by Kyle Mills
The man released Carly and started back toward the stairs, motioning for them to follow. She reached out and took Richard’s hand, squeezing it tightly as they obediently followed. What choice did they have?
“How did dinner go?” Richard asked, keeping his tone as light as he could manage.
“Fine,” she replied. “The stew’s just like you wanted.”
When they got to the steep staircase leading to the house’s third floor, the man in front of them stopped short. The passage was narrow and poorly lit, plummeting into shadow before it took a hard right midway through.
“What is it?” Richard said, leaning subtly forward to better see the guard’s enigmatic expression. “Are you all right?”
His thick brow knitted, and he blinked a few times before jerking his head awkwardly in Richard’s direction. “What…what are you asking that for?”
They descended quickly, emerging into a wide hallway that they followed in a direction that Richard had never been. His wife’s hand felt slick in his and he squeezed a little tighter, trying to be reassuring but knowing that the gesture was hollow.
At the end of the hall, the guard threw open a door and took a position next to it, pointing them into an expansive study.
The walls were full of well-dusted books, and an unlit fireplace large enough to walk into soared directly in front of them. A single leather chair made up half a conversation pit, and there were still indentions in the carpet where the matching chair had once been.
The door to their right opened, and Xander rolled in, parking his wheelchair just over those marks as a man Richard didn’t recognize took a place in the chair. He was probably mid thirties, with dark hair and a blue suit that gave the impression of antiseptic fastidiousness.
“This is my new associate, Karl,” Xander said. “Karl, Richard and Carly Draman.”
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said with a light accent that Richard couldn’t quite place. “I must say that Dr. Mason and I were beginning to wonder if this day would ever come.”
Richard stiffened at the mention of Mason and released his wife’s hand, staring intently at Karl as the man casually crossed his legs.
“The answer to the question forming in your mind is yes,” he said. “In fact, I was the very first human to take the therapy. I had just turned eighty-nine at the time.”
Richard glanced at his wife and assumed that her stunned expression was reflected on his own face. The photo of Mason had been staggering, but it was nothing compared to physically standing in front of this man. There were no signs at all that he had once been nearing the edge of human longevity. He could go anywhere, do anything. No one would look twice.
“I’m told that the contents of the vial we recovered actually was a complete dose,” Xander said. “Apparently, I should either be dead or it should be beginning to take effect by now. Any thoughts on what could have gone wrong?”
Richard dragged his attention from Karl to face the old man but found himself mute.
“Don’t understand the question, Richard? Let me make it easier. You got out of the car on the way to the hospital after you poisoned yourself. Any chance you left something behind out there?”
A lengthy inventory of lies and diversions ran through Richard’s mind, but all sounded ridiculous, even to him. “I think you already know the answer to that, Andreas.”
“Where is she?” Karl said. “Where is your daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
“And even if we did,” Carly broke in, “we would never tell you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “The love of a parent. I’m told that there is no psychological force quite as strong—not even the instinct for one’s own survival. It doesn’t matter though. We have a photograph of the vehicle they’re in from an ATM camera near the pharmacy where Burt Seeger attempted to fill your daughter’s prescriptions. I’d be very surprised if it takes our combined forces more than a few more days to locate them.”
“Why?” Carly said, taking a step toward them before Richard grabbed her arm.
“Why what?” Karl responded.
“Why not just manufacture it? Sell it? You’d make billions.”
“Because it would be the end of society as we know it. I don’t suppose it’s lost on you that the stupider and more useless people are, the more prolifically they breed. Can you imagine every welfare mother, every criminal, every dim or genetically diseased person having access to this? What would stop them from spilling out endless streams of children while the elite have one or two children per century?”
“There could be regulation—”
Xander laughed more loudly than Richard thought possible. He had lost the starring role in this particular drama and obviously wanted it back.
“Regulation? You think the government’s going to tell anybody they can’t have this? That they can’t have as many children as they want? Hell no. They’re going to hand it out to everyone, and they’re going to use it to consolidate their power. Can you imagine? The same entrenched politician elected over and over again for centuries?” He pointed to Richard. “And your field wouldn’t fare any better. A bunch of tenured old professors who ran out of ideas eighty years ago locked into their positions and preventing the rise of anything that shakes tradition.”
“He’s exactly right,” Karl said calmly. “You’d have tens of millions of people psychologically unprepared for this step in human evolution, living mundane lives, doing tedious jobs, watching television, having children. Forever. Not out of any sense of purpose or an effort to make a contribution, but because they’re afraid to die.”
“And you’re not?” Richard said.
He shrugged. “The practical problems with immortality are far greater than you can imagine. The beneficiaries of this therapy must be extremely intelligent, flexible—”
“So a bunch of rich, arrogant murderers like you?” Carly said. “What about Mother Teresa? Or Picasso? Why do you get to choose?”
“Someone has to,” Xander said.
“But not you,” Carly pointed out. “You weren’t good enough. They didn’t choose you. We did.”
“Not entirely true,” Karl interjected. “Andreas’s health is poorer than we would normally accept.”
“The therapy could kill him,” Richard said to no one in particular, thinking of his daughter fighting for her life in the back of Seeger’s RV.
“It’s quite possible,” Karl said. “Likely, even.”
“I thought people might become twisted if they lived forever,” Carly said. “But I was wrong. You start out that way.”
Richard actually let out a short laugh.
“You think this is funny?” Xander said, obviously expecting more groveling and terror than he was getting.
“I’ve never heard so much bullshit in my life,” Richard said. “Don’t give me all this crap about the fabric of society. You don’t give a rat’s ass about contributing—all you want to do is spend the next five hundred years hoarding wealth and power. If I were choosing, you would be the ones excluded. I’d rather have ten welfare mothers than either one of you.”
“Then it’s fortunate it isn’t up to you, isn’t it?” Karl said.
Xander had clearly heard enough, and he hit a button on his wheelchair. A muffled buzz drifted in through the closed door behind them. “You shouldn’t have turned on me, Richard. You didn’t just kill yourself—you killed your wife and daughter.”
“Nice try, Andreas, but I’m not stupid. We were dead anyway.”
The door opened behind them and the guard entered, a gun hanging loosely from his hand.
Xander pointed a bony finger in their direction. “Get rid of them.”
67
Near Madison, Wisconsin
May 27
The air was warm and still as Burt Seeger hobbled down the RV’s steps carrying a collapsible wheelchair. He unfolded it next to a picnic table, pausing every few seconds to look around at the activity in th
e surrounding sites.
He’d parked as close to the center of the campground as he could, making it nearly impossible for an assault team to get to him without being noticed by his new neighbors, many of whom tended to stay up all night drinking.
Susie was still in the RV, sprawled across the bed with two sleeping bags piled on top of her. The IV he’d cobbled together had done its job rehydrating her, and she woke up a few times a day now, always hungry and always cold. He’d bring her favorite—mac and cheese—and get a few spoonfuls into her mouth before she lost consciousness again. There was no recognition in her eyes anymore. Maybe her brain had been damaged by what he’d given her. Maybe he’d destroyed what made her who she was.
Seeger went back up the steps and pulled the sleeping bags off her, immediately adding a down parka and stocking cap to the fleece tracksuit that had failed so miserably to keep her warm. She felt almost weightless as he carried her down the stairs and eased her gently into the wheelchair.
The sun dispersed the clouds hanging on the horizon as he pushed her onto a path that led into the rolling grassland that surrounded the campsite. He knew she should be in bed, but it was so hard to see her lying in the musty old vehicle day after day.
There was a soft crunch behind him, and he spun, reaching for the gun in his jacket before realizing it was just a young couple out for a jog.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you,” the girl said, her polite smile turning a little sad when she looked down at Susie.
He watched them recede, cursing himself. They’d made it to within twenty feet before he’d realized they were there. The older he got, the deafer he got, and the more he found himself lost in his own mind. It was only a matter of time before his luck ran out. One day very soon they’d find him. And it would be over before he even knew it had started.
The quality of the trail deteriorated, and Susie slumped right as the chair got hung up in a set of rocky ruts. Her eyes fluttered open, and he pointed to a squirrel standing on its hind legs watching them.
“Look who’s come out to say hello,” he said, carefully propping her back upright.
A week ago, her ancient face would have been transformed by childlike wonder. Today she just clawed clumsily at the snaps on her jacket, not bothering to lift her gaze from the ground.
He touched her forehead, and it felt hot, but not the burning heat of the fever she’d been running. Maybe the fresh air and sun had finally driven away the chills that had been plaguing her.
“Let’s leave the coat on a little longer, sweetheart. We’ll start with taking your hat off and see how that goes.”
He pulled the knit cap from her head and was about to stuff it in his pocket when he froze. The sweat broke across his lip, and he wiped it away as he stared down at the top of her head. It was an illusion, he told himself—a combination of old eyes and angled sunlight.
Seeger wasn’t sure how long it took him to muster the courage to reach out and run a hand across her scalp, but when he did, he discovered it wasn’t a mirage. It was real.
He laughed out loud, tears welling up in his eyes as he caressed the downy fuzz of sprouting hair where before there had been nothing.
68
Upstate New York
May 27
“I told you to get rid of them!” Xander said.
The guard just stood there, pistol dangling uselessly from his hand. The sound of a muffled gunshot drifted through the open door, but he didn’t react other than to squint back toward the hallway as though he were trying to catch a glimpse of the bullet.
Richard didn’t know how long the confusion would last, and he lunged, slamming him against a wall and grabbing for his gun hand. He heard Carly yelp in surprise, but she regained her composure quickly, getting hold of the man’s other hand and sinking her teeth into his wrist.
He let out a strangled wail and collapsed to the ground, releasing the gun and putting his arms protectively in front of his face. Richard grabbed the weapon and swung it in the direction of Karl and Xander.
But they were gone.
“What the hell’s wrong with him?” Carly said as the powerfully built man cowered in the corner.
Richard pulled her into the hallway. “I’ll explain later.”
They ran back the way they’d come, listening to the shouts of people in other parts of the house mingle with the sound of gunfire and howling dogs. He slowed when they neared the stairs leading to the ground floor, putting a cautionary hand out and peering down at the entry hall. A man with a blond crew cut had taken cover behind a flipped table and was crying inconsolably as he watched the escalating chaos over his pistol sights.
“You!” someone behind them shouted, and they spun in the direction of the voice.
The man was running at them full speed, and Richard pulled his wife into an empty room. She slammed the door behind them and tried to twist the lock knob but was a fraction too slow. It flew open with the sound of cracking wood, and she sprawled backward, pedaling her feet on the polished floor in an effort to get away. Richard managed to get hold of a floor lamp, and he swung it like a baseball bat at the man charging into the room, catching him square in the face.
The force of the blow lifted him off the ground and he landed hard on his back. Richard stood over him with the lamp raised, but the man lay motionless, blood gushing from his nose and a lip held on only by a narrow flap of skin.
Carly crawled to the door and shoved it closed, putting her back against it as a gunfight erupted downstairs. “What the hell did you do?”
“Acid,” Richard responded, edging toward the window and looking outside. Directly below them a Doberman was chasing its tail while two others lay motionless in the grass. Their handler, who apparently had let them get into his leftover stew, was perched in the branches of a pine tree.
“LSD? You had me put LSD in the food?”
He nodded, watching Xander’s security force continue to disintegrate. “Like you said, tranquilizing them wouldn’t work—the later shifts would notice and some of them don’t eat. I needed something that didn’t have an obvious onset and that would keep the people who didn’t get a dose busy.”
“LSD,” she repeated, a hint of admiration in her voice. “I would have never thought of that.”
She got on all fours and opened the door just enough to peek out. The gunfire downstairs had gone silent, but the shouts and screams hadn’t.
“So what’s the plan? Are we going to climb out the window? It’s pretty far, but—”
“You’ve never dropped acid have you, Carly?”
“No.”
“Well, I have, and I don’t think we want to be climbing down the side of the building with a bunch of tripping mercenaries below us.”
“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you haven’t fully thought this through?”
“The guards’ reaction was too unpredictable to work out anything detailed. But we’ve got a chance. All we have to do is walk out of here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t look at anybody, don’t make any sudden moves. Just walk.”
“That’s your plan? We just leave?”
He didn’t answer, instead pulling the broken door open and heading back into the hallway. She started to run to catch up, but he waved a hand behind him, and she slowed to a more or less natural gait.
“Richard,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “We can’t just—”
He put a finger to his lips, silencing her. “No talking.”
The alarm began to sound just as they started down the stairs, but he kept going, ignoring its deafening wail and the men faced off below.
“There’s someone at the bottom,” Carly said quietly.
The man was lying on the marble floor, his face covered with his hands. Richard kept moving, slipping the gun he’d taken from his waistband. If the man noticed them stepping over him, he gave no indication.
They’d almost made it to the front door when a shot sounded behind them
and exploded into the plaster to their left.
“Freeze!”
The man stumbled forward and fired another round, obviously having trouble aiming. This one shredded the edge of a portrait depicting Xander in much younger days.
Richard lined up his own pistol and fired back, but his military school had wisely drawn the line at training its misfit students on concealable weapons. The shot went wide.
He abandoned his effort to keep them invisible and started to run, dragging his wife along behind. They came out into an enormous circular driveway and charged toward a black SUV parked at its edge. Carly yanked the passenger door open and jumped in, sliding over the console into the driver’s seat. “The keys are in it! Get in!”
The sound of a window breaking above caused Richard to duck involuntarily. A moment later, a man bounced off the vehicle’s front fender and hit the pavement hard enough to collapse the right side of his head.
Richard looked down at him—at the lifeless eyes half open, at the blood matting his hair. The other reason he’d chosen LSD was that it was impossible to overdose on. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone.
“Richard! What are you doing?” Carly shouted as she started the SUV’s engine. “Get in the damn car!”
The man who had shot at them inside the house finally made it to the driveway and this time took careful aim. Richard tensed as he pulled the trigger, but instead of an earsplitting crack, there was a quiet click.
“Richard!” Carly shouted again, and he jumped in. The door nearly slammed on his legs when she floored the vehicle through an elaborate flowerbed and aimed it at the iron gate leading to the road.
“Air bags!” Richard shouted, and she spun the wheel, drifting the vehicle one hundred and eighty degrees. She threw it in reverse and sped backward toward the gate, wrenching it from the stone fence with a deafening crash and a shower of sparks.
Richard turned in the seat as she launched the SUV up the road, looking through the spider-webbed rear windshield at a black sedan squealing away from the curb and accelerating in their direction.
