The Brill Pill, page 21
As medical improvements continued to be made, this small subset was growing in number and likewise in intelligence. They would continue to grow and grow and grow, into significance, into consequence, into importance, and eventually, down the line, they would overtake everything and everyone, the whole kit and caboodle, all and sundry. Numbers didn’t lie.
———
But always at the back of his mind there was the small seed of hope he held on to—the optimistic streak that wouldn’t surrender. Will was still trying to fix something that had occurred over thirty years ago, as if a random misfortune could be balanced out by an equally arbitrary fixed obsession. In his head, though he would never admit to this simplification, one was the force of good, and the other had been the force of evil.
He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but he refused to fall behind. After all, big picture, everything he had ever at-tempted to accomplish boiled down to one simple, clichéd race against time. He had to press on, and he returned his focus to the next step, to the problem of infrastructure. It wasn’t an insurmountable issue by any means, but it had to be done delicately so as not to raise too many suspicions, at least not up front. If suspicions were raised in the aftermath, he would either accept the consequences or outrun them. Will couldn’t see beyond the completion of his short-term plan.
When it came to distribution, it had occurred to Will that he knew just the right person for the job. Austin was nearly perfect. He was perhaps a little too clever, but his lack of true interest in anyone other than himself and his general lack of curiosity about the world or drive to change anything in it outweighed Will’s concern. His indifference made his intelligence irrelevant. Will doubted if his proposed and, admittedly, slightly far-fetched cover story would even be questioned. Still, there was something unnerving in the idea of approaching one of the things that he had created. But, Will reasoned, he might as well make use of it. Waste not, want not. Austin had his own self-branded foundation, PreVAIL. That was the key.
He drafted a message to Austin’s husband, Gerome, who ran the foundation. It was carefully worded, flattering, and just detailed enough. Will had the commodities; the foundation had the connections—they would be partners in crime. Will even used those exact words, only his new partner didn’t take them literally.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
———
Sharon was getting worried. Despite the push to increase production of the Brill pill before she had switched over to manufacturing the new mystery product, her reserves were starting to run low. In just a few short weeks, even rationing carefully with all of the best late-delivery excuses she could conjure, she would have sold the very last dose remaining. She didn’t have the equipment necessary to produce both drugs at once, and her employer, “George,” or whatever his name truly was, didn’t seem to care. Sharon knew enough about synthesis to create substance from formula but she wasn’t able to grasp what this new concoction was capable of, what its purpose could be. She recognized some similarities with the Brill pill, but it was far more elaborate. Would this new product somehow replace the need for the old one? It was wildly expensive to make; she couldn’t fathom who on earth would buy it.
So far he had given her instructions only to make the stuff and to store it. If everything went to plan, the total request would be ready and waiting two months hence and she had sent back a message saying as much. Sharon was confident in her ability to deliver on time. When the two months were over, she planned to return production to the Brill pill and carry on as if nothing had happened, or pack up and quit if that wasn’t an option. Maybe she would quit either way. What really worried her was the month and a half in between. They weren’t in a particularly forgiving business, and being “temporarily out of stock” wasn’t generally acceptable.
———
Over the next few weeks, as regular deliveries stalled and then finally came to a full halt, the online and street dealers, those in direct contact with now-desperate customers, those whose livelihoods depended on each individual sell, became agitated. They couldn’t find a substitute for such a niche product, and they lost sales, money in their pockets. They went to their suppliers, and their suppliers went to their higher-ups. Their direct superiors didn’t have the answers to the simple, essential question they posed, so they turned around to their bosses to repeat the same concerns. And up and up it went. There was a chain of command in the organization, but it wasn’t infinite. Time was running out.
Finally, the question arrived at the consortium’s head of distribution. The head of distribution ran so many different drugs across the globe, she hadn’t noticed one was missing from the set. Despite the fact that no one else seemed aware of her ineptitude, the personal embarrassment of having let that element slip by taunted her. Lana knew better than any-one that she wasn’t to be trifled with. She determined to take on the case herself. She would track down whoever it was that was so poorly running production of this “brilliance pill,” destroy them, and subsume their facility. Or, if it was an overly complicated procedure, she supposed she would just have to force them into working for her.
But first, she needed to find out just who this person or these people were. Lana went carefully through the logs and discovered the global delivery service that was being used. It was a private service, but it wasn’t a criminal one. The Brill pill, in many ways a perfect product, was largely unknown to the police and therefore unrecognized by canine officers. Using a below-board delivery service would only create more suspicion. The powder was shipped in organic baking powder containers and detergent boxes, or packaged as artisan flour, sugar, protein powder, or pancake mix. Lana had a lot of influence with the illicit delivery networks in the northern hemisphere, but obtaining information from a legitimate service would take slightly more time. It was a question of finding the right people to bribe, and that would take a little research and a little finesse.
Sharon was counting on it taking at least a few more weeks.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
———
Will wasn’t oblivious to the dangers of some pissed-off drug lord coming after him in a fit of flawed righteous demand. He had even considered purchasing some sort of weapon in case it really came down to it. He imagined being grabbed in the parking lot in the dark or being tricked into getting into an unregistered service car. Inside the car, he pulled out a gun, and three thugs simultaneously stabbed him to death while he fumbled at the trigger. He thought maybe a better alternative would be to invest in protective armor, a full-body suit. But instead, he did nothing. It didn’t matter how prepared he was. He had to finish his project before they got to him. Whatever happened after, happened after. If he did get iced one night down a dark alleyway, he had contingency plans in place for his family, protection arranged, relocation even, if necessary, but it was a precaution. It was unlikely they would go after Viki. She knew nothing, literally nothing. What would be the point? His only real cause for concern then was Sharon, but he assumed she would give him up and survive. She wasn’t that loyal; she had no reason to be. That was the one problem that came from organized crime that didn’t include a family element, or perhaps it was a blessing.
The fear of this confrontation pushed him forward. Will certainly didn’t want to die, but it wasn’t the fear of death or even pain, not the emotional suffering of his family or the public shame of his double life being revealed, that egged him on. It was the same drive that came with the rush to publish. That greatest fear that all of the work, all of the effort, all of the intelligence and pride, one’s very worth could be denied in an instant, simply by the mere fact that someone else said it first. In this case, the prospective confrontation was not a danger but a devastating nuisance, a floating chance that one day late would be meaningless, but one day early would be catastrophic.
———
Will held the message from Sharon tightly in his hand. He just had to wait it out for two more months. Two more months and the product would be finished, packaged, all ready to go. She would send him a sample when it was ready. Will longed to see the elixir with his own eyes. It was risky to send a physical sample, but it seemed riskier not to. If some-thing had gone wrong in the formula, he would have to put a stop to the whole thing, much as it pained him to imagine.
In spite of his hopeless impatience, time moved forward. On the one hand, two months seemed excruciatingly long, but on the other hand, it was barely any time at all. Working with Gerome to set up phase two was slower than Will had anticipated. There were a lot of hoops to jump through, regulatory figures to be satisfied. Will had to make up a false sample of what he was offering, what he was peddling for no apparent gain. He didn’t want to order vitamins through the university. What if some clerical clone had an overdose of cold-press coffee one morning and opened their eyes to the multitude of unnecessary items passing through the budget? He went to the corner drugstore, bought a pack of multivitamin drips, and dissolved them into a saline solution. Then he filled up a handful of randomly marked standard syringes and handed them over for evaluation along with a few files of fudged paperwork. Of course there was nothing toxic or contentious about the substance, so it passed the screen. There was little interest in whether or not the stuff was truly effective or simply a waste of money and resources, so long as the cost-benefit analysis retained an overall surplus of good PR.
Once the product was satisfactorily vetted, they moved on to logistics. First of all, where—where was the most benefit to be gained upon receiving this gift? Which country, which cities deserved it the most? Which places were also easy enough to get into, easy enough to operate in? A region with high birth rates and low living standards, decent roads and name recognition. Next, advertise. Contact the hospitals, contact the clinics, gather volunteers, inform expectant participants of the benefits, of the opportunity not to be missed. Register everyone; get it in writing.
Finally, the board members of PreVAIL signed off. The foundation director took charge of validating delivery and distribution. The channels were set up, and the overstock of neonatal vitamin injections, designed by researchers in America, manufactured in Korea, and then rebranded and left to gather dust, was ready to be sent off to Bangladesh. It only had to be picked up from the warehouse in Seoul where it was being stored and, once transported, distributed to the destitute newborns in the dozens of obstetric clinics by the volunteer nursing staff engaged by PreVAIL.
Chapter Forty
———
Lana had told herself she was on a seek-and-destroy mission, but she was becoming increasingly impatient with the seeking part. She had noticed her impatience growing ever since the accident. Was it an accident, she wondered, or was it a gift? Lana shook off the moody rumination before she sank too deep, but she couldn’t help pondering her restless-ness. She figured it made logical sense; her instincts had been shaken up. Coming that close to death had left her with a certain urgency surrounding the new life she led. There was nothing peculiar about that. But then there were other things that seemed occasionally off. She’d pick up her tablet, and sometimes her fingers didn’t quite follow the instructions her brain had set out. They hesitated, hit the wrong keys. She was sporadically and utterly clumsy. A balanced cup of coffee would suddenly fall from her hands, as if she had momentarily forgotten she had been holding it, and embarrassingly crash, smash, splash all over the floor. Now and then, her mind would wander. She hadn’t lost her memories, but still she experienced sudden flashbacks—urgent, inane thoughts that occurred to her out of nowhere and wouldn’t be quelled. There was all of that, and then there was the fact that she had inexplicably found herself chin-deep in a criminal organization. But she brushed off these details. She focused on the task at hand. Her ability to focus had increased enormously.
She was sitting up in her king-size bed in Tuscany, reading the New York Times and sipping an Americano, when word came to her via a trusted employee from the private delivery company. She wasn’t bothered with how the information had been gathered, whether it had been swindled, bribed, or blackmailed. Her interest began and ended with orders sent and intelligence returned.
The source that had finally been tracked down was a manager at the delivery service. He knew nothing of the product or the manufacturers, but he could electronically trace the start of each shipment to within a confined radius. They came through deliberately differentiated channels with pickup locations spread across the metropolis, but he had a hunch that the deliveries all originated at a particular third-party packing establishment. The manager had only heard about it in whispers, but based on dispatch patterns and the size, weight, and content of the packages being delivered, he had his suspicions. This rumored enterprise took any product of any degree of legality and repackaged it to look like some-thing as boring as baking soda or flour, for the purposes of drug running. Not many customers spent the little bit extra on his shipping service for the security of shipping items as banal as laundry detergent.
A below-board institution Lana could legitimately, illegally approach. She immediately called up her assistant from downstairs and sent out feelers, purporting to have need of their services herself. Then she got dressed, packed an overnight bag, and went downstairs to have the rest of her breakfast in the rustic open-plan kitchen. She expected to hear back before she was finished eating.
Chapter Forty-One
———
Once everything had been arranged, Will was surprised to feel an unprecedented lack of responsibility. There was nothing he could do for the time being and therefore nothing he needed to worry about. The short time between setting up an experiment and acquiring the results revealed a window of certitude. He had done what could be done, and he didn’t regret one ounce. During this interlude, he returned to his frenzied state wherein every moment urgently needed filling. There were only a few weeks left of limbo, and the passage of time was magnified within them. Throughout the two months, since the day he had first set the wheels in motion, he had been spending more time with Viki, more time with Marla and Arbor, more time participating, and less time daydreaming. And, as the days passed, as the realization of his plan loomed closer and closer on the horizon, this behavior redoubled.
The four of them were in the living room, spread across the two sofas, watching a movie together as a family. Will wasn’t paying attention to the plot though. He had never seen the film before, but he was sure he would get the gist of it. The backstory wasn’t what was important anyway. He gazed upward. The light from the projector was shimmering against the tiny pieces of dust floating in the air above Will’s head, giving form to the beam of light. What was important was that he was there, visibly present, just like the beam of light. He glanced at his wife and his two children. He wanted to know if they had noticed him, if they had noted his prevailing presence, or if the surround sound had drowned him into only a background figurine. Of course they had, but then they pre-tended they hadn’t. They pretended for his sake and for their own that things had always been this way.
At the back of his mind, thoughts rushed by, mainly questions. Would this be the last time they would all sit here and watch a movie together? Would this bore fest be the last movie he ever watched? Were they all really enjoying it, or were they just being polite? How was it possible that his own son didn’t like popcorn? Was there anyone else in the whole world who didn’t like popcorn? A year from now, would he still be living here? Would he be in prison? Would he be on the run? Would he even be alive?
The last few questions were the ones that had prompted him to be present. Fear of mortality had finally caused value and priority to align when it came to family. The late-in-life crisis that so often affects those who put their careers first had come early, sudden, and urgent with the typical realization that if something didn’t change soon, no one would cry at his funeral. So, abruptly, Will was there, with the caveat that he secretly expected, just as abruptly, to leave again. He highly suspected his relationship with Viki was totally repaired. It seemed to him that they were having sex probably three or four times a week. He had cooked her a five-course dinner one starry evening, and they had stopped in a hotel bar and gotten tipsy on sparkling white wine one sunny afternoon. To top it off, he found he was genuinely enjoying listening to her personal problems as well as the personal problems of all of her friends and acquaintances for the first time in years. Maybe ever. Belittling them was a great distraction from his own.
The long and short of it was that Will was on a high. Everything was set up, production was running, distribution was waiting, gears were whirring, clocks were ticking. There was motion in the air, and an end in sight. And no matter what the end would eventually bring, Will desperately craved the sense of finality that he was sure would come with it.
———
He was expecting the sample from Sharon any day now. They were a week out from the deadline, and the anxiety to test the sample and confirm its legitimacy, to have his final mortal task over and done with, woke him promptly, with no hope of returning to sleep, at 5:26 in the morning. He stared at the ceiling for ten sedate minutes, watching the wind create changing patterns as leaves rustled in the dim light. He wanted to shower, but he didn’t want to wake Viki. He had showered the night before, just six hours earlier. He always showered before getting into bed, unless he was blackout drunk, and he hadn’t been blackout drunk in far too long, in his opinion. So he got up and pulled his clothes on, shuddering as he dragged them quietly over the outermost layer of dead skin cells that he knew had sloughed off through the night. Then he headed to the only other place he knew to go—his lab.
