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Authors: Gary Braver

ELIXIR (23 page)

BOOK: ELIXIR
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Chris Bacon did not age and die that night in the Adirondack woods. On the contrary, Elixir not only had frozen his cellular clock but created restorative effects that had stabilized at a level where even with the beard he looked no more than thirty—twelve years less than his age when he first injected himself, and twenty-five years less than the number of years he had been alive. And the reason why his body did not waste away and his mind did not gum up was diabetes.
It took him some time to work out the logic, but he concluded that the tabulone steroid had attached itself to a hitherto unknown receptor in his cell makeup—one of the dozens of “orphan” receptors whose purpose science still did not understand. As Betsy Watson had long ago explained, once attached the new shape caused the manufacture of a protein which turned off the telomerase aging effects. It had also turned off other inhibitors that disrupt normal regulation of enzymes so that one would fast-forward die once off tabulone.
But being a diabetic meant that the extra glucose in Chris’s system somehow signaled biochemical changes that activated the enzyme even without tabulone. In other words, some combination of tabulone and Chris’s diabetes rendered the receptor active for long periods without the need for regular boosts. Apparently the same was true for Iwati, also a diabetic—which explained why he didn’t need frequent shots, just an occasional smoke.
That was why Wendy had not found a shriveled, freeze-dried mummy in Chris’s clothes when she returned from Lake Placid that night all those years ago. And why after three days of Chris’s disorientation and fever, she had managed to nurse him back to health. In time he had worked out a treatment schedule, discovering that he could go as many as three months without a booster. Fortunately, his body signaled when it was time. Just in case, he wore around his neck an emergency ampule that was hidden in a simple tubular gold case with a tiny spring-release button. It looked like a piece of jewelry, but contained a three-year supply of Elixir.
At fifty-six years of age Roger had plateaued at the health level of an athlete half his age. His blood pressure was 110 over 70; his cholesterol
hovered at 160; and he had 10 percent body fat. Essentially Roger Glover
nee
Christopher Bacon was immortal. The only way for him to die was accident, murder, or suicide.
Of course, he had told Laura what he had done—how in a drunken moment fraught with grief and terror he had injected himself. As expected, she reacted with disbelief and anger. There was no turning back. Her first concerns were the unforeseen complications—potential cancers from messing around with his DNA and hormones. Those fears faded when in time he had stabilized. Besides, he felt extraordinary. Gone were arthritic twinges in his back and knees. Gone also were those frightening lapses in recall and memory.
Laura, however, refused to join him. Every instinct had told her Elixir was wrong. Nonetheless, the temptation reared its head higher as the years passed. It was there where she applied makeup to her face each morning. It was there every time she considered the porcelain smoothness of Roger’s skin, or felt his hard-body vigor and sexual heat. Or when she considered the impossible anachronism they became by the day. It was there in his entreaties, in sometimes desperate reminders that she was prone to lumps in her breast.
Yet Laura held firm because of Brett. It was bad enough they would someday have to explain Roger. One freak parent was enough.
Because she kept in shape, nobody knew her exact age. They both looked about forty—Roger painting himself older, Laura painting herself younger. The problem was that Laura was fifty-five and Roger was biologically nearly half that. In ten years she could pass for his mother. His encounter tonight only brought that home.
“We’re the same people,” Roger said. He put his arm around her, hoping she’d sidle up to make love. As always he was primed, but she wasn’t interested.
“But we’re not the same.”
There it was, he thought, the one sure measure of the distance separating them. With so much anguish and grief they had shared over the years, he wondered if he could go it alone when the time came. She would never agree to take Elixir as long as Brett was young, but he hoped that in time she’d change her mind—and before she was elderly. He loved her too much to watch that happen. He also did not want to spend the next century without her. She was the only one who knew who he was.
Until tonight.
“How did it feel to see him?” she asked.
“Strange. I wanted to hide and embrace him at the same time.”
While he had stonewalled Wally, the encounter had touched the old Chris Bacon, setting off eddies of bad feelings. Wally had been a good friend, a funny guy he had shared laughs and good times with. Denying him tonight had killed a chance to connect to a past that had nothing to do with Roger Glover. Yes, he and Laura had acquaintances and business associates; but there was a permanent divide that left them alone in an uneasy claustrophobia. It would be nice to connect with Wally again. But that was impossible.
The divide that was closing was Brett. They had told him nothing about Elixir or their past. Yet they were reaching the point of explanation. He was a bright, perceptive kid who believed his parents were in their late thirties. And they looked it. But he would eventually wonder why his father didn’t age in family photos, and why he was younger than his friends’ fathers. For the time being, it was still cool to have a dad who could sprint around the track and wrestle and who still got carded in restaurants. But the day would come when it would change: When Brett would close in on him. When they would appear like siblings. When Roger would be younger than his son.
It was a day that thus far had lain out
there
—in the general blur of tomorrow. A day they dreaded, because it meant sharing a secret not possessed by any other human being in the history of the species—or any species.
A federal warrant had estranged Roger from outsiders; Elixir had estranged him from his own blood.
But how do you tell your child that you will not age or die? It would be like announcing you were an alien: When the laughter died, you braced for the screams.
T
he eyes.
Wally shook himself awake. Like a Polaroid photo developing, it all came back in vivid color—and with it, the thing that had nibbled at his mind all night: Roger Glover had the same weird two-tone eyes as Chris Bacon.
And
that
was no coincidence.
Chris had been born with two different-colored eyes—one brown, the other green. It was a feature one does not forget. As he once said, looking at Chris Bacon was like looking at two faces superimposed. And he had joked how Chris had been born to see the world from an either/or perspective.
(Hey, Chris, are you ambivalent?
Yes and no.)
But why the denial? They were once close friends. He was an usher at Chris and Wendy’s wedding and had given them a fancy piece of calligraphy as a gift.
Wally got up and went to the cellar and tore through boxes of memorabilia—stuff he hadn’t looked at in years, stuff his ex-wife had been after him to dump. Stuff that always made him a little sad—old letters, concert ticket stubs, baseball cards, Woodstock photos, school newspaper pieces he had authored, record albums of the Mamas and Papas, Joan Baez, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, even 45s of Buddy Holly, Elvis, and the Dell Vikings. Stuff that he just couldn’t throw out.
It must have been an hour before he located the old album of photos taken at Cape Cod—of him and an old flame, Jane Potter, and Chris Bacon
and Wendy Whitehead. Most were shot at a distance. Except for two—the group of them sitting on rocks with the water in the background.
The same facial structure and sinewy physique. Except for the lighter hair and sunglasses, it looked like Glover.
Back upstairs he poured himself some port and watched the short segment of video he had shot of the man who called himself Roger Glover. The resemblance was remarkable. Beyond coincidence. Maybe it was a younger brother of Chris. But identical twins weren’t born twenty years apart. Even if it were a younger sibling of striking resemblance, why deny the name?
And if it were Chris, why deny an old friend?
What sent a chill through him was that Glover looked exactly like Chris Bacon in the photographs from 1970. It did not make sense. None of it.
For a minute he sipped his drink and let his mind run down some possibilities. Then he turned on his computer, got onto the Internet, and accessed a search engine. He typed the name CHRISTOPHER BACON.
Instantly he got a long list of old newspaper abstracts of articles from the winter of 1988, beginning January 30 with an obituary:
SCIENTIST MURDER SUSPECT KILLED IN PLANE RASH “EASTERN FLIGHT 219 CLAIMS DARBY MURDER SUSPECT”
Four days later a
Boston Globe
headline read:
“FBI: BIOLOGIST BACON NOT ON PLANE”
Then the next day from papers around the nation:
“MAN CHARGED IN MURDER MAY BE AIRLINE BOMBER”
SCIENTIST TURNS MASS MURDERER
ALL-OUT HUNT FOR SABOTEUR BACON
POLICE AND FBI INTENSIFY SEARCH FOR BACON & WIFE
BOMB SUSPECT, WIFE, INFANT DISAPPEAR
Wally was trembling with disbelief as he clicked on one of the articles. Christopher Bacon had been accused of killing a coworker in his lab, then planting explosives aboard a commercial airliner heading for Puerto Rico.
He didn’t remember the incident because he and his family had been living in Japan at the time.
Wally scrolled down the articles. Following the sabotage, Chris had dropped off the face of the earth with his wife and infant son. As the years went on, the articles thinned out, occasionally producing pieces such as “Is Mass Murder Suspect Among Us?” and theories that Bacon and family had moved to Mexico or Canada. By 1991, the articles had stopped coming, the latest listing Christopher Bacon as the FBI’s Number One most wanted fugitive.
Whatever the claims, these were crimes Wally could never imagine his old pal committing. Accompanying the articles was a color photograph of Chris and Wendy. It was grainy and had lost something in transcription, but recognition passed through Wally like a brick. Take away the black beard and it was the same man.
But it didn’t make sense, since the Chris Bacon in the 1988 Internet photos looked older than he did in person. Older by a decade or more!
Wally didn’t get it. He didn’t get any of it.
Either Roger Glover was some astounding lookalike, or Roger Glover
was
Chris Bacon who had undergone a stunning makeover.
Confused and baffled, Wally downed the rest of his wine. Then he went back upstairs and went to bed, wondering what the statute of limitation was on the million-dollar reward.
“He’s so big for his age,” Jenny said.
“He’s only a year younger than Abigail,” Laura said.
In the photo, Brett was in his wrestling outfit, standing tall and straight, square-shouldered, his young body firm and rippled with muscles. The image filled Laura with love.
“He looks like Roger, except for the eyes.” Brett had Laura’s brown eyes. Both of them.
It was at these secret hotel trysts where she and Jenny shared family news. Today it was the Milwaukee Marriott just up the street from the annual flower show—Laura’s cover for the rendezvous. Although Jenny was no longer under FBI surveillance, Laura still insisted on meeting surreptitiously—never in public, and never at each other’s homes. This was their first meeting in four years.
Laura wished the rooms came with VCRs so she could show Jenny the
tape of Brett’s winning match from yesterday. Ironically, he had wanted to go out for basketball, but felt he was too short and signed up for wrestling reluctantly.
“How they change. I would never have recognized him.”
Jenny had not seen Brett since he was baby Adam. Sadder still, Brett knew nothing of Jenny. Laura had told him that she was an only child of two parents who themselves were only children—like Roger. That he had no other family. Laura hated deceiving him, but if they announced he had other relatives, he’d want to visit them, and that could put the authorities on their trail. Plus it would open that awful can of worms. Not until he was older. Not until he could handle the entire, lunatic truth.
“I wish you’d brought pictures of Abigail,” Laura said.
“Oh, you know these teenagers. She’s camera-shy.” Jenny hadn’t brought photos of her for years. “She’s something else, though, smart as a whip. We’re studying French together.” Jenny prided herself in being cultured, of rising above crass TV values.
“What a nice thing to share. Maybe you could take her to France someday.”
Jenny smiled noncommittally. “That’s another thing: She doesn’t like to travel.”
Laura saw Jenny infrequently, but she knew how devoted a mother she was, funneling all her energy into raising Abigail and schooling her at home. It was her way of making up for Kelly. Laura swore that without Abigail, Jenny would have lost her mind given the turmoil in her life. Nine years ago, she and Ted got divorced. It was a stormy breakup but she won custody of Abigail and a large settlement. Two years later, Ted was sent to prison for eight years for operating a car-theft ring. Then in 1993 real horror struck. Kelly, age twenty-nine, committed suicide.
It was impossible to gauge the effects by phone or a meeting every few years. But some weird denial had set in, because Jenny never mentioned Kelly’s name again. She had moved to a suburb of Indianapolis with Abigail where she started life all over as a first-time mother.
Jenny flipped through photos nervously, distracted. Something was up. Laura had sensed the tension the moment Jenny walked into the room. Even in her voice when she called to schedule this rendezvous. Finally, Laura asked her point-blank what was wrong.
For a moment Jenny tried to dissemble. Then she blurted out, “I need help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Elixir. I want some Elixir. Simple as that. I need some, and you can’t say no.”
The intensity of her expression startled Laura. “Jennifer, I can’t do that and you know it.”
“Laura, I’m fifty years old, and aging fast. Look at me, I’m putting on weight and fleshing out. I’m feeling older and I hate it.”
“So am I. That’s life.”
“But Mamma was my mother, too. I carry the same family thing for cancer, and you said that stuff prevents cancer cells—”
Laura cut her off. “You don’t know anything about the stuff. It’s forbidden. Everything about it is forbidden.”
“But Roger—”
“But Roger nothing! Yeah, he doesn’t age, but do you want to end up like him—cut off from your kid? From your friends? Living in a state of biological schizophrenia—graying your hair and not knowing who the hell you really are or what generation you’re from? That’s what it’s like for him. That’s what it’s like for us, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you do that to yourself.”
What she didn’t mention was what had happened to them as a couple. She still loved Roger, but their widening biological gap had set off a flurry of confused emotions—from sheer envy to anger to something akin to repugnance at the unnaturalness of his condition. Even sex was a perverse throwback experience—as if she were making love to Chris Bacon, the horny ever-ready grad student. Except she was a post-menopausal fifty-five and feeling like a cradle-robber. Elixir had thrown time and love out of joint.
“I can live with that,” Jenny pleaded. “I’m willing to take the risk. Please. I’m begging you.” She began to cry.
Seeing her weaken touched Laura, but she could not let the crocodile tears sway her. “You’re not a hermit living in the woods, for god’s sake. You’ve got a daughter to think of.”
“That’s who I’m thinking of,” Jenny shot back.
“Then ask yourself what you’ll tell her in ten years?”
“What about Brett? What are you going to tell him?”
Laura didn’t answer.
Jenny made no effort to stop her tears. She was bordering on hysteria. “You have to help me. You have to let me have some. I’m not asking for much. Just a few ampules. You can’t let this happen, after all I did for
you—protected you, lied for you, got you passports and IDs. If it weren’t for me you’d be in prison for the rest of your lives.”
“And I’m very grateful. But Elixir is lousy with horrors.”
“You don’t understand,” Jenny said.
“What don’t I understand?” Laura shouted. “I’ve lived with it for fifteen years.”
“But Roger’s managed. He’s fine. You’ve got the power to prolong life, and you won’t give me a drop. Your own flesh and blood.”
“Jesus, Jenny, live the years you have, and stop whining about the ones you don’t have.”
“I’m afraid of getting old. I’m afraid of becoming wrinkled and decrepit. You’re my sister.”
“It’s because I’m your sister I won’t let you.” Laura put her hand on Jenny’s. “And you’re not old and decrepit, for god’s sake. You’re making yourself crazy. You look ten years younger.”
It wasn’t false flattery. Jenny did look younger. Her skin was smooth and shiny—the skin of somebody who took proper care and avoided sunlight. But more than that, she dressed young: not in teenie-bopper flash, but jumpers and flats and plastic beads. She looked like a Catholic-school girl.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were already taking the stuff.”
Jenny looked at her with a start, then gathered her stuff to leave.
The tryst was over. And a disaster. For the first time they had fought over it. Yes, in phone talk Jenny would hint how she wished she could go on indefinitely like Roger—if only it were safe. What Laura had discounted as idle musings. But Jenny had meant it, and it shocked her to see how much festered below the surface.
Laura tried to hug her goodbye, but Jenny pushed her away and opened the door.
“I don’t want you to leave hating me.”
Jenny gave her an icy stare. “You don’t understand,” she said through her teeth. “You don’t, don’t, don’t.”
Laura watched her walk down the corridor to the elevator, thinking they were more like strangers than sisters. Thinking that Jenny’s desperation went beyond fear of fifty. Something else was going on. She was over the edge. Maybe she’d recommend psychiatric counseling.
Laura stepped back inside and closed the door. She still clutched a photo of Brett. She stared at it for a moment, taking in his young colt beauty.
“What are you going to tell him?”
On Monday morning, Wally Olafsson walked into the resident agency office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Madison and reported his encounter the other night and what he had discovered on the Internet, producing the downloaded articles, photos copied from news stories gotten at the UW La Crosse campus library, the Cape Cod snapshots, and the video taken of Chris Bacon at the Wisconsin Regionals.
The complaint duty agent, Eric Brown, took notes as Wally outlined his past acquaintance with Christopher Bacon. On his computer, Brown checked the Bureau’s database and located the outstanding warrant. He reviewed the charges, comparing screen file photos of Bacon with those Wally had brought and the video segment he ran on a VCR.
BOOK: ELIXIR
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