“It depends on…”
“How long!” she cried.
“Patients diagnosed with extensive stage small cell lung cancer have a median survival rate of six to twelve months. Possibly, with more chemo and radiation therapy, we can extend that.”
Winnie leapt up. “Then that’s what we’ll do! You’re going to be my partner in this Dr. Wilson. I want the next cycle started up as soon as humanly possible. Today if we can. I’ll call into work; it’ll be no big deal. We can lick this, Stephanie.”
“No we can’t.” She was going to die. There it was. A doctor told her and that made it fact.
“With the right attitude we can,” Winnie insisted.
Stephanie finally looked away from the button, but her eyes were so unfocused that she didn’t really see anything. She shook her head. “No. No more chemo for me. I’m done.”
5
Chuck Singleton
Norman, Oklahoma
When he got the news, Chuck said two words: “Well, shit.” He stood up while his doctor went on talking about surgeries and tests and all the rest. Chuck wasn’t listening. He tugged off his gown and was putting on his pants one leg at a time like he always did, or almost like he always did.
Unaccountably he had left his underwear sitting on the floor.
His doctor, a young’un with a poor attempt at a beard scrabbling on his cheeks pointed at the under drawers. When Chuck made no move to pick them up, he went on, “Those are your treatment options. I’d suggest the brachytherapy. Mr. Singleton are you listening? Brachytherapy is when we install a catheter inside the effected bronchial…”
Chuck ignored the doctor's mumbo-jumbo just like he ignored the underwear; deciding at that point to go commando for the first time in his life. He slipped his boots on and pulled his t-shirt over his lean torso.
“Mr. Singleton what are you…um, where are you going?”
“Gonna quit ma-job,” he replied. That seemed about right. No sense hanging around the shop as he wasted away. ‘Sides he needed a vacation. Chuck Singleton, at thirty-seven had never had what one would call a real vacation. Sure, he’d taken time off to go see his folks and every year he took a week during the season to go after white tails, and he enjoyed a four-day weekend on occasion to pull bass out of Canton Lake.
But just then he wanted more. “Think I’ll go see a mountain. I hear Colorado’s full of them.”
“Um, yeah,” the kid doctor said, uncertainly. “But what about your treatment? When are we going to start you on that chemo?”
Chuck knew what chemo was. He’d read what he had needed to on the subject and he’d be damned if he was gonna shoot radiation into his body on the off chance that it would kill his cancer. “What’s the Vegas line on me, Doc?”
“Vegas line? I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“What’re ma-odds?” he growled, feeling annoyed at wasting time. Seconds were suddenly a might bit more precious to him than they had been five minutes before.
“Odds, yes. Ok, with the right therapy we can likely increase your quality of life significantly. As for prolonging your life, we have made rapid advances in…”
“Let me help you,” Chuck said, interrupting. “What’re ma-odds of dyin’ of ole age?”
The doctor started to hem and haw, but when Chuck turned his green eyes on him and gave him a hard stare, he sagged and admitted, “One in a thousand. Maybe not even that good, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life between now and…you know.”
Chuck had read about the sickness and the depression and the pain and the wasting away. Thanks but no thanks. “That’s alright, Doc. You can save your radioactive pellets for the next guy. I’m gonna go see the mountains of Colorado and I think Hollywood. And, iffin I live that long, New York City. I just gotta see what all the fuss is about. S’long.”
The young quack just shook his head, until his eyes fell on Chuck’s tighty whities. “What about your underwear?”
“You can have ‘em Doc. Maybe someday you’ll grow into ‘em.”
Chapter 3
Opportunities
1
Edmund Rothchild
Manhattan, New York
“You can do this, Edmund,” Kip said, flashing his white teeth and clapping his partner on the shoulder. “In fact, you need to do this. We are on the verge of something huge! Our Com-cells are going to be bigger than…I don’t know, the light bulb.”
“The light bulb is illegal in case you forgot,” Edmund shot back. He considered the banning of the light bulb the biggest bit of tomfoolery he had ever heard of, besides global-warming, that is. Edmund was seventy-five years old and for the last twenty of those years he couldn’t seem to get enough global-warming. Here it was seventy degrees and he had a sweater on under his suit coat.
Kip made a face. “I’m not going to quibble. We both know you become argumentative when you’re nervous. It’ll be ok. They aren’t sharks.”
Rothchild laughed. “You call them sharks, quite literally after every press conference.”
“But this will be different,” Kip shot back. He took Edmund by the shoulders and started to gently push him to the first floor conference room where a bevy of reporters were standing around eating expensive pastries and drinking gourmet coffee. “You see today we are announcing a breakthrough in the fight against cancer. They’re going to eat it up. They’re going to be more like sweet little kittens, you’ll see.”
Edmund wasn’t convinced. “There are breakthroughs all the time.”
“Not like this there isn’t. You’re the one who sold me on the idea, now sell it to them.” When Edmund looked unconvinced, Kip went on, still guiding the older man, “I’ll be right next to you in case things get awkward. Just be yourself. Let the teddy bear out.” Once upon a time, many years before, Edmund’s wife had accidentally called him by his bedroom nickname while at a party. Very few had the chutzpa of Stephen Kipling to bring it up.
“Pissing me off isn’t helping my nerves,” Edmund said, as they approached the podium. He began to feel his pulse pick up and his smile felt phony and frozen. There was nothing in the world Edmund hated more than public speaking. The journalists seeing them enter the room went to their seats; those from the more important news outlets pushed to the front and stared up at Rothchild, expectantly.
Kip nudged him and after a shaky breath Rothchild launched right in: “First, I’d like to thank you for coming, especially on such short notice,” he said. It seemed like a fine opening but for some reason Kip was smiling at him in a very strange way. Edmund tried to ignore him. “Um, I uh, have an announcement of some importance concerning a research project that has shown great promise…” Now Kip was grinning at him like a maniac. It was completely throwing off Edmund’s train of thought. “One second,” he said to the journalists and then leaned into Kip and asked, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Try smiling a little,” Kip said, around a gentle smile of his own. “You look like you want to kill someone.”
Whenever Edmund was particularly anxious the stress tended to settle in his face and neck. His muscles were so taught that he had to will a smile onto his wrinkled face. It was only marginally better. He’d gone from looking like a murderer to some creepy old, pedophile asking children if they’d like some candy or a ride in his van. It was the best Edmund could do under the circumstances.
Kip jerked his head towards the journalists, suggesting that Edmund should go on with the briefing.
“Right. As I was saying,” Edmund said. “Through the tireless work of our scientists, R & K Research Industries has made a stunning breakthrough in the treatment of cancer, uh, lung cancer specifically. The technique is guarded by patent laws but I can tell you that small cell lung cancer which, as some of you know is the most deadly of all carcinomas, will no longer be the death sentence it once was.”
He thought his statement was just fine, not realizing that when he had said the words: death sentence, the words wer
e low and raspy and that he sounded like the crypt keeper. He went on, “The FDA has given us fast-track approval which means we will begin our first clinical trials in one month. We are now looking for proper candidates.”
“What sort of candidates?” one of the reporters barked out. “Can anyone get in or are you going to screen them like you did with your insulin study? Isn’t that what you’re being investigated over? Skewing results?”
Edmund looked at Kip in surprise. What happened to the reporters being sweet as kittens? Kip raised a finger and answered the question, “We are not able to comment on a case that is still under investigation, other than to say the accusations are false and we look forward to being vindicated.”
“I can at least talk about the candidates for our trial, correct?” Edmund asked his partner who nodded quickly and then looked emphatically at the journalists, who seemed amused at the befuddled, old man. “Sorry about this, it’s usually Dr. Kipling who does these sorts of things. About the candidates, we are looking for second stage, or what’s called extensive stage patients afflicted with small cell lung cancer. The only screening that we anticipate is age related and of course viability.”
“What do you mean by that?” the same reporter asked with more than a hint of suspicion in his voice. “You only want the ones that will live anyway?”
Edmund glared down at the man, wondering: Who was this jackass? “First off, young man, I have a doctorate in microbiology and thus it is only polite to address me as Doctor Rothchild. Secondly, your question is so steeped in ignorance you should be embarrassed at having opened your mouth.”
The reporter, who had been snarled at by scarier men than this old codger, shrugged and said, “By that, Doctor Rothchild, I take it you are refusing to answer the question?”
“The question was asinine. Once someone reaches the extensive stage of small cell lung cancer that person is deemed incurable. They are going to die no matter what. Do you understand that simple concept?”
“Yes,” the reporter replied, this time without the sarcasm.
Edmund, who had become emboldened, went on, “By viability I mean a chance at a normal life after the treatment is concluded. There are some end-stage patients who have such extensive lung damage even if their cancer were to be cured, they’d likely die Anymore questions?”
A woman raised her hand and started speaking even before Edmund acknowledged her. “Can you give us an inkling on the specifics of the cure? Is this a targeted genomic breakthrough?”
“It’s not,” Edmund said, grinning. “It’s better, at least when it concerns lung cancer. We haven’t have had the same success with other forms of cancer, yet.”
The reporter, who had been rude earlier, smirked. “Sounds like a bait and switch. There are some who say that big pharmaceutical companies like yours don’t really want to cure diseases. They say disease maintenance and symptom management is where the real profits are made. They say that companies like R & K are not in the business of cures because that would put them out of business.”
Edmund’s mouth came open and he began to splutter. “Who? Who says this?”
“People who think you profit off of misery.”
The reporter was a slight man, thin through the chest and when Edmund stepped forward with fire in his rheumy eyes, the younger man flinched back. Kip grabbed his partner before he could do something that would make the evening news and not in a good way.
Edmund, shaking in fury, said to the reporter, “I think you need to leave right now. Your questions are not befitting this press conference.”
The reporter stood up and seemed about to leave when Kip stopped him. “Wait, I want you to have these.” From the inner pocket of his suit coat, Kip produced two pictures. Edmund was surprised to see they were pictures of his wife and daughter. “If you think money is our only goal I want you to talk to these two people," Kip said, heavily. "This is Gabrielle Rothchild, Edmund’s daughter. She’s dying of lung cancer even as you waste our time with these stupid questions.”
“Kip, no…” Edmund said in a weak voice.
Kip ignored him and strode forward to stand in front of the gathered reporters, his face livid. “And this is his wife. She died of pancreatitis, so I guess you’ll have a tougher time asking her if she thinks her husband doesn’t want to find a cure.”
Embarrassed, the reporter mumbled something that sounded like an apology and hurried from the now silent room. All eyes were on Kip. He held up the two pictures.
“Sometimes we are too eager to find a cure. Sometimes we want to help our fellow man so much that we rush things. That’s where that investigation into our insulin study stems from,” Kip said, lying smoothly. “Trust me, I wish it was all about money. Money is easy. Watching our friends and families die while we struggle against useless rules and regulations, and battle against pig-headed bureaucrats, that’s what’s hard to do.”
He paused, letting the silence work for him. He had such a natural understanding of dramatics that just then he seemed more like a stage actor than a scientist.
Kip smiled suddenly, breaking the tension that had built up. “But we shouldn’t be worrying about any of that. Not today. Not when we have a cure for cancer in our sites. This is not another of the vague promises of some far away tomorrow that we’ve all grown accustomed to. I’m talking about a cure using a combined cell process that unleashes the natural healing power within all of us. Think about it, no more radiation, no more chemo, no more losing our hair. And what’s better, no more useless deaths.”
Another pause allowed that to sink in. He nodded to each reporter and said, “I’m sure you have some more questions.”
There were, lots of them, and he answered them easily, fluidly, and no one questioned Kip’s veracity. He had cemented in their minds the concept that he and R & K research Industries were the good guys here. This had been is ultimate aim. Things had been going steadily downhill for the company; shareholders were losing confidence, stock prices were plummeting, capital was drying up right when he needed it to finish the new facility.
So Kip had orchestrated this little song and dance, and he had played the reporters like a virtuoso. No one asked if Mrs. Rothchild had died of a different form of pancreatitis than the one they were being investigated over. And no one questioned who the rude the reporter was.
They had no idea that the man was actually a local actor and had been handsomely paid to play the villain. Not even Rothchild knew. Edmund was far too innocent, far too naïve in his view of the world. He stood there shaking, casting sad glances at the pictures Kip had made sure to have on hand just for the press conference.
They would go back in his office drawer at the end of the day. They were, after all, just a prop to Kip.
2
Ryan Deckard
Walton Facility, 60 Miles North of New York City
Deck was supposed to be impressed by the buildings and the grounds, then again the facility was supposed to have been completed by then. It wasn't.
"This is what happens when people can't make up their minds," Hal Kingman said in his own defense. He was the lead architect in charge of the Walton Facility and Deck wasn't impressed by him either. The man had on a blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The way he wore it seemed almost to mock the construction workers who were busy as bees in every building. It was as though Hal was just about to do some actually work. "Ask me what I'm supposed to throw all my men into today? Go ahead."
Deckard just kept walking to the main building. He wasn't there to play guessing games; he was there to check the state of security in this supposed fortress-like facility. In his opinion it looked like a college campus, and a pretty one at that. The existing trees had been preserved during construction so they could throw their shade over the winding walkways and the stately red, brick buildings, while shoots of ivy, perennials, and shrubs of all sorts were being nurtured so that in a few years Deck figured the place would resemble the Garden of E
den.
Other than a glance, he ignored the trimmings and the opulence just like he ignored Hal.
Hal's smile failed him, as Deck didn't play along. He hurried to keep up with the taller man. "Well, I'll tell you: yesterday it was security. Today it's the hospital. Do you know they want to have the fifty-bed hospital up and running in four weeks and three days? Who knows what they'll want prioritized tomorrow?"
"The fence," Deck answered him, stopping suddenly and pointing at the black, wrought iron fencing that went around the property. The fence was fine for stopping a few teenagers from getting in and sprawling graffiti on the walls but it wouldn't slow a professional for more than a few seconds. "At a minimum it should be fifteen feet high. I want a team replacing it tomorrow."
Hal looked at the fence in surprise. There was nothing at all wrong with it as far as he could tell. It was supposed to be a security fence and, by golly, it sure seemed secure; he was certain he couldn't climb it. "What's wrong with the fence?"
"It's too short."
"What? Too short? What do you mean? It's...it's..." Hal spluttered for a few more seconds and then smiled and threw up his hands as if the fence was nothing. "You want a new fence? Fine, but it isn't going to happen tomorrow. It's not that easy you know."
"It is that easy," Deck stated, flatly. "Hire another crew. Tell them you want the exact same fence only five feet taller. That should take exactly one phone call and five minutes of time. Do it."
The architect snorted, derisively. "Do you happen to know the first thing about codes and city ordinances? Or how much paperwork’s involved? It's not like I can just snap my fingers and have it all magically happen. These things take time."
"Do what you need to do," Deck replied. "If a bribe is what it takes, do it, because we both know what Dr. Kipling will say when I give my report on the current state of his most ‘secure’ facility. The height of the fence was in my original report, if you don’t recall."
War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) Page 5