The sound of the bells suddenly grew louder. Ray turned toward the sound and was the first to spot Samson entering one of the rear doors, his weapon at his side. The agent on the stage saw him next and raised his weapon, but Samson fired first and the agent fell. Then Terra was flying at lightning speed around the perimeter of the room toward Samson, distracting him long enough for Marcus to hit the deck before Samson could get off another shot in his direction.
Samson fired at Terra as she drew her weapon and the shot caught her in the midsection, barely slowing her pursuit. Samson ducked through the door. The chase continued across the lobby and out onto a balcony where Terra caught up with him and they grappled hand to hand. Ray was amazed at how strong she was, even wounded, as she held her ground in her battle with the superhuman SPUD. Then in a single, stunning movement, she ducked, grabbed him by the feet, and flipped him over the railing. Ray heard the impact of the massive body crashing head first to the ground below.
Then from amidst the chaos, Hector Lasko emerged, racing toward the balcony.
“Terra!” Ray shouted, but it was too late. Hector’s weapon bore a hole through the back of her head and her body collapsed. Bright red blood spurted briefly from the wound, then pooled around her lifeless form. Ray was as astonished to see the blood as he was stunned at Terra’s demise. With her ageless strength and speed, he’d been sure that she was a SPUD. It now dawned on him that her powers had come from the Transformation. And it was now abundantly clear that it didn’t immunize anyone against death.
Kirti seemed to come out of nowhere as she bore down on Hector, but before Ray could recover from the shock of Terra’s death, Hector was upon him, one arm around his neck and the weapon pressed into his back. Kirti stopped in her tracks. Hector fired, boring a hole in her right thigh and she was down, her weapon hitting the ground and sliding out of reach.
With his Secret Service agent down, Marcus had made his way through the cowering throng to the rear of the ballroom to get a better look at his assailant. He’d not forgotten the close call at the house when Corinne had nearly lost her life. He was determined not to ever let her face that risk again. This needed to end here. He peered out from the door of the ballroom just as Samson went over the railing and Terra was shot. Now he watched as Hector backed toward the elevator using Ray as a shield. He resisted the temptation to charge. He couldn’t risk Ray’s life. At least Hector wasn’t aware of the special link he had with Ray and the extraordinary power that he now held over them both.
The elevator door closed behind Hector and Ray. Marcus ran toward the elevators just as Travis came out of the shadows headed the same way. They reached the elevator bank at the same time. The door opened. Travis entered first and tried to fend Marcus off, but Marcus was far stronger and barged into the elevator capsule. They were on the ground in seconds. When the door slid open, they saw Hector and Ray disappear outside. They both sprang for the door and emerged in time to see the hovercar lift off and speed away.
Travis commandeered the nearest vehicle with Marcus by his side and joined pursuit. Hector’s vehicle was still visible when they turned onto Market Street. As they began to close in, Hector left Market and wound among the streets of the city toward Nob Hill trying to lose them. With each turn they were just in time to see him disappear around the next corner. They turned right from California onto Hyde and were hot on his tail as he crested Russian Hill when he suddenly veered right.
Travis missed the turn and stopped short, causing the hovercar to hit the ground hard. Marcus jumped out and peered over the vista toward the bay just in time to see Ray’s car miss a hairpin turn on the brick lined road, bounce off a brick wall, roll completely over and come to rest against one of the concrete barriers that lined the street. He bounded for the wreckage. By the time he reached it, he could see that the driver was dead.
Ray was slumped in the passenger’s seat wrapped in the mangled carbon fiber frame, barely conscious and unable to move. The door was ajar. Blood was running freely from a gash on his forehead and his breathing was labored. Ray’s right arm was twisted at an angle that left no doubt that it was broken, probably in more than one place. Marcus put a finger on Ray’s carotid pulse, which was rapid, thready, and irregular. He looked like a dying man, which meant that Marcus’s life could now be measured in minutes before he would die painfully in that broken body. He struggled to free the body from the car, but it wouldn’t budge. The frame of the car embraced Ray’s body snugly and would not give it up.
Then Ray gasped and after a moment of darkness, Marcus felt excruciating pain throughout his body and was gazing upon his own face through clouded eyes. He was completely paralyzed and struggling for breath. He fought to remain conscious, but had no idea why. The end was both inevitable and imminent. It was time to pay.
Ray took a deep breath and felt the power and vitality of his new body. There was no longer any pain and the relief was exhilarating. He looked down upon his former body and into the clouded eyes as the life within it ebbed. When a tear trickled from one of the dying eyes, he was surprised to feel another stream down his own cheek.
He imagined Corinne and Natasha waiting at home for Marcus to return. He would go there in Marcus’s place and pretend to be him, but she’d know. She had to. And the charade would only deepen her pain and sense of betrayal. Natasha might take longer to figure out that something essential had changed about her father, but she, too, would eventually know that he was no longer himself.
Corinne would eventually have to be told, but how and by whom? He could imagine the intensity of her rage and pain and couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing it or of becoming the object of her loathing.
His attention returned to the fading life before him. The eyes were now closed and the breath came in clusters of ascending and descending depth. There was no longer any sign that Marcus was conscious. Ray’s tears were now flowing freely. He was responsible for the death of a good man and the bereavement of his family and friends. Did Marcus deserve for his life to end this way? Did Ray deserve to live indefinitely in the body that was the product of Marcus’s diligence and sweat?
Marcus’s breath had become agonal, coming in short, distantly spaced gasps. Ray’s eyes wandered to the small dark spot just behind Marcus’s right earlobe, now almost obscured by the blood. Then, in a singular moment of clarity, he reached out. His fingers felt for the subtle swelling beneath the spot that yielded to the pressure of his touch and all went dark forever.
Marcus looked down upon Ray’s lifeless body, both relieved and bewildered to be alive. He drew a breath that seemed to flow throughout his body and exhaled all the way from the bottoms of his feet. It was over. Ray had released him from his contract. He would get to live out his life.
Epilogue
WHEN MARCUS RETURNED from San Francisco just after midnight, he found Corinne waiting up for him. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes intense, and her lips pressed tightly together. Whenever he’d seen that look before, she’d wanted something badly and she’d always managed to get her way. What she wanted that night was answers.
With Photina’s help, Corinne had deduced Ray Mettler’s role in saving her from the fire and had pieced together that there was a vital connection between him and Marcus, something that had brought him there that day. She’d also determined that Mettler lived in San Francisco and guessed that Marcus’s real motive for attending the conference was to see him.
“We need to talk,” she began. “I know you’ve been hiding something from me, something big, and I’m ready to hear what it is.”
Marcus sat down on the edge of the bed facing her and looked straight into her eyes.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s time to tell you everything if you’re ready to listen. But I’m not sure you’ll believe what I have to say.”
“Try me,” she said, settling back against the pillows. “It can’t be crazier than what I’ve imagined.”
“I grew up poor,” he began, “and uned
ucated. I began my adult life with the deck stacked against me...until she showed up.”
“The redhead,” guessed Corinne.
“Yes, the redhead. Her name is...was Terra, and she came out of the blue one day while I was running in the Endless Park. She had a proposition for me. Something totally inconceivable.” He paused, searching for the words to frame the next part of his story.
“She offered me wealth beyond my dreams in exchange for agreeing that another man’s consciousness would take over my body when his died.”
Corinne gasped. “How is that even possible? And how could you have agreed to such an outrageous request?”
“You have to understand. I had nothing. I was all alone with nothing to lose. You weren’t a part of my life at that point. And if I hadn’t taken the deal, we’d probably never have met.”
“So you sold your future.”
“In exchange for a chance to have a life that was worth something, that was more than just an existence. It was a fresh start and I was determined to make the most of it. I traded duration for quality. And look what I...we accomplished. We saved the world from the brink of disaster.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t. It was one of the conditions. I couldn’t ever tell anyone.”
“Until now,” she said.
“Until now.”
“So what’s changed?’
“I’ll get to that. There’s more.”
“Go on.”
“There was another condition. What Mettler wanted was immortality. Not only did he want to escape his own death, but he wanted the body he wound up with to live forever. That meant undergoing the Transformation.”
“The Methuselarity Transformation? You’ve had it?” Corinne exclaimed. “Oh, Marcus, how could you? You know how I’ve felt about that.”
“It happened long before we ever met. That’s why I tried so hard to convince you to have it, too. I didn’t want to stay young while you grew old.”
“But what good would that have done if you were going to leave me, anyway?”
“That part seemed so far off. I thought it would be decades away. So it didn’t seem real...until last spring when it almost happened.” He looked away. This was the hardest part for him to tell her and the hardest for him to acknowledge.
“What happened, Marcus?” she asked.
“He almost died. At least he thought he’d died. And for a while we exchanged identities.”
“You mean you became him and he became you?”
“That’s right. And I was sure that my life was over.”
“It was the day of your speech, the one with the president. Wasn’t it?” Corinne asked.
“That’s right. How did you know?” He turned toward her again.
“Because something was different about you that night. Everything, actually.” She hesitated for what seemed to Marcus like an eternity. “We made love, Marcus. It was different. It felt different.”
“It wasn’t me.” His voice cracked in anguish. He looked away again.
“No, it wasn’t you,” she answered, touching his hand. “The next morning I saw you looking in the mirror. You were acting so strangely. I knew something was terribly wrong, but had no idea what was going on. I only began to put the pieces together when I felt his touch the day he rescued me from the fire. And Photina later told me about recognizing his movements from the way you moved that night.”
“I haven’t been able to get that night out of my mind,” Marcus said. “It’s been driving me crazy that he made love to you.”
“And yet, you’d agreed that he’d someday take over your life for good. He’d have your body and he’d have me to make love to for all eternity.” She was angry enough now to enjoy the pain that she was causing him by twisting the knife.
“Which made me even crazier. It was my own fault. And there was nothing I could do about it. But now it’s over.”
“Over? How?”
“Mettler is dead. I was there when he died and he released me. At the last moment, from within my body, he reversed the exchange and gave me my life back.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m free. We’re free. There’s no more contract. Which is why I’ve been able to tell you everything.”
“You get to live out your life,” Corinne said slowly, pondering the implications, “without me.”
“What do you mean?” he asked in alarm. “Are you going to leave me?”
“Not right now, Marcus,” she replied, “but I’m growing older and you’re not. Our lives are going to be different. And even if we’re together until the end, I’m going to die.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Marcus said, looking again straight into her eyes. “I love you more than life itself. I want to grow old with you. I will grow old with you.”
“How?”
“I’m going to have the Transformation reversed. Now that the contract is over, I’m free to do so. And I’ll do it gladly. I was never comfortable with it knowing how you felt about it. Now we can live out our lives together...on the same terms...with no more secrets until death do we part.”
Lena Holbrook drove up to the Takana house for the second time in her life. She’d never published her story from her first interview with Marcus and Corinne. Ray was now dead nearly a year and she decided it was time to finish what she started. Now there was another chapter to the story, one of which she and Ray were a part. She wondered if she’d be able to write it.
Corinne came to the door and greeted her with a hug. They had bonded at the time of her first visit. By now, Corinne knew that Lena was Ray Mettler’s widow, which created an additional complexly nuanced bond between them. Corinne knew at least that she would never tell Lena about the night she and Ray made love.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” said Marcus as he walked up from behind Corinne. “He was a hell of a guy. We both owe him our lives.”
Lena hadn’t seen Marcus since the day Ray was killed. She knew only that Marcus was by his side when he died and that the same people had been after them both, but knew nothing else about the connections between them. She’d hoped to solve these mysteries during this visit. She would not be disappointed.
When Marcus and Corinne had finished their story of an ill-fated contract born out of a fretful man’s longing for immortality, a daring rescue from a fiery inferno, and Ray’s final gift of life and selfless death, Lena wondered at the complexity of the man with whom she’d shared her life, but hardly knew. The Takana story was now his story, too, and hers. Its arc was more sweeping and complete than the nascent version she’d buried years ago. And, Lena liked to think, telling a person’s story imbued them with just a touch of immortality. She prayed that it was all Ray would ever need.
About the Author
Rick Moskovitz, a Harvard educated psychiatrist, who taught psychotherapy and practiced for over thirty years, is the author of Lost in the Mirror: an inside look at Borderline Personality Disorder and Carousel Music: a novel, based on the controversy of recovered memories in psychotherapy. He left practice to venture further into writing fiction that explores the psychological consequences of living in a world of expanding possibilities.
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