“You can’t have been cryonically frozen in 1947,” Brendan had said.
“1947 was when I was born,” Norton had told him. “1968 was when I was… er… frozen.”
“Three hundred and eighteen years ago,” said Brendan.
“Three hundred and twelve,” said Mandy.
Brendan shrugged. “What’s four years?”
“Eight,” said Mandy.
“No,” said Norton, “six.”
Brendan shrugged again. “Who’s counting?” he asked.
No one, thought Norton, because it seemed they couldn’t. But after three centuries, a few years here or there made little difference.
By now, he’d cleaned himself up and was dressed in a baggy sweater and a pair of loose pants. He’d also eaten, having tried a number of small cookies. They tasted of absolutely nothing, and were very chewy. He chewed and chewed and chewed, then swallowed, taking a mouthful of water each time to make sure they stayed down. They did.
“Thanks for giving me the clothes and the food,” he said.
“I haven’t given you them,” said Brendan. “I’ve sold you them.”
If everything was being billed, then Norton was glad he hadn’t had a shave and haircut. What did barbers charge these days?
“You owe me your life, John Wayne,” Brendan continued. “How much is that worth?”
Norton considered his life was worth everything, but unfortunately all he had was nothing. And that was what he said. Nothing.
The room they were in wasn’t very different from the one where he’d woken from his extended slumber. It was slightly bigger, but almost as sparse. Brendan kept glancing at a gigantic screen which filled one of the walls, and he sipped from a spherical cup.
Three centuries had gone by, but people were just the same. Brendan could have been on a sofa, watching the TV, drinking a can of beer. Except there wasn’t a sofa—there wasn’t even a chair. He sat cross-legged on a small mat.
When they arrived, Mandy had joined him on the floor, but Norton stayed standing.
“It wasn’t cheap to revive you,” said Brendan. “I have to get my money back.”
He kept saying the same thing in different ways, as if Norton didn’t understand.
“I’ve got insurance,” Norton said. “The police medical fund will cover everything.”
“He doesn’t understand, does he?” Brendan said to Mandy.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “I am, after all, a professional communicator.”
But she communicated via the gadget in her palm. The small disc was called a slate: a simultaneous linguistic and tonal equaliser. It was normally used as a translation device, except none of them was speaking a foreign language.
Brendan and Mandy spoke a futuristic version of English. It was much faster, syllables were dropped, words run together. A lot of the emphases had changed, compressing vowel sounds and distorting consonants. There were also many new words, some absorbed from different cultures, others having mutated from obsolete adjectives and nouns, prepositions and verbs. Over the centuries, a different but recognisable language had evolved.
Norton was beginning to get the hang of it. He could say “hello,” for example, which was “ho.” While he was learning, the slate made everything so much easier.
“You want to interview me?” he said.
“I am interviewing you,” said Mandy. “Everything you say and do is being recorded.”
“Where’s the camera?”
Mandy pointed toward her left eye. ” Here,” she said.
One of her eyes was a camera? Compared to everything else, that was easy enough to believe.
“The point Brendan is trying to make,” Mandy continued, “is that as a businessman he must show a profit on his investment.”
“And I’m his investment?” said Norton. “What kind of businessman owns people?” He hoped Mandy’s way of talking wasn’t infectious.
“It started with my grandfather,” said Brendan. “Collecting old stuff was a hobby for him. He was crazy. Then my father decided to exploit the monopoly potential, believing the best way to make money was to corner the market in something. That way he could charge any price he wanted. In theory. He established Corpses Unlimited, buying up every cryonic casket found anywhere in the world. He was even crazier than my grandfather. But not as crazy as you.”
“Me?” said Norton. “Crazy?”
“You must have been. Why did you have yourself frozen?”
Norton was about to say he hadn’t, but remembered he should continue to volunteer as little information as possible.
“Were you ill?” continued Brendan. “Was that it? You had some terminal disease you thought could be cured in the future? I’m not going to pay to have you fixed. I’ve spent enough already.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” said Norton.
“Were you famous?” asked Mandy. “Is that why you did it? Because you didn’t want to grow old and ugly?”
Norton shook his head.
“Or were you rich?”
He shook his head again. No, he hadn’t been rich. But he might be now, he realised.
“I’ve got enough money to buy my freedom,” he said.
“How do you figure that?” asked Brendan.
“I was saving up to get married, I had almost a thousand bucks in the bank. With compound interest, how much is that worth by now? I must be a millionaire at least.” As he thought of it, Norton couldn’t help grinning. “Imagine that. Me with a million dollars!”
“What’s a dollar?” asked Mandy.
Norton stopped grinning.
“Not too long ago,” said Brendan “your bank might still have existed, and they might even have had some record of you. Then came the Crash. Everything fell apart, everyone lost everything.”
“I used to present the most popular programme on Earth,” said Mandy. “The Mandy and Candy Doubletime News Show. I was a star! Now look at me, doing filler features.”
She gestured toward the screen. There was some kind of sports match being shown. The sound was turned low, but Brendan had kept at least one eye on the screen all the time. Norton had watched this kind of game before, but couldn’t make much sense of it. All he’d seen of the twenty-third century had been on television, and very little of it made any sense.
“Money became totally worthless,” said Brendan. “My only asset is what I inherited. When my father died, it was more than just his own body he left. I have to make a living, so every now and then I thaw one of you out.”
“How many have there been?”
“I haven’t counted.”
Norton wasn’t surprised. “What’s happened to them?”
“They don’t tend to keep in touch, even after all I’ve done for them. Others don’t survive, of course.”
“Don’t survive! Why?”
“I’m not a miracle worker. You should see the state some of them are in. New hope for the dead, yes, but there are limits. Some of them are in worse condition than Egyptian mummies. When they were dug out of the pyramids, no one tried to resurrect them. That’s why you’re the oldest person ever revived. All the mummies ended up in museums. Did you ever consider that might happen to you?”
“You’re going to sell me to a museum?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. But no, you’re almost as good as new. I wish they were all like you.”
“Thanks.”
“You should be worth a lot. Your brain’s still working, or so it seems. And if no one buys you, you can be used for spare parts.”