The Reviver (22 page)

‘Unless we had no option,’ Never said.

Hugo nodded. ‘The clock’s ticking. We have to start the second attempt within ninety minutes. Jonah was due back at work tomorrow. He was given the all-clear.’

‘I doubt this was the kind of case they had in mind for his return, Hugo.’

‘But what do you think?’

‘I think…’ said Never, then he gave it some serious thought. ‘I think if Sam was here, he wouldn’t ask Jonah to do it.’ Hugo said nothing, but in his eyes Never could see he thought so too. ‘I also think, if we don’t tell Jonah about it, he’ll not forgive us.’

*   *   *

When Jonah’s phone rang he was in the kitchen, wearing his overnight boxers and tee shirt, making a cup of coffee while he ate a slice of toast. He let the answering machine take the call, but picked up when he heard Never’s voice.

‘Hey, Never.’ He could hear voices in the background. ‘Are you at work?’

‘Yes, I’m at work,’ said Never, with a reluctance that Jonah noticed at once.

‘What is it?’

‘You’ve heard of Daniel Harker?’

‘Of course.’

‘He went missing a few weeks ago.’

‘I hadn’t heard.’

‘It was kept quiet.’

Although Never seemed unwilling to get to the point, Jonah knew the punchline. He knew the question Never had called to ask. The minimum time Stephanie Graves had insisted on before he could work again had passed, but he knew they’d only be coming to him if they had no other option. And that meant a hard case.

Jonah took a deep breath. ‘How long’s he been dead?’

‘Quite a while. He’s in a bad way. Even Pru didn’t get there. But she wasn’t far off.’

‘She OK?’

‘Shaken up. Worst I’ve seen her.’

Jonah was silent. He didn’t relish facing what she’d faced. ‘Why do we need a revival, Never? What does this look like?’

‘Looks like murder.’

Jonah thought for a moment. ‘Let’s see what he has to say.’

He hung up the phone and started to dress.

*   *   *

Jonah arrived thirty minutes later. The prospect of reviving a severely decayed subject would normally leave him sick with fear, but the moment Never had called to say he was needed, things had crystallized in his mind. Whatever his doubts about his future, here was something he couldn’t say no to. Harker had been crucial in revival becoming acceptable. Every reviver owed the man a debt.

He took the stairs down the two flights to the revival floor, heading straight to the technician’s room to see Never. The door to the observation room lay open at the end of the hall. Inside, he could see Hugo Adler in discussion with several others. A few feet from them sat a young woman. She looked exhausted.

He walked into the tech room.

‘Hi, mate,’ said Never. ‘Am I in your bad books?’

Jonah smiled at him. ‘No. None of us has a choice here. How’s Pru?’

‘She’s getting her head down in the bunk room.’

Jonah nodded. ‘I’ll take my meds and get briefed. We can start in ten. Everything’s still set, right?’

‘We dropped the room temperature after Pru’s try. I’ll warm it a little. Apart from that, all set.’

Jonah nodded to the feed from the observation room. ‘Who’ll be watching?’

As he named them, Never pointed them out on the screen: ‘Bob Crenner and Ray Johnson. Can’t seem to get rid of ’em. They’ll be sitting in with me during the revival. That’s Peter Rierson, the pathologist. And
that
is Daniel Harker’s daughter.’

Jonah shook his head. ‘Hell of a sight for her to deal with. Is she here to…?’

‘Yes.’

Jonah looked at her. Even if he’d been in doubt before, he wasn’t now. She looked shattered, and wanted to speak to her father one last time. Perhaps when his work was faceless, anonymous, then Jonah could pretend to himself that he had a real choice, that his fear of the process was enough to drive him from it. But when it was tied to real people, he couldn’t conceive of walking away. Tess had been right to say he was idealistic. For all the good it did him.

*   *   *

Jonah knocked on the door to the bunk room, and Stacy opened it.

‘She awake?’ he asked. Stacy nodded. Jonah followed her inside, shocked to see how grey Pru Dryden’s face looked. It had really hit hard. Pru was small, but Jonah knew she could take care of herself. She’d had a daughter with a long-term boyfriend who had started to knock Pru around. She’d given as good as she got, ousting the boyfriend, which left her on her own with a two-year-old to raise and a full-time job. Right now, though, she looked impossibly fragile.

‘Any tips?’ he asked.

‘Thought you were off work,’ Pru said.

‘I am.’

‘This is a bad choice of vacation.’ The smile she’d been attempting faded. ‘The pull was strong and fast. Caught me by surprise. If that helps.’

He nodded. She’d nearly made it, but the ride got too rough. ‘Thanks.’

Jonah grabbed a drink from the water cooler in the corner. He’d already been up to his desk to grab his medication. It was bespoke, formulated individually for each reviver; replacement supplies at his new dosage would arrive within a few more days, but as Graves had increased his BPV by 50 per cent, all he had to do was take an extra half pill.

Stacy and Pru wished him luck. He tried to ignore the worry he could see in their eyes.

*   *   *

Jonah walked to the observation room, with one last task before the revival could begin. He crossed to Annabel Harker and crouched down.

‘Miss Harker…’

‘Annabel, please.’

‘My name is Jonah Miller. I’m going to be making the second attempt at reviving your father. I take it the other reviver discussed the attendance situation with you?’

‘She did. Is she all right?’

‘She will be. Can I confirm that you want to talk with your father?’

‘I do.’

‘You have to realize that the chances are slim. Even if I get him back, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have any time with him. If I give the go-ahead, you’ll be escorted to the revival room. You can tell me what to say. It’ll be a non-vocal revival; during questioning you’ll see your father’s replies on that screen, as I type them. If you get to talk to him, though, I’ll simply repeat what he says. Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

Jonah nodded and started to get up. Annabel put her hand out, on his wrist. He flinched, just a little, but there was no chill. ‘Jonah,’ said Annabel. ‘Please. Try.’

‘I will. If it looks like there won’t be time, I’ll give him a message from you. If you want.’

Tears fell from Annabel Harker’s eyes. ‘Tell him I’m sorry.’

*   *   *

‘It’s freezing,’ complained Ray Johnson, folding his arms.

‘The temperature’s kept right down while we’re not active,’ said Never. ‘We raise it a little for revival, but that’ll take a few minutes.’

‘I guess it keeps the meat fresher.’

Jonah glanced up at the lights on the wall opposite indicating the active audio feeds. There was a red light for the observation room, and he relaxed. ‘Just so you know,’ he said. ‘That red light means the subject’s daughter didn’t hear your comment.’

Johnson raised his hands. ‘Sorry.’

‘If we can get started?’ said Jonah. The others turned to him. ‘OK, I’ve read the preliminary report. We just need the formal nod to get under way and I can get briefed. No objections to starting? Dr Rierson?’

‘No.’

‘Detective Crenner?’

‘Let’s get on with it. Good luck.’

‘I’ll do my best. With a second attempt at revival it’s hard to know the chances, but Pru got close. If it does happen, someone this far gone can be hard to judge. They can go in a flash. Now, take your seats and get comfortable. This may take some time.’

*   *   *

Alone, Jonah sat in the chair and adjusted it until it felt right. The curtain on the observation room window had been drawn back, but the audio feed was still off. He limbered up his left hand, his fingers stiff in the cold air, and set them on the keypad. His shorthand was solid. All the revivers who handled non-vocal cases had regular training to keep up their skills – repeating aloud everything that was said was a clumsy way to go about an interview. He typed a few phrases to make sure the pad was in working order, the words being displayed in full on a screen above. An earpiece rested by the keypad, and he put it in place.

‘Testing, testing,’ said Never’s voice.

Jonah raised his thumb. ‘All fine. I’m ready.’

He suddenly didn’t
feel
ready. He looked again at Harker, the enormity of the task ahead of him impossible to ignore. It was written in the state of the corpse: in the distortion and swelling; in the black veins and the shedding skin. Could he
ever
feel ready for something like this?

He reached out. Daniel Harker’s hand felt deeply cold in his own, the flesh rubbery. Unlike the rest of the body, the hand had been cleaned for optimal contact. Jonah ran his eyes down the length of the rotting corpse before him. He looked up, and checked that the Obs feed light was still red. Only Never could hear him. ‘I met him once,’ he said.

‘Yes?’ said Never.

‘He interviewed me a few months after I joined Baseline. Asked me about the crash, when my mom died. I hadn’t spoken to anyone else about it in so much detail. It was cathartic. The next day I called him and asked him not to use it. He agreed without a grumble. Seemed like a decent guy.’ He took a deep breath. The cold air kept the smell of decay to a minimum. ‘Start recording.’

The bank of lights on the far wall turned to green one at a time.

‘Revival of subject Daniel Harker, nonvocal,’ he said. ‘J. P. Miller, duty reviver.’

17

Daniel Harker’s hand rested in Jonah’s, the skin of the dead fingers shedding, just as it was all over the blackened and bloating torso. The abdomen greenish, thickly veined. The face puffy and distorted, the eyes swollen.

Jonah closed his own eyes and allowed his mind to flow over the corpse, touching the sheets of loose skin, tasting the rank salt of the wounds around Daniel’s wrist and the pitted gouges in his neck where the maggots had fed, feeling the gelatinous rubber of his abdominal flesh.

Minutes passed this way, until he felt it was time to sink deeper, losing himself to the darkness within Harker’s corpse. He felt his own flesh degrade as he went. Slowly, his intestines began to dissolve in a rich bacterial sea. His eyeballs started to contract as they lost moisture. He sensed his hair begin to lose grip and shed. Rigor mortis built in his limbs, peaked and faded as the muscle proteins broke down.

In the dark, in the silence, time passed. Jonah felt more dead than he could ever be. His mouth – God, so dry,
so dry
– began to moisten once more with the products of decomposition.

And then his flesh twitched, stirred around his neck as maggots hatched and began to embed themselves, burrowing deep and feeding, forming a writhing mass, growing, drowning him –

It was too much. Jonah came round on the floor, the link with Harker broken. He was sobbing, and Never was there, telling him it would be OK. Jonah gathered himself. He sat up and looked at the clock. Seventy-two minutes since he’d started. It felt longer.

Hugo entered the revival room. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to try this.’ He stepped towards the corpse, reaching to the dangling arm, ready to replace it by Harker’s side.

‘Don’t touch him!’

Hugo turned to Jonah, taken aback by the raised voice, by the defiance in Jonah’s eyes, even though he looked shattered.

‘Don’t touch him,’ Jonah repeated, quieter now, regaining composure. ‘I’m close.’ He stood, wiping the cold sweat from his face with his left hand. Given how near he’d been, as long as Jonah started again soon, the chances would hardly be affected. ‘I need a minute before I get back to it, but I’m almost there.’

Hugo shook his head, but in resignation rather than refusal. ‘Five minutes. See how you feel.’

Jonah spent the first two of those five dry heaving in the toilet along the corridor, while Never stood fretting outside the cubicle. Jonah emerged, rinsed his mouth and began rubbing at his neck to rid himself of the sensation of movement that was still beneath his skin, the intense larval itch that he knew would take days to leave him completely. He drank straight from the tap, gulping down mouthful after mouthful of cold water.

He rose, grabbed a paper towel and dried the water dripping from his chin. ‘Thirsty,’ he said, out of breath. It was little wonder, given that Harker had probably died of dehydration.

Jonah returned to the revival room and took his position again. He waited until his stomach had settled, until his skin was no longer moving. Recording resumed. He took Daniel’s hand, and soon he was back, the maggots ascendant.

Better prepared now, he held on for the long minutes until the maggots fell away, and the degradation of his own body began to reverse, flesh re-forming and regenerating.

Slowly, his eyes filled out, his liquefied innards regrouped. Putrefaction left him. He was Daniel Harker then, intact and pristine, and he called to Harker’s essence – whatever that might be, wherever that might be – and he waited, steeling himself for the surge.

An answer came. Jonah felt like he was in free-fall, tumbling uncontrolled as images filled his mind, but he’d not come this far to lose it now. He held on. Moments later, Harker was there.

Jonah opened his eyes. He was sitting as he had started, holding the hand of a ravaged corpse. But now the corpse had become more; he sensed the consciousness within, the thoughts forming. He looked at the clock again. It was forty minutes since he had resumed the revival. It had taken almost two hours in all.

He was exhausted. At last, the work could begin.

*   *   *

‘Daniel? My name is Jonah Miller. Do you understand what’s happening?’

The whorl of thought within Harker clarified. It was slow, the wait for a reply agonizing.

‘Yes. I died.’

With his left hand on the keypad, Jonah recorded the words fluidly. He was well practised. In the observation and tech rooms, they would be watching the screens to follow Harker’s side of the conversation.