The Immortals

Two weeks ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Instead, I am presenting some capsule summaries of the motivation behind a subset of those ideas. Today I want to talk about my decision to re-launch Rome and Rei and grant them virtual immortality.

You must understand that I have spent more than 40 years developing these characters, learning about their past and the personalities and I got as much mileage out of them as I could up to and including the end of The Milk Run. But at the end of that story, I really didn't have much choice but to let them get old and die. This really bothered me. They were heroes and I thought that they could have many more adventures together if only there was some way to roll back the clock. Here is how I did it:

     Rome sighed a deep sigh. “I don’t know,” she answered finally. “I know that it pains me to see my children growing older.”
     “Just as I thought,” OMCOM affirmed. He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. “It is done,” he said.
     “What is done?” Rome asked, confused. Something about her did not feel right. Or maybe it was the other way around, that is, everything felt right for a change. Her normal aches and pains that were a constant part of her life disappeared. She looked down at her hands. Her skin was smooth and free of the mottling that she had gotten used to. She put her hands up to her face. It, too, felt abnormally smooth.
     “What is happening?” she asked, the breath going out of her. She stood up and sprinted over to the mirror in the foyer. A beautiful young face was staring back at her, the face of her youth. The only difference was that her hair was still silvery gray instead of brown with the occasional strand of gold.
     “What have you done to me?” she screamed. “OMCOM!” She turned to face the robot/computer/livetar/human simulation.
     “You will recall the yellow pill that you took some fifty years ago. It did not just change your genetics. It also took, to use the vernacular, a snapshot of your genetic structure at the time. I simply invoked that structure and restored your DNA to the state it was in on that day.”
     “Oh no!” Rome said, staggering back. “You cannot.”
     “It is already done,” OMCOM said. “I activated it on Rei as well. When he returns, you will see that he looks just as the day you met him.”

Later OMCOM explains that the changes are one-time only and starting that day, they would begin to age normally again. At the time, this was good enough for me. It bought me another 50 years to have Rome and Rei roam the universe. But as I was compiling The Vuduri Companion, I decided to take it all the way in the short story entitled, appropriately enough, The Immortals:

     “Well, are we going to live?” Rei asked, breaking the silence.
     “Oh, yes,” 'Doctor' MINIMCOM replied. “Not only are you going to live. You are going to live a very long time.”
     “How long?” Rome asked, slightly suspiciously. “OMCOM said we would start aging again at the same rate as we did once before.”
     “OMCOM was wrong,” MINIMCOM answered back matter-of-factly. “He did not take into account the prosthetic 24th chromosome you both received when you were trapped beneath Kilauea. A portion of that chromosome has produced a telomerase which is stimulating the production, in part, of more telomerase. It is a positive feedback cycle.”
     “Translate into English, please,” Rei insisted.
     “Not only has OMCOM reversed the aging process. It has stopped completely. I do not think you are going to age.”
     “What do you mean, not age?” Rome gasped. There was clearly panic in her voice. “How long will that last? I mean, before we start getting old again?”
     “As far as I can tell,” replied MINIMCOM. “Never.”
     “Never?” Rome whispered, not believing her own words.
     MINIMCOM continued. “And further, the telomerase in combination with the enhanced immune system produced by the 24th chromosome appears to have made you completely resistant to any disease carried by viruses, bacteria or prions.” MINIMCOM looked at the disbelieving humans. “For lack of a better word, you are both now virtually immortal.”
     “Immortal,” Rei said, scowling. “As in live forever?”
     “You can still die. You can be killed by accident or trauma. But as far as dying of old age or disease, my computations tell me that is not going to happen.”

So there you have it. I may never get back to these characters but if I need them, they will always be youthful and always ready for a new adventure.