Product:Person

By Jude LaHaye

Dr. Albert Clarke has been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times. He's brilliant. He also has seventeen children and a house that is much too small for them. He maintains a laboratory in the basement of the house where he has perfected a way to extract the phsyche, or "essence" of a human being and put it into storage. He then reduces the physical component of the physical remains and stores them separately. According to Dr. Clarke, a "Person" is the combination of both the physical body and its spiritual essence; without the spirit, the body is merely a Product. Dr. Clarke uses his Product:Person protocol to rotate his children into and out of storage to keep his household manageable. His wife, Phyllis, manages the problems the rotation causes with school, medical, and dental societal requirements. The Product:Person protocol has supported the enormous family successfully for years. Then one morning, Dr. Clarke dresses his eight-year-old son, Larry and sends him upstairs to greet his mother: he has just been "decanted" and restored to the land of the living. When Larry runs into the kitchen to throw his arms around his mother, she says, "Oh, Larry! I am so glad to see you again, sweetie!" Larry stops dead in his tracks, involuntary tears starting from his eyes. "But Mom," he says. "It's me, Katie!" Oh dear. Looks like there's been a mishap in the lab, one with world-changing potential...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jude LaHaye
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224663798

Jude LaHaye

Jude LaHaye is a Buddhist. Buddhists believe that the highest form of sentience is the human being. They also believe that the meaning of life is...Life. LaHaye struggles with his belief system and the evidence of his own human interactions and observations. His books are born of this struggle.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1. Katie: Past, First Person

Product. Person. My father says we are both, and he has the science to prove it.

My father and mother had seventeen children together over a period of 18 years or so. We lived in a three-bedroom house. This house had one bathroom. You might think that this would make living conditions unthinkable. That is avoidance. Think about it. Living conditions were fine, but only because my father developed the science to handle it. The product of which is unthinkable.

This is the story.

We had a full basement in our house, but it was completely dedicated to my father’s pursuits. I’d say hobbies but that is far too harmless a word for what went on down there.

Many, many small animals were sacrificed to my father’s science. I suspect, but cannot be certain, that at least two legendary neighborhood bullies went missing and may have been volunteers in service to my father’s science.

You see, my father figured that the only way the nineteen of us could reside in the same household with any kind of quality of life was if some of us were shelved for a while. We would be like inventory, shuffled around between house and warehouse on a regularly scheduled basis. While in the warehouse, you were a Product. While in the house, you were a Person. The only time you were allowed in his basement was when you were about to spend some time as a Product. Or when you were being restored to being a Person.

All I know is this: every year as far back as I can remember, I got to go to the basement. I was always excited to go, to see the mysteries that kept Father at work day and night. I was seated in a big, soft chair. I closed my eyes like Father instructed. When I opened them again, Father was there, smiling, lifting me down from the chair and instructing me to go see my mother.

Mother was always in the kitchen, saying a sorrowful goodbye to a brother or sister, and greeting me with a huge smile and a hug. Katie, she would say as she gathered me into her arms. Katie, so good to see you!

Until the time she said, Larry! Larry, so good to see you!

Ooops.

That sort of let the cat out of the bag, at least for me. Because, when I looked down at myself and took inventory, I was in Larry’s clothes and I had one too many parts. Or is that three too many?  Thankfully we were children, me seven, Larry eight, so although I found the new parts interesting, I wasn’t horrified.

But, Mom, it’s me, Katie, I sniveled. Her smile turned to a grimace. She hugged me tighter, I think so I couldn’t see her face anymore.

I wish I hadn’t tipped Mother off to the problem. I would have loved, in retrospect, to have secretly been a boy for a while. As it was, I would have to be Larry for three months until the transfer could be made again.

Mother and Father, in a rare group meeting with one of their children, took me back into the basement and told me that I needed to be Larry for a little while.

Why?!? I demanded. "Where am I? I mean, where is my body?"

They pointed to a little grey and pink football poking out of a canister on a shelf and said, There you are, Katie, safe and sound.

Child that I was, I became distraught at this. Father explained what he could of both the intent and the science behind what he and Mother had been up to.

He gave me knowledge which would not disappear when I became Katie again. Larry’s body did not retain memories; my Essence did. Father always said that essence is what the Person has that the Product does not.

As Father explained, all of our memories, likes, dislikes, identities, ambitions―everything that made us us was stored on the Product shelf in a large vial, clearly labeled  ‘Product E’ with our name, and placed next to the football thingee labeled ‘Product P’, along with the appropriate name.  There were dates on both containers that looked like expiration dates. Father explained that they were transfer dates. We don’t have expiration dates, he said.

Father had discovered how to freeze-dry a human being. He had discovered how to extract and store the physical and non-physical elements of a human being. He knew how to store the Products, and he knew how to restore them to a Person.

Scheduling who went next and who came back next―and when―was beyond him, however. Mother took care of the scheduling.

What neither of them could figure out was how Larry’s football-ish Product P got matched to the canister that contained my Essence, or Product-E (Katie).

They wondered, that is, until my brother Mark peered around the corner, his hand over his mouth, his eyes twinkling with mischief, to look at me. Katie, he whispered, is that you?

Mother was up like a flash and had Mark by the back of his shirt. She might also have grabbed a bunch of loose skin, because Mark was hollering something fierce.

You come here, young man! she was demanding. You come here and explain yourself! Did you do this to your sister?

Yeah, I did, Mark said, standing his ground and looking at Mother and Father with rebellion in both his stance and in his words.

But how did you know? Father meekly began. Mark had already cut him off with a gesture, lifting his hand in front of Father’s face. Mother stood there gaping, horrified speechless.

Father, Mark began, We may be just a bunch of ignorant savages to you, but we are not stupid. How long do you think it would take us to realize we were missing big chunks of time? How many bouts of strange illnesses or fantastic trips we never took could explain away our absences at school? An entire basketball season gone while we slept? He was getting warmed up now. What made you think we wouldn’t miss the others when they were gone? I’ve missed so much time being a Person that I’m in eighth grade, supposedly 14 years old, and I have the body of a fricking twelve-year old!

That’s your own fault! Mother cried, rushing to Father’s defense. You just refused to be held back, not even one year! Why couldn’t you just fail once in a while?!?

I hate failing, was Mark’s reply. He was speaking very softly now. And I hate being kept in the dark. That is why you and Father are going to bring me up to speed on the whole thing. Every bit of it. And Katie’s going to know, too. If we don’t get to know what’s going on, I’m going to start making anonymous calls to the police and get them in here to find out where all of your children are. I’ll tell them about your basement. I’ll insist that they do tests on all of the Products you have down here on your shelves! At the end, he had traded softness for loudness. His softness was more threatening than his loudness had been.

Me too! I piped in with Larry’s little voice. I want to know what’s going on too! I stood next to Mark and tried to adopt the same attitude. Mark, what’s a Product? I whispered to him as an aside. I was clearly audible to everyone in the basement.

Good question, La-, Katie, said my Mother, an aha! look on her face. How did you know about the terminology, Mark?

I bugged this room, Mark declared proudly. I’ve heard every conversation you’ve had down here for the last four months. And I crept down here in the middle of the night and switched the Katie and Larry Product pairings and labels.

This time it was Father who interrupted, terror stamped on his features.

Mark, you could have killed both of them, he shouted. I had no idea that the physical body and the essence pairing could be changed and remain viable! It’s the sheerest luck―stupendous luck―that you didn’t kill Katie and condemn Larry to remain on the shelf, an Essence forever!

And with this, Father collapsed limply in his chair and dropped his head into his hands.

Mark turned ashen. He stuttered a little when he began speaking again.

"I didn’t know there would be a risk. I wouldn’t have taken it if I had known. I just wanted to get your attention.

I’m sorry, Father, he continued as he reached for the cuff of my father’s lab coat. But it did work! Katie’s fine!

Father looked up abruptly and caught Mark’s eyes in his.

"And she has to remain in Larry’s body for at least three months before I dare try the extraction again, Mark. I’ve never left any of you a Product for more than five months. And I’ve never transferred you any quicker than three months. I am not sure if there will be damage. I’m not going to experiment with my children.... And realizing the horrible irony of what he just said, he dropped his head.

It bounced back up immediately, and now there was a light in Father’s eyes and the beginnings of a smile around his mouth.

"But think of the possibilities, Mark! If we complete the test and return Katie’s Product E to her proper Product P, and Larry’s Product P to his proper Product E, then we’ve proven something very valuable, Mark. Very valuable and useful! Very useful and potentially world-changing!"

He sobered quickly and added, "This must remain a great and unbroken secret between just the four of us.... You are probably too young to consider all of the ramifications to society if this science got out. You’d have healthy poor people being used to transfer the terminal rich into. You’d have body farms to support international spy rings, political dynasties, armies, even! We must keep this technology a secret! We can trust NO ONE!"

Not even me? said a sly little voice from behind an enormous console. It was thirteen-year old Simone Steele. Mark’s girlfriend.

Mark grinned.

I grinned because Mark was grinning.

Simone maintained the face that accompanied her snotty little challenge.

Mother and Father just looked devastated.

Me? I tried hard to maintain the grin I borrowed from Mark as Simone turned and ran up the basement stairs.

It was starting to hurt, that smile.

Simone took advantage of my parents’ condition to run up the basement stairs and exit the house. We heard the front door open and then slam shut.

Mark let her leave. He looked to be deep in thought. I adopted the same look because it seemed so adult, but I wasn’t even thinking, not really. My head was swarming with fragments of thought, most of them incoherent.

Mark, my Dad said. Mark, you have to convince that girl to keep her mouth shut about this. Do you think you can do that?

The look on Father’s face said he already thought the cause was lost.

Well, Mark began slowly, still apparently processing many deep thoughts, I don’t know who she would tell who would believe her. She’s got a pretty bad reputation for making stuff up all the time. Probably for attention. I know she doesn’t get along with her Dad, and her Mom left over a year ago and only calls her every other month or so....

He returned to his thoughts, eyebrows beetled, eyes nearly shut. I found myself trying to cant my eyebrows so I could look thoughtful too.

I must have looked tortured, because Mother put her arms around me and pulled me closer to her. She stroked my cheeks and my furrowed brows.

Doesn’t her Father work for some big chemical company?  Father exclaimed suddenly.

It wasn’t really a question. Dad knew the answer, because Dr. Steele worked for his own primary competitor.

He looked frightened. Then crestfallen. Then frightened again. He jumped to his feet and began pacing the lab.

The first thing we need to do is to hide all of our Products, he began.

His fright diminished as he bent his energies to formulating a plan.

We’ll construct a false wall at the end of the lab and store them there. That way, if she tells the police and they come to search, they won’t be able to find anything odd.

He turned to Mom, Phyllis, you’ve got the fake backgrounds on the kids’ whereabouts, right?

Mother nodded her head without hesitation. "Yes, no worries. I have letters and recordings of them calling to let us know that they are OK.

We have eleven in ‘Product’ status now:  Roger, Robbie, Steven, Georgiana, Helen, Olivia, Katie―oops, Larry, I mean, she glances fondly at me at this point, Joey, Bernie, Bertie, and Lucy.

She pauses to get her breath. That leaves Katie, Elizabeth, Christopher, Barbara, Lily and Mark in ‘Person’ status now.

The order of Mother’s list is rather haphazard. From top to bottom, oldest to youngest, the list is:

Roger, 19.

Steven, 18

Elizabeth, 17

Olivia, 16

Joey, 15

Mark, 14

Bernie, 12

Bertie, 11

Helen, 10

Georgiana, 9

Larry, 8

Katie, 7

Christopher, 5

Barbara, 4

Lucy, 3

Robbie, 2

Lily, almost 1

We have a tendency to run with the siblings closest to us in age, usually in packs of three. Larry and I are very close. Every once in a while, if she’s available and willing, we will include Georgiana in our little plots and schemes. Christopher is just too young―a baby, really.

Mom and Dad have learned to process Larry and me on the same schedule because we just miss each other so much. Until now.

Now it looks like I’ll have to wait three whole months to see Larry, even though I’m looking at him in the laboratory full-length mirror right now. Sigh.

It’s useless to ask Father to restore Larry to my Product―plus, I am not sure I want mischievous Larry knowing that much about my body.

Well, I know what I’ll do to pass the time. I’m going to spy on that sneaky little girlfriend of Mark’s.

Who is going to remark on an eight-year-old boy climbing trees and looking for interesting bugs in a neighbor’s yard? Being a boy makes this kind of activity appear very All- American-normal.

I’m actually feeling excited: Mom would never permit Katie to behave in this way, but Larry is one of those boys who always has a jar of worms in his back pocket and fresh wounds or scabs on his elbows and knees.

This is going to be fun! I say to myself.

At my very first opportunity, I quietly go up the stairs to my room, catching myself before going into the Girls’ Room. I turn to my left at the top of the stairs and throw myself onto the bottom bunk in the middle of three sets of bunks in the Boys’ Room.

I