The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

“Damn,” you say. All that manipulation, wasted. “You are mistaken.”

  He sniffs in disdain. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s not oxygen.”

  “But if you bothered to read my papers—”

  “Anyone can hyperoxygenate a fish tank and a sardine will remain alive. But the human body contains only so much hemoglobin. No matter what you do externally, Subject One’s blood can transport a finite amount of oxygen.”

  Billings pulls his chin back as though you’d poked him. “Blast. That’s a beast of a hole in my theory, isn’t it now?”

  “The answer is not oxygen.” You enjoy the pleasure of informing him. “It’s salt.”

  “Salt? How so?”

  You consider. There is no harm in sharing Borden’s discovery. “Zero salt intake, Dr. Billings, prevents the ammonia problem from beginning.”

  “Indubitably. But that diet’s utility will diminish over time, because the body innately contains salt in its tissues. It’s a prerequisite of muscle contraction.”

  You sigh, facing the bookcases, the top shelf titles all your own. “Billings, you are no fool in the lab, but we have been ahead of you on this question forever. Borden solved the life-span problem with salt nearly two months ago.”

  You turn, expecting to see him bent, dejected. Instead Billings sits chin high, like a 1920s socialite with a long cigarette holder. What a strange man. But then, what a supply of oddities one finds in the sciences.

  “With salt alone, you say? Brilliant.”

  You turn away again. “Doctor, need we say anything further to one another?”

  “I’d like one more day, if you please. You needn’t pay me. But my haste with the oxygen studies has left materials in disarray. I’d like to place the data in a coherent format, should this avenue prove useful someday to someone down the lane. Also I’d prefer a proper good-bye with the technicians who’ve assisted me. Hardly your manner, but it’s how my mother raised me.”

  “Dear powers in heaven, keep me from challenging motherhood,” you say, one hand raised as if swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth. “You may have your extra day, Billings, without pay as you said and as is appropriate. Surrender your security badge to Thomas by noon tomorrow. He will have severance documents ready.”

  Billings nods, but not only to himself. “All my career, I’ve advanced from one lab to the next only by answering inquiries. I’ve never lost a job before.”

  “You’ll live.” You return to your desk and sit.

  “Suppose I will now, won’t I?” Billings stands. You wish he would leave the room so you can get back to business. But his walk possesses a stiff, dignified air, and he moves with the speed of a snail. He stops in the doorway; must there be a valedictory? “I must say, Carthage, working with you has been—”

  “Goddammit, where is he?”

  Billings jumps back in surprise, as none other than your news puppet Dixon comes barging through the doorway. He bumps Billings on the way but it does not so much as break his stride. Dixon barrels up to your desk and puts his hands on his hips. “You and I have to talk,” he says. “I demand an explanation. Now.”

  It would be easier to respect this man if his hands were not so fleshy, the fists of a piglet. “You demand? You demand something from me?”

  “As I was saying,” Billings began, trying to regain his moment.

  “You’re goddamn right I do,” Dixon blusters on. “I have carried your water all these months now, in article after article, and then you go and break your word.”

  Moments like these can challenge some leaders, the direct attack, but for you they provide an opportunity to demonstrate mastery. “Calm yourself, Mr. Dixon, be seated, and in a moment I will hear you out.”

  “I will not be seated. And I will not wait.”

  The audacity. The ingratitude. You lean to see past him. “Dr. Billings, you were saying?”

  “He just expressed it better than I ever could. Good luck to the filthy lot of you.” And he leaves the room smiling.

  It’s a bit unsettling, that crooked grin, and you pause to ponder how he could have, despite your intentions, wrested good humor from your exchange. Dixon puts his hands on his hips again, all righteousness and ignorance. A weariness possesses you then, fatigue with the burden of him. “What is it, Mr. Dixon?”

  “You and I had a deal that there would be no exclusives. But you let Wilson Steele interview the judge without me present.”

  Something about your dissatisfaction with the conclusion of the Billings meeting abbreviates your patience for this one. Thus the sooner this conversation arrives at its predictable conclusion, the better. “Yes, I did.”

  “That was a direct contradiction of your agreement with me.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Well, Jesus.” He pounds a fist against his thigh. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Mr. Dixon, do you honestly want to know the answer to that question?”

  “Why do you think I asked it?”

  “Very well.” You turn your seat halfway from Dixon, giving him your profile. Essentially, you are addressing Thomas. “I reneged on our agreement because Wilson Steele, in his sleep, is one hundred times the reporter and writer that you are on your finest day. He has a national platform for his work, a massive audience, and a history of writing bestsellers. You, you are a small-time science magazine hack, who’s quick with a simile but otherwise struggles to put three intelligent sentences together.”

  Dixon takes the seat you had offered a moment before, slumps into the chair like a defeated boxer who doesn’t know well enough to lower his chin. Since the damage is already done, you continue.

  “You were useful for the initial propaganda about our work, but your limited reach and rudimentary skills are insufficient for the range and audience that we now need.” You rotate back and squirt a dollop of sanitizer on your hands. “I gave Wilson Steele that interview because you are no longer of any value to me. There. Now are you pleased with the answer?”

  “You,” he growls, shaking his head. “You are one smug motherfucker.”

  “Thomas,” you exclaim. “Listen to him. A Shakespeare in our midst.”

  Dixon stews there, rubbing his face with one hand. You can all but hear him thinking, little wheels turning, his wobbly cogs of cognition. You are nearly out of patience, but at least he is showing the spirit Billings failed to provide. You will indulge him one last minute.

  “What is in your mind, Mr. Dixon?”

  “Just working something out here. Something I’ve wondered that didn’t make sense. And now that I’m getting close, you back-door me.” He chews on a fingernail. “Yeah. I suspect this project, and you cut me out. Huh. Kinda confirms my suspicions.”

  “Whatever are you foaming at the mouth about?”

  “You.” He sits forward in the chair, a strange grin on his face. Who are these people with their odd smiling? “You think your ego can keep you out of trouble. But you’re dead wrong.”

  “What a Boy Scout you are turning out to be, Daniel. It gives me goose bumps.”

  He points at you, rudely. “You are going to regret treating me this way.”

  You cannot help it; you laugh. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Dixon? Are you actually threatening Erastus Carthage? Thomas, please relieve our puppet of his security badge. His work here is finished.”

  Thomas strides over and unclips the lapel card, the reporter’s sole means of access to project offices and labs. You allow yourself a minor gloat. “Do you honestly believe the world could encounter anything Daniel Dixon writes that contradicts Erastus Carthage, anything at all, and it would accept your version of events?” You scrub your hands together thoroughly, squeezing each finger with the other hand as though milking a cow. “I had no idea you were so deluded.”

  “I am really going to enjoy it, you know that?”

  You switch hands. “What are you going to enjoy?”

  “The crashing sound you make when I
bring you down.”

  “Mr. Dixon, would you please stop being so tedious?”

  “You think I can’t do it?”

  You tend to your cuticles. “No more than an ant can fell an oak.”

  “But I know about you, mister, and you are no oak.”

  “I am relieved to hear that your capacity to distinguish one species from another remains so acute.”

  “I know you are a fraud, and this project is a fake. You just confirmed it, right now. The only thing keeping me from writing about it is figuring out how many people here are in on the scam. You may have the world fooled, Carthage, but I have been paying attention all this time. I know the truth, and I have proof.”

  “Again I find myself reminded of an ant, dazzled by the banquet he has found, when in reality it is just a crust of bread.”

  “We’ll just see about what I’ve found, now won’t we? You pompous fuck.”

  What is obscenity, really, but a person’s way of showing he lacks distinction? You do not deign to reply, only continue the pleasant cleansing of your hands. Dixon heaves himself up from the chair and starts for the door. But he pauses on the sill. You snicker inwardly; is this now where the defeated make their vain last stands?

  “One last question for you, Dr. Carthage. On the record.”

  “Must you be so relentlessly dull?”

  “Just one, and then I’ll be out of here.”

  You throw up your hands. “Do your worst.”

  “Who is Amos?”

  You gulp in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Got you there, didn’t I?” He sidles back. “Why don’t you just spill the whole beans on it?”

  “Ho ho. So you found out about Amos Cartwright. Congratulations. I would never have thought you clever enough for that.”

  “You will stop underestimating me sooner or later, pal.”

  “Probably later.” You stroll behind your desk, stalling, wheeling your seat forward till your stomach presses against the drawers. “What do you know about Amos?”

  “Everything.” He digs a notebook from his rear pocket. “I just need you to confirm the details.”

  He’s bluffing. He knows zero. Crumbs at best. You adjust your papers. There is the envelope for Billings, atop a pile of greater urgencies. This day’s necessities are requiring more time than they deserve. You roll the chair back, again deciding to make this conversation travel the shortest possible distance. “Then find the details for yourself, Daniel. All I can tell you is what exists in the plain public record.”

  He does not answer. You fold your hands on the desk, fingers woven. “Very well. Amos Cartwright was an international grand master in chess who lost all standing and medals when a tattletale revealed him to be a cheat. After which he hung himself.”

  Dixon has a pen out now, and he pauses in note taking. “How is it possible to cheat at chess?”

  “Don’t be a fool. There is no deception in the game of kings. But cheating the World Chess Federation is simple, if you use the power of reason. Imagine for example that you colluded with the person who compiles the draw sheets for tournaments, to assure that you would always be competing on an easy side, with all of the difficult challengers placed on the other half. They would exhaust themselves eliminating each other, while you played easy match upon easy match. Eventually one of their number would attain the finals, fatigued, and intimidated because you had breezed through the other side. That last one might still defeat you, but you’d place second at least. And often your advantage would prove insurmountable. Thus would you amass international standing, either by beating weaklings or by placing runner-up dozens of times.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Or so a certain federation official confessed, long after retiring, due to a deathbed discovery of morals he apparently had lacked during his professional career. Which revelation led the discredited Amos Cartwright to tie a noose. It made a minor noise in the media.”

  “What does a chess cheater have to do with the project?”

  You look down at your hands as if they held aces. “Finding that answer would require a person with one hundred times your reporting capacity.”

  Dixon snaps his notebook shut. “One sign of a stupid man is when he’s too free with his insults.”

  “You are saying Erastus Carthage is stupid?”

  “The easiest kind: overconfident. But it’s like I said before.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m going to enjoy the crashing sound.”

  He turns on his heel and is gone.

  It takes several minutes to collect yourself. Amos Cartwright is not a name you expected to hear from that buffoon. Nonetheless, there is no way he can connect Amos to yourself, none. You have covered every potential avenue. It has been the work of decades, subject to more thought and care than cells or reanimation or your own breathing. He might write damaging things about the project, but not based on that.

  Thomas stands at your elbow. “Sir, what is our link to Amos Cartwright?”

  “I used his name for our security password, that is all.”

  “Why would you choose such a person?”

  “Because, Thomas, we are as different from him as it is possible to be. He was a cheater and we have integrity, he squandered his intellect and we exercise ours diligently, he lied for most of his life and we will never lie, never.”

  Thomas bowed. “I see my question irritated you and I apologize. Besides, how much damage can Dixon do to us?”

  “Far less than the good he has already done.”

  “What about the investors, though? These cryogenics people always seem so close, but then turn reluctant. Isn’t Dixon a danger?”

  “Thomas, let us apply reason to the situation. There is zero we can do to control Mr. Dixon at this point. Therefore I decline to expend a moment’s further thought on him. As for our potential investors, even a novice fisherman knows that trout are not intelligent, just skeptical.”

  “I’m not following you, sir. Our investors are like trout?”

  You push back your chair. “What we need is something to stir them from their suspicious place on the bottom. Then we need a good lure, to hook them. But what?”

  You cross to the windows and peer downward. The protesters have finished their daily demonstration for the benefit of the noon news. They’ll rest until it’s time for the six o’clock performance. The prior night’s arrests brought reinforcements. There must be nearly a thousand of them down there now, all in their absurd red shirts. Since that firebrand from Kansas arrived, the one with the superhero good looks, these people have shown far greater organization and media savvy. Sometime it might be interesting to meet him. For now, most of the group is gathered on the lawn across the way, eating box lunches. Devout members are kneeling on the sidewalk outside the front doors. It occurs to you that these people are very likely praying for you, or about you at least. Sweet of them, really. And there is your answer.

  “Thomas, we need additional incitement of our fans.”

  “Those protesters are our fans, sir?”

  “See how they lavish us with devotion. Like Mr. Dixon, they’ve brought us valuable attention, too. The question is how we use them next.”

  “To stir the bottom of the stream?”

  “That’s my Thomas. Yes, and I know just the thing. I’d like to extend them an invitation tomorrow. Simple, elegant, certain to stir. I’ll need your help.”

  “Of course, sir. And galvanizing them against us will help the project how?”

  “The more fervently your enemies hate you, the more they confirm your importance. But first, please fetch me Subject One. Our most convincing salesman needs to start work. It’s time we prepared him to meet our future investors.”

  “You mean it’s time to use our bait.”

  You wag a finger at him. “There’s a smart lad.”

  Now, who dares to say you are incapable of managerial charm? The man leaves the room positively beaming.

  P
ART V

  Frenzy

  CHAPTER 34

  Entirely Too Late

  (Kate Philo)

  The note waiting on my desk was penned in handwriting so impeccable it had to be from Thomas, but the true author was equally unmistakable. In my office—NOW.

  Oddly enough, I felt no fear. Not even apprehension. At that moment Jeremiah Rice was in my kitchen, reading a weathered paperback of Treasure Island I hadn’t even known I owned. I last saw him comfortably at the table, in the chair that gets morning sun, with the odd but endearing habit of sitting on his hand whenever it was not turning pages like a speed reader. By contrast, Erastus Carthage seemed in every way smaller. Thomas hadn’t just underlined the word now, he’d capitalized it. Was I supposed to be intimidated by handwriting? Honestly.

  All morning I’d run through the possibilities. Online I’d found a promising lab in upstate New York. It specialized in blood projects but they’d just landed a massive cell chemistry grant that would need administering. Also there were university postdoc positions, in Missouri and Iowa, that would do for a transition job. I could have e-mailed a résumé before leaving the apartment, the cover letter copied to Tolliver, my former mentor at the academy, so he could begin the background lobbying.

  Yet I hadn’t. Instead I filled my coffee mug, caressed Jeremiah’s shoulder, enjoyed my usual walk to work. It was a stunning morning, the previous day’s humidity burned off into clear skies. The Charles River winked and glimmered as I crossed the MIT Bridge. I wore a summer dress, green with small white flowers. I felt eighteen.

  By the time I reached the loading dock entry, I’d convinced myself to follow the Lazarus Project thread all the way, to whatever conclusion it reached. Carthage’s note only simplified matters. If he fired me, it would end in an hour. I’d be home for lunch, résumés mailed, with time left to drive Jeremiah to Cape Cod for dinner. If Carthage didn’t fire me, back to my desk I’d go, to see what needed doing. I stopped, there in the hallway, realizing that for once I did not have a list of urgent tasks waiting. I’d already grown that disconnected from the project, that connected to Jeremiah.