Invasion (an Ell Donsaii story #18 by Laurence Dahners

Author:Laurence Dahners [Dahners, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

***

When she walked through their family room, Ell noticed Zage sitting quietly on the couch, scratching his dog Tanner behind the ears.

Tanner, leaning hard into Zage’s knee, looked ecstatic.

However, something about Zage’s stillness plucked a warning on Ell’s heartstrings before she said something snarky. She walked around and sat down next to him. A glance at his face, then up at the wall, told her he was studying the twins’ painting of Tanner and himself.

She looked back at her son and noticed an unspilled tear in his eye. The picture’s affected him deeply, she realized. She looked back at the painting and, for the first time, she noticed Tanner’s age. Others had mentioned that it showed a sunrise for Zage and a sunset for Tanner. She’d noticed that when she heard it, but not how old Tanner seemed to be.

She looked at the dog himself and took in all the changes she’d only noticed subliminally until now. Tanner’s grizzled snout. The onset of rheuminess in his eyes. She thought of his slowed movements and lack of bounce, then thought, The girls’ painting made Zage notice and contemplate how old Tanner is for a dog. The tear’s for his friend’s aging disability and impending demise.

“Zage?” she said, checking to see if he was aware of her and the world around him.

Her son looked up at Ell, blinked the tears out of his eyes, and swiped at them when they ran down his cheeks.

Putting an arm around him, she pulled him tight to her. “Thinking about Tanner’s age?”

“Feeling guilty that I haven’t paid attention to it or done anything about it until the twins rubbed my nose in it,” he said sadly. He sighed, “Tanner gives me his all but I’ve done nothing to help him with how old he’s getting. What kind of a friend am I?”

Ell drew back and studied him a moment. “You think aging’s a problem you can solve?”

“Mom …” he said plaintively. “I haven’t even tried! Maybe I can’t do anything about it, but I should’ve been working on it!”

Ell, of course, began thinking of the life-extending effects of the radiation gene therapy. Would it be okay to tell him about that before it gets announced? she wondered. Then she thought, How can I hold this back from Zage after he developed a treatment for Gram’s Alzheimer's?

Ell cleared her throat, “About that …”

“About what?”

“Aging. You know how Reggie Barnes has been working with ET DNA?”

“Yeah?!” Zage said, turning to look eagerly at Ell, eyes shining with excitement.

“She’s developed some tech that allows insertion of a whole genome modification in humans. One that goes into almost every cell and improves DNA error correction. Animals treated with it have longer lifespans.” Ell hesitated, “Um, I’d like you to keep that confidential, okay?”

“You’re gonna let me work with that tech?!” he asked excitedly.

Ell snorted and shook her head in dismay—then grinned at him. “I’d like you to keep that confidential, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Can I work with it?”

“What’d you just agree

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