Transhuman

by Ben Bova

  “I’d appreciate it if they told me all they know.”

  “By all means! I’ll give them the word right now.”

  While Hightower watched, Fisk went through the motions of instructing his underlings to cooperate fully with the FBI. It was too easy, Hightower thought. Much too easy. The man is trying to get rid of me by smothering me with cooperation.

  On the other hand, he thought as he got up from the comfortable armchair, maybe the blonde will escort me through the building. That would be pleasant.

  Fisk watched the FBI agent shamble out of his office. He walks like Frankenstein’s monster, he thought. Big man. But not terribly bright.

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Fisk said to himself, Well, let him talk with my people. They can tell him everything he wants to know, be completely honest with him. He smiled. None of them knows where Abramson is. There’s nothing to connect him with Merriwether and Nottaway. Only me and my personal assistant, and she certainly won’t do any talking.

  He reached for his private phone. Better tell Lonzo to make sure Abramson doesn’t leave Nottaway. Keep him there, where the FBI can’t find him and he can do his work without interference.

  New Year’s Eve

  “IT’S BETTER IN New Mexico,” Luke said.

  He was sitting with Tamara and Merriwether in the spacious living room of the Nottaway manor house. A beautifully decorated Christmas tree scraped the high ceiling, off in one corner. Over the huge fireplace, the gigantic wall-screen TV showed the New Year’s Eve countdown in Times Square. It looked cold out there, but the place was thronged with revelers bundled in heavy coats, parkas, hoodies, woolen caps, tooting horns and shouting greetings to one another.

  “New Mexico?” Merriwether asked.

  With a nod, Luke replied, “My wife and I used to go out there for the holidays. We could sit up and watch the ball go down in Times Square, and when they were screaming ‘Happy New Year’ in New York it was only ten P.M. We could go to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Real party animals,” Merriwether teased.

  Tamara said nothing, but she gave Luke an odd gaze. She was sitting on one end of the deep, long sofa that faced the TV screen and the fireplace beneath it, her legs tucked beneath her. Luke sat a few cushions away from her. Merriwether was in a big armchair that looked to Luke more like a monarch’s throne than a piece of living room furniture, his long legs stretched out on a carved wooden ottoman.

  The coffee table in front of the sofa was laden with a tray of desserts and a bottle of Armagnac, which Merriwether touted as being much superior to Cognac. Luke had poured snifters for Tamara and himself: The liqueur was smooth and warming, true enough.

  Merriwther sipped at a tall glass filled with something dark and somehow sinister looking. Rum, he had answered when Luke asked him what he was drinking.

  “This used to be pirate territory, you know,” he explained. “Jean Lafitte and all that.”

  Glancing at her wristwatch, Tamara got up from the sofa and said, “I’m going to check on Angela. I’ll be back before the ball drops.”

  Luke nodded wordlessly. In the past week Angie’s condition had worsened noticeably. The brain tumors seemed to be shrinking, but the symptoms of progeria were more obvious with each passing day. The child’s blood pressure kept climbing; her hair was whitening and falling out; she was becoming a bald, wrinkled, wizened little gnome.

  Ignoring the festivities blaring from the TV screen, Luke stared into the fireplace. The treatment’s killing her cancer, but it’s also killing her, he thought. We’re in a race.

  If Angie dies, he told himself, I’ll turn myself in to the FBI. Let them arrest me for murder. What difference would it make?

  But then he thought: She’s not going to die. I won’t let her die!

  “Three minutes to go!” the TV screen shouted. The camera focused on the glittering ball at the top of the pole.

  Tamara came back into the living room and sat beside Luke. “She’s fine,” she said, before Luke could ask. “Sleeping peacefully.”

  “Good,” he said.

  Very casually, Merriwether said, “My butler told me you asked him about borrowing a car.”

  “Thought we’d drive into Baton Rouge,” Luke replied.

  “I need some clothes,” said Tamara.

  “It’d be good to get around a little,” Luke added.

  His smile dimming just a fraction, Merriwether said, “That’s not such a good idea, Luke. You can do your shopping right here. I can get the best stores in town to send some people and a selection of clothes. Just tell me what you’re looking for, Tamara.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Luke objected.

  “You’d be better off staying here, where you’re safe,” Merriwether said. His voice was gentle, but quite firm.

  “One afternoon in town won’t hurt.”

  “You never know, Luke. You never know. Quenton tells me the FBI came to see him, in his office in New York.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “You stay right here, man,” Merriwether said softly. “Better all around.”

  Luke saw iron-hard determination in Merriwether’s eyes. “Is this your idea or Fisk’s?” he asked.

  Widening his smile, Merriwether said, “Come on, Luke. Is it so bad here? You’ve got everything you want, don’t you? You can treat Angela and even carry on your research, can’t you?”

  Luke nodded grudgingly. “I guess so.”

  “Thirty seconds to go!” shouted the TV screen.

  Tamara said to Merriwether, “I need to get my hair done. Can you recommend a beauty parlor?”

  Instead of answering, Merriwether pointed to the TV.

  “Five … four…”

  Despite his misgivings, Luke stared at the screen. A year was ending. A new year beginning. The ball was sliding down its pole, lights flashing madly as the crowd below roared.

  “Happy New Year!”

  The din from the TV was nerve-rattling. Tamara leaned toward Luke and, placing a hand on his shoulder, kissed him on the lips. Totally surprised, Luke found himself grasping her waist and kissing her back fervently.

  “Hey!” Merriwether yelled from his armchair. “What’m I, chopped liver?”

  With a laugh, Tamara got her feet and went over to Merriwether and pecked at his lips.

  “Happy New Year,” she said, returning to the sofa to sit beside Luke.

  And Luke realized that this was the first time in at least five years that he’d stayed up late enough to see the new year in. I’m not even sleepy, he marveled.

  Nottaway Plantation

  THERE WAS A small but well-equipped gym in the house, and Luke began to use it daily. The telomerase is working, he told himself as he worked with the barbells. It felt good to be sweating, to feel the exertion as he exercised. I’d rather play tennis, he thought, but this gym is better than nothing. Besides, it’s kind of cold outside for tennis.

  But then he thought of Angela. Her progeria symptoms were progressing too rapidly, overwhelming her. In the past two weeks she had lost all her hair, and her body was wasting away. The MRI scans showed the brain tumors were almost gone, but Luke wasn’t sure he trusted the portable equipment that Merriwether’s people brought to the house.

  We need to get Angie to a proper hospital and run her through a complete physical, Luke thought. But Merriwether won’t let us leave the frigging house. We’re like prisoners in here.

  Moving to the treadmill, Luke realized that Merriwether’s fears were probably well grounded. If the FBI’s looking for me, it’s best to stay here. Fisk will protect me, now that I’ve signed his damned privacy agreement. He can have the results of my research as long as I can treat Angie. It’s a bargain with the devil, but what the hell else can I do?

  The door to the compact gym opened and Merriwether stepped through, loose and lanky, wearing a gray sweatsuit.

  “Using the equipment,” he said to Luke. “Good. That’s what it’s for.”<
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  Puffing as he ran on the treadmill, Luke said, “We ought to send a video to Fisk, show him how youthful and vigorous I’m becoming.”

  “I’m sure he’d be pleased,” Merriwether said, grinning, as he swung a long leg over the saddle of the weight machine. Then he added, “Are you keeping up-to-date on the reports you’re supposed to be writing?”

  Luke nodded. “Yep. Both Angie’s treatments and my own. E-mail them to Fisk every day.”

  “That’s good. Quenton wants everything down on paper.”

  Changing the subject, Luke said, “I need to get Angie to a facility with a full-up MRI system and complete diagnostic equipment.”

  Grunting as he pulled at the weights, Merriwether said, “You tell me what you need and I’ll have it brought here.”

  “I need a regular MRI unit. The portable doesn’t give fine-enough resolution. I’ve got to get the kid to a real hospital.”

  Merriwether shook his head. “Too dangerous, man.”

  “We can do it at night, in and out with no paperwork. You can pull enough strings for that, can’t you?”

  Merriwether halted his workout. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  Luke understood his unspoken message: He has to check it out with Fisk. And Fisk will veto the idea.

  * * *

  “WE’RE PRISONERS HERE,” Luke muttered to Tamara.

  After his workout and a shower, he had dressed and popped into Angela’s room. He hardly recognized his granddaughter. She was sleeping, her frail little chest rising and falling fitfully. She looks like a hundred-year-old crone, Luke thought.

  Standing by the bed, Tamara asked, “Prisoners?”

  “Fisk wants to keep us here, and Lonzo does what Fisk tells him to.”

  Her sculpted face pinching into a frown, Tamara said, “You mean he’d keep us here even if we want to go?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  Glancing around the room, realizing that a hundred listening bugs could be hiding among the elaborate furnishings and decorations, Luke said, “Nothing much we can do. Just enjoy Lonzo’s hospitality, I guess. As long as it lasts.”

  Tamara gave him a puzzled look. Taking her by the arm, Luke said, “Let’s go outside and watch the river.”

  Clearly uncertain, Tamara allowed Luke to lead her to the French window that opened onto a little veranda.

  Once outside, Luke closed the glass door and said in an undertone, “I don’t think they have any bugs planted out here.”

  “Bugs?”

  Motioning for her to keep her voice down, Luke said, “They might have our rooms bugged. That’s what guards do to prisoners.”

  “Isn’t that a little paranoid, Luke?”

  “Even paranoids have enemies,” he muttered. “They could have planted the bugs when they were cleaning our rooms.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Tamara half-whispered.

  “Something. I don’t know what. Not yet.” He leaned over the railing and looked down at the grass below. “I think I could make it down to there. Climb over the railing, hang full length, and then drop to the ground. I could do that.”

  “And break every bone in your legs.”

  “No, I’d be okay. I could do it.”

  “And what about me? What about Angie?”

  As if he hadn’t heard her, Luke conjectured, “Then you could wrap Angie in a bedsheet and lower her to me. And then you climb down the sheet afterward.”

  “Luke, this isn’t some fraternity house escapade.”

  “Then we could get to the garage and get our van and get the hell out of here.”

  “And go where?” Tamara asked, halfway between disapproving and intrigued.

  “Oregon. Shannon Bartram’s place. She’d take us in.”

  Tamara shook her head. “With the FBI hunting for us? And Fisk will probably come after you, too.”

  “They don’t know about Shannon. It’s been years since I talked to her.”

  “Luke, you can’t do it. You can’t put Angela through an ordeal like that. She’d never make it.”

  He glared at her. “You have any better ideas?”

  Returning his stare, Tamara said, “Let me think about it.”

  Escape Plan

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Merriwether tiptoed into Angela’s room as Tamara injected another dose of telomerase inhibitor into the port on the child’s arm. Angela was sleeping soundly, but she looked very frail, emaciated, totally bald, wrinkled—old.

  As Tamara straightened up, Merriwether whispered, “How is she?”

  With a shake of her head, Tamara replied, “Not good.”

  Merriwether gazed down at Angela. “Poor little kid.”

  “We need to get a complete diagnostic workup on her. We’re working half in the dark here.”

  “I know.” Merriwether nodded. “Luke told me yesterday. I’m working on it. We can take her out to Mercy Hospital tonight. But we’ll have to bring her back here before the morning shift comes in.”

  “That’s great!” Tamara said. “That’s wonderful. Thank you, Lonzo.”

  As they walked away from the bed, Merriwether said, “You know, you could use a little break from all this. You’ve been under quite a strain, haven’t you?”

  Tamara admitted, “It hasn’t been easy, that’s true enough.”

  “Maybe you and I could have a quiet dinner together one of these evenings. Do you good to get away from all this, at least for a little bit.”

  Warning signals flashed across Tamara’s mind. He’s coming on to you! Be careful: You don’t want to turn him off, but you don’t want to turn him on, either.

  “That’d be very nice,” she said.

  Merriwether flashed a bright smile at her. “Tomorrow night, then.”

  Tamara nodded mutely, thinking, We’ve got to get away before tomorrow night.

  * * *

  MERRIWETHER LEFT, AND Tamara checked the monitoring equipment. Satisfied that if anything changed in Angela’s condition, the beeper she carried in her skirt pocket would alert her, she went to the door that connected to Luke’s room and rapped on it.

  “It’s unlocked,” came Luke’s muffled voice.

  He was on the sofa, she saw, bent over the laptop that Merriwether had loaned him, writing another daily report to Fisk. Can the FBI tap e-mails? she wondered. Luke’s not using his own computer, but might they be watching Fisk?

  Looking up from his screen, Luke asked, “How’s Angie?”

  “Sinking. It’s slow, but she’s getting worse.”

  “We need to get a high-resolution scan of her brain. See if the tumors are really gone. If they are, we can stop pumping the inhibitors into her.”

  Sitting on the sofa beside him, Tamara revealed, “Lonzo said we can go to Mercy Hospital tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Luke brightened.

  “He’s greased the wheels,” Tamara said. “They’ll be ready for us tonight.”

  “Good. Wonderful. If we can stop the inhibitors her progeria symptoms will begin to clear up.”

  “You hope.”

  “If they don’t we can give her telomerase inducers, bring her back to normal.”

  “And activate the tumors again.”

  He shook his head. “No, once they’re dead, they’re dead.” Before Tamara could object, he added, “I’ve been thinking, once we’re in Oregon, we could even do some genetic engineering, give Angie a full complement of the p53 gene, protect her against tumor formation.”

  “If you can get us out to Oregon.”

  Luke’s enthusiasm collapsed like a pricked balloon. “Yeah. Big if.”

  Tamara pointed to the French window that led out onto the veranda. “Let’s get some fresh air.”

  Luke understood. “Let me shut down the computer first.”

  She watched him save the report he’d been writing, then close the laptop. As they got to their feet, Tamara motioned for Luke to bring the laptop with him
.

  Once they were out on the veranda, where a cool breeze was wafting in from the river, she said, “I’ve been thinking about how we can get away from here.”

  “Me, too. We’ve got to make the break tonight, from the hospital.”

  Nodding, Tamara said, “And rent a private jet to fly us out to Oregon.”

  “Rent a … How the hell can we do that?”

  “How much money do you have in that wad of yours?”

  “About fifty thousand, a little more.”

  “In cash?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look up aircraft rentals. On Google.”

  “Okay,” Luke said uncertainly. “How do you do that?”

  With a disapproving “Tsk,” she sat on one of the wicker chairs and reached for the laptop in his hand. “May I?”

  Within minutes Tamara connected with Bayou Air Services and rented a private jet for a flight to Portland, Oregon, using a credit card to hold the reservation.

  “You have that kind of money in your account?” Luke asked.

  “The bank is happy to loan me the money,” she replied, with a bitter smile. “At twenty-some percent interest.”

  “Oh,” said Luke.

  “I figure you can pay the actual bill out of your cash supply when we get to the airport. That way there won’t be any record of my credit card actually being used.”

  “Smart. But what about clothes and stuff?”

  “I’ll pack a suitcase. You do the same. Then you can put them in the van when we drive to the airport.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Now all we have to figure out is how to get from the hospital to the airport without Merriwether’s people stopping us.”

  Mercy Hospital

  “THEY’RE GONE!” TAMARA said, her face bright with excitement. “Not a trace of a tumor.”

  “You’re sure?” Luke asked.

  “See for yourself.”

  It was nearly four A.M. They were sitting together in a small office off the MRI lab at Mercy Hospital, in a suburb of Baton Rouge. Merriwether had insisted on personally driving Luke, Tamara, and Angela in his own sleek snow white Lamborghini convertible. He kept the car’s metal roof up while Angela slept in the rear seat, with Tamara beside her, and Luke rode in front with Merriwether, who promised them that the hospital staff had been well paid to allow them to use the equipment without filing any paperwork.