Excerpt

"And how old were you when you died, Mister Beauchamp?" Joan Rothman asked, leaning back in her chair. The scientists watched her behind the one-way mirror, hands clasped behind their backs.

"Twenty-seven," the corpse replied, more gurgle than speech, as it gazed idly around the interview room. Joan jotted down the response, then chewed pensively on the tip of her red pen. The lights flickered as the air circulators shuddered to life in the depths of the bunker, filling the observation room with a faint scent of bleach and formaldehyde.

She crossed her legs and rested the clipboard between her knee and the folding table, unknowingly flashing her slip to the men behind the mirror. Bhim Raychaudhuri smiled appreciatively at the view and spoke into the microphone wired to her ear bead. "Math, Miss Rothman."

"Thank you," she said to the creature, making no sign that she’d heard the command. "And how old are you now?" She poised the pen above the clipboard.

The corpse scowled, the pallid flesh of its forehead wrinkling in concentration under the single naked bulb. "What year is it?"

"It’s twenty sixty-seven, Mister Beauchamp."

"What month?" it asked.

"April, Mr. Beauchamp. On the surface it’s springtime."

"And I died in two thousand twelve?" it asked, wheezing.

"As near as we can tell, Mister Beauchamp."

It grunted, a flatulent gasp of rotten breath, and scowled down at its manacled hands. It shifted its weight in the folding chair, and its good eye lolled up to look at her face. "I’m hungry."