by Arthur Stone
Chapter 1
Darkness is never quite impenetrable. You can always make out something, even if the room is unlit, there are no windows, and your eyes are shut tight: barely discernible white dots scattered in abundance, pale spatters, and vague, fleeting images. As if someone had loaded a movie projector with a scratched roll of overexposed film and decided to use the inside of your eyelids for a screen.
He didn’t need to be told what that meant. He remembered everything—or, rather, everything up to the moment there was a flash inside the hangar. It may have been the very last time he saw light.
He no longer had a visual cortex in his brain—or, at best, it was severely damaged. Even if his eyes had survived, which was unlikely, he no longer had any centers for them to transfer information to. He could come up with no other explanation.
And the visual cortex was hardly a tiny spot in the cerebral periphery. His brain may have been damaged in several places, and seriously so. Basically, given the power behind that flash—the final one—it was a wonder he still found himself alive and even capable of rational thought.
But what if he wasn’t alive? Death is beyond one’s knowledge, after all. Notwithstanding the wealth of information accumulated by humankind, no one has so far managed to provide a coherent answer to the question of what happens next.
It is hard for an atheist to believe in the existence of a higher power, but he wouldn’t be much surprised to see a shining tunnel with winged figures and celestial music in front of him.
But there was no tunnel—nor did any winged angels arrive to carry away his mortal soul. Instead, he heard a strange voice.
“Day ninety-eight. Testing, one, two, three. Can you hear me? If you can, please try to respond or react in some way. We can see that your stats have changed, but we don’t know if you’re conscious.”
That didn’t sound much like a divine voice. But it didn’t much resemble a human voice, either—it had no personality and sounded a bit metallic, as though produced by a speech synthesizer. Regardless of the situation, he wasn’t quite so confused that it would interfere with normal perception of reality. He nearly instantly realized that his assumptions concerning the damage to the visual cortex were indirectly confirmed. They were trying to reach him with the aid of his hearing sense. Given the absence of background noises, he probably had no ears, either, and they were transmitting the information by direct stimulation of the auricular nerve or the auditory cortex.
So what did he have, after all? Was there anything left?!…
“I can hear you. Can you hear me, too?”
“Please repeat that. I’m adjusting the settings, the distortions are too great…”
“I can hear you. One, two, three, four…”
“That will do. We hear you well. You’re about to have an important conversation. Please stand by.”
It is hard to judge the passage of time with nothing to stimulate the senses. It seemed like an eternity to him. But everything is finite, and eventually the metallic voice broke the silence again:
“Congratulations. We have already abandoned hope. You are back from the dead. How are you feeling?”
“I can’t really say. I have a question of my own—just how much of me has managed to come back from the dead? What about my body? And the others, the ones who were next to me—what about them?”
“Unfortunately, I can give no answer. No precise answer, that is. You would have to ask the doctors.”
“Aren’t you a doctor?”
“No, I’m not. You should remember me—I’m Steve Edkins.
“I do. You were in charge of HR on our project.”
“Quite so. I did, however, get promoted since then.”
“Since then? It happened yesterday. I saw you just yesterday.”
“No, you didn’t. Or, rather, that was your yesterday. I regret to inform you that you have spent some time in a coma.”
“How long?”
“You should really ask the doctors. They requested that I don’t mention such information.”
“Then why am I talking to you, and not to them?”
“They are making this conversation feasible. There are a few matters of paramount importance that we need to discuss ASAP. We have summoned an attorney from the legal department—we’ll go through all the legal details once he’s here. Please stand by a while longer.”
“Details? Discuss? Inasmuch as I understand, the situation with my body is really deplorable. Why would I talk to the company representative and to its lawyers? Could you clarify that, please? Or did the doctors prohibit even that?”
“I’m not a lawyer, so it’s a bit hard for me…”
“Try it, anyway.”
“All right. I’ll be brief. I cannot provide any commentary concerning your condition, but it is the result of a workplace injury. On behalf of the management, I would like to express my sincere…”
“You said you’d be brief.”
“I’m sorry. According to your job contract, the company covers the medical bills in such cases. There are, however, certain restrictions. In particular, we do not pay for treatment overseas. Organ deliveries from abroad are also out. There are a few more items. In your case, the payments have been made in full, and still are. We were prepared to carry on in the same vein, but your unexpected regaining of consciousness after the coma has thwarted our plans somewhat.”
“Plans? I hope you mean treatment plans?”
“I’m sorry to say it, but a full treatment is problematic in your case. We could more or less guarantee that life support would work for as long as you remained in a coma. Having regained consciousness, you have created a problem for your body.”
“Why do I even need a body if it cannot be treated?”
“I admire your ability to assess your condition with such calmness. It is indeed a dire situation, but medical science keeps making advances. There already are some experimental technologies that may be of use in your case.”
“So you’re suggesting that I try experimental treatment?”
“Not quite, no—you have misunderstood. More like, you’re going to need to wait for new treatment methods to become available. The safest way of doing it is in a state of artificially-induced coma. That would cause your body less stress; also, conscious waiting may cause you severe psychological damage.”
“If I understand correctly, you suggest that I enter a state of coma voluntarily?”
“Indeed. There is a method for it, and it’s one hundred percent safe.”
“It is the doctors that should be assessing safety, and I don’t see them anywhere.”
“You can talk to your doctor right away, but I’m afraid he’ll offer you the same. There is no alternative.”
“There’s always an alternative.”
“I have heard a lot about your outstanding talents, but I’d be most surprised if you managed to find another way. I wouldn’t say that remaining in your present situation is really a viable option—it is basically a less obvious form of euthanasia.”
“I want to talk to an attorney.”
“He’ll be here shortly.”
“Am I in a clinic?”
“You are.”
“Have you stood watch here waiting for me to come to my senses?”
“Why, of course not.”
“So you came over physically? It’s hard for me to judge the passage of time, but it seemed like it wasn’t that long.”
“I connected using the medical department’s equipment in our laboratory facilities.”
“So the lawyer is walking over from the administrative block?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell him to head back once he gets here.”
“Why? What for?”
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“I do indeed need an attorney, but I want mine, not yours.”
“The company does not cover third party—”
“Did I mention you having to cover anything? Kindly get in touch with Morrison and Fenton right away—they’re located in the Bay Area. Please tell Mr. Fenton that I would like him to represent me. Should he agree, please fill him in on the situation and ask him to get in touch with me at once. Am I right to assume that I may not have much of it left?”
“Well, yes, your condition… You don’t need me to say it. And I want to assure you that you gain nothing by rejecting our attorney. Please understand that no one is planning anything that would be to your detriment, it’s just that the situation—“
“I’m sorry to be interrupting you again, but we both understand that time is money. Please hurry up.”
“All right. Hold on a bit.”
And so he had to face the dark once again, but this time he became immersed in contemplation instead of admiring its impenetrable blackness. The conversation with Edkins was pretty useful—he got what he had wanted, and there weren’t even any tangible objections. That is, if he really conversed with Edkins and not his own schizophrenia locked up in the remnants of his brain disfigured by the explosion. What next? Was there an alternative? And would Fenton be able to find one? Well, Fenton himself was unlikely to do anything of the sort. However, if Edkins managed to get in touch with him and none other, he would most likely delegate the whole thing to White—that is, if he agreed to get involved in the first place. And White was someone capable of finding a ceremonial exit from a gas chamber, with a liveried doorman without a single speck of dust standing to either side.
White also owed him a favor, and one felt compelled to believe that he wasn’t one to forget such things.
This could indeed be schizophrenia… So how could White help him out in a situation as dire as this? He should really be thinking of coma or euthanasia—which amount to the same thing—rather than lawyers.
“Can you hear me, John?”
“Steve, I would really feel much better if you called me Yevgeny.”
“Sure, Yevgeny, whichever you prefer.”
A dying man has his perks—everyone is eager to oblige your whims, including calling you by your God-given name, rather than its Anglicized version. A small consolation, but you take what you get.
“We have gotten in touch with Mr. Morrison. He has agreed to take on your case. His employee John White will handle it.”
“When can I talk to him?”
“He has already departed to join us here—it is closer than the clinic. I can’t tell you when exactly he will arrive, but he has already requested to be sent all the materials pertaining to your situation so as to peruse them en route.”
Could White have hired a personal driver? Unlikely—he must really trust his autopilot.
“Could I talk to the doctors in the meantime?”
“Yes, of course.”
Not the best decision to have made. Assuming everything to be bad is one thing; hearing a dead metallic voice give you a list of gruesome details is quite another.
It wasn’t just bad—it was curtains. How odd it was that someone still deemed his pitiful remnants worthy of a conversation, let alone an attorney. The patient’s capacity to function was dubious to say the least.
Little wonder, then, that this pitiful rump of a formerly young and healthy body in top physical shape felt reluctant to stay in this world—there wasn’t much for it left to do. It was only the fact that they had managed to get him from the burnt-out lab to a deep resuscitation capsule in less than five minutes that kept him hanging on to life among the ruins of his former glory.
Edkins might be some kind of bastard, but he was right—he wouldn’t last long in his current condition. Days? More like hours. Most likely, he’d just lose his mind peering into the darkness and counting the remaining moments of his existence. He could already imagine something hostile in the dark—a carnivorous presence licking its lips as it drew ever closer. The mind needed to be stimulated in some way, but there was nothing here besides Steve’s metallic voice, and so his imagination was trying to fill in the gaps.
This mechanical voice could drive one crazy much quicker than the impenetrable darkness.
“Jenya[1], can you hear me?”
Not the Anglicized John; not Yevgeny or Ross, either. Just the informal “Jenya.”
That had to be White.
“Whaddup, mah dawg? Where ya been? Rollin’ down the street, smokin’ indo, sippin’ on gin and juice?”
“Come again?”
“Gotta say whaddup to mah homie White. Even though it pains me to see a proud black man with such a name.”
“I see you took a correspondence course in Ebonics.”
“Foh shizzle, mah nizzle.”
“In between lapses in cerebral activity filled with classic gangster rap. Look, I know you’re a fan, and I know you well enough in general. Try to prove me you’re just screwing around in a situation that isn’t particularly conducive to humor, or I’ll start believing all those people telling me you’re damaged goods. I’ll even overlook this sudden and alarmingly offensive bout of wiggerism.”
“Check it, homie. You know Edkins, right?”
“I do now.”
“Well, just so you’re aware: his voice sounds just like yours, the way I hear it here. And the same goes for the doctor I spoke to earlier.”
“I get it. You are trying to emphasize certain aspects of our communication in order to see whether or not I’m an impostor. So what’s your verdict?”
“How did I meet your cat?”
“You stepped on his tail, and brought him some crème fraîche to make up for it. That was the start of a long and beautiful friendship.”
“Hi, John.”
“Ah, so you finally recognize me. Only you could have started with the cat instead of giving me that half-assed Snoop Dogg impersonation.”
“Sorry, I’ve been really nervous here.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah. It hurts seeing you like this…”
“Look, I don’t have much time, so let’s tone down the drama a bit.”
“I’ll skip the part with the tears, then.”
“And note that Edkins is likely to be eavesdropping.”
“I gathered as much.”
“Did they fill you in on my case? Have you managed to read everything?”
“Everything they’ve given me. You got injured as a result of an explosion in the lab. You’re the sole survivor out of the six lab personnel. You were lucky that you’d been testing a deep resuscitation capsule. They barely managed to get you inside it in time. This was followed by over three months of coma, an artificial lung, the removal of your digestive tract… Anyway, they should have told you all about it.”
“They sure did. They let the patient know everything in this country.”
“That’s not the way they do it in yours?”
“Well, it varies, but they sure like to lay it on with a trowel.”
“Jenya, you wanted us to help you. How exactly can we do that?”
“They want to put me in a coma again. I’d like to know if it’s terminal. What are my options?”
“There’s a chance of getting you back on your feet. A new body, cloned.”
“Does the technology already exist?”
“It doesn’t officially, but people have been growing them privately on the sly. Not in this country, of course, but anything is possible south of the border.”
“My medical contract doesn’t cover treatment overseas.”
“I know. Moreover, it features a fixed sum, beyond which you won’t get a cent. And your bill is already dangerously close to the contract’s limit. Growing a clone would require an eight-digit sum, possibly even more. You cannot have anything of the sort done officially, since the whole procedure is illegal. It takes
years to grow a clone, and it manages to develop an identity of its own in the process. What you actually end up with is premeditated murder—a fully-formed human being is dismantled for spares for his or her genetic double, harried by time and disease. The technology of the so-called “brainless clones” will be tested within the next couple of years. However, you don’t have those years—nor do you possess a savings account with a sufficient number of zeroes. Apart from that, your brain is damaged, and to a significant extent. Even if the transplantation is a success, the best scenario is you would end up a cripple, since the problem of mediated transfer hasn’t been solved, although there are certain interesting developments in this respect, and some experts believe we’re about to see a breakthrough.”
“And you’re calling this an option?”
“Well… it is, in theory.”
“Yeah, but from a practical viewpoint, we have just wasted some time.”
“This is useful information. You should take it into account before we go any further.”
“Further? Are there any other options?”
“Three of them.”
“An abundance of choice, in other words… I hope they aren’t of the same sort.”
“They aren’t. Firstly, you can agree to what Edkins suggests. This will be followed by a state of coma and suspended animation. In theory, you can spend thirty or forty years in that state. What remains of the company’s obligations, as well as your own means and those of your parents should suffice to keep you going as long as it takes, or almost suffice.”
“My parents?”
“Yes, we have already gotten in touch with them.”
“They’re hardly rich.”
“Neither are you.”
“Though in five years’ time—”
“Which we don’t have.”
“What are the other options?”
“The second option is that they pull the plug on you once you state your wishes explicitly under Amendment No. 143 to the Voluntary Euthanasia Law for the Terminally Ill. You end up dead, and the family keeps the money.”
“Now, isn’t that lovely? I dread to hear what my third option is…”
“Jenya, you know how conservative I am. I always leave the best for dessert.”
