Transmutation

  “How long to confirm, legally, that the process is mine,” Lori pushed.

  “I— I can do it now. Now. I’ve done it a thousand times—” Smoke was beginning to trickle out of Bernie’s ears. “You mean this? Really? What this says?” He showed Lori’s papers to her.

  Lori realized she was scaring him, so she purposefully adopted a fake-calm demeanor. “Bernie. It’s just an invention. Can you file it now, please? Right now?”

  “Yes! Yes, I can.”

  “What about the judge?” Lori asked.

  “That was golf.” Bernie made a dismissive motion with his free hand and rifled through her papers some more.

  Lori got out of her chair and walked around his office. She couldn’t sit still.

  Marie nuzzled one of Bernie’s plants by the window.

  “Prove this,” Bernie said to Lori.

  “I can’t ‘prove it,’ right now, but all will become clear soon. However—”

  Lori looked at Marie. I can’t stop it from getting out; all I need is time. She held up one finger for Bernie to look. “Marie?”

  Marie looked at Lori.

  “Will you answer some questions for Bernie?”

  Marie looked at Bernie and waited.

  “Go ahead, ask her.”

  “Ask her what?”

  “Just do it, Bernie! I’ve got places to go!”

  “Okay! Marie,” Bernie asked, “What’s two plus two?”

  Marie looked at Lori.

  “I haven’t taught her arithmetic, yet. Go off what’s in this office.”

  Bernie didn’t get it, so Lori stepped in.

  “Marie,” Lori said, “Do you love me?”

  Marie’s face seemed to relax into something that most dog owners would sense as a smile.

  “I love you, too. Do you love Bernie?”

  Marie started to pant.

  “Well then, why not give him a kiss on his round, puffy nose over there?”

  Marie seemed very happy to oblige and jumped up on Bernie’s lap to lick him in the nose.

  “Smart dog,” Bernie said.

  “It runs in the family,” Lori said. “Marie, can you show Uncle Bernie how we dance at home?”

  Marie jumped off his lap and ran to the middle of his office. Lori raised her arms and mimicked a little belly dance, and Marie copied her on all fours, wiggling her hind quarters.

  Bernie laughed at the playful dog. “But—” he turned to Lori. “Doesn’t she have a bad hip? I remember—”

  “Can you do it on your back legs?” Lori asked Marie.

  Marie gave a soft bark and rose onto her back legs, jumping slightly into the air, settling back onto all fours, turning tightly in her “dance” as if she were chasing her tail.

  “Isn’t she 14 or thereabouts?” Bernie asked. “I thought she was—” He stopped with a concerned look on his face.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Lori said. “Go ahead.”

  Bernie said quietly, “I thought she was gonna leave us, soon?”

  Marie barked at him smartly, jumped up on his lap again, and licked him again on the nose.

  Lori reached over to pet her love. “Not any more.”

  Bernie face went slightly ashen, and he began to stare off into the distant future. “You’ve got this? You did this already?”

  Lori forced a smile at him.

  “Marie,” Lori asked, “you think he’ll catch up?”

  Marie lay against Bernie’s chest for a second.

  “You want to tell Uncle Bernie what you said to me on the way over here?”

  Marie shook her head yes, and over the course of two breaths, one for each syllable, said, “Na-Na.”

  Bernie jumped out of his chair.

  Marie landed on his desk, but distiurbed nothing.

  Lori walked over to hold his shoulders. “I think she means “Mama,” but she doesn’t have the breath or tongue muscles right to really form the word.

  Marie looked at her and nodded her head.

  “That’s it.” Lori smiled largely at her daughter. “And you’re ‘Marie.’ I love you, too, honey.”

  “What did you do to her?!” Bernie demanded.

  “Are you an officer of my company? Are you gonna form these two companies now: one for transmutation that will be major and one for research, a separate company entirely with only me in it. Are you going to confirm my ownership officially now? And get all this done today?”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Bernie stared at Marie while he took his seat back in front of his desk. He got onto his computer and went to work. He touched his intercom. “Nancy! Coffee for two!”

  “I don’t want anything coffee,” Lori said. “I have work to do.”

  Bernie typed furiously on his computer. “And you invented this? Not John?”

  Lori shook her head no. “This is my work, not John’s.”

  “Where’d you get your Ph.D.?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Where’d you learn to do this?”

  The door opened and Nancy came in with two coffees, left them on his desk.

  “Hold my calls, Nan, please. I’m really cranking this out here.”

  Nancy left the room.

  “That,” Lori said, “is where it gets even better.”

  Bernie stopped typing to look at her again.

  “When this hits, and I mean it’ll hit later today, I’m going to need you to field everything for me. I’m going to be besieged by everyone from the media to the government, and I need you to insulate me from it. Set up the Corporations. I’m going to give out your phone number, not mine. Handle my calls. Get some bank accounts going for me. Do whatever’s needed. I’ve got your cell phone, and that’s what I’ll need to use from now on. When you want me, please contact me on my cell phone, but don’t give my cell phone out to anyone.

  “And please sign this.” She put a piece of paper in front of him. “It says everything I just said, and a little more.”

  Bernie had become a good friend of theirs these last eight years. He and his wife had been over countless times, and they had been over to Bernie’s many times as well. It was a marriage of personalities. They knew each other to be mature, forward-thinking, compassionate people, and they hit it off as a group.

  So the big shot, chief legal counsel in what would become the world’s largest company signed the form without giving it more than a glance.

  She collected the paper from him. “Thanks,” she took the time to say. Then she softened a bit. “I don’t mean to seem gruff, Bernie. I’m sorry.” She teared some more. “I just hate death, and I’ve decided I need to do something about it as soon as I can.

  “Keep this all under your hat, Bernie. Don’t tell anyone anything, and that’s critical. Just sit on it for now until you settle into your role. I’ll do all the talking. I’ve got a plan.

  “I don’t dougbt it!” he said.

  “Will you keep Marie for a few days?”

  Marie looked at Lori with sad eyes.

  Lori cupped her shining face in her hands. “Love, I just have a lot of work to do for a while, and I won’t be at home. I’m going to arrange for us a new house, also, and when I get it set up, I’ll come get you and we’ll be there together.”

  Marie’s groan said it all, but Lori looked to Bernie. “Will you?”

  “Sure, any time.”

  Lori returned to Marie. “It’s only for a while, I don’t know, maybe a couple weeks. My guess is, with investors wanting in, it may be a couple weeks before Bernie can get us a new house in a compound with fencing and gates that will allow us a little privacy.”

  “I can do all that?” Bernie asked.

  “You can, now,” Lori said. “Everything’s gonna change, and very fast.”

  “You’ll see, Marie, my love.” Lori kissed Marie on the forehead and held Marie’s face agsinst her cheek, then hugged Marie’s entire body.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Lori to the Western Pol
ytechnic University campus, “Westech,” as everyone referred to it, walked rapidly through huge, old trees and stately buildings. Westech has produced about as many Nobel Prize winning scientists as M.I.T. and Caltech.

  She angled for the main biology building, hunted for Cornelius C. Peckington, Ph.D., Chair of the Division of Biology and long-time friend of theirs—John’s and hers. He’d been on T.V. documentaries numerous times, beloved both because of his science and his playful personality.

  She needed him, and she needed him fast.

  She cut across the grass between sidewalks.

  Two students passing by were arguing about the latest hot-button political issue in the news: an immigration bill in the U.S. Congress.

  “I’m just sick at this fascist, anti-immigration whacko B.S.,” one student said to the other.

  “Big Cadence said she’d veto it, and she’s Pres.”

  “But bad dudes got some momentum—they look at the number of immigrants in prisons, and they point out they’re the ones causing the trouble in this country.”

  “That’s because we’re picking on them! It’s discrimination. And opportunity—lack of opportunity—”

  “Excuse me?” Lori flagged them down. “Where’s Cory Peck right now?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” they said. “But we have a visiting professor from Stanford. He may have taken him to lunch at the Faculty Club?”

  “Thanks!” Lori walked as rapidly as she could in that direction.

  Lori walked through the large, open patio, where a hundred people were enjoying a luxurious buffet, right past the reception area, and into the main interior dining hall. She was always impressed with its grandeur, but that day she was on a mission.

  She looked around, and— There he was at a table against the south wall, not far from the door, with another man, maybe the visitor.

  Lori sat down without introduction at one of the chairs.

  Cori looked up, in between forkfuls.

  “Hi Cory,” she said, then turning to the guest. “Hello. I’m Mrs. John Faraday—”

  Cory, mouth full of pasta, turned to greet her, but his guest interrupted. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear! My God, John. Everyone loved him. I’m so sorry. I’m Gadin Malhotra, from up state. Computer Science. Thinking of—”

  Lorelai’s manner was too stern and impatient to be ignored.

  Cori stopped chewing, a strand of spaghetti hanging out of his mouth.

  “Cori, I have to talk to you now. It’s important.”

  “Want me to leave?” Gadin asked, starting to make the motions.

  “No,” Lori said. “Go ahead and stay. It’s everybody’s business, now.”

  “What’s up?” Cori asked, slurping down his spaghetti.

  Lori took a large envelope from her brief case and removed the papers within, laying them on the table.

  Cori turned some of them around so he could read them, his eyes widened.

  Gadin reached to touch the one Cori was looking at. “What is it?”

  Cori turned to Lori. “If you weren’t John’s wife, I wouldn’t take this seriously. Did John do this?”

  Lori shook her head.

  “Holy cow!” Gadin said as he read the paper Cori had been looking at. He reached for the rest of the papers and started scanning them. “Are you kidding me?”

  “You did this?” Cori was aghast.

  Lori didn’t answer directly. Now wasn’t the time. She just nodded. “I’ve just formed a company to handle it. We’re in swing as we speak.”

  “You’re kidding me?” Gadin said again, shaking his head, rifling through the papers. “This can’t be!”

  “It’s real,” she said sternly.

  “It must be John’s,” Cori said not as quietly. “I don’t know?” He looked at Lori again. “He was a Nobel Prize winner, but it was in physics. This deals more with biology, computer science, and electrical engineering—and physics. This can’t be!” he said a bit more loudly, forgetting where he was, absorbed in what he was reading. “Jesus!” he yelled much louder.

  People from other tables looked over at him. Many of them knew who he was and saw him reading feverishly through the packet.

  “Look at this?” Gadin said loudly, shoving one of the pages in front of Cori. Gadin stood up on reflex, without thinking.

  Other people stopped eating and talking, entirely, to watch and listen.

  Lori knew this would happen, but it was best that it happen here, with friends and trusted people like Cori, not like in some science fiction disaster movie where she’d tell someone in private, and then she’s killed or it gets stolen or the government gets ahold of it and then abducts her away to some secluded research lab where she can’t control her own work.

  Cori stood up with him.

  “John must have done this,” was all Cori could say. “He was the world class genius. Lori: You’re his wife! A great cook, but—! How did you—? Where did this come from? Jesus!” he said again to Lori. “Just a minute! Stay there! Don’t move!”

  Cori started to run across the room but came back and cautioned her again, “Stay there!” he shouted, then he grabbed up all the papers, stumbled over himself to another table on the north side of the room where the President of the University was dining with some visiting dignitaries.

  Lori could barely hear Cori scream his whisper into Dr. Abel D. Augustine’s ear, President of the University, while he simultaneously dragged him from his chair, leading him by the hand back across the room to where Lori was still sitting.

  The other people at Dr. Augustine’s table followed in a trail.

  “Look at this lady, Dr. Augustine,” Cori said. She’s John Faraday’s wife, Lori. Look at this!” Cori showed him the packet.

  Others stood around their table to have a look, also.

  Dr. Augustine’s eyes widened, and he looked at Lori.

  “What is it?” another professor asked from a nearby table.

  Dr. Augustine was absorbed in reading the papers.

  “You wouldn’t believe it!” Cori said absent-mindedly, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s not possible! It can’t be! I’m a biologist—”

  “But it can be, Cori!” Gadin said. “I’m in computer science and electrical engineering, like Lynn Conway, and I can tell you—”

  “What, already!” someone at another table demanded.

  “Cori turned in circles and smiled, looked at everyone, started to cry but smiled again, ran his hands down his suit jacket, in the pockets then out of them. “I— I— It’s— Okay! It’s that— Lori, Can I say?”

  Lori’s voice was calm, compared to Cori’s. “You might as well,’ I’ve already put that packet on the intnernet. Sent it to a hundred universities. The whole planet’s got it.”

  “Even M.I.T.?” Cori asked.

  Lori nodded.

  “Not M.I.T.!” Gadin gasped.

  “What the hell’d you give it to them for?” Cory blurted out.

  “Stanford?” Gadin asked.

  Lori nodded again.

  Most of the room brought out their cell phones to start checking.

  “So blurt it out! Fess up!” someone yelled.

  Cori stepped up to the first table in front of him, where waiting people sat, and addressed the entire Club with his pronouncement. “It’s the end of life as we know it! No! It’s the beginning of life as it will be! It’s everything. It’s what we dream of. It’s what we need! Lori’s got a way— It’s rejuvenation, God help us! How to grow young again.”

  The room murmured.

  “Actually more than that—” Lori said.

  “And it works?” someone asked.

  “For real?” another asked.

  Lori nodded. “It’s for real.”

  All eyes turned to her.

  “It’s a way to replace old tissue with new—” Lori said. “Selective, physical, computer-electronic transmutation.”

  Scientists and dignitaries alike stood and s
tared.

  “A new body!” Cory said. “Oh, I could— It’ll replace disease with health. Old with new— Everything!”

  “And it works?” Dr. Augistine asked.

  Lori nodded.

  “How do you know?” Dr. Augustine asked again.

  “Will you all at this Westech please protect me?”

  “From what?” Cori asked.

  “Just give me some sanctuary while the world adjusts? Keep them off me for a while? That’s the part I need help with.”

  About twenty professors looked at each other. Dr. Augustine consulted many of them with his glance, then to Lori, “Yes, certainly.”

  Lori nodded her understanding. “Okay. The answer is because I’ve been using the transmuter for about twenty thousand years. Earth time.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Dr. Augustine stood behind his desk in his office fighting for control of something, anything, in the room. Thirty people stood in the room with him. No one sat. Everyone was arguing.

  Lori sat in a chair against the east wall, anti-stressing. She wiped tears from her eyes.

  “You okay?” Cory asked her.

  Lori nodded. “It’s just that it’s been so long.”

  “Twenty thousand years,” Cory said with a boisterous smile.

  Lori nodded again, “But I don’t mean that. Life is good. I mean it’s been so long since I’ve been dying to give this to the world.”

  Other scientists quit arguing for a second to listen to her.

  “I see death in the world—people fighting, wars, disease, and it makes me sick! How can anything be as valued as life? You work to grow, to become someone you’re pleased with, and then—bam—you’re dead!”

  More tears fell down her cheeks. She wiped at them, red faced, determined.

  Cory reached out to touch her arm, but Lori pulled away, stood and walked to the window. There was a crowd of people below.

  “Her husband died,” someone told someone else.

  Lori turned to face him. “Yes, but it’s more than that. He’s no more valuable than anyone else, is he? It’s anybody’s death. So now we’re going to stop it.”

  The door opened, and his assistant came in with copies of “Lori’s packet” as they referred to it, for everyone.

  Half the people were on the phone while also talking with others present.

  Eager hands reached out to grab the copies.

  Lori sat in her chair again, beginning to relax for the first time since a long time.