Read Online The Resurrected Man by Sean Williams - Free Book Online

Trevaskis himself said that we have to investigate every possibility.”
    â€œHe did. But I don't think he intended you to throw it back in his face like this.”
    Whitesmith grinned, briefly. “What's the matter, Marylin? You don't look terribly enthusiastic about the idea.”
    â€œIt's not that.” She wished she could hide her face from the medical centre's monitors. “It's just—I don't know. Tired, I guess.”
    â€œOr not used to the idea yet that he might actually be innocent?”
    She hugged herself, stung by the word. “Definitely not.”
    â€œWell, we'll probably find out tomorrow, if he agrees.”
    â€œI guess so.”
    He signed off a moment later. She hardly heard his words of farewell. Her attention was back on the 3-D monitor before her, in which Jonah had stirred again, his skull-like face frowning as though in the grip of a terrible dream.
    Innocent …?
    She shuddered. Indira Geyten looked up, but said nothing. Marylin's gratitude never waned. The one thing she wanted no one could give her except Jonah himself—and that was the answer to one question.
    But she doubted, somehow, that he was dreaming of her.

Lying on his back with his head under water, Jonah listened to the muffled sound of his own thoughts and watched random images chase currents across the blackness above him. The patterns they made looked like glowing lattices, drifting gracefully in and out of focus. He might have been that way forever, for all he could tell—a passive observer alone in a sea of reflections. Time had no meaning; he was anchorless, drifting, lost.
    It wasn't until a voice called to him from the depths of the ocean that he began to wonder why.
    â€œJonah, can you hear me?”
    The speaker was female and her tone warm and comforting. A faint accent reminded him of his mother, although he knew it couldn't be her. This woman's voice possessed none of the overtones of resentment and self-hatred he would always associate with the woman who had given him birth.
    Click
    â€œJonah?”
    He tried to sit up, but found that he could not. His head remained submerged. For a moment he panicked. Claustrophobia and a sudden fear of drowning made him want to cry out, but he was unable to utter a sound—
    â€œBe at ease, Jonah,” the woman said. “I can hear you.”
    A sense of peace passed through him at the woman's words. The pressure on his skull and face eased, as did the paralysis holding his body rigid. For a moment, he could move, and he did so feebly, writhing on the surface of what felt like a waterbed, but one that didn't surge when he tried to roll over. He felt light, giddy, disoriented—
    Then all sensation ebbed, and he could no longer feel his body at all. He was floating in darkness, alone but for a voice whispering into his ear.
    â€œThere,” said the woman. “We have you stable, now. I apologise for the rough awakening. It was not our intention to interrupt a lucid dream.” The woman's tone became more businesslike: “If you wish to communicate, do not attempt to speak aloud. Your body is undergoing extensive nanotherapy and will not respond to your instructions. Instead, I have installed a prevocal monitor in your cortex that will detect anything you wish to say before the impulses leave your brain. The commands required to operate the implant have been written intoyour amygdala and do not require conscious direction. My records indicate that you were once familiar with this method of communication. Is this true? Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
    Jonah didn't realise at first that the woman had stopped speaking, or that a reply was expected of him. He did his best to remember what she had said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood.” The woman sounded pleased. “You will note also that you heard your reply, just as you can hear my own voice. We have provided you with postauditory and postoptic