Q Report: Resurrecting Charlie Kirk
From: Agent Q, K00
Re: The Charlie Kirk Thing.
Narrative Begins:
Gary the resurrectionist generally loved his job, but also deeply hated Mondays. In the relative paradise of the far future all work was either necessary or rewarding, and everything had been reduced to a 3 day week. But, it still started on Monday, and Gary hated Mondays. He would joke about it with the other staff on the floor. He was a big Garfield fan, the cartoon cat from the 20th century. His station had an “I Hate Mondays” Garfield sticker on an unused section of console. Still, bringing people back to life was something he looked forward to no matter what the day.
At the morning scrum all the resurrectionists were talking about their weekend entertainments. Zak had gone to a musical performance while Phil had taken his kids water skiing. Keith stayed in all night playing the latest release, Battlefield 42. Jeremiah had stayed up way too late playing with Keith, and both were sporting massive coffees as they attempted to shake away the cobwebs of exhaustion. Gary tried talking to as many people as he could, but then Nick started the meeting in earnest. Everyone got their assignments before him, and Gary was trying to figure out the sly smile on Nick’s face as he finally explained.
“Gary, you pulled Charlie Kirk today.” and everyone in the room lit up with laughter.
Everyone knew how much Gary hated Charlie Kirk. Gary wasn’t just an armchair quarterback, he had a doctorate in political science with an emphasis in the collapse of the US government. He wrote his dissertation on the rise of authoritarianism and when he still taught undergrad had a whole Charlie Kirk hate speech assignment. He had seen and listened to more Charlie Kirk than any sane human should be allowed and as a result hated his ugly fascist guts. But, that’s the gamble you take, becoming a resurrectionist. You don’t get to choose who to save.
“At least you didn’t pull Hitler!” said Zak, on the way to his floor. They both laughed because they knew the guy who had.
The chamber was sterile, circular, and humming with the faint resonance of the ERB generator. “ERB” was short for Einstein–Rosen Bridge, but Gary and the crew always joked it was just “Exhausting Resurrection Box.” The machine used light and gravity to collapse spacetime down to a person-sized wormhole, calibrated to a single individual’s final second. A sliver of energy thinner than an eyelash—but scaled to cosmic math—was enough to peel a human out of their death moment like a bookmark pulled from a burning novel.
The process was precise. A pocket dimension opened, catching the subject in an atosecond pause before the accident, heart attack, or bullet that would have ended them. In that frozen instant, the Resurrectionists swapped them with a time-clone: a bio-engineered, brain-blank double dressed in the same clothes, complete with their fillings, pacemakers, or suspicious back-alley body mods. The clone slumped into the timeline without ripple, while the real subject woke up confused inside the holding field.
Charlie Kirk came out groggy, thrashing like a drunken seal dropped on a lubed trampoline. His eyes bulged with animal confusion, hurt, and surprise as he blurted:
“Where’s my wife? Where are my kids?”
Gary, jaw tight, moved in with clinical efficiency. “Easy there, Charlie. You’re safe. You’re in a recovery pocket. We’ll explain everything.”
Procedure demanded intimacy. Clothes had to go—the molecules were tagged for replication and recycling. Gary unfastened the man’s cheap belt and polyester slacks, tugging them off with the brisk indifference of someone gutting a fish. Charlie shivered in the cold light, and Gary pressed a wand to his gums, scanning dental work while muttering:
“Christ, when’s the last time you flossed? You could anchor a battleship with this tartar.”
Charlie blinked, stammering. “My wife—my kids—”
“They’re here. They’re all here. Just outside the bubble. You’ll meet them again in 3035.” Gary swabbed his mouth, throat, and anus, an undignified but required sweep to harvest microbiota for the universal cure-net. He noted the herpes markers with a grunt, uploaded them to the med-cloud, and set the synthesis engines to work.
Every move had to be both clinical and kind. The rules demanded dignity, even for people you couldn’t stand. So Gary wrapped him in a soft robe, adjusted the collar, and guided him upright with a firm but gentle hand.
Charlie looked down at himself, then back up, still swimming through temporal vertigo. “3035?”
“Yes,” Gary said, steady now. “That’s the rally point. Everyone meets there. Your wife. Your children. Don’t worry—you’ll see them. Right this way.”
When the doors to the outer pocket opened, Charlie gasped. His wife stood there, older but radiant. But, his children were adults now—taller, faces remade by decades he’d missed. Charlie staggered, trembling with confusion and gratitude all at once.
Gary watched him, arms crossed, bitterness cooling into something like mercy, as they held each other and walked into the future. He didn’t like the man. He didn’t have to. But he felt a tremor of humanity in the reunion and, against his better judgement, hoped the gay communist fantasia of the future might treat Charlie with kindness.
By midday the floor was quiet, the ERB generator cooling into its low purr while Gary logged his report. When lunch came, he joined the others in the canteen, a broad, sunlit space with glass walls looking out over the artificial lake. Zak and Jeremiah were already ribbing each other about who had the worse extraction, while Keith nursed a steaming bowl of noodles.
“So, Gary,” Phil said, leaning back with a grin. “How was Charlie?”
Gary shrugged, setting down his tray. “Like any other pull. Groggy. Confused. Asking about his family.” He stirred his stew, thoughtful. “Process doesn’t change just because you don’t like the guy. You do the scans, the swabs, wrap them in a robe, and lead them to the door.”
Zak chuckled. “Come on, you hated that guy. Don’t tell me you didn’t get at least a little satisfaction shaming his dental hygiene.”
Gary allowed a small smile. “Yeah, maybe. But in the end, it’s not about me. He gets the same future as everyone else. A world without war, without poverty, without disease. A world where every life is valued, and hate finds no purchase.” He looked up, eyes narrowing a little. “It’s not a future he earned. Maybe not one he even believed in. But he gets it anyway. That’s what grace looks like.”
The table went quiet for a moment, the usual banter suspended by the weight of the words. Then Keith broke the silence with a wry grin: “Better than Hitler.” Everyone laughed, the mood restored.
When Gary clocked out, he took the walk home through the neighborhood gardens, where kids played under fruit trees that never withered and neighbors greeted him warmly. His own door was open, light spilling out, the smell of dinner already in the air.
“Hey, Dad!” his kids shouted, bounding over. His partner waved from the kitchen.
Gary dropped his bag, scooped one of the little ones up into his arms, and kissed the top of their head. “Hi,” he said, voice softening in a way it never did on the floor.
“How was your day?” they asked, wide-eyed.
Gary smiled, thinking of Charlie’s trembling reunion, of the mercy that had no right to exist but did anyway.
“Good,” he said. “It was good.”
End Narrative.
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