Never Die

Chapter 1 ~reawaken~

My head didn't hurt anymore. As a matter a fact I couldn't feel the deep incision into my abdomen anymore or the cuts around my breasts. I laid on some type of slab, my eyes still closed because I was afraid to open them. Maybe I was in a morgue on a cold slab or in a hospital bed that had no mattress. I was probably sewn back up and pumped with morphine. Or maybe my attacker had kept me alive to torture me again and I was down in a basement somewhere.

The thought made me tense and fearful. I had to open my eyes, at least peek and see that I was really in the safety of a hospital and not at the hands of a sadistic killer. I peeked through my eyelashes to see a large room with long large cylinders all in a row. They had SMJ-39 and their own serial number printed on them. Where the hell was I? I caught a flash of something, and looked up. This time with my eyes were fully open. What is this, a dream?

A long full length mirror either hovered over me or it was attached to something that held it up. But it couldn't be a mirror because it wasn't my face I saw in the reflection. It was someone else. She had strange gold eyes with a black circle spinning around the iris, black hair tied back and a beautiful face. Nothing like my chubby white face, green eyes, and golden blond hair. I looked down the mirror to see the chest open.

It was all metal and circuits, and in the middle was a circular thing that looked like the one iron man had in his chest except the light coming from it was golden. Some sort of wire was hooked up to it. What am I seeing? I turned and moved my head left and right and the thing mirrored my movements. I was more confused now then ever. Was this truly a reflection or some robot thing mimicking me?

“I never gave you two any clearance to go down there and take one!”

My head snapped to the sound of an elderly voice. It came from behind a door to my right. It had a little window but the glass was blurred and all I could see were the shadow figures.

“We know but they've been sitting on the same shelf for ten decades and for what? We need to fill in the order for the new SMJ-39s to the police department fast and we have no brains coming in fast enough.”

“That doesn't matter each brain was going to be assigned to be given to other scientific facilities.”

Brains?

“That’s bullshit, they've been sitting on shelves forgotten for years! No ones going to do anything with them.”

Years?

“Jeremy even if we gave them to The Programers such as yourself they may not be fit for the SMJ-39s nor the field of crime solving.”

SMJ-39s? Those things must be inside those cylinders.

“Mr. Donalvali let us test that theory.” Another slightly deeper voice jumped in, “We have a brain completely scanned and currently uploading to a SMJ-39. If you give us the opportunity to test her out on the field and she passes I think we should be entitled to use those in long storage.”

Brains uploading? They must be talking about some artificial kind of brain, no doubt. What kind of hospital is this?

“Alright but I do warn you that if this one is successful and you get your way with the other brains, not all of them will be suitable. These are people's physiques, memories, personalities that we're dealing with. Its not the same as dealing with someone who died recently. Things have changed a lot in the past hundred years. That being said I want to see the one that's currently hooked up.”

What? I was trying to process and understand what the old man had just said when the door flew open.

“Excellent, it looks like the test subject is already awake. Have you told her anything?” The old man said turning to the other younger two. They all had lab coats on.

“No, when we left she was not awake yet.” The one on the right said. They both looked exactly alike except one was slightly darker than the other. Twins probably.

“Poor thing must me confused.”

If they were talking about me, hell yeah I was confused. I was glad I wasn't at the hands of Mr. Dunken but who was I in the hands of now? Who are these people? I tried getting up and was disappointed not to able to move. I had woken up in a different place but I was still tied up. It wasn't ropes but metal that went around my wrists and ankles. I looked up and my heart sank. The thing in the “mirror” or whatever it was, was restrained in the same fashion.

“How are you feeling?” The old man broke my chain of thought and leaned over me.

He had soft gray eyes that looked like once they had been a light blue, and the hair and mustache made him look like the old man on the KFC logo.

“Where am I?”

“Whats the last thing you remember?” I clenched my jaw. He was ignoring my question.

“That last thing I remember is coming home from work.” I lied, I remembered perfectly well that, that wasn't the last thing but I didn't want to think back to that.

“Do you remember dying? Or when you died?”

“I died?” I said, surprised. Why was I surprised? Who wouldn't have died from everything I went through. I caught a glimpse in the “mirror.” Oh that's right because if I was dead what the hell was I doing here?

“Yes ma'am you died. Now what was the exact day you died? And please tell me exactly the last thing you remember.”

“It was September 4th, 2015. I had come home from work and........”

“And?”

“I'm sorry it's just if I really died as you said then that'd mean I was murdered.”

“Oh I see, hmmm.”

“What is your name? Do you remember it?”

“My name is Rona Shamis.”

“And how old are you?”

“I don't know you tell me.”

“Let me rephrase the question. How old were you when you were.....murdered?”

“Twenty”

He left my side and went off to what looked like to be some sort of long table.

“Computer search, Rona Shamis. Born around 1995.”

“Searching...................The last thing on RONA SHAMIS are news videos, and stored PDF files of newspapers. Other results include ID information, birth certificate, medical records, autopsy report,...........”

The computer went on but all I could keep hearing was autopsy report. How could a nice man like Mr. Dunken kill me? How did my parents take it? Was he ever caught? Did he kill anyone else?

“Is this you ma'am?” The old man said breaking my train of thought again. The slab I was laying on tilted downward so that I was almost upright. The old man showed me a hologram picture on a tablet of some sort. There I was. A thick curvy Cuban-American girl, with green eyes, and blond hair. It took a moment for me to respond as I kept looking at myself.

“Yeah that's me.” My voice came out in a faint whisper.