Ch.20: Project Chronos

I sat cross-legged on the floor of the study, the black binder heavy in my lap. Mrs. Higgins was still tearing at the safe, muttering curses, but her noise faded into the background.

The science in these pages was dense, encrypted in jargon designed to bore the layman and excite the psychopath. But I was a nurse. I knew how to read between the lines of clinical detachment.

*Project Chronos. Objective: Telomere Regeneration via Pediatric Biosynthesis.*

I flipped past the financial records, past the list of donors, and stopped at the section labeled *Technical Analysis*.

It was a graph. A simple, terrifying line graph showing cellular decay over time. The control line plummeted toward zero—death. The experimental line... it didn't just flatten. It went *up*.

"My god," I whispered.

"What is it?" Higgins snapped, pausing her demolition. "Is it a bank account number?"

"No," I said, my finger tracing the upward curve. "It's the Fountain of Youth."

I read the abstract aloud, translating the medicalese as I went.

"'The subject's blood contains a unique enzyme sequence, designated CH-44. When introduced to adult tissues, CH-44 initiates a rapid reversal of telomere shortening.'"

I looked up at Higgins.

"Telomeres are the caps on your DNA strands. They get shorter as you age. When they're gone, your cells stop dividing, and you die. That's aging. That's mortality."

I tapped the page.

"Thorne isn't treating a disease. He's not curing cancer or leukemia. He's curing *time*."

Higgins stared at me, her greed momentarily replaced by confusion. "So... what? It's beauty cream?"

"No. It's immortality. Or as close as science can get."

I turned the page to the *Client Protocols*.

*Treatment Plan A: Systemic Rejuvenation. Cost: $10 Million per cycle.*
*Treatment Plan B: Targeted Organ Repair. Cost: $5 Million per organ.*

"Isabella isn't sick," I realized, the pieces finally clicking together. "She's the proof of concept. She's Patient Zero. She's almost fifty years old, but she looks thirty because she's been drinking the life out of these children."

The nausea hit me again, stronger this time. Daisy wasn't just a battery. She was a commodity. A luxury product for the ultra-rich who were terrified of wrinkles and death.

I flipped to the back of the binder. There was a section titled *Supply Chain Management*.

It was a list of "Donor Candidates." Leo's name was there. My name was there. And below us, a list of projected "Harvest Dates."

*Subject D-01 (Daisy). Estimated Viability: 18 months.*

Eighteen months. That's how long they expected her to last before the extraction process destroyed her bone marrow completely.

"She has an expiration date," I said, my voice trembling with rage. "He knows exactly when he's going to kill her."

I slammed the binder shut.

"We have to take this," I said, standing up. "We have to take all of it. The police won't just arrest him for malpractice. They'll arrest him for crimes against humanity."

Higgins looked at the empty safe, then at the binder in my hand.

"That book doesn't spend, honey," she sneered. "I can't retire on moral outrage."

"You can blackmail a Senator with this," I countered, holding up the financial ledger. "Look at these names. If this gets out, their careers are over. They'll pay you whatever you want just to burn it."

Higgins hesitated. She looked at the ledger. She saw the zeros.

"Fine," she grunted. "Grab the books. We leave now."

She reached for the financial binder.

I reached for the medical logs.

But before my fingers could touch the black leather, a sound cut through the silence.

*Beep.*

The retinal scanner on the safe. It had reset.

And then, the sound of the heavy oak door to the study unlocking.

We weren't alone.

"Did you lock the door?" I hissed.

"I thought you did!" Higgins whispered back.

The handle turned.

I shoved the binders back into the safe and pushed the painting closed just as the door swung open.

It wasn't Thorne. It wasn't Security.

It was Isabella.

She stood in the doorway, wrapped in a silk robe, looking like a ghost in the moonlight. Her eyes weren't on us. They were on the painting.

"He keeps the best secrets behind the storm," she said, her voice drifting across the room like smoke.

She walked in, ignoring Higgins cowering in the corner. She walked straight to me.

"Did you find it?" she asked.

"Find what?" I stammered.

"The truth," she said. "The reason I'm still alive when I should have been dust years ago."

She reached out and touched the frame of the painting.

"They aren't curing a disease," she whispered, a tear sliding down her perfect, ageless cheek. "They are trying to cure aging."