Awaenings: a Fantastic Journey

Awakenings: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Sexual

Author's note:

This story is primarily a work of science fiction, but it is more. It is a love story and a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. There is some torrid sex, but it develops late, as an outflow of a much longer and more serious tale. For those looking for a quick fap, please move on to another story on the Lit site. For those who appreciate plausible science fiction with a tender side, please read on. (And please vote and comment at the end!)

*****

Adam slowly opened one crusty eyelid, struggling to focus on his blurred surroundings. He could feel the thump-thump-thump of his pulse pounding out its amplified drumbeat on his right temple.

Helluva hangover,

he thought bleakly.

With his right eye still closed, he managed to overcome the visual fuzziness with a deliberate squint. His left eye scanned the room in periscope fashion.

The room wasn't much to behold. The walls were bare and painted in bland off-white enamel. Plain white linens covered his lower body and the bed on which he lay. The non-descript steel desk was devoid of any personal effects. The lighting for the room was undoubtedly artificial -- there were no windows in the room.

Where the hell

am

I?

he thought, struggling to remember the events of the night before. In the midst of this brief mental quest, a loud beeping sound halted his thought process. He quickly opened his other eye, turning his head to the right side of the room in search of the source of the noise.

Standing in the far right corner, with tubes and wires that reached across the bare floor tiles to the bed, was a bulky electronic device. It featured a myriad of lights, buttons and switches. A trio of red lights were blinking in rhythm to the electronic beeping sound.

"What the fuck...?" he exclaimed, his voice hoarse and raspy. At that moment, a tall, heavyset woman dressed in white scrubs rushed into the room.

He could only see her eyes and the edges of her face. Her nose and mouth were covered by an odd diamond-shaped white mask. The mask was lined with metallic nodes and projected a 3-D image in an eerie green light. In the midst of the green image were three red lights, pulsing to the rhythm of the beeps from the far right corner of the room.

"Mr. Katameros, you're awake!" she shouted. "How do you feel?"

That was the moment it struck him -- the knowledge that

he had no idea who he was

. "Mr. Kata... Katameros?" he inquired.

"Yes. Adam Katameros."

"But -- but -- who are

you

? And what am I doing here?"

"I'm Nurse Thompson. And you're the first beneficiary of the Methuselah Solution."

"The Methuselah

what

?" There was a tremor in his voice, and his hands began to shake with visible frustration.

"Settle down, Mr. Katameros -- all in due time. For now, you just need to rest. It's been a long journey."

"A long journey? From where?"

"Not from

where

-- from

when

."

*****

"What... what the hell are you talking about?" He stared at her, bewilderment in his eyes, anger on his furrowed brow. He propped himself up on one elbow to better engage the discussion with her.

For the better part of fifteen seconds, she made no attempt to answer him, though the wheels of cogitation were turning visibly behind her wide-eyed stare. Finally, she replied, "I think you'd better speak with Dr. Radcliffe. I'll make arrangements for her to visit you at the first opportunity."

"What did you mean by -- a journey from

when

?" He made no attempt to hide his contempt. "You and this doctor aren't going to feed me some load of crap about time travel, are you?"

"Nothing like that, Mr. Katameros. At least -- not

exactly

..."

Now the thump-thump-thump in his right temple was matched by a hammering sensation at the back of his head. "What --

exactly

?

"I think it's best if Dr. Radcliffe fills in the details. You've been through a lot. You're sure you don't remember...?"

"Lady, if I remembered, I wouldn't be asking you to explain. I figure I must have really tied one on last night, judging by the jackhammer pounding inside my skull. I don't remember much of anything from last night. Or any other night, for that matter..."

"Dr. Radcliffe was concerned that amnesia would accompany the procedure, at least initially..."

"The

procedure

? I've had some sort of surgery?"

"Not in the traditional sense. At least not from the tradition of your time."

"Here we go again!

My time

? What in the name of God are you talking about?" The pounding in his skull was reaching epic proportions. For a moment, he thought he would faint.

"Your surgery was a newer procedure -- one you wouldn't be familiar with. It made it possible for us to test the Methuselah Solution."

"Now you're talking in circles! Why don't you just throw me on a merry-go-round and spin me until I vomit? That'll accomplish about as much as the worthless explanations you're giving me."

"A 'merry-go-round'? I'm sorry, Mr. Katameros; now

you're

the one who needs to explain."

He stared at her once again with his crusty, bleary right eye. His left eye winced with a migraine throb that encompassed his consciousness. And now the spinning seemed to become physical rather than metaphorical.

He lay his head back on the pillow. His eyes were fixed on a single point on the ceiling, the axis of the room's apparent movement. Consciousness was slipping away. He saw a look of concern in the woman's eyes as one of the red lights on her eerie green mask began to flicker. The red light blinked off completely just as the room turned to black.

*****

"Ah, there you go," murmured a soothing feminine voice. "Adam, where

are

you?"

Katameros slowly opened his eyes. An attractive woman's face leaned in toward his, a look of tenderness warming her eyes, a gentle smile curling one corner of her lip. Her generous blonde mane was pulled up behind her head in with a hair clip. Though she was professionally dressed, he couldn't help but notice the flare of her hips from her narrow waist, the swell of her breasts straining against her modest medical blouse. He struggled to maintain eye contact with her, finally deciding to look away completely.

He peered slowly around the recovery room where he was now situated. "Where

am

I? I'm on this gurney," he rasped with a crooked smile.

The faint crows-feet at the edges of her eyes crinkled with the smile that his humour had elicited. He noted the contrast of her cool steel-gray eyes with the warmth of her lush, rose-coloured lips. He pegged her as mid-thirties, self-assured, vibrant, used to being in control.

"I just wondered if you had any memories about..." Her voice trailed off, but her caring smile acted as a soothing balm to Adam's troubled soul and pounding headache. Perhaps she understood hangovers first-hand.

"Um, well..." he stammered. "Not exactly." He managed a sheepish grin.

"That's okay," she smiled. "Can you sit up? Perhaps you'd like to take a walk with me..."

"Who

are

you?" he asked as he grasped the sides of the gurney and pushed his torso upright, his legs still horizontal.

"Eve Radcliffe. I'm your doctor. I performed the procedure that brought you back."

"Brought me back? You mean I died on the table?"

"Not exactly."

"You and the damned nurse! Not this evasiveness crap again! What the hell happened to me?" His eyes were once again ablaze with anger and frustration.

"Let's walk, Adam. I'll explain everything." She eased his legs off the gurney and helped him stand. "Here, hold on to my arm until you're steady," she offered as his legs momentarily buckled.

Adam felt a jolt of sheer desire as his hand touched the warmth of her bare arm. He mentally chastised himself:

She's your freakin'

doctor

- who apparently saved your

life

!

They trudged together down the whitewashed corridor, Adam's hand on Dr. Radcliffe's arm, until they reached a steel door with no handle. "Exit, Radcliffe with patient Katameros!" exclaimed the woman. The door slid open to reveal a bright outdoor patio beyond the exit. The pair walked through, one at a time, Dr. Radcliffe leading the way while holding him by the hand. Adam's desire surged again.

*****

The white cast iron patio furniture reflected the dazzling sunshine of a clear and balmy spring day. Katameros felt the urge to shield his eyes from the sunlight as they sat, but resisted so that he could look his doctor in the eye. He needed truth, and he believed he could discern it more readily with full eye contact. Not to mention that she was stunning to behold. He motioned with his hand for her to lead the conversation.

"Where should I start?" she asked. She smiled again, her teeth brilliant and beautiful in the afternoon sun.

"Start where any pitcher's nightmare starts -- at the big inning..." His crooked smile showed her that he was joking, but the reference escaped her. She regarded his swings of mood from frustration to humour and back as perhaps another by-product of the procedure.

"Big inning?" she queried.

"Yeah -- baseball, you know. 'Big inning' -- a pun for 'beginning'? Not a sports fan, eh?"

"Sports, yes, especially air polo -- but baseball? Never heard of it..."

"Holy shit, you've led a sheltered life. I can understand never playing it -- but never

heard

of it?"

"Must have been before my time," she muttered.

"The

time

thing again, " he answered. "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!"

"Lucy? 'Splainin'?"

"Before your time as well, and before

mine

, but I can remember the

I Love Lucy

reruns..."

"Reruns? What are reruns?"

"Let's not go there. Just tell me what the hell's going on. Where am I? And what's happened to me?"

Dr. Radcliffe drew in a deep breath. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" she asked with a worried expression.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay, it's like this," she began. "You're a patient at the WCNMS. That's an acronym for the World Center for Nanomedicine and the Methuselah Solution. We're sort of like a global hospital, only our medical efforts are directed at one specific goal."

"At the Methuselah Solution?"

"Exactly. You've heard of Methuselah from the Bible?"

"Yeah, the old fart who lived the longest. Something like 969 years."

"Right. According to Genesis, people used to typically live more than 900 years. Then came Noah and the ark. The flood wiped out everyone except Noah and his family, and all the animal kingdom except the pairs on the ark."

"But isn't the flood just an old wives' tale?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Many people of faith don't think so.

I

don't think so. I've found fossils of sea life while hiking in the mountains, more than a thousand miles from the nearest ocean."

"But couldn't that just be from the primordial slime of prehistoric evolution?"

"Again -- maybe, maybe not. But

if

the Noah story is true -- and particularly if the story of his ancient predecessors is true, then something in the human gene pool fundamentally changed soon after the flood."

"Changed?" he asked.

"Within three generations after Noah, the average life span had shrunk from 900 years to less than 100 years. One would guess that it had something to do with the vastly shrunken gene pool that existed after everyone except Noah's family was wiped out. Apparently, Noah had a genetic defect, at least compared to the general population before the flood." The doctor waited to make sure Katameros was still with her.

"But what does this all have to do with this hospital?" he questioned.

"That life span differential between 900 years and 100 or fewer years is huge. And if it's related to genetics, it's quite possible that something can be done... to

bridge the gap

."

She paused to gauge his reaction. His eyes narrowed, and he could no longer hold her gaze. He looked upward toward the cobalt sky. "You mean..."

"We've been working on genetic engineering to alter the aging process, directed at recapturing the relevant gene structure that existed when people had a life span of close to a thousand years. Plain and simple." She again waited to fathom his reaction.

His gaze returned from the firmament to fix on hers. She brushed a blonde tendril behind her ear. Adam was struck with the thought that she even had sexy ears.

He spoke slowly, deliberately. "So -- what does that have to do with

me

?"

"You're our first -- let me find a way to put this delicately..."

"Guinea pig?"

"I think I've heard the historical reference. Does that mean 'test subject'?"

"Of course. What do you mean by '

historical

' reference?"

"I mean we don't use guinea pigs as test subjects any more. It's considered to be barbaric. And we haven't for so long that the antiquated reference has fallen out of use for many decades."

"The

time

thing again. Now I'm really confused..."

"You see, the development of the Methuselah Solution is only

half

the story behind WCNMS."

"

Half

the story?"

"Yes. We have

one

goal -- delivering the Methuselah Solution -- but with the regulatory environment we're in, we have a

secondary

means of reaching the goal."

"What regulatory environment?"

"With regard to testing. The Global Council will not allow testing on live human subjects for the genetic engineering involved in the Methuselah Solution. It's considered to be too dangerous. That's where the 'nanomedicine' in our name -- the 'N' in our WCNMS acronym -- comes in." She smiled weakly, not sure how to proceed.

He spared her the need. "So 'nanomedicine' is for genetic engineering on small laboratory animals -- presumably ones other than guinea pigs?"

"No, not at all. It's molecular level medicine, geared toward humans, not small laboratory animals. One of the things we do with nanomedicine is to develop and deploy medical nanorobots that repair the body from the inside -- and we've even used them to alter genetic structures."

"So there are tiny robots that swim around inside a person's body in order to fix or enhance it?" he asked doubtfully.

"In very simple terms, yes," she replied, "but in the case of the Methuselah Solution, they're not used on live human subjects -- only

dead

ones."

*****

"What the fuck are you talking about?" He stared open-mouthed, stunned. Finally recovering, he said more humbly, "Excuse me -- pardon my French."

Her lifted eyebrow told him he was using another nonsensical historical euphemism. "Never mind the French," he continued, "but I was told that

I'm

the 'first beneficiary of the Methuselah Solution'! Are you saying that I'm

dead

?"

"

Were

dead," she corrected, "but you gave your consent to being a 'guinea pig' for the Methuselah Solution -- or at least the arcane version of it -- before you died. As did thousands and thousands of your generation and the several generations that followed. Which gave us a neat solution to the problem of not being allowed to genetically engineer live human subjects. We did it while you were dead, using molecular medical technology. If it works on you and enough of your counterparts, without significant side effects, we can seek Global Council approval for testing it on live human subjects. We'll have reached the holy grail of medicine!"

Her steel-grey eyes shimmered with her excitement. "No more short-term medical solutions that only prolong the inevitable to a cap of a hundred or so years. We can stretch the boundaries from a hundred to a thousand years -- even longer -- to provide virtual

immortality

!"

Adam's brain was now on overload. He shook his head rapidly and blew out a few breaths slowly, trying not hyperventilate. "You're saying I've been dead, and now am alive, genetically engineered to live a thousand additional years?"

"Or more. The sky's the limit. We know that medical technology and socio-economic conditions

now

are vastly superior to those of Methuselah's day, and that 969 years is low compared to what it could easily be. Maybe two thousand years, maybe more."

"How long was I --

dead

?"

"Eighty-nine years. You went in 2026; it's now 2115."

"That's a helluva long time. Why didn't I rot away?"

"You really

don't

remember, do you?"

"Remember

what

?"

At that moment, their conversation was interrupted by the sounds of voices shouting from beyond the courtyard walls. Dr. Radcliffe took Katameros' hand once again, stood up, and said, "Let's get you out of here. You're going to need some spiritual counsel, and this isn't the place to get it."

With the warmth of her hand on his and the commensurate stirring in his loins, he was willing to follow her anywhere.

*****

Katameros found himself being led down another corridor toward another door. His penis began to stiffen as he watched Dr. Radcliffe's perfect ass -- he was sure of it, despite her baggy uniform pants -- swaying with feminine grace, directly in his line of vision, as they made their way down the hall.

The fair doctor picked up two pairs of sunglasses along the way, from a desk that was positioned at one of the hallway crossroads.

"Those for shading our eyes from that bright sunlight?" Adam queried nonchalantly.

"Not really. They're so we can go where we need to go without being recognized. I'm also going to change out of my scrubs. You'll need to do the same. There should be some street clothes for you in the locker over there. You can use the nurse's rest room behind the desk to change. I'll pop into my office and be right back."

Katameros found a pair of jeans made from a material he didn't recognize. It was softer than denim but quite sturdy, showing no signs of wear when he accidentally caught the pants leg on the locker's handle. He dressed slowly in the jeans, one leg at a time, after putting on a pair of jockey shorts, tube socks, and a yellow silk-like shirt whose material again defied definitive identification.

The jockey shorts seemed to tighten as he imagined his beautiful doctor changing out of her scrubs, pausing in a lacy bra and panties to gaze tenderly at him with a "come hither" look.

Whoa -- down boy!

he implored his raging hard-on.

He stepped out of the rest room and saw Dr. Radcliffe, truly beautiful in a floral print spring dress that clung to her curves in all the right places. He reminded himself that she was his doctor and that he had been dead for 89 years, though his attraction to her made him feel undeniably alive.

"Let's get out of here," she gently commanded, once again taking his hand. He felt another jolt, and this time, he saw her respond in kind. At least he thought so -- she definitely turned toward him as they touched, but her expression was unreadable behind the mirrored sunglasses. And those words --

Let's get out of here

-- it was like she was picking him up at a bar...

She handed him the other pair of sunglasses as the rear exit door opened to her voice command. They strolled together from the hospital toward the sidewalk, by all outward appearances a couple out to enjoy the lovely weather of a spring day.

"Where are we going?" he asked, as they turned a corner to the left. He heard shouts echoing from the opposite direction, apparently from the front of the building they had exited.

"St. Ignatius Church, just a couple of blocks away. Sorry, it's Roman Catholic; I remember from your file that you're Greek Orthodox, but there aren't any of those around here."

"I never was a religious man, anyway -- at least I don't think so. Why are we going to a church?"

"To see Father Brown. He's a bit of an oddity, but I think he can help you. He's more mystic than Catholic priest. I go to him when I need spiritual counsel."