Extreme Makeover

by Dan Wells

  “Never sell a cure when you can sell a treatment,” said Cynthia. “A magical lotion that protects you from heart disease is great for you, but then what do we sell you in the next fiscal quarter? How do we keep our business growing? We need something temporary and/or disposable.”

  “I’ve got just what you’re looking for,” said Kerry, tapping the keyboard. The slide changed to show a glamorous couple on the streets of Paris, the Eiffel Tower shining brilliantly in the background. “Fantasy kits,” said Kerry, barely controlling his excitement. “Ma and Pa Kettle from Nowheresville, Wisconsin, decide they want a vacation, something really special like an anniversary, so they buy this kit and rub on the lotion and bam! Suddenly they’re young, dashing sophisticates on a weeklong cruise on the French Riviera. And here’s the kicker: each fantasy kit includes a couple of bottles of blank lotion, so they can imprint themselves first, and then when they’re done with the high life they go back to Nowheresville and put on the ‘them’ lotion and turn back into themselves. They get the best of both worlds, and when they’re ready for another fantasy they come right back to us and buy another one.”

  “I love it,” said Cynthia. “It would be even better if we could do it with actual celebrities.”

  “Can we get celebrities?” asked Kerry.

  “Only the ones desperate for attention,” said Sunny.

  “And those are never the ones you want,” said Jeffrey.

  Carl looked at Lyle. “Will it work?”

  “It’s biologically feasible, yes,” said Lyle, “but do we really want to sell unimprinted lotion? That could get out of hand incredibly quickly—it’s like giving the gun to the retarded kid.”

  “Wow,” said Sunny. “I thought we were crossing the sensitivity line.”

  “It’s an old science fiction story,” said Lyle. “You know the one I’m talking about, right? Nobody?”

  “Some of us had dates in college,” said Kerry.

  “There’s a scientist who invents a death ray or whatever, and his friend tries to convince him not to tell anyone, and the guy insists he’s just there to make the science, and he’s not responsible for what anybody else does with it. So the friend gives the scientist’s mentally disabled son a handgun, like as an object lesson.”

  Sunny raised his eyebrow. “What kind of sick bastard gives a mentally disabled child a handgun?”

  “That’s exactly my point!” said Lyle. “You can’t just give someone a power they don’t understand and then say it’s not your fault when they hurt someone with it. If we give people blank ReBirth, we are giving them a power they can’t possibly hope to control. I don’t even think we can control it.”

  “So let me get this straight,” said Cynthia. “You think our customers are mentally retarded?”

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Sunny, “because we’re already on it. The standard retail model is too uncontrollable, like you said, so Carl had me working on alternatives all night.” He glanced around the room. “This is jumping the agenda by a couple of bullet points, but Carl’s approved the plan so we may as well announce it: we’re building our own clinics. Just a few at first, in some of the major cities, which incidentally gives us a period of limited supply where we can boost the price due to heightened demand. Instead of buying this stuff at Walmart you come in to a private NewYew center, make an appointment, and a trained professional oversees the whole procedure under the safest possible conditions.”

  “We’ll need to contract a new design team for the look and feel of the clinics,” said Kerry. “Something as classy as possible, to justify the prices we’re going to charge.”

  “I like it,” said Cynthia. She looked at Lyle. “Does that mollify you?”

  Lyle nodded, grudgingly. “I have to admit that yes, clinics are a very good idea. The tighter we can control this substance, the better.”

  Carl nodded sagely. “The clinics give us higher visibility, as well, which doubles as advertising. Sunny’s team is already shopping for high-profile locations we can buy.”

  Lyle raised his eyebrow. “You want to ask if this is scientifically feasible, as well, or can I object on some other grounds?”

  “Please, Lyle,” said Cynthia, her voice mocking. “Tell us all the things we’re doing wrong.”

  “You need to get off your damn high horse,” growled Carl. “You think you know better than everyone else in the room—you think you are better. You’re as deep in this as everyone else: you keep telling us we’re evil for thinking of product ideas, but so far you’ve signed off on every single one of them. You could turn us in to the cops in a heartbeat—you’ve got more than enough evidence to get us all locked away for the rest of our lives—and yet you haven’t done or said a thing. You want to protest, but not enough to actually stop us. Just enough to mollify your conscience and still get the payout at the end.”

  “I’m here because you promised to help Susan,” said Lyle.

  “And your part in that plan,” said Sunny, “is to modify her DNA without her knowledge or consent. The morally murkiest part of this entire project.”

  “It’s the only way,” said Lyle. “That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

  “Of course you’re happy about it,” said Cynthia. “Because you get to make a decision for somebody else.” Her eyes were cold. “Because you always know better.”

  Lyle felt queasy. This is wrong, he thought, then grumbled and closed his eyes. But it’s also right. I think? I’m trying to save Susan, I just wish we didn’t have to be so … invasive about it. He looked at the other executives, softly discussing the theft and their plans and their horrifying line of ReBirth products. They’re the reason, he thought. We’re not robbing Susan’s home to save her, we’re robbing it to protect them—so they can come out of this fiasco clean, and sell their products and make their zillions of dollars. If I wasn’t stuck with them I could really help people. I could get out there and use this product for good. It rewrites your genes, for crying out loud: we could completely abolish genetic diseases. Don’t they care about that? We could be world-saving heroes, but all we’re doing is making them rich. And we still don’t know who stole it, or what they’ve got planned for it—

  Lyle stopped, frozen.

  We don’t know who stole it. He looked around the room. They don’t know who stole it. We’re all on pins and needles, waiting to see where the lotion surfaces, but until it does … they don’t know anything.

  So if it turns up somewhere good—a hospital, for example, using it to save lives—they’ll assume it was part of that original theft. If I can sneak a blank sample, I can give it to someone who’ll us it properly, and the original theft will cover my tracks.

  Lyle smiled. They want to work in secret? It’s time I had a secret of my own.

  15

  Monday, May 7

  10:31 A.M.

  Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan

  221 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD

  Susan looked horrible; her face was dull and thick, her body covered in bandages and bristling with needles and sensors. Her skin was discolored and ill-fitting—tight in some places, sagging in others, like a set of clothes made for somebody else. She’d been unconscious for nearly four full days. Lyle checked her pulse: faint, but steady.

  The hospital still thought it was leprosy—some new, devastating strain that their standard treatments couldn’t solve. Lyle had talked to the doctors, trying to learn everything he could, and while the hospital had noticed a rise in her testosterone he was fairly certain they didn’t suspect she was changing gender. He glanced up at Sunny and Cynthia. “Are we ready?”

  Cynthia nodded grimly, pulling out a bottle of ReBirth. “How does this work?”

  “Is that blank?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Lyle. “This isn’t going to do any good if it’s already imprinted on someone else.”

  “It’s one of the same samp
les we took from your office,” she said. “No one’s touched the lotion. We haven’t even opened the bottle.”

  Lyle nodded. “All right, then, let’s get this over with.” He wheeled the bedside table from the wall to Susan, and pulled on a pair of disposable gloves. “Give it to me.”

  Cynthia handed him the bottle; he wiped it down carefully and set it on the table. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out two plastic bags: a large one with a Styrofoam sample tray, and a smaller one containing a dull white powder. He set the tray on the table and picked up the powder bag, examining it carefully.

  “That’s Susan’s skin?” asked Sunny.

  “They’re called epithelials,” said Lyle, nodding. “Relatively large pieces of skin, recovered from a pedicure kit our thief found in her bathroom.”

  “How does this work?” asked Cynthia.

  “You’ve got me,” said Lyle. “I’m pretty certain what’s going to happen when I do this, but I still don’t know how or why.”

  “You’re going to imprint the lotion with Susan’s DNA,” said Cynthia, watching his face, “which will turn it into some kind of … magical Susan lotion.”

  Lyle laughed drily. “That’s the idea. I think it’s the retrovirus.”

  “You said the retrovirus was supposed to prevent this from happening.”

  “Yes, but it’s the only explanation I can think of. Retroviruses are designed to read DNA—that’s what makes them so good at regulating plasmids, which is why we put them in there in the first place. They attach to a strand, read it, and decide if it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.” He opened the bag gingerly, and poured the dull powder onto the sample tray. “I think the retrovirus in ReBirth is not just reading the DNA but remembering it, and then somehow forcing all the future DNA it encounters to match that initial template.”

  “Can it do that?” Sunny asked.

  “No.” Lyle shook his head. “No, it can’t. Retroviruses transfer information, but they don’t store it. It should be impossible.” He poked at the powder with a gloved finger. “And yet it works, consistently and predictably.” He picked up the bottle. “Are you ready?”

  “Stop asking and just do it,” Cynthia snapped.

  “Okay, okay,” said Lyle, “it’s just … Okay, I’ll do it.” He popped open the plastic cap. This can imprint on anything, he thought. This much of it, all in one place, could overwrite the DNA of everyone in this hospital. Be very, very careful. He tipped it over the tray and squeezed gently, holding his breath while a thick blob of creamy white lotion oozed out onto the skin rubbings. He squirted out a pea-sized drop, then carefully closed the lid and slipped the bottle into his pocket.

  “This is when it’s dangerous,” said Lyle. They both stepped back. “It’s reading Susan’s DNA and … doing whatever it does to imprint it. If you touch it now, you’ll be Susan inside of four weeks.”

  “I’m not getting anywhere near it,” said Cynthia, taking another step back. Sunny moved with her. “You’re the one who has to apply it.”

  Lyle watched the drop of lotion, some terrified, primal part of him expecting it to start slithering across the table. Obviously it didn’t.

  “How long does it take?” asked Cynthia.

  Lyle shrugged. “I have no idea. We know from the way it’s behaved in the past that a DNA contact in one part of a lotion sample will eventually spread to the entire sample, so obviously the information is being transferred from one … thing … to another. Again, probably the retroviruses.” He reached out with a gloved fingertip and stirred it gently, rubbing the lotion around in the skin cells. “Do you realize how frightening this is? How stupid we’re being?”

  “Don’t start this again.”

  “We don’t know how this works,” said Lyle, “but we’re selling it to every John Q. Public with a credit card. In two months this will be in our clinics all over the country—all over the world—and yet here we are, the people who made it, and we’re almost too scared to breathe.” He picked up the tray with his clean hand, still stirring with his other, and stepped toward Susan. “Ready?”

  Sunny and Cynthia nodded.

  Lyle scooped the lotion onto two gloved fingers, reached out, and slowly rubbed the lotion onto Susan’s chest, just above the sternum. One of the areas most visibly affected by her “disease.” He massaged the spot for a few seconds until the lotion was completely absorbed, and then stepped back.

  “Done.”

  “Good,” said Cynthia, and gestured toward the red hazmat container on the wall. “Now for the love of all that’s holy, put that stuff away—do you want to kill us?”

  Lyle gestured toward the plastic bag the tray had come in, keeping his hands away from everything. “Open it for me.”

  Cynthia looked at Lyle, then handed the bag to Sunny. “Open it for him.”

  “Are you kidding? What if he gets some on me?”

  “Just open it!” Lyle snapped. Sunny opened the bag wide, keeping his fingers far away from the mouth of it, and winced as Lyle slid the sample tray into it. Lyle used his clean glove to peel off his contaminated glove, being careful not to let the lotion touch any skin, and dropped it in the bag. He carefully removed the other glove, sealed the bag closed, and placed the entire thing in the hazmat container.

  “Well done,” said Cynthia. “Time for the next phase. Have you talked to Marcus?”

  “He’s on the move,” said Sunny. “We have a few of them already.”

  “A few of who?” asked Lyle.

  “Loose ends,” said Cynthia, scrolling through her messages. “Your friend Pedro and all of our other security leaks are taking a vacation overseas.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  “For now.”

  “So we’re kidnapping people?” asked Lyle. “How low are we going to go?”

  “We can’t just turn them back the way we turned Susan back,” said Sunny, “because they, unlike her, know it was the lotion that did it. Several of them have already stated an intent to sue the company. NewYew could break in half. Then instead of us controlling ReBirth you’d have no one at all, or worse yet someone like Pedro.”

  “I’m starting to think that would be better,” said Lyle.

  “Just step lightly,” said Cynthia, narrowing her eyes. “Now that we have the blank lotion, and the means to make more, you’re a lot less important than you think you are. Don’t make us send you on vacation with them.”

  They opened the door and walked into the hall. Lyle followed them slowly, his feet heavy, his breaths deep and hungry.

  I have to stop this, he thought. He patted the bottle in his pocket. I have the lotion, and I have my plan, and all I have to do is follow it. Just take the lotion to a doctor and tell them how it works. Get the lotion out there where someone can use it for good, and chop the legs out from under all these sinister master plans.

  Not here, though. No corporation can have it, not even a hospital. I’ll take it to a charity, where money will never enter into it, and tell them everything. Someone who’ll use it to help the world instead of himself.

  All I have to find is a good man.

  16

  Tuesday, May 8

  1:04 A.M.

  Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

  220 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD

  Lyle hurried through the darkness, clutching the bottle of ReBirth tightly in his hands. The lid was taped shut, and the bottle was sealed in a plastic bag, and then the whole thing was sealed inside another bag, but he was still worried. This was not a part of the city he liked visiting during the day, let alone at night. One bad mistake, he thought, one stupid accident—anything from a mugger to a slip on the sidewalk—and I’m ruined.

  He slowed without stopping, checking the address he’d scribbled on a piece of paper. He was close; just one more block. He heard footsteps in an alley and voices on the other side of the street; he was practically running now.

  Where is it?

  And then there it
was—a simple storefront, humble but well maintained, with the words YEMAYA FOUNDATION painted across the glass in large letters. There was a light on in the back. Lyle jogged to the door, tried it, then knocked loudly when it didn’t open. He glanced around nervously, seeing thieves and killers in every shadow. A figure moved inside the building, coming toward the door, and Lyle swallowed, holding his breath in a panic.

  A tall man opened the door, long haired but clean shaven, wearing a brightly colored dashiki shirt. The stranger spoke in a warm, deep voice. “Are you the man I talked to on the phone?”

  “Yes,” said Lyle, pushing the stranger back as he rushed through the door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you my name, but … well, it’s a very long story.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” said the tall man. “We are all brothers.” He made some kind of gesture with his hands, then closed and locked the door. “Please join me in the back. I’ve prepared some rooibos tea; it will help calm your nerves.”

  “Um, thank you,” said Lyle, following the man.

  It had been unsurprisingly difficult to find a charity willing to accept an unidentified medicinal substance, especially since Lyle had refused to give his name to any of them, or to explain where the substance had come from or what it did. Secrecy was too important, and he didn’t want to share too much information until he was 100 percent sure he’d found the right place.

  He desperately hoped the Yemaya Foundation was the right place, because at this point it was pretty much the only place left.

  “Are you Dr. Halley?” Lyle asked.

  The man nodded. “I use that name for legal purposes only; please call me Kuvam.”

  “Dr. Kuvam, I can’t thank you enough for—”

  The man stopped, turned, and shook his head. “‘Doctor’ is too limiting. I prefer ‘guru.’” He led Lyle into the back room, lit not by electric lights but by some kind of oil lamps. The walls were hung with brightly colored fabrics edged with tassels, and there was no furniture. Kuvam gestured at the floor, covered with exotic pillows and homespun blankets in fierce orange and blue. A small Bunsen burner sat in the center of the blankets, heating a clay pot suspended above it. Lyle paled at the fire hazard, and stepped carefully around it.