by Dan Wells
Carl stared at the table in front of him frowning in thought. At last he spoke, without looking up. “Sunny, you’re going to find a way for us to sell this.”
“But—”
“If you do,” said Carl, “I will personally buy you a Caribbean island, and I will do it with the loose change this product puts under my couch cushions.”
Sunny paused. “It could be huge … but only if there’s a way to make it work legally.”
“Find a way.” Carl looked at Kerry. “I want a name, I want commercials, I want bottle designs, I want everything.”
“Absolutely,” said Kerry.
“And you,” said Carl, pointing a yellowed finger at Lyle. “I want this in production by next week.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not a full run,” said Carl, “we don’t even have a bottle yet. But I want sample runs and stability tests. Call Jerry at the plant and set it up.”
Lyle grimaced. “I have one more test scheduled for next week, but … yeah, I can probably get it done. Two weeks would be better.”
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “You’ve tested everything from litmus to rats to human skin. What else do you need?”
“I’m still refining the formula,” said Lyle. “The woman in the photo is from batch 14E, and the newest is 14G. The tweaks were minor, though, and one test ought to do it. It’s already scheduled through HR: adult males, eighteen to forty-five.”
“Skin care for men is the next big thing,” said Kerry.
“None as big as this,” said Carl. “Run your test, Lyle—I want this product guaranteed for every gender, every age, every race, every everything. If you’ve got skin, you’re a customer.” He folded his frail hands and stared at the executives sternly. “A lotion that literally makes your skin younger—and does so this effectively—has the potential to be the biggest cosmetic breakthrough since breast implants, and with a wider appeal. I want a bottle of this lotion in the hands of every man, woman, and child in the country—I want women to bathe in it, and I want schoolgirls to feel old if they don’t use it. Am I clear?”
The executives nodded.
“Good,” said Carl. “Let’s go change the world.”
2
Monday, March 26
2:04 P.M.
Lyle’s office, NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
263 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“This is ridiculous,” said Susan.
She was a student from NYU, working as Lyle’s research assistant to help pay for college. She was an excellent chemist, a hard worker, and at least a decade too young for Lyle, who consequently spent most of his time not looking at her, talking to her, or being near her. Thinking about her, on the other hand, occupied a great deal of his mental energy.
Lyle kept his eyes on his computer. “Hm?”
“An earthquake in Mombasa,” said Susan, stabbing her computer screen with her finger. “Ten hours ago: it leveled the city. They have no homes, no food, nothing.”
“That’s awful,” Lyle murmured, not really paying attention. Susan was an impassioned activist for almost every cause she encountered, and he didn’t have the energy to keep up with them all. His fingers clacked on the keyboard, filling in the final details on his most recent report. Sunny was still trying to find a loophole that would let them actually make the antiaging lotion, and he needed all the details Lyle could give him.
“It’s because we’re racist,” said Susan.
“Now … wait a minute,” said Lyle, turning fully to look at her. Her hair was long and blond, streaked with natural highlights; Lyle had spent enough time working on hair dyes to know a natural highlight when he saw one. He tried not to think about Susan as the model on a box of hair dye. “The earthquake happened because we’re racist?”
“America hasn’t helped them yet because we’re racist.”
“It’s only been ten hours.”
“We can get there in ten hours.”
“So maybe we’re slow,” said Lyle. “That’s not the same as racist.”
“We can be fast when we want to,” said Susan, “but Kenya’s not a major trading partner, so screw them—we’ll toss a few volunteers and water bottles off a cargo plane, but we’ll save the good stuff for the next time Japan gets a tsunami. We only help when it helps us, or when it helps our image.” She stared at Lyle, and held up her finger for emphasis. “But image means nothing.”
“You realize you … work for a cosmetics company?”
“You can change what people look like,” said Susan, “but you can never change who they are.”
“I…” Lyle looked at her face, identifying almost subconsciously her shade of lipstick: plum pink. He lost his train of thought and glanced at the clock instead. “It’s 2:08,” he said quickly. “We need to get ready for the test.”
“14G?” asked Susan, forgetting her tirade almost as quickly as she’d started it. She rolled her chair across the floor to Lyle’s desk and looked at his computer. “What’s new in this batch?”
Lyle became acutely aware of the proximity of Susan’s knees to his own. “Some pretty interesting stuff, actually.” He looked up and gave her what he hoped was a dashing smile. He was pretty sure it didn’t work, and stopped. “I’ve added a retrovirus to help regulate the process.”
“Really?” asked Susan, leaning in closer to look at his screen. Lyle pursed his lips and thought about flat things: walls, cabinets, tables. He swallowed and slid his own chair a few inches away. “I thought the formula was bacterial.”
“The plasmids are bacterial,” said Lyle. “That’s where the DNA is. The retrovirus is how we get the DNA out of the plasmid and into the host cell.” He wanted to say more, eager to impress Susan, but this was the part he didn’t know as much about; he was a chemist, not a geneticist. He thought for a moment, then repeated the blurb from the supplier’s brochure. “It uses an RNA transcriptase to unzip the host DNA, inserts the DNA fragment stored in the plasmid, and zips it back up again. They came from the same supplier; they’re engineered to, um,” he tried not to look at her, “fit together.” He started to gesture with his hands, then turned a little red and fell silent.
“Cool,” said Susan, peering closer at the screen. She was almost as interested in chemistry as she was in social justice, and arguably better at it. “This is … well, it’s groundbreaking.”
Lyle turned red and pretended to busy himself with some papers. “Well, it’s certainly interesting, and we have high hopes. I mean, Carl said it’s going to change the world, but what does he know, right?” He was practically bursting with pride. He’d probably get on the cover of Scientific American again, and Susan thinking he was brilliant was the cherry on top of the whole thing. He glanced at the clock, and jumped up with a shout, “It’s 2:15! I’m late!”
“Need any help?”
Lyle frowned, his mouth half open for words that never came. Of course he wanted her to come, he wanted her to go everywhere with him, but he wasn’t supposed to want her to go anywhere with him. “I…” He didn’t know what to say.
Susan gestured at her computer. “I finished color matching the lipsticks you asked me about.”
Lyle stared for a moment, trying not to think about her lips, then turned to gather up his samples. “Sure, you can do the photos.”
Susan picked up the trays and spatulas and headed cheerfully down the hall, Lyle following several steps behind. Kerry gets to look at beautiful women every day, he thought, with photo shoots and commercial shoots and who knows what else. He gets paid to look at beautiful women. Is it really so bad that I look at this one? One who’s wearing a lab coat, for crying out loud? It’s not like she walks around in a swimsuit all day.
Hmmm, Susan walking around in a swimsuit all day.…
“Dr. Fontanelle!” Lyle shook himself from his daydream and realized he’d walked past the door. He smiled nervously, wondering if Susan knew what he’d been thinking about, but she seemed as cheerful as ever. He wal
ked back into the room and smiled at the six men seated on the other side of the long, narrow table. HR had managed to grab a batch of outside volunteers with a pretty good mix of skin types: an Asian, a Latino, and four Caucasians, one of whom had red hair and intensely fair skin, and another who was heavyset and greasy. It should be a good test.
“Sorry,” said Lyle, “just got a little distracted. I assume you’ve all read the packet and signed the release forms?”
“We get paid for this, right?” said one of the subjects, a tall, skinny man with dark black hair.
“Naturally,” said Lyle, collecting the row of proffered papers and checking to see that each release form had been fully filled out and signed. Susan followed him, placing a small Styrofoam tray and a mini plastic spatula in front of each man.
“Good,” said the tall man—Lyle saw on his paperwork that his name was Ronald—“because that’s why I’m here. To get paid.” He seemed nervous, and Lyle laughed silently. Test subjects were so twitchy sometimes.
“Good,” said Lyle, and looked at the group. “Well. I’m pleased to tell you that this is a very late-stage test, and the product you’ll be sampling is essentially ready for production. Your skin is in very safe hands, and in fact we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Now, we’ve given each of you a tray and a spatula; next we’ll give you a— Susan?”
Susan was on the end of the row, rubbing lotion onto the back of a subject’s hand. A very handsome subject, Lyle noted with some irritation. The man glanced at Lyle, then looked up at Susan and flashed exactly the kind of debonair smile Lyle had tried to make earlier, in exactly the kind of way that made Lyle know he had failed. His teeth were more perfect than some of the models they’d used for their teeth-whitening ads.
“You’ll give us a Susan?” the man asked, grinning devilishly. Susan smiled back. “If I’d known that, I’d have signed up weeks ago.”
“Susan,” Lyle whispered, walking toward her, “we can’t actually touch them. That’s what the spatulas are for.”
“He doesn’t mind,” said Susan, and gave the man a stunning smile.
Lyle rolled his eyes. She’s flirting with him.
“I don’t mind at all,” said the man, smiling back.
Lyle successfully avoided groaning. “No,” he said, “I mean it’s actually illegal—if you’re not a licensed cosmetologist you’re not even allowed to touch another person’s face, and the hands are … essentially the same thing, so.” He pulled Susan gently away. “Let’s just not touch anyone, anywhere, just to be safe.”
Susan raised her eyebrow, staring at him.
“Give them all some lotion,” said Lyle, gesturing at the other men. “Just a squirt from the bottle, straight into the tray.” Susan saluted, and Lyle frowned. “Now, gentlemen: use the spatula, or your fingers—you can touch your own face without a cosmetology license, of course—and spread it around on your arms or your face, maybe somewhere you have some fine lines or wrinkles.…” He watched as the six men poked and sniffed at the lotion and slowly began smearing it on their skin. “Careful of your eyes, of course,” said Lyle. “It’s perfectly safe, but that doesn’t mean it feels good in your eyes.”
“We want to test it over time,” said Susan, “so we need you to come back in three weeks so we can see if there’s any progress.” She finished giving each man some lotion, and picked up a camera. “I’ll be taking some ‘before’ photos so we have something solid to compare it to when you come back.”
The nervous guy looked up. “Do we get paid now or at the end of the three weeks?”
“Both, Ronald,” said Lyle. “Don’t worry, you’ll get paid. I just have some quick questions first.” Lyle looked at the sheaf of papers and saw that the handsome man’s name was Jon Ford. “Mr. Ford, let’s start with you: Do you ever experience any…” He paused, realizing what the question was about, and felt a surge of mischievous satisfaction. “Do you ever experience any itching, perhaps a contagious skin rash of some kind, or an epidermal fungus?”
“Do I have to answer?” asked Ford, scowling in disgust.
Lyle stifled a smile. “I’m sorry, this is for science. Now, please tell us the exact nature of the problem.”
3
Monday, March 26
3:31 P.M.
Midtown Manhattan
263 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Ronald Lynch waited by the service elevators in the dirty back room of another office building, just a few blocks away from NewYew. He’d worked in this building for years, but he’d never once entered through the front doors. Corporate espionage was a little more complicated than that.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, revealing a heavyset man in an ill-fitting suit, leaning calmly against the back railing. He didn’t move, but raised one finger and beckoned for Ronald to step in and join him. Ronald did, and the man nodded.
“Floor seventeen,” said the man. Ronald pushed it, and the doors closed. “I’m Abraham Decker,” said the man, and offered his meaty hand to shake. “Chief scientist. We’ve never met, but I’ve read your reports. You do good work.”
“I came straight from the product test,” said Ronald. “They wouldn’t let me take a sample, but I—”
“Straight?” asked Decker.
“Well, I … meandered a bit first,” said Ronald. “Obviously. Nobody followed me.”
“I don’t think they understand what they have yet,” said Decker. “We need to be extra careful with this one.”
Ronald frowned. “Seemed like a pretty standard test to me.”
“It’s a whole new technology,” said Decker. “It’s so cutting edge we’ll need new legislation just to manage it.”
“For a wrinkle reducer?”
“For genetic engineering,” said Decker.
Ronald looked at his hand in shock, wondering what he’d just rubbed on his skin, but before he could ask any more questions the elevator dinged again and the doors slid open. Decker heaved himself up from the railing and walked into the hall, Ronald close behind, and after a few short turns they entered a massive corner office, bigger than Ronald’s entire apartment and furnished like a mansion. This, more than anything else, is what finally started to make Ronald scared. He didn’t mind reporting on product tests: rival companies were always going to spy on each other, and Ronald figured somebody was going to get paid to do it so why not him? He honestly kind of liked the excitement. But he’d always dealt with intermediaries—burner phones and anonymous envelopes of cash—but this office was a whole new level of intrigue. This was a place for high rollers; this was a place for people who were ambitious and proud and ruthless. This had to be the CEO.
Ronald started to realize that this was a much bigger deal than he’d expected.
“Have a seat,” said Decker, plopping down on a couch by the wall, and gesturing for Ronald to join him. A few moments later another man walked in, tall and stern and flanked by two dark-suited giants whose skills, Ronald guessed, had little to do with cosmetics. They arrayed themselves in front of Ronald and stared at him a moment.
“Ira,” said Decker, “this is Ronald, one of our informants in the product testing program.” Ronald stood up to shake his hand, but the beefy man on Ira’s right pushed him back down. Ronald swallowed and tried to smile.
“How do you do, sir?”
“Welcome to Ibis Cosmetics,” said the man. “My name is Ira Brady, and I’m the CEO. You’re our man at NewYew?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ronald. “At least for today, sir. They were testing a new kind of hand lotion with some kind of antiaging—”
“I know what they were testing,” said Ira. “What we don’t know is the interior layout of the building. You’ve been in a part of NewYew none of us has visited.” He started pacing as he talked, gesturing broadly with his hands. “What floor did they take you to? How many doors did you pass through to get to the room where the test was held? How many turns did you take, and in what directions? And perhaps most
importantly…” He turned back toward Ronald. “Did you happen to see any laboratories while you were there? And could you tell us accurately how to find them?”
“You’re going to steal the lotion,” said Ronald.
“Of course I’m not going to steal it,” said Ira, “that’s illegal. But a technology like that is bound to be stolen eventually, and I suspect that it may, through circumstances beyond our control, end up in my hands. Now: describe the building.”
4
Monday, April 2
8:15 A.M.
NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
256 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“An herbal supplement,” said Sunny, grinning. He threw a tennis ball at the floor, bounced it off the wall, and caught it again. “We can get away with anything in an herbal supplement. The FDA could care less about them.”
“Couldn’t care less,” said Lyle. “The FDA couldn’t care less, not could, that doesn’t make any sense.” Sunny was one of the few people at NewYew whom Lyle considered a friend, though even so, most of their interaction was business related. Now that he thought about it, Lyle didn’t interact much with anybody else at all.
“Could, couldn’t, the point is that they don’t care.” Sunny bounced and caught the ball again. “Listen to this: the FDA regulates the kinds of drugs and formulas and whatever that we’re allowed to sell, because they want to make sure those formulas are safe, right? You come up with something new, and they spend years and years testing it to make sure it doesn’t do anything it’s not supposed to do. But! Herbal supplements are different. The FDA keeps an approved list of ‘natural’ ingredients that they’ve already vetted, and as long as you stick to those you’re fine; they know those ingredients don’t do anything wrong because they don’t do anything at all, by definition. It’s just ground-up flowers and crap. The approval process for herbal supplements is zero days, because they literally don’t bother to look at them. If they’re labeled right, we don’t even have to submit them.”