Resurrection, Inc.

by Kevin J. Anderson

  A warm thrill trickled down his spine. Something had snapped, some part of Danal had come back, some part of the original Vincent Van Ryman had broken through the wall of death and reawakened his old anger.

  Pondering, he moved slowly over to Rodney Quick’s body on the sofa. That was something Nathans had not counted on. A shame, too—and a waste. He had been touched by the regret and dismay on Danal’s face as he placed the dead technician on the couch. But things were moving too fast right now. Nathans could mentally collate the events later.

  He picked up the young tech’s body and stumbled with it outside his office, back to the elevator. He positioned Rodney’s body against the wall, to look as if he had been attacked and then discarded. Then Nathans went back to seal the door of his own office. He had other things to take care of before he could sound the alarm down in the lower levels.

  The door to the secret alcove opened and an Enforcer came in, moving rapidly from the passage to the street above. The Enforcer was outfitted in glossy dark-blue armor with crimson ringlets on each arm-piece. He quickly came up to Nathans, moving with a fluid assurance in his dark armor.

  “The riot out there is getting worse, sir. We’ve got Special Forces coming in now. Should be under control fairly soon.”

  “What are you doing here in that Elite Guard uniform?” Nathans demanded. “This is Resurrection, Inc, remember? I’m supposed to hate the Enforcers. Get changed immediately!”

  The blue-clad Enforcer nodded stiffly. Nathans then indicated the dead lookalike on the floor. “I want you to get rid of this. And completely destroy the body—make sure no one sees you.”

  The Enforcer mumbled his reply and wasted no time getting to work.

  Nathans placed his hands behind his back and went over to the thick underwater window, staring out at the murky shapes behind the glass. He flicked a switch and sent spotlights into the water. Sharply defined yellowish beams plunged into the murk where they occasionally struck the shapes of large grayish fish.

  Danal had responded! Now they were past the first major hurdle. The experiment might work after all.

  Nathans jumped out of his reverie and went to the direct network-link terminal. Making sure the Elite Guard was not in view, he punched a few buttons and came face-to-face with an image of the captain of Resurrection’s specially assigned team of regular Enforcers.

  “We’re busy right now, Mr. Nathans,” the captain said impatiently. “We’ll give you a report as soon as we can compile one.” The other Enforcer reached forward to blank the screen.

  “The Servant must not be harmed,” Nathans interrupted. “All other priorities are secondary. You have to get him out of there, rescue him from the mob.”

  “I understand that, Mr. Nathans. It’s too bad he got away in the first place, isn’t it?” the white-armored Enforcer said. “We’ve informed all our men except one Enforcer. We’re not able to contact him. His suit radio must be out of service.”

  “Who? Which one?”

  “Jones—the man who first went after your rebel Servant at the scene. His weapons fire could have sparked the disturbance outside. Your receptionist believes the Servant was struck in the shoulder by one of his shots. Jones was in the lobby at the time and acted exactly according to protocol. Commendable, under any other circumstances.”

  “I’m not interested in any other circumstances! I want you to make damn sure my Servant is not harmed. You don’t understand how valuable he is.”

  “That may not be possible by now, sir.” The guard captain had a maddening hint of disrespect and scorn in his voice. “As I said, we’ve lost contact with Enforcer Jones, and the disturbance is getting pretty bad. A mob would probably focus around a Servant, especially one running from an Enforcer. He may not have had a chance.”

  Yes, Nathans thought, but you don’t know how fast that Servant can move! With his knuckles Nathans rapped the key that blanked the screen. He clenched his teeth and stared through the murky window again.

  Damn! Now that he really needed the skills of a good Interface to organize all the different things taking place at the same time, Supervisor had blanked out, failed him right when he needed her.

  Interfaces could become lost in The Net, leaving their bodies behind and unable to find the way back to their own minds. It happened sometimes. And no one could determine whether these Net burnouts were accidents or suicides.

  In such a case, one could do nothing except put the comatose bodies in tanks and force feed them for the next few decades. Nathans recalled the introverted scientist, Ferdinand, one of the original team who had developed the resurrection process: for his chosen reward Ferdinand had asked to become an Interface and spend the rest of his natural life swimming free in The Net.

  Nathans shook his head at the waste, but Ferdinand had been happy.

  Supervisor had no such excuse, though—she had simply failed to appear at work for several days. Nathans sent two reluctant Enforcers into her darkened den; there, surrounded by unpleasantly warm, stale air and burned-out incense, they found her emaciated, uninhabited body.

  Not relishing his next communication, Nathans drummed his fingertips on the side of the keyboard before entering the proper sequence. In a moment the face of the false Vincent Van Ryman appeared. The imposter’s dark square-cut hair was in disarray; he looked agitated and very old, but with a young man’s face.

  Nathans placed a reassuring smile on his lips and spoke. “It worked.”

  The imposter’s expression filled with relief. “And? What’s our next step? What happened?”

  Nathans hesitated a moment. “Unfortunately, he got away.”

  “What!”

  “The trigger was more dramatic than we had anticipated. He broke loose and moved with such blinding speed it was amazing! He killed my double and then fled. On his way out, he also killed one of my technicians. An Enforcer shot him in the shoulder, but he escaped into the streets, where he seems to have started a sizable riot.”

  The false Van Ryman tugged at his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. “How could you let him get away!”

  “I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Now be quiet and listen.”

  But the imposter frantically continued. “What if he comes back here? If he remembers things, then he’ll know what we’re trying to do! What if he tries to kill me?” The imposter suddenly looked over his shoulder. “I’m turning on the Intruder Defense Systems and they’re staying on, so don’t try to come and see me.”

  “Calm down!” Nathans barked. “I don’t think he remembers anything specific—he hasn’t got it all back yet. He’s seen only me, and there’s nothing else from his past that he could blunder into.”

  “Well, what about all the details around here? What about all this time he’s been in his old house? Looking at me? All that must have been sparking something—I could tell.”

  “Yes, yes. But that was a gradual pressure, building up, preparing him. When he saw my double, he got a severe mental jolt. He has to get another jolt like that to regain everything. All he’s got now are some of his emotions, vague responses. We’ll be safe for the moment.”

  “Once you find him,” the imposter muttered.

  “We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

  Looking angry and very distressed, the false Van Ryman signed off without acknowledging. Nathans let out a lungful of air, whistling between his teeth, and sat back down to concentrate. He flung off his tousled brown hairpiece and used his fingertips to massage his scalp where the thin surgical scars still itched.

  20

  As Danal plodded back to consciousness, he saw the concerned face of the matronly nurse/tech staring down at him. Reality returned with the force of a released bowstring. But still nothing made sense.

  Danal realized how much stronger he felt, renewed. He turned his head to see that the wound on his shoulder had been covered with flesh-colored plaskin; after an hour or so, the synthetic melanin in the plaskin would adjust itself to the exact color
of the pale, dead skin it was supposed to match.

  The nurse/tech regarded him with a hardened and calculating gaze that looked alien on her heavily made-up face. “You were muttering while you were unconscious. You were having a nightmare.” She watched him closely as she spoke. “Servants aren’t supposed to have… nightmares.”

  He looked around the room and saw that he and the nurse/tech were alone. Her brow creased as if contemplating a difficult decision. “Should I go notify your Master? Maybe he can explain why you were having nightmares.”

  “No!” Danal burst out. He hoped he could restrain his own strength this time, that he could merely knock her unconscious and out of the way. He would have to flee again. The thoughts and the decision charged through him instantly as he leaped to his feet. He reached out with his arm, intending to strike her on the back of the neck, to knock her aside.

  But the heavyset nurse/tech moved with equally blinding speed and impossible strength as she blocked his blow and grabbed his arm in an unbreakable grip like a steel hinge. Her rubber-gloved hand shook slightly as he strained against it with all his might, but then she turned him and forced him to sit back down on the padded table. Danal’s eyes grew wide, and he stopped resisting.

  “Now,” the nurse/tech said firmly as she peeled off one of her gloves to reveal the pallid, bloodless skin of her hand. A Servant’s skin! “Tell me. Truthfully. Do you remember anything of your first life?”

  He had met Julia under one of his pseudonyms.

  Even after taking the High Priest’s mantle of the neo-Satanists, Vincent had continued to pursue his alternate lives on The Net, the identities under which he carried on business and correspondence.

  Using the name of Randolph Carter, Vincent kept up a long running dialog through chat groups with a woman named Julia. For weeks they exchanged rhetoric back and forth, with Randolph Carter arguing for one basis of religion, basically repeating the earlier discussions between Francois Nathans and himself, and Julia responded with the same logic, but interpreted through a different point of view, reaching very different conclusions.

  Vincent quickly grew to respect the mind behind those discussions and proposed to meet her in person.

  They sat down together in a worn plastic booth at a bustling cafeteria. The clatter of an automatic dishwasher came from the end of a conveyor belt; listless cafeteria patrons piled their dirty dishes and trays on the belt and didn’t stop to watch as the dishes traveled into the back rooms filled with hissing water and chaotic sounds. Multicolored section barriers broke up the large room; forced-air currents made an invisible corral around the small smoking area. The buzz of conversation rose and fell.

  Julia leaned across the nicked and stained tabletop and smiled at him. “We can be more alone in a place like this. And we can discuss anything we want.”

  Julia was thin, of medium height, and wore her long blond hair simply, parted in the middle and hanging down behind her shoulders. Her eyes were bright, and Vincent thought he could see dozens of thoughts behind them, waiting to be brought to the surface. Her high cheekbones and delicate face made her seem fragile, but she argued vehemently and intelligently, in a no-nonsense way that quickly dispelled any impression of helplessness.

  They both had coffee, which Vincent found to be a rather bitter, recycled-tasting restaurant blend; Julia had insisted on paying for her own. Impulsively, Vincent kept stirring his cup as they talked; she slurped her coffee and more than once sloshed over the edge of her cup during her animated gestures.

  “But suppose, just suppose,” Vincent said, “that the neo-Satanist movement isn’t supposed to be true, or even believable. What if it’s more like a net to capture people with their own silliness? Certain people. To show them how gullible they can be? What if it’s a trick, a practical joke that has, well, backfired?”

  Julia considered this for a moment. “Then whoever planned it was wrong from the start. If you have such power and influence, then you shouldn’t purposely mislead the public. Why not take them down the right path from the start?”

  He sat in silence for a long moment. She seemed puzzled, but waited. “I’m Vincent Van Ryman,” he said in a soft voice.

  And then, of course, he told her everything.

  Vincent rented a hovercopter, and the two of them went alone up the California coast to the Point Reyes seashore. Julia had read a great deal and filled her conversation with interesting and exotic trivia, but she had never before left the boundaries of the Metroplex, nor had she ever been inside a hovercopter.

  Vincent awkwardly worked the unfamiliar controls that lifted the vehicle from the mansion’s rooftop pad and swung around to the side of the building. He enjoyed watching Julia’s rapt attention as she splayed her fingers on the curved windowshield glass and peered out, wide-eyed, at the chesspiece buildings of the Metroplex from far above.

  The copter shot northward, and the boundaries of the Metroplex faded into wooded hills and crowded tourist-filled seaside communities. The old road below wound precariously along the side of a cliff that plunged to the ocean. A few breakers against the rocks looked like tiny flecks of foam in a gigantic basin.

  Vincent felt daring as he swooped the hovercopter down to skim barely above the surface of the choppy water, paralleling the cliff face. Spray bounced up and misted the windshield. Julia clapped her hands and laughed—nervously, it seemed.

  Far ahead, partly surrounded by wads of fog rising in the morning heat, Vincent could make out the lighthouse on its tiny promontory jutting out into Drake’s Bay. The ocean rolled beneath the craft, and the sheer cliff beside them gave way to a wide expanse of beach next to a black honeycombed cluster of tide pools. Vincent flew ahead, then circled back; under the clear water the beach gradually sloped beneath the depths.

  The hovercopter settled onto the sand, skittering pebbles and debris. From what he could see, the two of them were completely cut off in an area accessible only by air.

  Julia jumped out of the craft and gleefully ran to the breakers. She kicked off her shoes and splashed up to her knees in the water, heedless of the rocks on the beach. Vincent laughed at her expression of shock. “It’s cold! It’s freezing cold!”

  “Of course it is. It’s the ocean.”

  She splashed out and tried to brush droplets of water from her calves. “But the ocean is supposed to be warm. ”

  “Not at Point Reyes.” He turned back to the hovercopter and opened the storage compartment. “Come on. Let’s have a picnic.”

  Vincent had gathered a lunch for just the two of them, even purchased a wicker picnic basket so that it would seem more like the real thing. Handing Julia the basket, he took the blanket out of the bottom shelf and spread it on the sand.

  As they ate, Julia breathed deeply, looking around, staring at the tall beach grass and the sheer cliffs towering above them. Seagulls flew in the air.

  After lunch, they went exploring together up and down the beach. Julia was fascinated with the tide pools, squatting on the rocks and looking into the orphaned puddles, poking her fingers at the small sea anemones, tipping over snails, and watching the thumb-sized hermit crabs crawl over the palm of her hand.

  “I found you some seashells,” Vincent said. She accepted them reverently and put them in the pocket of her blouse.

  Back at the copter, Vincent withdrew some equipment and began setting up on a tripod.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I want to capture this moment. So I can remember every wonderful detail of this day.” He paced off a distance and erected the beam-splitter on a second tripod, then returned to focus the holocamera’s laser on the splitter. Satisfied, he set the splitter on an automatic slow-scan, panning down the long beach and the ocean, following their footprints in the sand. Later, Vincent would pack up the camera and treasure the disk. Already he intended to project the hologram as a grand mural on the study wall.

  “I’m very happy, Julia. Did you know that?” Vincent said with an al
ien tone of amazement in his voice.

  She smiled and flipped her long blond hair behind her shoulders. “Yes. I gathered that.”

  They made love on the blanket on top of the soft yielding sand. The seagulls flew overhead and cried righteous indignation at the brazenness. The waves pounded with a sensual power, a whispering, rushing sound that made everything perfect.

  And everything was perfect. They didn’t even notice their stinging sunburn until that evening.

  If he had pressed the point, Julia probably would have moved in with him anyway, but first she insisted that he publicly denounce the neo-Satanists and expose the sham.

  In just a short time Julia had put another dimension into his life, showing him a world that didn’t always have to be dark, uncaring, self-centered. She gave him tenderness, she made him malleable again, she smoothed out the jagged edges of his personality.

  At the next High Sabbat, Vincent commanded all the neo-Satanists to listen, and he confessed everything. “All of this”—he indicated the grotto, the robes, the relics, the symbols—“is the biggest practical joke in history. All of neo-Satanism is make-believe, fabricated—we concocted it one night when we were bored. We brainstormed all the Writings. We choreographed the rituals. We graphic-designed the symbols.”

  He cracked open the display cases that held the relics. “The hoofprint in the linoleum—didn’t anybody realize there’s a three-century gap between the time when Faustus lived and when linoleum was invented? And this, the black claw of Satan… plastic. Plain old plastic.” He pulled off his High Priest’s robe and tossed it on the floor in disgust.

  “Go home. Spend your time doing something worthwhile. Try to better the world, or better yourselves. We were just pulling your leg.” He turned his back and walked toward the exit alcove. “I’m disappointed at how easily you fell for it.”