Chapter 28: John flees the Lab.

Laura was not exceptionally strong, but she didn’t need to be to push the machines around the bed away and pick David up. He was gaining weight, she thought, but slowly, thank God, or she would have had to put him in a wheelchair and then he surely would have woken up. She was happy to see that he was still asleep even after she laid him on the couch in his room, put two pillows under his blanket, picked him up again, carried him to the car, propped him up in the passenger seat, put Hannibal on his lap, got into the driver’s seat, and sped away. Must be having a good dream, she thought.

Meanwhile, Peggy too slept peacefully – from the sedatives Laura had dissolved in her coffee. It was for her own good, Laura had convinced herself. She was better off not knowing anything about it.

John’s mouth popped open as his jaw muscles slackened. He stared unabashedly at the empty bed. Gone. He had waited too long. Too long for what? He had to be around here somewhere. Jesus, he should have brought the tracker. Something is wrong here, he thought. He closed his mouth and darted into the hallway. The nurse was waking up. John panicked and fled.

Running past the guardpost, he reached his car in half the time it took him to leave it. He was still dumbfounded. What was going on? He didn’t know, but he didn’t feel safe trying to figure it out there.

He drove back to his motel quickly. As he held the driver’s wheel, he noticed that there were strange bright patches under his fingernails. John recognized the shape they made, but couldn’t place it. He turned his attention back to the road and noticed that his eyesight was failing – everything was becoming cloudy.

Just inside the door to his room, his legs gave out. He was too distracted to notice the fugue coming on.

It was his last thought before he passed out.

Part Two: The Church

For this is the true strength of guilty kings,

When they corrupt the souls of those they rule.

-Matthew Arnold, Merope

’Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,

And matter enough to save one’s own.

-Robert Browning, A Light Woman

Chapter 27: John drives to the Lab & finds an empty bed in David's room. Laura & David have fled.

John didn’t waste any time. He drove to the Lab and abandoned his car on the side of the road, a short distance from the gate. Slipping past the computer gatekeeper, he headed for the room that he was convinced held his salvation. He had forgone the tracker, knowing where his prey lay.

John peered out of the darkness into the well-lit hallway of the laboratory. Trying to correlate the spot outside with the right room inside was a bit easier than he expected. Trying to sidestep the security system, however, was a lot easier than he expected – they might as well have put a welcome mat out for him. He quickly reached the wing where he wanted to be.

John was surprised to find a nurse asleep at her post. Oh well, he thought, no witnesses. The feeling of wholeness he had the night before was gone now. He passed it off as nerves. No time to wonder why, he thought as he strode to the man’s room. Creeping into it like a cat, he pulled the gun out as he walked. Just a few more steps.

John walked through a cleared path between the machines surrounding the bed and threw back the blankets. He looked in disbelief at the two pillows he found under them.

His hands clutched in anger and the gun went off.

A few miles outside of town, a very skinny man slept with a cat on his lap while a woman in a nurse’s uniform drove like hell.

Chapter 26: David dreams of the birthday party; the certificate says he is to be reincarnated.

David awoke from a nightmare. In it, he was the only human being in a land of lizard people. He was on display for them, chained up in some kind of Circus of Freaks. Lizard men and their wives, and their little lizard children, would come to gawk at his naked and withered body.

When he saw Hannibal, David quickly forgot the dream. Today he started physical therapy. Laura brought him a huge breakfast, and winked at him when she set it down. She didn’t say anything, and left.

David gorged himself, regretting it later when they had him on a treadmill. He was only supposed to walk slowly, but he had started to jog nonetheless. Dr. Persey was right, he thought. Thank God his muscles hadn’t shriveled in the cryopreserver – frozen solid, he guessed they wouldn’t have. His sides ached though, as did his legs. He was back in his room long enough to watch three more of the films before he fell asleep.

In his dreams, he returned once more to his birthday party. The dream was especially cloudy this time. He could barely make out his grandfather and his mother through the mist. The certificate in his hands was the only thing he could clearly see. He finally fulfilled his mother’s demand, and read aloud:

“The Medical Church of America hereby blesses

David Arthur Sperling

with eternal reincarnation.

Through the power of The Medical Church of America,

his soul shall remain on Earth until Judgement Day.”

His mother was weeping.

Chapter 25: John finds the Lab & figures out where David is. He drives to a motel.

John found the Lab with little trouble. Aside from Hannibal’s tracker, there were signs everywhere pointing the way. The Lab was a major landmark in its sleepy little town, and the town wasn’t shy about letting people know about it. Although the letters and numbers on the signs appeared as a tangle of dashes and whirls, John understood them from the symbol they all shared – the logo of The Medical Church of America. It was a cross with two snakes intertwining it. John looked at the signs with the dawning realization that he didn’t need to be able to read to get by. He thought in a distant way, whatever was left of his mind revealing it, that lots of things were like that – you didn’t really need to know anything and you could still function; get money from a bank machine, drive, get a room at a motel, buy a gun.

He left the car and walked to the gate that blocked the short driveway to the building, not knowing what his explanation to the guard would be. He didn’t need one. The guardpost was empty. A computer buzzed and clucked inside it. John slipped past the reflective orange and white car barrier-arm.

The tracking device worked better than he expected. More powerful than the tracker, though, was John’s feeling of wholeness the closer he got to the man’s room. Life seemed to seep back into him as he closed in on his objective.

After walking the outer perimeter of the building, both the tracker and John knew when they were in the right spot. The pull he had felt in his chest earlier was now throbbing. It seemed to speak to him, wanting him to do something, but John ignored its coercion. It was getting near dawn now, and he didn’t want to ruin his chances.

Outside the room that held Hannibal and David, John scratched an “X” on the wall with the butt of his gun. He looked up at the building towering above him. Thank God he’s on the first floor, he thought. He jogged back to his car, drove to a motel, and paid in cash. He again didn’t let the nightman see his face.

John studied himself as he slowly lost control of his body. As he concentrated, he could feel it happening. A brief, scurrying sound distracted him for a moment. He ignored it, analyzing the different signals his body gave as his consciousness slipped away from him. He studied it harder than anything he had ever studied before. He wanted to know all the signs and subtleties of the disease that controlled him. He was getting quite good at it.

Soon, he thought, I’ll know exactly when it strikes.

Chapter 24: John buys a gun and continues toward the Lab.

At 10:00 p.m., Andy Turkenbock flipped the sign on his store’s door. “CLOSED,” it read to the outside world. Andy was sick of staying open so late, but kept up with his late father’s tradition regardless. Andy noticed a car pulling in. Hesitating a moment, he turned the sign back around. Hell, he thought, maybe this ancient watch is fast.

In the parking lot, a man got out of the car. The man pulled the upturned collar of his coat against his cheeks, and approached the store. The shadows arcing across the man’s face made it look to Andy, just for a second, like a walking lizard was about to be his last customer of the day.

Figuring his old eyes had deceived him, Andy opened the door, letting him in. Andy’s nose, old or not, wrinkled at the fetor the man brought in with him. It conjured up images of virulent decay.

The man said one word, “Gun.”

Andy uncovered the guns on the wall, and the ones inside the glass counter. “What’ll it be?” he said, passing his liver-spotted hand above the merchandise like a game show host.

“I want a pistol. As small as possible.” His voice came from behind the collar of his coat, and sounded slightly muffled.

“Well, this’ll be the one you want then. It’s the latest and the greatest, as they say. Expensive, but worth it. Should I hold it for you?”

Andy’s customer plopped a wad of bills on the counter. They were held together with a dirty rubber band. It looked to Andy to be about a thousand dollars. “I’d appreciate it if we could get around some of the laws governing these things.”

Andy protested, despite the money. “Jesus, mister. They’ll take my store away if I do that. This store’s been in my family for three generations. Are you a Fed? Why are you all covered up like that?”

John parted the collar covering his face. He was waxen, beyond pallid. Andy could see through his skin, see his teeth and tongue right through his cheeks.

“The gun, please,” the man admonished, staring straight into Andy’s eyes. Andy could see the openings in the man’s skull behind his eyes – and behind his nose.

Andy didn’t argue. Pocketing the cash in his overalls, he handed the man the gun, fumbled for a box of ammunition, and slid it across the counter.

Although Andy thought that at his age he had seen everything, the human jack-o’-lantern that just left his store had to be the weirdest of them all. And although he had belittled her at first, Andy silently thanked his wife for buying him what she had called Grandaddy Diapers.

Outside, the man with the gun sped away.

Chapter 23: David reads about Eco-Assassins, who kill CEOs of companies who harm the environment.

David woke up. It was Monday morning. Thinking back to the night before, he felt that the press conference had gone well. Now, when can I get out of here? he thought.

Dr. Persey came in, ever anxious.

“Bravo, my son. We hit all the major satellites last night. That’ll reel ’m in for sure. You’re a superstar.”

“Thanks Jack, just doin’ my job. I owe it all to you anyway – and more.” David paused, realizing what Dr. Persey said. “Reel who in?”

“Uh,” Dr. Persey paused awkwardly, raising his eyes to the ceiling briefly, then leveling them directly at David. “Why, the funders of course,” he said with renewed enthusiasm. “A little publicity goes a long way in this business. How’s your memory coming along?”

“Good, good. More comes back all the time.”

“Do you remember anything from right before you were vitrified yet?”

“My mind seems to come to a blank right then. I’ll keep trying though.”

“Don’t strain yourself, Dave. It’s not that important.”

Dr. Persey started to leave, paused, began turning in David’s direction, mumbled something to himself, then quickly left. The door snicked closed behind him.

David was perplexed by what the doctor said. David could swear he heard him say, “reel him in,” but shook it off, picked up the headgear, and continued with the films.

Finishing the next eight films that day, he was amazed at how well the technology he was using filled his brain. It was remarkably interactive. When David saw a topic he wanted to explore, he simply pointed with his gloved hand. He could go as deeply into a topic as he wanted, as far back into history as he wanted. As far into the future as the predictions embedded within it would take him. It was overwhelming. And exhausting.

Deciding that he could finish the rest tomorrow and be completely up to speed, he again picked up Rolling Stone. He read an article about a group calling themselves “Eco-Assassins,” people who made it their job to assassinate what they called “environmental enemies.” They had taken out four Chief Executive Officers of large companies – all old men with gray hair and a knack for peddling toxins, David mused, looking at their pictures – and the crews of twenty-seven whaling ships so far. There were thumbprint-size sketches of what they thought the Eco-Assassins looked like. David wondered if they were still around.

Laura walked into his room. She seemed guarded, and it showed. She stopped halfway between the door and David’s bed.

“What’s the matter, Laura?” David looked up from the magazine.

“Do you trust me, Dave?” Her hands were clasped together in a knot in front of her.

“Trust you? Why sure. What’s not to trust? Everyone here is taking great care of me.”

Laura turned her head and mumbled something under her breath that sounded to David like “not everyone.”

“Good,” she said aloud, again facing him. “I’m glad to hear it. I want you to remember that you trust me. I want to be your friend.”

She then left, giving David the same perplexed feeling he had when the doctor had left earlier. It put him on edge, making him a little nervous.

“Who am I kidding?” he said, relaxing and scratching Hannibal’s cheeks with his fingertips. “I’ve got it made here.”

Chapter 22: John resolves to find David and drives toward the Lab.

That was a quick one, John thought. He was passed out on the sidewalk in front of the theater next to his apartment. And he was almost home. Damned if he knew why, but he almost preferred the sidewalk to the kitchen floor.

Flying up the stairs to his apartment, he skipped every other step. Bursting through the door, he remembered what he had forgotten earlier. Hannibal’s tracker. He had bought him a name tag with a tracking chip in it six months ago, in case he got lost.

John had been combing his mind for a plan. He liked plans. Lived for them, in fact. Knowing he didn’t quite have a complete one yet, he figured he would go with his hunches. If that Corpsicle guy had Hannibal, he might also have some answers for John. And the Corpsicle’s eyes – there was a gleam in them as if he could see straight out of the television and right through John.

The tracker only worked within a five mile radius, but John learned from the announcer on the news where his cat was.

Where the Lab was.

Where he thought his only hope in the world was.

It was 3:00 a.m., and Frank Versella was counting the ways he hated the midnight shift. What he hated most, he decided, was that nobody ever came in at that hour. He couldn’t figure out why a car rental agency would have to be open twenty-four hours anyway. It was all Frank could do just to stay awake.

A shadowy figure approached the glass doors of the rental agency. Frank couldn’t see the man’s face, but he was wearing what appeared to be a very expensive coat. Frank buzzed him in.

“Welcome to Rental World, how can I help you?” Frank said in the most customer-friendly voice he could summon at this hour.

The man pulled his coat collar away from his face and looked into Frank’s eyes. Frank instantly wished he hadn’t had that third cup of coffee. His bladder felt weak, but he held it in line. What he saw in the man’s eyes didn’t frighten him at first – instead, his whole body relaxed, sympathizing with something primal in them. It was when his mind recognized that not only was the vestigial visage standing upright before him, but in himself – part of Frank – that he reacted with terror. It was as if the man was completely devoid of consciousness.

The man slid a diamond card onto the counter and said one word, “Car.”

Frank slipped the card through the credit machine and pulled out some paperwork, tried filling it in, but finally gave up. His fingers had turned into claws, unable to hold the pen. Having no better luck with the computer’s keyboard, he slid a set of car keys across the counter, careful to let them go before the man reached out to grab them. Frank didn’t want to touch the man’s hand. Frank pointed to a car on the lot outside the glass doors. The man took the keys, turned around, and left with his diamond card.

As Frank regained confidence in his hands, he used them to grab his coat and hat. He heard the car starting outside, then drive away. After he was sure the man was gone, Frank went outside.

“They can fire me for all I care,” he said as he started his own car and headed home.

John found that by clearing his mind and letting his body have complete control, driving was easy, mechanical. He drove for a few hours and stopped at a cheap motel. The white stucco surfaces of the motel’s outer walls were a grimy tan. The painted doors to the rooms were chipped and cracked, their cheerful light blue color squandered by neglect. John didn’t like the look of the place, but liked his alternative even less.

It was still early in the morning, but John wasn’t going to take any chances. The last thing he needed now was to pass out at the wheel. Paying for the room in cash, he never let the nightman see his face. He noted from the placard on the wall that the man’s name was Jerry Gonzales.

As he lay on the covers of the bed in his room, John studied himself. He lay on the covers because as near as he could tell, his body emitted no heat.

He saw a muted light emerging from outside the tawdry curtains of his room. Concentrating on his body, he could feel warmth. It started in his lower chest, right where his lower ribs came together, and radiated out, taking only moments to reach his limbs. This is the fugue state, John told himself. This was what he was suffering from. John studied the feeling, cataloguing its nuances.

Most of all, he studied the feeling he got right before he was gone for good.

Chapter 21: John sees David being interviewed on TV holding John's cat.

John wandered the streets. He was looking for an answer – something to solve the condition he was in – and couldn’t justify staying home and waiting for it to come to him. He thought he had to go out and find it.

He crept into a bar and sat down on one of its many empty stools. The red plastic cover on the stool barked embarrassingly under even his slight weight. John felt filthy just sitting in the place. There appeared to be more shadows in the room than could be accounted for. The acrid scent of urine and stale cigar smoke haunted the milieu, which didn’t improve the dismal atmosphere.

John hailed the bartender, who paused a little awkwardly at the sight of John. Having seen worse, he walked over. As the bartender drew closer, John realized that he was the source of the terrible smell, overpowering even John’s.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender barked, slamming his open palms on the bar and hunching his shoulders.

“Double tequila – the best you have.” He dropped a fifty dollar bill on the bar. “And could you turn that TV up?”

“Okay, and yes sir,” the bartender answered, mock saluting John.

The bartender weaved drunkenly over to the television hanging on a shelf in the corner of the barroom. He turned up the volume of the machine, the sound escaping it chasing the shadows around the room. The news was replaying the day’s events.

The announcer introduced a segment called “Corpsicle Conscious,” and John watched a guy who had been frozen for the past twenty-five years ham it up with the press corps. The bartender stood fascinated.

Near the end of the broadcast, when John looked down at his drink, wondering why he had ordered it when he had no appetite for anything, let alone tequila, the man on the television held up a cat and said the cat’s name. John raised his head just in time.

The bartender broke his gaze at the television only when he heard the door bang shut. His drink untouched, the bar’s only patron was gone.

The bartender walked over, pocketed the fifty, and slurped back the tequila.

David revisited the theater in his dream. In this incarnation there was someone sitting in the rows; in the middle of the third row from the front, to be precise. Walking up to the solitary patron, he peered through the darkness at the man’s face. He had none – at least not a human one.

Stirred awake, the man’s slitted lizard eyes turned in David’s direction. A forked, snakelike tongue slipped out from between the man’s reptilian jaws, smacking David’s face. His face burned where the tongue struck.

David woke up screaming.

Hannibal nearly flew off the bed. When Peggy looked in a moment later, he cried out to her.

Chapter 20: David walks for the first time, tours the Cryonics Lab & is interviewed by the press.

It was mid-morning. David was reading a Rolling Stone editorial about marijuana finally being legalized. Rolling Stone was elated about this ground-breaking legislation. It quoted a similarly ecstatic, although properly buttoned down editorial from The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Persey came into David’s room. David looked up in alarm. Dr. Persey was indeed a large man, tall and big-chested, but not overweight.

“Well, how’s my boy? I hear you’re eating with gusto.” He clapped David on the shoulder, sending a shudder down his spine.

“Food never tasted so good.” David smiled weakly.

“It was vegan, of course.” Dr. Persey looked concerned.

“All I’ll touch, Jack.”

“Well you know what they say, Dave.” Dr. Persey looked at David conspiratorially.

“What’s that?”

“The Chinese had it right all along. You do take on the characteristics of the animals you eat.”

“How’s that?”

“The animals are dead and when you eat them, they make you dead, too.” Dr. Persey chuckled. David joined him, feeling better.

“Listen, David, if you’re up to it we could take a walk around the Lab. I could show you around.”

“You bet.” David looked at the gown adorning his body. “When can I get some jeans?”

“Well, and again only if you’re up to it, I could get the press in here tonight, and I don’t want them interviewing you in your laboratory gown.”

“Ah, a bribe.”

“If that’s what you call it. How ’bout a walk?”

David swung his thin legs over the edge of the bed. His feet were palsied, not used to the weight.

Dr. Persey pushed the machines away from David’s bed, clearing a path through them where David could walk.

“Take it slowly, Dave. Here, let me support you.”

With Dr. Persey’s arm around him, propping him up under his armpits, David was free of the bed.

“I see you’ve been doing your stretches in bed. Good. When the body’s vitrified it doesn’t shrivel up like it does for coma victims, otherwise you’d be crying with the pain right now.” David moved slightly. “There you go. Now, your first steps.” Dr. Persey’s look changed from concerned doctor to that of anxious parent, his eyes wide, his smile eager.

David shifted the weight of his right leg forward. His foot tingled as it hit the floor, but accepted the weight. With more a series of tiny falls, from one foot to the other, than actual walking, David was again mobile.

“Good show, Dave! You’re an inspiration to all of us.” Dr. Persey looked genuinely excited.

“Thanks. It feels good to be on my feet again. I forgot how tall I am.” David was elated.

“Well, gravity will have its way with you a little before all is said and done, but I’m astonished just the same. You could pass for a pedestrian.” He clapped him on the shoulder again, throwing him off balance. Grabbing him before he fell, Dr. Persey straightened him back up.

“Shall we go?” Dr. Persey waved his arm as if displaying the rest of the room, especially the door.

David had the doctor lead him out of the room. The lights in the hallway were much brighter than those in his room, and it took David’s eyes a moment to adjust. Walking down the hallway, he spied the nurse’s station ahead of him.

Halfway there, a cat ran up to David, rubbing his bare feet with its head. The sensation nearly made David faint.

“Kitty!” David cried, carefully bending down to scoop him up. The cat was happier than David, purring and crying uncontrollably. “Can I keep him?”

“Well, he wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Peggy, the night nurse. And Laura, too, for convincing her to leave him here to keep us company. But be warned – no one makes the mistake of coming between Peggy and a cat.”

“But can I keep him?”

“I don’t see why not, if she’ll part with him. He may do you some good, get you feeling even better.” Dr. Persey looked at the cat, noticing it really for the first time, and was astonished by its bright, yellow eyes. The vertical slits of its pupils.

“What’s his name?” David asked.

“They tell me it’s Hannibal.”

David froze for a second, overwhelmed by déjà vu.

“Dave?” Dr. Persey reached his hand out to steady him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, just fine. I think a goose just walked over my...freezer.”

“Vitrifier, David, not freezer – cryopreserver, if you please. Very well, then. Let me show you around.”

They continued down the hallway to the nurse’s station. Laura was on duty.

“Now, you’ve met Laura.” Dr. Persey extended his hand to Laura, as if presenting her for the first time.

David took advantage of the opportunity to extend his hand to hers. Once he grasped it, he bent his head down and kissed it, amazed at his actions – at the confidence he felt in them.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, madam,” David said, his head still down, his mind sorting out why it didn’t feel nervous at what it considered a bold act, yet pleasantly surprised by it nonetheless.

Color rose to Laura’s cheeks as she blurted out an embarrassed “Daaa-vid.”

“Well then,” Dr. Persey said, slightly shocked. “Let’s have you meet the rest of the folks on the floor.”

David let go of Laura’s hand, and let Dr. Persey lead him further down the hallway. David craned his head to watch Laura as he walked away. She returned his gaze, color high on her cheeks, until he turned forward.

David passed dozens of rooms that looked exactly like his; colorless, barren, aseptic. Reaching the end of the hallway, they turned right through some wide doors. The doors had shiny silver kick-plates on both sides of them, but they had no dents or scratches at all. The doors hadn’t been used yet, David surmised.

The doors led to an area that reminded David of a jail. There was a polished tile floor running up the center of the enormous room. On both sides of the room were smaller rooms, much like prison cells, at least thirty cells long, and five cells high. In each cell was a number of small boxes, perhaps twenty per cell, stacked up like cordwood. David walked over to the nearest one. It looked like a sarcophagus.

“David, meet your students. Students, meet your mentor,” Dr. Persey addressed the room. David gave him a confused look before turning back to the sarcophagi in the cell. The front of each was emblazoned with a huge cross with two snakes intertwining it.

Dr. Persey walked over to David and opened up the cell David was staring into.

“A few weeks ago, David, you were in a vitrifier quite like this one. Here, let me show you.” Dr. Persey tapped a button on the front of the box, and a shield slid to the side. Underneath another shield, this one clear, was a human face. Above the shield was engraved, “Glory Be To God.”

“Let’s see, Barbara Ann McKee, Age Twenty-six, Breast Cancer,” Dr. Persey read from a small tag on the box. “Shall I revive her next, Dave? Perhaps you two will get along well, have some children together?”

David anticipated Dr. Persey’s laughter at what David thought was a joke, but it didn’t come. Instead, the doctor went on.

“Oh, there’s so much I don’t know yet, David. So much yet to learn. Look around you. A few weeks ago, these were all cryonically suspended corpses. Now, thanks to you, they are all...waiting to be born. Waiting for God to take them from the dust of the ground, and breathe into their nostrils...the breath of life. Make them, once again, living souls. Every second that goes by brings you and me closer to death. For them, though, every second brings them closer to life. Isn’t it wonderful?”

David was flustered by Dr. Persey’s words, and didn’t answer his question. Instead, he asked one of his own, “How many people are here?”

“Here, as in, this room? Or here, as in, this facility?” Dr. Persey went on before David could answer. “As you can see, there are thousands of people here, but this is just one room of many. And this room only has people. I’ve got a veritable cryopreserved zoo here as well. You could say I’m a bit like Noah in some ways.” He laughed. The laugh had a tinge of mania to it. Dr. Persey, recognizing this, turned to David and spoke in a serious tone. “You are the first though, David. First vitrified, first revived. You’ll always be special to me because of that.”

David looked down at the woman in the vitrifier. He had a hard time seeing her as a person. She looked more like raw meat in cold storage. He noticed the date on the tag. It was only a decade ago. David noted this with chagrin, feeling lucky to be alive.

“How?” David looked up at Dr. Persey, who had a wild look in his eyes. “How is this possible?”

“The procedure? Simple, really.” Dr. Persey began to pace the room. “Keep the circulation going and replace the blood with cryoprotectants to prevent blood clots, bacteria growth, and –” Dr. Persey stopped and faced David, “prevent freezing damage. That’s the one that kept me back for so long. Needless to say, I’ve got it perfected now. They were always in such a hurry before, so sloppy. I –” Dr. Persey paused, as if he were about to say something he shouldn’t. “Well, I had time to do it right.” He flashed David a quick smile, and his pacing began afresh.

“Then, of course, I quickly cool the body, get the metabolism down.” His words came out faster, like they had been bottled up under pressure and were finally getting release. “Ischemia – oxygen deprivation, vitrification, nanotechnology, genetic engineering; all problems...no,” he raised a finger, “opportunities, challenges to be overcome. That I have overcome.” He stopped, facing David. “We were like children then, David; a decade later like grown men. And now, now...we are like gods.” Dr. Persey stood in the center of the room with his hands raised slightly, palms to the ceiling.

“Thanks for the tour, Jack, but I should probably get back to my room. My legs are kind of weak.”

“Of course, Dave.” Dr. Persey rushed to David’s side. “You should have said something. We don’t want anything happening to you, now do we?” His eyebrows rose as he said this, making his eyes open wide, showing the whites under his corneas.

David watched more of the films that afternoon, and in a more alert state was able to stomach them better. The events in the film were still going from bad to worse, but the Church was becoming a major player in what was transpiring. From what David could tell, the Church had become one of the only sane voices left in the country. As much as he hated organized religion, he couldn’t believe all the good work the Church was involved in. He wondered if maybe his mother had been right about them after all.

He noticed a plaque on the wall he hadn’t seen before. He wondered if he simply hadn’t noticed it before, which he didn’t think was likely, or if someone had put it up last night while he was asleep. It was a quote from the Bible, lettered in Old English characters. It read:

Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years;

take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

Saint Luke 12:19

Laura finally convinced Dr. Persey to give her his password. Christ, she thought, relishing how un-Churchlike swearing in her head made her feel, he acts like a kid with a secret. Still, he couldn’t argue that he was too busy to go pull the records himself.

Laura descended the stairs to the basement, passed the containment cells, and walked up to the large metal door that led to the computer room. On her right was a keypad, and her fingers punched in a code. The door hissed, then opened inward. Laura went inside and closed the door. The room was filled with a humming noise, which Laura ignored, knowing it was the computers lining the floor. Instead she thought about what a paranoid organization the Church really was. The computer room was like a fortress. The walls were three feet thick, and the damned door looked like it could withstand an air raid if it came down to it. She guessed they were just careful about protecting their research.

She walked into the tiny alcove with the computer in it, glancing at the fuse boxes on either wall. The machine was already on, and Laura tapped the space bar to get the screen to light up. It immediately warned her to enter a password or an alarm would sound. She typed in “LAZARUS,” which came up on the screen as “*******.” It then warned her to confirm. She did by typing the password in again.

The computer screen filled with a colorful picture of the MCA Headquarters building. Around it were small circular pictures of areas to visit. Laura put her hand to the screen and touched the circle labeled “Patients.” The circle grew to fill the screen and asked her to enter a name.

Laura wanted to check David’s record before pulling the records of the other patients Dr. Persey wanted. He had even admonished her, “Just these patients” when he handed her the list in his sloppy writing. She thought he was a bit testy when he said this, but she didn’t care. She wanted to see a picture of David before he had lost so much weight.

She typed “Spelung” too quickly to notice the mistakes, and the computer brought up a list of patients that were the closest match. She paged down to Sperling and brought the record up.

A Latin American man’s smiling face came up on the screen along with his statistics. Must be more than one David Sperling, Laura thought, raising her hand to the screen to access the next record. No, this was Consuelo Sperling. She just wasn’t used to the program. But what was that? “Normal Weight: 185. Weight In: 135. Believes he had prostate cancer. Parents deceased. No siblings.”

What the hell did that mean? ‘Believes he had prostate cancer.’ And like David, no immediate family. Massive weight loss.

Laura quickly paged down to David’s record.

The press was all over David that night. He had eaten twice since breakfast, and was digesting his food just fine. His color and stamina improved with each meal. By the time of the press conference, he had not only gotten his jeans, but he looked a little bit like a celebrity. The press responded by treating him like one:

“What was it like in the freezer?”

“Do you remember anything about your past?”

“Have they paid you anything for participating in the experiment?”

“What has changed the most since the time you went under?”

“Have you talked to anybody that you used to know?”

“Have you been outside yet?”

“What will you do now?”

For the first time in his life David found that he wasn’t nervous in front of other people. The confidence he had searched for in vain before he was suspended came to him now. It welled up from deep within him, like a second nature he could tap into and exploit. He answered their questions without even breaking a sweat. By the time it was over he was actually enjoying himself.

He went back to his room with his newfound friend, and slipped into bed. Hannibal, cautious at first, settled into bed with him and began purring loudly. David wanted to watch more of the films – he was still fifteen years behind the present – but was too tired. Petting Hannibal, he continued reading Rolling Stone until he fell asleep.

John woke up and immediately noticed a terrible stench surrounding him. Looking at the seats in front of him, he understood why. He got up and left the theater. Acutely aware the stench was also emanating from him, he went up to his apartment and showered, trying to get rid of the smell. It was futile.

He got out of the shower and flexed his sinewy frame at himself in the mirror, suddenly finding his voice. It was awkward talking at first, but he quickly sounded normal, if not charming.

He said, “I am the Lizard King. I can do anything.”

Chapter 19: David finally gets to eat. John simultaneously throws up

David subsided from sleep peacefully. He had dreamed no more, and felt better off because of it. He barely remembered waking up earlier with the theater and birthday dreams on the tip of his mind. He rang for the nurse and Laura came in, looking radiant. She had good news.

“We ran some tests while you slept. I hope they didn’t wake you.” She started to cross the room.

“Never slept better. What’d you learn?” David watched her every step of the way.

“You seem to be all systems go at this point.” She approached the bed. “Hungry?”

“You bet I am.”

“Let me take you off the IV,” she said as she expertly took the needle out of his arm, leaving a hole in his skin that looked like a tiny eye. She placed a piece of white gauze over it, and bound the gauze to his skin with white tape.

“Remember my promise about the sandwich?” she asked, finishing her work.

“It’s all that’s been keeping me going.” He felt good with her beside him, caring for him.

“Well, we thought you’d have to wait until Monday, but if you feel up to it I made one for myself for lunch. You’re welcome to it...in fact, I’d be really happy if you had it.”

“Bring it on. I won’t disappoint you.”

Laura left briefly and returned. She had put a sparkler in the sandwich and set it on a silver tray. The sparkler was sizzling and popping as sparks flew from it, forming a glowing orb that danced across the room to him as she carried it.

“Ta da.” She displayed it proudly.

“Laura, you’re too good to me.”

“Least I can do, Dave.” She put her hand on his shoulder.

David had no trouble biting into the sandwich; his jaw muscles squeaked a little on the first bite, but then were happy to be of service. The sandwich was delicious – hummus with lettuce and tomato on rye, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika.

Laura sat with him as he ate, fascinated by his pleasure of a process she took for granted every day.

Epstein McAllister didn’t know much. And what he did know, he wasn’t too happy about. What he did know was that he was out of a job again. What he did know was that his wife wasn’t going to be happy when she found out. What he did know was that he couldn’t be seen on the street when he should be at work. Christ, he thought, I only work weekends, and I can’t even hold that up. Epstein was frequently frustrated by his inability to do almost anything right, at least according to his wife.

So there he was, walking into a theater. Worse, one that stayed open twenty-four hours. Worse yet, one that showed those terrible films. Epstein wondered briefly which would make his wife madder at him – going to a pornographic movie theater or losing yet another job. Figuring the job would probably be worse, but not by much, he glanced around the street to see if anyone noticed him. Confident the coast was clear, he paid and ducked inside.

Looking at the show times and checking his watch, he saw that in twenty minutes a movie called “This is Your Life, Bitch” would roll. The poster advertising the picture showed the backside of a man grasping at his crotch while a woman in bed on the other side of the room hid her frightened eyes. Looking around the lobby he saw the titles of the shows he would miss; “Your Life is Shit,” “Selfish Riot,” “Foul Shyster.” Indeed, he thought, his wife would not be happy. He walked into the theater.

The theater was almost empty at this hour, but it did have one other patron. Epstein squinted his eyes and saw someone sitting in the middle of the third row from the front. Epstein wondered if the theater always smelled this bad. He sat down near the other man, hoping to maybe strike up a conversation before the show started. Then he thought better of it. Guy probably wanted to be left alone, especially in a place like this. Besides, what if it was somebody who knew his wife? Still, Epstein couldn’t stop staring at him. He looked as lonely and bored as Epstein, worse even. In fact, he looked passed out. Epstein wondered if he was okay, if maybe he was hurt or something. Guttural, rasping noises were coming from the man, like he was in pain.

Epstein got up and walked over to the man, social conventions be damned. Leaning over and putting his hands on his knees, he tried to get a closer look. The theater was dark, but the exit signs cast a crimson glow among the front rows. Touching the man’s shoulder and shaking him gently, he whispered, “Hey buddy.”

David swallowed the last bite of sandwich and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He looked up at Laura.

“Thank you, Laura. You can’t possibly know how much that meant to me.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Her hand was still on his shoulder.

“Hey buddy,” Epstein McAllister said a little louder to the man in the theater.

The man answered Epstein by arching his back and throwing his head forward as what looked to Epstein to be raw meat drowned in hot coffee showered the seat in front of him. It was steaming. The man didn’t wake up.

“Christ,” Epstein stammered, holding his hand over his mouth and nose, trying to avoid the stench so it wouldn’t be a double feature. “Christ,” he said, running up the aisle, out of the theater, and into the street.

Epstein immediately decided that no matter what his wife said about him losing his job, it was infinitely preferable to what he had just seen.

Chapter 18: John's cat arrives at the Lab where David is being kept.

Early in the morning, Peggy spied a cat pacing and crying outside the Lab’s doors. She adored cats and had fourteen of them at her farmhouse. One more won’t hurt, she thought as she let the stranger in. He looked up at her admiringly, and brushed his cheek against the white leg of her pants.

“Good boy,” she cooed, picking him up. He had a tag around his neck. It was gold. She scratched his cheeks, then under his chin, trying to read the tag. She succeeded. It was heavy. There was no address or number, simply a name. It read “Hannibal.”

David woke up quickly. Trying to keep a hold on his slumber long enough to remember the dream he’d had, he simultaneously tried to be conscious enough to describe it to himself so he could analyze it. He didn’t succeed. Just as rapidly as he gained the conscious insight enough to remember the dream in a wakened state, his subconscious whisked it away.

“Damn,” he mumbled.

John fell off the counter and onto his kitchen floor in what should have been an extremely painful position, but his body didn’t protest.

It was dawn. The Lab was quiet. Peggy poured some rice coffee creamer into an emesis basin – it was shiny, brand new – and put it on the floor for Hannibal. He lapped it up hungrily.

When he was done, he licked the rice milk off his whiskers and stared up at Peggy, purring.

Enchanted by the serenity and quiet of the morning, David gave up on trying to remember his dream and returned again to sleep.

John woke up. What the fuck was that all about? he thought angrily. He noticed the coffee pot. The coffee in it steamed lazily, the vapors on its surface swirling slowly, like morning mist clinging to the shoal of a bog. It was piping hot. Pulling it out by its handle, he plucked off its lid, and swallowed the coagulated liquid in gulps. His lips flattened and turned shiny where they touched the rim of the coffee pot.

Satiated, he resolved not to end up passed out on the kitchen floor again, no matter how little control he had over the paralyses he continued experiencing. Where could he go to think? His mind raced, clicking frantically. Where he wouldn’t be seen? Where he could be in the dark? John spied the marquee of the theater next to his apartment. He had passed it hundreds of times, never giving in to his compulsion to go in. He had no reservations now. Whatever portion of his mind that held his yearning in check had vanished.

Before he went there, though, he had some business to attend to.

John mindlessly put his diamond card into a slot in the bank’s machine. He squinted at the keypad. The symbols on it eluded him. Clearing his mind, he let his hand go through the motions as it had a thousand times before. There, he thought, those four buttons, pressed in that order, tell the machine something. But there was more – there was another step after that one.

He peered at the tiny screen in the machine. It was filled with nonsensical characters. Clearing his mind again, he allowed his hand complete control. It punched various keys on the machine. The machine sputtered and blipped and then made a whirring noise somewhere in its bowels. A tiny door in the machine opened. It was filled with green paper. John grabbed it. He stuffed the money in his pocket as he began to walk away. The machine beeped and spit out his card.

He took the card with one hand, the other still trying to get the wad of bills to fit in his pocket.

Chapter 17: John awakes a blank slate; he knows absolutely nothing. His cat escapes.

As John lay on his kitchen floor, his consciousness dissolved. His energy, his ch’i, ebbed from his body. After his mind was completely gone, his brain resorted to its most primal capabilities.

John woke up. It was night. Standing up without any trouble, he felt disoriented. Not knowing who or where he was, he looked around for reference points.

On the stove, there was a frying pan. John reached for it. Holding it up by the edge, he noticed that it was smoking slightly, the interior of it pitch black. He placed it in the sink. The tiny, swirling lines on his hand and fingers melted where they had touched the pan, leaving patches that were flat and shiny. John was oblivious to what should have been pain. He walked to the living room, unconsciously recognizing some of the things there – the couch, the coffee table, the gold lamps, the books. Out of sheer habit, his brain assigned meaning to them, but to John their significance rang hollowly. Nothing he saw held any importance to him.

He went to the door. Opening it, he looked into the hallway at the descending stairs. Something brushed by his foot, something furry. He saw a bushy gray cat descend the stairs. Hannibal, he thought. My cat. Feeling an audible click in his mind, he shut the door and walked into the bathroom.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He was the color of chalk. His chin was a translucent pink. Turning the handle on the faucet, he reached for a washcloth. He ran it under the water and scrubbed his chin with it, noticing in an absent way that he didn’t need a shave.

David dreamed well. His subconscious had let the birthday party dream go for now, and he was free to roam the newfound expanses of his nocturnal cosmos. He found himself floating above clouds. They were puffy, like cotton, and just as white. He descended through them to an urban area. It was chalky gray from the air, and desolate. A sense of disquietude clung to the place. As he came closer, he noticed an area where the concrete that covered the landscape was painted bright green. Some benches were bolted into the strangely colored concrete. He noticed a theater nearby.

Landing gently on the sidewalk in front of the theater, he looked up at the marquee. One of the large black capital letters was missing from the sign. It read “HIS IS YOUR LIFE.” David scanned the concrete sidewalk for the missing “T” but couldn’t find it.

David went inside. He walked past the concession stand and into the theater. It was deserted. He took a seat in the middle of the third row from the front and waited for the film to start. The theater was dimly lit and shadows fell haphazardly among the rows. The red luminescence of the exit signs cast an eerie glow on the nearby screen. The tapestries that hung on the walls were blotchy and torn, and lay dead against the walls, empty of all motion. The stains that clung to them were fresh, a bright crimson color, and were the only hint of life David saw. The theater wasn’t deserted only of people. It seemed to be devoid of life itself.

David grew impatient and got up. Walking to the lobby, he noticed a flight of stairs. He ascended them to the balcony. He noticed a small door in the middle of the theater, between the left and right entrances to the balcony. It was closed. He walked through it without opening it. Beyond was a small room with a projection machine. A man was there, attempting to stuff some film into the machine. The film flowed from the machine like entrails spilling from a fatal wound. The coils of film lay like snakes on the floor, covering the man’s feet. They seemed to writhe and move as if they were alive and ready to strike.

David reached out to touch the man’s shoulder. He wanted to ask him to start the film. The man’s head, previously hidden in the bowels of the machine, turned to face him.

John was gaining strength. Whatever process his body had undergone on the floor of his kitchen was almost over. His mind began working again, clicking. The clicking was audible to John. Each thought, click. Each time he asked his brain to let his body move, click. He quickly grew numb to the sound. He glanced around his apartment, searching for something he believed was important, something that would help him. Shrugging it off, he grabbed his jacket and headed outside.

As he walked, he turned his coat collar up and pulled it around his face with hands the color of porcelain. The sky had turned cloudy, the black of night now a bruised gray. He headed for the supermarket.

Once inside, he grabbed the two remaining steaks in their paltry selection, not noticing the gray one, and went to the register. The same boy was working. John fumbled in his wallet for his credit card.

“Weren’t you in here earlier?” the boy sarcastically asked John.

John looked up from his wallet and directly into the boy’s eyes.

A squirt of urine escaped the boy’s bladder and stained his boxer shorts. The boy asked no further questions, quickly stuffed the meat into a bag, and shoved it toward John.

The boy was careful not to touch him.

The man in the little room in the theater was a wreck. His hair was twisted into clumps, his pallor was that of granite, his chin the color of bathtub water after a successful suicide by slitting the wrists.

David felt compassion for the man and wanted to help him. He was obviously a mute from the frantic way his jaw moved, his mouth trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

The man seemed frustrated by his attempts to get the film to play, and having given up hope of a logical, mechanical solution, had resorted to stuffing the coils of film into the machine haphazardly. They cascaded around him like a boa constrictor ready to tighten and suffocate.

David tried to calm the man down by putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. David looked into the machine. It was empty inside. The man’s efforts to fill it were futile. As soon as the film entered the chasm of the machine, it was gone.

Back home, John unwrapped the meat and swallowed it in mouthfuls, barely chewing. His mind was working better now, each bite bringing forth fresh ideas. The meat was death, and it spoke to him – of confinement, of torture, of murder. What had happened to him? What was he going to do? He didn’t know. All he knew was that there was something he needed to do. Something unpleasant, but necessary. He had to make a plan. But where would he begin? He didn’t even know what had happened to him – he certainly didn’t know what to do to reverse it.

As if in answer to his questions, his lower chest radiated with the feeling he had been ignoring for weeks – a warm, rosy feeling that beckoned him to obey it. John again fought it off, resolving to figure it out on his own.

He sat on the counter of his kitchen and finished off the rest of both the steaks, the chunks of meat sliding coldly down his throat.

David put his hand inside the machine in the little room in the theater. As soon as his hand went in, it dissolved. Quickly pulling it out, he saw it was whole again.

The man with the watery blood on his chin pushed David violently. Grabbing David by the shoulders, he stuffed him into the machine. The machine grew as it was fed, and the man almost succeeded in gorging it with David. He had gotten David’s head and shoulders in, and was bracing to stuff the rest of him into it.

David was looking inside the machine. His eyes couldn’t see, but his mind’s eye painted stars and planets with mist swirling around them as they spun. His mind focused on one of the planets and drew it nearer. David could see the cloud cover parting, and the green color of the landscape emerging. It was breathtakingly beautiful, the serenity of the scene enchanting him. But David didn’t feel he belonged there.

David regained his balance and pulled out of the machine. His body wasn’t used to violence, but he managed to throw the man off of him and run from the room. Behind him he could hear the mute’s jaw opening and slamming shut in protest. It sounded painful.

David walked through the door of the room in the theater and was back at his birthday party. His senile grandfather and cherubic mother were there. From where he was standing, David could see into the living room. The graven images garnishing the walls leered at him. He noticed suddenly that they were splattered with the same crimson color he had seen on the tapestries in the theater.

“Come on, Davy, read it,” his mother demanded in her most benignant voice.

David looked at the certificate in his hands. The light from the ceiling reflected in the glass of the frame, showing him a mirror image of the ceiling lamp instead of the Old English lettering he sought. Shifting the position of the frame, he could read the certificate now. All of it. But as hard as he tried to mouth the words and satisfy his mother’s command, nothing came out.

Chapter 16: David watches the films; they portray rampant societal decline & environmental destruction.

David was staring, amused, at an advertisement in Rolling Stone:

Pythagoras

Leonardo Da Vinci

Thomas Edison

Mahatma Gandhi

Albert Einstein

If you’re still eating meat,

you must know something they didn’t.

Go vegetarian.

“Well, well, well, I hear you’re ready to run a mile.” Dr. Persey quickly crossed the room to David’s bed. David put the magazine aside.

“Yeah, it’s all flowing back to me now, Jack. I’m beginning to feel whole again.” David was clean shaven, and beaming.

“That is good news. Think you’re up to the press yet?” Dr. Persey sounded anxious.

“I said I’m feeling better, not that I want to feel worse.” David attempted to sound humorous.

“That’s okay, I’d like to get some meat on your bones before I get you on television. They’ll think I’m starving you. We’re still looking at Monday for that sandwich, but maybe tomorrow. We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”

“What about the films, Jack, can I start watching them tonight?”

“Sure, the machine can be brought in. You should probably get some sleep, though.”

“Well, how about one? After that I’ll get some sleep.”

“All right.” Dr. Persey looked at David nervously. “Have you been remembering any more about your past?”

“Lots, and then lots again. I feel like I’m living my life all over again as the memories come back to me.”

“Anything from right before you were vitrified?” Dr. Persey’s nervousness became more apparent.

“Not yet. I’m sure it will come in time.”

“Yes, Dave, thanks to you, we have all the time in the world –”

“How’s that?”

“I’ll have the technician come in and hook you up.”

Like most technologies, the “films” bore the woefully inadequate moniker of their ancient predecessor. They weren’t any more “films” than the surround-sound home entertainment center David had once owned was a “Hi-Fi” or a “radio.”

The technician placed a device that looked like a cross between a pair of sunglasses and a television on David’s head. Placing a glove on his right hand, the technician showed David how to operate it.

David was tired, but wanted to see at least some of the film. As the events unraveled before his eyes, he was reminded of the time he had gone to the Smithsonian theater in Washington, D.C. They had a huge viewing screen at one of the museums, and played half-hour films on topics like space, flying, and Hawaii. The one David remembered seeing was about the rainforest.

The theater was filled with young children on a class trip. A boy behind David was watching a part of the movie where some workers chopped down a tree that was older than everyone in the theater combined. All the boy could do to try to stop this atrocity was to keep repeating “No, no, no” as the tree left its place among the canopy, crashed through the forest, and slammed into the ground, taking a few of its neighbors with it.

As David watched the film, his mind repeated the same monosyllabic chant until he passed out.

Chapter 15: David learns that MCA has made films describing the years he was frozen.

David was propped up on some pillows, again reading TIME. He read:

Ishmael Kennedy held another public money-shredding today in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The self-made billionaire shredded one million dollars in a protest of American capitalism. “Under the American capitalist system, money represents the pinnacle of environmental destruction. Every dollar bill means more of the planet has been mined, more forests have been cut, more wildlife has been destroyed, and more of the atmosphere has been polluted. By taking this money out of the system, I wipe out its ability to continue ruining the planet,” Mr. Kennedy stated at the event. He concluded, “I will continue to destroy currency in the hope that America will realize that its current economic system is destroying the planet.”

When asked about the legal implications of destroying currency, Mr. Kennedy held up a dollar bill and read, “‘This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.’ Well, America’s rampant destruction of the planet is an all-too-public debt.”

Mr. Kennedy’s demonstration is the second public money-shredding he has held this year. The first was on Wall Street in New York City.

Laura came into David’s room with some toiletries. David looked up when he heard the door. He smiled.

“Have you come to care for me, Laura?” Putting the magazine aside, he held up his hands, palms facing the ceiling.

“You are feeling better. Dr. Persey said you were. Still looking forward to that sandwich?” She was smiling as well, but tried to remain professional.

“With every bone in my body,” David answered, smiling wider.

“Well, Dr. Persey thought I should give you a shave. You’re getting a little fuzzy, plus we’d like to examine the hair.” She slid her hand over his cheek and chin. His whiskered skin was rough, like sandpaper.

“Sure, sure. Should I get up?” David motioned to stand up.

“Can you?” Laura looked surprised.

“I don’t know. I feel so good I think I could run a mile.”

“Well, I think Dr. Persey will want to be here for that, so let me just set up here by your bed.” Laura placed the toiletries on the bedside table.

“Okay, okay, I don’t want Jack to miss his baby’s first steps.”

Laura sat on the bed. Using a towel and soap, and the steaming water she had brought in, she washed David’s face.

“Here’s to my first shave! Shouldn’t we get a picture or something? Hang it on the wall?”

“If you’d like.”

“Nah, I’m just excited. I guess I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being alive.”

“Well, it gets old quick, so enjoy it while it’s new to you.”

“I don’t think it’ll ever get old for me again. I just hope I can get these old bones moving like they used to.”

Laura lathered David’s face and neck with shaving cream. “We’ll know more about that soon enough. Take advantage of this time to get yourself up to speed. Did Dr. Persey tell you about the films?”

“What films?”

“Well, we had some films made while you were in the vitrifier that you can watch to get yourself in sync with the world you’re going to be living in. They’re each an hour long, and each one covers a year.” Laura lifted his chin and began scraping at the stubble on his neck. “It will probably take you about three days to get through them all, but stop watching if it’s too much information to take in. The rest of us had years to get used to what you’ll see in minutes.”

“Wow, sort of like ‘This Was Not Your Life.’” The joke was grossly dated, and Laura didn’t respond.

“Hold still, I’m not used to shaving faces.”

“Okay. When can I watch them?”

“I can have them bring the machine in tonight if you like.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Remember though, they may take a lot out of you.”

“Well, I think I can take it.” David enjoyed the caressing touches of Laura’s hands as she finished shaving him.

A knock on the door woke Hannibal. It came two more times and stopped. Hannibal fell back asleep.

Chapter 14: Laura watches David through a window in his door, realizing she is attracted to him.

Laura looked through the window in the door to David’s room. She saw that he was either asleep or resting quietly with his eyes closed. My God, she thought, he’s alive. This changed everything. Her quiet little job was going to get a lot noisier. Still, it was for the best. Maybe Dr. Persey was right – maybe it was a miracle.

But of course that was just what the Church would want the world to believe – that MCA was performing miracles. It was just science, though, nothing miraculous about it. Still, it was amazing. They had taken a stiff, frozen corpse and reanimated it. Now that the procedure had been perfected, it would become one more service they could provide to their ever-burgeoning flock. One more way to fill the Church’s coffers. One more way for them to control people.

Wondering what David thought about the whole thing, Laura continued looking through the window, resisting the urge to walk in and ask him. She figured he must be disoriented – twenty-five years, a little longer than she had been alive. Years during which the Church grew enormously. David had been suspended back when the Lab was still borrowing space from another part of the Church. Back then the Church had only been into medicine. Now they were into everything – theme parks, organ donation, insurance, blood banks, financing, children’s television, biotechnology, energy, pathology...and media – she made a note to tell David about the films Media made.

Laura looked away from the door and down the hall to the nurse’s station. Those films are really a joke though, she thought, they’re so slanted in favor of the Church. She looked back in at David. He looked deep in thought.

But the Church is used to controlling what people see, Laura deduced; they do it twenty-four hours a day on their television channels, every day in their newspapers, every month in their magazines. David was their patient, after all, they could show him whatever version of history they pleased.

Laura shifted her feet, suddenly feeling uncomfortable, as if her thoughts were somehow being monitored and she was committing blasphemy simply by thinking them.

There was something unwholesome about the Church, she thought, her eyes darting from the nurse’s station back to David. She could just never put her finger on it. And why weren’t there any women doctors in the whole organization? It was as if they were running the place back in the 1950's. Well, she thought, looking down at the floor, mine is not to question why, mine is but to do or die. She should just be happy she had a job at all.

Which reminded her that Peggy would be in soon. Peggy had worked there a little longer than Laura, and was older, more experienced. Laura wondered what Peggy made of all of this. Maybe now they’ll be able to afford more staff, she thought. No more crazy twelve hour shifts. Crazy maybe, but Peggy probably slept through half of hers. That was the advantage of the night shift in a place like this.

Laura caught herself shamelessly staring at David through the window. He is cute, though, she thought, wondering what he looked like when he wasn’t all skin-and-bones. Maybe in his file there was a picture of him when he was in better shape. She would have to check tomorrow.

Laura walked back to the nurse’s station just as Peggy arrived.

“You’re early,” Laura said.

“How’s he doing?” Peggy asked, shrugging her purse off her shoulder and placing it on the countertop of the station.

“Good,” Laura answered. “He’s resting now. I brought some CD’s in for him to listen to.”

“Still got a crush on him, huh?”

“I never said that, I just said it would be nice to meet a guy who’s clean, you know? Somebody who didn’t get exposed to all the crazy stuff that’s put my love life on hold for so long.”

“Well, I sympathize with you there. Remember Charlie?” Peggy leaned her back against the station’s counter and crossed her arms.

“Sure, we talked about him a few times.”

“Well, thankfully I didn’t get too attached to him. He’s down with something. They don’t know what it is yet, but they’ve got him quarantined.”

“Oh, Peggy, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, we weren’t too attached. It’s always better to stay stand-offish for a while, I guess. Still, it’d be nice to go defrost one of the better-looking guys in the freezer – one of the clean ones, that is – and just run away with him, ya know? Just grab Rip Van Winkle and head north – get the hell out of this climate. It’d be nice to get away from the bugs at least,” she shivered.

“I know what you mean. Maybe we just weren’t made for these times.”

“Say that too loud around here and Dr. P might just take you up on it – freeze you into the next century,” Peggy laughed.

“Ha. I wouldn’t let him touch me with that stuff. No thank you. I’ll cope with the here and now somehow.”

“Do you want to get a cup of coffee?”

“No. I’ve got to give David a shave.”

“Sure you don’t want me to do it?” Peggy glanced at her time implant. “Your shift’s almost over.”

“That’s okay. I’m still on for another ten minutes.”

“You do have a crush on him.”

“No,” Laura said, feeling color rise to her cheeks. “Just doing my job.”

Chapter 13: David remembers going to the Medical Church of America 25 years ago to be frozen.

David pressed play on the CD player and the symphony started again. He returned back to college in his mind, and the years that came after. There weren’t many. He had finished in what was then the typical five years, going into what was cryptically referred to as the “real world.” He had never picked a major, not really. Cobbling together enough classes in environmental studies and business to convince the dean of his college he was going out in the world prepared to be an environmental entrepreneur, not even David understood exactly what that meant.

He moved to the city only for the possibility of decent employment. He didn’t want to waste his time in his small hometown, getting paid so little he would likely have had to live with his mother and her obsession.

But the city sickened him; first mentally, then physically. He had been a rising star in a young firm, but had plans to get out just the same. He was working on environmental issues, trying to ensure that some safeguards were put into place to stem the tide of an increasingly anti-environmental, corporate-run world. Good at what he did, but constantly nervous and distracted, he always felt as if he were an actor rehearsing a play, one unable to remember his lines. He was always looking for someone offstage to whisper his lines to him and tell him how to continue on with life – someone to make the decisions for him, give him direction. He felt as if his real life hadn’t yet truly begun.

One time he gave a speech about the work his organization was doing and was so nervous he skipped an entire page of it. He didn’t think the audience even noticed. He remembered his armpits soaking during the speech, sweat running in rivulets down his arms and sides, sopping his starched white shirt, hoping it wouldn’t show. He wasn’t asked to speak again and was glad. No matter how much he believed in the cause, he was too nervous to do it any good. He had no confidence in front of people, and didn’t seem able to overcome it.

He also felt a certain hopelessness in his work. For every victory, there were a dozen defeats. The environmental movement would gain an inch here, and lose a foot somewhere else. He was losing his will to fight. He’d had enough. He dreamed of getting out, moving to the country, focusing on his life.

Then the cancer struck. Lots of people walked around with the stuff for years without even noticing it. But David did notice. He was so in tune with his body, the cancer was immediately known to him. His heart, his lungs, his kidneys, his intestines – they all told him what he didn’t want to know, but couldn’t ignore.

He’d had a friend in high school who had walked around for five years with a lump in one of his testicles. He had known it was there, but couldn’t face the reality that it was killing him. Eventually it did. How many times a day did his friend feel it? he wondered. He had probably groped in his pockets constantly to see if it was still there, as the tongue is compelled to probe the rotten tooth again and again. Like moths fly into a flame; the flame seduces them, then consumes them, as the cancer did his friend. David wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

David was an adamant vegetarian, and thought that cancer was a cruel joke to someone who cared about his body as much as he did. Still, it crept into him somehow. He was never able to pinpoint the exact cause, if there was only one. With the state of the environment, he figured it could have been almost anything – the air, the water, the food. Still, the way it hit him had always struck him as strange. Wham, he woke up one day and knew there was something very wrong with him.

He tried to avoid the Church clinic, not wanting to support them. But the wait at other facilities was so long, he finally gave into his mother’s pleas and went to her doctor. His mind reeled from the test results. It wasn’t even a cancer they could define in traditional terms – it was everywhere, all over his body, slowly eating up everything he was. That was the way his world ended; not with a bang, but with the splitting of a single renegade cell, effectively putting an expiration date on his birth certificate.

David quit work at once and commenced his search for a cure. He didn’t think he would find one, but didn’t think he could go on for long if he didn’t do everything he could to look for one. As unlikely as it seemed to David, his mother found the solution. His mother and her religion.

The holy trinity his mother worshipped, and that David couldn’t piece together just moments before, was God, medicine, and the soul. The Medical Church of America dabbled in – and sometimes plunged headfirst into – them all. With people like his mother backing them with their pensions, the Medical Church of America grew beyond not only the size of any other religion, but well beyond the scope of any organization the country had known before. They were officially nonprofit, and this status opened many doors that were otherwise shut to the capitalists of the time.

David learned a great deal about the Church just out of idle curiosity. His mother always had information around the house about the Church, and he read it, more to see what kinds of crazy things he could expect next from her than from any real interest. The division of the Church that was in the business of medicine wasn’t satisfied with the fix-er-up attitude of typical practices. It viewed them as chop shops posing behind the facade of medical science. They wanted more, and got it. They started preventive medical clinics all over the country, and encouraged, indeed demanded, that all their followers pursue a vegetarian diet. More, a vegan diet. No animal products of any kind were going to taint their followers’ health or their souls, or so the pamphlets read.

The Church had rewritten the beginning of Genesis, or at least reinterpreted it; progressive revelation they called it. They took the lines from Genesis literally: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat (Genesis 1:29).” They had plenty more to back it up. They pointed out to their followers that “Thou shalt not kill” didn’t come with any disclaimers about thy neighbour or his wife, let alone his ass or his ox. It didn’t matter to the Church that later Biblical instructions seemed to contradict God’s initial dietary command. In their minds, the first instruction stood. It was only after the Fall that man started eating meat, much to the chagrin of God. They pointed out to their followers that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian.

It turned out the strategy worked well for them. As the Earth grew poisoned with mankind’s excesses, the Church’s followers alone, it seemed, managed to avoid the plagues striking the nation. The chemicals that were spilling into the environment magnified in animals, especially in their flesh. People eating them magnified them further, and died in epidemic proportions. The Church even had a line from the Bible about this: “And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague (Numbers, 11:33).”

The Church was also ahead of the curve in another way. Once the Earth warmed, food for animals became scarce, both from crop-destroying droughts and from the explosion of the insect population. There wasn’t much left for people, let alone animals. There was even legislation on deck to restrict the sale of meat, but the market took over before it could be passed. Once its true costs were passed on to the consumer, meat simply became too expensive for people to buy.

David was glad he had been raised vegetarian, despite the nature of how it came to be that way. His mother never gave him any meat, and he had never asked for any. One time when he was young he had dinner at a friend’s house. A tiny chunk of flesh had found its way into his salad. His mouth had rebelled instantly at the unctuous, dead taste of it. He never wanted that taste in his mouth again.

The Church was also involved in reincarnation. They wanted their followers with them forever, and figured if they could find the technology to do it, it must be God’s will. To David it was a crock of shit, and he wasn’t shy about letting his mother know it. But she never really heard his complaints. She had been skeptical at first, too, until the religion had “taken to her” like a brain transplant.

His mother learned at one of her meetings about the Cryonics Laboratory the Church had started. Cryonics was in its infancy then, and cryobiologists were hard to find, let alone cryonicists. The former believed the body could be frozen in pieces; the latter that it could be frozen whole. David initially didn’t care for either party, but agreed to go with his mother to the Lab.

They wouldn’t be ready for any experiments for a year at least, they had told them. There were a lot of things to work out, none of which were easy for David and his mother to understand. Still, David remained interested enough to keep checking in with them every few months, taking interim treatments that would help him survive until they were ready.

It was a long year. David survived it. His mother didn’t. She had caught a cold after being baptized for the umpteenth time. It led to one of the superflus plaguing the country, and she succumbed to it.

At death’s door, she exhorted David to go to the Lab. She would get so worked up, she would practically fall out of her hospital bed. “Go, Davy. For me. You’ll see, the people from the Church will take care of you after I’m gone. Go, Davy, promise your dying mother that.” He did, and he went.

The Lab was finally ready for him. After seeing his body wither down to the bone for a year, he went without any hesitation – regardless of his reservations about the Church.

His memory of the suspension was a void – blank, null, zero, cipher. Although the years he slept matched his age almost to the day, he could have been vitrified for twenty-five seconds or twenty-five centuries and not known the difference. He remembered nothing of the time. He hadn’t aged a day.

Now, he had been revived. What now? he thought as the symphony broke out into the “Ode to Joy” choral finale.

Now I live.