Blueprints Of The Afterlife Part 23

"That looks good," Rocco said. "What kind did you order again?"

"Arugula Gorgonzola something something."

Rocco, his voice low, said, "Take this life. It's yours. All the memories, the belongings. How many people have this kind of opportunity? How many people would die to trade lives with someone happier?"

"I'm Sylvie Yarrow."

"You're Sylvie Yarrow."

How arduous this process was, turning one person into another. Way way more complicated than manipulating some douchebag's actions via the Bionet. DJing was all about making another person succ.u.mb to your will. This kind of work, on the other hand, was like translating a book from one language into another, except instead of languages one translated entire personalities, and instead of words one worked with white matter flickering in gray matter. Rocco didn't entirely understand the personalities, so it was a little like coding in real time with no QA process to grab the bugs. He detected a little panicked fluttering at the edges of her mouth, a momentary wobble toward tears. He cupped his hand over her non-fork-wielding hand. Would Sylvie's personality successfully map onto Abby's, or would little Abby remnants crop up from time to time, like continuity errors in a movie? Watching her disappear into Sylvie was a bit like watching someone die, he was hesitant to admit, and for a moment a miniaturized sadness presented itself in his thoughts. Then he remembered that the whole point of this experiment was to turn his girlfriend into someone more interesting. He wondered if she'd take on Sylvie's s.e.xual proclivities, if it would feel like sleeping with a new woman.

Rocco summoned the waiter and ordered the olive and cheese plate out of sequence with the salads and entrees, then rubbed the veiny bulges on top of Sylvie's hand. "So tell me more about this guy's novel?"

Sylvie sighed. "It's about the beginning of a new world. There's a rampaging glacier in it. Clones. Giant heads that appear in the sky."

"One of those."

A significant aspect of replacing one personality with another involved what came to be called, in academic circles, third personing. Most of the time this involved the use of a prop, specifically a doll or figurine, life-size or not, into which the subject discarded his or her former personality. For Abby's third personing, Rocco'd purchased a custom s.e.x doll manufactured to his specifications-a precise, to-scale model of Abby, with the same color eyes, hair, measurements, etc., crafted of a rubberized polymer and dressed in one of Abby's white-blouse-and-black-pants combos. She sat positioned on the couch of Sylvie's apartment, a fas.h.i.+on magazine open in her lap. Returning that night from the wine bar, Rocco snapped on the lights and addressed the mannequin from across the room.

"h.e.l.lo, Abby," he said.

Sylvie stood in the doorway feeling like maybe she'd entered the wrong apartment.

"It's okay," Rocco said. "She's just going to hang out here. Say h.e.l.lo."

"Hi there," Sylvie said.

"Now be polite, Sylvie, and address Abby by her name."

"Hi, Abby."

"Abby here is a graduate of the University of British Columbia in digital data archaeology. She says you have a nice apartment," Rocco said.

"Thanks. Sorry for it being so small," Sylvie said.

"Abby says, 'Oh, no, don't apologize. I've seen way smaller apartments in New York City. And what a neighborhood. Right in the middle of the hippest part of Manhattan.'"

Sylvie said, "Oh, stop. Can I get you a drink, Abby?"

Rocco said, "Abby says that would be nice. 'Do you have tonic water?'"

"I think I have that. Rocco?"

"Sure, tonic water sounds good to me, too."

Sylvie retrieved the drinks from the kitchen and returned to find Rocco chuckling at a witty comment Abby must have just made. "Say, Sylvie, Abby says she just finished one of the books you edited, The Subject's Object."

"That was a b.i.t.c.h to edit," Sylvie said, coastering beverages. "All those pa.s.sages in Russian and Icelandic."

"Abby says she loved the ending."

"I'm proud of that ending," Sylvie said. "It took a while to get there. At one point I was reduced to tears. And not the good kind of tears."

"I couldn't get into The Subject's Object," Rocco said, "but I'm not all that literary."

"Rocco's the left-brainer of the relations.h.i.+p," Sylvie said.

"s.h.i.+t!" Rocco exclaimed, looking at his watch.

"What is it, honey?"

"There's an email I forgot to send from work. And I left my laptop on my desk. d.a.m.n. I'm going to have to hop over there and hit SEND. I won't be long, promise." He gathered his jacket and kissed Sylvie on the forehead. "Sorry, Abby, I was just starting to enjoy our conversation. You two carry on without me."

With Rocco gone, there came an awkward silence. Sylvie swirled the cubes in her gla.s.s. "So what line of work are you in, Abby?"

"Good question," Abby said. "I just graduated, so I'm looking for jobs. Digital recovery stuff. I specialize in DVDs. What I'd love to do is work for a museum, restoring old movies. By old I mean 1900s or earlier."

"You shouldn't have any trouble finding a job in Manhattan. I'm guessing you've already sent your CV out to the museums?"

"Not so much yet. I landed a gig for a while working for Kylee Asparagus."

"No kidding?" Sylvie said. "I loved her Asia alb.u.m. She's way underrated." She rose and tickled a docked iPod. The opening of Asia played through bookshelf speakers.

As promised, Rocco wasn't long, or was as long as it took him to walk around the block four times. When he returned, Sylvie sat in bed with a damp washcloth over her eyes. Abby remained on the couch, the magazine still in her lap.

"I suddenly got a really brutal headache," Sylvie said.

"Did you download anything for it?"

"Did I what?"

"Take anything. Acetaminophen."

"I'm sorry I couldn't entertain our guest."

"She'll be fine."

"I could barely get a word in edgewise."

Rocco poked at his pocket transmitter and entered a mild pain relief code, then an equally mild tranquilizer that had Sylvie snoring in a minute. Returning to the living room he paused in front of the fake Abby.

"Can I get you anything to eat?" he said.

Sylvie arrived home early on a Friday and found Rocco in bed with Abby. Apparently he hadn't heard her come in. She watched him huffing over the p.r.o.ne form through the doorway. Abby's legs were up, one of them bent over his right shoulder as he pumped and strained. Watching someone else have an o.r.g.a.s.m is like witnessing a machine seize up, a system grind to a halt. Rocco grunted "f.u.c.k" as he rolled onto his back, his c.o.c.k audibly popping out of the artificial v.a.g.i.n.a like a cork exiting a bottle. He noticed Sylvie standing in the doorway.

"This is nothing," Rocco said.

Sylvie frowned and went to the kitchen. A minute later she leaned against the dishwasher and Rocco leaned against the sink.

"I'm telling you, it was nothing. You didn't see that."

"I don't want her staying here anymore," Sylvie said.

"How do you think she feels about all this?"

"I don't care how she feels, Rocco."

"You're not really mad at me."

Sylvie palmed a tomato. "I am too."

"You're not. And you're confused as to why you're not. You feel like you should be more mad."

Sylvie caught his eyes for a second, nonverbally offered up her confusion, then cast her gaze aside.

"She's not real, Sylvie."

"She loved you."

"Huh?"

"Abby loved you, Rocco. She trusted you. She told me what you did."

"There's no Abby anymore. Just Sylvie."

"I am Sylvie Yarrow."

"You are Sylvie Yarrow."

"You were f.u.c.king her."

"I was f.u.c.king her for the last time."

"All she did for a month was watch TV, eat, and sleep. You set her up with the most boring routine possible."

Rocco scritched stubble. "You a.s.sume I was her DJ."

"Who then?"

"Someone else makes me do this. I only DJed Abby because someone else is DJing me."

Sylvie's fingers closed around the tomato, the pulp and seeds and skin running down her wrist. Her fist trembled.

Rocco continued. "I don't have a choice about who I am. But you do. You can choose to live Sylvie's life."

"I am Sylvie Yarrow."

"You are Sylvie Yarrow. There's one thing left to do. It's the right time." From the butcher's block next to the Cuisinart Rocco pulled a filleting knife. He pried open Sylvie's hand and let the fingers curl back around the knife handle. He led her to the bedroom, where the Abby s.e.x doll was still p.r.o.ne, dripping a thin drool of s.e.m.e.n onto the comforter, the dummy eyes pointed toward the ceiling.

"A young, successful woman with her life ahead of her. A talented book editor making a name for herself. This is what you want," Rocco said. "So you must kill her. You're Sylvie Yarrow," Rocco said.

"I'm Abby Fogg," she said, wiping the blade across Rocco's neck.

Rocco smiled a second, surprised, then seemed to realize this wasn't f.u.c.king around. The sheets: they used to be white. He awkwardly genuflected, a hand over his throat, then crawled to the bathroom. Abby stepped over him and fetched the Bionet transmitter from the medicine cabinet, sat on the toilet, and held it out for him as he crawled around in a red slick. She'd never seen this much blood. Bubbles of it coming out of the fleshy, fishy slit she'd made. He reached for the transmitter, died, and settled into the pool.

Back in the bedroom, Abby dressed the s.e.x doll and propped her against the headboard. She turned on the TV for her, switched to a nature show, and put the remote in the doll's hand. A moment later somebody knocked on the door. She opened it to find Lamb, the qputer monk, now dressed in toddler-sized overalls.

"Good job, Abby," Lamb said.

"I'm Abby Fogg," Abby said, blinking her eyes. "I'm Abby Fogg."

This was a sidewalk from a memory, a crisp overlayer of graffiti and fluttery newspaper trash. Skinner had been here before, chasing newmans through Old Navy display windows and the gutted burning interiors of hipster apartments. SoHo: a facsimile. The address Rocco had provided under duress led him to a block, a door, a stairwell, a creaky wood hallway, a steel door behind which played some hideous prog. The door was unlocked. Skinner found an apartment committed to Danish design. s.h.i.+t was minimal. Like the place was intended to be temporary but had been temporary for a very long time. Dirk Bickle sat on a black leather couch, wearing a white bathrobe, his white hair slicked back after a shower. On the coffee table in front of him were spread a variety of brand-name guns.

"Make yourself at home, Al."

Skinner took a seat opposite, on a box-shaped chair. "You're an old guy like me."

"You and I go way back. You wouldn't remember."

"What's with the a.r.s.enal?"

"We figured you'd want to rearm yourself."

"You have my grandson," Skinner said.

"They have a clone of your grandson. I thought that made all the difference."

"I'm tired."

"Take a nap, my friend. The bed is comfy."

"I'm tired of killing things."

"I'd be tired, too. But you're the reptile brain, remember? You're doing what you were designed to do."

"You know where they have him."

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You'll find him at the Egyptian tomb."

"I don't want to kill you."

Bickle shrugged. "You want an explanation. You want me to lay out the causalities. For what? The world we occupy doesn't operate that way anymore, if it ever did. You want me to tell you where Waitimu is so you can do your heroic rescue routine?"

"I'll lay down my weapons for good."

"Let go of A+B=C, Al."

"Who are you, anyway?"