But he kept going.
Interviewer: Did he make it?
Father Reilly: I don’t know if it was the hand of God, but something led him up those stairs. At various points along the route were the fourteen Stations of the Cross, with the cross of Jerusalem staring down from the top of the stairs. With ten steps to go, his hand that held the rosary cramped like a bushel of tree branches after a lightning strike. He crawled on his hands and knees, sweat soaked through his pants and shirt.
He took the last step with a slight grunt—the only time I heard him make a sound during the hours of crawling. I didn’t know if it was a cry of pain or accomplishment. He sat at the top of the stairs staring up into the sky, as if he saw something no one else could. We sat next to him and wrapped him in a hug. I felt exhausted, like I had also climbed the steps.
Even then, he wanted to visit each of the seven churches located at the top. And then, as we helped my dad stand upright, we walked inside the Chapel of Our Lady towards the smell of candles and incense. We knelt before the Black Madonna and even I could feel something inside my body, like a tingling. Something inside of me wanting to be let out.
I was so happy he had made it. I did not think he could, but he did. I felt the tears fall down my face and I prayed—it was the first time I had ever truly prayed. I wanted this feeling to last forever. When we returned home, nothing about my father’s condition had improved and I would eventually go back to skateboards and surfboards as my saviors. But that day before the Black Madonna, as I prayed with my father, it would have taken an army of a thousand to pull me away.
Interviewer: Okay, jump forward a bit here. Let’s go to college.
Father Reilly: I discovered a newfound interest in the church when I left for college. Well, truth be told, I discovered a newfound interest in a girl, and she sparked my interest in the church again. She was God’s conduit.
Christine and I dated my senior year at UCLA. She was my first serious girlfriend, after a long series of bad dates and one-night stands. She was tall and lanky, with brown hair and cute dimples that radiated when she decided to throw a smile my way. Christine seemed to accept and even enjoy our long silences together. And oddly enough, the more silence she gave me the more I wanted to open up and actually engage her in a conversation. She was the first non–family member I could do that with. Christine was a Catholic who attended mass on a regular basis, but I was more of a once-a-month attendee if we had decided to go to brunch that day too.
One day Christine mentioned we should go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. It’s a long mass and I’m not saying I was overcome with the Holy Spirit or something like out of a movie, but I enjoyed the mass and the ceremony—the incense and chanting, the whole spectacle of it all. The things that stir the soul and mind of any Catholic. They were the same feelings that had overcome me in Rocamadour. The next week, I was the one who suggested we attend mass. After that, I returned to church again and again—and eventually I started attending the student ministry and I felt I had found a purpose. Like I had returned home from a long banishment.
And then my father died.
He had endured two transsphenoidal surgeries through his nasal cavity, after a round of growth hormone receptor antagonists had no appreciable effect on his condition. Neither procedure lowered his GH levels in any way. While recovering from his latest surgery, he acquired meningitis and died almost immediately.
I was devastated. What kind of life would place such burdens on one person?
As graduation day came closer, I began to think where life would lead me after college. Christine seemed obsessed with business school applications, but we never talked about plans if she left town. The prospect didn’t bother me all that much. And one day, when I was about to leave the parish office, I saw Father Thompson changing into his daily mass attire, donning his clerical shirt and placing his white collar. And in that moment I saw myself doing the same thing. Perhaps in some way I could continue the long periods of prayer that my father had begun and construct it all into something substantial.
I took to spending time at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology—the seminary for Catholic priests about fifty miles from where I lived at the time. As I grew more interested in the priesthood, my relationship with Christine suffered; I was spending all of my time at the seminary and none with her. One day she wrote me an email: she reminded me I once told her I’d had enough of drama in my life. Apparently, she continued, I loved drama and could never own up to my part in it. So much for staying friends.
I became a candidate and entered the seminary. I completed my seminary education early, after three years, received the sacrament of Holy Orders, and became a priest. But then my religious life took a definite alternate route. I decided to become a Jesuit.
Interviewer: I think I need another cigarette. Tell me about the Jesuits.
Father Reilly: As you wish. A better explanation about the Society of Jesus, as it is called, is in order here. It is a Catholic congregation—a society within the church that conducts ministry work. It was founded by Saint Ignatius and approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. So it’s been around awhile, you could say. We took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Within the Catholic Church, Jesuits have always been a source of controversy and suspicion. We are referred sometimes derogatorily as the Soldiers of God. We’ve been linked to assassinations, violence, coup attempts, and other political intrigue. We’ve also been accused of outright lies and moral ambiguity in reasoning to justify our goals. There has always been a conflict between the Jesuits and the Holy See—the Pope and his bureaucracy—but we’ve always wanted what is best for the church.
Interviewer: So you say.
Father Reilly: So we say. Anyway, my mother and sister were somewhat stunned that I actually took the plunge. I think they both thought that my life would be lived in the basement of the house, and they counted the days until I took my vows, wondering if I would change my mind. During my regency—where I was sent to live among a Jesuit community—I was directed to Santiago, Chile, so that I could minister to and teach the community. It was a wonderful time in a beautiful country; I was particularly drawn to the community of cloistered monks who spent contemplative hours away from modern civilization, praying in their locked monastic cells with only a small bed, a wooden altar, and a kneeler. In Chile, I felt satisfied and happy with my new life. When my mother visited me, she seemed pleasantly surprised at my work ethic and this new lifestyle.
Interviewer: That’s lovely but let’s not get off track. How did you make it up the ranks?
Father Reilly: In my free time, I learned Excel and used it to reorganize finances and administrative duties, which caught the eye of many supervisors, including cardinals, who tended to avoid administration as if it were sacrilegious. There was a definite need in the Catholic Church for a priest who could make the trains run on time, and I developed a reputation as a sharp and capable administrator. When you combine that with my complete disregard for tact when confronting someone with inefficiency, I was the point man for many a crisis.
I was assigned to the State Council, a significant part of the Vatican organization, which was considered an underrated promotion. After a period of time at the council, I was moved to the Department of Health. The spectacle of Rome and Italy was wonderful, especially for a young man who wanted to avoid personal interactions. I could always retreat to the Vatican gardens or the many secluded prayer rooms hidden in the vast structures on the grounds.
Around the same time, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after she collapsed in front of her car leaving her first chemotherapy treatment, I knew it was time to go back home. So I was in the U.S. when the evil was unearthed. That sounds so melodramatic and discriminatory but it is the truth.
My mom always wanted me to watch Dancing with the Stars with her on the couch, and although I despised television in all forms, I knew she looked forward to this time with me so she could tell me her critiq
ues of the dancers’ abilities and their garish outfits. Then we always turned to the news, and we were watching one night when the CDC made the announcement about the new virus—they called it a virus at first. I know people want to forget that, but it’s not a condition that simply appeared by happy magic.
Interviewer: So by now the NOBI virus was becoming more well known.
Father Reilly: True. Amongst this backdrop of a new species appearing, my mom’s condition stabilized. She needed my help less and less. I began to think of where my next assignment might take me when I saw on BuzzFeed a long-form article about a string of deaths and disappearances linked to a woman named Liza Sole. After that, the New York Times broke an exclusive story about a new virus carried by the same Liza Sole, and I realized this new virus had mutated into something distinctly more sinister.
The rest of the media picked up the story of the virus as some sort of new Ebola. But soon it became a story about how many more people had contracted this virus. The press was calling it the Nogales organic blood illness [NOBI]—and then Twitter and Facebook took over. NOBI became an avalanche of fear and hysteria. Many fake news stories filled Twitter and Facebook, proclaiming this disease would turn people into bloodsucking zombies or large human bats. In those early days, it was ridiculous how many people called 911 to report a feeding vampire. I would visit a local Chipotle every so often and I overheard people exchanging conspiracy theories about the NOBI virus.
Every day that I cared for my mother and her cancer was another day the doctors released more information about Liza Sole. Every day it became clear this virus was not killing her but making her stronger—and different. Something—some part human or not human at all. And when she disappeared, other people came forward as carriers of this virus. A few “normal” people at first, then the 1 percent: celebrities who wanted that long life and those enhanced abilities. TMZ first published the files of a doctor attesting to their enhanced physical capacity, and various YouTube videos emerged showing various re-created persons breaking the one-hundred-meter world record of 9.58 seconds. Another showed a mildly muscular fifty-year-old NOBI-infected man breaking the raw-bench-press record by lifting over 780 pounds.
I think when Taylor Swift re-created, that’s when it truly hit everyone. The New York Times reported that she was re-created by the only known child carrying the virus, a white-haired ten-year-old hermit named Herjólfur Vilhjalmsson, at the lava fields which fed into a lagoon in Grindavík, Iceland. Herjólfur never conducted an unsuccessful re-creation; however, he was extremely selective as to whom he would choose.
Interviewer: Oh, I know you and the order have been after Herjólfur for a long time now.
Father Reilly: Let’s stay on track, shall we?
Interviewer laughs.
Father Reilly: NOBI became something desirable. A cultural earthquake hit the Internet and soon everyone wanted to be “re-created”—a term I sincerely disliked. Why should we be re-created? They were no different from all of us—they sought the gratification of two- or three-hundred-year lives. They became the top of the social status. Every hedge fund manager and tech billionaire wanted to become re-created and join that status and secret society where you could live for over two hundred to three hundred years. This facet of NOBI pathology was discovered when a body was found in a shallow grave near the Nogales, Arizona, field where Liza Sole was found. An examination determined that the corpse shared the identical NOBI virus DNA and that the body was between two hundred and three hundred years old. Not forever, but long enough to live many lifetimes. And to have the physical and mental prowess of a god—I’m certain it was beguiling to have that opportunity.
I mean, look: at the beginning we were all amazed and mystified. Even I was fascinated by this novel disorder—there were so many articles and blogs and news stories about these different people. They would show up at all the major sports events: the Super Bowl, the NBA championship, the World Series, and the World Cup. I remember being in Europe for the European Society for Catholic Theology, and taking a trip to the Premier League soccer championship at Holloway borough in London to see the evening match between Arsenal and Chelsea, and there were a group of Gloamings, although the term had not been used yet, wearing the distinctive red-and-white-striped scarves of the Arsenal colors. They were mobbed like movie stars.
Many writers began to call them a new species of human, if that made any sense. I was certainly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as afflicted people. There was an international wave of interest and optimism with the introduction of these modern people. Intellectuals and commentators wondered how they would integrate into society—would they be allowed to participate in amateur or professional sports given their enhanced physical attributes? Given their attributes and the length of their lives, would they be the perfect space explorers? Would these people lead to even more advances for our continuously changing society?
My first thought was that God had created something incredible from a harmful virus. Reading about the physically enhanced, I could think of Lazarus of Bethany, who was raised from the dead. Or Moses parting the Red Sea. Was this another miracle humanity was privileged to witness?
Interviewer: So let’s get to the part where you started to…feel yourself a bit. Taste the shadow aspect of your personality, if I may get all Jungian on you.
Father Reilly: About the same time the Liza Sole situation was unfolding and she was once again on the run, I received an email from one of my fellow priests—Father Mark Rogers; we were assigned to the same department in Chile—asking me if I was interested in joining him in Rome for a new position: custodian of the Vatican Library. My mother was in remission and encouraged me to consider the job. So I accepted.
The day I arrived at the main plaza of the Vatican was exhilarating. Isn’t it always the return trip where you see everything so much more clearly? Everything so richly hued—like an overexposed photograph. To walk through the acres of arches and granite lined with frescoes of scenes from the Bible. Cobbled roads and sidewalks from another time slanted and skewed with every step. Each corner might bring a different smell: from lilacs to gardenias to incense to candles. The beautiful frescoes on the walls closest to the gardens spread across the thirty-foot-high walls that depicted the shipwreck of Saint Paul in Malta. The massive piers that extended from the dome like arms of a spider that became stone. I could find myself deep in prayer staring at the floor in the atrium of the Vatican Library, where painted into the floor were circles with the names of the winds: tramontane, sirocco, ostro. The miles of naves and hallways covered in murals which always caught my eye. I always seemed to find something different in each scene every time I studied them.
The library—the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana—sat inside the Vatican Palace. The entrance was through the Belvedere Courtyard, with its fifth-century triumphal arch and view of the other side of the Tiber River. Amazingly, the library had over twenty-five miles of shelving, both modern and antique, wood and iron. The wonderful smell of paper and parchment wafted through every corridor.
The head of the library was the cardinal librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church with two prelates below him: the prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library and the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives. Below them were two vice prefects, who assisted in their duties. And below them were the custodians. I should have done a bit more research into the actual job, I realized, as my excitement turned secretly to despair, upon realizing I had accepted a job that was essentially on the lowest rung of the library: an assistant to the assistant to the curator.
But I was in Rome! And by the time I arrived back at the Vatican, people were congratulating me for making it out of America before catching the NOBI virus. Guess it’s all a matter of perspective. If you’d care to loan me some perspective that would be nice.
Anyway, little did we know, NOBI had already hopped over to Europe and Asia well before I returned.
People magazine, March 29
Robert Allen had watched his eight-year-old daughter, Jennifer—a precocious girl with a toothy smile—suffer with multiple myeloma, a cancer of her plasma cells. He held her as her bones ached from an unimaginable pain and fractures caused by the marrow weakening. Her shortage of red blood cells caused Jennifer to lose breath from even the smallest activity.
“It was day after day of despair and stress for her,” Robert told PEOPLE in March. “She was always outside playing in nature and discovering plants and insects. But when her condition worsened, she was bedridden. You could see the longing to be outside when all she could do was stare out a window. And even that took immense effort.”
Robert took his daughter to Dr. Travis McCauly of the newly constructed Rio Grande Institute in Albuquerque—a medical research facility primarily dedicated to the particular health issues of Gloamings. The Institute had made great strides in blood research as a result of the NOBI virus and its side effects. Dr. McCauly had recently modified certain blood cells infected with the NOBI virus but had rendered it inert. In other words, it kept all of the properties that encompass the NOBI virus except it wouldn’t turn a person into a Gloaming.
“I always felt that this discovery had the capacity to save lives,” Dr. McCauly said. “It was just a matter of finding the right fit.”
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