Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict by Thomas T. Thomas

enhanced and repositioned. With advancing age, your skin is destined to become thinner, weaker, and lose its elasticity. Whatever I do, gravity is still not our friend.”
    “I suppose there’s no other option. What about chemical peels, dermabrasion—things of that nature?”
    “They’re good. They’ll extend your time by a few years. But mostly these are less invasive procedures, mostly used for surface blemishes, like scarring from acne.” Bellows paused. “There is another option, but it’s new and still somewhat risky. Have you heard of the work they’re doing with stem cells these days?”
    “Have I heard?” Wells laughed. “Half of my brain and both my kidneys have been regrown from stem cells. Are you saying you can regrow my face?”
    Bellows nodded. “It’s a mixture of cells—myosatellites to generate the underlying muscle, and epidermal stem cells to create new skin. The attachment points are complex, and we must reconnect the nerves for both sensation and motor control. It’s a long surgery under general anesthetic.”
    “Have you done these stem-cell implants yourself?”
    “A few times—three cases. All experienced good results.”
    “It will be my own skin, all new? Not just old skin stretched out?”
    “Chronologically, it won’t even be your skin. Early stem-cell procedures did not address the aging of the telomeres—the little bits of code on the ends of chromosomes that count down as your cells reproduce and copy the original DNA. In the old days, the donor cells were all just as old as your body, and they continued aging along with the rest of you. Today, we treat the stem cells with telomerase, an enzyme which adds the missing sequences back to the ends of the DNA. These will be, effectively, baby cells.”
    Antigone Wells studied the images of her face on the screen—the blown-apart and excised x-ray scans, the pulled and tightened hologram. She made her decision.
    “I want the new procedure,” she said. She had done it before for her body and her brain, why not once more for a boost to her ego?
    “All right,” Bellows said. “I’ll schedule you for a stem-cell extraction.”
    * * *
    When word came from Houston that Richard Praxis had been murdered, Callie was called into a family meeting at the Praxis Engineering headquarters. Her father sat at his desk like a graven image, unmoving and unreadable. She could sense his anger and his grief but not see it in his face.
    Her nephew Brandon, who came into the room after her, clearly had not heard the news, because the first thing he said was, “Hi! What’s up?”
    Her father’s head and eyes shifted focus toward him slowly, almost blindly. “Your uncle is dead. Gunned down in a parking garage in Houston.”
    “Oh,” the younger man said. “Oh, gosh! That’s too ba-aa—”
    The elder Praxis erupted. “I thought we had an understanding!”
    “We did! I did! I gave him your message. I never touched him.”
    “What message?” Callie asked. “When did you arrange all this?”
    John looked at her coldly. “I sent Brandon down to meet with Richard personally. Get him to change out that Stochastic Design software with a new copy. Then to leave us—leave you—leave the family alone. No more spying. No more contact of any kind.”
    “And that’s what I told him,” Brandon said. “And he promised.”
    “If you didn’t kill him, then who did?” John stared at Callie as he asked this.
    “Maybe it was a simple mugging,” she said. “Some kind of street violence. It happens in Texas, after all, where everyone’s got a gun.” She took a breath to focus her thoughts. “And maybe he had other enemies. Richard was—you’ll have to forgive me, Dad—but he was a devious weasel. Maybe he was making a play for Tallyman this time, or some other client, and someone objected.”
    “You are the one who wanted him dead,” her father said. “ ‘Make him stop breathing,’ you said.”
    “That was my anger and confusion