The Eternal World by Christopher Farnsworth Page A

made David a little nervous.
    “You’re not coming in?” David asked.
    “I already showered once this morning,” Simon said, pressing a button to speak through an intercom. “Messes with my skin regimen. Besides, I don’t want you saying I tried to influence you or what you’re going to see.”
    David sighed. Whatever. His patience was nearing the bottom of the tank.
    Then a door on the other side of the lab opened, and a nurse pushed an old man in a wheelchair through.
    David was not a medical doctor, but he’d done plenty of research in hospitals and med schools. He recognized the symptoms immediately. Vacant stare. Eyes covered with milky-white cataracts. Unkempt hair. Open-mouthed breathing and muscular degeneration. And, of course, the smell of human waste from a soiled diaper. The patient had an IV hooked to one arm, probably running fluids, since he could not feed or hydrate himself properly.
    Severe dementia. Most likely late-stage Alzheimer’s.
    Wordlessly, he looked at Simon through the plate glass.
    “Check his chart,” Simon said through the intercom. “I’m not holding anything back from you.”
    The nurse handed over a metal clipboard. David flipped through it. It said everything he thought it would. Buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain. Steady loss of memories and physical abilities. The man’s name was Robert Mueller, but that hardly mattered anymore. David was looking at a dead man, a body that was simply waiting for his brain to forget everything, even how to breathe.
    He handed the chart back to the nurse, who took it without a word. All of this passed over Mr. Mueller’s head without the patient noticing a thing.
    “Why?” David asked. “Why is he here? Shouldn’t he be with family? He doesn’t have much time left. You must know that.”
    “You think he’d even notice? He’s gone already,” Simon said. “Besides, he has no family. We pulled him out of a homeless shelter.”
    “So that gives you the right to experiment on him? That’s pretty sick.”
    “Check the file before you get all righteous on me, please. Back when he still had some marbles, he signed up with us. Free medical care in exchange for a few tests. It’s all ethical and legal. We take better care of him than anyone ever has in this life.”
    “Great,” David said. “Good for you. Now, what did you want me to see? I’m ready to be done with this.”
    Simon looked at the nurse and nodded to her. She took out a syringe, tapped the needle, and, before David could object, injected the contents directly into the patient’s IV.
    “What was that?”
    The nurse didn’t answer. Simon didn’t, either. They both stared at Mueller.
    “I said, what was that?” David asked again. Still no answer.
    David marched over to the glass and got as close to Simon’s face as he could.
    “Hey. I’m talking to you. Whatever forms he signed when he was competent, that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want—”
    “David,” Simon said, as gently as possible through the intercom. “Shut up and look.”
    David turned around.
    Mr. Mueller was blinking and moving his head. He stared and stretched, as if waking from a long nap.
    “What happened?” he said. “Where am I?”
    Then he stood up, out of the chair.
    Impossible, David thought. Even if Simon had hired an actor, there was no way to fake the degraded muscle tone, the loss of motor ability that David had witnessed just a second before.
    The man in that chair did not have the self-control to keep from crapping his pants, let alone stand.
    Now he was walking.
    David noticed more changes in Mueller. Muscle tone. Skin texture. Even the old man’s hair seemed to be thicker. He looked a decade younger in every way. At least a decade. Maybe two.
    The nurse finally spoke, since David was gaping in silence.
    “Mr. Mueller, you’re in a long-term care facility. Do you remember coming here?”
    “Oh,” he said. “Right. It just seems like it’s been a long time.”