"The trick would be to have just enough enzyme in your bloodstream to replace senescent cells as they are about to the, but not so much that healthy cells are replaced." He paused searching for a metaphor. "If we thought of the process of cell senescence as something inexorable and steady, like a treadmill, then what we want to do is run just fast enough to stay in one place." "This whole thing does sound like Alice in Wonderland." "Yes, well . . . if we could do that, then it's possible, just possible, that one's entire body would simply begin regenerating itself instead of aging. Not just your skin. All of you. That's the theory behind what we've called the Beta procedure." "But is that something you ethically ought to be doing?" she said, feeling a sense of dismay, of playing God. "Isn't that going too far?" "Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with you, but there are others who ask, how far is too far? Half the medicines we now have are intended to trick the body's responses somehow--or to meddle in some other way, turning off stop-and- go signals at the cellular level. For example, some birth control pills make your body think you're already pregnant. They trick our natural mechanisms. That kind of thing is commonplace in medicine today. But our research is poised for the next level, to answer the question of how long we can actually live. So here's the argument. There's no reason the human life span has to be what it is. In some unhealthy nations the average citizen doesn't even reach sixty. Whereas in others, like the United States and Japan, the mean is already well past three score and ten. So what is right? What is reasonable? A hundred? Two hundred? It's entirely possible to believe we could live productive lives at least twice as long as we do now." "And you think we should do this? The world would be thrown into chaos." "But look at the incredible cure rate we've already effected here using the telomerase enzyme. When our clinical trials for the NIH are announced, it will be the medical equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Nothing we know will ever be the same again." "That's where you should leave it. To go further is obscene." "I fear recent events may have proved you right. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and experimented with the Beta procedure. And the results thus far have turned out to be disastrous." "I guess you're referring to Kristen." "One day I casually mentioned the Beta to Winston Bartlett and without telling me, he brought it up with Kristen. She insisted on trying it." His expression grew increasingly pained. "I want you to know I was against it. I warned her that it was highly experimental, that I could not guarantee what the side effects might be, but she begged me to do it anyway. Then Bartlett essentially ordered me to do it." "So what happened?"