A Remedy for Death

They say we only go around once in life. But what if the terms of life have changed . . . for an elite few? What was "mere" science fiction not long ago—radical life extension, even the prospect of human immortality—is a fast-approaching reality with current technologies including human stem cell research, tissue engineering, bio-artificial organs, 3-D printing of replacement organs, and the controlled use of the Out-of-body (OOBE) and Near-Death Experience (NDE). On the night his wife and young daughter are kidnapped and murdered, Dr. Douglas Daulby, MD, a neuroscience researcher and surgeon, is caught performing an unauthorized experiment- implanting human fetal tissue into the brain of a chimp to begin exploring how it may develop human verbal abilities. The media furor costs him his spot at the University. The offer of a short-term contract draws him to a clinic in the mountains of central Europe. It is funded by a cabal of super-rich and their international political allies. The objective is to provide another whole go-round in life to a select, secretive few . . . a chance to come back, as one of them puts it, into “healthy, horny 21-year old bodies complete with all our accumulated savvy from this lifetime”. Another calls it a “Jurassic Park for rich old guys”. The work there offers the promise of Frankenstein and eternal youth in the era of bio-tech, as well as explorations of the lines between mind, brain and what they term “animating essence”. But there are ethical costs . . . and risks. What if the project is almost successful, but opens dangerous doors to other worlds . . . doors that once opened cannot be closed? And what if their promise is true: that the work can heal Daulby’s hurt by giving new life to his murdered wife and young daughter? How can he refuse to cooperate? After the strange kidnapping and murder of his family, Douglas Daulby, MD, a brain researcher/surgeon, is blackmailed into consulting at a shadowy research center in an East European dictatorship. Once there, he finds the clinic has developed a methodology for ”tissue engineering” the renewed bodies of an international cabal of super-rich and political figures, who, as one puts it, intend to “begin life again, starting over as a healthy, horny 21-year old with all of this lifetime’s savvy already under your belt.” As one of sponsors puts it, the clinic is “a Jurassic Park for rich old guys.” They need the expertise of Daulby and another person, an experimental psychologist, to transfer the donors’ memories and “animating essences” across to the mindless “Vehicles” that have been developed for them. When he refuses, they hold out the promise of re-animating his murdered wife and daughter . . .with him or without him there to protect them.