The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) (28 page)

"What happened?  Are you a doctor?"

Nick nodded.  "What do you remember?"

"I was getting the mail.  Then I must have passed out.  I remember some crazy dreams about flying people and Kansas and something about aliens."  He gritted his teeth and furrowed his brow.  "But I feel like a lot is missing."  He looked at his hands and gasped.  "My hands.  Something's wrong.  They're young again.  My voice is all screwy too.  I sound like a kid."

Nick put a hand on Tom's shoulder.  "Yeah, it's a new hand cream we're using.  You suffered a stroke and will need to rehab, but I think you'll be fine."  He showed Tom into another room.  "There's a lot that needs explaining so you'll have to bear with us.  First I need to wake up your companions."

"Did they have strokes too?  They all look too young to have had strokes."

"This is the brain trauma ward."

"Oh, I see."

Nick repeated the process with the others until they were all calm and assembled in the room.  Then he came outside and conferred with the rest of us.

"We have a huge problem," he said.  "They've all suffered varying degrees of memory loss.  Some remember Heavenly but think it was a dream.  Another guy doesn't remember anything at all."

Kyle groaned.  "We're gonna have to rehab the entire human race."

Jane was the first of us to request a new body.

"I always dreamed of having a big family," she said.  "Now I can."

"What if you forget everything like the others?"

"Then I know you'll be there to help me, sweetie."

Nick had his hands full with the original group's orientation but they had more or less accepted the new reality that waited outside their makeshift rehab clinic.  By the time Jane's new body was ready, most of the original group were actively helping in the clinic and training to rehab the next batch that arrived.  The amnesia hadn't scared any candidates off.  If anything, most of them wanted to forget the last year.

I watched as Jane prepared for the merge with her body.  She meditated for a while.  As she tapped into the body, her face tightened in concentration.  Her hand warped as if the body were trying to pull her in.  She stayed like that for a few hours while screams echoed from the other rooms and the other candidates as they awoke in their new bodies.  Nick popped in from time to time to check in on us, not that he could see anything but Jane's clone lying still on the table.

It was a while before Jane's face relaxed.  She smiled.  Her ghost popped into the body.  I held my breath, waiting for the scream.

Jane opened her eyes and laughed.  She sat up, looking around the room for me.  I was about to go grab Diana when Jane's gaze grew unfocused, almost dazed.  Worry stiffened me.

"Hey, Lucy," she said, looking at me.

"It worked?"

"Yeah.  Had a few smooth spots in the new brain to settle into.  No wonder the new guys freak out."

"Can you leave the body?"

She sat for a while, eyes closed and eventually shook her head.  "Looks like I'm in here for good, or at least until the next apocalypse."

"But you can see and hear me?"

"If I look and listen for you.  You're like a shimmering outline that only sharpens if I concentrate on you.  Then I can see you in a bizarre fuzzy way."

"Weird."

"So you gonna get your body done?"

I shrugged.  "Maybe in a while.  I don't know."  I had too much left undone.  My parents, for one thing.

I held a meeting with Nick and his team that night using Nick's body as my vessel.  As the number of revived humans increased, so did the rehab staff.  I explained what had worked with Jane.  A number of ghosts were on the flip side of his team, prepping ghostly candidates for their rebirth.  Unfortunately, many of them were too impatient or undisciplined to learn meditation and preferred to deal with the temporary memory loss.  What many didn't know was that several had lost years worth of memories that might never come back.  Memories from well before we all died.

Most of the first reborn humans had been young people before D-Day.  After discovering that everyone would get a new teenage body, a lot of older people started signing up too.  I could see the road to rebirth for the planet, but it was going to take a long while.  I also wondered just how hellish life would be with generations of humans hitting hormone-saturated puberty at the same time.

After a meeting during which I merged with Nick, he asked me to wait a moment before I left.

"I've been wanting to ask you something, Lucy."

What's that?
I sent back.

"Will you please get your body made?"

Why?

"I want to see you in person."

You can see me all you want in your head.

He sighed.  "After everything we've been through, I'm surprised you don't know why."

I could read your mind, but what fun would that be?

"You joker."  He laughed then grew serious.  "Lucy, I'm in love with you."

I didn't know what to say.  I guess a part of me already knew that.  A part of me loved him too. 
I care for you too Nick, but I'm not ready to come back to life.  I'm not ready to fall in love again.  I still hurt too much.

"Please, Lucy."

I'm sorry.  I can't.
  I fled from him as pain bubbled up through the cracks in the armor I'd placed around my heart.  Chris's clone was wasting away.  The auto-doc said it would die soon.  And it hadn't achieved its own sense of awareness.  It was an empty meat-machine with no soul.  It was dying like my love life.  I figured it might be for the best if I had to endure this sort of heartache.  The kind that clung like lead weights in my chest.  It made me feel alive in a twisted way.

I found a quiet spot at the edge of the facility that housed our new venture.  The building looked fluid and organic, made from the same material the Shaval used for their buildings.  We called the material
flux
, and hoped to rebuild cities with it.  Rrilk crews were busy retrieving corpses and cleaning up the towns and cities.  They'd offered to stay and help us rebuild, thankful that we had freed them from the Shaval and hopeful we could eventually help free their home world.

The future looked promising but grief still clung to me.

"It's not as bad as you think," a familiar voice said.

I spun and cried out a note of the purest surprise and joy.  Anil smiled back at me.  His ghost glowed like he'd been standing too close to a power cube.  I hugged him and kissed his cheeks, wetting his face with my tears.  Then I realized he too was crying.  I'd never seen him cry.

"You did it, Lucy.  I'm so proud."

"How did you survive?  Why didn't you tell me you were still alive?"

"Because I couldn't."  He shrugged.  "The destruction of my corpse only freed me from chains I never knew existed.  It cut me loose in a torrent of dimensions and places that swept me like so much debris down a river.  I was unprepared for it.  I nearly drowned in its endlessness."  He sat cross-legged on the ground.  "There is a Beyond.  I finally found it.  For those who died before D-Day, they had time to adjust to a new state of being and to discover Beyond for themselves while their slowly decaying corpses anchored their souls for an easier transition.  For me, it was a matter of willpower and meditation that helped me recover."

"So there's a chance that the others will return."

"Others?"

I told him the story of Harb's betrayal.

He took a moment to muse over my story then nodded.  "There's a chance.  Time works differently between here and the other places.  It took me what seemed years to find my way.  Once I found Beyond, I was able to control where I went.  There are infinite dimensions waiting out there.  So much to do and see.  And other battles to fight."

"We can bring you all the way back now.  We're reviving the human race."

He nodded.  "It's a worthy plan, Lucy.  A noble one.  Be certain you are the one to write the rule book this time."

"You trust me with that kind of power?"

"For the most part."  He winked.  "I will not be returning to this life, however.  I've found my calling."

"But we can patch you right up, good as new."

"I know."  His eyes settled on a point in the sky.  "I want to help people on this side.  I want to find the lost ones and help them find Beyond."

"In infinite dimensions?  That's impossible."

"No, there are many of us already engaged in this task.  I think it's a worthy one."

"Can you find Chris?"

He paused, and must have seen the pain in my eyes.  "Having merged with him before, it might be more likely.  But I can't promise anything."

My hopes shot through the roof anyway.  "But you promise to visit me from time to time?"

"I will.  Be seeing you around, Lucy."  He smiled and shifted to dimensions unknown.

I twirled and laughed into the sky.  Anil was alive.  Chris was still alive out there somewhere.  One day, I might see him again.  I would hope and wait for that day.  I wanted to make Earth beautiful once again so when Chris came back to me he would be proud.

So I did.

MEET THE AUTHOR

John Corwin has been making stuff up all his life. As a child he would tell his sisters he was an alien clone of himself and would eat tree bark to prove it. For John, making stuff up was about one thing: teasing his sisters.

In middle school, everything changed. A class assignment to string random words together into a coherent story led to the birth of Fargo McGronsky, a young boy with anger management issues whose dog, Noodles, had been hit by a car. The short story was met with loud acclaim from classmates and a great gnashing of teeth by his English teacher. At this point, our esteemed author realized that making stuff up had broader uses.

Years later, after college and successful stints as a plastic food wrap repairman and a toe model for several well-known men's magazines, John once again decided to put his overactive imagination to paper for the world to share and became an author.

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