David’s enthusiastic gaze didn’t waver. “Without extensive, long-term clinical trials, I can’t be definitive. But at this point, and by all indications, we believe we can arrest human aging with two shots of Eos a year.”
“What!”
“People won’t age a day after their first injection.”
Pierce found himself speechless but quickly recovered. This was definitely too good to be true. “How confident are you in your findings?”
“Confident enough to start using it.” David gestured around the table. “All of us have.”
Pierce felt like they’d just attached jumper cables to his dreams. If David and the others believed in the safety and efficacy of Eos enough to use it on themselves, then they weren’t puffing him up as part of a pitch. When it came to science and safety, these were serious people. The leaders in their field. “I was only hoping for a slow-down. The ability to buy a few more years. Maybe a decade. You’re telling me you invented immortality?”
David raised a palm, but the other research scientists’ microexpressions might as well have been nods. Ries, Eric, and even Allison grew glows of pure pride. “No, far from it. People who take Eos can still die from any number of causes.”
“Just not old age,” Pierce confirmed.
“That’s what all our evidence indicates.”
Pierce found himself propelled to his feet by an irrepressible burst of energy. “Well, Merry Christmas! We’re about to become the richest people on the planet.”
His mind plowed forward as he paced. “If what you say is true, Eos is worth more than all the oil in Saudi Arabia. There’s nothing people won’t pay, and there’s nobody who won’t pay it. The big pharmaceutical companies will go nuts at auction. We’ll get hundreds of billions for the rights.” Pierce ran rough calculations as his lips and legs expelled excess energy. Expected purchase price. Anticipated royalty stream. His percentage ownership. He’d just become the wealthiest man alive—even if nobody knew it.
David raised his other palm, halting Pierce’s pacing. “There is one problem. We can’t sell it.”
2
One Solution
LISA PERERA studied her company’s chairman while trying to ignore the empty chair to her left. She’d long suspected that Pierce’s parents had only named him after seeing his eyes, which were as penetrating as any she’d ever encountered. She felt that stare now and she shot it right back.
Pierce had visibly run half the range of human emotions in the span of a few seconds. From irritated to confused to disbelieving to hopeful to elated to despondent, and now he was quickly coming around the bend toward enraged.
She would lasso her cowboy and land him in a happy place, but only after he sweated a bit. He had intended to cut them off. To starve her company of oxygen. Best he suffer for a few seconds now, feeling her greater power at his moment of greatest triumph, lest he hesitate the next time she needed support.
“Why can’t we sell Eos?” Pierce asked, his molars practically grinding.
“Consider the consequences,” she said.
“The consequences were exactly what I was considering the twenty-eight times I handed you a million-dollar check.”
“Set the money aside for a second and think big picture.”
Pierce flung his hands like a frustrated ape. “You’re telling the man who funded your dreams and livelihood for the past seven years to set the money aside. That’s awfully convenient. And completely unrealistic.”
Silicon Valley attracted the best and brightest. The toughest and most tactful. All were eager to participate in promising projects, to work around the clock in hopes of fame and fantastic financial rewards. This was one of those rare moments where the lives of those select scientists and engineers actually exceeded expectations. Where dreams and reality converged.
Lisa was determined to savor every moment. And to let her team participate.
She turned to David, passing him the proverbial baton.
“What does the world look like when nobody is getting old?” David asked, his expression unfazed by the chairman’s outburst, his tone genteel.
Lisa marveled at the way her CSO could connect with just about anyone at any time. There was something about him that people found both disarming and inspiring, regardless of the circumstance. Her hypothesis was that he naturally evoked their better angels by using his big brain to see things from their points of view. That and that he had a Christlike appearance—complete with long hair, chiseled features, and soulful eyes.
Pierce’s expression softened a second before he answered the question. “Without aging, the world looks a lot less wrinkly. And competition for slots in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue gets mighty fierce.”
Chuckles erupted around the table. From everyone but David. “Actually, the world becomes considerably more crowded and dirty. It—”
Lisa zoned out while David took Pierce through his description of the dystopian world they’d create by decimating the death rate. They’d discussed it many times—with shouts and tears and shivering spines.
She found it odd that none of them had considered the costs of victory during their early years. Her explanation for that collective shortcoming was that the goal seemed so mythical and elusive that everyone had been 100 percent focused on achieving it. On the public glory and personal rewards of cracking history’s greatest medical mystery.
Only when her team reached the point where they were plunging needles into their own flesh had their thoughts turned to the broader future ramifications. To the impact on the ecosystem, the economy, and the human psyche.
Pierce smacked his fist against the table, ending Lisa’s reverie and refocusing her attention. “People will figure it out. They’ll cope. They always do. It’s what humans do. We adapt to challenges.” His eyes were shooting lightning at the man destined to make all his dreams come true.
Lisa knew that evoking this reaction was part of David’s plan. Not a failure of tact or tactic.
“I’m not going to walk away from billions just to ease your conscience,” Pierce continued. “You can buy yourself all the therapy in the world, if that’s what you need. Hell, you can found an entire university named in your honor and dedicated to the subject. Do what you want with your money. Just don’t attempt to stand between me and mine.”
Lisa intercepted the challenge, just as they’d planned. “No one’s attempting to come between you and your big payday, Pierce. We’d just like to propose an alternative method for obtaining it. One that will make your new life much more enjoyable.”
Pierce pivoted in her direction. At fifty-four, he was twenty years older than anyone else at the table, although few would guess that by looking at him. Or postulate that he’d made countless millions off a petroleum-processing patent.
Pierce looked like the healthy outdoorsy recluse that he was. The kind of guy you could send into the woods with a knife and expect to come back with a bear. Always dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, he had intense green eyes, permanently tousled hair, and a stubble beard.
“You know a better way to cash in on Eos than selling it to Big Pharma?” Pierce asked.
Lisa smiled. “Much better. Please allow us to elaborate.”
“All right.” Pierce pushed back and put his feet up on the table. His boots were of the hiking kind, not cowboy and certainly not the polished leather loafers you’d expect to see descending the airstair of a private jet. She didn’t object. She could ignore the insignificant slight if it would allow her investor to feel like a leader while he was actually following.