The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [6]
Standing straight, Lukas unbuttoned his lab whites, recovered the envelopes from the top of the wastepaper basket, sucked in his stomach, and slipped them under his belt.
After he finished tweaking Raul’s intake of chemicals and gases, it would be 17:20. Forty minutes later, the central computer would loop into the daily backup routine. The carrier truck would slam shut and processing would stop for ten minutes. Life support ran in dependently, and the computer shutdown wouldn’t affect it. His staff would stretch, perhaps walk out onto a catwalk to snatch a toke from a joint or grab a cup of coffee.
Lukas would have ten minutes to step outside, nod at Josh or Martin, smile at Sandra, leisurely make for the rest rooms, and, once in the main corridor, run like hell toward tank 913.
chapter 3
17:27
“We’ve read the documents you sent and watched the film several times. Haven’t we, dear?”
Dear made a wry movement with his mouth and nodded.
Dr. Floyd Carpenter hated this aspect of his work. He attempted a reassuring smile and nodded at the couple sitting in his office. He would have chosen nearness and the sofa, to offer them some warmth for what might be the most difficult decision in their lives, instead of hiding behind a desk. But the company insisted on a protocol: Clients prefer sitting across from a doctor in a white overcoat.
“But there are some details we don’t understand. Right, dear?”
Dear didn’t move this time. The man was fading. Unless they reached a quick decision, there would be nothing left to hibernate.
Floyd glanced at the screen on the surface of his glass desk. Sarah Ward, 66, and her husband, John, 70—the latter dying of a fast-spreading bone metastasis. He checked the time: 5:28 P.M. By six o’clock the labs would be deserted. Then he would have perhaps two hours to prepare a little-used operating theater and a reanimation vessel for a private patient due at around eight o’clock. No witnesses and no help. Plenty of time, he hoped. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“We are simple people,” she started. “I mean, all this technology is a little over our heads.”
Floyd had to agree with her caveat. Their business was simple magic, not science. John’s tales of Theodore the Turtle, Tiberius the Gecko, and Bernard the Squirrel—lovingly illustrated by Sarah—had filled generations of American children with wonder.
“Will he dream?” she asked.
Simple folk ask unsimple questions, as his father used to say. “Yes, he will. A live mind needs the exercise, but we select a proper mixture of sedatives to guarantee”—he was about to say pleasant dreams but corralled his tongue in time—”a peaceful slumber.”
“How long?”
Floyd leaned forward. “How long?”
Sarah darted a glance to her husband. John’s head lolled like a stalk of ripe corn before a breeze. The cocktail of sedatives and painkillers he swallowed six times a day must be playing hell with his biorhythms. “Yes. How long will he be in hibernation?”
“I’m afraid nobody knows.” Floyd slid a neat sage-green file across the glass, flicked it open, and pointed to a form. “That’s the reason we accept not monthly or yearly payments but a fund to guarantee your husband’s upkeep almost indefinitely.”
“But … can he die?”
Simple folk ask unsimple … Floyd swatted away his dad’s memory and tried marshaling words to reduce the unexplainable to simple terms. “We all die, Mrs. Ward. Hibernation is a form of energy conservation. We lower the patient’s metabolism but don’t stop it. Patients age at a much slower pace, but they age, and their bodies continue to decay. Nyx Corp has the most advanced hibernation installations anywhere in the world—”
“Better than Hypnos?”
He would have to tread carefully. “We work under their license. They developed and own the technology, but there are differences. Hypnos runs the penitentiary hibernation stations and built their installations for economy, with large tanks to house many inmates. Our