The Karma Booth

“If they had any lingering concerns over India, they wouldn’t have sent you. And technically, it was barely in India. It was on the border.”

“I have concerns.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’ll want this job, Professor.”

“I have a job, thanks,” said Tim, on the move again and quickening his step. “And I actually have no ambitions to return to diplomatic service—or to work for government in any other capacity again.” He pushed hard on the door leading to the green lawn of the courtyard.

Schlosser followed him out to the sunshine. “You’d be a private contractor on this one.”

“Don’t care. If they let a paper-pusher like you ask about that incident then that’s enough to suggest there would be more interference.”

“This is the last time you see me,” said Schlosser. “As for how others interact with you… Well, I can’t make any guarantees. You’d be well compensated.”

Another cocky smile. “I make enough now when I see corporate clients.”

Schlosser had disliked the man from his department bio, and he despised him thoroughly now. He felt no one should ever be fully confident in his own security. It allowed him the privilege of indulging his own beliefs instead of following carefully developed policies. When he got back to Washington, he promised himself he would complain about being assigned the task of enabling such a man.

“There are other rewards to consider, Mr. Cale.”

“Oh, this is rich! An appeal to my intellectual vanity?”

“Not your vanity, Professor. Curiosity. Now assuming they take you on with my recommendation, you’ll do this job not for your own ambition or for any monetary gain, but so you can learn certain things—perhaps some things you’ve wanted to know for a long time.”

Tim didn’t break stride, looking straight ahead. “That’s a hell of a display of logic! Jump to conclusions of motive before you’re sure of my course of action! Mr. Schlosser, in less than five minutes, we’ve learned only two things. One is that you don’t know me, and two is that you’re a pompous ass.”

Schlosser was tired of both the walk and the verbal humiliation. “You’re right, I don’t know you, but Dr. Weintraub claims he does. He says you’ll be interested.”

Tim stopped again. “Weintraub could have phoned me himself.”

“Departmental formalities.”

“Uh-huh. Meaning Weintraub recommended me, but this has to go through the department… whatever it’s really about. Go back to Washington, Schlosser. Tell them I’ll speak with the Attorney General myself. Direct. I’ll send my fee request to his office.”

Schlosser pulled out his cell. “Okay, I’ll phone and get you the email for his executive assistant.”

“Don’t need it. I have Weatherford’s own email.”

“Mr. Cale, I don’t know why I ask, since it sounds like I already have the answer,” sighed Schlosser, “but they’ll want to know: What are your views on capital punishment?”

“I’ll make them clear if I ever wind up having to kill somebody,” snapped Tim. “It’s amazing you can move around at all, Schlosser, dragging all those assumptions around.”

“You never answered my question.”

“If they want to know, they can ask me themselves,” replied Tim. “And you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

He turned on his heel and left Schlosser standing there.

There were only four witnesses to the Nickelbaum execution that weren’t in lab coats. One was the warden. A second was the administrative and theoretical head of the R and D team, Gary Weintraub. The third was a general electrician in overalls, a fellow who had no idea what was going on and was there just in case the power was lost or there was an electrical fire. And like the warden, he had signed a legal statement that prohibited him from telling anyone what he saw. The fourth person was the least known to the scientists, Timothy Christopher Cale.

When the murderer disappeared in the carvings of light and the wretched figure of Mary Ash was led out of the booth like a frightened animal, Tim Cale was as shocked as anyone else—and the most quiet person in the room.

He supposed the researchers had a right to be curious about him because, only two hours before, the head of their team, Gary Weintraub, had ushered him around without volunteering what he did or why he was there. The researchers all assumed he was a bureaucrat sent to babysit, so they sneered the “Mister” next to his name as if it were an insult. Tim’s sense of mischief was tempted to correct them, but he had seen enough class and status nonsense to last him a lifetime back when he was posted in London. And today had given him much to think about, just like the others. He decided to be self-effacing in the circle of experts and lab coats, not gushing over the astonishing thing they had just witnessed and not congratulating them at all.

As doctors accompanying the young girl left for the private hospital in Manhattan, the remaining witnesses filed into a conference room, and Tim joined the slow exodus to a long table. They could barely contain what they felt, and few wanted to sit. This was one of the rare moments when scientists could be children again.

Tim watched them whisper and talk, voices climbing over each other, pairs of hands gesticulating. Others scribbled down estimates and equations. One of them—there would always be one—was the oracle of caution, suggesting the phenomenon might not be easily repeated. Weintraub, now free to talk about certain details more candidly, was busy saying things like “No, no, it will work again.”

Tim already knew Weintraub from university symposiums and presidential committees. He was a man in his sixties with a moon face and spectacles who didn’t mind at all that his students had nicknamed him “Bunsen Honeydew” after The Muppets character. Weintraub had first achieved fame as a documentary host, and since the media liked physicists to be interesting personalities (it was easier than trying to understand what they said), much was made of his distinctive nasal voice, his amateur skill at jazz piano and how as a young man he’d made a pilgrimage to study with one of his scientific heroes, the equally eccentric Leó Szilárd (when Szilárd didn’t like someone, he liked to pull out his colostomy bag and show them). Weintraub was arguably the smartest man in the room. Tim Cale was certain he was.

The multiple conversations grew to an insect hum, and at last Weintraub raised his hands.

“Okay, okay, first of all, there is no possible way I can expect this won’t leak out, legal documents or not,” he said, wearing the same self-congratulatory smile as the staff. “We do have an official announcement drafted and a news conference scheduled—we prepared all this in advance in case things went well.”

A new buzz around the table: their director had apparently known what to expect, while the others had been left mostly in the dark. But the lab coats’ resentment couldn’t last. It was crushed to insignificance by what they had seen.

“The media doesn’t always go through proper channels so if you are asked, please, please, be careful in your use of language. Don’t use any words of religious connotation—I’m sure they’ll happily go overboard on those themselves. Make sure they understand we followed a procedure, and it won’t be up to us how the transposition booths are assigned. That’s a matter for the courts and the legislators.”

“We don’t even have to go there, do we, Gary?” piped up one of the scientists. “Don’t we have years of research ahead of us before we try to repeat what we saw?”

The arguments and counter-arguments all ran for a few seconds with Weintraub unable to restore order.

“Come on, how do you test and research this? What we’ve got to do is ensure the safety of an arrival who—”

“People will not want to wait for years of clinical—”

“Look at in vitro fertilization and the stigma that was attached to—”

“You can’t compare the social history of decades ago to a completely new radical—”

“How does it work?”

The most innocent and direct of questions came from their guest. There was a sudden hush around the conference table, all the scientists now facing Timothy Cale. And he saw a remarkable, almost tangible shame in their expressions. I’ll be damned, thought Tim.

Because he realized: They don’t know.

Weintraub spoke for them all. “We’re not completely sure.”

“Meaning you don’t have a clue, right, Gary?”

He and Weintraub liked each other. Tim knew Weintraub didn’t have a molecule of condescension in his body for laymen, nor was his ego so fragile that he couldn’t admit to ignorance. They could speak plainly here.

“What you must understand, Tim, is that we had nothing to do with the manufacture of the transposition equipment or its original R and D,” replied Weintraub.

“What? Are you kidding?”

“I assure I’m not. We served as oversight on its health and safety aspects and on the scientific evaluation. Washington gave the green light, and we went ahead and… Well, we needed to figure out protocols, to make sure it does what we were promised it will do…”