Rainbows End

03. A Minefield Made in Heaven

"My eyeballs are… fizzing!"

"This shouldn't be painful. Do they actually hurt?"

"… No." But the light was so bright that Robert saw fiery color even in the shadows. "It's all still a blur, but I haven't seen this well in…" he didn't know how long; time itself had been a darkness "… in years."

A woman spoke from right behind his shoulder. "You've been on the retinal meds for about a week, Robert. Today we felt we had a working population of cells present, so we decided to turn them on."

Another woman's voice: "And we can cure your blurred vision even more easily. Reed?"

"Yes, Doctor." This voice came from the man-shaped blur directly in front of him. The figure leaned near. "Let me put this over your eyes, Robert. There'll be a little numbness." Big gentle hands slipped glasses across Robert's face. At least this was familiar; he was getting new lenses fitted. But then his face went numb and he couldn't close his eyes.

"Just relax and look to the front." Relaxing was one thing, but there was no choice about looking to the front. And then… God , it was like watching a picture come up on a really slow computer, the blurs sharpening into finer and finer detail. Robert would have jerked back, but the numbness had spread to his neck and shoulders.

"The cell map in the right retina looks good. Let's do the left." A few more seconds passed, and there was a second miracle.

The man sitting in front of him eased the "glasses" off Robert's head. There was a smile on his middle-aged face. He wore a white cotton shirt. The pocket was embroidered with blue stitching: "Physician's Assistant Reed Weber." I can see every thread of it ! He looked over the man's shoulder. The walls of the clinic were slightly out of focus. Maybe he'd have to wear glasses out-of-doors. The thought set him laughing. And then he recognized the pictures on the walls. This was not a clinic. Those wall hangings were the calligraphy that Lena had bought for their house in Palo Alto. Where am I ?

There was a fireplace; there were sliding glass doors that opened onto a lawn. Not a book in sight; this was no place he had ever lived. The numbness in his shoulders was almost gone. Robert looked around the room. The two female voices — they weren't attached to anything visible. But Reed Weber wasn't the only person in sight. A heavyset fellow stood on his left, arms akimbo, a broad smile on his face. Robert's look caught his, and the smile faltered. The man gave him a nod and said, "Dad."

"… Bob." It wasn't so much that memory suddenly returned as that he noticed a fact that had been there all along. Bobby had grown up.

"I'll talk to you later, Dad. For now I'll let you wrap things up with Dr. Aquino and her people." He nodded at the thin air by Robert's right shoulder — and left the room.

The thin air said, "Actually, Robert, that's about all we intended to do today. You have a lot to do over the next few weeks, but it will be less chaotic if we take things one step at a time. We'll be keeping watch for any problems."

Robert pretended to see something in the air. "Right. See you around."

He heard friendly laughter. "Quite right! Reed can help you with that."

Reed Weber nodded, and now Robert had the feeling that he and Weber were truly alone in the room. The physician's assistant packed away the glasses, and various other pieces of loose equipment. Most were plain plastic boxes, prosaic throwaways except for the miracles they had made. Weber noticed his look, and smiled. "Just tools of the trade, the humdrum ones. It's the meds and machines that are floating around inside you that are really interesting." He stowed the last of the bricklike objects and looked up. "You're a very lucky guy, do you know that?"

I am in daylight now, where before it was night since forever. I wonder where Lena is ? Then he thought about the other's question. "How do you mean?"

"You picked all the right diseases!" He laughed. "Modern medicine is kind of like a minefield made in heaven. We can cure a lot of things: Alzheimer's, even though you almost missed the boat there. You and I both had Alzheimer's; I had the normal kind, cured at earliest onset. Lots of other things are just as fatal or crippling as ever. We still can't do much with strokes. Some cancers can't be cured. There are forms of osteoporosis that are as gruesome as ever. But all your major infirmities are things we have slam-dunk fixes for. Your bones are as good as a fifty-year-old's now. Today we did your eyes. In a week or so we'll start reinforcing your peripheral nervous system." Reed laughed. "You know, you've even got the skin and fat biochemistry that responds to Venn-Kurasawa treatments. It's not one person in a thousand who steps on that heavenly landmine; you're even going to look a lot younger."

"Next you'll be having me playing video games."

"Ah!" Weber reached into his equipment bag and pulled out a slip of paper. "We can't forget that."

Robert took the paper and unfolded it all the way. It was really quite large, almost the size of foolscap. This appeared to be letterhead stationery. At the top was a logo, and in a fancy font the words "Crick's Clinic, Geriatrics Division." The rest was some kind of outline, the main categories being: "Microsoft Family,"

"Great Wall Linux," and "Epiphany Lite."

"Eventually you'll want to use 'Epiphany Lite,' but in the meantime, just touch the computer type you're most familiar with."

The items listed under "Microsoft Family" were the brand names of Microsoft systems all the way back to the 1980s. Robert stared uncertainly.

"Robert? You — you do know about computers, right?"

"Yes." The memory was there, now that he thought about it. He grinned. "But I was always the last to get on board. I got my first PC in 2000." And that was because the rest of the English Department was brutalizing him for not reading his email.

"Whew. Okay, you can imitate any of those old styles with that. Just lay it out flat on the arm of your chair. Your son has this room set to play the audio, but most places you'll have to keep your fingers touching the page if you want to hear output." Robert leaned forward to get a close view of the paper. It didn't glow; it didn't even have the glassy appearance of a computer display. It was just plain, high-quality paper. Reed pointed at the outline items. "Now press the menu option that corresponds to your favorite system."

Robert shrugged. Over the years, the department had upgraded through a number of systems, but — he pressed his finger to the line of text that said "WinME." There was no pause, none of the boot-up delays he recalled. But suddenly a familiar and annoying musical jingle was in the air. It seemed to come from all around, not from the piece of paper. Now the page was full of color and icons. Robert was filled with nostalgia, remembering many frustrating hours spent in front of glowing computer screens.

Reed grinned. "A good choice. WinME has been a simple rental for a long time. If you picked Epiphany, we'd be whacking through their licensing jungle… Okay, now the rest should be almost exactly what you know. Crick's Clinic even has some of the modern services filtered down so they look like browser sites. This isn't quite as good as what your son and I use, but you won't have any more trouble with 'invisible voices'; you'll see Rachel and Dr. Aquino on the page here, if you want. Be cool, Robert."

Robert listened to Weber's mix of probably dated slang and tech talk, to the joviality and the phrase structures that might suggest sarcasm. Once upon a time, all that would have been enough for Robert to calibrate this fellow. Today, just out of the murk of senility, he couldn't be sure. So he probed a little. "I'm all young again?"

Reed sat back, and gave an easy laugh. "Wish I could tell you that, Robert. You're seventy-five years old, and there are a lot more ways for the body to break down than the MDs have even imagined. But I've been on your case for six months. You've come back from the dead, man. You've almost got the Alzheimer's licked. It makes sense to try these other treatments on you now. You're going to have some surprises, mostly for the good. Just take it easy, roll with the punches. For instance, I noticed that you recognized your son just now."

"Y-Yes."

"I was here just a week ago. You didn't recognize him then."

It was strange to poke into that dimness, but… "Yes. I knew I couldn't have a son. I wasn't old enough. I just wanted to go home, I mean to my parents' home in Bishop. And even now, I was surprised to see that Bob is so old." Consequences were crashing down upon him. "So my parents are dead — "

Reed nodded. "I'm afraid so, Robert. There's a whole lifetime that you're going to start remembering."

"As a patchwork? Or oldest memories first? Or maybe I'll get stuck at some point — "

"The MDs can give you the best answers on that." Reed hesitated. "Look, Robert. You used to be a professor, right?"

I was a poet ! But he didn't think Reed would appreciate which was the more valued rank. "Yes. Professor — well, Professor Emeritus — of English. At Stanford."

"Okay then. You were a smart guy. You have a lot to learn, but I'm betting you'll get those smarts back. Don't panic if you can't remember something. Don't push too hard, either. Practically every day the docs are going to restore some additional capability. The theory is that this will be less disturbing for you. Whether that's right or wrong won't matter if you keep cool. Remember you have a whole loving family here."

Lena . Robert lowered his head for a moment. Not a return to childhood, but a kind of second chance. If he could come all the way back from the Alzheimer's, if, if… then he might have another twenty years left, time to make up for what he had lost. So two goals: his poetry, and… "Lena."

Reed leaned closer. "What did you say, sir?"

Robert looked up. "My wife. I mean my ex-wife." He tried to remember more. "I bet I'll never remember what happened after I lost my marbles."

"Like I say, don't worry about it."

"I remember being married to Lena and raising Bobby. We split up years ago. But then… I also remember her being with me when the Alzheimer's really started to shut me down. And now she's gone again. Where is she, Reed?"

Reed frowned, then leaned forward and zipped up his equipment case. "I'm sorry, Robert. She passed away two years ago." He stood and gave Robert a gentle pat on the shoulder. "You know, I think we've made really good progress today. Now I've got to run."

In his former life, Robert Gu had paid even less attention to technology than he had to current events. Human nature doesn't change, and as a poet his job was to distill and display that unchanging essence. Now… well, I'm back from the dead ! That was something new under the sun, a bit of technology somewhat too large to ignore. It was a new chance at life, a chance to continue his career. And where he should continue his art was obvious: with Secrets of the Ages . He had spent five years on the cantos of that sequence, poems such as "Secrets of the Child,"

"Secrets of the Young Lovers,"

"Secrets of the Old." But his "Secrets of the Dying" had been an arrant fake, written before he really started to die — no matter that people seemed to think it was the most profound canto of the sequence. But now… yes, something new: "Secrets of the One Who Came Back." The ideas were coming and surely verse would follow.

Every day there were new changes in himself, and old barriers suddenly removed. He could easily accept Reed Weber's advice to be patient with his limitations. So much was changing and all for the better. One day he was walking again, even if it was a lurching, unstable gait. He fell three times that first day, and each time, he just bounced back to his feet. "Unless you fall on your head, Professor, you'll be fine," Reed said. But his walking got steadily better. And now that he could see — really see — he could do things with his hands. No more pawing around in the dark. He had never realized how important sight was to coordination. There are uncountable ways that things can lie and tangle and hide in three dimensions; without vision you're condemned to compromise and failure. But not me. Not now . And two days after that…

… he was playing Ping-Pong with his granddaughter. He remembered the table. It was the one that he'd bought for little Bobby thirty years ago. He even remembered Bob taking it off his hands when he finally gave up his home in Palo Alto.

Today Miri was pulling her punches, lobbing the ball high and slow across the table. Robert moved back and forth. Seeing the ball was no problem, but he had to be very careful or he'd swing too high. Careful, careful went the game — until Miri had him down fifteen to eleven. And then he won five points, each stroke a kind of spastic twitch that somehow smashed the white plastic into the far edge of the table.

"Robert! You were just fooling me!" Poor, pudgy Miri raced from one corner of the table to the other, trying to keep up with him. Robert's slams had no spin, but she wasn't an expert player. Seventeen to fifteen, eighteen, nineteen. Then his powerful swings got out of tune, and he was back to being a staggering spastic. But now his granddaughter showed no mercy. She racked up six straight points — and won the game.

And then she ran around the table to hug him. "You are great! But you'll never fool me again!" It didn't do any good to tell her what Aquino had said, that the reconstruction of his nervous system would cause randomly spiky performance. He might end up with the reflexes of an athlete; more likely the endpoint would be something like average coordination.

It was funny, how he paid attention to the day of the week. That had stopped mattering even before he lost his marbles. But now, on the weekends, his granddaughter was around all day.

"What was Great-Aunt Cara like?" she asked him one Saturday morning.

"She was a lot like you, Miri."

The girl's smile was sudden and wide and proud. Robert had guessed that this was what she wanted to hear. But it's true, except that Cara was never overweight . Miri was like Cara, right in those last years of preadolescence when her hero worship for her older brother had been replaced by other concerns. If anything, Miri's personality was an exaggeration of Cara's. Miri was very bright — probably smarter than her great-aunt. And Miri was already into the extreme independence and moral certainty of the other. I remember that persistent arrogance , thought Robert. That had been an enormous irritation; breaking her of it had been what drove them apart.

Sometimes Miri had her little friends over. The boys and girls mixed pretty indescriminately at this age and in this era. For a few brief years they were almost matched for muscle. Miri loved to play doubles at Ping-Pong.

He had to smile at the way she bossed her friends around. She had them organized into a tournament. And though she was scrupulously honest, she played to win . When her side got behind, her jaw set in angry determination, and there was steel in her eyes. Afterward she was quick to acknowledge her own failures, and just as quick to critique her playmates.

Even when her friends were gone physically, they were often still around, invisible presences like Robert's doctors. Miri walked around the backyard talking and arguing with nobody — a parody of all the cellphone discourtesy that Robert remembered from his later years at Stanford.

Then there were Miri's grand silences. Those didn't match anything in his recollection of Cara. Miri would push gently back and forth on the swing that hung from the only good-sized tree in the backyard. She would do that for hours , speaking only occasionally — and then to the empty air. Her eyes seemed to be focused miles away. And when he asked her what she was doing, she would start and laugh and say that she was "studying." It looked much more like some kind of pernicious hypnosis to Robert Gu.

Weekdays, Miri was off at school; a limo pulled up for her every morning, always at the moment that the girl was ready to go. Bob was gone nowadays, "to be back in a week or so." Alice was home part of each day, but she was in a distinctly short-tempered mood. Sometimes he would see her at lunch; more often, his daughter-in-law was at Camp Pendleton until midafternoon. She was especially irritable when she came back from the base.

Except for Reed Weber's therapy sessions, Robert was left much to his own devices. He wandered around the house, found some of his old books in cardboard boxes in the basement. Those were almost the only books in the house. This family was effectively illiterate. Sure, Miri bragged that many books were visible any time you wanted to see them, but that was a half truth. The browser paper that Reed had given him could be used to find books online, but reading them on that single piece of foolscap was a tedious desecration.

It was remarkable foolscap, though. It really did support teleconferencing; Dr. Aquino and the remote therapists were not just invisible voices anymore. And the web browser was much like the ones he remembered, even though many sites couldn't be displayed properly. Google still worked. He searched for Lena Llewelyn Gu. Of course, there was plenty of information about her. Lena had been a medical doctor and rather well known in a limited, humdrum way. And yes, she had died a couple of years ago. The details were a cloud of contradiction, some agreeing with what Bob told him, some not. It was this damn Friends of Privacy. It was hard to imagine such villains, doing their best to undermine what you could find on the net. A "vandal charity" was what they called themselves.

And that eventually got him into the News of the Day. The world was as much a mess as ever. This month, it was a police action in Paraguay. The details didn't make sense. What were "moonshine fabs" and why would the U.S. want to help local cops close them down? The big picture was more familiar. The invading forces were looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Today they had found nuclear weapons hidden beneath an orphanage. The pictures showed slums and poor people, ragged children playing inscrutable games that somehow seemed to deny the squalor all around. There was an occasional, almost lonely-looking, soldier.

I'll bet this is where Bob is , he thought. Not for the first time — or the thousandth — he wondered how his son could have chosen such an ugly, dead-end career.

Evenings they had something like a family meal, Alice and Robert and Miri. Alice seemed happy to do the cooking, though tonight she looked like she hadn't slept for a couple of days.

Robert hung around the kitchen, watching mother and daughter slide trays from the fridge. "TV dinners, that's what we used to call this sort of thing," he said. In fact, this stuff had the appearance and texture of delicious food. It all tasted like mush to him, but Reed said that was because his taste buds were ninety-five percent dead.

Miri hesitated the way she often did when Robert tossed out some idea she hadn't heard before. But as usual, her response was full of confidence. "Oh, these are much better than TV junk food. We can mix and match the parts." She pointed at the unmarked containers sizzling in — well, it looked like a microwave. "See, I got the ice-cream dessert and Alice got… angel-hair blueberries. Wow, Alice!"

Alice gave her a brief smile. "I'll share. Okay, let's get this into the dining room."

It took all three of them to carry everything, but no second trip was needed. They set the food on the long dining table. The tablecloth was an intricate damask that seemed to be different every night. The table itself was familiar, another hand-me-down. Lena's presence was still everywhere.

Robert sat down beside Miri. "You know," he said, more to probe reactions than anything else. "This all seems a bit primitive to me. Where are the robot servants — or even the little automatic hands to put the TV dinners in the 'wave and take them out?"

His daughter-in-law gave an irritated shrug. "Where it makes sense, we have robots."

Robert remembered Alice Gong when she had married Bob. Back then, Alice had been an impenetrable diplomat — so smooth that most people never realized her skill. In those days, he had still had his edge both with verse and with people; he took such a personality as a challenge. And yet, his former self had never been able to find a chink in her armor. The new Alice only imitated the composure of the old, and with varying success. Tonight was not one of her better nights.

Robert remembered the news about Paraguay and took a stab in the dark. "Worried about Bob?"

She gave him an odd smile. "No. Bob is fine."

Miri glanced at her mother and then chirped, "Actually, if you want mechs, you should see my doll collection."

Mechs? Dolls? It was hard to dominate people when you didn't know what they were talking about. He backed up: "I mean, there are all the things that future freaks have been predicting for a hundred years and that never happened. Things such as air cars."

Miri looked up from her steaming food. At one corner of the tray there really was a bowl of ice cream. "We have air taxis. Does that count?"

"That gets partial credit." Then he surprised himself: "When can I see one?" The Robert of old would have dimissed mechanical contrivances as beneath any mature interest.

"Any time! How about after dinner?" This last question was directed at Alice as much as Robert.

That brought a more natural smile to Alice's face. "Maybe this weekend."

They ate in silence for a moment. I wish I could taste this stuff .

Then Alice was onto the topic she must have been saving up: "You know, Robert, I've been looking at the medics' reports on you. You're almost up to speed now. Have you considered resuming your career?"

"Why, of course. I'm thinking about it all the time. I've got new writing ideas — " He gestured expansively, and was surprised by the fear that suddenly rose in him. "Hey, don't worry, Alice. I've got my writing. I've got job offers from schools all around the country. I'll be out of your way as soon as I get my feet solidly on the ground."

Miri said, "Oh no, Robert! You can stay with us. We like having you here."

"But at this point don't you think you should be actively reaching out?" said Alice.

Robert looked back mildly. "How is that?"

"Well, you know that Reed Weber's last session with you is next Tuesday. I'll bet there are still new skills you'd like to master. Have you considered taking classes? Fairmont High has a number of special — "

Colonel Alice was doing pretty well, but she was handicapped by the thirteen-year-old at Robert's side. Miri piped up with "Yecco. That's our vocational track. A few old people and lots of teenage dumbheads. It's dull, dull, dull."

"Miri, there are basic skills — "

"Reed Weber has done a lot of that. And I can teach Robert to wear." She patted his arm. "Don't worry, Robert. Once you learn to wear, you can learn anything. Right now, you're in a trap; it's like you're seeing the world through a little hole, just whatever your naked eye sees — and what you can get from that'' She pointed at the magic foolscap that was tucked into his shirt pocket. "With some practice you should be able to see and hear as good as anyone."

Alice shook her head. "Miri. There are lots of people who don't use contacts and wearables."

"Yes, but they're not my grandfather." And there was that defiant little thrust of her jaw. "Robert, you should be wearing. You look silly walking around with that view-page clutched in your hand."

Alice seemed about to object more forcefully. Then she settled back, watching Miri with a neutral gaze that Robert couldn't fathom.

Miri didn't seem to notice the look. She leaned her head forward, and stuck a finger close to her right eye. "You already know about contacts, right? Wanna see one?" Her hand came away from her eye. A tiny disk sat on the tip of her middle finger. It was the size and shape of the contact lenses he had known. He hadn't expected anything more, but… he bent close and looked. After a moment, he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it. "I'm driving it at safety max, or you wouldn't see the lights." The tiny lens became hazy, then frosty white. "Uk. It powered down. But you get the idea." She popped it back into her eye, and grinned at him. Now her right eye was fogged with an enormous cataract.

"You should get a fresh one, dear," said Alice.

"Oh no," said Miri. "Once it warms up, it'll be good for the rest of the day." And in fact the "cataract" was fading, Miri's dark brown iris showing through. "So what do you think, Robert?"

That it's a rather gross substitute for what I can do simply by reading my view-page . "That's all there is to it?"

"um, no. I mean, we can fix you up with one of Bob's shirts and a box of contacts right away. It's learning to use them that's the trick."

Colonel Alice said, "Without some control it's like old-time television, but much more intrusive. We wouldn't want you to be hijacked, Robert. How about this: I'll get you some trainer clothes and that box of contacts that Miri mentioned. Meantime, give some thought to attending Fairmont High, okay?"

Miri leaned forward and grinned at her mother. "Betcha he's wearing inside of a week. He won't need those loser classes." Robert smiled benignly over Miri's head.

In fact, there had been job offers. His return had percolated onto the web, and twelve schools had written him. But five were simply speaking invitations. Three were for semester artist-in-residence gigs. And the others weren't from first-rank schools. It was not exactly the welcome Robert expected for one of "the century's literary giants" (quoting the critics here).

They're afraid I'm still a vegetable.

So Robert kept the offers on ice and worked on his writing. He would show the doubters he was as sharp as ever — and in the doing, he would overleap them, to the sort of recognition he deserved.

But progress was slow on the poetry front. Progress was slow on a lot of fronts. His face actually looked young now. Reed said such complete cosmetic success was rare, that Robert was a perfect target for the "Venn-Kurasawa" process. Wonderful. But his coordination remained spastic and his joints ached all the time. Most ignominious, he still had to hike down to the John several times each night to take a leak. That was surely the Fates reminding him he was still an old man.

Yesterday had been Weber's last visit. The guy had a menial mind, but it was exactly matched to the menial aid he provided. I'll miss him, I suppose . Not least because now there was another empty hour in every day.

And progress was especially slow on the poetry front.

For Robert, dreams had never been an important source of inspiration (though he had claimed otherwise in several well-known interviews). But wide-awake attempts at creativity were the last resort of pedestrian minds. For Robert Gu, real creativity most often came after a good night's sleep, just as he roused himself to wakefulness. That moment was such a reliable source of inspiration that when he was having problems with writing he would often go the pedestrian route in the evening, stock up his mind with the intransigencies of the moment… and then the next morning, drowsing, review what he knew. There in the labile freshness of new consciousness, answers would drift into view. In his years at Stanford, he'd run the phenomenon past philosophers, religionists, and the hard-science people. They'd had a hundred explanations, from Freudian psychology to quantum physics. The explanation didn't matter; "sleeping on it" worked for him.

And now, coming out of years of dementia, he still had that morning edge. But his control of the process was as erratic as ever. Some mornings, his mind was awash with ideas for "Secrets of the One Who Came Back" and his revision of "Secrets of the Dying." Yet none of these morning brainstorms contained poetical detail. He had the ideas. He had concepts down to the level of verse blocks. But he didn't have the words and phrases that made ideas into beauty. Maybe that was okay. For now. After all, making the words sing was the highest, purest talent. Didn't it make sense that such would be his very last talent to return?

In the meantime, many of his mornings were wasted on garbage insights. His subconscious had turned traitor, fascinated by how things worked, by technology and math. During the day, when he was surfing his view-page, he was constantly diverted by topics unrelated to any artistic concern. He had spent one whole afternoon on a "child's introduction" to finite geometry, for God's sake… and the big insight he wakened with the next morning had been a proof of one of the harder exercises.

Robert's day time was a grinding bore, an endless search for the right words, all the while trying to ignore the lure of his view-page. His evenings were spent putting off Miri and her attempts to stick foreign objects onto his eyeballs.

Finally, morning insight came to his rescue. Rising toward wakefulness, thinking dispassionately about his failure, he noticed the green junipers beyond his window, the yard painted in soft pastels. There was a world outside. There were a million different viewpoints there. What had he done in the past when progress hit roadblocks? You take a break . Do something different; almost anything. Going back to "high school" would get him out of this, get Miri out of his hair. It would certainly expose him to different, even if narrow, viewpoints.

Alice would be so pleased.

04