Page 36 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)

expected. So, I presume if they expected them to do their job and then disintegrate...” She shrugged.

“Right,” he said and then nodded. “And yes, you are correct that the nanos did not self-destruct and disintegrate on completing the repairs to injuries or healing illnesses that they were injected into the patient to deal with. It was not the fault of the scientists,” he said quickly, apparently concerned that she might think less of his relatives for the perceived failure.

But then he frowned and admitted, “Although... I mean, I suppose, ultimately, it was their fault for not considering that the human body is constantly in need of repair in one way or another.”

Abril’s eyebrows rose. “How so?”

Crispin frowned and then said, “Cells are constantly dying because of age and environmental factors, etcetera. I guess the

scientists did not consider that the nanos would see those issues as something they needed to repair as well before self-destructing.

But they do, so that they just never self-destruct and leave the body.” Seeing her expression, he explained, “Sunlight damages

the skin and the nanos take care of it. The simple passage of time causes cells to die and the nanos take care of that. Pollution

does damage to the lungs and skin microbiome and—”

“And the nanos take care of that,” Abril said for him.

“Yes,” he said and added, “Ultimately, there is always something to repair or fix, so the nanos just never self-destruct and

leave the body.”

Abril merely nodded, but didn’t really see a problem with that. It sounded pretty good to have nanos in your body ready to

heal should you have an accident or get stabbed or something. You wouldn’t even have to wait for an ambulance to arrive and

the paramedics to inject the nanos, she thought and then Crispin spoke again.

“And that is how we came to be immortals,” he finished with a gusty sigh, and then straightened from kneeling in front of

her, and moved to sit on the couch beside her instead.

Abril automatically started to nod, and then stopped and shifted sideways on the couch to face him. “Wait. What? Immortals? What are you talking about? I thought these nanos healed wounds and stuff?”

Crispin’s satisfaction drained away like runoff water. Frowning, he shifted to sit sideways to face her as well and thought

for a moment before saying, “Well, you see because the nanos do not die and leave the body, they remain.”

“Of course,” she said dryly. “But what was that about how you became immortal ?”

“Not me,” he said quickly, and then frowned and said, “Well, yes I am too, but I didn’t become immortal. I was born immortal.”

He paused briefly and then explained, “My mother was an immortal, so I was born with the nanos from her and the nanos make

anyone they reside in young, healthy, and immortal.”

Abril stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said, “Young? You didn’t mention anything about them making their host

young.”

“They were programmed with the anatomy of both a human male and female at their peak condition, which is twenty-five to thirty,”

he reminded her. “The nanos thought they were supposed to...”

“Make their host young?” she suggested.

He nodded slowly, something about her tone making his eyes turn wary. “Basically, yes.”

Abril considered what he’d said, and then asked, “So if an elderly person—someone in their eighties, for instance—if they

had cancer and were given the nanos to try to cure them, the nanos would not just cure the cancer, but make the older person

young too?”

“Well, yes and no. They would still be eighty years old, but their body would be healthy and at its peak condition.”

“Which is twenty-five to thirty,” she pointed out. “Much younger than eighty.”

Crispin nodded.

Abril sat back slightly, her expression showing her awe. “Your family has discovered the fountain of youth.”

He relaxed a little. “Some people have called it that.”

Abril sat up abruptly. “Why is this not known everywhere? This should be on the news. It’s a miracle cure. We should be calling

CNN right now.”

“Unfortunately, it would not be considered good news,” he assured her.

“What? That’s crazy! Why isn’t it good news?” Abril asked, finding it hard to believe it wouldn’t be welcomed as the great

miracle cure it was. Then her eyes widened, and she breathed, “Oh. Right. I get it. We already have a population problem and

are doing untold damage to the earth because of it. Clear-cutting forests, causing pollution, causing the extinction of different

species...” She sighed. “If everybody knew about this and demanded access, that would be the end of death. There wouldn’t

be a square foot left on the planet where a person wasn’t standing.”

“Yes, that is an issue,” he agreed. “But there is another problem.”

“What’s that?” she asked with surprise. She would have thought the one she’d just mentioned was really the only one.

Crispin hesitated, and then said, “I did mention that the nanos are bioengineered. They use blood to both propel themselves, as well as to make more of their kind in the body. They often even use blood to perform their repairs and healing.” He paused briefly and then admitted, “But often, they use more blood than the human body can produce.”

Abril considered that briefly, and then said, “So, what do they do?” she asked, and before he could answer did it herself

saying, “I guess they get blood transfusions to make up for that or something.”

“That is exactly what they did,” he said, sounding relieved.

Abril was more than a little relieved herself. The image of the skeleton in the garden with its fangs had flashed briefly

through her mind as she’d considered what he’d said. She’d actually thought for a moment that maybe the fangs had been the

answer to the issue of needing blood, and what they were talking about was that the patients had essentially turned into vampires

to get the blood they needed. She was more than relieved to learn that wasn’t the case and the patients with these nanos were

given transfusions to deal with the necessity for blood.

Smiling crookedly, she told him, “Honestly it doesn’t sound like a bad trade-off. I mean, I hate needles. But putting up with

a transfusion every once in a while, in exchange for looking young and being healthy for the rest of your days doesn’t seem

like a bad deal.” She paused briefly as she considered what she’d just said, and then asked, “So, by immortal you just mean

long-lived, right? You guys don’t live forever. No one lives forever.”

Crispin hesitated and then told her, “Barring being set on fire, or having their head cut off and kept away from the body long enough that it cannot reattach, immortals can live indefinitely.”

Abril’s mind was in sudden chaos. “Indefinitely?”

Crispin nodded, his expression solemn.

“How long is indefinitely?”

He was silent for a moment, and then said reluctantly, “Lucian was born in Atlantis several millennia ago.”

Abril stiffened, her gaze fixed on him as she said with disbelief, “Atlantis?”

“That is where the nanos were developed,” he explained.

“Atlantis,” she repeated, her brain having trouble accepting what he was telling her. A short, disbelieving laugh slipped

from her lips, and she said, “You want me to believe that scientists thousands of years ago in the mythical land of Atlantis,

developed bioengineered nanos that are the fountain of youth and that Lucian, your uncle Lucian, who is presently sitting

out there in Gina’s kitchen, was born way back then and way over there—wherever there is?”

“Was,” he corrected, and when her gaze went blank with confusion, explained, “My uncle was born way back then, and way over

there where Atlantis was . Atlantis fell. It no longer exists.”

She stared at him silently, amazed that he was continuing with this line. It was so ridiculous. “From my understanding, Crispin,

toilet paper was invented in New York in the 1850s. Before that, they were using leaves, sticks, moss, shells, corn husks,

and water to clean themselves after taking a shit. But you want me to believe that thousands of years before that, your ancestors

came up with bioengineered nanos that—”

“Atlantis was more developed than the rest of the planet at that time,” he interrupted her to say. “They were far in advance of the rest of the world. But they kept those advancements to themselves.”

“How?” she asked at once and didn’t hide her disbelief. In her experience, it was almost impossible to keep secrets in this

world. How could the Atlanteans have kept such advancements from their neighbors on the planet?

“Atlantis was separated from the rest of humanity by mountains and the ocean. And while they had the equipment and ability

to cross the mountains, or take ships around to their neighbors and the rest of humanity, they were very insular and uninterested

in that. They—Well, actually they were kind of snobs, I guess,” he admitted with a grimace. “They did not feel the rest of

humanity had anything to offer them, so they never shared their knowledge.”

“They never looked outside their own little island or whatever it was?” she asked.

“It was a peninsula, not an island,” he corrected.

“And they did on occasion check on their neighbors. Every once in a while teams of scientists would go out and explore the rest of the world. They often returned with new plants never encountered before, or minerals and metals not readily available in Atlantis. The information they brought back was apparently put into our history books.” He shrugged.

“But that was all they went for: historical and scientific purposes. There were no tourists traveling out and about. The rest of the world was, of course, not very advanced in comparison to our people, so there was really no reason for anyone but scientists or explor ers to be interested in leaving Atlantis with all its advances.”

“Right,” she murmured thoughtfully, not sure if she believed him or not. Although, if he was lying, she did have to wonder

why he would bother.

“Besides, Atlanteans did hold the belief that they should not have undue influence over other tribes,” he explained. “I mean,

just imagine discovering a primitive tribe without any previous contact with the modern world. We with our cell phones, planes,

and weapons would seem like gods to them. It would be terribly unfair and affect their natural development.”

“Right,” she breathed, and then said slowly, “So, they had these nanos that were basically miraculous. But they didn’t share

them with others, and instead kept them for themselves.” She tilted her head and peered at him in question. “So how did they

come to the rest of the world in the end? The Atlanteans with their nanos I mean. Like Lucian who you say was born there.”

She arched her eyebrows. “I know Atlantis disappeared ages ago. Is that when they supposedly joined the rest of society? Because

they were forced to?”

“Basically, yes. Atlantis fell. A series of earthquakes and a volcanic eruption separated the peninsula from the rest of the

continent, and Atlantis sank into the ocean. Most of the population was lost. The only people to survive were those who had

been given the nanos. Like Lucian. They crawled out of the wreckage and were forced to join the rest of the world.”

Abril stared at him for a moment, her mind ticking over the information he was giving.

She still wasn’t sure she believed him, but decided to go with it for now.

“I don’t suppose any of the survivors thought to stop to grab the equipment needed for blood transfusions on their way out of the sinking Atlantis? ”

“No,” he acknowledged. “I suspect they were all too focused on surviving the collapsing world around them to think of that.”

“So, no more transfusions,” she guessed, “and the nanos gave their hosts fangs to get the blood they needed to do the work

they were programmed to perform.”

He looked almost relieved that she had been the one to say that as he nodded. “Exactly. They also made us stronger, faster,

and gave us the ability to see in the dark.”

“She does not believe you, Nephew. She is just humoring you,” Lucian bellowed from the kitchen. “Show her your fangs.”

Eyebrows rising, Abril turned expectantly to Crispin, but he hesitated, and as he did, she began to wonder how Lucian had

known she didn’t believe Crispin. She wondered, too, how the hell he knew what they were talking about. Her office was up

a long hall, and the door was closed. Surely, he couldn’t hear them? And even if he could, he couldn’t possibly condone this

nonsense his nephew was spewing.

“It is not nonsense,” Lucian called out.

He could hear them. How the hell could he hear them from the kitchen?

Wait! She hadn’t said that out loud. She’d merely thought it.

How the hell did he know what she was thinking?

She would have asked except that Crispin chose that moment to open his mouth wide.

At first, there wasn’t much to see, just his tongue and two rows of perfectly normal human, aka non-vampire, teeth.

She was about to say as much when movement drew her gaze to his right canine as it began to shift and dropped down, suddenly becoming a very pointy fang.

One that exactly matched the one on the other side of his jaw where his human canine had been a moment ago.