Jaye Michael

Part Three: Revolution

Chapter Twenty Seven: Postscript

What we call a beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
– T. S. Eliot

It has been ten years since the events chronicled herein and it seems a fitting conclusion to report the impact of this discovery on the people involved and on the world in general since then.

Dr. Harriman, as has already been reported, developed an agent for eliminating the virus in its victims so that they could live normal lives without fear of transforming anyone who shared bodily fluids with them. He also succeeded in modifying the original virus so it could not survive more than five days outside of a specially enriched medium. This turns out to be just long enough to permit transformation without the long-term risk of further infection. This modification met with the approval of Captain Schultz and his still unknown superiors.

Unsurprisingly, the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was one of the many honors granted him. Dr. Harriman insisted it be shared. He couldn’t get the Committee to honor Dr. Sternlicht posthumously, but did get them to include him as a significant researcher in the statement they released. The honor was shared with Dr. Lyle Abbot, who’s doctoral degree had been conferred just days prior to the awards ceremony. He had used the development of the safe form of the virus as his dissertation.

Dr. Abbot and Dr. Harriman went on to create a new company called the Quintessence Corporation to produce the safe form of the virus. Captain Schultz actually assisted with a significant portion of the initial funding. He says he has retired from his military duties and he now serves as Chairman of the Board for the corporation while Sergeant Challer, also retired from the military, is now the corporation’s President. They’re both sharp businessmen and last year Quintessence Corporation joined the ranks of the top fifty companies in the Fortune one hundred.

Sadly, Dr. Harriman passed on about three years ago. He never swerved from his trust and faith in humanity, nor did the tremendous wealth resulting from his many discoveries change his lifestyle. He was in his car driving himself to work at New York University when a bomb destroyed it and him. No one has ever been arrested for his murder and I doubt anyone ever will, but speculation is that it was the Columbian drug cartel with the religious right as a close second. For the cartel it would have been just business, they objected to the competition. For the religious right his death was a sign from God and has spurred them to even greater protests against the blasphemy of “body-morphing.” Only “right to life” protests seem to produce more fervor.

The death threats, which we had all ignored until then, continue to this day and shortly after Dr. Harriman’s death, Lyle–who had initially changed back to male–went back to being Eunice L. again. This was partially as a way of confusing any would-be assassins, since there were so many of us, and partially because he felt happier that way. The lab work showing he had prostate cancer was also a factor.

Speaking of changes, Giuseppe “Gina” Maldonado was the name of Dr. Sternlicht’s alleged murderer. She has consistently claimed to be the agent of a French drug company which has, of course, disavowed any knowledge of Ms. Maldonado’s actions. As the company has vigorously pursued slander and libel charges in both the French and international courts against anyone who has linked their name and Ms. Maldonado’s and has consistently managed to win very large settlements based upon damage to the company’s earning power, my publisher has requested I not name them in this manuscript. Instead, I refer the interested reader to almost any of the several recently sued tabloids. The articles are there next to the alien babies and the Elvis sightings. For the record, it seems to be much easier to sue for slander or libel and win in other countries than it is in the United States of America. My publisher has told me that I could name the company if I only publish in the U.S., but insists that there is a tremendous worldwide audience for this story. I guess money really does talk.

Regardless, Ms. Maldonado, who does not confirm the name of the drug company involved, only that one was involved, has received significant funds for legal services from some unnamed source. The State of New York attempted to prosecute her for the murder of Dr. Sternlicht but those funds have been sufficient to retain some of the best legal minds in this country. Ms. Maldonado’s attorneys have argued that she could not be a murderer as no one was murdered. Despite the corpse found at the restaurant and testimony from Kevin, Deborah, Lyle and I, the jury found there was no proof of murder as there was no proof that the corpse was ever a living person human being. After all, DNA evidence showed a perfect match with Eunice Branca Harriman, who was clearly still alive, and the remains were not even the correct sex to be that of Dr. Sternlicht. Unable to prove that the life of Dr. Maximilian Sternlicht had been terminated, the State was prepared to settle for manslaughter in the first degree instead of murder, but Ms. Maldonado would not settle and in the end, after the second most intensely reported trial in history, she was acquitted. The highly touted federal Rico Act charges for racketeering have never materialized and will probably never come to trial.

Since the trial, Ms. Maldonado has been a regular on the talk show circuit and has ghost written a book entitled, The Other Side of the Fence. She has recently replaced the lady who turns the letters on that game show. You know the one, although its name currently escapes me as does the name of the lady she replaced.

Congressman Goldman and his father were released after they took Dr. Harriman’s antidote and were confirmed to be free of the virus. They toyed with the idea of a lawsuit, but that languished and the statute of limitations has since expired. Surprisingly, both have elected to remain female, although in the Congressman’s case, probably because it actually increased his election margins. Polls suggested that men thought of him as a hero while women were convinced they now had someone who could understand the female perspective. The Congressman’s father was another of the early investors in Quintessence Corporation and has since quadrupled his family’s fortune. We still remain in contact, albeit sporadically, and her last letter arrived about four months ago. She was in Cannes, in the south of France, for the annual film festival and appeared about to net her third husband. I think she really likes being a fabulously wealthy thirty-year old female.

The Congresswoman just won her second term as a United States Senator. This last campaign wasn’t as vicious as the first although the religious right did heavily fund her opponent. Still, she won with a sizable margin, mostly thanks to the women’s vote, and, if you believe the rumors, there is talk of a run for the Presidency. People say she’s got a good chance of winning. I guess I’ll never understand politics.

Anticipating the market, Quintessence’s first step was to buy DNA from as many people as they could, especially from people in the entertainment field. All of the victims of the original virus were given their choice of DNA for body morphs from the newly created library. All but four have retained their initial morph shapes of Eunice. I think they like the notoriety, especially since Quintessence refuses to release either of those two DNA samples for further morphing. Maybe that’s because most of them work for Quintessence in one capacity or another, but I also know that there were at least four major stockholders who actively campaigned to prevent further releases of that DNA set.

The rat people have been a special problem. Dr. Sternlicht’s research notes confirmed that he was responsible for their transformations as part of an attempt to demonstrate that the virus could be an airborne vector also. The notes don’t say so, but Lyle and I still think he was also trying to get rid of us too. Dr. Harriman’s speculation that their human memory would be adversely impacted by the change from human to rat was all too accurate. Upon return to human form, they had none of their human memories. Effectively they were very large infants. The good news is that they have excellent intellectual capacity, the result of their new human DNA I’m proud to say, having been one of the donors. They are learning rapidly, but in the meantime Quintessence has made special arrangements to provide full care for them and promises jobs as soon as they are capable. The first started work in the mail room just two years after being returned to a fully human form and the last was back to work four years later. They still have some surprising blanks in their knowledge but seem to be getting better every day.

Repeated government attempts to smash the drug cartel have failed ignominiously, especially last year’s massive joint U.S. Colombian effort. Its failure, and the censure attempt by the United Nations that followed, are probably a major factor in why Senator Goldman’s chances for a successful run for the Presidency are so good. John/Joanie has never been found and the only reason for anyone knowing of the existence of John Smith is the casino video cameras. Joanie, assuming she is still alive, is presumed to be being held somewhere in Colombia.

The good news is that cocaine production is down a bit, but that’s only because “Q”–the name is meant to be an embarrassment for Quintessence Corporation–is so much cheaper to produce and distribute. We could undercut the drug lords and remove “Q” as a problem to society but so far my appeals to Captain Schultz to make access to the safe virus produced by Quintessence more inexpensive and commonly accessible have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, we’ve added another sexually transmitted disease for the public to worry about. His concern, of course, is that it won’t take much longer for another country or drug company to replicate Dr. Harriman’s research and undercut the company, which is why the Quintessence is rapidly diversifying into fields such as securities, insurance, medical technology, research into DNA code analysis, and memory analysis. For example, we recently announced the development of a prototype of a mini microchip powered by the heat of the body that could be used to identify a person regardless of their body form. With Captain Schultz’s government connections, I expect it to be the standard in personal identification in a short while. Most of the various government agencies involved with security, personal identification or fiduciary matters are already lobbying for the Food and Drug Administration to place its review on a fast track.

Kevin is still with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’s had several promotions since then as has Deborah, who switched to the F.B.I. shortly after the conclusion of the trial of Ms. Maldonado for the murder of Dr. Sternlicht. In fact, Deborah is now Kevin’s boss, which has not stopped him from trying to get her to sleep with him. For the record, and because the tabloids have made so many spurious allegations, they both state that they have not have sex with each other.

In summary, I think that Charles Dickens said it best with his opening to A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Despite all that’s happened life goes on. Wars keep cropping up in various places and people keep dying and being born. Regardless of all the hype and hoopla resulting from this discovery, I wonder if any of us will be more than a footnote in history books in another millennium, and despite the stated intent of some people, I have no interest in living long enough to find out.

Much of the material in this popularized narrative was culled from my doctoral dissertation. Eunice L. and I have been living together ever since the accident. The tabloids have been constantly trying to find out more about our private lives, probably even more so since we have worked so hard to preserve our privacy. They call us a paradox and, with their usual banal attempts to play on words, will probably now call us a pair a docs. I guess that since I chose to return to my old body they can’t understand how two famous people of the same sex can live happily together. As far as they are concerned, that’s the real paradox. They still haven’t realized–despite this brave new world–that it’s what people say and do that counts; not the shells we wear. Besides, now we can share each other’s clothes. Lately Eunice L. is talking about having a child and I’m tempted to join her.

Eunice Branca Harriman, Ph.D.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina