Prologue - Untitled Work

Prologue

         Where did it start? Some motherfucker with a camera asked me that a few days ago. Not just on the street, mind you. He called ahead first. Set up an interview, as if I was somebody. But hell, I've been bored lately, and this could make me some money. So I play along.
         It started here. Not here, in this room, per se, but in The City. Everything starts here, and everything ends here. 'Least, everything that matters does. But enough bullshit.
         It all started, for me, a long time ago, in a City courtroom. I had spent a good deal of time making money by finding the holes in certain companies' information security systems, and had I done so with their consent, I would have been fine. But the politicians had decided that, that year, they needed to lay a strong arm against "cyber crime".
         I knew that notion was ridiculous, because for every guy (they called us "hackers". I hated that) they caught, I personally knew of a dozen others who'd never, ever let the fuzz find them. I thought that I was one of those, but then I got sloppy. I got greedy, is what it really comes down to. You see that one job that's so big and so shiny, it would have taken the accumulated discipline of three Buddhist monks and a half-dozen Marines not to take it. I, suffice to say, was not that.
         "Order," the judge called out, unemphatically. "Sentencing hearing for Scott comma Francis K., found guilty of thirteen counts of felonious fraud, twenty-seven counts of theft of information, and seventy-four counts of misdemeanor cyber-terrorism. Mr. Scott, please stand."
         I was dressed in a very in-style orange jumpsuit, with chains on my wrists and ankles. My public defender and I stood up at the judge's urging. My idiotic lawyer began to speak.
         "Order!" the judge yelled with previously unseen vigor, pounding his gavel. "When it is your time to speak, Mr. Murphy, I will ask you to. Mr. Scott, you have been found guilty of the crimes I have listed, which, in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of New York could carry a maximum sentence of 220 years in prison without possibility of parole. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
         "Your Honor, if the court feels that I need to be put away for such a long time to protect my friends and neighbors, then I submit myself to the will of the court. I have, as I said at my hearing, repented fully of my crimes, and have no intention to pursue a life outside of the law in the future." I could be a real slick bastard when I wanted to be. But I have no shame, I'd tell this old fart any lie I could think of to keep from spending the rest of my life behind bars. I was still a young man.
The judge glared at me from his high seat, and sat pensively for a moment. I perspired.
         "Repentance does not forgive your crime, Mr. Scott. If we do not punish those who so thoroughly and flagrantly disregard our laws, then our society will crumble into chaos. I cannot, in good conscience, send a message to others like you. I will not allow anyone to believe that they can so boldly lie and steal for their own profit without proper recourse. Your sentence will be the maximum, 220 years without possibility of parole."
         I sat back down, the weight of what had just happened sinking in. You can't really anticipate moments like this. My city-appointed "attorney", who most likely got his license from a cereal box, had already told me what the maximum sentence was. I had spent most of the past 48 hours preparing for what the judge would tell me. But all of that means nothing where I was. Because there is exactly one moment when you realize that your government has decided to put you away, that you were literally going to spend the rest of your life in prison, and that there was nothing you could do about it. Faced with the inevitability of my circumstance, I did the only sane thing. I begged for my life.
         "Your Honor, please, you don't understand--" was as far as I got.
         BANG BANG BANG
         "You are out of order, Mr. Scott. Now stand there and be silent!" The judge was staring at me like I'd shot his dog. "I have been asked, Mr. Scott, to offer you a deal of sorts. I will point out that whether you accept or deny this will have absolutely no effect on your sentence. Either way you will be spending the foreseeable future in prison. I personally do not see any reason to offer to help you, but Congressman Stevens wants to see this project go forward, and has asked me personally to try to find.. volunteers."
         The judge was absently toying with his gavel now. In the back of my mind, I was appalled that he could be so casual, moments after telling me that my life was over. But closer to the front of my mind, I wanted to know what this "deal" would entail. I was willing to do just about anything to get my life back, but the judge had made it pretty clear that that would not happen. So I stood there, and I listened.
         "There is a government-sponsored project being organized by the 3M corporation. They have been working for the past several years on a method of... what did they call it?" The judge started looking for a paper on his raised desk. I hated this man more and more.
         "Suspended Animation. They have been perfecting a way to... apparently, to keep a body alive without consciousness or aging indefinitely. It says here that they've managed to do a great deal towards their goal... you may have heard their success with Roger the Chimp in the news a few weeks ago, if you've been reading the papers in your cell, that is." The smug bastard. Get on with it.
         "3M and DARPA are ready to begin human testing. They see no reason to believe that any harm will come to a human test subject. They are looking for volunteers."
         That was it? My big "deal" was some mad scientist's wet dream? If it didn't commute my sentence at all, and would probably leave me dead, I had no idea why the judge would even suggest that I participate in such a thing. So I asked him.
         "Your Honor, why the hell would I want to help them? Even if they don't kill me in the process, you've already said that it won't affect my sentence at all."
         "Mr. Scott, you would be well advised to remain respectful," the judge said. As if I could be respectful to such an asshole. "The suggestion from DARPA is that you spend your 220 year prison sentence in suspended animation. If successful, it would fulfill the court's specific instruction, but more importantly than that, you will be able to have your life. I would be satisfied, because not only would I not have to deal with you ever again, you would be so far removed from anyone and anything you've ever known that I have no doubt you will be unable to assume your previous record of.. mischief. They will put you under, a process which I understand should be somewhat painful, but brief. You would then sleep through your sentence, not aging or noticing the passage of time, to be revived at the end of your sentence, and left a free man."
         I had to think about it. It only took one more night in jail, however, for me to decide that I couldn't live there. I had my lawyer call the judge to accept the offer.
In three days' time, I was on a medical table in a white room. I had spent the past three days submitting to physicals and blood tests and more physicals. Apparently, I was an acceptable candidate after all of this. A nurse came up to me.
         "Hold out your arms," she said, and swabbed them liberally with.. something.
A pair of doctors walked in, staring at charts. Neither of them looked at me. "You've been told what to expect?" one of the doctors asked me. I nodded. I'll admit, I was scared. For all I knew, I might just have chosen the death sentence. Each doctor took a large needle from the table next to me. Time moved slowly as they examined the syringes to make sure there was no air. I anticipated death.
         Two needles stabbed mercilessly into the soft insides of my arms. I felt them go in, and I felt them begin to pump liquid into me. I felt one doctor begin to slap my face, while the other was pinching me in highly inappropriate ways through my hospital gown.
         "Wake up, wake up, come on, don't be another dudd," the doctor said. I blinked twice. The doctors face had changed greatly, and I wondered if the syringes had been full of acid. The room around me had gone dark, and now I was lit by two bright white lights, directly at my face.
         I groaned noisily, and shook the invading hands away from me. The nurse laughed. It must have been the nurse, as she was the only woman in the room. I blinked again. Apparently there were only two people in the room. I hadn't noticed the one doctor leave, or the nurse change from a white coat to a blue uniform. The remaining doctor had also changed his clothes, and I was becoming very confused.
         "Alright, he's awake. Let's get him to recovery. Make it quick, I've got lunch in five minutes."
         The words were barely registering in my brain. The accent was wrong. The room was wrong. Everything seemed wrong. I felt my head hit the table behind me as I passed out.