Til Death Do Us Part

by Leonard Petracci

  But technology, well, technology is new. And I’m just as inexperienced with it as an Original.

  “You’ll have to shut down power to the nursery first,” said Marco, pointing to lines on the electrical diagram, “then you can continue operations. Without the incubators, the babies in there will only survive fifteen minutes. They’re highly dependent.”

  “Alright,” I said, trying to follow his logic on the schematic, and he continued speaking.

  “Then you’ll need to cut the orange wire. Understood? Cut the lime green one, and you’ll activate all the charges. There’s no need for that.”

  “Hmm. Got it,” I said with a frown. “Got it."

  “Every room in Carcer has a charge underneath it,” said Marco, pointing to the schematic, “It’s a sort of fail safe. If something goes wrong and it looks like the prisoners might escape, then that part of the prison explodes. The prisoners die, they’re reincarnated, and trapped yet again in Carcer. The prison has only had to resort to this once, and it worked marvelously.”

  “And all I have to do to make it explode is cut one wire?”

  “More than one, actually. You’ll need to cut one, the one leading to the explosive, and wire that into the 110 volt that leads to the light bulb. Flick the switch, electricity travels to the charge, and the room that you are standing in explodes. Based on these schematics, the best possible room for that is here,” he pointed at a small square, marked “Janitorial Closet.” “You should be able to use the broomsticks already there to break past the drywall and access the wiring. This room used to be locked in the past, when Carcer still hired janitors, so there is no reinforcement behind the drywall to prevent prisoners like yourself from tampering with the wiring. And coincidentally, it’s right next to the birthing labs so they share wiring, and you’ll need to cut their main at least fifteen minutes before you begin.”

  “All good. So I bust through the wall, cut the electrical supply to the incubators, then wait fifteen minutes. Rewire it, flick the switch, and kaboom, we’re on our way to safety?”

  “Presuming the window is still open, yes.”

  “It’d better be.”

  ***

  Our troop made it to the janitorial closet five minutes after the declaration. Carcer inmates were now assigned janitorial duties, so the door was unlocked, and we crowded inside. Taking a broomstick, Homer did just as Marco instructed, and broke through the drywall.

  “Aren’t you lucky I found you?” I asked him, fishing the safety scissors Pete had found me from my pocket. “You now get a free trip home.”

  Pete had wrapped electrical tape around the ends of handles of the scissors, another item he’d been able to find after a few weeks wait, and I began attacking the wires. Sparks fizzed from underneath the rubber as the scissors began slicing through the electrical wire that fed power to the incubators. One, two, three more slices and the wire snapped in half, electricity arcing between its contacts as they fell away. Next door the incubators died, and with them died their soulless, lab-made babies.

  “Now we wait,” I said after I cut through the other wires, following Marco’s instructions. Without the light bulb above, it was dark in the closet, and beginning to grow hot with our bodies so close together.

  “Explain this plan to me again,” said Lisa. “My two-year-old brain is having trouble with it—especially the politics.”

  “There’s a strange piece of Alani Law,” I began, “somewhat overlooked by the legislators. A footnote that we had written in by an inside man, for no small pile of cash. A footnote which reads that all territories acquired by Alani become part of Alani first, a piece of their nation, before being cut away again.

  “Now, as soon as Alani receives Carcer from Hemorran, they’ll be signing documentation that will declare Carcer a property of Alani, not an actual piece. This will happen within the next one to two hours. But until that time, Carcer is no longer its own nation. It’s a part of Alani. And that is the loophole we are about to exploit.”

  “Which is why we took out the incubators,” interjected Pete. “With no potential bodily vessels for us here on Carcer to reincarnate into, our souls will be born again on the mainland after this room explodes and we die. There’s no way the authorities will be able to sort us out from the other babies on the mainland, and we’ll be out free.”

  “Exactly. After which we meet up again once each of you has the capacity, and we form the team.”

  Shouts began outside the door, and Homer propped two mops between the wall and the door handle.

  “Looks like they’ve found the incubators,” said Smokestack. “God, this new family I arrive in better have cigs on deck. I’ll need one after this.”

  “Shhh,” hushed Lisa, and everyone fell quiet. Outside the closet there were footsteps, and the door handle turned.

  “The hell?” said one of the guards. “Door’s jammed.”

  “One minute,” whispered Pete, and the door rattled as the guard pushed his weight against it.

  “Hey, you, I hear you in there. Open up!” The door rattled again, and one of the mops snapped.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Then the other mop snapped and the guard fell inside the closet, flattening Lisa beneath him. After she had killed me in the past life, I'd say she deserved it.

  “Now!” yelled Pete.

  “Fellas, it looks like we have an unexpected passenger,” I shouted. “See you on the other side!”

  I flicked the switch, and everything turned white.

  ***

  Far away, an Alanian couple held their baby close in the hospital room.

  “Maybe it’s an Original,” whispered the father, his hand in the mother’s hair. She was breathing hard, still exhausted from labor.

  “Maybe,” she whispered, “but in all my life, I’ve never seen a baby this happy. Look at him, he can't stop smiling.”

  And in her arms, the gurgling baby laughed.

  Chapter 9

  Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. And while I can recommend a few good books on soul creation, they definitely cannot be destroyed.

  For when people die, their souls race into another body. When there are no other bodies, those souls enter the Void, where they wait for a new body to be born.

  The Void made me into who I am.

  Souls are meant to have a body. They can survive divorce from their physical counterparts for a few days, or weeks, or sometimes even months. But longer than that, and the soul starts to fray. The pieces of it that make a person a person fall away, until all that is left is a fragmentation, or a shadow of what once was. A memory.

  With reincarnation, all physical crimes are forgivable. Injuries that won’t heal in this lifetime will be nonexistent in the next. Murders are only temporary, a setback that can be overcome. Even rape fades away over the course of three to four lifetimes, until even the psychological damage is repaired and the memory seems more like a bad dream than reality.

  But sending someone to the Void—that is the one act that is absolutely unforgivable.

  Part of me wonders what will happen at the fall of mankind. I wonder if we will all be condemned to the Void, where our essences will rot and fade until we become unrecognizable. Then I wonder if humanity resurges, if it will be filled with animals in men’s bodies, unaware of their past glory.

  When I was an Original, my brother, my mother, and my first love were taken from me and sent to the Void for twenty years. There’s something about those relationships formed in the first lifetime that makes them irreplaceable. There’s no remaking them.

  And when they returned, they were no longer my brother, mother, and love.

  They weren’t even human.

  I’ve cared for them since, searching them out after their deaths among the horde of babies born each year. They’ve always been easy to find—no family wants to keep the broken spirit of a Voider, and even within the first few days after birth, they can be identifi
ed. Their eyes won’t focus, they cry all day or not all all, and perhaps strangest of all, they never sleep. Some believe it is too reminiscent of the Void, and instead they lay awake all night, their eyes open, their brains vacant.

  So I’ve watched over them, hired countless nurses and maids to attend to them at all hours throughout their string of lifetimes. Sometimes when I feel my motivation falter, I’ll return to them and sit in that room with their three beds alone. I’ll hold my mother’s hand and feel her weak heartbeat through her thin skin. Or I’ll speak to my older brother, the one who raised me after our father left, telling him of my accomplishments and waiting for a look of pride that will never come. Or I’ll look deep into Maria’s eyes and realize that their depth no longer comes from the love I felt for her, but from the emptiness behind them.

  Unlike other people who forget their past lives after a few cycles, I’ve always remembered mine—every single one of them—and earlier than other people could as well. And it’s from this anchor in my past, dragging through the mud of my memories, resurfacing recollections of past lives, that I have obtained this power.

  I will forever have an inability to forget because of them. Forever, until I right the wrong that occurred sixty-five lifetimes ago.

  Until I find my revenge against the man that butchered their souls.

  ***

  “There’s an orphanage in Alani,” I said with my voice low, the television screen behind me casting a shadow onto the faces of the children in front of me at Carcer, “in their capital, Lizene. It’s by the governor's building, on Scillin Street, and is called Allego. Four years after you are reborn, we meet there. No matter where you are born in Alani, you should be within a hundred miles of the capital—do what you must to get there. Catch a train, pay off a cabbie with your new parents’ money, I don’t care. But once you’re in the capital, pitch a fit and scream the orphanage’s name, and you’ll be there in no time, courtesy of the local police. Now repeat its name, Allego, until it is burned into your memory.”

  “Allego,” whispered the other children, “Allego.”

  “That’s right. You’ll have a window of one year to arrive, so until you turn five, in case you’re caught in the Void or have unforeseen difficulties parting with your families. The orphanage is run by a close friend, and on arrival all you’ll need to do is say your name—your old one, of course. Then, once we all arrive, we can start the greater plan.”

  “Greater plan? I repeat my last point, why the hell would I be interested in a greater plan after we’ve blown this joint?” asked Lisa, holding a teddy bear with a cyan bow under her left arm, and then she smiled, the sweet, puppy-eyed smile that only a young girl can conjure. “Maybe I’ve decided to turn good.”

  “And I’ve decided I want to be reborn as a dinosaur!” scoffed Pete. “Please, save the shit. But in all reality, what exactly do we have to look forward to here? Where’s the incentive? I need to feel the push of the invisible hand, Frederick.”

  “Keep your voice down,” I hissed, looking around the room to confirm we were alone, “Use my name again, and you’re out, got it. If the wrong ear hears that, then we’ll be stuck in here.”

  “I ain’t out of the plans no matter what, I know too much. But I do suppose it is in my economic interest to keep you alive.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Lisa, fluttering her eyelashes. “Poor Frederick. Afraid of bullies?”

  “There are people that I would rather not have know I share the same roof as them.”

  Carcer had, indeed, been an ideal place to deposit my enemies in my past life. And all of them would be excited to show their gratitude, should they become aware of my proximity.

  “We’ll cut the shit, but first you’ve gotta spill. What type of numbers are we talking here?”

  “One billion. And no more details until we get out of here. There are too many people who could overhear us.”

  “Alright, now we’re talking,” said Pete, then did the math on his fingers. “One billion between the seven of us makes, oh God, why did it have to be a seven?” He thought some more, doing some more finger math, struggling with the abstract concept that his mind was still not old enough to comprehend, then gave up, “One hundred something million for each of us. That’s doable.”

  “No—” I started, then Pete cut me off.

  “Alright, sorry my math isn’t up to par. Fetch me a calculator and I’ll get our shares down to the penny.”

  “No,” I said again, “one billion each.”

  Lisa dropped her teddy bear, and Pete whistled before speaking again.

  “Now we’re really talking.”

  Chapter 10

  “Let’s hear it again,” said Marco. “Repeat it for me one more time.”

  “I’ve got it, Marco. You know about my memory.”

  “Do you really want to take the risk, Frederick? You know as well as I do that transferring bodies can muddle the mind, even one like yours. All it takes is for you to switch two of the numbers, and we’ll already be stuck with one setback. Humor me. Repeat it.”

  “Fine,” I said, and I repeated the string of digits, the telephone number coming from my mouth as if it were my own. He was right, of course—the effect of a new brain on memories would drastically decrease the ability to recall something as unemotionally attached as a phone number. It was the reason why I wouldn’t be sharing that number in Carcer, and instead would only give out the name and location of the rendezvous—a phone number would leave too much to chance.

  “Good,” said Marco. “Really stick it into that mind of yours. Wedge it in there tight.”

  “I’ve got it, Marco. You’ve questioned every part of the plan, and so far everything has been solid. I’ve thought it through. It will work—it always does.”

  “As you say,” said Marco, and he continued running down his mental lists, checking every possible detail for chinks.

  ***

  My parents are the worst.

  It’s only been a year, and I already want out. For one, the Clarks are health nuts. The baby food is organic and must be on sale as well, because I would prefer the food in Carcer. I swear, it wouldn’t kill them to buy something with a little salt or sugar in it. Furthermore, they’ve baby-proofed everything, so there’s no chance for midnight snacks, no sneaking kibble from the cat bowl—trust me, it would be better than what they feed me. And there’s absolutely no chance of breaking into their liquor cabinet to doctor up my formula with a touch of whiskey. They don’t even have one. It’s outright heresy.

  I can’t imagine spending eighteen years with this pair, and I can only thank God himself that I’m not an Original, and this is not my first perverted view of life.

  But that doesn’t stop them from thinking I am.

  “Oh honey, honey!” shouted Mary, my new mother, as I managed to crawl for the first time, inching along their carpet with my legs dragging behind me. I had been curling crib toys for the past month to build the necessary arm muscles for the activity, and the hard work had paid off.

  “Look, Scott, look! He’s crawling at only five months. What an exceptional Original we have.”

  “Truly, darling,” said Scott. “He’s going to be a strong one! It must be our good genes.”

  Don’t you take the credit, I gurgled, the words failing to form, and waved a middle finger at them.

  “He’s so cute when he does that,” giggled Mary. “Someone has been watching a little too many cartoons! They are a little violent, though. We might need to censor that, Scott, I don’t like the look on his face. We wouldn’t to spoil that little mind of his.”

  Woman, don’t you take cartoons from me! I gurgled. I swear, they’re all I have left. I’ll lose my sanity. I’ll keep you up all night, you hear? Every damn night.

  “Looks like it’s naptime,” said Scott, “someone’s a little cranky.”

  He looped an arm under me, and carried me to my crib. Once he left the room, I did curls with my bottles, leg presses ag
ainst the bars, and started working on my speech. I’d need it for my call with Marco, a call that could not come soon enough.

  But there’s a problem I had not anticipated.

  I don’t think I made it clear when I said everything is baby proofed. I meant everything.

  Baby gates block the entrances to every room. Baby gates with locks that my fingers can’t yet open, and the spatial awareness of my brain can’t yet comprehend. The cabinets are zip-tied shut, blocking off my access to valuable tools—pots that could be used as stools, silverware to jam locks and pry away the plugs over outlets, chemicals and matches that could be used to create distractions in other areas of the house. Codes protect the television and computer, and throughout all my covert surveillance operations I’ve only been able to ascertain half of the numbers before they undergo their weekly change.

  Part of me is concerned for my mental well being—stimulation of the human brain at an early age is crucial for development, and their toy collection was the Amish equivalent of an underfunded nursery. Mary shunts away from anything involving the barest use of technology, on the fear that it may somehow be a detriment to my health. I’ve spent hours playing with blocks, blocks, hoping to form those neural pathways so critical to my future life.

  But the primary problem is this—to escape, I have to call Marco. The Clarks have no land line, but instead share one cell phone, which is either buttoned in Mary’s or Scott’s pocket, or charging on the countertop, plugged into an outlet high above. That phone is the cornerstone of my plan, they key of my liberation, my sole path to not becoming a Clark.