It wasn't enough that dedicated medical researcher Sloane Emerson developed new drugs for HIV and AIDS patients. She needed to discover a cure. Follow us after discovering by the U.S. government manufactured AIDS, expose the government, save her life, fall in love and change the world.
this is to strong people
who have battled too much
This is dedicated to william douglas ward
They Key to Believing
chapter 1
The Woman
 Six a.m. arrived, sounding the alarm clock in his bedroom. The noise crashed through their room, and Kyle Mackenzie rolled over, slammed his palm into the buzzing clock, and rolled back onto his side. He turned his head toward the window. A slight rain tapped against the edge of the roof and dripped over his windowsill.
He didn’t want to get up, not today. Every morning he would pull his umbrella from the stand by his front door, run to his Honda in the driveway, and wind his way through the streets of downtown Seattle, to the opposite side of town, to Madison Pharmaceuticals. Every morning he would go into the office, walk back through the long hallways to the lab, and work with his team, usually making no progress.
“Honey, why are you getting up so early?” his wife Elisa moaned from the other side of the bed.
“Getting in at nine means you’re only there three hours before lunch,” Kyle answered. “You can’t get anything done if you’re interrupted like that. I figured this way I can work for a good five hours before having to stop.”
“Are you going to make a habit of this?” his wife asked.
“We’ll see,” he said as he put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll try to make it home early enough tonight for dinner. I’ll call you.”
And with that he got up and walked into the bathroom to shave.
Kyle hadn’t given up hope. Just a few months ago his team, headed by the prominent researcher Sloane Emerson, developed a new drug that drastically improved the T-Cell count by lengthening the time the viral load was down for AIDS patients. In the best-case scenario old protease inhibitors, when coupled into cocktails with the usual drugs like AZT, reduced the viral load of AIDS patients to a nearly negligible amount around a year. With the new inhibitor they worked on, Madison Pharmaceuticals laid claim to the only drug to date that when taken properly reduced the viral load for just over two years. This was an astonishing feat; some theorists claimed that after three years the AIDS virus would die out from within the body, and if cocktails of drugs could extend the time a patient’s viral load was almost gone from one year to two years, hope was in sight for a cocktail that would eliminate the virus after three years, thus eliminating AIDS in the body.
And if researchers couldn’t find a drug that killed the HIV virus, they could at least find a drug cocktail that holds it back in the body until the virus actually dies.
He thought about this during his drive to work. More than the accomplishment itself, Kyle thought about the celebrations after the drug, Emivir, named after Sloane Emerson, was released into the public. The P.R. department handled the release of Emivir perfectly, and Madison Pharmaceuticals seemed to be in all of the newspapers. Madison’s stock split less than one week after the F.D.A. had approved the release of Emivir.
The parties, Kyle kept thinking, seemed to be at times the best part of the release of the drug. For the first few weeks after the release of Emivir he had plans three or four nights a week, to parties in ballrooms of hotels, to parties at the luxurious homes of both the president and vice-president of the company, to parties in Los Angeles hosted by famous actors, even to parties in mansions of government officials in Washington D.C., which were weekend-events where the executives and the laboratory staff flew on the company plane across the country to celebrate. He bought a tuxedo for the parties. He met people he thought he would never be able to rub shoulders with.
He remembered at one party walking over to a group of women having a conversation about dinner parties. He didn’t know who any of the women were, but he could tell they were professional socialites, that they viewed their position in their life as their job, as a title to uphold.
One woman, wearing a floor-length black dress with gold trim at the neckline, asked, “So if you could invite anyone to a dinner party, who would you invite?”
Another woman, wearing a red beaded dress, answered, “You know I’d invite the Addisons, of course, and the Bronsens as well. And the regulars would be on my list, you know, Daphne Hassan and her interest of the moment, or even the family of Amelia. But then I’d invite some people that would really stir things up, you know, a few others from Congress that would like to talk to people like the Tates.”
Everyone started laughing in the small circle of people. Kyle had no idea who these women were talking about.
“Have you forgotten the Madisons?” Kyle turned to see an older woman glancing at him and smiling as she spoke. “You know the Madisons are very important.”
At that moment Kyle felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to see Sloane Emerson.
“Hi, are you enjoying yourself?” Kyle asked. He could feel the cold stares of the women in the group - not glaring at him but at Sloane, the woman of the evening. She never looked like she fit in at these parties; her demeanor suggested, without her consciously trying, that she was above the group.
“I was just wondering how you were doing. What are you discussing here?” She looked around at the group of women.
“Well,” the first woman started, “We were just discussing if we were to invite anyone we wanted to a dinner party, who would be on our list.”
“Let me think about that.” Sloane said, and genuinely thought about the question for a moment. “How many people could be on this list? Are we talking a small party or something larger?”
“Oh, just forty or fifty people,” the woman in black answered.
“If it could be anyone,” Sloane answered, “I think I’d invite Jesus Christ. Definitely Aristotle would get invited, and some of the Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson. But Einstein would definitely have to be on the list as well, and maybe a few astronomers, too.”
Realizing how the women were looking at her, she stopped.
Grinning at the assumption she made, she tried to save face. “But I don’t suppose you were posing a philosophical question, were you?” She looked around the circle and saw every set of female eyes staring at her with disdain, except for one woman, who was rolling her eyes and looking away.
She turned to Kyle and smiled. “I’ll let you continue your conversation,” she said to Kyle as she turned back to the group of women. “It was very nice meeting you,” and as the last words were trailing out of her mouth she was turning and walking away.
Kyle shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the group, then turned and followed her.
“Sloane?”
She turned around and glanced at him, smiling before she spoke. “I forget that most people don’t think the way I do,” she said to Kyle, nodding her head to the women she just talked to.
“You know, you didn’t technically meet any of those women - they never even told you their names.” Kyle grinned at her response of a smile, telling him in her look that she never cared to meet them because they had no resources of value to her.
“I just have one question, Sloane.”
“Yes?”
“Why Jesus Christ?”
“So that when he doesn’t show up I can have the last laugh.” Sloane winked at him. Kyle never liked it when she made such rash comments, especially when she knew he was a practicing Catholic.
“You know he was a real man...”
“Many people believe the Bible is meant to be read as a metaphor and not taken verbatim. And I know there is scientific evidence that a man named Jesus lived, but I also know that as this son of a supposed god, his name was one of many names for gods, and names were adjusted as created so they had the numerical and religious significance of the number 888. But if he was at dinner I’d be able to talk to him and find out if he was actually a prophet, or if anything from the New Testament actually happened.”
Kyle then watched her begin to turn away before she turned back to him briefly. “You know,” she added, “you should really spend more time with your wife when you bring her to these parties.” She smiled, gestured to Elisa, then turned and walked away.
Kyle’s favorite part of these parties still seemed to be having the chance to talk with famous women and meeting wives of famous dignitaries. It wasn’t because he liked the attention of other women, he loved his wife dearly and would never think seriously of being with another woman. What he loved were the way these women, who worried about looking good and being famous and adhering to all the necessary social graces, looked up to him because he was a part of a team that accomplished something. The team he was on, his team, set their minds to something, and they did it. And everyone wanted to know how.
When he was at these parties, Kyle felt like and astronaut who just came back from traveling to the moon.
“What exactly does your drug do, Mr. Mackenzie?” asked Katia Turner, a Hollywood actress, at one party in Los Angeles.
Kyle was amazed that the famous Katia Turner actually came up to him to talk - and knew his name. He cleared his throat. “When used in combination with the old drugs, Emivir coincided with a lowering of the viral load to a negligible amount for about two years, versus one year, the best result of the other inhibitors on the market.”
“How does it work? You said it’s an inhibitor?”
He didn’t expect people to want to know. “Well, the first drugs on the market, like AZT, targeted only one of the HIV enzyme components. This was basically attacking only one part of the virus, which proved effective for only a small amount of time. The new wave of inhibitors, called ’protease inhibitors’, attacked a different enzyme component of the virus, so HIV was then being attacked at a different level. Using a ’cocktail’ of drugs instead of just trying to attack the virus at one part worked well, but the new wave of inhibitors could only reduce the amount of virus in the body for about a year. This new protease inhibitor we’ve created can continue attacking the virus for nearly two years.”
He could tell that although she seemed interested, she was straining to act.
“So Emivir delays the continued spread of AIDS for an additional year?”
Kyle smiled. “Yes, but it’s more promising than that. The theory is that the AIDS virus, without causing infection from its birth to death, can live in the human body for three years. The problem is that in that three-year life span it continues to mutate and reproduce itself. If we can stop it from doing that for two years, we’re getting closer and closer to stopping it for three years. After that point, the remaining virus may die within the body.”
“And thus a cure?”
“Well, a human could live with AIDS in the body until the virus dies.”
He tried to push out of his mind the thought that the HIV-infected cells could seemingly “hide” in pockets in the body, such as the lymph nodes, or in the spine, or in the testes - and that three years might not be enough time. Researchers still didn’t know everything they needed to about the virus. But Kyle needed to think that there was a goal line in sight.
“That’s amazing,” Katia crooned. “So how long do you think it will take to come up with the drugs to destroy the AIDS virus in the body altogether?”
Kyle paused. She asked the question he did not want to have to answer. “That is what we don’t know right now. We’ll have to keep working on it, hope for the best.”
###
It was with that disheartening thought that he came back to today, in his car, driving to his lab.
It was 7:15 a.m. when he pulled into the parking lot. He walked through the main office, through back hallways, towards his lab. It wasn’t the parties he liked, he thought, but the chance to rest on his accomplishments for once. To feel good about something he had done. Whenever he thought about the search for a cure now, disappointment crept into his pores and he felt like he was going nowhere, no matter how many hours he put in at the lab.
He hoped that at least today he should get in before his supervisor because she must like to see that her staff still has the desire to get through this puzzle.
He walked down the last hallway to the lab. He could see through the frosted glass of the door that the lights were on. He opened the door.
Sloane Emerson sat on a stool, one foot on the floor, one foot on the bottom rung of the stool, lab coat open, falling over her hips to the sides of the stool. “She always looks lanky,” Kyle thought, but it seemed to fit in perfectly with the test tubes and pieces of scientific equipment placed in rows on the line of tables along the wall. Her black hair was straight, just above the shoulder in length, cut into a bob and she always tucked it behind her ears. She seldom wore make-up. She was reading some lab reports. She looked up at him.
“Kyle, you’re here early.”
Kyle was frozen for a moment in the doorway. The door hit him as it slowly closed behind him, reminding him to move forward. “You’re here early. I thought I beat everyone else.”
“Some things were on my mind about the tests we did last night and I figured I’d get in early to read the results.”
“And?”
“Nothing. It’s not making any difference what we do with Emivir, we’re not making any improvements at all.” And with that she turned back to the reports, to read on for a more detailed explanation.
That’s what is amazing, Kyle thought. She never gets depressed about making no progress. At least she never shows it.
He thought back to the parties. Once most of the guests had arrived Sloane would enter, never with a date. And although she didn’t attempt to attract attention to herself, everyone always noticed her when she walked into the room. The rest of the researchers noticed her most of all. After seeing her every day in navy slacks and a white blouse, watching Sloane Emerson walk into a ballroom wearing a floor-length taupe satin dress instantly turned heads. She wore the simplest dresses, ones that showed her off, not her clothing. The fabric from her clothes seemed to glide over her skin as she walked through the room. For jewelry she wore just a necklace with a solitary diamond. At these parties, Kyle thought, when all the women wore too much jewelry and dresses that looked a little difficult to walk in, seeing her confidently glide through a room with the same determination she had when she was in her lab, made her look like she was in charge of everything around her.
Kyle knew she didn’t do it intentionally. It was just how she was.
Kyle walked closer to her and glanced over her shoulder at the test results. “These weren’t very important, I mean, we weren’t expecting much from these tests. Is this really why you couldn’t sleep last night?”
Closing the lab notebook, she placed it down on top of the pile in front of her. “I’ve just been getting exasperated,” she said.
“About our lack of progress? You know, you should really take a break, we’ve made great strides, and you’re -”
“It’s not just our laboratory progress, you know. Tyler, from marketing and P.R., said that he’s heard of a few groups lobbying the government to check into our production speed because we’re not getting enough of Emivir on the market. But they don’t realize that Madison holding off on the number of people that get the drug, because we have to be able to keep them on the drug once they’re on it. An AIDS patient has to take a series of pills a number of times a day for years. Once a patient gets on Emivir they have to stay on it. If they miss two or three doses the virus can have enough time to mutate in their system so the virus becomes resistant to it. So we have to make sure that the plants are producing enough Emivir so we don’t run out for the people already on it, we can’t just give this to anyone, because if we do, then all of the patients will be out of the drug if the plants can’t keep up with production. If we did that, we’d have more of an epidemic on our hands. We’ve got a plant of our own going, and we’ve outsourced three plants in the States, Canada and Japan. What more do they expect of us?”
“Why are you letting production become a problem for you? That’s not your department.”
“But it’s my drug, and these people don’t understand what they’re suggesting. I think none of these people think that businesses have to plan, that they just make so much money and every decision they make is just to hurt “the public”. They don’t think about the fact the businesses have to sell to “the public” so they’re obviously concerned with their market and they’re doing what they can for their market. Businesses, in order to stay profitable, have to do what the market dictates. And this decision - to hold back some people from using Emivir right away - it’s for the good of “the people,” but no one wants to look at it logically. If we were being a mean business, might we be more interested in selling it to as many people as possible, Kyle?”
A smile came over her when she heard Kyle respond with, “No, not if all of our patients die when we run out of drugs.”
“So we’re planning to do something that’s best for the business and best for the patients and still they complain. I don’t see any of those lobbyists making a better drug and selling massive amounts of it. But they complain when we do it for them. It’s like these people think they own us because we are talented and do something with ourselves.”
“I’m sure Madison is going to out-source production to a few more plants, and they’re probably going to complete another plant within the next eight to ten months.”
“I know, but it angers me that we provide a great product for people, we do our jobs, we do them well, we even perform a service to “the public,” if that’s how they want to refer to it, and these lobbyists still think it’s not enough.”
“Is this something you haven’t realized before?”
“No, I suppose not.” Sloane paused and began to smile. “Boy, you don’t let me just wallow, do you?”
“What good would you be if we let you do that?”
“Thanks, Kyle.”
“No, really, you never usually complain about anything or let those people affect you, so if you need to vent now, feel free to do so. But if you’ve managed to put those lobbying goons out of your mind before, I’m sure you’re capable of doing it again. You know you really shouldn’t even waste your time thinking about them.”
“I know... But I just keep seeing the lack of progress we’ve made in the months since Emivir came out. It makes me think we’re on the wrong track.”
Kyle looked at her, wondering for a split second if he saw resignation.
“So I’ve been thinking about looking at this from a different angle.” Kyle looked at her when she spoke and the look of resignation Kyle thought he saw was instantly gone.
Kyle paused. “You know, you really should rest more. It’s Thursday, go home tonight and do something social. Take the day off tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m seeing my father for dinner tonight. Not too much fun. You know how family obligations go.”
“Your father Bill’s a great guy, I love it when he comes to visit. Spending time with him can’t be too bad.”
“I suppose not.”
“He recommended you for the research job at the University, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want that job. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be in tomorrow; I’ll need work as a rest from my dinner tonight.”
As the rest of the staff filed in, work resumed as usual. They had managed to create their wonder drug, Emivir, by working with formulas for existing inhibitors and modifying them so that the HIV virus could not become immune to it so easily. Their current effort was to do the same to Emivir - to work with that formula to extend the attack period for an even longer period of time. It managed to work once for them; it made sense to try it again.
But they kept hitting brick walls with this research and she knew she had to do something else. She studied the reports. She supervised the tests.
“Maybe Kyle was right,” Sloane thought, “maybe I need to rest.” Her father was a nice man; she could have a nice dinner and get some rest and come to work on Friday with a clear head.
Calling her father from work at 6:30, she tried to get her mind off work to make plans for dinner. “What restaurant did you want to go to? I’ll just meet you there. You shouldn’t have to pick me up.”
“You’re still at work, sweetheart, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m about to get out of here, so I can meet you anywhere.”
“Okay. How about Dimitri’s for Italian, say, 7:30?”
“Sure. I’ll see you there.”
When she got to Dimitri’s Bill Emerson was waiting at the bar for her. He was leaning over the bar, but looking back, checking for her. He was wearing the same sports coat he owned since she was a child, but now it stayed unbuttoned because it was a bit more snugly around his waist. Still, he looked comfortable. She walked to the bar.
“Hi, sweetheart. They’re setting up a table for us.”
“Oh, I was hoping that was your first drink and you weren’t waiting for me long.” She glanced at the bourbon on the rocks in his hand; it was his drink of choice.
“Yeah, I haven’t been here long at all. Let’s see how our table is doing.”
Bill Emerson was a university researcher, working in the archaeology department, studying relics brought in from digs that the university was able to acquire. He went to work on time every morning, and he made it home in time for mom’s home-cooked dinner every night as Sloane grew up. The university seldom sent him out on digs; they usually made him classify what the archaeologist groups found on their expeditions and brought back to the university.
Bill Emerson had been publishing less, so in recent years he was doing less research and more teaching, per the administration at the university. He seemed fine with that; besides, his retirement was coming up soon and he wanted to slow down his workload.
When finally getting out of school, he talked to some people at the university and placed a recommendation for a job in the medical research department. Sloane knew well that you couldn’t just recommend someone for a job, that the university research team would have to look at her records... She went through three interviews for a job at the school, but her father seemed to show more excitement about the job than she did. But when they offered the research job to her she turned it down to work in a low-end laboratory position for Madison Pharmaceuticals. Her father thought she was making a mistake. During her seven-year career at Madison, however, she managed to make her way to the head of the research department. As she began to prove herself at the company, the executives gave her whatever she needed. And she produced results.
Her father never understood why she wanted to work for a company and not the university.
“Do you want some company dictating what you do?”
“It’s better than having the government dictate what you do, isn’t it?”
“But you can work for the good of the people if you do university research.”
“And I can do work for my own benefit if I do research at a company.”
“Do you really want the bottom line to be the almighty dollar?”
“Why yes, dad, I do. And what’s wrong with that?”
This would always exasperate her father, but it would also end the conversation.
Eventually the university job was offered to one of her classmates, Toby Graham. Toby was more suited for the university life anyway, Sloane thought. Besides, since they would both be working on improving treatments for HIV-positive and full-blown AIDS patients, they would also be in the same town and could confer on ideas if they were working on similar theories.
Ordering a linguine with tomatoes and mushrooms in a basil pesto, she listened to her father ordered the usual - meat ravioli. He ordered a bottle of red wine.
“What’s the occasion, dad?”
“Well, it would have been our anniversary, your mother’s and mine.”
Sloane sat silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about it.”
“I’m just glad that you didn’t back out on me again.”
“Dad, I -”
“I know, I know, dear. You’ve got your work. You shouldn’t have to worry about your old man anyway.”
“Dad, it’s just that -”
“But you know, you should spend some time with your brother and your sister while you still can.”
“Dad, they’re not going anywhere, I can see them -”
“We thought your mom wasn’t going anywhere, either.”
Whenever her father brought up her mother the conversation always became morbid. It had been seven years since she died in a car accident, but the way her father treated her mother’s death made it feel like a cloak of guilt that he could lay over her whenever she had been away from the family for a while.
“You know, you never see your family anymore,” he said. She knew where the conversation was heading. Her mind wandered to the last Christmas they spent together. Her brother, a mailman, and her sister, a housewife and mother, never understood her love of her work. Family gatherings became efforts to make Sloane see that there is more to life than accomplishing the goals at work she set out to accomplish. “When are you going to settle down, get married and have children?” her sister would ask. “Once you have children, you’ll know what I mean. Children change everything.” Her brother would attack in a similar fashion. “You know, high school friends ask me what you’re up to. I never know what to tell them.”
“Tell them I’m a doctor that heads a medical research department at a pharmaceutical company.”
“But it’s not as easy as that.”
“Why not?”
Her brother never seemed to be able to answer that; he merely felt that something was wrong with a woman so obsessed with her work.
“Dad, I know where this conversation is going,” Sloane interrupted. “We’ve had it many times before, but you still keep trying.”
“But sweetheart, they miss you.”
“No they don’t, dad, they miss the chance to judge me against what they think I should be doing - which is very different from what I think I should be doing.”
“They just want what’s best for you.”
“And why do they think they know what’s best for me, more than I do? Dad, they seem to revel in imposing their standards on me, and no offense dad, but so do you.”
“It’s just that we care.”
“I know, dad, but trust me when I say I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made in my life.”
Her father looked at her. They sat in silence for a moment before they returned to their food.
She never meant to have these arguments with her father. He was always the one that would bring it up. As she drove home from Dimitri’s she tried to understand why her family couldn’t believe her when she said she was doing what she wanted with her life.
Walking into her apartment after dinner, she tossed her trench coat on the chair next to the front door and propped her umbrella against the wall. She walked across the living room; shadows from the city lights from the picture window followed behind her and stretched across the floor and curled along the opposite wall. She made her way into her study and turned on a lamp at her desk. She sat down and looked over the test results she brought back from work. Although there was still no progress, looking at the data made her feel better after talking to her father; at least she could decipher the data, make sense of it, follow its rules and learn something from it.
Possibly even master it.
As it approached midnight, she got up from her desk and walked over to the window. She scanned the skyline and watched the city lights flicker like candles in front of her. These aren’t candles, she thought, these are lights, lights in buildings where people are cleaning from the day’s work, lights in restaurants where people are enjoying the fruits of their labor, headlights of cars moving through the city going home to their families, lights of apartments and homes where people prepared for bed. This is what my data does, she thought. This is what thinking does for the world. It lights the cities. It lights everyone’s way. It moves people. It makes all this possible.
She wondered how other people could not understand this.
She closed the shade and turned around for bed. She wanted to get up early in the morning and get some work done.
###
She didn’t know why she was there, but she had just started a new job. It was her first day in the office, and her supervisor said to her, “Oh, you must have misunderstood from the interview. Research work is only a small fraction of the work you’ll do here. In fact, the laboratory and offices aren’t even set up now, we’re doing some construction and expansion in the building, so your first assignment is to go on a health-mission with a few other staff members.”
Standing in front of her supervisor’s desk, Sloane blankly managed to get out the words, “Where will I be going?”
“Africa. It’s a humanitarian mission. You see, they think we’re hoarding our products here in the States and certain villages are going to be wiped out entirely unless we go in there and vaccinate them. So what I need you to do is let our company driver take you home so you can pack a few things, and then he’ll take you straight to the airport, where you’ll meet up with the rest of the staff. You’ll probably be in Africa for about a month vaccinating children.”
The next thing she remembered was that she was in her apartment packing, thinking to herself that she can’t pick up and quit, she needs the money from this job, and she didn’t even know what to pack. She had no time to call anyone and say she was leaving, so she changed the message on her answering machine. “Hello, you’ve reached Sloane Emerson. I’ll be in Africa on business for the month of April, so please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” After leaving the message she realized how ridiculous it sounded. “I’m in Africa for a month, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible?” she thought, but she had no time to change the message on her machine, she would be late for her plane. And then it occurred to her that by listening to her message someone will then know that no one is in her apartment for the entire month, making it a prime target for a break-in; she could see it now, she’ll come home from her trip and there will be nothing left in her apartment.
She looked over at her suitcase. “I don’t want to do this,” she thought, but she had no choice. She needed the money from this job; this job was all she now had. She closed the poorly packed suitcase, grabbed her passport and trench coat, unplugged the answering machine and headed for the door.
“How could I have missed this in the interview?”, she thought. “How could they have misled me like this?”
The next thing she remembered was being on the plane, starting the descent. They would be landing within a half hour. Her new coworkers were sitting in the aisle and the window seats; she was crammed between them. The only thought that kept going through her head, during the painfully long flight, was “How did I let this happen?”
“The thing with this company is that they want us to know where their heart is,” the coworker on the aisle was saying to her. He was slightly overweight, he had a moustache and he talked a little too loudly, especially for being in an airplane. “I mean, they want us to like the company we work for, so periodically they send us out on these humanitarian missions.”
“Yeah,” chimed in the guy in the window seat. “It’s like doing volunteer work on company time. And how many people get paid to go to Africa and get the trip paid for?”
“Don’t dress up too much,” the guy in the aisle said. “The company also brings along a photographer who takes a ton of photos of us vaccinating all the little African children, you know, holding them and caring for them and stuff, for press releases. They want us to look like we’re down in the trenches doing hard work for these little starving children.”
All she could do was look around the plane. She felt trapped between these two loud men. She wanted to get out of the plane.
“Are you afraid of heights?” the man in the aisle asked. “Cause you don’t look so good.”
The next thing she remembered was being escorted into her hut. “This is where you’ll be sleeping,” the native told her. Apparently he guided Americans like her and her coworkers through missions like this, this seemed to be a regular occurrence for him. “Your bathroom is that building over there; you can get a bucket of water to clean yourself off with pretty much daily.”
’Pretty much daily?’ went through her head as she moved her suitcase to the corner before putting on a pair of shorts. “This is not where my talents are best used, I should not be here in Africa doing the work any volunteer could do to make people think that I work for a kind and caring company. I should be producing better drugs for these people, I shouldn’t be going out here and hand-delivering them.” She held her head for a moment. She then walked outside her hut and there were fifteen emaciated children with wide eyes standing in the doorway, looking up at her.
That’s when she sprung up in her bed, panting.
She looked over at her clock. 4:07 a.m. She did a mental check: No, I did not quit my job at Madison. No, I’m still doing AIDS research. No, I don’t have to pack my bags and go to Africa to vaccinate children.
She fell back onto her pillow. Her heart was racing; she was still breathing heavy. This was the point, she thought, that a man beside her would wake up and say, “It’s okay, darling, it was just a dream.” But no one was there to say it to her, and she was used to that.
She couldn’t fall back asleep. This was one more dream for her to analyze. She never had nightmares, not in the traditional sense of the word, but to her they were most definitely nightmares nonetheless. She had deduced that they had all entailed her losing control of some aspect of her life somehow. In one dream she moved into a new apartment, to find out that she didn’t read the lease carefully enough, and she had only rented a room in the apartment when she thought he rented the entire apartment and she would have four roommates sharing the common spaces with her. The remainder of that dream was spent trying to do two things, trying figure out which bedroom she wanted, before her other roommates came in and laid claim to their bedrooms, and trying to figure out how she was going to fit all of her furniture into a fraction of the space she needed. All of her dreams were like this, losing control over something, by overlooking one small detail, and then having to frantically work to pick up the pieces.
“Why do I have these dreams?” she thought as she wondered if they had overlooked something to produce a vaccine or an attempt for a cure.
She glanced back at the alarm clock. 4:18. Her alarm would go off in forty minutes anyway. She figured she might as well get up.
She walked over to her window. The city lights were on, but it was quiet. She looked at all the dots of light, dots scattered among the tall buildings. She turned toward the bathroom to shower.
###
Kyle Mackenzie was the third person to get into the laboratory Friday morning. As he opened the door, he saw Sloane hunched over with another laboratory technician, Howard Shindo.
“Look, we were lucky with our protease inhibitor, and you know it,” Sloane was saying to Howard. “When the first wave of drugs came out, doctors didn’t know how to use them - they were just prescribing them as a single-drug medication, which was as effective as using AZT, or other drugs like it that affected just the reverse transcriptase component of the enzyme alone. Other doctors were prescribing protease inhibitors even after patients became immune to AZT, which was doing the same amount of work as giving it to patients who were not taking AZT at all. I mean, yes, our drug has proven itself as holding off the reproduction of the virus for a substantially longer period of time, but we don’t even know if the other protease inhibitors were being used in the best fashion.”
“What are you suggesting then?”
“I’m suggesting one of three things. One is that we have to keep modifying Emivir to improve its ability to attack the protease enzyme. Another idea is that we have to start research into integrase inhibitors, and by attacking a third enzyme we might further help AIDS patients. That’s the one that should take the most research.”
“And the third idea?” Kyle walked over and asked, pulling up a stool to sit.
“To change the format of these drugs, so we can eliminate two problems with the drugs on a patient-level. One problem with the current cocktails is that they cause so many side effects that some people can’t take them at all. You’ve heard the stories, some side effects include nausea, muscles that feel like they’re burning, difficulty in walking, diarrhea, bone-marrow suppression, spontaneous bleeding in hemopheliacs, a sudden upsurge in blood sugar levels, which can in some cases lead to diabetes and possibly ketoacidosis, vomiting, dehydration, weight loss, confusion, even a coma or death. There has to be more research into placing these pills together to streamline these pills, and into time-releasing them, so people don’t have to work so diligently at watching the clock - and potentially miss pills. Some patients have also contracted shingles, which is the same virus as chicken pox, or even problems such as excessive flatulence and gastroenteritis. And with nausea being the most common side effect of these drugs, if some people develop nausea daily to these drugs and cannot take them, intestinal upsets may cause the drug to not be fully ingested. If we can eliminate these side effects, we’ll see an increase in the number of patients that respond positively to the cocktail of drugs.”
Howard finished her thought. “So maybe we could redirect our efforts to making the drugs more ingestible.”
“But there’s also an emotional problem with taking these cocktails,” Sloane answered. “And taking the drugs properly, that’s the second part of the problem with these drugs. Patients take usually about 20 pills a day, sometimes more, sometimes up to 60, all at different schedules, some with food, some on an empty stomach. So the continuous clock-watching and changing of their eating schedules because of these drugs is a constant reminder to them that they have a deadly disease. The emotional reminder of having a fatal disease by taking drugs so often can be a negative reinforcer in taking the drugs properly, and a patient doing well may skip drugs. Tack that on with a possible rejection from their family because of this disease, you have an emotional system wreaking havoc on the patient’s body as well. Some patients don’t have the money to sustain the drug purchases, because insurance companies usually won’t allow for one hundred percent coverage of this treatment. Because the drugs can cost upwards of $20,000 per year, some patients may then decide to take less of the drugs than they are supposed to take, to lengthen the time they have the drugs and therefore save money, and end up taking the drugs improperly. And skipping just a few doses, for any of these reasons, can cause a strain resistant to these drugs to emerge in their body, making the taking of these drugs useless in the long run, making those patients even more difficult to treat. Think about the fact that fifteen percent of current AIDS patients are initially, keep that in mind, initially unresponsive to AZT. My hypothesis is that it’s because of a strain that was developed and transferred to these patients by people who took their medications improperly and developed a strain of the virus that could just chew up AZT and spit it out.”
Kyle looked at them. “But how do you attempt to solve that problem?”
“The cost of the drugs decreases in time, as production methods become streamlined and the demand is adequately filled for the drugs. But the emotional strain of taking these drugs on such a rigid schedule could possibly be avoided if we could develop drugs - whether in pill or in liquid format, either as a drink, maybe, or to be taken by needle, like a diabetes patient taking insulin or Humulin, something that was time-released, so that patients would only have to worry about taking medication one to three times a day instead of 12 times. Couple that with eliminating side effects and you have a drug cocktail in one dose that’s easy to use.”
“Yeah, but a needle?” Howard asked. “A lot of these patients are drug users, and might misuse a prescription for hypodermic needles.”
“If they’re getting the needles somehow. They might as well pay for clean ones,” Kyle answered.
“Besides,” Sloane cut in, “if this could be developed in pill form, then we wouldn’t even have to worry about the needle option. In fact, it probably would be easier to make it in pill form.”
More technicians were arriving into the laboratory to work.
“So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us with three courses of action. One is to improve Emivir, the protease inhibitor. Two is to work on an integrase inhibitor so that our cocktails attack three enzymes of the virus instead of two. And three is to work on making these drugs easier to take so that people will take them properly. Well, in theory we could work on a class of drugs that targets the infected cells, instead of being absorbed and spread throughout the body, but that’s in the future, like a vaccination and a definite, short-term cure. These three modes of attack are plenty to get started on.”
“And all three strategies could help produce better results,” Howard said.
Kyle asked, “But how do you want to attack these three different plans?”
The door opened. A few more laboratory technicians came in to start working. “Why don’t we see what each technician thinks they can do the best job on, and divide people up accordingly?” she asked.
“I think we’re on to something,” Kyle answered, scribbling in his note pad.
“Kyle, if you could write up goals of each of the three attacks for this virus, and reasons why they would be effective, we could have a meeting this afternoon or Monday and see how we should go about doing this.”
“Understood, chief.”
Smiling, she answered, “We haven’t had much luck improving the length of time Emivir worked, but if people wanted to continue working on it I would be behind them one hundred percent. But if some people wanted to try this from a different angle, it might refresh the staff as well.”
With those words the door swung open with a violent push. The three of them all looked over to the doorway. Tyler Gillian barged into the lab with his usual presumptuousness, assuming he always had an invitation and a right to walk in and claim the space.
Tyler looked like he should have been the high school class president. As the Director of P.R. and Marketing, a title which he wore like a badge, he made a point to dress impeccably, he made sure his hair was always in place, and he wore a smile that was probably used to seduce ladies into one-night stands during his college days at the fraternity house. Tyler was a diplomat. Sloane was sure that the only reason he didn’t run for political office was that he would have to wait until he was 35 before he could run for president.
It amazed her that his position paid enough to warrant the expensive suits; surely her work was more important than his. It wasn’t that she wanted the money - this was just another one of the mysteries of life that eluded her, like the mystery of why her family always badgered her.
Tyler always had one of two looks on his face: either he looked perfectly calm and collected, saying what his department needed as if it were a scientific law and that it would be done, and that’s when he’d plaster on that charming grin of his to get his way, or else he had a look of panic on his face, one of where he was “in a crisis situation,” where he was “in code red,” and he needed to “put out fires” and “eliminate the problem A.S.A.P.” to save the company from an otherwise inevitable peril. Usually when he looked panicked, he’d end up talking the problem out with someone and throwing look number one, the charming look, on his face, in order to recruit all the help he’d need to solve his crisis of the day.
He barged in to the laboratory, and she assumed he’d have look number two on his face. She was right. Tyler quickly scanned the room until he found her, then he charged over, indifferent to the other laboratory technicians in his way.
“Sloane Emerson, just the woman I desperately needed to see. You’re the woman that can save the day, my dear.”
“Tyler, the last time I checked you were in the P.R. department and I was in the research department.”
“But you know that what I’m marketing is you.”
“What I thought you were marketing was Emivir.”
“But people want the whole package, you know they want you.”
Sloane dropped her head an almost imperceptible level, and only Howard and Kyle noticed. They looked at each other and smiled.
“So, Tyler, what is the crisis of the day?”
“I know this isn’t very scientific, but you can help me out of this one.” He attempted his award-winning grin; it never worked on her. “Remember that lobby group that said our production speed wasn’t good enough because we’re not getting enough of Emivir on the market?”
“Yes, Tyler?” She felt she almost needed to bat her eyelashes to mock his fake wooing.
“They just said in a press conference that we should either out-source the production to more plants or we should open up the production of Emivir to competing markets.”
Sloane stood up with this stab. “What?” she almost yelled.
“I know, I know, it’s our drug, that would be like revoking our patent from us, and unless they get a law from the government it’s not going to happen. But this is making us look like we’re the bad guys.”
“Tell them that we’re expanding production. We need to not only make sure the drugs meet up to our standards, but we also we need to make sure there is enough product for patients to not only get on the drug, but stay on the drug. What we’re doing is in the patient’s best interests.”
“Well now that same group is also complaining that we should lower our prices because we’re destroying the market, since no one can afford to buy the drugs.”
“Oh, and is that why our production plants are running at capacity and people are still waiting for more? Because no one is willing to pay for Emivir?”
“I know, I know, but these are the masses we’re talking about, they’re not rocket scientists, or medical researchers, for that matter.”
“But Tyler, the cost to produce Emivir is extremely expensive. There are so many man-made elements to this drug that it’s a seven-week process to completely make one batch of the drug.”
“I know, I know -”
“And why do people think that businesses are making so much money that they burn hundred dollar bills to light their cigars? Madison is reinvesting most of the profits from Emivir to work on better drugs for AIDS patients. Why do people not see that?”
“I know, but there are the people -”
“Tyler, if our drugs were so expensive, then wouldn’t they be alarmingly more expensive than other protease inhibitors? And they’re not, are they? They cost just about the same amount, and Emivir is a much better product.”
“I know, but that’s not all of it. This group is also suggesting that Madison should be donating some of our drugs to poor who can’t afford Emivir, you know, on a ’compassionate use’ basis.”
“If you know all of this, why do you come to me? You’re saying that they think Madison is made of money? That money comes out of his pores?”
“It might be a good public relations investment to -”
When she heard the words “good public relations investment,” she thought about the dream that woke her up early this morning. “So what you’re saying is that most people should pay for our product, but if some people beg enough, no matter how sick they are, we should give them upwards of twenty thousand dollars a year for free?”
“I don’t know why you -”
“Look, Tyler, you know I find it extremely irritating that these people try to lay claim to our product. That’s why you come in here and tell me, in the hope that I will help you out of this. But I also find it extremely irritating that you can’t keep a lid on this, seeing that you’re the Marketing God, and I’m in the lowly research department.”
“It’s just that -”
“Okay, Tyler, I’ve heard enough. We lowly research people have to go to work now and find the cures to diseases you want to sell to people.”
Tyler stopped trying to interrupt her. He raised his eyebrows slightly, and tried to smile.
“Tyler, why don’t you use that smile of yours when you explain in a press conference why the lobbyists are wrong? You can woo anyone with that smile.”
“Except you, Sloane.”
“Of course. But it’s not me you have to convince.”
They looked at each other for another long moment.
“Now Tyler, I’m sure you have a lot of important work to do, so I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“If you need anything, I’m sure you’ll let me know.”
And with that she turned back to the list Kyle was attempting to write out while this bureaucratic tragi-comedy was unfolding before the entire research department. Tyler walked toward the door.
Kyle was writing notes for what would obviously become the Monday morning meeting, and not the Friday afternoon meeting. He could tell that there was no way they’d be able to meet about their plans before then. During reading Kyle’s notes she looked up at the wall clock above the door as Tyler walked out.
“I told you there’s a lot to do,” Kyle said. “And when I came here this morning I was just thinking about how boring the scenery was in this commute.”
“At least we get something closer to a view of water here, being just off Second Street and closer to Washington. And you know, I’ve never thought about what it looked like around here.”
“Where do you come in from?”
“Closer to the airport, you know, by Kent. Makes the trip in easier for the office to be on the south side of Seattle. And just think, all this that we have had to deal with, and it’s not even nine-thirty yet.”
Sloane got up, told Kyle to keep writing notes for the meeting, and went out the door to get a cup of coffee.
“What is it about people?” She thought. “Why do they feel like they can go to the government using all scare tactics, to make companies give them money?” She made it to the coffee machine; everyone in the break room looked at her strangely.
She turned to a receptionist in the break room, one that was sitting down and taking a smoke break. “Are you looking at me like that because the conversation I just had with Tyler is already being gossiped about?”
“You’ve got to admit it’s a strange thing when someone here can get away with giving Mr. Gillian lip like that, Ms. Emerson. But then again, we love to hear the way you talk to people.”
Not even registering the receptionist’s name she answered, “Why is that?”
“You just have the guts to say it like it is. Seldom do people get the chance to do that.”
“Why would you say anything other than saying it ’the way it is?’ And why don’t people get the chance to do it? I mean, you just say what needs to be said.”
“Some people aren’t in the position of being punished for voicing an unfavorable opinion.”
Leaning over the table the receptionist was sitting at, she had to answer her. “Let me tell you something. If you know you’re right, and someone tries to squelch you, get out. You’re slowly killing yourself if you don’t.”
The receptionist smiled at her, understanding. But the girl still felt apprehensive - even Sloane could see that.
Kyle just tried to take a moment to relax. He knew relaxing was never enough, but he tried to do it every once in a while anyway.
He knew it was morning, but he didn’t know if his wife would get a phone message before Kyle got home from work. He thought about not calling.
He knew that avoiding the call would be an easy way out, though.
He reached over for a phone and dialed his number. He didn’t know what he would say on the answering machine. He listened to his wife’s voice on the answering machine on the phone. He listened for the beep.
He still didn’t know what he would say.
He waited to hear the beep on the answering machine to finish before he started speaking.
“Hey, I thought I might be able to catch you. I didn’t realize what time it was. I wanted to let you know that I thought of you. And I guess I wanted to say that I really do think about you, even when all this other crap is going on here at work. And I love you. Sometimes I forget to say that. Anyway, be good, be safe, and I’ll be home tonight. Thanks for listening. If You need to, call me at work. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Kyle put the receiver down when he was finished talking. He wondered if his wife would hear the message, or if Kyle would just tell her tonight that he tried to call.
Maybe then he would hold her. That might make things better, if they had a little time together for each other.
Sloane walked out of the break room with her coffee and decided that she needed to voice her opinion a little more. She walked down the hallway, took a left turn, and went up the stairs to the executive branch. She walked to the end of the hallway to the president’s door.
She turned to the owner’s private receptionist. “Is Mr. Madison seeing anyone right now?”
“No, he’s not, Ms. Emerson. Should I tell him you’re here?”
“Why, yes, I would,” She responded. Why else would she be standing here asking if Mr. Madison was seeing anyone, she thought. She slid her sleeve slightly up her arm. Her watch read 9:52.
“Mr. Madison, Sloane Emerson is here to see you.” It amazed her that everyone here knew her name, even though she was sure she’d never met any of them before.
“You can go right in, Ms. Emerson,” She heard from the desk, and with that she moved through the doors to Colin Madison’s office.
The one thing she liked about Colin’s office was that it wasn’t cluttered. She imagined a president’s office being all dark wood with ornate trimmings, and knick-knacks everywhere, elaborate lamps and gold pen-holders collecting dust on the desk. Colin Madison’s office was clean, bright, with one painting and a select few framed certificates on the walls. His table was glass. Everything was clean, organized.
She liked Colin; she liked the fact that they were on a first-name basis and that she felt comfortable calling him by his first name. He was a businessman more than he was an executive, and she could relate to him on that level.
She thought back to the Madison Pharmaceuticals Emivir party, held at his house. She met his wife, Bethany, then. When she walked through the doors she noticed two things. She noticed that everyone seemed very concerned about what clothes they were wearing and who they were talking to more than what they were talking about. But she also noticed that the Madison home was very rich, that was the only way she could describe it. She was used to the clean lines of Colin’s office, what she didn’t expect was the antique vases and chandeliers and Persian rugs that were obviously chosen by his wife in their home. Bethany by any standard was a socialite; she concerned herself with shopping, owning just the right help around the house, and being above everyone else. Sloane could never understand this, and she couldn’t understand how Colin fit in with this.
But she never asked questions about his private life; she preferred to think of him as a good businessman, as a businessman who trusted her ability and gave her the opportunity to excel at her work.
And it paid off for Colin Madison, so she was in good favor with the owner of the company.
She walked toward the desk. “I’m sorry to come in unannounced, I’m sure you have a lot -”
“You know that if I let you in it’s because I want to hear from you. Besides, I always have time for you.” Colin Madison was one of the few men, other than her father, who could successfully interrupt her. But it was only Colin Madison’s interruptions that Sloane didn’t mind. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Tyler Gillian.”
“Oh, yes, I just got off the phone with him. He seems to be a little upset.”
“Colin, is it my job to tell him how to do his job?”
“No, of course it isn’t. I know what Tyler’s up to; he’s just looking for someone to help him, so that if his plan fails he’ll have someone to blame.”
“Is that what you think, Colin?”
“He is a marketing man, you know. His job is to do marketing for this company, but it’s in his blood to market himself.”
“I just want to know how you’d like me to deal with him.”
“However you want to. If he wants to scream and cry, let him. Although you know it would be helpful if you showed up for a few words at an occasional press conference.”
“You know I don’t like those press conferences, the reporters always ask the most inane questions. Couldn’t Someone like Kyle Mackenzie or Howard Shindo go in my place?”
“Maybe. You can work that out with your men and then talk to Tyler about it. But people know your name, so you can understand why they’d like to hear from you once in a while.”
“I suppose. I’ll try to be better about it... I’m sorry to hear about the flack you’re getting from that lobby group. You know you’re doing the best for your market, which in turn is the best for your company, but no one else seems to think that way. I think they all just think you’re made of money.”
“Well, what if I am?”
Sloane smiled at his question. “It still doesn’t mean they have a right to it. It’s yours, and you earned it.”
Colin smiled at her. “You know, you’re one of the few people I know who would say that to me - and mean it.”
Still smiling, she knew that this is why she liked Colin. “I think that on some levels business is a science. You have to follow certain rules in order to keep your business successfully running. The part I don’t understand is the public opinion factor, you know, the Tyler Gillian factor.”
“And that’s why you’re the head of the research department. I’ll make sure Tyler stops bothering you.”
“I just wanted to know that this wasn’t a part of my job, that I was right to say the things I did to Tyler.”
“Consider the matter closed. Now, there is something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes, Colin? What is it?”
“You know you could be conferring with other scientists more, that’s why I told you that you can use the company plane whenever you needed it.”
“I know, I’ve been starting to use my e-mail account more, too, to communicate with other researchers more.”
“I just wanted to let you know that option was still open. Just check the flight schedule, at the main reception desk, to see if it’s free, and it’s yours.”
“Thank you, sir, I will keep that in mind. Is there anything else you need?”
“Yes. Take a vacation. Hell, fly somewhere this weekend, the plane is free. Just get some rest.”
“I’ll do what I can, sir. Thanks. And if I don’t talk to you sooner, have a good weekend.” She turned and walked to the door.
“You have a good weekend, too,” she heard Colin Madison say before his door shut behind her.
As she walked back down the maze of hallways, she attempted to take the first sip of her coffee, which at this point was cold. She threw it into the first garbage can she could find.
By the time she made it back to the main laboratory room, the clock above the doorway read 11:08. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t even sit down in her own office yet, after being in the office for five hours.
Kyle was the first man to talk to her when she got back into the lab. “Well, do you want the good news?” He asked her.
“What good news?”
“There’s another reception dinner,” Kyle answered. “Want to go? It’s next weekend.”
Looking confused, she had to ask. “Why is there another party?”
“It’s more of an AIDS party than a research party. But it would look good if we both went to it.”
“An AIDS party?” she thought; she still didn’t know how to react to this party. A part of her didn’t even want to go. “Well...”
“A friend of mine, Steve, he wants to go, you could even talk to him if you got tired of the dinner party.”
“I’m bad with names. Who is this Steve guy?”
“A friend of mine. I’ve known him since college. He’s a teacher. But he finds research talk interesting ... unless he just seems interested for my benefit. I don’t know - but he wants to go, and he’s not coming with anyone, so...” Kyle knew it was pointless for him to suggest that Sloane and Steve should be a date; that would make Sloane want to not go.
“...Is he that friend of yours that comes into the office every once in a while, shorter than me, curly brown hair?”
“That’s the guy. So... Are you going?”
Pausing for a moment, she finally answered. “I don’t want him to think I’m going to say yes so I can have a date with him.”
“He’d want to see you because he’d want someone to talk to.”
“Fine. Tell him that I’ll be doing work while I’m there though.
“Got it,” Kyle answered, noting that She wanted to leave this conversation.
“Give me a copy of the plans, the location, so I can get ready,” she said as she started to walk away.
“Consider it done.” Kyle watched her walk away as he spoke.
Kyle hated being the matchmaker, so he did his best to act like he had no hidden motives when talking to her. He knew that Steve did like a good conversation, but he also knew that Steve liked women and that he always thought She was cute. Kyle remembered telling Steve that She would never be interested in him, and that Steve’s response was that he always loved a good challenge.
Steve relished the thought of putting another notch on his head board with her, but Kyle knew that She wouldn’t want that and that they would just end up bickering instead of talking - and he knew they would never make love. But Kyle knew that he couldn’t argue with Steve; he knew that it was merely his role to set the table - rather, the stage, for Steve and Sloane.
###
Later She walked into the lab and people were waiting for her. “Sloane! We’ve been looking all over for you,” one of the technicians said to her.
“I was in Colin’s office. What’s the matter?”
“A colleague called for you. They didn’t want to leave a message. They said it was urgent that they talk to you. They said they’d call back at 11:15.”
“And did they leave a name?” It amazed her that she had to ask.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, it was Tobias Graham, from the university’s medical research department, the viral branch.”
“I’ll be here when he calls. Make sure the call comes straight through.”
She walked into her office. There was a small stack of mail sitting in the center of her desk. A few journals were sitting in a pile on the chair that faced her desk.
“I’ll get to all that later,” Sloane thought.
She walked around her desk to her seat. She almost forgot what her chair felt like. She never worked in her office; when she was at work she wanted to be literally in the lab. She could read at home.
She slid her sleeve slightly up her wrist. 11:12. She knew she couldn’t start working on something; she had to just wait out the next three minutes.
She didn’t know how to wait.
She took her mail from her desk and the journals from her second chair and placed them in her briefcase, thinking she could get to them during the weekend.
Sitting back down, she thought about the fires she had to put out this morning. “How do they expect me to get any work done,” she thought, “if I’m saving everyone else in the company first?” It seemed to be getting more and more problematic, she thought, it seemed that more and more people from different departments were asking for help to save them from their problems.
She leaned back in her chair. The phone rang.
“Sloane Emerson.”
“Sloane, hey, it’s Toby.”
“Toby, where are you?”
“Brazil. Look, I can’t explain it now, I -”
“Were you doing more rain forest studies?”
“Yes, but I’m on my way back to the U.S. now. I was wondering if there was any way you could meet me in Miami in a few hours.”
“Miami? You mean this can’t wait until you get back into Seattle?”
“I could really use someone to talk to about what’s happened. This research I’ve been doing is a complete mess. Can I bounce some of it off of you?”
Sloane thought about Colin’s plane offer, thinking that this could be a business expense as well as a personal trip. “Sure, Toby, I can make it. Where should I meet you?”
Toby told her his flight number; since his flight wasn’t for hours she told him she’d meet him at the gate when he arrived.
Hanging up the phone, she picked it up immediately, dialing the main receptionist. “This is Sloane Emerson. Is the plane still open this weekend?”
“Yes it is, Ms. Emerson.”
“Please have it ready to go to Miami within the next hour. I’m leaving the office now; I need to meet a colleague.” She felt like she needed to tell the receptionist that this was a business trip.
“No problem, Ms. Emerson. The pilot Jim will be waiting at the airport.”
Sloane got up and grabbed her trench coat, her umbrella and her briefcase. Would this help her with her search for the key to her puzzle? Or would this be just another dead end? She looked at the mail billowing out of the front pocket of her briefcase. “At least I’ll have reading material for the plane,” she thought, and she walked out of the office.
chapter 2
The Rain Forest Experiment
Turning to the room, Howard asked, “Do you have any idea where she’s going?” to everyone in the room. “She was waiting for a call from Tobias Graham,” a young technician answered.
“Oh, Toby,” Kyle answered. “I’d assume she’s meeting him somewhere.”
“When has she ever left before six in the evening?” Howard asked.
“She did have a strange look on her face,” Kyle said. “I hope she’s taking a break with Toby and spending some time with him as a friend instead of talking about their research.”
“You know her; it’s got to be business,” Howard said. “You know she wouldn’t leave work early to be social. She wouldn’t leave on time to be social. But on the plus side, at least no one will be barging in here looking for her.” Howard turned to Kyle and smiled.
“Yeah, but those confrontations are entertaining to watch,” Kyle smiled back. “Now all we get to do today is work.”
They both smiled as they turned away from each other and went back to what they were working on.
###
Before Sloane got to the plane she checked her messages at home. Normally she did not worry about her phone, but seeing that she was in such a rush she did not even get the chance to change her answering machine. She dialed her number and pressed the code to listen to her machine messages.
“Hi, it’s your dad, didn’t know how you were doing. We didn’t get a chance to talk much when we saw each other last, and I know you are at work, but this was my only time between working here, so when you get the chance, give me a call. Talk to you soon.”
“Miss Emerson, hi, it’s Kyle’s friend, Steve... I know you weren’t expecting someone who was almost a stranger to call, but Kyle gave me your number, and I know this will sound silly, but it would be cool to have someone to talk to next weekend. If you need to, my number is three six four ten sixty-three, ’cause I’m always up for a refresher course on the work you guys do. Otherwise I’ll see you next weekend.”
Those were the only two messages, though she was surprised that there were that many messages there in the first place. Making a point to write down Steve’s phone number and to call her dad and Steve back, she smiled, hung up the phone and made her way to the plane.
After sitting down, she thought it was strange to be on this plane. She was used to seats in rows of three with no legroom and a thin aisle. This plane had large, roomy seats, some facing inward, toward the aisle, some facing forward, and there were a few cocktail tables and large counters bolted to the floor. This was a social airplane. This was a plane for entertaining guests.
“So, Jim, when’s the flight attendant going to get on the plane and show me how to fasten my seat belt?”
The pilot laughed. “Haven’t you been on enough flights to know your safety rules, Ms. Emerson?”
“Please, call me Sloane, and yes, I think I could mimic every move those people do. You know... ’If there is a change in cabin pressure, your oxygen mask will come down. Place the mask over your head and continue breathing normally; the bag will not fill up, but there will be a continuous stream of oxygen. If you are taking care of a minor, place your mask on first, then assist the child.’” The pilot was laughing at the show she was putting on, using two fingers to point where the oxygen masks and exit rows were. “And those flight attendants mock putting the mask on over their heads, but they never put the elastic around their head, because they can’t mess up their hair.”
“You do know how it’s done then.”
“What I can’t imagine is how infuriating it must be for those flight attendants to have to do this degrading little exercise and as they’re looking around the cabin they can see that no one, I mean, no one, is paying attention to them. And still, they have to stand there, do these silly gestures, pull the loose end of the seat belt, point to the lights along the aisle.”
“I never thought about it, actually.”
“And why do they point with two fingers? When they point at something, they use both their index finger and their middle finger, and it looks so unnatural.”
“You know, they’re actually trained to use two fingers to point those things out. In some cultures, pointing with your index finger is considered very rude, so they are trained to use two fingers so as not to offend anyone.”
Pausing, she answered. “That never occurred to me.”
“If you’ve got a screaming Japanese businessman on your plane because you pointed in his direction when you were showing the safety rules, it occurs to you.”
“I suppose it does.”
“Well, Ms. Emerson -”
“Sloane, please.”
“Okay, Sloane, since there is no flight attendant here, let me tell you to keep your seat belt on during take offs and landings. And the other important thing you need to know is where the refrigerator is. It’s stocked with a few sandwiches, I think there’s ham, tuna salad, roast beef and turkey, and there’s just about any liquor you could want in there, too. Usually people go for the champagne, and actually, I think the bubbles help with people who feel queasy flying.”
“Got it, Jim. Can I ask another question?”
“Of course.”
“This plane isn’t too big for you to fly by yourself?”
“No. Actually, if this plane were any bigger by law I’d need someone with me. But this plane is fine for me. Besides, they add all these control features on planes like this, like ’auto pilot’, so this plane could literally fly itself. Why do you ask - do you not feel safe?”
“I’m just amazed that this much machinery flying in the air can be comfortably controlled by one person.”
“Visit the cockpit while we’re up and I’ll show you how it works.”
“Thanks. What time should we get to Miami?”
“Oh, right around seven o’clock their time.”
“Thanks, Jim.”
“No problem.”
Jim walked into the cockpit and closed the door behind him.
After leaning back, she could only close her eyes. She figured she’d wait until after they took off to get her work out. Besides, she thought her briefcase should be stowed away under her seat during take-off, right? She waited for the plane to move. She enjoyed airplanes; she liked knowing that a large, heavy piece of machinery could lift her up into the air and fly her across the country, or around the world. She listened to the engine start up; the plane made its way to the runway. The engine always seemed loudest when it just started up, it always forced her to pay to the motors the attention they deserved. Someone made this engine, She thought. Someone made it, not merely put it together, but someone created this engine. Someone figured out a way to create the power to fly, to move, faster and faster, with this machinery. Someone created this.
“I want to create like that” as all that kept going through her head..
Leaning back in her chair, she felt the plane moving faster and faster down the runway. She could feel the first wheel leave the ground, then the others. She was in the air.
With the nose of the plane pointing so high, it felt like she was almost lying down. She felt the pressure of gravity pulling all of her body into the seat. It felt like her clothes were being pressed to her skin. It reminded her of when she would go to amusement parks when she was a child and go in the spinning room where the floor fell out from underneath her. Once she accidentally swallowed her gum on that ride; it was almost impossible for her not to have swallowed her gum, the force of the ride spinning was strong against her.
Having the chance to lean back in her seat, she got to enjoy the ride, until the plane leveled off. Straightening her hair, she opened her eyes and sat upright. She reached under her seat and looked into her briefcase. She almost pulled out her computer, but she decided that her notepad and pen would do the same job. She saw the messages to call her dad and Steve. A flurry of thoughts went through her head; she didn’t entirely understand why her dad was calling her, she thought they had caught up at dinner, and then she thought about what she should make of the phone call from Steve. “Men aren’t usually calling me,” Sloane first thought, but then she thought that it might be just what she needed, someone to talk to about work that wasn’t in the field, someone that might actually want to listen. Then she thought about the work she had to do when she got back to the office, and she wrote down:
1. Improve Emivir
2. Integrase Inhibitor
3. Improve side effects and ease-of-use for drugs
Then she stared at her list; she drew a line under her list and wrote:
-------------
4. a vaccine
5. a cure
After putting her pen down, she looked out the window.
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” she said under her breath, looking at the clouds the airplane was flying over outside her window.
She had to look over her list.
“There has to be something I’m missing. Just look at this from a different angle,” she thought. She looked at her list. She stopped on point three. She picked up her pen, and drew another line again.
-------------
6. psychological treatment
6a. alleviate depression, may help immune system
6b. help memory to take drugs, and keep positive attitude
7. homeopathy
7a. nutrition, diet and herbs to improve general health
7b. herbs to alleviate nausea for patients who experience side effects and to make injections more plausible
7c. vitamins and herbs with effects on immune system
7d. is there a psychologically positive effect of eating things good for you?
-------------
Homeopathy stuck in her head as she looked at her list of notes on homeopathy. She was surprised that she knew nothing about this. She never thought of the nutritional aspect of illness and health. She remembered that in order to get her degrees, she needed only three hours - one class - on nutrition. And no one in the medical community in America seems to give anything credence for health benefits other than a drug - at least not on paper.
Tearing the paper off of the note pad, she put it in her briefcase. She pulled out her mail and her journals, placed them all on the table before her and started reading.
A few hours later, while she was still reading, she heard her pilot’s voice over the speakers in the cabin. “Have you been working all of this time? Have you eaten any food yet? You have to be starving by now.”
The door to the cockpit was open; Jim was glancing back at her.
“Okay, okay, I’ll get some food.”
“Good. You know it will be after dinner by the time you get settled in Miami,” she heard over the speakers in the cabin. She knew he was right and slowly walked to the back of the plane and grabbed a turkey sandwich and a can of juice. She looked at the champagne in the refrigerator before closing the door.
Instead of going to her seat, she went to the cockpit. Maybe Jim was right, she thought, she probably needed a break from her work.
Standing in the doorway, she looked at the tiny cockpit. “Mind if I come in here? I’ve never been in a cockpit before, and yes, I would like to see how you fly this plane all by yourself.”
“Sure, come on in. there’s an empty seat here.”
Sitting down, she opened the wrapping from the sandwich and peeled it down. “Is it okay to eat in here? Oh, wait, will you need some food? I should have asked before.”
“No, I’m fine, I ate right before we left Seattle.”
With eyes transfixed over all the controls, she then looked up at the sky in front of her. The sky unfolded rows and rows of billowing clouds in the panoramic picture windows before her.
“You know, the sky looks a lot better here than from the passenger seats.”
“You know, seeing the world from this high is going to be a lot better when you have a window bigger than a magazine cover.”
Sitting for a few minutes in silence, eating her sandwich and drinking her apple juice, she smiled while Jim radioed controllers at the ground to check for weather conditions. A few minutes passed, and then she spoke.
“Jim?”
“Yes?”
“What kind of feeling do you get when you’re flying a plane?”
“You mean, while I’m in the air?”
“Yes. You’re in this cockpit, dealing with all of these controls, high above the ground. Do you ever get lonely or scared?”
“Lonely? Scared? No, not at all, Ms. Emerson.”
“Sloane.”
“Sorry. No, Sloane, I don’t get scared at all. I feel, well, I don’t know how to say it, but when I’m up here I feel like I have more control than I do anywhere else in the world. This is my space, this is my domain, and it makes me feel, well, I don’t quite know how to put it...” Jim paused while speaking. “Alive, I guess. I guess I could feel scared, but here I know that if I do something wrong it’s my fault, there’s no one here to tell me how to do my work or to second guess me. I never get tired of flying airplanes. And as for lonely, well, no, I don’t feel lonely, either. I guess I’m alone up here a lot, but there’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. And when I’m up here, flying, I could never feel lonely. I feel like I have everything I need right in this little cockpit, flying in the air.”
“Are you sure you don’t need anything? I think I’m going to put my work away, I could bring you something.”
“No, really, I’m fine. Yeah, you should pack your stuff up, I think we’re going to be landing in about twenty minutes.”
“Really? We’ve been on the plane that long?”
“Yes. Apparently you lose yourself in your work, too.”
Sloane walked to the door of the cockpit. “I suppose I do,” she said as she walked back to her seat to prepare for the descent into Miami International Airport.
The airplane arrived at the airport only about fifteen minutes before Toby’s plane was landing, so She didn’t have to wait long for Toby to arrive. She stood at the security gate, just past the customs agents, pulling out the last journal from her briefcase. She leaned against the railing along the window.
Was he was going to give her any answers, as all she kept asking herself. She knew that she was supposed to be there for him as a friend; that’s why he asked her to meet him in Miami. But she knew she wanted information about his search for a solution to the AIDS mystery. She wanted to get somewhere with her search, and she traveled across the country to try to get it.
Toby walked through the passenger terminal toward the security gates. He spotted her before she saw him, which is the way he preferred it to be: he could then look at her for one long moment before having to collect himself. Something about Sloane Emerson appealed to Toby, but he could never understand why. “But she’s not very feminine looking,” Toby thought, “...her jaw is even sharp and rigid...”
Toby saw her sitting on a ledge along the window at the side of the terminal. Her trench coat was over her right arm, and she was holding her journal in her right hand, and holding the strap of her overnight bag on her shoulder in her left hand. She was wearing beige slacks and a white button-down shirt. He could see that she was wearing a gray tank top underneath her shirt. Her hair kept falling into her eyes; she continually had to let go of her luggage strap to guide her hair back behind her ear with her fingertips. She stared at her journal. For that moment, she saw nothing other than the words she was reading and processing in her brain. And for that moment, Toby could see nothing other than her.
It took him about thirty seconds to be processed by customs. He walked out of the hallway and to the open area where she was waiting and started walking toward her. She looked up at him.
“Toby! I didn’t even see you coming.” Standing up, she crammed her journal into her briefcase and put her arms around him. Toby smiled.
“That was the warmest greeting you’ve ever given me.”
“I forget that my friends need reminders from me that I’m their friend. How was your flight?”
“Fine. I don’t have any luggage, so let me just run into the bathroom and then we can go to the hotel.”
“Oh, a hotel,” she answered. “I completely forgot about where I’d stay.”
“Don’t worry. I made sure I got a room with two beds.”
“I’m sure I could get my own room.”
“What for? Look, don’t bother buying a room, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“you’ve got a point... So, get to the bathroom, will you?”
Toby smiled at her again and walked to the bathroom. It occurred to her then that Toby was smiling all the time. She couldn’t actually imagine that he was that happy all the time, it just couldn’t be possible. She watched him walk to the bathroom; as she watched him she thought that he looked like he belonged on a beach in California and not in a laboratory in the dreariest city in the United States. His blond hair was long on the top and short on the sides and bounced with him whenever he walked. His usual five o’clock shadow looked like little spears of copper and light brown. He almost always wore jeans, faded ones, with a t-shirt and sometimes a sports coat. He looked like he needed a convertible to complete the outfit.
They walked in stride through the airport and found a taxi. “The Pelican Coast Hotel,” Toby said as the taxi sped off toward the expressway.
Toby checked in while Sloane stood by his side. She thought it was strange that she was with a man in a hotel; she usually checked herself in, because she usually traveled alone. They went to their room. Sloane started unpacking her bag.
“Can’t that wait? Let’s get a drink at the bar.”
“I want to hang my clothes so that they don’t get more wrinkled.”
“Okay. How about I meet you down there?”
“Sure.”
Toby bounced his way out of the door. Noticing that he was his usual happy self, she still thought that he seemed much better than he was when he called from South America earlier that day. She walked over to the thermostat. It was 76 degrees in the room. She turned the temperature down and took off the white blouse that was over her tank top before heading downstairs.
Toby was sitting at a corner table in the hotel bar. It was relatively quiet; usually the tourists went to other bars on the weekends. He saw her walk through the lobby and enter the bar. He saw that She had taken off her white shirt in her room and was wearing only the tank top with her slacks. Toby wasn’t expecting this. He knew She thought of her clothes as only functional garments; that they were doing a job for her. It was warm in the hotel; she wouldn’t have a need for her white blouse; it served its function; it could now rest from its duty.
But now he saw her shoulders.
He noticed how she moved around the tables through the room. When she maneuvered around a table or a chair she turned one shoulder to the front, as if it were a guiding force, as if she was steering with her shoulders, as if she were about to shove her way through a crowd in a room. She held her purse in her hand, and even in how her arms held her purse, it seemed as if her limbs consciously knew they served a function and should do it effectively. Toby was transfixed on her shoulders and arms as she made her way to the table.
He stood up and pulled out the chair for her. As he was seating her, She asked, “Okay, I’m here. Care to tell me what’s going on?”
“Is it always business with you?”
“Toby, you called me this morning upset, asking me to fly across the country, and now that I’m here you act like nothing has happened. Can you explain it to me?”
The waiter walked up and placed a wine glass down in front of her. “I hope a Chardonnay was a good pick. I didn’t know what you’d want.” The waiter finished pouring and brought a shot of whiskey and a draft beer for Toby.
The waiter walked away. “Shots, already?” She asked.
“Look, I’ll get it out, but I just wanted to say,” and he raised his shot glass in the gesture of a toast, and She followed his lead, “that I’m really happy that you came here. I mean, I’m glad that you thought this was worth traveling to Miami for. I do need to talk to you, but I just want you to know that I appreciate the effort you’ve made. Thanks.”
Their glasses clinked; Toby threw his head back with the glass and grabbed his beer to chase it down while She watched him and took the first sip of her wine.
“Look, remember the last trip I took to South America, to look into natural materials that may have anti-viral effects on humans?”
“The natural materials, and yes, and Toby, I’m still amazed that you got the funding for it. You didn’t even know how to go about looking for material for AIDS drugs.”
“You forget that I work for the government, you and your little company probably would never have funded it, but the government did. That’s why I like working for the university. All I had to do was make the proposal sound nice.”
“You just had to make it sound nice,” She replied, almost with a condescending undertone.
“Yes, you know what I mean.”
“So getting money doesn’t necessarily depend on merit or talent?”
“Oh, don’t start, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“And you said the government pays for it?”
“Well, yes, to the university.”
“Who pays the government?”
“What?”
“Who pays the government?”
“Um, taxes, I guess.”
“Yes, they do. And who pays taxes?”
“Okay, you can stop now.”
“I’m just trying to gently remind you that your money has to come from somewhere, it’s not like the government is giving you free money, it was taken from somewhere else, taken from all the people who pay taxes.”
“Sloane -”
“That everyone pays money so that you can go to South America searching for plants when you don’t even know exactly what it is you’re looking for.”
“Sloane -”
“Okay, okay, I’m done, I’m getting off my soapbox now.”
“Thanks.”
“So on your last trip...”
“So on my last trip I managed to find something from the sap on the back of some bark there, and we brought it back to the States, and it seemed to do a very good job of fighting the virus.”
“Yes, you told me about it, what was it, two months ago?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, there’s a little write-up about you and your findings in a medical journal I was reading on the flight over here.”
“Really? Did you read it?”
Sloane did her best to put a coy expression on her face. “Maybe...”
Toby laughed. “We did a bunch of laboratory tests on it and it seemed to be doing really well, so we administered it to four test subjects. Half of them showed marked improvements in their condition - their viral load dropped and their T-Cell count shot up. For the other two the substance had no impact.”
“Still, that’s great, with a little engineering you can find out what made the substance not work for the others and alter it to give it a higher success rate.”
“Exactly. In doing all of these tests, we used up all of the drug.”
“Oh, so you were going back now to get more of the bark.”
“To get the sap - not the bark.”
“So you were going back to get more of the sap.”
“Exactly.”
Toby emphasized his last word too much; Sloane was sure he intentionally placed too much emphasis on that word. She looked at him for a moment. “And... how did the trip go?”
“How did my trip go?” Toby almost laughed as he signaled the waiter for another shot. “I go back to the same place where I found that tree, because you know how rain forests go, a tree there might be the only one of its species, or one like it may be very far away from it instead of right next to it, it’s a very diverse and very rich area.” The waiter brought up the shot; Toby held up his finger while he did the shot and handed the shot glass to the waiter and gestured for another. “I go back to that same place where I found that tree, and you know what I found?” He took a swig of his beer.
“What happened, Toby?”
“What happened is that some American cattle-ranching beef company or something bought a thousand acres of the land my tree was on and they cleared all one hundred acres for cattle ranch. Cleared. I mean, my tree was right smack-dab in the middle of the hundred acres. And it was completely gone. This field looked like it could have been right in the middle of Illinois or Iowa. Not a tree in sight. There was a little fence all the way around and a little sign every hundred yards at the fence line with the company name on it.”
“So you had to come back empty-handed.”
“Yes, I had to come back empty-handed.”
“Is there any way that company could have known that researchers were using the material on that land for disease research? I mean, could you have notified the government or something?”
“I did notify the government. But how accurately are they going to keep records in different departments of these things? They make a note of what I’m doing and they seem to just put it in a file cabinet. Hell, they could have put it in the circular file for all the good it did. When someone wanted to buy the land, the government was the first to want to make a penny out of it.”
“Well, of course they want the money for it. And if no one really knew...”
“There’s so much bureaucracy, no one knows what the guy next to them is doing, unless they’re doing something wrong.”
Sloane looked at him for a moment. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Get me that tree back.”
“Toby -”
“I’m sorry.”
It all flashed in her mind that she should learn to be more social, especially in these situations. She did the best she could on such short notice by saying, “I mean, do you need to talk more? What can I do right now to make you feel better?”
Toby was surprised by her concern. He responded by stating, “It’s not like you to make such an offer.”
“I didn’t make an offer.”
The waiter brought another shot to Toby. “Point well taken.”
The waiter walked away. Toby looked at his shot, then at her. “You know what you can do for me?”
“Name it.”
“Just have a drink with me.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”
Toby looked at her, then at her half-full glass of wine.
“Waiter,” She called out, “Two more shots of whiskey and two pints of his draft.”
Toby could hardly believe his eyes. He smiled almost inquisitively at her.
The waiter brought back two shots and beers. Sloane picked up the shot with Toby and they held them in the air. Toby counted to three; She followed his lead and they both drank. Sloane shivered after drinking the shot and followed his lead in going for the beer to wash the whiskey down. Toby thought it was cute that she was doing this for him, knowing that she didn’t drink much, and he watched her as he drank.
###
Sloane took the hotel key from Toby’s pocket and leaned Toby up against the wall. “Now you stay right there young man, don’t move,” Sloane ordered Toby while she reached over and opened the door. She kept her foot in the doorway to hold the door open while she nudged Toby toward the door.
“Okay, I’m not guiding you anymore, get to the bed or bathroom yourself.” Toby lifted his head and looked at her and smiled.
“What, you can’t help a guy in need?” he asked.
“Not when I know he’s perfectly capable of doing the job himself.”
With that Toby burst out laughing. Only then did she realize what it sounded like she meant.
Toby walked to the bathroom, splashed some water on his face and walked toward the bed. Sloane stopped and leaned against the wall and watched Toby slowly walk over to the bed and fall face-first onto the bed. She smiled, grabbed a t-shirt and shorts from her drawer and went to the bathroom to change. A few minutes later she walked out into the room and pulled the covers off of her bed. Toby was in the same position as he was when she walked into the bathroom.
After she got into bed she heard Toby mutter, “Why did this happen?”
“What, Toby?”
“Why did this have to happen?”
“Toby, just get some rest.”
“But I was so close.”
Considering it for a moment, she thought: on some level it hardly did seem fair. That rain forest was much more valuable than a cattle ranch. But all she could think was: why did this have to happen? It didn’t have to. The company that bought it had a right to buy that land; they just made a bad business decision. Then again, if no one knew this patch of land was being used for research, how would they have known the value of it? The government kept poor track of things - they made a bad mistake by making the sale.
“I know you were so close. But there’s no use in lamenting over that when there’s work to be done. Are you sure there’s no way you can use anything what’s left from the samples and try to replicate synthetically?”
She heard Toby start to snore.
Smiling, she got up and walked over to his bed. She untied his shoes. She tried to push him up the bed, so his head was on a pillow. She slid his jacket off his shoulders. She figured he could sleep in his t-shirt and jeans. She got up and turned off the light next to her bed. She sat upright in the dark for a while. She couldn’t stop thinking.
There would have to be a way to replicate that tree sap, even if he used it all in tests, as long as he kept some of the results. Maybe he could search other rain forests nearby to see if there was any chance a tree like this existed somewhere else.
She thought about Colin Madison, telling her that she has a green light financially to do whatever she needed for research. That she could use the company plane whenever she wanted. But he offered that to her because she proved her talent and created a good product. She made strides and she was being rewarded for it. Toby was given the green light because he worded his guesses appropriately and got lucky.
How could she? She couldn’t blame Toby for using the system? The government allows it, the government has created this system where independent panelists of people unrelated to the field dole out millions of dollars to the people who have a grin like Tyler Gillian, or who have a lobby group that talks the loudest.
Maybe she should blame Toby, though. She knew she didn’t want that university job; she knew she wanted to be rewarded for her merits and nothing else. Toby liked the fact that the university had this “caste” system that gave him security in his job. Now he had a bad break. He has to learn from it.
After trying to think about the rain forest, she wondered: why would it be so hard to find another tree? She realized how little she knew about the planet’s rain forests. The tree had to be seeded from another tree, right? Is his search over?
She got up and walked over to her briefcase, by the window. She quietly pulled out her computer and plugged it into the wall. “I can get on line tonight,” she thought, “and see what is on the Internet about the rain forests, and possibly about the possible relationship of AIDS and HIV to it.”
Looking out the window at the darkness for a minute, she noticed a few boat lights moving along the water. She saw the lights of the Miami were still alive, at two in the morning, even though Toby was out for the night. She saw the lights of a few bars crowded with people. And then, like a page ripped down the center, next to all the lights was the ocean, a void of blackness.
“Anything is conquerable,” She said under her breath as she closed the drapes from the ocean versus the city and went to bed. Her Internet research could wait until morning.
###
But she still thought about the Internet research, even when she wasn’t on line. This would be something she could stand some help on, she thought. Maybe the team at Madison would be able to use the Internet accounts to get more information on specific parts of the problem for the Madison group.
She knew that if there was a concern for the rain forests on the Internet, then there would probably be concerns - and a number of web sites - about things like “alien abductions” and “government conspiracies” and “AIDS and homeopathy” and more.
And if it was on the Internet, she could find it. And so could anyone at Madison.
###
At ten in the morning Toby rolled over. He thought he heard a slight tapping of rain outside his window. When he opened his eyes, however, he realized he was in Miami and not in Seattle, where he would expect the rain to be falling outside his window. He turned over and looked at the window. The sun beamed in, streaming around her, sitting at the table in front of the window. The light sound of rain was Sloane typing into her computer.
“How long have you been up?” Toby asked.
“Since six.”
He rolled back over to check the clock; he remembered that he was still dressed and checked his watch instead. He picked his head back up to look at her. “You’ve been up for four hours? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You needed your rest. Besides, I wanted to get some work done.”
“Is that all you think about?”
“Sometimes.”
Toby let his head fall back on to the pillow.
“How are you feeling?” Sloane asked.
“Oh, my head hurts. Surprise. I just need some food. You’ve had breakfast, right?”
“Oh, I forgot. No, I haven’t eaten yet.”
“I can understand letting your mind go into overdrive, but doesn’t your body remind you that you have to maintain it?”
“I’m fine, besides, I’ve been so amazed at the information on the Internet that I haven’t been able to stop working. Now I know why Colin wanted me to get on line so bad.”
“What do you mean?” Toby started to sit up.
“I’ve been using the e-mail they gave us, right? Well, the boss kept telling me to use the Internet, and I don’t even think he’s ever been on it, I don’t think he knows how it works. And I’ve never had a real need to get on line before. But this morning I was thinking, I don’t know much of anything about the rain forests, really, so maybe I can get on line and learn something. Madison Pharmaceuticals has a T-1 line as well as a national dial up number, so I just got on line. I checked my e-mail, and then I got on to the Internet to see what I could find about the rain forests.”
“One question before you go on.”
“Sure.”
“Are you going to let me take you out to breakfast when you’re done?”
“You can take me to breakfast now, as long as I can tell you what I’ve learned.”
Toby got up out of bed. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“For breakfast, or my story?”
“Both. I’m dressed, aren’t I?”
Sloane laughed. Toby walked to the washroom; he turned back and looked at Sloane. and spoke. “Maybe you can wait until I have some coffee before you tell me your story.”
“It’s a deal.”
Toby ran some water through his hair while she closed her programs on her computer and shut the laptop off so they could go to a breakfast diner.
The both of them both simultaneously turned their coffee cups over as they sat down in the booth of the diner. The waitress came over and filled them up. Toby curled his left hand around the mug.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“You know, it’s not that big of a deal...”
“Oh, just spit it out.”
“Okay, so I decided to go on the Internet to find out what I could about rain forests. So I went to a search engine and typed the words ’rain forest’ in to see what I could get. I got so many entries that I’d never be able to check all of the web sites. So I typed in the words ’rain forest destruction’ in and got a number of sites to tell me about why and how the rain forests are being destroyed.”
“And?” Toby asked.
“And did you know that the three primary reasons rain forests are being cleared are farming, cattle ranching and logging?”
“It makes sense, I suppose.”
“Did you know that orange juice sold in the United States that is from concentrate has oranges from groves in Brazil, on what used to be rain forest land?”
“Really?”
“Yes, just check the fine print on the package. Usually it will say something like ’oranges from Florida, Mexico and Brazil.’ Right on the package.”
“Wow, I had no idea.”
The waitress walked over. “Are you ready to order?”
“Sure. I’d like a Spanish omelet and hash browns, white toast.”
“Would you like any orange juice with that?”
Sloane glanced at Toby, then looked back at the waitress. “Is it from concentrate?” The waitress answered that it was.
“No, thank you,” she answered. The waitress continued, “And for you, sir?”
“Two scrambled eggs, two sausage links, hash browns, and toast?”
“Sure.”
“Actually, miss, can I change my order? What he’s having sounds good.”
“You want exactly what he’s having?”
“Yes please.”
“Okay. It’ll be up in just a few minutes.”
“So,” Sloane turned back to Toby, “I thought it was interesting to learn this stuff about rain forest destruction. Most of the people that want to save the rain forests are talking about atmospheric changes, but there’s no proof in that, and there’s not even any proof that there’s permanent damage to the ozone. I was surprised to find that people were arguing about saving the rain forests from that angle and not from the medical research angle.”
“Good point, I guess.”
“So then I went back to the search engine and typed the words ’rain forest AIDS’ to see if there was anything. Get this. There was even a site about the monkey theory about how the first human got AIDS -”
“You mean the theory that a monkey transferred the virus to a human by biting his butt? A virus jumped from animals to humans? Do you even believe that theory?”
“Just listen, I never said I believed that. What I’m saying is that this site suggested that it was the destruction of the rain forest that caused the spread of AIDS in humans.”
“From monkeys.”
“Not from monkeys biting a human butt.”
Toby laughed.
“The theory is that a man ate monkey meat that was contaminated with a virus, not that a monkey bit a man in the butt.”
“But still -”
“I’m just telling you what was on this one site. The suggestion it was making is that not only do rain forests contain a plethora of rare animals and plants, so too it could contain rare viruses.”
“A plethora?”
“And records of some viruses that have erupted since the beginning of rain forest destruction in African towns are spread by the air, not just by blood, which could mean the beginning of more drastic epidemics. And you don’t need to make fun of me because I’m coherent enough to use big words like ’plethora’ in the morning, mister drinker.”
“Mister drinker?”
“I’m going to keep telling my story.”
“No one is stopping you.”
She mockingly glared at him. “They posted the theory that if AIDS mutates as much as it has been known to, it may mutate to the point where it can be transmitted by air.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Are we sure?”
“If it is possible for it to mutate to that point, it will not be for years and years and years. I’m sure there will be a cure within the next decade or so.”
“Still, it’s something to ponder, something to spur you on a little more, isn’t it?” Sloane paused to eat some of her eggs. “There were a few more sites, and most of them were about herbs and vitamins and things people were selling - products that had origins from the rain forest.”
“Like what?”
The waitress checked on their food. “Could I have some hot sauce?” Sloane asked the waitress. Toby looked at her with just a tinge of disgust. Sloane answered his glance with, “Just because you’re hung over, doesn’t mean I am.”
The waitress brought the hot sauce to the table, and Sloane continued. “The other web sites primarily contained products with health benefits derived from plant extracts and the like from rain forest materials. There was an immune system rejuvenator made from rain forest materials, phytonutrients, colloidal minerals and even a tea to help with energy that was derived from a tree bark.”
“And you think they all work?”
“I have no idea, I haven’t had the drugs, the extracts, or the research facilities to check them all out. I would say probably not. My point is that there are other people out there looking for cures to diseases, utilizing the rain forest, people that you might be able to communicate with.”
“People making a wonder tonic and selling it on the web do it because it makes them more money than driving from town to town and gathering a crowd for a sales pitch. ’Rev up your romantic life! Get the energy of your youth! Everything you need is in this handy...”
“I get it, Toby,” Sloane answered.
“Super-potent...” Toby cut in.
“Toby, enough,” Sloane protested.
“Energy tonic!” Toby continued.
“Are you not interested in finding a way to solve your problem?”
“You think I’ll find it by people selling energy tonics?”
“With ingredients possibly from the same place as your research materials? Look, one of the herbs, or whatever it was, was one that claimed to help with people’s immune systems and had testimonials from AIDS patients. They said the materials were from a Peruvian rain forest. They found that this substance, from the inside of a tree bark, also helped with phagocytosis.”
Toby looked up. She added, “Is this sounding a little more familiar now?”
Toby leaned back in his booth.
“Okay, I’ll let you eat the rest of your breakfast in peace. Just let me know when you want the web site address. I saved it for you.”
“You’re doing my work for me while I sleep off a hangover, because I’m too mad about my lack of success.”
“Don’t think for a minute I’m doing it for you. This is a puzzle, solving this disease. And I’m a sucker for puzzles. You know me, I can’t help but pick up a piece and try to make it fit. Besides, this research makes me think of other avenues I could be taking in helping people with AIDS.” She smiled at him.
They ate for a moment in silence.
“Hey, are you going to use the jelly for your English muffin?”
“No. Here, take some.”
They got back from breakfast and checked out of the hotel. “Hey,” Toby stopped her in the lobby, “What do you say we have the hotel hold our bags for an hour or two and we take a walk on the beach before we go? I haven’t even been able to spend any time in Miami, and I’ve got two hours before my flight takes off for Seattle. By the way, what airline are you on? Maybe we could go back together.”
“I would if I could, but I’ve got the private plane this weekend.”
“Well, well, well, Ms. Emerson, you’re really the big-wig over there, aren’t you?”
She started to give a humorous sneer as he paused before speaking. “That’s what I get for giving up the university job.”
“Well, can you at least go for a walk?”
“Sure, let me phone Jim.” Sloane pulled her cellular phone out of her jacket pocket.
“Jim? It’s Sloane. Yes, I suppose you knew that... Is it possible to take off in maybe around two hours? ... I didn’t know how long I’d have to be here, but I didn’t expect it to be all weekend... Yes, I know I’m supposed to rest. No, I should probably just fly back this afternoon... Okay. It can be ready? Great. Should I just meet you at the airport? Okay, I’ll see you then. Thanks.” She hung up her phone as Toby took her baggage and gave it to the clerk at the registration desk.
“You know, you really should go somewhere for the rest of the weekend,” Toby said once they got to the water’s edge. “They’re letting you take the plane - don’t you have anyone you’d like to visit? I mean, you’ve got the company plane, you could just go for a while.”
“I suppose, but really, who would I go see? And I want to use this for business, and business only. This isn’t supposed to be a personal trip.”
“Is that what your boss said?” He waited for her snide answer as they got to the beach and started walking.
“Well, actually, no, he told me to take a break for the weekend and go somewhere.”
“Well? Go visit someone somewhere.”
“What, just call them and say, ’Can I see you tonight?’”
“Sure. You know you’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“I doubt that. But I’ll think about it.”
They walked together along the water in silence.
“The water is beautiful,” Toby said, looking out at the ocean. “The ocean is such a powerful force. I mean, it covers two thirds of the planet. Just one strong wave could pull you under and kill you. And yet we humans are fascinated with it. We’re over half water. We want to ride boats over it. We want to swim in it. We want to surf on it, or ski on it, or float around in it. And we just want to stare at it, listen to the waves crash into the shore, and smell the salt air. What a love affair we have with it.”
Sloane thought for a minute about what he said.
“I think you’re right,” she answered to him.
“Yeah?” he asked. “Yeah.” she answered.
“I’m not used to you agreeing with me.”
Putting in a dramatic pause, she then spoke. “I’ve agreed with you on many things, Toby. But for me, the beauty of this scene is more than that, more than the beauty of nature, more than the beauty of the ocean. I like looking at the water because it reminds me of my life, about human life. It shows what nature is like, and it shows what we’ve done with nature. Yes, even though a tide can pull us under and kill us, we are still capable of going scuba diving with sharks and maneuvering boats over it. This water is beautiful because of our involvement with it, our choice to use it to our own ends. But on some levels what I think is most beautiful about this scene,” she said, moving her arm in a circle before her, “is that all of this, the waves crashing, the beauty and peacefulness of nature, is sitting here right up against high-rises.”
“You like the buildings here? It would look so much nicer if there was nothing here other than the water.”
“What I like is the fact that we’ve built these buildings, right at a place where the people in them can really enjoy the water. What I like is looking at the beauty of the buildings - the steel, the glass, the functionality of the products of the human mind - poised right up against the beautiful scene from nature.”
“I don’t know if I agree with you.”
“The best of man and the best of nature, all in one. That’s what makes this scene astonishing for me. I’ve seen sunsets reflecting off of skyscrapers that were more beautiful than any sunrise at this beach.”
Toby looked at her and smiled. “You were always a strange bird...”
“Would you want me any other way?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.” They both smiled and continued walking. They turned around to walk back toward the hotel. During the remainder of their little trip they walked in silence. Sloane thought about all the avenues that going on the Internet had brought to her attention that morning. She thought about that list she had started writing on the airplane. Then she thought about all of the difficulties her staff had been going through trying to improve Emivir. She was beginning to feel the weight of the world upon her shoulders again. She thought about Tyler, and the lobbyists. She thought about the patients the lobbyists claimed blamed Madison Pharmaceuticals for not giving them drugs for free. “Haven’t I done enough?” she thought. “What do they want from me?”
They got back to the hotel and Toby picked up their luggage. They shared a taxi together to the airport.
“Sloane,” Toby said, “You look like you’re already dreading going back to work.”
“It’s not the work that I dread.”
“What then?”
“I -” Sloane couldn’t get the words out. “I don’t know what it is. I keep thinking that I do good work, but most people just want more.”
“Are you working for them or for you?”
“Thanks for asking that. But for me, of course, and I want more from me too, I mean, I want to accomplish more as well, but when everyone is fighting you...”
“Believe me, I know what you mean,” Toby answered. Sloane remembered his failed rain forest experiment and tried to empathize. “But I know you, you love your work. Hell, you were looking into research about the rain forest while I was passed out from drinking myself into a stupor and out of a depression over this whole mess. You love this; it’s in your blood. The thing is, you just have to forget about the people that bother you. They’ll never truly get in your way.”
Starting to smile, she said, “You’re right, Toby.”
“What? You’re agreeing with me again?”
The taxi pulled up to the airport and Toby handed her the baggage from the trunk.
“When I get into town I’ll send you the web site address for the rain forest pages I was reading.”
“Thanks. And thanks for coming to help me out here. If you need it, I’ll fly across the country for you.”
“Thanks, Toby,” she said, smiling and starting to walk away.
“And that’s a big deal, because I’d actually have to pay for my ticket.”
She laughed as she turned back toward her terminal and Toby walked toward his.
Sloane met up with Jim at the end of the terminal and he walked her to the plane. “I’m surprised you don’t want to stay here, or go somewhere else. You’ve got me for the weekend, you know.”
She stood outside in front of the plane. She thought for a moment, pulling out her cellular phone. “If I wanted to change our destination, could we do it?”
“Where were you thinking?”
“New York.”
“There shouldn’t be a problem.” He looked at the phone in her hand. “Do you need to call someone first?”
“Can you give me a minute?”
“Sure. Come up when you’re ready - I can confirm where we can land in New York from the plane, so let me know where we’re going, okay?”
“Thanks, Jim,” she said as she watched Jim walk up the stairs and duck his head as he got into the plane. She looked at the phone. She planned to make two calls; the first one was to the phone number that was left on her answering machine. A young man answered the phone, and didn’t seem very alert when he answered the phone.
“Hello?” he answered. “Hello, is Steve there?”
“This is he. Who is this?”
“This is Sloane Emerson, I work with Kyle, I was returning your call, but did I wake you up? I didn’t mean to -”
Steve interrupted her so she didn’t have to explain. “I’m wide awake. I thought you were ignoring me by not calling me back. How are you?”
“I’m about to fly from Miami to New York, I think... I got your message during my trip, but I didn’t have much of a chance to call you until now.”
“Don’t worry about it. And why Miami and New York?”
“Miami for business, and New York for social reasons. I am trying to not think about work all the time.”
“I know you don’t know me very well, but if you are trying to be more social, I can be a good listener.”
“Listener?” she asked.
“Sounding board, conversation friend - I work for the newspaper and do have a good command over the English language...”
Sloane smiled at his remark and noted that this is what she had to learn to do more of. I’m not very good at being social, I am usually doing research at home or at work, so you’ll have to forgive me.”
“Should I wait for you to call when you get back in to town then?” Steve asked. Knowing this call would cost her money on the cellular phone, she agreed and said she would talk to him later. Then she dialed New York. She heard a voice answer. “Hello?”
She didn’t bother with a formal hello. “Carter?”
“Yes, who is this? I’m having a hard time hearing you.”
“Carter, it’s Sloane, Sloane Emerson. I’m standing next to an airplane getting ready to go.”
“Where are you?” Carter asked.
“Miami. We’re about to take off.”
“Where are you going?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got the company plane for the weekend, and everyone has been begging me to take time off, and I was wondering if you -”
“Tell me what time I should pick you up and I’ll be waiting for you.”
“You don’t have any plans? I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Just call when you know where you’re going to be and when. No arguing.”
“Thanks, Carter. I’ll call you in about an hour.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
After they said goodbye, she looked at the phone in her hand for a moment, glancing up at the plane. She pushed the antenna back into the phone and made her way up the stairs.
She walked to the cockpit while men closed the airplane door behind her. She could hear the stairs being rolled away from the side of the plane.
“Where are we going, Ms. Emerson?”
“I have a first name!” she said, laughing at how cordial he was trying to be. She smiled at him. Jim repeated, “Sloane, where are we going?”
“We could go home... but then again, it’s Saturday afternoon. We could make it to New York in just a few hours.”
“New York it is,” Jim proudly said as he turned back toward the controls. “Anything in particular you’re going to do while you’re there?”
“Visit a friend,” she answered. “Someone who can bring my spirit back to me.”
| 
Tmy nemesis
