by Judyth Baker
The Director was heavyset, obviously upper-class, one of the elites allowed to gain weight and muscle, despite the extra cost of cell maintenance thereby. She knew how important she was, for she failed to stand when the students came crowding into the Cryogenics Lab. She was still finishing her supper, not having had time to eat in the Great Hall. The trouble with being a Primitive vegetarian, the Director reflected, was how long it took to chew it all, but she was set in her ways and liked a primal approach to her nutrition. After all, her investigations of Primitives were famous worldwide, and she was allowed to indulge in some eccentricities related to the field.
In the midst of the students who entered was an attractive, once lower-class, appropriately self-effacing and humble Primitive Historian, who by diligent effort had ascended the academic ranks. She was here with the world’s only Primitive Psychologist, her best friend. He was a rather anxious fellow, because there was no guarantee that today’s Awakening would be successful. He kept checking his recorders and televisors. Meanwhile, the Primitive Doctors (there were only five of them now, in the whole world) busily looked to an array of tubes, monitors, and pulsating pumping devices. The equipment was curious and mysterious.
The fact that the Director was here to observe everything was important, because it was being bandied about that the Subject of this Awakening ought to be saved. So much depended on whether the Director agreed. Certainly the Historian, Psychologist and doctors agreed that this Awakening was worth funding. There were very few hibernating Subjects still available in the Cryogenic Lab. Above all, they didn’t want the Lab shut down for lack of sponsors. Bringing in Students had been the Historian’s idea. A band of important Students had recently expressed interest in the long ago. It was their current fad, and it included wearing items on their legs known as “blue jeans.” The Historian, hoping to get their sympathies, was herself wearing blue jeans: they looked surprisingly good, emphasizing the sexiness of her slim legs. When the Regional Director of the World had asked to view the Awakening, international Media at once took notice. A billion viewers would be watching this rare event.
The Director accepted the bows of the Historian and Psychologist and granted them the necessary front row seats. By doing so, the Students were able to observe that these three personages were Variants. Considerable expense was involved, but it must have been a matter of either wealth or necessity. One was overweight – a privilege reserved for the greatest Leaders, who had to dine more often than others due to their having to attend so many social functions: their taste buds were enhanced so they could properly appreciate the efforts of underlings to please them. One was out of uniform, by her choice to wear blue jeans. The third – the psychologist – had been allowed to develop into a Short Person. Such were usually calorie-efficient slaves and concubines, but the Psychologist had argued that he had chosen Shortness in order to understand what life had been like for not only short members of the present society, but also so he would not frighten any Primitives who were Awakened. A decent height, reasonable strength, and stunning beauty were so idealized that deviations from these standards among Professionals and Politicians were rare, indeed.
Well, there he was –a short person – yet accorded the status of a Professional. It proved it was possible. The Students stood in respectful silence. They were all the same age, height and weight, and all of them were clad in the uniform of the Nursing Class, except for their Blue Jeans.
Now the Pod, with its sterile clear chamber surrounding it, was rolled into the center of the room. Those watching made certain not to make any expressions of disgust or amazement as the foil-wrapped body of the Ancient One was brought slowly erect inside the hyperbaric chamber. No part of the Subject’s body was yet visible, but a humming sound could be heard, accompanied by some liquid that began dribbling onto the floor at the base of the foil-wrapped body. This was never a good sign. They had done all they could: the Ancient One had been thawed very carefully and the tissues that were still viable had been supplied with extra oxygen and mitochondrial energy enhancers. It was now uncertain if this Subject could be stimulated enough to Awaken, though the doctors assured everyone that all would be well. Nano-repair of enough cells to Awaken the Subject was proceeding apace.
The Students’ eyes sparkled, hypnotized by the shiny foil-wrapped object that stood glistening under probes, wires, tubing and bright lamps. Slowly, slowly, the machinery of resuscitation was working its magic. Finally, the atmospheric pressure in the Pod was adjusted to normal levels. As dials and shivering tubes and strange meters blinked and clicked, the humming in the Pod slowly decreased, until there was utter silence. The foil was now being carefully withdrawn, layer upon layer, by the doctors, as the Ancient One’s chest began to rise and fall … rise and fall.… A soft white robe was gently laid across the Ancient One, covering her withered breasts and nether parts. Then, as she was being sprayed with a hydrating solution that lubricated and nourished her body’s dried-out and shriveled skin, she was maneuvered into a sitting position until she was resting in a special chair that put the least possible pressure on her lean buttocks. Doctors then reached inside the plastic bubble, quickly strapping her down at the wrists and ankles.
The time had come.
There was a low, excited rumble of anticipation, which the Director waved to silence. At that moment, a needle pivoted on gimbaled legs and buried itself into one of the pinioned arms of the Ancient One. She responded with a deep, wracked groan, a sucking in and release of a putrid breath that erupted past cracked lips that split into bleeding lines as the almost toothless mouth opened wide, as the dry tongue began to make clicking sounds. A doctor reached again into the sterile capsule surrounding the Ancient One and sprayed more hydrating liquid against the parched tissues of her face and into her eyes and mouth. There was a flutter of the eyelids: first, all that could be seen were the whites of the Ancient One’s eyes. Then the eyeballs rolled down. The Ancient One had brown eyes. To the waving of a doctor, the eyes turned toward the movement: she could see.
“The voice will be high-pitched,” another doctor noted. “We believe she will speak, but it will be in a very old language peculiar to her race and nation. You will hear an instant translation into our present-day language. Be aware that at first, she will only be speaking in a stream-of-consciousness mode. As she becomes more aware, we don’t know how she’ll respond to being shackled, but it’s for her own safety.”
Despite the filters, the air had become fetid, sickening. Nose-plugs were handed out.
“And Babylon fell!” the Ancient One’s thin, high-pitched voice had come to life! The Psychiatrist and Historian moved closer to the capsule, while all but one of the doctors moved back to make room for them. “Babylon was destroyed! We creep into the earth, we lay ourselves down in our freezers, we close our capsules, awaiting our salvation!”
The brown eyes blinked, and the old woman turned her head to look at the Psychiatrist, who was bending close. Now her voice was less shrill, more modulated.
“We left the land above, which we had filled with poisons. The mutations were destroying our children. I was old – I should not have been chosen – but I had money! I closed my eyes, and I dreamed!”
The aged eyes rolled in their sockets, then opened wide. “Aiieee!” came the cry. “I’m burning up with pain! Aiieee!”
Notebooks were recording, sky-media was getting close-ups, as the aged body began jerking in the chair. They changed the angle, relieving some pressure, and the old lady relaxed. Where the straps held her down, the skin had peeled off, revealing bloody flesh. The smell of old, half-rotting blood permeated everything. Some of the Students shifted from foot to foot; others waved handkerchiefs to try to clear the air. One of the Students, queasy and nauseated, toppled over. He had never seen blood before.
The old woman was wiry, her white hair was like a stiff froth around her old head, as she leaned forward to peer at the Psychologist and Historian.
“You two!” the
Ancient One croaked, “Are you the ones who were contracted to bring me back to life? Have you at last discovered the secrets of eternal life for me?”
“We cannot tell you that,” the Psychologist said, gently. He was worried. The Ancient One had quite a few brains still left in her head. She was asking important questions.
“Don’t yell at me!” the old woman snapped. “Just tell me if it is the right time for me to awake, to arise, and to live forever!”
“It is not yet the right time for you,” the Historian told her, speaking with a lowered voice. “But we chose to awaken you anyway. We needed to hear you speak.”
“What? What do you mean, ‘not the right time’?” The Ancient One’s outrage was obvious. “Why annoy me like this? Why torment me, why wake me, before my time? What kind of animals are you?”
“Sorry you’re angry, Stella,” the Psychologist said apologetically. “But –”
“Yes! My name is Stella! Oh, my God! I am Stella!”
“We regret that we have not yet found a proper way to preserve you forever,” the Psychologist went on. “We are trying to decide if it would be financially worth it, in fact, to keep you alive and awake while we research ways to accomplish that. We’re going to have a general vote, from the public, on the matter.” There was a subdued gasp of shock from the Students. The Psychologist was emotionally battering Stella. Quickly, the Director moved forward, concerned that the Ancient One, who was trembling with wrath and fear, would try to escape her bonds and do harm to herself.
“It will all be very democratic,” the Director said, soothingly. “Voting will begin in a few minutes, and we are not very happy with what this man just told you. We want you to be at peace. All will be well.”
“You have lived a long time,” the Historian added, “and today, you have been honored by being spoken to by one of the three Directors of the New Pach-World. It is a considerable honor. You need to know that as of today, you’re four hundred years old. A remarkable feat. As for us, we haven’t been able to keep ourselves alive more than thirty years.”
“Thirty YEARS?” Stella gasped. “No! Impossible! The normal lifespan was always at least sixty or so years – at LEAST!“ The Ancient One began to breathe faster, panic about to overcome her. Her thin, wrinkled skin grew paler. “Then – I beg of you – put me back to sleep! Until you have regained what, obviously, you have foolishly lost!”
“Stella,” a doctor put in, “you need to know that at first, everything went well. We were living three hundred – four hundred – five hundred years. But something bad happened.”
“Let me tell her,” the Psychologist interrupted. “You see, Stella, what happened is that before our Final War, we were enjoying ever-lengthening lifespans. But we left the manufacture of our nano-mechanisms in the hands of robotics. We trusted robotics, beginning with operations conducted by computers.”
“I remember,” Stella groaned. “The fools trusted computers for everything.”
The Historian was miffed that the Psychologist was telling all the history at this important event. It was her job, not his! “It ended,” she broke in, “with all our medical sciences having developed beyond our ability to understand what could be done, behind our backs. In secret. And then we all forgot about getting control back, because a Greek General who named himself after Alexander the Great sabotaged the system, in an effort to destroy all immortals. He was killed, but the system was now down beyond repair. Everything from Humans to Dogs started dying again. Everything that had been altered in the Cyborg Revolution was now unable to get anything repaired, if it broke down.”
“I have heard of Cyborgs,” the Ancient One said slowly. “They were our best hope.”
“The final blow came quickly,” said the Historian. “We, who survived, were unable to fix the simplest breakdowns in our own bodies. It has taken us decades just to get our immune systems working naturally again.”
“Then – put me back to sleep!” Stella demanded. “For I am in pain!”
She winced as another needle automatically probed along her naked arm, trying to find a vein that had not collapsed.
“More oxygen!” a doctor whispered.
“I feel drunk,” Stella complained. “Let me have a drink, you who are old at thirty. But I still don’t know why you woke me at this unripe time…”
“We are losing you precious Ancient Ones, one by one,” the Historian said, choosing her words carefully. “You were alive at the very dawn of the Cyborg Revolution. We care, because you weren’t modified. You weren’t injected. You represent the last human beings who had fully developed immune systems. You’re as important as the mammoths that we brought back from extinction.”
“Maybe not that important,” the Director said. “After all, saving the mammoth was the first successful attempt to repair defective DNA.”
“Our hope is that we can experiment upon you,” a doctor said, “with our newest DNA-repairing bots. If they will repair your old DNA, they will possibly be able to repair ours. And this time, we won’t forget how to stay in control.”
“But why me?” Stella moaned. “You said there were others. Why use me?”
“The others are younger. Your DNA is the most damaged.”
“Cruelty!” Stella snarled, trying to struggle free from her bonds. “You, with your voices too loud! You, who have become so ugly! You, whose lives have become so short! You don’t care at all about me!”
“Yes, we do,” the Psychologist responded. “We wanted you to know that we’re voting about it. Whether to allow you to be Awakened for the rest of what would be a short life for you, so we can tell you of the progress we’re making, so you might be happy for what you’re doing to save us, or whether, as one news-person put it, ‘the bitch should be killed. We can harvest her tissues. We don’t need to deal with her brain and her demands. It will save us an enormous amount of money.’”
Stella had started to shiver as pain and fright worked on her. “But I – I might have special knowledge for you! I was once an –“ she hunted for the word – “an animal geriatric specialist. I worked with animals, trying to stop them from aging. That was before I was cryogenically preserved. If you kill me, you might lose information useful to you. And where is your morality?”
The Ancient One’s eyes were filling with tears. The old lady stiffened with a harsh pride. Freeing one of her thin, shriveled hands from the restraints, she pointed a shaky finger at the Students. “I feel as if I’m just a pan of pudding that you’ll cook. I have feelings! Do you understand? I have feelings!”
The Historian was making a telecast plea. “My friends everywhere!” she called out, “Listen! In all this time, none of those we have revived have ever spoken with such self-awareness. Do not snuff out this light that we have plugged in. Vote to keep her alive!”
The Director now stood, in all her bulk. “I am impressed with you, Stella!” she told the Ancient One. “I suggest that we keep you alive, but not wake you up again. When you finally are killed, you’ll never know it. This is a compromise that should please everyone.”
“Good idea!” a doctor said. “Maybe someday we could have another vote to wake her up again, if experiments on her will save us. She should be told.”
“But what if there’s not enough left of her by then?” another doctor objected.
“I was once a brilliant doctor!” Stella croaked out, beginning to sob. “What shall become of me? You thick-skulled fools! Talking about me as if I am just a piece of meat! Aieee! I’m in agony! I need water!” The mechanical sprayer applied moisture to her lips: she grit her teeth, then calmed herself.
“Until you came to our University last year,” the Historian said, trying again to calm her, “none of our Students had ever seen an Ancient One in the flesh. You are being observed with care and with respect.”
“You are a very wonder of a human ruin, Old One,” the Director said. “You are currently the oldest human being on the planet. You turned four hundred years o
ld just a few days ago. Congratulations!”
“You utter fools!” Stella snapped back, licking her cracked lips, “You’re using me as I had used monkeys! So, no advances have been made in compassion, in kindness, all these years? I wouldn’t want to live now, anyway!”
She blinked her eyes, trying to focus them: she could see very little. “Thirty years!” she snorted, “and look at you! All bent over, like you’re a hundred years old! And what’s happened to your ears? They’ve become so tiny! And now, you all have buck teeth! And you’re bald!” Stella leaned back and closed her eyes. “Never mind. Just finish me off. After all we had hoped for – sacrificed for –this is the result?”
“Our standard of beauty has changed over the centuries,” the Historian muttered, quite offended. “But at least, we don’t discriminate against you due to your wrinkles, or concerning your skin color, as your great-great-grandparents did. I have obtained your entire genealogy, and can assure you of its accuracy.”
“I’m fading–“ Stella sighed, closing her eyes. “Fading – Babylon has fallen, that great city! Has fallen!”
“We’re losing her!” the Psychologist announced.
“More adenosine triphosphate!” a doctor commanded, and a third needle descended and buried itself in Stella’s wrinkled arm. It worked. Stella opened her eyes. “Are you going to keep sticking me with needles?” she groaned. “Why didn’t you just put a stent in, so you could just use that for different injections?”
“It had not been thought of,” a doctor commented, embarrassed. “We had lost that knowledge. Until now.”