I, Immortal

Chapter Thirty-Three

Morning came and found me feeling as healthy as any normal human. I was still miserable about being normal, but I was happier about not throwing up every two seconds. The sickness had gone, and I had other things to be bothered with.

I found a skillet packed away in a box and cooked myself breakfast. I wolfed down fried eggs, toast, and pancakes with a ravenous appetite, my stomach having growled at me the entire day before from fasting. It hadn't been a good feeling throwing up every saltine cracker I had tried to eat, but today nothing would stop me from eating.

After breakfast, I took a hot shower and dressed in casual clothes to visit Cy's house. When I arrived, I stepped up to the door, lay my hand on the printpad. From inside, Cy shouted at me to come in. The door slid open.

"I'm in the living room! Come on in!" I followed his voice down the hall, turned and stopped short. This was no sterilized room, and there was no wet paint to be seen. This was a high-tech laboratory. A long table took up most of the right end of the room, and a line of transparent beakers, flasks with twirling straw-like necks, and skinny cylinders set on burners filled every inch of it. Various odd-colored liquids boiled inside the flasks, running down the tubes from one end of the table to the other, combining into one tube and finally dripping methodically into a tiny vial like drops from a leaky faucet. The liquids splashed silently into the vial, turning from black, cyan, and deep purple to a blue that was more brilliant than the bluest sapphire. It was beautiful, hypnotizing. It set my mind at ease.

"Well, what do you think?" Cy spread his arms out and grinned wide.

"This..." I turned away from the hypnotic blue formula, and tried again. "This is your living room?"

He nodded. "Everything I need for the experiments is right here. But that wasn't what I was talking about. See?"

He turned his head to one side, revealing his implants. But they weren't the same implants I had seen so often. These were brand new - new wires, new circuits, even new blinking lights. The lights pulsed green now instead of the old blue, and the wires were thinner and less noticeable. That is, if wires and blinking lights on the side of your head could be any less noticeable than pointy ears and devilish eyebrows.

"When did this happen?" I waved my hand awkwardly at the new look. I had thought he would need my help. Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn't - I might have slipped up and given him a mind like a vegetable.

"Last night." He touched the implants with an air of pride, "I put them in myself. Took a lot of work looking in a mirror and doing surgery on myself, but everything went off without a hitch."

"I'm surprised you didn't mutilate half of your face doing it by yourself."

"Would you be happy if I had?"

We stared at each other for a long moment, silent and awkward. He frowned and slid his green jacket from his shoulders. "Anyway, I didn't ask you over here just to gawk at my upgrade."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh?"

He beckoned me to follow him to the long table. I stood beside him and he pulled me down until we were eye level with the little vial that held the shining blue liquid. My brow furrowed as I stared at the formula, then turned to Cy, who was looking very pleased with himself. This concoction must be something important.

"What is it?"

A smirk played across Cy's face and he let out a scoffing laugh. "What is it? C'mon, Xan. You don't need to be augmented to figure this one out."

My frown deepened. Another drop fell into the vial with a silent splash. For the first time, I noticed something more about the vial. It was shaped differently from a typical jar or vase. The wide top narrowed in the middle, then grew wide again at the bottom. Like an hourglass, I mused. A shiver went up my spine as realization kicked in. The tiny vial was an hourglass. And the formula? My timeline, my future. Leave it to Cy to think of all of the details.