Living History - Ben Essex (brene brown rising strong TXT) 📗

it?’

‘We’ll keep it in my apartment, we’ll pretend you’re sick. As long as you’ve got the job done, I doubt that they’ll care.’

‘No. They won’t.’

‘We can do this, Jasie.’ She gripped my face, and kissed me softly. ‘I wouldn’t suggest it if we couldn’t.’

I smiled, quite without meaning to. I definitely wasn’t the slightest bit happy.

‘All right. We can do this.’

‘First things first,’ Derry said, braiding my hair with wires. ‘We need to plug you in.’

I was sitting in Derry’s bath.

I didn’t like Derry’s bath.

For one thing, it was dirty. She assured me everything was perfectly sterile, but it didn’t look clean. The porcelain was cracked, the shower-head was crooked and the taps were covered in grime.

Also, there were the rats.

The rats helped Derry out, and in return she sheltered them from the reptilian predators outside. She had them all fitted with little neural clamps; flashing blue and green lights, stapled to each rodent cranium. With these she could control them, use them as little four-legged helpers. Rats don’t have opposable thumbs, but their jaws are strong and surprisingly delicate.

The rats never failed to freak me out. Watching them scuttle back and forth, trailing cables and hairless tails… all right, so they had fluffy fur and smelt of apricot. Derry kept them soaped and scrubbed. I still didn’t trust the little buggers.

‘Listen,’ Derry stood over me, looking concerned. ‘It’s possible you’re going to want to close your eyes for this bit.’

Behind her was a huge pile of electronic equipment. Most of it, I couldn’t even begin to identify. Wires, baubles and three-pronged plugs. Sparkly things. Sharp things. I gulped.

‘Uh, I think maybe I’ll get something to eat and we can do this later-‘ I started to babble, stepping out of the bath. Not a little bit gently, Derry pushed me back in.

‘Right,’ I mumbled. ‘Sorry.’

‘Just relax. It’s all going to go according to plan.’

She started shovelling electronic equipment into the bath. Goosebumps struck me skin. I smelled something acrid.

‘Just lay back,’ she told me. ‘And-seriously- close your eyes.’

She was holding what appeared to be a small lawnmower attached to a giant meat cleaver.

I shut my eyes.

‘Derry,’ the thought suddenly occurred. ‘I… I want to say thank you. I’d be dead without you. You’re always here for me. And I-‘

‘I need to use your mouth for the next part,’ she interrupted.

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘Open wide.’

I did so, and felt something bitty and sticky shoved down my throat. My oesophagus began to spasm, and I fought the urge to vomit.

My spinal cord made a bid for freedom, and my liver tried to burst.

Everything went black.

Darkness, and the place under darkness.

Two trains, passing in the night.

Two windows, just for one moment standing side by side.

And my reflection…

…Is behind me.

I opened my eyes, gasping.

Water rushed down my throat, tasting of salt.

I was floating, breathless. Arms flailing, starting to drown. Brain in shock, something telling me… wrong, this is wrong… arms too big, legs too short, heart too slow… trapped… my hands hitting glass… trapped in a tiny space, drowning in a tube… drowning… drowning… what’s happening?

From somewhere below, there was a hiss and a slurp. I felt myself falling, falling…

…Something beeped. The water went away.

‘Brain activity detected,’ came the gentle voice of a computer. ‘Emergency vent in progress.’

I felt the glass walls around me falling away, and saw water spilling out onto a shiny floor. I flopped to the ground, rolling onto my back. Naked and vulnerable, my body refusing to respond to commands. My brain refusing to command properly.

Don’t feel right.

I remembered why.

I am in the lab.

I tried to say the words out loud, but my throat would only croak.

I am in the lab, and I have to get back to Derry.

But for the moment, I could not move. Not on muscle.

So I stayed flat on my back, breathing heavily with someone else’s heart.

I stumbled.

And fell.

And crawled back up, onto unsteady feet.

Over by the lab-door, I found a pile of clothes. Underneath it was an ID card. Convenient that they were here, I thought, then remembered vaguely: Derry and I planned this. We planted this stuff. So I wouldn’t have to walk outside naked. That’s nice.

My mind was still quite jumbled.

Obviously, the picture on the ID card wouldn’t match my face anymore, but it’d be enough to get me past the electronic security. With any luck, the human security wouldn’t pay too much attention to somebody going out.

The clothes didn’t fit. It took several deep breathes to squeeze into them. Trouser legs too long, shirt like wearing a corset. In the end, I had to leave everything unbuttoned. Not very professional looking.

There was a white lab coat hanging by the door. That would do for a little extra cover-it was almost my size. I caught my reflection in a particularly shiny wall. Buttoned up, I looked almost respectable.

I also looked like Ben Franklin.

I touched my face. It was squidgy. I touched my knee. Ten years ago, I fell of a bike and permanently scarred my right leg, shin to thigh. Naturally, the mark was gone.

My head swam. Every limb provided resistance-I had to work twice as hard to make them move. It was like walking through syrup.

I got out of the lab, onto the street, and prayed for a quiet night. This would not be a good time to get mugged.

Somehow, I found a cab. The little yellow car stood anchored by the roadside, dirty engine spewing smoke. The driver gave me a funny look, as if trying to recognise my face.

I told him Derry’s apartment number. I told him to drive. I ignored his attempts at conversation.

Peering out of the cab window, the whole world came across as an indistinct blur. Abruptly, I realised why I’d been stumbling. Short-sighted. I need glasses.

My body kept doing things I didn’t expect. Hands twitching. Pulse different. You ever think about your pulse? You ever really notice it? You will if it starts changing pace, trust me.

The cab stopped. I reached Derry’s home, found my way inside. Mostly pushed past her; just kept going straight for the bathroom.

I had to see him… I had to see me. My own body, my real body.

There it was, in the cracked porcelain tub; covered in tubes, being scurried over by creepy cybernetic rats.

It was like looking into a mirror, except infinitely more realistic. No. Not like a mirror. Like a madman’s portrait, covered in rust.

I always thought my jaw was wider than that. I never realised I was so thin.

Irrationally, I reached a hand down-

-Derry grabbed it.

‘It’s very important,’ she said, ‘that you don’t touch anything.’

I nodded, clearing my throat. Still trying to get the hang of my voice. It came out in gasps and rasps.

‘I can go back at anytime?’ I managed to ask.

‘You need to give me a couple of hours notice,’ she replied.

I nodded.

‘Now for the hard part.’

Derry pulled a data-disc from her pocket.

‘This is all the reasonably reliable, reasonably legitimate data on Benny Boy that I could find.’

‘Reasonably?’

‘You didn’t give me long to work, J,’ She said, scratching her head. ‘Now. Let’s get down to learning your new life story. You’ve got a lot of people to convince.’

Apparently, Ben Franklin used to play the guitar.

I still can’t quite believe that.

The next day, I strode into work.

In full costume.

I don’t know where Derry found the clothes. She probably ordered them online-fast track delivery. Whatever she did, I couldn’t disapprove. I looked good. More importantly, I looked accurate.

Frilly shirt. Puffy collar. Little glasses. A white wig stuck firmly to my head. I kept a kind, knowing half-smile active at all times. It made me look smarter.

It was the middle of the day, and so the lobby of the Salmon Corp was crowded. Shiny boots trod the shiny floor as workers bustled back and forth, some descending down to the lab, donning white coats on the way-others in suits and ties, ascending up to middle-management.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ I was stopped by two security guards. Large heads bulged out of pastel-blue uniforms, looking me up and down.

‘Do you work here, sir?’ One guard asked.

‘I do.’ I remembered myself. ‘Not. I do not. But I am supposed to be here.’

The security men exchanged a look-then they started moving, ready to throw me out overarm. I raised my hands to stop them.

‘Wait!’ I proffered a square of laminated card and a data-disc. ‘Wait. I am authorised. I am here on behalf of Jacob White. He sent me with his ID card.’

I showed them.

‘And this disc… this disc has a message for Peter Greuze. I can wait here while you deliver it. When Greuze sees it, he’ll also want to see me.’

Look calm. Look commanding. You’re Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin (probably) wasn’t afraid of anything.

But I’m not Ben Franklin, and my heart is racing…

I kept my gaze steady.

Begrudgingly, one of the security men snatched the disc. I could tell what he was thinking: Yes, this man in funny clothes could be some nut… or he could be something important. You never knew with The Salmon Corporation.

‘Wait here,’ I was ordered. ‘Or else.’

I waited.

Heart racing, heart racing, heart racing…

It seemed to take an age for the security men to come back.

‘Mr. Greuze says you can come in,’ I was told.

The data-disc contained a pre-recorded message, made by me and Derry just before the body swap. It was essentially just me monologueing to a camera, explaining that I had, through sheer effort and hard work, managed to effectively resurrect Benjamin Franklin. Of course, the entire affair had been explained to the new Franklin, who seemed surprisingly agreeable. I had wanted to accompany him into the office myself but, unfortunately, I’d just been shot…

That last part was Derry’s idea; the only kind of sick-leave the Corporation would readily buy. A bullet hole in the leg. Not serious enough to be permanently debilitating, not mild enough to shrug off in a day or two

She did actually shoot me in the leg, by the way. So she could zoom the camera up on the freshly bandaged wound, to make things more “believable.” It hurt like hell, until she gave me some drugs to make the pain go away. ‘After all,’ she’d said, ‘I can have these legs all fixed up far before you actually need to use them again.’

She was sure that Peter Greuze would buy the story. I wasn’t.

He did.

And so I found myself in the Fat Man’s office, watching my own leg-wound on digital playback.

‘A remarkable man, that Mr. White,’ the Fat Man was mumbling. ‘Remarkable.’

‘Indeed he is.’

‘Always gets the job done. To be commended. I’m sure he’ll be back to work soon enough-it’s only a leg wound, barely broken flesh. It was very responsible of him to make sure you got here. He did make sure, I assume?’

‘Chaperones and cab-fare.’

‘Good. That man knows how to keep a deadline, which is very important around here. But enough about our inconsequential little worker drones.’

Something inside me tightened; I kept the indignation down. Greuze interlaced his fingers. ‘Let’s talk about you.’

‘What about me?’

Should I be speaking more old-fashioned? Should I use ‘ye?’ Did anybody actually use ‘ye’ ever_?_

Stop thinking stupid thoughts.