I Know Something You Don't Know(Martha Huett) I was just finishing my third year of medical school when I discovered something so astounding that my life changed dramatically. For good or bad, I still don't know. But for sure, it's made me a lot richer. And a lot more paranoid.

I am writing this account by hand and am hiding it at my grandfather's house. I have asked him to mail it to you if something should happen to me. So, if you're reading this, I have disappeared and gone into hiding myself.

It started with my advisor's recommendation to enroll in a forensic neuropsychology class. I was immediately intrigued with the idea of conducting autopsies on the criminally insane. I had already accepted an internship in Neuroscience and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic and was planning a long and interesting career as a medical examiner for the FBI, Interpol, or some other equally exciting and reknown organization. I figured the class would be a nice fit for my future as an important, well-respected M.E. It affected my future alright, just not in the way I imagined.

The body that was wheeled into our class the first morning was assigned a number, no name. But we all recognized the notorious murderer from news coverage. In fact, most of us got word from a leak out of the teacher's office, and I spent several hours the previous night researching his history of crimes. This was one sorry piece of humanity. A hideous hiccup of life.

It was with that attitude that I opened the body's skull and began microscopic examination of some brain tissue that I had excised from the underside of the hippocampus. What I saw startled me into a gasp and an intense shivering sweat. I had to execute everything I'd learned through my lifelong meditation sessions to calm myself, complete the examination and record the findings.

The thing is; there were two different sets of findings. One, I turned in to the course instructor. The other, the real set of findings, I have kept secret for years. Until now.

After that first autopsy, I signed up to examine the brains of every criminal I could sink my scapel into. Scientic findings need to be corroborated or they're not valid at all, and every single examination I made of the underside of the hippocampus in the violent criminals' brains was conclusively identical. There was no trace of the paradise node.

The paradise node, like the appendix, has no known function but exists, well, is supposed to exist in all human beings. Mostly, it is ignored by medical doctors and forensic pathologists. But when I made the discovery of the node's absence in the brains of criminals, I knew I had comparative research ahead of me and kept my findings private for fear of professional ridicule. Imagine saying: Hey everybody! Violent criminals are the way they are because they're missing a part of their brain as non-functioning and useless as an appendix is to their body.

Right. I'd be laughed out of the medical profession. So I kept quiet and completed my internship at the Mayo Clinic, all the while conducting neuropsychological autopsies on the most innocent victims I could find. Children. Sadly, the neighboring police departments were always shorthanded and were happy to accept my help. What I secretly concluded after my years-long internship was two-fold: primarily, that children have a large, healthy-looking paradise node in their brain which can diminish in size and neural activity at the onset of adulthood and secondly, that all human brains have varying amounts of a trigger protein to activate it. Like many scientific studies, though, for every question that is answered, even more questions arise. In my case, I had already surmised answers to the two biggest and final questions of my studies. What is the function of the paradise node? How can the trigger protein stimulate its functionality?

Of course, I needed absolute proof to demonstrate the verity of my conclusions and knew that human experimentation was now called for. I nominated myself as the first and sole subject. And if you could see me now after all these years (I believe it's been close to thirty years since we were in pre-med classes together, right?), you would wholeheartedly agree that my experiment has been an indisputable success.

I have discovered the secret to eternal youth. And I have my own nubile self and an island full of young adults to prove it.

You might recall news reports that started coming in over 25 years ago about missing CEO's and wealthy entrepreneurs. About aging celebrities and old, frail sports stars who suddenly disappeared from sight. They all are living it large here on the island, and each and every one has honored their non-disclosure agreement to keep my experiment hush hush. I guess receiving the required yearly doses of my secret to look, live and feel like a twenty-something adult is worth the effort to stay quiet. Even after the millions of dollars each of them paid me to be a subject in my experiment.

The experiment has concluded successfully for most participants and the youth treatments are sustainable and ongoing. We are all quite happy and healthy. However, the paranoia I mentioned earlier is real.

The government never gave up looking for a group of elderly statesmen who vanished from an Armed Services Committee meeting twenty years ago. Of course, the rich politicians ended up here on the island, but even with intensive treatments using extreme doses of my secret, they continued aging and eventually died of natural causes. I reason now that even though I initially had reservations about their characters, I allowed their participation in the experiment because I needed a control group of people who were probably lacking a paradise node. I have since determined that the paradise node diminishes, then dissolves in the brains of the wicked. The politicians were perfect subjects for this, but apparently each was indebted in their corruption to government-backed corporations who now would stop at nothing to get their pay back. And the henchmen are getting close.

The Secret to Eternal Youth must be made available to every child and every decent adult on Earth who wants it. I need your help. Your expertise in computational biology and bioinformatics can implement an annual global treatment program that anyone can access over the Internet. I have devised a method to reach communities without online access using live, large group programs. Again, if they want it. But, for planet-wide treatment, I implore you to join me in this effort. A laboratory specifically designed for you is ready to receive you on the island.

Upon your positive reply, I will send you the coordinates.

I hope this letter finds you well.

Yours truly,
M. Martinez
October 20, 2019

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A group of school children gathered in front of the ancient parchment mounted on the wall of the Paradise Museum. A child was selected by her 289-year-old teacher to read the cherished letter word-for-word. The young-looking teacher closed her eyes and recited the words. She felt the gratitude and contentment that comes with the health and well-being of ages-old youth. And she remembered back nearly 300 years when she had left a deteriorating movie career, one as saggy as her face and body, and lived on an island full of sweet, young people. The teacher opened her eyes as the child finished reading. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the transparent aluminum plate protecting the letter. And she smiled.

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