Terminal Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  Jumping into his car he fired the engine and pulled out into the traffic, fastening his seatbelt as he drove along. He cut in front of a car with very little margin at the roundabout which gained him some furious beeping, but he ignored it, carrying on driving as fast as the traffic would allow. He overtook a cyclist passing much closer than he normally would have and looking in his rearview mirror saw the cyclist waving his fist at him and giving him the finger.

  Ignoring the rules about driving and mobile phone use he pressed redial to try to get the clinical trial unit. He heard the same message again, it was hopeless, he punched the wheel in anger. The traffic lights ahead changed to red and he was forced to wait, but it gave him chance to bring up his contacts. Firstly he tried Brett but received no reply, he was probably driving so he left a voicemail telling him to stop the clinical trial and to phone him as he would explain. He managed to get hold of the receptionist Jenny as it was now after 8 a.m. but she had trouble understanding him so he told her the same message to phone the clinical unit and to tell them to halt everything pending his arrival. She also had to contact Piers with the same message and get him to try to phone them. Jenny said she understood but her response didn’t give confidence, he just had to hope that one of his messages got through to someone.

  The lights changed, he was moving again but by now the traffic was much heavier and a bin lorry was hampering progress, he wished he’d possessed a bike himself as he would probably be further ahead on two wheels than four. Finally, past the bin lorry, it looked as though he might have a bit of a clearer run, he had actually got up to thirty miles per hour. Just then his phone rang, he reached over to the passenger seat to pick it up forgetting he had Bluetooth fitted in the car and could have pressed the button on the steering wheel. Due to his sweating hands, the phone slipped from his grasp, it skidded off the seat and into the footwell. Slowing down slightly he took his eye off the road and reached for it. He answered, ‘Brett, thank god I’ve reached you!’ but they were the last words he uttered to the caller as in his panic he had failed to notice the woman and child crossing on the zebra crossing. He screamed out as they loomed large in his windscreen, a second later he hit them with a sickening crunch. Braking hard he skidded and crashed into the parked cars. The airbag inflated and Bob’s world went black.

  Chapter 47

  Brett had received the call just as he was walking up the stairs to his office, first the voicemail from Bob, then the receptionist chasing after him telling him she had a message from Bob to stop the clinical trial. He was shocked, had Bob lost his marbles completely and had another funny turn​? He’d certainly been acting oddly the last few weeks. It was possible there was a problem but before he took any action he wanted to speak to Bob to find out what the hell was going on.

  Having only heard Bob’s first few words about being glad he’d finally contacted him the call had cut out and repeated attempts to return the call hadn’t been picked up, Bob’s own voicemail cutting in each time. What the hell was going on. Brett was now starting to panic, what was the best thing to do? If they cancelled the clinical trial they would waste thousands of pounds of company money, by the same token it sounded like something really serious. He sat at his desk closing his eyes and holding his head. He needed to think quickly. He contacted Piers but obtained his voicemail as well. It wasn’t a good time of day to try to get hold of people as it was peak time for commuting.

  He tried again to contact the clinical unit, receiving the message that the reception was manned during normal office hours. This was becoming frustrating and the time was already past 8.30 a.m., if there really was a problem and the trial was due to start this morning then time was running out. Had Pete the other biologist been available he might have had a direct number for one of the scientists at the unit but he was still on leave due to his child having his diabetes stabilised. Brett tried once more to reach Bob, surely by now, he might be out of traffic or even arriving here at work. He went down to the main reception to see whether he could see him arriving.

  There was no sign of Bob, so Brett decided there was nothing left to do but to go along himself to the unit and ask them to pause the trial until they had made contact with Bob and discovered what the hell was going on.

  ‘Jenny, this is really important,’ said Brett sternly, ‘if Bob or Piers arrives you must tell them that I am on the way to the clinical unit to try to halt the trial. They are to phone me urgently and tell me what is going on, OK.’

  ‘Certainly, let me just check your mobile number,’ said Jenny bringing up Brett’s details on the screen and she reeled it off.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ shouted Brett heading out and jogging over to his car. He activated the remote, fastened his belt and sped out of the car park, wheels spinning, only just avoiding what looked like Nick Thomas arriving for work.

  Although the unit was still technically on the science park it was right over to the other side so Brett had to negotiate all the speed bumps, mini roundabouts and the staff arriving at their various places of employment. He took a call from Jenny to inform him that Piers had received his message and would join him as soon as possible at the clinical unit. That was at least comforting to Brett that he wouldn’t have to sort this mess out single-handedly. Perhaps Bob had gone off the rails entirely, there was no way of knowing, but if there had been a miscalculation they could not take the chance. Any participants falling ill on a trial would be seriously bad publicity for the company as well as for the individuals.

  He spotted the building up ahead and turned into what he assumed was the entrance but found that instead, he was heading for a delivery entrance. There was no clear way in by this route, a large fence confronting him so swearing loudly he did a three-point turn and narrowly missing a lamp post which he’d failed entirely to see, he turned back out on to the road and took the next entrance. Here he approached the welcome sight of the main entrance. Parking up outside the entrance ignoring the marked spaces he ran up to the door and nearly broke his wrist as the door remained locked. This was unreal, was he never going to be able to get into the building. He looked around for a bell, buzzer or something but as always when in a panic it was difficult to spot anything. Cupping his hands against the glass he peered in and spotted a young girl sitting at a reception desk with an alarmed expression.

  ‘Open the door, it’s important!’ shouted Brett, ‘I’m from BioQex, you’ve got to stop the trial!’

  The girl remained unmoved, clearly, she’d been told to uphold the security of the building. Brett produced his security pass on its lanyard and held it up to the glass door.

  ‘Look at my badge, it says who I am, I need to explain, open the fucking door!’

  She remained at her desk and answered the phone. Brett was beside himself, pacing, rubbing at this face and swearing profusely. What could he do, he needed to stop the trial whilst they sorted out what was actually happening. Suddenly the receptionist stood up and walked over to the door, perhaps she’d just had a call from Jenny on the reception at BioQex. She unlocked the door and Brett barged into the building.

  ‘Get me the medic in charge of the trial please, I need to speak to him,’ he shouted.

  The receptionist went over to her desk and picked up the phone.

  ‘Go and get him,’ shouted Brett, ‘never mind trying to phone him, he’s probably busy!’

  The receptionist was racked with indecision, should she obey this raving madman who’d just gained access to the building or should she follow procedure and stay at her desk. Brett advanced towards the desk, ‘Go and get him or her,’ he added, ‘please, it’s really very important.’

  After what seemed an age the indecisive receptionist decided to appease the visitor and using her security pass opened the door behind the desk and disappeared into the building. Brett phoned Bob again on his phone but again reached his voicemail, he went over to the door to watch out for Piers. He thought he recognised Piers’ car approaching at high speed and this was co
nfirmed when it pulled up outside the door. At least Piers could access the building as Brett was able to press the door release.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Piers, ‘I’ve had a succession of garbled messages, none of which make sense, so I decided to come over here to try to get to the bottom of this unholy mess. Have you any idea now that you’ve arrived here?’

  ‘No, I’m as much in the dark as you but I’ve sent the girl on the desk off to find the medic so we can stop the trial until Bob shows up and explains himself.’

  ‘Good man, well let’s hope it’s just a case of Bob getting worried about things, he’s been in a bit of a state recently, understandably of course, but where the fuck has he got to?’

  Brett thought it was unusual for Piers to swear so it only served to enforce the enormity of the situation.

  After a couple of minutes, the receptionist returned accompanied by a young man.

  ‘Thank God,’ muttered Piers, and they both advanced to mob the medic.

  ‘Good morning, how may I help you? I understand you wanted to speak to me?’

  ‘Yes, doctor,’ said Piers assuming charge of the situation, ‘now it’s a bit complicated but our head biologist who signed off the study in consultation with advisers, I might add, is a bit worried about the trial and would like it to be halted, pending checking of the protocol.’

  Brett was always in admiration of Piers who could always manage to assume the air of the diplomat however grave the situation might be, it was beautiful to watch.

  ‘Well, we can halt it from now on, if that’s what you want to do, but the participants have already received the first dose,’ and he consulted his watch. ‘The first dose, fifty milligrams has already been administered half an hour ago. We start sampling in an hour and a half, and thereafter every two hours. There’s nothing we can do about the first dose I’m afraid,’ and he shrugged.

  Piers and Brett looked at each other. What could they do? They needed to speak to Bob and failing that they needed to start praying that there wasn’t some major foul up.

  Chapter 48

  Bob came to his senses to find himself engulfed by the airbag. He heard shouting and screaming outside the car and loads of people surrounding him and a frenetic melee of activity on the road. The realisation of what had happened in the previous few seconds came back to him with a sickening rush, he’d hit a woman and child on the crossing. He tried to open the car door but it was jammed as he’d skidded across the road and was now alongside those parked cars. He tried to release his seatbelt but he would need to climb across to the passenger seat to escape. Looking in through the passenger window was a man asking if he was OK. He nodded and sat back in his seat, he felt transfixed, what had he done. How could he have been so irresponsible as to reach for his phone and take his eyes off the road? His memories were returning, he was heading to the clinical unit to stop the trial. He couldn’t see his phone at that point, it must have been flung off the seat in the impact. Oh, God, not only had he injured possibly killed two people there might be at least eight people suffering adverse effects from his miscalculation of the dose for the clinical trial. He put his head back against the headrest and started to weep.

  ‘I think he’s in shock,’ he heard someone say, ‘best wait for the ambulance to come. How’s the poor woman and child?’

  ‘Not looking good,’ he heard a voice, ‘I think the kid’s bought it, lots of blood, fuck it’s awful.’

  Bob vomited his breakfast onto the passenger seat. He could go to jail for this, he deserved to, he was a murderer. He heard the sirens approaching, ambulances, police, a sudden flurry of activity. A policeman appeared at the window of the car accompanied by a paramedic and Bob was extracted from the car. He would go quietly but he had to get them to make the call to the clinical unit. He needed to know what was happening and crucially whether the potential crisis had been averted.

  **

  Nick entered the building and could sense the tension emanating from the front desk. Jenny was alternately dialling furiously and swearing. He was tempted to hang around to find out what was happening but didn’t want to be in the way, no doubt all would become clear later in the day, he would stop by Amanda’s desk later when all the fuss had died down. His major aim today was to check with Kirsty that all had gone well overnight with the second test run of the key reaction and then to prepare for the scale up on Monday. Kirsty looked to be at work already as her coat was on the back of her chair. The only worrying thing was she wasn’t at her desk or in their usual lab which meant only one thing, she was in the large-scale lab probably checking the reaction. How many times did he have to emphasise to her that she should not work alone particularly if handling something potentially so dangerous? He sighed to himself, why did his day always start off so promisingly and then take a turn for the worse?

  He had been in a buoyant mood when he’d left his flat. For once not feeling he had to check around his car like he was collecting it from a hire company. His predator was safely under detention, Polly had returned and they’d made up for lost time last night. They had the weekend to look forward to and now at work, something was clearly amiss. Just as his mood had appeared to be on an upward trajectory it was dashed and came crashing down. It was mornings like this when he really felt like a change of career. So much stress was bad for him, he would soon have no hair at all, his thinning locks seemed to be turning grey with exceeding speed. He’d no idea how his internal organs were faring. It was certainly something to consider but for now he needed to check that Kirsty was still in one piece. He would look at his emails later, he rushed into the lab to collect his lab coat and made his way along the corridor to find Kirsty.

  **

  Bob was allowed to retrieve his phone from his write-off of a car and he saw that there were around a dozen missed calls. He asked the officer if he could contact his colleague but he refused to let him, he was under arrest for causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He was temporarily placed in the back of an ambulance whilst the paramedics performed their standard checks. Apart from some painful ribs, he was deemed fit to be taken off to the police station for processing. Never had he felt so wretched. He kept asking about the woman and child but they wouldn’t tell him anything, only that they were both on the way to hospital and everyone was hoping for the best. The police removed Bob’s personal possessions from the car, bagged them and placed in the boot of the marked car, which then set off in the direction of Persford town centre. Bob sat alone in the back of the car, an experience he’d never had before, weeping silently, wiping his eyes and his nose on his shirt. He felt sure he could never recover from this. Counselling or no counselling he could never forgive himself.

  Chapter 49

  Brett and Piers returned separately to BioQex. They had done all they could for the moment, the trial was halted but the participants had unfortunately received the first dose. They would, of course, be monitored as in all clinical trials but just as a precaution, they fitted each participant with a saline drip in order to hopefully flush out the drug from their systems more quickly. Brett waited in Piers’ office for him as he took longer to arrive back on site. Piers rushed in looking extremely flushed and perspiring. He took off his jacket and slumped down in his chair.

  ‘God this is a mess,’ he said, resting his head in his hands. ‘Let’s hope the participants will be OK otherwise, we could be sued, well I assume we could. Oh, I don’t know, I just wish we knew what Bob was talking about.’

  ‘Well it’s possible he made a mistake in the calculation, he’s been in a complete state these last few weeks,’ surmised Brett. ‘I just can’t understand why we’ve not heard from him unless he’s had an accident or had a complete breakdown or something?’

  There was a knock at the door, Amanda entered.

  ‘Oh, hello Amanda, please tell me that Bob has phoned in and can explain what the hell is going on.’

  ‘Well he’s not phoned in but the police have,’ both B
rett and Piers were staring at her looking shocked. ‘I’m afraid Bob had an accident on the way to ClinTry, he was trying to get there to stop the trial.’

  ‘Well that explains it, why our calls just kept going to voicemail, is he OK, is he in hospital?’ said Piers.

  ‘He’s fine just a bit shaken up but it’s worse than that, he’s been arrested for dangerous driving.’ This caused a collective gasp from Piers and Brett.

  ‘What, why what happened?’ asked Piers being the first to get in with a question.

  ‘Tragically he knocked down a mother and child on their way to school on a Zebra crossing.’

  ‘Fuck, no, that’s awful!’ shouted Brett, ‘oh, no, shit! What a disaster,’ and he started to pace around the office.

  ‘Are they badly injured?’ asked Piers quietly.

  ‘Sadly yes, in intensive care, I don’t know any more than that,’ said Amanda her voice trembling slightly. ‘The police agreed under Bob’s insistence to pass on a message,’ and she consulted her notepad, ‘he says and I quote, the dose should have been 10 milligrams not 50 milligrams.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Brett, ‘that means the participants’ safety window is markedly reduced, this could be very serious. That’s,’ and he paused, ‘only a two-fold safety window!’

  Amanda left the room leaving the two men to contemplate the awful news in silence and the ongoing problem of the clinical trial.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Piers, ‘I was supposed to check his calculations but with this FCA investigation I trusted Bob too much. If only Pete had been in to check the figures this might never have happened,’ and he paused. ‘But we had all those meetings, there was loads of input into the modelling of the protocol, the clinical experts had a huge contribution.’ He exhaled, ‘There’s no turning the clock back but I should have never let Bob carry on pretending he was OK when he clearly wasn’t. If those poor people don’t survive I don’t know what I’ll do, I’ll have to resign. But that won’t help them, will it? How will I ever live with this?’ he asked Brett who couldn’t answer him, he felt equally as shocked. This could have implications for the company, for the participants, for everyone and for a considerable time.