Richer Than Musk, Bezos and Gates

Tiffany, wife number four, was eye-candy, every inch the All-American cheerleader, but – frankly – I was relieved when she’d left the room. Yes, I’d miss that smooth youthful skin and the sinuous curves, but I’d see her again in a year or two, maybe a little bit longer.  All she had to do was live within her allowance, sign some paperwork, and stay out of trouble… out of other men’s beds. Simple enough. Anyhow, she’d gone now, part of Larry’s big scheme. It was nearly the end of the long goodbye. 

“Not goodbye, farewell”, said Larry Wilder, my lawyer, who was standing by the window, looking out at the crystal lake and the verdant slopes of the California hills. Kelsey Cryogenics Clinic - KCC as it was known to the Silicon Valley bros - was situated in a beautiful place, though the view was wasted on the deep-frozen patients, dead to the world. “Sleeping” was the euphemism.

Larry was in a melancholy mood. “Well, Eddie, this is it. I’ll meet you on the other side, old buddy,” he said, placing his hand on my arm. He was a wily old fox and we’d been on a long, epic journey together, from rags to riches and onto the Forbes billionaires list.   He was the nearest thing I had to a friend.

“The other side,” I said and just let the words hang in the air.  My head was throbbing, it was hard to talk at length.

“Tiffany will be older, and close the age-gap on you,” said Larry, chuckling, “perhaps you’ll have something in common to talk about the next time you see her”.

“Funny Larry, but there won’t be much talking the next time I see her.”

If there was a next time. 

My head throbbed, whenever I talked, whenever I thought about the future; the tumor was pressing on the frontal lobe. It felt like my skull might crack apart. A small nucleus of fear erupted, and Larry must have picked up on my thoughts. 

“Don’t worry Eddy, two years, three years tops,” said Larry, patting me on the arm again. His thin-lipped mouth was pursed, his hooded eyes were moistening up. 

Doctor Fink entered the room in his white KCC lab coat. Mock cheerful, but probably scared out of his wits at the prospects of a malpractice suit. Fink was leader of the Pod 7 team, contractually obliged to stick with me through… the big sleep. A million-dollar bonus, with add-ons, subject to a dozen conditions that Larry had inserted into the contract. Doctor Fink would be there on the other side too, collecting his bonus.

“Well Mr. Azarian, it is time,” said Fink.

 Larry bid a wordless farewell, and Fink prepared the sedative for injection into my arm.

Dark. Then nothing.

+++

Then space of the limitless kind, then I see a specific, finite space, awesome in its own way because it is there, it exists. 

Whiteness, then white. Movement. A white thing is moving through the space. 

It is a white-clad person, a woman, in my space. I am in a medical facility.  A KCC facility.

I am on the other side.

+++

“Mr. Azarian, you’re back,” a woman is leaning over me, shining a light into my eyes. I couldn’t say anything; my throat was dry, and my tongue felt like a dead animal was stuck in my throat. “You probably have some questions,” said the woman, fussing with something below my line of sight.

I didn’t recognize her, and I didn’t remember there being any women on Fink’s team – the pod 7 team - let alone a brown-skinned woman. I had a ton of questions and did not appreciate the tease.

I could not move my head, my arms or my legs, but I could feel the blood pulsating through my body.  Tubes entered my nostrils and snaked down my throat, a bottle of blue, fluorescent liquid hung overhead, feeding an IV-drip inserted somewhere down below. 

“My name is Doctor Muro. We’ll talk soon, but I wanted to give you a brief update to set your mind at ease”.  

My mind was never at ease. How could she not know that? I was chronically hyper-vigilant; I’d built a giant investment empire – Azarian Global - on that fact. “The Man That Never Sleeps” was the famous Time magazine cover. Ironic now, I suppose.

Muro wrote something on a paper-thin iPad – technology must have progressed quickly over the last year or two - then looked at me with professional disinterest, “obviously, the cryonic recovery was successful, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” she said. It was not meant as humor.

I sensed a revulsion in her mirthless and professionally distant manner.   Something in the room disgusted her. Was it me? Was I paralyzed? Infantilized by the cancer? Had they brought me back as a vegetable? Unable to move, unable to talk, I was powerless, and I felt a surge of rage, mixed with that recurring element of fear. Had they not followed my advance directives – Larry and Tiffany? I’d spent a fortune on legal advice at Wilder and Slater.  Where was Larry Wilder, my attack dog, anyway? 

“We have successfully executed a restoration in accordance with your Resuscitation Instructions and the cancer treatment was 100% successful. The tumor was excised, the plastics and biotech teams did the rest… are doing the rest” she said as she removed a glob of mucus and blood from somewhere on or in my body. “No need to worry. Time and rest, and you’ll be up and about”.

+++

Easy for her to say. Where was Larry? Where was Tiffany? I was lying there like a fucking vegetable in this godforsaken place, without my people. It didn’t make sense. They would have been notified of my… restoration. They should be here by now. 

+++

The KCC nurse moved me – my gurney, the instruments, the various life-support devices - so that I could see out the window. It was a vaguely familiar vista, which sparked an eerie déjà vu moment.

“What date is it?” These were my first words on the other side. My tongue – the animal in my throat was slug-slow, my lips numb, my breath so weak that it was hard to annunciate.

The nurse, a monk-like man with an unfortunate tonsure, seemed to be washing or massaging my body with an instrument, a brush of some kind – I could feel it skidding here and there on my torso.  He was startled from his grim reverie – that of an undertaker - by my question. He was new on the Pod 7 team too. It occurred to me that KCC had done a bait-and-switch, replacing the high-cost talent with cheaper staff, the woman doctor – Muro - and this monk. It was potential grounds for a lawsuit. I felt I was getting my mojo back.

“I’d better get Doctor Muro,” said the nurse, the monk.

“Fink. Get me Doctor Fink. I need to talk to the head of Pod 7, not one of the junior staff.”

The monk looked confused, “that would be Doctor Muro. She’s head of Cryosurgery. I don’t know a Doctor Fink”.

They’d moved me to a new facility as a business efficiency. 

Then I got a bad feeling.  The hills, the valley… it was like a blight had devastated the land, and a drought had leached it dry.

“What fucking year is it?” I demanded. My vital signs – blood pressure, heart-beat – went apeshit on the monitor screen.

The nurse stopped in his tracks. “I’m not supposed to tell you without your Doctor or your lawyer present… or your wife”.

Good, Larry and Tiffany were here, somewhere, ready to do my bidding.

+++

The door opened, in walked Doctor Muro and a small immaculately manicured little man. He looked vaguely familiar and more than a little intimidated. Good. I ignored Muro who’d been mollifying me with medical technicalities and useless platitudes.

“Who are you?” I said. My voice was back, albeit I was unable to talk much above a whisper. I was propped up slightly and I could feel my limbs now, move them slightly and painlessly, but I was unable to assess the tissue restoration owing to a strange translucent canopy underlit by ultraviolet strip lights.   It was part of the “curing” phase. I’d be up and about within the week, according to Muro. Apparently, “up and about” was a successful outcome.

“I’m Larry Wilder” said the small man with the hooded eyes and thin lips. 

“You are not Larry Wilder”, I said. 

The young man smiled at me, but it was awkward, forced, mixed with pity and… that element of disgust that I’d seen flitter across Muro’s face. He did not offer his hand, did not approach my bed. On the contrary, he shuffled about, like he might run off any moment. That forced smile was still there.

“Don’t fucking smile at me, you condescending little shit. Who the hell are you?” I definitely had my command-and-control mojo back.

The Larry Wilder impersonator was confused. Whatever he was going to say, however he was going to say it, just got tossed.

“Mr. Azarian, please stay calm,” said Doctor Muro,

I nearly went ballistic on her but managed to keep things civil. I pressed against the side of the protective canopy, experimentally, with my arms and legs, with my torso. I felt stronger, suppler, even sensuous… curing. 

“Mr. Azarian, Sir. I am the Principal of Wilder and Slater law firm now. Larry is dead, I’m afraid, but his spirit lives on, and our mission remains unchanged. Wilder and Slater the firm and Wilder the family, remain dedicated to you and your affairs, Sir, as do the staff at KCC.”

“Larry’s dead?”

“Yes, Sir”

“Shit”

It was Doctor Muro’s turn to throw a curve ball. “Unfortunately, it took the clinic a long time to develop the technology needed to revive you in accordance with your living will. It might have taken longer but for the intervention of your wife”.

“I’m Larry’s grandson”, said the little man.

My brain was like an unused muscle, flabby and unfit for heavy lifting, much like my recovering body, which felt… uncontained in some way.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

The ball was back in Larry the lookalike’s court, “Well, Sir, it’s good news. Your investments – they have grown – accumulated – you remain one of the richest men in America, your business – Azarian Global - continues to thrive.”

Things were looking up. “Richer than Musk? Gates? Bezos?”

Larry the lookalike shared a worried glance with Muro, “Oh, you long since overtook them on the Forbes list”

Good, great, but I was getting a bad feeling again.

“What year is it for fuck’s sake?”

“2103 sir!”

There are pivotal moments in a life. Births and deaths, marriage and divorce, a natural disaster, a terrorist act, the death of a president, they are all events that create a before and after and mark a complete change in your comprehension of the past and the future, of history and biography, and your relationships with family, friends and the world. This was one such moment. I’d been asleep for seventy years.

“Anything else I should know?”

Larry looked unsure how to proceed, shared a glance with Doctor Muro. Something was being withheld from me. 

“Well, Sir, Tiffany is keen to visit with you!” 

+++

Here I was, a 140-year-old man in a 70-year-old body – with regenerated tissue - with hundreds of billions of wealth at my disposal, and a trophy wife. Things were definitely looking up. 

I’d drape Tiffany’s naked body in diamonds and pearls and make up for lost time.

+++

The KCC monk wheeled an ancient crone and a boatload of resentment into the room.

Tiffany was nearly 100 years old, transformed by the decades and by generations of plastic surgery from cheerleader to a parody of one.  The tank top and shorts were not working for her, only accentuating her age by displaying her withered wrinkly limbs.

I didn’t need this hag.

She started rambling on about her aches and pains, about inflation and social security and other stuff that didn’t make sense and bored me, about how Larry – the original Larry - had her under surveillance, a virtual prisoner, how she’d sued to get access to the Azarian funds… and failed, was countersued. How she’d been duped and coerced by the first Larry, the second Larry, the third Larry. She was a pawn in my game, kept around to sign documents that she didn’t understand.  

Her brain was addled, she was delusional, living in some kind of dystopian conspiracy of her own invention… mostly.

“You put me on a fixed fucking allowance while the investment portfolio went to the fucking moon!” said Tiffany. There was a lot of bitterness in the room. “ For seventy years… ass-hole… do you know what a million dollars of pocket money gets you today, old sugar daddy?”

I was lost for words.

“A fucking Tesla! That’s what it gets you”.

I was sorry to hear that. I needed her cooperation, not her entrapment. Why hadn’t she got divorced? Or just disappeared? Or died? I was beginning to get a sense that I was dealing with a highly irrational person. The new Larry would have to get me a divorce, and pronto. Tiffany had served her purpose by approving the Resuscitation Instructions – the RI - she’d got me over the River Stix and woke me up from my sleep.

“Well, I got my revenge in the end, didn’t I?”

She looked at me with a steely-blue gaze from eyes that had once been baby blues.

“How so?” I had another bad feeling, that nucleus of fear again.

“Have you seen yourself? Your new body?” She started cackling and the KCC monk had to wheel her away before she asphyxiated on her own hilarity.

+++

Doctor Muro was insistent, and I had no way of resisting. The sedative quickly entered my bloodstream, and I went limp.

“We advised her that it was too soon,” said Muro, but she signed the RI, and we had no choice, legally and ethically. Muro stood back from my bed – my saline bath, my sarcophagus – with distaste written across her face. “The biotech team re-grew the tissue, and it is… will be… functional… we think… but the DNA instructions are not coming through clearly. Things have taken a slightly different course to those we anticipated”.

“You mean these fucking rubbery things you call hands and feet, and the engorged phallus thing, and the gross fucking maw where I used to have a stomach? Staring up at the mirror I could see blue and red fluid under the surface, flowing through a spaghetti of veins. I’m a maggot! A fucking mutant maggot!”

“Nothing that money and time can’t fix,” suggested the Larry Lookalike.