The Final Enemy

by Petrosini, Dan

  “Thank you, Mr. President. As you know, many Americans are upset with your Household Pet Program. They feel that tying the extermination of their pets to an incentive for more food amounts to being blackmailed.”

  “Let me remind you, Ed, the program is completely voluntary.”

  “I understand, sir, but can you sympathize with the families?”

  “Not only sympathize, but I can empathize. Let’s not forget the First Dog was the initial participant in the program. I was blessed to have had her company for close to ten years.” He shook his head. “I know it’s not easy. It certainly wasn’t easy on me, but we have to keep our eyes on the larger goal of protecting the resources we need to feed our citizenry.”

  “I think most American’s realize and accept that reality,” Heron said, “but we were surprised to learn that the plan to catalogue their pets’ DNA in the hopes of recloning them was not part of the legislation. Can you tell us why it was pulled at what seems the last minute?”

  Johnson gritted his teeth and pointed to another of the seated reporters. “Cynthia.”

  Cynthia Roberts, a wiry, redheaded reporter from ABC news, stood.

  “We’re all too familiar with the increasing number of attacks on the nation’s institutions, many claiming innocent lives. Given the sprawling nature of a campus like this, and the highly sensitive research that is being conducted here, I wonder what consideration your administration has given to security.”

  “I can assure you that we are taking no chances, and in fact I approved a plan to commit more resources on Air Force One yesterday evening. The incidents you referred to are serious and will be met head-on.”

  Roberts tried to ask a follow-up, but Johnson had moved on again. “Juanita.”

  Juanita Williams, of Fox News, tugged at her skirt as she rose.

  “Thank you, sir. Can you comment on the plan to register anyone over eighty in preparation for a form of euthanasia?”

  Johnson froze for a solid five seconds before recovering. “Register? Really? With whom and why? Various state agencies have data relating to driver’s licenses, voter registration, not to mention Social Security.”

  The reporter tried to follow up but Johnson talked over her.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s all the time we have. We’ve got to let these talented, hard-working folks get back to work.” Johnson resisted the urge to run away from the podium before shaking the scientists’ hands again.

  ***

  Garland hurriedly set his coffee down and took his jacket off. He spied the waiting pile of newspapers on his desk but didn’t need to pick one up to know the White House would be swamped by the euthanasia leak. His suspicion of the leaker was confirmed when Secretary Rogers called him last night, denying he was the source. Garland didn’t mind leaks. They were one of the most powerful tools in his arsenal, but the chief of staff wanted to control what dripped out.

  Garland sipped his coffee, wondering how expectations had gotten so quickly distorted. Less than ten years ago, average life spans were still well below ninety. How could people quibble over a limit much higher than ever expected? If they avoided an accident or violence, they’d be around for twenty percent longer than just a decade ago. What about his parents? They got the short end of the stick. People should be celebrating instead of bitching, he thought, viewing it as more proof of how irrational humans could be.

  Garland mused that his job was part psychologist as he put aside photos of a massive greenhouse in Vermont and picked up the phone.

  “Jack, Pete Garland here. This mess that started at Stanford needs managing.”

  “I don’t know, Pete, this is like the third rail.”

  “Maybe, but without the third rail, the trains ain’t going to be running, so let’s be adults here.”

  “Fair enough. What do you have?”

  “All we’re looking for is a measure of balance. The public has an exceedingly short memory. A couple of years ago, people would sell everything they owned to get to ninety. Now, since Remedy appeared, they expect to live forever. Folks have to understand, winning the lottery comes with some downsides. They’re going to be working till they drop, for one. Secondly, the population explosion’s created a food and water crisis. And then there’s the spiritual side of this. Where’s the deep-seated desire to meet our maker? Can thousands of years of human history just be cast aside?”

  “Pete, I’ve got to be honest with you, you’re laying it on real thick here. I’m a news reporter, not a philosophical writer.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Jack. You can editorialize. You’ve done it before, and effectively, I might add.”

  “Editorialize? Not what I do, Pete. I report facts as they are.”

  “Someone needs to wake the country up. We’re facing a damn disaster. You’ve got tremendous credibility, Jack. You can open some eyes.”

  “Let’s keep it to the facts. What balloon you looking to float now?”

  “We need to set a limit of how long a life people get to live.”

  “What’re you thinking?” A picture of his grandmother popped into his head and Jack held his breath.

  “Nothing crazy, a ceiling of a hundred and five or ten. That’s a damn long life.”

  Jack exhaled. “Yeah, sounds reasonable to me. I sure never thought I’d live that long.”

  “See, it’s not what people think.”

  “Implementation’s going to be key here. What’s the plan?”

  “People would know when their life is going to come to a close. We’d have to create places to receive and, uh, process them. But why don’t we shy away from details here?”

  “Could be dangerous to leave it to their imaginations. Visions of storm troopers taking grannies, who knows?”

  “Maybe.” Garland paused. “I’ve got something else for them to think about. Look, this is hush-hush and in the early stages, so you never know. You okay with that?”

  “Sure. Feed me.”

  “Well, as I said, it’s early, but the researchers have made progress, significant progress, on a new protein.”

  “Really? Oh man, this is huge!”

  “Keep it in your pants, Jack. I said it’s early.”

  “Where’s this? Stanford?”

  “Uhm, no, no, not Stanford.”

  “Where?”

  “Really can’t say.”

  “Pete, I’m going to need something to work with.”

  “Okay, it’s kind of a collaborative effort with the Department of Agriculture’s research center and some scientists from MIT.”

  “This could be bigger than Remedy.”

  “Don’t get carried away, and be sure as hell you don’t use my name.”

  ***

  Garland stayed put as the Cabinet Room emptied, and he gathered his thoughts before stepping onto the colonnade that led to the Oval Office. He waved to the gardeners tending the White House’s new vegetable garden. Always concerned with the optics, it had been his idea to rip out the great lawn and donate the vegetables they harvested. It was the right move, Garland thought, but he was starting to feel that all the political moves in the world weren’t going to solve the strengthening storm.

  Garland could see the president through the window, feet up behind his desk, talking. Garland’s shoulders sank when he saw it was Flannagan, the White House counsel, who needed twenty words to simply say yes, whom the president was chatting with. Garland’s shadow grabbed the attention of the president, who swung his feet off the desk and waved his chief of staff in.

  The trio greeted each other and the president dismissed his lawyer, who stuffed papers in his briefcase and left.

  The president shook his head as the door closed.

  “You saved me at least a half hour. Boy, can he talk.”

  Garland suppressed a smile and nodded slightly.

  “He say anything you think I ought to know?”

  Johnson put his feet on the desk. “Nah, just the usual lawyering, watch out for thi
s, be careful about that. If we heeded every warning, we’d still be using candles.”

  “I hear you.”

  “How’d the meeting go?”

  “Pretty good, but I’m starting to feel like we’re tinkering on the margins when we should go big.”

  The president said. “Okay, Pete, what’s on your mind now?”

  “You know I like to get ahead of things, and I could be wrong, but this population thing feels like it’s getting away from us. And if it does, it’s going to take your legacy with it.”

  Johnson said, “Get to it, Pete, you’re starting to sound like Flannagan.”

  “I’ve discussed this with NASA, and I think we should put Remedy back in space.”

  The president swung his legs off the desk.

  “Are you crazy? Remedy’s defeated death. The people worship it, and you want me to jettison it out to space?”

  “Not exactly. If we do it right, I think we could exercise a form of control over death.”

  Johnson cringed.

  “Sorry, sir. Let me take a step back. What I was thinking was to put Remedy into orbit around Earth. A lot of experts think once it’s up there, natural death would return.”

  “The country would run me out of office as soon as a couple of grandmas die.”

  “But you’d have control. We’d buy time to find a food supply, and when we did we’d bring it back.”

  “I’d be playing God. I get where you’re coming from, Pete, but this, this is dangerous.”

  “I realize that, but so is doing nothing.”

  “Nothing? I spend more than half my damn day on this!”

  “Sorry sir. I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Maybe we can explore doing some polling. Sneak in a question or two, get the public’s reaction.”

  Johnson stroked his chin. “Only if you’re discreet about it. I don’t want my administration within a hundred miles of it.”

  “Of course. I’ll handle it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jack tossed and turned. He couldn’t shut down his excitement over the protein story. Knowing that the development of a protein source would be the second biggest story since Remedy, he had to be the one to break it and wished his parents were around when he did. Problem was, he was struggling to nail down anything concrete to support Garland’s assertion. It was an assertion, wasn’t it?

  He replayed the conversations he’d had with contacts at MIT. Every one of them denied knowledge of an imminent discovery. Jack rolled the word imminent around. Could these folks operate like the political class, parsing words? He hung onto the happenstance fact that two of MIT’s agronomy professors were presently working at the Department of Agriculture.

  It wasn’t commonplace, but it wasn’t unheard of either. He’d dive deeper on the history of cooperation, but the fact was the two professors were hip deep in the genetic modification realm.

  As he reasoned that it had to be more than a coincidence, Laura said, “If you’re not going stop keeping me up, get out of bed.”

  “Sorry, I’m just pumped up over this story. It’s huge. I break this and I’m telling you, Jack Amato’s the top dog. No ifs, ands about it.”

  “How about the top dog either sleeps on the couch or swallows an Ambien?”

  ***

  The driver held the door open and Garland hopped in for the ride from his Georgetown brownstone to the White House. Garland pulled the Times out from the short stack of morning papers and smiled at the headline to Jack’s article:

  Remedy - Return to Sender?

  By Jack Amato

  Among the plethora of ideas to combat the effects of a surging population is a provocative plan to launch Remedy back into space. A source in the White House confirmed that cabinet-level discussions have explored the possibility of sending Remedy into orbit around Earth, but said no decisions had been made.

  The ramifications of such a mission, whose intent by default would reintroduce death by natural causes, are unprecedented. The impact would not only affect the United States but be felt across the globe, and the pushback is likely to also be unprecedented, even though serious problems from the population explosion are emerging.

  The public seems to give Remedy a pass despite the growing food and water shortages it is responsible for. A recent Gallup poll had Remedy ranking over electrification but just below the internet as having the most impact on American’s lives. In a revealing question, they also overwhelmingly choose to deal with the problems caused by immortality rather than return to life as it was before Remedy crashed to Earth.

  NASA has confirmed that various satellite orbital devices would require minimal retrofitting to accommodate Remedy but denied they are working on it.

  The experts we spoke with are divided on whether positioning Remedy in an orbit around Earth would affect its death-ending powers. Some cite the fact that though originally you needed to be with in a fifteen-mile radius, its power seems to have grown. However, others believe orbiting around Earth would erode its life-giving power.

  If the plan was approved and was effective, it would take considerable time for the return of natural death to reduce the negative effects of overpopulation.

  There are a host of issues to consider, such as what role the United Nations and the International Space Station would play in safeguarding Remedy while it is in space, but the critical issue is what authority would make the call to bring Remedy back and when it would be appropriate to do so. At a minimum, it would seem these questions need answers before a decision is undertaken.

  This kid is the real thing, Garland thought as he leafed through the rest of the paper. Though he’d leaked the story, he didn’t expect Jack to nail the clout aspect. Garland thumbed aimlessly through the stack of papers, ruminating on possible ways to set up a control mechanism as he made his way to the White House.

  ***

  All patients put to bed hours ago and her paperwork completed, Nurse Riley locked the front doors to Kindred Nursing Care. Settled in her office, Riley opened her steamy romance novel and began reading. She barely finished a chapter when she was interrupted by banging on the front doors.

  Riley checked the clock; it was ten thirty. She slipped her book into a drawer and headed to the entrance. Alarmed by the combination of grim-looking police and National Guard officers waiting for her, she sped up. Behind the force a large, white truck idled in Kindred’s circular driveway.

  Riley sprung the door open.

  “What’s the matter?”

  A ruddy-faced officer stepped forward. “We’ve got orders to empty the facility.”

  “What? Who ordered what?”

  The officer handed a document to Riley and said, “Court order to remove all patients.”

  Riley leaned on the doorframe. “And take them where? Where are the going?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but our orders are limited to clearing the facility. You have questions, you’ll have to address the court.”

  As the officers flooded in, Riley retreated to her office and furiously worked the phones.

  Ten gurneys were already loaded on the truck and another was on the lift gate as Kindred’s lawyer arrived. Dressed in jeans and a sport jacket, the counselor demanded to know who was in charge.

  “That would be me, Captain Flagger, and you are?”

  “George Rojas, legal counselor for the Kindred Group. Now, what is going on here?”

  “We’re executing a court order to vacate the premises.” Flagger handed over the order.

  As Flagger reviewed the document, a redheaded woman ran up to the captain yelling, “Where is my son? Where are you taking him?”

  Flagger instructed an officer to restrain and remove the parent from the premises and ordered that no one be allowed onto the nursing home’s property.

  After the woman was subdued, Rojas asked, “Unfortunately, my only option is to file for a stay of this order, but tell me, what do you know?”


  “Can’t say much, counselor, but I know they’ve been clearing some of these places out and turning them into housing.”

  “Where are the patients going?”

  “Rather not say, sir.”

  ***

  Obsessed with the protein story, Jack couldn’t focus. He feared getting scooped on it and was torn. More proof was needed, but nothing material was leaking out despite his efforts. He thought over what Garland said about it being early and figured that’s why he wasn’t able to find anything concrete.

  Problem is, I’m not supposed to put anything out there until I can verify it, he thought. Jack went over every word that Garland had said, looking for clues. Garland was nothing if not sly, and at times Jack felt Garland was detestable. However, the facts were Garland had never lied to him and had fed him incredible information. Jack didn’t want to admit it, but realized that Garland was responsible for how quickly his career had advanced.

  It was that simple, he decided, as he started tapping away at his keyboard. Garland would come through again and he’d be the envy of every reporter. Boy, would my parents have been proud.

  ***

  The uproar over possibly sending Remedy into space was immediate and more vociferous than Garland had predicted. The president was badgered by questions during his two-day swing on the West Coast and summoned his chief of staff to a meeting a mere two hours after Air Force One touched down.

  The president was reading and never picked up his head as Garland entered the Oval Office. Garland stood shifting his weight three times before the president tossed his reading glasses aside and threw his chin in the direction of a chair.

  “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Garland fell into a chair. “I suppose you mean the Remedy back in space thing?”

  “Of course, goddamn it!”

  “To be honest, sir, I didn’t expect such blowback. I know the public’s attached to Remedy, but the fact is we’ve got serious trouble brewing.” He raised his palm. “We can handle this very simply, though.”