AfterLife (23 page)

“I think I knew you’d say that,” Wes said, “but I needed to
tell you.”

“I know. You really are wonderful, Wes. You’ve impressed me
from the first time we met. It’s just that I…” She stopped to consider her
words and when she spoke, her voice quivered slightly. “There’s a lot about me
you don’t know. One day I’d like to be able to, I mean, I’d like to think that
I could…” She took another pause. “I just can’t think of you as anything more
than a really good friend. I hope you understand.”

She was holding onto something from her past, quite possibly
her antemort past. Whatever it was, it was stirring up a lot of pain. Instead
of loitering on the topic, Wes decided it would be more appropriate to move
past it. The themed world slowly faded around them and they stood in the dark
space between minds. “If the only option I have is to be friends, I’ll just
have to be okay with that. For now.” Wes broke the sync, bringing his small
room in the Hub back into focus.

Emily ignored his last words. “When I say I’m going to miss
you Wes, I mean it.” Her tone and manner suddenly lightened. “Meri is going to
be amazing to work with. Trust her as you’ve trusted me and I know you’ll be
able to face any challenge.” With a little laugh she continued, “And if you
ever really need me, you know where to look.” Then with a mockingly serious
look she said, “But it better be important if you don’t want to make me mad!”
They stood up. Emily gave Wes a hug, pulled his head down, and kissed him on
the forehead. He watched her leave the room.

The exchange in the park hadn’t gone as Wes hoped. He was
disappointed but not surprised by Emily’s reaction. Still, he somehow felt okay
with the situation. For now, he would focus on helping AfterLife fight the
Atumra threat. When the time was right he would show Emily his feelings were
more than just a passing Mortui crush. After all, time was something they both
had plenty of.

“W
ith this new
serum,” Doc said, holding out a small glass bottle for Seth to see, “we are
able to make even the happiest antemort a candidate for the possession
process.”

“Wonderful.” Seth took the bottle and rolled it between his
fingers as he looked at the clear liquid inside. “This is just what the Body
wanted.” Although possession was finally possible, the program was still in its
early stages and research was still being done to perfect the process. Once
perfected, it would be used in other ways to promote the Atumra agenda.

Initially, they had only been able to possess antemorts who
were so unhappy their soul would sever easily from the body when it was brought
close to death. The antemort needed to want to die, to view death as a release.
Unfortunately, they were discovering that antemorts who fit this description
were usually also in poor health due to the deterioration of their mental state
– one that continued once the body was possessed. With the hallucinogenic
properties of the new serum, they could, upon demand, put a happy, healthy
antemort into a state receptive to possession. This dramatically increased the
candidate pool, and the quality of the bodies possessed.

It also facilitated the larger Atumra plan. For years, the
Atumra Mortuis had been manipulating themselves into positions of power within
antemort society so they could promote a Mortui takeover. Until now, however,
the process had been time-consuming, and the inability of a Mortui to age put
certain restrictions on the amount of time spent in any one position.

With this new process, they could simply identify those
individuals with the required genetic markers who were already in the right
positions. Why wait for a Mortui to gain position as a head of state when one
could simply possess the politician already there? Once the Mortuis had
regained their power over antemorts, they would simply eliminate all the
possessed politicians since they would no longer be needed. They were, after
all, antemorts, and as such, disposable. This, of course, was proprietary
information to which the Mortuis scrambling to possess antemort bodies would
never be privy.

Seth walked over to the metal table where a young girl in
her 20s was sedated. She was held down on the table by restraints. “Is this the
antemort for Heather?”

Doc, his attention still focused on the bottles he was
working with, made a confirming hum.

This particular possession was going to be more than just a
reward for Heather. The young antemort on the table was an intern for an
Illinois senator. Heather’s assignment for the past few months had been to get
close to the antemort with the intention of learning everything she would need
to know to step into the antemort’s life. Heather was told that once the
possession was complete she would be able to live out the rest of the
antemort’s life. Seth neglected to tell her that when she was no longer useful,
her life would be over.

Every antemort was expendable. The girl on the table was an
example of that. Pointlessly she had worked her way through school just to end
up on Doc’s table. Any hopes she had for the future would be taken from her
today. Her youth, beauty, long black hair, and fair skin would soon belong to a
middle-aged Mortui.

Heather came into the room and stopped when she saw Seth.
She was older; her antemort body had reached close to 50 years of age prior to
her death. If she didn’t dye her hair, it would still show signs of gray. The
rebirth process could not eliminate years.

“Seth, sir, I wasn’t told you would be here for the
possession.” Heather lowered her head to acknowledge his presence.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Seth said. He looked at the girl on
the table and then back to Heather. “We’ve got a lot at stake with this one.
This antemort’s body will provide us with important access to state
government.” Seth then motioned to Doc. “It’s also a chance for me to see Doc’s
latest achievement.”

Doc looked up from his clipboard to Heather. “You’re here.
Let’s get started then.” Doc was as expressionless as always. Seth had known
him for many years, and he could remember him showing emotion only a couple of
times. Now he shook the antemort until she woke. When the daze wore off, the
girl realized she was restrained and started to struggle against the straps
holding her to the table. They could hear squeals of terror through the tape
over her mouth.

After filling up the two syringes needed for conducting the
possession, Doc approached the antemort, who had now started to cry. He emptied
the contents of one of the syringes into the girl’s IV. She slowly started to
calm. “Heather,” Doc said, disposing of the used needle, “hold her eyes open
for me. I need to sync with her.” Heather moved closer to do as she was told
and Doc leaned over the girl to initiate the sync.

The sync lasted only seconds. “That should do it.” They
stood around the antemort waiting. Suddenly she became frantic again, this time
in a much more agitated state than before. Her muscles contracted with intense
force and the metal table shook so hard it caused a banging sound on the tile
floor. “Soon she will be in the right condition to sever.”

“What image did you show her?” Seth looked curiously at Doc.

“You don’t want to know.” Doc’s face remained expressionless
as he stared blankly at the girl convulsing on the table.

Seth watched as the antemort’s face showed expressions of
panic, terror, and pain. These must have been the result of the psychotropic
drug Doc had administered, combined with whatever image he’d shown her in
soul-sync. The girl continued to struggle for such a long time that Seth began
to wonder if the new drug did what Doc claimed. Finally, the girl stopped
moving and lay on the table in a daze. Her eyes became droopy as if she were
falling asleep.

“Now Heather,” Doc said in a calm, neutral voice, “sync
now.”

Once more, Heather held the girl’s eyes open. This time she
looked into them, and almost as soon as she completed the sync her body went
limp and she fell to the floor. The body on the table took a sudden strong
breath in and passed out.

“That went well.” Doc checked the antemort’s vital signs.
The girl on the table was now Heather inside her new, twenty-something body.

“Get someone to dispose of Heather’s old body in the
cremator,” Seth said as he walked out of the room. He was elated. The new serum
was a success, and he knew the reaction from the Body would be more than
positive. This was a major triumph from him and the Mortuis he governed. The
Atumra under his rule had made more progress than any other faction on the
planet. His team’s progress with antemort possession was even now being readied
for use in other countries across the globe.

At the same time, his soldiers were recruiting record
numbers of new Mortuis to be added to the Atumra ranks. In the previous three
months, they had added over a thousand new members from the Midwest. These
recruits were people in their prime. Young, strong, beautiful people were
infiltrating antemort society faster than ever before. This reflected very well
on Seth’s control over his part of the organization. It was control he needed
to show the Body he had. Once he tended to the minor setback with the boy they
had lost to AfterLife, he knew he would be in the strongest position he had
ever been in. In the not-too-distant future the Body would certainly reward him
with the leadership position he deserved once antemort society was overturned.

Rahul was waiting for him in the sitting area of their
headquarters as he had been directed. Seth stepped off the elevator and walked
toward him. “Get your coat; let’s go for a walk, shall we?” He motioned for
Rahul to follow him and the two men stepped outside onto the busy street.

It was a cold day, and the wind picked up as they made their
way toward the freezing water of Lake Michigan. Seth didn’t feel the effects of
the cold, but he could tell Rahul’s antemort body was having difficulty dealing
with the subfreezing temperatures. It didn’t matter. Today he was going to kill
Rahul, and he would do it in public.

Seth purposely took the longest route to Millennium Park he
could think of to give Rahul more time to enjoy the cold weather. They passed
the ice skating rink and went up the steps to the plaza that held one of the
city’s most famous tourist attractions, The Bean. Its sleek, quick-silver
appearance reflected the city’s skyline, morphing the heights of the nearby buildings
into strange shapes. There were a few avid tourists braving the cold to
interact with the large bean shaped sculpture. Seth found a bench just outside
the plaza and they sat looking at the impressive mirrored piece of art.

“Rahul,” Seth said, pointing to the sculpture, “Do you know
what its real name is?”

“No sir.” Rahul pulled the collar of his coat up around his
neck and folded his arms. He was shivering from the icy wind.

“It’s called Cloud Gate. Every time I look at it, I like to
think that I could step through it to a world that is a mirror image of the one
we live in. Mirrors are funny things, aren’t they?”

“I’ve never thought about it, sir.”

“Before you were put into an antemort body, Rahul, did you
ever try to feed from someone by making contact through a mirror?”

“You can’t sync through a mirror.” Rahul’s teeth chattered.
He readjusted his arms, and then shoved his hands into his pockets. His breath
was more visible in the frigid air than Seth’s was. It was clear he would have
preferred to be anywhere but here.

“No,” Seth shook his head, agreeing. “You can’t. Mirrors
reflect light from the electromagnetic spectrum but they can’t reflect a
person’s soul, at least not enough to sync with.” Seth reached into his pocket
and pulled out a Snickers candy bar he had placed there before leaving
headquarters. “Are you enjoying your body, Rahul?”

“Yes sir. Every day.” Rahul paused for a second. “Except for
one thing, sir; I seem to feel a little depressed. I don’t think I’m used to
the chemical effects the body can have on the mind. I haven’t been very good at
countering them.”

Seth thought about the antemort test subjects they had used
in the earlier stages of their possession experiments. They were unhappy people
and the unhappiness was still present after the Mortui’s soul moved in. Almost
from the first day of possession, Rahul began exhibiting symptoms of major
depression and it was obvious Rahul’s Mortui mind was trying to battle it
without success. The mind and the body acted as one in an antemort, which is
what made antemorts inferior to Mortuis. In Seth’s opinion, this was just an
additional part of Rahul’s punishment for wanting to be alive again.

It was good it had been discovered quickly so that Doc could
continue his research to develop the new serum. Now content antemorts could be
possessed. If Atumra was to possess people in high social positions, they
needed happy, healthy people. The Body didn’t care about the mental state and
health of Mortuis who were being put in antemort bodies to increase recruitment
numbers, but it did care about being able to use the process to possess
politicians and other targets.

“I want you to do something for me.” Seth handed Rahul the
Snickers. “I want you to eat this for me. I enjoyed it when I was alive, and
I’d like you to enjoy it now for me.”

Rahul opened the candy bar’s wrapper and took a bite. The
candy was hard from the cold, but Rahul chewed until it softened and then
swallowed.

“Go ahead,” Seth said, motioning to the candy bar, “finish
it off.”

Rahul continued to eat the candy bar. After taking the last
bite he slowly lowered his hand. Seth watched as Rahul’s eyes shifted back and
forth from the wrapper to Seth. His face developed an expression of worry; then
he went rigid, his eyes staring into the distance.

“I have a confession to make, Rahul; I’ve never tasted a
Snickers. I was dead long before they were ever on the market.” Seth smiled at
Rahul. “It looks like you’re enjoying it though.” He chuckled a little to
himself. “You know what else you can’t feed through besides mirrors, Rahul? You
can’t feed through the eyes of an antemort. Too bad. You might be able to heal
your body if you were a Mortui and could feed. I guess you didn’t know that
Andre, the antemort you possessed, was allergic to peanuts.” Seth paused and
shook his head. “The candy bar, infused with a mild paralytic, makes a deadly
combination for someone with a peanut allergy. Someone like you. You will now
be confined to this bench as you feel your throat close until you can no longer
breathe. I don’t want you to worry though, I intend to stay here and watch. You
wanted to live as an antemort and now you will die like one.”