Killer Geezer

by T. Jackson King

  Christine chortled loudly, then put down a fork of hot Italian sausage and held up her own iPhone. “What a coincidence! I also bought some shares of Arco. Six hundred ten to be exact. I’ve heard they are a great company doing good work in Australia.”

  Petros rounded out the inventory of my friends who bought the stock that was due to jump very high later today. The burly man shrugged his thick shoulders, then one hand lifted his own smartphone. “Me too. Bought 520 shares of Arco. A member of my church said she expected it to do well.”

  Mabel filled his coffee mug. “Well, what a coincidence. I also put some of my retirement savings into Arco shares. Managed to buy 470 shares. Let’s all hope this pans out!”

  She looked to me with a happy smile. The red dress with white polka dots that she wore looked new. As if she had spent bucks on more than shares in a mining company. Clearly her Saturday night time at my buddy party had engaged her upbeat side. Her dark brown eyebrows lifted in question as she waved her nearly empty pot toward me.

  I shook my head. “No thanks, Mabel. I’ve got plenty of coffee. Enough to wash down this stack of pancakes!”

  Everyone settled down after sharing our news. It felt good inside to know I had helped my friends become a little bit rich. Surely they would earn enough to afford new clothes, a new watch or necklace, a fancy meal out each month, and be able to buy birthday gifts for those with grandkids. I munched on my pancakes, took in a piece of bacon and swallowed it all down with rich hot Columbian coffee. The smell of its richness enveloped my head, sending me to a food Valhalla.

  The approaching persona of a formal person I knew pulled me out of my reverie. I looked to the door. Detective Harold Warren pushed open the door, stepped in, looked to the back and headed for me. Briefly I toyed with the idea of mentally moving a chair into his way to make him stumble. I dismissed the juvenile thought and pushed out the chair on the opposite side of my table.

  “Hello, detective. Have a seat and enjoy some Columbian coffee.”

  The man, dressed today in a light spring jacket, dress pants and a white shirt with solid blue necktie that was loosened at the neck, looked briefly surprised, then gave me a nod. “Thanks, Mr. Hansen.” He sat down, gave a smile to Mabel when she put a mug in front of him and poured coffee, then he put a dollop of cream in it along with stevia sweetener. Which made me wonder if he was diabetic. Or just careful in his intake of sweeteners.

  I laid my fork on my plate and picked up my own mug. The swallow of liquid Heaven filled my taste buds with flavor touches I had never before sensed. Then again, all my normal senses were now at the level of someone 20 years old, or even better, as I recalled how easy it was for me to lift two full trash cans and put them at the curb for today’s trash pickup. The cans had been weightless to me. Did this mean I could pick up someone as stocky and muscular as Warren with one hand?

  “You’re welcome. Visiting or working?”

  He put down his coffee with an expression of satisfaction that was close to pleasure. His dark brown eyes fixed on me. “Both, actually. I’m visiting with you on orders from the mayor. Dave Johnson greatly appreciates your recent campaign donation. He wishes you to attend this evening’s gala for the formal announcement of his re-election campaign.” Warren reached inside his jacket and pulled out a lanyard with a card that held my photo and the word Guest under it. “The event is being held in the Atrium restaurant of La Fonda Hotel. The whole place is reserved for the mayor’s event. Will you come?”

  Should I? Attending would cement my status as a political benefactor. It would also offer me the chance to socialize with folks who made a big deal of attending programs at the Santa Fe Opera on the north side of town, then meandering down Canyon Road as they popped in and out of art galleries. All to ‘Be Seen’, of course. I nodded.

  “Sure, detective. Thanks for the invite and the badge.” I took the lanyard badge, inserted it inside the jacket of my own white linen suit, and then looked him over. His aura was empty of black streaks. He had not lied to me. Yet. “Tell me, detective, have you obtained any leads on the mystery of the four robbers going up in smoke at this café?”

  “No, though I did find the interview with you on last night’s KRQE-TV broadcast to be fascinating. I had no idea you disliked the buzz-cut sidewall hair style of the younger crowd.”

  His tone was amused. But his eyes watched me as if he were a hawk. I gave a shrug. “Well, the woman showed up at my door last night. I decided to allow her an interview, so long as I was not videotaped. Too much can go wrong with video cameras.”

  “Oh?” Warren took a second sip of his coffee, then held it with both hands as he watched me carefully. “Well, on the incineration issue, I learned through our national law enforcement data sharing link that New York City’s Central Park experienced something similar to what happened here on Tuesday and Thursday. Two persons burned to death, leaving only a pile of ashes and some bones, while two other persons became a pile of melted flesh and bones. A fifth person had his chest ripped open and splayed out to either side, as if a giant hand punched into him and then pulled everything out. Or cut it in half. As happened with the man’s heart. Lots of blood around that one.”

  I pretended to be repulsed by his description. “Detective! I’m trying to enjoy my breakfast here.”

  He gave a shrug. “Well, you have seen similar stuff at this café, I figured you were hardened to it.”

  I looked at him intently. With deep focus. He noticed and sat forward. “Detective, during my years in the forest doing outdoor reporting, I often saw dead animals, or predators attacking prey animals. Death was not pretty then. But it was part of Nature’s life cycle. When humans do it to each other, it is not normal. And no less ugly.”

  He frowned, as if puzzled. “I fully agree. Which is why investigating murders, and murderers, has been my law enforcement objective for many years.” Warren pushed back his chair and stood up. “Well, I hope to see you at La Fonda tonight.”

  “Tell the mayor I will be there.” I gave him a polite smile since he had not openly accused me of being the cause of the Central Park incineration, nor asked me if I had been in NYC lately. “Thanks for the visit.”

  He gave me a wave. “Just doing my job. Have a quiet day.” Warren turned away and headed for the café exit.

  I thought a moment, ignoring the puzzled looks of my friends. All except Carlos were wondering why the detective had come to me. My buddy though had heard everything. He turned now and passed the details on to Angelina in a whisper. Who no doubt would share it with our other buddies. I pulled out my cell phone, tapped in a phone number I recalled from my lavish lunch with Dr. Claudia Robinson, and waited for her to pick up.

  “Please leave a message. Dr. Robinson is not yet in her office,” a recording said.

  Well, profs could show up late, unlike regular working folks. “Claudia, I’m coming down to your place later this morning to hear about the DNA and blood results. I’ll give you a call when my chauffeur drops me off at Logan Hall. Take care.”

  Shutting off my phone I gave thought to the mayor’s invite. Reserving the entire atrium dining room at La Fonda Hotel cost a lot. The place was next to the famous Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, which dated back to A.D. 1887. It was a major tourist draw, as was the nearby Plaza. And early Spring was the start of the tourist season. So grabbing La Fonda meant the mayor wanted to make an impression on the voters. Hopefully his campaign paid for the rental, rather than the taxpayers. Since Warren would be present, I guessed that his boss, the Chief of the SFPD would be there. And likely other law enforcement types would be there, along with some state senators who liked hanging out at the Round House state capitol. Tonight would tell me who meant something politically.

  I stood up, left $30 cash on the table and headed to the exit. Mabel waved bye to me. As I walked I tapped in another number on my phone. This number put me I touch with Fernando, the chauffeur who had driven me and Ansgar around Santa Fe. And back to th
e airport. Being rich had its rewards. No longer did I need to wait for free Wednesday rides on the Rail Runner train. Now, I could call a private limo service and be driven to Albuquerque.

  A shiny black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb of the café. Fernando, wearing a top hat and dressed in a tux, got out and opened the rear door for me. I got in. He closed the door on me and got in. He started the engine with a tap of a button.

  “Where to, sir?”

  “Albuquerque. The UNM campus. To Logan Hall. I’ll give you the address once we get to UNM.”

  The tall, impeccably dressed Black man chuckled softly. “Sir, no need. I just input the address into this vehicle’s GPS. Please relax and enjoy the ride.”

  Being pampered was nice. “Thank you, Fernando.”

  I touched a button on the back of the front seat. A clear pane of glass rose up to the car roof, isolating me from my chauffeur. I snapped on my seatbelt, touched open the booze cooler in the center of the front seat back, and took out a can of diet pop. Pulling its tab, I sat back and considered what Claudia might have discovered. While I could have teleported to her basement lab, I had chosen the chauffeur car for several reasons. One of them being that any place I visited was likely to have security cameras recording the comings and goings of people. If I showed up on a campus camera, without being recorded as having arrived on campus, that could raise questions. At least to anyone snooping into my private actions. Which Warren was quite capable of doing. This way I could say, if asked, that I went to UNM to discuss a donation to Robinson’s unique type of research. All of which might become true as I gained more bundles of money. Smiling to myself, I relaxed against the soft cushions of the back seat, drank my pop, and felt secure. For a change.

  Fernando dropped me off at the curb that connected with the pavement that led to the front entry of the Pueblo-style building. He drove off to find parking. I walked ahead, having spoken with Claudia just before my arrival on campus. She had told me to head down to her lab. She sounded excited to hear from me, even if it was barely past 8 a.m. local time. Clearly this prof believed in doing research before her classes began.

  Entering the front door I turned left, walked down the hall lined with doors numbered for either offices or classrooms, then opened the stairwell door at the end of the hall. I stepped to the right and began walking down the stairs. At the bottom I opened the metal fire door, stepped out into a brightly lit hallway and headed for the prof’s nearby lab. The door to which now opened. Claudia stepped out, looked left, then right. She gave me a big smile when she saw me.

  “Jack! Jack, so good to see you! Please, come in. There is exciting news to share with you.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s why I’m here.”

  “I know.” Her blond curls floated around her head like they had no weight. Her pink lips and rounded cheekbones held a happy smile. Her aura told me the same thing as her outer appearance. She was very, very happy to see me.

  With a nod, I walked down the narrow hallway and followed her into her lab.

  As before the place met the movie image of a mad scientist’s lab. Metal plating on the walls stopped incoming magnetic fields. The white chair and box of the Elekta Neuromag machine occupied the center of the back wall. On either side were the MRI and PET scan machines. Elsewhere in the room was a sink with water faucet, a desk in one corner and a wall cabinet above the desk. Close to the desk a large flat screen computer was perched on an arm that connected to metal tubing that ran around the room. The tubing ran into the Neuromag machine, the MRI scanner and the PET scanner. When Claudia headed to the corner with the desk and large screen, I followed. She sat in the desk chair and pointed at a fold down chair set with its back to the wall. “Please, have a seat.”

  I sat. And looked around. My persona sense told me three other people were in other labs in the basement, while above us the two floors held 121 students and faculty getting an early start on the day’s classes. This psych department did not wait to 10 a.m. to start classes. Here they began at 8:15. If UCLA’s classes had started so early I would never have earned my master’s in archaeology degree there, decades ago. I focused back on the woman. Wearing a blue jacket over a white knee-length skirt, with black zip-up boots, she looked the opposite of the schoolmarm stereotype of women teachers. And professors. Telling myself that stereotype was old even when I went to UCLA in the early 70s, I told my groin to ignore the woman’s full chest and instead pay attention to her brain.

  “Did your tests show anything unusual?”

  Claudia turned in her chair and tapped on the large flat screen that hung behind her. “Oh, yes! Yes, they did.” An image of a human body, much like a textbook image, now filled the screen. Except this image actually depicted my body as recorded by the PET and MRI scanners. My brain lobes glowed with neuronal activity, clearly the result of transcranial stimulation using SQUIDs and electrical current inputs. The glows were solid red, as recorded by the PET scanner. I recalled she had said all lobes of my brain were very active, when I had seen her last Wednesday. She had also said my frontal lobe, parietal lobe and rear occipital lobe were each 10 percent larger than normal human brains. That went with my brain using 40 percent of my body’s energy, twice the normal energy demand of regular folks’ brains. Claudia pointed at my brain scan.

  “Jack, my further review of the PET and transcranial scans of your brain show your neuronal interconnections are twice as dense as those in regular people.” Her hand moved down the screen to touch my neck, my heart area, my liver and my legs. “The functioning of your thyroid, your heart, your liver and the muscle groups in your legs and arms are all greater than what is common. The function of those parts of your body are 50 percent greater than usual. But that is not the best news!”

  I thought what she had just described was unusual enough. “Oh? What is the best news?”

  She tapped the screen and my body was replaced by DNA double helix outlines, actual images of the 23 chromosomes normal to any human, and a bar graph that listed a variety of chemicals along the left side, with intensities showing as bars of various heights. “Your blood work and DNA profiles are outstanding!” Claudia turned and focused on me, her expression serious. “Jack, the blood scan shows your telomeres are lengthening, instead of getting shorter whenever any cell divides. Shorter telomeres are an indicator of cell aging. That shortening happens normally as cells copy themselves. It is a sign of cell death or body aging. But the chemical telomerase repairs the short telomere ends. To a limited degree. Your telomerase level is higher than any ever recorded in any human. And the lengthening of your telomeres means you cannot age!”

  Well, that fit what Ansgar had told me about us Transcendents living to be very, very old. I had assumed that was due to the Healing energies in each of us. Now, it was clear what happened to us when we became Transcendents was much more complex. It extended down to the gene and cell levels. “I guess that’s good news. What else have you learned.”

  “Good news? Jack! You will live longer than any human on record! The oldest person yet recorded got to 116 years. You could easily double that, if not triple it.” Claudia’s blue eyes were almost glowing with her excitement. “And that’s not all by any measure!” She turned back and pointed at the bar graph. “Jack, your immune abilities are staggering. Your white blood T-cells and B-cells are present at ten times normal human levels. You will never get sick again!”

  I frowned. “I’ve heard of T-cells. What are these A and B types?”

  She gave a sigh. “Your T-cells recognize viral antigens outside of cells. Your B-cells can recognize the surface antigens of bacteria and viruses in your blood. In short, your blood immune system can prevent you from ever catching HIV, the plague bacillus, the local hantavirus, any illness caused by viruses and bacteria can never hurt you.”

  I understood the second half of what she said. It was good news for sure. I smiled at her. “Hey, Claudia, thank you! That is great news. I’ve always been resistant to the common col
d and most flu types, but this is better. Can it get better?”

  She sat back and eyed me, her look thoughtful. “It can. The blood cells in all humans can repair wounds by creating clotting factors that block cuts or punctures. Your cells do more. They not only prevent you from aging, they can also repair every organ in your body. If you had kidney disease, your cells would rebuild your kidney.” Claudia paused, looked at the screen with its imagery, then looked back, an eager expression on her face. “While I am not certain, I suspect you could regrow a finger, a foot, maybe even a leg if it were cut off!”

  I’d heard of lizards regrowing their tails when lost to predators. But such body repairs were not known in mammals like humans. Or so I thought. “Well, sorry, I do not volunteer for you to slice off my pinkie. On either hand!”

  She laughed. It was a giant belly laugh that echoed through the room. “Not to worry!” Seriousness quickly replaced her laugh. “Jack, with your permission, I wish to publish these cellular telomere and T and B cell results. This data from your blood might give us ways to cure brain diseases like Parkinsons, organ ailments like sclerosis of the liver, and rheumatoid arthritis of the hands!”

  This was interesting news. While I knew my Healing energies had Healed Sally’s arthritis, it appeared my body’s own cells and blood chemistry held cures for any outside invader. Like tuberculosis, which had killed my Dad years ago. Relieving human suffering was a good thing.

  “Sure, go ahead and publish your data. Just keep my donor info anonymous. Right?”

  Her expression sobered. “Sure. I will do that. There are records of rare genetic disorders that occur only in a few people, usually a single family. The reverse is surely possible. Some folks are genetically immune to HIV. So this research will be welcomed by researchers and clinicians all over the world!”

  Claudia was excited. I felt glad that her research into my body and brain had given me some factual scientific reasons for why I was the way I was. It did not explain energy flows or my barrier field or my ability to teleport, but it did prove there was a natural, science-based side to being a Transcendent, in addition to whatever supernatural element caused us to appear at the rate of three per billion normal humans. Briefly I wondered at her reaction if I slowed time in front of her. Then I mentally slapped myself. That was an ability far beyond anything my body chemistry could demonstrate. Which meant I had to keep it secret from anyone not a Transcendent. I gave her a real smile.