Effected Intent

by Alan Ross

  Chapter 3

  Scientific Method

  The lab bench was crowded but organized, with a definite method to the madness. A number of beakers were lined up on the matte black soapstone, some with clear liquid and others with dyes.

  Steve was wearing a crisp blue lab coat and his own safety glasses, not the cheap ones that the company provided. He was muttering and scribbling into a lab notebook, trying to understand what had gone wrong with the experiment. Another couple of weeks out the window, and he would have to synthesize more polymer and start again.

  The other chemists who shared the lab knew to stay away when Steve was in this mood, he would bite the head off anyone who interrupted him. There were three others who shared the lab but didn’t feel part of the same team as the loner. All would have preferred him to get his own lab, but the manager of the team kept trying to make Steve more of a team player.

  Steve looked closely at the beakers, focusing on the dispersion of the dye in those that were colored. He was trying to find visual clues as to why the material had failed to behave as expected. All three beakers showed some clear dispersion from one area, a weakness along the surface of each of these spheres. Steve wondered if it was from the sealing point of the spheres where the dye had been injected. He was completely lost in thought, mumbling to himself as he took notes.

  Rob Bailey stormed into the lab, completely oblivious to Steve’s train of thought and mood, and blurted, “Another bad round, Steve?”

  Steve clamped his teeth together as hard as he could and slowly turned his head, fire in his eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before responding to his boss. “Some trouble with the batch, yes. I came in this morning and found that the solution had turned color in three of the eight samples, which means the degradation period missed the predicted result by a few days. I was making some observations, but haven’t come to the root cause of the failure yet. Can I get back to work?”

  The other chemists had to turn their head to hide the snickers. It didn’t matter how many times it happened, it was still funny to watch Rob trying to get Steve to change his behavior. Steve was in his fifties, so change wasn’t likely. In fact, the opposite was true. Every time Rob had to confront or correct Steve, the chemist ended up deeper in his shell. There were times when he became stone-faced, and wouldn’t even acknowledge what Rob was saying.

  “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about. I was supposed to go over to the middle school tomorrow and give them a talk about science and a little demonstration. I have an urgent staff meeting tomorrow and want you to cover the school visit for me.”

  “Tomorrow? Do you have your talk or demo prepared?”

  “I don’t have a script or anything, I was just going to describe the kind of work we do, how chemistry improves daily lives, and talk to them about the need for more science and technology professionals. For the demo I was going to just do a basic reaction of baking soda and vinegar--the old homemade volcano trick.”

  “Why me? Can’t someone else cover it? These guys are all better with people, and I’m not very fond of kids, especially teenagers.”

  “That’s precisely why I picked you, Steve. This is a good opportunity to work on some of the skills we talked about in your last review.”

  “Opportunity? That’s one way to put it. Ok, if I’m stuck with it, I’ll put something together today. What time is the appointment?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “Ok, I need to get this wrapped up so I can start working on the demo for tomorrow, I’m going to think of something a little better than the science fair volcano! Maybe one of the little tyrants will actually appreciate it.”

  Rob shook his head and left Steve to his angst about talking in public, let alone on short notice, and to teenagers. He had been managing Steve for a few years now and thought that Steve had come a long from where he was at the beginning, but still had a long way to go. Rob didn’t have much history on Steve other than the fact that he was a Vietnam veteran, and had a very negative war experience that made him a serious introvert. Even though the war ended thirty years ago, it was still in the mind of his most brilliant chemist, and Rob was convinced that he could change him with persistent steps.

  It took Steve a few minutes to get refocused, especially because he had a new, urgent assignment in front of him. Steve extracted a failed polymer sphere from a beaker and looked closely at the surface. It didn’t appear that the leak was from the insertion point, but instead seemed that the leak was due to a thinner surface on one part of the exterior of the sphere. The dispersion should have created an equal surface, but obviously hadn’t. At least he was able to figure out the “what,” so now he needed to think about “why.” The next batch was going to be based on PGA (polyglycolide) instead of PLA (polylactide), because there might be a problem with the way the PGA was polymerizing. Since the target use of these materials was inside a human body, there were some strict limitations to the types of materials that could be used.

  Steve had previously worked on various projects and programs, mostly in support of polymerization of plastics for use in the automotive and aerospace industries. Over the past few months, he had thought about developing bio-reabsorbable materials that could safely be used in the body and would deteriorate at a known rate. He was working on creating a product that could be injected into the body and release vaccines or other medicine on a predefined schedule. This would alleviate several problems that had come up in the medical industry including people forgetting to come in for updates on medicine and incorrect dosages due to handling lots of meds. These issues took a lot of time and money for doctors, patients and pharmacies.

  The marketing team met with a couple of pharmaceutical companies and initial interest was very high. Steve had filed several patent applications, working with the legal department to insure that the entire domain would be covered before disclosing, since he didn’t want the pharmaceutical companies to pick this up on their own. Over the past few months Steve had worked with lots of different materials, working to first develop an effective set of polymers that would be bio-absorbable or bio-reabsorbable. He focused on inert materials that were easily sterilized, provided no inflammation or incompatibility characteristics and could be metabolized in the body without a trace. He felt that the right material was close at hand. It was painful, because in order to have meaningful data, the experiments he ran lasted over a month. The dye was expected to show up on the twenty-eighth day at the earliest and the thirty-second at the latest. So far, he’d not yet made it to twenty-eight days, since something went wrong with the sphere part of his sample. Many of the tests were working within the control time frame, so he continued to tweak settings and hope that the next batch would provide the first set to release in the acceptable window. Once repeated, the test could be demonstrated to one or more of the pharmaceuticals.

  He cleaned up the experiment and all of the equipment, leaving his part of the lab in typical immaculate condition. Steve’s complete disdain for messes led him to believe that his co-workers shouldn’t call themselves professionals when their work spaces and equipment were in such an abysmal shape. The same was true for the shared office area the chemists had; it wasn’t hard to know which desk belonged to Steve. While others brought in photos, artwork, calendars and other things , his area was sparse and uninviting. It was probably the only desk in the company that was regularly dusted and double locked, using not only the standard locks, but also a bar with a heavy duty tamper-resistant lock.

  Steve hung up his lab coat and sat down at his desk to prepare the talk and think about a demo. He would never admit it, but he was a bit excited to be able to come up with something that would wow the kids. The talk was going to be pretty basic; he would bring in a few parts that were in use and describe how chemistry had help to make the parts better and cheaper. He thought about how he was going to try to get them interested in science but didn’t think that there would be anyone worth a d
amn in the class, so that part was probably going to be a waste of breath. He turned on his computer and opened the word processing programto type up some speaker notes. Speaking in front of any audience was something that made him dizzy and physically ill before, during and after.

  “Steve, don’t mean to bother you but was wondering if you were going to join us for lunch today?”

  “Hi Denise, I’m busy working on an ‘opportunity’ for Rob, will have to eat at my desk today.” Steve immediately turned back to his work as though Denise had already left the area and gone to the cafeteria. The company offered subsidized lunches and quality food, but Steve preferred to bring his lunch most days, rather than deal with people. Once in a while, he surprised his co-workers and went to the café with them. He even went out with them a few times a year on Fridays, which was the designated ‘off-site’ lunch day.

  It didn’t take long to complete the speaker’s notes, which Steve sent to the printer so he could read while he ate. He never did anything on the computer while he ate, since he despised crumbs in his keyboard. The notes were fine, so Steve started working on the demo, really wanting something good. He thought about what middle school age kids might find cool, but realized he didn’t think about kids often. The other chemists had come back from lunch, so he asked, “What kind of chemistry-related things do middle school kids like?”

  “My kids like anything that blows up or makes fire,” Denise said.

  “Probably not the best thing for a school demonstration.”

  “What about glow sticks? All of the kids I know are crazy for them,” Tom Salmon offered.

  “That’s a good idea, I should be able to do something this afternoon for that, thanks,” Steve replied, already looking up the formula for the reaction. He remembered that it was a combination of hydrogen peroxide and some kind of ester, which turned out to be phenyl oxalate ester and a fluorescent dye. He had no shortage of dyes around from the current polymer sphere experiments, so he was able to mix up several quick tests. He thought purple would give the best effect. Simply mixing the chemicals in front of the kids wouldn’t be good enough; he needed to add some drama and intrigue to make an impression. If he combined the glow stick chemicals and a quick setting epoxy,that should be good enough. The biggest trick was going to be separating the chemicals, so he could perform it like a magic trick. He thought that a glass ampoule inside of a beaker would provide the separation and let him provide some additional mystery. Steve had some ampoules in the lab that would probably do the trick so he tried one as a test. He filled the ampoule with the ester, dye and hardener, which were the smaller ingredients by volume. He then cemented the ampoule to the bottom of the beaker with some super glue and made sure there were no leaks. He poured the peroxide and resin into the beaker and then used a glass stirring rod to break the thin glass of the ampoule and start mixing everything together. The reaction created a swirled dye within the hardening epoxy, and before long he was unable to stir the solution.

  Steve carefully filled two more ampoules and attached them to beakers, checking them for leaks. With the other chemicals in a sealed jar, he was all set for his demonstration. For the past couple of hours while he’d been doing the preparation, his nerves had even left him. Maybe he wouldn’t be too bad tomorrow.

  He carefully went around the entire lab, making sure that there was nothing unsafe. Steve was almost always the last one to leave, and most days he didn’t even hear the others tell him they were leaving for the night. Once he was certain there was no imminent danger, he cleaned up his desk area and made sure that everything was locked up. Gathering up his demo gear and speaker’s notes, Steve left the building and took the short drive home.

  Claire was already home; she beat him during the school year unless there was an open house or some other school function. Steve liked coming home to his wife-- she was probably the best thing that’d ever happened to him in the thirty years of his adult life. She was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, which smelled great, as usual.

  Steve set down his stuff and they exchanged small talk about their days, and the things that had gone on. He told her about the latest set of polymer testing, and she talked about trying to get high school kids interested in Shakespeare.

  “I saved the best for last though.”

  “What’s that? Some better news about the polymer testing?”

  “No, Rob thinks it would be a good ‘opportunity’ for me to take his place tomorrow at the middle school. He assigned me to go talk to a group of eighth graders about science and give them a demonstration.”

  “I know that you’re probably all nervous now because you have to go talk in front of an audience and better than that, a bunch of teenagers.”

  Steve didn’t reply to Claire, and fidgeted around in his chair, thinking about the assignment. She got the hint and went back to her cooking, no longer offended when he clammed up. They’d been married for almost ten years now, and it had taken Claire a long time to get used to all of her husband’s idiosyncrasies. For the first couple of years, she was convinced he would open up to her over time, but there was just too much that had happened to him at such an impressionable age. Time might soften things, but couldn’t erase them. She was content with Steve and knew that he loved her back.

  Dinner was quiet, and they cleaned up together and did the dishes before going to the living room. Usually, Steve went on the computer and Claire spent time either reading books or grading papers from her classes. Tonight she was caught up in a recent mystery novel she checked out of the library. She quickly got lost in the words on the page, imagining herself as the heroine of the story, solving murders and living a very different life than that of an English teacher in a small Ohio town. Her escape was deep and complete, and sleep found her after about an hour of reading.

  Steve got caught up in chat rooms and message boards, following the threads but not contributing much to the discussion. When he did contribute, there was always someone out there who would flame him and cause him to get angry. It was easier to just watch and see what was being discussed and let the community know that he was here to help when needed. Claire had fallen asleep some time ago but that didn’t really matter to Steve, except for the fits and spurts of snoring that kept distracting him.

  Claire usually went to sleep three or four hours before Steve, since his body rarely required more than a few hours of sleep a night. He spent the alone time online, either doing research or keeping up with some of his old friends from the war. There were lots of places to keep up with Vietnam veterans, and since the internet had taken off, many old veterans were online looking to either catch up or talk about their experiences. There were also kooks that showed up in the chat rooms or message boards, referring to the war as a waste of time and discussing the ‘atrocities’ committed by American soldiers in Vietnam and other areas of Southeast Asia.

  Tonight there was a thread going back and forth talking about the need to ‘get over it.’ Some anonymous user was ranting about how the words “slavery” and “Vietnam” needed to be stricken from our vocabulary. A few vets had jumped all over the guy, but he wouldn’t let it go, to the point where Steve could tell that some regulars were getting really angry. Steve thought the point was probably valid for someone who hadn’t been there. But, to him, it was like telling a living slave that they need to forget about that whole era and put it behind them. The war would live on in history, with both correct and inaccurate information. Over time there would be no veterans of the war around to talk about it. All Vietnam vets were in their fifties or older now and they weren’t going to live forever.

  He was happy to have the computer because it was not only a way to connect, but also a way to escape the world. Claire chose her books over the computer, and when they had first met, Steve was also an avid reader of books that allowed him to escape the world he lived in. When she came home talking about the World Wide Web, Steve went out and bought a computer and became instantly hooked. It wa
s invaluable from a work perspective as well, keeping Steve current on research topics and papers being published for polymer chemistry. Once the world started opening up more to the technology, vets started showing up online, looking to connect. This provided a support structure and a way for geographically dispersed veterans to stay in touch. Steve was very active in many of the forums, especially those dealing with prisoner of war survivors. Although he didn’t talk about his experience in the prison camps verbally, finding it impossible to bring the subject from his lips, it was easier to share experiences through the wire, with a veil of anonymity. The World Wide Web was responsible for Steve’s sanity and temperament.

  Shutting down the computer, he woke Claire up and they went to bed. Steve’s mind wandered back to the presentation tomorrow, and he hoped that sleep would come.