Next: A Novel (7 page)

“Yes, actually. You did.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry? If you were sorry, you’d stop doing this shit.”

“Hey, man,” Adam said. “How the fuck was I supposed to know? It was entrapment, man. Even Charles said so. The bitch entrapped me. Charles said he would get me off easy.”

“There wouldn’t be any entrapment,” Josh said, “if you weren’t using.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself! Don’t lecture me.”

Josh said nothing. Why did he even bring it up? After all these years, he knew nothing he said mattered. Nothing made a difference. There was a long silence as he drove.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said.

“You’re not sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Adam said. “You’re right.” He hung his head. He sighed theatrically. “I fucked up again.”

The repentant Adam.

Josh had seen it dozens of times before. The belligerent Adam, the repentant Adam, the logical Adam, the denying Adam. Meanwhile his brother always tested positive. Every time.

An orange light came on on the dashboard. Gas was low. He saw a station up ahead. “I need gas.”

“Good. I got to take a leak.”

“You stay in the car.”

“I got to take a leak, man.”

“Stay in the fucking car.” Josh pulled up alongside the pump and got out. “Stay where I can fucking see you.”

“I don’t want to pee in your car, man…”

“You better not.”

“But—”

“Just hold it, Adam!”

Josh put a credit card in the slot and started pumping gas. He glanced at his brother through the rear windshield, then looked back at the spinning numbers. Gas was so damn expensive now. He probably should buy a car that was cheaper to run.

He finished and got back in the car. He glanced at Adam. His brother had a funny look on his face. There was a faint odor in the car.

“Adam?”

“What.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

He started the engine. That smell…Something silver caught his eye. He looked at the floor between his brother’s feet and saw the silver cylinder. He leaned over, picked up the cylinder. It was light in his hand.

“Adam…”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Josh shook the cylinder. It was empty.

“I thought it was nitrous or something,” his brother said.

“You asshole.”

“Why? It didn’t do anything.”

“It’s for a rat, Adam. You just inhaled virus for a rat.”

Adam slumped back. “Is that bad?”

“It ain’t good.”

By the time Josh pulled up in front of his mother’s house in Beverly Hills, he had thought it through and concluded that there was no danger to Adam. The retrovirus was a mouse-infective strain, and while it might also infect human beings, the dose had been calculated for an animal weighing eight hundred grams. His brother weighed a hundred times as much. The genetic exposure was subclinical.

“So, I’m okay?” Adam said.

“Yeah.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about that,” Adam said, getting out of the car. “But thanks for picking me up. See you, bro.”

“I’ll wait until you get inside,” Josh said. He watched as his brother walked up the drive and knocked on the door. His mother opened it. Adam stepped inside, and she shut the door.

She never even looked at Josh.

He started the engine and drove away.

CH007

At noon, Alex Burnet left her office in her Century City law firm and went home. She didn’t have far to go; she lived in an apartment on Roxbury Park with her eight-year-old son, Jamie.

Jamie had a cold and had stayed home from school. Her father was looking after him for her.

She found her dad in the kitchen, making macaroni and cheese. It was the only thing Jamie would eat these days. “How is he?” she said.

“Fever’s down. Still got a runny nose and a cough.”

“Is he hungry?”

“He wasn’t earlier. But he asked for macaroni.”

“That’s a good sign,” she said. “Should I take over?”

Her father shook his head. “I’ve got it handled. You didn’t have to come home, you know.”

“I know.” She paused. “The judge issued his ruling, Dad.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“And?”

“We lost.”

Her father continued to stir. “We lost everything?”

“Yes,” she said. “We lost on every point. You have no rights to your own tissue. He ruled them

‘material waste’ that you allowed the university to dispose of for you. The court says you have no rights to any of your tissue once it has left your body. The university can do what it wants with it.”

“But they brought me back—”

“He said a reasonable person would have realized the tissues were being collected for commercial use. Therefore you tacitly accepted it.”

“But they told me I was sick.”

“He rejected all our arguments, Dad.”

“They lied to me.”

“I know, but according to the judge, good social policy promotes medical research. Granting you rights now would have a chilling effect on future research. That’s the thinking behind the ruling—the common good.”

“This wasn’t about the common good. It was about getting rich,” her father said. “Jesus, three billion dollars…”

“I know, Dad. Universities want money. And basically, this judge held what California judges have held for the last twenty-five years, ever since the Moore decision in 1980. Just like your case, the court found that Moore’s tissues were waste materials to which he had no right. And they haven’t revisited that question in more than two decades.”

“So what happens now?”

“We appeal,” she said. “I don’t think we have good grounds, but we have to do it before we can go to the California Supreme Court.”

“And when will that be?”

“A year from now.”

“Do we have a chance?” her father said.

“Absolutely not,”Albert Rodriguez said, turning in his chair toward her father. Rodriguez and the other UCLA attorneys had come to Alex’s law offices in the aftermath of the judge’s ruling.

“You have no chance on further appeal, Mr. Burnet.”

“I’m surprised,” Alex said, “that you’re so confident about how the California Supreme Court will rule.”

“Oh, we have no idea how they will rule,” Rodriguez said. “I simply mean that you will lose this case no matter what the court holds.”

“How is that?” Alex said.

“UCLA is a state university. The Board of Regents is prepared, on behalf of the state of California, to take your father’s cells by right of eminent domain.”

She blinked:“What?”

“Should the Supreme Court rule that your father’s cells are his property—which we think is unlikely—the state will take ownership of his property by eminent domain.”

Eminent domain referred to the right of the state to take private property without the owner’s consent. It was almost always invoked for public uses. “But eminent domain is intended for schools or highways…”

“The state can do it in this case,” Rodriguez said. “And it will.”

Her father stared at them, thunderstruck. “Are you joking?”

“No, Mr. Burnet. It’s a legitimate taking, and the state will exercise its right.”

Alex said, “Then what is the purpose of this meeting?”

“We thought it appropriate to inform you of the situation, in case you wanted to drop further litigation.”

“You’re suggesting we end litigation?” she said.

“I would advise it,” Rodriguez said to her, “if this were my client.”

“Ending litigation saves the state considerable expense.”

“It saves everyone expense,” Rodriguez said.

“So what are you proposing as a settlement, for us to drop the case?”

“Nothing whatever, Ms. Burnet. I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. This is not a negotiation.

We’re simply here to explain our position, so that you can make an informed decision in your best interest.”

Her father cleared his throat. “You’re telling us that you’re taking my cells, no matter what.

You’ve sold them for three billion dollars, no matter what. And you’re keeping all of that money, no matter what.”

“Bluntly put,” Rodriguez said, “but not inaccurate.”

The meeting ended. Rodriguez and his team thanked them for their time, said their good-byes, and left the room. Alex nodded to her father and then followed the other attorneys outside.

Through the glass, Frank Burnet watched as they talked further.

“Those fuckers,” he said. “What kind of world do we live in?”

“My sentiments exactly,”said a voice from behind him. Burnet turned.

A young man wearing horn-rimmed glasses was sitting in the far corner of the conference room.

Burnet remembered him; he had come in during the meeting, bringing coffee and mugs, which he had put on the sideboard. Then he had sat down in the corner for the rest of the meeting.

Burnet had assumed he was a junior member of the firm, but now the young man was speaking with confidence.

“Let’s face it, Mr. Burnet,” he said, “you’ve been screwed. It turns out your cells are very rare and valuable. They’re efficient manufacturers of cytokines, chemicals that fight cancer. That’s the real reason you survived your disease. As a matter of fact, your cells churn out cytokines more efficiently than any commercial process. That’s why those cells are worth so much money.

The UCLA doctors didn’t create anything or invent anything. They didn’t genetically modify anything. They just took your cells, grew them in a dish, and sold the dish to BioGen. And you, my friend, were screwed .”

“Who are you?” Burnet said.

“And you have no hope of justice,” the young man continued, “because the courts are totally incompetent. The courts don’t realize how fast things are changing. They don’t understand we are already in a new world. They don’t get the new issues. And because they are technically illiterate, they don’t understand what procedures are done—or in this case, not done. Your cells were stolen and sold. Plain and simple. And the court decided that was just fine.”

Burnet gave a long sigh.

“But,” the man continued, “thieves can still get their comeuppance.”

“How’s that?”

“Because UCLA did nothing to change your cells, another company could take those same cells, make minor genetic modifications, and sell them as a new product.”

“But BioGen already has my cells.”

“True. But cell lines are fragile. Things happen to them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cultures are vulnerable to fungus, bacterial infection, contamination, mutation. All kinds of things can go wrong.”

“BioGen must take precautions…”

“Of course. But sometimes the precautions are inadequate,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Burnet said again. He was looking around, through the glass walls of the conference room, at the larger office outside. He saw people walking back and forth. He wondered where his daughter had gone.

“I’m nobody,” the young man said. “You never met me.”

“You have a business card?”

The man shook his head. “I’m not here, Mr. Burnet.”

Burnet frowned. “And my daughter—”

“Has no idea. Never met her. This is between us.”

“But you’re talking about illegal activity.”

“I’m not talking at all, because you and I have never met,” the man said. “But let’s consider how this might work.”

“Okay…”

“You can’t legally sell your cells at this point, because the court has ruled you no longer own them—BioGen does. But your cells could be obtained from other places. Over the course of your life, you’ve given blood many times in many places. You went to Vietnam forty years ago. The army took your blood. You had knee surgery twenty years ago in San Diego. The hospital took your blood, and kept your cartilage. You’ve consulted various doctors over the years. They ran blood tests. The labs kept the blood. So your blood can be found, no problem. And it can be acquired from publicly available databases—if, for example, another company wanted to use your cells.”

“And what about BioGen?”

The young man shrugged. “Biotechnology is a difficult business. Contaminations happen every day. If something goes wrong in their labs, that’s not your problem, is it?”

“But how could—”

“I have no idea. So many things can happen.”

There was a short silence. “And why should I do this?” Burnet said.

“You’ll get a hundred million dollars.”

“For what?”

“Punch biopsies of six organ systems.”

“I thought you could get my blood elsewhere.”

“In theory. If it came to litigation, that would be claimed. But, in practice, any company would want fresh cells.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“No problem. Think it over, Mr. Burnet.” The young man stood, pushed his glasses up his nose.

“You may have been screwed. But there’s no reason to bend over for it.”

From Beaumont College Alumni News

STEM CELL DEBATE RAGES

Effective Treatments “Decades Away” Prof. McKeown Shocks Audience By Max Thaler

Speaking to a packed audience in Beaumont Hall, famed biology professor Kevin McKeown shocked listeners by calling stem cell research “a cruel fraud.”

“What you have been told is nothing more than a myth,” he said, “intended to ensure funding for researchers, at the expense of false hopes for the seriously ill. So let’s get to the truth.”

Stem cells, he explained, are cells that have the ability to turn themselves into other kinds of cells. There are two kinds of stem cells. Adult stem cells are found throughout the body. They are found in muscle, brain, and liver tissue, and so on. Adult stem cells can generate new cells, but only of the tissue in which they are found. They are important because the human body replaces all its cells every seven years.

Research involving adult stem cells is for the most part not controversial. But there is another kind of stem cell, the embryonic stem cell, that is highly controversial. It is found in umbilical cord blood, or derived from young embryos. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into any kind of tissue. But the research is controversial because it involves the use of human embryos, which many people feel, for religious and other reasons, have the rights of human beings. This is an old debate not likely to be resolved soon.