The Methuselah Gene by Jonathan Lowe

alimony?”
    â€œNo,” I said, “I’m honest about money.”   As opposed to everything else?
    â€œWhat’s she want with you, then?”
    â€œWhat’s any woman want?”
    George turned toward his room.   “I wouldn’t know about that.”
    â€œYou ever been married?”
    â€œMe?   Ha.”
    â€œWonderful thing, if you get a lobotomy first.”
    â€œWhere’s your ring?” he asked, without even looking.
    â€œDon’t have one in my nose either, anymore,” I lied.
    The muscles in George’s shoulders seemed to loosen.   “See ya in the morning,” he told me.
    â€œNight.”
    The door closed.   I went to the sink and turned on the water faucet.   I put my hands under the water and stared at the flow.   I cupped it, and sniffed at it.   Then I saw another roach scuttle up onto the edge of the toilet bowl.   I shuddered, and instinctively tossed the water cupped in my hands onto the roach.   It fell into the bowl, and did a little roach dance before it turned, legs down, and began to swim from side to side, seeking a way out of its own dilemma.   Tiny waves radiated outward from the roach’s tiny legs, like a buzz.   I flushed the toilet, and covered the sink drain with a stopper.   Then I returned to my vampire’s bed.   This time I left the light on, deciding to put a pillow over my eyes to help me sleep.   I also popped a pill, swallowing it dry.   I hadn’t known what to expect in Zion, but I did imagine needing Xanax to sleep.   Now I couldn’t imagine sleeping here without it.   How could I sleep even in a regular bed—much less a coffin—until I uncovered the truth?   Unthinkable.   So I needed Xanax to calm down and stop thinking so damn much.   To relax, to let go.   Just a little prescription drug . . . not a crutch, like for so many other people.   Except I’d gotten mine by forging a prescription blank from Dr. Bischoff’s office.   That made it an illegal drug.   Not that Bischoff would have minded.   Tactar’s clinical investigator and outside consultant had maintained an office next to mine before Hepker got my ass.   When I went in to take Bischoff’s order for Kung Pao chicken one day, I’d spied the blank pad he used in private practice, and tore off an extra sheet or three.   The Xanax wasn’t wasted, now . . . thanks, Doc . . . but for extra measure and peace of mind I used the pillow to ward off the light.
    The light I left on to ward off the roaches.

9
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    Morning brought a new wrinkle to the twisted whorls of my already conflicted mind.   For his part, George proved unusually sympathetic in letting me sleep late.   While the razor I glimpsed in his hand when I opened my eyes was obviously intended for the boxes he needed to slice open in order to stock his shelves, it still took a moment for that realization to register on my nervous system.
    â€œMorning,” he announced in oddly cheerful good humor.
    I sat bolt upright in my casket, eyes wide.   Sure enough, there was a beatific smile on George’s face that didn’t seem quite sane, somehow.   The pupils of his eyes appeared to be slightly dilated, too.   Obviously, I didn’t know him well enough to judge his possible moods shifts, but pathological reactions were something else again.
    â€œTalk to me, George,” I said slowly, and with suspicion.
    â€œâ€™Bout what?”   His exuberance faded a bit into a look that could only be described as innocence.   The thing that made babies so attractive because we’d long lost it ourselves.   Yet it was disconcerting to compare it to the night before.   Here was a new man, a person of different temperament than the one I’d observed only hours before.
    I climbed out of the bed that entombed me to stand before him.   “Tell me how