The Eternal World by Christopher Farnsworth Page B

He looked down at himself. “Have I been sick?”
    Simon’s voice came over the intercom again. “You were, Mr. Mueller. But I think you’re going to feel a lot better from now on.”
    “I feel pretty good already,” Mueller said.
    “Well, why don’t you let our doctor here check you out,” Simon said. “Just to be sure.”
    He meant David. And David was ready. Whatever kind of hoax this was, whatever kind of sick joke, he was sure it would take him only a moment to unravel it. He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he knew there was no way to undo the damage he’d seen in this man.
    To Mueller—if that was the man’s real name—David was achingly polite. He smiled so hard it hurt his face.
    “Just have a seat on this table over here, Mr. Mueller,” he said. “I’d like to run a few tests.”
    “Whatever you say, doc,” the patient said. “It’s just, uh, you think I could have a fresh change of drawers? I seem to have messed these ones up pretty bad.”
    Mueller smiled at David. Jesus Christ, did the man suddenly have more teeth? No. That had to be David’s memory playing tricks on him.
    “Of course,” David said, and the nurse led Mueller to a changing room. David accompanied him the entire way, to make sure no one played any more tricks he couldn’t see.
    When Mueller was freshly cleaned, David guided the suddenly quite limber older man to the exam table, still playing the dedicated M.D.
    He spared a moment to glance through the window at Simon. Simon looked peaceful.
    David had no idea what was going on. But he would find out. He didn’t like being played. He was sure this whole joke would collapse once he got to work.
    SIX HOURS LATER, MR. Mueller was not smiling anymore. He’d become cranky and bored as David ran every test he could. The old man was clearly getting tired of having his blood drawn and sitting his ass on a cold metal table.
    But he was still healthy. Still vital. Still a completely different patient, in every way, from the end-stage Alzheimer’s case that had been wheeled into the room.
    David had put Mueller through an MRI, a CAT scan, and a PET scan. He compared the resulting images with scans taken just a week before, according to the charts. Dark spots from miniature strokes in the man’s brain had disappeared. Cerebral tissues that had once been clotted with Alzheimer’s plaques were now free and clear.
    David assumed, of course, that the earlier scans were fakes, planted in the file for just that purpose. But the recovery wasn’t just internal, either.
    The cataracts over Mueller’s eyes that David had clearly observed were gone. Mueller’s vision was back to 20/20, unassisted. “Haven’t seen that well since Nixon was in office,” the old man joked after David and the nurse ran the eye exam.
    Muscle tone and skin elasticity were improved as well—Mueller appeared to have the flesh of a man twenty years younger. Gum recession had been reversed. And David hadn’t been imagining it—Mueller now had white, cavity-free replacements for his missing teeth.
    Jesus Christ, he grew new teeth .
    The only way this could be possible was if they’d switched patients on him. But he’d never turned his back on Mueller, not for a second, and even the best magician would need a momentary distraction to pull that off.
    What’s more, he’d seen it happen. And it kept happening. The man’s arterial blockage shrank by twenty percent between two different tests. Capillary circulation improved, and kept improving every time David measured it. David suspected stimulants, or adrenaline, so he rechecked the old man’s reflexes. Motor response improved, hour over hour. He put Mueller on a treadmill and the patient’s cardiovascular function improved each time. Liver, kidneys, colon, all healing from years of abuse and neglect. Mueller was getting healthier—no, go ahead, say it, younger —as David watched.
    David’s hangover was gone, his fatigue burned away as he worked. Every now