Wednesday, May 2
8:01 A.M.
NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
226 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“I don’t believe it,” Kerry whispered.
The full executive staff sat in the conference room, staring slack jawed at Lyle and Pedro standing side by side. They were almost indistinguishable.
“I don’t believe it,” Kerry said again.
“I haven’t fully figured out how it happened,” said Lyle, “but I’m working on it.”
“So he looks like you,” said Cynthia, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “That doesn’t prove anything. He could be wearing a disguise, trying to bilk us out of a few million in fake damages.”
“He’s not the first one I’ve seen,” said Lyle. “Plus, look at this.” He leaned forward, opening his eyes as wide as he could. “See this, in my right eye? That’s called a partial heterochromia—a patch of one color in an iris of a different color. It’s a genetic trait, encoded in my DNA, and look at Pedro’s eyes”—Lyle pulled Pedro forward, pointing at his face—“he has the same thing. He doesn’t just look like me, he is me, genetically speaking.”
“But what are you going to do about it?” Pedro demanded, pulling away.
Carl frowned. “You say the lotion did this? Your lotion?”
“It’s hard to believe, but yes,” said Lyle. “It didn’t start happening until the most recent formulation, 14G. My best guess is … well, I honestly have no idea. We added a retrovirus in that batch, but they’re supposed to regulate the plasmid activity, and this is exactly the opposite of that.” Lyle shrugged. “ReBirth is supposed to be producing collagen, and I don’t know why or even how it started doing this instead. I don’t even know what it’s doing instead.”
“I don’t care why it happened,” said Pedro, “I want to know what you’re going to do about it!”
“Obviously we’ll make what reparations we can,” said Sunny, “but we’re going to have to work together on this—this is new territory for all of us—”
Carl leaned forward, and everyone stopped to look at him. Even Pedro grew hushed.
“Get Marcus in here,” Carl rumbled.
Cynthia opened the door and Marcus Eads stepped in, followed by two suited men from the security staff. Carl pointed at Lyle and attempted to smile warmly. “Please take our friend here to my private lounge upstairs. Get him some breakfast, and treat him well.” The men moved toward him, but Lyle shook his head and pointed at Pedro.
“I’m the real Lyle; you want him.” He glanced at Carl, suddenly uncertain. “Don’t you?”
The men looked at Carl, who frowned at the two Lyles, then nodded. The suited men led Pedro into the hall, but Marcus hung back. Cynthia closed the door, and Carl spoke in a low voice.
“Keep him here for now,” said Carl, “and keep this as quiet as possible. I don’t want one word of this to get out until we’re good and ready for it.”
“Bellevue Hospital knows,” said Lyle.
“Everyone in the whole hospital?”
Lyle grimaced. “A handful of orderlies, the hospital administrator, and anyone else Pedro may have talked to. A crowd of people from the lobby. I don’t know if any of them understand what’s going on, but they did hear some of the details.”
“The Brooklyn police know about it, too,” said Sunny, “though again, they don’t know everything and they probably don’t understand the full implications of it.”
“Then we keep it that way as long as we can,” said Carl. “If they don’t hear about it again, they won’t think about it again. Now, let’s be very frank here: what kind of fallout are we expecting from this? How many people?”
Kerry’s face was white with fear. “I … I’ve been using it. So has Carrie.”
Jeffrey laughed nervously. “You’re talking in the third person now?” He looked at Lyle. “Is that normal?”
“Carrie’s my wife,” said Kerry.
“You married someone with your own name?”
“It’s spelled differently!”
“I’ve used it,” said Lyle, “long before anybody else, which is probably how it got imprinted with my DNA. Six test subjects used it; one of them is dead now. My assistant Susan used it; she’s currently in the hospital.”
“This can’t be true, though,” said Kerry. “There’s got to be another explanation. I mean, I started using it…,” Kerry counted in his head, “two, maybe three weeks ago. And I don’t look anything like you.”
Lyle leaned in close to him, peering at his face. “You have the heterochromia. And your hair’s coming in lighter.”
“It is?”
“I can see it, too,” said Cynthia, walking to Kerry’s chair. She stared at him, fascinated. “You have black hair, but all the roots are brown—about the color of Lyle’s.”
Lyle picked up Kerry’s hands, examining them closely, then looked back at his face. “The human body completely replaces its own skin about every three weeks. Odds are good that all of your skin is mine by now.”
“It’s not the same color, though,” said Cynthia, “it’s darker than Lyle’s.”
Kerry swallowed nervously. “I tan,” he whispered. He looked at Lyle pleadingly. “I started last week. My wife said I looked kind of pale.”
“So he has your skin and he’s growing your hair,” said Sunny, “but he doesn’t look like you. Pedro could have been your twin—why is Kerry different?”
“Because bone and muscle take longer,” said Lyle. “Change his skin and he just has different skin. He won’t look like me until his body has time to rebuild the muscles on his face, and the bone structure underneath. Those are the features we recognize.”
Carl growled. “How long does that take?”
Lyle shrugged. “Normally it doesn’t happen at all—you’ll keep your same bone cells all your life if they don’t get injured. They don’t replace themselves like skin cells. But if something tells your body to regrow them, like an injury or some kind of … insane hand lotion, a healthy adult can fully rebuild bone tissue in about six weeks.”
“Pedro did it in four,” said Sunny.
“This process is very aggressive,” said Lyle, nodding. “That’s why most of the subjects—the ones who had to make major changes in order to align with my body type—have experienced flulike symptoms and dehydration. Your body’s using water and raw materials at an incredible rate; that’s not a comfortable process.”
Kerry paled further. “My wife has the flu.”
Lyle paused. “I’m very sorry.”
“She’s a woman, though,” said Kerry, “does that mean it’ll happen differently?”
“Are you not listening to me?” Lyle snapped. “Your wife has my DNA! She’s turning into me, dammit, she’s turning into a man!”
Carl swore.
“No!” shouted Kerry, jumping to his feet. “You’re wrong—there’s got to be another explanation!”
“You want proof?” Lyle cried, striding to his chair. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a thick file, slamming it onto the table. “This is the autopsy report for Jon Ford—he had Susan Howell’s estrogen levels, he had her ovaries, and if he’d lived another week he’d have had one of the best pairs of breasts in New York.”
Kerry stared at the wall in horror. “Carrie’s going to be … a man?”
“At least her name will still work,” said Jeffrey.
“How does it kill?” asked Carl. “What kind of damage are we looking at?”
“The only immediate danger is blood type,” said Lyle. “I have O negative blood, which they call a ‘universal donor’—it’s not ideal for everybody, but it can be given to anybody without serious consequences. Everyone turning into me is probably fine—”
“There’s nothing fine about it!” shouted Kerry.
“I mean physically.” Lyle stopped, stammered, and corrected himself. “I mean they won’t die. I don’t have any genetic diseases, and I don’t have a dangerous blood type. Aside from the heterochromia I’m as genetically average as you can get. But if the lotion gets imprinted on someone else, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Can it imprint on someone else?” asked Sunny. “I mean, how does it work, exactly?”
“I don’t know how it works,” said Lyle. “I’m still trying to piece it all together. Jon Ford was the first case, and he turned into Susan; the lotion he used came from a new sample bottle I made in my lab, completely untouched until Susan squirted it into the trays for the testers.”
“So Susan imprinted it when she passed it out like that?”
“She can’t have,” said Cynthia, “or the others would have turned into her instead of Lyle.”
“After she passed out the lotion, she scooped it off of Jon Ford’s tray with her fingers and applied it to his hands directly,” said Lyle. “She touched it first, but his was the only lotion she touched.”
“She’s not allowed to do that,” said Sunny. “We have clean procedures—”
“Of course she’s not supposed to do it,” snarled Kerry. “I think we’re past the point where that matters!”
“The rest of the test subjects didn’t start showing symptoms until weeks later, so they were probably affected at the follow-up visit.” Lyle frowned. “But they were using clean samples applied directly to their trays. We never touched the lotion, so I don’t know how—” Lyle’s eyes went wide. “The plant. Those samples came from the plant, from the big batch we made as a test run. I went out to check on it, and Jerry showed me around, and I…” Lyle exhaled sharply, like he’d been punched in the stomach. “I touched the whole batch. I stuck my fingers right into it to test the viscosity.”
“You’re not supposed to do that!” Sunny repeated. “Why do we have clean procedures if nobody’s going to follow them?”
“The entire batch is imprinted on me,” said Lyle. “Everything that’s come out of it, every bottle we’ve filled, has my DNA. We have no idea how many of the plant workers have touched it—I know Jerry did, at least. He drizzled some on his fingers right after I sampled it.”
“I’ll call the plant,” said Marcus, pulling out his cell phone. The executives watched him in hushed silence. “Hi, this is Marcus Eads from corporate. May I please speak with Jerry Maldonado?” Pause. Marcus looked at Cynthia. “He’s out sick? A flu? Yeah, that’s going around. Tell me, do you have any other employees from the chemical floor who are out with the flu? Or anything else?” Pause. “Can you please e-mail me a full list? Thank you.” He hung up. “Jerry’s out, and three others. They think it’s just a bug going around.”
“It might be just a bug going around,” said Cynthia. “We need to know for sure exactly how many people are affected.”
“I’ll visit them all in person,” said Marcus, opening the door. “What do you want me to do if they’re … Lyle?”
“Make sure they stay inside,” said Carl, “and don’t let anybody see them. Give them paid leave, give them bonuses—whatever it takes to keep them quiet. We’ll figure something out.”
Marcus nodded and left. The rest sat in silence. Lyle shifted uncomfortably, drained and frightened.
“Obviously we have to destroy it,” said Cynthia.
“Obviously,” said Lyle.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Sunny, “it’s an out-and-out chemical weapon. I suppose that means I lied to the cops this morning.”
“No one will ever know,” said Carl. “We destroy the lotion and we hide all the evidence—Kerry, I want a plan for spin control; we need to tamp down leaks, we need a way to find and stop any leaks that get out—”
“Is there any unimprinted lotion left?” asked Kerry abruptly.
“What?” asked Lyle. “Why on earth would you want more?”
“To save my wife,” said Kerry. “She’s turning into a man—into Lyle, no less. No offense, Lyle, but…” He sat forward, pleading with the others. “If you can just give me a tiny bit of blank lotion, just a tiny bit, I could find something with her DNA—a hairbrush, maybe—and imprint it, and turn her back into herself. I won’t even ask to save myself, just please let me save Carrie.”
The room was silent.
Jeffrey laughed softly.
“Shut up, Jeffrey!” Kerry shouted. “Why are you even here, you worthless idiot!”
“Sorry,” said Jeffrey, “I was just thinking. I was just wondering if she’s hot.”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I was just thinking,” said Jeffrey, “if you’re going to turn her into somebody, you may as well turn her into somebody hot, right?” He paused, looking at a room of shocked faces. “I mean, look at these posters on the walls—face models, bikini models, all long legs and nice racks and … well, come on, I can’t be the only one who thinks about this, right? They’re gorgeous, that’s why we take their pictures in the first place. So I’m just saying, if you’re going to turn your wife back into a woman, why not … turn her into one of them? That redhead by the window, maybe—or that Asian girl from the moisturizer ads.” He laughed again. “That’s just what I was thinking, though. It’s nothing. I’m sorry I said anything.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
“Interesting,” said Cynthia.
“Oh no,” said Lyle, shaking his head, “no no no no no. Absolutely out of the question.”
“It’s kind of … the ultimate beauty product,” said Sunny.
“This is completely wrong,” said Lyle. “It’s immoral, it’s illegal—”
“It’s just like cosmetic surgery, really,” said Kerry. “You pay money, we give you a new body. It’s like my wife’s nose job last year, only … easier.”
“It’s not just a nose,” said Lyle, “it’s your entire body—it’s your identity! We can’t ask people to give up their own identity!”
“We don’t have to ask,” said Cynthia, “they’re going to be begging us.”
“It’s wrong—”
“Oh, grow up!” Cynthia snarled. “This is our business, Lyle: people give us money, and we make them look like somebody else. People want to look good, Lyle—they want to be beautiful! Look at the redhead Jeffrey pointed out—that photo’s on one of our hair dye boxes. Not just her hair, her entire face. And the women who buy that hair dye don’t just want her hair, they want her cheekbones and her nose and everything else. That’s the illusion that makes advertising work—that a product will change who you are. Nobody buys hair dye because they like their hair; nobody goes to a plastic surgeon because they love themselves for who they are. So get off your high horse and start acting like you know your job!”
“But I—” Lyle stammered.
“You’ve been in this industry for twenty years, Lyle, don’t pretend this isn’t the same thing you’ve done every single day of it.”
Lyle closed his mouth, stunned. That’s not true.
Is it?
“All we need is a tiny vial of ReBirth,” said Kerry. “Pedro turned into a six-foot gringo with just a tiny sample, right? So we barely need any to make it work. We fix my wife and then we fix everybody else. You want to look like the model on the box? NewYew can do it—just pick the age and the size and we’ll make it happen, and we’ll even give you the perfect hair color to go with it. Like a bonus prize in the same package!”
“Of course all our models would have to have O negative blood,” said Sunny, “for safety reasons.”
“Don’t pretend like this is safe,” said Lyle.
“And they would need perfect skin,” said Cynthia. “No more futzing around with oily and flaky and combination formulas—you just rub on some lotion and your skin is perfect, right down to a genetic level.”
“But you’d need the models’ permission,” said Lyle, “and there’s no way any of them would give it.”
“For enough money they’ll give us anything we want,” said Cynthia. “Just ask Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey turned red.
“It’s illegal,” Lyle insisted, searching for anything he could think of to stop them. “The FDA wouldn’t give ReBirth a second look back when it was just a moisturizer. You think they’re going to allow it now that it clones people? Are you insane? The first advertisement that goes out is going to get this entire company seized by the government—and we can’t rely on the secondary marketing plan you came up with before, because the only way to sell this is to tell people exactly what it does. This is not just some boring technology nobody needs to know about—the technology is the whole story. We can’t not tell people what it does, but if we do tell people we could be charged with … I don’t know, war crimes for all I know. Bioterrorism.”
“We’ll go offshore,” said Sunny simply. “The company, the manufacturing, the whole deal, and then we just import it. There are virtually no restrictions on lotion imports under current law—we could flood the country with it.”
“But we still couldn’t sell it,” cried Lyle. “We’ll bring it in and they’ll seize it all and we’ll be right back where we started!”
“Except the price would go through the roof,” said Cynthia. “This could fetch hundreds of dollars a bottle, maybe thousands, and that’s when it’s legal. Think what a black market would do for it.”
“You’re talking about running drugs,” said Lyle.
Cynthia’s face grew cruel. “We are talking about running everything. This is not just a beauty product, this is the beauty product. Anyone who uses it—anyone, bar none—will look like a model. Cosmetic surgery is the most common category of surgery in this nation, maybe in the world, and now we can do it in two seconds with no pain, no surgery, and no complications—just rub on some lotion, drink a lot of fluids, wait four weeks. You thought the market for the old formula was going to be big? This new version won’t just outsell our competitors, it will make them obsolete—there will be no reason for anyone to ever buy from anyone else again. ReBirth is going to buy us the world.”
Lyle swallowed. “It’s too easy to misuse,” he said lamely. He was running out of arguments. “You put the wrong lotion on one morning and suddenly you’re accidentally someone else.”
“Every cosmetic product has a safety warning,” said Sunny. “We’d just make this one … stricter.”
“And it would work for men, too,” said Kerry. “I’m already excited to try it—on purpose, I mean. For every woman out there who wants to look like Angelina Jolie, there’s a man who wants to look like Brad Pitt.”
“What about…,” Lyle shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”
“We need unimprinted lotion,” said Carl. “All we have for sure is Lyle lotion, and nobody wants to be Lyle. Lyle doesn’t even want to be Lyle.”
Cynthia looked at him. “Do you have any?”
“I won’t give it to you,” said Lyle, straightening up. “You want to clone the world, you do it without me.”
“Then what about your little girlfriend?” asked Cynthia. “The one in the hospital? She’s already turning into you; if you destroy ReBirth, there’s no way to save her.”
Lyle went pale.
“Is there any blank lotion?” she repeated.
Three bottles, Lyle thought, sitting right on my desk. But I can’t give it to them. What they’re planning is wrong—it’s not just wrong, it’s stupid and dangerous and illegal. It’s evil.
But … Susan.
Lyle looked at Cynthia—really stared at her, examining her in detail. Not her face, but her mind. She’s horrifying, he thought. A person like her should never have access to this kind of power. But that’s always the way: scientists invent the future, but accountants control it. I can’t let her have ReBirth. I can’t let any of them have it.
But can I even stop them? Lyle looked around, glancing at the door as casually as he could, hoping they didn’t see it; hoping they didn’t guess what he was thinking. I could run, but then what? If I run to my office they’ll stop me from leaving the building, and if I leave the building instead they’ll just search my office and find the lotion. They’ll get it either way; they’re offering me a chance to save my job. To save Susan. Isn’t it better that I stay? Isn’t it better to be here, where I can watch them and keep things under control? It’s just like when the lotion got stolen—it’s better to help NewYew get it out first than to let some unknown criminal have it—
Lyle swore. “The theft last month—whoever stole it has this technology.”
Everyone swore.
“What was in the stolen bottles?” Cynthia asked, rising quickly. “Was it you, or was it blank?”
“I’m not sure,” said Lyle, “I don’t remember—I have to check.”
“Then go!” shouted Carl. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot!”
“We save Susan,” said Lyle, not moving an inch. “Whatever else you do—whatever else we do—we save Susan first.”
“Of course,” said Cynthia. “All we need is her untainted DNA.”
“We can go to her house,” said Lyle, standing up, “we can ask her roommate for something of hers—a hairbrush, like Kerry said, or a—”
“Nobody can know,” said Carl. “We’ll save Susan, but we’ll do it in secret.”
Lyle nodded. “The blank lotion’s in my office.”