Knowing Donna’s distaste for lifts, Gary hesitated before pressing the call button. “Would you rather take the stairs?”
Donna swallowed hard. “No, I’m fine. I’ll take the elevator.”
“Lift – D – over here we call them lifts,” he said and stepped inside.
“Call it a tin box suspended from a steel cable if you want. To me it’s still an elevator!” she responded and stepped in beside Sam.
Gary pressed the button and turned. “You seem to be working through your phobias. First flying and now lifts. There may be hope for you yet, D.”
Sam grinned, wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head.
Donna smiled. “I assume you’ve installed my simulation software and interfaced it with the Centre’s mainframe?”
“Yes….”
“Including my CTZ5 research from D’Netics?”
“Yes, D.”
“No more secrets? Sam knows about all of this?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” Sam spoke up. “I have been fully briefed on both projects.”
“Both?” Donna furrowed her brow. “Sam has been working on the Progeria project, as well?”
“In a round-about way,” Gary said. “You can freely talk about either project around Sam.”
“Good, that makes things a lot easier. Did you have any problems interfacing my software with yours?”
Gary snorted. “Are you trying to insult me?”
------------
Joyce and Mary were standing outside the medical conference room talking while they waited for Sam. Joyce was facing the opposite direction, away from the lifts. “Well, I guess I was wrong about Sam getting his hooks into Donna,” Mary frowned. “Looks like that’s not all he’s had in her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Guess who just stepped out of the private lift?”
Joyce turned in time to see Sam dip his head and kiss Donna before he stepped out of the lift. She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned. “It still doesn’t mean anything. You know Sam. Nothing ever lasts with him. If Donna picks him over Richard, she’s a fool.”
Mary sneered. “You did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s face it Joyce, you could have bedded Richard long ago if you’d given him a little encouragement. I certainly didn’t have any trouble bedding him or Sam. Bet I still could, now that Donna’s taken a fancy to Newcastle’s most eligible.”
Images from last night flashed through Joyce’s mind. She jutted her chin. “Who said I wanted to bed Richard?”
“I wouldn’t worry about Donna too much,” Mary grinned. “She looks too wholesome to hang on to someone like Sam. That man’s sex appetite is insatiable, and oh can he….”
“…Shut up Mary!” Joyce snapped. Mary frowned and went inside.
“Good morning, Joyce,” Sam grinned. “Is everyone ready?”
“Waiting on you, Sam,” Joyce responded.
“Then let’s get this over with. I have more important things to do.”
------------
Sir Richard arrived for his meeting in London ten minutes early. He was surprised when the Foreign Secretary assistant met him and told him the meeting would be delayed for another half hour. This had never happened before, especially when Sir Richard stressed that he was pressed for time. That could only mean one thing; someone from Forrest Enterprises and the African representative for The Order had already met with the Foreign Secretary. Together, they’d managed to influence his decision about reopening the Kilimanjaro Project as a secondary location for the space elevator.
Now Sir Richard would be forced to use all his efforts - costing Triplet International and the Ecuadorian government time and money - to convince the Foreign Secretary that whatever evidence he’d been provided with was unfounded.
------------
Gary decided to wait for Sam before telling Donna about the death gene project. She spent time organising her desk and workstation. She double checked the file system to make sure her simulation software was set up properly. Half an hour later Sam showed up. “It’s about time,” Gary groaned.
“I had to reshuffle staff responsibilities. We could use another surgeon. I don’t suppose you know of anyone.”
Gary grinned, “Not at the moment, but ask me again sometime in the future.”
Sam arched an eyebrow. “Have you told her?”
“No, I was waiting for you.”
“Coward,” Sam snorted. “Where is she?”
“In the back, going through my research on the enhanced healing gene.”
Sam poured three mugs of coffee and handed Gary one. “Let’s go ruffle her feathers.”
Donna glanced up as they entered the room. Sam tenderly kissed her. “Here you go sweetheart – with Coffee-mate”
“Thank you.”
Sam straddled a chair and facing her; one side of his mouth turned up. “For the kiss or the coffee?”
Donna smiled. “Both.” She turned her attention to Gary. “Are we ready to begin?”
He exhaled slowly. “You should be able to log on the network now. Use your same logon information. When it asks for the authorisation code, type in uppercase letters, DRMB1B. Read through it while Sam and I drink our coffee. We’ll go from there.”
With her coffee in one hand, her mouse in the other, for the next five minutes, Donna read through the notes and journals of what she believed would to be Gary and Richard’s research on identifying the gene or genes, responsible for Progeria. She narrowed her eyes. “This is what you wanted my research for?” Gary looked up. “You must be kidding me!” she groaned.
“No, sweetheart. He’s not kidding,” Sam responded.
Donna glanced at Sam and turned her attention to Gary. “Are you and Richard completely mad? You’ve wasted all this time extending the life of a fucking fruit fly. Why? They’re born. They live for a couple of months, and they die! That’s the story of their life - why interfere?”
“Seven months sweetheart,” Sam calmly interjected.
“Without a sign of aging,” Gary added.
Her eyes widened. “You’ve extended the life of a drosophila to seven months?”
Gary nodded. “Yes, and we expect to get at least another three years out of them.”
“As interesting and appealing as this sounds, what does it have to do with my research?”
“I assume you’re familiar with HGPS,” Sam said.
“Of course,” Donna scoffed. “It’s commonly known as Progeria - the old age disease. It’s a genetic abnormality which causes rapid ageing beginning in childhood. It’s rare, and there are no known cures. Patients usually die of old age by the time they’re thirteen. Good enough for you?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Five years ago, I took a blood sample from a six-year-old boy with HGPS. He looked old enough to draw his pension. I consulted with Gary and Richard, who figured out the cause, was a faulty gene. They were interested in how that gene….”
Donna held up her hand. “…Stop! I need to know what you’ve been working on recently.”
Sam frowned, “I was getting to that. What you don’t know is the cancer treatment was a blind alley. They began looking into the aging process.”
“…D,” Gary interrupted. “…Assuming we could stop the aging process, how would you eradicate all diseases?”
“Simple, identify the death gene and…” she broke off. “Are you gonna spend the rest of your career chasing the ‘elixir of life’?”
“He’s not chasing it, sweetheart,” Sam spoke up.
Gary grinned. “I’m ninety-nine percent confident I’ve found it.”
Donna’s mouth gaped. She leaned back in her chair and took some deep breaths.
“Unfortunately,” Gary continued, “it’s inconsistent with mammals. It works for bugs, but what good is a bug that lives ten times its average lifespan?”
“Hell - if it were a wasp,” Donna commented. “I used to be allergic to the damn things.”
Sam cocked his head and frowned. “Used to be?”
“Enhanced healing gene, Sam. We’ll talk about it tonight. Go on Gary.”
“Richard and I couldn’t afford to publish our findings to the science journals.”
“This is where I got excluded from the project - until now,” Sam said.
Donna glanced at him and turned her attention back to Gary who didn’t miss a beat.
“For the last two years we’ve worked with the protein lamin A. For several years, we’ve known its normal function was to destroy damaged cells. A mutated form of lamin A is responsible for Progeria. Richard and I wanted to know how lamin A and its mutated form, functioned in cells.”
Donna shook her head. “You and a thousand other scientists.”
Gary arched an eyebrow. “Our research shows it’s not only the death gene, which is involved. We need to alter the gene, so damaged sections of DNA are marked for transcription. We need a new section of code that induces stem cell behaviour, detects the marked DNA, and either repairs it or tags the cell for destruction.”
Donna frowned and shook her head again. “I don’t know about this.”
“It works sweetheart.” Sam interjected.
“We developed a gene therapy, which repaired the two damaged sections of DNA responsible for aging,” Gary continued.
Donna folded her arms and stared at Gary. “OK, if it works - how?”
“Richard and I modified the HRV-A virus.”
Donna arched an eyebrow. “You modified the common cold virus, and it worked?”
“After much trial and error, we developed a vector. It sporadically worked on genetically-enhanced lab rats. It didn’t work well on human tissue cultures. Without a safer and more stable delivery system, we know we won’t get approval to test it on humans for the next fifty years - if ever. Besides, we can’t take the risk of the story leaking out.”
“Did you consider the moral implications of what this could mean to society?” Sam asked.
Gary shoved a hand through his hair. “The ethics!” he groaned in exasperation. “Sam the bloody…” he broke off and took a breath. “As scientists and researchers, if we agonize over the morals and ethics, we’d still be in the dark ages. Progress demands sacrifice! If technology is to move forward - it will, one way or the other - society must to yield to the times. Who, in their rightful mind wouldn’t want a society where death and disease are things of the past?”
“What about over-population, lack of living space, and famine?” Sam argued.
“Whose side are you on Sam? You’re a doctor. It’s your duty to heal the sick and prevent death whenever possible.”
Donna sighed; she listened intently to their arguments. She understood their points of view – both were right. If they weighed the ethics in every situation, people would still be dying of pneumonia and tuberculosis.
“Sam - Gary,” she said in a slow even voice. “There’s no right answer to this. Nobody wants to die. It’s human nature, but Mother Nature made that decision millions of years ago.”
Sam scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Gary, I have to side with Donna. We’re biologically engineered to die.”
Gary shook his head. “What if this weren’t the case Sam? What if someone or something, programmed DNA to make us die and, thereby, evolve faster? What if our natural state were immortal, like that of the amoeba?” He turned his attention to Donna. “How would it make you feel to find out we’re right, and all those people who died, didn’t have to?”
Donna lowered her head. Her mind was overloaded with flashbacks of her own experiences with death; especially the loss of her parents and grandparents. The emptiness bled like an open wound. “As much as I’d love to go along with this, I have to play the devil’s advocate. If we let this genie out of the bottle, too much could go wrong!”
Gary took her hand and studied her eyes. “D,” he said softly. “When we mapped the human genome the genie was out of the bottle.”
Caught off guard Donna quickly recovered. “We don’t have the right to make this kind of decision, for the whole of the human race.”
Gary exhaled. “So does this mean you and Sam don’t wanna help us?”
Donna looked up at him. “I never said that....”
“Donna,” he persevered. “Doctors and scientists have worked for centuries, to increase human lifespan. Were they wrong to try?”
“No, but Gary you’re missing the point.”
Sam quietly mulled things over. He cleared his throat. “Sweetheart. There’s something we’re not considering. We have a chance to wipe out death and disease in a single stroke. As doctors, isn’t this our ultimate goal? Where would we be if Jenner chose not to produce a smallpox vaccine, or Fleming hid his discovery of penicillin?”
Donna shook her head and smiled. “You two should run for office. All right, Gary, let me show you what you’re doing wrong.”
------------
The door to the Foreign Secretary’s office opened; Sir Richard emerged. “Let’s go!” he said gruffly, his face reddened with rage.
John shared a worried look with Richard. “This doesn’t look good,” he said and followed Sir Richard and Richard to the lift.
Richard pushed the call button. “What happened, Dad,” he asked as they stepped into the lift.
“Not here!” Sir Richard hissed and glanced at the other people in the lift with them. “In the car!” he forced through his teeth.
------------
After lunch, Donna, Gary, Sam and the lab team worked on the project until early in the afternoon. Working together, Donna and Gary had been successful in forming a base-pair match, but Donna wasn’t satisfied with their success rate. She’d studied all of Richard’s and Gary’s notes. She’d repeated the same tests, and followed their instructions to the letter. According to her calculations, she should at least be getting the same results, if not better than they had, but she hadn’t. She was starting to get aggravated. She laced her fingers behind her neck and bent her head down. Donna was getting discouraged. “I just don’t understand. Something has to be wrong,” she groaned.
Gary and Sam looked up from their work. “What is it D?” Gary asked.
Donna rubbed her eyes. “Something is seriously wrong with my calibrations.”
“How so, D?”
“I’ve repeated every test you’ve done, using the same data, and when I put it through my calibration program, I can’t come anywhere near your results.”
“Are you sure? Let me have a look,” Gary said.
Donna gave him her chair. She walked next to the window and looked out, peering through the blinds. Below them were a crowd of protestors and reporters that appeared to be camped out at the entrance to the gate of the Centre. “Who are they?”
Sam walked next to her and started massaging her shoulders and neck. She let out a long sigh. “Idiots - for the better part. They have no idea what’s really going on here.”
Donna shook her head. “And do you think it would help if they did?”
“Probably not,” Sam responded. “They don’t care that we’re working to help them live longer. As far as they’re concerned we’re playing God. They’d just as soon blow up the building with us in it.”
“Sam,” she said, “Are you so certain we’re helping. Are we really ready to deal with overpopulation and famine on this scale? We seem to be better at destroying life than prolonging it.”
“This is going to take a while,” Gary interjected. “Why don’t you two take a break?”
Sam smiled. “That sounds like a good idea to me. Snack in the cafeteria?”
“Yeah,” Donna agreed. “I think it’s time for one of those unhealthy doughnut breaks.”
Gary chuckled. “I’ll ring you if I come up with anything.”