Chapter 9

The jolt of the landing gear hitting the ground aroused me from my slumber. I realized I must have cried myself to sleep, thinking back over the past that I had just left.

For a moment, in that period of drowsiness when you first awake, I wondered if this is what it felt like when you died. Did you look back on your life and hope that you had made a difference and that people would remember you?

But there was little time for day dreaming. As soon as the plane had come to a halt Lyssa was telling me to go unlatch the door. I unhooked my seat belt and stood to stretch, trying to get the stiffness of multiple hours of flying out of my body. Then making my way to the cabin, I stopped and stooped to kiss Lyssa, who looked so beautiful sitting there going over the dials and switches, as she wound down the engines. For a moment she seemed flustered, like I was bothering her, but then she relaxed and kissed me hard. And though I regretted bothering her by kissing her over the next couple of weeks I would remember that kiss.

One reason I would remember that kiss was that I did not see Lyssa again for several days. When I opened the aircraft hatch, there was already a walkway rolled up to the plane, and several people were there waiting on me to get off the plane. It seemed quite a crowd had gathered there at the bottom of the stairway.

When I descended the stairs, each person stepped forward, and calling me by name, they each introduced themselves as they led me to a waiting limousine. Once in the car I began to actually try to put some names and faces together. I seemed to have ended up in the car with the Chief of Longevity Biology, the Head of the Institute, and the physician who had been assigned to me for my care throughout my stay.

“Welcome to our little hideaway here in the Andes,” began the Head of the Institute, whose name I couldn’t remember, but I noticed he looked a lot like Andre Townsend and I tried to make a note to ask if they were related.

“My name again is Michael Townsend,” he continued and I immediately decided that they were related, if not brothers.

“I just want you to know that over the next several weeks you may feel that you are just some experiment, of little or no importance. However, I want to assure you that we will do whatever we can to ensure your comfort and safety. We have so few opportunities to study the effects of the treatment on a new initiate, that we try to make the most of every opportunity.”

He handed me a card with his name and number on it, “At any time, if you have any problems, please just pick up any phone or ask the operator to get me on the line.”

By this time, we were pulling up in front of a very nicely decorated building that appeared to be a hotel. Doors were opened and everyone started to get out and I followed suit. Once out of the car, Michael introduced me to my personal physician, whose name was Krell, a Swede, if I had ever seen one, and then everyone, except me and Krell, got back in the car which sped away.

“I’ll just see you inside and show you around a little,” began Krell, “we like to give everyone a day or so to relax and recover from the trip, get used to the new surroundings, and the atmosphere here. We have planned for a few tests in the morning, nothing very strenuous though, and then we will get in full swing the day after that. In the meantime, make yourself at home, don’t hesitate to ask anyone anything, and just enjoy yourself.”

And with that, he opened the door on a magnificent set of rooms on the top floor of the building, that over looked a magnificent view of a small valley, nestled in between some very tall mountains. The floor of the valley was covered in fog so that it appeared to be a giant mass of soft fluffy cotton.

“You’ll find that we have a fine restaurant in the basement of all the major buildings, there is room service here, anytime you want anything, or you have your own kitchen here, just tell the kitchen what materials you might need.”

“You also have access to the study and fairly well stocked library, from the latest bestselling fiction on the New York Times best seller list, to several books written by members of our order detailing our history, our research, even some detailing personal experiences, of when they were initiates. If you desire anything else, again just let us know by picking up any phone.”

I was amazed by the opulence of it all, from the real wood paneling and leather chairs in the study, to the antique Victorian furniture in the sitting room, to the comfortable, and modernized, rec. room. These were incredible suites, fit for royalty, and for a while I was simply overwhelmed. I must have had an awed look on my face because Krell quickly told me that not everyone here lived in this much luxury. They could if they wanted, he assured me, but most people there preferred fairly simple quarters in remote parts of the compound.

For just a moment, that statement seemed strange, but I was too awed by the suite to pay very much attention to what he said. I hardly noticed when he said he would see me at eight a.m. local time as he slipped out the door.

For the first several hours, I simply explored the quarters they had given me. I had everything at my disposal, including a state-of-the-art computer system, television, and internet access. There was a fully equipped kitchen that had been thoughtfully stocked with my favorite drinks and snack foods. I figured that Lyssa must have spent some time telling them what I liked.

They had even gone to the point that they had shipped some of my clothes and personal belongings down and had already stowed them in the closet, along with an array of new clothes, all in the right sizes and my favorite colors.

When I had finally looked everything over, I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and went into the study, where I immediately grabbed one of the histories that had been provided and proceeded to try and read it cover to cover.

The story was as much as Andre and Lyssa had told me a couple of weeks earlier. Of course, there were more details and colorful stories, but actually, I was disappointed that much of the book seemed to be dedicated to genealogy.

While I was quite impressed that they had kept such meticulous records, and had realized very early that to maintain a healthy gene pool, they had to keep careful control and not inbreed too closely. However, there was very little in the book after the turn of the century, and then, as I thought about it, that probably wasn’t really history to these people, it was more like current events.

When I had finished reading that book, I realized that I was quite hungry and sleepy. I was more than a little surprised when I saw that it was already ten p.m. in the evening and I had spent the last several hours just sitting and reading. I ordered some room service, and when I had eaten, I decided that I would try to get some sleep and prepare for what awaited me in the morning.

Morning comes quite early in the Andes, at least it seemed that it did. My phone was ringing very softly it seemed just a few minutes after my head hit the pillow, but when I finally found the phone beside my bed and got around to answering it, the very friendly operator on the other side of the phone informed me that it was almost nine a.m. in the morning, local time, and she was concerned that I wouldn’t have time to eat any breakfast if I didn’t get up soon.

I had to laugh out loud at the pleasantness of it all and wondered for just a few minutes if this whole installation hadn’t been staffed with the English, who were always so bloody polite. But now that I was awake, I thanked the operator for her advice and started moving around trying to get ready for the day.

It wasn’t long after I had gotten out of the shower that I heard a knock on the door that would signal my entry into the world of laboratory guinea pig. They did allow me enough time to get dressed in some comfortable clothes (their suggestion) and to grab a bite to eat, before they herded me into a car, which then sped across the compound and delivered me to the main research facility.

At first it didn’t seem too bad. They simply wanted to evaluate my current state of health, but to do that they decided that they needed to run every test that was known to man. So, after I had been poked and prodded, and listened to, and observed by several physicians and scientist, they then decided to draw at least a pint of blood for various tests and biochemical assays, including a full genetic profile, I was to find out later.

And then it was off to even more tests, all the while a phrase kept echoing in the back of my mind, “But nothing too strenuous on the first day.” I wondered that if this was supposed to be an easy day, what did they consider a normal day?

But things did slow down over the afternoon. After a light lunch, it was off to a state of the art MRI machine where they scanned, in detail and from every conceivable direction, every last square inch of my body. They imaged everything from my little toe to the hair on my head.

And then my first day was over and I was back in the limousine, rushing back through the compound to the “hotel” where I was told that I would have the rest of the evening to myself.

I wanted to go over all the test results that they had run on me while I had been in the lab, but everyone had just left while I was getting dressed and I never got a chance to ask anyone. The only person who would talk to me was the driver who was waiting on me when I came out of the dressing room and I wasn’t sure if he could even speak English.

When I got back to my suite it looked like the telephone was having a seizure. The little red light that signals messages was blinking so fast and frequently that I was surprised it hadn’t already burned out. I wondered why I was so popular, but I figured that I was the new kid on the block and everyone wanted to meet me. Well, so be it, but I wanted a drink before I waded through all those messages.

After I had settled down into a nice comfortable chair with my bourbon and coke, I turned on the speakerphone and started listening to my messages. The first was from Lyssa and I listened to it several times. She said that she was sorry, but that something had come up and she had to leave and go back to the States. She wanted me to take care, to do everything my doctors told me, and that she would see me in a week or so.

I wondered what had taken her away, and whether it was something related to me that had drawn her back to the States. But she hadn’t hinted at anything and I figured that no one around here would tell me even if it did, because they would want me to concentrate on the many tests they had planned for me.

I also noticed that I was sad she was gone. My first reaction was that a week was a long time, but the more I sat there and thought about this, the more I realized that when your life span is measured in hundreds of years, not tens of years, that a week was a relatively short period of time. I wondered how long it would take me to change my views of time after I had undergone their treatment.

The next message was from Michael Townsend. He wanted to invite me to dinner. Andre was in town and he wondered if we could all get together and talk about any questions or problems that I had. I thought that it would be a bad idea to turn down the two most important people in this organization that I had met, so I asked my computer (which had this really cool voice recognition program) to call Michael and say that I would be happy to accept his invitation.

There were several other messages from various people who I did not know, but who had various jobs here in the compound that somehow related to my arrival and they were all wishing me well and offering their services if I were to need anything.

Just when I was finishing listening to the last of my messages, I heard a knock at the door. I was surprised by this because I had assumed that no one would drop by unexpectedly here. Being so English and polite, I had assumed that everyone would make an appointment, or at least call first. Actually, I was glad that I had a visitor, so I pulled on some shorts and walked over to answer the door. When I saw that it was Krell, I had a moment of panic that they had found something serious in all the tests that they had run on me during the day. I must have had a nervous look on my face because Krell started laughing when he saw me.

“I’m really sorry,” he began, “it is really mean of me to do this, but I always love that look that our new initiates get when I show up unexpectedly after their tests. Everyone else tells me to quit, but I think it is a good judge of character to see how people react. But you can relax, we found nothing major on your tests. I just thought that you might want to go over the results before you had dinner with Michael and Andre tonight, and it would give me a chance to tell you what we will be doing over the next couple of days.”

I had to sort of laugh then as well for being so predictable, but I also wanted to hit him for knowing that it would cause a momentary panic, and yet he still showed up unexpectedly. Then I wondered if I wouldn’t do the same thing if I were in his shoes.

“What? Are you a mind reader? How did you know that I would panic when I saw you? More importantly, how did you know I was going to have dinner with Michael and Andre tonight?”

“Oh, everyone has dinner with them on their second night in the compound. It is a tradition with them and so far, no one has ever turned them down. I secretly keep hoping that someone will have the guts to tell them to bugger off but it looks like I will lose that bet again.”

I had ushered Krell inside the suite and had made him a drink and we went out on the balcony to watch the sun set over the mountains. It was truly a magnificent sight to watch the dark green mountains and pristine white clouds come alive with the bright orange color of the setting sun, giving everything the hue of vibrancy and life. And to watch the sun sink into the clouds from above them was truly a sight to behold, and for a few minutes, all I could do was stand there and try to enjoy the magnificence of the spectacle.