“Better, now that I’m home.” I exhale and force myself to relax, rolling my neck, hearing the crack of old bones protesting.
“You know, if you’d just gotten the vaccine like everyone else, you would be just fine.”
“I know, I know, but as foolish as it sounds, I don’t trust the new technologies.”
“You were a product of new technology once, my love. Back then, you were the apple of the scientific community’s eye. Of course there wasn’t a cure for cancer back then. But now, well, everyone gets one, Soc. It would have saved you all this trouble.” She’s frustrated, and I don’t blame her. I tend to be a stubborn old man. “Demosthenes asked me if you were going to request a med-ex permit.”
“A Medical Exemption Permit? For what, chemotherapy? You know they made that illegal over a hundred years ago. Besides, doctors never grant those if you’re over eighty. It costs more for the treatment than to take a new body. Or, well, die if you’re not a First. Most people don’t have much working use left after that age. At any rate, it’s too late now. At my age, the doctors would just tell me to take a Second anyway, which is what I’m going to do. No use fixing the old body if there’s a newer, upgraded model.”
“I thought they gave you at least six months?”
“They did. I think I’m just feeling my age. Maybe I’m just cranky, finally going crazy after all these years. There are no rules, no medical textbooks for what people should be like, mentally, at my age.”
Silence. “It’s all right to be angry at yourself for what happened at the museum.” Her voice is a quiet hum over the suddenly echoing telephone line.
I shake my head, the abrupt motion setting off more aches and pains. “I thought we were talking about the cancer?” She doesn’t respond. “Besides, what kind of father doesn’t recognize his own son, Eliot?”
“A father who hasn’t seen his child for over four hundred years.”
“That’s no excuse! If nothing else, heavens, I lived in his body for longer than he did. I looked in the mirror and saw his face every day for nearly seventy years. Every. Single. Day. That face should have been as recognizable as my own.”
“It was an honest mistake, my love. I don’t think anyone else noticed.”
I open the top drawer of my desk and pull out a pair of old, metal dog tags and run my fingers over their softened edges.
“It was merely a terrible shock. You haven’t been feeling well, and you didn’t expect to see anything like that in the museum.” Eliot tries to sooth me, and if she were here, I imagine she’d be stroking my hair or holding me loosely in her arms.
I clear my throat. “That still doesn’t make it right. He was my son. My first child. How could I forget him?” I rub my thumb in a circle around the face. God, five hundred years later and she still has the power to take my breath away.
“I wouldn’t worry too much, my dear. It’s probably a combination of the stress and your illness.”
With a sigh, I slip the dog tags back into my drawer. “Next, you’ll say I’m just getting old.”
“You’re only eighty-eight. That’s hardly prehistoric. Besides, no one can be expected to remember everything.”
“When you measure time by the number of lives you’ve started over, of course eighty-eight isn’t a lot.” I chuckle, the raspy sound deep and gritty even to my own ears. “If this was my first eighty-eight, I’d hardly be a toddler. But it’s not. And it’s not just his face that I’ve lost, either. Somewhere deep inside of me, I know that Adam was an amazing child, but I couldn’t give you three reasons why. I can’t tell you what his first words were, or when he learned to walk, or even what he wanted to be when he grew up. That picture there, that one little picture in the museum, is one of only two photographs that still exist from my first life, and I didn’t even realize it was missing. I even probably took the damn thing, and I didn’t remember it existed until I saw it in that display.”
On the other end of the line, I imagine Ellie biting her bottom lip, a habit she’s had since I married her the first time. “Maybe.” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “You’re just cutting it too close. Perhaps you should have picked a Second earlier. The doctors said the drugs can only slow down the disease, not stop it, and some might have negative side effects on your mind.”
“I’ve cut it close before with no ill effects. Remember? That’s what we all used to do. It’s only a recent trend to choose Seconds so early. We always used to wait until the last minute before picking a new body, and you know me, I refuse to take the first Second I see. It’s got to be the right one.”
“It’s always been about chemistry with you, Soc.” She chuckles. “You know it doesn’t really matter, right?”
“I know.” I pause. “But for some reason, it’s important to me that we click.”
“Always the romantic one. When are you heading back to Washington?” Maggie pokes her head in and mimics drinking a cup of coffee. I nod, so she knows I’d like one, too. I don’t even have to tell her what I’d like in it—nothing—because she knows me so well.
My laugh has an empty, hollow sound, and I slowly lean forward so I’m sitting upright again. My old back doesn’t like that very much. Hell, most of me doesn’t like moving, period. At least my leather chair is as comfortable as eighty years spent molding to the same backside can render it. “No sooner than necessary. It’s nice to be home in Santa Fe. I’ve been travelling so much I’ve barely had any time to relax.”
“You deserve it. The mountains have always been a refuge for you. A balm for your soul. And with the bill coming up—”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind, is that what you’re implying? I know you want it to pass, Ellie. That’s the main reason I’m supporting it.” Maggie brings me a steaming cup of coffee, brewed the old-fashioned way, of course, and sets it on a small wooden coaster she’s picked up from another spot on my cluttered desk. After setting it down, she waits for me to tell her if I need anything else, and I shake my head. She bows her head—I never could train her out of that habit—and leaves the way she came. She’s surprisingly quiet for a woman of her age and girth.
“What, you don’t think it’s the right thing to do? Don’t you think the Texans have been imprisoned long enough?”
I take a sip of coffee barely cool enough to drink, while Ellie continues her tirade.
“You, of all people, should know that what the government is doing is wrong. What they’ve done in the past is wrong. If something doesn’t change, what they will do in the future will be worse.”
“Now you sound like a Lifer,” I quip, unable to help myself. Her silence is my answer.
“Do you want me to come home, or would you rather I wait for you in D.C.?” I can always tell she’s angry with me when her voice becomes formal, stone cold and emotionless.
“Might as well wait there. No sense teleporting over here if you’re just going to go back anyway in a few days.” I let my eyes half close, and I start to drift away on the warmth of the coffee. Maybe Maggie slipped something in it to help me sleep. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“What if I want to see you? Talk to you?” Her voice grows deeper, huskier. I have to chuckle.
“About what? There’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times before.”
“There’s always something new with you, Soc.”
“Aren’t you teaching? I thought the new semester started soon?” Did she mention this before? I mentally scratch my head. No, I would remember her talking about it.
“I decided to take a sabbatical. Maybe I’ll take a cue from you and write a book.” She pauses, but when I let the silence stretch too long, she sighs. “Okay, fine. The board and I came to the decision that it would be mutually beneficial if I took the spring term off.” In her silence, her sadness is nearly palpable. But there’s somethin
g else, too, something she’s not telling me.
“Is this in regard to your decision to leave the program?”
“Yes, no. I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. You have more important things going on.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. You’ve been the most important person in my lives since we met.”
“Flattery can’t change my mind. You know that, right?”
“But—”
She cuts me off. “Let me explain, please.”
“I’m listening.” I steeple my fingers in front of me.
“When Project ReGenesis started, it was portrayed as a way for a select few to live forever so that their talents wouldn’t die when they did. It was a noble calling. Five hundred years later, where are we now? What gifts have I really given the world? Sure, I was the first female president, but there have been six since, and most of them much better candidates than I ever was. Out of all of them, only one took a Second, and she only chose one more lifetime.”
“Stop selling yourself short. Because of you, we were able to build the first moon space station. You paved the way for space travel and exploration for the next two hundred years, Ellie. That’s definitely an achievement.”
“You mean the resort for the rich and famous?” she retorts.
“It’s not your fault NASA ran out of funding. That war took a lot out of us. After it was over, the government had to put all of their money into rebuilding.” Images like old-fashioned snapshots blur through my mind. Ruins, rubble, bodies strewn across the ground. Dust streaked with blood on a child’s brow as he sprawls, unmoving, on the ground. Me, a different me, younger with burnt auburn hair, reaching down, hands shaking, to check his pulse, but there’s nothing there. I never even learned his name. I should have.
“Well, they did a piss-poor job of it.”
“The rebels did a lot of damage.” The dead boy’s hand is curled in a fist that will never open. His fingers will never again reach out to graze a blade of grass or cup a handful of water from a stream for a mid-adventure drink.
“They weren’t the only ones. Our side killed innocents, too.” The boy’s hand fades away. In his place, I see a line of kids, baking under a white-hot sun, waiting to see if any of them would be chosen to die. A little boy, near the end, fidgeting with his new tattoo. His sister trying to protect him, even now.
“Neither side in any war is without blame.”
“Honestly Soc, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. It doesn’t really matter. None of the scientific breakthroughs, decisions I’ve influenced, or treaties I’ve written, negate the fact that I’ve killed four kids. Three girls and one boy. Dead, all because I wanted to live forever.”
“Isn’t that what we all want? Besides—” My voice takes on a sullen tone, audible even to me. “It didn’t seem to bother you the last time.”
She pauses, and I imagine her face flushing, the warm tone of her skin turning a darker, deeper red. “Last time was different.”
“How so? What changed in thirty years that didn’t in the last two hundred?”
Silence. “I just… I just can’t do it any more, Socrates. Please don’t ask me again.”
“I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “I guess I’m just trying to understand. I know we haven’t been as close as we used to be, with our busy schedules and all, but I never thought you’d want to leave the program. That you’d want to leave me.”
She pauses for so long I wonder if the connection’s been lost, even though that’s supposedly not possible with today’s technology. “I suppose I just don’t want to do this again, get attached to people, watch them get old and die while I live and move on. I can’t take it anymore,” she whispers. I cram the phone to my ear to catch every word.
“So you’re just going to stop, then? Live a normal life and then die?”
“Something like that, except for the normal part. Yale pretty much owns me, since they paid for my last procedure. But you get the gist of it. I’m done. It’s time to let a new generation, one not held back by the past, have a shot.”
Halfway There
Mira
Take a deep breath, Mira. You can do this. He’s just another teacher. It’s not as if you’re a complete idiot. I twirl the thin ivory porcelain cup around in my hand. It’s almost completely full. Pale blue birds dance along the outer rim, and if I turn the cup fast enough, they fly.
Gerald, the Chesanings’ butler, clears his throat, and I jump, almost dropping the teacup, sloshing the watery liquid over the side. Swallowing my frazzled nerves, I carefully set the cup on the end table next to my chair.
Exhaling slowly, I dart a glance at Gerald, and he scowls at me over his puffy, chipmunk cheeks and heavy hooded eyes. In his starched black and white suit, he sits as stiffly as the flightless birds we read about in school. He’d probably have killed me for wasting tea if Socrates hadn’t picked me as his Second. Maybe my new position does have some perks. My eyes stray back to the cup as a thin, clear ring spreads slowly along the white cloth.
“He’s here.” Gerald’s deep voice is the kind that puts kids to sleep.
I jump from my seat. The chair wobbles behind me, and I quickly snake a hand back so it doesn’t fall over. Gerald rolls his eyes. I guess I’m making all sorts of good impressions today.
The man who must be my teacher barely fits through the doorway, and I recognize him as one of the guys who stood beside Socrates the day I was chosen. He huffs and pants, red-faced, with thinning, shoulder-length sweat-slicked carrot-colored hair plastered to his head. Cosmetic gold-rimmed glasses encircle his beady brown eyes, and he squints as he openly inspects me. He’s wearing an old-fashioned khaki-colored suit with damp stains around the collar and beneath his arms. I’ve always wondered why, with the technology to genetically correct vision and hearing problems, they haven’t done something about sweat, maybe even make it smell better if they can’t stop it completely, but I guess that’s low on their priority list. He carries a paper-thin tablet in one hand, and I’m surprised he doesn’t drop it with all the sweat dripping off of him.
“You must be Mira.” His translucent lips pull into a fake smile. “I am Mr. Flannigan, your teacher from Washington. My job is to get you ready to go to Washington. I will teach you proper etiquette for your interview and the acceptance banquet, as well as the importance of basic manners in general. You see, life in our nation’s capital is very different from life here at your little farm. There are important customs and traditions that must be adhered to. Most of all, I will teach you not to embarrass Socrates.” He looks me up and down. “Heaven help me.”
I smooth the palms of my hands flat against my pants.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Is there a problem?”
“Not at all, sir.” I grit my teeth. “It’s just that my mother taught me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all.”
“Is that so?” A faint smile curves his lips. I purse my lips. “Good.” He nods. “You’re halfway there already.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. Maybe he’s not so bad, after all.
“Do you have any questions?”
“Now that I’m Absolved, will I get my own last name?”
He looks at me in surprise. “What do you mean, girl?”
“Well, as Texans, we take the name of our farm, but you people, you get your own last names. Do I get one now?”
He scratches his head. “I don’t know. That… that’s never come up before. I’ll have to talk to Socrates.” He makes a note on his tablet.
“Umm, I was also wondering what my job will be, exactly. I mean, there are so many rumors going around, but in school they teach us something totally different.”
Mr. Flannigan grunts and lowers his sweaty bulk into
one of the spindly wicker chairs, which creaks under his weight. I eye his chair doubtfully as I sit down in the other one.
“What exactly have you been told?” he asks, avoiding my question.
“Well, our teachers say we go and learn from our Firsts, so that when they die, we get to take over where they left off, so that their knowledge can be preserved for another lifetime. That’s why they have a Release ceremony, so we’re released from our past lives and can start our future. We’ll be making history.” A shadow crosses his face, and his thin mouth presses into an even thinner line.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, but I heard something different. Today Alessa, the Chesanings’ daughter, told my brother I was going to die.”
Mr. Flannigan shakes his head. “And you believed her?”
“I… I don’t know. I mean, they wouldn’t do that, right?”
He pauses. “Look at it this way. Do you implicitly trust the source of your information?” I shake my head. “Well, there you go. Your teachers would never intentionally lie to you, would they?” I shake my head again, slower this time. “Good. There you have it. Hold fast onto what you’ve learned throughout your entire life, not the heresy of a spoiled little rich girl.”
“But—”
“No buts, just… just believe what your teachers told you, and you’ll be fine.” Why does he look like he’s in pain when he says that?
A thought hits me. “Are you a First?”
Mr. Flannigan looks shocked at first, then laughs, a deep guttural sound like he’s never heard anything funnier before in his life. “Me? No, of course not.” What’s that in his voice? It’s like he thinks I’m crazy for asking.
“Why not? You’re a teacher, right?”
He shakes his head and folds his hands on his ample stomach. “Much in the same way as your teacher here is. My role is so limited, being a First is… different.”
First Page 5
