Corpus Chrome, Inc.

by S. Craig Zahler

  Chapter X

  Delayed Reactions

  Lisanne hugged Osa, inhaled deeply, and strode past the furled polarity curtain and into the oval room within which her re-bodied sister, clothed in a drooping green robe, sat upon the bed, facing the window. Outside, the rising sun etched the skyscrapers of Brooklyn City and Nexus Y in such a striking manner that the entire view looked false and compressed, like a bas-relief.

  With a twisted and anxious heart, the petite blonde addressed her sister’s back. “Guten Morgen.”

  The re-bodied woman said, “Morgen,” but did not move at all.

  Lisanne had not seen her sister since their troubled reunion last week, and the days between that visit and this one (the first permitted by Corpus Chrome, Incorporated’s inner board) had been awful. Mr. Johnson’s kind words and Osa’s powerful love could not obscure the horrible truth that loomed on the horizon like a diseased moon: If Ellenancy’s condition did not improve in the next two weeks, she would be de-bodied, and her brain would once again be a frozen cauliflower.

  “Are you still angry?” asked Lisanne, her face reflected in the window beside her sister’s generic mask.

  “Sometimes.”

  The petite blonde walked around the bed and stopped beside the chromium machine that held, and was, her sister.

  Ellenancy stared outside.

  Lisanne said, “Look at me.”

  “I can see your reflection.”

  “Use that machine and look at me.” Her tone was stern.

  The mannequin’s head swiveled, stopped and tilted like the skull of a curious bird.

  “Are you angry with me, specifically?” asked Lisanne.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Because I authorized your resurrection?”

  “It was a selfish thing to do.”

  The petite blonde wanted to yell at her sister, but feared that such behavior might terminate the visit. Calming herself, she replied, “What should I have said when they called and offered to resurrect you? ‘Nein, danke. Nein. I believe Ellenancy would prefer to remain frozen.’ Is that what I should have said?”

  The mannequin was silent.

  “The cryonic plan was your decision,” added Lisanne.

  “I had hoped for something better. A new flesh body, not this verflucht machine.”

  “A clone?” inquired Lisanne.

  “Yes. A mindless one that could sustain a transplant. Or perhaps one that had its brain euthanized.”

  “No transplants like that will ever be allowed by the government.”

  “I suppose…that I was hoping to wake up in a time when such things were possible,” said Ellenancy, her head askew.

  “It is extraordinarily unlikely that I or anybody you know would still be alive at that time.”

  The mannequin was silent.

  With a gentler voice, Lisanne inquired, “Is it…is it really so terrible inside the mannequin?”

  “Yes.” Ellenancy faced the window. “When I walk around…it’s as if I’m playing a computer game and controlling a character—some other being that is not me, through whom I witness a world that I’m not actually in.” She paused for a moment. “It all feels like a dream—a long and antiseptic dream. I know it’s real, but it feels imagined.”

  “But you think. And you feel.”

  “Distantly.”

  Lisanne took her sister’s left hand and squeezed her gelware fingers. “Do you feel that?”

  “After a brief delay and an inaudible click, I am aware of the texture and temperature of your hand. These sensations have been relayed to my brain.”

  The petite blonde withdrew her hand and sat upon an inflatable stool, currently unable to think of anything else to say.

  Ellenancy swiveled her head to face her sister. “I have been listening to files and reading sheaves…doing research to help me make my decision.”

  A pit opened up in Lisanne’s stomach at the thought of her sister simply deciding that she no longer wanted to live. Finding her voice, she asked, “What have you learned?”

  “There is a scientific theory that the mind is not the only intelligent part of the human body, but merely the dominant one.

  “The theory postulates that our hands and our feet and our arms and our legs have intelligences of their own—not just reflexes, but actual independent thought processes that are separate from the mind.

  “When you trip and are about to fall, there is no part of your brain that says, ‘I need to pivot, swing my arms and thrust my left leg half a meter to the left.’ The body reacts: It applies muscle memory to new stimuli in an intelligent way. The brain is informed during or after the incident, but it did not control or send out the responses.”

  Lisanne remarked, “I’ve heard this theory.”

  “I think it is true,” said Ellenancy. “And I think it explains why I hate the machine.

  “The satellite intelligences in my natural body were a very large part of my identity. The minds within my fingers, hands, wrists, arms, lips, mouth, tongue, larynx and lungs that enabled me to play violins, oboes, flutes, trumpets, pianos, saxophones, tympani and xylophones are gone, as are the pleasures those satellite intelligences felt in performing these patterns—pleasures that enriched my cerebral existence as well.

  “Every re-bodied person lost a lot…but I lost more.”

  “You were also one of the Sisters Breutschen,” responded Lisanne. “You and I produced music that is substantial and will last forever. Our minds produced this music—not our bodies, but our minds.”

  “You wrote most of our music.”

  “None of those pieces would sound as they do without your input: They are the result of our minds working together.”

  The mannequin was silent.

  “All of my favorite compositions are the ones that began with your ideas,” added Lisanne.

  No response emerged from the re-bodied woman.

  “Ellenancy?”

  “May I hear the music that you wrote while I was dead?”

  “I only wrote one piece,” said Lisanne. The admission was painful.

  The mannequin frowned. “Does my face look sad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why only one piece?”

  “You were the first person who ever encouraged me to write music. Mutti and Vati both wanted me to be a concert pianist, but you were the first person to hear me play something original and say, ‘Das mag ich. Sehr gut.’ The thought of—” Lisanne looked away from her sister’s frowning visage and struggled for a moment against tears. “The thought of writing pieces that you would never get to hear was too sad. I…I just couldn’t do it.”

  Ellenancy stood up from the bed, took one stride, leaned over and hugged her sister.

  Lisanne put her arms around the mannequin and squeezed. Within her breast, hope flickered.

  “I apologize,” said Mr. Johnson, walking into the room, “but I have a meeting in a few minutes and will need to end your visit for today.”

  The Breutschen sisters withdrew from each other.

  Nodding his head in approval, the shepherd asked the re-bodied woman, “Would you like for me to schedule another interaction with your sister?”

  Ellenancy looked at Lisanne. “Would you play the piece for me?”

  The petite blonde turned to the black man in tweed. “Do you have a room with true-definition spheroid acoustics?”

  “Indeed, indeed, indeed.”

  Lisanne nodded to Ellenancy. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

  “You did not load it to a reservoir or a vault?”

  “I did not.” The mournful dirge had been written immediately after Ellenancy’s death, played at her funera
l, and—despite the interest of sponsors and reviewers—not once since. Lisanne did not want the piece to ever become a commodity.

  “What’s it called?” asked Ellenancy.

  “‘The Dotted Line.’”

  * * *

  Lisanne and Osa rode in a cab toward The Pinnacle in Central Park. The petite blonde clutched a kernel of hope, but did not indulge in optimism.

  At Forty-Second Street, the vehicle was nudged by a ladybug, and the cabbie—a Hasidic man—reciprocated the blow with a swerve that ended in a vengeful bump.

  “You’re making it worse,” chastised Osa. “Stop.”

  The oncoming traffic orb turned yellow, and the cabbie braked. A stopwall lurched in front of the fender.

  Lisanne said, “We are going to listen to ‘The Dotted Line.’”

  “We are?” asked Osa, excited by the prospect of finally hearing the secreted piece.

  “Ellenancy and I, not us.” The petite blonde instantly regretted her choice of words. “I’m sorry: I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

  Osa nodded her head. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

  Chapter XI

  Oriental Lapdog

  A face emerged from the wall and said, “Autumn’s sleeping over—you need to clean up this room.”

  To his father’s disembodied visage, Snapdragon responded, “Last time she was here, she got angry that I put the plant-eating dinosaurs with the meat-eating ones. I don’t wanna get anything wrong.”

  “We don’t want her to go home and tell Mrs. Tannstein that our place is messy, do we?”

  “She’s a tattler,” said Snapdragon, sighing.

  “You’ll get ice cream if you make it look clean.”

  “With the peanut elephants?”

  “With peanut elephants,” confirmed his father. “But don’t tell Mommy.”

  “Deal.”

  Below the man’s round face, a broom clutched by a disembodied hand emerged from the wall.

  “Use this.”

  Snapdragon took the broom from his father and swept his spongy dinosaurs into a pile, where they clutched and slapped and squawked and roared and played musical instruments. The Asian boy then picked out his favorite (a pterodactyl with a bass guitar), shoved it into the center pocket of his bumper overalls and swept the Jurassic period under his bed. As long as there was room underneath his mattress, he was a capable cleaner.

  * * *

  After a vegan meal (Autumn did not eat meat and became sick if she even smelled it), the two children went into the den, where Snapdragon sat on the air bench and casually placed his left hand atop a spaghetti stain that his pants had somehow acquired during dinner. Clothed in a black cotton one-piece, the Jewish girl sat upon her regular and special legs as if she were going to make a cobra come out of a basket with a flute.

  “What do you wanna watch?” asked the boy. “My parents said we could have the m.a. until twenty-three.”

  “What are my choices?”

  “There’s stuff with robots. There’s stuff with monsters. There’s stuff with robot monsters.”

  “Are there some more sophisticated options?” asked Autumn.

  “Dinosaurs?”

  “Things with cultural significance.”

  “There’s smart stuff. Is that what you watch at home?”

  “We don’t have a mote aquarium.”

  “Are you poor?” Snapdragon ruminated for a moment. “We have an old one you could borrow.”

  “I told you this before,” the girl said impatiently, “my parents don’t want one in the house. They feel it would be a distraction.”

  “From what?”

  “From my academic pursuits and my yoga classes. I also write poems.”

  “If you don’t wanna watch m.a., we can build a fort.”

  Snapdragon imagined himself and Autumn hidden within a castle like the ones that he built with the dining room chairs, arranged in a rectangle, draped with blankets, surrounded by a barbican of pillows upon which he set fearsome guardian beasts that vaguely resembled the stuffed bears and penguins and otters with which he slept every night. Within this safe environment, secreted from the eyes of adults and the judgments of a kingdom that did not understand his puberty, the Asian prince would be able to kiss the Jewish princess (or at least lick her hands).

  “I am interested in watching a mote aquarium experience,” declared Autumn. “I should learn about popular culture, which has anthropological value.”

  Snapdragon returned to his original agendum. “Robots?”

  The girl seemed to be no more intrigued by this idea in its recapitulation. Looking at her host, she suggested, “Perhaps we should watch something about China?”

  “I’m American,” defended Snapdragon.

  “I know. I just think that it would be nice to watch something about your heritage, since I’m a guest in your home.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Snapdragon whistled a C-sharp and said, “Turn on.” Myriad luminous pixels sprayed from the tube onto the stage. “Don’t touch it,” he warned his guest. “I once broke it like that.”

  The comet of luminous motes sped to all eight corners of the aquarium.

  Snapdragon whistled and said, “Search reservoir: China.”

  Rendered upon the stage in three-dimensional characters was the following:

  There are 92,765,017 m.a. experiences related to China.

  Review Options or Refine Search?

  Snapdragon looked at Autumn and inquired, “What do you want to see about China? I hear their kung fu fights are good.”

  “Gender relationships and small dogs are subjects that interest me.”

  The Asian boy sighed through his nostrils. “I know you like little doggies.” (He had been exposed to the girl’s irritating pet on several occasions: The tiny beast barked constantly, perhaps angry that its bulging eyes and elastic tongue did not fit inside of its evil head.) “Refine search.”

  Upon the stage were the words:

  Refine Search…

  Snapdragon prompted his guest with a nod.

  Autumn said, “China; gender relationships; small dogs.”

  The following words were rendered upon the stage:

  Oriental Lapdog

  Length: 239 minutes

  Audience: Adult

  “That looks like a good choice,” said the girl.

  Snapdragon did not agree (the experience was very, very long and intended for adults), but he withheld his contrary opinions since he wanted his guest to have a good time. He whistled and said, “Play.”

  The luminous pixels rendered

  a cliff edge upon which sat a goateed Chinese man who wore a crimson robe and a round hat. He looked at the turquoise waters below his dangling feet.

  Within the ocean were the words:

  Li Wai Fung presents—

  “Skip credits,” said Snapdragon, who wanted to have time to build a fort.

  The motes rendered

  a jade castle. The edifice was as large as a continent and comprised of ten thousand and seventy-two towers, each of which had nine hundred amethyst windows. Atop the merlons, spires, parapets and walls were ten million purpureal banners, which were pulled east by the western wind and then north by the southern wind. The fabric snapped with each new gust. Drums thudded, and weird Oriental instruments twanged. Horses, newly shod and dressed in brilliant steel, trotted through the courtyards. Warriors, dressed in armor, stood upon the barbican.

  (The sight of the warriors and their weapons gave Snapdragon hope.)

  Snow fell upon the eastern half of the castle. The flags on that side grew heavy with moisture and were darker than those
in the west.

  At the very top of the easternmost tower was an amethyst window that was brighter than any other. In the luminous pane sat the silhouette of a woman whose head was surmounted by a stack of equilateral triangles. A weird flute played three ugly notes.

  Inside the tower sat the Chinese princess. She was clothed in a golden gown, which was fastened to her with purpureal ribbons. Two smiling men who wore pink makeup adjusted the triangles of hair that were atop her head.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Autumn, her voice freezing the pixels in the mote aquarium.

  The woman reminded Snapdragon of his Aunt Sally. “She’s okay. Resume play.”

  The princess looked around her room. Its walls were covered with white and blue silk that had been sewn into scalloped folds to resemble a waterfall. The rug was dark blue, like a pond, and the ceiling was light blue, like the sky. In the corner, a little blind girl played a weird flute, and an armless old man yodeled while twanging a broken lute with his toes.

  The smiling men who wore pink makeup asked the princess, “Do you like your hair?”

  “It’s in English?” asked Autumn, her voice freezing the pixels in the mote aquarium.

  “They change the mouths with computers so you can understand it.” Scratching his armpit, Snapdragon said, “Resume play.”

  “These are very fine triangles,” said the princess. “But what does it matter? Only the king who never smiles, my father, shall see them. Only he shall enjoy the beauty of such artfully-arranged hair.”