The Ascendant Page 15

  After more than half a century in existence, it was only within the last few years that the guardians of the corporation were finally seeing the first fruits of its labors. In fact, some of the original founders of the company hadn’t even lived long enough to see this wonderful payoff.

  Legacy Life Ladder Incorporated was a cumbersome name, albeit describing the purpose of the company perfectly. But, it took far too long to say. So, for those in the know, it was simply referred to as Triple-L.

  Triple-L was a sperm bank.

  The practise of donating sperm for human conception dated as far back as the eighteenth century. But, it took until the early twentieth century for efforts to begin on freezing and storing sperm.

  Then, science took it all to a new level in the 1950s when research led to cryobiology innovations, resulting in the launch of the world’s first sperm bank after a successful birth from cryopreserved sperm.

  It’s not easy for men to make money from sperm donations. Most banks require that the man be between eighteen and forty years of age, must be willing to commit to at least six months of jerking off in a controlled environment, provide two or three generations of medical history, and have no chronic health problems. Some banks require that the man have a college degree, and be at least of a certain height.

  If a man qualifies on those basic counts, he then has to provide several sperm samples for testing. If the sperm count is high, the candidate is then tested for sexually transmitted or genetic diseases, and even has to undergo an interview and medical examination. Serious business.

  Usually the screening takes about three months, and less than five percent of applicants are accepted by the typical sperm bank. Successful candidates sign a contract and consent to ongoing health checks. Pay rates range from $100 upwards per donation. Lucrative, particularly for students.

  But, it’s not as secret a process as some are led to believe. Donor profiles are made available to potential recipients, including family history, recordings of the donor’s voice, as well as childhood and adult photos.

  Semen samples are treated with a solution that protects them from damage during freezing and thawing. Then they’re placed in vials, sealed up, and slowly put through a freezing process in liquid nitrogen vapor. The frozen samples are maintained at a mind-numbing temperature of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit.

  The only real difference between fresh and frozen sperm is the time of survival. Frozen sperm only lasts for about twenty-four hours in a woman’s uterus, whereas fresh sperm can survive for up to five days.

  Most people would be surprised to know that frozen sperm has no expiration date, providing that the storage environment is stable and uninterrupted. Reports from the recognized sperm banks have recorded normal conceptions and births from sperm frozen for almost thirty years.

  Triple-L, which enjoys the luxury of not having to report to any regulatory body whatsoever, has recorded births from sperm frozen for over sixty years.

  Meagan Whitfield pushed the button for the elevator that would take her to the tenth floor of 400 West Street. When she exited on that floor, there would be no signs, or logos, or even the name of the company displayed on the directory board. Nothing to welcome her except a heavy wooden door blocking entrance or visibility to anyone not having a magnetic security card.

  She left the elevator and inserted her card in the reader. The door clicked and Meagan entered the antiseptic hallway that led to a row of offices. She knew which office she wanted—the corner one at the end of the hall. She walked along, waving to several people along the way. They all knew her. She was one of the owners of Triple-L.

  She knocked on the corner office door and entered without waiting for a welcome.

  Dr. Derek Schmidt was the managing director. A geneticist with German roots, he was now seventy years old. Meagan knew that in a few years he’d have to be replaced, but for now he was still as sharp as ever. And committed. Meagan liked commitment.

  They shook hands, and Meagan sat down in the guest chair across from Derek’s desk.

  “How are you, Derek?”

  “Doing just fine.” He chuckled. “Business is as good as ever.”

  “Yes, and we have a lot of work still to do. You must be excited, though, seeing our first creations finally making their marks in the world.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “It is exciting to watch. Sometimes I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. The pride of knowing that all of our work decades ago, and all of our nurturing along the way, is showing itself now in leadership positions. And, Christ, now we even have a presidential candidate!”

  Meagan smiled. “Yes, I share your excitement. As you know, I’m on the campaign team for Senator Berwick, and, while he’s a bit of a handful at times, we do a good job of keeping him in line. Hopefully, though, he won’t be our only hope. We have to have…fallback plans.”

  Derek laughed. “No surprise that you’d have contingency plans. And, knowing you, Meagan, I’m sure you’re up to the task.”

  “I am. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you’d thought any more about our conversation a couple of weeks ago—about expanding and modernizing our donor supply.”

  Derek clasped his hands together, and his voice suddenly took on a more serious tone.

  “I have, and for now I would recommend we just stay the course. The human stock in the last couple of decades has shown significant decline and dilution. Our stock right now consists of about 200,000 samples, taken from only fifty elite donors. The sperm ranges in age from thirty to sixty years old, and it far exceeds the quality of any samples we could take today from younger populations. I’m not telling you anything new here, by emphasizing that the younger populations don’t hold a candle to their ancestors. The human species has declined dramatically, not only in health, but in gray cells.”

  Meagan grimaced. “I suspected you’d say that. It was just an idea, but I respect your opinion. As long as we have sufficient supplies to last us a few more years, then we probably shouldn’t try to fix what ain’t broke.”

  “I’m glad you agree. Those fifty donors come from Danish, Austrian and German pure stock. It’s very hard to find pure stock anymore, so we’re lucky to have the best of the best here.”

  Meagan stood, signalling that their meeting was over.

  “Alright then, Doctor. We’re done for today. We have a board meeting next week. Are you prepared?”

  Derek stood as well, and held out his hand. “As always. And, I’ll fill the board in on what you and I have discussed today.”

  Meagan shook his hand. “Good. We’ll just have to warn the board that we’ll continue to have leaders with blonde hair and blue eyes for the foreseeable future.”

  Derek laughed and ran his fingers through his blondish hair. “And, what’s wrong with that?”

  19

  He raised his right hand to his forehead in salute. Which was the way he always ended his meetings—well, at least those meetings that went well.

  Those who knew Lloyd Franken, also knew that was his signal that a conference was over. He saluted them as his little way of saying thanks and also just a polite way of telling them to get the hell out of his office.

  “Okay, folks, see you all tomorrow—we’ll meet at 9:00 a.m. sharp. And, Todd, remember that I need those projections desperately.”

  Todd Blake smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry, boss, I’ll have them. But, if they’re not ready, I’ll treat to the donuts and coffee.”

  Lloyd laughed and patted him on the back. “Correction. If they’re not ready, you’ll have lots of free unpaid time for donuts and coffee.”

  Todd smirked. “Luckily, I know you’re really just a teddy bear under that Roman emperor exterior.”

  Lloyd closed the door behind them, then poured himself a glass of water. Sitting down at his desk, he removed his shoes, swiveled his chair around, and rested his feet
up on the windowsill.

  His office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center faced west. Which was nice, because he could look clear across the five-mile expanse to where his home was in the quaint town of El Lago, one of the Houston area’s most exclusive communities. His days were long, but the reward for him was being able to relax in the evenings on the dock at his waterfront home on Taylor Lake. “Dock” was an understatement, of course. The dock itself was just the floating extension of a full-fledged boathouse just fifty feet away from his mansion.

  Lloyd’s wife, Cassidy, was a bit overwhelmed with the home—said it was too big for them and too much work to keep up with. But Lloyd had finally convinced her to hire a gardener and a housekeeper. She felt sheepish about such extravagance, but agreed that as long as they were going to be living in the lap of luxury, she needed some help.

  Lloyd had to agree to something too, though. She wanted children and he’d resisted that for years. Yes, it would be nice, and they certainly could afford to give them a good life.

  The expense of having kids had never been the reason for his inertia. No, instead it was the uncertainty of it. Because he just didn’t know his own background, and he’d never told Cassidy that he’d been the product of artificial insemination. She asked him if he’d been adopted, because she knew neither of his parents had the Nordic looks that he possessed. He just explained it away as some kind of recessive gene.

  When he was a young man, he’d confronted his parents on his wish to know the ancestors on his biological father’s side, and who the sperm donor was. They told him the name of the sperm bank—Legacy Life Ladder Inc.—but also told him that it wasn’t a normal sperm bank. While most of those types of establishments would give details if the donors allowed it, at this particular bank there was a strict policy of no background information except for the donor’s country of origin.

  Lloyd’s donor was from Denmark.

  He’d contacted the Legacy sperm bank himself, and they simply confirmed what his parents had already told him. No information whatsoever would be provided.

  It felt strange to Lloyd not to know his own history, and he felt guilty not being able to assure Cassidy that his background had no surprises. So far, she hadn’t pushed on it, but he had no idea how she’d react if she knew he was the product of a sperm gift. All she knew about him was that he had movie star looks and the IQ of a genius. Maybe those two things would keep her curiosity at bay?

  Lloyd figured that his donor father, though, would no doubt be proud of his unknown offspring. He glanced up at his framed degrees mounted on the wall. Two PhDs—one in astrophysics and the other in aeronautical engineering. And he was recognized at NASA as the chief astronomer, which carried with it the added responsibility of overseeing the most disturbing project of all—searching for, documenting, and preparing defensive plans, for near-earth objects.

  That responsibility had also thrust him into the role of director of the Orion project, a massive undertaking that would propel NASA into a new age of human space travel. Orion would take humans farther into space than any of the previous Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury programs, and would certainly be more impressive than the now defunct space shuttle program. It would be the safest and most advanced spacecraft ever built and had its eyes on Mars. Of particular interest to Lloyd, it included a plan to land on one deep space asteroid that posed a future danger to Earth.

  Orion’s first test orbit was successfully launched back in 2014. In fact, it was two full orbits, not just one, and the mission took only four hours. It was a complete and total success, and the future looked promising. He knew Orion would keep him busy for decades to come.

  Which reminded him of his last meeting of the day. He looked at his watch—his guest should be arriving any minute now. They were heading out to dinner at a country manor restaurant called The Greenhouse. It was a bit out of the way, but his guest mentioned that he’d heard good things about it and, well, dinner was the man’s treat so Lloyd wasn’t going to complain. Even though he’d prefer instead a local restaurant so he could get home early to his dock on the lake.

  His meeting was with an executive from Virgin Galactic. A senior vice president by the name of James Whitehead, apparently based out of Virgin’s Long Beach, California, research facility. Back in 2011, NASA had signed a cooperation contract with Virgin for joint research projects, but nothing of any value had resulted so far. In fact, as far as Lloyd was concerned the relationship had just been one big yawn. Virgin had suffered several launch disasters, and investors were clamoring for results. Their dreams of being able to provide space tourism and satellite launches was rapidly fizzling.

  But Lloyd was confident that Richard Branson would eventually get his act together. The delays were reportedly due to his legendary concern for perfection and safety, and Lloyd couldn’t fault him for that. He’d met the man once, and who couldn’t be impressed by Sir Richard?

  This James Whitehead guy had requested the dinner meeting a couple of days ago. Said it would be the impetus for a proposed increase in their contract work with NASA. Wanted to engage NASA’s help with their new Launcher One orbiter, and some innovative ideas for their Newton 4 rocket engine—something to do with their attempts at creating a new plastic fuel.

  Lloyd had no problems working with other space entities—Elon Musk’s SpaceX was another organization NASA had close ties with, and as far as he was concerned the more cooperation the better. And the extra side income to NASA was always appreciated, considering budget constraints.

  So, he’d have dinner with James Whitehead and see where it might lead. As long as he was home in time for martinis on the dock with Cassidy, he’d be a happy man. Tonight was one of the nights she told him she’d be in her prime fertile zone. Baby-making was in her plans, and there’d be hell to pay if Lloyd was too late. Maybe they could get a bit wild and crazy and conceive the child on the dock?

  Lloyd turned his mind reluctantly to the strange call he’d received the other day from his old school-mate, Sandy Beech. He hadn’t talked to Sandy in years, and then, out of the blue, there he was on the phone.

  He didn’t know what to make of the call. It was nice to hear from Sandy, but it was disturbing as hell.

  First of all, he’d had no idea that Sandy knew about that ancient incident with the fourteen-year-old girl. Lloyd had blocked that girl’s death—and his role in it—out of his mind over the last couple of decades. He didn’t like having to revisit it again. His mind had been trained to block out unpleasantness.

  Sandy told him about the deaths of John Nichols and Hank Price, and the attempt on the life of Bill Tomkins. Said he was phoning him out of the utmost concern. Told him about a tape that John had left for him and that he suspected the deaths were a result of John attempting to blackmail Lincoln Berwick—the esteemed Senator Lincoln Berwick—and probably soon to be President Lincoln Berwick.

  Lloyd was taken aback. While he’d trained his mind to block it out of his consciousness, deep in the recesses he’d always wondered if that skeleton from the past would come back to haunt them.

  But it was so long ago.

  And Sandy’s warning sounded so much like a conspiracy theory. Would Lincoln really resort to murder to bury this scandal? While John might indeed have been blackmailing Linc, Lloyd hadn’t talked to him since graduation from West Point. Lloyd wasn’t a threat to him and wouldn’t even consider resurrecting that horrible incident. He just wanted it forgotten, buried, erased.

  But his powerful brain cautioned himself. Two who were involved in that girl’s rape and death were now deceased within mere weeks of each other. And a third was almost killed in his own office. Sure, with the two who died, one was an apparent suicide and the other was a car accident. So, could have just been coincidence. But the fact that Bill Tomkins was attacked around the same time led Lloyd to wonder. What if what Sandy was saying was true? If so, Linc was tying up loose ends fast. It
was like a movie script.

  Lloyd was shaken out of his pondering by the ring of his phone.

  “Franken, here,” he said, then recognized their receptionist’s voice with the news that his appointment was here. “Sure, Mary, tell James I’ll meet him in the lobby.”

  Lloyd forced the unpleasant thoughts out of his head, and positioned his brain back into business mode. Time for dinner, and hopefully some new revenue for NASA.

  He took the elevator down to the lobby and walked over to greet the only one waiting at this late hour of the afternoon. James Whitehead looked the part of an executive. Well-dressed and poised like he was ready to take on the world. Well, maybe at least outer space.

  They shook hands and headed out to the parking lot.

  Lloyd led James to his Lincoln Navigator, and he drove out onto the country road which would lead to The Greenhouse—about a thirty-minute drive north.

  They made small talk about Virgin’s ambitious plans and James seemed to be well-informed on all aspects of their successes and failures so far. As a senior executive, he gave the impression he’d been empowered to make deals. Confidence practically oozed from his pores.

  “So, you’re looking to increase your activity with NASA, James?”

  “Absolutely. We need some help on our new engines and fuel source, and we think you guys might have the answers for us. Of course, we’ll share any discoveries together for equal benefit.”

  Lloyd nodded. “I think we can talk. While I’m not a particular fan of the new plastic fuel concept, it might have some merits if we can test it properly under controlled conditions.”

  James pointed to an intersection up ahead.

  “Turn left at that junction, Lloyd.”

  “No, that won’t take us anywhere, James. I know the way. The restaurant is straight along this road—another ten miles or so.”

  James voice suddenly turned cold. “Turn left, Lloyd.”