I ask again. “It’s just … I don’t think she understands defying her parents like this. But her parents are so sweet and supportive of her no matter what …”
Foster begins to snore, but I can’t sleep. My parents may never understand, and it’ll hurt, but I’ll get over it. Stella is different. I need her to understand why I’m going against them.
She has to.
10.
STELLA
My parents drive me, Foster, and Myles together to the Immortality Center a few weeks later. I make Foster and Myles go on without me to pick up their welcome packets while I say a teary goodbye to Dad and Kaimee.
“You know you can always come home, don’t you?” Kaimee says. She didn’t even bother putting on eyeliner this morning.
“And this isn’t the last time we’ll see each other before you actually go through with the injection,” Dad says. He’s choked up worse than Kaimee and me. “This isn’t really any goodbye.”
“Except that, I’ve never been away from home this long,” I remind him.
“So, think of it like you’d think of moving away for college,” Dad says, with even more choke in his voice. It’s kind of exactly what I need.
I tell them I love them and I’ll call them whenever I can. Then I see Grazie waving goodbye to her parents, and I run over to her as they drive away.
I hug her hello and say, “Are you okay?” Grazie and I are going to be roommates here, and I’m glad we’ve become friends because sometimes I desperately need someone who isn’t Myles to talk to about all of this.
“Not at all,” she says through real, ugly tears. “Not even a little. But let’s go find Foster and Myles. Orientation starts soon.”
Myles and Foster are sitting near the front of a big auditorium full of hundreds of teenagers, all nervously flipping through the papers in their welcome packets. It is exactly like I expected college orientation to be, except this is an eternity we’re talking about, not four years.
Foster greets us and hands me my welcome packet. “Here, Stell, Romeo picked this up for you,” he says right before he gives Grazie her welcome packet and adds, “And I got yours, Grazie. Come on. Let’s look through these together and make fun of all the idealistic photos they put in the ‘Your New Life as an Immortal’ guidebook.”
It is amazing what the rush of a new crush can do to make your day seem better, even when it’s one of the last days you’ll ever have as a mortal. Grazie blushes fantastically, and those ugly tears dry right up.
I sit down by Myles. “Romeo, huh?”
Since I don’t do sarcasm often, Myles always gets a massive kick out of it when I do. It lights up his eyes. He takes my hand and says, “Ignore Hinks. That play is a tragedy. Our story has a happy ending.”
I see two of the IV-933 immortals up on stage again. One of them catches my eye, and I feel like her gaze is predatory and foreboding. It makes goosebumps prick up on my arm.
Myles leans closer so that our arms are pressed together, and the warmth helps.
“Hey, so the schedule says we get free time tonight to explore,” he tells me. “Let’s go check out the downtown. Supposedly the community park is nice. They say you can see stars all the time here. It’s that far away from any huge cities.”
We settle in for the orientation presentation, and with Grazie laughing at jokes Foster keeps whispering to her and Myles fighting bad feelings for me, I feel like things are going okay. I wasn’t the kind of person who wanted more than her fair share of life, but right now, when I feel happy, it’s nice to imagine a world where time never runs out.
“There are risks,” the presenter for today’s program says. “But the upsides are enormous. Think of the things you could do with thousands of years to live in an optimally healthy body. How many books would you read? What instruments would you learn to play? Which foreign languages would you master? Have you ever wanted to perfect your tennis game? All this is available to you and more. As immortals, we can see the bigger picture. We can amass wealth, knowledge, friends—”
Someone in the audience shouts out “lovers!” and kids giggle.
The presenter smiles. “Lovers, too. Just keep in mind that the fact that our bodies can easily fight off STDs doesn’t mean that you can’t transmit nasty bugs to other people. One of the topics we’ll cover in-depth in our program over the next several months is safe relationships with mortals. Things are different when you have the long road to take in a less vulnerable body. It’s a great responsibility.”
Myles leans his head toward me, close enough that his hair brushes up against mine. “I hear a Spiderman quote coming on,” he murmurs.
I like this presenter, though, and we get more good news a few minutes later. We’ve all been matched with an immortal mentor based on a questionnaire we completed. We’re supposed to get someone who can answer all our questions and guide us through any concerns we have.
“We’ve all been where you are, so we take your privacy very seriously,” the presenter tells us. “Ask any question you want. Nothing is off the table if it helps you make an informed choice to become immortal.”
This sounds good to me. I like their focus on information and self-determination and all. I don’t know why my good feeling comes with a sensation of dread, but I find out at the very end when the presenter drops this on us:
“Now, the most important thing we can tell you about making a decision to be an immortal is that it must be a selfish decision. As an immortal, the only person guaranteed to stand by you is you. With the exception of the thirty or so of you who are going through the expedited, black flag process, the rest of you will be asked to endure a final, six-week isolation before your injection. During this time, you will be separated from your friends—” Myles’s grip on my hand tightens “—you will be given twenty-four-seven access to our very skilled immortality counselors, whose identities will remain screened from you during your conversations—” (“So, like Catholic confession?” Foster whispers) “—and at the end of that time, it’ll be you, a nurse, and a syringe.”
Myles is moving around in his seat now like he is extremely uncomfortable. I get it. The six-week isolation period sounds like a way to prevent people like him from making bad choices based on people like me.
“Six weeks may sound like a lot of time now, but immortality is infinitely longer. If you can’t handle six weeks of isolation from those you care about, then the years after your first mortal friends and family members die will be brutal. The isolation will ensure that the decision to become immortal is right for you.”
I don’t know if the six-week isolation is a huge weight off my shoulders or a million pounds of sand poured right onto my chest. Myles is so perturbed about it that he rants all through dinner that evening, even though we’re at a super cute Italian restaurant and there is so much bread.
I try to remind him that the six-week isolation is practical and for his benefit.
“They’re trying to avoid situations like us,” I say.
“What, where two people care enough about each other not to abandon each other?” he scoffs. “That is ridiculous. Whoever came up with the whole ‘the only person you can depend on is you’ thing was obviously clinically depressed.”
“But—”
“And Stella—” he reaches across our restaurant table to grab my hand again, and I don’t know why, but I don’t like it “—you have to trust me not to make a bad decision. I know what I’m doing. I know it’s worth it.”
I pull my hand away from his, and he looks a little hurt. But he doesn’t know. He can’t see what he’s doing, and I don’t know how to explain it to him. Maybe it’s wrong, but I’m not sure I can handle the idea of him becoming immortal for me. We haven’t ever even talked about marriage. On the commitment scale, immortality is a million times bigger than that.
“Did you talk to your parents before you left Detroit?” I ask him.
“My parents are idiots,” he says grouchily. “They think I
’m being stupid.”
He is being stupid. But he’s never going to see it.
11.
MYLES
Does love always require a grand gesture to be real? Stella questions whether ours is enough for the actions I’m taking. She says things like, “We’re not married, Myles,” and “What if we’re too young to even know what love is?”
But I think I know what love is, and I think if a grand gesture is what it takes, then me applying for the Immortality Program should certainly count.
Anyway, Stella worries too much. Now that I’m here, I think immortality is incredible. I’m not sure she sees it that way—I know the ancient immortals make her uneasy—but she doesn’t have much choice, does she? I mean, it’s this, or she limits her life to another, what, thirty years? That’s not a rational choice to make. I wish she could just make the best of all this.
I mull it over with Foster as we settle into a dormitory that must be the smallest, cheapest, nastiest place I have ever lived. I guess the upgraded living facilities are reserved for immortals residing here. The young mortals like us get crummy dorm rooms. Foster and I are sharing a rickety bunk bed with plastic mattresses. The sheets they gave me are scratchy. The pillow is lumpy. We don’t have a bathroom, and we’ll be using a communal one down the hall. And I only brought one suitcase, so my stuff is already all put away in my half of our one closet and in the two drawers I get in our one dresser.
I feel like I am on an adventure, and I love the simplicity.
Foster, on the other hand, is complaining about everything, and he way over packed. His side of the closet is maxed out, the top of the dresser has been overtaken by his toiletries, and he needed so many books from home that he had to have boxes of books shipped to the dorm in advance. Now he’s unpacking box after box, lining books up all along the walls, and whining about how they should have given us at least two bookshelves.
“Can we get back to Stella, though?” I say to him while I lie on the top bunk, staring up at a crack in the ceiling. “I don’t think she believes me when I tell her I want to do this, and I don’t understand why.”
“Stella is a wise soul,” Foster tells me while he hefts more books out of a box. Don’t even ask me why he couldn’t just have brought an e-reader.
“She’s still acting weird. It’s almost like she doesn’t want me with her in the Immortality Program. And not just because she’s upset about my parents being assholes.”
Foster has those books stacked so high, he’ll be lucky if they don’t all fall. “She doesn’t want you to make a bad decision because of her. She’s worried you’ll regret it later. I think you need to show her this is something you would have done without her.”
“But this isn’t something I would do without her.”
“Glad to know our friendship means so much to you,” Foster says sarcastically. But he doesn’t mean it. He is going to thrive here no matter who’s with him. He’s got his eyes set on medical school, and he’s already talking about how he’s going to research the Immortality Virus. He says we shouldn’t stop trying to improve something like that. We need to make it safer, easier, better long-term. Well, if anyone can achieve that, it’s Foster.
“Immortality wouldn’t have gotten in the way of our friendship, Fost,” I say. “We’re bros for life.”
“Might want to reconsider that,” Foster says. “Bros for life means something different when you’re both going to live for thousands of years. Stella gets that. Maybe it would make her feel better if you start thinking about what your first specialty is going to be as an immortal. You know, find something to do with yourself. Otherwise, she’s always going to be worried that you’ve given up too much. Especially if you guys ever break up.”
“We’re not going to break up.”
“What if you do?”
“Then I’ll still have had more time with her than if I didn’t go through the Immortality Program. Worth it.”
“And you don’t think you’re going to regret that your parents stopped talking to you? What if she breaks up with you in, like, a hundred years, and your parents are already dead, and it’s too late for you to reconcile with them?”
I try to give that real thought. It’s weird because I didn’t think my parents were that bad before. I suppose we’ve never really butted heads like this. And in my house, immortality was always considered a major sin, so I never gave that serious thought before either. But now that I’ve freed myself from the expectations of a mortal life steered by my parents, I feel great. The deadlines have all been lifted, you know? There’s no pressure on me anymore at all to accomplish anything in any amount of time. I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet, and that’s okay because I have all the time in the world to decide.
“Who cares? For me, this is all good luck. I wouldn’t have known what assholes my parents could be without Stella’s red flag.”
“Specialty,” Foster says. “I’m telling you. If you want to convince Stella this is good for you, you have to give her some concrete proof.”
“But what if it’s good because it allows me to take my sweet time making those decisions? I don’t have to do anything right away, do I? Isn’t the whole point of immortality that there’s no need to rush? I could meditate on my purpose for decades.”
“Monk, then. Make monkage your first specialty.”
“Monkage? Is that a thing?”
“It should be,” Foster says. “So, make it one. Spend your first era meditating on the purpose of life. I think you’d look great in one of those Tibetan robes.”
The idea is tempting.
“I’ll shave your head for you,” Foster says to sweeten the deal.
“But don’t monks live a life of celibacy?” I say. “I don’t think that would work for Stella and me.”
Foster stops his unpacking, looks up at me on the top bunk, and examines me with this skeptical, suspicious look. Then, because he is Foster Hinks, he scoots around to another box, sticks his head in, and pulls out a thin and ancient book titled Sex for Dumb Teenage Boys.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he says as he stands up to hand it to me. “And try not to put so many expectations on Stella.”
“I don’t put any expectations on Stella,” I say with the book burning in my hands. “I just want her to be happy.”
“Do you think she’s happy with having to be an immortal?”
“I think she’s trying to be. Aren’t you? You guys with the flags don’t have a choice, right?”
Foster doesn’t look up from the box he is now unpacking. “There is always another choice.”
12.
STELLA
Myles likes to go for walks in the park at the Immortality Center at dusk before the stars come out. The park has an old winding path that loops us around a historic library that’s been converted into an immortal artist’s co-op. Whenever we walk by that place, it always smells like someone mixed up their incense with their paint and started trying to smoke both. But Myles will always be a romantic, so he thinks nothing beats an evening stroll and a starlit kiss, even against a weird chemical odor.
It’s late spring now, and I wish I could say I’m totally sold on the idea of immortality, but I’m not. I still have reservations. For every way in which immortality would be amazing, I can also find a way in which it’s brutal.
The Immortality Program seems to emphasize the brutal parts more than the amazing. Even though only 2% of people who get the virus die from it, we’ve had at least one event every week where the family of someone who died comes in and talks to us. They discuss the person’s decision to become immortal, how their death impacted the family, and whether the family would recommend immortality to us.
About half the time they say yes, it was worth it. About half the time they say no, it’s better to have whatever time you’re supposed to have left on Earth than to die as a sixteen-year-old. I’ve noticed that whether they’re likely to approve of immortality has a lot to do with why t
he deceased chose that path. Black flag families almost always say it’s worth the risk. Red flag families say it’s worth the risk sometimes. Families like Myles's, whose kids choose immortality just because, almost always advise against it.
This does not make me feel better about Myles becoming immortal.
Tonight, we’re thinking about a success story, though. Grazie went through her injection two weeks ago, and we saw her today at lunch for the first time since.
“She looks great, doesn’t she?” I say to Myles as we walk through the park. “Like, unbelievably great. Her skin was glowing.”
“That’s the beauty of the Immortality Virus,” Myles says. “It makes your body function absolutely optimally. Foster says it alters your DNA cell-by-cell. Ten years after you take the virus, you don’t have any bad genetic mutations left at all.”
“You never had any bad genetic mutations,” I note.
He sticks out his foot and points at it. “Hairy toes. That is a bad, bad genetic mutation.”
Grazie is moving to St. Louis next week. She could have stayed here in Michigan for her decade-long immortality training, but Washington University is practically next door to the Missouri Immortality Center. Grazie wants to start an academic course that will ultimately give her the background to research the black flag mutation that forced immortality on her.
“Because I’m happy to be immortal,” she told us today, “but I wish I could have chosen this instead of being forced into it.”
Foster is psyched because Wash U has an excellent medical school, and this means that after he becomes immortal, he and Grazie can continue to date in St. Louis.
“We’ll be each other’s first immortal relationship,” Foster told us, right in front of Grazie, like it’s cool with both of them to think about it that way. “First” but not “last.”
“Assuming you survive it,” Grazie said cheerfully, and Foster just laughed like that was cool, too.
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