Shadowfires

engaged, but after a moment's hesitation she took one of the straight-backed chairs from the table, tipped it onto two legs, and braced it under the doorknob for extra protection.
    He was sure she was being overly cautious, treading the edge of
paranoia. On the other hand, he didn't object.
    She returned to the edge of the bed. “They injected the mice, changed the mice, working with mouse genes instead of human
genes, of course, but applying the same theories and techniques they
intended to use to promote human longevity. And the mice, a short-
lived variety, survived longer… twice as long as usual and still
kicking. Then three times as long… four times… and still young. Some
mice were subjected to injuries of various kinds-everything from
contusions and abrasions to punctures, broken bones, serious burns-
and they healed at a remarkable rate. They recovered and flourished
after their kidneys were virtually destroyed. Lungs eaten half away
by acid fumes were regenerated. They actually regained their vision
after being blinded. And then…”
    Her voice trailed away, and she glanced at the fortified door,
then at the window, lowered her head, closed her eyes.
    Ben waited.
    Eyes still closed, she said, “Following standard procedure, they
killed some mice and put them aside for dissection and for thorough
tissue tests. Some were killed with injections of air-embolisms.
Killed others with lethal injections of formaldehyde. And there was
no question they were dead. Very dead. But those that
weren't yet dissected… they came back. Within a few hours. Lying there in the lab trays… they just… started twitching, squirming. Bleary-eyed, weak at first… but they came back. Soon they were on their feet, scurrying about their cages, eating-fully alive. Which no one had anticipated, not at all. Oh, sure, before the mice were killed, they'd
had tremendously enhanced immune systems, truly astonishing capacity
to heal, and life spans that had been dramatically increased, but…”
Rachael raised her head, opened her eyes, looked at Ben. “But once
the line of death is crossed… who'd imagine it could be re crossed?”
    Ben's hands started shaking, and a wintry shiver followed the track of his spine, and he realized that the true meaning and power of these events had only now begun to sink in.
    “Yes,” Rachael said, as if she knew what thoughts and emotions
were racing through his mind and heart.
    He was overcome by a strange mixture of terror, awe, and wild joy:
terror at the idea of anything, mouse or man, returning from the land
of the dead; awe at the thought that
humankind's genius had perhaps shattered nature's dreadful chains of
mortality; joy at the prospect of humanity freed forever from the
loss of loved ones, freed forever from the great fears of sickness
and death.
    And as if reading his mind, Rachael said, “Maybe one day… maybe
even one day soon, the threat of the grave will pass away. But not
yet. Not quite yet. Because the Wildcard Project's breakthrough is not entirely successful. The mice that came back were… strange.”
    “Strange?”
    Instead of elaborating on that freighted word, she said, “At first
the researchers thought the
mice's odd behavior resulted from some sort of brain damage-maybe not to cerebral tissues but to the fundamental chemistry of the brain-that couldn't
be repaired even by the
mice's enhanced healing abilities. But that wasn't the case. They
could still run difficult mazes and repeat other complex tricks
they'd been taught before they'd died-”
    “So somehow the memories, knowledge, probably even personality
survives the brief period of lifelessness between death and
rebirth.”
    She nodded. “Which would indicate that some small current still
exists in the brain for a time after death, enough to keep memory
intact until… resurrection. Like a computer during a power failure,
barely holding on to material in its short-term memory by using the
meager flow of current from a standby battery.”
    Ben wasn't sleepy anymore. “Okay, so the mice could run mazes, but there was something strange about them. What? How strange?”
    “Sometimes they became confused-more frequently at first than
after they'd been back with the living awhile-and they repeatedly rammed themselves against their cages or ran in circles chasing their tails. That kind of abnormal behavior slowly passed. But another, more frightening behavior emerged… and endured.”
    Outside a car pulled