Drug of Choice

by Michael Crichton

  “Sharon Wilder.”

  “Yes. That’s right” Andrews seemed surprised. “How did you know?”

  “They were the same kind of patient.”

  “That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. As I understand it, they presented with coma, no localizing signs, no respiratory or cardiac depression, and no after-effects when they recovered. Is that right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And they both urinated blue?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “The reason I ask,” Andrews said, “is that I just got a call from Murdoch at San Francisco General. They get a lot of the Berkeley drug abusers, as well as the Hashbury loonies. Yesterday they got five people in coma as the result of a police raid. General didn’t know what to do about them, so they waited, and the people all came out of it. And there was this blue urine business as well. Murdoch wanted to know if we’d had any similar experience.”

  Clark frowned. “He had five cases?”

  “Five. Everybody up there is terrified of more. Murdoch’s convinced a new kind of drug is going around. They don’t know where it’s coming from, or who’s making it, or what the chemical nature is like. And the kids aren’t talking, when they come out of the coma. They claim they don’t remember.”

  “Perhaps they don’t,” Clark said.

  “Exactly,” Andrews said. “There may be a retroactive amnesia. Clark, this could be a serious problem. Very serious. Have you investigated your two patients at all?”

  “As a matter of fact, sir, I have. I suspected a new drug, and I’ve looked into their history of ingestion as carefully as I could. I spent the morning with Sharon Wilder’s doctors—”

  “Good man.”

  “—and came up with nothing.”

  Andrews sighed. “Very serious problem,” he repeated. “I can’t urge you strongly enough to follow it up. You know,” he said, “you and I must have a little talk soon.”

  “Sir?”

  “Well, the hospital has to decide on a chief resident for next year.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “This drug thing is a very serious problem, very serious indeed. Anyone who clears it up will be doing a great service to the medical community. An immense service. As I recall, you’re going on vacation soon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have a good time,” Andrews said. “I’ll talk to you when you get back.” And he hung up.

  Clark stared at the telephone for several minutes, and then said aloud, “I’ve been bribed.”

  He rummaged through his notebook and came up with the list of Sharon Wilder’s physicians. At the bottom of the list was George K. Washington. Office number: 754–6700, extension 126.

  He dialed it. After a moment, a pleasant female voice said, “Advance, Incorporated. Good afternoon.”

  “Extension one two six, please.”

  “One moment, please.”

  There was a click as the switchboard put him through. Then more ringing, and another woman’s voice.

  “Dr. Washington’s office.”

  “This is Dr. Clark calling from LA Mem—”

  “Oh yes, Dr. Clark.”

  Clark stopped. Oh yes?

  “We’ve been waiting for your call,” the girl said. “Dr. Washington is in conference now, but he asked me to tell you an appointment has been set up for four this afternoon. You can discuss the job with him at that time.”

  “The job?”

  “Yes. You are applying for a job, aren’t you?”

  “Uh…yes.”

  “Well see you then, Doctor.”

  Clark hesitated. There was obviously some mistake, but he might as well take advantage of it.

  “One question,” he said. “How do I get there?”

  “Take the Santa Monica Freeway to the Los Calos exit, then go north a quarter of a mile. You can’t miss it. There’s a black sign that says Advance, Incorporated by the road.”

  Clark hung up and scratched his head. He thought about the name of the corporation; it seemed very familiar. But he could not remember where he had heard it before. After several minutes, he put his tie back on, slipped into his jacket, and headed for the parking lot.

  The secretary had been right. It was impossible to miss the sign. It was constructed of black stone, with white lettering:

  ADVANCE, INC. BIOSYSTEMS SPECIALISTS

  He turned off the road, and parked in a lot alongside the main building, which was starkly modern, walls of green glass. The building was two stories high, and about as large as any of a dozen other small, specialized scientific firms around Los Angeles. In recent years, attracted by government contracts and good weather, scientists had flocked to Southern California, which now had a greater number and higher concentration of scientific minds than any other place in the history of the world.

  He paused to look at the building, and wondered what went on inside. He couldn’t tell; it might have been anything from electronics to political science research. He went through the large glass doors to the area marked “Reception.” A woman looked up.

  “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Clark. I have an appointment with Dr. Washington.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She telephoned, spoke briefly, then turned to Clark.

  “If you’ll just have a seat, please.”

  Clark sat down on a Barcelona chair in the corner, and thumbed through an issue of “The American Journal of Parapsychology” while he waited. In a few minutes, a heavyset guard appeared.

  “Dr. Clark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please come with me.”

  Clark followed the guard down a corridor. They stopped at a nearby room. An old woman was there, surrounded by electronic equipment.

  “He’s to see Dr. Washington,” the guard explained.

  “All right,” said the woman. She nodded to a camera. “Look over there.”

  Clark looked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her press a button; the camera clicked.

  “State your name loudly and clearly for our voice recorders.”

  “Doctor Roger Clark.”

  “No, no,” the woman said. “That will never do. Just your name.”

  “Roger Clark,” he said.

  “Thank you,” the woman said. She produced a form. “Sign here, please. Waiver of liability.”

  “Waiver?”

  “It’s routine. Do you want to see Dr. Washington, or not?”

  Clark signed. It was all so peculiar, he did not want to argue.

  “Thank you,” the woman said, and looked down at her desk.

  Clark went on, following the guard, to an elevator. As they walked down the corridor, Clark glanced at the doors, with their neatly stenciled markings:

  ALPHA WAVE SYNCH LAB

  MASSACT RES UNIT

  K PUPPIES

  HYPNOESIS 17

  WHITE ENVIRON

  Clark said, “What kind of work is done here?”

  “All kinds,” the guard said.

  They got into the elevator and went to the second floor. The guard led him down another corridor to a door marked ENERGICS SUBGROUP. He opened it, and waved Clark inside.

  A secretary sat typing a letter, wearing earphones attached to a dictaphone machine. She turned off the machine and removed the earphones. “Dr. Clark? Dr. Washington is expecting you.” She pressed the intercom. “You may go right in.”

  Clark passed through a second door, into the sloppiest office he had ever seen. The walls were lined with shelves, which contained pamphlets, notebooks, and stacks of loose paper; books and journals sat in unruly heaps on the floor and on the desk. From behind the debris on the desk, a thin, pale figure rose.

  “I am George Kelvin Washington. Do sit down.”

  Clark looked for a place to sit. There was a chair, but it was heaped high with manuscripts and journals.

  “Just push that junk off,” Dr. Washington said. “It’s not important anyway. Make yourself comfortable.”


  Dr. Washington sank back down behind the stacks on the desk. A moment later, he cleared a little tunnel, which allowed him to see Clark, sitting in the chair.

  “You’ve come about the job,” Washington said.

  “Yes, I—”

  “Good, good. You seem a bright young man. I’m not surprised that your interest in Advance, Inc. has been aroused.”

  “Yes, it—”

  “There is no question that you would find our work challenging. We operate at the very forefront of several areas of investigation. The very forefront.”

  “I see,” Clark said, not seeing.

  “If I understand correctly,” Washington said, staring down at his desk, “you are a, ah, where is it, oh yes—you are a pharmacologist.”

  “That’s correct,” Clark said. He wondered how Washington knew. He wondered what Washington was looking at, on the desk.

  “Your job application,” Washington said, “is all in order. Quite complete. I needn’t tell you that we are most interested in your experience in clinical drug testing at the National Institutes. You did that instead of military service?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Excellent. And you’ve had some experience with human drug testing?”

  “Limited.”

  “Ummm. How limited?”

  “Well, we did several tests on experimental drugs for cancer—”

  “Yes, yes, all that’s down here,” Washington said, tapping the sheet. “Cancer drugs numbered JJ-4225, and AL-19. Controlled double blind clinical trials involving forty and sixty-nine subjects, respectively. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” Clark said, frowning. He had filled out no application. He had certainly never written down—

  “Well, that’s fine,” Washington said. “Just fine. Undoubtedly you’re curious about the work you will be doing, if you choose to join the team here.”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “You’ll understand if I can’t be too specific,” Dr. Washington said, scratching the tip of his nose. “We are not a secret organization, but we do need to be careful.”

  “You do a lot of government work?”

  “Heavens, no! We don’t do any at all. We used to do government work, but that stage is past. Entirely past.” Dr. Washington sighed. “Your work will concern the interaction of organ systems with chemical compounds which affect multiple bodily systems. In most cases, one of the systems will be nervous, but this will not be invariably so.”

  “This work is drug-testing, then?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Well,” Washington said, “take my own work. I’m a bio-physicist, myself. I’ve been working on stereochemical interactions of allosteric enzymes. Very challenging.”

  “I’m sure. What sort of—”

  “Enzymes? Those affecting tryptophan metabolism. Effects upon thyroid, brain, and kidney…precisely the kind of multiple system situation I was describing.”

  Clark said, “Can you tell me a little more about the company itself?”

  “Yes. We’re a new company, just started two years ago. As you can see, we’ve grown enormously in that period. Advance has a total staff of 207, including fifty secretaries. We have nine divisions, each involved in some broad question of the application of science to man. We are working in electromagnetics, enzymes, ultrasound, peripheral perception. A wide variety of fields.”

  “Where do most of your contracts come from?”

  “We are a private research and development firm. We make our services available to private industry. But mostly, we work for ourselves.”

  “For yourselves?”

  “Yes. That is to say, we exploit our own developments. To that extent, we are unique among firms of this type. But I believe that we represent the way of the future—we are the R and D team of the future. Right here, right now. We do everything: we develop, we apply, and we exploit. Do you follow me?”

  “I follow you,” Clark said. In fact, he did not understand it at all.

  “I’d like,” said Washington, “for you to meet with our president, if you have the time. Better than anyone else, he can tell you about Advance, and what it stands for.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “Good. I’ll try to arrange it.”

  He got up from behind his desk and went to the door. “I won’t be a minute,” he said and left, shutting the door behind him.

  Clark was alone.

  Immediately, he got up and went around behind the desk. He was looking for the paper that Washington had been reading from; Clark’s application. But he did not find it. Indeed, behind the stack of books and pamphlets, the desk was bare.

  He opened the drawer to the desk and looked inside. The first thing that he found was a small tuning fork, like the one in Sharon Wilder’s purse.

  The second thing was an odd sheet of paper:

  WILDER, SHARON (ALICE BLANKFURT)

  INDICES:

  SYLONO .443

  Psycho-sexual .887

  LIENO .003

  Dermo-phonic .904

  CRYO .342

  Hyper-sthenic .887

  SUMMARY: Initial work with this model reveals satisfactory assimilation of basic parameters with excellent prognosis for future interaction in K-K. There can be no doubt that—

  He heard a noise outside, closed the drawer, and resumed his seat.

  Dr. Washington returned. “Sorry about the delay,” he said. “Dr. Blood will see you immediately, if that is convenient.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  He nodded to the door. “The guard will take you there.” Washington extended his hand. “Good luck, Dr. Clark. I hope you’ll be joining us.”

  “Thank you,” Clark said.

  Dr. Harvey Blood, president of Advance, Inc., had the largest desk Clark had ever seen. It was curved, bean-shaped, and nine feet long. The surface was brightly polished mahogany. Dr. Blood sat behind his desk, and his face was mirrored in the polish. Clark noticed that the surface was unmarred by pen, paper, or intercom.

  “Well, well, well!” Dr. Blood stood, a stocky, red-faced cherub with black unruly hair. “So you’re Dr. Clark.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sit down, Clark. Roger, is it? Let me tell you something about our company, Roger.”

  Clark sat.

  “I won’t give you a sales pitch, Roger. I’ll just give you the straight dope. We’re a young company, and a growing company. We’ve been in existence for less than five years, and already you can see how we’ve grown. By the end of the year, we will employ more than three hundred people.”

  “Very impressive, sir.”

  “It certainly is,” Blood said, with a smile. “But we’re not stopping at three hundred. We’re not stopping at three thousand. Far from it: we are going to expand indefinitely.”

  “Indefinitely?”

  “Yes. Look here: what’s the largest corporation in America today?”

  Clark shrugged. “General Motors, I suppose.”

  “Right! And what does General Motors do?”

  “Makes automobiles.”

  ”Right again! And what is so great about making automobiles?”

  “Well—”

  “The answer,” Harvey Blood said, “is that there is nothing very great about automobiles. They are a terrible product. They are destroying our landscape, ruining our cities, poisoning our air. Automobiles are the curse of the modern world.”

  “I suppose if you look at it—”

  “I do, I do. But now I ask you: what could a corporation do, if it manufactured some product which was not destructive, ruinous, and poisonous? What limits would there be?”

  “None.”

  “Exactly! None. And if that corporation went even further, to the point where it manufactured positive, healthful, beautiful products and instilled the desire for them, where would it all end?”

  Clark s
aid nothing.

  “You see? You see how perfect it is?”

  Clark could not understand how this was related to enzymes involved in tryptophan synthesis. He said so.

  “Look here,” Blood said. “We haven’t got a use for tryptophan yet. But we’re working on it. We’re developing it. That’s what we do here, develop things. We take raw, crude scientific innovation, and we produce applications for it. We innovate, we cogitate, we initiate—the three pillars of our advancing firm.” He chuckled briefly. “You see, Roger, we are specialists in putting knowledge to use. We accumulate useless information, and make it useful. We innovate, cogitate, initiate.”

  “I see.”

  “And we pay extremely well. I don’t know if you were told, but starting salary for a person of your qualifications is 49,500 dollars.”

  “Very reasonable.”

  “A well-paid employee is a happy employee, Roger.”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t beat around the bush, Roger. You’re thinking of working in our biochemical division, testing drugs. That is one of the most exciting divisions we have. Our people are engaged in testing and applying new compounds in ways previously undreamed of. We are working on the frontiers of research.”

  It occurred to Clark that he still had remarkably little idea about the company, and the job they were offering him.

  “Intellectual stimulation, pleasant working conditions, and financial compensation. That is what we provide for our employees.”

  “Where exactly would I be working? In this building?”

  “No,” Blood said. “Our research facilities are located a short distance away. Naturally, since many of our projects are confidential, we must maintain a certain amount of secrecy.”

  “Yes.”

  Someone entered the room, a cheerful young man, carrying what looked like a large poster.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Blood, but we need approval of the dummy.”

  “All right,” Blood said.

  Clark leaned forward, hoping for a look at the poster. He could see that it was a penciled drawing of some kind, like an ad for something. Space for copy and photographs were blocked out.

  Dr. Blood looked at it closely. “What’s it for?”

  “The New Yorker,” the man said. “That’s our first big market.”