Monday, May 7
10:31 A.M.
Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan
221 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Susan looked horrible; her face was dull and thick, her body covered in bandages and bristling with needles and sensors. Her skin was discolored and ill-fitting—tight in some places, sagging in others, like a set of clothes made for somebody else. She’d been unconscious for nearly four full days. Lyle checked her pulse: faint, but steady.
The hospital still thought it was leprosy—some new, devastating strain that their standard treatments couldn’t solve. Lyle had talked to the doctors, trying to learn everything he could, and while the hospital had noticed a rise in her testosterone he was fairly certain they didn’t suspect she was changing gender. He glanced up at Sunny and Cynthia. “Are we ready?”
Cynthia nodded grimly, pulling out a bottle of ReBirth. “How does this work?”
“Is that blank?”
“Of course it is.”
“You’re sure?” asked Lyle. “This isn’t going to do any good if it’s already imprinted on someone else.”
“It’s one of the same samples we took from your office,” she said. “No one’s touched the lotion. We haven’t even opened the bottle.”
Lyle nodded. “All right, then, let’s get this over with.” He wheeled the bedside table from the wall to Susan, and pulled on a pair of disposable gloves. “Give it to me.”
Cynthia handed him the bottle; he wiped it down carefully and set it on the table. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out two plastic bags: a large one with a Styrofoam sample tray, and a smaller one containing a dull white powder. He set the tray on the table and picked up the powder bag, examining it carefully.
“That’s Susan’s skin?” asked Sunny.
“They’re called epithelials,” said Lyle, nodding. “Relatively large pieces of skin, recovered from a pedicure kit our thief found in her bathroom.”
“How does this work?” asked Cynthia.
“You’ve got me,” said Lyle. “I’m pretty certain what’s going to happen when I do this, but I still don’t know how or why.”
“You’re going to imprint the lotion with Susan’s DNA,” said Cynthia, watching his face, “which will turn it into some kind of … magical Susan lotion.”
Lyle laughed drily. “That’s the idea. I think it’s the retrovirus.”
“You said the retrovirus was supposed to prevent this from happening.”
“Yes, but it’s the only explanation I can think of. Retroviruses are designed to read DNA—that’s what makes them so good at regulating plasmids, which is why we put them in there in the first place. They attach to a strand, read it, and decide if it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.” He opened the bag gingerly, and poured the dull powder onto the sample tray. “I think the retrovirus in ReBirth is not just reading the DNA but remembering it, and then somehow forcing all the future DNA it encounters to match that initial template.”
“Can it do that?” Sunny asked.
“No.” Lyle shook his head. “No, it can’t. Retroviruses transfer information, but they don’t store it. It should be impossible.” He poked at the powder with a gloved finger. “And yet it works, consistently and predictably.” He picked up the bottle. “Are you ready?”
“Stop asking and just do it,” Cynthia snapped.
“Okay, okay,” said Lyle, “it’s just … Okay, I’ll do it.” He popped open the plastic cap. This can imprint on anything, he thought. This much of it, all in one place, could overwrite the DNA of everyone in this hospital. Be very, very careful. He tipped it over the tray and squeezed gently, holding his breath while a thick blob of creamy white lotion oozed out onto the skin rubbings. He squirted out a pea-sized drop, then carefully closed the lid and slipped the bottle into his pocket.
“This is when it’s dangerous,” said Lyle. They both stepped back. “It’s reading Susan’s DNA and … doing whatever it does to imprint it. If you touch it now, you’ll be Susan inside of four weeks.”
“I’m not getting anywhere near it,” said Cynthia, taking another step back. Sunny moved with her. “You’re the one who has to apply it.”
Lyle watched the drop of lotion, some terrified, primal part of him expecting it to start slithering across the table. Obviously it didn’t.
“How long does it take?” asked Cynthia.
Lyle shrugged. “I have no idea. We know from the way it’s behaved in the past that a DNA contact in one part of a lotion sample will eventually spread to the entire sample, so obviously the information is being transferred from one … thing … to another. Again, probably the retroviruses.” He reached out with a gloved fingertip and stirred it gently, rubbing the lotion around in the skin cells. “Do you realize how frightening this is? How stupid we’re being?”
“Don’t start this again.”
“We don’t know how this works,” said Lyle, “but we’re selling it to every John Q. Public with a credit card. In two months this will be in our clinics all over the country—all over the world—and yet here we are, the people who made it, and we’re almost too scared to breathe.” He picked up the tray with his clean hand, still stirring with his other, and stepped toward Susan. “Ready?”
Sunny and Cynthia nodded.
Lyle scooped the lotion onto two gloved fingers, reached out, and slowly rubbed the lotion onto Susan’s chest, just above the sternum. One of the areas most visibly affected by her “disease.” He massaged the spot for a few seconds until the lotion was completely absorbed, and then stepped back.
“Done.”
“Good,” said Cynthia, and gestured toward the red hazmat container on the wall. “Now for the love of all that’s holy, put that stuff away—do you want to kill us?”
Lyle gestured toward the plastic bag the tray had come in, keeping his hands away from everything. “Open it for me.”
Cynthia looked at Lyle, then handed the bag to Sunny. “Open it for him.”
“Are you kidding? What if he gets some on me?”
“Just open it!” Lyle snapped. Sunny opened the bag wide, keeping his fingers far away from the mouth of it, and winced as Lyle slid the sample tray into it. Lyle used his clean glove to peel off his contaminated glove, being careful not to let the lotion touch any skin, and dropped it in the bag. He carefully removed the other glove, sealed the bag closed, and placed the entire thing in the hazmat container.
“Well done,” said Cynthia. “Time for the next phase. Have you talked to Marcus?”
“He’s on the move,” said Sunny. “We have a few of them already.”
“A few of who?” asked Lyle.
“Loose ends,” said Cynthia, scrolling through her messages. “Your friend Pedro and all of our other security leaks are taking a vacation overseas.”
“Voluntarily?”
“For now.”
“So we’re kidnapping people?” asked Lyle. “How low are we going to go?”
“We can’t just turn them back the way we turned Susan back,” said Sunny, “because they, unlike her, know it was the lotion that did it. Several of them have already stated an intent to sue the company. NewYew could break in half. Then instead of us controlling ReBirth you’d have no one at all, or worse yet someone like Pedro.”
“I’m starting to think that would be better,” said Lyle.
“Just step lightly,” said Cynthia, narrowing her eyes. “Now that we have the blank lotion, and the means to make more, you’re a lot less important than you think you are. Don’t make us send you on vacation with them.”
They opened the door and walked into the hall. Lyle followed them slowly, his feet heavy, his breaths deep and hungry.
I have to stop this, he thought. He patted the bottle in his pocket. I have the lotion, and I have my plan, and all I have to do is follow it. Just take the lotion to a doctor and tell them how it works. Get the lotion out there where someone can use it for good, and chop the legs out from under all these sinister master plans.
Not here, though. No corporation can have it, not even a hospital. I’ll take it to a charity, where money will never enter into it, and tell them everything. Someone who’ll use it to help the world instead of himself.
All I have to find is a good man.