The Resurrection of Adam Ryker

By Matt Sorensen

Cryogenically frozen for 200 years, Adam Ryker is revived and cured of leukemia in the 23rd century. He awakens to a technically advanced but poorly educated and hedonistic society governed, as a for-profit business, by a middle-eastern energy cartel. Determined to prod the country to renewed greatness, he finds himself in the crosshairs of government, industry and religious interests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matt Sorensen
• Release date: Sep 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301949410

Matt Sorensen

Matt Sorensen is a pseudonym. It's taken from my Danish grandfather's first name (Matthias) and my grandmother's maiden name (Sorensen). They were proud, hardworking immigrants like the ones talked about in chapter 5 of my book "In the Bowl of Night." I was born in 1933 and served in the Navy during the Korean War. I write technical articles under my real name, Paul Honore', and fiction under my pseudonym. People ask me. "Why?" It's explained in my Smashwords interview.

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-1The Resurrection of Adam Ryker

2nd edition

by

Matt Sorensen

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2016 Matt Sorensen

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Foreword

A day or two after the first publication of this story in 2012, Google glasses were introduced. The announcement came as a shock to me It shouldn’t have. As a former partner in a research company, I discovered that whatever idea you might be exploring, half a dozen people somewhere in the world are working on similar products and it becomes a race to see who gets to the patent office first. So much for original thinking. Since then, we have seen the realization of the driverless automobile and, just last week, I viewed a Japanese documentary about experiments with a sensory body suit. .What next --Holographic television sets? The coal mining "mole? No matter. The story is not about gadgetry but about how someone who has been frozen for centuries and revived might fit into contemporary society. Having ones body frozen for future regeneration was all the rage in the 1970s. It remains to be seen if the effort and expense is such a good idea after all.

Chapter-1 - Awakening

Adam Ryker awoke slowly from a terrifying dream. He dreamt he was lying naked in snow; machinery pumping fluids in and out of his body through a web of tubes and pipes; robotic machines laser-slicing his flesh; Metal fingers tearing at his viscera and inserting devices of plastic and steel. Almost drowned by the hum and clatter of machines was a murmur of voices -- voices not of his dream yet insinuated into it.

Fluid replacement complete. Plasma circulating normally. Pressure 110 over 69. I’m getting a pulse, barely perceptible. Subject not yet able to breathe on his own.

Core temperature?

Minus 3 degrees Celsius and rising.

Not too fast, now. Remember the last time. No more than half a degree rise in ten minutes. Give him 2ccs of Epinephrine and keep the saline solution flowing.

Adam's mind, not yet able to grasp reality, focused on the machinery sounds -- a mechanical heart pulsing kathump, kathump 60 times a minute, and there was a rhythmical wheezing, like the bellows of a harmonium, as valves clicked open and closed to force metallic tasting air into his lungs and suck it out again. In, out. In, out. In, out. He felt cold, very cold.

There was a tingling sensation as his body warmed and feeling began to come into it. He opened his eyes. He seemed to be looking into a thick fog, brightly illuminated from an overhead source but not from the sun. There was no warmth in it. He could perceive moving shapes, as yet indistinct, but he sensed they were human and the thought cheered him. To his right, a nurse was studying a monitor that displayed vital signs in multi-colored squiggles. To his left, another nurse manipulated the controls of a machine attached to his wrist by an umbilical of fluid-filled plastic tubes.

Temperature nearly normal, said the nurse at the monitor. Heartbeat getting stronger. He’s coming out of stasis now.

The mist slowly thinned to reveal people in green scrubs and surgical masks who were fussing over him with strange instruments and bags of chemicals. There were others, more distant, high up in a balcony that circled the operating theater.

From somewhere behind him, a man's voice narrated the proceedings in a monotone, echoed, milliseconds later, from loudspeakers overhead. "Revitalization seems to be progressing normally. Of course it's too soon to be certain, but it appears that this is the first subject we've succeeded in bringing back from deep freeze alive.

There was loud applause from the gallery.

The narrator waved for silence. Your enthusiastic reception is most gratifying but let's not be hasty. Once the subject is stabilized, we'll want to do a few tests to ensure he is fully functional, physically and mentally. You might say he has been resurrected from the dead. To put it more succinctly, as we have repaired his immune system while he was in stasis, and replaced several diseased organs, he might even be said to be re-born.

More applause from the audience. Excuse me, doctor, shouted a reporter, but who, exactly, is your patient? What's his name? How long has he been frozen?

For the moment, he'll remain anonymous until we check with our legal department. We refer to him simply as subject 112. You understand, I'm sure. Records indicate he was placed in stasis a little more than two and a half centuries ago -- in the year 1987. That's all I'm at liberty to say. Now, if you'll all please clear the gallery, my colleagues and I have much work to do. You'll be kept informed of progress.

Adam was now fully conscious. A nurse leaned close and asked in a cheery voice, How do you feel, sir? The voice was young. Only her eyes showed between the tight fitting green head covering and the surgical mask that covered her mouth and nose, but Adam imagined she was pretty; about the age of his daughter, Gillian. But that's absurd, he thought. The man said two hundred fifty years have passed since my blood was replaced with anti-freeze and I was sealed in a metal container and immersed in liquid nitrogen. Gillian has long since ceased to exist -- her bones and flesh reduced to dust. He tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. His mouth was dry and his tongue tasted like he imagined a well-worn tennis sneaker must.

The question was rhetorical. said the nurse. Don't try to talk. You're doing just fine. We'll have you up and around soon.

Adam closed his eyes and focused his thoughts. I'm here -- in the future. No, not the future, the present. He struggled to sit up but found his hands and feet tethered by restraints.

Don’t try to move, said the nurse, Your muscles haven’t been used for a long, long time. It will be awhile before you regain your strength. Just relax. You’re in good hands. Her voice was soothing and reassuring. How long before I can get about? Adam thought. .I wonder what year this is? I must see a lawyer. I wonder if they still have lawyers? If my investments continued to compound interest, I should be rich. I could be the richest man in the world and I’ve beat the odds. I was 55 when they put me in deep freeze. Presumably I haven’t aged and I’ve been restored to perfect health with a body of maybe a thirty year old. I have many long years ahead -- a life of indescribable luxury!

Adam let himself relax. Soon, he fell into a deep and pleasant sleep. When he awakened, he found himself in a room furnished only with a bed, two chairs and a small table. The ceiling and two of the walls shimmered with three-dimensional images. Facing him was a field of wheat, swaying in a hot summer breeze. To his left, a herd of Roosevelt elk grazed in a cool forest glade. Startled suddenly, they bounded off among the trees and bracken. Clouds scudded slowly across the sky and wild geese honked as they flew in a loosely defined formation to some unseen destination beyond a range of snow-covered peaks. A display of vital signs, above and behind him, served to remind him that he was within the confines of the clinic. The images were unsettling and vaguely familiar; reminiscent of Adam’s early years on the Kansas farm and later, hiking the woods of Northwest Washington as a young adult.

His tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of his mouth and it had an unpleasant metallic taste. He felt about for a signaling button but could find none. He was about to call out but just then the door sighed open and a young woman entered. She wore the same loose-fitting scrubs as the girl who spoke to him in the operating theater. The mask and head covering were gone to reveal closely cropped auburn hair and a beguiling smile.

Good morning, she said. Did you sleep well? Before he could answer, she slid a thermometer under his tongue.

Adam studied her eyes, trying to remember what color the girl in the operating theater’s eyes were.

Finally, she removed the thermometer, glanced quickly at it, and placed it in a container of disinfectant. She took him by the wrist and felt, expertly, for a pulse. It wasn’t necessary, of course, as his heartbeat was continuously displayed and recorded, along with other vital signs, as a record of his progress. The feel of her warm hand on his wrist was pleasantly reassuring. He was, after all, among the living.

Adam studied the girl. She did, indeed, resemble his daughter. Her eyes were a different shade of brown but there was something familiar in the way she moved; the way she