Tales from the Canyons of the Damned: Omnibus

by Daniel Arthur Smith

  He came back around and met her eyes again. He was trying to tell her something but she just couldn’t understand. Who the fuck reads lips these days! I. Can’t. Understand. You! Okay. Okay. One finger… wait… you are going to try something. Oh shit, Mister… No… No… No ....

  “...genta! Magenta!! Are you all right?” said Chris Martin “Say something! Anything!”

  Magenta? Is that me? Magenta? Am I with this man? Dammit. Why can’t I remember? Shut up, man, and let me think.

  “Magenta, try and remain calm. I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I’m going to look you over and see if I can find where you are hurt.” He ran his hands slowly over her entire body, feeling for anything obvious like a broken bone or something that might help him understand her paralysis. Her eyes were open which was odd, he supposed; he wasn’t a doctor after all. After a full inspection of her body, Chris was more confused than ever. He was about to call for an E-Transport when he stopped cold in his tracks. He knelt again and made eye contact. “I hope you can hear me. This is all my fault. I have to make a call. I know someone who can help. I’m sorry. I’ll explain everything. I’ll be right back.”

  Don’t leave me! I can hear you now! What do you mean, this is all your fault? Tell me what is going on! I’m scared! Who are you? Why am I here? Why can’t I remember?

  Chris went back to his office and retrieved the number for ReaniMate and called Dr. Burch. It had been almost a year since Chris had spoken with James Burch, despite the regular monthly infusion of funds into his company. After the sale had been finalized, Chris had, in essence, cut the man from his life. In many ways, actually the most significant way, Chris was ashamed of what he’d done. In no way had he taken into account the lives that would be affected by the process.

  “Doctor Burch! It’s Christopher Martin and I have an emergency! It’s Magenta! Something’s happened,” he said frantically.

  “Calm down man,” said the Doctor in his strained British accent. “Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened.”

  “It’s Magenta. I was asleep when I heard breaking glass and a hard thud. I ran to the living room and there she lay. Completely motionless. Her eyes are moving but her body is in complete paralysis. What do I do?”

  “Well, that is peculiar. Do you recall the model number for the implant?” Burch asked.

  “Of course, I don’t! I can’t be expected to remember every little detail. I’d have to consult my records. Listen, I have you here now, can you suggest anything that I can try?”

  Doctor Burch was quiet for a moment, then said, “There are a couple of options.”

  “Okay, tell me!” Chris said, frantic.

  “At the base of the neck, if you apply a small amount of pressure you will, for lack of a better term, trip a cognitive reset. Now, this is a unique circumstance, as I have never heard of the function being performed while the unit is in the condition you describe.”

  “Unit? This is my wife we are talking about! Show some respect.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool, Mr. Martin, and I won’t take you for the same,” exclaimed Dr. Burch. “You called me remember? I am well aware of the circumstances of our meeting and doing business together.”

  “Fine. What’s the other option? And why wasn’t I made aware of these possibilities on the front end?”

  “If I had to speculate, Mr. Martin, I would argue that you never read anything I gave you other than the “authorization to proceed” document, and the forms for scripting the memories. Your concern was getting the unit just the way you desired and into the home as quickly as possible, and damn the fine print.”

  “Fuck you Doctor! What is the second option?”

  “Very well. If you place your fingers to the temples of the unit on both sides and apply pressure...”

  “You mean push.”

  “Yes, place your thumbs on her cheeks and your forefingers on her temples and push. Hold for 5 seconds and that will begin a hard core reboot of the Robot-Tech heart and the Memory Unit. The Unit will shut down completely, although the eyes will remain open, before rebooting and regenerating the life cycle. She will, hopefully, come out of it with a slight headache, and the memory you implant will take care of the situation completely. A fall and bump of the head, you’ll tell her.”

  VI

  Despite her very real fear of the situation, the woman within the body had calmed down considerably. She believed the man was indeed trying to help her. And she could hear him now, so whatever aid he was trying to do to her, she’d at least understand and know what he was doing.

  “Good news, Magenta, I’ve spoken to a doctor and I think I can help you,” said Chris.

  Who is Magenta! My name is Cassandra!… Yes! Cassandra… my name is Cassandra! Help me talk. Please. I want to go home.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, Magenta, I hope you can. I’m not even sure what is going on. You, lying here like this, eyes wide open. Maybe there’s a malfunction?”

  Malfunction. What do you mean malfunction?

  “I don’t know if this is even related to ReaniMate, but since nothing like this has ever happened to you before, I can only assume it is.”

  Reani-what? What are you talking about?

  “I’m going to try to reboot you.”

  Reboot me? What have you done to me? My name is Cassy. Cassy… Allen!! I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and I want to go home right now!

  “I’m sorry. You won’t remember this. I’ll be writing in an explanation for your fall and everything will get back to normal pretty quickly.”

  What? No… No… No. Don’t do this! You were supposed to help me. I don’t know who this Magenta person is, but I am Cassandra. I have a family! A mother, a sister, and a daughter. They must be missing me. It’s all coming back to me now. Don’t take this away from me! I have to get back to them. I’m begging you! Please DO NOT DO THIS!

  “You may need a few days to rest. It’s not important how you came to me. You are here now and I love you.”

  Mister, I know you can’t hear me, but for God’s sake, listen. I deserve to live. There are people who love me. They must be wondering where I am. Does this Magenta know what you’ve done? Would she let you kill me if she knew about me? Does she know you stole my life?

  “Things will get back to the way they were and we’ll put this behind us.”

  This isn’t fair! I deserve to…”

  “I’m just going to place my thumbs here and my other fingers on your temple and… push… and hold… for 5 seconds. Okay, now I need to go back to my office for a few minutes and implant your memory. You apparently slipped and fell, breaking your mug and getting a nasty knock on your head. I’ll even include a trip on the E-Transport. Let me pick you up and lay you on the sofa. It will all feel very natural when you wake up.”

  Christopher’s shame was palpable, yet misguided. He did not know he terminated the essence of Cassandra Allen. At this moment, his shame was concentrated around his wife, Magenta, and the lies he told her. Never once in this entire process did he consider the host body. His shame was that he was a liar, not a thief. He was frantic to return to normalcy as quickly as possible. To do this, he retreated back to his home office and turned on the interface.

  VII

  Cassandra Allen was missed tremendously. She was a beautiful daughter, a loving sister, and an amazing mother. Cassandra, an otherwise completely healthy 41-year-old woman, had an underlying heart condition that wasn’t discovered until after she died suddenly in her own home while cooking dinner for her mother and daughter.

  Her mother didn’t realize she was already dead and continued to perform CPR until the E-Transport arrived 17 minutes later. Cassandra’s daughter, Amelia, was hysterical the entire time and quite honestly, hasn’t regained her composure since. Her father abandoned her in infancy and her mother left her also. She loves her “Grans” but really, it’s only a matter of time before she leaves as well.

  Because Cassandra
’s death was not a violent event, such as Vehicle Transport Death (VTD), or Violent Assault Death (VAD), her body was in immaculate condition. David Walters, an intake agent at the morgue, noticed her candidacy for ReaniMate immediately. He called Dr. James Burch and explained he had a viable candidate and the body was “pure,” meaning no outward damage or deficiencies. Dr. Burch, of course, examined each candidate himself before making the final decision. Yes, the Robot-Tech heart would make this body a brand new person. He would never deny he saw dollar signs in the air after the completion of each successful examination.

  Once Cassandra had gone through the exam and had been deemed compatible with ReaniMate, Dr. Burch called Glenn Joyce, his Chief of Transport. Cassandra was placed in the standard morgue cold-storage locker and awaited transport to ReaniMate’s off-site Cryo-Storage Warehouse.

  During her short stay awaiting transport by Mr. Joyce, David Walters spent quality time with Cassandra. He photographed her from head to toe. He made notes about natural hair and eye color. These were the basics required in beginning Cassandra’s profile once she has been prepared for sale. Other significant information for the file were cause of death, health history, and surviving family.

  Surviving family, outside of cause of death, may be the single most important factor that goes into a preliminary file. Dr. Burch paid a great deal of money to Jason Schenker to perform detailed background checks and surveillance on surviving family members of candidates.

  Mr. Schenker did his due diligence with Cassandra’s mother and daughter. He could tell the daughter, Amelia, was angry and missed her Mom. He was wrong in that sense—she was pissed at her Mom for dying—but you couldn’t blame him; he was a thug, not a psychologist. Nevertheless, his research showed she was perfectly healthy. She’d had a very clean last wellness visit with her pediatrician and not a single cavity on her last dental exam. She didn’t play any sports and had very little use for material goods like cell phones and the latest fashions. Schenker was quite surprised, actually. Girls her age always had a ton of shit and wanted more.

  Cassandra’s mother, Ellen, had been doing the best she could. Her health was not great and the added worry of caring for Amelia, despite having all the love in the world for her, was taking its toll. With Amelia now in the fold, Ellen’s money stream was taking a major hit. She had a modest retirement income, plus a little from her late husband. It clearly wasn’t enough for the long term. Hell, the old lady didn’t even have a dime in savings for her granddaughter’s college fund. He’d told Dr. Burch he had his opening. They would go with the “give the body to science” bit and pay her handsomely. After all, it was a rare heart disorder that led to her death, Schenker remembered. They had this one in the bag. All that was left was making absolutely sure Cassandra Allen wasn’t purchased by anyone in the state or region.

  Once the paperwork had been signed by Cassandra’s mother, Glenn Joyce did indeed transport the body to the Cryo-Storage facility. Before Cassandra was placed into her storage capsule, she required a little surgery because the two most important pieces to a successful ReaniMate are the Memory Unit and the Robot-Tech heart.

  Cassandra was placed on the cold steel table and the preparations were made. The environment was deemed sterile and the work began. A small section of her hair was shaved, followed by an incision several inches long. The sections of skin were clamped and pulled carefully out of the way. The specially designed DS Reed laser was used to safely remove a section of skull required to place the ReaniMate Memory Unit Directly into the brain.

  The finale and most important step was the installation of the Robot-Tech heart. The Robot-Tech heart was created and perfected after years of trial and error, by Doctor James Lee Austin. Dr. Austin was a brilliant man, and his creation was meant to be used as a gift to the world. He had no earthly notion that after his death, his creation was only being used by a corporation for the sole purpose of making money.

  Once the Robot-Tech heart was installed, calibrated, and synced with the Memory Unit Cassandra was in all actuality brought back from the dead by cybernetic technology and a high voltage pulse. It is also at this moment that Cassandra ceased to exist. The Memory Unit wiped her memory upon start-up and from that very moment ReaniMate vessel #10231973 was placed in her storage vessel and put into a deep cryogenic sleep. ReaniMate vessel #10231973 slept peacefully in her frozen state for almost two years before Christopher Martin placed his very specific order. Magenta was born precisely one month later.

  VIII

  Magenta woke, assessing herself methodically, and after a few minutes remembered she was lying on the couch. She had slipped while in the kitchen, fallen and hit her head. Chris had come to her aid and helped her to the couch. She sat up and thought she should go tell Chris she was awake and needed a headache powder.

  As she rose to her feet she was struck by an image in her head that caused her to fall back on the couch and cover her ears. It was a woman… who looked… exactly… like… her and she was screaming I am Cassandra! I am Cassandra! The poor woman, she was screaming as if her life depended on it. She was strapped to some kind of operating table. Magenta was horrified by what she was seeing. Even worse, she couldn’t un-see it. Her eyes were closed as tightly as possible and there was this woman Cassandra, ME, she thought, being tortured or something, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Magenta thought maybe what she was seeing was related to hitting her head. It must have been pretty nasty to have required an E-Transport. What time was it? How long was I there? She looked around for a med-bottle or anything that he’d left in the event that she awoke when he wasn’t by her side. Nothing. Maybe Chris figured she would let him know when she was awake and he’d bring her the med-bottle. Either way, this was terrifying and she needed her husband to help her sort it out. He’d always been there for her, why wouldn’t he now?

  She tried to stand again and was blasted with another image, this one of her—Cassandra—seemingly frozen in a pod or container of some kind. Trapped! She had to get Chris. He could help her. She hoped. Stumbling back towards their bedroom, she saw him in his office at his interface. She entered the study but immediately dropped to the floor in agony. It was the voice of Cassandra repeating the same phrase with alarming ferocity. She covered her ears but it still persisted. I DESERVE TO LIVE!!! I DESERVE TO LIVE!!! I DESERVE TO LIVE!!! It was hopeless. Magenta let out a piercing scream for her husband and lay once again on the floor in confusion and pain.

  IX

  Chris rushed to her side for the second time in as many hours. What was wrong with her? He had done that part of his homework. In all of his thorough research of ReaniMate and its history, there had never been an incident even close to this, not even during the trial phase when everything was experimental. This was a well-oiled machine. There simply wasn’t a reasonable explanation for what was happening. Unreasonable? Maybe he should document this through his interface and pass it on to the Tech-Agents at ReaniMate.

  Several minutes later, Magenta was resting comfortably on the leather sofa in Chris’s study. Chris hadn’t even been able to investigate the issue, as Magenta went damn near catatonic. Chris went to the kitchen and made tea for the both of them and made his way once again down the hallway and back to the study. When he walked through the doorway, he was quite surprised to see Magenta not only standing with her arms folded, but wearing a distraught expression.

  “Christopher, my darling we must talk,” she said wearily.

  “Of course dear. What can–”

  “Christopher, what have you done?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. fear and shame creeping up his spine and into his brain. His mouth would have to form the words to escape this sensation or his house of cards would crumble.

  “What I mean is, something is not right in this house. Something is terribly wrong.”

  “Babe, you had a fall, you rode the E-Transport! It’s been a very long day. You could be hearing voices as a side effect. In f
act, the doctor said you might.” That’s right, he thought, keep lying. It’s all going to catch up to you soon enough.

  “Chris. I need to ask you something, and it’s very important.”

  “Anything babe! We will get through this. I’m no doctor, but this knock on your head is clearly worse than originally thought.” Chris was reeling. He needed to bring this back around to center quickly and get out of here.

  “Who is Cassandra Allen?”

  Chris felt as though he’d been kicked in the gut and it showed. He locked eyes with her and just stared. How the fuck did she know that name? After what seemed an eternity, he broke off and walked, shoulders slumped, defeated, back to his desk and sat down. He typed briefly on his interface… then looked down He boomed “GODDAMN IT!” and swept his arm across his desk, launching everything on it halfway across the room.

  Magenta was shocked by the outburst. Chris had never done anything like the display she had just witnessed.

  “How do you know that name?” he asked, not looking up to meet her gaze.

  “Chris… I don’t—”

  He slammed his fist down upon the desk. “I said, how do you know that name?”

  “I saw her. She told me… I mean, I saw her saying her name.”

  “What do you mean, you saw her?” Chris said

  “I… don’t know. She was in my head. She said she deserved to live. What does that mean?”

  Chris was utterly defeated. He couldn’t understand the metaphysical event that was occurring, but felt most assuredly that he was exposed. There was no other option than to come clean. He stood up from the desk, walking around it and towards Magenta. He took her hand, looked her in eyes, and said, “Cassandra Allan died so that you could live.”

  X

  Magenta backed away from him in horror. She sat on the sofa which, luckily, was close and put her face in her hands. She cried.

  “Please explain why another woman had to die so I could live. What are you saying?” Magenta spoke with a resolve she had not been aware she had.