Turn or Burn by Boo Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

I keep my mouth shut? She’s a lady! Treat her like one, Harper. I went back to the locker room, stripped down to a towel, and went into the dry sauna for a while. Then I threw on a robe and headed out of the men’s room.
    Nearly ran into her in the hall. “Excuse me,” I said.
    She blew out a breath of air like she was extinguishing a burning car and kept moving toward the women’s locker room. I bid her adieu and returned to my room. It was getting light outside. Beyond the fog and the clouds, somewhere out there above the sky of the Pacific Northwest, the sun was doing a little tiny something to tell us it was daytime.
     
    ***
     
    At fifteen minutes before ten, we met in the doctor’s suite. He was dressed in another pair of pants that barely covered his calves. He wore a pressed white shirt and glasses and looked very much like he could prove Fermat’s Last Theorem in less time than it takes me to sharpen a pencil. Still, despite the geek in him, I noticed how well he carried himself. How confident he was. Like the way he dressed was a calculated decision in order to bring about a certain result. I bet he was a lady’s man back in med school.
    Even though she wasn’t coming along, Luan Sebastian was well-dressed. I guess she was the type that didn’t like people to see her any other way than clean, done up, and appropriate.
    Dr. Sebastian was administering shots to the boys, something Ted had told me about. The entire family took shots on a daily basis and the contents were some kind of special concoction of minerals, vitamins, nutrients, and so on to boost their health. This doctor was quite hard-core. Frankly, I didn’t see why anybody would want to add years to his life.
    Ted was talking about who we should be looking for and the doctor interjected. “You know,” he started in his thick Dutch accent, “it is not just Bible thumpers that could be gunning for me.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, with pauses. “Certainly anyone exploring possibilities apropos life extension is possibly upsetting the religious set. And that’s who you’ll see most out there today. But there are others that disapprove as well.
    “You can start with the arguments against stem cell research—a similarly disturbing topic for some. A moral dilemma exists that has nothing to do with religion. They think toying with nature is a bad idea. Bioluddites. Eco-fascists. Anarcho-primitivists. Think Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. He was a Neo-Luddite.” He raised his voice. “Some of these birdbrains think we should stop using electricity!” He lifted his hands in the air. “Pull the plug! Now there’s a novel idea. They live in fantasyland! What these people don’t comprehend is that technology is coming . It’s a step in the evolutionary process. My friend William Gibson says, ‘In the future we’ll look back at the past and laugh at the so-called distinction between the real and virtual world.’ I think he’s right. And it’s simply a matter of who gets there first. I hope it is us, as opposed to, say…China.”
    I liked what he had to say. Everything about this guy was smart, almost like he was more evolved in his own right. You couldn’t help but feel like an inferior being around him.
    After we discussed the game plan, the doctor kissed the boys good-bye and then went to his wife. “I love you, darling.”
    She nodded but didn’t say anything.
    He removed his glasses and looked her in the eyes. “I wouldn’t dare let anything come between you and me watching our children grow. I’m in good hands. Nothing will go wrong. These measures are simply precautionary. I’ll see you this evening.”
    He kissed her on the cheek, but she didn’t seem very receptive. Talk about a fireball. This woman was making my mother look like a pushover, and that, my friends, she was not.
    “Okay, then,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
    Ted and I escorted the doctor out of the building. It was the first time he’d left