The Long Life
The connecting flight touched down in Johannesburg just after dusk, the sky still holding a trace of heat from the day. The sprawling city lights stretched to the horizon, a reminder that Africa’s economic heartbeat thrummed here in Gauteng Province.
Judd led Cindy, Ava, and Mary through the terminal toward the Protea Hotel OR Tambo, the glass-and-brick façade glowing warm against the night. The hotel wasn’t luxury, but it was clean, efficient, and—most importantly—five minutes from the airport. After the long haul from Europe, none of them argued about turning in early. Tomorrow, the real work would begin.
This mission was unlike the others. There was no encrypted manifest, no stolen prototype, no hard drive to hack. What had brought them here was a whisper—an old story from a Bakwena elder, passed to Judd by an Order contact in Gaborone. A legend of ba phelang ruri—“the ones who truly live.” A people who never seemed to age, their faces youthful until the day they died.
Judd’s instincts told him it might be more than folklore. If these people carried something in their DNA that slowed aging, it could be the key to undermining Sebastian Wolf’s virus—a virus designed to rewrite human DNA. Perhaps nature had already written its own defense.
They left the next morning in a rugged Toyota Land Cruiser, heading northwest toward the Botswana border. The road out of Johannesburg quickly gave way to open stretches, passing rolling farmlands and townships before cutting through Rustenburg, the platinum-mining capital of South Africa.
Mary pressed her face to the window as they passed vast mining complexes, conveyor belts snaking toward the horizon. Judd used the opportunity to give a little context.
“This is where the world dug into the earth for one of its rarest metals,” he said. “But in the late 1800s, this region drew another kind of explorer—men like David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. They came looking for trade routes and missionary outposts. And they left with maps, specimens… and more than a few secrets.”
Ava smirked. “Sounds familiar.”
By midday, hunger forced them off the road into a Spur Steak Ranch, a South African chain known for burgers, milkshakes, and booths decorated in mock–Wild West style. Cindy declared the fries “dangerously addictive.” Judd wasn’t sure if it was the nostalgia or the seasoning, but the burgers hit the spot.
By late afternoon, the paved road gave way to gravel, and the African veld began to stretch wide and endless—flat grasslands broken by acacia trees, their umbrella-shaped canopies silhouetted against the sinking sun.
They reached Etali Safari Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve just as the light turned molten gold. The lodge blended into the bush—thatch roofs, wooden decks, open-air dining overlooking a waterhole where impala were already gathering. It would be their base for the next few days.
At first light the next morning, they met their tracker, a wiry man with sharp eyes and a smile that didn’t quite give away what he was thinking.
“They call me Doctor,” he said, his Setswana accent lilting. “Not because I heal people—though perhaps, in a way, I do.”
The first game drive was a gift from the veld. They saw lion at a fresh kill, buffalo moving in tight formation, and a herd of giraffe so graceful Cindy couldn’t stop photographing them. A rare black rhino lumbered from the scrub, much to Ava’s delight, and Judd had his own close encounter—an elephant bull that decided to mock-charge the Cruiser, ears spread wide, trunk raised in challenge.
By the time they returned to camp that evening, the air was cool and smoky from the braai. Doctor tended the grill, the coals glowing under cuts of spiced lamb and boerewors sausage. The firelight flickered across his face as he began to speak.
“My grandfather,” Doctor said, “was a sangoma—a traditional healer. As was his father before him. We are not just herbalists. We are keepers of memory. Some say, keepers of the old magic.”
Judd leaned forward. “And this legend I’ve heard—the people who never age?”
Doctor nodded slowly. “The Bakwena tell of a clan that lives far to the west, near the salt pans. They say the ancestors blessed them with blood that does not wither. Not immortality—but life that flows stronger, longer. My grandfather claimed their blood can fight off sickness no other medicine can touch. Malaria, the wasting fevers… even some say, the diseases that rot the blood.”
“Viruses,” Judd said quietly.
“Yes,” Doctor replied. “If your enemy seeks to change the blood… perhaps the blood of the long-lived can refuse the change.”
It was the first lead that didn’t come from a server room or surveillance photo. This was older—something Wolf might not yet have accounted for.
Doctor set down the tongs and looked Judd in the eye. “Tomorrow, I will take you to my village. There is an old woman there. She has lived longer than anyone I know. She remembers much… and forgets nothing. But she will not speak to strangers. You will need my word.”
Judd nodded, the firelight catching in his eyes.
“Then tomorrow,” he said, “we go.”
