Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  Manny asked, “What are you going to do, kid?”

  “Hold you till the cops arrive and then swear out a complaint.” Grabbing Manny’s arm, Stu twisted until the worker released his victim. Sheila’s ex tried to intervene. Stu blocked several solid punches with Manny’s body.

  Stu asked the guards, “Is it self-defense yet?”

  They both nodded.

  Stu shoved Manny face-first into the flashing light display on the wall. Kaguya leaned sideways to see around him. The man with the hammer cocked back for a real swing. Stu caught the arm, swung him around, and threw him into his friend. The hammer caused a star-shaped fracture on the plastic video-screen cover.

  Manny lowered his bloodied head to charge Stu. The astronaut side-stepped and snagged the man’s right hand. Laura blinked, and Stu was already sitting on the mother-fucker. “Anybody else moves, and I’ll be forced to break this wrist.” He was holding the hand that had groped her mother twice.

  Somebody please move.

  The armed man dropped his hammer and fled. In the lot, Sif tripped the runner, who then broke a side-view mirror with his forehead.

  “I love this job,” Artemis whispered. Releasing Laura, she said, “I’m going to go find Evangeline.”

  The fractured screen by the club door had gone black and silent.

  “The song wasn’t finished,” complained Kaguya.

  Stu smiled. “My friend Mo can play it for you on his sleeve screen while we wait. What’s your home link number?”

  Laura ran to her mother’s side. As she approached, Stu’s head moved to track her. She tried her best to play the grateful daughter as Hans emerged to introduce himself and the crew. She made a show of scolding her mother for wandering off. Camera crews filmed the arrival of police and ambulance crews from the nearby hospital.

  Stu never took his eyes off her. Unlike the ogling she got from most men, this attention made her feel warm and gooey inside like a warm chocolate-chip cookie. She didn’t trust herself to speak to him. Instead, she escorted her mother back to the safety of the video van.

  Through her earbud, Laura listened to Hans rope Stu. He explained that Stu had wandered into an episode of Ballbusters and asked him to sign a release.

  Stu agreed, gushing about how much he enjoyed the show. He behaved almost as starstruck as Artemis had.

  “Ambassador, your own message in support of women has reached almost as many people in a much shorter time.” Hans pretended that an idea had just occurred to him. “Would you care to sit in while we film the rest of this episode?”

  Stu shook his head. “I couldn’t bear to watch that happen to another woman, even knowing it was an act.”

  He’s going to leave if I don’t do something. Over the radio, Laura whispered in Hans’ ear, “Tell him we’re visiting the Great Pyramid in our next episode. He wants to see that.”

  Hans gestured expansively. “It’s a shame. Your fame could help shed light on so many injustices. After this, we’re touring to Cairo. If you happened to be in the neighborhood, I would consider it a personal favor …”

  When Stu agreed to join the crew on their next assignment, Laura jumped up and down and hugged her mother.

  Kaguya confided, “I like him. Kindness and patience are underrated qualities. From the way he keeps stealing glances over here, you’re definitely his type.”

  Holding an ice pack against her blossoming black eye, Freya stifled a snicker. “He’s a masochist?”

  Laura ignored the huntress and asked her mother, “Anything else you’d care to critique about the man I’ve chosen?”

  “He’s definitely Conrad’s student,” Kaguya said. “I’d recognize that style of hold anywhere. In space, you can’t afford to kill or maim anyone unnecessarily. Like any teacher, he tells the person what is expected before he applies force.”

  “Any changes to my strategy based on your observations?”

  Her mother nodded. “Get the advocate to befriend him. It might keep other women at bay long enough for you to make your move.”

  All three women focused on the stalker feed. Stu was surrounded by scantily-clad girls from the club, the press, and even the police. All were buzzing around him like bees around a flower.

  Chapter 19 – Corrupting the Devil’s Advocate

  For two more days, Laura stayed with the Ballbusters team to shoot footage of the drunk-woman sting. Stu flew ahead to New York to resolve the rights to Sojiro’s final adventure-comic series.

  The phone call woke Laura at three in the morning. Recognizing the number, she answered it with a drowsy, “Mori-san. How may I serve the family?”

  Her grandfather fumed. “Are you aware your target has left the US?”

  “Yes. I encouraged him to visit the British Museum without me.” Laura’s mother poked her head into the room Out-of-Body to check on her. Laura gave her the OK signal. Nobody died. She put the call on wall speaker in case her mom wanted to listen in. “I take it you’ve already adjusted to Tokyo time again.”

  “Llewellyn is lobbying for the UK votes, and it looks like he’ll succeed. He’s meeting with the relatives of Ascension’s crew in London. You had a week alone with him, and you didn’t finish a simple assignment?”

  Laura pushed down her irritation and sat up on the bedside. “You’re welcome.”

  “What?”

  “The US had an interdiction against taking his samples. Anything I procured would have been seized, along with any intellectual property.” The silence was Tetsuo Mori’s only acknowledgment of his mistake. Unless he wanted me arrested. “I had to arrange to meet him someplace romantic without bioengineering laws—Egypt.”

  “How confident are you?” Grandfather asked. “I have to secure that DNA before the UN vote.”

  “I bribed the cast of Stu’s favorite TV show, Ballbusters, to help me. They’re all cooperating.”

  “You should have authorized it with me first.”

  Kaguya entered the room physically and spoke up. “Father, we saw an opportunity to bind him as an asset long term. We’ve arranged a whole white-knight fantasy for him. He’s rescued the damsel, and all that remains is for him to claim the reward.”

  “If you’re that certain, I’ll give you another week.” Mori terminated the call.

  Unable to sleep, Laura asked her mother, “Want to watch Stu’s press conference?”

  Without comment, Kaguya sat beside her and found the London feed. Stu gave hints as to who had survived and how crew members had distinguished themselves. Commander Zeiss and his wife had both survived. When a Swiss reporter mentioned that the commander’s Nobel Prize-winning father couldn’t make the event because he had recently died of a massive stroke, Stu reacted. Under questioning, the ambassador admitted that Conrad Zeiss had experienced a similar episode due to overuse of Quantum Computing talents. “But an extended session in one of our decontamination pods repaired most of the damage.”

  For the first time, Laura felt a pang of grief about the possibility of losing her father. He had been a dead legend for so long, but now he was both real and fragile.

  Her mother immediately compiled a list of world experts on Active stroke prevention and recovery.

  ****

  The next morning, Laura sleepwalked into the editing studio. The team did everything together. Hans spliced in the background pieces and arranged the segments, trimming for optimum length. Sif did voice-overs while Grant added hypertext references. Nemesis inserted music and credits. Themis made certain everyone with a recognizable face had signed releases. Laura fetched donuts and coffee for the stars, drinking large quantities of the vile brew herself. She hung around in the booth until everyone but Grant left for lunch. “Sif is speaking your words.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a journalist. I do research.”

  She noticed that he recorded their conversation, as he did with all crew interactions, so that no one could accuse him of impropriety. “I get it,” Laura said. “The show is about image. With three h
untresses, Sif is the smart one, Artemis is the bad-ass, and Freya is the pretty one.”

  “They’re all beautiful,” Grant said.

  “So there’s another reason you want something of yours in her mouth,” Laura said with a lilt in her voice.

  “I—”

  “Love her passion and spontaneity,” Laura said.

  He closed his eyes. “How did you find out?”

  “I’m an empath, and I watch people. You should tell her how you feel.”

  Shaking his head, Grant said, “I’m evil incarnate.”

  “You put your last wife through law school. She makes four times what you do, and you still pay support. That doesn’t seem like ‘evil incarnate’ to me.”

  “In all this time, you’re the first person to investigate my side.” Grant sounded perplexed.

  “I could get that legal problem fixed … drop a few hints in the right ears so the crew knows you were the victim … maybe even get some of the story on the air.”

  “What do you want, Mori? I won’t betray any of these people.”

  Laura leaned back in her chair. “Now who’s listening to the rumors? Stu needs a father figure since his dad passed, someone he can trust. Take him under your wing.”

  “That’s it?” asked Grant with skepticism.

  “I care about him. I thought you could sympathize with that.”

  “You won’t tell anyone about Sif?”

  “As long as Stu doesn’t find out who I really am.”

  The journalist raised an eyebrow. “And who are you, really? You cry a pretty good game, but you destroy people in court.”

  She cocked her head. “Is this an interview?”

  “Sure. After the reveal, people will want to know more about you. This is my due diligence.”

  Pacing the room, Laura said, “Biotech is composed of three phases: tedious research, disappointing experiments, and eventually fighting to keep the rights to what we discovered.” Some of the side effects were pretty horrific. Mother Nature doesn’t like tampering.

  “Intellectual property,” Grant said, taking notes for pop-up links.

  “Exactly. I have four ideas a day, including my days off. That’s over seventy-five hundred since I started. Only a hundred were worth developing. Of those, only a handful made a profit. If something took us years to develop and dozens of wrong turns, we should reap the exclusive benefits for a while. Since I generate so many new gene splices, I testify as an expert.”

  The journalist shook his head. “You’re patenting genes that already belong to other people.”

  “No. I find ways to reproduce what we find in nature in a safe way. Trust me, you don’t want somebody randomly flipping bits in the gene sequence. My team implements patterns that have proven survivable and beneficial.”

  “Like eye, hair, or skin color.”

  “A perfect example,” she said. “We created a method to tune a child to almost any desired level of melanin. However, we had enormous legal and societal issues to overcome. Medically, we are allowed to make a child 20 percent darker to avoid skin cancer, but ethnic groups demanded we limit lightening to 5 percent. Countries want racial markers left intact. For instance, eye folds may not be changed.”

  “Governments had to step in. You were selling cookie-cutter children.”

  “No. I limit packages to clusters of two to four theme changes each, like musical aptitude, long fingers, circular breathing, or extended vocal range.”

  “You’re playing God.”

  “We’re fixing his mistakes,” she replied, shaking a finger. “Immunities are our biggest seller: AIDS, breast cancer, hair loss, heart disease, diabetes. Edits are a close second: Down Syndrome, several dystrophies, hemophilia, Crohn’s, Fragile X syndrome, with more every day. Almost any recessive problem in the Japanese or Jewish population can be fixed now. We’re still working on Parkinson’s because it manifests so late in life. Imagine a world where no one is born with a deformity.”

  Grant seized the term. “Deformity. Like blindness, deafness, or homosexuality?”

  She sighed. “You’re putting words in my mouth. Nothing can be selected for or against that is covered under federal anti-discrimination laws. That includes obesity.”

  “So everyone should look the same?”

  “No.” She paused for a moment, searching for an example. “My first patent was a gene set I inherited from my father—the deep version of the Collective Unconscious talent. He could communicate to whales, Grant. God, I wish I could have met him. I wanted other people to have that gift, so I made CU safe and side effect-free.”

  “I read about that ability. They call those people Doolittles. They were bred to be zoo keepers, animal trainers, and oceanographers.”

  Laura nodded. “But we don’t force them into those jobs. Many become social activists, spiritual teachers, or CIA analysts. I’m not about limiting the human race. I develop tools to overcome the limitations it’s facing. My proudest accomplishment is that women over thirty-eight can now have children without fear.”

  Grant said, “You sound like a true believer in the power of the human genome yourself.”

  “Ironically, the symbol for the Human Genome Project was the Vitruvian Man. The man in that drawing had a hernia. Today, we can fix that flaw during the design phase before the child is formed, which is the least expensive way to fix any engineering problem. No one should have to suffer a lifetime of pain and expensive treatment.”

  “Providing they can afford the upfront cost to Mori Genetics,” Grant remarked.

  “This interview is over,” she said, activating her media scrambler to prevent further recording. “I’d edit your last comment out as biased before your sponsor hears it. I appreciate reasoned debate, but my grandfather doesn’t support free speech among his employees.”

  Chapter 20 – Heart and Minds in Cairo

  Before the overseas flight, Laura bought a new explorer outfit with long sleeves and plenty of sunscreen. Late Tuesday afternoon, Laura left her mother at their Cairo luxury hotel with Nurse Evangeline as a babysitter. At the airport, Hans worked crosswords with a pen while Laura paced nervously. When Stu and his entourage finally arrived, all she could manage was a breathy, “Hi,” before his shy smile robbed her of speech. I’m just maintaining cover.

  The bodyguards had to stay behind to shepherd their weapons through customs. Hans assured them that the crew would provide sufficient protection for one evening of tourism in a remote area.

  As the team gofer, Laura pushed a luggage cart while Hans told the ambassador what to expect. “First, we like to film the local color and get a feel for the site.”

  To help her, Stu grabbed one of the suitcases that kept falling off the cart. “Will I see any pyramids?”

  Hans laughed. “A hundred or so, situated just south of the Nile Delta.” He called the rest of the talent to join the shoot. “But Cairo is a time machine. It saves a bit from every era that it experiences, from these glass skyscrapers to the bricks of the pharaohs.”

  On the trip from the airport, everyone on the crew rode on a rented, air-conditioned bus. A jeep with spare parts and fuel followed. Hans continued highlighting the architecture while the camera operators filmed. “This section could still be 1930s Paris: the art deco, the arches, the stone fronts on the buildings. We’ll be passing a glorious mosque is a few minutes, and you could swear that we had returned to the days of the sultans. The market stalls use the same balance scales.”

  Stu was precious. He wanted to be on both sides of the bus at once, looking out the windows. “Why is it only green in that area over there?”

  The director turned a camera toward Grant to provide background. “The Sahara Desert starts at Cairo’s southern gate. Unless you’re right beside the Nile, this part of Africa is a sandbox from one side to the other. And the desert has been expanding.”

  Artemis, the Israeli member of the team, said, “That reminds me—If I point out a storm on the horizon, get back to the
bus. If you can’t make it to the bus, pull up your face mask and find cover immediately. Afterwards, we’ll find you by tracking the transponder in your headset. No matter how hot you get, do not remove your comm gear.”

  “The best defense is to stay with your buddy who speaks Arabic and has a GPS,” Grant said, clapping Stu on the back, “especially with your British accent. Not everyone around here has forgotten being one of your colonies.”

  Stu pointed out the window. “Can I see the green part?”

  Hans exchanged looks with the local government liaison, who squirmed in his chair. Reluctantly, he guided the driver down an obscure agricultural road. Just as they had almost reached the river, all traffic halted. Laura could see the traffic jam stretching several blocks.

  The driver argued with people outside to negotiate passage, but nothing moved. The government handler explained, “The next shipment of algae cakes came early. There will be no distribution until tomorrow at six, but customers line up now. As you can see, the road is blocked. We must turn around.”

  Stu looked around them at the bumper-to-bumper gridlock on the narrow streets. “That will take a while. Why don’t we pop out for a peek while we wait?”

  “I would advise against—”

  However, Stu was already out the door. Grant and Artemis ran after him, followed by two cameramen and Laura acting as lighting girl. The potholed street was like standing on a griddle. By the end of the first block, she was perspiring more than she did after an hour of combat practice. Of course, during practice she wasn’t running in insane heat with twenty kilos of equipment on her back.

  The female camera operator echoed her wheezing objections after the second block. “Bloody talent.”

  Stu had stamina; she had to say that much for him.

  Soon, the group arrived at the source of the congestion. A group of soldiers guarded a barge being unloaded at the docks. Oddly, the ship floated in the middle of the river while tugs transported crates to the warehouses. Since the actors stood in shade to be cooler, the camera operator had Laura unpack a large, reflective piece of fabric to improve the quality of the light. Of course, this meant she had to stand in the blistering sun to adjust the frame that held the thin sheet at the proper angle.