The
First Reaper
by
Monica Corwin
The Soul Program:
Origins
Kindle Edition
© 2016 Monica Corwin
Kindle Edition License Notes
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Chapter One
Richard’s first instinct was to run as the giant of a man lumbered up the street, but the second he tried to move his legs he couldn’t. It was as if he had grown roots through the concrete sidewalk. His next course of action was to play it cool. When the hulking tattooed man stopped only a foot away Richard considered his last words. But he didn’t get to say anything as the giant beat him to it.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Stop going over guerilla tactics in your mind.”
Richard put away the mental grenades and looked the guy over. He was tall, imposing, everything about him warning him away, and yet his blue eyes reminded him of a child. An Innocence and a bright alert awareness of the world that adults lacked. Especially as the world teetered on the edge of the 22nd century.
“I’d like to speak to you a moment, if you have the time, Doctor.”
Richard thought about saying no but it had been some time since he’d asked him so nicely for something...ever.
He swallowed and glanced around the hulking beast before taking a deep breath and meeting the bright eyes of the stranger. “I was about to get some coffee. Would you like to join me?”
The man nodded and waved Richard ahead of him toward the door. As he lifted his feet the frozen moment from before began to fade. It must have been adrenaline, or fear, messing with his mind. Richard ordered a coffee from the counter. A plastic surface rubbed ragged from years of customer abuse. The man declined a drink. Once Richard clasped the hot mug of black coffee in his hands things became a little calmer in his mind. They sat in a back corner of the dingy shop with only a handful of people milling about. Most of whom stood behind the counter.
Richard decided to open. “What can I do for you, Mr…?”
“You can call me Cardinal. The question is: what can I do for you?”
Intriguing. “Ok, what can you do for me, Mr. Cardinal.”
The man chuckled and something about it seemed off, as if he’d never made such a noise before. “It’s simply Cardinal. And I want you to help me save humanity.”
At first, Richard thought about it. Surely he was making a joke. Yet the more he stared at Cardinal the more sober he became. “What exactly do you need me to do?”
Cardinal shook his head like he didn’t understand. “I just told you.”
Richard took a sip of the hot coffee allowing it to mark a hot course to his belly. “No, you gave me a vague description of something that would likely seem impossible.”
Cardinal continued to looked confused.
Richard decided he might need to elaborate. “I want you to tell me exactly what you expect me to do to help you save humanity. I need step-by-step directions or an infographic. I’m always willing to help but I can’t help unless you tell me what you need from me.”
At first, Cardinal nodded but said nothing. The silence stretched between and Richard almost squirmed in his seat before Cardinal spoke again. “The first thing I need you to do is find someone whose life is forfeit.”
“Okay, that’s a start. Do you mean you need a dead person?”
“You know, Doctor, for someone who is supposedly one of the smartest people alive you are pretty thick. You need to find someone who’s living.”
“And then what?”
“Once you find someone. I’ll tell you the rest.”
“But what am I supposed to tell this person? 'I need you to volunteer for some secret mission that may or may not save humanity.'”
Cardinal didn’t answer because he sat looking off at a man who took up another corner of the café. The man didn’t notice his regard. And for a moment Richard questioned what he was getting into.
“Doctor, you needn’t worry. I am not insane. I am not leading you down some metaphorical rabbit hole. If you do as I ask I will give you the cure for your cancer.”
Richard wondered what he could possibly have that could break the cure. He coughed into his hand and straightened casting his eyes around for anyone who might have noticed. He caught the pity evident in Cardinal’s eyes and he didn’t appreciate it. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Cardinal turned his head in what Richard assumed was a study of him. “As you wish.”
Richard had already put years into finding a cure. The cancer had long ago gone passed problematic straight to aggressive. Every new case discovered resulted in a death weeks later. Richard would volunteer himself to Cardinal if it would help him find a cure.
* * * *
“You are asking me for my soul, sir.”
Richard peered through the iron bars at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She lay across her narrow metal cot with one arm supporting her head and the other slung across her tiny waist. And he’d only just read how she murdered two men. If the reports were true she did it in defense of someone else but the alleged victim never came forward and the men’s families made sure someone paid. He decided he had to be honest with her. Even if it came at the loss of the project.
“Yes, and I have no guarantees if it will work or if your soul can even be recovered.”
She uncoiled from the bed and shot to the bars at a speed that marveled him. Her brown hair caught the light spinning it in a riot of gold and brown. For a moment he grew hypnotized and then her voice dragged him back.
“You’re really selling this to me, Doc.”
He blinked and looked down into her brown eyes. A hardness glinted there, and a cold detachment. For a second he thought about backing away. The crime scene photos alone gave him cause to fear what she could do with her hands. Even between the bars she looked small and frail, but a lifetime’s worth of fight training made her one of the most proficient warriors in the world. And that was how they sealed her fate. Any fight she entered into would immediately be deemed as use of deadly force.
“Come closer, Mr. Alumnent and I will name my terms,” she whispered.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward, bending down so his 6’2 frame fit to her 5’4’s.
Before he could draw another breath her hand snaked through the bars and gripped his shirt. She dragged him in so his face pressed against the cool metal.
“I will submit to being your science project on one condition.”
“Yes.” He allowed himself a moment of pride for the steady response.
“I will not die a virgin. You will find a suitable man to take my virginity and then I will consent to your prodding and science.”
He blinked before trying to wrap his mind around her demand. The thought his entire project depended on her virginity seemed surreal. And only cemented his resolve for the necessity of the project. If humanity was so lost that a person would prize sex over saving millions maybe Cardinal was right. He voiced that opinion and Ruby caught the name before he could take it back.
“Who is Cardinal? Someone you have in mind?”
Richard cleared his throat and dislodged her fingers so he could step away. “He is no one you need concern yourself with.”
And the absurdity of he
r trying to entice Cardinal surprised him. The man was the least sexual being he’d encountered, and in his studies Richard maintained contacts with all sorts.
If her one demand was sex then he would find someone to do it. He focused on keeping his tone even and moderate before speaking. “Do you have a preference for your companion’s age or physical characteristics?”
She hung her wrists over the bars like wet rags on a sink’s edge. “I don’t have much of a preference. Someone close to my age is all I care about. Taller than me and not too chubby.”
Richard filtered the requirements through his mind and nodded still trying to maintain a level head. He didn’t need to worry about her demands he only needed to make it happen. “Fine. I'll do it.”
He stalked from the prison and back to his lab. Maybe one of his lab assistances knew where he might hire a prostitute for a conjugal visit on death row.
Once he asked around he realized hiring a prostitute was surprisingly easy. Hiring a prostitute to visit a death row inmate was a different story. Especially a death row inmate as infamous as Ruby Bell. He even went down to the Red Light to see if he could pay someone to do the deed, but he'd been denied over and over. Even by men who looked to be in precarious financial situations.
He resigned himself after the tenth door slammed in his face. If no one else would do it he needed to find another way. Maybe Ruby’s planned this. If she knew her situation well enough to know that no man would touch her it didn’t matter if she agreed to his plan or not. This might be her sick version of a game.
For a moment he considered looking for another inmate that might agree. But something about her eyes made him want to help her. Even if that help was finding her a good lay before she died. He recalled the embarrassing night he lost his own virginity and shook it out of his mind just as fast. The one and only time he’d had sex was nothing he wanted to remember. The growing darkness meant his staff had already begun to stagger home. Soon he’d be alone in his lab and in his element. The silence comforted him in the same way the buzz of so many people caused him discomfort. He’d have loved a lab to himself but that wasn’t possible in a grant location. The other researchers needed their own spaces too.
He caressed his microscope before peering at the sample under the lens, but his mind strayed back to Ruby Bell. He sat down on a metal stool nearby to collect himself and it only took a moment of complete silence for an idea hit him in the face with the subtlety of a brick.
Chapter Two
Ruby watched the doctor leave before she sat back down on the lumpy cot they somehow called a bed. As much as she’d love to play the noble hero the events leading to her execution showed her the impossibility. Even as Dr. Alumnent described his vague plan for saving humanity’s soul all she could see was a new way to be trapped. A new way to be taken advantage of.
In asking to lose her virginity Ruby ensured his choice of another candidate. No one in a 500-mile radius would be willing to submit to her request. Dr. Alumnent wouldn’t even be able to find someone to pay.
After protecting that innocent stranger the entire world turned against her. Those first few days she’d been shot at, spit on, and almost stabbed in her own bed. Whether he was an over zealous fan of her alleged victims or a paid assassin she’d never know. They would need to dig his bones out of her back yard to find out. This ordeal taught her one lesson after another. Too bad she’d never get to put the teachings into practice.
She swung her legs up and laid down. As she shut her eyes Dr. Alumnent’s face floated in her mind. Those deep innocent brown eyes and that hair she itched to at least attempt to restrain. He was a beautiful man and a fitting final face before she died by lethal gas in two days.
She wondered if it would be painful. She wondered if anyone would remember her. There was rarely anyone else in her life, no family, no friends, no boyfriend. She devoted herself to helping others a long time ago. It would seem that life choice had come back to bite her in the ass.
When she started the soup kitchen she called home her intent was to change lives. Now she only hoped that legacy will live on in Steven who took over the job. He’d have to work hard but she was confident he could do it. Maybe he would remember her fondly so her name wasn’t lost to nothing.
The sound of water leaking in the corridor relaxed her. She held onto that sound, that constant, and for the first time in her life she prayed. The mechanics of it had always been straightforward but the practice of it seems silly. She didn’t ask whomever could be listening to spare her life, instead she asked for the grace to not break down in the end.
Again Richard’s face appeared in her mind and she wondered if he was the real deal. She should’ve warned him about helping people before he left.
Chapter Three
Richard fiddled with his shirt collar for the tenth time. Waiting had never been his strong suit. Any minute now she’d arrive and he would have to fulfill her terms. It was never the plan for him to be so involved in all this. When he went to Cardinal for help on the finding someone the man simple laughed and walked away. He never imagined he’d have to do everything himself. The woman was beautiful but she scared the shit out of him and he had never been a man of physical indulgences.
A soft knock came and he looked around the room while he tried to flatten the constant mess that was his short brown hair. Simulation candles were lit, soft music played in the background, and he was as ready as he would ever be. He opened the door and looked down into the face of a killer.
She brushed past him into the apartment and the police officers stood waiting. They handed him a tablet and he signed away his own life should she escape. Afterward they left without a backward glance. When he turned around she sat on the edge of his bed, bouncing.
“This is so much better than mine.”
He nodded, “I can imagine.”
He gestured to his desk where the contract sat. The contract stated she would turn her life over into his hands for the sake of medical and theological research. That is if he ensured the removal of her virginity by a suitable candidate. He signed the bottom and pressed his thumb against the smart pad searing the mark into it. She followed suit and then removed her jacket tossing it half-hazard across a chair.
“What are you doing?” he asked, growing alarmed.
“Well, since you made me sign that I assume you found someone.”
He swallowed and glanced out the window. Lights flickered on the apartment windows across the street, climbing all the way to the roof. And a steady snow had begun to fall hours ago.
***
Ruby stared at the sparce apartment and the doctor’s attempt at a romantic setting. She wondered who in the world would have agreed to these terms. Maybe he found someone out of town, someone off the grid, someone who had no idea who she was or what she’d done.
Richard closed the door and she watched as he swiped his hair out of his face while refusing to meet her eyes. The realization struck her like a punch to the gut and she voiced her protest before he’d even spoken a word. “No.”
He froze and eyed her where she stood with her hands on her hips. “No,” she said again, this time with more force.
“What?” he asked, a blush beginning to spread up his neck into his ears.
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
Richard pursed his lips and dragged the bottom one into his teeth before speaking. “You made no stipulations on who would perform the job and I made sure to ask. I looked around but could find no one else. I need to complete the project so it looks like you are going to have to settle for me.”
Ruby eyed him from the tips of his worn leather shoes to the crooked tie at his neck. He wasn’t terrible looking, but far from the type she usually preferred. And he had the balls to do it himself when no one else would. She wouldn’t force him to have sex with her for the sake of his project. She turned away to catch sight of a twinkle in a corner. As she approached he grabbed her arm gently, “please, don’t.”
“What is it?”
He swallowed, and a whole different kind of fear bloomed behind his eyes. She stepped forward again and he let her go with a sigh of resignation.
Behind a sheer curtain stood a pine tree decorated with lights and bits of silver and twine. It was the most beautiful thing she’d seen in a long time. Next to the good doctor of course.
“What is it?” she asked as she reached out to touch a bough jutting from the side of the tree.
“It’s a Christmas tree.”
“I’ve heard of them but I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen one.”
Richard blushed a deeper shade of pink, as impossible as that seemed. His face had a permanent glow in the lights twinkling from the tree.
He cleared his throat. “I think we should get back to the issue at hand.”
“You mean the issue of you sleeping with me so I’ll take part in your creepy project?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She pursed her lips. Just because he didn’t have the balls to call it like it was didn’t mean she wouldn’t.
There was nothing left for her to live for. One way or another she would die. If they didn’t execute her then she would be killed in a jail fight. A hit paid for by her “victims’” family. She didn’t doubt that. A thought struck her. “You told me you can give me more than one life.”
Richard bit his bottom lip again and finally met her eyes. “Not exactly.”
“I want to know the exact details of this project. I want to know exactly what I am submitting myself to by volunteering for this.”
“To be honest, some of the details are a mystery even from me. Those will be performed by a..” He paused, a question in his eyes. “Colleague. Apparently there are certain things humans aren’t meant to meddle with.”
“Humans?”
“Well, regular people.”
“You said humans.”
“I did but that’s not what I mean.”
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