"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because I was framed. It's the truth, and I want you to believe it. I did not kill anybody."

"There's got to be another reason you're here."

Chris nodded. "I want you to go to back to the FBI and tell them that you were wrong. That you checked old photographs and it wasn't Christopher Bacon you had spotted, just a guy who resembles him. He's too young to be Bacon."

Wally listened without response. "I want them off my tail, Wally. I've got a kid and a wife, and they don't deserve to be put on the run again. We have new lives and we want to continue living them out."

"Well, I guess my head is still spinning."

"I understand, but a lot of people have already died."

Wally's face hardened. "What does that mean?"

"It means that if I were a guy who blew up a hundred and thirty-seven family people heading for vacation, I would have little compunction eliminating anybody else."

"You mean me."

"And your son. Instead I'm drinking beers with you in your living room."

"Aren't I grateful!"

"Of course, if you do it you'll be out the million-dollar reward."

"Well, there's that."

"A lot of money. Could make for a nice early retirement."

Wally's face darkened. Roger picked up his jacket, feeling the comforting weight of the pistol. He reached his hand into the right inner pocket, firmly gripping its contents. "I hate to spoil things, but so will this."

Wally made an involuntary gasp as Roger whipped out his hand and aimed it straight at him: A long glass ampule. "Elixir."

"What?"

"Elixir," Roger repeated. "Earlier you asked did it work for anybody. To my knowledge, two people in the world today. You could be the third. Compensation for forfeiting the million dollars: perpetual life."

Wally stared blankly. It was too much to absorb all at once.

"You don't have to make a decision now, but it has to be soon. They're watching us. I'm offering you an unlimited supply of Elixir to keep you alive indefinitely. In return, I ask that you retract your claim."

Wally contemplated the offer. They both knew he was the perfect candidate-divorced, lonely, overweight, aging all too fast, and looking at maybe ten years at best before he died.

"You don't have to take it, of course."

Wally rolled the ampule of tabulone in his fingers, studying the promise locked in glass. Outside the night wind had picked up, and someplace in the dining room a banjo clock chimed midnight.

"Run by me the side effects again."

"There are no side effects in the ordinary sense-just a rejuvenation surge that sets you back about ten years. It's hard to measure. But it takes place over six weeks to three months. Once stabilized, you would need injections infrequently-once every two weeks. Eventually, once a month. But once you start you can't stop or you'll die. That goes for me too."

"What about cancer cells? What if I've got a spot on my lungs or something in my liver?"

"The stuff holds them in diapause. They don't replicate but sit there, while normal cells continue to divide."

"So, it's like a kind of chemotherapy-the good cells grow while the bad ones are held in check."

"Something like that, except the good cells go on indefinitely."

"What happens when the Elixir stops coming?"

Roger could still see Jimbo dying, his body exploding in carcinoma gone wild. "You die."

"What about your organs-heart, kidney and liver? Don't they eventually wear out?"

"Theoretically, they shouldn't as long as you take care of yourself. And if they do, there are always transplants-every ten thousand miles or fifty years, which ever comes first."

Wally laughed. "As we kids say, 'Holy shit.'"

He got up for another beer. Roger escorted him, though he no longer expected Wally to go for the phone.

When they returned, Wally said: "You've lived unchanged for nearly fifteen years. Are you happy?"

Are you happy?

While Chris hadn't expected it, it was a legitimate question. But the answer was far from simple.

His impulse was to declare, Of course I'm happy. Never aging. Never growing weary, depressed, infirm. Not watching your body fall apart. Never having to die. Being around to see all the great changes-manned rockets to Mars, nano-engineering, controlled fusion, a cure for AIDS. To go on indefinitely learning and doing the things you enjoy. To prolong your time with those you love. Hell! Who wouldn't be happy?

But it was more complicated than that. Yes, he loved his wife and son. They were the fundamental conditions of his life. But all that came at a price. When Chris Bacon took his first injection, they were on the run trying to become strangers. That was behind them now, but he could never go back to the man who wanted to live forever to do his science. Without credentials, he could never step foot in a lab again.

Likewise, Laura had abandoned her dream of becoming a full-time writer, nor could she go back to teaching without college degrees as Laura Glover. When that all came to an end bitterness and boredom set in. What saved them was Brett. His existence relieved them from the claustrophobia of their secrets. He provided them love and cause outside themselves. He kept them from depression and divorce.

While flower arrangements didn't do it for Roger, he threw himself into fatherhood, and not just the male stuff-baseball, wrestling, and fishing. He took charge of monitoring Brett's schooling, setting up piano lessons, doctor exams, shopping. To keep the rust off his brain, Roger tutored neighborhood kids in biology, chemistry, and math, sometimes performing simple experiments in a makeshift lab in his garage.

"Are you happy?"

But Wally wasn't asking about the joys of parenting and playing Mr. Wizard. He wanted to know if there was happiness in being stuck in the moment.

Roger still wore a watch and saw life in segmented chunks, shaped by schedules and deadlines. Yet, biologically speaking, time was what other people experienced. He was a mere spectator, living with clocks, but impervious to their movement. Except for Laura who got older and Brett who grew up.

Like an exile on an island in the timeflow, Roger was unable to determine which was worse-watching his wife drift off or his son pull toward shore.

"Are you happy…?"

Roger knew what Wally meant. But he'd lie because, in part, he missed his old life and his wife and the tick of the clock.

"Yes."

"You're not bored with the sameness?"

"The alternative is watching yourself grow old."

"Been there, done that," Wally said. "So, it's like being thirty-something forever."

Roger had to admit to himself a selfish impulse to his offer. If Wally agreed, he would have someone else to share vast stretches of slow time with. Laura, of course, had no interest. "Yes."

"My God!" He again grinned in wonder at Roger. "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em," he said.

"I don't follow."

"Just that I've reached the age when it's finally hit me that this ride isn't forever. I'm beginning to think like an old man even though part of me still feels twenty-one. As a result, I find myself resenting the younger set because I'm not one of them anymore. I don't even go to movies anymore because nobody in them is over thirty. Worse still is TV which is a nonstop puberty fest. Christ, I sit here sometimes wishing there was an AARP channel. Instead, I rent Randolph Scott videos or listen to the Russian Five. Sure, laugh, but every morning I go to work expecting to find some kid who hasn't started shaving yet sitting at my desk. I'm telling you, we live in a culture that eats its old."

Roger smiled, recalling the familiar passion that thirty years ago had rallied protests against the Vietnam War. "I hear what you're saying, but it won't change your chronological age."