The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) (23 page)

“Uh, what?” said Jeff.

“Our sperm samples from the patients
Jeff, we’re going to get them after all.”
 

Dr. Bender was clearly excited.

“I met with the Director of Patient
Services, Dorothy Allen, and explained that it would triple our collection and
allow us to study the specific state of male fertility across a broad census.”

“And so she just agreed?”

“Well, no not exactly. I need you to
write some sort of request that will be circulated to all the male patients. We
are asking for their sperm. They will agree, and then our population of
specimens will start growing.”

“You want me to write this request?”
said Jeff.

“Yes.”

“Really.” said Jeff.

“Yes, and get me your rough draft
tomorrow morning,” said Dr. Bender.

After Bender left, Jeff tried to think
of how to word such a request.

He pulled up a formatted memo template
that he used sometimes.

He wrote, “We would like to thank you
for your sperm.”

Just then two of his grad students
walked in and started complaining about some missing supplies. He was glad for
the distraction. Getting up he followed them out into the lab, and listened
while they pointed at bags of swabs.

He loved his job.

Ryan waited the rest of the day, but
still received no updates from either Ben, or Dorothy.

On his way home, Ryan stopped by
MegaMart and loaded up his cart with the supplies he had detailed last night.
He was looking at his cart, and mentally checking things off.

Batteries, check.

Dog food, check.

Bottled water, 8 cases, check.

As he was counting cans of fruit, he almost
ran directly into David from work. Their carts grazed each other in a mad turn
around the end of an aisle. When they recognized each other, they both were
startled. Looking at David’s cart, Ryan realized it was a mirror image of his
own.

They were both hoarding supplies.

Surprised and uncomfortable, David
said, “Uh, hi Ryan. How are you?”

Equally uncomfortable, Ryan said, “Oh
uh, fine, just fine.”

They stood there for a minute or two,
looking at each other and trying not to notice the other’s cart. They both knew
something they shouldn’t.

Ryan would have laughed if it had not
been so embarrassing.

David said, “Well, I’ll see you
tomorrow at work.”

“Ok, see you then,” said Ryan.

Quickly, they sped off in opposite
directions.

As Ryan was checking out, he wondered
if this was completely crazy.

He thought, ‘Maybe, but I have a
family. It is necessary.’

He paid for his things and made his way
to the car. When he got home, he hurried to put everything away before Jean and
Alex got home. It was important not to scare either of them. Besides this was
his
paranoia, not theirs, and it might never pan out. Alex was enrolled in Tae Kwon
Do for youngsters, and would be there for about another 30 minutes. If he was
lucky he could get everything put away, and avoid any uncomfortable questions.

A short while later, he was just
stacking the last of the bottled waters in the utility closet when he heard
Jean pull into the garage. When they came inside, Alex was still wearing his gi
from class, and waving his arms about in obviously dangerous motions.
Jean looked tired but happy.

“Hey there, how are you both doing? How
was class today?” he said nonchalantly.

They told him the highlights, and then
went upstairs to get cleaned up. He threw away the last grocery bag he’d been
hiding in his pocket, and started to make dinner.

If there was some sort of announcement
about a ‘fertility crisis’, and if it did spark riots or runs on food, the
Danes would be ready.

Ready for about two weeks.

He was officially in the deep end
now.
  

CHAPTER 10

“It is
necessary to get a lot of men together, for the show of the thing, otherwise
the world will not believe. That is the meaning of committees. But the real
work must always be done by one or two men.”
 
-
Anthony Trollope

“I've searched
all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.”
 
-
Gilbert K.
Chesterton

It was Friday, the end of another week.

Ryan got to work and found a message
from Ben saying that he needed Ryan to join him for a meeting at 10:30 later
this morning. Dorothy Allen would be there, as well as the Facility Director,
Dr. Cohen.

‘Well this is it,’ he thought, ‘the
decision all the way from the top regarding his project.’

Ryan got some coffee, and went over the
details of his project. He wanted to be prepared with a list of ‘next’ steps,
if he was actually asked to continue. First, he would want to get some help to
compare the treatment errors across all three facilities. Second, he would
continue contacting other Facilities, starting with Tokyo, looking for more
treatment errors. Lastly, he wanted to know if someone inside the system could
be making the treatment changes. He wanted to generate a list of people who had
that level of access.

He had some time to kill before the
meeting, so he called Jeff on the televid. He couldn’t forget how crushed Jeff
had looked yesterday.

Jeff was standing at his desk, “Hi
Ryan, how are you?”

“Hey Jeff, I’m fine. Interested in
getting something to eat in the cafeteria?”

Jeff was looking off-screen at a paper
or something.
“You know, I would like that, yes. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

Ryan said goodbye, and got up to go.
Looking out his window he saw lots of clouds on the horizon. He left his door
open, and headed downstairs.

Waiting in front of the cafeteria, he
saw Jeff come walking across the floor.

They shook hands, and got in line.

“My boss brought me here yesterday, and
I still can’t get over how cool this place is.”

Jeff laughed, “You know this is the
first time I’ve been down here in a year. I like it too, but you get involved
in work and forget it’s here.”

They got some coffee and a few bagels,
and found seats looking out over the city.

“Thanks for breakfast Ryan.”

“No problem, I wanted to thank you for
talking with Jim and I, in my office yesterday.”

“Thank me? I thought you would want to
kick me the next time you saw me.”

“Well, it’s not your fault Jeff.”
 

They both ate in silence for a few
minutes.

‘The fertility crisis was definitely a
conversation killer,’ thought Ryan.

Changing the
subject, Ryan said, “How are things in the lab?”

“Well, Dr
Bender has merged our lab with the Jones’ lab across the hall. Their lab
director, Sam Niles, scrutinizes everything I do. It is a war zone with
flare-ups all the time.”

“That’s terrible,
have you talked with Bender about it?”

“Yes, sort of;
he’s not interested. He and the rest of the faculty are completely focused on
directing the fertility research. Nothing else matters to them.”

“Has the
activity in your area picked up?” said Ryan.

“Oh, yes. In
fact, we are beginning a new project regarding a study of male fertility. Even
now, I’m supposed to be writing a request for sperm samples.”

“What?”

Laughing Jeff
said, “You know that was my exact reaction yesterday when I heard about it.”
Jeff finished his bagel and had some more coffee.

“Actually,
Bender met with some lady named Dorothy Allen, and got permission to ask the
patients in the hospital for samples,” he said.

“That’s a lot
of samples,” said Ryan.

“Yes it is.
I’m going to need a whole new bank of cryo-freezers to store them, and in the
meantime I am supposed to compose a request form that will be delivered to the
patients. Bender is waiting for my rough draft right now.”

Chuckling low, Ryan said, “Good luck with that, my friend.”

“So how’s your
investigation of the treatment errors going?” said Jeff.
”Well, I’m meeting with Ben James, and the lady you spoke of, Dorothy Allen.
Also somebody named Cohen later this morning,” said Ryan.

“Wow, Ryan you
get around. Dr. Eric Cohen is the Director of this whole IntelliHealth
Facility,” Jeff said, “Since the president retired, he has been in charge of
everything.”

“Well, I
figure they will either thank me, ask for my files and give me a new
assignment, or they will tell me to keep going. My boss says that since the
matter extends beyond this facility, it will need to be handled by a different
office than his,” said Ryan.

“That sounds
kind of ominous.”

“Yeah, I’m a
little anxious. I don’t really know what to expect.”

“Don’t worry
Ryan, in the scheme of things, this problem is nothing at all. You will be
fine.”

“Do you really
believe that?”

“Nope. Life
sucks. I enjoyed working with you, Ryan.” Jeff was smiling broadly.

They both
started laughing.

Upstairs, Jim
was handing a hardcopy of his report to his team leader, David.

“What’s this?”

“Dave, I
believe someone is accessing the Hospital Network. The protocol is that I
document what I’ve seen, and what I’ve done. Here it is, I’m officially
reporting it to you.”

“Oh man, I am
buried right now. Are you sure?” said David.

“Take a look,
I think we need to move on this right now. I want your permission to monitor
the Hospital Network for intrusion.”

“Let me take a
look at your report; go ahead and prepare your monitor script. But let me get
approval before you activate it.”

“Sure, thanks
Dave.”

Jim was angry.

The intruder
response to his last network test was intelligent, and intended to get his
attention. He didn’t believe that anyone was breaking into the network. The
security protocols were in place, and up to date.

‘No,’ he
thought, ‘this is someone on the inside, fooling around where they shouldn’t
be.’
Well, they had his attention now, and he was going to bring the hammer down.

He pulled up
his monitor script and looked it over.

It was a good
one.

Once his
script registered the entry, it would shake hands with every program, and dance
through every firewall until it got all the way to the user. It would identify
the user account & address, and return it all to Jim in a fraction of a
heartbeat.

He also added
a little message at the end that would flash on the intruder’s screen, just one
word,
‘Busted’
.
 
He was ready and
could pull the trigger whenever Dave said the word.

As he was
putting his script away, his phone rang.
It was Theresa, “Jim some delivery guys are here, with some computers. They say
they need your help?”

‘Loki and
Thor!’ he thought.

In the midst
of the network incursion he had forgotten today was Friday, installation day
for the twins.

“No problem,
Theresa. Please tell them I will meet them at the dock, and help them to the
lab.”

Quickly
switching gears, he put away all the hospital network files, and pulled up the
Zimmerman files. He picked up his notes, and headed for one of the freight
elevators.
‘This is going to be so cool,’ he thought.