Age

Chapter 2
Part 2

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Chapter Description: Revelations plague Stan

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Stan took a closer look at the computer. He cocked his head. “Maybe a computer error?”

Roxy shrugged. “Possibly. I’ll contact the hospital in question and have them tell me what the paper copy says.”

With that, she got up and walked into the office. Stan stayed, and held the baby up in front of him. The baby cooed and kicked his feet.

“Let’s have Dr. Briggs check you out huh?” Stan said to the baby. He carried him into the morgue.

An old man with jet black hair stood over the body of a young woman. The man shook his head and covered her head with a blanket. He looked up to see Stan walking in. The man smiled at the baby, who smiled back.

“Bring your Kid to Work Day?” Dr. Briggs guessed with a grin.

“Roxy beat ya to it.”

“Darn.”

“I need you to examine our latest victim,” Stan said, setting baby Ben on the gurney.

Dr. Briggs looked from Stan, to the baby, and then back to Stan. “You do realize I’m a specialist in victims that have already left the world, not those that have barely entered.”

“Look, Roxy found this kid’s birth record on our database. Here’s the kicker, his DOB says that he was born in 1978!” Stan explained. Dr. Briggs nodded knowingly.

“Computer error I’m guessing?”

“We don’t know yet. Roxy’s checking it out. Anyway, isn’t it impossible for the human body to revert to a previous developmental stage?” Stan asked.

“Well....no.”

That was not the answer Stan was expecting. His mouth dropped open. “What do you mean no?”

“Several years ago, David Copperfield found a water source on his private island. This water source revitalized dead leaves once they came into contact with the water,” Dr. Briggs lectured.

“A Fountain of Youth?”

“More like a chemical of youth. Scientists isolated a previously undiscovered element in the water, which they appropriately named Fountainum. They experienced further. They exposed small quantities of it to lab rats. Within a day or so, those fully grown rats were pink rat infants.”

“What’s the largest animal they’ve tried it with?”

“A Spider Monkey. As with the rats, it took about a day for the monkey to enter the infant stage of life.”

“This is amazing! How come it hasn’t been tested on humans?” Stan asked, intrigued.

Dr. Briggs made a face. “There was a problem. Every experiment resulted in the animal’s reversion into an infant state. Nothing would change that, not the time they were exposed to the element, not the amount, nothing. Now, every known bit of Fountainum is stored away in the bowels of the Pentagon.”

“I understand why they did this; it would make an unstoppable biological weapon.”

“Yeah, why waste bullets when you can change them into mere infants?”

Roxy burst in, looking stressed. “There is no error. The paper copy has the same thing.”

Stan looked at Dr. Briggs. “Is there any way to test for Fountainum in the bodily system?”

He shook his head. “The Fountainum binds chemically with the body’s cells, making it impossible to detect. This is also the reason why once something is infected with Fountainum, it never grows older again.”

Stan looked up, thinking. He snapped his finger. “What about where the child was found? No locals go in that area because of the Forest Preservation Act. Maybe there’s a concentration of Fountainum there that Ben Kasprak came into contact with!”

Dr. Briggs nodded in agreement. “If we can get in there without coming into contact with it, I should be able to collect a sample.”

“How does it spread by the way?”

“Through the air, bring your gas mask.”

 

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