Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 85/?] (Patreon)

75 Hours After the First Round of Interloper Interrogations. UNAFS Perseverance. Medbay.

Evina

I stood there, my eyes trained on the alien’s face, and my fists about ready to do the same if he didn’t provide a satisfying answer.

My whole world teetered on the edge of obliteration.

Not literally of course, that was obvious by just looking out the window.

No, the only world that I still had left, the small alcove of constance that was my headspace, was now teetering on the edge.

And it was all because of an outlandish, absolutely stupidly bizarre claim. A claim that, if it was uttered by literally anyone on the surface, I would’ve taken as just the ramblings of someone who’d since succumbed to the stresses of the waste.

No, this was different.

This was being claimed by someone who literally performed advanced pre-war medical procedures that saved my own life.

This was being claimed by someone with sci fi space age tech.

This was being claimed by a being that for all intents and purposes had no business going crazy. If this cushy, plush, safe and bubble wrapped life was of any indication.

Three options existed now that could explain away the insanity of the claim.

One: the benign answer. This was just a big misunderstanding; a big mistake. The alien didn’t have the full picture of our biology, they did say that they got references from burnt out libraries after all. Heck, maybe there was a translation error somewhere down the pipeline. Maybe this was one big misunderstanding. Heck, I wanted to believe this one.

Because the next two options were leagues worse by every possible margin imaginable.

Two: this was a fake answer. The alien, simply, is lying. This has been one big long con, and I’d been lulled into a false sense of security over the days. The wool was finally being unraveled from my eyes with this being the first of the instances where I was now about to see the alien’s true colors.

But I couldn’t for the life of me make out any reason why Lysara would choose this outlandish claim as the start to some big ill intentioned conspiracy.

Maybe I was too dumb to see it.

Which meant I still needed to be on high alert if this was the reality of the situation.

Which left the last, perhaps worst option.

Three: this was true. Somehow, through some means, through some insanity… Eslan was actually an anomaly.

The more I thought about it though, the more I could at least make some peace with it.

These were the wastes after all. And wouldn’t that mean mutations were a dime a dozen? Wouldn’t that mean that crap like this was to be expected? Heck maybe my cells had paused when I was like, ten or something?

I didn’t know.

And maybe that was the worst part about this.

“I apologize for how sudden this revelation is, Evina. I do admit, my bedside manners do require some fine tuning, but please understand it is not my intent to startle or cause you duress. Medicine has its own art of breaking bad news, and I am woefully underprepared and undertrained for an instance such as this.” The alien acknowledged, once more, demonstrating a strange sense of candidness that did chip away at my wariness some.

“So what do you mean the tests showed you he’s just a third of his age?! Explain that!” I shot back, unwilling to go through the crap of courteousness or politeness. “Just get to the point!”

“Right, apologies.” The alien dipped his head once. “You see, there are certain growth markers in the felinor physiology that are undeniable in its accuracy of age. These markers are present within the bone, and are an irrefutable means of proving how many years have passed in their life; you can think of them as the rings you’d find in a cross section of a tree; with each successive layer indicating age… Although I am of course simplifying this massively. It’s more of a study of bone cells and their layers than anything, and old felinor medical texts have noted this phenomenon and studied it intensely. They tell of a person’s actual age irrespective of that of their genetic predispositions or their genetic aging. Now, contrast this information with the genetic information we managed to discern from his blood sample, as well as other blood markers…” The alien pulled up even more screens’ worth of technobabble now. “... and we see a worrying picture. For his irrefutable age, his time spent alive is a third of that of his genetic age. And what’s more, from other blood markers, we are seeing yet more inconsistencies over his actual age. With a great number of anomalies noted within his blood panel as well as across several other immunological panels that show great inconsistencies in the distribution of certain cells and the ratios and proportions of certain cell types that isn’t appropriate for any age, nor is it corollary with any blood-based disease.”

I took a few moments to process this, time that went by excruciatingly slowly, as the alien continued bearing down his eyes, and that perpetual ‘smile’ down on me.

I knew, at this point, that that ‘smile’ was just part of his mouth line or whatever. Because I was certain there was no way he’d be mocking me with that smile right now.

So whilst normally funny and cute in any other scenario. In this one, it just felt frustrating.

But I couldn’t deny that not being able to fully piece everything together, to understand what was happening to Eslan, was the cause of all of that frustration.

Which meant I had to do something my stubbornness normally wouldn’t have let me do.

Ask for clarification.

“So the bone samples can tell a person’s like, true age. Like, they’re like an undeniable way of demonstrating how old someone is, how many years have passed since they were born or whatever?”

“Correct, Evina.” The alien nodded patiently.

“And the genetic stuff, like the stuff in cells. In white blood cells and cells like that, the ones with nuclei, that stuff shows that his age is much older than it should be?”

“Variable, but ultimately, correct, Evina.” The alien nodded again. “Moreover, that’s where my former answer of - it’s complicated - came from when you asked me if he was aging faster due to radiation… because he is seemingly aging faster in some respects, but not in some others.”

“Right, yeah, no, I get why you answered like that now.” I sighed. “But that still doesn’t make this situation any less nonsensical.” I continued. “How can you be sure your findings are accurate? How can you be sure you’re interpreting right?”

“Reference texts” The alien responded simply. “As well as a physiological and anatomical baseline - yourself, Evina.”

I took a moment to consider that. And whilst really weird in other scenarios, it made sense here.

I was, for all intents and purposes, a healthy and typical felinor. Heck, that’s what the Doctors down in the bunker said anyways.

So if there ever was a benchmark or baseline to compare to… I guess mine would work.

I paused once again, considering my options as I let out another sigh. “I want you to cross-check again.” I offered.

“Excuse me?”

“Get the same samples you took from him, except take it from me. I want to make sure that your systems or whatever aren’t messing up. I want a live comparison between his samples and my own. To double check.” I urged.

“That may in fact be useful.” The alien nodded. “We never took a bone sample from you as we didn’t immediately need it for any pre-op data for your surgical intervention.”

“Then do it.” I urged impatiently, hopping up onto the examination table in one smooth movement, as several medical robots gathered around me.

The whole thing took less than a minute to do.

All I felt was a prick, and a bit of numbing.

Which was practically nothing when compared to even the crap that went on down in the bunker clinics.

A few moments of silence followed as the samples were sent through a pneumatic tube to some unseen lab with a satisfying foompf!

During this time, whatever was happening within the imaging machines seemed to draw Lysara’s attention, as he brought up a series of what looked to be brain scans that prompted his eyes to grow wide with concern.

“What?” I prompted.

“I think we may have stumbled across exactly why Eslan self diagnosed himself as having a form of neurodegenerative disease.” The alien began. “He’s aging rapidly, and results from the preliminary exams in the radiology unit confirm that his body, despite his genetic age, is aging disproportionately. His external morphology, when referencing your medical texts, show that he is as you stated roughly in his late twenties to early thirties. Yet when you cross reference the wear and tear on his other organ systems, you can see some of them seem to be aging rapidly. Which importantly, includes his neurological system, and may explain his symptoms.” The alien managed out, before another ding alerted him to yet another screen full of lines of text.

His face once more darkened, as his eyes darted across each and every one of those textlines with worry.

“The cross comparison results just came back too.” He spoke sullenly. “And if I may be so brazen, your bone biopsies confirm that you are in fact twenty-seven?”

“Yeah, twenty-eight next month actually so, I guess that’s pretty accurate.” I responded.

“It’s practically picture-perfect when compared to the reference texts.” The alien quickly ‘turned’ the floating transparent screen towards me, more or less superimposing the results from my own sample with what looked to be pages from a reasonably intact medical journal. “And here’s Eslan’s.” He flipped the pages back electronically, before superimposing Eslan’s own results.

And suffice it to say, they looked worlds apart from my own.

“Okay.” I breathed out with a sigh of frustration. “So one part of the evidence is saying he’s only existed for a third of the age that he’s told me he is. Another part is saying that he’s exactly what he is, at least superficially. And another part is saying that he’s aging rapidly. So what the hell is it, Lysara?”

“To clarify: age wise, he’s undeniably a third of his supposed age.  But his genetic sampling, the rate at which his telomeres are shortening, indicates he’s aging at an accelerated rate that far outstrips your own.” Lysara responded with a worried cadence, opening up yet more screens as we spoke. “If we are to compare it to your own samples, his rate of aging marks him as somewhere in his late fifties, a fact reflected by certain aspects of his physiology, most notably affecting his neurological system.”

I took a moment to simply take in all of that, as I breathed out a sigh of frustration, gripping my head-fur with all of my strength.

“What the hell is going on, Lysara?”

It was around this point that the alien’s confidence wavered somewhat, as he pulled up two chairs, prompting me to sit down.

“I can’t correlate this to any known disease on record. In fact, even accounting for the books you gave me from Eslan’s surprisingly well-kept collection of medical texts, there exists nothing that can explain away his condition. Moreover, there’s one more set of results that’s quite telling as to how strange all of this actually is.”

“What?” I gasped out with an exasperated breath. “What else?”

“His brain activity.” The alien announced promptly, showing me Eslan’s neural activity side by side what I assumed to be my own.

And the differences were night and day.

“This is the region of the brain your kind seems to have for deep-rooted memory storage.” He pointed at a portion of my brain dedicated to both my memories, and my prior iterations’ memories. “Your own seems to reflect a great deal of activity, I’m assuming befitting of your age?”

I nodded wordlessly.

“And Eslan’s?” I shot back, despite not needing much clarification on what I was seeing.

Because there was nothing.

Whilst my own seemed to be a mish mash of colors popping off every so often, potentially indicating all of those memories stored away, his… was static. A dull color that didn’t move at all.

“Eslan’s scans indicate a distinct lack of memories. Not because of a lack of intensity of memories mind you, but a distinct lack of the same amount of them. More indicative of a decade’s worth of memories, in line with the age the lab results indicate”

My own mind went through the distinct instances where Eslan had told me about his own inheritance experiences.

He went through inheritance. He also should be my age… what the heck is going on?

“And this proves that… that he actually just has like, a decade’s worth of memories in there?”

“Correct, Evina.” Lysara acknowledged with a heavy sigh.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” I shot back with a defeated breath.

“I have a few theories myself, Evina.” The alien replied thoughtfully. “But I have to ask you this first: exactly how long have you known Eslan for?”

That question sent me into a death pause, as an unseemly realization hit me right then and there.

“Just under a decade.” I spoke plainly. “Just after I was kicked out of my bunker.”

That timeline matches up with exactly how many years Eslan seemed to have stored up in his memories. It matches up way too well…