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personal digital assistant (PDA) Notebook PC Jan 6 09 This story is true, the names have been changed, all the events are factual. The names of the historical figures remain intact. Association Appreciate Ma ke a swipe at Oprah's book club. I am not claiming to have met the real Ben Franklin at a 24 hour gym or any other 300 year old man. I am saying I met a man who went to great lengths to convince me he was the great inventor of among other things immortality. Using a pen name I am writing all this down in case something happens to me. In the event that I never die, well, that's just another part of the life of the privileged. There was a time when I thought I was the center of the universe, money and power, brains…until the doctor's told me I was nothing… Danny is selfish and arrogant and withdrawn inspite of him thinking otherwise. Volunteer work… The audience realize he's not that popular but changes.. "Tell me, Mr. Franklin, what was George Washington really like?" It was well after midnight, the end of a long gray, dead winter day when I'd finally got up the courage to question the true identity of this naked bespectacled man I'd come to know. Outside the wind was howling, rattling the giant windows in the lobby, sending dirty sleet swirling across the parking lot. All week it had been too cold to snow. Inside it was calm, warm and bright. The small wooden room my friend Ben and I were sitting in was 160 degrees. By the time the other gym members cleared out and left us alone, I was drenched in sweat, dizzy enough to faint. He leaned against the hot bench pine , relaxed as usual, a twinkle in his eye. He was neatly beaded with sweat, his skin an even pink glow. His silver mane pulled back into a pony tail. I was never one for Anover, Santa Clause, I realize the very idea of the existence of a 300 year old man is preposterous, the arrogance that it would be me that stumbled upon him and not just any man but the American's most famous inventor until Edison. You would guess he was around 60 years old, about 40 years older than me. Stock was not divided 18 ways, you'll see when I turn 21. You're father is one of the nicest men I've ever met and a Billionaire, yet you claim there is no Santa Clause!! T**dISNEY is under the prirates of the caraben ride. The lights in the gym and in the corporate france headquarters are such that the pink is muted. Earlier that week, after months of research, the only explanation I could find, however preposterous, was that in the late 1700s he'd faked his own death and invented a way to freeze himself. I was a chemistry major at Pen, I suppose obsessing over was not something one should be worried about so close to finals week, but school had come easy for me, life had not. ******BRILLANT*** Soon it was the other way around. tyrannical tendencies. finals week. I suppose anyone can make an ice cube of themselves, but how do you unfreeze yourself, have your heart restarted before your brain rots and your flesh begins to smell? It became obvious to me that back then Ben Franklin had developed a batch of chemicals which could somehow preserve and reanimate human cells. Perhaps the man needed to sauna for two hours each day to keep himself in a state of perpetually thaw. This, I decided was to keep his blood from turning back into ice; the only drawback of this elixir that ran like golden silk through his veins, keeping alive that brilliant mind. Allowing him to wake up and visit the future, a society in which he was one of the primary architects of. Or maybe he just loved to bake in the sauna each night, because he was, after all the inventor of the iron furnace. He could marvel at how these days no one needs to keep running out and bringing in firewood. He was always a man dead set against slavery, never forgiving other founding fathers who continued to own fellow humans by the dozens. Sure, Ben had discovered electricity and as a genius perhaps he could have developed a crude working freezer, but not one that would run endlessly for centuries. No, I theorized he must have traveled up toward the arctic north and somehow let Mother Nature do the job of sealing him in ice. Which brings me back to the night I asked him about George Washington. Ben Franklin gave me a look, of course other people at the gym had joked with him about his resemblance to the guy on the 100 dollar bill, this time dead serious face stared back at him. Off guard he smiled at me, an ancient wise smile; I knew it had to be him. OK, I don't think you could ever catch him off guard, but … "Danny, step out and cool down, you look awful. It looks like you've lost even more weight. What's wrong with you?" The sauna was built into the men's locker room of the 24 hour gym I'd joined last year. Where late in the evenings on most weeknights, a group of regulars would end their days in the indoor pool followed by a sauna. I found myself becoming one and was soon on a first name basis with several fellow gym rats. Some were college students like me, others had just gotten off from a swing shift, the rest seemed to be retired. Ben claimed to be a retired high school history teacher. I didn't think any of us knew each other's last name, until now. Clutching a thin sweat soaked towel, I stepped out onto the cool tile floor and looked at myself in the mirror. A moment later he came out. My red skin was returning to its porcelain tone, I was bald as a cue ball, my protruding rib cage and sunken chest were as pronounced as Ben Franklin's thick gleaming hair, lean legs and ripe, glowing pop belly. Barrel chest shape contrast. "I'll admit your question does brings back memories, I'll never forget the first time I saw young George." He said "Oh, you've never seen a man gallop into view, draw up and slide off a horse like him, so fluid and athletic. Not a spot, not a wrinkle on his uniform." He stepped to the sink and began to wash his face, then his bifocals and carefully patted them dry without ever looking my way. "Are you talking about the George on the dollar bill?" "No Danny" He snapped, glancing at my reflection "George Timpson the bus driver who saunas on Tuesdays!" There were a few men left in the gym within ear shot, but old Franklin didn't seem to care who heard him. It wasn't uncommon for round table discussions or current event debates to break out among the midnight regulars in the gym. Sink, end ,Ben had often been the center of attention, as you would expect from any world class journalist, politician, diplomat and trained orator. What I wanted to hear about most concerned his side career as one of history's greatest inventors, perhaps he could help me, but still how often does one hear first hand gossip about the father of our country? "It happened in Virginia, the summer of 1756, I was there on business as the post master, Georgie, as I affectionately called him, had just been promoted to Lieutenant, you see the French Indian wars were raging, yet he didn't have a hair out of place, not a drop of sweat on his brow. But then when he opened his mouth…" Ben paused, as he often did, and moved to his locker and began to put on his swim trunks. When it seemed he wasn't going to continue, Buck, a retired rail road engineer who'd been listening while climbing back into his street clothes, sauntered up. "Damn it Benny, I got to go home to bed, hurry up tell us what happened when George Washington opened his mouth." "You saw death is what happened, Buck!" Ben turned toward him to make this announcement. "The man was only 24 years old and his teeth were rotting to hell, some had been pulled, some had fallen out, the rest were in a black and brown state of morbid deterioration. His breath was so bad, he tried to pet his horse and the animal jerked its head away. When I shook his hand my eyes watered from the stench. "In young Washington's mouth and in his eyes you could see the war, the destruction, roads littered with bloody corpses. But on the surface you saw that dashing gentleman, a wealthy landowner, a tall, spoiled rich kid who wanted to do nothing more then spend his life tending his to his animals and his crops. No, he didn't search out the limelight like I did. But George just happened to be so gifted at military strategy and human politics that moral obligations constantly tore him away from his beloved farming. So that even centuries later all of you could live in a free land and say what ever pops into your head without fear of repercussion." It all made sense to me. By now Ben had an audience of four of us. Buck enjoyed the story, but couldn't resist being a smart ass. "And tell me Mr. Franklin, was it you that took the cherry wood and helped him carve his first set of false teeth?" "Exactly, what I'm talking about." Said Ben, he directed this not to Buck but to the others. "I defend his right to make a mockery of my sincere story. If you'd had lesser men as founding fathers, why another invasion from England , or later Germany or Russia at the wrong time, that government wouldn't question an accidental drowning, a man tied to a series of barbells. Ready to go swimming, Bucky?" Ben threw his arm around Buck. This caused a laugh among the group and a few quips about the George Washington myths. I wasn't much of a public speaker, but I was learning from the best. I broke in with: "Come-on you guys, anyone knows the cherry tree story has been debunked and his teeth were made by finest dentists of the day, gold springs held them in place, and they were carved out of the best material." Thankfully one of them asked. "OK, Danny boy, then tell us what they were carved out of?" "Why I though everyone knew it was hippopotamus ivory." This got a good chuckle as the men shuffled back to changing or showering. Ben tried to tell them how it was true, that wood has grain, bone has veins and is not as strong as ivory, no animal has denser ivory then a hippopotamus. Usually around this time the group thins out to nothing as people make their way home with damp hair, even on an icy stormy night like this. Some nights as I'd be heading out with my gym bag slung over my shoulder, worn out from riding the stationary bike too long, followed by sitting in the hot tub and sauna too long, I'd see Ben eagerly putting back on his swim ware for another round at Jacuzzi. He had nothing but time. No one I knew ever saw him leave or knew how he got there. This night, I decided to slip back on my soggy swim suit and follow him around the maze of tile that led to the pool. It was a coed area, yet became dominated by males after 11 PM. Some nights I'd shown up earlier when I thought girls near my age might be there. They always came in pairs or clusters, chatting on their cell phones, legs dangling in the Jacuzzi. Eager eyes that never seemed to meet mine. I've never been what you might call a ladies man. I'd actually been rewarded in life with everything else. I had it all well, except for an appearance that would have rendered me capable of regular dating. Science nerd girls like doctors I was on a mission… My family was supportive and affluent, actually downright rich, old money joining new money. New money, used money my father managed other people's money.. I was popular and made friends fast, I'd considered myself a popular person…Volenteer work…Science nerds with in the upper class society… I was too shy…I got straight As just as quickly. Sex it seemed would have to come slowly. Janitor, manual labor… Camp for retarded kids… Yet I'd remained self confident until lately. During my college years, as I filled out and my acme faded, I tried harder to put myself in coed situations, dorm rooms, parties, clubs, suddenly I was a pal to a host of ladies. Even the plainest Janes reduced me to brother material. My worst suspicions in high school were confirmed: Yes, looks and height are not everything; ugly people do find love, but it would be no walk in the park like the rest of my life was. More than once I'd considered giving away my new Lexus to someone who could put it to good use. "Why are you following me, Danny? This is my quiet time." The pool area was deserted, chlorine filled the air, steam came off the large square hot tub. All that drab cement and colorful tiles ruined the acoustics, Ben sounded just like a regular older man. "I figured out who you are, Sir. I'd like to know how you did it, the whole cryonic thing. I'm pre-med at Penn you know, top of my class." "Are you mad? The joke is over. So I majored in US history, with a drama minor, as I reached middle age my resemblance to Ben Franklin gave the students a hoot." "Look, I won't tell anyone, promise. I've done my homework. I know how much researched you did with water temperatures, ice flows, I figured out how you froze yourself, it's the thawing out part I'm curious about." Danny didn't research he knew it would be dead ends. He set down his towel and little nap sack he'd brought with him on the bench that ran along the wall. He eased himself into the Jacuzzi, taking in the hot water with a long sigh, as if relieved to reheat himself again since leaving the sauna. I joined him. He looked at me and tried to figure out which sting of lies would send me away the fastest. The cover-ups must have been taxing to such an honest man. "Come now, I have ample documentation, records as to who I am and when I first appeared in diapers, I could show you a photo of me as a teenager with my first car, and it was made out of 1950s Detroit steel, not wood, not pulled by a horse!" "Ben, I'm sure you've gone to elaborate steps to secure your identity, forged year books, doctored photos, your skills as a printer and now that there's a Kinko's on every corner? I'm willing to bet you were born overseas on a military base, then educated abroad where records get lost making it harder to trace your steps. Tell me how the hospital you were born at burned down." "For the love of God Danny, there was a war going on, my father was stationed in Guam. The Japanese turn He was an intelligence officer, a code breaker who didn't advertise his family's addresses. My mother was, an interrupter, very valuable, of course she had to use different last names during the cold war. So yes, it is hard to trace me, but I can take you to the last high school I worked at." "Oh, don't bother; it would be some small private school you only worked at briefly following your most recent thaw. Your best cover has always been how preposterous it is to reanimate cells. "What is wrong with you? I mean that in a sincere way son, I can tell your health has been declining." He paused "Do you have cancer?" "Yes, colon cancer." I said. It was common knowledge at school and among family and friends. This gym was my escape, the one place where I didn't talk about what was eating at my body. I'd purposely joined a gym in a hamlet some miles away from my usual stomping grounds. As for my appearance, I'd always been thin, pasty and sickly looking. I'd shaved my head in between treatments that made my hair fall out, many young men are underweight with shaved heads. When I'd miss several days following a round of chemo, there was no detailed reason to explain my absence, lots of the regulars missed days at a time. Ben looked at me such sad kind eyes. "Has it traveled to your limp nodes?" I nodded. It had been a week since I'd been sat down and told what we'd all suspected for months, as each treatment failed, the likelihood of the next one failing increases. My body would shut down and attacked. A year ago I complained of pain, following a biopsy my father took out his diamond studded check book, phone calls were made, experts were hired, the best doctors and clinics all began chasing something that couldn't be caught. Perhaps it was eminent death that made me delusional about seeing Ben Franklin at the 24 hour gym in , Phildety. How can you not humor a dying man? "How much time do you have, Danny?" "Less than a year." "I'm sorry to hear that, you'd have made a fine doctor. Is there anything I can do?" "Take me with you next time you freeze yourself. At the rate science is going my cancer will not be a death sentence before too long. What makes you think… And who was there to shock your heart back into restarting? Did you leave a note?" He shook his head. "I am not an ambassador of the make a wish foundation." Mother works on charities… At this point he began to chuckle and accept that I wasn't going to leave. So he said, "Yes, who popped my clutch, replaced my blood stream with gallons of fresh juice? A note pinned to my frozen corpse, with reheating instructions wrapped in plastic - opps, they didn't have plastic in 1790, well some kind of water proof method. Of course it was a bolt of lighting tied to a string! And tell me since they didn't have freezers back then, much less cryonic cylinders, who tended to me in my slumber?" Kite… "My best guess is that you found a glacier, up north one that you'd know would eventually send you back to the surface, where sunlight would melt you during the first summer. I haven't figured out the rest." "And how did I get inside the glacier?" "I know you were experimenting with using hot air balloons to deliver mail. I say a trusted pilot, a friend, now long dead simply sailed you over and dropped you in. First of course you'd injected yourself with some type of chemical cocktail, something modern science still can't even grasp." "OK, we're going to assume that I faked my death first. But look at me, Franklin was 84 when he died, over 20 years older than me. He was taller and had a very distinctive pointed upper lip, I don't." Had his appearance altered so british wouldn't catch him.. "If I had all the answers I would figure out a way to freeze myself without your help. Suppose a man can flatten an inch or two of vertebrae by crashing into ice and floating around for ages. I'm assuming you had plastic surgery on your nose and lips. Maybe the reason you look so much younger than 84 or 300 is a chemical reaction to the freezing process." "Wait a minute, it's not reanimation, perhaps I discovered the fountain of youth, bought an old Spanish Map off a sailor returning from Florida. Why do you think I've only recently reappeared? Maybe I've walked the Earth all of the 19th and 20th centuries, a portly somewhat homely Dorian Grey." Sharing with the world!! "Oh, I thought about that, but there is something that just seems unfrozen about your appearance. And you have a way about you that is from the 1700s or another time, something that would have been lost had you gradually experienced technological advancements like most old folks do." Zombie.. "Naw, I like the fountain of youth idea better. It's such a shame all the woman I've loved, I marry 'em young and don't leave until they are 75, heck I've been married less times than Liz Taylor." "Don't be ridiculous Ben, if you had been actively pursuing your hobbies for the last 200 plus years, you'd have hired the best assistants, we'd have cold fusion and world peace by now. You're combined knowledge of world affairs and human nature, with a simple letter writing campaign you'd have convinced them to prevent Germany for rearming after World War One. And don't get me started on Russia…" "Well, sorry, I had a hot new wife during those years, but once she got old I went back to work. Did you know permanent military bases in Germany and Japan was my idea? I told Macarthur always took my calls…It's getting middle east peace that seems impossible." "Keep joking, but I know who you are old man." At first he was angry; about to say or do something to put me in my place, maybe an accidentally drowning wasn't out of the question. Not only was I rude, I knew too much. Then his face lightened as he starred at me. … Nothing stays the same…. I know you're way too curious to live out your years in this century. You don't look it but you have to be aging. I don't believe you think you'll live forever, an accident or something could end your journey. Can't you just put me under until you're ready for your next trip into the future? I've got a trust fund you wouldn't believe, it's coming to me when I turn 21 in three months. It's all yours." "Nonsense, can you just imagine the chemical process it would take to do such a thing. And it would cost billions. They will cure cancer with one shot before cryonics become viable?" "I gave my uncle a photo of you, I took it with my cell phone. He owns a big corporate security company, they use facial recognition technology, like casinos." "What, comparing my mug to a hundred dollar bill? An old painting of me? You need an actual photograph to get perfectly accurate spaces between the features. With Abe Lincoln you have grainy photos images to work with, not anyone from the original continental congress you imbissal!" "Well, based on all the portraits we scanned there's a 90 percent chance you're Ben Franklin. The other ten percent comes from what you just said. You just made a slip when you said 'an old painting of me.' OK, I want you to give me the names of the all schools you taught at. My uncle has corporate detectives, my father-" "Look, young man! I sympathize with you, but dying young can come to the spoiled and the poor, the guilty and innocent alike. You have no right to harass me, no license to be disrespectful or take my photo without my knowledge. A snotty nose welp Have you known misfortune before?" "I can't walk in poor shoes.. My father spent two years in the piece core, trying to fix the finical in . . then something popped into his head, wheels started to spin. It is all about accepting death, read and study Ben's autobio Then he was silent. Whoever he really was, he was right, I was desperate, I wanted to wake up somewhere dirt poor but with the prospect of living. I was ready to believe anything. I haven't lost all my marbles; I realize you may not be Ben Franklin, but all my research keeps pointing towards you…Come on Ben. I'm rich and I'm smart and I'm desperate. I'm the only child of a top hedge fund manager and a cosmetics heiress. My parent's private jet has a full time chef, he lives in a luxury apartment build alongside the hanger. I'll be bedridden by this summer, then I'll waist to nothingness. Why should all these brains and money pass away if there is the slightest chance of. I want to use what I have to help people, become a surgeon. Mother a charity worker. "You are not going to let up are you?" "Never." Good quote from Ben… Particularly about hypocritital charitiy work… Old people who are stupid and poor fight for life why shouldn't I? He let out a sigh, then with the agility of a 30 year old, Ben Franklin jumped out to the Jacuzzi, ran dripping to his small nap sack and pulled out his cell phone. Muttering to me while he placed a call. "I really wish you hadn't asked so many questions…Hello, Main Base, Ice Man to Ice Station. The Dodgers are winning three to five with a man on second, put me one a secured line right now!" Then he looked at me "We know who you are too, genius, you're not Dan Martin like your membership card says. Last week I had my team investigate you after I got suspicious of your staring at me and asking dumb questions. Your name is Daniel Applegate, turns out you're the nephew of Ted Applegate whose pathetic corporate spy company has been snooping around. Lucky for us they're just humoring you." "Like you're just humoring me?" Company doesn't even make a profit, father carries it. "My team lives in the shadows, son. Now and again someone starts snooping around asking questions, they usually go away or run out of money, but with you're being a triple threat to our organization. He imitated me a whiney voice 'smart, rich, desperate.' Then he talked into the phone with military urgency. "Yeah, it's Iceman, I don't care if you were asleep, get on the red line, now. Patch me, thanks." He turned to me and shook his head. "Iceman to Ice station, we've got a level four leak, I'm in the main rec room now, have someone take out the hard drives on the security cameras in the pool area, the codes are in the contingency play book. Don't ask questions now. "The company that's been trying to find a background on me, it's not corporate, governmental or foreign interests this time, it's personal. I got a cancer kid hounding me, yeah Applegate's nephew…Yeah, deep pockets. The kid won't give up…yes, I know how much his father's worth, send me photos of the jet's interior. Yes, it may be time to relocate again…No, we're not going to steal a 30 million dollar gulf stream, I'm just curious, you know I'm a sucker for plush leather apolstry." Then he looked at me. "You see Danny, I like it when utilitarian meets luxury. If you could have seen the leather work in King George's coach." "You know I might have believed this ridiculous act if you hadn't called yourself the Iceman." He ignored me and made another phone call. Suddenly the lights dimmed, then I heard the clicking sound of medal against medal echoing across the tile, it was the exterior exit doors that lead to the back alley being bolted shut. In sequence each of the three interior doors opened and a man stepped out and stood like a sentry behind each door. I recognized all three men as the gym's late night cleaning crew. They hadn't changed outfits, one still carried a mop. But now each had a cell phone in hand and wore an earphone in one ear. One of them, who I didn't even think spoke English, spoke perfect English in of all things a New England accent. "Is everything under control, Sir?" "Yes" Said Franklin. "Remain stationed on the other side of the doors please. Don't let anyone in or out. If any members asks, tell them there's a toxic chlorine spill. After I'm gone, create one, but don't stain the concrete this time like you did in Cleveland!" "Sir, it was in Cleveland that the toilets overflowed and that was your fault for refusing to grasp modern plumbing." And then all three of them stepped behind the doors. I pulled myself up out of the water and stood near him with a look of disbelief on my face. "Don't give me that look Danny, don't you agree all butler's should have English accents? Oh, don't worry we're not going to detain you long." And so it was that as soon as he revealed to me that I was dead right all along I switched gears from true believer to hard core skeptic. "What sort of show are you putting on for me?" He ignored me and talked in the phone at a frantic pace. "Yes, they're messing around with facial recognition; photos of me are floating around there. Sure they are rich and powerful but they're just humoring a dying over achieving kid. Gonzales tracked down his old nanny last week, seems Applegate is notorious for having a wild imagination and loves conspiriousy theories. He thought the Russian gardener was really a spy planning an invasion." Ben smiled at me and chuckled into the phone. "Applegate told the household staff that the gardener was sending messages to the spy satellites using topiary…Yes, he'd arrange plants and trim the acres of bushes using an elaborate code." "I was six, I didn't know the soviet Union had collapsed!" He gave me an understanding nod then continued his call "Start a few rumors, urban legend will be enough of a smoke screen. Ben Franklin impersonator busts casino tries to cash 200 year old check...…Got it, thanks, is records standing by? Patch me in…Hi, it's Ice, are you pulling up the medical records on Applegate? Great, send them to my screen, thank you my good man." He got off the phone and began to squint through his bifocals as he to scanned the information on his little screen. "Who the hell are you talking to? How did you…" "Danny, when your uncle runs a background check on people he does the same thing. He has a spy talk to the person's employees. Oh, sure we size people up by reading public and private records. But you want to know a person, you have to learn how he treats people. As you must know in general, the size of the house a person lives in is relative to the amount of power they have. The bigger the mansion the more people who work there. The lower end of these modern days servants usually have no houses, no power, they come and go and tend to gossip among themselves. Often these folks remain loyal and won't accept bribes, but a number of them will rattle off to total strangers about the true personality of the owner of the mansion. Of course this data can't always be trusted, but you talk to enough people a consensus emerges." The ruling class "So, I've been living in glass houses? Both my parents are active in charities; my mother is on hospital boards. I've donated hours tutoring kids in - " "Oh, look at me, I give back to society." "I need to get out of here." "Don't worry Danny, we aren't going to hurt you." "Do you have any idea how much my family could hurt you? You've done your homework. My uncle practically has a private swat team and my father was a college boxing champion. "Heavy weight at Yale Will you grow up and be a man; your family is not here! I know your type, you're family tells you how charming and special you are, this leads to you being isolated and spoiled which results in your lack of social skills!" "Jez, how much research have you done on me!" "Why does everything have to be about you? That's why you're unpopular with the ladies. Oh, Danny, I find you much more outgoing than the boy we've got reports about. I notice you've got much better at social interaction then when I met you earlier this year. I applaud you joining a gym filled with working class people and not flaunting your pedigree." "Pedigree, look at me I'm a mutt. And a science geek. That's why I'm not a ladies' man." "Have you looked at a young portrait of me? And I know you also have promise as a writer…" "If anything happens to me-" "What, that muscular father of yours will beat up me? I'm immortal, you fool! You wanted to be independent; here you are. You probably didn't even tell your family the name of this gym did you? So they wouldn't keep tabs on you. By now your car has been moved and the GPS disabled." "You're kidnapping me?" "Depends on your definition of kidnapping." "Who cares, I suppose you can't do much long term damage to a dying man anymore than you can hurt an immortal one." You know Danny, you are gaining social skills. You treat waiters and household staff like servants…Much kinder lately. "You'll eventually be freed after we have a little chat. Danny, I'm a man of considerable resources and they need to be protected for the good of mankind. I shouldn't have to alter my face or change who I am. Sit down, your color is worse then usual." He scrolled down the screen of his cell. Doctor Light shines on Ben's skin… "Looks at medical records… Dr. Lau seems to be the best Onclaligest…Oh, he was flown in." "They said he had was in town for a conference." "I am truly sorry, but there is nothing I can do." "Good, because I'm having a delusion anyway. I've got to take my meds soon and eat something." He reached in his poach and handed me a bottle of apple juice and an energy bar. I sat back and drank and ate. Maybe I'd regain enough energy to grab his phone and clobber him with it or call 911. He let out a long sigh. Well, Master Daniel Applegate, you're quite observant. I originally got the idea of preserving human flesh as a young man I wrote a story about zombie tribe. Later when my wife took ill I'd hoped to prolong her life, I began my experiments. Worked with at London's medical school. But you are quite right, it's all in the chemicals I developed, various preservatives and reanimation triggering agents. I used reeds to replace my blood? I choose to have a lab here because I want to talk to people who aren't scientists! "Yes, we used a hot air balloon. Except I wasn't just dropped into a glacier, it was lowered by rope and pulley, I was inside a built an elaborate casing out of a stove used for library. I gave it a double hull, coated it with a concoction made out of tar from South America . The casing wouldn't be crushed by pressure because it was filled with my …. corpse and a gelatin substance found only in a plant in New Gueni. Coast of Newfoundland. In the spring of 1931 my iron barrel was pushed back up to surface as the glacier mowed it's way through the end of the millennium. Snail's pace. "OK, you had some ageless chemical to keep from rotting during the thaw but how on Earth did you wake up and get your heart started? How did you even get out?" "Iron two inches thick is an excellent conductor of heat, you know, even on frosty days when the sunlight peek through clouds, the casing heated up the gelatin substance expanded and broke the rivets on the outer hull. As soon as my skin was exposed to oxygen, my blood began to circulate, feeding my brain till I grasps took my first breath in 141 years. You see, when a baby is born, something tells him to wake up and start breathing air." Chemical reacts to oxygen. "But, a newborn's heart is already beating in the womb, he's growing, aging." "Yes, I am also more along the lines of a zombie in that respect." "But why do you look younger if you're an undead?" Managan skin "That's the chemical reaction to the process. Oh, my heart is beating now. Nothing took longer to perfect that contraption, 30 years of late nights, it was a crude defipulator of sorts, a large wound up spring friction created a small electrical charge, but the main reason my heart came back to life was a rubber mallet designed to slam into my chest in just the right spot. The fuse that sets things in motions was made out of a bamboo tube, filled with frozen water, when the ice inside melts after the container is cracked open and with a zap and a wham Frankenstein immerges." "I don't believe a word. You couldn't do it without help. I've just been because of all the medication and thoughts of death." "I woke up in the snow, having no idea who I was, or where, there was nothing but blinding white in every direction, the sky was a ceiling of clouds. My teeth were chattering, I felt like I was made out of ice, rivers of ice running though me, stabbing me with needles. My head was pounding, my chest felt broken in half. cerebral edema (brain swelling) (He is sort of a hybrid of human and zombie…Trying to perfect things so we can go back into sunlight like young Disney can. Winks at Danny.) Where is the blood? He still had pink blood, waiting for a transfustion. Mini lab top… Instinct told me to light a fire using the bag of coal and matches inside my container. But my hands were too numb, I couldn't get the blood to circulate. Frost bite had began to set in. "So how pray tell did you warm up?" "Two fisherman came by and I instructed them to quickly light a fire under the half of container I was laying in. My mouth didn't work but the pile of gold coins and note worked, They just happened to pass by, near the mouth of a glacier?" "I designed a blow horn, kite if the wind happened to be blowing that day. Turns out they couldn't read, could have robbed me but figured there was more if I stayed alive. A cash of gold watch diamonds to start my new life." Buns their daughter. 1931 to 37 67 to 73 91 to 96 Where are you getting this stuff? Research is what we do, we have contacts in law enforcement, various government agencies, we accidently tap into their main frames. Someone brings in his bag, takes his car keys… Suddenly rear exit that led outside flew open, a man and a women appeared, they quickly marched over to us starring me up and down, they seem to have military authority, lethal gazes, it looked like someone took a General and a drill sergeant and put them in white lab coats. Flowing coats Ben Franklin greeted them warmly. "Hey, Dolores, hey David, I was hoping you two were working late, what are we going to do with this pale bag of bones? He has the will and resources to blow our operation wide open unless we offer him mortality." "No, I just want to live a while, become a doctor-" The woman began to scan the screen of her hand held PDA and then gave me a dirty look and said "We had to take out giant loans to attend medical school, your money can't buy you years The research isn't there yet…God's will. Boat person… "Oh, he looks terrible." Said the man. "Let me get my sunglasses, his skin is blinding me." Said the female as she leaned in closer to examine me. "He some kind of genius?" Said the man. "He does have a rather large head." "No" said the woman, while reading from her hand held PDA, "but he boarders on brilliance. 4.0 "Every one in this room got a 4.0. Not quite perfect SATs, National Merit Scholar, well, well, his essays have won some prestigious awards. He's had a short story published. Hey, Benny this is a rare one like you, brilliant with an imagination." She looked right at me. "I got no imagination, no creativity. Perfect ESTs, but a bad family, had to use my body…" "Don't be so hard on yourself Dolores, come to office latter and I'll teach you how to use the other half of your brain." "Jesus Ben!" The man snapped, "We have a crisis here and you are still trying to pick up my wife!..Look, the more creative Applegate is the more it's likely people will think he imagined this whole thing because he missed his round of drug…"(going through his gym bag.) I've prepared a cocktail A. They'll be pulling his car back around here soon. There has to be a good quiet bridge between here and . Eric is out scouting now." "Don't worry Danny, it's an untraceable cocktail we've perfected that puts one in a comma until we have someone administer a. We have to keep you down until we relocate. "We haven't perfected Cocktail Omega yet. "The others we did that to were healthy. He may not be come out of it." "I told you I want you to freeze me, or kill me." "Danny" said Ben "I keep telling you we don't have the resources yet, we've lost several subject matters. Primates… I got lucky with the batch of chemicals I used. Island… My wife and didn't make it. I saw there… "Can't you charter a ship? Wiped out Ironically it was volcanic activity that created the gell-plant…It's made up of active cultures. I never ventured there, I bought the supstance from traders who used it to preserve vegetables… It was too rare, is unusable once it expanse after hitting sunlight. Took me years to get enough… doesn't need sunlight… Bought a nuclear sub from Russia, we'll prob around undectected eventually. Captain Nemo! The main chemical for the protective gell is from Indonesia, a small island in the Sundra Straits. But all life on that island was destroyed by the ash and punice of that damn Krakatoa eruption. 1883. seismic activity Krakatoa Krakatoa ash, and pumice Sunda Straits my wife and kids. Do you think it's a coincidence that John Addams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day?" Some found my notes, hastily done . Or they are in a glacier somewhere waiting to come out. Budget tens of millions, we need hundreds.. I got hundreds! He sees Disney in the hallway… A young Disney… Ben: Danny, Couple hundred mill, just a thought… While the husband readied the hypo, the wife shinned a flash light in my eye, but keep her distance. Ben gave a nod to two of the maintenance workers and they came over and grabbed my arms to secure me in on the bench. I decided to put up a fight with my mouth..words. "You all want to go to jail?! If they find you my uncle and father will make you all disappear for good." Then I began to cough. The woman took my pulse. "I don't like this, he may not be strong enough to come out it. The other subjects were healthy. Can we just keep him somewhere while we move." "No, his family has too much love and money. His father would hire the mob to find him. Foul play can't be suspected. " (layers of trust to get a dime) "This is a trick isn't it? You just want my money, don't you?" "Danny, we have money, what we need is time to finish our research without disruption. Our cryonic process won't be ready for a few years at best," said Ben. "Can't you speed it up by hiring more people? Make me a Ginny pig with what you got now, I'm dying anyway. I've got millions coming!" The man looked at me, then his PDA. Our technians can't hack into your account yet, but a few million is a drop in the bucket. We have a budget of tens of millions. Keep your money, leave us alone." "But I can get hundreds of millions! Really! From my grandmother's estate. The transaction is sealed till I turn 21." I said my voice going horse. Dolores smiled at me. "Such an honest face. Benjamin, did his grandmother have that kind of money?" "Oh, they told me his grandmother's family does, "Just inject him already, I can't stand to hear the poor boy whine and beg." Said Ben. "Some things are in God's hands. (Tamper with God.) Then Delores broke in "You know with a couple hundred mil we could buy that island (Live off interest) and have an uninterrupted full scale extivation for gelatin cultures, have that underground farm we've talked about. I might go for a kid like this. If he's rich Better looking with money." Age backward.(They have to hand sort and test each tropical plant.) Ben said "Woman, are you trying to make me jealous?" "Ben you are this close to me injecting you instead!" Screamed the man, "Now hold him down and let's get this over with." He swabbed my arm, I buckled as best as good and did some screaming of my own. "Wait 30 seconds. Look up Labco Cosmetics. It's a billion dollar company I own a giant chunk of it." "The French company, is that true?" The man asked Ben. Ben said "Oh, I'm sure he's got some token stock, something about how his grandfather on his mother's side founded the company. But the stock is public and spread out over dozens of heirs spread out over here and Europe. " "My grandmother had controlling interest she willed it to me because I'm the only grandkid who even finished high school." "Could that be true?" Said the man. The wife found the data on her PDA. "Dorathy Fotaine, she died two years ago in Grenada. Evidently there was quite a battle for controlling interest in the company. Oh, Applegate is only one of six grandkids from her three children. They're mostly a bunch of deadbeats living the jet set." "I was her favorite!" I whispered. "The only one that took college seriously. Wanted to work in two generations. She knew I'd keep the Ben said "The stock was spread evenly; the board of directors control everything. No one can sell big chunks. His mother was disinherited and banished to America before Danny was born, I doubt he saw his grandmother very often. Now, let's get him under, then get an IV into him to replace fluids before we take him to his car. "I spent summers visiting my grandmother's estate in Grenada!" "His passports don't show that, and he looks like's he's never been in the sun. He went to summer camp in Maine." Said Ben. When I wasn't looking the needle went into my arm. The janitor had sat on my arm to keep it from moving. I could feel something enter my veins and work its way, I knew I only have moments before darkness set it. As I got delirious I said. "Dig deeper! Law Firm of . My cousin found out the secret transition last year and offered me several hundred million for my stock, he said he'd over-pay so he and an investment consortium can take control. The French bastard, his brother's and I used to fight every summer in Grenada. My mother only thought I was at camp. Put me down you big bully." As the darkness envoped me I had a flash back to those summers. Only I was no longer speaking English, but French with a strange accent. Then I was out like a light. I later learned someone drove my car not off a bridge but into a narrow ditch, they decided not to tamper with head trauma but create a story that I simply passed out while driving home after accidently mixing the wrong meds and went off the road. A state trooper claims to have seen the whole thing and called an ambulance. I awoke in a fog, bright hospital lights. Two figures were hovering over me, as they came into focus I saw that it was a very attractive middle aged woman and a very homely man about the same age. I rubbed my eyes; it was Wendell and Julia Applegate, my parents. They told me I was in a minor accident but that I would be fine. At more here… I'd often forgotten the stark contrast between my parent's facial features and the looks and gossip it could produce. When my parents began dating my mother looked like a fashion model, sharp facial features, glowing olive skin, and luminescent green eyes. My father however charming, looked like the villain in an old horror movie. When they visited hospitals doing charity work my mother would turn heads, my father would scare the children. Can't see pupils. I inherited my father's jet black hair, coal dark eyes with skin white enough to be luminescent. If you take a color photo of my father and I in dark clothes behind a gray wall, you'll think it's a black and white snap shot. My mother's genes did their best under the circumstances; I did not inherit my father's tiny teeth, harsh facial features or acme scars. Whereas I simply turned out plain my father had a face only a mother could love. Though it was never explained to me why my father's mother sent him off to military school at age eight and summer camp every summer. My grandmother disowned her Back then everyone agreed he could be Rambo's body double. My mother was on the board of a pediatric charity The injection of my mother's beauty. More selfish, shy…nonathletic… Mother didn't need a personality… But I had none of his charm…was only working on it. Indeed This union produced 20 years of gossip from valets to gardeners to top CEOs and at least one US President. "Why did that striking woman marry that rich charming man with pitted skin and a gangster face, was she that desperate for money?" Upon learning that my mother was a cosmetic heiress and had turned down many a proposal from handsome wealthy socialites, people were left with no choice but to see that my father was the most loveable person you could meet that in some rare occasions looks really are not everything. (Danny has the same charm but no sex appeal.) Looks certainly were important to me father because… It is important to note this happened less at pool or the beach parties as shirtless my father looked like Rambo from the neck down. He was a champion boxer at Yale and avid weight lifter still to this day. My mother grew up splitting her time between luxury apartments in Manhattan and Paris. No one was more superficial then her mother the international cosmetics queen. The story goes her grandfather was homely and upon winning a sweepstakes he married a beautiful prostitute which produced decent looking children, but when one of his sons began the cosmetics company he married the most beautiful women in France. This selective breeding still didn't produce the perfect child until his son married the most beautiful girl in all of Europe and they gave birth to my grandmother. Three generations of nazi went to hell when her oldest child ran off with disowned her… They also abandoned brains and soon the company was no longer ran by family members… She originally adored my father, like everyone else, then when she learned Retarded brother.. From the moment my parents were married barley went to school… The joke was my mother was a , my father was a model… Goes under… Listen to me, do more research if you are such experts, because I was the only grandchild interested in helping people and having a career she arranged for me to have just a little more stock so I could have controlling interest. my passport will show I was her favorite grandson. "You're the one that said he's everybody's favorite." He begins to sound like an islander and ben is familure.. My father's side of the family believes in working, father's corporate jet. Too pale… It's a billion dollar company! My grandmother owned controlling interest. Took a break… He thinks they plan to kill him, his father and uncle won't give up any money. Not real money. Then Danny begs because the real money is from his grandmother's company. His mother is disinherited, and he has cousins in France that run the company. "Will you do your research boys!" My middle name! Common like I'm the only grandkid my grandmother likes, I could have controlling interest in the company if I wanted to by the time I was 25. If I live, she wanted a doctor to run things like her father who started it. Researcher comes on the line, "Yes, I know about his mother's family, she's disinherited, there are like 20 cousins. "This is a trick!" says a Franklin team member. My parents suggested a member of the household staff to act as my driver. They discussed Christmas plans, how they hoped I had the energy to finish out the semester. I asked them the date and the year I realized I'd only been out around 12 hours.(disappointment in time not passing.) inside a mangled iron stove You know Danny, I never liked the idea of you driving all the way to that gym every night. But why didn't you tell us you made friends with a cancer expert while at this mysterious BEN AND DELOROUS: Ashen grey as if…energy saving light… The name Drawbridge.. I drifted off and when I woke up with hands on me, my parents were gone and so was my IV. Awear of my heart beating with a powerful force… It was dark outside. Nothing was foggy anymore, I felt clear headed and stronger than I had in months. I could feel my heart beating strongly. I recognized the Doctor taking my vitals. She was much more beautiful in the shadow less florienant. light of the hospital room, striking. "Hello Dolores…?" "Dr. Dolores Wong. I have privileges at this hospital. Earlier I met your parents and told them I knew you casually from the gym. They gave me permission to run some tests. How do you feel (nickname for him.)? "Better than I have in months. Am I cured, did you…" "Danny, this time you've only been out about six hours. Sorry, you're still terminal." "I thought you were going to put me in a long comma and -" "We're in the process of relocating our lab just to be safe, yet somehow you convinced Benjamin to with project Omega …inject you with what we have so far and stuff you into the prototype container we were planning to use on an elderly gorilla from the Brook land zoo. I am still advising against putting you under because I think your body is too weak. But Benjamin says your story of being such a world class money bags seems to check out and he may just take you up on your offer. And you'll be happy to know that this afternoon we took the risk illegally blasting you with enough experimental drugs to keep the FDA busy for years." "To build up my strength, so I can take the big freeze?" "Or kill you long before we get you into the chamber. Danny, not only is your body fragile, you are too young to mentally handle the backwards process, no matter how much we've managed to slow it down. Because of your travels, your education and elite family social circles, in some ways you are wise beyond your years, in other ways you are immature, your life experience and social skills are less than the average 20 year old. You know you are not as plain looking as you think you are. You are a nice, generous guy whose driven sports cars worth six figures since high school. But there's no record of you having a girl friend. Oh, we don't think you're a virgin, but have you ever been in love, have you ever even really kissed a girl? "Who cares!? That is one of the reasons I want to live." I became shocked and delighted at my newfound boldness. I looked her straight in the eye. "Beside Delores, you're the only woman I've ever loved." "We definitely gave you too much root of boast heart… matting drug…. Then in strolled a man carrying a clip board wearing a business suit under a white lab coat, it took me a moment to recognize it was Ben Franklin. His hair had been cut, and tinted darker. His bifokales gone.. "contacts are killing me." His skin. He's wearing make-up…He has a visitor's pass. It's not really a big freeze or cyonics. It's a gell of active cultures, we use ice on the outside to preserve the gell which reacts to heat. "Hello Doctor Wong, Master Applegate." He gave me a reassuring look. "You look much better. Going over Dr. Wong's notebook. A fine geiinne pig. He noticed me gazing at his visitor's pass. "Oh, I'm not masquerading as a doctor; I'm simply Frank Timpson, an observer, a pharmaceutical representative. You see, we occasionally have to do business with legitimate drug companies, they think we're doing research on extending life by a decade or two not by centuries. One of our companies Shadow corporation funded by a think tank, experiments in natural ways to extend life. We have a few doctors on staff part time…pharmasts.. Good cop bad cop, world leaders. I sat up in bed. "I feel like I could run a marathon right now, what did you give me?" "Himialain roots mostly and a touch of Easter Island moss. Now stay in bed lad, we don't want to arouse suspicion. The cocktail of herbs and spices we gave you may be all natural but it's at near toxic levels. Does it make a believer out of you as to the depths of our clinical research?" When you add chemicals it breaks things down,,,, "I'm a desperate man in a state of delirium, willing to believe anything as ridiculous as this charade. But I'll admit I do have a mossy taste lingering in my mouth." "Wonderful. "At considerable expense we've spend the last 20 hours hacking into your money story. As a… let me applaud your family's vapid skill of hiding your true assets and the extend of your relationship with your mother's family. "Here's how it's going to play out: We put you under and if we can bring you back then the cancer will reverses, it goes into remission and then disappears altogether. That is only if we can bring you back. If you do happen to live, you eventually buy us an island and so forth; if you die and rot away we both lose out. For you to gracefully transfer to us the type of money we're talking about would take several years, various charitable fountains would need to be established along with a misleading corporation that thinks there's a gold vain on the island. Too rocky to sustain life, to remote for tourism or nosey people. Our network has contacts that reach into worldwide banking circles but when it comes to sealed accounts and off shore money we can only depend on secondhand information as the result of our first class bribes. "More research is being done, yet every indication is that you're grandmother only needed to give you a handful more shares than your cousins to give you controlling interest in her company because they couldn't pool together. Several sources tell us the rumor that your cousin one Raul Franko a Paris playboy and trust fund baby has offered you over three hundred million for your shares. He does not have that type of money. But he somehow has dealings with venture capitalist that do. The problem is your shares and even controlling interest in the company is not worth anywhere near a third of a billion dollars. Did your father check out the vultures your cousin's in bed with? "Oh, yes, the offer is legit. Raul didn't finish high school, but he went to the finest prep schools with some rich clowns, one who just inherited a few billion, I think his group just plans to use my cousin so they can date high fashion models. They got some lame brain business plan to take the company international, immerging markets like China. Dad told me they'll fail but to take the windfall and use the money to build a clinic in Africa or something." "Well, let him, lust is what has fueled many a successful business enterprise. Delores said "It's the whole reason Danny wants to live…Then he'll help mankind." "I know enough about cosmetics to tell you are heavily made-up." "You've got a keen eye. Delores when you made me up you told me it was undectable." "Whatya expect I grew up around cosmetic heirs." "I hate florescent lighting! I only venture out of controlled environments when it is important. Although we are not ready we've decided to put you under. Refersal.. "Two thirds of the committee has decided against it, the monkey's …you overruled them!" Said Dolorous. Ben looked at me and smirked. "Me, the original Ginnie pig, if only that glacier had delivered me back to society ten years earlier perhaps I would have been able to prevent women from getting the vote! It's not bad enough I have to cut my hair and die it, these contact lenses are killing me." I yelled taking advantage of my newfound energy before I ODed. "You'll cure baldness, grey hair and far sidedness later, then you'll send all woman back to the kitchen barefoot, but for now what about me?! When am I going to the take the big freeze?" Dolores laughed and slyly winked at me. I felt a wave of sexual arousal sweep through me for the first time in weeks. "OK, master Danny. First thing tomorrow morning, I want you to instruct your parents, personal physicians etc that you spent this afternoon and evening on the phone and on your lap top researching a private clinic in Newark, New Jersey. Thanks to your gym friend Doctor Wong, you've received inside information about a trial on a new experimental cancer drug. Talk about how Doctor Wong could lose her license for telling you this information, and since she has no real connections at the clinic you'll need to rely on money and family connections to get in on this trial and so forth. "When your people call our people, we'll get you in within a few weeks provided you sign a confidentially agreement and such waivers. Don't worry, we'll make everything look official, drug companies have new trials every day, we have a couple pharmidical executives in our pocket. From said clinic in New Jersey we will have you transferred in the dead of night to our facility. We need to transfer you to our lab and put you under for a few days. Hopefully if we arrange this the day after Christmas While at the clinic in New Jersey you'll have a bad reaction then slip into a coma right around Christmas day. You'll need to be transferred to a more equipped hospital. We haven't quite worked this out, but somehow with the hospital understaffed and what with a power failure caused by animal rights activists, somehow you'll get lost for a few days after being shipped to the wrong hospital. All because you insisted on being admitted under a different name and you accidently gave your parents the wrong fictitious name. But soon enough a John Doe at a County hospital will wake up know his real name and call his parents. We've been very success with lizards, dogs, cats, but we don't have enough long term data or their recovery rate. "Keep in mind we weren't even going to begin full scale testing on primates until late next year, however, we believe we can illuminate the redundancies, and have the chamber ready in a month. I'm sure you've heard rumors of secret cryonic labs deep in the basement of the best hospitals. Where there is a cylinder containing Walt Disney's severed head awaiting reanimation and so forth. (neck scars give Ben a hook like etc.) "Well, the government abandoned such a clandestine lab in the '80s, and we've leased it ever since. They think we are only doing research on sustaining donated organs, giving them a longer shelf life so they can be shipped further distances for emergency transplants." "We're not yet going to tell you where this place is Danny, but if you live, you'll love it, it's underneath the hospital of a decommissioned military base. It's now a private hospital, tall trees, expansive lawns, rock gardens. During Viet Nam the army was doing experiments there hoping to freeze severely wounded soldiers on the battlefield so they could be transported to trauma centers." "But that process never works." Said Ben. "You see, Master Daniel, they have it all wrong; the thawing process is too complex and destroys the viability of whatever tissue that the cryonic process hasn't. It's not about freezing, it's about sustaining; keeping the tissue in an active limbo where there are minute amounts of cell regeneration even though the heart is no longer pumping blood." "But you're the Iceman, you lived in a glacier for over a hundred years." "Granted, the subject does need to be surrounded by ice to keep the gentian and regenerating chemicals cold. But he's never frozen. And we often use silly monikers and talk like that on our unsecured lines we pretend to make secure in case someone is snooping around. Creating urban myths actually distracts the real journalists and government uj89hin mm,l nvestigators till they go away. "Inside the well insulated chamber I was surrounded by the cold gel, but the temperatures never got near freezing, I was closer to a hibernating bear living off the regenerative fat of the chemicals. You see there was no artificial method of making ice in my day, I didn't have access to chemicals created in labs, so I studied exotic plants, zombie legends and insects honey cultures…" I like chemicals and processed food, but for something like this it has to be natural … "Isn't it amazing" said Delores, "he did by himself part time what thousands of scientists haven't been able to do. And it's because he had primitive technology, he had to let nature provide the answers." "Oh, yes I was just a horny old printer's apprentice working by candle light." Delores let out a laugh so loud it puzzled us. "I just got it. Disney is in the fridge and he needs to be re-animated, get it." "And if Disney should reappear you'll probably leave your husband for him, but not me." "Only if his head is graphed onto a 25 year old bodybuilder." Thought about approaching other dying billionairs… but what made you world figure, provided you really are one, decide to give me a chance?" Greatest invention… "You're money my dear boy. Seems you're as good as hiding parts of your history as I am. Nothing in our original investigation showed you've spent summers in Grenada at your grandmother's estate. Then last night before you went under you began speaking French like a wild man. It was the remnants of a dialect I had not heard in two hundred years." "Oh, that, yeah my grandmother's house hold staff consisted of a large family, they all talked with these strange accents. When my cousins and I would fight, which was often, the servants would try to break us up. They'd yell for us to calm down and we'd yell back at them mimicking them like the brats that we were." "As you know I spent ten years in France as an ambassador. There once was a series of remote villages in Northern France that spoke in such a way, farmers, always at the top of their lungs. Firslty isolated. They came down from the hills after the plague and in order to stay together they took jobs as gardeners and household servants. During my ten years in Paris I came across a number of them. I just found out I heard a several families sailed for Grenada. "That was one of the reasons my mother didn't want me assioting with my Grandmother. My mother smothered me, but my father wanted me to experience other cultures and gain some freedom. "Your father went to great lengths to convince your mother you were in Maine every summer. Doctored photos, post cards, rerouted emails." "Allergies. He knew she hated Maine in the summer and would never visit me there, I particularly liked how he simply issued a directive to his security staff 'find me a boy about my son's age who's also named Dan Applegate, make sure the boy is poor, then we'll offer him and a few friends and or siblings free annual trips to a summer camp." "This is exactly the type of deception I've enjoyed. " Delores injected "You can fool some of the people some of the time." I was that poor kid begging for a handout "You used the poor boy. Rich and powerful people have to be so careful. And who's lives are we trying to extend, the rich. You used that poor boy." "To keep things off the record I'd take my father's corporate jet "Society should pay for college, not the whims of the rich…" Dolorus Rich people drop money…needed it… "How soon till you get me under?" I said. Doctor Wong cut in "I'll leave you two to debate, personally I think it is suicide. He probably has six good months left. But I don't like his cell count. He could take a turn for the worse even with our treatments, he might be too unhealthy in three months to sign any contracts. And it certainly would take several months to get the money from his cousin and transfer it to us." Ben "His cousin has the money off shore…" Talk about makeup "Bengimen, you can't fool all the people, a penny saved is a penny earned. I'll see you back at the lab tomorrow." "Ow, you know it turns me on when you quote me. Good night Dolores. He gave Dolorous a big wet kiss. She didn't pull into it, but she didn't pull back either which shocked me. Gives him a certain amount of money legitimately the rest in off shore accounts we can gobble up with our dummy gold mining company. Cell reanimation, speed up replacement… gell She caught me staring in disbelieve, "Oh, Sunshine, don't look so jealous, I'm just using the old man. You're not only richer, get you in a weight room and that body could really generate into something. She leaned over and kissed me. I was in love. "Woman, you'll give the boy a heart attack!" "oww, moss breath. Bye, out of contact, in case I'm followed. Ben looked jealous and yet happy for me at the same time. "Be worth it. Look Benjamin, I'll go along but I don't believe for a minute she's a real doctor. You hired her to help reel me in." He chuckled. "I interviewed a hundred MDs before I found a knockout I could flirt with. Put herself through college as a stripper. Outside of a little kissing to keep my blood pumping she's all talk unfortunately. "So the rumors of you being a slut are true?" "Me? I am a ghost who slips in and out of buildings." He took a device out of his shirt pocket that looked like a digital camera with a large flash. "See this? I hold it just so and it sends an enfer red signal to the security cameras in the hall that blurs my image just enough. Until I disappear down a cargo elevator and down through the boiler room out into the night. "Oh, my visitor's pass here will check out should someone burst into this room. But I prefer no one sees me. Tomorrow you'll go home for a few days before shipping out to New Jersey. You are not to mention any visits from me or my alias here. Yet, when you ask your father and uncle about Dr. Wong's credentials you'll be reassured and surprised, we know your uncle even sent an investigator to her old medical school today. Dolorous makes no excuses or tries to hire the fact that 15 years ago she worked as a stripper Mother died of cancer… Very insecure woman still feels the need to be needed, but only with the most powerful people. She truly as no soul, no emotion practically, but I love her. And so Benjamin went on to give me more details and instructions that filled up my head, made my brain spin a little in the skull. I was released the following morning, my parent's treated me like a dignitary as I was escorted out and into a waiting limo. "Any where you want to go for breakfast, the doctors say they've never seen anyone's vitals improve so fast overnight." My father announced, while cracking open and passing out little bottles of orange juice from the little fridge in the giant padded leathered limo backseat which always reminded me of a coffin. "Anywhere you want to go at all, dear you just name it." My mother said to me waving her hand. Oh, how wonder and pathetic that growing up in such a world where almost any request can be taken literally. I knew from birthdays or when I won an award at a science fair that when they said 'anywhere, dear,' it meant the jet was gassed up and I could name the continent. I settled for a quiet coffee shop as my parents loved the occasional venture into middle class life styles. I no sooner mentioned details of the Newark cancer trail then my father was on his phone to his brother requesting a three page report. "You know, son, we checked into this Dr. Wong, she's one of the top digestive disease specialist on the East Coast but she prefers to spend most of her time doing research with her husband. Hardly ever treats patients, you're lucky." "She also used to be a stripper" I said. "That's what poor people do when a loved one has cancer and they have to support the family and still want to finish college to become a doctor." "What has gotten into you, Danny?" Said mother. "Personally I like how Daniel's been coming out of his shell since he got sick. Son we may just beat this cancer, but… we all can't be Nick Caroway Just because Dr. Wong's makes no effort to hide her past, doesn't mean you need to bring it up. Mother, a woman as smart and as attractive as Dr. Wong, did not need to be a stripper, "Mom, we've all got silver spoon's shoved up or butts, how do we know." "I work for charitable foundations, the girl was frightened and she took the path of least resistance, yes, it is a nightmare to get welfare and college scholarships, but it was possible, she had options only a tiny few in that position do. Don't you see that's what makes her so insecure now, the realization that she didn't need to… I didn't use my money to reel in your father, I used my looks, It was the summer before his senior year at Yale that my father was playing Frisbee on a beach in the Hamptons when he literally stumbled upon my mother who was sunbathing. My mother was on a blanket next to her mother and they were engaged in a loud bitter argument, all in French. My grandmother was demanding that my mother go to college and quit loafing around the Hamptons like all these trust fund Americans. My father, dripping with sweat and wearing only a Speedo, tripped over my mother's legs and practically fell into the lap of his future mother in law instantly putting the argument on hold. As my father apologized with vigor, he had three things going for him; he was charming, his French wasn't bad and he was an Adanious from the neck down. The story goes my mother only began flirting with the Neanderthal looking American in order to piss of her mother. My grandmother was willing to tolerate it when they began a summer fling, after all the young man was in college and from a good family. Then the social circuit quickly dubbed my parents 'Beauty and the Beast.' When my parents soon became engaged and my mother still refused to attend college. The final straw came when my grandmother overheard a man talking about how many tries it took throwing the Frisbee on the beach that day to make it land right near the two arguing French woman. Turns out my father hadn't even known the thrower till he promised to buy him a case of beer if he could make the Frisbee land in the lap of that striking woman over there. Thinking it harmless my father later admitted to my grandmother that he had walked right passed them a dozen times that morning and was captivated by her daughter, yet nothing, not even his chiseled physic could get her to glance away from her arguing mother.. So my father had lied when he said looks weren't important Ironically my grandmother forgave my father and arranged for me to visit my grandmother. She never totally forgave my mother and they rarely saw each other. This knowledge of my mother's wiseness made my head spin. And so home I went, details were arranged as I behind the scenes (Fitzgerald). Five days later I hailed a taxi from Newark airport which took me to a nondescript beat-up grey building in Maplewood New Jersey. I later learned if one drove around the block you could see this long old building was actually the wing of a modern hospital with immaculate grounds and aretechure … As if the whole building been remolded but they'd run out of money and let the cancer ward remain bald and faded grey…face lift. I insisted on going alone and asked that they not visit me for the first month. And so I went in as a civilian, white and fragile looking as Ben Franklin's miracle elixir had worn off and I'd never felt worse. Whatever palms were creased and elbows rubbed to get me into this trial, word of my being a VIP did not reach any of the staff I had contact with as I was treated as if my presence was a complete inconvenience. For the first time in my life I shared a room, it was the first time I'd even shared a bathroom. I should have gone to summer camp. The television had been angled in such a way that I could not see so much as a sliver of the screen while the volume was left at full force. The other three men in the room decided to sacrifice because they didn't feel the newcomer should be able to see even a sliver of the screen. And so I stuffed cotton in my ears and read propishtly, I stuck to myself and was ignored during visits to the dining area and lounges. My outgoing streak ended. (A bit reserved…) My isolation had benefits, no one noticed that I was not actually participating; I received none of the injections or undergo the tests that the rest of the patients did. The nurses gave me what I could tell was my usual oral medication, occasionally a doctor would swing by and give me fast and cold examination. As the boring days past slowly I quickly returned to my post cancer diagnosis reserved self. Finally at about three AM on Christmas morning I awoke to a stabbing pain in my chest. Standing over me was one of my roommates, as I gasped for breath I saw him shove a used hypo into a small container and stash in his pajama top. He winked at me and jumped back into his bed. I recognized the man who injected me as one of the gym's janitors who doubled as Ben Franklin's security crew. Whether he was a new room patient or I'd just never bothered to look at his face, I don't know. In seconds my heart went haywire, numbness enveloped me and the world went black. Then the alarms went off before I lost conscience the "Merry Christmas Sunshine." I kept my eyes closed as I became fully conscience, aware that I was in a new place, that again they'd decided the beautiful doctor would… This time I refused to play along . "Danny, can you hear me, are you OK?" "You know, they told me they were going to fake a heart attack not give me a real one." I kept my eyes closed, my face expressionless. "Sorry Sunshine, it was the only way we could get you out of that ward, I promise there's no permanent damage. Are you going to open your eyes?" "You know, Doctor Knockout, your spell only works on me if I let it. My body was torn up enough already, my libido is in shreds. A few years ago my uncle tried to boast my self confidence by hiring a beautiful call girl and have her pretend to let me pick her up. My heart and soul is damaged. Those weeks in isolation helped me realize how self-centered I am, that's why I never had a girl friend. Maybe I can actually help people rather than pretend to help people like my parents. I want to live; I want to become a doctor. I don't buy the good cop bad cop routine, you don't find me remotely attractive and I am not going to lust after you." She put her hand in mine, I felt her soft, creamy skin, she smelled of lilac soap. "Oh, Danny, grow up. We have a lot of work to do." I decided I would open my eyes and just ignore her. As I looked around the huge room it proved to be an ideal distraction. Modern looking medical equipment was gleaming white, beside it was dull green HG Wells. Carted in… hardware It was huge the walls looked like a military bunker; A tube was running into my arm… Heart monitor. Finally I our eyes met and I pretended not to melt. "How soon?" I said. "The chamber is ready. For the past several hours we've been giving you…etc, etc…We're flooding your veins now. The gelatin is growing… Sunshine, a part of you is dead, just like a part of me, I can be attracted to anyone, it is a terrible I flip a switch… I think you are too young, I don't think we are ready. You will not see me on the other side. Her husband burst in with a load of gelatin… "Merry Christmas, Applegate. Oh, good, your heart beat is back to normal." You know we both got into research because we didn't want to work on holidays or watch patients die." Dolorous …How they'll explain his remission… Over the next several hours, they took turns bringing new IVs. By the following day I felt like all my fluids had been replaced by seaweed. I felt like a zombie, drifting between worlds. During one of my lucid moments I saw another Ben type…pink artificial looking skin. Ben Franklin came in, a bunch of mumbo jumbo was discussed. A few more technicians came in. I noticed one of them has the same pasty complexation as Ben.. Then I went back to daydreaming. Bending reality. Then once again my mind was crystal clear, I found myself in mid sentence telling Dr. Wong's husband how comfortable it was in this container. I had been picked up and placed inside the iron chamber. It resembled the bottom half of a sarcurfaces. On a platform next to me lay the lid, bolt. The chamber was placed on a set of rollers. Several feet away was glass room, filled with nitrogen tanks. Gilant… "OK, everybody clear out and give me some quiet time with Master Applegate." Maybe no need for one on one alone. Soon it was just him and all that hardware. "You're not the only one are you? I'm not really the second, you've successfully done this on other people haven't you?" Notes, Jefferson. "Oh, Danny why do you have to question everything? Very soon you will drift off to lala land and we'll stop your heart. Don't worry about rumors or what is best for you, worry about what is best for mankind." I drifted off again, when I had another brief boat with clearity I could tell all the tubes and monitors were removed. My chamber was being filled with the magic gallant, it smelled like a compost pile. Those bastards had lied again, they weren't going to stop my heart, and they needed my lungs full of that crap. My heart was only going to stop after I drowned. Soon they would lower the lid and seal me in. No matter how long you hold your breath eventually your reflexes tell you to swallow. This time there were no dreams, it felt like a moment had passed… The next few days I seemed in and out of consicness, not sure if I was in a chamber or out of it by now. I heard voices…"Oh, here he is. His name isn't Dan Martin, it's Daniel Applegate the second!" "Hello Dear, can you hear, us?" "He's got some strange readings" He's been posiened, lets pump his stomace." Overlapping… Then awoke in a more lucid state, to hear only one voice. "Danny, can you squeeze my hand?" I squeezed her hand and peeled open my eyes, it wasn't Dr. Wong, it wasn't my mother, it was strange girl dressed like a doctor, but looked too young to even be a nurse, she was spinning around and taking the room with her. "Danny, do you know where you are?" "A cryonics lab beneath an abandoned military base in upstate New York? Tell me I haven't sleep past 2050?" She giggled. "Oh, not that again. You're back at St. Hope. I'm Doctor Wheeler, remember?" "Have we met before?" Like a carnival ride she and room slowly stopped spinning. She looked at me with…If I was back at St. Hope, I was in the modern wing. "Sure, I've been keeping an eye on you the last few nights, but this is the first time your eyes look clear and you're not mumbling. I'm very sorry but last week there was a mix up and you were transferred to the wrong trauma center. But you're fine now." "You're parents have assured us you won't file a lawsuit, a week ago there was a terrible storm and we had a power outage and some of the backup generators failed. Of course we wouldn't have lost track of you if you hadn't checked in under an assumed name." "What do you mean I'm fine, I had a heart attack." "Because of the name mix up you were given the wrong meds and you had an allergic reaction which put into a coma, did it feel like a heart attack? "I've got stage one….I'm dying. And you're too young to be a doctor." "I'm only an intern, but that's what you get this time of night. I skipped a couple grades and entered Stanford Medical school at 20. And who told you you were dying?" "It's in my limb nodes, I need a miracle." "According to our charts you've been in remission for some time, we don't know why you even signed up to be in that drug trial over on the east wing. We've been having trouble getting your records sent over… But trust me, you have no trace of cancer left in your body at this time." Suddenly I felt a wave pass over me, 'cancer free?' Didn't they know it had traveled to my limp nodes, had records been altered? Was I really going to live. Old Doctor's records can't get ahold of. was it a dream? "How could I be cancer free so soon?" Your parents were also surprised at how long you've been in remission. You've had every type of test the last two days, they made me double checks the lab results myself. The lawyers and administrators have assured us you could sue the pants of this hospital, but it would be ironic because your family has a foundation that gives money to hospitals. You're an interesting case study, Daniel Applegate. Too bad they're insisting that your medical records be sealed." "My records will be frozen because I was frozen." I was crynoically frozen,.. She double checks the lab results just like his parents asked. Paperwork mixed up. Father took you to several specialists. "Danny, I know you are premed, you know how chemo and radiation can affect your judgment and memory. But if that's what it takes to wipe out cancer, lose some brain cells." "That's OK, you see I'm aging backwards now so I'll actually regain any brain cells I lost." She let out a loud sigh. "I know you got accepted to go to… next fall. Your parents tell me your professors will let you make up the final weeks of last semester. By next month you'll be strong enough to begin the spring semester. If you go to summer school, you can graduate and start medical school on time. But only if you stop talking crazy or they'll they'll give you a pysch evaluation. "You know they only put me into the chamber to get at my money, they don't care about me. You see the whole process Erasing the cancer. At first they were going to drive me off a cliff." "Danny, I'm not saying you aren't some medical miracle and if you are someone's science fiction project that would explain why we couldn't find you and why your records are all mixed up. But stranger things have happened to patients. You really need to keep talk like that to yourself. Studying science is hard enough, don't you think?" "Sorry, I'm still in a haze; I've been watching some bad old science fiction movies lately. Giving me weird dreams. I now remember I didn't tell my parents I was in full remission a long time ago. I wanted to wait before I gave them false hope. So Doctor Wheeler, barer of good news, what do you want to specialize in?" "Pediatrics. I've always looked younger then I am, so why not." Really caring about patients.. She felt relived, chit chat. told me to rest and she would check in on me when she got back on me tomorrow. And so it was I began my new life having to pretend I knew I wasn't dying. Pretending I hadn't got mixed up with a 300 year old man only after my inheritance. I would have to convincing my parents that I'd seen specialists before and used fake last names to hide our wealth. And due to this stunt records had got mixed up and I had a form of cancer that can in rare cases lapse into remission, perhaps in indefinite one. Only once before had I used an assumed name…GYM Chem 1A. Pediaters are his weakness… I took a series of catnaps and with each one woke up clearer. Toxins leaving body.. My parents showed up at 6 in the morning and spoke to me as if it had only .. I realized I must have talked to them in my comatose simi amby state. I guess all the mushy stuff about me living and the strange way I'd disappeared had been disgused and they already UNDERSTOOD. They told me I'd be released later that afternoon and then I could go 'anywhere I wanted for dinner.' This began to sound more exciting when breakfast came and I wolfed it down and I kept it down. My appetite had returned like never before. Be lyrical! After I ate a large lunch my sluggishness almost disappeared. It was in cafeteria that I Dr. Wheeler approached me. "Well, Danny, planning to put some meat on those bones?" "And take up body building if you must know. I was really starting to pump the iron right before I found out I was sick, nothing would stick to the old bones." She giggled and sat down and we chatted, the eye contact was strong, I asked her about medical school and didn't say a thing about my recently being in suspended animation. Maybe if I came back she could tutor me for my Chem 2b final. And the best part of Dr. Jenifer Wheeler was her plainness….Giving me an opportunity to practice caring… "You know I'm not some hippie, swearing by alternative medicine, I simple believe some plants in there purest form offer…" Steals a quaote right from Ben. Great memory. Then she asked me if I'd ever seen the building's atrium and offered to give me a tour. HIPPIE. Danny never listened to anyone before, so he never thought girls like that were attractive… HE ONLY THOuGHT he was popular because he did favors and was generous. He never listened, his parents and bachelor uncle spoiled him. His Grandma liked his work ethic. The hospital double doors made a loud swish, I had not been outside in weeks and felt like a vampire as I step out in the courtyard squeenting. The air was as crisp as I'd ever felt it, the sun was high. The atrium was warm, greenhouse, we sat on a bench by a little waterfall, it seemed like we talked a long time before I asked her why. She said she was only on-call today and decided to come in and say good bye to me, I seemed interesting. Nervous, I didn't know what to say so I said, "You know I love plants, I want to study exotic plants, maybe go on an expedition." "My parents own a nursery, I love plants too, that's why I find you interesting." "How do you know I love plants, do I look like I've been outdoors, that I've ever gardened? Look at my hands they belong to a girl." "Danny, you kept talking about plants in your sleep, particularly extinct kraktoa moss." "I was delirious, for all you know I hate plants and just wanted to get close to you." She giggled. When they finally found you and brought you to the VIP ward someone brought all your books and magazine's over from the East Wing. They were all about We talked probably another hour and I was hooked on her, she told me she had to go, but that she had Tuesday off, maybe we could get together for a tutoring session. I told her my parent's house had greenhouse, but I'd never seen it. "Listen Gail, I know my parents bribed her, she stormed off, out of my life forever just like Dr. Wong. And so my first girl friend would have to wait. All I wanted to do was go home I returned home, the gates had never been wider… my uncle came over and we had great dinner. My parents said they'd never seen me eat… Had Chinese food delivered. SENSORY!! I awoke the next morning by sunlight streaming into my cottage, at last no one was standing over me prodding or pontificating. Thus began a year's long habit of climbing out of bed, stretching and looking around for Ben Franklin or one of his cohorts. Discovering that my appetite remained vigorous; I made fast work of the Chinese food left-overs I'd put in my mini fridge. Before showering I dug out my old journal and notebooks and eagerly began to outline a diet to gain weight and build muscle. At last I was able to capitalize on all the researched I'd done last winter break when I'd decided in earnest to build myself up. I spent the next few days of my new life rejoining the Applegate clan, seeing old friends home from college for the holidays. I learned further what a jerk I was. My parents had a cocktail party etc. In between I spent time running around to health food stores, buying supplements, consulting books. reassure my class. between faith and reason. Congruence Galileo episode The next week I plunged into studying for my make-up exams, for the second time ever I inquired about hiring a tutor. (he was asked to tutor) While my body was healing itself with a supernatural force, my brain still felt like it had lose wiring. The college sent over a series of tutors, none were lovely… Not enough oxygen during suspended animation. I passed my exams and returned to Pen for my final semester. I still felt like an outsider and wished I'd been more of a joiner. Felt like the college experienced had passed me by but it wasn't too late for other things. By early February, I was back to my long trek to my old gym, back to being a regular. I was greeted warmly. "Hey, Danny, where you been, hey, you look healthy, almost normal, what happened?" No one waits around for detailed explanations; it's not uncommon for regulars to be gone for a month or so during the winter. I drew laughs when I explained my weight gain and hair growth as finally finishing puberty. Someone mentioned how everyone looks better now that they got rid of that weird overhead lighting. The rumor was corporate had used this location as an experiment for energy efficient lighting but the project was scrapped. I knew it had something to do with Ben Franklin the quisi vampire leaving the building. Those lights were probably now installed in some other faraway 24 hour health club along a strip mall. You can bet that one of that gym's walls would be jozposed a recently rented space with a dummy store front or office space behind it or below it was Ben's apartment and lab. Each morning I still half expected a member of the Franklin team to show up in my bedroom, but I knew there would be no trace left of them in the gym. As is often the case, the janitors worked for a separate company that contracted with the gym, they spoke little English and avoided eye contact. Even most of the club's employees didn't know their names or paid much noticed when they'd been replaced. While the security team who moonlighted as unassimilated laborers vanished without noticed, the loss of that the popular retired teacher caused an emotional stir. "Hey, what happened to Ben?" "Oh, he was here briefly a few times between Christmas and New Year, he said he might have to move to Ohio for a while to take care of his sister who broke her hip or something." "Oh, man I hope he comes back. He was so entertaining." I hired a personal trainer and began a weight lifting regiment that eventually became a two hour a day affair. Every day 10 PM to midnight, then I'd hang in the sauna with worked on my social skills before and after… In March I turned 21 and began the long paper work process of selling my shares to my cousin, paid large finds and day and day. Explained to my parents how I was acting strange because I had a new lease on life and had suffered brain damage allergic reaction… This was parically true, I couldn't focus like I used to. By the summer I still remained cancer free. Explanation. Finally got my first girl friend at the gym. I explained I barly passed chem 1-A. How people go to college and have jobs and girl friend was amazing. I finally took my parents up on the offer flew to Hawii, shirt off. Broke up with first girl friend… I entered Medical school in the fall and . It became a struggle, I began to depend on study groups. At last I had the confidence to date regularly, but I actually had to avoid having a serious girl friend because I had to study so much. Neglected his parents who needed him as their looks faded… His parents grew apart without him… The money sat in escrow, no one contacted me. My father's bank, I bailed him out…Parents got ripped off in a hedge fund, wall street…economic down turn. They kept personal fortune, but wanted to keep the company… Father sold jet. When it became clear I would never be paid back, I theorized decided Ben had invented the financial crises and got his money from me that way which wouldn't arose suspicion. I got hard bodied within two years. Funny how I became obsessed with being muscular but didn't care if girls looked good. Another thing became perfectly clear, my facial features, my beard got thicker, my age had not leveled off or gone backwards. No longer the golden boy. Bottom third of the class, but I would be a confident doctor, never a surgeon or specialist. Four years later I accepted a residency only because of family connections. I kept a nest egg for myself and After the first year, I had more free time and hired investigators. I tracked down Gail and aplogiesed. I told her I'd donate money to her clinic but that I'd given most of it to my father as a bail out. "Danny, you're such a hard body, I'm still an ugly duckling." Finally I became a fully licensed doctor and asked Gail to marry me. We went on a trip collecting exotic plants to celebrate. Investigators gave reports, no more gym lighting… Work in a children's clinic…spend most of what was left on my money on that. I decided to postpone starting my new job for a few months…put pieces of the puzzle together. I hired people who hired people, ex CIA, my uncle's corporate security company. I arrived in Paris a lovely day, flew commercial gone were the days of private jets.. my cousin had agreed to see me. He had become CEO of the company, they bought back all the stock and became private, not having to give details, they'd also expanded to Russian and China.. What a minute? If Danny thinks cuz is a zombie, then he knows the things works. DR. Wong was real, hired an actor to play her… When I found out my playboy cousin was a recluse, but did go out at night, no longer went sailing. Danny already knows he's a zombie. When I saw him it all even made more sence. "Well, Daniel, you're buffed. Just like your father. "Let's go outside? "No, " "I figured out you were behind everything, He says he knows he got the money from him through the bank…Hedge fund… Danny has bribed his security guard… shows him the switch… swat team Liechtenstein I hadn't been to the head quarters in years, the marble and granid, staffed with supermodels, smelled of perfume. Giant photos of models… I was ushered through a back way. He'd taken my grandfather's old office and made it look old. Outside was a patio, forest, planted by my homely grandfather, Gail would love it. Strangely the room now had drawn curtains so thick you couldn't see light coming through the windows. "My God Danny, congratulations, Dr. Applegate. I'd heard you've become a body builder, but wow, you look like you could settle up for all the times I beat you up." He shook my hand warmly. Time had not been kind to him, he looked soft and run down, trying to build a global dynasty. "You'll be surprised at all the things I am going to do to you to settle up." ## Had to leave him with enough brains to sign over shares. "You know Rene, you're biggest mistake was letting me become a doctor and leave me with enough money to play with." "What are you talking about?" "It wasn't easy, but I put enough of the pieces together. I can't believe you went to such lengths just to get my shares in the company." "And what did I do American genius?" "You always called me the creative one, the smart one. How the hell do you even begin to get the idea to hire a Ben Franklin lookalike?" "What game are you starting? I thought you came here to ask me for money. Does your father need a bail out?" Ultimately Cuz took advantage of that imagination. He used to believe anything. Did it right under the nose of his uncle's company… "You've always been stubborn and dull-witted. You came into quite a windfall after grandma died, so you had the cash to hire people who could hire people to come up with the plan to shake me down. Did you think I wouldn't be able to turn around and hire people too, that somewhere along the lines I could have bribed people into talking?" Found a leak. "Oh, Danny Genius. I overpaid you for your shares, you agreed, now seven years later you want to be part of the company? I can give you a reasonable handout till you get a practice going, sure, you want to be involved, maybe a seat on the board of directors? But stop talking nonsense before I have to ask you to leave." "I would like to see you try Neopoline, you know you used "Big American, grew up in a castle. Parents ignored him Always talked down to me. You with few friends and no ladies trying to tell me what bad decisions I made. Oh, I have never been too bright, but my genius is hiring the right people. I gave up on trying to buy this company from you and we were working on acquiring another one. I had already left you alone when I got word you were dying, I feel bad for all the friction between us as neither one of us had brothers, we could not be friends." "I didn't get that phone call or letter." "My mistake. I figured you'd think I would ask you to reconsider the offer. I guessed your shares would go to your parents and they would continue with you and yours and our grandparents wishes. Then you contacted me out of the blue and agree to sell. Then I find out you're a medical miracle, look at you, look at me, what do you want from me?" "I never had cancer. I saw some of the best oncologists. You couldn't bribe all of them. You bribed lab assistance, broke into places. But the process of giving me undetectable drugs to mimic cancer? I still don't know how you did it. I just know that you did because I have chased down and beat up whatever lose ends I couldn't bribe." IT WAS DANNY'S SELF CENTERED SELFISHNESS THAT LET HIM BELIEVE! LONG AS IT BENIFITED HIM, HOW YOU CAN HAVE SERVANTS ETC… As teen they would sneak down to the beach, the parties, not TV, Danny grew more withdrawn, ended up spending more time with grandma as she deteriated. You were never athletic, not a sailor… We tried at first… I locked the door to his office that led to the reception area. "Renting buildings, buying equipment, you must have gone to Hollywood with some cash. You always wanted to be in show business but you had no imagination. Me, the story writer you stung me." "I haven't been to American in 10 years…" Somewhere along the line you need a real doctor to, hell no one knows what Ben Franklin looked like. Then you gave her… That was so brilliant He sat behind his desk to hide. I guessed he pushed the panic button on the floor. "That's it, you will have to leave, when you stop talking nonsense, we we'll talk. I have alerted my security officers, they'll politely escort you out. …" A shaved gorilla in a suit walked in. He nodded and when he stood next to me I was dwarfed. His neck was so thick and laced with cord it looked like even nodding might pull a muscle. My whole plan hinged this bodyguard being the first and only one to respond to his panic button. "Derick, my cousin here is not feeling well; take him out make he gets in a cab." "I don't think I can do that Mr. Franks." "You what? Oh, Derrick could have, he was a third degree black belt and former Marein. I know all this because we'd talked for hours the night before at the hotel. It wasn't easy getting one of his loyal henchmen to accept a bribe, but it was easy to approach them because he'd had several following me all week. Cut through wall… Derrick took a bribe. "There's been a change of plans, Mr. Franks, I'm forced to give you my resignation. I've already been to personal and turned in the paperwork, I'm waiving my severance plan." "Whatever he is giving you, I'll double it, you maniac!" "Sorry Sir, my wife's mother is sick, we all need to relocate to America. Nothing personal sir." Franks reached for the panic button again but I blocked him, he reached for his cell phone and I snatched it out of his hand. I threw him into a chair and told him not to move or I'd break something. Derrick went around to his desk, ripped wires out the desk phone and computers. He then opened a drawer and took out a tazer gun then handed it to me. "Derrick, you're mad as him. He doesn't have the money to bribe my whole staff. You'll be arrested for kidnapping. I'll have you extradited! If you even make it out of my building." "I don't need to bribe your whole staff. We're going to have some alone time and you're going to tell me …" "As soon as they see my phones are dead an outside swat team will be here. And what did you do to Loman?!" "Fast asleep in the ready room next door, he'll be fine in an hour. Loman was Derrick's partner; this was their day to be Frank's principle body guards. I had Derrick give him a little something extra in his coffee. When Loman passed out Derrick was instructed to disable the feed to the office security cameras, then buzz my cell phone. Derrick opened a cabinet behind the desk and showed me where the lever was hidden. I shook his hand and told him good luck. He paused to say goodbye to Franks. What he said puzzled me. "Sir, I've got very close to you the last few years, I knew you were working on some kind of medical cures, I asked you again and again to help my wife's mother but you keep on with the lies. "You know I will have you hunted down Derrick!" "I promised Derrick you would pardon him, or I'd blow the whistle on your operation. And if anything happens to me I have people spread out all over who will burn this place down and the constructions site in . "As soon as you hear the second door shut, Mr. Applegate." "Good bye Judas!" Said Franks. "Mr. Franks, I was promised you would not be injured or detained long. But if you don't make it, call me Brutus." He nodded to me again then with the speed and grace of the linebacker Derrick rushed out the side door. When I heard the second door slam shut I pulled the lever. The room rumbled. Gears overhead turned. Then came the slamming of steal clamping onto steal. You could not see a thing but you could tell the room was being sealed like a giant bank vault. "Wonderful, Daniel. I spent a fortune to creating this safe room, presidents would dream of this! Kremlin… ex KGB. 12 inches of steel. Do you know what kind of torch it is going to take to cut through these walls?" "Yes, I know you got oxygen, enough food and DVDs to last forever. International space station. You know Paris cops know some proficient free lance safe crackers, they'll have one here with a torch and you'll be out in less than an hour. "First of all my security chief will have to show them how to disable all the booby traps. When they see all the hidden flash grenades no safe cracker will trust that they've all been removed so they won't touch this place then the bomb squad will be called." He sat down and leaned back in his chair resigned to the fact that I had him cold at least for the near future. "Well, then after we have a little chat you'll have to open this place up from the inside and say it was all a case of mistaken identity." "Wonderful, Dajmnh niel, you've got me in my own game…How on Earth did you orgastrate this?" "Same as you I hired the right people. While you were watching my uncle's people I hired an independent surveillance agency out of Canada." "Derrick is the last person I would think would flip." "You kidding, we ran a profile of who was most likely to sell you out. We found out he wanted to move to the US, his wife was born there. You didn't know the real reason he was kicked out of the Marines for taking a bribe?" "No. Oh, your people are good. Now genius what do you want? "It was a piece of cake." "Why did you do all this to me? Why did you need our grandmother's company if you had so much money?" "What ever happened to you, you did to yourself, as for the company we needed an established one with old factories and offices. Better for the inspection process. You think I had a permit to build this room?" A terrorist, planning to overthrow the government!? IT'S ALL REAL WE'VE INFENTE THINGS YOU CAN'T TOUCH…HE HEARD THE RUMMERWS AND GOT MAD WE COULDN'T USE MA! "I am Jelus Cerser, stab me. None of Frank's investors were real it was Ben Franklin, tax advantage, connections in Swiss. And it has been almost impossible to trace back The mistake you made was hiring an actor to play Dr. Wong. Delusion, fantasy, important to santity. As important as reality for Danny. OK, so I still had the same face with limited features. In spite of having the physical of a heavyweight boxer, I'd never been considered violent because of my nerdy face. Actually I'd never been violent, until that week. "I am aging forward, that's what. I realize how smart you were understanding how you could get more shares of the company with me continuing to stay alive following my accident. But why did you allow me to finish medical school?" (kept him from wanting to run company) you know how to bribe people and create elaborate fantasies." "You couldn't arrange an accident and have me shut up? Do you really think the investigation of my disappearance would have learned what I learned?" Wong is aging forward…44. "Oh, you have nothing. Just your fantasies! Offer someone eternal life and they won't sell out. We can disarm terrorists ect." "Why did you put me through all this?" "You were nothing but a nerdy Momma's boy until you accepted my offer. Why, you ask? Don't you realize the limited aspects your brilliant global investigation?" "Look, a big part of me never believed I really met Ben Franklin." "Oh, when you were a kid you believed any outlandish story my sisters told you. You always let your imagination run with you. Running off to be alone after dinner…" "Then while you guys watched TV all night I'd go in my room and do chemistry experiments based on logic. I won science awards at school. Now I'm a professional scientist, not a dreamer! A few years ago when my father could no longer keep carrying my uncle's security company, I decided I owed him so I hired him to track down Ben Franklin or the actor who played him, I could care less what they found until it traced back to you." "You never traced anything back to me!" "Oh, no, you created too many layers of insulation there, but right away I found out your people were still snooping around and keeping tabs on me." "And that is a smoking gun?" "Who else would go through that much trouble? I found out there never could have been a lab in the building next to the gym. Some phony name just rented a house on the other side of the alley, people who only went out at night. The same dummy company also supplied janitors. It was easy to pay off some janitors to look the other way. Getting desperate actors with some medical knowledge wouldn't be impossible. But how many 8 by 10 head shots did you go through until you found a Ben Franklin? How much plastic surgery did you make him have just to be certain?" "You are the one who has watched too many crime dramas." "I assume you hired a doctor who'd lost his license, maybe a mob doctor to walk you all through it. Hollywood prop guys. Hippie herbalists. But to really sell it you needed my parents, my uncle and I all to have face time with a real doctor. A real doctor we check out with hospital privileges. That's where I caught you. You hired someone who looked like Dr. Wong who slipped in and out." He sat there sulking knowing that I caught him. "You think just because her husband and her were moving to Africa to I couldn't track them down? Why did you let all these people like me live, why not just arrange accidents. Divorce… "We are in process of life not death. And if you really had learned any secrets of what were doing here you wouldn't be doing pulling this stunt." He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes like he was going to take a nap out of sheer boredom. I sighed. As I was looking around the room he sprang out of his chair and made a lunge at me. I grabbed both his wrists with my hands and brought my knee into his face and threw him the floor. "That's for making me go through chemo!." He flopped about and cried, he grabbed his pocket handkerchief to soak up his bloody nose. "We didn't pretend to give you cancer, we gave it to you, you idiot. You needed chemo and radiation. We gave you drugs to faked hide the fact that you were in remission." He rattles off chemicals… Lab rat! "Oh, nonsense, I've practically lived in hospitals for years now, I've talked to every oncologist-!" "It's a mild strain only we know about… And you didn't meet a Doctor Wong double. You met the real Dr. Wong, we left clues so you'd think she'd been doubled. When you called her in Africa she only pretended not to know you. "Can't you see Danny, I too have become a scientist! I have logged a lot of hours in our labs. Doing more than cold cream and glittery eye makeup. Is that so hard for you to believe? You always said I was smart, just lazy. He asked him a medical question about cancer… You did not age backward because… "I want go home start a practice and have kids, I've got more than enough money left, my father and uncle will be retiring. No one is destitute. I don't care what you are doing here, I just want to know. Are you planning terrorism, market control what? Freezing world leaders. I will keep my mouth shut, I'm still self centered and selfish as long as my family is safe and you don't attack the US, I don't care." He began to laugh, he held his ribs, so hard I thought he might throw up. "Oh, that imagination of yours, ending greed and class separation, communist hold outs, that is impossible, cold fusion will come first. All we are doing is life extension, a fountain of youth! "Well, there is a lot of money to be made there, but what happens when people see it all a scam? Your game of cards will come crashing down." "I will show you." Franks reaches for a lever, Danny grabs him and breaks his arm. He falls onto the couch in pain. Barley forced it." "Oh, don't worry the room is still sealed, this just opens up a passage way from our basement labs." In rushed a woman in a lab coat. She saw my cousin rolled up in a ball on the floor holding a limp wrist, she got on her knees and examined his fracture and gave me a dirty look. It was Dr. Wong, or the actress who played her, I couldn't tell. She was seven years older and looked it. Wrinkles, mid 40s. "Daniel! What are you trying to do here?! Why is the building sealed off?" "My dear cousin is all upset when he found out it was all a ruse when he realized he was aging forward so he broke my nose and my arm." "they discus detailed medical stuff… I realized they both had detailed medical training, I couldn't stump them. "We are doing important work here, Danny, you have to forget you've been here. Wong: "You see Danny, we developed a way to control the aging. I had to break up with my husband as he was going backwards. Then you die of young age…We haven't figured out that part. Some day you'll come to us and ask for it. "Why?" "I'm 46 and climbing, his body is 25 and counting down." Oh, at 20 we put you back into herbernation. Cousin, "Where the hell is your husband? I told him something like this might happen if I let Daniel in here." "Well, you never leave the building." "Danny has to be dealt with sooner or later." Delores Deforest , "Aw, he's only going to be problem 50 more years tops." "I thought you left your husband because he was aging backwards" I said. "Oh, there's nothing wrong with two people meeting in the middle for 20 odd years, my new husband is going backwards too, but he's still older than me. We'll have at least 10 good years left until we become incompatible." They have no control over the speed, it varies, we are getting much better with the skin coloring and sensitivity to light." "We are installing a scanner, if you miss behave you don't get an update. Sub, this is of course years off mind you." It's been eight years. He practices for a year, before Wheeler has a family he must go confront them. "Well, well, well, Doctor Applegate I presume." I turned around and there was Ben Franklin, only now he was a man perhaps in his late 40s. Erect, his voice was deeper, stood taller, full head of hair only streaks of gray. His barrel shaped body was gone, he looked thick but with a flat stomach. His skin was still pinkish, but much more youthful and normal looking. "Look at me Danny, look at the actor, the villain. Did I run off with your money? I've been in the basement here all along. Look close, you did your rotation in plastics. Does it look like I've had any work done?" Suddenly I was that dying 20 year old kid wanting to be believe anything. He held out his hand and I shook it, gone were the worn knuckes of…and liver spots. I examined his face closely. There were no signs of plastic surgery. "But… even if you are the 24 hour gym Ben Franklin it's only been eight years, you look at least 15 years younger." "Oh, maybe I'm the actor's brother, maybe I had make up then. We've improved our skin and our lighting. I still can't speed much time in the day light however." "Oh, you're the new husband?" They both nodded. I gave him a wink and a smirk "So you finally…" "Spare the crude remarks Danny boy, if I can't break your arm right now, I'll be able to soon. You see we have no control on the rate of aging. It comes and goes. How much sleep we have, how much stress." "It makes no sence, I've consulted every expert, I've research plant life zombie, it's all got no bases. It's an illussin somehow. Maybe you made yourself look older then, or I met your older brother or your father." Ben chuckled. "Says you the make-up expert. Danny, we gave you everything you asked for back then, you promised you'd leave us alone. Now tell us what are you doing here? Why did you lock this place down?" "Do you blame me for wanting to know? You got all my money, you either gave me cancer or faked it. I have been looking around… Cuz "He thinks we're terrorist or working for them." "Danny, they'll be no more well organized terrorism when our work is finished. What world strong man wants to be a bully when we offer him immortally or at the very least life extension?" DR Dolorous: "You think Hitler wouldn't have stood down if he was offered another 75 years to live? Stalin, we are talking about twisted egomaniacs, Stadum Hussein. "Terrorists are supposed to be killed, or jailed not given immortality and investment advice. What an island to live on?" "You don't understand Danny, if we harm them, no one will trust us, they won't give up power for immortally." "We have a plan all worked out Danny, you heard we opened a factory in Russia, took over an old naval yard in … We are outfitting a nuclear sub, we bought it at quite a discount, it had barley been used. Which is ironic because a sub will go a million miles. Don't you see a sub can travel under the sea undetected. for months without resurfacing, they can live off the ocean, reproduce oxygen food, fresh water." "You're going to be Captain Nemo? Oh, that's rich." "Oh, Danny, Julse Vern also wrote "From the Earth to the Moon" a hundred 40 years ago. Don't you think people told him landing on the moon would never happen? "Oh, you've probably got him in a tank down stairs, lets wake him up and ask him." "Crewman aren't hard to get as there's a lot of out of work actors." Dolorous: "Danny, we can get great minds to work together, not just billionaires or tyrants. You see we put in a chemical. "You don't understand" said Delorous. "They have to check in, they have to back away from power and surrender. We basically insert a chemical time bomb in them. Every six months to a year, we send them to a random place and they receive an MRI that disarms it. They can't catch us. They'd drop dead if they got near this building. If you bother us again, we already planted this chemical on you, it's dormant. But we can adivate it and you'd need to keep it. Maybe this is when he finds out his cosin is a scientist!!!!!! We're not worried about current tyrants, it's the future one's we need to get to." "We use plastic surgery as a decoy, then they'll be rumors of a fountain of youth, but most people will simply vanish before things become too noticeable. Reimmerge as their children. We can't do this process to too many people." Could be working on cancer for life extension for everyone. 100 years or so. "Eventually everyone will know, we need people to die, to have children. It has to remain a secret. Until perhaps we can populate other planets. "It's mind control, it's Big Brother, it will backfire like all situations where you have absolute power." "No we have committees, I don't have atominu like I used to. Sure I dabbled in governments. But we are all scientists, soon our directors will be benevolent world leaders. Imagine Franklin Rosevelt… Abe Lincoln, Washington who walked away from power. "You've managed to fool almost all the people almost all the time." Danny is too selfish and not brilliant enough to join the team even with his wife, he has to let it go, maybe will come for you in a few decades maybe not. He's the one fooling them, they'll find out like a collapsing ponsi scam. you have to give us your word you'll leave us alone. Go have a family. We don't want to put you in storage. But for the record, we'll put you and your wife together." "You're crazy, it can't be done." He tells them Ben is only doing this to trick them. As he leaves he sees that Franks arm is healed and the hanky has pink blood, that's when he notices the light and that his cousin has the same skin. "Oh, come on Danny, you didn't know. What is that old American TV commercial we watched? To paraphrase, 'I'm not only the president of the company I'm a customer.' "You're a zombie too? That's why your arm bone was so brittle?" "We're still working things out Cousin. We can heal rabidly, cells regenerate but some skin cells and bone tissue are stubborn." "And if you're zombie, how is it you can you age backwards?" "First of all I told you we told have all the answers as we play god, mother nature plays tricks on us. Ben might turn into a teenager in a few years, then maybe a fetus, then a lump of semen before we can reverse it. I myself am not aging backwards at all." "Nether am I because there is no such thing!" Delorus "Danny, we told you you're not aging because we only faked putting you in suspended animation! I've never been under either, but I've seen Ben and my ex husband change! We still don't know how it works, but people can't stay the same age. We've had people die in the chamber." "I may be going forward because I was so young when I went in the chamber or because I had been dead awhile before I went under. I basically died 10 years ago when my speed boat hit a rock, I was vaulted on to grandma's front lawn.." Ben "You see, I got a job as a visiting biology professor at St. Georges in Grenada. I began dating a wonderful rich woman, I told her I was working on a mircle skin cream, she let me set up a little lab the basement of her barn. Ben visited Grenda! That's' the French accents he heard! Then I heard a thump outside. I told the gardeners "bring in the corpse, I'll see what I can do." "You and my grandmother!?" Dr. Frankinstien and…? "Well, we both looked to be in our 70s then. You had started college and could no longer come for the summers. You know if she hadn't died on a shopping trip to New York, I would have been able to save her." "I get it, she died before she could put you in her will." "I loved that woman, but she was as superficial as ..That woman and three generations before her spent all their time trying to make people look better and look younger. You telling me she wouldn't have traded her fortune to age backwards?" "Come now my step grandfather" remarked Cuz, she would have made a second fortune offering people He makes comment about bones being too brittle for sex. "OK, I said, I've decided to just let it go and live my life." "Come on Danny, we'll take you down stairs where we can get access to our parking garage, we'll have a car take you to the airport. We'll unbutton this place and tell everyone outside it was a practice drill that went wrong, no harm done." And so late the next day I was back in New Jersey, lying in bed with my wife. They promised me I could tell my wife, but no one else including our future children. They knew wife would never believe it and think I was kidding, my future children might. I told my wife the whole story and promised I wouldn't bring up the subject again until we were in our 80s. "Well, that certainly explains our first meeting and all your interest in secret phone calls and exotic plant research. Danny, before medical school you used to write short stories, you have to write all this down, but change the names, OK." Then she burst out laughing. "What?" I said. "How many people can say Ben Franklin had sex with their grandmother?" "Probably a lot more than you'd think. Living and dead. And I never said I met the real Ben Franklin, I said I can't see how they pulled it all off unless it's true. And I have to stop worrying about what is real." I got up out of bed and went across the room to my desk. "Hey, I where you going? That story made me Horney and I'm ovulating." "The thought of my grandmother having sex with a 300 year old zombie who only wants her money does not turn me on. I'll be to bed after that visual is out of my head." As I began to write this tale, I thought of the girls the smoke eyes, and I couldn't wait to finish it and return to my wife to hopefully make a baby. To love life, never be selfish or superficial. And so I write this tale and hide it away, change all the names and email it off anomously from internet café's with disarmed cameras. Should I die this story needs to be made public, of course in the event that I never die, well that's the life of the privileged I guess. A SKIN CREAM THAT REMOVES WRINKLES BY REFURSING AGING. Must speed up ending but also must understand that we need to talk about world events, thing Ben can do. You have And out he came, Ben Franklin. Much younger… BEN FRANKLIN IS THE FAKE, "biohackers" - innovators who push technological boundaries "Oh, I get it; you didn't hire an actor and invent Ben Franklin, an actor invented Ben Franklin invents "Oh, do you explain our medical knowledge?" "It's like writing out a cheat sheet, you do it enough and you memorize it accidently, I don't know." "Maybe your trying to freeze world leaders to get control. "Daniel they have heart transplants, hand even face transplants, what is so futuristically impossible about reanimation and after suspended animation! "Go on with your life Danny, or we will find you and put you on ice for a long time, we'll have no choice." "You can break in, you can hurt us burn down flisities, we're renovating nuclear sub, will be untouchable. "OK, Danny believe what you want, we faked everything, but our resources are such you have to leave us alone. His bone had healed. "Well we get a little brittle… NEED LOTS OF BEN DIALOGUE, he is the starrr!! I had allowed the ruse to begin, it hung over me, I had no choice but to let it go and return home pretending the world was lit by lightening. I'm pretty sure I passed a 25 year old Walt Disney in the hallway. I must hope it was an elaborate hoax. ### Now I saw in my cuze's eyes the same, he'd been caught and he knew it. My doubts about his guilt disappeared. There was only the look of faking bewilderment. Brief dialogue with Ben and Wong and husband before he goes under, Frankenstein's monster…with a military surplus appeal… The last thing I remember, I was laying in the container, before they lowered the top half and bolted me in. In a medicated haze I said good bye to my two trusted helpers, my blood had been thinned with the cocktail of chemicals, we used gravity to deliver them to my veins, an intravenous method using thin hollow reeds with sharp tips. To make sure I wouldn't swallow the gelatin substance as they poured it in, my heart was stopped with an electrical charge I don't know, they disappeared I bid good buy to my helper 'm not sure how long I laid there. The records were destroyed… Found by fisherman… Mirical, crushed by rock. "I met a man who told me how to not age. I am aging can't you figure it out?" Needs to eat. "Why can't I be an experiment? I'm dying anyway." "The process triggers reanimation cell division, that's what keeps me alive, to be alive you have to be aging. You can tamper with God only so much nothing is ever designed to stay the same. Death can be postponed." "You're aging backwards?" "Yes, ideal for a man like me. Can't see sunlight…! Lab near here… This gym is my only interplay with people who aren't scientist, who aren't after me out of curiosity. My lab is hot, not a great place, of course I have a suna. What makes you think I eat anything? Danny want to become a scientist. And I didn't lose any vertebrae, though I have shrunk some as my organs are a bit pickled. the reports of my being close to six feet tall are nonsense I helped spread as a young man. When I woke up the first time, I was able to clean out some records revealing my original height out of vanity and secreacy. Mirical, crushed by rock. CAN"T GO PUT IN THE SUN!!! Cuz used to be a party man about town… Cryonics is very complicated, it's hit and miss. We've yet been able to duplicate There was something in my stomake. You were a sickly child. I am robust as an ox. So were my mother and father." "Can I meet them?" "Don't be a smart ass! I will tear out a lung!" My mother lived to be 85, my father 89, the only time they got sick was when they died. I was not the only experiment, designed to look like a casket of a secret club.. At first I tried to freeze my wife. Let's say you gave us your fortune and we put you under There sending me your medical records Guards… Passes out… alarm on watch pain pill. Panic button on his dive watch… "Oh, just put me out of my misery." " He looked at me again. "Don't worry Danny, we're not going to hurt you." "Oh, go a head, put me out of my misery." I said but he was back on the phone, toweling himself off with his free hand." "Iceman to Ice Station, He was getting close to one girl who only picked his brain for information…Called Sherrif, files were being accessed. Layed in bed… Franklin sticks a needle in him… never play the rich kid trump card. The bubbles. ." "We'll do our best, but Danny, I don't think you're healthy enough to survive the thaw, I am robbing you and your family of goodbyes, of your final year on Earth. This is murder. . Will you get it through your head Danny, I gave you the cancer, so I could get control of the company. You're not dying. It was all fake, you were given drugs to fake cancer. Father went along with it? No. Julie had a sparkle that drew me in despite the fact that she was actually homely and more awkward looking than I was. (family in debt) During my final month we took long walks on the grounds of the clinic during her off hours. She became my first girl friend, I'd never been more confident, soon my rehabilitation became an intense weight lifting and nutrition program that became an obsession in my new life. Soon I was dating regularly at last. Within two years, I'd matured and my acme went away, caps Oh, I still had the plain pale forgettable face, (tiny features) but slowly my body began to resemble that of a heavy weight club fighter. The girl friends I was able to get were far from super models, and none were ever as smart as Julie. 2008* It began when he found large deposits in her accounts and loans being erased. He hired outside people to hire outside people to investigate. His uncle not really involved, just let his workers handle it. Danny figures that's where a leak is so he hired indenpentant people, There was no tunnel, the gym was just a temporary set up. Rented a near by house for the sharade. Finally gets his first girl friend to admit she was bribed. Finds a pattern, then hits a dead end because they covered their bases so well, but that is where they are easy to trace. Over the years you give the money to our shadow corp., cancer research etc… We'll pretend like you own stock, arrange a bankruptcy. You see, I can not tell you how disappointed I was when it all came crashing down some years after meeting Ben Franklin. Sure, it was a new lease on life, particularly when I realized I wasn't aging backwards but forwards filling out becoming weight lifter, my skin clear. Chuck. Keep your money and shares, I can't kill you And you can't kill me because it's all written down. I don't want the publicity. Disengage the harddrive for the camerasssss…. . I've always looked pale and sickly. He looked virile and sturdy He looked like one of his stoves. Danny they knew slaves were human, I looked one in the eye, it was a human!!! Where grown men paraded around the room naked, often showering off to cool down before reentering the sauna leaving dripping trails on the shiny tile. March 21: Franklin met George Washington, on his way to Virginia on post office business. He'd invented electricity, but …. after his blood had been turned to ice. "Well, Danny, that would make me 300 this year." Thomas Jefferson supposed stated that the only reason Franklin didn't write the entire Declaration was because he would include too many jokes. I had deducted that his experiment never forgive Washington and Jefferson for hanging on to slaves. In a sauna who can tell you're nervous? Everyone is red and sweaty. When you pray, god can't always save you, but you still believe. I'd been hearing we've done all we can. Kid dying, wants help…. Of all the founding fathers, he was the most athletic Throughout most of George Washington's life he had problems of continuing deterioration of his teeth. This caused him a lot of pain, and none of the dentists he went to knew what to do besides take them out. Slowly but surely all of Washington's teeth were extracted. In 1772 Dr. Baker of Philadelphia extracted several. Finally, George had to have false teeth made. They were made out of hippopotamus ivory and cow's tooth, carved by hand, and held in his mouth with metal springs. These false teeth were a little large for his mouth, creating a peculiar expression, which is exhibited in many of his portraits. Today, the teeth can be viewed at the University of Maryland's National Museum of Dentistry. This letter, written in 1781, requests cleaning utensils for his false teeth. Having been captured by the British before it reached its destination, the letter may have led the British forces to understand the where-abouts and movements of the General. However, this is not confirmed. And gold. Hippo ivory is denser than elephant ivory, harder to carve, and has a finer grain. There is none of the "engine turned" effect in cross section, rather, hippo ivory has concentric rings in cross section. Finally, hippo ivory is less prone to decay than elephant ivory. Chemically, ivory is similar to bone and antler, and comprises a collagen matrix with a mineral component. Unlike bone, ivory has no blood vessel system, and is therefore more dense. No certain early likeness of him survives, but what he outwardly was when he returned to Philadelphia may be imagined backwards from later portraits and various chance notes on his personal appearance. Strongly built, rounded like a swimmer or a wrestler, not angular like a runner, he was five feet nine or ten inches tall, with a large head and square, deft hands. His hair was blond or light brown, his eyes grey, full, and steady, his mouth wide and humorous with a pointed upper lip. His clothing was as clean as it was plain. Though he and others say he was hesitant in speech, he was prompt in action. I found myself on a park bench, tall trees… Groggy, I looked around wondering what I was doing in Central Park, suddenly I caught a glimpse of the Eithfell Tower, and my memory began come back. I still had my wallet, passport, watch and cell phone and I was wearing the same clothes, but somehow now they smelled fresh. There was a large bulge appeared to be in my breast pocket. Inside was an envelope containing a first class ticket back to New York, the flight was leaving in a few hours. People were watching me, somewhere there were operatives, I didn't care and I certainly couldn't shake up everyone. Then I found the note, written on parchment with what appeared to be a feather pen as Franklin always had a flair for the dramatic touches to add authenticity. It read: "Danny, sorry for the having to put you under again Please do not force us to relocate our labs, you can not break or expose our network, only hamper our research, Do not make any further inquiries, there are all types of living, I urge you to make this first round the best." I walked around the park, absolutely convinced they'd simply tampered with my tazer and set up another elaborate ruse to keep me away. Only the future would reveal. I hailed a taxi and made my way to the airport, I reread the letter in the cab, frustrated, I crumbled the letter up, then decided to save it. A signature of Ben Franklin. Franklin pot belly stove 1742 o Franklin organized and publicized a project to sponsor plant collecting trips by renowned Philadelphia botanist John Bartram. herb medicine s medicinal qualities appointment as botanist to King George III in 1765 voraciously comatose-like state resembling death Voodoo Zombie There are a significant number of researchers who believe zombification to be an actual practice, achieved not through magic and ritual, but rather through certain powerful drugs. These drugs make a person seem dead through extensive intoxication and slowing of the bodily functions. When they are revived, they are so brain-damaged that they cannot remember who they were or who their family was. Thus, they can be controlled by the bokor. There are numerous hypothesis about the composition of the drug: it may contains the poison of the fou-fou, or porcupine fish, or pufferfish that causes severe neurological damage and near-death state. The active ingredient that causes this "death-in-life" affect is known as tetrodotoxin, although little is known about this drug. Other substances from various toxic animals and plants, including the gland secretions of the bouga toad, millipedes and tarantulas, the skins of poisonous tree frogs, seeds and leaves from poisonous plants are also mentionned. However, pharmacologists have tested samples of the alleged powder on several occasions and found little or no poison in them. Slavery, haiten government ordered the plant destroyed. We are not able to replicated it from my DNA. Walt Disney Rotten to prevent Micheal Isner… Ben Franklin was there.. You think one man can learn all that I did in 50 years of adulthood. Damn Roman's ruined France!!! Daylight Savings Time "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative." "wide lawns and narrow minds". READ ERVING!!! In the year following the eruption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888. The eruption injected an unusually large amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas high into the stratosphere which was subsequently transported by high-level winds all over the planet. This led to a global increase in sulfurous acid (H2SO3) concentration in high-level cirrus clouds. The resulting increase in cloud reflectivity (or albedo) would reflect more incoming light from the sun than usual, and cool the entire planet until the suspended sulfur fell to the ground as acid precipitation.[14]

 

 

 

 

 

 

A boy came over to our house our house our house, a boy came over to our house to fetch his ball. So first we asked him in and we put him in the basement, yes we put him in the basement, in the basement wall. Chorus: And you're always welcome at our house, any time of the day, yes you're always welcome at our house, and we hope you will stay. V2 A lady came over to our house, our house our house, a lady came over to our house cause I wasn't in school. So first we asked her in and we gave her poison tea, and we put her in the freezer where its nice and cool. Chorus V3 A man came over to our house, our house, our house. A man came over to our house to sell a broom. So first we asked him in and ...(we put him in the basement?).. Where there's lots of room. I am not sure of the last verse. There are more possibly. you might try to google the verses. Other popular songs include: Last night I stayed up late and masturbated it felt so good I knew it would. You should have seen me on the long strokes it felt so neat I used my feet. You should have seen me on the short strokes it felt so grand I used my hand. Beat it whack it throw it on the floor, wrap it around the bedpost shoot it out the door. Some people think to fuck is really great but I would really rather stay up late and masturbate. Another song was the ever popular bang, bang Tillie. Stephanie knows this one better than I do. I know we did one version of this about the rangers that started. New Brighton had to rangers one was ranger Rick one was the son of a preacher the other was a son of a … bang, bang Tillie; Tillie bang, bang; who’s gunna bang, bang Tillie when Johnny’s gone away. There were other versions as well. The first song is probably the most kid friendly but thought we might want to share some songs. Yeah, biffbiffbambamsonofabitchgoddamn, highty tighty christ almighty rah rah fuck, fuck once, fuck twice, holy fucking jesus christ! ooooooohhhh shit, shit once, shit twice, do it again, feels nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nothingness 2006