Excerpt: After the Fall

The small building on the far corner of Law Enforcement HQ campus held only a few offices and a receptionist.
James flashed his badge at the glaze eyed young receptionist, she pushed a button and a panel slid open before them. "Thumb or forefinger, either one." James and then Jadeah touched the panel next to a numbered visitor's badge and pulled it away and clipped it on. To the right of the reception desk was a silver door. James touched the panel and the door slid open. Once inside, all the buttons were sublevel. James pressed S-10 and said, "Hang on".
Jadeah's stomach stayed on the ground floor. She didn't think hanging on would have helped.
The doors slid open onto a gleaming white corridor that stretched straight ahead and left and right. They stepped out onto an equally gleaming floor. The air was chill, but that could not fully account for the icy fingers that slowly worked their way up Jadee's back. She hesitated and swayed a moment as James caught her arm asking, “Are you okay; what's wrong?”
She shook her head to steady herself and evaluate what it was she was sensing. "I don't usually feel the cold. This is something else." she said to no one in particular, more perhaps to hear her own very live voice in these halls of death.
She shook her head again. "There's so much trauma here, so much input, and....James, they're not all dead."
"Quite right!" a voice behind them boomed and they nearly left their shoes behind as they turned still startled stares to face the voice behind them.
An unlikely source for such a booming voice. A small portly man, with cherubic smile, blowing on too hot coffee in a mug that read, 'Freeze - Hold that thought!'. He took a large bite from the sweet smelling confection in his other hand, and around chews, he looked over the old-style spectacles on his nose and said, "You're expected Detective Jeffries. And my dear psi friend, you are right. They are not all dead. Follow me, Ill give you the grand tour and explain."
Jade could hardly suppress a smile, as she and James fell in beside the small rotund figure, who set them a surprisingly quick pace, as he alternately blew on his coffee and took bites from his sweet.
"The corridor to the left contains our luxury accommodations. People with money who could not face death and so postponed it."
"Postponed?" Jadeah queried.
"Of course, dear esper-girl. There's no guarantee they'll survive the thaw, or that we'll ever have a cure for what ailed them, and we're running out of room. Do we save them indefinitely and turn people away? Do we terminate those who have been here fifty years? Do we wake them and see if they live and ask them if they want to continue to wait? If so, do we negotiate a new price? You see the dilemma, don't you. What to do, what to do? And who will make the decision? Not me, not me. That's just not in the job description. It just isn't."
James broke in, "Doctor, please! This is all very fascinating, but we're in hurry."
"Yes, hurry, hurry, always hurry up up there. Not much need to hurry down here.?"
James gave a look of near exasperation and the old doctor understood. "Okay, okay, follow me. If you just waited, we were getting there, had to fill the time in between, can only walk so fast you know. Only so fast. Ahh, here we are. He touched a finger to the silver door panel, and it opened on an unlikely room for such a modern facility. Walls of wood and a thick rug on the floor, wood and leather chairs and sofa and a simulated fireplace blazing away. Floor to ceiling bookcases on the far wall behind a large wooden desk whose every surface was taken up by paper and books and an ashtray with a pipe in it.
Jadeah entered, but James still stood in the doorway, childhood fantasies playing through his mind of such a room for Sherlock Holmes - super detective. He shook off the reverie and entered.
Dr. Homby sat behind the desk, took one last bite from the sweet roll and set the sticky remains on a stack of holodisks at his right.
"Doctor, we need to view your documentation and files on certain law enforcement unsolved crimes. I sent the names and dates ahead along with what anomalies we are looking for."
"Yes, yes, have a seat, have some coffee" he pointed to the ancient pot in a far corner by the book shelves which were this moment sliding apart to reveal a small daiz and screen.
"Computer." said the doctor to the air.
"Good morning, Walter," said a disembodied feminine voice.
"Good morning to you, Emma. Please materialize, we have visitors and questions. Emma, have you gotten the information for the good folks - file detect-ought 9?"
"Yes, doctor?" replied the apparition before the screen - a tall slender woman in an old style short dress, unsensible shoes and spectacles like the doctor's. She turned to the screen behind her and proceeded to point to the picture of cryo-preserved corpse after corpse, giving a brief synopsis of the reams of data appearing beside each picture.
Name Lancester, Joanne, female, age 17, occupation, student, last seen 2100, death by causes unknown, anomaly - no heart.
On and on droned the computer, as face by death masked face marched across the screen. The case took on behemouth proportions.
"This is utterly amazing. Each time I review the data, I am newly amazed. Did the autopsies myself, you know." He shook his head. "Amazing...