CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sam Mueller was just about to give up the dream of one more great discovery when a face floated in front of his screen early one morning. Mueller was still sleeping when he rolled over and saw Dr. Peter Stern, one of Immunicate’s leading researchers, staring at him. “Sam, get up.”
“What is it?”
“We did it!”
Mueller knew what he was talking about. It was what everyone was working on all around the world and, if true, it would be the next big thing.
“Are you sure?”
“Come down here and look at the goddamn mice.”
When he got to the complex his heart was racing. One problem that remained with older people were their bones. There were many medicines to take as a preventative for bone decay, but they did very little in the long run. As more people were living into their nineties and beyond, a simple fall in the shower always resulted in a broken something. Science had tried to find a way of regenerating bone and had succeeded somewhat, but it had always concentrated on speeding up the healing process once the bone was broken.
Immunicate was working on something different: regenerating undamaged bone tissue. Bones that were simply weakened by age. By working with genes and new classes of stem cells, Immunicate finally showed that old bone could turn into new, replacing itself gradually, until a ninety-year-old’s leg was exactly the same as when he was forty.
The trouble it kept running into was that the process did not stay in the bones alone, but spread to the other organs, causing them to try to regenerate, which resulted in failure. But it looked as if Immunicate had finally solved the problem. Stern showed Mueller very old mice that were running on a wheel at top speed. “There is no spillage. It’s staying in the bone tissue.”
Sam Mueller had learned over the years not to get excited too soon, but he couldn’t help himself. He and his company needed this.
“If this works,” Mueller said, “we’ll have one-hundred-year-old people entering the Olympics! If the mice are fine, let’s go to the dogs.”
“Do you think I would have called you so excited if we hadn’t done that already?”
“You did?” Mueller was shocked. There was an earlier time when that step would never have been taken without his knowledge, but those days were gone. The company was so big and diverse he wasn’t in the loop on every single thing anymore. “And?”
“Same,” Stern said. “Same fucking thing! Great bones, no spillage!”
“My God! How long does it take?”
“Substantial regrowth in three months, complete repair in half a year.” Mueller thought he was going to faint. This wasn’t as good as curing cancer, and it may not have been his discovery directly, but the company he founded was about to let old people run and play like kids.
“So when do we start trials?”
“We’ll submit everything, hopefully in two months.”
“I think we should blast it out to the world. Let everyone know that you don’t fuck with Immunicate. Make it clear that humans haven’t tried it, but also make it clear that these animal studies are a first, and you mark my words, every big drug company on the planet is going to be jealous. I love it!” The news made headlines all over the world:
IMMUNICATE HOPEFUL OLD BONES WILL TURN INTO NEW
When Max Leonard saw that he went apoplectic. “Do you know what this means?” he said to Kathy. “This means the olds just got another twenty years of life, minimum. And if they find a way to regenerate the bones, all of the organs are next. These fuckers are going to live to be two hundred. They’re never going to leave.”
“Well, they haven’t tried it on humans,” Kathy said. “Maybe it won’t work.”
“It doesn’t matter. It just shows you where their priorities are. And as that Mueller gets older, all he’s going to do is try to fix up his own age group. Shit. This has to be stopped.”
“How?”
“Let’s have one more big meeting. We’ll know what to do after that.”
* * *
Brad Miller read the bone news, but he had mixed feelings. His bones were okay, and if he had still had his life and his home and his money, he would have been very happy, but what did he need better bones for? For the tent? He’d had enough of the tent. As much as he didn’t want to, he swallowed his pride and called his son.
“Dad? Are you okay? Are you still in Pasadena?”
“Yes.”
“We wanted to come visit but traveling there is still too tough.”
“I know. That’s okay.”
“Hey, did you read about the bones?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty great, right? Are you excited?”
“I’m thrilled.”
“Well, right now it’s only in mice, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for you.”
“Thanks,” his father said sarcastically. “That means a lot.”
“So how are they treating you?”
Brad decided just to stop the small talk. He held his nuts, a habit he acquired long ago when he had to say something he hated, and just blurted it out. “What about me living with you and the family?”
There was a silence on the other end that seemed to go on forever. If Brad hadn’t been looking at his son’s face, he would have thought the connection was lost. “You want to move in with us?” Tom meekly asked.
“You know what, forget it. It was just a thought. Forget it.”
“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all. Let me talk to Crystal. It’s just such a surprise and we don’t really have the room. You know it’s tiny here.”
“It’s okay, Tom, it was just a thought.”
“No, Dad, it’s a good thought. Let me figure it all out.”
“Fine. You figure it out. I love you.” And Brad hung up, sorry that he had called his son in the first place.
* * *
The bone story circulated around the West Wing and was raised at the morning press conference. “Has the President seen the news on the latest breakthrough on bone regeneration?”
“He’s seen it,” said Elizabeth Foreman, the press secretary, “and he thinks it’s very exciting, but we know from other discoveries that human trials are the most important, so we are keeping our fingers crossed.”
“Is there an update on the President’s mother?”
“No. Nothing has changed.”
Then a question came from the screen above the podium. The White House press briefings now allowed for twenty percent of their questions to come from reporters in other countries. A man from Germany asked, “Did the President’s mother leave instructions about end-of-life care?”
The press secretary not only did not know the answer, but she had to act offended, as if it breached some private boundary. “I have no idea and if I did, I don’t think it would be appropriate to tell you. That’s a personal family issue.” She thought it would stop there, but the reporter continued.
“Isn’t it a people’s issue because of the great cost of these situations? Is the President paying for this from his own pocket? Does his insurance pay for this?”
The press in the room were silent. They had felt it was too soon to address these kinds of issues, but apparently the overseas reporters did not. Foreman tried to contain her anger.
“The President has insurance through his job, which covers his immediate family. That would not include a parent, as you well know. Mrs. Bernstein would have to have her own coverage. Are you an insurance agent looking for a commission?”
She got the room to laugh a little and before the German reporter could ask anything else, she motioned for the screen to go black. Now all she was hoping for was that this did not open a Pandora’s box.
The President watched the press briefing while exercising. He was surprised it had taken this long to get that question and even more surprised it had come from overseas. The fact was, he agreed with the reporter. His mother did have insurance, most of it from the government, and this was an overwhe
lming expense that was going to lead to nothing. But what could he do?
Bernstein had earlier called in his private attorney, Harry Cannon, and had what could be perceived as a borderline illegal discussion.
“Did you look over everything?”
“Yes, Mr. President. There’s nothing there. She’s left her estate to the children and various causes but there is nothing spelled out for this.”
“Can a DNR be added?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Let’s say a child knows what the wishes were, that they heard the parent say it. Can it be added?”
“Did you hear her say that?”
The President looked at him. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“Don’t you have sisters, Mr. President?”
“Yes.”
“Did they ever hear that?”
“One sister doesn’t talk to her and the other feels that life should be prolonged forever.”
“I think unless all the siblings heard her wishes, it would be difficult to even contemplate changing the will at this point.”
Bernstein realized he had to backtrack a little just so this conversation would not look bad when Harry Cannon wrote his book. “I obviously want my mother to have the best care, but I don’t want her to suffer. I’m in a tough position. If the public thinks large amounts of Medicare are going to the President’s mother, especially when there is no hope of recovery, well, you understand, don’t you?”
“I do, Mr. President. Is she brain-dead?”
“No more than when she was alive.”
Harry laughed. It was a good joke, even if it was a bit surprising. He wasn’t aware of the details of the President’s relationship with his mother, but he had heard stories from White House staff of the few times she came to visit. Apparently there was a lot of arguing. “Seriously, sir. Is she medically brain-dead?”
“No. In a deep coma. No chance of coming out. But there is brain activity.”
“That’s a tough one, Mr. President. If a doctor ended her life out of compassion and one of your sisters sued, he would lose everything. No doctor would do that. She really needed to have something in writing.”
“What if there was something in a personal note somewhere? I know there are a lot of her things we haven’t gone through yet.”
Harry Cannon thought a moment. He didn’t feel completely comfortable in this conversation, but as a lawyer he couldn’t show that. “I guess it would depend on what the note said. If it was specific and detailed enough, it might have merit.”
“Okay, thanks, Harry. We’re looking over her personal stuff now. If I find something, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s fine, sir.”
When Harry left the meeting, the first thing he did was look at his own father’s living will. His mother had died before the cure for cancer, but his father was one of the olds and Harry didn’t want to face this same situation.
That night when they were lying in bed, the President and his wife talked about it. “Did you hear that German guy ask the question everyone is thinking?”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“I’m now the poster boy for the one thing I don’t believe in.”
“I don’t know what choice you really have.”
“How about killing her? After all, I’m the President.”
Betsy laughed, although there was a small part of her that wondered if her husband was serious. “She might just pass naturally.”
“There’s so much equipment in that room, she’ll outlive us.”
“There’s nothing you can do, at least tonight. Maybe nature will surprise you.”
“Yeah, maybe she’ll be the first person in a coma who can still criticize.”
* * *
Every day, AARP circulated to the senior staff any news story that could affect the organization. The question from the German reporter was right at the top, considering its implications. AARP’s job was to service the older population, but they wanted to create the impression that they cared about younger people, too. It was all a ruse, since their loyalty was only to their membership, but they still spent a lot of money on public relations to make them appear compassionate.
For example, they did not play up the bone story as much as they would have liked. First of all, there was no reason to, since it had made headlines on its own. It didn’t need their help. But they also didn’t want to appear to gloat about discoveries that made life easier for them and not others.
When Paul Prescott saw the question from the German reporter, he immediately called the head of PR, June Scully. “What did you think of the question about his mother?”
“I had the same feeling you did.”
“How do you know what my feeling was?”
Paul was smiling. He and June thought alike. She was ten years older than Paul and he was crazy about her—her work ethic, her sensibilities, everything.
“What I’m afraid of,” June said, “is that this is going to come up over and over. You have a President who ran on questioning life extension and now he’s in the middle of it. We have to hope this dies out.”
“We have to hope she dies out.”
June laughed. “Seriously, this could really be a problem, with the bombing and all. We sure don’t need such a highly visible person sucking money out of the system.”
“I know. I don’t see a way out right now. Maybe something will develop.”
“Maybe. I thought Los Angeles would take people’s minds off the seniors for a while, but it seems to have gotten worse. The less money there is out there, the more they look at us.”
“I’m so glad I’m not your age,” Paul joked. “Keep an eye out, honey, see if this story goes anywhere. Even small-time stuff, let me know.”
“I will, Paul. I’m worried, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Matthew Bernstein was a presidential historian, as most presidents were. When you belonged to such an exclusive club, you tended to know minute details about all the members. The most interesting of them all to Bernstein was Richard Nixon. Not because he thought he was the best president—far from it—but because there existed years of taped records of the man sitting in the Oval Office. Not before or since could someone just listen to the inner thoughts of the most powerful person in the world. Over the last ten years the remaining tapes had finally been released, and they were doozies.
Bernstein, being a Jew, wondered how Henry Kissinger could have ever worked for Nixon, as Nixon seemed to hate Jews as much as the Arabs did. Maybe Kissinger thought it was love-hate. But in thousands of hours of tapes there was no love. Just “Jew” this and “Jew” that and “gay” this and “gay” that. My God, Bernstein thought, had Nixon never seen a Broadway show?
And Nixon knew he was being taped. That was the amazing thing. To be so confident in his position of power that he believed the record of all he said would always be under his control, which it was, until Watergate.
And that’s what Bernstein couldn’t get out of his mind. Watergate. He would lie in bed at night and think about it, not in the context of stealing secrets from the other party, but in the context of someone successfully breaking in, accomplishing a task, and no one ever knowing. The idea of Watergate was a heady one. Maybe a similar tactic would be the easiest way to end his mother’s suffering and thereby his own. Someone could break in and pull the plugs. Then he laughed. Right, and look what happened to Nixon. I’ll be known as the president who killed his mother. Great. Next idea.
But Bernstein knew very well what was happening with the bus incidents and the AARP bombing. And he knew it would get worse. If my mother is still being kept alive two years from now, could I even be reelected? He hated those thoughts, but as president he had to think of everything, gruesome or not.
And then finally, before he fell asleep, the thoughts, as they always did, turned to California. This was the most pressing problem. This had no solution; no one’s death would solve this. Tomorrow was the first ful
l cabinet meeting with Susanna Colbert in place as secretary of the Treasury. She was going to formally present her ideas on Los Angeles. Maybe, just maybe, she had a way out.
The President’s entire cabinet was immediately taken with Colbert. It was the deceiving nature of her being. She looked and sounded like a good-looking, churchgoing mother, someone Norman Rockwell might have painted. But when she got hot and heavy into the conversation, no matter what it was, she was the smartest person in the room. Not flauntingly so. She just was. Prepared, full of facts and ideas, a world-class listener, and a problem solver like a computer. Fifteen minutes into the full cabinet meeting, no one even thought of Morton Spiller.
The ideas were sparse. How do you rebuild? Do you just print more money? It was now common to live with a moderated form of hyperinflation, but if it got out of hand—more so than it already was—the United States would spin down the black hole of worthless currency.
It always came back to the same thing. Borrow. And the only country that really had the kind of money they needed was China. The thought was that since the Chinese remained the biggest lender to the United States, they would have to loan more or they would be at risk of not getting their investment back. The United States was comforted by being the original “too big to fail” institution.
Susanna thought, and the President agreed, that there should be a high-level meeting as soon as possible to discuss further lending. Susanna said there was no reason to borrow all of it. A few trillion would jump-start a real plan to rebuild, and when that was spent they could ask for more.
So the new secretary planned to go to Beijing to meet her counterpart and suggest a three-trillion-dollar emergency loan, specifically for Los Angeles. She would use all of her charm and everything else she could muster to try to get the most favorable terms possible. She would be accompanied by a slew of undersecretaries, but she would be the most senior cabinet member on the trip.
When the meeting was over and people were filing out, the President asked to talk to her alone. “Do you feel confident in this? Is it too soon?”
2030 Page 17
