The last trip to a playground had been a disaster. He would need to avoid the west side of town for a while. A rather over-attentive grandmother had sized him up and pulled her twin granddaughters from the monkey bars before he could get more than a couple of shots of their thin legs and the edges of their frilled panties. Just downloading those illicit shots had given him a thrill. Right after he had snapped the photo, so sure no one had noticed, the old biddy had honed in on him and started cussing him out. He didn’t speak Spanish, but the old bitch sure had been going to town. He had stood up from the bench and hurried away while she screamed invectives and gathered the little girls close to her.
He would never swear like that around little girls.
“The Chief of Police is here. He wants answers.” The woman was new but quite insistent.
Dale Otterman sighed, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
He wanted to see this little girl take a ride on the seesaw one last time.
“Better make it fifteen, the Chief is waiting at your desk.” The woman replied before disconnecting.
Dale felt a flash of fear run through him. His camera was there. Had he wiped the drive?
Eighteen minutes later he was washing his hands in the sink. The Chief was tall, but portly, with a large sandwich and soda in his hand.
“Damn it, Phil. I told you I needed that report in triplicate.”
The Chief snarled into his cell phone.
In between noshing on his lunch, which happened to be his third full meal that day, he was apparently dressing down some poor sap named Phil. As soon as Otterman turned away from the sink, the chief hung up. From the sound of it, he disconnected the call while Phil was in mid-sentence.
“You’re the new M.E., right?”
“It’s not official yet, but, yes.” Otterman would have said more but the Chief had moved on.
“Great. So I need a rush on this. It’s fucking weird. The guy walks into Hy-Vee this morning, started ransacking the cookie aisle and then collapses and dies. Thing is, he was a first responder on that Hainey case.”
“I remember that case.” Dale said, “Dr. West handled it.”
After that, the old man had acted odd for two, maybe three weeks before he stopped showing up for work completely last week. No notice, no calls, nothing. Otterman didn’t get it. The guy was nearly at retirement age, with a pension, why jeopardize all of that by abruptly quitting?
“What can you tell me about it since the good ole doc isn’t here?” The Chief asked, leaning forward.
Crumbs spilled off of his shirt and onto Dale’s tidy desk. Dale tamped down the irritation he felt.
“The Hainey case was perplexing. Jack took samples of the stomach contents, which apparently included most of the menu at Pop’s Burgers, plus a large amount of condiments – whole-grain mustard for one. An adult human stomach can hold a maximum of 4,000 cc’s, or four quarts of food and liquid.”
“Ugh,” the Chief interrupted, “Four quarts?”
“Yes. Anything past that and death would come a’knocking. Dr. Hainey’s stomach contained 4,021 cc’s, give or take 30 cc’s for blood and other viscera. It was hard for Dr. West to get an exact amount due to the two tears that caused the stomach to spill into the abdominal cavity, causing the patient’s demise.”
He had never seen anything like it, nor had Jack. The last documented case of someone dying from stomach rupture due to overeating had occurred shortly after the liberation of concentration camps in World War II over 150 years ago. It was incredibly rare, in part because the human body has a series of protective reflexes that make such a thing nearly impossible. For instance, there were stretch receptors in the stomach that would cue the brain when the stomach is nearing capacity, and the brain, in turn, issues a statement that you are full and it is time to stop. If this message is not heeded, then pain, nausea, and typically regurgitation follow.
“You get the weirdest fuckin’ cases, Doc. Makes me think that a good old-fashioned homicide has gotta be preferable to that.”
Dale shook his head, “Actually, it is quite fascinating. Edith Hainey must have been in intense pain and discomfort by the end of her culinary misadventure, but there was no regurgitation. It was as if there had been some wires crossed in the brain and she had simply never gotten the message that it was time to stop eating.”
The Chief eyed him, “Right. Well then, get on with your little freak show, Doc, ‘cause I need answers.”
Dale Otterman located his tape recorder, unzipped the body bag, and began with the standard external examination. He noted an appendectomy scar on the abdomen and a large pre-cancerous mole on the decedent’s left arm. After the external examination was completed and he had carefully taken vitreous samples from both eyes, he proceeded to make the standard Y-cut on the corpse, efficiently peeling the patient’s chest open like a book.
Immediately he saw the similarities. There was a large amount of undigested and partially digested food in the peritoneum. There appeared to be two significant tears in the stomach, which was stretched to an impossibly large size. He could feel the hard ridges of Oreo cookies, swallowed whole from the looks of it. Dale shook his head, I know that could not have felt good going down. Later examination of the esophageal tract showed abrasions along most of its length, all the way to the stomach.
He made his way down to the intestines, which were full and had been straining to eliminate previous meals at the time of death.
Jack had sent the samples from Edith Hainey to the CDC for evaluation, but they had quite a backlog thanks to some kind of emergency coming out of a backwater province in China. The Chinese CDC had been overwhelmed and demanded that the American CDC become involved thanks to an American-based company, EcoNu. The company was side-stepping charges from Chinese authorities who had shut down some big pig-farming facility there, after scores fell ill in a nearby city. The spin doctors had been hard at work, however. Apparently it was the case of a faulty Chinese water treatment plant and had nothing to do with EcoNu. At least, that was what EcoNu lawyers were claiming as China continued to shout threats and point fingers at the American company.
The Chief was still waiting. As soon as Dale Otterman had completed the autopsy and bagged the samples for Toxicology, he headed back to his desk. There sat the Chief, making himself at home at Dale’s desk, using Dale’s phone and barking orders.
As soon as he saw him approaching, the Chief hung up and turned to him.
“Well?”
Dale said nothing, waiting for the man to move from his desk. The Chief didn’t seem to be taking the hint. He stayed seated, leaned back, smirked, and repeated himself.
“Well?”
He felt a surge of anger. Dale feared cops, even working with them on a day-to-day basis had not taken that fear from him. He knew that his predilections were not within the acceptable range and most of his energies when not at work went into acquiring illicit videos that satisfied most of his desires. He had never used his work computer for any of it. He was careful, very careful, but still. Somehow seeing the Chief in his chair brought back all of those memories of bullies in the schoolyard. He bit the inside of his cheek and forced the words out.
“Undetermined. I’ll need to wait for the tox screen to come back before I can say anything else.”
Let the bastard chew on that. Otterman could have told him about the manner of death, which was narrowed down – Mac Dolan’s death was not a homicide, suicide, or therapeutic complication. That left natural disease, highly unlikely, and thus the “undetermined” classification.
With a co-worker, a peer, he would have discussed it with interest, even pleasure. Dale Otterman was passionate about his work. That, pre-pubescent girls, and his love for eating out of a particular food truck every Monday through Friday was as well-rounded as the man got. But the Chief had already shown his colors. He was a bully, through and through, and Otterman saw no reason to pander to the fool, much less give him what he wanted, whatever t
hat was.
The Chief looked pissed. Otterman had seen the same look in a quarterback’s face in high school when he finally got it through his thick skull that Dale wasn’t going to just give him the answers to a biology exam, and that he would actually have to work for it. The man stood up, towering over the medical examiner by at least seven inches, glowering at him.
Dale’s mother, a petite woman who had suffered her husband’s verbal attacks in silence, had often said to Dale, “Don’t poke the bear, son.”
But she had lived her life kowtowing to her domineering husband, someone not unlike the Chief here, who had thrown his weight around the house after spending his days in a dead-end corporate job, pushing paper and taking orders. Sometimes, it was fun to poke the bear, just to see a big man like the Chief make a fool of himself.
The Chief checked himself, looked as if he wanted to unleash on Otterman, but in the end, clamped it down and strode away, pausing only to say, over his shoulder, “Put a rush on those tox screens.”
Dale Otterman had expected more. He watched the Chief walk out, slightly disappointed. As he watched the Chief swagger out of sight, his stomach rumbled slightly. He had photos to review and move over to a well-disguised thumb drive tucked away in his pen. But first, he would go ahead and grab a few snacks from the machines down the hall.
Fade to Black
“Never frighten a little man. He’ll kill you.” –– Robert A. Heinlein
Date: 01.27.2104
Calypso Colony Ship
Somehow, Daniel got back up. Fighting dizziness, nausea, and an overwhelming feeling of weakness, he had stumbled to the next pod and the next until the row was nearly complete. Behind him, he could hear sounds of pods opening, of people emerging from them.
Recovering from Cryo wasn’t an instantaneous thing. It held a revived sleeper in a grip of disorientation for minutes, even hours. Each person reacted differently, but it was not unlike waking from a very deep sleep. Behind Daniel, as he struggled with maintaining consciousness, men and women, even a handful of children, suddenly found themselves tumbling from restraints, arms and legs flailing, their sluggish brains bewildered by the cacophony of sound and light that surrounded them. Some fell in heaps on the floor, while others moved towards the blast doors like moths drawn to a flame. The doors glowed white hot as the rescuers continued to break their way through.
Daniel didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He made his way to the next pod and keyed in the sequence.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON LOWRY, NANCY
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 9:07 MINUTES
Nancy was young. It was hard to tell, but she didn’t look like she was more than five years old. He was almost to the end of the row. He moved onto the next unit and began to input the emergency override code.
Just one last row after this, Daniel reminded himself. Just twenty more pods to go. The little girl in the last pod had reminded him of how Toby had looked when he was asleep. Toby couldn’t be older than her by a year or two. Wait no, Toby was a teenager now. Luke’s specter stood near him, mouth moving soundlessly now. What was he saying? Daniel wanted to stop and ask his brother so many questions - Could Luke forgive him? Was Toby all right? Had Luke and Janine’s deaths been quick? As that last question hit Daniel’s brain, the hallucination that was his brother tilted his head and shook it sadly.
Daniel’s heart lurched painfully. He didn’t want to think of how it must have been for Luke, or for Janine, worse to know that Toby had probably seen them both die.
The Cryo pod beeped at him.
MANUAL OVERRIDE ATTEMPT NOT VALID
EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE NOT INITIATED
RE-ENTER PASSWORD
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 09:02 MINUTES
Daniel cursed and typed in the code again. This time, it worked. His fingers trembling and they felt thick and clumsy. He moved to the next machine.
A fresh wave of dizziness washed over him and his vision blackened around the edges. He held still and it cleared, his gaze focused on the man behind the glass, dark-haired, with a thick mustache. It was Saul Cramer. He headed the engineering staff.
Daniel’s mind flashed back to training at the Cape, Saul’s strong, broad hand eclipsing his, “Name is Saul. I’m an engineer, or so they tell me. Between you and me, I prefer the term grease monkey. If it can be fixed, I’m your man.”
When Environmental had the glitch months back, they had revived Saul long enough to ensure it wasn’t something mechanical before putting him under again.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON CRAMER, SAUL
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 08:55 MINUTES
Daniel moved on to the next pod, his vision blurring. He sucked in a breath. He had found her, finally.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON SYDAN, SAMANTHA
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 08:50 MINUTES
The frost began to clear and Sam’s lovely eyes were still closed. He wanted to stay, wait for her to wake up, but there were more pods and very little time. He knew this intellectually, but his body was uncooperative and alien. He felt trapped inside of a bag of blood and bone that seemed bound and determined to fail him.
Luke’s specter swam back into focus. His brother looked sad now, said something that Daniel could not hear and pointed to the next pod, beckoning for him to hurry. Daniel nodded to his brother, which was a big mistake. The drum in his forehead kept time with his heartbeat, which seemed unnaturally fast. The room spun and his foot slipped to the side, coordination failing him again. Daniel struggled to stay conscious, but he was losing the battle. He keyed in the manual override for the next pod, then the next in the row. There were still eight occupied pods left. He keyed in the sequence.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON STRIDER, ERIC
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 08:44 MINUTES
Daniel headed for the next pod and distantly wondered how the floor had managed to tilt up to meet him. Darkness claimed him.
On the cold metal floor, Daniel’s eyes slowly opened. The ceiling was groaning and clanking. It was one of many noises that did not make sense. Another was the vision of Sam, somehow leaning over him, clad in the standard fare for Cryo, a tank top, and boy shorts. Her hair and skin were still damp, and her hands felt ice cold on his skin.
“Daniel?” she asked, her voice still thick from the drugs.
In addition to her voice, there were scrabbling sounds coming from the ceiling, which now sounded like the biggest rat in history coming through the venting. Daniel could also hear several of the revived. They were coughing, calling out, several were crying. Cryo was complicated, coming out of it with no one to monitor you, or help explain things, was disorienting.
The wail of the alarms added to the cacophony, and if that were not enough, it appeared that the crew had begun to break through the door. Daniel could hear Captain Aaronson and the others calling to the newly revived crew sitting in heaps on the floor near their open Cryo Pods.
Daniel tried to stand, tried to simply sit up, but his limbs seemed disconnected from his brain. Nothing was moving, no matter how much he willed it. Consciousness can be such an elusive thing. The wailing alarms seemed to fade away in a roar of nothingness and he could see his field of vision closing down as if he were staring into a long black tunnel where only a little bit of light remained.
“Daniel!”
He was so tired now, even his tongue felt thick and heavy as he struggled to push out the words, “Got to...open...the pods, use the emergency revi...seq...sequen...”
He could feel Samantha shaking him, screaming his name, but the blackness claimed him then, and he k
new nothing more.
Leave-Taking
“Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn’t often, on their own, the hard way.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Date: 03.26.2098
Earth – New York City, New York
Nathan Zradce had slipped away with the excuse of dropping off the bags of belongings to a local charity. That was true, at least mostly. Just one-half block down from the charity was Peak View Behavioral Health, a facility he had sworn he would never visit again.
The last time he had been here she had spit on him and then tried to claw his eyes out. She had managed to scratch him deeply on one cheek, tearing flesh with her ragged, half-chewed fingernails. The staff had been very apologetic, surprised at the level of vitriol the old woman had manifested.
“Normally she just sits here in the day room.” The orderly had said.
“I’ve never seen her do that. She just stares out of the window and asks if anyone has seen Immanuel. Who did you say you were again?”
Nathan didn’t answer. He had cleaned up his bloodied cheek with a paper towel from the bathroom and strode out. He hadn’t bothered telling them that he hadn’t really expected much.
That had been nearly five years ago. And here he was, walking through the front doors, his nose tingling with the smell of antiseptic and bleach. That institutional smell that reminded you forcibly, as if you were not already aware, that you were not in a welcoming place.
Nathan had struggled with the decision to come here. And he had struggled with it silently. His wife Jennifer knew that he was adopted and that his birth father had never been in the picture. The rest had been a fiction of sorts. He never told her about Immanuel. And as for his mother? When Jennifer had asked, he had told her she died.
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