cure, it was Graham. He wasn’t some power-mad scientist hell-bent on destroying the world. He had real integrity, and he rarely acted without considering all the consequences of his behavior. The cure was safe in his hands. I don’t think he even gave it to himself. That someone would stalk him down and murder him and six other bright, wonderful minds like that is just . . . It takes away my faith in humanity, a faith that people like Graham instilled in me. He’s not here to guide us through this anymore, and we’re so much poorer for it.”
Two floors above the site where the van burned and burned, a window from Otto’s lab looks out over the parking lot. Perched on the windowsill is a very small glass case containing five fruit flies—five very special fruit flies that turned Graham Otto from a desperate redhead into perhaps the most important scientist in human history. They were the first creatures on earth to be cured of death by Otto, and they were among the last creatures on earth to see him alive.
DATE MODIFIED:
7/5/2019, 9:17 P.M.
“How could you be so dumb?”
I had to get out of Manhattan. Katy merrily haunts me in this place, which I more than deserve. I see visions of her all around: in the kitchen, by the television, lunging out the window. Soon there are so many ghosts of her crowding me that I feel engulfed. Sound reason told me that to stay around much longer was to risk insanity. I had to go see my sister.
I have the good fortune of not having to deal with Penn Station on a daily basis. I’m amazed that current events have managed to create an environment in which dealing with Penn Station is somehow even worse than before. I didn’t know it could get worse. It already seemed to operate at maximum awfulness. Oh, but I was wrong.
This was an exodus. There was a line just to get in the station. I’d never seen that before. A fire marshal was stationed outside every entrance, holding back travelers until a certain number had exited. They let a handful of people in, then held the line again. It was like trying to get into a nightclub—which is perfect in its symmetry. My goal was the six-thirty train. They ran every half hour, so I figured if I missed the six thirty, I could just hop on the seven with a tall boy of Budweiser, and off I’d go. I just barely made the ten-thirty train.
It was around midnight when I pulled in. My sister was waiting for me. She looked tired, but she has two kids, so I think she looks the same way at midnight as she does at all other hours of the day. Polly exists in a perpetual daze, run down by the burdens of motherhood and falling further and further behind in rest, never again to reach complete wakefulness. I had specifically asked my dad not to tell her what I had done, because I knew she’d make me feel bad about it. I had already suffered through four hours at Penn Station and a train ride so tightly packed you couldn’t have slipped a dime between the bodies. But then, seeing her, I figured that I may as well get all the pain out of the way immediately. She drove me back to her house and poured me a drink.
I confessed almost immediately. “I got the cure.”
She snapped awake (she can only be alert in short bursts). “What? When?”
“Three weeks ago. That’s not all of it. My roommate and the doctor who gave it to me were killed in the July 3 attacks.”
“Oh my Jesus. Katy? Was that her name? Are you joking?”
“No. I referred her to my cure doctor, and when she went to get her blood drawn, the office was bombed.”
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Not particularly. I . . . I was so excited for her to get it. I didn’t think this could happen, and I still don’t know how it did. And now she’s dead, and I feel like I deserve the same fate.”
“Why did you get the cure? How could you be so dumb? You have to swear right now that you won’t tell Mark that you did it. He’s been talking about it and talking about it. The last thing I
Two floors above the site where the van burned and burned, a window from Otto’s lab looks out over the parking lot. Perched on the windowsill is a very small glass case containing five fruit flies—five very special fruit flies that turned Graham Otto from a desperate redhead into perhaps the most important scientist in human history. They were the first creatures on earth to be cured of death by Otto, and they were among the last creatures on earth to see him alive.
DATE MODIFIED:
7/5/2019, 9:17 P.M.
“How could you be so dumb?”
I had to get out of Manhattan. Katy merrily haunts me in this place, which I more than deserve. I see visions of her all around: in the kitchen, by the television, lunging out the window. Soon there are so many ghosts of her crowding me that I feel engulfed. Sound reason told me that to stay around much longer was to risk insanity. I had to go see my sister.
I have the good fortune of not having to deal with Penn Station on a daily basis. I’m amazed that current events have managed to create an environment in which dealing with Penn Station is somehow even worse than before. I didn’t know it could get worse. It already seemed to operate at maximum awfulness. Oh, but I was wrong.
This was an exodus. There was a line just to get in the station. I’d never seen that before. A fire marshal was stationed outside every entrance, holding back travelers until a certain number had exited. They let a handful of people in, then held the line again. It was like trying to get into a nightclub—which is perfect in its symmetry. My goal was the six-thirty train. They ran every half hour, so I figured if I missed the six thirty, I could just hop on the seven with a tall boy of Budweiser, and off I’d go. I just barely made the ten-thirty train.
It was around midnight when I pulled in. My sister was waiting for me. She looked tired, but she has two kids, so I think she looks the same way at midnight as she does at all other hours of the day. Polly exists in a perpetual daze, run down by the burdens of motherhood and falling further and further behind in rest, never again to reach complete wakefulness. I had specifically asked my dad not to tell her what I had done, because I knew she’d make me feel bad about it. I had already suffered through four hours at Penn Station and a train ride so tightly packed you couldn’t have slipped a dime between the bodies. But then, seeing her, I figured that I may as well get all the pain out of the way immediately. She drove me back to her house and poured me a drink.
I confessed almost immediately. “I got the cure.”
She snapped awake (she can only be alert in short bursts). “What? When?”
“Three weeks ago. That’s not all of it. My roommate and the doctor who gave it to me were killed in the July 3 attacks.”
“Oh my Jesus. Katy? Was that her name? Are you joking?”
“No. I referred her to my cure doctor, and when she went to get her blood drawn, the office was bombed.”
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Not particularly. I . . . I was so excited for her to get it. I didn’t think this could happen, and I still don’t know how it did. And now she’s dead, and I feel like I deserve the same fate.”
“Why did you get the cure? How could you be so dumb? You have to swear right now that you won’t tell Mark that you did it. He’s been talking about it and talking about it. The last thing I
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