The Curiosity (8 page)

There's a low hum, and a meter jumps on the gauge before us. Carthage is staring at the floor. Dr. Kate covers her mouth with both hands. We wait.

I watch those video screens. Zilch. The only change is that the last of the ice has melted, and we see his face at last. It's thin, hungry-looking, and blue as if it were bruised. His lips are pursed, like he died in the middle of an argument. It strikes me again: this is a dead man. I know the look, believe me. He is just as gone as Mom and Dad on the lawn that night with the house in flames behind them, and me on my knees sucking air like a sprinter. You could fill the room with flowers and play Jimmy Durante's greatest hits, it won't change a thing: this experiment is being performed on a dead guy.

The electronics hum, the ventilator wheezes, the clock counts. Nada.

Thomas casts his eye up and down the procedure list. Carthage reads the gauges one by one. Gerber sits back in his chair, hands behind his head. We wait. Nothing.

Thomas coughs, kicks weakly at the air. “Hell.”

“Patience,” Carthage says. “We've waited decades. We can withstand a few minutes more.”

Abruptly he turns to Borden, who tilts his head back as if he's been asked a difficult question. Carthage clears his throat. “Doctor?”

Borden blinks slowly, like an owl. “You should know, we're nearing the ceiling.” He flips another switch, then one more. “Anything above that, you're not going to want what wakes up anyway.”

Which makes me wonder why he designed a system with those two remaining switches in the first place.

Carthage turns back to the gauges. We wait.

And there it is, the faintest thing: a beep.

No one needs to tell me what it means. Another fifteen seconds pass, and we hear it again. One beep. Carthage nods at Thomas, who uses a remote to start the red counting device. One second passes, two, five, while the numbers to the left stay at 00:00 and the ones to the right blur through tenths and hundredths of a second. A device beside the clock reads 4 bpm. The EKG oscilloscope shows one set of the peaks and valleys of a heartbeat. Now there are two beeps and a silence, and the reading is 6 bpm.

Carthage has his eyes closed, one fist against his chest, like a conductor in a moment of orchestral bliss. A flurry of beeps, the reading is 12 bpm, then silence. I'm watching the clock, jotting in my notebook when each beep occurs. But there are no more. Dr. Kate goes to the window, peering in on the motionless body. The silence stretches: half a minute, forty-five seconds, a minute.

Carthage opens his eyes. “Dr. Borden?”

“There is a risk.”

“Which is?”

Borden clasps his hands like he's making here's-the-church. “We could . . . possibly . . . set him on fire.”

“I am listening,” Billings calls into the audio feed. “Good morning, gents, the man in the oxygen-saturated room is paying attention here.”

Carthage ignores him. “How high would we be going?”

Borden runs his eyes down the row of switches. “This would be—I'm approximating here—about the voltage of an electric-chair execution.”

Dr. Kate spins with her mouth open, but Carthage speaks before she can: “Proceed.”

“Are you sure?”

Thomas speaks up: “Dr. Carthage is always sure.” And Carthage gives the slightest revelation of a smile.

“Really would hate to get roasted alive, you know.” Billings backs away from the tub, edging toward the door. “This is safe, right, lads?”

“You bet,” Gerber mutters. “If you like toasted marshmallows.”

And Borden throws the next switch.

The electric hum grows louder. The video feed shows water around Frank jiggling as though it were about to boil.

Dr. Kate shakes her head. “This cannot be right—”

But the beeping starts again. It's stronger, the oscilloscope shows regular peaks and valleys, the counter reads 31 bpm.

“We're getting blood pressure,” calls a postdoc whose desk faces the wall. The lights of his screen are reflected in his glasses. “Fifty over thirty-two.”

“Amazing,” whispers Dr. Kate, and I watch her return to the window beside Frank's body. She touches two fingers to the glass. “This is a miracle.”

Carthage frowns at her. The beeps gain steadiness: 44, 54, 61 bpm.

“Dr. Carthage, we're at ninety over sixty-six. And steady.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Carthage declares, “we have reanimation.”

Everyone roars. There is loud cheering, clapping of hands. Gerber yells “woo-hoo” and spins himself careening on his chair. Borden lets out a whoop: “We did it!” Billings puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles as loud as a fan at a hockey game. Thomas pumps Carthage's hand like he's a politician who just won an election. “Congratulations, sir. Congratulations.”

I stand there mute, feeling about as smart as a cow. Damn if I know what to do with my skepticism now.

Carthage waits till the noise subsides, then turns to Gerber. “Start weaning.”

“Whoa.” Gerber's eyebrows rise. “Already?”

“Start.”

Gerber starts to speak, then catches himself. “You're the boss. Your funeral.” And he turns down the pressure in the ventilator.

Immediately the beeping dips, the postdoc calls lower blood pressure numbers, everyone looks to Carthage. He holds one finger up and waits. Sure enough, a moment later Frank's heartbeat recovers, gains ground, rises in tempo. And then Carthage, that egotistical genius, that bastard, smiles.

“What's funny?” Gerber asks.

“We are playing him,” Carthage says, “like a violin.”

“This man is not a toy,” says Dr. Kate, though Carthage keeps smiling like a politician on his inauguration day.

With that, I discover something incredibly basic that I have been missing the entire time. I all but slap my forehead over it: these people hate Carthage. All of them. Yet they are here anyway. They are that hungry to be part of a discovery. How I will ever put this in an article I have no idea, but it is as clear as the beeping every time Frank's heart beats.

Carthage lifts his chin at Gerber. “What portion is vent and what portion is him?”

Gerber scans his instruments. “We're twenty percent. The rest is our icy sailor.”

“Cut him off.”

Dr. Kate turns. “It's too soon—”

“Cut him off.”

“Easy now.” Gerber stands, moves away from his desk. “This is a lot all at once, here. Let's catch our breath for a second.” His back to us, he shakes his hands as if to dry them. “You'll gork him, you know.”

“Maybe.”

“But you're supposed to be so almighty smart.”

“Do it now.”

Gerber turns to face us. “Just chill for one minute, would you?”

Carthage snorts. “And establish his dependency on life support?”

“How about we let him take fifty consecutive breaths?”

“Right. Now.”

I am writing all of this down, every word. And realizing that Gerber, in his domain, possibly has stature greater than Carthage has in his. No wonder he's standing firm.

“Everyone is expendable,” Carthage says through clenched teeth. “Even the illustrious David Gerber.”

Gerber laughs. “Then so are you, dude. And if this experiment tanks, which of us do you think it will hurt more?”

“Everyone, please,” says Thomas, sliding into Gerber's seat. “There's no need—”

“Thomas, no,” calls Dr. Kate. And Gerber comes rushing.

But even a layman like me can see that it is done. The control is all the way down. In the chamber, the ventilator bellows have stopped. The beeps continue nonetheless. Thomas escorts his clipboard back beside the boss. “There.”

Carthage nods at him, a little silent
attaboy
. Creepy.

Gerber stands with shoulders drooped. “He's breathing on his own.”

Dr. Kate moves near to him. “Yes.”

“Whoa,” Gerber whispers. He returns to his desk and flops in the chair. “Way to go, Mr. Frank. You just broke all the rules.”

Suddenly the breathing stops, the beeps cease, the EKG flatlines. The room goes as quiet as a cemetery.

“Well, there it is,” Gerber says to Carthage. “Now do you want the vent back up?”

Carthage holds out a hand. “Wait.”

But the machines are silent. There is no heartbeat.

“Blood pressure's cratering,” a tech says.

“We're losing him.”

“Body temp is ninety-two,” Billings calls. “Nearly thawed. Our window is closing.”

The room responds with silence. Carthage nods at Gerber. He presses buttons, the bellows recommence. Frank's chest rises and falls as before. But the beeps do not restart.

“Give me more magnetics,” Carthage orders.

“Right away,” a technician replies. He spins the dial on his desk all the way to the right. “That's everything we have, sir.”

Still no beeps. “We're in trouble,” Dr. Kate says.

I'm scanning the room, ready to scribble whatever happens next, but there's no action, no words. That little freeze goes on a long time. I cannot believe my story is going to be about how Carthage's arrogance brought the whole thing down.

Finally he takes a deep breath. “Dr. Borden? More charge, please.”

“Seriously?”

Carthage does not answer. Borden considers his row of switches. “Erastus, each of these circuits carries ten times the power of the one before. If Subject One were alive, the present amperage would kill him. If we increase, there's just no telling.”

“Excuse me, gents,” Billings says, waving one gloved hand. “Permission to leave the chamber, Dr. Carthage?”

“Erastus,” Borden says. “He may explode.”

“Unseal the chamber, please,” Billings says. “Right now.”

Carthage claps his hands once. “Senior team, quickly, I want your opinions.”

Thomas lowers his clipboard. “You do?”

“Dr. Philo, do we risk explosion or cease our experiment?”

She looks him in the face. “We say we are seeking answers. Nature is giving us one, unequivocally clear and direct. People are not krill. Let him go.”

Carthage barely blinks. “Dr. Gerber?”

He runs fingertips over his keyboard. “We're boiling him like a lobster. Stop it.”

“Dr. Billings?”

“You would risk my life for the chance to restore his? End the reanimation.”

“Dr. Borden?”

The little doc ponders. “I told you before that the heart wants to beat. Maybe this one has been stopped too long. Or maybe we should have kept him frozen till we'd tried more species between shrimp and something this huge. But today we cannot change what we do not know.” He stares at his switches. “Shut it down.”

“That leaves you, Thomas.”

“Oh, sir.” Thomas turns to Carthage. “What do you want me to say?”

“Ha.” Carthage claps a hand on Thomas's shoulder. “You should be a diplomat.”

Thomas blushes, of all things. Now I'm dying to know the backstory. Did the guy grow up fatherless or something? Definitely investigate later.

Meanwhile Carthage pulls out a bottle of hand sanitizer. He squirts a blob into one palm, then puts the bottle away. Casually, without hurry, he wipes his hands one on the other, between the fingers, wringing the thumbs. You'd never guess what we're in the middle of. At last he faces us.

“We are to stop, then? It is unanimous? Subject One cannot be reanimated? Let us be cold for a moment, and calculate. What would be harmed if we try and fail?”

“Our consciences,” Dr. Kate says instantly. “Our decency.”

Carthage sniffs in her direction. “Dr. Philo, always in earnest. And never shy about questioning the ethics of her boss. I remind you that Subject One is as full of potential as a fetus, if he receives our successful intervention. If we fail, the worst that can come of our efforts is that he will remain as the rest of the world sees him: dead. Meanwhile we have the slim but scientifically sound possibility that we might be right about cells' latent life force. And that our being right could save humanity from untold future suffering. Perhaps your mighty ethics could soften somewhat, given that opportunity?”

“Well . . .” Gerber leans back. “There is such a thing as desecration of the dead.”

“We're guilty of that already,” adds Dr. Kate.

Carthage waves them aside. “Superstition. Also, beside the point.” He faces the full staff, arms wide. “People. Aren't you curious?” He laughs; it sounds like a bark. “This is the only thing that matters: Don't you want to know what is possible? Aren't you dying to find out?”

He gives them a moment to digest his argument. Then he turns, and if the man had worn a cape he would have flourished it. “Borden.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Now.”

Borden raises his hand, presses one finger against the switch, hesitates.

“Now,” Carthage repeats. And the little doctor flips the thing up.

At once every gauge tips all the way to the right, overrun by voltage. There are sparks among the wires overhead. Several computer monitors turn off. The lights flicker, then the room goes black. And there we all are, dumb as a box of rocks, standing in the dark. There is not even the sound of ceiling fans.

A few seconds later the lights blink back on, the fans start, computers reboot. Gerber pulls back his wild hair and faces Carthage. “Backup generator?”

Carthage nods. “Always have a Plan B.”

And the beeping starts again. There is no hesitating this time. It is steady, climbing, and sure. When it reaches 20 bpm Borden turns off that highest switch. The beeping continues. Now the progress is linear. One by one he lowers the switches, and Frank's heart holds its pace, settling at ninety beats per minute.

“That's it,” Borden says, throwing the last switch down. “He's on his own.”

Billings slumps against the chamber door. “God in heaven.”