“We have to start running the commercials now,” said Kerry. “We made them vague for legal reasons, and now that might work in our favor—people might see them and think the cancer cure was connected to us, which we will never confirm, of course, but if they think it that’s a point in our favor.”
“That’s only jumping the gun by two weeks,” said Sunny. “I say we do it.”
“Is that too far before the launch?” asked Cynthia. “We need this launch to be huge.”
“We have a whole month to think of something huge,” said Sunny. “I think we need something as big as this cancer lady—bigger, if we can do it—so we can announce it a day or two before and tell people there’s more news coming at the NewYew mystery event.”
“We have four weeks until then,” said Cynthia, nodding. “That gives us just enough time for the lotion to have full effect. Any ideas?”
“Another disease would be good,” said Kerry, “people are eating that up with this cancer lady.”
“And she has to be hot,” said Jeffrey.
“Attractiveness will definitely help,” said Sunny, “and the age thing is another good one. This Guru Kuvam hit all three major selling points with his cancer girl; he really knew what he was doing.”
“Maybe we should stop trying to change the direction of the cancer lady stunt,” said Cynthia, “and simply change the scale.”
Lyle raised an eyebrow. “What, like we take an even older woman, with a worse disease, and make her even younger and healthier?”
“Think bigger,” said Kerry. “Guru Kuvam healed one woman. Why don’t we heal the whole cancer center?”
“We’ll never get permission from everybody,” said Sunny, “plus we’d need willing DNA donors, and then the patients would have to agree to that, too. We don’t have time to arrange even half of that.”
“I’ve got it,” said Jeffrey, scrolling through something on his phone. “We’d lose the hot chick angle, though I guess the mom’s kind of hot, but check this out: there were two twins born last month, two little girls, and one’s completely healthy and the other’s on life support: she was born with one kidney, one lung, no liver, and only half a heart. Family’s going to pull the plug tomorrow.”
“Unless we get to them first,” said Kerry eagerly. “We turn the sick girl into a clone of the healthy one, we put their little faces up on the screen, and we tug on every heartstring in the country. Saving an old lady in Jersey is one thing, but saving a cute little baby is something everyone can get behind.”
“The family might say no,” said Sunny.
“We’ll take over their hospital expenses,” said Cynthia.
“More importantly,” said Lyle, glancing sidelong at Cynthia, “we’d be saving their daughter’s life. That’s kind of a big deal to us normal humans.”
“How could they say no?” asked Sunny. “The babies are identical twins, so they’re already clones of each other; we’d just be fixing a … manufacturing error.”
“Just don’t present it to them that way,” said Kerry. “Maybe we’d better let me do the talking.”
“Whatever you do, do it now,” said Carl. “We don’t have much time to prepare for this, and apparently we have new competitors popping up almost every day.” He picked up his phone. “While you work on that, I’m going to call Marcus and figure out who leaked our product to Kuvam.” Carl narrowed his eyes. “And when I find him, I’m going to let Cynthia kill him with a pair of pliers.”
19
Saturday, June 16
9:37 P.M.
NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
181 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Lyle put down his pen and rubbed his eyes; they felt raw and red from overuse. There was no time for his regular job anymore—all he did, for hours every day, was trawl through page after page of genetic tests and medical histories in search of congenital weaknesses. If ReBirth was to be loosed upon the world, the least he could do was make sure they were selling clean DNA.
It was the kind of work Susan would have been ideal for: long and slow and detail oriented, exactly the kind of thing you hire an intern for in the first place. As far as Lyle could tell Susan was still a “guest” in São Tomé, but he had no idea what that entailed. It drove him mad not knowing, but he couldn’t spare the time to do anything about it; there were only three weeks left until the launch of ReBirth, and he had stack after stack of small-print DNA results to examine. Saving the entire population from a deadly drug was more important, at the moment, than saving one girl from a vacation.
Lyle looked back at the printout in front of him, poring over the genetic charts, but his eyes watered from fatigue, and he blinked the tears away. He was too tired, and his eyes were too strained; he’d been working since five in the morning, almost sixteen hours ago. He pushed his chair back and stood up squinting and rubbing his eyes. He could start again in the morning.
He walked to the elevator, wracked with doubts. Am I doing the right thing? No. Definitely not. But am I doing the best thing I can, given the situation? I didn’t want it to get this far, but I made a little compromise here and a concession there and now we’re filling hundreds of thousands of bottles of ReBirth, which we’re planning to sell illegally, and Susan’s been kidnapped and a dozen other people with her and I think I helped start some kind of a cult. I didn’t mean to.
Heh. I wonder if the judge will accept that in court. “I’m sorry I broke a dozen laws and endangered millions of lives. I didn’t mean to.” He stepped out onto the sidewalk with a slow, resigned sigh.
The night sky was clear, and the streets were still warm. The subway entrance was just a block away, but Lyle stopped on the sidewalk and stared up, wondering. What are Pedro and Christopher Page and all the others doing right now? They look like me, but do they really? What if they eat better, or exercise more, or get more sun—are they healthier than I am? Are they more handsome? What about their clothes? I don’t know what looks good and what doesn’t, and I haven’t really dressed all that well since that girl in college helped me shop for clothes … what was her name? Paula? I liked Paula. I think I loved her, but she never loved me back. I’ve never known how to be in a relationship. It’s a skill I never learned … but the other Lyles have it, or some of them, at least. Somewhere out there is a version of me that dresses better, looks better, and has a girlfriend. He probably has a wife and children. He definitely makes better choices.
If I’m not the best me, who is? And what am I supposed to be instead?
A limousine pulled up to the curb, right next to Lyle, and the back door swung open.
“Dr. Fontanelle, please join us.”
Lyle peered inside the dark limo; there were several figures, but their faces were shadowed. “Who are you?”
“Your brothers.”
“I don’t have any brothers.”
“Brothers in mind,” said the voice from the car. Two men stepped up behind Lyle—strong men with grim faces and iron grips. They had his arms almost before he knew they were there, and it was too late to run. They pushed him firmly toward the car.
“What do you want?” asked Lyle, bracing himself on the sides of the doorway. “Show me who you are.”
