The Unincorporated Man Read online

  “Oh please, Mosh, you don’t really mean to say that they’d . . .”

  “Neela, don’t be dramatic,” he continued. “But they would make our lives miserable, if only as a warning to others. How would you like to spend the next hundred years performing emergency suspensions on the frozen moons of Jupiter?”

  “But what could they do to you?” Neela asked. “You’re rich and have already made majority. You’re untouchable, aren’t you?”

  Mosh looked at her, his sad smile the precursor to an answer she suspected but had never really wanted to hear.

  “Neela,” he said, “most people assume that when you get majority all your worries go away—in most cases that’s correct. As long as you don’t try to off yourself you can pretty much do what you want with your life. But let’s assume that GCI decides to make an example of me. I might start getting audited medically on a monthly or even weekly basis. There may be court challenges as to my fitness to maintain control of my own portfolio.”

  “On what basis?”

  “Well, the willingness to spend ten million credits on someone I have never met may be justification for trial alone.”

  Neela sighed. “That wouldn’t stand, Mosh.”

  “Neela, it doesn’t have to stand. But it would be expensive and time consuming. Or they could just have people sue me, not for money but for stock. I would just need to lose three or four cases, and there goes my majority.”

  “Damsah’s ghost,” whispered Neela.

  “You’re beginning to understand.”

  Mosh took her hand and leaned closer. “Neela, sometimes there are things in life worth sacrificing everything for. For every individual it’s something different. I’m not sure what I would risk everything for. But even if it were Tim Damsah himself in there I doubt I’d do it. And I’m positive I won’t for a three-hundred-year-old frozen body of someone I have never met and probably never heard of.”

  Neela sat for a moment while she absorbed all that Mosh had told her.

  “OK, Mosh,” she asked, “why did we go through all of that if you realized it wasn’t going to get us anywhere?”

  “Why,” he smiled, “to cover our collective asses, of course . . . and you can say ‘thank you.’ ”

  “OK, now you’ve lost me.”

  Mosh took out his DijAssist and pushed a button. He showed her the screen. The entire encounter in the bay had been vidacorded for posterity.

  “But why?” she asked.

  “Insurance, my dear.” Mosh leaned forward and lowered his voice, indicating that she come closer. “When our poor bastard finally does wake up and finds his valuable shares already owned by GCI, what do you think he’s gonna do first? Say ‘thanks for screwing me’? Not bloody likely. He’s going to go to court and try and win back as much of himself as he can. And who, my dear, do you think’s going to get nailed against the wall in all his legitimate fury?”

  “Hektor and his cohorts. Who else?” she answered.

  “We else, Neela. Think about it. He goes after GCI, and he’ll be tied up in court for years. He goes after us, and we’ll be forced to settle a lot sooner than that. But let’s just take your scenario. Let’s suppose he hires a bad litigator and is stupid enough to go after GCI. Who do you think they’ll make the scapegoat for his righteous indignation?”

  And there it was. Neela realized she’d been played. That the entire confrontation with Hektor was the first move in a high-stakes game of corporate survival.

  “You could have told me, Mosh. I would have been a good girl, you know.”

  “Which,” Mosh intoned, “is exactly why I didn’t. There’s not a poly-psyche in the world that will ever question your sincerity on this vidacord. As far as the world, and more importantly, the courts, will see, we did our absolute utmost to ‘free’ our little frozen friend from the clutches of ‘corporate’ greed.”

  Neela sat back. “I’ll be damned.”

  _______

  Mosh was just getting ready to leave his office. He looked around and was satisfied with how the day had turned out. His encounter with Hektor had provided some excitement, reminded him of why he got out of the upper echelons in the first place, and reaffirmed that he could still handle the sharks if need be. Not bad for a day’s work. He backed up all the relevant data into his secure file and separated it from the main computer storage. Switching his phone to emergency calls only by shaking his left hand in the air, he left his small but functional office.

  Just outside the door he was ambushed by his secretary.

  “I’m sorry to bring this up, but they wanted me to make sure you read it,” she said. She stood directly in his path, arms folded—devilish smirk on her face.

  “Which ‘they,’ Eleanor?” he asked, resigned.

  “The accounting department they, O great and powerful director, sir,” she answered.

  “Oh that,” he laughed. “I saw it and ignored it, as any sane man would do with yet another memo from Accounting. It can wait until tomorrow. Coming?” he asked, motioning toward the door.

  “In a minute.” She stepped toward him and put her arms around his neck, then gently nuzzled his ear. Speaking softly she cooed, “It seemed pretty urgent, and I did promise them you would look into it before you left today.”

  “I never should have married you,” Mosh said with a smile, knowing he’d lost this battle. He turned around and headed back into his office. Without even sitting down he hovered over the holodisplay and called up the memo that had assumed the extraordinary power to influence his marital bliss in an amazingly short amount of time.

  He read the first line.

  Interesting. He reached for his chair, and without taking his eyes off the display, pulled it beneath him and sat down.

  He spent the next fifteen minutes calling up and sending out data. When he’d confirmed the essentials of the memo and all it entailed, he leaned back into his chair and allowed himself a brief respite. He had a funny feeling it was going to be his last for some time.

  He called out to his wife through the still open doorway. “Honey, I don’t think I’ll be able to make dinner after all. And get me Dr. Wang.”

  Hektor was busy indulging his one true vice. The smell of an incredibly rare and expensive cigar was filling the small, impersonal office he’d been using for the day he was at the Boulder facility. The thought that the cigar smoke would linger and annoy the prissy, health-conscious bureaucrats filled him with joy. After all, the prejudice against smoking had no basis in modern health care, and yet this petty meme was still making its presence felt centuries after the need for it had disappeared. But this was a time to celebrate, and if the celebration bothered the hospital staff, so be it.

  He’d just finished talking with the deputy director in charge of Special Operations, DepDir for short, and had given his report. The DepDir was very pleased and told Hektor that the board would be informed of his outstanding work. He’d even hinted that The Chairman himself had taken an interest in the project. This meant that there was a chance, small but there nonetheless, that The Chairman would hear Hektor’s name. Something he could only have hoped for in the course of ten more years of steady progress. If that didn’t call for an expensive cigar, then nothing in his immediate future would. And he wasn’t about to wait for the more traditional reason to light one up. Hell, you can always have kids, he thought.

  Hektor’s thumb started to vibrate.

  “What is it?” he asked, still smiling, cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. His iris scan let him know that it was his intern. Good self-starter. Efficient problem solver.

  “Uh, sir, we have a problem.”

  “Handle it, Raga.”

  “I tried, sir, but the shippers aren’t willing to move the package without your assurance.”

  “What are you talking about, Rag? This is a company service, and they’re company employees. Come to think of it, they’re even getting bonuses.” He paused for a moment. “Or at least they were.”


  “It’s not about money, sir. They’re worried about liability.”

  “Liability? For what? The damn thing’s been sealed for over three hundred years. It was made to withstand a cave-in from a mountain made of solid rock.” In fact, it did, he mused. “I’m sure it can be safely loaded by a few grunts. It’s not as if it’s going to just pop open and say boo!”

  “Well, actually, sir . . .”

  The blood left Hektor’s face. He stubbed out the thousand-credit cigar less than two minutes into what should have been an hour of joy.

  “Don’t move or touch a thing. I’m on my way.”

  Hektor shoved his way into Mosh’s office.

  “Funny, your profile said nothing about suicide.” Every ounce of sarcasm he could muster was furled into the sentence.

  The crowd around Mosh’s desk backed away and gave Hektor his space.

  “Please excuse us,” the director said to the minions bustling about the room. With the last of them gone, Hektor sat down in front of Mosh’s desk and crossed his legs.

  “Please tell me you haven’t initiated the revive process.”

  “In fact, we have.”

  “Then I suppose you realize,” Hektor said, “that you’ve condemned us both.”

  “I can’t say your feared demise will cause me any great sorrow,” Mosh replied, “but I intend to be here for some time.”

  “That would be a neat trick,” sneered Hektor. “However, while I may not have the power to bring you down personally, there are those whose profits and reputations you’ve just cut into who will in fact take this badly. And if I’m not mining rocks on comets in the Oort Cloud, I’ll take great joy in watching that day arrive.”

  “So dramatic, Hektor, really. In fact, if you’d bothered to check, you would’ve seen that your one criteria for immediate revive—namely a ridiculous amount of money—had been met.”

  “You’re not that stupid, Director.”

  “On this we can both agree.” Mosh leaned back in his seat, putting his arms behind his head. “The money was paid into the hospital’s account by an anonymous sponsor.”

  “Anonymous, my ass,” scoffed Hektor. “That’s impossible. No one could have paid that much money in that short a period of time . . . unless it was you, and like I said . . .”

  “. . . I’m ‘not that stupid,’ ” Mosh continued. “Feel free to check my accounts; I’m sure everyone else will.”

  “Oh, you can bet your majority on that, Director.”

  “And by the way,” Mosh continued. “Someone, and I’m not naming names,” he said, looking directly at Hektor, “made it much easier to pay by making the invoice official in the hospital’s database.”

  “It was an invoice for ten million credits!” Hektor shouted. “No one has that kind of money. At least no one who’d want to revive a three-hundred-year-old corpse they had no stock in.”

  “Exorbitant yes, but certainly legal. There for all to access and, apparently, pay.”

  Hektor tried to gather his wits about him.

  “Even if you didn’t pay, why did I have to go down to the transport and find an empty suspension unit and twenty highly paid movers scratching their collective asses unless you had something to hide? You and I both know what’s at stake here, and by doing this behind my back, you make yourself look culpable. The least you should have done was call me.” Hektor now put his hands on his head and his elbows on his knees. “I figured you for smarter,” he said, resigned.

  Mosh looked at the man in front of him, considering his words carefully.

  “Look, I don’t know if this is going to help, but I’m going to hope you pay attention. I did what I did for two reasons, Mr. Sambianco. First, once payment had been secured this man had a right to be woken up as soon as was medically possible. And that meant immediately. I, for one, was not prepared to keep him suspended beyond that point just so you or anyone else could make some additional profit. He’s entitled to make his own profit, Mr. Sambianco, or our whole system is worthless. And second . . .” Mosh paused, waiting for Hektor to look up, making sure he had his full attention.

  “I don’t like you, Mr. Sambianco.”

  Hektor looked stunned. Such direct honesty was certainly not the norm, and certainly never directed at him personally.

  “Still,” continued Mosh, “I don’t want to be accused of letting my personal feelings interfere with legitimate company business, so I feel compelled to tell you that there is one way I’m aware of that will delay this revive.”

  Hektor’s ears perked up. Perhaps he’s not willing to commit suicide after all.

  “Now a party of standing, a relative or spouse, could contest this revive in court and, I’ll even give it to you, could probably stop me from proceeding. However, there doesn’t appear to be any party of standing. But,” continued Mosh with a sly smile, “I’m nothing if not thorough.” He spoke loud enough for all in the hallway to hear. “Anybody here a party of standing, a relative or spouse? Speak up. Anyone?”

  Silence.

  “Hmm. How fortunate for our mysterious friend.”

  Hektor slumped back down in his chair.

  “Fine,” Hektor replied. “Go ahead, Director. Do it. But if you really had your patient’s best interest in mind you wouldn’t be using a novice to do the revive. Let me at least call in some real pros.”

  “First of all, Hektor, Dr. Wang is not a novice.”

  “I’m not talking about Wang, I’m talking about Harper.”

  “Right, Neela. Funny thing about Neela. I’d sooner trust her than someone with ten times the experience who I’m confident would screw my patient on a credit at the behest of you and your organization. You see, Hektor, I think she does have the patient’s best interest in mind. I don’t believe your ‘experts’ would.”

  With that Mosh got up, gathered his belongings, and headed for the door. He looked back and saw Hektor still slumped in his seat with his head in his hands.

  “You coming?”

  “To what?” Hektor retorted.

  “The rebirth of our new friend—the Unincorporated Man.”

  2 Wake-up Call

  We had the perfect case. Isolated, with three hundred years of experience to draw on. A procedure that had been performed literally millions of times was going to be done once in close to ideal conditions. We were going to make history with the perfect revive, in both body and mind, of a three-hundred-year-old man. It would be a textbook case, and I was to be its author. So of course we screwed it up.

  —A LIFE RENEWED: THE BIOGRAPHY OF DR. NEELA HARPER

  It started out as an awareness. Nothing was associated with the awareness. No shapes or colors or feelings were part of this awareness. None of the five senses were present. Just an awareness, and with it a feeling of the most complete satisfaction that could be imagined. Slowly a sense of self began to evolve.

  I am a “he,” thought the he.

  With this revelation came new sensations. Time had no anchor whatsoever, so what seemed to take a moment may have been considerably longer. But it didn’t really matter. Because the he was beginning to remember what the sensations were and to put them in proper context. The art of separating feeling from hearing from vision was a skill taken for granted that the he had to relearn. But the he was not impatient. Somehow, although the he did not know his name, his location, or his past, the he did know to the core of his newly reawakened being that the he had all the time in the world. He did somehow remember that time had been the he’s enemy. Time had been something always closing in, biting off large chunks of the he—making the he afraid. But the he was no longer afraid. Justin . . .

  My name is JUSTIN, the he realized.

  Now he had all the time in the world.

  JUSTIN is in a bed, JUSTIN thought. JUSTIN still had no concept of where JUSTIN was or how JUSTIN had gotten there. JUSTIN’s memory was nothing beyond the primal sense of self that one has when awoken from a long and confusing dream.

  Not
a dream—a nightmare.

  The bed felt very comfortable. The mattress made JUSTIN feel like he was floating on waves of tiny bubbles, and the linen was of a perfect warmth that made JUSTIN want to roll over and go back to bed. But JUSTIN resisted that urge—not out of any sense of apprehension or need, but out of the knowledge that JUSTIN had slept long enough.

  He smelled a pot of coffee. It was just brewing up fresh and was going to be ready soon. He knew that for a fact but didn’t remember hearing any of the associated sounds—the steady stream of liquid hitting liquid, the hiss and gurgle at the culmination. Justin was not yet aware of how odd that was. He was paying attention to what he did hear. A soft hum in the background was accompanied by the sound of the crisp pages of a book being turned. Next he became aware of the light and knew it was light, and that the light was coming from the outside.

  His eyes fluttered open.

  The light was a perfect ambient illumination that did not hurt his eyes in the least. There was no one place the light was coming from.

  How odd, thought Justin. At that moment he could not have described to anyone what a lightbulb or lamp was, but a part of his mind was aware that light simply did not come from nowhere.

  His eyes were sweeping the surroundings, absorbing all that he saw. But he did not see any one thing at first so much as he saw the entire room. It was simple, with a door at the far end and a coffee table and two chairs beyond the bed he lay in. There was a painting on the wall. He lingered on it. It was a beautiful rendition of an ocean as viewed from a forest on a cliff. He could not explain how all those concepts could have been conveyed by a simple painting, but he wanted it for his collection.

  I collect art, he remembered. His mind became flooded with images of sculptures and paintings and shapes and experiences and hours. Hours spent admiring his collection and the personal sense of happiness that he owned such beauty.