by Niranjan K
“I like Selwood,” Zain said. He didn’t know when he reached that conclusion. “He sounds like a good man. Look at what he did for Sergio and Niek. There are not many people who would have done that. Also, he sponsored David Flett’s lawsuit from his own pocket. Now he’s buying us a DNA Scanner, and reimbursing Raul again out of his own pocket.” Zain shook his head. The man was a God-send. “He’s a good man,” he repeated.
Lucas snorted. “Good?” There was something almost vicious about his tone.
Zain stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? Lucas?”
Lucas got up from his chair and moved away. He was clearly agitated as he looked at them both. “What I’m about to tell you,” he said. “It is not to leave this room. No one is to know. This isn’t need to know. No one finds out. If Selwood learns I told you... I don’t know what he’ll do, for all his claims of change.”
“All right,” Zain said, worried. Claims of change? Through his peripheral vision he could see Amir nod.
Lucas walked towards them, sitting down again. “Have you heard of a twenty third century criminal called Gerald Lane?”
“The hacker?” Amir asked. “The one who disabled the-” he stopped. “Sorry. Yes, I know of him. I mean, everyone in my field does. What he did may have been reprehensible, but it was genius.”
“His genius caused the death of around 200 children,” Lucas said.
Zain recalled the history lessons he’d all but forgotten. Gerald Lane was mentioned in them as one of the worst mass murderers in the history of Cynfor.
“What about him?” Zain asked.
Lucas must have a reason for mentioning a man who had been dead for centuries. According to the history books, he’d been sentenced to death without a trial. Thaxter who was the elected First Minister then had pushed through a legislation that gave them powers to sentence criminals who had committed particularly atrocious crimes without a trial, and Lane had come under its purview.
Lucas drew a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh. “Alexander Selwood is Gerald Lane,” he said.
“That’s impossible!” Amir said.
Zain agreed. How could that even be? No man lived that long, except Thaxter, his Elite, and the Rogues. Alexander was none of that, not if he lived in the 23rd Century. It was when the Elite was first formed and he knew all of them by name, and all were in Cryo now.
“I hope you’re going to explain that fantastic statement, Lucas,” Zain said, the light reflecting from the media wall drawing his attention towards it.
He could see all of them reflected on the smooth surface. Amir, pale and young, unable to sit still, Lucas biting his nails, sitting hunched, and trembling, and he sitting as still as a statue, his face furrowed with worry.
Amir’s eyes met his on the media wall, and Amir grinned. “I wish I could be so still andimpassive,” he said.
Zain rolled his eyes. “I’m not impassive,” he said, giving Lucas time to get his thoughts in order.
Amir shook his head. “Maybe not. Do you know what you remind me of?”
He shook his head, hoping Amir wouldn’t say anything too embarrassing. Amir grabbed a brand new pad that lay on the panel. Selwood’s gift.
“This,” Amir turned it to show him, and Zain’s first thought was it wasn’t too bad.
It was a sculpture made of a black rock which depicted a man standing with his eye on the horizon. There was something peaceful about the man’s posture, and something that radiated strength in his expression. Zain couldn’t find any resemblance between himself and the statue except the colour.
He must have looked confused because Amir said, “It is the stillness, and the strength.”
“What material is that?” He heard himself asking.
“It’s granite,” Amir said.
A hard substance. Was that how he appeared?
“Well, it looks better than me,” he said, to cover his confusion. “I mean, no broken nose or scars. It's not dorky looking and doesn’t have glasses either.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Amir said.
“Okay,” Lucas said, interrupting. “I can explain, Zain, but that would mean that Amir would need to know,”
Zain stilled, understanding. Lucas was personally involved in this story. He wasn’t surprised. He looked at Amir whose eyes held a shrewd expression. He probably realised they were keeping something from him.
Zain nodded. “If you’re okay with Amir knowing, I have no problems with it,” he said.
Lucas turned to Amir. “My real name is Marvin Griffel,” he said.
Amir gaped. “You’re... you’re the man who invented the immortality drug!”
“It was an accident,” Lucas said. “Or at least, it started accidentally.”
“An accident?” Amir asked. “How can you invent something like that accidentally?”
Lucas sighed. “Let me start at the beginning. Okay?”
“Okay,” Amir said, though he looked like he had lots of questions.
“Okay,” Zain echoed. He had never heard this story though he had known who Lucas was. Lucas had always been secretive about his life when he was Griffel.
“As I said,” Lucas began. “My name is Marvin Griffel. I was a scientist in the 23rd century. I... I was married, and had a daughter. Her name was Holly, and she... when she was eight, she was diagnosed with a rare disease called Ashkii’s syndrome. It was believed to be genetic, but it could lie dormant for generations before manifesting. Gene manipulation hadn’t advanced much in those days, so there was no cure. It was 100% fatal, and those afflicted died in excruciating pain, as their organs slowly failed one by one.” Lucas paused again, his hands clenching on the armrests of his chair. There was a sheen of tears on his eyes which were full of pain, but his voice was steady enough as he continued. “It was so rare, affecting maybe one in a billion and my Holly had it. Her death... it drove me and my wife apart, and she left me. I quit my job and started researching Ashkii’s, intending to find a cure, but... well... I wasn’t very successful... my savings ran out, and I was forced to find a job so I could continue my research.”
Lucas was not looking at either of them, but Zain scooted his chair closer, and placed a hand on Lucas’ shoulder. This was obviously not easy for Lucas to talk about.
“Seven years after Holly’s death, Gerald Lane reached out to me. He was in the hospital, dying of Ashkii’s.” He paused. “Lane... his arrest was a much publicised one. Thaxter was the First Minister at the time and he was expected to sweep the elections which were a year away. Anyway, Lane found an article I’d published in an online magazine and contacted me. He wanted my cure for Ashkii’s, but...”
“You didn’t have a cure,” Zain said.
Lucas nodded. “I didn’t, but Lane was desperate. In the end, I agreed to administer the compound that I had developed in return for five million Plous, which was the currency of the Cynfor at the time. I knew it wasn’t a viable drug, and Lane knew it too, but... he was desperate and I took advantage of that...”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Amir muttered. “So what happened? Did it work?”
Lucas shook his head. “No. To be honest, I was certain it would not. Anyway, around that time, the news about Lane’s sickness leaked out, and Thaxter’s main political rival, a man named Albert Gordon, whose party was a sort of a religious thing, started playing to the masses. He claimed it was God’s judgement. Suddenly, Thaxter was losing ground in popularity polls, and Gordon was gaining. I guess he must have felt the need to do something, so he pushed through a legislation that enabled him to sentence Lane without a trial.”
“But he was already dying,” Zain was confused.
“And Gordon was calling it God’s will, God’s judgement, and Thaxter had to do something. So, he pushed through the law, and Lane was sentenced to death.” Lucas said. “No law existing at that time would have gotten him anything worse than a life sentence, if he had a trial. Anyway, the news of Lane’s sentence was welcomed widely and Thaxter regained the
ground he’d lost. He was being touted as a strong leader, as one who wasn’t afraid to take tough measures to protect the people.”
“And no one realised or cared for the blatant violation of basic human and civil rights,” Zain muttered.
“Oh, there were isolated voices,” Lucas said. “But no one paid much attention to them. Anyway the date of the execution was fixed, and Lane was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs with all major media houses telecasting it live.” Lucas paused. “The drugs failed to kill him.”
“What?” Amir started. “But how?”
“No one knew, but Thaxter... well, his attempt to win back the lost ground had blown up in his face and Albert Gordon was again talking about divine judgement and about how prideful men who tried to challenge God were shown their place by the Almighty. Lane was taken back to the hospital where after a barrage of tests, the doctors were baffled to find that not only did he appear to be cured of Ashkii’s, but that the organs that had failed were repairing themselves. Lane had suddenly become valuable, the doctors calling him the key to immortality, and he was kept under constant surveillance. One morning, he was not in his room. All surveillance and security equipment was disabled, and the guards were shot full of the sedatives that were supposed to be administered to Lane.”
“At least he didn’t kill them,” Zain added, which perhaps was an unfair thing to say.
“Anyway, Thaxter lost even more ground, and was voted out of power in the next election. I don’t know what happened to Lane after that, but I... I guessed what must have happened. Ashkii’s was, as I said, a genetic anomaly, so most of the medicines meant to slow it down and my half finished compound were all meant to act on the DNA. I assumed that the combination of all that had somehow reacted with the chemicals in the poisons and the whole must have bonded with his DNA to make him into something that could not be killed. I felt so certain of it that I got the records from the hospital and prison detailing all the drugs that Lane had been administered with.”
“And you replicated the drug?” Amir asked.
“It wasn’t that simple,” Lucas said. “Though I had all the data, I was more focussed on finding a cure for Ashkii’s and within the year, I had developed one. Having achieved that, I turned my attention back to what happened to Lane... I should have left it alone, but I couldn’t. It took a lot of trial and error and a frequent visit to the local labs for getting animals for testing, but in another four years I had developed a drug that I was pretty sure would replicate the effects of whatever had happened to Lane. I administered it to myself, and then I set fire to my house.”
“You what?” both of them yelled.
“I had to test it,” Lucas said simply. “It wasn’t like I could get volunteers. Anyway, the test was a success. My skin regenerated faster than it burned, and I suffered no adverse effects from smoke inhalation. After that I tried a few ways of killing myself. Shot myself, stabbed myself, drowned myself, poisoned myself, but nothing worked. I was immortal. I patented my drug and then... then I made the biggest mistake of my life.” He paused. “Second biggest. Biggest was going down that path in the first place.”
“What did you do?” Amir asked.
“I went to Thaxter, and I told him about my drug. I didn’t like Albert Gordon, mainly because I had no belief in God, and Thaxter had always dismissed religion as so much mumbo-jumbo, taking pride in his identity as a man of science.” Lucas sighed. “Thaxter... he administered it to himself, and to a few of his rabid goons. They staged a coup and overthrew Gordon, executed him, and declared Thaxter as the Supreme Ruler of Cynfor.”
There was silence in the room, and Zain wished he hadn’t known any of this. In a way, it was Lucas’ fault that they were here, but he could not blame him either.
“Thaxter reverse engineered your drug?” he asked.
Lucas nodded. “He must have. He passed a law that made the State have monopoly over all inventions, and sent his Elite—though they were called something else then—to arrest me and to confiscate my drug. I escaped and went underground, but he got all the samples of the drug that I had made. It is possible that he got his scientists to reverse engineer it.” He paused. “Mind you, people were tired of Gordon’s rhetoric and policies, so they didn’t mind when Thaxter came to power even though he abolished democracy, but... things changed. Thaxter became more and more autocratic... even those who raised the tiniest criticism were incarcerated or executed as traitors... A few attempts were made to get rid of him, but...” He paused again. “I started the Resistance back then, because it was my fault, my responsibility, and it still is.”
Again, silence fell, and this time, none of them bothered to break it. Zain thought he could understand Lucas’ anger and hatred towards Lane, or Selwood as he called himself now. He had been a criminal responsible for the death of children and due in part to Lucas’ meddling, he had become immortal. Still, Zain wasn’t ready to judge the man for what he once was. Lucas might not see it, but everything Selwood did pointed to the fact that he had indeed changed. It was quite possible that Selwood would want Thaxter gone as badly as they did, so his helping them might not have any altruistic motives, but everything he did for Sergio and Niek showed that he was at least trying to be good.
Twenty One
Nolan ran a hand through his hair, distraught. He was in Sergio Martinez’s house, along with the other employees of Selwood Corp and a few Investigators.
Mr. Selwood was still on Ignis, and wasn’t due to arrive for a few hours yet. No matter how urgent the situation, the distance between Ignis and Prith couldn't be covered in less than 17 hours, nor could they charter flights out of Ignis. Early morning and late evening were the only two times that flights could navigate the heat of Ignis’ atmosphere.
In Mr. Selwood’s absence, all of them were quite nervous. Fortunately, the Defenders were there to keep the media out, or it would have been an even worse nightmare.
The doctor bending over Mr. Martinez’s body stood up, tucking his scanner back into its pouch. He was a short man, with white hair, black beady eyes and a lithe frame. “No foul play that I can discern,” he said. “Heart attack.”
“Did he have a history of heart disease?” The lead Investigator, Valeria Chernova asked Kaya. Ms. Chernova was a short woman, trim, with golden hair and wide blue eyes. Kaya was shaking slightly, her face pale, and her voice shook as she answered. “N...not... that I kn... know of.”
Kaya’s face was puffy and her eyes red; she had no make-up on. The alert had come early in the morning, and the Defenders had roused all of them from their respective beds and dragged them over to Mr. Martinez’s house. Nolan knew that none of them looked much better, and were all equally in shock.
“Who has the medical records of Mr. Martinez?” Ms. Chernova’s blue eyes were sharp as they turned to him.
She was not beautiful, her mouth was too large, her nose was snub, and her chin was square but her eyes were piercing and intense and Nolan swallowed. For some reason, she had singled him out for interrogation, asking him things even in the middle of questioning someone else.
“The HR Department,” he was trying to keep his voice steady.
There was something extremely frightening about being questioned by a member of the Elite. Valeria Chernova was the Head of the Enforcers, Investigators and the Defenders. Nolan would not have thought she would be involved in ground level investigations.
She gave him a cold look. “Give me a name, boy.”
He gulped. “Ms. Lynch,” he said. “Robyn Lynch, the one standing in that corner, in the green blazer.”
He shut up as Ms. Chernova’s look became even more glacial.
He stopped himself from heaving a sigh of relief as she made her way to Robyn. She had been Head of Human Resources from before his time. She was a squat woman with bulging grey eyes and wispy black hair. Despite the unprepossessing appearance, she was one of the mainstays of Selwood Corp and amongst the most popular Department Heads.
Nolan wished Mr. Selwood was there. He wasn’t prepared for this. He had thought he was equal to any crisis that might happen, but the sudden and unexplained death of a Department Head, and that too someone he knew personally, was not among the crisis scenarios he had in mind. Being roused out of bed by the Defenders in the early morning, and being questioned by an Elite was par for the course at the moment. Nolan could only be grateful that he hadn’t stayed with his parents after the family dinner the previous night. Mom and Dad would have been shocked by the sudden appearance of the Defenders in their living room. At least they had not appeared in his bedroom.
“Don’t worry,” Victor Larsen, head of R&D was at his side, smiling at him, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Until proven otherwise, they treat all deaths outside of hospitals as murders. This is just a formality.” He patted his shoulder. “You’re doing good.”
Nolan gave Mr. Larsen a grateful smile as the man moved to Kaya’s side, and put an arm around her shoulder, leaning down to say something to her in a low voice. Kaya gave a weak and wan smile as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
“Do you have any idea when Alexander will be back?” David asked. He looked the same as ever, but Nolan could see the tension in his frame.
“His flight is early morning from Ignis. With the time difference, he could be here sometime in the afternoon.” Nolan said. “How’s Ellen, David?”
David was one of the few people in Selwood Corp that Nolan was comfortable addressing by his first name, probably because he’d known him as Mr. Selwood’s friend before he came to work for Selwood Corp.
“She’s getting better. It was a tough time, but the cancer’s in remission and the doctors say that she’ll be all right within a few weeks.”
The tension was leaving David’s frame as he spoke and his shoulders relaxed and his face lost its rigidity.
“You have a live-in nurse now?” Nolan asked.
David nodded. “She’s a rock. I don’t know how I would have managed without her.” His eyes shone now.
