Unnatural

  * * * *

  The body she now inhabited, yet could neither recognize nor “control,” stepped slowly across the sandy landscape, parallel to the shoreline. His head turned first to his right at the civilization inland, then left at an ocean reflecting the darkness of cumulonimbi overhead. It’s kind of beautiful, but how many fragile bodies will it wreck today? How many of those lives are we accountable for?

  This was a more intimate connection than if she’d merely looked through cameras in his eyes. She had tapped into the senses and thoughts of this Marshall memory, and though in retrospect she wouldn’t have done what she did now, were she still “Sabrina,” there was no sense of restricted will.

  Marshall gazed into the sloshing waters. The reflection of his face was rather rounded, the eyebrows ever so slightly thinner than average for his sex, the upper lip more defined. These features were framed partly by a short head of hair, and the face was far from the picture of femininity, but a profound shadow of disconnect and repulsion pervaded his consciousness. I’m no less shallow than they are, but maybe I can change that.

  He stood still for a moment, then shrugged, removed his sandals, and lay back with his feet at the mercy of the waves.

  In the brief void after this event, Sabrina felt disorientation and … was it sympathy? The water might as well have been drowning her as her consciousness became one with Marshall’s again.

  Now he was sitting before a computer monitor, his mouth agape. Looking at the Aberdeen Society for Cryonics Research website, his innards felt heavy. How have I not heard about this after so many years?

  He glanced out a window. That same storm was raging outside. We’ve had the means to preserve our dead against brain decay, knowing how likely it is that we’ll be able to revive them in the near future – and almost no one gives more than a cursory look at this? Human lives are at stake!

  Several minutes later, he gave a last editorial look at the draft of what he thought was the most important message he would ever send to his friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, and even known enemies. It was imperative that this letter be perfectly worded, as he knew too much about humans to hold the naive belief that reason alone would win them over.

  He was a centimeter away from sending it, then his finger pulled away as if it had touched a burning stove top. No. It was too soon. They were just not ready.

  Hitting that “send” button would be tantamount to outing himself as a flat-earther. Indeed, he collected the key points of cryonics’ critics, supposing he’d almost certainly overlooked some pseudoscientific undertones. Barring that, there must have been some practical or ethical issues, what with the cost and loss of potential organ donations.

  Yet the logic was impeccable. With scientists willing to develop the “cure” and a few financial cutbacks – a smaller cup of coffee here, a less obscenely large meal there – society could save real lives from the permanence of death. Sure, those exoskeletons were promising, but even they were subject to mortality in emergencies, and only the proverbial one percent, if that, could afford them.

  Were he a legislative authority, he’d integrate cryonics into health care laws immediately. But this was where he needed to slow down.

  Marshall sighed. No matter how reasoned he would try to be, there was no circumventing the human system. They’d inevitably see him as another well-intentioned loon trying to raise taxes in order to secure a distorted version of “rights.” And if he took a more “just try my idea” approach, he would end up socially alienating himself at best.

  “God help us all,” he muttered as he saved the draft. Just in case.

  He told himself to take another step back, to doff the cynic’s hat for a moment. Perhaps they were ready. At least one of them. From the same objective standpoint, he also found that it would be wise not only to start small, but also to make the humility of his thesis more explicit.

  Zach. If anyone would receive his message with both charity and critical skepticism, Zach would. He brought the message back up to make such changes as were necessary for it not to sound like mass e-mail. Minutes later, all that remained was the matter of narrowing the recipient.

  The top of the correspondence form now read, “To: Isaac Livingston.”

  Sabrina’s foray back into the emptiness consisted of disturbance, then a different sense of fading out.