The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (38 page)

The reporter asked Tanya, “Does it feel like you’ve been
asleep for two years?”

Tanya giggled. “Not really. I was surprised when they told
me how long it had been.”

“Come on!” Robert shouted. “It’s a wolverine, not a badger!”

“Do you remember having any dreams?” the reporter asked.

“No,” Tanya shook her head. “It’s like when I had my hip
replaced. One minute I was talking to the surgeons, and the next minute I was
waking up and the surgery was over. I don’t remember anything else.”

Robert felt a giant vise crush him, like a shoe had just
obliterated an insignificant bug. A short sob escaped from Suzanne before she
clapped a hand to her mouth. He wrapped an arm across her shoulders and they
did their best to cling to each other.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” he said.

“Not necessarily,” Maggie said. “Maybe they didn’t get all
the connections right. You know they have lots of nerves and vessels that have
to be matched up between the brain and the stem. Some of her wiring might have
gotten crossed.”

“Thanks, Maggie,” Robert said, but he didn’t feel grateful.
And he certainly didn’t think she was right.

Nevertheless, over the next two days, all four of them
remained near a television where they could get updates on Tanya.

The surgeons were so confident, they scheduled the next
surgery. According to Sam, once the team of doctors and technicians was up to
speed, they would all head to different centers and begin reanimations there.

When the second temp failed to repeat the signal, Robert
gave up hope. He and Suzanne flew back to Dayton. He trudged out to Dan’s
garden, sat on a bench, and zoned out.

He didn’t know how long he’d been in his trance, but by the
angry expression on Suzanne’s face, it must have been a while.

“That’s enough, Robert. I’m not going to let you sit out
here and mope anymore.”

He struggled to keep his voice from wavering. “I don’t want
to come back.”

She sighed and sat down next to him. “I know. I don’t want
to lose you, either. Especially now that I know you won’t remember me. But
there’s nothing we can do to stop this from happening. And Sam says you’re so
far down the list that it could still be years before they get to you.”

Robert gazed off into the distance. “I’ll be the same
asshole I was when I died. Alone and miserable, with nothing but my job.”

“Come on, now. You’ll be a young man again. You’ll meet
someone—”

“I’ll be looking for the same kind of wife I had the first
time. I’ll make all the same mistakes. I’ll resent my kids.”

“Maybe not. Even Robbie learned from his mistakes. You
might, too.”

Folding his arms on his knees, Robert buried his head in his
lap. “I don’t want to come back.”

He made a half-hearted effort to snap out of it, but after a
week of sulking, Suzanne had had enough.

“Why don’t you go see Rachel? You haven’t been to the office
in months.”

“What’s the point? I won’t remember anything.”

Cocking up an eyebrow, Suzanne gave him a chilly stare.
“Just go. And while you’re at it, why don’t you swing through Virginia and
check in on Robbie.”

* * *

It was hard to believe that Rachel was eighty-four. She
didn’t look a day over fifty. Of course, she had the money for skin
rejuvenations, eye lifts, jowl reductions. A couple years ago, she had a bad
shoulder socket replaced, and now she was still playing tennis.

She sat on the veranda of their country estate north of the
city. One of her great grandchildren—Robert couldn’t remember her name
off-hand—crawled across a bamboo mat, chasing a robotic dog. In the distance,
Robert watched a couple play tennis on the private court. Was it his great,
great grandson Eric, Christa’s boy?

The baby had caught the dog by its tail, and the mechanism
that drove the dog whined. Rachel swooped over to rescue the pet before its
gears burned up.

“No, no,” she scolded the child gently. “We don’t pull
Rover’s tail.”

The way she was going, Rachel would live to be well over a
hundred. Robert had never thought about coming back while she and Robbie were
still alive. Now it was a real possibility.

He pondered all the changes in the Corporation. Hunter had
added a full men’s line during his years at the helm. Christa had expanded the
children’s wear to include boys and infants. It would all hit Robert at once.

And what about Rachel and Min? Would he go through all that
crap again about being shocked? Would he appreciate their wonderful family, or
think his great, great grandchildren were annoying?

Rachel sat back in her chair and sang a song to the child,
clapping his hands together to keep the beat.

In the kitchen, Min finished up a big pot of vegetable soup.
Crusty breadsticks stood in a crock like a giant bouquet. Eric and his friend
each ate a big bowl before leaving. Rachel brought the baby in and strapped her
into one of those new-fangled high chairs.

Her name was Emma. Both Rachel and Min praised the child for
eating her pureed soup. Then her mother, Teron, Hunter’s oldest daughter,
showed up. She ate with Rachel and Min before taking Emma home with her.

As Rachel was cleaning up, one of Kwamee’s boys, Desmond,
dropped in, and immediately a bowl was produced, soup reheated, and breadsticks
offered.

Robert would be about his age when he was revived. It was
obvious that he would be warmly welcomed into the extended family. But would he
be critical of their easy-going lifestyle like the old Robert? Dear God, would
he be as offensive as Brian Campbell, the emo temp?

Once Rachel and Min went to bed, Robert headed for the
airport, stopping in downtown Atlanta to wander around the deserted streets.

The city had changed so much over the years, he doubted if
he’d be able to find his way to work. Would he even be working at Audrey’s?
Surely he didn’t think he could walk in and take up where he’d left off.
Initially, he’d thought Audrey’s would be gone by the time he was reanimated,
and he would start over from scratch. But he couldn’t do that now. Compete
against his own corporation? Never.

He might start out as a buyer, like Rachel had, but fashion
had changed so much over the years, and he would not recall all of the subtle
nuances of those trends. He’d be plunked back into his mindset at the age of
fifty-seven. How embarrassing, to be told by your grandson that you can’t cut
it.

Standing on the sidewalk in front of corporate headquarters,
Robert pressed a palm onto the Audrey’s logo, etched in the glass. In a million
years, he never would have dreamed that first boutique in Indianapolis would
evolve into this. Had Amanda envisioned anything like this when she agreed to
marry him?

Robert tried to imagine meeting a woman once he returned.
People didn’t just chance upon one another and get married anymore. They had to
take compatibility tests. And if they wanted children, they had to petition for
the right. The infants were incubated in a controlled environment where
anomalies were discovered and corrected immediately.

Shaking his head, Robert shuffled toward the transportation
station. This alien world he was coming back to might prove to be too daunting.
According to Sam, Crycor had a reeducation program prepared that would be
downloaded into their brain after they were revived. That fact didn’t offer
Robert much solace. The center might load him up with the black and white facts
of the past sixty years, but who would teach him the grays?

* * *

It had been a few years since Robert had visited his son. He
probably could have transported directly there from Atlanta, but he chose to
fly up to Richmond instead. He needed time to prepare himself.

The United States no longer maintained prisons. Younger generations
of citizens had been genetically perfected so aberrant behavior was a thing of
the past. There was no real crime, no lower class of unemployed, or inner city
dregs. Unskilled, manual laborers had been replaced with robots.

Years ago, most of the remaining prisoners were
rehabilitated and reintroduced into special work camps. But Robbie was one of
those deemed ‘not cost-effective’ for repair, and placed in a communal facility
with other elderly prisoners with significant health problems.

Robbie’s ‘retirement’ facility was south of Richmond,
Virginia. It looked like one of those old nursing homes from back in the late
nineteen-hundreds, only the government had seen no reason to continue the
upkeep of the grounds. A few remaining shrubs had managed to survive despite
the neglect, but the lawn was hard-packed dirt. Only the hardiest of weeds was
able to break through. There were no spring flowers, no hanging pots along the
eaves, just a shabby, one-story building across the street from an abandoned strip
mall.

There was no guard tower, and no bars at the door. Posted
instructions required visitors to place their full hand on a monitoring pad,
with fingers spread. A heavy layer of dust and grime covered the hand pad.
Robert wondered if anyone had been here since Rachel’s last visit.

Inside, an abandoned reception desk sat in the small lobby,
a straight-back chair still perched at the side. Robert had never seen anyone
at the desk. He’d never seen prison personnel anywhere in the home, just the
remaining inmates.

Down a short hallway and to the right was a long ward of
single beds. Two rows of twelve ran along each wall, with an aisle in the
middle. At each end was a bathroom.

Half of the men were still lolling in bed when he arrived,
but Robbie was up. He was eighty-seven now, but he looked older and more
decrepit than Maggie or Joe. The cheeks that had been full when he was in his
fifties were now sunken. The skin on his arms was withered. Robert marveled
that Robbie could even walk, he was so thin.

Yet there he was, encouraging an inmate to get out of bed.

“Come on, Randy,” Robbie coaxed. “The final bell is going to
ring. You gotta change your clothes today. This one’s a mess.”

The man rolled away from Robbie, and Robert could see a
brown stain on his backside. His bed was stained as well.

Robert turned away in disgust. The room must have smelled
like a sewer.

Giving up, Robbie hobbled to the bathroom. Hanging his cane
on a hook, Robbie shrugged out of his hospital-type gown. He balled it up and
dropped it down a chute. Then he stepped into a shower, and for ten seconds,
water cascaded over Robbie. He quickly rubbed himself clean under his arms and
between his legs. A blast of air partially dried him off before a clean gown
appeared. Robbie slipped into it, and pulled on two side straps that cinched
the gown closed in the back. Grabbing his cane, he gimped his way to the living
area.

A handful of men had already gathered at a small door in the
corner of the community room. Three times a day, at designated times, the small
door was raised, and the men were fed. If you could call it food.

More men shuffled slowly over, like cows waiting for a bale
of hay to be pitched from a loft. Robbie took his place beside the waist-high
door, and when it opened, a tall glass of beige liquid rotated out. The first
man in line took the glass and another rotated into place.

Robert was reminded of when he was a kid. Some company came
out with a liquid drink called Instant Breakfast. He’d begged his mother to buy
some. He pretended he was an astronaut as he drank it. It had tasted like thick
chocolate milk, but according to the commercials it had been chock full of
essential vitamins and minerals.

The gunk these men received was considered nutritionally
balanced, but Robert had never been tempted to slip inside one of the inmates
for a taste. It looked disgusting.

Robbie stood to one side as each man got his meal.

“Careful,” he said quietly to a man whose hand shook so hard
that some of the liquid slopped out. “Use both hands, Terry.”

He encouraged the next man. “You’re doing fine, Bret. This
isn’t a race. You take your time.”

“We’re playing rummy tonight,” another man said. “You in?”

“Sure thing,” Robbie replied.

One by one, the men settled into armchairs in a semi-circle
before a television where they drank their breakfast and watched the morning
news.

Robert thought it was a travesty that the men were not given
an option of coffee or tea with their meal. How hard would it be for someone to
program a robot to brew coffee, for Godsakes. Of course, the government
probably would have euthanized the whole lot of them by now if they thought
they could get away with it.

Robbie took the last drink and the small door snapped shut.
There were no seconds, and if a man dropped his drink, or spilled it, he was
out of luck until the next meal.

Settling into an empty chair, Robbie breathed out a sigh. He
was winded from the morning’s activities. He rested his glass on his leg and
watched the news. One of the reports was an update on Tanya Kettering, the
first woman reanimated.

“Hey!” Robbie said, pointing his cane at the television. “My
dad’s one of those guys. He got frozen when I was in my twenties.”

A few of the men nodded without taking their eyes off the
screen. Robert figured they’d heard about it before. Then Robbie fell silent,
mesmerized by the news.

It occurred to Robert that his son had spent almost his
entire life watching television. When he was a kid, Amanda parked him in front
of the TV to keep him entertained. During his visit to New York, all Robert had
seen Robbie do was veg out in front of his television. Even in prison, inmates
either had a set, or they watched someone else’s. Robbie had never worked a day
in his life, but he was probably a walking encyclopedia of every television
show produced in the last eighty-five years.