The Unincorporated Man (6 page)

The light was the most obvious change he was aware of. It came from no discernible source yet was everywhere. The room was simply lit. The more he tried to find a light source, the more his brain hurt, so he dropped it.
They have sourceless light—move on.
He smelled coffee but saw no coffeepot. If he were relying on his smell alone he would have bet his fortune that a percolator was in the room.
They have scent simulators and are smart enough… no—sensitive enough—to use them in this situation.
This was a good start. Not only had he been reanimated, but it was now apparent that the people who had done the re-animation had gone to great effort to make him comfortable.
So,
he reasoned,
not necessarily an inhospitable society. Good.
Now he turned to the woman. She was, while not the most beautiful woman in the world, still quite attractive.

Her pose, crossed legs and casual indifference, suggested comfort. But that was it, wasn’t it? A pose… for his benefit alone. Because this woman clearly was not comfortable. Justin had become an expert on reading body language, and hers was tense.

She’s waiting for me. Fine. Patience. She can wait.

Now he noticed the book in her hands. He tried to make out the title. He focused his eyes.
The Tempest,
by William Shakespeare. He smiled.
How appropriate, and, of course, logical. Not knowing exactly how old I am, she went with a classic.
He chuckled to himself.
She has access to technology that can raise the dead, provide completely sourceless light, and physiologically adaptive furniture, and is sitting here holding in her hands what is most likely a relic of my millennium. “A” for effort.

And the more he thought about it, the more reassured he became. He clearly had some value to someone just by being alive. And to Justin it mattered not whether it was an intrinsic value that this society placed on human life, or perhaps the “freak show value” of his circumstance. He was alive, and someone very much wanted him to remain so. Either way it gave him some standing. Having assessed as much as he could within his immediate vicinity, he realized it was time to interact with the woman.

Neela was keeping tabs on her patient. He was in some sort of evaluation mode, and it was pretty obvious from where his eyes and muscles were moving that he was analyzing his environment. What she didn’t understand was why this seemed to be causing him irritation. The light was specifically set to not cause any…

Idiot,
Neela chastised herself.
They didn’t have sourceless light three hundred years ago. I should have set up a light emitter
.

But no sooner had the self-flagellation begun than she felt his eyes bearing directly down on her. Instinctively she forced her feelings aside in an attempt to appear relaxed. It was unbearable. She yearned for the release of speech.
Perhaps he’d lost his ability to speak,
she reasoned.
No, the prerevive indicators would have flagged that.
But the indicators weren’t always right, were they? Software was software, and its many malfunctions had been a part of the technological lore for eons. He’d talk when he was good and ready, and she’d just have to wait patiently until he did.

“How long?” Justin asked, surprised at the sound of a voice he’d lived his whole life with but which now somehow felt new.

“I assume you mean how long have you been suspended?” Neela asked.

“Yes. How long?”

“By our estimates, about three hundred years. With some more information we could give you an exact date.”

“Maybe later.”

The enormity of Justin’s accomplishment was just starting to sink in, but so was the enormity of the loss.

“Is there anyone left alive from my time?”

“None that we’re aware of. Though you yourself came as a surprise—so it’s not inconceivable,” she answered, wishing to instill some hope.

“But highly unlikely, correct?”

“That is correct.” Neela began to realize that this was a man who was not going to need much of a soft pillow. She would disregard most of her primary plans and move to adopt a more straightforward approach.

“But how is that possible?” Justin continued. “At the time of my suspension there were at least two active cryonic-suspension organizations with memberships in the thousands and suspensions in the hundreds. You’re telling me that in the past three hundred years not a single one of those suspendees made it?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Mr.—”

“For now, you can call me Justin.”

“For now?” Neela was curious. “Is Justin not your real name?”

“It is
for now,
” he answered.

“OK, Justin,” Neela continued.
If that’s how he wants to play it, then fine.
“My name is Neela, and you’re correct. The cryonics movement of three hundred years ago, while tiny, was in fact persistent. And had the backlash not occurred, the incremental growth of those organizations would most likely have allowed a good number of suspendees to have made it to this time.”

“Backlash?”

“Yes. Both of the organizations you referred to were destroyed, including all the patients.”

“How?”

“One by a legal maneuver, the other by fire. The state government seized the one based in Michigan after it was revealed that most of the suspendees had died via assisted suicide. Apparently that was a political hot potato at the time, and the revelation forced a governmental inquiry and an eventual subpoena that resulted in the destruction of the facility’s patients via court-mandated autopsies. I believe they used a tax law to seize the suspended patients, and they ordered full autopsies to check for foul play. After it was all done they apologized to the facilities’ caretakers and returned the property, but by then…”

“. . . by then it wouldn’t have mattered,” Justin said, finishing her thought. The whole point of suspension was not so much to freeze the body as it was to freeze the brain held within it. After all, it was the brain that truly determined “self,” and it was the brain that held all the resident memories. A body left to defrost for too long would lead to ischemia of the brain or, more precisely, brain rot. And with that rot went any chance of memory retrieval. In essence, permanent death.

“And the one in Arizona?” asked Justin.

“That one was attacked by a mob and destroyed while the police looked on.”

Justin furrowed his brow. “That seems a strong reaction against a group of people frozen in metal cylinders.”

Neela nodded. “I would say it goes beyond strong, Justin. But given the circumstances at the time, understandable.”

“Please explain.”

Neela would have preferred he rested a bit before she loaded him up with information, but she could also understand his need for immediate satiation—his need to find a center from which to begin.

“The country,” she answered, “was in the midst of what has since become known as the Grand Collapse. Cryonic suspension was seen not only as an eccentric pursuit, but also as an area of exclusivity for the rich. That alone probably wouldn’t have been enough to cause the wanton destruction visited on the Arizona facility. However, the cryo-suspension of a serial pedophile and child murderer was. You see, the courts had ruled that once this criminal was officially declared dead, his contract with the Arizona institute for cryo-suspension should be honored. And keep in mind that he was put to death in a way perfectly conducive to the cryonic process—morphine overdose. But two hundred and fifty years ago medical nanotechnology was beginning to bear fruit, and the mere possibility that this creep might one day walk again—via the new technology—was enough to send an already enraged, unemployed mob on the warpath. The facility was burned to the ground while the police stood by and watched. The leader of the mob was interviewed years later, and when asked why he’d destroyed the facility, didn’t say a word about the molester. What he did say has reverberated to this day as the ultimate cry of selfishness and despair: ‘If we can’t have a future, why should they?’” Neela checked to see that Justin was still with her. He was. “Does that make sense to you?” she asked.

“I’m the man who buried myself in a mountain against that very possibility,” he answered, “so, sadly, yes—it does.” He then sighed, choosing to remain silent. He needed time to absorb what he’d just heard.

He’d remembered reading a report in high school about immigrants who’d come to America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At first he wasn’t sure why this memory came to him unbidden so clearly after all of these years. But he recalled his teacher trying to explain to him what it must have been like to be an immigrant, abandoning everything to go live in a new land far from home and family. At the time he’d listened but didn’t understand. His was a world that had been connected technologically and wirelessly from the highest mountain to the most remote Amazonian village. You didn’t have to “miss” anyone if you didn’t want to, as long as you had the means to connect. But now Justin was beginning to understand what those early immigrants must have felt. They’d abandoned everything in the hopes of something better. But unlike those early immigrants, Justin had no way of reconnecting with
his
home. Not even the slightest chance of ever returning. He was an exile—unique among mankind in that his exile was not enforced by bars or distance or law, but rather by the unbending reality of time itself.

_______

“How’s he doing?” The question came from the normally taciturn legal counsel.

“He needed a little time to himself,” answered Neela. “He’s had three hundred years, what’s another few hours?”

That elicited a chuckle from the tired yet excited group gathered around the conference table. Their faces glowed with triumph and satisfaction. They’d succeeded, and their stock was rising, or at least it would be soon, once knowledge of the day’s events was made public. Mosh looked at the group. It was not large, consisting of himself, Dr. Wang, Neela, and Gilbert Tellar, the facility’s legal counsel, who was only recently informed of events.

Gil was the first to speak. He addressed his comments primarily to Neela. “I realize it may be a tad preemptive, but I would just like it to be noted that our friend Justin is going to have a hill of legal matters to climb… and soon, I’m afraid.”

All heads nodded in unison.

“Not at the top of my list,” Neela responded. “He’s particularly fragile at the moment, and trust me when I tell you, his eventual incorporation and all that that entails will take no small amount of time for him to digest.”

Gilbert looked surprised. “Really, Neela, I don’t mean to denigrate your good work here, but how on Earth can the shock of revival—without proper preparation, I might add—compare to what will essentially amount to a lot of boring paperwork?”

“Maybe it’s paperwork to you, Gil,” Neela answered, having prepared herself in advance for this moment, “but to Justin our way of life may be far more shocking than the fact that he’s reemerged alive and well. Let’s not forget this is a man who had himself suspended, under very clever and well-thought-out circumstances, at a time when suspension was in its infancy. His unit and stored artifacts alone indicate an amazing will, crafted for the sole purpose of his revival. No, Gil. I have to believe he was prepared for this.”

“Alright, Neela.” It was Dr. Wang, a soft-spoken, delicately mannered woman of Eurasian descent. “So let’s say that his revival comes as no great shock—which I still find a little hard to believe—what about our way of life would this man find so difficult to live with? As you’ve just now clearly demonstrated, he appears to be ready for our society, given the fact that he was apparently eons ahead of his.”

“Quite right, Dr. Wang,” answered Neela in the affirmative, “he did seem to know where the
technology
was heading, but he would probably have had no idea where
society
was heading. Hence, all the precautions he took—and is continuing to take—with regard to his identity and history.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t trust us?” asked Mosh.

Neela nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mosh. And why should he? Think about it. He doesn’t know us from Eve. And while he’s rightly surmised that the very fact that we revived him bodes well, he’s also smart enough to know that this, in and of itself, is not enough.”

“So what are you suggesting, Neela?” interjected Gil. “The longer we put off his incorporation and all that that entails, the longer he’ll remain outside of a society he’s worked so hard to get into. Plus, I’m not sure I buy that our way of life will be that shocking to him. After all, didn’t we find some of his stock certificates in the mineshaft? It can’t be that great a leap from stock ownership to self-incorporation.”

Neela sighed, trying to think of a way to get through to the brilliant yet myopic minds that now surrounded her. “OK, folks, let’s try it this way. Is it safe to say that we all believe in private property?”

“Of course we do, Neela,” replied Gil.

“OK. Can anyone tell me why?”

Mosh spoke up. “Neela, as much as I’d like to sit through a civics lesson, right now there’s a lot on our plates and…”

Neela interrupted. “Please, Mosh… everyone. Bear with me for a moment. It really is very important.”

Mosh sighed. “Go on, then.”

“OK, Neela,” volunteered Gil. “The right to own private property is the cornerstone of any successful society. Without that inviolable right, anarchy and with it true oppression start nipping at the heels.”

Good,
thought Neela.
He took the bait.

“How about the right to own a person?” she continued.

“You mean like having a controlling majority of someone?” Dr. Wang offered.

“No, Doctor. I mean, like actually owning a human being—lock, stock, and barrel. You could use this person, you could give him away, you could even—under the scenario I’ve painted—kill this person without any fear of reprisal.”

“Please, Neela,” piped in the director. “You’re speaking about ancient history. And if I’m not mistaken, hundreds of years before even Justin’s time.”