uncomplicated description of facts and information. This new literary
subspecies could be called the “info-narrative”.
The two best-known authors who have made the “info-narrative” a popular
modern phenomenon are considered. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code broke bestseller
records and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park spawned an almost immediate franchise
without precedent. Yet both did so less on the back of memorable stories, characters, and
plot twists. This dissertation contends that it is the informative content that serves as the
primary attraction, with the stories themselves often little more than delivery devices.
The filmed versions of these novels—in themselves info-narratives—are also
considered. Their cinematic execution reveals a more focused insight into their core
appeal. The Da Vinci Code filmmakers, for example, allowed the forward journey of their
supposed action-thriller protagonist to be paused mid-movie for a full 17 minutes so that
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he could lecture on, discuss, and debate the history of Mary Magdalene and the Holy
Grail. They understood the true attraction of the story, it is argued, so structured their film
accordingly.
The info-narrative remains imperfect. It is but a point on the trajectory as the
novel adapts to its post-modern, information-ravenous, fast-paced readership. Science
fiction was born roughly 100 years ago as a then fringe and frequently clumsy combining
of creative prose with informative fact. Truman Capote presented 50 years ago what he
termed the world’s first “non-fiction novel”, seeking to explain reality using a traditionally
fictive form but failing to entirely accomplish the former. Fans of Crichton and Brown
appreciate the capacity that these two have to explain complicated subjects in a plain,
uncluttered style. When it comes to more creative aspects, however, simplicity ceases to
be a virtue. The literary palate craves complexity in plot, character, language, and
subtext; yet here today’s info-narrative falls short.
Theoretically, there seems no inherent reason that a novel could not entertain and
dazzle with true fact, yet at other times offer transcendental moments and poignant
passages. Given the info-narrative’s popularity, it is predicted that more literary examples
will appear going forward. This dissertation presents an 80,000-word experimental novel,
one that endeavors to be a back-and-forth mixing of a tightly paced info-narrative with a
freer, less structured, character-driven story in prose.
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SECTION ONE:
The Info-Narrative
(A Critical Discussion)
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THE PHILOSOPHY OF FACT AGAINST FICTION
The primary focus of this dissertation is the relationship of fact to fiction in a very
specific sense. Namely, it is concerned with how novelists as well as storytellers in other
media are discovering that the communicating of lesser-known yet readily available facts
can have a mass appeal when married in a pleasing way to fiction. If the facts are relevant
(not to invented characters or plots but to—in much the same way that the news might
be—the lives of the readers themselves), if the facts are explained clearly, and if the reader
can mostly discern from the way that they are presented where the facts end and where the
fiction begins, then the fictive narrative coating tends to render factual content particularly
palatable.
Not only is a dramatic narrative much easier to digest than, say, a heavy text on
science or history or philosophy, but a novel that, in the course of its story, also manages
to explain an intriguing subject may seem an attractive choice to the Information Age
reader with so little time and so much to know.
Before proceeding, it will likely prove useful to consider the relationship between
fact and fiction in a broader sense. As is frequently the case with opposites, the two are
interdependent—one justly defined only by referencing the other. Not unlike, say, the
Platonic concepts of pain and pleasure (“How singular is the thing called pleasure,”
Socrates observed rubbing the leg that had hurt the night before but now felt better, “and
how curiously related to pain.”), fact gives life and meaning to fiction and vice versa.
Perhaps, in at least a loose and limited way, all literature can be thought of as the interplay
between fact and fiction, just as all music is but the alternation of sound and silence. If
such a comparison can be briefly admitted, then the subject of this dissertation—what I
will call the “info-narrative”—might be likened to a faster and louder new style of music
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for audiences craving or needing a higher proportion of sound (it might even be fair to say
“noise”) relative to stillness.
It is worth taking note, for example, of when factual tales and when fictive ones
tend to hold our interest.
Perhaps it can be agreed that fact is most intriguing (and memorable) when it is
incredible. This is the very truth embodied by the old journalism adage “dog bites man:
not news; man bites dog: news.” When facts are surprising and remarkable they command
our attention—the athlete that conquered the then-inconceivable four-minute mile, the
young eccentric American chess player that defeated the specially trained Soviet masters,
the Harvard kid that reinvented social networking and became the world’s youngest
billionaire while still in his 20s, the log-cabin-born Kentucky pauper who taught himself
law and made it to the highest elected office in the land…and, perhaps, the carpenter’s son
who was crucified for preaching love and forgiveness but then rose from the dead in the
third act. To the extent that such stories can be regarded as true, they fascinate us, no
doubt because they challenge our perceptions of reality and offer a new perspective on the
world—the stories are unbelievable, yet (if they are factual) they must be believed.
Meanwhile, it appears that the relationship between fact and fiction is such that the
mirror opposite applies to fictive stories. In other words, fact may be the most interesting
when it is incredible (i.e. almost too fantastic to believe), while fiction seems most
compelling when it rings true. In order for a work of fiction to win us over, we firstly
need the actions of the characters to seem plausible and consistent with the rules of the
world. (A convenient last-minute escape hatch—whose shadow, at least, was not visible
earlier in the work—will leave readers feeling betrayed. Surprises of the deus ex machina
sort are only tolerated when it is understood from the start that such is a part of the
universe.) Furthermore, the characters themselves tend to be compelling to the extent that
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they are believable. A work of fiction inhabited by complex, three-dimensional types that
seem alive and human is more likely to engage a reader, all other things being equal,
because the invented characters (even if they’re monkeys or vampires or stones1) will feel
real. Finally, it will hopefully be readily accepted that fiction is best appreciated and most
memorable when all of the tiny non-truths that comprise a story add up somehow to a
larger and definitive uber-truth.
The characters and events in Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, for
example, were fictive inventions. Neither the initially-well-intentioned-yet-tyrannical
Nurse Ratched, the iconoclastic Randle McMurphy, the broom-pushing native American
narrator, the suicide(s), nor the lobotomies, as portrayed in the novel, were depictions of
actual people or factual incidents. However, the power of the work is the convincing
portrait it manages to evoke of social systems and the impact of hierarchy within
institutions and the elusive nature of true human sanity vis-à-vis mental disorders. The
individual pixels examined under a magnifying glass may not necessarily represent truths;
but the novel succeeds, it is easy to argue, because the larger picture is believable.
REPORTING AND CREATING
To again simplify: I would like to submit that, for purposes of argument at the very
least, (1) factual stories tend to be most interesting when they are by and large incredible;
and (2) fictional stories tend to be most intriguing when they ultimately believable.
It follows, therefore, that to tell a good story with facts one must do more than
simply dig up information and set it down on paper. Those facts need to add up to
something at best unlikely or improbable relative to what is already known (if not to
something unbelievable)…of the “man bites dog” variety. A skilled and popular journalist
or documentarian has a sense for what the public already expects and knows how to
challenge and surprise that public with the tales that he tells. Of course, not every news
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item or work of non-fiction needs to be interesting and there is much published factual
information that is successful in what it does but falls short of being popular. The bar for
non-fiction is much lower in terms of entertainment value (which is obvious enough, but is
here being stated as it will be relevant to what follows); the primary duty of non-fiction, of
course, is to be informative.
Of immediate importance is what the focused consideration of factual narrative
storytelling (above) may reveal about its mirror opposite, fiction. Consider: just as a sense
for that which will challenge believability is required to spin an interesting factual yarn, an
understanding of and respect for truth seems to be the prerequisite for the production of
intriguing fictional prose. And in the same way that a Joan of Arc biographer would
scarcely appeal to a wide audience if he were only to chronicle the mundane factual
aspects of the teen crusader’s life (such as the meals that Joan ate and where she got her
clothes, while leaving out her extraordinary exploits), a would be novelist could hardly
hope to find a readership by listing random fantastic invented incidents while failing to
link the events or ground them to a consistent reality. The Joan of Arc fashion and
gastronomic biography may have informative value to other Joan of Arc scholars, but the
fictional collection of made-up astounding incidents (without a connecting through-line)
would be unlikely to succeed in even the most limited sense. Put another way: a
disjointed assortment of incredible tidbits, such as those to be found in one of Robert
Ripley’s Believe It or Not collections, are fascinating because they are purported to be
true. But a similar compilation of amazing items that are all admittedly false would hold
no relevance for a reader. The fascination—along with any academic interest—ceases to
be when the reader understands that the text is made up.
Successful creative writing, therefore, is a particularly difficult endeavor. It
involves far more than simply conjuring up fanciful occurrences and setting them down on
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7"
paper. It is not enough for the things that the creative writer makes up to be merely
interesting or amazing. They must also reflect and honor a larger reality, in some way,
without themselves being real.
Manufacturing fictional characters and coming up with actions for them to carry
out and places for them to go no more completely describes the work of the creative writer
than applying shapes and colors to canvas does the job of the painter. Surely, it is only the
artful assemblage of said characters and actions, or shapes and colors, which can bring a
piece to life. Art, after all, (as Picasso said in slightly different words) is a lie that points
the way to the truth.2
The storyteller who works in the realm of nonfiction clearly has an easier task.
The natural world provides him with the materials from which he will shape his art. He
only has to arrange them in an interesting way. Meanwhile, even if he is less than
successful, his creation ought to still be of some use, for it has been fashioned entirely out
of truth. The creative writer, on the other hand, must firstly invent his own building
blocks and secondly fashion them together in a way so that they lead to truth. If he comes
up short on either count, he does not succeed and the fruits of his labors have no
application.
It is worth remembering, meanwhile, that there are a good number of examples of
creative fictional prose which are successful in their own right, but which have not yet
been (and may never be) given the chance to connect with a readership. Natural human
curiosity produces a usually modest but nonetheless pre-formed market for many
nonfictional discussions. As alluded to above, if questions can be asked about a given
subject, there is likely to be some sort of audience for a work that explicates the answers,
regardless of the quality of execution. There is, however, seldom a built-in demand for a
purely fictional story that the world doesn’t know about yet.
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This dissertation is about the fusing of fictional stories with nonfictional prose that
explains complicated subjects. It seems to follow that, even when such hybrids prove
highly successful and marketable, they may owe little of their appeal to purely literary
worthiness and a great deal instead to their authors’ adeptness at teaching under the guise
of entertaining. Such stories are likely to be fascinating more because the non-fiction
subjects that they consider are themselves incredible than because the storytellers have
managed to weave a tapestry of truth out of their own fictional threads.
Inevitably, perhaps, such works seldom fail to displease critics. When appraised as
fiction, such stories tend to be weak and shallow and so are judged to have “slipped in
through a backdoor”, as it were, and therefore not to be regarded worthy of serious literary
consideration. Nor can such works be fairly or appropriately critiqued as non-fiction,
however; for they are, ultimately, stories and therefore lack the structure and sourcing
mechanisms that true pedagogical writing demands.
For this reason, fiction enriched by fact (of the sort that will be shortly described)
has not always received a great deal of academic attention. Such storytelling may
represent an odd amalgamation that manages to cheat the conventions of both fiction and
nonfiction. However, when viewed from an evolutionary perspective, it also seems a
natural synthesis for high-tech device-rich societies both saturated with narratives and
constantly craving information.
NARRATIVE AS A VESSEL: STORIES THAT INFORM
In 2005, Salman Rushdie famously referred to Dan Brown’s seminal work The Da
Vinci Code as “a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name.”3 Rushdie was hardly
alone. His assault, in fact, echoes the objections of a great many critics, authors, and
lovers of literature who have taken exception to the book not because of the (largely
overblown) claims it lays against the Catholic Church, but primarily because the writing is
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stilted and unimaginative. Reviewing The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown’s 2009 follow up to
The Da Vinci Code), in London’s Financial Times, fellow novelist William Sutcliffe
quotes an improbable line of dialogue and charges that Brown’s prose is most inept in its
misrepresentation of the way that human beings actually speak to one another:4
‘Peter,’ she said, ‘you already told me that the Egyptians
understood levers and pulleys long before Newton, and
that the early alchemists did work on a par with modern
chemistry, but so what? Today’s physics deals with
concepts that would have been unimaginable to the
ancients.’
The passage is a fairly typical one (an item in the book section of The Telegraph even
goes as far as to review and rank Dan Brown’s “20 Worst Sentences”5) and the bits of
criticism cited above are not even the most scathing.6 That said, however, The Da Vinci
Code remains, as of this writing, at the top of Nielsen Bookscan’s all-time bestseller
listing, based (since 1998) on worldwide retail sales information, and has spent 166 weeks
at the top of the New York Times bestseller list (the greatest number of weeks seen for any
adult fiction text since the survey began in 1942).7 Four other Dan Brown titles occupy
various spots among Nielsen Bookscan’s all-time top 25, while those same works each
placed highly on the New York Times weekly bestseller lists (often concurrently) at
different points throughout the last decade. Meanwhile, Dan Brown’s most recent sixth
book, Inferno, topped all sales lists for the year 2013.8
The bad writing notwithstanding, therefore, Dan Brown represents a phenomenon
worthy of consideration, if only for the fact that his material has proven its appeal in such
a seemingly unlikely fashion. Something apart from the author’s prose must clearly be
responsible for the way that his books have connected with hundreds of millions of
readers in addition to then spawning Hollywood films that have served to further broaden
the audience and increase the net effect on the global collective consciousness. My
contention—hardly a controversial one—is that this has less to do with Brown’s dialogue,
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plotting, characterization, description, or any other mechanism that we tend to think of as
factors that draw readers to fiction. Rather, it seems to me that the fact that is contained
within (albeit sometimes muddled by) Brown’s fiction must certainly be at the root of the
attraction. One does not have to look hard for evidence of this. Readers seldom make
much mention of the modern day plotline in recounting what had fascinated them about
The Da Vinci Code but talk instead of how much they may have learned about such topics
as (a) St. Augustine’s retooling of Christianity, (b) Leonardo Da Vinci’s love for and use
of numbers and codified symbols in his art, (c) the connection of history’s great thinkers
to secret societies such as the Freemasons and lesser known Priory of Sion, and (d)
whether the Holy Grail is pure invention, allegory, or something with physical form that
may have truly existed and could still exist. Such topics are, of course, central to the
many discussions, debates, and lectures that followed the novel’s release. (These themes
were widely conversed when the work was still new and its title continues to be evoked by
authors and orators marketing their own non-fictional treatments of religious history and
the like.9) While the factual kernels of The Da Vinci Code were sewn together to form a
two-thousand-year tale of secret conspiracy arguably even less likely than the book’s
primary plot, these individual facts are, in and of themselves, quite incredible and rather
fascinating.
The trick of The Da Vinci Code and other Dan Brown fiction, it would seem,
involves the author’s ability (1) to assemble, simplify, and render accessible obscure,
interesting, yet complicated facts, and (2) to administer them in the relatively palatable
and easy-to-digest form that is the familiar human narrative. I would argue that the often
movie-like story arcs to be found in Dan Brown’s work—adventure, struggle, the constant
fight-or-flight imperative, and the promise of romance along the way—tend to function as
the structural casing within which the nuggets of fact contained can be best dispensed to
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the reader. Not unlike a cigarette, perhaps, whose truest function is to deliver nicotine to
the smoker, novels of this type might be thought of as employing a certain palatable
narrative architecture to give shape and placement to the pieces of information within that
are the true source of their appeal. Similarly, some consumers may have more objections
to the flavor than others, but might nonetheless reveal themselves willing to (at worst)
choke it down, so to speak, in order that they may digest the facts and the discourse.
It is worth remembering, meanwhile, that Dan Brown and his publishers had to
defend their best known property against a number of lawsuits, most notably from nonfiction author plaintiffs Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh who co-penned the intriguing
historical treatise Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The Da Vinci Code litigants prevailed, with the
court observing that historical “facts” do not qualify as intellectual property and as such
can hardly be said to have been stolen by a novelist, particularly given that Brown had
duly sourced Holy Blood, Holy Grail.10 It is nonetheless telling that Baigent and Leigh
would have perceived Brown to be profiting unfairly from their work; for, as they
maintained in their case, the appeal of The Da Vinci Code is to be found largely in its facts
and arguments, many of which Brown had pulled from their book. Slate critic Laura
Miller put it thusly: “…what readers love about the novel has nothing to do with story, or
character, or mood, or any of the qualities we admire in good fiction. They love it because
of the nonfiction material…”11
A precursor to Dan Brown’s writing, meanwhile, can be found in the informationheavy canon of novelist Michael Crichton who also commandeered fiction as a vehicle for
transporting fact. Crichton’s work as well (Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, The Terminal Man,
State of Fear—all to be discussed shortly) tended to be lacking in the poetic truths and
subtleties that one generally associates with noteworthy literature. This was made up for,
however, by scientific truths and technical subtleties (among other things) so that a
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reader’s knowledge and understanding of a typically complicated subject (dinosaurs,
Japanese trade practices, brain surgery, global warming) would be significantly improved
by the time the book was finished. Crichton frequently prefaced his novels with factual
forewords (as Brown does in The Da Vinci Code), concluded them with nonfictional
afterword sections so that the reader could better contextualize the information presented
in the pages of the narrative itself, and attached bibliographies to suggest scholarly reading
from “more knowledgeable” sources in the event that new curiosities and interests had
significantly been piqued. Crichton was often similarly criticized both for oversimplifying
complex subjects and for the trite Hollywood formulas within and around which he
packaged the up-to-date and factual information that was the most notable feature of his
books.
Yet Michael Crichton’s work was also popularly embraced. All seventeen of the
titles that he published under his own name found places on the New York Times bestseller
list12, including even Micro, a posthumous publication completed by another writer.
Author John Sutherland who featured Crichton (among the likes of Henry James, Edgar
Allan Poe, and James Joyce) in his book Lives of the Novelists noted that Crichton was the
first science-fiction novelist to reach the New York Times list with The Andromeda Strain
and asserts that Crichton played a commendable role in making for a more learned public
despite, if not because of, his populist style: “Crichton was, for much of his career, a great
science teacher. You want to know what nanotechnology is? Forget Wikipedia; read
Prey. Ditto the human genome map and Next. Ditto Timeline and the “wormholes” that
physicists such as Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking theorize about. Ditto behavioral
psychology and Terminal Man.”13 Crichton’s adeptness at decodifying the complicated
and delivering the information in a palatable form likely benefitted both from his scientific
and medical training (he earned an M.D. from Harvard though chose not to pursue
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medicine as a career) and his early interest in film (he wrote and directed such Hollywood
features as the 1973 Westworld and the 1978 Coma).
It would be possible, to some extent, to track prior to Crichton this phenomenon of
fact that entertains and is delivered within a formulaic and less ambitious narrative shell.
What we think of as modern and popular science-fiction, for example, was in many ways
born out of true science magazines with titles like Science and Invention and Science
Wonder Stories that sought first to dazzle their readership with astounding facts, then
introduced fiction, producing in course some interesting hybrids between the two.14
Historical narratives, it might be added, have for centuries often attracted readers to texts
and audiences to productions on the back of the true tales they promised to dramatize (i.e.
in many cases the initial allure of the fiction lied in the fact). Even ancient religious
tomes, in as much as they purported to teach the “truth” of the world to the people for
which they were produced, could be cited as more distant (and still weaker) examples of
the same general principle. In this broader sense, then, information delivered within a
narrative construct that renders it more accessible is clearly something that predates the
work of the two authors here being considered. However, it is my view that Michael
Crichton and Dan Brown represent the best-known examples of a more specific and recent
trend through which the storyteller employs certain narrative styles (most notably
Hollywood cinematic structure), now so popular and commonly available that these styles
are universally familiar, and exploits these in order to satisfy the public’s curiosity
regarding relevant and complex issues. The focus, for purposes of the modern incarnation
of this phenomenon, will therefore be limited to the novels of Crichton and Brown and the
films that have been made from them.
Let us hereafter refer to this phenomenon as the “info-narrative” and consider it
from a number of different angles. Firstly, I will review the appeal of the info-narrative
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from the point of view of the modern consumer, make mention of the point of intersection
with the science fiction genre, and briefly reflect on similar trends of fact and narrative
blending in other media. I will then examine some of the texts of Michael Crichton (those
which I will call his “issue novels” first, before moving on to Jurassic Park) and will
observe how Crichton popularized the inclusion of mini-lectures and/or factual
PowerPoint-like presentations within a fictional narrative, which Brown arguably took to
the next level. The films made from novels such as Jurassic Park and The Da Vinci Code
will then be considered (not for the purpose of analyzing these as texts in their own right,
incidentally, but because additional truths about the movie-structured novels on which
they are based may be observed through the focus, scene length, and timing of the plot
points revealed in their cinematic realizations). I will also offer, as a more graphic
representation of how the two are used to offset one another, a side-by-side summary of
(a) the storyline action and (b) the interesting factual content contained in the 2009 book
The Lost Symbol, which was the most recent example of an info-narrative work penned
entirely by either Crichton or Brown when this project was first undertaken.
There is little useful critical analysis to be found on the work of Crichton and
Brown (perhaps for good reason) and no one has connected the two popular authors or
considered the phenomenon of the info-narrative in quite the way that I am attempting to
here. For this reason, much of the conjecture offered might best be regarded as tentative
and subject (perhaps) to future review. It is hoped, however, that the relevance of the
info-narrative might, at least to some extent, be acknowledged; for this use of fiction to
communicate fact seems to have resonated with audiences and may, it has been suggested,
come to occupy an even larger part of the literary space moving forward.
Following the discussion of Crichton and Brown, I will reflect on the aims and
challenges of my own creative project, a novel entitled Motion Sickness for which I
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appropriated some of the most successful techniques used in popular info-narratives while
also endeavoring to push the boundaries (such that they are) so that the work might win
favor for other reasons as well. Finally, I will attempt to further contextualize the infonarrative by considering such mid-20th century precedents as Truman Capote’s so-called
“non-fiction” novel and the movement toward a more creative style of factual reporting
codified by Tom Wolfe as “New Journalism.”
PLOT, FACT, AND “HIDEY HOLES”
We might imagine a consumer of narrative fiction at a book display trying to select
a novel to take with her on a long international flight and allow that her decision may be
influenced by her curiosity regarding a certain non-fictional subject. Let us suppose the
topic that she is interested in is a current news concern. She may be aware of debates
about that the extent to which global warming is man-made, say, or discussions
concerning how much the loss of western manufacturing to Asia has to do with corporate
and governmental policies on either side; yet she would also be cognizant that her
layperson understanding is incomplete as these are complicated subjects and she has
neither the time nor inclination to do a thorough study of environmental science or
economic and trade policy texts. If our traveling reader were to decide in favor of a datadense info-narrative such as Michael Crichton’s State of Fear or Rising Sun, she ought to
be able to expect that she will arrive at her destination more informed and conversant on
this topic of interest. On the one hand, the plotline that drives the book may be simplistic,
the prose lacking depth at times. On the other hand, however, (assuming our reader is
willing to overlook these literary drawbacks) the uncomplicated style and the familiar
“movie in book form” terrain will allow for fast, unencumbered progression and digestion.
Some of the facts and discourse contained within an info-narrative might be
interesting and memorable in and of themselves, of course. Such may include the facts
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relating to the dinosaurs’ genetic resemblance to modern day birds as well as those
regarding the feminine nature of the figure whose hand Christ appears to almost be
touching in Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”—and the arguments that dinosaurs might
therefore have been quicker moving animals than was commonly supposed or that Jesus
Christ might actually have been married, to take what are likely the best remembered
examples. Other bits of information, meanwhile, less relevant to the reader’s immediate
world, might be more easily glossed over and dismissed if not for the significance that
these are imbued with owing to the structural context in which they are placed. A number
of findings from the psychology and cognitive studies fields have demonstrated and
confirmed for several decades that humans are (not surprisingly) better able to process and
store data that relates to motive, action, or drama of some sort (i.e. a narrative).15
Accordingly, stories that teach might not only be more entertaining than
straightforward learning methods but also in some ways more effective, though there is
the problem (as will be further discussed later) of the relative lack of accountability that a
novelist tends to enjoy relative to, say, an author of textbooks. It is worth observing that
popular authors of true science non-fiction, such as Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and
Isaac Asimov, tend to be talented not only in simplifying the complicated but in telling
good stories (all have published fiction as well—well-received novels in the case of Sagan
and Asimov and storybooks for children in the case of Hawking). With novels, there was
arguably a wide spectrum of fact-within-fiction offerings for at least several decades prior
to Crichton and Brown, and a segment of readers particularly fond of the informative
placing their trust in certain storytellers, often in the science-fiction genre. Crichton and
Brown seem significant because they managed to employ similar tools, but divorced
themselves from the niche that is science fiction in favor of general interest and
mainstream.
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In a certain way, Crichton and Brown are breakthrough writers and their infonarratives are novels that have managed to distill and reshape the fact-based allure of
traditional hard science fiction, applying it to material aimed at a broader readership. In
his review of Brown’s The Lost Symbol, encased within an essay pondering the sacrifices
that other science-fiction authors would have to make if they also sought to appeal to that
larger (less sophisticated) audience, author and critic Norman Spinrad suggests that what
he calls “Dan Brown’s secret formula” is nothing more than the old science fiction
technique of first citing and explaining that which has been proven to be true and then
using the fact as a foundation for conjecture which remains unproven. The difference,
Spinrad argues, is that Brown’s stories are set, not on a future earth or distant planet, but
within a real world present “where everything that can be verified is set in the reality…and
the speculative elements are presented as hiding within that matrix.”16 Every extra
obscure (yet factual) detail that the info-narrative presents, therefore, provides an
additional nook (or what Spinrad calls a “hidey-hole”) for the fictional storyline to later
exploit.
As will be further discussed later, the setting of stories such as Jurassic Park and
The Da Vinci Code in the real world here and now adds significantly to their power. To
the extent that the reader is allowed to feel that the ingredients of the story are neither
from a faraway time nor place but are fully accessible within his or her own reality—that
the events being described could happen tomorrow or may even be happening at this very
moment—the account feels closer, more pertinent, and possible. The factual accounts,
explanations and mini-lectures serve, of course, to further enforce the perceived reality of
the work, so that the narrative becomes in some ways less an invented story and more a
speculative argument on what could be. Furthermore, while recognizing that Dan
Brown’s work is rather different from that of the other writers that he considers in his
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essay (perhaps a sign of new things to come) and duly noting that readers have hardly
embraced him for his prose, Spinrad focuses on Brown’s adapting of science fiction
techniques to speak to a more mainstream audience by positioning his work in the general
interest “speculative present”:
This fiction of the speculative present is certainly speculative
fiction, but is it science fiction? Contend that it is not, and you will
have to concoct a literary definition that excludes it. What does it
lack, when done right? What does it do that it shouldn’t?
This is of more than mere academic hair-splitting interest because
the speculative present is likely to supersede or at least dominate
the speculative futures of “science fiction,” and for a general
readership has just about done it already.
The operative question is really can “science fiction” welcome it
into the fold, can writers whose work has evolved within the genre
parameters of “science fiction” adapt to this mode and use what
they have learned in the process—which is plenty—or will it be
left to the Dan Browns to reinvent the speculative wheel?17
That Dan Brown and similar info-narrative authors may be on the precipice of defining
their own new literary niche (to paraphrase Mr. Spinrad using my own terminology) may
seem a daunting notion. However, there are a number of interrelated characteristics of
modern print media consumers, as opposed to those of just a few decades ago, that are
worth considering, as they seem collectively to suggest that demand for info-narrative
content could continue to expand:
(1) Information Age citizens dwell in increasingly complex environments. A
method developed by statistical theorist Martin Hilbert of USC for quantifying the amount
of raw data that the average person is bombarded with each day relative to how much that
person in turn produces, for example, suggests that modern humans must filter through the
equivalent of roughly 200 full newspapers worth of material on a daily basis to
subsequently generate six. In 1986, those quantities were closer to 40 newspapers worth
of data in each day and only two and a half pages out.18 (2) Our modern environments are
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also saturated with common narrative styles. While the viewing of a Hollywood-type
feature film necessitated a trip to a movie theater prior to the advent of television and the
majority of American adult consumers typically took in narratives of this type just once a
week,19 even today’s child tends to absorb movies at a much greater frequency.20 (Using a
very conservative estimate and assuming that the average modern child is exposed to just
1.5 feature films a day, the difference still represents a full order of magnitude.) Beyond
television, which also brings cable, satellite and pay-per-view filmed narrative content into
a majority of First World households (in such a constant stream that many viewers admit
to leaving their TVs running in the background for most of the day)21, movies and minimovies are screened on computers, with DVD players, through mobile phone devices, and
on monitors in waiting areas, aboard transportation, at sports clubs, etc. The net result,
obviously, should be a much greater familiarity with the structural styles of feature films,
which it seems to me that the books of Michael Crichton and Dan Brown openly exploit
by embedding their simplified doses of information within recognizable and
uncomplicated “movies in prose.” (3) The public’s appetite for more factual content
housed within a narrative shell is suggested by trends in other media. So-called “reality
programming” (recorded event sessions purported to be spontaneous, unscripted, and
populated by non-actors, though they are nonetheless structured by their creators)
represent the most notable shift in television content. Documentary films, meanwhile,
have begun to prove profitable in theatrical venues in recent years, with many now
distributed through the same road-show release mechanisms that were traditionally
reserved only for narrative features.22 It is likely significant that the most commercial
documentary filmmaker of this sort is Michael Moore, who also has some experience as a
director of fictional features and seems to owe much of his popularity to the way that he
manages to fuse a three-act Hollywood structure, frequent moments of humor, and his
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own personal journey with the factual subjects that his documentaries consider.23 Lastly, a
filmic storytelling technique has even managed to impact how news is delivered. For one
thing, the salient points of a news feature are now frequently spaced out for dramatic
effect in print articles and televised deliveries, subtle and weak humor is injected wherever
allowable, and the traditional emotionless and straightforward delivery of the key facts
first seems too often reserved for only the most serious items.24 For another thing, a
growing number of consumers no longer get their news from straight news providers, but
learn about current events instead from passionate talk shows with a firm viewpoint
(which is, again, information placed within a motivated structural context making it easier
to process) or humor-driven programs.25
INFORMATION AS AMMUNITION
There is an apropos adage in screenwriting—“exposition as ammunition”26—that
serves to remind storytellers that audiences (modern audiences in particular) have little
tolerance for random information that is not immediately relevant to characters and plot.
A beginning writer might be too eager to provide all the details of the technologydominated-post-apocalyptic-future-world from which a guardian resistance soldier has
been sent, for example, before anything that might engage an audience has been allowed
to take place. The soldier arriving on the protagonist’s doorstep to recount his entire
backstory and how he has come to protect her can often be difficult to bear. Should an
attempt be made on the protagonist’s life, however, and the soldier arrive just in time to
whisk her into a car and drive her away with a would-be assassin cyborg in hot pursuit,
now both the protagonist and the audience have a pressing need to know the answer to
such questions as “who or what are you?” and “where did you come from?” If the
protagonist is smart, she still will not entirely trust her protector, and the pieces of
information hurled back and forth through dialogue will both allow the two main
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characters to size one another up while providing the essential expository details for the
audience.
The above illustration comes, of course, from the first Terminator movie27, but it is
very much the same principle that sews together the factual threads in movie-structured
info-narrative novels such as The Da Vinci Code. When a Harvard symbologist, about to
be wrongfully arrested by a waiting police detective, is helped to flee by the victim’s
cryptology specialist granddaughter, the two leading (and not completely trusting)
characters now have much they need to know from one another and it is this exchange of
information—some invented to further propel the plot, but much presented as factual—
that will keep the book’s readers interested as they progress through the story. However,
not only does The Da Vinci Code’s plotline empower the factual information that the
novel delivers by making it relevant to story, the same dynamic is also at work on a
different level with the facts additionally serving to support the writer’s historical
argument. Dan Brown’s argument (lifted largely from Holy Blood, Holy Grail) is that
Mary Magdalene was pregnant with Christ’s child at the time of crucifixion, that she
escaped to what is today France to raise a daughter, and that the secret of that sacred
bloodline has been the subject of private battles and intrigue for centuries since. This
treatise serves as a further construct within which interesting pieces of factual information
can be arranged so that they further benefit from placement within a larger theme. Such
particulars as (a) the Gospel of Philip and its suggestions that Jesus was wed to Mary, (b)
Constantine’s altering of Christian precepts so that they would serve the Roman state, and
(c) mystic-shrouded beliefs reportedly held by the likes of Da Vinci (and Newton) all
become more significant and memorable as pillars that hold up the author’s argument.
(This represents more or less the same interplay between factual content and the overall
drive of a program that leads some to prefer argumentative talk show-type news
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broadcasts over straight reporting. The news itself becomes easier to process and retain
when it functions as ammunition in an anti-liberal—or anti-conservative—tirade.)
The informational content of The Da Vinci Code, therefore, (leaving aside for the
time being challenges to the veracity of that which the book presents as fact) may intrigue
a reader for three different reasons: (1) it may be placed so that it is integral to the
structure of the plot, (2) it may be placed so that it is integral to the structure of the
writer’s argument, (3) it may be inherently interesting (if true). For some of the
information offered in the book, all three seem to apply; and this, I would contend, is the
primary force that has kept its readers turning pages. Moreover, the writer’s historical
argument in The Da Vinci Code also functions as a secondary plot, or what is often called
in movie structure terms the “B-Story.” As the male symbologist struggles to stay ahead
of the police and killers long enough to clear his name/prove his innocence, the female
cryptologist is also trying to solve a 2000-year-old mystery and figure out who her
grandfather was and why he sent for her as he did. In perfect Hollywood fashion, the AStory and B-Story come together at the end with the cryptologist revealed to be the last
direct descendant of Mary Magdalene and herself the living embodiment of the Holy
Grail. For one agreeable to the notion that it is the (alleged) fact of this info-narrative that
is the true source of its appeal, the assertion that the B-Story wins over the audience more
effectively than the A-Story should not be surprising. Later, when considering the film
made from the novel and where the plot points are placed, a case will be made that the
storytellers themselves were all too aware of this reality. Prior to that, however, it will be
useful to examine some of the texts of Michael Crichton, specifically the novels that
double as narrative dissertations with Crichton invariably taking the less popular and more
controversial point of view.
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At times, the plots of these info-narratives might be regarded as thinly veiled
pretexts to justify the rapid-fire assault of data and statistics that support the author’s
unfashionable stance. While Crichton’s discourse might not have been able to change all
opinions in every case, the success of these issue novels is that they managed to, at the
very least, broaden the popular discussion on the topics considered.
CRICHTON’S ISSUE NOVELS
In the very late 1980s and early 1990s, the Japanese economy reached its post-war
apogee with Tokyo’s Nikkei index hitting an all-time high of 38,957 in December of 1989
(compared to a current level just above 15,000). Japanese industry was at best a taunting
foil to that of the United States where corporations were downsizing and outsourcing and
still failing to bring sufficient jobs, prosperity, or attractive products to a financially
strapped American public. At worst Japan was, as a minority of unpopular congressmen
then fretted, a threat. The lights of New York’s Time Square that had 20 years previous
flashed advertisements for Chevrolet, Pepsodent, and Chesterfield, now seemed fully
owned by Sony (which had just bought Colombia Pictures), JVC (acquiring the American
Music Corporation), and Toshiba (revealed to have sold US defense secrets to the
Soviets). While a Japanese investment bubble would later be revealed to be a bigger
factor than anyone at the time seemed to realize, the then preferred way of explaining the
trade imbalance in a single sound byte involved pointing fingers at lazy American
workers, greedy short-sighted CEOs, and inferior US production lines.
There were, of course, other more complex factors at play. Japan’s markets tended
to be more protected than those of the US, so a Japanese firm could overcharge for
products at home where there was no competition and use the extra profits to undercut
competition in the American market. Furthermore, the Japanese trade ministry set tariffs,
restrictions, and regulations that would favor local industry, while its American
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counterpart tended to answer more to Washington’s K Street lobbyists (a system that
favored the highest bidder, foreign or domestic).28 These complicated underlying
circumstances, however, were not part of the general awareness of the time. They could
only be properly understood by exposure to dull data and anecdotes. Additionally, the
shorthand version of what these facts added up to discouraged further interest as it did not
fit the zeitgeist but seemed instead to begrudge the hard-working producers of popular
products their just rewards. The February 1992 music video released with the Van Halen
single “Right Now”, for example, which engaged viewers with politically correct onscreen epigrams as the music played such as “Right now, justice is being perverted in a
court of law” and “Right now, our government is doing things we think only other
countries do”, also included “Right now is not the fault of the Japanese.” However,
Crichton viewed the subject of America’s trade with the Japanese as being a more
intricate, convoluted and yet important one than popular media of the time would typically
allow. He claims to have written the info-narrative novel Rising Sun “from the heart”
rather than as a stunt to win readers through controversy, and he countered the inevitable
charges of racism and what was then commonly known as “Japan Bashing” by stating as
his primary intent the promoting of a broader understanding that might allow American
industry to better compete.
Rising Sun is a Los Angeles murder mystery set in and around Little Tokyo and
other Japanese-controlled pockets of the city. The story is told in first person by the
Special Services Liaison officer assigned to investigate the apparent killing of a young
pretty white girl within the US headquarter building of a fictional Japanese corporation—
the embodiment of the powerful, well-connected and multi-tentacled expat subculture
antagonist that the book’s narrator would have no hope of penetrating were it not for the
Japan-expert former Scotland Yard master that he is paired with. This sagely character,
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named John Connor and based on Sean Connery, becomes Crichton’s mouthpiece for
communicating to his reader various facts about Japan, trade laws, and corporate
competition on a global level. The Special Services Liaison needs to understand these
realities in order to solve the case and clear his name from the malicious smearing that
eventually takes place in order to silence him. The professorial John Connor’s
information, therefore, is welcome ammunition and it provides Crichton the opportunity to
not only explain Japanese customs, but to work in relevant anecdotes and tidbits (the
Rawlings company being forced to unpack all baseball bats sent to Japan at Yokohama
harbor for individual inspection, GE subsidiary offices being raided in Tokyo, the
connections between the Toshiba corporation and Russian nuclear submarine technology).
By the end of the novel, the younger officer has solved the case, but also formed new
opinions about how America can most profitably maintain its relationship with its number
one trade partner. Throughout the book, however, as New York Times reviewer
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt charged: “[W]e never go far without hearing the whack of
Professor Crichton’s classroom pointer against the slate of the blackboard. In his lectures,
he attempts to illustrate how the Japanese compete with us unfairly…how they are rapidly
buying up our remaining resources…how they have hired a vast army of lobbyists out to
blind us to what is happening…”
Crichton clearly anticipated the resistance and skepticism, for he concluded his
info-narrative with a 43-point bibliography (a very thorough listing of the most
authoritative research and writing on the subject, incidentally) headed with the following
passage.
This novel questions the conventional premise that direct
foreign investment in American high technology is by
definition good, and therefore should be allowed to continue
without restraint or limitation. I suggest things are not so
simple.
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Although this book is fiction, my approach to Japan’s
economic behavior, and America’s inadequate response to it,
follows a well-established body of expert opinion, much of it
listed in the bibliography. Indeed, in preparing this novel, I
have drawn heavily from a number of the sources below.
I hope readers will be provoked to read from more
knowledgeable authors. I have listed the principal tests in
rough order of readability and pertinence to the issues raised
in this text.
Crichton’s intent seems clearly to have been to initiate his readers, through
the presentation of less popular facts and ideas, to an alternate viewpoint.
It is no coincidence that the more taboo perspective makes for interesting
reading, though he did intend to have his own text serve as the last word.
Disclosure, meanwhile, is another of Crichton’s issue novels that employs a
similar formula and argues the less popular (and less politically correct) side of a sensitive
topic. The book considers sexual harassment in the case of a female aggressor and male
victim, maintaining that it can be proven statistically that women are no less prone than
men to abusing their underlings when given the opportunity, yet the legal system remains
wrongly biased toward females with built-in presumptions that men are not and cannot be
victimized by women. This 1993 info-narrative did not spawn quite the same controversy
as Rising Sun immediately before it had, seemingly because there were plenty of other
anti-feminist texts to be found while Crichton’s earlier effort had ventured onto previously
untrodden sacred ground.
One academic observed that the film that was made from Disclosure tended to
reinforce stereotypes that career women are ruthless backstabbers professionally and poor
wives and mothers privately. However, the filmic version of Crichton’s narrative is, in
that work, considered alongside Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle,
both thrillers that are borderline horror stories about disconnected and deranged women
that turn into killers. Against such a backdrop (the other films were released prior to
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Crichton’s novel, five years and one year, respectively), the smarter and more reserved
info-narrative that is Disclosure made appropriately minor waves.
Disclosure is the tale of a manufacturing control supervisor at a Seattle tech firm
who finds himself working under an old girlfriend and learns too late that her attempted
after-hours seduction was part of a scheme to force him out. The sexual harassment suit
flipped on its head that is at the heart of the novel is actually based on a true story that
Crichton had heard about (though this is not revealed within the pages of the book). The
timeless and universal battle-of-the-sexes theme first allows interesting discourse and
nuggets of wisdom to be placed in the mouth of various characters throughout. When the
lawyers enter the narrative, legal statistics about the outcomes that men and women can
typically expect are then brought to bear on the discussion. Additionally, banter between
the protagonist, wife, and coworkers of both sexes permit the uncommonly seamless
presentation of other relevant data—Barbie doll sizes extrapolated to human proportions
would be an impossible and unsustainable 36-24-36, one female argues; yet 80% of all
suicides are men, a male retorts.
The best sourced yet most aggressively disputed of Michael Crichton’s issue
novels was the 2004 techno-thriller State of Fear, an annotated tale about eco-terrorists
plotting to manufacture tidal waves and other artificial natural disasters in order to
convince the world population by example that global warming is posing a serious threat
to mankind. The eco-terrorists are the villains that must be stopped by a protagonist
(layperson) environmental lawyer who is teamed with allies, which (to various degrees)
better understand the science. This provides for much discussion, explanation, and
teaching of facts as the team manages to discover and abort minor environmental
catastrophes ahead of a final giant tidal wave being created to strike a large populated
segment of the California coast. The text itself contains 32 charts and graphs—actual data
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from weather stations or reprints of trend diagrams from climate science journals—for the
characters to discuss, debate, and interpret. There are also 20 pages of bibliography
attached directing the reader to 169 different sources (or, as some who take issue with the
text have argued, to give the misleading impression that the book represents something
more than a mere work of fiction).
The novel itself is not regarded as highly as many of Crichton’s other titles
(generally weak reviews) yet its controversial and seemingly politically incorrect
viewpoint did make it a popular read when it was released.29 To what extent this infonarrative’s perspective on climate change contradicted that of the public, however, and to
what extent it aligned with it may provide additional insight.
Gallup Poll data indicates that in the five years prior to the release of the book,
more than 65% of the populations in 23 of 24 surveyed nations (and between 50% and
72% of those surveyed in the United States specifically) maintained that global warming
was “a serious or somewhat serious issue” and something that they worried about “a fair
amount”, respectively.30 However, when climate change was placed in a group of ten
potential future catastrophes and respondents asked to rank the ten in terms of how
concerned they were about each, climate change tended to fall near the bottom of the list.
As a review of two UK surveys conducted in 2004 noted: “although most people have
heard of global warming, and rate it as the most important environmental issue for the
world today, they see terrorism and domestic issues as having a higher priority.”31 These
data tended to contradict polls conducted prior to September 11th of 2001 and suggested a
trend away from climate change concerns in the post-9/11 First World. A simplified
statement of the viewpoint that Crichton presents in State of Fear, therefore, would agree
with the general public in that global warming is not seen as an immediate and pressing
worry. However, Crichton’s intent was not to challenge the prevailing public view as
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much as to challenge what he perceived as the response of the environmental sciences to
growing apathy about the problem of global warming. The climate science community,
particularly in the wake of the 1997 signing of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, and leading into the 2005 adoption of new
limits and standards, had (in Crichton’s view) amplified the message of impending doom
and the imperative of responding with immediate action. The writer’s argument, through
which the data in State of Fear is presented, asserts that there can be multiple
interpretations, that climate is too complicated a system to be definitively understood, and
that immediate action may not be necessary and could even be dangerous.
Interestingly, the novel had the result of establishing Michael Crichton as an
authority on climate systems in his own right (though he had no training or experience in
this field apart from the research that he did in order to write his book). Crichton was
called upon to give speeches on climate change, take part in debates, and even to appear
before a US Senate Committee on environmental regulations (where opponents such as
Hilary Clinton invariably took pains to remind listeners that State of Fear had been a work
of fiction).32 This took place on the heels, incidentally, of Dan Brown being presented at
lectures and on television shows as a Renaissance and religious history expert, with no
qualification apart from the fact that he had researched and written a book on the subject.
In the case of Crichton (and Brown, in other ways, that will be discussed later), this nicely
illustrates how the phenomenon that is the info-narrative is very much a double-edged
sword. On the one hand, a novelist with no relevant credentials and whose work is not
peer reviewed can overwhelm other more serious academics in terms of public attention,
possessed of nothing more than his ability to simplify the complicated and paste bits of
information into a popcorn movie structure. On the other hand, divergent voices not
shaped by the same institutional mold may also be quite important if not crucial: In State
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of Fear, the core enemy is not the rogue band of eco-terrorists but the dangerous concept
of “consensus science” (opinions that agree because those that hold them have been
shaped by the same system, and the erroneous notion that because they all agree they must
be right). When Al Gore’s popular slideshow talk was converted into both a book and a
film in 2006, State of Fear with its counter-interpretations stood as what might be
regarded as a useful comparison text to An Inconvenient Truth.
In the best case, of course, a thoughtful reader approaches an info-narrative aware
of its limitations. However, by the same token, one would hope that a certain amount of
caution and skepticism is retained even when reading non-fiction. Even the hardest of
“facts” can be subjective, with how they are presented, where they are presented, what by
contrast is not presented, and a number of other variables inevitably impacting their
interpretation. One last point should be made here about State of Fear and the difficult
balance between fact and fiction in the info-narrative: Crichton’s use of proper names in
this text sometimes leaves the reader wondering. The villains in the novel are a group
called the Environmental Liberation Front, abbreviated as ELF. There is, however, a real
group called the Earth Liberation Front, upon whom Crichton’s eco-terrorists are clearly
modeled. Yet the identical abbreviation pushes at the boundaries of suggesting that the
latter real group may have actually formed a plot to flood part of California with a tidal
wave, only to have it secretly foiled by the book’s heroes. A fictional island nation known
as “Vanatu”, sharing many similarities with the South Pacific Republic of Vanuatu, also
appears.
UPDATING DINOSAURS
While one does not associate the topic of dinosaurs with hot debate or controversy,
Crichton actually employs in Jurassic Park much the same technique that he uses with his
issue novels. A simple movie plot is devised—a number of specialist consultants brought
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to oversee the opening of a living dinosaur theme park must fend for themselves when the
containment systems fail—and information is delivered to the reader in the form of blocks
to construct the architecture of the story as well as ammunition that the various specialists
of differing backgrounds and opinions can meanwhile hurl at one another. Additionally,
however, there is a writer’s argument, one that represents a less favored viewpoint yet one
that Crichton delivers with passion, giving a second didactic structure to the facts and
discourse contained within. In the case of Jurassic Park, it seems that what Crichton
decided to take issue with was the entrenched notion (particularly prior to the publication
of his book) that dinosaurs must have been slow, dull creatures. Obviously, those
knowledgeable of the newer findings of paleontological studies would have known better
(and in support of his thesis, of course, Crichton works the most representative of those
findings into his book), but because of what is commonly known about very large
dinosaurs with very small brains, because the animals went extinct, and because of the
comic sluggishness of early animated portrayals, a stereotype had taken hold that had
reduced the dinosaurs to simple oblivious creatures ill equipped for long-term survival.
Crichton’s info-narrative, therefore, would espouse the view that the dinosaurs must have
been more agile and with better instincts than the public was giving them credit for or they
could have not have come to dominate a planet rich with other life forms eager to
compete.
Crichton argues his points using the tools of fiction as well, of course, particularly
during the latter portion of the book when the reader is allowed to fully behold the
author’s vision of many species of driven and masterful dinosaurs by witnessing how they
are portrayed in action (a more than equal match to the planet’s current masters).
However, the first half to two-thirds of the book—and, as many critics have asserted, the
stronger portion—is rich with relevant, digestible, and recent information on findings from
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biology, archeology, and paleontology. When two characters in roughly the first fifth of
the text are discussing some of the latest shifts in thinking that have challenged ideas
about dinosaurs that had lingered since almost the 19th century, for example, Crichton
pauses the discussion to insert this account:
Scientists had always classified dinosaurs as reptiles, cold-blooded
creatures drawing the heat they needed for life from the
environment. A mammal could metabolize food to produce bodily
warmth, but a reptile could not. Eventually a handful of
researchers—led chiefly by John Ostrom and Robert Bakker at
Yale—began to suspect that the concept of sluggish, cold-blooded
dinosaurs was inadequate to explain the fossil record. In classic
deductive fashion, they drew conclusions from several lines of
evidence.
First was posture: lizards and reptiles were bent-legged sprawlers,
hugging the ground for warmth. Lizards didn't have the energy to
stand on their hind legs for more than a few seconds. But the
dinosaurs stood on straight legs, and many walked erect on their
hind legs. Among living animals, erect posture occurred only in
warm-blooded mammals and birds. Thus dinosaur posture
suggested warm-bloodedness.
Next they studied metabolism, calculating the pressure necessary
to push blood up the eighteen-foot-long neck of a brachiosaur, and
concluding that it could only be accomplished by a fourchambered, hot-blooded heart.
They studied trackways, fossil footprints left in mud, and
concluded that dinosaurs ran as fast as a man; such activity implied
warm blood. They found dinosaur remains above the Arctic Circle,
in a frigid environment unimaginable for a reptile. And the new
studies of group behavior, based largely on Grant's own work,
suggested that dinosaurs had a complex social life and reared their
young, as reptiles did not. Crocodiles and turtles abandon their
eggs. But dinosaurs probably did not.
The warm-blooded controversy had raged for fifteen years, before
a new perception of dinosaurs as quick-moving, active animals was
accepted—but not without lasting animosities. At conventions,
there were still colleagues who did not speak to one another.
Jurassic Park delivered much of the newer work and theorizing about dinosaurs that
previously was known and discussed chiefly among specialists, to the general public. It
presented facts suggesting that some species may have traveled in herds, that others may
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have possessed unique natural weapons, that certain dinosaurs might have had feathers.
(The last idea was, and apparently still is, too fantastic—or at least too great a visual
mismatch—to be incorporated into the films that the novel gave life to,33 though more
recent findings have confirmed that many species almost certainly had a feathery coat.34)
The data that Crichton provides makes his case almost too effectively, for a point that
modern general-interest dinosaur enthusiasts reportedly need re-educating on is their
mistaken belief (in the wake of Crichton’s book) that the dinosaurs were actually highly
clever creatures.
Meanwhile, many interesting pieces of non-dinosaur information are woven into
the front portion of the novel as well. There are facts about genetically modified “pale
trout” that are easier for fisherman to find and catch (given structural placement by virtue
of the regeneration of dinosaurs requiring some extra genetic tinkering). There is data on
how frogs can spontaneously change sexes when forced to by circumstances (slipped in
early as a random tidbit but one that will gain significance later in the book because the
strands of frog DNA used to complete the laboratory chromosomes seem to allow the
dinosaurs to change sexes and breed in the wild). There are also extended passages and
discussions offering the layperson reader a quick crash course in chaos theory (significant
both because it explains the cynical nature of a key character and for the way that it
prophesizes the catastrophic ending of the theme park).
A feature that Jurassic Park shares with some of Crichton’s other info-narratives
in which things go terribly wrong at the end is that the facts and data tend to be in shorter
supply as the story nears its conclusion. Factual information features heavily in the set up,
to a lesser extent but still substantially in the execution, but sporadically at best as the
narrative approaches climax and resolution. That critics seemed to lose interest in the
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latter part of the book, even as the action was coming to a crescendo, tends to reinforce the
view that Crichton’s appeal lies in the non-fictional content of his novels.
Book reviewer Gene Lyons praised the plot-assembling portion of the book thusly:
“Filled with diverting, up-to-date information in easily digestible form, Jurassic Park is
hard to beat for sheer intellectual entertainment. Warm-blooded and more like birds in
their movements than reptiles, Crichton’s dinosaurs are far more intelligent—hence far
more dangerous—than, say, Godzilla or the Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”35 Yet, he then
went onto conclude: “When it comes to human beings, unfortunately, Crichton’s
characterization is purely skeletal. Once he gets the cast assembled on the island and
things start to go wrong, the conventions of a thousand action/adventure films take over
and the plot becomes entirely predictable.”36 While the statement is telling, I am inclined
to wonder whether Mr. Lyons might not have had a bit more tolerance for the
uncomplicated characters and formula plot had Crichton found a way to maintain the flow
of intriguing information into and throughout the movie-novel’s “third act.”
Fellow novelist and critic Gary Jennings was similarly inspired by the infonarrative, but let down by the end:
The introduction alone is worth the price of the book. What
it recounts is true, and frightening: how science has of late
become almost wholly the handmaiden of big business. The
decipherment of the DNA molecule, Dr. Crichton tells us,
promises "the greatest revolution in human history."
Nonetheless, he says, biotechnology (that is, genetic
tinkering) is being taken over by commercial companies,
and the researchers have become those companies'
employees, working to develop every sort of thing from
marketable new drugs to cubical tomatoes that are easier for
McDonald's to slice. Nowadays, many epochal discoveries
in the field are shrouded by protective patents. Nowhere is
there a governing body competent to control the
experimentation. Hence, says Dr. Crichton ominously, "it is
done in secret, and in haste, and for profit." His novel makes
his point.
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[…] Anyhow, from the page when the scientists' plot is
revealed, the author's puppet strings begin to dangle in plain
view. The best-laid plans go predictably awry, the power
plants fail, the computers go haywire, the dinosaurs get
loose and wreak havoc, and coincidences abound. The
attempts at suspense are all contrived and strained. Most of
the rest of the book is just a working script for the specialeffects boys in Hollywood.37
In other novels by Michael Crichton that are structured differently, or in a book
like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code wherein intriguing fact is parceled out until the very
end, critics seem less wont to point to a specific page or section beyond which the work
loses its appeal. To the extent that the info-narrative blend is maintained throughout, a
reader ought not decide more than halfway through that the novel has suddenly become
boring, but rather proceed with the same level of interest until the end. This is not to say,
however, that the drawbacks of the work cease to be apparent as long as there are
intriguing facts being delivered.
OBSERVATIONS AND GOALS
I recall seeing Jurassic Park, the film, in a crowded Los Angeles theater the
summer that it opened in 1993. I happened to be writing regularly for at least one movie
industry publication at the time (and was just learning the craft of screenwriting as well),
so I studied both the audience and the film with professional interest. My recollection is
that the phenomenon of waning enthusiasm as the enterprise neared its climax, described
by both Jennings and Lyons above, was very much in evidence with at least the adult
contingent of the theater. There are, of course, numerous smaller differences between the
novel and the film in the case of both Jurassic Park and The Da Vinci Code (which I will
come to shortly) but the basic structural landscape is the same.38 The audience, as I
remember it, was very engaged by the way the film first asserted, as it referenced a small
and condensed portion of the science from the novel, that dinosaurs could be brought back
to life, and then proceeded to fulfill that promise with powerful special effects. However,
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the awe soon wore off, the second half of the spectacle seemed to captivate slightly less
than the first, and for the last ten minutes of the film there was even intermittent stretching
and watch checking despite the main characters being trapped among the raptors for a
final showdown. The first Jurassic Park movie was the film event of the summer and
would hold the record for all-time highest grossing feature film for the next four years.
However, the second movie in what would come to be a series, also directed by Steven
Spielberg and featuring considerably more dinosaur footage and ambitious special effects,
took in only two-thirds the revenue. What appeared even more significant to me when I
saw the Jurassic Park follow up The Lost World at a similar L.A. venue, was that it was
playing to a considerably different audience. The theater was full of pre-teens and their
parents, seemingly young fans of dinosaurs, but not what I judged to be the same patrons
who had purchased tickets to see the first film. My observations and interpretations of
such are, it must be allowed, subjective; but for what they are worth, I would say that the
first audience was intrigued by something that they perceived to have been effectuated
before the movie had ended and were thus not compelled to come back and view the
sequel. This perspective is informed by the fact that, as a reader of the novel and then as a
member of the movie audience, I felt what Lyons called the “sheer intellectual
entertainment” run out at around the same point in the narrative.
By contrast (although the contrast seems a slight and superficial one), I recall
seeing the filmed version of The Da Vinci Code in a crowded UK cinema when it opened
in 2006. There was no palpable drop off of interest, least of all at the very end, as this
novel and film were structured differently and the payoff for the interesting ideas, which
had largely come through the first encounters with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, would
not be fully realized until the main characters discovered the present-day location of the
Holy Grail. This did not mean, however, that the audience was any less aware that the
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characters had been superficial and the plot formulaic. If anything, this audience seemed
less adrenalized on leaving the theater (perhaps because Spielberg’s Jurassic Park
audience would have had the experience of state-of-the-art special effects39). On balance,
therefore, the filmic versions of these two bestselling info-narratives appeared to exhibit
similar trajectories: (1) large audiences attracted to theaters partly on the basis of an
intriguing fictional premise supported by lesser known but soon to be conveyed factual
information, (2) viewers enduring—moreover enjoying—pauses in story for mini-lectures
(to be discussed below) and finding entertainment in truth and ideas, (3) yet audiences not
returning with the same enthusiasm or in similar numbers for sequels (that were actually
stronger in terms of action, plot twists, etc.), a phenomenon that tends to support the view
that the film’s characters had never really won the viewers over.
Directors Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard would have brought their skills to
bear in attempting to mitigate the shortcomings in the Jurassic Park and The Da Vinci
Code stories for the filmed versions. Screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman
were procured to add shape and dimension to the characters, even a few complex
refinements, it seemed, to the largely simplistic plots. Nonetheless, my opinion was and
still is that none of these artisans were able to both retain what drew audiences to the
original novels (which, obviously, was the primary imperative) while significantly
infusing the adaptations with additional psychological intricacy or artistic depth. The
books had been rich with ideas but lacking in complicated characters or plot. The films
exhibited an analogous pattern: they were intellectually stimulating, yet in terms of human
story quite forgettable.
This would appear less likely to be a coincidence than a function of the infonarrative itself and the talents of the authors that have excelled most in this special form.
Much of the genius of Crichton and Brown lies clearly in their abilities to simplify, in
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other words to express complicated truths in straightforward language and to string these
together with undemanding plots. Simplicity, meanwhile, seems in some ways to be the
antithesis of that which makes a narrative distinct and powerful—complex psychologies,
multi-tiered and multi-layered storylines, interwoven themes and motifs, linguistic
duplicity and the allowing of compound interpretations. This begs the question of whether
the across-the-board simplicity seen in the most successful examples of info-narrative
exists, perhaps, because it must. Might more complex characters, complicated plot, and
poetic language actually cheat the main source of appeal by again confusing the data and
facts that the author had endeavored to simplify?
The banker-turned-novelist Paul Erdman, to take an inevitably arbitrary example
for purposes of illustration, wrote nine novels, all dealing with economics and high
finance. Erdman was noted for the understanding of complicated monetary and financial
systems that he was able to impart through his work. He published around the same time
as Crichton and saw one of his books made into a film. Yet Erdman’s readership
remained a relatively niche one, particularly compared to the mainstream audience that
Crichton enjoyed. None of the information-rich economic-themed novels that Erdman
published ever connected with the same broad readership that Rising Sun reached on its
release.40 There are obviously a large number of variables that determine which books
will sell in which markets and it is impossible to factor these out, but these two authors
would have been quite comparable in terms of style and availability around the year 1992
with Erdman’s books tending to have a not dissimilar intent to Crichton’s Rising Sun. I
have, consequently, what at best is an interesting but unverifiable hypothesis concerning
why Crichton’s text attracted more readers, fueled by two (subjective) observations: (A)
Erdman’s plots and characters also tended to be complex; (B) Crichton’s were not, and the
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relative simplicity of his stories seemed to make for a nice counterbalance against the
inherent complexity of his subjects.
Not only has the info-narrative proven itself as an important phenomenon over the
last three decades, it seems to me that it is poised to further expand and exert an even
greater influence on literature and storytelling going forward. I have been impressed by
the way that a good Crichton or Brown novel can capture an audience’s imagination,
generate excitement about science or history or even economics, fuel thought and
discussion, inspire interest. And, I have wondered whether another author might similarly
weave together interesting pieces of factual information encased within a plain and
familiar plot to keep the reader eagerly turning pages in the same way…yet also pull back
from the urgent information-as-ammunition schematic at times to achieve other effects.
Could there be an info-narrative that also contained transcendental moments, poignant
passages, intermittent odes to joy? I am undecided. At first glance, this seems an obvious
stylistic contradiction. However, the human and the informative need not be manifest
simultaneously. In the same way that a novel can be humorous in one chapter and serious
in another, might the info-narrative structure not lend itself to expansion so that characters
can open up and flourish in other sections, perhaps within separate storylines?
My first novel (the concluding two-thirds of this dissertation) represents an
experiment with these ideas. I attempted to structure a story that could benefit at times
from an info-narrative-like rhythm, but that could also be a different kind of book. There
were challenges—for example, a unifying voice that could be clinical where appropriate
but also express pathos as necessary was difficult to find—yet I was not forced to
conclude that the info-narrative is at its most perfected state or that it will resist adaptation
or absorption. The process of my creative attempt will be explained below. I suspect,
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meanwhile, that other writers will soon be undertaking similar endeavors if they are not
already.
MINI-LECTURES
The 1972 novel The Terminal Man is another example of a front-loaded Michael
Crichton info-narrative, similar in structure to Jurassic Park, in which intriguing data and
ideas transport the reader into deep within the book but then, near the ending, subside as
best-laid biotechnology-based plans begin to unravel and all goes terribly wrong. The
story involves a brain surgery operation that medical science at the time of the novel’s
release had yet to realize: the implanting of a micro-computer and 40 small electrodes into
the head and neck of a patient that had become clinically violent following an automobile
accident, with the behavior believed linked to brain trauma which was triggering
psychomotor epileptic seizures. The novel begins as the patient is admitted into the
hospital where discussions among doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists concerning
how to proceed (or whether it is even appropriate that they proceed) allows for much
information to be communicated to the reader about the scientific premise on which the
operation is based (electrical stimulus to the brain had been demonstrated to reverse
seizures), about the dangers and concerns (the patient might become addicted to the direct
mental stimulus, some feared), and about the wider advantages the operation may bring
(as many as 2-4 million Americans could unknowingly be inclined toward violent
behavior due to a cerebral imbalance, the text argues, and Lee Harvey Oswold may have
been a case in point).41 The worst fears are realized when the post-op patient escapes from
the hospital, goes on a violent murderous rampage, and is himself killed in the end.42
It may be instructive to consider the time scheme of the 1974 film version of The
Terminal Man. The first five minutes of the work contain a prologue during which two
doctors and an agent of the hospital sit at a restaurant discussing the experimental surgery
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that is about to be performed and the history of the patient.43 The next fifty minutes
present the operation: the patient is admitted to the hospital, questions are asked and
reservations voiced by various members of staff, all watch as the surgeons implant the
circuitry in the operating theater and computers monitor the progress in the next room,
then the electrical nodes are tested and a seizure is artificially triggered then successfully
nullified. It is not until minute 55 of the 104-minute film that the operation is pronounced
a success; and, more importantly, it is not revealed until minute 60 that the patient has
escaped.
For a filmed narrative to exhibit a change of course at roughly the sixty-minute
mark is not unusual. It is so common, in fact, for the plot of a mainstream film to redefine
itself to some extent one hour in that film structure theorists have names for this part of a
movie’s anatomy (the midpoint or “one-hour pivot point”)44 while cinema audiences
(whether they realize it consciously or not) are accustomed to it.45 For the patient to
escape when he does, therefore, fits the familiar mold. What is exceptional, however, is
the relative lack of drama or jeopardy or character needs for a full hour without this
causing the venture to lose its appeal. While the film is classified as a “sci-fi thriller”,
nothing that can fairly be regarded as thrilling, in the dramatic sense at least, is allowed to
happen until the final 44 minutes. Yet during the first hour (which was arguably the more
interesting portion of the movie), the audience is given the experience of a medical
procedure that had not yet been attempted on humans when the film was released but was
supported by credible fact—it is allowed to attend a pre-op panel discussion, to witness
the operation first hand, and then to watch as the patient is tested. What producer and
poster designer Mike Kaplan called “one of the most memorable scenes” occurs during
this post-op period with technicians stimulating the electronic nodes one by one to test
them (as had been done in real life when the procedure had been tried on laboratory rats)
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and noting the responses.46 The scene reveals essentially nothing about the
underdeveloped characters that are the psychologist and the patient, but demonstrates
again that the goals of the operation have been fulfilled. The medical operation itself
seems to function as the film’s most intriguing character.47
A similar pattern is manifest in Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. For roughly the first
hour of the film, the audience learns about dinosaurs and cloning, watches as theories are
applied and the beasts brought back to life, and enjoys special effects that are meant to
fascinate but not yet frighten. Much of the movie’s first half involves only the various
main characters traveling to the island and there taking an extensive and informative tour
of both the lab and the grounds. There are no big problems, no jeopardy, and no
immediate goals or needs to force action from the main characters, though lesser character
Dennis Nedry who is the park’s computer programmer does have financial issues that he
is scheming to solve by smuggling out samples of the dinosaur DNA. At some point
between minute 55 when Dennis disables the park’s security system and minute 65 when a
Tyrannosaurus breaks down a no-longer-active electric fence and begins attacking humans
(the t-rex, incidentally, realized the fence to be no longer electrified at exactly minute 60),
the film switches gears and the characters must until the end of the movie flee the plague
which has suddenly fallen upon the land.
In his June 11th, 1993 review of the film, critic Roger Ebert suggests (as I observed
above) that the most intriguing bits of the movie are to be found in the first half: “There is
a scene very early in the film where Neill and Dern, who have studied dinosaurs all of
their lives, see living ones for the first time. The creatures they see are tall, majestic leafeaters, grazing placidly in the treetops. There is a sense of grandeur to them. And that is
the sense lacking in the rest of the film, which quickly turns into a standard monster
movie, with screaming victims fleeing from roaring dinosaurs.”48 The scene that Ebert
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references is to be found at minute 20,49 but there is also a similar moment of
paleontologists’ awe when they watch a dinosaur egg being hatched at minute 28, and
another at minute 50 when the two encounter an ailing triceratops and are able to tenderly
offer care. In this film, as well, the expository set up, which many movies accomplish in a
mere 15 to 20 minutes, runs roughly a full hour and yet, rather than drag, it tends to
interest audiences more than the action that follows.
A movie within a movie was even tolerated for a full three minutes of screen time
during this first hour. Prior to beginning their motor-trail tour of the island, the newly
arrived guests are invited to watch a short documentary explaining how the dinosaur DNA
was extracted from petrified resin and then cloned. This mini science lecture was judged
so engaging that a shorter, one-minute version was actually used as the first Jurassic Park
trailer to be seen in theaters, absent of stars or dinosaurs, in 1992. The movie within a
movie simplified the science, allowing audiences to understand and then believe that
dinosaurs, perhaps, could be brought back to life. It is likely that this convincing bridge
between fact and fantasy helped to magnify the impact of the then revolutionary dinosaur
special effects. However, as noted, the audience quickly seemed to build up a tolerance in
the second half of the film and the more dinosaurs the viewer saw the less real they
became.
The incorporation of cutting edge science, along with pauses to thoroughly yet
simply explain them, was a perennial feature of Michael Crichton books. It therefore
follows that filmmakers, who would naturally want to preserve what was most appreciated
about the novels, have seemed willing to give the explanation of fact more screen time
than would normally be allowed in a typical fictional narrative. The Rising Sun novel, for
example, was written and released when digital image manipulation was still relatively
unknown to the public at large (except, of course, through special effects) and so Crichton
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worked into his plot doctored security camera recordings that the two police detectives
must resolve in order to solve the mystery. When the film was made, Photoshop was not
yet a household word and so a plot-relevant demonstration (that intrigued audiences of the
time) was permitted with the heads of the two detectives being copied, cut and pasted onto
one another’s bodies by the digital expert before she revealed the secrets of the doctored
disks. Disclosure, in turn, gave readers and viewers the experience of a virtual corridor
that allowed a user equipped with video projection goggles, treading atop sensors, and
wearing a cyber-glove, to use three dimensional walking and grasping movements to
access objects in computer-generated space. The film, of course, conveyed the experience
better than the novel could have, while both contained thorough explanations of the
technology behind it. (Interestingly, the character giving the virtual reality talk remarks:
“We don’t see the Corridor as a product in the marketplace at this time. It’s just
something that we’ve worked up to demonstrate the potential of virtual reality.” Two
decades later, that statement seems to have reflected genuine industry thinking.
Nintendo’s Wii, which allows users to experience virtual reality through their television
sets was released in 2006 and has sold over 13 million units. Yet the cyber-glove and
video goggle system have yet to be marketed to the general public.50)
As Sutherland (above) observed, Crichton was a writer who “interbred his fiction
with film.” Some books were first conceived as films, such as Jurassic Park (called “a
textbook example of blockbuster craftsmanship” by screenwriting guru John Truby51),
which is one of at least a few cases in which the novel exhibits a tighter movie structure
than the actual movie. (The book opens, for example, with strange “lizard attacks” in
Costa Rica from which a hand-drawn picture of a dinosaur reaches scientists in the US—
an inciting incident that jump-starts the narrative with a pressing sense of urgency, but one
that did not agree with Spielberg’s preferred dinosaur progression from benign to
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terrifying.) While movie structure comes with its own complicated standards and
problems, the point to make note of here concerns when Crichton’s otherwise tightly
formed and fast-paced stories are allowed to slow down, something that becomes
particularly evident in the films because parenthetical intervention is not readily tolerated
in the medium, especially in the case of popular Hollywood movies where pauses in action
generally must be for a particular reason. Hopefully it will be agreed that a light-hearted
travel montage for the length of a catchy pop tune, say, would not easily find a home in a
suspense thriller, but it would be allowed in a comedy or a musical, because a comedy
narrative can always pause for comedy and the story of a musical can always be halted for
music. By the same token, it seems that info-narratives yield quite readily to information.
As one critic noted of Crichton’s novels, “[They] have embedded in them little lectures or
mini-seminars…on the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition software, or medieval
jousting etiquette.”52 That a significant number of these mini-seminars manage to remain
in tact when the works are transferred to the expensive, demanding, and action-biased
world of film for theatrical release would appear indicative of their integral nature and
essential charm.
The filmic realization of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, meanwhile, allows
what masquerades as the primary plot line to pause for a full fifteen minutes for several
back-to-back little lectures and mini-seminars, and these at the story-significant one hour
turning point. At minute 56, Langdon (the Harvard symbologist) and Sophie (the French
cryptology specialist who has helped Langdon to flee the police) enter the home of the
protagonist’s former mentor Leigh Teabing (a nod to the Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors,
comprised of the correctly spelled surname of Richard Leigh and an anagram of Michael
Baigent). Ostensibly, the purpose of Langdon’s visit is to show Teabing a keystone (or
cryptex, supposedly leading to the Holy Grail, that the man he is accused of killing has led
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them to) and to ask how the Priory of Sion might be connected to the intrigue he and
Sophie are embroiled in. However, Langdon does not even take the keystone out of his
pocket until minute 70 and the discussion that occupies this fifteen minutes of crucial
screen time does nothing to enlighten this main character or advance his cause.
Rather, a seven-minute lecture/debate53 explaining, over tea, the Priory of Sion
myth—the idea that the Priory exists to guard the secret of Christ’s mortality—runs to
minute 62 and concludes with Teabing’s assertion that the Holy Grail represents the womb
which carries Christ’s lineage. The discussion is then moved into the study where
Teabing offers up (1) a PowerPoint presentation that analyzes Da Vinci’s “The Last
Supper” and argues that John the Apostle in the painting is actually Mary Magdalene, the
Holy Grail, (2) two separate readings (from lecterns at different parts of the room) from
the apocryphal gospels of Philip and Mary Magdalene, both asserting Mary to have been a
legitimate spouse, (3) consideration of the Middle English word for “Holy Grail”—
sangreal—scrawled onto the digital monitor so that it can be divided into its two
morphological components “royal” and “blood”, (4) graphic depictions of a medieval text
on witch hunting as Teabing contends that Mary’s alleged holy female bloodline would
have been a tremendous threat to the Catholic Church while the Priory of Sion struggled
through the centuries to guard the secret lineage from destruction. It must be noted that
during these fifteen minutes, there are five cutaways (though each no longer than a few
seconds) depicting the murderous albino monk that has been chasing the protagonists as
he receives a telephoned directive and races to the scene. However, it is not until minute
70 that the lengthy and purely academic discussion is at last truly interrupted by events
relating to the plot.
Teabing learns from his valet that Langdon and Sophie are wanted fugitives. This
forces Langdon to offer Teabing the cryptex in exchange for help and information. The
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albino monk then arrives and the three must overpower him. The police break down the
front gate and so they must work out an escape. Interspersed with these events there is
more exposition, but it is of the more common sort as it directly relates to plot, characters,
and the cryptex itself. Furthermore, the story (from Langdon’s point of view) does
undergo the sort of shift in direction that is typically seen at a film’s midpoint for when the
two main characters at last leave Teabing’s home at minute 76, it is with a new member of
the team and for an airplane that will take them to London. What seems unusual for
standard Hollywood fare, however, is for this shift to arrive so late.
Meanwhile, the fifteen minutes of discourse also seems too crucial to the work as a
whole to be regarded as a diversion that delays the reshaping of the main story. This
invites a revealing interpretation. As noted above, readers fond of The Da Vinci Code in
book form tend to speak most enthusiastically of the informative and speculative threads
that tie together Christianity, St. Constantine, the Holy Grail, Leonardo Da Vinci, and our
present day reality. Not only does this represent a complete narrative through line—the
story of the Holy Grail itself, as it were, with Sophie gradually revealed to be its present
day embodiment—but it is clearly the stronger and more compelling arc. Considered in
this way (with the A-Story actually the B-Story, and vice versa), the placement of the
series of lectures can be seen as structurally appropriate. The Langdon plot enables the
Holy Grail/Sophie plot but it is the latter that is the key feature of the work.54 The
information presented at the midpoint turns the Holy Grail into something of life and
possibly still alive, and it converts Sophie’s search from the discovery of what killed her
grandfather to that of who she is.
Not only does the outspreading of the info-narrative’s structure onto an actual
filmic platform reveal the ancillary nature of Langdon’s arc (even while Sophie’s actions
inevitably lost more in the conversion than those of the leading man), but the focus of
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some of the smaller lectures of the film are also instructive. Teabing continues to teach,
for example, even after the three leave his home, but he talks mainly to Sophie (relieving
Langdon of that duty). He gives short lessons as they fly to London and approach
Westminster Abbey, arguing that the quest for the Holy Grail may have been a Knights
Templar pilgrimage to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene, and offering other
pieces of history mixed with Holy Blood, Holy Grail theory.
The first time that Langdon is revealed to the film audience, in fact, he is giving a
lecture. He presents information on symbols, that have more impact seen than read, to an
auditorium of students: a Ku Klux Klan-style hood revealed to be a holy head covering in
Spain, a devil’s pitchfork shown to be Poseidon’s trident, and a swastika matched with a
Buddhist tantric symbol. In each case, he asks the students to shout out their associations,
before revealing them to be wrong. He then steps away from the lectern and queries:
“…How do we sift truth from belief? How do we penetrate centuries of historical
distortion to find original truth?” These questions, of course, feed directly into the Holy
Grail/Sophie narrative in which he is about to play a consequential part. Meanwhile, they
are also, at the beginning of the film, non-narrative thesis questions; for along with the
fiction more intriguing information is about to follow, some of it theory, some of it fact,
and it will be the task of the viewer to sift and then determine which is which.
SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON
It is, after all, one of the functions of story itself to offer up truths. These truths are
often rough and scattered, like so many bits of gold in a prospector’s pan, but when sifted
out they will shine pure and can be molded to fit the purposes of the person enjoying the
story. Are we not attracted to tales of honor or love or even war, however removed the
locations are in terms of space or time or dimension, because we sense that at some level
that they may provide strategies for being honorable, finding love, or winning battles?
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Does not much of the mystic allure of all art, in fact, (art in its broadest and most inclusive
sense, from the cave paintings of Cantabria, Spain that date back 40,000 years to books
and movies that have just been released) lie in the promise of enlightenment it offers,
above and beyond its entertainment value, for those who are willing to sift?
To further the gold prospector’s analogy, when we perceive that we have been
enriched by art, what we feel we have ultimately gained often seems at first to be
intangible, ethereal, and incomplete. The lasting value is revealed when we complete it,
mold and adapt the abstract benefit to our lives that the art has provided us with, and this
takes place some time after the prospecting, enjoyable as the prospecting itself may have
been. Art might, perhaps, be thought of (again with apologies to Picasso) as a pile of lies
that sparkle with golden truth. And it is, possibly, because that truth is abstract and
unformed that it will be all the more personal and rewarding.
Anthropologist and aesthetic studies scholar Ellen Dissanayake, who has thought
and written much about the possible reasons for all things artistic, observes: “Art would
not exist universally if it did not possess positive selective value, and we must ask
ourselves what it could be about art that is essential to the survival of the human species or
to individuals in it…” There are, of course, different levels of art, and the work of
Crichton and Brown has neither been nor pretended to be of the same caliber as that of the
literary greats. I am inclined to think, however, that the info-narrative has evolved, and is
still evolving, to nonetheless serve a purpose. Less a prospector’s canyon affording
priceless rewards if one will take the time, a Crichton or Brown novel is more akin to a
well-stocked secondhand jewelry shop. The info-narrative as it exists today offers
minimal insight into the soul of man or the human condition. Rather, it is a different blend
of lies and truth—fiction and fact, clearly delineated and each simple smooth pillar able to
support the enterprise only with the help of the other.
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In concluding this area of discussion, I would like to offer a two-column listing of
the plot points adjacent to the factual information contained in the 2009 Dan Brown novel
The Lost Symbol. It seems appropriate that some attempt be made to quantify and
illustrate graphically the amount of plot relative to fact, and vice versa, that is actually to
be found in such a work. Vertical listings of the sort provided in the table (attached as
appendix) may be the best one can do to trace and represent visually the prominence of
story vis-à-vis the information. It needs to be remembered that such a graphic can never
be perfect for at least two reasons: (1) there will be cases in which plot and fact are too
intertwined to completely and fairly be represented on each side, and (2) how each is
worded will impact how sizeable one may seem relative to the other. Therefore, the table
is inherently subjective.
However, I did take pains to make note of all plot points that moved the story
forward and all bits of factual or argumentative information that the text contained that
were of interest in their own right and to express both as economically as possible. It may
be, at the very least, useful to note that the story does carry the novel without incredible
bits of fact for as many as four or five consecutive chapters. It is also worth observing that
there are chapters, even late into the book, in which little or nothing happens in terms of
plot while much is being communicated in terms of unusual information.
A PROJECT TO TEST STRUCTURAL LIMITS
The latter (creative) portion of this dissertation is comprised of an experimental
extension and retooling of the info-narrative form. On the one hand, I have attempted to
distill and hone those that seem the most powerful elements of this style of storytelling.
On the other hand (as suggested above), I have also endeavored to move away, where the
narrative would permit, from the tight popcorn-movie-thriller construction techniques that
appear to be the hallmark of info-narrative novels in order to give the story and characters
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further dimension. I settled upon this project in part because it seemed an ideal way to
bring together the two different trajectories described thus far by my career as a writer.
I did my undergraduate degree in comparative literature in the 1980s and took a
job as a financial journalist in 1990. I transitioned from financial reporting, to general
interest news, on to quirky features, and eventually to satire (holding part-time posts as a
stringer for a movie industry trade publication and as a media columnist throughout). In
1998, admitted to a Master of Fine Arts program in screenwriting, I made the move to
Hollywood and spent roughly the next decade drawing an income from script
development and writing assignments. I did sell one and option two of my own
screenplays during this time, but none were actually produced and being on call to write or
reform someone else’s vision was therefore easier and steadier work. I proved to be better
than many at resolving story issues and so managed to carve out a humble but profitable
niche.
Throughout the 1980s and for most of the 1990s, I had very little (if any)
conscious understanding of story structure. When a piece of writing that I was laboring
over was not working, all I really had in the way of strategy (for the better part of two
decades) was going back to the last place that read true, as it were (i.e. my last “true
sentence” in the Ernest Hemmingway sense) and starting over from there, repeating as
many times as necessary, until the pieces finally fit. It was all the more painstaking
because it was often a matter of forging through the next cluster of trees, without knowing
until the end the arrangement of the proverbial forest. Then, no doubt as a result of
studying and being exposed to good stories, bad stories, and story theory, I developed,
sometime around the start of the new century, the ability to intuit the topography of a
story. This aerial view did not, of course, make good writing easy; but it made it less
mysterious. And perhaps all those years of trial and error when I had to make due without
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a map had served me well. For, when I became able to see the patterns, I found my notes
and suggestions very much in demand by other writers.
Meanwhile, I also began to have ideas and form my own theories about why and
how humans respond to stories and the functions that popular narratives serve (both
positive and negative). I wanted to explore these in an academic setting. Furthermore, as
I had always enjoyed written prose, I thought it would be rewarding to try my hand at the
other popular current form of story dissemination: the novel. The broader objectives of
this first novel, in no particular order, were: (a) experimenting to some extent with the
amalgamation of fact and fiction in what I hoped would be a less traditional and inventive
way; (b) making the book (at least in part) a “film in prose” that would connect (at least at
times) with mainstream cinematic aesthetics; yet at the same time (c) crafting a novel that
would exploit the advantages of the form by doing things that a film cannot (or tends to be
less effective at).
One obvious connection that will shortly be expanded upon has to do with
objective (a) answering the question posed by objective (c). In other words, the depiction
of fictionalized scientific investigation presented itself as a good example of an
underexplored literary enterprise that would lend itself nicely to the novel form.
Meanwhile, objective (b) seemed that it might also offer a solution to the challenges posed
by such a venture. A scientific story in novel form could prove heavy and slow, but
embedding a quicker paced movie plot within (as the info-narratives discussed previously
have done) might keep the reader turning pages through the less drama-worthy sections.
But another thread that links (a), (b), and (c) is the fact that each corresponds to a space
that I have dwelled in or am in the process of relocating into as a writer. My first job after
completing my undergraduate degree was working as a serious journalist but I soon
thereafter found myself penning satire—amalgamating fact and fancy. I then did a
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graduate degree in film, worked for a number of years as a screenwriter, and finished a
script rewrite on assignment as recently as 2011. Now I have completed a novel [(c)] and
have endeavored to weave both fact [(a)] and filmic structural styles [(b)] into the work.
An expanded version of my personal background, as it relates to and with emphasis on the
goals of the project, will now follow.
BELIEVABLE INVENTION
I enjoy science, but have long been mindful of the fact that it is particularly
difficult to dramatize. In the year 2000, I won a $10,000 USD prize from the Alfred P.
Sloan foundation for a script I wrote called Worldliner. Sloan awards go to filmic projects
that respect and encourage the scientific method. At its core, Worldliner was really a sort
of psychological action thriller about a man that travels “sideways” through time into
alternate dimensions, each just slightly different, until he escapes into the forbidden one
and meets himself as a powerful billionaire. However, I took pains in the script to stress
the scientific foundation for parallel dimensions, even including a scene with the main
character (a physics teacher before he became a “worldliner”) lecturing his class on Niels
Bohr and demonstrating the famous “double-slit experiment.” The script was never
actually purchased (and, needless to say, never made), but it was in development for a
time with major production house Bender-Spink and it brought me invitations to meet a
number of producers and showrunners who would invariably praise the work for making
inter-dimensional travel seem “real” and believable.
As discussed previously, an often overlooked factor in Jurassic Park’s success is
arguably the fact that Michael Crichton made the reincarnation of dinosaurs feel plausible,
so that a story of humans interacting with animals that ceased to be some 65 millions years
ago suddenly became less a fantasy fairy tale and more a Jules Verne-type picture of a
possible future. Not only am I personally fond of well-considered science-based
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narratives that can connect readers in a plausible way with the extraordinary, it has
interested me that many others seem to feel the same way yet few popular stories permit
us this experience.
One final note from personal history: The first screenplay that I profited from, and
the only wholly original script that I ever sold outright, was a family film project called
Indy Dog about a scrappy mutt named “Edison” that learns to drive and winds up winning
the Indy 500. As ridiculous as the premise sounds, it was not a mindless yarn about a
smart-as-human canine that steered with his paws and worked the pedals with a hind leg.
The protagonist was actually the dog’s owner, a junior high school-aged farm boy named
Clay who was an amateur inventor, good with his hands, and decided one day to attach a
customized joy stick to the remote control car his young puppy liked to sit in as an
experiment. The small dog figures it out, moves itself around by biting the connected
rubber ball, and as the animal gets bigger it receives bigger toys. A year later Clay
modifies the small family tractor so that his dog can help with the chores when Clay’s
father is not around. The script argues for the plausibility of its premise by stressing the
chasing and honing instincts that dogs are already known to have and suggesting it is only
an engineering feat that is needed—i.e. dogs may be really good drivers, but no one has
ever built them the right cars. The project seemed to win fans for a similar reason: it made
the reader believe that dogs could drive.
Despite a production firm feeling confident enough to buy the script, however, it
could not be set up. It seems likely that this may have had at least a little to do with the
fact that the screenplay is an odd literary beast. Scripts typically function as blueprints for
movies and are seldom regarded as literary texts in their own right. To extend the
metaphor, investors at a certain level would hardly waste their time looking at blueprints
for, say, a bakery if they did not already consider bakeries to be an enterprise they are
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willing to fund the building of. It seems quite probable that Indy Dog may have failed to
get to the next level—as a great many properties do, incidentally—because the logline and
the Air Bud meets The Love Bug-type pitches would not really have communicated to a
non-reader the secret ingredient of the script. It is likely that Indy Dog would have been
assumed to be another talking dog project, just as it is entirely possible that a Michael
Crichton pitch about an island of dinosaurs could have been discarded as little more than
another Godzilla or King Kong clone…had Crichton not written the novel. When I came
to Motion Sickness (the original novel that comprises that latter two-thirds of this
dissertation), after having written perhaps 20 complete scripts and developed many more,
I was ready to expand into a narrative form that would offer more breadth.
My idea was to fashion story focused on a fantastic scientific feat—one of the
thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, cloning-dinosaurs-from-petrified-DNA sort. Yet a
challenge I wanted to set for myself was to find a way to encourage reflection and respect
for science without then cheapening it. Crichton had stimulated wonder and reverence for
the natural world in the first half of his novel, but then been forced by the very same
movie-plot structure that made the book such a fast read to pay it off with a Saturday
matinee-type finish. The insertion of many interesting factual nuggets and a credible
foundation seems no guarantee that a science fiction story will continue to fascinate and
will remain believable if the function of science itself is exhausted to early.
THEMATIC ARGUMENT
My desire was to craft a narrative about science, the language of truth. Science is
seldom justly dramatized; for good reason, to be sure, as there are limits to how much of a
compelling story can be made of the slow, analytical, and inherently unromantic process
of study and reasoning.55 Even more of a barrier, no doubt, is the problem of how to hone
in on science in “real world” fiction. If the story involves a scientist proceeding toward a
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breakthrough or discovery that has not actually been realized, detailing the process
becomes a challenge—the storyteller must either invent credible science or appropriate
real science in a convincing way. If, on the other hand, the story chronicles an advance
that has already been reached in our real world, the details of the process become those of
non-fiction.
It was appropriate, therefore, that science relate to the central theme of my novel.
Even a cursory review of Motion Sickness ought to quickly reveal the work’s primary
thematic message: intellectual inquiry and the scientific method, unspoiled by commerce
or politics, as mankind’s last best hope for survival. The argument itself is hardly radical,
but it is a surprisingly uncommon position for modern stories to take. A fair amount of
contemporary science fiction, in fact, portrays technological advancement as the plague
upon the land with the sublime yet often mystical power of nature and the straight-fromthe-heart “Force” of human intuition being the principle counter-weapons a hero must use
to restore order. My aim was not to reverse this and allow science to triumph over the
natural, but rather to resolve the conflict through synergism.
Science, it is worth remembering, was the natural roughly a century ago. (The
common dictionary definition of science is “the systematic study of the natural world”.)
Yet given the destruction that technological advancement has brought as well as the nonnatural quality that chemical homages created in laboratories seem to have (fizzy nonnutritive “orange” soda in a non-biodegradable can, for example), it is scarcely a mystery
that science and nature came to be popularly regarded as contradictory concepts, at times
even polar opposites. In just the past couple of decades, however, advances in various
branches have begun to lead the scientific back to the natural, and even the (apparent)
mystic.
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This notion is presented at one point in the novel, for example, in the form of an
internal discourse the protagonist indulges in. Sheldon reflects on The Origin Of Species
and how a key component of Darwin’s original 19th century thesis fell out of popularity to
become ignored and all-but-forgotten in the 20th. Darwin envisaged a sublime yet divine
power subtly guiding the scattered random mutations in a certain evolutionary direction.
Darwin spoke of animals stretching their necks to reach higher foliage (Sheldon recalls),
even a divine inclination toward pushing their reach higher, and of this mighty and shared
desire opportunistically expressing itself when the DNA-juggling double helixes dropped
a ball, as it were—sort of like a background wind, encouraging errors to move with the
current and not against, and eventually leading to giraffes. As this current could not be
seen or measured, 20th century scientists left it out of their ideologies. But Sheldon
ponders whether scientists of the 21st century, having since adopted such previously
fantastic and universe-unifying concepts as quantum entanglement, synchronicity, and the
God Particle, might not soon come full circle and decide that random mutation might not
be entirely random.
Some very recent findings in a young field known as epigenetics, for example,
seem to prove that organisms can and do “switch on” genes in ways that create physical
DNA changes that are passed on to their offspring.56 Meanwhile, the possible
rehabilitation of Darwin’s still mystical-sounding idea that my novel’s protagonist argues
in favor of serves to mirror the exoneration of a certain pseudo-science that he himself will
bring about in the course of the narrative. Motion Sickness ends with an astonishing
scientific breakthrough—more in heaven and earth than dreamt of in our philosophy—not
meant to suggest that that which the fictional protagonist has found is really and truly
there and waiting for tomorrow’s scientist to uncover it, but to make the more general (and
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exciting) case that the natural world is continually proving to be more fantastic than we
realize.
The work maintains that, if scientists are allowed to follow their research interests
rather than serving only as contract laborers for corporations and government, something
is likely to soon reveal itself that will be (a) incredible to the point of seeming magical,
and (b) a unifier of the seemingly disconnected.57
At one point in the novel, protagonist Sheldon has resigned himself to the fact that
he must now go to Silicon Valley and work for a big corporation (and the government) but
remains dismally unenthused about it. His friend Margaret suggests that he is afraid of
money, prompting a small debate fueled by cheap sparkling wine:
Sheldon:
Margaret:
Sheldon:
Margaret:
Sheldon:
The profit motive does encourage science. But not
necessarily good science.
What other kind is there?
Take medicine. What’s our biggest breakthrough in
the last decade? Probably Viagra.
Well good for you that you don’t need it, but there’s
plenty of guys…
I wasn’t saying that… A cure for Malaria would also be
nice to have. It strikes around 500 million people a year.
Only the victims are mostly dirt poor so there’s no
financial incentive for a little blue pill that keeps African
children from dying of mosquito bites.
Sheldon arrives at his new place of employment a few days later, his guard up. Soon,
however, he begins to rejoice in the possibility that a for-profit Silicon Valley tech
company may actually welcome good science and prove him wrong. Like Nature herself,
however, the world in which Sheldon finds himself is slow to reveal its secrets. The most
thematically appropriate storytelling technique for this narrative, after all, is the “journey
of discovery” type. Sheldon’s mission, on a number of different levels, is to find the truth.
He forms many postulates along the way, but neither he nor the reader is sure of their
veracity for some time.
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When Sheldon puts his foot down and decides that he will not serve his selfappointed masters but will follow instead the path down which his own research has led
him, he is choosing to value the truth rather than commandeer it. This choice, of course,
makes him worthy of eventually knowing that truth. Real science, it is suggested, is a
mixture of both curiosity about and respect for nature’s secrets.
MODELS
Having decided at the conception of Motion Sickness to attempt some of the
aforementioned narrative arguments in the form of a novel that would be, at least in some
sense, a less traditional “adventure in science”, there then came the question of what had
been done previously and how one might push that consideration a step further. (Let us
pretend for the sake of shaping the discussion that this was, as the previous sentence
implies, a linear process. Literature is a dialogue and obviously the premise itself would
have been conceived, subliminally or not, in partial response to some of the following
texts and certainly not in a vacuum with no awareness of what had come before.)
The best and most common examples were, not surprisingly, to be found in the
realm of non-fiction. If stories of popularized science (from Isaac Asimov to Stephen
Hawking) could be considered narratives in their own right, with science itself as the hero,
then the best adventures in science were, inevitably, the true ones. Using such texts as
models for a fictional narrative, however, would present limitations that would be difficult
to overcome. The reader cares about science in and of itself only because it relates to his
own world and allows him to better understand it. If a reader is to be taken into an
alternate scientific reality, he is unlikely to be interested at all unless the alternate laws of
physics impact him vicariously, through human or human-like characters.
There are, on the other hand, numerous examples of narratives that track real
scientific progress and development yet are, at the same time, stories about the humans
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impacted. Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff, considers that chain of developments
that was the American space race from 1947 to 1963 but presents it through the
perspective of test pilots and NASA engineers. The 1990 film Awakenings tells the true
story of advances made by the British neurologist Oliver Sacks (based on Dr. Sacks’ own
1973 memoir, though he is fictionalized as an American in the film). Awakenings
manages to effectively dramatize the doctor’s investigation into and partial curing of
encephalitis lethargica since both are done through interaction with the patients. A more
recent example (also medical) is the 2010 film Extraordinary Measures (based on the nonfiction book released the same year) which tells the true story of John Crowley, the father
of two children afflicted with the previously untreatable illness Pompe disease, who
started his own biotech company that developed a cure in time to save their lives. All of
these were strong, compelling narratives, yet at the same time they were less
comparable—in varying degrees—to an adventure in science.
A good and instructive example of a credible portrayal of a scientific breakthrough
in pure fiction, meanwhile, is to be found in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. In this novel,
a form of ice is created that melts not at 0° Celsius but at 48.5°, so that it remains solid in
all but the warmest of outdoor temperatures. This is called “ice nine”. Vonnegut sets up
the possibility that such a form of ice could exist by explaining that water is capable of
crystallizing (i.e. turning into ice) in a number of different ways and that, in laboratories
under certain pressures and conditions, scientists had created ice-two through ice-eight, all
of which have different melting temperatures. (So legitimate is the science, in fact, that
just a few years after the publication of Cat’s Cradle, someone did produce a ninth form
of ice. As of this writing, there are fifteen. None, of course, have the same properties as
those of Vonnegut’s ice-nine, but it is worth noting that the properties of Ice XV, achieved
at the University of Oxford by Christoph Salzmann, were also rather different from those
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that computer models had predicted. Ice-nine in Vonnegut’s novel is fascinating because it
is as much speculation as it is fanciful invention. It is unlikely, but an Ice XVI could be
produced tomorrow and it could reveal itself to be a stable solid at all temperatures below
48.5° C.) Vonnegut also prepares his reader to accept the magic-like power that ice-nine
will possess by explaining early in the book how crystals form and that ice is crystallized
water. The reader understands the true science of how a seed crystal “teaches” other
molecules to construct the same patterns, so that when ice-nine is at last introduced it
makes sense, and when it is finds its way into the ocean and freezes the world’s seas and
groundwater with a mighty “whoosh” it is an all-too-believable horror.
The trick of Cat’s Cradle, incidentally, is comparable to that of my well-received
spec script Indy Dog. Indy Dog began with a less-than-spectacular puppy, that had
learned only how to operate a toy car, and took the audience in increments toward the
fantastic—all the more engaging because it felt like it could be true. A strain of black
magic that can solidify all the waters on the globe in a single dramatic flash is the sort of
sorcery one expects to find in comic books and otherworldly B-movies. Vonnegut made it
scientifically credible; and he presumably hoped to leave his reader concerned and perhaps
a little more conscientious as a result. Ice-nine is in many ways an apt metaphor for
atomic weaponry capable of bringing an instant, deadly and unstoppable chain reaction to
the planet as soon as the next first dose is delivered. The novel succeeds because, at many
levels, the fiction seems brimming with believability and truth.
In Cat’s Cradle, ice-nine is even linked with the Manhattan Project (the character
that created it had been a nuclear weapons engineer). Vonnegut’s ending, of course, is
much darker than what I would be attempting with my novel, for he all but suggests that
science itself is the Pandora’s Box, that the first drop of ice-nine (once brought into being)
can only lead to disaster, and that the short-sighted and greedy animal that is man can only
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find in science his own destruction. The largest difference may be one of focus, however,
for Motion Sickness is similarly apprehensive of science as a tool for war and profit.
Furthermore, it goes, interestingly enough, against the grain in a similar way: Vonnegut’s
warning gave relief to the First World optimism of the early sixties just as Motion Sickness
stands at odds with the current tide of apathy—maybe there is a way, my work argues, and
maybe the timing out of the Mayan calendar represents not an end but a new beginning.
(There are, in fact, other noteworthy parallels that relate to Vonnegut, which I will come
to shortly.)
Another applicable text is to be found in the 1966 novel Flowers for Algernon, a
narrative that manages to adopt the point of view of both the subject of a groundbreaking
(fictional) research project as well as the scientist doing the research—the protagonist
goes from the former to the latter and then back again. The book is presented in the form
of a journal kept by Charlie Gordon who is close to illiterate due to his extremely low I.Q.
(the 1968 film made from the novel takes its title from the protagonist’s misspelling of his
own name: Charly). He tells the reader (in not quite as many words, of course) that he has
been instructed to keep the journal so that scientists can track his progress as they
administer an experimental drug designed to boost his intelligence. As the drug proves
effective and Charlie’s journal composition improves, so too does his understanding as
well as his position in relation to his pretty young teacher, Alice. Between the period
when Charlie feels (after accelerated intellectual expansion) that he has outgrown Alice,
however, and the time when his “emotional intelligence” catches up and he is able to
make amends, Charlie discovers through his study of the very research that his given him
his new life that there is a fatal flaw in the drug and that his only choice may soon be to
stop taking it and revert back to his sweet but oblivious former self. Now possessed of
instincts and understanding that surpass even those of the two researchers that developed
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the drug, Charlie must race against time to get the science right before it is too late and he
goes back to being “Charly.”
He does not succeed, for the story the way it was structured could hardly have
ended on Charlie a genius, with Alice, and happy ever after, as he had not earned it.
However, Charlie is allowed to make the most of the time he is given—to connect with
Alice, to communicate with his parents, to make full use of his wings before he is sucked
back into his cocoon—and the work succeeds to some degree as an adventure in science.
The book manages to avoid burdening the narrative by the occasional bits of (true or
fictitious) scientific data scattered about, with the reader’s interest maintained partly
owing to our curiosity about how the science is presented. (In other words, when
Charlie’s I.Q. is low, the reader cannot understand the science because Charlie does not.
Later, the reader may not understand because Charlie is too brilliant. In either case,
however, there is interesting contrast and transformation.) The sociological implications
of intelligence are also explored and the lagging indicator that is emotional maturity
considered competently, the author Daniel Keyes having a background in psychology.
Again, however, the work succeeds in no small part because the science it considers is of a
medical nature that immediately impacts the central character. Flowers for Algernon also
underscores the difficulty of fictionalizing science in such a way that the reader can feel
that he is part of the process.
The few texts mentioned above by no means represent the whole of narratives that
either comprise or incorporate scientific adventures. One London-based biologist, for
example, who has written two novels with similar ambitions regarding the portrayal of
science coined the term “Lab Lit” and runs a website dedicated to the narrative portrayal
of scientists and their work.58 (A good portion of the stories that the website showcases,
perhaps inevitably, is fact rather than fiction.) My hope, however, was to produce a novel
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capable of speaking to a larger and mostly non-scientific audience rather than preaching,
as the saying goes, only to the choir. The texts I have referenced seemed most successful
in achieving this end, as they are all examples of popular and mainstream fare that could
be consumed by multiple constituencies.
On the subject of multiple constituencies, it is worth returning briefly to Vonnegut,
for he also experimented with untested literary combinations and, in so doing, was able to
broaden perceptions of what the novel can be and accomplish. One obvious point is that
his language and sentence structure tended to be middle-school simple; yet, he used his
three-word sentences and frequent redundancies artfully and he lined his plainly recounted
yarns with subtextual meaning, so that he was able to appeal both to the well read and the
not so well read. I would, of course, be hoping in the best case that my work might also
accomplish such a feat, i.e. that it might render the info-narrative accessible to those too
attached to real literature to tolerate Brown or Crichton while drawing in and engaging
those more accustomed to simply plotted books of the “novelized film” variety.
A second feat that Vonnegut accomplished was that he brought (before Crichton)
elements of science fiction into the literary mainstream.59 My ambition would at least be
comparable. (In many of his works, it needs to be said, Vonnegut also sabotaged the link
between the universe of his characters and that of his readers through the insertion of
surreal elements. I would not want to do that. My intention would be to keep the laws of
physics the same on both sides of the narrative/real world portal, so that readers can better
invest themselves in a journey of science and its implications.)
Finally, Vonnegut is particularly relevant in that he even dabbled with what I
would call the info-narrative technique of dropping pure unaltered factual writing straight
into fictive text. In addition to dramatizing the bombing of Dresden through fictional
characters, Slaughterhouse Five also connects its readers with what the allies did to this
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German city through the use of long passages pasted from the historical nonfiction
account The Destruction of Dresden by David Irving (publisher names and
acknowledgements in the foreword even included). Prior to Slaughterhouse Five, only
historians, history buffs, and perhaps those who were there would have known the facts of
the Dresden firebombing. Vonnegut essentially did for Destruction of Dresden what Dan
Brown had done for Holy Blood, Holy Grail. However, Vonnegut’s book is rich with
subtext that attaches itself to the reader and continues to haunt even after the reading is
finished: Are we not the good guys? Is anyone the good guys? Can we save ourselves
from ourselves? It first must be remembered that, despite a page or two of dabbling,
Slaughterhouse Five is not an information-heavy text. Nonetheless, Vonnegut’s
experiments suggest further possibilities. Might I be able to deliver a larger portion of
data in my work yet still reach the reader on another level as well? Might I be able to
suggest themes that linger when the reading experience is over? What is sanity? What is
consciousness? And (once again, but hoping for a better answer): Can we save ourselves?
SCHEMATICS
Motion Sickness was structured in such a way that the protagonist would deserve
the scientific breakthrough that he is at last allowed to achieve in the final pages of the
novel. Sheldon Thigpin, after all, perseveres for many years and many chapters, enduring
distractions, suffering setbacks, resisting temptations. At points in the story, it seems he
would be happier if he adopted different values and conformed to a more popular way of
thinking. He succeeds, however, precisely because he stands firm and stays true. This is
as it should be both with respect to dramatic sensibilities as well as to the logic of the
story.
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I wanted to construct a narrative about science; and I wanted to achieve in fiction
something that more closely resembles a real-life and factual scientific discovery than is
typically found.
The protagonist, I therefore decided, should be a scientist. His journey should be
toward a single scientific breakthrough, something fantastic yet at the same time both
conceivable and interesting to think about. His world (i.e. area of specialization) should
not be something so complicated or esoteric that it would immediately alienate the reader.
Furthermore, it would be ideal if the magical feat of alchemy that the hero would
accomplish in the course of the novel were not one that was seldom considered but
something that man had thought about, perhaps even attempted and failed at, so that it
would seem all the more improbable that our hero might actually triumph. (Again, the
process of conceiving the book was, of course, not quite as ordered or deliberate as
suggested above.)
Plants that talk, walk, dance, or spontaneously combust have been long imagined
and been represented here and there in literature, on stage, and in film—a recent popular
example of the latter being the wild houseplants from Little Shop of Horrors, which is
mentioned in the novel. There was even a new boom of speculation that plant life was
actually endowed with sensory, if not extrasensory, capabilities in the wake of a paper
published by self-styled bio-communication expert Cleve Backster in the 1960s, which
both asserted that plants could intuit intended human action and coined the term “primary
perception”. There was also a book released in 1973 by paranormal authors/journalists
Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird titled The Secret Life of Plants. Backster, The
Secret Life of Plants, and “primary perception” are all discussed in the novel as well, with
the failure of all of these to gain anything approaching acceptance in the scientific
community duly mentioned.60 This suggested a good narrative scientific challenge, for still
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today finding a common language between flora and fauna looks about as likely as
enabling man to fly might have seemed prior to the Wright Brothers.
Even dolphins, the brainy mammals of the sea that have revealed themselves to
possess what closely resembles a language, cannot be reached in terms of anything
approximating back and forth discussion even four decades after the 1967 novel (and 1973
film) Day of the Dolphin predicted this possibility. Non-human primates, such as Washoe
the chimpanzee, who reportedly learned and retained for no less than 14 days at a time a
total of 350 printed sign “words”, do prove that some strides are being made at least with
regard to man’s attempts at communicating with animals of the same genus.61 But the
progress might be compared to gliding in the pre-Wright Brothers age as opposed to
achieving flight.
The scientist’s mission in my novel, therefore, would be to achieve a breakthrough
on this front. My protagonist’s quest would be demonstrating that communication could
be attained, that an imagined but unproven universal connection that may bear some
resemblance to primary perception could be used to connect with plants and have them
understand and respond.
SUSTAINING THE NOVUM
This breaking of the biological code and attainment of cross-communication (an
end to the secrecy in the “secret life of plants”) would be what science fiction theorist
Darko Suvin has dubbed the “novum”—that one as-of-yet nonexistent but plausible
innovation, a ramp, supported by logic, that allows the reader to ascend smoothly to the
fabricated world of the narrative without surrendering entirely his faith in the “reality” of
that world. (Fantasy, by contrast, does not provide such a ramp and forces the reader to
leap, leaving “reality” irrevocably behind.) The novum in Jurassic Park, obviously, was
the cloning of dinosaur DNA. Assuming a reader is convinced that this is possible (and
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Crichton took pains to be convincing) then faith that the laws of physics still apply need
not be surrendered and all that follows in the narrative may be read as a series of
believable and intriguing consequences from the introduction of this credible event (that
could, for all we know, happen tomorrow) into a world in no other way different from our
own.
Usually, as is the case with Jurassic Park, the novum is introduced early in the
narrative, as it is how the world reacts to the innovation that is typically of the most
interest. My decision with Motion Sickness, however, was to essentially withhold the
novum until the very end. The primary reason for this, again, was as follows. As I was
looking to construct an “adventure in science”, the scientific innovation needed to be the
end goal and the object of the search throughout. As soon as the cloning procedure in
Jurassic Park proves successful, the book ceases to be a journey through science and turns
into a rehashing (albeit an arguably more credible one) of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The
Land That Time Forgot. While the challenge of surviving encounters with dinosaurs
clearly has broader appeal than that of solving a science problem, it was depicting a
challenge of the latter sort that was the main intent of my work.
Plot devices, therefore, had to be worked in that would allow for action and drama
to transpire while the research was being conducted and the problem slowly being solved
(lest the entire narrative take place inside the laboratory and the accessibility of the work
be considerably impaired). Imagine, for example, what might have happened had the
novel Jurassic Park been intended to be a story of a research team’s struggle to clone
dinosaur DNA. If the narrative were to end on the triumph of the cloning, then surely the
novelist would have endeavored to weave in some of the excitement, suspense and
promise of the possible theme park early on. We can imagine a story that might have
opened with the recovery of dino-DNA from a fossilized mosquito within a petrified tree
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and the daring proclamation that the genetic code might be transferred into living cells to
produce a real life dinosaur. Investors might begin to envision a theme park, perhaps
dreaming it, perhaps producing a conceptual video, thus allowing the reader to “see” the
park and what might follow if the cloning succeeds, though the book would end when the
first dinosaur egg is hatched. The research team, even as they are approaching the
breakthrough, might get wind of the dangerous uses the funders are considering for the
technology and hide their accomplishments or escape with their findings. A government
might even get involved, so that a battle for power and control can play out before the
novum is even actualized (and while questions concerning whether it will be or not still
remain as the science is meanwhile being struggled with back at the laboratory). This is
the sort of structure I opted for with my novel.
I kept the story moving to some degree by lodging a complete “movie in prose”,
defined by familiar three-act structure, within and around the tale of a researcher trying to
work out the science. But in addition to the filmic suspense-thriller device that the most
popular info-narratives tend to use, I also fused in a “B-story” that would permit other
issues to be explored peripherally, making full use of the breadth of subject that the novel
form allows.
At its core, Motion Sickness is about a laboratory botanist with the humble
ambition of furthering man’s ability to communicate with plant life. (Slightly interesting.)
A movie plot is embedded within the work, however, so that it is also about the botanist’s
research being of interest to big corporations and government spy agencies, which hurl the
protagonist, like a pachinko ball, from Silicon Valley to Tokyo, and several other stops
before the final stand down in Washington, D.C. (Somewhat more interesting.)
It is worth pausing to make one other point about placement of the novum. A
secondary reason that the protagonists’s breakthrough was not allowed until the end lies in
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the sheer enormity of its implications. If plants, without brains or sense organs, are
somehow collectively sentient, this implies a grand game-changing global
interconnectivity. If the plant life that makes up the majority of life on this planet—in
terms of mass, at the very least—can now talk back to us, are we not obligated to take
their wants and needs into account henceforth? The novel’s epilogue suggests that, in the
near term, there will now be a more productive and interactive dialogue, with and through
the protagonist, between the government of the globe’s most powerful nation and this allencompassing life force; however, now that man can essentially talk to God, is this not the
beginning of the end of all nations in their current form? Having arrived at the precipice
of a new (and rather unbelievable) ever after, the hero’s journey must here be regarded as
finished. When the story comes to a close, Sheldon is still the only person to have fully
arrived at this new place, which is the perfect spot for the narrative to conclude. A world
in which more people can communicate with plants should a very different one.
ETHICS: SWORD IN THE STONE
The subtle yet significant redefinition of morality that one is likely to experience
on reading Charles Webb’s sparse yet iconic novel The Graduate has long been of interest
to me. The climactic ending of the book (and film that followed it) is no doubt familiar:
Two young adults have finally found in one another kindred spirits with whom they might
be able to grow into their true selves, yet it seems for this reason above all else that the
older adults are determined not to let them be together. Elaine Robinson’s parents have
removed her from her San Francisco college and made hasty arrangements to marry her
off to an “older” law student before protagonist Benjamin can find her. The reader turns
pages as Benjamin sleuths out the location of the wedding, races south to Santa Barbara,
runs out of gas, leaves his Alfa Romeo behind, takes to the streets on foot. The reader
hopes that Benjamin will find the church in time, knowing the cause is lost if he does not.
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Yet, when Benjamin and Elaine are reunited too late, the surprise is that both suddenly
realize it does not matter. The reader, too, emerges unexpectedly convinced by Webb’s
underlying moral argument. Whatever nominal new crimes the two young lovers are
headed toward as they flee the church hand in hand (adultery? bigamy?), the real crime
would have been for two so young and unspoiled to be denied a future of their own
choosing.
It is not difficult to imagine a citizen of the 1960s coming to the book convinced a
priori of the self-evident sanctity of marriage, yet putting the novel down with a slightly
different appreciation of the concept. The Graduate should not have singlehandedly
eroded a conscientious person’s principles, but it might have allowed a previously
unthinkable reorganizing of definitions. In other words, the fictional parable of Benjamin
and Elaine may have illuminated truths and brought it to the attention of the reader that
said truths were always there. This, it would seem, is what great novels do (though not
necessarily info-narratives, at least not yet). F.R. Leavis, the Cambridge literary critic that
steadfastly maintained that a novel without a moral message was a lesser work62, also
argued for literature’s power being its direct life connection—it invites the reader to “feel
into” or “become” the experience.63 A more contemporary academic, considering
morality and prose in a 2007 postmodern environment, puts it thusly:
To open a novel is to open up to a type of decision-making
that is inherently ethical. […] Will I submit to the alterity
that the novel allows?64
A reader believing and “living” the experiences of Benjamin and Elaine may well be
emboldened to look past previous assumptions even after finishing The Graduate, now
that these experiences have been assimilated as part of his or her own (vicarious) history
and particularly if the time were ripe for those assumptions to be challenged.
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This would be in much the same way that Huckleberry Finn’s early readership
might have reformed its notion of the sanctity of property and possession relative to bigger
considerations, once these truths were illuminated by the title character’s dilemma of
whether to turn in Jim, and now that slavery had, in any event, ended. For what intrigues
me about The Graduate is the way that it arrived at the head of an enormous social
movement based primarily on the same thematic precept: we don’t have to play by your
rules. It is impossible, of course, to quantify the extent to which this one narrative
influenced an entire generation’s reevaluating sacred notions—of respect for institutions,
filial piety, right and wrong. Yet it does not seem too far-fetched to presume some degree
of bilateral impact, based both on the argument of the text itself and the popularity that it
enjoyed in its time.
Meanwhile, I would like to believe that there is a new moral paradigm shift slowly
making itself evident (with traces already detectable in the ether) in the form of conscious
disentanglement from a faulty global machine. Even as fresh “emerging market”
populations are drawn into and further reinforce the system (understandably seduced by its
trappings of consumerism and power), many are haunted by the awareness that our
machine is broken, unsustainable, likely to destroy us. To disengage can require one resist
a great many sweet temptations, but it may also permit one’s connection with a truer and
more universal force.65 This, of course, is the thematic argument of Motion Sickness
expressed in an ethical sense (the moral of the story, as it were). The novel’s protagonist
is offered as an example (hopefully believable) of an individual that remains true to his
inner voice, resists the allure of selling out, and is rewarded for his persistence.
Government and corporate interests are also vying to unlock the same secret, but
Sheldon arrives there first because his motives are true. While the government wants a
weapon and the corporation wants a product, Sheldon wants to connect, to understand. It
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is fitting, therefore, that it be Sheldon that is allowed to pull the proverbial sword from the
stone.
My hope as author would be that a reader might be convinced that the parable is an
honest one—for persistence does pay off, ulterior motives do make for distractions, and
too much love for power and money will blind one quite effectively to the truth—and, in
the best case, factor the novel’s argument into his or her thinking. Standing off the
bandwagon and listening to one’s inner voice against the outer symphony of sound is a
rather difficult thing to do; and the world will need a lot more people to reject the system
before a critical mass is reached.
As noted just above, novels are quite good at making ethical cases because they are
so effective at tracking human drives and journeys. As noted earlier, novels also permit
the consideration of heavier and more erudite subjects, such as science and theory. My
first undertaking in the form would be an experiment to see if the same novel could
effectively do both.
LITERARY EVOLUTION
“The novel is as tenacious as a cockroach,” pronounced fantasy fiction author and
literary critic China Miéville in his “Future of the Novel: Remixed” keynote address,
presented at the autumn 2012 International Festival of Authors event in Toronto.66
Miéville considered various perceived technological threats to the form—including the
increased malleability of texts exchanged in a digital environment as well as the
consequent impact on both the author’s control and financial compensation—yet argued
that the challenges to distribution and ownership may just as easily benefit the novel,
which continues to be something worth having. Additionally, novelist and essayist Tao
Lin analyzed, in 2011, a sampling of prophesies for the novel delivered by authors and
critics over the last several decades, and noted that even those from opposing camps
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seemed to support, at large, the works of one other and apparently agreed that (as Lin
asserted) novels are “…perhaps the most comprehensive reports that humans can deliver,
of their private experiences, to other humans.”67 Finally, in January of 2013, business and
technology writer Nicholas Carr referenced Pew Research data defying the notion that the
e-book is poised to displace print and noting in particular that readers of literary fiction
have proven particularly disinclined to opt for digital.68 He allowed, as Miéville had, that
technology is inevitably having some impact (the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon, for
example, would likely not have happened, he observed, were it not for the anonymous and
disposable nature of downloaded texts), yet Carr also maintained that print and digital
seem to be serving different purposes and that the nature of the electronic book had likely
been misjudged.69 Hence, what can fairly be called a current and informed viewpoint
holds that not only the novel itself, but also the physical materials through which it is
packaged and delivered, has thus far proven and may continue to prove surprisingly
resilient.
Of the doomsayers whose predictions Lin (above) analyzed and contrasted, none
were quite as notorious as Tom Wolfe, who famously pronounced that the novel was
destined to slip into irrelevancy if writers did not rediscover (or reinvent) fictional realism
(in contrast, particularly, to the anti-realist mixed bag that is postmodernist fiction).
Wolfe’s much-debated 1989 essay “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast”, asserts that
realism in novels in the manner of Faulkner, Hemmingway, and Steinbeck has died. It
further asserts that creative authors must either bring the form of writing back to life or
surrender the job of documenting life as it is to reporters and journalists.
Novels changed, of course (at least to some degree), because the world changed.
Wolfe makes note of this. He points to 1960 as the crucial year of change and speaks of an
“old class system” giving way to a new fast-paced age of madness and unpredictability in
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which truth has become stranger than fiction and the strategies that the old American
realists offered no longer seemed to fit.70 Presumably, this upheaval stemmed from the
combination of television/rock and roll values and an unprecedented affluence that
brought new opportunities for change to the middle class. The destruction of the
floodgates by a giant wave of change would mean a constant deluge of new information
that would render the old realist paradigm ineffective. In any case, it created an
environment, Wolfe argues, in which the prose fiction that had come before no longer
resonated. Authors who completed their higher education in or after 1960, Wolfe
contends, were more inclined to represent the world through postmodern, absurdist novels.
It is interesting to note that the “problem” part of Wolfe’s thesis identifies what
seems to have been an actual shift in literatary emphasis (though arguably overstated).
Wolfe the critic fairly compares techniques of pre-1960-educated and post-1960-educated
novelists and quotes a still-under-thirty Philip Roth lamenting in 1961: “We now live in an
age in which the imagination of the novelist lies helpless before what he knows he will
read in tomorrow’s newspaper.” It was largely the “solution” part of Wolfe’s manifesto
that incited remonstration, however, as he seemed to be offering his own work up as the
best example of how the novel ought to adapt. We write the way we write, and so Wolfe
the creative writer seemed only able to answer his own question the Wolfe way. But the
efforts of other authors responding to their environments will bring other answers. There
has not yet been, of course, a truly literary info-narrative novel, but some day there could
be. There have been other notable examples of innovative fact and fiction blending (Tom
Wolfe’s own creative nonfiction efforts included).
CAPOTE’S “NONFICTION NOVEL”
That Truman Capote was in Kansas in 1960, researching and interviewing the
infamous Clutter quadruple murder suspects, may likely have factored into Tom Wolfe’s
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thinking when he penned his essay. Capote would first publish in serialized form in 1965
his narrative account of the events prior to the crime, the fleeing of the suspects, their
capture, and the crime itself recalled prior to their eventual hanging; and he would
proclaim his work to be a newly invented genre—the nonfiction novel. The text, In Cold
Blood, is surely in many ways the literary antecedent to the two-hour made-for-TV
dramatic renderings of sensational news items that have come to populate cable and
network television in increasing number. Needless to say, it is a far superior execution.
The work was enthusiastically received and won accolades for the way it managed to find
heart and depth in almost all of its characters, reveal complex psychological relationships
(between the two killers as well as the investigating agent and his wife), and punctuate the
frailty of the American dream. However, Capote accomplished this by selecting,
juxtaposing, and possibly even reworking the information contained within his memory
and in over 8000 pages of notes. The text might even be notable in its own right were it
entirely fictional. The fact that it was based on actual (true) events still largely in the
collective conscious when the novel was originally released made it all the more real,
resonant, and commercial. Yet Capote’s assertion that “every word” was true has since
proved to be problematic.
As early as 1966, Capote’s self-proclaimed “immaculately factual” book was
called into question by a number of journalists, including Esquire writer Philip K.
Tompkins who himself traveled to Kansas and found discrepancies on interviewing some
of the subjects that had been featured.71 In 1988, Capote biographer Gerald Clarke
revealed various counts of artistic license that the nonfiction novel had taken, including
the complete invention of the final graveyard scene, which never took place.72 One
scholar even reviewed all of the minor revisions Capote made between the serialization of
the story in The New Yorker and its release in book form, which led to similarly small yet
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reasonable questions about how names and actions could have changed without the “truth”
changing as well.73
Most significantly, however, is a new event that was only first revealed on
February 8, 2013, when it was reported on by the Wall Street Journal. The article
chronicles how one of the investigators on the Clutter case (Harold Nye) walked home one
day with a file of documents pertaining to the case.74 These have surfaced, and include
records and correspondence strongly suggesting that Capote was given preferential
treatment, allowed to access inside information, and provided with evidence and materials
when they were asked for, all by the chief investigator and In Cold Blood protagonist
Alvin Dewey. A postcard from Capote on May 3rd of 1960, for example, requests specific
entries from one of the Clutter daughter diaries; a letter two weeks later thanks Dewey for
the prompt service. Townspeople who did not want to talk to Capote were also “advised
to” by Dewey. This contradicts Dewey’s 1987 assertion: “As far as showing him any
favoritism or giving him any information, absolutely not. He went out on his own and dug
it up.”75 The favorable treatment, it seems, was reciprocated in how Capote portrayed
Dewey.
One specific improvement that Capote apparently applied to the facts as they
related to Dewey is particularly worthy of note: The newly uncovered documents reveal a
five-day delay between word arriving from a former inmate that fingered the killers and
Dewey’s men visiting the last home of one of the suspects to find the murder weapon,
while In Cold Blood depicts Dewey reacting immediately. A detective’s report dated
December 5th confirms the details as a separate former prosecutor remembered them,
though this man had not been believed, as the book, Dewey, and all connected to the case
contradicted him. Because Dewey had been convinced that such a horrible crime could
only be committed by someone with a grudge against the Clutters, the prosecutor recalled,
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and because the informant claimed the killers had gone to the house simply to commit a
robbery, the tip was initially dismissed. Salon senior writer Laura Miller, meanwhile,
added a further relevant piece of information. Another family of four was murdered in
Florida that same December and it is believed the Clutter killers (who were in Florida at
the time) could have done that crime as well. Miller wonders whether the Florida tragedy
might have been prevented had the Kansas investigators moved on the tip five days
sooner.76 It needs to be stressed, of course, that Truman Capote’s book could have made
no difference either way, as it would not be released for six more years. Capote may have
imposed on authorities to some extent, but there is no evidence that he impeded the
investigation in any fashion. What he did was either misrepresent or misremember the
truth, and this apparently led to a greater deception following the release of his book than
ought to occur were a similar work of narrative nonfiction released today precisely
because he was, at least to some extent, pioneering a new form.77 Modern readers, it
would seem, are more critical.
MAILER AND “NEW JOURNALISM”
Meanwhile, Tom Wolfe would also no doubt have been very aware in 1989 that
1960 was the year in which the United States elected its first president born in the 20th
century. It is, furthermore, highly likely that Norman Mailer’s pioneering “New
Journalism” account of the July 1960 Democrat primary that confirmed JFK as the party’s
candidate (published in November 1960) was additionally on Wolfe’s mind.
In “Superman Comes to the Supermarket”, Mailer had appropriated the event of
Kennedy’s nomination, which he had witnessed at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. He
had reported it several months later to his readership in scattered bright bits of detail—bits
of detail then joined, in much the way that astrologists connect stars to form pictures, with
lines of personal opinion and subjective analysis that sketched out a very individualized
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portrayal of the country as a whole. The 14,000-word piece proved, in many ways, the
starting off point for full novel-length books of New Journalism narratives to come later in
the decade from Mailer himself, from his friend Hunter S. Thompson, from his eventual
foe Tom Wolfe.
In as much as what one might call “New Journalism” differs from Capote’s
“nonfiction novel”,78 it can surely be agreed that they are but opposite sides of the same
creative nonfiction coin. If the first can be viewed as the product of adding black to white
(i.e. incorporating literary prose techniques into nonfiction reporting), the second might
then be the result of adding white to black (filling a fictive schematic with factual events).
Both meld into a similar grey; pleasing amalgamations, but at times problematic with the
component colors deceptively difficult to track.
The poet Robert Lowell is recorded to have injudiciously pronounced Norman
Mailer to be the best journalist in America. To this Mailer quickly shot back, “there are
days when I think of myself as being the best writer in America”, forcing the other to
hastily backpedal.79 Though Mailer was obviously also an accomplished novelist and
dramatist (among many other things—as he often reminded his public), Lowell can likely
be forgiven for focusing on Mailer’s contribution to journalism at the expense of the
latter’s other achievements. For Mailer did appear to stand apart particularly in the way
he turned traditional journalism into a very different animal, infusing it with personal
character and subjective vitality, making it thoroughly accessible even to readers not
fundamentally interested in the raw reportage.
One of Mailer’s books of general nonfiction was The Fight, an eyewitness account
of the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match in Kinshasa, Zaire, at which
Muhammad Ali reclaimed his heavy weight title from the then undefeated champ George
Foreman. It is perhaps here worthy of brief consideration as it nicely emphasizes both the
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attraction of and the problems with describing true events while courting the creative muse
at the same time. The book was both a popular and critical success, recounting what was
likely the most memorable sporting event upset of the day while adding unexpected depth,
weight, and dimension throughout. The reader is given access to the strategies, the
temperaments, even the inner thoughts of the main players. Mailer further manages to
massage in secrets derived from Bantu Philosophy (a primer on the sub-Saharan
worldview authored by Dutch missionary Placide Tempels) and use it to partially
reconcile persisting American prejudices—a feat that is accomplished by Mailer’s
insertion of himself as a character that is briefly striken with a certain resentfulness of
blacks but is able to reform his own thinking thanks to books discovered back in New
York. In this New Journalism page-turner, the strong, silent, power hitter Foreman is the
ideal antithesis to the lithe, lyrical, dancing, ex-champ-turned-underdog that is Ali, with
both contenders complicated and likeable in their own ways and the pieces somehow
fitting together perfectly to form the quintessential boxing adventure. In fact, the story
may seem at times to fit together almost too perfectly (not unlike Capote’s Cutter case
tale) and leave a reader to wonder if and where some of the edges may have been sanded.
A lesser-known footnote to The Fight is the libel suit that was brought by George
Foreman’s sparring partner Elmo Henderson against Mailer and Playboy magazine (which
first ran the book serialized over two issues prior to modest revisions). Henderson is
given a bit part roughly two-thirds of the way through Mailer’s story, where he is called
upon to provide comic relief as well as dramatize the madness that descends the weekend
before the big event. As portrayed by Mailer, Henderson taunts Ali’s corner man in ways
that are unsophisticated and childish. Though the corner man’s comebacks are potent and
clever (this was the same man that gave Ali his infamous “float like a butterfly, sting like
a bee” line), Henderson remains clownishly oblivious and responds by simply shouting
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back (slightly louder) his original insult. He is described as tirelessly manic, constantly
crossing the hotel lobby with the “stride of a medieval jester”, eyes focused on an unseen
point six feet above the horizon, babbling incessantly but only once speaking a complete
sentence, and (when first introduced) “not too recently released from the Nevada State
Hospital for the Insane”.80 Mailer’s Henderson contributes to the story in that: (a) the
jeering sparer on the Foreman payroll can embody the repressed baser self that George
Foreman never reveals to the press or his fans; and (b) when Henderson seems to win the
badmouthing game against Ali’s cleverer corner man, only because Foreman’s bigger
wealthier entourage can clap louder, the second act may now come to a close with the
stage subtly set for a David against Goliath restoral of justice in the third.
The real Henderson demonstrated in court, however, that he had not been a guest
of the Nevada State Hospital for the Insane, and argued that Mailer’s portrayal amounted
to defamation of character. Mailer and Playboy were ordered by a Federal court to jointly
pay Henderson $105,000 in restitution. Meanwhile, the reference to Nevada State
Hospital (as well as a passage musing that Elmo Henderson’s tireless energy was perhaps
fed by an invisible high-voltage line from every mental asylum […]) was removed from
the text. It deserves to be said, of course, that Mailer may not have intended to
compromise the truth. He may have done so unwittingly or unconsciously; he may have
misheard/mis-transcribed/been the victim of misinformation; or he may have been
wrongly accused. Traditional journalists sometimes get the facts wrong as well.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to discount the additional hazards that New Journalism has
brought: (1) The author of creative nonfiction serves two masters. Which should he be
expected to favor—the truth or the structural integrity of his story—when an irresolvable
conflict between the two arises? (2) The style of creative nonfiction is, inevitably, more
nuanced. Errors that could quickly be corrected in old, objective journalism are not as
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easily remedied in the newer, freer flowing sort. In the case of The Fight, even in the most
recent 2013 Random House edition with the clearly defamatory passages purged,
Henderson still comes off as a borderline lunatic.
It can be argued, meanwhile, that the hazards of New Journalism (from the writer’s
point of view anyway) are offset by the opportunities it provides to connect with an
audience. It may also be a consequence of the modern (post-1960) data-rich and
information-hungry age that New Journalism has thoroughly been absorbed into the
mainstream. Almost a quarter century since the publication of Wolfe’s infamous essay,
however, the return to realism that he seems to have been calling for appears, by contrast,
to have not even begun. Might it not be that literary appetites have also changed with the
times and that forcing writers to reinvent a style that had evolved to suit the tastes of
generations long gone is not the answer? Might prescribing a cure to save the novel be, in
fact, unnecessary? Surely, all the world’s writers continually struggling for patrons and all
the world’s readers ceaselessly foraging for product must represent a fairly efficient
primordial soup in which the next and most appropriate metamorphoses can take place.
My thesis is that writers from well before the year 1960 to very recent authors have been
experimenting with mixtures of fact and fiction with favorable (albeit imperfect) effect.
My suspicion is that the novels of Crichton and Brown—this fact in a fictional coating that
I have dubbed the info-narrative—is but the latest in a chain of mutations that shows
promise for the future and may lead (in time and after a good deal of tinkering and
refining) to something very substantial and satisfying.
Perhaps these new animals have not yet adapted and matured to the point that they
yet qualify as literary fiction. But perhaps that too is coming, perhaps the argument that
some sort of new realism must and will emerge is not unsound, but perhaps it is the notion
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that an elegant, graceful, and fully formed prototype can be manufactured in a single
generation that is naïve.
It might be useful to look back one last time to Africa, and to a great pre-1960
realist. Capote was not the first author to envision the qualities and mode of a novel
adapted to support factual content. As one critic points out, the preface that Hemmingway
penned for his 1935 hunting adventure epic Green Hills of Africa might have been just as
appropriate at the front of In Cold Blood:
Unlike many novels, none of the characters or
incidents in this book is imaginary…
The writer has attempted to write an absolutely true
book to see whether the shape of a country and the
pattern of a month’s action can, if truly presented,
compete with a work of the imagination.81
Hemmingway, like Wolfe, began as a journalist before moving on to tell bigger, more
important truths, through fiction. That he might have tried a pre-Capote nonfiction novel
is hardly surprising. Incidentally, one cannot know which holes, if any, Hemingway
mended or whether he altered the cloth of his story for a better fit. A key distinction,
however, is that Hemingway was there. By contrast, Capote never had the benefit of
meeting the four murdered members of the Clutter family as he arrived in Kansas only
after the crime had been committed, yet these characters are convincingly drawn in the
first portion of his book.
The modern info-narrative does seem to represent progression in at least a certain
sense. In many cases, info-narratives are sourced, so that the reader has a clearer sense of
the dividing line between truth and fiction and knows where to go should she wish to
check facts and broaden her knowledge. Meanwhile, even in examples that are not
annotated, Crichton and Brown tend to provide subtle cues and signposts so that the reader
can be mindful of where the factual content begins and ends and not surrender her
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enjoyment. Grey areas, of course, still exist. Nonetheless, in the best cases, infonarratives are produced and consumed with a shared awareness that they are, by design, a
playful back-and-forth between fact and fiction, and that it is only fair that the reader
know what side of the net the ball is on.
CONCLUSION
What follows now is an experimental novel employing some of the info-narrative
techniques discussed above. The reader will discover bits of interesting but not popularly
known information, brief pauses in the plot and action so that various facts and theories
can be put forth, mini-lectures. The reader may notice that many of these little facts
(which may have seemed insignificant at the time) reveal themselves in the end to support
postulative through-lines of non-narrative conjecture, at least one of which is ultimately
connected to the scientific breakthrough that the main character achieves.
Meanwhile, the reader will discover that the work has other aims as well. There is
an embedded info-narrative-type plot, but it is allowed to fade into the background for
many chapters at a time so that the work can explore character, relationships, and larger
themes.
It is not being asserted that Motion Sickness achieves the same speed and energy
that the best examples of info-narrative do, nor the depth and emotion that true literary
fiction will. However, it is hoped that this work might be judged to be a competent mix,
to succeed as a novel in its own right, and therefore to suggest that there is the potential
for what I have nicknamed the info-narrative to grow, someday, into a more substantial
literary form.
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"
"
"
"
NOTES"
"
1"The"first"and"last"from"Chinese"classic"novels"Journey(to(the(West"and"Dream(of(the(
Red(Chamber"(aka"Story(of(the(Stone),"respectively."
2"De"Zayas,"Marius,"“Picasso"Speaks”,"The(Arts,"May,"1923.""(Originally"delivered"in"
Spanish,"manuscript"doubleQchecked"by"Picasso):"“We"all"know"that"Art"is"not"truth.""
Art"is"a"lie"that"makes"us"realize"truth,"at"least"the"truth"that"is"given"to"us"to"
understand.”"(Reprinted"by"Honour,"Hugh"and"John"Fleming,"A(World(History(of(Art,"
pp."782,"Laurence"King"Publishing,"London,"1984.)"
3
Boudway, Ira, “Dan Brown’s Enemies List”, New York Magazine, 6 September, 2006.
4
Bremer, Jack, “Dan Brown Sales ‘Off Target’”, The Week, 21 September, 2009.
5
Chivers, Tom, “The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown’s 20 Worst
Sentences”, The Telegraph, book section, 15 September, 2009.
6
Stephen King suggested that The Da Vinci Code was a non-book and compared it to
“Jokes for the John” in his Commencement Address to the University of Maine on May 7,
2005. Stephen Fry was more precise with his scatological references when speaking on
the British chat show Quite Interesting (or QI), Series 3, Episode 12.
7
Bestseller online resources: www.nytbestsellerlist.com and www.ranker.com.
8
Minzesheimer, Bob and Christoper Schnaars, “Dan Brown’s Inferno Tops All Book Sales
in 2013”, USA Today, 16 Jan, 2014.
9
Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code by religious historian Bart D. Ehrman, The
Divine Code by Fibonacci sequence experts Matthew Cross and Robert Friedman, and Da
Vinci Code Decoded by science author Martin Lunn are just a few examples of scholars
capitalizing on the interest to promote their own research.
10
Miller, Laura, “The Da Vinci Crock”, Slate, 29 December, 2004
11
Miller actually goes on to make the case that the “facts” of Holy Blood, Holy Grail were
themselves questionable, though Baigent and Leigh then found themselves in the ironic
position of being unable to defend such as intellectual property for to confess the
fabrications would taint the reputation of their own research. This is somewhat outside the
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scope of the analysis that this section is concerned with. I ought to here make the point,
however, that The Da Vinci Code seems to owe most of its success to the perception that
that which is presented as “fact” is indeed true. To the extent that the historical links that
make up the secondary plot chain would have been revealed to be pseudo-history when
the book was first released, it seems certain that its reception would have suffered.
12
Five at the number one spot.
13
Sutherland, John, “Appreciation: Michael Crichton”, The Guardian, 10 Nov, 2008.
14
Scholes, Robert and Eric S. Rabkin, Science Fiction: History – Science – Vision (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1977) 35-37.
15
Van Dijk, Teun A., “Recalling and Summarizing Complex Discourse”,
Textverabeitung/Text Processing (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1979), 61-64.
16
Spinrad, Norman, “On Books: Inside/Outside”, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
Oct/Nov, 2011.
17
Spinrad.
18
Hilbert, Martin and Priscila Lopez, “The World’s Technological Capacity to Store,
Communicate, and Compute Information”, Science, 1 April, 2011, 60-64. (Nicely
summarizes Hilbert’s previously published content on the same subject.)
19
Paultz, Michelle, “The Decline in Average Weekly Cinema Attendance: 1930-2000”,
Issues in Political Economy (North Carolina: Elon University, 2002). Plots “average
weekly cinema attendance” to have been the case for between 40% and 70% of the US
population for the years 1930 to 1948 (the decline coinciding with the Great Depression).
Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own expresses the data slightly differently: “During the
1920s and 30s…75% of all Americans went to the movies at least once a week.”
20
Gentile, Douglas A. and David A. Walsh, “A Normative Study of Family Media
Habits”, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Mar-Apr 2002, 157-178.
21
Gentile.
22
Of the 1,028 documentary films that received theatrical releases between 1982 and 2013
listed by the online cinema revenue database Box Office Mojo, only 23 were released
during the ten-year period 1982-1991. By comparison, 122 were released during the next
ten years, 1992-2001, and 719 were released 2002-2011. (The remaining 164
documentary films went to cinemas in 2012 or 2013.)
23
Following the release of his breakthrough film Roger & Me, Moore himself argued that
it was less a documentary and more “a movie” or “a documentary told with a narrative
style.” (From Rucas, Derek P., “Michael Moore’s Use of Expository and Interactive
Modes in Roger & Me”, Film Articles and Critiques, 2 Nov, 2003. While reaching a
different conclusion concerning its appropriateness, Rucas references Bertstein, Mathew,
“Roger & Me: Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes”, Journal of Film and Video, Spring
1994, which also accuses Moore of employing a narrative film architecture.)
24
Subtle levity in the news is quite common and this random example from what is a
relatively serious print source is simply to illustrate the point: Page 19 of the Markets &
Investing section of the April 13-14, 2013 Financial Times featured an article about
government bonds trading higher. It began with the words “Come fly with me, let’s fly,
let’s fly away”, featured a color photo of Frank Sinatra, and offered the headline “Bonds
Fly Higher to [Central Bank] Mood Music.”
25
Bauder, David, “Young People Get News From Comedy Central”, Associated Press, 11
Feb, 2009.
26
McKee, Robert, Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting (New
York: Harper Collins, 1997), 335.
"
87"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
27"It"immediately"springs"to"mind"(and"is"consequently"given"as"an"example"here)"
because"I"frequently"found"myself"alluding"to"it"when"teaching"creative"writing.""
Students"would"come"in"wanting"to"set"their"stories"in"a"postQapocalyptic"London,"but"
too"often"felt"they"had"to"spend"the"first"chapter"describing"the"history"of"World"War"
III"before"they"could"begin"their"tale."
28
Certain aspects of the discussion have inevitably lost through the summarizing of
Crichton’s views vis-à-vis the popular opinions of the time in just two paragraphs. Last
Crichton’s conclusions be misunderstood, it should here be noted that the book presents
Japanese trade practices as ultimately effect and Crichton has maintained his intent was to
persuade America to adopt policies that would better allow it to compete.
29
It reached the number two spot on the New York Times bestseller list but only remained
there for a single week.
30
Poortinga, Wouter, Nick Pidgeon and Irene Lorenzoni, Public Perceptions of Nuclear
Power, Climate Change and Energy Options in Britain, Understanding Risk Working
Paper, University of East Anglia (Norwich: 2006)
31
Lorenzoni, Irene and Nick F. Pidgeon, “Public Views on Climate Change: European
and USA Perspectives”, Centre for Environmental Risk and Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research, Zuckerman Institute for Connective Environmental Research (Norwich:
2005).
32
Meyer, Ryan, “Intractable Debate: Why Congressional Hearings On Climate Fail to
Advance Policy”, Perspectives in Public Affairs, Spring 2006.
33
Byford, Sam, “Jurassic Park 4 Flies in the Face of Science By Cutting Feathered
Dinosaurs”, The Verge, 27 Mar, 2013. (www.theverge.com)
34
Prum, Richard O., “The Evolutionary Origin and Diversification and Feathers”, The
Quarterly Review of Biology, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Sep 2002), 261-295.
35
Lyons, Gene, Book Review: Jurassic Park, Entertainment Weekly, Issue #40, 16 Nov,
1990.
36
Lyons.
37
Jennings, Gary, “Pterrified by Pterodactyls”, The New York Times Book Review, 11
Nov, 1990, pp. 4, 15.
38
This makes sense, of course, because Crichton had seen a number of his books
converted to films by this time, had both written screenplays and directed movies, and
sold the film rights to Jurassic Park while he was still working on the novel. Taking this
as well as the structure of the book into account, it is hard to pretend that he was not
already envisaging the movie as he was writing the novel.
39"They"got"what"they"came"for,"only"with"Jurassic(Park"it"was"the"exciting"profice"of"a"
new"tomrrow,"with"The(Da(Vinci(Code"simply"a"new"look"at"yesterday."
40
Over a year before the Jurassic Park movie came out, it is worth noting.
4141 The novel contains three separate bibliographies sourcing technical content and
suggesting further reading—52 references in all.
42
Interestingly, while the dramatic thrust of the book with its tragic conclusion might
appear to make a case against medicine as a corrective mechanism for destructive
behavior, the well presented arguments put forth by the characters seem to overpower this
interpretation. The story is probably best considered as a cautionary tale. (The doctors
who allude in the text to lobotomy operations from the 1950s stress that medicine should
be thoughtful and diligent before embarking on irreversible procedures—the choice of The
Terminal Man’s patient had been too hasty—not that it should not try to help.
Furthermore, the protagonist is a female psychologist who opposes the operation but
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""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
realizes, when finally forced to defend herself with a gun, the limitations of her field.)
Meanwhile, the technology foreseen by the novel is actually in use today, in the form of
what are called brain pacemakers, for the treatment of epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and
other ailments.
43
This expository bit was demanded by the studio, incidentally. In 2003, director Mike
Hodges released his director’s cut version, which was the different only in that it omitted
these first several minutes.
44
Bordwell, David, The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies,
University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles: 2006), 29.
45
Suber, 352-353.
46
Kaplan, Mike, “Encounters With Mike Hodges’ The Terminal Man Via Stanley
Kubrick, Robert Altman and Terrence Mallick.
47
McGrath, Charles, “Builder of Windup Realms That Thrillingly Run Amok”, The New
York Times, 6 Nov, 2008. “His gizmos, as some critics never tired of pointing out, were
often more subtle and more interesting than his characters.” (The operation, of course,
involved many “gizmos”.)
48
Ebert, Roger, Jurassic Park Review, Chicago Sun Times, 11 June, 1993.
49
I recall that sense of fascination being shared by the theater patrons around me when I
myself first saw the film in 1993.
50
Gruber, Jordan S., Interview With James Kramer, “Gropethink”, Wired, Jun, 2010.
51
Truby, John, Truby Breakdowns, www.truby.com. [Also calls Crichton “Best premise
writer in Hollywood” in The Anatomy of Story, (New York: Faber and Faber, 2007),
Chapter Two.]
52
McGrath.
53
“Debate” because one-sided lectures are tolerated less in film, particularly with the male
lead as the silent listener. Langdon therefore challenges many smaller issues but the net
effect of the information imparted is unchanged.
54
Seen in this light, of course, the Leigh/Baigent suit appears to have more merit.
55
A tale of an archeologist who must unearth a key Biblical relic before the Nazis do then
use it to save the only girl he ever cared about from their clutches is inherently interesting.
Making the digs and the dusting of artifacts and the re-assembling of ancient hieroglyphics
into a compelling yarn is in some ways a more difficult challenge.)
56"Callaway,"Ewen,"“Fearful"Memories"Passed"Down"to"Mouse"Descendants”,"Nature,"
1"Dec,"2013.""Researchers"at"Atlanta,"Georgia’s"Emory"University"find"that"laboratory"
mice"conditioned"to"be"weary"of"certain"orders"pass"that"trepidation"down"at"least"
two"generations."
57
It is a speculative ending, in the vein of Inglourious Basterds in Section Three and JFK
in Section Five, that does not leave its audience convinced that this is the way it is or was,
but rather stimulated by the notion that the world according to previous accounts is not the
way it has to be.
58"Dr."Jennifer"L."Rohn"reports"that"she"invented"the"term"“Lab"Lit”"in"2001"and"began"
the"website"in"2005.""See"www.lablit.com."
59"And vice versa, at least in the case of his first novel, which was poignant and satirical,
but also a dystopian tale reminiscent of Brave New World so branded for the sci-fi market
as well."
60
Nasser, Latif, “Meet Your Vegetables: The Long, Strange Quest to Detect Plant
Consciousness”, The Boston Globe, 17 June, 2102. In years previous, Aristotle had
spoken of plants having a “vegetal soul”, 18th century physician Thomas Percival was
"
89"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
convinced that mint sprigs and honeysuckle shoots experienced longing and emotions, and
L. Ron Hubbard claimed he could show that tomatoes screamed when sliced. (Though
Hubbard’s science was flawed, the religion that he founded—based, interestingly, on
novels that he had written—may have given support to such ideas.)
61
Rumbaugh, W.A. Hillix and Duane Rumbaugh, Animal Bodies, Human Minds, Kluwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers (New York: 2004), 80-84.
62"Blian,"R.P.""The(Literary(Criticism(of(F.R.(Leavis.""Cambridge,"1979."121.
63"Ortolano,"Guy,"“F.R."Leavis,"Science,"and"the"Abiding"Crisis"of"Modern"Civilization,”"
History(of(Science,"xliii"(2005)."7."
64"Hale,"Dorothy"J.,"“Fiction"as"Restriction:"SelfQBinding"in"New"Ethical"Theories"of"the"
Novel”,"Narrative,"Vol."15,"No."2,"May"2007.""Quoted"by"Cosgrove,"Shady"E.,"“Literary"
Ethics"and"the"Novel;"or"Can"the"Novel"Save"the"World?”,"Australian"Association"of"
Writings"Programs"Conference,"2007"(web)."
65"And"provide"salvation"(perhaps)—not"just"for"the"individual,"or"for"a"nation"(as"
Thoreau"argued)"but"for"an"entire"planet."
66
Miéville, China. "The Future of the Novel: Remixed." International Festival of Authors.
Canada, Toronto. 25 Oct. 2012. Speech.
67
"Does the Novel Have a Future?" The New York Observer 19 Apr. 2011: n. pag.
68
Carr, Nicholas. "Don't Burn Your Books: Print Is Here to Stay." The Wall Street
Journal [New York] 5 Jan. 2013: n. pag.
69
The e-book, according to Carr, is functioning in a matter more analogous to the way that
of the audio book, i.e. an alternate form that supports print, not one threatening to
displace.
70
Wolfe, Tom. “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast”, Harpers Magazine, Nov 1989; 279,
164. 45-56.
71
Voss, Ralph F. Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood. Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama, 2011. Print. 81-87.
72
Caudill, David S., “The Year of Truman Capote: Legal Ethics and ‘In Cold Blood’”,
Oregon Law Review 86.2 (2007). 295-327.
73
De Bellis, Jack. “Visions and Revisions: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.” Journal of
Modern Literature 7.3 (1979): 519-536.
74
Helliker, Kevin. “Capote Classic ‘In Cold Blood’ Tainted by Long-Lost Files”, The
Wall Street Journal, 8 Feb., 2013.
75
Helliker.
76
Miller, Laura. “Truman Capote’s Greatest Lie”, Salon, 14 Feb, 2013.
77
Or he claimed to be, anyway.
78"The"terms"are,"of"course,"in"practice"mostly"interchangeable."
79"Meyers,"Jeffrey.""Robert(Lowell,(Interviews(and(Memoirs.""University"of"Michigan,"
1988.""183Q184."
80"Mailer,"Norman."“The"Fight.”"Playboy,"May"1979.""78Q222."
81
Levine, Paul. "Reality and Fiction." The Hudson Review 19.1 (Sprint 1966): 135-38.
Foreword quoted by Levine from Hemmingway’s Green Hills of Africa.
"
90"
APPENDIX
Verical Comparison of Plot Vs. Fact in
The Lost Symbol
8
There is no event at Statutory
Hall. Langdon tries to call
Solomon, learns he’s been set up.
9
Langdon is told he must unlock
portal to save Solomon. Riddle:
As above so below.
10
Langdon follows screams. Peter
Solomon’s severed hand is in
Rotunda.
11
Katherine wonders where Peter is, Interesting things in Smithsonian.
recalls how he introduced her to
this sealed lab.
12
Langdon notices star and crown
on hand.
Star and crown on hand mean an
invitation. The Rotunda could hold
a statue of liberty.
13
Mal’akh drives limo to see
Katherine.
Talk about how every generation
disproves discoveries of previous.
[Note: this has thematic relevance.]
14
Katherine enters cube, recalls talk
with Peter when he taught her that
much of science is really rediscovery of ancient wisdom.
Explanation of Noetic science:
mind over matter. Randomizers
became less random in hours after
9/11. Noetic author Lynne
McTaggart: mind can alter matter
at subatomic level and improve
with practice. Entanglement
Theory (idea that all matter is
related at subatomic level) was
anticipated by ancients. Examples:
Atonement means “at-one-ment.”
Polarity—positive/ negative
balance of subatomic world—is
dual world of Bhagavad Gita. Two
further examples given. The
complete Zohar Superstring
Theory.
15
Security head Anderson tries to
contain severed hand panic when
OS boss Sato calls and asks to
speak to Langdon. Sato demands
that Langdon explain and reveals
on entering room that he is a she.
dInfo about “handequins.”
16
17
Langdon wins Sato’s respect by
anticipated tattoos on other three
fingers.
Katherine finds that Trish is also
in cube and asks her to do a web
search. Flashback to when
Katherine hired Trish seeing
overlap between metasystems and
Noetic sciences.
Hand of mysteries is an ancient
summoning symbol.
Mention of Optical Code
Recognition technology.
Explanation of parallel processing.
Noetic etymology: “Occurance
density” – how appearance of
certain keywords online give cues
as to emotional state of population.
[interesting talk on mass of ideas
that could relate to lierature as a
powerful force of history]
18
Sato demands Langdon tell her
about the hidden portal. Langdon
argues it must be metaphorical.
Point: Moses parting Red Sea,
Joseph Smith translating gold
plates—wide spread belief does not
mean validity. Virtually every
mystical tradition preached that
humans once had great lost power.
(Examples.)
19
Langdon explains symbolism
throughout Rotunda to Sato.
Washington DC was first named
“Rome.” More gods in Rotunda
than Roman Pantheon. Rotunda
designed as tribute to Temple of
Vesta. Rotunda floor was once a
pit w/fire below. Largest painting
in building is Apotheosis of
Washington—George Washington
man to god.
[Washington revelations carry
story like Roman conversion of
Christianity in Da Vinci Code.]
20
Langdon explains more
symbolism but cannot find clues
to any portal…until he realizes
there may also be tattoo on palm.
21
Flashback of Mal’akh, posing as
psychiatrist, calling Katherine,
tricking her into visiting him,
claiming Peter was delusional
believing in fantastic portals.
22
The tattoo looks like a Roman
numeral but isn’t. Sato wonders
if it’s connected to the sneaky
Artist Constantino Brumidi worked
on Vatican but immigrated to US to
do Capitol art instead. Explanation
of Apothesis of Washington. Also,
three Leonardo Da Vinci
masterpieces contain welcoming
hand symbol.
Arabic numerals revolutionized
numbering. “Alcohol” comes from
Arab word “Al Kuhl.” Discourse
22
(cont)
Masons. Langdon reflects on
how Masons are wrongly feared.
Mal’akh drives to Smithsonian
with Peter’s phone.
on how quirks about Masons
contribute to their being demonized
unfairly.
23
Langdon suddenly recalls
Solomon had entrusted him with a
box (flashback) which he’s
brought along.
24
Trish’s search results are redacted
and untraceable. Katherine sends
Trish to phone a hacker while
Mal’akh, posing a Peter, invites
himself into the lab.
Explanation and visual example of
“redacted” text from web search
offering only teaser snippets for
free.
25
Langdon solves mystery of tattoo
(23) to buy time when Sato senses
he has something in his bag.
Tattoo was upside-down. Sato
orders Anderson to take them to
SSB-13.
Lincoln’s son Tad was once lost in
SSB-13.
26
Mark the hacker tells Trish the IP
is probably military, but takes the
challenge.
27
They proceed toward SSB-13.
28
As Mal’akh passes Smithsonian
security, he recalls kidnapping
Peter Solomon.
29
They move down SB level to long Langdon explains iconic power of
hallway. Sato asks Langdon
pyramids in legend, idea of ancient
about Masonic Pyramid.
hidden knowledge. Both examples
of “archetyipc hybrids” (explains
Langdon before moving to specific
legend of Masonic Pyramid—a
new world pyramid to house old
world secrets).
Trish leaves cube to welcome
guest (Mal’akh). Katherine turns
off computer monitor.
30
31
They arrive at SSB. It turns out
that first “S” stands not for
“senate” but “sub-basement.” No
key. Radio reveals key was given
to Peter Solomon 20 years prior.
Background on Masons.
Map of basement and floor terrace
plan.
32
Mark the hacker gets call from
FBI: “Why are you trying to
pinpoint our IP?” Architect
(Rotunda manager) arrives.
33
Trish greets Mal’akh. Mal’akh
makes small talk asking about
security then lures Trish into an
area with no cameras.
Background on Smithsonian.
Garbage is frozen to prevent insect
infestation. Walls have
inhospitable gaps between them.
34
They reach SSB13. No
replacement key. Sato shoots the
door lock off.
Background of how storage is
arranged like 14 Vault mausoleum
(with illustration). Background on
13 conspiracy theory.*
35
SSB13 contains skull, bones,
candles, salt, sulfur. Langdon
recognizes configuration.
Bellamy (architect) heads after
them alone.
(* One of 14 “tombs” is stairwell.
Hence, 13.)
36
Mal’akh forces Trish to reveal her
PIN, then kills her.
Coelacanth—giant fish once
believed extinct—in Smithsonian
collection.
37
They find VITRIOL (acronym for
“visit interior of earth to find
hidden stone” in Latin) written on
wall…which is revealed to be
canvas hiding an opening.
Explanation of Masonic “Chamber
of Reflection.” Citation from
Symbols of the Freemasonry by
Daniel Beresniak. Argument of
how Masonic principles could
better the world.
38
The opening is revealed to house
a small “unfinished pyramid”
with something on back.
Discourse on unfinished pyramid—
most widely printed pyramid
symbol in world, on back of every
dollar, sign of America’s and
mankind’s unfinished work.
Discourse on how great wisdom is
always coded as test of worthiness.
39
Katherine checks with guard
regarding Trish’s tardiness, is told
she went to pod 3.
40
It is revealed Langston had
capstone without knowing. Sato
arrests him. Bellamy disables
Sato and Anderson.
Lists of great unsolved codes—
Phaistos Disk, etc. Explanation of
“talisman” etymology—to
complete something.
41
Bellamy reveals himself to be
Mason, says he’s Solomon’s
friend. Langdon trusts him.
Meanwhile, Mal’akh heads for
pod 5.
42
Mal’akh calls Langdon’s mobile
phone, says Langdon must
decipher code of pyramid if he
wants to save Solomon.
44
Langdon calls Jonah, his
publisher, to get Katherine’s
phone number.
45
Langdon calls Katherine to warn
her. Katherine races from pod.
Mal’akh strikes in darkness.
Katherine gets away.
46
Bellamy leads Landgon to
temporary safety.
47
Mal’akh traps Katherine in the
dark field leading to the pod. But
Katherine manages to elude him,
get back to her car, and speed
away.
48
Sato finds surveillance video and
learns how and where Langdon
and Bellamy escaped.
49
Bellamy convinces Langdon to
decipher markings of pyramid.
50
Sato’s CIA cipher reveals
markings contain second level of
encryption. Sato okays use of
force.
51
Flashback: Mal’akh meets
Solomon’s son in Turkish prison,
kills him, invades Solomon’s
home, is shot along with
Solomon’s mother.
History of the Library of
Congress—Adds 10,000 items
daily, one of first buildings with
electricity.
Background on Masonic Pyramid.
Why many depictions of Moses
have horns (mistranslations from
4th century). Explanation of
Masonic cipher (with illustrations).
52
Mal’akh prepares to destroy
Katherine’s research. Katherine
calls police.
53
Bellamy warns Langdon: pyramid
and capstone must not come
together.
54
Mal’akh blows up Katherine’s
research.
55
Bellamy insists Langdon must
Background on stone-covered
heed Peter’s wishes rather than try underground vaults.
to save him. Katherine tries to get
into Library of Congress.
56
Katherine finds Langdon. They
embrace. But now they must flee.
57
Flashback of Solmon’s son’s
inmate becoming Mal’akh, being
shot by Solomon. (Oddly rough
chapter with sloppy feel.)
58
CIA team gives chase, captures
Bellamy, but Langdon and
Katherine seem to be elsewhere.
59
Flashback: Langdon and
Katherine escaped by riding
conveyor belt that carries books
between three Library of
Congress buildings.
60
Private security guard finds
Solomon, but Mal’akh gets to her
before she can act.
61
Flashback: Solomon offered son
wisdom of pyramid on his 18th
birthday, lived to regret it when
Mal’akh showed up. Bellamy and
Solomon had traded pyramid and
headstone.
History of the segmented cypher.
Thermal imaging equipment and
how it can enable a reconnaissance
team to “see back in time.”
Explanation of “silly string”
incapacitating polyurethane.
62
Langdon and Katherine update
one another as they ride conveyor
belt. When they get off in Adams
building, Katherine opens
headstone package.
63
Old man tells older man of urgent
call from Bellamy.
64
Capstone says: “The Secret lies
within The Order.” Meanwhile,
Sato decides to take Bellamy to a
secret place for interrogation.
Mal’akh checks clock: 10:02pm.
Langdon has less than two hours.
65
66
Katherine points out an apparent
date on box—1514 A.D.
Langdon realizes it isn’t a date.
It’s a person.
Gold resists decay—one of the
reasons that the ancients considered
it magical.
Explanation of “symbatures”—
symbols artists could use in place
of a signature to escape
prosecution.
67
Question asked by Bellamy: “Is
there no help for widow’s son?”
Younger man looks it up after
helping older man inside.
Question was first uttered by King
Solomon, is a Masonic cry for help.
68
Langdon announces that they
need to look at the Albrecht Dǔrer
painting Melencolia I. Katherine
finds it on the internet.
***Discourse on Dǔrer and hidden
symbols in his work that put Da
Vinci to shame.***
69
Bellamy is taken to “The Jungle”
for interrogation.
70
Langdon decodes/translates:
Jeova Sanctus unue, one true
good, as old man listens to
Bellamy’s message. The old man
calls Langdon.
71
Mal’akh looks at his head, then
gets an e-mail saying his prize is
near.
72
CIA agent finds heat signatures
on conveyor belt, realizes
Langdon and Katherine rode it to
Adams building.
Melencolia I is the first time magic
square appears in art. Dǔrer square
also has quadrants, corners and
center totaling 34.
Fontanel area atop skull that
doesn’t close with bone until
months after birth.
73
Landgon and Katherine get out
and hail a cab. But cabbie hears
bulletin on radio and reports the
fugitives are in his taxi.
74
Sato tells Bellamy he must phone
Langdon and lure him in. But
then gets call that Langdon is
pinpointed in taxi.
Jungle is Botany Building—an
indoor forest.
75
Katherine realizes that they need
to go to Freedom Plaza. CIA
overhears change in plans.
When a six pointed star is laid over
the Great Seal of the United States
(on one dollar bills) it spells out
Mason.
76
Langdon and Katherine look at
Plaza map. Then they pay a
cabbie and take subway to King
station just before CIA appears on
site.
77
Flashback: Andros crashed into
fallen tree in river and saved
himself after Solomon shot him.
He went to tattoo parlor to hide
scars and search for tattoo led him
to mysticism.
78
79
CIA gets train to freeze in Kings
Station, but doesn’t find Langdon
or Katherine.
It is revealed Katherine saw
cabbie talking on radio and
decision to go to King’s Station
was all an act. They take Red
Line to Washington National
Cathedral.
80
Sato reveals she had been taping
Solomon’s phone. Bellamy
reveals nothing. So Sato has a
briefcase brought in.
81
Mal’akh does rituals preparing for
his transformation.
Aleister Crowley—most evil man
who ever lived…ritual, incantation,
sacred words. Sacrifice is the
original ritual used by humans to
move higher. Sacra = sacred; face
= make. Moloch from Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
Background on George
Washington Masonic Memorial.
Review of psi-operations run by
CIA. 1995 Stargate/Scannate
telepathic mind travel.
Background on Washington
National Cathedral.
82
Blind man, Father Galloway,
leads them to private room for
talk.
83
Sato reveals briefcase contains
file. She shows it to Bellamy. It
stuns him.
84
Galloway points out small
indentation in headstone box, that
fits ring (stamp) and can be
turned. All is revealed at 33rd
degree…
Argument: Most can never imagine
that there is more to the world than
dreamt of in the philosophy of the
day. Hermetic aphorism: Know ye
that ye are gods? Psalms 82:6 Ye
are Gods. And quote from
Einstein.
Argument: science and mysticism
are very closely related,
distinguishable only by their
approach. Charge-coupled
photograph of faith healer shows
energy from hand similar to stained
glass image of Jesus. A universal
transformation prophesized by St.
Augustine, Francis Bacon, Newton,
Einstein. Popularity and meaning
of circumpunct.
85
33 degree turn collapses box into
cross—rose cross—prompting
Langdon to realize Jeova Sanctus
Unus means Sir Isaac Newton.
History of pre-Christian cross:
intersection of earth and celestial
plane. Explanation of Rose Cross.
Rosicrucians included Descartes,
Pascal, Newton.
86
Mal’akh leaves his inner sanctum.
Discourse on eunuchs being
revered in ancient times, even in
Bible.
87
Galloway urges Langdon and
Katherine to flee just before CIA
arrive.
Argument: Name of Christ and
truth always hijacked by ignorant—
Crusades to inquisition to US
politics. Outline of Rosicrucian
manifesto prophesies.
88
Nola (Sato researcher at CIA) gets
call from guy who nabbed Mark
the hacker. Katherine’s search
matched what Sato told Nola to
search.
89
Katherine realized capstone will
reveal a secret at 33 degrees on
the Newton Scale. They find a
Discourse on “33” as highest
master number. Jesus said to be
crucified at 33, Joseph wedded to
89
(cont)
university kitchen and immerse it
in boiling water.
Mary at 33, 33 miracles—all likely
due to love for the number 33.
Explanation of incandescent
temperature markets.
90
The capstone says “Eight Franklin
Square.” Langdon calls Mal’akh
to find home security company
has entered and rescued Solomon.
91
CIA and Sato stop Langdon and
Katherine reveals that Bellamy
has been sending messages to
Mal’akh to try and get Peter back.
Bellamy now sends picture of
heads, one with address blocked
out.
92
Mal’akh calls Ballamy who
negotiates exchange that will
force Mal’akh back to get Peter.
Katherine and Langdon are
allowed to go to Mal’akh’s home.
93
Agents take positions around
Eight Franklin Square.
94
Rushing into Mal’akh’s house,
Langdon notices strange things:
wax on headstone, non-police
vehicles in driveway, gate
swinging shut…
95
Mal’akh is there. He ties up
Katherine, stun guns Langdon.
Pyramid now has new markings
that were hidden by wax.
Explanation of how stun guns
disable victim. Meaning of
“sincere” (etymology: sine cera =
without wax).
96
It is revealed that Mal’akh forced
guard to pretend on phone that
situation was contained though
police were never there.
Discourse on how all religions still
retain vestiges of pagan past and
Egyptian rites. Obelisk in Vatican,
notion of sacrifice in Christianity
and other examples.
97
Sato calls Nora to try to find out
where Eight Franklin Square is.
98
Langdon is cages, Katherine
carried into hidden passage.
99
Sato and CIA agents wait, locate a Longer name of “shriners” given:
mosque down the street, and
Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of
decide Mal’akh may go directly
the Mystic Shrine.
there.
100
Mal’akh tells Langdon he must
decode markings at bottom of
pyramid.
101
Langdon solves puzzle, but
Mal’akh does not free him.
102
Langdon lets out last breath. All
seems lost.
103
Mal’akh takes Katherine into next
room and ties her down.
104
Nora learns IP of file belongs to
Sato’s boss. CIA and Sato realize
Mal’akh isn’t coming.
105
Using Langdon’s hint, Mal’akh
semi-solves puzzle.
Wikipedia like explanation of
Benjamin Franklin’s order eight
magic square and reproductions of
such.
106
Katherine recalls her experiment
to weigh the soul. Then Mal’akh
wheels in Peter for a final
goodbye.
<<< Unclear as to whether this is
pure dramatization or recounting
(though Katherine) of actual
experiment.
107
Langdon thinks, feels, like a
disembodied soul.
108
Sato and CIA search Mal’akh’s
home but do not find hidden
annex.
109
CIA man sees wheelchair tracks
and follows them to panel hiding
annex. Langdon has visions of an
apocalypse.
Random facts about “8”, infinity,
etc. Point that “seek within” is a
consistent sagely theme throughout
history.
110
Flashback: Langdon recalls a
lecture by Solomon on revelations
and the apocalypse.
111
112
“Verbum Significatium” code to
unlocking ancient wisdom is of
Masonic beliefs. “Abra-cadabra”
comes from Aramaic “I create as I
speak.” Every faith prophesizes an
age of enlightenment. Apocalypse
means “to reveal.”
It turns out Langdon was alive,
breathing a special oxygenated
liquid. Sato lets him out.
113
Mal’akh has taken the pyramid
with him but Langdon tries to
decode what he remembers of the
pyramid base. The things pasted
around tells Langdon that
Mal’akh is looking for the verbum
directium.
114
Langdon decodes first word—
Heredom—a mountain in
Scotland, but also a term used for
a Washington building.
115
Sato agrees to bring Langdon to
House of Temple to rescue Peter
and stop Mal’akh.
116
Discussion of how Capital Building
has Norma Castle architecture.
History of Smithsonian—James
Smithsonian. American forefathers
were Deists.
Explanation of “oxygenated
perflorocarbons”—breathable
liquid invented in 1966.
Encyclopedic definition of
“Heredom.”
Mal’akh misunderstands
pyramid’s message…or at least
Peter Solomon thinks. Peter
refuses to divulge what he sees in
pyramid’s markings.
Discourse on symbolism of
staircase and stair imagery to
represent climb of higher
knowledge in Masonic culture…33
vertibrae.
Sato reveals to Langdon what is
in the laptop in her briefcase—
footage Mal’akh took of
America’s most important men in
bizarre rituals that would be easily
misunderstood.
Oldest Masonic lodge in D.C.—
Potomac Lodge #5—home of
George Washington and Masonic
forefathers. Description of
Masonic initiation rites. Origin of
phrase “third degree.” Reference to
John Quincy Adams’ letters on the
Masonic Institution Arguments:
Masonic rituals are dark in order to
encourage light.
117
Peter tells Mal’akh something and
Mal’akh believes it. CIA man
finds something in garbage at
house.
Information on EMP (Electromagnetic pulse) guns. [Seemingly
not relevant to plot.]
118
Mal’akh puts the knife in Peter’s
hand, reveals that he is Zachary.
Bellamy shows Katherine photos
he has found that reveal the same
thing.
Discourse on Akedah knife.
119
Sato gets a call saying Temple
Room is a top. She takes
helicopter up as CIA agent enters
building with Langdon.
120
Peter cannot stab Mal’akh.
Description of House of Temple,
Robert runs in and knocks him
bust of Mason Albert Pike above
out. Helicopter disables computer lobby.
with ELP gun then breaks
skylight raining glass on Mal’akh.
121
Peter tells Mal’akh the
circumpunct he had claimed was
the lost word was not. Yet Peter’s
compassion remains as Mal’akh is
sucked into a world of darkness.
Bellamy calls Gallaway to say all
is well.
122
Katherine embraced with Peter
and Robert. Nola reveals
transmission was not sent because
disposable cell phone package
CIA man found in garbage
allowed them to isolate cell tower.
123
Robert washes up, goes in to see
Peter alone.
124
Peter says map does show
location of hidden word and
offers to show Robert. They get
in car. Robert puts on blindfold.
Description of hall in House of
Temple depicting such famous
Masons as Harry S. Truman.
127
Nola learns that redacted
document (chapter 25) was
actually semi-public forum on
kryptos.
Interpretation of map allowing for
repeated talk on Masonic principles
and ideals.
128
Peter reveals to Robert there is a
giant staircase heading down, but
you have to be at the top of the
monument.
Background on Kryptos—art piece
by James Sanbon containing still
unsolved codes—and former CIA
director W. Webster.
129
Peter tells Robert the lost word is
buried in the cornerstone of the
Monument, only it is not literally
a word…
Washington Monument headstone
weights 33 pounds. Inscribed in
aluminum at the top is “Laus Deo”
(Praise God). Concept of laying a
cornerstone comes from the Old
Testament.
130
Galloway ponders how ancient
spiritual text remains so underappreciated yet so powerful.
131
Peter and Robert talk theology
and philosophy—on how the
Word is secret—as they descend
the steps of the Monument.
Discourse on allegory in the Bible.
“Unto you is given to know the
mystery…but it will be told in
parable.” –Gospel of Mark.
Newton wrote more than a million
words trying to decipher scripture.
William Blake: “Both read the
Bible day and night, but thou read
black where I read white.” Thomas
Jefferson re-edited the Bible.
132
It is revealed that Katherine’s
research was saved by an extra
secret backup that Peter made.
Summary of Noetic Sciences and
how the field can prove thoughts
are measurable and quantitative
things.
133
Bellamy gives Langdon a key to a
room under Apothesis of
Washington. He and Katherine
must enter at a certain time, so
they talk of the Godlike power of
the mind as they wait. Katherine
suggests they lay on the ground
like kids staring up at an infinite
sky…Langdon sleeps.
More (review) on Apothesis of
Washington. Quotes from
scriptures which urge man to build
his own temple. Idea that Second
Coming is coming of man.
Explanation of how brain is in two
parts—inner and outer—just like
Holy Place and Holy of Holies.
Man is urged to include in his
temple. Gospel of Mary: Where
there is mind there is treasure.
Physiologic reading of “manna
from heaven.” Danger of bad
133
(cont)
Epilogue
thoughts. Newton in 1676: “It
cannot be communicated without
immense danger to the world.
Discourse on multiple minds
working together—prayer groups,
healing circles, etc.—net effect is
greater than sum of separate parts.
Ehohim—the Hebrew word for
God—is plural.
Langdon awakes, goes through
the door and finds a skywalk
surrounding the Capital building.
There he watches the first beam
of the morning’s light illuminate
the top of the Washington
Monument. He stands with
Katherine. He feels hope.
Description of art, culture, and
science housed in Smithsonian. So
astounding that, if forefathers could
see men of today, they would think
them gods.
[This page is intentionally left blank.]
SECTION TWO:
Motion Sickness
(A Novel)
“A bumblebee would probably regard himself as a
subject in the garden and the bloom he’s plundering
for its drop of nectar as an object. But we know that
this is just a failure of his imagination. The truth of
the matter is that the flower has cleverly manipulated
the bee into hauling his pollen from blossom to
blossom.”
Author Michael Pollan
From The Botany of Desire:
A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
“Everybody with communication is a target.”
---NSA Insider
(pre-Edward Snowden),
quoted in a Wired article on
Utah data accumulation facility
"
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CONTENTS
PART ONE: WHIZ KIDS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
(FINLAND, 1999)………………………………………………..111
PART TWO: STRAW MAN
(MINNESOTA, 2005)………………………………………........121
PART THREE: THIS COULD BE A PLACE
(NEW MEXICO, 2003)…………………………………..………131
PART FOUR: THE GIRAFFE FACTOR
(SILICON VALLEY, 2005)………………………...……………142
PART FIVE: FIGHTING ISMS IN ALBUQUERQUE
(NEW MEXICO, 2003)………………………….……………….155
PART SIX: ENERGY AND WEIGHT
(SILICON VALLEY, 2006)……………………………………...168
PART SEVEN: BELIEVING IN TREES
(CHIBA, 2006)…………………………………………………...182
PART EIGHT: THE SECRET LIFE OF SHELDON
(SILICON VALLEY, 2007)……………………………………...200
PART NINE: PLANTS!
(SILICON VALLEY, 2007)……………………………………...221
PART TEN: EYES, LOOK YOUR LAST?
(EUROPE, 2008-PRESENT DAY)……………………………....232
PART FOURTEEN: NEW WORLD
(WASHINGTON D.C.)…………………………………………..246
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PART ONE: WHIZ KIDS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
(FINLAND, 1999)
Chapter One
Sheldon Thigpin stared out the window of the Bell Weather charter bus as it proceeded down the
dark tree-lined road. He delicately unraveled the bag of small biscuits in his lap and slipped one into his
mouth. A sign reading “Helsinki – 45 km” told him he’d soon be at the hotel. There wasn’t much to look
at apart from the trees. There had hardly been anything since Nokia (which, as Sheldon had recently
learned, had been the name of a small village in central Finland long before the company that took its
name to sell rubber boots also started producing cell phones). Some of the other college-aged program
participants were talking and playing cards, but Sheldon decided his time was probably better spent
staring at the trees.
“What’s the game?” a bling-sporting kid named Helio sitting across the aisle asked.
“Five Card No Peekie,” came the pronouncement from Barry, who enjoyed the rear and center
seat of privilege.
“But I already peekied.”
“Well, you’re an idiot.”
Sheldon saw the window-mirrored reflection of Barry leaning forward to snatch back some cards
from a turtlenecked youth named Ivan then toss the whole deck in Helio’s lap. Helio reshuffled.
“And that should be a misdeal, you dipwad. Put in 20 Rubles.”
“I think we’re back to Kronors,” Helio said.
“Isn’t it Francs?”
“Whatever the hell,” Barry replied. Sheldon tried to keep his attention focused on the world
outside in order to guard against carsickness, but he couldn’t help noticing the liquid crystal display in
Ivan’s hand. It was aglow with the words:
“What’s the game? Five Card No Peekie. But I already Peekied.”
“This is really cool,” Ivan said.
“No shit,” Barry answered. “All you got to do is push store and you got a transcript of your
whole conversation waiting on your PC.”
“What else you working on?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Barry leaned forward and snatched the cell phone from Ivan’s grasp.
“Besides, we’re not supposed to talk about outside projects. It’ll all be in the press release when I go
public.”
“Deal the cards, Mircopus,” Helio said gesturing at the freshly reshuffled deck.
chuckled silently at this remark as Barry responded with an upwardly thrust middle finger.
Sheldon
“Why not ask the galloping gardener about his magnum opus?” Barry then suggested as he cut
the cards. A foot kicked against the seat next to Sheldon’s, the seat that supported a potted delphinium in
a large container. Sheldon steadied his planter, suddenly aware that he had been drawn into the
conversation. “I think he’s working on the first portable salad bar,” someone said. “One that tells you
when it’s low on dressing.”
Helio and Ivan chuckled as Barry proceeded to deal.
“The Mark,” Sheldon said.
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Barry stopped. “I'm sorry. Was that you or the plant?”
“The Finnish currency is the Mark. About six to the dollar.”
Barry didn’t reply immediately. He made a gesture to Ivan that Sheldon couldn’t see, then he
stood up, stretched, and withdrew his vodka drink from its cup holder.
Sheldon remained focused out the window, turning finally at the scream of sudden silence to find
Barry slowly emptying the remains of his crotch-level plastic cup into the planter. Sheldon snapped into
action. He covered the top and moved the delphinium hastily yet gingerly to the floor.
“Sorry, my mistake,” Barry shrugged. “I thought I heard it say ‘thirsty, thirsty.’”
Chuckles followed. “Maybe it was just saying that today’s Thursday,” someone said. “Stupid
plant. It’s still Wednesday.”
Sheldon bit his lip and moved silently past Barry toward the lavatory midway up the bus. Barry
crumbled his empty cup and beamed it out an open window. “I was just kidding, Shelly. Don’t be so
sensitive,” he said. “Seriously, I’ll need talent like yours someday when I get my IPO. To trim my
hedges.”
Helio and Ivan continued to laugh while Barry stared for an extra instant at the leafy plant on the
floor under Sheldon’s seat, as though seeing something that the others did not. He slowly exhaled.
“So what are we playing?” Helio asked.
“Piss off,” Barry replied.
Helio looked at his cards. “Anything wild?”
Meanwhile, Sheldon approached the lavatory to find it occupied. He noticed the red-haired Tuula
seated by her own right-side window working on a color pencil sketch of a bright orange flower
blossoming a deep blue globe in the center. He paused to look.
“That’s beautiful,” Sheldon remarked.
“They sure are,” he heard Barry concur. Sheldon and Tuula both turned to find Barry hovering
behind them. “Picture’s not bad either.”
Tuula reflexively adjusted her sweater.
“The picture’s what I was talking about,” Sheldon said. “I like the coloring around the petals.
Full of life.”
“Yeah, orange. Woah,” Barry said.
“I inspired,” Tuula answered in choppy English. “By the field the short while back.”
“Oh yeah,” said Sheldon, suddenly excited. “The marigolds! We saw them!”
“He saw them,” Barry corrected.
“That’s actually what I'm studying. How plantae communicate.”
“Communicate?”
Barry pantomimed a yawn.
“He’s right,” Sheldon admitted. “My stuff’s inconclusive and boring. No way I’m going to take
any prize.” Sheldon paused as though he expected Tuula to comment, but she was spared by the sound of
the lavatory door opening. The others acknowledged Walter Fisk, the group’s heavyset advisor, as he
began his slow journey back to his seat. “What’s your field?” Sheldon then asked Tuula.
“Light refraction. Using for carbon dating. To help archeologists, you see.”
“But of course,” Barry said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I got to take a Louis S. B. Leakey.”
Barry eased around Walter as Sheldon watched. Walter touched Sheldon on the shoulder, aware
that he had been next in line for the facilities. “Barry and his boys giving you a hard time, friend?” he
asked in his trademark raspy voice.
"
112"
“Nah, I can handle those guys. I was just talking with…” Sheldon turned to find Tuula engaged
again in her drawing. “Anyway. I’ll just wait till we get back to the hotel,” he said.
On returning to his seat, Sheldon was dismayed to find his gym bag open, Helio and Ivan
suspiciously quiet. Sheldon checked through it to try and determine what was missing, but the motive for
the tampering was not immediately apparent.
“Sure is a cold night,” Ivan said. “Wind just won’t quit,” Helio agreed.
Then Sheldon saw them. Several pairs of his boxer shorts hanging from the outside of the
window on the other side of the bus and flapping in the breeze. He shook his head at the other two,
crossed the aisle and climbed over the opposite empty seat. “What are you both? Four years old?”
Sheldon said.
“What’s my age again?” Helio whispered to Ivan, referencing the new Blink 182 song that was
soon to become the hit of the times. Meanwhile, Sheldon touched the pane of glass, unsure how to go
about retrieving his articles. They were held in place by the closed window, meaning that once he opened
it there’d likely be nothing left to pull back into the bus.
He sighed and tried…gingerly…to nudge…no good. Sheldon’s underpants went flying off
hopelessly into the night accompanied by an eruption of laughter from Ivan and Helio. Sheldon pointedly
ignored them as he slid back across the seat.
Just then Barry returned. “Did either of you guys see something sail by just now?” he asked.
“Boxer shorts, maybe? From the 50¢ rack?”
Sheldon stowed his gym bag and gathered his delphinium into his lap. He knew that the best
thing he could do was to remember his priorities.
Chapter Two
Sheldon would have liked to talk to his brother, but K.T. would not be in a condition to come
home for several weeks. He fed coins into the payphone in the lobby of the Grand Marina Hotel as he
waited for his mother to change extensions. Several busloads of college-aged international scholars were
unloaded into the lobby. German, Indian, Russian, Japanese.
As usual, Barry and his friends were among the liveliest, raiding the gift shop for beer, tossing
suitcases back and forth, buying the obligatory topless-Finnish-girl-in-the-sauna postcards. Sheldon stuck
a finger into his ear.
He resumed the conversation as soon as he heard his mother hang up the other line, knowing that
she now had the portable. “Yeah, I’m doing good,” he told her. “I’m seeing a lot of things.”
“Take pictures,” she said.
“Yeah, all right,” Sheldon responded, cutting over her due to the bad connection just as she was
asking if he’d made something. He had to have her repeat the question against the roar of scholarly
youth. “New friends” was what she was hoping Sheldon would make.
“No, not really,” he admitted. “But don’t worry, okay. All I have to do is get an honorable
mention and I keep the scholarship. That’s the main thing. Listen, say hey to K.T. for me. I got to hit the
gift shop before it closes.”
Predictably, his mother wanted to know the reason. “Because I need some underwear,” he told
her, then shouted over the inevitable time-lagged why: “I just do, all right.”
Sheldon said good-bye and hung up, staring at the Finnish payphone for several seconds before
realizing that the lobby had cleared out and the quiet of the night had taken over. Walter was standing in
front of him as Sheldon turned around. He held out a key.
“Here you go, friend,” Walter said. Sheldon thanked him. “I put you in with Barry,” Walter
continued. “Be glad if you two could work things out, but I’ll move you if you don’t think you can
handle it.”
"
113"
Sheldon took the key. “I’ll handle it,” he said.
“Remember, if he gets in your face, you got to just tell him to back off.”
“Yeah, sure,” Sheldon said.
He rode the elevator in silence and focused his thoughts some months into the future. The pier
was where Sheldon had already decided he wanted to see in the new millennium. He’d throw a stone into
the lake to represent every aspect of the twentieth century best left behind as mankind moved forward.
Wars, greed, corruption—Sheldon knew he’d be lugging a lot of rocks on December 31st. But he was
also confident that great things awaited him and all the planet on the other side of New Year’s.
Barry, Ivan, Tuula and ten more of their peers were seated in a semi-circle in the hotel room
sipping from beer bottles as Sheldon made his way down the hall. The place had been converted into a
mess in the short space of 20 minutes. At least one hotel component had already been disassembled and
Helio was standing on the sofa in his shoes, a cushion shoved into his shirt. He had an oversized
microphone in his hand and, as he spoke into it, his voice came out altered through stereo speakers
attached to either side.
“This is Walter here. Be glad to help you work through your issues,” Helio said, adding a raspy
tone to his voice while the device in his hand did the rest.
“Lower, lower,” the others responded, prompting Helio to jump off the couch and recite the same
line while stooped to the floor. This earned him a torrent of hurled lompe, which were the Finnish potato
pancakes that Barry had already ordered five platters of. Helio then adjusted a few knobs on the side of
his microphone lowering the pitch. “Hello,” he said, now sounding exactly like Walter. “I just wanted to
tell you all that, even though I speak like I swallowed an oil filter, I am your friend. And I’m your
friend’s friend, friend.”
Just then there was a knock. “More lompe?” Helio said, still doing Walter.
“Get the door, dumb ass,” Barry commanded. Helio undid the lock to reveal Sheldon, his
transparent earth box in one hand, key in the other.
“It’s only Smelldon,” Helio said.
“Hey, guys.”
“Hello, friend,” Helio cranked through his voice changer.
As Barry and Ivan tossed up more lompe, Sheldon noticed the adult movies on the TV. “Am I
going to get charged for that again?” he said.
“Relax. Ivan rigged the box,” Helio said, gesturing at the open circuit board on the back of the
set.
Sheldon nodded and set his planter on a table next to where Tuula was seated. “Is that a
vegetable garden?” she asked.
“More like a fruit farm,” Barry said.
“It’s my project for tomorrow.”
“Sheldon specializes in sap,” Barry said.
Ignoring him, Sheldon delicately watered the topsoil and examined the leaves on both ends of a
double-sided planter. He then looked up to see that Tuula and the others were watching him.
“Shows how plants can also communicate through chemicals in the soil,” he explained selfconsciously, speaking mostly to Tuula. “This delphinium can’t ‘see’ its neighbor, or sense changes in
light or air molecules because of the dividing wall. But when I introduce a contaminant on one side, the
other side will also pull in its buds.”
“Plants…communicate?” Tuula said.
“Sure. They pull each other’s buds,” Barry said.
"
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“They talk to us all the time,” Sheldon said to Tuula. “Like when a marigold shows its colors and
opens its petals. It’s inviting us to come closer.”
“But that’s just…” Tuula struggled for the words in English. “Nature’s way of attracting bees
and the like. It’s not communication.”
Sheldon nodded and continued pruning the delphiniums. “Yeah, maybe not,” he concluded.
Suddenly Barry stood up and patted Sheldon on the shoulder. “Come on, Shelly. Don’t be shy.
Tell her more about your research.”
“It’s all still in the working stages,” Sheldon said.
“Sheldon can talk to plants.”
“Talk to plants?” Tuula said.
“Well, I’m trying to demonstrate that plants may talk to each other on a greater scale than most
people realize,” Sheldon said. “And that maybe humans can tap into that network. But it’s not verifiable
yet. And besides, we’re not supposed to—“
Barry was already unzipping Sheldon’s gym bag. He removed two potted Coula tree branches
with violet buds. “Don’t be a weenie,” Barry urged as he passed them over.
Sheldon noticed that Tuula was impressed by the bright colors. “The blossoms are beautiful,” she
said. “So vivid.”
“Yeah, specially bred. Deep purple’s the way you want them. Means they produce a lot of
chemicals. The reactions are more profound.” He noted the glimmer and fascination in her eyes and
couldn’t resist continuing.
“You know, there is a little extra thing I try sometimes just for fun,” Sheldon heard himself say
against his own better judgment. “It’s outside the scope of soil spectography and all that,” he rambled as
he positioned a metal spike in one of the pots and handed it to Tuula. “Mostly it’s just been me and my
brother playing around,” he qualified, locating a similar spike for the other, “But I’ve had some very
limited success at using these Coula tree branches to transmit emotions.”
The room fell silent. Someone switched off the TV.
Sheldon swallowed. Now it seemed there was no going back.
“How do you mean that?” Tuula asked.
“Well…this color meter helps gauge reactions in the soil. Sort of like one of those mood rings—
at least as accurate—registers what I think fairly corresponds to emotion based on heat and moisture.
Now, if you put your fingers around the base of the plant…” Sheldon touched Tuula’s hand.
Ivan started to say something, but Barry silenced him with an elbow to the gut.
“And fix your mind completely on an emotion. Say, happiness.”
“Or sadness?” Tuula inquired.
“That’ll work. But don’t tell me what it is. I’ll do the same.”
Sheldon and Tuula both wrapped their fingers around their respective Coula branches. Everyone
watched breathlessly.
“Now, just concentrate. It may take a few minutes.”
The black spot at the top of the spike in Tuula’s pot flickered blue for an instant. Then it fell back
to black. Sheldon closed his eyes.
A leaf along Tuula’s branch began to flutter. Sheldon looked. He certainly had never seen that
before.
Tuula gasped. Another leaf moved.
Then the plant started to dance. It emitted a low hissing sound.
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“H-hh-hhh-h…” it said in a raspy voice. “H-h-hey, baby.”
The room erupted into laughter. Sheldon recognized the voice as being an impression of the alien
from the Little Shop of Horrors musical. “H-h-how’d you like to get together sometime and cross
pollinate?” it said.
Tuula backed away from the gyrating plant, realizing it was all a joke. Barry and Ivan high-fived
each other. “Hubba hubba hubba,” the plant said in an overtly prurient tone.
Sheldon snatched up the pot and ripped away tiny robotic arms wired to its base. He hurled them
at Helio who had been narrating with his microphone behind the sofa. “These were expensive buds,” he
said. “Imported all the way from Africa.”
“Yeah, Helio,” Barry scolded. “It’s not like those branches grow on trees.”
Barry and his friends got to laughing so hard they were crying. Sheldon stormed toward the door,
the Coula branch under his arm.
“Wait a minute, Smelldon,” Helio said as the plant. “Where you think you’re taking me? You
need to buy me dinner first!”
An inebriated Indian student named Shahid found this particularly amusing. “The talking plant
trick, very very funny,” he said.
Ivan bent over and smacked Tuula on the arm. She reluctantly smiled back at him. The laughter
continued with Helio cooing “Feed me, feed me” into his microphone…
Chapter Three
The storage docks of Helsinki Bay were lonely after dark. Sheldon sat on a wooden crate near
the edge of the black sea watering his Coula branch with a bottle of Evian he’d bought from a vending
machine in the hotel lobby. Then he set the plant down and stared into the night.
The emptiness he felt had been intensified by all the childish and destructive pranks, but Sheldon
was aware that it was something that pre-dated Barry and Finland. It was a feeling that had taken form
when K.T. had first been put in the institution, a feeling that had never really gone away. It was painful to
look back on better days, so Sheldon chose to look forward to them instead. Yet it was easy to again be
worried by the hazy future. He peered out at the gulf beyond, but all he saw was black.
Just then, Sheldon noticed another potted branch placed on the crate alongside the one he had
brought. He turned to find Tuula next to him.
“Wha—?“ he began. Tuula put a hand over Sheldon’s mouth, the other on the base of her Coula
branch. Sheldon did the same.
Mist blew in from the Baltic Sea, a strangely warm mist. A ship’s horn sounded somewhere in
the distance. It was no doubt the night wind that made the branch leaves flutter.
Then Sheldon saw the mood indicators at the top of the metal spikes both simultaneously flicker
blue. It lasted but an instant, then they weakened, out of sync. He glanced at Tuula who seemed to be resummoning her concentration for another strong attempt. Sheldon followed suit. He watched very little
happen for several long moments while forcing himself to believe something would.
Then the spikes flickered again, and this time they held! They glowed violet, brighter, almost
red. Sheldon suddenly felt excitement beyond words.
Was this really coming from the plant life? The presence of two charged human bodies in the
moist night air was impossible to ignore. In the absence of clarity, there were worse things to cling to
than hope. This was good, Sheldon decided. He smiled at Tuula.
And she smiled back. “The air is better out here,” she said.
“Yes,” Sheldon agreed. “A lot less clutter.”
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“I’m sorry…” Tuula struggled for an English expression of her thoughts. “For your friends,” she
concluded.
“Thank you,” Sheldon said. Still touching his Coula branch, he was suddenly struck with a
powerful awareness of how close they were. He realized that the lips that had just spoken were a very
short distance from his and Sheldon felt, somehow, as though they were getting nearer…
Yet, it was not Tuula that was moving, neither forward nor away. She was the constant by which
Sheldon’s own motion could be measured. She was just there, watching him. Until an approaching
vessel sounded its horn and Tuula turned.
“The night ferry for Tallinn,” she said. “Have you ever been across the bay?”
Sheldon shook his head. He swallowed in the cold air and realized how warm his own body had
become. “I don’t think so,” was all he could manage, though he then thought that if he had been across
he’d surely remember it.
“Would you like to try?” Tuula asked.
Less than an hour later, Sheldon was watching the Grand Marina Hotel transform into a single
dark structure among the wide cluster of blockish buildings from the upper deck of an Estaak Jet
traversing the Gulf of Finland. The frothy white wake of the vessel, illuminated by the dim lights of the
berth below, contrasted with the grayish blackness that was the sea, the cloudy starless sky, and the
sleeping Helsinki docks.
Sheldon had to shout to make himself heard by Tuula over the roar of the engines. “I try not to
listen to what other people say,” Sheldon yelled. He couldn’t tell to what extent the subtle nodding
response came from understanding and how much of it came from the bounce of the ferry and the fierce
night air howling through Tuula’s hair. But Sheldon knew that words were not everything, and something
in Tuula’s eyes beckoned him to continue if only for his own sake.
“Sometimes the true test of a scientist is resisting the temptation to reject what you can’t prove,”
he yelled out, realizing as he did so that it sounded like something K.T. would have said. Suddenly the
engines went soft as the vessel neared the end of its short jaunt. Suddenly the “plap” of tiny waves from
all directions could be heard against the hull. Suddenly Tuula seemed again very near as she watched and
Sheldon’s voice cracked with the awareness that she could now hear him.
“If you were super small and inside a living brain, you’d never guess that all those individual
synapses added up to consciousness. It’s hard to see the whole when you underestimate the parts. Know
what I mean?”
“No,” Tuula said smiling.
“Oh,” Sheldon said. “Where’s that dictionary?” He fumbled through pages that fluttered in the
wind, still clinging with one hand to his Coula branch.
Tuula touched his arm. “Look there,” she said. The vessel had turned to dock and the towering
city of Tallinn became visible before them, medieval pillars glowing in the night. This is what had been
hiding behind the blackness on the other side.
“It’s beautiful,” Sheldon said.
“Very old. Yet electric.”
“Speaking of electricity,” Sheldon began, “See here? That’s a synapse.” He pointed to a page in
the dictionary.
Tuula took the book, read the definition, flipped pages, read another, then she closed it and
stuffed it in her pocket. She shut her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Sheldon asked.
“Making a sentence,” was the answer.
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Sheldon waited. Tuula opened her eyes and slowly followed the path of words she had connected
in her brain: “Now that you know…what will work in your best case…please not to give up…to
someday…make it work in every case,” she said.
Then she smiled and added, “It’s good, my sentence?”
“Yes,” Sheldon replied. “It’s very good.” His voice faltered as the engines died altogether
leaving the momentum of the current to carry the vessel the last few yards to the rubber-cushioned
docking station. Sheldon fought his impulse to kill the engine of conversation and follow the current of
uncharted silence. He uttered the first thing he could think of to anchor himself. “I hope I didn’t offend
you by what happened back there. I got kind of charged up.” James Bond he was not.
“What happened back there?” Tuula asked. Straight and focused, Sheldon thought. Synapses
much less jumbled than his own.
“You know,” Sheldon explained. “I’m normally not the kind of guy who goes around suddenly
trying to move close to girls he hardly knows. I just kind of got overcome by something.”
“Oh, that,” Tuula said.
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
Tuula pointed as lines were tied and passengers began to ascend from the lower berths. “That’s
the old city of Tallinn. Several miles above the sea…over thousands of stone steps.” Sheldon glanced at
the tower, then back at Tuula. “We can go to the top,” she said. “And then, if you still have your energy,
you can try again…”
Chapter Four
Student projects were laid out on various tables throughout the Grand Marina function room as
judges circulated making notes on clipboards. The last participant to enter, Sheldon edged open a rear
door, took a look around, then made his way as inconspicuously as possible toward a transparent earth
box in the center of the room. He noted that Tuula was already at her station setting up. He didn’t notice
the other attendees of the party in his room the night before until Barry spoke up.
“You didn’t come home last night, Sheldon. I was worried,” Barry said seated in a folding
director’s chair but grabbing at Sheldon’s elbow with an extendable metal claw.
“Back off, Barry,” Sheldon responded.
Helio and Ivan made ooo-ing noises as Sheldon moved past.
“Hey, Barry, Sheldon just told you to back up,” remarked Shahid.
“Shut up,” Barry retorted. He turned to Ivan and gestured with the claw in Shahid’s direction.
“Where’d this guy come from anyway?”
Ivan shrugged.
Just then Walter intercepted Sheldon and slapped him on the back. “I set you up at number nine,
friend.”
“Thanks, Walter.”
“Better check it out. A couple of the judges were having problems.”
Sheldon stopped and blinked. “Problems?” he said. Then he beelined to table nine to find a
white-haired Asian man with a clipboard studying the contents of his earth box. The man’s badge
identified him as “Simon Wang – Judge, Taiwan.”
“Hi there,” Sheldon said. The judge looked up.
“Ah, you’re Mr. Thigpin. Your project is very interesting.”
“Thank you,” Sheldon said.
“Is it not functioning properly?”
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“You just need patience,” Sheldon said. “Soil doesn’t absorb quite as quickly as a water solution
might. Plant life works on a different timescale.” Sheldon opened the top chamber and flicked a switch.
“Yes, I understand that,” Judge Wang responded, a hint of irritation in his tone.
“You need to introduce the ultraviolet contaminant like this,” Sheldon said.
“Yes, yes, I did that.”
“Then it’s as simple as…what the heck?” Sheldon was dismayed to find something out of place
in the soil. He quickly flipped open a side door on the earth box and fished out a dark brown globule.
“And what exactly ‘the heck’ is that?” Judge Wang asked.
“A potato pancake,” Sheldon replied.
“I see.” The judge made a note on his clipboard and walked away. An angry Sheldon looked
across the function hall and his eyes were instantly locked with those of a grinning Barry.
Before he could move, however, Sheldon became aware of a commotion to his right. He turned
to see several other judges and security personnel packing up Tuula’s entry and escorting her away. He
started in that direction, covering several paces in three quick steps before Walter was suddenly blocking
his path. “Hey, friend,” Walter said.
“What’s going on?” Sheldon said. “What are they doing to Tuula?”
“Who’s Tuula?”
“The Finnish girl. What’s happening?”
“She’s being disqualified,” Walter said.
“How come?” Sheldon demanded, trying to push by, but the heavy Walter would not let him.
“Relax,” he said. “She’s not even in our section.”
“Yeah, Shel,” Barry called from behind him. “Don’t be greedy. Didn’t you get enough of her
last night?”
Sheldon whirled round to find Barry, Ivan and Helio all watching with wicked grins on their
faces. “You shut up!” he cried.
“Easy, friend.” Walter held Sheldon tight. “What are you getting all excited for?”
Too upset for words, Sheldon waved the potato pancake in his hand at Barry. “Your lompe’s
limp, buddy,” Barry said. “Shouldn’t let good food go to waste.”
And with that Sheldon twisted free of Walter’s grasp and punched Barry hard in the mouth.
Barry went flying into a long table stacked with student projects, taking the whole thing with him
before crashing to the floor. Spectators all around scrambled to help Barry up and restrain Sheldon before
he could deliver another blow.
Shahid gave Barry a shake, as if to revive him. “Hey, Barry. Barry,” he said. “Sheldon has just
punched you in the mouth.”
“Thanks for the hot fucking tip,” Barry replied through locked teeth.
Barry touched the back of his hand to his lip and glanced at the blood. His mouth then hooked,
unexpectedly, into a red-toothed smile.
Sheldon turned to the spot where Tuula had been standing an instant before. Her table was clear,
all her instruments gone. The guards had been exceedingly swift in taking her away. The only final trace
of her presence was the same rear double doors that Sheldon had entered from that were now in the
process of swinging shut.
Twelve hours later Sheldon was sitting alone in an aisle seat in the front of an airbus cabin.
Walter approached and squeezed by to take the window seat next to him. They adjusted their belts, both
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glancing up as Helio entered the plane brandishing mock fists in Sheldon’s direction. “Yo, Killa,” Helio
said. Walter gave him a look and Helio kept moving.
Sheldon sat in silence for several seconds. Finally, he remarked softly to Walter, “You’re the one
that told me to stand up to him.”
“I said tell him to back off, not knock him through the wall.”
Sheldon nodded. Walter gestured at a manila file folder in his lap. “I got a report here says there
were 22 individuals in and out of that room between check in and breakfast time,” he said, “any one of
whom could have tampered with your project, accidentally or intentionally.”
Sheldon started to object, but Walter continued: “There were also significant amounts of alcohol
consumed, which in itself is a violation of conference rules.”
“Then how come I’m the only one you’re kicking out of the program?”
“I’m not kicking out anyone, friend,” Walter corrected.
Sheldon and Walter waited as another student boarded the plane and walked past. Then Walter
withdrew a page from the folder and handed it to Sheldon. “That’s Tuula Meeri,” he said. “She was
expelled from the competition when the judges learned she’d lied about her nationality. She’s not from
Finland. She’s from Estonia, across the bay. Her father was registered KGB back when it was part of the
Soviet Bloc.”
Sheldon took a look at the sheet in his hand. There was a black and white reproduction of a
shorthaired Tuula in the corner. She looked very different. Sheldon handed the page back to Walter. “So
what?” he said.
“So you broke the program’s most important rule when you discussed non-related research with
her last night. I went to bat for you, friend, but this is where the delegate committee doesn’t bend. After
all, they’re funded by the state department.”
Sheldon had no response. Here it was the dawn of the 21st century with science the language of
the new age, yet he’d somehow time-warped back to the cold war world of Sean Connery and secret
spies. James Bond indeed.
Just then everyone aboard the airbus fell silent as Barry entered the cabin, his lip bandaged, but
otherwise none the worse for wear. Barry moved slowly down the aisle before stopping just to Sheldon’s
side to stand and regarding his fellow passengers. He let the tension build several seconds before
speaking.
“Hey, come on everyone,” Barry said at last. “Sheldon screwed up a little, but who can blame
him? I mean, did you note the assets on that KGB babe?” He mimed a big pair of breasts. “Who
wouldn’t break a few rules for a piece of that?”
Whistles and catcalls suggested that the others concurred. Barry grinned, turned to Sheldon,
extended his hand. “No hard feelings, Shel?” he said.
Under Walter’s pressuring glare, Sheldon reluctantly returned the gesture. The two shook hands.
Only Sheldon was not happy about it.
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PART TWO: STRAW MAN
(MINNESOTA, 2005)
Chapter Five
Sheldon hit the spacebar on his faded year-2000-model iBook. A picture of a long purple
vegetable filled the screen in front of the lecture hall.
“This is a carrot,” Sheldon said.
A handful of the thirty or so scattered students broke off whispered conversations and looked up
from cell phones. Their interest seemed piqued less by the content of Sheldon’s talk and more by the
possibility that he was having problems with his equipment.
“There’s nothing wrong with the color settings on the projector,” Sheldon stressed. “And this is
not a genetically modified organism. This is what almost every carrot in the world looked like prior to
1721. Purple. Dutch farmers interbreeding lighter colored mutants produced the orange strain we know
today.”
One student made a note.
Sheldon clicked through several slides. “Square watermelons; white, yellow, and even blue
roses; ‘apriums’ and ‘plumcots’ developed in the 1920s by Luther Burbank; bright Cattleya orchids;
dwarfed bonsai and designer hedges; the Johannesburg manmade forest comprised of ten million trees.”
He looked up. “I think we can all agree that humans have been manipulating plants for quite a while.”
The girl who had been writing had closed her notebook. She shrugged and bit into an apple.
“But did you know,” Sheldon continued, “that plants have been manipulating us for much longer
and in far more significant ways? We animals have been doing their bidding since the day we arrived to
share their planet. In fact, it’s because of them that we’re here.”
Sheldon waited. No reaction.
They created us is what he wanted to say. He pondered for an instant, but decided against it.
Better to be dull than potentially blasphemous, especially at nine in the morning.
After all, his situation at the small county college in southern Minnesota seemed as close to ideal
as he was likely to get. He wasn’t making much money or progressing yet toward a PhD (no one around
to mentor him), but he did have an office, access to lab resources, and freedom to follow his academic
interests. Freedom was worth a lot. Best to err to the side of safe when lecturing and hold the
unconventional remarks for his next paper.
“Consider this,” Sheldon said instead, taking a step toward the girl with the apple. “A tree gives
us a present. A piece of fruit. It spends weeks or months synthesizing sunlight into sugars, wrapping
them into a neat colorful container, and then holding the package out for us to take away and enjoy at our
leisure. Why does it do that? What does the tree get in return?”
“It doesn’t know we’re going to take the fruit,” a male student protested from several rows back.
“It’s just a tree.”
“Surely it produces fruit for a reason,” Sheldon countered. “It grows leaves for its own use—for
photosynthesis. But fruit it lets fall to the ground if no higher animal comes to claim it.”
“We make them grow fruit,” a third student asserted. “We stick them in greenhouses then pump
them with plant food and fertilizer. We trick them into serving us.”
“Well, if we’re giving them room and board and caring for them around the clock, maybe they’re
tricking us,” Sheldon replied. “But let’s go back to our ancestors. Paleolithic man didn’t know anything
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about agriculture. He just knew that apples tasted good. If it was the right season and he happened by a
tree, he’d pick as many as he could carry. And then what?”
Sheldon looked at the third student. The young man now hesitated. “Uh, he’d eat them?”
Sheldon smiled. “And spit out the seeds. Disseminating new generations. You see? Then when
his belly was full what would he do?” Sheldon waited. “Apples are great laxatives, by the way,” he
prompted.
“He’d…poop?”
Sheldon nodded. The girl who had written in her notebook put down her apple.
“Exactly. Fertilizing the soil,” Sheldon emphasized. “And then what?”
The young man squirmed. “I don’t know. Go back to his cave and sleep, I guess.”
“With the sugars he’d consumed to be stored as fat,” Sheldon said. “Helping him survive the
winter so he could keep doing the same thing again for all the new trees.”
Sheldon returned to his iBook and hit the spacebar. A picture of a green earth appeared next.
“In terms of mass, 87% of all living things on our world are plant life. They were here long
before we animals arrived. They stocked our atmosphere with oxygen so we could be born. Still, we
could disappear tomorrow and they’d hardly notice it. But if they went away…”
Sheldon touched his computer to call up the next PowerPoint slide. Something went wrong with
the system and the lecture hall was suddenly dark. As he fumbled with the connection, he heard a student
whispering: “My dad’s a survivalist. We have enough food to last a year.” Sheldon gave up and searched
for the lights.
“Because we animals eat plants, it’s tempting to think that we’re running the show,” Sheldon
announced. “That it’s our movie and they’re just the scenery. But it’s really their world. Vegetation is
the only form of life on earth detectable from space. And little we humans have done has made any
significant impact on the plant population. That is, until very recently…”
Sheldon found the light switch, just as the chimes marking the end of the period sounded.
“…Until we began bulldozing their rainforests and tampering with their DNA,” Sheldon
concluded. The students were already standing up to go.
“Aren’t we supposed to tamper?” the girl with the apple now asked. “Isn’t that what a botanist
does?”
“I’d argue that the first task of someone in the botanical sciences—or any science for that
matter—is to understand,” Sheldon said.
“That sounds lucrative,” a sarcastic voice shouted out.
Sheldon couldn’t tell if this was in response to his comment or just a random bit of separate
conversation. But he now noticed for the first time two dark smartly dressed figures leaving with the first
of the other students. He hadn’t seen the two come in and was fairly certain they weren’t part of his class.
They moved quickly, with menace and authority; then they were gone. Sheldon didn’t know what to
think. He folded up his lecture notes and put them in his pocket.
*
*
*
*
“Maybe they were Mormons,” Margaret suggested.
Margaret was, in many ways, the glue that held together the interdepartmental mishmash that
Sheldon was a part of. The trustees at Windom County College had wanted more breadth in the course
catalog, and so had offered modest stipends and facilities to a number of stray academics in various fields.
It meant support in the short term and the promise of opportunity further down the road, but it also meant
isolation. Most of the scholars were single misfits (like Sheldon, it seemed) from different subjects.
There was little common ground. In fact, they might all have been doomed to live in the same university
apartment building, do their washing at the same communal laundry, share the same fax and laser printer,
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yet never really speak to one another had Margaret and her 13-year-old son Max not come along.
Margaret (whose research had something to do with how rubber decomposes—Sheldon still didn’t really
understand) organized mixers, remembered people’s birthdays, and turned the Mankato Building into a
community.
“Maybe they were Mormons,” Sheldon allowed. “It seemed like they were wearing suits.”
“Well, there you go,” Margaret said. She clipped together a stack of warm documents, then
paused on her way out of the copy room. “You’ll be there Saturday, right?”
“If I can.”
Margaret frowned and crossed her arms. “Sheldon.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll stop by.
whatever...messages me.”
I just may have to leave a little early.
In case my brother…
Margaret leaned against the doorway. “You have a brother?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘message’ you? Like send a text?”
“Something like that.”
“But you don’t have a cell phone. You’re against cell phones.”
“I know. I just. Don’t you have a class to teach?”
Margaret shifted her weight. “Okay. But you’re coming Saturday,” she said firmly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And if someone has to get in touch with you, I have a landline, the internet, even a cell phone,
which you don’t have to see or touch but is there if you want it.”
“Thanks.”
Sheldon waited as Margaret made her way down the hall. He took a single photocopy of his
crumpled lecture notes then turned off the copier and the light.
He found that he was smiling. There were many comforts missing from his simple Minnesota
life, but he felt that he had what was most important—a place to live and the resources with which he
could pursue his academic interests. The more he thought about it, the more excited he was to get back
up to the conservatory on the roof, his plants, and his research.
It was not to be, however. A lean handsome man in a dark jacket and pressed white shirt was
standing in the entrance to the stairwell.
Sheldon tried going around, but found that a second man—dark jacket, long whiskers, and a
floppy jowl—was perched on the first step. This larger man grabbed both handrails, yanked himself to
his feet, and silently teetered from side to side in a way that prevented Sheldon from passing. It was
altogether un-Mormon-like.
“This way, professor,” the slimmer man said as he pulled at Sheldon’s elbow.
“But, I’m going up.”
The larger man shook his head and nudged Sheldon back the way he’d come. “You’re going
down.”
Chapter Six
“Are you two with the college?” Sheldon asked.
“We’re guests,” came the answer from the man behind him.
“Are you authorities of some sort?”
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“Guests in an official capacity,” said the man in front. The man stopped in front of a firstfloor doorway. “Empty room here. Let’s go in for a quick talk.”
Sheldon checked inside. A small classroom with maybe 20 seats. He hesitated. “Is there
some reason I can’t go to my office?”
“As soon as we finish. Fifteen minutes, no more. Come on, let’s sit.”
“We can’t have our quick talk upstairs?”
Sheldon was now in the room. The man with the baggy jowl followed and closed the
door. The handsome man took the instructor’s chair and sat. Sheldon was feeling wrongly
detained, trapped, kidnapped even, by people he didn’t know.
“The truth is we had to look around your lab a bit. For purposes pertaining to public
safety. And we might not have put everything back exactly where we found it.”
Sheldon contemplated the closed door, the whiskered man standing nearby. He took a
breath, swallowed his sense of injustice, then pulled up a front row chair and fell into it.
“I’m sorry, Sheldon. The mess is minimal, I promise. Nothing broken. We just didn’t
want you to freak out. The way your brother might have.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Sheldon asked.
“Absolutely not. We’re not here to accuse you of anything. We’ve actually come to ask
your assistance. And to assist you in the process.”
“Assist me with what?” Sheldon said.
“Student loans for one thing,” the other man said as he took a seat behind Sheldon in the
third row.
“You ever hear of the NSA?” the first one queried. “Not NASA. N-S-A. There’s a joke
in Washington people like to tell—”
“That it stands for ‘No Such Agency’ because hardly anyone’s heard of it,” Sheldon
snapped. “You’re talking about the National Security Agency. Formed by president Truman in
1952—at the end of his first term, I believe. Overseen by the Department of Defense. I think it’s
headquartered in and around the Dulles Airport area but diversifying outward. Mostly an
information gathering bureau if I understand it correctly.”
“Top marks, professor,” the man at the front of the classroom said. “Kid knows his stuff,
Walrus.”
Sheldon heard a grunt behind him. He stretched around to look, but the man in the third
row had no expression on his face by the time he’d succeeded in turning.
“I just happen to have a list of all the defense agencies on my computer,” Sheldon said. “I
like making lists of things.”
“Be proud of what you know,” the man in front of him said. “It’s the one thing they can’t
take away from you.”
“Unless they give you a lobotomy,” the man behind him countered.
“Excuse me,” Sheldon coughed out. He stood, picked his chair up and turned it sideways
so that he could see both men at the same time, and sat back down. It was an inelegant move, but
the situation seemed to demand it. “So what are you saying? You guys are from the NSA?”
“I’m agent Darren Scott and that’s agent Walter Russell, aka the Walrus.”
Sheldon thought about the names ‘Walter’ and ‘Russell’. The nickname ‘Walrus’ made
more sense.
“I believe you knew another Walter once. From the International Young Scholars
program.”
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“Walter Fisk,” Sheldon said wryly. “He was an old ‘friend’.”
“He spoke very highly of you. That’s why we’re offering to help you out.”
Sheldon
was slightly surprised to hear this, but then considered that Walter Fisk would now be around
retiring age, perhaps was looking back and trying to set old wrongs right.
On cue, Walrus pulled a long plastic notecase from his coat pocket. He flipped it open and
read figures from within like a diner might peruse a restaurant bill. “You make $26-five a year
and change at the college, you got $1470 in your savings account, you owe $89-three—close to a
hundred grand—in student loans. Graduate studies cost a bomb these days. Plus you got $15.33
running on your MasterCard.”
“How did you—?”
“We’re mostly an information gathering bureau,” Darren Scott reminded him.
“But that’s personal information.”
“Nothing’s personal anymore, Sheldon. Not since the Patriot Act.”
“All in all, looks like you’re pretty deep in the hole,” Walrus said.
“Yes. It’s no secret. I’m not on the fast track to riches,” Sheldon confessed. “But I’m
doing the best someone in my field can. I teach first year students plant biology. I published a
paper last month on root rot. Floriculture’s not exactly a deep pocket industry.”
“Maybe not. But gene patenting’s deep pocket.”
“I’m not in that area.”
“You could be in that area.”
“First of all, I’m ideologically against the idea of splicing random strains of DNA together
just to generate patents. I was saying as much at the lecture you guys looked in on this morning.
But also, I don’t have the background to do that work. I’m not a genetic engineer.”
“KlassWorks thinks you’re worth 60 grand a year to start,” the Walrus countered.
Now Sheldon felt not just kidnapped but violated.
“Patriot Act,” Darren Scott repeated.
Walrus withdrew several red and green envelopes from his notecase. Sheldon recognized
them. He kept them hidden in a book behind his desk.
“They sent you the same job offer five times over the last 18 months,” Walrus said.
“Sounds like they may want to hire you.”
Sheldon stood, returned his chair to the forward facing position, walked purposefully
toward the door. He thought that the Walrus might make a move to intercept him, but that didn’t
happen. When Sheldon found he had his hand safely on the knob, he stopped. The other two just
waited.
“You came to tell me to take the job? Is the government working for KlassWorks?”
Darren Scott stood up and stretched his arms.
“We’re only halfway through with our business, Sheldon,” he said. “But I think we could
all go for some apple juice.”
Chapter Seven
Sheldon sat on a concrete bench near the parking lot in front of the campus with Walter
“the Walrus” Russell. They were about 150 yards from the Mankato Building and Sheldon could
see glass roof of the conservatory on top reflecting the midday sun. It was a nice day. The
mountains were a patchwork of green and brown. Sheldon sighed.
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Darren Scott returned from the catering truck behind them with three small boxes of
Minute Maid apple juice. He passed one to each man and took a seat on the other side of Sheldon,
sandwiching him in.
“Really beautiful out here,” he said. “I envy you being so familiar with all this amazing
plant life.”
Sheldon said nothing. Walrus poked his straw into his juice box. But Darren Scott turned
back toward the parking lot and continued.
“Like behind you there. There’s this one completely green tree. Here it is the middle of
autumn and I can’t see a brown leaf on it. Must be an evergreen or something. Bet you could tell
with just one look.”
Sheldon didn’t even need the one look. “That’s a cell phone tower,” he said. “Disguised
to look like a green tree using green paint. Apparently the cellular providers get fewer complaints
when they dress them up that way.”
Even Walrus did a double-take on hearing that.
“But the pinus resinosa or red pine standing behind it is very worthy of note,” Sheldon
continued, still without turning. “No leaves and it’s not very green, but that species can grow
taller than 125 feet under the right conditions.
Darren Scott took a long admiring look. Walrus finished his juice with a loud sucking
noise. Darren Scott seemed to take this as his cue to get back to business.
“You don’t see a future for yourself at KlassWorks?” he said.
“It’s a Silicon Valley tech company,” Sheldon retorted.
“They say they’re expanding into biotech. Apparently they want you to go out there and
show them how it’s done.”
“I’d prefer to pass.”
Walrus consulted his notecase. “KlassWorks filed 1166 biological patents in the first half
of this year alone. That makes us interested. Plus their main guy at the green wing just quit.”
Sheldon wasn’t sure what Walrus was implying. He was about to say so when Darren
Scott cut in.
“Tell us what you know about gene patenting, Sheldon. We understand it’s not your area
of expertise.”
Sheldon stared at his unopened juice box for a moment, tapped it with his fingers. Then:
“It’s a huge business. Everyone thinks it’s going to payoff, but no one’s sure how. It’s sort of like
the dot-com boom a few years ago when everyone was reserving internet addresses and building
websites though net commerce hadn’t taken off and the reason was still unclear.”
“Interesting comparison. But it’s a lot easier being a net squatter than it is copyrighting
DNA. I understand you have to have uniquely modified the gene in order to get a patent.”
“Sure. But that doesn’t make it brain surgery either. Take a species of potato, throw in a
random sunflower chromosome, bingo, it’s patentable. There’re firms churning out twenty or so
of these ill-considered chimeras a day. Someone should really do something.”
“Here’s the thing,” Darren Scott said. “We want to do something. We need an inside
man.”
“I can’t do that,” Sheldon protested. “I’m not a spy.”
“Dammit, no one’s asking you to be a spy!” Walrus spat. “All we want is for you to be a
straw.”
“A straw?”
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Walrus snatched away Sheldon’s apple juice, punched the straw into the box,
demonstrated the process: “You get in, you flow the information out.”
Walrus returned the juice box. Sheldon felt sick.
“We’re offering you a very sweet deal here, Sheldon,” Darren Scott said. “I know you’ve
got ideological differences with the firm. But I know you could also—obviously—use the money.
This is win-win-win. You take their paycheck, you don’t sell out, you help your government. On
top of that, your student loan…”
Walrus removed a slip of paper from his notecase and tore it dramatically into little pieces.
“Gone with the wind,” Darren Scott said. “Perfect plan. I don’t see a single brown leaf in
the whole tree.”
To the contrary, Sheldon knew, there were plenty of brown leaves. These two didn’t see
them because they didn’t want to.
“A little less than perfect if you ask me. My life’s work is here, and California’s about a
thousand miles that way.”
“Life’s work—?” the Walrus began.
But Darren Scott silenced him with a subtle hand gesture as he stood and stretched his
legs.
“All right, Sheldon, I’ll rephrase. If not the perfect plan, then the best plan, is you take our
deal and accept that job at KlassWorks. Because I don’t think your services are going to be
required any longer at the college.”
Walrus stood as well. He left his notecase on Sheldon’s lap.
“I see,” Sheldon choked looking down at it.
“I was hoping just to show you the orange carrot. But you made me drop the ugly purple
stick, too.” Darren Scott touched Sheldon on the shoulder. “Look, help us out and we can
probably get you set up here again someday. If that’s what you still want.”
“I’ll think about it,” Sheldon murmured.
“Better think fast,” Walrus put in, “Your student loan deferment’s gone at the end of the
month.”
“I wouldn’t worry, Walrus. No flies on Sheldon’s brain. Why not give him his goingaway gift?”
Sheldon looked up. The Walrus put a black felt bag in his hand.
“Keep it close by.”
The other two started back toward the parking lot. Sheldon opened the bag to find a tiny
computer-like device—a QWERTY keyboard below a rectangular screen and the word
“BlackBerry” printed on the top.
“What is it?” Sheldon said.
“The latest thing in mobile phones.”
“But…I don’t use a mobile phone.”
“We know. But you’re about to start.”
*
*
*
*
After a while, the sun had shifted in the sky so that it was behind the Mankato Building,
relative to Sheldon, and its rays were no longer gleaming off the glasshouse on the roof. Sheldon
listened to the birds and the wind through the grass and the traffic and the people coming and
going, but he knew it would not be wise to remain much longer and allow the chill from the
concrete bench to enter his body and possibly make him sick. He would soon have to go.
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So he rolled up his spent apple juice container and put it in his pocket. He verified that the
black mobile device was unquestionably powered off, replaced it in its felt bag, and set it aside.
He then opened the thin plastic notecase that Walrus had left and contemplated the five red and
green envelopes within. He drew a breath, opened one, and reviewed the letter it contained.
Written on red and green KlassWorks stationery, the corporate motto “Imagining
Possibilities” inscribed in raised letters below the logo, it was dated March 15th, 2005. It was from
the CEO himself.
It began “Sheldon, old bud, long time no talk…” And it was signed: “Hope to see you
soon. –Barry.”
After a long moment, Sheldon put the letter and envelope back in the notecase, picked
himself up, and went inside.
Chapter Eight
Sheldon watched as Margaret filled two champagne flutes with something called Spürino. It was
a bulk-fermented sparkling wine she’d bought at the drug mart, which was more than acceptable to
Sheldon who seldom drank, though he did feel a touch bad that she and any other Mankato Bldg folk who
came by might have to make do with less flavor just so there could be bubbles in the drink. Sheldon
realized he was probably just projecting. There were bigger things on his mind than the faux champagne
Margaret had just poured.
"Congratulations," she told him taking the seat opposite at her kitchen table. “You're moving up
in the world.”
“Yeah, straight to the big time. Lucky me,” Sheldon said wryly. Then he caught Margaret’s look
as she swigged her Spürino and he quickly attempted a smile. “I just meant, I’m going to miss this
place.”
“I say you’ve got issues about making money,” Margaret pronounced.
“Not really. I like money. It’s useful.”
Sheldon noticed that Margaret didn’t seem to be buying it. She gestured for him to try a sip of
the bubbly, which he did.
“Okay, maybe you’re right,” Sheldon then hiccoughed. “After all, money does have a tendency
to screw things up. It screws up people and it screws up science.”
“Sheldon just said ‘screw,’” Margaret’s son Max observed as he trekked across the living room in
football cleats, the front door still wide open.
“If you make it into your thirties you can use whatever language you want, too,” Margaret said.
“But you’re not going to get there unless you learn to close that door!”
“Actually, I’m not yet into my—” Sheldon began.
Max interrupted as he circled back the way he had come: “Could I get a piece of that cake?” he
called. This was followed by the sound of a loud door slam.
“After we cut it,” Margaret responded. “When the others get here.”
“What if no one else comes?” Max said again cleating past toward the kitchen.
“Then we’ll cut it when Sheldon feels like cutting it.”
“I don’t really mind if we cut—” Sheldon tried. But Margaret shook her head and he stopped
himself. He tried another tack, and said loudly so both could hear: “You know, even as a verb, screw has
a variety of different meanings. For one thing, it could mean fasten, like with a screwdriver—” Margaret
again cut him off.
“There’s chili on the stove,” she shouted to Max.
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“Screw chili,” Max said returning with a can of 7-Up and pouring it into a champagne glass as he
took a seat with them at the table. “Meaning to fasten it away. Like with a screwdriver.”
Margaret started to object, but Sheldon quickly raised his glass. “Let me take this opportunity to
say, it’s been very good knowing you, Max. I wish we could stay neighbors.” Max clinked his glass
against Sheldon’s.
Margaret joined in the toast. “Bon Voyage, Sheldon,” she added. “Send us a postcard.”
All drank. Then Max suddenly stood and nearly coughed 7-Up all across the floor as he ran back
to the living room and threw open a drawer. “Shoot! I nearly forgot! I got a big favor to ask, Sheldon!”
“Two favors,” Margaret corrected.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, right,” Max responded, returning with a pad and pen and placing them on the
table in front of Sheldon. “The first favor,” he said mechanically, “is I’d like your autograph. Because
you’re such a cool guy.”
Margaret shot Max a disapproving look as Sheldon signed. Then Max picked up the pad and
ripped aside the page, without even looking, to present Sheldon with another blank sheet of paper. “Now,
favor number two,” he said with considerably more enthusiasm, “Could you please please please please
please get Barry Klass to sign this one and send it back to me?”
“You want Barry’s autograph?” Max shook his head up and down. “Because he’s also such a
cool guy?”
“You kidding?” Max enthused. “He’s da bomb. CEO of KlassWorks, one of the richest dudes in
the world, plus he’s a total humanarian.”
“Human-it-arian,” Margaret said.
“Whatever. That too. Gives tons to medical research and stuff.”
“I think those are probably business investments,” Sheldon said.
“Even cooler.”
Sheldon accepted the pad and bent over to unzip his backpack under the chair. “Consider it
done,” he told Max.
“Awesome!” Max cried. “Call me when you cut the cake!”
By the time Sheldon looked up, Max was already gone.
Margaret decided to leave well enough alone and refill their glasses. “You said that money
screws up science," she said. "But wouldn't you also agree that the profit motive helps encourage good
science? Lot more American innovation out there than Russian and Chinese combined."
"The profit motive does encourage science," Sheldon admitted.
science."
"But not necessarily good
"What other kind is there?”
"Take medicine, like Max brought up," Sheldon said. "What's our biggest breakthrough in the
last decade? Probably Viagra."
“Well good for you that you don’t need it, but there’s plenty of guys, even your age, that think it’s
nice to have around,” Margaret responded.
“I wasn’t saying that…” Sheldon went red. He decided he’d had enough Spürino and put his
glass down. "A cure for Malaria would also be nice to have," he continued. "It strikes around 500
million people a year. Only the victims are mostly dirt poor so there's no financial incentive for a little
blue pill that keeps African children from dying of mosquito bites."
Margaret finished her glass, then reached across the table to pat Sheldon on the hand. Sheldon
noticed what looked like a tear in her eye. "You made your point," she said. "So do me a favor. Go out
there and get rich so you can save the world."
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This was the first time she’d ever touched him. It felt as though she’d just broken some kind of a
seal and now Sheldon felt the water heading toward his eyes as well. "Margaret…" he choked. And he
very likely would have gone on to say something extremely corny but Margaret probably knew it because
she spared him.
"Max!" she called, "We're cutting the cake now!"
*
*
*
*
Sheldon made it back to his room ahead of midnight as he’d planned. It was easier than he
thought it would be to get away, as no one else had come. It had actually been Margaret that suggested
they call it a night.
He felt bad that he had inadvertently ruined a better party by forcing her to switch to a bon
voyage theme. Oh, well. He’d done his best to be a good guest and had consumed more Spürino than he
should have.
He switched on his computer, wondered if anything eventful would happen this evening, and
reflected on the future and the past. As it turned out, Sheldon didn’t make it to midnight, but nodded off
at his desk staring at his iBook screen around 11:30…
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PART THREE: THIS COULD BE A PLACE
(NEW MEXICO, 2003)
Chapter Nine
Sheldon was in the hallway outside the Albuquerque Mendel Resident Halls office, but he was
also deep in his cherished iBook.
It was the indigo clamshell model—rounded, psychedelic, sixties summer of love—like no laptop
before or since. He’d admired it since its release in 2000, even though K.T. had been quick to compare its
shape to that of a toilet seat. It was two more years before the unit had fallen into Sheldon’s price range,
yet very much worth the wait.
Sheldon was composing a list headed “Types of Waves.” He had 37 entries, running the gamut
from atmospheric to aquatic to electromagnetic. Also included were stadium crowd waves, hair wavers,
and Wavy Gravy, the official clown of the Grateful Dead.
Sir Isaac Newton had been another list enthusiast. The inventor of the calculus, father of
universal gravitation and chief architect of the modern world, Newton had reportedly amused himself in
his younger days by categorizing his surroundings using pen and paper inventories. Were Newton alive
today, he’d probably be diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, Sheldon imagined.
“Yoo-hoo, we’re ready, okay?” he heard Clarissa Ball say.
Clarissa’s choice of words and the way she tapped Sheldon on the shoulder suggested she was
repeating herself—Sheldon had inadvertently tuned her out the first time, lost in a list.
Sheldon apologized as he stowed his iBook, forcing the pretty retiring halls monitor, who had
always seemed to him unaccustomed to waiting, to wait even longer.
Clarissa was dressed predictably in pink, with the flirt, fluff and flair that she used to win favor
with the mostly male 522 dorm residents that she oversaw proudly on display. She steered the herd from
the jock population downward. It was an innate social grace she no doubt saw lacking in Sheldon, for she
watched him stand not with impatience or anger, but something more akin to pity.
Sheldon flashed back to Newton and his apples while he zipped away his Macintosh and followed
through a cloud of Clarissa’s perfume, suddenly reminded that poor Sir Isaac had left this life at 85 yet
still a virgin.
Nada Al-Zarqa and Dr. Dean Allen both rose slightly without actually rising as Sheldon entered
the room. After all, it was a small campus and Sheldon probably saw either of them at least once or twice
a day. By way of a greeting, Dr. Allen asked how Sheldon’s research was coming.
“Along” was Sheldon’s answer. Possibly not the best response.
(Great. He needed this job and he might just have alienated his one friend in the room if Dr.
Allen chose to take offense. Dr. Allen had been pushing Sheldon to switch gears toward something more
commercial and was actually being heard more than he realized. Sheldon more than understood that his
higher degree was now going to leave him six figures in debt, but felt he’d come too far to simply jump
aboard the biotech bandwagon.)
“Sheldon’s bright and plenty organized,” Dr. Allen said as soon as all were seated. “I’ve got no
problem with the extra time commitment. A person can do the job and still be a student, right?”
Sheldon was immediately grateful. Allen had not only turned Sheldon’s substandard greeting
into a plus but had assembled a question for Clarissa that would ensure a favorable response.
“Oh, you could totally do it and be a student,” Clarissa agreed. “It’s basically just talking to
people.”
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Sheldon was now two-thirds of a room on his way to tuition, shelter and food for the next
academic year. Only then a chair squeaked as Nada Al-Zarqa shifted her weight. “Talking to people isn’t
as easy for some as for others,” she said, reminding Sheldon of all those times he’d walked past her and
hadn’t known what to say. Sheldon had to admit he only seemed to have one “hi” in him per person per
day. If he saw someone twice, he had no follow up material.
“Yeah, you do have to kind of know what to say sometimes,” Clarissa admitted.
“Not that I’m at all against you, Sheldon,” Nada added. “I want you to get your work quota, but I
also have to make sure our halls rep is right for the job.”
“Yeah,” Clarissa said again. It was a very negative-sounding “yeah” and she made a pained face
to go with it. “You do need to pump people up a lot, get on their good sides.”
Time dragged for an instant as everyone seemingly replayed Clarissa’s words inside their heads.
“You think you could do that, Sheldon?” Nada queried at last.
“Sure.”
The others waited.
But Sheldon couldn’t decide what else to say. He thought of pointing out that the job was being
described from a feminine point of view as Clarissa happened to be female and that was the way she
interfaced with the world. Yet there were other residence halls with male student reps that functioned
fine. It might have been a sensible response, but he hesitated to introduce gender to the discussion. Then
it was a moot point as he realized too much time had passed and he’d just made Nada’s case for her.
“Last year I read that book by Dale Carnegie,” Sheldon added lamely.
“Wouldn’t he be better suited to work as a lab assistant? Or in one of the libraries?” Nada asked
Dr. Allen.
“Well, sure,” Sheldon’s ally quickly confessed, “but those positions are all gone for the year.
Since the dot-com bubble burst and especially after 9/11 and anthrax we’ve had this surge from IT into
the bio-sciences...”
Dr. Allen stopped, realizing he wasn’t helping, and made a dismissive hand wave gesture in
Nada’s direction. It was as though the prof were waving good-bye to Sheldon’s funding for the year.
Sheldon made a mental note that hand waves needed to be on his wave list.
“I’m telling you, he’s bright, he’s resourceful,” Dr. Allen repeated as Nada referred to a printed
sheet within a manila folder. Sheldon sensed she was adding a third adjective to the list and had no doubt
that the page in her hand recounted Sheldon’s assault on Barry Klass and his consequent expulsion from
the I.Y.S. program.
Nada clicked her pen as she turned back to Clarissa. “Do you think you might give us a concrete
example of how social skills would be essential to the job?” she asked.
“Well...like the other night, this guy comes in saying he’s from 307 but his wallet and keycard’s
been stolen. He wants to know if I can let him in the room and I’m like, hello, there’s like 500 people in
this hall and I can’t check you’re who you say you are till morning. Anyway, so we knock on his
neighbor’s door and at first they’re all mad because it’s after midnight and they’ve got a test the next day,
but then I’m like, hey, I’m sorry, I’m the hall rep, and in the end they were totally cool.”
“Thanks, Clarissa. Well told. Clearly there’s an element of diplomacy to the position that should
be taken into account.” Nada said this while already penning a note within her folder. Then she looked
up. “Sheldon, can you honestly say you would have been able to respond to the situation the same way?”
“No,” Sheldon said. And with that he picked his backpack off the floor and brought it to his lap.
“We appreciate your honesty,” Nada said writing again. “We’ll take this under advisement and
let you—“
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She was interrupted by the chime of a Macintosh computer coming back to life. Nada cleared her
throat, gathered her papers and started to stand. The others followed suit as if the meeting had just been
adjourned.
“The guy in room 307 is Robert Katzman,” Sheldon said. “His middle name’s Anthony.”
“Hey, yeah,” Clarissa responded. “Rob Katzman.”
“You know the student she was talking about?”
“Not personally, but I have a list of all the residents in the hall on my computer. I made it in my
free time.”
Clarissa walked over and leaned in to see the document Sheldon had called up on his iBook,
touching Sheldon’s shoulder as she did so. Nada reluctantly followed.
“Gee, with that he wouldn’t have to knock on doors,” Dr. Allen said. It was stating the obvious,
but Sheldon appreciated it all the same.
Three hours and twenty minutes later, Sheldon still had his nose in his iBook. He was in a remote
corner of the snack pavilion directly behind the Science Library and had just composed and sent an e-mail
to K.T. at the Arlington Institute of Mental Health. He’d intentionally never mentioned that most of his
recent e-messages were being posted through the air via the school’s new wifi network that most people
still didn’t even know existed. He looked forward to a coffee at a D.C. Starbucks with his brother
someday where he could demonstrate this awesome upgrade to his toilet seat computer in person.
The clock at the top of his screen flashed 7:11pm. Sheldon had been postponing his walk back to
Mendel Hall to a time when Clarissa would most likely have vacated the front desk for the day.
No one had said that the res hall appointment would be a democratic decision, but Sheldon’s
reading of the situation was that majority would rule. Allen in his camp, Nada against, and Clarissa the
swing vote—if all remained in balance Sheldon could hopefully squeak by. But if he were to tip the
proverbial apple cart, if he were to see her again before the appointment and were required to say
something more than hi, he felt he could only hurt his chances. The most intelligent and responsible play
seemed to be to cower in the library until sundown then sneak back up to his room.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon heard Clarissa laughing as soon as the double doors to the lobby slid open, even though
it was now approaching nine. The bad news was that she was still at her post, but the good news was that
some poor unfunny clown was again trying to chat her up thinking that he somehow had a shot.
Sheldon made quickly for the elevators and managed to steer completely clear of an encounter.
He was relieved as he pressed the call button that only the very tops of Clarissa’s blonde-brown locks
were visible behind the broad shoulders of the would-be suitor that was leaning confidently over her
counter. The guy really was a clown, Sheldon thought. He had orange dyed hair, a jacket with the words
“Fuck the Godfather” inexplicably stenciled on the back, and was telling Clarissa about how his dog
could say hi.
Only the story was all-too-familiar. As was the voice.
The elevator doors opened but Sheldon didn’t enter. He stood there in the lobby watching. “It
wasn’t a perfect ‘hi,’” the guy was saying, “but as good as a dog can get. Kind of like ‘ha-ii-ahrr.’”
Clarissa continued to laugh.
The guy sensed Sheldon’s eyes behind him. He stopped, turned, then broke into a wide grin.
“Yo, Steeps! Guess who!”
Sheldon had already guessed. It was his brother K.T. He checked quickly to confirm that
Clarissa was still smiling.
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Chapter Ten
It had required a full box of Cheese Nips, the hour that it took for Sheldon to watch the back-toback final episodes of Family Ties (though he would have rather been watching Sanford and Son reruns),
and an unshakable belief that dogs could be taught English. By the first commercial Mulber had learned
to bark lower in her throat and only earned a couple of treats. But before the second show ended,
Mulber’s woof bore a very striking resemblance to the word “hi.”
On another occasion, Sheldon remembered K.T. trying to teach their dog “hey” as well but with
only partial success. Still, his brother knew how to do things. In Sheldon’s view a lot of this had to do
with K.T.’s patience and commitment—when his brother wanted something he wouldn’t quit until he
figured out a way.
Sheldon was buying dinner to welcome K.T. to New Mexico. The food preparer dropped his
change on the tray, as was the custom at Casa De Fiesta, along with the three burritos and two coffees
he’d ordered. Rather than hand over two whole dollar bills, Sheldon found thirty cents in his pocket to
make an even buck thirty tip and kept the second dollar with the plates. Once he got the res hall position,
he reasoned, then he could be looser with money.
He carried the tray to the table where he’d left K.T., his bag, and a helping of serve-yourself corn
chips, but only an empty bowl remained. Sheldon looked around, saw the view from the terrace, and
knew intuitively that this was where his brother would have gone. He headed for the seats closest to the
railing.
“You left Clarisse off your list,” he heard from behind. He spun around to find K.T. in a corner
seat with Sheldon’s iBook open on the table. “Albuquerque must have some amazing women if Clarisse
isn’t in the top 40.”
“Her name’s Clarissa,” Sheldon said, sitting and starting into his coffee. “I thought that file was
password protected.”
“It had a password,” K.T. answered, sipping from his own without looking up. “But nothing’s
ever protected.”
Sheldon squirmed a bit as K.T. punched keys and looked through documents. He strove to
remain outwardly cool and hoped his brother hadn’t noticed his discomfort. Maybe he had failed or
maybe K.T. was just hungry, but after a quick moment K.T. closed the iBook, removed and pocketed a
thumbnail drive, then spun the computer away and dug into a burrito.
“Also bypassed your keychain code,” K.T. admitted as Sheldon double-checked his laptop. “Just
poking around. I didn’t mess anything up.”
As Sheldon stowed his iBook, he sensed maybe it was time to breach the question that had been
hanging in the air since K.T.’s arrival. “Did you bypass locks at the hospital too?” he asked.
K.T. took Sheldon’s dollar from the tray and held it up. “See this?” he said. “This is the answer
to your question. This, sadly, is what everything’s about.”
“My last dollar?”
“Like dad used to say. No financial incentive for someone to do something, they’re not going to
give a hoot. Know what I mean?”
“I guess. Maybe not. Who’s the ‘they’?”
In lieu of a response, K.T. stuffed the bill into his own shirt and unwrapped burrito number two.
“What else is there to see around here?” he said.
“You’re looking at it,” Sheldon replied. “View of the city there. Historic Route 66. Those’re the
Manzano Mountains and that way’s the Rio Grande.”
K.T. glanced around in a broad circle. Then he raised his eyebrows and smiled at Sheldon.
“Let’s cross it,” he said. “Go into Mexico.”
“You cross that, you’ll still be in Albuquerque. The part you’re thinking of is way further south.”
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“So? We can still go.”
“Not on foot. And I don’t have a car.”
“Clarisse has one,” K.T. responded, then as Sheldon opened his mouth to object: “I call her
Clarisse.”
“Yeah, well, she’s…” Sheldon trailed off judging it best to let sleeping dolls lie. “Anyway,
there’d be border patrol and passport checks. You wouldn’t want to get caught if you’re, you know, not
completely legal.”
“Yeah, okay, fine,” K.T. responded, not taking the bait. “You want the last burrito?”
Sheldon shook his head, but K.T. tore it in half and gave the big end to his brother before
unwrapping the smaller and stuffing it into his mouth. “I should try to crash anyway. I’ve seen enough of
Route 66 for one day.”
This pregnant response provided one last opening for Sheldon to ask about to what he owed the
pleasure of K.T.’s visit. Only by the time Sheldon had opened his mouth to do so, K.T. was already up
and walking toward the exit. Sheldon grabbed his bag and burrito and followed.
“Okay, what’s the big deal? I left without a formal discharge,” K.T. suddenly turned and
confessed. “It’s not like they’re issuing an international APB.”
Sheldon opened his mouth again but K.T. waved a hand. “Read all about it another time,” he said.
Then he pulled Sheldon’s dollar from his pocket and handed it to the man behind the counter as an extra
tip.
“That’s for you,” K.T. grinned.
“Thanks,” the man said. “Hope you enjoyed your Casa De Fiesta experience.”
“Frankly, it was about as memorable as a five a.m. shit,” K.T. responded, before pausing to add,
“No offense.”
As Sheldon stood at the door, he thought for an instant that he ought to say something more to his
food preparer. But there seemed nothing he could do to improve upon K.T.’s last remark. K.T.
undoubtedly had a way.
Chapter Eleven
Sheldon felt alive when he was with K.T., like there were suddenly no restrictions. He decided
that his brother’s unexpected visit might have come at just the right time because it helped him regain
perspective on what was possible. They’d agreed to go to the big river the next day, only to enjoy it from
just the New Mexico side, and Sheldon suddenly wondered why he didn’t take more time to appreciate
the state’s natural heritage on his own.
He was walking on air as he strode with his brother onto the campus, which suddenly seemed
smaller and less intimidating. However, as they neared the residence halls, Sheldon’s confidence began
to wane. Some of his fears returned. And perhaps they weren’t unjustified because a security guard left
his post and moved to intercept them before recognizing Sheldon. The officer still shot a suspicious look
at K.T. as they passed.
“So, um…” Sheldon started, only to nearly choke on his words. “How you fixed for meds?”
“I’m trying to get off that stuff. One reason I left the institute. But, don’t worry, I got two last
tranqs to help me crash tonight.”
That put Sheldon’s mind at ease for the immediate future anyway. But what about after that…?
“K.T., could we keep kind of low key when we’re on campus and in the halls?” Sheldon said.
“I’m sort of worried about that appointment I told you about.”
“No probs,” K.T. shot back. Then, after a moment, “What do you mean low key?”
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“I don’t know. Typical stuff. Keeping the music down, no smoking, etc.”
“I won’t punch anyone in the face.”
“Thanks.” Sheldon swallowed. “And maybe you can wear one of my sweaters if you’re cold.”
“My jacket,” K.T. said. He stopped at the entrance to the residence halls and removed it. He
seemed suddenly worked up just looking at it. “You know who the godfather is, I assume?”
“Marlon Brando?”
“Marlon Brando’s an actor. I’m talking about the real godfather bastard.”
Sheldon dropped his voice a notch, hoping that K.T. would do the same. “Vito Corleone?”
“In the movies, Vito Corleone was the old godfather.
principles.”
He was a gangster but he still had
“Okay, Michael—”
“Michael Corleone. That satanic sack of crap that used the power of his command for nothing
but evil!” K.T. karate-chopped the jacket in his hand as he said this.
Sheldon didn’t recall the Al Pacino character worshipping the devil (nor did he remember Marlon
Brando’s godfather working by contrast to propagate the common good), but rather than encourage any
more of a debate than necessary, he simply gestured for lower volume with his hands. K.T. obliged by
dropping his voice to a frenzied whisper as Sheldon ushered him across the lobby.
“He was supposed to be doing it all for the family, right? But he killed half his family! He went
to the dark side and took us all with him!”
“I see your point,” Sheldon said, no longer sure if his brother was talking about The Godfather or
Star Wars, but thankful in either event that the student rep station was unmanned at this time of night as
he pressed the elevator call button.
“It’s all messed up,” K.T. was saying as he finished turning the jacket inside out. Sheldon slid his
door key through the reader then went straight for his refrigerator to fetch a can of Hansen’s natural lime
soda.
K.T. was already in the bedroom, now silently examining the potted Green Medusa Orchid (or
microthelys rubrocallosa) when Sheldon returned with the drink in a glass.
“For your tranquilizers,” Sheldon said. K.T. nodded and drank down his medication while
Sheldon pulled a change of clothes and extra bedding from the closet, checked that there were no
messages on the machine, then left closing the door to crash out on the sofa.
*
*
*
*
Six hours later, while K.T. still slept, Sheldon made his way downstairs and across to the exit. He
greeted the pink-clad halls monitor with his “hello” for the day, received a tiny nod in return, then smiled
to himself as he added “Clarisse” under his breath while heading out the double doors.
Sheldon thought about why he hadn’t added Clarissa to his “Pretty in Albuquerque” list as he
made his way toward the Natural Sciences building. He decided, probably, that she reminded him of a
pink fluffy version of the mechanical rabbits that all the animals chase after at the dog races with no hope
of ever catching. There was something unreal about her. At least she still seemed on board for the
student rep appointment and that was the important thing.
Dr. Allen confirmed this when he ran into Sheldon in front of the library and pulled him aside for
a quick chat. “I don’t think there’s really anyone else in the running,” he divulged. “If we just leave it
alone it should work out okay.”
“Thanks,” Sheldon said. “I really need this to make my tuition this year.”
“Biotech’s the answer. Seed mapping, bio-fertilizers, biofuel.”
“I know. I was going to find that micro propagation piece you recommended…”
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Dr. Allen lowered his voice. “Sheldon, you’ve heard how advancing in higher learning is like
climbing into an upside down funnel?’
“From you, I think. Yes.”
“Well I don’t just mean that in terms of specialization and concentration. It’s even truer in terms
of money. There are only a limited number of areas at the top that wind up being profitable to fund.”
“Gene patenting and herbal warfare, I get it.” Sheldon had lists of both the largest and fasting
growing industries and had just referenced the frontrunner of each.
Dr. Allen studied Sheldon for an instant, then patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll cover you this
year,” he said. “But try to be more marketable by next summer.”
As Sheldon watched his prof walk away, he felt sadly certain that Dr. Allen had a point.
Darwinian principles applied and a scientist almost always had to serve the state to survive. Meanwhile,
funding cuts were in the back pages of almost every paper while war and oil hogged the headlines.
Sheldon made a snap decision to detour into the library and read the article Dr. Allen had
recommended. But something caught his eye just as he was turning. A small green orchid plant with
white blossoming curvatures.
It was a microthelys rubrocallosa, almost identical to the specimen he kept in his bedroom. Not
surprising since they were native to New Mexico, but odd he’d never noticed this one growing right
alongside the library. He bent down and touched its delicate leaves for a closer look.
Then, out of nowhere, a thought popped into his head.
He sensed for some reason that K.T. was up and about. Sheldon checked his watch. It was still
before 10. Nonetheless, he had a very strong feeling that his brother had already risen despite the
previous late night and the medication. It worried him and he decided to make haste back to the res halls.
It could have just been some neurotic compulsion, Sheldon thought to himself as he rushed across
campus. Like when an OCD sufferer, suddenly believing he’s left the door unlocked, has to keep rushing
back to check. But Sheldon decided that, even if that were the case, he’d feel immensely better going
back over not.
He was glad he did as soon as he reached the double doors. There was K.T. in the lobby,
thankfully wearing Lobos headwear over his died hair and without the jacket, but again at Clarissa’s
counter, still trying to make time with the pink mechanical bunny.
As Sheldon moved closer, however, he realized he’d been mistaken. K.T. wasn’t flirting. He
was arguing. “You’re wrong,” K.T. insisted. “Excuse me?” Clarissa snapped back. Sheldon was
overcome by a wave of worry. Worries, it seemed, could also come in waves.
Chapter Twelve
“Hey guys. What’s going on?” Sheldon said.
“I was trying to buy a bag of Cheese Nips,” K.T. explained, “And their vending machine stole my
sixty cents.”
“Hello? It’s not our machine,” Clarissa insisted.
“I got some snacks upstairs,” Sheldon said. “But, I know, let’s go out for breakfast.”
K.T. ignored the suggestion. “It’s your machine in that it’s in your lobby,” he told Clarissa. “I’m
not saying you own it. But you oversee it.”
“I don’t oversee anything,” Clarissa responded. “It’s the company that—“
“You do. You just don’t realize you do,” K.T. interrupted. “I’m on your side. I’m trying to keep
you from getting suckered by some big corporation.”
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“I got it,” Sheldon said. “I’ll pay the sixty cents. Come on, let’s go to the cash machine?”
Clarissa looked at Sheldon. He smiled. She didn’t smile back.
“You are the agent in absentia for the company that fills that machine,” K.T. argued. “You’re
working for them, but they just don’t want you to know it.”
“You’re an idiot. There’s a sign right there that says we’re not responsible for losses.”
“It doesn’t matter. You are. I could put a sign on your desk that says Clarisse has a ten inch
penis.”
“K.T., please, come on,” Sheldon said. K.T. looked at his brother and shrugged. Clarissa on the
other hand was fuming. Sheldon realized he’d never seen her as much as frown before.
“Okay, I’ll prove it to you,” K.T. said, nudging the stiffened Clarissa on the shoulder.
“No, no, that’s okay,” Sheldon blurted, trying to pull K.T. away from the counter. “We should go
up and call mom while you’re here.”
“I talked to her earlier. She says hi.” K.T. then leaned over until he was in Clarissa’s eye line.
“Clarisse,” he prodded.
“What?” she challenged at last. “What are you going to prove to me?”
“If you’ve got nothing to do with that machine, you’ll have no objection when I go get a baseball
bat and smash it, right?”
“That’s like called destruction of property. It’s a crime.”
“K.T.—”
“Crimes happen everyday,” K.T. said. “But this one’s off your turf, right? Because if you were
that machine’s protector that would have to mean it’s your responsibility.”
Clarissa turned to look at K.T. with angry eyes. “Go to hell,” she said.
“The whole country’s going there,” K.T. replied. “But I’m coming back with a baseball bat.”
And with that he finally turned and left the lobby.
“Um…” Sheldon said. “He was just…we’re not bringing back a bat.”
Clarissa said nothing.
Once outside, Sheldon went tearing into his brother and landed a fist hard against his shoulder.
“Ow,” K.T. said. “You got to quit hitting people.”
“What the hell?” Sheldon demanded. “I told you she was one of the ones that get to decide
whether I can work or not!”
“Aw, don’t worry about her.
understanding.”
We had a good chat when I first came.
We’ve got an
“Yeah, sure. You two are obviously soul mates.”
“Just relax. I’m the one that’s out sixty cents.”
Sheldon just looked at his brother.
“The Rio Grande,” K.T. said. “I assume we need exact change for the bus.”
The remark was so pitifully absurd, that Sheldon felt his anger evaporate. As usual, his brother
had ruined a perfectly good fight before it even began. They headed for the Lomas Blvd exit and Sheldon
saw that K.T. was rubbing his arm.
“Sorry about the punch,” he said. “I’m pretty tense about my financial situation.”
“It’s all good,” K.T. responded. “I’m sorry for showing up unannounced and being so difficult. I
think I’m messed up from being radiated.”
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Sheldon didn’t know how to interpret this last statement, but he was grateful for the apology. “I
know it’s been rough,” he said.
They reached the bus stop and K.T. collapsed onto the bench, suddenly looking exhausted. Like
someone accustomed to a carrying a big and heavy weight betraying the strain, only for an instant, when
shifting the burden from one shoulder to the other.
“Most cost effective way to keep your charges calm is through drugs and electo-magnetics,” K.T.
said out of nowhere and to no one in particular, it almost seemed. “Can’t blame just the ward though.
Sad thing is it’s like a microcosm of the whole United States. But I only got one brain and the way things
were going my synapses could have been scrambled and my hardwiring permanently screwed up.”
K.T. stood again as the bus arrived. He paused to look at Sheldon and say with deliberate
emphasis, “Toaster, cow, xylophone.” Then he got on board. Sheldon grimaced and followed.
*
*
*
*
They spent the day walking around Old Town, visiting the Casita, taking a tour of San Gabriel
State Park and even twice crossing over the Rio Grande (west on Interstate 40 then east on Bridge Blvd.
near St. Joseph’s). Sheldon felt he’d covered more New Mexico miles in one day with his brother than he
had on his own in the nine months he’d been in residence at the university.
At one point, K.T. said something that made Sheldon feel like he had made the right decision and
was doing the right thing. On the ride back through downtown, he’d looked up Nob Hill and remarked,
“This could be a place.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sheldon opened his eyes. Despite worries about whether K.T. would be able to sleep or not
without drugs, Sheldon himself had been more tired than he realized and he’d zonked out on the couch
right away. Now he thought he heard some kind of rumbling. What time was it anyway?
He tried to check his watch but it was too pitch black to see. He never remembered being in the
living/dining area when it was this dark. Yet it didn’t feel that late. Maybe K.T. turned some extra lights
out or something. He fumbled for his backpack and switched on his iBook. The time indicator in the
corner told him it was barely 9pm. Strange.
As long as he had his computer open, he decided to check his e-mail. He found himself filled
with dread as he opened the Eudora program. There might be bad news waiting from student housing and
then he’d have to start worrying all over again. However, the only new piece of mail was from Howard
and Monica Epps, his mother’s next-door neighbors. He clicked it open.
Sheldon, I’ve been trying to call you.
Please phone when you can. –Mom
“K.T.?” Sheldon called as he turned on the light. It was nearly too late, but if he phoned right
away he’d probably just catch her before she went to sleep.
He knocked on the bedroom door. No answer. He tried the handle. It was locked. “K.T.?” No
response.
“K.T., I’m calling mom,” Sheldon announced as he headed to pick up the kitchen extension.
Only the line was dead. He hung up, counted off several seconds then picked up the phone again. The
receiver was cold.
He crossed to the bedroom door and knocked louder. “Hey, do you have the phone off the hook
in there?” Nothing. “K.T.?” He pounded hard then pressed his ear to the door. Silence. Even the
rumbling he thought he heard before was gone.
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Sheldon sat on the sofa and took a breath. He remembered that he’d been issued a metal key that
could unlock the bedroom door from the outside. The only problem was that he’d never figured on
needing it since he lived alone and you had to be inside the bedroom to lock it. So where had he chosen
to keep the key? In a dresser drawer, inside the bedroom.
Clarissa, of course, had passkeys and duplicates to all the rooms, but she was the last person he
wanted to impose on after nine in the evening. Especially after the events of the morning. And
particularly because, in all likelihood, K.T. was not answering for a K.T. reason (he was wearing some
sort of special noise canceling headphones, or he’d figured out how to lock the door from the outside and
was now taking a helicopter ride over the city).
The possibility that Sheldon’s older brother had slipped in the shower and was lying in a pool of
his own blood in need of help seemed overwhelmingly remote. And yet, Sheldon himself had been
thinking just a couple of days previous that he ought to get some of those rubber traction adhesives for the
floors. And K.T was also going through a difficult time and coming off medication. What if it turned out
K.T. desperately needed emergency treatment yet Sheldon was sitting here whittling away precious time
because he couldn’t face the hall rep?
Sheldon stood up and pounded hard on the door one more time. “K.T.! Hello?!”
He waited for a long moment then decided he’d venture downstairs. Not necessarily even to talk
to anyone. Just to move and think and ostensibly use the lobby restroom to take a leak since he couldn’t
get in to his own.
When the elevator doors opened and Sheldon stepped out onto the ground floor, something
seemed out of place but he wasn’t sure what it was right away. Then it came into focus and the list he
was making in his head of strange things that had happened since he woke up (suggesting that perhaps he
was still dreaming) now included not only the room being extra dark, the phone being out of order, and
the bedroom door being locked with K.T. not answering, but also the puddle of ice surrounding the
vending machines.
Only it wasn’t ice. It was glass. Sheldon could now see that someone had wedged the back off of
a metal chair and used it to shatter the glass front panel of the snack machine. Snacks were still on
display on the front row of the racks, though now unprotected by the glass screen—chocolate bars and
muffins and potato chip bags—though the first available pouch of Cheese Nips began a row back from all
the others.
“Oh no,” Sheldon said to himself.
He wasn’t sure how long the lobby had been in this state, but right now the place was a ghost
town. He saw a copy of the sort of make up magazine that Clarissa liked to read on her counter, but
didn’t know if that meant she was seated there when it happened or not. In any event, he figured she’d
now be somewhere talking to campus security.
Sheldon sighed, wishing he were still dreaming and deciding that was his only real hope.
He noticed that the door to the utility room had been left ajar, though the light seemed to be out.
Maybe that was the one silver lining. Since he had already been given a tour of the hall rep facilities, he
knew where the keys were kept and could at least now retrieve the spare to his bedroom without incident.
He pushed the door open. He knew where the supply locker was and where the keys were; only
no one had showed him where to turn on the lights. He fumbled for a switch.
He thought he heard a squeak. At least one good thing about not getting this job would be he
wouldn’t have to deal with the mice.
He thought he heard sounds like “hi” and “hey.” Was Mulber in here? Had K.T. taught the mice
to speak?
He found a light switch and fumbled with it, dreading the sight of a rodent scurrying across the
floor which he had now prepared himself for…
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What he hadn’t prepared himself for was the sight of K.T. humping Clarissa over a carton of
window cleaner.
Sheldon quickly turned off the light as he’d seen all he needed to see. Not only was his brother
clearly okay, but Clarissa seemed to be doing most of the work, eagerly thrusting up to meet him. As he
closed the door to her office, he was reminded of how Clarissa had earlier described her job: “You do
need to pump people up a lot, get on their good sides.”
Sheldon used the restroom and when he was finished noticed a mop and dustpan by the door. He
first used the mop as a broom and swept up all the bits of glass he could before wetting down and
scrubbing the floor. He was just picking the odd fragments out of the machine itself and dropping them
into a trashcan he’d moved across the lobby when the utility office door opened and K.T. came out.
K.T. spotted Sheldon and walked to the machine. He removed a pouch of Cheese Nips and fed
sixty cents into the slot. “You see what some vandals did?” he said.
“I hope you put in a good word for me,” Sheldon whispered.
“You even have to ask?”
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PART FOUR: THE GIRAFFE FACTOR
(SILICON VALLEY, 2005)
Chapter Fourteen
The day before he left, Sheldon became the owner of a used Ford Taurus that had cleaned out his
bank account and further strained his credit. Thanks to the internet and the communal fax machine, he’d
managed to study the Kelley Blue Book online, send notes to three dealerships, and negotiate a deal all
within the space of a few hours. A taxi ride and $1100 later, Sheldon had been given the keys to what the
dealer told him was an older model of the best selling car in America.
Making sure he could get it insured and legal in time to hit the road was actually the bigger trick.
He had had to first search around for his driver’s license and check that it hadn’t expired, then bring in his
library card and a utility bill to jointly serve as a second form of ID. He’d done very little traveling since
the new century began and hadn’t seen his passport in years.
He’d test driven the Taurus for about fifteen minutes, noticed a minor knocking that the dealer
assured him he’d soon get used to, and had decided in the end that it was probably reasonable for what he
was willing to pay. It would get him and his possessions to Silicon Valley.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon spent much of the next morning in the bathroom. Things had been moving since he’d
met Darren Scott and Walrus. Often moving more than he would have liked. When he packed his car he
made sure he had a package of Imodium in the glove box and hoped it would get him to the next rest stop
if he had any sudden movement episodes on the road.
The last thing he stowed before leaving was his iBook, wrapped snug in a blanket and then
secured under the spare tire in the trunk (which hardly looked up to the task of serving again as a tire
anyway). He made sure it was buckled in tight.
His grinders and glassware jingled as he closed the car door. His stomach gurgled as he started
the engine.
Sheldon took a deep breath and savored the oxygen being given off by the inhabitants of the pots,
planters, and troughs he had fastened to the backseat. It was hard to see to back up for all the leaves and
foliage, but Sheldon intended to drive carefully and take the slow lanes all the way to the California. The
knocking in the car got louder as he pulled out. He wondered if it was the extra weight.
As Sheldon signaled up the on-ramp, he noticed a sign that read: “Save Money – Take the Bus.”
That might have been a good idea. But now it was too late.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon turned up the radio. But all he seemed able to get in between cities was talk shows and,
in time, the knocking from the engine got to be so loud he couldn’t really concentrate on what was being
said. He went through favorite books in his mind to entertain himself.
Number three on Sheldon's list, for example, was On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Published in 1859 (though Darwin had come up with his theory of evolution close to twenty years prior),
the book had, of course, eloquently and convincingly introduced the world to a bold new concept. All the
variety of the natural world, Darwin had argued to a Victorian era literary public, was the result of a
"survival of the fittest" process of mutation and selection.
But that natural world included plants just as much as animals, Sheldon mused as he took the 95
south from Winnemucca. Another symptom of the average person’s tendency to think of flora as nonessential—in the background, movie set extras while fauna played the star roles—was that it encouraged
one to overlook the fact that plants had contended for eons to win their domain. And they had conquered
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and remained because they had found, in their temperate economies and symbiosis with other forms of
life, a sort of balance. In many ways, the secret to their power as well as the reason that humans tended to
be so unaware of their liveliness, was time. There were single plant organisms alive today estimated to be
over 11,000 years old—already alive before any human that made history every walked the earth—and
there were colonies that have been around for more than 300,000 years. They may be slow, and therefore
seem inactive, Sheldon thought, but time is a very different thing for a plant.
Sheldon stopped at Twin Falls, Idaho to spend the night. A very friendly serviceman was able to
stop the knocking in his engine by draining out the oil sludge, bending back a rod, and adding new fluid
to the crankcase—all for $40, which seemed very reasonable to Sheldon.
“Temporary fix, though,” the serviceman said. “You’ll want to get a basic rebuild before too
much time goes by.”
“Thanks, I’ll have it looked at again,” Sheldon promised. “In time.”
Sheldon drove on with less distraction and now able to enjoy a local jazz station. His thoughts
returned to natural selection. Time was no doubt the pillar of Darwinian theory that had survived the best,
he reflected. Four out of five modern geneticists would readily agree to the formula: Time + Random
Mutation = The Variety of the Natural World.
Conversely, however, Darwin had not espoused the idea of random mutation. He hadn’t
maintained that transformations were completely arbitrary, but suggested some unproven method to the
madness. Such as predecessors of giraffes collectively craving longer necks to reach the higher-up tree
foliage until the animals got their wish. Or variations tending to occur in agreement with some sort of
divine thematic blueprint to life. In other words, stray accidents here and there, but blowing with a
certain breeze, trending along a certain path.
Such conjecture was popular enough with 19th century naturalists, but fell quickly by the wayside
in the 20th century, as it didn’t seem to belong in a laboratory. Sheldon couldn’t help but wonder,
however, if 21st century scientists might not come around to take a different view. Quantum physics was
turning objective observation on its head. And the idea of evolution being purely random could easily
feel, well, a little too random.
Already, a relatively new branch of biological science known as epigenetics was producing
evidence that organisms subjected to stressors are likely to produce offspring with a greater immunity to
those stressors. In other words, a species could change its DNA. The giraffe factor was a part of the
equation. It only made sense that such communication would part of that grand symphony of life that
man, for the most part, could still hardly hear.
Sheldon had planned to find a motel, mainly so that he could have a bathroom and take care of
business if he still had the runs. But when the lady at the desk of the Travel Inn twice demanded that
Sheldon explain “about them plants” in his backseat, he realized that his stomach was settled for the time
being and he decided to make up for the $40 in repairs by sleeping in the front seat of his car.
It was another nine hours of driving the next day before he crossed into California, three more
hours before a street lined with Canary Island date palms (phoenix canarienis) welcomed him
picturesquely into the Bay Area, and a final twenty minutes before he crossed under the green and red
“Imagining Possibilities” banner and pulled into the industrial park that housed the KlassWorks facility.
The parking lot attendant was either not at his post or did not work Sunday evenings.
There was an accountant named Stephanie coming out of the big red and green central building as
Sheldon was pulling in, however, and she was good enough to explain that Barry’s offices were on the
top floor “just past the slide room.”
Sheldon made his way past an empty reception desk and took the elevator up to a glass walled
research area with a pretty African American woman inside working with a gas chromaticgraph column.
Sheldon hadn’t seen one of those since his undergraduate days.
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A sign on the door listed Barry Klass’s office as being among those within, but the door was
locked. Sheldon knocked on the door, which seemed hard and didn’t look like it would carry sound very
far. He then stepped in front of the glass and waved, but the woman didn’t see him.
There was a button over the card reader and he pressed it, but still the woman didn’t seem to
react. He figured that maybe it was an intercom and not a doorbell, so he held down the button while
calling out “hello” and leaning around the door so he could look through the glass at the same time.
"Could you stop that?" a voice intoned through the intercom.
The woman looked up and Sheldon let go of the button.
"Thank you,” the intercom said again.
"Um...no…excuse me." Sheldon waved, but the woman had already returned her attention to her
slide viewer. Sheldon waited. Then he ventured two more very soft taps on the button.
An instant later the woman pushed herself impatiently away from her workstation and stormed
out of view. Now the room was empty. Sheldon couldn't resist the obsessive urge to step back and check
the door one more time, even though he knew he had to be in the right place.
It was a good thing he had moved back because just then the door flew open. The woman in the
lab coat behind it did not look happy.
"I'm sorry," Sheldon began, though he wasn't sure for what. "My name's Sheldon and I—”
“What are you doing here?” the woman interrupted.
“Well, I was told that Barry Klass's office was this way.”
“Yeah. And that answers my question how?”
“It, uh...” Sheldon said lamely. “Is Barry here?”
“The main advantage of glass walls tends to be that you can see through them.”
Sheldon peeked through the glass and took note of the empty slide room. “He's not here?” he
heard himself utter. The woman crossed her arms. “Sorry, I realize it's probably not your responsibility
and I didn't mean to take up your time,” he said. “I just spent the last two days driving down from
Minnesota.”
“Did you say driving?”
“Yes, driving. And now that I'm here I don't know where I'm supposed to--”
The woman had already closed the door. Sheldon looked through the glass and again saw an
empty slide room. Then he saw the woman move across it to a spot nearly out of sight, but not quite.
There she stripped off her lab coat to reveal tight jeans and a bright red brassiere underneath. Sheldon
reflexively turned away as she began to pull a sweater on. He took an instant interest in a fire evacuation
map posted on the opposite wall while straining to listen past the door.
It was again thrown open hastily. Sheldon turned to see the woman sliding an ID through a card
reader. He smiled.
“You okay? You look sick.”
“No, I've just been on the road since—”
“Yeah, you said. If you’d have flown in like a normal person we’d have known when to expect
you.”
“I…uh…” Sheldon stammered, unsure how to respond.
“Come on, I'll show you your office.”
The woman turned without waiting and started toward a very long hall, which was soon revealed
to be a skyway connecting the main building which was more red than green with an annex that was more
green than red. As Sheldon hurried to catch up, he saw that the parking lot was populated mainly by
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BMWs. His Taurus with the steam crawling from the hood seemed a stark standout. “My name's
Sheldon,” he said. “I study plant growth regulation.”
“I know. I've read your pieces.”
This threw Sheldon for a loop. “Really?” he said. “Are you interested in plant biology?”
The woman stopped in front of two large doors. “Not really,” she answered. Sheldon noticed his
name printed on the right door which the woman now pushed open to reveal a massive desk, couches, a
wet bar and even a good sized indoor conservatory. “Hope it's not too small,” she said. “Maybe Barry
can get you an airplane hangar if you start to feel cramped.”
Sheldon took a step inside. “I don't believe it,” he said. He tested out the desk chair in spite of
himself. It didn’t creak, and Sheldon realized that was also very nice, perhaps nicer. He closed his eyes
for an instant and indulged. Then he caught himself and looked around. He heard the woman in the next
room.
“Speaking of Barry, where is he?” Sheldon called. “If he wanted me to be so comfortable, how
come he wasn't here to greet me?”
The woman re-entered the room carrying a large fruit basket. “Sheldon, welcome to
KlassWorks,” she read from the card. “Sorry I wasn't on hand to meet you but I had to roll out of town
for an emergency pow-wow with our backers,” she continued, then looked up to add: “Roll means fly,
not drive.”
Sheldon nodded. The woman continued reading, “Connie will show you the ropes.”
gestured at herself. “Settle in, get to work, and we'll catch up tomorrow. Your bud, Barry.”
She
Connie then trashed the card, christening the pristine wastepaper bin next to Sheldon’s desk. She
also stopped to liberate a tangerine from the welcome basket before passing it on to Sheldon.
Sheldon pulled the card from the trash and un-crumpled it for a more careful review. He was
aware of Connie expertly slicing the peel of her fruit with her long fingernail as he studied the welcome
basket suspiciously.
“Get to work?” Sheldon said. “I don't even know what I'm supposed to do.”
“Have you thought about a shower?”
Chapter Fifteen
Sheldon was standing with Connie in the living room of his new apartment and looking around.
After the office, it was a slight letdown, being little more than a small furnished flat in the less affluent
area of Mountain View.
“Guess he wants me to spend all my time at the office,” Sheldon remarked.
“Hey, this is twice as big as my place. Rent in the valley's steep.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean that this was small. Just that the office was so huge.”
“Whatever. Bedroom's in there. That's where you sleep. Kitchen, food, I think you can probably
figure the rest out.” And with that Connie started for the door.
“Speaking of food, I noticed a coffee shop downstairs,” Sheldon said. “Are you hungry?”
“That's a good idea,” she replied. “Maybe I'll get a salad to take back.”
Then she stopped and looked at him for an instant. “Oh, you meant eat with you.” She chuckled.
“You were asking if I wanted to—” She broke into laughter and she made her way out the door. “See
you at work,” she said.
Sheldon stood there in the small apartment listening to her laugh all the way down to the street.
Oh, well, he thought. The problem he needed to be focused on first was getting his plants out of his Ford
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Taurus and up to the room before he collapsed from exhaustion. He wondered which space he was
expected to keep it parked in.
As if in answer to that question, he heard a car horn honk outside. “Yo, coffee stud!” Connie was
calling. Sheldon went to the window and saw that she was standing next to a black BMW convertible.
“Company car for you,” she shouted up. “Keys are by the door. You might find it a better ride than
your...whatever that thing is.”
*
*
*
*
Sheldon dreamt that he was in Los Angeles.
He was in his Ford Taurus driving down Hollywood Boulevard and there were palm trees on
either side of the road. They were wiggling and swaying. Not as a result of wind or even a California
earthquake. They were swaying with discontent. As though they yearned to break free from their
concrete shackles.
K.T. was sitting next to Sheldon. K.T. was driving. “Not many people know this, but the palm
trees actually don’t do very well in California,” K.T. was explaining.
Palm trees were tropical plants, Sheldon knew, that were best suited for climates that were
similar, but not quite the same as these west coast environs. They were the tree of choice to line streets
with throughout much of the state because their leaves remained lush and green even in the hot desert sun.
The problem was that the relative lack of rainfall often meant that the plants’ roots were substandard. It
was only because they were secured firmly from the start that there wasn’t more tipage. Nonetheless,
every now and then a California palm tree would just give up the ghost and go toppling onto the roads
below, occasionally smashing cars and here and there even injuring motorists or pedestrians.
In Sheldon’s dream, it seemed that all the palm trees wanted to take the dive. They were tired of
the strain on their calves. Their dry toes had failed to push out into the soil, as they should have, for in
most of California the tropical rainy season never came.
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” K.T. was saying as he floored it past the waving whiny trees.
Woo-woo-woo, they cried as they shuddered.
WOO-WOO-WOO-WOO-WOO.
Sheldon woke up. His mouth was dry and his face was pasty. He fumbled through the dresser
drawer where he’d stored the BlackBerry and hit the speakerphone switch.
“Hello?” his voice cracked.
“Goo-goo-ga-joob-a-joob.”
It took Sheldon a few seconds more to make the connection than it would have had he been fully
awake. “You are the walrus?” he said.
“You know your Beatles,” Walter Russell said. “Are you alone?”
“It’s four in the morning,” Sheldon replied. Then: “The answer’s yes. I’m alone.”
“Good. Call back in three hours. And have a report ready.” The line went dead.
Sheldon turned over and moaned. He hadn’t forgot that they’d told him to phone in at 7am on the
fifteenth and thirtieth. And it’s not like there was going to be so much to say that he needed a three-hour
warning even if he hadn’t been prepared.
Sheldon pushed the phone to the floor and dropped a pillow atop it.
He knew he’d soon drift back to sleep, but the question was whether he’d be able to get back into
the same dream. He tried his best to return to Hollywood Boulevard. Fearful hula dancing palm trees or
no, he wanted to be back with K.T.
He wished that that could happen…
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Chapter Sixteen
It turned out that Sheldon was entitled to the use of two side-by-side semi-covered parking spaces
at the Mountain View apartment as well as the overhead storage compartment that faced them. The
storage compartment was mostly empty, but contained a few cans of paint and some kitchen tiles
(presumably left for repairs) as well as an old spare tire. Sheldon made up his mind to keep the wrapped
bundle that was his most prized possession inside the tire for the time being.
He pulled the spare that came with the Taurus out of the trunk and hoisted it atop the other tire,
his iBook sandwiched safely in the middle. He then closed the storage compartment, unpackaged the
padlock that had been provided with the apartment, and secured the bolt into place.
Sheldon paused to scrutinize the BMW 3 Series convertible in the space next to his Taurus. The
keys had been included in the same welcome pack that contained the padlock and that he now held in his
hand. He was sorely tempted to drive the beamer in for his first full day of work and leave the Ford to
rest.
But that was a slippery slope, Sheldon decided. He had resisted this world as long as he had for
good reason. He didn’t want to run the risk of going corporate and forgetting what he really cared about.
If only in his own mind, the luxury car seemed a very small step in the wrong direction. Sheldon
summoned his resolve and got into the Ford Taurus. It knocked as it started and still smelled like burnt
oil.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon circumnavigated the eastern point of the San Francisco Bay and entered the industrial
park for the second time in two days. It took all of fifteen minutes. He pulled under “Imagining
Possibilities,” into the front lot, and headed for a row of unmarked spaces. He thought he heard
something, but wasn't sure until he'd killed the now very noisy engine and noticed the panting parking
attendant who had apparently been running after him.
Sheldon braced himself for a confrontation. He quickly found the ID Connie had given him and
held it in clear view as he opened the door. “The name's Thigpin,” he said. “I started here yesterday.”
“I know who you are,” the parking attendant answered wheezing from the jog. “I was trying to
tell you,” he gasped, “there's a space for you right near the front entrance. Got your name on it.”
“You mean like a private spot?” Sheldon suddenly felt silly holding his ID up like a paranoid
fool. He put the card in his pocket.
“Just three down from Mr. Klass's.”
Sheldon slammed the door to his car and started toward the building. “Thanks. I'm already here
now,” he said.
“Be glad to move it if you like, sir.”
“That's okay.”
Sheldon felt the parking attendant's eyes on him as he walked across the lot. He wasn't surprised
when the man called to him again.
“Nothing wrong with your tires, is there?”
Sheldon stopped. He turned to find the parking attendant close to the rear of his vehicle. “My
tires?”
“I just thought, because you didn't bring your company car. Sometimes the pressure gets low
without anyone driving them.”
“No, everything's fine. I just...like my own car,” Sheldon said.
The attendant threw a dubious look at the steaming Ford Taurus. Sheldon resumed his walk
toward the KlassWorks lobby.
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It seemed to him he had no sooner entered the building than several receptionists had jumped to
their feet and were instantly surrounding him. He again reached toward his pocket.
“Sorry, my name's--”
“Good morning, Mr. Thigpin,” he heard one say just in time for Sheldon to avoid embarrassing
himself again by defensively flashing his ID.
“Good morning,” he responded.
Sheldon noticed that one of the girls had a tray of hot drinks. “Coffee for the ride up?” she
offered. “That's a dairy latte, this one's soy milk.”
Sheldon chose one at random and sipped it as he stepped into the elevator. He was surprised at
how good it tasted--creamy, pre-sweetened and with a hint of cinnamon. He punched the button for the
eighth floor and savored the flavor as he rode.
He quickly sucked up another mouthful, but then he looked up at the floor display and stopped
himself. He summoned his resolve and spit the drink back into the cup.
For years, Sheldon had steadfastly maintained what he believed was a healthy resistance to the
complete absorption of the sciences by industry. It was rich comforts such as these that encouraged the
world's scholars to conspire with the very forces that were bringing science down. Sheldon was surprised
and angered at himself for allowing a private parking space and good cup of coffee to erode his resolve.
In what was probably an overdramatic response, he turned the cup upside down and emptied its contents
onto the floor.
“I am not an idiot,” Sheldon said firmly.
He was still uttering these words and pouring when the elevator doors opened to reveal Barry,
Helio, Ivan, and dozens of other waiting KlassWorks employees. Barry was dressed casually for a
CEO—a jacket over a golf shirt. He wore what could have been the same Boston Red Sox cap from the
nineties, but now he had turned it backwards, the visor away from his eyes.
“Everyone, this is Sheldon,” Barry announced without missing a beat. “He's not an idiot.”
Barry put his arm around Sheldon and ushered him onto the eighth floor. There was laughter all
around.
Chapter Seventeen
Sheldon noticed that Helio now sported a (rather lurid) tie and Ivan's hairline had receded
somewhat. The changes seemed superficial, however, and Sheldon felt as though he had just stepped off
a time machine to move again with the same characters he had toured the world alongside in his
undergraduate days.
Ivan slapped him on the shoulder as they walked.
“So how you been, Sheldon?” Helio said. “Heard you're still working with trees. Ring rot or
something?”
“Ring root,” Ivan responded.
“Root rot,” Sheldon corrected.
“We always knew old Shelly would follow the money,” Barry joked putting his arm around
Sheldon. Sheldon stiffened, but Barry pulled him closer.
“Hey, just riding you,” Barry said. “Come on, give me a Barry hug.”
“All right, that's enough,” Sheldon whimpered as he tried to squirm away. “Let me go. I'm not a
hugger.”
But Barry would not relent. He seemed desperate to give Sheldon a thorough squeeze and so
Sheldon finally stood still for it. The others made catcalls.
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“Don't let him do that too long, Sheldon, you might fall in love,” Helio said.
“Nah, Barry's not Estonian,” Ivan responded.
“Oh, yes, very funny. Like that other time in Finland,” an older but no less obvious Shahid
chimed in.
“Come on, you snot bags. Give Sheldon a break,” Barry chided. The crowd moved ahead down
the hall. Barry looked at Ivan and gestured toward Shahid. “Why the hell did I hire that guy?” he asked.
“You hire everyone.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
The others waited in front of a pair of large red and green double doors for Barry to open them
and lead the way. Barry and Ivan then allowed Sheldon to catch up before proceeding. Beyond the doors
was a large display area with various artifacts on exhibit all around.
Barry walked quickly past as though he wasn't even interested in his own work. “This little room
is where we showcase all the stuff we're working on for those pain-in-the-butt financiers,” he told
Sheldon.
“We call it the Klass Room,” Ivan said.
“But spelled with a 'K',” Shahid chimed in. Barry turned and gave Shahid a look. Then he
noticed that Sheldon had stopped to examine a steering wheel set up in front of a computer monitor. The
contraption resembled a sim racing game.
Barry backtracked, encountering Connie who happened to be making her way across the Klass
Room and nudging her to one side to get to Sheldon. “Scuse'm, sweetness,” he said. Then he hit a switch
next to the monitor.
Sheldon watched as a virtual highway appeared on screen with several cars on either side. Barry
stepped on a wired accelerator pedal and jerked the steering wheel roughly from side to side, driving like
a maniac. The monitor responded with dings and dongs.
“Bam! Pow! Check it out,” Barry enthused. “You can't hit 'em, no matter what you do. Car has
four sensors, one on each corner. Automatically overrides whatever clown is at the wheel whenever it
thinks you're going to hit something.” Barry gave the wheel a wild spin then put his arm around Sheldon
and ushered him toward the rear doors. The others followed. Sheldon looked back to note that the virtual
car had avoided colliding with anything despite Barry's recklessness.
“Install one in every new car and you'd save like 30,000 lives in the first year alone.”
“That's actually a pretty good idea,” Sheldon remarked.
Barry stopped just as they reached the doors and gestured to an open-air toilet bowl in the corner.
“Need a rest stop?” he asked. Sheldon again stiffened. “Go ahead. Unload. We'll wait,” Barry urged.
“No thanks,” Sheldon responded.
Barry turned to Ivan. “Told you. He just doesn't give a shit.” Then he pulled a can of window
cleaner off a cabinet. He put his arm on Sheldon's shoulder as he shook it. “I'm just kidding,” he said.
“You're going to like this. Watch.”
He squirted the cleaner into the toilet.
rectangular display above the facility:
A few seconds later readout appeared on a small
NH3 ~0.002912
+0.000323
-0.000090
Sheldon noted there were also pH, mV and ION readings. Barry made a “ta-da” gesture. “The ammonia
content of the glass cleaner,” he announced. “More or less. Gives you a complete analysis every time
you take a piss. But only if you're interested.” Barry then flicked a switch and the readout disappeared.
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“Did you see that sugar spike?” Shahid remarked. “That was some very sweet Windex.”
Barry responded to the statement by tossing the can in Shahid's direction. Shahid caught it just in
time.
“People without any diabetic issues can set it to buzz them just when something's wrong. Plus
send an auto text to the doctor.”
“That could be useful,” Sheldon allowed.
“It will be,” Barry asserted. “The common theme to everything in this room is convergence—the
idea that all your basic appliances are going to communicate with one another.”
“I know what convergence is,” Sheldon said.
“I didn't say you didn't. You probably also know that down in Cupertino Apple is working on a
smart phone that's going to put the BlackBerry to shame.” Barry opened the door for Sheldon. Sheldon
went through it silently. Barry looked back at Helio and raised his eyebrows. “He's not an idiot,” Barry
said.
Chapter Eighteen
A sign on the wall identified the area in which Sheldon now stood as the “In-Progress Room.”
There were closed doors on either side that Sheldon could not see past, but most of what he witnessed
here as well had little to do with botany and more with electronics.
That said, Sheldon did detect a certain feel in the air. He was about to take a more careful look
around, but then Barry was again on top of him.
“By the way, Shel, I heard a rumor that you drove out here.”
“Yeah, I did,” Sheldon confessed.
“That's crazy, dawg,” Helio pronounced as he picked an envelope off a desk and smacked it
against Sheldon's arm. “Look here. First class flight vouchers, open dates and everything. If only you
had a mobile number.”
“I never really got into cellular phones,” Sheldon responded as he accepted the envelope.
“Plus he still calls em ‘cellular’.” Helio shook his head as he dispersed with the others who had
grown tired of the tour and decided to get back to their duties.
“This here is our not-ready-for-prime-time display area,” Barry explained. “Less of a crowd
pleaser.”
Sheldon was momentarily distracted by the sight of Connie walking back the other way in her
tight jeans without her lab coat (and without any acknowledgement). Barry gave Sheldon a nudge.
“Hey, I got something in there you'll like almost as much as that.”
Then Barry opened one of the closed doors to reveal a potted Mountain Teak tree on a
workbench, several wires connecting it to an analog type meter.
“Yo, Helio,” Barry called across the larger room, “What's the name of this thing again?”
“Uh, a tree.”
“It's a Tectona grandis,” Sheldon said moving in for a closer look. “An African Mountain Teak.
Beautiful specimen.”
“Whatever,” Barry remarked. “A tree that grows in colonies in Africa.” With that he grabbed the
small plant by the trunk and proceeded to shake it. Sheldon bit his lip.
But then he saw the needle on the meter jump and realized that Barry was trying to demonstrate a
scientific point. “When it gets traumatized, it releases chemicals in the air and soil to let other trees know
there's a stampede on the way,” Barry explained.
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“I didn't know you were studying this sort of thing...”
“Any possibility of a profitable application, we study. A little fine tuning and these guys could
give advance warning ahead of an earthquake.”
Barry began to shake the tree again. Sheldon reflexively grabbed his hand, nudged his fingers
away. “I saw the response,” he said. “No need to harass it.”
Barry touched a branch soothingly, as though shaking the tree's hand. “Just a drill. Didn't mean
to scare it.”
“You didn't scare it, you hurt it,” Sheldon retorted. “It's pressure on the roots that caused the
oxidata burst.”
Barry shrugged non-commitedly. “We're breeding to increase the fear quotient,” he said. “So
someday maybe they'll be able to detect harmful human predators. Like burglars.”
Sheldon found himself unable to let the remark stand. “What do you mean 'fear'?” he challenged.
“Teak trees respond to trauma. They don't get afraid.”
“They don't?”
Sheldon heard the sound of someone snickering. He turned to see the turtlenecked Ivan standing
in the doorway.
“Thought this was your field, man.”
Barry gave Ivan a look. Ivan left, revealing a bespectacled researcher who had been waiting
behind him and who now stepped forward. “Perhaps 'fear' is the wrong word,” the other said, “But let me
show you what Barry means, Mr. Thigpin.”
The researcher flicked on an audio switch in the back of the meter. He removed a key from his
belt and unlocked a drawer labeled “Chester.” Sheldon was surprised to see him then withdraw a large
pair of gardening shears.
“Excuse me, please,” he said, nudging Sheldon aside. He then opened and closed the shears
several times in front of the Teak tree. “We believe that what you're about to hear is the plant-life
equivalent of a human scream.”
Chester opened the shears widely and pressed the blades against the trunk. He then playacted an
exaggerated shearing movement but pulled back just in time.
The needle on the meter darted quickly all the way to the right and a high-pitched metallic squeal
squelched from the speakers.
SKWEEEEEEEE!!
“Bosso!” Helio enthused, again hovering in the doorway.
“Bitchin,” Ivan said, lurking behind him.
“Baloney,” Sheldon pronounced.
“Excuse me, sir?” Chester said.
Sheldon disconnected the speakers. Concentrating only on the teak and forgetting where he was,
he proceeded to care for the plant as though it were his own.
“You didn't scare this tree, you scraped its trunk,” Sheldon explained. “Look, lacerations here
and here. So naturally, a Teak's going to stiffen by dumping water and sending ionic charges to warn its
neighbors.”
“Of course,” Chester said, scribbling notes onto his pad.
“How could you develop something based on such misinformation?”
Barry shrugged and dropped his head. “Like I say, Shel, the projects in this area are still buggy.”
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“So's the soil. Aphids. Plus look at the dull color of the leaves. This plant isn't being fed right—
it's stressed to begin with.”
“We've been doing what we can,” Chester began.
“You've been throwing away resources,” Sheldon lectured. “Leaps of logic, that show with the
gardening sheers, with what eyes was the Teak supposed to have seen that? You've got some good basic
ideas, but cross that line into pseudo science and you'll never be taken seriously.” Sheldon took a step
back from the plant. He blinked as though suddenly remembering where he was.
“What do you think, Chester?” he heard Barry say.
“I think you were right, sir,” was the reply.
Barry took a step toward Sheldon.
shoulder, grabbed his hand and shook it.
Sheldon reflexively cringed.
Barry gripped Sheldon's
“Your intense passion for this project leaves me no other choice but to put you in full charge of
it.”
“You...what?”
“All right, Sheldon,” Ivan said.
“Local dork does good,” Helio concurred.
“I'll have all the specs sent to your office,” Barry said stepping past the others in the doorway.
“You need any more equipment, staff, just let me know. It's your baby.”
Sheldon stood still for a long moment, replaying what had just happened. He heard Ivan and
Helio joking with Barry as they made their way to the rear offices. He looked at Chester. He blinked.
“I don't believe it,” he said. “With the right approach…we could really do something.” He
turned to the doorway and shouted: “Thanks, Barry!”
“Give everything to Chester,” Barry called back as he disappeared.
Sheldon turned back to look at Chester, the notepad still in the latter’s hand (the words “plants
don’t have eyes” needlessly written down and underlined), as well as at the abused Teak tree.
“So where do you want to start, Mr. Thigpin?”
“How about by giving this poor thing a bigger planter?”
Chapter Nineteen
It was already dark by the time Sheldon drove his Ford Taurus back around the southern most tip
of the Frisco Bay to his small domicile in Mountain View. The backseat was again crammed with plants
and equipment so that Sheldon had to rely on the side mirror and crane his neck when changing lanes. It
seemed every day he brought more of his work home with him. The drive was short, however, and traffic
was light.
He had his KlassWorks-issued IBM ThinkPad in his backpack to check his e-mail with before
bed. He decided to leave his other computer in the storage compartment this evening, even though he had
become very skilled at removing it quickly from between the two tires and always remembering to
replace it the next morning.
By the time Sheldon had the extra effects he had brought back with him unpacked and arranged,
it was closing in on midnight. Sheldon looked around the small living room. It now contained several
smaller Teak trees in addition to ferns, Boxwood bushes, Periwinkles and various meters and gadgets.
He turned and noticed his still-locked suitcase next to the fireplace. It now seemed his life was
so different that unzipping that case would be like opening a time capsule. It had been a few weeks
though, so he decided to go ahead and reconnect with his former self.
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He unzipped it and poked around within. He soon came up with a colored test-tube in which he'd
hidden his “mood meter” spikes. On college campuses he'd always been afraid of having someone
discover these as some of his research already reeked enough of Cleve Backster and The Secret Life of
Plants. Ironically, however, here in Silicon Valley—the birthplace of the microchip, the personal
computer, and the internet—Sheldon found himself cast in the role of skeptic relative to the wild ideas
Barry and his nutty friends had about plants and their extra-sensory powers. Sheldon realized that this
suited him just fine.
He removed one of the spikes and placed it at the base of a Teak tree. He backed away and
touched another Teak with both hands and closed his eyes. After a moment of concentration, he looked to
see if he had produced a color change across the room.
He hadn't. Nor had he expected to. But the freedom he had felt while performing this little
private experiment, not having to fear that he might lose his grant if the wrong person were to walk in and
ask him what he was up to...that was refreshing.
*
*
*
*
But perhaps the paranoid mind abhors a vacuum, and the practiced worrywart, suddenly deprived
of old things to fret about, discovers new ones. Sheldon never thought of himself as being particularly
prone to unjustified paranoia (the bar for that had already been set rather high by other members of his
family). However, the circumstances in which he now found himself did seem conducive to what some
might call occasional flights of fancy.
One day Sheldon came home to find a book he’d left at an intentional angle on his coffee table
now inexplicably repositioned. He’d placed the book diagonally so it would cover a spot that he could
never quite clean off, but was quite confused when he returned to find the spot visible. There were, of
course, explanations that could be given for this that did not need to involve dastardly deeds or evil plots:
There were California earthquakes. There was the less likely but not inconceivable possibility
that Sheldon had moved the book then forgotten. And there was the far-easier-to-imagine scenario of the
landlord letting in a plumber or electrician who had come into brief contact with Sheldon’s irritating
coffee table. (A plumber or an electrician with a very distinct smell, Sheldon couldn’t help thinking as he
brought the book closer to his nose.)
Something else happened that was more than a little odd. Sheldon had a very encouraging day on
which he’d stopped at an ATM to find that over $6000 had been wired into his account. But two days
later, when he made it to an actual bank to do a larger withdrawal, he was told that most of the funds had
been pulled back.
Sheldon hadn’t even known that that could be done. He’d always assumed that money was
officially his once it landed in his account and not subject to retroactive removal.
“Sorry, it’s ours till you take it out and put it in your pocket,” a talkative but sympathetic female
teller had told him. “And even then, I’d be quick about getting it spent if I were you.” The woman was
kind and reminded him of Margaret, but the incident stuck in Sheldon’s craw.
He’d investigated and found the disappearing funds were related to his student loans, with the
account servicing company claiming it had been told to start debiting his account and to reverse his
teaching deferment for the academic year. When Sheldon had brought this up to Walter Russell the next
day on his early morning spy call, he had been assured that it was simply a case of crossed wires. Walrus
had agreed to look into it, but there had also been the implication that the quicker Sheldon delivered
something useful the quicker such glitches would be permanently resolved.
What exactly they wanted him to deliver was the one little detail that wasn’t terribly clear
anymore and on this the Walrus was thin on answers. Sheldon had learned his first week and duly
reported that DNA patenting was no longer being done on site at KlassWorks. The one guy they’d had on
it (Chester’s former supervisor) had left six months prior and now endeavors of that sort were outsourced.
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If Sheldon had expected an early release from his mole duties after divulging this very public
piece of information, however, he didn’t get it. If he’d hoped that he’d then at least receive a revised set
of instructions, he didn’t get that either.
“This is what deep cover operations are like,” the Walrus told him over the phone. “You tuck
yourself in. Then you watch and wait.”
Sheldon was about to protest that he hadn’t signed on for any deep-cover operation. But then he
surmised that the sad reality was he had—he’d just not realized it.
Sheldon hoped that the next time money appeared in his account, he’d notice in time to take it out
before it disappeared again. He hoped that whatever he was supposed to be looking for at KlassWorks,
he’d know it when he saw it. And he hoped that in time Darren Scott, Walter Russell, and the like would
start to forget about him and leave him alone…
All he could do was his best. So that when the rapids knocked him next, perhaps they would not
hit with quite as much weight.
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PART FIVE: FIGHTING ISMS IN ALBUQUERQUE
(NEW MEXICO, 2003)
Chapter Twenty
“So you're saying that the whole earth could be like this giant brain and all the plants are like its
synopsis?” Clarissa asked.
“Synapses,” K.T. corrected.
“Hello? That's what I just said.”
The three of them were sitting in the Starbucks on Los Lomas Blvd, a three-minute walk just off
campus. Sheldon had his iBook already on his lap and was looking forward to flipping on his wifi when
the moment presented itself, and blowing K.T. away.
“The operative word is 'like',” Sheldon responded. ”You wouldn't want to take the comparison
too far. Our solar system with four big planets going around a sun is like a boron atom with four
electrons spinning around its neutron. We can learn something about both systems by comparing them,
but we wouldn't want to oversimplify and say they're the same.”
“I thought there were more planets,” Clarissa said. “Like nine or so.”
“Eight,” K.T. said. ”Pluto got cut last year. Don't you read the paper?”
Clarissa frowned.
“Well, either way,” Sheldon continued diplomatically, “I meant there are only four with any real
mass. If you were looking at our solar system through a microscope, all you'd notice would be Jupiter,
Neptune…”
“Saturn and Uranus,” K.T. added, responding to Clarissa’s pout.
“Will you, shut up,” she scolded, slapping K.T. unjustly on the shoulder. K.T. didn’t seem to
mind, though Sheldon nonetheless regretted listing the bigger planets alphabetically.
“Anyway,” Sheldon said, “if you could see it all, Earth would seem like just a speck of dust on
the lens.”
“And yet it's like the big brain of the universe. That's totally unfair.”
Sheldon opened his mouth to correct the fallacy, but K.T. stopped him short: “Hey, she said
'like'.”
Clarissa always says 'like', Sheldon reflected. And his brother knew that and was no doubt
sublimely signaling Sheldon to hold onto his priorities. Things had, after all, worked out far better than
expected. Clarissa had seemed to be the variable on which Sheldon's funding for the year rested. The
final decision may have belonged to Nada, but surely Sheldon was not an issue she'd take to the mat if
both Dr. Allen and Clarissa gave their approval.
And now here was Clarissa sitting with Sheldon. By choice. With K.T.'s arm around her. And
seemingly very much enjoying what was probably a rare opportunity for her to speak about philosophy
and science. As K.T. had just reminded him, it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things whether
Clarissa was slightly jumbling Sheldon's points or not.
“Someone should totally do something,” she stressed.
Clarissa paused to wave at one of the other 522 halls residents who had just entered the coffee
shop. Then she turned back to Sheldon and made a serious face as though she were trying to put a very
profound thought into words.
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“You know, I never thought about it before,” she pronounced, then was silent for a very long
moment. Sheldon and K.T. waited as Clarissa counted something in her head. At last, she held up her
index finger. ”It's like, just consider, planet and plant are only different by one letter.”
K.T. coughed.
“Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence,” Clarissa said, standing. “Anyway, this is really a cool
discussion, but I need to go to the you-know-what.”
And with that she left for the rear of the establishment, leaving her make-up bag on the table, her
perfume in the air, and her two gentlemen companions to watch as she bounced away like a pink bunny in
her furry sweater and cottony skirt.
Chapter Twenty-One
“That chick’s a real…whatever,” K.T. remarked as Clarissa disappeared into the restroom.
Sheldon nodded, though not entirely sure as to what he was agreeing.
Just then there was a rattling on the table. K.T. made a face. He one-handedly reached into
Clarissa’s make up bag to remove and power off her Nokia cell phone. Meanwhile, he gulped down the
remaining swig of his Roast Bold Grande, sucking the cup dry.
Sheldon noticed his brother’s eyes were rather red for mid-afternoon. “Maybe you should make
your next one a decaf,” he said.
“Thanks for the medical advice, Jonas Salk,” K.T. retorted as he now inserted Clarissa’s powered
down phone into his empty cup. He folded the top over and stuffed the package back into the make up kit,
still with one hand.
A few stray drops of coffee fell onto things and Sheldon instinctively reached for his coat pocket
handkerchief. What he came out with instead was a hospital inpatient wristband, though by then it was
too late anyway.
K.T. pushed the small bag to the far end of the table and scooted into Clarissa’s chair to be a seat
closer to his brother. “They say the Rio’s not so Grande down by the border,” K.T. said. “There’s
supposedly some places where you can just step over it and not even get your shoes damp.”
“I think it depends on the time of year.”
“Hey, remember when we were kids? There were people that used to call Mexicans ‘wetbacks’?”
Sheldon reflexively looked around then dropped his voice: “We didn’t,” he said. “And this
probably isn’t the place to start.”
“You’re missing my point,” K.T. said. “Not only was the term racist, it was mostly incorrect.
‘Not us, we didn’t even get our feet wet’ would have been a great comeback for a Mexican kid.”
“I guess.” Sheldon decided that the subject was ripe for changing and that this was the perfect
moment to show off his Apple Airport card and blow his brother away. He put the iBook on the table and
opened it up. “K.T., look at this a minute. Something I want to show you,” he said.
“It’s cool. I saw it all the other night,” K.T. said, pulling the lid of the laptop back down so that it
clicked shut.
Sheldon had not been expecting that. He opened his mouth to speak, but saw something in K.T.’s
eyes and stopped. Just then a hand touched his shoulder.
“Quite a handy computer,” Sheldon heard someone say. He turned to find Nada standing behind
him. Presumably she’d just walked in for her afternoon break.
“Thanks,” Sheldon stammered. “We were having a cup of coffee,” he added needlessly. Then:
“This is my brother. K.T., this is Nada Al-Zarqa.”
“Nice to meet you, Nadaal,” K.T. said.
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Nada gifted K.T. with a very short smile. Sheldon tried to untie his tongue, but he couldn’t find
the words quick enough. He wanted to correct his brother’s mistake. He also wanted to let Nada know
that they had come with Clarissa. But Nada was already moving on toward the counter. “Interesting
jacket, by the way,” she said as she left.
Time seemed to freeze for an instant. Sheldon’s face all but fell onto the table.
“Oh…no…”
“What’s the matter?” K.T. said.
Sheldon tore K.T.’s jacket off his back. “This is the matter,” he squawked in an angry whisper.
“I was wearing this by mistake!”
K.T. glanced at the words “Fuck the Godfather” and shrugged. “Oh, well,” he said. “There’s
such a thing as freedom of speech.”
“There’s also such a thing as the right time and place. Don’t you know who that is? She’s the
head of res hall services!”
K.T. took another look. Nada was in the process of placing her order. “That’s Clarisse’s boss?”
he said. “I thought she was supposed to be Iranian.”
“Iraqi. On her father’s side.”
“But Clarisse said…okay, now it makes sense.”
As they were talking, Nada had received her to-go cup of coffee and was now proceeding back in
their direction, to the cream and sugar station just behind Sheldon’s and K.T.’s table. Sheldon
immediately dummied up. But K.T. didn’t hesitate to gesture for Nada’s attention.
“Excuse me, Ms. Al-Zarqa?” K.T. called. Sheldon bit his lip. “I just wanted to apologize for
getting your name wrong before. I didn’t realize it a moment ago, but I now understand that ‘Nada’
would be your ism, correct?”
Nada put the creamer down and replaced the lid on her coffee cup. Then she turned to face K.T.
“That’s exactly right,” she replied in all apparent sincerity. “Thank you for the apology.” She then
glanced at Sheldon who, predictably enough, was at a loss for words.
“I’ll see you in a couple days,” Nada said to Sheldon. Then she left.
“Ism is the Arabic word for first name,” K.T. explained to his brother.
As Nada left the Starbucks, Sheldon felt like he’d been holding his breath for the last several
minutes. “You saved me,” he exhaled. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have told her what that means.” K.T. indicated the line on the back of his jacket.
“Given what the US is doing to her country, she’d probably agree with the sentiment.”
“I don’t even know what it means,” Sheldon said. “Who was the godfather again? Al Pacino?”
“Dick fucking Cheney!” K.T. bellowed. Everyone turned. Sheldon quickly gestured. K.T.
lowered his voice by maybe half a decibel, but he still seemed to be screaming. “Dick fucking Cheney!
That pus-sucking geopolitical gangster who’s desecrating the lost lives of everyone who was at the World
Trade Center by using the whole thing as a lame excuse to play Monopoly with the Middle East!”
People were staring. Out of the corner of his eye, Sheldon witnessed a server detour around a
customer for a better look at their table. Thank goodness Nada was already down the street and hopefully
well out of earshot.
Sheldon made a frantic face. K.T. finally got the message.
“Sorry,” K.T. said in a softer and penitent tone. “I have strong feelings on the subject.”
“I gathered as much.”
The other patrons in the Starbucks were going back to their own affairs. Sheldon checked around
to make sure.
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He then decided to go ahead and reveal to his brother in a confiding voice: “Just so you know, she
supports the invasion. I think their family was broken up by Saddam.”
“Great, so now Cheney’s goons can break up their country, too. Then offer to rebuild it. At least
until the whole rest of the world turns against us. “
“Not everyone sees that as…I mean, the US is at war.”
“Sure,” K.T. said. “We declared war on terrorism. A country against a concept. That should get
resolved quick.”
“Look, I’m not so crazy about the vice president either, but what do you want to do, impeach
him?”
“I want to make him live up to his fucking name.”
“Sounds like you already think he’s a dick.”
“I want his dick chained to his knee.”
“Yeah, funny,” Sheldon said after a moment. “Look, can I please show you something on the
computer?”
Sheldon again pulled up the lid of his iBook and brought it to life.
“Go for it,” K.T. said.
Sheldon felt himself recover from the minor outburst. He tilted the screen so that K.T. could see.
This was something he’d been waiting months to show off.
“Look at this. I call up Internet Explorer, go to today’s Washington Post…and presto.” Sheldon
watched K.T. raise his eyebrows as the day’s front page loaded on the screen. The reaction was more
pronounced that he’d even imagined it would be. K.T. reached out and tested a link. His mouth fell open.
“Wireless network,” Sheldon explained. “I had something called an airport card installed. It
picks up the signal in certain buildings on campus, at Starbucks, wherever there’s wifi.”
K.T. suddenly looked around the coffee shop. “You mean this is…?”
“Live internet,” Sheldon said grinning.
Unfortunately, Sheldon’s long awaited moment of satisfaction was more fleeting than he’d ever
imagined. In an instant K.T.’s look of incredulity morphed into one of horror. He jumped up and
backward from his chair.
He then picked up the same chair and held it in front of him like he were a lion tamer. He
bumped it into the table and caused the whole affair to go crashing over. Sheldon was quick enough to
grab the iBook in time, but his unfinished coffee went splattering across the floor.
Now the servers were reacting, the other customers were looking, and a junior manager type
seemed about to grab K.T. from behind. They’d officially made a scene, to say the least.
“What are you, fucked in the head?!” K.T. screamed. “It’s not enough the doctors try to electroradiofry me and Clarisse carries that damned cellular cooker in her purse! My own brother has to bring
me for coffee to a nuclear fallout zone?”
“Gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” the junior manager type
said taking a step forward. He seemed to be speaking more for the benefit of the onlookers than to K.T.
or Sheldon. K.T. turned in his direction and put the chair down loudly. The junior manager quickly
backed up.
“But, K.T., I wasn’t—” Sheldon began.
K.T. then noticed the blinking light on Sheldon’s iBook. He snatched it from Sheldon’s hand and
hurled it against the sugar and cream station. It made white liquid splatter across the store, chipped off a
piece of the linoleum, and caused the laptop to shatter into a heap on the floor. Sheldon watched as the
light fizzled out. He turned to see K.T. already running from the store.
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Sheldon quickly gathered up what was left of his iBook and followed.
“Sir, I need to talk to you,” Sheldon heard the junior manager call, but finding his brother seemed
far more important.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sheldon returned to his room to find the living/dining/kitchen area roughly the way he’d left it.
The door to the bedroom was cracked and there was no light coming from the other side, but that didn't
mean anything.
“K.T.?” Sheldon called. “You in there?” he said quietly as he pushed the door open.
He thought he saw movement in the dark, so he clicked on the light. K.T. was not to be seen. He
noticed now for the first time, however, that the windows and much of the ceiling were papered with tin
foil. It would have been the reflection from this that created the illusion of motion when he'd opened the
door.
Sheldon also saw that his sock drawer had been pulled from the chest and left overturned in the
middle of the room. Pairs of socks littered the floor in what seemed to be a random configuration. But
just in case there was more to the arrangement than was immediately apparent, Sheldon was careful to
step between his own socks as he made his way past to the adjoining bathroom.
“K.T.?” Sheldon called again, just in case, but his brother wasn't to be found in the lavatory
either. Sheldon saw that K.T. had drawn a remarkably detailed map of the world on the large mirror over
the sink using a decorative shell-shaped bar of soap he’d had on display in the dish. There were lines here
and there, though Sheldon had no idea what they meant.
Sheldon was just about to relieve himself of some of the 2.5 cups of coffee he'd had, when he
heard the phone ring. He rushed back across the bedroom floor and this time wound up stepping on a
couple of pairs of socks, but he made it to the nightstand by the third ring, which was the important thing.
(K.T. often didn't wait past the fourth.)
“Hello?” he panted.
“Sheldon! Thank goodness I finally got you!”
hadn't called her. Things kept happening.
It was his mother. Sheldon realized he still
“Mom, I was meaning to phone,” Sheldon began. “But with the academic year just starting and
K.T. here and everything--”
“Karl is with you?”
“Yeah, I thought he...” Sheldon trailed off, realizing from the tone of his mother's voice that K.T.
had in fact not called her.
“Is he taking his medication?”
“I don't know. I saw him take a tranquilizer the first night, and he slept some.”
“You need to make sure he takes his meds.”
“What did he do?” Sheldon asked.
“He went off his medicine at the hospital and had a very bad episode,” Sheldon's mother
explained.
“Which means?”
“Assaulting a nurse. Then escaping and trying to break into the Smithsonian.”
“He...when you say assault...” Sheldon couldn't imagine K.T. doing anything untoward, in the
sense of forcing himself on a lady, but the word assault caught him off guard.
“Nothing like that,” he mother said. “He hit her with a bedpan.”
“That’s a relief,” Sheldon blurted reflexively.
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“He chipped the poor woman's tooth, Sheldon.” All she was trying to do was give him an x-ray.”
That certainly follows, Sheldon thought. K.T. would occasionally commit minor crimes when he
went through bad times, but they were almost always non-violent and usually came from a sudden
perceived need to change his environment. Ordering a glass of milk at a Denny's then taking a sip and
announcing he wasn't going to pay for it was as close to larceny as K.T. tended to get. But when he felt
his person under attack, he'd do what he could to get free. Sheldon was certain it was fight or flight and
nothing else that had caused his brother to smash his computer.
“What was he doing at the Smithsonian?” Sheldon wondered.
“Who knows?” his mother answered in an exasperated tone. “The main thing is you've got to get
him sedated and bring him to the authorities.”
“You mean call the cops on him?”
“Get him to turn himself in. Mr. Schwartzman says that could be the only way to keep him out of
jail.”
“I don't know, mom. I don't think he'll let me do that even if he is drugged.”
There was a moment of silence. Sheldon could tell his mother wasn't happy, but at the same time
he doubted that K.T. was on the Albuquerque most-wanted list for hitting a nurse with a bedpan seven
states away.
He wanted to tell his mother that things were fine, that K.T. was stable, that he even had a
girlfriend. But then Sheldon recalled the events of the last several hours and decided to say nothing.
“I'll get a train out there, then,” his mother said quietly. “Just keep him calm till I arrive.”
“A train takes three days, mom.”
Sheldon's mother had had a bad experience on an airplane the year before. Some luggage
compartment glitch had delayed take off for four hours but despite urgent requests she hadn't been
permitted to use the lavatory. She’d not wanted to get on an aircraft since. The residual trauma
notwithstanding, however, Sheldon imagined that the odds of his mother being comfortable on Amtrak
were considerably less than her chances with another commercial aircraft.
He was nonetheless surprised to hear his mother announce: “Fine. I'll fly.”
“You don't have to,” Sheldon said after a moment. “I'll take care of it.”
“Thank you, Sheldon,” she responded. Then, for some reason, she whispered: “Is he there? Can
I talk to him?”
“Umm...no, he's out right now. He, uh, went for a run.”
“Oh,” Sheldon's mother said. “What time is it there?”
“It’s your time minus two—” he began.
But just then Sheldon heard a knocking at his front door. He decided that if he were to effectively
complete the mission he'd just taken on then he would be better off not letting K.T. know his mother had
filled him in. He put his hand over the receiver and called out, “I'm in the bedroom.”
Then he whispered quickly to his mother, “Mom, I've got to go. I'll call you tomorrow.” And he
hung up. An instant later he saw a figure walking across the living room. But it wasn't K.T. It was
Clarissa.
Sheldon suddenly felt very self-conscious about the unmade sofa and clothes on the floor of the
living room. As res hall monitor, Clarissa had no doubt seen less tidy living rooms. But Sheldon had
been hoping to make the best impression possible.
“That brother of yours is some piece of work,” Clarissa said.
“Yes, he's very unique,” Sheldon responded, hoping to put the best possible twist on the situation.
“You know what they say about that fine line between genius and...”
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Caught off guard by the approaching Clarissa, Sheldon hadn't thought the expression all the way
to the end before diving into it. He sensed that it didn't matter anyway. Clarissa didn't seem in the mood
to listen to Sheldon defend his brother.
Clarissa looked past him into the bedroom. She took note of the tin foil on the ceiling and balls
of socks scattered across the floor. Sheldon had a feeling that it probably ranked among the stranger
bedrooms she had seen, though he doubted she kept a list.
He saw her make a face and searched for an explanation that would put a more positive spin on
the scene, but found himself at a loss.
“So I take it he's not here,” Clarissa said.
“I don't know where he is,” Sheldon admitted. “He gets kind of weird sometimes.”
“No shit.”
Sheldon wanted to ask if Clarissa had reconnected with K.T. after the Starbucks incident, but he
thought better of it. He wondered if he should offer her something to drink. But all he knew for sure that
he had was coffee, which she’d presumably had enough of, and half a can of Hansen’s with the fizz gone.
He was saved from the worry as Clarissa turned around and started out. “Tell him to call me
when he gets back,” she said.
Sheldon took the remark as a good sign. “Sorry he sort of got distracted earlier,” Sheldon called
after her as she stepped out into the hallway. “He thinks you're one of the prettiest girls in Albuquerque.”
Clarissa stopped in the doorway. “He said that?” she asked, still facing into the hall.
“Basically, yes,” Sheldon told her truthfully. “He said you should be added to the list.”
Clarissa nodded then disappeared. Sheldon sensed she was possibly smiling. He hoped things
would stay that way.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sheldon returned to the bathroom, made use of the facilities and decided that this was as good a
time as any to have a shower. As he was toweling off, he noticed in the fogged-up mirror that K.T. had
also drawn circles, stars and ‘x’s over various parts on his soap-drawn map of the world. He hoped he
hadn't ruined a project by bathing, but he doubted his brother would begrudge him a shower as long as he
didn't mess up anything.
He also took advantage of the opportunity to take some fresh clothes out of the closet. He slipped
into sweat pants and a long shirt then gathered up an extra pair of jeans and some underwear. He figured
he could go on wearing the same socks for the time being.
He doused the bedroom light and left the door cracked the way he'd found it. He then found a set
of small screwdrivers in the kitchen drawer and spent the next twenty minutes re-assembling his iBook.
He removed the wifi component before he put it back together and left the small unit on the table.
The wireless signal that his computer had been sending out paled in comparison to the waves in
the Starbucks, the wifi internet in the library, or all the cellular activity in the air for that matter. But
Sheldon figured that demonstrating to K.T. how he had made the room as radiation-free as possible would
be a good first step toward both calming his brother down and fulfilling his mother's request.
Once he had resealed his iBook (minus wifi capabilities), Sheldon decided to have a lie down on
the couch. He drifted off quickly and judged he had been asleep about an hour before the phone
awakened him. Sheldon's voice cracked into the kitchen extension. “Hello?”
“Yo, bro. How much cash you got?”
Sheldon rubbed his eyes and processed the question that K.T. had just asked. He remembered
breaking the last ten he had in his wallet for coffee. “On me, maybe three dollars,” he said. “But there's
an ATM on campus. Where are you?”
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“Downstairs,” K.T. said. “I'll call back.”
The line went dead.
Sheldon wasted no time in getting his jacket on and finding his keys and wallet. He stuffed the
Apple wifi card into his pocket, but didn't bother putting his pants on over his sweats.
He pressed “L” for lobby in the elevator but it wasn't until he'd passed the third floor that he
realized it was too late for Clarissa to be at her station and by “downstairs” K.T. must have meant
Clarissa's room on the second floor. He pressed “2” just in time and quickly tried to use his fingers to
comb his mussed hair using a silver panel in the elevator as a mirror.
He didn't have to check the numbers to figure out where Clarissa's room was. Her voice was
already carrying down the hall.
“What are you, high or something? I'm not letting you take my car away at one in the morning,”
Sheldon heard Clarissa call. As he followed the voice, he saw students on either side of the hallway open
their doors to see what the commotion was.
“It's only 12:48,” Sheldon heard K.T. counter. “And I didn't say take it away. You come too.
We'll get froyo.”
“Hello?” Sheldon heard Clarissa shoot back. “Do I look like I want to go for frozen yogurt? I'm
in my pajamas.”
As Sheldon turned the corner, he saw two more students instantly click open their doors, as
though the word “pajamas” had lured them out.
“Fine, I'll bring you back some,” K.T. was saying as he stepped out of a room at the end of the
hall. He was walking away and didn’t see Sheldon.
“I am not giving you the key,” Clarissa spat following K.T. out. Sheldon realized they were both
heading the wrong direction—away from him. He was not surprised to note that Clarissa’s pajamas were
pink.
“Come on, Clarisse, I don't need keys.”
“You better not mean what I think you're saying,” Clarissa said stomping down the hall after him.
Sheldon broke into a run as they both disappeared around the far corner.
“Hey, Clarissa, what's happening?” a beefy student wanted to know as he headed in the same
direction, shoulders bulging and looking for action.
“Nothing, everything's fine,” Sheldon called as he raced past.
The beefy student apparently didn't appreciate being overtaken. He caught Sheldon in a full
nelson and twisted him off the floor. “Bullshit,” he said. “For one thing, there's no running in the halls.”
The beefy student was now carrying Sheldon at a very quick pace in order to catch up with
Clarissa. But Sheldon decided it would probably not qualify as a run as much as a fast walk.
Sheldon recalled from the schoolyard that resisting while in a full nelson only encouraged the
person administering the nelson to stretch your body parts all the more. So Sheldon refrained from
struggling and tried to make the best of the situation as the beefy student carried him quickly past
scattered onlookers down the halls. He wondered if the full and half nelsons were perhaps named after a
wrestler who invented the moves. Sports words that were also names, such as the Mulligan in golf, came
to mind suggesting a list to make someday when things calmed down.
Meanwhile, Sheldon realized he had circumnavigated the second floor and was now approaching,
from the opposite side, the same elevator he had emerged from a moment ago. Clarissa was returning
from the fire stairs, down which K.T. had presumably outrun her. She had an angry look on her face, but
then saw Sheldon and his captor, and she became the res hall monitor once again.
“You okay, Clarissa?” the beefy student asked.
“Put him down, Arnie. He didn't do anything.”
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“He was running in the halls.”
The look on Clarissa's face as she walked by suggested she had seen Arnie do worse in the halls.
“Give me a break,” she said.
So Arnie dropped Sheldon and followed Clarissa at a respectable pace. “What was going on?” he
asked. Sheldon wiggled the tension out of his shoulders as he held up the rear.
A couple of other students also asked Clarissa if she was okay, prompting her to call out: “Sorry
for the noise, you guys. Everyone can go back to sleep. We had like an unregistered visitor, but he just
left.”
Sheldon did not like the way Clarissa had looked in his direction before she turned into a recessed
common kitchenette and checked out the window over the sink. Arnie glared in Sheldon's direction, then
waited as Clarissa stared into the night for a long moment. When she turned around again, Arnie was
visibly elated that Clarissa was favoring him with her attention.
“Could you keep an eye on things for a bit?” she half-cooed.
“Sure,” Arnie said. “But what's up?”
“I need to go call the cops,” Clarissa said as she walked past Sheldon. “His brother just stole my
car.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Clarissa headed back toward her room. Students on either side of the hallway ceased their
gawking and closed their doors. Sheldon took a couple of steps toward the kitchenette window to see if
there was any lingering evidence of K.T. driving off in Clarissa's car. All he saw was an empty space that
he recalled a VW Golf earlier being parked in.
Sheldon felt Arnie's eyes weighing on him. He stepped out of the kitchenette and started the long
way back to the elevator as that would at least allow him to pass Clarissa's open door and possibly offer
up an apology. He put his head down and gave a bewildered shrug as he drifted by Arnie. Arnie
answered with a shoulder shove that knocked Sheldon to the carpet right in front of Clarissa's doorway.
One or two students still in the halls snickered. Clarissa was already on the phone, but it seemed
to Sheldon as he picked himself up that she took due note and probably was considerably less inclined to
cast her vote in favor of Sheldon as successor to her post.
“I'm sorry,” Sheldon said, very softly as not to interrupt. His only chance now seemed to be K.T.
making a speedy return, with or without frozen yogurt, and turning things right.
Sheldon quickened his pace to the elevator and got back to his room as fast as he could,
remembering that K.T. had said he would call again. He ditched his sweats for a proper pair of pants,
combed his hair, and checked the phone for a dial tone. He began to fear that he had missed the call while
he was downstairs. He should have shouted out to his brother, he thought, but there had already been
enough commotion on the second floor and he had wanted less of it, not more...
*
*
*
*
The phone finally rang; just when Sheldon had begun to think he wouldn't hear from K.T. until
daybreak at the earliest. It was just after 1:30 in the morning and Sheldon had been watching the news on
TV. He grabbed the receiver before the second ring and didn't take the time to turn the TV sound down
until after he'd already said hello.
“This is the psychiatric ward at the St. Joseph Medical Center,” a voice announced. Even as the
person at the other end of the phone was apologizing for the late hour and had yet to explain the nature of
the call, Sheldon was finding his ATM card so he could withdraw the taxi fare.
K.T. had still to be admitted when Sheldon arrived. He was at the front desk arguing with a
doctor, an admitting nurse and a general nurse, but the two orderlies standing at the ready behind them
suggested they were very close to checking him in by force.
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K.T. was also handcuffed. His nose was red and puffy. There was a fresh bandage on his chin
but blood stained his collar and the front of his shirt. “K.T.! Are you okay?” was Sheldon's reflexive
response.
K.T. turned, clearly pleased to have an ally on the scene. “Sheldon!” he cried. “This is my
brother,” he announced to the others, “He'll tell you!”
“You're Sheldon Thigpin?” the admitting nurse asked, apparently reluctant to accept anything
K.T. had said as fact without verification. Sheldon nodded.
“I was trying to explain about Mulber,” K.T. said, “But these guys just think I'm a random
nutjob.”
“Nobody called you a nutjob, Karl,” the doctor interrupted calmly. “We're trying to help you.”
“Shut up,” K.T. shot back. Then: “Tell em, Sheldon. Did I or did I not teach our dog to talk?”
There were a few sudden seconds of silence, during which all turned to Sheldon awaiting his
answer.
“Well...I...” Sheldon said, “'Talk' is probably the wrong word...”
“Dude, what the fuck?!” K.T. whirled, prompting one of the orderlies to step forward and grab
him. K.T. struggled.
“What would be the right word? 'Bark' perhaps?” the doctor prompted.
“Maybe,” Sheldon admitted, pained by the sight of his brother being restrained as he was, but
knowing that little could likely be done at this point.
“Shit, Sheldon!” K.T. cried. “These radioheads are going to give me more x-rays!” The orderly
squeezed K.T. a bit to quiet him down. The other put a gloved hand over K.T.'s mouth.
“Does he have a history of mental issues?” the doctor asked Sheldon.
K.T. gave Sheldon a desperate look. Sheldon closed his eyes and nodded ever so slightly.
“Dude!” K.T. shouted.
“I think perhaps Karl should be taken for a very mild sedative,” the doctor said. “I'd like to talk
with his brother for a few minutes.”
On cue, the orderlies pulled K.T. down the hall. At first K.T. resisted. He got squeezed for his
troubles and a glove over his mouth. Like Sheldon with the full nelson, K.T. opted not to continue a
losing battle that would only cause him more discomfort. He quickly let up and so did the other two,
allowing the walk to be a pleasant one as long as K.T. didn't fight them.
“So I guess you're not a big fan of Radiohead the band then,” the orderly not holding K.T. said by
way of making conversation.
“Fuck you,” K.T. responded.
The doctor waited until the three of them had exited into the ward proper before opening his
mouth to speak. Sheldon beat the doctor to the punch:
“He didn't hurt anyone, did he?” Sheldon asked.
“I don't believe so. The report we got said he complained about some 7-11customers opening a
microwave while it was still cooking. Seemed to be a one-way fight—they hit him. But then when the
police asked questions, your brother began to act irrationally and so they brought him to us.”
Sheldon was relieved to hear that, from a legal standpoint anyway, his brother was the victim and
not the perpetrator of whatever had happened at the 7-11. It made him all the sadder for the situation that
K.T. was now in. “He sometimes behaves...differently,” Sheldon admitted, pointedly avoiding the term
“irrational” as that label could only fairly be applied if one understood intent.
Sheldon doubted the doctor had any more immediate insight on that score than he himself
currently did. There were things Sheldon knew about his brother, things he could intuit, things he felt.
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But there were also some things he was never quite sure of, things he strove to understand but never
completely managed to.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The doctor's name was Fitz. He was the after-hours head of staff for the ward and had a
comfortable office facing the Rio Grande over which the sun was now beginning to rise.
Sheldon had provided a thorough review of K.T's history with hospitals as the doctor filled in
forms, several of which Sheldon had been asked to sign. Sheldon had recounted the incident that his
mother had told him about the night before—it now seemed like a lifetime ago, but it had only been ten
hours previous as Sheldon figured it. He'd also given Dr. Fitz the name of the institution where K.T. had
first received treatment in Eastern Pennsylvania.
Additionally, however, Sheldon had stated emphatically that K.T. had intended to turn himself in
for the incidents that had occurred at the other institution and at the Smithsonian. He had insisted that Dr.
Fitz mention that in his report.
Sheldon knew that, technically, he and K.T. had never discussed this. But at the same time,
Sheldon's assertion did not feel like a lie in the least. One of the things that Sheldon knew about his
brother was that K.T. would have acquiesced to his mother's wishes and made things right in his own
time. If questioned about it, K.T. would say as much. Sheldon knew this too.
Unfortunately, what he did not know was that Dr. Fitz's report to the head nurse had not yet been
relayed to the staff. Fitz had made a preliminary diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia based on his
ongoing interview with Sheldon and had recommended that further examination and tests be dispensed
with for the time being and the patient given an opportunity to rest. The attending nurse, however, had
been working from outdated information and believed it her job to rule out concussion, cerebral
hemorrhaging, or other internal injuries resulting from the blow K.T. had taken, and so she told the
orderlies to bring him up for x-rays.
Sheldon had been focused on another form that Dr. Fitz had put in front of him when he heard a
distant scream, muffled by two floors of hospital interior, and saw something out of the corner of his eye.
An instant later, Dr. Fitz jumped out of his chair.
“Good God!” the doctor exclaimed.
Sheldon turned toward the window to see a small cloud of dust, glass and radiographic film
wafting downward and scattering over debris in the river that had not been there an instant ago. A white
metal piece of equipment was bobbing up and down in the drink while two arms and a head were
struggling against the current further downstream. Each time the head went down it took longer for it to
come back up. The head had orange hair.
It was like watching a horrible scene in slow motion.
Sheldon quickly stood, threw open the door to Dr. Fitz's office, and sprinted toward the exit. As
he did, he could hear the intercom on the doctor's desk begin to buzz. By the time whoever it was came
over the speaker, Sheldon was already out of earshot. He didn't need to hear it described to know what
had happened.
*
*
*
*
Two days later, Sheldon was lying on the sofa in his living/dining area and staring at the jacket
with the words “Fuck the Godfather” on the back that he'd hung from the ceiling lamp to dry. It had
dripped and drizzled the first day, leaving a stain from the muddy river on the carpet, but Sheldon had just
left it.
He'd spent the nights on the same sofa, pretending that K.T. was still in his bedroom, that the St.
Joseph's Medical Center and the dragging of the river and the tearful hours on the phone with his mother
were all just a bad dream. He hadn't watched TV or read or studied. Most of the time his just being had
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used up all the energy he had. He had brought the plants out of the bedroom and when he craved
entertainment or diversion he'd look at the Coula branch.
It seemed inappropriately vibrant in contrast to what had happened. Unaffected by the loss of
K.T. Maybe that made sense though, Sheldon thought wryly as he looked at it. After all, it was just a
plant.
At that moment, the phone rang. Sheldon eased himself off the couch and in the direction of the
kitchen, not catching it until the third ring. His voice cracked as he answered it.
It was Dr. Allen. “How are you holding up?” Sheldon's professor asked by way of a greeting.
“Okay, I suppose, considering,” Sheldon said.
“When you feel up to it, it's probably about time for you to drop around so we can talk things
over.”
Sheldon agreed to go and see Dr. Allen later the same afternoon. The tone of his professor's
voice had already communicated to Sheldon what the verdict was regarding the res hall appointment. As
if that hadn't been a foregone conclusion. How could he take care of a building of wild freshmen and
sophomores if he couldn't even take care of his own brother?
Sheldon upgraded his at-home routine for the remainder of the day from lying on the couch to
sitting on the couch. After a couple of hours, he stood and decided it was a good thing that Dr. Allen had
phoned. He needed to do something, to reconnect with the world.
He took K.T.'s jacket off the hanger that was attached to the ceiling light (the jacket was plenty
dry by now) and turned it inside out then tied it around his waist. He left to go see his professor.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I vouched for you in every way I could,” Dr. Allen said as he walked with Sheldon down the
hall to buy him a cup of coffee.
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” Sheldon responded.
“As you probably guessed, they didn't go for it.” Sheldon nodded. Dr. Allen inserted two
quarters into the machine then stepped aside so Sheldon could make his selection. Sheldon chose tea.
“Unfortunately, your area of research doesn't seem to win you any points either. I tried to chase
down a few funding alternatives for you, but I keep getting responses like unrealistic, pseudo-science, and
non-commercial. You've heard all that before.”
Dr. Allen retrieved his hot drink then turned to look at Sheldon. Sheldon nodded again. Dr.
Allen led the way and Sheldon followed back toward his professor's office.
“Two options,” Dr. Allen said. “The first is take a year off—maybe we could cut that down to a
semester—you get a job, save up a little money and in the meantime we'll reinforce your research
proposal.”
Sheldon got the door for Dr. Allen, waited until the other was seated behind his desk, then took a
seat opposite. Sheldon doubted he'd be able to save any money if he remained in the area and worked, as
student loan bills would then kick in. But he decided not to mention this.
“It comes down to capital,” Dr. Allen concluded.
Another ism, Sheldon thought.
“If we'd been at this juncture last week, that's the way I would have encouraged you to go,” Dr.
Allen went on. “But I've started to think different. More and more there are worthwhile subjects for
scientific exploration that never even get considered because no one has any faith anymore. The ties are
so strong between education and corporate these days that we've lost the broader curiosity that brings the
unexpected breakthroughs. Anyway, I'm not saying that your work will necessarily lead to anything. But
if you believe in an area of research, who's to tell you that you shouldn't be allowed to stick with it?”
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“No one, I guess,” Sheldon said, though it seemed he had repeatedly been told just that.
Sheldon was grateful for the affirmation that Dr. Allen was now giving him, though he was also
aware that the professor had been singing a very different tune just a few days earlier—micropropagation, DNA splicing. He wondered how much of his prof’s change of heart was due simply to pity.
“That brings us to Option Two,” Dr. Allen announced picking a printed sheet of paper off of his
desk and passing it to Sheldon. “I e-mailed an old colleague who co-chairs science and technology at a
place called Windom. Small county college in southern Minnesota. It's not exactly Yale, but they could
use a cheap post-grad to teach a few forestry classes.”
“Hasn't their term already started?” Sheldon asked.
“Yes, but they're short handed. Their main lecturer had to quit last month when a tree fell on
him.”
Sheldon wondered if someone had forgotten to yell “timber” but somehow kept himself from
asking.
“They'll give you an apartment; and, provided you put something down on paper that'll please the
trustees, they'll let you do whatever you want on the side. I say you go with option two.”
Sheldon finished reading the entire e-mail exchange then looked up. “Thank you for the things
you said here,” he told Dr. Allen, hoping that he sounded sincere and not too corny.
Later that evening, Sheldon typed a list into his iBook ranking his favorite people of all time and
Dr. Allen came in at number four.
Suddenly the screen flashed on and off and made a beeping noise. Sheldon panicked as he'd not
backed up his data recently and did not have the funds to buy a new computer. But then the melody of
“Happy Birthday To You” began to play. An animated banner scrolled the words “Happy B-Day,
Sheldon.”
Sheldon noticed that it was midnight. September 26th. His birthday.
But how did the computer know? It hadn't offered any birthday wishes the previous year, or the
year before that. For an instant Sheldon theorized that maybe this was one of those lesser known
embedded system programs (like the Pong game in Windows 2000) but you had to be using your
computer the second it became your birthday to see it.
Then the banner said something more: “Don't worry if twenty-two's a hard year, Steeps. Twentythree is way better. --K.T.”
Sheldon flashed back to the Mexican restaurant the day that K.T. had arrived. Installing a little
hidden app like this was just like the guy. And hadn’t he said something just after, like “Read all about
it?”
Sheldon blinked. Tears were in his eyes. Then suddenly he was laughing and crying at the same
time. The theme to Sanford and Son started playing and then he heard the voice of Redd Foxx speak
from his computer saying, “Happy Birthday, You Big Dummy!” Sheldon had loved watching reruns of
the old show from the seventies. K.T. hadn’t and would make cracks when he was in the room. It was a
great little joke, a wonderful birthday wish, and Sheldon laughed and cried so hard that when the
computer said something else, he'd been unable to hear what it was.
Then the clock hit 12:01. The banner went away and the birthday greeting was over. Sheldon
was glad to be thinking of K.T. with a smile on his face. He untied his brother's jacket from his waist and
used the sleeves to wipe away his tears. When he looked again at the iBook screen, he was reminded that
K.T. was at the top of his list of all time favorite people.
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PART SIX: ENERGY AND WEIGHT
(SILICON VALLEY, 2006)
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One day Sheldon arrived at his desk to find a voicemail communication from Shahid Naeem
asking him to come by midday. Shahid did admin on the fifth floor of the main building, or what was
called the Red Wing, one storey below Stephanie the accountant and two below the personal office of
Barry Klass. Sheldon figured, if he had to go down that way anyhow, there might be something to gain
from exploring the area.
Sheldon told Chester that he had a meeting scheduled and so would be taking a long lunch.
Sheldon was glad for the break as Chester had constant questions and required a lot of energy.
When Sheldon got to the fifth floor, he scanned his ID card through the reader to get past the
locked entry to the offices beyond, but it wouldn’t open. He tried three times and then had to knock for
Shahid to come out.
“Does your card not work?” Shahid said as he let Sheldon in.
“It doesn’t seem to.”
“You should get it fixed then. There is no point having a cardkey that won’t work.”
“I know,” Sheldon said. The rooms across in the Green Wing where Sheldon’s office was didn’t
require card scans, so it had taken some time for him to figure out what limited access he seemed to have.
“I want to give you something,” Shahid announced gesturing to a bag in his hand. “But first, this
is your address.” He gave Sheldon a card with the address of his apartment printed on it.
“Yes. It looks like it.”
“For the online directory so people can find you. Now, congratulations.” Shahid removed a
mobile phone from the bag and presented it to Sheldon. “You cannot buy these in stores.”
Sheldon turned the device over in his hand. It looked identical to the unit he kept in his
nightstand drawer. Cellular headsets were the last thing Sheldon felt he wanted to start collecting.
“Thanks, Shahid, but I already have one,” he said.
“Not like this.” Shahid took it back to demonstrate. He flipped through a menu. “This is special
issue for employees only. For one thing it takes multiple SIM cards—you can use the number and data
plan from your other phone with this one in the same device.”
That sounded good to Sheldon, if only because it meant he wouldn’t have to double his pool of
radiation-emitting gadgets in order to accept the gift.
“It’s also got copy-and-pastable e-mail, built in international roaming, the whole bunch of wax.”
Shahid handed the phone back to Sheldon. “We invented it right here,” he said.
Sheldon blinked. “KlassWorks invented the BlackBerry?”
“Not the BlackBerry, but this. The company actually got some money not to bring it to market.”
Shahid pointed at the logo and Sheldon saw that on close inspection the “e” was actually a second
“a.” This phone was a “BlackBarry.”
“Very funny,” Shahid grinned pointing. “Because ‘berry’ is a fruit, but spelled another way it is
also—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Sheldon said powering the device down.
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“Quite nice when you can profit without manufacturing,” Shahid continued. “Like our printer
over there. Very special. Uses ink.”
Sheldon took a look. “Don’t most inkjets use ink?”
“No, they do not. They use ink cartridges,” Shahid stressed. “$30 per two hundred prints.” He
dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper: “Ours uses the honest and pure McCoy. India ink.”
Shahid beamed as he re-opened the door. Sheldon realized that the phone in his hand was
something he probably couldn’t afford not to accept, so he put it in his pocket.
*
*
*
*
Fifteen minutes later, Sheldon was standing in front of a red and green door marked
“Accounting.” The door was closed and he couldn’t see any life through the small window in front. He
tried his keycard. The light remained amber, indicating, of course, that it hadn’t worked. Sheldon
reached for the knob to try it anyway.
Suddenly the door opened from the other end with Sheldon’s hand still on it as the pretty
accountant that he knew to be named Stephanie appeared in the doorway. Sheldon jumped. Stephanie
did the same.
“You scared the living crap out of me,” she said, collecting herself.
“Sorry, I was just about to knock.”
“Most people do that before they try opening the door,” Stephanie replied. “Anyway, what can I
help you with?”
Sheldon had to think fast. He told her that he was hoping to get a head start on his taxes and
wanted to see some W2s.
“W2s?” Stephanie responded. “Have you even been paid yet?”
“That’s a long sad story,” Sheldon said. “But I like to be extra organized. Maybe you could
show me someone else's just so I could see how they look. Like Barry's?”
“You want to see Mr. Klass's W2s?”
Sheldon decided that a shrug was the best response. “I haven't had much experience yet in the
private sector,” he tried.
“Fine. I'll call him and see if it's okay.”
Sheldon took a step back, hoping that Stephanie would proceed out of her office rather than back
inside. “Well, if we have to bother him anyway, I can just ask him directly. Why don't you go ahead and
have lunch. Please.”
Stephanie gave Sheldon a look as she closed and locked her door.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sheldon arrived at the slide room and hoped for the best as he swiped his ID through the reader.
He was hardly surprised to find the door still locked, despite the taunting presence beyond the glass wall
of equipment that could clearly benefit his project. (His e-mailed query about how he might obtain use of
the gas chromatic, moreover, had gone unanswered. Perhaps the only way to get things was to ask in
person.)
He noticed Connie receiving pages from a non-branded printer on the other side of the glass. He
tapped the intercom button ever so gently and pointed to the door when she glanced up. Connie gathered
her pages, hit the door handle, and turned away without responding.
“Thanks,” Sheldon called but Connie was already fast on her way back to a high-end confocal
light microscope. Sheldon followed in the same general direction toward the door marked “Barry Klass.”
The door was slightly cracked but Sheldon could not see within. He knocked and waited.
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Connie clicked a couple of switches on her OptiGrid console then looked up.
“Say, isn’t that a—?” Sheldon remarked. But she retreated back to the printer without ever
making eye contact.
Sheldon knocked a bit harder on the door to Barry’s private office. It creaked open and he saw
that no one was inside, but that there was a big couch opposite the desk. He decided to wait within.
Sheldon was surprised to note that Barry's office wasn't even as large as his own. It was clearly
the nerve center of KlassWorks, however. There were monitors on the walls, huge panels of switches,
papers everywhere.
He took a seat and looked around. There was a “KlassWorks—Imagining Possibilities” poster on
the wall, music CDs scattered about, a pile of circuit diagrams in the corner, and a toy basketball hoop
over a file cabinet. Then, across the room, Sheldon thought he saw a page hanging out of a cardboard
binder that had some seemingly very relevant plant biology data on it.
Was that just wishful thinking? Sheldon’s mind conspiring to see the very thing it coveted? It
was on the far side, beyond the desk, where the “just waiting for Barry to come back” alibi would no
longer apply. Sheldon peeked out into the slide room, then stood and took a step closer. He saw the
letters B.K. marked on the folder. He picked up a CD, “accidentally” dropped it, then stooped forward.
At that moment a back door (which Sheldon had assumed was simply a closet) was thrown open
to the sound of a toilet flushing. Barry entered wiping his hands with a towel. “Sheldon,” Barry said, “I
was just thinking of you.”
Sheldon stood frozen as Barry plopped into his desk chair, balled up the towel and hooked it
across the room through the basketball hoop. He made the shot and a small display blinked that he had
scored two points. Barry grinned and picked an egg-shaped ceramic bell off his desk, twisting it so that it
emitted a porcelain ding-ding-ding. At last, he looked up at Sheldon and flashed a smile.
“What was it?” Sheldon asked.
“What was what?”
“You said you were just thinking of me.”
“Oh, yeah. Cause I was in the can.”
Sheldon frowned. Barry pointed to the sofa. Sheldon reluctantly obeyed and went back to
resume his seat.
“And I was thinking how good it was to have you out here,” Barry continued. “You into Green
Day?”
“When’s that?”
“American Idiot,” Barry said. Sheldon frowned again.
“You can borrow it if you want,” Barry added. “A must-hear album. You must hear it.” It was
then that Sheldon realized he still had the CD in his hand. He looked at the cover.
“I will then. Thanks.”
“So what else can I do for you? You get lonely?”
“The symbiotic reception project,” Sheldon replied. “With the Tectona Grandis.”
“Oh, yeah. The tree,” Barry said. Sheldon gave him a look. “We like to stick to the technical
terms around here. Sorry, go ahead.”
“I have the feeling that a lot of research has already been done to yield the results I've been given.
But I don't have any of the original data. Chester says there isn’t any. But that just…doesn’t make sense.”
As Sheldon was explaining this, Barry busied himself with the buttons on his desk. He also
drummed his fingers, played with his lip, did a hundred other things. “Well, you're free to incorporate
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anything you want, Shel,” he answered distractedly. He picked up the B.K. folder, glanced at it in a bored
way, and dropped it on his desk.
“I'm not sure what you expect me to incorporate,” Sheldon said. “If I could just look at the
original experimental data it would make my job a lot easier.”
Barry still wasn’t even looking at Sheldon. But then he saw something and raised his eyebrows.
“Hey, check this out.”
Sheldon hurriedly made his way back to the desk, only to find that the object of Barry’s
excitement was a woman in a short skirt that happened to be standing by one of his CCTV cameras.
“I could imagine a few possibilities with her,” Barry quipped.
Meanwhile, however, Sheldon was afforded a look inside the B.K. binder, which was now lying
open on Barry’s desk. He had been right—at least some of the contents did relate to his own work. But
this was because they were his own work. The page he was looking at was the report he had put in two
Fridays ago.
Sheldon noticed that Barry was now busy checking his own mobile phone. He started for the
door. Barry looked up.
“Original data, right? I'll see what I can do. Good enough?”
“Yes, thank you,” Sheldon said.
“By the way, Shel, you weren't trying to get my W2 forms were you?”
Sheldon stopped in the doorway. At that moment he finally managed to lock eyes with Connie
across the slide room. Only now he couldn’t leave. “Uh, well,” Sheldon said, “Not yours per se. I was
just trying to get an idea of what one would look like.”
“Well, if you want one of mine, I got a copy right here for you.”
Barry plucked a piece of paper from a drawer and held it for Sheldon to retrieve. Sheldon gave it
only a very quick glance as he tried to hide his embarrassment. “Thanks, Barry. I...really shouldn't have
asked for this.”
Barry dismissed the ceremony with a wave. “No probs. Take it. Anything else I can do for
you?”
“Well, now that you mention it, my keycard doesn't seem to work.”
“I'll call the PS people and get them on it ASAP,” Barry shot back. “Meanwhile...” He took his
own card off his shirt. “Take mine.”
“No, you don't have to—” Sheldon said.
“I insist,” Barry countered, tossing over the card.
Sheldon exited Barry's office feeling foolish. He noticed Connie washing her hands at the sink
near the door but continued past her for the hallway.
Or almost did. He stopped. He couldn’t help himself. He doubled back, leaned close to her and
took a deep silent whiff. Connie turned around instantly.
“Can I help you?” she said.
Sheldon stood his ground. “Just sniffing,” he responded. “I have a very sensitive nose.”
“How'd you like it flattened?”
Connie looked around for a towel. Sheldon handed her his handkerchief. “You need a sharp
sense of smell when you work with plant life,” he said. “I detect Henna, Neem and a touch of
Eucalyptus.”
“And here I was thinking they called you 'Smelldon' for a completely different reason.” Connie
dropped Sheldon’s handkerchief pointedly into the sink and headed out the door and into the hall.
Sheldon took a moment to retrieve it, gazing at the reflective metal atop the washbasin, then followed.
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Connie beelined for the elevator doors, hit the call button, then bent forward to fix her shoe.
Eager to catch up, Sheldon rounded the corner too quickly and inadvertently collided with her as she
straightened herself.
“Coordination problem?” Connie said.
Sheldon stooped for her purse and handed it back to her. “I thought maybe you used some kind
of hand cream,” Sheldon said.
“And that's your business how?”
“I think somebody's been going through the things in my apartment. My stuff keeps getting
moved around. And every time I smell Henna and Neem.”
Connie snatched her purse back and stared Sheldon down. “Maybe you should call the police. I
hear the president's just declared war on moved-around stuff.”
“I'm planning on calling the police,” Sheldon shot back. “And when they come I'm going to
show them a fingerprint I found. I think it's yours.”
“And why would you think that? Don’t tell me, it was a black fingerprint, right?”
This put Sheldon on the defensive. “They…no, your print on the sink. Same loop at the top.”
The elevator doors opened. Connie rapped her middle knuckle against Sheldon's forehead. “Is
your brain on vacation? I was at your place not three weeks ago. I'm the one that showed you where it
is.”
“You never went inside the bedroom,” Sheldon retorted.
Connie's eyes suggested she had a colorful response for this, which she opted not to verbalize.
Instead she caught the elevator doors on the verge of closing, pushed them back open, and got in.
“And I wiped all the doorknobs clean before I found the print,” Sheldon continued.
Connie crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the elevator, her elbow pressed against
the hold button. The doors made a buzzing sound.
“Are you getting in or not, Columbo?”
Sheldon stepped inside. The doors closed. Then Connie flipped open her purse, withdrew her
card key, and slid it into the reader under the panel of buttons. She flipped an override switch. The
elevator jolted to a stop.
She removed a package of post-its from her purse and slapped one over a concealed video lens
that Sheldon didn't even know was there. She moved quickly, rough. Sheldon instinctively cringed when
she turned to face him. But all Connie did was stare hard into his eyes.
When she finally spoke, it was almost a whisper. “I like you, okay?” she said.
“Huh?”
“I did my thesis on Biosystem Forensics. I've read your articles in Plant Physiology and the
Journal of Bacteriology. I'm fascinated by your speculations on a green superconscious.
“Well...thank you,” Sheldon responded.
He took his hands down. Connie used the opportunity to hit him with her purse.
“But I can't be seen with you, okay? I can't talk to you. They're watching, all the time.” She hit
him again. “I can't explain it, but it can't happen.”
“Okay. Ow. Stop it,” Sheldon said. “I understand.”
“I doubt you do. But piss off anyway.”
Connie stepped back. She disengaged the override switch. Sheldon straightened his shirt and
fixed his hair.
“So, you're saying, what, you snuck into my place because you like me? That doesn't really…”
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Connie stopped and took Sheldon's face in her hands. She pulled him closer. Just when it
seemed to Sheldon she was about to kiss him, she caught herself and slapped him instead.
“Ouch,” Sheldon said.
“You don’t belong here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But you came for a reason, didn’t you?”
Sheldon found himself simultaneously captivated by her big brown eyes and quite scared of her
other parts. “Actually, I did,” he said in spite of himself. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone but—”
“Perfect, cause I don’t want to hear it,” Connie interrupted, throwing a hand over his mouth.
She looked at him for an instant longer, presumably seeing something that won just a touch of
sympathy. “You’re a beautiful brilliant man,” she whispered again. “So do what you came here to do
and then go the hell away!”
Then she peeled the post-it from the camera lens just as the elevator doors opened and exited
down the hall.
Sheldon brought his hand to his cheek and watched her go. He wasn't sure if he felt good or bad.
He smelled his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was late in the day on Sunday. Sheldon parked his Taurus near the Moffett Channel Pier and
removed the cellular device that Darren Scott had given him from the glove box. (He still hadn’t taken
out the SIM card and transferred it to his newer unit, but he intended to do that when he got home.)
He kept the engine running as the phone powered up. He looked out at the pier and saw that it
was practically deserted, no doubt because of the sudden drop in temperature once the sun had fallen.
There was a couple sharing body heat near the railing and a salty looking beachcomber smoking a pipe.
That seemed to be it.
Too bad he didn’t keep gloves in the glove box, Sheldon thought as the cold crept in. A quick
futile search revealed only maps, pens and a box of Imodium. He held the now glowing cellular tight in
both hands, though it gave off no warmth.
He exited the car and walked to a deserted space by the water. He pressed speed dial one then hit
the speakerphone function and held it a foot in front of him.
“9519,” a voice cracked at the other end of the connection.
“Now’s the time to speak of many things,” Sheldon said. He’d come up with that on the drive
over and thought it was a pretty good line. (After all, John Lennon was known to have based the
protagonist of his song on the Lewis Carroll rhyme.)
Unfortunately, it was apparently lost on the man who had answered the phone. “Repeat that,” he
commanded.
Sheldon now realized he wasn’t speaking to Walter Russell. “I’m sorry. I was calling for the
Walrus. Or Darren Scott if he’s closer.”
“They’re not here right now, Sheldon,” the man said. “You can give what you have to me.”
“I, uh…” Sheldon wasn’t pleased about having to give his report secondhand, but he was sensing
it might be better to go ahead rather than Walrus getting simply a note that he’d called then being
underwhelmed when they finally spoke.
“I’m at the edge of a pier. Is that a good location?”
“Excuse me?” the man said.
“I’m at Moffett Channel Pier. It’s pretty deserted.”
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“Fine.”
“Just thought I’d make sure. I was never told where to call from when I’m not at home and I
want to abide by all of your—”
“Could you proceed please, Sheldon? We are paying for this call.”
“Okay. Well I’m happy to report that the firm isn’t really up to anything sinister. They have a
few worthy projects. Nothing all that groundbreaking, but nothing...bad.” Sheldon couldn’t tell how he
was going over. He wished he’d called at a time when the Walrus was there. “Are you getting this?” he
asked.
“Yes, Sheldon.”
“Well, for example, they have a toilet, and anytime you, you know, it records a complete
urinalysis.”
“Analyzes pee. Got it.”
Sheldon sensed he was bombing. He pushed forward: “A lot of what KlassWorks is developing
relates to convergence—that’s the next big push everyone’s talking about where every major appliance is
interconnected with its own computer chip.”
“Yes, I’m aware of the term.”
“Right, of course,” Sheldon said. “Well, they’re doing that.” At that moment, Sheldon noticed
the couple he’d seen earlier now passing a few yards behind him. He dropped his voice. “There are some
people nearby, so I’m going to whisper. Is that okay?”
“You might think about turning off the speakerphone,” the man countered.
“It’s okay. They can’t hear me like this,” Sheldon whispered loudly. “I don’t want to seem
suspicious.”
“Repeat please. I only heard ‘suspicious.’”
“No, nothing suspicious,” Sheldon said in a louder voice. “Well, I mean, only little things. Like I
put a toothpick in front of my door one morning and when I came home it had moved.”
“Your door had moved?”
“No, the toothpick.”
“I see.”
“But that was, you know…just a toothpick.” Sheldon made a pained face that only the bay could
see.
“Is there anything else, Sheldon?”
“W2s. I managed to get Barry Klass’s tax forms if you’re interested. Looks on the up and up,
but I can send the pages if you want.”
“I see. And how did you manage to get Mr. Klass’s tax forms?”
“He, uh, gave them to me,” Sheldon admitted. “I guess I sort of asked for them.”
“Did Mr. Russell tell you to appropriate Barry Klass’s W2s?”
“No,” Sheldon choked. “Not exactly.” Sheldon felt suddenly like a grade school kid being
scolded by the teacher for doing something incredibly stupid. But if what Sheldon did was so stupid, then
what exactly would have constituted being smart?
“I see,” the other man said. There was a slight pause as though things were being written down.
“Anything else?”
It now occurred to Sheldon that being smart might well have meant firmly refusing to play this
ridiculous game when Darren Scott and Walrus first came to him with it. For clearly there was no way to
win, and now he was stuck.
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Sheldon had intended to bring up the subject of his bank account, following what he’d meant to
be a demonstration that he was trying his best. He’d performed so badly, however, that he decided to
leave well enough alone.
“That’s all for now,” Sheldon said.
“Thank you, Sheldon. Stay in touch. Phone any time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Especially if the time is 7am, Pacific. On the 15th or the 30th.”
Sheldon broke the connection.
He felt so awful he wanted to hurl the phone into the bay. But he’d never had very good luck
with throwing things off piers.
As Sheldon was walking back to his car, the answer came to him. It wasn’t necessarily the
answer he had wanted, but he now knew what the smart move was with regard to the NSA. It was simple,
as profound solutions often tend to be. The answer was go with the flow.
He couldn’t know why the wind was blowing the way it was, but clearly the flow was trending
out to California, in to KlassWorks. There was no point in fighting it anymore. Sheldon was just going
to have to wait it out. He pulled his jacket tight as he headed toward the Taurus.
*
*
*
*
Yet when he stepped out of the vehicle scarcely 15 miles south-east in his Mountain View
apartment parking area, the air now felt warm and comfortable. Inviting even. As he squeezed past the
BMW, he impulsively reached out and touched it.
There were days when Sheldon had found he was able to free himself in some small measure
from all that was stressing him by relishing the thought that he could get into that car and drive it around
anytime he felt like it. Today was such a day.
He started to mount the steps, but stalled on the very first one. His evening flashed in front of
him--TV dinner, classic sitcoms playing in the background as he sat in the small living room with his
secret iBook and made lists. Occasionally he'd hear a neighbor come or go, but there would be no
company in his home apart from the plants and bushes with which he shared the apartment.
He considered that he could go to bed early in order to phone Walrus in the morning and undo
some of the damage. But hadn’t he just decided—not half an hour ago—to leave well enough alone?
Was he secretly longing to call because he was desperate for social interaction? Surely it hadn’t come to
that. Sheldon’s mind flashed to Margaret in Minnesota, but there was a time difference and she had a kid.
He just stood there. It was still officially the weekend. And here he was in Silicon Valley, where
some of the most important minds in the world lived. And, who knew, maybe Sheldon was one of them.
He took a long look at the beckoning BMW and made up his mind he was going to take a drive to
the other side of the Bay and show himself more of the sights. He'd cruise though Santa Clara, check out
Cupertino, maybe make it all the way up to Stanford if he felt like it. KlassWorks had given him the car
to use, so Sheldon figured he would now use it.
He reached into his pocket and found the key. He opened the door to the BMW and hesitantly
scooted inside. He settled in. He put his hands on the steering wheel, reclined back on the cushy seat,
closed his eyes, and smiled.
He then turned on the radio. He pushed the button that he thought would activate the sunroof,
only it popped the hood. He had to go out and slam it back down before starting the engine and heading
east, back out of Mountain View.
Sheldon thought that he’d forgotten how nice it was to drive a car that didn’t constantly make
knocking noises and smell of burnt oil. Or had he ever really even known that feeling?
Some people waiting at a bus stop turned to look at him when he stopped at a traffic light.
Sheldon put the radio down, then waved at the others. One guy gave Sheldon the finger. Sheldon did
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nothing to respond to the gesture, but when the light changed and he was able to tap the accelerator and
cruise away, he felt as though he'd had the last laugh.
He followed the 15. He went with the flow.
As Sheldon approached Skyline Boulevard, he noticed another convertible—a little Cabriolet—
with a group of teenagers in it moving parallel to him on his right side. The kids gave Sheldon a “cool
car” look. Sheldon smiled back.
But just then the beamer jumped suddenly to the left. The kids laughed at him as they sped off
into the night. The BMW started making “ding” sounds.
“What the heck?” Sheldon said to himself.
Suddenly his car jumped again, this time over the line and into the next lane. Fortunately, it was
unoccupied. But Sheldon had to grip the steering wheel with both hands to steady the vehicle.
He thought hard to try and figure out what the problem was. The car made another “ding” and
Sheldon suddenly remembered the driving simulator that Barry had demonstrated, designed to prevent
accidents. Could a prototype be attached to this car, one that was now malfunctioning?
Just then a Camaro pulled up close on his driver's side with rap music blaring. Four Hispanic
toughs with tattoos were looking in his direction. The one wearing a wool cap with a “49ers” emblem on
it gestured for Sheldon to roll down his window. Sheldon complied.
“Goddam, dude. Watch where you driving. How'd you like it if someone cut into you?”
“Sorry,” Sheldon responded. “New car.”
He had intended to say more, but the Camaro was already pulling away. Sheldon rolled his
window back up.
Just then the other car lunged back at him, full force. It smashed into the side of the BMW.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
The Camaro pulled back, then rammed Sheldon again. Sheldon heard his side mirror snap off
and clank down the road behind him.
He slowed for a yellow light and allowed the punks to accelerate through the intersection and
speed off howling into the night. Sheldon let out a breath.
He then made a right, turned away from the flow, and circled the block.
He passed the street where the encounter had taken place and checked down the boulevard to see
if his side mirror was in sight, but opted to continue along the smaller street. He pulled to the curb in
front of a dollar store that was closed for the night and exited the car to check the air pressure on the tires.
Suddenly he heard the sound of rubber skidding on pavement and car doors slamming. Before he
could even right himself, the punk in the wool cap had him by the collar and was throwing Sheldon
against the door of the beamer.
“Hey, faggot. You fucked up my whip.”
“I...your what?” Sheldon said.
The 49ers punk tossed Sheldon in the direction of a different thug, who caught Sheldon, got him
in a choke hold, and pushed him down real close to the Camaro's fender.
“See, dipshit. That's what. The paint's scratched. Get it?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sheldon said. “But I don't think that my car ever—”
“That's the problem, ese: you don't think.”
Sheldon found himself at a loss. He regretted not pulling over on the bigger street. At least there
had been on and off traffic there. “I'm sorry?” he remarked, unsure of what else he could say.
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“Fuck sorry,” the wool cap responded. “You going to pay for that shit. Or Tito’s going to 187
your ass.”
Sheldon looked from one tough to the other. They had him pinned against the Camaro with no
one else in sight.
“Don’t worry,” Sheldon said. “I'll give you the number of my insurance company and they'll take
care of it.”
The tough called Tito then said something that Sheldon might have found funny were it not
accompanied by a fist ramming against his solar plexus. “Screw that,” Tito howled. “We only deal with
principals!”
This was how Sheldon’s weekend concluded. His recently acquired habit of making large
withdrawals and therefore carrying around sizable amounts of cash proved costly.
Chapter Thirty
Sheldon sat opposite Chester in one of the conference rooms. It was just the two of them, apart
from several teak trees on the table, but Sheldon had suggested meeting in the Red Wing (despite
Chester’s insistence that they didn’t really need to) as it afforded easier potential access to equipment and
other staff. Perhaps his real reason, he now realized, is that he wanted to be somewhere more active and
less isolated.
Sheldon was massaging his sore shoulder and unwittingly rocking his chair in the hopes that both
might give him a comforting creak. Chester was scribbling endlessly into his notebook. This is how it
seemed that all too much of Sheldon’s time was spent in Silicon Valley—at least the time he wasn’t using
up trying to uncover terrorist plots for the NSA, or the time he wasn’t frittering away getting beaten up by
Mexican gangs.
A typical morning would get blown like this: Sheldon would ask a well-intentioned question
aimed at propelling their project forward, but Chester would then come back with another question, often
very basic and several degrees removed from the issue at hand. Sheldon would give an answer, wait a
small eternity for it to be comprehended and written down, and then suggest they do something, but
Chester would give a reason why they couldn’t, only to follow that up with still more questions.
It was often afternoon before either of them could roll up their sleeves and make any semblance
of progress. But the post-lunch toil was seldom any more productive, as information that would put their
new experimentation into context remained lacking, materials and instruments never seemed to arrive,
and all Sheldon would get back when he’d communicate his needs through the proper channels tended to
be vapid replies urging him to keep up the good work.
Sheldon’s job at KlassWorks seemed ideal for someone who wanted to get praised and paid for
doing very little. If Sheldon could have been content just blathering on to Chester every day, letting
Barry’s money go toward paying off his student loans, and waiting for Darren Scott and the Walrus to
eventually figure out what they wanted and keep their promises, all would have been dandy. But Sheldon
was frustrated. He felt like he was spinning his wheels.
Connie had told him to hurry up and do what he came to do. But no one seemed to be making
that very easy.
Sheldon heard a “boing-boing-boing” sound coming from down the hall.
“What’s that?” Chester said.
Sheldon shrugged and turned his attention to the teak trees on the table. He still didn’t know
what had led up to the handful of not-really-working prototypes and research descriptions that had been
thrown at him. He’d learned from Chester that someone named Lloyd had formerly headed the project—
he had also been the DNA patenting guy—but he had taken most of his work when he left.
Didn’t anyone keep records of these things?
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Just then Ivan and Helio strode by the door, revealing what the “boing boing boing” was. Both
were eagerly working paddleballs as they walked.
At least one question seemed answered by their passage.
Sheldon shook his head and tried massaging his other shoulder.
“So?” Chester said. “How would you alter pH level to improve sensory signals?” Sheldon
realized he was being asked this for the second time.
He also realized that only mystery he’d come even close to solving in his many weeks here had to
do with the sound that paddleballs make.
“Sorry, Chester,” Sheldon replied in lieu of an answer. He pushed his seat away from the table.
“I can’t just sit here and do this anymore. We’re not getting anywhere. I’m going to go try to find Barry
again.”
Chester nodded and put his pen down while Sheldon stood. “Good luck,” he said.
Sheldon glanced out the window and saw the Green Wing past the skyway on the other side of
the parking lot as he walked by. “And here’s a question for you—how come my office has to be so far
from everyone else’s?”
Sheldon moved toward the slide room with determination. Ivan and Helio were nowhere to be
seen, though he could hear the continuing “boing boing boing” on the other side of the hall.
He arrived at the locked door and let himself in with Barry’s keycard. There were three people
within—Connie included—engaged in their own endeavors. One or two seemed to glance at the bruise
on Sheldon’s cheek as he walked past, but no one made eye contact. Sheldon kept his focus on the issue
at hand and was glad to see the door to Barry’s private office open. But he was then disappointed after
he’d knocked and entered to see that no one was inside.
Sheldon decided that he could wait and that he didn’t even mind making himself at home behind
Barry’s desk as he did so. Once he’d fallen into Barry’s executive chair and discovered a bolder part of
himself, he decided to look around.
The first thing that caught his attention was that same cardboard binder with the B.K. on it
stashed atop a PC tower just under the desk. But Sheldon was not in the mood to read the chronicles of
his wasted weeks. He tried the bottom desk drawer, but found it locked. The other two contained nothing
but pens and staplers and sugary snacks.
Then the ceramic egg on the desk caught Sheldon’s eye—particularly the words “International
Young Scholars – Science Program Finalist” and the date 1999 on the side. Sheldon picked it up. It
wasn’t a bell after all. It was a little porcelain trophy. It clanked because it was hollow inside and Barry
had put a coin or something in it. Maybe a pre-Euro currency such as the Finnish mark, Sheldon thought.
He let out a breath and put it back down. He decided he didn’t want to explore anymore. He
wanted to forget. He snatched up the B.K. folder and flipped through the contents to take his mind off the
egg.
It worked far better than he had expected it would. These were not his reports. Barry walked in
from the slide room. Sheldon heard him but kept reading.
“Smell-Don Pig-Pen,” Barry said. “Heard you had trouble with the cops the other night.”
Sheldon didn’t put the folder down or vacate Barry’s chair. “I had trouble with the punks who
attacked me,” he corrected. “The police just wanted me to give a statement.”
“Surprised they even bothered,” Barry said. “The cops are like homeboys to half the gangs in the
valley.”
Barry took a seat on the sofa, but not before removing the folder that Sheldon was flipping
through from the other's hands. “You can sit in my chair if you want,” Barry said. “But B.K.’s still my
initials, not yours.”
“Sorry…I was just…” Sheldon began. “What was that stuff?”
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“Different project. Nothing to do with yours.”
“Speaking of mine, I never got any more original data.”
“Couldn't find any,” Barry said. “Sorry, Shel. Other stuff does happen in this company.”
“The other stuff in that folder looked very close to what I'm working on,” Sheldon remarked.
“I told you, it's different shit,” Barry snapped back as he threw open the drawer to the file cabinet
over which his toy basketball hoop stood guard. He stuffed the folder in hastily.
“Different species of plant, but same line of study. Interpolating ionic signals. You've been
doing this a long time. Yet you're trying to make me work blind.”
“Blind? You already know most of this stuff!” Barry slammed the metal drawer shut hard. This
caught the attention of a couple of people out in the slide room. Barry got up and closed the door.
Sheldon waited.
“All right, I'll admit it,” Barry said at last. “The earthquake sensor is just the tip of the iceberg.
We've got a thing going for one of our biggest clients that’s all about non-obvious modes of biological
communication.”
“Well? What do you have?” Sheldon asked.
“Hey, I'm paying you.” Barry retorted.
Theoretically, Sheldon thought to himself, ever mindful of the “glitches” that were sucking away
most of his salary.
Barry took a moment. He saw Sheldon’s eyes narrow across the desk with the ceramic egg
between them. He decided to try a different tack. “Come on, our job isn’t to catch you up. It’s the other
way around.”
“I can't help you fill in the blanks if I don't know what they are,” Sheldon said.
“Yeah, right. I tell you everything we know, you get there without us and cut us out of the
market.”
“What market?”
“Come on, we all saw you trade your secrets to ex-KGB for one night of naughty.”
That did it. Sheldon pushed himself away from the desk and stood up. Barry watched silently as
he walked to the door and opened it. “Up yours, Barry,” Sheldon said.
“Wow, now that's a comeback. Can I write that one down?” Barry called as Sheldon headed
across the slide room.
Then Barry went to his desk and picked up the phone. But something on one of his security
monitors caught his attention and he put the phone down and sat back behind his desk to enjoy the show.
Chapter Thirty-One
The parking attendant gave Sheldon a friendly wave on both seeing and hearing the distinctive
Ford Taurus heading toward the exit. But Sheldon was in too much of a hurry to get away from the
KlassWorks offices to return the gesture.
He was not in a good mood. It now seemed that all of his initial reservations had likely been
correct, though he had very much wanted to be proven wrong. What stung the most were the false hopes
he’d been given, the excitement he’d been allowed to feel, the promises that no one had had any intention
of fulfilling.
He felt himself calm down a touch as he got on the freeway. It was not, he realized as a cooler
head began to prevail, that his time at KlassWorks had ruined him for life. But he just didn’t want any
more of it. He wasn’t collaborating or learning or discovering—he was being milked. He was training
Chester to someday do what allegedly was Sheldon’s job.
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Plus, Sheldon was afraid that, if he did happen to come up with something great while he was in
Barry’s employ, KlassWorks would own it and likely fritter it away in order to turn a quick buck and hold
on to its corporate advantage. He had the feeling that if somebody at KlassWorks found a way to
generate space-time wormholes, Barry would probably want to license it exclusively for Pez dispensers or
some such thing.
Maybe that wasn’t being fair to Barry, Sheldon allowed. But the fact was that the arrangement
did not seem to be working out. Sheldon wanted very much to get away. He wanted to tender his
resignation and go some place where he could follow his own path.
But would Darren Scott and the Walrus allow him to do that? Sheldon felt confident that
whatever gene patenting or BlackBerry knock offs or the like KlassWorks was involved with should
prove to be a matter of little concern to the NSA. But Sheldon was equally sure that Mr. Scott and
Walrus weren’t about to take that on faith. Conjecture wouldn’t get him off the hook. They’d make him
stay until he had whatever they thought they wanted. They’d make it hard for him to go anywhere else.
Sheldon weighed his options and decided there was probably only one way for him to take a
stand, be true to his self, and show them all. He’d call in sick the next day.
And that was Friday, so that meant he wouldn’t have to go in again until Monday. If Chester
didn’t beg him to work on Saturday. Sheldon grew tired of bemoaning his plight. He turned on the radio.
“Thoughts are things!” a speaker was in the midst of announcing over the airwaves. “They have
energy and weight. They can be measured!”
That seemed true only in a limited sense, but at least it sounded like this guy was in a better mood
than Sheldon, so he kept listening.
“We must never underestimate the power of our own minds, for what we focus on the universe
manifests,” the speaker continued. “We need only to send out the right signals to make whatever we want
a reality.”
Sheldon turned the radio off. The whole California attitude—the notion of everyone being
entitled to everything they ever wish for—that was also part of what was wearing him down. He listened
instead to the engine knocking for the rest of the drive home.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon felt like slamming the door to his apartment. But others would hear, he worried, and
wonder what the problem was. So he closed and locked his front door very quietly, walked softly across
the living room, then slammed his mail down on the kitchen counter.
He then poured himself a tall glass of pineapple juice, went to rinse out the tub and get a bath
going, put in a classical jazz CD, and plopped down on the sofa to stew and unwind, hopefully in that
order. KlassWorks didn’t know it yet, but Sheldon’s weekend had begun.
He took a sip of juice and flipped through the mail, looking for something that would take his
mind off his troubles.
The third item he found did that in a way he could never have expected.
It was a relatively small envelope. The postmark said it had been sent from Japan roughly a week
previous. There was no return address. And yet something about the way Sheldon’s name was written on
the front made his hand start to shake as he opened it.
Something fell onto his lap. A passport. He held a note and another folded envelope in his hand.
The note was from…Good God! It wasn’t signed but it was in K.T.’s handwriting. Sheldon skimmed it.
Steeps, The rumors of my demise…you know
the rest. Been fighting the good fight and had
a big breakthrough. Come see.
Be discreet and bring a six pack of Hansen’s
—I’m in the land of high fructose.
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Sheldon reread the note more slowly. Then he picked up the passport in his lap. It was his own.
The same one he used to keep in his sock drawer in New Mexico. Only now it had about three times as
many stamps in it. It had been all around the world.
Sheldon opened the folded envelope—more of a cardboard pouch. It contained a roundtrip ticket
to Tokyo, the flight out in three days, the return open. Sheldon read the letter one last time.
He concluded that K.T. had to have written it—the nickname, the line about Hansen’s Natural
Sodas, the unmistakable handwriting. He also surmised that K.T. had to have done so in the not-toodistant past. Hansen’s had only stopped using high fructose corn syrup in favor of cane sugar the year
before. If K.T. had wanted not to identify himself to possible third party readers, but needed to
communicate to Sheldon that the note was genuine and recent, this was precisely the way he would have
done it.
Sheldon stopped himself. What do I mean that “was the way he would have done it” he thought?
K.T. is. He’s alive!
Sheldon had no idea why his brother had not gifted him with this information prior to now. But
he was nonetheless thrilled at the news. His mood had indeed changed. He had sent out a signal that he
wanted his brother back, Sheldon thought sardonically, and “the universe” had made it a reality.
After a moment, Sheldon looked up to the sound of water splashing onto the floor. The flow in
the apartment was very slow and a bath took ages to run. This was the first one he’d ever managed to let
overflow.
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PART SEVEN: BELIEVING IN TREES
(CHIBA, 2006)
Chapter Thirty-Two
Though one would not have known it thumbing through his passport, Sheldon had not left the
United States in six years.
A lot had changed in the air travel industry during that time and none of it for the better, Sheldon
was sad to note. He had been required to remove his belt, root through his carry-on to find a bottle of eye
drops which was then taken away from him, empty his pockets into a tray, pull off his shoes, and strip his
valuable laptop bare from its carrying sleeve to be x-rayed separately. All of this had to be performed on
foot and in a moving line. There were no chairs to sit on to help with the unlacing of shoes or unpacking
of bags.
In the confusion, Sheldon had dropped his passport and boarding pass, both contained in the
complementary pouch from an online international travel agent called “Relaxing Getaways.”
Sheldon considered himself fortunate to then pass through the metal screener without it beeping.
But even the time he gained bypassing the wand and the pat down did not save him from having all of his
things crash into each other at the far end of the x-ray scanner. He hurried to gather up the pile of jacket,
backpack, keys, wallet, computer, watch, case and shoes—passport and boarding pass in his mouth and
other passengers already on top of him. He somehow managed to get the bundle off the assembly line
and run in his stockinged feet to a bench several yards away where it took him a good five minutes to
catch his breath and pull himself back together.
No wonder his mother had vowed never to fly again. An older person would never be able to
navigate this obstacle course, Sheldon decided. Thank goodness he’d gotten through it, he thought to
himself as he flipped through his CDs to make sure nothing had been bruised. (No scratches, though a
mood-reading soil spike he’d brought along did remain an unhappy scarlet for some time.)
Oh, well, perhaps all the new inconvenience served some higher good like making it harder for
terrorists to hijack planes, Sheldon allowed as he picked himself up and started toward the shopping area.
A “Security Express” line that he passed en route, however, made him think again. The Business and
First Class passengers from this line were bypassing most of the checks. The cost of terrorism had simply
gone up, Sheldon concluded.
After a fitful and turbulent flight, during which the plane had been jerked so violently by wind
pockets over the Pacific that Sheldon had almost found himself wishing for a hijacking, the 747 at last
touched down at Narita Airport in the Tokyo-adjacent prefecture of Chiba. Emerging unshaven and in
desperate need of a washing up, Sheldon headed straight for a restroom before continuing on to passport
control.
Here, it seemed he would again be destined to stand in the worst line available. In addition to the
Fast Track lanes, Sheldon counted around fifteen quickly moving lines for holders of Japanese passports
and three lines for those with something called a Re-Entry Permit. All other foreigners, however, were
required to wait in a lonely single line that was bordered off from the rest and snaked back and forth amid
rope dividers under a large sign that read “Welcome to Japan.”
The line contained well over 200 tired passengers and led to only four of the 25 available
immigration stations. Sheldon resigned himself to another hour before he’d be legally in the country and
he used the first two minutes of that to fill in his landing card. A space on the form asked for dates of
previous visits to Japan; and, as Sheldon was flipping through the passport looking for these, he noticed
something…a Re-Entry Permit stamp! Thank goodness for that, he thought.
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He slipped under the rope, inviting the immediate attention of an immigration official monitoring
the area. All Sheldon had to do, however, was gesture at the stamp in his passport and point at the ReEntry Permit line that he was walking toward and the guard nodded and looked away. Ninety seconds
later, Sheldon was wheeling his check-in luggage out into the arrivals lobby.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sheldon stepped out of customs and into a crowd—drivers, relatives, friends, all looking for
fellow passengers to receive. In his peripheral vision, Sheldon thought he saw a Japanese couple take
note of him, but just then, out of nowhere, he was pounced upon by a good-sized border collie.
Sheldon fell over. The dog jumped onto his chest and licked his face. Sheldon’s first thought
was that this was one of the drug-sniffing animals maintained by airport security, but then he realized that
the ones he’d just passed were of a different breed and this one seemed younger and was greeting him not
unlike a long-lost friend. Sheldon tried to push the dog away, but it barked and licked him all the more.
Its bark sounded not unlike the word “hi.”
A Japanese man came to help Sheldon up and pull the dog away. “Down, Mulbee,” said a
familiar voice. Sheldon turned and a chill ran down him. This was not a couple at all. It was a Japanese
man…standing next to his own brother, who was dressed in drag and wearing a wig.
“K.T.?” Sheldon said.
K.T. put his arms around Sheldon, tight enough to silence him in the process. “Not so loud,”
K.T. whispered. “Save the reunion for the car.”
Sheldon found himself escorted to a Nissan Murano, a crossover SUV but one of the largest
personal vehicles to be found on Japanese roads. Sheldon was put into the back seat with the border
collie while the Japanese man got behind the wheel and K.T. rode shotgun. The Japanese man rolled
down his window and lit up a cigarette.
All remained quiet as they pulled through a security check leaving the airport proper with K.T.
looking down as though reading and Sheldon unable to do anything but sit there and get licked. When the
car finally took to the highway and K.T. showed no signs of turning around, Sheldon tapped his brother
on the shoulder and spoke up:
“Hey, do you think you could let your own brother know you’re alive next time?”
“Hey!”
K.T. had turned to face Sheldon but the word “Hey” (or reasonable facsimile thereof) had come
from the border collie. K.T. grinned. “Pretty good, huh? He can also say ‘Hi’ and ‘Ho.’ I’m in the
process of teaching him ‘Ha.’
“Ho!” the dog woofed as he wagged his tail.
“Anyway, I’m alive,” K.T. said. “You enjoyed my ‘all is well’ app, I hope?”
“You mean the one you put on my computer before you let me believe you were drowned in the
Rio?”
The man driving said something to K.T. in Japanese. K.T. answered with the affirmative “Hai.”
The border collie chimed in: “Hi!” It wagged its tail.
The driver pulled into the left lane and took the next exit. K.T. withdrew a plastic bag of dried
beef from the glove box and tossed a piece to the dog. It caught the treat in mid-air.
“That’s Mulbee, by the way,” K.T. said. “Named him after Mulber.”
“I’ll tell Mom,” Sheldon responded. “It’ll make up for her thinking her first born committed
suicide and has been rotting for three years at the bottom of a muddy river.”
“Three and a half,” K.T. corrected.
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Sheldon reflected on how his last statement had come out harsher than he’d intended, no doubt
partly because the journey had worn him out. Mulbee finished his snack then licked Sheldon’s hand.
K.T. passed Sheldon the bag so he could continue offering treats.
“Communication through traditional means didn’t seem that smart given the circumstances,” K.T.
said. “I tried a few times to send you a message that I was alive through the Coula branch,” he added.
“But I guess with the time difference and all…”
The SUV passed into a tunnel as K.T. said this and it was like the years suddenly vanished along
with the Japanese countryside. Sheldon had never known as a child when his brother was joking and
when he was serious. Sheldon had grown older and his understanding of the world had improved, but
when he was with K.T. again he felt just as naïve and just as unsure. As the lights of the tunnel played on
K.T.’s features, Sheldon fancied that he was watching his brother travel through time yet never aging. He
wondered if his inability to completely comprehend K.T. was not, ultimately, less a reflection of
Sheldon’s blind spots and more the very character trait that made his brother so very different.
He decided to leave the Coula branch remark alone. A part of him fancied that the Coula branch
that he now kept in Mountain View had, in fact, communicated the message that K.T. was all right, but
Sheldon, being a scientist, had taken a more empirical view. Sheldon sometimes wondered if he
shouldn’t be more like his brother and less scientific. He pulled himself away from the dialogue in his
head and asked, “So anyway, what are you doing here in Japan?”
“Science,” was K.T.’s answer.
“Ho!” Mubee added.
“I can’t wait to show you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Murano pulled into a parking lot behind an old building. There only seemed room for a
handful of other cars, with gardens and roofs stretching over the small surrounding fence. Still, the area
seemed not quite urban enough to be downtown Tokyo.
K.T. had a brief exchange with the Japanese man then turned to Sheldon. “By the way, this is
Hide,” K.T. said. “He’s offered to walk Mulbee while I show you my breakthrough research.”
“Nice to meet you, Hide,” Sheldon offered.
“Sorry, but I can’t speak English,” Hide responded. Mulbee barked “Ho!” as Hide got out and
closed the door.
K.T. peeled off his wig to reveal brown locks underneath and stuffed the disguise in the glove
box. He then leaned toward Sheldon and winked. “Hey, you want to impress him when he comes
around?” K.T. suggested. “Tell him ‘Domo.’”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s like a Japanese aloha. Try it whenever you feel you’re supposed to say something and nine
times out of ten it’ll be right.”
Just then Hide opened the rear door on the other side and attached a leash to Mulbee’s collar. He
locked eyes with Sheldon and grinned. “Domo,” Sheldon said.
“Oh!” Hide ejaculated wide-eyed. He excitedly articulated more to K.T. than Sheldon had heard
him say the entire trip from the airport. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Mulbee chimed in eagerly as Hide pulled the
dog from the car and closed the door.
“Told you.” K.T. grinned as he stepped out. “He said for you to pick up the language so quickly,
we must have genius in our genes.”
“But—”
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Too late. K.T. had already slammed the door and was heading toward the rear entrance of the
building. Sheldon picked up his backpack and followed.
Sheldon followed K.T. up three steps to a wood paneled floor. K.T. had already removed his
shoes and was stepping into a bland pair of cheap slippers while offering up another pair for Sheldon to
use. The hallway smelled of must and mildew.
“Come on. Before they lock up.”
“What is this place?” Sheldon asked, struggling to keep up with K.T. who was already moving
toward a creaky wooden staircase.
“Annex of Todai, the most prestigious university in the country. I’m an adjunct professor here.”
Sheldon looked dubiously at the dull plaques and ear-worn photos adorning the display cases.
“Trust me, dust and academia go hand and hand in Japan,” K.T. explained. “Old school values.
Literally. It’s a way of saying grant money is for research and not fancy buildings.”
K.T. had already arrived at a sliding door which he seemed dismayed to find closed. Sheldon was
still processing the implications of what his brother had said. “Sounds great,” Sheldon said. “I should
move out here.”
“That could be problematic,” K.T. replied as he tried the door and verified it was locked.
At that moment, a grad-student-aged youth from down the hall stepped out of a different room
and said something that began with the words “Sheldon-sensei.” Both K.T. and Sheldon turned to look.
Sheldon watched as the grad student gestured down the hall then bowed and disappeared in his room
again.
K.T. turned and started walking the other way. “Need a gaijin card in order to open a bank
account, get an employment contract, etc. And the info for that comes off your passport. Long story
short, you can’t move to Japan because you already live here.”
He handed Sheldon an I.D. card as they re-entered the same staircase and started back down. The
only English words were “Certificate of Alien Registration” and “Sheldon Thigpin” below that. But the
photo was of K.T., still with orange hair and a red puffy nose.
“Not even the slightest resemblance,” Sheldon balked.
They reached the bottom and K.T. took the card back. “People change. Look at Michael
Jackson.”
K.T. tried the door to the night watchman’s room. It was locked as well. He slammed his fist
against it, startling Sheldon. The bang was so loud that Mulbee responded with a “hey!” from somewhere
outside.
“Shoot, I really wanted to show you what I was doing here.”
“It’s okay, K.T. I only just got in. I’m happy enough to see you for now.”
Just then some chimes sounded outside, presumably through loud speakers strategically placed
throughout the neighborhood. Sheldon thought he heard Mulbee and at least one other dog howl at them.
These were followed by a female voice making an announcement. Sheldon had never heard a
P.A. system go out to an entire community like that before, but K.T. didn’t even seem to be listening. If
this was an evacuation warning ahead of a nuclear holocaust or some such, it sounded like an
uncommonly calm and pleasant one.
K.T. would later tell Sheldon that such chimes were played by different regional governments,
usually around 6pm to signal the end of the business day. In urban areas, K.T. would say, they would be
followed with a reminder to commute safely, while in rural areas they might urge farmers to plant wheat.
All K.T. said when this one ended, however, was: “Come with me to my office. I’m going to try the
super.”
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Chapter Thirty-Five
The covert pride that Japan’s highbrow academics took in objects dank and old apparently did not
extend to computer equipment. Sheldon had begun to formulate this theory as he had watched K.T.
unlock and pull open the sliding wooden door to his own office, then pad across the wood paneled floor in
faded green slippers to a drab steel desk where he proceeded to power on a sparkling new Dual Core Mac.
As K.T. now punched angrily at his keyboard, Sheldon sat in a worn but cozy leather lounge chair
and surveyed titles on the surrounding bookcase. Roughly half the dusty tomes were in Japanese, another
one-fourth lesser known others on unfamiliar subjects, but Sheldon was surprised and pleased to spot
many books that he knew. Linguistics authors started with Noam Chomsky and Benjamin Lee Whorf and
ran the gamut to modern day theorists.
A smattering of botany books gave Sheldon further
encouragement. And there seemed an almost exhaustive section on kinesics and non-verbal
communication.
“Crap, the server’s offline,” K.T. griped. “And all the damned files I wanted to show you are
locked up in the lab!”
“Hey, that’s okay. We can catch up on other stuff tonight.”
“Yeah, but crap.”
Just then the extension phone on K.T.’s desk rang and he grabbed at it. Sheldon noticed that the
telephone was placed on one side of the keyboard and, sure enough, a potted Coula branch was on the
other. Almost as though K.T. considered it a third way of sending and receiving messages.
“Hai,” K.T. called into the receiver. He listened for an instant then seemingly tried a couple of
times but was unsuccessful in getting what he wanted. Halfway through, K.T.’s voice took on a more
resigned tone and he stopped typing. He ended the exchange with Domo then hung up and exhaled.
Sheldon felt relieved, but K.T. just continued to stare at the phone, defeated.
“That ‘Domo’ phrase does seem to come in handy,” Sheldon offered.
K.T. remained silently focused on his phone. Sheldon turned away and then noticed a framed
photo on the windowsill. He stood and picked it up.
At last K.T. shut down his Mac and clicked off the monitor. “It’s not a phrase,” he said. “It’s an
adverb. It means like ‘extremely’ or ‘very much.’ But you only use it with polite interjections such as
‘thank you’ or ‘excuse me’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ so basically it means all of them. That’s why Japanese should
have been the new Esperanto. It’s so simple and to the point. Like a Euro currency for languages.”
Sheldon got the gist of what K.T. was telling him. But his mind was distracted by the picture in
his hand. It was K.T. and a girl, surrounded by a crowd of people, and cutting a wedding cake.
“Are you married, K.T.?”
K.T. stood, took the photo and replaced it on the sill. “Technically, no,” he said. “You are.”
K.T. looked at the palm of his own hand and scratched it in a distracted way.
Meanwhile, Sheldon leaned close to the photo and noticed that a banner at the bottom of the cake
said, in English: ‘Congratulations to Sheldon and Mariko.’ Just then K.T. pulled a cord and a panel of
venetian blinds fell noisily in front of the windowsill. The resultant cloud of dust made Sheldon choke.
“Don’t worry,” K.T. offered as he turned toward the door. “It’s not registered in the US. You
can still get married there.”
“Thanks,” Sheldon managed through coughs as he followed K.T. out of the office. He watched
as K.T. found his key and then had to line up the wobbly door with the latch so he could get it locked.
K.T. again seemed lost in a grumpy reverie. Sheldon decided it best to try and keep the conversation
moving.
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“I noticed Hide in that photo. Was he your best man?”
“Hide’s short,” was K.T.’s brief retort. K.T. led the way to a different staircase at the other end
of the hall.
“He looked about five-nine,” Sheldon said. “Isn’t that about average in Japan?”
“I mean his real name’s ‘Hideyoshi.’ Every time a Japanese guy tells you his name’s ‘Hide’ or
‘Yoshi’ or ‘Tomo,’ they’re giving you an abbreviated version. Most male names are four syllables, most
non-infected verb forms are four syllables, the goddamn pronoun ‘I’ is four whole syllables in Japanese.”
K.T. scratched his palms between gestures as he charged down the stairs. He spun around at the bottom
to face his brother. “Do you get what I’m telling you?”
“Uhh…that Japanese words have a lot of syllables?”
K.T. made a face. He suddenly scratched his left palm fiercely like he was trying to take the skin
off. Then he uttered a strangely familiar line and poked Sheldon in the chest with each syllable. “Gee,
our old LaSalle ran great,” he half spoke half sang.
It took Sheldon an instant to place the reference. It was the last line of the opening theme song to
the classic sitcom All in the Family. “Those were the days?” Sheldon asked.
“All those units of information and every morpheme’s one syllable. Unless you want to be a
stickler about ‘LaSalle.’”
Sheldon didn’t. What he wanted was for K.T. to get it out of his system so that they could relax a
bit. “So Japanese words are longer than English,” he said, guiding his brother back on track.
“Yeah. And so?”
“People abbreviate?”
Sheldon was relieved to see K.T. suddenly crack a smile. Sheldon wasn’t sure what he’d just
said, but it earned him a pat on the shoulder.
“That’s an understatement,” K.T. enthused. “Words are used instead of sentences, grunts instead
of words, gestures instead of grunts. See what I’m getting at?”
“Mmm,” Sheldon grunted.
K.T. nodded at the apparent zen profundity of Sheldon’s remark and broke out into a wide grin.
“This is the perfect place to study the big picture. To get beyond the trees and see the forest. There’s
probably more sensitivity to non-verbal communication here than anywhere else in the world.”
And with that K.T. started the other way around a corner. When Sheldon followed, he saw that
they had circled the building and were heading back to the rear exit where they’d left their shoes. For the
moment it seemed again that maybe there was a method to his brother’s madness.
Just then Sheldon felt a vibration in his pocket. It startled him because his cellular provider was
an ocean away. And then he remembered…
“Hey, K.T., I’m almost afraid to say this…but there’s wifi in here, right?”
“That part of the building, yeah. That’s why I try to walk around it. Don’t worry, I drink a lot
more water these days. Distilled, of course.”
Sheldon took his BlackBarry out and saw that it was pulling in 24 hours worth of e-mails. He
couldn’t help feeling instinctively glad for the convenience. But he knew that that was a mistake. He
should have turned it off when he got on the airplane. (And he would have had the security check not left
him so rattled.) If the device were smart enough to send back for his messages half a world away, it
would also be smart enough to relay a rough idea of his location to anyone who’d be interested. Sheldon
didn’t want to cause his brother any trouble. (After his missing three days of work, there were likely one
or two people at KlassWorks who would fall into the interested category, but Sheldon cared far less about
that.) He hoped that he had not just inadvertently but stupidly betrayed K.T.’s request that he “be
discreet.”
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Chapter Thirty-Six
“So what are you, a fugitive from justice or something?” Sheldon asked after he’d used the warm
moist towel he’d just been giving to thoroughly sponge his face.
K.T. heard the question but continued to study his menu for an instant longer before glancing up
and countering, “Why? What did you hear?”
“Nothing. I just—”
Sheldon had to hold the thought while K.T. exchanged views on what to order with Hide. Then
the two of them summoned a waitress, pointed to several plates of raw meat and vegetables and watched
as the woman took the cover off a metal skillet fitted into the table and lit a gas fire below it. Sheldon
heard K.T. say “domo” to her as she walked away.
“You disappear, you don’t tell anyone you’re alive, you live in Japan under an assumed named—
mine—”
“Don’t get so animated. People can sometimes tell what you’re talking about, even if they don’t
understand.”
Sheldon suddenly became self-conscious. He looked around the restaurant, then dropped his
voice. “Sorry,” he said.
K.T. took a sip of shochu, the sweet distilled alcoholic beverage he’d ordered for all three of them
as soon as they’d arrived. Sheldon noticed that K.T. returned his moist towel crumpled to the small disk
it had arrived on while Hide had re-rolled his. Sheldon decided to follow Hide’s example. Then K.T. put
his glass down as a plate of meat arrived and began to scoop bits of it on the hot skillet.
“I was on a no-fly list,” he remarked at last.
“A what?”
“Government list. People the state doesn’t want to fly, and the airlines oblige.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Who knows? Government screw-up, terrorist with a similar name, it’s not like they give you a
no-fly list plaque and make speeches. They just keep you off airplanes.”
“I see,” Sheldon said.
“So anyway, limited options. Cross into Mexico and exit from there, or borrow my brother’s
passport and save the headache. I’m surprised you didn’t track me down years ago. I drew you a map. It
was either here or the Irish Sea.”
Sheldon suddenly flashed on the odd soap markings that K.T. had left on his bathroom mirror in
New Mexico with the scribbles and circles and ‘x’s. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought
better of it.
Meanwhile, K.T. expertly removed a piece of beef from the grill with his chopsticks, wrapped it
in a leaf of lettuce, dipped it in sauce and placed it on Sheldon’s plate.
“The problem,” K.T. continued, “was that I entered the country as you, so when I found a place to
live and got a job I had to go on using your name.”
Sheldon tried the wrap that K.T. had prepared for him. He found it to be delicious. His face had
apparently revealed this, for Hide leaned forward and said very slowly (as though Sheldon could now
understand Japanese if enunciated carefully), O-niku doo desu ka? Oishii? Sheldon glanced at K.T. who
said nothing. He then nodded and replied, “Domo.”
Hide laughed, clapped his hands excitedly and pointed at Sheldon. “Good Japanese! You very
clever!” he exclaimed.
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Meanwhile, K.T. assembled two more lettuce wraps for his brother, this time including onions
and peppers as well.
“Thanks,” Sheldon said.
“Look, I’m sorry it took me so long to make contact. I wanted to tell you the whole thing face to
face. I wanted to be settled and showing results with my research so you could see it all and understand.”
Sheldon nodded.
Whether there was more to his brother keeping a low profile or not, Sheldon had heard all he
needed to. However, now it was his turn to speak.
“There’s something I need to tell you, K.T.,” Sheldon said. Then he proceeded to explain about
the BlackBarry and how he’d carelessly left it on. In the course of the conversation, Sheldon removed the
phone from his pocket. K.T. studied it with interest before passing it to Hide for a glance. Then he
finished eating and signaled for a second glass of shochu. His face showed no immediate concern.
“I can take care of it. The university internet’s relayed from the main campus across town
anyway, so harder to pinpoint. Plus, the good news is these things work both ways.”
Sheldon was about to ask his brother what he meant by that last bit, but K.T. held up a hand to
silence him as Hide ordered more drinks. Sheldon wasn’t sure why it was necessary that he hear that
exchange, but a moment later the waitress brought not just another drink for Hide but one for Sheldon as
well, even though he still hadn’t finished his first. As Sheldon tried to correct this, he happened to notice
the Murano parked outside and Mulbee watching through the cracked window waiting. Presumably,
somewhere not far away, his brother had a wife named Mariko who was waiting as well…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
In the end, they wound up taking a taxi from the restaurant to K.T.’s house. Sheldon could see
from the pinkishness of Hide’s face as they staggered out to fetch the dog and the bags that K.T.’s friend
was in no condition to drive. K.T., on the other hand, maintained that he could have easily gotten the car
home and under normal circumstances he would have. “But police tend to be nosey when they pull you
over at night,” K.T. explained, and if they happened to check IDs they would likely get suspicious of two
Sheldon Thigpins in the same car.
“That would seem a pretty big coincidence,” Sheldon had agreed.
Hide had interjected from the front seat next to the driver that they could have argued that a
Sheldon Thigpin was like a Taro Suzuki—an extremely common name—and there was loud laughter as
the cab pulled to a stop in front of a small two-storey house with a brown metal roof.
Sheldon told K.T. that all he cared about was hitting the hay. Not counting one or two pitiful
catnaps on the plane, he’d been up for close to 40 hours and now craved a bed more than anything else.
“Well you’re not going to get one,” was K.T.’s wry reply as he retrieved Sheldon’s bags and
waved goodnight to Hide. “First off, this is a traditional Japanese house. You sleep on the floor.”
“Fine. Lead me to it.”
“But the other thing is, no one in this country gets to sleep unless they’ve had a bath first. And
getting licked by Mulbee in the car doesn’t count.”
Sheldon grinned at the flimsy joke. It sounded like something someone’s father would say. And
uttered as K.T. was unlocking his front door and checking the mailbox on his way in, it seemed to suggest
that Sheldon’s brother had somehow grown up.
As soon as Sheldon had entered the house, however, he saw K.T. drop his bags in the entryway
then run to the middle of a small kitchen with wood-paneled floors. K.T. fell to his knees and pulled one
of the panels up. “Get your shoes off and come here. I want to show you something.”
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Sheldon did as he was told. He saw that there was a plastic basin underneath the floor that was
filled with a brown paste. From this, K.T. removed a cucumber, which he proceeded to break in half and
take a bite from. “Pickles!” he enthused.
Just then a woman slid open a screen door and entered the room from the other side. She had a
butterfly print robe, wet hair, and what sounded like admonishing words concerning the situation. K.T.
froze, eyes locked with Sheldon and one hand still in the pickle bin, as the woman said her piece. Then
he quickly replaced the floor panel and hurried across the room to get Sheldon’s bags. “That’s Mariko,”
K.T. remarked as he rushed past.
“Hi,” Sheldon said.
“Hi!” Mulbee barked as he trod by en route to wait eagerly in front of the door that Mariko had
just come in from.
Mariko’s gaze settled on Sheldon and her demeanor changed instantly. She dropped to the floor
and bowed a full 90 degrees. The first word out of her mouth was “domo” though, predictably, Sheldon
didn’t catch the rest.
“She says welcome to our home and thank you for all you’ve done for our household,” K.T.
translated.
“What have I done?” Sheldon asked. K.T. didn’t answer as he dropped the bags into a room with
a TV behind the dining table then crossed to a staircase and ascended to the second floor. Meanwhile,
K.T.’s wife was still kneeling before him on the floor. “Believe me, whatever it was, I hardly even
realized I did it.”
“I can’t speak English,” Mariko responded.
“Should have figured you’d say that.”
At that moment, K.T. emerged from the stairs with a pile of linen, the top few pieces of which he
threw into the room where Sheldon would presumably be sleeping. “Come on. Got you a towel and robe.
The bath’s out here.”
K.T. slid open the screen. Mulbee disappeared out the back. Mariko turned and reprimanded her
husband. K.T. quickly put his hands together, bowed before a small altar near the door, and said a prayer
before exiting.
Sheldon looked at Mariko who smiled apologetically. He said the word “domo” and walked
around her to the still open door.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The backyard was a very small one and no doubt seemed all the more compact surrounded on
every side by a tall bamboo fence the way it was.
When K.T. explained how the bath worked, however, Sheldon understood. There was a small
outdoor shower room where Sheldon was at last able to wash off the residual dirt and sweat his body had
accumulated while traveling. Then he wrapped a towel around his waist for the short trip to the large
round tub. The water was warmer and more relaxing than he’d imagined it would be. It was marvelous
to sit and soak while looking up at the starry sky.
K.T. had already spent several minutes in the same bath (after first showering all the grit off his
own body) and was now in his yukata robe reclining on a lawn chair and enjoying the same view.
“So what are you two, Buddhist?” Sheldon asked.
“Shinto,” K.T. said. “I see it as a way to be spiritual without having to mess around with
religion.”
“Sounds convenient.”
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“When it works,” K.T. admitted. “Shinto allows that there are eight million gods. My
interpretation is eight million channels for communicating with a higher power. The problem is most
Catholics don’t like it all that much when you tell them there are 7,999,999 other ways to get to the same
end.”
Sheldon let the subject go and instead enjoyed the fresh night air. It was cleaner than he’d
expected for Tokyo. But, as K.T. had told him, he wasn’t actually in the city. Somewhere in the distance
a sports program was playing on a TV or radio.
“Must be a big tree on the other side of that fence,” Sheldon said.
“You can tell by the air?”
“That and leaves rustling every now and then.”
K.T. glanced over at the fence and was silent for a moment. Then he came out with something
unexpectedly profound. “Kind of like the way most of the world’s religions are,” he said. “You got
Muslims, you got Mormons, you got Baptists, you got Jews. They’re all with us on this side of the fence.
And they sense that there’s a God over in my neighbor’s yard.”
“What are you saying, that there’s no tree over there?”
“There’s a tree. I’ve seen it. But what I’m saying is that all these religious dudes haven’t, yet
instead of focusing on the fact that they all agree there seems to be a tree over there, they go and draw
pictures of it and describe which way it bends and how it wants them to live, and then they start wars
because their pictures don’t agree.”
“That’s good,” Sheldon said, unable to detect any flaw in his brother’s analogy. After all, even if
it turned out there was no tree, the point was the same. Sheldon felt himself overcome by a wave of peace
he could never quite remember feeling before. Not only was his brother alive and free, but he seemed to
have found his place in the world. Sheldon wondered what else he would see when they finally got into
the lab, what other things K.T. had worked out.
“Hey, Sheldon?” K.T. said. “Do you believe in trees?”
“Yeah,” Sheldon responded. “I think maybe I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sheldon slept on the floor of K.T.’s living room. Or two inches above it, strictly speaking, and on
a mat so soft and comfortable that Sheldon thought about asking whether he could buy one to have
shipped back to the U.S.
Sheldon also considered making a list of all the possible reasons he had slept so soundly for
future reference. But as it turned out, he scarcely had enough time to peek inside his backpack while
dressing to verify his laptop was there, much less power it up. K.T. had awoken him by turning on the
large TV his bedding lay next to. Ten minutes later, Sheldon was summoned to have a breakfast of rice,
vegetables and fermented natto beans at the breakfast table in the adjoining room. (K.T. and Mariko
shared greens from a single plate, while Sheldon got one of his own.) Then, maybe another ten minutes
after that, Hide was outside in the Murano honking the horn and Sheldon had to scramble to collect
himself and apologize for not making his mat.
They pulled into the same parking lot behind the same old building, but this time with no dog to
take care of. Hide entered as well. They moved down the halls to K.T.’s lab to find what appeared to be
two different graduate students already inside, having rolls and tea at a large work table, a stack of papers
nearby. The grad students rose, bowed to K.T., then started to collect their things. But K.T. said
something in Japanese and they sat back down to resume their breakfast.
There were few plants to be seen, Sheldon noticed. Not much chemistry equipment either.
Of the three areas that comprised the facility, the room with computers, video and sound
equipment in which Sheldon now stood was by far the largest. A smaller wet laboratory was visible
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through a doorway with a few heat sinks and Bunsen burners, but most of the instruments there were
electrical as well. For an instant, Sheldon thought they would be proceeding into the wet lab as Hide
walked in, but this was only to retrieve three lab coats (one of which was offered to Sheldon) and Hide
had turned off the light when he exited.
Meanwhile, despite what had likely been an invitation from K.T. for the two grad students to take
their time, they seemed to be making a show of eating more quickly. The taller of the two (who had long
hair, a Blink 182 t-shirt, and a rock star look about him) even picked up a page from his stack to study as
he chewed. Yet both continued to glance and grin from time to time at Sheldon, Hide and K.T. Sheldon
wondered whether his own presence was responsible for all the joviality or if it was just a very smiley
university.
The last of the three areas was a fully enclosed room against the far wall that had a door on it,
which K.T. had to unlock. There was a large dark mirror on the side that might have been one-way with
cameras behind it if this room were also used as a psychology laboratory. It certainly was in the right
position with respect to both the worktable and collection of chairs near a busy whiteboard behind it.
Sheldon saw the glow of several computer terminals within as K.T. entered for long enough to flick a few
switches and then came out again.
Then, a large screen began to descend at the head of the worktable and the grad students took this
as their cue to be finished with their breakfast. They bowed and said “domo” to K.T. and smiled all
around as they collected their trash. Then the taller of the two announced to Sheldon in perfect English:
“I hope you enjoy your stay in Japan and that you find your visit to our campus most rewarding.”
They were gone before Sheldon could respond. Hide pulled one of the plastic boxes the students
had just thrown away from the trash and brought it to the table, where he sat down and removed a
package of cigarettes. K.T. called for Sheldon to sit in one of two chairs that were behind a desk with
several video controls on top of it.
“At last. The stuff’s all online.”
“Great.”
A swirling pizza-wheel cursor suggested the system needed another few seconds to sort the files
out. K.T. busied himself with a couple other adjustments as he waited. “What you’re about to see is a
little unorthodox,” he cautioned, “but it can all be confirmed with repeated experimentation under similar
conditions.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Sheldon said. “I was worried when I saw Secret Life of Plants on
your bookshelf yesterday.”
K.T. grinned without turning. The spinning pizza had gone away. “Hey, it’s still a fun read,” he
responded. “But for science, the initials say it all.”
Sheldon had to think a second: S.L.O.P.
K.T. double-clicked a button on his control panel. Then he pulled two folded sheets of paper
from his shirt pocket and poked them in Sheldon’s direction, still without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Speaking of secret codes, I found the trace-route page on the KlassWorks site after you went to bed last
night and deleted your message-ID.”
K.T. arranged files as Sheldon accepted the prints. “Your mistake was letting e-mail go through a
corporate server. Fortunately it was only up there a few hours.” K.T. then hit a switch and crossed his
arms. “Now,” he said. “Watch this.”
The screen suddenly came alive with video of the president of the United States. Sheldon
recognized the footage from a Michael Moore film. It was George Bush at a Florida elementary school
on September 11th, 2001, having just been informed that the nation was under attack, fumbling with the
children’s book My Pet Goat.
Sheldon let out a chuckle. K.T. had his attention. Hide raised his eyebrows as he lit up and used
the box from the trash as an ashtray.
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The footage continued. Bush just sitting there looking bewildered. And Sheldon realized that
this was more than just a gag clip at the start while the projector was still being adjusted. It was part of
the presentation.
“You know the set up here, right?” K.T. asked.
“Pretty much.”
“He says what was going through his head was concern for the country and trying to formulate a
strategy. But his muscular pattern and facial posture tells a different story.”
K.T. hit another button. A computer graphic mesh suddenly covered Bush’s face with thick lines
mapping the movement of his cheekbones and muscles around the eyes. Numeric displays also came into
view at the bottom of the screen.
“Turns out there’s different facial patterns for fear of imminent danger, for example, and fear of
discovery,” K.T. continued. “This is fear of discovery.”
“Interesting.”
“A lot of these face recognition algorithms started out as software for computer animation. But
I’ve retooled them. Look how much they can tell us.”
George Bush disappeared but the graphical grid of him remained as the face-mapping data was
summarized. Then a card listed the conclusions and K.T. hit another button.
Sheldon felt unsettled when the same clip of the president in the Florida schoolroom began to
play again from the start, this time with different markers on screen.
“I get the point about Bush. Kinesics shows he lied. Why not skip ahead so we can get to your
big breakthrough?”
Even as Sheldon said this, he noticed something that gave him a sudden chill: The positioning of
the whiteboard on the wall and the chairs placed in front of it here in the lab very closely resembled the
layout of the Florida classroom playing on the video.
“This is the big breakthrough,” K.T. stressed. “You just said it. I can prove the president of the
United States lied!”
Sheldon winced. That was hardly a scoop. “But…surely you’ve got wider applications?” he
asked.
“Will you relax and let me get there? Jeez!”
K.T. hit another button. Sheldon took a breath and tried not to focus on the fact that there seemed
little chance this was headed back to botany.
The video displayed a hand dumping a small beaker of liquid into a teakettle. Then Sheldon was
looking at a different clip filmed, sure enough, in the room they were now in. Hide snapped his fingers,
snuffed out his cigarette, and crossed to the door to call out something to unseen listeners down the hall.
On screen was a Japanese male, 40s, body proportions very similar to those of George W. Bush—
seated in front of the whiteboard. At least he wasn’t holding a storybook.
“I was trying to get at what sort of thoughts could produce the same facial indicators we saw in
Bush. So I had to create a few artificial situations, sort of like Dr. Milgram did in the 1960s.”
“Interesting,” Sheldon said again.
(And, in fact, it was. Stanley Milgram, Sheldon knew, was the creator of an experiment he had
intended to explain the “just following orders” phenomenon of the German people under the Nazis.
Subjects had been asked to engage switches believing that they were administering lethal doses of electric
shock to innocent people in the next room and most had gone along with it as long as they understood
responsibility for their actions to reside with the researcher and not themselves.
Milgram had revealed what humans are capable of through anecdote. K.T. was now apparently
attempting to map it with pictures. Sheldon had just had loftier hopes concerning what K.T. was up to.)
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“The subject is asked to pour a beaker of sake into the tea kettle, but believes this to be a side
thing and not part of the research. He thinks he’s brought in to test the calming effect of reading to
children.”
The man bent over and picked up a picture book with a goat on the cover. Sheldon bit his lip.
Just then Hide rushed back to his seat, for some reason in a great hurry to get back to the video of
the test subject reading from a Japanese version of My Pet Goat. Two seconds later, Sheldon understood
Hide’s excitement:
On screen, Hide walked into the shot and exchanged words with the subject. Apart from a
slightly different hairstyle, the Hide in the video looked exactly the same as the Hide seated at the
worktable. Nonetheless, the latter gestured at Sheldon and pointed to himself on the display. Sheldon
nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. Hide grinned and waved it off.
Meanwhile, K.T. hit another button and the video switched to split screen—George Bush in one
half, the test subject in the other, graphics highlighting the facial expressions of both.
“Here Hide just told the guy that there was a gang fight going on outside and the police had been
called,” K.T. said. “A worrisome situation, but at the same time very much removed from the subject’s
knowledge and experience. As you can see, the facial patterns are very different.”
“If you say so,” Sheldon responded.
“But watch this,” K.T. said as he pushed a button that switched scenes. The angle and situation
looked exactly the same, but the man in the chair had changed. “We tell this guy that a researcher here in
the lab fell ill and had to go home. Note that the facial patterns are still not quite the same.”
“But they’re also different people.”
“Yes. That’s why we’ve repeated this experiment 314 times.”
“What?”
K.T. hit the same button and now there was yet another Japanese George Bush in the chair. “This
subject is told that a researcher made herself a cup of tea then fell ill and had to be rushed to the hospital.
Now it connects back to him because he knows he poured the sake into the kettle!”
Sheldon brought his hand to his head. He was having some trouble following the logic of the
experiment. He took a breath and tried to focus…but everything was so strange.
“Information that the subject has background knowledge of, but never expected to escalate to
these proportions,” K.T. explained proudly. “And look, the facial patterns are almost an exact match!”
“You’re saying you did this 314 times?”
“Not counting the control group.”
“My God, K.T.,” Sheldon blurted out in spite of himself, “is this all you’ve been doing for the last
three years?!”
“Well at least I’m not working for Barry Klass.”
“Hey, I’m not saying I could do better. I’m saying you could do better. You should be using
your talents for science, not loopy conspiracy theories.”
“Don’t be a dope. I just showed you the science.”
“That proves what? That 9/11 was an inside job?”
“Of course not. That’s what the government wants us to think.”
“The US government wants people to think they crashed the planes into the twin towers?
“They don’t want everybody to think that, no. But they want the fringe skeptics to have a
counter-theory so preposterous that the world will just disregard it.”
Just then the door was opened by the two grad students from earlier. Hide motioned them over,
but they still hesitated until K.T. also waved them in. They then moved quickly to the worktable.
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The tall one who looked like a rock star still had his stack of papers with him. He looked
knowingly at the screen. “Bush sucks,” he said as he took a seat.
“Cheney is the godfather,” the other one said.
Sheldon struggled to collect his thoughts. “So…in other words…the 9/11 conspiracy theory…is
a conspiracy?”
“Yes. You got it.” K.T. grinned. “It may sound ridiculous, but human beings are ridiculous. We
do ridiculous things.”
“On that we agree.”
“Here. I want you to look at this.” K.T. clicked several more buttons and now the subject in the
chair was wearing a computer rendered George W. Bush face mask.”
“Oh, for gosh sake.”
“Excuse me if this is boring you. I just thought that the fact that our president was aware before it
happened that an al-Qaeda plot was going down might have been of interest.”
“He had advance knowledge of 9/11?”
“He knew that planes were going to be hijacked. He had no idea they’d be flown into the twin
towers.”
“And you can tell all this by looking at the man’s face?”
“I can tell what color underpants he’s wearing.”
Sheldon assumed that K.T.’s last statement was hyperbole. Though when his brother hit the next
button, Sheldon did half expect to see a computer-generated image of George Bush in small red boxer
shorts with the Lone Star flag on them.
Instead the screen showed a close-up of former Chief of Staff Andrew Card telling the president,
in slow motion, that the country was under attack. “Look at his eyes,” K.T. narrated. “What’s happened
has taken him by surprise. But he understands. It doesn’t defy logic. It’s an unexpected turn by players
he knows are in on the game.”
It was all a tad complicated but Sheldon decided to hold his peace.
What K.T. was saying did make sense, Sheldon had to admit. But late in the year 2006 with
America already having turned against the current administration, it seemed a big so what. “I get the
essence of your argument,” Sheldon responded, choosing his words carefully. “I just honestly…am not
sure…people care that much anymore...”
On cue, the door to the lab was opened by a policeman who said something in Japanese to Hide,
which seemed to include an approximation of Sheldon’s name. Hide stood and bowed deeply. The two
grad students also got up and the rock star turned on the light. The policeman entered, followed by two
westerners. One was a woman with very long flowing blonde hair. The other was a larger browner man
with a round body and no apparent neck.
“Oh, great,” K.T. whispered.
“Who are they?” Sheldon whispered back.
“We’re with the American embassy,” the woman said.
“Which one of you is Sheldon Thigpin?” inquired the man without the neck.
Sheldon looked at his brother.
K.T. looked back at Sheldon and responded, without hesitation, “He is.
I’m his assistant.
Bruce.”
Some Japanese was then spoken back and forth with K.T. apparently asking the policeman and
others to have a seat and Hide giving the two graduate students a number of instructions for welcoming
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the guests. This included cleaning the table and bringing tea (presumably unspiked), which the rock star
did. Hide stood between K.T. and the officers and produced business cards.
Meanwhile, as K.T. collected his notes and piled them together, the other grad student brought
him a briefcase from across the room. Hide summoned Sheldon to the worktable, but not before Sheldon
saw that the briefcase contained a pair of tennis shoes.
K.T. paused to give the palms of his hands a good scratching. Sheldon watched the two grad
students bow their apologies at the door and leave, the rock star never letting on that he spoke excellent
English.
Business cards were placed on the table revealing the man’s name to be Hector and the woman’s
to be Alice. “So how long have you been in Japan?” Alice asked as Hide poured tea for all.
“Not that long, actually,” Sheldon responded.
“Seems like it was only yesterday, right Sheldon?” K.T. called from behind his control desk as he
rummaged papers.
“That’s what we originally figured,” Hector said. “We had a communication from Washington
said you’ve been working at KlassWorks everyday since the start of last year.”
“That sounds about right.”
“But today we also find out you’ve been an adjunct professor here at Todai since 2004 and are
currently teaching classes,” Alice said.
“Yeah,” Hector chimed in. “So what’s up with that?”
“Er…” Sheldon said. “Bruce?”
Just as all at the table were about to shift their focus toward K.T.’s desk at the rear of the room, a
hard black briefcase came out of nowhere and pounded Hector right in the mouth. The embassy man flew
from his chair to the floor as K.T. took off running, case in hand, toward the adjoining wet lab.
The policeman was up in an instant yelling “Matte! Matte!” and giving chase. Hector rolled to
his feet then followed. Sheldon and Hide did as well, at a slower and more hesitant pace, with Alice
being careful to keep with them, likely concerned that Sheldon could also try to flee.
Sheldon entered the smaller room with the others to find the policeman still yelling “Matte!” as
he leaned out a window. Hector also watched as K.T. jumped down the fire escape and disappeared
around a corner of the building.
“Is anyone going after him?” Alice inquired.
Hector looked at Alice like she was insane. “I don’t even have my shoes,” he said. “Plus I think
the guy loosened a tooth.”
“That’ll happen,” Sheldon muttered to himself, softly so no one could hear.
The Japanese policeman apparently had similar notions about the fruitlessness of chasing K.T.
out the window. His strategy seemed to be the repeated shouting of “Matte!” interspersed with the
occasional “Matte Kudasai!” until it was clear that K.T. had no intention of obliging. (Sheldon would
later look these terms up and discover them to mean “wait” and “please wait,” respectively. They would
both make it onto his list of 20 most useful phrases in Japan with “Domo” at the top.)
The policeman then turned to look at Sheldon and made an unhappy face. “Domo” was all that
Sheldon could offer in response.
Meanwhile, Hector helped himself to a box of Kimwipe laboratory tissues to tend to his mouth
and eventually produced a bloody tooth.
“We’re going to need Bruce’s last name and address,” Alice said to Sheldon. “He’s in a lot of
trouble.”
“Altho, fill uth in a little on your research,” Hector lisped as he wrapped his tooth up in a
specimen box that Hide provided. “What ith it exactly you’f been doing here?”
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Chapter Forty
Sheldon spent the night in a small business hotel called the Oedo that Hide had brought him to.
The university apparently had an account with the hotel and had now offered to bear the expense of
Sheldon's lodging.
Hide explained how there was a vending machine in the lobby that sold drinks, light snacks,
disposable razors and other necessities. There was also an all-night convenience store across the street,
Hide told him, but Sheldon would have to buzz the night manager if he wanted to go out after midnight.
Sheldon had asked if there was any news about K.T., but Hide had only responded, perhaps predictably,
that he did not speak English.
When Sheldon had entered his room, he had been struck by how close the opposite wall was to
the door he had just opened. There was a bed, a bath, a writing desk, a television, even a pants presser,
but all in extreme miniature. Rather than pull out the chair, he would have to turn it to the side and
squeeze in if he wanted to sit there.
Sheldon was reminded of the film Lost in Translation, which he had read had boosted tourism to
Japan by redefining Tokyo as a romantic destination. It seemed to Sheldon that in the movie, Bill Murray
had been able to walk from the window of his hotel room to the door without having to crawl over his
bed. Sheldon concluded that Sofia Coppola had probably not had occasion to spend much time at the
Hotel Oedo.
He got into the robe that had been provided and into bed and lay there for maybe ten minutes
listening to traffic outside. Sheldon had been sleepier than he realized, however, and he very quickly
drifted off and didn't awaken until the electric alarm set into a panel above the bed began beeping.
Apparently the guest that had the room before him had needed to wake up at 7:17 a.m. for some
reason. But it was morning and light outside so Sheldon decided to get up and take a shower. He found
that there was insufficient space for him to disrobe within the bathroom and so he did that before entering
and left his towel on the bed so he could dry off quickly afterward.
He was naked and dripping when he saw that he had missed a call while in the shower and now
the phone was blinking. He pressed the “message” button and heard a recording from Alice advising him
to be packed and in the lobby by 10 a.m. She had left no information about K.T.
Seeing that he had more than two hours before her arrival and that there was little to do in the
small room, while packing would consist of simply depositing his few toiletries into a pocket, Sheldon
decided to have a walk and think about things.
He dropped into the convenience store and bought three pairs of plastic chopsticks with custom
carrying cases, not really needing these but figuring they may be his only souvenirs of Japan if the
American embassy officials were planning on taking he and K.T. away.
Sheldon then continued around the block where he happened upon a neighborhood shrine with
incense burning and people lined up to bow, clap and pray before an altar. The rest of the street had
hardly come to life, so Sheldon followed the crowd. He stood in line, rang the bell above the offering
box, then clapped and bowed as he had seen the others before him do and threw in a 500-yen coin.
This caught the attention of a Shinto priest who took Sheldon aside. Another guest at the shrine
explained that Sheldon had just thrown in 100 times the preferred amount, meaning the box was for
nickels and Sheldon had thrown in five bucks.
“Don't worry,” the other guest said pushing Sheldon's head down. The priest then waved a stick
with white folded paper shreds attached over Sheldon. The priest made a noise not unlike the siren of a
fire truck and then Sheldon was allowed to bring his head back up.
“You're pure now,” the man told him.
“Thank goodness for that,” Sheldon responded.
*
*
*
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Sheldon sat in front of a hot can of coffee from the lobby vending machine as Alice withdrew a
sealed plastic bag from her attaché case and slid it across the table.
Sheldon recognized the shirt that K.T. had been wearing the day before. The bag also contained
K.T.'s belt, a pair of pants, socks and other effects. A melancholic wave of déjà vu passed over him.
“I thought you might want these,” Alice said.
“K.T. would want them more,” Sheldon replied, refraining from touching the bag.
Alice made a sad face.
“Is he...?” Sheldon choked.
“He's missing. But it's only a matter of time,” Alice responded. “Let's all hope that he gets
himself to the embassy or that we find him before the local authorities do. Japanese jails are no picnic,
and he's wanted for plenty of crimes on this side of the Pacific.”
“I hope indecent exposure isn't one of them,” Sheldon said, now turning over the sealed plastic
bag to see if it also contained K.T.'s shorts.
“He left these by the Ichinomiya River,” Alice explained. “We questioned some people in the
area and a few schoolgirls recalled passing by a foreigner who was changing into a wig and dress
yesterday morning.”
“And they just kept walking?”
“They just figured he was a harmless hentai,” Alice said.
“That means pervo,” Hector explained crossing the lobby from the restroom. “There's a lot of
those over here,” he said, zipping up his fly in response to Alice’s gesture.
“Domo for the translation,” Sheldon said.
“What your brother forgot about in his haste was the Suica card in his pocket.”
“What's a Suica?”
Alice removed a silver and green card with a picture of a smiling penguin on it from her purse.
“It's an integrated chip card for riding the trains,” she said. “K.T. might not have forgotten about it. He
probably just didn't realize it was traceable.”
“What do you mean? It's like an ID card?”
“No personal information. It's a commuter card that you charge at the station with cash, so there's
no link to who you are,” Alice explained.
“But, what your brother didn't know is that each Suica has its own individual ID and logs all the
trains you take, all the vending machines you use the card to pay at, all the toll booths you cross, etc. The
Japanese police used it to tie your brother with some woman he had on the side by the Tokyo bay. Now
his wife doesn't want anything to do with him. He's a white guy in Japan, he's in drag, and he's got
nowhere to go.”
“Unless he's contacted you, Sheldon, things don't look very good.”
“I haven't seen him since the lab yesterday.”
“Well then I don't think there's much more you can do here,” Hector concluded.
Sheldon nodded.
Only he wasn't buying it. K.T. may have been a bit crazy, he might have bent a few rules, he
could even be a hentai for all Sheldon knew. But one thing he wasn't was careless. He thought about
things like cards that tracked your movements. He thought about them to the point of being paranoid.
“We've got the things you left at your brother's house in the car,” Alice said. “K.T.'s wife doesn't
want to see you...for obvious reasons.”
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It was definitely too neat, Sheldon decided. The whole other woman thing felt like a K.T.
contingency plan that seemed to be fooling everyone else, but it wasn't fooling Sheldon.
Sheldon suddenly remembered the pickling boxes under the floor panels at K.T.'s home. His
brother had wanted to show Sheldon that the floorboards came up for a reason. He had no way of proving
it, but Sheldon was sure his brother was back at his home. In his mind's eye he could see K.T. safe in a
basement under the pickle boxes while his wife played the role of angry and betrayed lover for the police
above.
Sheldon decided that he needed to play his role as well. He'd get on a plane and go back to
Silicon Valley and pick up where he'd left off at KlassWorks. But he knew he'd be back someday. If
K.T. didn't contact him first.
Sheldon would leave knowing his brother was all right. Perhaps a little too obsessed with
politics. But alive and well and, hopefully, moving forward...
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PART EIGHT: THE SECRET LIFE OF SHELDON
(SILICON VALLEY, 2007)
Chapter Forty-One
As Hector and Alice had returned Sheldon’s belongings and put him in a car for the airport,
Hector had stressed how he had had to pull strings in order to get Sheldon on the most immediate
departing flight.
Sheldon would not have minded being on the second most immediate departure. He had had to
run to the gate after struggling through a Japanese (only slightly more agreeable) version of airport
security. He was also disappointed to note that Hector’s string pulling somehow resulted in his first flight
proceeding not east but west for a change in Beijing that would eventually send him moving again in the
right direction.
He endured a middle seat behind an Asian family with a small child and was grateful that the first
leg of his journey was only three hours.
When the plane first started to move, the child seemed quite skeptical about its airworthiness.
Sheldon heard both parents make liberal use of a phrase that sounded like “Die, Joe” in what he judged
was an attempt to assure the young boy that all would be fine. Sheldon was able to test this hypothesis by
flipping through his phrase book and finding that, sure enough, the Japanese word for “all right” was daijo-bu (with the “bu” part unstressed and harder to hear).
Such decryption was easy, Sheldon thought to himself as he put the book away and snuck a
glance out the window to watch the green yet smoggy coast of Chiba disappear below. Any living
language could be deciphered over time employing roughly the same techniques, as any living language
would be spoken by fellow humans with similar instincts, emotions, fears and desires.
Figuring out the meaning of whale songs or bee buzzing, that would be far more of a trick.
Without the Rosetta Stone of human context, nonverbal noises were just noises.
(In the case of the family in front of him, Sheldon had been far less confident about the ethnicity
than the meaning of the word he’d heard. For all he knew, they might have been Chinese and on their
way back home. But he was sure the parents weren’t telling their kid that the boy was right and the plane
was going to crash. You could get the big picture of what humans were on about, even in a foreign
tongue, as long as you had the luxury of being human yourself.)
There was a four-hour layover in China affording Sheldon the opportunity to stretch, do some
shopping, and have a bit of food. He was surprised at how snazzy the Beijing airport was. The seats were
new and plush, there were long spacious areas where art was displayed, and Sheldon even found a small
indoor stream running under a pagoda—all within in the transit lounge.
He purchased some biscuits and ate them quietly on a bench in this indoor garden. He then
carefully examined his backpack and the other items within before flipping open his iBook.
If Sheldon’s theory was correct and K.T. was, despite secondhand evidence to the contrary,
actually safe and sound at home, then planting something among his possessions would be the most
logical way for him to get Sheldon a message. That is, if K.T. were so inclined.
It couldn’t be anything obvious that officials would find before they turned the bags back over to
Sheldon. (He had judged, in fact, by the way things seemed oddly arranged when the side pockets were
opened at the security check, that someone had indeed been through them.) So that really left only the
possibility of a digital missive of some sort squirreled away on Sheldon’s computer.
Sheldon looked under “Recent Items” but found no evidence of tampering. His Macintosh told
him that the last ten documents viewed were files that he himself remembered opening. His desktop also
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looked exactly the same. Of course, K.T. would have needed it to look that way…and he would have
known how to defeat the “Recent Items” function…again, if he had been so inclined.
Sheldon wondered how long he’d have to wait for the next clue or communication from his
brother. Or whether there would be any at all. Sheldon was, after all, only human. He benefitted the best
he could from the upside of a lively imagination; however, try as he might to stay objective while
remaining open-minded, he knew there was no foolproof defense against the downside. One could
always slip into that delusional trap of overlooking the way things are in favor of the way one wanted
things to be.
Sheldon closed his iBook and thought of the paper book that he and K.T. had enjoyed as young
teenagers. The Secret Life of Plants, an inspiring yet pseudoscientific work from 1973, maintained that
flowers and trees and herbs might actually be sentient beings that felt and understood. It was made into a
film in 1979—with music by Stevie Wonder—that used time-lapse photography to convey the vitality of
natural vegetation in bloom. It was a way of empowering the research of Cleve Backster without actually
proving it.
Cleve Backster was a double-edged sword for Sheldon. He had come from a background as an
interrogation specialist with the CIA and wound up launching half a century of research into something
called “plant perception” the day he got it into his head to test out his polygraph equipment on a Dracaena
shrub he had in his office. By measuring the electrical resistance on the plant’s leaves, Backster was able
to report that the Dracaena actually sensed nearby phenomena and responded with “feelings”—sympathy
when Backster dropped some shrimp into boiling water, fear as Backster announced he was going to set
fire to its branches, and presumably general dismay regarding what Backster was going to come up with
next.
On the one hand, yes. Part of the reason that Backster’s claims struck a chord surely had to do
with an instinctive notion that there is more to consciousness than meets the eye. A strand of algae
doesn’t think, cells don’t have brains, a giraffe’s DNA can’t “understand”…yet there’s a general sense
that science has yet to completely explain how they all “know” what they’re supposed to do. On the other
hand, however, Backster’s evidence was anecdotal, his experiments could not be reliably replicated, and
when two tests yielded different results there would be stories to explain how the plant got distracted or
confused. All of that made it harder, not easier in Sheldon’s view, to get back to the true questions and
find the answers.
It was as though Cleve Backster were a sort of lightning rod that diverted relevant energy and
focus away from science and into the realm of the paranormal. Perhaps not unlike what K.T. had
maintained about the 9/11 conspiracy theories, Sheldon allowed. If the administration knew more about
the attacks than it was letting on (and Sheldon had to admit that K.T. seemed quite correct in that
presumption), there was going to be a lot less serious exploration of that idea if there were also the
competing and much more charged contention that the US government had actually been behind the
whole thing!
Then Sheldon had a scary yet familiar thought. As he sat in the comfort of the Beijing Airport
transit lounge, it was easy to look on as an outsider at the efforts of Cleve Backster and Karl “K.T.”
Thigpin and pick holes in their methods while judging where they got off track. But how could Sheldon,
trapped within his own psyche, be sure that he himself was on track? There, but for the grace of God…
Just then the P.A. system announced that the next leg of Sheldon’s journey, flight CA441 to SFO,
would begin boarding in fifteen minutes. Sheldon zipped up his backpack and disposed of his trash.
As he walked toward the gate, he suddenly felt a strange sense of compassion and camaraderie,
not just for and with K.T. but even for Cleve Backster, the very man that had, without ever knowing it,
made Sheldon’s ambitions in academia such an uphill battle. After all, weren’t the three of them all
working toward the same end? Weren’t they all, at the end of the day, trying to prove the very same
hypothesis? We are connected more than we realize. We know more than we know…
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Chapter Forty-Two
As soon as he was out of customs at San Francisco International, Sheldon found a private corner
to stand in and turned on his BlackBarry. He waited for roughly four more days of e-mail to come
rushing in. Then he engaged the speakerphone function, held the unit a respectable distance from his
head, and hit the speed dial button for Chester.
Chester apparently had so many questions that he didn’t want to burn time with a hello. “Where
are you?” he asked, then continued before Sheldon had time to answer: “Are you okay? I was worried
you had an accident. When’re you coming in? Did you leave town?”
“Yes, I’m out of town,” Sheldon answered truthfully, as he still had to get the shuttle to San Jose.
He opted not to explain that he’d be back in town in another few hours.
“Is everything cool?” Chester queried when Sheldon didn’t follow up quick enough.
“I had some urgent family business,” Sheldon said. “Sorry for being out of touch. But I’ll be
back in the office on Monday.”
It was midday Friday with another weekend fast approaching and Sheldon was in need of a
vacation following his vacation. Best not to let Chester think he could get Sheldon into KlassWorks any
sooner.
“Ivan Samstag called like three times for you.”
That was unexpected. No one from the Red Wing ever seemed to care a whit anymore about
what Sheldon was up to. He’d half assumed that Chester might be the only one to even realize he was
gone.
He was about to ask what Chester had told the others, but then there was a very loud flight
announcement and Sheldon realized he had been standing just under the speakers. So he said good-bye,
broke the connection, and turned off the phone.
Sheldon then bought himself a soft baked chewy pretzel, paying the outrageous airport price of
$7.37 for a plain, plus tax, plus extra for the mustard. He needed to settle his stomach and overcome his
vertigo and the overpriced pretzel did prove an effective ally in his accomplishing that.
However, the seats in the lounge near his gate were of an unaccommodating black plastic with
hard steel armrests between them that made it hard for Sheldon to get comfortable. That said, he soon
found he was lucky to even have a seat, as passengers arriving closer to departure had to lean against the
walls or crouch over the grey broadloom carpet. Sheldon realized he’d be glad to get back to his
Mountain View apartment.
Maybe there was a way to make California work after all. Minnesota had also gotten him down
in the beginning, but in time he’d learnt to accentuate the positives. All he’d have to do at KlassWorks
would be draw the line at normal working hours each day and give more of himself to his own projects.
His lunchtime should be for his personal research. What was the worst they could do? Fire him?
As he drifted off, Sheldon resolved in his head to make more of the opportunities around him.
And for the next several weeks that’s exactly what he did.
*
*
*
*
“You’re still here?” Connie said as she looked up from the homemade lasagna she had just
warmed in the microwave to see Sheldon entering the slide room.
“Hope I didn’t ruin your lunch hour,” Sheldon retorted. He had actually meant that in reference
to the favor he had asked just before lunch the previous day, but if Connie took it instead as a clever
comeback, he wasn’t going to complain.
“I’ll have to tell Ron to be more careful about closing that door,” she countered as she mixed her
own herbal tea from several personal containers of fennel, rosehip and the like. The remark reflected her
assumption that Sheldon had slipped in just as the new intern—which no one had bothered to introduce
him to—had left. (This was, in fact, what had happened. Though if Sheldon had encountered a closed
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door and Connie had been unwilling to open it, he did still have Barry’s keycard tucked away in his wallet.
But Sheldon hadn’t even tried that card in months, unsure as to whether it still worked and knowing that
entry attempts would be logged in any case.)
“So…did you get a free moment to run my samples through the GC?” Sheldon tried.
“Like I told you yesterday, I don’t have free moments.”
Sheldon watched as Connie strained her tea. “That smells wonderful,” he remarked. She gave
him a very quick look, telling him that if he was hinting for a cup he wasn’t going to get one.
As Connie crossed to the sink to rinse out her tea things, Sheldon turned his attention to a
spectrograph print on the desk where she was preparing to have her lunch. He recognized it as the pattern
for ethylene that would have been secreted by a nicotiana benthamiana (tobacco-like) bush with injured
leaves. An example of plants communicating with other plants.
Suddenly the file was concealed beneath a stack of other folders and Connie was pulling out a
chair for herself forcing Sheldon to step back.
“That looked interesting. What are you working on?” Sheldon said.
“Sorry, I signed a non-disclosure agreement,” Connie responded as she sliced her lasagna into
bite-sized pieces.
“But isn’t that just for the outside? We’re both in the same company.”
“Fine,” Connie said, putting her hand on the stack of files next to her teacup. “So you tell me.
What’s your interest in Coula trees?”
Sheldon was able to deduce from the gesture that Connie had, in fact, done the gas chromo scan
and that the results were contained in the top folder under her hand. He was also reminded that it
behooved him to choose his words carefully.
“I was looking for nitrogen spikes that could be transmitted via the soil.”
“Yeah, good one,” Connie shot back as she shoved the top folder at Sheldon without even looking.
“You’re lucky I even did this for you.”
“Or via the air.” Sheldon launched into backpedal mode—discretion was one thing, but he didn’t
want Connie to think he was lying to her. “I honestly still don’t know for sure. But the plants clearly get
better signals in moister environs and I’m trying to extrapolate from there.”
Sheldon stopped himself. He’d just given Connie a huge piece of the puzzle he’d been struggling
to solve for the last ten years. But that was if she caught it and if she even cared. Judging by the way she
was testily blowing on her tea while staring at the far wall, that didn’t seem to be the case. So Sheldon
deemed it best just to utter a very soft “thanks, I appreciate this” and leave her to herself.
Connie didn’t respond. Instead, she took a sip of herbal tea and waited several long moments
before glancing in the direction of the door to make sure that Sheldon had indeed departed.
Then she reached for the folder that now topped the stack next to her. It was an exact facsimile of
the one she had given Sheldon. She removed the pages and studied the contents.
*
*
*
*
Meanwhile, Sheldon took a detour down to the vending area behind the “In-Progress Room” on
the fifth floor to purchase a cheese sandwich for his own lunch. The cushioned bench further along the
hall near the water dispenser was unoccupied, so Sheldon helped himself to a cup and sat there to eat
while he reviewed his data.
A few minutes later he noticed something headed his way. He looked up to see Ivan, clad in one
of his trademark turtleneck sweaters, moving toward him.
“Lucky meeting you here,” Ivan said. “You saved me a trek out to Siberia.”
“That’s what you call the Green Wing, I assume.”
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“We mean it in a good way,” Ivan answered as he liberated three Dixie cups, but no water to go
with them, then sat on the bench next to Sheldon. “So, anyhow,” he continued. “This internet-based
sharing system, I’m not sure I get it. We put our work online at our expense?” Ivan drummed the bottom
of the cups with his fingers for emphasis. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing,” Sheldon admitted, while wishing Ivan could have phrased his question differently.
“That’s how it would have to work to start with.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear, dude.”
“The benefits come when other people contribute—”
“If they contribute,” Ivan interrupted. Sheldon began to protest but Ivan held up a hand. “Look
at it this way: I can walk into a bar and show some chick my junk, but that’s no guarantee she’s going to
pull hers out.”
“I…don’t think that’s a great analogy,” Sheldon said. “The idea is for sharing fieldwork, not
trade secrets. It can only improve our work by giving us access to a much bigger pool of data.”
“That’s speculative.” With the Dixie cups between his legs, Ivan played a finger drum solo.
Meanwhile, Sheldon finished his sandwich and put his file away. “Our shareholders don’t care much for
speculative,” Ivan concluded.
Sheldon felt like telling Ivan that he didn’t care much for the shareholders. He had submitted a
proposal for something that made sense given his job description, but what the firm now chose to do was
its own business. Rather than say all that, however, he simply stood.
“Sorry,” he said. “I got to get back to Siberia.”
Sheldon had expected that Ivan would right there trash the proposal. Were it his to trash. But
Ivan apparently wanted something more, for he looked at Sheldon with pleading eyes. “Can’t you give
me something more concrete?” he whined.
To which Sheldon, who was already on his feet and wanted simply to get away, responded
against his own better judgment: “Come by later and I’ll see what I can do. If you can make it through
the tundra.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Sheldon liked to keep the TV on when he was working alone because the plants seemed to do
better when there was sound and chatter in the room. He thought as he opened the door to his office that
he didn’t remember it being on quite so loud. But then he saw Chester with a half-gallon mist-sprayer in
hand, halfway along the line of planters across his wet bar, and he understood.
“Isn’t that amazing?” Chester said, referring to what would probably prove the big news item of
the month. An eight-lane steel arch bridge over the 35W interstate in Minneapolis had just collapsed and
news reports throughout the day had been leading with the story. “You used to live near there, didn’t
you?”
“I was never up that far north.” Sheldon took a look at the samples on the makeshift analysis
station he’d constructed over the sofa. Chester had done a good job sorting them. “Minnesota is a big
state,” Sheldon explained.
“Oh, well. Snagged you the front page of the Chronicle from the cafeteria anyway,” Chester said,
gesturing toward the paper on Sheldon’s desk.
“Thanks.”
“It says there were inspections for years saying the thing was cracked and needing care. But
nobody gave it any real attention until it just fell over.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not taking it personally.”
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Just then Ivan knocked and let himself in with a single motion. Sheldon was surprised to see that
he’d come by so quickly, and also a little taken aback by the fact that he’d brought Helio along for the
ride.
“What is all this stuff?” Helio said by way of a greeting. “Didn’t this used to be an office?”
“It still is,” Chester said defensively. “Mr. Thigpin’s just making use of the extra space.”
Helio picked up a hydroponics dish, seemingly fascinated that the bulbs within were growing
without soil. Ivan snapped several pics of the planters on the wet bar with a digital camera. A miniature
encephalometer on the counter made a sudden “SKWEEEEEEEE!” noise and Chester quickly pulled it
free from the vine it had been attached to. Helio, meanwhile, leaned in to look at the Coula branch next to
Sheldon’s desk phone, noticing too late that his tie had brushed into the soil.
“Hey, where have I seen one of these before?”
“Maybe on a tree?” Ivan suggested.
Helio pulled up a paper on Long Distance Quantum Communication. He glanced at the title, then
used the cover page to wipe the residue off his tie.
“So what have you got to show me, Sheldon?” Ivan said as he snapped another photo.
Sheldon decided that his best hope for getting these two on their way would be to demonstrate a
few quick things. He clicked a light on over a tank of brown seaweed he kept in the far corner, away
from objects that were likely to get messed up by indiscriminate rummaging. “Take a look at this,” he
urged. “This kelp is an example of plants that can alter their environment. We wouldn’t even know
about it if it weren’t for data released by the University of Manchester.”
“The key word is ‘university’,” Ivan said.
“Right, this is the real world,” Helio concurred.
“Anyway, what have you gotten it to do?” Ivan asked, aiming his camera.
“Nothing,” Sheldon answered just as the flash went off. Ivan looked up and made a face (as
though deleting a photo he didn’t want would be an enormous chore).
“What a breakthrough,” Helio chimed in.
“Actually, it is,” Chester said. “Kelp in the Irish Sea release iodide into the air when they get too
dry causing clouds to form and block off the sun. Mr. Thigpin has found that using a shielded heating
element does not have the same effect. In other words, the kelp knows when it can and can’t change the
weather.”
“Or some variation of that,” Sheldon qualified. “Possibly.”
Ivan raised his eyebrows. Helio made a “so what?” gesture. Ivan snapped another picture.
“How about this thing over here?” Helio said, gesturing at the docking station for Sheldon’s
ThinkPad that fed straight into sensors in the soil of a mimosa pudica herb, which had been blossoming a
moment ago but now seemed to be folding inward.
“It’s what it looks like,” Sheldon responded. “Botanical signals converted to digital to see what
the plant does with the biofeedback. So far it’s inconclusive.”
Chester nearly spoke up at the way the apparatus was being shortchanged. But he managed to
hold his peace, find the Chronicle and busy himself instead reading up on the fallen bridge.
Ivan snapped a quick pic. “What else?”
“This is the last thing I can show you today,” Sheldon said. “Chester needs me to get back to
work.” Sheldon led the other two in the direction of the door and paused on the way at the two lines of
planters on the wet bar. He pointed at the purplish flowers within:
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“Cakile edentula, or Sea Rocket wildflowers. We’ve added some other grasses at a distance of
two meters to this box and you can see a much more aggressive growth pattern. The conclusion is that
the plant can recognize outsiders and behaves more cooperatively when it’s only among its own species.”
Ivan and Helio studied both planters for a few moments absorbing what Sheldon had just told
them.
Then Helio pushed his shoulder into Ivan’s. “You dragged me all this way for this?”
“Sorry. They still don’t run any apps yet,” Sheldon said.
Ivan took a picture anyway. “How do they transmit the signals?” he asked.
“Some people think chemical signatures in the soil, but no one’s isolated those.”
“What do you think?” Ivan persisted.
Sheldon stopped for a moment. Chester looked up from his newspaper. Helio filled the void
with a joke: “We’re not supposed to think. We work for KlassWorks.” Nobody laughed.
“Come on, there are only so many ways it could happen. Chemical, sound waves, particles in the
air, electro magnetic…”
Sheldon was thrown off balance. He felt naked to the world for just an instant. He hoped that
nobody caught it, but was all too aware that Chester had gotten to know him quite well over the last few
months and by now could probably read Sheldon like a book.
The idea of an electro-magnetic component had been Sheldon’s personal elephant in the room
since he came to Silicon Valley. He had been surprised at first that no one had even mentioned it. But
then he’d come to think that they just didn’t know enough—they were basically IT hardware people
trying to look like they also had a biotech module to impress investors. That was why Ivan was here with
his camera.
The long and short of it was that he’d never been asked to do anything related to the electromagnetic realm. Nothing he was doing for the company—nothing he brought into the office—had ever
considered activity in the Kingdom Plantae from that perspective. However, Sheldon’s personal
research—the ideas and experiments he had put into motion before he ever came here and intended to
take with him when he left—that was all about electro-magnetics.
It felt very strange that the subject had suddenly been broached twice in a single day. But it was
hard to imagine this being anything apart from a rather interesting coincidence. After all, Ivan had just
been asking an extremely general question. And in the case of Connie…not only had Sheldon been the
one to bring it up (in a way that she probably didn’t attach any importance to in any event), he’d also been
the one that brought her the Coula samples. (What had Ivan said? “You show some chick your junk,
there’s no guarantee she’s going to pull hers out.”)
Sheldon wondered what Connie was doing everyday in the slide room. He wondered what kind
of “junk” she had. And he was also beginning to wonder why the room was spinning.
Chester put down his newspaper and got to his feet. “Mr. Thigpin, are you okay?” he called.
“Dude, have you been smoking grass from your Sea Rocket box?” Helio said.
Chester helped Sheldon into a chair. Ivan went to the water cooler to fetch him a drink. Sheldon
noticed that Ivan had pulled three paper cups from the dispenser rather than just one.
“I’m sorry. I got dizzy for a moment there. I just…” Sheldon trailed off, aware that the others
were waiting for him to finish his sentence. He finally did so with the first thing that came to mind: “I
was thinking about cats,” he said.
“That makes sense,” Helio responded.
Helio then rolled his eyes and nudged Ivan, but Ivan pushed him off.
“We’ll leave you now, Sheldon. Hope we didn’t wear you out.”
Helio nudged Ivan again. “Dude, Barry said—”
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“Look at the guy,” Ivan snapped back. “He’s about to collapse from exhaustion.”
“No, I’m okay,” Sheldon exhaled after a generous sip of water. “What did Barry say?”
“Well, hey, that’s the good news,” Ivan enthused, suddenly cheery to the point of being
patronizing. “Barry’s with you on the database thing. Says we can start it right away.” Ivan reached out
and patted Sheldon on the shoulder.
“Great,” Sheldon said.
“All he wants you to do is just send him all your research as one big bunch so he can review it
and decide what needs to stay confidential.”
Ivan paused, so Sheldon nodded to show that he understood.
“So you know, just drag it all into an e-mail and send it to Barry. Or, if you want, you can get it to
me and I’ll forward it for you.”
“Thanks,” Sheldon said, already determined that he wasn’t going to do either.
Helio didn’t necessarily seem ready for the walk back to the other building yet, but Ivan gestured
that it was probably time for them to leave.
“You know, you should learn to chill more, dawg,” Helio told Sheldon as he headed for the door.
“After all, they’re just plants.”
“From their point of view, we’re just animals,” Chester said.
“Ha,” Helio countered. “We’re the ones out there doing shit. They’re just standing around.”
“Workers go out and do stuff,” Chester retorted as he refilled Sheldon’s triple Dixie cup with
water and brought it back to him. “Masters reap the rewards.”
Predictably, Helio resented being told that animals lived in service of plants. Though in a sense
this was true, and Sheldon also understood why Chester had said it, he thought it a bad idea to bait Helio
in this way.
Sure enough, Helio proved intent on having the last laugh, so he paused to break off a small piece
off the rhubarb plant by the door and stuff the green in his mouth, grinning in Chester’s direction as he ate
the god. Ivan shoved him, made an apologetic gesture, and then both were gone. (Sheldon knew, of
course, that the rhubarb would actually have the last laugh. The stalks of the plant were quite edible, but
the outer portion tended not to be. Judging by the color of the broad leaves that Helio had ingested,
Sheldon reckoned it would be about twenty minutes before the oxalic acid would force a nasty visit to the
restroom.)
Chester might not have been aware of this last fact, for he threw a long bitter look in the direction
of the door for several seconds before finally letting it go and turning to hand Sheldon the cup of water.
“Thanks,” Sheldon said. “I think I’m all right now.”
“I have a cat,” Chester said. “His name’s Carlo.”
“Good name.”
Chester picked up the encephalometer, dropped the Chronicle in front of Sheldon, then turned to
go. “I’m going to get the bugs out of this thing, then maybe catch up on some e-mail.”
Sheldon nodded. It seemed it was going to be a light afternoon. Chester would probably take off
around 5:30, leaving Sheldon free to do what he wanted. It was a given, of course, that Sheldon would be
in the office a lot later, though not necessarily on the job in any way. Sheldon was the sole servant in a
house of plant masters. He didn’t have a cat to go home and commiserate with.
Chapter Forty-Four
Cats go home. They may head out at night, roam, prowl, hunt for food, even venture off their turf
to a distant park to take meetings with other cats. But unlike dogs they are not instinctively long-distance
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creatures. They grow attached to their environs and are wont to return to their proverbial hearth when the
wandering hours end.
What’s interesting is the cat’s ability to find its way even when separated from home by a great
and complicated divide. Researchers have put cats in the back of vans and driven them to remote
locations only to find that most of the animals somehow make it back to where they live. A Paris study
even went as far as to drug the cats in order to rule out the possibility that the felines were memorizing the
way as they went (in other words, sitting in the back saying to themselves okay, we just turned right back
there and now we’re going up a big hill…remember that hill….)
The long and short of it was that even the Parisian cats, as the old children’s song went, came
back. How did they do it? One thing cat analysts could agree on is that it was certainly not without the
help of the animals’ whiskers. Those 24 moveable hair-like protrusions under a cat’s nose help with
balance and depth perception and are, at the very least, a great sensory aid (blind cats have been observed
to have much denser whiskers than sighted cats). Others, meanwhile, would argue that the whiskers are
key to everything, that they could provide their owner with such precise measurements of the earth’s
electro-magnetic field as to allow the animal to plot where it is relative to home at all times, that a cat’s
whiskers could be the world’s most accurate GPS.
Sheldon wasn’t sure precisely where he stood on the great cats’ whiskers debate, apart from being
firmly on the side of doing more research to find out. What he did feel confident about was that too many
worthy subjects went relatively unconsidered because they didn’t feel blockbuster enough in the moment.
If it didn’t impact us (i.e. those paying for the science) directly and immediately, there tended to be the
presumption that it couldn’t be all that important.
Sheldon had recently read a study on bees that took him right back to New Mexico and K.T.’s
mobile phone paranoia. No sooner, it seemed, had the cellular industry put down speculation that cell
phones might be causing cancer than there emerged a new concern and possibly far more troubling in the
grand scheme of things. Bees had begun to decline radically in number, to flee their colonies throughout
the developed world and not return, to force farmers and garden keepers to turn to manual pollination in
order to keep new seedlings coming.
Analysis now suggested that cellular signals were confusing worker/drone navigation and
communication systems, and that it only took a few minutes of exposure a day to disorient and exhaust
the bees to the point where they’d stop producing honey. In other words, it was the same old story. Air
that looked empty, electro-magnetic real estate that seemed unoccupied, had actually been in use by the
eco-system for eons and now we were getting in the way.
But bees. That should have been a natural for Sheldon, yet he hadn’t thought of it until he’d read
about it. He wondered if K.T. had. “Cellular radiation threatening bee colonies” sounded very much like
something that Sheldon’s brother would get it into his head to go around worrying about. It also sounded
like the kind of thing that would convince most people that K.T. was crazy. Initially. Until the rest of the
world caught up with him.
Sheldon looked at his watch. He counted back several hours then added a day to conclude that it
was 2pm in Japan. He checked his e-mail on the ThinkPad but found nothing apart from two identical
pieces of spam each promising to increase his penis size by at least five inches. He wondered whether it
was by chance that he was always getting these, or if someone had thought it would be funny to put his
name on the small dick list.
He scrolled to the bottom of the messages to find long strands of random letters—one seemed to
be a string containing almost sixty consonants. That’s how the ads would have defeated the spam filters.
Uncommon character combinations were presumed to be significant by virtue of their complexity. The
programs didn’t quite realize that sometimes gibberish is simply gibberish.
Sheldon then picked up the paper that Chester had brought for him, but there was little he didn’t
already know to be found in the cover story about the I-35W Bridge.
What was interesting, on the other hand, were the responses to a recent piece that had suggested
that the continuing rise in housing prices over the last seven years might have been a bubble. Sheldon
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couldn’t think of a better term to apply to the phenomenon, particularly now that property values seemed
to have peaked and were starting to come down a bit. Nonetheless, one of the letters to the editor (from
an economist no less) was downright irate that the Chronicle had dared use the “B” word.
It had taken Sheldon less than fifteen minutes to read the back page of the section, but he
suddenly had a strong feeling that the e-mail he was waiting for had come through. (Maybe his brain was
responding to the KlassWorks wifi the same way the bees were picking up AT&T calls.) In any event, he
checked the ThinkPad again and, sure enough, there was a note from Hide.
Hide had again answered Sheldon’s query about K.T.’s whereabouts with his standard “Nobody
knows” along with a postscript apologizing for his inability to speak English. The message did not
disappoint Sheldon. No news was obviously good news in this case.
Furthermore it was likely not the complete truth that no one knew where K.T. was. At the very
least, K.T. knew where he was—and Sheldon felt strongly that his brother was free and safe. From there,
it seemed to follow that K.T. would share that information with the best man at his wedding and
confidante in dress-up operations. If Hide really knew nothing, wouldn’t he sound a bit more concerned
in his e-mails? Wouldn’t he be sending notes and asking questions from his end, now that Sheldon had
opened the lines of communication between the two?
So, hooray, that K.T. was very probably alive and well. But, boo, that no one was willing to get
in touch with Sheldon and tell him this. Was the world really so like an old James Bond movie that K.T.
couldn’t send a simple e-mail without fear of it being intercepted by SPECTRE or SMERSH? Well,
maybe, Sheldon allowed. It had become a wildly intrusive era of internet spiders and roving wiretaps in
which even his own company used his e-mail to keep tabs on him.
Sheldon rubbed his eyes. Then something suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t thought about
for months. He took out his wallet, flipped through the reams of extraneous junk that he always seemed
to carry around these days, and found the two pages that K.T. had given him in his laboratory. One
showed the list of Sheldon’s e-mails that he had retrieved in Japan recorded on the KlassWorks server.
The other was of the same list but with location identifiers deleted. For good measure, K.T. had written
the systems administrator password at the top of the first page.
In his official capacity as a spy, Sheldon thought, he should have done what he was now about to
do long ago. The main reason he hadn’t, of course, was that he was not a spy, though he did decide to
now allow himself a quick poke around.
He logged into the KlassWorks server as sys-admin and perused a few behind-the-scenes pages.
Most of what he found were budgets and estimates and business proposals. It didn’t look like the firm
had a whole lot of income in terms of operating profits, but that was none of Sheldon’s business and he
was well aware that there were plenty of other bubbles apart from real estate.
He finally found the firm’s list of DNA patent applications and it conformed exactly to what
Chester had told him and he’d otherwise pieced together—no surprises. They were doing it on the cheap,
outsourcing to grad students up at Palo Alto, and going about it in a completely haphazard way with no
rhyme or reason. Their strategy was the one thing that wasn’t spelled out in black and white, but it
seemed to be that the bets cost very little to place, yet KlassWorks could collect big time if and when the
biotech roulette wheel someday spun in their favor. In the meantime, they wouldn’t have to pay taxes on
funds that went back out for R&D (the Palo Alto students were probably someone’s cousins anyway) and
the long list of gene patents looked impressive in the quarterly reports.
Couldn’t Darren Scott and Walrus have hacked this on their own, Sheldon wondered. It would
have eliminated the middleman.
He was about to log off when he noticed a movie file all by itself in a folder marked “Barry –
Private.” The name of the clip was “chinesehotsweep.mov” and Sheldon decided that, as long as he’d
come this far, he should at least know what this piece of video was.
He double-clicked it and waited for it to load up. It proved to be like nothing he might have
imagined.
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Chapter Forty-Five
The film depicted a corporate environment not unlike the one in which Sheldon now found
himself, only it was Chinese. The CEO (Barry’s counterpart, presumably) was about to preside over a
board meeting. But before inviting the officers in, the Chinese Barry brought in a team of special
uniformed technicians with high-tech equipment.
There were three of them. They looked not unlike a cross between the People’s Red Army and
Ghostbusters. They wore headphones and night goggles and pointed electro-sensors and EMR detectors
at chairs and telephones and file cabinets.
Sheldon’s first thought was that they represented some sort of high-energy containment system
that Barry wanted to sell to the Chinese. But then a voice-over narration came in:
“Your competition plays hardball,” it said. “He uses all the latest technology to give himself
every advantage.”
The sweep team in the video then located several hot spots. A seemingly innocent extension cord
was pulled up from the floor and cracked open to reveal a hidden radio transmitter within. Another
micro-transmitter was found masquerading as a safety sticker attached to a smoke detector, which was
then torn off the ceiling. A decorative photo on the wall was further shown to be hiding a pinhole camera.
All of these devices were then placed on the conference table for the Chinese CEO to examine.
The crew stood by as he did so, beginning to dispose of the offending items only after they got the nod to
do so. The shot then closed in on the photo with the pinhole camera in the frame. The picture was of the
CEO shaking hands with a white man and accepting as a present a small rubber tree with a pink ribbon
around it. Sheldon got an uneasy feeling when he saw that.
“You need to do the same,” the narration continued, suggesting the white man in the picture was
actually the prospective client.
The framed photo was trashed along with all the other bits. The sweep crew left and the Chinese
members of the board were invited in to commence their meeting. No one noticed the now somewhat
larger rubber plant in the back of the room. But animated lightning bolts superimposed over the
conference scene suggested that the Ficus elastica was picking up the whole conversation and
transmitting it—as a graphic of the same bolts now circumnavigating the entire globe conveyed—from
relay station plant to relay station plant all the way back to a receiver station in the good ol’ US of A.
Good grief, Sheldon thought as he folded up the ThinkPad and zipped it away in his backpack. If
this was any indication of the outlandish pitches that KlassWorks was making to its clients, then it really
was a bubble company.
Sheldon decided that he’d had enough of the office for one day and he was going to head home
earlier than usual. He folded up the front section of the San Francisco Chronicle, deeming it appropriate
that the paper should make the trip with him.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon didn’t want to hear any more about falling bridges, so he clicked off the radio almost
immediately after starting the engine.
The first bubble that Sheldon remembered was the dot-com bubble. It was hard not to think about
the age of loose funds and wild investment that built the valley that he was in as he now drove past the
Googleplex on Ampitheater Parkway toward his apartment on the cheaper side of town. Sheldon recalled
that K.T. had built a working computer when the two of them were still in junior high school and they
discovered the internet a few years before the rest of the world did.
In the beginning there was nothing there apart from links to text and the occasional picture or
sound file that you had to have special ninja skills to download. Then Netscape came out with a graphical
browser and the online universe suddenly began to appeal to the masses. (The guys who started that did
so just a couple miles from Sheldon’s current home, and no doubt left the 247 at the same exit, he mused.)
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Just as Sheldon was entering high school, every company instantly had to have an internet
presence. The ones who got there first were able to stake out the best positions. Sheldon remembered
when K.T. showed him how www.food.com had been claimed by the makers of Ragu spaghetti sauce.
Then the floodgates came down and it was like a new landmass had been discovered and the rush was
suddenly on to colonize and plunder this new virtual continent.
Sheldon’s father, Martin Thigpin—an investment broker who never forgave the eighties for
ruining the markets—saw the rash of funding that the internet sectors suddenly drew as a sign that the
apocalypse was on the way. “No earnings or assets, yet they’re buying like it’s Standard Oil!” he’d shout
at the television, at Sheldon and K.T., even at the dog (who would occasionally respond with an excited
“hi!”).
As the internet began to come into its own, Sheldon instinctively understood a few things his
father didn’t. Amazon.com, for example, made sense, even if it wasn’t showing a profit. People rarely
had to go to a shop and physically flip through a book to know that they wanted to read it.
But Amazon was also the exception. Firms like Pets.com were more the norm—a venture whose
only assets seemed to be its name and some song and dance about how shopping for domesticated
animals would all be done online in the future (“Because pets can’t drive,” the sock-puppet dog used to
say on the commercials). It crashed, as Sheldon’s father had predicted, with a tremendous nosedive when
investors began to realize that the expensive Super Bowl halftime TV ads weren’t bringing in any profits.
Sadly, Martin Thigpin did not live to see that last prophesy realized…
Meanwhile, those who had enabled the dot-com bubble might not have really learned their lesson
either. They were the first generation of at-home investors trading on the internet without a broker. They
didn’t have Sheldon’s father to tell them not to buy shares in a firm with no earnings or assets. If they
bought pets.com at 11 and sold at 14, they probably wouldn’t have felt they needed that advice either.
When the world finally decided it had thrown enough money at the internet, when the year 2000
hit and a critical mass of people were now on the net and had come to better understand both its potential
and limitations, the days of easy money for dot-com start ups came to an abrupt end. However, there
were lots of people who finished ahead—the very people whose homes Sheldon now passed as he turned
south on Shoreline Blvd. They were ready to reinvest. They just needed another bubble, another
commodity cloaked by a shell of a good idea that they could then trade beyond its natural value. That
other commodity, Sheldon thought to himself, wound up being the very homes that he was driving past.
Some of these houses had gone up 300% in the space of half a decade. It was a bubble, whether certain
Chronicle economists wanted to argue against the fact or not.
And now housing was running out of steam, but biotech was one of the new contenders on the
horizon. Barry understood that. As his corporate slogan—”Imagining Possibilities”—contended, Barry’s
greatest talent may have well been his ability to put the right spin on an idea so as to make it exciting. His
Chinese Hot Sweep video was inspired. Seeing was believing. It was fiction, but it was also what drew
the money. (The $515,000 for sale sign on a house that Sheldon now drove by, a house that could not
have been worth more than a fourth that a few years ago, that seemed equally fictitious. But someone
would still probably wind up paying forty-eight-five.)
Sheldon also saw a familiar looking Camaro shoot past him going the other way. He surveyed it
instinctively and it did seem as though there were three or four gang member types within. But, of
course, he’d been seeing Camaros everywhere since the incident near Skyline Boulevard. He was still in
the habit of giving them a second glance, even when they were completely the wrong color and model.
That wasn’t the case with this one, but he verified in the rearview mirror that it was still proceeding safely
in the other direction before he let it go.
The big question that had been shouting in the back of Sheldon’s mind for the last half hour,
however, was how fictitious was it? A plant tracking human sound vibrations and sending them on—it
sounded like absurd science fiction. Only the idea wasn’t completely inconsistent with data that had been
observed. Sheldon wanted to believe, of course, that some variation of what Barry was suggesting could,
perhaps, someday be possible. Had Sheldon been so quick to reject the whole thing as pure fantasy partly
out of resentment…because Barry had invaded his turf?
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Sheldon wondered whether, under different circumstances, with the two of them truly and
honestly collaborating, maybe in a Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak-type relationship…then Sheldon nipped
that line of thought in the bud. Yes, in a different world maybe they could have found more overlap and
answered more questions. But at the end of the day, Sheldon decided he wouldn’t have been happy.
Barry was too interested in designing product and Sheldon saw that as a handicap.
Sheldon’s heroes were those who had been chiefly interested in helping mankind better
understand the universe, not in making a fast buck. No sooner had Sheldon begun to commit himself to
that statement than he recalled that Thomas Edison was number seven on his list of great scientists. And
Tycho Brahe might have been a lot less fond of making planetary observations if it didn’t also help to get
him laid. Oh, well, Sheldon thought as he pulled his Taurus in next to the beamer 3 series, Barry was not
an Edison or a Brahe. He needed the science. And the help that Sheldon intended to give on that score
was limited.
Chapter Forty-Six
Sheldon pulled into his parking space feeling vaguely more sure of himself, though he wasn’t
sure exactly why.
He didn’t have time to chase backwards for the reason, however, because dents and scratches all
around the exterior of the BMW suddenly stole his attention. Those weren’t there this morning, were
they? Surely he would have noticed, he thought as he exited the Taurus.
Then he felt something crunch beneath his feet and saw that there was soil scattered throughout
the parking area and all along the walkway. Sheldon took a look around. It was dark and quiet beyond
the lit parking area and apartment complex. Someone’s TV was playing somewhere and there was the
occasional sound of a car going by in the distance, but nothing seemed to be happening in the immediate
vicinity.
Without touching it, almost without looking at it, Sheldon verified that the padlock was still in
place on the wooden storage area above his parking place. Then he proceeded quickly but with caution
toward the entrance to his building.
Sure enough, there were random splashes of soil all about, leading up the stairs and along the
hallway. He arrived at unit 302 to find the door cracked open. He pushed it the rest of the way and called
out. “Hello?”
It was mostly dark within. He tried the light switch, but it was still mostly dark within.
Click click click—no good. That switch opened current to an AC outlet into which a halogen
lamp was connected. But as Sheldon’s eyes adjusted, he could now see by the outside light coming
through the window that the lamp lay in pieces on the floor. An LED display was glowing on the
microwave oven in the kitchen, so the power wasn’t out, yet the floor was littered with books and broken
dishes and overturned plants.
Sheldon stepped over the debris on the floor as best he could and made his way toward the TV,
figuring that would be the nearest quickest way to flick some light on the subject. As he crossed the room
and the kitchen came more completely into view, he saw that the entire refrigerator had been overturned.
He let out a breath.
Just then the display on the numbers that had been visible on the microwave disappeared.
Sheldon blinked. They came back into view along with a very soft crunch on the floor maybe four feet
away. One of them was still here!
“Leave me alone!” Sheldon shouted. They were the first words that came to mind. As was often
the case, Sheldon hit upon what would have been a much better thing to scream just a few scant seconds
after it was too late. He should have yelled that he’d call the police. But he didn’t take the time to correct
himself. The idea had been to step back and give the intruder a clear path to the door, while at the same
time clenching up his grip on his backpack in case the guy charged at him instead.
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Sheldon didn’t want the guy to charge at him. That was the main reason he didn’t shout out
anything about the police, even though if he had thought of it earlier it might have made the crook that
much more likely to flee. But right now Sheldon didn’t want to give the guy any more reason to focus on
him rather than the door. Sheldon would have run if he could, but he was too deep into the living room.
He’d screamed his bit and now he’d just have to wait while the intruder decided.
There was a tense moment of silence in which all Sheldon could hear was breathing. He held his
backpack tight and tensed his forearm. Then, at last, the guy made a decision. It was for the door over
the wildcard rucksack, just as Sheldon had hoped. What Sheldon hadn’t counted on, however, was the
intruder tripping.
No time to think. The dark figure kicked over something and suddenly was flying toward
Sheldon, who struck instinctively with all his might.
He walloped the other in the head. He heard a cry. Then a hard bulky crash.
Moaning from the floor! The guy was down!
But the intruder was also still inside the apartment! Sheldon suddenly was unsure as to what he
should do. He just stood there, frozen, listening…
And he noticed that the moans sounded female.
“Please…I’m sorry….forgive me…” she was pleading. The voice was Connie’s. Sheldon now
knew what to do. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the floor and fumbled for the TV.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Are you all right?” Sheldon said.
“I think you should be able to work out the answer,” Connie responded.
By the flickering light of the television, Sheldon made out a bruise on her neck, a bloodied lip and
a torn sweater. But she was well enough to give a response, and an admirably snappy one at that, so
Sheldon figured she’d be well enough to lie there an extra moment while he went to turn on the track
lighting over the kitchen counter.
He returned both better able to see her and carrying a dampened towel which he proceeded to use
to blot the blood from her chin. Connie took it away from him.
“I’ll do it,” she said. Then: “Thanks.”
She started to sit, but had to stop midway. She tried to scoot toward the sofa so she could lean up
against it.
Sheldon wasn’t sure what to do. He was hesitant to try and help her to a chair, so he quickly
dragged the chair close to her and gave her a pillow in case she wanted to just lean. He watched her grunt
as she eased herself up into the chair. He watched her press the towel against her lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
know—”
Connie cut him off. “Don’t worry, you only got me on the shoulder,” she said. “It was your
damned coffee table that took me the rest of the way.”
“I never liked that thing,” he replied. He’d said it because it was true, but realized after the fact it
was also a rare case of him getting off a pretty good line.
Only Connie suddenly stopped with the snappy comebacks. She looked at him for a long
moment and her eyes began to water. “I’m sorry, Sheldon,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“What are you…?” Sheldon began. He looked around the living room. “You didn’t…?”
“No. But you were right, I was spying on you. Barry told me to.”
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Sheldon now noticed a scratch on the side of her face just next to her ear. It was mostly behind
her hairline so he hadn’t seen it before against her dark skin. He gently pushed a lock out of the way to
make sure it wasn’t too bad.
Connie didn’t pull away. Instead she began to sob.
Sheldon wiped her eyes with the back of his finger and used her tear to clean the scratch in the
same gentle motion.
Connie let out a painful little chuckle, a forced laugh through her crying. “On top of that you had
a break in,” she said. “The good news is they were too distracted to take anything. And I got what I
deserved.”
“Don’t say that,” Sheldon responded automatically, surprising himself by again coming out with
the right words at the right time. It wasn’t a snappy comeback, but it sounded very Humphrey Bogart in
the moment. So much so that, as he wiped away more tears with his thumbs, he leaned in to kiss her very
softly on the cheek.
He resisted the urge to kiss her again. Her lip had been bleeding and was still swollen, so that
was probably for safety. But then she leaned forward and kissed Sheldon on his cheek. That was
probably for symmetry.
Sheldon then started up to find some disinfectant. But Connie pulled at his arm until he was
kneeling in front of her again and then she buried her face in his chest. Sheldon put his arms around her
as she had a good long cry.
*
*
*
*
In the hours that followed, Sheldon asked as delicately as he could about the characters that had
trashed his place and torn Connie’s sweater. When she didn’t want to talk about it, he left it alone for a
while. But then he brought the subject up again, concerned that time could not be wasted should a
medical exam be warranted.
Sheldon described the four toughs that he’d had the run in with several months earlier and told
Connie that, if it were the same guys, pulling his old police report would be easy and might make the cops
more likely to act, as justice would be triply served by their apprehension. He promised he’d tell the
authorities that Connie had been in his home at his invitation.
She countered that she didn’t want or need the police involved. She said that she had screamed
and fought and given the gang opportunity to do little more than scratch her up a bit. She argued that if
they involved the authorities Barry would be upset with her and it would sacrifice the one thing she cared
the most about which was her research. She looked at Sheldon with pleading eyes and slid into his arms.
Sheldon was fairly confident that he wasn’t being given the whole story. But he also had reason
to hope that, at long last, he and Connie were on the verge of becoming allies.
If that were about to happen, it would be a major development. Well worth a small leap of faith
and leaving a few questions unanswered for the time being…
Chapter Forty-Eight
Sheldon entered the living room clad in his bathrobe and carrying a freshly washed ceramic pot.
He felt himself relax somewhat at the sight of the cleaned-up apartment—floors vacuumed, drawers
replaced, pictures re-hung. He set the pot on the coffee table; atop a magazine he’d positioned over the
persistently offending spot, and took a seat on the sofa.
He watched Connie pouring tea in the kitchen across the way and placing cups on an oversized
tray. Connie, too, looked a lot more relaxed from Sheldon’s current vantage point, clad comfortably, it
seemed, in an oversized Lobos baseball jersey.
“They actually did take something,” Sheldon said, prompting Connie to jump as soon as he spoke
and rattle her cups. She’d had a long night and was apparently very focused on her tea making.
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She glanced back at him and let out a breath. “What was that?”
“Sorry, I was just saying…I had a branch from a Coula tree in this pot and it’s nowhere in the
whole apartment.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard to replace,” Connie said as she poured. Sheldon didn’t answer.
Connie tensed for an instant after putting the pot down. “By the way, this shirt I’m wearing wasn’t
anything real special, was it?”
“From New Mexico where I did some graduate work,” Sheldon responded. “I think I bought it
on sale.”
“I kind of bloodied it up a bit,” she said, turning to face him with the tray in hand.
Sheldon noticed that her lip had puffed up. There was a small splotch of red around the collar of
his jersey, but apart from that it had never looked better. He decided that that was a good line and it
wasn’t too late to use it, so he told her so. Connie’s injured lip hooked into a very subtle smile as she
brought the tea over.
“This place probably never looked better either,” Sheldon added, unable to leave well enough
alone. “Or, if it did, you’d probably have to go back to the eighties.”
Connie put the tray on the coffee table.
containers of herbal tea.
Sheldon noticed that she’d used her own plastic
“You know, it's actually a pretty good thing you were here,” Sheldon continued. “I noticed they
hardly touched the bedroom. If you hadn’t been there, they would probably have trashed that too and
ruined some important things.”
“As it is, they just ruined my lip.”
“I didn't mean that. Your lip is very pretty. And important.”
“Forget it,” Connie said. Sheldon decided to try and comply. He took a small sip of the tea. He
coughed. “Special recipe,” Connie explained.
“Tastes bitter.”
“It's not how it tastes. It's how it makes you feel.”
“I feel kind of bitter,” Sheldon said.
“That's why you should drink up. To forget about everything.” Connie took a big gulp from her
own cup.
“Not so easy,” Sheldon countered. “People trash my room. Barry sends you to spy on me.
There’s all these weird secrets and office politics and personality clashes. The way things work at
KlassWorks, that’s not the way to get at the truth.”
“The problem is people are human,” Connie said.
“The problem is it's too much about money,” Sheldon snapped back. That line was a bit too
brassy, he suddenly realized. Out of character for Sheldon Thigpin, he thought.
“What do you expect? It's a lot easier being human when you have money.
Konvergence is going to be worth a shitload.”
And Bio-
“Shedload,” Sheldon corrected, thinking Connie could be acting slightly out of character for
Connie. Only he didn't really know exactly what was in character for her. “You know, you change colors
constantly,” Sheldon managed, then realizing that the line had come out wrong. He retreated into his tea
and drained his cup.
Connie stood then. She removed the cup from Sheldon's hand and put it on the tray.
“You know that's what B.K. stands for, don't you? Barry spells 'konvergence' with a K.”
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“Barry Konvergence?” Sheldon felt suddenly light headed. He tried to focus on Connie walking
across the living room to the kitchen, but the perspective of everything started to shift and transform.
Connie seemed very far away. “I think whatever was in that tea is going to my head...”
Some space of time had passed and now Connie was standing in front of him, only out of focus.
Her mouth seemed almost as big as the rest of her body. Her arms were spurting light like sparklers. It
looked as though she had Sheldon's backpack in her arms, but it was enormous, way out-of-proportion.
“Bio-Konvergence,” Sheldon heard Connie say. “Organic components interfacing with inorganic.
Even an ordinary houseplant could act as a receptor.”
“There's no such thing as an ordinary houseplant,” Sheldon maintained. He turned his head and
saw the mimosa pudica that he kept on the end table drop its leaves. Mimosa plants did that, but this
seemed too quick. “Connie, help me,” Sheldon said. “Something weird is going on…your tea…I'm
having a bad trip!”
Connie was sitting at Sheldon's kitchen table now, powering up the ThinkPad he'd brought back
from the office. Sheldon had thought he left that in the bedroom. Or at least he'd thought he thought that.
He was having a difficult time hearing his own thoughts.
“You’ve been a bad boy, Sheldon,” he heard Connie say. “We gave you a computer and you
password protected it.” But he couldn’t actually tell if it was Connie talking or the wolf on the Lobos
shirt.
“Help me!”
“I'll help you, Sheldon,” Connie assured him. “But first I need you to tell me your log-in first.”
“Steeps,” Sheldon said. “s-t-e-e-p-s. All lowercase.”
Connie waited. “That’s it?” Sheldon found that all he could do was nod. “A nickname I
assume?”
Sheldon said nothing. Mostly because he’d temporarily forgotten how to use his mouth. But his
eyes must have betrayed his surprise, for Connie explained:
“Sheldon is Old English for “steep valley.” I went to Harvard, you know. I’m not stupid.”
Connie then typed in the letters and hit return. She grinned. “That was easy,” she said.
Her grin seemed particularly devilish, with the blood from Sheldon’s own heart that she’d just
eaten dripping down her mouth and onto her shirt. Sheldon’s shirt! The shirt she tricked him out of. I’m
not stupid either, Sheldon thought to himself. My data’s safely hidden in my old iBook stashed in the
downstairs parking storage!
Sheldon saw Connie stand up. Very tall. Her large facial features watched him as she backed out
of the room. He suddenly realized that he had not just thought about his iBook being in the downstairs
storage compartment, he had spoken it. Sheldon dropped his head into his hands, but missed and fell off
the sofa onto the coffee table. He hated that coffee table.
He tried to roll sideways so he’d at least be covering the spot, but something told him he rolled
too far.
“Look out!” he heard his mimosa bush cry. Or at least he thought it was the mimosa bush.
“Don't worry, Sheldon, you did good,” Connie cooed somewhere from the sky, above the roof,
over the mimosa pudica, up and not down.
“Yeah, Shel, real good,” he thought he heard Barry then pronounce as well. “Unlike you four
dolts.”
“Well who keeps a computer in a parking storage? You didn’t tell us the dude was loco!” a voice
that reminded him of the tough named Tito now seemed to say.
“No diggity,” someone concurred.
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All Sheldon could see was carpet. He wondered what in the world was going on. Had he been
asleep? Was he dreaming? He felt like he’d just walked in on the middle of a movie. He wished
someone could explain what had happened up until this point.
“Very good. Connie mixed three thiopental sodium tablets into Sheldon's salvia and nutmeg tea
bringing down his defenses and causing him to reveal where his research was hidden,” he heard Shahid
now say. Whether he was imagining this or not, Sheldon now felt he understood the plot and was grateful
for the way Shahid over-explained things.
Sheldon suddenly felt a shoe press hard on the back of his neck. His face was now wedged
against the floor. “Hello?” he said.
“I could finish him right here if you want,” the voice of Tito seemed to be boasting. “Break the
cholo’s neck. Make it look like an accident.”
“Cost extra, though.”
Sheldon's head was abruptly flipped sideways. He thought he saw a dark foot that looked like
Connie's. It was a beautiful foot. But the pair of Nike tennis shoes standing next to them weren't quite as
beautiful.
“Yeah, sure,” came the voice of Barry. “Tripped over the coffee table and died. That happens all
the time.”
There were some crashing sounds and then there were no sounds anymore. Sheldon was grateful
that the pressure on his back had gone away. He now felt very relaxed and went to sleep.
As Sheldon lay on the floor, the big potted ivy plant by the window began to move. Its vines
stretched out, like tentacles, and slithered across the sink, down the counter and onto the floor.
The spiked color meter protruding from the soil went bright red and then began to flash. The
vines wiggled across the carpet, snake-like, coming together as they approached Sheldon still lying face
down on the floor.
Sheldon was asleep. He couldn't see the ivy, but he felt it coming. It stretched its way down his
shirt collar, up the cuffs of his pants. It wrapped itself around his face and neck.
“Nooo!” Sheldon tried to cry out. But it was too late. His voice was muffled by the growing,
stretching, wrapping, constricting plant matter. Sheldon's face went hot and red, but Sheldon could hardly
see himself even as he watched from outside his own body. All that was visible were several quickly
shrinking pink dots of Sheldon—now red—surrounded by a giant mass of green.
He heard the plant tightening around his head. He felt it squeeze.
And, like a bubble, it popped.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Sheldon coughed. And he woke up. He saw floor and the lower part of the living room and
suddenly became aware that he had a terrible headache. He had drooled in his sleep and the carpet had
soaked up the wetness, which felt cool against his cheek.
Sheldon pushed himself into a sitting position. It took a very long time. Then he looked across
the living room and into the kitchen. He noticed the potted ivy in its planter on the shelf above the sink.
Innocent and unthreatening. Perhaps one or two of the vines were hanging lower than they'd been the last
time he'd looked, but Sheldon could also tell by the way the light came through the window that it was
much later in the day. If it was the same day.
He stood up and crossed to the kitchen to get himself some water. He filled a glass from the tap,
drained it, then refilled it and drank half as much again. He put the glass to his forehead and let out a
breath. The room was quiet.
“Connie?” he said, though he correctly deduced from the way he'd been left to sleep for who
knows how many hours on the floor that she would not be there to answer.
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Sheldon poured the remainder of the water into the ivy pot. The soil sucked it up gratefully. He
thought for an instant that the color meter had flashed red, but when he looked again it was black and did
not change. Sheldon stood there doing nothing for a moment longer. His mind felt truly blank.
Then he remembered his iBook. He put the glass down and hurried out of the apartment and
downstairs.
He reached the parking space for 302 and fumbled through his pocket for the key for the storage
unit padlock. It was still on his keychain. He undid the lock and opened it up. His iBook was wrapped
safely in the blanket sandwiched between the two spare tires. It looked untouched.
Sheldon examined it carefully even as he brought it back upstairs and opened it on his kitchen
table. The screen came up as expected with his desktop looking much the same as when he’d last seen it,
but the battery was weak so he plugged it into the mains and then went to fetch himself another glass of
water.
That was when the computer blew up.
Sheldon choked up water and spilled it all over himself and the floor. Flames were crawling out
of the side of his iBook and dark heavy strands of smoke were pouring out onto the table. Sheldon found
a towel on the kitchen counter that was once wet—he thought he’d used it to clean up Connie however
long ago—but it was now dry and stiff. He doused it with water then spread it over the iBook to put out
the fire.
The room smelt like burnt plastic. Sheldon could hear his own heart beat. He was breathing
quickly but felt dizzy anyway, like he wasn’t getting enough air. He took three steps back from the cloud
of smoke surrounding the table. On the counter he saw his largely unused address book next to the
phone. He knew that Margaret’s number was in it. He flipped through the pages and called her.
“Sheldon, long time no speak,” Margaret answered, picking up on the third ring. Sheldon now
recalled that she subscribed to Caller ID. Margaret, this is Sheldon was going to be his first line, but now
he didn’t have that. “Are you there?” she said.
“…I don’t know where to begin.”
“Well how about with ‘How’ve you been, Margaret?’ because obviously you are there.”
“Right, sorry,” Sheldon said. “How’ve you been, Margaret?”
“Pretty doggone good. I finally got on the tenure track.”
“Wow, that’s great,” Sheldon responded.
“Max and I think so. But you didn’t call just to catch up. What’s on your mind?”
“My computer exploded,” Sheldon blurted out. “I think it was sabotage. There were some things
on it that were real important and personal—”
“Hold on,” Margaret said. “What do you mean ‘exploded’?”
“Blew up. Burst into flames. There’s all kind of weird stuff happening here, you wouldn’t
believe. But that laptop had all my original research and data on it.”
“Wait a minute. Are we talking about that old blue iBook from the nineties?”
“It wasn’t discontinued until 2001, but that’s not the point. There was this girl from the office
who almost got raped by a Mexican gang, and then she put some drug in my tea and I started
hallucinating. Plus Barry Klass wants to use houseplants to spy on people.”
Just then, Sheldon heard Max talking to his mother in the background. “Who are you talking to?”
he was asking. Margaret told Sheldon to hold on and presumably put her hand over the receiver, but
Sheldon could still make out parts of the muffled conversation:
“I’m talking to Sheldon…long distance from California.”
“Is he with Barry Klass?”
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“Not at this particular moment, Max. Now will you close the door?”
“Can I say hi?”
“Not now…because he’s freaking out, all right? Just give me a few minutes.”
“Can I listen in?”
“No!”
Sheldon rubbed his eyes. Maybe he was freaking out. After all, he came from a family of males
who were prone to freaking out. His father was widely believed to have smashed up half their house over
a light bulb being the wrong wattage, which needless to say was something of an overreaction. And K.T.
had time again seemed to prove that the acorn didn’t fall very far from the tree, getting himself into
constant trouble by placing his emphasis consistently in the wrong places despite his brainy brilliance.
The question that had gnawed at Sheldon his entire adult life was how far did the acorn fall from
the other acorn? He knew he had inherited some of the same intelligence and insight that K.T. had—
certainly not as much, but he hoped that on his better days he made up for that by being more objective
and grounded.
Today, perhaps, was not one of his better days. But surely that was why he had called Margaret.
She was pragmatic and down-to-earth and if anyone could help him break through the confusion and
anchor him to reality it was her.
And Margaret proceeded to do just that. Seconds after Sheldon heard the door slam loudly on the
other end of the line, Margaret was back with him saying, “Listen to me, you’re in a high pressure
situation out there and I’m sure you’re under a lot of stress. So why don’t you just leave everything else
aside for a minute and focus on giving me the facts?”
Sheldon felt calmer already. And he was further relieved to hear his improved mood reflected in
his voice as he recounted the most recent events. “Some guys broke into my apartment,” he said. “But it
could have been worse. They hardly took anything.”
Margaret acknowledged this.
“Then a girl, well, a colleague, she made me a drink with some herbs. And I think I had a bad
reaction and some weird vivid dreams.”
“That can happen,” Margaret said.
“My computer did blow up though,” Sheldon asserted. “I’m looking at it right now.”
“Fine. And you’re a logical person. So tell me how that could have happened.”
“Well, it was old, like you said,” Sheldon admitted sitting down next to the table and examining
the remains of his iBook. “Plus I did keep it in the outside storage, so it was exposed to a lot of moisture
from the Bay Area air.”
“You kept your computer outside?”
“Kind of. Also a light got broken during the break in which could have tripped a fuse and it’s an
old apartment anyway…so it’s possible there was a power surge.”
Sheldon didn’t feel that this was very likely, yet at the same time he quickly saw the value of
playing Margaret’s game. Now that he had begun to think more clearly, Sheldon realized that it must
have been the battery that had exploded, while the hard disk—the actual brain of the computer—had
likely survived.
Margaret was about to say something that would have no doubt put it all in perspective, but just
then there were two ominous clicks on the line.
“Did you hear that?” Sheldon gasped, suddenly speaking in a whisper.
“Yes, it’s known as ‘call waiting’. You want me to hang on?”
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Sheldon felt silly. It had been so long since he’d used the function—he never had from this
apartment as he was so seldom on the phone—that he’d temporarily forgotten what it sounded like. He
asked Margaret to wait and clicked over.
It was Chester. “You’re there!” he cried. “I was afraid maybe you left town again.”
“No, I’m sorry, I was just—” Sheldon began.
“I’ve got Mr. Thigpin on the line,” he heard Chester saying to someone else. “Now could you
guys just wait? Those things need to be handled a certain way.”
“Who’s handling what?” Sheldon said.
“The movers. You really need to be here to oversee this. They’re going to contaminate half your
research trying to force it into these tiny storage boxes.”
“Why are they moving things? Who’s moving?”
“We are. To that offsite nursery up north. Didn’t you get the messages? Or see the e-mails?”
Sheldon’s head was suddenly spinning again. “I don’t…what day is it today?”
“Huh?” Chester began. He was stopped short of saying more by a loud banging sound and the
crashing of glass. “Oh, come on, guys!” he shouted.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Sheldon said and disengaged the line.
He looked around and tried to think fast. The pants he’d put on for the walk down to the storage
area would be fine, but all he had on top was a t-shirt. He threw on another shirt and jacket over it and
found his keys. The ThinkPad was gone so he couldn’t use it for a quick e-mail check. He found his
BlackBarry in the bottom drawer of the bedroom and pressed power while he verified that he had his
keys. Only it would take ten minutes to come on and he’d be there by then. He wiped the moisture from
the remains of his burnt-out iBook, wrapped it back in the blanket, and tucked it under his arm as he
headed for the door.
He noticed as he got into his Taurus that the BMW 3 Series was gone. It had probably been gone
when he came down an hour previous to open the storage compartment, but he had been so focused on his
laptop and his heavy head at that time that he hadn’t noticed. He slammed the door, gunned the engine,
and peeled out of the driveway.
It wasn’t until he was merging onto the 247 that he remembered leaving Margaret on the other
line. He tried to recall just how call waiting worked again. Would she have been automatically
disconnected when Sheldon hung up? Or could he have inadvertently left home with her still on hold and
awaiting his return?
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PART NINE: PLANTS!
(SILICON VALLEY, 2007)
Chapter Fifty
The parking attendant started in the direction of the gate as soon as he saw the Taurus
approaching down the driveway—possibly even sooner; he may have heard the knock of the engine
before Sheldon had even turned the corner. Fortunately, the gate had been left open, as there were
various trucks coming and going, so Sheldon simply drove right in.
The parking attendant waved with both hands as Sheldon pulled into the lot. He hadn’t meant the
wave to be one of the “hello” sort, but rather of the “pull over, I need to talk to you” variety. Nonetheless,
Sheldon responded with the first kind of wave and proceeded along to the main entrance, forcing the
attendant to sprint after him.
“Sorry, Mr. Thigpin, I had to pull back your lot access,” the attendant stated needlessly once he’d
caught up with the Taurus. It was stopped at an odd angle in front of the coned-off space that used to be
Sheldon’s. “The report we got said you’d been transferred off site,” he added.
“Fine, but I need to bring my stuff down,” Sheldon replied forcefully as he opened the door and
stepped out.
The attendant looked at the KlassWorks entrance. “Yeah, okay…I could put you in as a short
term visitor. I need your keys though.”
Without answering, Sheldon opened the trunk, tucked in his wrapped iBook, and slammed it shut.
He handed over only the key to the door and ignition. He then started toward the lobby, but now got the
feeling he’d likely be held up at the main desk. So he veered to the left without looking back and walked
quickly under the skyway. He moved around the Green Wing to a service exit he knew would be locked.
But he reached for his wallet as he strode and removed Barry’s old ID card from the rear compartment.
He slid the card through the reader. He saw the amber access light turn green. He pulled the door
open and hastened toward the elevator.
Sheldon’s name was still on one of the two doors to his office. As he stepped inside, however, he
saw that the place looked very different from the way he’d left it. His eyes went straight to an enormous
wooden crate next to the wet bar that a mover had presumably just put together as he was now testing
various points with his hammer for sturdiness.
Chester looked at Sheldon and shook his head. “You’re too late,” he sighed. “I told them only
you could disassemble the planters, but they insisted they simply couldn’t wait another five minutes.”
“Some people get paid by the job, not by the hour,” the mover spat defensively.
Then a second mover, who had been hidden behind the crate pasting on labels, stepped into view
and affixed a pre-printed tag on the front side as well. The first mover continued to moan about how the
office was supposed to be empty by five and it was past that time now and they had no intention of sitting
around while Sheldon took everything apart.
“So they built this monstrosity,” Chester explained.
“Be glad we did,” the first mover shot back. “Your stuff’s going to come out just like it went in.”
Sheldon noticed that the labels showed the boxes going to a facility in Palo Alto and printed in
the “from” area was “KlassWorks – Green ‘Siberia’ Wing.”
Chester waited for Sheldon to look in his direction, then opened his mouth to speak. But Sheldon
held up a finger and reached for the desk phone. Chester let out a breath, checked his watch, and
wandered toward the door.
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Meanwhile, Sheldon called the slide room. Ron the intern picked up. “Could I talk to Connie?
This is Sheldon calling,” he said.
What he heard only increased his confusion and frustration. “What
do you mean she’s not there? She’s always there. Where is she?”
Ron didn’t have an answer, and at that moment Chester came rushing back into the room
gesturing for Sheldon’s attention. “Barry’s on his way. Just got off the elevator.”
“Great,” Sheldon said.
“Maybe he’s just going to wish us luck at the new place, but he’s got two security guards with
him. I hope he’s not going to be a dick because we we’re late getting out.”
Sheldon still didn’t know why they were going to a new place. But he didn’t care either. He
turned and saw the two movers hoist up the crate to carry out. It must not have been very heavy as they
had two cardboard boxes on top—that made sense if all there was inside was plants, plastic and
cushioning. Sheldon reached again for his wallet.
“I need a favor,” he said to Chester. “I’ve got to check some things out before I go. When Barry
gets here could you tell him I went to the bathroom?”
“Oh-kay,” Chester hedged. Half a question, half a statement, expecting more which didn’t come.
Chester obviously didn’t want to say anything to the CEO that would jeopardize his future. But Sheldon
was now heading out of the office and, for all Chester knew, was on his way to the bathroom. Chester
couldn’t quite tell what the big favor he’d just agreed to even was.
Sheldon got the second of the two double doors for the movers and crouched behind the crate as
they proceeded down the hall.
“Now what—?” the first mover began. But a hundred dollar bill then materialized in each of
Sheldon’s hands and both men opted to keep their mouths shut.
Barry and two security guards squeezed by them, with Barry leading the way fast for Sheldon’s
office. Once inside, he looked around at tape, splinters, boxes and Chester.
“Where’s Sheldon?” Barry said.
“He went to the bathroom?” Chester replied.
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“I guess both. He said he was going to the bathroom, but I didn’t follow him to verify the
evidence.”
Barry muttered something about hating lab rats as he wheeled back out of the office with the
security guards in tow. Chester caught the gist and hung his head. He’d said the wrong thing.
Chapter Fifty-One
Sheldon hit the stairs and took them two at a time. He raced across the skyway, thinking as he
ran that the place seemed oddly deserted.
He reached the slide room and looked through the glass. Ron the intern was inside working at a
desk. As he’d asserted to Sheldon on the phone, Connie didn’t seem to be around. Sheldon ran Barry’s
card through the reader. The door clicked open.
Ron looked up as Sheldon entered the room. Then he did a double-take. “You’re—”
“Sheldon Thigpin. And you’re Ron. Nice to know you,” Sheldon said as he moved quickly
across the room, hoping that his walk carried authority.
Ron didn’t seem sure what to do. He stood, but didn’t know how to proceed beyond that. His job
description wouldn’t have included guarding the lab, but he was clearly feeling that Sheldon was invading
his territory. “Can I help you with something?” he said.
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“I’m fine,” Sheldon responded as he hurried past. “Barry sent me up to wait in his office. He
gave me his cardkey.”
Sheldon held up the card for Ron to see. He hoped it would work. The pass card not opening the
door seemed the only thing that could prevent him from getting in the room as he was already just a few
paces from the door while Ron was still standing way back at his desk.
Sheldon then heard a thump. Was Ron moving to head him off? Was he turning to sit back
down? Sheldon couldn’t afford to look. He held his breath and tried the cardkey. The door opened. As
he stepped through it he allowed himself to turn and was relieved to see Ron still standing next to his
desk.
“He’s obviously not here yet. I’ll just have a seat and wait.” Sheldon had said that to buy time,
but it seemed the wrong move, as Ron now looked a lot less confident. Sheldon quickly closed the door
to Barry’s office.
He heard the lock engage and then went straight for the bottom drawer of Barry’s desk. The
drawer slid right open and it was full of files—important ones, in fact—but they weren’t of the type that
Sheldon was looking for. They told him that KlassWorks was long in oil futures. Sheldon didn’t care.
There were call warrants and default swaps and stockified asset contracts, suggesting that the company
owed more than a little to wild trends in the financial sector. But none of it was what Sheldon had come
to find.
In no time, Sheldon had emptied the whole heap onto the floor. He turned to the two tall file
cabinets on either side of the sofa across from the desk. He saw folders related to projects he was aware
of or had seen demonstrated in the KlassRoom, but nothing jumped out at him as being directly related to
Connie or plant life or anything with a name like “Bio-Konvergence.”
The phone rang on Barry’s desk. Sheldon jumped. He let it ring but was all the more aware he
was burning time.
He went back to the desk and studied the panel under the bay of monitors that showed security
camera views. After flipping several switches, he found that there was a central security camera in the
middle of the Green Wing fifth floor men’s room. He saw Barry and the Security Guards waiting outside
a closed stall.
He then turned on Barry’s ThinkPad, but there was nothing of interest stored locally. Maybe time
to quit while still ahead, Sheldon thought.
He noticed a sound icon on the security cam monitor and clicked it. “Shel? Afraid I got to ask
you to leave now, pal,” he heard Barry saying. “If you’re sick we can send you to—.” Just then there
was the sound of a toilet flushing and a man exited that obviously wasn’t Sheldon. Barry grabbed him
and pushed him aside, presumably verifying that Sheldon wasn’t hiding behind him in the stall.
“Son of a bitch!” Sheldon heard Barry cry as the latter hastily snatched his mobile out of his
pocket and began dialing while storming for the exit. The guards looked at each other and then followed.
Sheldon sensed that the window of opportunity for quitting while he was ahead was soon about to close.
He crammed the financial docs and ledgers back into the bottom drawer knowing that they
weren’t going to look right, but also knowing that he didn’t have time to do any better. He bent one or
two as he rammed the drawer shut then he raced for the door and bounded back out into the slide room.
Ron the intern was standing—not sitting but standing—at his desk with a phone receiver to his
ear. When Sheldon and the intern locked eyes, Sheldon had little doubt who he was talking to.
He ran back toward Barry’s office and caught the door just before it locked shut. But this time
Ron ran too. Sheldon was amazed at how much distance the intern covered in very little time. He had
barely made it back inside before Ron was pulling at the door.
Sheldon pulled from his end. Inertia was with him, but the door was heavy and Ron was strong.
Sheldon screamed like a wild fool. Ron said nothing. Sheldon dug his feet into the carpet, then
watched them skid to the wall, yet compensated by leaning backward and heaving with both hands as his
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fingers went pink then white. If it had been a contest of pure strength, or poise for that matter, then Ron
would have won hands down. But somehow all of Sheldon’s twisting and writhing and wrenching
brought the door near enough to closed for the fleeting second that was needed.
The lock engaged. Sheldon fell to the floor.
Then he looked around again. Now what? He’d bought some time, but not much. He looked at
the security monitors and saw Barry and the guards fast making their way from Green Wing to Red.
He needed not to be caught trespassing like this. He needed to somehow slip out to his car and
drive away and never come back.
He looked around but didn’t see any windows in Barry’s office. He did see the door that he knew
led to the bathroom but it was locked—an old fashioned metal key type of lock. Then Sheldon
remembered the International Young Scholars ceramic egg on Barry’s desk. He shook the egg and
something clinked within. He tried to take the top off but there must have been a trick to it and he didn’t
have time to work it out. So he smashed it with a stapler. Sure enough, he found a metal key among the
debris. He plucked it off the desk, ran back to the rear door, and slipped the key in the lock.
It worked. He got the door open to find a very plush executive bathroom. Beautiful but
windowless. Sparkling sink, shiny shower, spacious facilities, but no escape. Sheldon started to turn
away, but something prevented him from leaving. He sniffed the air. There was a potpourri disk on the
wall, but that wasn’t it. There was another smell behind it.
Sheldon moved to the far wall and took another long whiff. It didn’t seem to bring him any
answers and certainly hadn’t brought him any closer to freedom. Barry was minutes away. He was
coming fast with two armed guards, a desire to see Sheldon silenced, and plenty of justification at hand.
And here was Sheldon, standing like an idiot sniffing Barry’s crapper.
If Sheldon ever needed the NSA it was now. He took the BlackBarry out of his pocket and hit
speed dial for the Walrus. It didn’t work. He tried both SIM cards. Neither would connect. No signal
bars. He was out of range.
A special issue phone for KlassWorks employees and it couldn’t get a signal inside of
KlassWorks.
“Fantastic,” Sheldon said aloud.
“Fantastic,” the display read after an instant.
Meanwhile, one of the signal bars flickered. As it did, a familiar scent wafted by. It occurred to
Sheldon that if he stepped back out into Barry’s office proper, he might likely be able to get a signal. Or
in the worst case maybe there was time to figure out what the NSA number was and dial from the desk
phone. Probably not. But something else also occurred to Sheldon…
He put the mobile back in his pocket. He used the key in his hand to tap the long sparkling mirror
over the sink. He tapped it in several places. Then he reached out and pushed it.
It turned out to be a false wall, actually a door. Sheldon went through it.
He then gasped at what he saw. The key in his hand fell to the floor.
The large room behind Barry's office was a veritable electronic greenhouse. There were plants of
all shapes, sizes and varieties, on tables, on the walls, hanging from the ceiling.
And connected to them, from them, and between them, amid a massive web of probes, sensors
and electrodes, there were monitors, meters, graphic printers, and displays of every conceivable kind.
Sheldon was horrified.
“Good...Lord...” he said to himself.
Then he noticed something flash. The words “Good Lord” appeared on a screen--a monitor that
was apparently wired into the soil of a large rubber tree standing in front of him. The tree had its buds
pruned and about thirty wires and cables spider-webbing out from it.
He looked from one to the next.
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For a moment Sheldon forgot where he was. He forgot everything. He impulsively began to
yank the wires away.
Then he saw movement from the other side of the room. Someone had been in the back and was
now coming out. Sheldon turned and watched as the dark figure approached between leaves and
branches.
“Sheldon,” the figure said. It was Connie. “Seems even after you’re fired you still don’t quit.”
“Connie! What the hell is this?”
“It’s what you were always so curious about. It’s my research.”
Sheldon glanced about. It was like being on the set of a plant horror movie. “It’s insane.”
“Yeah. If you’re seeing it all for the first time, I’m sure it looks that way.”
Just then Sheldon noticed something—a plant with rich dark leaves and a purple blossom. It was
the Coula branch that had been taken from his apartment. It was now in a metal pot with an antenna
coming out, a white towel around its base. Sheldon moved toward it.
“And it’s not all your research,” he said. “This is mine.”
At that moment, Connie finally made her way completely around the wall of greenery to face
Sheldon. He saw that she was holding a .45 Hollywood Special, and leveling the barrel at his chest.
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry about the way we got it. Now put it down.”
For some reason, Sheldon was determined to do no such thing. Instead, he held the Coula branch
tightly, protectively.
“This is nuts, Connie,” he hissed.
Connie smiled. It was perhaps the first time he’d ever seen her really truly smile.
“Sometimes insanity is just genius plus or minus time,” she pronounced.
“When Barry first pitched me the idea, I thought it was insane, too,” she continued. “But I
needed the paycheck so I took the job. Then, when I got into it and started to discover what really could
be done, I decided Barry was a genius.
“Only now I finally know where he got the idea,” she concluded, “and who the true genius is.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sheldon said. “That would be such a great compliment if it weren’t delivered at
gunpoint.”
Connie pulled back the hammer. The gun made a threatening click. “Put the plant down,” she
said again.
Sheldon noticed that the monitor attached to the rubber tree was also urging him to “Put the plant
down.”
“So what are you saying? That our whole conversation is somehow being transmitted, or relayed,
by this little captive jungle you’ve got here?”
“I’m saying that you’re too smart to die so young.”
And with that, Connie aimed between Sheldon’s legs and fired the gun. The explosion of the shot
echoed through the room. The monitor near the rubber plant displayed a string of nonsense characters.
Sheldon looked down and saw a smoking bullet hole in the floor roughly four inches from either
of his feet. He took a step backward and swallowed. Connie hadn’t meant to hit him, but she did show
that she meant business…
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Put it down, Sheldon. I’m not going to ask you again.” Connie once more dragged back the
hammer on her Hollywood Special.
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“There are other Coula branches. Western Africa’s full of them.”
“Not like that one. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“Okay, you’re smart,” Sheldon said gripping the metal pot tight. “But you also suck.”
Connie seemed to conclude that Sheldon was going to need another .45 caliber dose of incentive.
She aimed low again, but not quite as low as before. Sheldon took a step to the left and winced.
“Do you not realize that I’m trying to save your life?” Connie said. “You need to put that plant
down and be in a surrender stance before the armed guards get here.”
“Yeah, right.” Connie’s claim that she meant to protect him fell short of convincing as she was
leveling her gun between his legs. Sheldon glanced around at the seemingly windowless greenhouse.
“Like there’s any way I’m walking out of here after I’ve seen all this.”
Connie made a face that suggested Sheldon was hopeless. “This is the 21st century, you child,”
she said. “People in civilized society do not go around killing one another over ideological differences.
Not if they don’t have to. Money is way cleaner at smoothing things over. You’re looking at a giant
payday if you just stop acting like a fool.”
Sheldon hadn’t asked for a giant payday. And it was Connie that had made him play the fool.
Somewhere in all that was a snappy comeback. But Sheldon knew he probably wouldn’t find it in time as
he opened his mouth to stammer out a reply.
He was saved from having to say anything, however, as Connie fired another shot.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon looked down at the trail of bullet holes in the floor that led back toward the veritable
corner in front of which he now stood.
To his right was a long empty table. Behind him two potted Amazon Cocobolo trees shrouding a
cement wall. He’d come to the end of the line...and good thing no doubt, for Connie looked to be out of
patience.
“All right,” Sheldon sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Put it down,” Connie commanded. “Gently.”
Sheldon set the Coula branch down onto the table.
“Good for you,” Connie said. “Now step back.”
Sheldon did as he was told. He took a step back. Then another. Then one more.
“That’s enough!” Connie shouted. “I didn't tell you to moonwalk across the room.”
Sheldon froze and put his hands up. “I trusted you, Connie,” he choked.
“Give me a break. What now, the jilted lover routine?”
Sheldon took a last look at the Coula plant. Then he drew a deep breath and clenched his eyes
shut as though they were about to tear.
Connie moved forward. Just as Sheldon fell back.
She watched as he dropped backward into one of the Cocobolo trees. He hit it in just the right
spot. A split second later the tree released a dense cloud of spores. It struck Connie completely by
surprise and she began coughing wildly.
It did not take Sheldon by surprise. He had already grabbed the Coula branch and rolled under
the table, eyes still closed tight, when he heard the gun fall to the floor and another shot ring out.
He ran as quick and low as he could, breathing through the white towel that the Coula branch had
been wrapped in and getting as far away as possible, even if it meant tripping once or twice, before he
dared to open his eyes again.
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Connie was more limber than Sheldon had figured on. She was already on the floor as well,
squinting and breathing into the folds of her lab coat as she hastily found the gun.
With the way out in sight, Sheldon paused briefly behind a honey locust. As he bent to pick up a
fallen limb, Connie got another shot off and the plant exploded into a green sappy heap. That one did not
feel like a warning shot, Sheldon thought to himself as he scurried for the door.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon came crashing into Barry’s office to find a guard near the door who had been trying to
get it open with a master key, Barry and a second guard not far away.
He threw half a handful of spores into the face of the guard nearest the door and hit the others
with the remainder in one long motion.
The first guard grabbed his face and fell flat to the floor having taken the assault at close range.
Barry and the second guard were more stunned than disabled, but Sheldon was already on top of them,
poking with the thorns in an unexpected offensive strike. The two seconds Sheldon won with the surprise
attack were just enough to cover the delayed reaction of the stinging nettles.
“Ow!” the guard cried. “Holy shit, Sheldon! That hurts like hell!”
“I know—sorry!”” Sheldon shouted, by now already halfway out the other door.
“Shoot the fuck, dammit!” Barry commanded.
Guards raised their weapons and tried to take aim, but Sheldon was out of range running through
the slide room.
Only now Ron the intern was standing between him and the exit. Sheldon tried to veer to the
side, but Ron veered with him. He had no other options, however, and had passed the point of no return.
All Sheldon could do was once again scream like a moron and charge full stream ahead at the fitter and
more confident looking Ron, his honey locust thorns extended like a javelin.
Without the element of surprise on his side, Sheldon's chances of getting past the intern seemed
less than favorable. If Ron stepped aside to avoid the thorns and get a better footing for a fight, Sheldon
would keep running. But if Ron proved willing to face the thorns and stand his ground, Sheldon was
hardly sure that one stab would disable him.
In spite of Sheldon's manic screaming, the intern seemed to understand this too. Sheldon saw
Ron’s thin lips stretch into a smile as his twitched for impact.
Just then, however, something happened. There was a loud “blam!” which shattered a jar of
solvent on a nearby desk. Another shot hit the side of the microwave oven. The guards were in the room
and firing, presumably with Cocobolo spores still in their eyes.
Ron decided he didn't want to stand his ground anymore. He ceased to be the picture of
confidence blocking the exit and didn’t even give Sheldon another look as he dove behind a desk.
“Innocent bystander, innocent bystander!” he cried.
Sheldon tossed the thorns aside and focused on the door to the hallway. Another shot blasted the
glass front of a bookstand into a million pieces a mere three inches from his neck.
“Shoot him! Not the lab!” Barry shouted.
He reached the door, struggled to get it open. He was fumbling with the doorknob and his Coala
branch. He heard footsteps fast behind him and felt his heart practically beating out of his chest.
He somehow managed to get through the door and stumbled into the hallway. But then he made
the mistake of turning his head to look.
He saw Connie. And the two guards. All three pointing pistols directly at his head without
hesitation.
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Sheldon was so overwhelmed by the sight, by the inevitability of what was about to happen in the
next second, that he froze in his tracks, the proverbial deer in headlights. He then saw the muzzle flares
and heard the guns go off, propelling several rounds directly toward him.
The bullets put several dinks in the glass wall surrounding the slide room, but ultimately bounced
off. One of the guards turned to look at Barry.
“Bulletproof,” Barry said nonplussed.
In that moment, Sheldon got a hold of himself and raced down the hall.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sheldon came tearing out the back of the Red Wing and ran around the building into the parking
lot. The parking attendant got off his stool and held his hands up as Sheldon ran over.
“Sorry, Mr. Thigpin,” the attendant announced, “I can’t give you your key. I just got a call that
said—”
Sheldon punched the attendant right above the nose with all his forward inertia packed into his
fist. The parking attendant fell backward to the ground. He covered his face as Sheldon dropped on top
of him. He felt Sheldon patting him down.
“I surrender, take whatever you want. My wallet, my stick—” Then the parking attendant
realized: “Your key’s in the booth, right over there. Your car’s just behind.”
As the attendant took his hand from his face to point, Sheldon saw he’d given the poor guy the
beginnings of a black eye. He would have liked to apologize, but he didn’t have time to stick around and
make it all right.
Sheldon found his key easily as soon as he got to the booth. The Taurus was the only American
car on the rack. He saw Barry and the two guards running out from the lobby just as he got said key into
his ignition. He stripped the gears loudly as he threw it into drive. The others watched him as he roared
out of the gate.
As Sheldon flew down the four lane boulevard that was Alvarado Niles Road, fast on his way to
the 238 onramp, he saw what appeared to be the same familiar Camaro heading fast in the direction from
which he’d just came. As it whizzed by, it looked very much like that same four punks were inside. He
was pretty sure, but not positive.
Then, as he double-checked their movement in his rearview mirror, he suddenly saw the vehicle
make a wide u-turn, jump the center divider, and come zooming back in his direction. That was as close
to positive as Sheldon needed to be. He squashed his pedal to the floor and roared past the next traffic
light just before it changed.
But the punks in the Camaro did one better. They sped past the light seconds after it had changed
and an instant later rammed their car hard against Sheldon’s rear bumper.
Sheldon didn’t stop to look back. He was sucked against his seat as he floored it forward and
focused all of his attention on getting around the traffic in front of him, which fortunately by this time of
day was minimal.
When he did venture a glance behind him, however, he was not pleased by what he saw: not only
was the Camaro very close and gaining, but the punk with the 49ers hat was now leaning out the window
with a Glock Automatic in hand. Suddenly the street was sprayed with bullets. California had not
turned out anything like Sheldon had hoped.
Sheldon's taillights exploded and his back bumper dropped to the pavement. This did, however,
have the serendipitous effect of slowing the punks down as the Camaro had to skid around the piece and
still didn't avoid hitting it.
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Sheldon made a hard right onto Moffett Blvd. The punks took the turn a lot wider but managed
to stick with him. Just then a patrol car came roaring out of an alley with its siren screaming and gave
chase to both.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sheldon made a sharp left turn off the boulevard. But the Camaro stayed with him and more
shots rang out from the passenger side. Sheldon’s rear window exploded into fragments.
He quickly switched lanes and made another sharp left at the last minute, down a smaller road
and then back onto the same big street. The Camaro proved unable to keep up. It failed to fully execute
the turn and plowed instead into the center divider. The cop car pulled up behind it and was soon joined
by another. Officers surrounded the punks and leveled their weapons.
Sheldon checked the scene in his rearview mirror and let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that he
had gotten away.
But just then he noticed a huge shadow ahead of him. Something was coming down in his
direction.
One of the giant palm trees lining California Blvd had just loosened its hold to the ground and
was falling forward into the street. Sheldon threw the steering wheel to the right and skidded madly
around it.
He made it just in time. The palm tree went crashing into the pavement.
Then another one started to fall. Sheldon accelerated to get by before the giant tree crushed his
Taurus. The tree hit the street just behind him with a mighty ka-BOOM! He barely made it past.
But now cars were crashing into light posts and people were running out of stores to see what was
happening. And another palm was in the process of falling. Sheldon was stuck behind a van that was
stopped in the street with too little space to get around it.
He threw open the door and rolled out onto the asphalt.
This third tree flattened his Taurus and took the rear half of the van with it. Strangely, the thing
that initially popped into Sheldon’s head as he watched was that he’d never followed up on his promise to
the Idaho repairman that he’d get the knocking engine looked at. Now, of course, it was too late.
Then a tidal wave of loss and sorrow suddenly hit as though it were a real thing in the air that had
just crashed down on top of him like the palm tree had nearly done. His iBook was gone! His car was
gone! The Coula branch was gone!
Sheldon wanted to stop time. He wanted to curse and cry and sulk and mourn. But he decided
that the best idea was to first get off that street.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Sheldon walked briskly for three and a half blocks. He passed an open manhole and decided that
was as good a place as any to ditch his BlackBarry. He heard it clink against cement a couple of times
before it plashed into water.
He took off the jacket he’d been wearing and turned it inside out—outside out, actually, for this is
the way K.T. had had it on in New Mexico when he first encountered the garment. He kept walking as he
put it on again.
A fire truck and a police car whizzed by, but Sheldon didn't turn to look and they were quickly
gone. A thrift shop had a rack out on the sidewalk with a military baseball cap on it marked $1.75.
Sheldon had exactly two small bills in his pocket, both ones, all the rest were hundreds. He went into the
store with the hat in his hand, and left with it on his head.
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He fed the quarter change he received into a pay phone on Cypress Point Drive. He had to spend
several minutes talking to directory assistance in Washington D.C. and then listening to the operator
being put on hold by the Department of Defense switchboard, but he finally heard Walrus pick up his
extension and utter the greeting: “9519.”
It seemed there’d been a method to the NSA man’s madness. He’d been unwilling to divulge for
the better part of a year just what Sheldon was supposed to be looking for. But Sheldon had certainly
known it when he’d seen it.
“I have an emergency collect call from Sheldon Thigpin,” the operator said. “Will you accept the
charges?”
“Dammit,” Walrus responded.
“Is that a no, sir?”
“That's an unamused yes. Put him through then get off the line, please.”
Sheldon heard the operator tell him to go ahead but was not sure if she had hung up or not.
Finally, he said, “Mr. Russell?”
“This isn't a secure line,” the Walrus said.
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“What happened to the com-card we gave you?”
“It's…in the sewer,” Sheldon answered. “I need to give you a report.”
“Negative. We'll have a new one overnighted to your apartment.”
“This can't wait. Listen, Barry’s done something that I never thought I'd see him do.”
“Barry is a man who imagines possibilities. But I'm trying to tell you this line is not secure and
there's a strict protocol. Your violating it could jeopardize our national security.”
“When you hear what I have to tell you, you're not going to care.” Another siren went by.
Sheldon waited for it to pass, then he took a breath and continued: “Imagine that trees, bushes, shrubs,
roots, vegetables, forests, grasslands could all be controlled by a single localized source. Plants represent
about 80% of all mutli-cellular life and cover 46% the planet. We're talking about an awesome power
here.”
“And I'm talking about not discussing this on an open line,” the Walrus interrupted. “How far are
you from the Capitol Building in San Francisco?”
“I don't know, two hour bus ride I guess. But did you hear what I just told you?”
“I think the hearing problem’s at your end.”
Sheldon detected typing on a keyboard. This undue concern for petty procedure seemed absurd
considering what he’d just reported.
“Hang on, we've also got something in Santa Clara. Are you closer to Santa Clara?”
Sheldon had just delivered the big package. Their worst fears realized. They’d forced him to
come here out of concern that KlassWorks could pose a threat to national security, and now that Sheldon
had, in a rather unfortunate and inadvertent way, managed to prove them right…
“How far are you from where you left your original mobile unit in Mountain View?”
Original mobile unit?
It took him a moment to realize that Walrus was talking about the other phone (powered off and
sans SIM card) that was stashed away in the nightstand by his bed. In Mountain View.
Sheldon didn't answer. His eyes were closed tight. It was like he'd been hit from so many
directions he was almost getting used to it. Almost. He let out a breath.
“Sheldon? Are you still on this line?”
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“You're the client,” Sheldon stammered at last.
“Where are you, Sheldon?” the Walrus asked firmly.
“You're in no hurry to hear what I'm telling you because you already know it.”
“We’ll talk about that when communications are secure,” the Walrus proclaimed. Which, of
course, was far from being a denial. Meanwhile, there was a pause. Sheldon heard movement, as though
Walter Russell were signaling to someone, possibly tracing the call. Finally the Walrus repeated his
question: “Where are you?”
“You guys set it all up, didn't you?” Sheldon said. “Barry couldn't do it without me and I wasn't
going to work for him, so you found a way to plant me and him together so you could get what you
wanted...”
Sheldon felt the blood rushing to his head. He looked around and remembered where he was. He
decided he probably shouldn’t stand for too long in one place.
Only there was one more question he wanted to ask. “Did Barry even know about it…or were we
both plants?”
“Sheldon,” a different voice said. It was also a familiar one.
Darren Scott was on the line. “I want you to listen to me and think about some things,” he
continued. “Terrorists. Osama Bin Laden. Pakistan. Iran. Libya. North Korea. The Russian Mafia.
The Red Chinese. There are a lot of people out there that don't like us, that want us dead, that want to
take everything we have. And when they're on top, don't expect them to be anywhere near as goodnatured as we are. We did what we had to because we needed to get there first. In order to preserve your
basic freedoms.”
“Thanks,” Sheldon said. “Only I don't feel all that free right now.” And with that he hung up the
phone.
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PART TEN: EYES, LOOK YOUR LAST?
(EUROPE, 2008-PRESENT DAY)
Chapter Fifty-Six
Nearly a decade since he’d been here, Sheldon mused. Would she still remember him?
Sheldon’s own memory was fuzzy after so many years. But he still recalled the electric air of
Tallinn. And, even though it had a different look about it, Sheldon was almost positive that this was the
house.
She’d shown it to him from the street. They’d stopped outside it on that magical night. Sheldon
had never been within. Yet he’d stood here looking at it, as he did now, and tried to imagine what kind of
people were inside. As he did now.
Maybe she didn’t even live here anymore. Maybe her family had moved. Or maybe she still was
here, but had since gotten married and lived with her husband and three kids and an invalid in-law.
Sheldon reminded himself that if the latter were the case he’d accept it and still ask for her help as
a fellow scientist. He hadn’t come looking for romance, though the memory of a romantic night eight and
a half years ago now tugged at the strings of his heart. Sheldon had come because Tuula had cared. And
that caring had been translated into a charge that Sheldon hoped and believed could make a strong
electromagnetic impression.
*
*
*
*
Sheldon took a step back and leaned for an instant against a fence surrounding several
townhouses. The fence let out a loud creek—weaker than he’d thought. He quickly jumped forward and
into the path of a cyclist who screeched his brakes and dinged his bell, just avoiding a collision.
The cyclist glared back at Sheldon as he continued down the road. Sheldon took it as a sign that
he had frittered away enough time. He needed to do this while he still had his courage.
He straightened himself up, tucked in his shirt, and rehearsed in his head the Estonian phrase that
he had taught himself that meant “Is Ms. Meeri at home?”
He crossed the street, approached the door, knocked. He’d hoped that he wouldn’t have to use
the phrase, but the person that answered was a t-shirt clad middle-aged man with a potbelly and sour
demeanor. If it was Tuula, it was the most profound metamorphism of all time.
“Kas proua Meeri kodus?” Sheldon tried.
“Ha?” the man shot back. The universal term for a rather impatient “what?”
Sheldon repeated his question, but the man had already stepped out onto his porch and was
looking both ways down the street, presumably to see if this was some kind of gag. Sheldon now noticed
a messy TV table within the house—a spoon protruding from a tin can and a large open carton of juice. It
didn’t seem the kind of home that was benefiting from a woman’s touch.
Then the man said a word that sounded like “taganema.” Sheldon hadn’t memorized that
particular phrase, but the man repeated it as he shoved Sheldon and gestured in the direction of away, so it
probably wasn’t an invitation to come inside.
Sheldon held up both hands and started away. The man went inside and closed the door. Sheldon
slowed his pace as he struggled to work out his next move, but then he heard the man push open a
window and shout “taganema” a couple more times. Sheldon looked back and the man made a face and
slammed the window as well.
Sheldon figured he’d better taganema before somebody called the cops.
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It seemed he wasn’t quick enough, however. By the time he’d turned the corner off of Müüa
Maantee (Müüa Road), a patrol car was already heading his way.
The single officer inside threw on the brakes as soon as he spotted Sheldon, leaving little doubt as
to who he’d come for.
The officer said something in Estonian as he exited his vehicle. Sheldon answered in English that
he didn’t understand. The officer then pulled open the rear door and responded so that this time he would
be understood:
“Get in,” he said. “Please.”
Sheldon kept quiet and did as he was told. He noticed that there was a rusty ashtray in the rear
overflowing with cigarette butts. It was somehow gratifying in light of the situation to know that those
who had ridden in the back of this police car before him had been allowed to smoke.
The officer got in and started the engine. He perhaps was still not a hundred percent sure about
Sheldon’s linguistic abilities for he tried speaking in Estonian one more time. Sheldon again had to
apologize and explain that he could only understand English.
“I see,” the officer remarked. “From where did you come?”
“That’s a long story.”
The officer made a left onto Müüa Maantee and Sheldon began to think he’d misunderstood the
question.
The officer then proceeded to slow down at house number 24—what had once been Tuula’s
home—and Sheldon considered this an extremely favorable development. (If the officer had come in
response to a complaint from the grumpy man inside, then it would soon be revealed that Sheldon had
done no more than knock on the door. Sheldon would then be given the chance to explain how he was
looking for the former occupants and, with the English-speaking officer there to interpret, his chances of
moving forward on that score had just improved significantly.)
The patrol car tapped the curb as it stopped, spilling ash on Sheldon’s leg and the floor. There
had been a couple of butts on the floor before he’d even gotten in, but he judged it best to now put them
back in the ashtray lest the officer wrongly assume Sheldon had made the mess.
Sheldon heard the officer get out of the car and the grumpy man get out of his house and words
being exchanged as he tried to quickly cram too many cigarette butts into too small an ashtray and get the
whole thing closed.
There was a knock on the car window. Sheldon looked up. Tuula was standing on the other side.
“Sheldon,” she said as he opened the door. “It is you? What are you doing here?”
All Sheldon could think of in reply was “I happened to be in the neighborhood…”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The first five or ten minutes that Sheldon spent in Tuula’s second floor studio were long ones.
The officer was there and they spoke in Estonian and little effort was made to include Sheldon in the
conversation or bring him up to speed.
The three of them sat in a row at a long desk that was pushed up against a window overlooking
Müüa Maantee and the houses across the street. The officer was in the middle, but facing Tuula and with
adequate table space for notes to be taken. In Sheldon’s corner was Tuula’s computer. As Sheldon
watched, her slideshow screensaver told the story of marriage, children and work of some sort connected
with archeology digs.
At last, the officer thanked Tuula, stood, took one last look at Sheldon’s passport then returned it.
“You are American,” he said.
“Sort of.”
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The next two hours, by contrast with the first ten minutes, seemed to fly by. Tuula had, of course,
heard of KlassWorks and seen Barry now and then on TV. Sheldon explained how it wasn’t the
wholesome corporation it appeared to be in the papers, how looks could be deceiving.
“Not so deceiving,” Tuula said with a slight smile. He remembered suddenly that she had
impressed him from the start as having very good instincts about things.
Then Tuula told Sheldon about how she’d been married (to someone she knew as a student,
someone whose parents had actually sponsored her for a while), but the affection they’d shared had been
short-lived. Even though the man had remarried and no longer cared about her, his family resented her
persisting presence and continued to look for ways to harass her.
Sheldon was sad to hear about the trouble Tuula and her bitter, slightly senile father that lived
downstairs had had to endure. But he was glad that at least Tuula was still working in academia.
“Only on rare excavations,” she said. “Or sometimes as a lab assistant.”
“I need a lab assistant,” Sheldon blurted out, too abruptly he immediately thought.
“Really? Do you have a lab?”
“Not exactly, not yet,” Sheldon confessed. “Actually, I might not really want one. At least not in
the traditional sense.”
“Sorry, my English isn’t so good anymore. What does that mean?”
“I’m not so sure myself,” Sheldon said. “I’ve just had this thing in the back of my head for a
while now. Actually, it’s been there ever since Minnesota.”
“The back of your head?”
“No…the idea. You know who Jane Goodall is, right?”
“She studied chimpanzees in the wild.”
“Exactly,” Sheldon enthused, suddenly regaining the train of thought and getting excited about it.
“She understood that if you took chimps out of their natural habitat, if you put them in cages—like in a
lab or in a zoo—that they were going to change their behavior. I’ve many times wondered if the same
might not be true for plants.”
“Plants interacting?” Tuula said uncertainly. “Is it comparable to primates?”
“Plants are very different,” Sheldon allowed. “But they do interact, just in far subtler ways.
They adapt and adjust, only on a timescale that we humans, who are also primates, can’t always see.”
“I suppose that’s right.”
“We’re human. Moving is natural for us. We can’t really learn or grow until we move. Imagine
if a human being were born into a bed and could never leave it.”
“It would be…horror.”
“Horrible. Right. So my idea is this: What if for a plant it’s just the reverse? A land-dwelling
plant in nature would never change locations unless some animal or disaster uprooted it. That’s why we
call them plants—they stay planted.”
Tuula thought for a second. “Oh,” she said.
Sheldon realized he was talking too much. He knew that at some level it was because he was so
glad to see her again. He took a breath and decided to cut to the chase. He spoke slowly:
“A plant in a lab or a greenhouse may look ordinary. But its social skills may be stunted, just as a
chimpanzee’s ability to communicate with other chimps is impaired when it’s brought up in captivity.”
“Yes, I understand that point,” Tuula said.
Sheldon looked at Tuula’s computer, ran his fingers along the edge of the keyboard.
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“I’m close to something. If I could study plants like Jane Goodall studied chimps, I think I might
get to where I’m trying to go.”
“Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees for 45 years,” Tuula said.
Sheldon hoped it wouldn’t take that long.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Sheldon’s seemingly grasping-at-straws decision to escape to Estonia in time revealed itself to be
smarter than he could have imagined. He was desperate to lose himself where no one could find him, he
needed help, and (truth be told) he also came because he hoped that seeing Tuula would heal the
loneliness he’d suddenly felt. What was not at the forefront of his mind, but happened to be true anyway,
was that Estonia was 50.6% forest. During the occupation, the Soviets had tried to develop a lot of the
woodlands into commercial farms. These ventures by and large failed leaving empty farmhouses and
deserted driveways next to land that the forests had reclaimed.
Tuula was able to set them up quite cheaply near a place called Keila Vaid about an hour’s drive
south-west of Tallinn. Sheldon wasn’t sure if it was Estonia or the correctness of his theory or having the
best lab assistant he could ask for, but after a few initial glitches, his research began to yield some of the
best results he’d ever seen.
A vascular plant called the Saaremaa yellow rattle (a local variant of Rhinanthus minor) proved
more adaptable than Sheldon would have imagined. By the third generation grown indoors, he had a
flower through which he could communicate emotion to Tuula with an almost 50% success rate! Plus the
same flower grew in the wild just outdoors.
Sheldon’s only real problem for most of the summer was the feelings that he had for Tuula. He’d
known they were there since the first day he’d seen her again. But he’d judged it best to wait and watch
for signals.
Unfortunately, the signals proved vague and inconsistent. In all likelihood, this would have been
because Tuula hadn’t decided for herself whether she was interested in Sheldon in that way or not. Had
circumstances been different, Sheldon could have been bolder and tried to force the issue. But he needed
her too much as an ally and a partner in science to risk driving her away by letting on that he secretly
pined for her. Some days he almost wished she were still married or that he knew that she wasn’t
available to him. It was the constant searching for empirical evidence when Tuula wasn’t giving out any
that was driving him mad.
But then something happened. A series of misfortunes propelled Sheldon into an unexpected
place.
Though he had a cot in the farmhouse and often spent the night there, Sheldon had opted to make
a township called Klooga his primary place of residence. It was a forty-minute walk or fifteen-minute
taxi ride to the farmhouse and it had a train station. It seemed not only more convenient but also safer to
live out in the boonies.
Tuula drove out from Tallinn two or three days a week depending on her schedule and Sheldon
had been expecting her on the first Saturday of August. The rain was very hard Friday morning, however,
and most of the work to do involved collecting new data from trees, which would now be impossible, so
Sheldon called to say she didn’t need to come. He then regretted doing that because Tuula had taken
some samples to Tallinn University to have analyzed and he was eager to see the results. He phoned her
again but she’d already told her father she’d have dinner with him so Sheldon opted to spend his Friday
taking the train up to collect the data.
Then Tuula’s father was barking something at her on the other end of the line and she now told
Sheldon that her father wanted him to eat with them. Sheldon could envisage only negatives coming from
the three of them around a dinner table so he tried to get out of it by arguing that staying into the evening
would cause him to miss the last train back. There was more shouting and then Tuula insisted, on behalf
of her father, that Sheldon stay the night on the old man’s sofa.
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Sheldon really didn’t like that. It would be an uncomfortable night and it might irreparably
define Sheldon in Tuula’s mind as old friend/employer/nothing more. He heard himself agree, however,
and didn’t know how to reverse it.
He arrived at 6:05. The downstairs living area that Sheldon had seen only through the doorway
now looked considerably cleaner. Tuula invited Sheldon to sit and she gave him the printed gas chromo
analysis to look at while she returned to the kitchen. Two minutes later, however, Tuula’s father appeared
(wearing a shirt at least), shook Sheldon’s hand and socked him on the arm. Then he made his way to the
table and screamed at Tuula to begin serving.
The main dish was a spicy purple borscht laden with beets, which Sheldon really didn’t like. He
forced it down by alternating between the soup and sips of red wine until he realized he’d finished his
glass.
“It’s really good,” Sheldon said, smiling at Tuula’s father. “But I can only handle so many beets.
So I think I’m going to stop.”
Tuula started to take Sheldon’s bowl away, but then her father grabbed her hand. He said
something to her then laughed and poured the contents into his own bowl.
Sheldon gave the man a thumbs up. “Tell him ‘my compliments to the chef.’”
Tuula did so and her father nodded and slurped his borscht. Then he said something else to Tuula.
“What?” Sheldon wondered.
The man laughed and Tuula slapped his hand. “Never mind,” she said, then she scolded her
father not unlike a mother talking to a child. “He wanted to know if you kissed me.”
“Tell him I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
In the moment, Sheldon thought that was a reasonably good line. But when Tuula opted not to
translate but to simply resume eating, he immediately regretted it.
He regretted having the wine, he regretted not turning down the invitation, he regretted taking the
train to Tallinn in the first place.
For another hour, Sheldon secretly nursed a broken heart while picking through dessert and
telling Mr. Meeri how his research was going well and how much he appreciated Tuula.
Then the old man decided to go back to his room and watch TV. He pulled a pillow and a blanket
out of the hall closet and dropped them on the sofa. He told Tuula to make sure Sheldon knew where the
bathroom was.
Tuula did so then started out the front door to make her way around to the stairs to her apartment
above. Sheldon almost didn’t follow her out. There was a danger he’d say something even stupider, but
he felt he should apologize and let Tuula know it had been the wine talking.
“I’m sorry for you, Sheldon,” she told him. “But, thank you. My father was happy. He never
gets guests.”
“Yeah, no problem, I just…the thing I said…”
“It’s okay.”
Something hit Sheldon all of the sudden. The obvious interpretation of Tuula’s answer was that
he was forgiven for his wine-induced blunder—it’s okay. Only some…charge…that seemed to speak
louder than anything that Tuula was saying or doing now compelled Sheldon to favor the less obvious
interpretation—it’s okay.
Sheldon went for broke and moved a step closer to Tuula.
“I said…I didn’t know I was supposed to kiss you…and you didn’t translate that.”
“Because you don’t need his perm—”
Tuula never finished the sentence.
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*
*
*
*
Sheldon woke up several hours later. He was in Tuula’s bed. She was cuddled next to him,
asleep on his arm.
It seemed to him that, for the time being, life was perfect.
Sheldon stared at the ceiling and listened to the raindrops on the roof and thought about how
peculiar the winds of fate are. He’d resisted this evening and regretted drinking and lamented over the
remark that he’d made; and yet he’d been on course the whole time—this was nature’s way.
Sheldon didn’t buy the idea that everything happens for a reason, but he certainly couldn’t
disprove it with the events of the last 48 hours. The place he was in now, Sheldon admitted to himself as
he closed his eyes, felt not unlike the best of all possible worlds.
*
*
*
*
And Sheldon was very content for the next several years, gaining ground with his research, loving
Tuula, and living a life he’d never imagined. It seemed cliché, but only after seemingly losing everything,
did he at long last find it...
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The screen on the quad-core iMac bounced back to life as Sheldon entered the farmhouse and set
his shopping on a chair by the door so he could take off his coat.
“Password, please.”
“Windom,” Sheldon called now crossing the front room to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Sheldon,” the forest outside said. “The sun is warm and atmospheric pressure
mild. Promises to be clear all day.”
It wasn’t the literal sound of the forest, of course, but rather the equally pleasant voice of Tuula,
pre-recorded words and phrases strung together by the computer. Nonetheless, the information revealed
in the reply was provided courtesy of the woodland just beyond the window.
Sheldon glanced out at the tall white birches (Betula papyrifera) before opening the briefcase
Tuula had given him and removing the bag of freshly ground coffee he’d come back with. He’d felt
rather cold on the walk back from Klooga, but that would have been the wind chill factor overpowering
the warming effect of the sun’s rays.
“Is everybody happy?” Sheldon asked.
“All happy” was the response after about a five second delay. And the birches did indeed look
fine. Sheldon opened the new bag of coffee and savored the aroma.
He understood the birches. He’d empathized with plant life to varying degrees most of his time
on earth, of course, but it wasn’t until the last few months that he finally started to get there.
Now, after so many years of nursing the proverbial tree that was his research with so little to
show for it, that tree was at long last offering fruit. Now Sheldon lived on a different plane. Now, he felt
validated, if only inside himself.
“Computer sleep,” Sheldon said and the monitor again went black. Sheldon enjoyed using words
and language (particularly before he’d had his morning cup of coffee) as he was, after all, a human being.
But he didn’t need the speech program to talk to the forest.
(He compared himself to a lion tamer in his own head. Great practitioners of the art in the late
19th and early 20th centuries would begin their careers with whips and chains and even guns, but they
would eventually get to where they could tame a lion in part by the way they looked at it and carried
themselves. Then again, a few of those also wound up being mauled to death.)
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Sheldon took two plates and the remainder of his shopping into the front room and sat at the
dining table on which rested a small potted Saaremaa yellow rattle. He thought a greeting to the plant and
knew the plant appreciated it.
Then he unwrapped the sack of little demons that had vamped and vexed him less than an hour
earlier. Five freshly baked croissants. Sheldon had begun experimenting with the now vogue wheat-free
diet and found that it improved digestion and kept his mind sharper longer, so he avoided gluten products
when he could. But this day he was doomed to binge because the smell had caught him off guard as he’d
walked past the bakery.
Sheldon put two croissants on each of the plates and decided to eat the remaining one
immediately. He looked up at the yellow rattle before doing so, however, and felt suddenly guilty, like
the plant was watching him with disapproving eyes. Don’t do it, the plant scolded in Sheldon’s mind. I
deserve a treat now and then, he argued back. Then Sheldon took a big bite.
“You naughty boy!” Tuula’s voice echoed throughout the front room causing Sheldon to jump.
“You caught me,” Sheldon said as he turned to Tuula who had been standing just behind him. He
kissed her on the cheek. “I was just getting ready to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“Yes, I see.”
Sheldon held the other half of the croissant he’d been eating in front of Tuula’s mouth. She bit at
it with mock anger.
“We can take a walk later and burn it off. They say the weather’ll hold.”
They, of course, meant the trees.
“You and your forest have many secrets,” Tuula replied.
She often teased him like that. Sheldon took solace in the fact that she understood the science
that supported his work and so couldn’t think he was completely crazy. But she was still a lion tamer that
needed her whip. It was no doubt easier for her to imagine Sheldon a little delusional than to take the
extra leap of faith.
By now an ample amount of fresh coffee had percolated and so Tuula went to the kitchen to get
two cups. Sheldon, meanwhile, was distracted by dragonflies assembling outside the window.
Suddenly the encephalometer connected to the Saaremaa yellow rattle went insane:
“SKRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
Tuula yelped and dropped one of the cups, spilling coffee all over the floor.
“Sorry,” Sheldon shouted as he hastily disconnected the machine.
But as soon as Sheldon pulled the wires, the iMac screen came back on and, in Tuula’s voice, it
began to balk: “Interference, interference!”
“Oh, turn that off!” the real Tuula said.
“Malfunction, interference!” the computer went on.
“Go to mute,” Sheldon commanded. Both the iMac and Tuula silenced themselves.
Sheldon then proceeded to work the trackpad and keyboard, checking the log and disabling the
alert function. Tuula, meanwhile, blotted the spill off the floor and the counter and got both cups refilled
with fresh brew.
She brought them to the table and set them down among the croissants and the yellow rattle.
Sheldon came over and took a seat next to her.
“There are still glitches in the equipment,” Tuula said.
“I guess so,” Sheldon responded as he put his arm around her and kissed her again. He felt the
presence of the yellow rattle and averted his eyes.
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He had just lied to Tuula. But it was a little white lie intended to protect her from undue worry
and/or doubt concerning her boyfriend’s chronic paranoia. Sheldon had agreed that what had just
occurred was an equipment glitch. But he was actually unconvinced that that had been the case.
And his skepticism increased when they set out on their walk about an hour later. Alongside the
house were three dragonflies, hovering a few yards from the door on the opposite side from the walkway.
As though they’d been waiting for Sheldon to leave.
Sheldon kept a covert eye on them while Tuula exited, then he closed the door quickly.
They seemed to follow from a distance for the first few paces as Sheldon and Tuula started away.
Then Sheldon turned around suddenly and threw out his hands. The dragonflies shot off into the sky,
zooming away more quickly than Sheldon ever would have imagined a natural dragonfly could.
Tuula was oblivious. She registered the fact that Sheldon was doing something strange again, but
she didn’t bother to ask and he didn’t bother to explain.
Instead, Sheldon made small talk with his assistant and girlfriend. They chatted about how nice
the coffee and croissants were, but how later they should have a more nutritious meal to compensate.
Nonetheless, his mind’s eye continued to replay what he’d seen for the duration of the walk…
One thing Sheldon knew about dragonflies was that they lived in close proximity to water. To be
sure, Estonia was full of marshlands, yet the nearest swamp or river would have been a couple miles away.
It wouldn’t have been otherwise inconceivable that they were lost dragonflies that had been hatched in a
stray puddle somewhere. Yet Sheldon was also aware of the electromagnetic interference that they had
caused.
What else could they have been? Radio-controlled toys? UFOs? Nothing else fit. Sheldon was
99% sure that they were spy drones.
Even so, Sheldon decided there was little reason to cheat Tuula out of her walk. After all, the
farmhouse was unlikely to give up its secrets so soon to a few mechanical bugs. And when he returned
the three pair of eyes will have looked their last.
Sheldon suddenly valued more than ever these few moments out with Tuula, hand in hand. For
he now knew for sure he’d be going away.
Chapter Sixty
The problem was that tiny pesky spy drones weren’t the only kind of drones. There were
predator drones—armed drones the size of a large glider or small plane—drones that come in the night
and kill.
Sheldon wasn’t really scared for himself anymore, but he couldn’t allow Tuula to be left in
harm’s way. Predator drones were coarse and dirty. There was often collateral damage and occasional
instances of the drone hitting the wrong person entirely (i.e. a loved one rather than the target).
Barack Obama, Sheldon knew, had stepped up overseas drone strikes significantly during his
time in office. Some victims of these strikes had been US citizens abroad (Sheldon was a US citizen
abroad!) and earlier in the year, Obama’s attorney general had even announced a new interpretation of the
constitution that permitted the targeting of American civilians without judicial process.
Sheldon hadn’t followed the story that closely, but he imagined that the reasons had to do with
the US still being at war against a very frightening “ism” and the fact that one could hold an American
passport and still be an enemy of the state. Sheldon, of course, wasn’t an enemy of the state (far from it,
in fact—he still believed very much in America). Maybe it was time to go back to the old country and set
things straight.
Sheldon opened his briefcase and cleaned it out. Then he set inside the notes and theme books
he’d compiled since he’d started up in Estonia—all his research. He fastened the clasps. He was going
home.
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He moved to his iMac and called up the Safari web browser. He searched for the next reasonable
flight that would take him from where he was, more or less, to Washington D.C.
Tuula was in the next room preparing to go home. She didn’t yet know that Sheldon had been
doing the same. He knocked then entered then sat on the cot and told her about the new arrangements
he’d made.
Tuula was glad to hear that Sheldon would be riding with her to Tallinn. She also understood
about going home for the holidays. (She’d actually been encouraging Sheldon to get away as she worried
his world had become too small there in the forest.) But couldn’t Sheldon spend a night with her in town
before he headed off, she wondered.
“I’m sorry it’s so sudden,” Sheldon said shaking his head. “I’ll make up for it when I get back.”
“Yes, you will,” Tuula responded.
“Just…don’t come to the farmhouse until then,” Sheldon stressed.
She would have had no reason to anyway, Sheldon knew, but he wanted to hear her say it. Tuula
held out and made Sheldon ask a couple more times. Then she finally gave him what he wanted:
“I won’t,” she said. “You can ask your forest friends if you don’t believe me.”
Then Sheldon and Tuula got into the car and started off.
Sheldon looked back as they were pulling out of the drive and he thought he saw three spots
fluttering near the door illuminated by the security light.
It didn’t make a difference, Sheldon decided. By now they probably already knew he was
coming. Only he knew much more than they did.
Chapter Sixty-One
Sheldon had forgotten what a sparsely populated place Helsinki was. Only about half a million
people in the city proper.
This meant that there weren’t many passengers aboard the last ferry of the evening across the
Gulf of Finland, at least not enough to justify the operation of the onboard café. It also meant that the
kiosks were all now closed in the covered arcade leading out of the ferry port.
Sheldon had neglected to fill his stomach adequately before the vessel weighed anchor. He’d
done a quick walk around to see if he could find something to slow his system down once he’d begun to
feel queasy. But there wasn’t as much as a candy machine and he’d had to spend the entire trip on the
upper deck in the cold facing the wind while opening and closing his mouth.
He’d then allowed the handful of Finnish passengers with their cheap vodka purchases to pass
through customs ahead of him while he sat on a bench for as long as he could and waited for his head to
stop spinning. He was hopeful for all of thirty seconds once he’d finally been allowed though as signs
had suggested shops in the long tunnel ahead. But he’d soon found the place to be deserted, but for one
guy about halfway down toward the exit who was presumably waiting for Sheldon to get the hell out so
he could close the doors.
He longed once again, ironically, for the outside air as he walked down the long throughway.
Now all Sheldon could do was focus on the next possible opportunity. Maybe when he got
outside, there’d be a stall or an all night convenience store he’d be able to spot on the way to the train
station. Maybe there’d be vending machines. Even if not, maybe he could still avoid throwing up by
taking deep breaths and focusing on the stable ground below his feet.
“Hiya, Shelly,” the guard said as Sheldon got close.
Only it wasn’t a guard. It was Barry Klass. Sheldon looked up and completely forgot about his
motion sickness.
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Barry was standing there cool and casual with one foot against the wall, a Bluetooth clip on his
ear, and what appeared to be a lollipop in his mouth.
“Barry? What are you doing here?”
“Sucking my sucker,” Barry replied.
“I mean…” Sheldon stammered as the oddness of the situation overwhelmed his still spinning
head. “Why are you in Finland?”
“You know,” Barry said, now taking a step forward and pointing with his lollipop at the
briefcase in Sheldon’s hand. “For that.”
Sheldon suddenly remembered, realized what Barry wanted. He took a step back and when Barry
again moved forward Sheldon resumed his course toward the exit. “What are you trying to say? You
want to steal my briefcase?”
“Nobody said anything about steal.” Barry fell into step behind Sheldon, walking three paces
behind him. “I want my research.”
“Your research?”
“The research that you did, in my employ, on a work-for-hire basis,” Barry said. “You’ll be paid,
of course, for whatever refinements you’ve made since.”
“My big payday?” Sheldon responded. He was now more than halfway through the seaport exit
arcade, maybe a minute and a half from the outside. No sign of life before then.
“Come on, Shel,” Barry said. “You can’t do anything with what you have. You’d go broke
paying lawyers. And you’d still lose in court.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why you’ve been on the lam for the last five years.”
“Well, I’m flying back to the US,” Sheldon said. “We can have it out there.” The exit doors now
looked less than a minute away.
“Yo, I got him. We’re coming out,” he heard Barry say to someone who wasn’t there.
And then Sheldon caught a glimpse of another person’s arm and shoulder moving under the light
of the doors for just an instant before disappearing again. It was nonetheless long enough to make him
see the obvious. Of course Barry hadn’t come alone.
Sheldon did an immediate about face. He veered as far as he could to his right so that his
briefcase clanged against the wall as he hurried passed Barry in the other direction.
Now it was a good three minutes back to the ferry port customs area. But there’d be officers
there.
Sheldon heard Barry again walking behind him.
“Look, if you want to sue me, sue me. But you can’t just show up and take my property,”
Sheldon said.
“I can if it’s my property,” Barry responded.
And then there was an unpleasant click. It was not something that Sheldon had heard very many
times before, but one doesn’t easily forget the sound of a safety being disengaged on a pocket revolver.
Sheldon turned to see Barry with what appeared to be an under-the-shoulder Smith and Wesson
500 now leveled at his chest. He stopped, his back to the wall.
“I don’t believe this,” Sheldon said.
“Just give me the damn case.”
Sheldon wished he were back in his forest. He wished he’d had the time to plan things out more
carefully.
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With choices that included physically taking on a person with a gun in hand, trying to flee down a
linear tunnel, or handing over the briefcase for the time being, Sheldon was on the verge of choosing the
latter.
He didn’t right away, however, because he found he had one more option. There was a small
hallway behind him, between two kiosks, that led to some doors further down. Sheldon saw it all in a
very short instant, but one of the doors seemed to lead to the outside.
If Sheldon fled down this passage, Barry wouldn’t be able to get off a shot right away because
the hall went perpendicular to the line of the arcade and Barry was still a few paces back. But Sheldon
would only have seconds. What if the doors that it led to were all locked?
Sheldon stared at the revolver blankly, wanting not to get shot but wishing for a way not to give
up his briefcase either.
“You know I’ll shoot,” Barry said. “You’ve seen me do it before. Don’t be such a dumb-butt.”
In that instant, Sheldon made up his mind. He took off running down the passageway. “He—lp!”
he also shouted, figuring there was no harm in screaming like a maniac as well.
He’d made the decision so quickly he scarcely understood why he was now running. Part of the
reason was that he wasn’t a dumb-butt. But the bigger factor was Barry needing to convince him that
he’d shoot. Something in Sheldon’s brain had argued that Barry would have fired if he’d intended to—at
least a warning shot—rather than talk about it. Sheldon hoped he’d judged correctly for he now heard
Barry’s footsteps very close behind his own.
He expected to hear and feel a gunshot at any moment; but for the time being, at least, that didn’t
happen.
Thankfully, sandwiched on either side by men’s and women’s restrooms, an emergency exit now
came into view in front of him, the familiar running stick figure icon on a green card pasted over a
window with black beyond. Sheldon held up his briefcase and smashed it against the push bar without
slowing down. The door flew open and Sheldon was outside.
“Crap, he’s just gone out a side exit!” Sheldon heard Barry announce into his Bluetooth device as
he raced into the darkness.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Sheldon stumbled down several cement steps. Ahead was a black emptiness that Sheldon knew
would be the sea. To his right would be the entrance to the ferry port arcade and the person or persons
that Barry had come with. So he ran to his left, back in the direction of the ferry he’d just left.
He could see it ahead. He could even make out a tiny worker in an orange safety vest on the
upper deck. The problem was that the vessel was far away, while up close there stood an enormous fence.
Sheldon heard Barry push open the emergency exit and start down the same steps.
The closer Sheldon got to the fence the more obvious a dead end it was revealed to be. Strong
and solid and dark within. No sign of life. No help.
Sheldon checked back. A shadowy Barry was trudging toward him, the hunk of black still in his
hand.
“Just come around. I got him trapped,” he heard Barry say.
Sheldon veered to his new right, toward the edge of the concrete bar they were on. He saw a
single mast protruding from the black sea below and rushed toward it.
He got to the brink and looked down. It was a small utility boat, seemingly for customs use. But
it was dark and unmanned and either a sharp drop or a hazardous climb down an iron ladder to no real
advantage.
Sheldon looked all around but saw nothing apart from cement, wall, fence, and Barry Klass.
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Barry was now scarcely five feet away. He was walking at an unhurried pace and listening to a
tiny voice from within the box clipped to his ear. Then Sheldon could make out several figures way in
the distance approaching from toward the main entrance to the arcade. One of those would be the person
on the other end of Barry’s hands free transmission.
Sheldon shifted back. He maneuvered around a mooring block, which was an impotent move as
it was only three feet high.
Barry shook his head. “For a minute there I was afraid you were going to be a real dope and
jump.”
Sheldon didn’t reply.
“Just put the case down so we can call it a night.”
Sheldon let out a breath and complied. He set the briefcase on the cement next to the mooring.
Barry gave Sheldon an annoyed look. He removed the now bare lollypop stick from his mouth
and flicked it into the night. “About fucking time.”
But just as Barry shifted the gun in his hand so he could also grasp the handle of the briefcase,
Sheldon let fly the meanest right hook he’d ever thrown.
Thud.
Barry blocked it easily with an upward jab from his left forearm that threw Sheldon off balance.
Barry then advanced and followed up with a powerful punch to the face that nearly cracked
Sheldon’s jaw.
Sheldon’s knees were wobbling, but that didn’t prevent Barry from stepping forward and
punching Sheldon again. Sheldon tried to cover himself with his arms. He couldn’t see straight.
But Barry moved in and waited for an opening and as soon as Sheldon tried to speak Barry
smashed his face a third time, now knocking him to the cement.
Sheldon saw nothing but cement and some dark drops that he knew were his own blood. He felt
Barry standing over him and breathing for several seconds. He sensed that Barry was waiting for him to
stand so he could give him some more. Sheldon didn’t move.
At last the aura coming from Barry changed. He let out a snort and Sheldon saw the Nikes finally
turn away and head for the briefcase next to the mooring block.
“Everything’s cool. I got it,” Barry said into his Bluetooth as he bent down to pick it up.
With everything he had, Sheldon rolled wildly across the concrete and got there at the same time.
Barry snatched up the briefcase easily, before Sheldon could.
But Sheldon rose to his knees holding the Smith and Wesson 500 that Barry had set down in
order to showcase his fisticuff skills.
“Barry,” Sheldon coughed. “That’s my case.”
Barry took a look at Sheldon and spat out a laugh. He stood his ground, ready to kick. At that
moment, several other people could be heard talking as they approached. There was a voice that Sheldon
thought he recognized as being that of a private security man that KlassWorks had employed.
Sheldon aimed at Barry’s shin. He pulled the trigger.
A flame shot out of the gun. Out of the top. The gun was a cigarette lighter.
“You’re such a peasant,” Barry said.
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Chapter Sixty-Three
Barry turned to address his companions—there were six of them—but before he could say
anything Sheldon had suddenly knocked past him and attached himself to the briefcase. Sheldon clutched
it tightly with both arms.
“Let go. This isn’t yours,” Sheldon choked.
“Holy crap!” someone said.
Someone else socked Sheldon in the back a few times. It hurt, but he held on.
“You’re starting to piss me off now, Sheldon,” Barry snapped as he tried to pry Sheldon’s fingers
from the case.
“We should respect one another,” Sheldon cried lamely.
“The guy’s delusional,” a voice said. Sheldon recognized it as belonging to Helio. There were
more punches against his back.
“Gross, there’s blood all over!” someone else yelped.
Barry pulled at the case and the others pulled at Sheldon, lifting him off the ground. It felt like
the handle was about to snap. Someone twisted Sheldon’s feet.
“I think he needs to cool off,” the security guy said.
“Throw him in the drink!”
“Wait till he lets go of the case,” Barry commanded.
But there were too many elements at play and, even as Barry continued to hit at Sheldon’s arms
trying to weaken his grip, the whole affair was being moved to the edge of the cement bar.
Then someone was yanking Sheldon’s hair and forcing him to turn his head.
“What’s that?” Helio said. “Want to go for a swim?”
“Sheldon, let go or we’ll throw you in the water,” the Security guy added close to Sheldon’s ear.
Sheldon didn’t have the strength to respond, but he knew there was a flaw to the threat. They
couldn’t throw him in the water if he didn’t let go—not unless Barry let go, and it didn’t seem likely that
that was going to happen.
Only that’s when the handle splintered off.
Crack.
The inertia from everyone pulling and the surprise of seeing the case come apart caused enough
people to loosen their grip on Sheldon that they dropped him. He bounced—ouch!—against the cement
ground then rolled off into the water.
His eyes were closed, but he was still holding the briefcase.
*
*
*
*
Had Sheldon’s head been clearer, had he not been through so much in such a short time, he would
have figured out what to do sooner.
It didn’t feel good hitting the water, and the temperature was freezing, but it sobered Sheldon up
in the short term.
He couldn’t think. It hurt to think. But the water wasn’t so deep that he went down very far and
when he came up some kind of autopilot survival instinct told him to tread water, to kick off his shoes, to
make for the side of the small customs boat and hold on.
There were voices, but Sheldon didn’t have the capacity to hear them.
There was probably a direct route past the fence now, but Sheldon’s brain and body were too
preoccupied to even consider what that meant.
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Paddling the icy sea in his stockinged feet hurt immensely. Sucking the chilled air into his aching
lungs was all but unbearable. A thought that was painful or even difficult could not be admitted into his
head at this time.
So Sheldon bobbed mindlessly as he clutched the hull of the customs boat. He decided to make a
list.
He saw his briefcase.
Things that float…briefcases….boats….
cushions…boats…ice cream in root beer… His head was spinning. He felt very tired.
…airline
seat
Then a light shone in his eyes and forced him to give it his attention.
“There,” he heard Barry Klass announce.
He looked up to see that Barry was halfway down one of the iron ladders built into the side of the
cement bar. He was clad only in a pair of red and green boxer shorts and illuminating Sheldon with what
was probably a more sophisticated version of the BlackBarry running a flashlight app.
Even as Sheldon tried to inch away, he heard a splash behind him. He turned to see the
KlassWorks security guy was near the bottom of a closer ladder on the other side, also in his underpants,
and there was another half-naked person behind. Something then rose from below right next to him and
Sheldon caught only the briefest glimpse of Helio atop the customs boat before he was forced under.
Crash. Swash. Sheldon kicked and wrestled free and surfaced to cough up water and choke
down air.
But there were grabs and shouts and splashes all around him now. Hands took him down and
there were too many to fight.
Sheldon tried to scream but water rushed into his lungs. He opened his eyes and they stung
horribly. He was trapped in a mess of skin and underpants. They held him under as he fought and
wiggled. They pulled him away from the small boat.
Sheldon managed to break loose one more time up against the cement bar now and was allowed
the opportunity to cough out the salt water and gulp down a lungful of precious air. But he knew it would
be his last.
He was sandwiched between two iron ladders. His assailants had brought him to where they
wanted him, their hands on the bars, footholds against the concrete.
“Why don’t we…just…” Sheldon tried. It was all he got out.
The security guy put both hands on the top of Sheldon’s head and forced him down hard.
Sheldon struggled under the water kicking at the cement.
Others joined in to keep him down while the security guy mashed Sheldon’s face into the cold
hard wall.
Again, the sea stung his eyes and the air escaped from his lungs.
Sheldon focused on what he feared was now to be the last vision that he would enjoy. And he
saw that it was good…
Plants.
Algae, seaweed, aquatic moss. Sheldon had been so distressed, looking around desperately for
signs of life first in the deserted arcade and then across the concrete bar, that he’d forgotten something
very basic. The sea was alive. It teemed with the very things that he needed.
…Plants…were…alive….
…And Sheldon was in the bosom of God…
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PART ELEVEN: NEW WORLD
(WASHINGTON D.C., PRESENT DAY)
Chapter Sixty-Four
Sheldon left the MetroRail, rode the escalator up from Dupont Circle station, and stepped onto
Connecticut Avenue. He started south toward Capitol Hill.
He walked for about a minute, before pausing outside of Kramer Books, one of city’s oldest and
most infamous independent booksellers, on noticing their window display. There was a corner devoted to
private information and the NSA, with at least three different titles featuring the same bespectacled face
of Edward Snowden on their cover. The story had received a lot of attention in Estonia, no doubt because
Snowden had sought asylum in the Soviet Union, but Sheldon was gratified that it was of notable interest
stateside as well. The “No Such Agency” days had ended.
Sheldon continued on until he reached Dupont Circle proper. He then stopped, reached into the
pocket of his new sport coat, and withdrew Barry’s customized smart phone.
He switched it on and scrolled through the contact list. He selected the entry labeled “Walrus”
and pressed the call button. It rang twice.
“Sheldon Thigpin,” the familiar voice of Walter “The Walrus” Russell said. “You keep falling
off our radar.”
The greeting indicated to Sheldon that Walrus had been in recent communication with Barry
Klass and that this call was expected.
“I’m nearby,” Sheldon said.
“I know. Got you triangulated as we speak.”
Sheldon hadn’t heard the term used in that context before, but he understood that “to triangulate”
would mean to pinpoint using data from the nearest three cellular repeaters.
“So?” the Walrus said. “You going to come in or do I send a team to take you down?”
Sheldon wanted a face to face so that he could end it in person. But he didn’t want to have it in
the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He suggested an outdoor neutral location, halfway distance-wise:
“Lafayette Square.”
“That’s not how we do things,” the Walrus balked.
“South of the fountain,” Sheldon persisted. “I can get there in twenty minutes.” He waited.
“I’ll be there in ten,” the Walrus replied.
Sheldon broke the connection and turned off the phone.
*
*
*
*
It took Sheldon fifteen, but he hadn’t promised to get there any sooner.
True to his word, Walrus was already seated on a bench, a pack of cigarettes on his knee and a
smoldering butt in his hand. He dropped the latter and ground it into the grass with his foot when he saw
Sheldon approach. He signaled for Sheldon to sit, but Sheldon opted not to. Sheldon was expecting the
talk would be brief.
“Hope you didn’t wait long.”
The Walrus glanced over Sheldon’s shoulder. He seemed to have been expecting that Sheldon
would bring something. Or someone. “You’re a real disappointment,” he said.
"
246"
“I’m sorry,” Sheldon told him.
He meant about the walk time, but Walrus apparently took it a different way. The NSA man
stood, moved around Sheldon in a full circle while patting and probing him with the back of his hand,
then he leaned in close:
“You’re also a major retard.”
“I don’t agree,” Sheldon said.
“So where the hell is it?”
As he said this, the Walrus shoved Sheldon hard in the chest. There was an immediate loud
cough from somewhere across the way and the Walrus refrained from pushing Sheldon again.
Sheldon turned his head slightly and saw a young couple on a bench (only the guy was looking
directly at him). He further spotted someone standing behind a red oak tree. Also, sitting in a corner spot
near the Von Steuben Statue, was Darren Scott who now put down his newspaper to reveal a potted and
wired Coula branch in his lap.
The Walrus was happy to wait while Sheldon took a good long look. He wasn’t happy when
Sheldon’s only response was:
“Make sure that plant gets plenty of water.”
He got right in Sheldon’s face and made sure his words had a lot of pop. “Where is the stuff you
took from Barry Klass?”
“The briefcase I took back is at a luggage repair shop near the airport,” Sheldon replied, standing
his ground. “The documents inside were soaked so I had to trash them.”
“Sure,” the Walrus said. “You just threw it all away. I buy that.”
Sheldon smiled and tapped his temple with his finger. “The thing about being the one that does
the research is, even when you lose it, you don’t really lose it.
Then Walrus grabbed Sheldon by the upper arm to spin him around. “Let me tell you what’s
going to happen now. We’re going to put you in a room and you’re going to—”
But Sheldon was tired of being pulled and prodded. He elbowed Walrus in the head with his left
then pushed him back at the throat with his right.
A wave jolted through the park. As though half the visitors on site had lurched indiscernibly into
alert mode. As though fingers were suddenly on triggers. But no one made a move.
Until Walrus let out a smug little laugh. Even as his face went red above Sheldon’s grip.
“Go ahead,” he spat. “You so much as wrinkle my shirt…”
“You don’t get it,” Sheldon told him. “You’re over.”
“Plus there’s your farmhouse family out in the third world,” Walrus continued, not hearing.
“I told them,” Sheldon said.
“Told who?” the Walrus snickered. “The Estonians? The Russian underground?”
“Not them,” Sheldon responded. He signaled with his head to the right. “Them.”
Walrus looked in the direction that Sheldon had indicated. But all he saw was grass, flowers,
trees.
Sheldon released Walrus and turned to go. “Goodbye, Walrus.”
In less than two seconds Walrus had a jet action military knife in his hand, the blade high in the
air and ready to thrust into Sheldon’s back.
But he never completed the action. He suddenly got confused, lost his sense of balance, fell
dumbly to the grass below.
"
247"
He watched Sheldon walk across the park.
He pushed himself to his feet. He tried to follow. He staggered around in a zigzag. No sense of
balance. He couldn’t understand it.
Darren Scott was similarly paralyzed. It was as though his brain was being bombarded from all
directions.
He could see Sheldon approaching, hear the footsteps, smell the scent of the park. But it was all
a jumble.
Only he knew, somehow. Perhaps because his mind was a bit more open, he understood it better
than Walrus.
He watched as Sheldon set something down near his leg, next to the Coula branch, as he exited
the park. It was a mobile phone with the name Barry Klass on the back. Sheldon kept walking.
Something in the air was particularly and unusually dense in a way that Darren Scott had never
known. Some kind of energy that had always surrounded him and inhabited the empty spaces between
his very fingers, between his clothes and himself—an energy that was normally soft, benign, and even
rather comforting—it was as though that energy had suddenly become active and hard and directed with
the singular purpose of jamming all communication between Darren Scott’s brain and his body.
Darren Scott focused his mind as hard as he could. Focused it on a single task. His hand. Move
his hand.
His finger twitched. It was all he could manage.
The leaves of the Coula branch flickered in response.
SKRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
"
248"
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