Derek Goodman - The Reanimation of Edward Schuett

“He’s not a ‘thing’,” Liddie said. “Not only does he have a name, but he was talking about having a family once. A life. And he’s an American citizen, sir. You can’t just kill him for no reason.”

“You say he had a family?” the president asked. “How long ago was this?”

“About fifty years ago,” Liddie said.

“And he was a reanimated that whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Gates, what do you think this thing has been doing that whole time? Knitting? Playing solitaire?”

“Sir, I’m not sure that I understand what you’re—”

“It was killing. That’s what the reanimated do. It killed people. It isn’t even alive by any legal definition, even if it can talk and act like a human. It gave up any sort of American citizenship it had a very long time ago. So if I order it destroyed, it will be destroyed, do you understand?”

Liddie didn’t say anything.

“With that said, if this thing is capable of reason then it might just be capable of cooperating,” the president said. “Director Gates, you want to study it. What exactly do you have planned?”

She outlined a few tests she wanted to do. It was really very basic stuff. Cognitive tests, reflex tests, tests of Edward’s tissue samples. “But most importantly,” she said, “I want to see if we can get it to remember anything of the past fifty years. We’ve learned so much about the reanimated, but there are still things we don’t understand. How they group together, how they sense when humans are near, how and why they migrate the way they do. The Z7 may just be the key to unlocking some mysteries we’ve been trying to understand ever since the first days of the Uprising.”

The president looked at Dr. Chella. “And I assume you have a well thought-out argument against this plan?”

Dr. Chella hemmed and hawed, but there was nothing about what she said that could be considered “well thought-out.” Even with all his prim and proper posturing, Liddie thought for just a moment that she might have seen the president roll his eyes.

“Director Gates, you’ve already talked to this thing. Has it given you any reason whatsoever to believe it might not be willing to let you experiment?”

She hesitated. “Maybe. It did show a willingness to fight when we picked it up in Wisconsin. But it wants to know all the details about what it is just as much as we do. We can use that. Even more so, it wants information regarding its family.”

“It has a family?”

“It did when it was alive fifty years ago. It seems to be under the impression that some of that family might still be out there somewhere.”

“And have you found any information about this family?”

“You know how the records are from that time, sir. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fake it. I’ve already commissioned a team to forge some fake documents. It won’t know any different.”

Liddie looked at her. This was the first she had heard about any of that. She knew there was nearly no hope of finding out what had ever happened to Edward’s daughter, but the idea of lying to him about it horrified her.

The president nodded. “Okay then. I believe I will let this continue, but from now on I want daily reports. I want to know everything, no details left out. And if this thing so much as sneezes in a threatening manner, I will order it destroyed. Is that understood?”

Liddie’s mother nodded. “Absolutely, sir.”

“And I’m sure you’ve already taken precautions, but I still need to stress this as well. This is top secret. You may pick a few of your top people for the research, Director Gates, but beyond that the only people who are to know of this thing’s existence are the people in this room.”

“I’ve already done everything I can about those precautions as well. The number of people that even know he’s here on campus is minimal, and most of them are being told he’s an outside consultant.”

“Good. Tread carefully with this, Gates. After all, I’m sure that I will hear if there’s even the smallest slip up.”

Dr. Chella actually smiled at that. Liddie would have reached over and smacked the woman if she didn’t think even her mother would fire her for that.

“Thank you, sir,” Liddie’s mother said. The president nodded, and the monitor went blank.

Liddie sat quietly next to her mother while Dr. Chella and Dr. Emmanuel stood up and mumbled to each other. Her mother opened up a file folder she’d had in front of her and began thumbing through the documents inside, but Liddie could tell she wasn’t really looking at any of them. She knew that look on her mother’s face. She’d seen it ever since she was a little kid. This was the look when she expected Liddie to throw a tantrum and was preparing to give her daughter a severe talking-down.

Well, Liddie wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction this time. She was an adult now, after all. She was fully capable of having a calm adult conversation about things that upset her. There would be no yelling involved. Really.

Once Chella and Emmanuel were gone, Liddie spoke in a quiet, measured voice. “You never said anything to me about the fake documents.”

“That’s because I was hoping you would come to that conclusion yourself,” her mother said. “Actually trying to find records of his daughter would be a wild goose chase and a waste of resources. But we need him to be cooperative.”

“So your answer is lying to him?” Liddie noticed she was beginning to raise her voice and made a conscious effort to bring it back down. “And something else. What was all that while you were talking with the president where you kept referring to Edward as ‘it?’ You were talking like he was another reanimated, and he’s not.”

“He is, Liddie, at least in the eyes of most people. Especially to the president, who hasn’t had a chance to meet him yet. I was merely talking in a way that the president would comprehend. If I had referred to Edward as a ‘he,’ that would have made the president think I was getting attached.”

“Referring to a person as a person isn’t getting attached. That’s just giving him basic human dignity.”

“Dignity like you tried to give him when you helped him with his soiled pants last night?”

Liddie was surprised for a moment, but she supposed she shouldn’t be. There were cameras all over the place in here. They would have seen her go into the bathroom with a fresh set of pants and come out with the garbage bag. Her mother had probably even retrieved it from where she had thrown it away simply so the pants could be studied.

“So what now?” Liddie asked. “You don’t want me to let the big bad reanimated monster feel like a human anymore?”

“Actually, just the opposite. I want you to continue doing exactly what you were doing last night. I want you to be his friend.”

This time Liddie was surprised enough that she couldn’t speak.

“Of course, I want you to maintain some professional distance,” her mother said. “You must be very careful not to get too attached. We don’t know enough about him yet, either as a Z7 or a person. I mean, really, for all we know he was convicted child molester or serial killer back before he died. It isn’t like we can check his records or anything. Or he might one day not be able to control his reanimated impulses and try to eat someone. But until that happens, we need him happy, or at least happy enough that he goes along with whatever we need.”

“Mother, I’m not going to pretend to be something just because you ask me to.”

“I’m not asking you to pretend anything. I’m asking you to show the same sort of compassion I would like you to show anyone else. Because let’s face it, I can’t be the one to do that. I have far too many things to take care of. All I’m asking is that you talk to him. Let him confide in you if he needs it. If you’re so convinced he really is completely human despite his condition, then don’t let him forget that. Remind him what being a human means.”