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artificial intelligence module would have time to deduce what
Witter and his accomplices had done. Human technicians at the Phoenix would no
doubt discover the actions of the three men long before the AI could.
Still, the three would eventually be caught and convicted; that was a
virtual certainty.
Witter reset the thermostat to increase the room s tempera-ture from 70
degrees F to 99. Then he punched a series of codes to override the
thermocouples monitoring each canister.
As they inspected the equipment, Lomax considered the im-plications of the
crime they planned to commit. All class twos and threes, he figured. Not a
single predeath preservation, and it was doubtful any of their brains had even
been vitrified. The three of them were unarmed, and were not even getting
paid.
They might do serious jail time, but even if their attorneys were
dolts, none of them would get life sentences. And their own cryo--rights
seemed in no jeopardy.
All three men considered themselves heroic, and a small but vocal minority of
Americans would have agreed. Lomax and Witter were motivated by progressive
politics. After all, why should the dying poor, those to whom life had dealt
the worst hands, lose all hope of a future? Who was to say that the lives of
the wealthy were more valuable than those of the destitute? So what if the
affluent tended to be smarter and more productive; after the doctors of the
future overhauled the poor, they might no longer be captive of genetic
limitations. All brains might well be raised to genius caliber, and equally
worthy of salvage. The rich had already partaken disproportionately from
life s banquet, so maybe the poor were more deserving.
The third man, Zambetti, was also attracted to this under-taking as a matter
of conscience, but his reasons were more spiritual. He was Catholic, and the
Pope had stated unequivo-cally,  Life and death are matters that should be
determined only by God. Zambetti s mission was to free the souls of 509 of
these frozen cadavers. Only one would remain frozen, in def-erence
to the wishes of his
allies-of-the-moment, two men whose sincerity and commitment he d come to
admire.
The men disconnected the units and began drilling two-inch holes in the
casings to insert microwave thawing devices. MTDs were neither powerful nor
long-lasting, but would be consistent enough to heat each suspendee s head up
to approxi-mately normal body temperature during the twelve minutes each unit
could function before burnout.
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Zambetti began drilling through double hulls of steel and the two-inch vacuum
layer between them.
The Phoenix had always stored its full-body suspendees head down as an added
safeguard, so the brain would be the last organ to thaw in case of a leak. The
drilling had to be done within six inches of the floor or the specially
treated liquid ni-trogen would quickly refreeze the heads.  Soft-nite, now
used by every leading cryonics organization, wouldn t evaporate nearly as fast
as pure
LN2, but would freeze anything immersed in it much faster.
They d been assured that oxygen masks would be unneces-sary with soft-nite,
since it boiled more slowly, but all three donned them anyway. No sense taking
chances. Vaporous fluid began flowing onto the concrete floor and seeping into
drainage vents.
The room was already 88 degrees; the men, sweating pro-fusely, were becoming
languid.
 Don t let your feet get near any of that stuff, Lomax warned.  These were
the best boots we could find, but nothing ll protect you against soft-nite.
Your toes ll break right off. If you get in deep enough, your feet ll shatter,
too, like glass hitting concrete.
Witter nodded. He d never seen it happen, but had heard enough stories.
Lomax scanned the room looking for one suspendee in par-ticular:
Senator George Crane s grandfather. Locating the can-ister, he marked it
with a cross of red ceramic tape.
After all, my father had argued relentlessly on behalf of
government-subsidized suspensions for the indigent; the only senator who d
cared enough to fight for the little guy. Now he was dead; reduced to ashes
on August 17, 2015, when Basque separatists had SAM ed a Concorde
11, killing all 966
passen-gers and crew, including Senator and Mrs. George J. Crane.
They would spare this Benjamin Franklin Smith.
They were political activists, Lomax reminded himself. Not thugs.
Digital titanium drills could pierce the canisters in seconds, and the MTDs
would begin thawing the heads instantly. Only about an hour would be required
to complete their work.
Suddenly Zambetti noticed a nameplate.  Uh-oh!
 What is it? Lomax ran in panic toward his co-conspirator.
 You think Alice Franklin Smith is related to Crane, too? Stupid question. Of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]