by Dan A. Baker
“And possibly extend his life…,” Earl held up his hands.
“That’s the business we’re in,” Marjorie said.
“This is huge,” Earl said, rubbing his temples.
“And business is good,” Marjorie said, as the engine suddenly slowed.
“We’ll mooch here for an hour or so, and then move on to the weather buoy,” Captain Davis said, holding Roy’s hand. “The skipper here thinks the fish are right about here, so here we fish.”
“We’ll catch lots and lots of fish, you’ll see!” Roy said.
Marjorie caught the first fish, a beautiful young King salmon, about fifteen pounds. She looked at the fish closely when it finally stopped slapping around in the fish box. The bright silver and shimmering green and pink of the skin slowly fading as the fish died.
“Life still amazes me,” she said to no one.
It took both Captain Davis and Earl to help Roy land his fish, another perfect King. Roy looked at his fish for a long time in the fish box, finally touching it. “Is it dying?” he asked Earl.
“Yeah, it’s dying,” Earl said.
“Now I’ll have a fish in heaven,” Roy said, suddenly too weak to stand.
“I’ll get you another one,” Earl said, draping a blanket around Roy.
“Can I go fishing there?” Roy asked, in a surge of anxiety.
“Sure, that’s what heaven is all about. You get to do anything you want,” Earl said, realizing he was becoming more emotional as he grew older.
“I want to fish in heaven then. It’s okay if I die now,” he said, shaking his head up and down slightly. Roy looked at Earl for a long moment, the sun on his face, the wind gently lifting the wisps of brown hair from his devastated face. A funny little smile came from deep within him.
Earl felt a bolt of electricity race through him, and he suddenly felt the great hand on his lower back, thrusting him into an uncertain future.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Even the old buildings were new in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, Jasmine noted, looking at the small two-story stucco office. The owner had wisely mounted large generic letters on the facade that said, DOCTOR’S OFFICE. She was surprised she had never heard of this town, as it was quite large and had a famous landmark. The medical district of the town stretched for several blocks with large offices and sprawling parking lots.
It had taken Jasmine almost a month to find Will, and when she saw his age on the private investigator’s report she was surprised. Sixty-seven, just like Earl. She began to realize that the biotech revolution was in its third decade, and that some of the early pioneers were starting to reach retirement age.
Medical science was probably the most plodding, conservative pursuit in the world, with so few visionaries and wild-eyed innovators, that when a scientist like Will Behlen came along it was big news. Will had electrified the biotech industry with his early belief that embryonic stem cells would be the future of medical science. No one listened to him, and the board of his own company refused to fund his research.
Will had a large sign over his desk at Genetechna: TRUTH IS FIRST RIDICULED, THEN VIOLENTLY OPPRESSED, THEN ACCEPTED AS SELF-EVIDENT.—A. Schopenhauer.
Jasmine found herself wondering how a man like Will could have fallen so far, so fast. He enraged the entire bioethics sector when he simply refused to stop working on therapeutic cloning to produce a supply of embryonic stem cells. Will had even placed ads in newspapers offering to pay women for their eggs, until the bumbling Massachusetts legislature finally outlawed the practice.
When the SEC threatened an investigation into Will’s Cellular Dynamics, the company then became bought out by a French pharma giant, and shut down in a matter of days. Will had simply dropped out of sight, and his pioneering work ported out of the country in the buyout.
“Please fill this out completely,” the receptionist said. Jasmine sat down and filled in her alias, complete with a fake address from the Las Vegas phone book. She wondered what Will would say when he saw her.
As the door opened, she sat back, smiling.
“And you’re Mrs…,” Will said, reading from her file, finally looking up.
“Jasmine Metcalf! It’s been a long time, Jas,” he said closing the door softly.
“From a bio-tech mogul to a Doc in the Box; it must be quite a story, Will,” Jasmine said, thinking how odd it was how you just connected with some people so completely.
“Yeah, yeah it is, but at least I’m still a specialist,” he said, dryly.
They looked at each other for a long moment. The years had been kind to Will, Jasmine thought, his untrimmed blond hair still rolled over his large head in waves, and his sparkling eyes still moved in wide arcs.
“How bad was it in Boston?” she asked.
“They all got tough at the same time; the Board, the Feds, the Mass. State people all got real tough,” he said, looking longingly at Jasmine.
“I thought you went to Paris,” Jasmine said, feeling his restless energy.
“I just took the money and ran.”
“Genetechna sold last week to Sunahara, a Singapore company.”
“So I hear. I’ve got a friend in London, an embryologist. They’re pretty excited to have yet another major American medical advance fall into their laps. They were overjoyed to get stem cells, but now there’s a lot of talk about big embryo screening clinics,” Will said, with a soft, tentative note in his voice.
“How did you end up out here?” she asked.
“Walter Nielsen, he’s the one who suggested it,” Will said.
“He’s still alive?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, still in Phoenix, still interested in immortality at ninety-four, and still incredibly rich. There are a lot of really rich people in Arizona, who are experiencing aging first hand.”
“And what do they think?” Jasmine loved to talk to Will, because he believed in intrigue.
“Dying of an untreatable terminal disease when you have unlimited money and a very nice life, undeserving heirs, and corrupt charities sucks,” Will said in his college kid voice. “It sucks to the extreme.
Most of these people know Nielsen. I have a very small number of patients; in fact, you’re my last patient today. Let’s go for ride. We have a lot of catching up to do, and I talk better out on the boat.”
“You’re not surprised I’m here and wondering why?” Jasmine asked.
“No,” Will said, slipping off his lab coat.
Jasmine couldn’t actually believe it at first, but there it was, the London Bridge. The actual London Bridge, exactly as it was on the Thames River for 135 years, sitting on the Colorado River in a resort town in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
“I couldn’t quite believe it either. The developer who built this town in the Sixties read that the City of London had to tear it down because it had sunk so deep it was interfering with river traffic. He offered them two million, and they took the deal,” Will said, walking down the dock at the marina.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” Jasmine said. “It looks like the bridges in Paris.”
“Americans were world beaters in those years. Now we’re afraid of our own shadows.” This town is famous for two things. It has the highest concentration of MRI machines per capita in the world, and you can do whatever the hell you want here.”
“And that works for you?” Jasmine said, expecting a reply.
“Like a dream.”
As they idled out of the Marina and into the bridge channel, Will unzipped a small leather case and took out a black electronic device with a loop shaped antennae. He carefully passed it over every surface on the boat, and then put it away. “A lot of people want to know what I’m thinking,” he said, opening a small box in the glove compartment of the boat. He held up two very high-tech looking listening devices.
“You’re kidding,” Jasmine said looking intently at the bugs.
“Welcome to the biotech underground. Let’s make some background noise.” He opened up
the throttle on the big yellow fiberglass deck boat and headed south through the surprisingly big lake.
The startling red rock formations and tortured desert landscape contrasted impossibly with the sweeping green marshes and the deep jade green of the lake as they raced along. “I’ve never seen any place like this,” Jasmine said, over the roar of the big inboard.
“Pretty wild huh? Great place to hide out,” Will said, as Jasmine noticed the deep lines in his face for the first time. “I like the desert, too. You can drive miles in any direction and not cross a road. I bought a Jeep a couple of months ago, and it’s a lot of fun.”
“I guess you’re the first biotech scientist off-roader in history,” Jasmine said, laughing, feeling a real attraction to Will.
“This looks like a pretty safe place,” Will said, shutting the engine down, and jumping into the aft facing seat.
“Safe?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, the best parabolic mic won’t reach this far.”
“You’re still into melodrama, I see,” Jasmine said.
“So you’re going to do it, Jasmine,” looking right at her.
“Do what, Will?”
“Join the underground,” he said.
“Join the…the Biotech underground.”
Jasmine was startled. How could he possibly have known what she was here for? “And what’s that?” she asked.
“Me, and a handful of others scattered around the globe. I was actually thinking about getting in touch with you. Thought maybe you’d had enough when the Feds choked your PIES project. I wanted to ask you a favor,” he said.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I’d like some protein modeling help and some burn time on your Cluster. I need about two-hundred hours,” he said, taking off his shirt.
“That’s a lot of hours, especially at five-thousand an hour.”
“Do you know how much time is left on the Fujitsu lease?” he asked.
“Just over a year, but I’m sure Sunahara will pay it down.”
“What if they don’t? Do you think you could talk them into a lease buy-out deal?” Will asked.
“How did you know we had a 9900?” Jasmine asked abruptly.
“I know your code-talker,” he said, angling his face to the sun.
“Rammy? You know Rammy?” she asked.
“Everyone knows Rammy,” Will replied laying on the intrigue.
“Rammy was an iconoclastic mainframe programmer who had cross-pollinated the biotech industry with many of the parallel computing advances used in the Livermore Nuclear Weapons lab, before being fired.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” Jasmine asked directly.
“Of course I know why you’re here. You’re here because of ASCO,” he replied quickly.
“What’s ASCO?”
“It’s an acronym for Artificial Stem Cell Organ. You want to know if it works?”
Jasmine forgot how exhilarating it was to talk to Will. He not only cut to the chase, he leaped out ahead of conversations. “Does it? Could we use it to treat a Progeric child?”
“Sure. Long as you corrected the Progeria gene first, before you cloned the starter ES cells, and turned on the telomerase gene. No reason that I know of why it wouldn’t work,” he said. “If you had a working artificial stem cell organ, that is.”
“And…,” Jasmine leaned forward.
“We’re close to developing that.”
“Did the French buy up all the patents?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, they bought up a lot of patents. The French are in Phoenix, and you are looking at the technology. “
“Nielsen bailed you out then?”
“Yeah, we just routed it through a Pharma company he owns in Marseilles. It made everyone happy. The Feds had ruined me, which is the business they’re in and I was run out of town, which is the business the religious fanatics are in. So I was stopped before I could bring the world any more of that damn progress stuff, which is the business the conservatives are in,” he said, laughing.
“And I’m looking at the technology?”
Will sat up and pointed. “Yes, its right there, the South Campus,” he said pointing to a row of three white trailers parked in a yard by the river.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how close I was?”
“How close were you?” she asked.
“Not very close,” he said, laughing. “Fortunately for me, I have a steadfast billionaire patient.”
“Earl wants to treat Progeric children, and I want to help him,” Jasmine blurted. We’re working on a gene-based solution, synthetic genes on an artificial chromosome, administered by nanoball. But the Progeric children will need a continual source of stem cells, and we’re afraid if we simply express telomerase in them they’ll carry too much DNA damage. We might fix their Progeria and hand them cancer,” Jasmine talked quickly.
“Tell me about your gene-based approach,” Will said, as they drifted almost completely alone on the big lake.
Jasmine looked out on the dark mountains and tortured red hills, thinking how much it looked like pictures of Mars. For a second she started to relax.
“Successfully reversing the effects of Progeria without killing the children will require the very careful expression of a suite of genes, with feedback and self-modulation.”
“Yum-yum,” Will said, with a crazy little smile.
“We’ll start by regenerating the endothelial lining in large vessels of the circulatory system by treating them with a telomerase inducer. That might keep him alive for a few more years, but he’ll need an endless supply of newly generated stem cells to repair the tissue and bone damage,” Jasmine paused.
“Is Marjorie aboard?” Will asked.
“Yes, yes she is.”
“I never thought I’d see her in the underground in a million years,” Will said slowly.
“How big is this biotech underground? Jasmine asked.
“You, me, Marjorie, Earl, and about ten others, one you would know for sure. Unlimited private money to give people what they want, now, and not in forty years.”
“And what do they want?” Jasmine asked.
“Life, as much as they can get, that’s what they want; and that’s what they’ll get, one way or another. Then, there are super kids. Kids who will out-think, out-work, and out-live every other kid in the world. I think you can see how your work fits in that picture,” Will said.
Jasmine looked at Will intently, as the wave of revelation impacted. “Sunahara bought Genetechna to produce designer children?” she asked, jumping up from the soft white cushioned seat.
“Of course they did! Have you ever been to Asia? They are extremely competitive. They will do whatever it takes to win. For them, winning is brainpower, which they already have a lot of, but what if they had more? What if their children were a lot smarter?”
“You can’t be serious,” Jasmine said, scarcely breathing.
“Jasmine, have I ever been serious?”
“No,” she replied, without thinking.
“Well, I’ve changed,” he said, laughing a crazy high-pitched laugh that terrified her.
“Go on,” Jasmine said
“They take the long view of things. You know, they just do. They see this thing clearly. They know the technology is here to make radical changes in people, and they are not wringing their hands, and running around in hysterics. They see a big, big opportunity to win, and win big.”
“What’s winning big?” Jasmine asked, breathing deeply and slowly.
“Getting there first is winning big. Hey, if the Americans want to wring their hands and virtually hand them the future of the human race, fifty years earlier than anyone else, well…”
“Marjorie was just offered a position in Singapore,” Jasmine recalled.
“They don’t really need her. She’s just a trophy, but they don’t want anyone else to get her either,” Will said.
“We just want to treat Progeric children,” Jasmine said
, suddenly realizing the vast implications of what they were becoming involved in.
“Bullshit,” he said, suddenly jumping over the side. He disappeared so long underwater Jasmine started to worry. He popped up on the other side of the boat.
“You know that if you can reverse Progeria, you can reverse aging, and that fascinates you, doesn’t it?” Will shouted, floating on his back.
“Yes,” Jasmine said evenly.
“It fascinates Marjorie too,” he said, doubling over and diving into the green water again.
Jasmine thought about his last comment for a moment, and a strange anxiety stirred deep within her.
“You’re going to have a lot of new friends,” he said, pulling himself into the boat. “Welcome to the biotech underground. I’ll get you a T-Shirt tomorrow,” he said, kissing her suddenly and passionately.
She looked deeply into Will’s eyes, into the constellation of brilliance and restless energy there. The shock she expected from the long kiss did not happen. She just felt a rising ball of warmth, and a gentle acceptance.
“A T-shirt?” she asked, looking down, as the wave of confusion began.
“Yeah,” Will said softly, pulling a T-shirt out that said, JUST DRIVE AROUND THE DUMMIES.
The rush of emotions cancelled each other. She moved to the front seat and sat down cautiously. Will started the big engine and shoved the throttle handle forward, driving the big boat into a long turn.
The wind on Jasmine’s face from the boat racing across the lake was a relief. Her attraction to Will and his bold kiss had ignited a new constellation of feelings that were delicious and excruciating at the same time. Will carefully pulled the boat up on a rocky little beach by the trailers. “It’s a long way from Menlo Park, but hey, it’s home,” he said, pointing to the three big trailers. “Welcome to Lachesis Research Center, North American Division.”
Will walked up the wooden stairs and opened the door to the trailer carefully, flipping on a light. “I have to be careful of Sid,” he said softly.