11:16 P.M.

_

"Let's go into the lab to talk," Van de Vliet said. "I'm very sorry I wasn't here when you came out of sedation. But Marion called me at home, as I'd told her to do, and I came in as quickly as I could. I've got a place on the lake, just down the road, so I'm never far away."

He was rolling her through the air lock door, Marion behind them. Then they took the elevator up. She was furious that Kristen was being left behind like an abandoned casualty of war.

Ally also was reminding herself about her appointment with Grant to get the h.e.l.l out. But her mind was having trouble holding a lot of thoughts at once.

He pushed her wheelchair into the section of the laboratory where a line of computer terminals was stationed. After he'd fluffed a pillow behind her head and turned off some of the glaring fluorescents, he began.

"Alexa, this is a delicate time for you. We need to get you upstairs as quickly as possible and feed you some broth and put you back to bed.

However, I want very much to give you an update on the status of your treatment. The headline is, it's going very well. We fused some of the telomerase enzyme with your existing stem cells and your response was immediate. In fact, it appears the new heart tissue has reached critical ma.s.s and has already begun replicating itself. We've learned to expect the unexpected around here, but your response has significantly exceeded our simulations."

He turned to Marion and asked her to go up and make sure Alexa's bedding had been changed. "We'll be up in a second. And please make sure that bowl of broth is ready and waiting."

After she departed through the air lock, he walked over to a lab bench and checked the numbers that were scrolling on a CRT screen.

"All right," Ally said "talk to me. I just saw Kristen. I'm still not sure if I believe what I think is happening, but I want the real story and I want it now."

"That's part of what I need to discuss with you." He glanced away for a long moment, a pained expression on his face, seeming to collect his thoughts. Finally he turned back. "You see, the clinical trials have demonstrated that we can use the telomerase enzyme to 'immortalize' a patient's own stem cells and then rejuvenate their brain or liver or even their heart. So the next question that's hanging out there in s.p.a.ce is obvious. What would happen if we could find a way to generalize the enzyme and disperse it throughout someone's entire body, not restricting it to just one organ? And not just rejuvenate-- regenerate."

This question had actually pa.s.sed fleetingly through her consciousness, though not fully articulated. It had taken the form of wondering where the use of these "immortal" cells could eventually lead.

"The trick would be to have just enough enzyme in your bloodstream to replace senescent cells as they are about to the, but not so much that healthy cells are replaced." He paused searching for a metaphor. "If we thought of the process of cell senescence as something inexorable and steady, like a treadmill, then what we want to do is run just fast enough to stay in one place."

"This whole thing does sound like Alice in Wonderland."

"Yes, well ... if we could do that, then it's possible, just possible, that one's entire body would simply begin regenerating itself instead of aging. Not just your skin. All of you. That's the theory behind what we've called the Beta procedure."

"But is that something you ethically ought to be doing?" she said, feeling a sense of dismay, of playing G.o.d. "Isn't that going too far?"

"Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with you, but there are others who ask, how far is too far? Half the medicines we now have are intended to trick the body's responses somehow--or to meddle in some other way, turning off stop-and- go signals at the cellular level. For example, some birth control pills make your body think you're already pregnant.

They trick our natural mechanisms. That kind of thing is commonplace in medicine today. But our research is poised for the next level, to answer the question of how long we can actually live. So here's the argument. There's no reason the human life span has to be what it is.

In some unhealthy nations the average citizen doesn't even reach sixty.

Whereas in others, like the United States and j.a.pan, the mean is already well past three score and ten. So what is right? What is reasonable? A hundred? Two hundred? It's entirely possible to believe we could live productive lives at least twice as long as we do now."

"And you think we should do this? The world would be thrown into chaos."

"But look at the incredible cure rate we've already effected here using the telomerase enzyme. When our clinical trials for the NIH are announced, it will be the medical equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Nothing we know will ever be the same again."

"That's where you should leave it. To go further is obscene."

"I fear recent events may have proved you right. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and experimented with the Beta procedure. And the results thus far have turned out to be disastrous."

"I guess you're referring to Kristen."

"One day I casually mentioned the Beta to Winston Bartlett and without telling me, he brought it up with Kristen. She insisted on trying it."

His expression grew increasingly pained. "I want you to know I was against it. I warned her that it was highly experimental, that I could not guarantee what the side effects might be, but she begged me to do it anyway. Then Bartlett essentially ordered me to do it."

"So what happened?"

He grimaced. "I got the dosage wrong. That's my best guess. After I performed the Beta on Kristen, the enzyme was stable in her for over two months and appeared to be having an effect. All signs of aging abruptly stopped. It gave me a false sense of confidence. Also, there were no side effects. That was when Bartlett wanted to try it too. So I went ahead with him. But then, to my horror, she started evincing side effects. I now believe the dosage I gave her was badly calibrated. It was too high--by how much I think I've finally determined--and the enzyme eventually began replicating too rapidly. It got away from me." He paused. "What happened to Kristen, we now call the Syndrome, for lack of a better name. And it's about to happen to Bartlett."

"But what does all this have to do with me? Why was I brought out here with all kinds of bribes and pressure and--"

"Do you want a simple answer? Of excruciating honesty?"

"It would be helpful."

"The simple answer is, Winston Bartlett has an extremely rare blood type. It's AB. You have the same."

"How did you know--"

"Your brother. You see, I need to try to develop antibodies to the telomerase enzyme that won't be rejected by his immune system. I think there's an outside chance that I could culture antibodies taken from someone with the same blood type and use them to arrest the rampant multiplying of telomerase enzyme about to begin in Bartlett's blood."

"I'm here because you're using me!" She couldn't believe her ears. And Grant had set it up. No wonder he was finally feeling guilty.

"I just need to borrow your immune system for a few days. It's very safe."

"I don't think so. I'm out of here."

"Actually, the procedure is already under way. While Debra was taking your last blood sample, she also injected a minuscule amount of the telomerase enzyme in active form, the proprietary version used in the Beta, into your bloodstream. Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. The dosage was so minute that there's no way it could have any effect on you."

"You have got to be kidding!" My G.o.d, she thought, I could sue the h.e.l.l out of--

"Don't worry, think of it like a smallpox vaccination." He paused.

"Now, though, I have to tell you that I just learned the initial dosage probably didn't do the trick. The amount of antibodies created was, unfortunately, minuscule. Which means we need to go to a slightly higher infusion. But again, don't worry. It's still safe."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said finally, gasping for air in her fury. "You didn't ask--"

"Alexa," he cut in, "right now I have something like two weeks left to try to head off the Syndrome in Winston Bartlett. If we achieve that, then I'm hopeful the antibodies he creates can be successfully used to start reversing the Syndrome in Kristen. We will know how to manage the Beta. Who knows where that could lead? But it all begins with you.

You're the clean slate we need to start."

"Before we go one step further, I want to know what, exactly, happens with the Syndrome. I think I know, but I'd like to hear--"

"Something that's too bizarre to believe. It literally defies every natural law we've ever known."

He couldn't bring himself to put it in words, she thought, but she knew she'd guessed right the first time.

The Syndrome. Kristen Starr was growing younger. That was the horrible development and n.o.body could deal with it.

And they couldn't stop it.

Karl Van de Vliet had created a monstrosity.

"I am so out of here," she said struggling to rise from the wheelchair.

"If you try to keep me here, that's kidnapping. We're talking a capital crime."