That Elusive Cure

by Lisa C Hinsley

  “Kathy?” The voice came from behind.

  I turned and found Jill looking out from a room I’d not been in before.

  “Do you want to come through?”

  I tossed the magazine back on the table and Jimmy and I followed her, taking a seat in the chairs beside the examination bed.

  Jill sat in a chair opposite. “Mr. Noble is really sorry, he’s been called away on an emergency. But he felt it was really important for you to get your results today, so we’ve kept your appointment and you’ll be seeing Dr. Saechao instead. Is this okay or would you rather reschedule?”

  Jimmy and I exchanged a look. I read the same feelings in him as I had in myself. “I’ll see this other doctor. Not sure I can survive waiting any longer.” I tried to laugh, but my nerves were shot and I was sure I sounded like a mad scientist.

  We were used to Mr. Noble and his balmy way of handling appointments. After more than two years I knew what my results would be just by the way he walked into the room.

  Dr. I’d-forgotten-his-name-already walked into the room. Instead of our tall, Swedish-looking doc with a ready smile and happy nature, we had a petite Asian doctor with a blank face. He shook our hands and didn’t even bother to sit. He laid a folder with my notes on the bed and glanced at them.

  How bad would it be? Was my time of thinking me cured or nearly-cured up? I’d end up with Sally this time. Last time the darkness descended was after my cancelled surgery. I should have been admitted. Even Jimmy said so after weeks passed and the dark veil began to lift, and we realized just how bad I’d been.

  The doctor didn’t mince his words and told us straight. “I’ve got the results of your latest scan here.” He flicked through several images. He settled on one of my lungs. “This latest combination of drugs has been very effective. You no longer seem to have any tumors in your lungs.”

  I felt Jimmy’s hand on my leg. He squeezed hard. Tears sprang, and I blinked and tried to stop them with some controlled breaths.

  “In your previous scan we found eighteen tumors in your liver. We can only find two now, and the two remaining are down from 36mm and 32mm to 18mm and 10mm.” He shuffled through the scan pictures. “You have had an amazing response to the latest course of chemotherapy, and Mr. Noble has suggested that surgery might be an option again.”

  Tears really fell now. I wiped at my cheeks, and nodded, unable to speak. Jill passed over a box of tissues and I grabbed a couple. Surgery, a magical word that I’d been told would never again be open to me. I held onto Jimmy’s hand, not daring to look his way.

  “We’re sending your file to Mr. Wright, over at Aintree.”

  That was our liver specialist. The one who had cancelled my surgery at the last minute a year earlier. I’d been deemed too unstable and no longer operable. That was the day I went from having hope to being classed as incurable.

  “Your case will be discussed at the next MDT meeting.”

  Doctor whoever-he-was looked to me to try and judge my reaction to the news. I give him a thumbs up and tried to stifle my sobs. I’d be discussed at the MDT, that meeting where all the docs got together and decided the best course of action for patients.

  More things were said, but I’d stopped listening. All I could hear was the word surgery. Jimmy and I kind of floated out of the room after the meeting ended. The carrot of living was being dangled in front of me and the tears just wouldn’t stop falling. We went for a cup of tea in the Clatterbridge café. I needed to gather myself.

  Of course this meant far more than the doctors here realized. This wasn’t about a course of chemo that miraculously worked. This was the proof I needed, the pod worked. It was a lifesaver. Somehow, between Jimmy and Bob they had to work out the secrets and fix the machine.

  A friend had told me a quote by Dennis Potter after his terminal cancer diagnosis. He’d said the blossom that spring was the blossomest blossom he’d ever seen. Since I heard this, I’d been searching for the same beauty, and had come to the conclusion that this was a lie. Everything turned to shades of grey for me. Maybe this man did see the blossomest blossom. But for me, with the possibility of life being given back to me suddenly, through the tears that still wouldn’t stop, it was like a light turned on. Now I saw the blossomest blossom. And the leafiest leaves and the bluest of skies and the puffiest clouds and everything around me was extra bright and extra colorful, everything, everywhere and all at once.

  And the thought that came to mind was, thank you, Janie.

  Jimmy and I took our time going home, making a detour to Ness Botanical Gardens and walking around in silence. My tears didn’t stop for a long time, and I earned looks of sympathy from some of the elderly ladies we passed. Jimmy held my hand, his grip tight as he stared into the distance, off in his own world. Maybe he was daring to plan our future again. Maybe he was thinking about Bob and how far he’d got in figuring out the nanoparticles. Maybe he was doing the same as me – adjusting his mind to the realization that not only did the pod actually, positively, and categorically work, but that it had almost fixed me. Even if the machine never worked again, I got to have another bite at the apple. I had a chance to have new treatments that might finish the job the machine started. Oh, to dare to hope.

  We arrived home late in the afternoon. Jimmy went straight back to work, not bothering to use his headphones and filling the house with Rush played at high volume. The phone rang, and in a daze, I picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Kathy, it’s your dad. Your mother told me about this machine. I have to say I did think she was having a turn. Is it true?”

  I nodded, tears threatening again. God how I hated to cry, I hated the way it made me feel weak and out of control. I drew in a ragged breath and managed to say, “Yup.”

  “A machine from the future is real?”

  “Yes Dad.” I stretched the phone cord to the downstairs loo and splashed a little water on my face. “It’s all true, Dad. Jimmy had to have a look inside the works and managed to break a part. We’ve got someone looking into it.”

  “Well, I’ll be honest with you, that’s why I phoned. You see, one of my mates down the boatyard works in the aerospace industry. He’s a precision machinist. I reckon if anyone can fix your machine he can.” Dad paused. “Kathy, are you okay?”

  I sniffed, and said, “Uh-huh.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “I got my scan results today.” Breathe in, breathe out, I forced slow deep breaths, trying desperately to keep my emotions in check. Stop falling apart, I told myself.

  “Oh no…”

  “No, it’s not like that, Dad. They were good, really good. My lungs are clear and I’m down to two tumors in my liver.”

  My words were met with what I could only describe as stunned silence. Dad always had something to say. Him being silent said more than words. Then he was speaking again, “That’s wonderful! Mary, Mary, come to the phone!” Dad shouted. I held the handset away from my ear as he yelled a second time. “Come hear Kath’s news!”

  Finally my tears cleared. This was the beginning, a bright new start. I spoke with Mum and at Dad’s insistence arranged to meet him at the church in an hour. He wanted to assess the damage. I decided not to tell Jimmy, he’d only feel hurt that I was recruiting Dad to clean up his mess.

  I had told Dad to park in the council car park. The lot was mostly empty when I arrived. The shops had closed now, only a few restaurants were open at this time of the evening. Dad drove up and saw me waving. He pulled into the space next to my car.

  “Bit cloak and dagger this,” he said as he joined me.

  “I’m supposed to be fixed by now, and should probably have passed the key onto the next person.”

  Dad frowned. “So does it only fix one person at a time?”

  “I don’t think so. The machine seems so advanced, I imagine it can fix queues of people.”

  “So why limit it like this, having only one person at a time getting the benefit?”

/>   I linked arms with my dad and we started walking around the shops to get to the church.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t make the rules.” The church came into view, looking as grimy and neglected as always. “You see what you make of it, Dad.”

  I wrangled with the lock and opened the door wide. Dad stood still for a minute, staring first at the cross, then at the shiny pod in the middle of the floor. He didn’t say a word, and moved slowly into the church, glancing at the piles of pews on either side of the space. Then as he came up to the pod, he reached out and ran his fingertips over the hull as he circled it.

  “So smooth,” he muttered. He’d got round to the back where the panel remained open from Jimmy’s last visit. “I see, I see.” Dad mumbled to himself.

  I sat on a pew behind him and watched as he examined the mechanics. He put his hand up to the broken pipe, running his fingers over the places Jimmy had used solder to seal the breaks.

  “Hmm, cold.” He leaned closer and sniffed. “Yes, I know what that is.” He backed off and lay down, looking into the machinery from another angle. “That’s why the seal’s not working.” Dad sat back up. “Lend me the key. I can have the break fixed by the end of the weekend.”

  “Seriously, fixed that soon?”

  “Oh yes, it’s a simple fix. Jimmy was part of the way there, but he’s used the wrong material for the solder.” He scratched at his beard. “It won’t be working, but it will be mended. You say you’ve got a man working on the gas that escaped?”

  “Yes…”

  “Tell him that the pressure is probably maintained by nitrogen vapor.”

  I blinked slowly. I knew Dad was intelligent, but he’d worked in engineering. How did he know this stuff? “What about your friend?”

  Dad didn’t reply at first, he was staring deep inside the machine. Everything was shiny and smooth, no greasy or oily parts that I could see. Without looking back at me he made a ‘don’t worry’ gesture with his hand. “No need to involve him. I have a question about a valve, but I don’t need Tim here to get the answer.” He nodded, still concentrating on the mechanics. “The fewer people that know about this beauty the better.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s why Jimmy and I have been trying to keep things quiet.”

  “That’s my girl,” Dad said and got up off the floor. He brushed the dust off his trousers. “Can I hold onto the key? I’ll give it back as soon as I’ve done my bit.”

  I hesitated. Last time someone got a hold of the key bad things happened. But this was my dad, the man that could fix anything. I handed it over. The machine was already broken. What more could go wrong?

  Before we left, I went to the front of the pod and touched the side to open the lid. Dad stood back, watching as it silently pivoted up. Once it stopped moving, I reached up into the lid and placed my hand on the panel. Maybe it had a way of recharging itself. I held my breath and waited for the soft voice of the machine.

  “Come on, Kath, your mother will be wondering where I am.”

  The lid automatically began to lower again.

  “Coming,” I said and followed him out of the church, looking one last time at the machine before locking the door.

  23

  Bob Gives an Update

  We woke to the sound of the phone ringing. Squinting at the clock, I realized it was only four in the morning. I threw the covers off and ran for the phone. I could only think of one reason why the phone would ring at such an early hour: bad news.

  “Yes?” I stood on the landing, out of breath. Through the open door I could see Jimmy sitting up in bed looking worried.

  “I’ve got news!”

  A second passed before I could figure out who was on the line, and why I’d want news in the middle of the night.

  “I think I might be able to produce more. At first I thought I’d be able to using radiation chemistry. Oh, and it has a polymeric coating. This is good, it’s highly stable.”

  It was Bob, tripping over his words in effort to get them out as fast as possible. I let out a sigh of relief. No one was injured or dying. I waved Jimmy over. “Hold on, Bob, I’m putting you on speaker phone.”

  He didn’t pause to even acknowledge me. “More rudimentary coatings have been developed already, but nothing as advanced as this.” Bob sounded very excited. “The coating suggests this nanoparticle is being used for an organic reaction. I was right, this is for a medicinal application.”

  “We did tell you that when you were here,” I said.

  “Yes, yes you did. But the first rule of unknown substances is not to give credence to any information given.” He barely paused for breath. “But that’s not the exciting part. I’ll give you a little background. Common address tags are monoclonal antibodies, aptamers, streptavidin or peptides. What we normally like to see is these targeting agents covalently linked to the nanoparticle.”

  “Hang on, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  Bob sighed, “Which bit?”

  I didn’t like to say all of it, so I picked the last part. “Look, you woke us up and my brain is only partially functioning, you have to give us a little leeway here, okay? That part about the links, what does that mean?”

  “A covalent link is when there is a chemical bond shared between the particles…”

  “Okay, that’s enough for me. You’ll just confuse me if you say more. Continue.” I ignored Jimmy as he suppressed a laugh.

  Bob started speaking again, a slight hurt tone to his voice. “Where was I… right, the targeting agents should be present in a controlled number per nanoparticle. The particles you sent me are multivalent nanoparticles. That means they have multiple targeting groups. This is important as they can cluster receptors and activate cellular signaling pathways.”

  Christ, I didn’t understand a word he was saying. Jimmy shrugged and gave me an equally confused look.

  Bob forged on. “This gives them stronger anchoring. The particles also have a red blood cell coating. This helps the nanoparticles evade the immune system.”

  Jimmy cleared his throat and said, “So you’re getting closer to figuring our little baby out?”

  “Oh, definitely. But that’s not the reason I phoned. Do you have any idea how much research is going on in this field right now? It’s where all the big money is being spent. But the results haven’t been terrific and the particles tend to be cytotoxic.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Like chemotherapy, it poisons the patient while making them better.”

  “Oh…”

  “But I don’t think that’s the case with my beautiful little particle.”

  Jimmy and I exchanged a look, both of us picking up on his sudden ownership of our nanoparticle.

  “Then I discovered it is a grey goo replicator.”

  “Grey goo…?” Jimmy echoed.

  “Yes, this is so exciting. Grey goo is like the bogeyman to scientists. It’s long been feared by us. Think of that old movie The Blob. A carbon-eating nanoparticle escapes and slowly eats up all the carbon in the world as it replicates.”

  “And that’s what grey goo is?” I asked.

  “It’s when a particle uses carbon as a food source to replicate. The resulting mass, if you like, is called grey goo.”

  “Aren’t we made of carbon?” Jimmy said.

  I glanced at him, thinking excellent point. A thought came to me; this particle was presumably made in the future. Maybe they had ways of controlling it that Bob didn’t know about or simply hadn’t been invented yet. Visions of healthy people being eaten up by blob-like infestations flashed through my mind.

  “Oh yes, but that’s the beauty of this particle.” He paused as if for effect. “And this is the reason I’m calling now. My discovery just couldn’t wait. It took me all night, but I found the only way it will replicate is with a very specific electrical charge being applied, and only for a very specific amount of time. If it could replicate freely what you’d end up with is the nightm
are scenario of grey goo growing freely as the nanoparticles consumed the world.”

  For a moment no one said anything.

  Then Jimmy said, “Does that mean you can make more?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, I’m not there yet, but my initial estimate of two years is way off. Give me maybe nine months and I think I’ll be making endless supplies of this stuff. At the moment I can only make it reproduce in a very limited fashion.”

  “This is wonderful,” I said quietly.

  “Fantastic work, Bob. Let us know if you make any more discoveries,” Jimmy added.

  I put the phone down, feeling numb. Maybe this would all work out. I crossed my fingers and toes and looked up to see Jimmy beaming widely.

  “This is amazing,” he said. “He’s actually figuring it out.”

  I nodded, tears in my eyes. Words wouldn’t come, just a sob that came from deep inside of me. Jimmy wrapped me up in his arms.

  “Shush, shush. See, I told you it would all be okay.” He rubbed my back, rocking me as the tears fell.

  I pulled back, and still unable to speak I gave him a thumbs up and a weak smile.

  “The machine will work again. I promise you,” Jimmy said and pulled me tighter.

  I pictured the last tumors left inside me. Was their time up? Yes, I decided. The countdown had begun.

  24

  Dad and the Machine

  Dad had left a message on the phone saying he’d be heading over to the church Saturday afternoon. I wanted to be there. I trusted Dad, but I’d trusted Jimmy as well, and that hadn’t ended well.

  I set off, the summer had taken a turn and it almost felt autumnal. Dad’s car was in the council lot again, and I found a spot near to him and got out, the wind bashing me as I walked to the church. Litter raced past me and I struggled to keep my hair out of my face. Bob’s call the morning before had left me emotional again. My hatred of being out of control colored my day dull. The clouds raced past, barely giving the sun more than the odd moment to shine through. The expanse of grey above me didn’t help my mood.