Food and Drug Chapter 8
"Are we sure about this?" Reid tugged nervously at Emily's sleeve on the back porch of the Lee-Maynard home.
"Yes!" Emily hissed as she peeked through the kitchen window, her breath fogging up the glass. "Everything is right on track. Garcia disabled the security system. The kids are at their grandparents' house. So is the dog. Mommy and Daddy are out for dinner to kick off their romantic wedding anniversary weekend. We really lucked out on that front."
"Yeah, we lucked out," Reid scanned the backyard for absent canines. "Otherwise, we'd have had to find a way to get the kids out of the house. Can you believe that Lee and Maynard have six children together? How did they manage it?"
"How did they manage to conceive six children?" Emily snickered as she eyed the door to kick it down. "Do you really need me to explain it to you, Reid? Tell you what, I've got an annual checkup scheduled for next month. I'll bring back a pamphlet for you."
"No, Emily, that's not what I meant!" Reid whispered adamantly. "What I meant was how did Lee and Maynard manage to raise such a large family while maintaining such busy careers? Hotch and JJ can barely juggle their jobs and their only children. Maynard is a tenured professor at a large public university. How does she balance her career with six kids?"
"I dunno," Emily kicked down the door, flipped back her flying ponytail, and walked calmly through the open doorway. "Maybe she's Wonder Woman? By day, she coaches her daughter's soccer team. By night, she masterminds unauthorized experiments on human intelligence."
"So you really think that she's the driver behind all this?" Reid drew his revolver as he followed Emily into the house. "That she's just using her husband's job at the FDA to achieve her own ends?"
"Yeah, Maynard's the leader, but Lee isn't exactly an innocent bystander," Emily swept her flashlight over the dark environs. "The scheme was originally her idea, but once she let him in on it, he was just as big a believer as she was. I bet they've been planning this for years, and they finally hit the jackpot when Lee was assigned to the Alzheimer's study. It's not like they could've run their cognitive and brain imaging tests during any random clinical trial. It would look awfully weird for them to be giving IQ tests to prospective participants in a cancer drug study."
"It makes sense...It all makes sense," Reid peered in both directions in the hallway that separated the utilitarian back of the house from the presentable front.
"Let's go wait for them on the stairs," Emily led the way towards the foyer. "Remember our plan for greeting the happy couple?"
"Yeah, as soon as they come into the house, I'll block off the front door, and you'll force them into the dining room. We'll all sit down at the dining table for a nice civil conversation. We'll clarify the agenda, negotiate a stop to the experiments, and obtain an antidote for the agent, if there is one. Hotch won't find out about any of this for as long as we can help it. Eventually, when he does find out, I'll say that you held a gun to my head and made me help you. You'll deny it, but he'll believe me instead of you. Hotch trusts men more than women. He'll burn you at the stake, and I'll spread your ashes in a special ceremony by the sea."
"You wish!" Emily made the motion to pistol whip her seriously deluded accomplice. "It's 9:15," she checked her watch, "I wonder how long this hot date is going to take."
"I wouldn't know," Reid said, "I'm not much of an expert on hot dates."
"You need to get out more," Emily remarked.
"With whom?" Reid asked.
"Human females would be a good start," Emily offered words of wisdom. "If you don't get out more, you're never going to get a chance to procreate. That would be such a shame. Your genius genes would be totally wasted. What you need to do is to father a horde of genius offspring to tackle all the world's problems, one by one. They could be like a BAU of little Reids, except in lieu of catching psycho serial killers, they apply their brilliant minds to global warming, poverty, HIV/AIDS, etc. The only caveat is that with your luck, they'll probably grow up to become psycho serial killers, and that would actually add to the world's problems."
"Thanks, Emily," Reid said, "I appreciate the vote of confidence in my parenting skills. But you're right about the procreation part. Many studies have shown that IQ is genetically determined - up to 80% nature and only 20% nurture. Human intelligence is a complex polygenic trait, but it does appear to be largely inherited."
"Maybe you should consider making a contribution or several thousand to your local sperm bank," Emily suggested.
"Maybe I should..." Reid considered with a distant look in his eyes.
"I'm only kidding!" Emily made the pistol-whipping motion again. "God, stop it, Reid, you're freaking me out. For a second there, you were starting to sound like one Derek Morgan, who fantasizes about doing a great service to the world by spreading his genetic material around."
"Morgan doesn't want to spread his genetic material around," Reid defended his absent friend. "He doesn't want to have kids. He says that he prefers to practice."
"He calls it practice?" Emily grimaced. "You know what, Reid? We need to bury this conversation right now. Tell me about your experiments instead. That'll get our minds out of this rut."
"Rut is a term for the mating season of ungulates such as deer, elk, and moose," Reid said. "During the rut, deer, especially bucks, become more active and less cautious, making them more susceptible to both hunters and motor vehicles."
"We're trying to get out of this rut! Out! Out!" Emily insisted.
"OK, OK," Reid edged away from the intimidating human female. "Um...About my experiments, Emily," he threw caution to the stillness inside the house, "I need to tell you something. I really should've told you this earlier, but I...uh...I don't know why I didn't tell you. It's about the rogue agent. I've identified it, and I'm pretty sure that it's a pr..."
"They're back!" Emily took up position on one side of the front door and gestured towards the other side for Reid.
Reid leaned against the wall around the corner from the front door. Muffled voices from outside coincided with the turning of the key in the lock. As soon as the cold night air rushed in, Reid darted out of his hiding place to slam the door shut, while Emily aimed her weapon at the shocked couple.
"Into the dining room," Emily snarled.
Dr. Sandra Maynard shrank back from the gun, bumping into her husband and stomping on his foot. Dr. Kenneth Lee grabbed his wife's hand and quickly pulled her into the dining room.
"Sit," Emily gestured towards the dining table.
"What's going on? Who are you? What do you want?" Lee demanded in a firmer tone than Emily had anticipated.
"Sit," Emily responded without acknowledging the questions. "You first, Dr. Lee...Then you, Dr. Maynard."
Lee sat down in the nearest dining chair. Reid handcuffed him to the armrests using two pairs of handcuffs. Without hesitation, he did the same to Maynard. The couple stared fearfully at the FBI agents. Reid wondered if they were imagining their deaths at the hands of a pair of sadistic serial killers.
"We're only here to talk," Emily moved to the head of the dining table. "Nothing's going to happen to you, as long as you answer our questions truthfully."
"I don't understand," Maynard said, regaining a cold calmness that Emily guessed was her usual demeanor. "Who are you? What do you want from us? You can have whatever you want from the house. We won't call the police after you leave. We'll pretend that nothing ever happened. You can take whatever you want and get the hell out."
"Vorastatin and Alzheimer's," Emily ignored the petite brunette woman and addressed the bald bespectacled man, "Dr. Lee, do these terms ring any bells for you?"
"I'm not saying anything unless you tell me who you are," Lee said cautiously.
"Let's just say that we all share the same boss," Emily said. "We're all employed by Uncle Sam to serve the public. The only difference is that while we're serving the public..." she gestured to include herself and Reid, "You're abusing your position at the FDA to pursue your personal agenda. Or your wife's personal agenda," she looked down her nose at the stone-faced woman.
"Can you please get to the point?" Maynard snapped. "What do you want from us?"
"We want to know why you're substituting a proteinaceous infectious particle in place of a statin medication in a FDA clinical trial," Reid spoke up for the first time.
He avoided the word "prion", using the full term instead, desperately wishing that he had gotten a chance to finish his confession to Emily. Before entering the house, he had believed that hiding the truth had been a good idea. Why would he tell her that her mother's medical situation was absolutely intractable? Who in their right mind would wish to know that?
After entering the house, he had realized that he had been behaving like a selfish idiot. He had not hidden the truth to protect her. He had done it to protect himself, because he had never believed, not even for a second, that he could possibly come up with a solution to the problem. Like the schizophrenia problem, the prion problem was absolutely intractable. That was the reality of the situation, and Reid had allowed himself to indulge in fantasy for way too long.
"That's the first thing we want to know," Emily said, "The first of many things. But we wouldn't expect you to tell us anything without a little incentive to push you along. Remember PhenoPharm? The pharmaceutical company that developed vorastatin? I have it on good authority that PhenoPharm is eager to reap the rewards from its millions of dollars of R&D investments. But they're not the only ones looking to reap the rewards. A certain FDA administrator seems to have accepted a $50,000 bribe from the company in exchange for pushing the drug through clinical trials. The check was made out to a certain FDA administrator's wife, as shown here," she motioned for Reid to unfold a printout of the check photo. "You tell us everything we want to know, and you won't find this photo leaked into the media. Those annoying news reporters are constantly on the lookout for juicy government scandals. Sooner or later, this story is going to find its way to national television. How are you going to support your kids if your careers are ruined? Are you going to be able to find new jobs once your personal and professional reputations have been dragged through the mud? Is the reward really worth the risk?"
"Yes!" the woman answered sharply, "It is!"
"Sandy..." Lee shot a warning glance at his wife.
"Don't Sandy me!" Maynard cut him off. "If they want the story, we'll give it to them."
Reid looked across the table at Emily. She met his gaze, which reflected her own uncertainty. Even with a gun in her face, Maynard was strong and defiant. At the same time, she was giving in to their demands. Her behavior was veering into the unpredictable.
"The agent must be working," Emily tested aloud.
"It is," Maynard replied. "The IQ scores of the prion recipients have increased by 25% after only a month on the treatment. We've converted painfully average individuals into potentially useful members of society."
"Prion?" Emily latched onto the one word that Reid had dreaded hearing. "The agent is a prion? Like the prion that causes Mad Cow Disease?"
"Yes," Maynard replied. "We call it CrCSp, the opposite of PrPSc. The abbreviation doesn't stand for anything, but I think it's got a nice ring to it. It has the opposite effect as PrPSc. It enhances human intelligence. It improves the human brain."
"And the human species," Lee added.
"How is giving a smart pill to a few patients in a clinical trial going to improve the human species?" Emily asked.
"The clinical trial is only the first step," Maynard explained. "We have to the test the prion somewhere. Why not do it in the context of a legitimate scientific study? The important thing is we're getting results. We're getting absolute proof that human intelligence can be significantly enhanced. The effects are permanent. This isn't a hormone with temporary effects, like a birth control pill. This is a prion. It spreads throughout the brain, from one neuron to another. It remodels the proteins and cells and tissues. It remodels the entire brain. We now have a proven method to elevate human individuals from dullness to brightness so they can contribute to, rather than be a drain upon, human society."
"What about the side effects?" Emily asked angrily. "What about the patients who respond poorly to the pill? The ones who are too busy having seizures to use their newly acquired intellectual abilities?"
"No drug is effective for 100% of the population," Lee replied. "We're doing pretty well with this clinical trial. The prion is working in 97% of study participants. Only 3% have displayed adverse reactions."
"Are these people nothing but percentages to you?" Emily asked, edging closer to Maynard, bringing her gun closer to Maynard's face.
"In a word, yes," Maynard answered without flinching. "We're scientists. We perform impartial experiments. We analyze the results impartially. The only way to do that is to use cold hard numbers. Statistics."
"Think of it this way," Lee explained. "If there's ever a worldwide outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, then 97% of people on Earth would die from it. The 3% that survived would've had a natural immunity to Ebolavirus. 97%, 3%...3%, 97%. In our study, most of the chips fall on the positive side. The 3% are sacrificed for the good of the 97%. In the case of an Ebola outbreak, the 3% would be the winners in the human evolution sweepstakes. They'd get to seed the next generation of humans, who would inherit their genetic immunity to Ebolavirus. Ebolavirus would no longer be an agent of disease. Homo sapiens would have defeated Ebolavirus."
"And what disease are you trying to cure?" Reid mumbled, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.
"The disease of stupidity!" Maynard replied in excitement. "Finally! Someone who gets it! I like you," she smiled at Reid, "You're sharp."
"And how do you plan to cure this disease?" Reid ignored her comments about him.
"Simple," Maynard explained. "Phenotype to genotype. Once we've perfected the prion - the phenotype - we can reverse engineer a nucleic acid construct - the genotype - to encode the protein. We can introduce the construct into human cells in the form of a retrovirus. Did you know that retroviruses, like HIV, can integrate their genetic material into the host genome? All it takes is a couple of enzymes that come with the virus. We can use a viral vector as gene therapy for the disease of stupidity that increasingly plagues the human species."
"How noble of you," Reid muttered.
"Thanks for noticing," Maynard said brightly. "As an expert on human evolution, I can safely say that at no time in our existence has the human species been in such need of a cure. Throughout human evolution, nature has always selected for the smartest of us. The most rational and the most creative. The fastest thinkers, the deepest thinkers, the broadest thinkers, the thinkers outside the boxes. Evolution by natural selection. It's fine-tuned our brains for millions of years. It's always made us smarter and better, until now."
"What changed?" Emily asked.
"Humans developed civilization," Maynard explained. "Modern civilization - a worldwide dystopia that no longer selects for intelligence. Human society now selects against intelligence. The smarter you are, the fewer offspring you have. It's the dim-witted ones who end up fucking like bunnies and polluting the planet with dim-witted copies of themselves."
"Is that why the two of you have six children?" Reid asked, unable to suppress a smirk as Lee glared at him.
"Our children are our contributions to society," Maynard answered confidently, refusing to be insulted. "We can sleep with a clear conscience, knowing that we gave the world six intellectually gifted individuals to tackle all its many problems. Our children have received the best of both worlds - nature and nurture."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Emily said, "Not about the nature or the nurture. Please enlighten me if I'm too dim-witted to understand, but how exactly is a smart pill going to evolve the human species?"
"You really are too dim-witted to understand," Maynard said. "I hope you don't have any children. What about you?" she turned to Reid. "Do you understand? Do you have any children?"
"You're going to introduce the viral vector into the germline," Reid replied. "You're going to target egg cells and sperm cells. The construct that encodes the prion is going to integrate itself into the haploid genomes of germ cells. All offpsring produced from the infected germ cells will express the prion in all their cells, including their neurons and their own germ cells. The enhancement in intelligence will be passed on through the generations. You'll be instigating another Great Leap Forward. Evolution by unnatural selection. Everyone who responds poorly to the prion will die. Adapt or die."
"Very good, but you didn't answer my other question," Maynard said slyly. "Do you, or do you not, have any children?"
"No, I don't have any children," Reid answered.
"What a shame," Maynard shook her head. "Do you find it difficult to get dates with dim-witted women? Do you find it impossible to have relationships with dim-witted women? Do you wish that there were more people like you? Do you wish that you had a larger pool of potential mates to choose from? How old are you?"
"I'm 29."
"You still have time," Maynard said, "You still have all the time in the world. It's us women who have to be concerned with time. How old are you?" she asked Emily.
"None of your business," Emily snapped, "Don't worry, I don't have any children."
"No need to get defensive about it," Maynard snapped back. "You're not so bad. If paired with the right partner, you could produce intelligent offspring. Or you could play it safe and wait for our developments, but I'm guessing that you don't really have the luxury of waiting. You look around...40? I doubt that you've got much in the way of eggs left to infect."
"Oh, that hurts," Emily sneered, "That's why I cry myself to sleep every night."
"Enough!" Lee tried to nugde his wife into silence. "We've answered all your questions. It's time for you to get the hell out."
"You haven't even come close to answering all our questions," Emily leaned over the red-faced man.
"I'm sorry, Agent Prentiss," Lee rolled his eyes, "This is all you're going to get from us."
"What's wrong, Agent Prentiss? Surprised that we know your name, Emily?" Maynard asked derisively. "Did you forget the fact that you're listed as the next-of-kin on Elizabeth Prentiss's consent form? It didn't exactly take a stunning leap of intuition to figure out who you are and why you're here. And why the FBI won't be coming to shut us down anytime soon."
"I wouldn't screw with the clinical trial if I were you," Lee threatened. "I wouldn't leak anything into the media either. You came here to get an antidote for you mother. We have an antidote. It neutralizes the prion. It re-shapes the prion into a non-functional form and directs it to the proteasome for degradation."
"Give us the antidote," Reid heard the words leave his mouth without his consent. "We'll let you continue the study if you give us the antidote."
"Reid..." Emily looked across the table.
"Give us the antidote," Reid stared into Maynard's eyes. "It's an equal exchange, a win-win for all of us."
"Good try, Reid, is it?" Maynard smirked. "As soon as we give you the antidote, you'll come barging in with the rest of the FBI. I'm sorry, but we don't suffer from the disease that afflicts most of humanity."
"I'll help you with the study if you give us the antidote," Reid bargained. "The more I think about it, the more I find myself agreeing with you. I don't think you should stop with the 25% enhancement that you've observed so far. You should go for more. Why stop at 125? Why not go for 140? Why not go for 187? That's my IQ. And it's Dr. Reid to you."
"Impressive, Dr. Reid," Maynard remarked. "I enjoy your thinking. We'd love to have you on the team. I'm sure you'll have many valuable insights to contribute."
"I'm sure I will," Reid said. "I've already got some ideas for inserting the prion gene into the host genome. With a standard viral vector, the construct would insert itself into the genome at an arbitrary location. That could cause all kinds of problems. What if the construct inserts itself into the middle of a crucial gene? That would destroy any chance of producing viable offspring. Or maybe the construct inserts itself next to a silencer sequence. The repressor protein binds to the silencer sequence, and voila, gene expression is shut down for a sizable region of the chromosome. No gene expression, no prion protein. You may be an expert in your own field, Dr. Maynard, but I don't think your anthropological expertise is going to help you on this project. You may be able to use the biological terminology, but you don't really know what you're talking about, do you? And you, Dr. Lee, you're an FDA administrator. You've got advanced degrees in biology and chemistry, but how much of your education do you really remember? How much scientific research have you actually done, with your own hands and with your own brain? Has it been twenty years since your last stint in the lab? Are you going to be able to solve all these problems of transcriptional and translational regulation? Are you an expert in the field of gene expression? What about Dr. Ames and Dr. Hawkins? Are they in on this project, or are you just using them for their scientific expertise? Where did you get the prion anyway? I'm having serious doubts that you produced it yourself. Did you get it from Ames or Hawkins? Dr. Hawkins is a medical doctor. You're deluding yourselves if you're planning to rely on his scientific expertise. That leaves Dr. Ames and Dr. Reid. Which one of these people has an IQ of 187? Which one of these people suffers less from the disease of stupidity? By your measure, which one of these people has more potential to contribute to your project? It's your choice. My help for your antidote."
"You've got a point, Dr. Reid," Maynard maintained her composure. "I'm not a molecular biologist. My husband is not a research scientist. We might have to depend on your knowledge for the success of the project. You can have the antidote on one condition. I want to see you work out a method for reliable insertion of the prion gene into the host genome, such that the prion protein is reliably expressed in neurons and germ cells. I want to see it in a human, not a mouse. I want to see the prion protein raise someone's IQ above 150. I want you to do it to her," she transferred her steely blue gaze to Emily.
"How about it, Agent Prentiss?" Lee challenged Emily. "We're willing if you're willing. There's a prion eating away at your mother's brain as we speak. I hope you don't waste too much time weighing the pros and cons."
"I'm not going to waste any time," Emily replied. "I've already made up my mind. The prion improves the human brain. My brain is dying to be improved. Maybe I'll finally be worthy of conceiving children with my last remaining egg cells. Let's do it," she raised her eyebrows at Reid.
"Emily..." Reid began.
"Don't Emily me!" Emily warned. "You've been lying to me for days. When did you find out about the prion? Did you think I was too fragile to handle the bad news, or did you think I was too stupid to understand your experiments?"
"Emily, I didn't..."
"Shut up, Reid!" Emily cut him off. "It's settled," she nodded at Lee and Maynard. "Dr. Reid is going to come up with a viral vector to deliver the prion gene into the host genome. I'm volunteering to be the guinea pig. I'm looking forward to it, because I've always wanted to know what it feels like to be Dr. Reid, Super Genius! We'll get the antidote, and you'll get the protocol, but not until the antidote works on my mother. In the meantime, you'll put your current experiments on hold. I want everyone in the study back on vorastatin or placebo."
"Fine," Maynard agreed, "Sounds fair to me. I'd love to shake on it," she looked at her handcuffs.
"Uncuff them," Emily said to Reid. "The sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can start work on the protocol."
Reid stared at Emily, found her glaring at him, and did as he was told. He uncuffed the couple from their dining chairs. Lee remained seated, rubbing his hands over his wrists. Maynard stood up and stretched.
She offered her hand to Emily, "We have an agreement, Agent Prentiss."
"We have an agreement," Emily shook the woman's hand, her face completely inscrutable, her demeanor completely impassive.
"Dr. Reid?" Maynard offered her hand to Reid.
Reid gulped visibly as he shook the woman's hand. He felt like he was making a deal with the Devil. He glanced nervously at Emily, found her still glaring at him, and averted his eyes.
In his mind, the gears turned, seeking a way out of the ill-conceived arrangement. The arrangement was impossible on so many levels. First of all, Reid wasn't sure that he could produce a reliable viral vector for gene therapy. Gene therapy, though much-touted as a cure for a variety of heritable diseases, was mostly ineffective. The gene therapy problem was only slightly less intractable than the prion problem.
Second, there was no universe in which Reid was going to use Emily as a guinea pig. He would rather use himself. For a moment, he seriously considered using himself. The moment passed when he realized that he was the worst possible guinea pig for such an experiment. His IQ was already 187. How much higher could it possibly go? How could he possibly tell if a prion were making him smarter? There was no way he could use himself as a guinea pig, unless there was some unknown arena of human intelligence that no one had yet elucidated. Perhaps there were such things as genius savants, but Reid didn't want to bet on it.
Reid shivered in the cold night air as he followed Emily out of the Lee-Maynard home. He put a stop to his private machinations. He focused in upon a single statement that Lee had made regarding the antidote. Lee had said that the antidote re-shaped the prion into a non-functional form. As far as Reid knew, the only things that could re-shape proteins were other proteins. Thumper, Bambi, and Flower had been driving down the right track, before they had been derailed by the annoying phone call that had led to the unnecessary meeting. The only things that could re-shape prions were other prions.
"Prion v. Prion," Reid thought, "Old habits die hard."
Even with impossible arrangements, there was always a way out, if only one were clever enough to see it or diligent enough to build it.
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