“Nonsense, scrambled eggs are easy enough to make, and there’s lots of hash browns and bacon left from the breakfast I made the kids. I’ll toss them in along with onions and cheese and make you an omelet, shall I?”
Allie stared at her blankly, not wanting to put her to the effort, but her mouth was watering at the thought of an omelet.
“An omelet, it is, then,” Elvi said with amusement, obviously reading her mind.
“I’ll do the toast,” Mabel offered, moving to grab a bag of bread from a wood bread box as Elvi opened the refrigerator to retrieve the fixings for the omelet.
“Then I guess I’ll help Magnus and Leonora answer those questions I hear buzzing around in your head,” DJ decided, leaving Mabel’s side to join Allie, Magnus, and Leonora at the table.
There was a moment of silence once he’d join them. Allie supposed they were waiting for her to start asking her questions, but she had so many she didn’t know where to start and then she glanced at the people in the kitchen and then those at the table and wondered where Tricia was.
“Tricia and Teddy are working today,” DJ answered as if she’d asked the question out loud. “They’ll be back around dinnertime.”
“Oh.” She smiled at him slightly, and then cleared her throat and asked the first question she came up with. “I was told you aren’t vampires, but immortals. What is the difference?”
“Vampires are fictional dead and soulless creatures that sprung up from a curse. While immortals are merely scientifically enhanced humans,” Magnus answered promptly. “We are not dead and soulless. We are alive and well and still have souls.”
“Scientifically enhanced humans?” Allie asked, arching an eyebrow. “Like The Bionic Woman enhanced, or . . .” She couldn’t think of another example to use.
“No,” he said with a smile. “Enhanced as in we have bioengineered nanos flowing through our bloodstream that are programmed to keep us at our peak condition.”
Allie stared at him blankly, not really seeing a connection between the human peak condition and fangs or a need for blood.
“The nanos are blood based,” DJ said, obviously picking up on her thoughts. “They use blood to propel themselves as well as make repairs, and to generate more nanos when need be.”
“Make repairs?” she asked with interest.
“Yes,” Magnus said. “When the nanos were created, the intent was that they would repair injuries and fight illnesses without the need for surgery or chemical aid.”
“So, break a leg or get stabbed and these nanos would fix it?” she asked.
Magnus nodded. “The nanos rush to the injury, rapidly replicating themselves to the number they need for the job at hand, stop the bleeding, and repair the wound or broken bone.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So where do the fangs and glowy eyes come in?”
“From laziness,” Leonora said with amusement, and then added, “God bless them.”
DJ grinned at the woman and it was Magnus who again explained. “The scientists who created the nanos chose to take a shortcut when it came to programming. Rather than develop separate programs for each individual ailment or injury a human might suffer, they decided to program them with a map of the male and female body at their peak condition and the instruction to ensure their host was at that peak condition and then self-destruct once it was achieved.”
“To be fair to our scientists,” DJ said now, “there are a hell of a lot of injuries and illnesses a human can experience. So creating just the one program probably seemed expedient at the time.”
“Yes,” Allie agreed. “But I still don’t understand how that ended with you guys having fangs and sucking blood.”
“It didn’t in the beginning,” DJ assured her. “At first, well, of course, with the nanos using blood to make repairs and propel themselves, it was expected that blood transfusions might be needed for the more extensive injuries or illnesses, and the patients were given those transfusions accordingly.”
“But the tests provided some surprises,” Magnus said, picking up the explanations again. “The first was that the nanos saw the effects of age as an injury or illness, something that needed repair. And because we reach our peak at somewhere between twenty-five and thirty depending on the person’s physiology, the nanos reversed the physical age of any host older than that, returning them back to that peak stage.”
“The fountain of youth,” Allie murmured.
“Yes. It must have seemed like that at the time,” Magnus agreed.