The Deathless Trilogy

1.4. The Immortal

Dr. Patel reveals a radio from his belt, and as he speaks, his voice projects through the room. A loudspeaker. "Dr. Kunkle please report to the infirmary. Dr. Kunkle to the infirmary."

"Who is Dr. Kunkle?" I ask once his voice stops echoing.

"He is our resident botanist. He will show you around."

"Why a botanist?"

"You said you had a garden. You used the possessive pronoun my, so I assume gardening is a passion of yours. Am I correct?" I nod, feeling uneasy by how easily he read me. "Then you'll have that in common with Dr. Kunkle."

The beeping sounds return on the other side of the door before it opens. In steps a short, skinny man with shaggy hair the color of dried mud, and thick rimmed glasses resting on his pointed nose. He can't be much younger than Mom, but his eyes look like they've lived an entire lifetime already.

"What's up Patel? I'm in the middle of testing my seed potencies."

"It can wait. This young lady here is Scout Finch."

Dr. Kunkle crosses his arms over his chest and smiles. "Okay...?"

"She doesn't trust that I'm telling her the truth that the Deathless won't hurt her, so I'd like for you to show her around a bit."

"Dude, really?" he asks, and I smile for the first time since waking up. It's funny to hear such casual language from a scientist. I always imagined scientists as very serious people. "That's why I'm here? Why don't you get Nate to do it?"

"Nathan is busy working on our project, and Scout is a budding botanist."

He looks at me, brows raised. "Really?" I nod, and he sighs. "Okay, I'll show you around. But it has to be quick, I have work to do."

"That's fine," I say. "I don't want to leave my mom for very long anyway."

I hobble toward him, still limping. "Ah, jeez," he says, watching me walk. "Patel, don't you have a wheelchair around here? We can't have Scout limping all over the place." I smile at him as Dr. Patel retrieves a wheelchair from another room just outside the door, and he smiles back. Dr. Kunkle's smile is thin, like his lips, but at least his eyes are narrow enough now that I can hardly notice how hollow they appear. He pats the seat of the chair when Dr. Patel returns, and helps me to sit, his bony fingers guiding me. "Better?" he asks.

"Yes, thank you," I say, still smiling. If he had questioned me in the first place, I might not have lied about my name. With Dr. Kunkle, I feel at ease, but maybe that's the point. This could be a trick. I have to keep my guard up, at least until I see what's going on here.

He wheels me out of the infirmary and down a long cement hall. Exposed glass bulbs glow on either side of the rounded walls, and we pass door after metal door, each with words painted on them: physics, mechanics, chemistry, and biology.

"This is the hall of laboratories," he says.

"All of these are labs?" I ask. I always felt like a scientist in the greenhouse, and I think about how much Daniel would have loved this. I try not to feel sad wondering which lab he'd like better, mechanics or physics, but I frown. He would have found a way to work in both. He was always an overachiever like that.

"Yep, these are all labs. We're mostly scientists here. Just a bunch of nerdy rebels," he jokes.

I let myself laugh a little. "Dr. Patel said you all broke away from the government."

"Oh, yeah. We finally figured out all the crap they were doing and decided to start our own organization."

"Like what? What were they doing?"