Frozen Ones

Chapter 7 (Gloria)

"You can stop for today," Gloria said to the rest of the group, who were still working in the lab. She knew that these people worked overtime every day and that this was actually illegal, but the whole institution was in a gray area anyway, so she didn't care. If her plan worked, they would all soon be billionaires, and that would make the work worthwhile.

"Okay, Mrs. Prinz," Lio murmured, his eyes almost closing.

For a moment, Gloria felt guilty. This boy was only 19, he shouldn't have a working day of 13 hours or more, he should be enjoying his life and meeting friends. She quickly looked away and shook her head. She could have thought like that before she used his mother as leverage. Now it was too late and the boy would have to wait until the experiments were finished.

But how long would that take? Since Lio's discovery a year ago, they hadn't been able to celebrate any successes. What if it took too long and his mother was already dead? What if there was no antidote at all?

Gloria had to swallow hard at this thought. There had to be a solution, for sure. They had never been as close to the goal as they were now.

"See you tomorrow," she called over her shoulder to Lio and the other three as they left the lab.

It was already midnight. She had actually wanted to finish earlier today, but the first run of Laila's experiment hadn't worked, so it had to be repeated. Ultimately, however, it had been of little use, as the proteins they were looking for were not present in Laila in a lower dose, but in exactly the same as in Brian. This meant that they could not influence the aging process, otherwise they would be present in higher concentrations in the frozen ones with more severe symptoms.

Nevertheless, Gloria was sure that these proteins had something to do with the syndrome, as they had hardly been detectable or not detected at all in normal people.

With a sigh, she dropped into the chair and scrolled through the 16-page document that contained the results of Leonie and Jack, the two new Frozen Ones.

Both were very interesting subjects.

Gloria was able to determine that Jack had a medium level of activity of the syndrome, and according to the DNA test, he had 134 of the 176 possible point mutations that had been measured in Brian. Consequently, he had a fairly strong Gfrörer syndrome. The most startling thing, however, was the fact that he was the one of the Frozen Ones who relied the least on the cells of his environment. Gloria even suspected that he didn't need his cell culture at all. Of course, this raised questions, such as the death of his adoptive parents in the bar. It was because of them that they had become aware of Jack in the first place, but if he had so little influence on his environment, why had they died? They had been diagnosed with skin cancer, like most of the others who had a lot of unprotected contact with Frozen Ones. Or was it just a coincidence? And why was the cat still alive? Jack had apparently owned it for a long time, as he had mentioned during the interview, but why wasn't it dead already? Maybe Gloria should measure the cat's epigenetic clock next time. Jack's clock was 18 years old, the age at which Brian's clock also stagnated.

But Leonie was also a very exciting case. With only 69 point mutations, she had surprisingly few, but the combination of mutations was completely different to that of the other test subjects. And today's results had also shown the effect of this: many mechanisms that optimized a pronounced recycling process inside her body were missing in her case, but she took in an extremely large amount of organic material from her environment and exhausted her cell culture after just one day. She was a complete opposite to Jack. However, this discovery correlated with all the deaths in her family. Her epigenetic clock was also at 18, but Gloria suspected that her age would increase to at least 20 in the next five years.

More tests, more experiments were needed. How were Leonie and Jack different from the others? Could Jack's abilities be transferred to the others somehow? Because a drug that made you immortal but polluted the environment would never be successful. It would not be approved. Or would it?

No. Gloria yawned. She had to research Jack further, maybe he was the key to everything and not Brian. And what if you could create a hybrid of the two? With Brian's enormous regenerative properties and Jack's environmental friendliness.

A smile flashed across Gloria's face, but was immediately wiped away by the ringing of her smartphone.

She pressed the green button and cleared her throat. "Yes, hello?" Who was calling her company cell phone at 12 o'clock at night?

"Gloria Prinz, nice to hear your voice again after all this time," the voice came from the other end.

All the color drained from her face immediately. "You! How did you find me again?"

The person she was talking to laughed. "Just like last time. But I didn't want to talk to you about that." He paused and Gloria suspected that he was waiting for her to object. But she felt as if she had swallowed her tongue. "I wanted to remind you of the offer from last time."

Gloria remained silent again. She already knew where the conversation was going before he had answered her. But she would not give in, no matter how much he offered her.

"Are you sure?" he asked on the other end of the line, as if he was well aware of Gloria's thoughts. "You're missing out on a huge opportunity. Maybe even... the only one you have?"

Gloria laughed bitterly. "What do you know about my options?" she asked dismissively and shut down the computer with a click.

"Enough, I'd say." His voice sounded almost lurking.

"Forget it, I won't cooperate with you, no matter how many times you call me." She pressed the red button to hang up, but her cell phone didn't obey her, which was to be expected.

"So you want to make the wrong decision on purpose?" Now he seemed more threatening, at least judging by his tone. She knew that her persistence annoyed him.

"I'd love to," she replied weakly and got up from her chair. Yawning, she stretched, then turned towards the door and left the lab. In the background she heard him saying something else, but she didn't care.

Gloria was aware that he was her enemy. Her greatest opponent, as well as her oldest acquaintance. But that was beside the point, they had gone their separate ways and nothing could undo that. In the end, it would be seen who was the stronger of the two of them. And when that time came, she had to have advanced her research, even if it was at the expense of the Frozen Ones and her employees. She could not lose. 

The fate of humanity depended on it. 

Her fate depended on it...!