The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

  “Gerber posted new video already? Without my authorization?”

  “It’s 12:15, sir. You’ve been in back-to-back meetings, and you did instruct him to release on schedule on days when you were unavailable.”

  “Gad.” Carthage pointed at Dr. Kate. “The vice president of the United States, that grinning fool, saw her infernal hug?”

  “He said he loved it, sir. Made him cry.”

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Carthage flashed me an annoyed look, then stood by his phone. “I am waiting for you to put him through.”

  Thomas vanished and a moment later Carthage’s phone rang. But he did not answer it on the first ring. “Dismissed,” he said, waving us all toward the door. “To be continued.” The phone rang again and he lifted the receiver to his ear slowly, savoring the moment. “Erastus Carthage.”

  We crowded into the waiting area, Thomas behind his desk pretending to do something on his computer. I still had my notebook out.

  “Listen, lovely,” Billings said. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  Dr. Kate snorted. “If it hadn’t been for that lucky phone call, you would be making it up to an unemployed woman.” And she stared him down with daggers.

  “You’ll see,” he mumbled. “I’ll think of something.”

  Billings shuffled off, tail between his legs. Dr. Kate put her hands on her hips and gave me the high beams next. “Is there something more that you want?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “Just suddenly feeling very alone.”

  Up close, her face overwhelmed me. The worry. No other way to put it: the beauty. I had to stare past, and there was freaking Gerber in the control room, headphones on, eyes closed, dancing slowly, probably as high as a seagull. What a place.

  “Well, I think that was incredible,” I said. “Totally amazing. Was that all from the judge’s advice? Do you really have a lawyer already lined up?”

  “On the record?”

  “Or off, whichever you want.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, calculating. “No comment.”

  I laughed. “You were bluffing.”

  “No comment, I said.”

  Dr. Kate turned on her heel and continued on to the control room, delectability on parade. And you can bet I stood there and watched her go.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Chaperone

  (Erastus Carthage)

  Ten million, that’s all you need. Not a nickel more.

  Ten million dollars and you could recruit a stronger staff, hire a Web developer, employ a real scribe instead of playing ventriloquist with a hack whose ambitions outstrip his abilities. Who knows what you could accomplish with a full-time publicist? Exposure, credibility, fame. There is a prize they give out in Sweden for people like you.

  And the lab? Of course you’d launch a second research vessel, to conduct hard-ice searches at both poles simultaneously. The flood of material they would find would predicate a second reanimation chamber. With ten million, you’d avoid any need to partner with those unseemly cryogenics people. You’d alleviate the concern of your existing income source as well. Oh, and then. Then you’d offer an intensive fellowship for top Ph.D.s, to share your discoveries and advance reanimation around the world. Yes, you are a generous man. Let them come and learn. The Erastus Carthage Academy for the Advancement of Humanity. Nice ring to it. Dignified. Perhaps Harvard would offer your academy a home. Or MIT. Which reminds you, did Thomas write the president of the university a thank-you note for those flowers? You can’t recall signing it.

  Are they looking tired now, days later, on your credenza, these roses of praise? Later today they’ll go in the trash. For this morning, though, you need them to make an impression, to lubricate the request for ten million dollars. In good federal coin, no less.

  Why shouldn’t you ask? Isn’t your project in every newspaper in the world? The Times put Subject One on the front page, byline Wilson Steele. The Post ran his face, in close-up, under a giant headline: HERE COMES THE JUDGE. Aren’t the pundits crowing about the return of American supremacy in the sciences? Hasn’t China, like some lumbering elephant outwitted by a clever mouse, hastily opened a lab to chase your theories? What riches they must be throwing at lesser scientists, to recruit them to join a copycat project. For the director, of all people, they hired the nobody you fired last month, the one who soiled your suit with tea. That lackey a research director? Thank you for the laugh. See if you catch Erastus Carthage in this lifetime.

  China has done you a favor, nonetheless, by launching a new space race, the Sputnik of mortality. All you seek, in order to keep America ahead, is a mere ten million. It the bloated federal budget, it’s a fraction of a fraction of a percent. In today’s dollars, it’s barely anything.

  And who better to carry your request to Washington, who more ideally equipped to state your case, than Gerald T. Walker, a man mocked for excessive smiling, but nonetheless one heartbeat away from being leader of the free world? In less than an hour, this fan of the project and the videos, even that absurd hug, will be here. The mountain is coming to Mohammed.

  The timing is ideal. Subject One is upright, speaking clearly. No one can predict how long that may continue. This is the now of all nows.

  Walker’s advance security has scoured the building. All morning you heard the protesters chanting below your window, TV cameras bestowing precisely the attention these souls so desperately seek. Who cares that they despise your work? Their passion is still a kind of worship. You cannot resist spying on them. Can you imagine any circumstance in which you would revel in your powerlessness, and flaunt it for all to see? No, six stories up is the place to be in this world, and in this life.

  There is a soft knock at the door. You hurry from the window as though you’d been caught viewing pornography. It is the physician, and you greet him with a nod. “Dr. Borden, I hope you bring good news.”

  “I bring the potential for good news.”

  You sit at your desk, gesture him to a chair. “Tell me.”

  He has a clipped walk, this short man with his pointed beard. Borden bustles to the chair, then does not so much sit on it as perch. “Here’s what we know, day sixteen.”

  The man always comes gratifyingly to the point. You nod. “Proceed.”

  “It has something to do with salt. We’re seeing all the expected signs of accelerating metabolism: heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, the gamut. If we did not intervene, he’d be lucky to make twenty-one days.”

  “Based on body mass and the krill projections?”

  “Yes. But our nutritional mix has brought mitigating effects. I’d say it’s forty/sixty that it will work. Frankly, though, even if this succeeds I can’t predict for how long.”

  “Forty percent odds are better than none. And all because of salt? It’s that simple?”

  “Perhaps slow mitosis while frozen in ocean water alters cell chemistry in some permanent way. You’d need a mitochondria expert to tell you. But the implications are clear. For reanimated creatures, no salt means longer life.”

  “How much longer?”

  Borden places the fingertips of one hand against those of the other, as if he were holding an invisible sphere. “How speculative would you like me to be?”

  “Best and worst cases.”

  “Best case is that we’ve broken the code, and Subject One lives indefinitely. Subject to the usual diseases, ex-wives, gunshots, et cetera.”

  “And worst?”

  Borden tugs on his beard. “Five mornings from now, he doesn’t wake up.”

  In the moment you allow yourself to digest this news, the intercom on your desk buzzes once briefly. “Yes, Thomas?”

  “Dixon time, sir.”

  You’d instructed Thomas to keep him waiting in the outer office a neat twenty minutes. By now he will have reached the perfect simmer.

  You rise. “Dr. Borden, you are doing an excellent job.”

  “It’
s an honor to be part of this enterprise.” He stands, then bows, actually bows, before turning for the door.

  Dixon, ever the awkward one, enters the doorway first, and they do a little hint and feint to get past each other. The reporter finally makes his way in, the heft of him somehow an unpleasant surprise, as if you’d forgotten, the soiled trousers, the sport coat with those crude leather patches on the elbows, a half-crumpled notebook in his hefty mitt. You wonder if he has ever lived one intellectually rigorous moment in his life.

  “I am glad to see you,” is your greeting, and you force a smile.

  He flumps into the chair Borden just occupied, then poises his pen over a legal pad. “You going to make a statement on the veep’s visit?”

  “No, no, Daniel.” You wave the idea away. “I didn’t ask you here in your capacity as a journalist. You’ll be present for the Walker meeting anyway. No, I just wanted us to have a little talk.”

  “About?”

  The man is incapable of recognizing a dramatic pause. Always he must interject some noise, some interruption of cogent thought. His mind is not weak, you consider, merely hasty. Also sloppy, very sloppy.

  “About the future, Daniel. For you, for our valuable if impertinent Dr. Philo, and for our precious Subject One. No need to take notes just now.”

  Dutifully he sets the pad aside, interlacing fingers across the middle of his girth. “Dr. C, I am all ears.”

  “Yes. Well.” You collect yourself, folding your hands as well. “You see, Daniel, the result of our encounter with Dr. Philo yesterday is a fortuitous one.”

  “How so?”

  “Progress in one direction can sometimes cause a researcher to overlook opportunities in an altogether different avenue. And so it is with Subject One. His immense worth as an object of study had dominated my thinking, at the expense of recognizing his value in winning supporters to our cause.”

  “You mean fund-raising?”

  “I mean friend-raising, Daniel. To contradict the protesters, to avoid soiling ourselves with politics, and yes, to develop a population of interested parties who might enable this project’s work to reach its fullest potential. That is where you come in.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Simply incapable of a pause. “Bear with me a moment, then.” You sigh, then press on. “My design is this: Let us give Subject One his liberty, so to speak. Let him experience America as it is today, a place transformed from what he once knew. As a tour guide, let us assign the feisty Dr. Philo. Let her show him around. Let them be seen. Let the public share in the story, and amplify the spectacle.

  “And here is the genius of it.” You lean against the desk and bend toward him. “To chronicle their every adventure, let us dispatch Daniel Patrick Dixon.”

  It is a professorial delight you experience at that moment, watching an idea dawn in a lesser mind. While he warms his mental hands before the fire of your proposal, you continue. “If they see marvels, you will tell us. If they are dismayed, you shall render it. If a private bond develops between them”—you pause and deduce by his nodding that he understands your implication—“you will inform the world. Who will not hunger for every new detail in their explorations?”

  Dixon keeps nodding, eyes down now. He drums a pen on his thigh. “So I’m supposed to follow them around?”

  “Sometimes overtly, sometimes less so. Thomas has cameras for you, still and video. Also recording devices.”

  He lifts his gaze. “I am not going to be anyone’s spy.”

  “Of course not, Daniel. Remember, you are not in my employ. What you are is a reporter, doing his job, getting the scoop.” You swing a little gung ho fist for him.

  “Dr. C, let me tell you something.” Dixon places his notebook on the rug beside the chair. You steel yourself for whatever sordid revelation is about to ensue. “When I was a kid, just fourteen, my family’s house caught on fire. Both my parents died. I pulled them out but the smoke had already gotten them. So I started out with zilch. Literally, no clothes, no family, not even a toothbrush. I’m not saying life owes me anything, everyone has their share of misery. But if I have a shot at getting a little bit back, you know, enjoying just a bit of comfort and cushion, well, only an idiot would say no, is what it is.”

  There. You survived without feeling an urge to laugh. Somewhat pitiful, truthfully. The orphan boy, starved for glory. But you nod slowly, a picture of empathy. “Possibly your whole life has been preparation for this moment.”

  “Maybe so. Who knows?”

  Thomas knocks at the door, right on cue. “Final checklist time, sir.”

  “Yes, of course. Excuse us, please.”

  Dixon stands, starts for the door.

  “Daniel, you’ve forgotten something.”

  He turns, spots his notebook, and hustles his big frame to fetch it.

  “Be my eyes, Daniel. Be the eyes of everyone who wants to know about this incredible feat. Watch Subject One. Watch Dr. Philo. And tell the world what it desperately wants to know.”

  Dixon pauses at the door. Is he choked up? “With all my heart, sir.”

  Then he is gone, your wish come true. A tool, a puppet, a chaperone, all in one. And you don’t even have to pay his wage.

  Thomas comes to your desk with a checklist for review. It’s all precaution, every i was dotted hours ago. As you scan the list your buzzer sounds again. “What is it?”

  “Front desk security, sir. Vice President Walker has arrived.”

  “Thomas, come with me to the conference room. I’d like you to see this.”

  “I’d be honored, sir.”

  Admit it, you feel a flutter. Now the Lazarus Project goes public. Even if Borden’s life-span prediction is wrong, there will be time to make a valuable impression. If all goes well with Walker, you will begin a national publicity campaign first thing tomorrow. If the past sixteen days have stoked the people’s fervor, now it is time for the bonfire.

  “Send him up,” you bark at the intercom. “Let the games begin.”

  PART III

  Recovery

  CHAPTER 15

  Presser

  (Daniel Dixon)

  Carthage offered me the first question, a definite courtesy, but I did him one smarter and asked to go last instead. That way I would get to watch all the others file in, take their seats, the usual murmur of the ink-stained readying to do their first-draft-of-history business, all the while knowing that I was going to get the punch line. Not to brag, but I had my camera ready so I could get a shot of all those dropped jaws.

  The chilliness with which the reporters greeted each other, curt nods and low banter, reminded me of watching a jazz group set up. Like they were all at the gig last night, so cool is the word, cat. Damn if you would see so much as a smile among them. Nor was there a single howdy-do in my direction, by the by.

  Well, let them act so frosty. Yours truly already knew his closing question. Six words, and short ones at that. But I could flat-out guarantee that old Frank’s answer would lead every news report worldwide.

  A few correspondents pulled out the day’s papers to brush up on the story, but it was strictly a head fake. Everyone knew the real news was the photo, shot by me, placed above the fold in every rag I’d seen that morning: Vice President Gerald T. Walker shaking the judge’s hand, smiling that famous toothy smile so damn wide you would have thought he was meeting the pope. The veep, former governor of a cotton state, had never even been to Beantown before. Now he had made the editorial page, a caricature that turned his whole face into an idiot grin. Columnists were speculating that yesterday’s photo op signaled his interest in the top job: Oval Office and Air Force One and my-fellow-Americans. Even if half the pundits were twits, a generous estimate given the ones I’ve known personally, it boggled me anyway: our old Frank figured in presidential politics before he’d done much more than wake up and scratch his belly.

  Maybe the protesters helped, since they were increasingly headline-ready. There were more
of them now, fifty or so, agitating around the building like flies outside a horse barn. Their energy was higher, too, which I attributed to Walker becoming our newest friend. Nobody gets powerful without making enemies. The protest group had a boss now, an organizer who made sure the signs were legible and who lined people up behind TV interviewers so the crowd looked as big as possible. This boss guy was movie-star handsome, with a Kirk Douglas kind of chin, and was forever toting a clipboard and bullhorn. I made a mental note to find out his story.

  Carthage set the news conference up in the first-floor atrium. Through the tall windows spilled spring sunlight as pale as an underfed teenager. A blue curtain hung behind two podiums, framing a sign that read THE LAZARUS PROJECT, with yellow rays in all directions like a kid’s drawing of the sun. Not the sharpest logo you ever saw.

  However weak Carthage might be on PR, he’d been right to give me the book deal. It would tell the real story, the one nobody else knew. It would lift yours truly out of the pit of Arctic schlepping for a minor magazine and into the realm of author and authority. And by the way, Mrs. Washington, ka-chinggg.

  Meanwhile I watched the idiot-box crews set up. Pretty-face on-air talent gals stood beside the riser, holding white cards for cameramen to fix a brightness level. Funny thing about TV women: they all have skinny faces, cheekbones you could crack an egg on, but they carry big butts. Maybe all those hours in the anchor chair? Or maybe they’re like chickens, how one kind is bred to give meat and another to produce eggs, and these made perfect talking heads but you’d never want to go wreck the sheets with them.

  Such a goddamn philosopher I am. The red digital clock said we were an hour into day seventeen for our old Frank. But my watch said six after one, and the presser was supposed to start at one sharp. Not like Carthage to be tardy. The only explanation would have to be the surprise he had planned. I jiggled my leg in my chair till the guy next to me asked if I could please stop.

  All right, I admit it: I was excited. This was one hell of a story, is what it was. I’d covered the space shuttle explosion, back in my cub days at the paper in Florida. I’d followed a seedy governor right into the arms of his mistress, so close on his heels I could see firsthand why he’d been tempted. Then I’d found research papers that fudged the side effects of a blood pressure drug, killing four women with clots and placing me forever after on the science-writing path. After that, I’d interviewed iguana taggers in the Galápagos, particle accelerator geeks in France, climate-change gurus at the edge of the Gobi Desert, trajectory physicists in mildewed bars at Cape Canaveral, nanotechnologists in California clean rooms, tectonic savants at the lip of volcanoes, metallurgists in roasting foundries, AIDS researchers in giant, silent labs, sky listeners at the foot of their array of massive creepy radio-wave tracking dishes, and none of them, not one, came close to the magnitude of this frozen-man yarn. I mean, what if we truly found a way to cheat death, to make it temporary? Jeremiah is good for a week of hot copy maybe, but what he represents is much greater. What if we did it? What if we genuinely did it?