31
Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast slid down his gullet, chased by half a pot of coffee, hot, strong, and black. Freddy’s eyes swept the front page of the Santa Barbara News-Press, settling on the headline story, a follow-up to yesterday’s presidential press conference. Since the president had focused a large portion of his comments on the Rondham Institute for Medical Research, located right here in Santa Barbara, almost the entire front page had been devoted to the story.
As much as Freddy hated to admit it, it sure looked like the entire thrust of his big Pulitzer Prize story about the out-of-control government nanite program was dead wrong. Unless he could find something wrong with the information the president had presented, he was fucked. But that was all right. Finding stuff that was wrong with something was what Freddy did. In the divorce papers, Dalia, his latest ex-wife, had claimed it was his sole defining trait.
Even though he now knew it by heart, Freddy studied every detail of the story. In his press conference, the president had admitted that the second alien technology involved an injected form of medical nanotechnology. He had even admitted that a rogue scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a certain Dr. Rodriguez, had abused the national trust, conducting his own illicit nanotechnology experiments outside the secure confines of the laboratory. Although the man had enjoyed a top security clearance, the terminal brain cancer of Dr. Rodriguez’s son had caused him to try to accelerate his own research, violating all accepted scientific protocols. That illegal research had involved experimentation on the maniac who called himself Priest Williams, something that had contributed to the man’s sense of invincibility and thus to his homicidal rampage.
As the string of presidential admissions had continued, the assembled press lay waiting, expecting anything from a presidential apology to a presidential resignation. But that hadn’t happened. In a single move that would have brought a smile to Machiavelli’s corpse, the man transformed from Commander in Chief to Caregiver in Chief.
The Rodriguez security lapses and their associated consequences had been quite dire and had merited a detailed investigation. According to the president, the reason he had waited several weeks after Freddy’s big news story had broken to hold this press conference was to give the investigators the time they required to conduct a detailed review of every aspect of the alien nanotechnology research. That review was now complete.
Initial experiments using the technology on animals at the Los Alamos National Laboratory had produced such impressive results that several months ago the US government had commissioned an independent study of the technology that was conducted at the Rondham Institute for Medical Research in Santa Barbara, California.
The study involved the injection of a serum of tiny microscopic machines, called nanites, into the bloodstreams of children in the final stage of terminal cancer, children for whom all other treatments had failed.
The nanites were really quite simple machines and had only two functions: they would read the DNA of the person into whom they were injected, and they would attempt to aid the body in correcting any problems.
At first, the results of the study were so amazing that everyone involved assumed something was wrong with the data. A new round of testing with new patients was overseen by experts from around the world and again the results were the same. Every patient experienced a complete recovery from his or her cancer within days of being injected with the nanite serum.
Again, the study was expanded, this time to include children with other fatal conditions, including AIDS and heart, lung, or liver failure, and again the results were the same. One hundred percent of the patients experienced complete recovery. Not remission. Not some sort of immune response. The nanite-assisted healing process made it as if the conditions had never existed.
The government had been on the verge of announcing the experimental results and releasing the nanotechnology for public trials around the globe when Freddy’s story had broken, forcing several weeks of delay while another thorough review of the program was conducted. That review was now complete. The original test results had been thoroughly validated.
The president had paused to read a statement signed by a host of internationally acclaimed medical research scientists and doctors who had participated in the final review, among them several Nobel-Prize laureates. Their report left no doubt. Every day of delay in the release of this incredibly beneficial technology meant that thousands of people across the planet would die unnecessarily, people who could now be saved.
Freddy shook his head. The slick bastard had gutted him like a carp on a fishwife’s chopping block. Although the president hadn’t specifically said it, the implication was clear. Freddy’s horrifying nanite story had caused a huge delay that had killed thousands of innocent kids. Kids! Shit. Why couldn’t they have been experimenting on some old geezers nobody gave a damn about.
Tucking the paper under his arm and rising, Freddy took one more pull on his now lukewarm coffee, tossed a buck on the table, and headed toward the register. It was about time to introduce himself to the good people at the Rondham Institute for Medical Research.