“Oh yes, many people. This is great. I’m Calligan. See I got this bench because it accommodates many, while also just one if the need called for it. Anyway, this is a lot of people.”
“Yes, we’d like your help—” started Patav.
“Oh no, no, no. Let me guess. This is the best part,” he said in a way that suggested he often had to convince people that this was the best part. Rather than change colors, the color he was seemed to only pulsate, as he looked over the women. “All right, I got it.”
He pointed toward Lorav and Patav. “You two Rapcorhs want to be back together…inside…her.” His hand swept over to Gail.
He tried again, gesturing to Gail. “You are Rapcorh, and you want your old body back, modeled after these two.”
“Yes,” said Gail immediately, her eyes lighting up.
“No,” replied Lorav firmly, more so responding to the accumulation of Gail’s requests on the subject than to Calligan.
It was Patav’s turn to roll her eyes. “We—”
“Wait! Fourth party. The cyborg has a disincorporated friend who you two as Rapcorhs are communicating with via whichever -pathic skills you’ve got.”
“No!— No, actually that’s right,” conceded Lorav, who despite being able to read minds, didn’t always take the time and went straight to the comments.
With that, Calligan went straight to business, pulling out a laminated infographic-styled decision tree.
So, You’re Disincorporated. Now What?
Please select all that apply.
1. I have a body I want to be inside.
A. It is with me.
B. I have the proper documentation confirming I’m allowed to inhabit this body.
C. There is no one inside it currently.
D. I’m invoking the Doppelgänger clause.
2. I have parts of a body I want to be inside.
A. These parts are alive and should be reassembled and supplemented as needed.
B. These parts have DNA to be extracted. They should not be used in the final product.
B.1 I’m here to begin the body-cloning process. I plan to wait for the body to mature before entering.
B.2 I want to be placed in the body-clone as soon as possible. I understand I will need nursery care.
3. I do not have a body, or my body is inaccessible. I need another body.
A. I would like to discuss financing options.
B. I would like to use a body temporarily. Note: leases are available up to 6 months or 5,000 light years, whichever comes first.
“Say we do have DNA, or could get it. We’d need a body. How long do they take to mature?”
Another laminated document was placed on the table. “Sure, let’s take a look at the Cloning Maturity Equivalency Scale.”
Cloning Maturity Equivalency Scale
1:1 RATIO OF TIME FOR ORIGINAL SPECIES TO MATURE TO TIME FOR CLONE SPECIES TO MATURE
It was a short document.
“At what point will your disincorporated person wish to inhabit the body? Looks like she’s got some great caretakers. She could probably go home after the gestation period.”
“Gross,” said Gail.
“Gross,” said the others.
After seeming to order her thoughts, Lorav asked, “What do the generic human bodies look like?”
“Earth humans? Sure. Here’s the base model.”
The Nurflan moved a small white disc toward the middle of the table. With a few turns of the dial, a four-inch holographic model of…something…resembling a human appeared and waved at them.
“We used over three hundred phenotypic samples to come to this perfect specimen. The beautiful average of the species.”
The beautiful average was chunky, saggy, wrinkled, and asymmetric. It was as if someone had combined the three hundred bodies, and when they went to divide by the number of samples to craft their model, they instead just took a vague eraser to the summation. Indecision did not bode well for the human body. Neither did paunches. The murky gray color led one to wonder about the living status of the ‘samples’ upon their retrieval as well.
Gail’s eyes went wide and she made a face not unlike the model’s. “It’s so ugly.”
“OK! Maybe that’s the best part. You’d think souls would be grateful for any body.” He spun the lazy-Susan of genericness.
“What was that?!” asked Gail, an odd mix of grateful and angry.
“That was the previous model we used, based on historical images found on the remains of an ancient archive of naked humans interacting, RedTube?”
“Never heard of it,” giggled Gail. Momentarily, Lorav and Patav joined in on Gail’s laughter for differing reasons.
He settled on a body that still did not look quite human, despite the label printed underneath it. As much as the other hadn’t been smoothed out, this one had been streamlined to remove all minutia. While perhaps not accurate, it was certainly aesthetically pleasing. And really, that was to be expected—you want people to actually want the merchandise.
“Whoa,” said Gail.
“Whoa,” said Lorav.
Patav whimpered.
“Does Rose think that would work?” asked Gail, her voice shaking as she considered the possibilities.
Lorav rubbed the base of her antenna. “I don’t know. She’s not making any sense. Something about a divot in her clavicle, a discolored scar down her leg? I’m not sure what’s happening.” She turned to Patav to see if she had more insight.
“She doesn’t want it.”
“Why wouldn’t she want it?” asked Gail, incredulously. “I want it. Can we trade me in for this model?”
“She mourns for her body. Those are the things that were a part of her.”
“This is not her. She isn’t just a soul. She’s a body too.”
“Yeah, but she could be this body,” said Gail approvingly.
“Do you really want to trade up? You want to live in that?” asked Patav.
“…Maybe not,” said Gail. She rubbed her hydrostats together, and their synthetic hums synergized within each other’s vicinity. “But really, I’m not changing either Rose’s diapers. We got to figure this spit out.”
“We can allow…Rose, is it? We can allow Rose to enter our public Mindspace area as she is unattached. There, she will be able to do more research and decide what she would like to do. It’s not an easy decision. We know that here at Calligan’s Reincarnation Services. It’s not like you can do this over and over again. Oh wait, you can.” With a Customer Service smile, he stood up, somehow obligating the party to get up as well.
“Rose will be fine with us,” he said warmly.
Rose said an excited but cautious good-bye.
Perhaps she’d soon be able to wave it.
NINE
Medow leaned against one of the tall stools at the workshop table. She could nearly sit on it and have her delicate feet touch the floor. That was another thing Earthlings had a penchant for and designed nutrition around—small feet—being as tall as a beanstalk wasn’t enough; Earthlings also had to have the base of one. The entirety of the workshop table was covered in scattered facsimiles projected from the woman’s Kindle device. They could all be neatly read on its screen, but Medow enjoyed the faux tactility of arranging the papers while she arranged her thoughts, like a novelist with a desk covered in scribbled index cards. Both revealed how scattered the human brain was.
Frankie could nearly sit on the matching stool and have her delicate feet touch the cross bar. She drummed her fingers on either side of the stool to prevent her from clenching it. She watched her left hand color turn subtle shades with the blood flow and impact, and imagined the worry leaving her body through the tips. If that was the case, it piled around her like spaghetti or yarn. Frankie tried not to think about it tightening and choking her like one of those mythical reptiles in Earth movies.
“This shouldn’t take long. Here’s the list of the crimes that Sossios Zadra is being tried for
.” The projected stack was thick for just being a list.
“That will take all evening to read,” said Frankie, shocked. She wondered if she should have asked Medow to stay earlier today, rather than taking a day trip to be with her family on Hephaestus. Frankie felt tired just looking at the papers.
“Yes, that’s why I got my paralegals on it. They’ve compiled your alibis for all but it seems, four of these crimes.”
“Oh well, I didn’t do them. Was I ‘nearby’ or did I ‘know a guy?’” Frankie joked.
“…Did you?” Medow asked.
“Hm, crime investigations and trials, maybe not the time or place.” Frankie suddenly felt odd and awkward. Usually she was the most serious on the ship. Turned out, that wasn’t very serious, at all.
“This first one is in the Alonda System in the Lee Sun station.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been there. We stayed for a few hours—well, I stayed for a bit then came back on the ship to keep Quaja company. You see—”
“No, I don’t need to see. When you were on the station, did you steal three fuel cells?”
“No, of course not. Microlutions was giving me fuel to cover our delivery for them.”
“Did you go to the fuel cell bay while you were there?”
“I don’t think so. Just the cafeteria and whatever hallways led from the ship bay to there, plus a few more for lostness-sake.”
“Well, your fingerprints were found in the fuel cell bay the day cells were stolen and the day you were there. And, do you know a…roff-el-porg?…. I don’t even know what that is.”
“ROFLporg! Of course, I know him!” The Leebnez had calculated himself into their hearts, or maybe it was that phase-changing thing he did where he could go through solid matter. Actually, that wouldn’t be a good thing.
“Did you kidnap him?”
“Oh um, yes? I might actually be guilty of that one.”
“All right, let’s set that aside for now,” she said as she made a swiping gesture that pulled a case file to the corner of the table.
“Recently at the planetary auction for Hephaestus, you assaulted the auctioneer, striking him dumbfounded. Attempted murder, wow. You can’t deny being there, can you? I mean we know you bought the planet.”
Frankie hadn’t told her that, but for sure, it was public record.
“Yes, I can! I wasn’t there. I was in the spaceship doing—” Frankie wasn’t sure if stealing a moon and crashing fertisrats purposefully onto a planet was more or less punishable than attempted murder. “—spaceship things.”
“All right, I’ll just write that down as your alibi. Let’s see. Oh yes, here, I’ll write it here. Space…ship...things.” Medow did not write anything down; instead her dead cold eyes stared into Frankie’s soul.
“Damage to a Pi Zeconis warehouse?”
“That’s us, but not personally me. I would have preferred if we didn’t run into anything or cause anything to fall in escaping, but it is what it is.”
“What it is, is that, really, truly, some of these charges are relevant to you.”
“Yes, but they’re not…I don’t know. Bad-bad, y’know? I have really good reasons and I think any good and rational person would have made the same decisions. I’m not a villain. I’m the spunky captain of a super spunky ship. And, isn’t it telling that these other charges are completely false? Sossios is right. Someone is out to get us. I wouldn’t even be surprised if absolutely zero of these accusations were substantiated.”
“Well none of them are simultaneous, and while some are pretty logistically difficult, they are not impossible with the correct vehicle.” She said the last word slowly as if she might offend the thing she occupied.
“Clearly, not me.”
“Then maybe Sossios?”
“I don’t know if she did it,” Frankie admitted.
Medow cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to clear YOU. Sossios is not paying me. Well, neither are you, but at least I don’t have to sit in that water park for a week.”
“But shouldn’t this be about getting behind the truth of it all?” Medow stared at her blankly and an old Pavlovian connection told her if this look was present, then she must have said something strikingly dumb. “I don’t know, this is all starting to smell really fishy.”
“What’s fishy?”
“My parents say it. It means wrong or off.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just fishy.”
Medow stood fully onto her feet, perhaps a bit shaky with the disorientation of being on a ship or having a client who was possibly going to talk herself into a prison sentence. Resignedly either way, she waved her hand over the Kindle and the projections animatedly retreated into it. She would be able to pull everything out exactly as it was, ordered by any number of rules, or any other previously saved configurations. Scramble/Random was also a possibility, but really, the algorithm just wasn’t quite there yet. She wandered to the two cots that had been lined up end to end to fit her long body. “This ship is what’s fishy…” she muttered, hoping the ship would not hear and decide to give up on whatever was truly keeping them from being torn apart in the depths of space.
Frankie received a text message on her tablet.
Rose wants to speak with you. - Gail
PS - we’re in mindspace.
PPS - Exty district. My shop. @GrannyGailsGarishGagGifts
PPPS - I’m going to kill my children.
“Who is Rose and…why?” Frankie said in Medow’s general direction, in case the name was familiar to her.
“Gail’s BFF, and IDK.”
“What?”
“Best fire fighters, I don’t know.”
“OK. That’s fine.”
TEN
It was the eve before the trial and all through the ship, a ghost of a person did not creep through the corridors. It more or less just osmosis-ed in a plane near or around the ship—which wasn’t a plane that flew but more of a dimensional plane…no matter how poorly described it was, it was happening. And, it was happening in the communicative, non-corporeal realm known as Mindspace.
While the social constructs of Mindspace had been purposefully built, the dimension itself consisted of any form of communication not involving sensory transduction. Telepathic species communicated on this plane. Hive minds solely so. Using technology to open the dimension to all created the most stable and largest social platform, beating out the Zynga local instances which combined click-and-wait game mechanics with courtship. Relationships were measured with heart emojis and could be sped up with either microtransactions or convincing your grandmother to share your relationship status on a regular basis.
Mindspace was a vast, versatile plane, and one could interact with or without an avatar of any making, but to create a frame of reference for easy description, Rose, who as an entity was residing entirely in Mindspace had dressed up like a ghost—or more-so the avatar of an invisible but amorphous shape covered with a white fitted sheet with two holes cut out where perhaps the eyes of Charlie Brown might be if he hadn’t cut so many and looked like a potato.
Rose populated a text message on Gail’s tablet: “Log in and find me!” transposed from her own thoughts via a large array of system protocols of which most could not be telecast, printed, described, or accounted for without the express consent of Mindspace’s intellectual proprietors. After, or perhaps while, she popped over to Gail’s shop on Mindspace. It was a lovely storefront in the Exty district filled with hand-knitted and crocheted banal spit. Oddly enough, some of the things were personalized with the names of Gail’s grandchildren.
When Gail arrived, she looked around the store in amazement. “I’ve never been here before.” She walked the small aisles and picked up items in the cubby-hole compartments of the table.
“How could you have never been here before?” Rose asked Gail’s avatar, which was trying to box jump up to the dressing table in a fashion that clearly suggested she
was indeed, new around here. “Isn’t this your store?”
“My daughter made it to sell my gifts.”
“Girl. Are you getting any of those proceeds?”
“You know I’m not, but at least I don’t have to figure out what to buy them every year. I can basically program these suckers.” She waved her hydrostats slightly like she truly did not care.
“So, what’s going on?”
“You need to tell your captain and Fala that I went digging into the company’s documents.”
“Oh, speaking of which—are you going to get a new body?”
“Gail, please. Focus.”
“No, this is our storyline. What’s going on? Why don’t you want a new sexy bod? Man, you’d be killing it again, just like old times.”
“First, dear. I never stopped killing it. And second, that looks nothing like me. How I experience the world—everything’s been shaped by the vessel I’ve been in. It might be old and broken, but that just means it went on some really great adventures. I don’t want my old soul in that shiny, new soda can.”
“It will still be you. Bodies are just vehicles. I swapped out a lot of my parts and I’m still me.”
“That was your choice, though. I’m sans body because my family got involved.”
“They just want what’s best for you,” Gail said by default. Although she’d also been in the same boat—the supposed same cruise ship to be exact—shirking her family’s “best intentions.”
“Do they? I think they’re just doing what they think is expected of them.”
“Aren’t we all—at least to some extent?” Gail’s fingers raked through her curls.
“Well, I’m done with it. I lost my freedom. I lost my body. But they cannot take my spirit!” An old video clip popped up near them. #battlecry #kilts
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Gail frowned but also knew she couldn’t argue when she was surrounded by her love mementos being sold for… 1 EGRL apiece?! They better be charging a fertis-load of shipping. She turned to leave.
Atalan Adventure Pack: Books 4-6 Page 18