by Dan A. Baker
“That sounds fine. Marjorie won’t be here until tomorrow. She’s tied up in Las Vegas. Will, this is just a social thing, isn’t it? Earl and I are still pretty nervous,” Jasmine said wearily.
“Relax, Jas, you’re in Arizona. What happens in Arizona stays in Arizona. See you at seven.”
Will had arranged for one of his medical assistants to baby-sit Roy. She still gasped when she first saw him, even after Earl carefully briefed her.
The impact of seeing an old child simply shocked people, and evoked a flood of emotions.
The walk across the bridge to the restaurant only took a few minutes. They stopped to watch a Gondola row gently across the big green channel. A young couple was in the boat, holding each other as the boatman sang an Italian ballad, “Life’s longing for itself,” Earl said, holding Jasmine gently. As she looked at the beautiful girl in the Gondola, Jasmine felt envy for her youth, envy for her soft skin and shining hair. The words from an old Elton John song came back to her.
I can feel the time closing in. I can feel the years crawling through my skin.
“Marjorie showed me something for the first time last week,” Jasmine said, glad to have a little time to catch up with Earl. “She ran some crude modeling on organ function, tissue renewal, and bone mass regeneration, from some of my preliminary notes. Without modulation, she calculated that a healthy seventy-year old would regress all the way. I couldn’t believe it,” Jasmine said, looking at the young girl on the Gondola.
“Regress all the way?” Earl asked.
“Regress all the way to a body age of about twenty-five. It’s still tentative, but yeah, that’s what it looks like. Of course you would modulate,” Jasmine added.
“You could modulate, but you wouldn’t have to,” Earl argued.
“No, you wouldn’t, but you could synchronize body ages, if you had a younger wife or…”
“An older husband,” Earl liked to finish Jasmine’s sentences.
“Age wouldn’t really matter anymore,” Earl explained.
“For some, age wouldn’t really matter anymore,” Jasmine corrected.
“I hope we can somehow control this,” Earl said apprehensively.
“I do too,” she said, looking at the tops of her hands, feeling the wrinkles, the sudden dryness, and wondering what it would feel like to become young again.
Will was sitting at a big table by the window looking out at the bridge. Jasmine studied his face as they walked across the room. Deeply tanned, and thin, his face seemed to be there just to frame his piercing eyes. His fingers were tapping on his thighs with both hands, betraying the intense drive and nervous energy that seemed to leap from him. He stood up in a long arching stretch when they approached. “The good doctor and slayer of all nasty things,” he said, while reaching out to shake Earl’s hand.
“You look great, Will. Looks like the desert agrees with you,” Earl said, slowly shaking his hand.
Jasmine was not quite sure how the meeting would go with Earl and Will. Earl had decided not to support Will when he first proposed the company pursue embryonic stem cells. She hoped the past was just that, the past. She noticed how good Will looked with his perfectly tanned smooth skin, and his hair looked darker and was shiny, she thought
“Glad to see you made it out of the Ivory Tower.” The comment hung in the air.
“Hello Will,” Jasmine said shaking his hand when she wanted to kiss him.
“Well, this is the best table in the best restaurant in town,” he proudly announced. “How was your stay in Vegas?”
“It was great, except we lost Margie. She got tied up,” Earl said reluctantly.
“Tied up, huh? That’s kind of a loaded term when you use it in the same sentence as Las Vegas,” he said while laughing hysterically.
“Marjorie has a side that none us knew about,” Jasmine said, looking more closely at Will’s skin.
“I think we all have a side no one knows,” he said with affection, looking at Jasmine.
The pause was long, interrupted by the waitress who took their drink orders, bending over slightly. Earl noticed her lovely bodice and beautiful skin. “How do you keep your skin so nice in the dry heat out here?” he asked.
“Lots of tender loving care,” she said, laughing softly.
Jasmine noticed how all the men in the room followed the beautiful girl as she delivered her drinks.
“So you’re off to Puerto Penasco, huh?” Will questioned.
“Yeah, we have a nice suite in a hotel on the beach,” Jasmine said.
“You’ll like that town; kind of like Ensenada, a working port, but some nice restaurants and hotels.”
“Lots of shrimp there?” Earl asked.
“It’s a little early, but yeah, lots of shrimp,”
Jasmine noticed a tall, very elderly man approaching the table. He looked slightly unusual, but he arrived before she could determine why he looked so different.
“Walter Nielsen, Dr. Jasmine Metcalf, and Dr. Earl Metcalf,” he said, standing up.
Walter looked at Jasmine, and slowly held out his hand. Jasmine looked at that back of his hand as she accepted his gesture. His skin was soft and shining. She looked up at his eyes and saw a man of depth and bearing.
“At last we meet. I’ve followed your work for a very long time and helped put a few bricks in Marjorie’s lovely new building up there in San Francisco,” Walter said, sitting down in a flowing movement.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Nielsen,” Jasmine said, studying his narrow proud face and soft hazel eyes.
“Do you think you’ll get the Nobel?” Walter asked.
Jasmine wondered if all billionaires were blunt. “I don’t know. There are a lot of very good scientists in consideration this year,” she said.
“Well, I think you will win and I’ll tell you why. The international community is quite concerned about this religious thing holding back American science, and I think they’re going to make a statement this year,” he said, gently folding his hands in his lap.
Jasmine looked at his hands for a long moment, noticing how few liver spots there were, and how smooth his skin was.
“I hope you’re right, Mr. Nielsen. We’ve had a pretty bumpy year, to say the very least,” Earl said.
“I know the whole story, and I thought long and hard about making an offer for Genetechna, but I decided to let that one go,” he said, not bothering to explain why.
“The company went to Singapore,” Jasmine said, still a little startled that there was no small talk.
“Yes, yes I know. They know a good thing when they see it,” Walter said.
“Unlike some people,” he said.
Jasmine caught the zinger in the remark, wondering if it was meant for Earl, who was preoccupied with stirring his drink.
“Were you already here in Lake Havasu, Walter? Do you have a home here?” Jasmine asked, genuinely interested.
“No home. I got rid of all my damn houses. Only have one now. No, I choppered over for the evening. It’s a great trip. I saw some big horn sheep in the mountains. We used to shoot a few out of the chopper once in awhile, but it just doesn’t seem like the thing to do anymore. Rather than to kill things, I prefer to see things live, including me.”
“You’re ninety-four?” Jasmine asked.
“Ninety-four and change,” Walter replied. “That’s a damn long time to live. That’s why I believe in the future, because I’ve seen so much change. I don’t think fighting change is a good idea, and this damn State is chock full of people who do nothing but fight change, and I can’t figure out why.”
“Neither can I,” Earl added.
“Tell you one thing you learn, if you live long enough,” Walter said, pausing for effect, “you learn to just drive around the dummies instead of fighting them, because all they want to do is fight anyway.”
“That sounds like good advice,” Jasmine said, impressed by the notion.
“Ask Will here. Better to drive ar
ound the dummies or fight them?”
“Drive around them and pull away at a high, high rate of speed,” Will answered.
“You choppered over from Phoenix for this dinner?” Earl asked innocently.
“Yeah, and a little moonshine,” Walter said, winking at Jasmine. “You know these new choppers actually get pretty good gas mileage.”
The stem cells were working in his bone marrow, adding bone mass and resiliency. Jasmine thought, which would explain his upright posture. She guessed quickly that his lack of muscle loss was due to increased testosterone levels. This is what stem cell therapy looks like, she thought, wondering what his blood pressure was.
“One-twenty over eighty,” Walter said, looking at Jasmine. “I’ll save you the question,” he laughed.
“Walter was a pretty famous mentalist, in the..” Will responded quickly.
“Late forties. I actually learned a lot from Orson Welles, and had him over to the house many times,” Walter said.
Jasmine slightly rattled at the mind reading exhibit.
“What do you take for your blood pressure?” Earl asked Walter.
“Moonshine,” Walter replied.
Earl looked at Will, and decided not to pursue the question.
When the food arrived, Will and Earl caught up on old acquaintances, and Walter mostly listened. Jasmine studied the old man, impressed by his intellect and bearing. He ordered the stuffed salmon, she noticed. Then it happened. She realized that Walter was the first living person she had ever seen who was treated for old age. If Will was successful, Walter might be the first person in human history to become immortal. She studied him carefully and realized much of what he did and said was about his own preservation.
Walter turned to her and smiled, “and why not?”
“Indeed,” Jasmine said, suddenly intrigued with Walter’s strange intellect, “and why not?”
Jasmine ate quietly, looking at Will from time to time. His skin was shiny, very much like Walter’s. Will was famous for trying treatments. Of course, he was injecting himself with his own cloned embryonic stem cells, she thought, suddenly alarmed by his almost forgotten comment about hotrodding.
“Will has told me you’re both Scot free and trying to save some dying children,” Walter said abruptly.
“Yes, we hope to be able to spend more time in developing a future treatment for Progeric children,” Earl said, cautiously.
“Dr. Metcalf, I have to leave our dinner somewhat earlier than I had planned, because there are some thunder showers moving up from Tucson, so I’ll save you some time. Rich people know everything. We just pay people to tell us what is going on. Now, Will and I have made some real progress in this damned difficult aging problem, and your work interests me a great deal. Marjorie Cunningham’s work interests me a great deal, and she might even interest me a great deal, from what I’ve heard. Here’s what I would like to see.”
Jasmine leaned in to get a closer look at Walter’s face.
“Provide Will here the information he asks for, and whatever you need will be provided you, including political protection should you need it in any country in the world. There will be no documents, and you will never concern yourself with resource planning again, in what I hope is your very long and productive lifetime.” Walter paused for a moment, holding up his finger to stop a response.
“My motivation is simple and selfish. I want to live for another thousand or so years, and I want to enjoy those thousand years. I and others know this technology is possible, and we don’t want to wait fifty years and die in the process while the preachers and politicians screw it up,” Walter said, deftly eating the last of his salmon.
Jasmine noticed that his hands did not shake, and there was no arthritis.
“We appreciate your interest, Walter, but we really want to treat Progeric children only,” Earl said.
“I’ll be in touch with Will, and I wish you the very best of luck in old Mexico,” he said, jagging them again with his knowledge of their plans.
“It was terrific meeting you,” Jasmine said earnestly.
“And you, my lovely,” Walter said holding her hand and brushing her cheek, where he held her for a brief moment. “The real reason I’m rushing off, is because my favorite call girl has an opening in her schedule,” he smiled quickly, turned and walked off.
“Will, is there anyone in Arizona who doesn’t know what we’re doing?” Earl asked, visibly upset.
“Only the wrinkled billionaires know, but they’re the best at keeping secrets,” Will said off-handedly.
Earl was fuming. “We asked you to keep our work very quiet, and you didn’t do that, Will! Now Jasmine and I feel compromised, and we are ready to call everything off. What do you think about that?” Earl said pointedly.
“I did keep your work quiet since I haven’t seen it yet. You didn’t keep my work quiet, that I know,” he said, stabbing his prime rib.
“What the hell do you mean?” Earl said, turning his chair to Will.
“You told Marjorie about my stem cell therapy operation. She called me, we talked, and we cut a deal,” Will shot back.
“Cut a deal?” Jasmine asked, astonished.
“Sure. Let me look at the endothelial gene therapy, and I’ll whip up six-hundred-million stem cells for her. No problem! Besides, there are a few things I might be able to help you with in the treatment,” Will said.
“We need to walk away from this right now,” Earl said to Jasmine.
“You need to calm down and remember that you live in a world where no one can possess knowledge anymore. A year, two years, maybe, if you don’t do this work, I can guarantee you that at least three groups will, and within the next two years,” Will bore down on Earl, looking straight at him.
“You’re here because you need help. You need my ASCO for Roy. You’ve run the data and you know that with these stem cells his survival chances triple. I told Jasmine you would have some new friends, and Walter is one of those new friends. Welcome to the underground,” he said, cutting his prime rib into little squares and stacking them up.
“Earl, we haven’t really done anything wrong, and if we treat Roy in Mexico, with a treatment that is legal in that country, we really haven’t done anything illegal, except violate Genetechna’s patents,” Jasmine said gently.
“I’ll take you through the whole picture when Marjorie gets here, which I assume will be about noon tomorrow. I need to hear about your treatment strategy and batching codes anyway. Let’s enjoy the rest of the evening. I’m a little tired too,” Will said.
“The tissue printing engineers printed the first steak this week,” Jasmine said.
“I heard that!” Will said, laughing wildly. “If you can print organ tissue, why not just print several overlapping sheets of muscle tissue, hold the ducting, skip the blood flow, and toss in some steak sauce. It makes perfect sense to me!” Will laughed hysterically again, drawing a few glances.
“It’ll probably look like a microwave or a laser printer,” Jasmine said.
“Yeah, you could program lamb, beef, veal, fish, and all you’d have to do is dial in the sequence changes for the species,” Will said.
Earl looked at Jasmine for a long moment. They had been doing this for years, communicating telepathically. “What dog did they just finish sequencing?” Earl asked Will.
“Basenji and Labrador, I think,” he said.
Earl and Jasmine had discussed the issue of testing Roy’s gene therapy program before treating him, but they assumed there would not be time.
“They’re posted as of last week,” Will continued, while breaking the silence. “Should do wonders for modelers like you, Jasmine, if you had analogous data sets, and a few years of modeling architecture development behind you, and let us say one hell of a fast super computer cluster front-ended for modeling. You could do cross-species modeling easily.”
“By the time you got to human trials you’d already know the results,” Earl said, knowing how s
imilar much of the DNA is between species.
Jasmine’s cell phone buzzed in her purse. She answered quickly, laughing several times in the short conversation. “Marjorie will be in tomorrow at one o’clock. There was a sports medicine convention in Las Vegas, with several thousand middle-aged doctors in good shape, as she put it,” Jasmine said, raising her eyebrows.
“Did she go alphabetical or left to right?” Will asked.
“Probably left to right,” Jasmine answered.
“So what have you been doing for the last two years, Will?” Earl said
“Where should I start? My marriage went into the tank with the company and house, and the rest, so I spent a few months in Marseilles, trying to find out if there was any hope for the Europeans. There wasn’t, so Nielsen suggested coming out here. The space felt great to me, and the bizarre notion of a scientist being able to do science, that is, animal science, in his own country was irresistible,” Will said.
“Why here? Why not Phoenix,” Jasmine asked.
“This place is kind of like an island, out in the middle of nowhere, with an astonishing medical community. I can get anything done in a couple of days: lab work, MRIs, you name it. It’s a perfect place to do animal research,” he finished.
“I assume the moonshine is working well,” Jasmine said.
“Very well,” Will replied.
“Isn’t it a little risky, Will? I mean…,” Earl stammered.
“Life is risky, Earl, very risky! Don’t you think what you’re doing is risky?” Will asked, suddenly peeved.
“It is, but our patient has a terminal disease,” Earl said evenly.
“So does mine,” he said, standing up and walking to the window.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“The last time I saw that bloody thing it was sitting in the Thames River,” Marjorie said, sitting in Will’s boat looking back at the London Bridge.
Marjorie was beaming. Her skin flushed and her eyes were twinkling brighter than Jasmine had ever seen them.
“You don’t look like you’ve been up for two days,” Jasmine said.
