“Hey, Matt, what were the names of the dead possums?”

  “Umm, Norman Dicker, Marilyn Zorazi, and, uh, Jinx Santayana.”

  Fuck. Zorazi, not Azori. But counting Zorazi that made five murdered possums. A thought took his breath away, and his spine tingled. If five had died by violence, could more have met their end the same way? Dreemont claimed they were double possums. But what was the likelihood that all the faces he’d seen in research had faked their deaths twice? He leaned into Matt and whispered, “I need info on more possums.”

  Matt shrugged. “I was lucky to dig up three. The sampling shows the trend.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gallup.”

  Matt snickered and thrust his thumb in the air. “Nice one.”

  “Can you try to check on a few more?”

  “What for?”

  Raphael looked around. “I can’t talk about it now.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  The company logo brightened as the room lights lowered. Dreemont put a finger to his lips as a signal for the crowd to hush, then darted to the door and held it open.

  In marched the Norval “angels from the east.” Money men from Wall Street. The six expressionless men divided into two groups of three and flanked the pull-down screen. Maglio and Maisie Sparod entered, and the angels applauded. The workers rose and followed suit.

  Raphael remained seated, lacing his fingers together and putting them behind his head, before discreetly dropping them onto his lap. He should get the hell out of Norval. Time to skate the lobby and say sayonara to this fucked up company. Only his curiosity kept him seated. This should be good. Primo Maglio bullshit.

  Maglio acknowledged the response with a slight bow, let it continue for fifteen seconds, then pointed at the employees, and raised his arms to clap magnanimously for them. He appreciated his workers. Maisie joined Maglio in applause. Everyone clapped for everybody. Maisie took it all in coolly, her eyes drifting around the room until she found Raphael. His guts twisted.

  With Maisie at his side, Maglio walked to the microphone. He tapped it twice, which produced two loud, static-free pops. “Thank you. Thank you,” he said, letting his arms float before him, tamping the applause.

  When all was quiet, Maglio spoke, “Today is Monday. Who remembers the singer that told us not to trust that day?”

  A hand or two went up. Maglio pointed.

  “Mama Cass,” responded the chosen one. “The Mamas and the Papas.”

  “Right on,” said Maglio. “The Mamas and the Papas, an iconic California band from the days of headbands, beads, and paisley. Alas, Mama Cass left us too soon, or she might change her tune about Mondays. For this Monday, we’ll remember as a monumental day, a watershed.”

  “A brave new world,” muttered Raphael. “Bring on the soma.”

  Matt leaned into him. “What’s a soma?”

  “A drug that makes everyone happy. Sort of.”

  “Over the counter?”

  “In a story.”

  Maglio continued, “Today will mark the beginning of a new chapter in humankind’s history.”

  Maglio let eager, whispered speculation spread throughout the room. Raphael snorted, loud enough to draw several sets of eyes. “Before I get on with the grand news, I want to introduce my partner in momentous technological achievement, Maisie Sparod, who many of you know as the creator of Web—lock. Let’s hear it for Maisie.”

  Maglio led the applause. Maisie viewed the microphone disdainfully before inching closer. “Some say genius is hitting a target no one else can. I say, genius is hitting a target no one sees is there. Geovanni Maglio is one such visionary genius.”

  And a crook. Half-hearted applause quickly faded. Raphael’s irritation grew. The arrogance of Maglio and Maisie lodged itself under his skin like an unextractable splinter.

  Maisie continued, “I was fortunate enough to have Geovanni trust me with his vision, and allow me to add what little I could from my store of knowledge, experience and—”

  “Larceny,” said Raphael.

  “—reflection,” said Maisie. “As a team, Geo and I have achieved … Resurrection.”

  The word rippled through the assembly. Raphael glanced around. Every worker was leaning into another, their lips fluttering, eyes shifting near and far. The long-awaited culmination of the rumored Resurrection.

  Maisie turned to Maglio. “Geo, take it away.”

  Maglio clasped her shoulder and exchanged places. As he tapped the microphone, the audience leaned forward. Whispers ceased.

  Maglio took a deep breath and exhaled. “Resurrection. The dead will live again. Not some useless, stumbling, staggering hoard of zombies. Has a zombie ever upvoted? Retweeted? Messaged? Did a zombie ever change an election? Send a song to the top of the charts?”

  Raphael glanced around at the enthralled crowd. Maglio was shoveling it out, and they were asking for more.

  “You are well aware we have preserved the digital remains of several tens of millions of dead. For what? To provide the living with a tour of Aunt Bea’s colorful life in Sioux Falls? To pump up sales leads for companies of low morale? Small potatoes. Through breakthrough work in physics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence; we have digitized the personalities, brain functions, and emotions of our online remains and recreated their genuine souls in Cyberspace. Your blood, sweat, and tears have brought those souls under the Norval wing.”

  Raphael nodded. This is what he had seen in research. An AI scam. Hearing the details that verified his suspicions didn’t make Raphael feel any better.

  Maglio’s artificial eye flashed a triple seven. “The online remains of the deceased are the windows into their souls, and we have reached through those windows to retrieve them. The Norval restored can strive for social media celebrity—build a following. Take selfies and videos with AI best friends, marry, spawn digital children based on a combinatory reshuffling of their traits in a mirror of the parental genetic swapping, who can then create their own lives. In a nutshell, Norval has created”—Maglio paused, nodded solemnly, then raised his head high—“You know it! Say it loud and proud!”

  “Resurrection?” responded one high, tinny voice.

  “Yes, Resurrection!”

  The phrase echoed among the Norval employees. As they said the magic word, they considered each other as if for confirmation. They were buying it. Soon, they’d be all in. This was the Norval end game. Fake people. Bots with Personality-Plus personalities. Putty to be molded in their maker’s image and for his purpose.

  “There is one more important element to Resurrection.” Maglio’s voice lowered close to a whisper, “The Resurrected will also have jobs, lunch breaks, and coworkers. Please turn to a seatmate and say, ‘Good morning.’”

  The employees did as suggested.

  “You are greeting the Resurrected.”

  The audience murmured. An awful joke? Raphael shivered. No. No.

  “My friends, my loyal workers, you won’t be able to tell your AI self from the flesh and blood self you left behind.”

  Couldn’t be. Fuck no. Don’t tell me that. Not that nightmare.

  A hand went up. “Am I AI?” asked a little squeaky voice.

  “Are you?” responded Maglio.

  “I know I’m real,” protested someone from the rear, followed by the sound of a foot kicking a chair.

  Maglio chuckled. “Do you think our programmers would forget pain?”

  Raphael whispered, “No.” If it didn’t exist, they would invent it.

  The squeaky voice called out again, “You haven’t answered. Am I dead?”

  “Not yet,” answered Maglio.

  “Not yet!” burst out another, followed by relieved laughter.

  Sadist. But Raphael’s heart had slowed.

  A hand went up. “Since these, um, consumers have no awareness of their digital selves, what’s in it for them?”

  Maglio nodded. “Excellent question, Akira, isn’t it? Maisie, perhaps you could answer.”

  Maisie stepped up. “In a word, continuity. The knowledge that the essential you will continue to exist.”

  Raphael leaned forward. Continuity. The back of his neck tingled.

  “So you won’t be conscious of your AI existence,” suggested Akira.

  “Consciousness will be an upgrade,” said Maisie. “And will be available”—she looked to Maglio, who nodded affirmatively—“in the near future.”

  This was the secret sauce in Personality Plus. This was why Maglio put Raphael through all the hoops, hoping he might ferret it out.

  Maglio took the microphone. “I want to be candid with you. As with all new technology, there will be bugs to fix and improvements to make. But the competition is snapping at our heels. Dozens of corporations want to flood the market with cheap imitations of our technology, grab the patents and copyrights, steal our data. To wait for perfection in business is suicide—and for employees, death by a thousand cuts. Which is why we are already selling policies to a pre-selected audience.”

  The employees buzzed; scattered applause grew thunderous.

  Maglio nodded several times, then gestured for Maisie to retake the microphone. “Well put,” said Maisie, stepping up. “Next question.”

  Raphael rose from his chair, but another employee called out, “Will the Resurrected age?”

  “Do you age in heaven?” asked Maisie.

  A dozen conversations broke out. Raphael gestured again to ask a question, but though Maisie met his gaze, she chose another waving hand.

  “Will we exist like robots?”

  “Incisive question,” cried out Maglio, who stepped up to the microphone, nudged Maisie out of the way, inhaled deeply, and grimaced. “We don’t need no stinkin’ robots!”

  The audience gasped, stirred.

  “Wow,” said Matt.

  Maglio waved his arms above his head. “Just kidding!” The crowd settled. Raphael sat down and stuck his hands between his legs. Maglio and Maisie refused to recognize him.

  “However, after many evaluations of mobile AI containers, which we’ve labeled Freelies, our conclusion was that Freelies offered no substantial benefits and are cost-prohibitive. As a Personality Plus AI, you will think you have a body”—he grinned—“but you ain’t got no body. And no body ain’t …” Maglio waved away the rest of the lyric. “Way before your time. Now let’s take a few more questions.”

  Raphael jumped up, burning with a question, but Maglio pointed to another gesturing worker.

  “Will the Resurrected have legal rights against digital abuse?”

  “Digital citizens will have the same inalienable rights as their predecessors. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  Raphael groaned.

  Another employee asked, “Won’t all these digital workers raise unemployment?”

  “On the contrary. The increase in digitals will produce a need for new services. We’re not talking digital hamburgers: code repair, traffic control, afterlife therapists, data storage, a digital hospitality industry, technicians, cable layers, mediators between AIs and—please don’t take offense at our newly coined word, which we believe captures the zeitgeist—mediators between AIs and stillflesh, that is, people who haven’t cast off their bodies, yet. Last but not least, we will need armies of programmers to code this amalgam of online remains and artificial intelligence. We foresee an employment boom.”

  How wonderful it all sounded.

  Maglio leaned in again. “Let me emphasize we’re not encouraging anyone to get a jumpstart on afterlife. We don’t want people killing themselves.” He drew his hand across his mouth thoughtfully. “Unless—unless their policies are paid in full.” He turned to Maisie and in a low voice said, “Remind me to get that clause into the contracts.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Maglio,” cried Raphael.

  But Maglio pointed elsewhere. “Penelope from accounting, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pen, what would you like to know?”

  “Well, this is a bit abstract, sir, but do you think people will change their behavior to enhance the digital selves they will become?”

  Maglio and Sparod exchanged knowing looks. “Maisie?”

  “We believe this is a better carrot than heaven,” said Maisie. “And a bigger stick than hell.”

  Raphael stepped up on his chair. If his face was faithful to the way he felt, his head would be in flames. Perhaps it was, for the eyes of the audience were upon him. Legs trembling, he drew his tongue to the roof of his mouth to gather some moisture.

  “Yes, Raphael?” said Maglio.

  At last. “This is important, and I’ve been trying to ask—”

  “No need to stand on your chair.”

  He wanted to scream, yes there is a fucking need, but he dropped to the floor. “Do—” He gripped the chair in front of him. “To, to be Resurrected, do you have to be dead?”

  Maglio’s digital eye filled with zeroes and ones, the oval perimeter lighting to form a circle of fire. Maglio jerked his head, and the fabricated organ settled back into its impression of life. “Clarify.”

  “I mean, does this”—Raphael clapped his chest—“does my actual body, my proper life, have to end in order for me to be Resurrected?”

  Maglio crossed arms. “Would you have your cake and eat it too? To go on to a better world, you must leave this one. A rule set in stone.”

  Raphael trembled. “But why should Norval be the one to make the rules?”

  “It’s our tech, so we make the rules,” Maglio said.

  We make the rules, and the rule was you had to be dead. The possums who were alive were marked for death. No one would miss them because they were already dead. No wonder the found possums’ new identities were never entered into the system of the living. The goal was to protect the possums until … He fell to his seat. The meeting seemed to slip away from him. As he considered the implications of what Norval had done and his part in it, he watched and listened as if it were a play staged on a distant amphitheater. Could Klaes, too, be one of Maglio’s AIs run amok? Raphael shook his head. Klaes seemed to have agency.

  A few rows ahead, a thin, bare arm wriggled.

  “Stand up, Dusty, don’t be shy. Dusty is one of our finest programmers, and he’s been with the company for—how long?”

  “Pre-possum days. Ten years.”

  “Your question?”

  Dusty cleared his throat and spoke. “Near as I can sort out, these Resurrected have to be somewhere. I mean, even if they rise from neuromorphic chips, tiny as they be, they have to be in a physical location.” Dusty screwed at his head as if to open a cap. “Where will we keep all our Resurrected selves?”

  Maglio’s eyelids falling, he tilted his head to the side and held the position for ten seconds. He opened his eyes and broke his silence with “Heaven.”

  “Heaven?” asked Dusty. “With pearly gates, golden thrones, and cherubs?”

  Maglio righted his head. “In my heaven, all you get is twenty-four-hour monitoring and high-profile licensed guards. The rest is up to you.”

  Heaven was a server. Ten million servers. The Resurrected resided in the mythical cloud.

  Maglio glanced at the ceiling, appeared to speak to himself, and then took in the employees. “Ah, Bethena from Contracts. Fire away.”

  “Mr. Maglio, we deal with people who don’t want the data of their loved ones to be in Norval’s possession. As I understand it, we will now have to persuade the living to give us the right?”

  “Correct. There’s no lack of delicate sensibilities among our target audience. Here is the selling point to demolish such objections: No access to your data, no afterlife.”

  And Norval had cornered the market.

  “Oh, I see virtual signatures left and right,” said Bethena, and every head in Contracts nodded agreement. Bethena’s smile turned to a frown. She brought a hand to her breast as if to calm a palpitation. “But where then, sir, is our profit?”

  Yes, unfurl the flag that will lead our troops.

  Maglio held up one finger. “To ensure one’s afterlife will require a modest fee, payable in advance or from one’s estate. Pony up or disappear forever. However, to eliminate the need for such a large outlay, we will offer Norval Resurrection Insurance. A modest monthly premium will assure you’re ready to go when you go.”

  Bethena brought both hands to her breast. “May I use that, sir?”

  “Make free.” Maglio pressed his palms together and rubbed. “To clarify, we will also make available an afterlife to all the dead already in our database. If those left behind wish to raise their loved one, it’s only a lump sum away.”

  Maglio held his arms out to his audience. “In a nutshell, Norval Marketing Necrology will bring back the dead, and your job is to keep those dead coming.”

  “Resurrection!” shouted Dreemont as if to lead a cheer.

  Norval’s employees were silent. They seemed confused but alert, like residents of an island listening for the sound of an approaching tsunami.

  “Resurrection!” shouted Dreemont again.

  Raphael crossed his arms. Act I had ended. The intermission was brief,

  Maglio held his hands up for quiet and pressed his mouth to the microphone. “Bullshit!” Maglio spread his arms. “It could all be bullshit. All I’ve told you today could be lies and wishful thinking. Neverland. Oz. Shangri-La. Where’s the proof? Where’s the empirical evidence of Norval Resurrection?” Maglio scanned the room challengingly. The bargain basement was dead quiet. Maglio pointed to the pulldown screen.

  The screen lit up with a man standing behind a podium. Behind him was the American Flag and a second flag dominated by rays of red and yellow. The front rows of an audience were visible.

  “What the hell?” muttered Raphael.

  “Hey, isn’t that—”

  Maglio gestured at the screen. “Arizona state congressman Carson Fullers wasn’t a household name across our great land, but in the Grand Canyon State, Carson Fullers was a beloved exemplar of his state’s motto: Ditat Deau, God Enriches. Unfortunately—Maglio gestured at the screen, and the picture changed to a yacht cruising into a harbor—Fullers’s life was cut short by a tragic accident at sea. Unfortunate for Fullers, but fortunate for us. Where is the proof of Norval Resurrection you ask?”