No Time to Die (8 page)

Either she could sit around and wait for defensive lawyers and illogical parents and bureaucratic faculty to bicker it out for months or years. Or she could act. She turned on her heel for the tenth time and gazed across the room at her desk.

The shiny black phone gleamed. She ran to her computer, did a quick Google search, and dialed a local number. It rang once before a recorded message picked up.

“You have reached the medical office of Dr. Ray Carlyle. To make an appointment, please press one. For prescription refills, press two. For the billing department, press three. For all other inquiries, please stay on the line.”

She waited, inhaling the thick scent of gardenia.

Soon a woman's voice came on the line. “Dr. Carlyle's office, how can I help you?”

“Yes,” she said in a higher-pitched voice than usual. “Hi. I'm the assistant to Dr. Mitch Grover at Columbia. You referred a patient to our lab earlier, Zoe Kincaid?”

“Oh yes, what can we do for you?”

“Dr. Grover needs another copy of her records faxed over. It hasn't come through yet.”

“Oh, I'm sorry about that. I know I sent them earlier, but I could have gotten the number wrong. Can you give it to me again?”

Natalie smiled. “Of course.”

In just a few minutes, she'd have what she needed to begin.

Fifteen minutes later, at 4:45
P.M
., the phone rang inside a locked and empty office nearby. When no one picked up, an answering machine beeped and a woman's deferential voice punctured the stillness:

“Hello, Dr. Grover, this is Nancy calling from Dr. Carlyle's office. I'm so sorry about the missing fax, but I've sent it again at your assistant's request. I didn't catch her name, but could you please have her call me back to confirm receipt? Thanks so much.”

New York City
4:45
P.M.

T
he mechanical beeping of the fax in the department's common room was a beautiful sound. Natalie had the room all to herself—the water fountain, the Keurig coffeemaker, the bulletin board papered with outdated announcements, the vintage sofa—but most important, the dusty old machine in front of her. She watched with growing excitement as page after page of Zoe Kincaid's medical history cranked out of it. Could this be a historic moment, she wondered—could these very pages make it into a museum one day? With a smile, she envisioned future people exploring an exhibit titled “The Age of Agelessness.” It would be about the twenty-first century's advances in discovering and eradicating the biological causes of aging. Perhaps Theo's kids would tour it, balking at pictures of sagging elderly folks, just as her generation had once balked at the fearsome scars of smallpox—a dangerous scourge of a bygone era, responsible for the deaths of countless victims.

Perhaps she would still be around to tour the exhibit with them. Oh, how joyful it would be to know her child's children, and theirs! Not as a bedridden grandmother, too weak like her own nana to answer the doorbell, but as a still-vigorous woman, immune to time, continuing to work, to love, to live. Life stretched ahead in her mind like an open highway, the horizon only a trick of the eye, with humanity riding not just into the sunset, but beyond it. With the time to gain more wisdom and experience, how many individuals whose lives could be fulfilled, how many couples whose love could thrive long past a brief flash of decades, how many generations who could enjoy one another, living bridges to history and culture and art?

A statistic came to her that she had read recently in the journal
Biogerontology—
worldwide, 100,000 people died of aging every day. In the industrialized world, almost 90 percent of
all
deaths were attributable to age.

She thought of her mother's grim descent into senility during her last years, and her father's heartbreaking deterioration from a lively, youthful man to a frail skeleton before his death. How much incalculable suffering could be avoided! Yet so many people blanched when Natalie told them about her mission. They always threw out the same predictable arguments about overpopulation and strained economies. But if more healthy years were added onto life, that would mean a massive growth in global productivity, leading to inevitable increases in technology and quality of life. If history proved anything, it was that human beings were brilliant at solving complex challenges. Her research was about taking the reins of control from nature and giving it over to individuals to decide about their own lives and deaths. Ultimately, she felt, no one could make those decisions for anyone else, nor ethically have the right to do so.

The fax machine was sputtering to a halt. She seized the warm stack of paper from the tray and leafed through it with the eagerness of a disciple holding the Holy Scripture, then ran back to her office and locked the door. She couldn't wait to scour every detail, but first things first. On the final page she found it—Zoe's phone number. Underneath it was her emergency contact: a Mr. Silas Gardner, whose own number happened to be a digital palindrome: (917) 333-3719. Her math-minded brain was always spotting numerical patterns like that without trying. Before she could consider his possible relation to Zoe, a knock on her door jolted her.

Her visitor twisted the doorknob hard, but it wouldn't budge. She jumped up, uneasy, and shoved the stack into her top desk drawer. “Who's there?” she called.

“Natalie, open up,” a familiar male voice said.

She clicked aside the lock and opened the door. Behind Professor Adler stood Mitch. They both looked furious. Her breath caught as if on a hook in her throat.

“What—what can I do for you?” she asked.

“Is this true?” Adler demanded. “Have you gone behind Mitch's back to pursue a project that could provoke serious legal consequences?”

She stared from him to Mitch, who was shaking his head as if in shock at her audacity. How could they already know?

“What? I—” She licked her lips, calculating fast. Each second that lapsed was a testament to her guilt. She had to say something. “I was fascinated by the girl's case,” she began. “Almost no one has seen Syndrome X. I just wanted to look into it a little.”

“What do you mean
a little
?” Adler asked. “Mitch tells me the lawyers still consider her a minor, and her parents are uncooperative. Do you realize what your involvement could mean?”

“You could screw up the whole department's reputation!” Mitch cried. “And that means mine! Why don't you ever think of anyone besides yourself?”

“Funny, I could say the same to you,” she snapped.

“All right.” Adler's tone was irritable. “I'll take it from here,” he said to Mitch. Natalie stepped aside as Adler walked in alone and shut the door.

“Look,” he said. “Let's be straight. I don't have illusions about what you were doing, and I understand the draw of the case, I really do.”

She swallowed, aware that her entire career rested in his hands.

“But you have to realize that recklessness is not a virtue. It's only going to get you fired.”

She pursed her lips, still not trusting herself to speak, for the bubble of anger that was rising threatened to explode.
By recklessness,
she wanted to counter,
you mean the pursuit of truth in this esteemed institution of higher learning?

“I could take this up to the dean right now,” he continued. “I know he doesn't have much sympathy for those who endanger the school's well-being, no matter the cause.” He turned to gaze out the window, as if contemplating the worth of the majestic campus below. Catching his regal nose in profile, Natalie was reminded of a king surveying his empire. Then he looked back at her.

“But I'm not going to do that.”

“You're not?”

“No.” He smiled magnanimously. “You're a brilliant scientist, Natalie. I knew when I hired you that you were no ordinary mind, and that you'd probably go against the grain as all unconventional thinkers do. I've been waiting for this day to come.”

She gaped at him, unsure if she had just imagined his words, the greatest professional compliment she'd ever received.

“It would be a real loss to let you go now,” he went on, “when your career is heading toward its prime. I've had you in mind for tenure all along.”

“You have?” She clutched the edge of the desk to steady herself. “What about Mitch? You're always talking to him.”

“He's always talking to me,” Adler corrected. “As a researcher, he doesn't have half the vision you do.” He pointed a stern finger. “And that stays between us.”

The affection in his eyes granted her permission to smile. “Of course.”

“So we're going to ignore this ever happened on the condition that you immediately drop this case. Do not contact that girl. Is that understood?”

She hesitated. “With all due respect, it would be a travesty to let her DNA go to waste. She's over eighteen, she wants this—”

He held up a hand. “It's too risky right now, Natalie. You have to wait until after the courts figure out her legal status.”

“That could be years!”

“Then so be it.” He stared hard at her. “The last thing the dean wants is another scandal coming out of this department, with all of us already watching our backs. Am I making myself clear?”

There was only one correct answer. “Yes.”

“So we're agreed?”

She nodded forlornly, bemused at how an act of mercy and one of torture could be the same.

“Where are the files?” he asked. “Mitch said you called her doctor to get them. The receptionist left him a message.”

A sigh of frustration escaped her. How could she have known to prevent that? Not that it mattered now. “Here,” she admitted, retrieving them from her desk drawer and handing them over.

“I'll keep them for you.” He snatched the papers and dropped them into his briefcase. “Trust me, it will be easier this way. And if you need them in five years, come talk to me.”

Her throat tightened. She bit her tongue to prevent protest, knowing his goodwill stretched only so far. He reached out to shake hands, which she did reluctantly, and then he opened the door and left without another word. Soon after, she followed him out. There was no more work to be done tonight.

As she locked up her office, she was surprised to see Mitch standing nearby, as if he'd been waiting for her to leave. He sidled up to her, his breath hot on her neck.

“Hey, assistant,” he crooned. “That was a cute little trick.”

She glanced around the hallway. It was after five o'clock. No one else was around. Her hand burned to slap him. “What you do want, Mitch?”

“A better question is what you think you're going to get by playing dirty?”

“I'm not playing at all,” she replied, stepping away from him. “I just want to be left alone in my lab.”

“And you still have one after today? I can't imagine Adler is very happy with you.”

“We've settled it,” she said icily. “So yes.”

“Really? That's a shocker.” He frowned. “You go behind my back and nothing happens?”

“You ruined the best chance I've ever had, that's what happened.” Her voice was shaking. “If you can believe it, I'm not out to spite you, Mitch, I was only making up for your loss. Trying to do the world some good. You might consider it sometime.”

Ignoring his livid expression, she whirled around and marched into the waiting elevator. She kept her back to the door until it slid closed.

 

 

“Sweetheart,” Gramps said, “I hate to see you so upset.”

Zoe burrowed her face into his shoulder, having just recounted her failed meeting with Dr. Mitch Grover. Gramps sat up taller in bed and put his arm around her. The late afternoon sun shone through his bedroom window, illuminating the yellow gold of her hair.

“It's just so unfair,” she lamented, her voice muffled by his arm. “I want to be my own person again.”

“It's very frustrating,” he agreed. “If only we could get your mom and dad to come around, but you know how stubborn they can be.”

Zoe sat up and sniffled. “They'll never listen to me now if I'm just a kid. And Dad's fed up with you; I don't think you should push him.”

“Not if I still want to live here.”

“So where does that leave us?” She tossed her arm in the air. “All the scientists who would want to work with me will have this legal problem.”

“Not to mention,” Gramps added in a resigned voice, “there are very few researchers local to New York who are even qualified. It's not as if we can relocate. So unless we can get your parents on board, you'll exhaust your options pretty quickly.”

“So you're giving up?” she cried. “That's not like you!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but coughed instead, a dry hacking that rattled his lungs, and she sprung up to fetch him a glass of water. Immediately she regretted scolding him. When he reached for the glass, still coughing, she noticed the tremor in his hand.

“Thank you, dear,” he managed after a few sips. “Now, I'm going to tell you something that will be very hard to hear, but you need to be strong.”

She froze. “What?”

He looked at her with a sad smile. “I know why you're so desperate. It's not just about wanting to make scientific progress, or even finding a way to grow up, am I right?”

She glanced down at the bed. He was getting uncomfortably near the topic she most dreaded.

“It's really about me, isn't it?” he said gently. “You want to help me stop aging. You think your body holds the key to my salvation.”

Her head snapped up. “It does! Dr. Carlyle said they just have to find my mutation, and then they'll figure out how to turn it off and on!”

Gramps paused, as if searching for the least painful words. “That may be so,” he said. “But that kind of sophistication is most likely years away. It's all right, don't cry. I've had lots of years of love and happiness, and I couldn't ask for more. But I know you won't stop trying to make this happen, even after I'm gone. You're destined for greatness, sweetheart. Not because of your body, but your mind. You're independent and fearless, and you've never given up on a thing in your life.”

“No,” she whispered, clutching his hand as if her grip could keep him stationed to Earth. Raised purple veins crisscrossed his arthritic knuckles, but still his fingers felt solid, reassuring, smelling of his favorite lemon soap. It was impossible to imagine the world without him—stripped, horrific, like a world without sight. Darkness would reign forever after.

She curled up next to him and let his warmth flow over her. “I won't stop, I won't, I won't,” she murmured until the words blurred together and lost meaning, and all that remained was the certainty in her mind that bowing down to fate was a fate worse than death.