Chalmais got up to see. “ Slow news day,” he mumbled.
“Since Sunday I’ve seen two network reports on EMR safety, one claiming a typical MRI scan exposes the patient to more than a billion milligauss, the equivalent to 1000 hair-dryers. Notice here they didn’t say ‘one or two Tesla,’ because one or two billion milligauss sounds so much worse. And both reports mentioned the childhood Leukemia studies again. I thought we’d heard the last of that! So how many prime-time news magazines air every week? Reporters lurking all over the place looking for ratings? 20 shows at least. This story already has legs, and as long as the media can find fresh spin – a new safety study here, a new theory about what caused the explosion there, a lawsuit, an indictment - or, god forbid, another accident – then this story will not go away! You know it; I know it and those vultures out there” – she peeked again through the shutters - “will not rest.”
Gyttings sighed, turning to look at his staffers, who were cowering slightly, reticent to speak unless spoken to. He then turned to Sara. “What’s to keep us from taking your data – incidentally, thank you for being so thorough – and working with it in-house?”
She’d of course been expecting this question. “Two reasons. A little one and a big one. The little one is that anything you do in-house will naturally be suspect – viewed simply as propaganda to exonerate the company. And the big one is that I have all Deverson’s original lab notes in my possession – literally thousands of pages, hundreds of discs.” She paused at this point, faintly aware of an uneasiness in the faces before her, a sense that a few of these men were hiding something. She quickly decided to play the hunch. “…But of course you already checked that, didn’t you…” she turned to the CEO. “…Mr. Gyttings?”
A tiny smile curled up around the corners of his mouth. “Well, we have made some inquiries…” He sat on the conference table, a 20-foot slab of polished burl oak, and swung his shoes onto the suede seat of a chair. “We did a little research on your report. I’m sure you understand.”
To Sara, this spoke volumes. It meant they were taking her proposal very seriously indeed, and it also meant they were floundering in their own attempt to explain what had happened in Manzanita, leaving them strategically directionless, slipping into a PR black hole. It also meant they’d probably contacted the Deverson daughters to try and buy the lab notes. “I’m sure you weren’t going to try an end-run around us,” she smirked.
Gyttings smile gained a tinge of arrogance.
Sara took a moment to scan the faces in the room. “Scientists tend to invent their own forms of ‘shorthand,’ and trust me when I say, Deverson was worse than most. Even if you somehow manage to get copies of all those lab notes - without our help you’re still a long way from deciphering them.”
Gyttings tapped the rolled-up report on a chairback a few strokes. “What would you say to just providing the notes with your translations. I’ll make it well worth your while.”
Gill was about to say ‘How well…’ but Sara jumped in: “No good. Those notes were given to me for just one reason: to continue Professor Deverson’s work. I will not betray that oath, especially not for money. Moreover, Dr. Vrynos and I worked extensively on INFX – the Instant of Neurotransmission Failure eXperiments - in its early stages. We WILL provide an experienced research team that WILL get the fastest possible results.
“The fact is, gentlemen, you simply don’t have the luxury to think about it. You know your sales numbers. How much will each week’s delay cost you?”
“Yes of course. We were wondering what kind of MRI – what manufacturer – was Mark Deverson using in his private lab,” Gyttings asked.
Gill cleared his throat: “We don’t know yet. We haven’t reviewed all his notes, which, I might add, fill 40-some-odd file boxes. His lab was destroyed by fire, then systematically dismantled by police and fire investigators, so there’s not much in the way of physical evidence left. I can say from personal experience that the professor had extensive knowledge of the equipment, of the mechanical aspect, of the computer hardware, the super-cooling technology, the imaging software. He often mixed parts from different machines to create hybrids.”
Gyttings nodded slowly. “Let’s backtrack,” he said, not taking his dark, probing eyes off Gill. “What were you and Deverson trying to accomplish back at Davis?”
“We were exploring the process of dying, measuring and cataloging the subtle changes that take place as a living organism reaches that precise, post-resuscitory moment. Even the early research with single-celled life-forms revealed they died in an orderly, step-by-step fashion, a procedure Deverson called the Expiration Protocol. As the experiments advanced to more complex organisms, the EPs also became more complex. With advancements in computer monitoring and imaging devices, we came to realize a potential for manipulating EPs, by exposing the organisms to various intensities and source directions of electromagnetic radiation, for example…
“What I mean is, what was your goal,” Gyttings interrupted. “Where were you going with all this?”
Gill glanced at Sara, then back at Gyttings. “To interrupt the process, disrupt it, control it, reverse it. To do so we needed to understand it. Unfortunately, the research was cut short for political reasons.”
“That’s when Deverson’s project…” Gyttings flipped through his copy of the proposal, “the INFX project was thrown off the Davis campus.”
“Yes. Some religious student organizations got wind of it and decided it contradicted scripture. They staged demonstrations. Once discredited, the funding sources dried up.”
“But Deverson continued,” Gyttings said.
“Yes” Sara answered. “He was obsessed with INFX.”
Gyttings was pacing, swinging the rolled up report in wide, underhand arcs. “So you think that by reviving INFX, you can explain what happened in Manzanita?”
Sara nodded. “Absolutely. This is more than coincidence. The answer is there.”
“All right,” Gyttings said. “Fair enough. But if I buy this package, what exactly will it do for me?”
“Well, by contracting with Dr. Vrynos, a well-respected scientist with whom your company has absolutely no previous connections, you’ll demonstrate you’re commitment to an impartial investigation,” Sara said.
Gyttings looked to Chalmais, who furled and unfurled his forehead and said: “Like when the tobacco companies hired their own researchers to prove cigarettes aren’t addictive?” He frowned. “I suppose if we spin it right, maybe we get some mileage out of it.”
Gyttings turned back to Sara. “What if your findings prove our MRI is dangerous?”
“You’re going to have to provide for that possibility,” Gill blurted.
“I’m not interested in paying for the bullet without some guarantee it won’t end up in my own goddamn foot,” Gyttings corrected.
“There’s every indication that preventable circumstances caused the Manzanita accident,” Sara said. “If we can – and I believe we will – isolate the cause of the accident, then we can insure against future accidents and this Manzanita Hospital thing will blow over and we can all go back to the day-to-day routine of saving lives.”
Gill added: “Even if we can just reduce the risks to acceptable, disclosable levels, we can save the industry.”
A few groans crept out.
“If our findings are sound,” Gill added, “Doctors will go back to prescribing MRIs. The public will obey their doctors and in a year or two nobody will even remember Manzanita.”
“But if you wait and do nothing,” Sara quickly enjoined, “then doctors, clinics and hospitals will shift to PET and CT and other scanner technology, and Gyttings-Lindstrom, heavily invested in magnetic imaging, will lose major market share.”
“We could bail out of MRI ourselves; no more good money after bad,” Chalmais suggested. “We have a solid SPECT division and other diversity options.”
“You’d always be associated with exploding machines and vapo
rized patients,” Gill said. “You have to clear your company name. You have to get the doctors back on board.”
“What we need,” Chalmais corrected, is for Dr. Floyd Loomis - the Surgeon General of the United States – to stand up in front of a room full of journalists and tell the world MRI is absolutely, unequivocally safe. Nothing less will do.”
All heads pivoted slowly to Gyttings, who stared thoughtfully out the window, barely seeing the news crew setting up a shot in front of his administration building. Ninety-six percent of the company’s orders – 111 machines - $266 million - had been cancelled in six working days. It was, in fact, way beyond panic time.
The silence was killing Sara. “There’s another benefit you must consider. By carrying through with Deverson’s work we have the potential here to create a whole new field of medicine technology, with Gyttings-Lindstrom in a commanding lead.”
Gill slumped in his chair. He knew what was coming next, heard the arguments from Deverson’s own lips so many times before.
Gyttings didn’t recall anything about that in Sara’s proposal. “Please,” he said, gesturing for her to continue.
Sara leaned forward now, her eyes blazing, her left temple quivering slightly. The room drew to a dead silence.
“Deverson fabricated his first NMR research coil in 1968. That was before Lauterbur’s first image of a living clam, before Damadian built ‘Indomitable,’ the first real MRI. But Deverson wasn’t interested in inventing new diagnostic tools, new ways to image living tissue. He had bigger fish to fry. He was searching for the source of the energy that makes living tissue alive.
“As a scientist I was skeptical, but always impressed by his dedication and comprehensive methodology. I lasted three years with him. In the end, I had to accept a scholarship to Stanford graduate school. I’d seen nothing conclusive, nothing compelling enough in his work to keep me there. I made the assumption that Deverson, despite his brilliance and dedication, was not going to get there because there was no there to get.
“Deverson dogged on, year after year, spending his own money on INFX. Then, 12 years ago with a jar full of drowning rats in an electrolyte solution inside his make-shift, point-5 Tesla, long-bore MRI, he created a powerful explosion that knocked down trees and rolled a car over and over. Had he, in fact, discovered a henceforth unknown form of energy?
“Deverson was absolutely convinced he had discovered life-energy; so for the next two years he conducted modified versions of the experiment more than 20 times, perfecting, controlling, manipulating the energy flow until that fateful summer day when something went terribly wrong and Dr. Deverson disappeared without a trace.
“Last week the same thing happened in Manzanita, by accident, just as Deverson predicted it inevitably must. Is there a connection? Of course. What is it? We must find out. That’s what we humans do. We investigate. We solve problems. We find out.
“As much a tragedy as this Manzanita thing has been, it could also prove to be a brilliant stroke of luck, a second reference-point leading us toward the single most significant advancement in all the history of medical science.” She paused again. “Imagine, as Deverson often did, what it would mean to gain control of the energy that makes us alive. Will we then be able to store transplantable organs indefinitely, reanimating them only when needed? Will we learn how to suspend animation in humans with assurance of successful reanimation? Animate laboratory-grown tissue, animate synthetic tissue, manufacture and animate replacement organs? Limbs? Spinal cords? Whole bodies? Imagine building and animating all-new organisms; cancer-eating bacteria, living machines, right here in this facility, Gyttings-Lindstrom in command of the technology.”
She took a breath, sat down and blew Gill a playful, unnoticeable-to-anyone-but-him kiss with her full, perfect lips.
Oh god, he thought. Now I’m dead.
Day 13
Monday
Arcata, California
Wayne was still sitting in the Adirondack chair on the sand, a blanket wrapped around him up to his waist. Michael watched from behind, unobserved, as a stiff wind whipped in from the ocean, tousling Wayne’s wispy hair.
As he approached he noticed Wayne had a travel atlas in his lap. “Afternoon, Wayne,” he said apprehensively. “Look’s like Thomas got you all comfy there. What’re you reading.”
“Oh, hi. Thomas gave me this so I can plan our trip.” After a moment’s pause he added: “It’s really fun because it’s filled with thousands of interesting places I’ll never see.”
“You don’t know that,” Michael blurted in a small, unconvincing voice.
“Sure, right,” Wayne mumbled.
There was silence between them for half a minute. Michael decided to lighten the conversation. “It’s beautiful out here when the sun gets down toward the horizon like that. You know it’s usually overcast out here. It doesn’t happen like this all that often…”
Wayne interrupted: “I feel so privileged.”
Michael let it go. Another minute passed, the sky steadily burning from pink to orange, and Michael began to relax, hopeful that Wayne had become as engrossed in the sunset as he.
“When am I supposed to face the music, Michael? When am I supposed to move on to the next level, stop kidding myself, stop wondering ‘why me?’ Why I’m the one sitting here leaking internally from a half-dozen organs with no immune system to do shit about it instead of you, standing there just dandy, talking about the fucking weather.”
Michael did his best to mask the upsurge of confusing emotions he was feeling. He’d been dreading this moment ever since Thomas’ phone call last week, announcing the trip he and Wayne were about to take. Then Thomas had just happened to mention that Wayne was dying. ‘Oh, by the way, Wayne has full-on AIDS.’ Wayne and Thomas had been staying at Michael’s beachfront house for two days now without any mention of it. They’d just been pretending, and it was eating Michael up. Michael had known Wayne for over ten years, longer than either man had known Thomas, and it seemed incomprehensible that his old friend could leave, probably for the last time, without them talking this thing out. But what to say? Michael had made up his mind to broach the subject anyway, but every time he’d tried he’d chickened out. Michael pulled his chair up close and said: “Talk to me, old friend.”
Wayne seemed to relax. “You know, sometimes it’s the stuff you take for granted,” he mused, avoiding Michael’s eyes. “Who’s going to win the next presidential election? Will I make it to the forth of July? Will I ever get to go out in just a t-shirt and shorts on a warm summer evening? The world will go on just like it always has but I won’t be there...here. I’ll be gone.” He looked up into Michael’s clear, brown eyes. “How can you just be gone?”
“It’s so…unfair,” Michael said, regretting the hackneyed comment before it fully left his lips.
Wayne winced from a sharp stab deep in his abdomen, his gaze distant, far out across the water. “There’s a point every day where the discomfort, the impossibility of ever feeling - you know - good, pushes you to take the pain meds. It gets to be too much and so you say fuck it and you take the pills and then the pain goes away, and the brain goes away with it. No matter how fucked-up you get on the drugs you don’t ever get happy. You don’t ever say, ‘Aw, fuckit, I don’t care anymore,’ because you always care. When you reach the point where you can’t think straight, that’s when you want to die. Sure you’re too afraid, but you want it because there’s no point to it. Then you remember…tomorrow you’ll wake up uncomfortable – your joints will ache, your head, back, neck, liver, kidneys – waves of pain, but at least you’ll know who you are, that you’re alive. So you’ll hold off taking the pain meds again, just like yesterday, for as long as you can. You’ll stay alive for as long as you can stand it, then you’ll cave in and take the meds again and you’ll become stupid and pointless.”
“But it’s not true,” Michael said. “You don’t know – treatments nowadays are amazing. A cure could come at any moment”
Wayne attempted a small smile. “I do know, Michael. I’ve tried – like 20 antiretroviral courses here in the states, some experimental drugs…I lived in France awhile. I’ve been to the South American clinics.” He nodded his head slowly. “I’ve spent every cent I had, every cent I could wrangle out of my folks.” He paused to swallow hard several times, then coughed from deep in his lungs. “And my parents? They speak for mainstream America when they imply it’s MY fault. They think AIDS is no longer a problem and that I’m like the last queer in America to get it, like I’m some kind of goddamned cliché… and they blame ME for it, like it’s, you know, payback for MY bad choices.
“So yeah, when you talk about treatments and cures,” Wayne said with slow deliberation. “I know better, Michael. I know better.”
Thomas was coming down the beach from the house. “Hey. How’s it going,” he said as cheerfully as he could.
“Oh, just great,” Wayne coughed. “Gimme the goddamned pain meds.”
Thomas pivoted his fanny pack around his waist and removed three vials and a water bottle. He fed a handful of various sized and colored tablets into Wayne’s mouth, interspersed with gulps off the water bottle, from time to time exchanging forlorn looks with Michael.
“Leave me alone, you two,” Wayne grumbled. “I want to watch the sunset. It’s symbolic. I want to watch today die.”
Thomas and Michael walked up the beach in silence, the sound of the surf crashing quietly behind them. Out of earshot, Michael said: “He’s so bitter. I can’t blame him, but it’s such a bad way to…”
“End?” Thomas said. Michael nodded. “The shrink says it’s a good sign. He’s angry and soon he’ll want to fight to stay alive. But I don’t see it. He doesn’t really want to fight. He’s given up.”
“How about you?” Michael said after a time. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” Thomas said without looking at Michael.
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