The Immortal Gene Read online

  “Good morning,” a pleasant voice whispered in an accent. “Ready for your morning exercises?”

  Where am I?

  The woman placed something on a table to his right and moved toward the window. The curtains were drawn shut, vastly reducing the light in the room as well as the direct heat of the sun.

  He tried to say something to get her to open the curtains again, but all that came out was a moan.

  The woman jerked. Her gasp was cut short by her hand as it clamped over her mouth. Then, to Jake’s consternation, the woman scampered from the room without reopening the curtains.

  The room’s temperature cooled quickly, and within minutes, Jake fell back to sleep. The commotion of people running toward the room was the last thing he detected before he lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Someone was in the room. A man. An old friend, maybe? They were close, sitting beside the bed.

  Jake lay still and scanned the room with his newfound senses. He let his mouth fall open slightly, as if in a daze, to let the room in, the smells, the aromas. He tasted—felt—new flowers to his right. The blessed curtain was open again. Warm sunshine prickled his skin with life.

  He opened his mouth wider, easing out his tongue, breathing deeply, taking in the scents, the feelings, the atmosphere. The woman from the other day had been there recently. Although something was different this time. He sensed she had a child, a little girl to be exact, who was sick. The woman carried a sick smell on her. Not her sick smell. Someone else’s.

  He wondered what could possibly have happened to him to cause an olfactory reaction which detected pheromones so well?

  The man sat to his left. Without laying eyes on the man, Jake was pretty sure he was a doctor.

  While Jake pondered the question of his whereabouts and why he was there, he recalled being a cop before whatever happened to him. A homicide detective.

  Some of the past seeped in. Bits of information filtered through. Luke had called him for help. He’d flown to Manaus, Brazil, then traveled into the Amazon Rainforest. A snake had violated his tent, then sprayed him with venom.

  He moaned and tried to move, to touch his face.

  How long had he been there? Had they flown him home to Ontario, or was he still in Brazil? Maybe he needed special care, because he’d lost his memory.

  He focused on the atmosphere outside the room. Perhaps his sense of smell could garner clues to where he was. His mouth open, Jake drew in deep and was able to isolate several different scents. The building was relatively small. A strong pine scent, like walking through the forest after a hard rain, came from outside the building’s walls. They were surrounded by a dense set of trees. This area probably wasn’t local to Toronto and it definitely wasn’t Barrie as the highway was right outside the Barrie hospital’s door.

  So where was he? Orillia or Manaus?

  In order to move him from the rainforest, where he was pretty sure the incident had taken place, he had to have been unconscious for a few days. Maybe even a week.

  He remembered the sun on his skin. The curtains moved aside. The breeze meant a window somewhere close by was open. Which meant it wasn’t winter. Manaus was hot most of the year. Could he still be in Brazil? If so, he needed to contact Cindy right away.

  His heart rate increased to the point where he felt his pulse in his ears. How long had he been asleep? What really happened in the rainforest? Anger stirred. Who was doing this to him? To what end? Where was Luke? Had his guides, Milton and Eduardo, made it out of the rainforest?

  He forced his head to turn toward the man in the room. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids wouldn’t respond.

  A moan escaped his throat.

  The man started beside him, gasping.

  “Sir?” the man said, his English sounding American-like. “Are you awake?”

  Jake nodded, ever so slightly.

  “I am your doctor. My name is Dr. Mark Sutton.” The doctor touched his forehead with a damp cloth. “I’m an American doctor working here in Rio.”

  Rio? As in Rio de Janeiro?

  Jake let his head come back to center as he listened, and smelled the air. The doctor stepped away, tapped on a keyboard, then hit some kind of buzzer. Somewhere along a corridor, someone rolled back a chair and began walking toward the room, their footfalls more discernible with each step. He had detected their presence before.

  As a woman entered the room, the doctor said, “Sir?” He approached the side of the bed. “Can you hear me? Tap once with your hand if you can.”

  Jake lifted his right hand, then dropped it.

  A level of elation vibrated the room, overwhelming him. Why was everyone so happy?

  “How’re you feeling? One tap for good, two for not so good.”

  Jake tapped once.

  “Fantastic.” Jake detected the doctor turning away from him. “Dim the lights,” he said to the woman. “Close the curtains.”

  Jake tapped the bed two, three times.

  “What is it?” The doctor’s voice filled with concern.

  He tapped again.

  “Dim the lights?”

  He tapped once.

  “Close the curtains?”

  He tapped violently.

  “Okay, we’ll leave the curtains open.”

  His breathing slowed at the mention of open curtains. He could detect the doctor surveying him, watching him. It was in the way the doctor’s voice traveled to him. Sometimes the doctor spoke when looking at Jake’s face, sometimes his legs or abdomen.

  The woman moved to stand by the door.

  “Do you know your name?” the doctor asked.

  That’s a weird question.

  Jake tapped once.

  “Can you tell us your name?”

  He tapped.

  After Jake didn’t speak, the doctor said, “We have tape over your eyes. While you’ve been asleep we didn’t want you opening them too suddenly, exposing them to light, so we kept them taped. Do you understand?”

  He tapped once.

  “Good. I’m going to remove the tape now, but please, keep your eyes closed until I can shield your head from the sun’s rays. Do you understand?”

  He tapped once. Then moaned.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be speaking again very soon. Everything will make sense to you. Let’s just get you seeing again.” The doctor leaned in close. The woman moved toward the window. Probably to close the curtains quickly if something went wrong.

  “Okay.” The doctor’s fingers hesitated over his right eye. “You’ll feel a slight tug, then the right eye will be clear. Ready?”

  He moaned, tapped once.

  Fingers gently touched his brow, then yanked hard, and what felt like the strip from a bandage peeled away.

  “Let’s do the other one now.”

  The procedure was repeated.

  “Are you ready to open your eyes?”

  Jake moaned.

  “Do it slowly. Blink a lot. Take your time. Adjust for the light in the room. The overheads are dimmed. Whenever you’re ready, sir.”

  Jake let his eyes flutter open to a slit. The light was so intense right away that it felt as if he was staring into the sun. He closed them, pushing his head backward into the pillow, waited a heartbeat, then tried again.

  “It’s okay. Your eyes will need time. They’ve been closed for a while.”

  Along with the increased heartbeat, his breathing had sped up. He clenched his hands and tried to lift them, but they were secured to the bed. When he tried to rise, a strap on his chest and forehead forbade movement.

  The stirring of anger rose again. He clenched his jaw and pulled his right arm up. The strap on his right wrist snapped.

  “What the ...?” the doctor whispered from the bedside.

  “Sir, listen to me.” The doctor scrambled around the bed and tried to restrain Jake’s arm.

  Something had happened to his muscles while he slept. They were stronger than he ever im
agined.

  “He shouldn’t be able to do that,” the doctor said. “His muscles atrophied.”

  Jake left his other arm strapped to the bed. The doctor seemed worried and since whatever had happened to him wasn’t the doctor’s fault, Jake eased back and relaxed. He moaned, let his right arm slip back onto the sheets, then forced his eyelids open even farther. Light filled his vision. He had to blink it away as his eyes adjusted.

  “Good, good,” the doctor said, his voice soft. “Take it easy. Go slow. There’s no hurry.”

  The doctor edged away from the bedside. By the time Jake got his eyes open enough to see through slits, the two people in the room stood by the head of the bed.

  After a few minutes of blinking, he finally was able to see. Shapes took form. When he focused both eyes on one object, his vision zeroed in.

  Had they put contact lenses on him?

  He found the doctor’s face and pushed his head into the pillow. The man looked like he could be Charlton Heston’s brother. The tanned, rugged face with a strong jawline made him think he was looking at the Heston from the 1970s.

  “Hello there,” Dr. Sutton said. “Can you speak yet?”

  Jake turned until he saw the nurse with the sick daughter, then fixed his gaze on the doctor again, who offered him a wide smile.

  “It’s so good to see you awake,” the doctor said. “Let me tell you where you are. This is Ansel’s Health Clinic just south of Rio De Janeiro in an area called Gávea. We’re surrounded by lots of palm trees and greenery. The American University is a couple of miles away. Here, at this clinic, we’ve been taking good care of you around the clock and will continue to do so until you’re up and at ’em.”

  How long? Jake moaned.

  The doctor turned away. “Nurse, please get him some water.”

  Moments later, the nurse brought a cup to his mouth and bent a straw inward. He pulled on the straw, tasting the fluoridation immediately. He’d rather have the water without it. While he was asleep they must have cleaned and fixed his teeth, replacing two missing ones. He had a full set of teeth that seemed harder, more pronounced.

  The nurse pulled the straw out of his mouth.

  “Whoa, take it easy,” she said, her accent clearly Portuguese. “Not too much.”

  The water hit his stomach and coalesced there, a cool blob of weight.

  “Hhhooww llooongg?” he tried to ask.

  “Take your time,” the doctor said. “While you slept, your body underwent subtle changes, one of them being your tongue. It thinned, as did most of your muscles from inaction.”

  He rolled his tongue. For the most part it felt the same, but getting it to help him talk seemed a challenge.

  With great effort, he tried to speak each word slowly, finally getting how out and then long.

  The doctor exchanged a cautious glance with his nurse. The nurse eased back from the bed as the doctor planted himself on the side.

  “Sir,” he said. “We’re just glad to see you. Everything in its time. Can you tell us your name?”

  Jake glared at him for not answering the question. Did Cindy know where he was? Had it been so long that they had caught the killer they had been hunting in Ontario? Had Luke ever been found?

  Something in the doctor’s pheromones explained a level of nervousness that didn’t add up. There had been an accident. Venom. Milton had injected him with antivenin. Maybe he’d fallen into a coma. But he was okay now. Awake. A little physio and he’d be back on his feet. What was the big deal? Two weeks in the coma? A month? He needed to know how long.

  “Hhooww llongg?” he asked, the words forming easier. The doctor’s eyes clouded over. Jake frowned, then raised his eyebrows, expecting an answer. “Tell. Me.”

  “Sir, you’ve been in a coma for eighteen months. No one knows you’re here because we don’t know your name. All of our attempts to identify you failed. It’s just a miracle that you’re awake. That’s what we want to focus on now. Rehabilitation. Maybe when you’re stronger, we can reach out to relatives, let them know you’re okay.”

  Eighteen months? Eighteen? Impossible. But yet, the doctor’s tone told him it was true. He closed his eyes as questions assailed him. What had happened to Cindy? His job? What happened to his life? And how had he been able to afford medical care in Rio de Janeiro?

  “Get some rest, sir,” Dr. Sutton said. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

  The nurse shut the curtains, blocking the sun. Jake didn’t protest this time. He wanted the sleep. He wanted to forget what he just heard. There was no way to process sleeping a year and a half of his life away. Not to mention his new teeth, new slimmer tongue, better sense of smell, and an innate ability to detect people approaching from a great distance by vibration alone.

  No, it was better he took this lying down.

  Just like how the transformation happened in the first place.

  He’d slept for eighteen months.

  He could sleep one more night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jake snapped awake, blinking in the light of the Brazilian sun as summer came on with the promise of warmth and light. The room’s curtains were pulled wide and bound with a fancy cloth on each side. After Jake managed to eat breakfast on his own for the first time, he had the nurse elevate the bed following morning exercises.

  In the ten days since he had awakened, Jake thought about how his coma would affect his life going forward. The answers to what had been happening with his career, his soon-to-be wife, and everything else would have to wait until Kirk and Cindy flew down to bring him home.

  The positives were he hadn’t died and he’d lost a lot of weight. Pre-coma weight had been 210 pounds. Post-coma weight was 160.

  His teeth and vision were far better than before the accident. That would help with his job. His energy levels were at an all-time high, and it seemed no matter what he did, sleep had been elusive the past several nights.

  The nurse had brought him a mirror. The changes to his face were minimal, other than aging and the color of his eyes. They’d turned a soft blue after being closed for the eighteen-month coma. Basically, he looked the same. The more drastic changes had been on the inside of his mouth. Dr. Sutton entered the room with a coffee in hand and took a seat by the window.

  “Break time?” Jake asked.

  “Chat time,” the doctor said. “I’d like to discuss how you got here and what we’ve discovered since you arrived.”

  Jake folded the pillow into a ball under his head and angled himself to look at the doctor. “Then let’s talk. Tell me about the changes in my physique. How are they possible?”

  Speaking with the new shape of his tongue had taken practice, but now he was able to do it relatively easy, making mistakes only when excited. And all this without a speech therapist, which apparently most recovering coma patients needed.

  “There were not many changes,” Dr. Sutton said.

  There was something about his tone that made Jake feel he was lying, but he decided not to press the issue. Cindy was due for a visit at any moment, and Jake planned to get his life back together as soon as possible.

  The doctor sipped from his coffee. “I’ve heard from Kirk.”

  “And?”

  “Kirk and Cindy arrived at the Rio airport a few hours ago. After they check into their hotel, they’re coming here.”

  To see Cindy after a year and a half was going to be hard. And Kirk. What had his partner been up to all this time? There would be so much to catch up on.

  The nurse entered the room and began tidying up in the corner by the window. She dusted a side table, then placed a vase of flowers atop a doily in the center. While dusting the windowsill, she checked her watch.

  “How soon will they be here?” Jake asked.

  “Supposed to be here within a half hour.”

  “Then help me into that wheelchair.”

  Jake had asked to be in the wheelchair for Cindy’s first visit. Once he was comfortable in the chair and
the nurse had gotten him a glass of water, he watched her work while the doctor sipped his coffee by the window.

  “How’s your daughter?” Jake asked her.

  The nurse stopped what she was doing and slowly turned to him.

  “My daughter?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

  “She had a cold, right? Last week? She’s okay now?”

  She moved toward the door. “I don’t recall telling you I have a daughter. Or that she had a cold.”

  “Is it your mother who came to visit you here at the clinic today? She brought you something. Your lunch? Am I right?”

  She gasped and exited the room without answering. Last week, the nurse had reeked of her daughter’s cold without having one herself, and earlier today she had entered his room to exercise and feed him smelling of Chanel No. 5, an old lady’s perfume, one she didn’t use.

  He wheeled himself to the door to apologize, but someone was approaching his room.

  Cindy Macmillan. His fiancée.

  He offered a smile, then a gentle wave. Kirk followed Cindy. The doctor rose from his chair and moved toward the door.

  Jake eased the wheelchair backward to let everyone in the room. Nervous as he was to see her, he reminded himself that he hadn’t seen Cindy in only a few days in his reality. The horse allergy and hospital visit had happened. Then he’d driven to Toronto, flew to Manaus, and hiked into the Amazon Rainforest. Sure, he’d been in a long coma, but to him, he might have slept a couple of days. Mentally, nothing had changed.

  But for Cindy, she’d had two Christmases and a long summer without him.

  Cindy stopped at the door, her eyes welling with tears.

  “It’s a miracle, Jake.” Cindy opened her arms and came across the room to him. “I’m so grateful you’re alive.”

  “Me too,” he mumbled into her shoulder as she embraced him. “Like how I look? They call it a coma diet.”

  She pulled back without responding and set her purse on the side table, wiping at her eyes. Kirk offered him a brotherly hug and pat on the shoulder, then leaned on the doorframe, shaking his head.