A Lesson In Morality

by Stephen W. Cote

This story was written for my friend Janet.

"A lesson in mortality, Mr. Baker." Donald Smith crimped the narrow surgical tubing with his dark tanned thumb and forefinger, pinching it so that no blood passed from the artificial heart regulator to Ludd Baker's chest.

The office, decorated in a rather rustic fashion, fine maple planks augmenting the walls complimenting the black veined marble tile of the floor, pinnacled the Lans Corp arcology headquarters. Although Seattle, Washington had originally sought to prevent Lans Corp from building the arcology, time and vast sums of money were all that stood in the way between what the government thought was best for the city, and what the corporate officials thought was best for their company. Standing as a pillar of superior technology for over two hundred years, the arcology had miraculously never gone through a change in its original CEO, Donald Smith.

Clutching at the fire in his chest, Ludd Baker grimaced, biting his lower lip. Clean shaven, the dark rings around his eyes, given to the amount of stress he had been under, gave him a quasi-ludicrous presentation - as if he had not taken care of himself for several days. "Please, Mr. Smith," he begged, his pearly whites glittering from the soft pummeling glow of the overhead lamps. "Please, it will never happen again." Water gathered at the edges of his eyes, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"How you mistake my intentions, Mr. Baker," Donald Smith smiled sardonically, "this is not a punishment, merely a lesson." He let his fingers slid along the surgical tubing, releasing the pressure so the blood once again flooded against its own stagnation. "Lans Corp is not in the business of delaying projects." Picking up a small vial of cellular tissue from his desk, he thrust it into Ludd Baker's awaiting hands. "Do you know what this is?"

Peering intently at the vial, he nodded slowly. He knew the answer, he was unsure though of what answer Donald Smith wanted to hear. As everyone knew, no one trifled with the Lans Corp CEO. He had over three hundred years under his belt and absolutely did not tolerate anything less than perfection. "The heart DNA?" He threw out, hoping, this time, it would suffice for an answer.

"Exactly," Donald Smith placed the vial back on his desk, a dull snapping sound echoing in the room from the glass clicking against the wood. "More precisely, however, it is the Hawkfeather DNA. Native American. I oversaw the initial tests myself." He preened Ludd Baker over much like an eagle watches its prey. "One hundred plus years, Mr. Baker. Without," he made a gesture with his hand, fanning it towards a small table which had a solitary vial of an indigo fluid perched upon its glass top, to emphasize his point, "without using the Reefers."

The Reefer had been Ludd Baker's brainchild. Brow beaten to design a synthetic chemical that would prolong the genetically reproduced tissues that Lans Corp had hallmarked, bringing about the new era of longer lives, the room temperature reefing drug, operating on a simple principle of chemical refrigeration, brought Lans Corp its new line of artificial organs and tissues. As costly as it had been to produce, it was at the time the only choice Donald Smith had open to him. Now, he must have found a new method, Ludd Baker found the fear of the possibility creeping in from all sides. One which would threaten his position in the company.

"Sir," Ludd Baker began, pulling his hand from his chest, feeling the tingle begin to wane, grasping for any sort of rebuttal, "that would only work on other Native Americans. The genetics would cancel out each other. It would be a human immuno civil war if one were implanted in anyone else."

"You would like to believe that, wouldn't you?" Donald Smith loosened his jaw. "Have you taken a look at Eve Thompson's genetics work yet? No," he did not leave time for Ludd Baker to respond, "probably not. Her Gene Slicer was a dream in its own right for the better half of last century." He reached out and gripped Ludd Baker's lapels firmly, "Tell me then why -- not only does it work -- but it has worked for the last ten years and I was not told?"

Ludd Baker bit his lip again, close to drawing blood. Eve Thompson, the frumpy genius behind Lans Corp's enzyme treatment facilities which were established to combat the one time surge of failed organs that had been rejected by their hosts due to differentiating enzymes. That had been, however, before his Reefing chemical had been produced. Since she was a part of Lans Corp's "immortals", the founding members that had escaped aging through their own produce, she had managed to find her place by working on her Gene Slicer, which would supposedly create enzymes based upon a persons own genes that could be influxed into a new organ or tissue so that the host's body did not reject it.

As Ludd Baker searched for an answer, watching the dark lines of Donald Smith's face, the same lines which encircled his eyes and crept down his cheeks into a vampire-like point on the same longitude as the top of his nose, he thought of the "immortals." Living within the depths of the arcology, well into levels that the city was unaware even existed, the "immortals" lived in their own society. Donald Smith, though the eldest, still retained his thirtyish charm, and his sixtyish company politics. Realizing the need for mortality amongst the people, Lans Corp had established an unwritten code of conduct which would disallow more than one organ implant of any one type. Therefore, a person could wind up having an entirely new body, save their brain, however, only one time. The "immortals" were constantly replacing organs, using the Reefing chemicals to prevent the T-bone break down of their brain tissues and nervous system. The only two parts of the body that could not be replaced. Yet.

"Mr. Smith," he finally found himself groping for words. "the Gene Slicer does work. But it still has some small contingencies which need to be ironed out." The truth was on the tip of his tongue, but he found at this point, he could not bring himself to speak it. Not yet.

"Mr. Baker," Donald Smith smiled, the same smile which was worth a thousand pictures, it never changed, "I am not asking you for a full report. I simply wish to know why I was not told about it."

Weak in mind and body, Ludd Baker found himself hiding behind his own recourse, the truth, the same truth he had only moments ago silently vowed not to reveal. "It works better than we -- than Eve Thompson ever thought -- it would. But it's..." he paused, looking up at Donald Smith with something akin to fear, in his eyes.

Donald Smith's fingers hovered near the surgical tubing. He had chosen his time to the best of his knowledge, for while Ludd Baker waited for a heart implant, he was at the mercy of the external blood pump, the same which was now perched upon his desk. "It's what, Mr. Baker?"

"It's," he paused, sighing out loud, his voice broken, close to a sob, "it's addicting. Possibly the most addictive thing in the world."

Donald Smith removed his hand from the tubing, raising it to pedestal his chin upon his palm, thinking with a loud hrm. "How so, Mr. Baker. This is intriguing."

"Our test subjects," faces of those who had tried and died filled Ludd Baker's mind, those faces whom had been his friends at one time. In their time. He swallowed, "the test subject's bodies accepted the implants. The Gene Sliced enzymes worked so well that they were almost an evolutionary step for the body. A step that the body wished to match by dispensing with all of the other enzymes. We still don't know why it happened. We didn't even think it was possible. Every doctor would think we were crazy if we tried to tell them, but the test subject's bodies actually started to flush the enzymes through their systems, and when the bodies could not make more of the Gene Sliced enzymes, the bodies started to react violently. The test subject's bodies rejected their own organs and tissues. Children's hair became gray, wrinkles clouding their faces. Then, " he paused, rubbing his hands together, the moisture causing his fingers to interlace smoothly together. "They actually began to age so quickly and sporadically that we could not even determine a pattern. Some aged until they died in a matter of hours, some in a matter of days. So many enzymes were flushed from their bodies, so many different types, that we couldn't hope to produce the right sequences and put them in the right places before the test subjects all expired."

Donald Smith fell silent, he fell inwards on his own thought processes. Finally, after several moments of broken silence, he asked in a simple, terse statement. "What is the best time of the test subjects."

Ludd Baker found himself answering, without even knowing why, dismissing his own curiosity, "six days, sir. Six fun filled days of aging."

"And the Reefers ?" He looked down at his own hand, watching the lines turn and shift as he clenched his fist, his eyes closing slowly. He suddenly felt very weary.

"Sir, we estimated that one test subject would consume the same amount of Reefing chemicals as all of the 'immortals' have consumed in the last decade. In a single day, sir. One day. That would be more than two gallons of the Reefing chemicals." Ludd Baker thought the whole idea had been ludicrous, but after seeing Eve Thompson's report, he had no other choice but to believe. Even then, he hoped that Donald Smith would realize why he hadn't told him about the Gene Slicer. Why he chose to keep it to himself. There would have been no other way to actually inform him of such a failure.

"You may go, Mr. Baker. I'm through with you. For now."

As Ludd Baker left his office, shutting the door loudly behind him, Donald Smith turned and looked out the window, his eyes following the window pane down until he was looking at the back of his hand, watching the lines shift and change. He thought of the exuberance he had felt when he had emerged earlier that day from the surgery room where implants were performed. Under severe protests, he thought of the look Eve Thompson had given him as she had covered her face with her hand, the look of horror creeping over her face at a viral rate he first opened his eyes after having his new kidney's Gene Sliced. How many days, he thought out loud, how many days do I have. How many hours before I begin to see what will happen to me.

Turning on his heel, he angrily pulled open a drawer in his desk and removed a quart of the Reefing chemical. Working with frustrated fingers, he filled thirteen large syringes with the chemicals and then proceeded to inject them into his body. Immediately, he found his body becoming very warm. Warm enough that he turned to turn the thermostat down to forty degrees Fahrenheit. All before he collapsed to the ground, his breath shallow, his eyes wide as he felt his body begin to erupt in a reaction between the Reefing chemicals and the Gene Sliced enzymes. Peering towards the ceiling, he thought of the people who had volunteered for the Gene Slicing, wondering if they had left behind any families. Before he blacked out, he had started to wonder when he died, whom would he leave behind.

"Eve, please," he raised his hands in protest, palms extended to her, facing upwards. Every ounce of dignity, every shred of his self respect were put into the gesture. Only to collapse and shatter at his feet as she turned away angrily. "Don't be mad. There has to be something we can do."

"There was something we could have done," her lips twisted into a dry smirk, her cheeks flushed. Deep inside, she reviewed in her mind every step of the situation. Step by step, she told herself; one, two, three. Far in her mind, she was vaguely aware of what would happen if Donald Smith died from the Gene Sliced organs. The world's media had keen eyes for such small details. Those same details, she felt, would lead them to conclude that whatever death befell Donald Smith, must have been the same death of the test subjects whom had disappeared into the depths of the Lans Corp arcology more than twenty days past. "We could have left it all alone." She blinked, looking up at Ludd.

"I'm sorry, Eve. I really am." Ludd Baker clenched inwards as he felt Eve's second glare assault him.

"Ludd," she stated articulately, her anger no more than a hint in her voice as it fell to a whisper. "We practiced the drill over and over for fifty years. What do we do if an experiment fails." She waited to see if Ludd followed her lead, and then mouthed the words with him, "We never tell Donald Smith."

Ludd Baker turned away, placing his hands on the work table. The lab was a network of hi-tech instruments and patent pending devices that Eve and himself had designed over the last two hundred years. All in the name of Lans Corp. There were many a night that he remembered the sterile white walls would seem to beat with a life of their own, as if he would awaken one day to find out the arcology itself was alive. "Eve," he started again, his voice soft, pleading, "I'm sorry."

"No you're not!" she snapped, rage lighting the backs of her eyes. "You're pathetic. You told him about the side effects of the blood cleansing agent we made, and you told him every last detail of my pre-birth organ failure serum which would have assured us that ninety percent of all newborns would have to be implanted with Lans Corp organs and tissues."

Ludd Baker turned back to face Eve, extending his hand to brush the side of her cheek. "Remember," his mind was caught in the loop, replaying over and over the one time she had fallen into his arms the night she had been told her job was no longer a necessity for Lans Corp. He kept thinking of the night, even when she had been married, when they made love in the laboratory. Oh, Eve, I loved you so. I always have. What has happened to you?

Eve slapped his hand away briskly, quickly turning and back handing him across his face, sending Ludd Baker stumbling backwards with a shocked expression riveted to his face. "That was more than a hundred and fifty years ago, Ludd." She could have stopped, she knew she should have, but the anger in her heart drove her onwards. She felt the need to break him, simply to see if she still had the power to do so in her. "Remember the child, our child Ludd? The one that I said would jeopardize my marriage?"

Ludd nodded, covering his face with his hand, looking away from her.

"It was a miscarriage." The pain of the loss gripped her and for the moment, she couldn't speak. She grimaced, biting her lip, and then hammered in one more nail. "Do you really think I cared enough about you to tell you that? I had a hard enough time convincing my husband that the child had been his."

Ludd Baker turned quickly and walked towards the door, not looking back. Finding it locked as it failed to slide open upon his proximity to the sensor, he hissed, "Open the door." He could not stand to listen to another word from her. He only wanted to get out of the room. Out of the basement levels. He felt like getting lost in the upper levels of the arcology's gardens.

"Sit down, Ludd." Eve turned away from him and walked towards a small centrifuge, her hands snatching at a small vial labeled, `Reefing Agent Lot 2'. Not looking back at Ludd, she continued talking, her voice once more quiet. She knew Ludd had felt her sting, and she felt stronger for it. Cursing the despair of the lower levels, where as an "immortal" she never met anyone else besides those of her kind, she counted the steps backwards, tracing her way, knowing that somewhere, a solution lay. "You got us into this. I will be damned if you don't help me get us out."

"Into what," Ludd protested. "Donald Smith is our CEO. He is supposed to know about what goes on down here. He is an `immortal', same as you and I."

"Ludd," Eve continued darkly, though retaining her anger, "if Donald Smith dies and the media finds out, there will be an investigation. That means that the Seattle government, as well as the Federal, will search the arcology for a possible connection with the other people who disappeared. They were last seen here, Ludd. And everyone knows about the Reefers. The Federal Drug Administration will suspend our license to use it and will impound all of the equipment we use to make it. This isn't something you made from parts at Radio Shack. It would take you years to make all of this again." She made a gesture with her hand, sweeping it about the room, though she was sure Ludd realized that she meant almost every manufacturing component used which encompassed more than thirty levels of the arcology. "When that happens, and it will happen, we won't have enough Reefing chemicals to outlive a rat. Let me ask you one thing, Ludd. Does Donald Smith, or anyone else know the full potential of the Reefers?"

Ludd tried to evade her gaze, but fell with himself and simply shook his head, muttering, "no. No one knows."

"And why not? You told them about everything else that was wrong with anything I ever experimented with. Why not about the Reefers?" She felt angry again. Betrayed. She wanted to believe he had not ratted her out, but her heart ached with the sick pain that he had.

"Because," he sighed, rubbing his hands over his face roughly, wiping away perspiration that was no longer there. Trying to regain his bearing, he looked up, daring to brave her eyes, "Because what you made hurt people. It killed people. The Reefer is dangerous, but it saves lives. That is what I thought Lans Corp was all about. Saving lives. My Reefer never killed anyone."

Eve smiled inwardly, allowing Ludd to see only a shadow of a dark smile of anger bleed through her lips, "No. It never did kill anyone. But it will assuredly kill us, Ludd. Think about that." She began to process the reefing chemical, her fingers darting in search of several instruments she knew were just out of sight, though she paused only long enough to say, "Think about that, Ludd. You just made us mortal again."

Donald Smith sat upwards. Rubbing the frost from his eyes, he managed to squeeze them open long enough to see his own fingertips, black and blue from the persistent cold. How many hours had past. He quickly looked up at the thermostat indicator on his desk, cursing himself for not turning off the automatic thermal adjusting system which would maximize personal comfort by matching the room temperature with a body's need.

Placing his hand at his heart, he felt the burning warmth beneath his skin as his body continued its war, the two factions pitted against each other for the prize of his tissues and organs. The Reefing chemical he had overdosed on had caused his body to work overtime in an effort to combat a cold that was not there. He thought vaguely of how he could have burned himself out if the room had not responded by lowering the temperature. Strangely, he did not feel cold. He could not feel the frost bite which obviously plagues his fingers.

Pulling himself to his desk, his fingers uncrumpled slowly. Donald Smith's eyes watched the backs of his hands as the skin began to peel away with the motion. As he checked the time, finding he had only been unconscious for under eight hours, he caught the pulsing flash on his private phone. Depressing the button with hesitation, a blurred face appeared on the screen. He could not tell who the owner was until she had spoken.

"Donald," her voice was far to scientific. He seethed, wanting to know why she allowed him to go through with the Gene Slice if the after effects were so terrible. Yet he knew she was not at fault. Even now, he could not find it in himself to think of her long. He could only think of one face. That of his ex-wife.

"Donald!" Eve Thompson's voice stated again, her face beginning to solidify on the screen. "Are you all right?"

How dare you ask that, Donald Smith sat straight back in his chair, trying his best to glower at her. His face would not respond. He could feel the cold tension of the muscles unwilling to move. "Look at me Eve," the power was not in his heart to verbally thrash her. Even so, his throat felt chapped and the sound of his voice was weak, fading away. "Look at me, damnit!. Just look at me!" He closed his eyes again, suddenly feeling very tired.

Eve thrust something against the video-cam, a small vial of what could have been a Reefing agent by the markings, but then, Donald could not be exact. Her voice began to break up. He wondered if it was the microwave communications beam, or if it was his inner ear shattering from the sound. "I completed a new Reefing agent. It can save you."

Her voice faded back, far into the darkness of the world that he had so viciously assaulted with his company politics for so many years. Julia. The face was imprisoned in his dreams, etched into his mind. "For sickness and in health, until death do us part." He felt a single tear roll down his cheek. The faceless thousands that had given their lives, whom had trusted Lans Corp, had trusted him to save their lives, began to scream in his mind, their souls echoing, a Gregorian chant that kept pulsing, growing louder and louder.

Eve Thompson's voice cut in stark and clear, "It can save you, Donald. Damnit, listen to me. It can save Lans Corp. If you die, Lans Corp dies. We all die!"

Softly, loosening the thin tie about his neck, the sound of his fingers cracking small explosions in his ears, "We are already dead Eve. We were dead the first day we thought we could escape aging." His mouth formed around a single word. Julia.

Eve Thompson's face grew enraged on the other side of the screen, though Donald Smith simply looked beyond it, trying not to listen to Eve as she spat back at him, "She's dead, Donald. She has been dead for over three hundred years."

Donald Smith shook his head. "No," he spoke in a white vapor, "I love her. Death could never take that away from me." Donald Smith pushed the disconnect on the phone, his head leaning forward.

Sleep overtook him, a welcome immersion into silence, far from the loud jingle jangle of the souls which he had wronged. Yet they felt so close. So close. His body rested within the hypothermia which plagued him. Releasing its will to it. Finally, his last breath was spent uttering the word which had dominated the last moments of his life. Julia.

His death was quick, the one thought of his everlasting and betrayed love for Julia clouding his mind as he drifted through the empty void of the afterlife. At first, all was dark. Yet an all forgiving hand reached out to him, attached to embracing arms which brought him into a light which granted him understanding.

A presence met him, one which he understood and had once loved. "Did the others make it here? Were they given salvation?"

The presence acknowledged his question with a positive glow, but then spoke out after many moments of slowly decaying silence. "You cannot come here. You are not welcome."

Donald Smith felt at ease for the first time in a long while. "I know," he said at last."

"Then why did you try?"

"I had to see you one more time. To tell you that I am sorry. Sorry for everything. And to make sure the one's I caused to suffer would find something better in this life than what I gave to them in the last one."

With that, Donald Smith turned away, back into the void, resting with a peace of mind, his hands folding for the first time in prayer for the "immortals" he had left behind.

Ludd Baker scowled at the thought and pushed the vial towards Eve with a grimace. What is a lifetime of pain and suffering worth, all at the cost of others who deserve better than this. "Take it Eve," he said, misery hissing through his teeth in a broken sigh. "I don't want it."

"You fool, Ludd," Eve Thompson scowled wickedly at him, her hands perched in a stern fold between her arms, buried between her breasts. "I am giving you a chance to get out of all of this. Just take it. We can start all over, you and I. We can rebuild Lans Corp somewhere else. My new version of the Reefing chemical is over a thousand times more powerful than yours. And at half the cost."

"You .." he stuttered on the words, grief flowing in his eyes with a shallow veil of tears. "You haven't learned anything, have you? I never made it to make money or to save our own lives. It was to save everyone else's."

"You're an asshole, you realize that, don't you Ludd? In a few minutes, we will be taken away from here. Just as the others were. Do you know that all of them have died since then? In two days Ludd. All of the `immortals' died. And if you want to die with them, then so be it. I don't want to die yet." Eve stood up and made a move for the vial but was stunned as Ludd reflexively snatched it away from her.

"No, Eve. One vial left. Neither of us will use it. If the others have died, then it is our time to die. We have taken too much from people for far too long. It has to stop now." Ludd stood up, taking several steps back towards the door.

"Ludd, you idiot. Do you think I was stupid enough to just hand that to you? I have enough Reefer in me to keep me alive for another two years." She turned around and started to walk away from him, towards the far end of the laboratory. "I'll find you Ludd," she said, her voice soft, "I will find you and kill you if you walk out of this room with that vial." She did not turn around until she heard the door shut behind her.

"I'll kill you Ludd Baker," Eve screamed as she faced the door, beating her fists on the wall. The room was empty save the single table and two chairs. Both Ludd and the vial were gone.

Please stay behind the line, the police echoed through the bullhorns.

"Down with Lans Corp, everyone else shouted in unison."

The media were the only ones quiet, simply recording it all to replay on video later that day.

Ludd Baker walked outside, his skin tingling from the crisp, fresh air and the open light. Clutching the vial tightly in his hand, he began to walk passed all the people, all of whom did not recognize him. Silently, he mouthed the words of a prayer to a God he did not believe in, thanking Him that he was not a public image figure as Donald Smith had been. He could slip away and never be seen again.

Walking down the street, his attention snapped to two policemen trying to keep a woman holding her young baby from entering into the arcology. Standing in the middle of the masses of people herding towards Lans Corp, he could only watch and listen.

"Please," the woman begged, her baby crying in her arms, banging a rattle against her shoulder. Her cheeks were red and drenched from tears which never seemed to end. "My baby is sick. Lans Corp saves lives, remember? Isn't that what everyone always said?"

"Please ma'am," one of the officers, dressed in a decorated sky blue uniform interjected, "Lans Corp is a fraud. Everyone knows that now. Have you gotten a second or third opinion for your baby? Sometimes that is all that is needed."

"Please, you have to believe me," she cried, beating her fist against the officer's chest, "I have to be let inside."

"Ma'am, please settle down or I will have to forced to arrest you and keep you in lock up until you settle down. Now why don't you just go home?"

The woman turned away and started walking towards Ludd, who quickly looked back at the arcology. As the woman approached him, close enough to brush him, she turned back and started to run towards the arcology, her child bouncing in her arms.

Just before she passed the same officers whom had ordered her home, a strange hand stopped her, pressing her shoulder. She turned to meet Ludd Baker's eyes.

"Your child," he looked at the baby who still cried, it's face withered and detestable from the enormous hospital treatment it must have received. Ludd could tell the child was going through the same symptoms the others had gone through without the Reefer.

Lans Corp had stretched so far and wide into Seattle's society, and into the world, that the Reefing chemical, in its ordinary extremely small quantity, was just one more common house hold supplement adorning the shelf of medicine cabinets all around. With the fall of Lans Corp, the Reefing agents were suddenly banned, resulting in large mobs of people that ransacked houses and rooms in search of the chemical for their burn piles.

Ludd Baker quickly looked away, but took the woman's hand and pressed the vial into it firmly. "It's strong," he said, his voice hoarse. He could no longer bear to look into the eyes of one of the millions of victims of his own doing. "Like your child will be one day, when it grows up."

The woman looked back, but Ludd had already started walking away. Opening her hand, she saw a vial with the words, "Reefing Agent Lot 2" written neatly on a small white label. At the bottom was a smaller line, "Store At Room Temperature." Shoving the bottle into her purse, she started walking after Ludd, walking anyway she could that was as far away from Lans Corp as she could get.