Cold Awakening

Gershom found the view from his hospital room depressing. The skyline he had once been familiar with was now almost totally unrecognizable. It seemed incredible that so much about the city could have changed while he was in cryonic suspension; the majestic skyscrapers he had known were gone, replaced by squat angular buildings made of a dull brownish metal.

It was just over a day since he had been revived, and he still felt too feeble to sit up. A nurse had raised the upper half of the bed to an angle that allowed him to see out the window, and Gershom now pressed a lever on the control pad to lower himself back down to a horizontal position.

Out with the old world, in with the new, he thought morosely. A sense of weariness came over him, but he didn't feel like sleeping. He had done enough of that. Although he had been only forty-five when he was suspended, the side effects of revival made him feel twice that age now.

Gershom reached over to the bedside stand and picked up the card he had filled out before undergoing the cryonic process. On it was printed a list of questions that he had wanted answered upon his awakening.

Q. Have I been cured?
Yes. The appropriate medication was administered while you were still in the chamber. You were revived when we determined that your body was free of the disease.
Q. What is the current year?
It is 2103. You have been in cryonic suspension for seventy-five years.
Q. Is anyone in my family still alive?
Possibly. We are attempting to locate your grandchildren.

 

The rest of the questions dealt with his finances, the state of the world, and other things he had thought important at the time. Now, though, they all seemed irrelevant.

"Just like me," Gershom muttered to himself, and tossed the card back onto the stand. He thought about turning on the television and watching the news again, but the current events meant little to him. The nurse was supposed to bring in an electronic book loaded with history texts, but he hadn't seen her for over an hour. There was little else in the sparsely-furnished room to occupy him, so he just stared at the ceiling until he heard the door open. He looked over, expecting to see the nurse, but instead saw a silver-haired gentleman in the doorway.

"Jordan Gershom?" the man asked in a somber voice.

"That's me, I guess."

The man closed the door and strode into the room. "My name is Maurix. I hope your recovery is going well."

Gershom studied the old man as he approached the bed. He was tall and startlingly thin, practically a skeleton in a business suit.

Maurix extended a bony hand. Gershom shook it, feeling vaguely repulsed by the old man's paper-dry skin.

"I represent NeoBioMedic," said Maurix, giving Gershom a business card that felt like silky plastic. "We took over the operations of Certified Cryonics about twenty years ago."

"Glad to see you're still in business," Gershom said. "But I guess I wouldn't be here if you weren't, huh?"

"Quite true." Maurix pointed at a chair by the bed. "May I?"

"Sure."

The old man gingerly sat down. "So, Mr. Gershom, how do you feel?"

Gershom flicked the business card aside. He bit down the first answer that came to his lips and instead replied, "I feel good. Good enough, in fact, to buy you a steak dinner, if cows haven't become extinct. Or how about a drink? Alcohol's still legal, I hope."

There was a long moment of silence. Maurix blinked a few times, then finally said, "I understand that this may be difficult for--"

"So why'd you bother asking?" Gershom broke in. "I don't think you have the faintest clue, unless you folks have invented time travel. This is your time, not mine, right? So I'm nothing here. Out of fashion. Useless."

Maurix made no reply. Gershom looked at him, sitting impassively at his bedside. Did the old man's silence mean that he agreed?

Gershom suddenly felt an intense surge of resentment. He turned on his side and struggled to push himself upright. "Did you hear what I said, you old freak? Useless!"

Maurix flinched and drew back slightly, but retained a calm expression. At length he said, "You are not the first person we have brought out of suspension. The others have been able to adjust, and have been found meaningful occupations."

"As what? Historians?" Gershom fell back onto the bed and scoffed, exhausted by his outburst.

Maurix's front pocket beeped. The old man reached into it and pulled out a round palm-sized metal disc. He glanced at it, tapped a few buttons with his thumb, then put the device back into his pocket.

"Nice phone," Gershom said.

Maurix pursed his lips, and a pained expression came over his face. "The reason that I am here, Mr. Gershom, is to tell you that the assets you had on account with the company have been . . . transferred."

Gershom felt a pang of anxiety. "What exactly does 'transferred' mean?"

The door opened again. This time it was a wide-shouldered hospital orderly, and another man dressed in a dark purple business suit.

"It means," said the suited man, "that what was yours is now mine. Has been for some time now, in fact."

Gershom raised the angle of the bed to get a better look at the stranger. His mouth went dry as the man came into the light from the window. The stranger was no stranger, but himself. Not his son, but Gershom's very own self. A full head of hair, leaner and more athletic, but himself nonetheless.

Maurix cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Gershom, forty years after you went into suspension, you were cloned."

Gershom's eyebrows shot up. "Did you say cloned?"

"Your children authorized it. They needed the money to pay for your wife's funeral, you see."

"Name's Brantley," the purple-suited man said, smiling insincerely. "I'm so pleased to meet me."

"Great leaping Jesus!" Gershom felt his insides go cold. He looked from Maurix to Brantley to the orderly, who stood with his hands behind his back. "I don't believe it! Cloning people for money. It's--it's--" He groped for words, but found none.

Maurix said, "After the anti-cloning laws were struck down, the world went through significant changes. Not all of them for the better, some might say."

"Sorry to pounce it on you like this, old man," said Brantley, the clone.

"How the hell old are you, anyway?" Gershom snarled.

"I just turned thirty-five last week. Happy birthday to us, eh?"

"If you wish," said Maurix, "I can produce proof of his identity--"

"Yeah, I'm sure you can." It's got to be a trick, a scam! But the longer Gershom looked into the other man's tanned face, the less certain he was. Despite some obvious differences such as a perfect set of teeth and a nose that had never been broken, Gershom saw the same wintry-gray eyes, strong jaw, and faintly sneering mouth that he had possessed in his youth.

"Now here's a silly question," Gershom said through clenched teeth. "Who the screaming hell would want to raise a stranger's clone, anyway?"

"The weapons used in the last war," said Maurix, "left many people in America incapable of natural reproduction, and with ravaged DNA. Those who wished to raise . . . undamaged children either adopted from overseas, or turned to other means."

"My parents worked for the government," Brantley said. "They wanted someone to carry on the family tradition. Did you see me on the news this morning?"

Gershom ignored the question. To Maurix he said, "So not only am I useless, I'm redundant. How'd he get my money, anyway?"

Maurix sighed heavily. "The identification procedures, when first conceived, never took into account the possibility of cloning. So anyone with your fingerprints, retina pattern, and voice print would be identified as you."

"But he's not me! And I wasn't dead! I could sue--"

"The law's a very tricky thing these days, more so than ever," Brantley said.

"I'm sorry," said Maurix. "Since no one challenged his claim on your behalf, NeoBioMedic had no choice but to release your assets."

Gershom glared at the clone, who stood with a smug smile on his face as if he were keeping an amusing secret. "So why are you here? Come to gloat? I didn't think I was that kind of a person."

"Not at all," said Brantley. "But you're probably wondering why I had you cured and awakened."

"Yeah, do tell," Gershom said mockingly.

"I've just been admitted as a patient here, myself." Brantley gave a quick nod of his head, and the orderly moved around to the other side of Gershom's bed.

"I don't know how much you've been told about the world," continued the clone, "but there's a new disease going around. Some virus from the last war must have mutated, they say."

"A virus?" Gershom echoed in alarm. From the corner of his eye he saw the orderly's arm flash out from behind his back. There was a glint of metal and something cold jabbed into his neck. Gershom started to reach up to grab the orderly's arm, but he heard a dull hiss and felt a quick stab of pain. It faded almost immediately. The orderly took a few steps back, just out of Gershom's reach. In the man's hand, Gershom saw an injector gun.

"This virus," said Brantley, "starts out by slowly eating away the kidneys. It then moves on to the other organs. So far there's no known cure."

Gershom tried to roll out of the bed, but he suddenly felt cold and weak all over. His eyes started to close, and he fought to remain conscious.

"If the kidneys are replaced in time, however, the chances of survival go up immensely. I think you understand what I'm getting at."

"Cold . . . hearted . . . bastard," Gershom muttered, his eyelids fluttering. "Couldn't do it . . while . . . I was . . . asleep."

"The operation has to be performed as soon as possible," said Brantley. "We had to wait until the tests on your organs came back, though." He gave a small chuckle. "But don't worry, you won't be forgotten. I'll name my new dog after you. How does 'Extra' sound?"

"Not legal," Gershom breathed softly. "Not . . . right."

The orderly lowered the bed to full horizontal.

"I'm afraid," Maurix said sadly, "that things are different in this century. I greatly apologize."

The clone leaned down. His face loomed hideously large in Gershom's failing vision. "About what you said before. You're not useless. Far from it. With the ways things are now, I'm sure I'll be able to get a lot of use out of you for years to come." ◊