The Immortality Plot

The Immortality Plot - chapter 13

Rachel Maclean had lost all track of time. She had only seen daylight for a few moments since she had been brought here. Her mind was drowsy with memories and sedatives. She inhabited a half-world between waking and sleeping until now she was unable to distinguish between them.

They had been nice to her. She had not been badly treated but they had been firm. She had been left under no illusions. If she failed to co-operate she would not see her next birthday. She would not see tomorrow.

They all wore white coats and masks and the rooms she was kept in and taken to were totally white and clinical. There were some rooms full of equipment and hospital type beds where lights flashed on consoles and there were other rooms full of people who wore different masks and touched her in her private areas. She had resisted at first and tried to prevent the intrusion into her womanhood with fingers and implements. Then it became obvious to her that she had no choice. Although people asked her questions, she almost never knew the answers. She could not be sure of her name or where she came from.

They had told her that she would be free of all this very soon and she would be going home. She wouldn’t be able to remember too much about her time here, they said, and her memories would be blurred and imprecise. But in every other way her life would be back to normal. She would see her mother again and she would be happy. But it wasn’t her turn just yet. She was next in line for release.

People would question her but her memories would have been altered. She would be unable to recognize any of the people who had been responsible for her welfare here, they told her.

But she would have the last laugh. She was sure there were at least two people she would remember. The nurse who took the most care of her didn’t always wear a mask. Rachel had been staring at her face every day for as long as she could remember. She could recall the contours of her forehead and the way her eyebrows curved slightly up at the ends. If asked she would be able to draw her nose. It was slightly oversized and blotchy and when she didn’t wear her mask, her mouth was narrow and firm but used to smiling.

The other person Rachel was sure she would recognize if she ever saw them again in the normal world was a girl of about her own age. She was black with very tight glossy curls covering her scalp. She had the face of an angel, Rachel thought, and the body of a goddess. Rachel saw her sometimes being guided and helped along corridors that seemed to run everywhere until you were utterly lost in a maze of whiteness and doors and trolleys. The other girl did not recognize Rachel or even acknowledge her existence. Another person in a white coat and mask was conducting her and whispering to her, calling her by her name. Rachel tried all she could to recall it but always slipped away like sand, like sand in the wind.

••••

Lucius Gynt was naked, parading in front of his captive teddies. Behind them stood a bookshelf containing his small library of religious books, essays, criticism, doctrinal theses and multi-faith analyses together with copies of great religious books of the world, from the Bible, Qu’ran and Talmud to The Voudon Gnostic Workbook – the practical guide to voodoo necromancy. Lucius Gynt had educated himself in philosophy, psychology and theology.

This was the way he always began a new assignment, or mission as he liked to call it. He needed to find inspiration and words of religious wisdom to suit the person he was about to save. He followed this with a rigorous check of all his equipment. This included the preparation of his instruments of death and reincarnation and a close inspection of his protective garments. On this occasion he had been surprised and alarmed to discover a missing button from one of his gray-green camouflage, one-piece chemical and biological suits, which together with a mask, hood and boots turned him into a DNA ghost. The suits were designed to a NASA and US government approved top-level impermeable specifications. They were crafted from a multi-layer extrusion laminated on one side to an elastomeric, nonwoven substrate with another multi-layer film extrusion laminated to the opposite side. The collar and cuff joints were edged with neoprene strips to ensure a tight fit. The overlap buttons had been a stylistic affectation on his part.