The God Organ

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “You can’t be that old,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, you flatter me.” Charlotte winked. “So, what do you say? Dinner tomorrow? My treat.”

  “I’d love to, but I work until close.”

  “How late is that?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Okay then, what about tonight?”

  “Sure, that would work,” Hannah said.

  Charlotte beamed. “Fantastic. How about you give me your address and I’ll come pick you up at five thirty? That’s not too early, is it?”

  “No, that’d be great,” Hannah said.

  Someone had actually shown interest in her again, though she couldn’t for the life of her understand why.

  ***

  When 5:30 came, Hannah waited in her studio apartment, repeatedly glancing at her comm card. Despite the anticipation, Charlotte’s call startled her and she jumped. She locked her door and hurried down the noisy wooden stairs two at a time. Darkness was already settling over the city when she reached the street.

  A gust of wind coaxed her to pull her oversized coat tighter around her neck. Between the other parked cars, a red Honda sat idling just down the street. Charlotte got out of it and waved to her, illuminated by a streetlight. Her hair seemed to shine unnaturally in the glow of the street lamps. Hannah chuckled as she waved back.

  Throughout the short car ride to the restaurant, Charlotte chattered ceaselessly. Hannah gripped the plastic armrests with clammy palms, excited and frightened to be out of her apartment with someone. The car dropped them off next to a short promenade that led up to the Green Dolphin. Crooning music escaped the restaurant as Charlotte held the door open.

  “Looks nice,” Hannah said.

  Charlotte squeezed Hannah’s arm. “I always love the musicians here. Kind of like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin types. Really old music, I know, but still classics.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I’ve heard of them.”

  “I’m sure you’ll like it, though, Bug.” Charlotte leaned in close. The woman’s curls tickled Hannah’s cheek. “And I won’t lie: the men singing are usually something to look at, if you know what I mean.”

  The dark-haired singer’s croon filled the winding restaurant, adding to the room’s intimate atmosphere. Hannah admired the antique signs and posters decorating the brushed-metal walls. Mock-incandescent-bulb projections flickered throughout the restaurant. A host welcomed them and took them to a circular table with green vinyl-backed seats. The touch-screen menus lit up on the table’s surface as they sat down.

  “Anything particularly good here?” Hannah asked as she scrolled through a host of options.

  “I’ve been very pleased with their blackened mahi-mahi, but when I’m feeling naughty, I go for the classic burger. Oh, it’s divine, all fat and juicy.”

  Truthfully, most everything looked better than the instant freeze-dried noodles, soups, and sandwiches that Hannah most often ate for dinner. Most nights, the instant gratification of a spontaneously cooked meal that heated itself through a chemical reaction in the packaging was too convenient to pass up.

  She decided on a plate of shrimp scampi, drowned in an Alfredo sauce according to the sample holoprojection of the plate.

  “Excellent choice, Bug.” Charlotte winked.

  For a moment, Hannah sat in an uncomfortable silence and toyed with the straw in her glass of water. Charlotte had been so talkative that Hannah had had no reason to broach a topic of conversation before. “So, what do you do?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Nothing too interesting. I’d just bore you.”

  “I mean, you know I work at G&N selling clothes all day. It’s not all that interesting, either.”

  “Well, my job isn’t that much different. I work in sales for an insurance company. Trust me, it’s not exciting.” Charlotte smiled reassuringly. “How about something more interesting? Got a boyfriend? Cute face like that, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

  “No, I don’t,” Hannah said. “I did, but not anymore.”

  Charlotte reached across the table and patted Hannah’s interlaced fingers. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bug. That’s a shame, but I’m sure you’re better off without him.”

  “You’re probably right.” Hannah felt unconvinced, though. With Brian around, she at least had a friend and someone who said he loved her. “I guess he did kind of leave on bad terms.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well...” Hannah’s eyes fell to the table. “He kind of left me.”

  With a gush, Hannah opened up her entire dating history, from the time she met Brian to the day she woke up alone. Charlotte listened intently, with an empathetic look in her eyes. Hannah couldn’t stop ranting about Brian, even when the motorized cart arrived at the table with their food. Charlotte had to politely stop her and encourage her to eat her food before it got too cold.

  Hannah sighed. “So, that’s that.”

  “Oh, Bug, you have dealt with a nasty boy. What about your parents? What do they say about all this?”

  Hannah looked down at her food and prodded a shrimp with her fork. “Nothing. Mom died when I was six and Dad passed away a couple years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Charlotte said. “But I’m sure they’re up in Heaven watching over you.”

  Hannah hardly took solace in that, though she knew she should feel better about it. That’s what everyone told her: “Your parents are watching over you.” If they were angels now, they had done a lackluster job of helping her.

  “Do you mind me asking how?”

  “How? My mom died because of an asthma attack when I was little. Crazy, I know. Dad died of lymphoma. It didn’t take long once we found out he had it. He could afford chemo and thermal nanoparticle treatments, but that didn’t really help. The doctors said a Sustain would’ve saved him, but we couldn’t afford it. Besides, Father Cooney says that’s a sin.” Hannah stopped. She watched another motorized cart take a tray of food to a table before turning back to Charlotte. “Do you think it’s wrong that I wish my dad got one, though?”

  Charlotte was silent, smiling sympathetically, her eyes locked on Hannah’s. “No, I understand. That damned company has created a fearfully tempting product in that god organ.” She placed a ruby-taloned hand over her chest. “I myself was once so tempted.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I had a son. God bless his soul. He had a brain tumor. I couldn’t stand all the treatments not working and watching him waste away with disease. It was awful. I don’t wish that on any mother.” Charlotte’s voice wavered, but her gaze didn’t falter.

  “That sounds terrible.” Hannah’s eyes began to water. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was. But then I heard the Sustain could fix him. I wanted so desperately to fix him. I was willing to do everything to help him. But at the time they wouldn’t implant one in my boy. They said it wasn’t approved for kids like him yet. So I watched my little boy die slowly, fading away into a bag of bones and skin as the cancer spread. It was terrible. My little angel.” A single tear rolled out of Charlotte’s eye. She sounded completely unlike herself, far too sincere and sad.

  “I’m so sorry. That sounds awful.” For a moment, Hannah put aside her own loneliness and anxieties, cursing herself for her self-involvement.

  “But at least I know that my little boy is in Heaven. He’s safe and healthy in God’s kingdom.”

  Hannah nodded, but struggled to find any words worth saying.

  “To think I almost implanted a product of Satan in my boy and defiled his innocence,” Charlotte said. “After he died, my husband and I had a hard time seeing eye to eye about it and we split. That’s when I started going to Mass again, and the rest is history.” Charlotte forced a smile. The expression wasn’t her usual happy beam. “I feel pity and pray for all those other parents ordering doctors to cut open their children and put that thing into their innocent little bodies. It’s bad enough they choose it for themselves, but the children should not be forced to
commit the parents’ same sins. It’s wrong, utterly terrible and abominable.”

  Hannah feared the sudden angry zeal that had overcome Charlotte. A distinct, burning vengeance glinted in the woman’s eyes.

  “You know, if they have the technology for those organs, they should have the same technology, the same healing practices without the organ.”

  “Oh.” Hannah’s voice escaped in a weak breath.

  A vessel in Charlotte’s neck bulged. Her hands shook as she spoke. “The way I see it, Bug, is that they’re holding out on us. They want as much grubby money as they can get, refusing to release a medicine or a therapy that could be cheaper, that doesn’t need a whole artificial organ to desecrate our bodies. If they can cure cancer with their god organs, why can’t they do it without them?”

  Charlotte was right. Hannah put together the pieces, thinking about her father. “They could’ve saved my dad.”

  “Saved my little boy, too,” Charlotte said. “But they won’t do it. They don’t want the rest of us to have the same power as them, or to grow old like them, or to stay healthy like them. They want to repress us while they glorify their own sinful creations. It’s an awful shame.”

  Hannah nodded her head, incensed. “Why doesn’t someone do something about that?” In a moment of rare courage, Hannah’s voice rose. “We should do something.”

  For once, purpose and certainty filled her mind. God was surely speaking through her.

  Chapter 14

  Cody Warren

  November 7, 2063

  The roar of the other protesters enlivened Cody Warren, despite the early-morning chill. A sense of pride coursed through him as he claimed his spot as one of the few actual protesters in a crowd of projected holograms ported through comm cards and other portable computers.

  The sun reflected off the building’s mirrored emerald windows, glimmering across the crowd that was barricaded from the promenade and fountain in front of the LyfeGen office. A small path shifted and ebbed as protesters pushed forward, threatening to displace the barriers guarded by the city’s police and LyfeGen’s own security guards. The guards and the police eyed the crowd warily as they held back the tides of emboldened demonstrators to make room for arriving cars and employees.

  A protester near Cody projected a message into the space above him reading: “Free the organ, free the people.” Another woman, bundled up in a bulky purple coat, stood with a projection hovering above her head that said, “The god organ kills,” next to a ten-year-old boy who looked to be her son hoisting his own projected message: “Keeping us poor and dying so they can keep getting rich.” A middle-aged man with a protruding belly and rough sideburns stomped under his own sign: “Ecc. 7:13. Consider the work of God; for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?” Another woman next to him: “Mark 10:9. What therefore God hath joined together¸ let not man put asunder.”

  A disparate group chanted, “False gods, false idols,” and were possibly the only discernible, unified voices among the mix of secular and religious protesters milling about the street and sidewalk.

  Cody’s eyes felt heavy and a dull headache throbbed, a lingering reminder of his time at Kingsley’s the past couple of nights. He knew that Northwestern brat had been right. He needed to make good on his convictions.

  Rather than waste another day at an unrewarding job and drinking away the evening, he had joined the growing movement outside of the LyfeGen building in protest. He’d accrued enough vacation days, meager as they were, to spend a few as part of the mass demonstration.

  He did allow himself a concession. From a flask of whiskey, he took a sip to warm his throat and stomach. After all, he had used a vacation day to be here.

  “Promises of a long and healthy life—if you’re rich,” read a projection from a lanky man with a boyishly round face.

  Cody asked the man’s permission to copy the message onto his own comm card. He pumped his fist into the air as the message projected above him and the boyish-faced man grinned in solidarity. As Cody chanted with the crowd, clouds of his breath curled in the frigid air. The iciness that crept into his nose and ears was a painful reminder of the warm weather he had left behind years ago in Florida.

  ***

  Cody had learned that he would lose his first real job at Horizon Labs in Tampa, Florida, while seated across from the company’s CEO in a cluttered office shared by the company executives. Horizon Labs had been only a thirty-person outfit, situated in a venture incubator with a complete set of wet-lab facilities. Without being told why, Cody had been informed the company would be dissolved. This first job at Horizon after graduating from the University of South Florida would also mark his last experience as a biomedical engineer.

  He had felt dejected when the company shut down, but was determined to retain a sense of optimism. After all, it was through his own ability that he had gotten that first job and his determination hadn’t disappeared with the company’s dissolution.

  But when it came time for him to start his job search in Chicago, the news streams contained a poisonous tidbit of information that crippled his confidence: Riley Eko, the company’s founder and CEO, was being investigated by the SEC for fraud.

  Apparently, Eko had raised funds and propelled the company through its initial public offering under the pretext that their nanoparticle imaging system was a surefire hit for regulatory approval. However, a leaked private correspondence of Eko’s indicated prior knowledge that the project would be a failure. The CEO wanted to push through the FDA approval process long enough to garner investor interest, sell off his shares, and run.

  Cody’s resume was tarnished by the Horizon Labs name, despite his innocence in the whole affair. He sometimes wondered if his job at NanoTech had been offered to him as an ironic joke, taking care of robots that took out and disposed of trash.

  ***

  “Get a job, you lazy asses,” a man with a fuming red face yelled at the crowd as he made his way into the building.

  “Go to hell, you pretentious fucker!” a protester roared back.

  Another protester joined in, yelling curses at the incoming employees. While most LyfeGen employees huddled together and quickened their pace into the safety of the building, a select, obstinate few chose to hurl insults and arguments back at the crowd with increasing fervor.

  An angry LyfeGen employee in a suit tossed a scalding coffee into the crowd. The cup and its contents exploded against Cody, burning his face and exposed hands. He shook off the hot liquid and rushed toward the increasingly amorphous barricade that the police were trying to maintain.

  “What’s your problem, you jackass?”

  “I said get a job, bum!” the man yelled back, with his finger pointed in Cody’s face. Spittle flew from the bearded man’s mouth. “Piece of shit.”

  Cody slapped the man’s hand out of his face as a policeman struggled to put himself between the two men and demanded that they depart.

  Instead, the man reached over the policeman’s arm, grabbed Cody by the collar, and swung a fist into the side of his head. He fell backwards, passing through several projected protesters and landing on the ground with a thud. His head cracked against the pavement. Wet, warm blood trickled around his right ear.

  “Did you see what that guy did?”

  A golf-ball-sized rock flew at the employee who had punched Cody. The employee flinched, and the rock flew toward another protester. It flew through the protester, who was only present as a projection, doing no damage to the man. Several other rocks, pieces of trash, and bottles of liquid soared through the air at the employees who were trying to get into the LyfeGen building. Some of the objects were projections and passed harmlessly through their targets. Others were thrown by actual protesters, hitting the employees, the police, and the sidewalk with very real thuds. The police yelled frantically as protesters roared in anger. A mad rush of bodies trampled forward as Cody struggled to a kneeling position, unsure of who was a projection that would pass o
ver him and who was a real body threatening to crush him.

  The loud bellowing and the clashing of the crowd continued for some time before a high-pitched squeal went off from a small, round device that one of the policemen carried. Suddenly, three-fourths of the protesters flickered away, vanishing back through the networks from which they had come, abandoning the scattered protesters who had braved the weather and crowds to protest in person.

  Holding his hand against his bleeding ear, Cody stood slowly. His head swiveled around to take stock of his now scattered and few brethren. The crowd had lost its intimidation factor. Several protesters turned to run as the police came forward, sending electric shockwaves in front of them to paralyze and stop the protesters.

  Electricity coursed through Cody’s body and a burning pain erupted from every pore of his skin. He slammed into the pavement once more. The sharp crack of his skull on the sidewalk rendered him almost unconscious. His vision fluttered between darkness and the bright morning light.

  “Go to hell, you worthless scumbag.”

  The words uttered by some invisible source echoed in his mind as he spiraled into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 15

  Matthew Pierce

  November 7, 2064

  The holoscreen in front of Matthew blazed in luminous green numbers and rotating figures, indicating the completion of an exhaustive experiment. With Jacqueline’s help, he had developed and tested new vectors that could deliver a prototype Sustain upgrade that delivered only specified sets of DNA to certain subpopulations of cells. It was their first major step toward completing the universal Sustain upgrade that could be used in any patient.

  Jacqueline grinned at the glowing display. “We need to celebrate. Grape Street Piano Bar. I’m buying.”

  “Sounds good. I have to let Audrey know, though.”

  Jacqueline chuckled. “Oh, you need permission?”