“No. I’m not a ghost. I’ll explain inside.”
“Your name again?”
This time I gave my new one. “Mike Shapeck.”
“Ah, Vincent said to expect you.”
The door clicked this time. When I entered, Zetto had a gun aimed at my belly. I raised my arms and turned around. He followed proper procedure and so did I.
“I’m not carrying. Can I explain everything in the planning room?” I pointed to the right.
Zetto patted me down anyway before motioning to the left with his gun that I was to go into the other room.
When I walked in, Vincent and Andy looked at Zetto’s drawn gun and me.
“How’d he get in here?” asked Vincent.
“I’m Jake,” I replied. “Or rather Jake’s rebuilt.”
I walked over to the wall safe and entered the password. It opened.
Vincent pressed a few buttons on his comm and waved it over my body.
“He’s not broadcasting, except for his comm.”
He looked at me.
“Can you turn it off?”
I nodded.
“Comm off.”
Vincent checked his comm and nodded at the decreased signal.
He said, “You must forgive us but we need to ask you a few questions that only Jake would know the answers to.”
“Of course.”
Vincent went first and asked, “When Jake got shot, who was the man on the floor dressed in white in the restroom?”
I thought for a moment. “Lachierre. Kurt Lachierre.”
“Where did this happen?”
“Stenno’s.”
Vincent asked, “What did the man in the other stall say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He took one look at the blood and the fallen men, one of whom was you, and slipped back into his handicapped stall. His pants were down, by the way.”
Vincent nodded.
Andy asked, “What is the name of the receptionist at Mourtan Security?”
“Elsie. Your grandmother and a part owner of Mourtan.”
He added, “Who was my first wife?”
I had to think a minute on that one. “Stella.”
Andy nodded.
Andy was the CEO and main owner, now that he inherited Jake’s shares, of Mourtan Security. We had used his genius with security equipment on several ops.
I directed my next question to him.
“Andy, why are you here? I thought you had a business to run.”
He replied, “Vincent said we should be here to meet the new boss. And now we find you’re the old one.” He shook his head. “This is gonna take some getting used to. We all attended the funeral service for Jake.”
I looked at Zetto, my main communications guy. He had not asked any questions so far. He looked down at the floor for a minute and asked, “What did I say at the gofer cage?”
I thought for another minute.
“That was at K2. Something about plans to pollute the water supply. But you didn’t know how it was to be done.”
“And what did you say in return?” asked Zetto.
“I asked if you wanted out. You declined.”
He replied, “I still don’t believe it.”
“Who is Gancha?” asked Vincent.
I glanced at him and smiled. “My girlfriend.”
“What’s she famous for?”
I pursed my lips and thought for a couple seconds. “All sorts of things. Mostly crime though.”
Vincent asked one more question, “I heard that rebuilding is illegal. How do you explain yourself then?”
I replied, “Acorn paid for my rebuilding. After I was made, the process was made illegal.”
Vincent asked, “How about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?”
“Good question,” I replied. “That principle applied to the atomic and subatomic levels. It does NOT apply to the molecular level of NR. NR works.”
“NR?” asked Vincent.
“Nano-rejuvenation.”
My old pet Monk stared at me. Monk was part rhesus monkey and part Persian cat. There were only a half dozen of his kind in existence. Most lived on Earth. Monk had the lower body of a cat and the upper body of a monkey. So he had six limbs─four legs and two arms. He was also a smart little bugger. I had picked him up at the animal shelter just a few months ago.
Would he recognize me?
Monk got down from his perch. He came up to me and sniffed my open hand.
I winked and smiled and extended my arms.
“I’m the new Jake.”
Monk hesitated. I could see the gears grinding in his little head. This was the big one.
Then he smiled and reached up with his arms. I lifted him up to my chest and held him as I had done so often. The sound of Monk’s purring came to my ears.
Vincent said, “I thought Jake might have been tortured to reveal the passcode to our room and even the passcode to the safe. And maybe the answers to our questions. But if you’re good enough for Monk, you’re good enough for me.
“Besides, Acorn sent a message to me with your new name and photo. He said you were the rebuilt Jake. But that presents a problem.”
“What?” I asked him.
“Who’s in charge of the team?”
“Well, you were before I came into the room.”
Chapter 15
I faced all the others.
“My new name is Mike Shapeck. S-H-A-P-E-C-K. I suggest you never call me by my old name. Just forget you ever knew it. I’m Mike now.
“Since Jake had been cremated and his ashes buried, Acorn decided to change my face and voice to match that of someone he had an identity set up for. He gave me two assignments for when I returned to Rossa. First I was to find out who killed Jake. And Ron. Then I was to find out what the hell is going on. It’s a biggie and may involve our old nemesis, Ash Getner.
“By the way, if my being rebuilt ever gets out, all of our lives are in danger.”
Andy added, “Sounds like Jake. I’ll have to admit, though, this is going to take some adjusting.”
I looked in the eyes of all three men and settled on Zetto.
He stuck his lower lip out and nodded slowly while he looked down at the floor and bobbed his head up and down an inch at a time.
“Okay, you’re the old Jake.”
Whew!
Andy asked, “How does that work, the rebuilding, I mean?”
Spies are always curious─about everything. Ya never know when a fact might be useful.
“When someone pays to have a template made, it’s usually while they are young enough. You can only have a rejuvenation back to your age of your last template or rejuv. So it is best to have one made while you are younger.”
Vincent said, “That doesn’t explain much.”
I added, “To get a template, you first get put to sleep. Then they lower your body’s temperature to just above freezing, so every molecule slows down. The technicians send submicroscopic nanotubes between your skin pores. These same nanotubes spout more nanotubes which spread out to penetrate every cell. They draw off water molecules as the temperature approaches the freezing point to prevent ice crystals from rupturing the delicate cellular structure.
“Then the nanites, as they are called, record the location of every molecule in the body. When they are done, every cell in the body is heated and the nanites add water as needed. Eventually, the nanites retreat completely before you come to just below room temperature. When you are warm enough, your heart is restarted and you are woken up.
“That’s the process for a template.
“Years later, if you had the money and desire, you could go in for another treatment. Only this time when you are frozen, the computer-driven nanites would change every molecule in every cell of your body to be an exact match to your template. Except, of course, your brain, which would not be altered except to remove any amyloid beta plaques or tangles. Who wants to lose all those hard earned lessons of life?
Zetto asked, “Yeah, but what happened to you?”
“When I died, or was killed in this case, Acorn made the decision to bring me back to life. The technicians searched for a corpse and chose a man of similar weight and height to that of Jake. This John Doe had lived a life no one knew much about anymore—except that it ended in the bottom of a bottle, in a ramshackle cardboard house under a bridge over the Santa Ana River in Anaheim, California. Not far from the famous resort for kids.
“The technicians made a template of this thin, naked, and malnourished dead man. They fed the information from my template into the computer. This required new chemicals from reservoirs outside the machine. Cell by cell, organ by organ, my body was reconstructed to match that of Jake.
“Except in this case, Acorn had paid extra to alter my face, voice, hands, and fingerprints to match those of the Mike Shapeck identity he had set up in advance. That way I would have a history established by Acorn and could use the ID of Shapeck.
Zetto raised his hand.
“Why not use the drunk’s identity?
I shook my head.
“Because I would have to follow his past and drink a lot. And he had no money to afford a transport to Rossa. That would raise a red flag somewhere.”
I continued.
“They used the general knowledge of DNA to alter my body to support my new face, etc. They also changed me to become a full Binger. That turned out to become a small problem. They could change the DNA and the RNA, but not the proteins the RNA would make. There were just too many of them.
“They poured heat down the millions of nanotubes, gradually thawing my body. Water was added as needed. When my body approached room temperature, all nanotubes retreated. A doctor flipped the switch to pump air into my dormant lungs and another switch to stimulate my heart.
“But remember, my brain had the memories of Jake. So when I woke, I thought I was Jake and had just gone in for a template. Every neuron and connection was redesigned. All traces of the derelict cadaver were gone. My memories were now those of Jake.
“I had no memory of the time after my template was made. So I don’t know what Jake experienced after he left the clinic.”
The three men sat quiet while they digested this.
“Like I said,” I added, “Acorn had my DNA changed to that of a full Binger.”
Vincent said, “What about aftereffects of the rejuv?”
“I have muscle soreness, but it’s going away. Being a full Binger means I have to watch out for cholesterol in my heart.”
I kept my gaze on Vincent.
“As you know, anyone with Binger DNA has a risk of contracting the Binger Disease and dying early from a heart attack.”
Vincent, being the smartest man on my team, added, “Is rejuv something we ought to consider?”
“You can. But the process requires a trip to Earth. So far, we have no rejuv centers on Rossa.”
Chapter 16
Zetto spoke up.
“So people can use this rejuv process to live forever.”
I shook my head. “We don’t know how long a person can live. Maybe hundreds of years. We don’t know yet, but it’s possible there’s a limit to how many memories we can store in our brains. Besides, there may be brain diseases we don’t know about. We know about dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.”
Vincent added, “They’ve cured all of those. There’s a treatment for every one of them.”
“Not the ones we’ve just learned about, like Jeron’s. Certainly not for the ones we don’t know about,” I added.
I turned to Zetto.
“How’s your sister?”
He shrugged. “Same as always. Stuck in a wheelchair. I wish they’d invent a treatment for her soon.”
I knew he had a sister who needed lots of medical help, which was expensive. He helped his parents out with money from the sale of his micro-art and his wages as a BIS agent.
After a pause, I said, “I have another question.”
I looked at the sea of faces before me. “Whatever happened to Tosten?”
Vincent replied, “I met him at the funeral service for Ron. Tos inherited the house and really misses his partner. I figure it’s too soon for him to start dating again.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I can understand that. I miss Ron too. More than you can guess.”
Vincent pipped up. “We know you’re straight. You’ve dated women before. But I’m curious. Was there ever anything between Ron and you?”
I shook my head. “Lots of people have asked that. We were just friends, though.” After a few seconds, I added, “He was my best buddy. I’m gonna miss him. A lot.”
After a pause that lasted for five seconds, I added, “Anyone know how Alena is doing?”
Andy spoke first. “Last I checked, she’s still working on her degree at the university.”
“And Gancha?”
This time Zetto spoke first. “She tagged us last week. Wondered if there were any ops planned.”
Vincent added, “But I told her there are none. Is that still true?”
“We’ll see. I just got here so give me some time to learn what’s happening.”
I looked at Andy. “How did you do with Mourtan?”
He replied, “I own it all now. Well, my part and Jake’s. What’s gonna happen now you’re alive again?”
I shook my head. “I can’t change that unless I tell the courts who I am. And that’s not going to happen. It’s probably better to leave well enough alone.”
Andy smiled and replied, “Thanks.”
Vincent brought up another point. “Rejuvving is expensive. That means only the rich can afford it.”
Zetto pipped up. “So the rich may enjoy it, but not the rest of us.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a sticker all right.”
Andy said, “That explains the protests I’ve seen on the telly.”
I added, “There may be a limit to the number of times a human can be rejuvenated by this method because of the capacity to store new memories in our brains. We need to increase the number of memories we can access. Maybe a thousand-fold. To do that, we need an interface between a human brain and computers so we can use the almost infinite capacity of computers to store memories.
“If we want to retain the uniqueness of human personalities, after a hundred years of life we will need to store memories on a computer. As they are formed. Which means we will need to migrate our brains onto computers.
“As we understand how the human brain works, we will learn how to add memories. We need to learn how to mimic a human brain inside a computer. Lots of people are working on that one.”
After I stopped talking, the others looked down, lost in thought.
Once again, Vincent was the first to break the silence. “I hear researchers are examining ways to let us extend our lives in a more natural way. Like sea anemonies do. Those suckers live for hundreds of years with no signs of getting old. They’re sexually active too.”
Andy added, “As I understand it, that would mean modifying our DNA. So maybe our kids and grandkid could live longer, but not us.”
Vincent, ever the thoughtful one, spoke next.
“More and more people on Earth are modifying the genes of their unborn babies to have ‘designer genes.’ They are choosing more intelligence, beauty, sports abilities, music and the arts. And longevity. In other words, more like Bingers. That could mean reducing the prejudice against us.”
He paused.
“Maybe we’ll be out of a job in a few years.”
I replied, “Don’t count on it. The habit of prejudice is hard to break. Most of the time, we have to wait until the old farts who believe in the old ways die off.”
“Jake,” Vincent shook his head, “…er, I mean Mike. I have to admit, it’
s going to take some adjusting to get used to your new name and face. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re back and you’re in charge.” He paused before extending his hand with a grin.
“Welcome back.”
I shook hands with all three men.
Zetto piped up with, “Do you want me to route your emails and tags like I did for…hmm…the other person?”
“Yes, please. And Zetto, you’ll get used to my new name over time.”
I gave them my new comm number and my email address.
Then Vincent said, “Is that the face of the dead guy?”
I shook my head. He probably asked the question for the benefit of the others.
“Nothing remained from the deceased’s body. My face was altered to look like the identity that Acorn had chosen. And my voice and hands. He wanted me to ‘be’ exactly like Mike Shapeck. This way, I will be able to investigate why Jake and Ron were killed with no one knowing who I am.”
Andy added, “Does this mean you’ll gradually change to look like the cadaver?”
I shook my head.
“I doubt it. Nothing remains of his DNA.”
I paused. “And there’s the second assignment from Acorn.” I paused again and looked at their faces. “What do you know?”
All heads shook.
“Acorn got the impression something big was about to happen. It was centered on Rossa. It’s political and could involve my old nemesis, Ash Getner, and Prime Minister Pierre Klava.”
Chapter 17
Nikki Su, the Vice Premier of York, listened to the speech of her boss, Pierre Klava. Next to her in the air-conditioned auditorium sat Terry Overman, her personal bodyguard. In keeping with the political nature of Klava’s presentation, Nikki wore a yellow lace blouse, tight gray skirt, gray jacket, and gray one-inch heel shoes. She refused to wear taller heels, even on the campaign trail, claiming they hurt her back too much. Which was true. A day of walking in three-inch heels was murder on her lower back.
Ordinarily, she would not attend the same presentation out of concern for what might happen if both the PM and VPM were killed at the same event. But Klava had insisted she attend this one since it was a major political rally for his party.
The VPM had few official duties, if you don’t count the numerous meetings as the stand-in for the PM. And of course, she was technically in charge of York security. But everyone on the Security Advisory Council knew that the real power lay in the hands of Ash Getner, the head of the York Security Agency. And he was not here today.
Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck) Page 6
