Lying in bed, his head on a warm white pillow, his unfocused eyes staring up at a lemon-yellow ceiling, and to his left was a full-length door-window looking out past buildings on the Rocky Mountains, and the smell of pine drifted in past the heat-curtain shimmer that kept out the cool mountain breeze.
Jeez, he thought, what day is it? How long have I been out? No calendar in the plain white-walled room, only the bed and a small hospital table, not even a clock. And if they used Deep Sleep recovery, which they probably did, no way of telling how long I’ve been out.
Confused memories swam into focus. Those cats with the guns took me to the operating… No wait, they took me to this room, put me on a stretcher-table, gave me a needle, and I was already half out when they wheeled me into the operating room, and then they wheeled someone else in after me—must’ve been Sara—last thing I remember. Sara must be immortal now too.
Immortal…? Don’t feel any different, at least I don’t think I do. Tuning in on his body Barren felt a slight soreness in the muscles of his stomach, a barely noticeable kink in his back, felt kind of comfortably weak and drowsy, like lying in bed the morning after a hard night. Nothing different, really, I still feel like me, is all.
Is anything different?
Barren strained his mind trying to remember just exactly how his body had always felt, not something you’re really aware of unless you’re real tired or sick. My imagination, just looking for it, or do I feel just a little different? Hard to tell. I don’t feel sick. A little weak from the operation, maybe, that’s for sure. Weak, yeah, but it’s a funny kind of weak, feels almost too good, like when I get up I could go run a mile… or is thinking maybe I’m immortal just playing games with my head?
Immortal… Shit, how do you know you’re immortal till you’ve lived a couple hundred years? No reason to suddenly feel different. Thing is, I suppose, you just keep feeling the same, young and healthy and strong the way you started, when you turn forty, fifty, seventy, a hundred… What feels different, I guess, is you don’t ever feel different, forty, a hundred, two hundred years, and you still feel the same, and that can’t feel different till after it hasn’t happened.
Immortality—no reason to feel any different, they could tell you it was just your appendix out, and you’d never even know.
Hey, am I immortal, or could the whole thing be a shuck? How the hell can I know, got only Bennie’s word for it. Could be they just faked it to cool me, I’d never know, can’t trust Bennie, and that’s for sure. Well, it doesn’t make any difference, win or lose, that game’s played out. Either way, when I get back to New York, Bennie’s had it. Next show I’ll really do him in… got those tapes safe and sound to make sure I get out of here alive, immortal or not, and maybe…
Why not? Get Bennie on the line, then play the tape on the air… What can he do? Sue me for libel, when it’s his own voice libeling itself? Dunno, better check first with lawyers—tapes can be edited, faked; they’re not evidence in court. Does that mean I’d have to prove another way he’s a murderer, or else he’d have a libel case? Unless I can con him with the tapes into confessing on the air… Shouldn’t be too hard to do. Seems like he’s finally flipped all the way, the way his eyes looked… maybe I could pull it off. It’d sure be nice and tidy, but dangerous as hell if I couldn’t bluff him. Better think about that, and get some good legal advice… maybe GOP lawyers…?
The door opened, and a dark man in a white tunic, obviously a doctor, peered inside, said: “Ah! Mr Howards, he’s awake. He’s come out of it.”
And Benedict Howards followed the doctor as he stepped inside.
“Well, Palacci,” Howards said, “go examine him. Tell me if it took.”
“No need to, Mr Howards,” the doctor replied. “If he’s alive and awake now, it took. The only danger was that the antibody suppressants might not work and his body would develop an allergic reaction to the grafts. That does happen, you know, in about two cases out of a hundred. But if it had happened, he’d be running a high fever, probably in a deep coma. In fact, by now he’d most likely be dead. It’s all right, he’s immortal and well, just like the woman.”
“Sara!” Barron shouted, feeling a stab of guilt that he had forgotten. “Sara’s all right?”
“Better than all right,” said Howards, and his eyes were still mad and gleaming the way they had been in the office… How many days ago? “She’s immortal now, just like you. And like me. How does it feel, Barron? How does it feel to wake up immortal, smell that pine in the air, and know you’ll never have to die? So long as you cooperate, of course.”
“I don’t feel anything, Howards,” Barron said guardedly. “I don’t feel any different at all. How do I know you didn’t just open me up and close me, or just drop me in a Deep Sleep chamber for… How long has it been? What day is this, anyway?”
“It’s Monday,” the doctor said. “You’ve been—”
Benedict Howards raised his hand, cut the doctor off. “I’ll do the talking,” he said. “When can he get up, Palacci? There’s a few things I want Mr Barron to see. Time he knew for certain, dead certain, who’s boss.”
“With forty hours of Deep Sleep recovery, he could get up right now. Strictly speaking, it’s not really a major operation. We don’t have to plant the grafts very deep.”
“Well, then go get him his clothes,” Howards said. “Mr Barron and I have a few things to talk over in private.”
As the doctor left, closing the door behind him, Barron propped himself up against the bedstead. He felt surprisingly strong and much more in control of the situation than he did flat on his back.
“All right, Howards,” he said, “so prove I’m immortal. I’ll admit I have no idea how it should feel, but it seems to me all I’ve got is your word for it, and all your word and thirty cents’ll get me is a ride on the subway. Just remember those tapes. You gotta keep me happy to keep me cool, and you gotta keep me cool just to stay alive, and you better not forget it.”
“Sure, you and your smart-ass tapes…” Howards smirked. “When you get back to New York, you’ll mail all the copies to me and we’ll have a nice little bonfire.”
Barron smiled. He’s really flipped for sure. “What planet you say you’re from, Bennie? You prove you really delivered, and I just might let you off—just maybe, depends how I feel. But those tapes are the property of yours truly, and I think I’ll just keep ’em around to keep you—you should pardon the expression—honest. The penalty for murder is death in the chair, and you better keep that in mind.”
“I’ll try to keep it in mind, Barron,” Howards said. (But his paranoid loonie eyes were laughing. Laughing!) “And I think you’d do well to remember it too. And you are immortal, and I will prove it. I’m gonna show you everything, give you a guided tour of the whole operation. You’re gonna find out just how you were made immortal, and believe me, that’ll prove to you that I really delivered.”
“You’re gibbering, Howards. How’ll that prove anything?”
Howards laughed, and in the chill certainty behind his paranoid eyes Barron got a flash of mortal dread, knowing for certain, dead certain, that Benedict Howards was now sure he had everything in the bag.
“All in good time,” Howards said. “You’ll see. You’ll see what my percentage was in making you immortal all along. Maybe those tapes do put my life in your hands, but your own immortality is what gives you to me. All the way, Barron, I own you now, you’re my flunky now, and you’ll never be able to forget it. But wait till your clothes get here, then you’ll see. Oh, man, will you see!”