The Speed of Dark

“I will talk to the board about this,” Mr. Arakeen says, more calmly. “We’ll have to get more legal and medical advice. But if I understand you, some of you are demanding life extension treatment as part of the package, at some time in the future, as a condition of participation, is that right?”

“Yes,” Bailey says. Linda nods.

Mr. Arakeen stands there, his body swaying a little as he shifts from foot to foot. The light catches on his name tag, moving with his motion. One button on his coat disappears and reappears behind the podium as he rocks back and forth. Finally he stops and gives a sharp nod.

“All right. I will ask the board. I think they will say no, but I will ask them.”

“Keep in mind,” Ms. Beasley says, “that these employees have not agreed to the procedure, only to think about it.”

“All right.” Mr. Arakeen nods and then twists his neck again. “But I expect you all to keep your word. Really think about it.”

“I do not lie,” Dale says. “Do not lie to me.” He gets up, unfolding a bit stiffly as he does. “Come on,” he says to the rest of us. “Work to do.”

None of them say anything, not the lawyers nor the doctors, nor Mr. Aldrin. Slowly, we get up; I feel uncertain, almost shaky. Is it all right to just walk away? But when I am moving, walking, I start to feel better. Stronger. I am scared, but I am also happy. I feel lighter, as if gravity were less.

Out in the corridor, we turn left to go to the elevators. When we get to the place where the hall widens out for the elevators, Mr. Crenshaw is standing there, holding a cardboard box in both hands. It is full of things, but I can’t see all of them. Balanced on top is a pair of ru

“What are you doing here?” he says to Dale, who is slightly ahead of the rest of us. He turns toward him, taking a step, and the two men in uniform put their hands on his arms. He stops. “You’re supposed to be in G-Twenty-eight until four P.M.; this isn’t even the right building.”

Dale does not slow down; he walks on by without saying a word.

Mr. Crenshaw’s head turns like a robot’s and then swings back. He glares at me. “Lou! What is going on here?”

I want to know what he is doing with a box in his hands, with a security guard escort, but I am not rude enough to ask. Mr. Aldrin said we did not have to worry about Mr. Crenshaw anymore, so I do not have to answer him when he is rude to me. “I have a lot of work to do, Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. His hands jerk, as if he wants to drop the box and reach out to me, but he does not, and I am past him, following Dale.

When we are back in our own building, Dale speaks. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” he says. And louder, “YES, YES, YES!”

“I am not bad,” Linda says. “I am not bad person.”

“You are not a bad person,” I agree.

Her eyes fill with tears. “It is bad to be autistic person. It is bad to be angry to be autistic person. It is bad to want not be — not want be — autistic person. All bad ways. No right way.”

“It is stupid,” Chuy says. “Tell us to want to be normal, and then tell us to love ourselves as we are. If people want to change it means they do not like something about how they are now. That other — impossible.”

Dale is smiling, a wide, tight smile I have not seen him use before. “When someone says something impossible, someone is wrong.”

“Yes,” I say. “It is a mistake.”

“Mistake,” Dale says. “And mistake to believe impossible wrong.”

“Yes,” I say. I can feel myself tensing up, afraid Dale will start talking about religion.

“So if normal people tell us to do something impossible, then we do not have to think everything normal people say is true.”

“Not all lies,” Linda says.

“Not all lies does not mean all true,” Dale says.

That is obvious, but I had not thought before that it was really impossible for people to want to change and at the same time be happy with who they were before the change. I do not think any of us thought that way until Chuy and Dale said it.

“I started thinking at your place,” Dale said. “I could not say it all then. But that helped.”

“If it goes wrong,” Eric said, “it will be even more expensive for them to take care of… what happens. If it lasts longer.”

“I do not know how Cameron is doing,” Linda says.

“He wanted to be first,” Chuy says.

“It would be better if we could go one at a time and see what happens to the others,” Eric says.

“The speed of dark would be slower,” I say. They look at me. I remember that I have not told them about the speed of dark and the speed of light. “The speed of light in a vacuum is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second,” I say.

“I know that,” Dale says.

“What I wonder,” Linda says, “is, since things fall faster as they get nearer the ground and that is gravity, does light go faster near a lot of gravity, like a black hole?”

I never knew Linda was interested in the speed of light at all. “I do not know,” I say. “But the books do not say anything about the speed of dark. Some people told me it does not have a speed, that it is just not light, where light is not, but I think it had to get there.”

They are all silent a moment. Dale says, “If LifeTime can make time longer for us, maybe something can make light faster.”

Chuy says, “Cameron wanted to be first. Cameron will be normal first. That is faster than us.”

Eric says, “I am going to the gym.” He turns away.

Lindas face has tightened, a ridged furrow on her forehead. “Light has a speed. Dark should have a speed. Opposites share everything but direction.”

I do not understand that. I wait.

“Positive and negative numbers are alike except for direction,” Linda goes on, slowly. “Large and small are both size, but in different directions. To and from mean the same path, but in different directions. So light and dark are opposite, but alike just in the same direction.” She throws her arms out suddenly. “What I like about astronomy,” she says. “So much out there, so many stars, so many distances. Everything from nothing to everything, altogether.”

I did not know Linda liked astronomy. She has always seemed the most remote of us, the most autistic. I know what she means, though. I also like the series from small to large, from near to far, from the photon of light that enters my eye, closer than close, to where it came from, light-years away across the universe.

“I like stars,” she says. “I want — I wanted — to work with stars. They said no. They said, ‘Your mind does not work the right way. Only a few people can do that.’ I knew it was math. I knew I was good in math, but I had to take adaptive math even though I always made hundreds, and when I finally got into the good classes they said it was too late. At college they said take applied math and study computers. There are jobs in computers. They said astronomy was not practical. If I live longer, it will not be too late anymore.”

This is the most I have ever heard Linda talk. Her face is pinker on the cheeks now; her eyes wander less.

“I did not know you liked stars,” I say.

“Stars are far apart from each other,” she says. “They do not have to touch to know each other. They shine at each other from far away.”

I start to say that stars do not know each other, that stars are not alive, but something stops me. I read that in a book, that stars are incandescent gas, and in another book that gas is inanimate matter. Maybe the book was wrong. Maybe they are incandescent gas and alive.

Linda looks at me, actually makes eye contact. “Lou — do you like stars?

“Yes,” I say. “And gravity and light and space and — ”