Cryonic (5 page)

I slid my chair away from the table. The problems of US citizens of the future were becoming my problems. I was no longer just a lab rat for the Chinese. I was a lab rat for the Chinese trapped a thousand miles behind enemy lines. Finding my wife and son felt impossible. I leaned forward with my elbow on my knee and pushed my thumb and index fingers into my forehead until the pressure spread them apart.

“That's just . . .” I searched the room. “It's fucked is what it is. They took control of
everything
east of the Mississippi?”

“Yes.”

“They took over Chicago?”

“They did.”

“Miami?”

“Yes.”

“Philly?”

“Yes.”

“Birmingham?”

“Yes,” Alex answered with growing exasperation. “The Chinese control absolutely everything east of the Mississippi. They even renamed cities.”

“What about our allies? Didn't they come and help?”

“Some of our best allies were more devastated by the tsunami than we were. The exposed coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal were wiped clean. Great Britain as well; they were much closer to the epicenter. I suppose they would have sent forces after hearing of the attack, but the Chinese sent
aid missions
to them as well.”

“Those bastards did the Trojan horse thing to them, too?”

“Yes, and the NATO countries unaffected by the tsunami sent their troops to fight the war in Europe. They were not willing to send them across the Atlantic when the enemy was knocking on their door. The Canadian military provided some assistance.”

“Phbbt! Some help they must have been if the Chinese took half the friggin' country.” I was fuming. I stood up from the table and went back to pacing.

Alex looked uncomfortable. “Well, they have helped us where it helps them,” he said meekly. “They sent forces down early in the war to help stabilize the front, and we couldn't have done it without them. Who knows how far west the Chinese would have gone? The Canadians are unwilling to stage a full-scale invasion. They feel that doing so poses too great a risk. They would be defenseless if it
failed. So they maintain their border, and they will help us take back the rest of our country when the time is right.”

“You really buy that crap, Al? How many years has it been? How many years since they lent a hand to their next-door neighbor?”

This was the first question I'd asked that Alex actually had to think about before he could answer. “It has been six, no seven, umm . . . it has been more than eight years since their forces returned home.”

“Now, Al, do you really believe they are going to wake up one day and say, ‘You know what guys? Let's get back down there and help the Americans take back their land. We don't want their children to have to live their lives without knowing what freedom feels like.”

Alex stared at me submissively. “No, I suppose not.”

“You're damn right they're not. Old Rip Van Winkle here may be behind the eight ball, but at least I know bullshit when I see it.”

Alex stood up and took a step toward the hallway. “We should make our way back to your room. I'm supposed to be helping you to get back on your feet. They're going to question why we've been in here so long.”

I placed a firm hand on Alex's shoulder. “Hold on a minute. You said I was the first
successful
reanimation. Are you saying they tried on some other saps and it didn't work?”

“We really should be moving along.”

“We can talk about it here, or we can talk about it in front of them. It's your call.”

Alex stepped back reluctantly. He spoke nervously, looking over my shoulder as he spoke. “Yes, there were others before you, none of which were successful. They had
a breakthrough on your case. Now they believe they can successfully reanimate all of the other cryonics stored here. You're going to have company.”

“Company?”

“Today, in fact. They are reanimating several cryonics right now who are going to be joining you once they are stabilized.”

“Are any of them Ted Williams?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“You know Ted Williams?”

“Of course I do. He's the greatest hitter of all time.”

At least something was right with the world.

“You know, Al, the thing I don't understand is why the Chinese even care about this business of bringing frozen people back to life. Why does it matter?”

“They need more troops.”

I swallowed. Alex smiled. “No, not you. They want to freeze soldiers who die in battle. This way, they can send them back to base to have them treated and reanimated. It will allow them to fix a person just like they would a tank. Think about it. Soldiers are scarce commodities when you're fighting wars on three continents.”

“Wow. Just like putting another quarter into a video game.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“We really do need to go.”

“Hold your horses, Al. Just one more question.”

“All right, just please make it quick.”

“Where do you stand in all this?”

“Where do I stand in all of what?” he spat.

It was curious Alex was such a knowledgeable and compliant participant in a Chinese lab. His petulance at my
question amplified my suspicion. I leaned forward carefully and spoke with accentuated base, “Well, Al, seems to me you are well versed in the interests and activities of the Chinese. And here you are, in their lab, helping them with their little science project. So, I need to know what your deal is. What kind of traitor are you?”

Alex sighed deeply before he spoke. “I am not any kind.”

Then he stood up and worked his way toward the hallway, speaking hurriedly while motioning for me to follow.

“Things are far more complicated now than when you were alive. You'll fare better once you can settle on that fact. And you'd be wise to trust me. I seriously doubt you'll find a better option.”

Alex led me down the hallway past my room. I figured he was just taking me out to stretch my legs. Then we turned the corner at the end of the corridor. The hallway stopped in front of a massive observation room. We stood before the oversized pane of glass and watched the busy operation on the other side. The men in white coats were hard at work. They gathered at stations with corpses in various stages of reanimation. It was an assembly line, of sorts, but instead of widgets, they were making people.

On the left side of the room, a row of tall silver canisters like oversized water heaters had been polished to a reflective sheen. A sticker affixed to the side of each canister read: CAUTION. BIOMATERIAL. KEEP BELOW -150° CELSIUS AT ALL TIMES. It gave me the chills to think that I had been frozen inside one of those gleaming, silver tubes just days before.

Two of the Chinese scientists approached the canister closest to us. They wrestled the lid off, and vapor hissed. The scientists maneuvered a small crane that looked an awful lot like an engine hoist above the cylinder. The crane had a rubberized metallic claw that reached down into the cylinder and retrieved the wrinkled, frozen corpse. They maneuvered her gingerly with the claw, like a child retrieving a stuffed animal from a machine. She looked more like an extra-terrestrial than a person. Her shriveled skin pulled taut against her bony frame, and her face was mummified in a fixed, lifeless expression. Vapor emanated
from her body. They placed her in a specialized incubator. Alex explained that it would thaw her flesh in preparation for the next stage of the process. God himself couldn't breathe life into something so wretched, but the men in white coats were doing it all over the room, right before our eyes.

Three scientists worked on a freshly defrosted man lying on a gurney. His skin was so moist it was weeping. The woman next to him was further along in the process. Scientists were transplanting a heart. So many men in white coats surrounded the body on the far right that I could only see the bottoms of gangly male feet. This one at least looked like a person. The skin was plump and firm, albeit pale. I spotted the man in charge shouting orders at the others. Tubes snaked out in all directions, and a trio of refrigerator-sized machines dutifully thumped away behind the scientists.

And then I heard it—the same violent screaming I had succumbed to upon being reanimated. The twisted feet started shaking and writhing in agony. The screams grew louder and more primal. Smiling widely, the man in charge observed the patient carefully and then ordered the men in white coats to sedate him. The screaming finally stopped.

“Are you feeling all right?” Alex asked.

His question pulled me out of the room. Once again, I saw the glass in front of me.

“Um, I think so. Why?”

“You're sweating.”

Beads of perspiration had collected on my forehead, and my collar was soaked. I hadn't even noticed. I wiped my hand across my forehead, and the sweat dripped down my palm onto the linoleum. I began feeling light headed.

“Yeah, I . . . I guess this was a little much.”

“Too soon? I'm sorry. I thought it would help. I should have realized.”

“It's OK, Al.”

We turned and walked back toward my room. When we returned to the room, I was actually happy to lie down on that cardboard bed. Thinking about the shriveled skin, the canisters, the twitching feet, the screaming, I started sweating again. To put it out of my mind, I thought of Colt. I pictured him living on the beach in San Diego with a beautiful wife and family. I imagined a little boy toddling around them who looked just like my boy did when he was in diapers. Hope that he was still alive was the only thing that put my mind at ease enough to sleep.

The beep of the door woke me up. The lights turned on, and through cracked eyelids, I saw white lab coats scurrying back and forth. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I felt groggy and heavy, like I'd overslept. Two orderlies supervised by a man in a white coat wheeled in a guy on a bed. The man in the bed was sleeping, and they positioned him next to some machinery and left the room. He looked like hell. Not because of being frozen, at least as far as I could tell, but because he was decrepit. He looked to me about seventy, but like he'd either had some serious illnesses later in life, lived hard prior, or probably both. Watching him breathing there in his bed—all wrinkled and frail—I wondered why he had bothered to get frozen at all. Even the mad Chinese scientists were only going to be able to squeeze a couple more years out of him.

Next they brought in a much younger woman that couldn't have been more than forty. She looked pretty healthy and a bit plump. Her skin was firm, she had a smooth complexion, and her large bosom overflowed under her gown. I wondered what she had died of. I could come up with a laundry list of possibilities for the grandpa lying in the bed next to hers, but she was a toughie. I didn't have much time to ponder the possibilities before our final companion was wheeled in. I realize a man who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones, but this guy was a heart attack for certain. Restora must have customized an extra-large cryogenic container for him because he looked like a
beached whale on that gurney. I couldn't gauge his age from across the room because his enormous belly obscured his face.

The orderlies and men in white coats left the room. It was just us cryonics. I sat on my bed and watched nervously while they slept. It surprised me how I longed for their companionship. I felt like a boy again, waiting impatiently outside my teenage brother's room for him to wake up. Here were some people that were just like me—my fellow lab rats. They would get my jokes. They would be shocked and furious to find out what happened to the world, and together we would find a way out.

One by one, the butterflies emerged from their cocoons. Each one looked around the room, confused and sedated. Then they smiled when they saw me, and started chatting. Barry was the first to wake up. Boy, did he have some stories to tell. Barry was the frail gentleman I'd thought was in his seventies. Turns out he was only in his early sixties when he died. Barry was the only child of a heavy-drinking oil tycoon who succumbed to alcoholism at an early age. That left Barry a trust fund baby, and he sure would've made Papa proud. Every moment of his life was spent drinking, doing drugs, and chasing women. He had died just twelve years ago. Barry signed up for cryonics when alcoholism had taken its toll and he knew he didn't have much time left. Medicine at the time Barry was dying could treat alcoholism easily. Organ farms produced petri dish livers and whatever you needed replaced, unless you were an alcoholic. A conservative movement in the government banned organ transplants for alcoholics. So, Barry found a loophole. The research at the time suggested they'd be reanimating cryonics in a hundred years' time. Barry was
shocked to find himself alive and rebuilt a little more than a decade after kicking the bucket.

Elliott awoke next. It wasn't five minutes before he and Barry were carrying on like a couple of frat boys. Elliott was an investment banker born in nineteen eighty-one. He'd amassed great wealth by running a large brokerage house through what he and Barry called “the greatest bull market in history” during the “roaring twenties.” Elliott was so into cryonics that he had set aside investments carefully selected to mature in the long term. He figured once he was reanimated, and people knew cryonics worked, they'd be signing up for it in droves. So, Elliott planned on building a cryonic estate planning business. He'd help people build an investment portfolio that would serve their needs from the great beyond. Upon reanimation, his clients would be far wealthier than when they died. Elliott didn't die of a heart attack. By the time he died in twenty thirty-five, heart attacks had been all but eradicated by non-invasive laser cleaning of the circulatory system. So, he was a glutton most of his adult life with little consequence. Elliott did have trouble sleeping, though, and he was pretty sure he kicked the bucket by drowning in a pool while on sleeping pills. At least that's the last thing he remembered.