The Ups and Downs of Being Dead Read Free Page A

hundred years
from now, you’ll be right back out there, good as new.”
    The harsh scream of a drill drew their attention to the
surgical team.
    “Ah,” Sam said. “They’re starting the vitrification process.
That’s where they slowly replace the water in your body with the
cryoprotectant, the anti-freeze.”
    “So I’ve been told,” Robert said.
    “Since you picked the whole body preservation, it’ll take
close to three days for the fluid to get all the way to the tiniest
capillaries.”
    “Didn’t you do whole body?” Robert asked.
    “Nah. All they really need is the brain since that’s the
only organ that truly makes us who we are,” Sam said. “All the other organs,
tissue, bones and blood will be recreated from the DNA they get from my brain.”
    “I don’t know,” Robert said, “The brain-only option gave me
the creeps. What if someone in the future decides it’ll be easier to just pop
my brain into an existing body? What if people become body donors? Or somebody
bumps off cousin Louie and sells his body on the black market to make a quick buck?”
    “That will never happen,” Sam said, with a cocky bobble of
the head. “Most likely, your brain will be transplanted into a clone grown from
your DNA.”
    “Alex didn’t tell me that,” Robert said.
    “They didn’t tell me that either,” Maggie said. “I think the
cryonics people stay intentionally vague, because no one really knows how we’ll
be revived. But Sam follows all that technological stuff. He keeps us
informed.”

 
    The surgeon finished drilling holes in Robert’s head.
    “Geez,” Robert muttered. “They sure tear your body up. I
don’t think they’re going to sew my chest shut. Now I’ve got holes in my
skull.”
    He wondered if he’d be able to part his hair after he was
revived and show someone the scars.
    “The holes are necessary to monitor the brain for
fractures,” Sam said. “As your body temperature drops, hopefully your brain
will shrink slightly. They definitely don’t want swelling.”
    Maggie stood next to Robert as two techs lifted his body and
lowered it into a special freezing chamber made of clear plastic. It was designed
with two ports on one side where a tech could reach in to make adjustments.
    “By the time they’re finished,” she said, “You’re body
temperature will be at minus 190 degrees Celsius: the temperature of liquid
nitrogen.”
    “And then I guess that’s it,” Robert said. “They’ll stick me
in one of those tanks and I’ll wake up some time in the future.”
    The wrinkles on Maggie’s face got even deeper as she
squinched her cheeks. “Well, that’s not necessarily the case.”

CHAPTER THREE

 
 
    “You aren’t going to go to sleep,” Sam told Robert. His
voice nearly chirped with enthusiasm, but behind the smile was something else.
    “I’m not?” Robert turned to Maggie for a confirmation.
    She shook her head. “I was frozen a year and a half ago.
Sam’s been around for almost three years.”
    Panic washed over Robert. ““But they told me I’d go to sleep
and wake up in the future.”
    “Yeah, well, surprise!” Sam said, raising his eyebrows.
“They told us the same thing.”
    “You mean we just have to wait around in here for a hundred
years?”
    “No, no, no,” Sam said, waving his hands. “We can go
anywhere we want now. That’s why we’re here. To show you all the cool things
you can do.”
    Robert stared at the stainless steel doors. “I’m not going
to sleep?”
    “No, my friend,” Sam said. “Not for a very long time.”
    He tried to throw an arm over Robert’s shoulders in a show
of camaraderie, but the gesture was useless. Robert felt nothing.
    “So what am I going to do?”
    Maggie and Sam both laughed. Did they find his question amusing, or his hysteria?
    “You can do anything, Robert.” Maggie motioned toward the
steel doors again. “Well, almost anything.”
    As Sam walked Robert toward the exit, he raised a finger.