It isn’t easy after the world ends and you’re one of the reasons it’s a mess.
Most of the population assumes the worst is over. They don’t know it came in their front door at their invitation. Not enough realize there are worse things than death.
Would it matter if I say I’m sorry or I didn’t really mean it?
Didn’t think so. Still, I have to try. But will they listen to me?
I stuck the microdot back on the end of Luke 24:5 in the scriptures, knowing that no one would look there and rubbed a hand over my face. I needed a shave, sleep, and food. I took a deep breath and winced. First, a shower.
It was a stupid place to die – again.
Chapter 1: No More Nicks
“Nick!” This hissing whisper stabbed at my consciousness.
My eyes tried to focus, but my nose woke up first. Smoke. Something was on fire.
“Nick!”
There was something familiar about the voice. It was getting angry.
“Get UP!”
I wanted to obey the command, but my body felt sluggish as my mind stretched toward alertness. What happened that left me in such a mess?
Oh. Right. I died. Been there, done that - four times.
Of course, that made this transfer more significant. I was on my last Blank. The next time I died would be for keeps.
“We have to get out of here!”
My mind zeroed in on survival and I sat up feeling like my body was immersed in cement. Coming back for the fifth time was like trying to fly a lead kite. I rubbed my sticky, gritty eyes and peeked through their burning dryness to see a familiar looking young woman with brown hair. My mind waded through names and came up with … Chris.
She stood near the door of the recovery room, looking out into a smoky hallway.
I rubbed my eyes and realized I was husk-dry. Normally, the Transfer Station took better care of the Blanks. If I hadn’t been busy escaping, I would lodge a formal complaint and they would listen because no one wanted to irritate a Five. According to the news, we were homicidal maniacs.
I disagreed. Though I felt like I had bathed in sludge, been sandblasted dry, and then crisped with a blow torch, I was no more homicidal than Chris.
“Water.” My voice was like a rasp on metal. I didn’t even sound like me. I knew this should be significant in some way, but my body ruled my mind in its search for liquid.
She crossed the room and handed me the bottle next to the hover cot. Then she ripped open a large plastic bag and put clothes on my lap as I chugged the water. She handed me another bottle of water, which I also drank as she went back to the door. The liquid was gone in four long delicious swallows. I wanted more.
“What’s the hurry?” I kept my voice whisper-low, imitating her. Chris had good instincts. Since she was being quiet, there had to be a reason.
When she turned back to look at me, the grey eyes and thick black lashes were the same, but the look was one I didn’t recognize. Panic ridged with …interest? I hope the liquids kicked in soon because my brain needed a reality check. I was seeing things that weren’t there.
“Something went wrong.” She looked down the hallway, both ways, and closed the door.
“Wrong?” The light was dimmer than it should’ve been. Or was it my eyes?
She was agitated. Definitely un-Chris like. Worried?
I stood up and a loss of equilibrium made the room spin. Odd. When I took a deep breath my throat felt itchy. I also felt too tall, but that was absurd. Probably both were effects of being so dehydrated. I hoped I looked better than I felt.
“Here, wear these.” Chris picked up and handed me the clothes I had just dumped onto the floor when I stood - not even realizing they were mine. At least, I assumed they were my clothes. I didn’t recall wearing khaki pants and a white polo shirt. Ever.
I pulled on my pants. After I pulled the shirt over my head I was surprised when my bare hands touched smooth skin as I settled the shirt. Where was my chest hair? Not that I missed it, but it was disturbing to expect a familiar wiry rug and get… bald pecks and abs. Disturbed by this impossible scenario, I put my hand to my forehead out of habit and my eyes widened in shock. Hair! There is a God. I ran my fingers through it, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation.
I looked at Chris in pleased bewilderment and knew something about my reaction was wrong. Maybe because I was running my fingers through my newly acquired hair instead of getting dressed so we could avoid people who were trying to find and kill us.
Chris smiled, but it was a worried smile, “Welcome back. Now hurry and get dressed before they get this far.”
“Who?” I stuffed feet I didn’t recognize into shoes that weren’t mine.
She yanked open a smaller door labeled EXIT: EMERGENCY ONLY, stepped out onto the balcony of the Transfer Station, and beckoned.
Feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience, because I was, made me clumsier than usual and it took longer to think.
The fact Chris had come for me made me feel optimistic. I guess my fourth death helped her forgive me for my short temper yesterday.
Through some sort of miracle, Christine remained her original self. She was great company because she wasn’t always fighting the idiotic urges that come with being a Four or Five. Urges like playing with hair instead of running from murderers.
For whatever reason, the previous transfers to a new Blank had seemed much easier than the fifth. Not that I’d had long to enjoy Blank Four which ended up being no more than a bump on the EKG of my life line. I’d had it a week, or was it less?
“Sorry about yesterday.” My voice still wasn’t right.
“Run!” she growled, grabbing my strangely long-fingered hand.
My sluggish brain finally connected some dots. The abs, the hair, and the fingers weren’t mine. I wasn’t me.
The hand holding Christine’s couldn’t be mine. My hand should possess a long white scar on the back and short stubby fingers. This bronze-skinned hand was perfect; no blemishes, little hair. Whose Blank was I wearing?
We ran down an alleyway next to the burning building and slowed at the corner, pressing up against the building so Chris could look around the corner. I could hear the crackle of flames, smell smoke, and saw the bright yellow helmets of fire department personnel dash across the parking lot toward the building. They didn’t look our way.
Chris pulled me along at a fast walk out into a parking lot toward a van.
“Hide here! If anyone asks, you’re Creed One.” She yanked open the back door of the van and pushed me into the small space between the back seat and the back doors. I crouched down and tried to avoid getting hit by the door as she shut it.
Creed One? I stared at my hand which looked like it was in its twenties. What happened to my last Blank? I didn’t know anyone named Creed, though it felt as if I should. I knew from experience that trying to force the memory was not going to work. It was disorienting jumping into a new Blank because it always caused temporary confusion. I expected it, but it didn’t mean I liked it.
Chris didn’t say how long to remain sandwiched between the seat and the door. I didn’t dare put my head up to look although the urge to do so was overwhelming. An inner voice wanted me to ‘scope it out’. That made no sense. I’d never use those words.
I was exhausted which was another anomaly. Usually after a transfer to a new Blank I felt an abundance of energy. I still felt bone-dry and wished for more water. It was as if …
My brain stumbled in shock with the realization that Chris hadn’t hydrated this Blank. She probably didn’t have time. How did she dry-transfer? It was supposed to be impossible. More importantly, why did she? The only one with answers was Chris.
The driver’s side door of the van opened, then closed, and the engine started. I was relieved she’d returned. I needed information almost as much as I needed water.
I remained quiet, following Christine’s example. I had put her in the regrettable position of pulling my proverbial fat off the fire multiple times. It was embarrassing to admit, but I just never saw my deaths coming, except the first one, and even then it didn’t happen the way I thought it would.
The van tilted a bit as it navigated a hairpin turn.
My brain registered the alarming fact there was only one hairpin turn and it was on the wrong side of the wall that separated the east from the west side of the city. Surely Chris had a logical explanation as to why we were on the west side.
I felt the van moving south, when I’d anticipated northeast. Course, I also expected to see size 9 leather sandals and hobbit-hairy toes, not white leather Nikes the size of speed boats.
I held my breath when masculine humming floated back to me in snatches. My stunned mind even recognized the tune; a jarring, loud, cacophony of wailing and screaming. It shouldn’t have. I only listened to instrumental music. I tried to choke back my growing fear.
Where was Chris?
Great. Not only was I holed up in a stranger’s van, I was remembering lyrics to songs you couldn’t pay me to listen to. I was becoming annoyed with myself. In my situation, assumptions were dangerous if not lethal and I had foolishly assumed the van was Chris’s and that she would be driving. I had assumed I was safe.
Maybe I was. Maybe the driver knew Chris. I did my best to ignore my thirst and think logically. From the faint smoky smell that drifted back, the stranger had been involved in the fire at some level. I reigned in my irritation and the unjust resentment I felt toward Chris. She’d been desperate to get me to safety and took the first option she came across and then, being Chris, doubtless led away what she saw as the real danger. That didn’t mean I wasn’t in danger.
As the van stopped my heart jumped with fear. I became giddy with relief when I realized the driver had stopped at a red light.
The van didn’t go very far before it slowed and turned right. I braced my feet against the opposite wall. It was small consolation to realize that big feet had their advantages, even if I still felt like I was wearing my knees around my ears.
I desperately hoped my mind was coming back. It could take significant time if the brain in this Blank was still in its 20’s. In this younger Blank, I could think faster because the synapses fired more rapidly, but I couldn’t access as much of the brain. The life-experiences I already had would take time to absorb into the unfamiliar grey matter of this Blank and be integrated as memory. At least, that was my theory of the moment.
While interesting from a scientific point of view, it was maddening as a life experience. Twenty year old's couldn’t think as cautiously as old men if they tried – I ought to know. That’s how young I was when I created my part of this hellacious mess.
Here, stuck in the back of a van, listening to the driver’s wrist link blare government-regulated ads, I was living proof that the program I designed to help the average citizen succeed beyond expectations was a spectacular failure.
‘Stop whining’ I told myself. At least, I must have because I could have sworn I actually heard the words. Chris would advise to make lemonade out of the lemons I was handed. It took me awhile, but I finally came up with one positive thought. I was among the living, even if hunkered down in the back of a stranger’s van, fearing for my current life.
The driver’s wrist link blared yet another asinine ad about having more chances at life thanks to the Bio-En geniuses at NC Enterprises, who put “The life back in you!”
I cynically noted they didn’t mention that the price for even one extra Blank was double the average person’s yearly income. I closed my still-gritty eyes and leaned my aching head against the door of the van as the ad whined on.
A calm professional male voice that was meant to be soothing opened the next ad: “Blanks are insurance policies against human error. We all make mistakes.”
He may as well have pointed a finger at me and welded it there.
The van stopped and my eyes popped open. While I prayed the reason for the stop was another red light, my heart pounded and I shrank against the wall of the van, trying to squeeze myself tighter into an impossibly small space. I was already wedged so tightly I wasn’t sure I could get out even if I wanted.
I began to run worse-case-scenarios in my mind. If the driver became confrontational, this younger, stronger body could probably defend itself well enough to get away. Yet, I wasn’t sure how well such a severely dehydrated body would do. I felt like my swollen tongue had been glued to my mouth and I had a headache that reached from head to heels, cramping my thought processes.
Of course, that could also be due to the fact my older more experienced soul was finding the tight empty places in this brain a bit like fitting a Sumo wrestler into spandex; a daunting task and it remained unsure the end result would be worth the effort.
I relaxed as the van began to move again. I doubted the driver had seen me or the van would no longer be moving. However, sooner or later, the driver would park the van. What then?
The bottom line was that I wanted to survive. Once he left the cab of the van, I’d quietly make my escape and hope I reached the east side without being attacked, eaten (there were stories of west-side cannibalism), maimed, or permanently dead.
As a man of science who relished controlled situations, I was not only out of my comfort zone, but outside the box of all rational explanations. I wasn’t me and that was nuts. Make that certifiably insane because the powers that be wanted me dead. Frankly, they were good at it. They’d succeeded four out of five times. Twice in the shower. Humiliating. I clenched my jaw, irritated that I had let my guard down over a matter of personal hygiene.
It also explained why my final memory while occupying Blank number Four was feeling a burn on my ankle and the startled echo in my brain of ‘not again!’
Someone sitting in the policing department of PDP had hit the terminate button that was electronically coded to my ankle manacle. It ended my fourth life and through a staggering number of miracles, I was in my final Blank. Except it wasn’t my Blank. I couldn’t think of any rational explanation. It would take Chris to unravel this problem.
“I know you’re back there.”
The thrill of fear caused by the driver’s voice dumped a megaton of adrenaline into a body made for pumping iron. I felt solid in a way that alarmed me. It didn’t seem natural, even for a body sculpted like this one.
“I don’t know who you are or where you’re going, but when I park the van, if you follow me, I will kill you.”
I believed him. Every nuance in his tone declared it a true statement.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I objected, sounding like I’d gargled with sand.
“Sell stupid somewhere else! Since you got into my van while it was parked on the west side, you’re a Four or a Five and probably got dumped by the no-return this morning.”
I had no idea what a no-return was, but knew I’d been lucky Chris was there when I became a Four. Her being prepared with a suck button had saved me from being transported to the west side along with the rest of the Four’s and Five’s.
“I’m not dangerous.” My protest sounded as weak as I felt. What could I say that he would believe?
The van violently swerved, going much too fast to avoid a roll over. What saved me from flying around the inside of the van was how tightly I was wedged between the back door and the back seat. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt and that I didn’t yell as loud as the driver as the vehicle rolled too many times and slammed into something.
The back door popped open as if cued to do so. I was airborne. No parachute. No safety net.
Worse, the stupid ads were still blaring from the possibly-dead driver’s wrist link.
Ironically, the man’s voice in the ad proclaimed in an empathetic tone: “We all make mistakes, but they don’t have to end in death!”
I hoped I could take his word for it as I tucked before I hit the ground and rolled through shrubbery. My exposed skin got a bit shredded in the process. I saw a fence before I hit it and ended my flight stomach-down on damp ground.
I breathed shallowly as I mentally took stock of bones, tissue, and pain.
Bruises? Yes.
Broken bones? My ribs declared they hated me on several levels, but I’d had broken ribs before and…actually, no I hadn’t. Where had that idea come from? I’d figure it out later. Right now, I had more important things to occupy my time. Like how I hadn’t registered any sounds of pursuit from my driver-assassin. I figured I better think of him in those terms because he had tried to kill me. No one crashed anymore unless it was on purpose.
I went back to taking stock of my body. Pain? That was a tough one. Yes and no. Yes, there was pain, but it wasn’t life threatening.
I could smell hot metal. I pushed myself to a sitting position and looked back toward the highway and saw the mashed roof of the van. It was resting on its side and the cab was empty. I listened for sounds of movement and looked sharply around as I cautiously got to my knees and visually located the driver. My would-be assassin was fifty feet away lying on his side, facing away from me, not moving. I debated the wisest course of action.
Walking away would be best for me. It meant survival, my number one goal. Yet, there wasn’t a question about what I would do. I stood and weaved my way over to him. I was going to have to tape my ribs.
The driver’s link was still loud enough to hear:
“Have more to do?
Been diagnosed with a terminal disease?
Wounded or disfigured in a war or an accident?
Or are you just tired of being old and wrinkled?
Tap your link and join the millions
who have found new life, new purpose, and more time,
thanks to NC Enterprises!”
Even if he was a stranger, I couldn’t just leave him there to wait for medical help. I wished I had a suck button to save him if he really was near death. I’d check to see if he was breathing. If he was, I could tap his link for him and help would come. Then I’d leave.
The man’s voice on the link became excited:
“Death isn’t death anymore!
You can become a better you
Call NC Enterprises now and buy another chance
to live longer, healthier, and more productively.”
A woman’s voice joined the man’s as she purred: “Each Blank can live up to one hundred years or more if you take care of you!”
I dropped to my knees next to the stranger. The moment I put my hand against his neck to check for a pulse, his fist hit me right between the eyes. There was an explosion of pain accompanied by the ongoing ad.
The woman’s voice dropped seductively, coaxing, tempting:
“You will still be you.
There’s no loss of memory in the transfer. Guaranteed.”
As I lost consciousness, I idly wondered if I could sue them for false advertising.
Creed: has always been Chris Evans in my mind because he can do confident to the point of arrogance and at the same time, display subtle vulnerability.
