"The kids on the island — the Nursery," said Jude.
"Precisely. See how dark the last slide is. That indicates a superabundance of telomerase. Telomerase is supposed to be beneficial. Its job is to cap the chromosomes with protective sequences of DNA. But put it in cells where it doesn't belong, and put in a mutant variety to boot, and you've got a problem."
"And that's what they did?"
"Yes. Think of it. They've already established a procedure for organ transplants, which is the first step on the road to longevity. But old age involves much more than your organs breaking down. It's the whole system giving out — your blood, your cells, your brain, the marrow of your bones."
"I understand."
"You don't have to be a scientist to figure out that human life is complicated. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You can't just plug in one organ for another and sit back and think you've solved mankind's quest for immortality. You have to do something more. And these guys are top scientists — they've already solved cloning."
"So what do they do?"
"Once they've created clones, they've got access to a bank of organs. But they need to take it to the next level. So they go back to primary research. The structure of cells, cellular immortality, telomeres. A lot of legitimate research is going on in these areas as it is. The journals can't keep up with it all. So it makes sense that the researcher in the Lab would be attracted to it. And, of course, they've got one great advantage that other researchers don't."
"Which is…?"
Tizzie looked at Skyler.
"Which is that they have a group of ready-made guinea pigs. Human guinea pigs. I'm sorry for this, Skyler, but you should know."
Skyler nodded.
"What do legitimate researchers do when they want to test a vaccine? They use it on a prison population. And that's what happened here. They achieved a breakthrough. They isolated the enzyme telomerase. And they had to test it. Don't you see? Everything was falling into place for them. If cells die because their chromosomes get too short, why not put in extra enzymes to keep them long? How do you do that? The simplest way is by injection. And who do you inject it into? The clones."
She paused for a moment to look at them. Then she resumed.
"They chose three subjects. One was Skyler. He was disposable, in a sense, because he was your clone and you had already left the group. The other was Raisin. We know they devalued him because he was an epileptic. The third was my clone, Julia. Why? I don't know, but one reason might be that my parents had already made it known that they were opposed to inoculations. So I was already marked down — in their minds, in Rincon's mind — as someone with a lesser life span. The other three were a control group. They probably got placebo injections."
"I have to admit," said Jude. "What you say makes sense."
"It's the most natural thing in the world to them. They were used to thinking of the clones as objects, to dehumanizing them. Skyler said they would sometimes give them shots against disease. What for? Why protect them from diseases if you know they are never going to leave the island, which is presumably disease-free? The answer is that they wanted their parts and their blood to carry immunization for the day when they would be used by the prototypes."
"Prototypes?" asked Jude.
"That's you."
Tizzie paused.
"One thing I can't figure out is why the regime of inoculations ended. Skyler said they did it for a while and then stopped."
"What's your theory?" asked Jude.
He knew her well enough to know that she would have already come up with an explanation.
"They achieved another breakthrough. This one was a breakthrough of tremendous proportions. It's called gene therapy, and it's brilliant. You don't inject the protein or enzyme directly. Instead, you give the DNA that encodes it. Once you get the DNA into the cell, the person's normal protein-production machinery takes over. The new DNA is read, along with the preexisting DNA, and the sequences are converted into proteins."
Jude watched her in admiration. Skyler was riveted on every word.
"Gene therapy is used now for a number of diseases, particularly genetic diseases. One is cystic fibrosis. Children who have it lack a protein that allows normal functioning of the lungs. Biotech companies are using aerosolized DNA to try to get the necessary gene into the lungs of CF patients.
"That guy, Alfred, up at Samuel Billington virtually admitted that they used it. The advantage of gene therapy, if it works, is you only do it once. The disadvantage is it's hard to control. It's more likely to go haywire."
"What happens then?"
"For one thing, you'd probably end up with a mutant protein. Normally, cells make mistakes when they read their DNA and convert it to proteins. The mistake is usually discovered during what's called the 'proofreading' phase of protein synthesis. But the novel genes inserted during gene therapy probably wouldn't undergo such proofreading, so that mutations wouldn't be caught.
"What happens then? There're a number of possibilities. One is that the mutant variant attaches to the end of the chromosome and just sticks there without adding the cap. This would prevent the so-called good telomerase from doing its job — keeping the ends long. So you have a paradox: instead of extending life by keeping the natural degradation at bay, the mutant would speed the chromosome shortening and trigger premature aging.
"There's another possibility that could affect offspring. Let's say gene therapy leads to an excess of telomerase in the germline — the cells that reproduce to create new life. The mutant enzyme seems to make the ends of the DNA sticky, causing the chromosomes to clump together. During replication, the chromosomes must separate into the daughter cells. If the mutant causes the ends to stick, the daughters might end up with missing chromosomes or extra chromosomes."
"So the offspring could be freaks?" asked Jude.
"Well, they could be damaged in some way."
Sometimes Tizzie was alarmed at how insensitive Jude could be.
"Your theory explains why they stopped giving me injections," said Skyler.
They both looked at him.
"Why?" Tizzie asked.
"If they made a breakthrough using gene therapy, they would surely want to measure it the best way possible. Why use young men and women? It would make more sense to use children. They would show the results more clearly, because the aging process is more visible, and so, more measurable."
"That's it," said Jude. "They switched to the Nursery. And it backfired and caused that disease — what's it called?"
"Progeria," replied Tizzie.
"It might explain something else," continued Skyler. "If Raisin was a member of the original experimental group, then they would certainly want to analyze his tissue after death. They would need to know if anything was going wrong. That's why there was the break-in at the autopsy office in New Paltz."
"Yes," said Jude. He remembered Raymond reaching the same conclusion, but this was more compelling.
The recollection triggered another one.
"How about those bodies that have been turning up?" he asked. "In Georgia and elsewhere. They're mutilated, so no one can identify them — so we can assume they were clones. But their insides are missing, too."
"There is a possible explanation," said Tizzie. "But it's pretty damn gruesome, and it would take a monster to think of it and carry it out."