‘And you’ve figured out a way to do this?’ Lopez asked.
‘There are a number of potential ways,’ Willis replied, ‘to slow aging in mammals. Cell loss can be repaired via growth factors to stimulate cell division, such as stem cells, or even by simple methods such as exercise or reduced calorie intake. Senescent cells can be removed by activating the immune system against them or via gene therapy. Extracellular materials like amyloid can be eliminated by vaccination, while intracellular junk requires the introduction of new enzymes that can degrade the junk that our own natural enzymes cannot degrade. Mitochondrial mutations can be handled using gene therapy via cell nuclei. For cancer the strategy is to use gene therapy to delete the genes for telomerase and to eliminate telomerase-independent mechanisms of turning normal cells into ‘‘immortal’’ cancer cells. To compensate for the loss of telomerase in stem cells we would introduce new stem cells every decade or so.’
‘Has any of this actually been achieved?’ Ethan asked.
‘The Dana-Faber Cancer Institute managed to reverse the aging process in mice,’ Willis said, ‘by targeting the chromosomes in cellular nuclei and the telomeres. They manipulated the enzyme that regulates these tips, telomerase, turning it on and off. When they boosted the enzyme, the mice appeared rejuvenated. There was a dramatic reversal in the signs and symptoms of aging: the brains increased in size, cognition improved, coat hair regained a healthy sheen and fertility was restored. It was the equivalent of taking someone from their eightieth year and bringing them back to their forties. They had in effect undergone rejuvenation, had become young again.’
‘Holy crap,’ Lopez smiled. ‘That could be worth a fortune!’
‘It was only in mice,’ Willis cautioned, ‘and there’s a lot of work to be done, mostly in figuring out how to make elderly people more comfortable and to remove the specter of age-related disease. That said, there are people looking to make money out of this — the cosmetics industry would be severely compromised if this became a commercial product.’
Ethan frowned.
‘How come Hiram Conley was an old man then? If he’d somehow avoided aging, why was he looking about sixty when he was killed?’
Tyler Willis shook his head.
‘You’re getting it all wrong,’ he said. ‘Forget about your preconceptions, about some magical fountain of youth from which you drink and become forever young. These things are the stuff of science fiction, and that’s the whole point. Science has been searching for a way to modify cells in order to slow or stop aging, but we’ve been looking in entirely the wrong place.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lopez asked.
‘Hiram Conley was not in possession of some mystical vial or potion,’ Willis replied, ‘and he wasn’t genetically altered by scientists. He was suffering from an infection.’
11
The blast of the shotgun rang in Saffron’s ears as the Beretta’s powerful recoil slammed the butt into her shoulder. A cloud of choking blue smoke filled the reception area and, as the ringing in Saffron’s ears subsided, she heard the piercing screech of an alarm and the crunch of glass beneath her feet.
She stepped forward and rammed the still smoldering barrel of the shotgun into the nearest scientist’s belly, doubling him over, then grabbed another by the collar.
‘The labs. Now!’
Saffron shoved the man headfirst through the remains of the door and into the reception area, the man sprawling onto a carpet sprinkled with shattered glass.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she turned to see Colin Manx’s pale features stricken with panic.
‘What the hell are you doing? You should have shot us out of here, not further in!’
Gripped by a rage coursing through her veins like acid, Saffron whipped Manx’s grip aside with a swipe of her free hand and grabbed him by the throat.
‘You’ll leave when I fucking tell you to, Colon, understood?’
Manx, all pretense of bravado vanishing before her wrath, nodded and backed away, the palms of his hands raised defensively toward her. Saffron turned to Ruby Lily and Bobby.
‘Ruby, watch out for the cops. Bobby, look for another way out of here just in case we’re cornered, okay?’ As the two teenagers nodded and dashed away she turned to Manx. ‘You, keep watch on this lot and don’t let them move. Think you can handle that without crapping your pants?’
Saffron didn’t wait for him to respond, reaching down to grab the scientist still sprawled on the carpet beside her.
‘Let’s go.’
The man reluctantly hauled himself onto his feet as Saffron jabbed the shotgun under his jaw and shoved him forward. Other employees, seeing one of their colleagues covered in blood and with a shotgun shoved under his face, melted out of their way.
‘You’ll never get away,’ the scientist muttered as Saffron prodded him down a corridor toward the rear of the building. ‘The police will be here in minutes.’
Saffron nodded.
‘I’m counting on it. Now shut up and keep moving.’
The corridor ended in a solid-looking glass door containing an atmospheric chamber sealed off from the rest of the building. The chamber represented the transition between the normal atmospheric pressure of the main building, and the low-pressure environment of the laboratories within, designed specifically to ensure that, in the event of a breach, air would always flow into the laboratories and not out of them. This meant that any toxic chemicals or hazardous viruses within the center’s laboratories could not leak into the outside world.
‘Inside, Einstein,’ Saffron said, opening the chamber and shoving her hostage inside before following him in and sealing the door. ‘Do it.’
The scientist jabbed a couple of buttons on a panel and the air around them hissed gently for a few seconds before a small red light on the panel turned green. Saffron pushed the door to the laboratory open, striding in as a handful of scientists looked up from their test tubes and petri dishes and froze. Saffron raised the shotgun in her hand.
‘Anybody moves, I’ll give them an enema they won’t forget!’
Nobody moved.
Saffron turned toward the sound of animals, and her heart wrenched as she saw cages lining one wall of the laboratories, where half a dozen chimpanzees sat watching her with interest. Their cages were small, matted with straw and hopelessly inadequate for either comfort or movement. Two were hooked up to machines nearby, one of which was clearly for some kind of brain-manipulation of mechanical or robotic arms, coils of wiring traveling from computers directly into the animal’s brain stem in a complex tangle.
Saffron’s throat pinched tight, and tears blurred her vision.
‘We’ll let them all go, if you want.’
The voice of her captive standing beside her sent a surge of fury through Saffron. She whirled, driving the butt of the Beretta into his face like a sledgehammer. The scientist crashed backwards into a desk, smashing beakers and vials as he went before slamming onto the tiled floor.
Saffron pointed at the nearest person, a thin-looking man in a white lab coat.
‘You. Where’s the main database?’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘The what?’
Saffron stormed across to him, kicking a chair out of her way and pushing the Beretta up under his chin with enough force to drive him backwards over a table, his legs flailing wildly.
‘The fucking database, the computer records, everything you’ve done. Where is it?’
The man, terrorized to the point where he could no longer speak, pointed across the room to a large pair of computer terminals. Saffron took in the tall servers with their flashing lights and humming fans, and strode over to them. She reached into her pocket and called over her shoulder to the stricken scientists watching her.