Afterlife

by Merrie Destefano

  Today was that day.

  I got out of the car, two bodyguards piled out behind me. Three others led the way. We pushed through angry cattle-like crowds, all poised and ready to stampede. Fortunately Fresh Start had sent a citywide Verse-warning a few hours ago, just in case anybody decided to pull another gauntlet. If there was a disturbance today, all transgressors would lose their ticket into the next life.

  Just then, a herd of reporters tried to shoulder their way through the mob, media bands around their foreheads recording everything they saw and heard, as if that somehow justified their presence here.

  “How does it feel to be responsible for the worst tragedy in the past decade?”

  “Can you explain why your niece survived, when sixteen other children were brutally murdered?”

  “How do you sleep at night, Mr. Domingue?”

  I pushed my way past the reporters, wondered why the sun was shining, why ragged clumps of wildflowers dared to grow between weathered crosses and skewed headstones, why life still smells sweet in the midst of decay.

  Catcalls circled in my wake and some blockhead threw a handful of rocks. One of the guards surged forward, grabbed the culprit, wrestled him to the ground, started to perform an on-the-spot, down-and-dirty extraction of the man’s Fresh Start chip.

  “Let him go,” I mumbled.

  The sky hung, a brilliant blue, above the crumbling brick wall that skirted the cemetery perimeter, all of it guarded by a quiet sentinel, a gothic stone church.

  Black clouds should have been assaulting the ground, tornadoes ripping through the firmament, dirt and dust searing our skin. The heavens should have been shouting a vehement protest. Bolts of lightning should have shot down like shards of celestial glass, striking every one of us through the chest and putting an end to this charade we called life.

  Instead, every nation, tribe and tongue was converging on a tiny ninteenth-century cemetery just outside Metairie, Louisiana. Modern technology was colliding with ancient ritual. Off to the side, a crew of VR event coordinators frantically pressed buttons on a massive audio/visual board, alternately waving their hands and directing the proceedings like orchestra conductors.

  And then a familiar face appeared in front of me—my mother. I hadn’t seen her since her transmission shorted out last night. When the liquid light rolled into our lives.

  “Hi, sweetheart. You doin’ okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. The crowd shambled around us, fists clenched, eyes swollen.

  “I tried to get in to see you.” She coughed, then paused for a moment. She looked tired. “But my VR suit’s been on the blink.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She grinned. We both knew she wasn’t okay, and that she was never going to admit it. “How’s Isabelle?”

  “She’s fine, Mom. I left her back at the hotel with Pete.”

  “Yeah. She’s too young for this,” she said. Then she coughed again. “All those kids were too young for this.”

  “Time for you to get into position,” one of the ant-like VR coordinators interrupted. He pushed a remote-control button on his sleeve and she started to dissolve.

  She disappeared, and at the same instant the ancient landscape around me began to magically transform as VR wizards practiced their dark technological sorcery. Row upon row of shimmering virtual patrons began to pop up in pre-paid positions—Mom was probably crammed in there somewhere, but I couldn’t tell which one was her. Meanwhile, the brick wall that surrounded the cemetery morphed, blurred and then refocused, until it finally resembled the staggered seating in the Roman Colosseum. Within a few minutes the guests were stacked in six rows, one on top of another.

  Spectators were coming from all around the world to see the funeral of the century.

  Just then a crowd of bodyguards drifted past. And at their center, Russ and Marguerite.

  I had a feeling none of them saw me, or if they did, they were ignoring me. Either way, it helped me decide which way to go. My guards joined theirs and we followed a few steps behind, close enough for me to listen in on their conversation.

  “This is awful,” my sister-in-law, Marguerite, whimpered as she held a handkerchief to her eyes. I wondered if she was crying or trying to hide from the press. Despite the heat, she wore a long-sleeved black dress. “I just hate this morbid fascination with death.”

  “Death is part of life,” Russ mumbled as he shepherded her forward, threading their way through the throng of nearly five hundred people; a variegated hodgepodge of reporters, bodyguards, mugs and VR technicians mixed in with immediate family members and friends of the deceased children.

  “Not anymore. Funerals are just outdated, superficial ceremonies—”

  He grabbed her by the arm and she almost crumpled from the pain.

  “Show some respect,” he hissed as he pulled her closer. “They were children and they died in our house.”

  “Take your hand off my arm.” Her voice was fading as they moved away. “I’m sick of this marriage and I’m really sick of you—”

  Just then Lieutenant Skellar muscled his way through our private army until he stood between Russ and me. I gave Skellar a toothy grin, raised my left hand and waved, sporting newly grafted skin and a fresh tattoo on my palm. He pretended like I was invisible. Just the reaction I was hoping for.

  Instead he focused on Marguerite, like a shark considering a between-meal snack.

  “Trouble in paradise?” he asked. I had a feeling this guy planned on becoming our new best friend.

  Russ swiveled around, noticed me for the first time. His eyes narrowed when they focused on Skellar. “This is the wrong time and the wrong place, Lieutenant.”

  “Just wanted to give the ‘Mrs.’ my card.” The mug slipped a thin piece of plastic into Marguerite’s hand. “That’s got my contact info on it, Mrs. Domingue. Call me if you remember anything else about the other night.”

  She palmed the card silently.

  “Where’s your Newbie?” Skellar turned a laser-beam glare on me, then scanned the surrounding crowd. “Thought you two couldn’t be parted without destroyin’ the universe.”

  “We opted for a trial separation.”

  “Sounds like something your brother and his wife might want to consider.”

  “Shut up, Skellar,” Russ growled. “You’re out of your element here.”

  “I’m never out of my element,” Skellar replied. But I noticed a tremor in his hands, just before he stuffed them back in his pockets.

  “I heard that the latest shipment of jive-sweet was cut with strychnine,” I said. “Saw a VR report that said some of your good old boys are in the hospital, hooked up to artificial respirators. Maybe that’s why you’re cranky today.” I started humming a popular jive-sweet tune.

  “You’re goin’ down, Domingue. You and your whole family.”

  “In your dreams, Skellar.”

  He sauntered away, stage left, through a sea of anonymous faces, most of them watching Russ and me.

  “Where’s Isabelle?” Russ asked.

  Good to see you too. How’d your interrogation turn out? Anything you want to tell me, like what the hell is going on? “She’s back at my place. With Angelique.”

  “You left my daughter with a Newbie? Are you crazy—”

  “Guess you forgot. That Newbie saved your daughter’s life.” I could see his freak level had just about reached its limit, so I gave him a break. “Don’t worry, Pete’s there. And a team of guards. Hey, did you see Mom? She’s here somewhere.”

  He glanced up at the surrounding VR stadium seating, then back at me. “I need to talk to you after this is over.”

  “I think we both have some stuff to discuss.” I was thinking about that Newbie who downloaded on his front lawn. Her cryptic message about some dog and a girl named Ellen.

  A thought burned behind guarded eyes. He lowered his voice. “I tried to get hold of Aditya Khan this morning, but couldn’t get through. India’s gone brown.”


  The Nine-Timer scenario. My pulse ratcheted up a notch. “What about Saudi Arabia?”

  “Not yet. But they’ve got a number of Five-and Six-Timer hot pockets.”

  “This ain’t good. Especially right now—”

  Just then the crowd parted like the Red Sea. A stream of pallbearers marched past, carrying tiny caskets. A river of sixteen miniature coffins, close enough to touch. All sound vanished. No one spoke or moved. Then somewhere in the distance, one bird started to sing, a surreal off-key melody, discordant and unsettling. My fingers turned numb and I realized that I had been holding my breath. There was something unholy and unnatural about all of this, like watching the world being turned upside down.

  I wished God or one of his angels would step forward and ask if we wanted any do-overs. How about you, Chaz? Would you like to relive the past three days? Absolutely, I’d answer. But this time, I’d stop those bloodsucking monsters, I’d eat that liquid light before I’d let it get inside Isabelle’s room…

  A ball of light rolls across the floor like a toy, then ignites and blasts, a heat so intense that it fries the kids from the inside out. Boils their blood, melts their brains, sizzles their skin.

  One coffin was barely the length of my arm.

  For a long moment the sky blotted out and turned dark. All I could see were cinder-black bodies, sixteen scars on the bedroom floor.

  Sixteen children. Gone forever. Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of the world, the epileptic convulsions of the Nine-Timer scenario were beginning.

  The end of everything was about to begin.

  PART V

  “An anonymous Fresh Start scientist

  claims to have documented proof

  that the DNA breaks down in Eighth and

  Ninth Generation clones, a defect that causes sterility.

  If true, this adds a new twist to the apocalyptic

  Nine-Timer scenario. Not only would there

  be an astronomical and unprecedented

  worldwide death rate when

  large groups of Nine-Timers die

  within a short time period—but there

  would also be no children to take their place.”

  —Robert Quinlan, reporter for the Washington Post

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Russell:

  The funeral service began in all its horrible glory, black-cloaked man of God spouting empty words of comfort, a low-toned unintelligible drone. I wondered where he got his information. He safely skirted mention of any holy books, from the Bible to the Koran to the Bhagavad-Gita.

  Then they lowered the much-too-small-to-be-real caskets into the ground. It started when the dirt was tossed in, earthen clumps that thudded, dark and dismal. A moan, heart-wrenching and pitiful, began to circle overhead like a flock of carrion birds. One of the mothers collapsed to her knees, her face buried in her hands. Then beside her, another woman began to cry, chest heaving, sobbing without pause. In a few moments it spread like a California brush fire, started in the valley where the parents stood and then swept up the mountainside, where the VR audience hovered above us. It felt like the whole world burned with sorrow.

  We were being consumed by death. It was something we had ignored too long, and now, like a fire-breathing dragon, it raised its ugly head in our midst; it dared us to pretend we were anything more than mortal.

  The fire burned and we couldn’t put it out.

  We were leaving. Numb. Broken.

  I felt like someone had dragged me through a minefield of broken glass. Raw and bleeding, with a hundred invisible slivers that continued to cut.

  Someone grabbed my sleeve. I ignored it at first, but they wouldn’t let go.

  “Please.” A woman’s voice.

  I looked behind me and saw Mrs. Norris. I couldn’t remember her first name. All I could see was a little girl’s face superimposed on top of hers. Madeline Norris, eight years old. Dead.

  “Please, can’t you make an exception? Just this one time—” Her voice came out a ragged whisper as she pulled me closer. “Bring her back, bring my Madeline back. She was eight. That’s old enough, isn’t it? Resurrection would work on her, wouldn’t it? Have you ever tried—”

  I folded my hand over hers. Wished I could change my answer.

  “No, Mrs. Norris. I can’t. It doesn’t work on children.”

  “But can’t you try? Just this time, try it, please.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish…I wish there was something, but…” My voice trailed off, my words stumbled over one another, helpless and ineffectual.

  “I just don’t understand.” She stopped walking, stood still as the crowd rushed over her, a flood of black coats and lowered eyes. She just faded away as the mourners struggled to get out of the cemetery as quickly as they could.

  I wanted to comfort her. In my mind I could hear Dad explain it and up until today I think I had always believed him.

  “Resurrection doesn’t work on anyone younger than twelve,” he told me one cold winter afternoon.

  I had argued with him, tried to figure out what we were doing wrong.

  “It isn’t what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s us. It’s the way we’re made.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Children, they belong to God.” He shrugged. “We just can’t take what belongs to Him.”

  At that time it seemed to make sense.

  But today, as the crowd rolled over Mrs. Norris like a tidal wave, I wanted to ask God why He didn’t take better care of the things that belonged to Him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Chaz:

  There weren’t many times when Russ asked for my opinion, when he even thought that I might have some idea worth listening to. I’m not sure when our “great divide” took place, when we drifted off into our separate universes and became more like rivals than friends. It was probably around the time our father died, although I think it had been brewing below the surface for a few years. You can’t always put your finger right on the spot that hurts.

  But there was one time, when I was about thirteen and he must have been fifteen, when Russ needed my help. I was someplace else in the plant when the accident happened, so I only heard stories that trickled down, whispers spoken when no one thought I was listening.

  Dad was training Russ to perform the jumps, showing him how our satellites would transport the dead bodies, how we’d get the pre-ordered clones out of storage, then sort through the memories so the Stringers could keep the ones they wanted. But no matter how much we planned ahead, we always struggled with a nebulous potpourri of “what-ifs.” Things that could go monstrously wrong: what if the memories got mixed up; what if we used the wrong clone; what if the Stringer got lost somewhere in transit?

  On this day, there was an unexpected Edgar Allan Poeesque what-if.

  What if the Stringer wasn’t all the way dead when we started the jump?

  Somebody along the way, some doctor or lab technician, made a wrong diagnosis, and this Stringer was still alive. Just barely. So when Russ started the download, it caused a horrible ripping inside the jumper. He flopped like a fish on the gurney, sparked back to a half-alive state, although most of the important stuff was already gone. He screamed and tried to break free. We didn’t use restraints on the dead bodies, never needed them, so when he lunged forward he yanked off the connector wires and broke off the implant—a long, tube-like needle that we insert deep into the brain—that is, if the Stringer still has a brain.

  Dad and some of his techno-wizards dashed into the room and tried to calm him, to hook him back up. Apparently everybody knew that this guy wasn’t going to live, no way, no matter how valiantly he tried to fight death. I don’t know all the medical details here, but he’d done some serious damage to his current body that couldn’t be repaired. The bottom line is, Death was coming down the hallway and looking for this guy’s room.

  Meanwhile, Russ waited at the controls, like he’d been told. From where he stood,
he could see this guy’s clone, hooked up and already partially downloaded; he watched the clone move, saw it lift an arm at the same time as the Stringer. Saw it turn its head in the same direction.

  But then the Stringer suddenly collapsed. Dead. Really dead this time.

  At that same moment, the clone jumped off its gurney in the other room. It went through all the same movements that the Stringer had done just a few minutes earlier, until finally it fell to the floor, silent.

  All the guy’s memories got fried in the process. And the soul—the Stringer’s fragile, almost indefinable essence—escaped.

  There was nothing left but an empty carcass and a damaged clone.

  Dad tried to tell Russ that it wasn’t his fault, but my brother didn’t believe it. He went through an inner turmoil, quiet and self-destructive.

  Over the following months, I saw darkness and fear rise to the surface in my brother’s eyes at strange times, when he thought no one would notice. Until one night when I walked into his bedroom and found him alone at his desk, pretending to work on his journal.

  One sleeve was rolled up and I saw a series of cuts on his arm. Self-inflicted and precise. As soon as he heard me behind him, he hid his arm.

  He looked sick, like he had the flu.

  “Whaddya want?” he asked, forcing a teen bravado that failed. He tried to mask the scared look in his eyes, but he was a second too late. I’d already seen it.

  I don’t remember why I went into his room. I probably had a question about my homework, but it vanished the moment I saw his arm.

  I sat on his bed. Hoped he would say something. He didn’t.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, wishing I could make the pain go away.

  He laughed, a sardonic, twisted noise that sounded more like a sob. “Of course it wasn’t. We’re life-givers, not takers. I was just doin’ my job.”

  But I knew it wasn’t that simple. I knew that there was something else going on, deep inside. I waited, quiet, hoping that he would tell me what it was. I never really expected him to open up the way he did. A hush fell over the room, thick as swamp water and just as dangerous. I imagined reptilian beasts hidden below the surface, waiting to bite, to pull one of us under. There came a point when I realized that I didn’t want him to talk. I didn’t want to know what was driving him mad anymore. I just wanted to leave and forget about it.