The Otherlings and the Crystal Amulet

by S V Hurn

  The man, a bit stunned, walked out of the restaurant and took the elevator up to his room, wondering how she knew he was married.

  The old sushi chef had a huge grin on his face. “You like my wife, you one spicy girl . . . we marry long time.” They shared a good laugh.

  The following morning, she woke with excitement brewing in her gut. She thought, are these butterflies? She hadn’t felt this excited about a project since working with the Elon Musk Foundation and those first days after graduation at Virgin Galactic. She decided to get an early start by ordering room service and jumping in the shower. Gathering her work pad and files that were already packed and ready to go, she was out of her room and in her rental car headed for Lifecor.

  As expected, it was another scorcher of a day. She drove past Camelback Mountain and recalled a hike with her dad up the winding trail through the desert. They had stayed up there to watch the sunset and came down in the dark, armed only with a single flashlight that had a faulty wire, so it flickered as they walked, throwing fantastic shadows that she and her father identified as mythical beasts. They shared stories about the beasts as they made their way home. Dorathy had fond memories of this place and had wanted very much to return over the years, but life just sort of happens sometimes.

  She found Lifecor to be a non-descript southwestern style stucco building, but with a modern edge. From the outside being painted a dark grey, lacking any flash or flare, one would not be able to tell if it had been used for manufacturing purposes, storage units, or for what it was: cutting edge technology. She was left guessing if any or all the number of buildings that surrounded it were also part of Lifecor.

  She found what seemed to be a front entrance and parked nearby under a shade tree. Grabbing her cardigan, assuming it would be much cooler inside, Dorathy smiled, after all they were storing human popsicles. She approached the front door and noticed the butterflies were back and felt giddy. When she opened the door there stood Alex Mason talking to a young woman who sat in front of several monitors. He straightened to his full height and broke out with a huge smile. Dr. Mason wore a close beard and had twinkling hazel eyes with medium brown hair cut into a short carefree casual look. He was dressed in a pair of lightweight, faded jeans and a simple white long-sleeved shirt, with the top buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up. He wasn’t overly handsome, but certainly easy on the eyes. He had a rugged look and carried himself with a confidence that made him even more attractive. In his mid-fifties, his age was revealed by the lines around his eyes, but by his tanned skin and toned, muscular body one could tell that he was a man that looked after himself and enjoyed the out of doors.

  Dorathy stepped in from the near blinding sun and took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim office lighting. In that moment, she caught her first glimpse of Alex Mason and thought, oh my, this is going to be tricky.

  Alex came around from behind the desk and she was able to see him, all of him. Dorathy swiftly concluded that she needed to tread softly and keep things professional. She knew he was single from his personal file, but she had to wonder why. Why indeed, had this handsome, intelligent and well-to-do man not been snatched up already left her mystified.

  With that thought tucked neatly away, Dorathy extended her hand as Alex came up and held out his. He looked deeply into her eyes as they touched and Dorathy felt in that split second that he knew her deepest thoughts—that there was nothing she could keep secret from him, no part of her was hers and hers alone. He was going to know her every emotion without her ever saying a word. She gazed down at his hand holding hers and then looked up and held her breath, afraid that if she were to speak a single word, she would express her longing for a one true love. Dorathy said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Alex replied, in a quiet voice that conveyed much more than the spoken words, “The pleasure truly is mine.” For a moment that seemed to last a millennium, they stood frozen in time. Alex then took a step back and got down to business to ensure his own emotional self-preservation. “Would you like a tour of what we do around here?”

  Dorathy blinked and with a whispered tone said, “Absolutely.”

  Alex turned towards the desk and gestured, “First let me introduce you to our IT guru, Lori. There is nothing she can’t answer or fix concerning our growing presence on the web.”

  Dorathy held out her hand and Lori graciously took it, but Lori knew what she had just witnessed moments before and had to try to hide a big smile. That hidden smile communicated approval, for she knew Alex quite well and had always felt the poor man was lonely and spent far too much time with the dead or dying, and that he deserved a life filled with love.

  “It’s great to meet you Dorathy, I’ve heard a lot about you. So, you’re going to get our patients up into space. I think that’s an awesome approach to offering people a secondary option.” Lori went on to say, “Most people are trying to cheat death when others are really only looking for a sense of immortality. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do.” Dorathy went on to say, “There is such finality when we die and are either buried or cremated. If one is preserved and frozen . . . metaphorically, frozen for all time, it gives one a sense of absolution.”

  Lori nodded her head in agreement. “Space, truly is the final frontier.”

  “Yes, it is, and it seems that the frontier is coming closer all the time.”

  Alex appeared spellbound by Dorathy. She got it, he thought. She gets it. Finally, a woman that gets what I’m trying to do.

  Alex was over the moon. “If you like, we can get your things over to my office and I’ll take you for the grand tour.”

  “Sure, that sounds great!” Dorathy was truly excited about this project and even more so now, for so many reasons. Lori, with a twinkle in her eye, looked at Alex and Dorathy and said with heartfelt warmth, “Enjoy the tour, and should I have lunch brought in today for you both?”

  Alex said, “You know what, let’s do that, but maybe order pizza for the whole staff. I really would like everyone involved with what we are trying to do here.” He asked Dorathy if that sounded good to her and thought that he wanted to show the world how happy he was to have this beautiful creature next to him working together on his dream. He felt together they could conquer anything.

  They stepped around Lori’s desk and accessed the research offices of the building through the door behind it. Alex held the door open for Dorathy and said, “Ladies first.” She looked up at him and smiled, for to be this close to him gave her goose bumps. Try as she might, she wasn’t sure she could mask how utterly undone she felt in his presence.

  As Dorathy turned her back to pass through the doorway, Lori gave Alex a knowing gaze and winked to signal her approval. Lori, in her early thirties, was the daughter of one of Alex’s close friends, so Lori was very protective of him She was always giving him thumbs up or down when he started to see someone new. Knowing Dorathy’s background and finally meeting her, it was an overwhelming thumbs up. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was already planning a wedding. Another hopeless romantic.

  They entered the brightly lit room, a viewing area, and Dorathy felt a chill. Not due as much to the temperature, but to the rows of stainless steel, cylindrical coffin-like canisters that lined the walls and were stacked in round groupings that filled the entire space beyond.

  Alex approached an electronic keypad and punched in a security code. “This facility has been built with reinforced concrete and lined with Kevlar, with the viewing glass being bulletproof.”

  Dorathy looked stunned and asked in disbelief “Why the stringent measures?”

  Alex nodded his head in acknowledgment of her question. “There are many people in this world that consider what we are doing unethical from a religious standpoint and would like to stop us by any means.”

  Dorathy raised her brow and thought a moment about the implications. “Why would anyone really care--these people are gone . . . dead, for the time being and thei
r souls have transcended to a place far beyond or perhaps very close? One could say the verdict is still out.”

  Alex agreed and offered an explanation. “Some believe that when a person has been pronounced dead the brain lives on. We immediately intervene by rapidly chilling the body and putting the person in a suspended animation. Depending on what you choose to believe, the brain houses everything that makes us who we are, therefore some patients have chosen only to have their heads frozen. Keeping the brain from damage and thus putting the person in this suspended animation until we are able to reanimate at a later date and have the means of creating a new body for them.”

  Dorathy already knew about this alternative, but thought it to be somewhat of a gruesome procedure and said, “Oh I think I’ll just hold on to my body for the time being, unless, of course, I die at a hundred and twenty. Then I might reconsider.” Dorathy pressed, “What of the spiritual side of things? Some believe that upon death the soul leaves the body for another type of reality that some would call heaven.”

  Alex opened the heavy door, allowing Dorathy to enter while saying, “Yes, the spiritual side of things. That is precisely why we have to take these measures to secure their safety.”

  Scanning this cavernous space, she found herself thinking of all the souls that lay frozen in time in this form of stasis; their lives cut short and loved ones waiting to see if technology had a chance to catch up while their own lives moved forward. She thought for a moment, how can there be closure for the ones left behind? Just then Alex put his hand on her back and said, “I know exactly what you’re thinking Dora. May I call you Dora?”

  There were too many emotions running through her to single any one of them out. She turned and looked up at him and said, “Yes, Dora is fine. My friends call me that.”

  Alex smiled and said, “This whole thing is wild, isn’t it? Death can be so final, yet here we are amongst the dead searching for a chance at immortality, while everyone outside these walls scurries about their daily routines. And for the families wondering if there will ever be a time when a new discovery has been made and they will pick up the phone to hear, “Yes, I think we have it, we can proceed to reviving.” The hope . . . hope being the one emotion in all of us that is even stronger than fear, hope can be a paralyzing emotion.

  Dorathy whispered, “Yes, that is so true. They wait in here. And out there, is hope. I think sending them into deep space is the better option, I would want that for myself. Tell me Alex, how many people are here, frozen?”

  He said somberly, “Nine hundred seventeen souls and counting.” Dorathy looked around. The space was big but not that big.

  Alex added, “We have three other buildings, plus the underground unit, for the older models.”

  Dorathy was slightly bewildered in the tone Alex had used. “Older models.” she asked. “How old and how many?”

  “Well,” he said, “in the basement, and I use that term rather loosely, we have a hundred and thirty-seven, older model capsules and a dozen rather . . . ,” he hesitated for a second, “much older, less advanced models where the individuals have been frozen using a far less reliable method of freezing.”

  Dorathy was now pressin. “How old?”

  Alex replied with a heavy sigh, “For the most part, of the hundred thirty-seven there are quite a few that are at least a couple of decades old, and the others are well over a half a century old. We ended up with the old cryocapsules as other companies failed due to poor fiscal management, or obviously ran out of time. Because of that, we receive financial assistance from the federal government. The fact is that no one knew what to do with the old models when companies folded for one reason or another. So, they end up here and every now and again someone uncovers another storage unit somewhere, which had been left unattended for God knows how long, and we get the call. Most of that technology is now obsolete and the persons within are most likely never going to be revived.”

  Dorathy was stunned by this information. “What you’re telling me is that many of these people had been forgotten over the generations. Families simply forgot they ever existed or were unable to pay for their continuing care. So, they have no hope of ever being revived due to old technology and the fact that you know almost nothing of what happened to the person frozen within?”

  Alex nodded. “Yes, but never is a long time coming. Maybe, God only knows, just maybe. Who’s to say what humanity can do in the future? I guess you can say nothing is impossible and nothing is absolute. So, they wait . . . and we hope.”

  Dorathy felt sad, but she had to know the truth. “Tell me, I know you have been fine-tuning your technology. Have you been able to revive any of your patients, and if so, how was that accomplished?”

  “Let us walk, because that question requires much discussion. But first, let me take you to the basement so you might get a better grasp.”

  As they walked past dozens upon dozens of cylinders, every now and again a release of cold gas would puff a delicate waft of icy fog from the side of a cylinder. It was an eerie feeling knowing someone was inside frozen to a solid mass. Dorathy could almost sense the presence of spirits lingering, waiting through the years, passing from this reality to the next, back and forth . . . waiting.

  At the end of the building they reached the door to an industrial size elevator. Alex gazed at Dorathy and thought, “How beautiful she is.” He wanted so much to put his arm around her, to hold her close, to say, “I’m here for you and I will comfort you if you want that of me.”

  Dorathy caught his glance and said, “I’m fine, really. After all, it is fascinating what you have done here.”

  Alex smiled, “Dora, always a true scientist.”

  “Well yes, I guess I am. Curious minds need to know.”

  The elevator arrived, the door slid open and they entered together. With a bit of a grind, the doors shut and with a clunk they began a slow descent. Bouncing to a stop, the doors opened into a pitch-dark room with only the interior light of the elevator to guide them out. A motion detector sensed when they stepped out and the lights flickered on. The room was approximately 140 square meters with concrete walls and an open ceiling that had exposed air ducts and pipes with visible electrical wires. A cold haze lent the space a sense of eeriness. A shiver ran up Dorathy’s spine with the reality of death, a long time waiting, staring her in the face.

  Here lay a room of people frozen using old technology, with the dozen or so frozen bodies from decades past. Dorathy scanned the room, noting the technology was very different from the capsules they had walked by moments before. These looked forgotten and antiquated, as if they were props from an old science fiction television show. “Tell me Alex, what are the major differences between these and the others upstairs?”

  “Actually, Dora, there’s not a lot of difference in the hardware. It’s the way they were frozen, not so much the way they are kept frozen. The medical technology we use to prepare our patients is far more advanced now.”

  Alex surveyed the room with a confident stance, his hands clasped behind his back. He went on to say, with not much emotion, as he was a doctor of medicine and the human body was his field of expertise, “When a person signs up for this procedure, the time comes for us to intervene depending on current laws within each state. Say here in Arizona the procedure can be scheduled ahead of time. Just as a cesarean can be scheduled for a birth, this procedure can be set for one’s planned date of death. Other states are different, where our team must wait on standby for one to be declared clinically dead for us to intervene.

  “Dorathy said, “You mean to tell me that if a person knows they are dying and decides they no longer want to suffer from what is killing them, they can schedule a date and what? You . . . kill them?”

  “Well, Dora, you know it is a tough decision for families to make. But if their loved ones are in a lot of pain and there is no quality of life left, sometimes it’s far easier to make that decision. Besides, doing it that way makes the person more viable fo
r retrieval and the success rate goes up exponentially.”

  “What is the procedure, exactly?” Dorathy asked, scientist to scientist.

  “In a nutshell, at the time of clinical death our team anesthetizes the individual and begins by manually pumping the heart and lungs, while starting to cool the body down rapidly to stop the body’s metabolism and rate of decomposition. We then remove as much of the fluid from the body as we can; this includes all the intra- and extra- cellular fluids as well as blood, urine and other bodily fluids. We then inject into the body a cryoprotective fluid--a type of medical grade anti-freeze and with it a vitrification agent.” At that, Dorathy’s eyes grew wide. Alex saw her expression. “Yes, because if we don’t, when the body reaches its maximum low temperature of negative 320 degrees, it is at that point a solid mass and therefore may fracture. Also, the formation of ice that otherwise would have formed is damaging to the cells.” Dorathy understood but didn’t like the thought of it. Alex went on to say, “We inject sixteen types of preservation fluids into the body to protect it from further damage to the cells and to prevent any effects from decomposition.”

  Dorathy was amazed at this technology and would be further impressed if someone had survived the freezing process, as she was familiar with the studies of his initial research. “Okay, so tell me, does it work? Have you restored someone’s life by reviving and medically treating a patient?”

  Alex bluntly said, “Yes, seven people are walking, breathing proof it works.”

  Dorathy was a bit skeptical of the way he just answered her question. She said, “There is more to this story that you’re not telling me.”

  Alex nodded. “Yes, there is, Dora, but that is a far lengthier conversation to be had, as it addresses the spiritual side of life and death.”

  Dorathy knew when to leave certain subjects alone, and this was one of those times, so she nodded and said, “I understand, and I have to admit I am very curious. I am also open-minded and whatever it is that needs to be said, it will not sway me one way or another with this project.”