Syndrome - Thomas Hoover (best summer books .TXT) 📗

cut the power, the engine began to wind down-whoom, whoom, whoom-until it came to a dead stop and there followed an unnatural silence. Finally the door on the side opened and a metal step dropped down.

After a moment’s pause that seemed to last forever, he appeared, at first a vague figure in the rain, but then he stepped down and came toward her. He was wearing a white hat with a wide brim and a tan raincoat that seemed more like a cloak than a coat.

“Alexa, I so appreciate your making time for me.”

It was hard to tell in the rain, but he appeared to be strong, and there was actually a kind of radiance about him, as though he carried his own special luminosity. He seemed completely transformed. The question was, transformed how? He looked years younger than the last time she saw him.

“I thought we should talk. I’ve been meaning to call you. I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

That’s not it at all, she told herself. What do you really want?

“Actually, I’ve been wanting to thank you,” Winston Bartlett went on. “It turns out that you saved me after all. Your telomerase antibodies finally kicked in. The initial ones Karl injected in me. It just took a few weeks.”

“And what about Kristen?” she asked.

His look saddened.

“You didn’t hear?” He shook his head. “She… died in the fire.”

That doesn’t sound right, Ally thought. She looked like she was the only one who was going to survive it.

“Oh yeah? How did that happen?”

“You might as well know. She was burned beyond recognition. The body still hasn’t been officially identified. When the firemen found her, she had a shard of glass through her throat. They thought she must have fallen on something, but I fear it’s entirely possible she could have done it to herself.”

Was that story true, or a bald-faced lie? Ally wondered. Were they still hiding her someplace?

But why was he here? He certainly hadn’t come to discuss the kitchen design job for his Gramercy Park mansion. That was now long ago and far away.

“Alexa,” he said moving toward her, “please don’t be frightened but there’s something I have to find out.”

He reached out with his left hand and seized her wrist. She only saw the glint of the penknife in his right hand for an instant before he slashed it across her palm.

“What!” she screamed and yanked her hand away. Knickers gave a loud yelp and then howled mournfully.

Only then did she notice that there’d been just a momentary flash of pain.

“It’s okay,” Bartlett said reaching to soothe Knickers. “Just a superficial scratch. Now watch it. I want to know if Karl had time to finish the procedure.”

My God. She didn’t have to watch. She could already feel it beginning to heal.

“What’s… what’s going on? Is this-?”

“He had hopefully completed the Beta on you just before Kristy’s mother showed up. But did it work the way it was supposed to? We didn’t know. Until now.”

“My God. I knew I was feeling—”

“You received just the right amount of telomerase injections,” Bartlett interjected, “to induce the Beta without any side effects. It was the ‘Goldilocks dosage’ Karl had been trying to calculate, just enough that only aged or damaged cells are replaced, while healthy tissue is not altered.”

She now realized that was why she’d been having bouts of incredible energy.

“We’re the only ones,” he went on. “Just us. You and me. We’ve been given this gift, Alexa. And now we have the responsibility that goes along with it.” He glanced down at her hand. “By the way, how’s that cut doing?”

“What are you getting at?” It was definitely healing.

A wave of thunder boomed over the river, sending Knickers scurrying to Ally’s side.

“What I’m getting at is that you and I are now two very special people. We both are living proof of what the Beta can achieve. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

She was still stunned.

“This is a lot to absorb. I’ll have to think—”

“I’ve already thought about this and I believe it must be kept secret at all cost. At least for now.”

“But why? It’s a miracle that—”

“That must be handled prudently. I need your cooperation with that.”

She was having extreme difficulty getting her mind around what he was talking about.

“I don’t really know what’s going on. I think I’d better see some doctors. And Stone is finishing his book about… I’ve got to tell him—”

“Those things cannot happen, Alexa.” He looked out at the river for a moment, then turned back. “A brand-new world has dawned. Finally all things are possible.” He moved closer to her, then reached out and took her wrist again. She looked down and realized the cut on her hand was all but healed. “For now, this has to be our secret, yours and mine. Just us.”

She thought about all that had happened in the weeks since her wayward brother had accosted her running along this very river. It felt like an eternity.

“I’m asking you not to talk about this,” he continued. “To anyone. You must give me your solemn word.”

She felt the grip on her wrist get stronger.

“Now that we know the Beta can work,” he went on, his voice piercing through the rain, “I am forming an elite association, the Methuselah Society. Membership buys a guarantee that you can stop aging; in fact, you can pick the age you want to remain. Karl is sure he can do that, assuming the Beta worked with you. And now we see it has. The first memberships will naturally be somewhat expensive, but as time goes by, the cost will be gradually scaled down to respond to market forces. One may only join with a companion, but for obvious reasons all those who undergo the Beta must be sworn to secrecy, on pain of death, since there’s bound to be a hue and cry and government intervention if word leaks out that only individuals with significant resources can have this miracle.”

“I think that’s obscene,” she said.

“I suspected you might feel that way. Which is why we’re having this talk. As I’ve explained the Methuselah Society will be contingent on the utmost secrecy, at least initially. So the question is, are you on board with this?”

“The answer is, I’ll do what I please.” She was thinking what a bombshell this would be to have in Stone’s book. Stem cells-the Fountain of Youth was no longer a dream.

Winston Bartlett had won his dice game with God. And now he was planning to sweep the table. But he also was smart enough to realize he had to cash in quickly and discreetly.

“Don’t you realize how irresponsible that is?” he insisted.

“We stand on the threshold of a new era for humankind. But if we let small-minded politicians get involved with this, they might decide to forbid… Keep in mind that using stem cell technology to regenerate organs is already controversial. Just imagine what the self-appointed zealots would do with this. The good of humanity is less important to them than their narrow-minded, bigoted constituencies.”

That was when it finally dawned on her why he had lured her down here by the river on a rainy night. What better place for a convenient “accident” if it came to that.

She watched as he turned and raised a finger toward the open door of the McDonnell Douglas.

The motor started and then another figure emerged and came down the steps. She squinted through the rain and recognized Kenji Noda, Bartlett’s ever-present bodyguard. He was carrying a plastic bottle, along with a small white towel.

He’s going to chloroform me and then God knows what. I’m about to disappear the same way Kristen did.

She stared at them both, wondering what to do.

“Alexa, I regret to say that you are either with me or you are a problem I cannot afford to have,” Bartlett said, and then he nodded to Noda.

Shit.

She backed to the edge of the pier as Noda advanced on her menacingly, dousing the cloth. He was a foot taller than she was and he weighed over two hundred pounds.

Her first instinct was to run, but then she sensed an impulse to stand her ground. Something told her to try to use her strength against him. He wouldn’t expect it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that a white car had pulled onto the pier and was cruising down the side, slowly inching their way. It looked like a police vehicle, probably a couple of cops curious about the presence of a helicopter on the Field Turf.

They were approximately half a minute too late to make any difference. Kenji Noda was five feet away and they were fifty yards away. And they probably couldn’t see what was going on anyway. The rain had chosen that moment to begin to gush, shrouding everything in sheets of water.

Knickers was nudging at her leg, as though urging her to flee. And again she thought about running, but an instinct told her to stand her ground. She was feeling a sensation of power growing in her limbs.

She found herself oddly calm as Kenji Noda reached her, then wrapped his left arm around her neck and with his right hand clamped the cloth over her nostrils. It was infused with chloroform-she knew the smell-but she held her breath.

Then it happened. She casually reached up and took his left arm and pulled it away from her neck.

It was so easy. There was the same feeling of strength she’d had when she wrenched open the air lock. Yet it was something that came and went. She had no inkling how long it would last this time.

“I don’t think you should do that,” she said continuing to pull his arm around behind him. Then she twisted it to the side and there was a sickening snap as it came out of its shoulder socket He groaned lightly but did not speak. Instead he reached with his right hand and pulled an automatic out of a holster at the back of his belt dropping the chloroformed cloth in the process. While his left arm dangled uselessly, he brought around the pistol and tried to aim it at her torso. Her senses, though, were coming fully alive now and she seized his wrist and pushed it away just as he fired.

The round caught her at the outer edge of her shoulder. She felt it enter and exit, but there was no pain, merely a mild itch. Still holding his wrist, she picked up the white cloth and buried his face in it. She held it against his nostrils until his body twitched and went limp.

That was when the spotlight hit them.

“Drop your weapons and show your hands,” came a basso voice over a megaphone.

Who had a weapon? she wondered. The one pistol around was lying on the ground next to the crumpled frame of Kenji Noda.

The police must have heard the shot and assumed they were being fired on.

She turned around to search for Winston Bartlett and saw him retreating to the McDonnell Douglas. Running, actually.

He saw what happened, she told herself. He’s afraid of me.

“Stop and identify yourself,” came the police megaphone. The spotlight was now squarely on Bartlett, who was bounding up the retractable steps.

Without looking back, he pulled up the steps and slammed the door. The rotor had already begun revving higher, and in moments the chopper had begun its ascent out over the dark river.

“You have been warned to identify yourself,” came the futile megaphone. The chopper had all but