Forever After

The man studied the bed. He furrowed his brow and studied it hard. He picked apart every aspect of the bed until he saw everything there was to see – everything but the little girl in it. A thin, white mattress enclosed by a wooden panel at either end; two black guard rails adjacent to those; a stainless steel frame divisible into three sections; four solid rubber casters, a wheel for each leg. The man knew this bed. He had studied it before. The girl’s mother had died in one just like it.

The man closed his eyes and breathed his daughter’s name. “Sophie.” He knew she couldn’t hear him, but there was a certain comfort in forming the syllables to which her soft features had once lit up with recognition. He inhaled deeply and covered his face with his hands, trying to picture her the way she had been before.

He was driving in silence, watching the road ahead. A fleeting movement in his peripheral field of vision momentarily drew his attention. He peered sidelong at the mysterious organism sleeping in the passenger seat beside him – her head resting against the window, her autumn eyes concealed beneath tender eyelids, her innocent expression untroubled. The sun’s faded rays poking through a wall of golden foliage dappled her mouse-brown hair with a warm, wavering light. The man reached over and gently lifted the girl’s hand. It was a snowflake – cool and fragile in his palm.

A sharp exhalation marked the end of the man’s vision, and he forced himself to cast the memory aside. Gathering the remnants of his courage, he glanced up at the child’s face and was crestfallen. He had been robbed of the chance to know her, and amidst the molecular chaos that was presently laying waste to her neurons, he knew that, in many ways, she had forgotten him.

* * *

The man resolved to do it that evening via noose. He thought it best not to fiddle with his body’s chemistry, and much of the preliminary cellular damage inflicted by a noose would be mechanical and contained to his neck. He was huddled on the floor of his bedroom with his knees drawn up to his chest, trying not to think of what he was about to do as suicide. He wasn’t really ending his life, just putting the remainder of it on hold for a little while. It was difficult to keep his mind from wandering into despair, but he had a genuine faith that human ingenuity would pull through for him. He and Sophie were both members of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. The man had signed them up after his wife passed away six years ago. If all went according to plan, he would be reunited with his daughter sometime in the distant, or perhaps not-so-distant, future. Either way, they would be together, and that was all that mattered.

He thought of her now: lying on an operating table, her shaved head tilted back; the glinting needles stuck in her neck and arms, drawing her blood and pumping her vessels full of vitrification fluid; her lifeless body sinking headfirst into a vat of liquid nitrogen, the small feet disappearing beneath the surface.

* * *

The man awoke from his century-long slumber wearing what must have been some sort of protective suit; it was warm and smooth, and the soft fabric gently hugged his frame. When he opened his eyes, he recognized that the light waves entering through his pupils and stimulating his retinas were of a low frequency – red. A friendly, soothing voice whose origin the man could not identify said, “¡Hola, y bienvenido al futuro! Por favor seleccione su lengua preferido,” and then, “Hello, and welcome to the future! Please select your preferred language.” A holopanel appeared seemingly out of the air before him and prompted him to select a language. The man chose the English option by tapping the air in front of his chest.

“Thank you,” said the disembodied voice. “Please proceed to the assimilation area.” The man looked around and observed his surroundings. The red-tinted room was empty. He bent at the waist to get up and was thrown off balance; it took him a moment to register that he was already standing. When he regained his composure, the man took a few tentative steps and realized that he could walk without issue. In fact, he soon found out that he could do everything he had done before without difficulty. He could jump, fling his arms up around his head, spin in circles and kick the air; he even dropped to the floor and did a few push-ups. Elated that his body was fully functional and eager to see his daughter alive and well, the man skipped through the only doorway and into the next room.

The lighting slowly changed from the initial dim red to a soft white, and as he entered this new area, the man was greeted by uncannily human-like cyborg creatures. He gave a shout and leapt back in surprise.

“Do not be alarmed.” The disembodied voice now had a direction. The man spun around and came face-to-face with a holographic representation of an elderly man with graying hair. “Hello, I am the independent cryoresuscitation entity. You may call me Ice.” The hologram’s detail was incredible, almost frightening. Ice continued, “These neuropatients are here to assist you through the assimilation process.”

Neuropatients, the man thought. He turned to look at the pitiful beings that stood before him with their hands extended and was slightly repulsed. They had not turned out the way they were probably meant to. As if able to read his thoughts, Ice explained, “Resuscitation of neuropatients began in 2092 AD. Unfortunately, restoration technology in those days was… limited. It was not until much later that fully operational mind transfers began to take place.” The old man smiled knowingly. “Humanity – ever so eager to overstep its bounds.”

Averting his eyes toward the ground, the man shook each neuropatient’s hand in turn. They felt human enough, but he did not have the capacity to dwell on their tragedy. He could think only of Sophie. One of the humanoids handed him a pile of clothing. They were the same clothes he had worn on the day that he hung himself. The man reached a hand into the left pocket of his khaki slacks; even his wallet and keys were still there.

The old man nodded and gestured toward yet another doorway. “Shall we?”

* * *

Bracing himself, the man pushed open the final door of the assimilation area and stepped out into the future. He was immediately underwhelmed by the scenery. The decrepit streets and crumbling buildings were nothing like the phantom skyscrapers and gleaming domes that he had dreamt up in his visual cortex. There was, however, something that struck him about the place, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Unable to shake the uneasiness that was now beginning to settle within his stomach, the man walked on for a bit, wincing at the sharp reverberation of his own footsteps. The echoes sounded too loud, and the man did not understand why, so he stopped. Then it dawned on him. There was nothing else to listen to. Save for the occasional drifting debris, the place appeared to be completely deserted – no pedestrians, no cyclists, no traffic.

“Sophie!” the man yelled. He did not anticipate a response, but it felt good to shout her name, especially here. A sudden tap on his right shoulder caused him to flinch, and he turned around half-expecting to see his daughter, though he knew very well that she would not nearly be tall enough to reach his shoulder.

It was a girl, but not Sophie. She was quite a bit older, though not more than twenty, and her blonde hair was black with grit. She eyed him cautiously. “You got any nanoshots?” Her gaunt face, smeared with filth, became a grimace when she said it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man answered, genuinely confused by her inquiry. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Well I ain’t her, fritz,” she said, taking a step back. “You an upload?”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed toward the building the man had come from. It was large, squat, and gray, and the letters that protruded from it read: ALCOR II

“I saw you come out of there.”

The man hesitated. “Yes, I –”

“Oh, I get it!” the girl exclaimed, her expression lifting. “You’re one of them frozen fishsticks.”

“Yes,” the man repeated, “and I’m looking for my daughter.” The man always carried a photo of Sophie with him in his wallet. “Here, maybe if I show you what she looks like…” He reached into his pocket and pulled the wallet out, but before he could open it up to take the picture out, he was stunned by a cold, crushing pain emanating from the side of his face. The girl snatched the wallet from his hands and took off, disappearing down a side street before the man had time to even process what had happened.

When the initial shock of the blow finally began to fade to a dull throb, and the man was able to pull his hands away from his head, he saw that they were covered in blood. He coughed, keeled over, and threw up.

* * *

The man spent the rest of the day wandering the barren streets in search of his daughter. The air had become colder and his breaths came in shallow rasps. When at last he had become too physically tired and too mentally fatigued to continue, he chose a spot on the ground that seemed to be a bit less grimy than the rest and sat down. The aging sun, which had been hidden behind a blanket of gray, was beginning to set when he heard a heavy voice say, “What’s the matter, cryo?”

The man turned his head to see who was addressing him and winced in pain. In the fading light, he could just make out the silhouettes of four men who stood about forty yards to his left. The largest one spoke.

“Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.” He walked closer and his gang of three followed. It began to snow.

Not wanting a repeat of what he had experienced earlier that day, the man stood up. Without hesitating, he took off down the nearest alley, guided through the narrow dusk by his tired legs and blind terror. After making a turn around what was likely the fourth or fifth corner, the man stumbled and fell forward, striking his palms against the rough pavement. Slightly dazed, he rolled over slowly, caught his breath and allowed his eyes to adjust to the night. The snowflakes that were falling from the black sky were the largest the man had ever seen, and they stung his face with pinpricks of bitter cold. The only light was a dirty orange glow that managed to seep in between the buildings from the street.

All was still and silent for a while as the man lay in the alley on his back. Then, the pile of trash beside him twitched, causing him to start. The man sat up and peered more closely at the pile before realizing that it was actually a human being – an old woman.

Her wrinkled face was worn and frostbitten. Her mouse-brown hair formed a graying halo around her head. The man put a hand on her shoulder, and the woman’s eyes, which had been squeezed shut, blinked open. They were beautiful – the color of autumn – and they told the story of a lifetime of unspeakable suffering.

Seeing him there, the old woman reached up with an arthritic hand and hesitantly touched the man’s cheek. “You come from Ice,” she rasped. “He’s my papa, too.” The man cupped her hand in his own. It was cold and frail.

They remained like that for some time – she lying on her back and trembling slightly, the man kneeling in the snow beside her. Then the trembling ceased, the man drew her close, and the silver vapor of the old woman’s final breath wisped away into the dark. He held her frozen body in his arms and wept, his tears making slush of the ice crystals in her hair.