by L. L. Fine
It was five minutes to death.
Everybody in that room knew it. The big, digital clock on the wall said it clearly with big red numbers.
Every second, according to that clock, was made of a hundred hundredths of a second, and every such hundredth of one was comprised of ten milliseconds.
The big clock displayed them all.
Time is a relative thing. As Einstein discovered, if you move faster, time slows down.
But it is not the only way to slow down time.
Time, according to Zomy, was not only relative to the velocity of the event. It was proportional to the size of the event, too. To its complexity. To the attention it drew. To its importance. And in those moments before death, Zomy found any second is made of hour-long thousand milliseconds.
Five minutes before death. Three hundred thousand milliseconds before death.
Zomy looked at the clock again. It was the only one installed in the laboratory. The only one that actually mattered, in a place no one expects to leave.
Five minutes left to go, and who knew what would happen when they’d gone? No one. Maybe God.
Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds before death, a slight tremor of excitement passed through Zomy. Small electric fingers, caressing, climbed up his veins. These were the most important minutes of his life.
He knew that.
The laboratory was very huge. The largest in this underground complex, in fact. Normally, thousands of animals lived there: flatworms, fruit flies, various beetles, small mammals, and one friendly chimpanzee whose name was Bobby.
Today Bobby was the only one there.
Bobby, and twenty-six people, of course. Among them were ten out of the fourteen people who knew this lab actually existed but were not a part of its staff.
Three of the other 14 were in Washington. And the extra member was at the Kirya, Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv. He had no choice: he had to supervise a complex raid in southern Lebanon. Nonetheless, he monitored the lab – including the clock – on one of the personal screens in front of him.
Four minutes, fifty-six seconds to death.
In sharp contrast to Zomy, Bobby did not seem nervous at all. He was in his favorite cage, hooked only to a minimal number of medical instruments, rapidly consuming a hill of bananas (and steaks!). Yummy. Bobby loved bananas, and more than that - he loved steaks. This time, for some reason, mama Lia decided to give him extra.
Oh, mama Lia. Bobby looked at her with love and took a mouthful of the meat, savoring the feeling of it melting in his mouth. Oh, the steak was delicious. Oh, Bobby loved mother Lia.
But why did she look so worried?
Four minutes, fifty-three seconds to death, mother Lia sneaked a cold hand inside Zomy's hand. And he, embarrassed as ever, looked down at her for the briefest of time (17 milliseconds, to be exact) lingering on her wild, golden hair before falling into her green eyes.
Sad green eyes.
"That's the way it's meant to be, Lia," Zomy whispered.
"I hope that this experiment will fail," she blurted back. And meant every word.
This very phrase seemed to raise every hair on his back. No, he definitely did not want the experiment to fail. Four minutes, thirty-nine seconds before death, he was NOT willing for this experiment to fail.
Failure of the experiment meant canceling the project. Decisively, without arguments. The chiefs wanted results. The only way they were able to confirm the continued unbelievable funding of this godforsaken pit was to get results. Here and now. Unlike other projects, such as nuclear and space research, his project had no apparent military significance.
Apparent, he reminded himself.
Who am I kidding? OF COURSE it has military implications. And if I don’t know them yet, it's because I shouldn't. They don’t want me to know them. But I know, unfortunately.
It was not important to him. Military stuff meant nothing to him. He trusted the government and the IDF to do the right thing. We already have nuclear bombs. No one dares to really mess with us. The same thing will come out of this project, if anything. Less reason to mess with us.
Four minutes and twenty seconds just before death, even Bobby began to understand the meaning of the experiment. He felt something.
Lia felt it before he did.
One slight movement on the monitors made her fingers tighten lightly around Zomy's hand. She took a quick breath.
Little more than a second later, Bobby felt the first twinge of pain. In a way it reminded him of one of those countless needles pecking him, even from infancy. But no, this was not exactly the same feeling. The needles were something external, probing in. This twinge appeared inside out, sending a sharp beam of pain along his back.
His jaws opened. The steak fell to the floor of the cage.
Lia's body tensed.
"It begins," muttered a voice from one of the respected officers, and was met with an mmmm of agreement.
Bobby was going to die, and here they were, clapping their hands, she thought.
"This experiment must not fail," Zomy commented on what Lia said just few thousand milliseconds ago. "This experiment is life itself."
Three minutes and fifty-four seconds off death, Zomy allowed himself a light smile. Finally an experiment that uses no chemicals, uses no physical action, no external interventions. Pure experiment, as life should be. An experiment without an experiment.
"Zomy, he’s suffering ..." Lia whispered loudly, pointing to the chimp, who had collapsed to the floor of his cage.
"Stay out of this."
This time it was Zomy who squeezed her hand.
She did not mean to interfere, of course, although her entire soul urged her to go to the chimp - who took her for his mother - and give him the kiss of life in the form of some adrenaline.
She didn't really mean to interfere with the experiment. True - she was a doctor. True - she had the power to save lives. But not now. Not this life.
Three minutes and forty seconds before death, Bobby whimpered.
And all the people in the room, even those who never knew Bobby's name was Bobby, tensed up. There is something chilling in the howl of death. Even when the death was caused entirely by aging and natural causes. For many seconds, there was no other voice in the room, except the beating of the digital clock.
Bobby whined. Strong, weak. And strong again.
Two minutes and eighteen seconds before death, he fell heavily to the ground of the cage, holding his chest and back in a very human gesture. He began to grunt and utter strange sounds. His eyes were bulging, mysteriously white.
For a brief moment they met Lia's green eyes and then parted again. Bobby could not have known that the end of his pain was just one shot away, a shot his mother could have given to him. Luckily so, or else Lia would be tempted to read his gaze as a plea for mercy, and would have destroyed the experiment without giving it another thought. Bobby was more precious to her than this experiment. Dear to her as a son.
Then a stronger stream of pain flashed through his chest, and his eyes lost any hint of love for Lia.
The side monitors indicated the progression of a cardiac arrest. Lia could almost envisage the collapsing heart muscle, ceasing to push blood to the right places.
Bobby's weary heart reached the end of his path, slowly and surely. The people around were excited. Zomy was not that ecstatic, but he let go a smile.
He, too, felt a certain closeness to Bobby. Not like Lia, of course. After all, to him Bobby was little more than a laboratory rat. True, he enjoyed playing with (it) him from time to time, but that was all, more or less. To him, Bobby was THE laboratory rat. The most important one that ever lived. And now, the experiment, THE experiment, was over.
Amazingly so.
Simply amazingly so.
A minute and forty seconds before death, Bobby died.
*
The laboratory was silent for a moment. The flat line on the monitor was too sudden to be understood at
first. Then a fairly senior person, her commanding officer (and Zomy's, for that matter) approached Lia.
"Can you confirm its death?" Saul asked, reminding Lia of her role in this event.
And she remembered. Her fingers let go of Zomy's, and she stumbled towards Bobby's cage.
There wasn't much to determine. A flat line is a flat line. For one last moment she toyed with the thought of using the adrenaline syringe lying (just in case!) in the pocket of her lab coat, but eventually she left it there, and only used the stethoscope hanging on her chest.
Dead. Officially.
A single hand clap broke the silence of death, followed by another, and then by a barrage of applause with various depths and rhythms. After a few seconds one of the cellphones applauded too, and another congratulated Saul and his staff for a work well done.
Other cellphones reported the death to the three people who had to be in Washington at that time. From somewhere a bottle of champagne popped open, and the bubbling wine was poured into paper cups.
A champagne cork, Zomy found out several hours later, landed right next to Bobby's body.
*
In short, Bobby died two minutes before the clock reached zero. It was close enough, though, so we started to clap hands and open bottles of champagne. The entire room was on its feet, everyone applauding and clapping hands and shouting and whistling.
Only Lia stood outside, crying, and I felt like crap because of this.
It was the first time I thought I wanted to stop all this. But this moment was over when all the chiefs tapped me on my shoulder and said, "Well done," and, "Wow," and, "It's a great honor to meet you," and all that shit. Today such words make me sick, but then I took it in without thinking twice. We cracked the code - and it was the most important thing that moment.
If you have any questions, go to NANA chat tomorrow at three o’clock.
I went there, of course. Who would have behaved differently?
03/27/01 NANA Chat
Chromosome: Did you wait long?
Liron _annoyed: Yes! Where the fuck were you?!
Chromosome: Sorry, I was detained in the lab.
Liron_annoyed: What lab? What's all this BS?
Chromosome: Got you curious, didn’t I?
Liron_annoyed: Yeah, you did.
Chromosome: Great. What would you like to know?
Liron_annoyed: Everything. Starting with that laboratory of yours.
Chromosome: That's easy to start with.
Liron_annoyed: So start, then. Where is it?
Chromosome: First of all, formally there is no lab at all. It doesn't matter where it is. For your readers, it can be just a secret lab somewhere, and that's it.
Liron_annoyed: OK. Now tell me about the code you mentioned.
Chromosome: Code?
Liron_annoyed: Yes, the letter you sent, you talked about the code you cracked, the one of Bobby the Chimp.
Liron_annoyed: And why did you call him Bobby. You couldn't have chosen a better name?
Chromosome: Sure we could have. And we did. I gave you a fake name.
Liron_annoyed: : -))))) An alias for an APE?
Chromosome: Didn't I tell you EVERY detail here is fake? If I give you the real name then Security will understand that what you’re writing about is not imaginary but real, based on information you somehow got.
Liron_annoyed: But they can’t PROVE it.
Chromosome: They don't need to. But listen, that’s why I chose you in the first place. You are an author who already wrote some fantasy or sci-fi shit, and it's known you're interested in science and genetics and God and stuff.
Liron_annoyed: How do you know it's known?
Chromosome: I tracked down the sites you tend to visit.
Liron_annoyed: All the sites?
Chromosome: : -))))
Liron_annoyed: Fuck you!
Liron_annoyed: So what about that code? You never told me.
Chromosome: It’s related to the genome.
Liron_annoyed: That, I've already realized. But the genome is a great thing. You were talking about something specific.
Chromosome: The code of death.
Liron_annoyed: ???
Chromosome: The mechanism responsible for your life span.
Liron_annoyed: Mmmmm.
Liron_annoyed: Interesting.
Liron_annoyed: You mean the mechanism of aging?
Liron_annoyed: Hello?
Liron_annoyed: Helooooooooooooooooooo?
Liron_annoyed: I guess it’s the boss again?
Liron_annoyed: Well, I'm waiting!
Mitochondria: Sorry.
Liron_annoyed: Why did you change your nickname?
Mitochondria: I was being tracked, so I had to change chat servers. It's nothing actually, this crap happens to me a lot. They won't catch me THAT easily.
Liron_annoyed: I admit that I have no idea what you are talking about. What chat server? Who is tracking you?
Mitochondria: I don't really know. It started a few months ago but I avoid it easily. This is also why I turned to you. I don’t want them to catch me before I have a backup.
Liron_annoyed: And I'm the backup? Oh well.
Mitochondria: Listen, sweetie. I'm going to give you an amazing story like you have never heard in your life and I'm going to risk my life for it. But this story has to go out and eventually you will understand why.
Liron_annoyed: Because eventually we all die?
Mitochondria: I'm glad you're laughing about it but it is a serious.
Liron_annoyed: Death is a serious thing.
Mitochondria: You say things you know nothing about. So just shut up and listen and I hope you keep track of these conversations.
Liron_annoyed: Don’t worry.
Mitochondria: So we were talking about the death code. And I emailed you about how our ape died just as we expected him to do. You have any questions about that?
Liron_annoyed: It’s not really as you expected, it was a few minutes short, as I recall.
Mitochondria: In terms of the experiment, it is negligible.
Mitochondria: Tell me, do you have ANY idea how amazing this discovery is? I'm starting to feel I am wasting my time talking to you.
Liron_annoyed: NO! No, you are not.
Mitochondria: Really?
Liron_annoyed: I am listening. Seriously, I am. No joke.
Mitochondria: : -))
Liron_annoyed: So... Bobby died. What were the implications of this?
*
Zomy looked again and again at the champagne cork in his hand. Minutes after he had finished answering all the questions, he went back, with relief, to his office. It was not a large room. An alcove with a door would describe it better. An alcove that contained his entire world in recent years.
A messy world.
The center of the room was taken up by a large executive chair, well-padded with black leather. Zomy bought it himself, after he refused to settle for the simple government chair that was issued to him.
"If I'm going to be buried here," he told everybody, "then I may as well feel comfortable."
The problem was the chair was almost bigger than the room. There was hardly any space left between it and the desk. Therefore, Zomy had to squeeze himself into it by jumping from the top. He liked it, though. It was like jumping in a sports car. A small price to pay for convenience.
The other piece of furniture in the room was a bit hard to see. It was too crowded with papers, books, pens from various periods in the history of the complex (some were still good, though) an ergonomic keyboard, a standard keyboard, a mouse, and a monumental computer screen, showing a painfully large number of windows.
Under the table it was relatively tidy. Four locked drawers held their secrets below the right side of the table, and on the left loomed a Babylonian tower of disks.
The walls were decent looking, too. White, absent of any picture, statue or mask. Only one small Hamsa opened a curious blue eye, somewhere on the
right wall.
“It's over," a woman's voice surprised him. "They went away, everyone."
*
Liron_annoyed: You two are an item, eh?
Chromosome: No, not at all.
Liron_annoyed: You can't fool me. You're talking about her too much.
Chromosome: I'm talking about her too little, believe me.
Liron_annoyed: What do you mean?
Chromosome: That she deserves a bigger part in this story, but in order to protect her I conceal it.
Liron_annoyed: Have you told her yet?
Chromosome: About us???
Liron_annoyed: No, about you! That you love her.
Chromosome: Nonsense!!!
Liron_annoyed: I told you, you can't fool me here. It screams from your words.
Chromosome: Nah. I don't love her. She is great, that's true, but that's all.
Liron_annoyed: Is she married?
Chromosome: No.
Liron_annoyed: Involved with someone?
Chromosome: Not anymore.
Liron_annoyed: : -)))
Chromosome: What are you smiling about, little pervert?
Liron_annoyed: Just because.
Chromosome: Then wipe that smile, there is nothing between us.
Liron_annoyed: When you want to share, just tell me.
Chromosome: No problems, Doctor Love.
Liron_annoyed: : -)
*
Zomy looked up into Lia's green eyes.
"Look what I found." He handed her the champagne cork.
Lia took the cap in her hand, turned it slightly between her long fingers, and finally put it into the right pocket of her doctor's coat.
"A souvenir," she said, lips curved down.
A keen ear would recognize the remains of an accent in her speech. Not while she was normally talking - only at certain moments, when emotions were mixed into her words. Only then you could notice there was something not entirely Israeli there. Something foreign.
"You took it badly, this death scene."
"Listen...Bobby was here for quite some time. And he's not just a dog. He's almost human. Like a… little boy. Our little boy."
"Even little boys die sometimes."
