The Miracle Strain (42 page)

"But who do we give it to?" asked Tom quietly. "Or as Jack would have it--who do we sell it to? Just those who could afford it?"

"This isn't about money," said Jasmine, horrified.

"I agree, it shouldn't be. But even if we ignore the greed factor, you must realize the economic implications. For a start, making the serum universally available would bankrupt every major pharmaceutical company in the world, causing shock waves that could cripple whole industries, perhaps whole economies. But assuming we could control the financial repercussions, then who would you give the genes to?"

"Well, eventually everybody, I hope."

"Everybody? So we can create a world in which anybody can heal everybody, and no one need die of natural diseases?"

Jasmine frowned, not sure where he was heading with this. "Yeah, why not?"

"So we can create a world with such an enormous population that instead of becoming a heaven on earth it be comes a living hell? With no space. No food. No respect for life--or death."

Jasmine's frown deepened as she listened to Tom. His eyes had a faraway look as he spoke, as if he was reciting lines he'd read or heard from someone else. "Well, perhaps we shouldn't give them to everybody," she conceded, seeing some of the obvious dangers. "Just some people."

"Who?"

"I don't know." And she didn't. She hadn't even considered the negative consequences. "People who they could do the most good for, I guess. Like those in Third World countries."

"Why? Because the genes could save the most lives there? Thousands, perhaps millions of people?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"The same people who currently don't have enough food to feed the population they already have? Did you know that accidents, murder, and suicide account for only five percent of all deaths? This serum could eradicate all other causes, including aging itself. Do you know how long that would make the average human life span?"

"No, not off the top of my head."

"Well, I'll tell you. Given our current population, the average age we would have an accident, be murdered, or commit suicide would be about six hundred years. Some of us might be run over by a bus on the day we were born, but others could live forever. Just think about it. An average life span of six hundred years."

She shook her head in frustration, trying to absorb the staggering implications. He was right, of course. It wasn't as simple as she'd thought. She looked down at her FDA and patent application forms, the forms that would unleash this powerful secret gift of healing on an unsuspecting public. Twice she thought she had the answer and turned to voice it, but each time she thought of an obstacle and swallowed her words.

Eventually she turned, deflated, and looked at Tom standing quietly by the cabinet, staring at the vials of serum. He'd obviously gone through all these questions in his own mind already, and had reached some kind of answer him self. An answer that probably explained why three weeks ago, still far from recovered, he had leaped out of his hospital bed and jumped on a plane to God knows where. There were times when Tom's genius could really tee her off. And this was one of them.

"Well?" she said eventually. "I assume you think we should do something about the genes, right?"

He nodded coolly. "Obviously."

"But you don't think we should flood the world with them?"

He shook his head. "Not until we know the ramifications. It could do more harm than good in the longer term."

"It's not like you to worry about disrupting the natural order."

A humble shrug. "Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there is some method in the madness out there."

She couldn't believe this was Tom Carter speaking. "You mean God?"

A dry chuckle. "Hardly, but perhaps old Mother Nature isn't quite as arbitrary as I thought."

Jasmine drummed her fingers on the desk in front of her. "So, maestro, what the hell should we do with the genes? Destroy them? Pretend we never even found them?"

Tom shrugged again. "That's one option."

"Tom, I was kidding. You can't seriously believe we shouldn't use the genes at all?"

Tom smiled at her then, and in his blue eyes she saw a spark of excitement. "Do you really want to know what I think we should do with them?"

"Yeah."

"Well, come here at midnight tonight, and I'll show you."

At 11:56 P. M. all was dark when Jasmine pulled her car up outside the closed gates to the GENIUS campus. She peered into the darkened gatehouse, but it was completely deserted. She was just about to get out of the car and open the gate using the DNA sensor when it suddenly opened for her.

She gunned the BMW into motion and drove under the full moon to the pyramid ahead. Pulling up outside the main door, she found herself shivering in the warm night air. There were no visible lights on in the dark glass pyramid, save for the dull glow in the atrium and a light on the first floor above her--where the Crick Laboratory and Conference Room were.

"This is too weird," she whispered to herself, as if someone might overhear her. She had left work early after she'd realized she wasn't going to get any more out of Tom. Trying to fill the time, she'd immersed herself in mundane chores. But she'd kept on thinking of the genes, and Tom's response to her sarcastic challenge about destroying them: "That's one option."

What the hell was he going to show her tonight? The only thing she could think of was Tom destroying the twelve remaining vials of serum in the sterilizing autoclave. Just the idea incensed her, and she had racked her brains all day and all evening trying to work out how best to use the genes, without abusing them. But the problem was proving far harder than any cyberchallenge she'd faced, and so far she'd come up with a big round zero.

She opened the car door and heard her feet crunch on the gravel. The main door was open when she reached it, so she walked straight into the dimly lit, deserted atrium. The DNA hologram writhed in the gloom like ghostly serpents. Beyond it she noticed that the doors to the Hospital Suite were open. Hearing only the clicking of her heels on marble she walked toward the open door. There was no light on inside, so she pressed the switch beside the door, instantly bathing the waiting room in light. Walking onward she came to the ward. Again darkness. Not even a glow from the duty nurse's reading light. Nothing.

As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she searched for the shapes of the patients lying in the beds. But there were none. Every bed was stripped. A neat pile of blankets and two pillows sat atop each bare mattress. Jasmine felt her heart beat a little faster as she turned around and walked back to the atrium. When she'd left this afternoon, she'd noticed some excitement outside the Hospital Suite, but hadn't investigated further. Still, she knew that at least seven of these beds had been occupied with seriously ill patients.

When she walked back into the atrium she was so tense mat the gentle whoosh of an elevator door opening five feet away made her jump. And when she saw Tom step out she was so relieved she wanted to hug him.

"Thanks for coming," he said warmly, as if he were hosting nothing more unusual than a barbecue.

"What's going on, Tom? Where are the guards?"

A shrug. "I wanted to keep this strictly between us."

"What about the patients?"

Tom smiled and ushered her into the elevator with him. He pushed the button for the Mendel Suite and said, "The official line is that they all responded extremely well to their treatments. And I for one am not going to deny it. Two have already gone home, and the others are now in Massachusetts General undergoing observation and tests. But I'm pretty sure that soon they'll be allowed to go home as well."

"You made them well?"

He smiled and nodded. "But I'll never admit it. It's vital that no one knows I have the gift. I got a bit carried away this morning, but in the future I'll be less dramatic."

"Is that what you wanted to show me?"

The elevator stopped and the door opened.

Tom shook his head. "No. That's just how I could personally deal with the genes. Hide the cures under the guise of conventional treatments."

"What about the genes in general? What about the other vials?"

Tom led the way out of the elevator and turned toward the door to the Mendel Suite. "Follow me."

As Tom put his hand into the DNA scanner and Jasmine watched the door to the suite open, he began to talk about the genes: "Just think how the serum works for a moment. The viral vector is designed to insert the Nazareth genes into an individual's stem cells. That means the person will have the ability to heal for his natural life. But these individuals can't give their gift to anybody else, only the benefits. And since the genes aren't inserted into their germ cells they can't hand them down to their children. The gift therefore dies with them."

Jasmine followed Tom through the door and blinked as the sensors triggered the tungsten bulbs to come on, revealing the large cryopreserve bank on the left, and the gleaming expanse of white and glass that made up the main lab ahead of them.

Jasmine frowned and said, "But the gift wouldn't die with them if they had the technology to clone their Nazareth genes, or if somebody else with the know-how cloned the genes from them--with or without their permission."

Tom nodded. He had clearly thought of this already. "Yes, you're right. But to control the spread of the miracle strain we'd need to ensure that anybody who carried the Christ genes was trustworthy, and that their possession of the gift was kept secret."

As Jasmine followed Tom through the eerily deserted main lab, she tried to think where he was leading her, both in terms of what he was saying and where they were going. "Carriers of the gene would also need to be extremely responsible," she said, "or else they might abuse their power. They could only use the gift when it was absolutely necessary, and they could never tell anyone about it."

"Or charge for it," added Tom. "That would be the worst abuse of all."

"Tell Jack that."

Tom chuckled. "Oh, Jack's okay. He'd understand."

She followed him around the corner to enter the first security door, and walked into the Crick Laboratory. The lights were on and when she glanced at the refrigerated cabinet she could see that the tray containing the twelve serums was missing. Jeez, she thought, he's already destroyed them.

As they approached the glass wall of the Crick Conference Room she thought she heard voices. She turned to Tom and opened her mouth to ask him what was going on, but he just smiled and put his finger to his lips.

"Don't worry," he said, "it'll all become clear soon."

The voices were more audible now, the volume low but their tone excited. Most spoke English but in an array of accents--from Indian to Australian to Russian to African to Japanese to French. What the hell was Tom up to?

Then she saw them through the tinted glass of the conference room. There must have been over ten men and women milling around the large table. They were helping themselves to coffee and snacks from a trolley at the far end of the room, by the brooding Genescope.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"Look," he said, pointing through the glass, "surely you recognize some of them." He singled out a short dark-haired man with large hangdog eyes, who was talking energetically with a tall Indian woman in a sari. "That's Jean Luc Petit, the doctor who first gave me the idea for Cana. He's a good man--an extremely responsible man, to use your expression. The woman he's speaking to is Dr. Mitra Mukerjee from Calcutta. You met her last year at the cancer seminar we held here. You remember! You liked her. You said she had integrity."

Jasmine nodded slowly, still not fully realizing what she was seeing, but yes, she could recognize most of them now. Indeed, many of them were famous: Dr. Joshua Matwatwe, the AIDS pioneer from Nairobi; Dr. Frank Hollins, the radical heart specialist from Sydney; and Professor Sergei Pasternak, the Russian virologist. Plus there were others who were simply good doctors and nurses who Jasmine knew Carter rated highly--as much for their compassion and commitment as their skill.