"goodnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Richardson Christine G)

A Gentle Good-Night -- The Orphic Chronicle

A Gentle Good-Night

by Christine G. Richardson
The doctor smiled impersonally, displaying perfectly symmetrical teeth. Ammar had no difficulty identifying his Professional Face, Model XNE398, Caucasian, manufactured and installed by Kamal World-Wide Enterprises, Second Start Division.
"Your nanophytes are failing," the doctor announced. "Damage will be irreversible within thirty days."
Ammar shook his head. What was wrong with this idiot? He must have the wrong file.
Ammar's bioimplants were Plutonium Plus -- the best, guaranteed unconditionally for a full century. They had served flawlessly for two hundred and sixteen years -- a tribute to the scientific acumen of the Kamal dynasty.
Ammar's grandfather had pioneered the war on aging with legions of mice, rabbits and guinea pigs. His father had patented the process and scrounged the funding for primate research. Ammar had been the first to reap the benefit. Not only was he the oldest man on earth, but he was the richest.
"Change must come to us all," the doctor said kindly, confidentially, leaning forward. "With immediate intervention, you should be able to experience many more years of productive living. We have several attractively-priced options to choose from: our Daily Regeneration facility; surgical replacement of the nanophytes, cryostasis and neurological --"
Ammar leaped to his feet, smashing his fist onto the doctor's desk. "Shut up, you asshole! I wrote that speech before you were born!"
The doctor flinched almost imperceptibly and pushed a button on his intercom. "Your negative feelings are quite understandable. I experienced similar emotional turmoil forty years ago --"
The nurses had to call the building custodian to help them pry Ammar's fingers from the doctor's throat.
"Tough one," the custodian told his wife over dinner. "It's always the ones who seem the strongest who can't handle it when their time comes." His own bioimplants were the "Bestvalu" model, guaranteed for ten years, fifteen for those who could afford the insurance. He had mortgaged everything to buy his current set, and was still making payments when they began to develop abnormalities. But he had never laid a finger on a doctor, no matter how uncaring he appeared. When the Final Malfunction came, he would enter the Columbarium quietly, without sedation.
Ammar swiveled his chair towards the transparent wall of his office. The view was soothing: sky, mountains and grass, as if the city did not exist at all. He faced almost three thousand square miles of unpopulated land, surrounded by a transparent deflection field. This was his private paradise: the largest tract of undeveloped habitable land on the planet. He had acquired it bit by bit over the years, sheltering it from the blight of urban sprawl. He was hounded daily with increasingly attractive offers, but money no longer interested him. Some people collected antique cars or works of art; he collected land.
His secret refuge was hidden in the woods near the foot of the mountains -- a log cabin with oil lamps and a wood stove (supplemented by discreet back-up power in case he wearied of the novelty of splitting wood). No computers, no news channel, not even a telephone. Not that he had time to visit it; but it comforted him to know it was waiting for him.
Ammar glanced down at the humanity swirling around the base of the Kamal Rejuvenation Technologies office tower. A vortex of bodies was brandishing signs and chanting. The Natural Life people were demonstrating again. The faces changed as the old ones died and their numerous progeny took their place, but the message continued with numbing monotony.
Rejuvenation technology was the work of the devil.
The Kamal implants were deemed "unnatural", as were organ transplants, in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, and contraception. A pity that they had not banned all medical interventions. That might counterbalance their indiscriminate breeding.
Unchecked reproduction had allowed the NatLife sect to grow from a handful of dissidents to a visible and vocal faction of political importance.
The sect had an insidious way of attracting those who were looking for a higher purpose for their existence. When Ammar's daughter Ajaya had left home rather than submit to nanophyte implantation, she had been a secret member of the sect for over three years. Decades of litigation had followed her rescue. In retaliation, Ammar had funded the Reclamation Centre, a charity hospital for NatLife cult victims. A tragic number of them, like his own Ajaya, had not responded to de-programming, but had to be constantly supervised, controlled by a delicately-balanced array of mind-altering medication.
He toyed with his phone. The rejuvenation clinic had phoned four times today, leaving urgent messages with his personal assistant. He had to make a decision immediately, or forfeit the opportunity to decide at all.
He had always schooled himself to move decisively, never agonizing over his choices, never second-guessing. His highly paid aides had consummate damage control skills. If he had made any errors in judgement, they had not presumed to bring them to his attention.
Now, for the first time in his life, he felt helpless. All his options were unacceptable, and there was nothing his corporate machine could do to change that.
Regeneration would provide only temporary benefit, eating up two potentially productive hours each day and limiting his freedom to travel. Surgery was hazardous to the nervous system, and only thirty percent of replacement bioimplants functioned adequately. Cryostasis would sideline him for decades, possibly centuries. The final, most attractive option -- neurological download for later implantation into the brain of a youthful, disease-free cyborg – was still in the early research stage.
During the two hundred years he had spent building his empire, The Final Malfunction had been an abstract concept -- something that happened to those who could not, or would not, take proper care of themselves. Now, without warning, it was solid and real. He was sliding into deterioration
. He pushed his intercom button. "Harry -- bring me whoever is leading that demonstration down there."
"Sorry about the handcuffs," Ammar told the blond man who stared down at him from the other side of his desk. "I didn't intend them to use force."
Ammar had already forgotten this one's name. Natlifers were all alike: young, healthy, and absolutely certain of their own righteousness. His eyes glittered with the same fanatical resentment as Ajaya's when she was first rescued.
The Natlifer snorted, unimpressed by Ammar's good-cop-bad-cop maneuver. "I bet. What do you want?" "What brings you people here day after day?" Ammar's mouth was dry. In all his years of battling with NatLife, he had never asked why
. "Free the prisoners. Stop your unholy rape of humanity, and allow all citizens to live as nature intended."
"Prisoners? What prisoners?"
"The 221 citizens unlawfully incarcerated in your so-called Reclamation Centre."
Ammar spoke soothingly, as he would to a nervous stockholder. "They don't want to leave. You can go down during visiting hours and ask them for yourself."
"Withdraw the drugs for 48 hours, and then tell me that." The blond man stepped to the window and waved to the demonstrators. "Your daughter still hates your guts, you know."
Ammar's fingers quivered. "What could you possibly know about my daughter? That was before your grandfather's time!"
"We will not let the stories die until justice is done. Let the prisoners go!"
"You arrogant bastard." Ammar spoke softly and deliberately, holding both hands tightly in his lap to keep them from trembling. "You're in your prime now, full of yourself and the glorious exclusivity of your holiness. But wait ten years -- you'll be waiting in line at my clinic!"
The man barely glanced at him. "I have seen people die," he said softly. "Have you?"
Die. Death. They insisted on using those archaic terms, as if they were invested with some sort of mystical significance.
Ammar pushed the button on his desk, signaling Security that the interview was over. "I have devoted my life to the elimination of the Final Malfunction. Why would I wish to contemplate it?"
"In order that you may face your own."
Ammar watched the man being led from his office. He unclenched his hands and watched them tremble with a palsy he could not control.
"Thank you for seeing me, Boethe Echann," Ammar said with the thinnest possible veneer of politeness. Despite his extra hours in the regeneration tank, the flight to Geneva had left him exhausted and emotionally unprepared for the humiliation of the electronic strip search and the long, solitary wait while the Boethe finished his daily meditation on Universal Nature.
The Boethe bowed, his eyes sparkling with a hint of amusement. He seated himself carefully on a large cushion and gestured to Ammar to do likewise. "To what do I owe this honour?"
Ammar hesitated. What did he expect from this wizened creature, a mere eighty-six years old, but more physically decayed than anyone he had ever seen?
"Boethe Echann -- are you afraid of the Final Malfunction?"
The sage inclined his head. "It is the unknown. It is also completion, neither to be sought nor avoided."
"And your work? Does it sadden you to leave your work?"
"There are those who are eager to continue it after me." The Boethe shifted on his cushion, wincing. "That is the Wheel of Nature. All things come into being and develop; then they decay and are re-formed. This progression sustains the harmony of the universe."
"I have land," Ammar said. "You could start a community there, and live according to your precepts, without interference."
The Boethe lifted his eyebrows in mild astonishment. "A most generous offer. What do you ask in return?"
"I wish to live among you until ... until I..."
Ammar bowed his head. Die. Such a simple word. It shamed him that he could not utter it.
"We do not provide medication," the Boethe said. "Only the simplest herbs. The process is often painful."
Ammar met the Boethe's eyes, and saw only benign indifference. Amysterious sense of safety and well-being seemed to flow from the sage, clouding the room like incense. Ammar relaxed allowing himself to sink into the unexplored depths of his soul.
"I don't want to die alone."
"Your technology can provide you with many more years of life," the Boethe reminded him.
"I know. But the end is the same."
The Boethe struggled to his feet and walked stiffly around the room, deep in thought. Ammar waited, trying to imagine the deterioration of his own body when rejuvenation was suspended. He had no idea what to expect. The Final Malfunction was an intensely private process.
After the Leavetaking ceremony, an individual's legal existence was over. The last stages of life were hidden from the eyes of the world in the secret heart of a Columbarium. He had been assured that it was a gentle good-night, without awareness or pain. The logical choice.
"There is a condition," the Boethe said at last. "You must close down your Rejuvenation facilities."
Ammar's stomach twisted. "That would be like releasing pet animals into the wild. No better than mass murder." "Is it murder to allow the death of those who are already dead? Perhaps it is compassion."
Ammar shook his head. "I cannot agree. They deserve a choice."
"You did not allow Ajaya the luxury of choice," the old man said softly.
For the first time in a hundred and fifty years, Ammar wept.
The ebullient medical attendant handed Ammar a small case. "Do you have any questions?"
"No," Ammar said. "Your instructions were very thorough."
"In that case, I'll have Ajaya brought down. She's so excited to be spending quality time with you! If you adhere strictly to the medication schedule, you will have no problems."
"Thank you." Ammar sat at the edge of a chair in the waiting room, his eyes glued to the elevator door.
Ajaya was dressed in jeans and her blue gingham shirt, as he had requested. Her glistening black hair was braided in two pigtails fastened with matching blue ribbons. She dropped her overnight case and hugged him enthusiastically. "Where are we going, Daddy?"
"It's a surprise, darling," he said, his eyes stinging. She was his little girl again -- young, innocent, fresh as a flower. Just like her mother, the day a NatLife terrorist shot her as she was fertilizing the roses in her garden. He tossed Ajaya's medications into a garbage can as they pulled out of the Reclamation Centre parking lot. In four hours, they would beat the cabin. When she was herself again, they would talk.
He did not dare to hope that she would forgive him. But he would make right what he could make right. If she chose not to continue her life, it was a simple operation to disable the nanophytes with an electromagnetic field.
Natural death would be less gentle than the synthetic sleep of the Columbarium. But his arms would be holding someone he loved.
Christine lives with her husband and two cats in Hearst, Ontario --"the Moose Capital of Canada". She spends the long, dark winter nights churning out words on her computer, reading, surfing the Internet, and watching TV from the stationary bike. In the summer, she enjoys biking, walking, battling the flower beds, and travelling west to see her mother and her children.

A Gentle Good-Night -- The Orphic Chronicle

A Gentle Good-Night

by Christine G. Richardson
The doctor smiled impersonally, displaying perfectly symmetrical teeth. Ammar had no difficulty identifying his Professional Face, Model XNE398, Caucasian, manufactured and installed by Kamal World-Wide Enterprises, Second Start Division.
"Your nanophytes are failing," the doctor announced. "Damage will be irreversible within thirty days."
Ammar shook his head. What was wrong with this idiot? He must have the wrong file.
Ammar's bioimplants were Plutonium Plus -- the best, guaranteed unconditionally for a full century. They had served flawlessly for two hundred and sixteen years -- a tribute to the scientific acumen of the Kamal dynasty.
Ammar's grandfather had pioneered the war on aging with legions of mice, rabbits and guinea pigs. His father had patented the process and scrounged the funding for primate research. Ammar had been the first to reap the benefit. Not only was he the oldest man on earth, but he was the richest.
"Change must come to us all," the doctor said kindly, confidentially, leaning forward. "With immediate intervention, you should be able to experience many more years of productive living. We have several attractively-priced options to choose from: our Daily Regeneration facility; surgical replacement of the nanophytes, cryostasis and neurological --"
Ammar leaped to his feet, smashing his fist onto the doctor's desk. "Shut up, you asshole! I wrote that speech before you were born!"
The doctor flinched almost imperceptibly and pushed a button on his intercom. "Your negative feelings are quite understandable. I experienced similar emotional turmoil forty years ago --"
The nurses had to call the building custodian to help them pry Ammar's fingers from the doctor's throat.
"Tough one," the custodian told his wife over dinner. "It's always the ones who seem the strongest who can't handle it when their time comes." His own bioimplants were the "Bestvalu" model, guaranteed for ten years, fifteen for those who could afford the insurance. He had mortgaged everything to buy his current set, and was still making payments when they began to develop abnormalities. But he had never laid a finger on a doctor, no matter how uncaring he appeared. When the Final Malfunction came, he would enter the Columbarium quietly, without sedation.
Ammar swiveled his chair towards the transparent wall of his office. The view was soothing: sky, mountains and grass, as if the city did not exist at all. He faced almost three thousand square miles of unpopulated land, surrounded by a transparent deflection field. This was his private paradise: the largest tract of undeveloped habitable land on the planet. He had acquired it bit by bit over the years, sheltering it from the blight of urban sprawl. He was hounded daily with increasingly attractive offers, but money no longer interested him. Some people collected antique cars or works of art; he collected land.
His secret refuge was hidden in the woods near the foot of the mountains -- a log cabin with oil lamps and a wood stove (supplemented by discreet back-up power in case he wearied of the novelty of splitting wood). No computers, no news channel, not even a telephone. Not that he had time to visit it; but it comforted him to know it was waiting for him.
Ammar glanced down at the humanity swirling around the base of the Kamal Rejuvenation Technologies office tower. A vortex of bodies was brandishing signs and chanting. The Natural Life people were demonstrating again. The faces changed as the old ones died and their numerous progeny took their place, but the message continued with numbing monotony.
Rejuvenation technology was the work of the devil.
The Kamal implants were deemed "unnatural", as were organ transplants, in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, and contraception. A pity that they had not banned all medical interventions. That might counterbalance their indiscriminate breeding.
Unchecked reproduction had allowed the NatLife sect to grow from a handful of dissidents to a visible and vocal faction of political importance.
The sect had an insidious way of attracting those who were looking for a higher purpose for their existence. When Ammar's daughter Ajaya had left home rather than submit to nanophyte implantation, she had been a secret member of the sect for over three years. Decades of litigation had followed her rescue. In retaliation, Ammar had funded the Reclamation Centre, a charity hospital for NatLife cult victims. A tragic number of them, like his own Ajaya, had not responded to de-programming, but had to be constantly supervised, controlled by a delicately-balanced array of mind-altering medication.
He toyed with his phone. The rejuvenation clinic had phoned four times today, leaving urgent messages with his personal assistant. He had to make a decision immediately, or forfeit the opportunity to decide at all.
He had always schooled himself to move decisively, never agonizing over his choices, never second-guessing. His highly paid aides had consummate damage control skills. If he had made any errors in judgement, they had not presumed to bring them to his attention.
Now, for the first time in his life, he felt helpless. All his options were unacceptable, and there was nothing his corporate machine could do to change that.
Regeneration would provide only temporary benefit, eating up two potentially productive hours each day and limiting his freedom to travel. Surgery was hazardous to the nervous system, and only thirty percent of replacement bioimplants functioned adequately. Cryostasis would sideline him for decades, possibly centuries. The final, most attractive option -- neurological download for later implantation into the brain of a youthful, disease-free cyborg – was still in the early research stage.
During the two hundred years he had spent building his empire, The Final Malfunction had been an abstract concept -- something that happened to those who could not, or would not, take proper care of themselves. Now, without warning, it was solid and real. He was sliding into deterioration
. He pushed his intercom button. "Harry -- bring me whoever is leading that demonstration down there."
"Sorry about the handcuffs," Ammar told the blond man who stared down at him from the other side of his desk. "I didn't intend them to use force."
Ammar had already forgotten this one's name. Natlifers were all alike: young, healthy, and absolutely certain of their own righteousness. His eyes glittered with the same fanatical resentment as Ajaya's when she was first rescued.
The Natlifer snorted, unimpressed by Ammar's good-cop-bad-cop maneuver. "I bet. What do you want?" "What brings you people here day after day?" Ammar's mouth was dry. In all his years of battling with NatLife, he had never asked why
. "Free the prisoners. Stop your unholy rape of humanity, and allow all citizens to live as nature intended."
"Prisoners? What prisoners?"
"The 221 citizens unlawfully incarcerated in your so-called Reclamation Centre."
Ammar spoke soothingly, as he would to a nervous stockholder. "They don't want to leave. You can go down during visiting hours and ask them for yourself."
"Withdraw the drugs for 48 hours, and then tell me that." The blond man stepped to the window and waved to the demonstrators. "Your daughter still hates your guts, you know."
Ammar's fingers quivered. "What could you possibly know about my daughter? That was before your grandfather's time!"
"We will not let the stories die until justice is done. Let the prisoners go!"
"You arrogant bastard." Ammar spoke softly and deliberately, holding both hands tightly in his lap to keep them from trembling. "You're in your prime now, full of yourself and the glorious exclusivity of your holiness. But wait ten years -- you'll be waiting in line at my clinic!"
The man barely glanced at him. "I have seen people die," he said softly. "Have you?"
Die. Death. They insisted on using those archaic terms, as if they were invested with some sort of mystical significance.
Ammar pushed the button on his desk, signaling Security that the interview was over. "I have devoted my life to the elimination of the Final Malfunction. Why would I wish to contemplate it?"
"In order that you may face your own."
Ammar watched the man being led from his office. He unclenched his hands and watched them tremble with a palsy he could not control.
"Thank you for seeing me, Boethe Echann," Ammar said with the thinnest possible veneer of politeness. Despite his extra hours in the regeneration tank, the flight to Geneva had left him exhausted and emotionally unprepared for the humiliation of the electronic strip search and the long, solitary wait while the Boethe finished his daily meditation on Universal Nature.
The Boethe bowed, his eyes sparkling with a hint of amusement. He seated himself carefully on a large cushion and gestured to Ammar to do likewise. "To what do I owe this honour?"
Ammar hesitated. What did he expect from this wizened creature, a mere eighty-six years old, but more physically decayed than anyone he had ever seen?
"Boethe Echann -- are you afraid of the Final Malfunction?"
The sage inclined his head. "It is the unknown. It is also completion, neither to be sought nor avoided."
"And your work? Does it sadden you to leave your work?"
"There are those who are eager to continue it after me." The Boethe shifted on his cushion, wincing. "That is the Wheel of Nature. All things come into being and develop; then they decay and are re-formed. This progression sustains the harmony of the universe."
"I have land," Ammar said. "You could start a community there, and live according to your precepts, without interference."
The Boethe lifted his eyebrows in mild astonishment. "A most generous offer. What do you ask in return?"
"I wish to live among you until ... until I..."
Ammar bowed his head. Die. Such a simple word. It shamed him that he could not utter it.
"We do not provide medication," the Boethe said. "Only the simplest herbs. The process is often painful."
Ammar met the Boethe's eyes, and saw only benign indifference. Amysterious sense of safety and well-being seemed to flow from the sage, clouding the room like incense. Ammar relaxed allowing himself to sink into the unexplored depths of his soul.
"I don't want to die alone."
"Your technology can provide you with many more years of life," the Boethe reminded him.
"I know. But the end is the same."
The Boethe struggled to his feet and walked stiffly around the room, deep in thought. Ammar waited, trying to imagine the deterioration of his own body when rejuvenation was suspended. He had no idea what to expect. The Final Malfunction was an intensely private process.
After the Leavetaking ceremony, an individual's legal existence was over. The last stages of life were hidden from the eyes of the world in the secret heart of a Columbarium. He had been assured that it was a gentle good-night, without awareness or pain. The logical choice.
"There is a condition," the Boethe said at last. "You must close down your Rejuvenation facilities."
Ammar's stomach twisted. "That would be like releasing pet animals into the wild. No better than mass murder." "Is it murder to allow the death of those who are already dead? Perhaps it is compassion."
Ammar shook his head. "I cannot agree. They deserve a choice."
"You did not allow Ajaya the luxury of choice," the old man said softly.
For the first time in a hundred and fifty years, Ammar wept.
The ebullient medical attendant handed Ammar a small case. "Do you have any questions?"
"No," Ammar said. "Your instructions were very thorough."
"In that case, I'll have Ajaya brought down. She's so excited to be spending quality time with you! If you adhere strictly to the medication schedule, you will have no problems."
"Thank you." Ammar sat at the edge of a chair in the waiting room, his eyes glued to the elevator door.
Ajaya was dressed in jeans and her blue gingham shirt, as he had requested. Her glistening black hair was braided in two pigtails fastened with matching blue ribbons. She dropped her overnight case and hugged him enthusiastically. "Where are we going, Daddy?"
"It's a surprise, darling," he said, his eyes stinging. She was his little girl again -- young, innocent, fresh as a flower. Just like her mother, the day a NatLife terrorist shot her as she was fertilizing the roses in her garden. He tossed Ajaya's medications into a garbage can as they pulled out of the Reclamation Centre parking lot. In four hours, they would beat the cabin. When she was herself again, they would talk.
He did not dare to hope that she would forgive him. But he would make right what he could make right. If she chose not to continue her life, it was a simple operation to disable the nanophytes with an electromagnetic field.
Natural death would be less gentle than the synthetic sleep of the Columbarium. But his arms would be holding someone he loved.
Christine lives with her husband and two cats in Hearst, Ontario --"the Moose Capital of Canada". She spends the long, dark winter nights churning out words on her computer, reading, surfing the Internet, and watching TV from the stationary bike. In the summer, she enjoys biking, walking, battling the flower beds, and travelling west to see her mother and her children.