Chapter 11 – The process
Long before the guys back on Earth had even completed their preliminary search for me I found myself escorted to the tank. I don’t know what else to call it. It was a tank of warm fluid. I can tell you I was terrified. I did not know what they were going to do with me. Despite all their assurances they were asking a whole lot of trust. When faced with the reality of my decision I was no longer convinced. Besides, undressing in front of aliens you hardly know is kind of embarrassing, even if they did not appear unduly interested.
They attached pads to various parts of my body. The pads gripped. It was completely painless but I could sense things probing down into my tissues and I could see my blood beginning to flow out down these narrow tubes into the unit in the back of the tank. Then I could see it flowing back along other tubes. It was all rather alarming. But they must have been adding something to the blood because instantly all my fears subsided and I began to feel mellow and dreamy. Even when they lowered me into the tank and I started to breathe in the amber fluid, no panic rose up in me. I just lay back and inhaled the fluid into my lungs. It felt natural and good. My mind was completely at rest and I gave myself over to the process. All my worries simply floated away.
While Liz was packing the kids off to school and being interviewed by the rather dispassionate police, I was laid in a tank of warm fluid with tiny tendrils penetrating every tissue of my body. I could feel them massaging and tickling as they performed their task. While Liz was working herself into a silent hysteria I was mindlessly dreaming while my blood was passing back and forth through that machinery as it was being cleansed. There was no hint of concern left in me. I dreamed with a smile on my face. In my head, even as the tendrils were summoning up my dendrites to create their dense tangles of thought, while they cleansed the protein plaque and metabolic impurities, I dreamed of being President and putting everything right. It was so unfair but I had never been happier.
While Liz was trying desperately to comfort the children and reassure them that Daddy was perfectly alright and would be home safe and sound soon, I was lying back in some weird ecstasy while fats, impurities and metabolites were leached from my tissues, my cells were super charged and my genes repaired.
The process actually took days – long enough for the police to start taking my disappearance seriously, even to the point of circulating photos, checking at ports and looking at CCTV cameras. They even dredged the canal. But nobody reported any Opher Goodwin hitching a ride, or found a body washed up on the shore. My disappearance remained a complete mystery.
For Liz and the kids it was a nightmare. I had gone missing without trace. She’d taken the kids out of school and our mothers had both come up ‘to help’. Though what possible use that would be, was beyond me. They were more nuisance than help. Life for Liz and the kids took on a strange unreality. They lived day to day, minute to minute, poised for a knock on the door or phone call. Every moment expecting and imagining the worst. It was unreal. Meals were take-aways and eaten mechanically. Friends called in and joined in the searches of nearby land.
What had happened to me remained a mystery.
Meanwhile I lay back and smiled, in a world where I was President and everything was wonderful. It was better than crystal meth.
It simply was not fair.
Finally the process was over. All the blood was returned and the tendrils slid out of my tissues – job done.
They lifted me out of the tank and I breathed air again. At first I was a bit wobbly and had to find my strength and balance. But within minutes I felt alive like never before. My body sung and my mind was so clear. The thoughts streamed into my head. I could feel the energy. They had done exactly what they said they would do. They had not merely rejuvenated me; they had made me more perfect than I could have ever dreamed. I was a superman. But I still felt intrinsically me. It was still my own body and mind. I even looked like me and not Brad Pitt. Though I presume they could have done that as well if I had wanted. I could have become six foot six – muscular and handsome. Part of me wished I’d asked.
They led me to a reflecting surface and I studied the results. It was still the same ugly, squat me, except I looked twenty years younger, my body was lean and gleamed with vitality, my eyes shone and I looked good. I was me but I was the new improved model and it showed. I wondered what Liz would make of it?
That immediately brought me down to earth. While I had been revitalising, Liz and the kids had been in living hell. I could imagine.
‘How long have I been in there?’
‘The process took seven days.’
I was appalled. I allowed myself to be shown the residue. The fat, bacteria and metabolites that had been sucked out of my system looked repulsive.
‘Your system has been successfully optimised,’ I was informed. ‘The defects have been rectified and the systems tweaked. You will never age or deteriorate again. Your death will be far off.’
That sounded good to me – at least it sounded as if that might be good. Of course it could turn out to be something I’d live to regret. Living for ages might turn out to have its downsides.
I thanked them. They nodded.
‘We also removed a thousand and seventy three cancers.’
A thousand and seventy three cancers! I was staggered. It sounded like I was near death. It was lucky they came along when they did. A day or two later and I might not have been here.
‘Do not be concerned. Everybody has them. Your immune system would have dealt with them. Now, with the gene damage repaired, they won’t ever return. It is rare for any of them to grow into full blown cancer. They arise and are dealt with. We have merely eradicated all of yours.’
I was suitably grateful but my mind was moving on.
‘Can I get a message to Liz and the children?’ I enquired desperately, moving straight to the anxiety that was eating away at me.
They did not reply but I knew the answer. My mind had already run through the reasons. They hadn’t supercharged it for nothing. There was a big picture. It was a small but necessary grief in the big scheme of things.
‘Right,’ I said with determination, ‘let’s get on with it. There is no time to waste. The sooner we get this started the sooner I can rescue Liz and the kids from their nightmare.’
The aliens nodded. I think they were relieved at my resolve.
Science Fiction books:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden – paperback £6.95 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Green – paperback £9.98 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Rock Music books
In Search of Captain Beefheart – paperback £6.91 Kindle £1.99 (or free on unlimited)
3&sr=1-1&keywords=opher+Goodwin
Other selected books and novels:
Anecdotes-Weird-Science-Writing-Ramblings – a book of anecdotes mainly from the sixties and other writing.
More Anecdotes – following the immense popularity of the first volume I produced a second
Goofin’ with the cosmic freaks – a kind of On the Road for the sixties
The book of Ginny – a novel
In Britain :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461306850&sr=1-2-ent
In America:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=opher+goodwin
In all other countries around the world check out your regional Amazon site and Opher Goodwin books.
Your biology background helped here, I bet!
I find it often comes in handy Dave.
I decided to add this bit in on Chapter 5 – the beginning of Liz’s story that I narrate:
It was only later, long after we had we were all settled into our cabinet roles, that I was able to piece the whole story together from long talks with Liz, my friends and the aliens. My disappearance had caused a great deal of stress.
I figured it was probably enough to explain the narration dilemma.