She frowned. “Like I said, five months.”
“No. I meant how long ago did I die?”
She sat quietly for three seconds. “Three months.”
“So, let me get this straight. Two months had passed after I left the clinic. Then I died.”
She nodded.
It was my turn to be quiet.
Son of a bitch!
“I think you need some time to digest this,” she said. “I’ll leave you by yourself. It’s about time for lunch.
“Oh, and here’s your comm.”
With that, she pulled a comm from her pocket and handed it to me.
“I’ve already taken the liberty of informing your uncle Berry that you’re awake. He said to let him know as soon as you woke. He wants to tell you something important before you leave here.”
I took my comm and put it on my left wrist. But first I verified the date. It was five months after I had the template done. She was right.
She walked to the door.
“Wait! I have a question.”
She turned and raised her right eyebrow. “Yes?”
“How did I die?”
She hesitated on that one. She looked down at the floor for two seconds and then up into my eyes.
“You were killed.”
I dropped my jaw.
Killed?
“Your uncle Berry said he’d explain everything.”
With that, she pulled a thin plastic sheet out of her purse and placed it on the table.
“Here’s the menu for your lunch.”
She stood, walked over to the door and slid it aside. The door closed behind her.
I sat at the table, quiet. Stunned would be a better word.
I had died and was rebuilt? That was theory only. This wasn’t supposed to happen!
Chapter 4
I studied the menu Dr. Boyne had left and saw lunch was a choice of roasted chicken breast with a mushroom sauce or three pieces of tri-tip steak. I could choose from a long list of sides as well as my choice of potato. At least I wouldn’t starve here.
The menu came on a plastic sheet. After selecting my options by pressing on the circle next to them, I pressed the button near the bottom and a light around the button turned green. The words to the left of the button changed to a yellow on black.
“Your order has gone to the kitchen.”
I went to my bed and lay on it. This new situation was a lot to digest.
A half-hour later, I heard a knock on my door.
“Open.”
It slid aside and a male in hospital green pushed a cart into my room. He stopped at the small table, unloaded my lunch plates, and left.
Half-way through my lunch, I got a tag on my comm.
“Acorn here. I hear you’re awake. I’ll be there in forty minutes and will explain everything.”
He disconnected.
I shook my head. Just like him.
I finished my meal and examined the limits of my prison. On the wall at the foot of my bed was a sign of “Bathroom” I had not noticed before. When I pushed on the wall, the door opened with a snap. There stood a stainless steel toilet, a white sink, a mirror, and a shower.
Cautiously, I approached the mirror and looked at myself. A stranger’s face stared back at me.
The face in the mirror had a full head of brown hair (mine had been black), brown eyes (mine had been green), a long and more pointed nose and pronounced cheekbones. I raised my hands to touch my face and saw them in the mirror. The back of my hands were different too.
If everything had gone all right, then why the new face and hands?
#
I took a leak, rinsed my hands, and paused at the mirror to examine my new face again.
A knock came at my door.
I wiped my hands on the hanging towel, left the bathroom, and stood three feet from the front of the door.
“Come in!”
I never thought I’d be happy to see my uncle’s face but there he stood. He walked in and the door closed behind him.
Acorn was a little shorter than me at five eleven but he was heavier. Maybe 210 pounds. The top of his head was bald, with gray hair on the sides. I noticed he had a belly despite working out with weights three times a week. The guy must eat a lot. He liked cookies. Chocolate, too. Today he had on a dark gray suit without lapels, the current fashion in men’s business attire.
He sat at the table and I sat opposite him. My arms itched and I absent-mindedly scratched them while I listened.
“Dr. Boyne told me she informed you you’re a rebuilt. We changed your DNA too, to make you a full Binger. I thought that might help.”
“Is that why I itch all over so much?”
“Could be. Your body was made with Jake’s RNA. We know enough about DNA now. So we changed your DNA to match your new identity. Maybe the DNA is gradually changing your RNA and that is changing the proteins in your cells. Some of those cells were muscles and some of them are at the base of your hair follicles. And some are in the nerve fibers. Hence the itching. You might sense some muscle soreness too, over the next few days.”
I asked my boss, “Am I going to gradually change so I look like my old self?”
Acorn’s eye went wider before he answered, “I hope not.”
“Hope?”
He shook his head.
“This has never been done before. Changing your DNA, I mean. I suspect your new face, voice, and hands will stay the same.”
“Speaking of which, why the new face?”
He reached his left hand and covered my right.
“I think you’d better take this one step at a time. A lot has happened to you.”
I stared into his eyes and said, “You can say that again.”
He retracted his hand and continued.
“You came to this clinic five months ago and the template procedure went flawlessly. I gave you an assignment to look into the political events surrounding Ash Getner.”
That name was familiar.
Ash Getner was the head of the York Security Agency, the largest spy agency on Rossa. No one knew how large his budget was but it was rumored to be in the hundreds of millions. In the last year, YSA had been chosen to oversee all spy activities in York, including eavesdropping on communications everywhere on the planet through the YSA. At least, that’s what it the org charts said.
“You returned to Rossa. Within three weeks, you attended a political meeting while undercover. I have your report right here.” He tapped his comm.
“A week later, while you were eating in a restaurant several men came up to you and fired guns. According to the police report, which I attached at the end, you were shot first and then Ron tried to rescue you before he was also gunned down. The police found a total of nine slugs in your body and eight in Ron’s. Both of you took shots in the head. They never did find those guns.”
Ron was dead?
That news hit me like a fist in my stomach. Ron had been my best bud for years now. And he was gone.
Then I thought of how that must feel to the man sitting across from me.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Your son died a brave man.”
He looked down at his hands and sat quiet for three seconds.
“Thank you.”
We both sat quiet for a while.
“Are you going to have Ron rebuilt too?”
He shook his head.
“Cost too much.”
He was quiet for maybe five seconds. Then he grabbed a tissue from the box on the table and blew his nose.
“I knew something big was going on. Your report indicated that. I decided we needed to find out what. The more I thought about it, you were my best agent on Rossa. I needed you there. So I decided to bring you back alive. It cost a big hunk of my reserves. Rebuilding is expensive.”
I watched as his fingers tightened on the tissue. He must be thinking about his son.
“Then I thought about what you would go through as a rebuilt. Most of
the people who knew you had also attended your memorial service or the burial of your ashes.
“I decided it would be easier for you if you had a new appearance. I dug into my reserves of IDs I had kept active, having them build payment histories, just in case I ever needed them. After choosing one, I had the face, hands, voice, and even fingerprints of your body changed to match that ID.”
He looked at me with red eyes.
“Your new name is Michael Shapeck. S-H-A-P-E-C-K. I suggest you memorize it and take it internally.”
That explained the stranger’s face in the mirror and the unfamiliar hands.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
We had done this many times before in training when we assumed a new identity.
Might as well get used to it.
“I’m Mike Shapeck.”
That brought a smile from him.
He tapped a few keys on his comm, reached his left wrist over mine, and touched our comms.
“I just transferred your tickets to Rossa, along with several reports. You’ll be traveling by the fast method. It’s about time you got the experience of being drowned. You leave tomorrow at noon from LAX.”
LAX was the main airport in Los Angeles.
“You’ll fly to Brazil to the Macapa Space Elevator. You should arrive at the Meda Space Elevator on Rossa in twenty-four hours.”
He reached into his coat pocket.
“I put some cash in this envelop. You have a bank account in the Bank of Zor with more.”
Zor was the capital city of the nation of York on Rossa. And my hometown.
He sat opposite me with a serious look, the one he uses when he’s giving assignments.
“Something big is going to happen. I don’t know what but it’s going to change everything. It’s centered on York. That’s why I wanted you to be rebuilt and investigate. With a new identity, no one on York will suspect you as you look into it.
“Your first job is to find out who killed the two of you. Your second job is to find out what is up. I don’t care what happens to your killers. Do you understand your orders?”
I nodded.
“You’re like a son to me, Mike. Make me proud.”
He stood, buttoned his suit coat, and reached out to me with open arms.
We hugged. After all he was my uncle as well as my boss and we both had suffered a big loss. I had lost my best friend and he had lost both of his sons.
Chapter 5
Acorn added, “I will send a message to Vincent Stone that I’ve assigned a new guy to be the station chief. I will give him your name.”
“Will?”
“I’ll send it in time for your arrival. I had to make sure you were okay with your new identity.”
He pressed buttons on his comm. Then he tapped it to mine.
“I also transferred several reports to your comm. One is the full report of what you, or should I say your unbuilt, learned. One is the background on your new identity. Another is the report on your murder. I’ve also included newscasts that should help you adjust to what to expect when you arrive on Rossa.
“There’s one more thing you need to know about. The Binger Disease. Since you are now a hundred percent Binger, you have an increased risk of dying of heart disease. Something in the changes that Dr. Bing made increased our risk of arterial disease. Bingers, full Bingers, have a tendency to build up cholesterol in their arteries.
“As you know, I’m a full Binger. I’ve lived with this all my life and expect to die early. That’s just reality.
“I paid for the removal of such deposits in your arteries, but since you have Binger DNA now, you may build up cholesterol anyway. Jake had some risk of that when he was a half-Binger.”
I remained still, my eyes glazed over while I stared at the table top.
“On the positive side, you have increased intelligence, strength, and healing abilities. I hope that makes up for this.
“Any questions?”
I sat still.
Wow. A death sentence.
I mustered up the courage to speak.
“How do you know? About the Binger Disease, I mean.”
He replied, “Ten full Bingers have died so far, not counting those who were killed. Of the ten, autopsies revealed that eight had died of heart attacks.”
“So I have about an eighty percent chance of dying of a heart attack?”
He looked down at his hands.
“Living on the increased gravity of Rossa may stress your heart even more. So far, we’ve had no deaths of Bingers there.”
“What about Jake?”
“There was an autopsy since he died a violent death. Jake had some build-up of cholesterol in his heart. But he really died from being shot.”
He opened his arms again and we hugged.
When we broke away, he said, “Good luck, Jake,…er, I mean Mike. I put a lot of faith in your abilities to get to the bottom of this.”
“What about my parents?”
“They don’t know and it’s best if you don’t tell them. They must believe their son is dead. If they find out you’re alive, they might leak that. You will be free to investigate his murder. Later, you can tell them yourself. Any other questions?”
I asked, “Who else has been rebuilt?”
He paused for two seconds.
“Only two men have undergone the procedure. Both were rich and their heirs were upset. The public is too, especially the religious leaders. Many nations are considering laws against rebuilding. There is a lot of resentment against the top one percent. And rebuilding in particular.”
“Was that a factor in your decision?”
“Yes. But I paid extra to keep this quiet.”
“What about Gancha?”
Gancha Morentoss was my girlfriend.
I asked, “Does she know about me?”
He shook his head.
“I’ll leave that up to you how to handle.”
With that, he turned and walked to the door. He turned toward me.
“Oh, before I forget. You can find some clothes in the closet over there.”
He pointed to a blank section of the wall to the left of the bathroom door. With that, he turned to the door and commanded, “Door open.”
It did, he walked through, and it closed it behind him.
He had given me a lot to think about.
But first I needed to get into some decent clothes. The blank section of wall next to the telly puzzled me. I walked up to it and pressed several times. A door opened and I saw a single suit of gray clothes and a white shirt. My size too. In the bottom of the closet, I found a pair of shoes.
I went to the dresser in the main room, opened drawers, and put socks and underwear on the bed.
After a quick shower, I dressed.
Might as well find out if I can leave.
I went to the door.
“Open door.”
This time it slid aside. The four guys were gone. I stepped into the hallway and looked both ways. At least I could leave.
Not having much to do until I left tomorrow, I returned to my room and sat at the table and read some of the reports Acorn had left.
Chapter 6
The first I chose was the police report of the deaths of Jake and Ron.
The images of their bodies struck me. Here I lay with blood oozing from my head. There was no way anyone could survive such a wound. The dark hole in my right eye socket. The neck wound, itself fatal.
I stared at the image a long time. It’s not every day you get to see yourself dead.
Your death was the reason I’m here now.
Next I examined Ron’s body with its large dark spot behind his head, undoubtedly from blood.
Goodbye, buddy. If you had not stayed to help Jake, you might be alive today.
My buddy was gone. Life wouldn’t be the same without Ron.
I wondered how his husband Tosten was taking this. Must be a bitch to miss someone close to you. My feelings when
my ex-wife died came to my mind. Leanna had remarried after our divorce but putting her in a body bag after her death was hard. Thank heavens I had Ron with me. The presence of another male kept my tears to a minimum.
But Ron was no more. I had to get used to that.
I thought of visiting Tosten but decided he didn’t need to know my new identity just yet.
Next I read and memorized part of the background on “Mike Shapeck” so I could respond to questions.
The itching lessened but it was replaced with muscle pain. As in all over my body.
Must be growing new muscles.
After several hours of reading and enduring the muscle pain, my stomach told me it was time to eat. So much had happened since I was “gone.”
The plastic menu left by the doctor was for lunch only. Said so right on the cover. I wondered how to order dinner and looked around the room. I spotted a big word “Menu” on the telly with words too small to read below it.
When I got closer I read, “To order meals from the menu, select Channel One on the television.”
Made sense.
“Telly on.”
The white wall changed to show a rectangle of blue. Must be two feet by three feet. The logo of the Rejuv Clinic appeared.
“Channel One.”
The logo of the Rejuv Center disappeared. In place of it were several choices.
“Select Menu.”
I chose rib eye steak, medium, baked potato with butter, broccoli, a fruit side dish. The choices of beverages included iced tea, different sodas, and several kinds of wine, beers, and hard liquors such as scotch and bourbon. With all I had to digest before I left Earth, there was no way I could afford to drink alcohol, although I was tempted. I stuck with water. For now.
After making my selection, I said, “Send to the kitchen.
“Channel Four.”
The top story that appeared focused on lawyers and the Harbor Justice Center in Newport. I got the impression this case had started long ago.
The reporter said, “The attorney for the plaintiff in this ‘Robots Have Rights’ lawsuit against the State of California was himself a human but his robot client sat next to him.”
All I could see were humans in the court, except for the plaintiff, who appeared to be a humanoid bot. He wore a blue suit and white shirt. I could not tell his height or weight from his sitting position but he appeared average.
Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck) Page 2
