The third time he lay down on the operating table, Hideyuki lost half his liver. He subsequently checked out of the hospital, but neither Kaoru nor Machiko could make themselves believe now that the battle with cancer was over. The family watched for enemy movements with bated breath, wondering where the cancer would invade next; the return of a peaceful, happy home life was something hardly to be hoped for.
That cancer won’t rest until every organ in his body has been plucked out, Machiko insisted, and she wouldn’t listen to any of Kaoru’s medical knowledge. If she heard about a new vaccine, she’d scramble to get her hands on it even before it was fully tested. Hearing vitamin therapy was effective she tried that; she pressured the doctors into trying lymphocyte treatment; she even sought salvation in charismatic religion. She was willing to try anything—she couldn’t swear she wouldn’t sell her soul to the devil if it would save her husband’s life. It depressed Kaoru to see his mother running around like a woman possessed. It was beginning to look like his father’s death would also mean the collapse of his mother’s psyche.
After that, Hideyuki spent most of his time in his hospital bed. He was still only forty-nine, but he looked like an old man of seventy. His hair had fallen out as a side-effect of the anti-cancer drugs, he was emaciated, his skin had lost its luster, and he was constantly running his fingers over his whole body and complaining of itchiness. But even so, he never lost his attachment to life. As his wife and son sat by his bedside he’d hold their hands and say, “You listen to me, next year we’re going to that desert in North America.” And he’d force a smile. It wasn’t exactly false cheer—he obviously fully intended to fight this illness so he could keep his promise. The sight was both reassuring and painful.
As long as his father showed such a positive attitude toward life, Kaoru never entertained thoughts of giving up. No matter how bad the cancer got, Kaoru believed his father would conquer his illness in the end.
At around this time, a type of cancer with the same progression as Hideyuki’s began to be identified, first in Japan, then worldwide. At first the true cause of this new strain could not be identified, as if it lay wrapped under a veil. A few medical professionals supported a theory that it was the work of a new virus that turned cells cancerous, but they couldn’t explain how this cancer virus differed from others, and besides, there had been no reports of such a virus being successfully isolated. But the vague suspicion spread.
It can take several years after a new disease has been identified to pinpoint the virus that causes it. The lag was especially understandable in the case of the cancer that had afflicted Hideyuki and millions of others, because at first it looked just like any other cancer: nobody realized they were dealing with a new disease. But gradually the world came to be gripped by fear that a terrible new virus had been unleashed.
Finally, one year ago, the new cancer virus had been successfully isolated in a laboratory at the medical school of Fukuzawa University. With that they had proof: a virus was the cause of this metastatic cancer.
The new virus was named the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus, and it was thought to have the following characteristics.
First, it was an RNA retrovirus that actually caused normal cells to become cancer cells. Thus, anyone infected with the virus ran the risk of developing cancer, regardless of whether or not they had been exposed to carcinogens. However, there was room for individual variation: there were confirmed cases, though only a few, of infected people who were mere carriers, never developing cancer themselves. It took on average three to five years from the time of infection for the cancer to grow large enough to be detected clinically, although the degree of individual variation in this was great.
Second, the cancer was contracted through the direct introduction of virally-infected lymphocytes into the body. That is, it was not spread through the air, but through sexual contact, blood transfusions, breast-feeding, and similar contact. Thus, it was not what would be called highly contagious. But there was no definitive evidence to say that it would not at some point in the future become transmissible through the air. This virus mutated with frightening speed.
Due to the similarity in the manner of its transmission, some scholars speculated that the new virus was the result of some sort of mutation in the AIDS virus. Perhaps the AIDS virus had sensed that it was about to be eliminated by vaccines, and so had colluded with an existing cancer virus, skillfully changing its appearance. And indeed, there was a nasty resemblance between the two viruses, not only in how they spread, but in the way they nested in cells in the human body.
When the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus, carrying reverse-transcription enzymes, merged with human cellular tissue, the RNA and reverse-transcription enzymes were released to synthesize the double helix of DNA.
Then, this synthesized DNA mingled with normal cellular DNA, turning the cell cancerous. Which was bad enough. But it didn’t end there. The cell could now no longer tell the difference between its own DNA and the viral DNA, and so it kept manufacturing the cancer virus and releasing it outside the cell. The released virus made its way into the bloodstream and the lymph stream, where it deviously fought off attacking immune cells while awaiting the chance to move into a new host.
The third characteristic: when the cancer started, almost without exception it metastasized and spread throughout the body with frightful strength. This, of course, was why it was called the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus.
There are benign tumors and malignant ones, and the difference between them lies in the thorny questions of invasiveness and metastasis. A person may develop a tumor and still have no reason to fear, as long as it doesn’t spread through the surrounding area, move into the blood and lymphatic vessels, and metastasize.
But this metastatic cancer spread through rapid reproduction and extreme invasiveness, and was highly resistant to the immune-system attacks it experienced as it circulated through the lymph and blood streams. It was much more likely than normal cancer to survive in the circulatory system.
As a result, anyone who came down with this cancer had to assume a 100% probability that it would metastasize. The question of whether or not one survives cancer can be restated in terms of whether or not one can prevent that cancer from metastasizing. With a 100% chance of metastasis, it was essentially impossible to hope for a complete recovery from MHC.
The fourth characteristic was that the cancer cells created by this virus were immortal—they would live forever if their host didn’t die.
Normal human cells have a limit to the number of times they can divide over the course of their existence—just like humans themselves, they have a certain span of life allotted to them at birth. For example, by the time a person becomes an adult, his or her nerve cells have lost their ability to reproduce themselves, so that they are no longer replenished. It might be said that nerve cells have the same lifespan as humans do.
In this way, the aging and death of cells is intimately connected with the question of human lifespan. But these cancer cells, when removed from a host and sustained in a culture fluid, went on dividing infinitely—they would never die.
There were certain religionists who pointed to this and spoke of it in a prophetic vein, saying, If we could harness the power of these cancer cells and transfer it to normal cells, we would be able to achieve immortality—we’d never grow old.
But of course these were nothing but amateurish delusions. It was paradoxical that cells which had achieved immortality would then kill their human hosts, assuring that they themselves would die. But it was a paradox that, by and large, people managed to accept.
It was the rainy season, early summer of the year before Kaoru was