“Square one type healing,” Wolfe confirmed. “Are you trying to tell us,” asked Henderson, “that if left to its own devices a spine will heal itself?” “Certainly not,” said Beatrice. “This substance deals only with minor spinal perturbations. It’s equivalent, say, to a mechanic fixing a scratch, not replacing a smashed fender.” Henderson liked the way she talked. He could understand her. “So, a sprain or something-it might fix that?” “Exactly,” said Beatrice. “Things on the microscopic level. Not of use to us as it is. But what we guessed was that it might be an evolutionary precursor. “English?”
“An early version, if you will, of something that could be much more powerful if its evolution were to develop.” “What sort of thing?”
“Spinal Krazy Glue?” asked Henderson.
There was nervous laughter, but Beatrice went with it, smiling and treating Henderson like the brightest kid in the class. “That’s a wonderful comparison,” she said. “A sort of DNA glue. But that makes it very smart glue. One that’s part and parcel of the spine, has a copy of the spine’s unique DNA blueprint within its own composition, and is designed by nature to help the spine return to normal. It’s just so relatively weak, so preliminary in evolutionary development, no one’s noticed it until now Probably because no one’s thought to look for it.” “Maybe,” said Colonel Henderson, “because no one’s had the resources you people have had.” “It’ll be all worth your while, believe me,” Wolfe assured him. “Beatrice’s breakthrough has been not only to discover the bonding agent, but to synthesize and amplify it as well.” Henderson blinked. The ramifications of where this was leading were suddenly electric in the air. “We’ve been able,” said Beatrice, “to take our genetic glue, if you will, paint the ends of severed spinal cords with it, and effect a bond.” “A bond,” said Henderson carefully. “As in a total rejoining?” “It appears so,” said Beatrice, nearly inaudible.
A flurry of excited whispers swept through the room. Wolfe stepped back to the podium, standing next to Beatrice. “Our glue is actually a two-function material. First, it’s a DNA binding agent, but secondly and vastly more important, it’s a neural catalyst.” Beatrice saw the blank looks and jumped in. “It causes severed nerves and synapses to find each other and rejoin themselves-on the submicroscopic level where no surgeon could see, and throughout a network of millions of dendrites-completely beyond any ability on our part to physically accomplish it.” Henderson inched forward in his seat. “”This is hot slit,” he said. “If it’s true.” “It is. And I’m glad you appreciate it, Colonel,” said Wolfe dryly. “In effect, we’ve jump-started a repair process nature might have taken another million years to complete-a natural substance to heal cut neural pathways.” To keep Henderson off balance, where he belonged, Wolfe shifted back into silver-tongued mode. “As a matter of fact, Colonel, here’s where your clearing away the usual protocol restrictions was particularly helpful.” That was Alex Davies’s cue, and in the next instant an extreme close-up of a spinal column appeared on the screen. It was surgically draped, bathed in disinfectant orange, with the skin peeled back on both sides, revealing raw bone and a red and white striation of muscle and rib. As Henderson watched, with a smile of prurient disbelief, the shining beak of a powerful cutting instrument was forced into the tissue next to the spine, then pushed down and under. Hands blotted away the surge of blood, and the upper blade of the instrument came to rest directly over the spine. “This was the first of the ten subjects the agency supplied,” Wolfe said, with a nod at Henderson. “The cut was made at the level of the supraclavicular notch between vertebrae C1 and C2, just below the brain stem itself. Except for the cord and its attendant meninges, the cut involved only the left and right vertebral arteries.” Two pairs of forceps now entered the frame right and left and clamped both arteries top and bottom. In the briefing room, nobody moved a muscle. “The cut was surgically uncomplicated,” said Wolfe, as the instrument’s blade hinged down, passing coldly between two vertebrae and cutting through the spinal cord itself. This time the blood and spinal fluids were copious, but Wolfe’s voice disclosed not a trace of feeling; he could have been narrating a video about opening a telephone cable. Nearly all the military men shut their eyes, or looked away entirely. Henderson’s eyes, however, stayed riveted to the screen, which now was showing, in an even closer shot, the severed stump in cross-section. “At this evolutionary level,” said Wolfe calmly, “”we are of course dealing with a system of enormous complexity. Not only do we have a full array of both white and gray matter, but an estimated complex of twenty million nerve fibers. Needless to say, nothing like this had ever been attempted.” And with that, the shot suddenly widened. Now they could see the entire operating theater onscreen, could see Wolfe in full scrubs, along with nearly two dozen other medical personnel, neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists, cardiac-bypass specialists, nurses, as well as several Army officers in uniform. And one other thing was now abundantly clear. The subject of this particular experiment was no lower animal. It was a human.
Instantly Henderson was on his feet. “Christ,” he screamed. “”Who the hell authorized photographing faces-what the hell were you thinking!” Just as abruptly the video cut back to extreme close-up. “Colonel Henderson, calm yourself please,” said Wolfe. “”This is a rough cut and in-house only.” “Wolfe, I want that master tape!”
“The master tape is secure,” Wolfe assured him, and the room fell silent again, this time with the ice-cold realization that with that simple statement the center of power had shifted, and it was Wolfe who was the one in control here, not Henderson. God knew where the original tape was, but it put an overwhelmingly powerful trump card in Wolfe’s hand. He looked at Henderson without a trace of guile. “Do you want this to happen or not?”
The question hung in the air
Quietly, Henderson sat down again. “How far along are you?” he asked quietly. Alex, watching like a hawk, punched a button and the video footage switched to a new shot, showing an unshaven, gray-faced man on a hospital bed, his torso swathed in bandages. Wolfe and several other labcoats stood beside, urging him to move. The man moved one leg, then the other. The efforts were spastic and weak, but visible. “That was Subject Five,” declared Wolfe. The video jumped to another subject-this one thinner still, but sitting up on the edge of the bed. Onscreen Wolfe was seen whispering in his ear, and the subject tried to stand. He couldn’t, and fell weakly. He was caught by hospital aides, while Wolfe strode away. “Number Six nearly stood,” he said to the room, “”but unfortunately he died the next day. But Number Seven was where we started to see real results.” The new segment showed a new man, this one swathed in bandages at the waist, standing successfully, his smile a rictus, his eves wavering between hope and stark terror. Like all the other experimental subjects, he was Middle Eastern, with a pale, sunken look that hinted at long imprisonment. Beatrice, who had returned to her seat, studied the screen with a grim, conflicted look. A rank sense of trespass hovered in the room- was she the only one registering it? No, Alex Davies seemed to be affected as well-she noticed his hand was shaking so badly that he miscued a cut between video segments and had to re-key it. “Rashid al-Assad,” Beatrice heard him say under his breath, in an awed, knowledgeable whisper. He knows their names, he knows their histories, Beatrice realized. She was astonished. And chilled. “By Subject Nine,” Wolfe continued, after a silencing glance in Alex’s direction, “using material gathered from the spines of previous subjects and combined with synthetic materials, our DNA glue allowed us to achieve our first standee.” Alex punched the right keys this time and the video froze. “And how’s he doing?” asked Henderson.
Wolfe raised one bony shoulder in a half-shrug. “He lasted five days, then unfortunately’ the splice failed.” “Jesus God,” said Henderson.
“Due to scheduling exigencies, we perhaps rushed him onto his feet,” said Wolfe. “But it’s clear the procedure is workable.” Henderson cut a glance at Beatrice, then turned back to Wolfe. “Are you one hundred percent sure?”
Wolfe took a cigarette from a pack in his pocket. What I’m a hundred percent sure of,” he said, lighting up as he flicked a look at Beatrice, “is our obligation to try. The fact is,” he added, shaking out the match, “I believe we will soon be welcoming our first inductee into the Society.” “”How soon?”
“Weeks. Maybe less.”
“”Unfortunately,” he added, we re out of human specimens, not to mention time. That’s where we need your help.” Henderson flared. “”You think terrorists grow on trees?” Wolfe stared back at him. “It is too late to care whether they do or do not,” he said quietly. “The question you must answer for me now is this: do you think scientists like Peter Jance grow on trees?” 4