Terminal

“VERY IMPRESSIVE!” Sean said aloud. He was sitting by himself in the glass-enclosed office in the middle of his expansive lab. He was at an empty metal desk, and he had the copies of the thirty-three charts spread out in front of him. He’d chosen the office in case someone suddenly appeared. If they did he’d have enough time to sweep the charts into one of the empty file drawers. Then he’d pull over the ledger featuring the protocol he’d developed to immunize the mice with the Forbes glycoprotein.

What Sean found so impressive were the statistics concerning the medulloblastoma cases. The Forbes Cancer Center had indeed achieved a one hundred percent remission rate over the last two years, which contrasted sharply with the one hundred percent fatality rate over the eight years prior to that. Through follow-up MRI studies, even large tumors were shown to have completely disappeared after successful treatment. As far as Sean was concerned, such consistent results were unheard of in the treatment of cancer except for the situation of cancer in situ, meaning extremely small, localized neoplasia that could be completely excised or otherwise eliminated.

For the first time since he’d arrived, Sean had had a reasonable morning. No one had bothered him; he hadn’t seen Hiroshi or any of the other researchers. He’d started the day by injecting more of the mice which had given him a chance to get the copies of the charts up to his office. Then he’d toyed with the crystallization problem, growing a few crystals that he thought would keep Dr. Mason content for a week or so. He’d even had the director come down to see some of the crystals. Sean knew he’d been impressed. At that point, reasonably confident he wouldn’t be disturbed, Sean had retired into the glass office to review the charts.

First he’d read through all the charts to gain an overall impression. Then he’d gone back, checking on epidemiological aspects. He’d noted that the patients represented a wide range of ages and races. They were also of varying sex. But the predominant group consisted of middle-aged white males, not the typical group seen with medulloblastoma. Sean guessed that the statistics were skewed due to economic considerations. The Forbes was not a cheap hospital. People needed adequate medical insurance or sizable savings accounts to be patients there. He also noted that the cases came from various major cities around the country in a truly national distribution.

But then, as if to show how dangerous generalizations were, he discovered a case from a small southwestern Florida town: Naples, Florida. Sean had seen the town on a map. It was the southernmost town on the west coast of Florida, just north of the Everglades. The patient’s name was Malcolm Betencourt, and he was nearing two years since the commencement of his treatment. Sean noted the man’s address and phone number. He thought he might want to talk with him.

As for the tumors themselves, Sean noted that most were multifocal rather than being a single lesion, which was more common. Since they were multifocal, the attending physicians in most cases had initially believed they were dealing with a metastatic tumor, one that had spread to the brain from some other organ like lung, kidney, or colon. In all these cases, the referring physicians had expressed surprise when the lesions turned out to be primary brain tumors arising from primitive neural elements. Sean also noted that the tumors were particularly aggressive and fast-growing. They would have undoubtedly led to rapid death had not therapy been instituted.

Concerning therapy, Sean noted that it did not vary. The dosage and rate of administration of the coded medication was the same for all patients although it was adjusted for weight. All patients had experienced about a week of hospitalization and after discharge were followed in the outpatient clinic at intervals of two weeks, four weeks, two months, six months, then annually. Thirteen of the thirty-three patients had reached the annual-visit stage. Sequelae from the illness were minimal and were associated with mild neurological deficits secondary to the expanding tumor masses prior to treatment rather than to the treatment itself.

Sean was also impressed with the charts themselves. He knew he was looking at a wealth of material that would probably take him a week to digest.

Concentrating as deeply as he was, Sean was startled when the phone on his desk began to ring. It was the first time it had ever rung. He picked it up, expecting a wrong number. To his surprise, it was Janet.

“I have the medicine,” she said tersely.

“Great!” Sean said.

“Can you meet me in the cafeteria?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Sean said. He could tell something was wrong. Her voice sounded strained. “What’s the matter?”

“Everything,” Janet said. “I’ll tell you when I see you. Can you leave now?”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Sean said.