by Scott Britz
“I remember, years ago, he used to eat only Okinawan cooking.”
“Mr. Thieu has broadened him. All that remains of that regimen is hara hachi bu—eat until you are eighty percent full. It’s worth ten years of bonus life, I’m told. I tried it one miserable October. That month seemed like ten years all by itself.”
Cricket was startled by a hand clasping her shoulder. Pivoting in her seat, she saw Gifford grinning behind her, with Subject Adam and Korongo on either side.
“So glad you could make it.”
“For Daddy’s sake, Charles.”
“Please don’t run off after dinner. There’s something I need to show you. It’s important.”
She nodded. Then Gifford bent close to Yolanda’s ear. His voice became softer, almost intimate. “Would you care to sing a selection or two for us after dinner? Dr. Giannini has kindly offered to accompany you on the piano.”
Yolanda frowned. “Not tonight, please.”
“There are people from Hollywood here. Jack invited them. If they could only hear that marvelous voice of yours—who knows, they might—”
“I’m sorry. It’s out of tune.”
“Out of tune? Really?”
“Yes, Doctor, really.” Her soft contralto voice turned hoarse—a little exaggeration for Gifford’s benefit.
“All right, then.” Gifford smiled and patted her a couple of times on the back before taking up his place at the head of the table.
The waiters had filled Cricket’s champagne glass and placed before her a bowl of soup, laden with broccoli, tomatoes, scallions, and mi chay noodles. She tried the soup. It was full of delicate flavors, not overpowered by spices or oily broth. But Yolanda took one taste of it and firmly put down her spoon.
“You don’t like it?” asked Cricket.
Yolanda shrugged. “With you going on and on about cold viruses, I feel like I’m coming down with one.”
Freiberg leaned forward, chiding her with his eyes. “Starve a fever, feed a cold. Eat up. It’s good for you.”
Yolanda picked up a spoonful of steaming noodles, looked at it, and let it plop back down. Her lips were moving, as though she was talking to herself. Cricket was about to ask her what was wrong when Gifford stood up and dinged a call to order with a spoon against his glass.
“What a day, ladies and gentlemen! I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be flanked by two of the fastest men on earth. Nelson has long been a hero of mine. For years, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the back of his jersey whiz past me on Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon. Now Adam gives me a new dose of inspiration. I thank them both for being here with us. I thank all of you for having come, some of you from great distances”—Gifford looked pointedly at Cricket—“in order to witness what we have accomplished here today.”
Gifford paused and looked down. His voice came slower and softer. “I would like to offer a special toast to someone who could not be here today—my late wife, Doreen. Those of you who knew her will remember a beautiful, graceful woman, with a lyric coloratura voice that promised a brilliant career in opera—at least until she decided to hitch herself to a certain poor, struggling scientist. All that I’ve ever done was because of her. Her patience, her love, her faith in me, made me what I am. The Methuselah Vector would not have existed without her.” He paused and wiped his eye with the back of his hand.
Aunt Doreen. Cricket pictured a woman with graying auburn hair and tortoiseshell glasses—a woman who had nursed Cricket’s mother through long months of cancer, never leaving her side, never giving up hope. After her mother’s funeral, when Cricket was a little younger than Emmy was now, Doreen had tried to be a new mother for her, taking her shopping at stylish boutiques on Newbury Street in Boston and getting her hair and nails done. By the time Doreen got diagnosed with what used to be called Lou Gehrig’s disease, Cricket was married. She remembered helping Doreen button her blouse and put on her pearl earrings, and cutting up her food for her in restaurants. Then the divorce from Hank came, and Cricket was abroad during the ravages of Doreen’s final year—the drooling, the slurred speech, the bouts of pneumonia, the degradation of needing help even to use the toilet. Hank once told her that Charles almost went crazy trying to come up with a way to save her. But in the end, nothing could stop the disease.
Now Gifford raised his bubbling glass. “To Doreen. Would that she had lived to see this day!”
He drank up the champagne, then set the glass down and scanned the faces around the table. “Death is our ancient enemy,” he declaimed, his voice quavering with emotion. “But we refuse to bend the knee to him. Our minds seem made for eternity: Why should they fade as quickly as they flower, taking with them our hard-won knowledge of the world, our loves, our dreams? There has always been something inside us, as human beings, that has refused to accept the finality of the grave. We are not like mayflies, content to flourish for a single day.
“Today we have struck back. Today was our Agincourt. We have pushed the Grim Reaper back upon his own trenches. Mark my words—there are some seated at this very table who will outlive the oldest oaks and sequoias. But this is not the victory of any one man or institution. It is a triumph for the whole human race.”
The room erupted with the sound of forks and knives and spoons being banged against crystal glasses—a sound that reminded Cricket of an old-fashioned fire truck. Something about all that acclamation irritated her. Charles was starting to believe his own hype.
Gifford bowed and sat down. Meanwhile, the waiters reappeared and took away the soup bowls and began delivering the entrées reserved by each of the guests. Freiberg had picked roasted Cornish hen. Yolanda’s choice was the same as Gifford’s—tofu in coconut curry sauce. Cricket had ordered salmon; it came to her on a bed of lemongrass jasmine rice, aromatic of pineapple, scallions, and chilies.
As the guests fell to their repast, the voice of Harper Libby, the senator from New York, sounded above the clatter of silverware. “Suppose all that you claim is true, Dr. Gifford. The planet’s crowded as it is. How will we make room for our descendants? Will we have to stop having babies?”
Gifford laid his fork upon his plate. “A new age demands new ideas. Having children shouldn’t be for everyone, in any case. There ought to be a rational process for selecting who contributes to our gene pool.”
The governor of California spoke up. “I don’t think that’s possible, politically. People won’t submit to that.”
“They will,” said Gifford. “It’s the bargain they must make for immortality.”
A bald-headed man—Red Armbruster, according to his placard—cleared his throat. “I assume it’ll take a while to make enough Vector to treat the whole world?”
Gifford nodded. “Yes, certainly. The manufacture is technically demanding.”
“What happens in the meantime? Who goes to the front of the line? Who’s at the end? I mean, people die by the minute. Now you have a miracle cure than can save them—but someone’s going to say, ‘Sorry, you can’t have it.’ I wouldn’t want to be that messenger. When a ship is going down, if everyone knows they’re going to drown together, I think people can make a good end of it. But add a single lifeboat to that picture—enough for a lucky few but not for everyone—well, then you have a classic recipe for panic. People will claw each other to death just to get on that boat.”
Niedermann answered, “We’ve given quite a bit of thought to that at Eden Pharmaceuticals.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Basically, we plan to deploy two separate distribution systems. To minimize your lifeboat effect, we’ll have something like the Grand Lottery we’re using for the clinical trials. Everyone gets an equal chance for treatment, as chosen by lot. That’s democratic. American, if you will. The other distribution system will be based on merit. Certain people will be given priority based on their usefulness to society. Scientists. Artists. Inventors. Entrepreneur
s. Political thinkers.”
“One system for the masses, and another for the elites,” said Senator Libby. “I’m not sure that will play very well in Brooklyn.”
Cricket’s attention was diverted as Yolanda bent forward to cough, poking her in the ribs with her elbow. Yolanda hadn’t touched her food. She sat strangely hunched over her plate, with her hand covering her mouth. At the corner of her lips, where she had rubbed off her makeup with a napkin, the skin was red, with a spray of tiny, dewlike bubbles.
“Are you all right?” asked Cricket.
“It’s just a headache. I don’t really feel like eating.”
“Is there anything I can do? I am a doctor, you know.”
“Do you have any aspirin?”
Cricket took her pillbox from her purse and fished out two round, white pills from among the shield-shaped ones. Yolanda swallowed them together with a swig of wine, then offered a wan smile. “Thanks. I’ll be fine now.” Averting her face from Cricket, she dutifully returned her attention to Gifford’s end of the table.
The governor of California was holding forth. “Once the Methuselah Vector hits the market, will there be a constitutional right to it? Will we have immortals clogging our already overcrowded prisons? What about drug addicts? The feebleminded? Any of these people can sue to get medical treatment nowadays. Why not the Vector, too?”
“I believe you know the answer to that question,” said Niedermann.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“The Methuselah Vector is a powerful social resource,” said Niedermann. “Society needs to expend it where it’s likely to accomplish a social good. The decision as to how best to do that should be reserved to those who can be trusted to act rationally, not out of sentimentality or self-interest.”
“In other words, you’d let those people die?”
Niedermann sneered, “I would do as you would do, Governor, if the power were yours.”
“I wonder.”
Federal Reserve chairman Rod Baer, a tiny man with an outsize, gravelly voice, broke in. “I can understand your not wanting to give immortality to drug lords and dictators. But I would point out that such people have the means to get the Methuselah Vector whether you want to give it to them or not. They’ll be at the very front of the line. Bet on it.”
“Well, that . . . that’s a very cynical thing to say,” said Niedermann, who pulled at his shirt collar as if it had suddenly grown a size too small.
“You could be right,” interjected Gifford. “That makes it all the more urgent that the world find a way to deal with such creatures. The Methuselah Vector raises the stakes for everyone.”
Cricket felt the table jiggle. Yolanda was rising to her feet.
“Excuse me,” whispered Yolanda. “I . . . I just need to go to the little girl’s room. I’ll be right back.” Cricket watched her shuffle out toward the hallway—groggily, touching the doorframe for support.
Cricket thought of going after her, but just then a lull in the conversation gave her the chance she had been waiting for. She stood up to command everyone’s attention. “What concerns me is the Methuselah Vector itself. I’ve seen what you’ve all seen. Adam, your transformation is nothing short of a miracle. The Vector works—even better than my father had hoped. It doesn’t just stop the aging process. It optimizes the function of every part of the body. I doubt, Adam, that you could have beaten Nelson Korongo even in the prime of your youth. You are now something you never were—the perfect expression of your genetic potential. And, yes, that’s absolutely amazing.
“But isn’t it right now that we’re in danger of losing our objectivity? We want the miracle to succeed. We want all the wonderful things it promises. And, being only human, we’re hardwired to overlook anything that might be wrong with it.”
Gifford threw his fork onto his china plate with a clang. “And what would that be, Cricket?”
“MHC-1, for one thing. Or Hank’s idea of redundant targeting. Maybe something no one’s thought of yet. All I know is that this Lottery on Friday—it’s risky.”
“Let me assure you, I’ve taken every possible precaution. The FDA and the NIH went over this project with a fine-tooth comb. We’ve carried out every test that anyone has ever suggested. Twice. The Methuselah Vector is absolutely safe. There is no possibility whatever of harm from it.”
Hostile looks greeted Cricket around the table. She strove to keep calm. “The tests you performed—they were all done in the laboratory, under controlled conditions. But now you’re proposing to release the Methuselah Vector into an uncontrolled, messy environment—the real world. Nature has a way of coming up with unexpected variables—‘unknown unknowns,’ as someone once put it. Exactly the kind of random interactions your laboratory tests were designed to avoid.”
“Caution can be irrational, too,” snapped Gifford. “With that attitude, the invention of fire would still be in Study Committee.”
There was a round of chuckles. Gifford, however, had not been joking. He glared at Cricket, who stood clenching the tablecloth, fighting the urge to dress him down. Then someone’s hand touched Cricket’s shoulder. Freiberg gently pushed her back down into her seat, even as he rose. For a moment he worked his mouth silently, planting his broad knuckles on the table. “Ridicule is no answer, gentlemen,” he finally said. “I second the concerns of Dr. Rensselaer-Wright. In fact, I will go further. I have heard the word immortality bandied across this table. Each repetition gives me a shudder. It’s not enough that God should be dead. Man must now make himself God in His place. The Greeks had a name for that—hubris.”
Freiberg’s German accent crept out as he pitched his voice higher and more melodramatically. “Have you listened to yourselves? Living forever isn’t enough for you. You’re remaking the world—deciding who shall live and who shall die; who shall rule; who shall have the privilege to fuck; who must live out eternity as a genetic dead end. This, I warn you, is not your place. You are reaching for sacred fire. Take care that you do not get burned.”
The room fell into a hush, and all eyes turned to Gifford, who sat at the far end of the table, nostrils flaring, tapping his toe against a table leg. No one would have been surprised to see him hurl a thunderbolt. Even Freiberg went a little pale as Gifford slowly stood up, leveling with him, eye to eye.
Out on the landing, the string quartet was playing Haydn.
Dishes clattered far off in the kitchen.
The governor of California gave a muffled cough.
Then, just as a blowup seemed inescapable, there was a thwack of flesh against the table and an earsplitting “Ouch!”
Heads jerked toward Jack Niedermann. He sat smirking, then flicked his hand and blew on his fingertips as if they had been stung by fire. “What a close call!” he exclaimed. “Hubris! Greek tragedy! I guess the next thing is we’ll all be chained to rocks and have our livers pecked out by a flock of large, ill-mannered birds.”
The room erupted in laughter. Even Freiberg chuckled as he sank back into his seat. “Apologies to Hesiod,” he said with a ruffled smile.
But Cricket did not laugh. Her concerns had been dismissed, not answered. Let it go, she told herself. It’s not your responsibility. Focus on Emmy.
“Ah, here comes Mr. Thieu,” exclaimed Gifford. “For those of you partial to dessert, he brings . . . what is it?”
“Oeufs á la neige,” announced Mr. Thieu.
Cricket felt a brush against her shoulder. A waiter removed her half-eaten salmon and replaced it with a small dish containing a dab of meringue floating on caramel sauce. A dish was also set down at Yolanda’s place, although her chair was still empty.
“Excuse me,” said Cricket to the waiter, “have you seen the woman who sat next to me? The woman in the red dress?”
The waiter stopped and thought. “Ido a casa. Home.”
“She went home? Really?
You saw her?”
“Yes.” He looked indecisively at the dish he had set down for Yolanda. “Dejarlo?”
“No. Take it. Take mine, too.”
Yolanda gone home. Without a word. Cricket herself had no appetite left. All she wanted was to clear the hell out of here. But she was troubled by the empty seat beside her. What did Yolanda say she had? A headache? A cold? That wouldn’t have made her leave so abruptly. Then, too, there was that rash around her mouth—tiny, clear bubbles, like a cold sore. A number of things could have caused that. Chicken pox. Common herpes. Lupus. Impetigo.
She debated calling up Yolanda to check on her. But what was her number? Emmy often babysat her kids, so Hank had to have it. Cricket was just about to steal out to the foyer to call him when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
It was Gifford. “Come with me, Cricket,” he said, an earnest look in his eyes. “There’s something I need to show you.”
Nine
CRICKET NERVOUSLY RAN HER FINGERS UP and down Hannibal’s neck as the motor of the golf cart whirred to a stop. They were outside a nearly windowless brick and concrete building that occupied a small plaza cut into an ivy-covered hillside. It was already dark, and in the dim orange lighting of the small parking area, she could barely read the brass placard marked ADVANCED VIROLOGY RESEARCH.
“This is what I wanted you to see,” said Gifford, swelling his chest.
She felt like a high school sophomore being driven to lovers’ lane for the first time. Gifford had offered little explanation for having stolen her away from the banquet, deflecting all her questions with an enigmatic, almost mischievous smile. She wondered if he was angry at the way she had stood up to him at dinner.
Now Gifford, still in his dinner jacket and white tie, got out, walked around the front of the cart, and offered his hand. Arm in arm, they walked to the steel outer door of the building, where Gifford scanned his ID badge and paused for a green LED light. The door clicked open onto a narrow passageway, presided over by a blue-uniformed guard behind a window.
