Today I'm sharing chapter eight of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen! I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.
I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!
In Chapter eight Kate competes the tour of ExitStrategy and learns more about the history of cryonics. This chapter took a lot of research and some effort in world-building, re: the cryonics facility.
I had little fun referencing the origin of the iconic movie Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, which was a screen adaptation of Philip Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?":
“Interesting,”
Kate replied. “Do you think they dream? I mean all these people. What would
they dream about?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Miss Pearson
is here, Mr. Burgess.”
“Very
good, Keith. Thanks for staying late. You can take off now.”
“Thank
you, Mr. Burgess.”
“Thanks
for letting me use the company car, Mike. That was very nice of you,” Kate
said.
“Not a
problem. Well, how about I show you the last remaining things you need to see?
Shall we?”
“Of
course.”
“All right.
So over here, Kate, opposite your lab, is the operating room. This is where all
the patients make their transition—their ‘exit strategy.’ Step on in.”
“It
looks just like a hospital operating room, I would venture. What are some of
the procedures?”
“Well,
first let me tell you that all the patients have signed a Body Donor Agreement.
Technically they are donating their body to ExitStrategy. But instead of the usual, you know, a body going
to an educational institution as a cadaver for students to study, or to a
research project, we’re going to put them in stasis as quickly as possible. The
donor status ensures that we are covered legally. We have other forms as
well—agreements made between our patients and us, and these are not meant to be
divulged to the outside world. We also, at times, videotape patients just
before their procedure. They are on camera stating their wishes for cryo. It’s
a pretty good idea, especially since there have been a few times where we
sensed that certain patients’ family members might want to battle us.”
“So
you’ve had battles?”
“Nope.
Knock on wood—it’s never happened. We’ve been surprised by that. Ironically,
the only battle we’ve had was with an actual cryo patient. She was insistent on
getting what she wanted. Enzo decided she was right, so she got it. Franklin
and I gave in. In the long run, she and Enzo were right. It actually changed
how we do things around here.”
“What
happened? What did she want?”
“It’s
a long story, I’ll tell you later. Let’s just stick to the mini-tour script for
now, okay?”
“Sure,
that’s fine, Mike. Wait—so do these people have funerals? It would seem
antithetical to their beliefs. They’re denying death, right?”
“They
usually will have a memorial service. Some who don’t want to divulge that
they’ve gone into cryo may stage a funeral, but there’s no body in the casket.
In those cases, only a few people at the service may know about the choice for
cryo. However it plays out, we haven’t really had any problems. Don’t forget,
most of our clients are wealthy, powerful, and famous. They’ve been calling
their own shots for years. Not too many people around them are going to buck
them when they choose to be a part of ExitStrategy.”
“I
understand. So walk me through the procedure.”
“I’ll
give you the highlights,” Mike said. “The body is cooled quite a bit to minimize
any chance of early decomposition. As quickly as we can, we open the femoral
arteries. We drain most, but not quite all of the blood out of one, while we
inject our glycol-based cryofluid on the other side. For the most part, Chrissy
and a partner do this. They are very good at it.”
“Wait.
You have licensed medical people for this? You can’t just use anybody, right?”
“Chrissy
is a licensed RN. She studied to become one specifically so that she could
participate. Enzo Saltieri was the supervising MD, of course. We had other
doctors and nurses on call when needed.”
“You
said ‘had,’ not have. What’s that mean?”
“Good
catch, Kate. We haven’t cryo’d anyone in three years.”
“Why
not? Wait, what about Enzo? Didn’t he want to go into cryo?”
“We’ll
get to that soon, Kate. Anyway, no one alive right now under contract with us
has died recently, for one thing. We’ve been okay with that. You mentioned you
wanted to think about the ethics of all this, right? Well, actually that hit us
a while back. Enzo and I began to realize that we needed time to review the
ethical implications of going the next step—of reviving people. I mean, who’s
responsible if we bring back someone now, or years from now, and they’re alive
but a vegetable? Who is responsible for their quality of life? What if their
family doesn’t exist in the future? What will the society of the future say?
Enzo and I rushed into some of this too quickly. We were too excited to start
the company and get it running. But as we got older we realized that there were
issues, big and small, that colored this whole thing. Understand?”
“Of
course. I totally understand that, Mike. And I’m actually glad you’re
saying this. We are in an ethical gray area, right? Life, death, some kind
limbo in between? It does raise millions of questions.”
“Correct,
Kate. So, moving on, after we have the cryo preservative in their body, the
fluid that protects against icing, as well as the helium gas perfusion of the
entire body to protect against ice formation in between cells, we start really
dropping the temperature. As I told you before, we don’t just do the knee-jerk
thing the other facilities have always done—simply freezing all the way down to
liquid nitrogen level. We don’t even hit the glassy state I told you about, so
we’re nowhere near liquid nitrogen temperature. At the temperature we use,
there can still even be a tiny amount of biological process going on at the
molecular level, believe it or not. I mean laymen don’t get that, but I’m sure
you would appreciate this as a biologist. Granted, there is no measurable
heartbeat, no EEG. We also cycle the temperature up and down and periodically force
more helium into the environment. You’ll see the readout and hear that at each
pod, and it’s all computer controlled.”
“Why
the temperature shifts?”
“Enzo
believed the body needs variety, that some kind of external stimulus, or at
least change in the environment is good for the body. I don’t understand his
research and formulas on this—maybe you will!”
“Yes,
I get most of the ideas I’m hearing. Brilliant, actually. And your expertise in
heat transfer is what makes all this possible and affordable over many years,
right?”
“Correct,
Kate. We think that our process will result in the least amount of cellular
damage and the best chance for revival. Of course, that’s your new job,
understand? Examining all of that. My fresh set of brilliant, young eyes.”
“Wait,
let’s go back a sec.” Kate drummed her fingers on the steel table in the room,
trying to keep her focus on what questions to ask. “When you begin this
process, these people have just died, right? They have a death certificate from
a doctor, correct?”
“Yes.
But we don’t actually agree with what that certificate says. A death
certificate is just a piece of paper that society thinks should exist. In our
case, the patient has just shown the early signs of physical death, just
initial function failures—that is all. We believe that they are still alive.
That is our position here. Did you know the most recent studies show that brain
cells last far beyond the current definition of death? People can laugh all
they want at us, but those are folks who don’t know recent research. When we
place someone in cryo, we are preserving their more important functions for
them. You stopped breathing or your heart stopped—so what? We will preserve
you, we will save you—literally save you. We really do believe in this,
Kate. Remember what I said about the brain cells? Let me ask you, Kate—what
makes you, you? What is it about Katherine Pearson that makes her the person
she is—that people say, ‘Oh look, there’s Kate Pearson’?”
“Well,
other than my appearance, I would say personality, I guess. They would know my
smile, how I talk, what I think about the world.”
“And
where is that? Where is it stored?”
“In my
brain, obviously. Memory, the collected basis for my views and my personality,
right?”
“Correct.
That recent research I mentioned posits strongly that brain cells, especially
core memory cells, are still functional far beyond the point where a doctor
would readily agree to sign a death certificate. These cells do not die
quickly—they are still functional for hours, even days past so-called death.
I’ll show you the research from legitimate cutting-edge sources, not quacks.”
“Wow,
seriously? So you honestly believe that the patients here have much more than
just their physical bodies in stasis, that you have preserved their memories as
well, and that you can restore full brain function upon revival?”
“Absolutely.
I have to, otherwise we are just freezing and thawing flesh—not real human
individuals. And as you mull all of this over, it goes to show you, again, that
we really don’t know what divides life from death. We are still stumbling
blindly, just guessing at things.”
“This
is pretty amazing stuff. So now what?”
“Let’s
walk down the B wing. Ready?”
“Okay, here we
go, Kate,” Mike began. “This was the first patient wing built. The cryo system
control starts at the center of the hub—you know, the big tower of power, as
Chrissy calls it, and runs right underneath the floor we’re walking on. As you
see, we have people in cryopods running down each side of the wall. These first
forty or so are the steel pods, not the new design. The equipment below us
feeds up to each of these pods. There’s an outer pod, and then an inner one.
We’ve got readouts on the whole system and each individual pod. Norm oversees
all this with the help of a young woman named Deirdre. She also helps me run my
calculations. Brilliant kid, just a little older than you. Actually, you two
might hit it off—not everyone here is an old-timer.”
“This
is amazing. So who are all these people? It looks like there are about eighty
stations along each wall—so about 160 patients in this wing alone?”
“You’re
a bit off—there are sixty on each side, thus 120 patients in this wing. Evens
over here and odds on the opposite side. So here, let me tell you about some of
them. B34 here—she’s a ballerina; B36, an author; B38, a well-known scientist.
Across there is B39, a politician whose name you would know. It’s an impressive
assemblage of people.”
“So,
they just lay here and wait? And what killed most of them? You mentioned cancer
earlier today.”
“Yes,
a lot of these people have cancer, especially pancreatic or metastatic cases.
ALS, MS, MD, late-stage Alzheimer’s—there are many illnesses represented here.”
“So,
they wait, right? But really, how long?”
“Maybe
not too long for some of them. As you know, almost every day around the world
there are new treatment ideas and promising medical research. And frankly, it
depends on you, too, Kate. After you look the research over, you tell me when
we could take a try at it. Try it out on some animals we have frozen here. If
it works with the animals and you’ve finalized a procedure, then we could hunt
for a patient here whose illness is curable in today’s medical world. I’d sure
like to see it happen soon—most people my age have been retired for a while and
are out playing golf in sunny Arizona, right? Well, here we are the end of this
wing. That’s Benjamin, in B120. He was a public school teacher. He met Franklin
at some museum in LA. We have no idea how he saved up a million dollars to
spend with us. But here he is, nonetheless.”
“Interesting,”
Kate replied. “Do you think they dream? I mean all these people. What would
they dream about?”
“You’re
quite the romantic, aren’t you? Well, I don’t think they dream of electric
sheep, we’ll leave that to the androids—maybe more like how to get ahold of a
plush electric blanket and set it on extra-high, I bet,” Mike said, chuckling.
“I’m curious. When we first revealed what ExitStrategy does, you panicked. You
were nauseous. How did that change so quickly?”
Kate
had thought Mike might get around to asking this question. She stared at the
floor for a moment, then spoke slowly, yet clearly. “My dad died from cancer.
He was in so much pain. It was terrible. Yes, I freaked out for a while the
other day. But then I started thinking of my dad—how I lost him and he’s never coming
back. Here he would have had a chance.” Kate fought hard to not tear up in front
of Mike.
“I’m
sorry for your loss. I’m sure it must have been hard for you. But here were are
now, in the present, right? And the big, big question is this—are you ready? Do
you want to be the new head of research at ExitStrategy?”
“Yes,
I’ve decided to be bold. I’m young. If I can’t go out on a limb now, take a
risk—maybe make a difference in the world—when will I? Sure, this is all quite
unusual, but I see your commitment to hard science. The lab alone screams that.
You seem to be a brilliant man. So heck yeah, I’m in!”
“That’s
fabulous, Kate. I’m so pleased—you have no idea. Franklin will be, too. Welcome
aboard! Oh, hope you don’t mind—I got ahold of your friend Edouard. We talked
over Skype. Lovely young man, very gracious and ridiculously smart. Get this,
he said he would be available to you for six months if you want to pursue
this.”
“Seriously?
You talked to Edouard?”
“Yes,
he says he is leaving his current position soon, and he has a new government health
appointment lined up with some other Caribbean country. It starts late spring
of next year, I think he said. Until that job kicks in he’s available to the
highest bidder, he joked.”
“Wow!
That’s great to hear.”
“Yes,
just the man you hoped for, right? So when I told him what we do here he wasn’t
shocked like you were back at the hotel. After all, he’s from Haiti, right? He
took it completely in stride. When I explained it all he said Saltieri and I
should be in the Vodoun Doctor Hall
of Fame!”
“That’s
pretty funny. So what’s next?”
“I
have your contract here. Take your time and read it over. And you can keep that
company car, too. We’ll add a rider to that effect.”
Kate
took the document. Everything seemed straightforward. She smiled at Mike. What a wonderful, brilliant man, she thought. “Okay, I’m ready. Do you
have that lucky pen your nephew mentioned?”
“Oh
yes, somewhere here.” Mike patted his pockets. “Here it is. Kate, I’ve kept
this pen for years. Just looking at it now and then keeps me from becoming
complacent. Same thing you seem to want to avoid, eh? It’s the pen that General
Motors handed me years ago to sign my forced resignation.”
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