The Immortality Factor (7 page)

“Wait. Maybe I should explain something to you. I ought to be completely up-front with you about this.”

“What do you mean?”

I hunched closer to her, until my face was almost touching hers. “I've got a personal stake in your work, Cass. My mother is dying of cancer.”

“Oh! I didn't know.”

“It's not something that I broadcast around. But she's been in a nursing home for more than a year now. Cancer of the colon. They've operated on her twice, but they didn't get all of it.”

“Oh, my god.”

“So I want your work to succeed, I want that very much. Maybe more than I should.”

“I can understand why.”

“Maybe I shouldn't pressure you. Maybe somebody else can get the job done as well as you could. It's just . . .”

I could see Cassie absorbing this new information, her eyes staring off to infinity as she sorted out the data.

“I shouldn't let my personal concerns interfere with your personal concerns. You have to decide what's best for you, for your career, for your future.”

“I didn't know about your mother,” she whispered.

“I'm sorry I brought it up. Let's face it, nothing you or anybody else can do is going to save her. Even if your clinical trials go without a hitch, she'll be dead long before your tumor suppressant can help her.”

I was getting through to her, I could see it. A part of me despised what I was doing, manipulating the kid's emotions. But what the hell, I thought, she's not going to listen to logic. She's all tied up in knots over her stupid Max. She's got her career to think of; she can't hang around his neck and let her own work go to hell.

“I'll do it,” Cassie said at last. “I'll go to Mexico or wherever the field tests are set up.”

“Don't make the decision right now,” I said softly. “It's a big decision. It means a lot to everyone concerned. Think about it. Sleep on it.”

“I'll do it,” Cassie repeated. She could be very rigid in her decisions. “You're right. It's the right thing to do.”

I walked her out of my office, still urging her to think further about her decision, but I was certain that she wouldn't change her mind now that she had made it up. Cassie had that stubborn Sicilian streak in her, I knew from past experience.

Once she left my office I felt almost ashamed of using Momma's illness that way. There was no way Cassie's work would ever be finished in time to help her. God, I thought, it'll take at least another two years. Momma can't hang on that long. Two more years of pain. It made me shudder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
oday is Thursday, April twenty-first. I haven't been keeping my diary as faithfully as I promised to, so I'm going to try talking it into this voice recorder every night instead of writing it. Dr. Mandelbaum wants me to keep a diary, she says it'll help me to sort out my thoughts and emotions. Maybe. We'll see.

Arthur Marshak, my boss, wants me to go to Mexico to do the field trials on my tumor suppressant. That means I'd have to leave Max for months. I don't want to do that, but Arthur dumped a whole load of guilt on me and I guess I'll have to go.

When our meeting ended I practically ran from Arthur's office, past my own lab, and out to the pens at the back of the building. The custodial staff is always scrubbing down the tiles, covering up the natural smells of the animals and their excrement with detergents and disinfectants. I don't mind the smell; it's strong and real.

The cage labeled
MAXIMILIAN
was empty, so I rushed past the two young guys sweeping the floor and pushed through the heavy double doors out to the
open-air playground. It was chilly out there, turning gray. I thought it would start raining soon.

I didn't see Max at first. He wasn't in either one of the pruned trees that grow out at the far end of the compound; he wasn't in the jungle gym we had set up for him closer to the doors. I felt a pang of fear in my chest.

And then I spotted him, all the way up the top of the heavy wire fencing that domes in the enclosure. He was hanging up there by one hand and scratching himself on the backside with the other. As soon as he saw me he came scrambling down to the ground and knuckle-walked to me, hooting a great big hello.

He grabbed for me and I let his strong arms enfold me; I knew he would never hurt me. I had worked with Max since he had been a scared, lost little baby, four years ago. Mothered him. Taught him sign language. And I used him as a living biochemical laboratory to generate the antibodies and enzymes that I used in my research. I taught him not to be afraid of my lab, with its strange sterile smells and cold metal tables.

Max trusted me. He performed for me. His body reacted to the injections I gave him and produced the proteins and peptide chains that I needed. It had taken me more than a month of really agonized indecision before I finally injected Max with the carcinoma strain, and I went without sleep for four straight days as my tumor suppressant enzyme destroyed the cancerous cells before they could begin to form tumors. I had watched over Max like a terrified mother, deathly afraid that I had murdered my own child.

But Max lived and thrived. And I swore I'd never use him for experiments again. “You've earned your retirement,” I had said aloud to him. And do you know what Max answered? He signed, Banana for me? That's why I loved him. No complications, no conflicts, nothing but trust. And love.

So I sat sprawled on the grass in the animal enclosure with Max huffing and pawing at me like a clumsy child. He made me laugh with his antics.

Play? Max signed.

I nodded.

Max hooted and scampered toward the jungle gym. I scrambled to my feet and ran after him. I didn't have the strength to climb the bars with him, though. The chemo had left me weak and shaky.

But Max climbed right up to the top of the jungle gym and then looked back at me. Play? he signed again.

How could I leave him? He'd be lost without me. Even if Arthur promises not to use him in any more tests, how can I trust any of them once my back is turned?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B
efore the examiner could frame another question, Arthur said to the judges, “I would like to make it clear that neither I nor any of the other scientists and physicians engaged in this research are attempting to play God.”

Rosen started to interrupt but Arthur went on, “Many of the researchers have deep religious feelings. They belong to many different faiths but they all have the conviction that what we are doing is no more playing God than giving medicine to a sick child would be.”

A smattering of applause came from the audience behind him.

“Silence,” Graves warned the spectators.

“I know that the ability to replace failing organs or regrow lost limbs seems almost magical,” Arthur said, warming up to the subject, “but it is simply an extension of knowledge that generations of dedicated men and women have gained through selfless, lifelong effort.”

Rosen said, “Dr. Marshak—”

“May I finish?” Arthur looked past the examiner to Graves and the two elderly men flanking him.

“If you can conclude your remarks in under five minutes,” Graves said, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips.

Arthur bobbed his head in acknowledgment. “Far from playing God, I think we are doing God's work. If you believe in a supreme deity, why would he—or she—give us the ability to understand these things if we're not intended to use them to make life better? Does God intend for us to wither away and die at three score years and ten? If so, why has he given us the knowledge to extend our life spans? Why allow us to discover medicines? Why have we been able to understand what causes disease and genetic defects? If we failed to use this knowledge we would be spitting in God's face, telling God that we reject the wisdom he has granted us.”

The hearing chamber was absolutely silent. Even Rosen, the examiner, stood immobile, his coal-black eyes staring at Arthur.

Graves pushed his bifocals up to the bridge of his nose. “Are you finished, Dr. Marshak?”

“That's all I've got to say,” Arthur said. He turned to the examiner. “What's your next question?”

The audience stirred as if coming out of a trance. Rosen made a polite little cough behind the back of his hand, then took a few steps toward the table where Arthur sat.

“You worked with your brother on this idea of regenerating organs?” the examiner asked.

“As I told you, Dr. Rosen,” Arthur said with a great show of patience, “at first we were interested only in regenerating spinal cord nerve tissue. We were thinking in terms of helping paraplegics.”

“And you worked with your brother.”

“I talked out the basic idea with my brother. Until he had to go to South America or Africa or one of those locations.”

Rosen walked back to his place at the end of the judges' table and consulted the notebook computer he had set up there. Arthur glanced sideways at Jesse. He was leaning back in his chair, at his ease, apparently enjoying the show so far.

“Dr. Marshak,” Rosen called, “when your brother left the country for Eritrea”—he put a slight emphasis on the country's name, as if he were not so subtly reminding Arthur of something he should have remembered for himself—“had you thought of extending your work on nerve regeneration to the more general purpose of organ regrowth?”

Arthur searched his memory briefly. “We had talked about it, I think. But no, as far as I can recall, we were still thinking strictly in terms of spinal neuron regeneration back then.”

“Had you discussed the need for using stem cells in your research?”

“Yes,” said Arthur without hesitation. “Adult stem cells. We never even considered using fetal cells.”

“Never?”

“As it turned out,” Arthur said, smiling, “we found a way to go ahead without using even adult stem cells.”

Rosen nodded somberly. “I see. And what about cloning?”

“We considered therapeutic cloning, yes. At that time we thought we could make more of the stem cells we might need by cloning those we obtained from volunteers.”

“Murderer!” someone said in a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. Graves glared at the audience but said nothing.

“If we had needed fetal stem cells, which we didn't,” Arthur said, “we would have obtained the fetuses from a reproductive clinic. They were going to be destroyed anyway. They were no longer wanted. We would be able to put them to good use.”

Rosen seemed to take a breath. Then he said, “This is not the proper moment to discuss the ethics of fetal tissue research.”

“I agree completely,” said Arthur.

“So, before your brother went to Eritrea, the two of you were thinking strictly in terms of spinal neuron regeneration.”

“Strictly of spinal neuron regeneration, yes.”

“You're certain?”

“No, I'm not certain. And I don't see what difference it makes. We're not here to establish precedence, are we?”

The judge on Graves's left said, “That is for the patent office to worry about.”

Rosen nodded as if in agreement. He advanced toward Arthur again and asked, “This work that you and your brother did—how was it financed?”

“Out of my discretionary funds. As director of Grenford Laboratory, I had a small fund available for research that's too new to have corporate or other sponsorship.”

“Corporate or other?” Rosen snapped. “What other?”

“Now and then we undertook research for an outside customer. As long as it didn't conflict with our corporate products.”

“Can you give me an example?”

Arthur thought swiftly. “Several years ago we investigated the possibility of developing a microbe that could concentrate metals dissolved in the ocean.”

“Metals?”

“Chromium, manganese, platinum, gold—there are megatons of those metals in the oceans, but they're very dilute and it's not economically feasible to extract them from the water. We looked into the possibility of developing a
microbe or a family of microbes that could concentrate such metals in their bodies and then be harvested.”

Rosen came close to smiling. “Slave labor on a microscopic scale.”

“The microbes are microscopic, but the scale of the operation would have been very large, believe me.”

“And what happened?”

Arthur shook his head. “It didn't work. We dropped the program after a year.”

“Who was the sponsor?”

“Thornton Mining, if I recall correctly.”

Suddenly Rosen was all business again. “And what was the reaction of Omnitech's management when you told them you wanted to regenerate human organs?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W
hat was Omnitech's reaction? That depends on who in the corporate management you're talking about. And when.

The first time I mentioned the idea to Johnston, the CEO, was the day I met him at the factory in Yonkers. I visited Momma later that same afternoon.

I drove my own car down to meet Johnston that morning. Usually I enjoyed driving the Infiniti, although the jam-packed morning traffic along the Bronx River Parkway made me wonder why they called it the rush hour. You could hardly move in this snarling, growling jam of automobiles and trucks. The speedometer on the dashboard went up to 160 miles per hour; I remember the salesman at the dealership grinning at me as he pointed out that the government's safety bureaucrats had insisted the car be redlined at 150, but it would actually go much faster. I felt lucky when the traffic inched up to 40. And most of these poor slobs go through this every day. Every morning and every evening. What a life.