The Unincorporated Man (5 page)

“It’s not about money, sir. They’re worried about liability.”

“Liability? For what? The damn thing’s been sealed for over three hundred years. It was made to withstand a cave-in from a mountain made of solid rock.”
In fact, it did,
he mused. “I’m sure it can be safely loaded by a few grunts. It’s not as if it’s going to just pop open and say boo!”

“Well, actually, sir…”

The blood left Hektor’s face. He stubbed out the thousand-credit cigar less than two minutes into what should have been an hour of joy.

“Don’t move or touch a thing. I’m on my way.”

Hektor shoved his way into Mosh’s office.

“Funny, your profile said nothing about suicide.” Every ounce of sarcasm he could muster was furled into the sentence.

The crowd around Mosh’s desk backed away and gave Hektor his space.

“Please excuse us,” the director said to the minions bustling about the room. With the last of them gone, Hektor sat down in front of Mosh’s desk and crossed his legs.

“Please tell me you haven’t initiated the revive process.”

“In fact, we have.”

“Then I suppose you realize,” Hektor said, “that you’ve condemned us both.”

“I can’t say your feared demise will cause me any great sorrow,” Mosh replied, “but
I
intend to be here for some time.”

“That would be a neat trick,” sneered Hektor. “However, while I may not have the power to bring you down personally, there are those whose profits and reputations you’ve just cut into who will in fact take this badly. And if I’m not mining rocks on comets in the Oort Cloud, I’ll take great joy in watching that day arrive.”

“So dramatic, Hektor, really. In fact, if you’d bothered to check, you would’ve seen that your one criteria for immediate revive—namely a ridiculous amount of money—had been met.”

“You’re not that stupid, Director.”

“On this we can both agree.” Mosh leaned back in his seat, putting his arms behind his head. “The money was paid into the hospital’s account by an anonymous sponsor.”

“Anonymous, my ass,” scoffed Hektor. “That’s impossible. No one could have paid that much money in that short a period of time… unless it was you, and like I said…”

“. . . I’m ‘not that stupid,’ ” Mosh continued. “Feel free to check my accounts; I’m sure everyone else will.”

“Oh, you can bet your majority on that, Director.”

“And by the way,” Mosh continued. “Someone, and I’m not naming names,” he said, looking directly at Hektor, “made it much easier to pay by making the invoice official in the hospital’s database.”

“It was an invoice for ten million credits!” Hektor shouted. “No one has that kind of money. At least no one who’d want to revive a three-hundred-year-old corpse they had no stock in.”

“Exorbitant yes, but certainly legal. There for all to access and, apparently, pay.”

Hektor tried to gather his wits about him.

“Even if you didn’t pay, why did I have to go down to the transport and find an empty suspension unit and twenty highly paid movers scratching their collective asses unless you had something to hide? You and I both know what’s at stake here, and by doing this behind my back, you make yourself look culpable. The least you should have done was call me.” Hektor now put his hands on his head and his elbows on his knees. “I figured you for smarter,” he said, resigned.

Mosh looked at the man in front of him, considering his words carefully.

“Look, I don’t know if this is going to help, but I’m going to hope you pay attention. I did what I did for two reasons, Mr. Sambianco. First, once payment had been secured this man had a right to be woken up as soon as was medically possible. And that meant immediately. I, for one, was not prepared to keep him suspended beyond that point just so you or anyone else could make some additional profit. He’s entitled to make his own profit, Mr. Sambianco, or our whole system is worthless. And second…” Mosh paused, waiting for Hektor to look up, making sure he had his full attention.

“I don’t like you, Mr. Sambianco.”

Hektor looked stunned. Such direct honesty was certainly not the norm, and certainly never directed at him personally.

“Still,” continued Mosh, “I don’t want to be accused of letting my personal feelings interfere with legitimate company business, so I feel compelled to tell you that there is
one way
I’m aware of that will delay this revive.”

Hektor’s ears perked up.
Perhaps he’s not willing to commit suicide after all
.

“Now a party of standing, a relative or spouse, could contest this revive in court and, I’ll even give it to you, could probably stop me from proceeding. However, there doesn’t appear to be any party of standing. But,” continued Mosh with a sly smile, “I’m nothing if not thorough.” He spoke loud enough for all in the hallway to hear. “Anybody here a party of standing, a relative or spouse? Speak up. Anyone?”

Silence.

“Hmm. How fortunate for our mysterious friend.”

Hektor slumped back down in his chair.

“Fine,” Hektor replied. “Go ahead, Director. Do it. But if you really had your patient’s best interest in mind you wouldn’t be using a novice to do the revive. Let me at least call in some real pros.”

“First of all, Hektor, Dr. Wang is not a novice.”

“I’m not talking about Wang, I’m talking about Harper.”

“Right, Neela. Funny thing about Neela. I’d sooner trust her than someone with ten times the experience who I’m confident would screw my patient on a credit at the behest of you and your organization. You see, Hektor, I think she does have the patient’s best interest in mind. I don’t believe
your
‘experts’ would.”

With that Mosh got up, gathered his belongings, and headed for the door. He looked back and saw Hektor still slumped in his seat with his head in his hands.

“You coming?”

“To what?” Hektor retorted.

“The rebirth of our new friend—the Unincorporated Man.”

2 Wake-up Call

We had the perfect case. Isolated, with three hundred years of experience to draw on. A procedure that had been performed literally millions of times was going to be done once in close to ideal conditions. We were going to make history with the perfect revive, in both body and mind, of a three-hundred-year-old man. It would be a textbook case, and I was to be its author. So of course we screwed it up.

—
A LIFE RENEWED: THE BIOGRAPHY OF DR. NEELA HARPER

I
t started out as an awareness. Nothing was associated with the awareness. No shapes or colors or feelings were part of this awareness. None of the five senses were present. Just an awareness, and with it a feeling of the most complete satisfaction that could be imagined. Slowly a sense of self began to evolve.

I am a “he,”
thought the
he.

With this revelation came new sensations. Time had no anchor whatsoever, so what seemed to take a moment may have been considerably longer. But it didn’t really matter. Because the
he
was beginning to remember what the sensations were and to put them in proper context. The art of separating feeling from hearing from vision was a skill taken for granted that the
he
had to relearn. But the
he
was not impatient. Somehow, although the
he
did not know his name, his location, or his past, the
he
did know to the core of his newly reawakened being that the
he
had all the time in the world. He did somehow remember that time had been the
he
’s enemy. Time had been something always closing in, biting off large chunks of the
he
—making the
he
afraid. But the
he
was no longer afraid. Justin…

My name is JUSTIN,
the
he
realized.

Now he had all the time in the world.

JUSTIN is in a bed,
JUSTIN thought. JUSTIN still had no concept of where JUSTIN was or how JUSTIN had gotten there. JUSTIN’s memory was nothing beyond the primal sense of self that one has when awoken from a long and confusing dream.

Not a dream—a nightmare.

The bed felt very comfortable. The mattress made JUSTIN feel like he was floating on waves of tiny bubbles, and the linen was of a perfect warmth that made JUSTIN want to roll over and go back to bed. But JUSTIN resisted that urge—not out of any sense of apprehension or need, but out of the knowledge that JUSTIN had slept long enough.

He smelled a pot of coffee. It was just brewing up fresh and was going to be ready soon. He knew that for a fact but didn’t remember hearing any of the associated sounds—the steady stream of liquid hitting liquid, the hiss and gurgle at the culmination. Justin was not yet aware of how odd that was. He was paying attention to what he did hear. A soft hum in the background was accompanied by the sound of the crisp pages of a book being turned. Next he became aware of the light and knew it was light, and that the light was coming from the outside.

His eyes fluttered open.

The light was a perfect ambient illumination that did not hurt his eyes in the least. There was no one place the light was coming from.

How odd,
thought Justin. At that moment he could not have described to anyone what a lightbulb or lamp was, but a part of his mind was aware that light simply did not come from nowhere.

His eyes were sweeping the surroundings, absorbing all that he saw. But he did not see any one thing at first so much as he saw the entire room. It was simple, with a door at the far end and a coffee table and two chairs beyond the bed he lay in. There was a painting on the wall. He lingered on it. It was a beautiful rendition of an ocean as viewed from a forest on a cliff. He could not explain how all those concepts could have been conveyed by a simple painting, but he wanted it for his collection.

I collect art,
he remembered. His mind became flooded with images of sculptures and paintings and shapes and experiences and hours. Hours spent admiring his collection and the personal sense of happiness that he owned such beauty.

Then he heard the pages turn again.

His eyes wandered gently toward the sound. There, sitting cross-legged a few feet from his bed, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in the world. She was reading a book. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

She is beautiful,
he thought,
but the most beautiful?
He began to doubt.
She’s so beautiful because you were never meant to see
anyone
ever again—much less a woman
.

Justin began to shift his body subtly. He could feel his heart pounding. He felt warm.
Fear. This must be fear,
he reasoned. And not that he could prove it, but somehow the bed seemed to have responded to the fluctuation in his temperature. It was a few degrees cooler now.

“
I’m sorry, Mr. Cord.
” A voice from the past. “
There’s nothing we can do.
”

“How long?”
Justin echoed in response.

“Two months at the most. You’ll want to make arrangements.”

“Yes, of course, Doctor. You needn’t worry. All necessary arrangements have already been made.”

Justin was now no longer afraid. In fact, quite the opposite. Triumph seemed to pulse through his veins as he began to experience a sense of elation far beyond anything he had ever imagined. He remembered everything. But what stood head and shoulders above the cascade of sounds and imagery now refilling his mind was one very salient and inimitable fact—he had won. His death had been revoked.

Son of a bitch
. He grinned.
It worked.

Neela realized she was nervous. This was not the first time this had happened. Her oldest revive had been a five-year case that she got only because the specialist on call had gotten into a traffic accident, and the procedure had already started. Her career to date was made up of reanimating bodies in suspension measured in months, never years. And now she was the sole revivalist on record for a man with well over three hundred of them. For all she knew, this person was alive when the Beatles were touring. He may even have visited the World Trade Center or seen Mecca before those world-altering disasters. She had a million questions.

For the first time in her short career she took a body-suppression drug, at one time recommended but now almost never used by those in her profession. The thinking went that the last thing you wanted to happen during a revive was to shock the patient with a loud sneeze or, worse, a disagreeable odor. In theory it was correct, but in fact most of the revives Neela oversaw got up as if they’d taken a long nap. The only thing that would frighten these people was a serious drop in their portfolios or a losing season of a favorite team. Hardly seemed worth the side effects of the drug against an almost nonexistent risk. But this was different. Not only in this case could the initial theory be correct, but certainly this day was going to be written about, commented on, and listened to for the rest of her considerable life and beyond. And this record was not going to have her hiccupping, sneezing, or, perhaps, doing something decidedly worse for all eternity.

It took all of her control not to stare at him. He had soft, wavy brown hair, a few wisdom lines across his well-exposed forehead that curved into gentle arcs, and a well-proportioned face finished elegantly with a strong masculine jawline. She estimated him to be well over six feet tall. She wasn’t sure if her fascination was based on the very novelty of who he was and what he represented or the fact that he was, even from her admittedly feigned objective viewpoint, quite handsome. The former theory would have to suffice, since the idea of any sort of attraction was anathema not only to Neela but also to present-day society. When a patient first awoke they were considered vulnerable. It was as simple as that. Any thoughts of physical attraction were to be quickly dispelled, and then followed ideally by a healthy dose of shame. It hadn’t always been that way. However, as a result of earlier abuses—sexual and otherwise—by a few miscreants in the fledgling cryonics movement, a meme had been put in place that rather effectively tarred an abuser of a suspendee on the same level as that of a sexual deviant. As far as memes went it was excessive but rather efficient in giving safe harbor to those returning from their long, sleepy journeys. And so, well before Neela’s life cycle began, the only acceptable relationship between a patient and a reanimationist was professional—no exceptions whatsoever.

As she looked over at her patient she wanted to pummel him with questions and be shocked and amazed by the answers. But it was vital that she be nothing but a neutral presence until he chose to notice her. Had this been one of her run-of-the-mill revives she wouldn’t have worried a bit. The patient would have received a full briefing well in advance on how to handle being suspended and revived. And even had it been an emergency suspension there would have been nothing to fear. Suspension had become so standardized a procedure that most were aware of what to expect—barring any unforeseen circumstances, of course. In fact, her generation was so comfortable with the concept of revival that immediate interaction had become more the norm than the exception.

But for this revive Neela had done her homework. Since she hadn’t expected Hektor to waltz in and almost waltz away with her patient, she had begun her research immediately. So when she did get the call from Mosh, she was ready. She’d sorted through her old college notes, as well as the university archives, looking for the information she’d need, paramount of which was Ettinger’s seminal work developed over three centuries earlier to deal with patients for whom revival was a shock. After reading and reviewing hundreds of pages, one theme seemed to emerge: Patients had to reintegrate at their own pace. Too much proaction on the part of the revivalist risked setting into motion all manner of psychotic trauma—too little and the patient might have permanent abandonment trauma. The mind reborn was as vulnerable and helpless as that of a newborn child. And until it had a chance to acclimate to its new reality, great care would have to be taken. On this, all the founding experts had agreed, and so, too, did the experts of her day. But until this find, now
her
find, it had all been theoretical.

So she waited and read her “book,” whose exterior was quite authentic, down to the creaking sound a bound volume would make. It was the interior that was different—a cleverly concealed, encased holodisplay. Neela’s support team in the wings was also simultaneously viewing on their linked displays the various readouts emitting from the book. The players included the room specialists who were not privy to the actual goings-on, a standby resuscitation team, and, of course, Mosh and his associated staff. Of all the players only Mosh, Dr. Wang, Neela, and Hektor knew the subject’s recent history. The information on the display gave the patient’s vitals, eye movements, and, to some extent, thoughts. Neela could tell by the brain scan what emotions the patient was feeling and to what extent they were being felt. The display also contained her vitals. For any number of reasons, her stats were just as important as his. This reawakening would be a delicate dance between two strangers from two worlds, and any major fluctuations in either of them could lead to a disaster.

Though Justin’s feelings were now running amok, he was making a conscious effort to suppress them. Every fiber in his body yearned to grab the woman he saw, give her a great big hug, and scream with joy at the top of his lungs. He had a million questions, but by virtue of personal experience and business savvy, he had learned that self-answered questions always added leverage. And he didn’t yet know what type of leverage he was going to need.

Time for answers.

Justin again scanned the room, but this time more methodically. He was looking for anything that would give him an inkling about the type of world he’d willed himself into.

The readings Neela was getting were positive. Very positive. The patient’s endorphin response was through the roof, as expected. All areas of the brain associated with contentment were hot, and his heartbeat was rapid, also as expected. This was indeed a happy man. She noticed, too, that her joy levels were up as well—not an uncommon reaction. After all, the best revivalists were naturally sympathetic, and to some extent even empathetic, having been suspended themselves as part of their training.

Then something strange happened.

What the…?
Neela kept her face and reactions perfectly normal, but her brain was working overtime trying to figure out the anomaly.

The patient’s readings had leveled out almost as if someone had turned off her display.
Too fast,
she thought. Her eyes glanced subtly to the through-view wall, wondering if her staff was experiencing the malfunction as well.

For a moment she thought that perhaps the software had failed her. But then she glanced at her own readings. Normal. Which is to say, exactly as would be expected for an individual feeling concern. No, it wasn’t the software; it must be the man himself, and according to the holodisplay the patient’s state was categorized as “calm and alert.”
But how?
In all her years of study, encompassing hundreds of patients, she’d never seen anyone control an emotional response with such brutal efficiency.
Who is this guy?

Justin was now keenly aware of his surroundings. He started with the bed.
Whatever it is I’m resting on is somehow aware of my physiological condition and is able to respond. Fascinating.
He shifted his body only to feel the bed conform to his movement and help him into the most comfortable position.
OK,
he thought,
the technology clearly kicks ass
.
Of course it kicks ass, you idiot,
he realized a moment later,
you’re alive.
And even that important fact spoke volumes about the society he’d awakened to. But he’d hopefully have time for that.
Gather physical facts now,
he chided himself,
evaluate later
.