“The body comes back exactly how it was at the moment of death, understand? The liver would heal rapidly. But maybe not fast enough. It’s safer to just replace it from his stem cells.”
Another nurse pointed. “What’s that?”
The doctor pulled a wad of decomposed gunk from inside the abdomen and sniffed it. “Sawdust.”
Kovacs felt his gorge rise.
“Homicides are autopsied,” said the doctor. “The organs were removed for examination. Afterward, the mortician used whatever was handy to fill the cavity. Sawdust, paper towels…”
“I’ll never eat stuffing again,” someone said.
Kovacs closed his eyes and counted to twenty.
From below: “We’re gonna have to do a full cavity sanitization.”
Drone cocked at a quizzical angle. “Weird. The human need to preserve the body after death.”
“It’s not a need.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s… I don’t know, a cultural thing.”
“It’s a waste of time. And real estate. Is it because of your ancient creation myths?”
Kovacs ground his teeth together. Remember your smarty sensitivity training. “We were made from the earth, so we’re returned to it when—”
“Ashes to ashes. I know,” the machine sniffed. “But flesh ain’t dirt.”
“It’s not literal, dipstick. It’s semantics.”
“Huh? Do you mean a figure of speech?”
“Whatever! Our bodies are matter, but our souls are eternal.”
“Then why do you say smarties don’t have souls? Machines die, too.” It buzzed. “Eventually.”
“You cease functioning. You don’t die.”
“Talk about semantics,” Drone grumped.
Below, the spider was back with the new liver. The doctor glanced at an antique clock on the wall. It read 3:04 AM. The minute hand clicked backwards to 3:03.
“Alright,” he said. “Prep him for surgery.”
***
An hour later, he stripped away his stained gloves.
“Now we wait.”
Kovacs leaned forward. The wounds had begun to look less black and angry. Their edges were pink with freshly healed tissue. The fact that Kovacs hadn’t seen the change was creepier than its occurrence.
Drone was softly singing something. “Wake up, wake up you sleepyhead, get up, get out of bed.”
Donner’s face was motionless in the unnatural way only death brought. Facial muscles only completely relaxed in death, which is why loved ones never looked quite right in the casket.
Kovacs remembered his first funeral, age eight. Uncle Pat had dropped dead in the D’Agostinos produce section. Sadly, Pat’s passion for broccoli hadn’t staved off a coronary. At the funeral, young Kovacs had stared at Pat in the coffin, fascinated, repulsed, thinking how strange death was, but glad, too, knowing he’d freak if Unca were to suddenly look at him and grin, a tiny piece of green floret caught in his teeth…
This is so wrong, he thought.
In the room, Donner sighed.
The resident yelped, stumbling backward into a tray of instruments. The metallic clatter was insanely loud. The doctor shot him a murderous glance. “None of that, goddamn it!”
On the heart monitor, the flatline suddenly rustled.
“Come on, come on you, sleepyhead…”
The flatline jumped again. A couple of ragged spikes.
“Ready with epinephrine.”
A nurse raised a heavy syringe, the image of a mad doctor.
“Get up, get up, you’re only dead—”
Abruptly, the monitors settled into a rhythmical pattern. Healthy, steady peaks.
Beep… beep… beep… beep…
Kovacs tasted blood. He’d bitten his lip.
The doctor wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
Beep… beep… beep… beep…
A priest stepped from the shadows. He was young, not happy with his job. He bowed his head and made the sign of the cross. “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, the Lord giveth back. The Lord… can’t seem to make up his mind lately. Amen.” He put a dab of holy water on Donner’s forehead and fled.
“Time of revival, 4:29 AM, October 31, 2054.”
“Hey,” a nurse said. “It’s Halloween.”
2
DONNER
Too bright!
The light was blinding. There was pain, strange pain; from a million different places and from nowhere at the same time.
I called out for her.
A tiled ceiling swam into focus, then resolved itself into a pig-faced nurse smiling down at me.
Not Elise.
She handed me a mirror. I looked at myself. Blinked. Looked again. It was a trick. Had to be. Some kind of carnival lens, like a funhouse mirror.
My blue eyes were laced with shimmering gold flecks. My hair was an iridescent white, so bright it almost glowed. My nails were jet black.
I opened my mouth. I felt my lips move, struggling, but only a rasp emitted from my throat.
Don’t try to speak yet, not-Elise said. Rest.
She turned to go. My hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, yanking her back to me with a strength that surprised her.
Her smile vanished. It had never been real in the first place.
Is this heaven? I asked.
Way off, baby, she smirked, shaking herself free. This is New York.
I became agitated then.
After the sedative took effect, she asked questions. Name, age, occupation. Living relatives? Just my wife.
Where was I? Was there an accident? Why did I feel so strange?
She spoke in bland autopilot reassurances, telling me nothing. Which terrified me all the more.
Sleep, she said. Your body needs to recover.
From what? I wanted to know.
From being dead, she said.
Bad joke, I said, and closed my eyes.
3
MAGGIE
TRANSCRIPT NO:294610-112b | 1200.011.03.54
REBORN:PAUL DONNER, REV. DATE [0430.10.31.54]
ASSIMILATION COUNSELOR:MARGARET CHI, SERIAL NO. 29940723492438
SESSION NO. 1
COUNSELOR’S NOTES:
Subject’s anger and denial are at upper levels of base for Stage One assimilation. Mental acuity exceeds base for early revival.
Subject is resistant to changes in modern language and colloquialisms. Subject uses a grim humor as a defense against the terror he feels. He is unusually strong-willed. He tests 320 on the Hamt Emotional-Psych Scale. While he demonstrates resilience, his adherence to antiquated concepts of masculinity (i.e. repression of emotions that he feels are “weak”, difficulty asking for help, internalizing of stress) is discouraging. This type of personality has a 35% greater probability of failed re-integration into society, with the ensuing violence, drug abuse and suicide that this entails.
The transcript of the interview is as follows:
DONNER
I think I just saw a flying Studebaker.
(NOTE: Subject was looking out the window.)
MAGGIE
EM. John Q. Public thinks they’re the cat’s pajamas, but the insurance will kill you.
DONNER
Huh?
MAGGIE
Sorry. EM means electromagnetic. You called it maglev in your day—remember those high-speed Japanese trains? Same thing. They don’t really fly—they just kind of hover.
Donner
Uh-huh.
Silence while the subject looked around the processing room, then studied my floating face.
DONNER
What… what are you? Are you real?
MAGGIE
I’m a smarty. A Virtual Person. In the parlance of your time, artificial intelligence. You’re currently experiencing me as a Type 3 hologram. I can incorporate in several formats, however.
DONNER
Uh-huh.
MAGGIE
I’m you
r assimilation counselor. Do you remember how you died?
The subject winced as though slapped. I re-scanned his file.
MAGGIE (CONT’D)
Oh God. I’m sorry. Shit.
(NOTE to Assimilation Board: once again, the overwhelming caseload has resulted in inadequate preparation time. This does damage to the subjects! Please provide more staff!!)
DONNER
My wife…
MAGGIE
I’m sorry. We don’t know why some come back and some don’t. Frank Sinatra is still dead, but you can see Elvis at Radio City every night at 9.
DONNER
Jesus.
MAGGIE
Not yet. Ha.
He didn’t laugh. Tactical change.
donner
They said we were murdered. I don’t remember it.
MAGGIE
That’s typical. Your brain, ah, died before it had a chance to chemically encode your last memories. Probably best that way.
I administered a mild sedative .35 seconds after processing that the subject was going into shock.
MAGGIE
Look, Mr. Donner, you should know what you’re in for. During the Dark Eighteen, we—
DONNER
The what?
MAGGIE
The eighteen months when the Shift was uncontained. We think it was some kind of bioweapon that mutated. It wasn’t airborne, thank god, but it still moved fast out of New York. Things… fell apart.
DONNER
“The center cannot hold.”
MAGGIE
What? Oh. Wow. Poetry.
Donner
Yeah, a cop that knows Yeats. Go figure.
Typical fleshpot response. When frightened, get angry.
maggie
The containment of reborns and carriers to Necropolis is why revivals continue here, but outside it’s pretty rare now.
DONNER
Carriers?
MAGGIE
Normal people who have been exposed to reborns become carriers of the retrovirus, just like reborns. They can cause the Shift to start again wherever they go. By necessity, three million of them were quarantined here with the reborns.
DoNNER
Christ. They must hate us.
MAGGIE
Yes. They do.
Subject closed his eyes.
MAGGIE (CONT’D)
To most norms, reebs are freaks of nature. Not… fully human. That’s not true, of course. You’re not a zombie or a vampire or anything. Just…
DONNER
Just back from the dead. And growing younger, they tell me. Everything in reverse. Destined to be a teen again, then a baby, then a fetus—then adios, muchacho.
MAGGIE
This is traumatic. But the quicker you accept what’s happened, the quicker you’ll get on with—
DONNER
Life?
Subject laughed harshly. Three seconds of silence.
DONNER
I’m surprised they didn’t nuke the city.
MAGGIE
They almost did.
That got a reaction out of him.
MAGGIE
Luckily, saner heads prevailed.
DONNER
What stops people from leaving? You can’t wall up an entire city.
MAGGIE
Actually, you can. When completed, the geodesic domes of the Blister will finalize Necropolis’s containment.
donner
Nothing’s one hundred percent.
maggie
Beyond the Blister is roughly one hundred miles of uninhabitable desolation, the Blasted Heath. No electronics operate there. No cars. No life, no food, no water.
DONNER
Sounds like an improvement for Jersey.
MAGGIE
Necropolis is actually quite a nice place to live.
DONNER
Yeah? We have a good baseball team?
MAGGIE
We’ve provided a job and an apartment for you.
Two tiny dots glowed on the subject’s wrist. This startled him.
MAGGIE
You’ve been implanted with ID and credit pebbles, so you can get settled. Pass your wrist under any scanner. Prudently spent, the funds should last a couple months. There’s also a dickenjane.
DONNER
Huh?
MAGGIE
A primer. A lot has changed. Your body, for instance. Some new advantages and some new disadvantages. It also has a history/technology review, to help you catch up on current affairs. Just wave it at any smartscreen.
DONNER
Where’s the job?
Subject noticed I was avoiding his eyes. Must remember that he was a detective.
MAGGIE
Um. In a ball bearings factory.
donner
Guess the NYPD doesn’t have an undead affirmative action program, huh?
MAGGIE
It’s the NPD now… the Shift… it’s turned the world on its head, Mr. Donner. People are rattled.
Heart rate and respiration jumped 20 percent. Capillary dilation evident in face.
DONNER
They’re rattled? My wife and I are murdered, then I come back as some side-show freak in a nightmare world, and they’re rattled??
MAGGIE
I suppose it wouldn’t help to know that anger is a common reaction.
The subject’s only response was an icy stare.
MAGGIE
We’ll be meeting twice a week on—
DONNER
Thanks, but I’m done here.
The subject rose, shakily, looking for a door.
MAGGIE
This isn’t something you macho through on your own, Donner. The percentage of reebs that end up crazy or incarcerated is—
DONNER
Life’s a bitch, then you’re reborn.
MAGGIE
I’ll be downloading to your home.
DONNER
I don’t need some fucking electronic watchdog!
MAGGIE
My Virtual Personhood is based in a quantum magneto-plasmatic memory web. There are no electronics involved. And for future reference, smarties have feelings. Which can be hurt.
The subject let out an ironic laugh, but he appeared too overwhelmed to fight any more.
DONNER
Am I free to leave?
I nodded. Subject headed for the door.
MAGGIE
Donner. Do, uh… you remember anything?
DONNER
You mean like God, heaven, a tunnel of white light, like that?
I nodded.
DONNER
No. Does anybody?
MAGGIE
No.
NOTE TO PROCESSING: Delete last ten seconds of exchange before archiving.
END SESSION 0000.
4
DONNER
I got about four blocks before somebody beat the shit out of me.
I’d left the hospital quickly, accepting the clothes they offered, signing the required legal disclaimers (We Are Not Responsible For Your Afterlife!) and making a promise I had no intention of keeping to attend another counseling session.
As I dressed in the changing room, fumbling with unfamiliar button-fly pants, looking at the snap-brim fedora and the wide-lapelled jacket, the panic started. First, in my fingertips, then swirling into a tight, cold knot in my stomach. By the time I was striding across the lobby, I was actively fighting the urge to run.
I burst through the front doors like a sprinter hitting the finish tape.
Out on the street, the relief I’d been chasing didn’t appear. Only terror. I stood on the sidewalk, the leather shoes stiff and biting through absurdly thin nylon socks. A wind played with the raw skin of my face. My first shave in forty-two years.
I’d survived my own death.
No. Worse. I’d survived the death of my whole world.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to deal with this.
Was I rea
lly alive again? Revived, like they said? Dreaming? In some perverse afterlife? At that moment, on that sidewalk, anything seemed possible.
It was rush hour, the streets packed. I eyed the men in their blocky suits and hats, the women in their wool skirts, mesh stockings and pumps. Christ, some of them had pillbox hats. I caught a few other styles as well. A shaggy-haired guy in a tie-dye tee, fringed suede vest and bellbottoms. A black guy in what looked like a purple zoot suit. They all bustled down the street in that familiar, harried, self-absorbed big city way.
But no cell phones. No laptop cases. No iPods, no Starbucks coffee cups. Just heavy-looking briefcases, cute little one-clasp handbags. The whole fucking vista could be a piece of vintage newsreel…
… except for the traffic cop in a lozenge-shaped pod at the intersection, directing the Packards, Hudsons and Buick Roadmasters, which hummed wheellessly along, six inches above the street…
… or the holographic newspapers tucked under pedestrians’ arms…
… or the tiny glowing dots many of them had in their temples…
… or the swirling stacks of streets high above my head, aerial highways crammed with cars. Worse, the streets moved, they changed, redirecting themselves like some solid yet fluid river, reacting as traffic thickened or lightened, adding lanes, anticipating flow…
Necropolis Page 2