Forever and Ever

by Dan A. Baker

  “I have extremely good news to bring to the valued management of Genetechna this morning and to our esteemed Directors,” Victor began, with a corny sounding flourish.

  “The industry leading, multi-national corporation Sunahara, of Singapore, has announced a generous bid for our company, a bid with a significant premium over stock price, and a bid I am sure the Directors will find more than worthwhile.” Victor paused for a minute to let the shock set in. For a company to be in a death plunge one minute and bought out the next was startling.

  “Sunahara has offered fifty dollars a share for this acquisition at this time.” Victor announced with a broad smile, “which is a very sweet premium.” The board members sat back and looked at each other with smiles and quick thumbs up signs. “I urge the voting members on the board to accept this proposal and direct the company’s legal department to draw up the instruments.”

  Jasmine looked at Earl, wondering if he would ask the question in this meeting. He was strangely distant.

  “Earl?” Victor asked, tired of waiting for the inevitable question.

  “Nothing, it sounds good to me,” he said, and walked out. Victor shot a quick glance at Mr. Koh.

  “Jasmine, as chief scientist, what do you think?” Victor said, looking at Jasmine intently.

  “Well, I, of course would like to know the immediate plans the company has for our PIES technology, future operations of the company, and of course, future plans for our IP and patent portfolio,” she replied evenly.

  “Three months to close, one year severance for managers and directors, staff and labs absorbed into existing research facility in Singapore, pursuit of approval for PIES in the UK, and later in the U.S., IP portfolio disposition to be announced,” Victor said quickly.

  So that was it. The company is going to be bought out, shut down, and the technology ported out to Singapore. This pattern was becoming a standard, so Jasmine was not actually surprised.

  “Spin offs?” Jasmine said, looking directly at Victor.

  “Sunahara has not expressed interest in spin off operations in the U.S.,” Victor said flatly. “I am sure you all realize that an offer with this premium is exceedingly rare in this industry, at this time.” Victor punched the last statement as hard as he could.

  Jasmine walked into Earl’s cluttered office, accidentally knocking down his big leather giraffe. Earl was just sitting in his chair. Jasmine decided to wait for him to speak. Earl’s phone rang, loudly it seemed. He reached forward and hit the speaker button.

  “Earl, this is Jonelle. I hope you’re not busy. I’m having a severe problem with Roy! A friend of my dad gave Roy a brochure for a fishing charter in Half Moon Bay, and he wants to go fishing! I told him he can’t go because it’s too dangerous, but he said he won’t die until he gets to go fishing, and then he ran away! It took me four hours to find him! What do I do, Dr. Metcalf? He’s aware he’s going to die now. He talks about it all the time, and he’s getting angry and moody.” Jonelle sounded completely exhausted.

  “I’ll take him fishing,” Earl said.

  “But he’s so fragile! And…,” Jonelle’s voice trailed off as she put the phone down. Roy was crying loudly.

  “I’ll come over tonight,” Earl said to Jonelle in a soft voice.

  The news rocketed around the company in less than ten minutes. It was a big relief to everyone. Most of the employees would get three months severance, which might be somewhat generous. At least they knew, and with the current political climate, virtually anything could happen.

  “What’s up, Mom?” Malia asked, leaning into Jasmine’s office.

  “Victor found a company in Singapore, and they’re going to buy us and shut us down,” she said, the ennui starting to creep back into her voice.

  “They’re just going to abandon PIES then?” she asked.

  “I was told they’ll bring it out in the UK first. People at risk for birth defects will have to travel for a few years,” Jasmine said, suddenly disgusted.

  “Maybe they can just send their embryos,” Malia said.

  “We’ll go to London for a few years. You like London don’t you?” Jasmine asked, cocking her head slightly to catch Malia’s downcast eyes.

  “Yeah, I love London, Mom. All my friends are leaving, too. There’s no jobs here anymore; there’s like, no freedom either. Why can’t these people get over it? What are we supposed to do? Promise them the future won’t change things?”

  “I think that’s what they really want,” Jasmine said, suddenly very tired.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Roy clutched the Happy Hooker fishing brochure in one hand and turned his hat around so the Marlin was in the front. “I hope we catch some sharks!” he said excitedly.

  “Well, we might, there’s lots of them out there,” Earl said.

  “If we catch one, I’ll stab it with this knife!” Roy said holding up the little penknife that Jonelle gave him to stop the pestering for a real knife.

  “I’m glad we have Roy along on this trip to take care of the big sharks,” Marjorie said convincingly.

  “I’m not sure I would go out there, without Roy along,” Earl seconded.

  “Do you think they’ll let me steer the boat?” Roy asked, worried.

  “Oh, sure they will,” Earl said, noticing Marjorie had lost some weight and had a twinkle in her eye.

  “Think you can find the fish out there in that big ocean?” Marjorie asked.

  “Oh yeah, I know! I know right where they are! And I can steer the boat really good!” Roy said, shaking his head up and down.

  Pillar Point Harbor was just off Highway I, at the north end of Half Moon Bay. It was a working harbor for commercial fishing boats, charter boats and home to an eclectic smattering of old sailboats, worn out cabin cruisers, and the occasional sailor headed up or down the coast.

  “The first jacks are just coming in. They’re a little small, but there’re a lot of them. Good sign for a big salmon year,” Captain Davis said. “I don’t usually start until next month, but I appreciate your business.”

  Earl smiled at the kind old fisherman. “We have a little boy coming along today. It’s kind of a Make-a-Wish situation. He has a rare autosomal birth defect that causes him to begin aging very young. It’s a little unnerving when you first see one of these children, so we ask you try to ignore the way he looks and treat him like any eight-year old.”

  “Sure, I like kids. I’ve got six,” Captain Davis said, “and six wives.”

  “He’s quite frail, and he’s easily injured, so we want to do everything we can do to keep him from getting hurt. Here’s the release you asked for, and I have a complete medical kit with me if we have any problems,” Earl said quietly.

  “Are you sure you want to take him? It’s mostly laid down out there, but we do have to run for an hour or so to get into the fish,” Davis said, wondering just how sick this child was.

  “It was the only thing he asked for,” Earl said.

  “I thought they had all those damn kid’s diseases wiped out,” Captain Davis said hitting the starter button for the main engine.

  “This one’s a pretty tough one to fix, once it’s up and walking around,” Earl said, hoping the sea wouldn’t be too rough.

  “Well, just let me know what to do and I’ll be glad to help.”

  “Could he steer the boat a little, I mean pretend to?” Earl asked.

  “Hell, he can steer all day if he can hold a course,” Davis said.

  “You know, he probably can,” Earl laughed, watching Marjorie and Roy walking down the dock. Marjorie gently helped Roy up the dock stairs and on the boat as Captain Davis hopped down from the bridge to help. He looked at Roy for a long minute, astonished at what he was seeing. The skin on Roy’s face was a pale yellow, with deep lines and sad, hanging bags under his pale blue eyes. His ears were so big now they looked like they were made of wax, and stuck on for a Halloween party. The little red nylon windbreaker flapped around his emaciated body as C
aptain Davis lifted him on the deck.

  “I’ll stab any sharks we catch with this!” Roy said, holding up the little blue penknife.

  “Well, that’s, good, good, because we, uh… do catch those darned sharks and they are hard to stab and all.” Captain Davis could not stop himself from staring. He looked at Earl and Marjorie with a vacant confused look. Finally, he knelt down. “I might need some help steering this big boat, because I’m getting… because she’s a big old boat. Do you think you can help me when we get outside the breakwater?”

  “Oh sure, I’ve always wanted to steer a big boat and I know right where the fish are!” Roy’s eyes were as far open as they would go. Captain Davis was visibly affected.

  “Let’s get out there then!” Captain Davis said, carefully shaking Roy’s tiny wrinkled hand.

  Marjorie was sitting out on the deck as they left the inner harbor. Earl looked at her from the wheelhouse, wondering what she was thinking.

  Captain Davis held Roy’s little hand and helped him push the big chrome throttle lever forward. The diesel engine went from a background noise to a deep, powerful grumble that vibrated the deck.

  “We’re really going now!” Roy said, so excited his ears kept moving up and down as the wind blew into the wheelhouse. “If I was going to grow up, I’d be a fisherman, for sure!” Roy said, carefully watching the compass as he held the wheel.

  Captain Davis looked at Earl briefly, surprised to hear that Roy knew he would never grow up.

  “Hold this fine ship straight on course, Roy, I’m going out on deck,” Earl said, confident that Captain Davis knew how frail he was. He had pulled up a milk box and tied it to the wheel stand so Roy could stand up and hold the wheel.

  These magnificent early spring days came to the San Mateo coast in groups of three to five, before the summer pattern fog and low clouds moved in. The big swells from the Gulf of Alaska were still rolling through, but when the wind died down the chop disappeared, and it was almost warm. The sea was a dark jade green, with scattered floats of seaweed. The seals lazed on the big red and green channel marker buoys as the boat passed, barking loudly between the clanging of the bell. Roy waved and waved at the seals, and they waved back, or so it seemed.

  “I guess you and Jasmine have been through a sleigh ride this week, huh?” Marjorie said, after awhile.

  “Yeah, we had a long, strange week. Jasmine almost drowned to round things out.” Marjorie listened intently to Earl’s account.

  “Maybe it’s time we all moved on. Maybe that’s what they’re trying to tell us,” Marjorie said in that maddening tone of surrender that seemed to be everywhere.

  “Do old scientists just fade away, or do they still make life difficult for the unimaginative?” Earl asked.

  “I think the smart ones just fade away,” she replied.

  “And where are you going to fade away to?” Earl asked, revealing his angst.

  “Well, probably to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary,” Marjorie said, opening a beer. “That is, if the Genetic Bill of Rights passes.”

  “What kind of offers have you been getting?” Earl asked, missing the cue entirely.

  I’ve had offers from Oxford, MIT private, and one really interesting one from Singapore.”

  “That’s interesting,” Earl commented, suddenly paying attention.

  “Unlimited money, unlimited budget, and I can write my own contract. Privately funded institute in Singapore,” she said, standing up to look back at Pillar Point.

  “And…,” Earl said at last.

  “I don’t give a damn. I got the number last week from my accountant. One thing I really don’t care about is money, and I guess I’ll never have to care about it again,” she said.

  “But you could work in Singapore.”

  “I don’t live in Singapore, Earl. I live here. This is my country. I like it here,” she said, looking ridiculously out of place holding a beer on a fishing boat.

  “Jasmine said she talked with you,” Earl said, still depressed.

  “She did. We talked for a long time. We think alike.” Marjorie was a real conversationalist. She replied to a question simply, and stopped.

  “Our buyout money was almost cut in half, and I think we’re a little old to be revolutionaries,” Earl said, genuinely uninterested. “This is just too big for us, and too dangerous.”

  “That’s what Fermi said about building the first atomic pile,” Marjorie said, but they did it anyway. They couldn’t help themselves. They just had to know if it would work, and they didn’t have these monstrously powerful seeing machines, these computers we have.”

  “They didn’t have their scientific subject wrapped up in ironclad patents, surrounded by IP lawyers in Brioni suits, and they also didn’t have a religious fanatic chained to each leg,” Earl was surprised to hear the edge in his voice.

  “They had guts,” Marjorie said.

  “They had guts,” Earl said, “and money.”

  “They found the money,” Marjorie corrected.

  “Can you imagine the number of grants it would take just to get the basic science done, the embryonic stem cell work, and the lab, Margie? I went through it, just in my head, and we would need a state of the art computer farm for at least a year and a full array lab just to run the signaling proteins, if we had a Rockcrusher and could keep the parallel modeling software! Forget it Margie.”

  “Why did you ask me out here, Earl?” To tell me you’re a wimp, and that you don’t care anymore and that you don’t have the guts to pull off what would probably be one of the greatest achievements in science?” Marjorie bore down on him. “Not to mention Roy.”

  “Anything we could pull together would be too late for him,” Earl said, watching Roy smiling in the wheelhouse.

  “What are you forgetting, Earl?”

  “I don’t know. What?”

  “Could we treat a Progeric child’s circulatory system with a telomerase inducer, in nanoballs, with a fail-safe and limiter?” Marjorie was livid now.

  “Alright, but you know we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting a license with or without a reach-through from Victor, especially now!” Earl actually whined. Something Marjorie had never heard before.

  “Fuck Victor!” Marjorie said, looking at her beer bottle.

  Earl was so shocked he had to look at her. “What?”

  “Fuck Victor! Fuck Genetechna! Fuck Sunahara! They might have a patent on the telomerase gene, but they don’t have the telomerase gene! It’s not in some vault! It’s in all of our cells, and in his cells!” Marjorie swung around pointing to Roy. “All we have to do is express it, and control it in his circulatory system so he won’t have a heart attack and give us enough time to finish the rest of the work.”

  “And if we make a mistake and he dies?” Earl said.

  “We try again,” Marjorie said with finality.

  “You’re right. We will end up in Leavenworth,” Earl said in a hollow tone.

  “We can’t cheat a little, Earl, it won’t work! Genetechna has held telomerase hostage for over ten years, just allowing a little research here and there. That’s almost criminal. We could have developed a telomerase reducer by now, easily, which would at least slow cancers. So how right is that? I say we go, go now.” She looked long and hard at Earl.

  “It’s also an illegal medical treatment, but once you’re breaking several hundred federal laws, what’s another one?” Earl said, looking out to sea.

  “We need to develop the initial treatment, model the hell out of it, and give it to Roy, with his mother’s permission of course. That will tell us a lot. It will tell us if the modeling is as accurate as we think it is, and it will tell us if we have the guts to go all the way. Maybe that’s the most important part,” Marjorie finished, looking at Earl.

  “What changed you Marjorie? What made you throw up your hands and walk away from the system?”

  “Mostly a great orgasm,” she said, smiling.

  Marjorie had always been
just a little odd, notoriously impish, but this was far beyond that.

  “Well, if one orgasm caused you to turn your life upside down, what would a multiple orgasm do?” Earl asked, laughing for the first time.

  “Cause me to think long and hard about what life is, and then get back into that business, and shake it up while I’m at it,” she said.

  “What’s the real reason?” Earl asked.

  “Easton. He really talked to me in Santa Fe. Everything he said was right. We are wimps! Scientists are wimps, and we got run over. He’s dying you know. Anyway, I’m through. I’m through with science by IP lawyer, and through with spending half my time debating the fine points of bioethics every time I want to look at a protein.”

  “And the take-home message is?”

  “I want to do science. I want to know if what I think will work will work, that’s all; and, I want to do it in my own damned country. When you asked me to help Roy, you were catching a very frustrated, rich, and recently laid scientist at an excellent time,” she said pointedly.

  Earl looked back at the wake, suddenly aware they were turning back and forth in little turns. Roy was actually steering the boat, laughing with Captain Davis, who was standing behind him, pointing with his big hands to the left, then to the right. Roy’s weak, lilting laugh could barely be heard over the engine and the seagulls.

  “Our money won’t be enough,” Earl said

  “We’ll find the money,” Marjorie said.

  Earl looked out at the ocean, taking a minute to feel the long ocean swells pass under the boat, suddenly wishing to be sailing again.

  “How long will it take the world to discover that the exact same process we develop will also work in big people, and will actually reverse aging?

  What happens then?” Earl tried to keep the whine out of his voice.

  “Jasmine and I had a long talk about that as well. What’s the difference? Your patient is dying of a terminal disease, and you treat him, if he wants to be treated. It doesn’t matter who he is or how long he’s lived. End of story,” she said.