“And you,” said Carl, pointing a yellowed finger at Lyle. “I want this in production by next week.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not a full run,” said Carl, “we don’t even have a bottle yet. But I want sample runs and stability tests. Call Jerry at the plant and set it up.”
Lyle grimaced. “I have one more test scheduled for next week, but … yeah, I can probably get it done. Two weeks would be better.”
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “You’ve tested everything from litmus to rats to human skin. What else do you need?”
“I’m still refining the formula,” said Lyle. “The woman in the photo is from batch 14E, and the newest is 14G. The tweaks were minor, though, and one test ought to do it. It’s already scheduled through HR: adult males, eighteen to forty-five.”
“Skin care for men is the next big thing,” said Kerry.
“None as big as this,” said Carl. “Run your test, Lyle—I want this product guaranteed for every gender, every age, every race, every everything. If you’ve got skin, you’re a customer.” He folded his frail hands and stared at the executives sternly. “A lotion that literally makes your skin younger—and does so this effectively—has the potential to be the biggest cosmetic breakthrough since breast implants, and with a wider appeal. I want a bottle of this lotion in the hands of every man, woman, and child in the country—I want women to bathe in it, and I want schoolgirls to feel old if they don’t use it. Am I clear?”
The executives nodded.
“Good,” said Carl. “Let’s go change the world.”
2
Monday, March 26
2:04 P.M.
Lyle’s office, NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
263 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“This is ridiculous,” said Susan.
She was a student from NYU, working as Lyle’s research assistant to help pay for college. She was an excellent chemist, a hard worker, and at least a decade too young for Lyle, who consequently spent most of his time not looking at her, talking to her, or being near her. Thinking about her, on the other hand, occupied a great deal of his mental energy.
Lyle kept his eyes on his computer. “Hm?”
“An earthquake in Mombasa,” said Susan, stabbing her computer screen with her finger. “Ten hours ago: it leveled the city. They have no homes, no food, nothing.”
“That’s awful,” Lyle murmured, not really paying attention. Susan was an impassioned activist for almost every cause she encountered, and he didn’t have the energy to keep up with them all. His fingers clacked on the keyboard, filling in the final details on his most recent report. Sunny was still trying to find a loophole that would let them actually make the antiaging lotion, and he needed all the details Lyle could give him.
“It’s because we’re racist,” said Susan.
“Now … wait a minute,” said Lyle, turning fully to look at her. Her hair was long and blond, streaked with natural highlights; Lyle had spent enough time working on hair dyes to know a natural highlight when he saw one. He tried not to think about Susan as the model on a box of hair dye. “The earthquake happened because we’re racist?”
“America hasn’t helped them yet because we’re racist.”
“It’s only been ten hours.”
“We can get there in ten hours.”
“So maybe we’re slow,” said Lyle. “That’s not the same as racist.”
“We can be fast when we want to,” said Susan, “but Kenya’s not a major trading partner, so screw them—we’ll toss a few volunteers and water bottles off a cargo plane, but we’ll save the good stuff for the next time Japan gets a tsunami. We only help when it helps us, or when it helps our image.” She stared at Lyle, and held up her finger for emphasis. “But image means nothing.”
“You realize you … work for a cosmetics company?”
“You can change what people look like,” said Susan, “but you can never change who they are.”
“I…” Lyle looked at her face, identifying almost subconsciously her shade of lipstick: plum pink. He lost his train of thought and glanced at the clock instead. “It’s 2:08,” he said quickly. “We need to get ready for the test.”
“14G?” asked Susan, forgetting her tirade almost as quickly as she’d started it. She rolled her chair across the floor to Lyle’s desk and looked at his computer. “What’s new in this batch?”
Lyle became acutely aware of the proximity of Susan’s knees to his own. “Some pretty interesting stuff, actually.” He looked up and gave her what he hoped was a dashing smile. He was pretty sure it didn’t work, and stopped. “I’ve added a retrovirus to help regulate the process.”
“Really?” asked Susan, leaning in closer to look at his screen. Lyle pursed his lips and thought about flat things: walls, cabinets, tables. He swallowed and slid his own chair a few inches away. “I thought the formula was bacterial.”
“The plasmids are bacterial,” said Lyle. “That’s where the DNA is. The retrovirus is how we get the DNA out of the plasmid and into the host cell.” He wanted to say more, eager to impress Susan, but this was the part he didn’t know as much about; he was a chemist, not a geneticist. He thought for a moment, then repeated the blurb from the supplier’s brochure. “It uses an RNA transcriptase to unzip the host DNA, inserts the DNA fragment stored in the plasmid, and zips it back up again. They came from the same supplier; they’re engineered to, um,” he tried not to look at her, “fit together.” He started to gesture with his hands, then turned a little red and fell silent.
“Cool,” said Susan, peering closer at the screen. She was almost as interested in chemistry as she was in social justice, and arguably better at it. “This is … well, it’s groundbreaking.”
Lyle turned red and pretended to busy himself with some papers. “Well, it’s certainly interesting, and we have high hopes. I mean, Carl said it’s going to change the world, but what does he know, right?” He was practically bursting with pride. He’d probably get on the cover of Scientific American again, and Susan thinking he was brilliant was the cherry on top of the whole thing. He glanced at the clock, and jumped up with a shout, “It’s 2:15! I’m late!”
“Need any help?”
Lyle frowned, his mouth half open for words that never came. Of course he wanted her to come, he wanted her to go everywhere with him, but he wasn’t supposed to want her to go anywhere with him. “I…” He didn’t know what to say.
Susan gestured at her computer. “I finished color matching the lipsticks you asked me about.”
