No Time to Die (26 page)

T
he compound was sleeping when Galileo returned after three weeks away. In the predawn hours, Natalie heard a strange crunching noise coming from the quad and bolted up in bed, pressing her nose to the window. But rather than intruders, she saw the silhouette of his tall, rugged figure against the indigo sky. He was pulling a black suitcase over the gravel.

She let out a gasp of joy, threw off her comforter, and stumbled in the dark to pull on her terry cloth robe. As soon as everyone else awoke, a mad dash would ensue to be first in line to speak with him. All the researchers had ongoing agendas competing for his attention. She knew that hers was the most crucial, with the Archon Prize deadline looming closer every day, yet he still didn't know about their new approach with the virus, nor their fascinating results from the recent mice experiments.

She rushed out of her apartment and padded down the hallway toward his, reassuring herself that her visit wouldn't bother him. Of course he'd want to be updated right away on something so important, even if it was the middle of the night. The unusual chance to catch him alone didn't hurt either.

She arrived at his door just as he was approaching from the other direction. His fatigue was apparent in his dragging steps, yet his posture remained erect, his head of black hair held high. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her. She waved shyly, aware of how eager he might be for sleep. Why hadn't she waited until morning?

An amused smile came to his lips, and affection expanded inside her like a balloon. She had to will herself not to ambush him with a hug. Instead she leaned against his door, tucking her hands into her robe pockets.

“Welcome back.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, just wanted to catch up. I heard your suitcase outside, so—no, no, it's fine, I wasn't really sleeping, and neither are you, obviously . . .”

She closed her eyes, trailing off. How was it possible that at her ripe age of thirty-seven, after all she'd accomplished, the right man still had the power to reduce her to shaky knees?

But if he noticed, he didn't let on. “Have I missed much?”

“Actually, yes.” She smiled, her heart accelerating.

“Nina and I stumbled onto something with Zoe. A whole new approach. It's—big.”

His tired eyelids perked open. “How big?”

“Major. Groundbreaking.”

“Really?”

“Would I joke about this?”

“And you ‘just wanted to catch up'?” He grinned. “Why didn't you say so?”

She shrugged. “Let's go in and I'll explain.”

When he led her inside, instead of taking a seat at the dining table in the kitchen, she opted for a leather recliner that was positioned at the foot of his bed. It was the only chair in the sparsely furnished room. He had no option but to perch on the bed across from her.

“Go ahead,” he joked, “make yourself at home.”

She smiled and stretched out her long smooth legs, grateful for having shaved that night. She eyed his wrinkled pin-striped suit and dress socks. It was as though he'd stepped into the desert straight out of a boardroom.

“Don't you want to change?”

He cast a quick glance over the apartment, which was compact even by her Manhattan standards, with its insult of a kitchen—half a fridge, a stove, and two cabinets—and its closet-sized bathroom. Privacy here was strictly meant for one.

“I won't look,” she added, with deliberate coyness.

His gaze shifted from her naked legs over her robe-clad curves to her graceful neck. When their eyes met, she could detect some kind of fierce struggle within him, a poorly masked hunger under his sheath of professionalism. She stayed still, staring back at him, as though face-to-face with a rare and beautiful animal. One wrong move might spook him.

He tore his eyes away and checked his watch.

“It's late. Why don't you just tell me your news.”

“Fine.” She tucked her legs underneath herself and sat up straight, matching his crisp demeanor. Then she launched into an efficient summary of the recent strides in her lab—discovering Zoe's virus, isolating it in her DNA, using it to infect young mice in an inhalation chamber, and observing their uncanny reactions—stunted growth and seizures.

“It's
just like
in Zoe,” she concluded, feeling that familiar chill of awe she had been experiencing for days. “We think the viral RNA causes these maladaptive side effects by inserting its fragments into regions of the genome that control the nervous system as well as aging. So the next step is to tease out which genes are which. And then we should have our answer—can you believe it?” She let out an amazed chuckle. “We're probably just weeks away from unraveling one of the most fundamental mysteries of
life
.”

He listened with an expression that was both proud and strangely sad. “I knew you had it in you. I knew it from the moment I met you.”

A pang of unease jolted her. “Isn't this what you hoped for?”

“Of course. It's—fantastic.” He looked at the floor, his voice quiet. “Better than that. I would say it's a miracle, but that wouldn't be giving you and your team enough credit.”

She wanted to jump into his arms and shake him. “So what's wrong?”

He sighed. “I wish we could be as strong as we think we are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Things are pretty dicey out there.” He clenched his jaw. “I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. Ever since that press conference, and those two murders that the idiot feds blamed on me, there's been a lot of backlash. I've been out trying to fight it, but popular opinion is just unshakable. It's become ‘common knowledge' that the Network is some kind of crazy cult, and our investors are dropping like flies. Plus we've lost about thirty safe houses on our most important routes. So far.”

Her mouth dropped open. “It's that bad?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“And all this time, I've been thinking of nothing but work . . . But no one knows where we are, right?”

“Only the thirty-eight people who live here. No one else.”

“What about the Indian tribe? The Laguna Pueblos?”

“They have no idea we have anything to do with the Network. For all they know, we're just some isolated religious sect who rejects the modern world, not exactly unheard of in the Southwest. But what do they care, as long as they're getting paid.”

“And what about you? Those former allies can't turn you in, right?”

He shook his head. “Why do you think I'm so firm about my pseudonym?”

“Does
anyone
know who you really are?”

“This is who I really am.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. And no one ever will.”

The harsh undertone in his voice took her aback.

“It's a matter of security,” he said. “It has to be this way.”

“I didn't argue, did I?”

“I'm sorry. I'm just—you don't even know the half of it.”

She threw her legs over the side of the chair so that she was facing him full on, a ready and willing listener. Briefly she was reminded of Helen, and the many times they'd poured out their lives to each other without reservation. She realized he must not permit himself any close friends—if any friends at all.

“Am I allowed to ask?”

“They're coming for us. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon. That guy at the top, Les Mahler, I've gotten my own intel on him and it's not good. He's different from the past chiefs, smarter and meaner, with something to prove. I have no doubt he'll do whatever it takes to track us down.”

She stared at him. “But how?”

“I don't know. But it's just a matter of time until he finds a way.”

“Isn't there anything you can do?”

“Why do you think I've been away so long?”

“So why come back now?”

“To get our evacuation plans ready.”

The anger that came out in her voice surprised her. “We should be giddy right now, not worrying about some government asshole!”

A bitter look darkened his face. “I couldn't agree more.”

“So let's not. It won't change anything tomorrow.” She leaped out of her recliner and crawled up alongside him on the bed, placing one hand on his stomach. “Just for tonight,” she whispered, inhaling his scent of musk and sweat, “to hell with all of that.”

His stomach stiffened but he didn't push her away, so she scooted higher and kissed him hard on the lips. His mouth was warm, softer than she imagined, edged with rough stubble. He kissed her slowly at first and then greedily, succumbing as a tortured man to confession.

She started to slip out of her robe, but he drew back. “Don't.”

“Why not?”

He eyed her bare shoulder with that conflicted expression of desire and hopelessness. “I don't know—”

“We're both adults. It's fine.”

“No, it's not.” He ran a hand through his hair and swung his feet to the floor, turning his back to her.

“Oh, so now you're all righteous?” She tightened her robe and angrily retied the sash, feeling like a fool. “Not that I should be surprised—I don't even
know
you.”

“No, you don't.”

The remark stung. She should have known better than to think she could break through the steel fortress that housed his soul. As she slid past him, about to make a beeline for the door, his hand lurched out and grabbed hers.

“You remind me too much of her.”

She whirled around, yanking her hand back. “Who?”

“My ex-wife.”

She raised her eyebrows, unsure if she was more shocked by this revelation or his divulgence of it. “Ex?”

He studied her, as though assessing whether she could handle his next admission. She realized his hesitation had nothing to do with her. His face was ashen and he seemed to have trouble forming the words, his mouth silently opening and closing.

“You don't have to tell me,” she said, ashamed to have asked.

He pulled her closer, looking her in the eye. “Our daughter died.”

Words deserted her. She thought of Theo, and what would become of her if anything happened to him. She didn't know how a parent could go on.

“I'm so sorry,” she said.

His voice trembled. “She died of old age.”

“What?”

“Progeria. She turned into a little old woman before our eyes, bald with arthritis and wrinkly skin and frail bones that cracked if she kicked a ball. At eleven, she was dead.”

Natalie glanced at the framed picture on his nightstand. There was the smiling little girl with her white hair and pinched mouth, and the same mischievous eyes as her father.

“My God. How horrible!” She recalled the cases she'd read in the medical literature about such rare, genetically unfortunate children. Of course, there was no cure for aging as yet, no way to slow its progression. “She must have been the opposite of Zoe.”

“In genetics, but not personality. Hallie was spunky and playful and bright, so bright. I think they would have liked each other very much.”

Natalie sat down beside him and draped her arm around his shoulders. They sat in silence for a minute until she gestured toward the window, at the sleeping compound beyond. “All this. The research, the hospital center, me and Zoe and the Archon Prize. It's all for her.”

“Yes.”

But it's too late,
she wanted to say. Dead is dead is dead. No scientist in the world could change that.

“Is it all still—worth it?” she asked instead. “If she's not here to benefit?”

“It's her legacy. Remember I told you the Network started out with the vision of defeating aging? I wanted to figure out a way to eliminate it on a grand scale, so this same tragedy stops repeating itself every minute of every day.”

“We're going to. We just need more time.”

“I believe you. And you need to believe me. You have so much to offer—don't waste it on me.”

“Is that why you told me? So I would give up on you?”

He lifted one shoulder, as if to convey the futility of her affection. “You deserve to know it's not your fault.”

“Well.” She forced herself to stand up and gave him one last squeeze. “I'm always around if you need a friend.”

“Thank you.” He took her hand in both of his and kissed it. When he looked up at her, she knew she was seeing through every mask of disguises in his arsenal to the real, raw man himself—whatever his name.

“In another life,” he whispered, “you would have been it.”

She smiled sadly. “Too bad this one's all we've got.”

She turned around before he could see the tears in her eyes.

N
ervous chatter about the nation's manhunt for Galileo and his so-called victims swelled around the compound like the wave at a stadium, and Zoe didn't like it one bit. The sense of safety she'd acquired over the last couple of months, of seclusion amid the mountains, was beginning to feel like a cruel desert mirage. The hardest part was that no one seemed to have any real facts, not even Galileo himself—or at least, none that he was willing to discuss. All they knew was that he had returned to inspect the compound's secret evacuation tunnel, test the intercom system wired in every room, and host somber test drills.

During one such drill, everyone was called to the quad. “We'll know the moment anyone violates our boundaries,” he revealed. “An invisible laser surrounds our perimeter that, if breached, trips on the security alerts in the Brain.” He went on to explain that a weapons vault was hidden in the floor there, and underneath that was the entrance to the secret tunnel. It cut a path deep underneath the mountains in a mile-long stretch of blackness, and eventually opened up through a manhole at the Turquoise Trail Campground and RV Park. A fleet of fully loaded RVs was waiting at all times to shuttle escapees to nearby safe houses.

Zoe remembered Natalie once asking him whether he suffered from paranoia.
A hazard of the job,
he had replied. She wondered now, as she made her way alone from her apartment to the Brain, whether these precautions were necessary, or if they were just his way of reassuring himself that he was still running the show.

She wished she could analyze the situation with Theo, but a strange distance had developed between them since the night of their kiss. They saw each other at most mealtimes in the cafeteria, but he refused to meet her eye, turning instead to chat up one of his mom's colleagues or tease the dorky tech guys with whom he'd become friends. Even though Zoe knew she was well liked and had plenty of other people to talk to, there was something to be said for having a peer, someone roughly her own age.

Theo was the closest approximation, and without him, she felt painfully alone. To be fair, their estrangement wasn't only his doing. She avoided him, too, taking circuitous paths from the labs to the hospital to the gym so as not to pass through the quad, where he often hung out. They were stranded in the chasm between friendship and crush, with no way to reconcile the two. How could they ever go back to being friends, when their feelings for each other were out? But how could they ever grow as a couple, when she literally couldn't? When she tossed and turned late at night, one thought crept through her mind with the terrifying ring of truth—what if she was not worth loving?

Galileo's return and the community's sense of impending disaster—whether real or hyped—provided a distraction. On the third day of his visit, while everyone else was convening for dinner, Zoe decided to do a little research of her own to see if all the doomsday prep was justified.

Weeks had passed since she'd interacted with the outside. It almost seemed like a distant planet—but not quite. Her acute longing for Gramps brought into sharp relief every last memory of home—the colorful garden they loved in Riverside Park, the sweet smell of her mother's hazelnut coffee, the silver skyscrapers that reflected the afternoon sunlight. Home was waiting for her—her family was waiting for her—half a continent away. How bad could the world be?

There was only one way to find out.

When she reached the Brain, the control tower perched upon the highest peak of the compound, she climbed the winding stairs and pushed open the heavy steel door. Inside, the circular room looked like a lighthouse transformed into a cockpit. A panorama of windows allowed for 360-degree views of the quad, the ring of adobe buildings around it, and the mountains beyond. Computer touch screens and live streaming video were built seamlessly into the walls next to a multitude of levers and red buttons and knobs that reached higher than Zoe could on tiptoes. She didn't doubt that some logic existed behind the impressive panel, but it was beyond her comprehension. All she wanted was to get online, and this was the only place to do it.

She was greeted by Ted, one of the techies who traded shifts monitoring the compound's electronic activities. He was a quiet, thirty-something guy with friendly dimples and thick black glasses. Theo had once told her that he'd gotten his PhD in computer science from Stanford and was practically a genius, but she'd never be able to tell by looking at him.

“What's up?” he asked.

“I want to go online.”

“You sure?”

She'd stayed away from the Internet these past two months for fear that it might burden her with a dangerous homesickness and guilt over leaving, but her curiosity had become too powerful to ignore.

“Yep. I'm allowed to, right?”

“Yeah. Just check with me before you send anything so I can anonymize it first.”

“I just want to check the news.”

“Go for it.”

She pulled up a stool to one of the touch screens and tapped out “the Network” into a Google news search. The Internet was lightning fast. In a split second, a long list of blue links appeared, with headlines like
Network's “Galileo” an Avowed Cult Leader
and
FBI Planning Covert Operation to Hinder Network: Source
and
Profile of a Psychopath Through His Victims
.

The last link led to a list with pictures of his thirty-one alleged victims—the two men whose suspicious deaths Galileo had assured everyone that he had nothing to do with, plus the twenty-nine missing people—the researchers and doctors and patients whom Zoe had come to know and admire.

In the last spot was her own smiling face.

It was her high school senior picture. Next to it, in boldface italics, was another link:
Have You Seen This Girl?

When she tapped, the page redirected to a number for a national hotline.

She closed the window, then went back to Google and typed in her own name. The first link took her breath away:

She touched the link and was led to the blog of an apparently popular preacher, whose Twitter handle@TJschurch counted over two hundred thousand followers.

Zoe stared at the words. She had never given much thought to religion, either positive or negative, but the idea that she was some kind of stealth pawn of God to be avoided at all costs—it was ludicrous, wasn't it? She was just a girl with a freaky condition trying to get by with her dignity intact.

She wasn't a
plague
.

But what if she was?

What if figuring out how to help people live longer really was going to doom the world? Why hadn't she thought bigger than herself and Gramps?

She had to find Natalie. She sprinted out of the Brain, forgetting to say good-bye to Ted, and ran as fast as she could to the cafeteria, winding down three flights of stairs and through the darkening quad, gasping past the fire in her lungs.

Only a few scattered people were still eating. Natalie's brunette bob was nowhere in sight, so she pushed back through the door and dashed to the research center, the likeliest other place Natalie would be—retracing her steps across the quad, down more flights of stairs into the bowels of the compound, then through the ant-farm maze of hallways to Natalie's lab in a faraway interior corner.

Sure enough, she was there, along with Nina Hernandez and a few other researchers from the aging team, all wearing white coats, plastic hair caps, and blue gloves. They were crowded around a counter studying a bunch of slides. When Zoe burst in, they all stopped working and looked up at her.

“Zoe!” Natalie exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Right now?”

“If you can.”

Natalie murmured something to the others and walked toward her, pulling off her gloves. Her eyes carried the dazzled gleam of a miner who's struck gold.

“Get this,” she said, putting a hand on Zoe's shoulder and steering her into the hallway, “your virus infected the mice in five different regions of their genomes.
Five!
We've gone from about twenty-five thousand possible locations to five!”

“That's great,” Zoe replied weakly.

“So that means starting tonight, we're going to start preparing knockouts to deliver to five different mice at the gamete stage, each one targeted to silence a different gene—”

“Natalie,” she interrupted. “Do you really think that I know what that means?”

“Oh, sorry.” But she didn't look sorry, just impatient. “A knockout is an artificial piece of DNA that we insert to stifle expression of a certain gene. So we're going to silence these five different genes, one in each mouse embryo, to see if any of them is actually the master regulator. If one dies, we'll know we've found it, since living beings are unable to grow without it.”

“No kidding.”

“Excuse me?”

Zoe glared up at her. “You don't give a damn about me, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I rush here to find you, and you don't even ask what's wrong. You only care about my genes!”

Natalie's mouth twisted as though she'd been stung. “I—that's not true!—wait, where are you going? Stop!”

“Forget it,” Zoe called over her shoulder, on her way out. What was the point of waiting around for some forced apology? Her primary concern was clear. For all Natalie cared, she saw Zoe as just another lab rat, only a rarer specimen, a prized capture. The team had gotten what they needed. If she died right now, who here would mourn?

Gramps would. Her parents would. The people who knew and loved her in spite of Syndrome X—not because of it. She thought of something Gramps told her after her diagnosis:
You're destined for greatness, sweetheart—not because of your body, but your mind.
He'd gone on to praise her independence, bravery, and tenacity. What he didn't know was that in her desire to grow into the fine young woman of his expectations, she'd copied the best parts of him.

Missing him was like missing a phantom limb. She ached in a place where pain couldn't be measured, but where it could be felt the most.

Outside in the quad, the night sky glittered with stars, and she remembered the way he had taught her to find her way home if ever she was lost. Just find the Big Dipper, then stretch out her hand wide. The distance between thumb and pinky was about the space between the cup and the North Star.

In New York City, it was practically impossible to see anything in the sky but light pollution, so she'd never tried out his advice, but now she tilted her head to the sky. The number of constellations you could see in the desert was stunning, but the familiar angles of the Dipper jumped out at her like a jigsaw piece. She held out her palm and closed one eye, following the line of her hand to the bright glowing star at her pinky.

“Hey, champ,” came a friendly voice behind her, “what're you up to?”

She snatched her hand back and turned around. Galileo was towering behind her, sweating as though he had just worked out. The second they made eye contact, his face contorted with worry and he dropped to his knees.

“What's wrong?”

He reached up to wipe tears from her cheek. She hadn't realized she was crying.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she admitted in a small voice.

“What is it? Can I help?”

She shook her head, unsure where to even begin.

“Come on, there must be something I can do.”

A thought as radiant as Polaris popped into her mind. “Actually, remember the letter I gave you to send my grandfather?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you arrange for him to send a reply?”

He let out a troubled sigh and took her hands in his. “Zoe, I didn't know how to tell you this before, but your grandfather never got your letter.”

“What? Why not?”

“He's missing.”