S. Bodeen - The Fallout

He held up a finger. “Now, this has all been around for quite some time. But what we discovered in our research about six years ago was this.” He tapped and a diagram popped up of a tubular structure surrounded by what looked like small worms. “Here’s a chromosome.” He glanced down at the loafers on his feet, then over at my Converse. “Ah, good. Can I see your shoelaces?”

I nodded and crossed my legs, so that one of my shoes was right near my hand. Dr. Barkley reached out and pulled on my shoelace, untying it. He held the plastic tip at the end. “Do you know this has a name?”

I shrugged. “Um, plastic thing at the end of my shoelace?”

He smiled. “It’s actually called an aglet.” He dropped the shoelace and went back to the computer screen. He pointed at the tips of the chromosome. “Much like the ends of your shoelaces are bound by aglets, the ends of the chromosomes are bound by telomeres.” He tapped again.

An animated video began, showing cell division. He said, “During cell division, those telomeres wear away. Eventually, they wear away so much that the cell stops dividing and dies. Our research has found that short or abnormal telomeres turn on the production of progerin, which, as we know, is related to cell damage caused by aging. Still with me?”

I nodded.

“As the telomeres shorten, the cell makes even more progerin. But I wanted to know what was causing the production of the progerin.”

“And did you figure it out?” I asked.

“In a way.” He turned off his tablet and leaned back. He nodded. “As I was trying to answer this question, I stumbled upon something else. I had just figured out what I believed to be the gene that turns on aging.” He didn’t say anything else.

“That’s amazing!” I said.

He looked down and sighed. “Yes, it could have been.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was doing this on my own. Unfortunately, only I knew all my research. When my lab was destroyed in the fire… I had to start over.” He smiled. “Which made YK such an absolute lifesaver. Mere weeks before the fire, I had applied for funding through YK. Starting over was bad enough, but starting over with all the funding we needed? Well, it lessened the sting a bit.” He looked around, then raised a hand in the air. “All of this is what arose from the ashes of that fire. My research will get back to where it was. In the meantime, we do all the good we can.”

Just then a door opened, and I heard the sound of a child giggling. A small bald boy came in through the glass door, wearing red surf shorts. He held the hand of a slim girl who looked about my age. Her dark hair was in a pixie cut, and she wore jeans and a long-sleeved Mariners tee. And she had the most beautiful brown eyes I’d ever seen. My heart sped up.

She saw Dr. Barkley, then smiled and waved.

Dr. Barkley took my arm. “Come. You can meet one of our patients.”

The girl was watching me.

Trying to be as cool as possible, I stood up, took a large step, then immediately tripped on my untied shoelace and did a face-plant on the grass.

Dr. Barkley took one of my arms and helped me up.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I brushed the grass off my knees, then got up on one knee and tied my shoe as my face burned. Great . Way to make an idiot of myself in front of the first teenage girl I’d met in… well, actually? The first teenage girl I’d ever met since I’d become a teenager myself.

The girl and the little boy walked over to me. She looked at me with an amused smile on her face.

I felt my face get even hotter.

Dr. Barkley introduced me. “This is EJ. And, EJ, this is Jamie and his sister, Verity.”

Verity may have been close to laughing at me, but even so, it made her brown eyes sparkle. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said.

Jamie looked up at me and said, “I’m five.”

I smiled. “I have a brother about your age.”

His face lit up and he looked around. “Is he here?”

Verity set a hand on his head. “Jamie, stop interrupting.”

“It’s fine,” I said. But I didn’t want to have to answer, and say that, no, my brother wasn’t here, because he was perfectly healthy and didn’t have to face the fact he’d be dead by age thirteen. I mustered a smile. “You going swimming?”

Jamie nodded and grabbed Dr. Barkley’s hand. He smiled, and said, “Okay, I’m coming.” They left Verity and I standing there.

She looked over at me. “Want to watch him swim?”

I nodded. “Of course.” I reached over and picked up my phone off the bench.

As we walked, she asked, “So why are you here? Is your little brother a patient, too?”

I shook my head. “No… um… I’m part of this internship thing.” I held up my journal. “This is sort of a research assignment.”

“What kind of an internship?” She seemed interested, but I wished she would stop asking. My whole fake persona of exceptional-high-school-student was not all that solid.

“I’m just asking a bunch of questions as he gives me a tour, basically. And then I have to write out a report to get a grade from my teacher at school.” Nice, Eli. That sounded totally plausible.

“What school?” she asked.

Seriously? Trying to put an end to the questions I couldn’t answer, I asked, “Is this the Inquisition or what?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

I wanted to stop answering her questions because I didn’t want to be dishonest with her. This was my first conversation with a teenage girl ever. Well, a teenage girl that wasn’t related to me. And I didn’t want to mess it up by any more lying. Which was all I’d done from the moment I’d opened my mouth.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m naturally curious.”

I smiled. “I thought we were going to watch him swim.” I started to head closer to the pool, but she grabbed my elbow.

“Trust me; we’ll stay much drier if we watch from a distance.” She pointed to a bench near the pool, and we both headed for it and then sat down. I set my journal down on the ground and put my cell phone on top of it. The bench was small, and her jeans-clad leg was only an inch or so away from mine. I couldn’t help but notice that she smelled nice.

Jamie had gotten in the pool with a woman in a black tank suit. He wore blue water wings, splashed a bit and laughed.

Verity said, “He loves coming here.”

I tried to fend off more questions by asking some of my own. “It must be hard,” I said. “The progeria.”

She nodded. “He was always sort of… unhealthy. Even before we knew about the progeria.”

I wanted to know how old she was, but didn’t want to come out and ask. “How old were you when he was born?”

“Ten. My parents didn’t really think they’d have another kid, but I’d always begged them for a little brother or sister.” She stuck an elbow in my ribs and I jumped.

She said, “If you want to know how old I am, just ask.”

I smiled. “How old are you?”

“Almost sixteen. How about you?”

“Same.” Well, if almost sixteen meant fifteen years and barely a couple months. Close enough.

We watched Jamie dog-paddle over to the woman. Verity asked, “So you just have the one brother?”

I kind of laughed, and then realized I needed to lie again. “I have an older sister, too.” Which was actually the truth, except that I happened to leave out a few siblings.

“Sometimes I wish I had more brothers or sisters.” Verity pointed at Jamie. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.” She met my eyes and shrugged a little. “I mean, I know the day will come.” She sighed. “Life expectancy is, like, thirteen.”

“That’s what Dr. Barkley told me. It must be hard, knowing he has a… shelf life.” I winced. “I’m so sorry. That came out wrong.”