The first thing he became aware of was the pain.
It was an all composing pain, seeping down to the very marrow of his bones, it was the ache of the dead. He felt a tube being forced between his lips, and a warm fluid seeped out of it. He sucked greedily on it like a newborn child. New found vigor flooded into his veins, and he tentatively opened his eyes.
The glare that shone through his cracked eyelids was too strong, and he
quickly shut them again, groaning. He heard a quiet voice speak into his ears.
"Wait a few moments more before you open your eyes," the voice said. "Do you know your name?"
The man thought a moment, and then he croaked in a raspy voice "James Taylor."
Yes, that is who he was.
"Very good" the voice spoke again, "now, can you tell me what 5 times twenty five is?"
"One hundred and twenty five." The answer came to Taylor automatically.
"Very good," The voice repeated. It sounded pleased. "You may open your
eyes now."
Taylor opened his eyes, and it felt like the lids were being weighed down by bricks. The light was there, but it was not as bright, and his eyes slowly adjusted as he gazed around the room. He was laying on a stainless steel table in a white tiled room. Around him stood four or five people, dressed in white operating gowns. Somewhere in the background, a machine hummed a steady tune. One of the doctors spoke into a small box in his hand.
"Reanimation complete."
Taylor suddenly felt the table beneath him shudder, and it slowly whirled until he was in an upright position. He blinked in confusion as the doctors formed a semi-circle around him. Suddenly a door from across the room burst open and a circus stormed in.
At least, that was Taylor's first impression. Two spotlights on wheels were rolled in and clicked on, and an enormous camera mounted on what looked like a tiny ATV rumbled in, and the little impish man operating it pointed it at Taylor and gave him a thumbs up. Two blondes in strained bikini's with gravity defying bosoms grasped each of his arms, and smiled mightily with astonishingly white teeth into the camera. A dozen faceless attendants in bright smocks and bearing clipboards rushed about as though in some other worldly ballet. And from the center of this gaudy confusion sprang a slight man wearing a bedazzling suit of red sparkles and brandishing a gold microphone.
"And I present to you," the man cried with the highly polished exterior of an experienced showman. "Jaaames Taaayloor!"
The room broke into a polite applause while Taylor gawked in horror. Suddenly he found a golden microphone shoved into his face and some dim part of his mind registered the fact that the microphone was spray-painted. He suddenly became away that the man in the red suit was talking to him.
"And that is a fact! So tell me James, are you ready to pay for your
sins?" Red Suit beamed at him expectantly.
"What? I don't, I mean.." Taylor blubbered in confusion.
Red suit spun around and gave the camera a hearty "Allll-riiight!" and the room once again cheered. One of the people brandishing clipboards yelled "cut!" and the little red light on the monstrous camera winked off. Red suit walked over to the camera man and spoke to him in quick tones.
"Ok, you know the routine. Keep my stuff, dub my voice with a bit of an echo. Edit the stiff, make him snarl a little, maybe have him cough up something about communism, or maybe a racial slur. You get the idea."
Red suit pulled an odd color cigarette from somewhere within the folds of his gaudy suit, and lit it with a sigh of satisfaction. He then turned and gave Taylor a baleful look.
"Hey Stiff," he said. "Welcome to the future."
Taylor then felt the sharp prick of a needle on his arm, and the world went dark again.
When he next awoke, he was laying on a thin but soft bunk, and he dimly heard chattering voices around him. He opened his eyes and sat up, expecting another rush of aches and pains, but he felt none. His muscles moved like greased ball bearings and his eyes took in the room with sharp focus. He felt good. Confused, but good.
The first thing he saw was a bunk across the room, identical to his. Leisurely sprawled out upon it was a balding yet fit-looking black man who appeared to be in his early thirties. He was idly reading a magazine, and must have felt Tailors gaze for he looked up from it. He grinned back at Taylor, then shouted across the room, "Hey Vinnie! Fresh meat is awake!"
Taylor blinked and surveyed the rest of the room. It was long yet narrow, and filled with rows of identical bunks. About a dozen or so men were idly wandering about, chatting with their neighbors or playing cards, or simply just wasting time. The room had the look and feel of something more military than what would be found in a hospital. One of the men dispatched himself from a group and sauntered over to where Taylor was sitting. He gave Taylor a friendly smile and a slap on the back.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," he said. "What year?"
"Excuse me?" Taylor asked. Confusion seemed to have become a part of his life, lately.
"What year did you die?" The man (Taylor assumed this was Vinnie) asked again, in a matter of fact tone of voice.
Taylor fell into his memories. That's right, he had died. He dimly remembered the hospital room, the distant drone of the priest reading last rites.
He didn't even know he was Catholic. He recalled his mothers sobs, her mascara running down her face like little blue veins. Only his mother, he thought wryly, would make herself up for her sons death. And his father, the lawyer turned businessman, standing there stony and silent, confident that this was just another problem that his money could solve. His diseased body feeling more and more numb, and the welcoming grasp of death cloaking him like a velvet blanket before the violet cold of the cryogenics chamber entombed him in ice.
"Nineties," Taylor said. "Early nineties."
Vinnie's mouth opened into an 'O' of delight, and hey chortled out "Hey Paul, did you hear that? We've got ourselves a pre-millie here!"
The eyes of the man sitting across from Taylor widened, and he laughed along with Paul. "A pre-millie? My word, what dusty corner did they find your tank in?"
Taylor had just about enough of being left in the dark. "Would someone please simply tell me what is going on?" he pleaded.
The gleam in Vinnie's eyes turned from humor to pity. Pity and understanding. He sat down on the bunk next to Taylor and started to talk.
"Lets go over a little history here first. Way back in the eighties, people started to get the idea of immortality into their heads. But folks kept dying simply because medical science was not that very advanced. Well, after a while some cheery bloke gets the idea into his head of freezing people. Just stick them in a tank full of liquid nitrogen and wait until medical advancements reaches the point where they can be cured."
A lightbulb suddenly flashed inside of Taylor's head. "Wait a minute, you mean all the people in this room here were."
"Dead" Vinnie interrupted. "Yeah, at one point, we were all corpsicles. But let me finish our little history lesson here.
"Now, cryogenics is a rather expensive undertaking. Thus only the wealthy were able to be put under. And cryogenics was never really more than a fad, anyways. For about fifty years people were put under and stored away. Then people simply forgot about them."
Taylor nodded for the man to continue.
"Well, time passed. Quite a bit of it, as a matter of fact. Societies rose and societies fell, like the tides in the ocean. The cryogenics people were filed away and forgotten, as their mates died, their children, great grand children, and so on. Then the earth had some big final war, I mean a really big one. All of us here are kind of sketchy of the details, but apparently it scared the people of earth straight. Peace was made, paradise bloomed.
"There is no more crime, no more enemies, no more war."
Taylor thought about that for a moment. "Well, that sounds pretty good, with no more hate in the world."
"Ah." Vinnie stated with a smile. "I did not say there was any more hate. After all, its basic human nature to hate. But herein lies a problem, who to hate? No one caused any more ill to their neighbors, countries were at peace. So who was left?"
Taylor shrugged.
"The past, that's who," Vinnie said with a flourish of his hands. "Oh, don't look so shocked, you're a pre-millie. So am I, I was bottled away in the early eighties. Think about it for a moment: what about Nazis? You were brought up to hate Nazis, and everything they stood against. But there were no more Nazis living in your time, not real organized ones at anyrate. Well chap, that's us to these future people. We're the monster of the past."
"Wait a minute," Taylor protested. "I'm no monster, I never hurt anyone. Hell, I spent half my life wasting away on a hospital bed. I hardly even watched the news."
"Doesn't matter," Vinnie replied. "You are from that era. You are a representation of the people who had racism, homelessness, AIDS, large amounts of crime and murders, all sorts of undeclared war. You are an Icon, a focal point for these people to turn their hate energy upon."
Taylor was speechless. He suddenly found himself in a situation where an entire world hated him. He simply had no way of comprehending it.
"So what happens now?" he asked.
"Well, remember when you woke up and saw that sorry looking chap in that truly ugly red suit? That guy is Licon De'Larnec, and he heads the arena. The entire thing is televised across the world. The bloke is a weasel, and I cant say that any of us down here have any real love for him. But he is good, real good. Every week a new show is put on and televised, where the people of the past 'pay for their sins', and that's us chap. Either were in the arena stripped down like roman gladiators whipping each other asses, or debating modern people, or whatever catches the publics fancy at the time."
Taylor felt his Jaw drop open. "That's barbaric," he said.
It was Vinnie's turn to shrug now. "Is it? Is it really? Most people think like you when they are first woken up. Even me. But look at the situation. To begin with, we are alive. Hell, I was eighty seven when I was put under, wasting away from colon cancer. Colon cancer, man. That means my asshole was eating me alive. But look at me now."
Vinnie flexed a massive bicep, which was tanned and oiled and solid as a rock.
"Yeah, I know, your thinking about how great you feel too. Medical science is a wonder these days. But most important, you're alive. Its not exactly a second chance, but you're alive. And you're helping world peace. Sure, people will scream at you, hate you, and blame you for any situation that might happen in their honest little lives. But everyone knows you."
The man in the bunk across form them called out "Hell, I got playing cards with my name on it."
Vinnie snorted and called back "Yeah, but so far your rookie card ain't worth shit. My action figures are selling off the shelf." Vinnie laughed as the other man scowled.
He then turned back to Taylor, eyes bright, a smile on his face. "What do you say, kid, give it a shot? Not much else to do around here."
Taylor did not think long. Half a life spent wasting away, when he could have been running or jumping or just screaming out in Joy. Sure, he would give it a shot. After all, he had nothing to lose.
"Lets get some commies." He said with a grin.
|