Nick Sagan - Everfree

for my father

Nobody said it would be fair

They warned you before you went out there

Theres always a chance to get restarted

To a new world, new life

Scarred but smarter

drivin n cryin, Scarred but Smarter

Nothing in the sky with nothing. No moon, no stars. Just a canopy of black swallowing the light. Lucky break for the fox. Tough break for the hounds.

Scentless, this fox. Normally, theres a subdermal transmitter. You implant it it lasts for about a month, then dissolves harmlessly in the bloodstream. A month is a decent observation period to make sure theres no dementia. Thats procedure.

Procedure hadnt been followed.

The crisp October wind swept against me as I cut in and out of Quincy and Prescott. Deserted streets. No thermals. A serious fuckup, this, a potential disaster.

Voices crackled in my ear. Slow Bridge reporting equal success. History of heart problems, I said. Well documented. Now hes running. Hes scared. We have to find him before he drops.

Maybe we should back off? said Bridge.

Yeah, let him calm down on his own? said Slow.

Not in his right mind, wandering off, a threat to himself and others? No thanks, I said. And thats on you, Slow, because you botched the protocols. You spooked him. You took your eyes off him. If he gets hurt, its on you.

Okay, I get it, she said. Yell at me later.

We made the rounds. Silence on the channel until Bridge called out: Hes here hes past the Fogg! And then: Hes doubling back!

But she lost him, and called his name fruitlessly until I caught up.

Hes quick for an old Popsicle, she apologized, panting hard, hair in her eyes. Army trained, right?

Marine.

Took me to school. Vanished. Its like he owns the campus.

He went here, I reminded her.

She sighed. Why cant he be a Yalie?

We stood under the Statue of Three Lies, a slumping, seated figure with the inscription: John Harvard, Founder, 1638. Wrong person, wrong founder, wrong year. But it was Harvard University, nevertheless, where Id dreamt of going to medical school back when I was young and nave about the world. Tourists used to touch the statues foot for luck. Thats what Bridge was doing now.

I pulled up a schematic and tried to ignore Slows voice on the channel. Something about how it shouldnt matter how trained or skilled he is because hes just a human being, a classic, while we three stood a cut above on the evolutionary tree.

Sloane, weve lost home-turf advantage, Bridge said. Hes the farmer. Id once told them that the best soldiers in the world are tactically disadvantaged if they dont know the terrain theyre fighting in and any farmer who knows the ins and outs of his farm could outwit or get the drop on those soldiers if they werent careful. Good to know theyd been paying attention.

So think like hes thinking. You know the area. Youre being chased. Wheres the best place to lose someone?

Down?

Down.

Into the tunnels went my hounds. Harvard was built atop a vast network of infrastructure a labyrinthine underworld of steam lines, boilers, electrical relays and such and as the school ran out of room to expand above ground, it continued to build below. An excellent place to hide.

A flurry of comm chatter as they found him. They tried to calm him but he ran, so I had them herd him up to where I was waiting, syringe in hand. He was a bear of a man, white-haired, square-jawed, with a face that inspired confidence. But sallow now, haunted, confused. Hed spent decades in cold storage, revived only now that wed found a cure for the microbes that nearly put an end to the entire human race. Wed cut the disease out of him, but the last stages of it had left their mark. I could see it in his eyes. Was I an enemy soldier to him? What combat flashback was he reliving? It was as if wed turned the flood back, but the water damage remained.

He wanted past me and I wouldnt move, so he lunged and I caught his punch with my ribs. Clinched him long enough. He let out a cry like a wounded animal, staggered off a little ways, and fell. He lay on the grass, sprawled out, staring wild-eyed up at us, clutching his arm where Id pricked him. I nodded as the sedative took hold, trying to look as reassuring as I could. Sobbing, he curled into a tight fetal ball. In my pocket I found my stethoscope, and I put it on to listen to his heart.

Relax, Mr. President, I told him. Its going to be okay.

I didnt know the man. Didnt vote for him. Didnt particularly care for him, but then I didnt much care for his opponent, either. In fairness, I dont have a very high opinion of most politicians. I agree with the man who said, Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. That would be Marx.

Groucho, not Karl.

Left to my own devices, Id never have thawed the POTUS out. Hell, Id never have thawed out anyone. I was born to be a doctor (designed to be one, really), but I never took the Hippocratic oath. Even if I had, the few thousand cryopreserved humans secreted throughout the world werent my patients. Not in my book. No, theyd cooled their heels for forty years; they could stay frosty for a little longer.

It hadnt been my call. Id been outvoted, four to one. Just because we had the ability to bring people out didnt mean that we should. My argument. But, ethically speaking, it wasnt right to leave them frozen. So my friends said. And though Id been tempted to pick up and go old habits die hard I stayed to help.

One friend in particular: Naomi dOliveira, better known as Pandora. She was, Id come to realize, the best of us. Because she didnt want to be. Vashti, Isaac and Champagne had won my friendship, but they were hypocrites with enormous egos. And the same could be said for me. But Pandora had a quiet strength, and she was undeterred. Not untouched by the grief of the world not dead inside, as Id been for so many years but simply unwilling to let it stop her. Indomitable. Shed believed in me long after anyone ever should have. She gave up her sight for me. More than a friend, Pandora, much more than that now.

While my security team and I escorted the POTUS to New Cambridge Hospital for tests and observation, she was trying to restore life. No mean feat. Its very easy to annihilate someone youre trying to revive.

You have to get the metabolism going again, but carefully. Youd better protect the brain with everything youve got, because normal circulation can really fuck it up. Free radicals and metabolites can do major cerebral damage during reboot, so you cant be too quick, but you cant be slow, either, because youre up against the process of cellular decay. The dreaded I, ischemia, the fast track to the brain withering, because it isnt getting the oxygen and other nutrients it needs. Its a balancing act to flush out the cryoprotectant and then flood the body with molecular scissors Vashtis special blend the ones that can cleave Black Ep from the genome like chaff from wheat. That turns back the flood, but theres still all the water damage to repair, all the myriad degeneration the plague did during its stay. More often than not, some of the patients major organs are shot, which means accelerated therapeutic cloning is required. If the new organs play nice in the old body, its time to shock the heart and fire up the brain, and cross your fingers the ultrastructural damage isnt too bad.