Ghost in a Bottle, Part One
Aug. 31st, 2004 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
benchiladaSo, it’s 12:15am and I’ve just programmed WinAmp to play all of the music I have from Patlabor: incidental music from the TV shows, themes from the TV shows, and music from all three movies. Sometimes, music that makes you think of giant robots is really all you need.
Fiction AWAAAAAAY...
Slim pickings at the morgue tonight. I need a body that’s in relatively good shape. I’d prefer one without visible wounds, and no autopsy scar would be nice, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. They’ve already ghosted Johnny and he floats, a sentient microchip in a protein solution, in what would best be described as a turkey baster with teeth.
As I unlatch door number seven, I hit the jackpot. Looks about fifty, card on the front says heart attack, no visible sign of death, except that he’s 45 degrees Fahrenheit and the color and texture of White Out. The tag says Hank Resnick. I slide him out and onto a gurney, careful not to cause any post-mortem bruising. A few minutes with my make-up kit and he looks a bit tarted-up, but he’ll pass for alive long enough to work out.
I’d put clothes on him, but Jimmy hates waking up naked. That’s why he always wakes up naked. I pull a scalpel and a Swingline stapler out of my briefcase and make a deep incision an inch above his neckline. Christ, I hate this part.
Plunging the baster deep into the new wound, I squeeze the amber bulb at the end of the tube. The fluid shoots in, thin streams leaking out down the poor bastard’s neck. I quickly slide the tube out and staple the flap of skin down. A quick once-over with a handy-wipe and he’s looking better.
I toss the baster into a biohazard box hanging from a wall and rummage through my pockets for a small metal box. It’s only got one switch, covered by thick plastic, and a tiny keyhole. I slip a key out from the sole of my shoe, turn it in the lock, and the thick plastic pops open. After taking a good six steps back, I press the ominous red button, ironically labeled “Do not, under any circumstances, press this red button, unless you want to die.”
Hank’s body convulses wildly, a posthumous grand mal seizure, and his eyes arc blue electricity between them. I am Frankenstein, and this is my creation. Or rather, the United States government is Frankenstein, I’m Igor, and Hank is the monster.
A few seconds of seizing and Hank settles back down, albeit a bit more awkwardly positioned than before. His eyelids flicker open and shut, and his mouth moves, trying to form words. I tip a bottle of Evian over his teeth. He swallows like a fish gasping for air.
“Innnnnng fffffnnnnggg nnnnnnnkkkd.”
“Yes, you’re fucking naked.”
“Mrrrrrrrrfffffgrrrr.”
“That’s me. C’mon, try sitting up.”
He awkwardly jerks his way into a sitting position and manages enough fine motor control of one hand to flip me the bird.
“Class, Jimmy, that’s you. All class.”
“Yeahhhhhhccccchhhhh.”
James Montgomery Hutchinson is the single greatest special agent in the history of the world. He has completed, in his twenty-odd years of service, over one-thousand special ops, been killed thirty-four times, and keeps coming back for more.
He was killed the first time in 1982, and, like some terrible Hammer horror film, they couldn’t stand to lose him, so they caved in his skull with a crowbar, jammed a couple hundred needles into his brain and mapped every damn thing that made him who he was. They then “downloaded” – over a span of seven months – the entire contents of his brain onto tape drives, which would later be upgraded to bubble memory, hard drives, and now a very special DVD kept, like Dick Cheney, in an undisclosed location. Its contents are copied, encoded onto a special chip that pulses with a LOT of power, and dumped into whatever used meat puppet I can find for him.
He is Jimmy the Spook, the Ghost in a Bottle, ready to serve his country in whatever skin they give him. He’s a better shot with a dead man’s hands than anybody alive, runs faster with atrophied muscles than anybody I’ve ever known, and can do long division in his head. Okay, maybe the last one isn’t that important, but, fuck, I can’t do it.
I take a seat next to the gurney as Jimmy loosens up the taught muscles, stretching, pulling, and snapping things into workable condition. I punch a few numbers into my sat-phone and wait for our orders.
As The Spook pulls ligaments back into shape and cracks his neck, I stare in silence at the green letters that scrolls across the screen of my phone, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from making a noise.
“For Your Eyes Only,” it warns ominously, “as there has been a problem. During the last download, a cat – yes, a cat – snuck through a barbed wire fence and sat down on our private transformer. Son of a bitch exploded like a turkey full of cherry bombs. He also managed to surge our systems, causing a number of problems, but only one important one.”
My stomach sank.
“Jimmy’s original disc as been irreparably damaged. You now possess the last remaining ghosting of Mr. Hutchinson’s brain. When his current body goes, so will the chip, and so will he. Forever.”
I snuck a glance at Jimmy, who was peeking under the blue sheet across his hips with a knowing grin.
“Under no circumstances,” the text continued, “is Mr. Hutchinson to be informed. Our psychologists cannot accurately predict what reaction he might have. You will complete your mission and return Home as quickly as possible. We regret to inform you, however, that there will be insufficient time to recover data from the chip before the electrical impulses it provides begins to degrade beyond the point of no return.”
“This will be the last task your partner will ever have, and he can never know. As his best friend, you are expected to make his final trip as enjoyable and productive as possible, without alerting him to the seriousness of his situation.”
The text paused for a moment, then slowly spelled out the following: “For what it’s worth, Dan, we’re sorry.” And the screen went black.
Hairy legs swung hard off the gurney, knocking my phone across the room.
“If you’re done reading your note from mom, little man, let’s get this party started.”
I bit the inside of my cheek again, this time to hold back the tears.
benjamin sTone
Urbana, Illinois
1:15am
CURRENT MUSIC: “Asia” by Kenji Kawai, from PATLABOR 2
CURRENT BOOKS: “Fear and Loathing…in ‘72” and “The Conquest of Time” by H.G. Wells
LAST MOVIE WATCHED: “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus”
---------
My hypershort fictions and commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
---------
Also visible, with a few exceptions, at http://www.livejournal.com/users/benchilada
Fiction AWAAAAAAY...
Slim pickings at the morgue tonight. I need a body that’s in relatively good shape. I’d prefer one without visible wounds, and no autopsy scar would be nice, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. They’ve already ghosted Johnny and he floats, a sentient microchip in a protein solution, in what would best be described as a turkey baster with teeth.
As I unlatch door number seven, I hit the jackpot. Looks about fifty, card on the front says heart attack, no visible sign of death, except that he’s 45 degrees Fahrenheit and the color and texture of White Out. The tag says Hank Resnick. I slide him out and onto a gurney, careful not to cause any post-mortem bruising. A few minutes with my make-up kit and he looks a bit tarted-up, but he’ll pass for alive long enough to work out.
I’d put clothes on him, but Jimmy hates waking up naked. That’s why he always wakes up naked. I pull a scalpel and a Swingline stapler out of my briefcase and make a deep incision an inch above his neckline. Christ, I hate this part.
Plunging the baster deep into the new wound, I squeeze the amber bulb at the end of the tube. The fluid shoots in, thin streams leaking out down the poor bastard’s neck. I quickly slide the tube out and staple the flap of skin down. A quick once-over with a handy-wipe and he’s looking better.
I toss the baster into a biohazard box hanging from a wall and rummage through my pockets for a small metal box. It’s only got one switch, covered by thick plastic, and a tiny keyhole. I slip a key out from the sole of my shoe, turn it in the lock, and the thick plastic pops open. After taking a good six steps back, I press the ominous red button, ironically labeled “Do not, under any circumstances, press this red button, unless you want to die.”
Hank’s body convulses wildly, a posthumous grand mal seizure, and his eyes arc blue electricity between them. I am Frankenstein, and this is my creation. Or rather, the United States government is Frankenstein, I’m Igor, and Hank is the monster.
A few seconds of seizing and Hank settles back down, albeit a bit more awkwardly positioned than before. His eyelids flicker open and shut, and his mouth moves, trying to form words. I tip a bottle of Evian over his teeth. He swallows like a fish gasping for air.
“Innnnnng fffffnnnnggg nnnnnnnkkkd.”
“Yes, you’re fucking naked.”
“Mrrrrrrrrfffffgrrrr.”
“That’s me. C’mon, try sitting up.”
He awkwardly jerks his way into a sitting position and manages enough fine motor control of one hand to flip me the bird.
“Class, Jimmy, that’s you. All class.”
“Yeahhhhhhccccchhhhh.”
James Montgomery Hutchinson is the single greatest special agent in the history of the world. He has completed, in his twenty-odd years of service, over one-thousand special ops, been killed thirty-four times, and keeps coming back for more.
He was killed the first time in 1982, and, like some terrible Hammer horror film, they couldn’t stand to lose him, so they caved in his skull with a crowbar, jammed a couple hundred needles into his brain and mapped every damn thing that made him who he was. They then “downloaded” – over a span of seven months – the entire contents of his brain onto tape drives, which would later be upgraded to bubble memory, hard drives, and now a very special DVD kept, like Dick Cheney, in an undisclosed location. Its contents are copied, encoded onto a special chip that pulses with a LOT of power, and dumped into whatever used meat puppet I can find for him.
He is Jimmy the Spook, the Ghost in a Bottle, ready to serve his country in whatever skin they give him. He’s a better shot with a dead man’s hands than anybody alive, runs faster with atrophied muscles than anybody I’ve ever known, and can do long division in his head. Okay, maybe the last one isn’t that important, but, fuck, I can’t do it.
I take a seat next to the gurney as Jimmy loosens up the taught muscles, stretching, pulling, and snapping things into workable condition. I punch a few numbers into my sat-phone and wait for our orders.
As The Spook pulls ligaments back into shape and cracks his neck, I stare in silence at the green letters that scrolls across the screen of my phone, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from making a noise.
“For Your Eyes Only,” it warns ominously, “as there has been a problem. During the last download, a cat – yes, a cat – snuck through a barbed wire fence and sat down on our private transformer. Son of a bitch exploded like a turkey full of cherry bombs. He also managed to surge our systems, causing a number of problems, but only one important one.”
My stomach sank.
“Jimmy’s original disc as been irreparably damaged. You now possess the last remaining ghosting of Mr. Hutchinson’s brain. When his current body goes, so will the chip, and so will he. Forever.”
I snuck a glance at Jimmy, who was peeking under the blue sheet across his hips with a knowing grin.
“Under no circumstances,” the text continued, “is Mr. Hutchinson to be informed. Our psychologists cannot accurately predict what reaction he might have. You will complete your mission and return Home as quickly as possible. We regret to inform you, however, that there will be insufficient time to recover data from the chip before the electrical impulses it provides begins to degrade beyond the point of no return.”
“This will be the last task your partner will ever have, and he can never know. As his best friend, you are expected to make his final trip as enjoyable and productive as possible, without alerting him to the seriousness of his situation.”
The text paused for a moment, then slowly spelled out the following: “For what it’s worth, Dan, we’re sorry.” And the screen went black.
Hairy legs swung hard off the gurney, knocking my phone across the room.
“If you’re done reading your note from mom, little man, let’s get this party started.”
I bit the inside of my cheek again, this time to hold back the tears.
benjamin sTone
Urbana, Illinois
1:15am
CURRENT MUSIC: “Asia” by Kenji Kawai, from PATLABOR 2
CURRENT BOOKS: “Fear and Loathing…in ‘72” and “The Conquest of Time” by H.G. Wells
LAST MOVIE WATCHED: “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus”
---------
My hypershort fictions and commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
---------
Also visible, with a few exceptions, at http://www.livejournal.com/users/benchilada
