|
Goldstein -> RE: (HS) Who Needs A Medical License? *Revised Form* (10/14/2011 17:50:34)
|
April 3rd, 10:45 a.m.
Strebor awoke to the smell of disgusting decay. His migraine only magnified the repulsiveness.
"My god, what is that? Did I leave food on the counter again? Wait..." He sat up in his bed and sniffed the air. "That's not moldy food...that's organic decomposition. It has a moist feel about it."
He threw off his sheets, and approached Orwell's cage, the source of the smell. He gagged and drew away when he saw the corpse. The little froggy skin had peeled off to reveal little froggy organs. Flies were dining on little froggy insides. His little froggy eyes could have x's over them.
"Oh my, what happened to you Orwell? What happened?" It didn't take long for him to come up with a plausible reason. But he needed to be sure. He had to. He just had to. Strebor changed out of his Cozy Comrade pajamas. With one hand pinching his nose shut, he carried the cage out of his dorm, but not before opening a few windows and spraying three containers of Febreeze.
It felt strange to Strebor not to be mobbed as he walked the crowded collegiate halls. For the past three days it had been nothing but interviews and appearances and statements and pictures and autographs, from Fox News, from CBS, from CNN to ABC. In the mail Strebor got letters hailing him as the next Christian prophet, as the reincarnation of Alexander Fleming and Edward Jenner, and some even condemned him to Hell. It was intoxicating. But eventually the excitement died down a little and Strebor could walk the hallways without being accosted.
People recoiled when they saw and smelled the poor frog. Notebooks and pens fell to the floor. A few remaining autograph-hunters who hadn't forgotten him looked disappointed as their sensory organs forbade them for getting any closer to the grim doctor and his grim package.
The forensic science class was still rather empty when Strebor arrived. He had counted on that. Only a real enthusiast would be at class forty minutes early. He marched up to a guy with black hair parted down the middle, a guy named Edwen and held up the cage. "Why is my frog dead?" he asked.
Edwen immediately dropped the folder he was holding and eagerly rubbed his hands together. "Ooh! Goody!" He lifted the frog out of the cage and plopped him down on a metal tray. He took a shiny stick that he kept in his breast pocket for just such an occasion and started poking around.
"Did you heard about the body that ended up in the bio-medical lab? Weird, huh? I bet some necrophiliac or something took the poor stiff there. But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that, being big man on campus, making the dead walk. Anyway, how long will it be before you quit your job and go live in some mansion in the Bahamas?"
He laughed. There was a touch of envy in the kid's voice that made Strebor uncomfortable. In fact, it sounded like thinly veiled disdain. Strebor noticed an ornate cross necklace hanging from his neck. It sparkled and was hard to look at.
Bzzz...bzzzz... Someone texted Strebor. He checked it and groaned an exasperate groan. The message read, "We're over Strebor. You are rude, inconsiderate, and do not value my intelligence. These are all things I thought I'd never say about you, but the way you have acted recently has completely changed my perception of you. I am truly disappointed in you. I thought you were a kind, clever man that I could joke around with, enjoy my time with, maybe even romantically. But this LEECH has showed me otherwise. Goodbye Strebor Ovan Goldenstein. May you change and perhaps become a better man. ~Sarah"
That girl was the most frustrating maelstrom of emotions ever to walk the planet. Now he was going to have to speak and soothe her and calm her down and reassure her that he was sorry, like she was a cat hiding a chair and Strebor was very sincerely telling her that yes, the vacuum cleaner is gone, and it isn't exactly dangerous to begin with. But now was not the time to be thinking of silly girls. Edwen had found something.
"Alright, here we go. You've got some massive heart failure here. And not because of atherosclerosis or anything like that." He pinched a little slimy thing and lifted it up. The student's glasses caught the light so that they were just two shiny circles. "See this? This is an artery. For some reason, it's squeezed shut. All of the arteries are shut. No blood, no heartbeat. Dude, what did you do to this poor thing? A new lethal injection serum or something? Do you really think that it's a good idea to be making another unholy abomination?"
Strebor stared at the dead frog. "I have no idea what happened, I didn't mean for this to happen," he said hollowly. Edwen watched him go for a moment, muttered "Devilish ilk" under his breath, and dumped Orwell the dead froggy into a nearby trash can. The lid fell with a starling crash that nearly gave Strebor a heart attack.
Strebor was lost in his thoughts. I should have performed additional tests, he thought. It's all OmniRoe's fault! If it wasn't for their deadlines and unwillingness to compromise, they should know by now that I can be trusted...No, maybe it's a specie-related problem, maybe the LEECH only harms amphibians...But God, what if it isn't? I could lose my medical license, people might die! I need to speak with Mr. Mavet...I'll go public if anything happens. Yeah, I'll expose OmniRoe. How they've got a finger in everyone's pie, how that FDA inspector was slipped a check behind everyone's back. If anything goes wrong, well, better Mr. Mavet crashed and burns than me. He felt someone tap on his shoulder. He turned, but no one was there.
"Ah! I got you, my dear boy!" cooed Mr. Sweeney. He was dressed in suspenders and a bow tie. His face was glowing with health. "How are you, my star pupil?"
Somehow, Strebor managed a crooked smile. "Oh, just fine. And you, sir? How's your blood pressure? Healthy, I hope? Within normal parameters, no dilated arteries?"
"Oh, no!" he said. He draped an arm around Strebor and sighed happily. "I don't care much about blood pressure, I'm just glad I got over that nasty bout of death. Really nasty, it was, but you, you have found the Grim Reaper's silver bullet! You'll be, pardon the pun, immortalized!"
"That's...great, sir," Strebor said, trying his best to keep his voice from quivering.
"You're shocked, I'm sure Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, that the first line of your LEECH machines are being manufactured by OmniRoe today. A new wave in human understanding of its own mortality is soon to be unleashed on the world! I just hope we don't drown! Oh ho ho ho!"
Strebor felt the blood drain from his face. "Oooh, re-really? You think so?"
"Yes, I know so! My word, Strebor, you're too humble. There's no going back now! You must be so proud of your accomplishment. Just imagine, soon you will be a household-"
Mr. Sweeney abruptly stopped his train of thought.
"Sir?"
The president's grip slackened and he slumped to the ground. He was dead before he hit the concrete. He scraped his arm, but no blood came out, it just left a patch of exposed, sinewy flesh. A girl screamed out and like bugs to a flame everyone flocked to the still figure on the sidewalk. A cloud passed in front of the sun, making everything seem grayer. Without speaking, Strebor slipped through the crowd, his insides knotting up, like a tangled string of Christmas lights that never would work again.
Here's a link to Arachnid's great, and relevant, poem.)
April 3rd, 11:12 a.m.
There was an unexpected man waiting for Strebor as he entered his dorm room. He was wearing a crisp dark blue suit with slick backed hair. In one hand was a briefcase, and the other, a thick folder, bulging with papers.
"Doctor, how nice to see you," he said in a monotone voice tinged with snobbery.
"Oh, thank God! You're here, we need to talk, urgently. We need to halt the LEECH's production. Today."
Mr. Mavet humorlessly grinned, revealing two rows of very shiny teeth. "Then today is not your day."
"You don't know the half of it. But please, cancel all of the orders, NOW!"
"Very funny, Dr. Goldenstein," Mr. Mavet said, slapping his knee jovially. "But in all seriousness, I have some papers I need you to sign to let OmniRoe ship the first line of LEECHs in two weeks." He thrust the folder under Strebor's nose with all of the politeness of a spoiled three-year old.
Strebor blankly stared at the papers. He took them, retrieved the lighter he kept in his nightstand, and set the whole package on fire. He dropped the flaming mass with all of the politeness of a spoiled three-year old.
Mr. Mavet awkwardly coughed into his fist. "I take something is wrong, Doctor? I understand that paperwork is boring, but really now, you're an adult, no need to be so childish-"
Strebor leaped up and angrily seized him by the very expensive Italian custom-made lapels and shouted, "Forget the LEECHs! They're death traps! They killed Mr. Sweeney, and they'll kill everyone else who tries to use them. Get that through your Ivy-League educated skull of yours! For one moment, get your head out of your arse and listen to me! THE LEECHS ARE LETHAL TO USE. Understand now?"
Mr. Mavet studied Strebor, his cold eyes going up and down, trying to find any signs of trickery. When he did speak, his voice was like a razor. "Is this because of the modification?" he asked quietly.
Strebor wiped the sweat from his forehead, keeping one hand on his lapels. "...yeah, I think so."
"I knew I shouldn't have given you the chance, I knew it," Mr. Mavet muttered, clicking his pen. "The board will be mightily displeased, but I have created a fail-safe...yes. Yes, this is of little consequence."
"WHAT? Have you been listening? The LEECHs are deadly! You have to pull them from production."
"We have spent millions on this project, Doctor Goldenstein. Do you honestly expect us not to release the product? No, all of the consumers have already paid, and I intend to give them a LEECH. Every last one of them. That is a promise."
A cauldron of terrible things to call brewed inside Strebor. He wanted to last out, to strike that calm, mocking face, scratch it, draw blood, force it to show some sort of emotion other than detached arrogance. "Are you an idiot? You'll kill thousands of people! You're company will be broken up and you'll get the chair," was all he could manage to sputter out.
"You're wrong, OmniRoe will survive the incoming storm."
"Incoming storm? You're the morons perpetuating it!" Strebor yelled, strengthening his grip on Mr. Mavet's lapels.
Mr. Mavet adjusted his tie, then pulled out a gun. "Please let go of me," he said.
Strebor's eyes widened as he let his arms drop to his sides. The gun was big and silver, and very intimidating looking.
"Now look outside and make sure no one is eavesdropping. Make a peep, and I'll make a ruckus."
A cold sweat broke out on Strebor's forehead as he opened the door. This was it, then. Killed by the CFO of a medical engineering firm. Strebor always imagined he'd go out more spectacularly. Perhaps in a hail of gunfire as he dragged his wounded sergeant to the helicopter waiting to evacuate them out of the war zone. Or maybe a deadly plague would claim him as he treated the president's very pretty daughter. Better still, he'd strap a bunch of C4 to his chest and dive head-first off of the Empire State Building into a massive thicket of zombies below, detonating the C4 just before he hit the ground.
There was a noise. He stepped out into the hallway. There was no one around. He poked his head out from behind the door and saw a girl pressing herself to the wall. She stared at him for a moment, then ran and jumped out of the fifth story window. How strange. Down the hallway stood two very intimidating looking men in black suits that had OmniRoe embroidered on the chest. They didn't seem to have noticed the girl. Strebor blinked, and closed the door behind him.
"We're alone, if you don't count your friends."
"Excellent. Now, let me assuage your concerns. Every contract that every consumer ever signed when they agreed to buy a LEECH had a clause in it stating that OmniRoe was totally absolved of any liability for injuries or death related to the LEECH. A thousand people die because of the LEECH? No one can sue OmniRoe, it's the hospital's, or the salon's fault. It will, of course, destroy our reputation. People will revile us. However, it shouldn't be excessively hard to merge with, say, PluriPotent Enterprises, take their name, and work exclusively in Europe and China, far away from the overtly-intrusive eyes of the American government."
"We can afford it, by any rate. We're making an 8.1 million profit off of each LEECH. We've already sold 1,234. Are you bad at math? That's $9,995,400,000 made in one day. It'll be a few weeks before the government links the LEECHs to the deaths. By then, OmniRoe will be posting record profits from their headquarters in Berlin. Of course, the public will be crying for blood to be spilled. The head of the FDA, the inspector that looked over the LEECH, maybe a secretary or two..."
Strebor rubbed his brow. "And me. I'm going to be forsaken...This is...unsettling. That I'd trust you people with my work, I am an idiot." He felt something rub off on his brow. He pulled his hand away and nearly fainted. The skin was flaking off, revealing burgundy patches of skin. The fingers were emaciated and bone like. He moved them, and he could see the white bone slowly emerge. Strangely, the necrosis faded away at his wrists.
"What has happened to you?" Mr. Mavet asked, his voice finally conveying an emotion: fear. If it wasn't for the Lovecraftian ailment on his hands, Strebor would have smiled at having finally broken Mr. Mavet's cool demeanor.
"I didn't use gloves when I put Orwell in the LEECH...the arteries in my hands are closing up, the muscle is dead and decaying, but I still maintain basic function. Interesting."
Mr. Mavet sniffed and put away his gun. "Regardless, you're coming with me."
"To where?" Strebor asked, looking up from his zombie-hands.
He grinned, and Strebor noticed how sharp his teeth were. "To SkullDeep, of course. OmniRoe can't sell the LEECH once it becomes PluriPotent Enterprises. It'll need a new idea. And new ideas come from the medical leaders of tomorrow. Right, Dr. Goldenstein?"
Moving with more agility than Strebor gave him credit for, Mr. Mavet swung his briefcase, smashing Strebor across the face. Before he could recover, the business man drew a syringe from his inner coat pocket, and injected its clear contents into Strebor's jugular. Strebor went slack, and with the help of his two lackies, Mr. Mavet carried Strebor to the elevator, into the waiting and van, and down a dark tunnel, just as the breaking news report informing everyone that Sweeney Pood, headmaster of Sweeney Pood University, was dead. Again.
|
|
|
|
