Lillian took a moment before continuing.
‘I have been alive for a hundred eighty-seven years, and in that time I have seen this country, and this planet, gradually destroyed by the parasite that we call humanity. We are the only species that consumes without replenishing, that takes more than our fair share without giving anything back. For over one hundred forty years, five of the seven men who had sheltered with me in Misery Hole lived in a small area of the New Mexico desert with barely anybody knowing they were even there. They took only what they needed, and in doing so were a part of their environment, not a predator upon it.’
Lillian reached into the pocket of her jacket and produced a small vial filled with a clear liquid that caught the light streaming in through the suite’s broad windows. She held it up to the men demonstratively.
‘I have tested this serum,’ she said, ‘because we were dying of old age. The bacteria that infected us when we were in the caves began dying because they were unable to sustain themselves indefinitely on the iron we consumed in our food, perhaps because of our physical size compared to other, smaller mammals such as bats who I believe may have originally harbored them. I myself have not yet suffered any symptoms, possibly because females tend to live longer than males in many mammalian species. This serum has corrected the deficiency in the bacteria Bacillus permians, allowing them to sustain cellular senescence indefinitely within the bodies of large mammals such as ourselves.’
‘How?’ one of the younger men demanded. ‘How can you be sure that the bacteria will work this time?’
‘The degradation of our bodies was being caused by a hemoglobin deficiency,’ Lillian said, ‘itself caused by the bacteria’s demands for iron, effectively making us permanently anemic. Hemoglobin deficiency decreases blood-oxygen carrying capacity, causing loss of blood, nutritional deficiencies, bone-marrow problems and kidney failure — the red blood cells in iron deficiency anemia become hypochromic and microcytic. Hemolysis, the accelerated breakdown of red blood cells, follows and jaundice is caused by the hemoglobin metabolite bilirubin, which can cause renal failure. The increased levels of bilirubin improperly degraded the hemoglobin and clogged small blood vessels, especially in the kidneys, causing kidney damage and muscular breakdown. We were essentially falling apart. The same quorom sensing that caused the infection to extend telomere life in us eventually also caused us to become anemic and then began to break down our bodies at the cellular level. The reason for all of this was that our immune systems were finally overpowering the bacteria as they gradually died off over the years due to lack of iron. The bacterial population reduced sufficiently that quorom sensing ceased, and we aged rapidly. The bacteria within us simply had not evolved enough to exist in symbiotic harmony with human beings.’
‘I take it,’ one of the men asked, ‘that you have overcome this unfortunate flaw?’
She shook the vial in her hand.
‘This serum is the result of my work since: it is still not perfect, but it’s already more effective than the naturally occurring bacteria. It no longer causes anemia and, as you know, lasts for at least a hundred fifty years. By that time, we’ll have worked out how to make it last a lot longer, producing a bacterium that exists in perfect harmony with our own bodies.’
Gregory Hampton looked at her for a long moment.
‘Your colleagues died to protect that,’ he said. ‘Why would you now betray their memory?’
Lillian sighed.
‘Because they had not really lived in the modern world,’ she said. ‘They hadn’t seen what it has become. And because you are all already wealthy beyond avarice and I suspect your interest in this is not financial. I take it that you wish for there to be a world for humans to live in in a hundred years’ time, a thousand?’
The men regarded her with respect for the first time. Hampton spoke softly for them.
‘The Bilderberg Group has a greater cause than merely acting as an annual reservoir for political discourse,’ he said solemnly. ‘Unless there are major technological breakthroughs in the fields of energy generation, farming and pharmaceuticals in the next ten years, it is highly likely that civilization as we know it will collapse, the burden of our population too great for even human ingenuity to support it. It has already begun, as fossil fuels are now running out and fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce. We exist as a think tank dedicated to preserving human endeavor after the coming apocalypse, and rebuilding it in the future.’
Lillian nodded in understanding.
‘Then this serum could help extend your leadership, should the need arise.’
‘How much do you want for it?’ one of them asked.
Lillian shook her head.
‘I don’t want money,’ she said. ‘What I want is to be protected, so that I don’t have to spend my life hiding from people like Jeb Oppenheimer. I want this serum to be used only by those who earn it, and I want the reduction of the population of this planet to be achieved humanely over time. If there’s one thing that we absolutely agree on, it’s that if either our population or our rate of consumption is not reduced then humanity is ultimately doomed. Any species that becomes too numerous eventually suffers a collapse, and I fear that ours is well and truly overdue. In that, at least, Jeb Oppenheimer was right.’
Hampton looked at his accomplices, and they all nodded together.
‘Security is the one thing that we absolutely can guarantee,’ he said to her finally. ‘You will be safe amongst us, I can assure you.’
Lillian stood and handed the vial to Hampton. She fixed her gaze onto his.
‘This serum can be cultured and grown. As a bacterium, it will by its very nature divide and propagate without limitation. You have in your hands the fountain of youth,’ she said, ‘the elixir. Use it wisely.’
78
‘Lillian Cruz is the eighth soldier?’ Lopez said in disbelief.
Ethan nodded as he leaned against a squad car.
‘It was staring us in the face all along and I never realized it,’ he said. ‘I even read about women serving as soldiers during the Civil War in the records office, but didn’t make the connection.’
‘When did you figure it out?’ Zamora asked.
Ethan shrugged.
‘Too late. We were all pretty sure that Ellison and his men needed someone on the inside to handle things, but we assumed it would be somebody they had befriended. It only crossed my mind when I thought about Hiram Conley. He had accrued injuries throughout his life, some of them serious enough to have required hospitalization, maybe even surgery. I’d wondered how his great age could have been covered up if he’d died in some other way, in an operating theater surrounded by surgeons and nurses or similar. There had to be a plan in place to cover that eventuality.’
Lopez caught on quickly.
‘Like a coroner,’ she said. ‘Damn, somebody even mentioned that Lillian Cruz had worked there for longer than they could remember.’
‘Lillian could get them in and out of a laboratory without attracting attention,’ Ethan said. ‘She could administer medicines to them, possibly even perform surgery. Hard to make friends like that over decades as the faces would keep changing, and the secret would be too hard to keep. But if Lillian took on a medical role, an official position, then they’d be in good stead to survive just about anything. All she’d have to do is move occasionally, or change her name and such like, to avoid exposing herself.’