Here the D.E.L.I.A. material ends. I have never seen the sequel and do not know if it exists. Perhaps the remaining notes were taken by Elizabeth Crowe, who always wanted to be in control, or by David, who rewrote our reports with a dogged determination to find hidden truths. What those missing pages contained I can only speculate - perhaps David's reflections on the fairy tale "Sleeping Diana" he had found in July, or his conclusions about the project. The idea that David took the tale literally and tried to "open the coffin" of Delia York, whose name formed the basis of D.E.L.I.A., seems too fantastic. And yet, after the summer of 2000, I did not see David again. Sometimes I think he might have gone to extremes in trying to make this story come true, but more likely he simply left, like Dmitry Sukhov, unable to accept that, in his words, our project was an "outrage" on the memory of children.
The D.E.L.I.A. project, dedicated to studying the abnormal illnesses of Delia York, Laura, Isaac, Eliza, and Alexander, left us with questions we could not answer. Their tissues, with their regenerative properties and mysterious anomalies, suggested something more than simple pathology, but our technology and knowledge were insufficient. In early December 2000, the project was officially closed, and I still feel the weight of that decision.
The closing procedure was cold and formal, as was everything about our institute in those days. On December 3, Elizabeth Crowe gathered us-me, Linda, James Lin, and a few technicians-in a third-floor conference room. The room smelled of coffee and old carpet, and outside the window, Brooklyn was buried in gray snow. Elizabeth stood at the board, her face tired but determined. She announced that the funding committee, chaired by Caroline, had denied the budget extension. "The results did not justify the costs," she quoted, her voice shaking as if she did not believe it. We were ordered to prepare a final report, pack up the specimens, and turn everything over to the institute's archives. The lab, where we had spent months peering through a Nikon Eclipse E400 microscope, was to be cleared out by December 10.
We spent the week sorting through papers and tubes. The tissue specimens-Delia's, Laura's, Isaac's, Eliza's, Alexander's-were sealed in airtight containers and sent to a storage facility in the lower level of the institute, where they would likely gather dust for years. Linda, usually chatty, was silent as she packed petri dishes, and James Lin, still talking about "mutations" and "superhumans," looked subdued. I helped carry the boxes, but every time I saw the label "Specimen D," I thought of Delia and how it all had started with her. The experimental protocols, including the ones David had copied, were stapled and stored in a metal cabinet, which was locked. Elizabeth personally made sure nothing was left on the workbenches.
By December 10, the lab was empty. The Thermo Forma incubator had been turned off, and the hum we'd grown accustomed to had been replaced by silence. Elizabeth had signed the final closure document, which had been sent to the committee. It said that the D.E.L.I.A. project had found no significant results, and further research was deemed inappropriate. But I knew that wasn't the whole truth. We'd found things-regeneration, anomalous absorption peaks, strange structures in the cells-but we couldn't explain them. Maybe we were shortsighted, or maybe we weren't ready.
I often think of Dmitry Sukhov, who left on July 20, alone, without anyone to see him off. He refused the money he was due for his work, giving it to me with the words, "This is all for you, Mark." At the time, I saw it as a gesture of friendship, but now I understand that he did not want to be complicit in what he considered wrong. He called our project "an outrage" on the children's memory, and looking back, I see he was right. We were digging through their tissues, calling it science, but perhaps all we were doing was disturbing their peace. With the money, I bought him a ticket to St. Petersburg with a transfer in Moscow, hoping that it would somehow express my respect for his decision to leave.
Now, as 2000 draws to a close, I feel that the D.E.L.I.A. project was more than just a scientific failure. It was a memorial - to Delia, to Laura, to Isaac, to Eliza, to Alexander. Their names, their lives, their suffering are etched into the project's name, as if someone - Earl Knight, or even Elizabeth - wanted us not to forget. I don't know where David is now, or what he found in that fairy tale. His final note, "Delia, wait for me!" echoes in my head. Maybe he really did try to "wake her up," or maybe it was just a metaphor for his search. But I do know this: the project is over, but their names remain with us, and I can't shake the feeling that we've missed something important.
Mark T.