Page 213 of Johnny

I can’t even think about all the atrocities that have been committed in the name of my discovery. All

the people I’ve hurt with that one willful act of rebellion.

My father warned me, though. Didn’t he? He told me that one day, if I didn’t do what I was told,

I’d be marched off a ship, and onto an island, and my name would be recorded into a database.

And here I am. Walking off a yacht, onto an island, right into the waiting hands of the Way.

After I saved the life of that rat in that trial my father started letting me do more in the lab. And

gradually, over the course of a few years, as we discovered that the treatment for the rats was

working, he told me what the Way really was.

You can call it a cult if you want. A secret society. A militia. They all fit.

But his words were, “A diabolical, evil global organization that wants to rule the world.”

And I believed him.

He was very careful as he let me in on more and more secrets. More and more responsibility.

Probably thought I might turn him in if he didn’t wake me up slowly.

But eventually, the day came when he told me his plan to kill the Way. Cut of its head with a

special drug he had convinced the Leadership they needed.

By this time the rat had lived almost seven years. I was nearly twenty-one and showed no signs of

leaving him. I loved him. I still love him. And I wanted to work with him on his project.

The project was this:

The Way leadership was being given a special drug. They were told that it was preparation for the

anti-aging drug based off my rats.

But that’s not what it was.

It was a pretty horrible man-made disease that rewrites the RNA genome so that certain proteins

are expressed and turned on. The consequences are not dramatic at first. It takes several months to kill

someone with this disease. But you can give them a cure of sorts. Every month or so is all it takes. If

they get this special injection once a month then the protein doesn’t work and they never get sick.

That’s what my father has been giving them every month for the past several years. Not some

preparation for anti-aging treatment.

If they go longer than eight weeks without this special injection the effects are irreversible and they

die a slow, very painful, very horrific death.

The special injection isn’t really a cure. It’s a temporary fix and nothing more. Once you change a