The Replacement Agency

  Man, but he looks ill, Parker thought as he studied the old man stretched out before him.

     The room smelt of dust and sweat and worry. The man, Anthony Keyes, lay in the bed, sweat-stained sheet pulled up to his emaciated throat, blue veins protruding on the pallid skin there. Beneath closed lids, his eyes darted back and forth restlessly before opening for a flickering few seconds, staring desperately through their mucus haze, closing again. From his perch in one corner of the darkened room, Parker watched as Keyes struggled to snatch another wheezing breath, his chest fighting against the impossible weight of the thin, damp sheet.

     Ralph Parker had never seen the man before, had never visited the room or the house until today. He stood, statue still, and looked around the bedroom.  Throwaway crime thrillers clogged the bookshelves, sitting comatose alongside half-forgotten classics and an ancient, well-thumbed dictionary. Before the books, obscuring their titles, and on other shelves and surfaces, sat odd knickknacks––a candle stem, split down its center, unusable; a grey pebble, shined and varnished, glistening in sympathy with the sweat on Keyes’ forehead; prints and photographs, a child’s drawings, telephone pad doodles, unopened letters. And everything sprinkled with a light coating of dust, like icing sugar delicately added to a cake. The detritus of a man’s life, Parker realized.

     Sunlight struggled past the edges of the heavy curtains, painting glowing streaks across the walls and ceiling, lighting the dark, miserable wallpaper there.  Let me die in a light-colored room, Parker thought.

     From outside, Parker could hear a man speaking, his deep tone carrying through the closed door. The doctor, most likely, offering sympathy and consolation to the old man’s family. Or, perhaps, a vicar or priest. Parker hadn’t wasted time researching this destination, to learn if the man had some deep commitment to faith, if a faith even existed here.

     The man in the bed struggled for another breath, his eyes blinking open again and staring at the stranger in the corner of the room. He muttered something, sub-vocalized, fear in his eyes. Impassively, Ralph Parker watched him through the goggles he wore over his eyes, realizing it wouldn’t be long now. As the old man studied him, Parker spoke into the stem microphone attached to the goggles, waited for Roberts’ acknowledgement. “Target acquired,” Parker said. “Ready to ship.”

     Parker listened to the countdown over his headphones, Roberts’ measured voice taking him from ten to zero while he made a final check of the engines he’d strapped to the bed. Their red lights winked, a faint humming growing louder with each second. Keyes rocked in the bed, drawing all of his failing strength in a vain attempt to struggle away from whatever was going on, eyes wide and terrified. A sad, pleading sound squeaked from his throat as he opened his mouth, watching the stranger checking the engines.

     On “two”, Parker looked at the old man, trying his most professional smile––the one he thought of as reassuring. “We’re out of here, pops,” he told the man with a nod.

     And they were gone.

_________________________

     When Parker reached the workroom he could see Roberts through the meter-thick glass, checking the bio-scans as clouds of steam billowed from the kettle behind him. Roberts looked up from the computer screen and gave him a thumbs up, confirming the all-clear. With a hiss, the airlock unsealed, and Parker joined him in the monitor room, leaving Anthony Keyes––bed and all––alone in the workroom.

     “I was just making coffee,” Roberts told him as Parker pushed the goggles back from his eyes.

     “Put some whisky in mine,” Parker instructed as he went to check the bio-scans for himself. “That old man ain’t going to last long. How soon can we get the client here?”

     Roberts shrugged. “She lives out in Bayside,” he told Parker. “This time of night that’s maybe twenty minutes in a cab.”

     Parker patted at his jacket’s pockets until he located his cigarettes. “Call her,” Parker told him, lighting one. He inhaled the stream of smoke thoughtfully. His heart was still thumping in his chest from the trip back and he was getting that cramped feeling in his limbs again. All part of the job, he lamented.

_________________________

     The client, Jennette Keyes, had come to his office two weeks ago. She was a bottle blonde in her late 30s trying hard to cling to her late 20s. She had entered his office, heels clicking on the vinyl tiles, her blouse straining, a size too ambitious for her recent surgical enhancements. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes from view, but Ralph Parker had a good idea what those eyes looked like––cunning and greedy, evasive eyes; he’d dealt with plenty of clients like her.

     He leaned across the desk, shaking her hand firmly as he introduced himself. She smiled at him and made a show of sitting in the chair on the other side of his desk, fiddling and smoothing edges of clothing as she settled. Her smile, like her hair, was bleached––a dazzling, uncanny white that burnt the retinas.

     “It’s my father,” she told him without preamble.  “He’s just not dying.”

     Parker lit a cigarette as he listened to her story. He had heard them all by now. There had been the elderly widow who couldn’t live without her late husband. The guy whose brother had gone missing––twin brother, Parker amended to himself. Once, a primary school teacher had come to him in floods of tears and paid him to find the high school yearbook she’d had stolen from her house in a burglary the previous week. A rich guy had come to him late one evening and asked whether he could find a replacement for the faithful dog he’d run over that morning.

     Nothing surprised Parker much these days. He just listened to the stories, mentally cutting through the excuses and the lies people told themselves to make it all seem okay what they were doing. And after they had wailed, or shouted, or beat themselves up over whatever it was, he’d give them his practiced speech about retainer fee plus expenses, along with the estimate of how long it would take to find what they were after.

     Jennette Keyes stood to inherit a modest fortune, along with a seat on the board of a Fortune 500 company, if only her blasted father would hurry up and die. But, she explained, the old man was stubborn and, quite frankly, as healthy as a mule. He wasn’t about to pop his clogs any time soon. “And a girl’s got to eat,” she told Parker with a painful flash of those bleached teeth.

     “Daddy,” she told him, “will be out of the country at the end of the month. Some big meeting in Europe or something,” she shrugged, “so I thought that then would be the ideal time to ... you know?”

     “Replace him?” Parker suggested between the cigarette gripped in his lips.

     Jennette nodded. “Exactly.”

     The Replacement Agency operated on the Heisenberg Principle of an infinite number of alternate realities, each ripe for the plucking. Parker and Roberts would use their equipment to scan these realities, locating the objects their clients required, and acquiring them through a quick jaunt to another version of Earth. It was a simple enough operation––jump reality, grab what you want, head home. There had been some complaints from eco-campaigners just lately that this strip mining of other dimensions was dangerous, creating long-term problems for our neighboring realities. And, in the last few weeks, Amnesty International were all over the news suggesting that replacement agencies like Parker’s were abusing the human rights of individuals in these other worlds. Neither argument made much difference to Parker––it was good business, well paid, and, quite frankly, who cared what the consequences were for a reality he would likely never see again. If bringing a version of Jennette Keyes’ father, who was bed-ridden and about to die, across from another dimension caused that whole reality to spontaneously implode, it wasn’t his problem. The truth was, it was profitable and he had a wife and kid of his own to think about. If it was such a big deal to the sick Anthony Keyes’ reality what happened, then they should have invented the multiverse hopping machinery and done something about it instead of sitting around waiting for someone like Parker to come and screw things up for them.

     Jennette Keyes tapped her perfectly manicured fingernail on the desk to get his attention. “So, what do you think? Is it possible?” she asked him.

     Parker stubbed the cigarette out in the glass ashtray beside his elbow. “Replace your father with a sick version? Sure.”

     “Not sick, Mister Parker––dying. I don’t want to go through all that nonsense with nursing homes while the old bastard clings on for dear life, wetting himself and spewing blood at nurses.”

     Parker rocked in his chair, pushing himself back with his feet. “Dying. Sure. Whatever you need.”

_________________________

     Parker gazed absently through the meter-thick glass.  The old man lay, dying, in his bed in the center of the workroom. The engines were still strapped to the bed, faint trails of smoke drifting from them towards the ceiling, their energies spent. Behind him, Roberts was just hanging up the phone. “She’ll be about a half hour,” he told Parker.

    Parker took a last, long swallow from his mug before placing it beside Roberts’ computer and heading back through the airlock into the workroom, his stride stiff from the pain in his legs. “I’ll go remove the engines, set them on the rechargers,” he told Roberts, who nodded.

     As Parker crossed into the workroom, Roberts’ voice called to him. “I almost forgot to tell you––Glynis called while you were making the acquisition. Said to call her back when you got a moment.”

     Parker sighed inwardly, checking his wristwatch. It was almost two a.m.––too late now to call Glynis, his wife. He would no doubt get another lecture from her when she finally caught up with him, berating him for missing Eddie’s football practice or school play or something or other. Ever since Eddie had been born, Glynis and he had been at one another’s throats. Of course Eddie had to go to the best school, had to have the highly recommended educational toys, had to have an account set aside for his university education. But who was going to pay for all that if Parker had to quit work early every time his son played “second orphan from the left” in the school play or wanted to go visit the learning zoo?

     If Glyn hadn’t been so damned pro-life about the whole thing at the time, they could have put off Eddie until they’d had a bit more money in the bank. Then he and Glynis would have actually been able to spend time together doing something more productive than tearing strips off each other, he thought as he slapped one of the engines into the recharger base.

     From behind him, Parker heard old man Keyes mumbling something, his voice the rasp of crushed autumn leaves.  He turned, watching the old man’s confused eyes as he scanned the room, until finally their gazes met. The old man muttered his question, tongue thick and throat parched, voice barely audible: “Is this ... am I in Heaven?”

     Jennette had better arrive soon––Parker doubted if the old guy would make it through the night. If he died anywhere other than the bed of their Anthony Keyes, the coroner would launch an investigation and the whole scam would be split apart. Well, if he died here in the workroom, they would just have to locate another dying old man Keyes and start again. More hassle, naturally, but a steady retainer for another ten days or so.

     Parker nodded, smiling reassuringly. “Sure, pops––this is Heaven,” he told him, before turning back to the engine emplacements.

_________________________

     It was almost four a.m. by the time Parker slid beneath the duvet next to his wife, and he could feel that bone deep coldness that only comes through lack of sleep. He lay on his side, the vestiges of cramp still in his left arm, and shrugged the duvet over his shoulder, enjoying its warmth. Next to him, Glynis stirred and he knew she was awake, her eyes boring into his back.

     Glynis’s whispered voice broke into the quiet stillness of the room. “Ralph? Are you awake?” He ignored her, too tired to fight another round.

_________________________

     Glynis glared at him over the kitchen table, its varnished wooden surface reflecting the overhead light, dazzling Parker’s tired eyes. By the back door, Eddie was carefully doing up the laces of his left shoe, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration, his vast satchel, two-thirds as big as his tiny, six-year-old frame, rested at his side protectively. Parker winced as Glynis slapped the plate of boiled eggs and toast onto the table before him.

     “I left a message for you last night,” she told him, her tone an accusation. “You didn’t call back.”

     Ralph shook his head, dipping a strip of toast into the yolk. “I didn’t get off assignment until one o’clock.  Then we had to do a tidy up and get everything smoothed over with the client.” He looked up at her, an apologetic smile on his face. “I’m sorry, Glyn.”

     With a sigh, she got up from the table and started loading the dishwasher, crashing the crockery in place.  “You know it’s Eddie’s play tonight, don’t you?” she told him over her shoulder. “You remember?”

     “What is he this time?” Ralph asked, his disinterest barely contained. “A tree? Roadkill?”

     Glynis looked at him, smiling defiantly. “Our son––your own flesh and blood––will tonight be performing as one of the eight dwarfs who take care of Snow White.”

     “Weren’t there just the seven dwarfs?” Ralph asked.  He didn’t expect an answer.

     Slamming the dishwasher door closed, Glynis, for the prosecution, launched her summation at the jury. “I keep telling you that the class sizes in that school are too big. I’ve spoken informally with the head of Mercer Primary––they’re willing to take Eddie from the start of next term, if we can let them know before the end of next week.” With that, Glynis turned to the back door and dragged Eddie down the rear steps.

     Parker heard Eddie call back, “Bye, Dad” as the door slapped back on its jamb.

     After they had left, Parker lit his cigarette from the gas stove and sat at the kitchen table, smoking it in silence.

_________________________

     Parker was hunched over his bench in the workroom, a soldering iron in his hand as he tried to locate a recurring fault in the locator circuit. The circuit kept blowing out in the 11/20 range of alternate Earths, and that happening at the wrong time could be the difference between life and death. He didn’t even notice Roberts enter until his assistant politely coughed. Parker looked up to see Roberts brandishing a large cardboard box––freshly delivered pizza.

     “You’ve been working on that circuit for most of the afternoon, Ralph,” Roberts told him. “Have a break and some pizza.”

     Parker shook his head. “I’ll take the slice but I can’t afford the break right now. I think I’ve finally figured out what has been causing the glitch in the circuitry.” He melted another piece of solder on the board, tilting his head to avoid the thin trail of smoke that clouded out of the breach.

     Roberts shrugged. “It’s your choice, chief, but you’ve been hunched over like that for five hours now.  It’s almost six o’clock already.”

     With a start, Parker looked up. “It is?” He checked his watch, pulling the soldering iron away from the circuit board. “I’m meant to be at Eddie’s play in ... twenty minutes. Glyn’ll kill me. I’ve got to go.”

     Parker’s hand darted for the plug, switching off the soldering iron with a flick, tossing it on top of the slice of uneaten pizza he had taken a moment before.  Roberts berated him, promising to tidy up on his behalf if he just got out of there without causing the place to burn down. Ninety seconds later, Ralph Parker was in his car, weaving through city traffic.

_________________________

     Parker drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as he pulled the car to a halt at the red stop light. According to his watch, he still had three minutes to get to the school. Find a parking space.  Find Glynis. Get to his seat. No problem.

     Parker drove his foot down on the accelerator as the light changed to amber, pulling away with a squeal of tires.

_________________________

     He knew that he took the final corner too fast as he rounded into the parking lot of the school, but a potential accident was better odds than the inevitable one he would walk into with Glynis if he was late.  Parker didn’t spot the child in the headlights until the very last second, and he pumped the brake automatically as he spun the steering wheel to one side. With a bone jarring slam, his car came to a sudden halt against the exterior wall of the school building, the airbag automatically bursting to life.

     Slowly, Parker raised his head where he had lurched forward in the impact. With his tongue, he probed the inside of his mouth. There was blood in the top right, and the canine tooth there felt loose, but he was okay.

     What had happened? He thought back. The child crossed in front of his car and he had swerved, just in time, avoiding the potentially fatal impact. No, not just in time. Someone had stepped in, at that last split second, and shoved the boy to one side.

     Parker opened the door and it almost instantly slammed against the wall. He edged out of the gap between car and wall, and looked around for the boy and the stranger. 

     The boy.

     His son, Eddie. So quick he’d not had time to register it until now. But he was sure. It was Eddie, dressed in a brightly colored hat, a crumpled paper miner’s lamp in his hands. He had almost run over his own son. And next to Eddie, holding his trembling hand, a man, glasses glinting with the headlights as the cars passed on the street.

     “Th-thank you,” Parker struggled to say, his hand automatically patting his jacket to find his cigarettes as he approached the man. “My wife would never have forgiven me if I’d ... hit him,” he explained, poking the cigarette between his lips.

     As he drew closer he realized that the man wasn’t wearing spectacles at all. They were goggles, sophisticated protective equipment offering a slight, uncanny glow in the dark parking lot. A microphone stem glinted in front of the stranger’s mouth, his face so familiar as Parker got closer.

     “You’re right,” the familiar stranger told Parker as he slapped the engine onto Eddie’s chest. “Back home, Glynis wouldn’t forgive me for killing our son.”

     Parker watched as the familiar stranger inverted through space. “I just needed the replacement,” Parker’s double told him as he disappeared from view with a pop of imploding air.

     Parker pushed the unlit cigarette back into the pack and trudged up the steps into the school. He needed to find Glynis before the curtain raised.