Chapter 6 #3
Relief washes over him as he makes for the revolving door.
He stands in the short line waiting his turn, agitatedly glancing over his shoulder.
The practically nude woman edges closer, waving her hands frantically.
He has to get outside and over to the station.
The police will sort this out. Surely someone there speaks English and can take him to the embassy.
Then, with a few calls, he’ll be on a private jet, heading home. The joke will be on them.
“James, wait!” she cries again.
He half considers dragging her across the street with him.
She deserves a fine, at minimum, for the agony she’s put him through.
It doesn’t matter if his friends paid her handsomely.
She’s complicit as far as he’s concerned.
Probably a common criminal. Or an adult film star for hire, more likely. Scientist his ass.
He needs to get the hell out of here. He can only imagine the mountains of work he’ll have by the time he gets back stateside. If only he had his cell.
He darts into the next available slot. The door moves him forward, sealing him in his piece of the pie.
But unlike any revolving door he’s ever been in, it pauses.
He tries pushing on the glass wall that will lead him outside, but it doesn’t budge.
Instead, it makes a series of hissing sounds.
The air in the tight space blows down on him, rustling his hair wildly.
Then the pressure equalizes, moving him forward into the next position. The process repeats.
James draws in a deep breath as his lungs tighten. Is the door somehow making the air thinner? And why is it taking so long?
Behind him, Kate pushes her way inside the revolving door’s next opening and is beating on the glass with vigor.
He glares at her as the door operates. The panic in her bulging eyes seems oddly .
. . genuine. And what is that thing she wears over her mouth?
It should signal something to him. It’s at the edge of his reasoning.
Something isn’t quite right. But in his increasingly altered state, he grins at her, pointing over his shoulder at the police station.
She shakes her head, jerking her hand toward the building they’re exiting.
James feels so much lighter now that he’s stolen back control, and she is the one panicking.
You’re caught, he mouths slowly enough that she’ll be able to read his lips.
Thank God this disaster is finally over.
Perhaps he’ll donate a portion of his wealth to victims of human trafficking now that he can personally relate to the horror.
Even if this is only an elaborate prank.
He steps out into the fresh air as a lightheaded sensation sweeps over him. He tries to draw in another breath, but it catches. No, it burns. Fire scorches through his lungs.
James’s mind clears. His eyes dart around, taking in the strange new world around him, finally landing on Kate.
A stark clarity hits him with each painful inhale.
His belief perseverance can persevere no longer.
His perceptions shift. She said something about the outdoors being uninhabitable.
This isn’t just smog or a dust storm. The air is toxic. Exactly like she said. She isn’t lying.
This. Is. The. Future.
If that’s true . . . it means. He can’t think about what it means.
Still, the truth confronts him with every aching inhale.
Nearly four hundred years ago, he died. By some miracle of fate—more like futuristic medical technology—he got a reprieve from death.
Now, he’s about to die a second time. He tries to take another breath, tries to crawl forward, but his lungs seize.
His hand grasps at his chest. The burning is agony.
Kate’s fists pound on the glass. From his knees, he stares up at her, utterly helpless. She’s taken her mask off to yell, “HOLD YOUR brEATH! I’M COMING.”
He obeys, though as the seconds drag on, the burn transforms into a pleasant sort of vacant sensation.
Behind him, a few people have exited the door for the opposite building, each wearing a mask like Kate’s.
They go about their day, only sparing him a passing glance.
A new tugging sensation bites at his aching lungs, getting stronger by the moment.
He’s lightheaded from the oxygen deprivation and the invisible toxins floating in the air. How much longer can he hold his breath?
When he turns back to see what is taking Kate so long, she’s rushing toward him. Spots color his vision as she lands on her knees. She takes a spare mask and places it over his mouth. She’s already replaced hers and her voice is muffled as she says, “Breathe.”
He sucks in the filtered air, his lungs filling like a vacuum seal failing. He gasps down several delicious gulps before the coughing starts. Kate pats him on the back, urging, “That’s it. Get it out.”
By the time the coughing fit ends, his lungs are raw. He blinks at Kate with watery eyes.
“The coughing is normal,” she says. “It helps expel the toxic particles you inhaled. I’ll have to get you a lung treatment to help your body filter out the rest through your bloodstream.” She stands, reaching a hand down toward him. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside.”
James allows Kate to draw him toward the building. As they enter hand in hand, he notices the onlookers gathered, gaping at the spectacle he’s made. That’s when he hears a man with a shock of spiky white hair mutter, “Zorg, there goes another one.”
Tracing the man’s line of sight, James catches a lavender-haired woman as her knees hit the pavement.
His first instinct is to run outside to give her a mask like Kate did for him.
He knows what the air will do to her lungs.
But he only has his mask, and he isn’t sure his lungs can take another dose of the atmosphere.
He quickly scans the lobby, trying to figure out where Kate got the masks.
A rack clings to the wall on his right. There are two bins.
One label reads Sanitized, and the other, Used.
He makes to rush over to them when Kate’s hand wraps around his forearm.
“She knows what she’s doing.” Her tone isn’t even somber. As if this is a regular occurrence.
The words ring through him. Does she mean suicide? By now, the woman has staggered over to lean against the opposite building. A couple wearing the issued masks walk by her, holding hands, not paying the woman any mind.
James’s body gravitates toward the window. Moments later, he finds his hands and forehead pressed against it as if he is a small child. He stares at the woman, unable to blink. Then he feels Kate’s presence next to him. As the last bricks of his denial collapse, he whispers, “Why?”
The woman seems peaceful now, but James can’t shake the horrific sensation watching her die gives him.
His nerves are bruised and bleeding. He doesn’t think he has a weak constitution, but the last—what, hour?
—has been the most disturbing and stressful of his life. He has no stoicism left to draw upon.
The woman’s head lolls to the side. Then a last exhale, and her chest stills.
“She’s dead,” he mutters. Just like that, the woman has breathed her last breath.
A shudder wracks its way through him. Behind him, the lobby continues its chaotic swarming, while an eerie silence takes up residence in his mind.
From a door a little further down the road, two men in what appear to be full hazmat suits come out carrying a stretcher.
They place it next to the woman, then ease her body onto it before lifting it and taking it back into the building where they came from.
The entire scene is business as usual.
“Let’s go back upstairs.” Kate tugs his arm toward the bank of elevators. Finally, he peels himself away and follows her. He needs something to numb his emotional discomfort. He needs Vine. A bottle or two.
As they tuck into the elevator alone, she addresses his earlier question. “Now, people live well into their second and third century. That much time . . . it’s too much for some.”
As if people aren’t meant to live this long, he muses.
She explains the woman’s death as if it were that straightforward.
Even at her age, didn’t she have a reason to live?
James can think of plenty. Well, one specifically: he can and will make something of himself.
Again. If he really died tragically at thirty-five, then this is an opportunity.
As soon as he can, he’ll take back his autonomy and separate himself from this woman who planned to use him for—he doesn’t want to think about that.
The point is, he will accept no less from himself.
He only has to figure out how to navigate this new strange future where people choose to take their own lives because they’ve had enough living.
“Wait, the woman didn’t look that old.” He thinks of Kate finding the lines creasing his forehead novel. Now that he is mentally sorting through the various bodies in the lobby, he doesn’t remember anyone looking over the age of thirty.
“Medical technology is far superior to what it was during your time,” she explains.
“Traits can be selected for before a zygote is created. This practice means most inferior genes have been effectively eliminated from the pool. What isn’t caught before implantation can be corrected with cosmetic and medical advancements.
If I had to guess, that woman was well over two hundred. ”
How can she tell? The beautiful woman leading him back to her apartment embodies a clinical, detached scientist, as she claimed.
Had her parents selected those traits when designing her?
Did she even have parents or are humans now grown in tubes like in the movies?
Depending on the answer, the idea of Kate ordering a cloned lover might seem more plausible.
It would also frame the dead woman in a new light.
She must have no friends or partner to mourn her or be there with her as she passed.
He was fortunate enough to grow up in a nuclear family with a healthy social circle.
Is that a thing of the past? Is that a bad thing?
He always envisioned that one day after he amassed his fortune, he’d find a suitable partner and have a family of his own.
If for nothing else than to have someone to pass on the fruits of his labor to.
A legacy, like what his father wanted. He’d deliver the expectation to his children differently, however.
He’d give them a choice about how they wanted to continue that legacy.
As they step into her apartment, he rubs his aching chest. He’s never emoted this viciously.
Considering his snowballing experience, he’s certain feelings of such magnitude aren’t for him.
Because to his mind, he witnessed a tragedy.
Hell, he’s experiencing one: his own death.
The knowledge of it makes him feel ill. Out of control.
Untethered from a normally solid foundation. He despises it.
This future world is a bitter pill he will have to swallow. Still, he can’t get the image of the woman out of his head. That might have been him if Kate hadn’t got to him. He doesn’t want to think of that possibility.
“So, they commit suicide and no one does anything?” James knows suicide rates were on the rise during his time. Why does he expect it to be any different in the future?
Kate shrugs. “Some people prefer the assistance of a physician, but the atmosphere does the job as easy. It only hurts for a minute. And it’s free. She probably wanted to spend all her remaining unicoin on one final goodbye blowout.”
He knows he’s giving her strange sidelong glances when she says, “Don’t worry about it, James. She got to choose her time after a long and most likely satisfying life. People will miss her, but it isn’t the tragedy you think.”
So far, James doesn’t like the future. At least during his time, the taking of one’s life was viewed as a catastrophe.
He is alive now, though, and James Alexander Fletcher is a capable man.
Despite the superficial and callous new world he’s found himself a part of, he plans to make the most of his accidental escape from death.
If only he understood why. Why him? Was it truly chance that led Kate to select his DNA, or is there some greater purpose he’s meant to fulfill?
Fate must have its justification to unfurl in this manner, but he’s never been one to waste energy on impossible philosophical questions.
He certainly isn’t the type to waste an opportunity—because ultimately that’s what this is.
He’ll do whatever it takes to make something of himself a second time. Now, he has no other choice.