Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful. Arwen Dayton Elys
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Название: Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful
Автор: Arwen Dayton Elys
Издательство: HarperCollins
isbn: 9780008322397
isbn:
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperVoyager
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2018
Copyright © Arwen Elys Dayton 2018
Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Arwen Elys Dayton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008322380
Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008322397
Version: 2018-10-25
To the next generation
and the next and the next
(and hopefully the next)
We have got to the point in human history where we simply do not have to accept what nature has given us.
—Jay Keasling, professor of biochemical engineering, University of California, Berkeley, in Wired, 2009
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part Three: The Reverend Mr. Tad Tadd’s Love Story
A few years from now …
Human!
Stop!
… is what I’m thinking. As if I’ve already become something else, a different species, and I’m tired of hearing all of his worn-out, human-person logic.
The man is reminding me that Julia’s heart will be combined with my own heart, so it’s not like I’m “taking” hers. It’s a synthesis. The new heart will fuse both in a way that’s better than either of the originals. A super-heart, I guess you could call it.
He is reminding me of this, and every time I say “But—” he cuts me off by continuing his explanation, only more loudly. Now he’s almost yelling, though he’s just as cheerful as he always is.
Did I mention that he’s my father? And he’s only repeating what my doctor has explained so many times. Although, let’s be honest, my doctor explains the same things very differently. She discusses recovery rates and reasonable percentages and acceptable outcomes. She tells me about other patients, though of course, my case and Julia’s case—the case of Evan and Julia Weary, semi-identical twins—is unique, so we are, as she likes to say, “medical pioneers.” I’ve come to think of us as the season-finale episode of a show about strange medical cases. Tune in for the outrageous conclusion!
I’m in my hospital room, but I’m sitting in a chair in the corner, because it’s dangerous to stay in the hospital bed, which can be wheeled away for CAT scans or blood draws or surgery, or whatever, so easily. You have the illusion of control if you’re sitting in a chair.
Julia is in the adjoining room. She’s on the bed, of course. And though I can hear our mother in there with her, she’s only saying a few quiet words to my sister, and my sister is not saying anything in reply.
“This is fortune smiling on us, Evan,” my father says, using what has become СКАЧАТЬ