"Any last words?"

Lazarus didn't bat an eye.

"I see, what a shame." He spoke.

He picked another hearing aid out and then flicked it. Then brought it to his ear.

It was against rationality to kill Lazarus right here as he would make more money forcing him to work in an underground lab. However, Bardan didn't care about that. He rather has him dead than even earn a couple billion more.

It was Bardan that couldn't let it go.

***

Lazarus looked at himself. He was old, frail and dead. He was pathetic. When he was old, he would have defence mechanisms to cope with his old age.

Sigmund Freud listed many of these defence mechanisms in dealing with pain. There were only a tiny fraction of people who truly accepted their old age. Lazarus as someone who wanted to cure aging the most did not accept it. He detested aging.

Yet he did not hate himself. He pitied the shell in front of him. It was a moult for a new being. He was to be a god among men.

"Any last words?" Bardan said mockingly.

Lazarus easily dug his fingers inside the corpse's wrist and pulled out a small black hand-held device which they couldn't see clearly behind the wheelchair.

Bardan's eyebrows furrowed but before he could say anything, a high pitch ring assaulted their ears. Bardan didn't know what was happening so he tried to shoot Lazarus but he couldn't pull the trigger.

The hand holding the pistol was shaking.

"ccarcck" Bardan gasped trying to ask for help.

'What are they doing!' Bardan was furious at the mercenaries he hired.

None of them could pull the trigger. All of them were paralysed. They all turned pale not just in their face but everywhere else and dark blue veins popped out on their skins. They were all gasping as they had difficulty breathing or were trying to speak.

The device Lazarus pressed was a sonic taser. It is a non-lethal, anti-personnel device produced by an Indie industry at a spy tech expo. The device produces a unique pitched sonic frequency that attacks the auditory system of the enemy, overloads its nervous system and causes the whole body to lock up and become paralyzed.

The only one who wasn't affected was Lazarus.

Why didn't it?

It also comes with a specific pair of earpieces designed to block out the sonic frequency so that when using the gadget, the operator is not impaired. Lazarus had it modified so that it would work as hearing aid and be inconspicuous at the same time.

Lazarus walked casually like he was taking a walk in the park.

He gently pried the gun from Bardan's hand, stopped and grinned at him before walking away.

*bang*

Gunshots came one after another from behind Bardan's ears. Piss began to fill his pants and leak down his legs, forming a yellow puddle around his feet. A person came into his peripheral vision.

Lazarus sniffed and looked down to see the yellow pool. He stood there and laughed out loud causing buds of angry tears to form at the corner of Bardan's eyes. He was utterly humiliated and he was going to die with no chance for retribution.

Lazarus opened Bardan's blazer and dropped the sonic taser in his hidden breast pocket. He closed it and patted the pocket where the device was.

Then he gently carried and dropped his old friend onto the ground in a prone position. So that Bardan's back was facing the ceiling and half of his face was pressed against the puddle of piss.

Bardan could intimately smell his urine. He was so upset that he didn't think of things like how fortunate it was that the pool of piss wasn't deep enough to enter his eye. The sonic frequency coursed through his body, causing immense pain in every cell. The only thoughts in his head were those of vengeance.

The effects last for fifteen minutes and will kill him if used longer. Beyond the 5-minute mark, it will cause permanent ear damage and reduced hearing. After the ten-minute mark, it will cause permanent brain and cardiovascular damage.

Lazarus crouched next to his face.

"The last words I'll say to you..." Lazarus looked to the ceiling as he pondered. "Can't really think of anything." He grinned.

"But it's a shame you didn't bring your wife along. I could have given you a show to pass the time."

A furious look came upon Bardan's face.

"But I don't have another set of these earpieces. Hey, don't be so mad now." He said in a cheery tone.

"You tried to kill me after all." His tone didn't change much but one could sense a chill in his words.

It was natural that Bardan had it coming to him but he still looked at Lazarus with hateful eyes.

Lazarus looked down at his friend that he knew for a long time before climbing up the basement stairs.

Blood dribbled down Bardan's ears and nose. He laid there for the next 15 minutes, in his piss, before dying in agony.

Lazarus sat down on an outdoor sun lounge before his backyard pool. The beautiful rays of light reflected off his youthful vigorous skin, which would have burnt his pale complexion. While relaxing, a hovering drone came to him and he used its call function.

***

After giving his Noble Prize speech that accounted for all four of his winning prizes. He picked up one of the four Noble Prize medals hanging from his neck.

It was the new plutonium metal that replaced the gold medals. Anyone with a shred of an elementary school in this day and age would know how significant this medal prize was.

Plutonium is radioactive.

Atoms found are either stable or unstable. An atom is stable if it balances the forces between the particles that make up the nucleus. If these forces are unbalanced, an atom is radioactive, if the nucleus has an excess of internal energy.