Home > Runaway Vampire (Argeneau #23)(25)

Runaway Vampire (Argeneau #23)(25)
Author: Lynsay Sands

Damn, Mary thought, bringing her wayward brain to a halt. How had she got here? Holding hands with a handsome young stud half her age or more, and lusting after him like some twenty-year-old hopped up on hormones? She was a dirty old woman!

“As I said, the people of Atlantis were far more advanced scientifically,” Dante began again, completely oblivious of her inner turmoil. “They had cures for many of the ailments we still do not have cures for today. But just before the fall of Atlantis, they had begun working with nanos.”

When he paused then and hesitated, looking uncertain, Mary guessed he was trying to decide how to explain nanos and said dryly, “I know what nanos are. Or at least enough to follow this tale.”

Dante relaxed and smiled again.

Mary followed the movement of his lips, noting that he was growing some serious stubble on his face, and, big surprise, it too looked damned good on him. She probably would have noticed it earlier if she hadn’t been studiously avoiding looking directly at him all morning, thanks to her night of torrid dreams. Mary was looking now though, and thought that was probably dangerous. It made her want to run her fingers over his face to see if the stubble now gracing his face would feel as good as it looked. Fortunately, she was saved from herself when he began to speak again, reclaiming her attention to his words rather than how pretty he was.

“They had reached the point where they were experimenting with the use of nanos in health care,” Dante continued. “They had bio-engineered nanos that, once introduced to the human body, could use human blood to reproduce and repair themselves as they worked to heal and repair the human body. For instance, if someone had cancer, the nanos recognized those cells as not belonging and would destroy them, and if a person was injured, the nanos would repair the wounds and so on.”

Mary raised her eyebrows at this claim. It sounded like an awesome invention if it were possible. She just didn’t think it was likely. These nanos would have to be programmed with every single little bit of knowledge about the human body, a lot of info to stick into something smaller than the head of a pin. However, she held her tongue.

“But as a result of a flaw in their design, the nanos had some unexpected side effects,” he said solemnly.

“What kind of flaw?” Mary asked, curious, despite knowing none of this could be true.

Dante paused and frowned, and she wondered if he was making up an answer, and then he said, “The human body is attacked by many different illnesses and diseases; cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, meningitis and so on. And then there are about a million different injuries a human could sustain, anything from damage caused by a stroke to a punctured lung from a stab wound. Programming nanos specific to each possible need would have meant creating hundreds or even thousands of illness- or injury-specific nanos.”

“More than that,” Mary said dryly. She couldn’t even guess how many different illnesses and injuries humans could suffer from. She’d read something once that had claimed there were at least 100,000 diseases in the world. How many injuries could be added to that? Creating that many programs for the nanos would have been a herculean task.

“Yes. So, rather than program the nanos for each specific need, the scientists developed a program that included the information for both male and female bodies at their peak, and programmed the nanos with the directive to ensure their host was at their peak condition and then self-destruct. At which point they would be flushed from the body naturally like all dead cells are.”

Mary nodded. “Sensible.”

“They thought so,” he agreed with amusement. “However, it did not go quite as they planned. Nanos are ultimately machines, and machines are very literal, so if you gave them to a seventy-year-old man with cancer, not only did they eradicate the cancer, but they set about returning his body to the peak condition they had been programmed with.”

Mary raised her eyebrows in question, not seeing a problem there. A fit seventy-year-old would be a good result.

“As it turns out, the human is at their peak condition in their mid to late twenties,” he said quietly. “And so the nanos worked to return their hosts to that peak.”

Mary sat back slowly as his words flowed over her. What he was talking about was that in a mythical land they had developed a mythical, scientific fountain of youth of sorts.

“Even once they had accomplished that, though, the nanos did not self-destruct and get flushed from the body,” he continued. “Because the body is constantly under attack by the environment, the air we breathe, the sun, or just the passage of time, the nanos simply could not get the body to remain at what they considered its peak long enough to self-destruct. They would finish repairs only to find several cells had died from exposure to the sun or just because they’d reached their optimum age. So the nanos remained in the host, continuing to work and repair. Their hosts never sickened, did not age, and were they injured, the nanos quickly repaired them.”

Mary let her breath out on a little sigh, thinking that it was a damned shame none of this was true, because that would rock. Or maybe not, she thought in the next moment. She’d lived a long time, gone through a lot and seen a lot, and frankly, Mary was kind of tired. It wasn’t that she was suicidal or anything, but death to her was starting to look like a bit of a respite or rest, rather than the scary ending she’d always thought of it as when she was young.

“And that is how I survived being crushed by your RV,” Dante announced.

Mary blinked and refocused on him.

“What?” she asked sharply.

“I was badly injured in the accident,” he said quietly. “My lower left leg was crushed, my one lung was punctured, I had several broken ribs, and I’m pretty sure several of my organs were crushed or at least seriously banged up in it as well. The tires tore my skin open in several places and the nanos simply couldn’t close everything up before I lost a good deal of blood. They do need blood to work with after all and I was losing it quickly.”

He shrugged. “Were I mortal, I would have died quickly, I think. But I am not and when you brought the doctors to me, I fed from them and the nanos began to work in earnest. Of course, I couldn’t take all the blood I needed from them. It would have killed them, so I had the female fetch—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mary interrupted with exasperation. “What do you mean you fed on them?”

“Their blood,” he explained and reminded her, “The nanos need blood to do their work, as well as to power them.”

“Their blood,” she echoed in a whisper, then tilted her head and asked, “You saying that lady doctor fetched those men from the diner so you could . . .”

“So I could feed on them,” he explained with a nod. “I fed on the EMTs too, and between them, the truckers and the doctors I gained enough blood for the nanos to make the necessary repairs. Fortunately, Tomasso and I have always been fast healers. Another immortal might have needed more time to allow the nanos to make the necessary repairs, but—” He paused and peered at her warily when Mary cursed under her breath.

She ran one weary hand through her short hair and shook her head with disgust as she muttered, “You’re like a damned roller coaster, Dante. And I’m a bloody idiot.”

“You are not an idiot,” he said indignantly.

“I am,” Mary assured him, pulling her hands from his and urging Bailey off the bench seat so she could get up. She started toward the door, and then paused and swung back, saying, “You pop up in my RV with mad stories of being kidnapped and escaping, and I, like an idiot, believed you,” she pointed out. “At least I did until you started spouting off about reading and controlling minds. I smartened up just a little at that point and decided maybe you weren’t the innocent victim but a lunatic. But what do I do? Do I call the police like any intelligent woman would? No, I call that idiot friend of yours.”

“Er . . .” He cleared his throat. “It might be best not to call Lucian that to his face. He would be offended and no doubt say or do something unfortunate, and I would hate to have to kill him. It would cause trouble in the family.”

Mary ignored his interruption and continued, “That idiot friend backs you up, claiming you can indeed read and control minds and I think, all right, maybe like Horatio, there are more things in heaven and earth than I’d ever dreamt of, and I go back to at least accepting it’s possible and believing that you were kidnapped again.” She glared at him. “But then you come up with this? I’m supposed to buy that you’re some kind of new vampire?”

   
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