Chapter 5 – A False Crown...
"She should've been here forty minutes ago. Why is she late? It's not like she would have to worry about any traffic."
Marshall Lincoln paced about the office, checking the wall paintings for square, rearranging the flowers standing on the greeting counter, fidgeting with his tie's knot.
"Relax. It's not uncommon for our clients to arrive late," Paul tried to reassure his associate. "It's a big decision. Even for Reese Burns. If you need something to do, then give your code another run-through. The computer responses are going to have to be perfect if Maven starts asking his daughter's face questions following the procedure."
"The code works," Marshall grumbled. "I've been through it a hundred times. I'm not going to improve it any more this afternoon."
"Then sit down. All we can do is wait."
So they waited, with their thoughts that had obsessed them since they had agreed in the wind and snow three months ago to Reese Burns' request to be transformed through the Singularity, since Paul and Marshall had, more honestly, agreed to assist a young, vibrant woman in her suicide. Paul and Marshall could not turn back. They presented their falsehood with such a patina of truth that they could only stand back and stare at those who came to their services like moths to a flame.
For three months, Paul had tried to convince himself that the lie he dealt - that their machine could truly house the soul - would not too terribly stain his soul. Reese Burns was as human as anyone else. Though today she looked so radiant, so fertile, so young, tomorrow would bring years of suffering to her as surely as it would to anyone else. A long list of diseases could descend upon her at any moment. Pain would find Reese no matter how much her father might spend to hide her from it.
For three moths, Paul had tried to convince himself that he and Marshall would only grant Reese Burns the inevitable end every soul was doomed to suffer. They would give Reese death on her terms, according to her schedule. She would be a woman free from suffering when she met her end. How many were granted such a gift? Though her soul would not, truly, be encased in a plastic hard-drive, who could say with any certainty that her spirit would not ascend into the stars once untied from her mortal coil?
For three months, Paul had wrestled with such thoughts. He should have anticipated how quickly a tycoon like Maven Burns would realize his pursuits. Yet the pace still staggered Paul's mind. It had taken decades for the passage of that law that first legalized euthanasia to the terminally ill, and protestors from both sides of the debate still gathered in the street to shout insults upon one another. But Maven Burns had expanded the right for a citizen to choose the exact time and place of his or her death, without the need to provide the law with any reasoning at all, in only three, short months. None of the lawmakers had publicly debated the expansion of euthanasia. None of the media outlets provided the story any coverage. Maven Burns simply achieved what he sought one morning to no fanfare; and as simple as that, the door was opened and the time arrived for Reese to visit Paul and Marshall in order to have her soul transformed into that substance of numbers and electricity she believed would survive the eternity of the stars.
Paul's mind was circling through such thoughts, and Marshall was pacing about the room when their office door chimed.
"Sorry I'm late," Reese strode into the office with a beaming smile. Another faceless, robotic escort rolled behind her. "Seeing it's my last afternoon in my skin, I decided for a diversion to a salon and spa. Wanted to make a last party of doing up the hair, of getting my nails painted just so. I hope you can forgive a girl for such silly whims."
Marshall's face turned another shade of white. "Of course we can. Our day is devoted to you."
Paul's limbs felt heavy as stone as he fought to maintain his will to see the day through. "You look marvelous, Reese. There's absolutely no inconvenience."
"You do a girl a last compliment," Reese blushed. "For whatever reason, it felt important that I look my best before converting into my new form."
"You'll be an angel," Marshall quickly replied. "You came here alone? I thought your father would want to accompany you."
"He's busy tending to the rocket. I've put him on a tight deadline."
"He didn't want to see you off?" Paul asked.
"He's not the sentimental kind," Reese winked. "My robotic escort will take possession of the hard-drive once the process is complete and deliver it to the spaceport, where it will be perched atop my rocket. From there, it should only be a matter of days before I'm blasted off the pad."
Marshall gaped at Reese. "He doesn't want to ask you any questions once you're in the machine?"
Reese squinted at Marshall. "Are you asking if my father wants to test the Singularity? Why would he want to do so? We've checked every one of your testimonials. I think the two of you have established the legitimacy of your services many clients ago."
Paul didn't dare peek at Marshall. He wouldn't peek at his partner's face and see the fear and disgust that would be written all over Mr. Lincoln's quivering chin and so have his own trepidation intensified.
"If you're ready, Reese, just follow us to our equipment," Paul forced his body to move. "The process shouldn't take more than ten minutes."
"Of course," and Reese didn't hesitate to follow down the hall.
They stepped into a simple, windowless room framed by undecorated, white walls. An inviting recliner rested in the center. Above its cushions dangled streams of cables and wires, snaking from the ceiling to connect a crown set upon that seat with a computer tower humming to the side of a monitor glowing with graphs and wavelengths. A wheeled tray holding a pair of canisters waited beside the recliner, topped with an IV bag ending in a needle.
Reese dropped into the recliner without any urging. "So how's it work?"
"Very simply," replied Marshall. "I'll first administer an IV. The needle's bite you will feel at first will be the only discomfort during the process. Everything will move at your pace. When you're ready, you'll push the button on this remote control. That will deliver the first canister's contents into your blood, sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, that will put you asleep. A timer will then administer the second canister's contents, potassium chloride that will stop your heart and pancuronium bromide to relax your muscles and prevent spasms. Death will occur in the span of a few minutes."
Paul carefully lowered the crown upon Reese's brow. "The crown here is the machine's miracle. It's the magical equipment that transfers your soul into the computer."
Flashing diadems of lights orbited the crown of plastic and glass resting upon Reese's brow. Circuits of conducive gold sparkled in the room's light. The effect of such electronic splendor rivaled the ancient crowns of monarchs once studded in gemstones and rubies. Paul and Marshall had spared no dollar in crafting that headpiece, no matter that the crown transferred nothing to the waiting machine, that it served no practical purpose. Cosmetics alone had motivated that crown's creation. It was only decoration, constructed and refined to convince those who sat in the recliner that its glimmer would free them from mortality with a simple push of a button.
"It's lovely," Reese smiled as electricity hummed through the crown. "I'm ready."
Reese flinched as Marshall set the needle, but her pain passed quickly, only a small discomfort at the start of a journey she imagined would float her through the heavens. Paul placed the remote control, with its single, green button, in Reese's hand and stepped back to give her a little breathing room.
"Whenever you're ready, Ms. Burns."
Reese hardly waited for Paul to finish his sentence before she pushed that button. Paul and Marshall flinched, for none of their clients had ever pushed that button with such little fanfare or ceremony. Reese smiled as her eyes fluttered, and then closed. The timer ticked. The canisters hissed. And then death arrived within a few minutes to claim Reese Burns into its fold.
Paul and Marshall said nothing as they emerged from the ro
om carrying a black, plastic box of a shoebox's size. The faceless, robotic escort accepted the item before quietly turning on its spherical base to bring that soul to a waiting launch pad. For many minutes, Paul and Marshall stared at their shoes, unsure if their sanity would hold when no one remained to at least ask questions aimed to test their honesty.
They spent the remainder of the day attending to the protocol they attached to death. They cremated Reese Burns' body in the basement incinerator before gathering her ashes in a premium priced urn. They inquired if Mr. Burns might like to load those ashes into Reese's capsule, but the offer was declined due to equations involved with rocket fuel, payload and gravitation. Paul and Marshall completed all the legal forms and registered the time of Ms. Burns' passing. Finally, they uploaded a photo of Reese Burns to their website to sit above her praising testimonial for good company promotion.
Paul and Marshall fled from their office as the phones shrilled with calls placed by those hoping to schedule appointments with the Singularity before their souls too could rise into the heavens. Paul spent days secluded in his apartment's shadows, staring at the news flickering across his oversized television. Every story seemed to detail Maven Burns' new industry aimed to lift mankind to the stars. Cameras terrified Paul with panning shots of horizons teeming with thin, tall rockets perched, ready and waiting, upon their launch pads. The only other subject Paul noticed was when the female newscaster with the green eyes and golden hair broke news that Marshall Lincoln, one of the two men responsible for the miraculous Singularity, had scattered his brains across his apartment's ceiling with a roaring gun.
Paul knew his soul had perished in slow, poisonous ruin. The world gathered to claim their spots perched atop the rockets mankind saw as harbingers of a new, glorious age, atop rockets Paul Seton recognized were only empty, steel coffins.