Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 4, July 2014 (8 page)

“Anna!” He stood and waved to her as she crossed the shop. In a moment, she was in his arms.

“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed in his ear before he let go.

“You too,” he said as they sat down.

Her hair was shorter, but still the same shimmery caramel colour that so complemented her dark eyes. And yes, there were lines around those eyes that hadn’t been there when they parted, but he told himself they suited her.

“So…how are you?” she asked, swallowing an awkward pause.

He brushed a strand of loose hair out of his eyes and met her gaze. “How do I look?”

“Happy, healthy and handsome, of course. But you always did.”

He heard the hidden statement in her words. He’d appeared just as healthy when he was diagnosed. It didn’t change the fact that there was a fault in his genes. But he didn’t want to have that conversation yet. Or maybe ever.

She seemed to sense the change in his mood, and reached over to take his hand. “I’ve missed you. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”

He clasped her hand in return. “Neither did I.” Even the specialist’s certainty that a cure was just around the corner could have meant months or decades. He paused. “Was it too long, Anna?” The question had been on his mind for a week. He still wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know the answer.

Anna looked away, as though she didn’t know where to begin with it either. She took back her hand and smiled up at a passing waiter, who stopped to take their order.

When he had gone, she took a breath and answered him. “I let you go, Day. I had to. How could we have a future when I’d have lived my life while yours was on hold? How could I live my life, waiting and pinning all my hopes on something that might never happen?”

His heart ached, but he managed a weak smile. “I knew you would…I hoped you would. Get on with your life, I mean. Bu–tell me it wasn’t because you were still angry with me?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “No. No, of course not. Look, I’ve been wanting to tell you this for so long, and wondering if I’d ever get the chance to. I know you were ill. I never questioned that. I was just afraid for you, freezing yourself so young with no guarantee that you’d ever be reanimated. I wished you’d just considered living your life first, at least a little. With me.”

Damian shook his head. “You know I put off the decision as long as I could. I spent days debating whether to delay my freeze so I could spend more time with you, despite knowing that it could lessen my chances of recovery.” She knew all this. Had the years reshaped her memories that much? He took a calming breath and met her gaze.

“I’m so sorry if you felt like I was choosing cryo over you. But it paid off! I’m here, my final course of treatment starts next week, and I get to live my life now.”

“You know, when I heard on the news that they’d perfected the cure for Parkinson’s, I had to pull my car over to take it in. Not just that you’d be cured, but that you’d be back. I’d get to tell you these things after all. See you again, eight years on.”

Damian’s third cup of coffee arrived with Anna’s first, and they sat in silence for a few moments, stirring and sipping. The lull allowed Damian to work himself up to the next question that was plaguing him.

“So, has any of this altered your feelings about cryonics?”

She sighed. “I’d love to say yes. Everyone kept asking me the same thing last year. It was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Europe’s last natural death. But the answer’s still the same. I just don’t feel right about it.”

He had always respected the careful reasoning behind her aversion, but Damian no longer had the unbiased luxury of complying with her. He’d heard her arguments so many times he could recite them by heart. No matter how many eminent scientists and doctors continued to affirm it, or how many people now accepted it as a part of their lives as normal as marriage or retirement, Anna stood firm in her belief that cryonics was wrong.

“Remember Prometheus? Life is supposed to end in death.”

Damian rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it. “You’re starting to sound like one of the Anticry Brigade.”

“Come on, Day. I may want nothing to do with cryonics myself, but I’m not out to rid the world of it.”

He tried to keep the tension from his voice, but they weren’t debating coursework or passing judgement on faceless strangers any more. “Well, I’m here having coffee with you now because of it. So maybe you should ask yourself whether you’d rather I was dying from natural causes instead.”

It had been like this between them in the days leading up to his preservation. He knew Anna was recalling those dark times too. She bit her lip and closed her eyes before reaching out to take his hand again.

“Please, let’s not do this. I missed you, and I’m so relieved you’re back. Can we talk about something else?”

He squeezed her hand, his heart racing as he considered the final big question on his mind. “Well, I could ask you if you’re seeing anyone. But I’d understand if you don’t want to talk about that either.”

She waited for him to look at her before she answered. “No. I’m not seeing anyone right now.”

“Right now? As in, maybe you will be next week?”

She laughed. “As in, I was seeing someone a couple of years ago, but it’s over.”

Damian grimaced. A couple of years ago for him, they were talking about moving in together. He buried his mixed feelings and ploughed on. “So…can we see each other again?”

She sighed. “I’d like to, Day, but…I need some time to think about it.”

He wanted to ask her what there was to think about, but he wasn’t that insensitive. He knew this was hard for her, too.

Instead they changed the subject and drank coffee for two hours, catching up on Anna’s life and Damian’s plans. But unspoken questions remained between them, and Damian noted that Anna didn’t ask him how cryo had felt or whether he had been aware of his surroundings. And he didn’t tell her his anxieties of the unknown were gone, and he now welcomed his next cryopreservation; the one he would enter, like everyone else, before he was seventy years old in the hope of someone eventually finding a cure for old age.

Although her beliefs still chafed, the first week of his return allowed Damian to grasp some of Anna’s fears. The world had changed a lot in eight years. Unfamiliar technology abounded. Governments had changed. Damian didn’t understand recent pop culture references and had nothing to discuss with friends aside from his cryonics experience. Everybody knew someone stored at the Institute, but not many people knew someone who had been reanimated, so he was a source of endless fascination. His friends had thriving careers while he still had the limited qualifications and experience of a guy in his mid-twenties. Most of them were married with children. Their lives had moved on without him.

The same could be said of his family.

His sister and her husband had offered to support him through the early months. Phyllis still took her relaxed approach to life and hadn’t lost her playful sense of humour, but she now exuded an air of settled responsibility. It surprised Damian how much that complemented her. It would take a while to get used to seeing her without glasses, though. The laser surgery she had always promised herself had clearly been a success.

“It’s weird. I’m five years younger than you now,” he said one evening as he helped clear the table. He had been her big brother.

She flicked him with a tea towel. “Don’t rub it in! You’ve already made me feel old enough for being a mother of three.”

“Well, Ben was just a kicking bump the last time I saw him. I knew you’d have one growing, energetic kid; I didn’t expect there to be two more. But it suits you.” He smiled as he loaded the dishwasher. “I wonder how old they’ll be before Mum and Dad get to meet them?”

Phyllis put down her cloth. “Damian, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Her tone made him stop what he was doing. She sat down and gestured for him to do the same. “What?” he asked, suddenly anxious.

“Mum isn’t in cryo with Dad.” Phyllis took a breath. “She died in a traffic accident four years ago.”

He stared at her in silence for a long moment. “No. She was due to enter the programme the year after me! She…” His throat constricted. Phyllis came over and knelt beside him.

“I know, Day. I was so glad you got to say goodbye to her before you went. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I thought it was better to let you settle in first.”

He couldn’t speak. Settle in? How could he ‘settle in’ to the idea that his mother was dead?

“What…what about Dad?” he eventually managed, wiping away tears. “He’ll be brought back without her. They always believed cryo meant they’d never lose each other.”

“I know.” Phyllis’ eyes were welling too, her old grief returning with his new loss. “But it doesn’t always work that way. I miss her every day, just like I miss Dad, and missed you. But you’re back, and he’ll be back one day. It’s still hard to accept she won’t be.”

Damian felt his new world closing in on him. He was alive. His illness was gone. But nothing had waited for him to catch up. If this was how it felt for him, how bewildering would it be for his father? His poor dad, waking up to a world where his never-met grandchildren were as old as he was, themselves waking up from decades in the cold…and the one person he had counted on as his constant would be absent–long dead, and not yet mourned.

#

Damian checked his phone for the umpteenth time since he met Anna at the coffee shop. Phyllis caught him putting it down with a sigh.

“Why don’t you just call her?” she asked.

“She said she needed time to think. I don’t want to hassle her.”

“But ignoring her is hardly going to help her adjust to your return. Ask her to a holofilm with you–or dinner. Invite her for dinner here, if you don’t want it to seem like a date.”

Damian smiled. “That’s a lovely offer, Phyll. But…I don’t know. I don’t expect her to pick up where we left off, but I can’t even assume she still wants me in her life. I feel like the ball’s in her court.”

“Think about it, at least. I know it’s killing you to be so distant from her.” Phyllis reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “I can only imagine what it’s like to have lost so much time with someone you love…and for it to feel like no time at all for you.”

Indeed, Anna had lived a quarter of her life while he was on the long, quiet journey to his recovery. He couldn’t just come back to life and start interfering with hers. So when she finally called him, ten days after their first meeting, he could hardly keep the delight out of his voice.

“Anna!” he greeted her.

“Hi, Day.” Her voice was subdued.

“It’s good to hear from you! How are things?”

“I’m…” She seemed to stumble on the words. “I need someone to talk to. Can you meet me?”

“Of course.” Sudden dread overtook his relief at hearing from her. “Are you okay?”

She ignored the question. “Are you free now? I’m in the city.”

“Roasted Bean?” He checked his watch. “Half an hour?”

“Great. I’ll be there.”

He arrived a few minutes late, as the city traffic was worse than he remembered. He reached the shop to find Anna waiting for him outside. When he hugged her, she clung to him longer than before.

“Can we take a walk instead?” she asked as they parted.

“The sun’s shining–why not?” He smiled as they crossed the street to the little park opposite. Anna didn’t smile back.

They walked in silence for several minutes. Damian decided to break the tension. “What did you want to talk about?”

Anna stopped beside a park bench and they sat down.

“Damian.” Her voice cracked. “I have a brain tumour.”

The sounds of the city faded. Damian shook his head to comprehend her words. “What? Anna…When did you find out? How bad is it?”

“Bad. Two days ago. The doctor said it was too advanced for conventional treatments to have a reasonable chance. It’s inoperable.”

No. No, he’d just got back! He wasn’t ready to say goodbye again.

“So–they’re referring you to the Institute?”

She nodded.

His mind was a whirl of questions and denials. “When do you go?” How much time do we have left?

“Next week. Supposedly.”

He knew that tone of voice, laced with cynicism and mistrust. “Wait. You are going?”

Her breath caught in what might have been a sob. “I don’t know. Every nerve in my body is screaming ‘no’. I don’t want to die…but I don’t want to live forever. If this is it, if this is meant to be my time, then maybe…”

He interrupted her. “Don’t be foolish, Anna. It doesn’t have to be your time! Technology gives you the option to survive–why would you even think of rejecting that?”

“But I don’t want to just survive!” Tears flowed down her cheeks now. “Whatever I choose, I won’t be living. I’ll be unconscious in a dark chamber until who-knows-what century, or I’ll be gradually losing pieces of my mind until I can no longer function. Either way, living isn’t an option.”

“Look at me, Anna. No, really, look at me!” She turned her distraught face to him. “I had the same choice. Exactly the same choice. Are you telling me I’m not living now? That I made the wrong decision?”

“You knew your cure wasn’t far off. But what if they never find mine? What if a future society decides there are too many frozen people and starts putting time limits on us? Or the Anticry Brigade finally manages to blow up branches of the Institute, killing all the people they’re housing?” She took a breath. “Maybe it’s time we all stopped running from death.”

He was angry at her now. It had been one thing holding her staunch views from a safe, healthy standpoint, but now she was talking about throwing away her life for them. He was damned if he was going to let her do that. She was upset; she wasn’t thinking straight. He took a deep breath to center himself before he spoke again.

“You still have time to think about this. I’ll be here for you, Anna. I can answer your questions about the process. I’ll help you make the financial arrangements with your insurance company, deal with your outstanding affairs so you don’t have to worry about anything–whatever you need. Just promise me you’ll continue to think about it?”