by Dan Wells
“But how does it work?” asked Tanzania. “How did it turn from a wrinkle remover to … whatever it is now?”
“It was the retrovirus,” said Lyle, and shot a quick glance at Cynthia. “That’s what I thought at first, and I was right, but it took me months to figure out exactly what was going on. See, the technology uses a plasmid to express a heat-shock protein—” He stopped with a sudden frown. “How many of you are scientists?” The delegate from Libya raised his hand, but he was the only one. “Okay,” said Lyle. “Let me see if I can translate this into normal human-ese. You all know what DNA is?” They all nodded their heads. “Do you know how DNA works?” This question met with far less confidence, and Lyle glanced around for something he could use to explain it. He spotted one of the Filipina staff members wearing a zippered sweater, and smiled at her kindly. “Excuse me, ma’am, can I borrow your sweater? Thank you. I’ll give it right back.” He walked back to the center of the group, standing in front of the podium, and zipped the sweater closed.
“A strand of DNA is like a zipper,” he said, “and all of the little teeth inside of it, all the little metal nubbins, are the blueprints it uses to build more cells. Imagine that each little nubbin is a different command: this one tells your body to make skin, this one tells it what color of skin to make, this one tells it what kind of skin to make, and so on. That’s grossly oversimplified, but you get what I mean. Now, in its normal state a strand of DNA is all zipped closed, like this sweater, so when your body wants to read those blueprints and get its new instructions, it has to zip it open.” He zipped the sweater halfway open. “When it’s open like this, another very similar strand called RNA comes in, kind of zips itself onto a little piece of the DNA, and copies it; then it can take what it’s learned and go tell the cells what to do. It’s a very stable process because the DNA and RNA both use a careful proofreading process to make sure the instructions don’t get screwed up partway through. The lotion I created uses a little chunk of self-contained DNA called a plasmid, which has just enough instructions to say ‘Hey, skin cells, produce more collagen.’ Your RNA would read it, think it was the real deal, and produce more collagen. That’s how it fought burns, and that’s how it removed wrinkles.
“Now: that entire plasmid process is overseen by a retrovirus to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand. A retrovirus is kind of like RNA, but it works backward—instead of zipping up, it zips down. That’s important for later, so remember it. When it’s working correctly the retrovirus chaperones the whole transfer of information and makes sure the plasmid doesn’t do anything stupid like injure the cells, or start replicating new garbage cells without stopping, which is another way of saying ‘cancer.’ The retrovirus should be our best friend in this scenario, but that’s the great irony of it. Because it zips backward instead of forward, it bypasses all the proofreading that RNA normally goes through. This makes it extremely vulnerable to mutation, and that’s exactly what happened to ReBirth.”
Libya spoke up. “It can’t just mutate to start cloning people.”
“No it can’t,” said Lyle. “That’s what confused us for so long. What it can do, and what it did do, is mutate in such a way that it started working in the wrong direction. Instead of writing the plasmid instructions onto the human host, it started writing the human host onto the plasmid. Worse than that, it was somehow compressing the human instructions in such a way that they could be stored, in full, on a plasmid.”
“That’s two very specific mutations in a single retrovirus,” said Libya. “The odds of that are … I can’t even calculate them. They’re astronomical.”
“They are,” said Lyle, “but it only took the one. One mutant retrovirus copying DNA wouldn’t have done anything, we wouldn’t even have noticed it was there, but one mutant retrovirus aggressively rewriting every other genetic communicator it came into contact with created a cascade effect that altered the entire batch of lotion, and that batch altered every other batch it touched. Think of it like a zombie apocalypse on a molecular scale: the first retrovirus found another and said ‘you should be doing this instead,’ and then those two found two more, and then those four found four more, and every time we mixed a new batch we added more retroviruses and they got rewritten, too. That’s why no one has been able to reproduce the lotion outside of our original factory, because they were starting with fresh ingredients instead of the mutation. In our factory we started each new batch with a sample of the old, mostly as a shortcut to match the texture and consistency, so it had a chance to infect all the new lotion.”
“So if we had a sample of blank ReBirth,” said France, “we could make new lotion.”
“You could,” said Lyle. He paused, watching the delegates, surprised when they didn’t leap out of their chairs. “What, isn’t this the part where you all race back home and build up your stockpiles and glare at each other from bunkers?”
“The twenty nations still active in this assembly are beyond that,” said Zambia. “We recognize that the world has hit a tipping point, and working together is the only way we can expect to accomplish anything.”
“Which is not to say,” said Israel, “that we won’t be making new lotion. We’ll just be making it together.”
“What possible use could you have for new lotion?” asked Lyle. “I know none of you have left the building in a while, but have you at least looked out the windows? The world is ending out there—Manhattan is practically a shantytown, and the rest of the world is arguably worse. Do you know how I finally cracked the code on this retrovirus thing? I found a ReBirth user with Down syndrome—a dose of ReBirth rewrote his genes wrong, giving him one more chromosome than he was supposed to have.” He held up the sweater. “Imagine that the DNA is unzipped, and a retrovirus is zipped onto it happily rebuilding the whole thing, and while that’s happening another retrovirus shows up and starts rebuilding them both. That’s how that happened, and that’s how aggressive this retrovirus is. Virtually all of the DNA transcription in the entire body of an infected person is being performed by ReBirth instead of by the natural processes, and that means the proofreading system is gone. Our biological process is completely unregulated. The occurrences of Down syndrome and Turner syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome are up worldwide; the cancer rate is through the roof; I talked to a doctor a month ago who said he had two new cases of Wolf-Hirschhorn microcephaly spontaneously generating in adults. Name a chromosomal disorder and I’ll bet you a hundred bucks someone within a mile of this building has it.”
“But we have to face the realities of the situation,” said China, and Lyle cut him off before he could go any further.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” said Lyle. “You have to face reality. This meeting can’t be about consolidating power or whatever you’re trying to do here.”
“We have to face the realities of the situation,” China repeated calmly. “The world isn’t just ending; in many places it has already ended. The cascading effect you saw in the retroviruses has been repeated in human society, and the effects of ReBirth are being seen in new places every day. The hundred and seventy-three nations not represented in today’s meeting have given themselves up to an arms race more frantic than the Cold War, and for which not even the strongest of us are prepared. I received word only two hours ago that Russia has declared war on my country, striking across the border to seize our mines and oil basins. It is only a matter of time before they do the same in Alaska and Canada. Any sense of global stability we once had is crumbling faster than we can even catalog it. Do you think we are here because we have something to contribute? That we have some kind of miraculous solution to put our planet back in order? We are here because we have nowhere else to go, and no hope that anything else will make a difference.”
There was a moment of shocked silence, broken only by a soft voice in the back: “Samoa agrees, but does so in a slightly more upbeat manner.”
“So why are we even here?” asked Lyle. “If nothing mat
ters, and we can’t help anything, why have a meeting? Why bring me in to explain all this? Do you think there’s a ‘cure’ for ReBirth? There’s not. That’s not how it works—nothing can reverse it but more ReBirth, and I’ve already explained what a bad idea that would be. What’s left? What are you going to do? Why do you want ReBirth?”
“We could hit Russia with it,” said Nepal. “When they’re done with China they’ll get around to my country sooner or later.”
“If we ReBirth Russia they’ll ReBirth us back,” said Mexico. “Some of us were paying attention during the Cold War.”
“As the only nation ever actually attacked with nuclear weapons,” said Japan, “I want to remind everyone how poorly that strategy works.”
“But stockpiling ReBirth has a regenerative effect, as well,” said Zambia. “If an aggressor attacks with ReBirth, we can use our own and heal our populace before anything bad happens. Nuclear weapons never had that capability.”
“That won’t work in practice,” said Germany. “A strike that hits as quickly as São Tomé’s did wouldn’t leave any time or infrastructure to deploy the lotion defensively. And don’t forget what prompted the São Tomé attack in the first place: they had a bunch of ReBirth, and an enemy nation wanted it. Hell, a friendly nation wanted it, and became an enemy overnight. No offense, Chad.”
“Shut up.”
“We can’t just ignore a good weapon because using it could make people mad,” said Bangladesh.
“That’s exactly what we should do,” said Mexico. “Seriously, was I the only one paying attention during the Cold War?”
“America ignoring nuclear weapons wouldn’t have stopped the Cold War,” said Chad. “It would have gotten us destroyed by Russia.”
“By the Soviet Union,” Russia corrected. “But yes, it would have.”
“This argument could go on for hours,” said the Philippines. “Most of us haven’t even had breakfast. I say we break for an hour, come up with some good ideas, and start again.”
54
Friday, November 30
6:23 A.M.
United Nations, Manhattan
14 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Three days later, they still didn’t have any good ideas.
Lyle had gotten into the habit of eating an early breakfast with Cynthia, mostly just because Lilly was there, but in the process he had started to see Cynthia outside the bounds of her calculated public persona. It had humanized her, in a way, but at the same time it left Lyle feeling profoundly uncomfortable. Without makeup, without her hair carefully arranged, without her business skirts and fitted jackets and pens and papers and computers and phones—without the accoutrements that made her “her”—she was as disturbingly unreal, in her own way, as the subtle variations he had seen on the thousands of not-quite-Lyles and other ReBirth clones. His opportunity to get to know her better was, in the end, just one more piece of reality twisted and bent.
She sat this morning in sweatpants, barely awake. “The coffee in here is terrible,” she growled.
“If it’s so bad don’t drink it,” said Lilly, sipping from her own foam cup—not coffee, but grapefruit juice. She abhorred coffee, even aside from the celiac issues; she’d never tasted it, but hated the smell. Lyle quite liked both the smell and the flavor, but avoided it here out of deference to her.
He was beginning to realize he had a tendency to do that.
“Don’t talk to me,” Cynthia growled. “I can’t retaliate properly until I’ve had at least one cup.” She took another sip and grimaced. “It’s like drinking thin mud.”
Lilly laughed. “Would it be better if it was thick mud?”
“It would be better if you were dying in a gutter,” said Cynthia.
Lilly looked at Lyle with wide eyes. “That’s a new one.”
“She’s almost done with her cup,” said Lyle, “she can retaliate properly now.”
“Her thin mud has necromantic properties,” said Lilly.
“Her thin mud,” said Cynthia, “has granted her enough lucidity to know that the General Assembly is getting nowhere. The mobs stormed the gates yesterday, and inside we’re still just arguing in circles. They’ll be arguing until the building burns down around them.”
“Then what’s your next move?” asked Lyle. “I assume you have one.”
“I have several,” said Cynthia. “Choosing between them will take at least one more cup of coffee.”
“You realize that coffee’s not actually a stimulant,” said Lilly.
Cynthia grunted. “Spoken by someone who’s never actually tried it.”
“That’s exactly my point,” said Lilly. “The boost you get from coffee is just an addiction response called ‘withdrawal reversal.’ Your body needs it, so you feel down, and then you drink it and you go back up, but the net energy gain is zero. All the caffeine does is restore you to where you would have been in the first place if you weren’t a caffeine drinker.”
“That’s idiotic,” said Cynthia.
“When a sandwich can put you in the hospital, you start paying a lot of attention to food,” said Lilly, and turned to Lyle with an arched eyebrow. “You’re a scientist, Lyle, tell her.”
Lyle chose his words carefully. “It’s definitely addictive, and a lot of what you’re feeling right now is, as you say, withdrawal reversal.”
Lilly pointed at Cynthia triumphantly. “Hah!”
“‘A lot,’ but not all,” said Cynthia, with a look in her eye that showed she was far more alert than Lyle had given her credit for.
“It’s definitely also a stimulant,” he said. He shot the girl an apologetic glance. “It’s the most well-known, widely used stimulant in the entire world. Sorry.”
“But that’s just what Big Pharma tries to tell you!” Lilly protested.
Lyle frowned. “Big Pharma?”
“Big Business, then,” said Lilly. “Big Everything. Caffeine is valuable to you as a stimulant, fake or not, but it’s valuable to them as an uncontrolled addictive substance. Get a kid hooked on energy drinks, make him think he can’t function without them, and boom—you’ve got a customer for life.”
“Make sure to ask for tinfoil on the next supply shipment,” said Cynthia. “I don’t think we have enough on hand to make you a hat.”
“Mock me if you want,” said Lilly, “but let’s remember who’s lucid and who’s not, and which one of us relies on a chemical to become so.”
“That doesn’t imply causation,” said Lyle, before he could stop himself. He hadn’t intended to contradict her any further, but he hadn’t expected a shaky science discussion, either. Lilly shot him a probing glance, and he reluctantly finished his thought. “You’re saying that you wake up quickly because you don’t use caffeine, but it could just as easily be that you don’t use caffeine because you’re naturally inclined to wake up quickly.”
“That,” said Cynthia, “was amazing.” She looked at Lyle with something almost like respect. “Watching him stand up to the General Assembly was one thing, but telling a woman he likes that she’s wrong about something? I’m impressed, Fontanelle.”
Lilly raised her eyebrow. “A woman he likes?”
Lyle did like her, though not in the way he’d liked Susan. Maybe that’s a good thing, he thought. Susan was young and beautiful, but she was also … well, he didn’t know what else she was. A political activist, and a college student, and an intern. He’d been infatuated with the idea of her, but knew almost nothing about the woman herself.
Lilly, though, had become a friend.
“What can I say?” said Lyle, trying to brush it off. “I spend all day with two women, and one of them is…” He almost said “Cynthia,” but it felt too cruel. Especially since she’d just complimented him. “A model,” he said instead, though he cringed the instant he said it. Lilly was beautiful, yes, but he liked her for so many more important reasons.
“Well,” said Lilly. Her attitude was stiffer than a moment ago. “There you
go.”
Lyle felt like he’d punched her in the stomach, and didn’t know how to take it back.
“We can’t get out by land,” said Cynthia, changing the subject. “I’ve got a yacht in the Chelsea docks, but I don’t know if I can make it through the city. We have to rely on Washington to come and get us, but they’re taking so long.”
“This is the United Nations,” said Lilly. “They won’t just forget us.”
“We can hope,” said Cynthia, still hunched over her coffee, her eyes distant and lost in thought. “If and when they do arrive, I definitely wouldn’t count on them taking a junior receptionist when they go. It’ll be vital personnel only.”
“Then we need to make sure we’re vital,” said Lyle, and stood up with a stretch. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to observe the General Assembly for a few more years.”
“Good luck,” said Lilly. “I hope the shower line’s not too long.”
“And wash your backbone while you’re in there,” said Cynthia. “You’ve never had one before, and I expect it to be a little confusing at first.”
Lyle walked away, thinking. He’d never thought of himself as being spineless, but the last few months had changed his perspective and he couldn’t deny that he had been. He’d run from confrontation, he’d said yes to ideas he’d hated just to avoid an argument, he’d gone along with their horrible scheme to sell ReBirth just because … Because it was the path of least resistance, he thought. But he was different now, and it had taken Cynthia to make him see it.
Sure, he thought. Perfect timing. I grow a backbone just a couple of months before it doesn’t matter anymore.
The thought made him frown—not the thought, but the wording. A couple of months? Can I really quantify it like that?
If the world really ends—if all our worst fears come true—how will we know? Is it a nuclear bomb? A public announcement? Gods and angels and fire and brimstone, and the Earth rolled up like a scroll? Or will we just wake up and it will be over?