The Immortal Gene

by Jonas Saul

  “What?” Edwin said. “How’s that?”

  “Long story, but it involves the snake venom and coma he endured. We were the anonymous donors for his treatment. We saw every examination Dr. Sutton performed. We know all about Jake’s special abilities. Nevertheless, Jake was our target and now we have him.” Adam gestured for his colleagues.

  The two men with baseball bats came to stand beside Jake. Kirk turned his head until they exchanged a glance.

  “Your job, Edwin, is to eliminate Kirk. If you choose not to, he will see you in prison for the kidnapping and murder of Megan Radcliffe.” Adam stopped. Cleared his throat, then added, “So what will it be? A long investigation with you in jail at the end of it, or your freedom with Kirk dead?”

  Edwin surveyed the gun in his hand. His other hand still held the Taser. Whether it was the resolve on his face or his defeated scent, Jake saw that Edwin was going to do it.

  Jake could not allow that.

  Edwin aimed the gun at Kirk’s face, the end of the barrel shaking, and began to squeeze the trigger.

  Jake shouted as he launched off the floor. He turned sideways and pushed upward to dive at Edwin.

  The gun fired before he made it, turning Jake’s shout into a guttural cry as he smacked into Edwin, knocking both of them over Kirk and into the wall beside him. They landed in a jumble of arms and legs, with Jake fumbling for Edwin’s throat. He would kill him for shooting Kirk. He would snap Edwin in half for killing his best friend. Edwin would be unrecognizable for the mortician who tried to put him back together again. A closed-casket funeral.

  As they struggled, the medical examiner screamed for help. Jake sensed the two men with baseball bats closer. He spun around just as a bat swung down and whacked him in the small of the back. The man pulled the baseball bat back and swung again, this time with more force, and something in Jake’s back snapped.

  He grunted with pain and rolled off Edwin.

  The bat came down a third time on Jake’s left arm, snapping it at the elbow, then a fourth time, breaking his right wrist.

  “Stop!” Adam yelled.

  It all happened so fast. Someone was moaning. Jake wondered if it was himself. He breathed deeply, minding the pain, tolerating it, hoping consciousness would stick around.

  He couldn’t feel his feet, his legs. Could the bat have damaged his spine? Both arms were aflame.

  The moaning got louder.

  Adam was doing something on the floor. Edwin had moved back toward his desk, red splotches on his face and neck.

  When Adam stood, he was supporting Kirk, who seemed whole and alive. Kirk looked down at Jake and whispered that he was sorry. Tears slipped from Kirk’s eyes as Jake watched, paralyzed, blinking rapidly, breathing away nausea.

  “The gun was empty,” Adam said. “It was a test of faith.” He shoved Kirk away from him. With the leg wound, Kirk dropped in a heap. Jake felt the vibration in his shoulder and head, but not his lower body. “Edwin passed the test of loyalty. You, on the other hand, you will be dealt with like the animal you are. Or should I say, the animal you have become.”

  The men with bats moved in and stood over Jake. He looked up at them, helplessly. This was it. He was supposed to have died that night in the rainforest, but had awoken to this. They were going to kill him and there was nothing he could do about it. Paralyzed from the waist down, he lay motionless and waited for the blows.

  The man on his right was familiar. He blinked and stared at the man.

  Of course—the Manaus cop. The one who followed me from my hotel and disappeared by the Opera House.

  “Bash his body, bash his skull,” Adam said. “But start at the feet and work your way up. Let’s see how long Jake can stay awake while the body I created is destroyed.”

  The body I created?

  What did that mean?

  The bats began pounding on him. His head jerked each time the weapons crunched down. He was surprised at how little pain he felt as his legs were pulverized, his knees shattered to bits of crumbled bones. Maybe pain would come in time. Or maybe he would be dead before the intense pain started.

  He tried to breathe, but that proved more difficult as the bats pounded on his ribcage now. At one point, he heard Kirk scream for them to stop, while Edwin gagged in the corner.

  Both bats, painted red with blood, hovered over his face a moment, gripped tight by his murderers.

  Jake opened his mouth, licked his lips and blew a kiss to each man, then closed his eyes. A big fuck you. In another life, he would find them, hunt them, and destroy their bodies in the same fashion—or worse.

  Kirk begged them to stop, his voice taking on a high-pitched plea.

  “Don’t kill him,” Kirk shouted.

  It sounded like Edwin had vomited in the corner. Jake pictured Edwin throwing up, standing by his desk, a hand on the wall. Edwin could work on dead bodies, but watching the bodies become dead this violently would make anyone toss their cookies.

  A sharp white light raced across Jake’s vision as a baseball bat connected with his skull.

  Then all the lights went out.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Someone knocked. Someone was swimming. It didn’t make any sense. Who would be swimming in the dark? Why knock?

  It dawned on him that he was swimming. In the dark. But why? A pool? A lake? He couldn’t tell.

  Nothing made sense.

  Piecing it together was useless. He was in the car. Sleeping. Heading to Toronto. Gotta meet Edwin.

  Something about Edwin. Edwin Gavin. Nervous. Smell of Megan Radcliffe on him. Terry’s body. Edwin guilty, but would need evidence. No court would convict on smell alone.

  Jake jolted at the memory of Kirk being shot. Edwin held a gun over Kirk’s face and pulled the trigger. But that was a test. Kirk was still alive. They were going to make it out of this. Something to talk about years later over beer. Laugh with a future wife about how close they had come to biting a bullet that day.

  If only he could stop swimming.

  Images of Cindy assailed him. Her smile, her soft skin, her smell. Pregnant now. Married to another man. A man named Derrick.

  A tear slipped from his eye, tickling as it rolled down his face.

  If he was swimming, wouldn’t the tear mix with the water?

  He sniffed the air by opening his mouth.

  That man was nearby. Adam. Kirk and Edwin weren’t there. Adam’s baseball bat men weren’t in the area either.

  Baseball bat men. The Manaus cop—fake cop. It all came back in a rush and his breath caught in his throat. He choked on it a moment, then tried to open his eyes.

  He wasn’t swimming after all. Consciousness was returning. After what they had done to his body, why was he still alive—how was he still alive? And where was the pain, not that he wanted any, but it didn’t make sense.

  He tried his eyes again and realized they were open. Wherever he was had no light. Absolute black. He tried to raise a hand to pass it before his eyes, but his arms were secured to something. He tried to move his feet but they were secured, too.

  He could move his toes. He could feel them again. The bats hadn’t paralyzed him after all. There was still no pain. Was he dead? Or had everything been a dream? Could he be paralyzed from the neck down, feeling no pain and moving imaginary toes?

  Nothing made sense.

  Something Adam said came back to him.

  The body I created.

  Adam hadn’t created Jake. Jake had been born December 28, 1980. He was in his mid-thirties and liked bands called Blue October, Moxy Fruvous, Fairground Attraction, and Slipknot. He’d attended police college in Aylmer, Ontario, and worked Homicide for the OPP. His longtime friend from grade eight was Detective Kirk Aiken, also his partner.

  So no, Adam had not created Jake. Jake had created Jake. Jake had made himself into the man he always wanted to be and had lost that in an accident that had cost him eighteen months.

  The new awareness, the ability to smell an
d feel things. The strength, the healing from the baseball bats—maybe that’s what Adam was referring to. Luke’s green liquid must be some sort of healing agent. Like an immortal serum.

  Adam.

  Had Adam killed Luke? If so, was Jake going to be another casualty? Had that been Adam standing by the SUV on the highway, watching when Jake had caught up to those four thieves who had broken into his house and stolen his computer? Had Jake been targeted from the beginning?

  Adam is Fortech Industries.

  His energy waned. Soft tickling sensations rippled through his body as things moved, came to life. In the blackened room, a heat vent churned warmth over him. Jake closed his eyes and drifted off.

  Thoughts of Cindy calmed him as he went under. He would always love her. Even if she was with another man. Cindy would always be his in his heart.

  Then his thoughts died as suddenly as a TV being switched off.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  A strike across the face snapped Jake awake. He blinked rapidly into the lighted room, then closed his eyes. It was too bright.

  “Wake up,” Adam said.

  Jake recognized the man’s voice from Edwin’s office. His firm tone could be recognized in an instant. Like Morgan Freeman’s voice, or Christopher Walken’s.

  Adam slapped him again.

  Jake flapped his eyelids and managed to open them slightly as his sensitive eyes adjusted to the light.

  “He’s alive,” Adam said in a boisterous voice, mocking Dr. Frankenstein.

  The body I created flashed through Jake’s mind.

  He focused on Adam. The man wore another expensive suit. Adam rubbed his five o’clock shadow below the chin, surveying Jake.

  “You’ve done well,” Adam said. “I’m impressed. Haven’t seen this kind of talent since, well, since my days.”

  “What have I done?” Jake asked, his words clipped, measured. The anger he felt, the violence and rage he wanted to spew on Adam echoed from every fiber in his body. His limbs began to shake with anticipation.

  “You have to let that go,” Adam said.

  “Let. What. Go?”

  “The repulsion for me.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll do you no good where you’re going.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “Dust to dust ...” Adam stepped away.

  Jake tried to follow him with his gaze, but a restraint on his forehead limited movement.

  “We had been working on gene therapy at Fortech for quite some time,” Adam said. “I’ve been working on it since the seventies, actually.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t look a day over forty.”

  “I’m not. Well, the truth is.” Adam stepped back into view. “I was forty-one when I injected myself with the I.G. serum.” He scrunched up his face into a scowl, then released it. “They didn’t want human trials. I didn’t care. I believed in it that much.”

  “Did it work?” Jake asked. “This I.G. serum.”

  “It did. I’m still forty-one.”

  “When was this?”

  Adam looked up to the left as if he was thinking. “1995. I’ve been forty-one for over two decades.”

  “Bullshit. You’re lying.”

  Adam produced a large needle filled with a blue liquid. He held it up.

  “This is death in a syringe.”

  “You gonna do the world a favor and inject it into yourself?” Jake asked.

  Adam shook his head. “You won’t be so lucky. No, this baby is for you. Think of it as an antivenin for the I.G. serum.”

  “What’s the I.G. serum?”

  “Immunity Gene, or as some refer to it as The Immortal Gene.”

  Jake frowned. “Immunity? Immortal?”

  “Yes. With the serum in my blood, it gives me immunity from all known diseases, colds, and otherwise fatal conditions humans succumb to. Even aging.”

  Could Adam be telling the truth?

  “Even the aging process is stopped?” Jake asked, doubt in his tone.

  Adam nodded. “Anything that can harm my tissues, even aging, is arrested. Therefore, I’ll live forever. The only way for me to die is to sever my head and make sure the two pieces aren’t put back together for an undetermined amount of time.”

  “Undetermined?”

  “Yes, the amount of time has never been tested so I don’t have conclusive results with a human test subject on that yet. When I did it with snakes, their bodies didn’t decay for months after we severed their heads. Once the body and head were set in the same cage, it took less than an hour for the snake to reform and look as if nothing had happened.”

  Snakes?

  “Are you talking about the snakes Luke was supposed to test in the Amazon Rainforest?”

  “The same ones.”

  “Like the one that attacked me?”

  Adam nodded.

  “Have I got this immunity gene in me?” Jake asked, already knowing the answer.

  “That’s why you’re not dead. Those baseball bats broke your spine, paralyzed you from the waist down. Over half of your two hundred plus bones were broken only twenty-four hours ago, yet you lie on this table as good as new. Not even a bruise. Amazing isn’t it?”

  The tickling sensation he felt before made sense now. How he couldn’t feel his feet, then he could when he’d thought he was swimming in the dark. Even now, no pain. Nothing.

  “When the bats were hitting me, I felt the contact, but hardly the pain.”

  “That’s normal. In your new condition, pain is an inconvenience better not felt. The I.G. serum was meant for soldiers. It still is, but the government doesn’t take well to immortality so they’re constantly reworking it. Just like GMOs, created with the cells from fish and spiders, our serum was created by nature’s best. The way a crab can regenerate a claw, you too can regenerate a limb—even a new stomach if someone was to tear it out and stomp on it. Wherever you were on the evolution of your body’s lifespan is where the serum halted your journey toward death. Although, you have a slightly different case than mine.”

  “How’s that?” Jake found this hard to believe, but it explained the changes he’d endured since the coma.

  “You received the I.G. serum in its purest form. When it was added to the snake venom and your unique reaction to the antivenin, you became something we could never have predicted. Our mistake.”

  “Are you saying I’m immortal?” There goes Dr. Sutton’s theory that I’m terminal.

  Adam nodded again, waving the needle in front of him. “Yes, immortal, unless someone who knows how to kill you can do it and I happen to be one of those people.” Adam walked around Jake until he was on the other side of the table. “You’ve experienced changes to your body. A better sense of smell by using your tongue. Just like a snake. The inside of your body has changed, as a snake’s would. You’re becoming more efficient, more streamlined. Your strength has increased to at least five times a regular man. There are many more changes, but we won’t belabor the point because you’ll be dead inside an hour.”

  “Why? If I’m such a marvel of science, let’s go do further tests. Let’s show the world what I can do.”

  Adam faced him. “Never. The world would hunt you down and kill you like they would Dracula. You’re an abomination. A mistake. Your bite alone can knock a man out for up to a half hour with all those neurotoxins floating around in there. And this is just the beginning. In a year, maybe two, your talents would be fully realized. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Where’s Kirk?” Jake asked, trying to keep him talking.

  “Kirk’s dead. Edwin dealt with the body.”

  Jake stared up at the ceiling. Grief swept over him like a blanket of hammers, heavy and pulverizing. Without seeing it for himself, he wouldn’t believe it. How could Kirk be dead?

  Jake struggled with the restraints, but his arms and legs remained locked down to the table.

  “You can’t get out,” Adam said, a laugh in his voice. “A pair of han
dcuffs would seem like a Lego toy to you, but these reinforced steel cuffs aren’t as forgiving.”

  “Why? Why kill Kirk?”

  “He was close to you. He knew too much. You told him things you shouldn’t have in your home.”

  “You were listening?”

  “There’s no need to investigate this matter any further, my little snake man. You’re Jake the Snake. Forty percent snake, sixty percent human. In a month or two you were supposed to shed your first skin after your eyes turned a milky blue. But that day will never come.”

  Adam slipped the needle inside a tube.

  “How did I become part snake?”

  “We’re not entirely sure. Think about it like this: our serum mixed with the venom and changed you when it thought you were a snake. The serum that altered the human part of you was just doing its job.”

  “Why would it think I was a snake?”

  “We feel that has something to do with the reaction to the antivenin. Since you’re allergic to it, the serum worked on you like you were a snake and replicated the DNA found in the venom to enhance your organs. Ultimately, you turned into a modern day Frankenstein.”

  “What’s in that?” Jake gestured at the needle.

  “Euthasol.”

  “Isn’t that what veterinarians use to put animals to sleep?”

  “The same. Although this is over four hundred milligrams. This amount takes out cattle, horses. I should be wearing gloves, but for me a little prick wouldn’t matter. All four hundred milligrams would matter, though.”

  “If what you just told me is true, this won’t kill me.”

  “Oh, it’ll try its best. Administered like this, through an IV, Euthasol is an anesthetic drug with the barbiturate pentobarbital. It would make your pet fall asleep, then cause the animal’s breathing to stop, and finally the heart stops.” Adam met Jake’s gaze. “It’s a fast-acting drug. From mere seconds to a full minute and the animal is dead. In some cases, little animals are dead inside ten seconds. Make no mistake, this amount will kill you, but Jake the Snake will not stay dead for long. Not with the I.G. serum in his blood. That’s where my two friends—you might remember the men with baseball bats—will enter the room and slice your head from your body. Then piece by piece, your body will be incinerated at separate facilities in Ontario. Once the flesh is burned to ashes, the serum dies with it. Spread out all over the province is the surest way to guarantee that you can’t put the pieces together again.” He chuckled. “That made me think of Humpty Dumpty. Funny, eh?” Adam adjusted something on the IV and a warmth entered Jake’s left arm. “Hey Jake, did you know that Humpty Dumpty might not have been an egg? I mean, nowhere in the story does it say that Humpty was an egg.”