She smiled at that. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it doesn’t quite work like that.”
“I think it does. Whatever the magic marker is that his blood contains, it was revealed almost immediately when Ben tried to donate blood. So, my guess is that you’ll spot it that fast too.”
“All right, but I want a trip somewhere nice and warm, like the Caribbean or Pacific Islands.”
Sam said, “Agreed.”
Aliana used another drawing-up needle to pull a small sample of blood from the bottle and placed it on a microscope slide. She then placed the slide on the high-powered microscope. “I hope you’ve got your stopwatch ticking.”
Sam glanced at the clock. It was 8:20 a.m.
Aliana brought her eye up to the microscope lens, stared at the sample and then a moment later, she pushed it away again.
“I don’t believe it…” she said.
“What?” Sam and Ben replied in unison.
She swallowed. “I know exactly why you were taken prisoner.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sam rolled his eyes. “I thought you were fast, but how could you possibly know what’s going on that quickly?”
Aliana sighed. “Because two days ago, I was given the identical blood sample, and asked if there was any possible way I could reproduce it.”
“Come again?”
“A good friend of mine mailed it to me. She said that she’d stolen the blood after discovering the anomaly in a routine prisoner.”
“Did she say why the man was a prisoner?” Ben asked.
Aliana shook her head. “No. When I asked that, she told me that prisoners had the right to blood tests as much as anyone else. It wasn’t for her to go snooping into what they had done wrong to end up in prison in the first place.”
Sam said, “Sure, but it’s still pretty unethical. I mean, surely someone has the right to their own blood, and you can’t just go around replicating it, can you?”
“Of course. That’s what I told my friend once I found out. Naturally she agreed it was highly unethical, but given the anomaly, she thought it was worth breaking the law. This might just be the only case in human history.”
“What was the anomaly?” Ben asked, his face crunched up in a mixture of fear and fascination.
Aliana exhaled. “Your telomeres don’t shorten and yet you’re still perfectly healthy.”
Ben nodded. “Right, so what does that mean?”
“It means you’ve won the genetic lottery big time. Your blood is the Holy Grail. You’re simultaneously the most valuable man alive and the most dangerous.”
“Come again?” Ben asked. “Why me? What is it about me that is so valuable?”
Aliana explained what is known about telomeres, and what is still theoretical. She pointed out that not only could his genetic makeup point the way to much longer lives, but might also hold the key to preventing cancer.
Ben shrugged. “Why does this make me public enemy number one to the Department of Defense?”
“You’re dangerous,” Aliana insisted. “Not just because people like your genetics for its commercial value or because the government might try to hold back developments from the rest of humanity, but because if they don’t hold back those improvements, in a couple of generations our current overpopulation problems might look like child’s play.”
“Really?”
“As the telomere caps shorten, they trigger the exponential process of cellular breakdown. Have you ever wondered why old people seem to be doing just fine one day, and then in a matter of years, everything starts to go bad — they have a fall, they fracture a hip, discover they have osteoporosis, and heart disease?”
“Not really,” Ben replied, honestly.
Aliana ignored him and continued. “There’s a trial in mice currently in which scientists have worked out how to remove the part of DNA that triggers this exponential telomere shortening. It’s early days yet, but so far, they’re reporting a forty percent increase in mice longevity.”
“They’re living longer?”
“Forty percent longer. Just imagine that in human trials.”
Ben smiled. “My day just keeps on getting better.”
Aliana said, “You bet it is. Do you have any idea how much time, money, and resources scientists and drug companies have spent in an attempt to unlock the secrets to lengthening telomeres?”
“I’m starting to see,” Ben admitted.
“Think about it. It’s the Holy Grail of human existence. Who wouldn’t want to live longer, healthier, more successful lives? But in your case, we’re not just talking about reducing the speeding up process, we’re stopping it altogether.”
“What are you saying? I’m immortal?”
“No. Technically, you’re probably somewhere in the realm of a-mortal, meaning that you can die like the rest of us if you get hit by a bus or do something really stupid.” Her eyes drifted toward Sam for a moment. “But every day age-related killers — heart disease, stroke, cancer — won’t ever touch you.”
Ben took a deep breath. “So, commercially, are you saying you can reverse engineer my blood to produce some sort of elixir of the gods that will make people live forever?”
Aliana nodded. “In theory. But that sort of research might take years to achieve. There are so many hurdles and areas that we just have no idea how it would work.”
“Why? Can’t you just extract whatever enzyme is in my blood and inject it into someone else?”
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. There are limitations to stopping the clock.”
“Like what?”
She closed her eyes, thought about it for a second. “Like Scott Kelly.”
“Who?”
“He was an American astronaut with NASA.”
Ben said, “Go on.”
“He’s an identical twin who spent 340 days in space on board the International Space Station. When he came back to Earth, they discovered that seven percent of his genes no longer matched his brother’s. Space, so it would seem, alters people on a genetic level.” Aliana met his eye, seeing that he was following. “Scientists discovered that Scott's telomeres — the caps at the end of chromosomes that shorten with age — stretched in space, suggesting a possible protection against ageing. It was the equivalent of turning back the internal clock by nearly two decades compared to his Earth-bound twin.”
“Astronauts are effectively stopping their internal clock?” Sam asked.
“That’s what everyone thought, but within two days of getting back to Earth, Scott’s telomeres returned to their original length. Basically, what we see with everyone is that no matter what we do to adjust telomere length, they eventually shorten — this time faster than before.”
Sam said, “Okay, so that answers the question about how they discovered Ben’s unique genetic background. I just don’t know why they consider him such a threat.”
“I do,” Aliana replied. “Of course, it’s just a theory.”
Sam said, “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“You said before that you believed Ben shares the genetic makeup of the ancient race that you’ve called Master Builders?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. He has purple eyes, an eidetic memory, and lightning fast reflexes. All traits we’ve seen or heard about in other Master Builders.”
“I thought no one had proven they ever existed?” Aliana asked.
Sam wasn’t going to tell her that he had long suspected that Elise was descended from the Master Builders. “We haven’t. It’s still a theory, albeit a pretty strong one. I don’t see them as being a different race. After all, they’re almost certainly Homo sapiens. The difference is they have a series of genetic mutations. One being, by the sound of things, the fact that their telomeres don’t shorten, meaning they live extraordinary healthy and long lives. In fact, I believe wholeheartedly that this is the reason they were able to achieve so many great feats. Imagine what you could learn and what you could do, with two lifetimes of experiences, let alone five or more?”