I, Immortal

Chapter Thirty-Two

I had forgotten what it was like to be sick. To have a cold, a nagging cough, the flu. I had had them years ago before the procedure. But I had never had them all at once. "What is happening to me?" I shouted at Cy the moment he answered my video call. I coughed, sneezed, swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. I had thrown up on the floor twice already - as if the carpets hadn't seen worse. My face was so congested, I figured peeling the nails off my fingers one by one wouldn't feel quite so bad as this. Miserable was an understatement.

"Looks like your mortality is coming down hard. You haven't been sick since the procedure, right?"

I nodded, my stomach turning as I swallowed again.

"Okay, good." I shot a nasty glare at him, and he rushed over his words. "I mean, not good. Anyway, your body is simply reverting back to mortality, and in doing so, you've lost your immunity to sickness. You'll get it back, but you won't not get sick again in the future."

Oh, wonderful. So now I can die from choking on cupcakes, jumping off cliffs, and sickness. I felt ready to die then and there.

"When will it stop?" I sniffed.

He sighed like a mother who has discovered her sick child has just thrown up his chicken noodle soup on his clean bedsheets. "Take two patapharin and if that doesn't work..."

"Call you in the morning?" I cracked a miserable smile.

Cy shook his head. "I think your body will catch up within the next forty-eight hours."

"I love the confidence in your voice."

He chuckled drily. "Very funny."

I peered at the room behind Cy, looking over the white walls. They weren't simply painted white - the walls had been covered from floor to ceiling with white sheets. The room was unnaturally bright, and I guessed there were softboxes lighting the area. "Where are you?"

Cy's face turned slightly pale at the question, but the color returned to his face and I wondered if I had just imagined it. Ever since the bombing, I hadn't trusted him like I once had. "In my house."

"Are you painting the floors?" That didn't seem like the logical answer, but Cy was prone to doing weird things every so often. Like deciding to learn to ride a unicycle on an icy winter morning when he was eleven. He had wanted pity after sliding down the slick road right into a snowbank, but I had laughed too hard to offer him any more than a hand up. You looked like a clown who'd just realized a lion was on the tightrope with him, but he couldn't do anything but let the lion chase him up and down, I'd chuckled, nearly out of breath. Well, if I ever get in trouble with my mom and have to run away, I know I'll be welcome at the circus. At that, I had laughed even harder and he had started laughing too. Our sides ached pretty hard after that.

Cy looked down at the floors, confused, then looked at me with a smile. "Uh, no. I'm working on something...important."

I waited for more, but he didn't seem interested in divulging his plan. "Well, get well soon." He continued, perking up. He seemed genuinely giddy about something. "Come by tomorrow if you're feeling better."

I'd scarcely said goodbye before he ended the call and left me standing alone in my near-empty house. I stood there for a long moment, staring at the wall. Then my stomach turned again and I rushed to the bathroom.

*

The patapharin did the trick, and within an hour, the coughing, sneezing and runny nose had been subdued. I still kept a trash can nearby just in case. I spent the rest of the day unpacking boxes for my kitchen and contemplating the odd white-sheeted walls in Cy's house. He's performing the new upgrade for himself. Getting ready for it. After hours of mulling it over, that seemed like the most convincing answer. He had had no qualms about using a dead scientist's computer program to make him stronger, smarter. He was preparing for the procedure without a doubt. Maybe he wanted me to help out somehow, and that was why he had invited me. I sighed and took another plate from the box. It was only a matter of time before Cy turned himself into a full-blown cyborg. Maybe not now and not with this program, but I could see him with his new mind, thinking up a procedure to give him a metal brain and a metal body. He would be immortal then, wouldn't he? Always looking at the sky, reaching for every new star. Maybe, against his own word, he would eventually leave me behind in the world of normal people.

I shook my head. The patapharin must have done weird things to my mind. I couldn't possibly be thinking clearly. Cy had done things behind my back, but he would never forget me. That was impossible. He had proved that when he had tried to negotiate an upgrade for me in Lund's office.

With a relieved sigh, I went back to unpacking. Cy would reveal the answers to my questions tomorrow. Then I would understand what he was so excited and secretive about. My stomach turned and I reached for the trash can. Tomorrow I would be better.

If I survived that long.