The Immortalist (7 page)

Gifford pointed toward the screen. “Here is Ty in his younger days. But at the time of our conversation, he was fourteen years old. He had a gray beard, limped, had a cataract in one eye, and could scarcely run fifty yards without getting winded. He was an old dog.”

Cricket remembered that gray beard, and the rainy, windy day in June when they had to put Ty down. He never made it to fifteen.

“I see that none of you is astonished. Fourteen years
is
old for a dog. That's a commonplace observation, as common as the fall of an apple from a tree in a Lincolnshire garden. But you would have been astonished had I told you of a similarly aged fourteen-year-old boy. We all know that fourteen years is old for a dog, but not for us. Why? It isn't random. There aren't
some
dogs who grow old at fourteen, while others live to be a hundred. Dogs have a life span of approximately fourteen years, as we have our biblical threescore and ten. Our respective terms are so fixed as to seem a law of nature. In fact, every species on Earth has its own period of longevity, its own floruit, as it were: a housefly, four weeks; a mouse, three years; a goat, eight years; a gorilla, thirty years; a whale, seventy years or more. The luckiest among us exceed these expectancies only as the upper limb of a narrow, bell-shaped curve. Our entire life cycle is similarly predetermined. Where life expectancy is short, so are infancy, childhood, and the span between generations.”

Gifford glanced back as the monitor displayed a chart showing the average life-spans of a row of species, growing longer and longer toward the right. Cricket had seen this chart before, at her father's lectures in Europe and around the country. She remembered her father boasting that he could tell how long any species of mammal would live by studying a single tooth. The faster a tooth was formed, the younger the animal died. As a girl, she had studied her own emerging teeth in the mirror, wondering what portents they carried for her.

Gifford went on. “Again, there is nothing more unusual in this than in the fall of an apple. Right? But science teaches that behind every law of nature lies a mechanism. So Dr. Rensselaer and I fell to reasoning: If there is a fixed term, then there has to be a clock to mark it off. Find that clock, uncover its molecular gearworks, and you might also find a way to reset it. You could give the housefly the mouse's three years; the dog, man's seventy years; and man . . . who knows how long?

“Dr. Rensselaer and I set out in search of the clock. To sum up six years of arduous DNA extraction and blotting and subcloning and sequencing, we found it in the form of aetatin, a master gene found in every organism on earth, that governs the repair and restoration of cells worn down by the daily wear and tear of life. Aetatin is a huge gene encoding a small protein. Ninety-nine percent of its DNA sequence is taken up by long regulatory segments, called introns, that make sure that aetatin is produced only in moments of need. As time goes by, these segments are progressively inactivated by a chemical reaction upon DNA, called methylation. The methylation sites accumulate until a point is reached when aetatin is permanently turned off. After that, each cell is on its own against the forces of attrition and decay. Ultimately, it dies. When cells die, organs die. When organs die, the individual dies. How rapidly this occurs depends upon how long aetatin's regulatory segments are, and how many sites there are for methylation. Generally, the longer the intron segments for a given species, the longer the life span.”

By way of emphasis, Gifford swept his hand over a diagram of the aetatin gene on the screen.

“When we injected the protein made by aetatin directly into cells and simple organisms, Dr. Rensselaer and I found that we could keep them alive and healthy for as long as we wished. So we knew we were onto something. But this was only a primitive experiment. What we really wanted to do was bypass the methylation of each cell's own aetatin gene. That, we reasoned, would shut down the aging clock and render the cell virtually immortal. But methylation itself seemed like an impossible obstacle. The mechanism for it was extremely complex, having developed over countless generations. It took place independently in every cell of the body, except for the germ cells that give rise to sperm and egg.

“So we thought of making an end run around the problem, by creating an artificial aetatin gene that could not be methylated. We knew how to do that—at least in the test tube. We tested the resulting product in cell culture, and it worked spectacularly. We could abuse the cells in all sorts of ways—heat, starvation, oxygen deprivation—and they would fix themselves and go on ticking. But getting the gene into anything bigger than a single cell was a major challenge. The human body is made up of something like a hundred trillion cells. How could we deliver our newer, better aetatin into each and every one of them? If only a few cells received a copy, that would be like putting a patch on an old coat. The coat would go on tearing at the old, thin places and would still wear out on schedule.”

Gifford paused and looked at the floor, as though he were pondering the problem anew. To Cricket it was the devil's question. It had nagged her father so relentlessly that she was certain it had pushed him to an early death. It had also caused a rift between him and Gifford. In those days, Acadia Springs had been mushrooming so quickly that it became clear that one of its founders would have to give up research to serve as a full-time executive. It fell to her father, as the elder man. Gifford went on to publish a phenomenal series of papers on gene transfer and on the function of aetatin, while Ed Rensselaer was forced to watch from the sidelines of his oak-paneled office. Cricket remembered how, to his dying day, her father would pathetically sketch out plans for aetatin-based drugs on restaurant napkins and odd scraps of paper—plans that he knew he would never have the time to explore. She also remembered how he had come to resent Gifford for enjoying the freedom he had given up.

Did Gifford think about this, too? Cricket thought she saw a film of tears in his eyes when he looked up again at the crowd.

“Dr. Rensselaer regrettably died before we could find the answer. But four years ago, there was a second discovery. I call it the Cell Gate. It's a door into
every
cell in the body. A securely locked door, normally. But by attaching a specially designed key to the artificial aetatin gene, our research team was able to create the Methuselah Vector, an injectable blood-borne vehicle that can deliver aetatin everywhere. The results were immediate and astonishing. A single treatment with the Methuselah Vector permanently arrested, and even reversed, the process of aging. No more plaques and tangles in the brain. No more sagging collagen in the skin. No oxygen-hungry heart cells. No withering muscles and nerves.”

The crowd fell silent. A flurry of flashes came from press cameras and cell phones.

Gifford, who had finished with a crescendo, deliberately paused and lowered his voice. “The power of the Methuselah Vector has now been laboratory-proven over and over again, in dozens of species, from flies to monkeys. The posters and video displays along the side tables detail all of the vast research behind the Vector—research funded by our industry partner, Eden Pharmaceuticals. I invite you to examine them at your leisure.

“But you didn't travel all the way here to look at posters. Flies and monkeys—well and good.
But what about us?
I hear you saying.
Will the Methuselah Vector work in me? In my loved ones?
Well, three months ago, we received permission from the Food and Drug Administration to begin human trials. And that is why I have brought you here today. I want to introduce you to one very special person, the first human being ever to receive the Methuselah Vector—a man whom we shall call Subject Adam.”

Gifford spoke the name sharply, almost like a trumpet blast. The crowd, already on the edges of their seats, began to murmur, as people confusedly looked about the tent for what was coming. But what they saw was the start of a video on the flat-screen.

“Begin by meeting Adam as I met him, three months ago.” Gifford flung his arm melodramatically toward the screen.

The audience saw a young, white-coated doctor sitting beside an old man—flabby, red-eyed, and blue-lipped—who was dressed in a yellow polo shirt and gray sweatpants, and who slumped uncomfortably in his small, metal-framed chair.

Doctor:
How old are you?

Adam:
Seventy this next month.

Doctor:
You're retired now, right?

Adam:
Yes.

Doctor:
What did you use to do for a living?

Adam:
I was a furnace man. I repaired and installed gas and oil furnaces. I haven't been able to do that for, oh, eight years now. My back went bad, and I couldn't bend over or carry the tools no more.

Doctor:
You used to be quite the athlete.

Adam:
I was a running back on our high school football team, the
[bleep].
I've got long legs and I was fast as the wind. No buts about it. We made it one year to the all-state play-offs.

Doctor:
You kept running after high school?

Adam:
Yeah, for a long time. Then I had to quit. I tried golf, but it killed my back. Now I don't do squat.

Doctor:
You've had some heart trouble?

Adam:
Yes. I got the high blood pressure, and it made my heart real big. That sounds like a good thing, but they say it's bad. Anyhow, I have trouble breathing when I walk.

Doctor:
How far can you walk?

Adam:
Across this room.

Doctor:
Could you show us?

The old man grunted and pushed himself out of his chair on shaky arms. Pausing for balance, he slowly shuffled forward as the camera followed him. His gait was wide, his hands grasping at the air like a tightrope walker's. Reaching the opposite wall, he touched it to steady himself, then turned and started back. His heavy breathing could easily be heard on the video. Toward the end, he slowed markedly, pausing to take two or three shallow inspirations after each step. Finally regaining his chair, he toppled toward it, catching its chrome-plated arms at the last moment. Then, trembling, he twisted about and let himself drop onto the seat. He stared into the camera, panting, his left hand clinging to his chest.

Doctor: (turning to the camera)
The record shows that Mr.
[bleep]
suffers from cardiac hypertrophy, with a left ventricular ejection fraction of fifteen percent on both cardiac echo and a gated sestamibi scan. He has pulmonary hypertension secondary to heart failure. His kidneys have been damaged both by his high blood pressure and by low output from the heart. An MRI of the brain showed diffuse white-matter abnormalities, and small lacunar strokes affecting the basal ganglia and thalamus. He has severe degenerative disk disease in his lower spine. Surgical discectomy and fusion have been ruled out, due to his poor cardiac status. Given his age, he is not a candidate for cardiac transplant.

Adam:
You make me sound like a wreck.

Doctor:
Sorry.

Adam:
Well, at least you left out the plumbing problem.

Doctor:
I was just going to mention that.

Adam:
Sure.
What the hell. Let 'em know that I can't get it up anymore. Not that I need to, since the missus passed on.

Doctor:
Mr.
[bleep]
also suffers from sexual impotence, and, due to a combination of prostate enlargement and autonomic nerve dysfunction—

Adam:
Tell 'em I wear a diaper. I'm wearing one right now. And it ain't dry.

Doctor:
Uh, urinary incontinence.

Adam:
You know, someday you're gonna get old, too. It won't seem so funny then.

Doctor:
I don't think it's funny. Does it seem to you that I think it's funny?

Adam:
I
dunno. The only thing that will get you through is a sense of humor, I'll tell you that. That, and be ready to meet Jesus.

Doctor:
Has anyone talked to you about the Methuselah Vector?

Adam:
He lived to be a thousand years old.

Doctor:
Who did?

Adam:
Methuselah. It's in the Bible. Nine hundred and sixty-nine years. I hope he didn't wind up wettin' himself. Sheesh!

Doctor:
Well, about the Methuselah Vector—

Adam:
Another doctor talked about it, yeah.

Doctor:
Dr. Gifford?

Adam:
Yeah, Gifford. An older guy. A lot better manners, too. He wouldn't bring up a guy's plumbing in public.

Doctor:
What did Dr. Gifford tell you about the Methuselah Vector?

Adam:
I dunno. It's some new medicine. It made some rats and bugs live longer. It might do that for me. It might also help me to get over this heart problem. That I would like. My son lives way out in St. Louis, and I would like to visit him sometime. Plus I have grandkids out there.

Doctor:
Do you know that no human being has ever had this treatment before? We can't be sure it will work.

Adam:
I don't care. It could help somebody either way. I don't much like things the way they are, and if it's lights out for me, that's not a big loss to anybody. If it works, I would be like Christopher Columbus, wouldn't I? That's worth somethin'.

Doctor:
Is there anything you would like to ask me? Any questions?

Adam:
No. Just, uh . . . I mean, will my grandkids get to see this video?

Doctor:
Do you want them to?