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07:18 Wednesday 20 December 2069
Marcus looked at the shiny new soul-transfer machine that took pride of place in the One Life laboratory. Actually, looking was pretty much all he could do, as he was encased in a rigid body hugging metal cage, a twenty-first century iron maiden, that allowed him to see and speak and do very little else. He had been imprisoned in this way to prevent him from escaping by killing himself. He would die, but it had to be on One Life’s terms. The resistance needed to maintain complete control of the situation, stopping him from becoming a Recarn again; they couldn’t stop him from being reincarnated – that was a physical law that they couldn’t change – but they could control into which body he was reincarnated.
“I’m not scared you know. I’ve died many times before and I will die many more times in the future.”
Jenny moved towards the machine and switched it on. Marcus stared at her.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you seem familiar to me. Are you a Recarn? Did you use to work for me? There’s definitely something about you.”
Jenny didn’t know if this was just idle banter or if Marcus did really recognise her. She had indeed worked for him, as part of the team who transferred Professor Ingram’s soul to the clone Trudi 002, eleven and a half years earlier. But she too had incurred Thomas’s wrath and suffered the same fate as the professor. When she and Professor Ingram were reunited as the Recarn children, Jenny and Tommy, she begged forgiveness from him, forgiveness that he readily gave, saying that if she had spoken against Thomas when the professor was killed, she would certainly have died much earlier than she did.
Marcus, sensing that he had a captive audience, played to the crowd.
“So, we have a shiny new soul-transfer machine. I imagine that I’m going to be put into the donation chamber. Fair enough. It’ll get rid of a thorn in your sides for a while, I suppose. But not forever, of course. I thought that perhaps you might want to trap me inside a canister and lock me away somewhere.”
If Marcus could have moved he would have beckoned over Zafar, who was overseeing the process on behalf of the Businessman, and whispered in his ear. But, trussed up as he was, he was forced to speak to the whole room.
“That wouldn’t be such a good idea. I know. I tried it with Érica or whatever she called herself and she was rescued by her band of little disciples.”
Zafar said nothing, but just stood to face Marcus, arms folded. His view of the machine blocked by Zafar’s frame, Marcus turned his attention to the Businessman’s loyal aide and advisor.
“And you are?”
Silence.
“Mute, at a guess.”
Still, Zafar said nothing.
“Very well. You do know that if you want to lock me away like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp, you’ll need to affix the capsule in the receiving chamber.”
Zafar just stood quietly, staring at his captive.
“And when I’m gone, it won’t destroy the Illuminati. You’re just creating a vacuum that Ethan, or rather who he is now, will fill. I think it’s safe to assume that he has a new body now.”
Zafar unfolded his arms and put them casually into his trouser pockets.
“My name is Zafar, Marcus. Yes, we know that the war will not be won simply through your death. We know that it will continue, that we will have to fight against a new Pindar. And yes, you will die but we will not be trapping your soul inside a secure cylinder or the like. Your own experience has shown us the flaw in that idea. Your soul will be transferred to a specially selected body. ”
“Do I get to choose?”
He looked over at Jenny.
“How about the girl in charge of the donation chamber. She looks cute. I wouldn’t mind being inside her.”
Jenny ignored Marcus’s lewd comment and continued to check the controls of the machine. Zafar, remained calm, showing no emotion as he spoke.
“We have a volunteer to receive your soul.”
“Pretty is she? Or he? I wouldn’t move house into a building that was worse than I already lived in. The same goes for a body. I mean, look at me. I’m gorgeous. I can’t be moved into just any old body.”
“Your soul will be transferred to a foetus, just as it would be if you were to die and your soul released to find another host elsewhere on the planet.”
“Okay. Gotcha. You sure you know what you’re doing? Fifteen or eighteen years from now and I’ll be back to haunt you, like a bad smell.”
“Oh, don’t worry Marcus. Everything is under control. But thanks for your concern.”
Zafar saw no reason to expand anymore on the details of the transfer. Marcus didn’t need to know about the discovery that had been made the previous week.
Left unattended, Marcus’s soul would be transferred into a foetus and born to its mother, just as any other foetus is born. The child would grow up unaware of its Recarn status until its seventh birthday when it would start having painful headaches, as the memories of past lives began to flood back and, within a few weeks, the memories would have been fully restored, Marcus would be a fully-fledged Recarn again, free to plan his or her return to power.
But seven days earlier One Life had discovered – almost by accident – a correlation between the calculated due date of a baby and its being a Recarn. It was found that it was no coincidence that 5% of children were born on the predicted due date, and 5% of children were born Recarns. It was such a simple correlation that researchers were astonished that it had not been noticed before.
Due date predictions had become extremely accurate, right down to the hour and minute, but Marcus’s new host would not be allowed to be born on its due date. To allow this would completely defeat the purpose of their plan. The pregnancy would be monitored and the birth would be induced early, at around the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth week or, if necessary, the child would be born by caesarean section. If they were correct – and they had no reason to believe that they were not – the child would grow to be an adult with no past life memories; with no PLMs it would no longer be a Recarn.
Janice Hillary was a thirty-five year old mother of two girls aged nine and seven. She was happily married to Paul, a maintenance engineer at One Life’s training camp who was principally responsible for the upkeep of the equipment used in the intensive training programme. She was four months pregnant with twin boys and, after lengthy discussions with her husband, had volunteered to allow Marcus’s soul to be introduced to one of her unborn children. She believed passionately that the world would be a better place without Recarns and was grateful for the opportunity to help ensure that this would one day become a reality.
She lay in the receiver chamber, a little nervous, but sure that she was doing the right thing. The risks had been explained to the couple but they still decided to go through with the transfer although Janice did insist on one caveat. She didn’t want to know which of the twins would receive Marcus’s soul, as she felt that she and her husband might treat him differently if they had this knowledge. Anyway, the baby which didn’t receive Marcus’s soul would receive another by natural means shortly.
Marcus was released from the confines of the body cage and stretched his limbs. Although it looked positively medieval in its design the cage was much more humane than one would expect; the interior of the suit contained thousands of micro-sensors that stimulated the muscles of its inhabitant at regular intervals, meaning that Marcus’s stretching was mainly redundant and could be put down to habit.
“So Zafar, this is it.”
“This is it. Are you ready?”
“Never been readier. Kit off, I assume?”
Marcus stripped off and climbed into the donation chamber as if it were an everyday occurrence. Everybody watching was surprised at how calmly he was taking all this. It certainly wasn’t the behaviour that they had envisaged. Marcus made himself as comfortable as he could and relaxed, looking up at the ceiling.
“Excuse me. You’ll have to close the lid or this isn’t going to work.”
Jenny nodded to two lab technicians to close the lid and clamp it shut. Marcus loved being the centre of attention, smiling and giving the thumbs up sign to his audience as the receiver chamber’s lid was closed. She pressed a few icons on the touch control and the machine started the air extraction process. Zafar moved alongside Jenny.
“That noise. Is he singing?”
Jenny confirmed that Zafar’s ears weren’t deceiving him.
“Yes. It’s a song from a movie made by a group of comedians that called themselves Monty Python. If you knew the film, Life of Brian, you’d find it very appropriate.”
“Would I know it?”
“Maybe, but probably not. It was made ninety years ago. If you were a Recarn you’d appreciate the irony.”
The strains of ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ that were muffled but still audible were beginning to weaken as the air was sucked out of the donation chamber. Marcus began to feel the effects of the vacuum that was now his environment. The singing had stopped and he was now beginning to suffocate. His skin had taken on a bluish hue and was starting to swell. The last sensation that he was aware of was when his lungs burst.
He felt nothing as his soul evacuated the clone’s body through its trillions of pores. Devoid of sensation his soul travelled through the airlock between the two chambers until it found itself sharing the receiving chamber with Janine. Pure instinct drove it to enter first her body, and then one of the developing bodies within her womb. Janine felt a warm flush as the soul settled inside one of her unborn babies but it only lasted about half a second; it was barely noticeable.
Paul helped Janine out of the receiving chamber and gave his wife a loving kiss. Zafar joined them.
“We can’t thank you enough for what you are doing for the cause. I know it was probably a very difficult decision to make, but what you’ve undertaken isn’t just for us at One Life, but for the world.”
Janine touched Zafar on the shoulder.
“It was the right thing to do.”
Marcus’s corpse was hauled out of the donation chamber and put into a body-bag before being taken to the incinerator. Paul was given unconditional leave for as long as he wished so that he could be with his wife during the remainder of her pregnancy and after the birth. It was the least that One Life could do. Life returned to normal for all involved.