Her mood swung by the hour, by the minute. Elation that she would live, that ROSE wouldn’t destroy her. Panic that a moment’s lassitude or ache was the first sign of rapid and irreversible aging. Hair-ripping anguish at the sheer stupidity of what she had done.
There was no word from Ximena, Mary Sue, or their friend. In fact, neither Zach nor Jen knew who had arranged the doctor’s appointment.
One evening, Ava and Taylor invited her into their small living room to have a glass of wine. They seemed very serious. Jen said no to the alcohol. Taylor hemmed and Ava hawed, but they finally spat it out.
“Jen, the thing is, Ava hates her work,” Taylor said.
“A PhD so I can do historical tours for the uber-rich and earn piss-poor pay?”
“And I’d like to be closer to my family.”
“And, well, we’re going to be moving.”
This was all Jen needed right now.
“How soon?”
“We leave in three weeks.”
Ava jumped in. “But you can stay an extra week until our lease is up.”
Well, Jen thought, maybe I’ll get lucky and die of instant old age and not have to worry about finding a new place.
On the sixth day, Zach handed her a small package. “Mary Sue dropped this off for you.” Inside were two cheap-looking phones each labeled with a marker: “1” and “2.”
Zach said, “They want you to leave number one charged and turned on. If they need to reach you, they’re gonna phone or text you. They said once they use it, you should destroy the SIM card and take a hammer to the phone.”
“Do I need to swallow the pieces?”
“I think they were being serious.”
“And phone number two?”
“Keep it charged, but switched off. It’s to phone them in an absolute emergency.”
“Roger that.”
“You can still change your mind, you know. The doctor said the second treatment is the tricky part.”
“Zach, I’m going to live.”
“Jen—”
“Please, Zach, don’t.”
As she waited, she scoured news sites. The death toll in the DC/Baltimore corridor was now up to ninety-three. Nationwide, it had surged to an astounding 437. Multiple deaths in France and Hong Kong. But the number of new cases was quickly dropping. The World Health Organization and governments around the world were issuing warnings far and wide that a street version of the treatment would kill you. Bad news travels fast, but it doesn’t travel to everyone. People continued to die. Police everywhere had continued to make arrests, but none led anywhere.
There were stories about the cleanup from the Rock Creek fire and a timeline to plant seedlings that would make it look like a forest again in eighty years, but Jen could barely bring herself to read them.
And there was a small article that Kyrie Brooks, a police captain, had been released the day before after being held for two weeks under the Prevention of Biological Terrorism Law. He was under suspension and placed on house arrest. Jen wished she could contact him.
On day three and then again on day six, she went for an easy bike ride. For one thing, she was desperate for some exercise. For another, if she was still being watched, she wanted them to see her going about her normal business.
On day seven, she returned to the apartment.
* * *
She was nervous. Zach was nervous. Gabe was chewing on his pencil. Most disturbing of all, the doctor was clearly agitated.
“This is the stage I’ve always been most worried about,” the doctor said. “And after what I’ve seen in the news over the past month, frankly, I’m terrified.”
Jen said, “It’ll be fine.” She didn’t totally believe this anymore, but someone needed to say it.
Just as she had done the week before, the doctor explained the science and the process. Gabe scribbled away. Jen just wanted her to get on with it.
“Today won’t take long. You shouldn’t feel any discomfort. In fact, you shouldn’t feel anything. We give it to you this time as a simple intravenous injection. You stay with us for an hour. You go home.”
And then, thought Jen, I will age in spectacular fashion and die.
Or, if she was still alive in a month, she would return to her own clinic, get tested again, and hopefully discover that she was no longer carrying the marker for ROSE. If so, the clinic would assume that the original test had been one of the rare false positives, but Jen would know that the treatment had worked.
The fluid was cool. She felt it, a modified her, flowing into her vein.
* * *
What do you do, Jen thought, if you have only a day or two to live? You’re perfectly healthy, you can do anything, but that may change as quickly as a car crashes or a building bursts into flames.
She thought of sending her resignation to the police department but decided that was one bridge too many to burn.
She began sorting through a small box of mementoes to see what she wanted to save, until the absurdity of the action hit her. She had no children, no siblings, no one who’d have any use for this junk. Zach certainly wouldn’t care about her first police insignia or a stained paper napkin from her visit to a bar, with fake ID, when she was seventeen.
There was only one thing she wanted to do. Sit in Zach’s kitchen and talk to him, Raffi, and Leah like it was a normal day. And that’s exactly what she did.
* * *
Based on the interviews she had conducted with family members and everything she had read, all the victims of the lethal treatment started to feel “off” within a day of the second dose of the treatment. By day two or three, there were visible signs of aging, and by day four most were extremely sick, although a few had lasted until day five. By the end of day five, all were in a hospital and comatose. Between days six and ten, they were dead.
On the tenth day, September 8, Jen woke up early. Deep yellow rays of the rising sun knifed through the slits in Zach’s blinds. She sat up, carefully, as if she might snap in half. She took stock of herself. She was there. She felt good. Great, actually.
In the morning light, she stared at Zach fast asleep. She saw it, what she had never quite noticed before. What made him beautiful was an innocence set in a body made rugged by his daily work. It felt good to have him at her side.
She held her open hand in front of her, the still-young hand of a thirty-eight-year-old. She positioned it to block the rays of sunlight and then spread her fingers ever so slightly so the light made the in-between slits glow. She touched the smooth skin on her face and traced the curve of her lips. She closed her eyes, then blinked them open and shut. She knew she would live. And now all she could do was wait and see if Eden, the real Eden, had worked.
* * *
At ten that morning, the phone pinged that a text had arrived. That phone.
Good news to share. 7:30 PM with J.
She replied, K.
Then, feeling absolutely silly, she snipped the SIM card into small pieces and flushed them down the toilet and smashed the phone. On an afternoon walk, she dropped bits of plastic and metal into sewers and flower beds.
She returned to her room and killed time, flipping through media sites.
There were only a handful of new deaths across the country and no fresh cases in three days. Same thing in France, although there were a few new cases in Hong Kong and now Bangkok. Of course, she thought. It wasn’t only that demand was dropping. Now that the damage had been done, the companies could turn off the taps. Jen worried it might be too late to catch them red-handed. As Chandler would have said, “What the hell.”
Chandler. Three weeks and three days since he’d been terminated. It felt like forever. She missed him. Clichés like “more than I could imagine” didn’t capture it. No. Part of her was gone.
There was another short article about Captain Brooks. According to Homeland Security, he had fled the country. To Jen’s mind, this didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t the fleeing-the-country ty
pe. More likely, she thought, he’s dead.
More likely, she thought, he’s been murdered.
40
Once again tea, the ice thunking in frosty aluminum glasses. Gabe was hosting. Jen was there. Ximena was there, as was her friend, now with a first name, Isaiah—or at least that’s what he told them. Neither Mary Sue nor Zach were present. Curtains shut, phones of co-op members left at their homes. Jen’s was still on, but parked in another room, because this was simply a normal visit to her mother, wasn’t it? At first they spoke quietly, not because they worried anyone could hear them, but because the news seemed too explosive to discuss in anything more than whispers.
Introductions over, they turned to Isaiah. He looked to be in his early fifties. Everything about him said cool and calm. Respectful. His hair was buzzed short, with only a hint of a retro decorative pattern in the back. His skin was very dark, the color of espresso. Trim goatee and wire-rim glasses, both several years out of style but that looked good on him.
Everyone grew quiet. Isaiah spoke. “The development of the treatment took fifteen years. And this was after much of the basic science had been worked out. It was hellishly difficult and staggeringly expensive.”
Like everything else about him, Isaiah’s voice was calm and authoritative. The type that didn’t try to convince you and yet was immediately convincing. “This complexity is precisely what gave birth to the idea of the consortium. Not only did each compound and each process require testing, but it was imperative to test how everything interacted. Even though it was extensively computer modeled, the number of permutations of different compounds and gene therapies that went through animal and then human trials was mind-boggling.”
Gabe said, “How mind-boggling?”
“I don’t have those numbers, but certainly hundreds and hundreds of different trials. The expense was high, even by pharma standards, in excess of a hundred billion dollars.”
Gabe gave a low whistle. “But you’re using their research for your own Eden. Don’t you think they deserve to earn that back?”
Isaiah said, “Their own documents show they have already made three times their investment. And they will continue to make a fortune on the full longevity treatment, even if we’re able to distribute Eden. Anyway, within the consortium, GPRA and Xeno/Roberts/Chu—”
“Teena Archambault’s and Taika Mete’s companies,” Jen said to no one in particular.
“—had responsibility for the second stage of the treatment, the one that includes gene therapy. There was one particular Phase One trial—an extremely tiny group, only eighteen subjects took part—in which they were doing a complicated modification to several genes and testing this in combination with one particular compound.” His voice grew even more serious. “You can probably guess what happened.”
Jen said, “They all grew old and died within a few days.”
Isaiah nodded. “All the symptoms of Berardinelli-Seip lipodystrophy. None of the scientists predicted anything like this could happen, especially not so rapidly.”
“When was this?” Gabe asked.
“Eleven years ago.”
“So,” Jen said, “you’re saying that what we’re seeing now has happened before.”
“Which could mean,” Ximena said, “that whoever has developed this bootleg treatment made the same mistake as GPRA.”
Jen said, “Was this research published in a science thing?”
“In a journal?” Isaiah shook his head as if this was absurd even to imagine. “These particular trials were conducted in Cambodia. There were rumors in the company about the results, but they were quashed. You see, if this had come to light, it would have crushed public confidence in the whole project. I am certain that most records were destroyed, and what was kept is buried a mile underground.”
“Then,” Jen said, “how do you know?”
Isaiah reached into his pocket and pulled out a memory button. “Because I have a copy of the research report.”
“From?” Gabe said.
Isaiah shook his head, but he held out the button to Gabe. “Do you have an air-gapped computer?” he asked. When Gabe said yes, Isaiah handed it over.
Ximena said, “Maybe you’re not the only one. Maybe someone else has the report or remembers. Could they be the ones behind it?”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Gabe said. “Anyone with access to this would also have access to, or at least knowledge of, what did work. No reason why they’d reproduce the company’s biggest failure.”
Ximena held up a finger. “Unless they wanted to sabotage the company.”
“Maybe,” Jen said. “But they did nothing to link these deaths to the company.”
“Then why is the company trying to shut this down?”
Jen said, “Are they?”
“At any rate,” Isaiah continued, “this isn’t the work of an individual. Or even a small group. To produce these compounds and the gene therapies requires not only knowledge but a significant quantity of resources. This isn’t cooking up a batch of amphetamines. But in a way, that’s not the issue. You see, for the limited treatment, the gene therapy we use—”
“Which we?” Gabe frowned. “The company you work for? The groups making the real Eden?”
“We, the good guys, the co-op network. Our gene therapy is fairly minimal. We are not trying to reverse the aging process. We’re not fantasizing about eternal life. We’re not trying to produce a cure-all for every ache and pain. In the second stage, there are one or two quite simple splices—that’s one of the things that makes our process quick and relatively inexpensive. But the research disaster happened with a very complicated combination of therapies—no way anyone else would stumble on it.”
“Then …” Jen said.
“Then, Jen, I’m with you,” Isaiah said. “I believe the only group that has the knowledge of this particular modification plus the motive, the expertise, and the resources to produce this horror is the consortium. I figure they got wind of the real Eden we were working on. Our network started developing this six years ago and started phase testing on ourselves three years later. The consortium couldn’t let that happen, could they? So they decided to get one step ahead of us. Scare the living hell out of people who messed with an underground version.”
Gabe said, “Why does the fake treatment need to be so complicated? Why not just shoot people up with poison?”
Isaiah said, “I believe they want it to be particularly gruesome and utterly memorable. This isn’t a random overdose or a bad batch.”
Gabe looked up from his notes. “The doctor who treated Jen said the bad results happened in the second stage of the treatment, with the gene therapy. So perhaps the first treatment is a total fake—just a saline solution.”
“Yes, that’s possible. But my guess is that they wanted to make sure this totally mimicked their botched research results. That means following the whole protocol in both stages of treatment.”
Gabe said, “Can you prove any of this?”
Isaiah spread his arms in a show of defeat. “We’ve been trying to, believe me, using our network and contacts in the companies, but it’s extremely dangerous to snoop around. It might help if we could get samples of their compounds and the program they’re using for the gene splicing. We could at least see if it matches exactly what GPRA and Xeno/Roberts/Chu did.”
Jen said, “What would that look like?”
“The compounds? I’m guessing pretty much like you saw. They’d be prepackaged in syringes to be injected into the IV line.”
Ximena said, “So we’d need to get this from someone who’s administering it.”
Isaiah said, “Or where they’re making it, or even packaging it.”
“And the gene editing?” Jen said.
“The equipment’s computerized. Which means there are programs. Unless we somehow lucked into a sample of edited biological material, the software or programmed hardware might actually be the key thing to come up with.”
> “But,” Jen said, “we also need evidence linking Archambault or Teko Teko to all of this.”
The compound. The software. Hardware. A link to the drug companies.
A mood of hopelessness descended on the room.
Gabe said, “We may need to run with the story we have. It’s already incredible. First of all, Jen gets Eden, the real Eden, and it works.” He turned to her. “Did it?”
“I’m still here. I feel good. But I need to wait for a new round of tests.”
“Well, assuming it works, we have that.” He made a tick on his pad. “And we have the documentation about the GPRA research.” Second tick. “And, third, we have the fact that a senior person with GPRA, along with head of security for Xeno/Roberts/Chu—which together are responsible for the genomic editing and application—have been working here in DC.”
Ximena looked doubtful. “Which might only mean they’re working to stop this thing. That’s certainly what they’ll say.”
“But don’t forget,” Gabe added, “from what you’ve said, Jen, your Teko Teko arrived with a fake name and was meeting with cops before the first case anywhere.”
Ximena said, “They’ll claim they’d been hearing rumors.”
“No doubt they will. But many of the biggest scandals didn’t come out all at once. A journalist working with a whistleblower gets the ball rolling. Once that’s out, hundreds of journalists and witnesses will jump in. Heads will roll.”
“We’re not interested in a few heads rolling,” Ximena said. The room suddenly seemed very still. “Gabe, let me tell you what we want. We want everyone to have access to Eden, at cost, as a basic human right. We want exit to end.”
* * *
Nighttime. Candles. Zach’s bed.
“Like, do you feel younger?” He stroked Jen’s hip with the back of his hand.
The Last Exit Page 25