Immortal

by Gene Doucette

  “Very good,” he said. “I looked more classically nerdish back then. And you were a drunk who spent the evening talking about immortality. I didn’t take you seriously, not until much later when I discovered such a thing as yourself was theoretically possible. And here we are.”

  Inwardly I was kicking myself. All this time wondering who had told this guy about me and all I had to do was look in the mirror.

  “Have you read any of the speculative work of Doctor Viktor Kopalev?” Grindel asked. “It’s very enlightening.”

  “I’m not much for scientific papers,” I said.

  “Ah. Well, you’ll meet him soon enough. He’ll tell you all about it. Fascinating stuff.”

  “Where’s Clara?” I asked by way of changing the subject.

  “Safe.”

  I stepped closer. He still didn’t appear particularly concerned. “Get her,” I demanded.

  “Adam, look around you. Did you think I didn’t know you were capable of overpowering a two-man security detail?”

  I chanced a few sidelong glances and realized that, yes, I’d misjudged the situation rather seriously. What had been a big empty clearing a minute earlier was now a perimeter of armed men. They must have been in the buildings when we drove up.

  “They can’t stop me from killing you,” I insisted. “And I’m pretty sure they’re not going to kill me.”

  “Why not?”

  “The bounty hunters were told to take me alive, and so were the men you sent for me just now. Whatever you need me to do, I’m of no use dead.”

  “That’s true,” he admitted. “But if I’m dead… that’s a different situation, isn’t it?” He smiled. “You can’t kill me without killing yourself. I’d call this a stalemate.”

  “You’d make a decent hostage,” I said. “Now once again. Where is Clara?”

  He sighed heavily. “You seem to be under a certain misapprehension. Ms. Wassermann isn’t here as a prisoner. She’s a volunteer.”

  I blinked about six times. When you’re holding two guns and watching a closing circle of armed men in your peripheral vision, this is about the only way to record surprise. “You’re lying,” I insisted.

  “I’m not. She contacted me shortly after you left. I guess the reward money was too much to pass up. She’s a few buildings behind me, having a nice meal and probably contemplating how to best spend it. She’s even asked if she can stay on. This is a very exciting project, you see. Once I explained it to her, she was quite interested.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, even though I sort of did.

  “Why not?” he asked. “If she’s the only reason you came here in the first place, why would I tell you such a thing, if it wasn’t true?”

  He had a point. “All right. Then you and I are leaving. Right now.”

  “Adam,” he said patiently, as if I’d disappointed him terribly. “We have her here.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Clara? You just told me—”

  “Not Clara. Can I show you something?”

  “Maybe later,” I said. “I’m a little pressed for time right now.” The perimeter had closed to about fifteen feet, which was really more of an intimidation thing than anything else, because if they all started firing, they’d probably shoot each other. They hadn’t cut off my access to the car yet, though.

  Grindel said, “I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket for a small device. Looks like a miniature television set.”

  “Slowly,” I said.

  “Of course.” He slipped his left hand into his pocket and emerged with what looked to be a PDA. He held it out. “Take a look.”

  I dropped the Uzi to free up my hand—I only needed one hostage at this point—took the device, and looked at the image captured on the screen.

  “That’s a live local video feed,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem like a video image, but that’s only because she rarely moves.”

  It was the red-haired woman.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a white room next to a cot, looking directly at the camera. There was no way it could have been anybody else.

  Grindel said, “We have a few tests we need to run on you. That’s all. And when we’re done, I’ll let you meet her. I know that’s something you’ve been waiting a long time to do.”

  “She’s here,” I said dully. “She’s alive.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

  “Yes, on both counts, although I’m not about to tell you precisely where. I’m sure you understand why.”

  I wavered. “Bring her here,” I muttered. “I’ll…”

  “I’m not going to do that, Adam. I was never going to give you Clara, and I’m not going to let you have your red-haired friend either. Not until after we’re done.” He leaned in closer, which he could do as I’d apparently lowered my gun. “A minute ago you were willing to die before surrendering. Do you still think it’s worth it?”

  I dropped the gun. “You win.”

  * * *

  And that was my final mistake. Bob isn’t going to let me walk out of here when we’re done, and I don’t think he’s going to grant me my audience with the red-haired woman either. It’s just not in his nature.

  I remember reading an article about how the big drug companies don’t tend to pursue experiments on herbal remedies because it’s impossible to patent a substance that can be found in nature. Well, I can’t be patented either. But there’s only one of me, and I can be destroyed.

  It’s the only way he can possibly protect his investment.

  Part Three

  Freedom's Just Another Word

  Chapter 25

  I’ve been staring at a keyhole for two hours. Or maybe it only feels like two hours. I can’t tell for sure, because the passage of time is one of those things I need the sun or the moon for, and I can’t see either of them from where I’m sitting. A watch would do the trick but they took mine away a long time ago, which I’m convinced they did just because they knew it would annoy me. My own fault for becoming attached to the concept of time. Back in the African bush I didn’t care what day it was, and the concept of seasons was fairly dim in a region where the seasonal change was minimal. Right about now, with every day beginning and ending more or less the same way, I’m finding myself envious of that particular mindset.

  Anyway, my point—two hours is probably a generous estimate. Let’s just say it’s been a while and move on.

  The keyhole is attached to the only door to my padded cell. There is nothing extraordinary whatsoever about the room aside from the padding, the lack of a window, and the fact that I have been stuck inside of it for a fairly long time. I’ve certainly checked. The most interesting thing about the room is that on the other side of the padding is a layer of concrete, which came as something of a surprise when I first discovered it because from the outside the standalone building looks like a basic Quonset hut with old wood plank walls and a couple of windows that didn’t used to be fake. If there was only the padding and the wood planks in my way, I would have been out of here a long time ago. Clearly, Bob had the interior redone in anticipation of my arrival.

  Bob’s a good details man. A quick look at the outside of the second hut, which is about five feet away from mine, illustrates that point fairly well. Unlike all the others—there are four prison huts altogether, in a row, near the center of the compound—the second hut is reinforced on the inside with steel rather than cement. Whatever is inside of it is considerably stronger than I am and would probably look longingly at a cement wall the same way I look at wood planking. It’s also a whole lot stronger than Ringo, my demon guard, based on the damage it’s caused from the inside. The door and all of the walls have been pounded on mercilessly, to the point where metal can be seen bursting through the wood planks, like a balloon popping out of a papier-mâché shell. Things have been quiet in cell number two for a long time now. It’s either dead or it’s hoping somebody with a key comes to that conclusion and opens the door.

&n
bsp; I’m pretty sure the red-haired woman is in hut number four, because I heard some very unladylike moaning coming from the third cell a couple of weeks ago. I never heard the red-haired woman speak, but I’m pretty positive she wouldn’t sound like that if enticed to moan. She seems more of the mezzo-soprano type and this was something of an alto. Being castrated, maybe. God only knows what actually made that noise.

  I am trying to get used to calling her Eve. That’s what Viktor and the lab techs call her. It’s a bit hokey, and probably only given to her because I’m going by the name of Adam—I think if I’d been using Othello they’d be calling her Desdemona—but as I’d never seen fit to assign any name to her after ten millennia, it’s about time I started trying one out. Repeatedly referring to her as “the red-haired woman,” after all, is a little unwieldy, and makes me sound a bit like a Peanuts character. (I didn’t know Charles Schulz, but I like to think sometimes that Charlie Brown’s obsession with the red-haired little girl was the universe’s homage to me personally.)

  These are the things I think about when I have nothing else to do outside of staring at keyholes. And I’ve had nothing else to do for some time now. Aside from the daily trips to the lab. Those barely count.

  * * *

  Underneath me, between the cot mattress and the springs, is a folded up sheet of onion paper, and on the sheet of onion paper, drawn in black magic marker, is a scale map of the entire compound. I could stare at the map instead of the keyhole, except that the map is the closest thing I’ve had to reading material this whole time. I have thus committed it to memory several times over and am prepared to argue that the keyhole is more interesting.

  I have by now translated the contents of the map into a mental three-dimensional construct that I think is accurate enough to bet my life on, which is exactly what I’ll be doing, provided something exciting happens involving the keyhole somewhat soon.

  Just by counting paces, I could navigate the whole compound with my eyes closed. It’s exactly ninety-seven paces from the door of my cell to the door of the lab. I verify that every day. (It is also either sixty-three or sixty-five demon paces, depending on Ringo’s mood. Not relevant, but collecting useless data is a good way to pass the time, so there you go.) Knowing the paces between two points on the map, I was able to extrapolate distances to other buildings fairly easily, even though I’ve never been to any of them.

  The administrative building, for example. Never been there. Hope to soon. It’s across the way from the laboratory and it is where Bob Grindel works. He’s got an office right above the central awning that covers the front door. Nice big picture window and everything. I look up every day and stare at that window, and even though nine times out of ten the sunrise makes it impossible to look through the glass—the admin building faces east and we’re in Arizona, which has so much sun I’m starting to miss New England—I’ve been able to get a couple of glimpses of him looking down at me. Even flipped him the finger once. Didn’t change my situation at all, except that it made me feel better.

  I haven’t had many chances to talk to Bob. He stopped by a couple of times to lay on the bullshit about how he’s going to be setting me free just as soon as Viktor is done in the lab. On neither occasion did I have an opportunity to do much more than sneer and try out a few old insults in some dead languages. This is mainly because Bob tends to travel around with Brutus, the other demon of the inner compound. He and Ringo constitute the only security in the inner circle of buildings, which is pretty much exactly how my security force hostage described it when I first arrived. The human security—I believe there are about twenty-five of them, if Clara’s count is accurate—cover the perimeter, the demons roam the center, and ne’er the twain shall meet. That may be because Bob doesn’t want any of the guards to see a demon, and to thus declare loudly, “sweet Jesus, what is that thing?” as this can be awkward. More likely, Bob doesn’t want any humans to notice he’s keeping prisoners, as this is generally considered illegal if one is not an actual government. And sometimes not even then.

  Speaking of Clara, I’m still not sure what to do about her. She did smuggle Iza into the place, for which I’m enormously grateful. That she even knew Iza existed meant she eavesdropped on me while I was on the roof of her building, but that’s a minor indiscretion, all things considered. Far more serious is the fact that I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this cell staring at a keyhole if Clara hadn’t tricked me into rescuing her in the first place. So I don’t know why she sent me Iza, or drew the map (which Iza carried in, hence the onion sheet) or gave me all the information about the size of the security force. I don’t like trusting someone only because I have nobody else around to trust.

  It is only with great trepidation that I’ve been slipping back out to Clara a few of the details of my escape plan. I need her to help me secure transportation and a few other things, and while Iza can find me a Humvee, she can’t drive one. Once I’m out, speed and efficiency will be an issue, as the less time I spend out in the open, the better my chances are. Not that my chances are at all good either way.

  The plan, incidentally, is incredibly stupid, and it’s very probably going to end up getting me killed. But it’s the best one I can come up with. And when I’m not kicking myself for being unable to think up a better one, I’m blaming Viktor for not listening to me.

  * * *

  Doctor Viktor Kopalev is hypothetically just as responsible for my situation as Bob Grindel, because the original idea was Viktor’s. All Bob knows is computers and money, and is apparently nearly as clueless as I am when it comes to biology. But he knows a good idea when he sees it. I guess a few years back he caught a whiff of some of the work Viktor had been doing in immune system research and the seemingly unrelated field of human aging. At the time, that work was ninety percent speculative, because Viktor did not yet know I existed. That, and a killer business plan, is what Bob brought to the table. So while Bob secured investors—and test subjects—Viktor put together the team and supervised the building of the laboratory. All the science, basically. And he didn’t once stop to wonder whether he should.

  And then they nabbed Eve. I never asked—none of the lab boys have been willing to talk about Eve, other than to comment that she hardly speaks—but I’m guessing they were looking for both of us from the outset and found her first. I don’t know how they did that. But I stopped looking after becoming erroneously convinced she was dead. Maybe it wasn’t that hard. A good deal more difficult, I’m sure, was catching the thing in cell number two. Who knows when—or how—they did that.

  At some point Viktor and his team realized they needed more than just Eve to complete the project. As they’re on something of a timetable, Bob redoubled his efforts to catch me. Ergo, bounty hunters and demons and hostages and so on.

  As to the project itself, based on the amount of research that would have had to continue well after the death of Viktor Kopalev—had Eve and I never existed—I’d say it’s about a hundred years before its time. Sometimes that’s a good thing. This isn’t one of those times.

  I’ve seen lots of big ideas come and go. As a rule, they tend to arrive at, or just before, the world is ready for them. Take something rather simple, like the wheel. The first version of the wheel I ever saw was a part of a child’s wooden toy, and I didn’t see another one for about fifty years when somebody got the splendid idea to put a couple of them under a wood platform and have an ox pull it. We could have probably come up with the wheel hundreds of years before then but we didn’t need to, because we had no domesticated animals, and as foragers, we didn’t have any need to transport things from place to place. We just ate whatever we could find, wherever we could find it, just as soon as it was found. Much like fast food. So it wasn’t that mankind was too stupid to come up with a concept as significant as the wheel before a certain time. We invented it when there was a practical need for it.

  In this case, the wheel is my immune system, which is where this whole analogy sort of
breaks down, making me think I should have come up with a better one. Anyway, Viktor and his team have figured out how to give my immune reaction to other people. As he described it, it was just a matter of turning on the right gene sequence in a normal human’s body. Finding the gene was the easy part, because they have two living samples to work from. Much harder was figuring out how to get it turned on throughout the whole body. They haven’t said so, but I think that’s what the monster in the second cell is for.

  Harder still was determining how to grant immortality. That’s where those damned telomeres Viktor keeps talking about come in. I’ve absolutely no idea what the science behind this part is because I zoned out whenever he tried to explain it to me. Suffice to say it’s complicated, and it involves several courses of treatment and something called “gene therapy.” It is much more difficult to accomplish than the immunity treatment, which I’m told can be distributed in the same manner as your standard vaccine.

  So to return to the wheel comparison, say the child’s toy version of the wheel had the power to destroy the world as we know it. Now you see what I mean about a bad analogy.

  Try instead to imagine what it would be like if you could go back in time and give the entire Confederate Army a supply of fully automatic machine guns and all the ammo they would ever need. That’s a bit closer to what I’m talking about. Basically, there is a time for everything, and this is not the right time for what Viktor and his team have concocted. And I’ve told Viktor this more times and in more ways than you can possibly imagine, with no luck whatsoever. He’s been focusing on the whole “nobody ever gets sick any more, ever” aspect, which I admit sounds pretty good, up until half the population starves.

  And that’s assuming everybody gets a dose, which isn’t how it’s going to happen. Bob is a capitalist, not a humanitarian. He won’t be giving this away. He’ll find the highest bidder, sell out and move on, just like with every other business deal he’s ever cut. Then comes the unappetizing prospect of an immunized population coming up against a non-immunized population, and now you’re looking in the dictionary for a word that means “something worse than genocide.”