Blockbuster

by Lisa von Biela

  “But they’re endangering their own health—and the health of others!”

  “Will you calm down? It’s probably some little bug that’s going around. It happens. I’m sure it’s the kind of thing people always complain about. Sick enough to be miserable, but not sick enough for a doctor to do anything about it anyway. Just have to let it run its course, drink fluids, and all that crap.” He smiled. “It’s not that big a deal. Really. My class was just hit a little harder than usual this year. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

  Sylvia pushed away her plate, her dinner unfinished. “I wish people would be more responsible about their health. Those kids should do the right thing—and if they won’t, the school or Student Health should step in. That’s how epidemics happen, because people don’t have the brains to stay home when they’re sick and contagious.” She got up and stormed from the room.

  Todd stared at his plateful of green vegetables and grilled steak. He wondered why such a simple remark about his day had set Sylvia off like that. After all, it was just some stupid little bug going around. Just like every year.

  * * *

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  Distracted from his thoughts, Phil glanced up at Livvie. She sat across from him at the dinner table, her soft brown eyes fixed on him with concern.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s just…well, something difficult arose today at the office.”

  “What is it? Maybe it would help to talk about it.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s pretty complicated. Actually, I’d like to go try to think through it for a while, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, okay, if you don’t think I can help.”

  “I appreciate it. Maybe once I get my own arms around it a bit more.” He rose and headed down the hall to his home office.

  Phil switched on the light and closed the door. Then he went over to his desk and dropped down into his high-backed swivel chair. He sat slumped, staring at nothing and wondering how the hell he was going to get through this. He’d been right. His only qualification for this job was his last name. Nothing more.

  And now this. Not bad enough he lacked the skills to keep the boat afloat, but in trying to save the company, he’d authorized the very project that might just torpedo that boat to oblivion. He should have known better than to try to beat that fucker Tremaine at his own game. It wasn’t the Horton way, and there was a reason for that. Horton only knew how to play the game with the utmost integrity. It had been a pillar of BigPharma for years doing business that way.

  Then that upstart had to change the game. Would the industry ever be the same? Was there really any point in trying to save Horton, if that’s how the game would have to be played from now on?

  Phil shook his head. That was a question for another day. Right now, he had to focus on the immediate problem: had they released a pathogen that might mutate into something even worse than the deadly MRSA-II? Maybe, maybe not. But if it was capable, what could he do about it?

  He grimaced and smacked his forehead with his fist. Oh, it had been such a perfect plan, hadn’t it? What a great way to build market share. Too bad the disease’s own characteristics made for the ultimate potential disaster if the organism ever decided to mutate into something more dangerous.

  Sylvia was almost certainly right in presuming it was out there spreading, because people were likely doing their usual thing of going to work sick rather than using their sick days—and thereby spreading it even more. And because of its generic symptoms, it hadn’t yet achieved the visibility necessary to identify it as a specific disease so they could warn people.

  Phil decided the risk was too great to hide his head in the sand and hope the organism mutated in a benign way—or not at all. He decided on a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, he’d have Sylvia and Jerry study the mutation potential in the lab and work on a drug to address the organism’s most likely mutant version. On the other hand, he’d move ahead now with the needed preparations for producing the drug they’d already developed, rather than waiting for the disease to spread enough to be specifically identified. This meant the overall market would be diminished to some degree in releasing sooner than the original plan, but that was how it had to be.

  It was the right thing to do.

  CHAPTER 34

  Arms folded, Jerry leaned back against the wall outside the entry to the lab as he came to a decision. He’d let Sylvia run alone with the project since their green-light meeting with Phil. She was the one all ready to go, to jump headlong into something that was not the Horton way. He couldn’t believe Phil had proposed the plan in the first place. Must be testament to just how badly the company was floundering in the wake of Denali.

  And he’d never dreamed Sylvia would find it so easy to set aside basic ethics. Maybe she wasn’t the person he’d imagined her to be.

  But now, Phil didn’t seem willing or able to grasp the magnitude of the potential disaster that loomed; he surely hadn’t demonstrated the necessary courage or leadership to address it. Sylvia had taken it as her personal responsibility to try to find the solution, and was working herself to death in that lab. Jerry decided it was time he pitched in to solve the problem, even if he hadn’t supported the foolish decisions that had led to it.

  He aligned his right eye with the retinal scanner to unlock the outer door. Once inside the vestibule, he changed into his hazmat suit, then took a moment to prepare what he’d say to Sylvia. Hoping she wouldn’t reject his offer to help, he unlocked the second door with another retinal scan and entered the lab.

  Back hunched, Sylvia sat rooted before the Pathosym. She glanced at him, then turned back to her work.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice was cold, dismissive.

  “We have a lot of work to do. I think Phil’s in denial of how serious this could be. The organism may never mutate, or it might do so in a harmless way, true enough. But we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario.” He stepped forward and took a seat next to her in front of the Pathosym.

  “I guess I’m in no position to turn down help, given the stakes. But I thought you wanted no part of this. You’ve made that clear for weeks.” She eyed him closely. “I haven’t even seen you around, you’ve made yourself so scarce.”

  Jerry swiveled his chair to face her. “You’re right. I believe this project should never have happened. Horton should never have chased Denali like this. But that’s a beef I should take up with Phil at some point, not you. It’s done now, and given the potential implications, I can’t stand by and not try to figure out a way to minimize the risk to the public.”

  Sylvia turned away and spoke softly. “I’ve thought about it almost nonstop since I saw the mutation, and I know I should never have agreed to do what I did. I guess I let my competitive side get the better of me, and it was stupid…and unethical. Should never have done it.” She faced him again. Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “Thanks, Jerry. I’m really glad you’re here.”

  Uncomfortable with the turn of conversation and with his resurging feelings for Sylvia, Jerry cleared his throat and returned to the business at hand. “What do you have so far?”

  Sylvia took his cue and scrolled through the most recent test results on the Pathosym’s screen, highlighting the key data points as she did so. “Thing is, I don’t know what triggered the behavior I saw that led to the mutation-prone strain, and so it’s hard to give odds on whether that would happen out in the field. You know, it was really weird to see. It almost looked like intentional mating behavior.”

  “Mating behavior?”

  “Yes. I know that sounds ridiculous. One-celled bacteria do not mate—they divide to reproduce. But those two bacteria seemed to deliberately approach each other. Then they merged and combined their genetic material. When they redivided, the resulting pair contained different genomes than before the…mating.”

  Jerry couldn’t buy her interpretation. She seemed to be attributing to a bacteria some level of intelligence that couldn�
��t possibly exist. “Well, purposeful or not, it happened and the result was a far more mutagenic version of the pathogen.”

  “That’s right. So it comes down to this: how can we get it to mutate in the lab as it actually would out in the field? That’s crucial, but I don’t know how we do that with any certainty in the result.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what we need. We get that, and we can likely develop the needed antibiotic with the Pathosym.” Jerry thought for a moment. “I think the only thing we can do is set up an accelerated breeding program, and split it into several populations so we cover the different conditions it may encounter—well, as best we can.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay, you have the strain that created itself. There’s one population. The other starting population consists of the strain we developed. We can breed generations of each of these populations, and if mutations develop, those would form additional populations to analyze. While we’re at it, we should set up populations of each version to expose to our drug, just in case it happens to affect the tendency to mutate. It’s a study we’d want to conduct anyway—might as well do it in parallel with the rest.”

  Sylvia remained silent for several moments as she digested his idea. “I like it. It covers the possibilities the best we can with what we know at this point.”

  “We can always adjust or add another strain to the study if something arises along the way.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Then let’s get busy.”

  TURNING THE CORNER

  CHAPTER 35

  Dan Tremaine finished reading the article on his FloaTouch display and slammed his hand on his desk.

  “Damn Horton to hell!”

  Vince flinched at the outburst as he stepped inside Dan’s office for their scheduled meeting. “What is it?”

  “Horton took a page from our book. No fucking way did they come up with Spectrocillin that fast. They must have engineered the pathogen first.”

  Vince sat down. “Oh, that. What’s the disease been named? Generalized Infection Syndrome, or GIS? Yeah, I saw the story, too. Well, if they did, it was a good strategy. People don’t want to lose two weeks of work with a pain-in-the-ass illness when they can take some pills and stop it in its tracks.”

  “Spreads like wildfire, too. Like nothing we’ve seen before. Good thing its mortality rate is zilch. Can you imagine if it were more dangerous?”

  Vince shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about that. If they did engineer it, they took a real risk making it as contagious as it is.”

  “They should be raking it in on this one. Demand is sky-high. Their problem will be keeping up the needed production levels.” Dan paused, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “On the other hand, maybe they’re actually losing money on Spectrocillin. They have so much old infrastructure to maintain over there—the extra load on their systems could accelerate maintenance costs.” He laughed. “Hell, no way can they compete with Lucracillin on profit margin, thanks to our dear president Coleridge and the federal government.”

  “I don’t see how anyone could beat Lucracillin’s profit margin. Even if their infrastructure were more modern, you just can’t beat zero production costs.”

  “True enough. So now, Vince, let’s discuss our next project.”

  * * *

  Phil Horton gazed across his desk at his CFO, Chuck Seaforth. Only a few months ago, he would have dreaded a visit from Chuck. Not that he was a natural bearer of bad tidings, but there were simply no other tidings to bear at Horton back then. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

  “So, Chuck, what’s the status?”

  “Phil, you’ve done it. A year ago, I wouldn’t have given Horton odds to remain in business much longer. The financials were that bad. This new drug, this Spectrocillin…” He shook his head in amazement. “It’s really done it. Horton is not only no longer on life support—it’s actually thriving.”

  Phil leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. “Where are we in relation to Denali?”

  “Well, we’re thriving, but our profits aren’t stratospheric like theirs. We’re solidly Number Two in BigPharma now, but they are still way in the lead. That said, we’re very strong. Horton would do quite well just staying in this position indefinitely.”

  Phil considered his CFO’s remarks for a moment. He’d love to destroy Denali in the marketplace. He hated everything Dan Tremaine stood for and how he ran his company. But…to do that, he’d have to stoop to Tremaine’s ethical level.

  And he would not do that. At least, not again.

  Every day he thought about the possibility of GIS—their GIS—going rogue out there in the population. But, so far there had been no sign of that happening. Could it be that Sylvia’s panic over its mutagenic potential was overblown? He could only hope so as she and Jerry worked hard to try to determine what conditions might trigger mutation—and what sort of mutation would be most likely. So far, they had no concrete results.

  Chuck looked at him quizzically. “Were we done?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Something crossed my mind and distracted me. What were you saying?”

  “Oh, I was done. I was just asking if you had questions and you drifted off on me with a really intense look on your face.” He smiled. “Must be some weighty matter. Care to discuss it?”

  Phil waved his hand. “Oh, no. Nothing we need to talk about. No, I have no questions. Thanks for the update.”

  After Chuck left the room, Phil closed his door, set his PortiComm to “Do Not Disturb” so all calls would go straight to voice mail, then sat quietly, alone with his thoughts. Maybe the danger of mutation had passed. Maybe he was worrying for nothing at this point.

  After all, everything had gone exactly to plan.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Sylvia?” Todd checked the living room, then wandered down the hall. Where is she? He continued on into the kitchen, and noticed the sliding door to the deck was partly open. He went over to the screen and looked outside.

  Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Sylvia reclined in a deck chair, a glass of iced tea on the small table next to her. Todd remained silent as he took in the scene and tried to decide what to say. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and she had been working so hard lately. She’d seemed terribly stressed for some weeks now, but hadn’t confided in him.

  And no wonder. The last time she’d tried to confide in him, he bit her head off and put her on the defensive. Ever since, there had been that chilly layer of distance between them. He didn’t like it. They’d only gotten married late last summer, and it wasn’t right to have a rift like that so soon—or ever. He slid open the screen door and went outside.

  “Sylvia?”

  She turned toward him, the mid-spring sun glinting off her dark sunglasses. “Yes?”

  He slid the other deck chair beside hers and sat down on it. “We should talk. I don’t like the distance between us.”

  She turned away from him and gazed straight out over the back yard, her expression neutralized by her sunglasses. “Well, you put it there.”

  He looked down at his hands. “Well, perhaps I was a bit…harsh. You’ve seemed pretty stressed lately. What’s going on?”

  “Well, in some ways, things are going extremely well. But in others…” She sighed. “The pathogen we designed is out there causing GIS, and the Spectrocillin that cures it is readily available to anyone who needs it. It works perfectly, and there is strong demand.”

  Todd wondered exactly how a pathogen manufactured in the lab got out there. Not really wanting to know the answer, he restrained himself from asking that question and let her talk.

  “Phil says it’s pulled Horton Drugs back off the brink of bankruptcy and is actually turning the finances around quite nicely.”

  “Sounds like all should be well, then.”

  She looked down into her lap and hesitated before responding in a subdued voice. “There is one problem. Well, maybe there is a problem. We’re
not entirely sure. Right now, the pathogen is behaving exactly as we intended, but I did some additional testing after I saw something strange in the lab. There is a possibility a strain may develop that is much more prone to mutation than the one we designed.”

  Todd felt his stomach clench. He was no scientist, but this sort of thing was exactly what had worried him when she had first let him in on the project. He struggled to ask his question without sounding judgmental, so she would be more likely to open up. “Prone to mutate how?”

  “That’s the problem. We don’t know yet. We don’t know if it will mutate, let alone how it might and what that might…mean.”

  Todd feared he knew the answer to his next question, but he had to ask it anyway. “Do you have some sort of a plan?”

  “I wish we did. How do you plan for something that may or may not happen, and if it does, you don’t know what effect it will have?”

  “Well, what if it does mutate in a dangerous way and Horton could have warned people ahead of time?”

  She lowered her glasses and glared at him. “Always the lawyer, aren’t you?”

  “Well, doesn’t it sound like a massive and highly visible lawsuit waiting to happen? It doesn’t take a bar license or a spectacular imagination to envision how it would play out.”

  “Maybe you should go talk to Phil, then. Perhaps he’ll listen to you. He sure hasn’t listened to me on this. I tried to suggest that we somehow get the word out that people who contract GIS be quarantined while they’re contagious. It was a nonstarter with him.” She let out a brief, sarcastic laugh. “Our own design is working against us. GIS may be highly contagious, but Phil’s right on one point. No one’s going to take quarantine orders seriously for an illness that, untreated, just makes you miserable for a couple of weeks and then is gone. But I think a quarantine protocol is the only way we could stave off an epidemic in the event it mutates in a dangerous way.”