“Not yet. But their involvement is inevitable if the deaths continue at this rate—and the first thing they’ll do when they launch their investigation is order an autopsy of all the bodies.”
I thought about it. “Autopsies mean thawing them out…”
“Thawing them out, and cutting them up.”
“So not only are they dead before their time, they lose their shot at resurrection.”
“You find that amusing?”
“Well no, I think it’s horrible, but…come on. The whole cryogenics thing is bullshit anyway, right?”
“Yeah, like organ transplants. Or cloning.”
“OK,” I said, not wanting to argue the point, “OK, back up, I still don’t understand why the police aren’t already investigating this. If thirteen people were murdered—”
“You didn’t look closely enough at the stats.”
I shuffled through the cards again. “Cause of death: heart attack…Cause of death: heart attack…Cause of death: stroke…Cause of death: heart attack…” I looked up. “Are you guys missing an NC gun?”
“Along with its owner.” He laid one more card on the counter.
“Jacob Carlton.”
“Former Good Samaritan, transferred to Bad Monkeys in 1999. He disappeared last June during an operation in Reno. Originally the thinking was he’d been taken out by the guy he was hunting, but now it looks like there’s another explanation.”
“So how do we find him?”
“We believe Carlton has taken a job inside the Ozymandias Corporation. Panopticon’s been trying to bug their headquarters for weeks, but the surveillance equipment keeps malfunctioning. You and I are going to go in there today, posing as clients.”
The Ozymandias facility was another forty miles out in the desert. “If they’re in such a hurry to freeze people,” I asked, as we drove across the wasteland, “wouldn’t it make more sense to build the place in town?”
“Zoning regulations,” Wise said vaguely.
“They have those in Vegas?”
The first sign we were getting close was a shimmer of color on the horizon. I thought it was a heat mirage, but within another mile the shimmer had resolved itself into a green circle with a white building at its center.
A big cargo helicopter came screaming overhead as we passed through the gardens of Ozymandias to the visitor parking lot. The helicopter touched down just east of the building, and a team of guys in moon suits came running to unload a silver body bag and hustle it inside.
“OK, so what’s our cover?”
“We’re married,” said Wise. He handed me a ring. “Mr. and Mrs. Doe.”
“Jane Doe? Yeah, that’s not suspicious.”
“Don’t worry about it. When we get inside, I’ll be doing the talking. You just nod your head and keep your eyes peeled for Carlton.” He opened the glove compartment and brought out my NC gun. “One more thing, we’d like to get him alive if we can.”
“No problem.” I set the gun’s dial to NS, narcoleptic seizure.
Coming in the building we got hit with a blast of arctic air, like the company wanted to let us know right away it could deliver. We went to the reception desk, where a woman in four layers of wool printed us badges and told us a Dr. Ogilvy would be right with us.
Ogilvy reminded me of Ganesh. There wasn’t much of a physical resemblance—except that he was small, and looked like he’d be easy to beat up—but he had a nervousness about him, and also a sadness, like this wasn’t the career he’d planned on having. Once he’d introduced himself and got his game face on, though, he was pretty peppy. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, thank you so much for coming out here today! Let’s go back to my office and talk about what Ozymandias can do for you!”
Ogilvy’s office had a big bay window that looked out on an acre of fruit trees and flower bushes. The greenbelt was shot through with rainbows from an automated sprinkler system, and if I’d had a tab of acid I could have stared at it all day. But Ogilvy didn’t offer us any drugs, just comfy chairs and tea. Then he got down to business: “I understand you’re interested in purchasing one of our life-extension plans.”
I must have looked like I was going to make a crack, because Wise laid a hand on my arm before answering, “Yes.”
“And will this be for both of you, or…?”
“Neither,” Wise said.
“Neither.” Ogilvy’s eyebrows went up and down a few times. “Is it a gift, then? We do have gift packages, it’s actually fairly common, or well, not common, but…For the friend who has everything, or a valued employee about to retire…”
“It’s for our son.”
“Oh! Oh, I see. Your son…?”
“Philip.”
“I see. And how old is Philip?”
“He’s ten.”
“And is he…ill?”
“He was in an accident. He was playing outside, and his sister was supposed to be watching him, but…Well, you know how kids are. She got distracted.”
“Oh, how terrible.”
“It’s not her fault, really. She should never have been given that responsibility. If anyone’s to blame, it’s my wife and I.”
“Oh no,” said Dr. Ogilvy. “No, don’t think that way! These things, you know, they just happen sometimes.”
“Anyway, Phil’s in the hospital now, in intensive care, and we’re praying that he’ll pull through, but if he doesn’t…We want to be ready.”
“Of course. Of course.”
“So what we’d like,” Wise concluded, “is to have a look around your facility, here, and maybe meet some of your people…”
“Of course! I’d be happy to give you a tour right now! Let’s—” The phone rang, and Dr. Ogilvy started. “Oh dear! I’m sorry…” Peering closer at the blinking light that accompanied the ringing: “Hmm, line three, I’m sorry, you know I really should take this…Would you mind if—”
“It’s fine,” I said, getting up. “We’ll wait for you outside.”
I practically dragged Wise from the room. As soon as we were out the door, I lit into him: “What the hell was that about?”
“What was what about?”
“Our son Phil? Who had an accident? While his sister was watching him?”
Wise was blank-faced. “I have no idea what’s eating you. Everything I said in there was part of a script. I’m just following it.”
“What script?”
“The one Cost-Benefits gave me for this op. You think I make this stuff up as I go along?”
“Who in Cost-Benefits—”
“All right then!” said Dr. Ogilvy. “Are we ready for the tour?”
We headed down the hall towards our first stop, with me still staring daggers at Wise. Meanwhile Ogilvy, either because he’d picked up on the tension or because it was part of his standard sales pitch, launched into a rambling explanation of the company name: “It’s from the poem by Percy Shelley.”
“Ozymandias, King of Kings,” said Wise. “‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.’”
“Yes! That’s the one. And of course, ‘my works,’ that’s meant to be ironic, since as the poem goes on to say, there’s actually nothing left of those works, other than the inscription that brags about them. Which, given what we do here, may seem like a strange allusion to be making. But you see, there’s actually a double irony, because it turns out Shelley picked on the wrong king. At the time he was writing, 1817, I believe, Egyptology hadn’t gotten off the ground yet, so one pharaoh was as obscure as any other. Today, though, thanks to science, things are very different. Ozymandias—aka Ramses the Great—is not only one of the most famous rulers in history, but we know, contrary to what Shelley wrote, that a lot of his works did survive.”
“So what’s the point?” I interrupted, not wanting to fall asleep before I had a chance to finish grilling Wise. “Don’t speak too soon?”
“Exactly!” said Dr. Ogilvy. “Exactly. Don’t speak too soon! And we believe a similar caution applies to what we’re doing here. Our industry, Mrs. Doe, perhaps I don’t have to tell you this, but it has its share of skeptics. Some people, I won’t call them ignorant, but some…uninformed people, think cryogenics is, well—”
“A load of crap?”