Everyone was standing around by that point. The seven surviving Immortals.
Pierce met Felix’s eye. “The yacht?”
Felix nodded.
They bent and wrapped the corners of the sheet around their wrists, then stood in unison.
“What are you doing?” Allison asked.
Ries found himself answering the question. “Burial at sea.”
19
Cravings and Confessions
ALLISON DIDN’T REMEMBER the walk to the yacht or the ride two miles out. Her mind was as cloudy as the sky, a deep and dreary gray. Why was this happening to them? Two Immortal deaths in one month. The first two ever. The analyst in her knew it could not be coincidence. Her inner humanitarian trembled and wept. Had they angered God?
It wasn’t until Pierce had Camilla’s body poised on eternity’s precipice that Allison returned to the moment. He was tying off the twisted top of a king pillowcase that she now remembered seeing him fill with rocks.
While the others stood around in silence, Felix reappeared from inside and joined Pierce at the edge of the dive deck. “Nothing. No rope, no cable ties. It’s a new yacht, so there’s not much lying around. I suppose I could use a kitchen knife to cut strips off a bath towel.”
“I’ll use my belt,” Pierce replied. He pulled the calfskin strap from around his waist and went to work. “Peel back the blanket to expose her ankles.”
While Felix complied with the request, Pierce looped the belt around the neck of the pillowcase. He cinched it tight beneath the knot, then wrapped the rest of the long tail around Camilla’s ankles and buckled it tight.
“Nice,” Felix said, smoothing the wrapping back down.
“Does anyone want to speak?” Pierce asked.
The crowd naturally turned to Lisa. Once their CEO, always their leader. And Camilla’s closest friend.
Lisa stood silent for a long second while the waves slapped the side of the yacht and the wind pushed the clouds across the worried sky. Her face contorted a few times, but in the end all she said was, “You were a fine and faithful friend. I’ll miss you, dear Camilla. I hope you’re in a better place.”
When nobody else stepped forward to speak, Pierce guided the makeshift anchor out over the deck’s edge, then Felix nudged the body. A bloop was followed by a burst of bubbles, and Camilla Rose’s body was commended to the sea.
Allison felt a shudder deep within her chest. She looked over at David. He appeared even more shaken. “I’m sorry I blindsided you with my acting and the vote. I know it was a betrayal. I don’t feel good about it.”
David turned to face her.
She braced for the biting retort about switching sides. Eric, God bless his soul, had always framed things as us vs. them, referring to the PhDs and the MBAs. Ries had taken up the torch in his absence. But David’s soulful eyes held sadness wrapped in affection, and his words were anything but biting. “It’s different from what we’d expected. Immortality, I mean.”
It was the first time she’d heard him refer to their condition using the same shorthand as the rest of them, rather than halted aging. Her shoulders relaxed as her defenses dropped. “Yes. So different.”
David didn’t reply, he just held her eye.
Allison felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to share. To let loose the baggage that bound her heart. “Back at Eos, we were working toward this incredible prize. We had purpose. We had passion. We had hope for fame and fortune and glory. We were going to be the people who cracked the ultimate code. The secret to eternal life. You know?”
“I know,” David said, his wise eyes smiling.
“And we did it! Our accomplishment makes landing on the moon look pedestrian. It’s like a footnote, whereas we didn’t just turn the page, we opened the second volume of human history.”
“And nobody knows,” David said, completing her thought.
Allison was so relieved to hear her innermost thoughts echoed back. “Nobody knows. And more importantly—something I understand now infinitely better than I did back then—nobody ever should.”
“I have no doubt about that.”
Allison put her hand on his shoulder. “You always understood me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, or that I’m not appreciative.”
The yacht rocked abruptly, as if in answer to her words. Allison looked up to see that they were nudging back onto the lift. In a minute, hoists would begin raising the Sunrise Sailor out of the sea and up into Lisa’s boathouse.
David began to back away, but Allison wasn’t finished, so she didn’t release her grip. The succession of funerals had uncorked so many emotions. She simply had to let them out. “I got the ultimate prize, and I feel like I earned it. And I got the fortune that’s commensurate. On the surface, my life is perfect. Family issues aside, right now there’s not a woman in the world who wouldn’t trade shoes with me.”
David again moved closer. “But those other women don’t know.”
“Exactly! They don’t understand how much you lose by gaining. I was so much happier back in my Eos days than I am now—and it’s not because I was younger.”
David chuckled and Allison also voiced a nervous laugh. It felt good. She needed that release. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be happy. I mean the big us, humans. I think we’re supposed to struggle. I think that’s because there’s something more important to our psyche than hedonistic happiness.”
“And what’s that?” David asked, although she was now certain that he knew darn well.
“Satisfaction. The satisfaction that comes from achievement. From having worked and produced and accomplished. Adults need it the way babies need milk. And like milk, satisfaction has a shelf life. People can feed off past accomplishments for a couple of weeks, but their mood starts to sour after that.
“I have developed the theory that adults wean themselves off the need to achieve as they move beyond middle age. By the time they’re seniors, they can sustain a positive attitude off the energy of past accomplishments. But as Immortals, we’re stuck with the achievement appetite of youth.”
David completed her thought. “And we are inhibited from satisfying it. Secrecy forces us to hide our accomplishments. And since we have no material needs, our struggles aren’t the satisfying kind.”
She nodded.
“Do you think that acting will give you satisfaction and make you whole again?”
Allison looked down at the deck of the yacht. “To be honest, not really. But I have to try.”
David gently lifted her chin. “Why not really?”
“Because I know I’m cheating. Everything we do is cheating. With unlimited time and unlimited money, we’re starting on third base.” She shook her head. “Funny. You were always the philosophical one. At the first Immortals meeting, when we all announced our plans, you couldn’t believe the rest of us weren’t planning to keep working.”
“But you came around.”
“Not as quickly as Eric and Ries.”
David gestured toward Lisa and Pierce, who were also engaged in an animated discussion. “But much faster than others. Will you tell me one thing?”
At that moment, in that mood, Allison would have confessed to being a Russian spy—if she had been one.
“Why switch to acting? Why not continue with research? You’re so talented. There’s lots of satisfaction to be had.”
“I’d say I want a change, but that’s only a small part of it. Truth is, I feel the same compulsions as Lisa and Pierce. I need a challenge, and I crave glory.”