by S.A. Bodeen
Finally, we drove through the gate of a complex of redbrick buildings, all surrounded by high metal fences with ornamental, yet deadly looking, spikes on top.
Lee took me all the way to the first building, and stopped at the end of a short sidewalk that led to a large set of glass doors. “Thanks,” I said, and reached for the door.
He held up his hand. “Hold on.” Then he got out, walked around to my side, and opened the door for me.
I dropped to the ground. “You’re not going in with me. I don’t care what my mom told you, but you will totally blow my cover if anyone sees you hulking beside me.” I swallowed. “No offense.”
“None taken.” He looked around at all the obvious security measures, then handed me a cell phone.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Your mother asked me to give it to you. Untraceable. I’m number two on speed dial.”
I started to ask who was #1, then realized I didn’t need to. I turned the phone over and looked at the screen. My first cell phone.
Eddy had one already, of course. What teenager didn’t have a cell phone? He stayed in contact with his friends in Hawaii, I knew that. Sometimes it bugged me, and I’d thought about asking for a cell phone, but who was there for me to call?
Still, I felt a little thrill as I slipped it in the front pocket of my jeans.
“You’ve got an hour. Then I come looking for you.” He got back in the SUV and didn’t take his eyes off me.
I headed toward the front doors, which automatically swooshed opened before I got there, and I stepped inside. The floors and walls were white, and the place looked like a hospital. A short, stocky man with a graying, receding hairline came toward me. He wore a white lab jacket and black pants, and held out his hand. “I’m Dr. James Barkley.” He had a slight accent, which I couldn’t place.
I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m—”
“EJ. Ms. Greene told me all about you. Perfect SAT scores at fifteen!”
What? Ms. Greene had certainly taken liberties with the truth in order to make me sound exceptional. I hadn’t even taken the SATs, and was fairly sure I wouldn’t get a perfect score when I did.
“Amazing.” He smiled.
“I guess so.” I hoped there wouldn’t be any more surprises courtesy of Ms. Greene.
“I’m so glad to have you here on behalf of YK.” He held out an arm. “This way, please.”
We walked down a brightly lit hallway filled with closed doors. It felt so familiar, so similar to the Compound that I shuddered slightly, and found myself relieved as I passed each door and found that none were painted yellow.
He stopped in front of one near the end of the hallway and opened it, then ushered me inside, where several people in white lab coats and plastic goggles stood over trays of test tubes. Some held eyedroppers and methodically added something to the test tubes. Others seemed to be recording data on laptops as the others worked.
Dr. Barkley spoke quietly. “This is one of our many labs. Research is where most of the funding goes.”
“You’re working on a cure then?” To complete the picture, I opened my journal and jotted something down.
He smiled. “That’s the main goal. But just isolating data related to aging and the disease… that can be a victory, too.” He lowered his voice even more. “Some years ago we had a fire that destroyed most of our research. We were so grateful to Mr. Yanakakis. He gave us enough funding to start over again. Although we’d lost so much, at least we were able to keep going.”
My face had gotten hot as he talked about my father. Was I so sensitive that I couldn’t stand to hear anyone speak about him?
No. I just couldn’t stand to hear anyone talk about him, as if he were anything but what he had been: a madman. The thought of even admitting to anyone that I was his son…
I turned back toward the door. “Is that it? Just research?” My tone must have been a bit brusque, because Dr. Barkley’s smile wavered. “I can show you our therapy section.”
I didn’t know what that was, but I nodded. I wanted to get out of that lab that reminded me so much of my father. And my former life.
He led me down a hallway and outside. We dodged raindrops as we walked across a cobblestone road to another building. After a short hallway, he opened a set of double doors and we entered a glass-domed room, so high over my head I couldn’t help but turn my focus upward. Plants were everywhere, and colorful butterflies flitted overhead. A large sparkling pool took up a major portion of the space, the rest of which was covered with grassy walkways and benches. “This is amazing.”
Dr. Barkley glanced at his watch. “Our first children should be arriving in a little while.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he motioned to a nearby cushioned bench. As soon as I sat down next to him, the phone in my pocket felt too bulky and uncomfortable, so I took it out and set it on the bench beside me.
He asked, “Do you know anything about progeria?”
I shrugged. “Just what I read in the prospectus.”
“Well, these kids aren’t going to recover. It’s not like other childhood afflictions that they have the hope of leaving behind them as they grow up.” He pulled out a YK tablet from the deep pocket of his lab coat and swiped a finger across it. “Do you mind?” he asked. “I find it much easier to make all this clear if I start from the beginning.”
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s a really fascinating disease.” I quickly backtracked. “I mean… not to make light of anything, I just—”
“I understand completely.” Dr. Barkley set a hand on my arm. “Progeria is fascinating. And mysterious. Which is why I’ve dedicated my life to it.” He held out his computer so I could see a photo of a newborn.
Dr. Barkley said, “Progeria is extremely rare, and only affects one in eight million newborns worldwide.” He pointed at the photo. “As newborns, children with progeria appear normal. But…” He tapped the screen and the photo switched to one of an older baby. “Within a year, their growth rate slows. Soon they are much shorter and weigh less than others their age.” Again he tapped, and the photo of a boy, maybe five or so, in a navy-blue sweat suit, appeared. He was bald, with a pinched nose and wrinkled skin that looked very aged. While his head looked very large, the face and jaw seemed very small, too small for the size of his head.
Dr. Barkley said, “These children are of normal intelligence, but their appearance is very distinct.”
I asked, “Are there other symptoms? Besides the ones you can see, I mean.”
He pointed at the picture. “They typically have symptoms that you would normally only see in much older people. Stiff joints, hip dislocations, cardiovascular disease.”
“Heart disease?” I asked. “Like heart attacks?”
He nodded. “Some children with progeria undergo coronary bypass surgery. But it’s just for more time, really. On average, most die around age thirteen. Usually from a heart attack or stroke.”
I looked away, at the glistening pool. I couldn’t imagine knowing you would die at such a young age. “And there’s nothing you can do?”
He motioned at the pool. “Hydrotherapy seems to help a little with the stiff joints, much like it helps senior citizens.”
It seemed so sad to me, that they couldn’t do more for the children. Or prevent it from happening in the first place. “Can’t they test for the disease?”
Dr. Barkley nodded. “Yes. But first let me explain how the disease works.” He swiped a finger across the computer screen, and a diagram popped up of the cross-section of a cell. “There’s a cellular protein known as Lamin A, which is encoded by the LMNA gene. Lamin A helps maintain the structure of the nucleus, which of course contains all the genetic information. Progerin is a mutated version of Lamin A, and it’s what causes progeria to occur.” He stopped for a moment and shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Twenty-five thousand base pairs of DNA make up the LMNA gene, but nearl
y all cases of progeria happen because of the substitution of just one base pair.”
I said, “So that’s why it’s so rare.”
He nodded. “The strange thing is, parents and siblings of children with progeria are almost never affected by the disease. Which means that the genetic mutation must occur just prior to conception.” He swiped across the screen until it was blank.
He held up a finger. “Now, this has all been around for quite some time. But what we discovered in our research about six years ago was this.” He tapped and a diagram popped up of a tubular structure surrounded by what looked like small worms. “Here’s a chromosome.” He glanced down at the loafers on his feet, then over at my Converse. “Ah, good. Can I see your shoelaces?”
I nodded and crossed my legs, so that one of my shoes was right near my hand. Dr. Barkley reached out and pulled on my shoelace, untying it. He held the plastic tip at the end. “Do you know this has a name?”
I shrugged. “Um, plastic thing at the end of my shoelace?”
He smiled. “It’s actually called an aglet.” He dropped the shoelace and went back to the computer screen. He pointed at the tips of the chromosome. “Much like the ends of your shoelaces are bound by aglets, the ends of the chromosomes are bound by telomeres.” He tapped again.
An animated video began, showing cell division. He said, “During cell division, those telomeres wear away. Eventually, they wear away so much that the cell stops dividing and dies. Our research has found that short or abnormal telomeres turn on the production of progerin, which, as we know, is related to cell damage caused by aging. Still with me?”
I nodded.
“As the telomeres shorten, the cell makes even more progerin. But I wanted to know what was causing the production of the progerin.”
“And did you figure it out?” I asked.
“In a way.” He turned off his tablet and leaned back. He nodded. “As I was trying to answer this question, I stumbled upon something else. I had just figured out what I believed to be the gene that turns on aging.” He didn’t say anything else.
“That’s amazing!” I said.
He looked down and sighed. “Yes, it could have been.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was doing this on my own. Unfortunately, only I knew all my research. When my lab was destroyed in the fire… I had to start over.” He smiled. “Which made YK such an absolute lifesaver. Mere weeks before the fire, I had applied for funding through YK. Starting over was bad enough, but starting over with all the funding we needed? Well, it lessened the sting a bit.” He looked around, then raised a hand in the air. “All of this is what arose from the ashes of that fire. My research will get back to where it was. In the meantime, we do all the good we can.”
Just then a door opened, and I heard the sound of a child giggling. A small bald boy came in through the glass door, wearing red surf shorts. He held the hand of a slim girl who looked about my age. Her dark hair was in a pixie cut, and she wore jeans and a long-sleeved Mariners tee. And she had the most beautiful brown eyes I’d ever seen. My heart sped up.
She saw Dr. Barkley, then smiled and waved.
Dr. Barkley took my arm. “Come. You can meet one of our patients.”
The girl was watching me.
Trying to be as cool as possible, I stood up, took a large step, then immediately tripped on my untied shoelace and did a face-plant on the grass.
CHAPTER SIX
Dr. Barkley took one of my arms and helped me up.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I brushed the grass off my knees, then got up on one knee and tied my shoe as my face burned. Great. Way to make an idiot of myself in front of the first teenage girl I’d met in… well, actually? The first teenage girl I’d ever met since I’d become a teenager myself.
The girl and the little boy walked over to me. She looked at me with an amused smile on her face.
I felt my face get even hotter.
Dr. Barkley introduced me. “This is EJ. And, EJ, this is Jamie and his sister, Verity.”
Verity may have been close to laughing at me, but even so, it made her brown eyes sparkle. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said.
Jamie looked up at me and said, “I’m five.”
I smiled. “I have a brother about your age.”
His face lit up and he looked around. “Is he here?”
Verity set a hand on his head. “Jamie, stop interrupting.”
“It’s fine,” I said. But I didn’t want to have to answer, and say that, no, my brother wasn’t here, because he was perfectly healthy and didn’t have to face the fact he’d be dead by age thirteen. I mustered a smile. “You going swimming?”
Jamie nodded and grabbed Dr. Barkley’s hand. He smiled, and said, “Okay, I’m coming.” They left Verity and I standing there.
She looked over at me. “Want to watch him swim?”
I nodded. “Of course.” I reached over and picked up my phone off the bench.
As we walked, she asked, “So why are you here? Is your little brother a patient, too?”
I shook my head. “No… um… I’m part of this internship thing.” I held up my journal. “This is sort of a research assignment.”
“What kind of an internship?” She seemed interested, but I wished she would stop asking. My whole fake persona of exceptional-high-school-student was not all that solid.
“I’m just asking a bunch of questions as he gives me a tour, basically. And then I have to write out a report to get a grade from my teacher at school.” Nice, Eli. That sounded totally plausible.
“What school?” she asked.
Seriously? Trying to put an end to the questions I couldn’t answer, I asked, “Is this the Inquisition or what?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
I wanted to stop answering her questions because I didn’t want to be dishonest with her. This was my first conversation with a teenage girl ever. Well, a teenage girl that wasn’t related to me. And I didn’t want to mess it up by any more lying. Which was all I’d done from the moment I’d opened my mouth.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m naturally curious.”
I smiled. “I thought we were going to watch him swim.” I started to head closer to the pool, but she grabbed my elbow.
“Trust me; we’ll stay much drier if we watch from a distance.” She pointed to a bench near the pool, and we both headed for it and then sat down. I set my journal down on the ground and put my cell phone on top of it. The bench was small, and her jeans-clad leg was only an inch or so away from mine. I couldn’t help but notice that she smelled nice.
Jamie had gotten in the pool with a woman in a black tank suit. He wore blue water wings, splashed a bit and laughed.
Verity said, “He loves coming here.”
I tried to fend off more questions by asking some of my own. “It must be hard,” I said. “The progeria.”
She nodded. “He was always sort of… unhealthy. Even before we knew about the progeria.”
I wanted to know how old she was, but didn’t want to come out and ask. “How old were you when he was born?”
“Ten. My parents didn’t really think they’d have another kid, but I’d always begged them for a little brother or sister.” She stuck an elbow in my ribs and I jumped.
She said, “If you want to know how old I am, just ask.”
I smiled. “How old are you?”
“Almost sixteen. How about you?”
“Same.” Well, if almost sixteen meant fifteen years and barely a couple months. Close enough.
We watched Jamie dog-paddle over to the woman. Verity asked, “So you just have the one brother?”
I kind of laughed, and then realized I needed to lie again. “I have an older sister, too.” Which was actually the truth, except that I happened to leave out a few siblings.
“Sometimes I wish I had more brothers or sisters.” Verity pointed at Jamie. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.” She met my eyes and shr
ugged a little. “I mean, I know the day will come.” She sighed. “Life expectancy is, like, thirteen.”
“That’s what Dr. Barkley told me. It must be hard, knowing he has a… shelf life.” I winced. “I’m so sorry. That came out wrong.”
“It’s okay.” She lifted and lowered a shoulder. “It’s kind of true.” She watched Jamie for a bit before going on. “It’s hard on my parents. I just try to do everything I can with him. I take an independent study at school first hour of the day, so I can bring him here three days a week.” She glanced at her watch.
She wasn’t old enough to drive. “How do you get here?” I asked.
Her brown eyes turned my way again. “The bus. Our schools are right next to each other, so I run him there and then get back in time for class.”
“Sounds like a pain,” I said.
She nodded. “It’ll be way better when I can drive.”
Jamie called out, “Verity! Come watch me!”
She stood up and looked down at me. “I’m surprised he didn’t yell before now. Coming?”
I nodded. “In a sec.”
I watched Verity walk away.
For some reason, I wanted to call her back, tell her everything: my real name, the truth about my family. I swallowed. How stupid would that be? I’d known her for less than five minutes. And there was the fact that I would never run into her again.
Just before reaching the pool, Verity spun around on her heel and jogged back to me. “Before I go…” She knelt down and grabbed my phone; then before I could say anything, her thumbs were a blur. “There. I mean, in case you have any questions about this place. Or anything.” She handed me the phone and headed over to the pool.
Dr. Barkley joined me again. He said, “I have to go to a meeting, but I’ll have someone show you out. Please tell Ms. Greene…” He trailed off.
