SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — John Rodriguez had intended to help usher in a brave new world of immortality. Instead, he finds himself running what is little more than a high-tech refrigerator for dead pets.
"We don't have human patients anymore," said Rodriguez, president of San Leandro's Trans Time Inc., the last active cryonics facility in California. "We used to, but now it's just animals."
Trans Time's woes are typical of the entire cryonics movement, which was initiated on a commercial basis nearly three decades ago in the Bay area.
An industry once known, at least among true believers, for holding out a tantalizing promise of life after death now finds itself beset by internal squabbling, lawsuits and financial challenges.
Two Southern California cryonics companies have shut down in recent years, and a third is said to be seeking alternative storage facilities for a dozen "patients" still on ice.
"This vicious infighting has lost us a lot of people who might have been looking at this as an option," said Jim Yount, chief operating officer of the American Cryonics Society in Mountain View.
As it stands, nearly 90 people and dozens of pets are in cryonic suspension nationwide. They await the day, at some point in the future, when they will be restored to perfect physical condition and miraculously brought back to life.
At Trans Time, the company's last remaining customers are in four large silver tanks standing forlornly in the middle of a vast warehouse.
Within the cylinders, cooled by liquid nitrogen to a temperature of 320 degrees below zero, are the frozen bodies of three dogs and two cats, as well as tissue samples of four other dogs and two people — "for cloning purposes," Rodriguez explained.
Trans Time, which once could claim as many as 18 people in deep freeze, is today a virtual pariah in the cryonics business.
The American Cryonics Society severed ties with the company after an ugly falling-out involving a man with AIDS, and even Trans Time's former research arm, the Berkeley biotechnology firm BioTime, has gone its own way.
Rodriguez spends his days alone in the warehouse. He gets few calls from prospective customers and ends up turning away the handful who do call because they cannot meet the $120,000 cost of cryonic suspension and long-term storage.
A layer of dust covers the tables and medical equipment. The only noise is from the machine shop next door.
Rodriguez, 35, who previously served as Trans Time's accountant, has little to do except top off the tanks with liquid nitrogen and keep track of the company's investments, which for now are preventing the firm from going out of business.
Cryonicists, as they prefer to be called, routinely savage one another on an Internet message board at www.cryonet.org that serves as a jagged window on an increasingly disharmonious community.
With California's cryonics industry fading, most frozen bodies are stored at either the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., or the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Mich. Contrary to urban legend, Walt Disney is not among them.
The "oldest" cryonics patient is Dr. James Bedford, who was frozen in 1967 but almost faced an early trip to oblivion when money for his storage ran dry. Bedford's body is currently housed free of charge in a large silver tank at Alcor in Arizona.
Hundreds of other people, meanwhile, are making financial preparations to join Bedford on the road to resurrection, although there is surprisingly little discussion among them over issues that could prove decisive in their battle with the Grim Reaper.
For example, most cryonics contracts center solely on suspension and storage costs. Who, therefore, will end up footing the bill for yet-to-be-invented, life-restoring medical procedures that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars?
By the same token, why would future generations be interested in bringing anyone back to life in the first place?
Robert Ettinger, whose 1964 book "The Prospect of Immortality" laid the groundwork for the cryonics movement, countered that future generations will have solved myriad problems including overpopulation and scarcity of resources.
It is still questionable whether today's cryonicists will even be around long enough to enjoy the benefits of tomorrow's technological advances.
The case of Jerry White serves as an object lesson for anyone presently contemplating an afterlife on ice.
White was an early convert. He and other Bay area enthusiasts founded Trans Time in 1972. White helped shepherd the fledgling company as it sought financial security.
When his mother died of lung cancer in early 1992, White had her brain frozen so he could see her again — regenerated and reanimated — in the future. He also had his mother's cat frozen so she wouldn't be lonely in her new life.
Later that year, however, White received unexpected and unwelcome news: Trans Time had decided it would not handle his cryonic suspension because he had AIDS.
Body fluids are replaced during freezing, and Trans Time apparently saw White's suspension as too great a risk to its staff. (Rodriguez, the company president, declined to discuss the matter.)
Edgar Swank, president of the American Cryonics Society, said White was "very disappointed and dismayed" by Trans Time's decision.
White subsequently turned to the cryonics society for his suspension, which was carried out smoothly in 1994 after White died in his Sunnyvale apartment.
His body was placed in a temporary cooling chamber and driven by ambulance to Southern California, where a company called CryoSpan had agreed to handle long-term storage.
Today, however, CryoSpan is said by industry insiders — the company no longer can be reached by phone or e-mail — to be on the verge of collapse and is shopping around for alternative facilities for its dozen bodies.
The cryonics society's Yount said it is possible White will end up at the Cryonics Institute in Michigan or could go to a new Southern California facility expected to be set up by a former Alcor executive.
At this point, nobody knows for sure what will happen to Jerry White.
"I guess this speaks to the fact that cryonics is still finding its way," Yount said.
At Trans Time, which itself may not be long for this world, Rodriguez has little to do but mull his prospects for immortality.
"Think about if someone from the 19th century could be brought back right now," he said. "He'd be going on lecture tours. He'd have women throwing themselves at him."
Rodriguez, whippet-thin, bespectacled and wearing shorts and a T-shirt, smiled at the idea.
And if not?
"Well, you're dead," Rodriguez replied. "I don't see a problem."