by Bob Blanton
“But studies have shown that there is not a one-to-one correlation between plaque and the disease.”
Marc chuckled, “Studies are difficult to assess. Studies have shown that there are people with plaque in their brains that don’t have Alzheimer’s. They have not shown the opposite, that people without plaque have Alzheimer’s. We have found that the plaque is your brain’s way of protecting itself from injuries. A concussion or an infection occurs, and your brain builds up plaque to protect that area. In a normal person, that plaque is eventually dissolved and removed, or at least the inner coating, the part closest to the neurons. An Alzheimer’s patient is unable to dissolve the plaque, and it builds up. Eventually, it blocks the neurotransmitters, rendering that area of the brain inaccessible. Now, in some patients, as you have mentioned, the plaque is blocking unimportant areas of the brain. In others the brain has dissolved the plaque closest to the neurotransmitters, enabling them to operate beneath the plaque. Our treatment removes the plaque. The patient will continue to build up plaque, and in thirty or forty years, they might need a second treatment. We’ll offer those for free.”
The reporters continued to jockey for position and try to get recognized to ask another question.
“Please, submit any further questions in writing, and we’ll try to answer them,” Marc said. “Good day.”
Chapter 6
Miners
Blake was meeting Fred at the Rusty Nail. The bar used to be on the Sky Princess, but once they’d had extra space on the airport, they’d sold the Sky Princess and put the construction workers in housing there. The bar followed its patrons.
“Hey, Fred, how’s it going?” Blake asked as he sat down and indicated to the barmaid that he’d have the same thing Fred was drinking.
“It’s going,” Fred replied. “I just finished my second flight for the day. I’m off tomorrow, so I thought I’d take the Mea Huli out and do some fishing, you in?”
“You buying the beer?” Blake asked.
“You cheap bastard,” Fred said with a laugh. “You’re worth millions, and you still want free beer.”
“Hey, all my money is tied up in MacKenzie,” Blake said. “Besides, you’re worth a few million too, and yours is in the bank.”
Fred shook his head, “It’s always a game with you. Well, I’ll buy the beer, you buy the gas.”
“Ouch,” Blake said. “Well played. You have yourself a deal.” Blake looked around the dark bar, “There sure are a lot of pilots in here.”
“We’re running flights twenty-four-seven,” Fred said. “After the second flight, we all can use a beer. That Catie is a harsh taskmaster.
“She keeps the planes making four flights a day. We have to hustle to unload them so she can get four hours every other day to have them inspected. She pulls each plane out for a twelve-hour inspection once a week,” Fred moaned. “It keeps us hopping.”
“Do we need a few more pilots?” Blake asked.
“Not for this rotation; if you only give a pilot one flight a day, they’ll bitch about not getting enough flight time. If you give them two flights a day, they’ll bitch about too much flight time.”
“So, what you’re saying is, pilots like to complain.”
“That about sums it up,” Fred said. “Now we’re recruiting for the Oryxes that will fly the asteroid route. That’s going to be interesting; you’re in space for two weeks, then you rotate down here for a week of R&R, or you can stay upstairs for the R&R if you like.”
“I’m planning on moving to that,” Blake said. “I like the idea of a week off every three.”
“Like Marc gives you any time off. If you’re not flying, you’re working on one of his other assignments. You’re recruiting miners now, right?”
“Trying to,” Blake said. “Not sure we have any refugees with experience working in a mine. I’ve been asking around; haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“Damn refugees,” a voice snarled.
The music had just stopped playing; otherwise, Blake wouldn’t have heard it. He looked around to see who it was. One of the young pilots that had been working for about a month was avoiding his eye. Blake was pretty sure he’d been the one to say it. He got up and carried his beer over to the table.
As soon as he walked up, the pilot snapped to attention, “Sir, I apologize.”
“Sit down, Lieutenant Norton, isn’t it?” Blake said.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Can the sir,” Blake said. “You want a beer?”
“Yes si . . . , sure,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Now I know you’re not some idiot who hates people, so tell me what’s got you upset,” Blake said.
“It’s nothing,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“I’m sure it’s something,” Blake said. “Come on, tell me. We’re just two guys having a beer together. It will go no further.”
“Well, sir, it’s that everyone is always bending over backward to help the refugees. It’s not that they don’t need or deserve help; but nobody is bending over backward to help people who need help, but are stuck where they are.”
“We’re helping the refugees because we need people, they’re good people, and we can find them,” Blake said. “Maybe we would help these other people you’re talking about, but we don’t know who they are.”
“That’s just it,” Lieutenant Norton said. “The news media makes a big deal about the refugee crisis, but they don’t say anything about the crisis at home where good folks are losing their livelihood while having to watch their hometowns turn into ghost towns.”
“Who are these people?” Blake asked.
“My kin back in West Virginia,” Lieutenant Norton said. “They’ve been coal miners for generations. They started shutting the coal mines down eight years ago, and now just about everybody is unemployed. There just aren’t any jobs around.”
“Well, it just so happens we’re looking for miners,” Blake said.
“Yeah, but you’re looking for refugees that used to be miners,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“No, we’re looking for miners who are willing to relocate here and are willing to go into space to do the mining,” Blake said. “We just happen to have a lot of refugees around and are hoping they might have that skill. We really don’t know how to recruit for this job.”
“My kin would be happy to come here,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Are you sure?” Blake asked. “It’s amazing how much pain a person will put up with before they’re willing to leave the place they were born.”
“My kin would move.”
“I’ll tell you what, we’ll go visit your kin and see if they’re willing to relocate. We’ll hire anyone who wants to come here, and we’ll pay them good money.”
“How much?”
“As much as you’re being paid,” Blake said. “But let’s not focus on the money. We want people who are willing to relocate, not people who want to make a quick killing and go home.”
“Fine by me, when can we go?”
“As soon as you’re packed. Catie tells me that we can fly the Lynx to Canada now, so we can be in Toronto in about three hours. Then we have to take a quick hop to where?”
“Spencer, Bogg’s Field.”
“Okay, call me when you’re ready,” Blake said. He picked his beer up and headed back over to Fred.
“I’ll be ready in an hour,” Lieutenant Norton called out.
“Damn,” Blake said.
“What’s the problem?” Fred asked.
“I’m going to miss that fishing trip.”
“You’re just trying to get out of buying the gas,” Fred said, laughing at Blake.
“There is that,” Blake said, “but I have to go talk to some miners in West Virginia.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Blake and Lieutenant Kirk Norton were sitting in Bettie’s Diner in Pohawk, West Virginia. The place was filling up fast, as the locals were coming to hear about the job offers that
Lieutenant Norton had posted.
“I think that’s everybody,” Bettie said. “Let’s get this here show on the road. I want this placed cleared out in two hours so I can start serving dinner.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Lieutenant Norton said. “Okay, folks, settle down, and we’ll get started.”
It took a few minutes for everyone to find a place. Several people got up and shifted to other seats to allow families to sit together.
“I know that you’re all interested in hearing about the jobs, but I’m not talking until you’re quiet,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Then what is that you’re doing right now,” a young man in the back shouted, “cackling?”
“Hilarious Herb,” Lieutenant Norton said. “You all know me. I grew up here, my family has lived here for a hundred years. I know this is home to all of us, but it’s not the home it once was. When I was a kid, this place was just tolerable. There were still four mines open, so there were jobs. Now, the only jobs seem to be police jobs rounding up the drunks and Oxycontin dealers.”
“You got that right!”
“Yeah, why doesn’t the government do something about that, then maybe we could get some business in here to help the town out.”
“We’ve been saying that for years,” Lieutenant Norton said. “I’ve found myself a great job in a great place, and I’m here to offer you the same. This is my boss, Commander Blake McCormack. His company, MacKenzie Discoveries, is looking for some miners, and I told him that I knew some folks who knew more about mining than anyone else.”
“Yeah! Damn straight, we do!”
“The thing is, these mines are a long way from here. So if you want these jobs, you’re going to have to relocate. And there are a lot of confidential things involved, so you will have to be sworn to secrecy.”
“What’s that mean?!”
“You wouldn’t be able to write folks back here and tell them what you’re working on and things like that,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Hell, you’re fine, Wally. You can’t write, anyway!” shouted a man in the back. The whole crowd laughed at the joke.
“Where would we have to relocate to?”
“It’s called the Cook Islands,” Lieutenant Norton said. “It’s down by Australia and New Zealand. It’d be like moving to Hawaii.”
“I’d move to the moon if’n I could afford to feed my family without assistance from the government!”
“We’re hoping more of you feel that way,” Lieutenant Norton said. “Now, this place is a small city.”
“Oh no! we can’t be living in no city!”
“For sure, you can’t even walk around in a city without some foreign cab driver running you over.”
“Hold on there, ya’ll, I said it’s a small city, but it’s different than most cities,” Lieutenant Norton said. “Why, we don’t even have any cars.”
“No, cars! You mean, ya’ll drive trucks?”
“Nope, I mean no cars, no trucks. Well, we do have a few trucks to move stuff around and a bunch of golf carts, but they all belong to the company. Nobody can own a car.”
“Then how do you get around?”
“We walk,” Lieutenant Norton said. “Right now, the city is only about one-and-a-quarter miles on each side.”
“Hell, Uncle Joe’s farm is bigger than that!”
“I know it is,” Lieutenant Norton said. “We have a small subway to get you around the city if you don’t want to walk too far. I guess they might add some kind of taxi service or something so old folks don’t have to walk too far to the grocery store.”
“I told you there’d be taxis!”
“Shut up, Josh! Let the man talk.”
“Now everyone lives in condos,” Lieutenant Norton continued. “The basic condo is two bedrooms, but they can expand that depending on how big the family is. Your place would all be on the same floor, so no stairs.”
“What about places for the kids to play?”
“Each condo block has a big inside area that’s private for the condo. They’ll put in a playground and a pool if there are kids. There are parks all around the place.”
“What about the jobs, working conditions?”
“As I said, these folks don’t know anything about mining, so they’re counting on you to set all that up. They’re not skinflints or anything, so they’ll spend what it takes to make the mines safe. But the mines aren’t that close to the city, so you’d be staying on the job site during the workweek, and coming home for your day off.”
“What, one day off!”
“No, you guys have to decide how you want to split it up. They were doing four days on and three days off for the manufacturing guys. But you need to figure out what works best for you. They’re just looking for forty hours a week.”
“What about overtime?”
“Sure, you can work overtime,” Lieutenant Norton said as he looked at Blake. Overtime was one of the subjects they hadn’t covered on the way over.
“Overtime pays double,” Blake said. “But we limit how much you can do. We don’t want a bunch of exhausted workers having accidents.”
“What’s it like living there?”
“Like I said, it’s a city, but you can go hiking on Manuae, that’s the island it’s next to. You can go fishing on the ocean, it’s kind of like fishing on a lake. You have beer, a boat, and your buddies. After a few beers, you’re not sure if you really want to catch any fish, but hey, they’re good eating if you do. Commander Blake was complaining, on the way out here, about missing a fishing trip with his buddy.”
“But what about hunting?”
“You would need to go to Australia or New Zealand to hunt,” Blake said. “But that brings up another thing you need to know. There are no guns allowed in Delphi City.”
“No guns! Are you out of your freak’n mind?”
“No, I’m not,” Blake said. “Our police don’t even carry guns.”
“How do you protect yourself?”
“We have swat teams that are armed if we need them. They try to use stun guns instead of bullets, but they’re all ex-military. But, since there is a no-guns law, things are really safe.”
“Yeah, you don’t have a gun, but the criminals do!”
“Nope,” Blake said. “There are no guns, it’s a floating city, you can’t get a gun in.”
“Bah! I could smuggle a gun in, it’d be like falling off a log.”
“Don’t think you could,” Blake said.
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure, easy money,” Blake said. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for every gun you smuggle in. And I’ll give you passes for the first five times you get caught. The fine for trying to smuggle in something illegal is a thousand dollars.”
“Hey, I’m going to be rich,” Herb said.
“But what do we do if we want to hunt in this New Zealand place?”
“You rent a gun,” Blake said.
“That’s crazy!”
“Well, if there is something really special about your gun, we could store it for you,” Blake said. “Then you could check it out when you go hunting. Can’t imagine why you’d want the hassle, but your choice.”
“What other rules does this place have? Things like you can’t smoke in a restaurant and such.”
Lieutenant Norton gave out a big sigh, “That is one thing you can’t do. You can’t smoke or chew tobacco.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Well, that’ll never work.”
“You guys know me. I started smoking behind the school gym when I was twelve,” Lieutenant Norton said. “I haven’t had a cigarette in six months. The doctor cured me of the desire in two days. After that, I never wanted another one, couldn’t figure out why I ever smoked the things in the first place.”
“I started out smoking behind the gym with Kirk! If they can cure him of smoking, they can cure anybody.”
“Hell, if they can cu
re me of these things, I’ll sign up. I’ll be rich just from saving all that money. A pack and a half a day costs me a fortune. Besides, this damn cough is getting on my nerves.”
“What about drinking?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of drinking,” Lieutenant Norton said. “I’m sure the doctor could cure you of the desire, but we have no shortage of bars.”
“Good thing.”
“Howie, you don’t need to be drinking. Your liver has already booked a spot in the cemetery.” The room broke out in laughter at that.
“What about health care?” an older woman asked. “You know I have to be able to get the medication for my diabetes.”
“Mrs. Mueller, we have excellent medical facilities, and not only can they treat your diabetes, I believe the doctor might just be able to cure you of it,” Lieutenant Norton said.
“Oh, that would be nice,” Mrs. Mueller said. “Then, I could have a drink now and then.”
“Not like you don’t already sneak a drink now and then!”
“What would we do about our places here?!”
“You should keep them,” Lieutenant Norton said. “Maybe the ones who don’t want to move could make a little money keeping them up. Maybe a few of us could put in some hunting lodges and create some tourist trade up here.”
“Boy, them hunting lodges takes some big bucks, where are we going to get that kind of money?”
“Commander Blake tells me they’ll be paying the miners as much as they pay me. So you’d be able to save some money up, that is, if you don’t drink it all.”
“Well, I’ve heard enough. I have to talk to the wife, but I’m sure she’ll be willing to go. We’ve got three kids, and we want them to have a future. You guys got good schools down there?”
“Yeah, do you teach in English?”
“Yes, we have great schools,” Blake said as he stood up. “The language is English, and most everybody speaks some or is learning to. But I have to tell you the one thing that will get you kicked out is any racism or being mean to people because of who they are.”
“I don’t care who I’m working with as long as they can do the job, and I get paid enough to feed my family. I’m Jimmy Gaines.”
