She frowned and shook her head. “My parents and uncle died in accidents. As far as the teachers go, I have no idea what happened to them. But I had nothing to do with it.”
“So you acknowledge that one disappeared and the other was killed horribly, by an obvious psychopath?”
“How could I not? It’s the truth. I’ll never forget it. It was all anyone could talk about for a long time.” She leaned in intently. “Are you suggesting you have evidence that I committed these crimes?”
“No. But the circumstantial evidence is pretty conclusive.”
“It’s only conclusive because of your bias. There’s no way I can prove I had nothing to do with those deaths. Whether you believe me or not depends on what lens you view them with. If you’re looking for trouble, you’re going to find it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, if you already think I’m a psycho killer and you examine my past through this lens, you’re bound to find evidence to support this contention. This is classic data mining. You draw a conclusion and then mine the data retrospectively to find support for it. You invariably do. I’ll bet if we looked at your hometown and vicinity over all the years of your childhood we could find a disappearance or two, some murders, a few accidental deaths. Most that you wouldn’t even be aware of.”
“Probably. A few random events can be explained away as coincidences, but there is a limit. Your teachers—maybe a coincidence. But add in both of your parents and your uncle as well—I’m not buying it.”
Kira shook her head, pain etched in every line of her face, as if the wounds from these tragedies had never entirely healed. “I don’t know what to say. But I’m willing to bet you can find others who lost parents and also a relative in tragic accidents. Bad luck happens, David,” she insisted. “One of the ways I got through it all was by reminding myself of this. I was at least lucky enough to have many good years with my parents. There are orphans and kids in war zones who aren’t even that lucky,” she finished.
Desh frowned. This line of discussion was getting him nowhere. He wondered why he ever thought it would. What had he expected, a confession? And she did have a point. He did bring bias into the equation. If he hadn’t already been shown evidence she was a psychopath he would have viewed these events quite differently. He’d probably be consoling her for her loss right now.
Desh sighed. “Let’s table this one for a while,” he suggested. “Why don’t you tell me about your fountain of youth.”
Kira nodded as the waiter appeared again with their bill. Desh paid him immediately with cash, including the tip, so he wouldn’t have reason to disturb them further.
Kira waited for him to leave and then resumed the discussion. “I had achieved my first goal, a further leap in intelligence, but was afraid to use it. About fourteen months after I was robbed I achieved a breakthrough on my second goal. Smith was accurate. I can double the span of human life.”
“How?” asked Desh, not wanting to have the conversation bog down but unable to repress his curiosity. “Just give me the Cliffs Notes version.”
Kira paused, as if considering how best to frame her response. “As I said before, our brains aren’t optimized for thought. Well, not surprisingly, our bodies aren’t optimized for longevity either. Again, all natural selection cares about is reproduction.” She took a sip of iced-tea and set it back down on the table. “If you have a mutation that enhances your ability to survive to childbearing age, this mutation will preferentially appear in future generations. But longevity genes don’t kick in until you’ve already done all the reproducing you’re ever going to do. The guy who dies at forty has just as much chance of having scores of children, and passing on his poor longevity genes, as the guy who dies at eighty has of passing on his good ones. There’s no evolutionary advantage to long life.”
Desh’s eyes narrowed. “But parents who live longer can increase their offspring’s chances of survival. So longevity genes should confer an advantage.”
“Very good,” she said. “This is true. There is evolutionary pressure on our genes to keep us alive long enough to ensure our children can take care of themselves. But after this point there’s no advantage to further longevity. In fact, there might even be evolutionary pressure against it.”
Desh looked confused.
“The elderly can be a burden on the clan when resources are scarce,” explained Kira. “Decreasing the chances of survival for future generations.”
A look of distaste came over Desh’s face. “So those clans whose elders have the decency to drop-dead early on and not drain further resources thrive more than those whose elders live forever?”
“During times of scarcity at least, yes. This is one probable explanation for why most life on Earth, including ours, is programmed to die.”
Desh’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What does that mean?” he said “I thought aging was the result of errors accumulating in our DNA.”
“Partially true. But a large part of aging is due to a form of planned obsolescence. Our immune systems weaken, we stop producing hormones like estrogen, our hair grays or falls out, our skin shrivels, the acuity of our hearing diminishes, and so on. Our bodies are programmed, at the level of our genes, to die.”
“You’re the scientist, but it’s hard for me to believe that’s true.”
“That’s because it happens gradually,” she said. “In some species, like pacific salmon and marsupial mice, it happens all at once. One day they have no signs whatsoever of aging and the next—bam—they’re dead from old age.” She paused. “Other species aren’t programmed to die at all, like rockfish and certain social insect queens.”
Desh tilted his head. “But they do die, right?”
“They die. They just don’t age as we know it. Eventually accidents or predators or starvation kills them.”
Desh had further questions but knew that now was not the time. “Go on,” he said.
“I studied these species extensively to understand why they didn’t age. I also took DNA samples from people who suffer from a rare aging disease called progeria. By the age of twelve progerics look and sound like elderly people.”
Desh shook his head sympathetically. “I’ve heard about that. What a horrible disease.” He paused. “Can I at least assume their DNA was illuminating?”
“Very. It led directly to the breakthrough I needed,” she said. “I had been studying everything I could find on the molecular basis of aging for years. But when I added data on the genetic differences between progeria victims and normals my optimized brain was able to put all the pieces together.”
“And you’re positive your treatment will work? That it really will double the span of human life?”
“Absolutely certain,” she said without hesitation. “One hundred percent.”
Desh had become stiff from his angled position in the booth as he continued to watch the entrance, and he shifted temporarily into a more comfortable position. “How can you be so sure?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand while continuing to grip the gun with his right.
“There are a number of ways,” replied Kira. “But you’d need a much deeper knowledge of molecular biology and medicine to understand most of them. One way is to look at cellular doubling times. Most people don’t know this, but most of your cells will only divide about fifty times in culture. This is called the Hayflick limit. As they approach fifty doublings they take longer and longer to divide and show signs of aging.”