When the Sleeper Wakes           by Kim EM & Debra Rachel           © 2000

Part 01: Herbert’s Story

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Prologue:

My name is Helen, and this is my story.

The best place to start is the beginning, but I wasn’t here for that part. I’m twenty years old, although I was born thirty-one years ago. Confused? I’m not surprised. My whole life is sort of confusing, and I’ve only just put all the pieces together. I’ve lived all my life in America, Florida to be precise. But I was born in Scotland, and am still a Subject of the Crown. I know, your head is starting to hurt. Maybe this would be easier if I let Herb tell what happened thirty-odd years ago. I’ll be back later.

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Chapter One: HERBERT’S STORY

I was born Herbert Wells in 1950 in the city of Glasgow. I basically had a normal upbringing; I was happy playing and being with my friends. In March of 1969 I applied and was accepted to join the Royal Army. I was placed with the RAMC (the Royal Army Medical Corps) and by the end of 1969 I’d completed all my training.

The only thing left was to pass out from training. I was in the top one percent and very proud of having done so well. There were even mutters about the possibility of my being sent to Sandhurst, the Officer’s School.

On the 3rd of January I passed out from training. My parents were in the audience to watch me march past. As soon as the parade was over the new soldiers all got their postings—except for me. A general came over with my captain and requested me to come with him. Maybe this would be my posting to Sandhurst. I was hopeful as I excused myself from my parents and followed him and the captain.

We went into a little room, and the General cautioned me that I wasn’t to say anything about what went on in that room. Nothing. To anyone. Ever. I agreed and he said that he was looking for a volunteer for special duty. If I refused it wouldn’t go on my service record. That’s what they said, but I knew the truth. If I refused, they would remember, and it would dog me for the rest of my career, if I had one left at all. If I took the special duty I would receive a letter of commendation in my service record but that would be it. It hardly seemed fair, but then the Army didn’t have a reputation for fairness. The general told me that "if" I took the assignment I would have a six-week leave of absence and then I would be taken somewhere secret.

I asked if I had to decide right away, thinking about the two- week leave that I had earned by completing training. The General said that he needed an answer within 48 hours. I told him I would think about it that night and let him know the following morning. The General said that was fine and he gave me a number that I could use to reach him.

As I left, he made a point of reminding me that I couldn’t tell anyone about our discussion. And the captain hadn’t said a word. Why was he there? As soon as I had left the room and found my parents they asked me what the general had wanted. I told them that I couldn’t talk about it and that I had some thinking to do. My dad immediately said "Okay, I understand.", but my mother kept trying to get me to tell her what had happened. Father stuck up for me saying "Leave him alone, Susan, he told you that he’s not allowed to talk about it." My mother wasn’t happy but let it go. The following day I decided that I would take the special duty and called the number. After all, it’s not as though I had a choice. Once I had this voice at the other end of the phone, I just said "Yes" and hung up.

A few moments later my phone rang. It was the General, saying "As of this moment you are working for me. If you have any problems call me on the same number and I will deal with it. You are now on 6 weeks leave. When your leave ends, report to Redford barracks in Edinburgh." And with that he hung up. What had I gotten myself into?

I decided to just enjoy my six weeks leave and let it go at that. Just before I was due to begin my leave, I received a letter addressed to Lance Corporal H. Wells. I wondered why it had given me the rank of Lance Corporal. I decided that it must be a mistake, and opened it.

"Private Wells, you are hereby Promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal and ordered to report to General Jones at Rexford Barracks on the 18th of February 1970." It was signed with a name that I couldn’t read.

Six weeks. It seems like a long time, but this particular six weeks flashed by. I had a tearful farewell with my mother whilst my father just shook my hand and reminded me to write to him and keep them both informed. I said that I would write when I could, but that he had to understand that the nature of my assignment was such that it might make letters infrequent. He seemed to understand, but made me promise to try to keep in touch. And on February 18th, 1970, I reported to the commandant’s office at Rexford Barracks.

They were expecting me. As soon as I presented my orders, I was hustled behind the counter into the commandant’s office. The commandant told me to leave my kit in the Guard room and report directly to General Jones. I couldn’t figure out why he would get personally involved in something as unimportant as this. I left the guard room and marched directly to the General’s office. Once I got there I stopped for a moment to make sure my appearance was passable. After all, I had been traveling for the last twelve hours. That does a lot to degrade a person’s appearance, but in the Royal Army that is never an excuse for a slovenly appearance.

I knocked on the door to the office and the General called me in immediately. Obviously he’d been notified that I’d reported. I marched into the office and came to attention and saluted him. "Lance Corporal Wells reporting for duty sir!" The General told me to stand easy then he told me to sit down. I took the chair in front of his desk and sat there nervously, waiting to hear what he had to say. "I am going to tell you now what your duty is. If you don’t understand anything at any time you are to ask me. We need you to try out a new drug that will hold you in stasis for a time."

I interrupted him at that point and asked what he meant by ‘stasis’.

"By stasis," he continued, looking annoyed at being interrupted, "we mean a deep sleep like the hibernation some animals go into. That’s basically what we want to test." Then he asked if I had questions.

Well, he said that he wanted me to question things I didn’t understand, but he acted like they were most unwelcome. Still, I had to know what I was getting into before it was too late. "How long will I be kept in stasis?" I asked. "we expect the initial experiment to last six months. At that point we shall bring you round and make sure everything is all right." He paused a moment before continuing, as though he had reservations about telling me the rest. "After that we may put you back under again for a longer period, depending on what happens the first time around."

I asked about my family. They would certainly become suspicious if they didn’t hear from me for all that time. The General replied that my family was the least of their worries. I could write some letters in advance and we would send them over the time I was in stasis."

This didn’t sit very well with me, but if I turned down the assignment or made an issue of this, it would likely end my military career before it had even started.

"I think that’s all my questions sir, and may I thank you for my promotion."

The general just laughed and said "Actually I am just about to promote you again to Sergeant as you may need the rank." I was pretty well flabbergasted at this. Two promotions in less than two months, especially just out of training, was unheard of. "As of tomorrow morning you are Sergeant Wells, so make sure that your uniforms are correct. That’s all for now, Sergeant. I’ll see you tomorrow at 1000 hours."

I stood up, saluted, and left the office to pick up my kit from the guard room. When I got there I asked where I was to be billeted. They told me to go to the sergeants mess and find the orderly on duty and ask him where my room was to be. When I arrived at the sergeant’s mess I found the orderly. He asked what I was doing there but once I told him my name he showed me where my room was and told me about the meal times. I went straight to my room and settled in. I was thinking the entire time about the procedure that I was going to undergo, whilst I was thinking about that I was altering my uniforms again to reflect my new rank.

I enjoyed the thought of the new promotion, but I have to admit that I was somewhat aggrieved about the necessity of altering my uniforms again.

***

The next morning I was outside General Jones’s office at 0955, waiting for the appointed hour to arrive. In the army, especially when dealing with generals, you are neither late nor early. At precisely 1000 hours I knocked on his door and was told to enter. I marched in, came to attention, and saluted. The general said to sit down until he was through with some other work.

I’m not sure I could even begin to describe what happened next. When the general was ready, he led me to secure part of the installation, one I hadn’t even realized was there. I was brought before some doctors, and ordered to strip. With some degree of trepidation, I did so, and was immediately given an injection.

One doctor apologized, but told me that they preferred for me to not know too much about what was to happen. The injection took good care of that. I have vague memories of being poked and prodded, being forced to give specimens from virtually every bodily orifice, and having what seemed like an inordinate amount of blood drawn.

I was X-rayed, fluoroscoped, and scanned in myriad ways, but nothing of what they were doing was explained to me. Once I vaguely recall a technician making a comment about needing additional genetic material before anything could be grown, but he was immediately shushed by the others. I couldn’t even say whether the testing took hours or weeks, but eventually they took me into a different laboratory, one with what appeared to be large tanks that seemed to be sucking all the heat from the room. I was laid onto a gurney, and an IV drip was started.

I weakly looked up at the doctors, and saw the general standing in the middle of the group. As I faded out, I heard him mutter "Goodbye, Sergeant Wells, and may God have mercy on both of us." That’s the last thing I knew before my world ended.

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Interlude: HELEN

This is Helen. I’m back.

I know, Herb isn’t the most colorful guy. But he changes. And you needed to know all that for MY story to make sense.

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To Be Continued....

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When the Sleeper Wakes                          by: Kim EM & Debra Rachel

Part 02: Awakenings

Interlude: HERB

This part of the story is Helen's. I was... elsewhere... for much of it. After the experiment in stasis sleep began, I knew nothing of the world for a very long time. And when I did return from my sojourn, it was to a whole new world.

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Chapter TWO: AWAKENINGS

I woke up. That sounds kind of, well, pedestrian, but that's because it's something people do every day. For me, though, it was the first time, and it's a moment I will always remember.

It felt good, the feeling of the linens against my body, the weight of the covers, the warmth of the pillow against my face. The room was cool, almost cold, and I really didn't want to get up. I could feel the internal pressure, though, and knew that it was time to head for the bathroom or mess up those wonderfully comfy sheets.

Without a thought I pulled the covers off me, swung my feet off the edge of the bed, and found-- nothing-- on the floor. No slippers. I looked around and there was no robe or other clothing evident. As a matter of fact, I looked down and realized I was naked. Well, I wasn't going to let it bother me, I had to get to the bathroom before I peed myself.

The room was your run-of-the-mill cheap hotel. So I knew exactly where the bathroom was, and scurried right over. I went through the door at supersonic speeds, slid right onto the seat and released a high-pressure spray into the bowl. *Ahhhhhh*

That need completed, I wiped things up, moved to the sink, and began washing my hands. I looked into the mirror and stopped. Frozen. I saw my face, but, well, it was a face I'd never seen before.

The person I saw was female, about 6 foot tall, long and thick blonde hair (and I did check, the blonde was natural), kind of Nordic-looking. I looked down at my body. Well-shaped from what I could tell, large breasts, narrow waist. Great. But this was the wrong body for me. I should be-- what?

It was only then I realized that I didn't know what I was supposed to look like. I had no idea whatsoever. All I could tell was that this body was unfamiliar. Not better nor worse than what it should have been, but different. What _was_ I supposed to look like, anyway?

I stood, and thought, and thought, and thought. Nothing. Finally I decided that standing naked in a cold bathroom might not be the smartest thing to do, and returned to the bedroom.

Still no clothing in sight. That made sense; if there hadn't been any there when I went to the bathroom, how would it get there now? The brownies came in and stocked the wardrobe whilst I was in the loo?

The wardrobe. Nothing in the closet. Nothing in the dressers. No bags, nothing under the bed. Damn. This could be awkward. No clothing, in the wrong body. Why wasn't I panicking?

Hookay, let's look around. I walked over to the window, and noted the sway of my breasts with even the slow, short walk. Hmmm. I was going to need a bra. From somewhere. Soon.

I pulled back the curtain to discover that it was mid-day, or at least the sun was high in the sky. The view outdoors-- I was several stories up, and outside the window was a grassy area with scattered palm trees. About fifty yards away was a two-lane road with a steady flow of traffic. There seemed to be something wrong, though. I stood and watched the cars for about 20 minutes before it dawned on me. Of course! They're driving on the WRONG side of the road!

I decided that I might have to rethink the hotel theory. No car park. Across the road was what appeared to be an abandoned orange grove, and beyond that a lushly overgrown area that looked as if it might be swampland. Then I looked above the trees and went a bit faint. Above the treeline I could see some large metal frames at quite a distance. I'd never seen anything like them before, and then realized that there was a rocket upright on one. I instantly knew what it was, and by extension, where I was.

I looked at them and started to think about what I had seen so far.... The cars driving on the wrong side of the road-- the swampland-- the palm trees-- and last but not least the rocket. It had to be Cape Kennedy in Florida.

I backed away from the window, and fell backwards across the bed. I landed heavily and just lay there, trying to figure this all out. Trying. Nothing came to me, though. I knew where I was, more or less. And again, it's not where I was supposed to be. I should be... um... merde. Again. I didn't know where I should be, only that this wasn't it.

I sat up and looked for the room phone. Nothing. No phone? That was curious. This was definitely not a hotel. I started to wonder if I was locked in.

I rose and walked to the door. I turned the latch and the knob, and gently pulled the door open. No problems there. I poked my head out, and looked left and right. No people were in sight, and it looked just like a hotel hallway. No guards or nurse stations or anything like that. I looked at my door before withdrawing my head, and there was a small plastic plate on the door: "417".

I stepped back in and let the door close with a gentle 'snufft'. I paused a bit at that. It didn't sound like any door closing noise I'd ever heard. Which would be... when? My memory seemed to be pretty well shot.

I sat back down to think some more. It was still cold in the room, and I looked around.. no thermostat. Figured. I snuggled under the covers and tried to assess my situation. Naked, in the wrong body, no clothing, no idea how I got there, in what was Not A Hotel located at Cape Kennedy, the place where the United States launches it's moon flights.

Terrific.

*What do I do now?*

Um...

Someone could show up here at any time. On the other hand, maybe nobody would show up. But _someone_ had to know I was there. And with luck, they could tell me why I was there.

I lay, for a good two minutes. Patience was apparently not one of my virtues. I got up and wrapped the sheet around myself. I stepped to the door in my improvised toga, opened it and stepped outside.

As the door went 'snufft' behind me it occurred to me to check the lock from this side. Locked. Great. Well, I was committed now. I walked the hallway from one end to the other, with no sign of life, no sounds, and no indication that I wasn't the only person left in earth. No, that couldn't be true. There'd been cars on the motorway outside.

I returned to the area of the elevator and pressed the 'down' button. After a short wait, the wheezing elevator arrived and I stepped in. Floors numbered one through four. Okay, I was at the top. Should that make me feel good?

I pressed the "1" button as the doors noisily closed. The elevator was as rough going down as it sounded. It jolted to a stop on the first floor, and the doors rattled their way open. I stepped out, into a small shabby tiled lobby. No 'front desk' as such, as though this had been a hotel, but instead a guard post with two bored Air Force personnel sitting behind a desk.

One turned and saw me, his mouth dropping in surprise. The other started to ask what was wrong and then he spotted me. He stood suddenly, his folding chair falling over backwards with a loud clatter.

The first guard put his foot into it then, with the first instinctive question. "Who're you?"

"I'm... I'm... I..." *Hooboy* Who was I? I had no earthly idea. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me, with as many unanswered questions as were swirling about me. Why shouldn't I have no personal memory? "I really can't say."

The voice that came out of my throat was unfamiliar as well. It was a pleasant voice, just not mine, if I had any clue what mine should have sounded like. It was a bit high-pitched, soft and slightly breathy. Not really a little-girl's voice, but rather like one that hadn't been used in a long time.

***

We were sitting in a small, shabby interrogation room. Oh, that's not what they called it, but it wasn't that hard to figure out. Tile walls, a big mirror on one side of the room, gray metal table and two profoundly uncomfortable chairs.

On one side of the table, facing the mirror, was me, still wrapped up in my improvised toga. On the other side was a general - an American general, of course, General Fitzsomething-or-other. And standing, leaning casually against one wall was a woman who had only been identified to me as Elle. Dark suit, kind of mannish, medium length auburn hair, and a sardonic expression as she listened to the questioning.

The general seemed to be taking it as a personal affront that I couldn't explain who I was or how I got there.

The general spoke, disbelievingly, "You have NO idea who you are? Do you take me for an idiot?"

Elle coughed gently, and the general colored slightly and looked just a bit embarrassed. Something was going on here, but I had no clue what. It was getting a bit old; this having no idea what was going on.

I leant forward, palms flat to the table, and told the general, "Look, you don't have to like it, and you don't have to believe me. But the fact remains that I have no clue who I am or how I got here. You can bluster all you want and it's not going to change those facts."

Elle straightened and walked up to the table, looking down at me expectantly. "Do you know where you are?"

That one I could handle. "I'm somewhere at Cape Kennedy."

"How..." the general began, but I cut him off.

"Before I came downstairs I looked out the window. Even I can recognize rockets when I see them. And with the palm trees that puts me at Cape Kennedy."

Elle smiled and said, "Actually, you're on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Kennedy Space Center is just north of us."

The names were familiar, but slightly twisted, like in a funhouse mirror. "I thought they changed Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy a few years ago? Surely I didn't miss anything?"

Elle bent at the knees to bring her head down to my level, her eyes narrowed. "Apparently you did. Errm. May I ask you a slightly strange question?" I had a bad feeling about this, but nodded anyway. She continued, "What year is it? Right now, that is."

The general leaned back, a disgusted look on his face, and I leaned back, but for a completely different reason. There could only be one reason for asking a question like that, and it didn't bode well for me or my peace of mind, what little mind I had left.

"I think... well, no. If its when I think it is, your question wouldn't have had a point. So it's got to be somewhere, somwhen else."

Elle nodded, smiling expectantly.

"It's, or at least it should be, Nineteen-Seventy."

Her face went blank for a moment, then recovered. "Hookay."

I knew she was waiting for it, so I had to ask. "When it it? Today, I mean."

"It's, well, I think you're in for a bit of a shock. Today is Monday, August Twenty-eighth, Two Thousand."

I slumped down in my chair. Thirty years. *THIRTY YEARS?*

I think that's about when I fainted.

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To Be Continued....
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When The Sleeper Wakes

by Kim EM
© 2002, All rights reserved

Part 04: Accidents

Chapter Four: ACCIDENTS

Bill Nelson was bored. College, medical school, internship, residency, and for what? So he could cut up bodies in the middle of the night?

He sighed as he sectioned the heart from the body before him, deftly slicing through the still tissue and lifting the sample into a small dish. Why, he wondered, had he thought pathology would be an exciting specialty?

He stood alone, rapidly working away at the post, the room silent except for the quiet whoosh of the water sluicing through the drainage channels of the steel table and his hushed mutterings into the hanging microphone. He only half paid attention to the body before him, the victim of a shooting up in Manhattan North.

Finishing up with the body, he turned and took his samples into the lab, where he rapidly mounted and stained slides, wondering as he did so why it was necessary. After all, the deceased had obviously died of his gunshot wounds, most likely from the head injury. The slides confirmed that there were no systemic problems.

As he cleaned up and rang for an attendant to return the body to its refrigerated storage, he thought for the millionth time about his job. Three-quarters of a century before, the powers-that-be had decided that many deaths occurring in any of the five boroughs of New York City required an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The mission of the office was fairly simple: "The Office of Chief Medical Examiner investigates cases of persons who die within New York City from criminal violence; by casualty or by suicide; suddenly, when in apparent good health; when unattended by a physician; in a correctional facility; or in any suspicious or unusual manner. The Office also investigates when an application is made pursuant to law for a permit to cremate the body of a person." Be it disease, mischance, or murder, the bodies of the city’s deceased, whether of the Four Hundred or the newest of immigrants, were transferred to this dumpy brick building on First Avenue for testing. The practice made sense -- during the seventy-seven years the law had been in place, innumerable murders that looked like something else had been discovered, victims of hitherto unsuspected contagious diseases were identified, and the doctors had even broken some new ground in the field of immunology. Many of the greatest names in pathology had practiced here – Charles Norris, Milton Helpern, Michael Baden, Charles Hirsch, Beryl Austin.

Bill Nelson, though, was just a peon. As the newest and youngest pathologist on the Chief Medical Examiners staff, he regularly drew the overnight duty. Too many of the cases he handled had been gunshot victims. Part of the price for practicing in New York, he supposed. Still, it was a great place to live and work, far better than his hometown in Wisconsin.

Still pondering the events that made his job necessary, he picked up a tray to clean up – the instruments to a ‘soiled’ container to be sent off for cleaning and sterilization, the sharps to their plastic container for their eventual safe disposal. Still woolgathering about the reasons his job was necessary, he stumbled in turning, the tray sliding from his grasp. As he recovered his balance and tried to keep the tray from falling, a syringe he’d used to draw blood slid toward him and pricked his left forearm.

"Shit."

The tray, suddenly forgotten, crashed to the floor as he reflexively pulled back his arm. The offending syringe fell into the mess as he stared helplessly at his arm, a drop of blood at the site of the puncture.

The nearby double doors crashed open as the attendant double-timed into the morgue. "What happened?"

"I just stuck myself. Dirty."

"Aww, crap." The attendant stared at him through her eternally sorrowful eyes. "Now what?"

"I’ve got to run over to Bellevue and get this tested. At the least, it means I’ve got a mountain of paperwork waiting for me. At worst, well..."

"Yeah. You might as well head over now, Doctor Nelson. I’ll get this cleaned up."

As the attendant bent to start gathering up the debris, Nelson turned towards the door, then swiveled and said, "Can you call Doctor A. and let her know what happened? She’s going to have to call someone in to cover."

"Sure, no problem."

Bill Nelson wasted no time. Without even pausing at his locker he headed towards the lobby. He swerved to the security station and told the guard, "I need to run over to the Bellevue emergency room for a bit, Gene. If Doctor A. calls you might tell her where I am."

"Sure thing, Doctor."

Nelson usually came and went through a side door that was reserved to doctors and staff, but the main lobby was closer to his destination. Fortunately, the medical examiners’ building was right at the Bellevue campus, and it was a fairly short, if energetic, walk to the ER. After passing through the automatic doors, Bill bypassed the triage nurse and made a beeline for the nursing station. Sitting at a small table dictating into a micro-cassette recorder was the chief resident on duty, Sheryl Mendelez. She finished her dictation and looked up at the expectantly waiting (and somewhat handsome) doctor. "What’s up?"

He gave her a half smile, embarrassed, and told her of his mishap.

"Okay, no need to panic. Let’s get some blood drawn, then you can start with the paperwork."

Bill groaned. "Let’s get on with it. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can start dealing with the bureaucrats."

She deftly swabbed his arm and tightened the rubber strap. With a sure motion she found the vein on the first try and drew a sample. "You know this isn’t likely to show anything. You’re going to need to be tested regularly for the next six months."

He smiled. "That’ll teach me to watch where I walk."

She finished labeling the specimen and turned back to him. What can you tell me about the source of the blood?"

"Let’s see. Black male, age twenty-six. Killed in a shootout on Hundred-and-Seventeenth. Proximate cause was head trauma. No obvious signs of drug use."

"That’s a good sign."

"Yep. I’d say he appeared normal in every way except..."

"A hole in the head?"

"That, and three others. The odd thing is he had perfect teeth, no scars or calluses, either. Plus..." He trailed off into a thoughtful silence.

"What?"

"No plaque."

"You said he had perfect teeth."

Bill looked distracted, then said, "Not his teeth. His arteries. Clean as the day he was born."

She looked at him bemusedly. "You said he was only twenty-six."

"True, but even at twenty-six there should be SOME plaque."

"Healthy lifestyle?"

He shook his head. "Not that clean. I tell you, from the condition of his body he might as well have sprung full-blown from a test tube."

She laughed. "That’s not too likely. I guess he was just born lucky." She paused for a dramatic moment. "Until tonight, at least."

"I guess."

Several hours later, and back in his office, Bill Nelson tiredly signed the last of an awesome stack of forms, explaining the accident and his response. He picked up the stack and tiredly carried them to the elevator, which surprisingly enough was waiting on his floor. As he rode up he slumped against the back wall, willing himself the strength to stay alert until he could deliver the forms, sign out, and make his way to his upper west side apartment.

Upstairs he flopped the stack into Doctor Austin’s inbox and turned back towards the elevator. He got about two steps before a voice from behind beckoned him into the office.

"Bill."

Nelson turned, resignedly, and dragged himself into the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. It was a tired office, with worn carpeting and mismatched furniture, poorly maintained. The furniture ranged from WPA to 1960's modern. The prevailing aura was drab, from faded pastel chairs to institutional green walls. With a quick look around the familiar mess, he turned to the figure behind the desk. "Someday you’ve got to do something about this office. The politicians must love visiting."

"The politicians never come here. If a crappy office is what it takes to drive them away, that’s fine with me. Besides," she continued, "I think there are other things besides the furniture that keep them away from this building."

"You’re probably right." He adopted a lecturing tone. "And for the next stop on our tour, here’s the newest of our patients. Note the channels at the sides of the table to carry away blood and other bodily fluids. The dark colored masses floating in the adjacent sink are his lungs, and... Mister Mayor? Is something wrong?"

"You think it’s funny, but several years ago I had a Committeeman vomit into a body he’d wanted to see."

"Oh, nice."

"Anyways, when the new tower is built my office will look just like any other corporate hive, and then I probably won’t be able to keep them off."

She gestured Nelson to one of the cracked green vinyl chairs, and he sank gratefully into it. Doctor Beryl Austin was a middle-aged woman, professional in appearance but showing clear signs of chronic fatigue. "So, I understand you had a rough night."

"That’s an understatement. I tripped over my own feet, managed to stick myself with the syringe I’d used to draw blood from the body, and then managed to scatter the whole tray of used merde’ across the floor."

"You’ve been checked?"

"I ran over to Bellevue right away. That’s not going to tell me much, though. It was only a few drops – enough that it could infect me if, God forbid, there was anything there to infect me with, but not likely to show up for some time."

"So now you wait." She sighed. "Well, you aren’t the first one here and you’re not likely to be the last."

"That figures. How – how many others so far?"

"Let’s see..." She ran a quick mental inventory. "You’d be the twelfth since we started keeping track. Nine of the others were fine, no infections or known effects."

"And the other two?"

She hesitated, then went on. "Both tested positive for HIV. One is on medication and the last I heard is still asymptomatic."

"And the other?"

He developed full-blown AIDS and passed away about eighteen months ago."

Twenty-five minutes later, Bill Nelson left the building and his job for the last time, though he didn’t know it at the moment. A short walk brought him to Twenty-eighth and Third, the nearest subway entrance. A quick trip on the 6 up to Forty-second, then crosstown on the Times Square Shuttle, and finally uptown on the 3 would bring him to Eighty-Sixth and Broadway, just a block from his not-too-classy apartment.

Before catching the train, though, maybe some breakfast? He turned into a familiar diner on the corner, sliding into a booth. He felt a bit more human after the first cup of coffee, and decided on a Denver omelet. He sat, waiting, staring out the window, thinking about the patient whose blood he’d gotten, and the two pathologists who’d come up with HIV from similar sticks. How had they felt the morning after their accidents, and even moreso, how had they felt when they’d been diagnosed?

The body he’d posted didn’t show any signs of disease, and it would take time to get back the lab results on the body. The forensics lab was too busy and too small to get quick answers on something like that, so the samples would sit and wait their turn for the technicians to do their magic. Maybe in a few years, when the new tower was built, things would be different, but in the antiquated, cramped, 6300 square-foot facility there was too much backlog to be able to rush blood work on a gunshot victim. The new lab, a 310,000 square-foot marvel would, if the political weenies appropriated the money for construction and operations, dramatically improve the office’s efficiency and cut turnaround time to a fraction of its current torpid pace.

When breakfast came, he barely tasted it, still dwelling on the unfairnesses of life, and mentally kicking himself for his carelessness with the tray of used instruments. Finishing, he silently paid the bill and headed for home.

As he descended into the station, he remembered that he needed to charge his MetroCard, and turned to the bank of MetroCard vending machines. Pulling out the card and a ten dollar bill, he inserted the card into the slot, and the machine showed it’s remaining value at forty-five cents. He stuck the ten into the projecting slot, and the machine showed the card’s new value, $10.45. When the card ejected, he tiredly took it and turned on his heel, catching his shoulder on the projecting bill slot. With a ripping noise and a stab of pain, he knew he’d just sliced his shoulder open on its sharp corner.

"Terrific," he muttered to himself. What else could go wrong?

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To Be Continued....

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When The Sleeper Wakes

by Kim EM
© 2002, All rights reserved

Part 05: Revelations

"When the Sleeper Wakes" Created by Kim EM and Debra Rachel

Chapter Five: REVELATIONS

I shook my head and retreated to the institutional green chair. "No more tests until I get some idea what’s going on here. You’ve been poking and prodding and running tests and I don’t know a thing except you’ve been mumbling about ‘body suits’ and ‘hugglebugs’ and meaningless drivel like that."

Elle looked down at me, her arms folded, and appeared to be deep in thought.

"Look," I said plaintively, "I don’t want to be a Wendy head, but so far I’ve been jerked from pillar to post, told nothing, and I still don’t even have a clue who I am. And from the sound of it, I don’t think you have a clue, either."

She sighed and sank to the rolling stool opposite me. "Okay. Look, yesterday you were found, naked and unconscious, on an unused catwalk in one of the high bays of the Vertical Assembly Building. With no idea who you were or how you got there, NASA security was called. They gained no clues from examining you, and turned you over to the medicos. I have to apologize," she stated quietly, "that they didn’t do that first, but at the time everyone was running around like morons."

"And?"

"And the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with you, except that you were out cold and they couldn’t wake you. That’s when they called me in. While I was in transit you started to come out of it, and the idiots decided to put you under until I could be there for your awakening. You crossed them up, though, by waking six hours ahead of schedule."

I looked at her blankly. This was making less and less sense, even though it was consistent with what I’d overheard between her and the general.

She continued, "It really caused a flap when you turned up at the security desk, tastefully attired in a bedsheet. Even moreso, when you professed having no knowledge of your own identity, there was some real panic."

"Why the panic? I can understand their concerns about the security breach, but why should my condition panic them? As it is, I should be the one panicked, turning up under these circumstances with no idea who I am or how I got here."

"That’s true enough, and yet... You didn’t panic. Almost anyone I can think of would be a basket case in your position."

I thought a bit, as she silently watched. "I don’t know. I’ve thought much the same, that I should be panicking. And yet I don’t seem to be reacting much at all, which I most certainly don’t understand."

"There’s another factor. Your body..." She trailed off, looking speculatively at me. Uncomfortable with the long look, I stood and walked to the window, looking at a nearby neighborhood of close-set houses, visible over the omnipresent palm trees.

"My body?" I finally prompted.

"It’s perfect."

"What?"

"I’m not talking about in the aesthetic sense, mind you. You appear to be in your early to mid twenties, no visible marks or scars, perfect teeth, seemingly perfect health."

"That’s a problem?"

"It’s impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Growing up, people get scars. Childhood accidents, mishaps, there are thousands of things that can happen. The skin gets cut or abraded. Bones break. Burns happen. Nobody, and I mean nobody, grows up with their body in pristine condition. Plus, there’s your teeth. They are perfect. No cavities or plaque, no fillings. That’s not totally impossible, but it is exceedingly rare. Your breasts, well, not to be indelicate, but they are fairly large, and there’s not a bit of sag or stretch."

I turned from the window. "I guess I should feel complemented, but I have the feeling there’s another shoe waiting to drop."

Your cholesterol, LDL and HDL, both are right smack where they should be. Again, not impossible but worthy of note. We did some tests and found that your arteries don’t contain any plaque."

"Is that bad?"

"No, but it’s damned unusual. I’ve only seen that once before, four years ago, and that person had something in their blood that we’ve already determined isn’t present in yours."

"So..."

"So basically your body is in a condition that should be impossible. There are no signs of, well, of anything. That has the NASA doctors climbing the walls."

"I’m surprised I haven’t been packed off to a research laboratory somewheres."

She stood and returned to her computer. "They wanted to. I had to overrule them. If there’s nothing there for them to find, keeping you as their research pet isn’t going to provide any answers."

"And this ‘body suit’ and ‘hugglebugs’ nonsense?"

She sighed. "It’s not nonsense, unfortunately. There’s been a lot going on in the world in the last thirty years. For some reason, God knows why, there’s been an explosion of the technology of form change."

"Form. Change."

"Yes. It’s something the governments have done their best to keep secret, both ours and every other government. Imagine the chaos if everyone had the ability to change their form at will. Wanted fugitives would have the ability to vanish without a trace. Duplicates of people – both the famous and the everyday – would abound. Imagine someone wants something someone else has. They could change themselves into a duplicate of the other person, dispose of the original, and then take over their life."

"This has already happened?"

"Too many times for me to think about. We’ve been working for years to keep it secret, but things leak out from time to time. Nowadays any reports are mostly confined to the supermarket tabloids, which nobody believes anyway, and to a few corners of the Internet."

"The what?"

"It’s a new medium of electronic communication. Don’t worry about it for now, you’ll find out soon enough. There are a few newsgroups and story sites online that have fiction dealing with form change, larded with just enough fact to keep our security people nervous."

"Umm..."

"Like I said, don’t worry about it."

I returned to the chair and sank back, trying to digest all this. "So. Form change is possible, and it happens, and the government tries to keep it secret."

"That’s about it. There’s only one form that’s been released to the public, and that has some sharply limited capabilities."

"Those ‘body suits’ you mentioned?"

No, those are still secret. There’s been some speculation in popular fiction, most notably a novel, "ManFac", by Martin Caidin. There’s a lot of proscribed technology out there. Plus, and this is the thing that REALLY scares the higher-ups, there’s a lot of techniques that are best described as ‘magic’."

"Magic? Really, now."

"No, seriously. Oh, I doubt it really is magic, though I try to keep an open mind. My personal speculation is that some of these use a technology that we just haven’t been able to identify."

"What things are we talking about?"

"Well, for instance, there’s stories about a medallion that changes anyone who touches it into the image of the last person whose clothing it came in contact with. It’s supposedly magical, but it’s more likely some technology that picks up on the DNA of the clothing’s wearer and forces a change to the victim’s DNA."

"Wow."

"There’s also uncorroborated stories about a mysterious ‘shop’ that appears and disappears in various shopping malls, changing unsuspecting shoppers into other forms. We’ve tried for years to track down the source of that legend, but so far without success."

"And the ‘hugglebugs" you mentioned before?"

She sat back, smiling, cupping her hands on one knee. "Ahhh. Now that’s the one publicly known and available technology. Remember the DNA gathering and implanting possibility I mentioned?"

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Do you know what Nanotech is?" I shook my head. "Nanites?" Again I demurred. "Nanites are very tiny machines, almost built to a microscopic level. There are a number of commercial uses, but only one has been permitted for biomedical use."

"Which is?"

"There’s a company, called HuggleBugs, Ltd., which manufactures and sells to the public nanites designed to cause form change."

"Why? If form change is so dangerous, then why allow this form?"

She colored slightly, then went on. "It was kind of an accident."

"An accident. Right."

She sighed again, then started talking. "It all started on a sheep farm in New Zealand. In the early Nineteen-nineties, a livestock researcher named Prue Walker was experimenting on increasing the productivity of a herd by raising all the animals in the herd to championship levels. Using a solely DNA-based approach there was some promise of success, but no immediate breakthroughs."

"Okay," I said. "I assume she stumbled onto a method of changing human genes?"

"Something like that. There was an accident. I won’t go into the details, but it caused the transformation of her assistant from a husky football-player type into a somewhat petite woman."

"It changed a man into a woman? This form change can go that far?"

"Oh, yes," she laughed ruefully. "In fact, that’s one of the primary markets for the HuggleBugs product. After Rose’s accident – that’s the assistant’s new name, by the way – their emphasis shifted from animal to human research. Their method, though, proved unpredictable, and was irreversible, so they needed to find something else."

"And that was these ‘nanites’?"

"You’ve got it. They refocused from a purely DNA-based transformation to a highly controllable and reversible transformation with the nanites. They brought in a couple of programming gurus to design the nanites and then program and build a failsafe form of transformation. It’s a shame, too, because the nanites have the potential to do far more than what the world’s governments will allow"

"So how did it get on the market if that kind is thing is so dangerous to society?"

"Well, for obvious reasons we don’t publicize the restrictions on form-change technology. Since most research into that sort of thing is done in either universities, major corporations, or government facilities, we don’t have any problems keeping tabs on the research and deflecting it away from anything that would cause problems. The problem here was that the research was done at a fairly remote sheep ranch on the other side of the world, without publicity, and they had brought their first product to market before any of the governments twigged to what was going on."

"Ouch. So the genii was out of the bottle at that point?"

"Precisely. We’ve been able to limit their product line to two fairly narrow products. First is a nanite that causes temporary changes; the other causes permanent alterations. Both have some fairly elaborate code built in that limits their usefulness for the kinds of things we’re trying to restrict. Even so, it’s been a major pain in the rear."

I thought a moment and rapidly figured out what she wasn’t telling me. "Your real concern, the government’s concern, is it’s potential usefulness for espionage, right? So when I appeared, looking like my body had no history, you and the other intelligence people assumed I was the product of one of these technologies."

"You’re quite close to the mark."

"If it’s true, if my body was created –- or changed – it seems to me I wouldn’t be much of a spy with no idea who I am, who I work for, or what the bloody hell I’m supposed to be spying on."

"I know. That’s part of the mystery. Who are, or were, you, how did you get into the VAB, and why?" She keyed something into the computer, and within a few seconds it shut itself off. "The only thing any of us have been able to come to consensus on is that if has to do with the upcoming Endeavour launch."

"Endeavour?"

"It’s one of the space shuttles."

"Space shuttle?"

She sighed once again, something that seemed to be becoming a frequent part of her repertoire. "I keep forgetting how much you don’t know." She stood and gestured me to do likewise. "I’m going to have to get you some reading material."

I laughed. "Stranger In a Strange Land."

She froze, raised one eyebrow, and asked, "How do you know that title?"

"Stranger? Valentine Michael Smith and all that? I’m not sure. I must have read it at some point, I expect. Why?"

"It’s something you may remember from before your memory went away. It’s a possible angle, at any rate."

I was dubious, but given everything that had been going on, I wasn’t prepared to dispute her. She took another close look at me, then nodded towards the door. "I think we’re done here. Put your clothes back on; I think it’s time for us to move on."

"Where are we headed now?" I asked.

"Texas."

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To Be Continued....

When The Sleeper Wakes

by Kim EM

Part 06: Changes

"When the Sleeper Wakes" Created by Kim EM and Debra Rachel

Chapter Six: CHANGES

Bill Nelson was wide-awake, alert and rested, feeling well, his body at peace, and more worried than he’d ever been. Things like this just didn’t happen.

The previous night he’d had an accidental needle stick, one that could have passed to him any number of diseases. He’d be tested regularly, of course, but it would be at least six months before he could reasonably say he hadn’t caught anything from the dead man’s blood.

On the way home, tired and lost in thought, he’d ripped his shoulder open on the projecting lip from the paper money slot of a MetroCard machine. Once home, he’d rapidly undressed, cleaned the wound, bandaged it, and then gone directly to sleep.

Asleep at Nine AM, exhausted and aching, he’d dreamed much that doesn’t bear repeating. Before he awoke, though, the dreams faded, and his restless sleep calmed as his body recovered.

He was awakened at noon by a loud noise from the street below, and he lay in bed, surprised at how good he felt after only three hours sleep. Realizing he hadn’t felt the ache from the gouge in his shoulder, he reached back and didn’t feel any pain when he depressed the bandage. He pulled it off, then incredulously felt the wound – but there was no wound. Somehow, in a three-hour span of sleep, a long, deep gouge in his shoulder had healed itself. Things like this just didn’t happen.

How in hell, he wondered, had the wound simply vanished. The bandage was there, with dried blood impregnated in its fibers, so he knew he hadn’t just dreamt it. He sat up, feeling better rested than he had in years. In a daze he padded his way to the bathroom. After taking care of his business, he stood at the sink, staring wonderingly at himself in the mirror. Something was different, he was sure of that. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, there was nothing obvious, but something just didn’t seem right. He’d seen himself in the mirror every day of his adult life, and something, damnit, what could it be, struck him as off-kilter.

He started an inventory. Two eyes, one nose, mouth, chin, and everything else he expected. Was there a slight softening to his jaw line, or was that just the fact he wasn’t a kid any more? He pulled the hair away from one ear, which proved to look just like he’d remembered it, low-hanging lobes and all. He laughed at the thought. Okay, he was being silly. Suddenly he took another close look – he’d had to pull the hair aside to see the ear! Given that he kept his hair short cropped, about two steps away from shaved, how the hell had his hair grown so long?

That was more than puzzling. Aside from the obvious, there was no condition he could think of that would make hair suddenly grow a couple of inches overnight. On the other hand...

He put the toilet lid down and sat heavily. What if? No, that didn’t make sense. But if something unknown had sped his metabolism to unheard of levels, could it explain his overnight healing and the rapid hair growth? Something he’d picked up by the needle stick? But what, what condition could possible do that? There’s nothing he’d learned of in med school, nothing he’d even heard rumors of, that could produce effects like that.

Was it possible for a disease to just spring up out of nowhere? Oh, there had been diseases discovered as though they were new, but when one started checking things out, they had been around, only unrecognized. Two that came to mind were HIV and Legionnaires Disease. But something like this, with such gross effects? There wasn’t any way he could fathom for it to have lurked undetected. Besides, he thought wryly, as he lifted himself up, could something that healed like this, some sort of ‘healing factor’, be classed as a disease?

Standing once again at the mirror, he gave his face another inspection, started for the bathroom door, then hurriedly returned to the mirror. His face mere inches away from the reflective surface, he stared into his own green eyes. Green? He didn’t have green eyes, his were gray and always had been. Now this was getting weird. He’d heard of spontaneous changes in eye color, but nothing so rapid, and definitely not linked to any kind of ‘healing factor’.

What the hell was going on?

Staggered, he left the bathroom, wandered aimlessly through the apartment, and wound up in the kitchen. He needed food, the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that, at least if it wasn’t just shock. No, he was hungry, and only a few hours since his meal at the little diner near the office. This was seriously weird. As he went refrigerator diving, it struck him that the hunger could be caused by whatever was happening to him, if in fact his metabolism had sped up.

From the freezer – was he hungry enough? Yes. – he pulled out a frozen lasagna and stuck it in the microwave. While waiting, he wandered into the living room, opened the blinds, and stared at the busy west side street. Everything seemed so normal; the world continued as it always had. What was happening to him, and what – his blood chilled – else would happen?

At the ding from the microwave, he went back to the kitchen, grabbed the lasagna, and started eating. After only a few bites, he was interrupted by a buzz from the intercom. Sighing, he went to the hall and hit the switch. "Yes?"

A cultured voice came from the speaker. "Doctor Nelson?"

"Yes."

"My name is Jay Hunter. I work for the Medical Information Bureau. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about a body you did the post-mortem on last night?"

Nelson thought quickly. Now another strange thing, also related to that body. What was going on here? "Sure. Come on up; I’m in 3-F."

"Thanks."

Bill hit the door release button, then slipped into the bedroom for his robe and a pair of slippers. A few moments later there came a knock from the door. When Bill opened it, he found a black man, mid-20’s, short hair, wearing an expensive black suit. "Please come in. Sorry I’m not dressed, but I work nights."

The man stepped into the living room and gave it a quick look before turning to Bill. "Don’t worry about it. I know how these things go."

"I hope you don’t mind, but I was eating breakfast."

"Please, don’t let me stop you. If it’s okay, we can talk while you eat."

Bill escorted the man to the kitchen, then asked, "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Soda, by any chance?"

"Sure."

Bill pulled two cans of Diet Mountain Dew from the refrigerator, and asked, "I hope you like Diet Dew? I’m afraid it’s all I have."

"That works."

Bill passed a soda to the man, then sat back to his lasagna.

"Lasagna for breakfast?" The man cocked a brow at the tray.

Bill colored slightly, and said, "Well, as I said, I work nights, so my eating schedule is a bit mixed up. So, what’s up? Why is an insurance industry organization interested in my patient?"

The man looked slightly embarrassed. "Um. Well, I have to tell you, I lied slightly downstairs. My name is Jay Hunter, but the Medical Information Bureau thing is just a cover. I actually work with NASA, in their biomedical security operations."

Bill goggled a bit at this. "Biomedical security? For NASA? You’re putting me on."

The man pulled a card case from his inside coat pocket and passed it over to Bill for his inspection. "No, really. It’s a function we don’t talk about much, but somehow along the way the bureaucrats decided we belonged in NASA."

Bill shrugged. It was weird, but seemed pretty much in tune with the way this day was shaping up. "So why is NASA interested in my patient?"

"Well..." The man hesitated, then went on. "Your patient, so to speak. Brett Davis. He doesn’t seem to exist."

"WHAT?"

"There’s no record of anyone by that name fitting the description, and not at the address listed on his identification. Beyond that, we ran his fingerprints, and they didn’t match anyone on file."

Bill looked up sharply at that. "Surely that’s nothing unusual? There must be millions of people without fingerprints on file."

Jay gazed steadily at Bill. "Less than you think. The government has quietly been building a database of biometric data for the past twenty-five or so years."

"That’s incredible. This has gone on for twenty-five years without the public’s knowledge? How? Beyond that, why?"

Jay stood and walked to the kitchen door, then turned to face Bill. "How? A lot of time, money, and effort. A LOT."

"But why?"

"That, I’m afraid, I can’t tell you."

Bill got up and walked past Jay into the living room. He walked to the window, looking down at the street below. "Why tell me anything? Why not just let me go on, fat, dumb, and happy? I don’t know anything about the patient beyond what I discovered in the post."

"What you discovered in the autopsy was a lot more than you think."

"Uh-huh."

"Also, you had an accident last night. Needle sticks can be quite dangerous."

Bill laughed bitterly. "Tell me about it."

"Let’s back up a bit here, first. You need some background on this whole matter."

"Whoa." Bill raised his hands in a ‘warding off’ gesture. "Before you tell me even more things I probably don’t want to know, why me? I don’t have any government clearances, no particular interest or knowledge of security matters, and no desire to get involved in things that don’t concern me."

"Ahh," Jay Hunter said. "That’s the point, the point exactly. You are involved. As a matter of fact, you’re in the thick of it."

Bill sighed and walked to his favorite chair. He settled in with a sigh, and gestured Jay to a facing chair. "So tell me, what’s up that I need to know about? And before you start, let me tell you I have problems enough of my own without borrowing yours."

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Interlude: ELSEWHERE

Within a building famous in certain circles, in a plush but windowless office, stands a person familiar to us. The person faces his superior, a well-tailored, gray-haired woman.

The superior speaks. "So, he’s vanished?"

"You could say that. It’s not as though we have any way of keeping tabs on him, all things considered."

"And we don’t know if he’s undercover, captured, or dead in the street somewhere. Remarkable."

"It’s in the nature of the technology. Even if he were to be captured, there is no way of identifying him. Not even his DNA, if they had a sample, would clue them in on his true identity."

The steel-haired woman walks slowly around her desk, sits, and stares thoughtfully at a portrait dominating one wall. "And if he’s killed?"

"It deteriorates rapidly. If he were to die, the material would be useless and unrecognizable in a matter of hours. Therefore..."

"Therefore," she interrupts forcefully, "if he’s caught they could extract a sample from him, and if he’s killed, the Americans have a several-hour window where they STILL can get the material."

"It breaks down within that timeframe, so they would need to not only get it, but figure out what it is, and then use it, before it decays."

She shakes her head slowly. "I regret not canceling this project when I took over. I can’t begin to imagine what my predecessor was thinking when he approved it."

"It makes our officers virtually..."

The superior interrupts. "I know the rationale. Even so, if other nations discover what we are doing, it could irreparably rupture relations with our allies. And now, his vanishing. I hope we haven’t made an enormous blunder."

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Interlude II: ELSEWHEN

The lab hadn’t changed much in the intervening time. The huge metal tanks, frost-rimed and vibrating with a low thrum; the impersonal aura of the white tile floors and walls, the aluminum gurney, the huddled doctors, and of course the general. As I woke, I became aware of all these things as though I’d never been asleep, never been part of this strange testing procedure.

The general stepped forward, then paused, distracted by the groaning of some equipment back in the ‘tank farm’. He shot a look at the doctors, who held some sort of hurried consultation. One double-timed to a control panel, where he twiddled a few knobs and then nodded. The doctors looked at each other, reached an unspoken consensus, and nodded to the general.

The general stepped to my side as I weakly looked up. He stood a moment, looking grave. Personally, I thought he was posturing, trying to increase the drama of the moment, but then again, he was a general and I a mere sergeant, so who was I to say?

Finally he spoke.

"Welcome back, Sergeant Wells."

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To Be Continued....

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