by Scott Britz
“Good evening, Dr. Gifford,” said the guard, turning down the volume of the baseball game on his monitor.
“Good evening, Sam. Quiet night?”
“Like a tomb.” The guard paused. “You know we ain’t open yet.”
Cricket felt Hannibal brush past her leg. “Should the dog be in here?”
“It’s okay.” Gifford stopped to give Hannibal a vigorous rub behind the ears. “We won’t be going into any of the restricted areas.”
Ahead it was dark. When Gifford flicked the light switch, Cricket was dazzled by the glare from dozens of glassy surfaces, as if she had entered a carnival hall of mirrors. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that she was standing in a foyer shaped like an upside-down T. Ahead was a long corridor, flanked by glass-walled rooms on either side. To her left, one of the short arms of the T ended in a green metal door with a porthole window and a sign that read:
RESTRICTED ENTRY
LEVEL 4 BIOSAFETY PRECAUTIONS REQUIRED
She gasped. “My God, Charles! You’ve built yourself a BSL-4 lab?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He grinned. “It meets the highest level of biosafety precautions in the world. Behind that door on the left are a gauntlet of air locks and decontamination showers. There’s a main air lock, plus secondary air locks for each of the individual labs. Each lab is self-contained, with its own negative-pressure HEPA air-filtration system and liquid and solid waste disposals. All personnel will wear positive-pressure suits with their own life-support systems.”
The two walked slowly down the corridor. Cricket sucked her lower lip like a little girl on Christmas Eve. Four labs were on either side, each equipped with two laminar air-flow hoods, an ultra-high-speed centrifuge, a walk-in cold-storage area, and a radioactive glove box, as well as a standard panoply of high-pressure liquid chromatographs, thermal cyclers, freezers, incubators, and chemical reagents—all of it brand-new. The labs were separated from each other by glass partitions, making it possible to view the entire workspace from any point in the corridor—or, indeed, from inside any of the labs themselves.
“These walls are made of two separate sheets of eight-ply polycarbonate-and-glass laminate. They’re airtight, acid resistant, bulletproof, and even earthquakeproof.” He pointed to a chrome control box, one affixed to a window in front of each lab. “This is an intercom system that’s wired into the headsets of the biosafety-suit helmets to allow two-way communication with the workers inside.”
“What’s that at the far end of the hall? It looks like an operating room.”
“That’s the autopsy suite. It can handle postmortem dissections of anything from a mouse to a gorilla.” Gifford looked intensely into Cricket’s eyes. “Well, what do you think?”
Surely, he didn’t have to ask. It was the most gorgeous laboratory she had ever seen. Even the CDC had nothing to compare to it.
“Who paid for this?” she said with a hushed voice.
“Eden. Pure development money, no strings attached.”
“No Defense Department funding?”
“For germ warfare? No, not a cent. I wouldn’t do that kind of work.”
Kudos to you. Daddy would have turned over in his grave. “What’s it for, then?”
Gifford’s eyes lit up. “To reengineer viruses to fight cancer. Take a virus that infects the same organ where a cancer tumor grows, and reengineer it so it kills the cancer cells, but leaves the normal cells alone.”
Cricket chuckled. “The sheer perversity of it! Forcing viruses to save lives, instead of taking them.”
“Impressed?”
“I love it.”
“As well you should. It was your idea, Cricket. I got it from your paper on avian sarcoma.”
“Well . . .” Cricket could feel herself blush. “That was years ago. I was just brainstorming. I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously.”
Gifford grinned. “We’ll have to try out hundreds of viruses and then tweak their genetic design. Of course, all of those viruses, by definition, will be capable of causing disease or even death. Hence, the need for Level Four precautions.”
“You’re talking about a big, big project.”
“Yes, I am. And it’s yours. Take it.”
Cricket was sure she had misunderstood him. “Excuse me?”
“The project. The BSL-4 lab. All yours.”
“Mine? Are you crazy?”
“Read my project proposal. If you think it’s sound, take it and run with it. If not, tear it up and do it your own way. There’s practically unlimited funding for anything you want.”
“Charles, I’m flying out of here first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t.” Gifford’s eyes brightened with excitement. “Stay, Cricket. Or, to put it better—come home.”
“I—I . . . This is hugely generous, but . . . I don’t have it in me anymore, Charles.” Even the thought of all that responsibility made her break out in a sweat. “I’m in a different place now. I just want to take Emmy home and see if I still remember how to be a mother.”
“Be a mother for her here. Look, I don’t blame you for not being tempted by my offer of this one lab. Take it all, then. The whole institute. I’ll give you the directorship of Acadia Springs. Your father’s old job. Take it, Cricket.”
She was stunned. Could she possibly have heard him right?
“You’d be perfect for it. You’ve got more than brains. You’ve got will and imagination. More even than your father had, God rest his soul.”
“Just like that? All Acadia Springs?”
“Yes, Cricket. Don’t be so shocked. The Methuselah Vector needs me now. I need to concentrate on that.”
“Why? What’s left? Clinical trials? Marketing? Surely Eden can manage that.”
“Eden’s just a merchant. The Methuselah Vector is no ordinary commodity. It’s a force that will change how all humanity lives. The release has got to be done right. Fairly. For everyone. Rich and poor alike. That means lowering the costs. I’m going to apply the same ingenuity that created the Vector to the problem of making it affordable. Right now it costs two hundred thousand dollars to make one dose. I want to bring that down to a few dollars—or even pennies.”
Cricket felt bowled over. “Charles . . . I . . . n-need to think about this. If you’re serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything.”
Director of Acadia Springs. It was a chance to make a tremendous impact in experimental virology. She had been itching with big ideas her whole life. It would give her the chance to move full speed ahead with them, without having to wait for funding from CDC or the NIH.
“I can have a contract drawn up in the morning. Name your terms. Until then, take this as proof of my seriousness.” Gifford reached inside his dinner jacket and drew out a silver cigarette case. Balancing it on the intercom, he opened it as if it contained a diamond necklace. But inside Cricket saw only a slender tuberculin syringe and a conical plastic tube.
“What’s this?”
“Immortality,” he said with a flourish.
“You can’t mean—”
“The Methuselah Vector.”
“This?” It looked so small. A few drops of clear liquid in a tube no bigger around than the tip of her little finger.
“Let me inject you, here and now. It will only take a few seconds.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You can’t imagine how it can change you. Not just your body, but your mind. I know . . . because my own mental powers have grown by leaps and bounds.”
“Your mental powers? You’ve taken it yourself?”
Gifford smiled impishly. “Look at me, Cricket. Didn’t you already know?”
She should have expected it. Charles Gifford, lifelong fitness fanatic, vegetarian, megavitamin hog—he’d always had an obsessive fear
of growing old and dying. How could he have resisted the Fountain of Youth once it was within his grasp?
Cricket felt her breath taken away. “This is dangerous, Charles,” she said in a near whisper.
“No, it’s perfectly safe. You’ve seen Adam.”
“It’s your judgment I’m talking about. You’re responsible for this drug. You have to prove to the world that it’s safe and that it works. How can you keep your scientific objectivity when you’ve already bet your own life on it?”
Gifford raised his eyebrows indignantly. “There’s nothing wrong with my judgment. Why should I stand by and watch others reap the benefits of my invention ahead of me? It could be years before the FDA approves the Methuselah Vector for sale. In the meantime, my body will age—leaving me weaker, slower, duller—ever closer to decrepitude. Why should I have to endure that? Where’s the justice of it? I’ve found the cure for aging. Why should I age?”
Agitated, he started crowding her against the glass with all of this six-foot-three-inch frame, dominating her with his eyes. “You must take it, too, Cricket. Join me. Show that you’re on the team.”
“No, Charles. Just looking at that syringe makes me feel like a junkie.”
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t. It’s the greatest gift I can give you.”
“Over my dead body!”
“You don’t mean that. You couldn’t possibly mean that.” He seized her by the wrist. “Let me show you there’s nothing to fear. One small injection—”
“No, Charles! Let me go!” she shouted. She tried to break free of his grip, but couldn’t budge him. She smacked him in the face with her free hand. He scarcely seemed to feel it. She slapped him again. Nothing. Again, harder. It felt like slapping a pillar of stone.
“Don’t fight me, Cricket. You do want this. I know you.”
Yes, she was tempted, despite her protests. Not by the idea of living forever, but by curiosity about what the drug would do inside her body. What would it feel like? Was it like being reborn? Would it change her thoughts, her feelings, her soul? Would it cure her panic attacks? After Étienne . . . would it make life worth living again?
But for all that, she knew in her gut it was wrong. If she let him inject her, it would pull her inescapably to his side. Hardly a soul was questioning the Methuselah Vector at this critical moment. She was one of the few. But having the Vector inside her would turn her into just another acolyte in the cult. Gifford’s syringe had the power to silence her.
She tugged as hard as she could to get away. But his iron grip did not waver. Calmly, he took the syringe out of its box and held the plunger in his mouth. Cupping the small tube in his free hand, he popped the lid open with his thumb, pulled off the safety sheath of the needle, and began to draw off the clear liquid, pulling back on the syringe plunger with his teeth.
She kicked and flailed futilely, like a captured butterfly flapping its wings. Gifford let drop the empty tube and repositioned the syringe in his hand. He pulled her toward him, the needle pointed at her forearm.
She saw a terrible nonchalance in his eyes, an ice-cold certainty.
“Get that thing away from me!” she screamed.
And then—a growl. A woolly, gray blur. An impact that almost knocked her and Gifford together to the floor. Hannibal had leapt into the fray. She saw gleaming white fangs slash through the air. She heard a scream—Gifford’s—as Hannibal’s teeth sank into his forearm, forcing him to loosen his grip.
Instantly, she tore away and scrambled for the door.
“Don’t go! Don’t go!” shouted Gifford.
She ran past the guard’s window, flung the outer door open, and ran out into the night.
Behind her she heard a long, drawn-out canine whine and then a bang as the metal door flew open. Gifford stood silhouetted in the light of the doorway.
“Cricket! Wait!” he shouted. “Come back!”
Throwing off her high-heeled shoes, guiding herself by the lights of the tall lab buildings in the distance, she sped barefoot across the darkened lawn, running for her life.
Ten
NIEDERMANN SAT HUNCHED OVER A CHERRYWOOD desk in his office in Weiszacker House, fingering a shot glass filled with aged Glenfiddich while he pored over a small photo of a dark-haired woman on the Web directory of the Centers for Disease Control. He thought about what it might have been like to share a tent with her on one of her tomb-raiding safaris. Dark of the jungle, a thousand miles from nowhere. Only a spotted eagle-owl to know the goings-on. Sure, he was no Clark Gable. Why, he couldn’t even get lovely Yolanda to take a look at him in the year and a half she had worked for him. It was a height thing, he figured. Chicks went for tall men. But what would that matter once he was standing on a pile of dough?
Niedermann drained the shot glass, enjoying the warm, burning sensation as the Scotch flowed through his chest. Here’s to you, Cricket Rensselaer-Wright! He chuckled. Your ship has just come in.
Then, as his desk clock turned eleven, there was a knock at the door.
Niedermann opened the bottom desk drawer and carefully stowed both the shot glass and the Glenfiddich. For good measure, he picked up the little snub-nosed 9 mm Sig Sauer P290 automatic that lay on the desk blotter and stuck it in his pants pocket. A lot of money was in his safe, and he had to be careful. Going to the door, he opened it a crack. He saw a neatly coiffed, gray-eyed woman in a sequined black dress.
“Senator Libby!”
“Excuse the lateness. One of the waiters said you’d be in your office.”
“Welcome! Welcome!” Opening the door, Niedermann heard the clatter of dishes down the hall as the houseboys went on cleaning up after the banquet. “Please come in.”
Senator Libby shuffled into the office, her soles rustling softly on the carpet. Niedermann politely took the senator’s silk shawl and seated her in a red-leather tub chair.
“How can I help you, Senator?” Niedermann said as he hung the shawl on a coat peg.
“Please call me Harper.”
“Very well, Harper.”
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“Don’t worry. Anything you say will be held in the strictest confidence.”
Senator Libby waited until Niedermann had sat back down. Then she anxiously touched her hand to her throat. “Last summer, while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, I had a small . . . s-s-stroke. It was kept out of the papers. I have a difficult election facing me in the fall, and all I need is for rumors to get out about something like that.”
“I understand. It doesn’t show.” That was a white lie. Thanks to his research, he already knew all about the stroke. Beyond that, it was easy to spot the funny way she walked, with her left foot dragging and almost making her stumble when she crossed the threshold. You didn’t have to be a doctor to know something was wrong.
“Fortunately, I made a good recovery. I still have a little leftover weakness on one side, but I’ve been doing a lot of exercises, and swimming every day.”
“That’s good.”
“But . . . a couple of months ago, while I was giving a speech at a community center in Brooklyn, I suddenly had terrific trouble getting the words out. I was trying to say, ‘Now, more than ever, we must not lose heart before the challenges that face us.’ Instead, what came out was ‘None gramma happy happy heart heart heart minister.’ Can you believe that? I didn’t even know that I had said it. My aide quickly got me off the podium. A few minutes later, I was fine. I went out to the receiving line and shook a hundred hands and smiled till they could see the back of my molars, and everyone sort of shrugged off what had happened.”
Niedermann nodded sympathetically. “I’m no doctor, but it sounds like something called a TIA, or transient ischemic attack.” That’s what her confidential medical reports had said. Niedermann was glad he had practiced how to pronounce it without twisting his tongue.
“I’m sorry.”
“It could ruin my career just for people to know that. I don’t want to retire now. I’ve been fighting all my life for the people of my state, fighting the banks and the utilities and the wholesale job exporters, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw in the towel over this. There’s too much at stake.”
“I understand. It would be a great loss to the country.”
“Thank you. I, uh, I just wanted you to appreciate what I’m dealing with. You see, uh . . . this Methuselah Vector . . . do you think it could do anything for someone in, uh . . . in my predicament?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, I am,” Niedermann answered without a second’s pause.
There was another knock at the door. “Please excuse me,” said Niedermann, rising. At the door were two delivery boys in green uniforms. One of them held an ice bucket and stand, the other an enormous bottle of champagne.
“Look what we have here!” Niedermann motioned for the two to set up the stand next to his desk. Opening the attached card, he beamed. “Rick Beach sends his compliments.”
“That’s the biggest champagne bottle I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Senator Libby.
“It’s a joke. A six-liter bottle is known as a Methuselah.” Niedermann lifted the bottle an inch or two out of the ice and read the gold label. “Cristal Brut 1990. Hmmm. Not a bad vintage.” After tipping the delivery boys, he locked the door. Then he sat down again and folded his fingertips pensively. “So . . . where were we?”
Senator Libby cleared her throat. “Is there any possibility that I could, uh . . . get a place . . . in the Lottery this Friday?”
