I Am Become Death

By Rhiannon Lotze

In the midst of war and global unrest, Canadian inventor Will Waterford has effectively created immortality. By turning the human mind into code and implanting it into android bodies called SimBods, Will's work releases humanity from the grip of disease, frailty, and the threat of death.

But immortality comes with a cost, one which he is unwilling to acknowledge until anti-SimBod activist Nora comes into his life. Together, they set about repairing the damage done by his indiscriminate experiments...that is, until Nora grows sick with an incurable disease, and the only way to save her is to find a cure or turn her into the thing she abhors most.

"I Am Become Death" by Rhiannon Lotze is a novella published by Mannison Press, LLC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mannison Press, LLC
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005805548

Rhiannon Lotze

Rhiannon Lotze is a Canadian author from Windsor, Ontario, which means she's 97% maple syrup and 3% Timbit. She's been a writer (and huge nerd) since she was nine years old and writing her first Star Wars fanfiction, although she didn't know it was called "fanfiction" at the time. Her first short story, The Vampire with Braces, was published when she was 13 years old in Narwhal Magazine. Since then, she has gone on to win multiple Windsor-based writing competitions for short stories, including "Offline," and "Golf with the Gods." Her short story "Barrens and Brine," is soon to be published in the Little Girl Lost anthology from Mannison Press.

Book preview

I Am Become Death

By Rhiannon Lotze

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2021 Rhiannon Lotze

Published by Mannison Press, LLC at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

For my significant bother, Mitch.

Contents

Before: Rebellion

After: The Church

Before: Remembrance

After: The Garden

Before: Revelation

After: The Anniversary

Before: Reunion

After: The Beacon

Before: Resurrection

After: The End

About the Author

Connect

Also by Rhiannon Lotze

Before: Rebellion

A snowfall of NuPaper fluttered over Nora's head. Snow-white sheets danced on the winter breeze, doing loop-the-loops and zigzags as they caught updrafts blowing in from the alleys and were snatched in the tunnels of air made by rushing buses.

Nora beamed, one mittened hand shooting up to seize a flyer when she stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the lights to flip from red to green. It crumpled in her clumsy fist and she smoothed it out to read: Vesper Industries Protest, 12 p.m. November 28, Parliament Hill. A quick glance around the crowded streets of Old Ottawa revealed more than a few people with heads bent over the flyers.

Several of them already clutched hand-painted signs made from whatever scraps they could find, old bed covers, sheets of metal, and the like. It was illegal to use real paper or wood nowadays, with few exceptions, but NuPaper was still too expensive for most. Today's protest was well-funded indeed, if they were advertising it on the closest paper-reproduction science had yet managed.

Nora gripped a small sign made from an old baking sheet, painstakingly painted that morning in her small apartment. The paint had still been tacky when she flung on her scarf and rushed out the door to avoid being late for the protest. She could already hear rebellious shouts pulsing in the distance, even though she was six blocks from Parliament Hill. She tapped her foot impatiently on the pavement, eager to join their ranks.

Finally, the light at the crosswalk changed, releasing her and the throng of pedestrians into the road. Nora broke ahead of the group, her pace faster than their casual strolling. Parliament Hill came into view moments later.

The hill was capped with a sprawling group of old Gothic-style buildings. Each building was a magnificent concoction of old architecture. The oxidized-green copper roofs that made them famous stood in stark contrast to the slate sky that threatened snow at any moment.

Pealing chimes tolled noon from the clock tower of the central building. Nora cast her eyes to the tower, lamenting how the colour of its stone differed slightly from the rest of the building. The clock itself had been destroyed in the war and rebuilt afterwards.

The echoes of the chimes faded away just as Nora reached the century-old statue of Terry Fox, an old Canadian icon. The statue squatted directly across the street from the locked gates of Parliament Hill, where a mob of protesters rattled the bars and pressed their signs against it.

A girl in a marshmallow-ribbed black coat and white toque with a rainbow pompom leaned against the base of the statue, her elbows jutting at sharp angles to carve some space in the rapidly swelling crowd. Nora fought through the current of protesters to reach the girl's side, checking her lightly with her hip.

About time! the girl chided, playfully bouncing her fist off Nora's upper arm. You were supposed to be here half an hour ago so we could get spots by the fence!

Sorry, Leah, Nora said sheepishly. Chronic lateness was her worst trait.

Leah shook her head then grinned impishly at her friend. Apparently the head honcho himself is paying a visit to Vesper Industries today, she crowed with glee.

Will Waterford? The much-criticized, uber-mysterious founder of Vesper Industries, a company that specialized in melding biology with technology. His company's headquarters moved into the iconic buildings of Parliament Hill after the actual Canadian Parliament abandoned them in favour of the new, more secure sectors of Ottawa. The move was just one in a series of unpopular decisions made by the explosively growing company.

That's what I said, isn't it? Leah leaned forward and pressed something chilled and squishy into Nora's mittened hand. A few of us are going to throw paint balloons at his car when it drives by, she confided. But keep that in your pocket or the Mounties will kick us out before we get to use them.

Nora looked down at the blobby hot-pink balloon in her grasp, then tucked it discreetly into her coat pocket. Red-uniformed police, mounted on regal horses (hence the name Mounties), did indeed patrol the edge of the crowd, keeping it in check.

A few years ago, their presence would hardly have been necessary, but, with the wounds of war still raw, many a soldier had been unable to leave the fighting in the past. They looked for any excuse to ignite conflict in the fragile, post-war nation.

Okay, ready? Nora asked when the projectile was safely stowed. Leah nodded and they hoisted their homemade signs high in the air.

Immortality is immoral! Nora shouted, adding her voice to the hundreds of protesters shouting at the Vesper Industries headquarters. She shook her baking sheet sign emblazoned with the same phrase for emphasis.

Other catchphrases from the protesters mingled with hers.

DNA is not data!

Souls aren't software!

Nora's breath grew frosty in her lungs and her cheeks pinked as time slipped by. More than an hour passed before a sharp whistle cut through the din of the expansive crowd. Two Mounties on horses slowly forced their way through the gathering, parting the protesters so a black electric car with heavily tinted windows could inch its way towards the locked gates. The hoots and hollers of the crowd intensified, but their feet obediently moved out of the way.

Here we go, Leah murmured excitedly, sliding a hand into her pocket to grab one of her paint balloons. She slipped away from the base of the statue and Nora tried to follow, but the crush of people suddenly surged backwards, urged to move by the Mounties, blocking Nora's way. A large man hovering at the edge of the statue took an errant step backwards and bumped into Nora. Suddenly she found herself on the ground.

Her toque jostled on her head, coming down over her eyes, and her baking sheet clattered noisily to the pavement. The paint balloon in her pocket bounced out and rolled harmlessly away among the feet of a large clump of protesters. Huffing in annoyance, Nora pushed her toque back and looked up into the face of the man who had knocked her down. His eyes were contrite.

Sorry about that, he exclaimed, reaching a hand down to help her back to her feet. Nora snagged her sign as she rose from the ground but abandoned the paint balloon. Some poor protester was going to get a nasty surprise when it was inevitably trod on.

Are you all right? the man asked, his dark eyes casting clinically up and down her frame.

Nora's left elbow ached and she pursed her lips, rotating the limb and craning her neck to see it better. The fabric of her red jacket had a small tear in it and the wet sting of her flesh was enough to tell her that she had scraped the thin skin open.

I'm fine, she told the stranger, nonetheless. His gaze followed Nora's to her coat sleeve, however, and he winced.

I can buy you a new coat, if you'd like, he said sheepishly, slipping his hands into his pockets.

Nora waved him off, uncomfortable with the idea of taking money from a stranger. No, that's okay. It's an old coat anyways.

"Well, at least let me buy you a koffee while you clean up that