Waking The Zed (2 page)

Ada’s clients may have believed in the promise
of cheating death partially because of the scientist’s global reputation. A few decades earlier Dr. Klein had made a name for herself by working on the team that developed a virus blocking protein that cured everything from common colds to Ebola. She could have retired on her royalties as a rich and admired person. But she had not been content with simply curing the living when she was sure that in many cases she could even raise the dead. Dr. Klein actually lived quite frugally and invested most of her cash back into the company. She enjoyed having a comfortable and secure income but she craved renown.

Her customer service representatives and
expensively printed literature all made a very good case as well. The researcher had spared no expense when she hired gifted speakers, printed expensive brochures, and arranged for luxury seminars. However, Dr. Klein knew that the real reason that she housed the earthly remains of millionaires and billionaires was because she had convinced them that they were the type of people who deserved another chance. The rules of life and death just did not apply to them. They deserved her care and attention just as they had deserved luxury cars, gourmet food, and power when they walked among the living.

“Dr. Klein, what do you want me to do?” Pamela asked finally, bemused, and more than a bit repelled, by the other woman’s odd behavior. She wondered what distracted her boss this morning. She thought about asking if something was wrong, but decided she really did not want a closer examination of Dr. Klein’s private thoughts at this time.

“The standard diagnostics
won’t be necessary,” Ada said pleasantly, “because I worked late last night and ran them myself. I have something else planned for today. It’s quite important, and I’m just trying to make a final decision about which clients to begin with.”

“Does it matter?” Pam
said out loud before she could stop herself. Ada just turned back to look at Pamela and smiled. The smile did not reach all the way to her eyes though. Something in Dr. Klein’s expression reminded Pam of a very stern teacher she had endured as a bright but somewhat hyperactive eight year old elementary school student. That thought made Pam dislike the woman all the more.

“Look, Ms. Stone,” Dr. Klein finally
said, “I know you don’t approve of my business. You also don’t think that this internship is particularly educational for a pathology doctoral student. I believe you told my engineer, Mr. Sanchez, that you felt like you were babysitting corpses.”

Pamela
could not see her own face but she was pretty sure she blushed as she forced herself to remain silent. She certainly felt heat rising to her face. She knew should not have said anything disparaging to the young engineer who kept the company’s machinery running.  She had simply thought he had found her attractive. She had believed she was just making clever small talk to flirt a bit. He had even smiled at her when she said it. Pam had no idea that Enrico would take her seriously enough to report her words back to Dr. Klein.

“I find your attitude particularly disappointing,” Dr. Klein continued. “When you interviewed for this position, you seemed quite interested in Future Faith
Cryonics. I wanted to give an opportunity to a promising young student. I also find your comments quite disloyal and disrespectful. You need to learn to be more professional.”

“I’m sorry. It was just a joke.” Pam shook her head.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect.” She still disliked her boss but the older woman did have a point. She had been happy enough to accept the prestigious internship and the high salary. She did not need to walk around biting the hand that fed her. Chagrined and chastised, Pam waited for her employer to continue.

Pam
had never actually been fired from any job before, but she honestly believed she might feel relieved if she was fired from this one. Then she could see if the therapy ranch job was still open and spend the rest of her summer enjoying worthwhile labor making the lives of disabled people happier and more productive. She had time to worry about her resume later. Perhaps any employer she would want to spend a long time working with would think a therapy ranch job, combined with her academic credentials, would make her as worthy as somebody who spent their time monitoring corpses.

“No matter,” Dr. Klein said curtly.
“I cannot let this little matter distract me from the tasks I need to accomplish today.” She smoothed her scarf and patted her carefully styled hair as if these actions would help her get her thoughts back on track. “Today I intend to experiment with a new serum, and I want to select two clients who seem particularly hardy.”

Pam practically grimaced as she choked back her thoughts.
None of them are hardy. They’re dead.
Despite her internal dialogue, she tried to remain quiet and composed as she waited for instructions. She sucked at her lower lip and had to keep herself from biting it. This was difficult because Pam was sure her bitten lip was the only thing that would keep her from making an ill-chosen response if she had much longer to wait.

Dr. Klein took her time, moving her head as she considered each of the frozen capsules.
“I think Mr. Barnes and Mrs. Bell will be the best choices,” she finally said. Her head moved up and down in a determined nod. “They were both under fifty when they came to us. Poor Mr. Barnes crashed his small plane and couldn’t be revived. Dear Mrs. Bell was hurt in a freak skiing accident, though otherwise she was quite healthy.” She turned back to Pam. “Did you know that she had once tried out for the US Olympic team? Her death was quite tragic.”

Without waiting for an answer, Dr. Klein
nodded and continued, “I need you to wheel in a tank marked Serum A. You will find it in the large cooler just outside this room. Be careful with it and remember that this is quite a big opportunity for you. Deserving or not, you may actually learn quite a bit today. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Sure,” Pam said
, “I can handle the tank. I know how to move heavy things.”

As she
turned on her heel, she had to bite back a snort.
Sure, it’s quite a big opportunity to learn to handle a hand truck.
Still, she was relieved to leave the company of her eccentric boss and her shiny capsules full of dead people, if even for a moment.

Since Pamela had chosen to study
human pathology, she had no particular problem with cadavers. She had certainly worked with them before in order to gain skills she believed she could use to help living people. She believed that if her work helped living people, and she showed proper respect, she would honor the dead who had donated their bodies to science as a final gift.

And e
ven though Pamela was already two years into her pathology PH.D., she had no problem performing manual labor. Raised on a working farm in Iowa, she had become used to hard work at an early age. It usually invigorated and revived her. Seeing a field full of healthy growing produce that she had helped plow and plant satisfied her as much as the addition of her name to a paper published in a prestigious journal.

Pam Stone was no squeamish ninny.

These days Pamela mostly immersed herself in school and science, but sometimes she only felt truly alive when she had some hard physical task to perform. In fact, Pamela had considered taking a low paying summer job on a therapeutic ranch instead of this internship just because she thought she would enjoy it more. She had no problems working with the dead, but only if her work might actually help the living. She had certainly hesitated before taking this internship, but in the end she had let her shrunken bank account and her advisor’s advice prevail. An internship with the notable Dr. Klein would be a star on her resume later. Ridiculously generous paychecks would allow her to keep her nice apartment and stave off more debt.

She
found the fifteen gallon tank in the cooler. It had been clearly marked as Serum A in Dr. Klein’s usual meticulous way. Of course, the label told her nothing about what the tank contained.

Filled, Pam estimated that the tank weighed almost a hundred and fifty pounds. Still, she did not experience summers on a working farm without learning how to use tools to move heavy objects. With the right tools and techniques a sturdy young woman could perform most jobs as well as a much stronger guy. She rolled the heavy tank with practiced ease onto the platform of a hand truck. Then she wheeled it back to the laboratory. She had no idea why Dr. Klein wanted to experiment with a new blood replacement solution, but supposed the doctor simply wanted to find a better way to preserve the frozen remains.

After she returned
to the preservation room, Pam assisted the doctor as she replaced the permanent serum feed with a temporary hose from the tank. They started with Mr. Barnes. When Dr. Klein was satisfied with the temporary feed she instructed Pam to do the same for Mrs. Bell.

The old solution
slowly dripped from an outlet into drains on the steel tiled floor. As the new liquid replaced the old liquid the tanks grew slightly darker. They also seemed to pick up a faint pinkish glow from the lights. Under the bright laboratory lights the capsules almost started to look as if they had bodies encased in some sort of jewels. Pam entertained the cynical thought that the image would make a good selling point for one of Future Faith’s brochures.

Pam watched
carefully as Dr. Klein carefully monitored the procedure. Pam supposed this was merely some routine experiment, but she did note that the doctor’s eyes almost looked shiny from excitement.
It’s good that she, at least, is enthusiastic about her job.
Pam noticed that the older woman’s bright eyed expression seemed to shave years off of her face. She looked more like the press photos Pam found on the Internet when she had first researched Future Faith Cryonics.

For once, Dr. Klein almost looked cheerful and youthful.
Pam knew that Dr. Klein had been regarded as a beautiful woman a couple of decades ago when she’d first risen to prominence in her field
. Now, I guess she’s still what my folks would call a handsome woman. But when she’s happy I can still see her beauty.
I guess her disposition accounts for the fact that she never married.
Even as Pam entertained that thought she dismissed it as unfair.

Without looking up from her work,
the doctor said, “I need you to set the timer to slowly raise the temperature to seventy-two degrees over the course of three hours. Just set it to automatically spread the temperature adjustments equally over time.”

“Dr. Klein, you don’t mean to unfreeze them, do you?”

“I do,” the doctor said flatly. She did not even bother to look up and meet Pam’s eyes.

“I thought you had a contract to keep these people frozen
and preserved until they could be revived? If you raise the solution to room temperature, they’ll surely degrade quickly.” By degrade, Pam meant
rot
.  In her opinion, returning a body to the elements should be something that was done under ground and out of sight. She frowned, wondering again just how badly she really needed this job. “You can’t just experiment on them like this. Do you have some way to preserve them without freezing?”

“
Ms. Stone, I have a contract to preserve them until they can be revived,” Dr. Klein said, smiling placidly. She spoke softly and slowly as if she was explaining multiplication to a dull child. Her tone almost sounded musical to Pam though it was certainly intended to be biting. “If they are revived, their own body mechanisms will keep them from degrading just as yours do. You don’t have to walk around in a freezer suit, right?”

“Of course I don’t.” Pam answered as if Dr. Klein had really required an answer.

The doctor put her hands on her hips and looked directly at Pam. “Future Faith also has a mission to work on reviving them. That is also part of the contract. Otherwise this would just be a very expensive cemetery. Is that what you think this is, Ms. Stone?”

“You
actually believe you can revive these people right now?” Pamela asked, plainly aghast. She knew the futility of arguing her point with this stubborn woman, but she could not stop the words from escaping her mouth. “Do you actually think you can wake them up? They were declared dead several months ago.”

“Listen, wh
ile I have been paying you fifty dollars an hour to make jokes and perform tasks that any bright eighth grader could be trained to do, I have been working on real science. You must be familiar with my reputation. Why else would you have coveted this internship so much?” She cocked her head, waiting for an answer. Pam had no argument. They both knew she had pursued the internship as a bright mark on her resume as well as a generous paycheck.

Then the doctor gestured with her hands as if she were holding an expanding globe. “
My serum can regenerate the damage and actually grow new life. I will certainly let you review my papers later, but right now it has to be a closely guarded secret. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Why does it have to be a secret?” Pam asked.
“Wouldn’t the scientific community want to hear about something like this?”
Is it because you know it’s either a charade or nuts?

“
Don’t take offense, Ms. Stone, but you obviously took this position because you needed the money. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Many students find themselves in your position. But as you might guess, this formula could be priceless.”