Shelley is a poet. He is Ariel, not Caliban. He did not write Frankenstein.
May I ask? Is your husband informed of your visit here?
He is attending to family matters, she said.
Our man sprang up and went to the window. He cried out: THERE! Do you see? He is there.
Who is there? I said.
The creature!
All three of us peered into the dark yard.
No one is there, I said.
If I am here, then he is there, replied Victor Frankenstein. That you cannot see him means nothing. You cannot see God but by his effects. Believe me, you will see his effects. The monster once made cannot be unmade. What will happen to the world has begun.
What terrified me will terrify others.
Mary Shelley
Reality is your hand on my heart.
This doesn’t look like much of a place! said Ron Lord.
It’s not the pyramids of Egypt. It’s not a grove of cypress trees, or a sombre mausoleum built of hand-cut stone. There’s no stained glass, no wrought-iron gates. No chapel of rest. No weeping angels, kneeling maidens, knights recumbent, faithful dogs, life-size likenesses, vases in which to leave flowers. Memorial stones. In loving memory of.
We’re standing outside a concrete cube built on an out-of-town office and retail park near the runway of Scottsdale Airport, close to Phoenix. There’s a tile warehouse in the next lot.
Welcome back to Alcor, Ry!
Max More, the CEO, is waiting for us.
Hi, Max! Good to see you again. Victor emailed you about Ron Lord, didn’t he? Here he is: Ron Lord.
(Hand-shaking all round.)
Ron! Good to meet you! Are you a friend of Victor Stein?
(How many of Victor’s friends wear double-denim, tooled boots and a Stetson? Ron has dressed for his mini-break.)
I’m an investor, said Ron. I invest in the prof. I invest in the future.
You could invest in Alcor, said Max.
I might, said Ron. I get a lot of flak for what I do. You wouldn’t believe the hostility at the cutting edge.
New is frightening, said Max.
Ron nodded. Yeah, you’re right. I guess you get trouble too, what with this place freezing folks like TV dinners.
There is a lot of misunderstanding, said Max.
Same in my business, said Ron. Pioneers-R-Us.
Would you like to have a look around? said Max.
Is it creepy? said Ron. I don’t look sensitive but I am sensitive.
We went inside the storage facility. The tall aluminium cylinders stood polished and reflective on their giant castors.
These are the dewars, said Max. Named after the inventor, Sir James Dewar. He came up with the idea in 1872.
What? said Ron, You saying they were freezing guys back in 1872?
I interrupted. Ron, what you see here are oversized thermos flasks. James Dewar was a Scot who invented the thermos flask; a vacuum between a double wall of steel coated with a reflective surface. Hot stays hot and cold stays cold.
Ron was frowning under his new cowboy hat. He said, You mean these are like the things I drink my coffee out of?
The very same.
Ron went over and tapped a dewar. He looked at me, touchingly puzzled. You mean there’s people in here?
Yes, I said. Suspended head first, floating at minus 190 Celsius.
Ron removed his hat, out of respect.
Ryan, just explain. You’re a doc. They go in dead, don’t they?
Legally dead, yes.
What’s legally dead?
It means your wife can spend all your money.
She did that while I was alive.
Well, ask yourself this question, Ron: what is death?
Don’t get stupid on me, Ryan. Dead is dead.
Ron, there’s a problem – but it isn’t a problem with a comforting solution. Medically, and legally, death is deemed to occur at heart failure. Your heart stops. You take your last breath. Your brain, though, is not dead, and will not die for another five minutes or so. Perhaps ten or fifteen minutes in extreme cases. The brain dies because it is deprived of oxygen. It is living tissue like the rest of the body. It is possible that our brain knows we are dead before it dies.
Ron said, You’re fucking with me.
I am not fucking with you, Ron.
Ron said, You’re telling me that I will know I am dead and I will know there’s nothing I can do about it?
I said, Very possibly. I am sorry.
Yeah, me too, said Ron.
I tried to cheer him up. (Probably people shouldn’t talk about these things.) In the view of Alcor, death is not an event; death is a process. Correct, Max?
Correct, said Max, and Ron, if the brain can be preserved during the process we call death, perhaps it can be restored to consciousness some time in the future.
Ron seemed a bit more cheerful about this. OK! OK! I’m getting it! But if this is all about the brain, why all the fuss about the body? People are mostly old when they die, aren’t they? And sick. So do they come back as sick, old people?
The theory, Ron, I said, is that smart medicine will be able to renew and reverse the aged body. On the other hand, by preserving the brain only, we may be able to grow, or to manufacture, a brand-new body. Or, if you listen to Victor, you won’t need a body at all.
I don’t fancy being a disembodied body, said Ron.
Come over here, Ron, said Max. These dewars that you see here are much smaller. This is where we store the heads.
Just heads?
Just heads …
So what do you do? Chop ’em off?
Cephalic isolation (or ‘neuroseparation’) is performed by surgical transection at the sixth cervical vertebrae.
Wow, said Ron. I suppose they have the best surgeons do the job?
Vets can do it. (Why do I tell him this? Am I evil?)
VETS! (Exclamation marks stream out of Ron’s mouth.)
Yes, why not vets? The most interesting advances in vitrification have been on rabbits.
I am not letting a fuckin’ vet saw off my head! says Ron. It’s bad enough when I take Simba for his injections. I can’t look!
You won’t have to look.
What happens to my body afterwards?
Your family can cremate you.
Ron is staring at the dewars where the heads are kept.
Max, have they got their hair on?
Individual wishes are respected, says Max.
Funnily enough, says Ron, I have a factory of my own, in Wales, where we make heads – for my sexbots. In a way, we’re in the same business. Alcor should expand in Wales. There’ll be enterprise grants because of Brexit. Once the euro-millions is finally spent, there’ll be nothing to do in Wales. You’ll get tax breaks, warehousing, free fridges, free ice, maybe even vets. Whatever you want. Have you thought of franchising the business?
Max tells him that presently there are four cryonics facilities around the world – in the USA and in Russia.
Only four? says Ron. There’s a gap in the market there.
There certainly is, Ron, I say, because 55 million people a year drop dead.
Ron considers this number carefully. Yeah, he says, we get a lot of no-shows on our Sexbot Subscription Plan. Usually turns out they’re dead.
We also have a subscription plan, says Max.
Yeah, but your lot are expecting to be dead, says Ron. That’s what they’re paying for? Right?
Ron wanders away, hat in hand. It’s all too much to take in for Ron, and his processing speed is having a bit of an outage.
What happens in a power cut? he says. That could be a drawback with Wales. Right in the middle of dinner, usually Thursdays. Bang! The electric goes off.
Max explains that the dewars are so cold that a temporary power loss doesn’t matter. Even a few weeks wouldn’t matter.
What if there’s a nuclear war? asks Ron.
Max suggests there will be other things to worry about.
<
br /> Ron sees the good sense of this. His processing speed picks up and he spots a pattern in the data.
Ryan, you just said that 55 million people die every year?
Yes …
We wouldn’t want them all back though, would we?
Author’s note: THIS IS THE MOST PROFOUND THING RON HAS EVER SAID.
I mean, says Ron, where do you draw the line? Murdering bastards, child molesters, thugs, nutters, that bloke in Brazil – Bolsonaro. What if you had Hitler’s head in a bag in there? Would you defrost it? And then there’s really boring people … And where are we all going to fit? On the planet, I mean?
Max reassures Ron that by the time the technology is functional we will soon be colonising the stars.
Is Donald Trump getting his brain frozen? asks Ron.
Max explains that the brain has to be fully functioning at clinical death.
I might freeze my mum, says Ron. She’d love to live on a star.
Max shows Ron the dewars where the pets live.
Do they keep their fur? asks Ron.
Max knows that fur is an important part of a pet, so he is able to reassure Ron. He also suggests cloning.
Is that expensive, Max?
Very.
I can afford it, says Ron. Actually I was about to say, you can’t take it with you, but maybe you should! You drop dead. All the relatives spend your money, then bingo! You’re back! Then what?
I have to say that at this moment I look at Ron with new respect. Who exactly is thinking about the nitty-gritty of the future, except Ron Lord?
And now Ron is really on a roll. The Alcor warehouse is having a profound effect on his brain. As we stand by the dewars and their suspended, pending occupants, Ron launches into a disquisition on the immortality of sexbots. A companion for our many lives.
You might return, and there she is, just as you remember, and she remembers you. I mean, Max, I mean, this is something we should be thinking about together. I’m looking for partnerships. I don’t mean intimate partnerships, I mean business partnerships. This could be for your clients. A sexbot is better than a widow.
Partners can both come back together, says Max. Even if they die twenty years apart.
Ron is shaking his head and cowboy hat. This isn’t cutting it for him.
Listen, says Ron. Listen! I’ve learned a thing or two in my business. Now that people are living longer, marriages don’t work as well as they used to. People need a change. If I’m coming back, I might not want the missus, and she might not want me. Better to start with a bot-u-like, and see how it goes.
Wouldn’t you like to fall in love, Ron? I say.
Ryan, I know you think you’re smart, but let me tell you something about relationships. Most of the people, most of the time, are in horrible relationships, dreaming about being in a good relationship. And it’s a fantasy. It’s like the beach body you’ll never have – not counting you, Max, because I can see you’re pretty ripped under that T-shirt. Most men look like me … Ryan! Shut up! You don’t count. So I say, face the facts, Max, and get your subscription plan to include a sexbot.
At that moment the door to the storage facility opened and a tall, beautiful black woman walked in. I recognised her immediately. It was Claire from Memphis.
Claire! How are you?
You two know each other? said Max.
Yes! No! I said. We met in Memphis.
We surely did, said Claire. Quite an experience.
What? At the sex show? said Ron. Were you a hostess?
I was facilitating, said Claire, as icy as the North Pole.
Is that more high class? said Ron.
Sir! I was not part of the entertainment programme.
No offence meant, said Ron.
What are you doing here? I said.
I am Max More’s personal assistant.
Well, that’s a change.
Yes, it is.
I’d love to hear about it, I said. Would you like to come for a drink later?
I might do that, Dr Shelley, said Claire.
Can I come? said Ron.
And that is how we wound up at a little bar with a tin roof and a wide porch and a pretty girl wearing a TAKE IT EASY T-shirt, in the matter-of-fact mystery of the Sonoran Desert.
Welcome back! she said.
You been here before as well? said Ron.
In a previous life. That’s what it feels like, I said.
Do you believe in reincarnation? said Claire.
The waitress said, When he was last here, he drank bourbon and he ate melted cheese. Shall I bring some?
The waitress sashayed away.
That is a beautiful ass, said Ron.
Women are not body parts! said Claire.
How is a man supposed to give a woman a compliment, then? said Ron. You a #MeToo type?
I won’t get into my politics, said Claire, I’ll just tell you that you can say the following to a woman: what intelligent eyes she has. What a beautiful soul she has. What deep understanding she has. What fine dress sense she has.
Is that all? said Ron.
Think of it like practising the piano, said Claire. Get those right and we can try some other pieces.
Ron looked impressed. He said, Can I buy you a drink?
Ryan is buying me a drink, said Claire.
He’s called Mary, said Ron.
Pardon me?
I decided to interrupt this moment of Ron-ness.
Claire! Tell me, how did you get from the World Barbecuing Championship to Alcor? It’s quite a step.
Yes, it is, Ry (she said my name with some emphasis while ice-staring Ron). I had a vision.
A vision?
From the Lord.
Claire started to sing ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME/LET ME HIDE MYSELF IN THEE. She had a great voice. The table near us clapped.
I am here undercover, said Claire. As an envoy of my Family in the Lord. I am hidden in the cleft of the rock to discover the Soul.
Whose soul? I said.
The Souls of the Departed! said Claire. If you die. If you are vitrified. If you return to life here on earth in this Vale of Tears, tell me this: where is your Soul?
That’s a thought, said Ron. Where is it?
My question is this, said Claire: will the Soul return to the Self, or has the Soul gone to Jesus? Permanently?
How are you going to find out? I asked.
I have no idea, said Claire. But I was told by the Lord to come here, and, taking a pay cut, I did. The thing is, I hold different views to some others in my church because I might believe in reincarnation.
Might you? I said.
Claire nodded her beautiful head. (I am not supposed to say her beautiful head, am I? OK. Claire nodded her head that contained her intelligent eyes.)
Maybe, Ry, we have to consider that returning a person to life is an update on reincarnation.
Right! said Ron. (Claire glared at him.)
So if we come back, our Soul should join us, surely it should?
I hope so, I said.
And that Soul would be part of your past life, said Claire, a Soul refining itself through another life.
Don’t you want to be Saved? I said.
I am Saved! said Claire. My salvation is mine for eternity. My current job at Alcor is to ascertain whether Christian people should get themselves vitrified so that when they return to this Tormented Land of Sin, they can testify, without a doubt, that while their heads were on ice, their Soul was with Christ.
Wow! said Ron. You are quite a lady.
I will take that as a compliment, Ron, said Claire, graciously.
The problem is, Claire, I said, that you might be working at Alcor for a long time. Possibly past retirement age, because the technology is years away.
There could be a breakthrough, said Claire. And at least I am gaining knowledge. Not many people understand cryonics.
I am a bit surprised by this move of yours, I said, because, when we spoke in Memphis, you were de
ad against robotics.
Yes, I am against robots, said Claire. But I have to make up my mind about the future on a case-by-case basis. What is from God? And what is from the Devil?
You think robots are from the Devil? I said.
Robots can be used by the Devil, said Claire, to undermine the sanctity of being human.
Can I say something? said Ron.
The waitress came over with the grilled cheese and the bourbon. She said, We have a steel-string band tonight. Guitars, banjo, ukulele. Enjoy!
Miss, do you believe in reincarnation? I said.
The waitress sat sideways on the edge of my chair. I could feel the length of her leg against mine. She said, Y’know, I really do. I know I have been here before. On this earth. It’s hard to talk about. It’s really a deep feeling you have. A vision of the past.
I had a vision – said Ron – it’s how I started my business. Did you see my exhibition stand at the Sexpo, Claire? The one with the purple curtains? It was called Waiting For The King.
You’re not a king, said Claire.
No, I’m not, said Ron, and most men are not kings, but with a little lady made just for you, it’s different.
Wait a minute … you sell sexbots, said Claire, slowly, like remembering a bad dream.
Yes! said Ron.
That is disgusting, said Claire.
Ron pushed his hat to the back of his head. He leaned forward and looked Claire straight in her (intelligent) eyes.
Let me tell you something, said Ron. I was brought up in Welsh Chapel. My mum is a Sunday-school teacher. Do you want to know what my business motto is?
No, said Claire.
Judge Not That Ye Be Not Judged, said Ron. Matthew Chapter 7.
Claire said, We are obliged to take a moral stance … we—
But Ron interrupted her. Motes and beans, Claire.
What? I said, wondering at this latest Ron-ish.
He means beams, not beans, said Claire.
It says in the Bible, said Ron, that we should stop yakking about the mote – that’s a speck, right, in our mate’s eye – and take a look at the bean, or beam or whatever, in our eye. Right, Claire?
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