COSMOS magazine

Thursday, June 12

"Good night, sweetie."

"Night, Mom."

Reluctantly, Jill kissed Alex on the forehead and closed the door. It was getting harder to drop Alex off at summer day camp in the morning and to leave him alone in his bed at night. Each moment with him had become precious, and she longed to quit her job and spend every hour of the day with him, in case... just in case. Having to spend her evenings organizing Preston Bowie's sloppy files didn't help a bit.

I should call Keith, she thought, ask him to help out while Alex is sick, so I can stay home with him. For three days now she had been putting it off; the longer she waited the harder it got. She started toward the kitchen, detoured to the bathroom to apply a herbal facial masque. Plastered with a thick layer of green goo, she could think of no more excuses for putting off the call.

Resolutely, she sat down at the kitchen table, phone in hand, entered Keith's number, got up, went quickly out into the backyard, in case Alex was not yet asleep. Not the sort of conversation she wanted him to overhear.

April answered the phone.

"Hi April, it's Jill." Silence. "Jill Shannon."

"Keith is in the shower," April said curtly.

"Could you please let him know I called? It's about Alex."

"I'll have him call you."

"Oh, and..." Shit. The bitch had hung up on her. Fuming, Jill went back inside, opened the laptop and went online. A dentist friend of Nancy Buchanan had told her about an herbal anti-cancer treatment known as SMV-9b; when Jill had asked for the details on how it worked, Nancy's dentist supplied the patent number.

The patent information came up on the USPTO web site. Under the summary, she read: "It has been found as described in the examples below, that the compound can slow or halt tumor progression in vivo." It went on and on. After struggling for half an hour to decipher the technical language, Jill sent an email.

To: Paul Gibson
Subject: Help!
Hi Paul, are you online? Would you consider interpreting a cancer treatment patent for me?

Five minutes later she had her answer:

Give me a few minutes to wrap up a discussion I'm having with Drew, and I'll jog over and look at it with you.

Coming here? Now?

"Okay. See you soon," she typed. Then she raced to the bathroom to rinse the hardened green masque from her face and brush her hair.

Thursday, June 12

Paul slowed to a walk two blocks before Jill's house so he wouldn't be completely out of breath when he arrived. The run had cheered him up. Must be the adrenalin, he thought, a good antidote for despondency. Drew seemed to be slipping ever farther into depression as the so-called "Frankenscience" hysteria grew; the MTJ bombing had worsened his anxiety, understandably. The police report suggested that one of the explosives had been positioned immediately adjacent to Drew's office. Today he had threatened to quit his job at MTJ Labs, buy some land in the country and become a hermit.

At Jill's kitchen table, Paul alternately read the patent application and sneaked peeks at her while she made tea. A large black and white photograph of a tall slender woman with straw hat and bare shoulders hung above the refrigerator. With a shock, he realized it was a younger Jill. Without thinking, he found himself blurting out, "You look a lot different in that photo, when was it taken?" He regretted the words at once; from her crestfallen expression, he knew he had hurt her badly.

"That was before I had Alex. Before my divorce. You know those magazine stories about Demi Moore and Elle McPherson, how they spring back to perfection after childbirth? Didn't happen to me."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"In high school my friends envied me, because I never had a zit. But after Alex was born, I got post-partum acne. My face looked like it caught fire and someone tried to put it out with an ice pick. The doctor couldn't prescribe medication, because I was breastfeeding. Then Keith got involved with one of the secretaries from his law firm. After that, I started eating like a horse to, you know, console myself..." She sighed, placing mugs on the table. "After a while he wasn't interested in me any more. And really, who could blame him for trading off the damaged goods for a new model?"

Damn! What woman wouldn't feel furious? He sought after something he could say to neutralize his carelessly cruel question. He wanted to tell her that Keith was a jerk. That any man who would walk out on a woman like her was a fool. No, shit, probably better to keep quiet rather than risk making things even worse. He turned his attention back to the patent, hoping to find some scrap of good news. What he read was not terribly encouraging. The owners of the patent made bold claims for their product, but the experiments described were not well designed and the results were questionable at best.

"Doesn't look as though it'll do any harm," he told Jill, "and it might do some good. But that's not saying much. I really wouldn't recommend it." He longed to tell her more about his own research but dared not get her hopes up. His auxosome work would not be ready to test on humans for at least five years. Gloom settled back around him like a shroud. By that time, Alex would probably be long buried.

Friday, June 13

"Morning, Wayne." Old Miss Janichek leered at Payback as he slouched into the library. He hated it when people called him Wayne. He knew the old biddy expected him to smile and make conversation the way Wayne always did, but Payback was a busy man. No time for small talk with small town librarians.

He scribbled "W. Elliot' on the Internet sign-in sheet and took his place at Wayne's favourite computer. Wayne had started to fight him again; Payback had to work fast and do what needed to be done before Wayne locked him out of control again.

Payback did a web search on Dr. Drew Chang, the prick he'd heard on the phone in the MTJ labs. According to the papers, he and the rest of the scientists working there were unharmed by the bomb. The first item that came up confirmed what his gut had told him. Payback didn't even attempt to read it—every other word was something he'd never heard of. The title was enough: "Genetically Engineered Mice in Cancer Research: Modifications to the Genome Utilizing Direct DNA Insertion."

There was no time to make another bomb, even if Wayne's wallet had contained enough money to buy more materials. Direct action was called for, the way he'd dealt with that scientist bitch fifteen years ago. A brief memory flash: wriggling June beetles inside a slashed-open belly. It made him smile.

Friday, June 13

Sitka crouched in the narrow hallway of the stone house, nose against the closed door, pitifully, inarticulately unhappy as only a dog can be. Roberta bent, patted her broad head. The Labrador whined, started to shiver. It broke her heart, but there was no way she could explain impending death to the dear old animal—or to herself, for that matter.

The nurse opened the door at Roberta's soft knock, ushered her in with a finger placed against her lips. She wore the traditional hospital outfit and symbolic veil that George Milton had affected to despise but secretly welcomed in his wretched helplessness.

"He's sleeping," she whispered. "Not long now. I'm glad you could get here in time, Ms. Treadwell. I'll leave you two alone together for a minute."

George lay motionless in the hospital bed that had been fitted up in the small room where his parents had conceived him eight decades earlier. His face was waxy, his features in sleep only slightly distorted by the stroke that had felled him. One hand lay across his chest, a drip line running deep into a vein. There were no costly, elaborate medical devices in the room.

"But what if he—"

The nurse touched her arm. "There's nothing any of us can do, Roberta. Mr. Milton is not suffering. Say your goodbyes. I'll be just outside."

So much life, and then so little. Roberta found a straight-backed chair at the nurse's desk, brought it over to her father's bedside. She hesitated to touch his fingers, for fear of disturbing him, but after a moment she took them in her own grasp and held his hand lightly.

"Oh, Daddy."

The nurse returned after a time, watched quietly, took her occasional measurements, made notes. The light beyond the blinded window slowly ebbed. George did not move. His eyes beneath his closed lids were sunken, immobile; he was not dreaming. Were his fingers cool, now?

"Come away, Dr. Treadwell. He's passed."

Roberta looked up angrily. "Don't say that!"

"I'm sorry dear, but—"

"I know he's gone. But he hasn't 'passed' anywhere. My father has died. He's dead. I'll never see him again." Her voice broke. "Damn it, this has to stop. This has to goddamn stop." She caught herself. "I'm sorry, I don't mean you, Ms. Martin. And I didn't mean to—"

"Roberta, that's perfectly all right, although I don't understand what you were..." The nurse let her words die away.

Releasing George's fingers, Roberta patted them, rose and bent across the body, kissed the cool forehead. "Goodbye, Daddy."

The nurse stood aside, frowning, as Roberta opened the door and brought Sitka in to say farewell. The old Lab got up on her hind legs, put her paws on the bed, and whined. She looked at Roberta, then, and pressed herself against Roberta's leg, whimpering faintly.