She signed the bill on credit and they left together.
They walked side by side in the dark dampness along the wharf toward a cluster of houses on the far edge of the small harbor. John offered to carry the heavy bag. His teeth started chattering until he clenched his jaw. She glanced sideways and asked, “Well, Mr. Smith, where’re you from?”
“Please, call me John … I grew up in Massachusetts until I was twelve, then we moved to California. My dad worked for a defense contractor most of the time and then as a math teacher and we kinda had to follow the big projects. We moved again during my high school years to Texas. My father and I came here a few times before moving west, and I’ve always thought of it as a quiet place, particularly this time of year.”
She giggled, “Yeah, quiet all right. It’s downright boring. Nothin’ happens here. I have more excitement and friends at a all-girl boarding school on the coast. Until I went to high school, I used to think about suicide – this place will do that to someone like me.”
She looked half-serious, but it gave him an opening for continuing the dialogue, “Suicide! Really? Was it that serious?”
“I don’t know, I never did nothin’. I think everyone thinks about it sometimes, and this place gives you nothing but time to think. Thinking is about the only thing to do.”
“So, when did you move away?”
“A couple years ago. There’s only a eighth-grade class here, so you either end it there or ship away. My brother went first then I followed. I only come home because my folks, my mom mostly, gets lonely. It’s not permanent coming here now; I’ll never move back here permanent.”
“So how long have you been away?”
I’m a junior in high school. I’m sixteen if that’s what you’re asking.”
His suspicions were confirmed, she was too young for him and he didn’t need more to worry about. He could get into serious trouble around someone her age. For all he knew they didn’t have a jail on Matinicus Island; so … how do they deal with pedophiles here? He didn’t want to find out. He didn’t have any immediate comeback as she steered them toward a large antique colonial house; yellow with green shutters.
She was smiling widely at his dismay. “So, how do you feel about spending the night in the same house with jail bait?” He didn’t have anything quick to say. “Age doesn’t count for much out here. I’ve been around enough mainland girls to know the kind of trouble you could be in if you was to do something sexual with me, but it ain’t the same here. Here, if you violate me, my daddy would probably just shoot you and drop your body in the ocean, and the town meeting would just consider it local justice if anyone noticed.”
He stopped short of the door, “That’s comforting.”
They were both smiling until the door opened, and Gort Swensen stood looming. He addressed his daughter first without immediately acknowledging John. “So, daughter, you brought home a stray?”
She started to answer but quit when her father turned to John, “Mr. Smith, is it?” He continued before John could answer, “You are welcome in our home for tonight as long as you behave yourself.” John supposed her father knew Mary well.
John and Mary were standing side-by-side outside the doorway in the cold. He chose his words carefully, “Ah, Mr. Swensen, I assure you that I am here with the most honorable intentions and just want to be alone, working on my book.”
Swensen studied the younger man momentarily before stepping aside. The pair entered, and John did a quick comparison. He was above average height and physically trim. Swensen was about the same height, but with a much larger frame and must have weighed seventy pounds more. The man was probably around fifty, but had worked in a tough industry in rough weather long enough to look older.
When the door closed behind them, Mary continued toward the kitchen in the back, and John looked at her father, “Thank you for having me here, Mr. Swensen. I don’t mean to impose and will leave if you wish.”
The man’s rough features softened slightly, “Everyone here calls me Gort. First of all, you ain’t got nowhere’s else to go out here, and anyways, you’re a guest and not an imposer. You surely understand my feelings about protecting my daughter in a place like this. Hell, there’re probably fifty lonely men for every woman, and there ain’t really any young ones like Mary here anymore.”
“I assure you sir, Gort; I just want to write my book in peace.”
“All right then, Mr. Smith, in the morning we’ll talk about a job.”
“Great. Please call me John. What time in the morning?”
“We start selling bait at 4:30…”
Speech
“Thank you, Miriam, for the kind introduction. I only hope that I can measure up to all the praise you’ve bestowed.” Dr. Redinger looked around the audience with practiced hesitation and controlled his delivery like a skilled politician. He was well aware that some top investment firms were also in attendance. “As you all know, my Institute, the Global Hemorrhagic Institute, GHI, was on the ground in Guinea with the WHO in 2013, ahead of the Ebola outbreak that killed so many a year earlier. We were there because GHI is committed to defeating Hemorrhagic viruses in all its forms. These diseases threaten the very existence of the human race. It’s one of the natural scourges that do not discriminate on any basis. Everyone is fair game.
“I would like to claim all the credit for our success in combatting the last outbreak in Western Africa, before it got off the ground six months ago, but, I can’t. At GHI we have assembled the most dedicated scientists and doctors in the world to combat these diseases. It is these people, of which I am only one, who deserve the credit.” He waited for the applause to stop.
“Our field research, along with the WHO is designed to help predict the next mutation of the family Filoviridae. At GHI, we have been developing algorithms and simulations aimed at predicting the next strains that will emerge. We do this through painstaking modeling of factors such as weather patterns, related disease outbreaks, famine and water tables, as well as former mutations and add to the mix empirical testing of ground water, animal analysis, especially fruit bats and other known carriers.
“The measure of success, ‘where the rubber meets the road,’ so to speak, can be quantified with our success in Liberia last year, where the mortality rate dropped below ten percent of affected patients and virtually zero percent of the people inoculated at the beginning of the outbreak. In all prior cases, mortality exceeded fifty percent, sometimes as high as eighty-five percent. Our vaccine, GHI 409 was predictably successful. We knew it would work before we volunteered it as a test. Regrettably, there was not enough, but it was proven to be hugely successful in both preventing the disease and lessening the effects as a treatment to those already afflicted.
“By correctly anticipating the next mutation, we were able to provide the vaccine and antidote. Never before in medical science has this occurred in such dramatic fashion. And the real clincher for all of us who’ve dedicated our lives to this science is that GHI is already working to protect against the next outbreak anywhere in the world.”
With that, the crowd came to its feet. Dr. Redinger gave a magnanimous bow, raising his hands to point and wave to imaginary colleagues somewhere unseen. He’d accomplished his mission beautifully, gaining the recognition and publicity they wanted at GHI. Media cameras from every major news circuit around the world were there. He could imagine the money that would now be theirs, the founders of GHI. Every employee was an owner, a stockholder, from the date of hire. In total, the employees controlled seven percent of the Institute’s net worth. The rest of the equity existed equally between the founders; Charlie Ritter as President and COO, Lorne Bridge, Chief Scientist, and himself as the CTO and Chairman. There were a few small minority shareholdings in their lenders, but this amounted to only a few percent. Ninety percent went to three men who had, together, founded GHI almost twenty years earlier. As he waved, he felt a sense of overwhelming
euphoria, knowing how wealthy they were about to become.
Inquiry
Work in the lab had been tedious. Kelly had been performing antigen measurements on several test cells. It was hard working with all the safety constraints, but there was no other way to extract the data. Most of it would be analyzed at her desk outside the containment chamber once the data, including electron microscopic images, were downloaded from their server. Her job today had been to open the test cells and take the pictures. It was awkward working with robotic arms without tactile feel. Accidents were relatively common handling the glass petri dishes. Every molecule stayed inside the chambers; nothing could be allowed to escape. Oddly, this was one of the job aspects she enjoyed the most. Call it an adrenalin rush, working in close proximity to something so deadly with no known antidote at this stage. Any mistake on her part could kill her and probably others. Few others outside the scientific community would understand the excitement she felt. And, she couldn’t tell anyone. All of her work was covered by a Proprietary Protection Agreement