Too bad for Humanity

They were standing in the staff room of their laboratory, just the two of them. The troubles of the world showed on the TV monitor: angry people, war, famine, megalomaniacs. But he had to turn it off. She was telling him something. It was a shock. Had they wasted their time? All that research? All those hours? The profound results they had paid for with their nervous systems?

“We would make baby boomers almost immortal. Richard Branston. We would have Richard Branston forever. ”

Jonesy was still struggling to understand. She was the physicist of the team – though her talents wide ranging. Her grasp of neurology was stunning. In cytology she rivalled him though it was his specialist field. In electronics she had modified their electron microscopic – and re-rigged the internal surveillance cameras, deceiving Security at their remote base so they could not interfere with what they were doing. Such a talented woman.

“We made a mistake,” she told him. “Because we started with studying Alzheimer’s our cell library was collected from people born in the fifties. It masked something. The effects of background radiation.”

Perhaps he just did not want to understand what she was saying. “Explain it again…tell me again…” he was stammering.

“Isolated freon,” she said. Yes, IF, their miracle compound. “We were right. It is the smart pill. A thirty seven percent increase in cognitive function. And the effects on ageing – the latest readings show tryglobulate nuclease readings were down by 87%”

“Yes…I know…I know. That would not only halt ageing – probably reverse it.” Oh, the dreams of such wealth he had had because of this effect. He had come such a long way from his birth in Abuja in Nigeria, to life in a slum in Cardiff with seven brothers and sisters, to a successful researcher who owned his own house in Picton.

“But…” said Sasha. “I will say it again. I found some anomalies. Tissue samples from new-borns. The stem cells were not responding. I looked at it more closely and found I had missed something. Background radiation at the point of conception has a catalytic effect and makes the cells receptive to IF. The effect kicks-in in 1947 but gets too high in 1964 – after the Russians exploded their dirty bomb the year before. The pricks.”

Sasha was Polish. She had no love of Russians – though, with her, Germans were worse.

It was dawning on Jonesy. “But…”

Sasha continued. “IF will only apply to baby boomers. They will be smarter. They will become steadily younger. I even suspect it will prevent cancer cells from forming…”

“But… but…isn’t there another isotope?”

“Don’t be stupid… of course there isn’t.”

“We could…we could still make a lot of money.”

“Oh Jonesy…” She understood what this meant to him. She was tall and willowy, blonde and athletic. He was dark, short and pudgy, his face flat as if pressed against a glass dinner plate but always so impeccably dressed – the neat shirt and the tailored trousers showed from under his lab coat. And the lovely, gentle brown eyes, and the way they smiled when they turned to you. She stepped forward and slid her arms around him. They were close collaborators – and lovers.

“I know… I know…” she whispered in his ear so softly. His dreams she had heard often. Wealth not for luxuries but a return to Abuja. The lives of cousins to rescue. The village of his parents. Miracles to work. She knew how much he cared about the country of his origins. “But think about it…that generation of Nigerian leaders. They would be the ones to benefit.”

He pulled away from her such was the shock of this thought, turned and seemed to question the wall in front of him. Above him showed a security board with the status of sensors and warnings as an array of green lights. The laboratory was disguised in an apparently abandoned boot factory in Hammersmith. Signs warned of asbestos and radiation hazards. All fake. Even the entrance to the lab was a pile of building rubble that slid across. In the rubbish strewn grounds movement sensors were everywhere. Such was the security.

His eyes ran along that row of green lights as if they were the faces he knew. The leaders in politics, in business, in religion. Their values would be consolidated like a stranglehold.

“What can we do?” he said weakly.

“I can turn on the radon oven to max and leave it. It will go critical in thirty minutes. It will level everything within 400 meters.”

“But we can’t. There’s a nursery school around the corner in the High Street…”

“Too bad,” said Sasha. Such a tough woman. She had literally fought her way from a tenement in Gdansk and her criminal family. “Baby boomers, Jonesy. Baby boomers. Richard Branston forever… We can’t let that happen to humanity…”

Suddenly there was a soft beeping sound and two of the motion sensor lights were blinking red. Then they turned off. “How the hell?” said Sasha. The only way that could happen was… if Security had turned them off. She had a gut-wrenching realization. She had not fooled Security. They had fooled her. They were listening all along.

Distant noises took them to the window overlooking the yard. Amongst the litter two Swat teams were disgorging from armored vehicles.

“We are too late…” said Sasha.

A command car pulled up. Outstepped a broad-shouldered woman with the words “Incident Controller” emblazoned on the front of her vest. Unlike the rush of the others, she moved easily then stood and watched. Even at a distance they could see a glint underneath her helmet - aviator glasses. So old fashioned. Then, beside that - tight curls of grey hair.

A baby boomer.

Sasha and Jonesy were too late. They heard the faint whirr of the front door being remotely opened.

Too bad for humanity. Richard Branston forever.

Those dudes - the young men and women of the Swat team - if only they knew what they were doing.