This Book is Full of Spiders

chance to delete anything.”

“Of course, there is confidential patient information that I couldn’t—”

“Let’s say I could promise I wouldn’t look at any of that. In fact, let’s say I just want to look at your Internet browser history. How would you feel about that?”

“It would be an invasion of privacy, of course. And I have credit cards and logins—”

“I’m talking about the porn, doc. Would I find nasty schoolgirl porn on there? Maybe interracial stuff? Incest fantasies?”

“I feel like you’re trying to get a reaction from me. If you’re not feeling like going through with the session we can continue on Monday—”

“No, listen. When I’m with Amy and I ask to borrow her computer, she passes it right over. No questions asked, no hesitation. She could sit there and look over my shoulder and watch me sift through every single file, and she wouldn’t flinch. She has nothing to hide. It’d be the same if I had a machine that could peer into her mind— she’d be fine with it. She’s comfortable with what she is. But, on the other hand, if she’s visiting and she asks to use my laptop? Man, there is so much depraved shit on there that if she saw it all, she’d call the cops. If she could see what goes through my mind when I see another girl walk by, she’d burst into tears.”

He nodded. “So you feel like you have to hide a part of yourself, and she doesn’t.”

“I’m saying it’s like that with everybody. There are two kinds of people on planet Earth, Batman and Iron Man. Batman has a secret identity, right? So Bruce Wayne has to walk around every second of every day knowing that if somebody finds out his secret, his family is dead, his friends are dead, everyone he loves gets tortured to death by costumed supervillains. And he has to live with the weight of that secret every day, that tension gnawing in his guts. But not Tony Stark, he’s open about who he is. He tells the world he’s Iron Man, he doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t have that shadow hanging over him, he doesn’t have to spend energy building up those walls of lies around himself. You’re one or the other—either you’re one of those people who has to hide your real self because it would ruin you if it came out, because of your secret fetishes or addictions or crimes, or you’re not one of those people. And the two groups aren’t even living in the same universe.”

“You believe you’re Batman.”

I closed my eyes. “What did you say the hourly rate for these sessions was again?”

“I mean you’re in that category, you feel like the people around you would react badly if they knew what you really thought and believed.”

“Not because they’ll think I’m crazy. They already think that. But because of how they would react once they knew the truth. You know how people are. That’s what you write books about, right? Group panics and all that?”

“You think the truth would cause mass hysteria.”

I shrugged, and nodded toward the window. “Look out there. You’ll see.”

He said, “That’s actually more true than you know. Don’t repeat this, but it appears I’m going to be called in to work on this case. The hospital shooting, I mean.”

“What, like as a profiler or something?”

“Oh, no, no. I’d be offering my assistance in dealing with the public. It’s the panic that is the primary concern, you see. Making sure no one gets a hair trigger, some poor soul waiting by their back door with a hunting rifle, shooting at a shadowy shape in the backyard that turns out to be their neighbor. Fear can be fatal and, as I suppose you see on my bookshelf, I’m… something of an expert.”

I thought, That has to be nice, to have a job where fear is something that happens to other people.

I stared out the window and said, “Do you ever get scared, Dr. Tennet?”

“Of course, but you know these sessions aren’t about me—”

“And besides, in your world, everything has some harmless explanation, right? It’s always bees. Even this thing with Franky. Your job will be, what, to go up to a bank of microphones and assure everybody that it’s all bees?”

“You feel like I was being dismissive of your fears. I apologize if so.”

“So does anything scare you, doctor? Anything irrational?”

“Of course. Here, I’ll volunteer my most embarrassing example. I feel like I owe it to you, to make up for the bee story. Are you a fan of science fiction?”

“I don’t know. My girlfriend is.”

“All right, but you know Star Trek, and ‘Beam me up, Scotty’? How they can teleport people around?”

“Yeah. The transporters.”

“Do you know how they work?”

“Just… special effects. CGI or whatever they used.”

“No, I mean within the universe of the show. They work by breaking down your molecules, zapping you over a beam, and putting you back together on the other end.”

“Sure.”

“That is what scares me. I can’t watch it. I find it too disturbing.”

I shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

“Well, think about it. Your body is just made of a few different types of atoms. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on. So this transporter machine, there is no reason in the world to break down all of those atoms and then send those specific atoms thousands of miles away. One oxygen atom is the same as another, so what it does is send the blueprint for your body across the beam. Then it reassembles you at the destination, out of whatever atoms it has nearby. So if there is carbon and hydrogen at the planet you’re beaming down to, it’ll just put you together out of what it has on hand, because you get the exact same result.”

“Sure.

“So it’s more like sending a fax than mailing a letter. Only the transporter is a fax machine that shreds the original. Your original body, along with your brain, gets vaporized. Which means what comes out the other end isn’t you. It’s an exact copy that the machine made, of a man who is now dead, his atoms floating freely around the interior of the ship. Only within the universe of the show, nobody knows this.

“Meanwhile, you are dead. Dead for eternity. All of your memories and emotions and personality end, right there, on that platform, forever. Your wife and children and friends will never see you again. What they will see is this unnatural photocopy of you that emerged from the other end. And in fact, since transporter technology is used routinely, all of the people you see on that ship are copies of copies of copies of long-dead, vaporized crew members. And no one ever figures it out. They all continue to blithely step into this machine that kills one hundred percent of the people who use it, but nobody realizes it because each time, it spits out a perfect replacement for the victim at the other end.”

I stared at him.

“Why did you tell me that?”

He shrugged. “You asked.”

His face showed nothing. I thought of the Asian guy, casually disappearing into the magic burrito door, walking out somewhere else. And in that moment I almost asked Tennet what he knew, and who he was.

I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything.

18 Hours Prior to Outbreak

Hours went by, and the cops continued to not show up at either my house or John’s apartment. All morning I was worried sick about what I would say when they brought me in, but then afternoon came and I was even more worried about the fact that they weren’t coming after us. That meant things had gotten so out of control that we were no longer on their list of priorities.