Contest Entry #2
Rebirth
I am kneeling on the rough concrete floor, hands behind my head, and blood oozing from both my shoulder and my shattered kneecaps to pool under me. The guards straighten as their superior officer enters. He walks up to me and screams some incomprehensible Russian gibberish in my face. I cannot understand him, which doesn't help any. I have no hope of getting out of here alive—I'm already dead—so I spit on his boots. A small pleasure, a bad idea…
I made him angry. He pulls his pistol and jams it against my forehead, screaming more of his incomprehensible threats and questions. There's no way I can answer them, so I just stare defiantly at him—although inside I'm freaking out. Wrong move. He steps back, jacks the slide, and takes careful aim. I stare down the small, black, infinite hole that is both the end of his gun and the end of my life. I know it sounds cliché, but my life flashes before my eyes. There is a flash, a moment of pain, and then everything goes black.
That is the only thing I remembered when I woke up in the hospital bed, wondering how I wasn't dead. I could recall nothing before that, and there was nothing after. Nothing surprising about that, though. That gun was aimed right between my eyes; there is no way I survived. Yet here I was.
My name is Joshua Traviss. I AM Joshua Traviss, and nobody can tell me different.
That makes no sense, of course. Joshua Traviss is—should be—dead, killed in action during a raid on a Russian genetic research facility. I remember being killed—yet here I am. Freaked out yet? I was too.
I am—I was—a sergeant in the United States Armed Forces. I had just joined up when World War Three broke out and, in a moment of exuberant patriotism, signed up for Special Operations training. SpecOps training isn't fun, and I'll say no more about it here. I was eventually promoted to Sergeant, and over the course of the war my men and I ran numerous SpecOps or BlackOps missions culminating in our ill-fated infiltration of that God-forsaken Russian base that should have ended with the inside of my head decorating a wall.
I may seem exceptionally calm now, especially for the situation, but you should have seen me when I first woke up. I initially couldn't even recall my name or anything else, and I really freaked out. I knocked over a bunch of stuff, including a datapad that fell off the counter. I didn't take any notice of it at the time, but after I calmed down a bit—still without any memories—and started trying to put stuff back the way it was, I noticed three things. First of all, the whole room seemed a bit off. I couldn't explain it then, but the technology was subtly more advanced than what I was used to seeing. Also, the selection of medical devices seemed…different. There were lots of scanners and computers, with fewer actual surgical or examination tools. Not what you'd expect for treating a gunshot victim… Second of all, when I thought to look for evidence of the shot to the head, I couldn't find any. Not only that, but later I'd find I was stronger, faster, more agile, and had better reflexes than it seemed I was entitled to. However, this didn't affect me near so much as what happened next. When I picked up that datapad, I saw my name—Joshua Traviss—and it seemed to unlock a door in my mind. I could remember!
It's true what they say—that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. It also happens when you're reborn. I remembered everything—important moments, and random ones. My sixteenth birthday, when my parents bought a used, beat up, and awesomely cool blue 2049 Mustang. The "Bunny Exercise" at the beginning of SpecOps training. My first kiss. My promotion to Sergeant. Random flashes from countless missions and exercises flashed before my eyes. And not just the images—whole memories. Sensory information, emotions, impressions… Some of the memories were sobering, to say the least. Some of the things I've done I'm not so proud of. Hard decisions that turned out to be wrong, mistakes made that cost the lives of my men…not pleasant memories.
I started scrolling through the data file and checked out as many of my memories as I could—obviously, some wouldn't appear in the file. Everything indicated that they were legitimate. But there was something else, something that only deepened my confusion. It was right there in the basic information about me—or about Joshua Traviss, at any rate. It was all there. Name, rank, serial number, date of birth, date of death…
Then I discovered a second data file on the pad. It was titled "Subject 101-51-8411(4)." The number rang a bell, but I checked the other file to make sure. Yep—101-51-8411 is my serial number. The file was a mainly medical one, full of terms I didn't understand. Diagrams and figures varied from the incomprehensible to the easily recognized, like a diagram of a specific DNA sequence or the numerous brain illustrations. It meant nothing to me at the time. Now, I wonder how I failed to figure it out. The memory of my death, the unfamiliar equipment, my enhanced physiology…I must have been in denial.
I was sitting on the hospital bed, facing away from the door, just scrolling through the file. Next thing I knew, the door burst open and before I could move I was being grabbed, my arms pinned behind me. Soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms crowded around me.
While I was trying to process this, another man entered the room. He was short, especially compared to my newly enhanced build, and was dressed like a doctor or something. He moved nervously, but looked at me with something like mixed fear and awe. He was in turn followed by a younger-looking man I assume was his assistant.
"Don't hurt him!" The older of the two doctor-looking people pushed through the throng of soldiers. "He's valuable property! He's harmless for the moment."
At his insistence, all but two of the guards left. Now I spoke for the first time. "My name is Joshua Traviss, and I'm a Sergeant in the United States Armed Forces. I demand to know who you are and what I am doing here!"
This got quite a strong reaction. The guards, who had relaxed at the insistence of the scientist, adjusted their grip on my arms. The doctor took a couple steps back and paled. His assistant grabbed the counter to keep his balance. I looked around at them, and tried my hardest to look tough and intimidating. Inside, I was quivering.
The doctor took a couple steps closer, hesitantly. "It's not possible…" he muttered. "He saw the file so—but no, he shouldn't be able to read either. This isn't happening." He raised his voice and actually spoke directly to me for the first time. "Who are you?"
I looked at him like he was an idiot. He wasn't, of course, but I wanted him to think that I thought that. "I told you, my name is Joshua Traviss,
His voice took on a scolding tone. "Now, now—we both know that you aren't really Joshua Traviss. You just saw his name on the file and assumed that it was yours. How were you able to read the name?"
I continued my idiot-glare, for lack of a better expression. "I learned in school, like every other kid, idiot. What is this? You think you can break me this way? I won't answer any more of your stupid questions. Now tell me, where am I? I demand my rights as a prisoner of war!"
He stepped back again, picked up the datapad from where it had fell when I was seized, and started pacing, staring at it, muttering and spewing medical jargon. I caught the eye of the assistant. "What's he saying?" I asked.
He looked at me, then at the doctor, and back at me. "I'm not sure," he said reluctantly, "but he seems rather excited. He's saying something about the abnormal activity that showed up on the scans we did of your brain before you woke up."
"Before I woke—how long have I been here?" I demanded angrily, prompting the guards to tighten their grips on m arms again. He was saved from answering by the doctor returning.
"What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?" he asked. "Or can you remember anything? And if not, how did you read the file?" I started looking impatient, hoping he would shut up so I could answer. He did.
I described the scene I've already elaborated on to you—the Russian complex and being executed, ending with "So, if you'd like to tell me why I'm here and not lying dead somewhere, please, be my guest, 'cause I'm a little freaked out right now!"
As I told my story, he had gotten visibly excited. He started mumbling again, pacing and studying the datapad. Eventually he calmed back down and approached me again. He motioned the guards to let go of me and step back, and they took up positions by the door. "So, you think you are Joshua Traviss, correct?" he asked. When I nodded he continued, "You are mistaken. Joshua Traviss died in that Russian base, a hero whose mission postponed the Russian development of SuperSoldier technology long enough for the
I cut him off. "Global Commonwealth? I thought you said we won!"
He looked at me bewildered. "Surely you didn't think that the war could end any other way—the world had to unite under one government. There was no other way…"
This sidetrack—important as it was—was just a ruse to buy me time to process what I had heard. Unfortunately, it fit. I'm a clone. But does that mean I'm not a human being? Does it even mean that I'm NOT Joshua Traviss? I have all his memories—I'm essentially him as if he had not died… This brings up tough questions about the soul, questions I cannot answer, but I believe that, for all intents and purposes, I AM Joshua Traviss.
The doctor—or I guess he was more properly a geneticist, but I'll keep calling him a doctor out of habit—was speaking again. "—no idea how the memories transferred. Maybe it has to do with a variable in the Chromosomal Replication Process—" He droned on half to himself with terms I couldn't follow.
I turned to his assistant again. "Translation?"
He looked at the doctor for a moment. "Prior to your series, any clones were replicated at the genetic age of their 'donor.' The Chromosomal—"
I cut him of. "In English…"
He sighed. "The chromosomes replicated at the same age as the original tissue. You could clone a ninety-year-old man, grow the clone to infancy, then take a tissue sample, and the sample would say that the infant was ninety years old. Well, with your series we fixed that. However, you seem to have also acquired the memories of your 'donor' as a side effect…"
"So…now what?" I asked. The assistant shrugged, but the doctor answered me. "You'll be euthanized, of course. Not only do I need to run an autopsy on you to study this anomaly, but we can't have you running around thinking you're someone you're not can we?" He motioned to the guards again, and I was back where I started. "Now, it's a good thing that Charles here—" he motioned at his assistant. "—Charles here hasn't loaded the combat routines into your integrated processor yet, or we would be in trouble!"
Charles looked sheepish. "Actually, sir…I loaded them yesterday. But don't worry!" he added hastily. "The processor isn't activated yet. He shouldn't be any trouble."
The doctor nodded at the guards, then walked to a wall display and typed a sequence. The guards tightened their grip as the doctor lifted a needle from the drawer under the display and moved toward me.
I tensed my body, then raised my voice and said, "There's only one problem with that idea. I've HAD combat training!" Before the guards could react, I ripped my arms free and pivoted on my left foot to deliver a wicked knee to the one's groin while pulling his sidearm from its holster. A kick to the other guard's kneecaps put him on the floor, then I knocked them both out by hitting them upside the head with the pistol. I ended by covering the doctor and Charlie, both wearing stunned expressions. The whole thing took five seconds with my enhanced abilities.
"Now," I said as I stripped one of the guards of his uniform and equipment, "You are going to write a report saying that I died without ever waking up. I was promptly cremated. I am going to walk out of here, and I am going to disappear. If anyone comes after me, I will hunt you down and kill you." I finished donning the guard's uniform and stripped the other of his weapon and ammunition, pocketing both. "Remember—I stay dead, or you are!"
I turned, walked out of the room and out of the facility, and kept on moving. I was bluffing, of course. There was no way I could find out who they were, nor could I stop them from taking me as I left. I somehow think that what they were doing was illegal, because their labs were in the basement of an office building in downtown Newer York, and they didn't sound any type of alarm.
That was two weeks ago, and I'm still alive. I've been living on the streets as a homeless man, and it seems nobody has come after me. I'm free. I have a second chance to live, and I plan to make the most of it. I'll survive. It seems that's what I'm good at.
Contest Entry #3
My dear Wormwood,
Though you were most undeserving of any sort of grace in the issue, for my own sake I am glad you were not indeed cast into the deepest pits. There is work yet to be done. Note that I use the word ‘grace’ in a cautious sense: the Enemy takes this word to mean an undeserved favor that he does to the human vermin. They do not repay him; he says he does this favor of ‘saving’ them from his great love. Rubbish.
There is no grace in hell; thus you, nephew, have not been given ‘grace’ in the Enemy’s sense of the word. No – you will pay back this favor by your work.
This, then, is your task. It is to be performed in all confidentiality. Tell no one save for the few I have recruited to work with you. The truth of the matter is that both of us are in danger of demotion into the Pit. I am not to fault, of course. It is your idiotic bumbling during the period the vermin call The Second World War that has you and me on a narrow ledge. It appears during your clean-ups you missed a small item. During your incarceration, I’m sure you haven’t seen it – or them rather.
You left behind the letters I sent you. All of them. In the hands of a fool, or of a Satanist, our plight would be nonexistent. We may actually have been honored. However, the scoundrel who came into possession of these papers was one Clive Staples Lewis. Despite that disgustingly dry British name (he knew, and at four re-named himself ‘Jack’), the man is what the Enemy’s people call a theologian. His aim was the opposite of ours, to turn people toward the Enemy and into his ‘love’, which of course we know is merely a cover-up of his secret. We are still unsure of the precise nature of the secret, but we have new research in, and recently made the punishments for failure more severe.
Your task, Wormwood, is to stifle this book. I being such a high authority in Hell, these letters contain priceless advice – the best advice. Already many of those vermin named Christians have read our letters (they have been published for over sixty years). Think of the consequences. They have our playbook! Our cunning tactics, our back ways of deception and dalliances and damnation!
This, of course, does not contain all of Hell’s best secrets, but a close reading of this book (The Screwtape Letters) they know better how to block us. These vermin, the shrewd ones that take these letters to heart, can recognize our moves as we perform them! Have a wife and husband begin to quarrel over something trivial such as having tea in the garden or inside. It may come upon them that this is an absurd thing, but may split them apart if added to a list of other absurd things. If – Hell forbid – they realize the fight as our work, they will laugh (disgusting pests!) at each other, or more horrifyingly, us.
Distract them. Let them see the book on a shelf at the book-store and ponder it. Should their train of thought take the wrong track, guide them away. Let them think of lunch, or coffee (I understand certain book-stores nowadays come with cafés). If that fails, take a more direct attack. Suggest that the book, with its picture of a hideous little brown gargoyle, looks dry. Dull. Dreary. Choose your adjective.
Guide them to another book, preferably in the romance section or comedic section, so long as the book they ultimately buy is somewhat harmful to them. At the least, have them pick up certain ‘Christian’ fiction books. Be careful here, Wormwood. There are books of this category that are deadly to our cause. Show them the harmless ones that are all fluff, or better yet, preachy. It will make them feel they are reading something of value to their spiritual lives. If they contain a certain abhorrence to fiction because it is not ‘real’ (this includes us, Wormwood! They think of us as creations of Lewis’s imagination!), then there are fail-safes here too. Give them the books that promise the Enemy’s divine favor and blessings of material wealth, gain without pain.
These books have done more for us than pornography and anger. They lull Christians (or those who believe they are) into believing the life of a believer should be filled with ease. God should reward them for honoring him with their presences. Then when the Porsche fails to appear overnight in the driveway, the bank account numbers fall rather than climb, and the mortgage on the house comes due, they will shake their fists at God. The true (but duped) believers will be angry for a time. The false believers will quit their pretense, and in their bitterness, fall further away.
If all else fails, insert visual flashes of the last television show they viewed. Make the colors bright, the sounds sharper, the memory on the whole more appealing than the actual show. Assure them that by viewing these shows instead of reading a book, they will have more common ground with the co-worker the next cubicle over, or the teenagers in their classes. Distract them. Divert them. Amuse them, entertain them, cater to them, but by no means let them read The Screwtape Letters (note there is nothing of your name in the title). There are few more damaging books they could read.
Remember, nephew, your position and your life are hanging in the balance – not to mention mine. I of course will be granted more levity because of my seniority. You are already blacklisted. So be wise. A tip this way, a misstep here, a blunder, a crumbling surface, and you’re tumbling deep into the Pit –
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
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