“I think you made the right choice.”
“When we tell this story, we can leave that part out.”
“Right.”
Then he’s quiet.
We’d actually been on the base. We’d actually explored one of Area 51’s research facilities. Any number of Xavier’s friends would have given their right arm to have done what we just did.
Nothing on UFOs, but the unmanned aerial vehicle research sure did seem legit.
Xavier’s explanations of things over the last couple days run through my head, and I ask him about one of the things he brought up but we never really examined in-depth. “Hey, yesterday when you were filling in Charlene on transhumanism, you mentioned someone named de Grey. I don’t remember reading about him. What’s his deal, exactly?”
“What?” I must’ve caught him deep in thought.
“De Grey. I was wondering what you knew about him.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, he points out a bunch of ways — six or seven, I’m not sure — that our metabolism eventually causes pathology, and that’s what causes us to age and eventually to die. I haven’t memorized his list, but he goes through things that could stop that like cell therapy, removing toxic cells, halting the degradation of cells as they reproduce. I’m no expert on any of it, but he claims that we’ve been able to do all those things on mice and should be able to do them all on humans within the next decade.”
“So this guy, he thinks he can cure aging?”
“He calls it engineered negligible senescence—um, senescence is when cells deteriorate as they age — but yes. From the things he says, it sure seems like he believes it. In science fiction movies you might have someone growing a clone to use their organs to stay alive, but it’s much easier to replace yourself with yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Growing an organ from your own cells. Create a scaffolding to support the cells, say with a 3-D printer, build the organ on it. If you need a replacement you won’t need to wait for someone else to donate an organ or fear that your body will reject it. It’s already been done with bladders, skin, muscle tissue, ears.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No. Any organ can be grown in a laboratory — kidney, lungs, hearts. There’s that famous case of Claudia Castillo back in 2008, when scientists used her own cells and the windpipe from a cadaver to create a lab-grown windpipe for her.”
It’s a lot to think about.
Is death really negotiable?
“In all of this bioengineering, don’t you think we’re playing God?”
“If there is a God, a good God — and I believe there is — then wouldn’t he want us to remove the most possible suffering from the most amount of people? I mean, to remove suffering, to show love and compassion, is the highest ideal, the core characteristic of God, the one he would want us most to emulate.”
“Maybe removing suffering isn’t the best way to show love?”
We both have to think about that.
“And, I suppose, if there’s no God, then we’re masters of our own domain, and why not help evolution along in welcoming in a new era of immortality.”
The field of transhumanism and the coming Singularity really do raise a lot of ethical questions, some of the most basic questions of existence: Who am I? How am I unique? What is the meaning of life? When does life begin? And at an even more fundamental level, what is life anyway?
All of these thoughts about living forever only serve to bring back memories of my wife and my two boys.
And Emilio.
All lost far too soon.
Death might someday be negotiable, but it isn’t yet.
Not by a long shot.
The stars stare down across the lonely desert. Xavier calls Fred to tell him we’re safe, and I drive through the bleak night toward home.
Derek stepped up to the Arête’s front desk and put on a worried face. “My wife is with my brother, and he has a very serious medical condition. I know she checked in earlier, and I need to find out what room she’s in. I was supposed to meet them here in the lobby, but my flight was late. I assume she had to take him up to the room.”
The clerk didn’t even look up from the keyboard. “And what’s her name?”
To use her credit card she would have had to use her real name.
“Calista Hendrix.”
She typed, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. No rooms to a Calista Hendrix.”
He let that sink in.
Brantner? Would she have used your alias?
That was doubtful.
“Is there another name it might be under?” the woman asked.
Jeremy had his wallet with him last night when she brought him up to the room.
“Yes, actually. My brother’s. Jeremy Turnisen. Try that.”
After a moment of working on her computer, she smiled. “There it is—6743.” She gulped slightly, perhaps realizing she probably shouldn’t have said the room number aloud. “Would you like me to ring them?”
“As I said, my brother is ill. I’d rather just slip in if I could without disturbing them. Can you give me a key?”
She bit her lip. “I’m not supposed to.”
“Yes, I know, I understand.” He reached for his wallet, bluffing that he was going to show her his real name. “Do you need to see an ID? Is that it?”
“Um…” She looked around uneasily. “You know, no, that’s okay.” She processed a key card and handed it to him. “I hope your brother starts feeling better.”
“That’s kind of you. I’ll pass along the sentiment. Thank you.”
Charlene drove toward Summerlin, piecing together the connection between Emilio, Groom Lake, and RixoTray.
The key card.
The jellyfish research.
Building A-13.
She didn’t know why Emilio had landed in the middle of all this, but his relationship with Dr. Turnisen and his promise to Tim that he would help him to not grow old so fast were all related somehow.
Everything was interrelated.
Maybe the man she was on her way to see would help her figure out how.
Derek stood for a moment outside room 6743 and considered what he was going to do to Calista and Jeremy.
He still needed those launch codes.
The test flight was going to happen in just under ninety minutes.
That should still be plenty of time. He’d get the information, call it in to the number his contact person had provided him, and the drone would be delivered to Garcia’s people in Mexico.
If he was going to continue his research he needed to move the program out of the country, and if he didn’t deliver the drone tonight, that was going to severely hamper his working relationship with Garcia, whom he was now depending on for his new test subjects.
He mentally prepared himself to take whatever measures proved to be necessary to assure that things happened tonight on schedule.
As he was fishing the room key out of his pocket, he got a call from Dr. Malhotra that he had arrived at the Arête.
“Come up to 6743. I’ll be waiting for you inside the room.”
“What about your rifle?”
“Leave it in your car for now.”
Then he hung up, slid the key through the card reader, and swung the door open.
The Syringe
Derek stepped into the room.
Ten feet away, Turnisen sat in a wheelchair staring at him coolly. Calista stood beside him, a syringe in her hand, the tip pressed against the side of Turnisen’s neck.
“Close the door,” she said.
Derek did.
“So you drug me in the mornings.”
“Easy now, Calista.” His eyes were on the hypodermic needle. “You don’t want to do anything you’re going to regret.”