The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 6

Nadia sat opposite Dr. Eric Sandstrom in his office at Columbia University on Monday afternoon. He was a professor emeritus, a respected radiobiologist who taught one class a week to keep his mind active at age eighty-five.

“This is interesting,” he said, after studying the symbols Johnny had e-mailed from Tokyo.

“What is?” Nadia said.

“It’s a modified version of Five-Androstenediol, just like the one you showed me three weeks ago. Except it contains an additional enhancement. The formula you showed me before had a partial description of two new proteins. This one further describes those two proteins but doesn’t fully define them.”

“Meaning some symbols are still missing.”

“Yes.”

“Can you draw any conclusions from what you do see, Professor?”

He removed his glasses, sprayed a lens cleaner on them, and began wiping them with a soft tissue. “Five-Androstenediol is a direct metabolite of a steroid produced by the human adrenal cortex. That steroid is called DHEA. The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute discovered Five-AED, as it’s called, in 2007. They performed clinical trials using primates with the pharmaceutical company Hollis-Eden. Their initial results were excellent. Close to 70 percent more monkeys treated with Five-AED survived acute radiation syndrome than those that were not treated.”

“I remember being told about that,” Nadia said. Karel, the zoologist in Chornobyl, had explained Five-AED to her. “I never quite understood why the research project was dropped a short time later when the trials were so successful.”

“No formal explanation was given,” Sandstrom said. “But it’s a major leap to treating humans from treating monkeys. The scuttlebutt in the scientific community was that the production of white blood cells and platelets was insufficient. White blood cells are essential to life. Platelets promote blood clotting. To increase production of platelets and white blood cells, an additional protein or proteins needed to be introduced to the formula.”

“Thus creating a modified version of Five-AED.”

“Precisely.”

“And could the symbols you’re looking at be part of these missing proteins? Could they be part of the solution?”

Sandstrom put his glasses on and studied the paper again. “They might be. On the other hand, they might not be. Regardless of how promising the formula looks — and it does look interesting to me — you would simply never know until clinical trials were conducted. No one could answer that question for you by simply looking at chemical data.”

“Why do you say the partial formula looks interesting?”

“For the simple reason that it appears to be relevant — incomplete but consistent with the formula that you brought in a week ago. And given you have come here twice, I’ve inferred you’ve gotten them from two different sources. All of which leads me to believe the results of a prior experiment — perhaps in a different country — are being recovered piece by piece.” His eyes widened. “Am I right?”

Nadia had been afraid of confiding in anyone — even a stately old professor — but what choice had she had? She needed to trust a scientist to understand the formula.

“Can you at least tell me the scientific source of your discovery?” Sandstrom said.

Nadia hated to say no, but she had no choice. She remained mute.

Sandstrom nodded with understanding. “Can you tell me the country of origin?” When Nadia didn’t answer, he leaned forward in his seat. “The former Soviet Union, perhaps? There was an old recluse there. A genius there by the name of Arkady Shatan.”

Nadia lost her breath for a moment. Arkady Shatan was the name of the Russian scientist who’d conducted experiments in the Zone and supposedly given the formula to Bobby’s father, her uncle Damian. Like Damian, however, Arkady was dead, leaving the partial formula Bobby had been given a mystery.

“It’s best for both of us if I don’t elaborate any further,” Nadia said. “I have to ask you to trust me, Professor. And in turn, I have to put my trust in you, sir.”

“You have it, my dear.”

“Have you spoken to anyone about my previous visit? About the partial formula you’ve seen before today?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not. To what benefit? You asked me to keep our discussions confidential. And I have done so. Besides, at my age, if I told anyone about what you’d shown me, they would assume I was suffering fantasies. It was in my best interest not to discuss your discoveries with anyone.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Do you understand the medical implications of such a formula? If the risk of radioactive contamination were mitigated, it would open up an entire new world of medical treatments. Millions of lives would be prolonged and saved.”

“Yes,” Nadia said. “But there may also be military implications, if one country were to get a hold of the formula and keep it from others.”

Sandstrom frowned. “That could not be allowed to happen. If you disseminated the formula to the world at large that risk would be eliminated. Surely that is your plan, is it not?”

“Yes,” Nadia said, honestly. “That may be a bit trickier than it sounds, but that’s the plan.”

Before that plan could even be contemplated, another one would have to be carried out. Nadia and Bobby would have to travel to a country where they didn’t speak the language or know anyone. Nadia wished there were an alternative solution, but there wasn’t one.

The stakes were too high.

They had to go to Japan.