"The trick would be to have just enough enzyme in your bloodstream to replace senescent cells as they are about to the, but not so much that healthy cells are replaced." He paused searching for a metaphor. "If we thought of the process of cell senescence as something inexorable and steady, like a treadmill, then what we want to do is run just fast enough to stay in one place.""This whole thing does sound like Alice in Wonderland.""Yes, well . . . if we could do that, then it's possible, just possible, that one's entire body would simply begin regenerating itself instead of aging. Not just your skin. All of you. That's the theory behind what we've called the Beta procedure.""But is that something you ethically ought to be doing?" she said, feeling a sense of dismay, of playing God. "Isn't that going too far?""Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with you, but there are others who ask, how far is too far? Half the medicines we now have are intended to trick the body's responses somehow—or to meddle in some other way, turning off stop‑and‑ go signals at the cellular level. For example, some birth control pills make your body think you're already pregnant. They trick our natural mechanisms. That kind of thing is commonplace in medicine today. But our research is poised for the next level, to answer the question of how long we can actually live. So here's the argument. There's no reason the human life span has to be what it is. In some unhealthy nations the average citizen doesn't even reach sixty. Whereas in others, like the United States and Japan, the mean is already well past three score and ten. So what is right? What is reasonable? A hundred? Two hundred? It's entirely possible to believe we could live productive lives at least twice as long as we do now.""And you think we should do this? The world would be thrown into chaos.""But look at the incredible cure rate we've already effected here using the telomerase enzyme. When our clinical trials for the NIH are announced, it will be the medical equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Nothing we know will ever be the same again.""That's where you should leave it. To go further is obscene.""I fear recent events may have proved you right. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and experimented with the Beta procedure. And the results thus far have turned out to be disastrous.""I guess you're referring to Kristen.""One day I casually mentioned the Beta to Winston Bartlett and without telling me, he brought it up with Kristen. She insisted on trying it." His expression grew increasingly pained. "I want you to know I was against it. I warned her that it was highly experimental, that I could not guarantee what the side effects might be, but she begged me to do it anyway. Then Bartlett essentially ordered me to do it.""So what happened?"He grimaced. "I got the dosage wrong. That's my best guess. After I performed the Beta on Kristen, the enzyme was stable in her for over two months and appeared to be having an effect. All signs of aging abruptly stopped. It gave me a false sense of confidence. Also, there were no side effects. That was when Bartlett wanted to try it too. So I went ahead with him. But then, to my horror, she started evincing side effects. I now believe the dosage I gave her was badly calibrated. It was too high—by how much I think I've finally determined—and the enzyme eventually began replicating too rapidly. It got away from me." He paused. "What happened to Kristen, we now call the Syndrome, for lack of a better name. And it's about to happen to Bartlett.""But what does all this have to do with me? Why was I brought out here with all kinds of bribes and pressure and—""Do you want a simple answer? Of excruciating honesty?""It would be helpful.""The simple answer is, Winston Bartlett has an extremely rare blood type. It's AB. You have the same.""How did you know—""Your brother. You see, I need to try to develop antibodies to the telomerase enzyme that won't be rejected by his immune system. I think there's an outside chance that I could culture antibodies taken from someone with the same blood type and use them to arrest the rampant multiplying of telomerase enzyme about to begin in Bartlett's blood.""I'm here because you're using me!" She couldn't believe her ears. And Grant had set it up. No wonder he was finally feeling guilty."I just need to borrow your immune system for a few days. It's very safe.""I don't think so. I'm out of here.""Actually, the procedure is already under way. While Debra was taking your last blood sample, she also injected a minuscule amount of the telomerase enzyme in active form, the proprietary version used in the Beta, into your bloodstream. Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. The dosage was so minute that there's no way it could have any effect on you.""You have got to be kidding!" My God, she thought, I could sue the hell out of—"Don't worry, think of it like a smallpox vaccination." He paused. "Now, though, I have to tell you that I just learned the initial dosage probably didn't do the trick. The amount of antibodies created was, unfortunately, minuscule. Which means we need to go to a slightly higher infusion. But again, don't worry. It's still safe.""I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said finally, gasping for air in her fury. "You didn't ask—""Alexa," he cut in, "right now I have something like two weeks left to try to head off the Syndrome in Winston Bartlett. If we achieve that, then I'm hopeful the antibodies he creates can be successfully used to start reversing the Syndrome in Kristen. We will know how to manage the Beta. Who knows where that could lead? But it all begins with you. You're the clean slate we need to start.""Before we go one step further, I want to know what, exactly, happens with the Syndrome. I think I know, but I'd like to hear—""Something that's too bizarre to believe. It literally defies every natural law we've ever known."He couldn't bring himself to put it in words, she thought, but she knew she’d guessed right the first time.The Syndrome. Kristen Starr was growing younger. That was the horrible development and nobody could deal with it.And they couldn't stop it.Karl Van de Vliet had created a monstrosity."I am so out of here," she said struggling to rise from the wheelchair. "If you try to keep me here, that's kidnapping. We're talking a capital crime.""Alexa, I understand you're upset, but you're in no condition to be discharged. I'm very sorry." He pushed a red button on a radio device on his belt. There was genuine agony in his eyes. "I've never in my life coerced a patient in any way. But you have to understand that so much is dependent on you now. There are no easy choices left."He's lost control of the situation here now, she told herself. He's truly terrified of Winston Bartlett. That's who's really got control of my fate.Moments later, the security guard from the lobby, accompanied by Marion, came through the door of the laboratory."No, I'm not going to let you do this," Ally declared. "I'm not letting you do any more medical experiments on me."As she struggled again to get out of the wheelchair, she felt a prick in her arm and saw the glint of a needle in the dim light."I'm sorry, Alexa. It should all be over in just a couple of days. And I swear no harm will come to you."She was feeling her consciousness swirl as Marion began rolling her through the steel air lock.The last thing she heard was Van de Vliet saying, "Don't worry. A week from now, all this will seem like a dream."Chapter 31Friday, April 107:04a.m.Stone felt his consciousness returning as the blast of an engine cut through his sedative‑induced reverie. Where was he? There were vibrations all around him and a deafening roar that was slowly spiraling upward in frequency and volume.As the haze that engulfed his mind slowly began to dissipate, he wondered if this wasn't more of the fantasy he'd been having, of flying through some kind of multicolored space‑time continuum. Or was he waking up to something spectacularly real?As he opened his eyes and looked around, he realized it was no dream. He was in a cramped airline seat, strapped in with a black seat belt. His head was gently secured to a headrest by a soft cotton scarf, but his hands were free, lying in his lap.Somebody had lifted him into the seat and strapped him down.On his left was a Plexiglas window, and when he looked out, he saw the earth beneath him begin falling away.My God.Then he realized he was in a white‑and‑gray helicopter that had just lifted off from a rooftop helo pad. He watched spellbound quickly coming awake, as the craft quickly began a flight path that circled around and past the lower end of Manhattan.Then he heard the pilot speaking curtly to an air controller somewhere and he looked up and realized it was the same samurai bastard who’d slugged him on the street and then aided in his kidnapping.But that had to be yesterday, or God knows how many days ago. He was realizing he’d just lost a chunk of his life.And now he was being taken somewhere. In a very big hurry."Being up here always seems like being closer to God" came a voice from behind him. He recognized it with a jolt. It was the man who thought he was God.Shakily he removed the scarf that had been holding his head and turned around. Winston Bartlett was gazing down through his own plastic window, seemingly talking to himself."What . . . what the hell is going on?" He could barely get the words out."Oh," Bartlett said turning to look at him. "Good I particularly wanted you to see this. It should help make my point."Stone struggled to comprehend what was happening. He was with the man he had wanted to call Father for nearly four decades, whether he could admit that to himself or not. It could be the beginning of the kind of bonding he had always hungered for, but he didn't want it like this. They finally had a relationship, and it was completely antagonistic. He had just been drugged and kidnapped by his own father, this after being threatened and fired. Again, Daddy dearest.So what was this evolving chapter about? Winston Bartlett, he knew, could be ruthless, but he also was a visionary in his own way.Then he remembered what had happened. He'd been trying to track down Kristen."Where . . . where are we going?""We're going to the place you seem to find so interesting," Bartlett declared over the din of the engine. "But I was hoping that we could have a rational discourse along the way. What's been happening thus far doesn't serve either of us. I'm hoping things have cooled down a bit and we can call a truce."Stone was still trying to clear his head, get the cobwebs away. It was difficult. He'd lost consciousness in a town house in the Village, on solid ground, and regained it here, where the earth itself seemed in motion. And now Bartlett was trying out another bargaining style, so even the rules appeared to be in flux."Look, down there." Bartlett was projecting through the din around them and pointing toward the wide expanse of New York Harbor. "This McDonnell Douglas is my Zendo, my monastery, and the world below is my contemplative garden. I come up here to find peace. This is an intersection of the great forces of nature, one of a finite number on earth, where a mighty river returns to the salt sea from which it came. These waters have flowed in the same cycle for millions, billions of years, mingling, evaporating, separating again—just as life on this planet continually replicates itself, growing and aging and dying, but not before producing the seeds of its replacement. How can something be at once both timeless and constantly changing? I ponder that a lot and I always end up thinking of this river meeting the sea. Down there, nature is a force unto itself, oblivious to good or evil, to human desires or human laws."Bartlett was doing a riff on some obsession of his own, Stone decided. Or maybe it was some of the Zen philosophy that went along with acquiring a world‑class collection of samurai swords (if you believed the published profiles).All the same, looking down at the sprawling city and the harbor full of ships, it was hard not to feel omnipotent and humble at the same time. The thing Bartlett seemed to be getting at, though, was that nature could not be told what to do. And he seemed to be on the verge of declaring himself a part of that unbridled natural force, also powerful enough to do whatever he pleased.Now they were heading up the Hudson, teeming with early bird tourist cruises and small single‑masted sailboats. Bartlett paused to take in the view with satisfaction. Finally he continued his monologue."I know we've had our differences, but I'm prepared to try to get past that. I want to talk to you about something I always think of when I fly across this river. Time. I call my obsession Time and the River. Physicists will tell you that time should be thought of as a kind of fourth dimension. Things are always at a certain place in three dimensions, but when you describe the location of a subatomic particle, for example, you also have to say when it was there. To locate it accurately, you need four dimensions. We think of them all as rigid but what if one of them could be made fluid? What if you could alter the character of time?"In spite of himself, Stone took the bait. "I don't know what this has to do with anything. Nobody can alter the pace of time." He found himself recalling a snippet of verse by John Donne:O how feeble is man's power,That if good fortune fall,Cannot add another hour,Nor a lost hour recall!"Strictly speaking, that's true," Bartlett said gravely, turning away again to stare out the Plexiglas window, down into the morning space below them. The Hudson was now a giant ribbon of blue heading north into the mist. "But what if we could alter the clocks in our body to make them run slower?" He smiled then pointed off to his left. "All this below us has happened in a couple of hundred years. What will it look like down there in another hundred years? Will we still need these puny machines to fly, or will there be teleportation? Whatever it is, what would you give to be around to see that? To have your own time slow down while the world around you went on?"Stone was looking out into space, wondering. . . not whether Winston Bartlett was an egomaniacal madman but rather how truly mad he really was.Flying in the helicopter, he felt like Faust being shown the world by Mephistopheles. Except here Satan was his own father, offering him a teasing prospect of what it would be like to live on and on.It would make a hell of a story. The problem was, miracles always came with some kind of terrible price. What was the price this time?Then he had another thought. Was that what had happened to Kristen? Was she paying the price for some kind of hubris that pushed nature too far? Nobody had claimed she had any kind of medical condition that necessitated a stem cell intervention. So had she been experimenting with some other procedure? Had Mephistopheles now called in his marker?He wanted to ask but the vibration and the noise made his brain feel like it was in a blender."Do you understand what I'm saying?" Bartlett went on. "Do you want to be part of the most exciting development in the history of medicine? Well, this is your chance. There is a majestic experiment under way. But now we know it's not for the fainthearted. The question is, do you want to live life or just write about it?""I think it's time I heard the whole story," Stone said finally, forcing out the words. "What's your part in this 'experiment'?""I've put everything at risk, but now I'm this close to controlling the clock. So . . . are you my son? My flesh and blood? Do you have the balls to try it too?"Stone suspected the question was rhetorical. He was already up to his neck in whatever was going on. He just didn’t yet know how big a part of it he was. While he'd been sedated overnight, had they started experiments on him?He knew that some of the buzz about stem cells involved the fantasy that someday they might be used to forestall the aging process. Responsible researchers all said that they weren't trying to extend life; they were only hoping to make a normal lifetime more livable. Rejuvenative medicine. Winston Bartlett, however, had just taken stem cell potential to its obvious conclusion; he was talking about doing what others did not dare. Regenerative medicine."What would we give to be able to look forward to thousands of mornings like this, ending it all only when we chose?" he declared his hands sweeping over the dense green beneath them. "Time would become something that merely flows endlessly through us, ever renewing. So‑called old age would cease to exist, at least for those with the courage to take the necessary risks."Now they were moving above the pine forests that comprised the outer ring of the Greater New York suburbs, as below them the green wilds of New Jersey, north of the GW Bridge, were sweeping by.Hmmm, Stone pondered if a man somehow stopped growing older and nobody else did, at some point he'd end up being the same "age " as his grandchildren. That caused him to think again about Amy and wonder if Bartlett would ever reconcile himself to her existence. . . .A few minutes later, he looked down and saw a wide clearing in the trees and a red‑tile roof. They had arrived but from the air, the Dorian Institute gave no clue to the momentous research going on inside.Bartlett said nothing as they began their descent, and in moments they were settling onto the rooftop landing pad. The downdraft from the rotor cleared away a few soggy leaves, which had somehow blown there, and then the Japanese pilot cut the power and the sound died away. When Bartlett opened the side door, the first thing Stone noticed was the fresh, forest‑scented morning air against his face.He found himself wondering whether the roar of the engine had disturbed the patients, but that was almost beside the point. The Dorian Institute was not, he now realized, merely about using stem cell technology to heal the sick. Bartlett had been letting him know that it was also about an experiment that was much, much more profound.In the silence that followed, Bartlett stepped onto the pad and lit a thin, filtered cigar. (For somebody who’d just been talking about how long it was possible to live, the act confounded credulity.) He took a deep drag, then tossed it onto the paving and peered back through the opening."Are you able to walk yet?""I think I can manage," Stone said. He actually wasn't sure at all. The vibrations of the chopper had done serious damage to his sense of equilibrium.But he did find he could take small steps. As they moved to the stairwell leading down to the third‑floor elevator, Bartlett said, "I know you've been here once before. You tried to sneak in. Grant saw you and sent you packing. Well, this time you're here for real. The full experience. We're going to start by taking you down to the lab and checking you in."The man, Stone suspected, was trying to hide everything that was going on in his mind. He wanted to talk about grandiose themes, but his mind was really somewhere else. Beneath all the braggadocio, there was the smell of deep, abiding fear. Winston Bartlett was in some kind of major denial."You know, life has been good to me," Bartlett declared as though thinking out loud. "I've done and seen things most mortals can only dream of. I'm sixty‑seven, but I feel as though I've only just begun to live. And that's what I intend to happen." He turned back to Stone. "Whether I have a son to share this with remains to be seen."A son? Stone glanced back at the man Bartlett had calledKen, who was now shutting down the McDonnell Douglas. Maybe he was a surrogate son for Bartlett. He was clearly a lot more than a bodyguard. He’d been the one who nabbed Kristen and returned her to the reservation. So what did he think of whatever was going on? Or what about Ally's brother, Grant? He'd claimed he was the son Bartlett longed for and had never had.Winston Bartlett already had a surfeit of sons.When they walked through the door and into the hallway of the third floor, it was milling with the breakfast crowd, nurses and patients, but no one took any special notice of Winston Bartlett, the man who had made it all possible. Did they even know who he was? Stone wondered."We're going downstairs." Bartlett directed him toward the elevator. "I'm still offering you a choice. You can be part of the biggest medical advance in human history, or you can be just another impediment."Stone glanced at his watch. The hour was just shy of nine.Where is Ally? What kind of procedure has she undergone? Is she okay? He had to find her.As they headed down, he felt like it was a descent into some pit of no return. Winston Bartlett had not elaborated on what awaited down there. It was as though he couldn't bring himself to face whatever it really was.What was the worst‑case scenario at this point?What he had to do was figure that out and then plan a countermove.Chapter 32Friday, April 107:48p.m.There are sounds of doors opening and closing, with whispered words that are like alien hisses. She senses she is in motion, on a bed that is gliding past powerful overhead lights.She doesn't know where she is, but that doesn't matter, because wherever it was, she knows it surely is a dream.All she remembers is that Karl Van de Vliet had told her he wants her to undergo a second procedure with the telomerase enzyme, which possibly might create sufficient antibodies to reverse . . . It's all a jumble now in her mind.Or had she just dreamed all that? Now her life seems a flowing river that has no beginning and no end. Her mind is drifting, a cork bobbing helplessly in the current.Then her brother, Grant, drifts alongside her. At least she thinks it's Grant. She recognizes his voice."Ally, can you hear me?" he seems to be asking. "Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you still want to go through with this?"It's the kind of dream where she can hear things around her, but when she tries to speak, no sounds will come. Instead, she's talking inside her head.I'm afraid. I'm just afraid."I can still try to get you out, but you have to help. I waited for you last night but you never came."She wants to say, yes, get me out, but she can only speak in the dream.Now the lighting changes and she feels like she is falling. No, she realizes, she's just on an elevator."Talk to me, Ally," whispers the voice one last time. "I can try to stop them, but I have to know what you want."Then a door opens and she floats through it and out. Then comes the clanking of a door that reminds her of the steel air lock she'd gone through last night looking for Kristen. The smells. She's in the laboratory."We can take her from here," comes a voice, drifting through her reverie.She fantasizes it's Karl Van de Vliet. Or maybe he really is there. In her dream state it's hard to know. But he isn't alone."You said you'd make one more attempt to create the antibodies. Is . . . "It's Winston Bartlett. Or at least it sounds like him."I said I would do all I could, W.B. The first attempt . . . you know what happened. I got almost no results, but I gave you an injection of all I managed to garner. Today I spent the day doing simulations. We're working closer to the edge than I thought. That's why I needed her down at the lab tonight. I want to run some more tests and then try to make a decision. Tonight. There's just a hell of a lot more risk than I first thought."The voice trails off and Ally finds herself trying to comprehend "risk."She hears "beta" again and it floats through her mind, but now its meaning is unclear. It's something she'd heard but can no longer place."Ally," comes a ghostly voice. Surely this is a dream, and she recognizes it as her father, Arthur. Now she can see him. He's wearing a white cap and they're boating in Central Park. He shows up in her dreams a lot and she feels he's the messenger of her unconscious, telling her truths that she sometimes doesn't want to hear."Ally," he says, "he's going to perform the full Beta procedure on you. He didn't tell you, but you know it's true. He thinks he's finally calculated everything right. Can't you see? Is that what you want?"She isn't sure what she wants. And right now she isn't entirely clear where she fits on the scale of sleeping/waking. It is so bizarre. The two parts of her mind, the conscious and the unconscious, are talking to each other. Her unconscious is warning her about fears she didn't even know she had. Or at least she hadn't admitted to yet.Then she hears Winston Bartlett's voice again."Karl, we can't save Kristen now. I've finally realized that. She's gone too far. It's just a tragedy we'll have to figure out how to live with.""The body is a complex chemical laboratory that sometimes gets out of balance. There's always hope. I think—""Know what I fucking think?" Bartlett cuts him off. "I think I'm in line for the Syndrome if you don't get this right."What Ally wants to do, more than anything else, is to make sense of what her options are. The most obvious one— in fact, maybe the only one—is to flow along with that infinite river she feels around her, just to lie where she is, in this sedative‑induced reverie, and let her body be taken over by Karl Van de Vliet. Perhaps he has marvelous things in store for her. Except she has no idea what's real and what is imaginary."The simulations are giving me some idea of what went wrong with the Beta before." The voice is Van de Vliet's. "I have one more test to run, but if I handled this the way the simulation now suggests, I think I could actually generate the telomerase antibodies we need and get the Beta to finally work, avoiding the Syndrome. But to prove it would require a full‑scale experiment. I'm reluctant to do that without Alexa's permission.""Christ, Karl, are you getting cold feet? This is a hell of a time for that.""Call it a pang of rationality.""But everything is at stake.""I don't know what's eventually going to happen with the Syndrome, but it's criminal to jeopardize any more lives." Van de Vliet sighs. "Look, you had the procedure of your own free will, and you knew the risks. Alexa Hampton didn't volunteer for the Beta. She's not a lab rat. At the very least, we ought to get her to sign a release. The liability is. . . In any case, I'm not doing anything till I run this last test. Then maybe I'll have some idea exactly how much risk is involved.""And then, by God we're going to do it. Tonight. This is it."She feels a cold metal object insinuate itself against her chest. Time rushes around her, sending her forward on a journey that seems increasingly inevitable. Where it's taking her, she has no idea, but she senses she no longer has an option of whether she wants to go or not.Now her dreamscape has become crowded as Grant drifts in once more. He seems to be wearing a white lab coat like the others. He settles beside her and takes her hand"Ally, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be here for you."Grant, why are you here? Do you really give a damn about me?She wants to talk to him, but the words aren't working. Why is this happening?Don't let them give you more medications, she tells herself. Get your mind back and get out of here.Chapter 33Friday, April 108:45p.m.Ellen O'Hara had not left after the day shift ended at sixp.m. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night.The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied AlexaHampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she’d met once when they were on a public‑health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel.Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem‑ cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She’d begun responding in a matter of hours.She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement?Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason.She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound like an indictment. Still, she was damned well determined to do it.If nothing else, it would provide a diversion.She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area."Everything all right, Grace?" she asked the nurse at the desk."My, you're working late," came the pleasant reply. "Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it'll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over.""Right." But they're not over, Ellen thought. And there maynotbe a celebration. "I'm going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?""I think he's in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something's scheduled for later on. I don't know. Everybody looks kind of worried.""Well, nobody has said anything to me." They don't need to, she thought. I saw the file.She swiped her card through the security slot and got onto the elevator.When she stepped off, the laboratory was dark and a light was showing under Dr. Van de Vliet's office door.Good. She swiped her card in the reader next to the laboratory air lock and went in. Another swipe and she was on the elevator down to the subbasement, where she was not authorized to be.She went to the second door and slipped her card through the slot, wondering what she would see.The room was dark and smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. She quickly closed the door behind her before turning on the overhead fluorescents.Alexa Hampton was secured to the bed with restraints, and she appeared to be sedated, though she did slowly open her eyes as the light flickered and then stabilized. There was a wheelchair in the corner."Ms. Hampton, can you hear me?" she whispered, hoping not to alarm her. "Do you remember me? I was the one who helped you when you were first admitted."She watched as Alexa stared at her for a moment and then quietly nodded."I . . . I want to get out of here." Her eyelids fluttered and then she closed her eyes again. "But I'm too weak. I can't move.""You're strapped down, love. Let me help you."She reached for the Velcro straps and then paused. Was this a decision she wanted to make?If I do this, it's the end of my career here. Have I lost my mind? What will I do after this?But if I don't try to stop them, God knows what . . . we could all end up convicted of criminal conspiracy and in prison."That reporter friend of yours is here." She pulled open the straps, then helped Alexa sit up in the bed and swing her legs around. "I'm going to take you to him.""It's so horrible," Ally went on. She was settling into the wheelchair as though she expected it. Then she looked up, her eyes dazed. "Where are you taking me? 'Reporter'? Do you mean—""Like I said I'm moving you into your friend's room."She rolled her to the door, then stopped and cracked it and peeked out."Don't say a word dear," she whispered as she began pushing Alexa down the hall. There was a pale flickering light under the door at the end. "Debra andDavidand the others have all gone out to the diner down the road and Dr. Vee is in his office, probably running some last‑minute computer simulations. But we need to be quiet."The fluorescent lights seemed to swirl overhead. This all feels so familiar, Ally thought. This is where I saw Kristen. Does Ellen know what happened to her?"You two have to decide what you want to do.""Stone? You're sure he's here?""Yes," she said "and he's in some kind of battle of wills with Mr. Bartlett."When they reached the door at the end she tried it and it was locked. She pulled out her magnetic card and zipped it through the slot.As they went through, Ally realized the room was lit only by the glow of a laptop computer screen."Stay here," Ellen said turning to leave. "I'm going to try to talk to Dr. Vee."As the door closed Stone finally looked up. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and had been typing furiously on a Gerex laptop."Hey, how're you feeling?" He paused to glance down and save what he'd been writing, then clicked off the computer."I have no idea." Something about him didn't seem quite right. It was like he was on happy pills or something. "How about you? The last time I saw you, I was passing out.""I don't actually remember all that much of what happened after that. I think I went back to the city. But I feel great now. Like I went through a dark tunnel and came out the other side. I feel very different. I don't know what's next, but right now I'm just happy to be in the middle of the biggest story in the history of medical science."What's going on with him? she wondered. He's spacey. He has to be on some kind of drug. What have they done to him?He closed the laptop, then reached and clicked on a light by the bed. "Come on. Want to see something incredible? It's a marvel of medical science, never before happened.""What—""Come with me. I guarantee you've never seen anything like it."He tossed the laptop onto the bed, then swung his feet around and settled them onto the floor. She noticed that the room was a pale blue, with white linoleum. There was a pair of white slippers next to the bed.He slipped them on and then opened the door and grabbed her wheelchair.The hallway felt colder now, yet it was also stifling, as though someone had drawn the air out of it."There's nothing we can do," Stone said.There was a hint of madness in his voice. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still sane, and it wasn't working. He was just barely holding it together.Then she realized he was about to go into intensive care, where Kristen had been."So Kristen's still here?""Oh, you'd better believe it," he said. "She is most definitely still here."When they got to the door, he revolved back.
"The trick would be to have just enough enzyme in your bloodstream to replace senescent cells as they are about to the, but not so much that healthy cells are replaced." He paused searching for a metaphor. "If we thought of the process of cell senescence as something inexorable and steady, like a treadmill, then what we want to do is run just fast enough to stay in one place."
"This whole thing does sound like Alice in Wonderland."
"Yes, well . . . if we could do that, then it's possible, just possible, that one's entire body would simply begin regenerating itself instead of aging. Not just your skin. All of you. That's the theory behind what we've called the Beta procedure."
"But is that something you ethically ought to be doing?" she said, feeling a sense of dismay, of playing God. "Isn't that going too far?"
"Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with you, but there are others who ask, how far is too far? Half the medicines we now have are intended to trick the body's responses somehow—or to meddle in some other way, turning off stop‑and‑ go signals at the cellular level. For example, some birth control pills make your body think you're already pregnant. They trick our natural mechanisms. That kind of thing is commonplace in medicine today. But our research is poised for the next level, to answer the question of how long we can actually live. So here's the argument. There's no reason the human life span has to be what it is. In some unhealthy nations the average citizen doesn't even reach sixty. Whereas in others, like the United States and Japan, the mean is already well past three score and ten. So what is right? What is reasonable? A hundred? Two hundred? It's entirely possible to believe we could live productive lives at least twice as long as we do now."
"And you think we should do this? The world would be thrown into chaos."
"But look at the incredible cure rate we've already effected here using the telomerase enzyme. When our clinical trials for the NIH are announced, it will be the medical equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Nothing we know will ever be the same again."
"That's where you should leave it. To go further is obscene."
"I fear recent events may have proved you right. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and experimented with the Beta procedure. And the results thus far have turned out to be disastrous."
"I guess you're referring to Kristen."
"One day I casually mentioned the Beta to Winston Bartlett and without telling me, he brought it up with Kristen. She insisted on trying it." His expression grew increasingly pained. "I want you to know I was against it. I warned her that it was highly experimental, that I could not guarantee what the side effects might be, but she begged me to do it anyway. Then Bartlett essentially ordered me to do it."
"So what happened?"
He grimaced. "I got the dosage wrong. That's my best guess. After I performed the Beta on Kristen, the enzyme was stable in her for over two months and appeared to be having an effect. All signs of aging abruptly stopped. It gave me a false sense of confidence. Also, there were no side effects. That was when Bartlett wanted to try it too. So I went ahead with him. But then, to my horror, she started evincing side effects. I now believe the dosage I gave her was badly calibrated. It was too high—by how much I think I've finally determined—and the enzyme eventually began replicating too rapidly. It got away from me." He paused. "What happened to Kristen, we now call the Syndrome, for lack of a better name. And it's about to happen to Bartlett."
"But what does all this have to do with me? Why was I brought out here with all kinds of bribes and pressure and—"
"Do you want a simple answer? Of excruciating honesty?"
"It would be helpful."
"The simple answer is, Winston Bartlett has an extremely rare blood type. It's AB. You have the same."
"How did you know—"
"Your brother. You see, I need to try to develop antibodies to the telomerase enzyme that won't be rejected by his immune system. I think there's an outside chance that I could culture antibodies taken from someone with the same blood type and use them to arrest the rampant multiplying of telomerase enzyme about to begin in Bartlett's blood."
"I'm here because you're using me!" She couldn't believe her ears. And Grant had set it up. No wonder he was finally feeling guilty.
"I just need to borrow your immune system for a few days. It's very safe."
"I don't think so. I'm out of here."
"Actually, the procedure is already under way. While Debra was taking your last blood sample, she also injected a minuscule amount of the telomerase enzyme in active form, the proprietary version used in the Beta, into your bloodstream. Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. The dosage was so minute that there's no way it could have any effect on you."
"You have got to be kidding!" My God, she thought, I could sue the hell out of—
"Don't worry, think of it like a smallpox vaccination." He paused. "Now, though, I have to tell you that I just learned the initial dosage probably didn't do the trick. The amount of antibodies created was, unfortunately, minuscule. Which means we need to go to a slightly higher infusion. But again, don't worry. It's still safe."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said finally, gasping for air in her fury. "You didn't ask—"
"Alexa," he cut in, "right now I have something like two weeks left to try to head off the Syndrome in Winston Bartlett. If we achieve that, then I'm hopeful the antibodies he creates can be successfully used to start reversing the Syndrome in Kristen. We will know how to manage the Beta. Who knows where that could lead? But it all begins with you. You're the clean slate we need to start."
"Before we go one step further, I want to know what, exactly, happens with the Syndrome. I think I know, but I'd like to hear—"
"Something that's too bizarre to believe. It literally defies every natural law we've ever known."
He couldn't bring himself to put it in words, she thought, but she knew she’d guessed right the first time.
The Syndrome. Kristen Starr was growing younger. That was the horrible development and nobody could deal with it.
And they couldn't stop it.
Karl Van de Vliet had created a monstrosity.
"I am so out of here," she said struggling to rise from the wheelchair. "If you try to keep me here, that's kidnapping. We're talking a capital crime."
"Alexa, I understand you're upset, but you're in no condition to be discharged. I'm very sorry." He pushed a red button on a radio device on his belt. There was genuine agony in his eyes. "I've never in my life coerced a patient in any way. But you have to understand that so much is dependent on you now. There are no easy choices left."
He's lost control of the situation here now, she told herself. He's truly terrified of Winston Bartlett. That's who's really got control of my fate.
Moments later, the security guard from the lobby, accompanied by Marion, came through the door of the laboratory.
"No, I'm not going to let you do this," Ally declared. "I'm not letting you do any more medical experiments on me."
As she struggled again to get out of the wheelchair, she felt a prick in her arm and saw the glint of a needle in the dim light.
"I'm sorry, Alexa. It should all be over in just a couple of days. And I swear no harm will come to you."
She was feeling her consciousness swirl as Marion began rolling her through the steel air lock.
The last thing she heard was Van de Vliet saying, "Don't worry. A week from now, all this will seem like a dream."
Chapter 31
Friday, April 10
7:04a.m.
Stone felt his consciousness returning as the blast of an engine cut through his sedative‑induced reverie. Where was he? There were vibrations all around him and a deafening roar that was slowly spiraling upward in frequency and volume.
As the haze that engulfed his mind slowly began to dissipate, he wondered if this wasn't more of the fantasy he'd been having, of flying through some kind of multicolored space‑time continuum. Or was he waking up to something spectacularly real?
As he opened his eyes and looked around, he realized it was no dream. He was in a cramped airline seat, strapped in with a black seat belt. His head was gently secured to a headrest by a soft cotton scarf, but his hands were free, lying in his lap.
Somebody had lifted him into the seat and strapped him down.
On his left was a Plexiglas window, and when he looked out, he saw the earth beneath him begin falling away.
My God.
Then he realized he was in a white‑and‑gray helicopter that had just lifted off from a rooftop helo pad. He watched spellbound quickly coming awake, as the craft quickly began a flight path that circled around and past the lower end of Manhattan.
Then he heard the pilot speaking curtly to an air controller somewhere and he looked up and realized it was the same samurai bastard who’d slugged him on the street and then aided in his kidnapping.
But that had to be yesterday, or God knows how many days ago. He was realizing he’d just lost a chunk of his life.
And now he was being taken somewhere. In a very big hurry.
"Being up here always seems like being closer to God" came a voice from behind him. He recognized it with a jolt. It was the man who thought he was God.
Shakily he removed the scarf that had been holding his head and turned around. Winston Bartlett was gazing down through his own plastic window, seemingly talking to himself.
"What . . . what the hell is going on?" He could barely get the words out.
"Oh," Bartlett said turning to look at him. "Good I particularly wanted you to see this. It should help make my point."
Stone struggled to comprehend what was happening. He was with the man he had wanted to call Father for nearly four decades, whether he could admit that to himself or not. It could be the beginning of the kind of bonding he had always hungered for, but he didn't want it like this. They finally had a relationship, and it was completely antagonistic. He had just been drugged and kidnapped by his own father, this after being threatened and fired. Again, Daddy dearest.
So what was this evolving chapter about? Winston Bartlett, he knew, could be ruthless, but he also was a visionary in his own way.
Then he remembered what had happened. He'd been trying to track down Kristen.
"Where . . . where are we going?"
"We're going to the place you seem to find so interesting," Bartlett declared over the din of the engine. "But I was hoping that we could have a rational discourse along the way. What's been happening thus far doesn't serve either of us. I'm hoping things have cooled down a bit and we can call a truce."
Stone was still trying to clear his head, get the cobwebs away. It was difficult. He'd lost consciousness in a town house in the Village, on solid ground, and regained it here, where the earth itself seemed in motion. And now Bartlett was trying out another bargaining style, so even the rules appeared to be in flux.
"Look, down there." Bartlett was projecting through the din around them and pointing toward the wide expanse of New York Harbor. "This McDonnell Douglas is my Zendo, my monastery, and the world below is my contemplative garden. I come up here to find peace. This is an intersection of the great forces of nature, one of a finite number on earth, where a mighty river returns to the salt sea from which it came. These waters have flowed in the same cycle for millions, billions of years, mingling, evaporating, separating again—just as life on this planet continually replicates itself, growing and aging and dying, but not before producing the seeds of its replacement. How can something be at once both timeless and constantly changing? I ponder that a lot and I always end up thinking of this river meeting the sea. Down there, nature is a force unto itself, oblivious to good or evil, to human desires or human laws."
Bartlett was doing a riff on some obsession of his own, Stone decided. Or maybe it was some of the Zen philosophy that went along with acquiring a world‑class collection of samurai swords (if you believed the published profiles).
All the same, looking down at the sprawling city and the harbor full of ships, it was hard not to feel omnipotent and humble at the same time. The thing Bartlett seemed to be getting at, though, was that nature could not be told what to do. And he seemed to be on the verge of declaring himself a part of that unbridled natural force, also powerful enough to do whatever he pleased.
Now they were heading up the Hudson, teeming with early bird tourist cruises and small single‑masted sailboats. Bartlett paused to take in the view with satisfaction. Finally he continued his monologue.
"I know we've had our differences, but I'm prepared to try to get past that. I want to talk to you about something I always think of when I fly across this river. Time. I call my obsession Time and the River. Physicists will tell you that time should be thought of as a kind of fourth dimension. Things are always at a certain place in three dimensions, but when you describe the location of a subatomic particle, for example, you also have to say when it was there. To locate it accurately, you need four dimensions. We think of them all as rigid but what if one of them could be made fluid? What if you could alter the character of time?"
In spite of himself, Stone took the bait. "I don't know what this has to do with anything. Nobody can alter the pace of time." He found himself recalling a snippet of verse by John Donne:
O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
"Strictly speaking, that's true," Bartlett said gravely, turning away again to stare out the Plexiglas window, down into the morning space below them. The Hudson was now a giant ribbon of blue heading north into the mist. "But what if we could alter the clocks in our body to make them run slower?" He smiled then pointed off to his left. "All this below us has happened in a couple of hundred years. What will it look like down there in another hundred years? Will we still need these puny machines to fly, or will there be teleportation? Whatever it is, what would you give to be around to see that? To have your own time slow down while the world around you went on?"
Stone was looking out into space, wondering. . . not whether Winston Bartlett was an egomaniacal madman but rather how truly mad he really was.
Flying in the helicopter, he felt like Faust being shown the world by Mephistopheles. Except here Satan was his own father, offering him a teasing prospect of what it would be like to live on and on.
It would make a hell of a story. The problem was, miracles always came with some kind of terrible price. What was the price this time?
Then he had another thought. Was that what had happened to Kristen? Was she paying the price for some kind of hubris that pushed nature too far? Nobody had claimed she had any kind of medical condition that necessitated a stem cell intervention. So had she been experimenting with some other procedure? Had Mephistopheles now called in his marker?
He wanted to ask but the vibration and the noise made his brain feel like it was in a blender.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Bartlett went on. "Do you want to be part of the most exciting development in the history of medicine? Well, this is your chance. There is a majestic experiment under way. But now we know it's not for the fainthearted. The question is, do you want to live life or just write about it?"
"I think it's time I heard the whole story," Stone said finally, forcing out the words. "What's your part in this 'experiment'?"
"I've put everything at risk, but now I'm this close to controlling the clock. So . . . are you my son? My flesh and blood? Do you have the balls to try it too?"
Stone suspected the question was rhetorical. He was already up to his neck in whatever was going on. He just didn’t yet know how big a part of it he was. While he'd been sedated overnight, had they started experiments on him?
He knew that some of the buzz about stem cells involved the fantasy that someday they might be used to forestall the aging process. Responsible researchers all said that they weren't trying to extend life; they were only hoping to make a normal lifetime more livable. Rejuvenative medicine. Winston Bartlett, however, had just taken stem cell potential to its obvious conclusion; he was talking about doing what others did not dare. Regenerative medicine.
"What would we give to be able to look forward to thousands of mornings like this, ending it all only when we chose?" he declared his hands sweeping over the dense green beneath them. "Time would become something that merely flows endlessly through us, ever renewing. So‑called old age would cease to exist, at least for those with the courage to take the necessary risks."
Now they were moving above the pine forests that comprised the outer ring of the Greater New York suburbs, as below them the green wilds of New Jersey, north of the GW Bridge, were sweeping by.
Hmmm, Stone pondered if a man somehow stopped growing older and nobody else did, at some point he'd end up being the same "age " as his grandchildren. That caused him to think again about Amy and wonder if Bartlett would ever reconcile himself to her existence. . . .
A few minutes later, he looked down and saw a wide clearing in the trees and a red‑tile roof. They had arrived but from the air, the Dorian Institute gave no clue to the momentous research going on inside.
Bartlett said nothing as they began their descent, and in moments they were settling onto the rooftop landing pad. The downdraft from the rotor cleared away a few soggy leaves, which had somehow blown there, and then the Japanese pilot cut the power and the sound died away. When Bartlett opened the side door, the first thing Stone noticed was the fresh, forest‑scented morning air against his face.
He found himself wondering whether the roar of the engine had disturbed the patients, but that was almost beside the point. The Dorian Institute was not, he now realized, merely about using stem cell technology to heal the sick. Bartlett had been letting him know that it was also about an experiment that was much, much more profound.
In the silence that followed, Bartlett stepped onto the pad and lit a thin, filtered cigar. (For somebody who’d just been talking about how long it was possible to live, the act confounded credulity.) He took a deep drag, then tossed it onto the paving and peered back through the opening.
"Are you able to walk yet?"
"I think I can manage," Stone said. He actually wasn't sure at all. The vibrations of the chopper had done serious damage to his sense of equilibrium.
But he did find he could take small steps. As they moved to the stairwell leading down to the third‑floor elevator, Bartlett said, "I know you've been here once before. You tried to sneak in. Grant saw you and sent you packing. Well, this time you're here for real. The full experience. We're going to start by taking you down to the lab and checking you in."
The man, Stone suspected, was trying to hide everything that was going on in his mind. He wanted to talk about grandiose themes, but his mind was really somewhere else. Beneath all the braggadocio, there was the smell of deep, abiding fear. Winston Bartlett was in some kind of major denial.
"You know, life has been good to me," Bartlett declared as though thinking out loud. "I've done and seen things most mortals can only dream of. I'm sixty‑seven, but I feel as though I've only just begun to live. And that's what I intend to happen." He turned back to Stone. "Whether I have a son to share this with remains to be seen."
A son? Stone glanced back at the man Bartlett had called
Ken, who was now shutting down the McDonnell Douglas. Maybe he was a surrogate son for Bartlett. He was clearly a lot more than a bodyguard. He’d been the one who nabbed Kristen and returned her to the reservation. So what did he think of whatever was going on? Or what about Ally's brother, Grant? He'd claimed he was the son Bartlett longed for and had never had.
Winston Bartlett already had a surfeit of sons.
When they walked through the door and into the hallway of the third floor, it was milling with the breakfast crowd, nurses and patients, but no one took any special notice of Winston Bartlett, the man who had made it all possible. Did they even know who he was? Stone wondered.
"We're going downstairs." Bartlett directed him toward the elevator. "I'm still offering you a choice. You can be part of the biggest medical advance in human history, or you can be just another impediment."
Stone glanced at his watch. The hour was just shy of nine.
Where is Ally? What kind of procedure has she undergone? Is she okay? He had to find her.
As they headed down, he felt like it was a descent into some pit of no return. Winston Bartlett had not elaborated on what awaited down there. It was as though he couldn't bring himself to face whatever it really was.
What was the worst‑case scenario at this point?
What he had to do was figure that out and then plan a countermove.
Chapter 32
Friday, April 10
7:48p.m.
There are sounds of doors opening and closing, with whispered words that are like alien hisses. She senses she is in motion, on a bed that is gliding past powerful overhead lights.
She doesn't know where she is, but that doesn't matter, because wherever it was, she knows it surely is a dream.
All she remembers is that Karl Van de Vliet had told her he wants her to undergo a second procedure with the telomerase enzyme, which possibly might create sufficient antibodies to reverse . . . It's all a jumble now in her mind.
Or had she just dreamed all that? Now her life seems a flowing river that has no beginning and no end. Her mind is drifting, a cork bobbing helplessly in the current.
Then her brother, Grant, drifts alongside her. At least she thinks it's Grant. She recognizes his voice.
"Ally, can you hear me?" he seems to be asking. "Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you still want to go through with this?"
It's the kind of dream where she can hear things around her, but when she tries to speak, no sounds will come. Instead, she's talking inside her head.
I'm afraid. I'm just afraid.
"I can still try to get you out, but you have to help. I waited for you last night but you never came."
She wants to say, yes, get me out, but she can only speak in the dream.
Now the lighting changes and she feels like she is falling. No, she realizes, she's just on an elevator.
"Talk to me, Ally," whispers the voice one last time. "I can try to stop them, but I have to know what you want."
Then a door opens and she floats through it and out. Then comes the clanking of a door that reminds her of the steel air lock she'd gone through last night looking for Kristen. The smells. She's in the laboratory.
"We can take her from here," comes a voice, drifting through her reverie.
She fantasizes it's Karl Van de Vliet. Or maybe he really is there. In her dream state it's hard to know. But he isn't alone.
"You said you'd make one more attempt to create the antibodies. Is . . . "
It's Winston Bartlett. Or at least it sounds like him.
"I said I would do all I could, W.B. The first attempt . . . you know what happened. I got almost no results, but I gave you an injection of all I managed to garner. Today I spent the day doing simulations. We're working closer to the edge than I thought. That's why I needed her down at the lab tonight. I want to run some more tests and then try to make a decision. Tonight. There's just a hell of a lot more risk than I first thought."
The voice trails off and Ally finds herself trying to comprehend "risk."
She hears "beta" again and it floats through her mind, but now its meaning is unclear. It's something she'd heard but can no longer place.
"Ally," comes a ghostly voice. Surely this is a dream, and she recognizes it as her father, Arthur. Now she can see him. He's wearing a white cap and they're boating in Central Park. He shows up in her dreams a lot and she feels he's the messenger of her unconscious, telling her truths that she sometimes doesn't want to hear.
"Ally," he says, "he's going to perform the full Beta procedure on you. He didn't tell you, but you know it's true. He thinks he's finally calculated everything right. Can't you see? Is that what you want?"
She isn't sure what she wants. And right now she isn't entirely clear where she fits on the scale of sleeping/waking. It is so bizarre. The two parts of her mind, the conscious and the unconscious, are talking to each other. Her unconscious is warning her about fears she didn't even know she had. Or at least she hadn't admitted to yet.
Then she hears Winston Bartlett's voice again.
"Karl, we can't save Kristen now. I've finally realized that. She's gone too far. It's just a tragedy we'll have to figure out how to live with."
"The body is a complex chemical laboratory that sometimes gets out of balance. There's always hope. I think—"
"Know what I fucking think?" Bartlett cuts him off. "I think I'm in line for the Syndrome if you don't get this right."
What Ally wants to do, more than anything else, is to make sense of what her options are. The most obvious one— in fact, maybe the only one—is to flow along with that infinite river she feels around her, just to lie where she is, in this sedative‑induced reverie, and let her body be taken over by Karl Van de Vliet. Perhaps he has marvelous things in store for her. Except she has no idea what's real and what is imaginary.
"The simulations are giving me some idea of what went wrong with the Beta before." The voice is Van de Vliet's. "I have one more test to run, but if I handled this the way the simulation now suggests, I think I could actually generate the telomerase antibodies we need and get the Beta to finally work, avoiding the Syndrome. But to prove it would require a full‑scale experiment. I'm reluctant to do that without Alexa's permission."
"Christ, Karl, are you getting cold feet? This is a hell of a time for that."
"Call it a pang of rationality."
"But everything is at stake."
"I don't know what's eventually going to happen with the Syndrome, but it's criminal to jeopardize any more lives." Van de Vliet sighs. "Look, you had the procedure of your own free will, and you knew the risks. Alexa Hampton didn't volunteer for the Beta. She's not a lab rat. At the very least, we ought to get her to sign a release. The liability is. . . In any case, I'm not doing anything till I run this last test. Then maybe I'll have some idea exactly how much risk is involved."
"And then, by God we're going to do it. Tonight. This is it."
She feels a cold metal object insinuate itself against her chest. Time rushes around her, sending her forward on a journey that seems increasingly inevitable. Where it's taking her, she has no idea, but she senses she no longer has an option of whether she wants to go or not.
Now her dreamscape has become crowded as Grant drifts in once more. He seems to be wearing a white lab coat like the others. He settles beside her and takes her hand
"Ally, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be here for you."
Grant, why are you here? Do you really give a damn about me?
She wants to talk to him, but the words aren't working. Why is this happening?
Don't let them give you more medications, she tells herself. Get your mind back and get out of here.
Friday, April 10
8:45p.m.
Ellen O'Hara had not left after the day shift ended at sixp.m. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night.
The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.
Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa
Hampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.
May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she’d met once when they were on a public‑health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel.
Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.
Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem‑ cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She’d begun responding in a matter of hours.
She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement?
Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason.
She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.
The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.
She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound like an indictment. Still, she was damned well determined to do it.
If nothing else, it would provide a diversion.
She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area.
"Everything all right, Grace?" she asked the nurse at the desk.
"My, you're working late," came the pleasant reply. "Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it'll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over."
"Right." But they're not over, Ellen thought. And there may
notbe a celebration. "I'm going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?"
"I think he's in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something's scheduled for later on. I don't know. Everybody looks kind of worried."
"Well, nobody has said anything to me." They don't need to, she thought. I saw the file.
She swiped her card through the security slot and got onto the elevator.
When she stepped off, the laboratory was dark and a light was showing under Dr. Van de Vliet's office door.
Good. She swiped her card in the reader next to the laboratory air lock and went in. Another swipe and she was on the elevator down to the subbasement, where she was not authorized to be.
She went to the second door and slipped her card through the slot, wondering what she would see.
The room was dark and smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. She quickly closed the door behind her before turning on the overhead fluorescents.
Alexa Hampton was secured to the bed with restraints, and she appeared to be sedated, though she did slowly open her eyes as the light flickered and then stabilized. There was a wheelchair in the corner.
"Ms. Hampton, can you hear me?" she whispered, hoping not to alarm her. "Do you remember me? I was the one who helped you when you were first admitted."
She watched as Alexa stared at her for a moment and then quietly nodded.
"I . . . I want to get out of here." Her eyelids fluttered and then she closed her eyes again. "But I'm too weak. I can't move."
"You're strapped down, love. Let me help you."
She reached for the Velcro straps and then paused. Was this a decision she wanted to make?
If I do this, it's the end of my career here. Have I lost my mind? What will I do after this?
But if I don't try to stop them, God knows what . . . we could all end up convicted of criminal conspiracy and in prison.
"That reporter friend of yours is here." She pulled open the straps, then helped Alexa sit up in the bed and swing her legs around. "I'm going to take you to him."
"It's so horrible," Ally went on. She was settling into the wheelchair as though she expected it. Then she looked up, her eyes dazed. "Where are you taking me? 'Reporter'? Do you mean—"
"Like I said I'm moving you into your friend's room."
She rolled her to the door, then stopped and cracked it and peeked out.
"Don't say a word dear," she whispered as she began pushing Alexa down the hall. There was a pale flickering light under the door at the end. "Debra andDavidand the others have all gone out to the diner down the road and Dr. Vee is in his office, probably running some last‑minute computer simulations. But we need to be quiet."
The fluorescent lights seemed to swirl overhead. This all feels so familiar, Ally thought. This is where I saw Kristen. Does Ellen know what happened to her?
"You two have to decide what you want to do."
"Stone? You're sure he's here?"
"Yes," she said "and he's in some kind of battle of wills with Mr. Bartlett."
When they reached the door at the end she tried it and it was locked. She pulled out her magnetic card and zipped it through the slot.
As they went through, Ally realized the room was lit only by the glow of a laptop computer screen.
"Stay here," Ellen said turning to leave. "I'm going to try to talk to Dr. Vee."
As the door closed Stone finally looked up. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and had been typing furiously on a Gerex laptop.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" He paused to glance down and save what he'd been writing, then clicked off the computer.
"I have no idea." Something about him didn't seem quite right. It was like he was on happy pills or something. "How about you? The last time I saw you, I was passing out."
"I don't actually remember all that much of what happened after that. I think I went back to the city. But I feel great now. Like I went through a dark tunnel and came out the other side. I feel very different. I don't know what's next, but right now I'm just happy to be in the middle of the biggest story in the history of medical science."
What's going on with him? she wondered. He's spacey. He has to be on some kind of drug. What have they done to him?
He closed the laptop, then reached and clicked on a light by the bed. "Come on. Want to see something incredible? It's a marvel of medical science, never before happened."
"What—"
"Come with me. I guarantee you've never seen anything like it."
He tossed the laptop onto the bed, then swung his feet around and settled them onto the floor. She noticed that the room was a pale blue, with white linoleum. There was a pair of white slippers next to the bed.
He slipped them on and then opened the door and grabbed her wheelchair.
The hallway felt colder now, yet it was also stifling, as though someone had drawn the air out of it.
"There's nothing we can do," Stone said.
There was a hint of madness in his voice. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still sane, and it wasn't working. He was just barely holding it together.
Then she realized he was about to go into intensive care, where Kristen had been.
"So Kristen's still here?"
"Oh, you'd better believe it," he said. "She is most definitely still here."
When they got to the door, he revolved back.