Resurrection

Memories of pain chased Enver out of the infinite. They howled at the heels of his consciousness, forcing his eyes to snap open just so that he could escape the phantom claws that tried to rend his sanity. Cold greeted his slowly awakening senses; a sterile, harsh cold that had always felt wrong to him. Improper. Abhorrent.

Being born, especially born again, ought to be a warm, loving experience. At least, he assumed it was supposed to be. The only birth that might have been as he imagined, however, was also the only one he could not remember. Though, he suspected that “The Natural” had been less than a pleasant experience for his mother.

He brought his hands to his face and scrubbed at it, trying to hurry the return of feeling to his skin. Luckily there was no pain, there was never any pain when the capsules opened. But there was also nothing else. Nothing besides the cold. A cold that drilled through the layers of skin and muscle, burrowing into his bones. The first moments of every new life were always the same, always so cold.

As the seconds passed and slowly his sensory awareness of the world around him returned, he tried to filter through the memories that waited at the edges of perception. There was something different about this birth, something that didn’t quite mesh with his previous experiences. What was it?

More importantly, what had killed him?

The pain lingered, a wall flower at the edges of knowing, waiting for its turn to be processed. He had been through the cycle enough times to know what, and more critically, when to address after waking up. First, he needed to confirm who he was, to ensure that the transfer was clean and he didn’t need any emergency restructuring before departing the Ward.

Unfortunately, on this birth, he failed even there.

His name was Enver. His mother had been Charlotte and his father Gregory, towering figures in his early years. Childhood was a golden time, despite the nearly unlimited comforts of his adult life. A warm time full of light and laughter. The very air of those memories seemed to be gilded, sacred light infusing every second.

Questions bubbled to the surface, shattering the serenity of his earliest moments as a stone does to the mirrored surface of still water. Enver, however, ignored the questions. Focusing his mind on understanding what had killed him, what had landed him in the Ward again. He preferred to keep his time between births as long as possible, and the best way to achieve that was in knowing how he had died. What mistakes ended with the death of yet another vessel.

Pain was his guide post. Deep, bone-crunching pain. And layered beneath it, stacked one on top of the other, was a deeper pain. A pain that did not belong to him.

Footsteps sounded in the room beyond his closed eyelids. A distant, unknowable sound. One that belonged to a life he had not yet started to live. He knew what that meant, he was taking too long. The facility staff was coming to check on him, to act quickly if there was any chance of saving his mind after an incomplete cognitive transfer.

It grated on him. The lack of respect, the lack of privacy. And something else, another axe grinding against a turning wheel in his head that was not his own.

Clashing memories dueled for attention. Memories of searing heat, a pain that borrowed into his skin and ate away at his bones. Memories that felt almost welcoming, familiar as a recollection of childhood misery. Belonging to him, a part of him, without defining the moment they were examined in.

His own memories. Memories of fire and pain, of sound that brought his hands to his ears even as he waited in the Ward for the turmoil to pass. Waited for the inevitable mental pain of an unexpected rebirth to run its course so that he could stride forward and try again.

Others likewise clamoured from attention. They stood at the edge of the infinite from which the miracles of technology had wrenched him, be it his mind, soul, or simply a copy of the man he had been from the great unknown.

“Surely,” a voice spoke from beyond his closed eyes, shattering the delicate balance of his slowly reassembling consciousness. “Hell will soon close its doors due to too many of you being crammed into its halls.”

The voice was familiar. A soothing, regular voice that grew like a vine through the cracks left behind after every birth. Gentle, calming, a voice that invited the listener to trust it. One that had, unlike so many others that called for his attention, changed over the course of its being heard.

Cracking an eye, Enver regarded the woman. Her role in the Ward was a simple one, one more akin to acting than medicine, but nevertheless it was crucial. Certain times through the process, patients would emerge from their brush with the infinite hysterical. Occasionally dangerous, though such a circumstance was rare almost to the point of non-existence.

She had been there for every one of his rebirths. Every awakening in the Ward ended when he saw her gentle, smiling face. It was older now, a thing almost unheard of. Older, with lines at the corners of her eyes and slowly starting to spiderweb out from the corners of her mouth. She smiled at him, deepening the lines, reminding him of another aged face. A face he had never seen.

“Enver,” she said again, voice walking a line in his twisted mind between hair-raising and the warm comfort of a mother’s love. For the first time it felt hollow. Rehearsed. “Dear, is something the matter?”

Why do they age?

Breaking through the swirling cacophony of memories, the question shone. A golden, twisted, corrupted light. A promise. One of answers and terrible pain. The same as before, the pain to which he could give no name, the one that haunted his bones as they remembered a terrible force that he could not.

Why do they die?

The woman spoke again and Enver returned a response used a thousand times, both with her and her predecessors. But the questions lingered. They coloured his words, leaking through from the edge of the infinite and bleeding across his tongue. He could taste them, a sheen across the sounds as toxic as oil across the top of clean water. Pure intentions buried beneath a layer of filth.

A response that made her eyes narrow.

“Something wrong, Enver? You’re… you seem distracted.”

“Bit of trouble sorting out what happened. Any clues?”

“Hmm,” with a long, thin finger she tapped her lips before glancing down at a tablet from one pocket of her long white coat. The coat was a symbol more than anything else. The kind of garment worn out of tradition more than necessity. Enver could not even remember the last time an acquaintance had needed the kind of medical attention usually needing the things. Rebirth had, in a very real way, made them unnecessary.

Why?

“Looks like you got taken out by a mine explosion. Oh dear,” her lips pursed, the lines around her mouth and eyes changing. A map of concentration rather than one of joy. “I do hope not too many people were hurt. I suppose I’ll have to call the director and make sure that all the pods are ready.”

Her long, thin fingers tapped at the tablet screen, Enver seemingly forgotten. And it made sense, didn’t it. His lethargy was out of the ordinary compared to his other rebirths, but not abnormal for many other people. No two trips to the Ward were the same, even for the same mind.

Glittering on her wrist, a slim gold watch slowly ticked through the seconds.

Time passes just the same. But not the same. Why do they die?

Envery allowed his mind to wander, distracted by the gleaming gold. It wasn’t the kind of thing that interested him, nor any other person with whom he interacted. What use did they have for baubles like that when they would live forever? No reason to flaunt wealth, or display status. Their world had shifted, eternity was in their grasp. They did not need to leave anything behind to their children.

If they elected to have any. Elected? The thought grew, despite Enver’s attempts to move on, to think about pleasant things. His old anxiety, his forgotten dreams of children of his own drifted aimlessly until it connected with that word. With that truth. With that question.

He could not have children. No one could without application to the Board of Population Limits. It was necessary. If no one died, then there was risk of over-population. So, what few openings there were for children went by a lottery system. It was what allowed his people – class – to prosper.

Cold crept its slow way up Enver’s arms. Starting in his fingertips, it marched steadily onward. Not the cold of the Ward, not the cold of his half-remembered brush with the infinite. No one had used that word in generations. Or what would have been generations if they still had such silly, pre-historic concepts.

“Hey, Kazhal mind if I ask a question?”

“Certainly, dear.”

“That watch, I haven’t seen it before. Is it new?”

“Yes and no, dear. Bought it from an antiques dealer not long ago. Why?”

“Just… just curious. That dealer, they live up in uh… your sector?”

Her eyes turned on him. The lines around them changing again, another new map etched into the skin of her face. Enver could feel the scales on which he was being measured tilting beneath him. His stomach turned slowly, a writhing coil in his gut as all the almost motherly care vanished for a mere instant. A moment in time that seared itself into his memory.

Why do they die?

“Dear,” the word was cold, a cold beyond the chill air of the Ward. A wave of ice that crashed against his skin, rolling over the previously creeping dread and charging into his veins. “I think, perhaps, that you need to try another rebirth. Your heartrate is elevated, looks like you’re feeling stressed too. I don’t think this vessel is going to go your way.”

Her sector. They make you think that yours is not for them, yet they’re everywhere. The question was not a question. Yet it clawed at Enver’s mind as Kazhal swiped one finger across the tablet. It made no noise, but as she raised her finger to press the screen, her eyes connected with his again.

They own everything. Why do they die?

Kazhal’s finger touched the screen of her tablet again. And the infinite consumed Enver’s mind. At once the infinite and not the infinite. He floated, aware without knowing, conscious but a dim, hollow kind of consciousness. One that was as a shadow across the water, when on turning to look there was nothing there.

“Looks like one of Them tried to hitch a ride on the poor guy’s rebirth. Shame. According to the records he was a good worker. Look here, in the last two hundred years he made over a hundred million for the company.”

“Damned shame,” that was Kazhal’s voice. “You’d think people from our side would stop trying to free them. They’re happy enough, treating death as a revolving door the way they do.”

“Do you think they’re jealous? The people trying to upend everything.”

“Doubt it. Who’d want to live forever when we can evolve? I mean,” pain in Enver’s neck. A sharp, concentrated pain, and following on its heels was cold. The infinite did not rise again to meet him, there was only void. “Look at the wastes these people make of what they have. Just letting us own them in all but name? Pathetic.”

Why do they die?