Chapter 40
James
Earlier the same day.
Every couple of minutes, the garage attendants walk another group through the building, past the full lobby he waits in.
Movement down the hallway grabs his attention—a man in an oversize green jacket whose insignia he can’t make out greets another man in a sleek cobalt three-piece suit.
The material of the suit looks like a synthetic Napa leather; its luxurious quality signifies the vaguely familiar blond man’s financial status.
Maybe he’s one of the two owners of GROW here to oversee the inspectors.
James might have seen his face in a news article or on their website.
As the men pass, the blond man eyes the rows of manupartners.
James’s heart jumps when his honey-colored eyes snag on him, then narrow.
He holds his grin, willing his gaze to go distant. Eventually, the man moves on.
An agonizing twenty minutes later, Sable appears with two technicians beside her. “We have a lot of work today, so let’s make this quick.” She counts off the first thirty manupartners, of which he’s one, then commands, “Follow me.”
The group shuffles forward, falling in line behind her and the female technician. The male tech, whose name, Sable told him, is Nixon, takes up a position at the rear of the procession. He’s the one who will take James’s place on the table.
Sable leads them to a large stark space that reminds him of an operating room, but ten times the size. Three rows of metal tables stand neatly in the center of the room, and there are dozens of what he thinks are steel refrigerator doors along the back wall.
“You have five minutes to disrobe,” booms Nixon, who is about James’s height and build.
“Place your discarded garments in the bins at the front of the room.” He points at the row of bins already piled half full of fabric and footwear.
“You’ll find a biodegradable gown at the foot of each table.
Please put it on and lie down atop the table.
At the end of five minutes, we’ll begin the procedures. ”
James notes his voice, wondering if he can mimic the slightly nasal baritone. He plasters a dumb grin on his face and complies as the female lab technician approaches Sable, who nods, giving her instructions he can’t hear.
Nixon taps his stylus on his tablet as he looks on. His hand is trembling slightly, and James can only hope he doesn’t withdraw at the last moment. Plan B is dependent on him. James glances over at Sable, who now leans against the wall by the door, appearing unconcerned.
Quickly, James takes off his garments and tosses them in the bin. He has to weave through a sea of nude and partially clothed manupartners to get to the agreed upon table labeled Fifteen.
A woman on the other side of the room is whimpering slightly.
He glances at her. Her dishwater blonde hair is disheveled, partially obscuring her red-rimmed eyes.
She lifts her gaze and they make brief eye contact.
He wills his expression to become dumb and glassy.
To his relief, she looks away. Of all the batches, there has to be a reincarnate in his. Fuck.
He slips on the paper-thin pale blue hospital gown they provided, then lies on the table, which will be the last of the first tray of injections.
The crisp metal bites into his skin and the bright overhead lights make him feel like a cadaver.
The sensation makes the words I don’t want to die echo like a memory in his mind.
You screamed that once before, the overhead lights say. Care to recall the memory?
The dread that hits him is nearly enough to make him convulse. This is not the time to have a mental breakdown, and he’s fairly certain recalling his death in this circumstance would cause one. Not now. Not now. Not now, he mentally chants.
A few rows down, the woman is quietly repressing sobs. Quick little gasps of air slip out as the seconds tick by. “He said he’d come,” she mutters.
Her distress is enough to distract him from his devolving thoughts.
You can’t save her. If he were the hero, he could.
But James is no hero. Yet the thought occurs to him, if this works and they can figure out how to solve people’s identity problems, isn’t that precisely what he’ll be doing?
Granted, they’d have to initiate some type of background checks to make sure they aren’t helping actual criminals.
Criminals like you? the lights question, and a part of him wants to correct them. Technically, nothing he did in his past life was illegal, but he gets their point.
As he lays there waiting, he wonders about the woman and the rattling table that he assumes is her doing. Who was she in a past life? Was she a good person? Did she have children or a family? Will she freak out when her turn comes? Will someone, like she says, come to save her?
A third set of footsteps enter the room. Everything in him wants to lift his head to look. To discover the person’s identity. They take several steps followed by creaking wheels before both sounds stop.
“Let’s begin,” Sable says loudly, possibly for his benefit.
There is a rustling, then a tablet says, “Identity Confirmed.”
“The top row is injection one. The second—”
“Isn’t it always like this?” The ice in Sable’s voice sends a flood of warmth through him as she reprimands her charge. It’s oddly endearing witnessing her be unapologetically herself, and somehow it makes him confident Sable is going to come through for him. She has to.
The technician must have nodded because Sable barks, “Then why are you wasting my time telling me something I already know? Get moving.”
He knows she’s hurrying to get the batch completed before the inspectors show. God, should he be nervous? No, she assured him she had everything on her end taken care of. But this is his life that hangs on her word. Nerves in a situation this risky are perfectly reasonable.
He hears Nixon sigh, saying, “Time of decommissioning, 08:45.”
Time passes like it’s being dragged through thick and sticky tar. Still, he lays there not flinching at every clink, scrape, breath, or footstep. Nor when the tablet repeats, over and over, “Identity Confirmed.”
Not when Nixon says, “Time of decommissioning, 09:00.”
Not even when the woman starts sobbing in earnest. “Please don’t. Please. I want to live.”
“Hold her down,” Sable says. Something clatters to the ground. “Damn it, Avrel. You’re wearing my patience thin.”
The sobbing suddenly ceases. James is queasy, and he has to keep reassuring himself he’s doing the right thing by not getting involved. The woman’s owner didn’t come and now she’s dead. She had to be a sacrifice for the greater good. It was inevitable.
Sable and her two technicians keep working until they are within two tables from him. “Identity confirmed!” He almost jumps when the tablet goes off next to him.
From the corner of his vision, he sees Sable eye the girl with a look so irksome, it almost makes him flinch. “Why are there no more syringes left in this round?”
“Y-you used two on that female unit and the other fell off—”
The table James is lying on reverberates loudly as Sable’s hand smacks down on it.
“I don’t want your excuses. You should have prepared enough in case such a thing were to happen.” James can see Sable’s angry finger fly toward the door she must have entered from. “Go, quickly prepare two more, and collect the next batch.”
The woman glances between Sable and the door, seeming frozen to the spot. “Now,” Sable hisses, and it’s enough to set Avrel in motion.
When the door closes, Sable leans over James and smiles. “Having fun yet?”
“You’re terrifying,” James says, sitting up.
“Change quickly,” Sable instructs. “I’ve been timing her, and it will take about seven minutes for her to refill the syringes and get back here with a new tray.
” From her pocket she pulls out two of the little fleshy finger pad prototypes, which are filled with James’s blood.
She gives them to Nixon, helping him put them in place.
When Nixon takes his position lying on the table, she says, “Any final words?”
Nixon shrugs, grinning. “Don’t be such a bitch?”
James can hardly bite back the laugh as he puts on Nixon’s personal protection. He imagines with the goggles, mask and hair shield he resembles the man Nixon closely enough that the other frazzled technician won’t notice.
“I promise I’ll try, though I’m afraid it might not do any good,” Sable says.
“Will it hurt?” Nixon asks, taking on a more serious tone.
“Not a bit. It will feel like you’re dreaming. Much better choice than walking out into the atmosphere, I assure you,” she says. “And since you couldn’t afford a Peaceful Passing Procedure, we’ve offered you the perfect solution.”
With that, Nixon plasters the same dumb manupartner grin on his face as James wears. A second later, Avrel rushes back into the room with a fresh tray. Eagerly, she passes the first syringe to Sable. “Please confirm his identity,” she instructs James.
A brief panic lights up his nerves as he moves around the table. Sable barks an encouraging, “Get on with it.”
He turns the correct palm over and depresses the needle into the practically seamless finger pad containing his blood.
Then he lifts the finger and squeezes it into the little receptacle.
A moment later, his own face pops up on the screen along with his and Kate’s identification numbers.
He angles it away from the other technician to be safe.
They share the same basic features and he’s certain Sable has the other technician so rattled she didn’t notice him enough to identify him. Still, it was a risk.
The tablet chimes, “Identity confirmed!”
James’s heart leaps. Sable doesn’t waste any time with the first injection. Then he watches as the girl stares at a device, presumably a timer, on her wrist. After about fifteen seconds, Nixon’s eyes slide closed.