by Kira Peikoff
It was a single name: Galileo.
CHAPTER 1
New York City
Wednesday, June 5
Dr. Helen McNair was weeping when the doorbell buzzed. It was after midnight on a sweltering June night, and unless her boss was coming to give her back her job, she wanted to see no one. Not even Natalie, the only person who knew about her soon-to-be infamous resignation from Columbia. No doubt her friend was waiting ten floors below, probably with a bouquet or baked goods, insisting on consolation.
She grabbed a tissue and rose from bed, pressing the button on the intercom. Her studio apartment, decorated with paintings of colorful flowers, failed to cheer her as it usually did.
“You really didn’t need to come over.”
“Actually,” said a deep male voice, “I did.”
She felt her body stiffen. “Who’s there?”
“I’ve come to help you, Helen.”
“Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“I know what happened today and I can fix it. Come downstairs, but hurry—we don’t have long.”
“What do you know?”
“All of it. Your secret experiment. How the dean caught you and flipped out.”
The hair on her arms prickled. “But that’s impossible! It hasn’t been announced.”
“It doesn’t need to be.”
She glanced up at the ceiling as if there might be a hidden camera in the corner, but saw none. “So—you’re stalking me?”
“Not stalking. Recruiting you. I’m the person who can give you back what he took away.”
Her finger hovered next to the intercom. “Excuse me?”
“A lab of your own. No one to bother you. Isn’t that what you want?”
Her voice rose angrily. “Okay, now you’re mocking me and it’s not funny.”
“We’re extremely serious.”
“We?”
“You have allies you don’t even know about.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Leave me alone or I’m calling the cops.”
A second man’s voice piped up—a gruff voice that sounded oddly familiar. “No! Helen, don’t. We’re here to get you out of this mess.”
There was no way it could be Professor Adler, the chair of the Biology Department, who had contributed to the mess by recommending her expulsion to the dean. More likely, her grief over the sudden death of her career—the four-decade love of her life—was causing auditory hallucinations. She stuck a finger in her ear as if to reset any faulty wiring.
“Just come downstairs,” urged the first man. “If you don’t like what you see, you don’t have to open the door.”
He was right. She had no doorman, but the front door to her apartment building was glass; she could take a peek without letting anyone inside, and then she would have a description to tell the police. She could even try to snap a furtive picture on her cell.
She pressed the button on the intercom again. “Wait right there.”
Then she pulled a terry cloth robe tight around her slender figure, padded into the hall, and rode the elevator downstairs, clutching her phone. The lobby was deserted. As she walked by its oval mirror, she barely noticed her mussed gray bun and puffy eyelids. All her attention was focused on the front door, trying to discern the forms in the shadows. Two men were standing on the stoop. The one on the left was tall and powerfully built, with a gleam of mischief in his eyes and a jaw sharp enough to cut ice; the other was older, stout and bald. The first man she didn’t recognize; the second, she most definitely did.
She let out a gasp and yanked open the door. “So that was you!”
Adler only nodded. “Now will you let us in? There’s a lot to explain and not much time.”
Her gaze darted to the tall man. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, as though she might have seen him from a distance, but she couldn’t place when or where. “Who are you?”
“You don’t know me,” he said, extending a hand. “I go by Galileo.”
She hesitated, glancing back at Adler.
He smiled apologetically. “I know you think I work for the dean, but I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“Not ultimately.”
“But we were just in your office—?”
“It’s a good front, isn’t it?”
“Who do you work for, then?”
He tilted his head at the striking stranger. “Him. And now—so can you.”
CHAPTER 2
New York City
Five days later: Monday, June 10
Zoe Kincaid wrenched the sweaty quilt off her legs and threw it to the floor. Adrenaline ample for a racehorse had been pumping through her since midnight, practically spinning her mind faster than the Earth itself. For what felt like the hundredth time, she glanced at the orange numbers on her alarm clock: 7:59 A.M.
Sixty-one minutes.
She wasn’t sure if she was ready.
Her grandfather’s voice sprung to her mind: If there’s a job to be done, just do it. The first step was to get out of bed. Then, endure the next hour until her secret appointment with Dr. Carlyle. Together, at 9:00 A.M., they were going to reckon with the only enemy she feared: her own body. Time was short—though how short, it was impossible to know—and he was her last chance at a real diagnosis.
Light crept through her window like an intruder, dampening the clock’s glow. She winced when the numbers morphed to 8:00 A.M. A sledgehammer of high-pitched bells assaulted her ears, insolent in their cheerfulness. She tapped the alarm off. Then silence, except for the city noises seeping in from the street: cars speeding down Broadway, doors slamming, the occasional honk. Morning as usual for everyone else.
She looked around the room that had been her sanctuary for twenty years—at the oak desk where she had spelled her name for the first time; at the pink beanbag chair gathering dust in the corner; at the faded rainbow wallpaper she still loved. How simple it used to be to seek relief from her woes, in a lollipop or a Band-Aid or her mother’s arms. Today, not even the most elaborate fort of her childhood could shelter her from the doctor’s imminent news. With a shiver, she realized that one outcome was certain, no matter what he said: Later this morning, she would be returning home distraught—either vindicated but ill, or healthy but ruined. There was no other option.
Outside her bedroom, footsteps fell softly at first, and then louder. She darted to her door and heard a slow shuffle marked by the regular plunk of a cane. Opening the door a crack, she peeked out to make sure no one else was around and whispered, “Gramps.”
In the hallway, he caught her eye and smiled. She beckoned for him to come in, to hurry. Her heart swelled as he tried to speed up. His arthritic grip on his cane tightened and he sank it into the carpet like an oar, pushing off. Despite the effort, his creased face betrayed no hint of strain. A narrowing of his eyes showed his acceptance of the challenge, offset by a slight grin that told Zoe he took pleasure in conquering it. Once an Olympian, always an Olympian. In 1948, he had broken the world record for running the 400 meter dash in 46.2 seconds. After aging out of the sport, he’d carried that determination into medicine, becoming a renowned physician who had never given up on a single patient for being too sick or not sick enough.
He was the only one who had not given up on her.
When he reached her, she put an arm around his frail waist and ushered him into her room, then closed the door.
“I was just coming to check on you,” he rasped, sinking onto her bed. “Are you all right? You look flushed.”
She shook her head, too tired to feign bravery. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Her dainty brow creased. “What if it’s bad?” She looked into his watery blue eyes. “What if I’m dying?”
He shook his head. “Come here, darling.”
“Why could no one ever explain my seizures?” she demanded, standing. “Or why I look like this?”
“You’re smal
l for your age.”
“Stunted,” she corrected. “Thin and short doesn’t even cover it.” They stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror next to her bed. When he spotted the ugly purple bruise inside her elbow, a look of pain crossed his face, but he said nothing. She folded her arms. Gramps was unflinching around any wounds except for hers.
Underneath her tank top and shorts—size 00—was a slight rounding of her hips if she squinted. Beneath two mosquito-bite breasts, her torso was a flat slab of skin and bone, her legs sticklike; she couldn’t gain weight, even eating a diet rich in butter, cheese, and whole milk. Yet her cheeks looked cherubic from a persistent layer of baby fat. With her fine blond hair and freckled sloped nose, she looked on the wrong side of twelve, impossibly far from the woman with high cheekbones and full breasts she had yearned to become for a decade.
“At least you’re proportional,” he pointed out.
“To a ten-year-old boy. Why didn’t the growth hormone do anything? All those shots for nothing.” She turned away from the mirror to look at him.
He frowned. “That was unusual.”
“And why did I have so much trouble at school?” She crossed her arms.
“That’s a different issue, dear. Adjusting to college can be very trying. You were living away from home for the first time—”
“But what if some virus is killing off my brains?”
He ventured a smile. “You’re going to Northeastern. A very respectable university.”
“Not like it’s Harvard,” she declared, reddening at the thought of the professors who had ripped her apart like hyenas over prey, and with the same enthusiasm. Her flush deepened at the other, worse humiliation she’d suffered there, one too unbearable to relate to anyone, even Gramps. “Plus I only got in because of Dad’s legacy. Anyway, that’s over.”
“For now,” he allowed.
“Whatever. The point is, I can feel something is really wrong. I don’t care if Mom and Dad are ignoring it.” She strained past the lump in her throat. “I just don’t want to die.”
He pulled her into a hug, and despite herself, she slackened against his arms. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he murmured. “Everyone is afraid to die. Every single person. And when it’s your own kid’s life at stake, you’re even more scared. That’s why your parents would rather act like everything is fine.”
“But you agree with me, don’t you? That’s why you haven’t said anything about giving me the blank check?” She didn’t add that the check was ripped up; that despite his generous offer, she couldn’t bring herself to take a penny from his savings, which her late grandmother’s illness had drained.
Silence for a moment, then: “Yes,” he said. “We can’t let them stop us.”
She pulled away from his embrace. “I don’t want to leave you, ever.”
“Death is inevitable, darling.” He looked her in the eye, but the warmth of his gaze did nothing to dull the sting of his words. “Mine before yours, I’m sure. But once you get to be my age, it’s not so tragic. I’ve had a long wonderful life—”
“Stop!” she cried, pressing her temples. “I hate talking about this.”
“It’s reality,” he said, clasping her delicate hands with his knobby ones. “We live, hopefully a nice long time, we get old, and then we die.”
“How are you not scared? I thought you just said everyone was.” Her heart pounded the way it always did when she was forced to confront the idea of vanishing—poof—for all of eternity.
“I used to be, when I was your age,” he replied. “But eventually I realized there’s nothing you can do to escape it, and by the time it happens, you won’t even know. So the more time you spend thinking about it, the less you spend living.”
She relaxed slightly. He always made her feel safer around her worst fear, like an animal tamer caging a vicious beast.
“Are you afraid of anything?” she asked.
He looked away. The top of his head caught a ray of light and she could see purple veins snaking across his bare scalp. She glanced at the clock. It was already 8:25 A.M.
“That’s a yes,” she said impatiently. “What is it?”
“I’m afraid of lots of things,” he admitted. “I know you don’t want to think of me that way, but you’re old enough now to know your old gramps isn’t superhuman.”
“Of what most?” she pressed, already conscious of the answer. But she needed to hear it from him, to know she wasn’t a hypochondriac.
“Of anything happening to you,” he said, looking at her. “Will you let me come with you?”
“No, I want to go alone.” It was a lie, but she could detect exhaustion in his face.
Before he could react, there was a hard double knock on the door. As her mother bustled in, Zoe spun around to open her dresser, hiding the bruise in the crook of her arm—evidence of the secret blood tests. Luckily there was no stamp of the MRI or X-ray.
Her mother’s wavy auburn hair fell over her shoulders, framing her smooth face. She was proud to still sometimes get carded, and insisted that Zoe’s youthfulness was a genetic blessing she would one day appreciate. “Dad! What are you two doing in here? I’ve been calling from downstairs. Breakfast is on the table.”
“Thank you, dear. I was just giving Zoe a little pep talk, that’s all.”
“A pep talk?” She hovered in the doorway. “For what?”
“An interview,” Zoe blurted over her shoulder, grabbing a collared pink shirt from the drawer. Then she turned around to face her mother, noticing how her fitted dress emphasized all her perfect curves. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping past her into the walk-in closet and closing the door. After putting on the shirt, black pants, and flats—all purchased, to her chagrin, in the kids’ department at Macy’s—she inhaled a shaky breath. Half an hour, she thought. I can wait thirty more minutes.
She walked back out, stretching her lips into a carefree smile. But the characteristic dimple in her cheek, that barometer of sincerity, was missing. Her mother glanced at Gramps and then at her.
“If you’re too sick to stay in school, then why are you looking for a job?”
Zoe shrugged. “To keep me busy. It won’t be too demanding.”
“Who is going to hire a college dropout in this economy?”
Zoe looked at Gramps; from behind her mother’s back, he glanced at her bookshelf.
“A bookstore,” she replied. “A Barnes & Noble downtown. I’ve got to run.” She breezed past her with an air kiss, amazed at her own sangfroid.
Just as she reached the door, her mother’s manicured fingers clamped around her forearm. “A long-sleeved shirt, Zoe? In the middle of this heat wave?”
“It’s formal,” she snapped, wincing as her tight sleeve constricted around the bruise. She yanked her arm away.
“Good luck, darling,” Gramps called after her, though the forced lightness in his tone betrayed his worry. She wondered if her mother noticed.
She looked over her shoulder, compelled by some force within her that cried out not to leave him. His whiskered chin had sunk to his chest, helplessness incarnate.
“Bye,” she whispered, and hurried down the corkscrew wooden stairs. They lived in a rent-regulated duplex that cost the same paltry sum as when her parents had moved in two decades earlier, before the neighborhood became gentrified.
As she rushed toward the front door, a pile of mail on the counter caught her eye. One envelope had a blue circular logo next to the words Chase Bank. It was addressed to her father. Across the top, in bold capital letters, were the words: IMPORTANT—DO NOT DISCARD.
Zoe felt the blood drain from her face. She looked around, slipped the envelope into her purse, and ran out.
For a Monday morning in June, the streets of New York were bustling. Though Zoe had lived on the Upper West Side all her life, she had only recently begun to appreciate how Manhattan invigorated her. After living on the Northeastern campus for those eight stifling months, trapped in a slow-moving
sea of popped collars and red sweatshirts, the caffeinated pulse of Manhattan made her eyes open wider and her heart beat faster.
Dr. Ray Carlyle, the city’s foremost medical geneticist, was located across Central Park on Fifth Avenue and 68th Street. She could make it there on foot if she scrambled.
Finding Dr. Carlyle had felt to Zoe like meeting the Wizard of Oz at the end of a yellow brick road paved by a sadist. The first brick was laid six years ago, when at age fourteen, she still had not gotten her period like all of her friends, nor sprouted breasts or grown an inch. When a prescription growth hormone failed to effect any change, her endocrinologist wrote off her condition as “idiopathic”—one with no known cause—and told her she might never bear children.
But the longer the status quo persisted, the more left behind she felt, especially when her high school peers began to revel in their nascent sexuality. The extent of Zoe’s own experimentation was listening to their gossip. Some of her friends even fell in love, and that was what hurt the most. More than breasts or height, she longed for movie-ending, Imax-sized love. She wasn’t sure where sex fit into her fantasy, though. She was ashamed to admit that she found it more embarrassing than erotic—all those bodily fluids and weird noises her friends spoke of with self-conscious laughter. Not that she had to worry. Guys only stared at her blankly, if at all.
During her lonely adolescence, Gramps had been a lighthouse of optimism. He told her the stories of his Olympic failures before winning the gold, and of his relentless courtship of her late grandmother before he finally won her over, too. That he existed, that a man so tender and debonair could exist, powered her through those aching years.
Then one day near the end of high school, the road unexpectedly twisted. She suffered a seizure, and more than one top neurologist couldn’t pinpoint a cause. The seizures got out of control, until after months of trial and error, a rare combination of antiepileptic medications silenced them. As life settled into an uneasy routine until high school graduation, she tried to ignore the mysteries of her body as easily as everyone else did.