Page 93 of Mutant Mine

Selene is giving me a look that is almost pitying.

“Yes, Roth can get you pregnant. But that’s not the big reveal.”

“What is then?”

“Have you ever heard of ‘telomeres’?”

“No?”

“Okay, let’s think… Do you know what genes are?”

“Um, the things you inherit from your parents? Eye color, height, stuff like that?”

“Right. They’re the instructions which tell your body how to make… well, you. Your genes exist inside every cell in your body, packed together into long strands called chromosomes.”

I nod, trying to keep up.

“Telomeres sit on the very ends of your chromosomes, to protect them from wearing out. Think of them like the plastic tips that stop shoelaces from fraying,” Selene says. “But over the course of your life, your telomeres get shorter and shorter. Eventually, they get so short that the genetic instructions in your chromosomes get damaged. Your cells can’t renew themselves correctly anymore, and they start to age. Are you with me so far?”

Not whatsoever.

“I think so…?”

“Long telomeres equals young, short telomeres equals old.”

“Right. Got it.”

“At Watergap, one of the most strange and wonderful things we observed in the X-human hybrids was that their telomeres regenerated,” Selene says. “It’sextraordinary. Their whole cellular aging process is slowed right down, allowing them to live much longer than any human.”

“Is that why Roth looks younger than he is?”

“Yes. And will continue to, for… I don’t know even know how long. Centuries, potentially.”

“While we get old,” I say miserably. Selene shares this pain with me. She gets it. Maybe the reason she wanted to have this talk is to break Roth’s lifespan to me gently, in case I hadn’t figured it out myself. “And die.”

“Yes,” she says. “And no.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something I want to show you,” Selene says. She pulls her tank top and pants out of the way, revealing her lower belly. There, on her skin, there’s something… a tattoo?

I lean closer to get a better look — then suck in a sharp gasp. On Selene’s hip is one neat little spiral of blue.

“You…?”

“When I got pregnant, I spotted this mark. I thought, ‘That’s interesting’. I ran some tests to find out how it may have affected me — and one of the first things I did was have a look at my telomeres. What do you think I found?”

No way. She can’t be saying…

“Yes. Regenerated. And they’ve stayed the same ever since.”

I must be staring at her.

“I’m going to live as long as Weaver, Rory. However long that may be. And so will Lucas, our child.”

“But— what— I— and—what?!”

I stammer at her in confusion and disbelief, struggling to keep a hurricane of thoughts inside now that my mind has been blown wide open. I take a few breaths, then manage tochoose just one question to ask: “Why would getting pregnant do that to you?”

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