A Stand-In for Dying

by Rick Moskovitz

  With a whoosh, the cylinder came to a stop without even a quiver. The hatch opened automatically and Marcus stepped onto the underground platform. The whole trip had taken less than an hour, a fraction of the time it took to fly cross country in his youth. He navigated the underground walkways until he reached a pod that said “Powell” and got in. The pod whisked him silently to the station.

  When he emerged onto the street, he headed for the corner of Powell and Sacramento and the building where Ray and Lena had lived for a decade. Once inside, he stepped within the force field of the unwalled elevator and was on the twentieth floor within seconds.

  In front of the entrance to his condo stood a black clad woman with dark glasses, armed with an ultrasonic sidearm. She performed a retinal screen as he approached and stood aside to let him pass. Marcus stood in front of the body scanner and the door slid open. He stepped inside and heard it latch behind him.

  “Lena,” Marcus called as he moved through the front hall to the great room in the center of the unit. There was no response. He entered the huge central room with the twin support pillars. Still no Lena. He went next to the bedroom, but there was no sign of her. He began running from room to room. She was nowhere to be found. He ran back to the front door to find the guard, but the door was locked from the outside. He beat on it with his fists to get the guard’s attention and tried over and over to open it, but it was sealed shut. He moved back to the great room and, standing in the middle, tried to think.

  Then he heard a faint hiss, turned and spotted the end of the canister peeking from behind the sofa just beyond its edge. His heart pumped double time and sweat poured down his forehead, clouding his vision. His thoughts became too scrambled to find an escape, even with all the knowledge available to him through his MELD chip.

  He ran to the periphery of the building as far from the canister as he could get. The outer walls were floor to ceiling glass, but there were no windows that opened, and the glass was designed to withstand earthquakes and high winds. It was virtually unbreakable. He grabbed a marble sculpture and flung it against a window with all his strength. It just bounced off.

  He lay on the floor, pressing up against the glass, and pulled his shirt up over his face, breathing as shallowly as possible. The dizziness swept over him all at once. His vision dimmed like a shade coming down over his eyes. A faint scent of almonds wafted past his nose at the same time he heard a high-pitched whine. Calm set in just before the last wisp of light was extinguished.

  42

  “THERE WAS so much smoke,” began Photina, “I could barely see the man who saved Corinne.”

  “Think hard, Photina. What did you notice?” asked Ray.

  “He wasn’t as tall as you. A little heavier around the middle, but burly and fit, and a good bit older.”

  “What else?”

  “I couldn’t see his face, but there was something very familiar about him.” She closed her eyes to visualize the data streams.

  “Familiar? How? You mean you’ve seen him before?”

  “Yes...and no,” she replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen his body. But the way he moved. That was familiar. I know I’ve seen someone move the same way.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. My memory traces are contaminated. There was an anomaly as a result of the explosion.”

  “Anything else?” asked Marcus.

  “Yes. One other thing. The way he moved through the house. It was like he’d been here before. He knew the house. That’s how he was able to get to Corinne so quickly.”

  Ray considered the implications of what she’d told him. A stranger had rescued Corinne from the fire, someone who’d been in the house before, but whom no one had seen there. Photina had somehow encountered someone with a matching kinetic pattern, but it wasn’t the same man. Why would he have been there in the first place? And why would he risk his life to save Corinne’s?

  “Where did they put Corinne’s clothes?” he asked next.

  “I don’t know. They were pretty badly burned. They might have disposed of them.”

  “Let’s find out. If we can recover the clothes, there would be DNA traces on them from the stranger. You’d be able to analyze them. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes. That is among the capabilities in my programming. I’ll ask about the clothes.” She left the room.

  One possible solution to the mystery crossed Ray’s mind, but it seemed too outlandish to be true. He shook his head. Corinne was beginning to stir. He turned his attention to her, touching her cheek with his hand. She moaned. Her eyes opened. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no words came out. Instead, she began coughing and choking.

  “Shh,” he said, raising a straw with some water to her lips. “Take a few breaths. Then have a sip.” The coughing stopped. She breathed deeply, then sipped on the straw.

  “Thank God you’re OK,” he said, reaching down to kiss her forehead. For the first time since they’d met, he noticed the signs of aging that had gradually crept over her face, the deepening folds around her mouth and the tiny lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes. She wore reading glasses to enjoy her books. They’d been hard to come by since the digital media most people used automatically corrected for vision. Ray liked seeing her in them, peering at him from above the half lenses. He wondered if she’d ever noticed she was leaving Marcus behind. And he realized with a twinge of regret that she’d continue to age without him and he’d eventually lose her.

  “Thank God you’re OK,” she mouthed silently and smiled. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

  The doctor appeared in the doorway to the cubicle. “I see we’re awake,” he said cheerfully.

  “She just woke up,” answered Ray. “She still seems to be suffering the effects of the smoke.”

  “That’s to be expected,” said the doctor, turning to Corinne. “It may be awhile before you can speak. Just be patient. Don’t strain your vocal cords. You’ll be talking soon enough.”

  Corinne moved her hand in the air as though she was writing on a tablet and looked at the doctor.

  “Sure,” he said, understanding her gesture, “I can get you a pad and a pen. Better yet, how about a keyboard?”

  She shook her head and repeated the writing gesture. Corinne liked things simple and leaned toward low tech whenever possible. A nurse arrived shortly with the requested implements.

  “I love you,” was the first thing she wrote.

  “I know,” Ray replied. “I love you, too.” The words sounded strange as he uttered them, but they felt true.

  “Natasha?” she wrote next.

  “Safe where we left her.” Corinne smiled and paused a few moments before she wrote again.

  “Our house?”

  “Gone. Burned to the ground.” He shook his head.

  “My books? Gone, too?” She already knew the answer. Tears filled her eyes, dripping onto the paper as she wrote, smearing the ink. She looked away for a moment to pull herself together.

  “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she wrote next. “I saw the man who saved me before I passed out.”

  “And...?”

  “He was a stranger,” she wrote. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “So what’s the crazy part?”

  “When he touched me, just before he picked me up, it was like I knew him. His touch felt so familiar.” Her mouth and eyes crinkled in a silent laugh. “I told you you’d think I was crazy.”

  “Not at all,” Ray said. He was looking straight at her, but his thoughts were now a million miles away. It was crazy, but the pieces were starting to fit together. And he had no idea how he felt about what they meant. If Marcus had come to their house that day, was it to stalk them or just to have a last glimpse of his former life? God knows he had a right to be there, but he’d risked exposing both their identities and putting both their families in danger.

  But if he hadn’t been there, Corinne would almost certainly have died. For that Ray wa
s grateful. And Marcus didn’t share Ray’s terror of fire. Had it been Ray on the outside, he wasn’t sure he would have been brave enough to rush in.

  When Ray left Corinne’s room, Photina met him in the hallway.

  “They had the clothes in a plastic bag,” she said. “They were about to incinerate them, but I got there just in time. There was DNA residue that wasn’t Corinne’s. I got a sample. I’ll have the genome read in an hour and compare it with the Universal Data Base.”

  “Thanks, Photina. We owe you a lot for what you’ve done for us today.”

  Photina looked into his eyes and looked as though she had something else to say. She held back.

  “Photina,” Ray coaxed, “Was there something else?”

  “Mr. Marcus,” she said, looking flustered, “the way the stranger moved...looked a lot like you.”

  43

  THE EXPLODING CHARGE of the drone as it struck the corner of the window shattered it into millions of beads that sprayed across Marcus’s inert body. Fresh air rushed into the room and filled his lungs. On the other side of the condo, Terra’s confederates stormed the door and raced to his side. They zipped him into the hyperbaric suit and loaded him onto the copter that now hovered by the opening.

  As the craft veered around and headed over the bay, Marcus began to regain consciousness and for a moment wasn’t sure whose body he was in. As his mind cleared, reality set in. He was still trapped in Ray’s body, but felt grateful he’d survived at all. He was still struggling to breathe and the anxiety was returning.

  “Odd,” he thought, “how powerful is the drive to survive. As drastically as my life has changed, I still cling to it, just like people who’ve been crippled or disfigured.” And having saved Corinne, he now had other unfinished business: to find Lena. He prayed that she was alive.

  Within minutes, the aircraft was far out to sea with no land in sight. Then it stopped all forward motion and began to descend rapidly and apparently randomly toward the water. Just before impact, the water beneath it began to swirl, creating a void in the center that swallowed them up. They descended into the funnel as Marcus watched the spot of light from the sky getting smaller and smaller, finally slowing to a soft landing on solid ground. With a whirring sound, something slid across the opening overhead and they were in total darkness. The copter’s motor silenced.

  Suddenly the space around them was flooded with light. They were in an underwater chamber the size of an airplane hangar. He was quickly removed from the aircraft and placed inside a clear enclosure. Once the hatch of the container was sealed tight, it began filling with gas. Marcus felt pressure surrounding his body. As the pressure increased it became easier and easier for him to breathe. The hyperbaric chamber was providing oxygen to flush the remaining poison from his system. The panic that had overtaken him as he suffocated in the apartment and had returned as he regained consciousness now began to recede and was replaced by calm.

  Through the canopy of the enclosure Marcus saw a flash of fire red hair, then a familiar face peering down at him. A brief crackling sound and he could hear sound from around the enclosure coming through a speaker.

  “Hello again, Marcus.” Terra’s voice echoed in the space around him. “We’ve definitely got to stop meeting like this.” Her face was somber despite the humor in her words.

  “Where the hell are we this time, Terra?”

  “It doesn’t really matter. Your antics have created an enormous mess for us. You’re turning into quite a liability.”

  “I’ve created a mess for you? What about me? I was supposed to live for decades in an ageless body. And look at me.”

  “Our deal didn’t include babysitting you for the rest of your life and rescuing you over and over from your impulsive blunders. Make no mistake, Marcus. Ray is still of value to us, but you’re expendable. Don’t expect another rescue.” The distortion of Terra’s amplified voice within the hyperbaric chamber underscored her threat with an ominous tone.

  “Lena!” Marcus exclaimed. “What happened to Lena?”

  “They took her. We don’t know where.” replied Terra. “She’s gone dark.”

  “Who took her? Is she alive?”

  “The Tribe of 23. I told you they’d come after you. We don’t know whether Lena’s alive, but I’d guess she is. They’re likely to use her to get to you.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want you dead. And they still want Ray and Corinne dead, too.

  “What happens now?”

  “Now we wait,” said Terra. “Our people on the outside will watch for signs of Lena’s whereabouts and wait for any communication from The Tribe. I expect that we’ll hear from them soon.”

  The canopy of the hyperbaric chamber began to open. His treatment was complete. Marcus was surprised at how well he felt. He had more energy than usual, almost like his old self. His blood was still supersaturated with oxygen and all the poison was gone. He stepped out of the chamber and looked around the space.

  The helicopter took up half the room. The other half was buzzing with activity. There were around a dozen people beside him and Terra. Most were at workstations staring intently at the blank spaces in front of them. They were watching encrypted holographic images visible only to them.

  “What are they monitoring?” asked Marcus.

  “You don’t need to know. This station wasn’t put here just for your convenience.”

  One of the people who wasn’t watching a monitor approached him. She passed an instrument over his body from head to toe while looking at the space just above her eye level.

  “He checks out,” she said. “The body scan is normal. He’s in pretty good shape for a man his age.”

  One of the people at the workstations looked in their direction and waved Terra over. Marcus watched their animated whispered conversation until Terra shook her head and headed back his way.

  “As I expected,” she said, “The Tribe of 23 has Lena and they’ve made their demand.”

  “What do they want? Ransom?”

  “They couldn’t care less about money. They want you. They’re offering an exchange. And it’s no mystery what they’ll do with you when they get you. Either Lena dies or you do. That’s what you’ve gotten you both into.”

  44

  THE THREATS were mounting fast in Ray Mettler’s new life. Someone had tried to kill him twice and had nearly succeeded. From what he knew of Marcus Takana’s life, he’d made a lot of enemies for an otherwise beloved public figure. As Minister of Discovery, he’d been instrumental in initiating some controversial programs. And even as the creator of Takana Grass, he was despised by extremists who opposed some of the consequences of his discovery. The revival of farming animals for meat production brought animal rights groups out of the woodwork that opposed raising animals for food. He’d received threats from members of several of these groups. And despite the many benefits that Takana Grass bestowed on humanity, there were still those who opposed genetically engineering any living things.

  Marcus’s role as a vocal advocate of SPUD rights had probably earned him the most vicious enemies. The Tribe of 23 was the largest and most vocal anti-SPUD organization. Their rhetoric and tactics were reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan that terrorized African Americans in the last two centuries. One difference is that they didn’t wear hoods or otherwise hide their identities. They were sufficiently self-righteous that they felt no need to be secretive and skated very close to the edge of the law, sometimes sliding across it. There were stories of assassinations both of SPUDs and of some of the people who stood up for them. The firebombing had the earmarks of their style.

  If that weren’t enough, Ray now had an enemy of his own: Ganymede. Its Director had demanded that Ray run for President as a way of gaining control over the government of the Commonwealth. If he complied, they would control him with the compromising information they had on him, much like the Russians had controlled an American President decades before with kompromat and had almo
st succeeded in bringing the nation to its knees. Ray would become a traitor, having sold out his country for the promise of immortality. How could he have been so vain or so arrogant?

  What were his options? He could go underground, but that would leave Corinne and Natasha vulnerable and they could be used to draw him back out. He could confide in Vice President Hauer or in the President, but Ganymede would be almost certain to find out and punish him for his disobedience.

  “What if I reached out to Marcus?” he thought. “Perhaps between us and with his knowledge of the government, we could figure out a solution.” It was an audacious idea. For one thing, Marcus must despise him. Why would he even consider helping him get out of this jam? But on the other hand, Corinne’s and Natasha’s safety also depended on finding a way out. Marcus would do it for them, even if it helped his enemy.