Alias- Forever And Always

70) Embracing The Future

Music for this chapter (on repeat): Sexyback by Justin Timberlake, Feel This Moment by Pitbull, Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard, Legs by ZZ Top, Launch by Trevor Rabin from Armaggedon Score Soundtrack,Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Protectors of the Earth, Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys, To the Stars by Randy Edelmen from Dragonheart Soundtrack.

SEVENTY-ONE

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St. Petersburg, Russia- Alexander Palace -November 15th, 2025

"And what is, 'this news' exactly, Darling?" Katya asked Lena during her birthday dinner with hands folding before her face resting her elbows on the table and leaning in, intrigued as was everyone else by Lena's curious declaration earlier in the evening that she had news to share now that everyone was all in one place. "Please do share. The suspense is killing us." She smiled encouraging her niece to continue as all of the other eager faces nodded in agreement.

"Well," Lena began with a soft smile tucking her hair behind her ear and glancing over to her mother. "They have finished the analysis on the data compiled from our genetics testing during my last mission. The results looked incredibly promising in their preliminary findings but… the final report is astonishing and carries so much hope for the future. As some of you know from my two previous trips into space before this one, the Flight Surgeon began noticing something strange when monitoring my vitals. We already knew from the study of Mama's genetics and blood over the years that she and I carry a much higher concentration of hemoglobin in our red blood cells." Lena's eyes flashed around the table holding everyone's attention. "Mama's red blood cells carry a little over three times the normal level of hemoglobin that the average human adult has and that I carry around two times the normal levels of hemoglobin."

"Hence the reason you can both run forever like the wind." Alexei smiled proudly at his 'girls' as the physician. "Three times the hemoglobin means three times the oxygen in your blood stream to your organs." He thanked God often, for giving them these traits as they no doubt played major roles in the 'miracles' of saving Irina's life so many times, including bringing her back from the dead after nearly 30 minutes in Cardiac Arrest and with Lena dead and under the ice for nearly the same when she'd gone into the river. They had both been dead three-times the normal length of time of only 9 minutes that a human could realistically be without oxygen to their brains and hearts, without catastrophic damage and each, had come back to life with nearly no damage or lasting effect of any kind. Their brains and hearts had held on because of those concentrated oxygen levels and allowed them to sustain little to no damage.

"Exactly." Lena nodded softly with a smile with excitement. "Most astronauts hemoglobin decreases in space for obvious reasons and their bodies become weaker and age more quickly in a shorter time frame than they would on Earth. The muscle atrophy is rapid in a weightless environment, including the heart. But again, as many of you already know the Flight Surgeon discovered during my first mission and then followed again during my second, was that another anomaly that was contradictory in nature presented itself for the first time. Instead of decreasing in hemoglobin as was expected, my red blood cells actually increased in space and the weightless environment from two times the normal on earth, to four times. Surpassing even Mama's load capacity for oxygen within her cells. This was part of what helped my pancreatic cells to evolve and be able to bring to life again, those pancreatic cells that had ceased to function like Mama's, with Diabetes."