by C. P. James
He hadn’t flown to this property. He’d only driven there before, maybe twice, and neither it nor the glorified puddle at the top were identifiable on a map. All he could do was help navigate to the nearest town and direct the pilot from there. It was hard to tell from his very brief, curt conversation with President Earle whether any of her people might converge on the same spot, but since he couldn’t articulate exactly where it was to them either, he figured he was on his own for now.
He didn’t know what he’d find when he got there. During the 20 minutes they’d been in the air, it dawned on him that his initial reaction to the situation might be wrong. Lars would never take his own life, he’d thought, but he didn’t know that. Lars had been on his own the past few years and he couldn’t know his state of mind.
The sun was falling out of sight, bathing the land beyond the Rockies’ long shadow in orange. The tiny town of Nederland appeared in the distance, which helped him get his bearings. He directed the pilot to turn around and follow the road that headed back west from there. If he remembered correctly, that would lead to the gate and the jeep trail up the mountain. They dropped down to 400 feet and he saw a familiar rock outcropping that preceded a sharp turn in the road. The gate was down there, along with the faint outline of a trail. They followed it up the slope. A few minutes later, he saw the car.
“There’s the car!” he shouted. “Follow the ridge straight north from there.”
In the gloaming, Teacup Lake was mostly black. He could see a tent and maybe a table of some sort, but no signs of life.
“How’s the surface down there?” the pilot asked.
“Solid rock. That should work right there,” Erik said, pointing to a flat spot about 200 feet from the campsite. The wash from the rotors would probably blow everything away, but that didn’t matter.
Erik’s feet were on the ground before the skids. He ran toward the tent, which had held up against the downdraft, though everything else was now in the water. The front flap was open, and 20 feet away he saw a foot. The girl. He slowed, looking around for Lars. Nothing. He ducked down low and peered inside. Jayla Earle was staring up lifelessly, her face almost white, inside her sleeping bag. Lars sat next to her with his legs pulled tightly to his chest, staring at her. Alive.
Erik dove in and threw his arms around Lars.
“My boy,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
He pulled back and looked Lars up and down for some sign of injury. His arms were covered in drying blood and his skin was freezing, but he appeared to be okay.
“I couldn’t stop her,” he said, to no one in particular.
“I know. Her mother got her letter.”
A realization visibly washed over Lars. He dropped his head down and nodded, as though silently acknowledging his role in this.
“I need to talk to her,” Lars said. “She needs to understand what she was going through, and why I never … why I never saw this coming.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about it. Right now we need to get her in the chopper. Just sit tight outside and I’ll have Tom come help me—“
“No, I’ve got her,” Lars said firmly, meeting Erik’s eyes for the first time. “I’ve got her.”
Erik nodded and backed out of the tent. Lars slid his arms under Jayla and gently lifted her free of the tent. Tom, the pilot, was out of the helicopter and started toward them as if to help, but Erik waved him off. He stood and watched as Lars laid her carefully in the back of the helicopter, then he climbed in and cradled her head in his lap. Erik nodded toward Tom and twirled his finger in the air. The car could wait.
A few minutes later, the chopper lifted off. This time the wash from the rotors got the better of the tent, and it, along with just about everything else around the little campsite, was blown into the lake, like they’d never been there.
President Earle and a small retinue of Secret Service arrived at GIG a few hours before dawn. Erik arranged for Jayla’s body to come back to DC. Although he didn’t think it wise for Lars to speak with her just then, he insisted. They sat across from each other in a small conference room, just talking behind a closed door, for more than an hour. When they were done, Lars began to weep uncontrollably and rose to embrace her when she did the same. Erik waited across the hall.
When they emerged, President Earle walked straight toward Erik, still wiping tears from her face, though she drew herself up to her full height and struck a practiced, measured tone.
“Thank you for finding them,” she said. “Your son … he’s a good kid. My daughter’s had a lot of problems. This wasn’t his fault. You both need to understand that.”
“I’m deeply sorry for your loss, Madam President. If there’s anything we can do …”
“You’ve done enough,” she said, and walked away.
That night, back at the house, Lars slept for a long time. Erik couldn’t. Lars’ short, mile-a-minute life was the product of a lie. Every friend he’d made, every powerful experience, every ounce of meaning and gravity he derived from the simplest things was both real and false. He would have to tell him, of course, but not yet. Not now. There were questions to be answered and broader implications to discuss. There would be just him and Geller, in another room behind another door, and in that room there would be no hugs.
50
What Erik told her was unambiguous: Scientifically speaking, she had nothing left to offer. And yet it was ambiguous, because he wanted her to stay. For his own sake. Their time together was nice, and it had potential. Even though she’d thus far dodged the fate of her peers, it didn’t change how Heidi thought about love. It never seemed like there was time for it. It still didn’t.
The doorbell rang. Out of habit she checked her hair in the mirror en route to the foyer. She hoped it was Erik again, so they could talk.
It was Geller.
“We need to talk,” he said, pushing in without waiting to be invited.
“Please come in.”
He brushed past her and made a beeline for the cupboard beside the fridge, which they kept stocked with booze. She wasn’t much of a drinker, so most of it was untouched. Geller started pulling bottles out to get at something at the back, which he opened and poured into a rocks glass without ceremony. Scotch, probably. She watched it all happen from the half-wall that separated the kitchen from the sunken living room. He came around the side of the island and sat on one of the stools with a deep sigh, running his fingers through his silver hair.
“I’m good, thanks,” she said, smirking. Geller was always Geller.
“I’m not here about Erik, if that’s what you were wondering,” he said. “I don’t care about that.”
“And to think I was so concerned about your approval,” she said, drolly.
“I brought you here under a false pretense.”
“What do you mean?”
Geller sighed heavily and shifted in his stool. He was agitated. This was harder than he expected.
“You’re not an anomaly,” he said. “You’re proof.”
“Proof of what?”
And so Geller told her a story.
Around the time Baz and Lucia got married, development of the Cure had begun to stall. Each layer of protection Geller added multiplied the serum’s complexity because of how everything interacted. One protein would make another unstable, or the vector for one gene replacement would overwhelm its host cells and prevent the next from taking hold. At each turn, Baz urged Geller to pump the brakes and save it for a future iteration. But Geller kept pressing. Baz wasn’t spending as much time in the lab anymore on account of Lucia and Biermann stayed out of his way, so he toiled away on the big score until he had it. That work he did alone was what ultimately became the Cure.
But before any of that started, after an argument with Baz, Geller produced a batch of the earlier serum. It could take care of all but a handful of rare disorders, which to his way of thinking was a half measure. That wasn’t his style, but Baz had made a compelling argument for stickin
g a flag in the ground. So he made two batches, put it in a cryo-tube, and tucked it away in the back of the lab’s freezer, labeled as something innocuous.
Years passed, and Geller’s more audacious formulation earned him and Baz the Merriweather Prize. He got his lab, his company, and investors by the boatload. They brought his treatment to scale, jumped through all the FDA’s hoops and started injecting mothers-to-be with the second serum. Baz and Lucia adopted Perfecto, the first of the Perfect Generation. The first of millions. But then something unexpected happened: His mentor and friend, Jim Robb, came to him with a request to personally administer the Cure to his daughter’s unborn child. Heidi.
A long time ago, Baz observed that Geller thought people were sheep. Merriweather said cattle. Some four decades later, he’d come to realize they were mostly right. The truth was that people were walking puzzles—problems to solve. That’s why he did all this. It wasn’t out of some high-minded desire to better humanity; it was to push his abilities to their absolute limits. The complexities of the human body were the only frontier that mattered to him. But when Jim Robb came and asked for Geller’s personal involvement, it became personal. This wasn’t just a person who’d been admitted to the trials—this was the flesh and blood of a man he genuinely cared about.
In truth, Geller didn’t know until the last moment which serum he would use to treat Hannah, Heidi’s mother. He recalled a lecture Jim gave once about the inherent rigors of the scientific method, and entropy, and realized that the serum he’d consigned to the freezer was the only one that would’ve passed Jim’s test.
That’s why I’m still alive,” Heidi said.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve known about this my whole life.”
Geller nodded. Heidi slumped down against the wall, overcome.
“This was all about you,” she said.
“For you to still be alive meant one of two things: Either the first serum was safe, or it wasn’t, but something about your genetic makeup kept you from getting sick from it. The only way to know for sure was to bring you here.”
“You made people hope. You made me hope.”
“I know.”
There was a pregnant silence between them that hung there for a few minutes. He’d said all he needed to say. Finally, Heidi broke it.
“There are these parties,” she began. “Some PG kids have a celebration right around their 23rd birthdays. That’s, like, still a pretty safe age. The people who come to those parties are there to celebrate life, and to say goodbye. It’s like attending your own funeral.”
“So I’ve read,” Geller said. His mouth was a little dry, and he suddenly remembered he had scotch. He took a drink before continuing. “I take it you had one.”
“I did. It was … it was special. Cathartic, even. You know what’s really fucked up? All I can think about right now is that my fucking farewell was all for nothing. That my parents spent a shitload of money they didn’t have on a party that they didn’t have to have. How dumb is that?”
“Let’s say I knew you were going to be fine, which I couldn’t have. What would that have changed?”
“Well, for starters I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Okay, but what else?”
“I would’ve finished high school and gone to college. I probably wouldn’t have drank and slept my way through Europe when I was 16. I would’ve lived like a normal person!”
“So what?” Geller said. “So you didn’t live the same life your parents did, and their parents did. Cautiously. You lived like you didn’t have a lifetime to do it in. What did you do that you genuinely regret?”
“I terminated a pregnancy!” she screamed through tears. “Because of your lies!”
He wasn’t ready for that.
“I didn’t know.”
She stared back at him, seething. “You don’t know anything.”
“I’ve lived with what happened all these years, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I always blamed the science. When I learned who you were and that you were still alive, I realized it wasn’t ever the science—it was me. All this is my doing. But so are you. You’re the only proof that the science was actually sound.”
Geller poured himself more scotch. Heidi sat on the floor, her arms pulling her legs in tight against her chest.
“So what happens now?” she said.
Geller shrugged. “Another 14 million people will die. In four or five years, the oldest children of PG parents will turn 25. Until then, we won’t know if the flaw gets passed on. In the meantime, you have a life to live.”
“So nothing changes. All this …” she gestured upward, indicating the guest house. “… all this was for your ego. You killed the world.”
“You won’t have the specter of death hanging over you anymore,” Geller said, taking a drink. “Also, I understand you and Dr. Heiser have gotten close.”
Heidi’s eyes narrowed at him. “How could you possibly—“
“Cameras,” he said. “On the entryway, I mean. I get reports from security. I’m not judging.”
She shook her head. “You disgust me.”
Geller tossed back the rest of his scotch and reached in his pocket. He threw a set of keys onto the floor by her feet.
“Here. Take one of the cars in the garage. For your trouble. Good luck.”
With that, he left.
51
Jeanine said Baz was in the cafeteria. Geller knew what strolling in during lunch hour would mean, but Baz was less likely to cause a scene that way. As he made his way downstairs and into the airy, domelike expanse of the central cafeteria, he realized he’d only ever taken lunch alone in his office, and that there were still many parts of GIG in which he’d never set foot. On a few occasions he showed up at someone’s retirement or to present some kind of award, but toward the end he didn’t even do that. It always seemed like such a waste of time. They weren’t there to pat each other on the back; they were there to change the world. And they had. Oh yes, they certainly had.
Baz was at a small table near the window with a young, dark-skinned man Geller didn’t recognize. His tray bore just a tuna salad sandwich and a hard-boiled egg—pretty much the same thing he’d eaten for decades. When Geller sidled up to them, the young man stopped mid-chew and stared. He swallowed his bite and stood at attention.
“Dr. Geller! Wow. Hello. My name is Josh. From compliance.”
“You’ve got a little …”
Geller gestured toward the corner of his own mouth to indicate that a scrap of food still clung there.
“Oh God,” he said, wiping it away with a napkin he grabbed suddenly from the holder on the table. Baz continued to eat.
“How’s the food?”
“Good. Great, really. I was just—“
“Leaving? As it happens I need to talk to my old pal Dr. Montes here.”
“Of course. Yes. I was done anyway.”
“Thank you …”
“Josh.”
“Right. From compliance.”
“Yes!”
“Thank you, Josh,” Baz said.
Josh’s face lit up and he smiled broadly as he left. Geller distastefully brushed crumbs off the chair where Josh had been sitting and eased himself into it. Baz barely glanced up.
“Seems like a good kid,” Geller said.
“We were having a nice conversation.”
“Listen, there’s something you need to know.”
“Make it fast. I have a staff meeting at 1.”
“Remember when you were about to go on your honeymoon? You came to the lab and we had a bit of a row.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“You said we should pump the brakes and produce a sample of the Cure as it was. The simpler version.”
“What’s your point?” he checked his watch.
“You were right. I realized it as soon as you walked out, but I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”
Baz looked u
p from his sandwich and met Geller’s eyes, really for the first time since he showed up. “What do you mean, ‘You were right.’? I’m not familiar with that phrase.”
“It made sense. Each new vector we added increased the complexity of the serum, so it made logical sense to set one aside. Really, we should’ve been doing it all along.”
“So you did?” he asked, a little incredulous.
“I did.”
“You said it would take weeks.”
“It was done by the time you got back. I put it in the very back of the freezer. Enough for a few hundred doses.”
“Is that it?”
“Not exactly.”
Geller told Baz what he had told Heidi earlier that day. Baz’ face went as ashen as he’d ever seen it.
“And that’s why she’s alive.”
“Something after that caused the gene switch. Something you would’ve waited to add only after years—decades—of testing.”
Baz sat back in his chair and went very quiet. All the air went out of him. He stared out the window.
“This is my fault, not yours,” Geller said. “You shouldn’t have to bear it.”
“You needed to prove the first serum worked. That’s what this was all about.”
“And that we were right, once. More to the point, you were.”
“And all the people who’ve been busting their asses to find something in her, something to hope for—what do we tell them?”
“Not the truth, obviously.”
“Obviously. This is you we’re talking about.”
“That’s fair.”
“And where is the first serum now?”
“Gone. When we got FDA approval I incinerated it.”
Baz nodded.
“Good.”
He checked his watch again.
“I’m late,” he said, and rose to leave. “Anything else?”
“No,” Geller said.
