lording their relationship and power over Pam. Narcissists need an audience. Not for the first time that day, Pamela considered getting up from her chair, replacing the lab coats, and leaving the premises. She could not remember the last time she had felt so discomfited by other people.
But she had been raised with a solid Midwestern work ethic. Some petty squabble, or even a troublesome co-worker, did not excuse getting up and leaving her responsibilities in the middle of the day. Plus, I’ve got a lot of bills to pay. So far, Dr. Klein had, at least, helped her pay her bills with this job.
Let me just get through today, and I can think tonight. I can get paid for this month’s work and worry about next month’s work next week. A moment ago, she had been determined to quit. Now she wasn’t sure. Exhausted by her cognitive dissonance, Pam decided to focus on her work for the moment and put off her decision until later.
As time passed, the cylinder temperature started to rise noticeably. Warming threads in the face plate kept them from frosting so the faces could always be viewed. However a strip of the same study transparent material that ran around the actual body was always frosted over. Pam noted that the condensation was clearing and she could begin to see vague outlines of the bodies. Her scientific curiosity overrode her angst as she peered at the capsules.
As the two cylinders warmed, Pam felt as if the room warmed a bit too. But there were still six more frozen capsules, so she figured that had to be her imagination. She wondered if her clammy palms and suddenly dry throat were simply caused by nerves. Very little had actually happened this morning, but it had already started out to be a day of revelations.
She found herself studying the warming subjects in the capsules. Mrs. Bell seemed built like Pamela, with a sturdy frame and athletic limbs. Mr. Barnes was tall and long limbed. He looked like one of those lanky, but deceptively strong farmer’s sons she had known growing up. They still floated silently in a bath of some complex chemical solution. Before it had been clear, but now it was tinged with a rose shade that seemed to sparkle as it caught the light.
As far as Pam could tell the bodies remained perfectly still. She never expected them to do anything else. But something bothered her. There was a difference in the appearance of Mrs. Bell and Mr. Barnes but Pam could not immediately describe it. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light caused by the slightly different shade of the new solution.
Apparently the new solution contained, among other things, enough liquid oxygen so a live person could actually “breath” in it. Dr. Klein assured her that she had tested it on herself and dozens of other volunteers. Pamela tried to imagine forcing herself to breath in liquid even if she been assured it was perfectly harmless. According to Future Faith Cryonics brochures, the bodies should not degrade more than one percent every hundred years.
Pamela remembered that she had originally read that in the company literature and asked herself, “Who cares? They are still just bodies.”
Pam considered herself a spiritual if not particularly religious person. Souls passed on but bodies stayed put. That’s how she could work on cadavers without squeamishness or moral qualms. To Pam they were just remains, like waste, left behind after that which formed the core of an individual had been released. Whatever happened to souls was a question for priests, ministers, rabbis, or mystics, but not scientists. Then her mind wandered. Even if Dr. Klein could wake the dead, what part of their souls would remain to inhabit them?
But then she shook her head and tried to get back to the business she was being well paid to perform. Dr. Klein had made her duties quite clear. She didn’t pay Pam to judge, but just to monitor. Pamela made notes of the monitor readings and her observations. After several minutes, she tired of making notes and stood up to view the bodies from a closer angle.
She stared down at Mrs. Bell first. The woman’s features appeared pale, but lifelike. Pamela figured that she had already had some work done to improve the line of her jaw and reduce wrinkles. Her records indicated that Mrs. Bell had been forty-eight when she had met her tragic end. She looked like an athletic