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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
Rebecca Carlile arrived at her office in midtown Manhattan as usual for a Monday morning. It was nine AM when she pulled her Mercedes S550e into the underground parking garage and made her way to the fiftieth floor of the Comcast Building. Many people still referred to it as the General Electric Building or by its nickname, 30 Rock. It was still home to NBC Studios.
“Good morning Ms. Carlile,” Mary greeted her in her usual chipper voice. Mary Steward was Rebecca’s personal assistant and was always at her desk well before Rebecca arrived.
“Morning,” Rebecca said as she strolled past Mary into her large and well-appointed office. Rebecca Carlile was a stunningly beautiful woman. She kept to a rigorous exercise routine, and at 5’10” and 145 pounds, she accentuated her lean, toned body with an expensive, deep-cream, perfectly tailored business suit. Her precisely coiffed shoulder-length blond hair and piercing pale blue eyes completed the overall persona that had been such an asset in her rapid rise to the top.
But her external appearance was actually the least of her incredible attributes. Summa cum laude from her journalism master’s at Yale had launched her early career, and her keen intellect and nearly eidetic memory had served her well in her meteoric rise among her peers. On top of everything, she had paid her dues in full. Apprenticeship as on-scene reporter with the flagship WNBC-TV station in New York, followed by foreign correspondent for seven years, and then special correspondent for 20/20 for another seven years.
At the age of 41, she was picked by the head of NBC News to head up a new weekly news program called Top Story. At 44, Rebecca Carlile was reaching for the pinnacle of her profession and her rising star was growing brighter with each passing year. Only in its fourth year, Top Story was the number one–rated weekly news program in the United States.
Rebecca looked up from her terminal as Mary brought her a large triple-shot latte, one sugar, with a hint of cinnamon dolce. “Thanks, Mary,” said Rebecca as she took her first satisfying sip of the morning. “Everything squared away for the luncheon today?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everybody has responded and confirmed they’ll be there.”
“Great. And the two PM meeting with the TrakCom CEO?”
“All set. Richard and Phillip will be there as well.”
“Excellent.”
As Mary left the office, Rebecca took another sip of the latte and turned to the latest crop of emails that had popped up on her computer. The subject of the third email down the list caught her attention. It simply read Crisis. She instantly recognized the address of the sender—it was her own personal email address, the one she used at home. That’s weird. She clicked to open the email. She read the simple message, then read it again. A crisis is coming. It has already started. You will see the first signs this week. When you do, respond to this email. I will tell you what is happening. Then we can tell the world together.
*****
A SOFT VIBRATION OF the seat and a soothing chime roused Gregory Noble.
“We’re five minutes from your office, Mr. Noble,” said Steven’s synthetic voice. “Mr. Boyle called while you were asleep. He said not to wake you, that it could wait until you arrived.”
“Did he say what it was about?”
“No, sir, but he said you’d want to talk with him first thing when you got there.”
“Okay. I’d like my favorite smoothie when I get there.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Tesla dropped Gregory off at the front entrance to his building, then pulled away from the curb to go park itself. Gregory took the express elevator to the penthouse floor and went directly to his office. Michael and his smoothie were waiting. He grabbed the smoothie off the desk and waved for Michael to follow him over to the large easy chairs that looked out over the city. As Director of Intelligence for the Noble Biotechnologies Corporation, Michael had unlimited access to the CEO.
Gregory took his first sip of the banana, mango, and kale smoothie. “Ahhh... Perfect,” he sighed as the ice-cold sweetness hit his tongue. “All right. Seems you have some news for me. Good, I hope?”
Michael smiled wryly. “Good is a relative term,” he said as he took the offered chair. “We have a total of six intercepts of the RegenTech data appearing at six different news organizations, probably sent through the mail on data chips or perhaps through email. All were neutralized. The last one was Saturday.”
“Shit. I knew Barstow would finally show himself. He’s been a busy little beaver,” Noble said disdainfully.
“Yes, sir, he has. We have good containment, but if he’s not stopped, he may get lucky.”
“We’ll see to that very soon.”
*****
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
In Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday evening, a local reporter aired a one-minute human interest segment on the nightly news. It was an odd story about an elderly gentleman in a private nursing home who was blessed with a miracle. He was eighty-four years old, and a few years earlier, he had become bedridden, simply too weak and unstable to walk on his own. But that Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Garcia left his bed and wandered out into the hallway. He had used the handrails along the wall to get to the nursing station, where he had apparently asked for a walker. A nurse at the station had a brother who worked at one of the TV affiliates in the city. A simple phone call started a series of events that became an evening news segment.
In New York City, it was a little after 10 AM Wednesday morning. Rebecca Carlile was reviewing her schedule, and it was looking like a typical day. Mary came into the office with Rebecca’s second latte of the morning. She put the cup on the desk and then stood there for a minute until Rebecca finished what she was reading and looked up from her terminal.
“Yes, Mary?”
“You know on Monday when you asked me to keep an eye out for any really unusual stories coming across the wire services?”
“Yes. What about it?” Rebecca hadn’t given it a second thought since then.
“Well, I was doing my normal web trolling this morning, and I came across a couple of things that were more unusual than the typical stories we look for. One in particular stood out. I forwarded the links to your inbox.”
“Thanks, Mary. I’ll look at them later.”
Mary left the office and Rebecca turned back to her terminal. She glanced at the links Mary had forwarded. There were only two, so she took a quick look at both. One was about new crop circles appearing in some Kansas corn field. Damn crop circles, she thought. Every decade, that stupid thing comes up again. She just shook her head and went on to read the next story. It was about a miracle in Brazil where a bedridden man got up and walked for the first time in years. She simply sighed as she dismissed the story out of hand, much like she would if it were a story about the image of Jesus appearing on a slice of burnt toast. She made a mental note to speak with Mary about making her filters a little more selective before passing stories along to her.
It was close to the end of the day when Mary poked her head into the office. “I’ve got a couple more unusual stories for you to look at” was all she said.
Rebecca mentally kicked herself for forgetting to tell Mary to relax on the unusual-stories hunt. She really didn’t have the time to scan more weird stories from delusional people. She didn’t want to get into it now, so she simply said, “Thanks, Mary. I’ll take a look.” True to her word, she opened the first link. It was an article published in the Paris daily newspaper, Le Monde. Several elderly patients in a treatment study for advanced rheumatoid arthritis had shown a miraculous remission of their symptoms. The study was being conducted at the Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, and the head researcher was at a loss to explain what was happening. Rebecca opened the second link. Six residents of a Colorado retirement home had decided at lunch that they no longer needed their wheelchairs. It had apparently started with one resident standing, then another joined in, then four more quickly followed suit. According to the report, the place had gone nuts. A film crew was already onsite from the local NBC affiliate in Denver, and the story was slotted for a short segment on the evening news. Rebecca could easily dismiss one story of a miraculous nature, but three in rapid succession, that got her attention.
*****
“IT’S STARTING,” SAID David.
It was eight PM. David, Simon, and Julie were sharing a late dinner in the DC apartment. Julie was still at least a couple of weeks away from being able to go out in public, so most planning activity took place either in the apartment or via secure phone.
Julie nodded agreement. “It’s just a few isolated stories right now. The first people got the Longevity Gene in early August. Based on the exponential models we developed, the Longevity Gene should have spread to nearly four hundred million people. Those who got the gene first have been changing for almost four weeks—it’s starting to become noticeable to them and to those around them. Within just a few days, over ten thousand people will notice. And the week after that, millions.”
They all knew the numbers, but they bore repeating. They had already made their first move to broadcast the true story when the time was right. If Rebecca Carlile did not contact them before tomorrow, they would contact her again after many more strange stories hit the Internet. Rebecca might not think much of their initial contact on Monday, but the three were counting on her having a very different perspective by tomorrow.
David brought up a subject that he’d put off for several weeks, but it had to be dealt with—soon. “Simon...Julie,” he said with an uncharacteristic hesitancy in his voice. “We need to talk about what you two are going to do long-term. This thing you’ve started, it won’t end soon. Noble is not going to let you return to your prior lives. Actually, it’s not just Noble. The world will never let you have a normal life. You have no jobs, no homes, no cars, no identities, at least none that you can use without putting your lives in danger. You might be able to get at your bank accounts and investments, but that would be risky anytime soon. Noble is watching for that.
Simon and Julie both sat quietly, listening. They weren’t stunned—it was more like numb. Perhaps it was just fatalism they were feeling. They knew the words David was going to say before he spoke. Now here it was, on the table and unavoidable. Their prior lives were over.
The three friends spent the rest of dinner and another hour mapping out what they needed to do in the next couple of weeks. David knew the right people—those who could set Simon and Julie up with new identities. They wouldn’t be deep background—at least not in the beginning. David’s contacts didn’t have the horsepower to establish that level of cover. But if Simon and Julie refrained from international travel, their identities would hold. David had also started the ball rolling on new identities for Julie’s parents. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that, but it was best to be prepared.
Another issue was their physical appearance. Right now, Julie was still too weak to venture out of the apartment, and Simon’s crude disguise sufficed for occasional outings, but long-term, they both needed cosmetic work that was permanent and effective. It went on the to-do list. Then there was the issue of money. They had none, and no prospects to make any. The only semi-practical idea they could come up with was to find a wealthy patron. They almost dismissed the idea out of hand when it first came up. But as they talked, it became obvious that they might soon have a very large pool of potential patrons—people that would be very willing, even eager to help them.
*****
DAVID’S TABLET PRODUCED an unusual alert sound. “That’s Rebecca Carlile,” he said for Simon and Julie’s benefit. Everything paused while David opened the email. He read it out loud. “Interested. When can we talk?”
David looked up.
“What? That’s all?” Julie’s exasperation boiled over. “Just that sorry, noncommittal excuse for a response?”
“Whoa,” cautioned David, raising placating palms toward Julie. “It’s enough. She doesn’t know us, and she certainly doesn’t know what’s coming down the pike. Give it a day or two, she’ll be demanding, begging to talk to us. She’s one of the best in the business and she’ll quickly figure out the magnitude of what’s happening, even without our help. We’re going to give her a jump on the competition and hopefully win her over. We’re going to give her information that no one else will have. If we time the release right, it will allow her to cut through the babble of the crazies and get the world to listen.”
David turned back to his tablet and composed a simple return email response. “Wait two days. This has just started. It will get crazy very fast. I’ll contact you.” He clicked send.
At the other end of a string of proxy servers, a string that protected David from discovery, Rebecca Carlile received a response—apparently from her own email address.
How do they do that? Rebecca thought as she opened and read the message. What do they mean, it will get crazy very fast?