The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [402]
She crossed to the AutoChef, getting more coffee. “Wo. Politics and administration. A skilled surgeon who enjoyed power. Former president of the AMA. She knew how to play the game. She’d have high connections. But obviously, she was also considered dispensable. Maybe she had a conscience, maybe she was getting nervous, or maybe they just sacrificed her to throw the investigation off the scent. It worked for Friend,” she mused. “He wouldn’t have been pleased, do you think, if he’d discovered this rogue research conspiracy. It would have cut into his profits, his glory. There go the lecture fees, the big banquets in his honor, the media hype.”
“Only if what they’re doing, or hope to do, works.”
“Yeah. They’re willing to kill to make it work, so why not take out the competition? It used to be organ building. Louise sort of explained it in the initial report she did for me. They took tissue from a damaged or defective organ and built a new one in the lab. Grew them in molds so the tissue’d take the right shape. That solved the rejection problem. You used the patient’s own tissue so the body’d accept it and tick along. But it takes time. You just don’t grow yourself a new, happy heart overnight.”
She walked back to the console, eased a hip on the edge, and watched him work as she talked it out. “They do that kind of thing in vitro. You got like nine months to deal there. You can grow the bad part back or repair it.
“Then Friend comes along,” she continued. “Building and brokering organs has been the thing. It’s tough to grow them for anyone over—I forget—like ninety because of the timing and the age of the tissue. Takes weeks to grow a new bladder and you’ve got to do molding and layering and stuff. A lot of work, a lot of money to order one up. But Friend comes up with this artificial material that the body accepts. It’s cheap, it’s durable, and it can be molded to order. Mass-produced. Applause, applause, let’s all live forever.”
He glanced up at that, had to grin. “Don’t you want to?”
“Not with a bunch of interchangeable spare parts. But anyhow, he gets carried through the streets, the crowd roars and throws buckets of money and adulation at him. And the guys doing organ building and reconstruction research are shoved right out into the cold. Who wants to hang around peeing in a diaper while their new bladder’s growing in some lab when they can pop into surgery, get a new, improved one, and be peeing like a champ inside a week?”
“Agreed. And that manufacturing arm of Roarke Industries thanks the full bladders everywhere. But since everyone’s happy this way, what good will this little group of mad scientists prove by continuing their work?”
“You keep your own,” she said simply. “Medically, it’s probably some major miracle—regeneration—like the Frankenstein guy. Here’s this half-dead, messed-up heart. Not gonna tick much longer. But what if it can be fixed, completely, like new? You got the part you were born with, not some piece of foreign matter. The Conservative party, which includes Senator Waylan, would dance in the street. Plenty of them have artificial tickers, but they like to stomp around every few years and talk about how it’s against the rules of God and humankind to prolong life by artificial means.”
“Darling, you’ve been reading the papers. I’m so impressed.”
“Kiss my ass.” And it felt good to grin. “I’m betting when Nadine gets in touch, she’ll tell me Waylan stands against artificial life aids. You know, the ‘if God didn’t give it to you, it’s immoral’ line.”
“NewLife routinely deals with protests from natural-life groups. I imagine we’ll find the senator supports their stand.”
“Yeah, and if he can make a few bucks running interference for a group who promises a new medical and natural miracle, so to speak, so much the better. It would have to be a quick procedure. It couldn’t be risky to the patient,” she went on.