“Yes,” Cargill said, throwing back his head. “I owe the man I am now to Dr. Maddox.”
Connie said, “Dr. Maddox, why haven’t you given yourself any of your magic drugs? You look every one of your fifty years.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s too early, I must perfect the treatments first. I’m the only one who understands the drugs and how to use them safely. If any problems develop with the test subjects, I’m the only one to fix them. The entire project depends on my staying healthy.”
Cargill was staring at Maddox. “Dr. Maddox, I never thought of Quince and me as your test subjects before. Is that what we are? Like lab mice?”
“Cargill, I’ve rolled back time for you and Quince, extended your life by at least fifteen years. You’re not stupid, you knew there were risks. You should be grateful.”
So Quince was the name of the kidnapper? Suddenly, it came to her in a flash. Sherlock said, “We want to speak to your father, Dr. Maddox.”
“No! You have no reason to bother him. I told you, he is too ill for visitors, much less law officers who would browbeat him. He wouldn’t understand in any case. Look, I realize this is all quite unusual, seeing Cargill, it is no doubt a shock to you. I’m perfectly willing to discuss my research with you. I will go with you to your Hoover Building. We will join my lawyers there, and I will tell you what it all means. But leave my father alone.”
“He’s seventy-eight years old,” Sherlock said slowly. “I presume you’ve given him your drugs as well, like Cargill and Quince, isn’t that right?”
Lister said nothing.
“Of course you have. So why can’t we see him? Or did your experiments on him go wrong? Did you put him in a coma, like the young man at the hospital?”
Lister Maddox leaned back against the wall, his shoulder touching a picture frame. He was frantically working his worry beads, weaving them through the fingers of both hands. It was a mesmerizing sight. “Of course not. You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me. Make me understand.”
He remained silent. Sherlock realized they were still standing in the entrance hall, but that was fine with her until the others arrived. Push him, she thought, keep pushing him. “Tell me what I don’t understand, Dr. Maddox.”
“I’m a scientist, Agent. I didn’t expect to reverse my father’s illness, but still, I had to try. I failed.”
“What went wrong, Dr. Maddox? What happened to your father? Why can’t we see him?”
It seemed to Sherlock he was going to burst into tears. He looked defeated. He waved his hand, his worry beads swinging. “Very well, why not? It seems I can’t stop you. When you do meet him, you’ll see I’ve treated him as well, that I’ve managed to restore much of his muscle mass, fat and bone, but for my father, simply restoring him to a man of fifty years old again wasn’t my ultimate goal. Some fifteen years ago my father suffered a catastrophic neurologic event that smashed his brain like a hammer. It left him an empty husk, a man who isn’t even aware of what I’ve done for him, what I’m still trying to do.” Lister paused, his face twisted. “When I show him his reflection in a mirror, he doesn’t even know it, doesn’t even realize it’s a mirror! I had so hoped my treatment would eventually restore and heal his injured brain tissue, bring back that wonderful mind of his.” He swallowed, looked at Sherlock with pain-filled eyes. “But it appears I’ve failed him; I’ve failed my father.”
The entrance hall was silent until the worry beads started clacking again.
Sherlock didn’t turn when she heard footsteps near the front door open behind her, she knew it was Dillon. She kept her focus on Dr. Maddox. “So, to be clear, Dr. Maddox, you admit you’ve given a number of human subjects your experimental drugs, without any oversight or approval, without any review of their safety? Do you consider that ethical?”
Lister straightened again, barely glancing at Savich, outrage pouring off him. “You break into my house, and then you expect me to listen to you condemn what I’ve accomplished? Outside review? Come now, Agents, don’t tell me you’re surprised I’ve tried to avoid that kind of interference. Do you think I would let those faceless idiots at the FDA dictate whether my father dies, how long it will take before all of us standing here will die, because I was afraid to flout some of their rules? And this is the same bureaucracy happy to let charlatans and hucksters peddle every kind of worthless snake oil to the desperate and dying, who will pay them anything to live just a little longer. The FDA scoff at them, yes, but they continue to let the scam artists rob people with their outlandish claims that their magical herbs, their absurd apricot pits, their pseudoscience diets will cure them of their diseases, extend their lives. Those are the people you should prosecute, those are the people you should arrest, Agents, those liars, not me!
“Most of our important medical advances were discovered outside the bounds of accepted constraints. It was Quince’s and Cargill’s choice to take the treatments, they gave me their permission. And so I moved forward, and I’ve succeeded, given these two men fifteen years of life! Can you begin to imagine what that means? Fifteen more healthy years they wouldn’t have had!”
Sherlock said, “And when they stop taking your magic pills? What will happen to them?”
“I assume they’ll simply resume natural aging.”
Cargill said, “Dr. Maddox, you told me I’d stay young forever!”
“With the treatments, of course. But without it? I don’t know—how could I?” He drew himself up. “I know I’ll probably have to answer to the authorities for breaking their rules. So be it; I am prepared for that.”
Sherlock said, “Tell us about your fountain of youth, Dr. Maddox.” She paused, added, “And tell us what you’re prepared to answer for.”
Lister Maddox nodded, obviously pleased to be asked these questions. “The sought-after fountain of youth. People have tried to slow aging since the beginning of recorded history. The Taoists may have been the first to strive for immortality by following their magical diets and leading what they termed tranquil lives. They invented acupuncture and tai chi to help them, and those are still with us today.
“You want to know why I have succeeded? In short, the genomic revolution, Agent. We age because our bodies have evolved to keep us alive and vigorous long enough to reproduce and nurture our young. Sooner or later, our cells stop dividing, become senescent, or die. We suffer dwindling strength, disease, debility. Since the beginning of time, we’ve had no choice but to submit to our own decay even though we fight it every step of the way.
“We only recently started to see aging as a genomic illness, like cancer, activated by genomic pathways. It is our master regulatory genes that set the aging clock back to zero when each of us is born, the same genes that build and repair us. I’ve been lucky enough to stumble onto a small part of that programming and alert enough to appreciate what I’ve found. Imagine curing all the diseases of aging, all the tortures of frailty. Imagine the joy you’d feel at being rejuvenated! Talk to Cargill, see how he feels and you will hear wonder in his voice. And yet you stand there proposing to stop me?”