A Stand-In for Dying Read online

28

  THE CHILL was gone. Ray felt the snuggly warmth of the wool afghan wrapped around his shoulders and the living creature nestled in his lap. He glanced down at the smooth-shaven head of a child of seven or eight and inhaled its sweet, freshly bathed scent.

  “Don’t stop, Daddy,” said the child, looking up at him. “Keep reading.”

  He could see now that the child was a girl, an exquisite looking child, clearly feminine despite her bald head. And he became aware of the open book in his hands propped across her lap. Her name popped into his mind from his last visit to Marcus’s life.

  “Of course, Natasha,” he replied. “My mind wandered for a moment, honey. Where did I leave off?”

  “Dumbledore’s pocket watch, with the planets all around,” said Natasha, smiling.

  It was her bedtime and they were reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a classic fantasy from the end of the last century. Ray knew Natasha to be a precocious child, who was fully capable of reading on her own. So this must have been a bedtime ritual that Marcus shared with her. Her body was still, a blend of attention and contentment.

  Ray read to her for a few minutes, then invited her to pick a stopping point, but her eyes were already heavy as sleep overtook her. Only then did he notice Corinne standing in the doorway, watching them. He blushed at the sight of her. She was every bit as stunning as he’d remembered. And his rising erection with the child still on his lap added to his unease.

  “Time to put her to bed,” said Corinne. “She’s had a busy day, but she always looks forward to your time together.”

  Ray rose carefully from the chair, cradling Natasha in his arms, and let Corinne lead the way to her room. The charade was on. He’d plunged into the middle of it with no time to prepare for this encounter.

  Once they’d tucked the child in bed and tiptoed out of her room, Ray felt Corinne’s hand brush his shoulder and turned to face her, inhaling the sweet jasmine that emanated from her body. She brushed his lips with hers, turned and led him by the hand to their bedroom.

  It was all happening so fast. As much as he’d fantasized about this moment, he was unprepared for it. He’d played this scene before and gotten away without detection, or so, at least he thought. But this time, he was there to stay. He was Marcus Takana, for better or for worse, and he would have to keep playing the role, perhaps forever.

  Her hands cradled his erection, but it began to soften in her grasp.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, releasing her hold.

  “Sorry,” answered Ray. “I’m just tired. Working out issues at work. It’s been a very long day. You know how politics can be.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not tonight. I think I have a handle on it now. I just need to sleep.”

  “Must have been a really hard day if you have nothing left for me.” She smiled. “That’s not at all like you, Marcus.”

  He smiled back, then kissed her gently on the cheek, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.

  He surveyed the room. It barely resembled the bathroom he’d left behind. In the middle of the room was a circular glass pod barely large enough to contain him. The walls of the pod were studded with tiny nozzles all around and ranging the length of his body. But when he touched the controls by the door, there was no flow of water, just hissing bursts.

  He stripped off his clothes, stepped into the pod and touched the controls again. He felt bursts of air striking every inch of his body, strong enough to be invigorating, but not painful. The bursts abruptly stopped. Then a ring of nozzles that had been hidden in the ceiling appeared and drenched him with a slick solution. More air bursts blew the liquid away, leaving his skin with a silky coating that felt luxurious.

  He’d heard of the water sparing cleansing pods that many young people used during the peak of the drought, but had never experienced one. From his privileged position, he’d had little compunction about exceeding his share of resources, particularly since he’d set out to solve the water shortage with HibernaTurf.

  Back in the bedroom, he looked for night clothes, but found none. Concluding that Marcus must sleep in the nude, he slipped between the sheets, exhausted.

  “She has no idea how stressful my day has been,” he thought, then drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning, he faced a whole new challenge. He headed for work at the Ministry of Discovery, where Marcus was in charge of the division. He would face coworkers and subordinates and might even have meetings with Presidential aides or the President himself. He’d covered his change of identity during his brief earlier encounter with the President, but now would undergo more extended scrutiny.

  As the limo pulled up to the front door, he anticipated the first challenge would be his driver. What was his name? He’d have to pull it from the UDB when he saw his face. The door opened. He slid into the back seat. When he looked at the driver, his breath stopped short.

  The flaming red hair was all too familiar.

  “Hello, Ray,” said Terra, as the limo moved forward. “Looks like we need to talk.”

  “How did you know?” said Ray.

  “We are always watching,” said Terra. “And you’ve double crossed us. The Director is very, very upset with you.”

  “So what happens now? Are you here to send me back or to kill me?”

  “Neither, at least for now. We don’t know if it’s even possible to send you back. The system was designed for a single transfer. You’ve now undergone three switches of identity. We have no idea what the effect might be of multiple switches. There could be cognitive degradation. Or another transfer might just vaporize you both.”

  “Then you’re going to kill me?”

  “You’re a very lucky man, Ray. The Director is very resourceful and sees an opportunity arising out of your disobedience. If you cooperate with us, you will get to live.”

  “Cooperate...how?”

  “First, you must not remove your transducer. It’s how we keep track of you. And if we ever decide to switch you back, we’ll need both of you to have them. It’s also the way the network of nanoparticles in your brain stays organized. Without it, your personality could disintegrate.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. As you are aware, Marcus has become a very important, and potentially powerful man. He could even become President someday. The Director is very happy to have someone in that position who would answer to us. And now we have you.”

  “So you want me to be an agent?” exclaimed Ray. “I don’t even know who you are or what you’re trying to do? What good would I possibly be to you?”

  “Your role will evolve, and you will learn just as much as you need to know at every step to carry out your mission.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then we’ll expose you. Everyone, including Corinne, will know that you’re an imposter. And we’ll let them deal with you. It won’t be pretty. You could die or live the rest of your very long life in captivity. So we have a deal?”

  The car slowed as it pulled up to the Ministry of Discovery. The passenger door opened. Ray got out without a word. He would have to pull himself together before meeting his next challenge. The stakes just got higher.

  29

  AS RADICALLY DIFFERENT as Ray Mettler was from Marcus Takana, they had at least one thing in common. They both possessed a MELD chip, linking their brains to the vast data trove of the UDB. Marcus had no difficulty engaging the interface with Ray’s chip, providing him access to the minutest details of Ray’s life.

  Terra airlifted him by drone to the edge of the city by the waterfront. It was still dark when she disappeared back into the sky. Marcus could hear water lapping against the seawall and a cacophony of barking sounds.

  “Seals.” His MELD chip fed its sound recognition result directly to his thoughts. He’d encountered seals on the Oregon coast during his childhood in the Willamette Valley. The memories blended seamlessly with the data from the MELD chip so that he was
unsure whether his recognition came from memory or the UDB. He wondered, too, whether all his memories had traversed the void between his own body and this one.

  Learning to navigate his new life challenged Marcus and distracted him for the time being from his panic and grief. He would need to survive and blend in long enough to figure out a way, if there was one, to get back home. Meanwhile, home would be a penthouse atop a tower at the corner of Powell and Sacramento in San Francisco. His first test awaited him there when he was to meet Ray Mettler’s wife Lena.

  He arrived at the penthouse in the middle of the night. Lena was at the door as soon as he’d engaged the lock.

  “Ray! Thank God you’re OK. Where the hell have you been?”

  Marcus could barely conceal his surprise. Lena Mettler was actually Lena Holbrook, the journalist who had visited his home to write his story. She’d never let on that she was married to the man who had created HibernaTurf. And now she was to be his wife.

  “Sorry, Lena. I was working on a project and got carried away. The time just slipped by me.” It could have been worse. Marcus and Corinne both liked Lena Holbrook. She was someone who could be trusted, perhaps even with a secret as potentially lethal as the one he now bore.

  “I was worried sick, Ray. With all the strange things happening, you could have been dead.”

  “Strange things?” said Marcus.

  “Like the visit from the mysterious redhead who you claimed was there about final arrangements,” answered Lena, “and then, of course, there was the stroke and the mobile surgical suite and the redhead again.” Tears now ran down her cheeks. “I thought you’d had another stroke and that you were lying somewhere all alone, helpless or dead.”

  “Stroke?” thought Marcus. “Terra never said anything about a stroke.”

  While the UDB had provided considerable detail about Ray Mettler, his relationships, and his life history, he had no memory at all of a stroke. Either it had failed to upload to his MELD chip or had somehow been deleted from it. And if Ray remembered the event, his memory of it had traveled across the void and now resided with him in Marcus’s body.

  Marcus put his arms around Lena to comfort her. She stiffened for a moment as if the gesture was either unexpected or unwelcome, then relaxed and returned the embrace. Her hug felt warm and safe.

  “Your face is so cold,” Lena said as their cheeks met. “How did you get so chilled?”

  “It was really blustery out there, tonight. You know how windy it can get at night on our hilly streets.”

  Lena moved back a couple of steps and scrutinized his face. She furrowed her brow momentarily, apparently doubting his word. Marcus felt his head jerk almost imperceptibly to the left, accompanied by a twinge of pain in the right side of his neck. Then Lena relaxed and smiled.

  “Can we expect another visit from the redhead?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer.

  “I’m just glad that you’re safe and home,” she added. “Now we both need to get some sleep.”

  “Stroke,” thought Marcus as he lay in bed next to Lena. “That can’t be good.”

  He searched the UDB for a record of the event, but there was none. Terra and her team had done a good job scrubbing it from the historical record. She had reasons to keep it secret from the world, but she was also keeping it secret from him. Did Ray know what had happened to him? Could it have been part of what led to him simulating his death? And what was to keep it from happening again, a ticking time bomb in his head just waiting to go off?

  Marcus awoke at daybreak the next morning to the early rays of the sun streaming through the huge windows of the penthouse. He stripped naked and stood before the full-length mirror in the bedroom, studying the image before him. He ran his fingers through his hair, then slid his hands the length of his torso before coming to rest at his genitals. This penis was thicker than his and the skin more wrinkled. The testicles hung lower and looser. And everything was surrounded in a tangle of coarse dark hair.

  He felt a moment of revulsion as he clutched himself in both hands, then noticed Lena’s reflection behind him, watching, her face a mixture of confusion and concern.

  “What’s going on, Ray?” she asked. “This is the second time I’ve seen you examining yourself as if you were seeing a stranger or a ghost. Maybe it’s time to see Dr. Jensen again. You’re not yourself. Maybe the stroke…”

  “The stroke is a blur,” said Marcus, seizing an opportunity. “I can hardly remember it. Could you walk me through what happened?”

  “You awoke with excruciating pain in your head. Then your speech became jumbled and you couldn’t find words,” Lena began. “When I said I was calling for an ambulance, you became agitated and forbade me to call for help. It was as if you were hiding something.” She sighed deeply.

  “Then she arrived out of the blue...the redhead, along with an entourage of medical personnel and an entire operating suite. After imaging your brain, they threaded a catheter from an artery in your groin to your brain and stopped the bleeding.”

  “Did they say what caused the bleed?” asked Marcus.

  “They said it was an aneurysm that had burst. They patched the blood vessel and repaired the damage to your brain. They assured us you’d be OK. Then they dismantled the operating suite and were gone.” Lena looked as though she had something else to say, then screwed up her mouth and looked away.

  “Is there something else,” asked Marcus, holding his breath, “anything you haven’t told me?”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but maybe now it’s time you knew.” said Lena, hesitating. “When they were examining the images of your brain, I thought I overheard them referring to the aneurysm in the plural. Not just the one, but others. Possibly many others. I was scared, but I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want to stress you right after such a major trauma. I was afraid the stress could kill you. But with this odd behavior, perhaps we need to find out.”

  It was even worse than he thought. Not one ticking time bomb, but many. And Terra was the only one that held the key.

  “Let’s get you to a hospital. They can do studies and give us answers.”

  “No, Lena, no hospitals. No studies. If it can’t be fixed, I’d rather not know. Let’s just keep all this between us.”

  “Between us,” said Lena. “You mean between us and the redhead...Terra. That’s what you call her. We never had that talk. I think it’s time.”

  Marcus wanted desperately to tell Lena everything. She was a journalist, accustomed to keeping other people’s secrets. And he was sure that she could be trusted. But even if she believed such an outlandish story, her reaction would be unpredictable. And the knowledge could place her in lethal danger.

  “I wish I could tell you, Lena,” he said. “I really do. But for your own protection, this needs to stay my secret. Knowing could put you at risk.”

  “Ray, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?” Lena’s voice rose shrilly. “Are you some sort of spy? Or are you part of some crazy experiment?”

  Marcus shrugged and took a long, deep breath. He was still standing naked, leaving him feeling all the more exposed and defenseless.

  “Please, Lena,” he begged, “for both our sakes, you have to let this go. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

  “All right, Ray. I’ll let it go for now. But I don’t know how long I can live with this...you and this mystery. You know I always get to the bottom of things. This isn’t the end of it.”

  Marcus realized that his secret, and Ray’s, hung by a thread. It was only a matter of time before Lena would figure it out. He could only hope that Terra would show mercy.

  30

  WHEN RAY EMERGED from the limo, he stood before a gleaming tower that seemed to reach endlessly toward the sky. Its face was metallic and smooth, unbroken by the outlines of windows or doors. It looked more like a monument than a building containing laboratories, offices and other work spaces. It was difficult to imagine human life teeming withi
n its boundaries, busy creating the future.

  A cobblestone path, reminding him of the sidewalk in front of Dr. Jensen’s building, led from the limo door to the face of the structure, an odd juxtaposition of antiquated and visionary. Ray traversed the path, came to a stop, and looked all around. As he gazed up and to the right, a blue light began blinking at the surface of the wall, seeming to come from deep within it. Then a vertical crevice appeared as a section of the gleaming structure slid noiselessly aside. He crossed the threshold and the door slid closed behind him.

  Before him now was a brightly lit corridor extending as far as the eye could see. He began to walk, unaware of his destination. A lone figure appeared far down the corridor, approaching him. As it got closer, he discerned a tall, slender male, with dark complexion, refined features, and piercing blue eyes. A name popped into his thoughts.