Three cats -- Rumkin, Mist, and Flop Ear -- followed Jenny along the rocky shore, dancing away from the incoming tide."This will make a good soup," said Jenny, dropping a glistening clump of sea moss ... [+]
Noah used to think immortality was a metaphor.
Now it was a spreadsheet.
Now it was a spreadsheet.
Each morning began at 4:30 a.m., under the sterile light of his apartment-turned-lab. The hum of the centrifuge replaced the lullaby of sleep. A fridge labeled Biohazard stood where a TV once was. Inside, rows of vials—some legal, most not—gleamed like promises. He'd sold his company, his apartment, even the silver watch his mother gave him, to fund what he called Project Rebirth. He was thirty-eight and already living on borrowed time, convinced aging was a disease waiting to be cured.
He followed Bryan Johnson's Blueprint to the decimal: broccoli-sprout smoothies, laser therapy, 100-plus pills at dawn. But Noah didn't stop there. Noah wasn't after better; he was after before: before plaques, before the little flares of inflammation, before the epigenome's steady slide into winter.
He clicked the camera on. "Week two, cycle three," he said to the lens. "Rapamycin—six milligrams, once weekly. Three months on, three off." He filmed everything for his channel, The Ageless Genome, where a growing cult of followers called him "the man who won't wait for science." He knew the data—mice lived 25 percent longer; maybe helps in dogs, perhaps improves vaccine responses and gums in the older adults. Adults? No one knew. But to Noah, uncertainty was the final frontier.
When friends asked why he'd risk immune suppression for a few hypothetical years, he said:
"If you're not dying a little for the future, you're already dead." He paused and added: "We are running out of time. Data arrives too late for each of us. I'm just moving the boundary up the road."
"If you're not dying a little for the future, you're already dead." He paused and added: "We are running out of time. Data arrives too late for each of us. I'm just moving the boundary up the road."
Noah logged biomarkers like prayers—IGF-1 down, hsCRP jittering, lipids misbehaving, gum pockets shrinking. He titled the spreadsheet mTOR & the Mouth and smiled. When the first mouth ulcer arrived—hot, bright, cruel—he blamed a dose peak. When the second came, he dialed the clock to off-cycle and let the body breathe.
On the off months he pivoted. He started micro-injecting peptides—synthetic strings of amino acids promising regeneration, vitality, maybe even reversal of the epigenetic clock. Each puncture was both rebellion and prayer. The evidence was scattered—small trials, case reports, believers outnumbering blinded protocols—but belief was the oxygen of pioneers.
The comments beneath his channel split like a chromosome: GOAT vs. ghoul. Some wanted the protocol; some wanted the autopsy.
Then came the gene therapy. Gene therapy was the line he swore not to cross until one evening he did. He'd flown to a clinic somewhere outside Tijuana, where the doctors wore silk ties under disposable gowns. They told him it was experimental, that regulators would shut them down if they could.
He signed anyway.
Inside his veins, billions of viral vectors swam toward his cells—cargo loaded with telomerase, follistatin, Klotho. The holy trinity of rejuvenation, at least according to the biohacker gospel.
He felt nothing at first. Then the fevers came, like molten glass running through his blood. He lost seven kilos in a week. His skin glowed, then peeled. He stopped streaming. His followers begged for updates; some called him a prophet, others a fool.
He felt nothing at first. Then the fevers came, like molten glass running through his blood. He lost seven kilos in a week. His skin glowed, then peeled. He stopped streaming. His followers begged for updates; some called him a prophet, others a fool.
Months passed.
His biomarkers fluttered like a malfunctioning ECG—IGF-1 down, liver enzymes up, blood counts strange enough to make doctors whisper leukemia?.
Yet in the mirror, he swore his eyes looked clearer, his skin younger, his mind sharper.
He measured time not in years, but biological age.
When the algorithm estimated him at thirty-one, he wept.
When it swung back to forty-three, he laughed.
Science was chaos disguised as graphs.
When the algorithm estimated him at thirty-one, he wept.
When it swung back to forty-three, he laughed.
Science was chaos disguised as graphs.
One evening, he met Mira, a postdoc in geroscience who'd been tracking his channel for months. She came to interview him, notebook trembling in her hands.
"Why do this?" she asked.
"Because no one else will," he said. "We wait for perfect data while death collects more subjects."
"Because no one else will," he said. "We wait for perfect data while death collects more subjects."
She stared at him. "You're playing dice with evolution."
He smiled. "All breakthroughs are gambles."
He smiled. "All breakthroughs are gambles."
Weeks later, his kidneys failed.
He refused hospitalization—said dialysis was for those planning to stop.
He set up his last livestream, pale and luminous under LED lights.
"This isn't failure," he said into the camera. "This is iteration. Every boundary is a hypothesis waiting for courage."
Viewers watched in silence as he swallowed the last of his pills, sensors beeping like small, dying birds around him.
He signed off with a grin.
"Remember," he whispered, "go all in—or stay out."
He signed off with a grin.
"Remember," he whispered, "go all in—or stay out."
The stream froze at 4:59 a.m.
At dawn, moderators shut down the channel.
But two months later, Mira received a package.
Inside: a hard drive labeled Rebirth v2.0, and a letter.
Inside: a hard drive labeled Rebirth v2.0, and a letter.
"Mira,
If you're reading this, it means the body failed, but maybe not the code.
There's an algorithm trained on my epigenome—upload it, let it learn, let it evolve.
If consciousness is data, maybe life is too.
If you're reading this, it means the body failed, but maybe not the code.
There's an algorithm trained on my epigenome—upload it, let it learn, let it evolve.
If consciousness is data, maybe life is too.
—Noah."
She stared at the drive.
It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
She stared at the drive.
It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
And she wondered—not whether he was alive, but whether he'd ever really died.