O2

If you had to rely on one species for your oxygen, which would you pick? Space travel forced personalized O2 farms to travel with us, for physical and mental health, since your brain was the last thing that could kill you when all the machines were still in working order. So I was doubly angered when I felt the talons of a mangy Hyacinth macaw in my shoulders and a dribble of its droppings down my back. I missed my snake bracelet already, a tube of plastic connected simply to another tube of flesh.

Sunburned and slightly bloated from the ocean water, I found myself in the body of a shipwrecked victim, not quite brain-dead. This was one of the better scenarios, alone off the coast of the Pluto shores. At least I wasn’t surrounded by the deceased’s family members performing a Biblical miracle. Now to just deal with this aqua plumed hanger on of useless oxygen. I was dead, I no longer needed my health.

The reprobate still guided my way to the coast and I swam as quick as my muscles could handle, wanting out of this deteriorating water. Once on the piers, towards the boardwalk, I received a wide berth for my dripping figure. But the warmth of the sun shield dried my hair quickly, letting me match most of the other workers of the sea.

“Hey! Hey, Sonos. Hey you, you no good Earther.” My shoulder was grabbed, the shouter twisting me around, my O2 parrot squawking as his perch lurched. “You think you can run, you owe me, you-”

“Oh, oh man, sorry. I didn’t know, you’re… you’re one of those Reincarnate fools.” My eyes must have clouded to a filmy white already, my death apparent on my face. “I’m sorry, I thought you were still-” He let go without another word, angry still since he would never get his money now, but too shaken to continue looking a dead man in the eyes. He scratched at his scalp, moving his spider up there, making it tug on the air cord connected to his nose.

 

I was surprised. I would have shaken myself down for more than this working class stiff could even afford. The Reincarnated were only of the rich elite able to afford the program and with very little days to spend the rest of their monetary holding or time wasted on petty squabbles.

It took me awhile to orient myself from where I was to where I should have been. It must have been instantaneous because I had no memory of my death. By the time I arrived at my death scene, the office had been taped off. Not a natural death then. They let me through without asking, dead eyes walking back to the scene of a murder a fairly common occurrence for cops.

I walked up beside the detective looking down on a pile of red gunk underneath my large, fine art chandelier, an impressive concrete and metal feature of the Transhumanist art period.

“Is that me?” I asked, while pointing at the slush. Only no sound escaped except some smacks and clicks of my tongue. The detective looked up slowly, then rounded off to another cop. His kimono dragon pulled at the leash cord, flicking a thin red tongue at me. Now that was interesting protection.

“Go get a box for him.” Once arrived, I clamped the tech to my throat. “No working lungs means no vibration of those vocal chords. Means you don’t need your pet either.” He shrugged. “Unless you like the thing.”

“He’s trained, not like I have much of a choice.” I indicated my unplugging of the O2 cord, showing I didn’t need a Reincarnation™ orientation either, of all people. Maybe the cop hadn’t gotten the bio on the owner of the dead body yet, the one under my art. It was only the momentary shock of my own death scene that made these things slip my mind.

He shrugged again. It must have been nice to move one’s shoulders without a squawk in your ear. “Might be a murder or accident. You have any information to give?”

“No, other than I have that piece inspected by an art dealer and mechanic every other month. I wanted to sell. Was waiting for it to appreciate in value.”

“Well, I’ll need those names. Is there anyone benefitting from your death?”

“Tons, my company is going places, worth a fortune. Plenty who would want to take over.” He just handed me the pad to write all my suspicions onto. I could feel the anger building inside me even as the detective realized his suspect list was being drawn up for him. My mind was able to remember every parting shot and jab the competitive corporate ladder gave, every slight, every glimpse of hate and jealousy. I put my wife’s name last, just as I had put her first in my Will. As my anger over my death grew, every misdeed was calculated as an appreciating asset, a built up over time to a lethal end. Her O2 dog had died, a horrid motor accident I may have been in the midst of, and the new pup hadn’t quite perfected its mental health duties, creating emotional turmoil in the house recently.

“Do your job and quickly,” I said, as I forcefully punched the notepad into his burly chest, then walked away. I needed to get home. Panic was setting in.

Back home, in my bathroom, the mirror had noticed my changed physique.

“I’ve noticed you’ve adopted new skin, Robane. Would you like me to start tracking its progress?”

“Yes,” I croaked, and then punched myself in the throat. “Yes, I would.” Much clearer. These damn cops and their refurbished goods.

“You skin is at 80%,” the mirror intoned after a few minutes staring at my new mug’s leather skin, pockmarked and scarred. The mirror wasn’t measuring the beauty standards of my face like it had for the first buyers of the app, the bored drama queens wanting perfect skin. Its new usage was to track my body’s inevitable decay.

“You have 10 more days until irreversible death,” Mirror intoned while it wrote that fact over my face. The countdown had begun. “You have more than a week to fulfill your end of life mission. Would you like to fill out your mission here so that I may remind you each morning?? Reasons for Reincarnation™ may include: Organizing your burial rites, settling your debts to ease the burden on your family.” Her bubbly voice was accompanied by photos of inspiring scenes depicting each purpose superimposed on my new visage. “Fulfilling your bucket list, a one last time activity, replacing yourself for those dependent on you, or unwriting your murderers from your Will.”

I clicked on the last phrase typed in front of me without a word. The names of those in my Will automatically scrolled by.

“Who is on your suspect list?” Mirror asked too cheerily. I slowly intoned each name on the list. With no children, there was no one innocent looking back at me through my reflection.

“I see that your death has been ruled a murder from the local police precinct. Would you like to write these off your Will for now in the case that your murder goes unsolved?” A rash choice but I needed these vultures to cooperate through the investigation. They’d be notified the instant I wheezed another yes, wondering if it was the red foam in my throat or the machine this time.

Day by day, I watched the percentage decrease, etched in the mirror over my sallowing complexion. It turned yellow, then green, then slowly darker. I made sure to inject the insulin that reduced the rigor mortis and pumped my torso out as the organs liquified. I would have to tell the Reincarnate company that the process needed a pain relief addition as the whole nervous system was still functioning. For now, I had enough pills and didn’t care to stick to the dosage parameters anymore.

I hired a private detective, a common enough practice for getting your death solved before the case or you got cold. The detective was able  to reduce the suspect list to 7, seeing as many of my inheritors had died. I guess I hadn’t been prudent in keeping my Will up to date or my contacts close. Of the recent deaths, my business partner hadn’t signed up for the Reincarnation™ transfer, too many morals and spiritual ideas. My wife had transferred but my private eye wasted no time in moving forward. He said if it was my wife, it would’ve been an emotional outburst, not a grab at stake’s in my Will. Since that was the goal to clear people’s names, he moved on.

I on the other hand, wanted a trip down memory lane. It had been a few days since I had seen her. I wondered what her new purpose was. Mine blinked once more above my head in the mirror.

“Unwriting murderers, give your money to those who truly loved you.” Pictures of smiling prodigy flew across the reflection of a sun-worn stranger’s frown.

Without the pinpointed motive of my private eye, the police had brought in my dead wife for questioning. She had asked them to hurry up and they were inclined to acquiesce, telling me to hurry down if I wanted to talk with her.

Her new body wasn’t as gorgeous as the one before and would only get worse in a few days’ time, but it wasn’t the worst of the lotto. I always wondered what being with a redhead would be like. I could see why she wouldn’t go dye it back to her bottle blonde. But I didn’t understand why she hadn’t gotten her usual manicure yet, or gone to her weekly tanning appointment.

When I sat across from her, she seemed to look past me. It must have been the white cataracts forming over her eyes that created the illusion. She sat back in her chair, her shoulders angled, her head slightly tilted. I was assured it was her with that simple posture. She sat the same way she did when she was alive.

“Long time,” my voice box chimed to her.

“6 days.” She was counting. I should have been too.

“I missed you. Where’d you go?”

“I will miss you, too.” She paused, thinking before answering. She looked toward the door of the room. “I was kidnapped, then killed. I don’t know why. At least this body also acts as a witness protection device.” She shrugged her shoulders, those lovely things I adored in halters and off the shoulder dresses. Her gaze finally met mine.

I’ll ramp up security. You should come home.” I lifted my eyebrows at her.

“We could even go for one last round.” I reached across to her, my rough fingers

Gently tickling her forearm. She quickly folded her hands into her lap.

“My heart’s dead. I only have my brain now. I’m using it to secure my legacy. I want to be remembered, by many, not just my family.” She was looking past me now. “We don’t have any use for the paintings and statues in our home anymore, or the money if we sell them. Movers from the museum will be going in and out in the next few days. They’re going to name a wing of the place after me.”

Is this what happened to women when they didn’t have kids? They became cold and distant, caring only about themselves. She no longer cared about those who wouldn’t be alive to remember her. She didn’t care about this walking corpse or the man inside it.

“You look like you have less time than I do.” She leaned forward.

“Old sailor was lost at sea. I have more upkeep to do,” I replied, hollowed.

Her head tilted as she used to do when figuring out where my head was at, when I confused her.

“There are people who will share love with the dead. A whole business grew on it, don’t you remember? You don’t have to go relying on me anymore.”

“I was honoring what we have.”

“Had,” she corrected me. “You don’t need to mourn but…” Hesitation. What was I supposed to do? Who was the expert on death? “Don’t let yourself get surprised when we reach the end.”

My dead wife had left me one last tip, to go to the mountaintop on the Cerberus hiking trail outside of town. She said it was very therapeutic to go up there and just scream by yourself, especially in our condition. We didn’t need air for our voice boxes to work; they were made for our dysfunctioning lungs. So if I screamed up there, I would never have to stop to catch my breath. I could just kept screaming and screaming until I was really done with it, not just because my body gave out.

“It’s better than sex,” she said.

So of course, I made my way up the empty Cerberus trail, not bothering to change out of the suit I had worn to impress her. At this point, I could ruin 5 a day and still have enough to last through to my True Death day.

4 miles up the trail, there was finally a clear outcropping devoid of any living humans, and dad ones too. Looking out, the cityscape reached forward to the sea, manmad perfection, and clan except for some foreign space metals of Pluto’s dusty ground rock.

I let out my scream. All my thoughts were finally quieted as I listened to its roar and pain. It filled my ears, blocked out and reached at once, a scream of frustration, of anger and loss, releasing and expressing, being with what I needed for myself while also giving it up and giving in.

I had thought this company made a difference. Wifi your brain instantly on your death to another, not quite brain-dead, corpse with no missing limbs or open wounds. Finish up your business in a borrowed body, have a few days more. We always ask for a few days more.

Sure this created some odd rituals from the public including them opening up the chest of loved ones as a burial rite. Others had opted out as a Reincarnate body but only those able to purchase a lawyer and a day off to walk down to the courtroom to file such a grievance. The rest I’m sure were just happy we were taking their family’s body away so they didn’t have to be given expensive funeral services so that we could organize our own lavish affairs.

I was still screaming but as my mind wandered, it seemed less heartfelt. I clenched my fists towards the planet floor and belted.

But the idea of Reincarnation™ was to live forever.  Our tech and morality just weren’t there yet. I could only give my clients the bodies of the dead. I could only give myself this washed up fisherman, smelling of ocean brine, sunburned and calloused. I finally got rid of the parrot, its blue feathers now clogging up the trash compactor. I had looked like a terribly accurate pirate costume with it.

I never did stop screaming until my True Death. There were a couple yelps in between as I felt a heaving push at my back, forcing this corpse off the cliff and down the craggy mountain. These naturescapes were deadly.

“Reincarnation will never be corporatized!” I heard above me as I fell downward. Perfect, an uprising. The poor always found some excuse to uprise against the rich. Only these lost souls, they probably succeeded. No more payments would be made to my private eye, the mirror had written off all my choices of who to pass the company onto, it would dissolve and the copyright would stand uncontested for the next 3 decades, preventing any imitation. Humanity’s climb to immortality would be halted, merely because not all could be immortal. A single lethal protest had stunted our progress.

And I didn’t care. The agony of the countdown was over. The blessing of not knowing when you’ll die was mine. I could do nothing else in my limited timeline and things were left blessedly unfinished. I thanked my wife for this elaborate trap, for sending me and the uprising here before my only functioning organ left, this squishy brain, a burden that was too much to bear for 2 lifetimes, shattered against the rocks.

One life would be humanity’s blessing a few decades more.

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