The Eternal World

by Christopher Farnsworth

  She pulled back and caught his knife with her ax hard enough to send sparks flying, but not hard enough to knock it from his grip.

  She didn’t let up. Didn’t let him up. He was still kneeling, still slashing desperately at her. She swung for his head again, and, when he ducked, drove her foot into the bridge of his nose. There was a sharp cracking noise and Aznar flipped over onto his back.

  He thrashed wildly, scrambling on the ground on all fours. She realized Aznar was going to run.

  No. Not this time. She thought she’d had him in Serbia; she wasn’t going to let him get away again.

  She leaped forward and sliced through the meat of one of his legs with a stroke that almost looked like a golf swing.

  He screamed and bucked as if electrocuted. He never could handle pain. Not at all, she remembered.

  Before she could lift her ax again, however, he turned and threw his knife at her.

  It buried itself in her left shoulder, up to the hilt. Her arm went numb: he’d taken out the nerve cluster there as deftly as a surgeon.

  He struggled up from the ground and gave her a lupine grin.

  “Don’t look so pleased,” she snarled. Wincing, she yanked the knife from her body. A fresh gout of blood ran freely, soaking the top of her dress. “I’ve got your knife.”

  She held the knife in her near-dead hand and clumsily transferred her ax to her right.

  His grin grew even wider. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ll use this one.”

  And he drew another, just as large and ugly as the first, from under his jacket.

  She staggered back a few steps.

  He came after her, limping.

  He adjusted the rhythm of his attack now, putting his weight on his good leg as he stabbed at her, then dancing back, favoring the bad one, when he dodged.

  She clumsily parried his blade with the ax, but he broke through her defense easily. She thought he might have nicked her lung. Breathing was becoming difficult.

  Within a few more seconds, he’d opened shallow slashes on her arms, her breasts, and her legs.

  He was enjoying himself now. She could see it in the orgasmic light in his eyes, his smile now almost serene. This was what he lived for; he was toying with her.

  She wasn’t worried. The cuts Aznar had inflicted were superficial. They would have closed instantly if her body were not already trying to heal the major wound in her shoulder. Even the nerves would knit themselves back together, good as new, in a matter of hours.

  After all, it wasn’t like Aznar had dipped his blades in poison.

  She had.

  A little of the light went out of his eyes at first. A string of drool fell from his lips, and he began to look confused. He redoubled his efforts, pushing harder, stabbing, trying to close in for the deathblow.

  He couldn’t do it. He was getting slower. His leg still dragged, when it should have healed as fast as she could. Sweat drenched his face for the first time, despite the warmth of the night.

  The next time he brought up his knife, she swung and knocked it away easily. He looked shocked, and then it finally occurred to him what had happened.

  She saw it then, in his eyes. The hate was still there. The rage, and the sense of wounded vanity. He never believed he was subject to the rules, even when they were all still mortal.

  But above all, she saw the helplessness.

  The poison was only slightly weaker than the one she used on the tips of her arrows. It paralyzed before it killed. But that only meant it worked slower. It was still working, implacably shutting down the connections between Aznar’s brain and his body, like turning off light switches in a house one by one, until the entire structure was completely dark.

  It was almost over.

  Aznar knew it, too. He was many things. But he was not stupid.

  He ran away from her.

  She was caught flat-footed, her weight still on her back leg, ready to parry his next attack. Even with the drug in him, he took off like a shot.

  Damn it. All this time, and he could still surprise her.

  She raced after him. She would not let him get away. She still wanted answers before he died. Forever, this time.

  AZNAR FELT SURPRISINGLY CALM, even as his breath hitched and his legs went numb. He did not expect it to end like this, in the ass end of a diseased slum.

  But he always knew it would end somewhere. And he knew, with unshakable faith, that nothing waited for him. There would be blackness, and then, whatever he was, whatever he had been, would be gone.

  It occurred to him that he had nothing to fear. That his faith had always been much more about suffering through Hell than embracing the joy of Heaven.

  Shako was right on top of him now. He turned to look at her, could see the triumph and determination in her eyes.

  Then he tripped and went down hard.

  His skull rang against metal. He realized he’d fallen on the railroad tracks. He got to his knees and brought up his knife again, just in time to keep her from leaping atop him and finishing this.

  She stood back, wary. He kept the knife up. She could afford to wait. His arm already felt heavy. The poison was still working in him. Soon he’d be helpless.

  He could see that she had something to say. Of course, she would want to talk first.

  “Where do you keep your source?” she demanded.

  He almost felt cheated. She wanted to collect the Water. How boring. She was speaking in the formal, correct Spanish of the old days. It sounded almost like a foreign language in this debased time and place.

  He did not return the courtesy. “Go fuck yourself,” he said.

  She grinned and danced forward, blurring quick, and sliced open his cheek with his own knife.

  He hadn’t seen it. He was too dull now. The pain burned as if his skin was etched with acid.

  He screamed. Blood and tears poured down his cheeks.

  “It’s amazing how the poison paralyzes but doesn’t numb, isn’t it? You can still feel everything. At least, that’s what I’m told.”

  He unleashed another stream of obscenities at her.

  “Such language,” she said. “They used to call you the Saint, behind your back. Saint Juan. Did you know that?”

  He nodded. He knew. He could still hear the jealousy and bitterness in their whispers, even now.

  “You were always so pious. So correct. And look at what you’ve become.” She glanced around the alley and then back at him. “I can’t say I’m surprised. I always knew what you were, deep inside. I always knew what you said about me to Simon. How he should not defile himself, laying down with the lower creatures.”

  Aznar wheezed, as close as he could come to a laugh. “If only he would have listened.”

  Another quick slice with the knife, and the tip of his nose was gone. He growled rather than screamed this time. The indignity of this was beginning to gall him.

  “Yes,” she said. “If only. But he didn’t. Now we’re here. Now you only have a few moments left to live.”

  She showed him the knife again.

  “If you want to live them as a man, Saint Juan, you should tell me where you keep your supply.”

  Aznar felt his first stab of genuine fear. He would not allow himself to be violated like that. In all his years, he’d never allowed that.

  He tried to stall. “You must know. You must have been following me.”

  “I’ve been watching you for weeks. I’ve seen you come in and out of that little hole where you hide. I know there is some there, but you need more. You couldn’t hold enough there to survive for this long. Where do you go when you need more?”

  The world was growing dim, but something still clicked in Aznar’s brain. He felt a vibration in the tracks. She’d just given him the key. With that one word.

  “Weeks?” he
asked.

  She seemed to realize her mistake. She ignored the question. “Where is it, Aznar?”

  “You’ve been following me for weeks?” He wheezed, laughing again. “Then you must have seen. You must have watched.”

  He saw the shame in her eyes and wanted to get up and dance.

  In the distance, the sound of the train whistle. She heard it, too, but she was distracted.

  Because he had taken another girl, only last week. She had seen. She must have known. That’s how she knew his patterns, how she put it all together, and how she set this trap.

  And she did nothing to stop him. She let him kill an innocent, just to see if she could find out where he kept the Water.

  “You let me kill her. Her blood is on your hands.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “That’s right. You did nothing. Nothing at all. Oh, Shako. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there is a Hell after all. And I will be so happy to see you when you join me there.”

  Her face went dark. He’d seen that look before—just before she killed him the last time, in Serbia.

  The ground shook under them both. The train was hurtling toward them. Those Walmarts up north were hungry. They needed to be filled. The trains had to run on time.

  Now or never.

  With all his might, Aznar flung his second knife at her.

  This time her shoulder wound and her distraction made the difference. She had to fall over backward to avoid the blade plunging into her throat.

  Aznar forced his nerveless limbs to move.

  He flopped off the tracks just as the freight train barreled between him and Shako.

  With his last bit of strength, he reached out and caught one of the cars. He only barely felt his legs bouncing and dragging on the gravel as the train pulled him up and away.

  His blood ran onto the dirt. His body was filled with toxins and he labored for every breath as he rolled himself into a filthy boxcar.

  None of it mattered. His long, happy life would continue.

  He had beaten her again.

  SHAKO WATCHED ALL THE cars of the train pass along the tracks. Grit and dirt blew into her eyes. He was gone. But she had to be sure.

  She found his blood on the other side of the tracks. She followed it for a mile, until the splatters became drops, then the trail ended completely.

  He was gone. This time, unlike Serbia, she didn’t even have the satisfaction of killing him temporarily.

  Shako walked back toward the city center, where she had a hotel room waiting with a change of clothes and identity so she could get out of this place.

  She did not feel any guilt. She told herself that, over and over. It was not her fault, or her responsibility, what the men of the Council chose to do.

  What mattered was making them pay. That was enough for Shako. She had her mission, and if there were innocents who died along the way, then so be it.

  She had her mission. That was enough.

  It had to be.

  FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS SECTION, PAGE ONE:

  CONQUEST BIOTECH’S STOCK PLUMMETS AFTER SON STEPS INTO FATHER’S JOB

  Simon Oliver III, the chief executive officer and chairman of the leading biotechnology firm Conquest Biotech, passed away unexpectedly late Sunday night, according to company officials.

  The same press release also announced that his son, Simon Oliver IV, was elected to the chief executive’s position in an emergency board meeting convened via telephone.

  The news hit just before stocks began trading on Monday. By noon, Conquest had lost nearly thirty percent of its value.

  Although the stock price stabilized before the end of the day, analysts said that the reason is obvious: Mr. Oliver is not ready for his father’s job.

  Mr. Oliver, 23, is better known for his activities outside of work hours. He has been linked romantically to everyone from supermodels and porn stars to reality-TV mainstays such as Kim Kardashian. (A representative of Ms. Kardashian said that she and Mr. Oliver were simply good friends.) His only previous attempt to involve himself in Conquest was a disastrous attempt to diversify the company in movies and music videos, which ended in several lawsuits. A 2009 drug charge against him was dropped after he agreed to enter a rehabilitation program.

  Conquest, best known for its series of antiaging pharmaceuticals, has met or beaten earning expectations every quarter for the past five years. But it is facing an expiration on the patent for Revita, its most popular—and profitable—drug, which is used to increase cell vitality and spur synapse growth in elderly patients.

  This, plus the selection of Mr. Oliver, has big investors looking for the exits, said Irfan Khan, an analyst with Bank of America Securities.

  “Right now, Conquest needs another home run, and they’ve brought up a kid from the minors who’s basically incapable of finding a bat, let alone hitting it out of the park,” he said.

  But the investors are essentially powerless to change the selection, no matter how far the stock drops. While anyone can buy common stock in Conquest, the Oliver family, which founded the company in 1946 as a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals for the U.S. military and other customers, still controls the majority of special voting stock—giving them a 3-to-1 advantage over other voters. Every member of the board is either related to the Oliver family or one of the original employees of the company.

  Until now, investors have been willing to trade their lack of control for the exorbitant profits and dividends that Conquest has always delivered, Mr. Khan said. But with someone like Mr. Oliver at the helm, the big financial firms have decided the trade-off is no longer worth it.

  Through a representative, Mr. Oliver and Conquest declined to comment for this article.

  CHAPTER 2

  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  TODAY

  DAVID ROBINTON WATCHED the screen carefully. This was a crucial moment. The scanning tunneling microscope was fixed on his latest batch of test cells, and he needed to see the precise moment of division to know if this would work. If he’d actually been able to adjust the length of the telomeres, he could—

  He realized he wasn’t alone in the lab. Someone was standing at the door, watching him. Then he realized he had no idea how long she’d been standing there.

  He dragged his eyes away from the screen and saw Bethany waiting.

  David looked at his watch. Past 3:00 A.M. A pang of guilt went through him. He knew they were supposed to have done something tonight, before his trip. But his grant was over, his time at the grad school was done, and very soon he wouldn’t have access to this lab anymore.

  Damn it. He looked back at the screen just in time. The cells began to divide rapidly. Too rapidly. He’d failed. All he’d done was create tumor cells, and frankly, the human body didn’t need any help getting cancer.

  She saw the disappointment on his face as she crossed the room to him.

  “Another misfire?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “I know we had plans. I just really thought that this time, I might have hit on the solution. And no one had anything scheduled for the lab at night.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ll make it up to you. After I get back from Florida, we’ll get away for a couple of days—”

  He stopped himself. She’d taken something from her pocket and slid it across the lab table toward him.

  The key to his apartment.

  “No,” she said. “We won’t.”

  David didn’t know what to say. “Did I miss something here?”

  Bethany laughed, but didn’t sound all that amused. “My birthday. Meeting my parents. Two out of three of our dates. I could go on.”

  It was true. David was one of the mos
t gifted—perhaps the most gifted—students to come through Harvard’s School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. At twenty-five, he’d stunned his professors and the other students alike with his sudden, almost intuitive leaps in altering cellular DNA to increase longevity. He had picked up two Ph.D.’s in the time it took most people to earn one. And now that his latest research fellowship was over, there were a dozen big corporations chasing him, from Pfizer to Merck to Aperture and everyone in between, all convinced he would be the one to develop the next multibillion-dollar medicine or treatment.

  But all of that came at a cost. Sure, he was smart—but he had to work, and work hard. He taught classes, authored papers, and still made time for his own experiments. He’d seen 3:00 A.M. in this lab many times.

  Thinking about it rationally, David was surprised Bethany had put up with him for this long.

  She had met him when he was a guest speaker for her biology class. She was a med student, and pretty damned smart in her own right. With her previous boyfriends, she had been the one who had the busy schedule; that earned him some slack at first. But eventually she had learned that David was not just busy. He was driven. No one required him to be in the lab until dawn. There was something inside him that wouldn’t let him quit.

  She argued that he should be able to choose to spend time with her, the same way he chose to work. He agreed with her, but only to avoid the argument. In his heart, he knew that most of the time, he wouldn’t be around, and he hoped she’d just live with it.

  Still, he tried to mount some kind of defense for himself. “I don’t know any other way to do what I do,” he said. “You knew the kind of schedule I kept when we met.”

  She gave him a hard stare. “You don’t get to be the angry one here, David. I know you want someone around when you get lonely. But that is not just a one-way street.”

  She was right, and he knew it. But he felt some obligation to try to make her see. This wasn’t about getting a good grade or even a good job; it was a search for answers.

  “This isn’t about what I want,” he said. “This is about what I can do. We’re talking about finding a cure for everything. I mean everything. Cancer. Dementia. Alzheimer’s. Heart disease. If I get this right, I could turn back the clock on everything that makes us get old and sick. Do you know how many lives that would save?”