Betweentime (An original short story)

On Tuesday at 3:55 A.M. Mr. Cornelius Brinkman car salesman by profession, divorced father of four children from three different women, died in his sleep from a massive heart attack.

***

"…Well, of course, we'll have problems if we keep appointing imbeciles to responsible positions." Dendrit's voice sounded harsh, as it usually did in the moments of tension.

"Everybody makes mistakes, Sir…" Gob spread his hands.

"Don't you think I know this? Yes, everybody does, but not when it comes to the OPERATION. That requires a ZERO-degree tolerance for error. Did you hear what I just said? ZERO! Meaning: none, nada, zilch! Comprende?"

"Yes, Sir. I understand Sir," Gob nodded.

"Does this, whatever his name is…"

"Boegus, Sir"

"Yes, him. Does he have appropriate experience? Did you make sure he went through our training course? Give me his resume at once!"

"Mr. Dendrit, he was recommended by Averus Acelerus."

"Oh, that one…." Dendrit scratched his chin. "Goddamn… Those imbeciles on the board of directors... They always impose their stupid politics on us…"

Gob respectfully waited. Extra comments were as unnecessary as layers of fat on internal organs.
"Ok…ok…" Dendrit rubbed his eyes. "I guess we have to deal with it." He shook his head in disbelief. "Run the details by me one more time. Only this time slowly," he supported his words with a meaningful gaze. "And I mean slowly."

"Mr. Cornelius Brinkman, Sir" Gob started.

"Cornelius? Is this the name of the betweentimer? What kind of name is that?"

"Roman, Sir"

"That's what I thought. Eh… continue."

"He is Dutch. He died at 3:55 A.M. of heart failure."

"Age?"

"Forty-five."

"Wait a second…You're telling me that in forty-five years he wasn't tested?"

"Well, Sir, he was, but he was a real borderline case. You know what I mean, thirty-three percent virtue. According to the old guidelines, he was a typical dropout - no afterlife, because the borderline was drawn at thirty-five. But then, according to the new guidelines, as you are well aware, the bar fell to thirty-percent virtue. So according to the new guidelines, he should have been passed… and as per your instructions, betweentimers who fall within these five percent should be reevaluated."

"I see. So while his temptation matrix was being restructured, he died."

"Exactly."

"Hmm… So now we'll either have to reincarnate him into another body or just write him off. He didn't, after all, fit the old guidelines."

"I don't think we can do that, Sir."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, we'll set a bad precedent. Sentencing a soul to no afterlife would get such negative publicity. More importantly, from an economical standpoint, the production of one soul is far more expensive, than a production of a body. So we have to be as frugal as possible."

"Yes, I heard you are reusing bodies."

"Uh…. Not in such a 'cut n' dry' way, Sir. Rather the elements composing the body, such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and some of the others, get reused. At the same time, the process of new body generation is automated."

"Then it's decided. We're going to take a loss and go for it... What? Why do I have the feeling that this not all there is to it?" Dendrit narrowed his eyes.

"If I may, Sir" Gob bent a bit forward. "There are different ways to reincarnate. There is what we call a beta method, besides the alpha method we've been discussed..."

"Beta huh? What's the difference?"

"Well, Sir, instead of placing a test soul from the beforetime, in a new body, we can place it in an existing body."

"I don't think I understand. Do you want to put two souls in the same body? Interesting, economical, but I don't think such multi-tasking is going to work."

"Oh, no, no, no, Sir. We would never put two souls in the same body concurrently. The body's operation system won't allow this. But we can sequence them."

"Explain."

"Well, Sir", Gab was glad to show off his knowledge in front of his boss. "Most of the time a soul needs the entire span of the body's life to find out its true merits. In fact, that's how the body is generally designed. But sometimes, or I should say rarely, the determination is made earlier and we still have enough years left in the body, to run the test on a second soul."

"Hmm," Dendrit smiled with satisfaction. "That's good thinking, Gob. Good thinking!" Dendrit suddenly waved his hand in the air, remembering something that was on his mind previously, "Oh, Gob! I don't think I need to remind you that you shouldn't mention any of this in the meeting you're going to," he looked at his wristwatch, "ten minutes from now."

"Of course, Sir, I won't mention it. You can be sure of that."

***

"I wouldn't try to figure out if I were you." Gob advised Mr. Bertemundi, the representative of B&B - the large Soul-secondary-market-investor Company, who followed the scene with utmost concentration, "better let nature take its course. Eventually one of the Zoids will penetrate the membrane. And that's all we should be concerned with."

"I'm actually interested in characteristics that allow Zoids to succeed in the race?" Bertemundi continued following the two dozen leading Zoids in the uterus.

Knowing that the investor not looking at him Gob smirked. The question was as irrelevant as a justification for broken glass.

"Perhaps, all this is very interesting, Mr. Bertemundi, but our task is to recognize when the fastest Zoid is going to penetrate the egg and at that time, to download the soul matrix in the specific predefined memory location of the future brain. This is a very responsible task. Imagine what would happen if the soul is not downloaded in the proper time?"

"How long have you, guys, been doing this?" Bertemundi inquired.

"Well, our staff is very experienced." Gab coughed seriously.

"Now since the fastest Zoid is about to penetrate the membrane, let me give you a breakdown on the sequence of steps. First, you will…"

"…get the next available soul in the batch." Bertemundi picked up.

"Absolutely correct, one that is marked by the beforelife flag," Gob went on while Bertemundi nodded his understanding, "because if the soul is marked with the "afterlife" flag, then the soul has already been tested. The soul specimen, as we call it in our business jargon, while it's here in the facility, can exist in beforetime and aftertime Gab continued, "technically speaking, when the soul is tested down there on Earth it exists in the betweentime…

"Hm," Bertemundi pondered, "so the souls that didn't pass the test are…"

"waste, nothing more than waste. They go to hell, so to speak, hahaha…" Gob chuckled.

Bertemundi smiled in agreement.

"And your guidelines?"

"Well, Mr. Bertemundi, as you know, in general, all our tests are based on the hundred percent point merit system where a hundred percent corresponds to the level of a saint. But recently the whole industry had to reevaluate its guidelines because, as you know, nowadays the merits overall are falling reverse proportionally to the inflation."

"Yep," Bertemundi nodded with the consent, "isn't it sad?"

"Very sad, indeed, Sir. Still, the package that we offer to your company averages a very high degree of merit."

***
When the meeting with the investor was over, Gob picked up his cell phone and punched in the number on the console.

"This is Gob," he spoke to the operator on the other side. "The specimen labeled Cornelius Brinkman needs to be sent back to testing in the first available donor body in the last batch. No, no. I am talking about the beta test only. Okey-dokey?.... Good then."

***
At 3:56 A.M. Mr. Cornelius Brinkman woke up in the middle of the night from a strange feeling that he was not in his body. He was right about that. His soul again existed, in the betweentime.