Kevin Anderson: Resurrection, Inc.

Jones had been sponsored by a friend, Fitzgerald Helms. Actually, the word “friend,” with its flat single syllable, was completely inadequate to describe the complex and trusting relationship he had had with Fitzgerald Helms. It was the sort of thing that happened no more than once in a lifetime—a friend who made you know what it would be like to have a clone, because only a carbon-copy counterpart could be so much like yourself.

Jones and Fitzgerald Helms had been on the streets together during their teenage years, when they could look at the jungle of the city with exhilaration rather than confused fear. Helms was a mulatto, pale enough that he could disguise himself if he wanted to, but he never wanted to. He let his reddish scouring-pad Afro grow out in wild directions, while Jones himself kept his wiry black hair trimmed tight against his skull. Neither one of them could grow much of a moustache, but both had tried relentlessly since they were fourteen.

Both Jones and Fitzgerald Helms avoided their listless parents, business and technical people so wrapped up in their jobs that they had no ambition to do anything. Jones and Helms had not been interested in education or the rat race of the corporate world. They blithely accepted a blue-collar future without qualms, confident that they would find a job working in one of the larger manufacturing plants, or as gardeners, mechanics, whatever—the possibilities seemed endless. But then had come the Servant revolution, and the two young men found themselves in a generation slice that was too old to learn the new tricks necessary to cope with a changed world.

The younger kids—the smart ones, at least—had nearly enough time if they wanted to launch themselves into feverishly learning Net skills, or some profession that required mental ability rather than just movable arms and legs. But Jones and Fitzgerald Helms both found themselves out of that game. They had been athletic and active outside, surviving more than their share of street fights, but neither one of them was good enough to fantasize about a career at athletics or the other violent entertainment modes. After nearly a year, they could no longer avoid facing their only remaining option, a dark option they both hated to consider. Enforcers . The Guild would take care of them. If they could pass the incredible tests required of outsiders before they could be allowed to join the Guild.

He and Helms had primed themselves for weeks, training, fighting, running, even studying various weapons capabilities as described on The Net. First Fitzgerald Helms would beat Jones, then Jones would beat Helms. They were perfectly matched, reflections of each other.

But on the day of the brutal, real tests in front of the Guild echelon representatives, Helms had succeeded, and Jones had failed—both of them by a hair.

Fitzgerald Helms immediately designated himself as sponsor for Jones, but neither one of them wanted to contemplate that as a possibility. Jones could only admire the shining armor, the weapons, the confidence his friend gave off even behind his polarized visor.

A year later, Helms was killed at the end of a vicious game of Dodge the Enforcer. Some out-of-work blues driven nearly insane from the boredom, the frustration, the hopelessness, became almost suicidal. They made a game of provoking an Enforcer to the point of outrage, and then tried to escape before the Enforcer let loose and killed them. Helms had been caught up in a surprisingly elaborate plot staged by several starving former restaurant workers; the ringleader, a thin and wild-eyed dishwasher, proved to have a brilliantly logical and manipulative mind—a mind that would surely have gotten him a job working with The Net if he had so much as tried.

He had directed a game that looked so childishly desperate and simple, but Fitzgerald Helms had fallen prey to its complexity and found himself trapped in a cul-de-sac with the laughing wild-eyed dishwasher. The dishwasher had looked on the point of orgasm when he detonated the chunks of explosive taped to his own chest, leaving no portion of his body intact to resurrect as a Servant, and not much of Fitzgerald Helms either.

The other accomplices in the game were immediately rounded up, cleanly executed, and shipped off to Resurrection, Inc. Before killing each accomplice, the Enforcers took great pleasure in informing them that, as Servants, they would be used exclusively for Guild labor.

And, according to the rules, Jones took the place of his sponsor in the Guild when Fitzgerald Helms was killed in the line of duty. Jones had not looked forward to the day when he could claim the benefits of sponsorship, but he had known it would happen sooner or later. Rumor had it that Enforcers on the street didn’t live long, despite their weapons and armor.

Jones was even offered a reduced-price option on the new Servants resulting from the executions, but he had declined. He hadn’t even considered purchasing someone like Julia until much later.

And now he was in the Guild, comfortably set for life.

He had to do his best, make a clean effort, in honor of Helms. All he could do was sit and hold the memories, over and over again. Jones knew he could never find another friend like Helms, and he didn’t bother to try.

He stood at the doorway of his living quarters and took a last look at Julia, sitting on the chair and watching him with rapt attention. She hadn’t moved a muscle.

The dawn light cast deep shadows from the buildings onto the street, throwing everything into an exaggerated black-and-white relief. Beneath his visor Jones could catch the faint damp tang of salt in the air. Pigeons and seagulls had begun to stir, looking for any scraps of street garbage they had missed the previous evening.

Jones stood in front of the mammoth headquarters of Resurrection, Inc. The towering gray structure looked like a tombstone for all humanity—and the unseen underground complex below was several times the size of the administrative offices above. Two sets of revolving doors waited to receive the visitors and workers. A great marble plaque engraved with the words “Servants for Mankind—Freeing Us from Tedium to Pursue Our True Destiny” stared from the front of the building.

People had just begun to venture outside, loosed from curfew for another day. The streets were quiet now, but they would start to get ugly later on. They always did. And Jones would have to march back and forth, escorting Servants to their assigned labor, making certain nothing got out of control.

Francois Nathans, the head of Resurrection, apparently professed a great dislike for the Enforcers and their Guild; but he was forced to keep a pool of Enforcers around his corporation due to the very nature of the work he did and how much the public disliked it. Jones tried not to think about it, afraid he might somehow get into trouble, but he found it ironic that the one man in the Metroplex powerful enough to damage the Enforcers Guild had his hands tied, forced to use the services of the Guild more than any other private corporation.

Jones stopped for a moment, staring at the huge poured-stone building, the one structure that was almost singlehandedly reshaping society. First the discovery of fire. Then the Industrial Revolution. Then Resurrection, Incorporated . That had been one of their most successful slogans.

“And then what?” Jones thought.

Several people pointedly avoided Jones as he pushed his way through the gleaming revolving door.

The body named Danal hung suspended in the final purging bath of amniotic solution. Faint smells of chemicals wafted up from the open vents at the top of the vat. Rodney Quick wished his nostrils would become desensitized once and for all.