They all looked at him until he finally asked, “Do I have something on my face?”
He knew better but it was still fun to make them verbalize the shock he was feeling from them. “I guess, I just never expected the Boy Scout to propose something like that,” Amelia said.
“We all have to grow up someday. No room for Peter Pan. This will allow us to deal with more pressing issues before we have to deal with the politics of all these groups, especially Li Wei’s group. I don’t really have time to find out who in that group can be trusted after their leader tried to kill one of ours,” Jay said.
“We will support your decision but do remember you can delegate these responsibilities to us. You don’t have to do everything alone,” Huong said.
“Oh, this isn’t me being stupid or thinking I have to do it all myself. I need you all to have time to train. Think about what you can do with a skill level of one hundred in some of your abilities. Now imagine what you might be able to do with a skill level of 1,000 or even 2,000. We may find that the Forlorn and A’snkarnt have no idea what is gonna hit them. Worst-case scenario we will end up a lot more skilled,” Jay argued.
“You’re the boss, so just tell us how you want to do this,” Trina said.
Jay could feel their reservations but through it all he sensed their trust in him. “I just want to focus on Team Jay. I want to give all of my time to the team and feel like we would be better off with a solid core than having that core spend their time helping everyone else.”
“It might be worth mentioning what you discovered, Huong,” Mia said suddenly.
“Um, okay. I had wanted to do some more testing, but I guess now is as good a time as any,” the petite Vietnamese girl said. Jay was surprised that she had kept something from him, but it made sense if she was still testing.
“Based upon the limited data that I have gathered so far, the rate at which we are aging is significantly slowing,” she pronounced.
Jay was struck again by how odd these conversations were. People said things and it was like you already knew it because the fusion made you feel that way yet were definitely hearing it for the first time. Then they began opening themselves up to sense what the others were feeling and so it became this hodge podge of words and emotions as people spoke, but answers were already known before questions were asked. Jay couldn’t help but wonder if they might get to a point someday where the fusion connection was so great that verbal communication simply didn’t happen.
“Is that a side effect of the time distortions or what? Gonna have to break it down for us non-geniuses,” Jay said.
“You give yourself too little credit, Master,” Ava said softly.
Huong continued then, “No I don’t mean that we are experiencing the passage of time differently. Rather, what is aging, but the process of our bodies breaking down. No one would care if you were twenty or one hundred and twenty except that the older we get the less efficient our bodies are, the more tired, and susceptible to disease we become.”
“So our bodies aren’t breaking down anymore?” Amelia asked.
Jay was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been in on this research of Huong’s. In fact, he could tell now that Mia, Ava, and Jessie all knew about it. But that made sense because they all worked in the lab from time to time, whereas Meikiyo, Amelia, and Trina all had been busy with him trying to organize the ship.
“They are still breaking down, but at a slower and slower rate. Please keep in mind that this is just preliminary data at this point, but it would appear that each time we pass a threshold the rate at which our bodies break down is reduced,” Huong answered.
“Can you give us some idea of the time frame?” Trina asked.
Jay looked over at Meikiyo. She was the only one that didn’t seem overly interested. But she had been this way for days now, ever since Higen had been taken. That ate away at Jay too. He hadn’t known his son for very long but somehow, he ached for what might happen to him. He realized he had many children now and likely would have many more, but just like too much sex, it didn’t seem like having more kids made him love each one any less.
It baffled him how he could love the little bundle of humanity so much when he couldn’t even have a conversation with his son. Call it instinct, call it genetic preservation, it didn’t really matter, Jay simply knew that he would burn the heavens if he had to in order to get his son back. Fortunately, though he was able to compartmentalize it. The pain of the loss would have kept him from being productive just like it was for Meikiyo. Not that he didn’t feel it, just that he only allowed it to be at the top of his mind part of the time.
Huong answered and continued her explanation, “So if eighty years was the average life expectancy before we came here, then initial data suggests that after the first threshold it will be more like one hundred and twenty. Then after the second threshold there is a massive jump, which I think has something to do with regeneration and the
