They say you can't trust anything on the Line.
Now, I always thought that was a bit much. I mean, people are people, mostly. If something is true they'll tell you it's true and if something is a story, they'll tell you it's a story, right ? And everyone makes mistakes, but that's what the Shadow Line is for - so that people will see your stuff and let you know when you've made a mistake.
I used to think that. There's something else that they don't say, though. The Shadow Line is big, really, really big, and sometimes you can find just a little bit of something and then go away and do things and not know how much you don't know.
I know this now.
* * *
There were four of us. We used to meet in Danielle's place, mostly. Mom is an actress, and she mostly works from home, so we can't go to my place. Stezza's dad is really grey, and you don't even want to know about Jude's folks. So like I said, we used to go over to Fremont and do noids and drink beer and do stuff and decide what we wanted to do with our lives. That was the months just coming up to the Purchase.
Danielle is kind of what you think of when you think of what moms are like. Real moms, not moms in the chips. Though my mom is just like a mom in the chips. So she gets to play a mom in the chips, even though she's really a bit thin. Danielle is big and cuddly and really nice. She's also kind of shy, and she has this thing for hair. You make her shy at all, and she won't feel too good unless she can sit behind someone and fix their hair. I keep my hair long for Danielle, really. She's a good person. That night she was putting some kind of big kinky knot thing in my hair, which looked cool. Danielle gets shy easy, and I wish I didn't make her shy so much.
"So," I said to her, "what are we going to do tonight ?"
"I don't know," she said. We used to spend hours like this sometimes.
Not when Jude was there, though. Jude would be pretty if she wasn't thin. She's thinner than me. She has long straight brown hair and big eyes and she wears these big thick glasses like someone from the twentieth century because her folks didn't have her eyes checked before she was conceived and she really hates the idea of surgery. Jude is really Danielle's friend, or she was then. I don't know what she's doing now.
"Well, there's that Moon mining thing, or we could get a chip. There's a bunch of new chips due this month, good stuff." Jude liked Sherlock Holmes and stuff like that, where just following what was going on made my head hurt. I don't know whether Danielle liked them really or just said she did because she was Jude's friend. Vonya laShenne is more my speed.
"I don't feel like a chip. We did a Neverborn chip on Wednesday and we did a Vonya on Saturday." Danielle's hands stopped moving in my hair when she was talking.
"OK, no chip. So what do you suggest, then ?"
"What about theatre ? We haven't done theatre in months."
"What's on ?" I asked.
"There's something called The Black Blood of the Dead at the Radix."
"Sounds gicky." Jude shuddered. Stezza liked action chips sometimes, but Jude couldn't stand the sight of blood.
"It's not what you think, Jude. It's a poetic name for opium, which was something they used to do back in the nineteenth century before there were noids. I think it might be interesting."
"Well, I can see people doing stuff here. I want to do something." We all started laughing at that, even Danielle. We knew what she meant but the way she said it was funny.
Jude made a face, but Stezza came in then. "Well, I have an idea, but it's probably not your kind of thing." Stezza was doing crystal green that day. You could smell it on his breath, kind of bitter. He doesn't like Jude much.
"So what is it then, zero ?"
He closed the door, did a little spin, and fell onto the couch. "Heads."
Stezza loves it when you ask him questions. He likes to know more than you do. Most of the time he does, so you can learn things by playing along. "Heads, Stezza ?"
"Heads, Jonny. People's heads. Real frozen people's heads."
"Why would anyone want to freeze someone's head ?" Danielle leaned forward and hugged me back against her. "That really does sound gicky."
That was all the excuse Stezza needed. He was off on this big long rant, the way he does. It seems, back in the twentieth century freezers were just getting started, and space was kind of expensive. So some of the people who got frozen to wait for cures for sickness or whatever could only get their heads kept. They were going to wait until people could grow them a new body. They would be waiting a long time, I thought. But it didn't matter anyway, said Stezza, they were all dead already. Back then they didn't have the sort of freezers they have now, and when they froze people blocks of ice formed in their heads and messed up their brains. That was what he said anyway, I didn't follow how that made it any different from being frozen into a block of ice now. But I believed him when he said they were dead.
"But what's the point ?" Jude didn't like Stezza much either. He was always on about things he saw on the Line, the kind of guy who checks mail on his shades every ten minutes and runs the program with irritating hand gestures just so you'll know.
"The point is, there's eight heads been bought by the Church of the Living Light. Word is that one of their Arbeiters reckons his grandmother's in there, and that if they pray over her they'll bring her back."
"So ?"
"So I don't give a rusty cent for some Living Light zero's grandmother, but you'll not believe who else is in there. I checked up on the case, and it looks for real. You remember that interview we saw ?"
"Who ? Who ? Who ?" We were all saying it now, sort of like a chant.
"A god. Timothy Leary."
Now I should tell you something about gods. Not many people are gods. Or at least that's what I think. Lennon, of course, and Kurlenmeyer. Rucker. Vonya laShenne, maybe. Kafka - I saw that film he made, the one where the angel shows some guy what life would have been like if he never existed ? That's god work. There's Albert Schweitzer, who invented LSD, and Tag Nakamura, who invented the Golden Sword. A couple of other people you wouldn't know, musicians mostly. And, of course, there was Old Father Tim.
Getting hold of Timothy Leary's head was an amazing concept. I'm pretty sure I said that, or something like it. We were all a bit wowed for a few minutes. Then Danielle said "So what do we want to do with it ?"
"Do with it ?" Jude hadn't quite got that far.
Danielle giggled. "We could put it up on the wall in its block of ice. Think how cool that would be. Doing noids and stuff under the watchful gaze of Old Father Tim. It'd be like having your own personal protection, better than voodoo or Christmas decorations."
Stezza shook his head slightly. His eardrums are wired and he always wears shades, but he listens to the outside world at least half the time. "No, no... I got a better idea. He's dead, right ? Nothing we do can hurt him. He's gone on to whatever's out there."
We were nodding. "So ?" said Danielle.
"Think a minute. Think of what Leary did. Think of how much Leary did. He must have tried everything there was to try. Done stuff that doesn't even exist these days. Just think what his brain would be like."
"Like a big pink popsicle," said Danielle, and everyone laughed again.
"Well, I was going to thaw it first."
Nobody said anything, so he continued. "I mean, think of it. The very best of the very best of the twentieth century, all refined and concentrated in the one head that knew better than anyone what to do and how to do it. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in that brain ? You can't. I can't. Nobody can. But we're going to find out."
* * *
I met Louise for breakfast the next afternoon. Louise is an Integration Officer - she's responsible for the Van Rockefeller block where Mom lives and four other blocks next to us. She was supposed to be helping us get used to the Purchase. I wasn't her hardest case at all. I think she might even have kind of liked me. I never gave her trouble.
She was a couple of minutes late that morning. I wouldn't have noticed but she came in all apologetic, like. "I had a meeting with the Concerned Businessmen's Association. Businessmen, not businesspeople - that should have clued me in." She snarled into the air. "Neolithic cretins. Frank Watson actually called me a godless commie. I thought people only said that in bad historicals."
"I had the Godless Commies' first chip when I was twelve. It was called Alligator Breakfast. I didn't think they'd be Mister Watson's speed."
She stared at me, then laughed. I couldn't work out what was funny, but it was good to see her happy. "Jonny, you are a refreshing breath of cool mountain air. How is your mom ?"
"She's OK. She's got another chip lined up - Psychotic Powers. It's about a teenage guy who discovers he can change what's in people's minds. She plays his mom."
"She does know that under Canadian law she doesn't have to do this if she doesn't want to ? It doesn't matter how far in debt you get in Canada, nobody is allowed to take your food or your living space. She can get retraining, learn to do other things, have the State take on her debts and pay back in a more civilised way. I think some of her debts will count as incurred under duress, and she won't have to pay those at all. She didn't answer my call. Are you sure she's all right ?"
"I'm sure. I think she does want to get retraining, but she doesn't want to show it. It's just two weeks until Canadian law comes in, and she doesn't want the people she owes money making those last few days uncomfortable, like ? It's not Kurlenmeyer but it's work, she says."
Louise nodded, her mouth set. She was very short and wore buzz-cut black hair and a grey suit. She had to have passed for grey to meet Frank Watson's folks, but I knew she was a real person. "I keep forgetting that happens here. Thanks for telling me. I'll have someone look out for her."
"Thank you."
"And how about you ? You still looking forward to it ?" She smiled, and waved around at the pizza place. "Places like this... well, they won't all close down, but you'll be discouraged from eating in them as much as you do now. It's not good for your health."
I nodded. Food is food, and I only do pizza all the time because it's easier than trying to work out what I like. No major problem. "I can handle that. And I think I'll really like the EdCred."
"Oh, you will. You won't have to pay to get in, it'll be safe, and you get the best people and systems in the world helping you learn."
"What you need, and what you want." I remembered that slogan. "It doesn't sound real."
"You'll see." She finished her slice and got up to pay. I was just half-way through getting out of my seat when she surprised me.
"You still buying from Mister Ten Per Cent ?"
"No ! I mean, who ? I mean, me, buying ? Buying what ?"
She shook her head. "Noids are legal in Canada, Jonny. Noids and Swords and most everything you like. You tell Mister Ten Per Cent that come January 1st he can set up shop in broad daylight right next door to Sears-Roebuck and no-one will lay a hand on him. But you tell him too that if so much as one gram of blitzen or heroin or drakes tracks back to him, he'll get the blade. Execution's legal in Canada too, and for Class I substance offences it's mandatory. Do you know how long it takes a Class I conviction to go through triple overview, Jonny ? The average lead time between identification and execution in British Columbia in the last five years was forty-nine minutes."
I nodded. There were lots of people back then who didn't approve of the Purchase. Frank Watson and his friends weren't nice people, but they stayed within the law. There were terrorists out there. I think Louise was always worried that anyone might be one.
I don't know. Most people in Seattle or SanFran by then had never had the kind of job they take for granted up in Vancouver. We only saw them in chips. The Canadians gave us hope. It was folks from Iowa or Montana who kidnapped Mounties and fired off rockets at the big maple-leaf blimps, not us people whose lives the Purchase would actually change. I'd never even seen a Mountie, and the only thing I ever fired at a blimp was that decommissioned laser cannon Nathan found and Stezza fixed up to the chipper. I'd say half of Seattle saw a two-hundred-foot-tall Vonya laShenne taking her clothes off in the sky that night. Opening sequence from Eyes of Poison, you know ? Someone got to our power supply while she still had her panties on, which I thought was a bit unfair. They could have waited another forty seconds for the end of the sequence. Canadians.
I hadn't really handled that well, with Louise. I thought I probably should tell Mister Ten Per Cent about it, but he wouldn't be happy that she knew. I mean, we all knew the Canadians knew everything, but not everyone was willing to accept it, back then.
* * *
"Twelve loads of finest THC, and three Golden Sword Revitalisers. Business doing pleasure with you, young man. And how else may I help you tonight ?"
Mister Ten Per Cent met us in the basement of this old building that had been offices, once. I don't think it was very safe, but the blue boys didn't come here ever. There was a huge big table, with Stezza and Danielle and me on one side and Ashley and Rachel and Mister Ten Per Cent on the other.
I think Mister Ten Per Cent is a tall man, but I've never seen him stand up. Every time we met him it was the same: he sat in his black clothes on his black chair, which looks like the most comfortable chair in the whole universe, with Rachel and Ashley. Word is Ashley only runs for two hours of the night, because Mister Ten Per Cent believes in efficiency. He has twelve bodyguards, and each of them has a different sleep pattern, so they're on duty for the two most alert hours of their day. I think that's really clever, and pretty cool too.
Mister Ten Per Cent has a big white beard and long white hair in a ponytail, which Danielle tells me is dyed. He always wears v-shades, too, great big ones. He could be my mom under all that and I'd never know. I think from the way he talks that he was in movies, once upon a time.
Ashley is a huge black guy, very tall, wide shoulders, all muscle, and he's really wired. I mean, Stezza has the shades and plugs and some other things, but it looked like kid stuff down there. Ashley has interfaces in his head - you can see the metal between the dreads when he moves. He's better wired than Stezza and bigger than me and has better hair than Danielle.
I don't know anything about Rachel at all. She's really beautiful in a way that's almost twentieth century, but she's not thin like they were. She doesn't wear very much, which could be for Mister Ten Per Cent or just because it's very hot down there. I mean, Ashley only wears pants and a kind of strap-harness thing to hold his hardware. Stezza reckons she's really lethal with a ceramic knife or a needler, something she can hide even wearing what she does wear, and that she dresses like she does to distract men and make them underestimate her. Maybe Ashley does the same for women. Danielle thinks Rachel might be the brains behind the whole operation, and Mister Ten Per Cent just does the talking. I don't know.
"I have a message - " I started, but then Stezza interrupted.
"Never mind that now, we have a proposition to make. I understand you have a... philosophical disagreement with the Church of the Living Light."
Mister Ten Per Cent took a moment to reply, and when he did he copied Stezza's dramatic pause. "Not... entirely philosophical, but definitely a disagreement." A look passed between Rachel and Ashley, but I couldn't interpret it.
"Wait, Stezza." I was being assertive. "It wouldn't be honest to ask Mister Ten Per Cent for his help without giving him Louise's message first."
Danielle nodded. "We're not the kind of folks who hold out on people we do business with, and we don't want to give the appearance that we might be."
I think Stezza thought that if we gave the message to Mister Ten Per Cent, he might not be willing to loan us Ashley. Stezza was peeved, but he waited while I told Mister Ten Per Cent what Louise had told me. After that, there was a long silence.
Rachel spoke. "Thirty-seven."
Ashley nodded. "Nearly two-thirds, tonight. The Mounties are good. If they want to take us, they will. We should take their offer."
Mister Ten Per Cent waved his hand in the air. "Do I look like Santa Claus ?"
"Actually, you do," said Stezza.
"That wasn't helpful," Rachel told him. That seemed to get through. Stezza's the kind of guy who - Jude told me this - would go twenty miles north to find a chip shop where no-one had ever seen him before and no-one would ever see him again if he wanted to rent a Vonya laShenne chip for himself, and he'd still blush taking it out. He doesn't seem to have grasped that women are still people even when they aren't wearing many clothes. He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times.
"Boy has a point, Rache." Mister Ten Per Cent smiled. "The Canadians do seem to want to make a Santa Claus out of every little Borgia on the West Coast. It must come from being nearer the North Pole... what was it you wanted, boy ?"
Stezza stuttered, then pulled himself together. "There's something the Church have that we want. We know where it is and how to get at it, and we thought you might like to be a part of taking it from them."
Mister Ten Per Cent moved slightly on his chair, sort of wriggled a bit. "And how am I to do that ?"
"Well... we thought you might let us borrow Ashley."
The three of them exploded with laughter. It was kind of frightening. Ashley laughed loudest and longest. "Boy, what makes you think yo' people can afford even an hour of what I do ?"
Danielle decided to do something before things got any worse. "Sorry for taking up your time, Mister Ten Per Cent. We'll go now. Talk to you next month."
Mister Ten Per Cent stopped us with a wave. "No, hold on a moment. If I am to become the local Santa Claus of Seattle, Lower Canada, then maybe a little benevolence practice would do no harm." He thought a moment more. "If he is willing, I have no difficulty with you borrowing the services of my associate for two hours after he goes off duty tomorrow."
"But you don't know what it is we want him for yet !" I said. Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but I was surprised, like.
He shook his head. "That anything you people might come up with could give Ashley any trouble, I have great difficulty believing. And besides, I liked that stunt with the laser cannon. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all."
"So I get to be an elf, boss ? Cool. Long as I can keep the coat." Mister Ten Per Cent laughed again, at what Ashley said, but none of us did.
Now you know almost as much about Mister Ten Per Cent as I do. It's not just me, is it ? He really doesn't make sense.
* * *
We met Ashley on John Street the next night, outside the 24-hour bookstore. He was inside. I didn't know anyone who read, then. I was impressed. He had a long black leather coat over his other stuff, but apart from that he was dressed like always. He smiled at us. There was ceramic in his teeth.
"Good evening." He said that, even though it was well into the morning. "All of you are coming ?"
The three of us nodded. Jude wasn't there. She called us all ghouls and went off to spend Christmas with her family. It was her loss. We were all as ready as we could be. We weren't all dressed in black, but Danielle knew to get us to leave all our jewellery and stuff behind. She said we didn't want anyone to see us sneaking in.
Ashley rolled his eyes. "Lord of Hosts preserve us. Do any of you know anything at all about what we will be doing tonight ?"
Stezza held out a chip. "I got the plans off the Shadow Line. The public-level ones and the ones below, the level you're not supposed to be able to see unless you work for them ?"
Ashley took the chip and slotted it into a socket in his left wrist. He closed his eyes for about five seconds. "That's good. That's better than I'd thought. You've got everything except command overview. I thought you were going to tell me that you knew all about it because you'd done every Sabrina the Night Cat chip or something."
"No," I said. "We're very clear that we know nothing."
Ashley made a sort of half-smile at that. "So long as that's understood. Come on, then."
It was only about fifteen minute's walk south of the Dome to the Church building. Danielle talked to Ashley for most of that time. Ashley was from England. That's how he said it, England. His parents had left before it split up, and he wanted to go back. He said there were things no-one did better. I agreed with that. I mean, Lennon was English, like ? I don't think that was what he meant, though. He started ranting about this retro plague they had then, something you could get by sharing your stuff. I didn't really believe him. They give you retro shots to stop you being sick, to put the DNA in your genes that fixes them.
The building we came to was very grey. It was this warehouse shaped like a big cardboard box. Stezza said there were no people guarding it, and Ashley closed his eyes for three minutes and said he'd taken the alarms down. Stezza and I found a bit of pipe in a construction site just down the road and we broke one lock on the door, then Ashley cut another with something in one of his rings and we were in. It was that simple.
Stezza explained as we looked about the place. The old warehouses had been here since the 1980s, and they'd only had a very cheap refit with modern alarms. That wouldn't be legal in Canada either, said Ashley. I think he thought that was funny. Anyway, nobody with anything important normally kept it here, but the Church of the Living Light never had any money and never had anything anyone might want to steal. Unless you were like Danielle and did weird incenses and stuff.
The freezer was only going to be here for a week until they had their big ceremony. We found it easily enough. It was a big black thing, a little taller than Ashley. It opened easily, no codes or anything, and there they were inside it. Eight frozen heads. You could see them in their jars, all old men except for one old lady. None of them really looked like Old Father Tim, but I suppose being dead for fifty years changes the way you look.
Stezza took a close look, and so did Ashley. Ashley picked one head off the top, and held it out at arm's length. "Alas, poor Ozymandias," he said. He weighed it a moment, then suddenly he dropped it and kicked it right across the room. It smashed on the concrete wall, little pieces of glass and ice everywhere.
I held Danielle until she calmed down, and she held me until I calmed down. Stezza said something in Japanese which I think was obscene, and then Danielle asked Ashley, calmly, "What was that all about ?"
Ashley shrugged. "Something of Mister Ten Per Cent's. That guy had a big company around here for a long time, and when he finally went broke all of a sudden there were no jobs in Seattle. Mister Ten Per Cent used to work for him. It was something to do with the old Net, the one you were supposed to pay for. Ow !" He lifted his hands so we could see. There was a cut across the top of one of his fingers, with a big drop of blood on it. "Pick the one you want, but be careful. They have sharp edges."
Stezza checked the codes on the other jars and found Old Father Tim. Danielle took the jar, carefully, and we closed up the freezer. But before we could do anything else Ashley moved to the control panel and pushed seven buttons on the panel there, I didn't see which.
"What are you doing ?" said Stezza. He sounded angry, but Ashley didn't mind that.
"Venting it to the atmosphere. By the time the Church of the Living Light get to it, there'll be nothing in those jars but soup."
Stezza was angry. I think it was because this wasn't part of his plan. He didn't have any reason to care about the other heads or anything. So he kind of pushed up close against Ashley and said "Why did you have to do that ?"
Ashley just looked at him. Stezza stood there for about three seconds more before he realised just how stupid he was being. He stepped back, and Ashley held out the cut finger.
"You got a dragon on your back, boy ?"
I didn't say anything. Danielle giggled. In the light in here, you could see that there was a kind of gold tint to Ashley's skin, and he wasn't just lean. There's this layer of fat most people have under their skin, particularly pretty women, and Ashley had almost none. He wasn't really sick-thin, either, just missing that layer. Danielle realised then what this meant, and she told me later. Ashley was on drakes.
Stezza said something we couldn't hear, and then something else, and then he came right out and apologised. Ashley gave him another few seconds of the stare, then he just turned around. "You'd better get your new friend home before he melts," he said. And then he just walked off.
* * *
We got Old Father Tim home safe and sound and put his jar in the cooler with the beer and the juice and the pizza. Danielle and Stezza argued all the way home. Danielle said Stezza was an idiot and he could have been killed, and Stezza said Ashley was working for us and we should all have backed him up. I agreed with Danielle, but I didn't say it. Both of them were just repeating the same things over and over again and it was really boring, you know ? I just hugged Danielle and kept the jar at my feet. It was in a Reptile House bag so no-one could see what it was. That was my idea.
Both of them had stopped by the time we got to Danielle's place. I broke the silence by asking what we did now, and Stezza got all excited again and went off to his place to get hardware. Danielle and I thought about having a couple of beers but decided not to. Timothy Leary's head should be taken straight, no chaser.
When Stezza got back we were all calm and smooth again. We took the head out of the cooler and nearly had another argument over who got to open it up. Danielle finally got the bone-saw and took the top off the skull. I scooped the brain out with the ice-cream scoop and picked the bits of membrane off, and Stezza ran the sonic blender through it until we had this kind of pinky-grey liquid stuff. Jude was right. It was kind of gicky. By the time we were finished Old Father Tim didn't have much expression left. Danielle lacquered him up later, and now that it's legal we leave our noids and Swords in his skull. He makes a really cool display.
They say people are mostly made of water, and that's a good thing. There was just enough for three glasses.
"Divine communion," said Danielle, and giggled. I think her mother was Catholic.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste," said Stezza.
I looked at mine. It was quite unappealing close up. Smelled kind of fishy, too. "Old Father Tim," I said, and knocked it back.
It didn't hit straight away. We did what we always do with new stuff, which is to sit down on the couches carefully, not moving, and let it happen. Danielle had put the bone-saw away in the kitchen and locked the door in case any of us had a bad trip, as Leary would have said. We didn't do any music either. None of us could face deciding what it would be.
It started with this sort of buzzing in my ears. I was sitting beside Danielle and I think she saw something she didn't like because she grabbed my arm and buried her face in my shoulder. Then a rhythm came through the buzzing, and then a melody came through the rhythm. If I could remember that music now well enough to record a chip, I'd probably be rich enough to buy Canada.
Then I started seeing things, things and people. Except some of the people were also things. Danielle was a big soft golden oing of light. Stezza was there too, as a kind of silvery blue crabman. I knew it was him because he kept checking his mail. We floated up to the ceiling and out beyond, into the sky. Louise was waiting there, and Rachel, and Ashley riding a big purple dragon. There were dolphins and yellow triangles and little black-haired girls smiling. Mister Ten Per Cent had shaved off his beard and taken off his shades and turned out to be Jim Morrison or Jerry Garcia or someone like that. Mom was there in the red coat she had in My Sister Helen where she played Vonya laShenne's mom, and Vonya was there too. Vonya took us up to the Space Needle, where we met Lennon and Rucker and Old Father Tim, who laughed and joked with us and told us to take care of his mortal remains. We stayed up there for years and years until everything dissolved into white light and the sun came up.
After all that effort it was a pretty mundane experience.
* * *
I'm in EdCred now. I want to get a job researching things on the Line, finding old dead sites and reclaiming bits of the old Net and checking that they are correctly connected and don't have any mistakes in them. Louise says I have a strong intuition for pattern and that I should be able to get something like that part-time in a year and a half and full-time in three years. I'm doing a lot of White Knight to spark up my synapses and get them learning and growing again. It seems that people who spend a lot of time doing a lot of noids have odd things happen in their heads, not because of anything the noids do but because they just don't go out and learn stuff. It has the same effect as living in a dark box.
Mister Ten Per Cent got his shop on Broadway. I don't know what happened with Ashley. Stezza designs visuals for music chips and Danielle wants to be a Mountie. We haven't seen many Mounties in Seattle, but the normal Canadian cops are much nicer than the blue boys used to be so that's all right. Danielle's taking much more White Knight than I am, but they say when her system is cleaned up and she's done a couple of years' EdCred she should qualify for basic training.
I'm learning all sorts of things. I know what a Borgia is and who Ozymandias was, and why modern freezers are safe to freeze people in and twentieth century ones weren't. I'm learning to read. I'm really looking forward to reading Kafka.
I found out something very interesting the other day. Timothy Leary was cremated. Not even dropped from orbit in a white Cadillac to burn up on re-entry like Kurlenmeyer, just burned. He had been talking about being preserved, the interview Stezza saw was real, but he must have changed his mind.
You have to be careful what you trust, on the Line.