Cryo Novel (at least, a little)
I'm too late to start the NaNoBlogMo thing, but I've had this novel running through my head for a long time. Here's a bit of it (the first chapter, most likely). So, tell me what you think. Should I bother with chapter two?



The old man reclined in the plastic padded chair that dominated the small yellow room. His eyes moved between the poster on the wall showing layered cross-sections of an eyeball, and the flat, metal contraption suspended above his head by a crane. It was industrial gray, about as big around as his head, and flattened, with two circular halves. There were holes in the lowest part, near the point where the two halves touched. It looked like the eyes of an owl, dark, angry, and accusatory, with hollow pupils. As he lay back in the chair, the eyes seemed to grow slowly bigger, inexorably closer.

The moment was broken as a quick rap on the office door announced the doctor. He followed the knock almost immediately, walking in holding the door in one hand and a clipboard in the other. He was holding a Styrofoam cup in his teeth, and nodded carefully to the old man as he put the clipboard down and reached for the cup.

The doctor wore a white lab coat over his suit and tie. The lab coat was bright and clean, all straight lines and no pockets. The suit underneath it looked crumpled and disheveled. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his auburn hair seemed to hang limp over them. In the past few days, he'd picked up the nervous tick of brushing his hair out of his eyes.

"Mr. Ruiz. I'm Dr. Polame." No hand was offered as the doctor sat down on the stool next to the huge green chair.

The old man frowned a bit. He felt naked without his beard, and couldn't shake a chill. He waved a hand at the poster, and the model of an eyeball on the counter, "Something wrong with my eyes, doc?"

The doctor removed a manila folder from the clipboard and opened it up without looking at the old man, "No, no. I'm just borrowing the office from an optometrist on staff. We've had a bit of a shake-up recently, and office space has been pretty hard to find." He looked up from the folder, "Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, milk -"

The doctor's teeth clacked as he shut his mouth. Not milk. Caffeine would boil right out of his system in the cryo process, but milk would gum the whole thing up. Christ, that was a bush-league mistake. Get it together, Carl, this isn't your first heart patient.

Dr. Carl Polame had been working double shifts for the past week, and it was starting to show. He didn't have the energy of an intern anymore, and there just wasn't enough time to get through all his work. He was saved as the old man shook his head dismissively, "No. I'm fine. So you found a cure." It wasn't a question, just a statement of the most logical explanation.

Dr. Polame closed the manila folder, "Ah, no sir. I'm sorry, but we had to interrupt your downtime -"

"I was told that couldn't happen." The old man cut him off softly, but Carl thought he could sense an edge in the old man's voice. According to the file, the old man was a captain of industry. A real heavy-hitter in his day.

"When you were put under, sir, that was true. You had a standing agreement with the company that we would hold you in cryogenic sleep until we could find a proven cure for your heart condition. However, about thirty years after you were put under, Congress enacted a new bill requiring all cryo patients to have media in their chambers. Your sister acted as nearest, um, relative," that was a near slip. Carl caught himself before saying 'nearest Living relative'.

The old man nodded, "Figures. Is she still alive?"

The doctor shrugged slowly, "Given your ailment, we are going to try to put you back into downtime as soon as possible. There won't be any time to meet with family, and any information I give you now may not be valid next time you wake up. So, you're probably better off not knowing."

The old man leaned his head back and looked up at the owl eyes. He made a rolling motion with his right hand, signaling to get on with it, "Okay, right. They told me when I woke up I should expect to have a brand new life ahead of me." He paused for a moment and looked up, "Is my money still good around here?"

This was something Carl was prepared for, "Yes, for the most part. We've got a financial advisor that you need to talk to, just about inflation adjustments."

One corner of the old man's mouth perked up in a grin, "Jack up the price before plugging me back in. Well, I've heard worse squeezes." He sighed slowly, "Okay, so I had a bum ticker. You guys plugged me in, said you'd pull me out when you got a cure, but Congress threw a monkey wrench in it, and now you guys have to pull me out to sign some papers."

"Not quite, sir." Dr. Palome flipped open the manila folder again, and pulled out a pamphlet, "You see, not long after you were put into downtime, researchers found out that people in cryogenic sleep could still hear and see." He looked down at the pamphlet, "It turns out that when a person is in downtime, they still assimilate stimulus, sort of like the way a coma victim does, only on a much more elevated scale. The downtime person can remember things that were said, and things that were displayed in front of them, even years after they experience it." This was a part of the patter he'd been through dozens of times, and he repeated it almost like a mantra, "So Amnesty International argued that it was cruel punishment to put someone in downtime without giving them some kind of media outlet."

The old man nodded, "Congress caved, and you had to put TV's in everybody's tube."

Dr. Palome looked up, and picked up his coffee, "Exactly, except that Congress worded their law so that we would have to keep up with the times. They said that we, the cryogenic lab, would have to provide the most 'commonly used media outlet' for each patient. Of course, at the time, that was Television, and it has been for many years. When new versions came out, with better bit-depth, resolution, 3D, and other such additions, we were able to resist altering the tubes. We argued that it would be an enormous expense, and a potential risk to wake everyone up just to make minor changes to their tubes." The doctor took a long sip from his coffee.

The old man picked up the thread, "Then somebody developed a better TV. One that was so different, so much better, that everybody switched over to it."

"Yes sir. Now we are required by law to wake up three million patients within the next two years, and explain this new media outlet to them." The doctor handed the pamphlet over. On the front was a picture of a person from behind. The man in the picture had what looked like a metallic growth attached to his spine, just between the shoulders. The text above said, "The IMV Cherry. Be wherever you need to be."

"What the hell is that thing?" The old man looked worried.

"Well, sir. It's a media unit that attaches to your spine, so that it can interact with your nervous system. By communicating directly with your brain, it simulates images and sounds that appear to be in front of you."

The old man frowned, "I don't want a machine in my head making hallucinations."

Dr. Palome said, "I understand sir. But this system is tightly controlled. It does not have the capability to show random hallucinations. It's linked to the wireless net, and it is only able to show you the things that you request. For instance, if you subscribe to a newsfeed, that feed can appear as a crawler at the periphery of your vision; also, you can use this system as a communication line, so that you can talk to people as though they were standing right next to you."

He took a deep breath, "But the most common usage is the guide. This is an avatar that appears in front of you and organizes all of your mail, messages, calendar, and news. He will also respond to questions, and do data searches based on your questions. This brings a whole new level to news retrieval, sir." He shrugged, "That's why it's so much more different than television. That's why we had to wake you. We need your permission to -"

The doctor stopped abruptly and cocked his head to the right, as though listening to something no one else could hear. It was common body language for letting people know that you were answering an incoming call.

In his ear, Carl could hear his boss, Dr. Carstark. He spoke in a slow, easy monotone, but Carl wasn't fooled. Anything important enough to break in on a session with a patient was worth worrying about. "Sorry to bother you Carl, but we've got a problem down here in 37-G. Could use your help." Carl's eyes widened slightly.

Carstark was a quiet, understated man, who had the look of someone who'd seen it all. He had never used the word 'problem' in front of Carl, preferring to refer to issues as 'opportunities' or 'situations'.

Carl stood up suddenly, knocking the clipboard to the floor. As he reached down to scoop it up, he turned to the old man, "I'm terribly sorry about this, sir, but I'm needed upstairs. I'll be back as soon as I can, and if there's anything you need, just ask one of the nurses." He bustled out of the door quickly, shoes sliding slightly on the waxed floor.

The old man waited for the door to close, then folded his hands over the pamphlet on his chest. He frowned up at the machine over his head, "This might be more difficult than I'd thought, Mr. Owl."


- posted by BrandG @ 9:11 PM