James Axler – Stoneface

“But if you can replace every body part that wears out”

“We can’t replace the brain, Mr. Cawdor, and liver transplants are sometimes successful and sometimes aren’t. As you pointed out, the low temperature we must live in has definite drawbacks. We haven’t conquered every vagary that preys on organic matter, though we’ve made a great leap in that direction.”

As they progressed deeper into the laboratory, they passed more dismembered bodies in glass cabinets, then came to another door that opened onto a long, bare corridor. Their footsteps rang hollowly on the alloy-sheathed floor, and the lights were dim. They passed several doors.

“I don’t come here often,” the Commander said. “It tends to depress me.”

They stepped through a tall, narrow doorway at the end of the corridor, and Ryan saw why the man didn’t care to visit here. The cold was overwhelming, like a physical assault. It bit at his nostrils, his lips, his eyes, anywhere there was moisture. He raised the fur collar of his coat and lifted his scarf over his nose and mouth to protect them from the numbing cold. His eyeballs ached, and he was forced to take short, shallow breaths, worried the air would freeze his lungs.

The gloomy room was a crypt, where the living dead were entombed, frozen in time. There were over a hundred of them. They stood in orderly rows, each one upright inside a transparent armaglass canister, arms crossed sedately over their chests. With a twinge of surprise, Ryan noticed that not all of the encased people were men. There were a few women mixed in, mostly young. They wore only a simple drapery, and their bodies had the appearance of pale turquoise, not only in color but substance. The eyes were wide open and they seemed to stare, all one-hundred-plus pairs of them, straight into Ryan’s mind.

“Who are they?” he asked. His teeth were chattering so violently, he was surprised his words were comprehensible.

Even the Commander seemed affected by the deep cold, tucking his hands into his pockets and slightly hunching his shoulders. “My people, the ones who contracted incurable diseases or went mad, or who refused to participate in the cybernetic implant program. They are scientists, engineers, military officers, doctors.”

“This is a punishment, a prison?”

“No, only a rest stop. They are in cryogenic stasis and require no air, no food, no interaction with others. I doubt they even dream. But, as you can see, we take care of our own.”

Ryan now understood what Doug had meant about over a hundred Anthill personnel being inactive. “Why not just shoot them and be done with it?”

“They have valuable skills, important information, abilities crucial to our survival. They held key supervisory and design positions during the construction of our complex and have much knowledge that we can draw upon.”

“When you need to ask them something, you thaw them out long enough to ask a question, then refreeze them.”

“Yes.”

“I think they’d be better off dead.”

The Commander nodded sadly. “Many of them think the same thing.”

They went back along the corridor, and it took Ryan a long while to stop shivering. His teeth were still chattering intermittently when they stopped before a door. The Commander stepped aside, inclined his head in a short bow and waved one hand. Ryan walked across the threshold and was dazzled by bright light reflecting from plate glass and chromium fixtures.

They were in a long hexagonal room. The left wall was composed of sheets of frosty glass. Ryan glanced through one, down into a room below. It took his mind a moment to identify what his eye was seeing, and when it did, he instinctively recoiled. His hand grabbed at his empty holster. If he had been a wolf, he would have snarled and tucked his tail under his belly.

Ryan felt a great fear welling up within him, but not a natural, rational survival mechanism type of fear. It was a mindless, xenophobic cringing from a sight that was terrifyingly alien.

Below him, sloshing and floating in metal vats filled with a semiliquid gel were figures of horror. One resembled a young boy, about Dean’s age. Judging by his lack of ears and the series of suction pads on the fingers, Ryan knew he was a stickie. However, he was malformed beyond the limits of a nightmare. He seemed to have neither joints nor muscles, and his flailing arms terminated in tentacles that suggested an octopus. The tentacles were disproportionate, far too short for his size, and the lower half of the stickie was a quaking, quivering mass of fatty tissue covered with undulating suction cups. The sight made him feel physically ill, bile working its way up his throat. He tried to back away, but the Commander put a hand against his back to keep him in place.