by Greg Krojac
“Go on then. Shoot me. You know you want to.”
This wasn’t an act of bravado on his part. He simply didn’t know what else to say. Caitlin kept looking at him, expressionless.
“I said kill me, you bitch. Kill the best fuck you’ve ever had.”
Still, Caitlin stared at him, her eyes betraying no emotion.
Marcus shouted at her as loud as he could, with such force that spittle flew out of his mouth, spraying her face with droplets of saliva.
“Kill me now, you whore.”
Caitlin tilted her head as though she were considering the merits and disadvantages of killing him. She took a napkin from Marcus’s table and wiped her face clean.
“No. Not today. We’ve got something much more interesting lined up for you.”
Michelle breathed a sigh of relief. It would have been so easy for Caitlin to have fried Marcus’s brain. She could have understood it if her sister had done so. But Caitlin had resisted the temptation. Michelle was proud of her.
Danny looked around the room at the rebels.
“Who’s actually in charge of you lot?”
Michelle stepped forward and held her hand out.
“Michelle Boone. Glad you turned out to be on our side.”
“No worries Michelle. Some of us are Recarns, but none of us could go along with the things that Marcus has been doing. There are limits. Plus, a lot of us are fed up with having these damned past life memories. If you’re a decent person, you have no need for past life knowledge. It’s too easy to use it for bad, like he and his cronies do. Can you use us in the struggle?”
“Of course. But there are provisos. You’ll have to hand over your weapons and be blindfolded while we take you to our base. Then we’ll have to scan your brains to make sure that you’re telling the truth and that this isn’t part of some complex scam to undermine us.”
“No problem.”
“Do you have families?”
“Most of us.”
“We’ll have to extract them too. Just because we have Marcus doesn’t mean that the Illuminati will collapse.”
“Sure.”
A light flashed on Michelle’s wristwatch.
“The choppers are here.”
The group of rebels, their new allies, and their captive walked towards the village green, Marcus surrounded by the rebels, once again rendered invisible. The Defenders had no need to hide. Although not welcome in the village, the villagers had become accustomed to their presence every week and reluctantly accepted them as part of the Tuesday evening landscape.
Marcus felt a little relieved when he could see no helicopters on the green.
“Your friends running late are they, Michelle?”
“They’re here.”
“Bullshit. I can’t see them.”
“You will.”
Then, as if the group had stepped through an interdimensional portal, three large transport helicopters rippled into view. The Defenders and Marcus couldn’t fail to be impressed. They didn’t have this cloaking technology. Michelle explained that the Defenders would be taken directly to One Life HQ where they would be debriefed and their intentions verified. Marcus would be going with the rebels in the first helicopter. Michelle emphasised the importance of keeping their prisoner alive.
“Don’t forget to secure the prisoner tightly. Secure him, and then double check his bindings. And keep him away from the doors. I don’t want even the slightest risk of him falling or jumping out.”
The helicopters took off, the thud-thud-thud of the rotor blades very noticeable to the occupants, now that they themselves were within the scope of the VACS system. Old Mrs Grisholm, the ever vigilant paragon of the village neighbourhood watch, concluded that she had had one too many an evening sherry as she watched the Defenders simply disappear from view, and vowed to reduce her nightly alcohol consumption to just the one glass per night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
07:18 Wednesday 20 December 2069
Marcus looked at the shiny new soul-transfer machine that took pride of place in the One Life laboratory. Actually, looking was pretty much all he could do, as he was encased in a rigid body hugging metal cage, a twenty-first century iron maiden, that allowed him to see and speak and do very little else. He had been imprisoned in this way to prevent him from escaping by killing himself. He would die, but it had to be on One Life’s terms. The resistance needed to maintain complete control of the situation, stopping him from becoming a Recarn again; they couldn’t stop him from being reincarnated – that was a physical law that they couldn’t change – but they could control into which body he was reincarnated.
“I’m not scared you know. I’ve died many times before and I will die many more times in the future.”
Jenny moved towards the machine and switched it on. Marcus stared at her.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you seem familiar to me. Are you a Recarn? Did you use to work for me? There’s definitely something about you.”
Jenny didn’t know if this was just idle banter or if Marcus did really recognise her. She had indeed worked for him, as part of the team who transferred Professor Ingram’s soul to the clone Trudi 002, eleven and a half years earlier. But she too had incurred Thomas’s wrath and suffered the same fate as the professor. When she and Professor Ingram were reunited as the Recarn children, Jenny and Tommy, she begged forgiveness from him, forgiveness that he readily gave, saying that if she had spoken against Thomas when the professor was killed, she would certainly have died much earlier than she did.
Marcus, sensing that he had a captive audience, played to the crowd.
“So, we have a shiny new soul-transfer machine. I imagine that I’m going to be put into the donation chamber. Fair enough. It’ll get rid of a thorn in your sides for a while, I suppose. But not forever, of course. I thought that perhaps you might want to trap me inside a canister and lock me away somewhere.”
If Marcus could have moved he would have beckoned over Zafar, who was overseeing the process on behalf of the Businessman, and whispered in his ear. But, trussed up as he was, he was forced to speak to the whole room.
“That wouldn’t be such a good idea. I know. I tried it with Érica or whatever she called herself and she was rescued by her band of little disciples.”
Zafar said nothing, but just stood to face Marcus, arms folded. His view of the machine blocked by Zafar’s frame, Marcus turned his attention to the Businessman’s loyal aide and advisor.
“And you are?”
Silence.
“Mute, at a guess.”
Still, Zafar said nothing.
“Very well. You do know that if you want to lock me away like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp, you’ll need to affix the capsule in the receiving chamber.”
Zafar just stood quietly, staring at his captive.
“And when I’m gone, it won’t destroy the Illuminati. You’re just creating a vacuum that Ethan, or rather who he is now, will fill. I think it’s safe to assume that he has a new body now.”
Zafar unfolded his arms and put them casually into his trouser pockets.
“My name is Zafar, Marcus. Yes, we know that the war will not be won simply through your death. We know that it will continue, that we will have to fight against a new Pindar. And yes, you will die but we will not be trapping your soul inside a secure cylinder or the like. Your own experience has shown us the flaw in that idea. Your soul will be transferred to a specially selected body. ”
“Do I get to choose?”
He looked over at Jenny.
“How about the girl in charge of the donation chamber. She looks cute. I wouldn’t mind being inside her.”
Jenny ignored Marcus’s lewd comment and continued to check the controls of the machine. Zafar, remained calm, showing no emotion as he spoke.
“We have a volunteer to receive your soul.”
“Pretty is she? Or he? I wouldn’t move house into a building that was worse than I already live
d in. The same goes for a body. I mean, look at me. I’m gorgeous. I can’t be moved into just any old body.”
“Your soul will be transferred to a foetus, just as it would be if you were to die and your soul released to find another host elsewhere on the planet.”
“Okay. Gotcha. You sure you know what you’re doing? Fifteen or eighteen years from now and I’ll be back to haunt you, like a bad smell.”
“Oh, don’t worry Marcus. Everything is under control. But thanks for your concern.”
Zafar saw no reason to expand anymore on the details of the transfer. Marcus didn’t need to know about the discovery that had been made the previous week.
Left unattended, Marcus’s soul would be transferred into a foetus and born to its mother, just as any other foetus is born. The child would grow up unaware of its Recarn status until its seventh birthday when it would start having painful headaches, as the memories of past lives began to flood back and, within a few weeks, the memories would have been fully restored, Marcus would be a fully-fledged Recarn again, free to plan his or her return to power.
But seven days earlier One Life had discovered – almost by accident – a correlation between the calculated due date of a baby and its being a Recarn. It was found that it was no coincidence that 5% of children were born on the predicted due date, and 5% of children were born Recarns. It was such a simple correlation that researchers were astonished that it had not been noticed before.
Due date predictions had become extremely accurate, right down to the hour and minute, but Marcus’s new host would not be allowed to be born on its due date. To allow this would completely defeat the purpose of their plan. The pregnancy would be monitored and the birth would be induced early, at around the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth week or, if necessary, the child would be born by caesarean section. If they were correct – and they had no reason to believe that they were not – the child would grow to be an adult with no past life memories; with no PLMs it would no longer be a Recarn.
Janice Hillary was a thirty-five year old mother of two girls aged nine and seven. She was happily married to Paul, a maintenance engineer at One Life’s training camp who was principally responsible for the upkeep of the equipment used in the intensive training programme. She was four months pregnant with twin boys and, after lengthy discussions with her husband, had volunteered to allow Marcus’s soul to be introduced to one of her unborn children. She believed passionately that the world would be a better place without Recarns and was grateful for the opportunity to help ensure that this would one day become a reality.
She lay in the receiver chamber, a little nervous, but sure that she was doing the right thing. The risks had been explained to the couple but they still decided to go through with the transfer although Janice did insist on one caveat. She didn’t want to know which of the twins would receive Marcus’s soul, as she felt that she and her husband might treat him differently if they had this knowledge. Anyway, the baby which didn’t receive Marcus’s soul would receive another by natural means shortly.
Marcus was released from the confines of the body cage and stretched his limbs. Although it looked positively medieval in its design the cage was much more humane than one would expect; the interior of the suit contained thousands of micro-sensors that stimulated the muscles of its inhabitant at regular intervals, meaning that Marcus’s stretching was mainly redundant and could be put down to habit.
“So Zafar, this is it.”
“This is it. Are you ready?”
“Never been readier. Kit off, I assume?”
Marcus stripped off and climbed into the donation chamber as if it were an everyday occurrence. Everybody watching was surprised at how calmly he was taking all this. It certainly wasn’t the behaviour that they had envisaged. Marcus made himself as comfortable as he could and relaxed, looking up at the ceiling.
“Excuse me. You’ll have to close the lid or this isn’t going to work.”
Jenny nodded to two lab technicians to close the lid and clamp it shut. Marcus loved being the centre of attention, smiling and giving the thumbs up sign to his audience as the receiver chamber’s lid was closed. She pressed a few icons on the touch control and the machine started the air extraction process. Zafar moved alongside Jenny.
“That noise. Is he singing?”
Jenny confirmed that Zafar’s ears weren’t deceiving him.
“Yes. It’s a song from a movie made by a group of comedians that called themselves Monty Python. If you knew the film, Life of Brian, you’d find it very appropriate.”
“Would I know it?”
“Maybe, but probably not. It was made ninety years ago. If you were a Recarn you’d appreciate the irony.”
The strains of ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ that were muffled but still audible were beginning to weaken as the air was sucked out of the donation chamber. Marcus began to feel the effects of the vacuum that was now his environment. The singing had stopped and he was now beginning to suffocate. His skin had taken on a bluish hue and was starting to swell. The last sensation that he was aware of was when his lungs burst.
He felt nothing as his soul evacuated the clone’s body through its trillions of pores. Devoid of sensation his soul travelled through the airlock between the two chambers until it found itself sharing the receiving chamber with Janine. Pure instinct drove it to enter first her body, and then one of the developing bodies within her womb. Janine felt a warm flush as the soul settled inside one of her unborn babies but it only lasted about half a second; it was barely noticeable.
Paul helped Janine out of the receiving chamber and gave his wife a loving kiss. Zafar joined them.
“We can’t thank you enough for what you are doing for the cause. I know it was probably a very difficult decision to make, but what you’ve undertaken isn’t just for us at One Life, but for the world.”
Janine touched Zafar on the shoulder.
“It was the right thing to do.”
Marcus’s corpse was hauled out of the donation chamber and put into a body-bag before being taken to the incinerator. Paul was given unconditional leave for as long as he wished so that he could be with his wife during the remainder of her pregnancy and after the birth. It was the least that One Life could do. Life returned to normal for all involved.
CHAPTER THIRTY
18:10 Sunday 14 March 2077
Seven years earlier, Ethan had been pleasantly surprised to discover that Marcus had been dealt with by One Life. He could hardly believe it when he discovered what had happened; he hadn’t even needed to use his band of clones to regain power. He simply walked into the headquarters unhindered. Marcus’s massacre of the innocents had been a step too far for all but the most ardent supporter of his policies and those that did still hold some loyalty for Marcus were disposed of without a second thought. One Life continued to be a thorn in the Order’s flesh, both through sabotage and coordinated attacks on important ONP establishments. Ethan found these attacks irritating but they didn’t bother him too much. His Defenders took some casualties, some parts of his infrastructure were damaged but none beyond repair. Each small victory for One Life was just that – a small victory.
But what Ethan didn’t realise was that the real purpose behind these continued attacks was one of distraction. While the Order was dealing with the aftermath of these annoying assaults, it didn’t know about the new nature of One Life’s resistance strategy.
Slowly but surely, One Life had infiltrated maternity hospitals and birthing clinics, persuading the staff to instigate a system whereby no child was allowed to run its full term of gestation. Parents were told that their babies had medical conditions necessitating caesarean deliveries or induction before the babies’ calculated due dates. Sometimes the mothers were sceptical and required more information so they had to be convinced by being given medication that would produce symptoms to support the lies that they were being told. It was unethical, of course, but One Life convinced thousands of
mothers that there was no other choice, if they wanted to save their children.
And so, thousands of babies that would have become Recarns were born into a life where they would have no memories of their previous incarnations, where the brevity of life would give it more meaning, and where people once again would value their own mortality. Of course, reincarnation was still a scientific fact but there would be no overlap. There would be no vengeance for wrongdoings in previous lives. There would be no advantage given to 5% of the world’s population, simply because they remembered previous existences. Living each life as if it were the only life would give that existence more importance.
Seven years ago to the day Janine Hillary was delivered of two healthy baby boys, four weeks early, by caesarean section. They only spent a week in incubation before being allowed to go home with their parents and Liam and Connor had a normal upbringing; Liam took his first steps before Connor, but Connor won the race to speak. The twins were very close and became visibly upset if separated. When the time came for them to start school they were placed in the same class, which wasn’t a problem as they weren’t identical twins. In fact, they seemed very different. Connor found arithmetic very easy, showing a tendency for logic at an early age but Liam was clearly going to be the more creative one of the two, having a love for drawing and writing stories.
***
Now it was the twins’ seventh birthday and their parents had organised a themed party for the boys. Bunting was strung between the trees in the garden, the individual flags bearing the images of superheroes. Both boys were crazy about superheroes and were dressed as their favourite characters; Connor was Spiderman and Liam wore a Batman costume. The ten friends that had been invited to the party had been under strict instructions not to duplicate the boys’ outfits and so Iron Man, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman and others mingled with Superman, Thor, and a very convincing Wolverine.