The Eternal World Read online

  So much of his life was like that: repetitive maintenance, time and money spent keeping up appearances, the constant polishing of his disguise.

  Even the whore tonight had been something barely felt, a response to a small tug of lust, a minor itch easily scratched.

  Max tried to remember when he last actually felt something deeply, but abandoned the effort after a moment. Simon needed to be told his latest savior was failing.

  He picked up his phone from the side table, struggled to remember how to work the damned thing, and then pressed the button. It was not actually a button, of course. It was a mirage, a trick of light on glass. There was a time he would have thought something like this was witchcraft. Now he simply found it infuriating. He hated these toys. He and the others could barely work them. They were one of the things that made him feel truly old.

  He tried to put his irritation aside as Simon answered, after the usual delay. Simon wasn’t good at working his phone, either.

  “What?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Beijing,” Simon said. “Some of our creditors here are a bit nervous about parking any more dollars with us.”

  “I don’t blame them.”

  There was a deep sigh over the line. “Max, I hope you have more impor-tant things for me than your attempts at humor.”

  “It’s David. He’s requesting a sample of the pure, undiluted Water. Again.”

  Simon hesitated. “I’d hoped he would make more headway with what we’d given him. Tell him to work harder.”

  “He works fourteen hours a day.”

  “What’s he doing with the other ten?”

  “Nothing that we don’t know about. I have one of our security contractors shadowing him at all times. He works, and he goes home, and he runs. He talks to no one outside the labs. Oh, he does do some volunteer work.”

  “Where?”

  “All Children’s Hospital. He reads to the sick children. I suspect it’s his way of being with his dead sister again. Aside from that, all he does is work. He’s quite obsessed.”

  “And that’s why he is the one who will find the answer. He views death as a personal enemy. He will deliver a solution for us. I am sure of it.”

  “I know you believe that.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “Quite the contrary. He is decent and responsible and moral. And that’s the problem. I worry he might actually believe in something greater than his own needs. A man with principles is dangerous.”

  “Fortunately, there aren’t many of them.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Simon. What happens if he does find the answer? Do you plan to take another member into the Council?”

  Another pause. “I haven’t decided.”

  After all these years together, Simon still thought he could get a lie past Max. Max smiled.

  “What are you doing, Simon? What is your plan?”

  “The same as always. To save the world. In spite of itself.”

  “I was talking about your more immediate goals.”

  “We need him, Max. We need someone more comfortable with this era. We need someone smarter. We need new blood. And most of all, we need a solution. Do you honestly think I chose poorly?”

  Max looked at the lights again, and again did not really see them at all.

  “I wish I could say yes,” he said. “But no. He is brilliant. Truly. He’s burned through all the false paths it took the others years to discover. I’ve done everything I can to stall him. I believe he is right. The answer is in the Water itself. Not in anything it touches. And that is why he’s doomed to fail. We cannot give him what he asks. Not without revealing ourselves.”

  Simon brooded about it for a moment. “We might not have a choice. This is about our survival, after all.”

  “You’re not seriously considering—”

  “No, of course not. Give him more time. He will surprise himself. And you.”

  “May I ask one favor?”

  “You know that’s a ridiculous question.”

  “I’m not so sure these days.”

  “Max. It’s late. Ask your favor.”

  “Please tell me before you extend your offer to David. Before you reveal us to him. He might react badly. As I said, he’s more ethical than our previous candidates. He might surprise us badly.”

  “You’re wrong,” Simon said flatly. “In the end, all he cares about is solving the problem. That is the only principle he really has. If we give him a way to do that, he will not care about the morality behind the mystery.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’ve gotten us this far, haven’t I?” Simon said. “You just need a woman.”

  “I just had one.”

  “Have another.” Simon hung up.

  Max considered throwing the phone against the window, then remembered that meant he’d have to go through the torture of learning to use a new one. He set it back on the side table.

  He knew what he needed. More of the Water. He needed to bathe in it, soak in it, let it saturate him and fill him.

  They all needed this, but he was the only one who knew it. He wasn’t sure when he’d realized it, but it became increasingly obvious with every passing year: they were slowly petrifying, becoming stiff parodies of the people they’d used to be.

  Pedro—Max could not call him “Peter” without a bad taste in his mouth—was still a child, desperately fascinated by the latest toys, buying cars and computers and boats and planes and anything else that was shiny and made interesting noises. He still longed for the chance to play war, even though soldiers had been surpassed by drone strikes and cruise missiles. Sebastian had never been a complex man, and time had refined him down to a few points. He was accustomed to being worshipped for his physical beauty, and that was enough. Max sometimes wondered if everyone who was born with such genetic gifts was the same way, if they just accepted the world as it was, because for them it was nothing but pleasant attention. Carlos was hidden away somewhere in South America, a prisoner of his own paranoia. And Aznar—well, Aznar had become even more like himself.

  They were all clinging to being human, when they should have been reaching for the next step, evolving into something more.

  If a sip of the Water could do so much, what would happen if they drowned in it? What would happen if they gave up the idea of all limits? What would they become then?

  Simon wouldn’t hear of this. Max tried to tell him, but Simon was content to play his games and dance around the real problems. He was still enamored of the idea that this world was perfectible. He still believed that this gift—all the additional years the Water had given them—was meant to allow him to push the rest of humanity into some kind of order.

  That was truly frustrating, for of all of the Council, Simon was—had always been—the most brilliant, the most perceptive. It was maddening that an intellect, a spirit, like his should be so chained by nostalgia.

  In their lives, they had already redrawn the maps of the world several times. They’d toppled governments and moved behind the scenes of history. They controlled entire economies of wealth. They were the secret chiefs of the Earth.

  And what had they really changed?

  Not a damned thing.

  There was always an excuse, always an inherent barrier to the changes Simon wanted.

  The truth was, people did not want to change.

  Take, for instance, their efforts to finally sever their homeland from the inbred and antiquated monarchy that was suffocating it. They’d backed a movement they thought would unite the country and would force it to fulfill its potential, to retake Spain’s place as a world power.

  But sentimental loyalists, malcontents, and opportunists saw their own chance at power. The ensuing chaos forced them into an alliance with foreign powers who
were hell-bent on war with the entire world. It took years to recover from their tactical error in joining with the Axis, and years more to accept the fact that Spain would never again be the empire of their youth.

  Since then, every one of their efforts in the world, while profitable, had become tediously predictable to Max. They would plan and strategize, and carefully shift money and influence and people. And inevitably some little bastard would undo all their hard work with greed and incompetence.

  It was like trying to play chess with toddlers: every time you set up the board, they knocked all the pieces onto the floor and covered them with snot.

  Now Simon thought he’d found someone who’d find an answer. This boy David.

  Simon believed if he could find the secret of the Water, then he’d finally be free of all limits. He could force the world to behave by giving the gift of endless years to his followers and punish those who dissented with their natural lifespan. Eventually, the only survivors would be the ones who obeyed.

  Max smiled. Because it’s worked so well in our little group.

  Max wasn’t so blinded by hindsight. He could see that the Council was afraid. They were still thinking like men. They didn’t know what they would be without their old habits. But he was chained to them, his ability to move forward limited by Simon’s stubborn refusal to give up any more of the Water than absolutely necessary.

  So his life became a holding pattern.

  Simon didn’t seem to realize—or perhaps did not want to realize—that it didn’t matter why the Water worked. They had been given a gift. They’d been given a chance to surpass their mere humanity. To pursue anything else was a waste of time.

  And despite all appearances, their time was not unlimited.

  Max knew what had to be done. He’d known it since before David Robinton was born, in fact. But he’d hoped Simon would wake up.

  Now he saw the truth. If Simon believed he could find the secret of the Water—or if, by some miracle, David actually succeeded—it would be more wasted years at best. At worst, it would be the end of their lives, because there was no way they could share the secret and survive.

  If they were going to make the leap, if they were going to transcend their humanity, then they had to leave Simon’s dreams behind. The world would not tolerate men like them, if it knew they existed. Once the secret was out, their days were numbered, no matter how much of the Water they had.

  Simon had to be made to face reality. One way or the other. Yes, they needed a replacement for the Water. But once they had it, they wouldn’t need David Robinton anymore.

  CHAPTER 11

  DAVID AND SHY were at dinner, even though it was past eight. In this part of Florida, that was late. Most of the restaurant was empty, and the staff stood around, waiting for them to finish.

  It didn’t help David’s mood any. It had been another maddening day in the lab, one false lead after another. After his meeting with Max, it seemed idiotic to run the same pointless tests again. He had never been this stuck before, and he wasn’t good at dealing with the frustration. He spent most of the meal in silence, pushing his food around on his plate.

  “Is it the food or is it the company?” Shy asked, breaking him out of his reverie.

  Shy was usually patient with him when he went off into his own head. But her smile always brought him back to her, in a way that felt like sitting in an airplane as it climbed off the tarmac.

  They had been spending almost all of David’s free time together. He didn’t have much, but she had her own things going on as well, and she didn’t press him. For the first time in his life, he found himself making time to see her, actually breaking away from the lab in order to go by her place, or go for a run, or simply share a meal.

  She would have him whenever she could—and that went for the sex, too. Shy wasn’t about to wait around for their schedules to allow them to sleep in the same bed. He learned this the second time they met, after their first date. She would put her arms around him, or grab his head and pull him in for a hard kiss, and then it was happening, no matter where they were. They would tumble into a bathroom in a five-star restaurant, her legs wrapped around him, her back up against the wall. She bent over on her desk naked in her office and told him to hurry, she had clients arriving soon. On one early-morning run, she grabbed him and pulled him off the path behind a row of hedges, pushing him to the ground. He almost felt like he’d been mugged, but he had trouble wiping the grin off his face for the rest of the day.

  David was not a complete idiot. He knew there was an excellent chance that Shy was not a corporate recruiter but a corporate spy, sent by Conquest’s competitors. It was entirely possible she was using him.

  He could rationalize that by telling himself he was using her, too. That he was being smart and worldly about the whole thing.

  But on a deeper level, he knew that was crap.

  Something in him sang when she was around. The pressure he’d always felt behind him, the constant feeling that he had to run to stay ahead, lessened when she was there.

  Spy or not, he was surprised to find he didn’t really care. He was idiotically happy. And he wanted to hang on to that for as long as he could.

  “Such a deep scowl on your face,” she said. “Is it that bad?”

  “No more than usual,” he said.

  “Work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You put too much pressure on yourself, David. It’s not like the whole company depends on you. Conquest has a product that deals with this already.”

  David shook his head. “Revita has problems. Serious problems.”

  “Really? What kind of problems?”

  “Cancer. The FDA has opened an investigation. I told Simon it was going to happen,” David said, and then realized he’d just spilled a huge corporate secret. He looked around, suddenly glad that they were the only people in the restaurant. “Um. Please don’t repeat that. It’s not public knowledge.”

  Shy waved it off. “Who am I going to tell? Anyway, that’s not the point. You shouldn’t feel so responsible.”

  “That is the point,” David shot back. The anxiety balled up in his chest. “I am responsible. This is what I’ve always wanted to do. This is my life’s work. And now that I have the chance to make it happen, I honestly don’t know if I can pull it off.”

  It was the first time he’d ever said it out loud. The first time he’d ever considered it, really. He was used to solving the problem, used to success, used to winning. And it wasn’t happening this time. He could hardly believe he was saying it to Shy. He trusted her, he realized suddenly. More than lust or love, he had faith in her.

  Her reaction, however, wasn’t what he expected.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said while casually scooping a bite of the tir-amisu into her perfect mouth.

  “What?”

  “Maybe this is so hard because what you’re doing was never meant to be done,” she said.

  David was actually rendered speechless for a moment. Old-fashioned terms like “flabbergasted” and “struck dumb” bounced around his skull for a moment, while he tried to come up with an answer.

  All he could say was “Are you serious?”

  Shy gave him The Look, which once again made him feel like he was in junior high and she was the senior prom queen. Of course. She was always serious.

  But David felt like he was on pretty solid ground here, for a change. This wasn’t about which restaurant to go to or what color tie to wear. This was his life’s work.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he finally said. “I’m talking about an end to suffering. An end to senility, to pain, to loss . . .”

  “To death,” Shy said. “Yes. I understand. I don’t think you do.”

  Now David started to get angry. “Right. Because I’ve only spent a decade working on DNA, cell structure, and
senescence. How could I possibly understand?”

  Her face remained calm. “Sarcasm is a waste of time, David. Say what you mean. You think you understand the problem better because you think you’re smarter than me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but you meant it. And maybe you are.”

  Damned right I am, David thought. Three Harvard degrees beats a corporate recruiter in Florida.

  “But I don’t think you’ve ever considered the larger implications of what you’ve been seeking all this time. You’ve attacked the problem without knowing what, exactly, you’re solving. Answer me this: what happens if you succeed?”

  “I’m talking about giving people back their health. No more cancers. No more heart disease. No more random, pointless illnesses. All the stupid, preventable things that happen to our bodies, all the little twists in our DNA that evolution hasn’t gotten around to fixing yet. How is that a bad thing?”

  “You’re going to keep people alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “Forever?” Shy asked.

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Are you sure? Isn’t that what you’re offering with this? A way out of the rules? A way to cheat death?”

  “There are no rules,” David said. “There’s what we can do, and what we can’t. That’s all. And I’m saying that I can do this. I know it’s possible.”

  “And I’m just saying, again, that because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s right. There are limits on what we do. What happens to the population when all those people start living longer? What happens to the planet if they keep on consuming resources indefinitely? More important, what happens to them? What will it do to their souls? Did you ever consider that maybe we only live a certain amount of time for a reason? That maybe death is a part of life?”