The Immortality Factor (27 page)

“Too early to tell. We just arrived in London last night and confirmed it this morning. We'll wait until we get back to the States for a sonogram.”

“Julia's all right?”

“She's terrific!”

“And you're in good health? You didn't catch anything while you were in the bush?”

“Naw, I'm fine, Arby. Couldn't be better. Lost a few pounds, that's all. A couple of English trifles and I'll be right back where I was.”

“When will you be back home?”

“Don't know yet. We're going to hang out here in London a couple days, relax, get used to civilization again. I'll give you a call.”

“Have you called Momma?”

“Not yet. Can you give her a ring for me?”

Telephone calls to Momma were difficult, of course. She needed a nurse there to hold the phone and speak the words she tapped out on her keyboard.

“I'll run up and see her,” I said tightly.

“How is she?”

“About the same. She'll be happy to hear about Julia.”

“Yep. She's going to be a grandma after all.”

It almost made me smile. “Yes, that's right, isn't it?”

“Gotta run now, Arby. See you soon.”

“Wait!” I almost shouted. “When will you be back here? When can you come up to the lab and see the progress we've made?”

“Progress?”

“On the regeneration work.”

“Oh, that.”

“We've developed a set of peptides that can regress cells to their pluripotent state,” I told him. “Differentiated cells like bone or muscle start to reproduce just like they did when they were in the zygote stage.”

“You can make somatic cells reproduce?”

“Like they do in the womb,” I said.

“In vivo?”

“No, in a culture dish. But we're starting to plan experiments to reproduce specific organs in vitro. Then we'll go on to actual animal experiments.”

“Not bad,” was all that Jesse would say.

“I want you to be part of this, Jesse,” I said. “It's your idea as much as mine. We could use your expertise on this.”

He laughed carelessly. “Like I don't have enough to do.”

“Well, if you're going to be a father, it wouldn't hurt to have a consulting fee coming to you, would it?”

That made him think, at least for a moment or so. “No, I suppose it wouldn't hurt, at that. But where would I get the time to come up there and work with your people?”

I waved a hand in the air. “We'll figure that out once you get back. But I want you working with me on this, Jesse. I really do.”

“Okay,” he said. “We'll talk about it when I get back.”

“Fine,” I said.

For a long while after Jesse hung up I sat at my desk, thinking. Not about Jesse's coming to work with us at the lab. About Julia's pregnancy. With his baby. And I had to go down to Sunny Glade and tell Momma about it.

I don't know how long I sat there, staring at nothing, my thoughts spinning. Julia had conceived a baby with Jess. He sounded so goddamned happy about it. She let him do it to her. She wanted him. She'd been doing with him all the things we had done together. All the—

Phyllis buzzed on the intercom. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the images that I was seeing.

I pressed the intercom switch. “What?”

“Cassie wanted to see you before she left.”

I pulled in a deep breath. “Okay. Now's as good a time as any.”

Within minutes Cassie showed up at my office door, her face sallow, her eyes sad, as if she were going to a funeral. She looked like I felt. She was wearing a long-skirted maroon dress instead of her usual jeans.

“Cassie, come on in.” Putting on a smiling front, I waved her into the office. “You look wonderful.” In truth she looked on the verge of tears.

She perched on the edge of the cushioned chair in front of my desk. “I'm going to the airport this afternoon. The field trials.”

“You'll love Mexico,” I said as heartily as I could manage. “Especially once you're outside Mexico City. The pollution there is pretty bad, but the countryside is beautiful.”

“I'm worried about Max,” she said.

“Max will get along fine. It's only a few months.”

Cassie sniffled. “He doesn't want me to go.”

I sighed inwardly. “Cassie, we'll take good care of him. We've got all your instructions about his diet and his exercise and everything, right?”

“I don't want him used in any experiments.”

“We have no plans for that. I've told you a dozen times.”

“Zack is already talking about animal experiments for the regeneration work.”

“That's on lab rats, Cassie. You know that. You'll be back long before we're ready for monkey work, let alone the chimps.”

“I don't want anybody touching Max.”

I forced a smile. “What do you want from me, Cassie? A written promise? In blood? Will that do?”

She hesitated, obviously struggling within herself. “I trust you,” she said at last. But it didn't sound convincing.

“Good.” I got up from my chair and came around the desk. “Good. I'll personally look in on Max every day, if that'll make you happy.”

She got to her feet. “I'd appreciate it.”

“Then that's what I'll do.” I put my arm around her skinny shoulders and walked her to the door. “Now you go to Mexico and do the field trials and don't worry about a thing here.”

She looked up at me with those big solemn waif's eyes.

“And watch out for those Mexican caballeros,” I joked, smiling. “They're very romantic, I hear.”

She almost smiled back.

After Cassie left the outer office, I turned to Phyllis, who was watching the empty doorway with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Remind me to look in on Max once a day,” I said.

Phyllis cocked a brow at me. “You gonna learn sign language, too?”

I shook my head wearily and went back into my office. I got a barely discernible whiff of peppermint. Phyllis's aromatherapy again: peppermint for pep. Sitting at my computer, I pulled up the latest written reports on the regeneration work. When in doubt, dive into the science. Do some useful work instead of letting your emotions drive you crazy. The computer file showed nothing but lab notes and fragments of commentary that would one day be incorporated in publishable papers. I'll have to get Darrell and Zack and the rest of them together and have them give me a complete rundown on where we stand, I told myself.

Long after darkness had fallen, I had the small group sitting in my office. Darrell Walters had commandeered the couch; Vince Andriotti was astride one of the conference table's chairs, sitting on it backwards, as usual, his chin on his hairy forearms.

Zack O'Neill was saying, “I don't see why we shouldn't go right into animal tests.”

“Do in vitro first,” said Darrell. “It's easier and we can avoid the complications of in vivo work.”

O'Neill frowned. “Hell, what good is growing a rat's heart in a flask going to do us? We want to grow it inside the experimental subject, don't we?”

“Once we know we can grow it in a flask,” Darrell countered. “Never add an experiment to an experiment, Zack. Pare down the unknowns and the risks.”

Zack shook his head, obviously disappointed with such a conservative approach. He was all fired up, full of youthful piss and vinegar, certain that he was on the right track and ready to push the throttle all the way.

I said nothing, but I was thinking that we couldn't be the only research team working along these lines. I knew that several university labs were moving in the same general direction, to say nothing of other outfits overseas.

Andriotti piped up. “The computer simulation of the spinal neuron growth pattern is just about ready. Do we publish or not?”

“Not,” I said. “Not yet.”

“When?”

“After the patent application is filed.”

“Then I better start talking to the lawyers,” Andriotti said, in a tone that showed clear distaste.

“I'll handle that end of it,” I said. “You prepare the documentation.”

“Another six hundred pounds of paperwork,” he grumbled.

O'Neill asked, “Once the computer simulation is finished, what do we do about it?”

“You mean, do we go to animal tests?”

“Right.”

I looked around at my researchers. They all seemed agreed. “Animal tests, then,” I said.

“What about funding?” Andriotti asked. “We start doing multiple animal tests—”

“On the spinal cord neurons?” Darrell asked, looking puzzled. “Or the organ regeneration?”

“Spinal neurons,” said Zack.

“We can't keep using the IR&D number,” Andriotti said. “The accounting people are already turning purple whenever I charge to it.”

I knew that the internal research and development account was almost completely drained. I'll have to get a special appropriation from Johnston, I told myself. The prospect did not cheer me.

But then an idea struck me.

“Zack,” I asked, “do you really think you could grow a new heart in a lab rat, based on what we know now?”

He didn't hesitate a microsecond. “Yes.”

“How soon?”

Darrell started to protest, but I waved him down.

O'Neill turned thoughtful, then said, “Two, three weeks, maybe. Give me a month.”

Swiveling my chair to face Darrell, I said, “I want to push ahead on this as hard and fast as we can.”

“But—”

I told them, “I want to do a demonstration for Johnston. And Lowenstein.”

Darrell's long face broke into a canny grin. “Oh-ho! Want to impress the money boys, do we?”

“You're damned right,” I said.

But it was more than that. When I finally left the lab that night, I decided it was time to stop fumbling around and start a determined offensive. Sell my lab off to the Japanese, will they? Not if we make them think we're on the verge of the biggest breakthrough of the century. I grimaced in the darkness as I drove along the winding Fairfield County roads. I'll make the lab so goddamned important to them that they'll sell off their mothers before they touch my lab!

The problem was that I wasn't supposed to know about Johnston's dickering with the Japanese. It's impossible to fight a battle when you're not supposed to be aware that the battle is going on. To reveal what I knew would be to betray Nancy's confidence, which would poison a damned good source of information
into the inner workings of the corporate office. I had to fight fire with fire; I had to use Nancy to smoke out Johnston and his offer to Japan.

I worried about that. Not that using Nancy troubled me; she was using me to get ahead on the corporate ladder, so what the hell? But exactly because our affair was based on our individual ambitions rather than passion, it was dangerous. She could be playing a double game: telling everything she finds out about me to Johnston. Or Lowenstein, more likely. I distrusted the corporate comptroller. Probably Sid was the one who was pushing Johnston to get rid of the lab, in the name of the almighty bottom line.

Perhaps because I was so guarded with her, making love with Nancy had become less exciting, almost a chore instead of a joy. Let's put it this way: I didn't get any great ideas during sex with her. But she seemed to expect a tumble in bed, as if it bound me to her. If she noticed that my performance had become routine, mechanical, she never mentioned it.

I've got to find a way to break off with her, I told myself as I pulled up on my driveway and reached for the garage door control on the panel over my head. I've got to end it with her. The garage door swung open smoothly and the light inside came on. But not yet, I figured. I've got to carry it on a little while longer.

The following Monday night I met Nancy at the fencing academy as usual and took her home with me. We shared a precooked dinner in front of the fireplace, then went to bed. I felt especially interested in her and we had a rousing good time.

“You've never visited the lab, have you?” I asked her as we lay side by side, warm and wet after sex.

“No,” said Nancy drowsily.

“You really ought to. It's a fascinating place. Especially if you're going to move over to marketing. The lab is the key to the corporation's future.”

“Then why is Johnston ready to sell it?” she asked, almost like a challenge.

I hesitated. Peering into the shadows of the darkened bedroom, I could barely make out Nancy's face on the pillows next to me.

“Johnston is making a mistake. A big one. What we're doing now at the lab will be worth billions, eventually. That's why the Japanese are interested in us, I'll bet.”

That stirred her. She turned toward me and propped herself up on one elbow. “What are you talking about?”

“In a month or so we'll be regenerating hearts inside of living animals.”

“Really?”

“Imagine what that could mean to the corporation.”

“You're actually ready to do experiments on animals? So soon?”

“Yes. The work has been going extremely well.”

“Does Johnston know about this?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I'm going to tell him about it the next time I'm in the office. This is too hot to talk about over the phone. I want to get him in complete privacy.”

“If news about this leaked out . . .” Nancy's voice drifted away into silence.

I knew what she was thinking. The effect on the price of Omnitech stock. If the stock goes up it makes it harder for the Europeans to mount their hostile takeover. We won't have to sell off the laboratory. The lab will be too important, too precious, to even consider selling it.

“I'm telling you about this,” I said softly, almost whispering, “because I have a terrible fear that the Japanese might have a pipeline into the lab.”