by Nancy Adams
The two were in high spirits and the melodic sounds of The Doors came resonating out of the car’s speakers, the two singing along to the song ‘Light my Fire.’ The road ahead was dark, but there was little to no traffic on it and Margot, feeling in good spirits, was opening the car up a little, something that she had done many times before on these same San Fernando Valley roads.
As she and Claude cried out the chorus to the song, Margot swung the car around a tight corner and was instantly hit with a surprise as something large loomed into view on the road. She slammed her feet down on the breaks and tugged at the wheel to avoid the large deer that stood in the middle. But the car was going too quickly and the little hatchback lost its footing and toppled off the road, flipping as it hit the barricade and rolling down the hillside for several yards before coming to a stop on its back, the car’s red brake lights glowing in the darkness.
Twenty minutes later a car came by on the same road and the driver noticed the damage to the barricade as he passed it. Glancing down the hillside, he spotted the two bright red dots glaring out of the darkness like two eyes. He immediately pulled his car over, took his flashlight from the trunk and carefully descended the hill. As he did, he called the emergency services on his mobile.
When he was about ten yards from the wreck, he came across the first of the bodies. A woman who must have been thrown out of the car as it toppled down. She was crumpled up on the ground, her eyes open, and the man felt that there was no need to check her pulse. He decided to continue to the car and see if there was anyone else who might be trapped underneath it. On reaching the vehicle, he knelt down and shone his flashlight into the small cavity. He immediately saw the crushed body of a man. Reaching inside, the driver checked the man’s pulse and found none.
He then stood back up and went to sit on a nearby rock to wait for the emergency services, feeling rather forlorn due to the tragic scene he’d come by.
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BOOK FOUR – FATE'S EMERGENCE
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CHAPTER ONE
Claire stood in the hospital ward taking notes while Dr. Annabel Kline, her supervising doctor, examined an eighty-year-old female patient who’d been admitted to Faith Hospital, Brooklyn only twenty minutes before with an acute inflammation of the abdomen. The curtain was closed around them and Claire stood with three other resident doctors at the end of the bed observing the doctor feel the woman’s stomach, her nightgown lifted to her chest and the blanket down to her waist, exposing her belly.
“Okay,” Dr. Kline uttered as she looked over at her students, “feeling the patient’s abdomen, I’ve located that the swelling appears to derive from the pancreatic area.” She then faced the patient and inquired, “Tell me, Rose, have you been feeling nauseous lately? Vomiting perhaps?”
“Yes, Doctor, I have,” the old woman answered.
“Mmm,” Kline went on, taking her stethoscope in her hand and breathing on its end, before placing the headset on her ears and the chest-piece over Rose’s heart. She listened attentively for a moment and then, addressing her students, said, “The patient has a raised heartbeat as well. However, considering the patient’s age it cannot always be assumed that this is a relevant symptom of what we’re after.” Taking the stethoscope away from the old woman, she turned back to Rose and continued, “How long has your stomach been this big?”
“About a week,” she replied.
“Okay. Well, I’m going to send a nurse to take some blood samples soon and when I get the results back this afternoon, I’ll come and see you with my diagnosis.”
The doctor went to leave, but the old lady lifted her hand up and took Dr. Kline gently by the arm, stopping her.
Looking the doctor in the eyes with a sadness in her own, Rose said in a pleading voice, “What d’ya think it could be, doctor?”
Dr. Kline placed her hand gently on Rose’s and, returning the woman’s gaze with compassionate eyes, she softly replied, “It’s your pancreas, sweetie. It produces insulin as well as certain enzymes for digestion. Over time yours has become tired and it needs some help, possibly removal and replacement through medication.”
“Will I have to be cut up?” Rose asked in a frank manner.
Dr. Kline smiled at the old lady’s use of words and answered, “Unfortunately an operation is usually needed for someone your age. Often it’s better to remove the sick part rather than risk it causing infection to other organs. However, it’s not always the case, so you may not necessarily have to. Once I get the results back from your blood tests, I’ll be able to plan your prognosis. Is that okay, Rose?”
The old lady smiled softly up at her, her hand still laid upon the doctor’s arm.
“Thank you, dolly,” Rose said, reassured by the doctor’s warmth.
“It’s all gonna be good, Rose. We got it early enough. This is just another part of growing old.”
Claire always loved how human Annabel could be with the patients. Often she was cold and clinical, keeping them at arm’s length, refusing to give them her diagnosis until it was confirmed. But when she felt that a patient needed that little piece of humanity, a friend, just like old Rose, she would be very warm with them and divulge any information that would make them feel a little easier.
Walking away from Rose’s bed, Dr. Kline took Claire and the other students to the end of the ward and spoke with them as a group.
“Now, what I just did—divulging my diagnosis before it had confirmation—is often the last thing you want to do,” Dr. Kline said when she had their ears. “Our job is usually managing patient expectations until we’re sure of both diagnosis and prognosis. However, I’m pretty certain that Rose has acute pancreatitis and that it’s not pancreatic cancer. My reasons for being so sure that it isn’t the more life threatening cancer are that she has only had the inflammation for a week, her lymph nodes aren’t inflamed and she isn’t running a fever. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that when her results come back from analysis, acute pancreatitis will be the cause. Now, my reasons for telling the patient before my early diagnosis is verified are that Rose has no family and no support network. She’s all alone here. Therefore, I made the decision to divulge my initial diagnosis to her so that she wouldn’t be here all day on her own in that bed worrying about what could be wrong with her. Sometimes we are actually allowed to be human.”
This made the residents smile, including Claire, who was watching Dr. Kline with obvious adulation. She’d been a resident doctor at Faith Hospital, Brooklyn for three months now and had grown to both respect and admire Dr. Kline. At forty-five, the doctor was a veteran of the ER battlefields. She was battle-hardened but still displayed a warm, human side to her that Claire didn’t see so much in the other veterans of the hospital. Annabel Kline was the type of strong, compassionate women that Claire herself wished to become.
As for Claire, it was now over five years since she had given birth to David. Since then, she had completed her college studies with flying colors, something that had made her mother deeply proud. Then, following on from college, she’d completed three years of medical school, and was now in the first year of a three-year residency that would make her a doctor.
Several hours after seeing to poor Rose, Dr. Kline and her students finished the rounds of the wards and it was the end of Claire’s shift.
As she went to leave, Dr. Kline stopped her, let everyone else go, and then said, “Claire, I’ve been very impressed by you since you arrived here at Faith. You came highly recommended and you haven’t failed to live up to your billing.”
“Thank you,” Claire let out, blushing as she did.
“Anyway, I’ve been invited to an exhibition here in New York. It’s through the hospital, one of our dear corporate sponsors. They’re putting on a big show of their new pharmaceutical inventions and they’ve kindly invited all us lower orders to come and see. I was kinda hoping you’d agree to go with me, Claire. I think it may interest you and may give you an early insight into
another side of medical practice. If you’re up for it, it’s tomorrow night.”
Claire smiled, feeling herself honored, and without hesitation said that she would. Dr. Kline returned her smile and they arranged to meet up the next day. After that, Claire went off toward the staff changing rooms with a spring in her step.
Feeling herself already blessed, she was met with a further wonderful surprise when she reached the changing rooms. Standing there waiting for her to get off shift was Paul, her mother June and her brother Kyle, now twenty years old and a college student himself. They all wore happy smiles upon their faces and breathed a wave of soft light into Claire that filled her with an instant glee.
“Mommy,” she cried out as she rushed into her mother’s arms.
It had been over a month since June’s last visit to New York and the two hugged warmly. Next it was Kyle who Claire took into her arms and squeezed with all her might. He was far from the sulking teenager of yesteryear and had matured into a very handsome man. Claire and her brother were now closer than ever and she enjoyed his presence just as much as she enjoyed her mother’s.
Regarding the patriarch of the family, Joe, he visited rarely and of course never alone. The war of attrition was still raging between him and Claire, but thankfully there had been no more midnight meetings and Joe had never bothered to try to bridge things with his daughter again. Claire, in fact, found his visits far less hassle than did Paul, who hated the man with every ounce of his being. It took so much for Paul to control himself in the man’s presence and, as if sensing that the boyfriend knew all, Joe had been skilled enough to drift into the background when he did come to see them with June or when they visited Colorado.
“My gosh, you look so wonderful in your doctor’s whites, honey,” June exclaimed with pride, her gaze fixed to her daughter, a joyous smile upon her lips. “It makes me want to explode with pleasure.”
It was the first time that June had visited her daughter at the hospital. Paul had picked her and Kyle up from Kennedy Airport that morning and, for a treat, had decided to take them to surprise Claire, as well as give June her first look at her daughter in uniform.
“Oh! Ma,” Claire let out, taking her loving mother in her arms again.
When Claire let June go, she smiled joyfully at her boyfriend, before taking him in her arms and kissing him tenderly on the lips.
“You’re so sweet,” she whispered to him as they held each other.
“I thought it’d be a treat for your ma.”
Regarding their relationship, Paul and Claire were—and had been for five long years—a happy couple. When Paul finished his third year at college, he postponed his entry into medical school so that he could stay one more year in Maine alongside Claire, who had only just finished her second year. She had told him that he shouldn’t delay his career for her, but he had refused to hear any of it.
In every decision that he made, Claire could see the image of herself within it. To have this level of devotion made her heart ache for him, and five years after taking so much time to come to the decision that she loved him, Claire couldn’t currently imagine life without Paul by her side.
After Claire finished college, they both enrolled at the same medical school in Massachusetts, living in an apartment with three other students. Now they had finished and had both gained residencies in New York, Claire in Brooklyn at Faith, and Paul in Queens at St. Pancras. Three months before, they had moved into an apartment on Washington Avenue in Brooklyn, and life appeared set for both of them.
Having said her hellos to her loved ones, Claire left them to get changed, and twenty minutes later she was rejoining them for a day of shopping in the Big Apple.
CHAPTER TWO
Sam Burgess was sitting in the Techsoft boardroom about to vote on a new CEO. This was the culmination of five years’ hard work. Five years of plotting and wrangling with fellow board members—Bormann’s cronies—to get them on his side. Five years of fake smiles, throwing lavish parties for shareholders, getting up on stage and giving the best corporate shows in the world. Five years of being the face of his own company, of showing Stan Bormann that Techsoft could do without its CEO long before it could do without the great founder Sam Burgess.
Over the years Bormann had attempted several times to wrestle control from Sam. However, he’d been forced to stay away from the dirty tricks of before, having to stick to more legitimate means. One reason for this had been the fact that Sam had kept himself cleaner than clean these past years, and since Bormann’s initial success in breaking into the Cliff Face’s security, the CEO had been unable to spy on Sam since. That meant that Bormann had found himself with very little option other than to support Sam or risk upsetting both the public and the shareholders, as well as alienating himself in the boardroom.
Bormann’s position became especially harder when Sam began churning out yet more golden eggs for the company. Having dived head first into pharmaceuticals, Techsoft had engineered the first nano-technology prototypes for medical purposes. The system was decades from realization, but it was a patent that would be worth trillions of dollars once it was live in twenty or so years. He had also pushed the company to produce their first games console, the Joy-Box, which he personally oversaw the development of. Within its first year in a gaming market that already had three other leading competitors, the Joy-Box became the world’s No.1 console, outselling the others combined. It saw huge revenues pour into the company with the possibilities of software and add-ons.
With the success of their first console, Techsoft decided to produce their first computer, having previously only provided code and software, which they were already the industry leader in. Unlike the Joy-Box, the Techsoft-Pro laptop took a little longer to gain a dominant share of the market. However, as of 2005, it had become the world’s leading home computer and laptop. As a result, Techsoft once again saw huge revenue streams open up thanks to their great messiah Sam Burgess.
With Sam doing what he did at such an accelerated rate, Bormann could do nothing more than watch the company slowly slip away from him. In the corporate world, money talks and bullshit walks. While Sam made tons of money with magician-like ease, no one would dare touch him, not even Bormann. The military contracts were long forgotten by everyone the moment they saw profits increase year in, year out. Sam went from being the tech wiz into the boardroom messiah and each decision he made appeared destined to reap huge dividends. His face was constantly on the front cover of magazines and he had opened himself up to the world like never before. And for that, the public worshiped him as a God.
The media had created a cult of personality around him, and it was one that Sam and the company had put to good use. Techsoft’s corporate exhibitions (the T7s) were packed-out affairs that took place in huge exhibition halls and sometimes football stadiums. They were like rock concerts, with screaming fans all waiting for a sight of what the future would be, to hear the words of Sam Burgess himself as he strolled across the stage describing that future to them like an oracle.
Originally only open to the corporate world, Sam eventually decided to hold the T7s open to the public and have them recorded and put online. Techsoft didn’t charge entrance, but awarded it through a lottery system. At each T7 event—usually four a year—millions of people all over the world applied for one of the five thousand tickets to be in the crowd when Sam Burgess would unveil the next great innovation of Techsoft. Being there in that crowd was seen as the height of ecstasy for all technophiles—the equivalent of being a Christian and standing at the bottom of the heath while Christ spoke.
And now, with everything poised, Sam sat confidently at the side of the big black marble conference table at the furthest end from Bormann, who sat at its head. The soon-to-be-ex-CEO merely sat there and gazed blankly ahead of him like a man being ushered into the gas chamber by armed guards. Bormann was wise enough to know when he could and when he couldn’t win a fight. Now was one of the latter occasions. As an ex-CEO of the
richest company in the world, Bormann wouldn’t be poor. He was leaving with a pretty hefty severance package that would see him receive at least twenty million a year for the rest of his life in share and pension privileges. And that was before taking into consideration that he was already a multi-billionaire and would spend the rest of his life in the highest order of luxury.
But something told Sam that Bormann wouldn’t let it lie there. It wasn’t all about the money to men like Stan Bormann. A large part, yes. But not all of it. Somewhere behind those blank eyes burned a raging fire of egotism. He may have been one of the richest living men, but Bormann had wanted more than that. He’d wanted Techsoft. He’d wanted total control to feed his gigantic ego. Now, however, he would be losing all of that power. The wise owl that Sam was, he didn’t see this as the end of his troubles by a long shot and wondered what Bormann would do now that he was outside of Sam’s direct control. A part of him had wondered whether it might be a good idea to keep Bormann on, keep him close so Sam could continue to keep an eye on him. But in the end, he had to admit to himself that for what the man did to Jenna, he had to go.
Once everyone was settled around the table, business commenced.
John Calloway stood up and announced, “As you all know, we’re gathered at this meeting to vote for a new CEO, the motion having been brought by this very board.” Calloway glanced at Bormann and went on. “So I’m not gonna beat around the proverbial bush too much with this one fellas. As you know, the vote is between myself and Stan. So all those in favor of myself becoming CEO say aye.”
