So you like mad science fiction?
Did you know that Intruders starts on BBC America this Saturday night? After the AHHHHH DOCTOR WHO PREMIERE AHHHH Capaldi?! (You probably do, if you watch BBCA with any regularity - they have been showing a trillion commercials a day.) Well, I am super-excited for both. With that excitement in mind for stories starring awesome people and being about people who don't properly die but continue on in weird science-- I thought I'd reprint this short story of mine. Hope you enjoy!
THE BROTHERHOOD OF APPLIED SCIENCES
by Deborah J. Brannon
The men were brilliant, marvels and masters of modern science. All the papers would say so, would hail them as the conquerors of death and enhancers of life. Or would have done, if they’d ever heard of Dr. Henry Sexton and Dr. Adam Valincourt. The papers never would hear a whisper, though, and death would continue unchecked, blithely harvesting each life in its time.
Each life, that is, except for two.
Thanks to selling off some less advanced technology, Sexton and Valincourt had extensive financial holdings, a fully automated scientific facility, and a highly paid, tightly controlled security force. They returned to this facility every 60 years (a most sensibly-devised half life, given the times), downloading themselves into carefully engineered 25-year-old bodies which aged but slowly and bore faces of fictional descendants.
Each 60 years, their ritual was the same:
Once they finished with the less flattering conventions of their regular resurrections- coughing up fluid, staggering about, eventually attending to hygiene and dress- they met in a small, blue-painted room featuring a single mahogany table and two wing-backed chairs. On the table waited a tray bearing a decanter of aged brandy and two crystal glasses, carefully prepared by a discreet servant with financially-controlled muteness.
They greeted each other, sat, and talked about life.
At first, the previously sedentary scientists indulged themselves in wildly adventurous lives, throwing themselves into rare game hunting, extreme sports, and the fine art of womanizing. Sometimes, two lives might go by in such blazes of glory, or they might alternate with a more staid existence, focusing on mastering a musical instrument or building a family.
Henry was the first to degenerate: [click here to keep reading the story at my website!]
THE BROTHERHOOD OF APPLIED SCIENCES
by Deborah J. Brannon
The men were brilliant, marvels and masters of modern science. All the papers would say so, would hail them as the conquerors of death and enhancers of life. Or would have done, if they’d ever heard of Dr. Henry Sexton and Dr. Adam Valincourt. The papers never would hear a whisper, though, and death would continue unchecked, blithely harvesting each life in its time.
Each life, that is, except for two.
Thanks to selling off some less advanced technology, Sexton and Valincourt had extensive financial holdings, a fully automated scientific facility, and a highly paid, tightly controlled security force. They returned to this facility every 60 years (a most sensibly-devised half life, given the times), downloading themselves into carefully engineered 25-year-old bodies which aged but slowly and bore faces of fictional descendants.
Each 60 years, their ritual was the same:
Once they finished with the less flattering conventions of their regular resurrections- coughing up fluid, staggering about, eventually attending to hygiene and dress- they met in a small, blue-painted room featuring a single mahogany table and two wing-backed chairs. On the table waited a tray bearing a decanter of aged brandy and two crystal glasses, carefully prepared by a discreet servant with financially-controlled muteness.
They greeted each other, sat, and talked about life.
At first, the previously sedentary scientists indulged themselves in wildly adventurous lives, throwing themselves into rare game hunting, extreme sports, and the fine art of womanizing. Sometimes, two lives might go by in such blazes of glory, or they might alternate with a more staid existence, focusing on mastering a musical instrument or building a family.
Henry was the first to degenerate: [click here to keep reading the story at my website!]