Chapter 348: The Resurrectee's First Press Conference

Friday, June 1, 2007 (Continued)

Before the press conference was due to start, we decided to have it outside the front of the Adults' House. The light rain that'd been going for a while had stopped during the wait, we preferred not to have reporters invade our home (reporters hot on a story aren't the sort of people you want in your home), and having the conference outside meant there was less chance of one of my distinctively Negroid loose hairs being found by a nosey reporter looking for a cunning scoop. Analysis of one of Ron's pre-resurrection shed hairs would show it had Mark's DNA in it. We could do without accusations of fraud, even if we could refute it because the hairs were impossible. They looked like the hairs of a Black, but had genes for a light-colored Caucasian, so as per the email, when God had changed "all of Ronald's cells now contain Mark's DNA", It must have changed ALL of Ron's cells, even those in discarded hairs. It would be best not to have that come out though because it made it seem too likely that I'd been Mark all the time.

[In case you're wondering, genes serve as blueprints for the body, but those blueprints aren't translated directly into action. The hair follicles don't say to themselves, "Right, it's time to grow the hair longer. I'll check the DNA to see whether to make it black and kinky, or blandly straight and light brown." What happens is that there are several levels of message decoding and passing between the DNA and the hair follicle because human bodies have a truly ridiculous number of indirect processes. It's as if a guy reads the DNA, and phones someone else with the information. That person sends the next person in the chain an email. The recipient pays for a plane to write a sign in the air, where someone else sees it and writes a letter to the next link. That person ties a note to a carrier pigeon who delivers it to a guy who uses a blinking flashlight to signal in Morse code to the hair follicle, telling it to grow straight and brown. Human bodies can truly be that indirect. Somewhere along that process, my subconscious intrudes with my order, "Ignore what you've been told; Mark wants Negro hair. Pass it on."]

My being topless now seemed too deliberately exhibitionistic, so I put on a T-shirt. I was still insufficiently dressed for the cold, but I wanted my non-angelic physique to be seen and I could simply say that I couldn't feel the cold, which might add a little bit of credibility to our story. I ordered my body not to report the cold to my brain, as the temperature wasn't cold enough to do any damage. I could've used a heat blob to warm me, but that would seem too strange to the infrared camera of the UAV I expected above us sooner or later. [I detected some brief Ku-band radiation "sooner", less than an hour from now.]

Dad assisted me in my walk outside, as I was apparently still having trouble managing my legs. Donna carried a chair for me to sit in, and I suspected so she could hover around behind me with her tits in the shot most of the time. She's very proud of her dual accomplishments. I must admit to encouraging her by giving them lots of appreciation, praise and attention. I might have to cut back on that if she gets much more carried away about them.

Mom intercomed down to have the reporters escorted "up the garden path" (literally and figuratively). They'd been accumulating in the uncovered parking lot just inside the front gate on the other side from the Staff Quarters, corralled there by our guards. The reporters were shepherded up to the interview area, where I was sitting with my families spread out to either side of me. Mom and Dad closest, then my sisters and then the Williamses.

Just before the reporters arrived, Mom whispered to Donna, "Don't do anything sexual! Remember Ron's your brother now."

"He was..."

I NP-clamped Donna's mouth shut, before "before" emerged. Some of our guards were nearby, so I couldn't say much; but "Grrr!" proved to be sufficient. Donna was still looking ashamed when the media arrived.

I'd been hoping that some of the reporters would come running at me, so the Guardian could appear and deal with them in a memorable way, but our guards had the reporters under too much control. That alone should tell you how good our guards are.

We're experienced enough in doing these interviews that we hadn't bothered to plan out its details. Mom started, "I'll summarize events and then we'll take questions." Mom didn't pause, carrying straight on with, "As you know, our son Mark was kidnapped and illegally held in Portland for several days by the Department of Homeland Security. Then he was transferred to one of Homeland Security's offices in Washington, DC, where he was subject to illegal experimentation. After several days of that, they transferred Mark to the CIA, who took him to their secret bioweapons laboratory underneath Fort Dodge, Iowa, for even worse medical experimentation, where Mark and over two hundred CIA criminals were killed in mid-February last year. The CIA has constantly refused to return his body to us.

^-- "When Archangel Michael mentioned his offer to resurrect someone deserving, and that he'd put Jonathon Winters in charge of determining the shortlist, I sent an email to Jonathon's organization asking whether our son Mark would qualify..."

Mom went on to describe the events that brought us to where we are now, including the fictitious visits by Archangel Michael and the angel that took over from him. (All the angels' appearances were fictitious really, but some were more fictitious than others.) The resurrection was described in detail - not that there was much of it - with Mom making a big deal about Ron's sacrifice and gift.

Mom finished with, "For the last couple of hours we've been talking to Mark, even though his words have been coming out of Ron's body. It's been a very peculiar experience, but it's been a very convincing one. There's no doubt that our son is back." Mom gave my shoulders a squeeze, then offered the press, "Are there any questions?"

As it turned out, there were. I'll present them in a somewhat logical order, even though they came in a much more chaotic fashion. I'll leave out the dialogues around the particularly stupid questions, such as "Are you glad to see your family?" Sheesh!

"Are you really Mark?"

"Are you asking the body or the mind?"

"Ahh..."

"The mind!" yelled a more mentally flexible reporter.

I answered, "The mind is Mark."

"How will you prove it?"

"I haven't thought about that. My families know I'm Mark from talking to me and I'm too busy getting used to what's happened to me to worry about anyone else."

Mom added, "It's been traumatic for Mark. From his point of view, three hours ago he was being illegally held against his will inside a CIA laboratory having increasingly dangerous medical experiments done to him. Then all of a sudden he's in a different body and he's told it's a more than a year later.

^-- "The angels said that Ron's DNA would be changed, so a DNA test will prove it. I don't know whether it'll take time for new cells to be made with Mark's DNA, or whether it's changed already, but we could get a test done tomorrow to find out."

^-- Mom turned to me to ask, "You don't mind giving a sample tomorrow, do you darling?"

I answered, "I'm used to being strapped down, having holes drilled in my skull and samples of my brain scooped out, so a blood test will be easy." My blood being pinkish gray was the most obvious reason I'd included the crap about my body chemistry being changed. I prefer for that not to be discovered because it was so weird, but it was hard to see how we could avoid such a basic identity test. As I was on camera, it was best to pretend to have no qualms whatsoever about being tested.

"You've got a hole in your head?" asked one of the reporters hopefully. Apparently he had a hole in his too: a cavernous one, in the center.

"In my OTHER head."

"Oh," as he realized his mistake, his realizing it assisted by his co-workers laughing at his mistake.

Another reporter asked, "What did it feel like to be resurrected?"

"It was like blinking and when my eyes opened I was in new body and new location. The CIA's experiments were so bad it was obvious they would never let me go afterward, so I knew I was going to be killed when they'd finished with me. So you can imagine how happy I was when I blinked and suddenly I was no longer a prisoner and my families were around me."

"You don't remember anything?"

"Not about the resurrection, no."

"What about God?"

"He's got my undying gratitude."

I got some laughs for that, then the original reporter asked, "I meant, do you remember anything about God?"

"Not a thing. As I said, it was like I blinked. Mom's already described the resurrection so you know that the only divine presence I was in, was a few seconds with the two angels, and for most of the time I thought one of them was a bright lightbulb. I was in too much shock to be good at noticing things."

"Do you believe in God?"

#23: <Let's not piss off half the country by answering truthfully.>

"That seems only fair, as God seems to believe in me."

I could see that my joke didn't appeal to the reporters. I guess it required a sense of logic.

I continued, "Remember that I have no recollection of God and I only spent a few seconds with the angels in Mom and Dad's bedroom. I didn't even know that I was dead, because the last thing I remember of my CIA prison is my room's door starting to open. Obviously something amazing has happened, and everyone I've talked to has said it was done by angels and God, but they could've said it was done by Little Green Men and I'd be none the wiser.

^-- "From what I've been told, you've had angels flying around giving interviews, so you know more than I do. But in terms of what I BELIEVE, rather than what I know, then I have to believe that there's a God. I've got no idea what He's like, or what His plans are, or anything like that, but something put me inside Ron's body, and that's very convincingly Godlike."

I resisted making some sort of joke along the lines of, "If you were in my shoes, would you take the risk of saying you didn't believe?" Archangel Michael had often been irreverent, so it wouldn't be a good idea for me to be too much so, even though it was hard to resist.

There were a bunch of religious questions, which I'll omit because they were annoyingly stupid (they were stupid, and I was annoyed that I couldn't respond by giving my truthful opinion). I knew there was going to be a great deal of religious crap over the next few weeks - hopefully only weeks, as years would be too depressing. It'd be nice if I could think of a way of defusing it, but I couldn't. Asking religious people to behave sensibly was a waste of breath.

"Why are you sitting down?"

"Because I'm having a lot of trouble standing and walking. Ron's body shape is very different than mine used to be and it's going to take a while to get used to that."

"Can you try walking for us?"

"It's awkward, hard work, and falling on my face would be painful, so I'll pass on your kind invitation to make a fool of myself on national TV, thank you." Plus I didn't want an expert in orthopedics to analyze the videotape and say that I was faking. I'll pretend to quickly learn how to walk, so that risk will soon vanish.

"Where's your Guardian Angel?"

"I've got no idea. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, but you heard Mom say it flew around Mom and Dad's bedroom when it arrived and then it disappeared. I haven't seen hide nor hair of it since." I looked around at my families, "Anyone seen it?"

"No," they all said.

I shrugged toward the reporters, saying, "No idea. I've had too many other things on my mind."

"How do we know whether it's here or not?"

"I don't know and I can't say I care. I'm too busy getting used to my situation and catching up with my family." Donna stirred hopefully, but it was too early to draw the world's attention to her tits. Although, on second thought, half the viewing audience had probably noticed them already.

"Can you ask it to appear?"

For an answer, I invoked: "Please appear, Guardian Angel."

Everyone looked around at nothing happening, so I said "Here Guardy, Guardy" in a high-pitched "Here Kitty, Kitty"-type of voice. Sometimes, especially about religion, I really can't help being facetious.

Some people laughed, some looked nervous, and some laughed nervously.

I said, "It appears not, in both senses."

"Maybe you could command it to appear?"

"Like you see in the movies when someone commands a demon to appear? I don't think I should act like I'm summoning demons three hours after God kindly resurrected me. Thank you for your suggestion though."

You might notice that I'm in a sarcastic mood. That'd started during the religious questions which I omitted recording here. They were long-winded, tedious, stupid, and several other sources of annoyance. I'd held my tongue for a while, but I was running out of patience.

A reporter asked, "The email we got said that God left some of Ronald Fisher's memories behind. Have you remembered any of those?"

I gave a little chuckle, then said, "There's a funny story behind that. Right after I was resurrected I said the clichéd, 'What's happened?', 'Where am I?' and those sorts of things. Dad asked me - I think it was Dad - if I remembered anything. I didn't. Then Mom and Dad told me about how Ron's memories should be still in my head. I couldn't remember any of them. I tried to find them, but had no success at all.

^-- "A while later I had a quiet moment because the girls had gone to get changed and prettied-up because they knew cameramen were coming to take their photographs. Maybe to interview me a little too, but the girls didn't care about that as much."

I got some chuckles, and the girls didn't know whether to preen or look embarrassed. Some of the cameramen took my comment as a cue to pan over the girls, so preening won out.

I continued, "The parents were out of the room for a few moments too, so I did what any teenage boy would do in my situation: I checked out 'The Equipment'." I nodded downward.

^-- "As soon as I saw it, Ron's memories came flooding in. Somehow I got the feeling that God intended it to happen that way. From what my families have said about Archangel Michael, he had an irreverent sense of humor, so maybe God does too.

^-- "In answer to your question, I remember lots of Ron's memories. Julia printed out a copy of the email the angel sent to your networks from Ron's computer, and I saw that it says the memories were left to help me transition to my new reality and to appreciate Ron. Transitioning to my new reality sure hasn't happened yet! I'm still freaked out by what's happened. But appreciating Ron is something I'm VERY aware of.

^-- "I've re-lived some of Ron's memories of his time living with my families. They're FAR, FAR better than watching something on TV, because they come with all the emotions and side-thoughts he had at the time. I've felt his emotions for my families, and especially his emotions for my sister Carol. He loved everyone here, loved his life since my families welcomed him in, and he especially loved Carol. All his memories of Carol are GLOWING with how wonderful he thought she was. I don't think there was much love in his life in LA, but he was AWASH with it here. He was hugely appreciative over how wonderful his life was.

^-- "And then he voluntarily gave it all up so I could come back, because he wanted to make my families as happy as they'd made him. It's the noblest sacrifice I've ever heard of and it blows me away. I'm thankful for being back, but I'm blown away with appreciation for his sacrifice. He didn't give up his life because it wasn't a good one; he gave it up because his life was so wonderful he couldn't find a less profound way of showing how much he loved my families. That God chose to accept Ron's sacrifice does more to convince me that God exists than anything else, because I have to believe that Ron has gone to a very good place."

My eyes were watering even without my ordering them to do so. I'm so good at spreading bullshit that I can even fool myself. The girls were very blubbery too, and Prof's hanky was getting passed around among them. I'd been tempted to work in some reference to Ron and Carol being physical lovers. Putting it in with the rest of that sweet-smelling bullshit would've given it a very good shot at being treated non-salaciously, but although I emotionally wanted to say it, there was no point. The parents were right that the public wouldn't agree to Carol and Mark being lovers, so it was foolish to raise the issue in any way at all. It was just inviting condemnation.

In respect for the highly emotional nature of the moment, the press gave us two seconds before the questions started again. I ignored the first few, then paid attention to them again.

"So you know what's happened to your family while you've been away?"

"'While I've been AWAY.' You make it sound like I went on vacation. I don't think you should de-emphasize what's happened. From what I understand, God did it because He wanted to prove a point and get people to sit up and take notice. He may not appreciate reporters who downplay His miracle."

"Ahh, you might be right. Do you know what happened to your family while you were DEAD?"

"I know some things from Ron's memories, and I've been told some more things since my resurrection, but there are bound to be gaps that I'm not aware of yet. Most of the memories I have from Ron seem to be personal ones rather than a factual history book approach. I gather that the Government gave us far more money than they needed to, and then they broke their word by sending the Army to attack us, so had to give us even more. Ron thought the Government was incredibly stupid. Speaking for myself, after the living hell I've been through, I think the Government is despicably Evil.

^-- "I've got Ron's memories of the people of Corvallis being very nice to us, especially by letting us have this hill to build a safe home on, but also in lots of other ways too. Ron enjoyed watching the Army dig the tunnels and build the houses here. He was very impressed by how careful they were to do good work. Ron apparently did a lot of landscaping work on this property and there were hundreds of volunteers who helped him with a huge natural project he had going somewhere around here." This is an advanced people-manipulation technique called Kissing Ass. My sucking up to Corvallis and the Army wouldn't do any harm at all.

^-- "I don't have detailed memories of his landscaping work, so I hope someone else can take over running them because I don't have the necessary knowledge." In other words, I didn't want to keep doing landscaping.

"What do you intend to do from now on? What are your ambitions?"

"Hmm, I haven't thought about that." Not strictly true, as ever since I've been Ron Fisher I've been wishing to be Mark Anderson and thinking about what I'd prefer to be doing. "I guess I can't do much until I graduate high school." I turned to Mom to ask, "You said today is June first, right?"

"That's right. Exams start on the 11th," said Julia, taking a good guess at what I was heading toward.

"I guess I'll see if school will let me cram for the exams so I can graduate. I'll get Mom to write the school a note - 'Please excuse Mark's missing school recently. He was dead, but he's better now.' Hopefully they'll recognize that as an extenuating circumstance and let me take the exams, otherwise I'll lose another year."

The reporters didn't know what part of that to respond to, which just meant that the next few seconds' worth of yelled questions were even more confused than normal. The smarter reporters just laughed at my joke. I quite enjoyed it too, such is my deadpan sense of humor. Others asked, "Is that all you want to do, go back to school?" or, "You think you can do a whole year's schooling in ten days?" One guy opined, "You're going to be far too busy for school."

The last comment was one I responded to, "I don't think I'll be too busy for school. School is important and it would impact negatively on my quality of life if my graduating was delayed a year. According to the angel's email, the Guardian Angel will think that protecting me includes protecting my quality of life. So if I want to go to school and some officious busybody thinks I should do something else I don't want to do, then I'd expect the Guardian Angel will ensure that I can go to school. Some of you may doubt that the Guardian Angel exists, but I've got very good reason to believe anything an angel says. Besides, I can't move easily at the moment and I don't want to go anywhere away from my families, so spending the next few days cramming sounds better to me than whatever else you think I might be too busy doing."

"The world should be told what happened to you. It's incredibly important."

"I blinked and moved away from the CIA's medical torture chamber to my parents' new bedroom fifteen months later. I don't know ANYTHING else! No angel talked to me about it and I have no memory of God talking to me. All of you know more about what happened than I do because you listened to the angels over the last several weeks.

^-- "Which makes me think of something. I'd LOVE to see as much footage as possible about the angel. Can the TV network that's got the most please send me a copy of it all." I turned to Mom and Dad, "From Ron's memories I know you're very rich. I have money of my own, don't I?"

Dad answered quickly, "No, and you're more than a year behind on your chores too."

Julia said, "I'll lend you some, if you do half of my chores."

One of our little tactics was to try to seem ordinary, to take any pretentiousness out of the resurrection. We didn't want the Pope camped on the doorstep wanting to wash my feet every morning, or God knows what other crap that could happen. The faster we became boring, old, unimportant news, the better.

One of the reporters addressed a question at my parents, "What is the legal situation with Mark?"

Mom answered, "I'm not a lawyer, but I think it should be fine. We thought there was a chance that the CIA was keeping Mark alive somewhere because they kept refusing to hand over his body. Their lawyers swore he had burned up in their lab, but everyone knows what criminal, lying scum the CIA are, so we weren't going to get Mark declared dead until the usual seven-year period was up. He's never been legally declared dead, so his being alive shouldn't raise any legal problems. I think he just needs to do a DNA test and then no one can contest that he's fully, legally Mark."

"What's Ronald Fisher's legal status?"

Vanessa said, "I think I can guess the legal answer to that. Our laws were never written to allow for minds being moved between bodies, or bodies having their DNA changed, so the law is shooting in the dark on this one. I think the law will have to consider Ron to be missing and presumed dead. If tomorrow's DNA test says that body is genetically Mark Anderson, then it can't be Ron Fisher. There'll be no body that's legally recognized as Ron so he'll have to be considered missing. Eventually someone will petition a court to have Ron declared legally dead, which is usually after seven years as Felicity said, but can be done earlier.

^-- "We got legal advice about the missing persons laws when the CIA wouldn't give Mark's parents his body back, which is why we know about those. I'm not sure about the identity laws though. I guess that DNA overrides everything else, but maybe the law is out of date and fingerprints are the most important. If that's the case, I guess someone could try to have the body that Mark's inside legally declared to be Ronald Fisher, but that seems like a stupid and pointless exercise to me."

"Why would it be stupid and pointless?" asked a reporter who needed those issues explained.

"Mark's mind is in that body, so even if someone gets the body declared to be legally Ron, it's still going to behave as Mark wants it to behave. Also, the angel's email said it'll take a few weeks for Ron's body to turn into Mark's. If someone goes to the trouble and expense of starting a legal action, what will walk into the courtroom won't be a short, Black man; but a tall, well-built, Caucasian teenager. By then he won't have any of Ron's DNA, fingerprints or looks, and the judge would throw the case out of court."

[In an earlier strategy meeting with my families, Dad had checked to make sure that I really would have Mark's DNA. I assured him that I would, that I was the same Mark underneath, just with a good suntan and some other changes. Fingerprints were asked about, and I admitted that I'd tried to give myself the same fingerprints as Ron, but I'd never been positive that I'd succeeded and I'd been happy that they'd never been put to the test. The status of my fingerprints - whether Ron's, Mark's or some mishmash - wouldn't matter after the resurrection though, as they'd soon turn into Mark's, if they weren't already. What might matter was my dentition. My Guardian Angel and I would make sure no one can examine that for at least a few weeks, to give time for it to plausibly change into Mark's.]

"Will you let ABC News film your body every day so..."

The non-ABC affiliated teams shouted over the rest of the sentence, insisting that they be allowed to do whatever it was that ABC News wanted to do; presumably film my body changing, but ABC shouldn't be allowed to get in first regardless of what it was about.

All my families knew it'd be a gradual change, but we'd anticipated the process being asked about and had decided to be unsure. Mom answered, "I guess Mark's body will change slowly because the email said it'll take several weeks, but I'm not sure of that. God could do it any way It wanted. It's up to Mark whether he'll let you film him every day though."

I preferred not to provide the Government with film evidence of my body-changing ability, but we didn't really have much choice. If I spent a few weeks out of sight then emerged as Mark, there would be accusations of trickery and probably a murder investigation and search for Ron's body. Even if I was seen in public more or less daily while my body changed, it could be attributed to makeup or some other skullduggery, and I could be filmed anyway. We had to very clearly establish that Ron's body turned into mine, so it was best to document my change with exposed skin - underwear on - and occasional hands-on inspections from a doctor who'd confirm there was no trick photography involved.

I'd be content to transform my body very slowly, taking three months or so to do it, provided my passing the DNA test allowed me to live the formal parts of my life as Mark, which mostly meant finishing school and restarting OSU. Accessing my bank accounts wasn't urgent, and my parents could execute any legal documents for me as I was still a minor.

Reasons to change that schedule might come up, but we all thought going slowly to disguise the full speed of my ability was a very good idea, especially because Ron Fisher had been missing from LA for several weeks between his gang being snatched and 'his' returning to LA to tidy things up with the police and the Fisher family. We didn't want anyone to wonder whether Mark had turned himself into Ron back then. After I'd finished in LA, I'd deliberately spent some time showing my Ron-face around northern California and southern Oregon to establish an alibi for those missing weeks - relying on some people misremembering when I'd been around, and incorrectly giving dates during the missing period - but it'd been a weak, just-in-case effort, and certainly wasn't good enough to keep me safe by itself. Changing slowly and talking about it as if it was completely outside my control were our best defenses to that.

I agreed, "I think taking regular photos would be a good idea. Maybe the networks can share a single camera set up somewhere that I could turn on and do a twirl in front of most days. And maybe our family doctor can come once a week and take measurements of my height or whatever else seems important. Biology isn't my interest - I like math and physics - but I like the scientific approach and my body's changes should be a fascinating subject." I could safely sound eager to have myself studied because the Guardian Angel will intervene to make sure it's very limited.

"You like science?"

"I think it's great. Science generally, and math and physics in particular."

"How do you reconcile that with what happened to you?"

"How do I reconcile my liking science with being resurrected?"

"Yes."

"I can't see that they've got anything to do with each other, so there's no need to reconcile them, and no way of doing so either. Do you reconcile your checkbook with your favorite food? The two issues are independent."