CHAPTER 2
Donna was awakened by the ringing of a telephone, then the sound of Jason talking to someone. The events of the night before came back to her, and she found herself oddly cheerful. Talking to Jason had been good therapy.
She found towels in the bathroom and showered. Back in Jason's robe, she went looking for her clothes. She dressed and went out to the living room. Jason was in swim trunks and said he had been out for a dip in the ocean.
"I'm going to take a shower," he told her. "See what you can find for lunch."
Coffee was already perking. Donna found ingrediants for a salad. She set the table for two, found hard rolls in the bread drawer, and poured coffee. Jason came from the shower with drops of water in his sandy beard and joined her.
"Sleep well?" he asked in his abbreviated style.
"Like the proverbial log. How about you?"
"I can sleep anywhere. Any time, I sometimes think."
She was wondering about his work. His time seemed to be his own. She hesitated to ask, so was relieved when he offered the information that he was a biogeneticist. "I'm working on a project over at the University. On a team with other scientists. Trying to improve and prolong the life span."
She looked at him with new respect. "How fascinating. I know great strides are being made in that field. It must be gratifying to be a part of it."
"Well, I don't know," he said. "Improving the quality of life is what we should be devoting our efforts to." He looked at her gloomily. "What the world really needs is a method of teaching human beings how to understand each other. So they won't do such destructive things to one another."
"I'll drink to that," she said, lifting her coffee cup.
"You seem to be in a good mood this morning. Have you abandoned your plan of self-destuction?"
"I find it hard to be miserable when I'm eating. It's in the night I get depressed. I think right now I'm in a holding pattern."
He finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Then he rose and went to the open door. Standing there, his back to her, he said, "If you were really desperate enough, I might have a proposition for you."
"A proposition?" she echoed in surprise. His manner was strange.
"See that building out there? That's my private laboratory. I've been carrying on some experiments."
"Ah, the mad scientist!"
"Yeah," he said abruptly and stubbed out his cigarette. "If you get the urge again to end it all, drop by and talk to me first."
The note of dismissal in his voice was unmistakable. Donna rose and cleared away the dishes. "I'd better think about getting home," she said.
"You got a car around here somewhere?"
"Yes, if it's still there. I'm not sure I locked it. I wasn't much concerned since I was never coming back." A sense of deep gloom was returning. She had been rejected again. He had been kind, but, as he had made clear to her last night, she was just a body, useful only to science. Not as a possible friend.
She didn't know how she was going to drive home. She had left her bag with her car keys inside on the beach when she swam out, and hadn't even thought of it since.
"Well, thank you, Jason, for saving my life and being so kind," she said stiffly. "I'll be going now."
She opened the door and started off briskly. Then she heard him behind her. "Hey," he said, "how you gonna drive without your keys?"
She turned. He was holding out her bag. "I picked it up last night. Thought it might come in handy."
"Yes. Well, I guess I wasn't thinking." She hadn't looked at him. She couldn't bear for him to see the tears in her eyes.
"Look, Donna," he said, "I didn't mean to be rude. I was planning to discuss something with you, but your cheerful manner put me off."
She laughed shakily. "That's me, little old cheerful Donna." She flicked the tears from her eyes with the heel of her palm. "I've always been known as a Pollyanna."
"I'm sorry I was so abrupt. Come on back. I've got something to tell you."
She let him lead her back, and took a chair at the table again. He took a seat opposite her.
"Donna, after I fished you out of the water last night, I brought you home with me because I had a purpose in mind. I started to tell you about it this morning, but when you were so perky I changed my mind." He stopped and seemed to be weighing his words. "Remember I showed you my laboratory over there? Well, I'm working on a secret experiment. It is, in fact, an illegal experiment. I could get in a lot of trouble if I confided in the wrong person. That's why I hesitated."
"You don't think I'm the right person?"
"I did last night. Now I'm not so sure."
"Try me."
"Okay. What I'm working on is not a method of prolonging life but of turning back the clock. The fountain of youth, so to speak. To take someone of middle age and make them young again."
"And you want to try it on me?"
"I had in mind asking you. But there's too much risk. I can't ask you to do it."
"You can't not ask me now."
"Well, okay. If you're interested, then you can volunteer." He gave her an impish grin.
"That sounds fair."
"Here's the picture. It will be necessary for the subject to be put into a deep coma and administered drugs and treated with various chemicals. I've tried it on animals and it has worked 100%. The length of treatment so far has depended on the size of the animal, from mice to dogs. I don't know how long it would take on a human being. But I'd know when the treatment was concluded, so this would not create a problem. The risk is in whether the treatment would be adaptable to human beings. Things could go wrong. I want you to know that right from the start. Things could go DEAD wrong."
"So? Last night I was counting on things going dead wrong. Life isn't that dear to me."
"That's why I dared tell you about it."
"But what about you, Jason? Couldn't it get you into a lot of trouble?"
"Of course. I know the risks. I'm prepared to take them."
"Well, if things were to go wrong with me, you have my permission to take me out to the sea and dump me. That's where you found me. Surely you couldn't get into trouble for that."
"You're something, Donna, you know that?"
"What if the experiment goes wrong but is not fatal? I wouldn't want to be turned into a monster."
"I don't think there's any danger of that."
"Would you promise me something? If I should be turned into something less human ... something grotesque or something mindless ... would you promise to just let me die without regaining consciousness?"
"I promise."
"Okay, then, how soon can we start?"