“That doesn’t jibe with what’s in the KGB reports,” the white-haired woman said, her tone openly sceptical. “Those records indicate you were sent there, and you’ve obviously survived.”
Sharon shook her head impatiently. “Those files are inaccurate. It’s true they wanted to use me as a guinea pig, and they got as far as stopping my heart. But then Veil stopped them before they could try to induce a Lazarus Spike, and he revived me.”
“But you died and came back,” the woman insisted. “You’re a Lazarus Person.”
“No. I just died and was revived before the KGB could juice me up. I never shared the experience. I don’t remember a damn thing.”
“Let’s go,” Veil said to Sharon, taking her arm and leading her across the basement. He paused at the door, turned back toward the others. “Now you know it all,” he continued. “You’re wasting your time. Don’t waste mine, or Dr. Solow’s, again. You tell your Company bosses I will not tolerate anyone from your outfit invading our privacy again. Got it?”
Denny Whalen half raised his hand, said in a small voice, “Uh, Mr. Kendry?”
“What part of that statement didn’t you understand, Denny?”
“May I ask you just one more question?”
“Not about the missing panel.”
“It’s not about the mural, sir. It’s about you.”
Veil shrugged resignedly. “Let’s hear the question.”
“We learned about your being a CIA operative during the Vietnam War from the KGB files. There’s no mention of you in our own files, not anywhere. The only thing we could find was a note on your army record that you’d been dishonorably discharged on a Section Eight; just about everything else had been deleted. The KGB reports say that your CIA code name was Archangel. Why did the Company expunge your file?”
Veil smiled thinly, exchanged glances with Sharon, then replied, “For your own good, Denny, I’m not going to tell you. Don’t pursue it; don’t even think about it. You ask that question of the wrong person at Langley, and you’re going to end up dead. Good night.”
Veil dreams.
He senses something is wrong, and he flies to where he has not been in many years, the Lazarus Gate. He is pure blue flight, surrounded by a brilliant electric blue. He is the blue, and when he looks at his hands he can see through them. There are no fixed reference points, no sounds, only the sensation that he is traveling at great speed through no time and no space to a place that for others is death.
As he continues to stare at his right hand a pinpoint of white light suddenly appears in the blue beyond the palm. He puts his hand to his eyes and the light flashes through him, arcing down his spinal cord. He explodes into pieces and is reassembled, floating weightless in a gray void before a shadowy figure silhouetted against a shimmering white radiance that he knows is the Lazarus Gate. The man in green, naked now like everyone who comes here, is just completing his passage through the gate, disappearing from sight as a great chime sounds, and Veil can feel the booming echo in his head, heart, stomach, and groin.
Denny Whalen, his eyes bulging with wonder and a huge grin on his face, is floating on his back, arms and legs spread out to his sides, down the gray corridor toward the beckoning figure. Veil speeds down the corridor, past the scientist, then stops in front of him, blocking the way.
Denny sees him and giggles hysterically, the sound of his laughter emerging from his mouth as a series of tiny bell sounds that cascade like rain all around them. “HEY, KENDRY! YOU DIDN’T TELL US WHAT IT FELT LIKE! WHAT A TRIP! ARE YOU REALLY HERE, OR IS THIS JUST A DREAM?!”
“Precisely,” Veil replies evenly.
“WHICH IS IT?!”
“This is a dream you’re not going to wake up from unless you do exactly as I say.”
“WHO WANTS TO WAKE UP?”
“You don’t have to shout. As you can see, there’s a great sound system here.”
“I’M SO HAPPY!”
“Denny, you’re really a glutton for punishment. You and your buddy who just went brain dead just couldn’t resist the temptation to try for the Lazarus Gate, could you?”
“BUDGET CUTBACKS!” Denny shouts, and again giggles hysterically. “EVERYBODY HAS TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT OR GET FIRED! I FIGURED THIS WAS A WAY TO GET AHEAD! WE COULDN’T JUST TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT THAT THERE WAS NOTHING HERE! THE STAKES WERE TOO HIGH!”
“Stop shouting, Denny. Calm down.”
Denny, the fields of freckles on his face glowing purple, tries to somersault up and over Veil, but Veil blocks his way. “If you are really here, then it’s true,” Denny says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We’re communicating telepathically. You and Dr. Solow lied.”
“So sue us.”
“Absolute, stone telepathy, complete with bells and whistles, a great light show, and all in living color.”
“Almost living, Denny. You seem to keep forgetting that little problem. What you are is not quite biologically dead, but you’re working on it.”
“This is what’s on the missing panel in the mural, isn’t it? You.”
“No. There is no missing panel, Denny. The mural is complete as it is. There’s nothing there at the heart of that figure. It’s biological death. There is no emptier space.”
“Who is he?”
“There’s nobody there, Denny. It’s a shadow. Superstition. Humans are apparently hard-wired for it. Superstition may have been a very useful survival skill for cave people in the Stone Age.”
“How do you know there’s nothing there?”
“Because I’ve been there, Denny. I’ve passed through the heart of that shadow many times.”
“You brought Dr. Solow back from beyond there, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But it took years, and a very special lifeline called love. Sharon is a unique survivor, because I’m apparently unique — no other vivid dreamer that I know of has learned to control dreaming as I do, or traveled here. In addition, to find others you need a personal connection. That’s why you don’t see anybody else around.”
Denny giggles again, but his laughter is becoming less hysterical. “You raise the dead.”
“I don’t make a habit of it, and I’m certainly not available for work as a kind of astral answering machine for the CIA or anyone else. You didn’t listen before when I warned you, Denny, but you’d better listen now. Apparently every person experiences some flow of endorphins just before the end; it’s life’s last gift to us. It’s why you feel so good, and why Lazarus People no longer fear death. It also changes the way they view things. Even if you could send intelligence operatives here to exchange messages without killing them, not much of the information they gave back to you would be very useful. Lazarus People make lousy spies, because spying doesn’t interest them any longer. Harming people doesn’t interest them, nor does lying and secrecy — unless it’s to protect life. But that issue’s moot. What’s happened, as I warned, is that the drug cocktail they gave you to induce the Lazarus Spike after they stopped your heart has resulted in a multifold increase in endorphins; right now your brain is flooded with feel-good juice. You don’t want the feeling to end; you can’t end it on your own, any more than you can suddenly stop an orgasm. Unless you do as I say, your brain will die before it can reabsorb the endorphins. Right now your people are no doubt frantically trying to restart your heart and wondering why they can’t. It’s because you don’t want the orgasm to end. You could say I’m here to squeeze your dork until the effect begins to wear off.”