Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (13 page)

Hans
gestured expansively. “It’s a shame. Your fame could help shed light on so many
injustices. After this, we’re touring to Cairo. If you happened to be in the
neighborhood, I would consider it a personal favor …”

When
Stu agreed to join the crew on their next assignment, Laura jumped up and down
and hugged her mother.

Kaguya
confided, “I like him. Kindness and patience are underrated qualities. From the
way he keeps stealing glances over here, you’re definitely his type.”

Holding
an ice pack against her blossoming black eye, Freya stifled a snicker. “He’s a
masochist?”

Laura
ignored the huntress and asked her mother, “Anything else you’d care to critique
about the man I’ve chosen?”

“He’s
definitely Conrad’s student,” Kaguya said. “I’d recognize that style of hold
anywhere. In space, you can’t afford to kill or maim anyone unnecessarily. Like
any teacher, he tells the person what is expected before he applies force.”

“Any
changes to my strategy based on your observations?”

Her
mother nodded. “Get the advocate to befriend him. It might keep other women at
bay long enough for you to make your move.”

All
three women focused on the stalker feed. Stu was surrounded by scantily-clad girls
from the club, the press, and even the police. All were buzzing around him like
bees around a flower.

For two more days, Laura
stayed with the Ballbusters team to shoot footage of the drunk-woman sting. Stu
flew ahead to New York to resolve the rights to Sojiro’s final adventure-comic
series.

The
phone call woke Laura at three in the morning. Recognizing the number, she
answered it with a drowsy, “Mori-san. How may I serve the family?”

Her
grandfather fumed. “Are you aware your target has left the US?”

“Yes.
I encouraged him to visit the British Museum without me.” Laura’s mother poked
her head into the room Out-of-Body to check on her. Laura gave her the OK
signal.
Nobody died.
She put the call on wall speaker in case her mom
wanted to listen in. “I take it you’ve already adjusted to Tokyo time again.”

“Llewellyn
is lobbying for the UK votes, and it looks like he’ll succeed. He’s meeting
with the relatives of
Ascension’s
crew in London. You had a week alone
with him, and you didn’t finish a simple assignment?”

Laura
pushed down her irritation and sat up on the bedside. “You’re welcome.”

“What?”

“The
US had an interdiction against taking his samples. Anything I procured would
have been seized, along with any intellectual property.” The silence was Tetsuo
Mori’s only acknowledgment of his mistake.
Unless he wanted me arrested.
“I had to arrange to meet him someplace romantic without bioengineering laws—Egypt.”

“How
confident are you?” Grandfather asked. “I have to secure that DNA before the UN
vote.”

“I
bribed the cast of Stu’s favorite TV show, Ballbusters, to help me. They’re all
cooperating.”

“You
should have authorized it with me first.”

Kaguya
entered the room physically and spoke up. “Father, we saw an opportunity to
bind him as an asset long term. We’ve arranged a whole white-knight fantasy for
him. He’s rescued the damsel, and all that remains is for him to claim the
reward.”

“If
you’re that certain, I’ll give you another week.” Mori terminated the call.

Unable
to sleep, Laura asked her mother, “Want to watch Stu’s press conference?”

Without
comment, Kaguya sat beside her and found the London feed. Stu gave hints as to
who had survived and how crew members had distinguished themselves. Commander
Zeiss and his wife had both survived. When a Swiss reporter mentioned that the
commander’s Nobel Prize-winning father couldn’t make the event because he had recently
died of a massive stroke, Stu reacted. Under questioning, the ambassador
admitted that Conrad Zeiss had experienced a similar episode due to overuse of
Quantum Computing talents. “But an extended session in one of our
decontamination pods repaired most of the damage.”

For
the first time, Laura felt a pang of grief about the possibility of losing her
father. He had been a dead legend for so long, but now he was both real and
fragile.

Her
mother immediately compiled a list of world experts on Active stroke prevention
and recovery.

****

The next morning, Laura sleepwalked
into the editing studio. The team did everything together. Hans spliced in the background
pieces and arranged the segments, trimming for optimum length. Sif did
voice-overs while Grant added hypertext references. Nemesis inserted music and
credits. Themis made certain everyone with a recognizable face had signed
releases. Laura fetched donuts and coffee for the stars, drinking large
quantities of the vile brew herself. She hung around in the booth until
everyone but Grant left for lunch. “Sif is speaking your words.”

He
shrugged. “I’m a journalist. I do research.”

She
noticed that he recorded their conversation, as he did with all crew
interactions, so that no one could accuse him of impropriety. “I get it,” Laura
said. “The show is about image. With three huntresses, Sif is the smart one,
Artemis is the bad-ass, and Freya is the pretty one.”

“They’re
all beautiful,” Grant said.

“So
there’s another reason you want something of yours in her mouth,” Laura said
with a lilt in her voice.

“I—”

“Love
her passion and spontaneity,” Laura said.

He
closed his eyes. “How did you find out?”

“I’m
an empath, and I watch people. You should tell her how you feel.”

Shaking
his head, Grant said, “I’m evil incarnate.”

“You
put your last wife through law school. She makes four times what you do, and
you still pay support. That doesn’t seem like ‘evil incarnate’ to me.”

“In
all this time, you’re the first person to investigate my side.” Grant sounded
perplexed.

“I
could get that legal problem fixed … drop a few hints in the right ears so the
crew knows you were the victim … maybe even get some of the story on the air.”

“What
do you want, Mori? I won’t betray any of these people.”

Laura
leaned back in her chair. “Now who’s listening to the rumors? Stu needs a
father figure since his dad passed, someone he can trust. Take him under your
wing.”

“That’s
it?” asked Grant with skepticism.

“I
care about him. I thought you could sympathize with that.”

“You
won’t tell anyone about Sif?”

“As
long as Stu doesn’t find out who I really am.”

The
journalist raised an eyebrow. “And who are you, really? You cry a pretty good
game, but you destroy people in court.”

She
cocked her head. “Is this an interview?”

“Sure.
After the reveal, people will want to know more about you. This is my due
diligence.”

Pacing
the room, Laura said, “Biotech is composed of three phases: tedious research,
disappointing experiments, and eventually fighting to keep the rights to what
we discovered.”
Some of the side effects were pretty horrific. Mother Nature
doesn’t like tampering.

“Intellectual
property,” Grant said, taking notes for pop-up links.

“Exactly.
I have four ideas a day, including my days off. That’s over seventy-five
hundred since I started. Only a hundred were worth developing. Of those, only a
handful made a profit. If something took us years to develop and dozens of
wrong turns, we should reap the exclusive benefits for a while. Since I generate
so many new gene splices, I testify as an expert.”

The
journalist shook his head. “You’re patenting genes that already belong to other
people.”

“No.
I find ways to reproduce what we find in nature in a safe way. Trust me, you
don’t want somebody randomly flipping bits in the gene sequence. My team
implements patterns that have proven survivable and beneficial.”

“Like
eye, hair, or skin color.”

“A
perfect example,” she said. “We created a method to tune a child to almost any
desired level of melanin. However, we had enormous legal and societal issues to
overcome. Medically, we are allowed to make a child 20 percent darker to avoid
skin cancer, but ethnic groups demanded we limit lightening to 5 percent.
Countries want racial markers left intact. For instance, eye folds may not be
changed.”

“Governments
had to step in. You were selling cookie-cutter children.”

“No.
I limit packages to clusters of two to four theme changes each, like musical
aptitude, long fingers, circular breathing, or extended vocal range.”

“You’re
playing God.”

“We’re
fixing his mistakes,” she replied, shaking a finger. “
Immunities are our
biggest seller: AIDS, breast cancer, hair loss, heart disease, diabetes. Edits
are a close second: Down Syndrome, several dystrophies, hemophilia, Crohn’s,
Fragile X syndrome, with more every day. Almost any recessive problem in the
Japanese or Jewish population can be fixed now. We’re still working on
Parkinson’s because it manifests so late in life. Imagine a world where no one
is born with a deformity.”

Grant seized the term. “Deformity.
Like blindness, deafness, or homosexuality?”

She sighed. “You’re putting words
in my mouth. Nothing can be selected for or against that is covered under federal
anti-discrimination laws. That includes obesity.”

“So everyone should look the same?”

“No.” She paused for a moment,
searching for an example. “My first patent was a gene set I inherited from my
father—the deep version of the Collective Unconscious talent. He could communicate
to whales, Grant. God, I wish I could have met him. I wanted other people to
have that gift, so I made CU safe and side effect-free.”

“I read about that ability. They
call those people Doolittles. They were bred to be zoo keepers, animal
trainers, and oceanographers.”

Laura nodded. “But we don’t
force
them into those jobs. Many become social activists, spiritual teachers, or CIA
analysts. I’m not about limiting the human race. I develop tools to overcome
the limitations it’s facing. My proudest accomplishment is that women over
thirty-eight can now have children without fear.”

Grant said, “You sound like a true
believer in the power of the human genome yourself.”

“Ironically, the symbol for the
Human Genome Project was the Vitruvian Man. The man in that drawing had a
hernia. Today, we can fix that flaw during the design phase before the child is
formed, which is the least expensive way to fix any engineering problem. No one
should have to suffer a lifetime of pain and expensive treatment.”

“Providing they can afford the
upfront cost to Mori Genetics,” Grant remarked.

“This interview is over,” she said,
activating her media scrambler to prevent further recording. “I’d edit your
last comment out as biased before your sponsor hears it. I appreciate reasoned
debate, but my grandfather doesn’t support free speech among his employees.”

Before the overseas
flight, Laura bought a new explorer outfit with long sleeves and plenty of
sunscreen. Late Tuesday afternoon, Laura left her mother at their Cairo luxury hotel with Nurse Evangeline as a babysitter. At the airport, Hans worked
crosswords with a pen while Laura paced nervously. When Stu and his entourage
finally arrived, all she could manage was a breathy, “Hi,” before his shy smile
robbed her of speech.
I’m just maintaining cover.

The
bodyguards had to stay behind to shepherd their weapons through customs. Hans
assured them that the crew would provide sufficient protection for one evening
of tourism in a remote area.

As
the team gofer, Laura pushed a luggage cart while Hans told the ambassador what
to expect. “First, we like to film the local color and get a feel for the
site.”

To
help her, Stu grabbed one of the suitcases that kept falling off the cart.
“Will I see any pyramids?”

Hans
laughed. “A hundred or so, situated just south of the Nile Delta.” He called
the rest of the talent to join the shoot. “But Cairo is a time machine. It
saves a bit from every era that it experiences, from these glass skyscrapers to
the bricks of the pharaohs.”

On
the trip from the airport, everyone on the crew rode on a rented,
air-conditioned bus. A jeep with spare parts and fuel followed. Hans continued highlighting
the architecture while the camera operators filmed. “This section could still
be 1930s Paris: the art deco, the arches, the stone fronts on the buildings.
We’ll be passing a glorious mosque is a few minutes, and you could swear that
we had returned to the days of the sultans. The market stalls use the same balance
scales.”

Stu
was precious. He wanted to be on both sides of the bus at once, looking out the
windows. “Why is it only green in that area over there?”

The
director turned a camera toward Grant to provide background. “The Sahara Desert
starts at Cairo’s southern gate. Unless you’re right beside the Nile, this part
of Africa is a sandbox from one side to the other. And the desert has been expanding.”

Artemis,
the Israeli member of the team, said, “That reminds me—If I point out a storm
on the horizon, get back to the bus. If you can’t make it to the bus, pull up
your face mask and find cover immediately. Afterwards, we’ll find you by tracking
the transponder in your headset. No matter how hot you get, do not remove your
comm gear.”

“The
best defense is to stay with your buddy who speaks Arabic and has a GPS,” Grant
said, clapping Stu on the back, “especially with your British accent. Not
everyone around here has forgotten being one of your colonies.”

Stu
pointed out the window. “Can I see the green part?”

Hans
exchanged looks with the local government liaison, who squirmed in his chair. Reluctantly,
he guided the driver down an obscure agricultural road. Just as they had almost
reached the river, all traffic halted. Laura could see the traffic jam
stretching several blocks.

The
driver argued with people outside to negotiate passage, but nothing moved. The government
handler explained, “The next shipment of algae cakes came early. There will be no
distribution until tomorrow at six, but customers line up now. As you can see,
the road is blocked. We must turn around.”

Stu
looked around them at the bumper-to-bumper gridlock on the narrow streets.
“That will take a while. Why don’t we pop out for a peek while we wait?”

“I
would advise against—”

However,
Stu was already out the door. Grant and Artemis ran after him, followed by two
cameramen and Laura acting as lighting girl. The potholed street was like
standing on a griddle. By the end of the first block, she was perspiring more
than she did after an hour of combat practice. Of course, during practice she
wasn’t running in insane heat with twenty kilos of equipment on her back.

The
female camera operator echoed her wheezing objections after the second block. “Bloody
talent.”

Stu
had stamina; she had to say that much for him.

Soon,
the group arrived at the source of the congestion. A group of soldiers guarded
a barge being unloaded at the docks. Oddly, the ship floated in the middle of
the river while tugs transported crates to the warehouses. Since the actors
stood in shade to be cooler, the camera operator had Laura unpack a large,
reflective piece of fabric to improve the quality of the light. Of course, this
meant she had to stand in the blistering sun to adjust the frame that held the
thin sheet at the proper angle.

“The
river is lower than I’ve ever seen it,” Grant muttered.

Stu
stared around him at the crowds, his trademark confidence waning as he sat on
the curb. His breathing seemed to be off.

As
Laura set up the reflective panel, she scanned the crowd. The adults were all
male, agrarian, and slightly hostile.

Grant
seemed puzzled. “What would divert that much water?” He nudged Artemis. “Ask
some of these people what’s causing the drought.”

Laura
tried to look at the situation from Stu’s point of view. Until a week ago, he
had never met anyone but sterile, friendly scientists. Now he was surrounded by
ten times more people than he had ever seen. A few were coughing or scratching
with possibly infectious medical problems. He couldn’t be more vulnerable or
out of his element.

Before
she realized what she was doing, she had taken Stu’s hand to reassure him.
“They’re all people, each just as frightened as you are. Focus on one person at
a time.”

Stu
squeezed her hand, concentrating on her until the fear passed. Whispering, he
said, “Thanks. Please don’t tell the others I panicked. I owe you one.”

Hans
barked over Laura’s earpiece, “Keep that light on Artemis!”

Laura
had to hustle to keep up.

Artemis
spoke fluent Arabic as she interviewed several male natives, and Grant
translated their replies into English offscreen. That way the star was
prominently featured center stage, and the Egyptian replies had a male voice
that viewers could trust.

“Upriver,
the farmers grow
qat
,” a farmer said. For the sake of the rest of the
team, Grant added, “which is a mildly narcotic leaf popular in Yemen.”

Hearing
Grant pause, the farmer continued. “The market for it is better than cotton,
but the crops take too much of our water.”

“What
are the lines for?” asked Artemis, first in English and then Arabic.

“Everybody
is hungry.”

The
second cameraman focused on Stu, whose face was a study in compassion. “Commander
Zeiss says, ‘To a starving man, a piece of bread is the face of God.’”

Sif
snorted. “That’s originally from Gandhi—an odd hero for such a famous
criminal.”

Pulling
up fact sheets on his sleeve, Grant provided Artemis with the pertinent
background. “A full third of the world is undernourished right now. About 25
percent of the people here between fifteen and thirty are unemployed. That’s
nothing new. Ask them why people are starving in the Nile Valley
now
?”

Artemis
did so seamlessly. The arrogance she showed elsewhere vanished when she was on
the job.

“Storms
and insects ruined the wheat,” explained a second farmer. “Although, our yields
would still have been enough if Canada hadn’t sent all its potash fertilizer to
China.”

A
farmer who spoke English broke in, “Fortune Foods doubled its prices the week
before I lost my crop. Still, we must buy it because algae is the cheapest food
we can get.”

Laura
knew her family grew the seaweed crops in the Red Sea and Mediterranean,
competing tooth and nail with tourism for the beaches. The Egyptian government and
international charities would bear at least half the cost of the food relief.
Conveniently, the company had recently acquired a bank chain in Africa specializing
in unsecured microloans to the poor. The timing did sound suspicious, but the
evening news would still herald this as a corporation bailing out another
struggling government.

While
she pondered this coincidence, Stu approached the English speaker and the
ten-year-old girl playing in the dirt at his feet. She wore a purple ribbon in
her hair. “Your daughter is beautiful.”

“Sixty
pounds, she is yours.”

“Excuse
me?”

“That
will feed the rest of my family for a month, sahib. You are rich and clean. She
will eat well. Stay in nice hotel.”

Stu
floundered. “Isn’t that … illegal?”

The
farmer shrugged. “We all have to eat. She will probably starve if you leave
her.”

At
that moment, their handler arrived to shoo them back to the bus. Grant had to drag
Stu away from the girl and her father.

As
Laura tried to fold the gear for travel, a sudden gust of wind seized the
reflective panel and knocked her off her feet. Worse, her headgear blew away.
Jogging back toward the waiting bus, Laura struggled to keep up with the
others. People held out hands for money. The men in the vehicles and shops
stared at her bright, blonde hair.
Shit. Don’t act like prey. Be like
Artemis.

Several
strangers offered to carry the equipment for her. The further she got from the
group, the worse the attention became. Men began to bump against her. Finally,
the camera operators noticed and flanked her for protection.

Sweaty
and exhausted, Laura trudged the final few meters.

Stu
said, “I don’t understand. If the girl can’t leave with us as an adoption, what
was the money for?”

“You
said she was attractive,” Grant replied, leading him onto the bus.

When
Stu didn’t pick up on the hint, Artemis said, “
Sex
, you moron. He was selling
her to a rich stranger to molest.”

Stu
bolted for the bus doors, but the team restrained him as the bus pulled away.
“Next stop Giza, one of the ancient wonders of the world,” called the driver.

Listening
to Stu’s turbulent emotions while she stowed her equipment, Laura wanted to
hold him.

“Somebody
needs to help that girl,” Stu shouted like an accusation.

Hans
sat in the seat next to Stu. “We have to pick our battles. Trying to save
everyone is like invading Russia. There’s just too much of it. This episode is
supposed to spotlight the increasing common practice of child brides and human
trafficking. In ancient Greece, it was common for thirty-year-old men to finish
their mandatory military service and marry sixteen-year-old virgins. However,
in underdeveloped agricultural countries, girls wed as early as twelve and
thirteen.”

“They
become baby factories,” snarled Sif, “with no chance at an education or economic
mobility. If they die around baby number ten, the forty-year-old husband finds
another broodmare.”

Grant
tried to calm Sif. “People in the third world claim they need to do this
because of high infant mortality and poor medicine. We can’t hammer them about
pure family size, or we’re hypocrites. Until recently, US farmers had huge
families.”

“How
about the age?” asked Sif, her voice dripping acid. “There’s no way a
twelve-year-old girl is happy about marrying some leathered, old dirtbag in his
forties. This is institutionalized rape!”

Holding
up a hand, Grant said, “I don’t agree with the practice, and neither does the
US State Department. However, we have to tread carefully about the age thing.
The age of consent in most of the US is fourteen in limited circumstances. The
Hispanic community celebrates the girl’s fifteenth birthday as ‘open for
business.’ A lot of this is cultural. I mean, even the Virgin Mary was twelve
or thirteen when she was betrothed.”

Freya
leapt out of her chair. “Are you saying Catholics are worse?”

Grant
stood nose to nose with the angry woman. “That’s what the community is going to
accuse us of if we don’t temper our message. I tried to talk about the societal
cost of large families with a priest, and he objected to my advocating
contraception.”

“We’re
off track,” Hans warned. “How can we stop some segment of this child-bride market
without offending local officials?”

“Find
anti-slavery laws that might apply,” suggested Themis.

“Beating
the shit out of the buyers,” Artemis offered.

“Breaking
kneecaps and hiring hit men are unacceptable strategies,” Grant said. “We have
to hold the moral high ground.
This is about winning hearts and
minds—changing the culture.
”

Hans
jumped on the bandwagon. “Exactly. We want parents to teach children that selling
children is wrong. Failing that, the media should instruct ignorant adults. We
need a slogan that local leaders in all areas can support. We need the Egyptian
culture to condemn some aspect of the situation.”

“No
child labor,” Stu said suddenly. “With all this unemployment, someone using
underage workers would be taking jobs from the people already holding on by
their fingernails.”