CHAPTER 1

Eden Space/Largo Quadrant/Pearly System - Year 31,721 - Day 289

Orbital Pearl

“Oh yeah! It’s like an orgasm is spreading through my veins.” I licked my lips. “Tantalizing,” I said, wiggling against the straps that confined me. I couldn’t help it, the ecstasy was that damn euphoric. “Thanks Doc.”

The sharp-nosed thin man eyed me with concern. He wore a plain white lab coat with a flashing logo that read: Pearl Station Rejuvenation. The room he brought me into was small with a few adverts flashing for my attention.

The operator said, “You should be in pain. Age reducers are -”

A drone hovered near the ceiling. The device assigned to monitor my vitals blared alerts with flashing red lights. The drone proceeded to continuously scan my body while whaling that infernal racket. The doctor glared down at the linker on his wrist. He tapped furiously as if the screen might fix the problem.

It wouldn’t.

“Oh shit!" Additional tapping with widening eyes found the reason for the klaxons. "Silence alerts,” the doctor muttered as he read the report. He leaned back in his observation chair in stunned disbelief. Eventually, while I danced an internal jig at the giggly feeling of the serum, he said, “You're an original?”

“Yup.” I grinned. “Name’s actually Gee. Ogee is what I became to some and is on my citizen’s license. I mixed OG with Gee, get it?” He shook his head, unamused by my banter. “Fuck, whatever. I’ve seen that expression, and probably forgotten it a few thousand times.” I snorted with a headshake. “It’s been a while since humanity figured out how to turn back time and I’ve learned to deal with my disability. Mostly.”

The doctor stared down at me in fascination. This was a common occurrence because I happened to be a relic and a pariah among humanity. A lab rat at one point, but that was eons ago; back when the Eden Coalition was barely twenty thousand years away from Earth with wars on every front.

I was a snot-nosed recruit in the marines, the type that dropped onto planets, cleansed the surface, and stuck a flag in the mud to say this planet belonged to Eden. Of course, when they asked for volunteers for a cutting-edge unit called - The Immortals - I signed up.

Who didn’t want to live forever? This ape did.

The Eden Coalition scientist swore the injections would work.

The age reducers did work - mostly - proving that being the first, was not the best, and that volunteering was for suckers. I earned the title of an Original with a strapped down injection not too different from the kind that coursed through my veins today. The difference being, the kind back then set markers in my mind.

That day at twenty five years old would forever be seared into my brain. A year passed and into the lab I went. The serum reduced the wear and tear a year withered on my body. While my body became a year younger… that year of experience vanished from my mind.

This was error was fixed going forward. Some think what happened to my unit wasn’t an accident. That Eden needed super soldiers who could erase the horrors of war. I knew the truth though. The markers were thought to be a safety feature.

They weren’t and once they were removed, humanity reached the pinnacle achievement: immortality. For a cost, visit a serum injector and live forever without ever losing the experience you gained. For me, I was trapped in a time loop of sorts while the universe around me aged.

Whenever I earned enough E-coins to afford an age reversal, my mind returned to the starry eyed twenty five year old who expected to hot-drop onto infested planets with guns blazing. I had fixes for this: videos, journals, letters, and memorabilia. My rejuvenation was never the same as some punk kid who had a reversion in today’s age. And yeah, I was jaded about it.

I became young at a cost, and yes, I still occasionally sought the cure for me and my fellow Immortals. The fix eluded us and it was something most gave up on. Hell, I found myself not giving a shit during more and more of my life spans.

Today, well, today was a big day. I spent fifteen years sitting behind a bar slinging drinks. I saved up just enough to convert my back-aching, knee-popping, forty-year-old ass back into an overachieving twenty-five-year-old’s body.

“Your charts are amazing,” the doctor said, clearly fascinated by the report he studied. “No pain, quite the opposite. Plus, you’re having an instant reaction to the drugs. This is supposed to put you under and take a week, but not you. Not you… You’re almost done… Incredible.”

His soft wonderment echoed in the small doctor’s office. I could do more than take a little bit of age reducers like a champion, but I sure as hell wasn’t telling him that. The more a doctor knew, the more curious they grew and out came the scalpels.

No thanks, not today, not ever.

“You’re what? Ten-thousand-years-old?” he asked.

“Stopped counting. My diary said to stop doing short rollbacks, it fucks with the mind apparently and we lost count. I bet some bureaucrat in some office knows, and if you see them, tell them to stick to one damn calendar. Makes life easier,” I said.

He snorted, finding the complaint about government inadequacies amusing.

In fact, I knew exactly how old I was. I just didn’t want to share the information with this guy.

“What’s it like?” he asked, likely recording.

I did like telling this part. A bit of history that many humans forgot. “I remember waking up fifteen-years-ago thinking I was about to drop on an infestation. The kind humanity lost millions on to earn a new home. Back when we fought with honor. Eden’s might has waned, the days of her glory weakened. One day we will be in need of strength again. Anyway, an hour after my last reversion I learned I bought a bar and I had work to do to ensure it didn’t end up as a losing investment,” I said with an unhappy grunt.

He added more serum into my veins. That kicked my sour attitude right in the ass. My grin returned and I sighed with contentment.

“So, did you turn it around?” he asked. “The bar, I know you won the invasion. Everyone knows the legend of the Immortal Unit.”

“Fuck no. I sold the bar at a loss and bought this injection. The new me is going to be bitter. He’ll have to take on mercenary work, something that has killed almost every retiree of my unit. Only a thousand of us live out of the millions. All we know is death and mayhem. At least I never forget that part,” I said, feeling the very fabric of my being begin to alter.

“And what part is that?” the doctor asked.

“How to kill xenos. I’m the best of the best from a forgotten age. I can -” I moaned out. “That’s the good stuff.”

Another surge of serum shot into my veins.

I blinked in confusion.

Why was I strapped into a medical chair? Where was I?

“Who are you?” I asked the strange man in the lab coat beside me.

He sighed. “And there goes your memories. Gee Oland, I’m afraid I need to place you into sedation to prevent you from inflicting damage to me or the staff.”

“Huh, what?” I blurted, instantly angering.

The dick of a doctor hit me with something potent because the room spun and the next thing I knew, the darkness consumed me.