lungs, and bones are in peak condition.â
âMy God.â She closed her eyes again. âI was about to . . . I donât know what . . .â
âI understand. This is all very overwhelming.â He paused. âBut once things settle down, I hope youâll realize how valuable a contribution you could help make. Youâre nearly unprecedented, Zoe.â
She withdrew her hand from his and wiped her tear-stained face. âNearly?â
âThereâs only one other case in the literature that comes close. A girl, Victoria Janzen, born in 1980 in Australia, whose growth stopped completely at around nine months old. She lived eighteen years as a baby, and no one could figure out why. Just like you, the only things that grew were her hair and nails. They called it Syndrome X. Unfortunately she passed away after a sudden seizure in 1998, about two years before the first human genome was sequenced. They didnât have the antiepileptic medication then that youâre taking today. But many of my colleagues today believe she was the one and only recorded case of a disruption of the master regulator gene.â
Zoe exhaled a deep breath she didnât know she was holding. Dr. Carlyle watched her, allowing her to absorb the full weight of his words.
âWhy did Victoria stop aging as a baby, and I stopped at fourteen?â
He shrugged. âItâs a good question. I would guess that the idiopathic metabolic disorder that prevented you from reaching puberty somehow partially turned off your master gene.â
âOnly partially?â
âYour cognitive growth has not been severely affected, so whatever mutation you have, itâs pretty much just compromised the physiological part of the geneâs expression. In other words, your mental age has been able to advance somewhat beyond your physical age.â
âBut not Victoriaâs?â
âRight. Iâm guessing she had a mutation that turned off the entire gene. But I canât say for sure.â
A more pressing concern was already spilling out of her lips. âIf they had the medicine, could Victoria have lived forever?â
âForever is a very long time,â he said, rubbing his chin. âWhat we do know is that thereâs no known upper limit of human longevity. Every generation pushes the boundary. Thereâs nothing in nature that says we have to age.â
She balked. âSo youâre saying I might live to be a thousand?â
âI wouldnât necessarily go that far. Even if youâre not susceptible to aging, thereâs still a million other ways to dieâsicknesses, injuries, et cetera. Itâs not as if youâre immortal. And anyway, we donât know what effect this condition will have on your organs long-termââZoe opened her mouth to interrupt, but he beat her to itââthough how long is long-term, I really canât say.â
âHow could I be only fourteen ?â She squeezed her throbbing temples with the heels of her hands. âI have a driverâs license, a high school diploma. I just babysat a girl that age last week!â
Dr. Carlyle tilted his head, eyes widening. âWhat was that like?â
The girl, Bethany, was the daughter of her parentsâ friends, and Zoe had been doing them a favor by staying the evening while they went out. But it had felt less like a chore than a get-togetherâwatching Harry Potter on Blu-ray, baking brownies, and paging through a titillating copy of Seventeen magazine. Zoe had felt so comfortable that night, never once feeling self-conscious about her lack of alcoholic tolerance, political interests, or a boyfriendâthe triple threat of grief in collegeâbut thought little of it afterward.
âIt was fun,â she admitted. âBut . . . still . . . this is crazy. I canât wrap my head around it.â
âTake your time,â he said gently. âI have a
Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins