Counting Up To Infinity

by Allen Fleishman

  Corey asked, “David, just one question, how come you turned off my computer?”

  Martin nodded agreement and looked quizzically at his son, “and mine.”

  David slowly answered, “Dad, Corey, I never turned them off.”

  Martin looked oddly at his son then glanced at his wife. With a small smile he asked, “Corey, I’m feeling a bit tired, would you mind if we took a small nap before we drove home?”

  Corey nodded and then looked at David, “You were through a great deal Marty, so was I. I think a four hour nap would be ideal.”

  Martin asked, “David would you mind taking us back to Corey’s hotel for a bit, a short rest?”

  Corey also had a secretive smile.

  ***

  Four days later Martin was wheeled into the radiology department for a CAT scan. The results were sent to Janet Ryan who observed that the computer inside Martin was one quarter absorbed. The mat of carbon nanotubes lying on each of their brains was completely absorbed.

  ***

  The following day a meeting was held in the Ryan’s home. Six pair of chairs faced a young boy seated in the seventh chair. The boy was fidgeting. David’s tee-shirt said ‘You killed my father’.

  David started, “OK, I know why you did it. You were concerned with Martin’s heart. I know that. But don’t you realize that things DO go wrong? Those DNA molecules don’t always multiply correctly. Errors multiply over time. Yes, the formula for Panacea is a good one, but mistakes happen in producing it. You could have killed my father.”

  “But Malcolm and Brenda could have died too. But they didn’t.”

  “Malcolm and Brenda are different. Their lives were almost over; they only had weeks to live. Any large risk was worth it for them. My father and Corey are very different. Corey was in great health.”

  “But she’s old.”

  “She’s 50, Joshua. She’s not that old.”

  Joshua retorted, “She’s a half century. She’s past half her life span, two-thirds of it. She’s past middle age.”

  Sidney said, “Son, she’s not that old. She’s healthy. What I want to know is what did you do?”

  Joshua looked up, ‘I gave them Panacea, dad.”

  Sidney sighed. “Don’t give me a stupid answer Josh. What does it do? Neither Martin nor Corey has any inherited diseases. All you told us was that it cured genetic diseases. What does Panacea do? Why did you treat them, endanger them?”

  Joshua paused a moment then said, “I can’t tell you dad.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to. What does it do? At this point we all have to know what it does.”

  David looked at Joshua, “Time to come clean, Josh.”

  Joshua nervously said, “I can’t tell you.”

  David looked angrily at Joshua. He began to shout, “Our agreement was predicated on none of us were in danger. That no one would get hurt. You killed my father.” David looked around at the adults, “Joshua read some secret genetic codes, text, hidden in our genes which said that it had to be kept secret until God has spoken. It was signed ComHead. Let me say that again. Hidden in every human genome is some code written in ancient Gaelic, in it was a message with a password only known by Josh. He applied the decrypt code and it actually told him how to create Panacea, it also told him that it had to remain secret until God speaks, it was signed ComHead and had a date of 2026. It was how he knew that Malcolm would live; it mentioned him as the first man to live from Panacea.”

  There was a long silence while the others absorbed this information.

  Martin broke the silence. “Josh, let me help you here. The document was signed ComHead, right? David’s alter ego is ComHead. He actually created a company called CompuHead based on his pseudonym. I’m the president. When you and your family came into our lives, I freely shared the complete C H Enterprises with them. That includes you and it includes Phyllis. C H stands for ComHead. You’re also ComHead. But so are we. On the other hand, if only David was ComHead, then you wouldn’t have been able to read it. So you, and therefore, we must be allowed. So, as one ComHead to another, you have to tell us.”

  Joshua fidgeted for a few moments, and then he looked like the weight of the world was lifted. “OK, you’re right Uncle Martin. Since you’re ComHead, I can tell you everything.”

  Joshua thought for a second. “I read and was able to translate the DNA codes for the proteins it makes. I haven’t finished, I’m about 15% done, but Panacea corrects for all genetic abnormalities. It corrects for LPH deficiency, and Huntington’s Disease, and sickle cell anemia, and the Hayflick limit, and neuron cell repair, and “

  Martin interrupted, “THE Hayflick limit?”

  Joshua smiled, “Yup. Your cells will keep on replacing themselves. They won’t age.”

  Martin stood and moved his hands apart with his palms upward, “Do you mean my cells won’t die? That I won’t die.”

  Joshua shook his head no. “Sorry. In a few billion years, the sun will destroy the earth. Or you could be blown to bits.” He paused with a frown, “No, you won’t live forever.”

  Martin shook his head in disbelief, “OK, I can be blown up or incinerated, but if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be able to live a thousand years? Ten thousand years, ten million years?”

  Joshua said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  Janet stood and faced Joshua, “Panacea will cure all diseases, right Joshie? All diseases?”

  Joshua nodded, “I don’t know. I think it might. You see, I can easily read the regular human DNA, it’s like reading prose from a third grader, with plenty of cross-outs and repeats. However, reading the Panacea DNA is much, much harder. It’s been optimized and compressed and there are plenty of calls to, ah, subroutines and recursive functions, which differ depending on other, ah, registers. I know its DNA, but it’s very compact computer code based on proteins.”

  Janet started to pace, “All maladies? Like heart failure, poisoning, dying from blood loss, crushing, cancer, hip fractures, old age, senility, loss of teeth, hair?” She paused, “All maladies? Does the Panacea genetic alteration cure all diseases? All maladies?”

  Joshua looked down, “It might. But, isn’t that what medicine is supposed to do? Cure all diseases. Keep people from dying.”

  Janet looked at the other adults, “We’re going to be here for a long night. Let me put some coffee up.”

  Sidney said, “Let’s start with the 15% you’ve already figured out.”

  ***

  Phyllis and David went back to home, after a marathon session with the rest of the Ins. Their discussions had been greatly strained since Phyllis went home from Saint Louis alone. David was already in bed.

  Phyllis came in after getting into her nightclothes. “David, we need to talk.”

  “I know.”

  “Last week I tried to be there for you. I was there helping you spray the alcohol and getting your dad and Corey out of the cave. I removed their flight suits on the way to Saint Louis. I was there waiting with you in that hotel room. But, you ignored me. Me. I’m your wife. I should be your best friend. And the first time you needed me, you ignored me. Am I your wife or not?”

  “Of course, you are. I love you Phyl. But my father was dead. He might not have survived, I couldn’t ignore him.”

  “He was dead. I was next to you and you ignored me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Are you jealous?”

  Stunned Phyllis looked at David, “Jealous? Jealous! I’m way, way beyond jealous. I’m hurt, abandoned, ignored.”

  Regaining her composure, she added, “You never called me to apologize. I left the hotel and wandered around for hours. I then went to the airport and waited. I finally took the third flight out. You never once, not once, called and asked me to return. And then I was back in Atlanta. I didn’t hear from you until you sent a broadcast to all of us that Corey was alive. Then a few days later, we heard about Ma
rtin. You never once called for me. I would have been there in a few hours. Why?”

  David closed his eyes, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s time you grew up. Tell me when you figure it out.” Phyllis walked out of the bedroom after closing the light.

  Over her shoulder she said, “Its official, we’re going to bed angry and now you’ve lied to me. We’re going to bed angry.”

  In the dark, David could hear her angrily make up the couch and then he heard nothing.

  ***

  The next morning David saw that Phyllis was already up, dressed, and had finished breakfast. He said “Hi.” Phyllis ignored him.

  “Are you going to ignore me?”

  Phyllis looked at him and said nothing. She stared into his eyes and waited.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Phyllis continued looking into his eyes, “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Phyllis continued focusing on him, his expression, and his face. “Unacceptable answer. Totally unacceptable.”

  “But I don’t know!”

  Phyllis angrily and rapidly said, “Figure it out. Put every computer in existence on the problem and figure it out. Spend the rest of your waking life figuring it out. If you want me to remain with you, you find out why.” Phyllis turned and left to walk to work.

  ***

  That morning David went into Martin’s office, “Dad, I need help.”

  “With Phyllis?”

  “Yeah.”

  Martin leaned all the way back in his chair. His face no longer seemed as lined, the contours seemed rounder, softer. The roots of his hair were all dark brown. Martin put his feet on top of his desk, put his interlaced fingers behind his head and said, “Corey said you were having problems. Let me make it easy, you say you are stupid pinhead and wrong and she was right.”

  David sighed, “Dad, it’s not that simple.”

  “Sure it is, practice ‘I was wrong and you were right’. Say it.”

  “No dad, stop being childish.”

  “It’s not childish, David, it’s the wisdom of fathers of men throughout all generations. “I was wrong, I was stupid, and you were right.’ Try it.”

  David angrily said, “Dad, please stop it. I’m serious. I brought you to Saint Louis, dead. Corey dead. I didn’t think you might ever recover. You were the oldest person to get Panacea. I had no idea what it would do. You already had a heart attack and you didn’t have any medical help after being kidnapped. There was NO heart beat. I didn’t know if you had a second heart attack, if your brain was still functional. You might not survive. I didn’t know that Panacea worked on the heart, on making you young. I was scared. I couldn’t talk to anyone.”

  Martin quietly asked, “Phyllis was there?”

  “Yeah.”

  Martin smiled, “Go on.”

  “Well, I was scared. She tried to talk to me, but I was just seeing you dead. My life was tumbling all around.”

  “Phyllis was there? Your wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  Martin grinned and said, “Go on.”

  “I couldn’t talk, I didn’t know what to do?”

  “Phyllis was there? Did she try to talk to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “ OK, pinhead you want advice.”

  “Yes dad.”

  “You could have talked to her, your future, your wife, your life mate, but you didn’t. You ignored her.”

  “I guess.”

  “David, you GUESS? You guess? Are there any probabilities involved? Did you talk to her? Or did you ignore her? If no is a zero, a guess is a 50%, and yes is a 100%, did you ignore her?”

  In a quiet voice, David said “Yes, I ignored her.”

  Martin continued, “OK, you go up to her and say and REALLY MEAN ‘I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you in my time of misery. I was stupid and wrong and you were right. I was completely self-absorbed. I will never do that again. I was wrong. I was stupid. Can you forgive me?” Can you do that? You do know that you were a complete jerk.”

  “I guess.”

  “ I guess? Guess? Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “Yes, I can do that and yes, I was a complete jerk.”

  “Let me rephrase that David. Will you do that?”

  “Yes, Dad, I will tell Phyllis I was stupid and a jerk. Are you becoming a lawyer in your old age?”

  “Nope, just a dad. Are you done? Do you have any more questions on your marital strife? Otherwise, I have a small problem for you work on. What do we do if everyone wants Panacea? If everyone wants to live forever? Then they have children. And their children will live forever. And their children’s children live forever. What do we do? Panacea was an ancient Greek goddess, a legend. So was Pandora with her box. We opened that box with Malcolm. We kicked it open when anyone looking at me would mistake me for a high school senior, not a senior citizen. I’m not sure if it can be closed. As a doctor, I’ve sworn to open that box. But as a human, even opening the box a crack will doom all life on earth with over-population. I did some simulations and I’m scared. Really scared.”

  ***

  Corey entered Phyllis’ office and looked at the woman sitting with her hands at her side and staring blankly at the computer screen. Corey stood there for a few minutes before talking.

  “You mad at me too?”

  Phyllis pursed her lips then gave a half-hearted smile, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out of you. I’m just, well, pissed.”

  Corey nodded, “David, huh.”

  Phyllis had a weak smile, “Am I that transparent.”

  Corey nodded, “David told me that you left his vigil, his death-watch. He didn’t know why you left. You know that his realization of his father’s mortality affected David more than me. After I woke up, I knew Marty would be fine. But David, well, he just paced and he jabbered.”

  Phyllis said, “But Martin is fine.”

  Corey looked into the woman’s eyes, “Yes, Martin was healthy, but David just confronted Martin’s mortality for the first time. Martin is 53. Josh is a little kid, no matter how smart, but he got it right when he said that people die when they’re in their seventies. So-called middle age actually is when your life is at least two-thirds over. Marty and I were well on that slippery slope of the last third. David is still young, but he’s now aware that he too can die. He’s scared.”

  Bitterly Phyllis said, “I know he was scared. I was there. But he refused to talk. He just sat there moping.”

  “Sister, been there, done that. He’s a man. They haven’t the slightest idea about emotions, their own or others. Yes, he’s brilliant. He can build the greatest, most earth-shattering devices ever seen. He has revolutionized the human condition, but just you try to ask him about what he feels and it’s like asking Hilda to describe the color blue. He’s as aware of other people’s feelings as a sea slug. Intellectually he’ll know the words, but understand them? No.”

  Corey continued, “Did you know that when Marty had his heart attack, that he actually told me that nothing was wrong? He denied all the symptoms. And HE had a rotation in the Emergency Department. He knows all about heart attacks. He denied it. Macho fool! On the stretcher, he apologized, like it was his fault.”

  After a long pause, Corey said, “Did you ever appreciate the burden David carries? He is balancing the entire world condition on his shoulders. He knows that what he does, if tipped the wrong way, can doom the planet. Just take the anti-gravity reflector. If anyone could control their car, then imagine the havoc that would result if a car plunged down from the upper reaches of the stratosphere and hit the White house or the Sears tower – 9/11 style, even without a bomb. If anyone cracked his encryptions then you would have an unstoppable missile, unless you allowed everyone to have a personal protection force field. A field that can chew through a twenty-foot steel
wall like pac-man eating his dots. Then there’s the world economy – the WORLD economy. He’s controlling the price of power and transportation, remember? Now he’s facing over-population on a calamitous scale – no deaths, just births. Women won’t be fertile for just a forty year window, but forty millennia, or longer. I’ve seen the projections.”

  “Do you realize that when this gets out, many of the jobs on earth will be out of existence? Like health care? And those who keep their jobs may never get promoted?”

  “Your husband is scared and can’t say it. He’s overwhelmed. You know he loves you. Of all the women on earth, you know every glance he ever made toward any other woman. Right?”

  Phyllis looked at Corey for a moment. “Don’t you think I know that? To any outsider, David is the most powerful man on earth. Ha. He’s the least powerful. Everything he does is microscopically reviewed over and over and over by his worst critic.”

  Corey paused then stood up straight. “If you’re implying that Martin or I are …”

  Phyllis stopped Corey by placing her hand on Corey’s wrist. “No, of course not. Let me tell you a story. Before David proposed to me, I guess I was being a bit jealous. Did you know that one of those doo-hickies around our necks is something called a tetrahertz detector, well it can see through our clothing. David once had a large collection of scans of naked women. Don’t worry, when I found out about it, Martin and I got him to delete every one, except those of me. Well, I was feeling a bit jealous one day. I asked his computer to review how often David looked at naked women. Do you know what I found?”

  Corey shook her head.

  Phyllis continued, “80% of his waking moments were spent looking at naked women. 80%!! I was mortified. I was about to, to, I don’t know what, but I wanted to confront him. You know evidence to beat him over his brain. I had some really gruesome images of how I was going to confront him, to hurt him. I was ready to murder him, stone-cold dead, with hundreds of pieces. So, I looked at one of those naked women he’s been staring at. I’d maybe get her too. I opened one of his dirty picture files. The images were me. You can imagine how I felt. I then scanned others, like the movie of ‘Debbie Does Dallas’ that he played over and over. Do you know what I found? Me. David had replaced the porno star with my likeness. He replaced the male actor with himself. I asked the computer to review the naked pictures but exclude me. There were none. I was torn, I then asked his computer to review all clothed women he stared at, and give me a frequency distribution of how long he looked at them. I got smart from my first query into his memory, so I excluded myself. Well, mostly he looked for a scant second, others were trivially longer, but above twenty seconds was zero. Zero. There were a number leading up to twenty seconds, but above that it stops – cold. That night I confronted him. I asked him about the porno he created with me as the actress. You never saw a more pitiful, and guilty, creature in your life. He couldn’t deny it. He reminded me of a dog with a just-cooked roast in his doggie bed. Caught, with no possible excuse. You see, everything he does is recorded and backed up. I then asked him about the twenty second time and what did he think he was doing. Again he looked guilty. He said he programmed it into his Superego program.”