Category: Fiction Factor

Any time Olympus Tyrrhena walked through the wide double-door of the shelter, his olfactory sense was hit with a chemical-like agent that – while often unsuccessful – was designed to mask odors. Still, for him it was a familiar and welcoming aroma, and one that accompanied a genuine feeling of excitement.

The smell meant there were cages, and cages meant there were animals in them, and those animals were always ready for adoption.

“My friend!” shouted the greeter, Tharsis Cimmeria. “So glad to see you again. We have some new arrivals I’m sure you’ll be interested in.”

“You always do, Tharsis,” Tyrrhena said. “Truthfully, I’m not even sure what I’m looking for today. Hopefully I’ll know it when I see it.”

The Noachis Shelter was the largest in what was once the West Coast of the United States. An old naval barracks that had been converted into an adoption center, it could house as many as 3,000 animals at one time. And it was almost always filled to capacity. It seemed that for every one that was taken away to its forever home, another five were corralled while running wild outside the facility. In a perfect world, all the adoptees would be carefully matched with the adopters, but in recent times officials at Noachis Shelter simply wanted to make sure business ran smoothly – and quickly.

If you had the resources to get an animal, the animal was yours with no questions asked.

“Now, the last time you were here you got Eddie, the male, right?” Cimmeria asked. “I remember him well … always banging against the cage and howling. Not a lot of our customers would take a chance on an animal like that. I hope he’s working out for you.”

Tyrrhena sighed.

“Unfortunately, I had to have him put down,” he said. “I gave him as much time as I could to adjust to his new surroundings, but he could never do it. He was extremely violent and very disruptive. I had to have him destroyed because I was afraid he was going to hurt the other animals, as well as himself. It’s a shame, but when you go through as many as I have in the last couple of years, you get used to it. Well … you never get used to it, but you learn to live with it. Anyway, that’s why I’m here today, to see if I can find one to replace the one I lost.”

With Cimmeria providing a loose follow, Tyrrhena walked down the aisles of the shelter and carefully eyed each individual cage. It was rare when one of the animals made eye contact with him, and when they did it was always fleeting. What he enjoyed most was seeing the ones who were curled up sleeping. Whether true or not, he believed those who were slumbering in the cages would be easier to tame.

Finally, Tyrrhena found what he was looking for. An animal with bushy red hair, and so new to the shelter he still had on his uniform.

“We call him Captain,” Cimmeria said. “We think he was in that group of resistance fighters we captured just last week, but we couldn’t find any identification on him. Now that we’ve all assumed humanoid form and characteristics, they don’t even know who to fight anymore. Soon we’ll have complete control of this hemisphere, so we’re going to need even more shelters.”

Two staffers quickly joined Cimmeria, who prepared to open the cage and quickly tie up Captain.

“So … are you going to keep him at your Earth dwelling or take him back to Mars?”

“By the looks of him, he’ll be more of a labor animal, so I’ll probably leave him here to work the fields,” Tyrrhena said. “Besides, Promethai would kill me if I brought another pet home.”

The studio lights on the set of the Murray Pavlovich Show were almost blinding, so the zombie reached for his sunglasses to tamp down the glare. Given the government designation “Undead Alpha-679-A” – he preferred to be called Al – the reanimated man had spent years hoping to educate the public about his kind.

The zombies of literature and modern media were nothing like the actual revenants, who simply wanted to go about their undead existence quietly. Yes, they were pale, cold to the touch, and sensitive to light. They often had unsightly lesions on their faces. But otherwise, they weren’t all that different than people with a heartbeat. Al had reached out to major news organizations several times in hopes of telling the true story, but to no avail. Once he shared it, he was told “it’s just not sexy enough” or “this won’t hold an audience’s attention.”

Going on a lowbrow program like Pavlovich’s wasn’t ideal, but it was at least something. So, Al waited in the wings as the first guest – a man who married a Standard Poodle – was confronted by a veterinarian who insisted the union wasn’t legal.

A fistfight ultimately broke out between the dog lover and vet, ending when they were drug off the stage by security. Then Pavlovich hyped the high-energy audience for his next guest.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Only in recent years have we learned that zombies walked among us.”

The crowd began booing.

“We’ve come to believe they eat humans, terrorize communities, practice poor hygiene and lower property values.”

The boos grew louder.

“But today, we’re going to let one of them explain to you – patriotic, red-blooded Americans – why we should allow non-blooded Americans to live and work side-by-side with you and me. Please give a rowdy Murray Pavlovich Show welcome to the zombie next door, Mr. Undead Alpha-679-A. Undead … step into the Murray Zone.”

The zombie was horrified by the screaming, and actually had to duck to avoid being hit by a set of dentures as he made his way to the chair across from the host. Once he finally settled into his spot, the crowd began chanting, “Drop dead, Undead!” over and over.

“OK,” Pavlovich said, aggressively waving his hands. “That’s enough … that’s enough. Let’s hear him out.”

Pavlovich sat down, leaned back, and stared straight at Al.

“So,” he said. “Right now, as you, a zombie, look at me … is the urge to eat my brains strong? Do you take some kind of medication to help you quell your desire to devour living humans?”

Al rolled his eyes, although it wasn’t visible to Pavlovich since he still had his sunglasses on.

“Murray, I have no desire to eat your brains or any other part of your body – or any part of anybody’s body, for that matter,” Al said. “That’s why I came here today … I want to dispel these ridiculous myths.”

The studio audience once again broke into  the “Drop dead, Undead!” chant, and a woman in the front row – wearing a red, white and blue tank stop and sporting a faded Chef Boyardee tattoo on her neck – rushed towed the stage and yelled, “Baby eater!” at Al.

“Calm down, dear,” Pavlovich said. “Let the baby eater explain himself.”

Al shook his head, realizing that those who told him appearing on the Murray Pavlovich Show was a bad idea were absolutely right.

“Good grief … none of this crap you’ve heard is true,” the zombie said. “Why would we want to eat humans? I mean, that’s just gross. Personally, about all I eat are bananas and almonds. Every now and then I’ll get a hankering for dark chocolate raspberry cordials, but not often. We’re dead … we’re not cannibals.”

“But you are evil, are you not?” Pavlovich asked. “You were conjured, I assume, by voodoo or some form of black magic.”

“No!” Al shot back. “Again, those are just ridiculous stories. There are several different ways corpses get reanimated, and as far as I know none of them have anything to do with voodoo or curses or magic. My wife, Edith, was struck by lightning just as her casket was being lowered into the grave. I know a guy in Fresno who got jump-started by a cracked AGM battery and jumper cables. And me? The ambulance taking me to the morgue was involved in a fender-bender and something happened during the collision that sent a charge through my body. All I remember was sitting up on the gurney, hearing an EMT say, “Holy hell, that bastard’s alive,” and then smelling poop. We don’t know why we came back to life, we just did. And we don’t want to bother any of you. We just want to be dead in peace.”

Boos once again filled the studio as Pavlovich stood up, pointed at Al and shouted, “You died for a reason, sir, and I think I speak for my audience when I say we don’t need you pushing your undead agenda on us. I just pray for your next victim.”

Al shielded his face from flying debris as he raced off the stage, running through the corridor and heading straight for the exit while calling an Uber. Although a few audience members had made their way to the backlot and began hurling epithets at him, the car arrived quickly and he was able to escape unharmed.

The trip back to the Romero Housing Complex took only 10 minutes, and he had never been so happy to be away from the living.

“How did it go?” asked Edith, who was waiting for him at the front door.

“Awful,” Al said. “Worse than I thought. I figured it’d be a shit show, I just hoped I’d have a chance to reach a few people. But I didn’t. They had their minds made up before I even got there and they were too busy booing to listen to anything I had to say.”

Edith hugged him, squeezing him tightly with her icy arms.

“Sorry, mister,” she said. “At least you tried. Makes you wonder though … maybe we should eat their brains.”

Al chuckled.

“No point in that,” he said. “It’d just be empty calories.”

Dr. Miller Braxton made sure the information on the monitor was correct, glanced at the documents on the screen briefly, and offered up a forced smile to the man sitting across from him.

“These all appear to be in order,” he said, turning the computer around. “Once you sign the contract there, you’ll officially be a patient and client of the Guilt-Free Association.”

Phillip Meadows cheerfully scrawled his name across the bottom of the screen, initialing the last two of several pages and shifting the monitor back so it was facing Braxton.

“So,” Meadows said, “Tell me again how this works and how soon we can make it happen? Time is  money, and I don’t have time to waste.”

The Guilt-Free Association was the latest in the “Mind Over Matters” movement that gained popularity in the latter part of the 22^nd century. Just as plastic surgery had been a staple for those who wanted to make themselves more beautiful, brain surgery no longer had such ominous implications. There were procedures that could make you happy, optimistic – even fearless.

But one of the newer operations was the boldest – and most controversial – yet; it could remove all guilt and prevent the mind from allowing any culpability for future transgressions.

Meadows had spent three decades as a cyber trader, and couldn’t think of a customer he hadn’t cheated … probably because there wasn’t one. True, he was able to help people make money in the information technology stock game, but never as much as they could have. The illegal program he devised to make transactions allowed him to shave off a little more for himself – to go along with an already exorbitant fee.

His dishonesty had made him wealthy, and continued dishonesty would make him even wealthier. The longer he perpetuated his scams, though, the more guilty he felt.

And guilt was something he simply didn’t want to deal with.

“The surgery itself is extremely safe and, really, quite simple,” Braxton explained. “I could throw a lot of technical jargon at you – it’s all listed in the fine print of the contract – but it comes down to extracting the feelings of guilt from your prefrontal cortex and installing a block, which is a device about 10 times smaller than the head of pin. The guilt we remove is placed in a small containment vessel and then we transfer it into the brain of one of our service animals, usually a dog. Dogs don’t feel guilt – at least not the way humans do – but our studies show that it can alter their behavior in other ways and could open up a whole new avenue of mental makeovers in the future. The larger point is, your guilt lives outside your mind. The surgery takes less than 10 minutes, we keep you sedated for two hours afterward to observe your brain activity, and then you’ll wake up in one of our recovery rooms with no guilty feelings whatsoever. Once you’re aware of your surroundings, you’ll simply press the buzzer by your bed and we’ll answer any additional questions you might have.”

Meadows took a deep breath.

“And you absolutely guarantee no matter what I do going forward – no matter how bad – I won’t feel guilty?” he asked.

“Guaranteed 100 percent,” Braxton said. “Now of course, you’re still subject to the laws of the Pan-America Corporate Government, and the contract you signed absolves us of any liability for a criminal act you might commit. That said, whatever you do will not result in any feeling of guilt or remorse. And, let me remind you, the procedure is irreversible. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to reverse it, but it’s important you know that before we continue.”

“Understood,” Meadows said. “Now, let’s do this thing. I’ve got a virtual call with a client in Amsterdam in four hours, and that could be one of my biggest scores of the year.”

Braxton led the patient into a pale blue-colored operating arena that featured a surgeon and an assistant, both adorned in red scrubs. Meadows stripped down to his shorts, and was then asked to lie flat on his back on a cushioned table.

“Have any of you guys had this surgery?” Meadows wondered.

Braxton shook his head from side to side.

“No,” he said. “Our staff is comprised entirely of sociopaths, so there would be no need. With the volume of surgeries we perform, its best to have a staff that is all business all the time. Now, close your eyes and we’re going to give you an injection that will put you under. Once you awake, it’ll be as though no time has elapsed at all. Good luck, Mr. Meadows … I’m confident this will be routine for us and life-changing for you.”

Meadows awoke with a start and saw a large dog crouched in the corner, barking. As he arose, the dog inched closer to his bed and started to growl.

Meadows quickly located the button Braxton had told him about and pressed it.

“Hey!’ he shouted. “This is Phillip Meadows in the recovery room … I guess it’s the recovery room. There’s a dog in here for some reason and he doesn’t seem happy. At all. What the hell?”

“Mr. Meadows, this is Dr. Braxton,” said the voice coming through the intercom. “The surgery was a success and we’ll be releasing you within the hour. In a few moments a technician will come in and give you instructions on the care and feeding of your service animal.”

A service animal was not part of the agreement, at least not as far as Meadows knew.

“Look, I just wanted to have my guilt removed. I didn’t sign up for a dog.”

The door to the room opened and Braxton and a Guilt-Free Association staffer – holding a leash – walked in.

“You should’ve read the fine print, Mr. Meadows,” Braxton said. “The dog is your responsibility since it now carries your guilt. You won’t feel it anymore, but you still have to live with it.”