From the first moment
my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from
the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer
seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did
little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known
reason, I started this blog…
One of my fondest
memories as a kid is watching the movie FANTASTIC VOYAGE. In it, a group of
scientists and their ultra-futuristic laser-packing “submarine” are reduced to
cell size and injected into the blood vessels of a world diplomat in order to
destroy a blood clot in his brain.
What would a FANTASTIC
VOYAGE: Breast Cancer look like? I’m going to write a novel here, short chapter
by short chapter and I’m going to include the latest research and I’m going to
imagine the entire story here for your delectation. Likely it WON’T be once a
month…
Dr. Olubunmi Nwagbara – Ohloo to her close friends, Dr. O to
those who wouldn’t try her last name for fear of offending her. Kim Lin Ghandi,
world-renowned philosopher and The Last Hope For World Peace studied a renowned
breast cancer researcher and physician.
Close on Ohloo’s heels were her personal security guards –
Seven Mark from the state of Minnesota and her boss, Alex Benton. Ohloo noted
that he looked about fifteen and fresh from his sophomore year in high school.
She lifted her tablet computer and with a few taps brought up his bio:
twenty-eight, served two tours of duty, first one in the Iraq Cleanup, then the
First Pakistan War, both time as a logistician – assistant at first, then
chief. At first she couldn’t figure out what food and clothing had to do with
guarding here. Then she dug a bit deeper and discovered that his specialty was
weapons procurement. He was also a first degree black belt in some
martial-sounding art called bando. She
wasn’t surprised when she tried to see what kinds of training or rank Bai Zhen
Xu and was blocked.
She stopped to get coffee at the hospital’s world-class
coffee shop; refusing any offer of a cup made anywhere but there. She paid up a
year in advance so that she would never short change herself. The moment she
set foot in the place, they had her order started.
Khadija was working today, so Ohloo said, “So, what are you
taking over summer?”
She grinned then groaned, “PrinPath right now. PrinPharm
second summer.”
Ohloo groaned. Khadija was an on-call nurse during the
school year and worked the summer in the coffee shop. Ohloo had written one of
the recommendations that had helped her get into the University of Minnesota’s
medical school. She made sure she checked up on her discretely . She took her
coffee, noticed that Bai Zhen Xu had signaled Khadija for a coffee as well. She
seemed so strictly controlled, Ohloo found it satisfying that she allowed
herself one indulgence.
She headed to her own office then, planning to catch up on
some paperwork and then start to map the path she would dive to attack Kim Lin
Ghandi’s cancers. Kevin and Xu followed her into the outer office. Her “secretary”
was a first generation Artificial Intelligence; not smart, but pleasant and
polite. It was also impossible to flatter, insult, bribe or intimidate it. She
was a three dimensional projection that, while she looked more or less
substantial, was obviously not real.
She said, “Good morning, Doctor Nwagbara. How are you today?”
“Just fine, Gormenghast. You’re looking as transparent as
usual.”
“Thank you, Ma’am. Your schedule is in the desk projection
and your email has been sorted by urgency.”
“Thanks. Make sure my personal body guard stays out here and
guards the office.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll do that.”
Before either one could get closer, Gormenghast slid the
door closed over their protests. Ohloo smiled. Just like her namesake, she
would stand against anything short of an all-out assault.
Ohloo stopped for a moment. One wall of the office was a
window that looked south over the Guggenheim Building, parking lots and the
rest of the city of Rochester. It always gave her a faint feeling of vertigo
when she first stepped in. She got over it instantly, but relished it for the
sense of impending doom – however nonsensical.
She went to the desk and turned back to the door and
scowled. She said to the man sitting in her guest seat, “How’d you manage to
get past Gormenghast, your Holiness?”
The man, the blackest man she’d ever met, whose white sclera
had yellowed with age, giving him the impression of having old ivory eyes set
in ebony wood. He was hairless, even the eyebrows were missing, and his skin
was deeply wrinkled. He said, “I’m an evangelical. We don’t go in for all that
ecclesiastical nonsense.”
She lifted her chin as she sat down, passing her hand over
the center of the desk to bring up a virtual work screen. She set it to opaque
so the Reverend Isamar Noor was behind it and she wouldn’t have to talk to him.
She didn’t want to talk to him.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” he said.
“You can talk to Alex. You should expect a call from him in
the next few days. I am somewhat busy right now so you can see yourself out.”
She knew how he got in. He’d been on the original construction crew when the
Gonda Building was raised as a supervisor and so he knew the blueprints by
heart and was able to go pretty much wherever he wanted to go. He’d been
talking to her about whether or not her work with picomachines was God’s Work
or Of The Devil. At least he’d never ranted at her. He discussed and argued.
She had no idea why he was here today.
He said abruptly, “So if Kim Lin Ghandi is the incarnation
of Anti-Christ and you help her live,
you may very well be labeled the Great Whore of Babylon…”
Image: http://medgadget.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/Fantastic-Voyage-200x290.jpg
