"
Yeah,
that thing you're yapping with."
"Yapping?"
"Stop talking. Keep your mouth closed and start listening. I have to take you back to the safe house. There's a guy there from your
time,
who will explain things in a
way,
you can understand."
* * *
Sitting in the center of his lab, scientist, Dr. Daniel
Cronsworth,
turned from his computer screen and wrote down a few notes in his journal.
Occasionally the
man in his late forties finger
-
combed his thick dark hair
that had
streaks of gray showing through. Hutch, his young undergrad lab
assistant,
with his own mop of brown hair, walked in the room and placed a file on the table next to the
spectrophotometer
. "Hey boss, your presence has been requested in the conference room."
Without turning from his lab journal, Daniel continued to write
notes
as he replied, "And who wants to see me in the conference room. If it's for Monica's birthday party, you can start without me. Will you check the autoclave? It stopped making the beeping sound when it finishes and I don't want to leave the instruments in there all weekend."
Hutch walked toward the door as he gave his answer. "Monica's birthday party was last week. The autoclave is still cooling down and will be doing so for another hour and there's a gigantic military dude waiting for you."
"He can wait until I'm finished with my notes."
The lab assistant stopped at the door, turned back toward his boss and said, "He arrived in a helicopter that landed in the parking lot. There are guys standing guard at the front door. I wouldn't make him
wait,
but
heck,
you have fancy microscopes and Petri dishes, all they have are big guns."
Daniel dropped his pen and quickly took off his reading glasses. With a light
jog,
he caught up to Hutch and exited the lab.
He entered the conference room and saw a six foot seven, light red haired general with a slight beer gut waiting for him. "Dr. Cronsworth," the military man
said and
stuck out his hand, "I'm General Christopher Brown." The two men shook hands. "I'm sorry for the sudden interruption to your
work,
but we have a situation that needs your immediate attention. Normally, when something strange like this
happens,
I call the Collins
Institute,
but they said you might be better equipped for this situation."
Still confused as why the General was here, Daniel had all kinds of questions spinning through his head. Moments
ago,
he was engrossed in his gene splicing project and now
he was
talking to a man who travels with armed guards. "Collins Institute? Why would they recommend me? Wait, what do you mean strange situation?"
The tall general motioned his hand to the chairs so they could take the weight off their feet. Sitting across from each other at the long mahogany conference table, Brown explained. "I didn't believe it when the details came across my
desk,
but it appears to be verified. I saw security video, talked to several morticians and coroners, it appears to be true."
Daniel glanced at the two soldiers stationed by the door and back at the general. "I still don't understand. What appears to be true?"
Brown rubbed his hand along the side of his face while he thought about his answer. "We have thirty two reports from various parts of the country. Some from morgues, some funeral homes, one vehicle accident scene, people or I should say
bodies,
which have been declared
dead,
returned to life for no apparent reason. You would think it's a simple case of misdiagnosis, but
thirty-two
? Those are odds Vegas wouldn't touch."
A young soldier walked in the room and set an electronic
tablet
on the table,
pushing
it toward Daniel. As Dr. Cronsworth glanced at the electronic documents, the General continued. "We've been doing what we can to keep a lid on these stories. Hell, nobody wants to start reporting dead bodies coming back to life.
They would
look like idiots. If it continues, someone will eventually run it on the evening news. At that point, I'm going to get calls asking me what the military is doing about it." Two more soldiers walked in with two large olive drab military storage crates and set them down on the floor next to Daniel. "When that call comes in, I want to be able to say we have already neutralized the situation."
Daniel skimmed through
several
more pages on the tablet. "All of these cases happened within twenty minutes of each other on the same day."
"Yeah, and they're scattered all across the
map,
"
the
General replied. "I hope this is just a hiccup in the natural order of things and year from now it will all be forgotten."
Glancing up from the tablet, Daniel pointed to the boxes. "What's in the crates?"
"Four of these incidents happened right here in
Denver
. One happened during the autopsy of a man who was hit by the light rail train. The coroner
had
already
taken
out several organs when the guy stood up and walked away. I confiscated the body
parts,
plus his clothes and everything that touched the deceased." Brown motioned his head toward the
door,
signaling the soldiers to exit. "Obviously, I'm not a
scientist,
but I'm guessing you're going to find this is some kind of new strain of African
sleeping sickness
. Maybe all these people had some bad Fugu for lunch. I never did understand the need to go into a sushi restaurant and pay thirty bucks to eat the most poisonous thing on the menu."
Still reading the
pages
on the tablet, Daniel responded, "It says here, the coroner removed this man's kidney and pancreas before he walked out the door. I can't see how African
sleeping sickness
or eating some bad puffer fish could overcome missing organs."
The General leaned back in his chair. "I had an uncle who donated one of his kidneys and later had his gallbladder removed. He lived to be 87."
"But this body walked out of the room while his abdomen was still cut open. I'm sure your uncle was stitched back up before he left the hospital. "
"Look Doc, I've seen boys on the battlefield get all kinds of holes blown through them and
they
still
did
all kinds of things. When I was a
Lieutenant,
I watched one of my buddies get ripped open by a mortar. He ran across a hundred yards of tarmac holding his intestines with one hand and carrying an ammo can in the other. While waiting to get
medevac’d
out of there, he ate a turkey sandwich and drank a beer."
"Did he live?"
Brown stood up and turned toward the door. "He married my ex-wife's sister and made General two years before me." As he walked out of the room, he said, "Get me some reasonable sounding answers and let's put this whole damn thing behind us."
Inside the dark abandoned warehouse, a little over seventy undead stood or
sat,
while they listened to the tall man speak
from
the center of the group. His clothes suggested the body he inhabited used to be part of a
heavy
metal band wearing leather and studded wrist cuffs, heavy black boots, and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. He spoke in a loud voice as if he had addressed large crowds many times. His long hair had colored
streaks,
which wove in and
out,
creating a tiger stripe-like pattern. The man slowly turned so he could address all bodies in the room.
Vic led Prometheus into the area where they stood at the edge of the crowd. The man from
Chicago
whispered to the Athenian, "That's Gunnar Benwa. He's one of the ancient guys like you. I don't know my history all that well, so I don't know which one of you is older. Before he was transferred to that body, he was some kind of Viking." Pointing to another man near a wooden crate, he continued, "Benwa and that guy dressed like a gang banger are both from the history books. The
banger's
name is Titus and he's like a Roman or something. Both of these guys used to be somebody in their former lives and they've
kind of
become our new leaders in all this chaos."
Prometheus scanned the upper rafters of the deteriorating warehouse.
Blackbirds
nested in several of the support beams
and
old wires hung loose across dilapidated ventilation ducts. Dirt and
grunge
covered all the surfaces. Bright blue sky peaked through several of the grime
-
covered broken windows offering the only light in the building. "Dear friend, I still do not understand many of your words." He brought his attention back to Vic. "My ears have not heard of the people you call Vikings and Romans and
gang bangers
. These countries and regions from which they hail did not appear on the maps I have read. This is one more unanswered
question,
I have to add to the already numerous
inquiries,
which only go back to the time you and I met on that unusual street. From what I understand so far, our souls have been transported into these bodies and I now stand thousands of years in my future. This is the extent of my understanding of where we are at this time."
"You got
it,
chief." Vic pulled the lower half of his sport coat back and placed his hands in his pants pockets. "I used to be just some shmuck from the South Side. I was overweight with a bad ticker and diabetes. Now look at me. I'm styling in this new body of some guy who had money and must have belonged to a gym. Other than the fact we're dead, I feel like I'm living large."
Prometheus shook his head with confusion. "This language
that
we are speaking. I do not understand many of the terms. Perhaps you, my new friend, good Vic, you could explain why we have all been brought here and placed in these bodies."
"Yeah, actually Benwa and Titus have been here the longest and seem to have the best insight on what's going on around here." He pointed to the two men who were in a heated debate. "And, somewhere in this group, there's this ancient Princess chick who gathered a bunch of us to fill us in on what's happening."
"You speak of royalty with little regard to their status." Prometheus turned to watch the two men arguing. "This is the queerest dream
that
I have ever experienced."