Author’s note: This is second installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the other installments here: Resurrected: Part 1 and Resurrected Part 3
Once his foetus stabilised, I began resurrecting Ankhesenamun, his perfect wife, because nothing moves the public better than a good love story. She was also his half‑sister (incest, of course) and carried almost all the same congenital diseases. But they were easier to deal with now that I knew what to expect. Whether she would be accepted by the world where incest was looked down upon still remained to be seen. But if I hadn’t brought her into the picture, it would have crushed the whole romantic angle that the female voters craved for.
Four years later, Tut and Ankh came out of the incubator as fully mature humans. With a mature brain, I could condition them in far less time. Also, I didn’t have to deal with tiny toddlers. For me they were tools to achieve a purpose, not my children, even if they did carry a few of my genes.
*****
In the first year, I moved them to this faraway estate. For the next year, until their brain reached maturity of a five‑year‑old, we all wore Egyptian dresses and slept inside an Egyptian set, decorated with authentic artifacts acquired on loan from collectors. While sleeping, a recording told them stories about ‘their life’ over and over. The artifacts helped them relate to the stories and making them feel like a memory from their Egyptian lives. These ‘past experiences’ brought authenticity to their claim to ‘another chance at life’, which would become their selling point.
In this year, I also conditioned them to obey my orders using the Holy Sanction—an ancient Egyptian medicine in a small, brown, earthen bottle meant for punishing traitors and non‑believers. The collector I bought it from had claimed that it came from King Tut’s tomb. It was still usable and, once mixed, left no trace in blood or glass. With alcohol, it was poisonous but with water it was merely excruciatingly painful. On the few occasions the duo displeased me, I mixed a pinch with a pint of water and poured it down their throat. Instantly, their bodies would shake uncontrollably with painful chemical spasms. They would lay on the floor crying for mercy.
It made them eager to please me.
Later, when we removed the set bit‑by‑bit to condition them according to the current world and provided formal education in the next five years, I returned all artifacts, but I retained the bottle on a whim. Now, it seems like it is the need of the hour.
*****
I should have understood the signs earlier during the election campaign, which began last year. Both Tut and Ankh had been too quiet. But I thought, they were mentally drained because of the never‑ending public appearances, speeches and the questions around their background.
The emotional way they had answered those questions, had I not conditioned them, I, too, would have believed that they remembered their past lives. They’ve always had this habit of talking about their ‘memories’. Often, they spoke of remembering their “parent’s faces”, whom they had never met. It was probably a reconstruct memory of a face they had seen in a movie. They also spoke of how present‑day movies did not reflect the true face of ancient Egypt. I let them believe their memories were real. It added weight to their claim to the ‘throne’.
But then, I should have guessed that Ankh was taking it a bit too far. Like, on the day when the opposition questioned their faith in an attempt to remind the voters that they were not Christians. When the press requested her to comment, Ankh hadn’t looked at me for answers, “We’re above petty religious politics now. Our father, King Akhenaten, had rejected the common faith in his lifetime. Hence upon his death, the religious leaders had made us an example. They had forced us to change our faith and names to suit them. We were too young to fight back then. But not anymore!”
The information probably came from internet but the passion and pain behind her words had swayed the public sympathy in Tut’s favour. So, I had let it slide.
Author’s note: To be continued…
Photo by Dilip Poddar on Unsplash
If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link
Short Stories 