The Karma Booth

On the stereo, the Davis album ended and he heard Dexter Gordon play “Cry Me a River.” Serves you right, thought Tim, smiling at the irony. It was fitting on this drive for another reason. The music had come from Gary Weintraub; his friend had found a rare live performance by Gordon in a Berlin jazz club and had the old vinyl converted to digital for Tim. A wonderful Christmas present three years ago.

Tim parked across the street from the federal building and held his valise over his head, trying not to get soaked as the security man in the navy blazer held the door open for him. After his postings in Asia, rain was always a time-travel mechanism for him, making him recall the monsoon seasons in Delhi and Mumbai and the way drops hit the tin roofs of squalid huts and formed instant lakes out of the cracked alleys.

He thought fleetingly of the night in the remote village, pushed it from his mind.

“It’s really coming down,” said the security guard.

“Yeah.”

“Everything quiet here?”

The security guard nodded, knowing what he meant. He had been staffed to the project even before the Booth had been shipped out for its first use at the prison, and he had watched the mushrooming of publicity, protests and curiosity seekers since Mary Ash’s resurrection. He had also become Tim’s first antenna for when Weintraub and his scientists were excited over a development. Today he gave Tim another stoical nod. All was quiet.

Tim went up to the seventh floor and discovered the guard was right. He walked into the test center’s infirmary room, and an ordinary middle-aged man looked up from his hospital bed at him with the curiosity you give any visitor. Geoff Shackleton had been prescribed mild anti-depressants—that was after Gary Weintraub felt he ought to explain the background of the shooting and what had happened to Shackleton’s wife.

Tim wondered if he had “guilted” Gary into breaking the news personally. It didn’t matter. Shackleton deserved to know the truth, and he would have learned in time. At least the guy was in a controlled environment where he could get counseling and any medical follow-up. He was affable towards Tim, though he looked a bit subdued, even drained, by the mood drugs he was on. That was probably to be expected. Tim began to relax, figuring the teacher’s responses must be very much those of a coma patient on waking up.

“They’ll probably keep you in this facility for a couple more weeks,” Tim informed him.

Shackleton pulled the food tray on its swing arm and brought a bottle of water within reach. “That’s okay,” he answered with his mild Texan drawl. “I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere really to go. They let me call my insurance company, and that’s… What a mess! They said technically I’m not injured even though I was pronounced dead, and since I’m back alive, they invalidated my life insurance policy. Thieves. Goddamn thieves. Just as well—my wife was the beneficiary.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m… Hey, I shouldn’t bitch like this, should I? I ought to stay grateful. I’m alive. What they did, it’s amazing. And I’m only the second person to go through this? They told me there’s a girl from Manhattan who got killed by some psycho, and she was the first, right?”

“That’s right.”

“My God. Incredible. How’s she doing?”

Tim decided to be neutral. “She’s fine. Have you spoken with your wife at all?”

“Not much point in that, is there?” Shackleton stared at the beads of water pattering on the room’s windowpane, withdrawing into himself for a brief second. Tim waited patiently.

“My bank accounts have been closed,” the teacher said slowly. “They tell me my house was foreclosed on when Nicole went to jail. I can’t afford a lawyer—not yet. The only word I want her to get from me is in divorce papers.”

“I can make a couple of phone calls,” Tim offered. “Your situation is unique, but there are already victim services in place, and I imagine if they keep using the Karma Booth, they’ll have to set up a whole new extension of those programs for people who come back. Help them make a transition back into their old life.”

“Or a brand new one,” said Shackleton.

“If that’s what you want. I’m sure it’ll take time, but you’ll find your way.”

Tim rose to go, muttering about how he wanted to beat the traffic into the city. As much as he felt sorry for the teacher, he felt oddly reassured by this meeting. This man seemed fine. Then what had happened with Mary Ash?

Shackleton was talking to him.

“Mr. Cale?”

“I’m sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”

“That’s okay. Umm… You said you were hired to assess the impact of this thing, didn’t you? What do you plan to recommend?”

“I don’t know,” said Tim honestly. “I’ve barely begun to examine all the issues involved and learn about the Booth. It’s early days. How do you feel about it?”

Shackleton made a small, self-deprecating chuckle. “I don’t know. I’m kind of the lab rat in the maze, aren’t I? But it’s bigger than me. You know I actually used to be against capital punishment.”

“You still can be, Mr. Shackleton. Your beliefs haven’t been compromised—you were never given a choice about being brought back.”

“Yes, but who would say no?” asked the teacher.

“There are bound to be those who will,” replied Tim. “Maybe we’ll all have to carry around little cards like they do for organ donation, ticking off whether we want the procedure. Maybe we’ll see ‘wrongful life’ suits in the courts. Are you upset by the fact that they executed Cody James?”

Shackleton sat in silence for a moment, mulling over the issue. Tim could hear a distant thunder roll through the window.

“Are you a God-fearing man, Mr. Cale?”

“No, I’m an agnostic.”

Shackleton nodded. “Yeah. New Yorker, a professor, a diplomat—didn’t peg you as a church-going fellah. Honest truth is I don’t know how I feel about Cody. Or God anymore.”

“Oh?”

“Men resurrected me, Mr. Cale. Not God. That’s clear.”

As Tim left, he marveled at how it was the last thing he expected a Christian schoolteacher from Texas to say. Well, he had warned Matilda the Booth was guaranteed to upset the whole range of belief systems. He punched the button for the elevator, and still distracted by the conversation, breezed through the sliding doors—

He felt the rain first, drops pelting the shoulders of his coat and wetting his forehead, jolting him back to attention to his surroundings.

He had been in the elevator.

Now he was on the street.

No, he couldn’t have just sleepwalked his way out of the building. There were security checks and sign-out sheets before he was ever allowed to hit the pavement. But when he whirled around, he was facing the eastern wall of the block, the front entrance around the corner. There was a kra-koom of loud thunder, and a fork of lightning hit the ground behind the skyline of shiny boxes of office buildings.

Blink, and you’re standing outside.

You’ve been moved. Plucked out of a point in space and a linear direction in time. Shifted elsewhere. What the hell…?

As he walked briskly back in, the security guard matched his confusion over how he could have got past him. Tim flashed his ID and snapped, “Forget it, it doesn’t matter.”

“But you were inside. How did—”

“Look, I’m here now, just let me through.” Then he was back on the elevator, heading for the infirmary.

“Forget something?” asked Shackleton, looking genuinely surprised to see him.

“We’re seven flights up,” said Tim. “I stepped out of the elevator onto the street. You did it.”

Shackleton’s features went blank, as if he were a foreign tourist trying to decipher the words of a hotel desk clerk. “You said your mind was elsewhere.” Tim stared at the schoolteacher, hearing the words but no sense in them. Shackleton repeated it as if now it might sink in. “You said your mind was elsewhere.”