The Shell

Lucas Fabian made the call, he had no other choice. "It's the right
decision", reassured the receptionist, "you have to be prepared for
whatever life might throw at you."

It was the previous evening that had decided it for him. The
interview with Jack Lenehan on Jack on the Box:

JACK: Terrible to think that in 2030 women are still dying of breast
cancer, when these days it is so preventable.

(pause)

LUCAS: That's right Jack, but only if we catch it in time.

That was how he had begun the interview, Jack Lenehan, the 'rising
star' of talk-shows, who had been fully briefed about how to conduct
the interview, about what and what not to say, and that was how he had
started, by bringing up the topic of the interviewee's dead wife. Lucas
had tried to look unfazed, but it had visibly unsettled him. He had
told his agent to tell Jack's agent to tell Jack to 'ease him in.' He
hadn't been interviewed by anyone in five years. This was not easing
him in.

JACK: And that's what your new Foundation aims to achieve right? The
Eve Fabian Foundation?

LUCAS: That's right Jack, we will soon be offering free screening
programmes to women of all ages.

JACK: Totally free?

LUCAS: That's right Jack, our model is the NHS system before it was
scrapped, though with shorter waiting times.

JACK: Sounds expensive, this all being funded out of your own
pocket?

LUCAS: We have several sponsors interested Jack, but yes, for the
initial period of the venture I and my production company will be the
main source of funding. It is expensive Jack, but I believe no price is
too high when it comes to saving life.

They had then discussed Lucas' film career, moving on to the kind of
ground Lucas had wanted the interview to start with. They had talked
about the forthcoming boxset, Lucas Fabian Legacy: Fifty Years Of Film,
and what factors had influenced the choice of films to be included.
Lucas' agent and the management team at his production company had
worked out exactly what he was supposed to say, but Lucas had forgotten
most of it by the time Jack led the interview in that direction. His
mind began to drift to those final days with Eve in the hospital, the
suffering she endured as the doctors made their last ditch attempts to
blast out the cancer that had invaded nearly every organ of her body,
the way the disease and then the treatment for the disease had utterly
broken her until she was no longer his wife as he knew her. She was no
longer the person he knew and loved, just some hollowed out shell, an
indistinct grey mass of pain.

JACK: (laughing) Hasn't changed a bit has he ladies and
gentlemen?

Lucas broke out of his stupor to see a picture of himself as a child
displayed on the video wall behind Jack's desk. He saw a small,
blond-haired boy in a garden smiling and cradling a black-brown rabbit
in his arms. In all honesty had it not been for Jack's prompting he
would not have recognised the boy at all. He felt no connection, and he
could not remember ever owning a rabbit. He fingered the small gold
locket under his shirt, and waited for the interview to be over.

*

Outside his apartment block the following morning, Lucas picked up a
newspaper and scanned the headlines:

EAST ANGLIA LOSING BATTLE WITH SEA

'SIX MILLION TO DIE IN AFRICAN FAMINE.' EU LEADERS SAY: 'WE MUST
ATTEND TO OUR OWN PROBLEMS'

RETIREMENT AGE COULD BE RAISED TO ONE HUNDRED

US NEUTRON BOMB TEST A SUCCESS

THE QUICKENING PACE?

He placed his fifteen Euros in the box and headed towards his car.
His chauffeur opened the door for him and he slid into the backseat
without a word. Silently, almost imperceptibly, the electric car began
its movement forwards through the early morning smog. Lucas adjusted a
slider on a remote control and the tint of the windows shaded down to
block out the sun entirely. He sat in complete blackness in the
automobile cocoon for a minute or two, appreciating the darkness, the
cool of the air conditioning and the complete lack of sensory stimulus.
Then he turned up the electric light to a low level and pulled some
papers out of his jacket pocket. They were the forms he was supposed to
have read two weeks ago after the consultation. He had to sign three
disclaimers that protected the company from any legal action following
the procedure. He did not take much care to read all the medical stuff
in detail, he had been assured it was just a formality. The procedure
had a 'projected success rate of 99.9%.' It was an 'experimental' and
'elective' procedure. He had heard this all before, it was just legal
jargon. The car rolled to a total stop half an hour later. As the stop
showed no signs of abating, Lucas adjusted the windows again so that he
could see out. He saw the odd, clam-like architecture of the Valhalla
Industries building and its acres of landscaped greenery. He had
arrived. He emerged yawning and blinking from the metal cocoon of his
electric limousine, and again without saying a word to his chauffeur,
proceeded through the main entrance of the building.

In Dr.Azorma's office, Lucas listened whilst the young surgeon
explained the procedure to him again. "In a minute I'm going to take
you through to the treatment room, but before I do I'm just going to
run through the process one more time for you," began the impossibly
handsome, impossibly youthful doctor, "Once we take you through, we
will make you comfortable on the surgical bed and then administer a
general anaesthetic which will make the procedure entirely painless for
you. In fact, it will seem almost instantaneous. You will fall asleep,
and when you awake, well?you will be a whole new person. Now?I am sorry
to have to impose the grisly details on you, but legally?"

Lucas nodded understandingly. He was eager to make a start.

"What will happen after you are under is as follows. After the
surgical team is certain your condition is stable and there are no
serious risk factors present, we will... remove your cranium and
carefully attach a number of transference devices to the necessary
areas of your brain - the ones that govern sense of self, memories
etcetera. I've told you all this before right? Essentially, we will
evacuate you from your ageing body and transfer into an ageless one.
You will be installed in a neural net computer system in a mechanical
body, that ultimately will be modelled to look exactly like you did at
age twenty-one. Now I will ask you again, are you absolutely certain
that this procedure is for you?"

"Absolutely," Lucas replied with no hesitation.

Dr.Azorma smiled broadly, "Excellent, now if you'll follow me I'll
lead you through into the treatment room." A few minutes later and
Lucas Fabian was lying on a table in an operating theatre surrounded by
a small team of surgeons in anonymous grey masks and gowns.

"How are you feeling buddy?" the muffled voice of Dr.Azorma floated
languidly into Lucas' brain as the anaesthetic began to take
effect.

"Fine, fine, jusfine."

"Next time we speak we'll be members of the same exclusive club! Let
me tell you, it's a blast."

"You, you had it done too?" Lucas was fading fast.

"Sure, you think are this many top surgeons around who look
eighteen? Dr.Azorma was born in 1958, he was?"

The last thing he felt was the cold surgeon's hands removing the
gold locket from around his neck.

?.

?.

He could not be sure his eyes were open. If they were it was either
very dark or he was blind. He needed to be sure so he reached his hands
up. They hit some kind of surface above him very quickly. He had no
idea where he was at first, but he was very cold. He was shivering. He
quickly realised he was naked. He slowly realised where.

"?and this here is the waste disposal." Lucas heard muffled voices
drawing nearer. He lay still.

"What? you mean like trash?" It was a girl and a boy, the boy spoke
next.

"No? I mean like bodies"

"No shit!" exclaimed the girl. "I thought they made people like,
forever young in this place or something?"

"Yeah, by giving them entirely new bodies, the old ones they just
throw away."

"Gross."

"Body's just a shell Ann, hermit crabs do it all the time"

"Do you see me walking sideways?"

They laughed. They were close now.

"You'll never guess who we got today"

"Who?"

"Last seen jumping out a skyscraper in Twin Towers?"

"Err?"

"Famous movie star? Old fuck?"

"Nope."

"C'mon we saw it last week. Lucas Fabian."

"Who?"

"I told you, the wrinkled old fuck in that disaster movie, played a
chairman of the board or some crap. You wanna see him?"

"Dead old guy? Er no fucking way."

"C'mon, you'll get to see dead old guy's dead old dick?"

"That's fucking disgusting."

"But you wanna, right? You wanna see some dead movie star dick?
Right? I know you wanna."

There was a brief silence, then Lucas heard two pairs of footsteps
on a tiled floor. He felt certain they were standing over him now, but
where? He didn't know why, but it struck him as imperative they not
become aware of his being alive. He closed his eyes. A second later and
the totality of the blackness in front of him became less so. There was
light, he did not open his eyes again but he was aware there was light
on his lids. He heard a sharp gasp of shock, and then a raucous
laughter. The kids were standing directly over him now.

"Oh my god, that's so fucking disgusting."

"Look at his skin, it's hanging off, it's like shrivelled up like
some fucking prune or raisin or something."

"And he fucking smells, he fucking smells."

"That's dead body stink. Shit I'm sorry I didn't know this was gonna
be so fucking sick."

"Jesus fucking Christ I'd do anything not to end up like that."

"Yeah?what a shrivelled up old wiener." There was more laughter,
vicious and ripping like barb wire, but also defensive, afraid, and
uncertain of itself. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. The
blackness became total again and Lucas heard a lid close softly above
him.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," said the boy. Lucas lay still and
waited.

He opened his eyes and reached up again, feeling the surface of what
he now knew to be the lid of his prison, his box, his?

He pushed at it, and to his surprise it yielded easily to his
advances. It was made of cardboard. Lucas lifted the lid and raised his
head tentatively above the parapet. He was in a small dark basement
room. The cardboard box he had been lain in was one of four that sat on
the tiled floor next to a large unlit furnace. He rose up quickly and
clambered shakily to his feet, prompting a vicious headrush. Steadying
himself with one hand on the cold furnace he tried to think for a
moment about his predicament. Something had gone horribly wrong with
the procedure, that much was obvious. He was still in his old body, his
old decrepit body that young people were either amused or repulsed by.
Nothing had changed. Why then had they put him here, naked, cold and
boxed up in this place this?

He stumbled through the darkness towards a door on the far wall. He
would make them pay for this, the disclaimers he had signed said
nothing about this, he would sue them out of business, the useless
fucks, the butchers?

Outside the furnace room (he was calling it that now in attempt to
avoid a panic attack) Lucas retched unproductively onto a dirty tiled
floor. He was in a corridor on basement floor of the building. He was
shivering still and painfully aware now of his own nakedness. He
searched in vain in a store cupboard for some clothes, but finding only
piles of bed linen, wrapped himself in a white sheet and stumbled down
the corridor. Around the corner he found a service lift and after
struggling with the gate for a few minutes managed to get inside. He
pressed for the ground floor, he had no idea what he would do when he
got there. Pulling open the gate again a few minutes later Lucas
emerged from the dark confines of the elevator only to find himself in
a similarly dark alcove near reception. It was night, and the building
looked abandoned. The young receptionist's desk was vacant. Lucas
wanted to call out to someone but he did not know who. He was not even
sure he wanted to be found, a naked old man in a bedsheet. He was tired
and cold, he wanted to go home. He crept towards the main entrance and
looked out, his car was gone. Turning back towards the service lift he
noticed the building's inventory. There was a 'recovery ward' and all
night nurse's station on the second floor. He decided that was where he
must go.

He arrived on the second floor a few minutes later. He was no longer
strong enough to lift the gate of the service lift all the way so had
to crawl out under the partially opened hatch on his hands and knees.
His back ached. As he stood up to stretch himself out the bedsheet,
caught on the lift gate, ripped straight down the middle into two
useless scraps. Lucas cursed quietly and his shaking hands clenched
into fists in frustration. He had a feeling like he was going to cry
but his body was as dry as the Sahara and he could not produce tears.
Further down the corridor a parallelogram of light spilled through an
open door. He stumbled recklessly towards it. He heard laughter as he
approached. Laughter and two familiar voices, one was definitely
Dr.Azorma's, but the other? He knew the voice, he had heard before, but
where?

"And how do you feel now?" said Dr.Azorma

"Fantastic," came the other voice "Powerful."

"Get used to it my friend, that is how you'll feel all the time now,
forever! You and I could outlive the sun itself."

The other voice replied hesitantly, "I've never known fate to be
that kind."

"Fate? What does fate have to do with anything anymore? It can deal
us whatever hand it likes!" Dr.Azorma exclaimed jovially "My friend!
You don't seem to have grasped the full implications of your new form.
Let me tell you?last year, believe it or not, last year I was in a
plane crash. The aircraft was burnt to ashes, bits of it strewn all
over the Nevada desert. No survivors, apart from me."

"How? Surely even?"

"The only two objects to make it through that crash intact were the
aircraft's black box and mine. Yes, all the information that makes up
who you are, your self, is all kept secure in a black box unit,
impervious to harm, indestructible, and sitting dead centre in your new
skull. Nothing can touch you, and if it were lost we would simply bring
you back to life from the information on our computer systems. As a
further insurance policy we keep you on file. Your plan has you backed
up here every two months. Forget about death, my friend, it is
meaningless to us."

"Thankyou Doctor, I can hardly believe it."

"Believe it. The operation was a complete success."

"But my face, my skin, my body?it looks exactly like?"

"Like it should do. Like it did do and like it should never have
stopped doing. What nature destroys, we correct. We had the best
reconstructive artists in the world working on your new body."

"And what about the old one? What happens to that?"

"That? It's organic waste. It's an empty shell. We sucked it dry,
don't worry about it Lucas."

LUCAS. Outside in the corridor, Lucas Fabian crouched in the shadows
outside the room and finally recognised the second voice. It was his
own, it was his own voice from half a century ago, youthful and
untainted by the ravages of time. He felt dizzy now and sick with
dread, so much so that his legs buckled and he fell forward into the
light and landed face first on the cold hard floor. He heard a painful
sounding slam that must have been his head hitting the surface, but
still he tried to drag himself up again. He pushed his frozen hands
hard against the floor and tried to unlock the joints of his arms. He
swivelled his neck slowly and agonisingly so that he might be able to
see into the room. His vision was blurred and spotted with lights and
other interference, but he could just about make out the sight of his
youthful self looking directly at him from a warm comfortable bed,
Dr.Azorma sitting by his side. They both looked shocked, disgusted, abd
embarrassed at the sight of the old man. From the hospital bed the new
Lucas Fabian swore at and cursed his surgeon. "Get that fucking thing
out of here!" he heard him shout in horror, "Get rid of it!"

The last thing the old man saw before his eyes closed for the last
time, was his gold locket fastened securely around his youthful
double's slender neck.