by Jamie Metzl
“Thank you for your candor,” Margolies says. “We appreciate it greatly.”
I nod. “Are you ready?’
“Of course we are,” Penrose says. “We would not have let you get this far if we were not. But before we go on, we must establish one basic ground rule.”
I bristle. We’ve been at this for over three hours, I’ve laid my cards on the table, and now we need to establish ground rules?
Penrose seems to read my expression. “You have put your faith in us, and we will do the same with you, but, to quote the Bible and Spider-Man, ‘with great knowledge comes great responsibility.’”
“It’s ‘great power,’ Bartholomew,” Singer interjects.
“Of course, dear,” he says quietly under his breath. “I’ve taken the liberty of improvisation.”
“What he’s trying to say, or would be trying to say if he ever got around to it,” Margolies jumps in, rolling her eyes, “is that you cannot publish anything that would compromise the safety and security of our mission here.”
“That’s a pretty broad request.”
“We’re at least smart enough to know,” she continues, “that our only meaningful leverage with you is our mutual trust. Everything else is mere formality. We made a collective decision to trust you after you arrived on this ship. You have already demonstrated your trust in us. All we are saying is we must simply operationalize the trust we have in each other. Do you understand?”
”May I ask why you decided to trust me?”
“You are obviously a smart and resourceful person with respectable, if sometimes risky, judgment.”
“And?” I ask, not fully convinced I’ve received the full answer.
“And because we are so concerned about the death of Noam Heller. Noam was a gifted scientist and a great man,” Penrose says. “Forces beyond our control are at play. To counter them, we simply must know more, and trust is a two-way street.”
“I only met Heller briefly,” I say, “but from what I experienced, I would tend to agree he was a great man.” I pause to let my words settle. “But I’m here because I believe there’s a connection between Heller’s research, the disappearance of Hart, Wolfson, and the others, Heller’s death, and the two explosions.”
“Of course there is,” Margolies says softly, “but if we had all the answers, you would not be here right now. Please ask us your questions, Mr. Azadian. Before you begin, however, let me state categorically on behalf of all of us that SBN had nothing to do with Heller’s death or the destruction of Heller’s lab or Ms. Hewitt’s home. On that we give you our word.”
Margolies only confirms what I feel in my gut to be true, but her words launch an avalanche of worry in my brain. If SBN was not involved, who is? And what are they doing now? The urgent questions pile up. I feel the conflicting urges to stay here and have them answered and to rush home as quickly as possible. But the plane will not arrive for four more hours. For now, I have only one choice.
“Heller’s lab notes described the process of total cellular reversion,” I say. “My friend, Professor Franklin Chou—of the University of Missouri–Kansas City, did the cellular analysis of Heller’s dog and the results indicated the process worked. My first question is whether total cellular reversion works, does it work on humans, and, as I presume to be the case, are Hart and Wolfson and the others on board this ship?”
The six elders look at each other and nod slightly before Yakamoto speaks. “Yes, yes, and yes. Next question?”
I breathe in deeply. “Dr. Heller provided the two encryption keys to gain access to his database. I gave one to Adam Shelton a few days ago. May I assume that he gave it to you and that you have accessed Heller’s database?”
“Yes,” Margolies replies, “of course.”
“And that you changed the encryption signature once you were in?”
“Yes,” she repeats. “Well, we ourselves didn’t do that, but SBN did.”
“And that you have access to the final file in which the formula for Heller’s catalytic compound formula is described?”
Silence blankets the room.
“No,” Professor Penrose says after the heavy pause. “That catalytic compound is the key to the reversion process. We have the limited amount of the substance itself provided to us by Noam, but its folded proteins make it impossible to reverse engineer. Without the formula for how to create the compound, reversions will be impossible after the meager doses we have run out. We had hoped you might provide us with additional information about where the formula might be found.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve told you all I know.”
“So what basis do you have for your theory that Heller transferred that information to Ms. Hewitt in their moments together in the lab?” Singer asks.
“I don’t think it’s just a theory anymore. Toni left me a message saying she’s starting to remember fragments of her experience in Heller’s jellyfish room. She thinks he may have told her about a place.”
“What kind of place?” Singer asks.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m so desperate to call her. Maybe a remote server where an encrypted digital file is hidden. It could be a lot of things.”
Achebe chuckles. “Mr. Azadian, I studied bees, very simple organisms, to demonstrate how many simple actions can collectively create a complex system. We should at least consider the possibility that Heller’s formula is not stored electronically. For all we know he could have told her to look under a certain tree beside the river.”
“How much of the catalytic compound did Heller provide in the vial he gave you?”
“Not a great deal,” Richards replies, shaking his head slightly.
“Which means?”
“Enough for two more reversions at most, with a small sample put aside for further analysis.”
“Who are you reverting?”
The elders look at each other cautiously before Margolies speaks.
“Five of the scientists went through the procedure at Heller’s lab in Kansas City, including Professor Hart and Dr. Wolfson. Once we understood the process and had the vials Noam shared with us, three others were given the treatment here.”
“And why?” I ask, suspecting I may already know the answer.
“The child is the father of the man, Mr. Azadian,” she continues. “We believe in the promise of our mission but can’t guarantee we will always have the brainpower to remain at the forefront of scientific discovery. Our plan was and is to bring great scientists to our cause and our ship and to have the elders reverted to earlier versions of themselves, mentoring a generation of assistants and then in turn becoming assistants to their former assistants. Of course they lose the memories of their older selves in the reversion process, but it’s far better to engage their newly young minds than take their old wisdom to the grave.”
Singer picks up where Margolies leaves off. “It’s a way of harnessing spectacular brainpower to boomerang scientific discovery ad infinitum. We’re making progress in telekinesis, neural network emulation, and connectomics, so someday we’ll be good enough at downloading minds that the mental reversion could become obsolete. Now, we’re only at the beginning of that process.”
“And Heller’s work was the key to everything?” I say as if chancing on the realization I’ve just been spoon-fed.
“Of course. That’s why we funded it so generously once we learned of his progress,” Richards says.
“But I though the big health company was funding him?”
Richards brushes the sinking tuft of hair back toward his forehead. “They were funding his cancer research. What he needed to prove his theory of total cellular reversion went far beyond what they were capable of providing or what he would trust them to do. It required some of the greatest minds and most sophisticated computer modeling systems ever applied. Heller kept his cards close to his vest, so to speak, but he could never have progressed as he did without a great deal of assistance. In the later stages, his work also requi
red human subjects that are rather difficult to acquire.”
My mind shifts back to the Kansas City hospice. “And you are trying to tell me that a bunch of, forgive me, elderly scientists on a ship in the middle of the ocean arranged for people to be kidnapped from hospices across the United States, maybe around the world, hacking into security systems to bypass video feeds and erasing personal files?”
“As I’m sure we are making quite clear, Mr. Azadian,” Dr. Singer says testily, her back even straighter than before, “you should never underestimate the power of the determined elderly.”
“And the two hundred and seventy-four scientists on this vessel are not just old codgers like us,” Richards adds. “We have brilliant scientists of all ages toiling away in the nooks and crannies. The pipeline of innovations is breathtaking.”
“But presumably all of you would be reverted if you had the formula or enough of the catalytic compound?”
“That would go without saying,” Margolies says, “at least over time.”
“But until then,” Achebe adds, “the greatest contribution we can make is in the application of what wisdom we have sometimes painfully accrued over the many years of our lives. None of us may be as sharp as we once were, but we’ve all become better people as our brains have continuously slowed. Aging can be cruel, but we should never forget its magnificence.”
I push on. “My contact in the US intelligence community told me of rumors that SBN is funded by and is a front organization for the Israeli Scientific Service, of Israeli intelligence. There seem to be a lot of commandos with Middle Eastern accents on this ship.”
The elders look nervously at each other before Margolies speaks.
“We do have Israelis on this ship. We also have one hundred and five Filipinos and eighty-three Mongolians on its crew.”
I eye her suspiciously.
“We can neither confirm nor deny that assertion, Mr. Azadian, but some have called us partially funded, possibly connected—not a front organization. But even if that were true, one might theoretically assume there could be a mutuality of interest, a desire on our part to expand the frontiers and applications of revolutionary science and, perhaps, a desire of theirs to gain access to new technologies that could provide a key to national survival. Survival is our species’ most basic instinct, a laudable one. From that perspective, it might sound like a fair deal. One might imagine that Noam Heller understood that and came to the same conclusion.”
I realize she is saying as much as she possibly can and decide not to push. “So they were the ones who kidnapped Hart, Wolfson, and the others?” I grant myself an exception.
“Kidnapped is a loaded word,” Richards says. “Those men were rescued from the cruel fangs of nature.”
“And their families?”
“Their families would have mourned them either way. By the laws of uncountered nature, their families had experienced all there was of those men, perhaps minus a few dying words as their hearts flatlined.”
The words are harsh, perhaps almost as harsh as nature. “And Shelton, his background in Israel?”
“One could imagine that Shelton, SBN, and the Israelis are each playing an essential and complementary role making all this possible. Shelton might be connected to the same intelligence agency, but it would not be for us to divulge,” Margolies says. “Just like our deadly serious Captain Golan here. He tries to hide it with the jeans and T-shirt, but he might as well have his professional identity written on his forehead.”
The data floods my brain. I imagine throwing each bit of information up on the wall in our Star conference room as I struggle to pull the pieces together. “I need two things from you,” I say firmly, “and I will not take no for an answer.”
The elders stare at me through the silence.
“I will protect you as much as possible and appropriately,” I say, “but I demand your firm commitment that you, and I mean all of you and Israeli intelligence and Shelton and anyone else you can muster, will do everything in your power to help me find out who killed Heller and triggered the explosions … and help me protect Antonia Hewitt.”
Margolies responds without hesitation. “It is in our interest to find out who killed Heller, may have stolen the vial, and threatened Ms. Hewitt,” she says. “We give you our word we will do all we can. Second?”
My mind shifts back to Katherine Hart staring longingly at the photo in her living room. “I am leaving this ship in three and a half hours. Before I go, I insist that I meet with Hart and Wolfson.”
50
The tour is at best half-assed and at worst grudging. But Lynette Margolies’s instructions that I should be “shown around” on my way to the coffee salon were clear and Captain Golan is, at least technically, complying.
We pass through a long hall where additional small helicopters and fixed wing drone aircraft rest on conveyors. Robotic Delivery Carts roll quietly along.
“When the ship was being used by the Soviet navy,” Golan offers, “it was always surrounded by a battle group. We don’t have that, so we try to make do with our stealth technology and low electromagnetic profile on the one hand and with circling drones and free electron lasers on the other. Not perfect, but not bad.”
“And what do you do for energy?” I ask. “I can’t imagine you pulling into gas stations.”
“The entire ship has been configured for sustainability and self-reliance. The flight deck runway is made of solar panels. We have a magnetic fusion reactor in the aft and ferromagnetic buoys trailing the ship feeding energy from ocean waves into our magnetostriction generator.”
“And food?”
Golan’s face animates. “There’s a greenhouse on the flight deck, but most of our gardening is done in one of the interior airplane storage facilities that we converted into a vertical indoor farm. Each plant gets the right wavelength of light from our hydroponic light-emitting diode system and the exact nutrients it needs based on constant sensing. Water is desalinated through the reactor and recycled continuously. We culture our meat and dairy in vitro. Conservation is our obsession, the key to our survival.”
The ship is huge, with hundreds of different rooms and halls. He walks me quickly through the extensive bio lab, the robotics factory, the particle physics workshop, as well as the ship clinic, where he shows me the 3D bioprinters pumping out personalized bioceuticals matching the genomic indicators of each patient and customizing tissues for implantation. It’s the middle of the night, but the machines are humming and scientists working away.
It starts to feel claustrophobic. “What about connecting to the outside world? Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” I say.
“We are connected to the grid,” Golan says, “just insulated from it as well. Our scientists have access to all of the research papers from anywhere in the world. Secure conversations with scientists not on the ship are more complicated, but we’re able to accomplish a great deal with holoportation.”
“And people just work here, all day and all night, almost entirely cut off … forever?”
“Some people have bigger goals than just entertainment,” Golan says derisively.
“Like living their lives?”
The look on Golan’s face makes clear once again that he doesn’t appreciate my snarkiness. “We have coffee salons, lecture series, our own internal university, and virtual reality pods where people can spend hours exploring other worlds,” he says, giving me the impression he sees entering virtual reality as a mark of weakness. “We even have our own transcranial direct-current stimulation room and a karaoke bar,” he adds with a hint of a smile, “apparently a must on any vessel carrying so many Filipinos.”
He leads me through a small metal door into the coffee salon. The room’s velvet chairs and dark wooden paneling give it the feel of an old Viennese café.
I sit nervously and wait. I know intellectually what is coming, but I sense that no amount of thinking can prepare me for what I am about to experience. Sebastian was
one thing, but I never met his wife. The fact of him didn’t fundamentally transform human mortality. I brace myself to enter, perhaps once and for all, a world where the basic axiom of human existence is forever turned on its head. It’s one thing in principle, quite another over coffee.
The door swings open and the two men stride in. I recognize them immediately. They are roughly my age. Hart is tall and gangly, his movements almost awkward. His wavy brown hair and thick glasses rest over an intelligent smile. Wolfson is short and round with frizzy reddish hair, bushy eyebrows, shiny green eyes, and an impish grin.
I stand, unable to move any further. I reach out to touch them as if feeling the skin on their hands will somehow confirm this unbelievable miracle is real. Wolfson leans toward me, but Hart lifts his hand to meet mine. I grab it softly and rub it around, then gently squeeze his forearm. I stare back and forth between the two of them.
“Well, hello to you,” Hart says wryly.
His strong voice knocks me from my spell. “I’m so sorry,” I say quietly, “it’s just I was in your home in Overland Park a week ago.”
“What house—” He cuts himself off mid-sentence. “I’m sorry. Sometimes it’s easy to forget.”
I don’t let go of his hand, holding it softly as my words slip past the gates of my consciousness. “I sat in your living room with your wife Katherine. She told me about your daughters, Dalia and Ofira.”
Tears well in Hart’s eyes. “My babies …”
“Are married with babies. Five grandchildren, I think she said. She showed me a record you gave her for your fifth anniversary.”
His head droops before a distant smile crosses his face. “‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love,’” he whispers wistfully. “I remember it like it was yesterday. For me, it almost was. Would you mind telling me every detail of your interaction?”
