Solution-74

Dr. Marla Keen carefully brushed Solution-74 on both sides of the guillotine blade. Her hands shook, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the arthritis, or the tequila, or the fact she was still in her lab at two in the morning. Or, because of what she was about to do.

Not only was her latest grant still up in the air, no doubt thanks to that asshole Dr. Becker in the next lab over throwing his hat into the ring, but the university cut her funding today too. Small mercy she didn’t have any grad students left to disappoint, though as it stood, if that money didn’t come through she was done. Thirty years of research about to be pissed away – thirty years of her life – all because of small-minded bureaucracy.

“Not if I can help it,” she muttered. Then she sniffed, and wiped away the tears she didn’t realize had started.

After another shot of tequila she beheld her work. Solution-74 – the seventy-fourth iteration of her life’s labour – coated the blade, a thick goop like pale honey. It wasn’t actually a guillotine, of course – that’s just what she called it. She had built the machine years ago for (another) project that hadn’t gone anywhere, where she needed to do a lot of chopping, and building it had turned out cheaper and more fulfilling than just buying something off the shelf. So now she had a heavy industrial blade suspended from a two-foot metal gantry, powered by a pneumatic system of her own design. Very useful for shredding, in a pinch.

All she needed now was some results. Results would lead to funding.

She took a deep breath and placed her right index finger on the trigger button. She’d sacrificed too much – ever having kids, anything resembling a stable relationship, the last of her friends – for never to be an option, so that left only now.

Though despite her never-ending list of nevers, she did have a few almosts. She lost touch with her sister, but she did still frequently chat with Kevin and Jane, her nephew and niece. She long ago gave up any pretenses of being the cool aunt, but they seemed more than happy to have a brilliant nerdy scientist aunt, and that suited her just fine. Though, now that they were fully grown adults, she was also the wise mentor who could guide them through the world of academia and provide references.

Not that her recommendation carried much weight.

Still, it was nice to be needed, and she loved her niblings. They were almost like her own kids.

Almost.

But she was sick of almosts, and it was time for results.

She thrust her left arm under the blade and let loose the guillotine. Her scream was cut short by a wet cracking.

Marla woke up with a start. The first thought after her eyes snapped open was the realization she must have blacked out. The second was remembering the context.

The work table was smeared with dry brown blood. There was a wrist and half a forearm laying by the guillotine blade. The skin was pallid, the fingers neutral. Around the wrist, her watch. Internally, she noted a feeling of nausea, her heart hammering in her ears, and a sudden flash of cold all over her skin – shock, she suspected. When her vision blurred she focused on her breathing. And then it occurred to her: one thing she was not feeling was pain. Nor, evidently, had she bled out. Steeling herself, she turned her attention to her arm – to her stump.

It took all her concentration to turn the thing – the absence of thing – to her face. Noting her arm weighed less than she was used to helped. But definitely no pain, just an intense itching. Her skin around the injury was smeared with blood, but the site itself was covered in a bubbly yellow froth – Solution-74 in action. And then she felt a tug, like someone was massaging her flexor pollicis longus from the inside. And then–

Marla gasped.

She saw new flesh forming. She felt her bones extend.

“It’s working!”

Right before her eyes, her arm was regrowing.

She stumbled immediately across the lab to her workstation, and started recording the process.

Funding was hard to get for a number of reasons. As much as she wanted to blame Dr. Becker – Anthony – there was more to it than that. Perhaps it just hurt all the more, that once upon a time they could have been. Fresh out of grad school, they had been two brilliant young rising stars. They met at the Newark conference and hit it off right away, and worse, had the same corny sense of humour. And, the same goals.

Almost.

“I know it’s not fair,” he said. “But we both want kids…”

“I can’t put my research on hold right now. Not when it’s just starting!”

In the end, later became never, their relationship died, and her research stagnated. Until now.

It had taken a mind-blowing twenty-three minutes for her stump to regrow her hand. She could barely believe it – could barely believe having lopped off her arm in the first place – but her new fingers, wriggling right before her eyes, were undeniably real.

More, she had perfect control of them. The fuzzy itching faded away and she felt all the expected sensations as she tested her skin, her grip, her reflexes. Even more, if anything the sensations felt clearer, like she’d been wearing earplugs for years and finally removed the left one.

And most curiously – most unexpectedly – was her joints no longer hurting. Gone was the arthritis. Her left hand wasn’t just new, it was also improved. This gave her a chuckle initially, but when she looked closer she found more things to note. There was a clear line where her old skin ended and her new skin began, and her new skin was smooth and firm, where the old was wrinkled. Then, despite the left hand being “newborn”, it was stronger and more confident than her right.

“Holy crap,” she said.

Her hand hadn’t just grown back. It had grown back younger. She had just blown right through funding and deep into Nobel territory.

And most importantly, vindication.

That was especially important, as they’d probably call her mad. “Marla’s the arm lady,” they’d say. “Chopped her own arm off. Totally nuts!” Of course, she’d just invented a future where lost limbs – and failing organs, and permanent scars, and chronic pain, and maybe even aging – were no longer issues. Her work trivialized all kinds of human catastrophes.

Now she was vindicated. Now, her humanitarian efforts were unassailable. Now, the damn questions of ethics would stop.

Because outside of bureaucracy, and the Anthonies of the world, it was ethics that kept getting in the way. No, not like that. She believed ethical research was good, in principle. In practice, it left a lot to be desired, like when she found willing, well-informed volunteers for her work and she still didn’t get the green light. They kept throwing the L-word in her face.

Liability.

So maybe it wasn’t ethics after all. Maybe it was the small-minded bean counters and their lawyers, people who expressed every problem as a dollar sum.

Well, none of that mattered any more. In the end she had self-funded her research, and all it cost her was an arm. She chuckled at her own joke, and jotted it down. It was a perfect ice-breaker for when The Crazy Arm Lady presented her findings to her peers.

Then she heard a couple of very soft footsteps behind her, and with alarm she realized it was already seven in the morning. She wasn’t expecting anyone, but if cleaners or maintenance or IT or whatever stumbled upon her personal bloodbath, she’d have a hell of a time explaining it to admin. She spun around on her stool, launched to her feet, and froze with a gasp.

Before her stood Marla Keen.

Naked as the day she was born, hair in full rebellion, and covered in places with the odd smear of blood or the crusty mucus residue of post-activation Solution-74, but unmistakably, Marla was looking at herself.

Only, the other Marla stood taller. Her stomach was flat, her skin was smooth, her breasts didn’t sag, and there was definition in her biceps and thighs and calves. She was reminded of her love affair with racquetball, two decades prior, back before her knees ached, back before doors started closing on her.

“I was right,” Marla whispered. It was like looking into a mirror to the past. “It’s the fountain of youth!”

The only blemish on the other Marla was her left hand: trembling slightly, covered in mottled skin, the fingers crooked and cramping.

“Almost,” said Young Marla.

Marla’s eyes widened even further. This wasn’t just a revitalized body, was it? This was a clone of her! Dared she imagine what she could accomplish if there were two of her? And what were the implications? This meant that Solution-74 could work on even a tiny scrap of body – what were its limits?

“I think you’ll find,” Young Marla continued, “that I found the fountain of youth.”

Marla blinked, unsure of what to make of that tone, as her imagination soared through endless possibilities, the future of humanity forever changed for the better. The hopes and dreams that all seemed suddenly so close she could grab them were dizzying.

She was caught completely unaware, when Young Marla knocked her to the ground and strangled her.