"What's this…some sort of trick? Who are you? What's going on?" A man at the back of the room asked loudly. He was the owner of one of the largest multi-media broadcasting corporations in the world, and did not appreciate surprises.
"It can't be…surely not…" one of the ladies gasped, standing up from her chair and moving towards the intruder to get a closer look.
Just then, the second person walked through the open door. The Board members turned around, and this time their surprise was a wave which swept over them all. One by one they stood up from their seats, and gasped aloud. Some clapped their hands involuntarily, others smiled and laughed. There was no mistaking the second person who had walked into the room. One of the most powerful of the board members, and perhaps the longest serving of them all.
And yet…it was impossible…
Colonel Packard had just walked into the room unaided.
No wheelchair.
No crutches.
No assistance whatsoever.
But that was not all.
As Colonel Packard walked around the table and took his seat beside Trevor Simons, the assembled board members stared in disbelief at the youthful men who had taken the seats previously occupied by men at least twenty years older.
"You…you're so young…" Maria Wiesenbaum, owner of the Wiesenbaum Bank and Chairwoman of Wiesenbaum Industries, exclaimed. Unable to stop herself, she walked around the table to Trevor and stroked the soft skin on his face.
There were tears running down her cheeks.
Chapter 38
Rohloff Tower
New York
Kendrick Hart and Rupert Rohloff looked around the room at the reactions of those assembled before them. They were pleased by what they saw. Rupert turned to Sonderheim and nodded. David recognized his cue.
"Ladies and gentlemen…" he paused for a few moments to allow everyone time to return to their seats and compose themselves. As he began to talk the air was filled with excitement, every eye turned towards him, the most powerful men and women in America putty in his hands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as legend would have it, thousands of years ago in Greece, the daughters of the god Zeus and his wife Themis were given an extraordinary task. Perhaps you have heard of them? We often refer to them as the three Fates, three beautiful daughters…Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis, who according to mythology oversaw the fates of us lesser mortals. Each of the Fates had a special job. Atropos was given the task of cutting the thread or web of life. Her sister Clotho was given the task of spinning the thread of life, and it was Lachesis who measured the length of each thread, the length of which determined a person's lifespan. It would appear that of the three, Lachesis was the one who had most power over us mortals, for it was she who determined how long our lives would be…"
"…An interesting story, I think you will agree. But one to which we can all identify. As each of us nears the end of the thread of life that has been allotted to us, we all begin to wonder at the course our lives have taken, at the web of mortal experiences we have built around us, and at the strength of the threads that bind us to our lives. And while we wonder at all of this, we see for the first time how painfully thin each of these threads really are…As we stare our own mortality in the face, how many of us would be prepared to give everything we had to extend or thicken the thread of our life…how many would be prepared to embrace Lachesis and offer her any price that she demanded in order to extend our lifespan."
"…And if Lachesis was to hear your plea, and she were to turn to you and offer you a life extension, a new 'thread' to add to your existing life span…what price would she demand? This price which each of you would gratefully pay in order to live longer, fitter, and healthier?"
David Sonderheim was in his element. This was the moment he had looked forward to for the last three years.
As he walked from one side of the table to the other, gesturing slowly with his hands as he spoke, the eyes of the Board followed, glued to him, unable to look away.
"The natural barrier which seems to be the upper end of the human life span is 120 years of age. Yet, the average life span in the world today is only about 77 years of age…if we are lucky we, …you and I… can hope to live to between 75 and 80! But the older we get, the greater the chance we have of being struck down by neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. And if we survive over 85 years of age? Did you know, that over the age of 85 Parkinson's affects about ten percent of all people, and Alzheimer's over fifty percent?…"
"What use is extending the span of our lives, if the life extension we are granted is only a ticket to senility and a life without meaning and purpose, a life without memory. That is no life at all…"
"At the Gen8tyx Company we have never seen the sense in extending our life spans unless we can do so meaningfully. When I started the company eight years ago, it was my dream to find a cure for the most common neurodegenerative diseases which rid us of the quality of our lives as we grow older."
"Our research has not been directed at increasing our life spans, but rather to extending the effective life spans within our given lives, by extending the health span each individual enjoys. To each person I wanted to add years of health, productivity and vigor, not years of decline…"
"Only later, after we have solved the problems we face within our existing life spans, will we allow ourselves to dream of actually pushing back the barrier which limits the number of years a human may live on this earth. Perhaps, if time permits, I will address this question again later…" As he spoke, Sonderheim lifted up a finger in the air, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
The audience were puppets on the end of his string. They danced before him, following the top of his fingertip.
Now, now..Not later!…tell us now…
"For the first few years we looked at the processes which caused Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The motive behind this, you will be pleased to here, was not entirely philanthropic. With more and more people living longer, the number of people being affected by these conditions is steadily increasing…If we could come up with a treatment, an effective treatment, we could charge almost anything we wanted for it…imagine…fifty percent of all 85 year olds…and also a significant percentage of all those younger than that…the potential market is vast! And growing every day…"
He could see them all licking their lips. They could taste the money.
"As you all know, we have already released many products into the market place which effectively treat the symptoms, and keep the condition at bay…and hence our market capitalization has shot to over $1.6 billion dollars…"
"…But over the past two years we have made great strides…vast leaps over our competitors…we've begun to penetrate the veil which has shrouded the mystery of how and why these diseases begin to develop in the first place …what actually causes them…and once we were able to discover that, we were able to start thinking about how to prevent them in the first place…"
A big burly businessman in the back row shifted uneasily in his seat. He was Lars Pederson, CEO and majority shareholder of one of America's largest insurance conglomerates. He owned a third of all the major insurance companies in the US.
"Of course, there is also a great incentive to do this from a socio-economic perspective…remember that we are not talking about extending people's lives…we are talking about eliminating or reducing the decrepitude that eats away at our society from within. People will still die when they get old, but during the latter part of their lives they will be vital and productive…our new discoveries will wipe out the astronomic medical costs incurred by people who 'exist' as sickly, pathetic, shadows of their former selves, a burden to society. A burden that costs insurance companies billions every year…"
Lars smiled, and settled back into his seat, comfortable once again.
"Yes… ladies and gentlemen, we have made many amazing discoveries! While we were looking at the causes of degenerative diseases we stumbl
ed across many wondrous things…wondrous things…and in our awe we looked hard at what we saw. Yes, it is true that at Gen8tyx, we have found out many of nature's secrets…But what is a secret if everyone is told of it…?"
David stopped in his tracks. He looked out of the window, gazing out towards the Statue of Liberty, his mouth half-open. To those in the meeting room, it appeared as if he were trying to make a decision, trying to decide if he should tell them something…whether or not he should share with them the secrets he had discovered…
Share with us…you must…you have to…we own you…the secret is ours…tell us…tell us… please, tell us!
As if he had come to a decision, David walked back to the centre of the room, and turned once more to face his audience.
"How many of you have ever heard of mitochondria?"
Like two school children the heads of Philadelphia Pharma and Sabre Genetics both put up their hands, then realizing what they were doing, immediately came to their senses and pulled them down again, but not before they had exchanged glances with each other and turned bright red with embarrassment.
"A few…well, if I may, I would like you to meet a little friend of mine. He is the basis of what I will later introduce to you as the Orlando Treatment…" David turned to the screen and pointed the portable mouse at it. The Gen8tyx logo disappeared and was replaced by an image of a human cell.
"…The human cell is made up of many smaller parts, called 'organelles'…but there is one type of organelle in particular which concerns us, which we call mitochondria…this is a picture of it…"
The image on the screen changed, and was replaced by a picture that looked rather like a balloon with a slice of walnut inside it.
"These mitochondria are tiny…there can be several thousand mitochondria in any one cell…the mitochondria have quite simple structures…there is an outer membrane and an inner membrane. The outer membrane covers the mitochondria and the inner membrane wraps over itself many times…it's like a table cloth that is folded over and over …the more folds you get in, the more surface area of the table cloth that you can fit into the cell. Which is important, because it's across the surface area of the inner membrane where the chemical reactions take place within the mitochondria…and these chemical reactions are vital to us all. You see, it is these chemical reactions that give us energy, that give us our life. The larger the surface area covering each mitochondrion…the more energy it can produce for us…"
David stopped for a second. It was very important not to lose his audience.
"Let's step back a second…So when I say that the mitochondria give us our energy…what do I mean? Let me ask you all a second question…Who has heard of respiration?"
Everyone put their hands up.
Kendrick Hart laughed. David Sonderheim had reduced the most powerful people in America to a room full of children.
"Good…for it is respiration that keeps us alive…we breathe, we live…we don't breathe, we die. But what does that really mean…? "
"When we breathe…air enters our lungs, and respiration floods our bodies with oxygen. Without oxygen we die. Yet there is another thing that we need in order to survive. Yes…that's right…food!…without food we die too!"
"I suppose a better explanation, a more correct explanation, would be to say that respiration is the process by which organisms within our cells combine the food we eat with the oxygen we breathe, in such a way as to extract chemical energy which fuels life-sustaining processes within our body…"
"…So for those of you who have ever wondered what happens to the food we eat, this is it. Nature has given the mitochondria the task of converting the foodstuffs we eat into the energy which keeps us alive. They do this by extracting energy from the food and turning it into an energy rich compound called ATP or Adenosine Triphosphate…Now, looking back to the picture of the mitochondria on the plasma screen again, as I just mentioned, try to imagine that the surface of the inner membrane of the mitochondrion cell is like a big table cloth and that the larger the surface area of the inner membrane of the mitochondrion then the more foodstuffs you are able to put on that table cloth,…or in other words, the larger the table cloth, the more food that can be digested and the more energy each cell can produce…"
There was a round of smiles. They all understood that.
So far, so good.
"Great…I think we can all see that so long as we have food, oxygen and zillions of mitochondria dotted around our bodies, we can have lots of ATP, lots of energy, and lots of healthy cells…"
It was a statement framed as a question, and everyone nodded in response.
"…So long as we have lots of healthy mitochondria, we're all fine. That's what we call being young…it's what we define as 'youth'."
"So what happens as the mitochondria stop making so much ATP? I'll hazard a guess that you're all thinking the same thing as I am…and you'd be correct!…When the mitochondria stop making ATP, we run out of energy…"
"And without enough energy, our cells can’t function properly, or they starve and die. And when cells die, in general that's not good for us…"
A few people laughed.
"When we're young that's not so much of a problem…when we are growing up there are plenty of cells about which are all full of mitochondria,…plenty of ATP…plenty of energy…and if a cell dies, another living cell just divides, turns into two cells, then four, then eight…you get the picture…We don't miss the dying cells so much because more are always being produced to replace them. But as we grow older, we start to lose our mitochondria and we can't create new cells fast enough to replace the ones that have died."
"So, without sufficient mitochondria around to produce enough ATP, we start to die. And that is what we call growing old. Our physical strength, our stamina, even our consciousness…it all depends upon there being enough of the ATP around to keep us going. Even subtle deficits in the ATP can cause us to feel weak, or tired, or unable to think…"
"Quite significantly, we also discovered that when cells do not receive enough ATP from their mitochondria, they do not function optimally. We noticed that as we get older, a significant proportion of mitochondria start to function wrongly. So we started to ask questions like, 'Why do the mitochondria die?' and 'when the mitochondria do malfunction, what effect does it have on the rest of the body? ' These questions were fundamental to the discoveries we went on to make…"
--------------------
Day Twenty-Four
Burgess Hill
Pennsylvania
It was a nice hotel. Quiet. Small. And in the middle of nowhere. Exactly what Kerrin had been looking for.
After escaping the mayhem at The Post, Kerrin had made his way to the nearest train station and caught the first commuter train heading north. He didn't care where it was going, so long as it was as far away from the city as possible. Preferably a small town in the country where people probably didn’t watch the news so much, and he was unlikely to be recognized from the news bulletins.
He rode the train for an hour and a half, until he got to the last station, a small town out in the sticks, one main road, a few shops, and a lot of nothing. Exactly what he was looking for. Outside the train station he had found a taxi and asked the driver to take him to a good hotel, somewhere where he could take a break from the city.
The taxi-driver, an ex-New Yorker, knew exactly where to go.
"My sister-in-law runs a lovely place not far from here. It's quiet…but very plush…and surrounded by fields, and nature. It's very restful, if you like that sort of stuff…" He said, looking over his shoulder at Kerrin as he drove and not paying enough attention to the road ahead.
Kerrin checked in, took a room at the back of the hotel, and showered. Only after he was refreshed did he sit down on the bed with the parcel in front of him. He sat staring at it for ages, until the exhaustion overtook him and he fell into a deep sleep.
When the late morning light woke him the next day, the pa
rcel was still where he had left it.
He looked at it nervously, scared to pick it up and open it.
It didn't look much, but everything rested on the brown parcel and its contents. The lives of Dana, Fiona and himself. What would he do if he opened it, and found that it contained nothing important?
He had slept fitfully for over ten hours, but Kerrin was still tired: his hands were shaking, and one of his eyelids had started to twitch uncontrollably, and for a second he worried that he was on the verge of some sort of breakdown. His stomach was a tight knot, and he couldn't think clearly.
He looked in the mirror on the wall in his room. His face was tired and drawn. The man who looked back at him was desperate. A pathetic figure whom he didn’t recognize. Kerrin was fed up of running. He had come to the end of the line. The parcel was his last chance.
Swallowing hard, he picked the parcel up, ripped off the end, and spilled the contents onto the bed in front of him.
--------------------
Rohloff Tower
New York
Sonderheim coughed.
"Please excuse me…" He leant forward and picked up a glass of water from the table and took a few sips.
"That's better…" he continued. "Now, in trying to understand the ageing process, we began to look more closely at the role of mitochondria, and to understanding the chemical reactions that take place within in the cells…"
"…As we get older, more and more mitochondria are destroyed throughout the daily course of our lives, which leads to an overall drop in energy production. Some parts of the body get weaker, some parts of the body die …and the body ages…"
"As we saw earlier, it is the mitochondria that produce energy for the cells in the respiration process. In the course of these vigorous chemical reactions, many electrons are observed to 'leak' away from the mitochondrial cell structure. These 'leaking' electrons also interact with the oxygen which is present, to produce imbalanced chemicals which we call superoxide radicals…or 'free radicals'…"
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 87
