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The God Organ
The God Organ Read online
The God Organ
Copyright © 2014 by Anthony J. Melchiorri. All rights reserved.
First Edition: September 2014
http://AnthonyJMelchiorri.com
Cover Design: Adrijus Guscia
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic
form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted
materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business
establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America.
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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Mortality of the God Organ
Epilogue
Thank you for reading
Also by Anthony J Melchiorri
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
Joel Cobb
October 15, 2063
Chicago, Illinois
Joel reached out to the glimmering incandescent light bulb and wrapped his fingers around it. It didn’t burn him, even when he clenched it tighter and his mind screamed at him to let go. Instinct was hard to shake. With an unquenchable curiosity, he squeezed the bulb and let out an embarrassing yelp as the glass shattered. Shards projected from his open palm as he rotated and examined his hand. Silver blood streamed between his fingers.
Stepping away from the holofield, he headed back into the main art gallery. He shook his head in quiet amusement and rubbed his hand against his black slacks. No blood actually seeped over his palm and no glass shards were embedded in his hand, but he couldn’t help trying to get rid of the mess. It was just another strange exhibit in the Findwaker Modern Art Gallery, where philanthropist Tara Delrey was hosting a fundraiser for a charity Joel had already forgotten.
Gingerly, he stepped over a stream that flowed into the shape of a voluptuous woman. He couldn’t tell if the water was real or another projection, and waited as a man with an obnoxious, flaming red bowtie approached the installation, only to turn and avoid it. Joel watched the liquid breasts, their curves rising and falling as if the whole thing were breathing, even as the water appeared to drain into a hole in the floor.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He looked up to see Tara Delrey, her bright green eyes accentuated by a pair of dangling emerald earrings.
“Simple, almost derivative, and utterly captivating.”
“Yes, captivating,” Joel said, though the curving forms provided him a brand of captivation he didn’t think Tara shared. He found it difficult to believe shapes formed by flowing water could inspire lust, but he couldn’t deny the heat rising up inside him.
Tara blinked, smiling.
Joel noticed the crow’s feet spreading their toes against her skin. He wondered why she had never bothered to fix those. Maybe she wasn’t as rich as she appeared. Then again, maybe appearing natural evoked artistic appreciation or some equally tedious concept that he couldn’t be bothered to understand.
“Is there a reason you haven’t had one of my Sustains implanted?” he asked. “You’d never have to worry about glaucoma. Your skin would be as smooth as a twenty-year-old’s. And your chance of developing any kind of cancer would be almost nil.”
“Ah, Joel. I’m not interested in your artificial organs. I don’t think immortality would suit me, and who would want to miss the life after this one?”
“I’m all for enjoying this life for as long as I can.”
“I’m certainly glad you can enjoy it at my fundraiser.” Tara’s unamused expression spoke otherwise. “Your name will make the rounds of the news streams, I’m sure.”
Though he needed to attend the event, he didn’t need to participate. It was easy to manipulate public opinion when software programs wrote the brunt of the news by utilizing natural language algorithms to capture items of interest. The Board of Directors at LyfeGen insisted Joel’s positive presence in these articles would earn favor with the public and, most importantly, the automated algorithms that drove stock purchases and share prices. The Board claimed that appealing to those audiences would bolster the upward swing of LyfeGen share prices. Any good publicity would be welcomed, particularly with the spate of religious groups defaming Joel’s invention and LyfeGen’s keystone product as a perversion of God’s design.
Joel thought the whole argument ridiculous, wondering why any deity would design such a flawed organism to begin with. People didn’t need their appendix and the tailbone didn’t attach to any tail. Wisdom teeth had to be taken out before they ruined a person’s smile. Hell, ninety-eight percent of the human genome was noncoding. Useless. Joel thought, if anything, the LyfeGen Sustain took advantage of the untapped potential within human beings and made people better than nature—or, if people insisted, God—had designed them.
“I’d better make my rounds.” Tara offered a practiced smile.
“Sure, sure. Thanks for the invite. I’m, uh, really enjoying the art.”
She scoffed and floated away, her spike-heeled shoes plowing straight through the water nymph. Joel frowned as the liquid parted for the train of Tara’s dress. The stream appeared to giggle at the intrusion.
In a nearby room, a group of people were talking and laughing. The room appeared devoid of perplexing artwork and a bartender was serving drinks behind a small bar.
As soon as Joel entered, stars were projected around the ceiling and walls. A dark purple hue cloaked the room, like the sky as the sun sank behind the horizon. The bartender appeared to be wearing a fluorescent orange rabbit mask. In another corner, a woman with a bird-of-prey disguise leaned in toward a man with a mask resembling a pink boar. The group that had appeared so normal from outside was suddenly adorned in fluorescent, beastly disguises. Another trick of the museum’s displays, Joel figured.
He shook his head and wondered what the hell this had to do with art. He feared he was becoming a cynical old man.
“Whiskey,” Joel said to the bartender. “On the rocks.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We are only serving pinot arc en ciel.”
“Rainbow wine?” No, he wasn’t a cynical old man. Just a normal person
with normal tastes and a sense of disdain for the absurd.
The bartender waved a fluorescent-gloved hand. “To match the theme, sir.”
Joel grunted but took the glass. The wine, made from jellyfish-gene-infused grapes, shifted colors. He chugged it and imagined the way his stomach must be lighting up. When he placed the empty glass on the counter, the bartender refilled it.
“Careful. That rainbow shit gives you awful hangovers.”
Joel turned to find the voice belonged to a woman hidden behind a yellow-and-green raccoon mask projected by the room’s holosystems. He grinned. “Sure, we’ve cured cancer, but we can’t cure hangovers.”
The woman laughed. “Sometimes we need to be taught a lesson when we’ve been bad.” Her golden skin lit up as bright as the stars floating around the room.
“Or eat a bacon sandwich. That works for me.”
She smiled and downed her own glass of wine. “Does that really work?”
“Nine times out of ten.”
“Good enough for me.” She turned to the bartender. “Another, please.”
“Art fundraisers,” Joel said, raising his glass in toast.
“Pretentious gatherings.” The raccoon-masked woman met his glass with hers.
“So, I take it you’re about as excited as I am to be here,” Joel said.
“Probably here for the same reason you are. The ever-present press bots.”
Joel nodded. “By the way, what am I?”
“That’s quite an open-ended question for someone I’ve only just met,” the woman said. She grinned as slyly as the animal she hid behind.
“What animal?”
“A tiger.”
Joel laughed.
She tilted her head. “You don’t think that’s fitting?”
“I am feeling particularly carnivorous tonight and the food here doesn’t quite cut it.”
“I hear that.” The raccoon leaned in. “So, what am I?”
“You spend a lot of time in people’s garbage.”
She placed a hand on her hip. “Oh, now you’re going to insult me?”
“That’s the last thing I want to do to you, Ms. Raccoon.” Joel set his wine glass on the bar. “How about we grab a drink that doesn’t look like a rainbow took a piss?”
***
“You make a prettier woman than a raccoon.”
Amy Park raised an eyebrow. “Is that the best you have? CEO of a Fortune 500 company, inventor of a world-renowned biotechnological miracle, and that’s your line?”
Joel laughed. “Co-inventor. Cut me a little slack, huh?” His words slurred slightly. He usually didn’t let himself get this drunk and wondered if he’d miscounted the drinks he’d had. Maybe it was that damned rainbow wine. “But when you put it like that, it seems like I shouldn’t really need a line, huh?”
Shaking her head, but smiling, Amy rolled her eyes. “You’re something.”
After they had left the fundraiser, Amy had introduced herself to Joel as they settled into the bar at the Hilton. She had already recognized him, given his pseudocelebrity status around Chicago. He was a prominent figure in the biotech industry and business at large. She had told him she wrote for a living, but, when pressed, would offer no more about exactly what she wrote. She might be an investigative reporter who wanted a scoop. Then again, she might be too coy to admit she wrote erotica or kinky romance novels.
Joel didn’t mind; her straight black hair and shapely curves were more than enough of a reason for him to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Their conversation floated on until last call. Then Amy grabbed his hand from across the table and gave him a sly grin. “I’m not tired. You interested in continuing this talk over a couple more drinks? I’ve got the whole mini-bar untapped in my room.”
Maybe the alcohol had gotten to him. He could already tell he’d have a hangover and he hardly knew this woman. A fleeting instinct whispered for Joel to leave, to go home, but he looked at Amy. Her thin red lips curled into a seductive smile and her hair drifted over her shoulders.
“That sounds perfect,” he said.
Amy didn’t turn on the lights when they entered her hotel room. Instead, she guided him toward the bed.
A surge of anticipation coursed through him. His heart pounded. It thumped against his ribcage harder than he was accustomed to.
Amy unbuttoned Joel’s shirt and slid her fingers across his skin.
For a moment, a stab of pain etched through his chest and he froze, grimacing.
She stopped. “Did I do something wrong?”
He shook his head as adrenaline urged him forward. “No, no. I’m fine.” He put her right hand back on his chest after kissing it.
His pulse pounded louder in his ears as Amy slipped her black dress up over her head. He pulled her to him and they rolled back onto the bed. Her skin pressed against his.
Her hands slid down his body and he explored hers. Soon, though, amidst the passion and pleasure, a strange numbness overtook his left hand and arm. Joel shifted her over. He was breathing in deep gasps now, almost completely out of breath.
Just as their exploits intensified, dizziness halted him. He bit his lower lip.
Amy grinned and pinned him against the bed.
A terrible pain shot through Joel’s head and he gasped aloud. The room darkened and he grabbed at his head. He squeezed his temples.
Amy shot back, frozen. Her eyes were wide. “What’s going on?”
Joel started to fade, his lips quivered and the entire left side of his body went numb. One leg drooped uselessly over the side of the bed.
“Oh, my God. Are you having a stroke?” Confusion rang out in her voice. “That’s impossible.”
Amy jumped to the side of the room as his vision swam and her silhouette paced against the large window. She tapped on her comm card, the familiar sound resonating in Joel’s ears like woodpeckers hammering down a forest. Her voice sounded hazy and echoed heavily as she called for help.
Emergency services. A hospital. Decades since he’d been to one. Thoughts, Amy, streetlights, numbness all dissipated. “I need an ambulance...Yes...Yes.”
After hanging up, Amy made another call as Joel’s vision faded in and out. “Stewart, I’ve got a story. A big story.” Her words came out in spurts between panicked breaths. “Get all the premium ad commissions, direct links to the top news comm applications, especially business.”
He tried to keep his eyes open, to listen to her, to reach out. Then, his world went black.
Chapter 1
Preston Carter
October 16, 2063
Chicago, Illinois
Preston Carter’s comm card lit up, piercing the enveloping darkness. Moonlight sifted through drawn curtains and played on his husband Erik’s face as Preston got out of bed. Erik rolled over and struggled to open his eyes.
Mouthing an apology, Preston answered the call. A name lit up across the screen: Jason Shaw, the chairman of LyfeGen’s Board of Directors.
“Preston Carter speaking.”
A terse voice answered back. “Yes, I know who it is. Cobb is dead.”
“What?”
“Joel Cobb is dead. Do you understand that?”
Disbelief coursed through him and his stomach knotted. The CEO of LyfeGen, his boss and, most importantly, his friend, was dead. Preston sat at the foot of the bed and brushed his hand through his hair. “What happened?”
“Bad news, Carter, bad news. But don’t read the goddamned news streams. Bunch of bullshit. We need you to come in immediately and sign in for a conference with the Board.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Good.” Shaw ended the call.
Erik sat up. The comforter fell from his bare chest. “What’s going on?”
“Joel is dead.” Preston stared out the window. Skyscrapers, lights still burning from windows, clawed at the night sky like desperate fingers reaching for the pale moon. “I’ve got to get to the office.”
; “Yeah, yeah, of course.” Erik rubbed the sleep from his eyes and placed a hand on Preston’s back.
Foregoing a shower, Preston put on a light gray suit. He sat down on the edge of the bed and fumbled with his shoes. Erik inched toward him and wrapped his arms around him.
Preston sank his head into Erik’s arm. He took a deep breath. Joel Cobb was dead. His friend. His boss.
“Are you going to be okay?” Erik spoke in a soothing voice and his breath tickled Preston’s ear.
He grabbed Erik’s arms for a brief moment and exhaled. “I think so.” He shifted his weight to stand, anxious, but Erik resisted and coaxed him to wait.
“Why are they making you go in?”
“I don’t know.”
Erik slid from behind Preston and sidled up next to him. He drew Preston into a hug and kissed his cheek. “I’m really sorry.”
Preston’s shoulders slumped and his eyelids felt heavy. He was desperate to shut them, to fall back asleep. Let it be a dream. An awful dream. “I love you.”
Erik let him go. “I love you, too. Do you need anything right now? Something for breakfast?”
“Thanks, but I don’t have the time.” He felt Erik’s eyes on him as he left their bedroom. Before he trudged down the stairs, Preston snuck into Kyle’s room. Over a pile of clothes (clean or dirty, it wasn’t clear), he crept over to his son’s bed. He knelt next to the sleeping boy and placed a hand gingerly on his son’s shoulder.
“There’s been some trouble at work and I’ve got to go in early.” He wondered if Kyle would wake or if he should just let the boy sleep.
Kyle’s hands balled up into fists as he stretched out. “Will you be back in time for Grandma’s?”
Preston rubbed his eye with the back of one hand. He brushed Kyle’s ruffled hair back. “Probably not.”
Turning back over, Kyle yawned and curled up under the covers. “Okay.”
“Bye. Love you.”
Kyle didn’t respond as his chest rose and fell again in a slow rhythm.
***
Preston scurried downstairs and out the door as his mind swirled through thoughts of Erik and Kyle...and Joel Cobb.
Once he was seated in his silver Infinity SX, the car prompted him for his destination. He selected his work address. While he rubbed his eyes, the car took off in a muffled whir of electric motors. Automated stoplights switched to green as the car approached them. It passed quiet, dark houses and small storefronts. The orange lights of Corner Street Bakery caught his eyes. He stopped there most mornings for a coffee but had no time for diversions now.