Wake the Dead

by Victoria Buck

  “Yes, love. You are my angel.”

  “You will relay to the audience that I am the one who gives the prizes. Giving from a higher place, you see, will instill dedication in the viewers.”

  “Yes, dedication. We want these poor saps dedicated.”

  “Watch your language. We don’t want anyone thinking we have anything but sincere affection and concern at the heart of this program.”

  “Of course, I understand.”

  She leaned close and whispered, “Poor saps they are, of course. But a few of them will get obscenely rich. As will you and I.”

  “We deserve it,” he told her. “We deserve all of this.”

  She kissed him again and left him in the dust of the nearly finished complex. She walked up the golden staircase. He had an amazing assignment to host a program that would change the world. Soon he would have everything he ever wanted. And he had her. Life was perfect. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.

  14

  “Wake up, Chase. It’s time to wake up.” The garbled sound surely came from the bottom of a water bucket. Chase strained to open his eyes, but he couldn’t connect his thoughts with his actions. Another voice said something. The sounds were getting louder and clearer.

  “He’s conscious. Look at his readings. All systems are working at top performance. It’s just that his brain is not used to all the new signals. Give him a few minutes. He’ll come around.”

  Chase wondered what it meant—systems and signals. Neither of the voices sounded like the one he’d heard during the regression game. The new director must have taken the day off. And somebody finally got him a doctor. That was it—the voice was Dr. Fiender. And the other voice, the muddled one, was Kerstin.

  “Chase, you’re recovering from an injury and extensive surgery. Wake up.” The voice from the bucket rose clear this time. Kerstin’s hand cupped his face. He could smell her musky cologne.

  He still couldn’t open his eyes, but his lips spread and he said two words. “Great game.”

  “He spoke!” She rubbed her hand across his face and down his arm. “But what’s he talking about? Chase?”

  “No telling what sort of dreams he’s been having these past few weeks. Or what visions of death he may have experienced.” The doctor spoke quietly. “He may just be delirious.”

  “Death visions? We can’t have him spouting nonsense, Robert. This is too important. He needs to be perfectly sane, perfectly augmented. He needs to be perfect.”

  Chase listened, but it may no sense. The voices drifted away, and he opened his eyes for only a moment.

  Relief flooded his emotions as he realized he could see. Kerstin and Dr. Fiender huddled near the doorway. He looked around the room. He was definitely at SynVue Estate.

  He needs to be perfect. They’d done something to him. Something wonderful.

  Something horrible. He closed his eyes.

  “He is as perfect as any human could be,” the doctor said. “We made sure of that.”

  “Human. He is still human,” Kerstin said. “And humans are unpredictable. Can’t you program him or something?”

  “Kerstin, my dear, relax. You will not be disappointed.”

  The door to the room slid open on command, and the doctor and Kerstin left him. Chase opened his eyes when he heard the door shut. “I can see. Thank God.”

  He tried to move, but his muscles didn’t respond. Monitors and screens surrounded him, relaying codes he didn’t understand. The big screen, the memory device he assumed he’d been hooked to, was not in sight. The game was over. The bugs would have to be worked out of it. Terrifying memories should be excluded. Only happy ones, like the birthday and the early days with Kerstin, would be allowed if contestants were going to play this game.

  “I want to call my mother,” he said. Soon the door slid open and nurses streamed in, followed by Kerstin and Dr. Fiender.

  “See, I told you he was awake.” The doctor hovered and then smacked his fingers against Chase’s cheek. “You are playing games with us. The monitors indicate that you spoke again after we left the room. Why didn’t you open your eyes and talk to us?”

  “He has a habit of talking to himself,” Kerstin said. “He doesn’t care if anyone’s listening. But soon, somebody will always be listening.” She laughed.

  Chase turned his eyes to her. Her smile seemed more pride than concern, more accomplishment than affection. He blinked, and he almost couldn’t pull his lids open again. “Back when Change Your Life first started,” he said. “I think you loved me.”

  “What about now? I saved you, Chase. Isn’t that love?”

  The doctor turned his attention to Kerstin. “Well, if it’s saving we’re talking about, I believe I’m the one who restored what was left of this man.”

  “Of course, Robert, you did all the work—you and a dozen other doctors. I just paid for it.”

  “You paid for it?” Dr. Fiender’s bushy eyebrows rose above his befuddled expression, and Chase might have laughed if he hadn’t been physically paralyzed and emotionally jolted beyond anything he’d ever known. He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a quiet request. “I want Mel.”

  Kerstin came to him and sat on the edge of the bed. “She’s gone, Chase. But I’m right here. You don’t need anyone else.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do anything to her. The production team shut down.”

  “Was I shot? Who else was injured? What about Larin? He was on the stage beside me. Wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, that’s right. He saw the M-snipe, and he tried to push you out of the way. But the rocket swerved, and I’m afraid you got the worst of it. Larin suffered some burns but the surgeons made him good as new.” She smirked. “Well, better than new.”

  “M-snipe. A robot shot me? How did that happen? How did it get in? Who would do that?”

  “We all have a lot of questions, Chase,” she said. “Truth is we don’t know the answers. We may never know.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We know everything.”

  “The good thing is we put you back together,” she said.

  “We?” The doctor mumbled something as he moved toward the door. Some of the nurses followed him out, but two stayed, checking the monitors and poking Chase with all sorts of implements.

  “Why can’t I move?” Chase asked.

  Kerstin looked to one of the nurses.

  “Swelling around the spinal column,” one of them said.

  “That’s it? It’ll get better then, right?” Chase attempted to lift his head from the pillow.

  “Once the swelling goes down,” the nurse said, “the processors should work fine.”

  “Processors,” Chase said. “There are twelve processors in my new spinal column, three in each leg, four in each arm. There are seven more in my upper body, for a total of thirty-three. I can give you the exact location of each of them. There is a small infection forming around the one beneath my left lung, which is made of a manufactured membrane similar to my own cell structure.” Chase gasped and squeezed his eyes shut. “How do I know that? What have you done to me?” His eyes flew open, and he found Kerstin practically dancing with the nurses.

  “It’s a miracle!” Kerstin shouted.

  “Answer me! What have you done?”

  15

  Chase stared at the monitor that thumped the coded rhythm of his replicated heart. The organ, like most of the others in his body, was made by Dr. Fiender, or someone on his team. The perfectly designed fleshy chambers of this pump, untouched by the sins of living, would never cease their thrusting of blood through flawless arteries.

  He didn’t need the monitor to tell him his heart rate. He knew it moment by moment. Even in his anger, the rate didn’t alter. His blood pressure remained constant as well. He knew it without checking the machines surrounding him. He still wasn’t clear on how he knew these things. Kerstin said it was wired into his brain. He could monitor his vital signs and mainta
in every new augmented system. The nurse had given him something for the infection under his lung. The old parts, not the new, were giving him a few problems. Swollen muscles kept his hard-wired brain from getting signals to his arms and legs. Some of his digestive system remained intact, and his stomach was not happy about all the new materials surrounding it. Kerstin said they may still have to replace the stomach and the small intestine. Then he’d never feel hungry again. He’d just eat when, and what, his brain told him to.

  “Let my brain tell me what to eat? What fun would that be?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Sterling? What did you say?” A med-tech stood near the door, moving her finger across a VPad.

  “Nothing. Get me my assistant, Melody Reese.”

  “I’m afraid your team was dismissed when the show got replaced. I’m really going to miss Change Your Life. Everyone will.” The nurse, a full figured young woman with dark hair, walked to the bedside. “But I think the new show will be great.”

  “New show?”

  “Reach Your Destiny. It’s still in the planning stages. The studio is remodeling the auditorium, giving it a scientific feel. They won’t actually do the medical procedures on the set, but the audience will think they do. That’s what I hear.”

  “Who’s the host?”

  “Well…”

  “Larin Andrews?”

  “I’m not sure you’re supposed to know that, Mr. Sterling. Don’t tell anybody I told you. OK?”

  “You didn’t tell me, I guessed.”

  “He’s a good man, Mr. Sterling, and he didn’t want to take your job. They made him a whole new show. And you’re going to get a great new assignment, I’m sure.”

  “What does the press say happened to me? Does everyone think I’m dead?”

  “No, Mr. Sterling. Well, at first everyone assumed you were dead. Your injuries were beyond repair by traditional medicine. But the SynVue press release explained that you were rebuilt using methods perfected at the Helgen Institute. And now the world is waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Chase pushed his elbows into the bed and lifted his head an inch off the pillow.

  The nurse smiled. “Mr. Sterling, you just pushed yourself up a little.” She pressed her VPad. Only seconds passed before a slew of uniforms filled the room.

  “He’s moving,” the dark-haired nurse told the first of the arrivals. “Mr. Sterling, can you squeeze my hand?” She wrapped her soft hand around his.

  He concentrated and then drew his fingers together until the woman smiled again. “What’s your name?”

  “Anna,” she said.

  “Anna, you have a cancer growing in you. I can feel it.”

  She jerked her hand away and stumbled backward, knocking a tray of needles and probes from the hands of the young doctor standing behind her.

  “Mr. Sterling, you’ve been given some extraordinary abilities,” the doctor said as he came close. “But you’re going to have to learn to use them. You can’t just go blurting it out to people that they have cancer. The employees here at SynVue Estate undergo regular scans. I’m sure we’d know if Anna was sick. These days, only the destitute get cancer. And maybe a few people who won’t give up their inner-pods. Nothing like communicating device free, but it did do a number on the brain. Anyway, cancer is practically a thing of the past.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Chase asked. “We haven’t had a contestant with cancer since we started Change Your Life. Organ dysfunction, sure, but not cancer. I’m telling you, she’s got it.”

  “Let’s concentrate on you now,” the doctor said. “Lift your arm.”

  Chase lifted his right arm above his chest and wiggled his fingers. Then he grabbed the doctor’s arm and held on tight. “What’s your name, doctor?”

  The young man jerked free. “Dr. Gray. Harry Gray.”

  “Harry,” Chase said. “You’re as healthy as a horse.”

  Anna ran from the room in tears, and Chase sat up and poked Dr. Gray in the chest. “Go get somebody to take care of her. She needs some tests done.”

  “Oh, are you going to tell me what kind of tests? Doctor? I’m telling you, nobody gets cancer anymore.” He flipped his finger across a VPad and yelled into it. “Get Dr. Fiender in here right now. I don’t want to deal with his Frankenstein.”

  The doctor left the room, and the nurses trailed behind him. All except one—a young man.

  “Did he just call me Frankenstein?”

  “I think so,” the nurse said. He shuffled to the bedside and held out his hand.

  “I’ve always wanted to meet you, sir.”

  “Do you want me to take your hand and tell you what’s wrong with you? Because if you do, get out of here. I’m nobody’s Frankenstein.”

  The young man dropped his hand. “No, I just wanted to…I’m a fan. That’s all. And I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “Yeah, me, too. I think. But I’m afraid life as I knew it is over.”

  “It’ll get better. Imagine all the people you can help now. Even more than before.”

  “But I have no show. Change Your Life was my identity. Now I don’t know who I am.”

  “Who were you before the show?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you had a life, didn’t you? You were Chase Sterling before you ever hosted Change Your Life.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy Perris.”

  “Tell me, Jimmy, what do you know about the game, or program, or whatever it was they had going in here while I was unconscious? The regression thing.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Sterling. Nothing like that happened. They kept you in a coma. They didn’t have any kind of mind game going on.”

  “Can you do something for me, Jimmy?”

  “Sure, anything.”

  The door slid open, and Dr. Fiender rushed in with his hands on his head. “Chase, you’ve upset this whole place.” Then he smiled. “But I don’t care. You’re a marvel.”

  The nurse slipped out of the room, but he gave Chase a nod before he left.

  Dr. Fiender bounced onto the edge of the bed like he was an old friend coming for a visit. “Let me see you move your arms.”

  Chase lifted his brow and huffed. Then he waved both arms.

  “Now,” the doctor said, “stand.”

  “Don’t think I can do that. Maybe tomorrow. If you get me my assistant.”

  “You no longer have an assistant, Chase. You have a team of medical experts, neuro-techs, personal hygiene maintainers, dieticians, and therapists, both physical and mental. And you have Kerstin. And you have me. When you are ready for your new assignment, we’ll talk about an assistant. But it won’t be your old one—that one has likely been reassigned already.”

  Chase sat straight in the bed with little effort. “Find her. Bring her here. And maybe I’ll cooperate with you.”

  The doctor’s brows drew together until they resembled a furry caterpillar resting above his nose. “Why is the girl so important? What was the nature of your relationship?”

  “Friendship. I trust her.”

  “Don’t you trust me, Chase? And Kerstin? We only want the best for you.”

  “Tell me what you’ve done to me.”

  Dr. Fiender climbed off the bed, grabbed the back of a metal chair, and pulled it to the bedside. He sat and crossed his arms. “Do you want to know about your injuries?”

  “That would be a good place to start.”

  “The blast tore clean through your mid-section, ripping apart your heart and lungs, shattering your ribs, sternum, and spine. Your kidneys, liver, pancreas, and esophagus were destroyed.”

  “I had a hole all the way through me?”

  “Yes, Chase.”

  “How could anybody survive that?”

  “No one could.”

  Chase leaned back on the pillow. “What happened next?”

  “You were rushed here to the estate. Your brain, and the other organs that remained intact, were kept alive wh
ile we replaced the parts that were destroyed.”

  “Replaced with parts you made.”

  “Yes, of course. No need remains for anyone to require an organic replacement.”

  “Was my brain injured?”

  “No,” the doctor said.

  “But it was enhanced.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I just told a nurse she has cancer! In a manner of speaking, I couldn’t do that before you brought me back from the dead.”

  “Calm down.”

  “I will not calm down,” Chase yelled as he slammed his fist into the bedrail. “I’ve got some god gadget in my brain.”

  “Chase, are you familiar with the Wilberton?”

  “Yes, of course, we use it here at the estate.”

  “It can tell what’s wrong with a patient even before the doctors can.”

  “So you made a miniature Wilberton and stuck it in my head?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And now I can tell what’s wrong with people just by touching them.”

  “I have to say I didn’t think it would be so efficient, or that you’d be able to utilize it without training. It was meant to be, Chase. We picked the right person for our beginning. You are the firstborn of the evolutionary leap.”

  “I was dead.” Chase dropped his head onto the pillow.

  “You were reborn.”

  16

  Chase got little else from Fiender, except to learn that his new organs were real flesh, grown in the lab at the Helgen Institute. He was also stocked head to toe with machinery—silicon crystal and titanium covered with lab-grown tissue. It wasn’t like the old movies where someone ripped off the cyborg’s face and found a hideous robot. But the metal was there, wrapped in a new man’s skin. The doctor promised more information would come as Chase healed. Now he found himself alone with Kerstin, and he had questions for her, too.

  “Tell me about Larin,” Chase said.

  Kerstin circled the room, looking at the monitors. She didn’t bother to answer.