"Well," he said. "I'm pleased to say you have still evaded that condition, as you know, and your body seems remarkable in its resilience. There is not a hint of any issues: cholesterol, heart, liver, kidneys. Why, for the lifestyle I know you have, you are particularly fit." He doodled on his desktop blotter. "I don't quite know how you do it, especially given your family's history."
I smiled and kept my secret to myself.
He continued. "It's not something that you can divulge is it? I have a few patients that would benefit from your -" He pursed his lips. "What is it? Luck?"
I shook my head, and tried to stay impassive.
"Hmm. It seems to have come along with your rise through the organisation. What is it now, Adrian? Didn't I hear you've been nominated for Director of the National Research Council?"
I nodded; yes. "I guess I've been in the right place at the right time."
"Indeed you have," he said and raised his eyebrows. He picked up a sheet of paper from a pile on his right. "This printout is the results of all the tests we ran on you. MRI, SPECT, DNA profiling." He let it float back down to the desktop. "Did you know your DNA has not degraded with age? Usually there will be errors and this and that introduced as you go through life, mutations and the like. That is a lot of what ageing is. But you? Not you. Remarkable."
My jaw tightened, as I remained quiet.
"Do tell. What is your secret, Adrian?"
Forced to reply, I looked off to one side and tried to think of a believable lie, but I couldn't think of any. "I don't have a secret; I guess I am just lucky."
"I don't believe in 'lucky', Adrian. There is inevitably a reason behind why things happen, why DNA develops into syndromes, why when you eat the wrong thing cholesterol forms in the veins. It is all cause and effect. So, 'lucky' doesn't wash with me."
"So, I am clear then?" I offered, changing the subject.
"Yes, incredulously, you are. But Adrian, I don't know what your secret is, but it will catch up with you."
He was trying to drill into me with his stare, as if he was trying to see behind my mask, and I squirmed a bit. "Um, maybe there isn't a reason why these things have not happened."
"An interesting use of two negatives."
* * * *
Adrian sat back in his sumptuous office chair and reflected on his meeting with the consultant. He smiled as he realised how close he had come to being exposed. Even after this much time, there was a thrill when he knew he was playing it close to the edge. A cut glass Brandy decanter stood on a silver platter on his desk, he poured a generous glass and by habit placed it in the causality dis-integrator and zapped it.
There were papers lying on his desk before him, he flicked them with his fingers; medical licensing agreements and Health department agreements for human testing. He sighed as he thought how late in the day the bureaucracy had finally agreed to let them test on patients. His eyes registered the shredder in the corner of his room and he nodded in answer to their question.
"All too late. Just too late, " he announced to the room and drowned the Brandy.
There was a sound outside in the corridor and he stood up; he didn't know what it was and frowned as he tried to figure it out.
Should I be worried? He thought as he stood in the centre of his room, not moving backwards and not moving forwards. He then realised that the sound had been a clicking and shuffling. But of what, he was still not clear.
There was a loud bang and the door flew open.
"Carl!"
The doorway framed his brother, walking sticks propped either side, dressed in a grey/brown jacket, the lower edge at the front threadbare and dark with dirt. There was a tear near one of the popper fastenings and the left pocket hung down ripped away from the body. Adrian sneered down his nose as the smell started to penetrate his shock. His brother’s greasy hair sticking out in silhouette against the light of the corridor.
"I thought I'd find you here, are you gonna ask me in?"
"Of course, yes, here sit here, " Adrian ushered his brother to the chair in front of his desk and moved round to sit where he felt safer, protected by the wide leather inlaid wooden top.
"Are you gonna offer me some of that Brandy? I could do with a drink."
A flustered Adrian answered. "Of course, yes," and poured his brother a drink from the decanter and zapped it with the dis-integrator before passing it across the desk.
His brother raised his eyes and sniffed drink. "Oh, so are you trying to kill me now? What's that thing?" And motioned with his eyes at the causality device.
"Oh, it is just something I did out of habit. It is nothing."
"Nothing? Like our genetic history? Or rather, your genetic history which seemed to vanish into thin air." He gestured poof with his hands.
How did he know? Adrian thought as he sat motionless, stalled. "I don't know what you mean."
"Pah. I read your letter in the waste bin, so 'I don't know what you mean' doesn't wash."
Neither do you, thought Adrian still trying not to breathe through his nose and then when he realised what his brother had said he felt the life drain out through his body into the floor, leaving him sitting there, an empty shell.
"You. Sunny Jim, " Carl pointed one of the walking sticks at him. "You've found a cure. I know you have, I know how you lie. There is no way you could have lasted this long without developing it. No way. So I am now your latest patient, so heal me Bruv."
The stick had come to rest on the top of the desk, inches away from Adrian’s hands. He looked at his brother as he swigged from the brandy glass returning a look of pure hatred. He reminded himself that this was his brother; they had never been close, but this... He shook his head in disbelief at how different they were.
"You're not gonna cure me then, Bruv?"
Adrian snapped out of his reverie. "What?"
Carl stood. "I said 'You're not gonna cure me then?' Hey? Answer me you tosser," and Carl slammed the stick forward into his brothers face.
Adrian cried out and felt his jaw shoved back under the force of the blow, it snapped his head back and the room span for a couple of seconds. Adrian "felt funny", and noticed his head suddenly turn to the left. He realised that something was going wrong, he still felt woozy as he tried to make it to his feet, but he slipped and fell behind the desk. His brother had dealt him a lucky blow and caused significant damage; sensation of his right arm disappeared and he realised that even though he was trying to talk, no words were coming out of his mouth.
Adrian managed to flick the fingers of his right hand, before losing consciousness and losing awareness of himself and his surroundings.
His brother stared down at his body. "Pah," he said and kicked Adrian in the head.
###
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