Beyond Eden

by Sherer, B. K. ; Linnea, Sharon

  “So, tell me about your spiritual journey,” she said to the monk. They began to walk once again, this time downward on the other side of the climb to the monastery.

  “From early childhood, I knew I was different,” he said, and then he laughed out loud. “Every time I say that, I feel like I’m about to say I’m gay,” he said. “But I was different different. Not many nine-year-olds feel the call of God on their life.”

  Geri looked at him, remembering herself at nine, and felt once again at home.

  February 25, 2006, 5:27 p.m.

  Lillistra Estate, Tranholmen Island

  Stockholm, Sweden

  * * *

  This is a good day, thought Eric Carlson as he shut down the power to his amateur radio rig. His frail five-foot, three-inch frame seemed to grow and strengthen as he swaggered boldly over to a large world map spread over one entire wall of his bedroom. He jammed a green-colored pushpin on a tiny island in the South Pacific and stood back to proudly survey his handiwork.

  Ever since he had heard about a remote American military installation on Johnston Island and the ham radio operator assigned there, Eric had been trying to make contact. Now, finally, he would receive one of the cherished “QSL” cards that would serve as proof of his radio conversation with that operator.

  Yes, this was a good day. No, it was a great day! For tonight this 13-year-old would have his weekly radio appointment with his father, Dr. David Carlson, professor of electrical engineering at Oklahoma State University. He had introduced Eric to amateur radio and had helped him prepare for the required tests to obtain a license. His dual American and Swedish citizenship had qualified Eric for a license in either country, and he had chosen to apply for a license in the United States.

  Eric had tested while visiting his father in Seattle, Washington, two years earlier and had surprised everyone by achieving the highest possible level, “Extra.” Now, it was Eric’s sole means of communication with his estranged parent. Mom would not be pleased, but she would never know!

  The only thing that could make the day better would be if it were warm enough for Eric to explore outside.

  Eric had seen very little of the estate where he now lived. Five months ago he had been bundled onto a small yacht for a short ride crossing the Lilla Värtan strait from Stockholm. But he was kept below in the cabin and could hardly see the landscape. Following a short walk from the dock along a path lined with birches on fire with fall colors, he had reached an elegant two-story home, surrounded by a stone wall. His new home. Soon after his arrival, temperatures had dropped, snow had fallen, and the home had become, for all practical purposes, his prison.

  Extreme cold could set off migraine headaches for Eric, and during February in Sweden the winds could be bitter. But maybe before supper, it would be warm enough. He hadn’t had a migraine in a week. Yes, perhaps today he could explore. It got dark so early that he couldn’t go far, but the idea alone gave him a ray of hope.

  A little hope each day was what kept Eric going. Hope for a new radio contact, hope for just a little excitement, hope for a pain-free day.

  The headaches that wracked his body with unbearable pain were the result of a rare disease whose name he couldn’t even pronounce. Understanding the microscopic cause behind this disease was well beyond his intellect. But this much Eric knew: The disease would significantly shorten his life span, the headaches would only get worse, and he might possibly rant and rave like a lunatic before all was said and done.

  It was enough to depress even the wisest and most stoic individual. But Eric had not succumbed to the temptation for self-pity. His blue eyes sparkled with mirth, and his attitude toward life was more like that of an explorer than an invalid. Each day had potential, and he refused to become a prisoner to his health or his future.

  Eric pulled back heavy window curtains. The dark was fast encroaching, but the outlines of the snow-covered birch trees near his window were not bending in brutal wind. Yes, perhaps, if he dressed warmly, he might slip out for a few minutes of exploring and make this the best of all possible days.

  February 25, 2006, 6:56 p.m.

  The harbor at Skala, Patmos

  * * *

  Nestor sat in his favorite chair in the waterfall room of the Gerianne and gazed absentmindedly through the picture windows at the lights climbing the slopes of Patmos. He shook his vodka tonic and watched the ice cubes swirl as peripatetically as his thoughts.

  In his mind, he played with the inevitable: What would life look like if humans lived 150 or 200 years? What would it look like to live forever? Would those who didn’t invest wisely have to work for 200 years instead of 45? Would the planet become vastly overpopulated, or would they consign the great unwashed masses to certain third-world countries, almost like Indian reservations? Would the first-world countries, along with the clear skies, clean water, and sweeping vistas, be kept intact for the Immortalists?

  Would you only keep your friends and loved ones who could afford the physical upkeep and lose the others to mortal death?

  Would there be tragic accidents, human error perhaps, that would still cause the untimely loss of loved ones?

  The joke was, sometimes Nestor himself had no interest in living forever. Sometimes he was just plain tired.

  And yet there were other times, when the wine was perfectly aged, the women exciting, the deal closed. Those were what he called his Zorba days, and he thought fondly of his father and mother.

  Nestor’s father had taught him to grab life by the tail and hold on. For years Nestor had thought his mother had only played a small part in the molding of his character and his life philosophy; as a matter of fact, he thought she’d been holding back both his father and himself.

  His mother, Athanasia, was a large, handsome woman, whose house was always full of life and love. Nestor knew whenever he came home he’d be greeted by friends, relatives, animals, and the smell of delicious home cooking. His mother was very devout and had a keen sense of justice. She often called on Chiron to “mold our son’s character,” which meant punishing Nestor for his wrongdoings. His father never questioned Athanasia’s decrees, always meted out punishment when asked. Nestor was always whipped in the kitchen, in front of his mother, so she could be sure that the price had been paid. Afterward, his father would take the boy out “for a talking-to.” When he was young, this meant his father took him out for gelato. When Nestor reached his teens, it meant wine and womanizing. One part of Nestor hated his father for cheating on his wife, but at the same time he admired Chiron for his way with, and enjoyment of, the ladies. Also, it was clear that the ladies loved Nestor. He was consequently spared the awkward “getting to know girls” stage that all the other teenage boys faced. For him, women were never something to be pursued; they were selected from the pool at hand.

  But one day when Nestor was only 15, his father climbed a small ladder in the kitchen to get a bowl for his wife and keeled over from a massive heart attack, leaving Nestor to care for his mother and 3-year-old sister, Anna.

  Nestor left school and began running the business. He had worked often for his father as a fisherman and boatbuilder. Nestor moved up and up, soon turning a fleet of boats into a shipyard. He was very proud of himself, and his family was doing very, very well, with the guiding help and advice of his uncle, who was the company’s financial advisor.

  Then, only two years after Nestor’s father died, his little sister became ill with meningitis. Despite the best medical attention, she died. His mother, who seemed able to handle her husband’s death, now went off the deep end. She became depressed and shut herself away, not listening to any of Nestor’s pleadings to travel the world with him. She became reclusive and depressed, finally letting herself be committed to a psychiatric center. One of the last times she spoke was when Nestor came to plead with her to join him and enjoy his new wealth as a shipping magnate, to move into his new villa.

  When she refused, he said, “What would it take? What would it ta
ke to make you want to live in this world again?”

  “Stop death,” was her only answer.

  Athanasia became a hollow shell of a woman, never speaking, hardly eating. Nestor decided she had “checked out” and quit going to see her, in order to save himself.

  Nestor lived the high life, enjoying wine, women, and song, though he soon found it was monotonous and not nearly as enjoyable without his mother’s rigid morality to be acting out against. So when he found Geri, a woman with a sense of adventure, a belief in heaven and hell, and a willingness to punish her husband for his indiscretions, his life took on a new zest. Once again it was fun to “get away with” things.

  Meanwhile, Nestor found a group of people working toward earthly immortality, found them to be scientifically very close to meeting their goal, and began funding them. What good was being rich if rich people’s children and husbands died just like everyone else’s?

  He took to funding the most promising projects. Unfortunately, those who wanted to move ahead quickly often had to work outside the bounds of traditional science. Sometimes, as with this project that had finally met with success, he had to find creative ways to fund them. It wasn’t that he was Teflon—or, these days, Calphalon—it was that he couldn’t afford for his name or businesses to be linked at all. He didn’t want to know what they had to do to produce results. He simply wanted them to make it happen.

  Nestor sighed deeply and motioned for his drink to be replaced once again.

  He seldom thought about these disturbing things; it was this time of day. When he was alone as day turned to dusk, the melancholy would overtake him.

  He didn’t even know if his mother was dead or alive.

  But he did know he’d be alive—and perhaps forever.

  February 25, 2006, 7:02 p.m.

  Research laboratory, somewhere dark

  * * *

  And there it was. The scientist, smiling for the first time in days, stared at the new computer correlation. Subject Number 2… the boy from New York.

  Britta paused, frowning for a moment before hitting “save” and making a second copy of the results on her external hard drive.

  She had purposefully avoided recalling the histories of the subjects, the background, home, personality, that made each a unique individual. These were reminders that they had families and lives and were missing all of that. It was much easier for Britta if she could focus on the label on a test tube or the number in a mathematical series. She needed to forget the faces of these very real, very human subjects of her experiment.

  She turned quickly back to her computer screen, trying to refocus her thoughts. It had been the second variation, dropping that one subject and rerunning the correlation on the four remaining. The results had been amazing! She had never seen genetic markers in four different subjects match so closely.

  Well, of course they didn’t match everywhere. There were many areas of the genome having to do with physical attributes that she was sure would show a high variance. But the ones she studied, those markers she had tagged as responsible for the health and function of the mitochondria, were so close, they looked as though they were from the same person. These were the sections that played a major role in longevity, and Britta was certain she now had the genetic pattern that was representative of a very long-lived race of people.

  It was incredible. This was the breakthrough they’d been seeking! Surely now Witgard would continue the funding and would extend the time she had with the subjects. He had to understand the small blood samples taken for genetic mapping wouldn’t be enough. She now needed to replicate massive amounts of this DNA and test insertion of the new strands into other foreign mitochondria. Working with blood from the original sources was easily superior to trying to create new DNA from scratch.

  Of course, this was merely putting off the inevitable. Britta had been told she had the subjects for three more days. FIA had never told her the plans for disposing of them, and she had not asked. She didn’t want to know.

  But in her heart, she knew. There was no way they could let these people live. It was too dangerous. It broke her heart to look in their eyes and see their fear, the despair. So she didn’t look. She treated them like inanimate objects, hoping she could fool herself into believing they had no feelings. But that hadn’t worked.

  So maybe, just maybe, she could convince Witgard to give her a little more time. Maybe, with this breakthrough, she could give them more time to live.

  Britta rolled her chair over to a second computer she used for administrative functions. She called up her e-mail program and composed a message to the address she had used so many times, hoping Witgard was monitoring his e-mail and would quickly respond to her message. She hit “send” and stood up to remove her lab coat. It had been a long day, and there was nothing more she could do. Time to go home.

  February 25, 2006, 7:11 p.m.

  Seven thousand feet above the island of Andros, heading south

  * * *

  Jaime sat in the co-pilot’s seat of the Gulfstream 150 watching the lights flicker on in homes on the Aegean island below. After tracking Constantine to Patmos, they’d returned briefly to the safe house, where Yani had made a phone call on the scrambled line, picked up a few new electronic toys, and headed out. It felt good to have a direction, to be moving, to take steps to find the missing kidnap victims.

  This time Yani thought it was safe for him and Jaime to travel together, and his motorbike was certainly larger than her Vespa. “We’re heading for the Athens Airport,” he said. “Want to drive?” And he’d thrown her the keys.

  How could she say no? They wore their helmets with radio devices, so he could guide her through the busy streets and out of town. He sat close behind, his arms wrapped around her, which she could not forget for one minute, even in the midst of rush-hour traffic.

  At the airport, the Gulfstream was waiting for them. She knew that there were boats, cars, and airplanes scattered about the globe, property of companies and organizations that were more than happy to let Eden Operatives use them when necessary. Yani filed his flight plan and came jauntily across the tarmac, his black bomber jacket and black shades below his curling black hair, all of which made him look hopelessly cool. A young Greek man was in the hangar, had the plane gassed up, took them aboard, and made certain they were ready to go. He shook hands with Yani enthusiastically and wished them both Godspeed.

  “So you’re a pilot?” Jaime said when the Greek gentleman had deplaned.

  “You would hope,” said Yani. “Here, help me with the preflight checklist.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll want to get your pilot’s license. It’ll come in handy. Consider this your first lesson.”

  “Given this plane, you must be instrument-rated.”

  “Technically, I’m licensed as an Airline Transport Pilot, which means I’m also certified as an instructor. Lucky you.”

  He told her they were flying to Rhodes, where a yacht would be waiting to take them the rest of the way to the smaller island of Patmos.

  The flight to Rhodes wouldn’t be that long, and when they reached their assigned altitude, she could still make out lights below as they flew over an island in the midst of the pitch-black sea. “Hold course and altitude,” he said. “Your plane.”

  She took the control yoke, acknowledging, “My plane,” and he put his arms behind his head as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  She wasn’t nervous at all; in fact, she’d always enjoyed flying. She would certainly never forget the first time she’d gone up in a private plane. It was shortly after her family’s Presbyterian church in Springfield, Missouri, had gotten a new pastor. The Reverend Anderson, who had been at the church since Jaime was a toddler, had retired and moved his family somewhere warmer. Mrs. Anderson had been a willowy, proper woman whose house was filled with fine china and who advocated the constant use of coasters. She had two willowy daughters who had both “come out” at the local country
club and with whom Jaime had never felt she had much in common.

  But six months after Pastor Kent had arrived, he’d invited 16-year-old Jaime to go up in his Beechcraft. Jaime’s older sister Susan and her boyfriend had dropped Jaime off at the Kents’ on their way out somewhere that clear late-April morning.

  The difference between the Kents’ house and the Andersons’ was like night and day. First off, Jaime was greeted at the door by two mutts, one obviously part mastiff and the other part Chihuahua.

  “Come in!” called a female voice from inside, and Jaime entered to find Mrs. Kent pulling on cowboy boots and getting ready to head in to her law office. The house wasn’t exactly a mess, but it looked comfy and well-lived-in. There were no coasters to be seen.

  “Oh, hi, Jaime,” said Mrs. Kent. “I hear Ash’s taking you up this morning. Good luck!”

  “Yeah, nice knowing you!” said their 11-year-old daughter, Lexi, happily, as she appeared from the kitchen door holding a half-eaten egg sandwich.

  “OK, kitchen’s closing!” came Pastor Kent’s voice. “This short-order cook is outta here!” And he appeared in the doorway just behind his daughter.

  “Lexi, your ride’s here!” called the older brother’s voice from down the hall. He obviously had a front bedroom and a view of the driveway.

  “Yikes!” said Lexi, and she grabbed her jacket and ran for the door. Her “love you!” ran into the same farewell of her parents.

  Jaime and Pastor Kent were in the car next (“call me Asher,” he said). Remembering that morning, Jaime knew that since all the abuse scandals, a pastor would never be allowed to take a teenage girl flying without chaperones, but that was then, when things seemed innocent, and most times, such as this one, actually were.