A Better World

EPILOGUE

The diner had cracked Formica counters and photos of ugly children taped behind the register. The cook saw him standing there and said, “Two black coffees to go?”

The man nodded. You’ve fallen into a pattern. This will have to be your last visit.

He scanned the room. A fat man hunched over a plate with great concentration. Two guys in matching work clothes talked at the counter. The small tri-d showed a scene of devastation. Ah yes, the White House. He’d heard something about it being destroyed—a week ago, perhaps?—but he’d been too busy to investigate.

“Look,” one of the laborers said, “that missile coulda been a nuke. They could have firebombed Manhattan. They didn’t. So maybe we oughta—”

“Twists had their chance,” the other replied. “There’s ninety-nine of us to one of them. Let’s see ’em use a computer virus against a bayonet.”

The cook set the coffee on the counter. “Four bucks. My name’s Zeke, by the way.” He held out his hand to shake. It was plump and sweaty, and his nails needed a trim.

Dr. Abraham Couzen looked at it. “Sorry. I’ve got a cold.” He laid four dollars down, picked up his coffee, and walked out.

Early December, the sky a chilly white. Abe peeled back the tab from one of the coffees and took a long sip, and then another, and then another. When he finished it, he tossed the blue and white cup in a trash can and started walking. The South Bronx was not a glamorous part of town, but he’d grown used to it. And it was the last place anyone would think to look for—

That man waiting for the bus. Didn’t you see him yesterday?

The breeze smelled of gasoline and fish. Bits of trash in the chain-link fence hummed in the wind. Abe turned up his coat collar and walked another fifty feet, then spun on his heels. The man hadn’t followed.

It didn’t mean anything. There could be high-altitude drones tracking him right now. Government agencies, terrorist groups, Epstein’s spies—so many dirty fingers picking through his past, scanning camera feeds for his profile, ransacking his home.

Pierre Curie did it.

The notion had occurred to him last night. A way to be certain his work could never be taken.

The building was a low, windowless brick rectangle. Abe unlocked the deadbolt and pressed a thumb against the biometric scanner. Bank after bank of fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating two thousand square feet of previously abandoned warehouse space. It had been laughably easy to funnel aside enough of Epstein’s money to buy the building and rebuild it to his exact specifications.

Barry Marshall did it.

A row of positive-airflow suits hung limp, respirator tubes trailing to the ceiling. Beyond that were lab counters broken out by function: wet bench, instrument bench, calculation space. Freezers and reagent refrigerators. A dry block incubator. A thermal cycler. A row of centrifuges. A micropipetter. Three DNA sequencers.

It was equal to the laboratory he’d abandoned in Cleveland. But no one knew about this one, not even Ethan. The bastards wanted his work, they’d have to find him first.

Jonas Salk did it.

There were things to work out, kinks, problems. Side effects. Tests that he should have been allowed to perform. Erik Epstein’s hurry had prevented it. Along with the government’s meddling.

But he was a scientist. His job was nothing less than wrestling the universe into a choke hold and making it cough out its secrets.

Abe took a long sip of coffee. Then he walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, and took out the syringe. The suspension fluid inside was milky.

This is foolish.

He tore open an isopropyl swab.

Reckless.

Rolled up his sleeve.

But Pierre Curie strapped radium salts to his arm to show that radiation caused burns.

Wiped his bicep with the alcohol.

Barry Marshall drank a batch of Helicobacter pylori to prove that ulcers were bacterial.

Picked up the syringe.

Jonas Salk inoculated his entire family with his polio vaccine.

Pushed the needle’s tip through his skin and depressed the plunger.

And Dr. Abraham Couzen injected himself with non-coding RNA to radically alter his gene expression.

It was done. There was no going back. Abe set the syringe aside and rolled down his sleeve.

He’d always known he was a genius.

Now it was time to become brilliant.