The Speculist

Sybil looked utterly perplexed. And horrified. This was without a doubt the strangest thing either of us had ever seen Jerry do. I was overcome with a sick feeling. Jerry's actions were as frightening to me as they were to Sybil, but I could sense the cause of them. It was this stranger. Somehow he had taken control of Jerry.

What the man had said a moment before about eliminating alternatives... it was familiar. I had heard something like it many years ago in a dream. Grace and I had been to so many places together in dreams. We had seen what now seemed like thousands of different worlds, and learned a good deal about the different people who lived there. Many of them were not people at all. There was one world—or it may be made more sense to say one cluster of billions of worlds—peopled by an ancient race of creatures who were not unlike birds in appearance, and who spoke the way this man spoke. Everything came down to a game for them, and games were invariably about making choices. They were a cold and cruel people.

Ambitious.

And, to the extent to that they had ever encountered them, they hated human beings.

My memory of that world and its people flooded over me. I had a sense of what I needed to do, what I needed to say. Sybil had turned to me, terrified. I looked her in the eye.

"Come here, " I said, too loudly, but as calmly as I could.

Slowly, nervously, Sybil made her way to the booth.

I turned and looked at the stranger.

"She will speak... for me, " I said.

I stood up and pointed at the stool next to the one where the stranger sat. Sybil took my meaning, but didn't move.

"Sit down, Sybil, " I said. " It's okay. "

She wouldn't look at me.

"Jerry?" she said, "Honey? What's wrong? Give me the knife...please. "

She reached for the knife, which Jerry then pressed into his throat. It wasn't quite enough pressure to break the skin, but it was close. Sybil let go of the knife and backed away. Jerry's eyes met hers; he looked terrified. I knew him well enough to know that his fear was not primarily his own danger, but his lack of ability to do anything. He was afraid for Sybil. And for me.

I got up and turned to face the old man. This was not going to be easy without Sybil's help.

"I would like ...to offer ...you a choice, sir."

He looked at me, intrigued. He had not expected that.

"I'm not interested," he said.

"But surely," I said, " the game will only...benefit from...added...complexity."

That got his attention. I was on thin ice and I knew it. I was working off a vague recollection of something I had dreamed many years before. I didn't really even know—at least not for sure, not really—that he was one of the creatures I remembered. The birdlike creatures from my dream had at one stage in their development shed their feathers, then in a later stage shed their wings altogether, and in the end had sought the means to shed physical existence itself. They had defined themselves by that quest.

Shedders. That's what they called themselves. And they hated us, in part because our existence was seen as some kind of affront to theirs. But more than that—they hated us because we were the reason, or at least they believed we were the reason, that they couldn't achieve their aim.

It occurred to me to wonder, not for the first time, what exactly it was that I was looking for all those nights in all those dreams. And why had Grace accompanied me? In fact, why did I seem to remember that it was Grace who wanted to visit all those worlds in the first place? That was impossible. She had no way of knowing they existed, unless I told her. It was all so hard to remember. And this was no time to try.

He nodded at me.

"It might," he said. "What choice will you offer?"

I turned to look at Sybil.

"Please...come here," I said.

She walked past me and got right in the stranger's face.

"What did you do him?" she demanded. " You let him go now, or I swear to God I'll kill you, you son of bitch. "

"Sybil, be quiet. You don't...talk to him. I will...talk to him."

I looked at the stranger.

"I must ask you...to let her be. I need her...to help me...communicate. "

The stranger looked disgusted.

"You are frail, " he said. "I am not likely to choose one who is frail."

That was a lie. He had come here for me. The whole business of making a choice was just a formality, he had already admitted as much. There was no question as to whether I would be his choice. The only question was what he would do with the people he had not chosen. It seemed quite obvious to me that he meant to kill them. But I didn't think he needed to, not even for the sake of formality. It was just something he wanted to do.

"Please forgive...my frailty, " I said.

"Sybil, sit down, " I said as forcefully as I possibly could.

Trembling, she sat down on the stool next to the stranger. I sat down next to her. I took my pen and pad and wrote:

MUST PROTCT U & J
IT WONT HRT ME

She took the pen from my hand and wrote:

DO YOU KNOW HIM?

I replied:

NO
NO TIM 2 EXPLN
U MUST DO AS I SAY
4 J

I couldn't tell whether the stranger could see what we were writing, or whether he would have understood it. He didn't seem to care one way or another.

Sybil looked at my note for a moment and then nodded. I started a fresh sheet of paper and began writing. It seemed to take a long time, but was probably less than a minute. I handed the notepad to Sybil. She read over what I wrote and then looked at me.

"Corey, I can't say this, " she said.

"Just...read it, " I said through gritted teeth. I turned back and looked at Jerry. He sat there in the same position, the knife still pushed against his throat, his flesh taught but still unyielding. Sybil turned and looked, too. Then she turned back and faced the stranger.

"Corey would like to offer you three choices," she said. "And he wants me to tell you that this is a single-selection choice, which he believes is appropriate for a second-tier choice within a game such as this."

The old man gave me some horrifying approximation of a look of approval. As I had suspected he would be, he was pleased with any recognition of the rules of one of his games.

"Quite right, " he said. "Although I am permitted to choose as many as I like from three, it is best that the alternatives you offer each be distinct and exclusive."

"They are," I said. "Go on, Sybil."

She looked back at the pad.

"If you want to choose Corey there are three alternatives. First, if you want...to kill him... " She put the pad down on the counter and turned back to me.

"I can't do this, " she said. Her voice cracked. Her eyes were full of tears.

"Sybil ...please ...you have to trust me. Read it."

She wiped her eyes and picked the pad up again. She cleared her throat.

"If you want to kill him, then you should do it immediately and leave my husband and myself alone."

The stranger nodded.

"Second choice?" he said.

"If you want to keep him alive, but want no cooperation from him...if you don’t want this to be an advertising...relationship?"

She looked at the pad, puzzled .

"Corey, what's this word?"

"Adversarial, " I said.

"If you want this to be an adversarial relationship, then feel free to do whatever you want to my husband and myself. "

"Very well, " said the stranger. "What is the third choice? "

"If you want to keep him alive, and you need his cooperation, you can have it. He will give you his full cooperation if — and only if — you don't hurt us. "

The old man folded his arms and looked at me for a long moment.

"These are three intriguing choices," he said. "The first of them is invalid. Or I should clarify: it would be invalid for me to choose it. It is not invalid for you offer it. As for the other two choices, I see no significant differences between them. I believe I can safely choose either one. "

I took the pad back and wrote a second note. I handed it to Sybil.

"If you've chosen Corey for some reason, then you'll want his cooperation. Why go to all the trouble of finding him only to have him not cooperate with you?"

"You will cooperate whether you will it or not, " he said.

I quickly scrawled a response.

"You may find that frailty has another side," Sybil read. "You may find that some are easier to compel than others, and that some things cannot be compelled all."

A shadow fell across the old man's face. He looked angry.

"Do you threaten me, boy? "

I shook my head.

"No," I said. "But you can't...make me...do anything. "

His laughter was grating, metallic. And not altogether convincing.

"I believe you are incorrect on that point, " he said.

"Try me, " I said. " Make me...do something. "

Before I'd even finished uttering the challenge, I was off the barstool and standing in front of the booth where Jerry sat. He handed me the knife. I turned and swung it high, aiming to plunge the blade into the back of Sybil's head. She sat there, unnaturally still. Apparently the stranger believed in leaving nothing to chance.

I was going to kill her. Sybil. My Sybil. The one person in the world who loved me the most. And there was nothing I could do to stop myself.

As I was standing there, frozen in place, something peripheral caught my eye. It was a rack of coffee cups.

As quickly as the stranger had taken control of me, I gave myself back over to the numbers. I was suddenly back in the catalog of books that I had read where the magic numbers appeared. It is the kind of exercise I could pick up precisely where I left off a few hours earlier. In fact, I could have picked it up at that exact point a few years or decades later had I chosen to.

Minutes passed. It could have been hours, but I'm sure it was just minutes. As engrossed as I was in the numbers, some part of me was still standing there in the diner holding the knife. And I had a very vague awareness of a conscious choice to give a bit of myself back to myself. Just long enough to drop the knife.

It made a clanging sound when it hit the floor, and a bit more of me came back. I became aware of the stranger staring at me. Not just looking at me, looking for a way in. I went back into the numbers for a while.

"You are frail, " I heard him say as from a great distance. "It sickens me."

I allowed myself to come back for a moment.

"My frailty...is called autism. And it is stronger...than your ability...to compel me to do...anything."

The stranger nodded.

"Very well, " he said. "I will make a choice. I choose the third alternative. "

"All right, " I said. "And they will not...be harmed?"

The shadow passed briefly over his face again.

"I said I chose the third alternative. That is sufficient."

"Good, " I said.

He got up from his stool.

"Come," he said. "We will leave it once. "

I shook my head.

"You will come back...tomorrow. We will leave...then."

"No, " he replied, angrily. "You may not add conditions now."

I took the pad from in front of Sybil, who was still sitting there, much too still.

"I'm not...adding it," I said. "It's written here. It's part...of the third choice. She just didn't...read it."

The stranger tore the pad for my hand and threw on the floor. He made a snarling sound. This was a small point; the extra day didn't matter at all compared to Sybil and Jerry's safety. But I had this feeling that I might be with the old man for some time. And I knew the whatever time I did spend with him was going to be unpleasant. So it seemed important that I not be too acquiescent.

I needed to get this thing off on the right foot.

Without looking at me again, the stranger started for the door. At the same moment, Sybil and Jerry came back to themselves. I had a lot to explain to them. And I had to tell them goodbye.

The cowbell clanged on the diner door as the stranger swung it open.

"See you tomorrow, " I said.