Administrative Update

Hey guys - just a few notes here. As most of you know, I have invited two new authors to join us in writing The Mortal Coil. Russell Brown and Rich Miller both expressed interest in co-authoring the story, so I invited them and we now need to work them into our rotation. Also, Jeremy has advised me that he's too busy right now to contribute, so we're removing him from the rotation but not from the author list. When he's ready, he'll let us know and we'll add him to the list.

Additionally, we kind of got out of our original order, so we need to reset the rotation. This is the new rotation, starting with the next in line author:

Brandon Stallings
Russell Brown
Rich Miller
Luke Jones
Clayton Campbell
Sam Van Eerden

If, for some reason, you are busy and can't take your turn, please communicate with the next guy in line so he can start on his.

The Mortal Coil - Chapter 4

Slightly dazed from the uploads he’d just received at HQ, Bob decided to take the long walk back to 1537 Forest Home Drive instead of using the public transport. He didn’t want to be near people at that moment, and his head was aching from the mass amounts of information that had been dumped into his brain during the last several hours. The data wouldn’t hardwire itself into his brain until approximately 24 hours had passed, but in the meantime, the searing headache reminded him that even this fast-track had its drawbacks.
Speaking of drawbacks... Bob wondered how Brooke would react when she’d found out what he’d just done. I should just pray for apathy and be happy with that, he thought as he slowed to a fast-walk. These days no reaction was the best reaction. It wasn’t that the general disinterest didn’t hurt; it did. It was just that compared to the sobbing, crying and general pallor of constant grief and anger that hung over Brooke, Bob actually felt fortunate when she looked away from him with little more than a sad sigh or merely ignored whatever he said to her instead of responding with a violent emotional outburst.
He didn’t really blame her, though. Gah! How could I? Any wife that had been through what she had been through, time and time again, couldn’t really be expected to emerge emotionally unscathed. Funny, Bob thought, without a hint of humor on his mind, when they tested this program, they only studied the side-effects that dying would have on the person that actually died and came back . . . not on the psychological effects it might have on the ones that survived to see a brother, a father, a . . . husband return to life as a clone.
For Brooke this had proved to be especially difficult.
The two of them had met in college and had quickly found themselves falling in love. Theirs had been a very natural relationship, with a connection so instant and intense that it could only ever be fully expressed and enjoyed through marriage. They both recognized this almost immediately, and had been married shortly thereafter.
For eight wonderful years they continued in a happily-wedded rut, fully satisfied with each other individually, and completely fulfilled as a couple. Bob felt pain in his chest as he recalled how often he had mused that if any marriage had ever been “meant to be”, it was theirs.
And then had come the offer. In his line of work, Bob had proved to be a very successful detective with a keen eye and a sharp mind. Cases that crossed his desk were always resolved. It was as simple as that. His skill did not escape the attention of the brass, who had quickly assigned him to a high profile case so secretive that even Brooke was ignorant of the details. For her own safety, of course.
The case revolved around “the Club”, an organization that was practically invisible but for the fingerprints it left on society. Few members of the Club were actually known, and these kept their dubious associations on the down-low, using power and prestige to cloak their nefarious engagements. No one really knew how deeply the Club was rooted in politics, law enforcement, society, and the universe as a whole, let alone what their ultimate intentions were, but Bob, with a few details, a handful of names, and one or two leads, had been put on the case. Together with an elite team of detectives and law enforcement that worked in connection with some government affiliations that were almost as underground as the organization they sought to expose, Bob had begun to unravel the mystery that was “the Club”. The success of their work had been validated by the efforts the Club had made to take out members of Bob’s team. This validation, however, had come at the cost of a couple dozen lives when a would-be-sting operation had turned into a massacre. It was in the wake of this debacle that Bob had first received the offer. The offer of eternal life, lived out vicariously through a host clone body of himself.
Initially, Bob stoutly refused to take part in the procedure even though several of his colleagues had signed up. Several gunfights later, he had changed his mind. He knew that he had been lucky to escape these with several non-life-threatening bullet holes in his leg and shoulder, but he realized that he might not be so lucky in the future. So he signed up.
And had regretted his decision ever since.
Bob paused in his reverie and checked his location. He was still a couple blocks from home. He renewed his pace as his mind drifted back to a thought pattern that had lately become his default.
He didn’t remember the first time he’d been killed, but Brooke did. The memory back-up system only uploaded memories to the server every quarter hour, and all Bob remembered was walking out of Victorino’s restaurant after a dinner date with Brooke.
Bob felt a new pain – but this time it wasn’t in his head – when he remembered hailing the cab outside Victorino’s. He could see it now in his mind’s eye as clearly as if it had just happened.
The yellow car slid in neatly beside them along the curb. Perfect timing.
The cab driver smiled amiably at Bob as Bob helped Brooke inside the car and then eased in next to her. Bob smiled back. He had no reason not to. He had never seen this man before. How could he have known that at some point between that moment and the next ten-and-a-half minutes, the taxi driver who in that initial moment of contact had greeted him so cordially, would have personally shot, beaten, and burned him, all before throwing his body in the Hudson Harbor, and all in Brooke’s presence?
She had never told him her side of the story; he had never known how the taxi driver had gotten the best of him, let alone how Brooke had somehow survived the attack. He speculated that it had been an intentional move on the part of the Club. They had probably figured that an hysterical Brooke wailing to the media about what had happened to her husband – the leading detective on the case – would help to scare the others who were on the case from zealously pursuing it.
Bob remembered coming to consciousness and being briefed on what had happened. He was shown a grainy video-camera feed of himself being savagely beaten, set on fire, shot several times in the head, and then pushed into the Hudson. It was worse than surreal; surreal didn’t begin to describe what it had felt like to see himself killed.
Of course, in the two years since that time he had gotten used to it. Dying was a natural part of life for him.
Brooke, however, had never gotten used to it. From the first moment that she had seen him alive again, and mentally himself, but residing inside a body that had not originally been his own, she had fallen apart.
In hindsight Bob couldn’t believe that he had ever thought that this might work. Then again, he hadn’t envisioned that he would go out the way he had. Dying naturally was one thing, but being horrifically murdered while your wife watched and then magically appearing in front of her only a few hours later…was traumatic in the extreme, and it turned out that Brooke couldn’t handle it.
Ten months of counseling and psycho-therapy later, she still couldn’t handle it.
And so he died, over and over again. Each time he came back, he hoped that Brooke would treat him differently, would see him for who he was: Bob Ludwick, her husband, with the brain of Bob Ludwick enclosed inside a host body that looked…exactly like Bob Ludwick. Aren’t I the same man? Why does she despise me? He had tortured himself with this question. And his tortured mind had yet to give him a solid answer.
“You aren’t him,” she had said. And that was usually all she said when she actually decided to talk to him. He tried not to pay attention to what she said when she was screaming at him. That hurt almost more than he could bear, and had driven him to the edge on more than one occasion. In fact, some of the last thoughts recovered from his brain shortly before he’d awakened in a new body had been suicidal. He wondered if he’d let his guard down on purpose…
Bob paused at the entrance to his driveway. There was a guardhouse beside the gate with an automated security guard swiveling at his post inside, keeping careful watch, guarding the people Bob loved most. Brooke. And Benjamin. Benjamin was the product of counseling more than anything; the son conceived four months after Bob had died the first time. The psychiatrist had used big words to theorize that physically unifying the bodies of two people who are otherwise not unified, in order to bring a child into existence who was the product of their shared efforts would help to unify their hearts once again and restore their broken relationship. Bob had doubted it from the first, but he was desperate and Brooke had been surprisingly willing to try.
It hadn’t worked. In fact, the plan had backfired as Brooke now poured her entire life into their 11 month old son. Benjamin somehow ratified her existence; legitimatized her presence on this cruel planet. Meanwhile, the one person that had given Bob’s life meaning was becoming more and more distant from him.
And so Bob died. Holding out hope that the next time he came back things would be different. Maybe she would be waiting for him on the front porch, bouncing Benjamin on her knee and saying “Look! Here comes Daddy!”
Bob looked into the retina scanner, spoke his name into the recorder, and passed his hand over a sensor situated on the gate, and the gate slid open. As his house came into view, Bob could see that the porch was empty. Why do I ever even hope?
The front door opened easily, and he walked inside. No one was in the living room, but he could hear sounds coming from the kitchen, and he walked in that direction.
“Hey guys,” he said, as Brooke came into view. She was feeding Benjamin, who was bouncing excitedly in his highchair. “Hi Brooke,” Bob said, taking a calculated and careful step towards her. She didn’t look at him.
As he walked towards the wine cabinet, the pain that he felt most prominently was not caused by his headache.

________

It was night. Bob was laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. White. Blank. Empty. Like me, Bob thought. But I remember what I once was and what I once had. Some said that it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Now Bob felt that his continued existence did little but prove the opposite. The torture of living without a love once known far outweighed that love he had once known. This was the reality. His.
He rolled out of the bed and stood to his feet. His head still hurt, but he was starting to feel the uploads having a more constructive effect on his senses. As he thought of the extensive combat training that was currently hardwiring itself to his mental faculties, he felt a grim sense of accomplishment and a renewed drive to finish the job he had given his life to complete.
I will kill you Nugent, Bob purposed for the thousandth time. Slowly. In your last moments I will teach you the meaning of the word ‘pain’. And then I will send you to hell so you can finish your education.
Driven to fully awakening by his hatred, Bob walked from his room, across the hall – briefly pausing at the door to the room where his wife and Benjamin slept – and down the stairs. He had much to do if Nugent was to be caught. That dastard’s trail had once again gone cold, but Bob knew that the assassin was never far off. I need to predict one move – just one move – and then I’ll have him. Ludwick’s original job description hadn’t included killing any members of the Club, but at this point his mission was well beyond merely vocational. To even say that it was “personal” hardly went to the heart of the matter. Bob Ludwick was going to destroy Michael Nugent, and then he was going to gut the Club from the inside out, no matter how many clones it took, no matter how many of his team members he outlived.
Bob’s bare feet touched something cold on a step about halfway down the stairway. He instinctively recoiled and then squinted at the object he had grazed. It was a tape. An object that was almost foreign in the middle of the of 21st century, if not completely obsolete. It took a moment for Bob’s mind to register why this one was sitting on a stair in his house. And then he remembered; he’d purchased tapes and an accompanying tape-player on a whim, at a pawn shop, and then given the antiques to his son. Benjamin loved pushing the buttons on the player and recording his grunts, coos, and incomplete words onto the blank tapes Bob had provided him with. He was going to be a smart kid, that Benjamin, and Bob was determined to play a role in raising him, despite Brooke’s attempts to monopolize.
Absently, Bob picked up the tape and carried it to his den where he seated himself in his chair, turning the tape over in his hands, and thinking. What are the facts? He always thought better in this place, surrounded by a bank of screens upon which were projected rotating icons. Screensavers that elicited brain flow. It was always a challenge to pick up where his previous self had left off, but Bob had learned several clones ago that it was worth it to take some time off to carefully analyze all of the facts before moving forward. Although he assumed that he often retraced two steps in order to move ahead three, he couldn’t let that discourage him or confuse his methodical approach to the case.
Where was I? He thought, glancing at the tape and thinking hard. In his mind he reviewed the last images he had seen before he’d woken up.
Movement. Intensity. I was on to something. He knew it. What? It always took a few days for the last memories before the “blackout” to come into clear focus in his brain. He’d been told that this had something to do with a lag in the process of uploading his backlog of memories to the current clone. You’d think they would have made the procedure seamless by now, he thought as he swiveled in his chair. At that moment, something sitting on the credenza next to him caught his eye, and he stopped his rotation. It was the tape-player, half-concealed by a sheaf of papers strewn across it.
Why is that there? Bob thought, allowing this new question to briefly pull him out of his brown study. It was an anomaly; this antique situated amongst some of the most advanced technology that money could provide. The presence of the tape player and the tape seemed to trigger something in his brain. A memory?
Bob leaned forward and picked up the tape player. What are you doing here, he wondered. He knew that Benjamin couldn’t reach the top of his desk even if he had been driven by a sudden desire to place the object on it, and Brooke would never put a tape player in his den unless he asked her too.
And even then… Bob let this thought trail off as the realization hit him. I put it there. Me? Why? With no other explanation forthcoming, Bob pressed the eject button on the player, and a slot opened up. In another motion, Bob inserted the tape, and punched the “play” button.
Static.
Bob listened to the white noise for a few seconds, wondering what else he had expected. Benjamin had obviously just been messing around with the “record” feature.
But what was the player doing on my desk? The static continued to percolate through his brain as his thoughts meandered without resolution. Adjusting to the new body and new memories was always like coming awake after a very long, very deep sleep. It always took the brain a while to get used to its new body, and sometimes things took a bit of time to ‘connect’. It was like being in an alcohol-induced stupor. Shapes sometimes preceded sounds, and sounds sometimes preceded shapes, or the two merged in broken patterns. Bob had grown accustomed to this; everything made sense after 72 hours; the grogginess was just a bug that still needed to be worked out of the system.
Abruptly, a voice cut through the static of the tape player, catching him off guard. He heard it immediately, but it took a few moments longer for him to register to whom the voice belonged. And then he knew. It was his own voice, speaking quickly and urgently in clipped sentences.
"I think the program has been infiltrated," he heard himself say, "I don't know if the Club has gotten in or if there is another player altogether, but a couple of the other clones went rogue today in the middle of their assignments and had to be terminated. The backup system was completely erased except for an archived copy. I don't know what the records show, but I'm sure that these weren't isolated or incidental accidents."
Bob heard himself pause on the tape player, as if he was taking a moment to let the full weight of what he was saying sink in. What? Is this true?! If the program is compromised, Bob thought in shock, then what am I doing? Am I just a pawn in a much larger scheme?
His voice continued, with renewed urgency. "I don't know the full extent of the infiltration, but I can't assume that every thought that goes through my head won't be reviewed and analyzed, despite the program's privacy assurances." So every 15 minutes, my brain gets uploaded to their server and they view it?! The implications were staggering. Ludwick wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't heard himself say it. But he had heard himself say it. "I have no idea what their intentions are or how they're able to manipulate the clones. But now that I know their gig, they're going to know that I know. I've made this recording and the supplemental recordings for you, my future self, in order that you might pick up the scent where I've left off, in the event of my death. I'm running low on the Ziadin memory-loss pills, as well. If none are left by the time you listen to this, you will need to restock. Use my contact at the Grunge Brew. He knows me by the name of "Leonard". Wear the disguise and ask for the "Half-Caf Peppermint Latte".
Bob scrambled to write the information down. Rogue clones. Manipulated. Infiltrated. Ziadin. Memory loss? None of this made any sense. Supplemental recordings? He had made himself other tapes? As the tape he was listening to went to static once again, and then stopped altogether when it reached the end of the reel, Bob began rifling through his desk, looking under papers, in drawers, behind books...and even in the wastebasket underneath his desk. There were no other tapes.
Then the question hit him: when is my memory set to upload to the system again? How much time do I have before they know what I know? Or...do they already know? Ludwick didn't have a clue what the memory loss, Ziadin pill, drug, whatever it was...was, but he knew he had to get it. The Grunge Brew was a couple miles from his house, and was open 24 hours... He might have time to get there before his memory's automatic upload to the main server at the governmental base. That's assuming I even knew what 'disguise' he...I was referring to...
Shocked, confused, and unsure of what to do, but knowing that inaction was worse than nothing, Bob jumped to his feet. Halfway across the room, he heard a rapid beeping noise emitting from his desk. Turning, he saw his cell phone light up and begin to blink. He was receiving a correspondence from HQ. In light of what he'd just heard, the last place he wanted to have any contact with was headquarters, but he picked up his phone and checked the intel. The news was bleak.
'MAYOR BIRCH HAS BEEN KILLED AND SEVERAL OTHER OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT. THIS APPEARS TO BE THE FIRST WAVE OF A REJUVENATED STRIKE ON OUR TEAM IN RESPONSE TO OUR EFFORTS TO EXPOSE THE CLUB. WE HAVE INTELLIGENCE INDICATING THAT YOU MIGHT BE THEIR NEXT TARGET.'
The news was going from bad to worse very quickly. The Club had begun another killing spree and Ludwick looked to be early on their menu. He had to get out, had to run.
Scooping up the phone and the tape player with the tape still inserted inside, he ran from his den. Not enough time to leave a note and no time to figure out what the 'disguise' is. I just have to make this work... He grabbed the car keys off a rack in the hallway and moved towards the door.
For one moment the thought crossed his mind that the program might not actually be comprised, the clones manipulated, or the mission misguided and himself strung along as a helpless pawn. But what if it is true? He couldn't risk the consequences of being wrong.
A crashing noise came from upstairs. Glass shattering, then showering across the floor. Glass on a hard surface. Bob knew that all the bedrooms upstairs were carpeted. Only the hall was outfitted with hardwood flooring. The glass that had broken must have been from the skylight above the hallway.
NO!
Bob stopped instantly and turned back towards the stairs. Feet pounded on the floor above him. A single pair of shoes. One intruder. Nugent? The Club's strike teams typically operated in teams, but Bob knew that Michael Nugent liked to work alone. And he was the best at what he did, so he had leeway.
A door slammed above him. Forced open by a powerful kick.
Brooke! Benjamin! Bob felt like his head would split apart from the panic. He'd been attacked before, of course, but never had the attacker been able to penetrate the defenses of his property, let alone gain entry into his very home. His was not the only life on the line this time.
The nearest weapon was a stun gun Brooke kept for protection behind the facade of a small painting that functioned as a little trap door which swung open when the frame was turned once to the left, and once to the right. Bob went through the motion and the door swung open. He grabbed the gun from the small compartment within and raced up the stairs.
BANG! BANG! The two shots momentarily froze Bob on the eleventh stair from the top. God, No! And then he swiftly completed the ascent in three consecutive bounds.
He immediately saw that both his and Brooke's bedroom doors were wide-open. No-one was visible in the hallway, and no sound came from either room. Not a woman's sob, not a baby's whimper. Nothing. Only the two separate and distinct bangs continued to ring out in Bob's brain as stared through that gaping bedroom door where his wife and baby slept. Had slept. Were sleeping? Gun raised, Bob moved to the door. He saw the foot of the bed first, with a sheet draped over one of the bedposts. It was still.
And then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, in the hallway. He spun around, cursing himself for letting down his rear guard.
He saw something metallic glinting in the moonlight that shone down through the shattered skylight above. The gun was held by a single extended, gloved hand.
And then he saw nothing at all.

The Mortal Coil - Chapter 3

Dirk McGavin had a face weathered by a lifetime of adversity which, paradoxically, belied his generally unstressed nature. The adversity had afflicted on his mug the penalty it had spared his cardiovascular system, and had given him a prematurely graying crop of hair and the occasional bout of central serous chorioretinopathy. He was a man who lamented little, but this day he made an exception and grumbled to himself about his co-conspirators’ apparent disregard for their agreed responsibilities.
It was raining pretty hard now, and Dirk turned up his collar. Underneath his now-soaked trenchcoat he clutched in his right hand the pistol grip of his UMP submachine gun as he watched the building ahead for signs of his target. He would now have to be the lookout, the shooter, the cleanup crew, and the getaway driver. This had caused him to form a new plan, one which meant he’d have to make it less subtle and more overt, and to dispense entirely with the cleanup part.
Aside from his obligations to his family, society, and creator, a man bears few responsibilities but those with which he has voluntarily encumbered himself. In the present instance, Dirk though with grim disappointment of the men he’d believed in, in whom he’d placed a certain degree of trust and in whom he’d invested a not-insignificant degree of faith. He’d relied on these men, who, with the ready option of abstaining from entry into his criminal conspiracy enterprise, chose rather to join in, doubtlessly, thought Dirk, with thoughts of reveling in the glorious benefits of its successful completion dancing in their fanciful but apparently dim-witted heads. Such heads should be swiftly adorned with abrasions, lacerations, and contusions, he opined to himself, for these crania contained the very brains which had also chosen to shirk the plot and forsake Dirk, leaving him in the unenviable position of having to perform the duties of all participants himself, save the contribution he’d received from the only other trustworthy member of the crew.
As the rain dripped from the brim of his fedora in an ardent but fruitless effort to extinguish his cigar, Dirk reflected on the men whose services he’d solicited for this job. There was Brendan Stillwater, the fumbling galoot whose hulking mass and poor fashion sense often caused people to mistake him for an upright rhinoceros dancing in its mother’s apron. Then there was Jeremiah Footbridge, the computer tech with a penchant for romance movies, which he defended by claiming that their “endearing” attributes cultivated in him a romantic and sensitive nature that women found appealing. Then there was Stan Van Wooten, the youngest and most foolhardy of the conspirators. Stan was trigger happy and impulsive, and had made claims to being a great trigger man, planner, and tactical driver. He’d once won a shooting contest sponsored by an underground assassin ring, and he wasn’t afraid to share this fact with anyone who would listen. But he, like the others, had turned out to be a blowhard, a promissory disappointment, and a contemptible shirker.
A car passed, its headlights briefly illuminating the dark corner of the alley in which Dirk stood. He remained motionless, his cold, steely eyes affixed to the door of the building in which his unwitting target was enjoying his last party. The passing driver had no interest in bystanders in this storm, and probably didn’t see him anyway.
Several more painstaking hours passed, as Dirk stood his post awaiting the right moment. His mind wandered to the two experienced crooks who’d rejected his invitation. Both had honestly assessed their ability and willingness to undertake this job, and, fearing the creation of a reputation for flakiness, both had passed. Too bad, Dirk thought, they’d have been way better than the useless slugs I got.
Lucas Johnson was the only one who pitched in. He’d volunteered, and he’d been the one they all relied on for weapon procurement. In this day of traceable weapons and uncanny ballistic evidence, new weapons had to be used for each crime. The Club didn’t tolerate sloppy work, and Lucas had come through. The UMP with which Dirk intended to assassinate his target had been obtained through Johnson’s contacts, and hadn’t been used in any offense before. It had, in fact, been feloniously confiscated from a SWAT armory only two days prior, and would undoubtedly cause the victimized police agency some consternation at the future date upon which their very own crime laboratory would match it to this crime.
As the party came to an end and the guests began to filter out of the building’s doors and onto the street, Dirk counted the familiar faces from the files he’d reviewed. The unfamiliar ones were likely security, and he knew they’d spot him soon. One, two, three guards outside, he counted, as he planned his assault. This would’ve been much easier if Steve or Andy had joined in, he lamented, as with his left hand he whipped open his coat. Simultaneously he dropped to his right knee and brought the sound-suppressed weapon up with his right hand.
One guard spotted him, but it was too late. Dirk squeezed two quick rounds from the weapon and the guard’s head was perforated by the .45 caliber hollowpoint rounds. Dirk’s left hand now held the forward grip on the weapon, and he quickly fired two more bursts, dropping the other two guards to the wet pavement.
Dirk sprinted across the street as the crowd suddenly noticed that three men had been murdered in their presence. He bounded up onto the hood of one vehicle and fired his weapon again, this time dropping a guard who, in response to the screams, had emerged from the front door of the building. Dirk skipped over the remains of his first three targets and leveled his weapon once more, this time firing through the glass windows of the restaurant and into the building, dropping two more guards and one waiter who’d accidentally fled right into the path of Dirk’s ammunition. Dirk spun around and stepped to the side, his back against the wall just to the side of the door, his body invisible now to the occupants of the restaurant as none could see through the pillar against which he leaned.
He rapidly ejected the empty magazine from his weapon and slammed a new one into its place. He depressed the bolt and it slammed forward, stripping a round from the fresh magazine and inserting it into the firing chamber. Dirk crouched and spun again, immediately spotting two guards who were rushing towards him with their weapons drawn. He fired a longer burst this time, dropping both, and then he sprinted through the broken window and into the dining room. Everyone had fled, and most had now noticed that the emergency exit doors and all exits save the front door were barred from the outside. Screams could be heard from every area. They fled, terrified, failing in their terror to notice that they weren’t his targets, as those whom he passed and allowed to leave were unarmed and not a part of this job.
Another guard popped out of a doorway, firing his pistol wildly into the room and wounding two partygoers in the process. Dirk shot the man and proceeded to the grand staircase which led from the ornate dining room to the more exclusive and more handsomely decorated VIP dining area on the second floor. He strode up the steps, shooting two more guards who showed themselves as he ascended, and then he turned to face the VIP table, at the head of which sat Mayor Quincy Birch himself, tonight’s target. Not by coincidence Birch was joined at his table by two of his favorite people, Nancy Stanislaus of News Channel 14 and his paramour, Leyla Endres. Both shuddered in fear, especially Leyla, as she suspected her former main squeeze, Bull Howard, The Club’s chief enforcer, was behind the assault. She was right. The mayor’s bladder emptied onto the soft carpet, soiling his expensive suit. He clutched in desperation the silk napkin which had, moments ago, been tucked into his shirt collar.
“Leyla?” Dirk inquired in a dark and emotionless voice. The mayor looked to her in surprise, his jowls wrinkling unpleasantly as his mouth hung open in disbelief.
“Yeah?” Leyla squeaked back.
“Nobody leaves The Club, and nobody leaves The Bull”. Dirk then looked at the mayor. “And nobody touches what belongs to The Bull.” Dirk fired a single round through the mayor’s forehead, and another through Leyla’s. For obvious reasons he spared the reporter, to whom he turned and said: “if you play with fire you get burned.”
And then he departed, down the steps, across the street, to the alley and to the vehicle he’d procured for himself for his departure. Without a getaway driver, he navigated away from the scene of the crime with great skill as if to throw back into the faces of his feckless shirking horde any notion that he’d needed them for success. Once at the res gestae, he’d hoist a cold one with Lucas, and then collect the reward from The Bull.

The Mortal Coil – Chapter 2

Bob crouched over the body again still wondering how he could have let someone get the best of him, I wonder if I just keep making the same mistake he thought. “send those images to my office when you finish up” he barked to a crime scene tech who was snapping away with his camera, “will do” the tech replied, trying to act like this whole situation wasn’t strange beyond all reason. Bob pushed on his knees and slowly stretch back to an upright position, “I think I am going to get back to headquarters and see if I can sort through my thoughts and figure out my next move” he said to the captain while still staring at the body, “ok” the captain replied “we will keep you posted on anything we find” “thanks” said Bob, throwing his hand up to say goodbye as he walked away.

At headquarters, Bob entered through the large glass doors opening up into a lobby, immediately to the left was a security desk where visitors would check in and get there temporary access badges, Bob threw a wave to the man behind the desk as he walked towards the series of key card readers and saloon like automatic doors which reached all the way to the floor and were made of a thick glass that had a deep red luminescent tint. Pinching the clip which secured his access badge to his belt he held it up to the reader, the automatic doors changed from red to green and swung open, providing access to 4 elevator doors. Bob pushed the "up" button and waited for the familiar *ding* sound letting him know that his lift had arrived. 

The elevator doors slid open and Bob was greatful that there were no occupants, he hated the looks that he got from his colleagues, even though he could understand them, but their looks were nothing compared to the scientists and computer nerds from the lower levels that actually made his being here possible. Stepping inside he hit the button for the 8th floor followed by the "close the doors" button, which never seemed to respond as quickly as he would like. Arriving at the 8th floor the doors opened to a hallway of office doors, Bob turned right down the hall and waved his key card again at the reader in front of office number 803, after a confirming beep he opened the door, walked to the desk a sat down in the black leather office chair.

Bob's office phone ringing jarred him awake, after rubbing his eyes and looking down at his watch oh good, I only dozed off for an hour he thought. He put the phone to his ear "Hello?" he said, trying not to sound like he was just asleep, 

"Bob!" an excited voice which could only be that of Toby Williams, the man in charge of the memory server and uploading Bob's stored memories to the cloan blank "you gotta get down here!" 

"why? what's up?" replied Bob, not really wanting to visit the lower levels 

"I think we may have made a breakthrough," Toby replied "well actually several breakthroughs, just get down here!" 

"Alright Toby, just cool your jets, I'm on my way".

Anyone who was to come into the agency headquarters lobby off the street would see that it is a high security building, but no more so than the lobby of an elite apartment complex. It's also a tall building, but not the tallest in the city. What you can't tell from the outside and the lobby is that the building actually has as many floors below the lobby as it does above. Access to the lower levels is also not obvious from the elevators where you have to place an approved access badge in front of the concealed reader in order to change the buttons that would normally take you up, into buttons that take you down.

Bob flashes his badge at the mirrored surface just above the elevator buttons, which then change from black numbers on a white background to white numbers on a black background and the number order is reversed. He presses the second to last button labeled 39, and the elevator begins it's non stop decent.

"Ok, so what are these breakthroughs that I have to see?" Bob asks, as he walks through the automatic sliding glass doors which lead to a room lined with servers, in the middle of the room is a black chair that resembles a dentist chair but has a clear sheild that arches over the headrest. 

"Well" says Toby, trying to sound less excited and more intellectual "I believe I have found a way to speed up the re-imaging process. You see, currently we have to take a blank that has had zero knowledge or face time because you can't overwrite an existing brain imprint. The problem is that we have to keep the blanks in a tank until they can be activated, and once a blank is activated it takes time for the muscles, and senses to adjust to being used for the first time." 

"Yeah, I know. I've been through it a few times if you remember" Bob says, walking over to the chair 

"Right" continues Toby "but never again, because I have found a way to add multiple imprints to the brain and then switch them on or off" 

"And that means?..." Bob asks, implying that Toby use the english non-geek version

"That means, I can activate a blank or multiple blanks with a base imprint, basically it would be like a child, but, it would be able to get excersise, eat, drink, sleep, all of the prep work that a body needs to function. Then when and if we need to put it into service we can just add your most recent imprint and then tell the brain to use that imprint instead of the base" 

"Well that is facinating" Bob replies, still checking out the chair "but it really doesn't concern me just the next blank, right?" 

Toby gets a look on his face like Bob just asked the question he was waiting for and says "See, that's what I thought at first. But thats where my second and third breakthroughs come in, I discovered that I can activate an imprint remotely via an audible signal. So, we could add situation specific imprints to your brain, each with unique activation tones, you could be anything at anytime." 

"You mean, I could know Kung Fu?" Bob said sarcastically 

"Actually, yes." says Toby pridefully

"What is the third breakthrough?" Bob asks

"The child imprint itself," Toby responds "I thought about using a complete imprint of a child's mind, but I quickly realized that I don't really want a full grown man going doodie in his underoos. In fact I don't even really want a child I just want an imprint that would yeild a completely obedient, completely trusting, person that will be easy to manage until needed. Basically I just want to be able to pick and choose characteristics and create my own hybrid imprint, which I thought was impossible but actually it is quite possible. We are storing your imprint digitally, and anything that is digital can be modified, I just had to discover how to do it and not create holes in the imprint. In fact it is the only way that multiple imprints would work for you because I need the alternate imprints to still be you, I can activate an expert hacker imprint that isn't actually you with hacker abilities."

"Wow, that's a lot to process" Bob says, shaking his head.

"Well you have time. Like I said I still have some kinks to workout. I will call you when it is complete"

"You do that, I think I am going to get some rest" Bob says as he heads towards the door.

The Mortal Coil - Chapter 1

Another murder scene was visible to Detective Bob Ludwick as he exited his vehicle. He stretched as he got out, feeling a bit stiff after the lengthy slumber from which he’d just awakened. He knew that these were new experiences, but everything seemed the same, except for the new watch, the new shoes, and the fact that his hair was wet from a shower he didn’t remember taking.

The scene was a dark alley in a bad part of town. Graffiti decorated the crumbling brick walls, and ponds of dumpster scum pooled around the base of a large pile of garbage. Another pool, this one of congealing blood, had also formed on the dirty pavement. A dead man lay motionless in its midst.

“Over here, sir,” directed a patrol officer with one hand as he munched a cake donut with the other. Pink and yellow sprinkles fell from his mouth onto his uniform, which protruded with an inconvenient and unpleasant-looking gut-shelf over the top of which his plain black tie, complete with sliver policeman’s tie bar, crookedly hung.

In the direction of the officer’s pointing hand was the murder scene, cordoned off with yellow tape bearing the familiar “POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS”. Ludwick ducked under the tape, careful not to put his shoe print into the blood, and observed the scene. Photographers snapped away, and crime scene technicians scoured the area for evidence.

“Shell casings here,” one announced excitedly as he sifted through a pile of garbage.

One of the other homicide detectives looked at the body, at Bob, then back to the body, and grimaced. “No matter how many times I see this,” he said, “I still can’t get used to it.”

“Tell me about it,” Bob replied. Try being the victim for once, he didn’t say.

Bob looked down at the body. This one was a good dresser, he thought. Just like the last one. Maybe there’s a pattern to these killings. He allowed himself a brief, smug grin and then crouched down to examine the body. It was adorned with a dark blue suit, the color of which effectively concealed the significant volume of blood its fabric had absorbed.

“Looks like a medium caliber, probably a .45,” he observed. The other cops nodded in agreement. Ludwick reached into the decedent’s jacket and removed a pistol. “And they left this again, too.” The weapon was a .45 caliber H&K USP, the special operations version with the ambidextrous safety, tritium night sites, threaded barrel, and extended twelve round magazine. Bob opened his own jacket and placed the pistol into the empty holster he wore there. Perfect fit – again.

The corpse, for a man who’d died an awful death, stared peacefully into the distance, his eyes having somehow remained open despite the violent nature of his demise. He was a handsome fellow, thought Ludwick, despite the bags under his eyes that told a tale of a stressful existence. Bob knew of this existence well, as he peered into a similar face each morning in preparation for the day’s challenges. Each day he saw the same stressed bags under the eyes, the same graying hair, the same tired look. It was depressing.

Bob’s examination of the body brought his attention to the singed stump where the victim’s right hand had once been. The hand was several feet away, peacefully resting on the pavement with a photographer snapping pictures of it from every conceivable angle.

“Can someone give me a hand over here?” asked the coroner before he erupted into laughter at his own cleverness. “I think the detective is stumped!”

The officers all allowed themselves a laugh as if to ease the tension at the scene. “I think we’re gonna have to solve this crime in parts,” one officer suggested. “Yeah,” said another, “and in the end maybe we’ll a-wrist someone if a witness points the finger at him!” The officer stood in awkward silence for a moment, as dirty looks from the others ended the pun contest.

Ludwick hadn’t noticed. He looked around and, when no one was looking, he removed a wallet from the body’s back pocket. He examined it, noting that it contained thirty-seven dollars, which was somewhat short of what he’d expected. He looked at the badge inside the wallet, shook his head in disappointment, and slipped it into his own pocket. “When did we hear from him last?” he inquired of the Captain, who stood nearby smoking and still shaking his head in response to the poor taste demonstrated by his officers.

“Uh,” began the Captain as he reviewed his notes, “about two this morning he uploaded some data to the server. We figure he was killed about four hours later.”
Ludwick knew that whatever intelligence had been gathered by the victim after the upload had been destroyed when his PDA watch had detonated. It was designed to do that when it detected the termination of its wearer’s vital signs. Bob wore an identical model.

Bob was the product of a series of secret government programs designed to counter organized crime and terrorism. It had all started in the mid-2030s when scientists finally discovered a technology called “brain backup”. The technology was difficult to use, as it required an enormous amount of memory storage and the devotion of one channel of sensory input to upload the memory to a subject’s brain.

Bob’s sense of choice was his sense of taste, as he deemed it the least necessary of the senses for his job. By diverting the nerves used for transmission of taste signals to the brain, technicians were able to transmit data from a computer into a subject’s biological memory, but at the cost of the use of that sense. Bob had learned several useful skills this way, though the education was exhausting and could be time consuming. This very morning his mind had been loaded with the information uploaded from this victim’s watch, which gave him somewhat of a head start on picking up the investigation where his predecessor had left off. He was only missing the last four hours of the recently terminated life.

Okay, pal, he thought, as if to telepathically commune with the dead, what did you learn in those last four hours?

The scene had been examined and very little had been gleaned from it. The victim had been carrying a coffee cup from Grunge Brew, a local franchise of a famous Seattle coffee company with at least four branches in town. The cup contained plain black coffee, this deceased officer’s beverage of choice, but scrawled in red marker on the side were the words “HALF-CAF PEPPERMINT”. Bob removed the lid and smelled the coffee, which smelled like regular cold coffee, only with a hint of mint.

“He never would have had a peppermint latte,” Ludwick told the other officers. “I know that for a fact. This is a second-hand cup.” How could he do that? Just think of the germs! Bob knew that the decedent was as germ phobic as he was, and that, as had Bob, the decedent had traded his sense of taste for the ability to load data from the brain backup server. What use would he have for peppermint?

Another detective approached. This was Alvin Hanson, Bob’s least favorite colleague. Alvin reported: “I checked with the guys at the Grunge Brew around the corner, and they say he never came in there. They’ve sold about ten peppermint lattes today, but only two were half caf. We’re trying to run down the buyers now, but one used cash so that’s a dead end.”

“The whole thing’s a dead end,” Bob replied. “This coffee is the instant kind. This guy was working all night, and needed coffee to keep watch on something. Something was going down, and he wanted to see it. He checked in at two in the morning, and we know what he knew up to that point. He thought The Club had an exchange set up, and he was looking to bust it. In his last four hours, he got tired and in desperation to stay alert he used a cup from the dumpster and mixed some instant coffee.”

Captain Roland and Detective Hanson nodded in agreement with the theory. No one knew what the dead cop was thinking better than Bob. “What next?” Roland asked.

“Someone got the drop on me,” he concluded, looking down at the bullet holes in his own head. No matter how many times he saw his own corpse, he would never get used to it. Perhaps it was the realization that he was a mortal, and that it only seemed like he’d survived a killing because he’d had his exemplar’s memories transplanted into his relatively young cloned brain. Perhaps it was the realization that he, as the two hundred prior copies of the original detective Bob Ludwick, would likely die in action, and that the lights would go out for good for him and his memories would be transmitted, at least whatever had been recorded up until his last upload, to another clone blank.

The government had extracted Ludwick’s DNA and had cultivated a series of physical clone “blanks” into which, if something were to happen to Bob, they could download his memory from the database and restore him to action. It cost a fortune, but was far less expensive than recruiting and training an agent from scratch. A new “Bob” could be sent into action fast enough to solve his own murder.

“This Looks like the work of Nugent,” he concluded, alluding to his arch-nemesis and most frequently encountered hit man, Michael Nugent. Nugent was The Club’s best shooter, and he’d moved up the ranks of the organization much more slowly than most, not for lack of merit but because he was too good at his work to get promoted.

“Nugent?” Alvin responded with some degree of incredulity. “I thought he was in Mexico.”

“We all did,” Bob said, “but nobody is as smooth as he, and this job has his signature written all over it. They must have sent one of his apprentices to Mexico, and that’s why the patterns made us think it was him. He is very good at this, and he always seems to sneak up on me, no matter what I do.” Bob could recall being killed at least a dozen times by this hit man, and wanted very badly to catch him. “Someday I’ll be the one shooting him,” he thought aloud.

“All in good time,” the captain assured him.

The Mortal Coil - an introduction

This introductory post is intended to explain our collaborative work, tentatively entitled "The Mortal Coil", and the plan for its creation. I will write the first chapter, and we will have a rotation in this order:
Clayton Campbell
Sam Van Eerden
Brandon Stallings
Luke Jones
Jeremy Bridgman
*Andy Herder
*Steve McNutt

*Denotes possible participation - these guys haven't decided yet whether to join in.

Each post should start with the title of the book - I expect that we might submit other work on this blog in the future. To keep it easy to track, let's use a naming format like this: "The Mortal Coil - Chapter 1" etc. Let's also try not to make the posts too long. If we write moderately short chapters and then post them, and we do three or four turns through the rotation, we'll have quite a story on our hands.

**SPOILER ALERT**
IF YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG AND AREN'T AN AUTHOR, AND YOU DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THE STORY FOR YOURSELF, SKIP THIS ENTRY AND MOVE RIGHT ON TO CHAPTER ONE
The basic plot that we decided on is summarized as follows:

The main character, Detective Bob Ludwick, is trying to track down a dangerous foreign crime syndicate leader and his henchmen. The syndicate is called "The Club", and has several extremely dangerous hitmen working for it. These hitmen frequently kill Ludwick, and they can't figure out how he keeps surviving the hits. His secret is that he's part of an experimental government cloning program that, from time to time, records his thoughts and memories via his wi-fi wristwatch onto a centralized server and, upon his frequent death, upload the memories to a clone "blank" made from his DNA.
Ludwick usually picks up his investigation at the scene of his own death, and tries to get clues from his body along the way.
The philosophical part of this story is Ludwick's clones' frequent struggle with their own eternity - they don't want to die, because they know the lights go out for good for them. Each clone also knows that he didn't really experience the thoughts and memories that are programmed into them upon respawn, and they wonder if they have their own souls or if several lives and deaths in identical DNA clones are part of the same continuing soul. Feel free to discuss these in the context of dialogue, monologue, narrative, or in the form of Ludwick's own thoughts.
Ok fellas, I'll start out with chapter one.

Clayton