"Jim. Jude here. I need shelter. You got anything for me?"
"Who did you piss off this time?"
"The weevil."
"Aw, I was hoping it was something serious."
"Serious enough. He can mess me up."
"What's the problem?"
"I need the rest of the day free."
"Come on down to the Sunday department. I'll call the clerk on Metro. You've just become absolutely indispensable to us."
The Sunday department viewed itself as an ivory tower above the hurly-burly of the daily paper, turning out articles on timeless matters such as recipes for gazpacho and How to Train Your Dog to Love You. In its quiet corridors, which twisted and turned like an old English hedge maze, Jude found a small cubicle in the back. It had half of a window looking onto Fifth Avenue.
He turned on the desk computer, signed on with the password he had chosen years ago—"Luddite" — and went on-line. The machine was cranky and took a while, but eventually he got through. He clicked on Search and typed in "Institute for Research into Human Longevity." The machine took even longer than before. He went for a coffee refill, and when he returned, he found 984 hits.
Discouraged, he began scrolling through them. There were endless listings: research, remedies, anecdotes, case studies, stories, myths, superstitions, male, female, child, genetic antioxidants, caloric restriction, organ replacement, hormone therapy, life expectancy, gerontology. Almost at random, he hit one under the heading drosophila.
It began:
Michael R Rose, a specialist in genetics who is obsessed with aging, thinks big but acts small. Since 1976, when he was a graduate student at the University of Sussex, he has worked on the radical idea known as the evolutionary theory of aging, and he has done it with the lowly fruit fly. He started with two hundred female flies in milk bottles, and every time they reproduced, he selected only the eggs from the longest-living ones. As he moved from university to university, Rose took his flies with him. Today, at the University of California at Irvine, Rose now presides over a population of flies almost one million strong. But it's not their number that's grabbed the attention of the scientific world — it's their age. They live as long as one hundred and forty days. That may not sound like much to you, but for a fruit fly, it represents a doubling of the life span. How would you like to live one hundred and fifty years instead of your predicted seventy-five?
Jude found similar sites for worms, birds, goldfish and monkeys. He modified his search, adding Jerome and then he added W. He was linked to a web page. It appeared on the screen piece by piece, and as it took shape before him, he saw that it was a lizard standing upon a rock, looking enigmatic with a sleepy-looking hooded eye that seemed to follow the viewer. The site appeared to be an old one with only odd bits and pieces, but there was at least one reference to the IRHL, which Jude assumed was an acronym for Institute for Research into Human Longevity.
Down in the lower left-hand corner, he saw a box marked DISCUSSION GROUP and he clicked on it. There were four other people in the chat room, and he came upon a conversation already underway.
"every night i pray to God to let me live through the night and one more day. the next thing i do the same thing. and it always works. that's my secret."
"what's the name of that woman, the french woman who lived to some incredible age? she met some famous guy."
"her name was jeanne calment. she died last year at age 122. As a child she met vincent van gogh, she sold him a box of pastel crayons."
"that's it. so it shows whats possible, no?"
"it does. but others have lived as long. they're going to have to change the record books because people are living longer and longer."
"somebody's joined us. hello luddite."
"hello," Jude replied.
"we're talking about — what else? — getting older. and 'methuselah' here has been telling us not to worry — we're going to live forever ha ha ha"
"no, not forever. but it's a matter of scientific fact that the human life span is getting longer and longer. at the turn of the century life expectancy in the u.s. was 46 or 47. Now it's about 76, though of course many people go way beyond that. it's going to keep going up."
"but there's a limit, no?"
"there's no way around the basic facts. you get older and you die. the older you get the greater your chances of dying"
"actually, that's not true. the opposite is true."
"what do you mean?"
"I mean that human mortality rates do not accelerate through the life span."
"explain pls."
"that doesn't make any sense at all to me. why do you think I keep asking God for another day?"
"your chance of dying starts to decelerate around the age of 80."
"you mean accelerate."
"no, just the opposite. if you make it to 80, the odds improve ever so slightly that you'll make it to 81. the human mortality rate levels off sharply at 110. So if you make it that far you might just be like madame calment — you'll coast along until 122."
"but that doesn't make any sense."
"it contradicts human reason, but science often does. Your surprise just shows how poorly we really understand the aging process."
Jude decided to enter into the debate.
"Don't you think there are finite limits on how long we can live?"
"yes, luddite. Of course there are. but I'm saying we have not come anywhere near them. we've doubled the span within this century, and that's only by external remedy — diet, exercise, vitamins and so forth. we haven't even begun to manipulate the span internally by playing around with the genes."
"can that be done?"
"it's being done. And when that happens, there's no reason to think we can't live 150, 170, even 200 years. Imagine what you could do with your life if you had 200 years."
"no wonder your name's methuselah."
"there are no accidents. tell me something, luddite, you interested?"
"certainly."
"how old are you?"
"thirty."
"still young. tell me, what do you do?"
Jude hesitated half a second.
"I'm a journalist."
"aha. An honorable profession."
"so what's the offer?"
"offer?"
"I thought you were going to recommend something."
"yes. a good health club, eat a lot of fruits and vegetables containing carotenoids — that'll soak up the free radicals. run five miles a day."
"that's it."
"yeah."
"let me ask you something else," wrote Jude, "what's the significance of Jerome?"
"beats me."
Someone else interjected, "could you explain that bit again about not dying after 80?"
"sorry. time's up. must rush now and feed the cat."
Jude typed quickly.
"one last thing — what's "W" mean?"
"funny you should ask."
"how so?"
"I asked that same thing once on this same site. long time ago."
"and the answer?"
"i don't know what it means."
"but what was it????"
"double you."
"double you?"
"that's it. bibi"
"bi."
Jude hit a button and the lizard came back on the screen. He hit another and signed off.
Chapter 16