Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations (38 page)

Back at the house, sleep-deprived and restless, I wandered aimlessly from room to room. I didn’t know what I was looking for until I stood before the room that had changed everything.

This time I walked past the seventeenth century displays and moved to the eighteenth century. It looked like more diaries, possibly, and again surgical tools, medicine vials. I moved onto the nineteenth century and the books under the glass changed—they looked like old record-keeping books, though nothing on their covers indicated that, only their size and shape. I stared at one and without looking reached around for the latch on the case, only to find myself fumbling with a large lock. I frowned and moved to the next glass case and found the same thing. And the next, and the next.

At the end of this long hall I was in the twenty-first century. Tools and vials were no longer on display, only more record-keeping books, also locked, and pictures. The last picture on the wall I recognized because there among the servants was Sarah, young, smiling, an infant in her arms. My chest ached as I looked at the robust young man with his arm proudly around her. I instantly saw myself in the dark hair with the awkward cowlick and pale blue eyes. Then I turned my gaze to the stern-looking Dr. Phillips standing to the side in the photograph.

It was at that moment that I decided to ransack his study.

He had never shown me where it was, but since he went there every single night, of course, I secretly followed him one time. I wanted to see what was in the record books and surely he kept the keys to them in there.

I’d never been inside his study and was surprised to find it almost as plush as the museum. An enormous desk dominated the large room with leather couches on either side, a closet, and even a fireplace facing the desk.

I pulled on every desk drawer, but of course they were locked. I felt under the desk and under the chair to see if he had a secret compartment that would release when I pressed the right place. The closet held a few suits, but nothing else. I even pushed the couches around the room, but nothing was under them, and I punched every single cushion—nothing was in any of them.

I fumed in the middle of the room. As always, he was one step ahead of me.

I found myself staring into the fireplace. The fireplace surprised me. I had never smelled even a hint of smoke from the room. Why would he never use the fireplace? And how could it work without a chimney?

I looked hard at the logs. They looked real. When I touched them, to my surprise they did not feel like wood. I started to get excited, but then realized it was not unusual to own a fake fireplace.

Not satisfied, I tried to lift the logs up but they wouldn’t budge. They felt connected to the iron grating they were piled in. Was that normal? I held the sides of the top log and instead tried to push it away from me. I felt the top log give and retract in a mechanical way. I jerked my hands back, worrying that I had broken it, but then realized it was some sort of container. I peered into the bottom log.

For a moment it looked empty; I could see only darkness. But to be sure, I reached my hand in to feel the bottom. I felt a bumpy exterior and grasped the edge of something flat. My hand emerged with a record book. My heart started to race and I reached in again. This time I came up with a smaller book. I flipped the pages and instantly recognized the Doctor’s handwriting. I reached in once more but there was nothing else.

I stared at the two books, suddenly five years old again, afraid of Dr. Phillips, afraid of what might happen if he knew what I’d done.

Then I flipped open the record book. I was right. It was records. But what kind?

I glanced at several pages. All of the servants’ names were in here, as well as some names that I didn’t recognize. I swallowed hard when I saw ‘William Sr.’ with an asterisk beside it and then ‘William Jr.’ with another asterisk. Everyone except for me was preceded with a combination of letters and numbers and then a list of dates with checks underneath them, followed by what I took to be codes—a plus sign, a minus sign, two plus signs, etc. For example, William Sr.’s entry said “DoM, EG1” followed by his name and then a series of dates that looked months apart. The last symbol was a minus sign. Sarah’s entry ended in a plus and minus sign. I looked at Colleen’s entries. The day the Doctor left for England there with a check mark.

Since he was their doctor, I would expect Dr. Phillips to keep medical records, but these were not normal medical records. He was recording something, but in code. If he gave Colleen a shot, why wouldn’t he want to keep clear records of what he gave her and why? Or for that matter, for any of the servants?

I turned to the other book. It was filled with the Doctor’s cursive. I opened it to one of the last entries. It was this year, 2020, and the date of our “talk.”

I realize the risk I am contemplating, but I cannot let The Tradition die. It is far too important, especially considering the discovery I made. William is not ready, but he must be soon. I cannot risk his life by waiting for him to mature psychologically. I am also aware of my own mortality as I will turn eighty-five this year. He has to know soon in order for him to accept the therapy and live beyond the span of his predecessors. My discovery, which should allow him to live a normal life, is the first step in fulfilling The Tradition. William’s life is key to this fulfillment.

And that was it. I turned to an earlier date. The Doctor’s writing was shaky.

It is only forty-eight years later after family #83’s discovery that I have been able to correct the defective gene in the DoM cells using gene therapy techniques. Now that I’ve discovered the right therapy from building on my English colleagues’ work on pluripotent stem cells, at least I can enable Sarah’s DoM son to live. Regrettably not, as we had hoped, forever. As long as any of us, however, and long enough to keep The Tradition alive for his son in turn.

I suddenly remembered an expression from when I was little, when I would shudder unexpectedly due to a sudden draft or chill. Sarah would say, “Someone step on your grave?” and ruffle my hair.

Someone had just stepped on my grave. I turned back several more pages to a date I knew well—the date Sarah died.

I can hardly believe that I have succeeded. To be clear, I have not succeeded in the original intent of The Tradition, but it is a success nonetheless. The latest trial outcome—Sarah’s death—replicates the previous trial outcome, supporting my hypothesis that preventing normal telomere shortening might be associated with longevity, but also appears to be associated with producing various cancers as well. I therefore intend to make an adjustment in the therapy which will be administered to a new subject, Colleen, a non-DoM who shows remarkably good health.

My hands shook as I flipped to much earlier pages.

While I appreciate the dedication of trying to extend the lives of the Descendants of the Mark, I believe it has been a mistake to have only one experimental group. I made the following argument at our latest private conference in London: Continuously focusing on the DoM as the sole experimental group has resulted, at times, to even further limiting their lifespan, thus reducing the available experimental subjects that are most critical to our success. Because of the indirect manner in which the gene appears to function (based on our many years of observation and experimentation), it is highly likely that the ability to create the same defect in a normal subject would indicate that this therapy would suppress the expression of the faulty gene in the abnormal (DoM) subjects. I am officially introducing the latest therapy into the normal servants because if my hypothesis is correct, when I have perfected it, a normal subject will not reach the age of thirty.

I found myself unable to take a breath as I turned to the very first page of the diary. This was the longest entry by far and took place forty-five years ago.

. . . and it is with a heavy heart that I accept the burden of The Tradition from my father. He will carry it until he cannot any longer, but with this knowledge, I am just as responsible as he is. I feel both horrified and enthralled by what I’ve been told, which I am required to document here in order to pass onto one of my own sons. Only the Nazi studies parallel these findings though I shudder to make the comparison—these are hardly subjects, but well-loved members of my adopted family and that of others across England, America, and Europe.

It is stunning that we have the evidence of “patient zero” in the good doctor’s seventeenth century diary, but of course I would have assumed, given the nature of the genetic disorder, that the Descendants of the Mark would never have survived more than a couple of generations, at best. The discovery in the eighteenth century that the survival of the DoM was not only due to the quiet permissiveness of the English family to allow the DoM and their families to practice traditional Catholicism (which involved shunning birth control) but even more startling, the persistence of the faulty gene in “normal” descendants. It turns out many were passive carriers and their children, in turn, often bore the Mark and consequently, the faulty gene. Of course, once the Descendants became systematically tracked and studied, their religiosity was actively encouraged to perpetuate the Descendants.

The words began to waver and blur and my fingers turned white as I gripped the book.

. . . but it was family #83 that really made the most significant progress of the twentieth century. Using hair and skin cells from the DoM, the doctor of #83 used the adenovirus vector to locate the single nucleotide polymorphism among the FOXO genes, as anticipated. An unparalleled discovery to date—identifying the faulty gene—but it is my hope to make an equally startling discovery.

It is against everything in my training to not offer informed consent. But when I was told of the intent . . . how could I refuse? How could I single-handedly destroy years of data, throw out years, no, centuries of work toward this admirable answer? I was advised to repeat The Tradition’s mantra whenever I felt my resolve weakening, coined by the first Doctor who formally documented his study of the DoM: “The Key to Death is also the Key to Life.” In short, discovering why the DoM die so young could, ultimately, lead to the discovery of eternal life.

Eternal. Life.

When I finally looked at my watch, it was morning. I was not even halfway through the diary, but I couldn’t read anymore.

The diary felt as cold and hard as the gravestone I’d found as a boy. I felt controlled by terror and dizzy with everything I’d learned. My mind ran in circles, a caged rabbit, frantic to find a way out. I selfishly wished that I’d never entered the museum, never come home that summer. I felt a panicked urge to hide in a very dark place.

My real mother had died . . . so I could live? He, they, ALL of these “families” had experimented on my family
and now others
for centuries. And for what, to carry on this
Tradition
? How many had died, how many had suffered for a theory about the key to eternity? Unwitting subjects believed they were being treated for their illnesses, but in reality their kind English “fathers” were killing them.

Feeling numb, I got to my feet and left everything askew in his study, not bothering to close the door behind me.

I clutched the railing as I made my way downstairs. Was the intent of these families and Dr. Phillips to ultimately help humanity? Did they all really think they were doing this for the good of the human race?

All these thoughts were endlessly spinning in my head when the Doctor returned close to noon that day. I was sitting in the breakfast nook when I heard him come through the front door. A relentless workaholic, I could tell by the number of stairs he took that he was heading for his study.

It wasn’t long before he returned downstairs, his feet thudding faster than normal on the stairs. He headed straight for me, intuitively guessing I’d be in the breakfast nook.

To my surprise he grabbed my chin like he’d done when I was under the age of ten, forcing me to look at him. His skin felt dry and papery.

“How dare you,
how dare you
,” he growled. “This is
my Tradition
to pass onto you properly, when you are ready, not something for you to grab like a petulant child whenever you like, whenever
you
think you can handle such knowledge! I had deemed you immature and you knew this, you knew exactly what I thought. You have completely violated my trust and more importantly lost my respect. God help me that you are my only son.”

As he said, “son”, the fire seemed to go out in him a little. He dropped my chin and both arms hung limp at his sides. He turned away and entered the old cold storage room off the kitchen, which, like several other rooms in the house, no one was allowed to enter but him. He returned shortly bearing a metal tray and plastic gloves. He sat the tray down carefully on the table in front of me.

“If you are so eager to grow up, then you shall accompany me today for a treatment. I expect to see you appropriately groomed and waiting for me at this table in fifteen minutes.” With that he turned sharply and headed for the stairs.

My eyes flicked to the metal tray. A full syringe gleamed in the kitchen light.

In one crystalline moment, I realized that I didn’t care about the intent of all those English doctors. All that mattered was what they did.

And with that certainty, I realized I knew just what to do.

Tears filled my eyes and I pulled out Sarah’s necklace, gripping it fiercely. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

If I was the key to preserving The Tradition, then I was the key to ending it.

In the end, at last, I would be one step ahead of the Doctor.