Arnett Tanner Wants to Die

By Alexander S. Bauer

Medical and data storage technology have advanced to the point where people's consciousnesses can be downloaded and reintegrated into a new body after physical death, thus making immortality a reality. The United States government has gone one step further and mandated this immortality, requiring each citizen to regularly create personality backups in the event that they unexpectedly perish.

Arnett Tanner is an extremely intelligent man, and infamous for having performed the most suicides. He seeks an end to what he considers to be an unyielding torment in the continued mediocrity and monotony of never-ending life. He has become bored with the world, and is convinced that it tires of him as well.

Standing opposite Tanner is Lars Hanson, his Suicide Watch Officer who has been tasked with reconstructing the mental health of his patient. Lately his job description has degraded to keeping Tanner from trying to kill himself by any means necessary.

At his wits' end and under pressure from his superiors at the Death Watch Agency, Lars enrolls Tanner in an archaic and controversial form of therapy hoping that the trek into the past will appeal to Tanner's desire for an earlier time and succeed where the DWA's drug program could not.

As the eccentric therapist wades into Tanner's mind, pushing him towards certain conclusions the suicide cases begins to suspect that his SWO may have had ulterior motives for enrolling him in the sessions.

Cover by Jeff Wozniak

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexander S. Bauer
• Release date: Aug 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465819796

Alexander S. Bauer

I was abysmal at the kind of writing that gets you good grades in English classes, so I never wrote much until tenth grade, after my ninth grade teacher embraced my creativity. Since then I haven't been able to stop.The best way to describe myself would be complex. I lettered in two sports (Bowling and Baseball) in high school and captained two academic clubs (Science Olympiad and Math League. I'm a jock who likes to write, who watches Star Trek, who cares about LGBT issues and human sexuality. I'm a nerd that plays with legos and builds model railroads, but can also play sports. One day I'll read about psychology, then movies, then hockey, then history.I've written four full novels, a couple dozen short stories and somewhere around five hundred poems. As a writer I derive inspiration from Rowling, Orwell, Crichton, and a number of Star Trek novelists as well as every movie I've ever seen. I like fantasy, things that can't happen in real life, the creation of entire worlds in which both author and reader can immerse themselves. I like ambiguous characters, neither good nor bad. I like insidious heroes, bastards with hearts of gold, people that make you laugh and think at the same time.And I love to converse, so if you're like me, track me down somewhere and say hi.

Book preview

Prologue

The little baggie lie alone on the counter; it seemed to be taunting him. There were five red and white capsules within, but one would be more than enough.

Arnett Tanner sighed as he pulled one out and rolled it between his fingers. He liked his hands. Large, strong, calloused and smooth in all the right areas, they were one of the few things he had grown to appreciate about the body he'd only inhabited for a few short years. But they'd soon be gone, along with the rest of him once he found the conviction to take the pill.

Tanner grabbed the baggie and the four remaining pills and walked them back to their hiding place. He was certain he'd be wanting them again after he found himself reincarnated. It wouldn't do for the drugs to be found and confiscated.

He looked back down the hall towards the living room where the deadly object hardly took up any space on his coffee table. He was wasting time and he knew it. Without thinking, Tanner took the five quick steps into the living room. His eyes focused on the pill as he tried to shut down his mind, tried to quiet the reservations within his head. In a split second it was in his hand, then passing between his lips, then sliding along the back of his throat. And then it was gone.

Fourth time's a charm, Tanner said to the empty room as he sat down on the couch. He could feel his limbs growing heavy. His heart began to slow, but it felt like it was racing. Four suicides, and each time he was panic stricken as it happened. All Arnett Tanner wanted to do was to die, to be rid of the hell he walked through every day. To destroy the immortality that plagued his unnaturally long life. Four suicides...and not a single one had been easy.

Chapter 1

Awakening

Arnett Tanner blinked his eyes a few times as his mind started to register where he was and how he got there. The walls were painfully white with a red stripe ringing the room about chest high. As things slowly came into focus, he began to take stock of his other senses. There was the smell; one he knew all too well, the vaguely medicinal scent that seemed to invade every hospital. It intermingled with that of whatever concoction was attempting to pass for food in the tray atop his neighbor's bed.

There was a slow regular beeping, but that came from outside the small window on the other side of the room. Some sort of construction occurring on the blacktop below. His vital signs were being shown on a series of projections on the wall next to his bed, the grey mechanical sleeve over his wrist monitoring his stats with a near imperceptible hum.

Didn't think you'd pull through this time. You barely made it. The voice came from a large broad shouldered man sitting in a chair directly in front of Tanner, beneath the spot on the wall where the television would have been projected. Lars Hanson stroked his stubbly dark brown goatee, giving Tanner a smile that in times past would not have been remotely sincere. As he'd come to know Tanner better, having been his Suicide Watch Officer for two previous incarnations, Lars had to admit that he was becoming fond of the man, in spite of his morbid obsessions.

Tanner gave him a tired stare. Of course it wasn't true. Since the ability to be reborn, had gone from luxury to law, no one had truly died for centuries. Data storage and biotechnology had long since progressed to the point where entire consciousnesses could be stored on small black memory sticks. At first it was simply a tool of the rich. Pay millions, and death would become extinct. The mind and memories could be stored, waiting to be accessed.

In the early days, an existence as a communicative computer terminal wasn't much preferable to death. Still there had been those that had clung to any last vestiges of life that they could get their intangible hands on. Quickly the technology progressed from computer terminals to more anthropomorphic robotic creations, but with only a bastardized programmatic re-creation of the five senses, that option hadn't been terribly palatable either.

It wasn't until nearly two decades later when medical science made a breakthrough, enabling those consciousnesses to be inserted into living breathing human beings. The experiments were grisly at first, and quickly outlawed. Inserting a consciousness into a body that already possessed one caused insanity. Putting one into a cloned body was even worse, let alone the complications that occurred with the cloning itself. It was discovered that blank minds, newborn infants worked better, but who would want to give up their child so some rich old-timer could have another go at life? Further, what reasoning human being would want to be sequestered away in a body that was useless for several years?

Working illegally, cryogenics answered the call. The ability to physiologically nurture a human being through youth and into adulthood while in stasis and thus without acquiring any conscious thought was discovered. These blanks, as they were called, became the new vessels for those that could afford to live another life. Blanks were bred in a variety of ages, from the late teens into the early forties and neural scanning technology had to advance in order to determine the true age of any given person. After all, one could look eighteen and in actuality be several hundred years old.

Gradually, as the technology improved, the cost decreased and the procedures became more commonplace. Soon even middle class families could afford to have all their members backed up in the event one of them met an untimely end. The mortality rate dropped dramatically, and the average lifespan became technically infinite. As the concept of death began to fade away it put another weight on the already strained issues of overpopulation and resource scarcity, forcing the government to step in and regulate the process.

With the emergence of a strong pro-life political movement in the United States, there was increased pressure to codify the reincarnation process into law. Helped by the rapid growth of new technology that effectively cured most diseases and increased capability for data storage, it was a simple matter to create massive data centers for the memory of every living being in the country. After a long struggle, the final hammer fell. It was all too easy for the government to mandate yearly physicals during which people had to undergo the procedure that uploaded their consciousnesses and saved them on the appropriate servers and memory sticks. The technology had advanced to near perfection and by then it was not any more complicated or invasive than any routine scan.

With terabytes of servers devoted to storing backup consciousnesses and the creation of hidden vaults to hold individual memory sticks of every citizen, a new age emerged. Death was effectively abolished. The government extended its reach into the medical industry, overseeing the farms where new bodies were cryogenically kept until they had a consciousness to inhabit them. There was always a surplus, so waiting lists were short, regardless of age. A man could die and have his back-up downloaded into a new body within days, picking his life up again where his last consciousness upload had left off.

As fewer people died, natural births decreased dramatically, due to both the new procedures, and widespread birth control. The government took hold in that industry as well, introducing a contraceptive agent into most of the country's food and water supplies. A set number of allowances were granted to couples to reproduce naturally each year, but for the most part, the population began to stagnate.

Tanner looked back at Lars. The beefy SWO had been assigned to him about five years previous. Or was it six? He could never remember. It was after the second time he had killed himself. He'd used a two story building and the rather fragile nature of the human head and neck to his advantage, hurling himself off it in the dead of night. His parents had long since disowned him, and he didn't have many friends, so a few neighbors were left to find the mess and Lars and the agency cleaned it up.

Per law, suicides were documented and each case assigned a Suicide Watch Officer. The SWOs fulfilled the role that a parole officer would for a criminal. They were responsible for seeing to it that the offenders attended their government sponsored therapy as well as ensuring they were unable to harm themselves again.

Any more and I won't be able to do this, Lars said, breaking the silence. This is what, your fourth time? Everyone in the Agency probably thinks I'm incompetent by now but no one else will have you, he finished, clasping his hands tightly in front of him.

Tanner smiled from the bed. It was a discussion they'd had many times before. At least I'm keeping you employed, he said. The words were difficult, they always were when waking up in a new body.

For the first time, he looked down, studying himself. He was young, but not a youth as far as he could tell. Here, Lars said, tossing him a small rectangular disc from across the room. Tanner picked the mirror from the folds of his blankets and took his first look at his new body.

He looked like a beatnik poet, one of the absurd characters he'd read about in American history. He lacked the beret and thick rimmed glasses, but the small face, weak jaw and annoying goatee still prevailed. He was in his late twenties, possibly early thirties as far as he could tell.

I hate this age, Tanner said, tossing the mirror back to Lars.

You hate them all, Lars said.

True, but I hate this one even more. So far to go.

Given your history, I highly doubt it, Lars said with a wry grin. I don't suppose I can change your mind?

Tanner looked at him, pausing for a moment. No.

I didn't think so. Well, you still have to go to your therapy, and take your drugs, though it seems pointless now. Why do you want to do this? It was so nonchalant, the way Lars asked. The first time it might have been sincere, but now it was simply the latest replay of a broken record.

I'm tired of it, Tanner whispered, almost rehearsed. I'm tired of it all. I want to be done.

Chapter 2

Tanner is Discharged

Everything looks good, you're free to go, the doctor said walking in a few hours later as he surveyed Tanner's medical chart. Your mind took to the new body, all your vitals seem in order. His eyes flitted to Tanner, then to Lars before he undid the monitor on Tanner's wrist and took it out of the room.

Lars shut the door while Tanner pried himself from the bed. He tested his motion, walking across the room. Nothing to write home about, he thought, about average. Getting a body was pretty much the luck of the draw. Eugenics practices were employed to ensure that there was a fine and healthy crop available at all times and while one occasionally got something exceptional, usually things were pleasantly adequate.

Tanner shed the willowy robe and grabbed the clothes that had been folded beside the bed, no doubt something Lars had grabbed from his closet on the way over. He quickly pulled everything on and turned to face his SWO once more. The larger man said nothing and only gestured towards the door.

Tanner let out a sigh and followed him out. It was the same procedure each time, they would both go back to Tanner's apartment and talk things over. Tanner would have to sign a few documents, swallow another tracking pill and have Lars check each room.

The two walked in silence down the street as Tanner's apartment was only a few blocks from the hospital. Truthfully he was grateful for the opportunity to test his new body. If he was going to be trapped in it for the time being, he might as well get used to it.

Arnett S. Tanner, he said in a loud voice walking up to the door. One guest. The building was older, one of the few that still used voice recognition to allow entry rather than an instantaneous scan. How it tracked people across bodies, Tanner didn't know. The sliding doors beeped after a short moment, then opened to allow them through.

Ignoring the elevators to his left and right in the lobby, Tanner entered a weather beaten door in the back right corner. Lars sighed as he followed, annoyed at Tanner's preference for the stairs. The hollow echo of their stomping followed them up, stopping abruptly as they passed through another door and onto the carpet of the third floor.

Tanner repeated his name once the two reached his apartment. It was a sharp contrast to the state of the building, recently refurnished. Not the largest, but more than adequate for a single man. He had long needed only enough space for one person.

Everything was exactly how he'd left it, though he had no reason to not expect it to be. He tossed his shoes off to the side, watching one of them roll onto the tile floor of the kitchen that had its own alcove to the immediate right. Lars walked passed him into the den and sat on the couch. He faced away from Tanner, staring between the two rooms down the hallway that led to the lone bedroom and bathroom.

After a few moments, Tanner wandered over and sat across from Lars on a large leather chair. He thought about grabbing his comm and turning on a television broadcast to cut into the silence and release some of the tension in the room, but knew it would bother his SWO.

Lars slid a briefcase out that had been sitting beside him onto the couch and opened it. Nonchalantly, he tossed a small bottle to Tanner and sat back, looking at him. Tanner rolled his eyes before opening it and swallowing the tracking device.

I'd ask to see your empty mouth, but I know you've been taking them, Lars said. I already searched the place, found another secret stash and dealt with it. Pills are kind of cliché, don't you think? Can't you at least be interesting?

Tanner smiled faintly. Since all of his things were thoroughly searched after each suicide he'd had to resort to the most tried, true, and easiest to hide method of killing himself, drugs. The problem was that most diseases had long been eradicated, and the government strictly regulated any medication, especially the kinds that could be mixed to create something deadly. With the tracking device, it had been difficult to make any back alley deals. Added to that was the fact that he had to pick his moments when no one would be able to get him to a medical facility in time since Lars's comm immediately notified him when Tanner's vitals began to go awry.

I’ll try to amuse you next time, Tanner answered drolly. Perhaps I can overdose on something a little more difficult and intriguing. There is my old coin collection, for example. I’d imagine ingesting several of those wouldn’t be terribly good for me.

I changed the verification code to the safe, Lars said. I’m getting better at recognizing how your twisted mind works.

The two stared at each other for a moment. It was strange, both had gone through this conversation before, both knew what the other was supposed to say and what the other was going to say. Your fine will be taken directly from your bank account, Lars said wearily. Tanner waved his hand dismissively.

I worked for four generations, monetary punishments mean nothing.

I don't suppose there's anything I can say to keep you from doing it again, Lars said.

What's the point? Tanner asked. They'll just bring me back anyways. I've done it so often now, the impact is lost. No one cares, he finished bitterly.

Lars locked up the briefcase and slid it back under the couch. In case we'll be needing it again, he said with a smirk.

Tanner finally turned his comm towards the wall and activated the projector that placed a high definition telecast on the blank surface. The two sat in silence for a few hours watching hockey as the Yellowknife Bears triumphed handily over the New York Rangers three to one. Afterwards Lars took one more sweep around the apartment before bidding Tanner good night and heading back home.

Tanner watched his friend leave, then stared at the now blank wall in silence. Another attempt a bitter failure, and it had only gained him a few hours respite from life. His eyes darted down the hall to the bedroom. He wondered which of his hiding spots Lars had found, or even if the bulky man had merely been bluffing. Feeling somewhat tired and not wanting to move, he settled into a comfortable position in the chair and dozed off.

Chapter 3

Lars Hanson

Lars gave Tanner one last look before he headed out the door. He felt both pity and resentment for the man. There seemed to be no fixing him. Tanner had been this way ever since he'd been assigned to him, and much longer from what he'd learned from Tanner's previous SWO. The suicide junkie was a constant thorn in his side. Lars figured he would've been fired by now if it weren't for the fact that no one else would take the death-prone little shit.

Another tenant saw Lars coming and scrambled from his path as the large SWO boarded the elevator. Lars smiled inwardly. He could be quite a bastard when the situation called for it, but his intimidating form masked a mostly friendly interior. There was just something about his rough goatee and piercing eyes that told passersby that he was not a man to be trifled with.

When the elevator reached the lobby, Lars stepped off and strolled casually out of the building. He had given Tanner's apartment a very thorough comb over and found nothing aside from the remainder of his stash of pills. Even if there were others around, Tanner would probably want to rest more than anything else. The procedure was little more than shuffling one's entity from one form to another, but it was exhausting when the subject first awoke, even worse if the patient had trouble adjusting to their new body Plus Tanner never tried again right away anyways.

Lars walked up to the black Cadillac he'd been issued as a government employee. It immediately scanned his neural signature and a square opening with rounded edges appeared on the driver's side. Once he sat down, the door slid shut and sealed itself again.

Destination? the vehicle's metallic female voice asked.

Home, Lars said, reclining back in the seat as the vehicle went through its pre-drive procedure.

The Cadillac, which mostly resembled a levitating rectangular prism that had been bent downwards and had its edges tapered off, uploaded the destination into the Personal Transportation Network, verified a course that wouldn’t intersect with any other vehicles, and then sped off, following the unique magnetic signature laid out for it through the labyrinthine streets of New York.

Lars thought about contacting his superiors. No doubt they’d want a report on Tanner’s latest actions, and another chance to berate him for not being more vigilant. How Tanner had managed it this time, he wasn’t sure. He’d been all but locked in his apartment and constantly monitored. Any and all potentially lethal objects had been removed from the building, though someone as determined as Tanner was impossible to stop. Lars had to give his patient credit for his ingenuity, a thought few of his coworkers shared. The prevailing thought within the agency was that it was disgusting that the government had no qualms about giving Tanner (and other suicides) body after body to waste.

After a few moments, Lars realized the vehicle was slowing to a stop outside his apartment building. He supposed the call would have to wait. The portal appeared once more and Lars stepped out as the car moved off to park and power down. He walked up the stone steps to what appeared to be a solid brick wall. The government was quite fond of keeping its employees in places that were difficult to find and even harder to access. As he approached, the scanners confirmed his identity and allowed him passage.

The elevator brought him to his 38th floor apartment in seconds, and a third scan and opening finally brought him home. His apartment was cold, both in temperature and furnishings, as government issues tended to be. It was a studio with a bed and couch pushed along the back wall. The kitchen appliances were directly to his left and the bathroom sat in the back corner on the same side. Lars pulled his comm from his pocket, setting the multipurpose device down on the table. It displayed a blank screen on the wall across from the couch.

Call Ulrich, Lars said. Best not to put it off. A few seconds later the face of Alan Ulrich, Lars's immediate superior, covered the wall.

So I heard the bastard did it again, what’d he do this time? I swear…

Lars sighed, he’d grown close to Tanner over the years and hated hearing him be so callously regarded. Ulrich leaned forward over his desk, the gold nameplate gleaming. His current body was in its mid forties. The trim physique and wiry stature gave the appearance of a man much younger and his darkened lined skin and bristling grey hair of one much older.

Lars didn’t find it surprising that Ulrich was in the office on a Saturday evening. He’d gotten many video messages from the man time stamped at odd hours, Sunday at three AM, or Friday at midnight. He knew Ulrich had a family, a wife and kids, but couldn’t imagine the man as a husband or a father.

What the hell are you going to do about it? Ulrich pressed.

What can we do, this is the third time.

Fourth.

Third I've seen. Either way, what options do we have at this point? We’ve had him watched around the clock, under house arrest, we’ve fined him, threatened him, and still he finds a way.

Toss him in jail, he’s destroying government property.

Lars clenched his jaw. The Supreme Court had ruled that once the body was revived with a new consciousness and deemed healthy, it was no longer owned by the government. To rule otherwise would give the government leeway to punish any form of body modification it deemed inappropriate or any activity deemed too risky. Though that didn't do anything to dissuade the various people who favored a more proactive government influence from freely expressing their dissent. Lars had his own personal reservations about locking damaged people away like criminals. It seemed so medieval, and to rip them away from their families... Lars fought the memories that were trying to surface, willing them back into their own part of his head to be accessed later.

Just do your damn job, Ulrich pressed again, ending the transmission.

Lars was oddly calm. It wasn't the first time he'd been harassed by his boss, and it wouldn't be the last. His tendency to sign off before any reply or rebuttal could be given was cowardly in Lars's eyes and he hated the older man for it.

Sighing, he walked over to the bed. Beer, Herbst, he called across the room to the fridge as he began