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Alexis Torosian's brother dies in November 2025, just when the long, warm autumn is finally starting to yield to winter. It's a stupid accident, of course; for all that Alexis sometimes worried that Morgan was depressed, she's always known that he'd only hurt himself by accident. Her mom fills her in on the details in the ride from the airport to the hospital, but it's a pretty simple story: out in the woods on his ATV, goofing off with his friends, no helmet. The kind of story you hear every day. Hideous. Unthinkable.
During the few days of waiting at the hospital, the series of tests and confirmations that Morgan's not going to wake up, there's a little bit of counseling and a lot of quiet time to start grieving. Alexis finds herself lining up the facts, like evidence in a court case against herself. Fact: Morgan was four years younger than her, young enough that she should have been a better influence. Fact: she could have been more present, could have called more, could have guided him back when he drifted. Counterargument: she'd called every Saturday when he was in college. What else was she supposed to do, put a tracker on his phone? Pep-talk him into being an overachiever? Fact: Morgan was a good kid, but kind of a fuckup, and not a single thing anyone had ever said to him had changed that.
Mom always said Morgan must have been a Buddhist monk in a past life, enjoying this reincarnation as a novelty, but Alexis sees him more as one of the back-of-house veterans at every crappy restaurant job she's ever had: the ones who don't screw up things on purpose, but aren't breaking their backs at work, because getting fired just means getting the same job at the place next door. Morgan lived life like it was a job he didn't need to keep, and Alexis hopes desperately that maybe he was right, and now he's onto the next adventure.
On Alexis's fourth day home, one of the doctors asks about organ donation. Her mother looks up from her e-reader with a faintly puzzled expression. "I don't know," she said. "What does his driver's license say?"
"Our records indicate he's elected to be a donor. Legally, that's all we need to proceed, but the next steps will be easier with familial support. Did Morgan ever talk to you about his wishes?"
Mom shakes her head, glancing towards Alexis, who nods. They'd talked about it once, on one of those late-night phone calls that had ended up going strange places. They'd been talking about partying; it was Morgan's first semester at school, and Alexis had been terrified he was going to fall face-first into the drinking scene, but Morgan had just laughed when she asked him. "Nah, not my thing. If I die young, I don't want to do it with my organs all shredded. Let someone else use them after I go, right?"
Alexis had worried, then, about suicide, and asked a few questions, but he'd said no, he didn't want to die, but things happened -- and here she is now, after a thing's happened, and what's she supposed to say?
"We talked about it once," she said, "and he told me it was something he wanted, if he happened to die in a position to donate. I think he'd be very honored."
The doctor nods; for a second, there's a half-smile on his face, although professional decorum wins out. "I promise you, the transplant team will do their best to honor his request. Thank you for having that conversation. I hope it's some comfort."
It is, somehow, a little bit of comfort. There are too many horrible next steps to even contemplate, but some part of Morgan will be moving on, saving lives, doing a little good. It's not much, but it's enough to keep her going.
It's March 2026, and Olivia Whittier realizes she hasn't taken her meds in a week. When the realization hits her, coming home after another late night in the library, she has to catch herself on her living-room wall to keep from falling down. She's barely been home. She hasn't taken her meds. It's like realizing she's been underwater for an hour and hasn't been breathing -- how? Why?
The anti-rejection meds aren't exactly fun, but Olivia is pretty sure she shouldn't be feeling this good without them. She's been feeling great all week, so consistently great that it's starting to feel normal -- the kind of happy obliviousness she imagines healthy people feel all the time. Was that all the transplant's work? They said it'd change her life, but in the same sort of tentative, half-hearted language they always seemed to use for her treatments. They'd talked about several years of health as the optimum outcome -- what amounted to "you'll never be better, not really, but we'll keep kicking this can down the road a while." Then why does she feel, dare she say it, healthy?
Olivia falls into bed (forgetting her meds again) and calls her doctor in the morning. She expects him to be angry, but instead he's confused and sheepish. "We've been hearing stories like this," he says. "Unusually good treatment outcomes, despite reduced compliance. Usually there's sort of a cycle to these things -- people feel good, they get sloppy about their meds or think they don't need them anymore, things get worse again, and they need medical attention and have to return to their regimen. Right now, though, we're starting to see a dip in compliance but not consequences for it."
"So what does that mean? Why is this happening?"
"We have no idea. As for what it means..." There's a moment of silence over the phone. "I can't officially tell you to discontinue your medications, Olivia. You should obviously continue, especially since we've been seeing drastically reduced side effects for your regimen. But off the record... don't worry about it? I feel irresponsible even saying it, but all the evidence suggests you'll be fine whatever you do."
For a moment, Olivia doesn't even know how to parse that. She's never had a doctor tell her she'll be fine before, or that there was any tolerance for mistakes. There's always been some medical ritual she has to follow precisely, like a kid in a fairy tale who'll die if she says the wrong magic words, and the reward has always been a few more months of delaying the inevitable. Death was always there, waiting politely for her magic to fail. Olivia has no idea how that could have changed, but if it has, she doesn't even know where to start.
Olivia thanks the doctor, hangs up the phone, and flops onto her couch. She's not going to stop taking her meds, but if she misses a few days, she's not going to die. She's not going to die, full stop. She's going to finish her dissertation, and she's going to graduate. She's going to have to find a job with a PhD in Art History, which is a problem she didn't expect to have -- but if she's going to live, and be well enough to work, she'll need a job, won't she? She's going to live.
Inside Olivia's chest, Morgan Torosian's lungs do their work well. They work with the rhythm of her breathing, more and more even as confusion turns to joy, and they give her all the air she needs to laugh.
It's June 2038, and Kelly Nguyen is watching Candlebrook Elementary School's last class graduate. Fifth-grade graduations have always been a little ridiculous, and eleven-year-olds aren't much for pomp and circumstance, but the kids are sitting quietly while the principal gives his speech; this class in particular's used to this sort of thing. Being the last kids in the world means everyone's going to make a big deal over you.
The last Candlebrook class is about half only children, with most of the rest having one older sibling. (One poor girl is the youngest of four, from one of those evangelical Christian families for whom four was just getting started; Kelly suspects fate has saved her from changing the diapers of a dozen younger siblings.) The youngest of them was born on Christmas 2026, just eight days before the last recorded human birth. A few of them have lost pets, but none of them have lost a relative, and of course none of them ever will. Kelly's colleagues expected them to grow up as monsters, but they're good kids -- maybe a little reckless, and who can blame them? They live in a world where broken bones heal cleanly in a week and nobody's out sick for more than a day. Most of them have perfect attendance.
Kelly should have retired after her surgery. Her pension was vested, her kids were pushing her to relax, and her health was an open question -- but she'd recovered, the April 7th announcement had driven people out of elementary teaching in droves, and what could be more interesting than teaching humanity's last generation? Not all that much has changed in her library curricula; the countless children's classics about death ring hollow now, to these deathless kids, but she's been able to emphasize that the stories are about change, and dealing with the fear and the mess that change can bring. It's worked for the kids, mostly. She's hoped it's worked for her, too.
Kelly's work is almost done. She'll stay on to distribute the library's collection (to private collectors, a few archives, and several planned Museums of Childhood) and clean out the school, but after that it's time for retirement, at least for now. Her husband desperately wants to cruise the Gulf "before it's gone"; she hates to admit the old ghoul is right, but the southeast is sitting on its hands, and the next few years may be their last chance. There are changes coming she and nobody else is ready for, and they don't have an excuse to give posterity. But they won't have posterity, will they?
The children are crossing the stage now, in graduation caps and gowns that don't lend them any gravitas at all, and Kelly thinks of the child whose heart beats in her chest -- young man, she corrects herself, but she's old enough now that her 23-year-donor seems scarcely older than the fifth-graders on stage. She ought to email his sister, who's been very kind and seems to enjoy status updates. Maybe she ought to drive up to Ohio to visit, come to think of it; she's never met the Torosians in person, and her husband can surely tolerate one little road trip before they settle in on a boat. It'd be nice to thank them properly for the years she's been given, and the years to come.
Kelly wouldn't admit this to anyone, and can barely admit it to herself, but she's terrified. Morgan Torosian's heart thuds in her chest as she watches her last group of students cross the stage and tries to tell herself that change is normal, fear is normal, and it'll all be all right, because this story isn't going to end for a very long time.
It's May 2525, and someone is playing "Exordium & Terminus" over the lab sound system. Thea Rosario gives an exaggerated sigh, for the benefit of whichever of her coworkers thinks this is still funny, and slips in her earbuds. Oceanic white noise drowns out the Zager & Evans, and she can get back to coding. She's on deadline: a concept that seems a little ridiculous, for a project that's been in the works for centuries and won't deliver for a few centuries more, but there's a landmark date coming up and she wants to have clean code to deliver.
Nobody really gets fired from the Nano Project anymore -- the really antisocial or incompetent types were all washed out by the 2300s -- but Thea still feels like she's got a target on her head. For starters, she's American; after the great failure to contain the rising Atlantic, every American engineer on an international team is suspect, no matter their field or skill. Being a Latina doesn't help, either, although their lab director is Argentinian and has shaken out the worst of the techbros herself. (Dr. Otero likes Thea, thank God; she's a good boss in general, but her reassurance meant everything in the early years.) Finally, and most stupidly, she's the youngest person on the project, and some of the engineers can't let her live it down. Who the Hell cares about age anymore? She's 500 Goddamn years old, the same as everyone else, but she's still got coworkers who care that she's 506 and not 556. They say she was born too late, that she doesn't know what they're fighting.
Talking about her kidney transplant generally shuts them up, at least. It's true that she's too young to remember the process in detail, but she was sure as Hell old enough to remember how sick she was, the hospital stay, the pain and confusion. Maybe she hadn't had the long acquaintance with death of some of the older guys, but it wasn't like you needed a lot to be on board with the Nano Project. Do you really need personal experience to want to end human suffering? Or to work on the most interesting intellectual project in the history of software engineering? You wouldn't think so, and yet...
Thea sighs, focuses in on her fracture-detection coding, and tries not to think about it too much. When she thinks about the transplant, it makes the donor kidney inside her feel awkward and outsized, like it did when she was a kid. She's trying her best to forget about it again when she feels her phone buzz: a new email from Doug Rossiter, recipient of her kidney's twin. He's up at Denali this summer, continuing his rotation through the national parks, and he's sent a quick spruce-forest selfie along with a long email. Thea skims it, flagging it to read properly at home, but she catches Doug's last sentence: are you making it to the BBQ this year?
Hell, yeah, she's making it to the BBQ. She hasn't missed one since they've started, and if Doug can manage it too, it'll be good to catch up. He's just about the only old guy she can stand -- maybe because he's a park ranger instead of a nano-engineer or a software dev.
Right now, though, she's got to focus on making deadline if she's going to make it to her vacation. Thea slips her phone into her pocket and focuses again on how to make a robot see a bone fracture. The Osteogenesis Group conference is in a month and a half, and she's going to blow them out of the water.
It's July 5140, and Marcus Shea is pleasantly bored, watching a courtyard of sleeping cats. It's midday, not long after the automated feeders dispensed lunch, and the combination of full bellies and sun has knocked most of the cats out; it's too warm for cat-piles or beds to hold much interest, but they sprawl happily over the grass, some kicking and twitching in their sleep. There's close to 50 in the courtyard, and Marcus can name them all from memory. Most of them are long-term residents, after all.
Marcus volunteers at the cat shelter two days a week, Mondays and Thursdays, and extras when he isn't taking shifts at Pizza Paradise or the tailor's shop. He's only been volunteering for a few hundred years, ever since he gave up trucking and decided to settle down for a while, and some of the real old hands still call him "the newbie." Marcus doesn't mind. It's a good break in his work routine, and the cats are great, every one of them. Most of the resident cats have been here since they perfected feline immortality back in the 3000's; there's still the occasional adoption, but most people are happy with the cats they have, and Marcus can't blame them. Besides, it's fine. The sanctuary cats have the run of the place -- an old high school, fitted out with endless cat trees and caves and little obstacle courses -- and if they mind communal living, they don't make any sign of it.
There's a little squeak as one of the cats wakes up: Wendy Gee, a little ginger-and-white cap-and-saddle girl who topped out at about seven pounds. She lopes across the room and jumps up on Marcus's desk, rubbing her cheek against his presented hand. Wendy Gee's his favorite, and Marcus is thinking hard about taking her home. She's the first cat he'd ever own for himself, as an adult, and maybe it's weird that it took so long, but she's the first he's seen who really seems like she wants to go home with him. He's been talking about it with the other volunteers, who all think he's ridiculous. He might be.
Wendy Gee settles down in Marcus's lap, and he snaps a photo before texting it to Alexis Torosian. Thinking I might take her home this weekend, he follows it with. You mind an extra guest at the BBQ?
The reply comes within a few minutes: Is she okay with dogs? Kelly's husband is bringing the beagles. On-leash, hopefully
Oh, yeah, she's harness-trained, it'll be cool, he replies. These sanctuary cats are fearless!
Great, replies Alexis. Can't wait to meet her! How's it going? Everything going okay at the pizza place?
Everything is not going okay at the pizza place -- worse understaffing than usual, and nobody new deciding a few decades at a pizza joint sounds fun -- and Marcus digs in to tell Alexis all about it. He feels like there's something else he should tell her, something important about today, but it slips his mind until that night, when he's buying cat stuff for Wendy at the supermarket. It's July 18th, the anniversary of his quitting smoking. 3016 years.
Even after thousands of years, sometimes Marcus still wants a cigarette; whole nations rose and fell in less time than he's spent clean, but that doesn't always help. Still, he decides, not today. He grabs a supply of Wendy Gee's favorite canned food (whitefish cuts), then heads towards the human food. The best thing to do when he's fiending is to eat clean and fresh, fruit and salads and yogurt, to soothe his secondhand guts and remind his body how much better it is to be healthy.
He'll be fine, he knows. One day at a time, one year at a time. He's got a good life now, and a cat to set up a home for, and a vacation planned in a month or so. All around, a pretty good life.
It's August 20020, and Alexis Torosian is setting the table in the picnic gazebo. Her mother's already stoking the charcoal grill, one of those dinky built-in ones every public park seems to have; why she likes to cook on those things, Alexis'll never know, but she supposes a serious grill would probably be overkill. These BBQs are never all that big, and it's not like they get fancy.
The headcount's going to be low this year, anyway. Olivia's somewhere in eastern Europe, working on war-memorial restorations, and Dan Nguyen is taking his ever-growing horde of beagles off into the Canadian woods on some sort of "adventure," in Kelly's big air quotes. (How the Nguyens are still married, Alexis doesn't know, but after a thousand years or so she supposes you just get used to someone like that.) Kelly's here, at least, with some elaborate Italian dessert, which Marcus is earnestly trying to keep his cat from investigating. Across the green space, near the volleyball court, Thea and Doug are playing tetherball.
Alexis lays out the burger fixings and veggie platter, and she thinks about Morgan: the reason they're all here, the reason most of them are still alive. Cellular biology was never Alexis's specialty, to whatever degree it even mattered anymore; she couldn't be sure how much of Morgan any of them still have left in them, or if their own cells have reclaimed his over all these years -- but does it matter? Morgan got them all over the finish line. He gave them all eternity.
She still misses him, because of course she does. He'd have loved this world, this infinite playground where her Buddhist-monk-slash-fuckup brother could have screwed around happily forever. Morgan was made for it, and it for him, but he hadn't lived to see it, and that's always going to sting. It stings less and less every year, though, every time they come together to remember him.
It's Morgan's birthday. He would have been 18018, Alexis thinks, and then has to laugh at the absurdity of it. How often does anyone think about ages anymore? Why would they?
"Burgers on!" calls Alexis's mom, as she slaps a few patties on the charcoal grill. Alexis ambles towards the tetherball pole. On closer observation, she can't figure out if Thea and Doug are even playing a game, or if they're just smacking the ball back and forth. "So," she says, "what are the rules to tetherball, anyway?"
Thea grins. "We have no freakin' idea."
Alexis grins back and flops down on the grass. "Great. I play winner."