[the Writing of Kuypers] [JanetKuypers.com] [Bio] [Poems] [Prose]
They Key to Believingchapter 21
The One-Year MarkThey moved into their new loft on the water a month and a half after they announced their engagement; Carter moved his furniture to their home. They hosted a small housewarming party, but they promised everyone they would have a better gathering after their honeymoon. They planned to get married ten months after they moved in together, with time to prepare for their wedding, reception and honeymoon. Her entire family was also thrilled that Sloane was finally moving into a home and found someone to be with, because they wondered if she would ever have the time to find someone she could love. “People usually get married at a younger age,” her brother Bob said to his sister, who married when she graduated high school and she had just turned eighteen. Her sister Andrea wondered when she studied for so long and worked so hard on her own for so many years, “Does she even date anyone?” “Can she even find a boyfriend?” Andrea’s husband asked. “I don’t even know if she looks for one,” she answered. They didn’t know that for her it would take someone truly singular and unique to her for her to be happy, and she found that in Carter. Things ended up working phenomenally well with their vaccine test results; both Mr. Mackenzie and Ms. Emerson were able to produce a vaccine in record time for Madison Pharmaceuticals. The vaccine was slated for release to the market just under a year after it was first conceived. Both of the creators received hefty bonuses and a pay raise for their work on the vaccine. With the raise and hefty bonus she received from the vaccine, along with the salary Carter made through Quentin when he was still working at home, they were doing quite comfortably. Carter got a T1 line from Quentin so he was able to work with speed electronically in their network, and being at home instead of in their offices allowed him to have more control over what jobs he would take on and how quickly books would be produced. She was able to work online while she was at home as well, so she was able to do some of her work at home, allowing her to spend more time near her husband. “You know, I like the fact that we can work together this way,” Carter said to her. “Even if we’re not talking, it’s --” “It’s nice to know that you’re in the same room, isn’t it, Carter?” she said, finishing his sentence for him, because she knew just what he was thinking; sometimes they didn’t even need to talk to understand each other. The week before their wedding, Julie approached Sloane with directories on their network for assorted e-mails. “I know you wanted me to go through e-mails responding to your AIDS questions, I am almost done with going through them all for responses --” “I have been going through some of them already, and thank you.” “Good ... But I thought you’d like to see the letters we got from a few patients who are currently on Emivir. They’re something I get the feeling you’d like to read,” she said as she handed her a piece of paper with directions on where the e-mails were saved. She went to her office to go over the original AIDS testimony files, she wondered if there could possibly be a connection between Emivir and helping people with other diseases. After Sloane read the e-mails, still leaving the last e-mail on her screen, she got up and went to the font of her office again to talk to Julie.
From: 1013.0843@univ.il.edu
Date: Friday, 5:15 p.m.
Subject: medication and Diabetes
I’ve been on Emivir for the past four years. My health has been great, and I’ve been taking the medication religiously. But when I wanted to say was that I have been a Diabetic for ten years, and I have needed less insulin in injections since I have been taking Emivir.
I also know you’ll kick my ass for this, but since I had my insurance covering some of the cost of the drugs, I gave a few samples to Emivir to another friend of mine, who doesn’t have AIDS but has been Diabetic since he was five. This friend of mine, after taking the Emivir for a few days, still had to take insulin a few times a day like he did before, but he said he gave himself less in his injections. He also carried a roll of Life Savers around with him all the time if he needed a sugar fix around the time of his insulin hits because of sugar in his diet, but he told me he didn’t need to take any sugar to help him out when he was taking the Emivir samples.
I don’t know if there’s a correlation with these things, and I know you’re probably angry that I gave the samples to my friend, but I think it helped us out for our Diabetes some. Oh, I should also tell you that my friend never tested his blood-sugar levels, the way we regularly have to for keeping us in line, he just seemed so used to knowing when he needed sugar or insulin that he didn’t bother. But he noticed a difference in how he felt and when he needed insulin, so maybe he knew something. His e-mail address is 0515.0301@univ.mi.edu if you need to ask him anything. Is there a relationship between Emivir and Diabetes? Let me know, and thanks a lot.
She stormed out of her office, on what seemed like she was on her usual quest again. “Julie, I need you.”
“I do what I can, Ms. Emerson. What is it?”
“Have we received anything else like these three Diabetes-related e-mails?”
“Madison has received a few e-mails over the months about Emivir patients having less of a need for their usual quantities of insulin when they had Diabetes while being on Emivir. Why ... do you ask?” Julie could see that something was brewing in her head.
“Julie, I want you to collect anything you can for me on Diabetes, and anything on any types of medications that have ever been shown to help patients with the release of insulin in their body.”
“Ms. Emerson, you’re getting married next weekend.”
“I know, I know ... Just see if you can get that together while I’m gone, see if Howard can help out because Kyle is strapped with vaccine work.”
Scott, another lab agent, came by and heard scraps of their conversion. “Hi, can I help with something?” he asked.
“Um, I don’t know,” Julie said when he tried to explain why he asked.
“I’m sorry, but I heard Diabetes mentioned, and my brother has Diabetes, so I just automatically tuned in. Is there something you need?”
Sloane picked up her head more confidently when she heard that someone in the lab knew something of Diabetes personally. “Hi,” she said as she extended her hand to shake his. “I asked Julie here to get some information for me about Diabetes, because I’m thinking that there is a slim chance that there might be something in Emivir that helps Diabetic people with the amount of Insulin they have to go through. If you could work with Julie at all on collecting anything, that would be great,” she said as she kept moving her head between both Scott and Julie.
“There’s someone else in the lab that had a Diabetic family member die from a heart attack when he was young, probably because of his illness, maybe he can help you out too.”
“Yeah, get him in on this as well; we’re going to need all the help we can get on learning about this. And thanks.”
Carter and Sloane planned everything for their wedding in record time, and did everything they could to make it a wedding that was one of the most wonderful experiences they could imagine. Their wedding was held in the Art Museum when it was closed on a Sunday, and they had a string quartet playing music during their ceremony. The wedding reception was in a hall that had a large balcony right on the water, so anyone who wanted to hear the music to dance and also be at the water could. They even both agreed that their song would be the one song they danced to together before, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
Right before their marriage, they asked Kyle to take the compact disc the Disc Jockeys were producing of slow songs from their wedding, including the song they danced to together.
“My friend Steve even had the music from the ceremony recorded for a CD for you,” he told Carter, “so I could get that as well.”
“Thanks a lot, man. And if possible, I’ve got one more favor to ask, but I think you and your wife might like it...” Carter then proposed this deal with Kyle. Carter would give Kyle and his wife Elisa keys to their flat, asking them to hold the keys on one condition: Carter turned the power and water off for their honeymoon, but Kyle and Elisa could have Friday in their home together, the day before they come back from their honeymoon, to themselves in their place, as long as they would please turn heat back up for their return. Carter would like to come back to a home that was already heated and have running water from their honeymoon.
Kyle offered to pick then up at the airport on their way home to save the cab fare, and he also liked this chance to have some time with his wife. Kyle willingly complied, telling his wife that the kids could stay either at Elisa’s parent’s house, or her parents could stay with the kids in their house for the evening. Kyle offered to decorate somehow for their return, so Carter gave him strands of white Italian lights and a number of long tab curtains. Carter told Kyle that there are high beams that the curtains and lights could hang from, and there were extension cords with it all, if Kyle cared to do anything.
She was already gone to her father’s house to get ready for their wedding, but Carter looked back in their home together before he would get ready and leave for their wedding. There was an empty large silver frame, mostly chrome with space in the center for a small picture hanging for their wedding photo on the wall in their living room. He looked at the empty frame on the wall and smiled before he got ready to get married, as Sloane was getting ready for her wedding at her father’s house, where she grew up.
A week after their wedding and while they were still on their honeymoon, Ellen brought photos she took from the wedding to the office and showed then to everyone at the lab and at Madison. When Howard asked he about giving photos to the married couple, she said, adding “I got doubles so the ’happily married couple’ could have the other set.”
They even laughed that her friend Toby caught the garter belt and a friend of her dad’s got the bouquet. “Did you see the look on Toby’s face when he had to take pictures with this middle-aged woman?” Kyle asked.
“And doesn’t that ’eligible women catching the bouquet’ thing really only work for young women who want to get married?” Howard asked again, laughing with a few other people in the lab.
“Hey, Ellen, you were there, did you try to catch the bouquet?”
“What was I supposed to do, attack this older woman for it? Besides, I don’t need a bouquet to prove that I’ll get married ... And you know, that bouquet was gorgeous.”
“The ball of roses?” Howard asked.
“It was just this tight-knit ball of roses, it didn’t even mess with a ton of greenery, and the bouquet was all white, like the dress. It was just so neat and perfect-looking.”
“You have to admit,” Kyle interjected, “that was just about the perfect bouquet for her. There was nothing in the way in it, it was just a tight ball of roses and nothing else, and really, it did just what she probably wanted it to do --”
“Not be in her way?” Howard asked.
“But be beautiful at the same time,” another worker there said.
“There were also a bunch of lily of the valley in there, couldn’t you smell them?” Ellen said. “They didn’t stick out, but the bouquet even smelled more beautiful, with just roses and lily of the valley.”
“Getting married in the art museum was a really cool thing too,” Howard said aloud. “But why was Tyler invited?”
“Sloane told me before that she was inviting him because he would spend money on a nice gift for her,” Kyle said laughing.
“Is that why she invited the boss?”
“Nah, that’s like a rule if you’re getting married, she invited coworkers, the boss had to be invited...”
“No, I think she actually likes him as her employer,” Kyle said. “She can manage to test him and he takes it, it is like they’re buddies and know how to deal with each other...”
“Yeah, but it was cool they had their reception at a hall that also had an outdoor area right on the water for people to go to if they liked,” Howard said.
“So if you wanted some air --” Julie said,
“Or didn’t want anyone to see how you danced,” Howard interrupted.
Julie finished by saying, “you could enjoy the air on the water on the deck, too. Or if you didn’t like the slow song, the music sounded more muted and calm when you were out there. It was really nice.”
They all started talking about it during lunch to each other.
“Speaking of music, did you guys watch them dance?”
“I think everybody was watching them dance, I swear, I didn’t know that Sloane even knew how to dance!”
“I think one of them didn’t ... Did you see how much they talked while they were dancing?”
“Yeah...”
“I think one was telling the other what to do.”
“But they were doing all sorts of stuff, sliding along each other’s arms, him curling her up to him in two different ways --”
“I can’t imagine Sloane knowing how to do any of that!”
The newlyweds got married on a Sunday and stayed the night at the honeymoon suite at The Renaissance Hotel. The next day they flew to Miami and stayed there the night. The next day they flew to Paradise Island, staying at Atlantis for part of their honeymoon, then choosing to stay in a small hotel so they could get away from people and enjoy their time together without worrying about others around them. They ended up doing nothing for ten days, and actually being able to relax.
But after they flew and spent a day in Miami and they took a puddle jumper to one of the islands in the Bahamas, Carter had to ask Sloane about the strange behavior he saw in the airports both times. “Angel, did you see how they pulled us off to the side both times we had to fly for this trip?”
“Yes...”
“They didn’t do that to anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Was there anything on us to make them stop us?”
“No, Carter there wasn’t. I even made sure to not carry any metal on us.”
“We didn’t have anything at all, did we?”
“No, Neither of us even brought medications, so we had nothing on us.”
“Does this happen to you all the time when you’re on a plane?”
“It’s starting to, Carter.”
“Why is the security doing it?”
“I think ... I think they’ve just been taught to search for me more now.”
“How do they know where you --”
“My name is on an airline ticket...”
“Hadn’t it been long enough, I mean, if they are going to watch you --”
“Honey, I didn’t trust them, and because of it they don’t trust me.”
“Well that’s not fair of them...”
“It’s not fair to have your own government allow people to die,” she said, as he finally stopped asking questions. They were taking a ride to their hotel through all of their arguing, and she finally told him once they were inside the hotel, “You know, if they want to fight, I’ll use their means to fight back.”
“Like you were doing when you did that first press conference?”
“I’ll use whatever pathetic means they use to fight.”
“I have no idea what you have planned, angel.”
“Hmm ... Just work with me if it comes up again, okay?”
“Okay, but you don’t think they’ll do anything on our way back home though, do you?”
“Coming into the United States they could have more reason to search me over than they did when we left, so I almost expect it. Just be ready for me if I strike back somehow...”
“You frighten me when you talk like that, you know...”
“Don’t get on my bad side and you’ll be fine,” she said as she walked over to the bed where he was opening the suitcase so she could knock his shoulder to turn him around so she could start kissing him.
While they were away for their honeymoon they listened to bands that were playing on one side of their island off of the Bahamas, but they enjoyed themselves by staying away from others and having space to themselves on a more deserted side of the island. The two of them went snorkeling and scuba diving a lot, but by the end of their honeymoon they flew back to Fort Myers for the night before flying home.
They were stopped at the airport again going to Fort Myers, but this time not as they left, but as they arrived in the continental United States for their one night stay. Two guards waited to stop them at the entrance door to the airport that they had to go through in order to get their luggage.
“Are you Ms. Sloane Emerson?” they heard one of the gentlemen say.
“Yes I am,” she answered.
“Come with us please,” they said as they walked through the doors, expecting Sloane and Carter to follow.
She started to speak as they walked inside the terminal. “What do you need to detain me for?” making a point to say the word ’detain’ loudly enough for everyone else to hear in the airport.
“We plan to ask you a few questions and --”
“I have answered questions asked in the airport before I left, so there is no reason to ask anything of me now.”
“We also wanted to check some of your belongings to make sure you didn’t bring anything back into the country illegally.”
“That would have been done before we left, and that would have been seen from the x-ray machine.”
“Still, Ms. Emerson, we’d like to --”
“Look, my husband and myself have done nothing wrong,” she said, started to get louder. “Your people have been detaining me for no reason at all; we have done nothing to anyone.” She glanced over at Carter and gave him a quick look to let him know that this was going to be something she would do to fight the security agents whenever she traveled.
“Look, we have every right,” one of the guards said she he grabbed her arm to make her go with him. Sloane immediately made an exaggerated and violent gesture to swing her arm to get it out of his grasp. While doing it the guard then tried to grab her again to detain her and she fell to the ground.
Carter saw that this is exactly what she wanted, so he did his best to play the part to help her with her case. He jumped down and almost started yelling as he touched her cheek and saw her very carefully open her eyes to let him know that she was okay, as she them immediately closed her eyes again. “What have you done to my wife?” Carter said, getting louder and sounding angrier. “We’ve done nothing wrong at all and you knock my wife unconscious?”
“Sir, we --” the one guard said, hoping there wasn’t a serious problem.
“No no no, she’ll be fine,” he said as Sloane started opening and closing her eyes as if she was just waking up from being passed out. “The last thing we need is help from the people that hurt us. Now let us out of here right now, before you try to injure us for being innocent again!”
Carter immediately turned to his wife. “Angel, are you okay?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, My head hurts a little, but I think I’m okay.”
“Let me help you...”
“Why did they hurt me?” She asked, now letting her voice get louder.
“Angel, I don’t know, but we’re getting out of here before they try to hurt you again. Do you want to press charges?”
The guards heard this and didn’t know if they did something wrong or if they were just made to look like they did.
“Um ... no ... or should we get the names of those men to be on the safe side?” she asked.
Carter turned around while still holding onto Sloane to look like he was supporting her, walked one step forward to be right up to one of the guards and put his finger under his nameplate on his badge. “Remember this name, angel,” he said as he read the full name off of the badge.
“I won’t forget that name,” she answered as Carter then turned back to look like he was helping his wife walk toward the baggage claim.
“I can’t believe you did all of that,” she said to Carter once they got their luggage and were in the taxi to their hotel for the night.
“I can’t believe I tapped that guy’s name tag like that ... Was it too much?”
“Oh, God no, it was perfect. I think you actually scared the guards, too.”
“And they didn’t hurt you, right?”
“Of course not, but at least it looked to everyone there like they were hurting me, which was all I needed...”
Do you think that will actually stop them?”
“I have no idea. But if it doesn’t, they’ll at least know that I’m not going to take it without a fight...”
After spending the night in For Myers and enjoying the Gulf of Mexico and the different sands and waters, they flew back to Seattle by Saturday after dinner, when Kyle was there to give them a ride back to their home.
Kyle wasn’t the only one liking their setup for the weekend Carter and Sloane returned ... Elisa also liked the idea of having a place for the two of them for a Friday night, so she was more than willing to pitch in and help. She had the afternoon off from work, and the kids were going to stay in their home after school with her parents, so she was able to go to Kyle’s coworker’s house before Kyle got off of work to turn the thermostat back on and turn the water back up so they could wash their hands at the sink and prepare dinner there together. Elisa even saw the curtains and the Italian lights but knowing she couldn’t put them up on her own, she eyed up places where everything could hang and moved all of the parts to the right places so she could put them up with her husband when he came to their flat after work.
When Kyle came to their house after work, Elisa had set everything up, including a dinner place setting for a meal that was already in the oven. They decided to put up the lights and curtains before dinner so they could use the lighting while they ate. He even brought the compact discs from their wedding from the ceremony and from the slow songs if Elisa wanted to dance.
Knowing when they were coming home that Saturday afternoon, Kyle made sure the place was spotless, and he even turned the Italian lights on in their home before he left to pick them up. They returned to their home and their place was spotless and the thermostat and water were back to regular settings. Kyle left their Wedding compact discs on top of their stereo, so they would have music to listen to together that night if they wanted. There were tab curtains in white with white Italian lights turned on between layers of fabric all over their house hanging from the pipes near the ceiling of exposed ductwork in their loft. They both thought that it was so beautiful that they decided to keep the decorations there until they had people over in the next month or so for a small get-together.
Opting for Middle-Eastern food for dinner that night, they liked the idea that they could eat their meal with their fingers. They included a fork for the basmati dill rice and the risotto, but they set up dinner with couscous, babaganouch, hummus, Dolmadakia stuffed grape leaves, falafels, taboule, and even a package of pita bread they purchased just after they got home.
Sloane set up a mock dining room table on their floor while Carter started heating up the couscous, babaganouch and the dill rice was warm as well as warming and cutting the pita bread. She spread out a tablecloth in the middle of the floor of the room, and placed fabric place mats and napkins on the table, along with spaces for plates and coasters.
“What would you like to drink, honey?” she called to him.
“Hot tea would be good, but --”
“But tea is hot. We can have that as well as...”
“We can have some water, unless you’d like wine.”
“You decide and I’ll take care of it, Carter. And let me make the tea too.”
“...Let’s hold up on the tea, because I was wondering if you’d like to end up taking a bath together tonight.”
“Ooh, that would be nice ... and hot tea and a bath don’t mix. Got it.”
They made Miso soup first with tofu and baby corn, but Carter made her use her chopsticks and told her they weren’t allowed to use a spoon, So they ate the soup from the bowl with chopsticks and picked up the bowl to drink it from the side of the bowl.
During their dinner, Carter saw the empty chrome photo frame hanging in the wall toward the edge of their living room. “Hey, do you know when we’re getting out wedding photos back?”
“Six weeks probably. Why?”
“I just remember taking those photos with the water right behind us...”
“Yeah, we did a few shots there, ones that looked like we were dancing even. Why do you ask?”
“We’ve got that picture frame over there, I was wondering what we’d end up putting in it.”
“I’m beginning to like it blank there, just a splash of metal on the wall...”
“It might be nice to have a picture of us in there, you know, so we can prove we were actually married...”
She laughed at his crack as they started eating dinner. Once they were eating, she had to mention, “It’s nice to not have so many dishes to worry about when we have a meal here...”
“It’s nice that we can feed each other,” Carter answered. She instantly got embarrassed, and he started by scooping some food onto pita bread and feeding her. She then reciprocated, but she first used her finger to smudge some hummus on Carter’s nose so she could lick it off.
After they ate, eating more food off of each other than off the pita bread, she asked Carter if they would want to take a bath now. “I’d like to get you a little more dirty first, angel...” he said as he started to crawl over her to start kissing her again. By the end of the evening they bathed together by candlelight, then curled up in bed together for the night.
They spent Sunday trying to get acclimated to being back, though they still acted like teenagers when they had a chance to be near each other alone, having a hard time keeping their clothes on.
“Do you think we’ll ever get bored with each other?” she asked him.
“I don’t know, it seems like we feed off of each other for more energy...”
“But does that make us pay less attention to our work, when we think about each other so much?” she asked again.
“I don’t know ... Do you care?”
She giggled at his question as he kissed her again.
Before returning to work Monday, Sloane looked at her calendar Sunday night and saw that Tyler mentioned to the lab that they could go to one of the first vaccination sessions for children to avoid getting AIDS. She said she’d go; Carter wanted to go with her, so she said she’d pick him up at home on her way, after spending the morning in the office.
People seemed pleasantly surprised to have her back when she came to work Monday morning, and they liked the rosy complexion she gained when she was in the sun for close to two weeks. They had a morning meeting while she was there, and they were talking about how they wanted to reprioritize the staff and what they should all be working on. They knew they still had to work on medications for those who have AIDS now, so some wanted to continue in that vein. Some were willing to also consider cure options, since that idea didn’t get as much attention as it could have in the past year.
At the morning meeting, Sloane kept thinking in the back of her mind about what would be the next battle she would fight. She considered Diabetes because of the few e-mails she read before her wedding. She waited then until she had a chance to talk to Julie.
“Diabetes isn’t a virus, but there may be a way to hold it back some while taking less or no insulin, all while still being able to lead a more normal or even more decadent lifestyle that Diabetes doesn’t allow you to have,” she thought throughout the meeting while everyone decided on what groups to go into while continuing their work.
After the meeting, she went straight to Julie. “Hey, kiddo, did you collect anything for me to cover on Diabetes and our medications?”
“Hi Ms. Emerson, and I didn’t get too much on any relationships with Emivir and Diabetes, but I wonder if anything can be gathered on how Emivir or the AIDS vaccine may help Diabetic patients. But I did collect a few notes on Diabetes for you,” she said as Scott walked by.
“Sorry, but my ears ring when someone talks about Diabetes,” Scott said. “And hi. Ms. Emerson, you look nicely tanned from your honeymoon.”
“I just enjoyed the water, I didn’t lay out or anything,” she responded.
“Well, I wanted to let you know that I talked to my brother and he said he would be willing to play the human guinea pig if you needed him for any tests. I’m sure he’d want to get paid something, but maybe he can help you out.”
“Thanks Scott. I’ll get Howard to help me out on setting up analysis tests for any of our medications. We might even go over the test medications to see if any of them can help out. But I’m sure we could use the help, and thanks a lot.”
Scott walked away, but Julie asked Sloane as Howard walked over to them, “Do you think this could actually work with the medication helping Diabetic patients?”
“I don’t know for sure, Julie, but I know of one drug out now that is for helping your heart that is also really good for migraines, because migraine medication constricts blood vessels, as do some hyper-activity heart medications. And hi, Howard.”
“Hello, little miss tan woman, how are you?”
She started to laugh under her breath. “I’m fine ... but yes, I think we might be on to something about part of our medications helping people with Diabetes, but I don’t know if it will only help with noninsulin dependent sufferers or if it may help with insulin dependent Diabetic patients. Scott’s brother is Diabetic, and maybe they could help us out. We’ve got to work on tests for our assorted samples we’ve gone through over the past year or year and a half.”
“Sloane, do you rest?” Howard asked.
“Do I know how?” she answered, as she went to her office to attempt to read any of the material Julie collected for her.
Diabetes Mellitus
Insulin dependent Diabetes
(Diabetic patients from youth)
NonInsulin dependent Diabetes
(Adult onset Diabetic patients)
It is characterized by widespread disturbances in the metabolism that adversely affect the ability to supply and/or utilize insulin.
Symptoms
Increased thirst
Feelings of fatigue or depression
Emotional instability
Prolonged wound healing
Visual disturbances
Treatment
Diet
Insulin
Oral hypoglycemic agents
ecomes her new goal?” Howard asked Scott in front of Julie.
“If she is trying to look for medications that may help people to utilize the insulin their body produces, then that is quite a chore,” Scott replied.
“So was AIDS,” Julie said as she walked toward her boss’ door to make sure she had the files Julie had for her to go over.
“This may be why Emivir and the vaccine only works on some patients,” Sloane thought as she started writing notes on finding out if the body produces any insulin if patients are Diabetic, or if their metabolism just stops then from properly distributing it throughout the body.
Maybe this was her new challenge, but she still had some business left to tend to. Looking at the clock while reading in her office, she then realized the time; she had to get Carter so they can go to a school for witnessing vaccinations. After she picked Carter up, they then went to an elementary school. While there they heard people from the school talking to Tyler about how it is a good idea to do this at a young age because so many kids are in sports now, which leads to an increase in injuries and blood loss. With this, she heard them discuss and that there may be an increased risk of transferring diseases.
Carter stood off to the side, holding his wife around the waist. She stopped herself from listening to the people talking about how this is for the good of all the people, and just focused on watching some children going to the station for their vaccination.
This was her drug, she thought, and she helped these people from getting the illness. Sloane then thought for a moment about the dream she had months ago about her having to go do missionary work in Africa for a drug she didn’t know to people who didn’t earn it.
And she thought that this was different.
|
portions of this book are in the following books:
|
