The Methuselah Gene Read Free Page B

at Cindyboo’s face—at the beautiful, symmetrical face with its high cheekbones behind perfect skin.   That skin deep beauty hid what was actually only a thinly covered skull.   And then I thought about Nikki, too. The unfortunate one night stand who’d stolen a jacket of mine, and. . .
    I snatched up the telephone and dialed.
    Darryl answered.   “Hello?”
    I heard kitchen sounds in the background.   A meal being prepared.   Darryl’s wife Hannah singing happily in some far-off state of unattainable marital bliss.
    â€œIt’s me,” I said.   “Listen, Darryl—can you come over here?   I think I’m in bigger trouble than I thought.”
    I strategically hung up before Darryl could answer, knowing he must have been hungry, having missed lunch due to loss of appetite.   Almost unintentionally, then, I found myself getting a beer, turning on the TV, and finally slumping in my usual lounge chair.   I drank mechanically while watching a horror movie I’d picked at random from one shelf before shoving it into the DVD player.   Ironically, it was Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
    I was on my third beer when the knock at my door finally came.
    â€œYou’re not planning to off yourself right away, are you, man?” Darryl asked with acerbic candor, stepping into the room.   He looked around at my clutter—the scattered papers, and the week’s accumulation of dirty dishes.   Then he gave a slight nod as if his suspicions about bachelorhood were confirmed.   He followed the nod with a wry smile.   “On second thought, maybe you should consider it.”   He pointed at my beer.   “Got one of them for me?   And some chips, maybe?”
    I got Darryl a can of Michelob, and took the last one for myself.   I poured out the remaining jumbo sized Fritos into the one clean bowl I had left.   “There’s a girl I been talking to on the Internet,” I said, almost casually.
    Darryl snickered as I used remote to cut off the TV.   Then he shook his head.   “A girl on the net?   Wake up and smell the French roast, buddy.   I told you, you gotta break outta this jail, find a real woman, and get a life.”
    I studied him, coming to a decision.   “I don’t mean that.   I meant about the longevity gene.   I mean I told her everything.”
    Darryl was suddenly aghast.   “What have you been taking?   PCP?   Your ass is grass, man.”
    â€œI don’t mean the delivery mechanism, or what happened with Jim,” I insisted.   “I didn’t tell her that.   But now my notes on the computer, they’ve been wiped.   Gone, just like at the office.   An electronic virus got me, this time.”
    Darryl rubbed one eye with his free hand, then pinched the bridge of his nose.   “What am I gonna do with you, Alan?” he asked, his voice sounding weary.   “You keep classified information relating to your work on your home computer?   Is that what you do here?   What does Jeffers say about that?”
    â€œI live alone.   And no one needs to know.”
    His face went blank for a moment.   Then he slurped at his beer, and it reanimated him.   “The hell you say.   And did you also know that there are ways to read your hard drive when you’re online?   Ever heard of electronic cookies?   Information is stored all the time on your drive by websites, and by your ISP.   They retrieve that information whenever you log on again.   Hackers can get to you too, if they want to.   They can read what you got, and you wouldn’t even know it.”
    â€œMost of it is encrypted, though.”
    â€œYou mean was.   You haven’t got it anymore, and they do . . . may as well have posted it on WikiLeaks , because if the hacker’s an ace, he’s deciphered your encryption already.