FanStory.com - Beating the Devil by Jim Wile

FanStory.com
"Beating the Devil"

Chapter 1
Beating the Devil

By Jim Wile

Prologue

Cherryville, North Carolina
June 2031

He had received his instructions from headquarters that morning, and now it was time to initiate the plan.

He slit the seal on the first of the 10 boxes of filters he’d pulled from the storeroom shelf. He dumped out all 20 of the filters inside their sealed plastic wrappers onto the staging table and selected a random three. He filled his syringe with acetone then picked up the first of the three filters. Poking the syringe needle through the top of the wrapper between the two parts that pull apart, he injected a few drops onto the filter inside before pressing the two halves of the wrapper together again.

He did the same to the other two filters, mixed the three of them in with the 17 untouched ones, then packed them all back into the box. He resealed the box, placed it back on the storeroom shelf, and repeated the process on the other nine boxes he’d pulled.

He smiled at his handiwork. Now it would simply be a waiting game until the next test.

Chapter 1

One week later

Brian Kendrick clicked his pen continuously as he stared at the numbers on his computer screen. “Ughhhh!” he uttered in disgust. He was completely baffled by what he was seeing. It was 11:00 PM, and he’d been studying the data for hours.

He had only applied Aflatoxin B1 to the drinking water of 25 of the 100 lab rats to induce liver cancer, but 35 of them were showing cancer markers in the breath analyzer results.

He threw the pen to the floor, pushed his chair back, bent over, and put his head in his hands—his favorite thinking position—when Julia came down the stairs, walked up to him, and began massaging his neck and shoulders.

“Still coming up with too many?” she asked.

“Yeah. Doesn’t make any sense. Ooo, that feels good,” he said as her fingers plied the tense muscles.

“The normal cancer rate shouldn’t exceed more than one in a hundred, but these results are showing way more than that amount. It’s got to be false positives, but damned if I know why there are so many. Abby is too good of a mathematician to have screwed up the math that badly.”

Julia stopped massaging his shoulders and said, “You know, Babe, maybe you need an independent test. I read an article recently in—”

“Do you think you could keep rubbing while you tell me?”

She laughed and began massaging him again. “So, I just read an article in North Carolina Today about a therapy dog who can sniff out cancer in the patients he visits at the hospital. Maybe you could borrow him from the woman who owns him to sniff your rats and see if he confirms the results your data show?”

Brian stood then and folded her into his arms. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven with brown hair. At 6 feet 2 inches tall, he towered over his diminutive and lovely wife who was a foot shorter. They were both 41 years old.

“Jules, that’s why I married you. You are so damn clever.”

“What, it wasn’t my dynamite looks and talent in bed?”

“Well, that too. You’re the whole package.” He put his hands on her bottom and started squeezing as he continued to press against her.

“Speaking of packages, yours seems to be expanding. Why don’t you call it a night and come upstairs with me?”

“If you insist.”

The next morning, Brian awoke to find that his 6-year-old son, Johnny, had crawled into bed between them. He was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, and reading a book.

“Hey, kiddo, what are you reading?”

“Henry and Mudge.” Dad, could we get a dog?”

Julia stirred then. “Hi, Sweetie. What time is it?”

“Hi, Momma. It’s 7:16,” he said, after looking at the digital alarm clock on Brian’s nightstand. “Could we get a dog?”

Julia yawned and stretched and sat up in bed while Brian closed his eyes again, turned over, and decided to let Julia answer that question.

“I don’t know. We already have a cat,” she said, glancing at Nadia who repositioned herself against Brian’s legs when he turned over.”

“Yeah, but dogs are more fun than cats.”

“How do you know that if you’ve never had one?”

“I just think they are. Nadia only plays for a few minutes and then she leaves.”

Right then they heard their daughter, Lindsay, who had just turned four, cry out from her room down the hall, “Momma, I need you.”

Julia said, “Daddy and I were just talking about maybe visiting a dog soon. We’ll think about it.”

“Can I come too?”

“Hold that thought while I go see what your sister wants.”

“Can I come too, Dad?”

Brian sat up then, stretched, and tousled his son’s hair. This stirred Nadia who jumped down from the bed and began meowing loudly to be fed.

“I’ll be right back after I feed the cat.”

As Brian left the room with Nadia leading the way, he heard Johnny moan, “How come nobody will answer my question?”

In a few minutes, Brian returned, and so did Julia with Lindsay. “A minor wardrobe malfunction,” explained Julia as she got back into bed with Brian and Johnny. Lindsay joined them there.

Johnny, who had resumed reading when his parents left, put his book down and said, “Guys, focus. Can I come to see the dog too when you go?”

Brian answered, “Well, Momma and I were just thinking about visiting the dog. I haven’t even talked to the owner yet to see if she’d let us come see him. We’d need her permission first.”

“Well, if she says it’s okay, can I come?”

“If she says yes, then you can come.”

“And if we like him, can we bring him home and keep him?”

“No, not this dog,” said Julia. “This is a special dog with a really good nose who can smell things that people can’t. The owner wants to keep him.”

“But could we get a different dog then?”

“We’ll see,” said Julia.

“Oh, boy. ‘We’ll see’ means yes!”

“No it doesn’t,” said Brian. “We’ll see means maybe.”

“Nah, it always means yes.”

Brian glanced at Julia, and they shared a smile. His son was pretty much right about that.

Johnny went back to his book while Brian lay back down and tried to catch a few more winks.

“Momma, I’m hungry,” said Lindsay.

“I guess it’s time for all of us to get up now. That means you too, Daddy,” said Julia, giving him a poke in the side.

It made him jump. He made a face at her, then he stretched and let out a loud yawn.

“Ooo, Dad, your breath!” said Johnny.

With breakfast over and kids dressed and ready to face the day, Brian sat down to read the article about therapy dogs Julia showed him in North Carolina Today. The name of an organization called Pet Partners was mentioned in the article and, with a little internet research, Brian found a phone number to call. He left his number with the woman he reached and a brief explanation of what he wanted.

Later that day, he received the call he was expecting.

“Mr. Kendrick, this is Madison McPhail. I understand you called Pet Partners this morning?”

“Yes, Miz McPhail, thanks for returning my call so promptly. I’m a cancer researcher who lives in Cherryville. I just read the article about you and your dog Bo in North Carolina Today and I was very intrigued about Bo’s ability to detect cancer in people.”

“Why yes. It’s quite extraordinary the way he’s able to do that.”

“Let me tell you why I wanted to contact you, Miz McPhail. I’ve been developing an early cancer detection system that can diagnose cancer in its earliest stages—that’s once the cancerous cells have begun the dysplasia or abnormal growth stage and begun to cluster. At that point, they begin to give off volatile organic compounds or VOCs that are detectable. From the article, apparently Bo is also able to detect these VOCs with his nose and can tell which ones are produced by certain cancers.”

“Yes, that’s correct. I’ve spoken with an oncologist at the hospital we visit about this, and he explained it the same way you just did.”

“Did you train Bo to do this?”

“Not at first, no. He just seemed to be able to recognize the cancer patients.”

“What would he do?”

“Well, he would sniff the person a lot more, especially where the cancer might be located. He would sometimes whine a little, and he would want to spend more time with these patients and lie by them in their bed, up against them. It’s like he could tell they had something more serious going on than most of the others he would visit, and they needed him more.”

“That’s amazing. Now, you said, ‘not at first.’ Does that mean you’ve since trained him to smell cancer?”

“Yes, we’re working on it. He’s doing quite well.”

“Look, the reason why I called is that I’ve had some inexplicable results in my test subjects, which are rats, and my instruments are showing what I feel to be many false positives. I was wondering if Bo could help me verify or disprove the results that I’m seeing by sniffing the rats’ breath in order to detect which ones are truly cancerous? I’d be very happy to pay you for your time.”

“Well, that sounds like a very interesting project to be a part of, Mr. Kendrick. I’m sure Bo would be happy to lend a hand, or I should say a nose. We live in Forest City, so we’re practically neighbors of yours. When would you like to come and meet Bo?”

“As soon as possible at your convenience, Miz McPhail.”

“How about tomorrow afternoon?”

Author Notes This book is the third in a series which began with Duel with the Devil and continued with The Devil Fights Back. It will feature many of the same characters.

You won't have to have read the previous novels to be able to jump right into this one. Pertinent backstory will be provided as necessary.

CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 3-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog

Picture courtesy of Poe Assistant

Chapter 2
Beating the Devil - Chapter 2

By Jim Wile

Recap of Prologue and Chapter 1: The prologue shows us an unknown person in a storeroom injecting acetone via a syringe into a selected number of sealed filters.

Chapter 1 begins with an exasperated Brian Kendrick, who cannot figure out why his test data is showing an increased number of cancer markers in his 100 lab rats. He suspects there are many false positives. He has been developing an early cancer detection system but is stumped by the results of his most recent test. His wife, Julia, comes down to his basement lab and begins massaging his shoulders. She tells him of an article she read about a therapy dog who can sniff cancer in people, and she suggests that maybe he could use the dog to verify if the suspected false positives really have cancer.

After reading the article himself and contacting the dog’s owner and trainer, Brian arranges with Madison McPhail, who lives nearby, to have the family come visit the dog.

Chapter 2

The next day, the whole family piled into their SUV and made the 45-minute drive to Madison McPhail’s home in Forest City.

The route passes through Shelby, North Carolina, a small town near the South Carolina border, which is the site of an unfortunate event in the life of the Kendrick family. Five years ago, when Johnny was only a year old, he had been kidnapped and held in a house in Shelby. It was at a time when Brian had begun the phase-2 human trials of his fabulously successful, opioid-strength but non-addictive painkiller, Glyptophan. He had created the drug by himself at home in his basement laboratory.

Big Pharma, in an attempt to suppress this drug because it promised to replace their opioid cash cows, escalated their continual harassment of Brian and his family. They attempted to make him abandon his human trials. Their plan was foiled, and Johnny was rescued by none other than his Aunt Fran, who is an FBI field agent, her confidential informant friend Dana, and the most unlikely person of all—Johnny’s grandmother, Marie.

In a daring raid on the house, one of the kidnappers was killed while the other was clobbered unconscious by a baseball bat-wielding Marie, a tiny slip of a woman. Following that incident, arrests of the perpetrators were made, and Big Pharma gave up its harassment attempts. Glyptophan was approved by the FDA two years ago and has been a big seller ever since.

When the Kendricks arrived at the McPhail’s house, Madison McPhail greeted them from her front porch. Her house is a quaint Victorian cottage, small and very ornate. Madison is 60-ish and on the plump side.

Brian introduced his family to her. “Miz McPhail, thanks so much for agreeing to meet with me and allowing the whole brood to come. They’ve been very excited to meet Bo.”

“Please, call me Maddy, Brian. Bo loves children, and I’m sure he’ll enjoy meeting your two. Shall we all go inside?”

She led them into the front parlor, where Bo, a six-year-old cream-colored Labrador retriever with a friendly, smiling face, was sitting in the middle of the floor. Johnny and Lindsay went right over to him. Bo seemed delighted by the company and licked both their faces as they scratched his head and neck.

Brian and Julia sat down on the sofa, facing Maddy, who sat across from them in a club chair.

Julia said, “I was fascinated by that magazine article where you described what the therapy dog program was all about and how you and Bo participate in it. How did you happen to get started with it?”

“I have a friend who told me about it and how gratifying it is to be able to bring comfort and cheer to people who may be in difficult circumstances and need a little cheering up. I can give you some information about it if you’re interested in joining.”

“Well, we don’t even have a dog… yet, anyway. But that may change soon. The kids have been begging us to get one.”

They looked over at the kids. Bo had lain down and rolled on his back, exposing his belly while they rubbed it. Johnny and Lindsay were chattering away, and Bo seemed to genuinely enjoy all the attention.

“He’s still a big baby,” said Maddy. “The folks we visit just love him.”

“So how did you first realize he could smell cancer?” Brian asked.

“It’s interesting how that came about. A couple years ago, a friend of mine was visiting us, and Bo would not leave her alone. He continually sniffed at her crotch, something he never does ordinarily. It got embarrassing. We eventually had to lock him in the kitchen, where he began to whine.

“Well, a few months later, my friend called and told me she had just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We talked about Bo and how we thought maybe he could smell it somehow.

“When we joined Pet Partners, I asked them about this, and they told me that some dogs indeed could smell the odor of cancer with noses that are 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive than human noses.”

“And I think you mentioned that you’re now working on formally training him to do this?” asked Brian.

“Not formally, no. There are programs for that, but I’ve just been working with him at home.”

“Where do you get your samples for him to sniff?”

“I’ve gotten a few samples from the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, but I’ve also gotten some from my friend with the ovarian cancer, as well as my brother-in-law, who has prostate cancer.”

“What’s your motivation for training him, Maddy?” asked Julia.

“It’s probably more selfish than anything. Breast cancer runs in my family. My mother died of it, as well as my older sister. I would love for Bo to detect it in me if I were to develop it. But you never can tell how handy it might come in with all the patients we meet.”

Julia looked at her ruefully. “My mother has breast cancer and is currently in remission. It was largely her contracting it that inspired Brian to begin this project of early detection. By the time she was diagnosed, she was already at stage 4. If only there had been a Bo in her life.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Julia. I hope she still has many more years ahead of her to enjoy these grandchildren.”

“Thank you. I hope so too.”

“You know, Julia, as I look at you, you look awfully familiar to me.”

Brian said, “Are you a fan of classical music by any chance?”

“That’s what it is! Are you the Julia Kendrick who is the famous violin soloist? If so, I have one of your CDs with your picture on the cover.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“My goodness! I’m sitting here talking with one of the world’s premier violinists. Would you mind signing the cover of the CD for me? I’d be so honored if you would. I just love the way you play.”

“Thank you so much, Maddy. I’d be very happy to sign it.”

She left the room to retrieve the CD.

While she was gone, Johnny came over to the sofa and said, “I want a dog just like Bo. He’s so much fun, Dad.”

“He does seem like a great dog.”

They looked over and saw Lindsay playing tug-of-war with Bo and one of his dog toys. He was very calm with her and wasn’t getting worked up, even though Lindsay was squealing with delight.

When Madison returned, she handed Julia the cover she’d extracted from the jewel case, and she signed it. “I will treasure this always, Julia. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Are you still playing, dear, now that you have two young ones?”

“I haven’t been touring since Johnny was born, but I do still play professionally… with a little bluegrass band, if you can believe it. I’m their fiddler and banjo player.”

“Isn’t that something! A world-class violinist who fiddles in a bluegrass band.”

“She plays the banjo better than the violin,” put in Johnny.

The grownups laughed.

“You just think that because you like the banjo better. Always have,” said Julia.

Brian said, “She’s teaching him to play. He’s pretty darn good already.”

“And she’s teaching me the violin,” said Lindsay.

“Oh, that’s so wonderful to have a musical family like that,” said Maddy, beaming.

As the kids continued playing with Bo, her attention shifted back to Brian’s project. “So, now tell me again how you think Bo might help you, Brian.”

“I would use him to verify my results because it appears we are getting a number of false positives for cancer markers. Let me describe just briefly how my early cancer detection system works.

“I’ll be fabricating a pill that uses nanoparticles to target various forms of cancer in the body. If the nanoparticles find cancer cells to bind to, they will trigger a release of volatile organic compounds—those VOCs we talked about on the phone—which would then become detectable through a breath analyzer. The idea is for people who are predisposed to developing cancer, or really for anyone who wants to and can afford it, to take the pill on a monthly basis and then use a home breath analyzer to detect the extra volume of cancer-induced VOCs. If present at a certain level, that would indicate the beginnings of cancer.

“We all have stray mutated cells floating around our bodies that can become cancerous, but a healthy immune system destroys most of these. However, when there are enough of these abnormal cells and they begin to cluster, that’s the beginning of a cancer.

“Now, we don’t want the system to pick up every single abnormal cell but only when they reach a threshold level; otherwise, there would be many false positives due to cells that will eventually be attacked and killed by our immune systems. False positives scare people into thinking they have cancer when they really don’t.”

“So, you would like Bo to sniff your rats that tested positive and determine if they really have cancer?”

“Exactly, except that we’ll have him sniff all hundred rats. He would be a double-check against our breath analyzers to see if they are functioning correctly or if our threshold values need to be adjusted to be less sensitive.”

“And how do you envision he would do this?”

“Well, he wouldn’t interact with the rats directly. That would frighten them into releasing stress-related VOCs that could compromise the results. Instead, we would collect breath samples from each rat, and Bo would sniff these. My big question for you is, does he have a distinct way of indicating he’s detected cancer?”

“We’ve been working on that in our testing. He whines when he detects it. That’s what he’s always done when we visit a cancer patient at the hospital. He whines when he first meets them and sniffs them. Then he stops and is just his natural, wonderful, comforting doggy self. But he always whines a little at first, so that’s what I’ve been using as his signal.”

“And how well is he doing in your work with him?”

“He’s improving all the time.”

“Do you think he’s ready enough to give it a try?”

“He’s not perfect, but I think it’s worth a try.”

“Would later this week be too soon?” asked Brian.

“That would be just fine. How would it work?”

“You’re the one who’s been training him and knows how to handle him, so it would make sense for you to conduct the test. I will have all the samples ready for Bo in three days. How would 10:00 AM on Thursday work?

“We’ll see you then, Brian. This is exciting!”

Chapter 3
Beating the Devil - Chapter 3

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 2: The Kendrick family visits Maddy McPhail and Bo in their home in Forest City. The kids are immediately taken with Bo, who is a pleasant and fun-loving cream-colored Labrador Retriever. While Bo entertains them, the grownups sit and talk. Maddy recognizes Julia, who is a world-class solo violinist, and she asks Julia to sign the cover of one of her CDs.

Maddy then asks Brian how his early cancer detection system works and how Bo could help him in his testing. Brian describes each, and Maddy excitedly agrees to come to the Kendrick house with Bo in three days’ time.

Chapter 3

Brian’s partner in the project is Abby Payne, a 65-year-old woman who lives in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Abby is a brilliant mathematician and inventor who helped him stop a threat to national security when they were both assigned to a team led by Brian’s FBI agent sister, Fran, five years ago.

Her background as a former actuary makes her an expert in modeling complex systems with many variables. When Brian had asked her, she had jumped at the chance to assist him with his early cancer detection project, and together they formed a limited liability partnership to formalize their business relationship.

That evening, Brian called her to discuss recent events, including the disastrous test results. “I trust you’ve had a chance to review the data from Thursday’s test?” asked Brian.

“Yes, and they don’t make any sense. The test we ran prior to this one didn’t show nearly as many positives, but we still felt our threshold values were too sensitive. When I tightened them up and gave you the instructions to recalibrate the breath analyzer, we should have expected to see fewer positives, but instead we see more. I just don’t get it.”

“Makes me wonder if they truly are positives or are just false positives. Julia had an interesting idea. She told me about a cancer-sniffing dog who could detect cancer by sniffing the VOCs given off by cancer patients. Turns out the dog lives just 45 minutes away, and we went to visit with him and his owner today. She’s been training him at home to sniff out cancer, and he whines when he detects it. What do you think about using him as a verification method?”

“Huh! That could work if the dog does a decent job of it. Do you know how reliable he is?”

“The owner says he’s improving all the time. The good thing is, since we’re not running the tests double-blind yet, we know the 25 who will likely be positive, so if he sniffs out all or even most of those, then I’d say he’s probably pretty accurate. And if he doesn’t pick up the 10 additional ones, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance they are false positives.”

“That would be good to know. Doesn’t answer why we’re getting them, though. I think a second test might give us a clue.”

Brian stood and began pacing as he tried to formulate a reply. He had been thinking along different lines, but wasn’t quite ready to discuss it yet.

“Yeah, maybe. I’ve got to think some more about that. I suppose you’ve shared the results with Callie too, right?”

“I did, and she was as surprised as I was. She’s done rigorous testing of her code and is convinced we haven’t overlooked anything and that the algorithms are correct.”

Callie Bennett is the programmer on the project and is Abby’s cousin.

“Well, I have a lot of confidence in you both,” said Brian, “so I’m sure the discrepancies are not your doing. I’ll give you a call after the dog test, and we can discuss that.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it, Brian. Don’t despair. I’m convinced we’ve got a good system here, and we’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks, Abby. Talk to you again soon.”

Maddy and Bo arrived at the Kendrick house the following morning. In the front yard, Brian was placing large whiffle balls on a tee for Lindsay, who was taking swipes at them with an oversized, red plastic bat. Johnny was fielding them.

When the kids saw the big SUV drive up, they abandoned the game and ran towards the car to meet Bo, who jumped out when Maddy opened the door for him.

“Hi, Bo!” the kids trumpeted as they bent down to pet him, and he licked their faces while his tail wagged excitedly.

“They’ve been talking about this all morning,” said Brian as he and Maddy watched. “He certainly seems to love kids.”

“Kids, seniors, he just loves everybody,” said Maddy. “He’s a wonderful therapy dog because everybody loves him too.”

“Well, he’ll be a real aid to science too if he can help me figure out the discrepancies in my data.”

“I Googled you last night and found out you are a neuroscientist who invented a very popular new drug. Was it difficult for you to embark on cancer research with your background?”

“Not as difficult as you might think. There is a surprising amount of overlap between the two fields. Both involve understanding how cells in the body function. Whether it’s neurons firing to transmit signals or cancer cells dividing uncontrollably, the techniques to study both are very similar. Would you like to come see my laboratory and the experimental setup? I’ll get Julia to come out and watch the kids and Bo play if that’s okay.”

“Sure. He’ll love it. He loves it when my grandchildren come visit.”

After finding Julia and arranging for her to watch the kids with Bo, Brian escorted Maddy down to his basement lab. It contained an impressive assortment of expensive equipment.

Brian said, “I’ve spent the last three days getting the samples ready for Bo to sniff. This is a tedious process that involves placing a specially designed mask over the nose of each rat and allowing them to breathe normally for about seven minutes into the mask. The mask is connected by plastic tubing to a collection device that traps any VOCs in the rats’ breath. It’s these collection tubes that we will have Bo sniff.”

“Sounds like you’ve been busy. Don’t you have a lab assistant to help you with things like that?”

“In fact, I have two, but I gave them both a week off, so it’s just me this week. I think we’re ready to begin.”

They talked for a while longer, then Maddy went upstairs to fetch Bo while Brian opened up the spreadsheet on his computer where he would record the results of the sniff test.

In a few minutes, Maddy returned with Bo on a leash. She said, “We should let him sniff around and get acclimated to the environment before we begin.”

“That makes a lot of sense.”

Maddy removed the leash, and Bo spent the next five minutes circling the lab, sniffing everything in sight. There were undoubtedly many chemical odors he could detect in this well-stocked lab.

Finally, it was time to begin the test. The VOC collection devices were known as sorbent tubes that contained Tenax, a porous polymer material made of small, bead-like granules that trap the VOCs.

Brian had placed several racks containing these tubes on a table in the lab. They were in random order, and each one was labeled with a number corresponding to the rat number whose sample it was.

Maddy said, “Alright, Bo, time to begin. Come.”

Bo came over to the table where Maddy and Brian were seated.

“Sit.”

When Bo sat, she said, “Good boy!” She then removed the first sample from the rack, told Brian the sample number, unstoppered it, and held it under Bo’s nose. He sniffed it for five or six seconds with no reaction.

“Good boy,” said Maddy as she stoppered the sample again and placed it back in the rack after removing the next one. Bo sat patiently waiting for her to repeat the process.

Maddy said, “It’s important to treat each one exactly the same way and not to change the routine whether he reacts or doesn’t react to the sample. We don’t want to introduce any bias. I’ll tell him, ‘Good boy,’ after each one.”

“Once again, that makes perfect sense,” said Brian.

For the first six, Bo did not react at all, and Brian began questioning if this was going to work. But on the seventh one, Bo gave a brief whine while sniffing it. A positive result. Maddy winked at Brian who gave her a surreptitious thumbs up.

She and Bo worked steadily for the first 20 samples, and then she said, “We need to take a short break; otherwise, his attention will wane. Do you think he could go play with the kids for a few minutes?”

“They’ll love it,” said Brian.

As she took Bo upstairs to find Julia and the kids, Brian studied the results so far. Bo had responded positively to only four of the samples. This was significantly lower than might be expected if there truly were 35 positives from the initial results.

Over the next hour and a half, which included breaks and dog treats after each 20 samples, Bo sniffed the remainder of the tubes, and Brian recorded the results.

“Can you tell how well he did?” asked Maddy.

“I’ll tell you when we go upstairs so Julia can hear it too.”

They headed upstairs, where they found the others playing in the family room. The kids immediately ran to Bo and began petting him while he licked their faces.

Brian, Julia, and Maddy stood together watching the kids play with the dog when Brian said, “I can tell you this right now, Maddy: Bo was able to identify 22 of the 25 we induced cancer in, meaning he missed at most three of those 25. That’s a darn good accuracy. He didn’t identify any others among the 75 that were not induced, which tells me we probably had at least 10 false positives in the original results. Why that’s so, I don’t know yet, but I have some ideas.

“At any rate, Bo has given me the peace of mind to know that it isn’t our computer modeling that’s at fault, but something in the physical setup—some sort of contamination—that was the likely cause. At least we know where to start looking now.”

Chapter 4
Beating the Devil - Chapter 4

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 3: Brian calls his partner in the project, Abby Payne, whom he had worked with previously on a national emergency. She is as baffled as he about the results of the most recent test. He tells her of the plan to use the dog to verify the accuracy of the data from the test, and she thinks it’s a good idea.

Maddy and Bo arrive at the Kendricks’ the next day to perform the verification test on the breath samples Brian had collected over the last three days. Bo does very well, detecting VOCs from 22 of the 25 rats who had cancer and no others, which confirms to Brian that there has been some contamination to 10 others that skewed the results. He hasn’t yet determined the source of contamination, but it proves that Abby’s modeling is correct after all.

Chapter 4

“Maddy, won’t you stay for lunch? I’ve got a big pot of chili on the stove and some cornbread,” said Julia.

“That sounds wonderful. Thank you. You have a lovely home, by the way. How long have y’all lived in Cherryville?”

Brian said, “We used to live in Charlotte up until six years ago when we decided we liked the slower pace of country life, so we built this house. Many of the friends we made from Julia’s band live nearby. We love it out here.”

“Julia, if you don’t mind my asking, how is it that a famous violinist like yourself has ended up playing in a bluegrass band?”

“Why don’t I tell you that story over lunch? Kids, wash your hands, please. Then we’ll head out to the Florida room and eat there.

The Florida room faced east and overlooked the Kendricks’s big backyard, which featured a beautifully landscaped patio area with a koi pond fed by a continuously running waterfall. Beyond the half-acre of lawn in back, the yard was bordered by dense woods.

While Julia poured the chili into a large tureen, Brian filled a bowl with water for Bo and placed it in a corner of the kitchen. After drinking his fill, Maddy instructed him to stay, and he curled up on the floor for a snooze.

When everyone was eventually seated in the Florida room and bowls of chili and the cornbread had been passed out, Johnny said, “Momma, tell Miss Maddy the story of how Uncle Willy asked you to join his band now.”

“Thank you, Johnny. Yes, I’m dying to know,” said Maddy.

“Okay. It was one afternoon about 10 years ago when Brian and I decided to stop at a bookstore and coffee shop. It was a beautiful spring day, so we sat outside in back to drink our coffee, and there was a little bluegrass band playing a concert for the folks on the patio. After a while, the fiddle player got ill and had to quit in the middle, so Willy, the band leader, jokingly asked the audience if there was a fiddler in the house. I wouldn’t have said anything, but Brian encouraged me to go up there, so, on a whim, I decided to. Willy was surprised because he said it as a joke, but I picked up the fiddle the fiddler had left and started playing with the band. I didn’t know the music, but I just listened to it and was able to pick up the melodies and join in.

“Now, Willy’s quite a musician, and he recognized me but didn’t let on. He asked me in front of the crowd if I’d ever played professionally before, and I said I’d made one or two CDs. Then he asked my name, and when I told him, he said, ‘Wait, you’re not the Julia Kendrick who’s the world-famous violin soloist who plays concerts all over the world, are you?’ So, I said, ‘Uh, maybe.’ Then he introduced me to the audience and asked me if I would play something for them. I played a couple of minutes’ worth of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, and the crowd loved it. Then, in front of the audience, Willy gave me his business card and, tongue-in-cheek, asked me if I’d like to join his band, so I gave him mine and said, ‘Maybe I’ll take you up on that one day.’ And one day, I did.”

“My goodness, what a story!” said Maddy, laughing. “Do you think either you or your band would be willing to play a concert at one of the assisted living facilities that Bo and I visit for therapy sessions? I’m sure it would pay you for it.”

“We’ve done that a number of times. I’ll talk to Willy about it and let you know.”

“Daddy, could we get a dog just like Bo?” asked Lindsay, changing the subject.

“Hmm, first Pete and now Repeat,” said Brian. “Johnny asked me the same thing. Alright, Maddy, how does one go about getting a purebred Labrador Retriever puppy?”

“Well, I’ll email you the contact information for the dog breeder I got Bo from. He’s a very reputable one. He should have several to choose from.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

When lunch was over, Brian said to Maddy, “I would like to pay you for your help today, Maddy. Would—”

“The only payment I will accept is to have Julia play something for me if that isn’t too steep a price.”

“Oh, Maddy, I’d be happy to. Why don’t we just leave these dishes for later and head back into the family room where we practice and play?”

When they had moved into the family room, Maddy said, “Could you play what you played for the crowd at the coffee shop? I’d love to hear that.”

“Sure.” After Julia spent a moment tuning, she launched into Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 and played for about three minutes.

“That was beautiful, Julia. I’ll never forget that.”

“Momma, could we play ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ for Miss Maddy?” asked Johnny.

Julia looked questioningly at Maddy.

“Oh, I’d love to hear that!”

“Yes!” said Johnny with a fist pump. “I’m getting a lot faster now.”

“So, are you a big Earl Scruggs fan, Johnny?” asked Maddy. “He lived near here, you know.”

“Yeah, he lived in Shelby. I’ve been to the Earl Scruggs Museum there.”

While he chattered away about the father of modern banjo-playing with its three-finger picking style, he and Julia got out their banjos, put on their picks, and began the classic banjo tune. When they’d played the melody through a few times at moderate speed, Johnny stopped and said, “Momma, why don’t you play it super-fast now?”

Julia picked up the pace considerably as her fingers flew over the strings. She played it a few more times at high speed, finishing it in an upper register. Everyone applauded wildly.

Maddy said, “Now, I don’t know which one I enjoyed more. You certainly are talented in both, Julia, and Johnny, you are a terrific banjo player too. And you’re only six!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good. I’m not as good as Momma but allllmost.”

Laughing, she said, “Well, I certainly enjoyed the concert, but now I think it’s time for Bo and me to head home. This has been a very rewarding and fun day. I was thrilled to help you, Brian. You have a beautiful family here. If you ever need any more help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I appreciate that, Maddy. You and Bo have truly set my mind at ease, and your contribution has been exceptional. You’ve done an amazing job training Bo. I can’t thank you enough for coming and helping me out today.”

The kids said goodbye to Bo and got in their final pats. Then the whole family stood on the front porch and waved goodbye to their guests.

Brian called Abby that night after the kids had gone to bed. “Well, it’s good news and bad news. The good news is that there’s nothing wrong with your algorithms. Bo was able to correctly identify 22 of the 25 samples from the rats who had been given the aflatoxin-treated water and none of the others, including the 10 who tested positive in the breathalyzer test. I feel confident he identified all the ones there were to identify since his nose is just about as accurate as the gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer I’ve been using.”

“And the bad news?”

“It must be due to contamination, but I haven’t figured out yet where it’s coming from.”

“What are the possible sources?” asked Abby.

“The most likely are either the breathalyzer filters or the tenax sorbent tubes that are also in the breathalyzers. The filters remove water vapor, dust, and other particulates before the breath passes through the tenax sorbent tubes, which trap the VOCs and concentrate them.”

“Could it have been a single contaminated box of one or the other that could be responsible?”

Brian had previously put a lot of thought into this very question and decided that couldn’t have been the case.

“Probably not. The distribution of results doesn’t support it. If that were so, we would see the false positives clustered closely together, but instead they are relatively evenly distributed among rats 26-100. There are 20 filters per box, and five boxes were used for the test. Same for the sorbent tubes. That says to me there were a few contaminated ones in each box.”

“So, what could account for that?”

“I suppose there’s always the possibility of a manufacturer’s defect, but I know for a fact there is terrific quality control in the facilities that make those.”

Brian stood and sighed. He hesitated a few seconds before continuing. “I hate to say it, but sabotage is the more likely reason. I would guess that about three per box of 20 would account for the results we saw.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that, but that thought occurred to me too,” said Abby. “Any idea where the sabotage might have taken place?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot too, and it was probably right here by one of my two lab assistants.”

“Oh, Jesus, Brian. Not this again!”

Chapter 5
Beating the Devil - Chapter 5

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 4: Maddy and Bo stay for lunch with the Kendricks after the testing is complete. She hears the story of how Julia, a world-famous solo violinist, came to be the fiddler and banjo player in a little bluegrass band.

Brian offers to pay Maddy for her work, but the only payment she will accept is an impromptu concert from Julia and Johnny.

Brian calls Abby that night with the results of the sniff test. Abby is relieved to hear her modeling was correct, but they still have the problem of determining the source of contamination of the samples. It turns out that sabotage by one of Brian’s lab technicians is the most likely.

Chapter 5

“How did Abby take the news?” asked Julia when Brian ended the call.

“Well, she was relieved to hear it wasn’t her algorithms causing the problem, but her final words were ’Jesus, not again’ when I mentioned probable sabotage.”

“I second that. Why does everything have to be so damn difficult? And you vetted those guys so well before you hired them.”

“We both know that doesn’t guarantee anything. Don’t forget about Woody.”

Brian was referring to one of the three bodyguards they had hired to protect them against threats from Big Pharma five years ago. This was during the phase-2 human trials of his new painkiller, Glyptophan. Woody had been turned by a large offer of money to betray the Kendricks, and he had been one of Johnny’s two kidnappers. He was the one shot and killed by Brian’s FBI agent sister, Fran.

“So, you think Big Pharma is at it again?” asked a worried Julia.

Brian sensed her trepidation at his mention of Woody. He took her in his arms and momentarily rested his chin on top of her head. In a few moments, he said, “It could be anyone really—Big Pharma, a university researcher, a private individual like myself. I know I’m not the only one working on early cancer detection, but I may be the closest to succeeding. This could be an effort to slow me down… and it’s working.”

“Does either Mal or Larry know of the problem with the last test?”

“No. They’ve been off all week, so I haven’t shared the results with either of them yet. They also don’t know about Bo’s coming to double-check the data. I’d rather keep both of them in the dark until I can figure out a way to trap the culprit, assuming it’s one of them.”

“Maybe they’re both in on it.”

“I doubt that. I’m sure there’s a backer. Why pay two when all it takes is one to get the job done?”

“Any ideas on how to discover which one?”

“Yeah. Try to get him to do it again. But this time it will be caught on camera because I’m going to install miniature cameras in the storeroom where the sabotage is likely to take place. There are just five boxes of filters left in there, and more than likely, those were tampered with too. I’m going to have Mal order another batch of 10 boxes and make sure Larry hears me ask him. Of the two, I’d almost bet Larry is the culprit.”

“I agree,” said Julia. “I just can’t picture Mal betraying you after what Glyptophan did for his pain.”

Mal, short for Malcolm Roberts, is a 36-year-old graduate from Winston-Salem State University. He is a beefy-looking African-American disabled vet who was one of Brian’s test subjects in his phase-1 drug trials for Glyptophan. He had been in great pain from the leg injury acquired while serving in Afghanistan, and Glyptophan has all but eliminated it. He takes it to this day for the chronic pain he would suffer without it.

“And as competent as you’ve told me Larry is, I’ve never been thrilled with his personality,” continued Julia. “He seems awfully self-absorbed.”

“I have to agree with you there.”

At only 24, Larry Posner is a grad student working on his master’s degree in biochemistry at North Carolina State University. Although Larry’s credentials are spotless, and his work in the lab so far has been first-rate, he has a tendency to get under Brian’s skin. He is cocksure and argues with Brian to the point that Brian has had to finish many arguments with, “Just do it my way, please, Larry.”

The following morning, a Monday, both technicians arrived by 9:00. After they’d coffee’d up, and talked about what they’d done on their week off, Brian called a short meeting to discuss the test results with them.

“I hate to tell you guys, but the results of the previous week’s test were inconclusive. As you know, the purpose of it was to test Abby’s detection algorithms. We had been getting too many false positives, so she tightened up the parameters to try to eliminate those, but in so doing, Callie, the programmer, introduced a bug that resulted in no VOCs at all being detected.”

This news was met with groans from Mal and Larry.

“She was extremely apologetic and quickly found the bug, but we’ll have to rerun the test. To be safe, we’ll plan to run it at least two more times in case some other bug was introduced. Unlikely, but you never know. Mal, could you order another 10 boxes each of the filters and sorbent tubes? We’re running low. Let’s plan on running the next test on Wednesday. That should give us enough time to get them in and to get set up for the first test.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Mal. “I’ll have them overnighted, so they’ll arrive by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay, great. Then I’d like you both to begin putting together, configuring, and calibrating the first batch of home breathalyzers. We’ve got all the parts here now for six of them.”

Larry said, “Do you think that’s such a good idea since we had a complete failure of the current calibration?”

“It won’t change how you put them together,” Brian said, “and there are still some intermediate calibrations you can do that have nothing to do with the main one we were testing.”

“Yeah, but how do you know it won’t change the configuration of the input and output ports if you have to change the main calibration?”

Brian’s personal nickname for Larry, but one he never voiced, was “Yeahbut.”

“Even if it does, which I don’t expect it to, it’s a simple enough matter to adjust the location of the ports. It wouldn’t take more than a minute or two per. The home breathalyzer is going to be the hallmark of our system, you remember, so adjustments have to be quick and easy to do.”

It truly would be an outstanding feature—the fact that a complete analysis could be done by customers in their homes without having to carefully package and send the breath samples, which degrade quickly, to a lab to be analyzed. Brian designed the breathalyzer to be easy to configure, calibrate, and use at home. Customers could get the results right away without the worry that might accompany a several-day delay.

He knew that Larry would prefer to do almost anything else than build and calibrate breathalyzers, a tedious and monotonous job, but it wouldn’t be fair to put it all on Mal. Plus, they could easily double-check each other’s work.

“You know, I still—”

“Larry,” Brian interrupted, “please just do it.” He winked at Mal as he said this, and Mal grinned and shook his head slightly.

“Yes, Boss.”

Later in the morning, Brian called the security company that had set up his home security system when the house was built. The scope had not included his laboratory storeroom. He agreed to pay a premium if they would come this evening and install miniature motion-activated cameras in his storeroom that would be unobservable by his lab technicians.

The shipment of filters and sorbent tubes arrived the following day. Mal was at lunch at the time, so Larry received the shipment and shelved all the boxes.

Since he had announced two possible tests tomorrow, Brian figured tonight would be the night to catch any sabotage because some of the newly arrived filters would be needed. In truth, he was not planning to conduct any tests tomorrow because they would be a waste of time with doctored filters, but his lab technicians didn’t know that.

It was 2:00 AM when the saboteur parked his car off the side of the road 100 yards up from the Kendrick residence. He hiked back and made his way around to the basement side door. Brian had given both technicians a key to get in when the family was away, and he used that now.

Before he left from work the previous afternoon, the saboteur had gone upstairs on the pretense that he needed some ice from the refrigerator to cool off a fake burn from a soldering iron. He snuck into the front hall, where the control panel for the home security system was housed, and disabled it. The system included the exterior motion detectors and cameras. He would reenable it in the morning when he came to work.

Thus, he was able to gain entry to the basement door without setting off any lights, cameras, or alarms. He entered the storeroom, flipped on the lights, and closed the door.

The new shipment of filters was separated from the old ones on the shelf—something Brian insisted be done whenever a new shipment arrived. Brian instructed them to always use up the older filters first before opening any new boxes.

As before, he brought down the 10 new boxes and would follow the same procedure as before by injecting acetone into three filters from each. He did not have to worry about varying the procedure, since the programmer error had destroyed and thus masked his previous efforts. No pattern would therefore be recognized.

Unbeknownst to him, three hidden miniature cameras were recording his every move. They had also triggered a silent alarm that alerted Brian, who had stayed up.

As the saboteur began removing the filters from the first box, the storeroom door opened, and there stood Brian.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 3-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab assistants
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab assistants

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 6
Beating the Devil - Chapter 6

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 5: Brian and Julia fear they are in for more intimidation like they had experienced during the development of Glyptophan. Brian reasons the best way to catch the culprit is to get him to do it again.

He has Mal order additional filters and makes sure Larry hears his instructions as well. They will be overnighted and arrive tomorrow. That night, Brian hires his security company to install miniature hidden cameras in his storeroom.

At 2:00 AM, the saboteur shows up and lets himself in with his key. He had previously disabled the Kendricks’s security system, but Brian was also alerted when the hidden cameras were triggered to start filming. Right when the saboteur begins working on the filters, Brian opens the door to the storeroom.

Chapter 6

Startled, Mal looked over and locked eyes with Brian. In front of him, on the table, were the ten boxes of filters that had arrived that afternoon. He stopped what he was doing, closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly.

Brian stood in the doorway taking in the scene, his pistol at the ready. He had mentally prepared himself for the sight of Larry, but Mal? He was frankly shocked while he waited for him to speak.

Long seconds passed before Mal finally said, “How did you figure it out so fast?”

“You and whoever hired you were not nearly clever enough in disguising your activities. You shouldn’t have randomized the filters so much. It would have looked like a manufacturer’s defect had you sabotaged a bunch of consecutive ones. I figured it was either you or Larry—my bet was on Larry—who was doing it. Acetone, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why, Mal?” asked Brian with frustration and disappointment evident in his voice. He had had high hopes for Mal, who, up to this point, was an excellent lab technician—thorough, conscientious, and seemingly invested in the project. Brian had put great effort into his training and was as much a mentor as a boss.

“The usual reason. Money.”

“Whose money?”

Mal gave a long sigh. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The men stood simply looking at each other until Mal broke the silence again and said, “What are you going to do now?”

Brian tucked the pistol into his waistband. “Well, you’re fired, of course. Beyond that, I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you one thing, though; if you don’t tell me who’s paying you, it will go much worse for you.”

“Much worse than being severely maimed or killed if she finds out?”

“She?”

Mal said no more.

With this clue that he had likely dropped on purpose, Brian was fairly certain he knew who Mal’s backer was.

“If you needed money, Mal, why didn’t you come to me for it?”

“I couldn’t do that, Brian. You’ve already done so much for me.”

“So, you’d stab me in the back instead because you’re too proud to ask for help?”

“It was a lot of money. My baby girl needs a new heart, and the amount you pay me puts me over the Medicaid limit. The medical insurance I have would still leave me $50,000 short. We’re running out of time, and I needed it right away. Besides, I knew what I’ve been doing wouldn’t slow you down much. You were bound to figure it out soon. I thought I still had some time before I planned to resign in a few days and move to Cleveland, though. That’s where the surgery is scheduled. You figured it out much quicker than I predicted.”

“Mal, it was Vivian Delacroix who put you up to this, wasn’t it?”

He looked at Brian and after a few moments, gave a slight nod.

“Alright, I need to think about what I’m going to do now. I’m going to call you tomorrow, and you’d better answer. I’ve recorded what took place here tonight, so I’ve got you dead to rights. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”

“I won’t. FYI, the only boxes that’ve been tampered with are those five on the shelf from the old batch. I didn’t get started on these new ones yet. Your recording will show that.”

Mal’s shoulders were slumped, and he had trouble looking Brian in the eye, but he managed to add, “For what it’s worth, Brian, I’m sorry.”

“Pack up your personal items, give me your key, and leave. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Julia was awake when Brian came to bed. “I couldn’t sleep for the waiting. Who was it?”

“It was Mal, believe it or not. Shocked the hell out of me.”

“I can’t believe it. After all you did for him too. How could he do that to you?”

Not only had Brian cured Mal of his pain, but he had also loaned him money for college and given him a job upon graduation.

“He said he needed $50,000 for a heart transplant for Samantha but was too proud to ask me for it. He said he knew it wouldn’t hold me up much and that I’d figure it out. He ends up being right, but it’s still unforgivable. I could never trust him again.”

“You shouldn’t. Is what he did considered a felony? Could he go to jail for it?”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s industrial espionage, conspiracy, fraud, you name it. He could get jail time, or huge fines, or both… if I decide to report it. The question is, do I really want to punish him?”

Julia thought about this for a while. “Do you know who put him up to it? Maybe you should go after him instead.”

“It’s actually a her—Vivian Delacroix.”

She looked at Brian blankly for a moment until it dawned on her. “Oh, I remember her from the dinner we went to a couple of years ago at Wake Forest. Isn’t she that oncology professor who’s also working on early cancer detection?”

“She’s the one.”

“I remember we were sitting across from her, and she couldn’t shut up about her work. I think you were the only one at the table who understood what she was saying. She didn’t even try to dumb it down for the rest of us. It was like we didn’t exist.”

“Yeah, and she didn’t take too kindly to my suggestion that maybe a home breathalyzer could yield faster results than her approach and wouldn’t require drawing blood to do it. Remember how she said I could never build the accuracy into a home breathalyzer, and users would have to send their samples to a lab? She wasn’t exactly nasty about it, but she sure was dismissive. I took that as a challenge to prove her wrong.”

“I guess she must have rethought it and decided you might be onto something. Mal told you it was her?”

“Not in so many words, but I got him to confirm it. So, what do you think I should do about Mal?”

“Do you believe his story about Samantha needing a heart transplant?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure of that. He talks about her a lot, but I never realized it was quite this serious or immediate. And I don’t know the amount of money he needs for sure either. He said it would be $50,000. He probably got half up front and would get the other half when he finished with his sabotage.”

Julia was silent for a moment. Brian could see the wheels turning and decided not to interrupt her thinking.

At last, she said, “How about this? I’d hate to see Mal’s daughter be a pawn in this and not get that new heart. Why don’t you demand that Mal give you the money he’s been paid so far? Then pay that bitch a visit and demand the rest of the fifty grand from her in exchange for not alerting the police with your evidence. You can then be in charge of paying the medical bills for Samantha.”

Julia stopped momentarily for Brian to digest her suggestion.

It might work, he thought, and it seemed like the right thing to do, although Vivian would be getting a much better deal than she deserved. “I’m with you so far, Babe, but it looks like you’ve got more to say, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Regarding Vivian, what she did to try to slow you down was pretty shitty, but if she truly has an almost-ready early detection system that will save lives, it’s more important she finish it than halting her progress with a long, drawn-out trial and possible jail time.”

That certainly would be taking the high road, but Julia made a good point and one he ultimately agreed with. It would have been nice, though, if Vivian had shown him the same consideration by not attempting to thwart his efforts.

He had earned many millions for his discovery of Glyptophan, and the royalties continue to pour in. His family would never hurt for money, so he could afford the high road. Plus, he would always hold the threat of exposure over her with the evidence he had collected if she ever tried anything again.

“I think we’re on the same page here, Babe. Everything you said makes sense, and I’ll make plans tomorrow to pay Vivian a visit. Now maybe I can get a few hours of sleep.”

Chapter 7
Beating the Devil - Chapter 7

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 6: Brian discovers the saboteur was Mal by breaking in on him in the act. Mal reveals that he did it for $50,000 he needs for his daughter’s heart transplant, and he was too proud to ask Brian for the money because Brian had already done so much for him. Brian figures out that it was Vivian Delacroix, another early cancer detection researcher, who was Mal’s backer.

Brian discusses with Julia what to do about Mal and Vivian, and she suggests getting Mal to give Brian the money he’d collected so far and use what he knows to get the rest from Vivian in return for not revealing her crime to the police or the university where she works. Julia and Brian are in agreement that it would be better for Vivian to continue her work on early cancer detection since it would mean saving lives rather than tying her up in a legal battle and possible jail. Brian will then pay for Mal’s daughter’s heart transplant with the money he collects from both. He hasn’t decided yet what to do about Mal.

Chapter 7

Brian awoke at his usual time and headed downstairs for a quick breakfast before the kids got up. When he’d finally gotten to bed last night, he had tried not to think about his upcoming conversation with Mal, or else he would never have gotten any sleep at all. He headed down to his lab to start planning what he would say.

While Julia was making breakfast for Johnny and Lindsay, Johnny asked, “Momma, when can we go pick out a dog like Bo?”

“I’ll tell you what. After breakfast, I’ll call Miss Maddy and find out where she got Bo, and then I’ll call to see if they have any puppies available. Sound good?”

“Yippee! You rock, Momma.”

After breakfast, Julia got the promised name and number of the breeder from Maddy, who also told her how to prepare her home for a new puppy and what she would need to buy.

She called the breeder at Pat Malloy, Breeders and spoke to his wife, Terri Malloy. She told Julia they had a litter of six-week-old Labrador pups. She invited her to come see them, but said they wouldn’t be available for purchase for two more weeks. Julia made arrangements for a visit on Saturday.

“Why can’t we get the puppy today, Momma?” asked Lindsay.

“They’re not ready to leave their momma and brothers and sisters yet. They’re still too young. We’ll have to wait two more weeks to bring one home, but we’ll go visit and pick one out on Saturday. You’ll be able to play with it there.”

“Aww!” whined Lindsay.

“Sorry, Sweetie, but that’s the way it has to be.”

Brian sat in his basement office brooding on what to say to Mal. He was severely disappointed Mal’s pride had prevented him from coming to him about the money for his daughter, but he understood how male pride works.

He liked Mal, always had, and he didn’t want to see one misguided action ruin the man who had otherwise done exemplary work for him. In his earlier life, Brian was given a number of second chances while battling with opioid addiction. Besides, Mal had enough problems right now with his daughter’s health.

While he was thinking about what to say, Mal called.

“Hello, Mal.”

“Brian, I should never have gotten involved the way I did or agreed to such a scheme. I had considered coming to you for a loan, but she sought me out with her offer, and it almost seemed too good to be true. I knew it wouldn’t set you back—”

“Mal, did she threaten you?”

There was a long pause before he answered. He was considering lying about it and shifting most of the blame onto a threat if he didn’t comply, but he was done with being dishonest.

“No, not until after I’d already agreed to do it. Do you know about her brother?”

“I’ve heard that he owns a string of illegal gambling operations in the state and that he’s one of the major sources of funding for her cancer research. They’re a family of scumbags.”

“Well, he was there when we made our final arrangements, and she made it very clear I was never to reveal anything about it.”

“What were the arrangements?”

“Half at the start, the rest after this current step, with a promise of more later for other acts. This was going to be it for me, though. Like I told you last night, we were planning to move to Cleveland, but now, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to give me the 25 grand she already paid you, and I’m going to get the other 25 grand for the operation from her. You move to Cleveland as planned, but I’ll be in charge of paying the medical bills. I can’t have you come back and work for me, Mal, and you can’t expect a reference from me either. I wish you had just come to me for the money.”

“You’re not going to report this or press charges?”

“No.”

Another long pause as Mal tried to compose himself. He was deeply moved by Brian’s kindness and thoroughly ashamed for ruining their good relationship. “Brian, I don’t know what to say except to tell you again how sorry I am. I’ll bring a cashier’s check to you this afternoon.”

“Mal, come at 1:00. Larry won’t be here. You’ll handwrite a full confession of this whole arrangement and your part in it while you’re here, so think about what to say. Then we’ll go together to have it notarized. This is the leverage I’ll have over Vivian Delacroix to make her give me the other half of the reward and to leave you and your family alone.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Brian decided to pay Vivian Delacroix a surprise visit rather than make an appointment with her. He found out from the Wake Forest University website that she was teaching a graduate-level course this summer and when she held office hours. He planned to drive to Winston-Salem tomorrow and show up for her afternoon office hours between 2:00 and 4:00.

When Larry arrived for work at 9:00, he made a beeline for the coffee maker. “Where’s Mal?” he asked Brian. “He usually beats me here.”

“Mal found out a heart has become available for Samantha, and he put in his resignation. They’re planning to move to Cleveland, where the operation will be, and they’ve decided to stay there. He won’t be returning.”

“Well, jeez, does that mean I’ve got to finish building these breathalyzers myself?”

Brian gave him a withering look. “Why, yes. Damned inconvenient for that heart to become available when it did. Maybe Mal and his wife should turn it down and wait for another so you won’t be overburdened with the task.”

Realizing how petty he had sounded, Larry grimaced and said, “Yeah, let’s forget I said that. I think I’ll just get to work on them right away.”

“What a great idea! Listen, I’ll give you a break from it after a few hours. I’m going to have you drive to Charlotte and pick up some supplies as well as a new bunch of lab rats. We’ll need them soon enough. You can take off at noon.”

In truth, Brian didn’t want Larry around when Mal paid his final visit. Larry was nosy and would ply Mal with questions, which Brian wanted to spare him.

He then made an appointment for later with a notary at his bank. Mal’s written confession, even though notarized, probably wouldn’t stand up in court if it ever came to that, but it was unlikely to. He was counting on the threat of exposure being enough for Vivian Delacroix to acquiesce to his demands. She wouldn’t want her position at Wake Forest to be jeopardized, nor her reputation as a top researcher.

Notarizing the document would only verify it was Mal who signed it, but not the authenticity of it. It was still better than nothing and would at least let Vivian know how seriously he was taking this.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab assistants
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab assistants
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 8
Beating the Devil - Chapter 8

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

Recap of Chapter 7: At the kids’ insistence about getting a puppy, Julia calls Maddy for information about breeders, then calls and makes an appointment to see Lab puppies on Saturday.

While Brian is planning what to say to Mal, Mal calls him, and Brian tells him he will write a confession, which they will get notarized. He also tells Mal to give him the $25,000 he was paid by Vivian Delacroix up front and that he will get Vivian to pay the other $25,000 he was promised on completion of the job. With the $50,000, Brian will take charge of paying for Mal’s daughter’s heart transplant bills.

Mal is extremely regretful for betraying Brian and overwhelmed by the fact that Brian won’t notify the police or press charges against him. Brian is willing to give him a break since he, himself, had many second chances in his youth.

Brian also makes plans to pay Vivian a surprise visit.

Chapter 8

Brian was eating a sandwich in his office when Mal arrived at 1:00. He handed Brian a cashier’s check for $25,000. He’d also prepared a timeline with details of all the interactions he’d had with Vivian Delacroix and her brother to make his handwritten confession complete and accurate. He had included names, locations, dates, techniques used, and the results.

Brian scanned the timeline and said, “Mal, why don’t you sit here and write the confession, including how you voluntarily gave up the money? I’d like you to provide a statement that the events are truthful to the best of your recollection and that you aren’t writing this under duress. Don’t sign it, though. We’ll have you do that in front of the notary. As I told you, I don’t plan to do anything with this confession other than hold it over Vivian Delacroix’s head.”

Mal nodded. When he had finished, Brian looked it over. Satisfied with the results, he made a copy for Mal. Together, they headed for the bank in Brian’s SUV.

They drove for a few minutes without speaking. When the silence became awkward, Mal broke it by saying, “You didn’t run another test. What convinced you there was contamination? I didn’t think you could figure it out so fast.”

“Believe it or not, it was a cancer-sniffing dog who came over to double-check the results. We knew immediately there were at least 10 false positives. The dog identified almost all the ones we induced cancer in and none of the others who had tested positive.”

“That’s amazing. I know dogs have great noses, but smelling cancer? Where did you get the idea for that?”

Brian told him the story of meeting Maddy and Bo and the thought processes he and Abby had gone through to narrow the contamination down to sabotage.

Arriving at the bank, they headed in to meet with the notary. She checked Mal’s ID and watched him sign his confession, noting that he did so voluntarily without a word from Brian. She affixed her stamp to the document, and they were on their way in a matter of minutes.

They said little on the way back to Brian’s, but shortly before arriving, Mal started to say, “Brian, I—” but immediately began choking up. He paused for a few moments to compose himself. “I know I’m going to agonize over this for being the worst decision I ever made. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and there’s no valid excuse for what I did. And even when you found out, you’ve continued to be kind about it. I don’t deserve it, and I’ll never forget it.”

“Mal, I believe you. And as someone who has made many mistakes and poor decisions in my past, I also believe in second chances. Learn from it and become a better person for it, and someday I hope you’ll forgive yourself for this one lapse of judgment. My thoughts are with you and your family as you face a much more significant event that will make this incident pale by comparison. Give all your attention and your love and support to your wife and daughter now. They’ll need you to be strong for them.

“I will.”

Brian held out his hand, and Mal shook it.

Vivian Delacroix was in a foul mood. One of her more mediocre students had just left her office after having wasted her precious time and energy attempting to explain tumor heterogeneity to her. The girl left, practically in tears, but Vivian had little sympathy. That was a half-hour of her life she would never get back. Maybe it’s something in the food supply because these Gen Z kids seem to be stupider than past generations.

Her research was not going well either. Her most recent experiment had been a failure, and she had no idea why. She had a few minutes before her next student was scheduled to bother her again, and she simply sat brooding about how rotten things were lately.

She was an attractive woman of 55, tall and athletic-looking but with an imperious demeanor that her students found off-putting. Not that she particularly cared what they thought.

She honestly didn’t give a shit about teaching and taught as few classes as she could get away with. She routinely got poor evaluations from her students, which she fully expected and couldn’t care less about. Her true value to the department was her reputation as a cancer researcher, and in that, she was cutting edge and highly successful.

She was feeling the pressure of her recent failed experiments, though. She was even beginning to have doubts about her blood-based approach to early cancer detection.

What plagued her was the memory of that horrible dinner last year when that upstart asshole, Brian Kendrick, had challenged her with his own approach to early cancer detection using breath samples. She’d pooh-poohed the idea at the time, but she was beginning to wonder if that wasn’t the better approach after all.

And why hadn’t she heard anything from Malcolm Roberts for over a week? She had paid him good money to slow Brian down, and she expected to hear the results of the test he had helped sabotage two weeks ago. She would call him as soon as office hours ended and give him hell.

As she sat stewing about all the things troubling her, in walked Brian Kendrick. She was startled, and her heart fluttered briefly, but she quickly plastered on a smile.

“Brian Kendrick. What a surprise! What brings you to town?”

“Vivian, let’s cut the crap. I think you know what brings me here. I noticed that look on your face when I came in. I know all about Mal and what he attempted to do for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Drop the act, will you? I’ve got a signed and notarized confession from Mal about what you paid him to do. It wasn’t hard to figure out from the way you had him go about it. You really could use some lessons in sabotage. But there isn’t going to be any more of that.”

“Let me see that,” she said, reaching her hand out for the document.

“And don’t bother trying to shred it; it’s only a copy.”

She looked it over and noted the part where Mal stated he had been paid half the money up front but gave Brian the cashier’s check for the $25,000.

“This document will never hold up in court. My lawyers could make mincemeat out of it.”

“I’m not planning to go to the police or press charges unless you force me to. Here’s what you’re going to do instead: In exchange for my keeping quiet—both to the cops and, more importantly, your employer—you’re going to give me the other 25 grand in the form of a cashier’s check, and you’re going to promise me you’ll leave both me and Mal’s family alone from now on. Hassle me about the check, or if I find out you’ve come after Mal or me, your reputation will be in the toilet. There are several other people in the know about this, so if something were to happen to me, you’ll never get away with it.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you turn around and get the hell out before I call security? I’ve got plenty of goods on you too, Brian. How about your addiction to painkillers and those stints in rehab my investigators discovered about you?”

“Won’t work, Vivian. Old news. If your investigators were worth their salt, they would have learned there’s no traction there. Already been many articles about the irony of a teenage opioid junkie inventing an opioid replacement that has brought addiction-free pain relief to millions.”

“So, Mr. High and Mighty. You want me to pay you 25 grand, or you’ll go blabbing? You’re no better than a common blackmailer.”

“Hardly. I’m not keeping it. I’ll be paying Mal’s daughter’s medical bills with the money I collected from him and now you.”

She was silent for a moment with no ready retort.

“Why do you do cancer research, Vivian?” Brian asked.

This had come out of nowhere, and she was at a momentary loss for words. “What’s it to you?”

“I’m just interested in what motivates people. In my case, my mother-in-law, who I’m very fond of, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago and was already at stage 4. There are so many cancers like that, which often don’t present with symptoms until it’s too late, as you well know. That’s what got me interested. So, what was it for you?”

Brian’s question gave her pause, and pictures of her father’s excruciating pain flashed through her mind. She was an only child to two doctors. A daddy’s girl, she had loved him dearly. When he developed brain cancer while she was a senior in high school, she took the last semester off to care for him until hospice was required and then simply to be with him. She had already been early-admitted to Duke University and had plenty of credits to graduate high school, so she could afford the time off.

She watched her father deteriorate rapidly with a fast-growing glioblastoma for which he refused treatment. He had known enough patients whose quality of life during treatment was little better than without it—sometimes even worse—and only prolonged life for a few additional months. He decided to let nature take its course and was dead before she graduated in the spring.

She had once planned to pursue a career in art, but with her father’s illness, and her mother’s relentless pressure, she changed course and studied medicine, leading eventually to a highly successful career in cancer research.

She simply said to Brian, “My father died of brain cancer when I was 17. It was too late to do anything about it. It was a very painful death.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Let me leave you with this thought: If someone were on the verge of a discovery that could have saved your father, but someone else attempted to slow it down for whatever reason, how would you have felt? Isn’t preserving life, be it your father’s or someone else’s, the most important thing?”

She could only stare through him with a faraway look in her eyes.

“I’ll be waiting for the check in the mail,” Brian said and turned toward the door.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab assistants
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab assistants
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 9
Beating the Devil - Chapter 9

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 8: Mal arrives at the lab and gives Brian the cashier’s check for $25,000. Brian then has him write out his confession, and they take it to get notarized. Mal expresses extreme regret to Brian for betraying him, and Brian wishes him well.

Brian pays Vivian Delacroix a surprise visit during her office hours. He confronts her with the confession from Mal and demands that she send him a cashier’s check for the remaining $25,000 and leave Mal and him alone. Brian will use the money in addition to Mal’s check to pay for Mal’s daughter’s medical bills.

In exchange, Brian tells Vivian he will keep quiet to the police and her employer. She threatens to expose Brian’s past instead, but Brian informs her that is already well known. He asks her why she got into cancer research, and we learn it was because her father died from inoperable brain cancer. Brian leaves her with the thought that they shouldn’t try to slow each other down and to remember why she got into cancer research.

Chapter 9

Later that night, Brian called Abby to update her on recent events. “Good and bad news again, I’m afraid.”

“Give it to me.”

“The good news is that I caught the saboteur red-handed, and he won’t be a problem anymore. The bad news is that it was my favorite lab technician, who I fired, of course, and I’m going to miss him.”

“Did you find out who he’s working for?”

“Yep, and I think that’s all taken care of.”

He related to her the details of his visit with Vivian Delacroix and his decision not to bring charges against her.

“That’s pretty admirable, the way you handled it, Brian. I’m not sure I could have gone as easy on her. I just hope she sends you the check and leaves you alone from now on. Is she a decent scientist anyway?”

“One of the best, but she’s a shitty person. I’m just really sorry to lose Mal. I’ve got to find a replacement for him now. Our next phase of the project is going to require it. Speaking of which, do you feel like paying us a visit so you can see the home breathalyzers in action and spend some time working on the new calibrations with me? We know your algorithms work correctly now, but the calibrations will be different from the ones for the lab breathalyzer.”

“Yeah, sure. When should I come?”

They made arrangements for Abby to fly down on Monday and stay with them for a few days, as she had done many times before.

On Saturday morning, the day had finally arrived for the trip to Pat Malloy, Breeders to pick out the puppy.

“Oh boy, we’re getting a puppy today!” cried Lindsay over breakfast.

“Not quite,” said Julia. “We’re only going to see them and pick one out today, but remember, we can’t bring him home for two more weeks.”

“Dammit!” said Lindsay.

“Hey, missy, that’s not a word you should be saying.”

“But you say it sometimes, Momma. And Daddy says it too.”

“We shouldn’t say it either. It’s not a nice word. Say ‘Darn it’ instead or ‘Phooey.’”

“I like that one. Phooey!”

Johnny looked at Brian, and they grinned at each other.

“That’s better. I agree—phooey, but those are the rules. The puppies still need their momma’s milk, and they still need to play with their brothers and sisters a while longer. Plus, we need a little time to buy everything he’s going to need, like a cage, and a carrier, and food and water bowls, and other things.”

Johnny said, “We’re going to put him in a cage? Like at the zoo? How will we play with him then?”

“I should have called it a crate instead of a cage. When a new puppy comes to a house with lots of activity, it can sometimes be too much for him, so he needs a safe place to relax away from all the excitement. He’ll sleep there at night until he’s bigger, and it also helps with potty training so he can learn to hold it until he’s let out. He won’t stay in it for too long at a time while we’re here, but if we have to leave for a while, we’ll put him in it so he won’t tear up the whole house. Puppies can chew things up in no time. He’ll be comfortable in there.”

“Can we go now, Momma?” asked Lindsay.

“Finish your breakfast first, then get dressed, and we’ll leave in half an hour.”

“Yippee!” she cried, turned to her brother, and they gave each other a high five.

Pat Malloy, Breeders was located in a country setting on the outskirts of Gastonia, North Carolina. When the Kendricks drove up and parked in a small lot for five or six cars, they were greeted by both Pat and Terri Malloy, who were sitting on the large front porch of their farmhouse style house. They were both 50-ish and lean, wearing jeans and T-shirts with the company’s name and logo. They came down off the porch, introduced themselves, and shook hands with Brian and Julia.

Terri squatted down to address the kids at eye level. “So, you’ve come to pick out a puppy?” she said, addressing Lindsay and Johnny directly. “We’ve got two litters in that building over there. We have both cocker spaniel pups and Lab pups. Wanna see them?”

Johnny said, “We don’t need lab pups. My daddy uses rats in his lab. We want a puppy to play with.”

Pat stifled a laugh while Terri smiled and winked at Brian and Julia. “I meant Labrador Retriever puppies like the one your momma told me about on the phone. We call them Lab pups for short. We have two chocolate ones and three yellow ones from the same litter.”

“Chocolate puppies?” said Lindsay. “But we want a real one.”

Pat Malloy couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. The other adults joined in.

“That’s their color—chocolate brown,” said Pat. “Let’s go see ‘em.”

They all made for the outbuilding where the kennels were, Johnny and Lindsay bounding well ahead.

The outer office was clean and well lit. The walls were covered with wallpaper featuring many breeds of dogs. Pat opened a soundproof door to a hallway containing many doors. After a short walk down the hall, he showed the Kendricks into a 12 by 12 foot room where the Labs were.

The room was subdivided into several distinct areas. A yellow Lab named Gypsy was lying on her side nursing her five puppies in the whelping area. There was also a play area with many dog toys strewn about, an area with puppy pads for toileting, and an area for food and water bowls. The room was similarly well lit and clean.

When the family entered the room, three of the five puppies finished suckling and bounded over to them. Two were yellow females, while the male was chocolate-colored.

“They’re so cute,” said Lindsay, and she and Johnny got down on their knees. The chocolate one began licking both their faces and was the more excited of the three, while the other two hung back and watched.

Pat said, “We plan to have ‘em fully weaned in two more weeks. Terri and I will leave y’all alone with ‘em for a while so you can get acquainted. I’ll be out in the front office when you’re ready to talk.”

Julia and Brian thanked the Malloys, who closed the door and left.

Gypsy finished up with the two who’d continued nursing, and all of them came over to greet the Kendricks. Johnny and Lindsay were absolutely delighted to be licked, sniffed, and crawled over by the five puppies, who kept them constantly entertained with their antics. After 20 minutes of nonstop play, the family had come to a unanimous decision and filed out of the room and down the hall to find Pat at his desk.

“Did you make a choice?”

“We want the chocolate boy doggy,” said Lindsay.

“Yep, we all agreed,” said Julia. “Can we pay a deposit to reserve him?”

“Absolutely. That will be $500 right now and $1,500 more when you come to bring him home. He’ll be reserved just for you. You picked my favorite one of the litter too. You’re going to love him.”

Pat filled Brian and Julia in on the various immunizations the puppies already had and gave them some papers to read over for first-time dog owners. They arranged for a time to come get the puppy in two weeks.

Julia said, “You’ve got a beautifully run business here, Pat. I’m so glad Maddy McPhail recommended you.”

“Thank you, Julia. That’s how we get most of our business—through word-of-mouth. Glad you found a puppy you liked. It looks like a great family he’ll become part of. I’ll see y’all in two weeks.”

Author Notes Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab assistants
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab assistants
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 10
Beating the Devil - Chapter 10

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 9: Brian calls Abby and tells her Mal was the saboteur but that he was paid by Vivian Delacroix. He relates how he fired Mal and hopefully solved the problem with Vivian. He invites Abby to come help interview a new lab tech and to begin the next phase of testing.

The Kendrick family visits the dog breeder to pick out a new puppy. They unanimously agree on a 6-week-old chocolate Lab, who they will bring home in two weeks when he’s mature enough.

Chapter 10

On the way home, the kids couldn’t stop talking about the puppy.

“Alright, guys, we’re going to have to choose a name for him. Any ideas?” asked Brian.

Johnny said, “I think we should call him Earl.”

“Why am I not surprised?” said Brian. “After your favorite banjo player, Earl Scruggs, right?”

“Right.”

“I think we should name him after a boy violinist,” countered Lindsay.

“Who would you suggest, Linds? Pinchas? Maybe Itzhak?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I guess Earl is okay.”

“You good with that, Momma?” asked Brian.

“Yep.”

“Me too. Okay, then, Earl it is… unless you want to call him Scruggs instead.”

Johnny made a face. “Nope, Earl.”

In the afternoon, Brian got to work finding a replacement for Mal. His best source of applicants was his friend Paul Rieke, the head of the biochemistry department at North Carolina State University. Paul had been his organic chemistry teacher when he was a freshman there. He had been one of the ones who gave Brian a second chance in his battle with opioid addiction.

When he was 16, Brian had been in an auto accident through his own careless driving. He was prescribed opioids to relieve his chronic back pain and soon became addicted to them. It was in rehab that he met Julia, who was suffering from addiction to barbiturates she had been taking to relieve the immense performance anxiety her mother created for her. They fell in love, and both helped each other break their respective addictions. But he reinjured his back in a weight-lifting accident near the end of his freshman year of college, and he got addicted again.

It was Paul Rieke who took Brian under his wing and gave him a job in his lab that summer on the condition that he attend a support group for addicts. He also helped steer Brian in the career direction that led to his eventual creation of the highly successful Glyptophan. He has been a good friend and colleague to Brian ever since.

“Good to hear from you, Brian,” said Paul. “How is your project going? Last time we spoke, you were about to begin testing Abby’s VOC detection model.”

“Well, we demonstrated that her model works, but in the process, I lost my favorite lab technician, Malcolm Roberts.” He filled Paul in on the details and who was ultimately responsible.

“That’s too bad about Mal, but Vivian Delacroix? Jeez. I can’t believe someone with her reputation would stoop that low. That really surprises me. I’m proud of you and Julia for the stance you’ve taken about it, though. So, I imagine you’re calling for a recommendation to replace Mal?”

“You know me well, Paul. Have you got anyone in mind who might be looking for a lab technician’s job?”

Without having to put much thought into it, he said, “Roberta Chen comes to mind. She graduated this spring. She’s a seriously good student who got A’s in all of my classes. I believe she may be in the market for such a job.”

Brian got her contact information and thanked Paul for the recommendation. They chatted for a while, and when they hung up, Brian gave Roberta a call, which she answered.

“Roberta, my name is Brian Kendrick. I’m a cancer researcher looking for a lab technician, and I was given your name by Dr. Paul Rieke. He was my professor and employer when I went to NC State about 20 years ago, and we’re good friends now.”

“Yes, Dr. Kendrick. I’m well aware of who you are. Dr. Rieke spoke of you quite often. You’re the inventor of Glyptophan, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s just Mr. Kendrick. I never went for a doctorate. In fact, you can simply call me Brian. Anyway, I’m looking for a lab technician to help me with the development of an early cancer detection system, and I was wondering if you would be interested in applying for the position? Are you currently working now?”

“Only part-time in my father’s pharmacy while I’m applying for jobs. I’m kind of picky about what I’m looking for. I’m also considering going for a master’s degree in neuroscience.”

“That’s my specialty too, but there’s a surprising overlap between it and cancer research. If you think you might be interested in the position, I’d be happy to describe how my system works and what your role in it would be.”

“Yes, I’m definitely interested in hearing about it.”

Brian described the nanoparticle pill that would bind with cancer cells and trigger the release of VOCs that could then be detected by the second component—the home breathalyzer.

When he finished his explanation, Roberta said, “That sounds fascinating, but there’s something I don’t quite understand about it. If cancer cells emit their own VOCs, why not just detect those with your breathalyzer? Why do you need the nanoparticle pill?”

“That’s a great question, Roberta. The reason is that the VOCs emitted by the cancer cells in the early stages are of such a low concentration, they may not be detectable yet. However, the pill will amplify the signals. The nanoparticles will seek out and bind to the cancer cells, causing a burst of VOCs in much greater concentrations. This makes it easier to detect even very small tumors at the beginning of their development. That’s the theory anyway. The whole idea is to detect them as early as possible and to get the patients going on a treatment regimen. That will give them the best chance of survival.”

Brian described his laboratory and equipment and told Roberta what her duties as a lab technician would be. He also talked up the fact that he would do his best to explain the science to her as well as encourage her to participate in the experimental design and implementation.

Roberta said, “This sounds like a terrific opportunity. I’d be very interested in applying for the job. Should I send you my CV?”

“Yes, I’d appreciate that,” and he gave her his email. “Would you be able to come next week for an interview? My partner, Abby Payne, will be here much of the week, so if you could come one day next week, you’ll get to meet her too.”

They settled on Tuesday at 1:00 PM, and she thanked him for the opportunity.

Brian met Abby at the airport on Monday afternoon. Abby is an attractive 65-year-old woman who was a striking redhead up until a few years ago. Her hair is now a beautiful platinum color, which she wears shoulder length.

Once they left the mayhem typical of Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and Brian could concentrate, Abby said, “So, what’s been happening since we last spoke? Did Vivian Delacroix send you that check yet?”

“Not yet, but I’m fairly certain she will. Someone with her reputation doesn’t want to see it destroyed, and she knows I mean business.”

“I hope you’re right for Mal’s daughter’s sake. I imagine he’s pretty grateful to you for letting him off so easily.”

“Yeah, but he’s carrying around a lot of shame and guilt right now. He knows he screwed up. On a better note, though, we’ll be conducting an interview for his replacement tomorrow. Paul Rieke, whom you’ve met, recommended one of his recent graduates for the position. Her name is Roberta Chen, and her CV is fantastic.”

“Good. I look forward to meeting her.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab techs
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab techs
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 11
Beating the Devil - Chapter 11

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 10: On the way home with the new puppy, the family decides to name him Earl, after Johnny’s favorite banjo player, Earl Scruggs.

Brian calls Paul Rieke, his old professor at NC State whom he is now good friends with. He asks Paul for a recommendation for a lab tech to replace Mal. Paul recommends Roberta Chen, whom Brian calls. She expresses interest in the position and sends Brian her CV.

Brian then picks Abby up at the airport. She has come for a working visit and will help interview Roberta.

Chapter 11

As soon as she got in the front door, Johnny and Lindsay came bounding up. “Hi, Miss Abby,” said Johnny. “Guess what!”

“Hi, Johnny. Hmm… You can play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” faster than your momma now?”

“Well… almost, but guess again.”

“We’re getting a puppy!” squealed Lindsay.

“You are? Isn’t that wonderful!”

“Yes, he’s going to be just like Bo, except he’s chocolate.”

“A chocolate puppy?”

“She means chocolate-colored,” corrected Johnny. “His name is Earl.”

“I’ll bet you named him, didn’t you, Johnny?”

“Yep.”

Julia came in from the kitchen to greet Abby, who had visited and stayed with the Kendricks often over the past five years. They have become good friends.

They all retreated to the screened porch, where Brian served margaritas to the grownups while the kids enjoyed Cokes. The kids talked non-stop about the new puppy until Julia finally told them to give Miss Abby some peace and encouraged them to go practice the pieces they wanted to play for her later.

“Sorry about that,” said Julia.

“Oh, not at all. They’re adorable. You two are doing such a good job with them.”

“Well, thank you,” said Julia. “Abby, we’re going to have some Carolina barbecue from Bubba’s for dinner tonight. I’ll go pick it up in a few minutes. If you’d like a short rest before dinner, you’ll have time.”

“No, I’m fine. I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s going on down in the lab, though.”

“Great,” said Brian. “Larry should still be here, and I can have him show you the breathalyzers he’s been building for a couple of days now. These are the ones you’ll be adjusting your algorithms for.”

When they descended the stairs to the basement lab, Abby greeted Larry, whom she had met on several previous occasions. Larry tended to be curt with people who visited the lab, but he had always been awed by Abby’s quiet intellect and was most deferential to her.

“Brian tells me you’ve been constructing the breathalyzers, Larry.”

“Yes, I’ve been enjoying putting these components together, and I’m anxious to see how well they work. With your and Brian’s expertise, I fully expect accurate results very quickly.”

Brian had to stifle a snort at this bit of brown-nosing.

“I have to say, you have a lot more confidence than me,” said Abby. “These are the first devices ever that have the GC-MS functionality built right into a small device. If we can get their results to compare to these relative behemoths over here,” she said, pointing to the full-size gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer in the lab, “then I’d say we’ve really got something special.”

“Frankly, I think it would be worthy of a Nobel Prize,” said Larry earnestly.

Brian had to bite his lip at this obsequious remark and then said, “We’ll get our first chance to see it in action the next few days, assuming we have one ready. Abby will be with us until Thursday evening. Will you have one completely built to begin testing tomorrow morning?”

“I’ve been working on all six because it seems most efficient that way, but since you need a completed one for tomorrow, I’ll be happy to work late and get one ready.”

“We’d appreciate that. And just to let you know, Larry, Abby and I will be interviewing a candidate for Mal’s replacement tomorrow at 1:00.”

“Good to hear.”

Once Brian and Abby returned upstairs, Brian said, “God, he’s so much nicer when you’re around. He knew about your trip here and that he’d need one completed breathalyzer ready. I think all that about working late was to impress you with his dedication.”

Abby just laughed.

“Hey, how about another margarita while we wait for Julia to return with the food?”

“You don’t have to twist my arm.”

Relaxing again on the porch, they could hear both banjo and violin sounds coming from upstairs.

“The kids love an audience and were excited about your visit so they could play for you.”

“Well, I can’t wait to hear them. Last time I heard Johnny play, I was so impressed with how good he was, and now Lindsay is playing the violin at age 4!”

“They got their mother’s music genes. They certainly didn’t get them from me.”

Julia soon returned with the food, and she and Abby put it into bowls to serve buffet style while Brian went upstairs to retrieve the kids.

Over a dinner of Southern comfort food, including barbecued pork ribs, collard greens, baked beans, mac and cheese, and, of course, hushpuppies, the conversation was lively, most of it centered around the new puppy and the experience the family had when Bo visited.

“Are you planning to train Earl to be a cancer-sniffing dog?” asked Abby.

“No, probably not,” said Julia. “I may eventually start training him to be a therapy dog, though. That’s what Bo is, and the program sounded wonderful the way Maddy described it to me. I think we’ll just let him be a plain old puppy for a while before I start thinking about that.”

“How’s your mom doing, Julia? Still as feisty and determined as ever?”

“She’s doing very well, thank you. Still in remission, going on five years now, and feeling great, she says. I think having these two grandchildren gave her extra incentive to undergo all that radiation and chemotherapy. She visits as often as she can. She’s still active in the New York Philharmonic and was recently promoted to the first violin section by winning an audition for it. You never know; she may even end up being concertmaster one day.”

“That’s great to hear. If Brian and I can get our system working, we’ll be able to detect such cancers way before stage 4. You know, I don’t remember if I ever told you, but I have a personal stake in this project too. A very good friend of Kenny’s and mine died just a few years ago of pancreatic cancer. His name was Eddie Phillips, and he was Kenny’s business partner and best friend. He’s the one who introduced Kenny and me.

“He was a wonderful man who once threw himself in front of a car to push our granddaughter out of harm’s way when she ran into the street to greet him. He survived it with a few broken bones, but it wasn’t long after that when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died eight months later.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Brian.

“What happened to your granddaughter?” asked Lindsay.

“Oh, she was fine. She got a bump on her head when she was pushed into the curb, but Eddie probably saved her life.”

“That was awfully brave to leap in front of a car to save her,” said Julia.

“He loved our little Emily. He was quite a character—a real wise guy and very crude. I’ve got a funny story about him the day he introduced me to Kenny, but first, what’s your family’s position on f-a-r-t-s?”

“Oh, we’re big on farts in this family. No worries there!” said Brian. “Especially when they involve Momma, right, guys?”

“Momma says she never farts, but she lies. I’ve smelled ‘em,” said Johnny, cracking up, and Lindsay joined in.

“Alright, mister, that’s enough of that,” said Julia with a mock frown. “Yours don’t exactly smell like roses either.”

When the laughter finally died down, Abby continued, “Well, anyway, I was working at the snack bar at a country club one summer when I was 20, and Eddie, who I knew pretty well, walks up with Kenny, who was fairly new to the club. They were competing against each other for the club championship, and they had just finished the first nine holes. Eddie introduces us, and there is an instant attraction.

“Later, I decided to bring drinks out to them because it was a hot day, so I load up some drinks on a cart, and I catch them on the 17th hole. Kenny is just about to take his swing when Eddie lets one rip. Kenny stops, and Eddie apologizes. So, Kenny gets ready to swing again, and just as he starts taking the club back, Eddie lets another one rip. Kenny stops his swing, and I punch Eddie in the arm and tell him to cut it out. I know he’s doing it on purpose because when I served him at the snack bar, he ordered a chili dog with extra onions.

“Eddie apologizes again and says he’ll move away behind some bushes. So, Kenny starts to get ready again, but he hesitates because he knows Eddie isn’t finished yet, and sure enough, Eddie blasts three short ones, which we can still hear. There are these officials watching the match, and everyone just breaks up, including Kenny. I’m laughing so hard that it hurts. So, I pull Eddie onto the cart, and we take off down the fairway to get him out of there so Kenny can finally hit. That’s the kind of guy Eddie was.”

When the laughter in the Kendrick family died down, Brian asked, “So, who won the match?”

“Well, another thing about Eddie was that he was lucky. People used to call him Lucky Eddie. This part is almost unbelievable. They’re tied going into the 18th hole, which is a par-3 hole. I stayed around to watch the last hole, and man, I’m glad I did.

“Kenny hits first and hits a beauty about eight feet from the hole. Then Eddie hits this very low shot, which is going way too fast and will run off the back of the green, but his ball hits Kenny’s ball and caroms right into the hole for a hole-in-one, and Eddie wins the match just like that. The most amazing thing I ever saw. He goes stomping around the tee, saying, “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Then he jumps into Kenny’s arms with his legs around him and starts pumping his fist into the air. Kenny just shakes his head and carries him over to the cart where I’m sitting and puts him down. They became best friends after that.”

“What a story,” said Brian, laughing. “I can see how you loved the guy and how much he meant to you.”

Abby grew silent for a few moments and stared. With a slight quaver in her voice, she said, “Yes, he was very dear to us. If only our system had been up and running a few years ago.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 12
Beating the Devil - Chapter 12

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 11: Abby arrives at the Kendrick house, and the kids tell her all about the new puppy they are getting. Brian takes Abby downstairs to the basement lab, where she greets Larry, who fawns over Abby. When Brian asks him if he will have a breathalyzer ready to begin testing the following day, Larry promises to work late to complete one. Brian sees through this and knows he probably already has one ready because he knew about Abby’s visit and was just trying to impress her with his dedication.

At dinner, Abby relates what prompted her to get involved with the early cancer detection project. She tells a funny story about her and her husband’s good friend Eddie, who died of pancreatic cancer that went undiagnosed until it was too advanced.

Chapter 12

Larry was true to his word and had the first home breathalyzer built and ready for testing on Tuesday morning.

Abby said, “Larry, perhaps you could show me the main components from the half-built ones here on the table. I have a general understanding of how they all work together, but I’d like to see what goes into the construction.”

“I’d be happy to,” he said, picking up the first of the major components. It was a small chamber fitted with a polypropylene filter. “When the user breathes into the breathalyzer, this filtration system needs to filter out the moisture and any non-VOC particulates from the breath.”

He placed that down and picked up the next major component. “The filtered breaths then flow into this mini-gas chromatograph, which separates out the different VOCs.”

He placed that down and picked up the other key component. “The separated VOCs are then identified and quantified by this mini-mass spectrometer. It also contains the data processing unit that you wrote the analysis algorithms for. That’s the real heart of the cancer detection right there, as you well know. All the rest just provides the data for you to analyze. The results are then sent to the mobile app, which resides on the user’s phone. That’s it in a nutshell. Sounds simple, but there’s obviously a lot to it.”

“Thanks, Larry. You described that very well,” said Abby. “But your test subjects are rats. I assume there must be some modifications for the difference in size between rats and humans.”

“Great point, Abby,” said Brian. “You’re exactly right. What Larry just described through his excellent summary was the setup for a human breathing into the apparatus. A rat’s lung capacity is only 1/500th the size of a human’s, though, so we have to concentrate the VOCs, or we’d never detect them. Why don’t we begin the testing, and we’ll show you how that’s done?”

“Perfect. I’m going to take some notes,” said Abby.

“Me too. Let’s mark down the time and date of our very first test of the home breathalyzer: 9:00 AM on July 18, 2031.”

Larry retrieved rat #1 that had been induced with liver cancer and placed him into a clear plastic collection box.

Brian said, “This box serves much the same purpose as a puppy crate, like Julia told us about. It allows the rat to relax and breathe normally without producing any stress-related VOCs.”

Together, Brian and Larry described the different modifications they had made to concentrate the rat’s breaths so they would mimic human breaths for pumping through the breathalyzer.

When the home breathalyzer test was complete, and the results were recorded, Brian told Abby, “Now we need data to compare these results to, so we’ll also employ the standard laboratory method of analysis using the lab’s breathalyzer, full-size gas chromatograph, and mass spectrometer.”

When this new set of data had been compiled, the three of them made the comparison. “Hmm,” said Abby. “Not particularly close. I guess it would have been a miracle if they were on the first try.”

“Yep. About what I expected,” said Brian.

“Damn! I thought they’d be almost identical,” said Larry.

Brian had a wan smile and couldn’t help but give a slight shake of the head at this remark, which he knew to be a form of shameless flattery. “Now, we need to do it all over again and see if the results are repeated. If so, we’ll begin adjusting things from there.

The second complete test on rat #1 took them right up to noon. It was a tedious process that would likely require hundreds of iterations with lots of tweaking in between and thousands of hours. It was an absolutely critical step, though, in creating a repeatable, accurate detection system.

The team broke for lunch. Larry was a Taco Bell junkie and headed out, while Brian and Abby went upstairs to join Julia and the kids.

“How did it go?” asked Julia.

“I guess about how we expected,” said Brian. “The results were not very close by comparison, but we identified the factors to look at and tweak to get them closer. It’s going to take a while.”

“Ah, too bad they weren’t closer.”

“There are just so many things that can affect the outcome,” said Abby. “Larry was a lot more confident than we were.”

“Yeah,” said Brian, “but that was just Larry being Larry. Who knows what he really thought?”

“Well, are you ready for a nice lunch?” asked Julia. “I made some chicken salad, and we’ve got croissants to make sandwiches.”

“That sounds wonderful, Julia,” said Abby.

The kids joined them for lunch and filled Abby and their daddy in on the puppy purchases they made that morning at the pet store.

“Momma says we have to puppy-proof the house,” said Johnny. “That means we have to take away all the fun stuff to chew.”

“What if he tries to chew Nadia, Momma?” said Lindsay.

“I think Nadia will be able to take care of herself. She’ll give him a good swat if he tries. Your brother used to get plenty of swats when he got too rambunctious with her.”

“I still do, but it’s kind of funny when she swats me now.”

“Funny to you, maybe, but you probably annoy her.”

He was sorry he mentioned it, so he changed the subject back to puppy-proofing the house. “And we bought these things to cover all the electric wires to lamps and stuff so he can’t chew ‘em.”

“That’s smart,” said Abby. “Did you also buy him some things that he can chew instead?”

Lindsay said, “We bought him a squeaky pork chop, and a real pig’s ear, and a xylobone.”

Johnny said, “It’s a Nylabone, stupid. You’re thinking of a xylophone.”

Brian said, “We don’t use that word in this family. Apologize to your sister.”

“Which word: Nylabone or xylophone?”

“Johnny, you know the one I meant.”

“Sorry, Linds. You’re not that stupid.”

The grownups stifled a laugh, but Lindsay seemed okay with it and said, “I like xylobone better.”

“Attagirl, Linds,” said Julia. “You call it a xylobone if you want to.”

The conversation about the puppy continued until the doorbell rang at 10 minutes to 1:00.

“I think our applicant is here,” said Brian as he got up to answer the door.

Brian greeted Roberta Chen and introduced her to Abby and his family. Then he, Abby, and Roberta headed down to the lab. Larry had arrived back from lunch, and when he got his first sight of Roberta, he was both surprised and delighted.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 13
Beating the Devil - Chapter 13

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 12: The first test of the home breathalyzer is about to begin. Larry explains the main components to Abby, and Brian explains the modifications necessitated by the rats’ much smaller lungs.

The first test proves quite inaccurate, but this was expected. Abby and Brian are both confident they will be able to make the necessary adjustments to the software and hardware to bring the readings in line with the lab breathalyzer and full-size equipment results.

Over lunch, the kids explain the puppy-proofing of the house and the chew toys they purchased for the puppy when he comes. The doorbell rings, and the candidate for the lab tech position, Roberta Chen, arrives for her interview.

Chapter 13

“Larry,” said Brian, “this is Roberta Chen. She’s applying for the lab tech’s position. Roberta, Larry Posner.”

“Nice to meet you, Larry,” she said as she extended her hand to shake.

Larry gave her a dead fish single shake and muttered, “Same here.” One look at Roberta, and he knew she would be no competition for him. She was a plus-size woman wearing a dark brown pantsuit and flat black shoes. What was the word for her? Dowdy. That was it. And… bovine, perhaps? Yes, a dim-witted, heavy-lidded, bespectacled, poorly dressed Asian cow.

He had hoped she wouldn’t be some highly competent brainiac who would quickly gain favor with Brian, leaving him with all the shit jobs to do, like cleaning out the damn rat cages. But he needn’t have worried.

That had been the great thing about working with Mal. He knew Mal could never best him in a contest of wits. Yeah, Mal had been older, more experienced, and had much greater street smarts, but Larry was sure he had a far superior intellect. He felt smarter than most people he encountered and, for some unexplored reason, felt that he had to be. He knew he wasn’t smarter than Brian or Abby, though. Nor his parents, for that matter. But just about everyone else.

Very intelligent people intimidated him, except perhaps Abby. She was so damn nice and modest that he couldn’t help but act his best around her. It was a strain, though, as it always is when you have to put on an act.

But he’d be able to relax around this Roberta. He was sure of it.

“Abby and I will be conducting the interview in my office,” said Brian, “and maybe afterward you can show Roberta some of what you’ve been doing. Okay, Larry?”

“Sure, yeah, whatever,” he mumbled and turned away to resume his work on the breathalyzers.

Brian gave Abby a sidelong look with a slight frown, and she rolled her eyes.

The three headed into Brian’s office, and once comfortably seated, Brian said, “Well, Roberta, you were at the top of Paul Rieke’s list of recommendations. Could you tell me about yourself and what your career goals are?”

Over the next hour, Brian and Abby learned that Roberta’s ancestors had emigrated from Taiwan several generations ago. She said she’d always been a nerd in school and favored math and science. Abby told her they had much in common in that regard, for Abby had a similar predilection for the STEM subjects.

Brian convinced Roberta that even though her main interest was neuroscience, she would get a thorough training in laboratory work, and the next phase of their project—the development of the nanoparticle pill—would have a significant overlap with the field of neuroscience. Brian had used nanoparticles in his development of Glyptophan, and all the tools and techniques they would be using for the cancer detection pill would serve her very well in her eventual career goal as a neuroscience researcher.

When they had run out of questions for each other, Brian said, “Roberta, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m going to see what Larry is doing now and if he’s ready to show you some of his work in the lab.”

He left Abby and Roberta and found Larry working on the breathalyzers. There were five of them at about the same halfway point in the construction.

“Larry, I’m going to have Roberta sit with you for a while, and I’d like you to describe these breathalyzers to her.”

Without looking up, he said, “No problem.”

“Look, Larry, I sense a certain lack of enthusiasm here, bordering on rudeness. Now, she’s interviewing us as much as we’re interviewing her for this job, and I want us to put our best foot forward. And that means a polite and friendly co-worker, not someone who appears to be sullen and uncommunicative. You with me on this?”

“Message received,” he said as he continued to work without looking up.

“She’s a very nice person, and I think she’ll make a good member of the team.”

“Got it. You may want to do a background check on her, though. You know how famous the Chinese are for intellectual property theft.”

“Yep, we plan to. Just like we did for you.”

The rest of Roberta’s visit went well, and Larry was considerably more civil to her. She asked him a few questions, but nothing that changed his initial impression of her.

Brian thanked Roberta for coming and told her she would hear from him soon.

That evening, Brian and Abby found nothing in Roberta’s background to change their favorable opinion of her. Coupled with Paul Rieke’s ringing endorsement, they mutually agreed she would make an excellent addition to the team. Even Larry had seemed to get along well with her after Brian’s little talk.

They would forego interviewing any other candidates, and Brian would make her an offer the following day.

Around noon, Roberta answered her phone. “Mr. Kendrick, I didn’t expect to hear from you quite so soon.”

“Well, Roberta, Abby and I didn’t see the need to look any further. We both thought you would make a terrific addition to the team, and we’re prepared to make you an offer. Because we are so small and very focused, I want to keep this as simple as I can, so I’m not offering any kind of health insurance or retirement plans. Instead, we will pay you enough to take care of those needs on your own. We work 40 hours a week. Anything over that, you can take as comp time. Although the typical starting salary for a lab technician in North Carolina for someone with your education and limited work experience is around $50,000 a year, we’re prepared to offer you a starting salary of $85,000. You’ll get three weeks of paid time off to start plus all federal holidays. Would this offer interest you? And please call me Brian.”

“Thank you very much for the offer, Brian, but I’ll need some time to think about it. Hmm… okay, I accept. And please call me Bertie.”

They both laughed. “When can I start?”

“As soon as you can get here. Let’s not set a specific date. I’ll leave that up to you to find housing and move to the area. When you’re ready for work, just give me a call the night before.”

That afternoon, Abby was able to wrap up what she needed from this early testing to enable her to work at home on revisions to her modeling algorithms. The modeling required for the miniaturization of parts of the home breathalyzer posed more of a challenge than she’d predicted. The modifications would require all of her advanced mathematical skills. However, it was the sort of challenge she loved.

Brian had a few modifications of his own to make to the design. He and Abby would continue to work closely together because their work was interdependent. But both had a firm belief in each other’s abilities and were confident they would begin to show steady progress in their future tests. He had Larry put a halt on further fabrication of the other five until he’d made his changes.

When he went upstairs after work, Julia handed him the mail addressed to him. This included an envelope with a return address belonging to Vivian Delacroix.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 14
Beating the Devil - Chapter 14

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

Recap of Chapter 13: Larry gives Roberta a cold welcome upon making up his mind that she will not be any competition for him. Brian and Abby conduct the interview and are very impressed with her. Brian then has Larry explain to Roberta what he’s working on after telling him to be more civil.

After a background check on Roberta, Brian and Abby agree she will make an excellent lab tech. Brian makes her an offer, and she accepts it, asking Brian to call her Bertie.

Abby concludes her work for this visit, and she and Brian both have modifications to make to the hardware and software following the first test of the home breathalyzer. An envelope from Vivian Delacroix awaits Brian upstairs.

Chapter 14

For Johnny and Lindsay, the two weeks they had to wait for their new puppy seemed interminable, but the day had finally come to bring him home.

The family arrived at Pat Malloy, Breeders at 10:00 AM that Saturday morning. Pat and Terri were again waiting for them on their front porch. The puppy was with them in a small pen.

Johnny and Lindsay bounded up the three stairs and immediately knelt down next to the pen. “Hi, Earl,” they said together and reached over the side to pet him.

“So, you’ve already picked out his name,” said Terri. “Earl. I like that.”

“We named him after Earl Scruggs,” said Johnny. “He’s a big fan of mine.”

“Is that so?” said Terri, smiling at Julia and winking.

“Can we keep him now?” asked Lindsay.

Pat said, “Yep, as soon as we sign some papers and I give you some instructions, he’s all yours.”

The kids continued to play with Earl while Pat filled Julia and Brian in on the puppy’s health records, which included the vaccinations he’d had so far and his vet reports.

Pat gave them some further information about caring for a new puppy, then addressed the family as a whole but looked mainly at the kids.

“Now this will be his first time away from his momma and brothers and sisters, so he might be nervous about it at first. He may even whine a little because he misses them, but that’s normal. Try not to get him too excited at first, but let him get used to you slowly and calmly. I see you’ve brought a crate for the trip home, which is perfect. And your momma tells me you’ll be crate-training him. That’s also good.

“You’ll want to begin with basic obedience right away, and there’s a pamphlet about it in that packet I gave you. In a few more weeks, you may want to enroll him in ‘Puppy Kindergarten,’ which we conduct right here. The best and easiest time to train them is when they’re young, so think about that.

“Now, Julia, I think you mentioned you might be interested in a therapy dog program, so consider beginning that training sometime between one and two years old, but he should be well trained in obedience first.

Julia nodded. “Thanks for all your good information, Pat.”

“Do you folks have any questions for me?”

No one could think of any, so while Julia placed the puppy in his new crate in the rear of the SUV, Brian paid Pat the balance. Little Earl was now an official member of the Kendrick family.

Bertie Chen became an official member of Brian’s team two days later on Monday. She arrived at 8:00 AM when their day began.

Brian gave her a brief tour of the lab. They ended in the storeroom, which also served as a locker room where coats could be hung and lab coats changed into.

“I’ve got several sizes here,” said Brian. “What would you like?”

Bertie looked them over briefly. “Doesn’t look like anything will fit. I got Ahab the Tentmaker to make the ones I wear at my dad’s pharmacy.”

Brian cracked up. He was going to enjoy this woman.

“I can bring my own, but if you’re providing, I’ll need a size XXL.”

“I’ll order some of those. Maybe you can wear your own for a couple of days until they come in?”

“Sure. I brought one with me.”

Brian then showed her to her workstation with its laptop computer and let her spend some time configuring it to her liking.

Larry arrived at 9:00 while Bertie was receiving instructions from Brian about proper care of the lab rats. She caught his eye and said, “Hi, Larry.”

“Hi, uh… “

“Bertie.”

“Birdy? As in tweet-tweet?”

“No, Bertie, as in Ro-bert-a, but you can call me either Bertie or Birdy; it doesn’t matter to me,” she said, pronouncing them both the same way.

Larry looked at her strangely, but Brian chuckled. He wasn’t sure if Larry got the subtle joke. His sense of humor was almost nonexistent—another reason Brian was looking forward to working with Bertie.

Brian finished describing the rat maintenance duties, which he asked Bertie to perform for the rest of the week. It was an unenviable job that she and Larry would alternate every week.

When she completed the task, Brian called both of them into the small conference room for a discussion of their next major task.

“While I continue making some modifications to the home breathalyzer design, I want both of you to work together designing experiments to test the current formulation of the nanoparticle pill. Are you both familiar with nanoparticles and their limitations?”

Bertie didn’t say anything, but Larry said, “I wouldn’t mind a refresher. I’ve read some on my own, but it’s not something I’ve worked with before.”

“That’s fine. Very briefly, a nanoparticle is an extremely small particle made from a number of different materials, such as metals like gold and silver, polymers, and some other things. To give you an idea of their size, about 300 million of the largest ones can fit on the head of a pin.

“They are terrific in carrying medicines right to the source of the problem because of their ability to target specific cells or tissues like tumors. We’re not about finding and curing cancer with this system, but finding it and stimulating early tumors to give off bursts of VOCs that we can detect and use to diagnose cancer. Are either of you aware of the potential problems, though, with using nanoparticles in this way?”

Brian looked to Larry first, but when he didn’t volunteer anything, he looked at Bertie, who shifted in her chair.

“They may become toxic in the body,” she said. “Certain ones can accumulate in organs like the liver and kidneys. Being a systemic intervention, they enter the bloodstream when administered, and their interaction with internal tissues can impact these organ systems. They can also trigger autoimmune responses and inflammation. The challenge is to find ones that will either become fully degraded after their useful life or be excreted so as not to accumulate.”

Larry stared at her. Oh, shit. There went his supremely confident assessment that she wasn’t very bright. Maybe he would be the odd man out in this group. Then again, maybe she was just good at parroting what she’d learned, and her understanding of the subject wasn’t particularly deep. He knew all that stuff she just spouted too… sort of. Well, this was just one instance of her possible intelligence. He wasn’t convinced of anything yet.

“Yes, very good, Bertie; that’s the challenge—to make sure they don’t become toxic. Now I’ve chosen ones that shouldn’t, but that’s what we have to test. Spend whatever individual time you need studying up on this, but then I’d like you to brainstorm and work together on experiments to test the pill. I’ll provide you with the specifications Abby and I developed for it.”

The meeting was over, and Larry hurried back to his work station. He was determined to study up on nanoparticles and get a leg up on his competition. He may be lacking in knowledge at the moment, but he was certainly bright enough to quickly master the details.

By noon, he was starving. He had overslept this morning and rushed to work without any breakfast. He had made his lunch last night and dug into it now. They typically had an hour for lunch, and Larry would frequently play chess online during his lunch hour. He and Mal used to play occasionally, which Larry enjoyed immensely because he could always beat Mal. He was a very good player and played at about a 2,000 ELO level.

He decided to see if Birdbrain knew how to play, and he sauntered over to her work station, where she too was eating her lunch.

“So, Bertie, are you a chess player?”

“Yeah, I enjoy the game.”

“You any good?”

“Well, I don’t know. I usually beat my dad, but I don’t play too many others. Why? You want to play?”

“Mal, your predecessor, and I used to play. Come on over to my work station. Bring your sandwich.”

Larry got out the board, selected a black and white rook, which he mixed up behind his back, and let Bertie choose. She chose black, and they set up the board.

Larry thought he’d try out the most basic early checkmate scheme known as the Scholar’s Mate. Bertie recognized his sequence of moves instantly and knew how to punish it. Larry made one small mistake in defending against her strategy, and after eight more moves, he found himself checkmated. Yikes! Lucky start.

Since the game was over so quickly, they played another, and Larry didn’t try for any cheap tricks this time but played a solid game with well-thought-out moves. Even so, she managed to fork his king and rook with a knight at one point, thus winning the rook. Jesus, how had he missed that? He began carelessly attacking from that point on, but his moves weren’t well conceived, and she punished him relentlessly. He eventually resigned on about the 60th move. He didn’t say a word except a perfunctory “Good game.”

He had played like crap, but he was convinced now that she was no dummy. How could he have been that wrong about her? It just reinforced the old adage about judging a book. Silently fuming, he put the board away as she returned to her work station.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Callie Bennett: The programmer on the project. She is Abby's cousin.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra-Exp

Chapter 15
Beating the Devil - Chapter 15

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 14: The family goes to the breeder to pick up their new puppy that they have named Earl. The owner gives them instructions for caring for a new puppy and mentions puppy kindergarten.

Bertie Chen begins her first day working as Brian’s new lab tech. Brian calls a meeting with Bertie and Larry to discuss the next phase of the project: the creation of the nanoparticle pill. He asks them to relate what they know about potential problems with nanoparticles, and Larry confesses he’s not too up on it. Bertie gives a perfect answer, suggesting to Larry that she’s not as dumb as he thought.

To convince himself he’s smarter, Larry invites Bertie to play chess, and she beats him in two games. He fumes at this result.

Chapter 15

One week later

“Earl, no. NO!” shouted Julia when she entered the family room and found him chewing on the wooden end of the rocking chair. He had splintered it quite well already in the three minutes he’d been alone.

“Not there.” She looked around on the floor and found a rubber chew toy and brought it to him. “Here, chew this.”

When he took it from her, she said, “Good boy, Earl. Good boy! That’s what we chew.”

She fetched the can of bitter apple spray and sprayed it on the rocker rails to discourage any further chewing on them. She ought to invest in the spray company, as much as she’d been using it lately! He didn’t yet know the difference between furniture and toys, but still, it was maddening.

Johnny and Lindsay were practicing their instruments now, causing Earl to beat a hasty retreat, especially from Lindsay, whose violin sounds he particularly disdained. He was on his own for a while, a situation where he was most prone to puppy mischief.

And then there were the “accidents,” which were also expected from a young puppy. The family tried to take him outside for a short walk at least every two hours to relieve himself or, if it was raining, to a place in the laundry room where Julia had put down puppy pads, but he still had the occasional accident.

Julia had borne the brunt of the new puppy training since Brian was busy in the lab, although he would pick up the slack in the evenings and weekends. They got the kids involved with the puppy chores, as much as kids could reasonably do, but still, the responsibility mostly fell to her.

She’s the one who’d done all the reading of the materials given them, and it was her plan to eventually become involved in the therapy dog program. Earl had a long way to go before that was possible, though.

The kids were great with the amount of attention they gave him but were lax about discipline. They were all learning it together, and it was still a work in progress.

Larry was not nearly as accepting of the challenges Bertie posed to him as Julia was to Earl’s challenges. Everything she did irritated him.

She was much quicker to learn new skills than he was. She could read a set of instructions once and have the steps down pat, while he continually needed to refer to them.

She picked up where Mal had left off, helping to build the breathalyzers. Brian had given them the go-ahead to resume once he’d made a few tweaks to the design. She was adept with tools and got the hang of the fabrication process right away. Brian had instructed them to check each other’s work, and she occasionally found a flaw in Larry’s, while he never found one in hers.

As they worked in close proximity, Larry was repulsed by her breath.

“What did you have for lunch today, a couple of garlic bulbs?” he asked her when he could take it no longer.

“Oh, sorry. It’s a defense mechanism. Guys hit on me so often that it’s my way of warding them off,” she said, deadpan.

He gave her an incredulous look. Jesus! He would never hit on her if she were the last woman on Earth.

“I’m joking.”

He looked away, pursed his lips, and gave a slight shake of the head.

She didn’t quite understand what his problem was with her. She could sense that he found her intimidating, but she was as friendly and non-threatening as she could be. She had always used humor to make herself more accepted because she was aware that her appearance was off-putting, especially with guys. But her humor didn’t seem to work on him.

She had a few good friends, and she could be his friend too if he gave her a chance. But apparently, he had no interest in that. Well, that was his problem, not hers, and she didn’t plan to change just to be accepted by Larry Posner… except perhaps to avoid garlic at lunchtime.

The kids spent much of their time outside with Earl when the weather was good, especially in the mornings when it was cooler. But it was late July, and daytime temperatures were often in the 90s, which frequently drove them indoors in the afternoons.

One Saturday afternoon, Brian was playing with the kids and Earl in the family room. Brian was on the sofa, while Johnny and Lindsay each occupied chairs across the room. They were rolling a ball to each other while Earl would chase it and try to pick it up with his mouth. They noticed, however, that Earl would never chase the ball when it was rolled to Lindsay in her chair, and it upset her.

“I don’t think Earl likes me. He won’t ever come over here, even when I call him,” she said with a hitch in her voice.

“That’s because you stink, Linds,” said Johnny.

“I do not stink. You stink, Johnny!”

“Kids, no one stinks. It’s probably something about the chair he doesn’t like. Why don’t you two try switching chairs and see if it’s Linds or the chair that’s keeping him away?”

They switched chairs and resumed the game. After a while, it became clear.

“See, Johnny, it wasn’t me,” said Lindsay, sticking her tongue out at him. “You were right, Daddy. Maybe the chair stinks.”

“It could be that, or it could be something else—maybe the pattern of the fabric that he doesn’t like. Wanna try setting up an experiment to see what it is?”

The kids thought about it. “Nah,” said Johnny.

“We’d rather just play with him,” said Lindsay.

“Alright then. Just avoid sitting in that chair if you want him to come to you.”

Brian couldn’t help but draw a parallel between Earl’s failure to approach the chair and the way that some nanoparticles won’t be attracted to and bind with certain cancers. There are attributes of particular cancer cells that make them impossible to be targeted by particular nanoparticles.

He was well aware that he would not be able to create a single nanoparticle pill that would seek out all cancers, but only specific ones or at least families of similar ones. He would have to develop several pills, each with different nanoparticles, to target a wider variety of cancers. There may even be some cancers that won’t attract any nanoparticles. Perhaps Vivian’s blood analysis method could pick up those resistant types.

He had received the check he’d demanded from her with a note saying she wouldn’t hinder him again. Who knows? Maybe someday they might even help each other.

To Larry, Bertie was like a cancer. Her effectiveness was multiplying and threatened to overtake him soon. She had to be stopped.

If he were a nanoparticle, he certainly was not attracted to her by any stretch of the imagination. He needed to find a different way to release a burst of something that would show her in a poor light. Then Brian might notice and take steps to eradicate her.

Oh, this could be good! He would have to put some serious thought into it.

Author Notes The story about Earl avoiding the chair was based on a true story of when my family got our first dog, a poodle named Pepper. I was perhaps 10 years old at the time. The first day we got Pepper, my two brothers and I and several friends were sitting in my living room. We were all calling to the dog to come to us, and the dog would come over to each kid who called--except for me. He never once came to me. I couldn't figure out why and was upset about it.

Later that day, I went to a clarinet lesson, and when my dad came to pick me up, he brought Pepper with him in the car so I could have some time with him.

As it turned out, there was something about the chair I'd been sitting in that Pepper didn't like because in the time we had him, he would always avoid that chair. We could never get him to jump up into it. It had stripes as I recall.

CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Earl: The Kendricks' chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Flux-Kontext-Max

Chapter 16
Beating the Devil - Chapter 16

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 15: Julia discovers the challenges of having a new puppy in the house when she catches Earl chewing on the furniture, but she has accepted the brunt of the work to train him, including eventually as a therapy dog.

Brian and the kids were rolling a ball to him, but he refuses to go near the chair Lindsay is sitting in. It proves to be the chair that repels him, and this gets Brian to thinking about how nanoparticles are similarly repelled by certain cancers. This underscores the fact that he will need several different nanoparticle pills to seek out a wider variety of cancers.

We learn that Brian received the check from Vivian along with a promise of no more interference.

Larry can’t stand how much better Bertie is than him in everything and begins scheming to get her fired.

Chapter 16

Abby sent Brian her software upgrades to begin testing the home breathalyzers. In the past few days, Larry and Bertie had completed construction of the other five. The initial test would be between two of them to see how they both compared to the laboratory breathalyzer. Hopefully, all three would be in close agreement.

The test would be tomorrow, and it was time for Larry to lay his trap. Yeah, it might cause some damage to one of the breathalyzers, but nothing too expensive in the long run. Hardly worth worrying about. Granted, it might not be enough to get that fat cow fired, but one more “accident” of the sort would probably guarantee it. Brian wouldn’t put up with the sort of gross negligence it would appear to be no matter how smart he thought she was.

When Brian had gone upstairs for lunch and Bertie was busy at her work station, Larry entered the storeroom and took down one bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol and two bottles of 30% lab-strength hydrogen peroxide. He dumped the bottle of alcohol into a sink, then refilled it with one of the bottles of peroxide. He also dumped out 200 cc of peroxide from the other bottle. He placed the alcohol bottle, which now contained peroxide, back on the storeroom shelf in the front of the row of alcohol bottles. He discarded the empty peroxide bottle in the recycle bin along with many other assorted bottles and containers and left the storeroom.

He placed the extra bottle of peroxide in the bottom drawer of a cupboard next to the lab bench where the test would be conducted. That’s all there was to it. A simple enough plan, but beautiful in its simplicity. She would be left looking like a careless fool, and he couldn’t wait to hear her and Brian’s reactions.

The next day, while Brian and Larry began preparing the breath collection box by hooking it to the air circulation system, Bertie collected the necessary materials for the experiment. This included several packets of filters and sorbent tubes, as well as isopropyl alcohol, a squeeze bottle, and a box of lint-free cleaning cloths.

She checked to see if Brian and Larry were ready, and when everything was in place, she retrieved rat # 1, who had liver cancer. She placed it into the breath collection box, flipped the switch to start the air flow system, set the timer for 10 minutes, and sat down to observe the rat.

When the 10 minutes were up, Bertie helped Larry apply heat to the sorbent tube where the rat’s VOCs had been concentrated to desorb them. An airstream pumped them into the breathalyzer, where they now had the concentration of human breaths. Brian could see the results of the VOC analysis using the app on his phone.

While Brian and Larry prepared to repeat this process using the lab’s breathalyzer for the first comparison, Bertie’s job was to cleanse the home breathalyzer—a necessary step after each use. She poured some of the isopropyl alcohol into the squeeze bottle and sprayed one of the lint-free rags to lightly dampen it. She removed the end cap of the home breathalyzer and began gently scrubbing the interior with the rag.

Immediately, something seemed wrong to Bertie. There was a slight foaming occurring on the walls of the breathalyzer. That was an oxidation reaction that shouldn’t take place with isopropyl alcohol. What was going on?

“Brian, you’d better take a look at this. I don’t understand what I’m seeing here.”

As Brian headed over to the workbench, Larry headed to the cupboard where he had hidden the peroxide bottle. While Brian and Bertie’s attention was on the reaction inside the breathalyzer, Larry surreptitiously switched the bottle labeled isopropyl alcohol—the one Bertie had used to fill the squeeze bottle—with the bottle of peroxide. He then hid the phony bottle of alcohol where he had hidden the real bottle of peroxide.

As Brian and Bertie were puzzling over the oxidation reaction, Larry said, “I think I know the problem. Bertie, you used 30% peroxide instead of alcohol to fill the spray bottle.” As proof, he held up the peroxide bottle. “How could you make such a mistake?”

Bertie’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide. She turned to Brian, who gave her a withering look.

“Brian, I’m so sorry,” she managed to choke out. “I must have grabbed the wrong bottle. They are right next to each other on the storeroom shelf.”

Brian didn’t quite know how to respond. It was a terrible mistake that meant this breathalyzer was now ruined because of the pitting it caused on the smooth plastic interior.

“Jeez, what a rookie mistake,” said Larry, shaking his head.

“Alright, Larry. You don’t need to rub it in,” said Brian. “I’m sure she feels bad enough about it. These things happen sometimes.”

Looking at Bertie, he added, “We do need to use extreme care, though, and always double-check that we have the right chemicals.”

“I promise to be more careful from now on. I’m just not sure how I missed that. I’m really sorry, Brian.”

“I know. Suppose you go switch bottles now. At least it didn’t mess up the current experiment. We were done with that breathalyzer anyway.

As she trudged off to the storeroom with the bottle of peroxide to switch it for a bottle of alcohol, Larry said, “Unbelievable,” as he scowled and shook his head.

“Oh, give her a break,” said Brian. “We’ve all made silly mistakes. I know I have.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I probably have too,” he said with fake humility, but he was immensely enjoying this moment.

Later that afternoon, Bertie stood at the door to Brian’s office, where he was seated at his desk analyzing the results of the morning’s tests. “Brian, do you have a moment?”

“Sure. Come on in and have a seat.” He motioned to a chair beside his desk.

She moved into his office but continued to stand. “I’d like to apologize again for that fiasco this morning with the peroxide.”

“It happens. Don’t—”

“That’s just it, though; that kind of thing never happens to me. I do double-check myself all the time. It’s just hard for me to believe I messed up like that. Alcohol and peroxide come in different colored bottles. I can’t picture myself making such an obvious error as selecting the wrong bottle, but evidently, I did. I promise you something like that will never happen again.”

“Duly noted. Try not to be so hard on yourself. I have a lot of confidence in you. I know you’ll do better.”

“I will.” She then turned and left the office.

Brian sat there musing on what she had just said and about what had happened, and he began to have doubts—not about Bertie, but instead about the probability of the error.

It’s possible she had taken the wrong bottle off the storeroom shelf, but like she said, the bottle colors are completely different. Unless her mind was somewhere else and she really wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing, it’s hard to imagine taking down the wrong bottle. But yet, that was the bottle that was out there in the lab.

And then there’s the difference in odor between the two chemicals, but no one could smell that she had the wrong one because of the masks they all wore as part of the testing protocol.

Could she have mistakenly believed it was peroxide she needed for the cleansing instead of alcohol and simply couldn’t admit it to him? That was also hard to believe; she would have known better than that. It was very puzzling.

But then he had a sudden brainstorm. Earlier in the month, he had rented the miniature cameras for identifying a saboteur, and they were still in place in the storeroom. He had paid for a month’s rental and had left them in place for no particular reason other than the month wasn’t quite up yet. Maybe Larry, who had no knowledge of these cameras, had played a part in this incident. Brian decided to find out.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Madison (Maddy) McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra

Chapter 17
Beating the Devil - Chapter 17

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

Recap of Chapter 16: Larry lays his trap for Bertie by substituting peroxide for isopropyl alcohol. The testing begins, and a problem arises when Bertie cleans out the breathalyzer. Larry’s subterfuge works, as the cleaner she uses begins to foam. It ends up ruining the breathalyzer. Bertie is distraught at her apparent mistake in choosing the wrong cleanser, while Larry secretly gloats over his success.

Later that afternoon, Bertie goes to Brian’s office to apologize again for the mistake, but this gets Brian to thinking it may not have been a mistake after all. He then remembers the cameras in the storeroom are still there and may perhaps hold the key to the mystery.

Chapter 17

“Larry, could you come in here, please?”

It was 8:00 AM, and Larry had just arrived at work.

“Mind if I get a cup of coffee first?”

“I need to speak to you right now.”

What could Brian want that was so urgent he couldn’t grab a coffee first? Could this be related to Birdbrain’s botched cleaning job yesterday? His mouth suddenly went dry and his pulse quickened as he entered Brian’s office.

“Close the door.”

Oh, shit. That’s not a good sign.

“I want to show you something.” Brian tapped his phone screen and turned it to face him.

As Larry watched, his face grew ashen. After a minute of seeing what the hidden cameras had captured, he said, “You were spying on me. Is that even legal?”

“Yeah, it is. There’s no expectation of privacy in a storeroom. The camera has been there for some time, and it just so happened to catch you in the act. What I want to know is why, Larry? What would possess you to do that?”

“I don’t know, Brian. Maybe it’s because you’ve never appreciated my talents, and you continue to show favoritism to everyone else. You did it with Mal, and you’re doing it with Roberta.”

He stood and began pacing while Brian remained silent.

After a few seconds, he turned to Brian and said, “You know what? I quit. I’ve had enough of this shit. The only person around here who ever appreciated me was Abby.”

“I’m sorry you feel this way. Maybe I didn’t tell you often enough how much I appreciated the work you’ve done. I wish we could have talked about your unhappiness in a more constructive way, though. I’d like you to give me your keys now, and I’d also like to remind you about the non-disclosure agreement you signed when you started work here. I’m sorry it came to this, Larry, and I wish you luck in the future.”

“Yeah, right,” he said as he removed the different keys that he possessed and dropped them on the floor. Without another word, he turned around, opened the door, and left.

Brian could hear the door to the outside slam a minute later. So, Larry had gathered up his cactus, his Rubik’s Cubes and split.

Brian stood and came around his desk to retrieve the keys Larry had dropped like the child that he was. Well, good riddance. He didn’t need an immature, spiteful, rude, humorless pain in the neck working for him any longer. His quitting preempted Brian from firing his ass as he had fully intended to do.

Maybe there was some truth to Larry’s claim of preferential treatment, but could he be blamed when Larry was so hard to like? He had been smart and competent, and his skillset might be hard to replace; however, Brian couldn’t stand all those negative vibes he’d been giving off lately, especially toward Bertie, who promised to be equally, if not more, competent than Larry. And she was a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around.

The poor kid came in this morning with baggy eyes. What a night she must have had trying to figure out how she’d gone wrong yesterday. This news should certainly set her mind at ease.

“Bertie, could you come in here, please?”

She had just settled back to studying her computer screen after that sudden departure by Larry. She couldn’t imagine what had happened, but he had sure seemed pissed off. Now she wondered what Brian wanted. Could he have had second thoughts about yesterday’s mistake and decided to give her the axe after all? She couldn’t look him in the eye as she headed into his office.

“Please, have a seat.”

She sat, and when she finally looked up at him, he was smiling. It was not the look of someone about to give her the axe.

“Bertie, I imagine you had a rough night last night, thinking about what happened yesterday. I want to set your mind at ease and tell you that you did nothing wrong. You were set up by Larry, who is no longer working here.”

Relief at this extraordinary news was paramount, but confusion was a close second. Why would Larry do that, and how? And how did Brian know? So many questions.

Brian then filled her in on what he had discovered, describing how Larry had poured peroxide into the alcohol bottle and had also hidden another bottle of peroxide out in the lab to switch it later and make everyone think that was what she had used.

He didn’t discuss with her how he knew what he knew, but Bertie sensed that he was speaking with discretion and didn’t question him about it.

“I don’t know what to think about all this, Brian. I hope I didn’t do anything to drive Larry to it.”

“This was Larry’s problem, not yours. I can tell you he’s been a thorn in my side for a long time, and you probably noticed his interpersonal skills weren’t so great. You’re not responsible in any way for his behavior.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know. I can try to work more hours now if you need me to.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve really got to fill the position. There’s certainly more work than the two of us can handle. Abby only comes for a few days a month, but we need another tech. You know of anyone who might be interested?”

“Not offhand, but I’ll put some thought into it. Thanks again for letting me know, Brian. I’ll be able to sleep a whole lot easier tonight.”

That evening, after the kids had gone to bed and Brian and Julia were relaxing on the porch, he shared with her the events of the day. He had filled her in on his discovery of Larry’s sabotage yesterday evening, so she already knew of his plans to fire Larry first thing this morning.

“He beat me to the punch. I guess he could see the writing on the wall and knew it would be better for him to beat a hasty retreat. Would you like a few more cliches?”

Julia laughed. “You sure nipped it in the bud.”

“Yep, I caught him with his pants down. Let’s just hope he doesn’t go postal on me.”

Julia was suddenly sobered by the thought. “Do you think he might?”

“Mm… not really. I never got the feeling he was nuts. He could be irritating, and he lacked a lot of social skills, but he never struck me as especially angry except for that last talk we had. I made an effort not to antagonize or come down hard on him. I didn’t have to—I just showed him the evidence of what he did and let him quit.”

“Probably smart, even though I’m sure you wanted to read him the riot act.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I think I understand what he was feeling, though. I met his parents once, and they seemed awfully intimidating. I think he has an inferiority complex, and meeting Bertie maybe gave him the feelings he gets around his parents. I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. I’m just thinking out loud here.”

“You’re probably right, though. Have you thought about a replacement for him?”

“Just starting to. We need one soon. I was lucky to get Bertie so quickly, but the next one may take a lot longer. There’s so much to do now too. I wanted to get started on the nanoparticle pill on top of all the breathalyzer testing.”

“I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but I’ve got an idea about it.” She paused before continuing so she could choose the right words for making her case.

“Well, let’s hear it then, but I think I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to suggest I reach out to Mal, aren’t you?”

“Evidently you’ve been entertaining the same thought.”

“Yeah, it’s a tough one, though. Can I trust a guy who betrayed me once? I know he felt really guilty and apologized up the wazoo for it, but is that enough?”

“Well, just think about the second chances you were given in your past. Remember what Paul Rieke did for you?”

How could he forget? After the gym accident at the end of his freshman year, he became addicted to painkillers once again and started screwing up badly in Paul’s organic chemistry class. His test scores were suffering, and one afternoon during chem lab, he was so high that he made a careless error that caused his lab partner to be burned.

When questioned about it later, he confessed what he was going through with his addiction, and Paul took pity on him. Paul himself had lost a favorite nephew to an opioid overdose the previous summer and was extremely regretful for never having recognized the problem. He had claimed that Brian reminded him so much of his nephew, and he took Brian under his wing as a sort of penance.

Maybe he should give Mal another chance.

“Do you know how he’s doing up there in Cleveland and how his daughter’s heart surgery went?” asked Julia.

“No, I haven’t talked to him since he left.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to find out. You know, just feel him out? He may not even be interested in coming back. But I keep thinking about how much you liked him. We all did. He was great with the kids. Remember how he always used to take the time to answer their funny questions when they came down to the lab, and how he would joke around with them? They loved him. I did too. He was like a big teddy bear. He was always so easy to talk to and friendly. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when he turned out to be the saboteur. It was so out of character.”

“You make a good case, Babe. No guarantees, but I’ll think about it.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4

Chapter 18
Beating the Devil - Chapter 18

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 17: Brian calls Larry into his office and shows him the video from the storeroom. Larry gets angry and accuses Brian of showing favoritism. He quits before Brian fires him and storms out.

Brian then calls Bertie in and explains that she did nothing wrong and tells her about Larry’s sabotage. Bertie is immensely relieved.

Brian and Julia discuss the situation that night, and Brian says how busy they are in the lab and how much he needs a new tech quickly. Julia suggests he rehire Mal. Brian hesitates because of Mal’s previous treachery, but Julia reminds him of the second chances he has received in his life. He agrees to think about it.

Chapter 18

“Hello, Mal. I’m calling to see how you and your family are doing. How is Samantha?”

“Thanks for asking, Brian. The surgery went well. There were no major complications, and they let her come home last week. She’s raring to go like any four-year-old. Well, you know what they’re like, but she’s got to take it easy for a while.”

“Evidently her body is accepting the new heart?”

“Yeah, so far, so good. No signs of rejection yet, but that can take a long time to show up. Keeping our fingers crossed.”

“So, how are you and Tanya holding up?”

“Oh, we’re good. It’s been stressful, but God has seen us through the hard part. We’re finally able to relax some.”

“Well, that’s great. I’m very pleased for you. Listen, I had another reason for calling. Larry quit yesterday. I’d like to offer you your old job back.”

There was a long silence before Mal finally said, “Why would you trust me again after what I did?”

“Look, Mal, I’m pretty sure that was a one-off and that you extremely regret it. I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I’m certain you won’t be tempted to let anything like that happen again.”

“You’re right about that. God, Brian, your offer couldn’t have come at a better time. Things have been rough here on the job front. For obvious reasons I had to skip the part about working for you on my resume, so I’ve only been able to get a job as a lab assistant rather than a lab tech. It costs a lot more to live up here in Cleveland than in Charlotte. It’s a dump where we’re living, but still, we’re barely making ends meet.”

“I take it that means you’d like to come back?”

“Well, I have to run it by Tanya first, but I’m pretty sure I know what her answer will be. And, of course, we’ll have to wait until the doctor says Sammy can travel, but…”

Mal paused again as he began choking up at the incredible grace of this offer.

“Brian, I… I just… “

“Mal, you don’t need to say anything else. I’ll be happy to have you back. Let’s just put everything behind us and move forward from here. There’s a lot of work to do, and the sooner you can get back down here, the better.”

“God bless you, Brian. Thank you.”

When Brian went upstairs for lunch, Julia was making sandwiches. He came up behind her and put his arms around her. She turned around and returned the hug.

“Mmm, this is nice,” she said. “It’s been a trying morning.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’ve got bad news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

“Uh… better make it the bad news.”

“Earl got hold of one of your new running shoes and made a meal out of it.”

“Oh, jeez. What’s the bad news?”

“It didn’t agree with him, and he threw up all over Lindsay’s bed. And not just the pieces of shoe but his entire breakfast. Linds freaked out. It got Earl so worked up, he peed too. Right on the bed. Fortunately, we’ve still got the plastic cover over her mattress, so it didn’t soak in, but I had to change all the bedding.”

“I guess the lesson is I’d better not leave my shoes on the floor.”

“Ya think?”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. I liked those shoes too.”

“Well, you’ve still got one good one.”

“Funny.”

“I should have left it for you to clean up.”

“Thank you for doing it. He’s an expensive little guy, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but the kids love him. I do too, even though he’s a lot of work. I’m working with him on basic obedience, but it’s a challenge. I think I’m going to enroll him in puppy kindergarten like Pat Malloy suggested as soon as the kids start back to school in a couple of weeks. He gave me a brochure about it, and it looks like an excellent program.”

“Good. Well, I’ve got some great news. Looks like Mal will be coming back.”

“Really? That’s terrific. How is Samantha doing?”

“So far, so good. As soon as the doctor gives her the okay, and Tanya agrees, they’ll come.” He filled Julia in on the rest of the conversation.

“I’m happy for you, Babe. I think you did the right thing. I’m sure he’ll work extra hard to prove you made a good decision.”

“And I’ll bet he and Bertie will get along famously. They both like to kid around. I’m sure Larry was a drag to work with for Mal; they were so different.”

Two weeks later, Mal moved his family back to Charlotte. They moved in with his mother until they could find a house of their own. This allowed Mal’s wife, Tanya, to find a job and build back some of the savings they had used on Samantha’s health care. Grandma Roberts got a thorough training from Mal and Tanya on the proper care of a heart transplant recipient, and they felt confident leaving Samantha in her care.

Although Mal had a 40-minute commute to Brian’s house for work, it was the best situation for now. It was important for Samantha to be fairly close to a major medical center, where she still needed frequent follow-up visits. They would eventually look for a house that was much closer to Cherryville to rent or perhaps even buy if they could save enough for the down payment.

As trying a time as the past few months had been for Mal and his family, their troubles weren’t over, and the coming years would test them once again.

As Brian had predicted, Bertie and Mal hit it off. They shared a similar deadpan humor, and Mal, who was a golfer, insisted on calling her Birdie, which they laughed about.

In contrast to Larry, Mal was both in awe of and grateful for the knowledge she brought to the lab. They talked a lot while they worked, and it wasn’t all science. He shared his practicality and street smarts with her. She had lived a sheltered life up to this point, and he helped expand her horizons and cure some of her naiveté.

Johnny and Lindsay spent the waning days of summer vacation playing in the backyard with Earl. At the rear of the property was a woodlot. It was not so large that Earl could get lost, but it was a bona fide woods with all the wonderful smells of leaf mold, rotting logs, fungi, insects, and animal detritus. Earl darted here and there with his nose to the ground, but his attention would immediately turn to any stick the kids threw. He would chase after it and pick it up. He had not yet learned to fetch—only get—and he loved tug-of-war when the kids tried to take it from him.

Julia treated him with firm discipline but also love and affection. She worked with him on basic obedience, but she also played with him, and he adored her above all the others.

He was learning to do his business outside and rarely used his puppy pads or had accidents anymore. He still got into many things he shouldn’t, but the whole family was gradually perfecting the techniques of puppy-proofing and discipline.

The skills Earl continued to learn promised to serve him and many others well and in unexpected ways in the coming years.

Abby and Brian stayed in constant communication while they solidified Abby’s detection algorithms together. The lab experiments Brian and the two techs performed daily were beginning to bring this part of the project to a close, as the results appeared to be getting increasingly accurate.

Brian, Mal, and Bertie also began brainstorming experiments to start their nanoparticle pill testing. The work environment was far more pleasant now that Larry was gone. Brian never told Mal why Larry left, and Mal never asked. He sensed that if Brian had wanted him to know, he would have told him.

In New York, Julia’s mother, Dr. Marie Schmidt, was on a summer break. The New York Philharmonic did not perform regular concerts during the summer months and would resume their season schedule of concerts in mid-September. Marie played the occasional “park concert,” but spent much of her time on her students.

She eagerly awaited the arrival of her favorite one for his weekly lesson. He was her original student, Cedric Washington, the African-American doorman at her Upper West Side apartment. He had started as a beginner and was still with her going on five years.

At age 26 he was no longer the doorman but had become the assistant manager of a Popeye’s restaurant. He had progressed steadily on the violin and had begun playing in an amateur orchestra called the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.

The young man, whom she jokingly called Cecil, had been a tremendous help during her cancer treatments five years ago and would often accompany her to doctors’ appointments and procedures. She loved him dearly for it. She was also very proud of him and the progress he had made on the violin. He was a diligent student, and she was looking forward to the lesson.

When things are going well, people tend to live in the moment, neither dwelling too much on the missteps of the past nor the uncertainties of the future. For the time being, life was good for all these disparate groups. But challenging times were ahead that would test them in a manner none of them could have imagined, and their lives would intertwine in ways none of them could have foreseen.

End of Part 1

(Part 2 will begin on Wednesday)

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 41-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 41-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 6-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 4-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 65 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Picture courtesy of Imagen-4

Chapter 19
Beating the Devil - Chapter 19

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 18: Brian calls Mal in Cleveland and offers him his job back. Mal is very grateful and agrees to come back. Brian shares the good news with Julia, who shares some bad news with him: Earl chewed up one of Brian’s running shoes and vomited and peed on Lindsay’s bed. Despite this, she loves the dog and will enroll him in puppy kindergarten.

Mal moves his family back to Charlotte, where they will live with his mother temporarily until they can find a home closer to Cherryville. Mal and Bertie hit it off as Brian predicted. The team makes good progress on the breathalyzer testing and begins work on the nanoparticle pill.

We meet Julia’s mother, Marie, in New York, who has survived stage-4 breast cancer for five years and is still doing well.

Part 2

Chapter 19

June 2033
Two years later

When the caller ID indicated “Ms. Schmidt,” Cedric Washington answered with, “Why, hello, Ms. Schmidt. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s Dr. Schmidt, Cecil.”

“It’s Cedric, ma’am.”

“Whatever,” they both said, laughing. This had become a longstanding joke between them, dating back to their earliest days together when he was a doorman at her apartment building.

In those days, she was a self-absorbed, entitled snob with little tolerance for people. When she first called him by name, she’d called him Cecil by mistake. When he told her it was Cedric, her reply was, “Whatever.” He started calling her “Ms. Schmidt” consistently, even though she had corrected him that it was “Dr. Schmidt,” due to her PhD in music. They developed a fondness for each other, and the joke remained a constant.

“Cecil, you have a car, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What would you say to driving me to LaGuardia on Thursday afternoon? I know that’s your day off. In exchange I’ll give you a free lesson this week.”

“Oh, Ms. Schmidt, I’d be happy to drive you, but I don’t need a free lesson.”

“You still need a ton of lessons, Cecil.”

“I meant a free lesson.”

“Alright. Pay me a dollar then.”

He knew he wouldn’t talk her out of it. “It’s a deal.

What time should I pick you up for the airport?”

“How about 1:30?”

“You got it. 1:30 Thursday.”

“Hi, Grandma.”

“Hi, Johnny. How’s my favorite grandson?”

“But Grandma, I’m your only grandson, so doesn’t that make me your least favorite one too?”

“Absolutely, you wicked, wicked boy! Are you still playing nasty tricks on your sister?”

“Yeah, but she likes it.”

“Mm-hmm. I’ll bet. So how is that smelly mutt of yours?”

“Oh, Grandma, you love Earl.”

“Well, I don’t love that awful musician you named him after. Earl Scrubbrush, right?”

Johnny laughed. “That’s a good one. You know it’s Scruggs.”

“Even worse!”

“Hey, Grandma, I’m working on a piece even you might like. It’s Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.”

“Hmpf. I’ll be the judge of that when I hear it. Bach played on a banjo. Sheesh!”

“When are you coming down?”

“I’ll be there on Thursday. Seriously now, I can’t wait to see you again and hear you play. Can I talk to Lindsay?”

“She’s not here. She’s over at Samantha’s house.”

“Tell her I’m sorry I missed her. Why don’t you put your momma on now? I love you.”

“Love you too, Grandma. Here she is.” Johnny put the phone down and ran off with Earl.

“Hello, Mother. Earl Scrubbrush, huh?”

“So, you heard all that?”

“Johnny had it on speaker. I love the way you two banter.”

“He’s a bright kid. How are you, Julia?”

“I’m great, Mother. Pretty busy now with the therapy dog training, but Earl is doing really well. He’s so good-natured that the instructor says he’ll make a wonderful therapy dog… if we can get him to stop licking faces. So, how are you?”

“Can’t complain. I occasionally get a little tired, and my back gets a little sore, but that’s mostly due to aging, I think, and lack of exercise.”

“Have you seen the doctor lately?”

“Please don’t worry, Julia. I’m fine. So, here’s my itinerary for the trip….”

At the Roberts’s house in Shelby, where Lindsay was having a play date with Samantha, Mal’s mother, Letitia, passed by the living room and caught a glimpse of what the girls were up to.

“Now you girls leave that po’ cat alone. He gone scratch you good, you ain’t careful.”

“We were just playing with him, Gramsy.”

“Turnin’ Max upside down an’ droppin’ him ain’t playin’. You teasin’ him.”

“He doesn’t mind. He always lands on his feet. Every time, no matter how high we drop him from.”

“Samantha, you and Lindsay leave that cat alone, an’ find somethin’ else to do. Go on now.”

“O-kay,” she said in that peeved tone children have when their fun is spoiled.

“You watch that tone, young lady.”

“Sorry, Gramsy. C’mon, Linds. You want to play with Barbies?”

“Yeah, I brought Wonder Woman Barbie.”

“I think I’ll play with Fashionista Barbie. We can see which one Ken likes better. Maybe Max can be Ken. C’mon, Maxie.”

“You girls!” said Lettie Roberts, shaking her head and chuckling at the two retreating figures. Max, however, did not follow.

“Good boy, Earl! Good boy. Here’s a treat. You stayed nice and calm when Momma turned on the vacuum cleaner. Good job.”

Julia and Earl had begun practicing some of his therapy dog lessons in the family room after she’d gotten off the phone with her mother. The New York Philharmonic was on their summer break, and Marie would be coming to stay with the family for a couple of weeks in just a few days.

Julia had an alarm set on her phone, which was on maximum volume, and in another minute, a loud telephone ringtone went off. It made Julia and Earl both startle at the sudden noise, but Earl settled right back down after giving the phone a sniff.

“Good boy, Earl. Good job. Here’s another treat.”

They had begun the therapy dog training program a few months ago, and Earl would soon be ready for supervised visits during a probationary period. He and Julia would visit facilities, like nursing homes and rehab centers, alongside another experienced team.

“Hey, wanna go for a ride and get a coffee at “The Goose?”

Earl thumped his tail and gave a little woof. Oh boy! A ride in the car with Momma and then lots of people talking to him and petting him. And maybe even one of those tasty little balls she called a donut hole.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Julia loved to sit outside with Earl on the patio of a popular Cherryville cafe, The Spruce Goose. It was on Main Street, and sometimes traffic noise would be sudden, especially when bikers came into town. The revving of their Harleys as they waited at a stoplight nearby was perfect noise practice for Earl. If he could remain calm through that, it was a very good sign he would soon be ready.

Julia was an introvert by nature, and having Earl with her made conversation with strangers that much easier. And there was plenty of it because Earl was a people magnet. They couldn’t resist his friendly nature and calm demeanor and were drawn to him like bears to honey. Who couldn’t love that smiling face and that rich, brown color? It was great practice for him to socialize too.

And they always ended these excursions downtown with a walk to a nearby playground, where children would stop what they were doing and immediately come to greet Earl.

It had taken weeks to break his habit of licking their faces. He would occasionally forget, but the children knew Julia was trying to train this out of him and would help out by saying, “No, Earl. No licking faces.”

This trip downtown was a highlight of Earl’s afternoons, for he loved people as much as they loved him.

Cedric arrived right on time Thursday to take Marie to LaGuardia, and at 2:15, he pulled up to the curbside check-in at the Delta terminal. He got out of the car and opened the trunk, where he had stowed Marie’s suitcases.

“Well, Ms. Schmidt, you have a great visit with those babies now.”

“They’re hardly babies anymore.”

“Where does that time go?”

“I’m grateful for every minute of it. I still feel like I’m living on borrowed time.”

“Well, you’ve certainly made the most of it. Give my best to the family.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then, on impulse, reached up and kissed his cheek.

That was a first, and he was surprised. He watched her walk into the terminal, and it struck him that she seemed a little bent and was walking slowly.

On the drive home he had an unsettled feeling in his chest. He had a special relationship with that old lady who’d been teaching him to play the violin going on seven years now. And for the first four, she never even charged him for a lesson! It was only after becoming a restaurant assistant manager and making more money that she began charging him, but even that was only a third of what she charged the rest of her students. Why was she so generous toward him?

He must hold up his end of the bargain by working hard at it because he didn’t want to disappoint her. But it was more than that; he honestly loved playing the violin—the sheer beauty and the precision involved. And she showed her appreciation by coming to all of his concerts. She also gave him free tickets to many of her own.

Sure, her teaching methods were strict, and she wouldn’t let him slack off one bit. ’You’re slouching again. Maintain your frame!’ But it was her sarcasm and their shared sense of humor that he remembered most fondly. God, he loved her.

There was something about her mentioning borrowed time just now and that impromptu peck on the cheek that just didn’t sit right. He needed a distraction, so he turned the car radio on, cranked up the volume, and tried to forget about it.

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra

Chapter 20
Beating the Devil - Chapter 20

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 19: It’s two years later, and Marie asks Cedric for a ride to the airport on Thursday for a trip to visit her family. Cedric agrees in exchange for a free lesson from Marie. Marie then calls Julia to tell her the plans and converses with Johnny first.

The scene switches, and we see Letitia Roberts, Mal’s mother, supervising the play of Sammy and Lindsay at Mal’s house.

It switches again, and we see Julia practicing her therapy dog training with Earl.

In the final scene, Cedric drops Marie off at the airport on Thursday. He’s struck by remarks she makes, a brief peck on the cheek, and her gait, and he has an unsettled feeling about it.

Chapter 20

“There she is!” shouted Lindsay when she spotted her grandma descending the escalator to baggage claim. The whole family had come to meet her at the airport.

Marie spotted them at the same time and waved.

As Lindsay started forward to go and meet her, Brian grabbed her shoulder and held her back. “Too many big people around, Linds. It’s way too crowded over there. Let’s just wait here for Grandma.”

They lost sight of Marie, though, and there seemed to be a sudden crush of people at the bottom of the escalator as something or someone was blocking the egress. Those behind on the escalator didn’t quite know what to do, as the way off was obstructed. They started backing up.

Someone had the presence of mind to hit the emergency stop button, which brought the escalator to a halt.

“Stay here,” said Brian to his family as he rushed forward to see what the problem was.

A woman was down on the ground and was moaning in pain. When Brian approached the crowd at the bottom of the escalator, he saw that it was Marie. She was being attended to by a young woman and a man who had knelt down to try to help her, and five or six others stood nearby.

“Marie!” shouted Brian. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“Brian… the pain… I can’t… “ was all she managed to say.

The young woman kneeling by her side said, “I was right behind her when she stepped off the escalator. It looked to me like her heel broke, and she went down hard on her bottom. Now she’s really hurting.”

As the onlookers made room for Brian and began clearing away, Brian said, “Marie, where’s the pain? Can you tell?”

“Middle… of my back…. Hurts like hell,“ she said, gasping and twitching.

Brian thought for a moment. He said to the young woman, “Do you think you could find security personnel or someone who could close off this escalator? I hate to move her out of the way because it may be a spinal cord injury.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. Ma’am, I’m so sorry you’re hurt,” she said and left to find someone.

Julia and the kids had made their way over by now. When they saw who it was on the floor, Julia cringed and said, “Mother, are you okay?”

“Just… peachy.”

Brian said to Julia, “She fell. It’s her back. Could you call 911? We’re going to leave her here and not attempt to move her. Someone’s getting security to block off the escalator.”

“I’m so sorry this happened, Mother. I’m calling for help right now,” she said as she fished out her phone and began dialing.

Johnny and Lindsay were startled and confused by the grossly pained expression on their grandma’s face. They remained silent, clinging to Julia.

Eventually, the escalator cleared as people walked back up. Security must have blocked it off because no one else tried to come down.

The man who had been kneeling next to Marie got up and left after wishing her well. Brian and Julia both thanked him, and Julia took his place, kneeling down beside her mother. She took her hand and said, “Help will be here soon.”

Johnny and Lindsay both sat down beside their grandma. Johnny found his voice and said, “I’m sorry you got hurt, Grandma,” and Lindsay added, “Me too, Grandma.”

Marie was grimacing, but she reached out her other hand and patted both their knees. “Thank you.”

The family stayed huddled around her until the paramedics came, wheeling in a gurney.

Brian said, “Kids, let’s give them room to help Grandma. Let’s all stand back out of the way,” and he ushered the family back a few steps.

Marie had lain down at one point, so the paramedics rolled her gently onto a backboard to immobilize her spine and then lifted her onto the gurney to wheel her out to the ambulance. They told Brian the name of the hospital where they would take her, and Julia would accompany her in the ambulance.

Before they left, Brian remembered to ask Marie about her luggage, and she told him what to look for. He said he would come to the hospital as soon as he could.

Brian was well aware of what might be going on with Marie. The severe pain in her mid-back was likely a compression fracture of at least one vertebra, possibly two or more. And that very possibly indicated her cancer was back.

There would be x-rays and other tests, and Brian did not want to put the kids through a long stay at the emergency room.

He decided to call his sister, Fran, who lived in Charlotte. She was an FBI field agent, and he just hoped she was at home and not on some mission. Fortunately, when he dialed, she answered.

“Hey, Big Sis. I need a favor.” He told her exactly what happened and asked her if he could bring the kids over to stay with her and her husband, Mike, for a while until things got sorted out at the hospital.

“God I’m sorry to hear about what happened to her. I love that little lady. Sure, no problem with the kids. We’ll be glad to have them come over and stay for as long as necessary. Bad luck for Marie.”

“Yeah, there may be more going on than just a broken shoe heel and a simple fall. That generally doesn’t lead to fracturing your back.”

“Oh, no. You mean—”

“Yeah.”

“Look, Brian. The kids will be fine with us. You go be with her and Jules and give Marie our best too. We’ll be praying for her.”

“Thanks, Fran. See you soon.”

“Daddy, is Grandma going to be alright?” asked Lindsay.

“She’s got a really sore back, but she’ll be okay, and as soon as she gets out of the hospital, she’ll come stay with us. But tonight, you’ll stay with Aunt Fran and Uncle Mike until we figure out when Grandma can come to our house. We’re not sure when that will be yet.”

“Why can’t we go to the hospital with you and see Grandma?” asked Johnny.

“I’m sure you don’t want to sit around in a hospital all evening, nor fall asleep there when it gets late. You’ll have a lot more fun over at Aunt Fran’s. You’ll spend the night there.”

Brian dropped the kids off and told Fran he would keep her updated. She told him the kids could stay as long as needed.

He also called his neighbor and asked him if he could look in on Earl and feed and walk him. The neighbor had a key to the house, and Brian disabled the alarm system from his phone.

He headed to the hospital and phoned Julia on the way. “Hi, Babe. What’s happening now, and where are you?”

“I’ve been with Mother most of the time, but I’m now in the waiting room by the Imaging Center. They’re getting her ready for an MRI. She’s got compression fractures of three of her vertebrae, and there was some other stuff on the x-rays that didn’t look good. I think the cancer might be back, Brian.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. God, Babe, I’m so sorry. Did they talk about that with her?”

“Not really. They just said they saw some things that require additional imaging. But I’m sure she knows what it likely is. When they’re done, they’ll be admitting her. She’ll be here for a few days. Are you on your way now?”

“Yeah. I just dropped the kids off at Fran’s, where they’ll stay the night. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’ll meet you at the Imaging Center unless you call and tell me you’ll be somewhere else.”

“Brian, I’m scared of what they’re going to find.”

“I know. I’ll be there soon. I love you.”

“I love you too. Hurry.”

Chapter 21
Beating the Devil - Chapter 21

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 20: Marie has an accident on the escalator down to baggage claim. Her heel broke, and she fell and is now in great pain. Brian thinks it’s a compression fracture, and Julia calls 911. While Julia accompanies Marie to the emergency room, Brian drives the kids to his sister Fran’s house to spend the night.

Brian meets Julia in the imaging center, where Marie is undergoing an MRI because, in addition to three compression fractures of the spine, the ER doctor suspects her cancer has returned. Marie will be admitted to the hospital. The on-call oncologist, who will likely take over her care while at the hospital, will look at the MRI tonight and discuss his findings in the morning.

Chapter 21

Brian arrived at the Imaging Center, where he met Julia in the waiting room.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as Brian sat down beside her, gave her a kiss, and put his arm around her shoulders. “That was a good idea bringing the kids to Fran’s house.”

“Yeah, this could be a long night.”

They were joined a few minutes later by the doctor who had tended to Marie in the ER. She was a young woman, perhaps early 30s, who appeared to be of Indian descent.“Hello again, Mrs. Kendrick. Is this Mr. Kendrick with you?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to know that your mother is in very little pain right now. She’s in the process of being admitted, and she will likely be here for several days. I didn’t want to alarm your mother without further evidence, which the MRI should provide, but the x-rays showed a number of deformities that weren’t explained by the fractures she sustained. The records show she’s been in remission from metastatic disease for seven years now?”

“Yes,” said Julia. “Are you saying the cancer is back?”

“I can’t say for certain or how extensive it might be, but it looks that way. I’m very sorry. I’ve also consulted with our on-call oncologist, who will review the MRI results. If he determines that your mother’s cancer is active again, he will become her physician for the remainder of her stay at the hospital. If that’s the case, he will visit your mother on his rounds tomorrow morning around 9:00.”

“Can I see my mother now?”

“I haven’t been informed of the room number, but you can check at the Registration Desk. Your mother is a feisty lady. She told us what pain medication to give her and the dosage, and she was absolutely correct. She also said that her son-in-law was the genius who invented it. I wasn’t so sure, but since you’re here now, are you the son-in-law she was referring to, Mr. Kendrick, and is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, sir, I can’t tell you how much that drug, Glyptophan, has revolutionized pain management. It has been a godsend in the field of medicine. I’m honored to meet you, sir.”

“Thank you. Is there anything more you can tell us right now?”

“You should probably be here tomorrow morning for the oncologist’s visit.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

It was 11:30 PM by the time Julia and Brian arrived in Marie’s hospital room. She was in her bed, hooked up to an IV and various monitors, and she was awake.

“Hello, Mother,” said Julia as she went over and kissed her on the forehead. “Are you in any pain?”

“Very little. I told the ER doc what to give me and who invented it, but I don’t think she believed me.”

“Brian set her straight, Mother. She called you ‘feisty.’ Were you giving them grief in there?”

“Well, of course. Have to keep them on their toes. Where are Johnny and Lindsay?”

“They’re at Fran’s house,” said Brian. “They both send you their love.”

“That’s nice. Look, why don’t you two go home now? It’s been a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We’ll be back in the morning before the doctor comes to visit you.”

“So you can hear the bad news right from the horse’s mouth?”

“We don’t know anything yet, Mother.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Let’s not assume anything.”

“We all knew it would eventually come back.”

Julia’s eyes began tearing up as she took her mother’s hand. “You beat that devil once, Mother, and you can do it again.”

“Maybe. Listen, I’ll see you in the morning. I’m exhausted now. Goodnight, you two.”

Julia arrived back in Marie’s room at 8:30 AM. Brian would come later with the kids.

“Did you have a good night, Mother?”

“Good enough under the circumstances.”

“Are you in any pain?”

“Not much. They’re doing a decent job with that.”

Julia could see a plate of food that appeared to be untouched. “Maybe you should eat something.”

While they fussed about that for a while, the on-call oncologist stopped in on his morning rounds. He was a tall man, mid-50s, with bushy, graying eyebrows and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.

“Good morning, Dr. Schmidt. Are you a medical doctor?”

“Doctor of Music. I’m a professional violinist. Call me Marie.”

“I’m Dr. Gladwin. I’m the oncologist who will be treating you during your stay at the hospital. Is your pain being well controlled, Marie?”

“Fine. What did the MRI show?”

“Right down to business, I see. The MRI showed that the cancer has returned to your spine. I’m so sorry to have to give you this news. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

Julia took her mother’s hand and squeezed it lightly.

Dr. Gladwin continued, “You’ve done remarkably well for seven years now, but because it’s active again, it was responsible for weakening your spine, which led to the fractures. I know this is difficult to hear, and I’m very sorry. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Could the MRI tell if it spread anywhere else?”

“No. Its scope was limited to the spine in the area of the fractures. Your history indicates there was previously some liver involvement, so I’ve ordered a CT scan of the abdomen and some bloodwork for tumor markers. We’ll know more after that.”

“How long will I be in the hospital?”

“Most likely two or three more days. After we get the results of the CT scan, we can develop an action plan for getting you home.”

She hesitated before her next question, which was one that weighed heavily on her mind. “Will I be able to continue playing the violin? I’m in the New York Philharmonic.”

“Let’s not think too long-range at this point. Let’s just concentrate on figuring out the extent of the cancer and getting you home as soon as possible.”

Most likely, that meant no, and it was devastating to her. Playing the violin was one of the most important things in her life. It was the most important until just seven years ago, when she became a grandmother and reconciled with Julia after a 13-year estrangement.

They’d had a falling out when Julia was a sophomore at Juilliard. For the next 13 years, she had been a bitter, lonely woman, but her newfound family became the highlight of her life. Even so, if she could no longer play, she felt she would be losing her identity, perhaps the only thing she had ever been good at.

She said simply, “Okay, then.”

Before leaving, Dr. Gladwin checked her vitals and said he would talk to her again later this afternoon after he reviewed the CT scan results.

“I’m so sorry, Mother,” said Julia as she sandwiched her mother’s hand between both of hers. Marie’s other hand joined the rest.

The tears had returned and began slowly making tracks down Julia’s cheeks. She had to release her mother’s hand to wipe them.

“We knew this day would come, Julia.”

“I’m not going to give up on you, Mother. I hope you don’t either. You still have so much to live for.”

“Yes, I do,” she told Julia, but she knew the odds were against her this time and that she was not likely to last as long as the first time. As she had told Cedric, she felt like she was living on borrowed time, and that feeling had just been strengthened by recent events. She was determined, though, to make the most of that limited time.

In half an hour, Brian and the kids entered Marie’s room.

“Hi, Grandma,” they said together.

“Hello, my sweet things. Come give me some sugar.”

Lindsay looked puzzled. “I don’t have any sugar, Grandma.”

“She means give her a kiss, stu… I mean, Linds.”

Brian flicked him on his ear, and Johnny said, “Ow! What’ja do that for?”

“You know why.”

Lindsay never minded seeing her brother disciplined. She just smiled and gave her grandma a kiss. Johnny rubbed his ear and gave her a kiss too.

Marie looked at Julia, who shook her head with a pursed-lip smile.

“Are you feeling alright, Grandma?” asked Johnny.

“Never better now that you and Lindsay are here.”

While she conversed with the kids, Brian looked questioningly at Julia, who quietly gave her head a slight shake.

“Kids,” said Brian, “Momma and I are going to step out in the hall for a few minutes. You be good for your grandma.”

When they were outside the room, Julia filled Brian in on the meeting with Dr. Gladwin.

“I’m so sorry, Jules. How did your mother take the news?”

“She was stoic about it. I’m afraid of what they’re going to find with the CT scan, though. If the cancer’s in her liver, she may not be able to fight it off again this time. Brian, if the results aren’t good, how would you feel about inviting her to stay with us for a while, maybe permanently?”

Chapter 22
Beating the Devil - Chapter 22

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 21: Brian joins Julia at the imaging center, where the ER doctor tells them she ordered an MRI of Marie’s spine because it looked like her cancer may have returned.

The next morning, Marie is visited by the on-call oncologist who reviewed her MRI, and he gives her the bad news that the cancer is back in her spine. Julia is with her. He has also ordered a CT scan of her abdomen to see if it has further metastasized.

Brian arrives later with the kids to visit Marie in the hospital. While the kids spend time with her, Julia tells Brian out in the hall that the cancer has returned and asks him how he would feel about having Marie live with them permanently until the end.

Chapter 22

“If this had been seven years ago, I would have said, ‘No way,’ but things are different now, and of course we can offer to have her live with us, if that’s what you want. But with everything you do, including training Earl to be a therapy dog, don’t you think you’ll be spread awfully thin if you have to care for her too? It’s likely to be a lot of work, especially later as the disease progresses.”

“Well, we can always hire extra help for her to share the workload if it gets to that point. You know this probably means the end of her career, so she really won’t have a reason for continuing to live in New York. I just think she’ll be much happier being around her family. Will you be able to put up with her full-time, though?”

“I love your mother now, Babe. She can be irritating at times, but she’s come a long way from how she used to be. The kids love her too. We should offer. She’ll probably put up a fuss about it, but she’ll see the wisdom of it in the end. I think it will be the best way to spend however much time she has left, and that may not be too long. I’m fairly certain of what the CT scan will reveal.”

The tears returned to Julia’s eyes. “Thank you, Brian,” she said as they hugged and held each other for a long time.

As they all feared, the CT scan of her abdomen revealed that the cancer had metastasized further than her spine—not only to her liver but also to her kidneys and large intestine.

In her two remaining days in the hospital, Marie was fitted for an orthotic brace that would cover her chest, abdomen, and lower back, giving her spine the stability it would need to heal. Thanks to the modern technology of a 3-D scanner that was used to map her body, the brace was ready in 24 hours, thus shortening her hospital stay.

Marie was released two days later with a walker to use and a prescription for physical therapy to begin once the spine had healed sufficiently. Dr. Gladwin also made a referral to an oncologist near where she would be staying in Cherrywood.

The Kendricks had planned well when they built their house because one of the five bedrooms, with an en suite, was located on the first floor. It was the room that Marie would occupy for the foreseeable future. Brian and Julia had not yet broached the subject of a permanent move, deciding to save that for a time when it would become more obvious to her.

Upon Marie’s arrival at the house, Earl greeted her at the door. He knew her well from several visits during the past year. Unlike some of the previous times, before his therapy dog training had kicked in, he greeted her calmly without jumping up, putting his paws on her chest and attempting to lick her face. This wouldn’t have been possible at any rate due to her walker, but he showed no inclination to try. There was no need to suppress that rapidly wagging tail, though, or his yips of excitement.

“Hello, Earl. How’s my favorite granddog? I’ll give you a proper hello when I get settled.”

He was happy to see her and pranced around. They had grown quite fond of each other, something that was not likely to have happened just a few years ago. She didn’t like most dogs, but this was her family now, and she loved every member.

“I could sure use a drink, Julia.”

“Okay, Mother. Let’s get you settled in the Florida room, and Brian will make your favorite.

When she was comfortably seated in a recliner with her feet up, Brian brought her an Arnold Palmer, her new favorite since she had sworn off alcohol. He then excused himself to go down to the lab. It was a workday after all, and his techs would be there. Johnny and Lindsay were in their last week of school before summer break, so it was just Marie and Julia now, and, of course, Earl.

He came over to Marie, and she began scratching his neck.

“There’s my big boy. Just look at how much you’ve filled out.”

He kept licking her hand, and his tail wagged happily.

“We’re working on that licking behavior, Mother,” said Julia. “He’s stopped licking faces, but he still sneaks licks of the hand when he thinks he can get away with it. Ask him to shake, and let’s see if he’ll give you his paw. I’m trying to get him to do that instead of licking.”

“Shake, Earl.”

When Earl put up his paw, Marie said, “Good boy, Earl! Good boy,” and she grabbed it for a shake. After releasing it, she continued patting his head and scratching his neck, and he stayed by her side. “You’re doing wonders with him, Julia. Is he a full-fledged therapy dog now?”

“Not quite. He hasn’t earned his vest yet, so to speak. We’re not a registered therapy team, and we still accompany other teams when they visit sites, but we’re getting close to going out on our own. We have to pass a test first. It won’t be long, though.”

“I’m sure people will love him.”

Downstairs in the lab, the team was going full speed ahead with their work on the nanoparticle pill.

“Malcolm, honey.”

“Yes, Bertie, dear.”

“Was this rack of test tubes sterilized yet?”

“Did it first thing this morning, dearest.”

“Okay, thank you.”

In the two years that Bertie had been working in the lab and Mal had returned, Brian couldn’t have been more pleased with the progress the three of them had made and the atmosphere in the lab. He was secretly amused by the pet names they had adopted for each other and the way they worked together.

The competition between them, if you could call it that, was more along the lines of who could come up with the cleverest names for the rats (Bertie was in the lead with Rat Damon) or the best dad joke (Mal led here with “What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese.)

During their first five months of working together, they perfected the home breathalyzers to the point that they were in very close agreement with not only the lab’s breathalyzer, gas chromatograph, and mass spectrometer combination, but also between the six they had initially constructed.

The team used the home breathalyzers on rats they had just induced cancer in. They would check the rats each day after they’d begun supplementing their water with Aflatoxin B-1 to see at what point they could detect cancer. This established a base detection time for when no pill was used.

For a different group of rats, they had fed them the nanoparticle pill at the same time they had begun inducing cancer. The detection time was substantially earlier, which not only proved the efficacy of the system but also provided the data needed to gain FDA approval for human trials.

During the past seven months, they spent most of their time testing the nanoparticle pill for toxicity. It would do no good to detect cancer early if it were to harm or possibly be fatal to the patient.

While Brian and Abby fine-tuned the pill, they had Bertie and Mal design a set of experiments to test the toxicity of the nanoparticles they were using. Unfortunately for the rats, there would be scheduled sacrifices with organ dissection to assess the amount of buildup, if any, in the organs. Unpleasant as that was, it was a necessity because that final step, for obvious reasons, couldn’t be done on humans.

Brian was very proud of Bertie and Mal for designing this comprehensive plan for toxicity testing, and he put it into effect immediately. The first scheduled group of dissections would begin in five months.

Marie went to bed at 9:00 PM on her first night out of the hospital. Once she had turned the bedside light off and settled in, she began mulling over her future. She dwelled on the idea that her career with the New York Phil might now be over. After many years of putting the violin before every other aspect of her life, she realized how much of her identity was wrapped up in it. She had reached her career goal of playing in one of the world’s elite orchestras, where she was now a well-liked and respected member, and it would likely be coming to an end. No, not just likely; she was certain, and it wounded her deeply.

As she brooded, she heard a light scratching at her door. What was that about? She ignored it, but it continued after a few moments. Then she heard a soft whimper.

Gingerly she got up, and, using the walker beside her bed, she made it to the door and opened it. Earl came in and looked up at Marie as if asking her if he could stay awhile.

“Here to give me some of your doggy therapy, Earl? Well, come on in. I’m going to leave the door cracked so you can let yourself out again.”

She made her way back to the bed, which Earl had already jumped upon, and when she’d settled back in, Earl positioned himself against her with his head where Marie could pet him.

His calming presence was exactly what she needed to ward off her feelings of despair, and she soon fell asleep with his comforting body by her side.

Chapter 23
Beating the Devil - Chapter 23

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 22: Brian and Julia agree to ask Marie to stay with them until the end but won’t ask her just yet. She remains in the hospital for two more days and then is discharged with a back brace and walker. On arriving home, Earl greets her with enthusiasm. Relaxing in the Florida room, Julia tells Marie about the therapy dog training.

Brian joins his lab techs, who are busy at work on the nanoparticle pill, currently working on toxicity testing. He is gratified by Mal and Bertie’s wonderful working relationship and is very proud of them for devising the toxicity testing plan.

When Marie goes to bed, Earl scratches at her door to be let in, and he joins her in bed to give her great comfort while she despairs at having to resign from her orchestra.

Chapter 23

A week later, Marie had her first appointment with Dr. Renee Houlihan at the Levine Cancer Institute in Shelby. She was the oncologist who would be caring for Marie during her stay with her family.

For this first meeting, they were seated in a small conference room. Julia and Marie sat on one side of a table, while Dr. Houlihan faced them from the other side with Marie’s records spread before her. She was an attractive woman in her mid-40s—about the same as Julia—with long, dark hair clipped together in the back.

After introductions and a few questions about how Marie was feeling physically today—like I could do cartwheels—and mentally—just happy as a clam—Dr. Houlihan decided she liked this woman and her sarcasm. She knew, however, this was often a way for some to disguise deeper concerns and fears, and she knew not to make light of anything in their discussions. She noticed that Julia approached the meeting with a more serious demeanor and that she took Marie’s hand and held it throughout.

“Marie and Julia, now that we know the cancer has spread and is active in multiple systems, that limits our treatment options. Your 2027 treatment included a course of chemotherapy along with surgery and radiation, but I’m afraid this time, due to the extent, we are limited to only chemo. How did you tolerate it, Marie?”

She thought back to that horrible time, which seemed interminable. “Not well. The anti-nausea drugs didn’t seem to touch the nausea, although it may have been worse without them. Who knows? I lost a lot of weight and had no energy. I had to take a leave of absence from my job, and, of course, I lost all my hair. I felt like crap, to be honest.”

“I’m afraid all of that is likely to happen again.”

“I want you to be honest with me, Dr. Houlihan. How much time would it buy me if I underwent chemo again?”

Dr. Houlihan paused for a moment as she formulated her response. It was not good. “Let’s put it this way: With palliative care only, you can probably expect 3 to 6 months, but with chemo, it’s likely to be 6 to 12 months at this stage of the disease. The drugs we would use now may have slightly fewer adverse effects, but there will always be some. I’m sorry for this grim assessment.”

“Please be honest with me again; if I were to opt for a course of chemo, is there any chance of returning to my job as a violinist in the New York Philharmonic?”

“I think it would be at least a couple of months before you could consider doing that in light of your injuries and the onset of chemo. After you’ve healed sufficiently and your body’s had the time to adjust to the chemo, it’s probably more a function of your ability to remain seated for extended periods and maintain your posture. I assume you need to sit with your back straight and your arms raised? Do you think you’ll be able to manage it?”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

Julia gave her mother’s hand a gentle squeeze.

There was a long pause before Marie said, “So, tell me about palliative care and what to expect from that.”

“It’s emphasis is entirely on making you as comfortable as possible. It would focus on keeping your pain at bay, and we have some terrific painkillers today with virtually no side effects except at extremely high doses. It would be the same one you’re taking now—Glyptophan. We w—”

“I know all about Glyptophan. My son-in-law invented it.”

Dr. Houlihan just stared at her for a long moment. “Your son-in-law is Brian Kendrick?” She looked at Julia and asked, “Is that your husband, Julia? Oh, my goodness, you’re Julia Kendrick, the famous violinist, and your husband is the inventor of Glyptophan! I’ve read all about you both in North Carolina Today. I had no idea it was you. I wasn’t even aware of your last name.”

Julia simply nodded.

She turned to Marie. “You must be so proud of them, Marie. What a power couple if there ever was one. Glyptophan has been such a life-changer for so many of my patients.”

“Yes, I am very proud of both of them. I’m not worried about being in pain.”

Julia said, “Dr. Houlihan, besides pain management, what are the other things she might benefit from, and would I be able to help with them?”

“There would be physical therapy and exercises you could help her with. Without having to worry so much about pain management, palliative care would focus more on keeping your mom’s energy up, any nausea or other discomfort down, and helping deal with any psychological issues like anxiety or depression that may arise. Again, the emphasis is on making her feel as comfortable, both physically and mentally, as possible.”

Marie looked at Julia for a long moment and patted her hand with the one she wasn’t holding. She turned back to Dr. Houlihan and said, “Well, I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.”

“Of course. There’s no need to make a decision right away. I would encourage you to think about the options and talk it over with your family. I’d like to meet with you again in a week, and we’ll talk some more. Whatever you decide is fine; there’s no right or wrong decision. Thank you both for coming today, and I’ll see you again in a week.”

On the way back home, Julia said, “How do you feel about what the doctor said, Mother? Were there any surprises?”

“Not really. I’ve been running this meeting through my head for a few nights now, and it went pretty much the way my interior screenplay had it. I’m certain my career is over. You heard the doctor. It will be a couple months until I could even think about returning to it, and that’s if I decide to go the chemo route. But even with that, there’s no guarantee I’ll last more than a few months more, so what’s the point?”

“Resigning from the orchestra is a big step, Mother. Are you sure you’ve thought about it enough?”

“Look, Julia, it’s not as though I’ve got a lot of built in reserves. I’m like a sinking ship without any freight to throw overboard. I doubt I’d have the stamina for long practice sessions, and who knows how shitty the chemo will make me feel? Physically, I don’t think I can do it.”

“Mother, Brian and I have talked about this. We’d like you to move down here and live with us. We c—”

“No, Julia. I wouldn’t put my worst enemy up to having me as a housemate. Right now for a while during my recovery is one thing, but permanently? You don’t know what you’d be setting yourself up for.”

“Yes, I do. Remember, I lived with you for the first 18 years of my life. You can be a challenge, but it’s different now. We love each other. We want you to be with us. Brian and I do, the kids do, and Earl certainly does. I know he’s been sleeping in your room the past few nights.”

“He’s a piece of work, Julia. He gets up there next to me, and I can hardly move him if I have to get up and use the bathroom. I never thought I’d feel this way about a dog, but I do love him.”

“Look, Mother, if you resign from the orchestra, there’s nothing to keep you in New York anymore, but here you’ve got your whole family who loves you and wants you to be with us. Won’t you consider it?”

Marie was suddenly choked up and couldn’t say anything. Love of family was quite new to her in the course of her life, something she had only experienced in the last seven years.

She thought back to when Julia was growing up. She had been an awful mother, she knew, and had put such pressure on Julia to excel at the violin that it drove her to drugs when she was 16.

And then Julia met Brian at rehab—a fellow drug addict, who certainly couldn’t be good for her and would no doubt keep her involved with drugs. For two years she put up with it. Perhaps when Julia was at Juilliard in New York, and the drug addict was going to school back in North Carolina, the relationship would just die, but no such luck.

After Marie had won an audition for the New York Philharmonic, she asked Julia if she could move in with her for two weeks while her new apartment was being prepared. Julia soon called the drug addict in desperation. Christ’s sake, it had only been a few good suggestions she’d been trying to give her thankless daughter on the concerto she and her teacher were botching, but Julia freaked out.

She knew that boy was going to take her to a hotel where they would undoubtedly do drugs and screw. She had to put a stop to it so she threatened to cut off Julia’s tuition to Juilliard unless she broke up with that miserable drug addict boyfriend.

Julia cursed her out, and they walked out of her life for 13 years. It had been 13 years of bitterness, loneliness, and alcoholism, a time when she had no friends and nothing but her job in the orchestra.

And then Julia invited her to the christening of her grandson when he was ten months old—a grandson she didn’t even know she had. She decided to attend, but their reunion was about to go down in flames because both she and Julia were too stubborn to apologize for the horrible scene in New York.

The trip would have ended in failure had Brian not rescued the relationship. How ironic that Brian, the one whom the rift was all about, was the one who brought them back together in the end.

Becoming a grandmother changed her, and she had never enjoyed life more than these past seven years with her family. How could she refuse such an offer as Julia just made? God knows she would need their help as she neared the end.

“Thank you for the offer, Julia. I’ll think about it.”

Chapter 24
Beating the Devil - Chapter 24

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 23: Julia accompanies Marie to her first visit with the oncologist, Dr. Renee Houlihan. She asks about the different options, including chemo and palliative care, and the doctor gives her the straight facts. Marie asks if she will be able to continue playing the violin, and it looks doubtful.

On the way home in the car, Julia and Marie talk about it, and Marie confesses she won’t have the stamina for continuing to play. Julia invites her to stay with the Kendricks since there doesn’t seem much point in returning to New York. Julia expresses the family’s love for her, and this puts her into a reverie about their past relationship and the 13-year estrangement they’d had. The chapter ends with Marie saying she’ll think about it.

Chapter 24

“Hello, Cedric. How are you?”

The call took him by surprise, especially the manner of the greeting. Outside of their lessons, she always called him Cecil, and he called her Ms. Schmidt. Lessons were to be taken seriously, though, and they used the correct names for those.

Not that they didn’t also have some fun at his lessons. They were the highlight of his week, in fact. She was tough but fair, sparing with her compliments such that when he received one, he knew he had earned it.

He often thought about the day, long ago, when she decided to take him on as her student. He had been half-joking about wanting to learn to play the violin, but when she offered to give him lessons at age 21—a rank beginner with little music experience except for singing in his church choir—he wondered why she would do that. He was a nobody, and she was an outstanding violinist and member of a highly elite orchestra. She had agreed to teach him with only one condition—that he take it seriously and practice.

“I’ll drop you like a hot potato,” she had said if he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

He asked her once why she’d been willing to teach him. She had given him a dismissive look and said, “Don’t you know?” but never said any more about it.

He thought he knew now; as unlikely as it seemed, they had become friends. He loved her for all her gruff, demanding exterior, and he thought the feeling was mutual.

When he heard that “Hello, Cedric. How are you?” he had a sudden feeling of dread, similar to how he’d felt at their parting two weeks ago when he’d dropped her off at the airport.

“I’m fine, Dr. Schmidt. How are you?”

There was a long pause before he heard her say in a strangled voice, “I’m afraid I can’t be your teacher anymore. I won’t be returning to New York.”

There was another long pause, and he knew to be silent and let her continue, although he was fairly certain of what she would say.

She must have gotten control of her emotions because the rest came out in a rush. “The cancer has come back, Cedric, and I’m afraid there’s nothing much that can be done about it. In fact, I’m not going to do anything about it except let it take its course. I’ll be living here with my family, who have generously offered to have me stay with them.”

“Oh, Dr. Schmidt. I am so sorry.”

She told him of the accident on the escalator and how that had led to the cancer diagnosis. They spoke for a long time, and she opened up to him about her fears of becoming a burden to her family and of her deep-seated feeling that her cancer was karma for being such an awful, self-centered person for most of her life. She spoke of her regret that it had taken so long to come to this realization and for all the lost years of a relationship with her daughter.

He mostly just listened because he didn’t know how to respond to a lot of it. He could hear the regret in her words and in her tone about how she had lived her life, but much of it seemed alien to him because it didn’t mirror his own experience with her.

The return of the cancer, although he knew it would be back one day, hurt more than he imagined. Damn! He had already lived through it once with her and seen the toll it had taken then. But his sympathy went deeper still when he learned of her feelings about herself that he’d never really been privy to. His love for her was strengthened even more by this conversation and her willingness to share these feelings. They truly were friends.

When at long last they said goodbye, he began making plans to visit. He didn’t tell her he would, but he wanted to see her at least one more time before the end. Next to his own family, Dr. Schmidt had become the most important person in his life, and he owed her a proper goodbye.

“Goodbye, Gramsy.”

“Goodbye, Sugar. You be good for Miss Julia now.”

“I will.” Samantha and Lindsay ran off with Earl at their heels.

“Miss Lettie, can you stay for a couple of minutes?” asked Julia, who had greeted them at the door. “I’d like you to meet my mother, Marie.”

“I be happy to meet yo momma, Julia. Samantha tole me she fell an’ broke her back. I hope she up for visitin’.”

“I think she’d love a little company.”

They went through to the Florida room, where Marie was sitting in a comfortable-looking recliner with her feet up, looking at a magazine.

Letitia Roberts or Lettie was Mal’s mother, who moved with the family when they left Charlotte to be closer to Cherryville and Brian’s house and lab. She cared for Samantha while Mal and his wife, Tanya, worked. She was a big woman who towered over both Julia and Marie. She had short gray hair and a friendly face. By contrast, Marie looked very small and frail down in her recliner.

Julia introduced them.

“Lindsay was certainly looking forward to playing with Sammy today,” said Marie.

“Yeah, them girls like two peas in a pod. Listen, I’m real sorry to hear about yo back. I think you in good hands here, though.”

“The best.”

“Lindsay tell me her grandmomma play da violin jus’ like her momma and she do too, and that you teach her momma to play. I think that’s a nice tradition. I hear Lindsay once, and that girl can play! You mus’ be a good teacher to teach Julia here. I know this girl can play!” she said, putting her arm around Julia’s shoulders. They all laughed.

“Perhaps one of my only talents in life,” replied Marie. “Thank you for saying it. I understand you’re living with Sammy and her family now in Shelby. A little different from Charlotte, right?”

“You could say that again. Julia say you from New York City. I never been, but I ‘magine this a whole lot different out here in the country.”

“It’s growing on me. I lived in North Carolina for a while when Julia was growing up, and I guess it’s now my home again.”

“Well, we glad to have you back, Marie. That Lindsay’s a sweet chile, an’ so’s Julia here,” she said, giving Julia a squeeze. “I bes’ be gettin’ home now. Been real nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Lettie.”

As Julia walked her to the door, Lettie asked her quietly, “How she doin’, Julia? She lookin’ kinda peaked.”

“She has cancer, Miss Lettie. She was in remission for seven years, but it’s back now.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Julia. She gone be stayin’ with you?”

“Yes. She won’t be going back to New York.”

“Well, that’s real nice that y’all be takin’ care of her.”

“We’re pleased she chose to stay, and no one more than Earl. He is the greatest comfort to her. He even spends most nights with her. It’s uncanny.”

“Isn’t that nice? Lindsay tole me you trainin’ him to be a therapy dog. I guess he gettin’ some good practice right here.”

“It’s really quite something the way he’s taken to her. He seems to sense that she needs him.”

“Well, he soun’ like he gonna be a great therapy dog an’ help a lotta folk.”

She had no idea how prophetic those words would prove to be.

Chapter 25
Beating the Devil - Chapter 25

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 24: Marie calls Cedric in New York to inform him she can’t be his violin teacher anymore. She tells him about the accident on the escalator and the diagnosis of cancer that has returned after a 7-year remission. Cedric reminisces about their relationship and growing friendship and vows he will come down to visit her before the end.

The scene switches to Letitia (Lettie) Roberts, Mal’s mother and Sammy’s grandmother, dropping Sammy off at the Kendrick’s for a playdate with Lindsay. Julia invites her in to meet Marie. They have a nice chat, and later, at the door, Julia tells Lettie her mother has cancer, but Earl has been a great comfort to her.

Chapter 25

September 2033
Three months later

For the past three months, despite their best efforts to reassure her that she wasn’t a burden, Marie knew she was a drain on the lives of her family.

Julia spent a significant portion of her day tending to her needs, always without complaint, though, as she gradually required more and more help.

Too often when Johnny or Lindsay wanted to engage her in a game or have her read to them, she had to beg off. ‘Sorry, kids, Grandma’s just too tired right now.’ She hated being such a wet blanket and seeing the hurt look on their faces, but it was often too much effort to engage with them now that she spent most of her time in bed.

Once, she overheard Lindsay asking Julia, “Why won’t Grandma play with me anymore?”

Julia had replied, “I’m sure she would if she could, but she just doesn’t have the energy. She’s very sick, you know?”

“Is she going to die, Momma?”

“We’re all going to die someday, Sweetie. Grandma’s time is getting close, but she loves you very much, and if she could play with you, she would. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Momma. I wish she wouldn’t die soon.”

“I wish she wouldn’t either, but it isn’t something we get to choose.”

One afternoon, Marie awoke from a nap in the recliner in the Florida room. As she regained consciousness, she thought she was still dreaming when she heard the slow, haunting melody of “The Swan” by Saint-Saëns gently playing. She lay there with her eyes closed, enjoying the familiar, beautiful song. When she realized it wasn’t a dream, she opened her eyes to find Cedric standing before her and smiling while he played. She said not a word and let him finish the piece.

“Cedric, that was exquisite. How did you learn to play so well?”

“I had an amazing teacher.”

She reached her arms up. He laid his violin and bow down, leaned over, and gave her a gentle hug.

Julia, Brian, and the kids came into the room and stood by Cedric. Marie smiled gently and gave her head a slight shake. “You all… excuse me; I’m in the South now. Y’all surprised me. How long have you rascals been planning this?”

“For a little while,” said Cedric. “Then Julia called and invited me down for Labor Day, and here I am.”

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

The following day, a party was in full swing in the Kendrick backyard. It was Labor Day and a beautiful, late summer afternoon with the temperature a pleasant 82 degrees.

A friendly game of pool volleyball saw Brian, Bertie, Tanya, and Johnny trying desperately to win against Mal, Julia, and Cedric. Even though they had four against the other team’s three, they were receiving a sound drubbing at the hands of Mal and Cedric, who had perfected their setups and spikes.

Despite having Lindsay and Sammy sitting on their side of the pool, cheering them on, it did nothing to lessen the beating. Brian’s side tried to send the majority of their shots at Julia, the other team’s weakest link, but she did a creditable job of keeping the ball in play so that Mal and Cedric could perform their magic.

Earl had been interfering with the game, swimming back and forth beneath the net, so he was banished to stay with the grandmas under a shady umbrella to watch the game. Marie was in a wheelchair while Lettie was sitting in a vinyl-strapped pool chair.

“Earl, lie down,” said Marie, and Earl lay down between them.

“He listen better than the chil’ren,” said Lettie, and Marie laughed.

“Julia has trained him well. He has to be doing well to be in the therapy dog program. They’ve just started going to places on their own without supervision.”

“He still sleep with you, Marie?”

“Almost every night now. I really miss him on the few nights he doesn’t.”

“He mus’ be a comfort to you.”

“He truly is.” She said this while patting his head and scratching his neck.

Every so often, Earl would get up and sniff around, and more than once they found him sniffing at Lettie’s back through the slats of the chair. Once or twice, Lettie jumped as she felt his cold nose against her skin. She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit that covered only part of her back.

“Whatchu doin’ back there, Earl?”

Marie said, “Earl, come.”

He would stop what he was doing and return to his spot between the chairs.

“Lie down,” and when he did, Marie said, “Good boy, Earl.”

On the third time this happened, Marie said, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He must enjoy the way you smell.”

“They like the smell of other dogs’ butts too, so I don’ know if tha’s a good thing or not,” and the two ladies cracked up.

Julia heard them cackling together, and it lightened her heart to hear it. It wasn’t often her mother expressed much joy anymore. Although Marie wasn’t quite ready for hospice care yet, it wouldn’t be too much longer. Her pain was well controlled with steadily increasing doses of Glyptophan, and there was some time before she would reach the maximum safe dosage. But a number of other symptoms, in particular a lack of energy and light-headedness, were beginning to become the norm. The walker was no longer an option, and Marie had graduated to using a wheelchair.

When the volleyball game ended with the lopsided score of 15-4, everyone except Johnny exited the pool and dried off. This was Lindsay, Sammy, and Earl’s cue to jump back in the pool and join him.

The kids had a rubber ball they would throw, and Earl would fetch it in his mouth and bring it back. They had to wrestle it away from him while he mock-growled, but he would eventually release it, for he enjoyed the chase as much as the tug-of-war.

Brian got the grill started, and the grownups divided themselves into two groups: the men stood around the grill, and the women gathered around the two grandmas. Mal remained facing the pool to keep watch on the kids and the dog while Brian cooked the steaks, hamburgers, and hot dogs.

Mal’s wife, Tanya, helped Julia bring out the rest of the food, which included various salads, baked potatoes, and baked beans, which they laid out on a table for everyone to serve themselves buffet style.

When the meat was cooked, they all loaded their plates and sat down at a large picnic table to eat.

Before digging in, Marie said in a soft but steady voice, “I would like to propose a toast.”

Everyone quieted down to hear these unexpected words from Marie.

“Since this is Labor Day, it seems only right to toast all the labors of my family and friends who have worked so hard all year.

“First of all, to Brian, Malcolm, and Bertie for the labor you have been putting into your wonderful creation—an early cancer detection system. I only wish you’d started working on it 10 years ago!” she said mock-scoldingly. A few chuckles greeted this.

“To Johnny, Lindsay, and Cedric, who have worked very hard on their music this past year and who have shown such remarkable improvement. I fully expect to hear a concert later on to demonstrate it.

“To the entire Roberts family for their hard work in helping Sammy receive and adjust to her new heart and especially to Sammy for being so brave about it.

“And finally, to Julia and Earl, who have worked incredibly hard together to be able to provide comfort to people in need. Julia, you’ve done a fine job training him, and Earl,” she said loudly to get his attention, “come.”

When he came and sat by her side, she petted his head and continued her toast, “Earl, you have no idea how much comfort you have brought me, young fellow. Having you by my side while I… “ She began to choke up and had to pause for a few seconds. The table was silent and patiently waited while she regained control.

“Well, it must be a labor to hang around an old crab like me,” she said, giving his head a scratch.

She raised her glass. “To Labor Day,” and they all repeated, “To Labor Day,” as they clinked glasses.

The conversation was lively, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the meal. It was followed by dishes of blueberry cobbler and ice cream.

As they were finishing up, Johnny, sitting across from Julia, said, “Momma, can we play our concert now?”

“Absolutely. Grandma’s expecting it. Let’s go get our instruments. Lindsay and Cedric, that means you too.”

They soon returned, and Julia was carrying both her violin and banjo cases.

First up were Julia and Johnny playing two banjo pieces: “Dueling Banjos” from the movie Deliverance and Earl Scruggs’s classic “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” which the two of them played at an impressive speed together. It was met with wild applause from the audience, which whooped and hollered their approval.

Johnny then played the banjo version of Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 1” that he’d promised his grandma, and Marie clapped especially loudly.

Next were three duets: Lindsay and Cedric playing Pleyel’s “Duet for Two Violins,” Julia and Lindsay playing Bach’s “Invention No. 1 in C Major,” and finally Julia and Cedric playing the difficult Halvorsen’s “Passacaglia for Two Violins.”

They finished the concert with all four musicians playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” with Lindsay and Cedric alternating on the part played by the song’s protagonist named Johnny (Johnny Kendrick’s namesake), while Julia played the devil’s part. Johnny played his banjo, and even Brian joined them and did the vocals. This proved to be the hit of the concert, met by riotous applause (by the musicians too), and everyone finished the evening on a high note.

It had been a wonderful party, but it would also prove to be the last good time for Marie. The final countdown was now underway.

Author Notes

CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist

Picture courtesy of GPT-Image-1

Chapter 26
Beating the Devil - Chapter 26

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 25: Marie is losing strength and stamina as the end is rapidly approaching. She awakens from a nap one day to hear Cedric playing “The Swan.” He has come down from New York to visit her at Julia’s invitation.

The following day is Labor Day, and the Kendricks host a party around the pool. The Roberts family and Bertie have been invited. While a pool volleyball game ensues, Earl sits with Marie and Lettie, watching. Earl is restless and several times gets up to sniff at Lettie’s back.

Following the game is the meal, which Marie kicks off with a heartfelt toast to all the members in attendance in honor of Labor Day. Following the meal, Julia, Johnny, Lindsay, and Cedric put on a concert enjoyed by all. This is Marie’s final hurrah.

Chapter 26

“Dr. Schmidt, I’ve got to be going now,” said Cedric the following morning. “That was a fine party yesterday afternoon, and I hope you enjoyed the concert.”

“It was very touching watching you and Lindsay play together, even that horrible devil song.”

He laughed and took her hand. She was lying in bed and appeared to have declined noticeably since yesterday. How fragile she looked. Her complexion was beginning to yellow as jaundice was setting in. Her eyes were lidded, and her face had little affect. It was all happening so fast.

“I enjoyed that very much, but I’ll also never forget having the opportunity to play with your most famous student, the great Julia Kendrick. What an incredible honor that was.”

She smiled gently. “Cedric, I want you to promise me you’ll try to find another teacher, and you’ll continue to work hard.”

“I promise. It’s in my soul now, and you helped put it there. I’m so grateful for that. I don’t know how far I’ll go with it, but violin will always be part of my life now. Listen, I’ll come visit you again next month and show you what I’ve been working on.”

“You’d better, Cecil.”

“Oh, you know I will, Ms. Schmidt.”

“It’s Dr. Schmidt, Cecil.”

“It’s Cedric, ma’am.”

“Whatever,” they said together, with gentle laughter and with tears beginning to form for both of them.

He bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead. As he released her hand, he said, “I’ll see you in a month.”

He was putting a brave face on, but each one knew this was the last time.

The days passed in a blur. Hospice workers began coming in to attend to Marie’s needs. She was declining rapidly now and slept most of the day. They would try to get her to eat a little, but she had no appetite. She would sometimes drink half a can of Ensure, but that was the extent of her nutrition.

Her appearance went from yellowish to dusky, as not only was her liver failing but other organs too. She was comfortable enough since her pain was being well controlled, but the end was very near. She would soon be losing consciousness, a state from which she would not awaken.

Johnny and Lindsay had been in to talk with her that morning. She listened as best she could as they prattled on about school and their friends and who said what to whom, but she would occasionally drift off in the middle of it.

“Grandma, you have to stay awake. I’m coming to the best part,” said Lindsay, giving her shoulder a gentle shake.

Her eyes would open for a while, but it was a losing battle.

When she awoke a little while later, Johnny and Lindsay were gone, but she found Earl stretched out by her side and Julia mopping her brow with a cool cloth.

“I thought this might feel good, Mother. You felt so warm.”

“Feels good, honey.”

“Can I get you some water or some Ensure?”

“Sip of water.”

She spoke slowly and softly, and it was an effort for her. When she’d taken a few sips through a straw, she lay back and smiled faintly at Julia, who took her hand and held it between her two.

“Jus’ want you to know… I’m so proud of you…. I only wish… I woulda been half the mother you are…. You know what love is…. I never did for far too long. Do now…. Jus’ so sorry it took so long…. I love you, Julia…. And you married a won’erful man too…. Wish I had’n misjudged him so…. You allus belonged together.”

With her free hand, Marie reached down and placed it on Earl’s neck. He opened his eyes, turned his gaze upon her, and gave a little whimper.

Julia was touched by Marie’s words. “Mother, I know you love Brian now, and he loves you too. All was forgiven long ago. There’s no need to trouble yourself about it any longer. I love you too, and so do Johnny and Lindsay.”

Earl whimpered again softly. “And obviously, so does Earl,” Julia said with a gentle smile.

Marie smiled too, but she was too tired to stay awake and gently drifted off.

It was three nights later at 3:00 AM when Earl began scratching at the outside of Julia and Brian’s closed bedroom door. Julia awoke, heard him whining, and knew what had happened.

Chapter 27
Beating the Devil - Chapter 27

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 26: Cedric has to return to New York and makes his final goodbye to Marie in an emotional scene where they replay their standard joke with each other for the last time.

The family members spend their final few days with Marie, who is fading fast as the end approaches. She and Julia express their love for each other as Julia tries to assure Marie that all past troubles have been forgiven. Earl continues to offer his comfort to Marie and stays with her.

When Marie slips into unconsciousness, Earl lets Julia know of her death in the middle of the night.

Chapter 27

January 2034
Four months later

The snow was falling, and two inches had accumulated so far. School had been canceled, as was typical in North Carolina for just about any amount of snow, and the kids would likely have at least two or three snow days.

Mal and Bertie managed to make it into work, and Brian was glad because Paul Rieke had made a special trip to Cherryville to discuss the Investigational New Drug application the entire team had been working on for the past week. This included Abby, who had flown down earlier in the week. The team wanted to see if Paul could poke any holes in it.

The IND application would be evaluated by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research branch of the FDA before they would allow human trials to begin. It contained documentation of the animal studies, the composition of both the nanoparticle pill and the home breathalyzer, and a human trial plan.

To give his lab techs practice, Brian asked them to make a presentation to Paul, with Bertie leading off. She gathered her notes together and stood in front of the group in the small conference room of the lab.

“Brian and Abby have put us on a rather tight schedule, so we developed this IND for the CDER of the FDA PDQ.” She said it with a straight face, and the others cracked up at this alphabet soup of abbreviations.

She began by discussing the chemical makeup of the nanoparticle pill. She then described its primary function—to target cancer tumors and cause a burst of volatile organic compounds or VOCs when the nanoparticles bind to them.

She further discussed the toxicity tests she and Mal had designed and executed. The data showed that 100% of the nanoparticles ended up being excreted by the kidneys within 48 hours, and none of them remained and accumulated in the rats’ bodies.

“One hundred percent,” marveled Paul. “That’s very impressive.”

Mal was next, and he discussed the home breathalyzer’s function, which was to determine the type and amount of VOCs present in the breaths. He talked about its construction and what made this possible.

Abby went last and described how her identification and analysis algorithms were able to determine which combinations of VOCs and in what amounts and proportions indicated the presence of cancer.

Paul said, “This is a really impressive system, folks, and y’all should be commended for the success you’ve achieved with it so far. My main question, though, is: Can your nanoparticle pill target all forms of cancer or only specific ones?”

“That’s a great question, Paul,” said Brian. “Bertie, how about you take a stab at answering this?”

“Sure. The nanoparticles in the pill we tested will only seek out cancer tumors of the pancreas, colon, and liver. I call it the ‘pancoliver’ pill. I’m pretty proud of that name, by the way, but it’s not as good as the one Mal came up with for a pill that would target cancers of the stomach, lung, and esophagus. Tell ‘em, Mal.”

“The ‘stungus’ pill. But Brian and Abby haven’t invented that one yet.”

Everyone laughed and agreed that was a better name.

“There are other combinations as well,” said Brian, “but the point is, why wait years to develop a single pill when we could undoubtedly prevent a huge number of cancers by introducing this one sooner? These cancers account for around 20% of all diagnosed cases worldwide. That’s almost 3.5 million new cases per year. We’ll be taking a phased approach, and this is phase 1.”

“That seems like a reasonable approach,” said Paul. “So, will your ‘stungus’ pill be next?”

“Haven’t decided yet for sure, but probably. They also represent around 20% of all new cancers.”

Paul had a few more questions for the group, but during the course of these, Mal’s phone rang with Tanya’s ringtone, and he excused himself to take the call.

“Hi, baby. What’s up?”

“I told your mother not to, but she don’t listen to me and went outside to shovel the walk. She slipped on a patch of ice and fell hard. She busted her hip, Mal.”

“Oh, no! Where is she now?”

“We’re all at the hospital, including Sammy. No school today. The paramedics came and got your mother. She’s gonna need surgery.”

“Ah, jeez. How bad is it?”

“They said it was a simple fracture, and they wouldn’t have to replace the whole hip. But they said she’d be in the hospital a few days and then a few weeks in a rehab place.”

“Stubborn old woman. Sun probably woulda melted it by this evening.”

“Have some sympathy, Mal.”

“I do. But she can never just sit still. Always has to be doing something, and see what she gets for it? Look, as soon as this meeting is over, I’ll come right there. Is she in any pain?”

“No, they gave her Glyptophan. She’s okay.”

“Alright. This meeting should be over in an hour. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

When Mal came back to the conference room, Brian noticed his concerned look.

“Anything wrong, Mal?”

“Yeah, my mother fell on the ice and broke her hip. She’s going to have surgery this afternoon.”

“Oh, no. Sorry to hear that. Why don’t you take off now then? You should be with her.”

“Well, I guess if you don’t mind, I will.”

“Please give her our best,” said Abby.

“Thank you, Abby. Alright, y’all. I’ll call later and let you know how it’s going.”

The meeting was soon over. Paul had a few minor suggestions for the new drug application, but his overall impression was very favorable. After Julia served everyone lunch, Paul had to leave. It was a long drive back to Raleigh where he lived, and traffic would be slow on the snowy roads.

Abby had a 4:00 PM flight back to her home in Altoona, Pennsylvania. On the way to the airport, she said, “You’ve done this before, so how long does it take an IND to be approved?”

“Usually about 30 days, but who knows with the FDA?”

“Should we start trying to line up our phase 1 trial subjects, or might that be a waste of our time if it gets rejected?”

“Well, how confident are you in our system?”

“Pretty darn.”

“Me too. I think we should start,” said Brian.

“I don’t really know how to go about it.”

“I did it before for Glyptophan. I’ve got some information I can send you on best practices.”

“So, from what I understand, there’s no control group for the phase 1 trial, correct?”

“That’s right,” said Brian. “No placebo. Everyone gets the real deal.”

“And what happens to those we detect cancer in?”

“That’s where we’ll need some guidance from the FDA. I’m not sure what they’ll recommend. I’m hoping they’ll give the okay for testing by an oncologist.”

Abby thought of a problem with this. “Okay, but presumably, we’ll be detecting cancers well before their methods might. So, what happens when we detect it but they can’t?”

“That’s the $64,000 question.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's former chemistry professor and mentor, now a good friend

Picture courtesy of GPT-Image-1

Chapter 28
Beating the Devil - Chapter 28

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 27: The team gives a walkthrough of the investigational new drug application to Paul Rieke, whom they invited to critique it. In the middle of the presentation, Mal gets a call from Tanya saying that Lettie has fallen and broken her hip. Mal leaves to join his family at the hospital.

On the way to the airport, Abby asks Brian a key question: If their new system detects cancer in some of the trial subjects, would an oncologist be willing to do exploratory surgery if their own tests can’t find any evidence of cancer?

Chapter 28

Mal had arrived at the hospital at 11:30 and met Tanya and Sammy in the surgical waiting room. Lettie was in pre-op now and would be operated on within the hour.

Since it was a simple fracture of the femoral head, the surgery would involve repositioning the fractured bone fragments and stabilizing them with screws.

By 3:30 PM, the surgery was complete, and the family was admitted into the recovery room, where they found Lettie sitting up in bed and sipping water.

“Momma, you look pretty good,” said Mal. “How do you feel?”

“Like a damn fool. Shoulda been more careful on that icy sidewalk.”

“Well, I’m real sorry it happened. Are you in any pain?”

“Not much. They got me medicated pretty good with your boss’s drug.”

Sammy said, “When can you come home, Gramsy?”

“I don’ know for sure, Sugar. They say it ‘pends on how I do in physical therapy. Maybe just two days here at the hospital, but then they say I gotta go to rehab for a few weeks. So, it be a while ‘til I come home.”

“But who’s going to take care of me after school?”

“Baby, you don’t have to worry about that,” said Mal. “Momma and I will figure something out.”

“Gramsy, what’s rehab?”

“That’s a place where they teach me how to walk again.”

“Did you forget how when you fell down?”

“No, I didn’t forget, but it gonna be a little different ‘til I get used to it again. Gonna have to take it slow for a while and prob’bly need a walker.”

This seemed odd. “You mean somebody will walk you, like, with a leash?”

Lettie laughed at the mental image of that. Mal and Tanya couldn’t help themselves either.

“What’s so funny?” asked Sammy, who wondered why her questions often evoked such a reaction.

“No, Sugar. A walker’s that gizmo over there,” she said, pointing to the walker that had been placed in a corner of the room. “That’ll help me walk ‘til I heal up and get stronger.”

“Oh. Can I visit you at rehab, Gramsy?”

“Sure you can.”

“And maybe Miss Julia and Earl can come visit you too because they go to hospitals and stuff to visit people all the time.”

“Well, that’d be real nice. You tell ‘em I said so.”

“I will.”

Mal called Brian that night to let him know the situation with his mother. He then asked for the day off to stay with Sammy, who would be home because of the snow, and Brian told him no problem. Mal then asked if he could speak to Julia, and Brian handed her the phone.

“Hi, Mal. How is your mom doing?”

“Hey, Julia. She’s doing okay. Listen, I wanted to ask you something. Sammy had a real good idea. She mentioned that you and Earl are now making therapy dog visits. Mom’s going to be at the Atrium Pines Rehab Center starting Friday for a few weeks, and I think she would love a visit from you and Earl. Would that be possible?”

“We haven’t been to that one yet, but I can certainly get in touch with the administration there and ask if we could. I’ll call them tomorrow and let you know.”

“Thanks so much, Julia. I know she would love to visit with y’all.”

Julia phoned the rehab center in the morning and spoke to the head of Volunteer Services.

“My name is Julia Kendrick, and I’m calling to see if you accept visits by therapy dogs. My dog, Earl, and I are registered with Pet Partners.”

“Why, yes, Ms. Kendrick. We have frequent visits from therapy dogs, and our patients love them. For you and Earl to visit, we would need to see your registration card, a list of Earl’s vaccinations, and proof of liability insurance from Pet Partners.”

“I thought I should let you know that my main reason for coming is to visit a friend of mine, Letitia Roberts, who is going to be a patient there in a couple of days. But while we’re there, Earl and I would be happy to visit with other patients too.”

“That would be wonderful, Ms. Kendrick. Why don’t we set up a date, and when you come with Earl, I’ll have you meet with my assistant, who can help arrange your visit.”

“Okay, great.”

This was a Friday, and Julia made arrangements to come on Monday morning.

It was just Brian and Bertie in the lab on Friday. This had been Mal’s week for rat maintenance duties, but Bertie picked up the ball without complaint. Brian decided to help her.

While they worked, she said, “Brian, can I ask a stupid question?”

“Uh, no, Bertie. I don’t think that’s possible, knowing you.”

“Hmm… how about this? If a fly loses its wings, should we call it a walk?”

“Uh… okay, I guess I was wrong. So what’s on your mind?”

“Alright, in the Phase 1 human trials, assuming we get accepted, we’re going to test 100 people, right?”

“Yep.”

“And based on Abby’s biometric analysis, we should expect four to five cases of undiagnosed cancer in this group because we will have screened them for having a family history of either pancreatic, liver, or colon cancer and being really old, like, over 50.” She said this in her perfect deadpan fashion.

“Hey, watch it there, young ‘un. I’m getting pretty close to that myself.”

“Indeed. So, then we give them the pill, and we’re hoping to pick up about four or five who the breathalyzer shows cancer in. Bear with me; I’m getting to my dumb question shortly. Now, everyone who we detected cancer in will presumably get checked out by an oncologist, and some will have their cancer detected by current means and will begin treatment for it. So, here’s the question: What will happen to the people when their condition can’t be picked up by current methods? Would any reputable oncologist just take our word for it that they have the beginnings of cancer in their body? Would they have to wait until the cancer progresses enough to be detected by their means, which might be too late for the patients?”

Brian chuckled. “That’s three questions, not one, but as I predicted, they’re not stupid at all. In fact, Abby asked me that same thing last night, and I’ll give you the same answer. We’ve got to receive guidance on that from the FDA. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since speaking with Abby, and I think we can make use of another diagnostic tool—a cancer-sniffing dog—to lend credence to our results. They have a similar accuracy to our system.

“Of course, some people may ask, why do we need this new system at all if dogs are just as reliable? And the obvious answer is that there are fewer than 100 of them in the country right now, located in specialized facilities. But we happen to be very lucky because one lives within 45 minutes of here, and I’ve used him before.”

Brian related the story of the earlier sabotage, omitting the identity of the saboteur, and how he had detected it using Maddy and Bo.

“So, if we can duplicate our results by using Bo as an independent diagnostic tool, that might be enough to persuade an oncologist to do further, more invasive tests.”

“Would you do further tests if you were an oncologist?” asked Bertie.

“Me? Yeah, but I’m just a tad biased. Can we find one who would?” He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “I guess we’ll see.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's former chemistry professor and mentor, now a good friend

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra

Chapter 29
Beating the Devil - Chapter 29

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 28: Lettie’s family visits her at the hospital, where she requires surgery for a broken hip resulting from slipping on ice. Sammy suggests a visit by Julia and Earl at the rehab center where Lettie will go for several weeks following the hospital stay.

Mal calls Julia and tells her Sammy’s idea, and Julia calls the rehab center and makes arrangements to come for a visit.

Brian and Bertie chat while working in the lab. Bertie raises a good question: If their system detects cancer during the Phase 1 human trials, what will happen if an oncologist can’t detect it with current methods?

Chapter 29

At 9:00 on Monday morning, Julia and Earl arrived at Atrium Pines Rehab Center and met with the Volunteer Services assistant coordinator. Earl had on his therapy dog vest and sat patiently at Julia’s side while she showed her credentials to the assistant.

Being a rehab facility in which patients follow precise schedules of therapy, activities, meals, etc., the assistant had prepared a schedule of visits, which she handed to Julia. She would meet with six patients in their private rooms for 10-15 minutes apiece, and there would be two 10-minute breaks within that time. Julia and Earl would debrief with the assistant at the end of the visit.

Lettie was their fourth stop. When they entered her room, they found her seated in a chair by her bed, and her face lit up.

“Hi, Miss Lettie. You look pretty perky,” said Julia as they came into her room. Earl was on a short leash, as he was for his entire time there.

“Hello, Julia. I could hardly wait for y’all to come. Hello there, Earl.”

Earl recognized her and started wagging his tail immediately. He walked over to greet her and danced around while she patted his head and scratched his neck.

“Earl, sit,” said Julia, and Earl sat right down next to Lettie’s chair.

“What a good boy, Earl,” said Lettie, who continued to pet him.

As Lettie and Julia chatted, Earl began getting restless. He stood up again and began sniffing all around. He eventually made his way to Lettie’s chair and began working his head beneath the arm of it and poking his nose between her side and the chair back.

“Earl, no!” said Julia firmly. “Come.”

Earl reluctantly returned to where he had been.

“Sit.”

He sat, but he was distracted. He snorted and shook his head.

“I’m sorry about that, Miss Lettie. I don’t know what got into him. He’s usually very polite.”

“Oh, he’s fine, Julia. Me and Earl good friends.”

But Earl shuddered. What was that smell? It was very faint and vaguely familiar. He suddenly remembered what it was. It was the smell that had been hurting Grandma! He’d hated that smell and wanted to protect her from it. And as that smell grew worse and scarier, he wanted to be near her even more, but she was fading. He tried his best, and then one night, she was just gone.

He shuddered again, got up, and began pacing.

Julia was surprised by this odd, uncommon behavior. “Earl, what’s wrong?”

He whimpered a few times.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lettie. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Tha’s alright, Julia. Maybe he just don’ like the way I smell. He was actin’ kinda funny at that Labor Day party at y’all’s house too. Tha’s what yo Momma and me was laughin’ about so much.”

Amused at the memory, Lettie turned to Earl. “’S okay, Earl. Maybe I put on some perfume next time you come visit me,” she said, chuckling.

With a wan smile, Julia said, “Miss Lettie, maybe he just needs a break right now. We usually take a break after every two patients, and he may just be a little antsy for one. I’m so sorry about this.”

“Don’tchu worry ‘bout it, Julia. It jus’ nice to see you both.”

“Maybe we could try again in a few days?”

“That’d be real nice. I’ll look forward to it.”

That evening, Julia discussed the visit with Brian. “It was just so strange the way he stuck his nose between the chair and her back and kept sniffing. I’ve never seen him behave like that with any other patient.”

“And you say he whimpered a few times?”

“Yeah. He snorted and shook his head, then he stood up and began pacing and whimpering.”

“Hmm… and Lettie said he was doing something similar at the party?”

“She didn’t elaborate. She kind of jokingly said Earl must not like the way she smells and that she and Mother were laughing about it. I remember seeing them laughing together, and it warmed my heart. I hadn’t seen her like that in a long time.”

“Oh, brother. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Brian.

“Yeah, maybe. Earl spent so much time with Mother that he got used to the smell of cancer, and maybe he detected it in Lettie too?”

“Exactly what I was thinking. We might have our own cancer-sniffing dog here. That’s the way Bo began. Maddy said he kept sniffing her friend’s crotch, and she ended up being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.”

“What should we do? God, if only someone could invent a device able to sniff cancer to confirm what a dog smelled.”

“Huh, what a clever idea,” said Brian, laughing. “And what a great opportunity it would be to actually try it out on someone. All of us in the lab have tried it on ourselves, but it never registered any cancer. Not the pill part, just the breathalyzer.”

“I’m wondering, though,” said Julia, “is it ethical to use it on someone before it’s undergone human testing?”

“It’s a good question. I think there’s no problem if we only use the breathalyzer like Mal, Bertie, and I did. There’s no impact on a person using just that. Giving them the untested nanoparticle pill would be an ethics breach, though, because that could potentially affect a person.”

“Why don’t you and Mal discuss using just the breathalyzer and see what he thinks before possibly frightening Lettie with it?”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Tread softly, babe. That family’s had their fill of medical problems in the last couple of years.”

“I will.”

“Bertie, dear?”

“Yes, Malcolm, darling.”

“I want to thank you for completing rat duty for me last week. I will happily make up the time for it this week.”

“No need. It was my great pleasure.”

“Much as I appreciate that, I must insist.”

“Awright, den,” she said, using her gravelly Billy Bob Thornton impersonation from the movie Sling Blade.

Mal laughed. “You’re getting better at that.”

Brian came to the door of his office and said, “Mal, do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure, Brian.”

When he came in and sat, Brian told him of Julia and Earl’s visit to Lettie at the rehab center.

After he had described it, Mal said, “Yeah, that pretty well matches what Momma told me. She also mentioned the party and how Earl had behaved strangely there too. Are you thinking there’s something going on?”

“Could be. Earl spent an awful lot of time with Marie the three months she was here. He slept with her most nights. He was a great comfort to her. And it’s possible he smelled the same sort of smell coming from your mother. Not that Earl would know exactly what he was smelling. He’s not trained to detect cancer, but it’s possible the similarity was there, and he was reacting to it.

“I think Earl associates that smell with Marie’s illness and death. He was the one who notified us the night she died when he came scratching at our bedroom door and whining in the middle of the night. I don’t mean to frighten you, Mal, because God knows your family has been through a lot recently with Sammy and now with your mom. But, you know, we do have a means of early detection at our disposal that might just confirm what Earl smelled. I’m talking about only using the breathalyzer, not the pancoliver pill. What do you think?”

“I don’t see any downside if she’s agreeable, and I’m sure she would be. Let me talk to her and explain everything. Wouldn’t it be something if falling and breaking her hip ended up being a blessing in disguise?”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's former chemistry professor and mentor, now a good friend

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra

Chapter 30
Beating the Devil - Chapter 30

By Jim Wile

Recap of Chapter 29: Julia and Earl pay Lettie a visit at the rehab center. Earl behaves strangely and tries to sniff behind Lettie’s back. Julia apologizes for his rudeness, and they leave. At home, she discusses this with Brian, and they theorize that Earl might have gotten used to Marie’s cancer odor and smelled something similar on Lettie.

Brian and Julia discuss possibly using the breathalyzer without the pancoliver pill on Lettie to confirm their suspicion, and Brian proposes the idea to Mal the next day. Mal agrees to talk to his mother in hopes she will consent to try it.

Chapter 30

When Mal returned to his rat duties, Bertie looked up from her workstation. His expression was sober, and his shoulders were slumped.

“Anything wrong?” she inquired.

“Well, maybe. There could be more going on than a busted hip for my mother.”

He related the conversation he and Brian had just had. She got up from her workstation, came over to Mal, and put her arms around him. He hugged her back, and they stood that way for a few moments.

“Thank you, Bertie.”

“I surely hope there’s nothing to it, but if there is, it couldn’t have happened at a better time, when maybe it’s early enough it can be treated.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“I’m just thinking here. What if the readings from the breathalyzer aren’t conclusive? Suppose they indicate a small possiblity, but don’t reach the threshold for a definitive diagnosis?”

“Are you suggesting she take the pancoliver pill to strengthen the VOC production to meet the threshold? Do you think Brian would even consider that, seeing as how it hasn’t been approved for human testing yet?”

“I don’t know. It was just a thought.”

“That would be a big risk for him. The FDA frowns on shit like that. I certainly couldn’t ask him to do it and risk the consequences.”

“No, you’re right,” Bertie conceded.

“Well, let’s hope if there’s anything to see, we’ll see it with the breathalyzer.”

After work, Mal headed straight to Atrium Pines. Lettie was already back in her room after an early dinner. She was seated in an armchair watching TV.

After Mal greeted her with a kiss, he turned the TV off, pulled up the other chair in her room, and sat in front of her. He took her hand and said, “Momma, I don’t want to alarm you or anything because this may be nothing at all, but Brian and I were talking this morning about you and Earl and his strange behavior around you.”

Lettie began to tense up and applied pressure to Mal’s hand. “What was you sayin’ ‘bout it, Malcolm? I don’ think I like where this is goin’.”

“Like I said, Momma, this may be nothing, but I think Julia probably told you how much time Earl spent with Marie. We think he got used to the smell of her cancer, and just maybe he smelled something similar on you. The way he reacted to you on two occasions could have been something else entirely, but it might be worth checking out, seeing as how we have a device that can do that.”

“You sayin’ he mighta smelled cancer on me?”

Mal hesitated, trying to frame his response.

“You don’ have to answer; I know that’s what you suggestin’. So, you want me to take that pill and breathe into that tube? That it?”

“No, just breathe into the tube. The pill hasn’t been tested on humans yet, although it works very well on rats.”

“I don’ know, Malcolm… “

“Momma, what do you have to lose? You don’t have any symptoms, but that’s the way with many cancers—no symptoms until it’s well advanced. Wouldn’t you like to diagnose it as early as possible when you would have a lot more treatment options?”

“Well, I guess I can’t argue with that. When you wanna do it?”

“How about tomorrow? We could come over in the morning. What’s your PT schedule like tomorrow?”

They looked it over together and chose 10:00 AM.

“Alright, Momma. Brian and I and maybe even Julia and Earl will come tomorrow. I’ll check with the facility first to make sure it’s okay.”

Mal stood and bent down to give her a hug. “Just have a normal evening, and try not to worry. It may end up being nothing.”

“’Don’ worry, he says.’ Like you wouldn’ worry with that news? Awright, I do my bes’. See y’all tomorrow, Malcolm.”

“Momma, I—”

“Go on now, shoo!”

Mal gave her a kiss on the forehead and left.

The following morning, Brian, Mal, and Julia arrived at Lettie’s room. Julia had Earl on a leash.

Lettie was again seated in an armchair. “Hello, y’all. Malcolm said I might have a visit by the whole pack. Hello there, Earl. I see they brung you too. Come here, let me say hi to you.”

“Miss Lettie,” said Julia. “Thanks for agreeing to this visit. Mal told us he explained the purpose to you. It may be nothing at all, and Earl just might have been acting peculiar for some reason all his own. Do you mind if he sits in the chair and gets face-to-face with you? And maybe you could keep talking to him. Brian thinks it’s important that he sniffs your breath in addition to your back.”

“I gotta say, I was a little surprised at what Malcolm tol’ me yest’day, and that warn’t the bes’ night a sleep I ever had, but I don’ mind talkin’ at him. C’mon up here, Earl. Let’s you an’ me have us a little conversation,” said Lettie when Mal pushed the other chair over next to her.

Earl hopped up and looked at Lettie. “Awright, Earl. You stirred up quite a fuss ‘parently when you was here the other day. Now you gets to smell my stinky breath.”

And there it was again, even stronger now that he was closer to her. It was just like when Grandma used to talk, and it would come right out of her mouth. He shuddered, and he couldn’t keep the bad memories away. He began to whimper. Maybe he could help this big, dark lady like he helped Grandma. She always seemed to calm down when he’d laid beside her and would begin to smell a little less strong. If only he could have drawn all that bad smell from her, maybe she wouldn’t have left him.

This big woman continued to talk to him. He tried to stay strong for her, but even so, he couldn’t help whimpering occasionally. It finally became too much, and he hopped off the chair.

Brian looked at Julia, then at Lettie. “Miss Lettie, would it be possible for Earl to sniff your back? That seems to have been the place he first noticed anything.”

“He sho did’n’ seem to like my breath none. I know it ain’t always the bes’, as Sammy tell me sometimes. But I didn’ think it was bad ‘nough to make a dog cry.”

Everyone smiled at this attempt by Lettie to lighten the mood. It was an admirable effort to make light of it, but no one laughed out loud.

Mal said, “Momma, let’s get you standing up with your walker, facing away from Earl in the chair.”

He started to try to help her, but she shooed him away and was able to do it herself. She backed up to Earl, who had gotten back on the chair, and he began sniffing her lower back.

He smelled it again. Not as strong as when she talked to him, but surely there. He couldn’t stop trembling when he smelled it. It wasn’t exactly the same as Grandma’s smell, but it had that same sharp tang to it. And then it became too much, and he howled.

The memory of that night when it had been so strong as he lay beside Grandma overwhelmed him. And then the smell had changed suddenly as she became still, and he knew that he’d failed to stop it and that she’d left him.

Julia said, “That’s okay, Earl. Everything’s okay,” but in truth, she was alarmed by this reaction, as were the others. “I’d better take him out. We’ll be outside walking around.”

Brian nodded, and they left. He said to Lettie, “His reactions seem pretty consistent, but so far, they don’t necessarily indicate cancer. Why don’t we see what the breathalyzer shows, Miss Lettie?”

“That thing cry too if it don’ like what it smell?”

Brian chuckled. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Let’s hope it stays happy. Mal, you want to instruct her on how to breathe into it?”

“Sure. Momma, you need to seal your mouth around the mouthpiece, then we want you to take 10 normal breaths into it. Breathe through your mouth the entire time. It will allow you to take breaths because a flap opens and closes. No need for extra long inhales or exhales; just breathe normally. Are you ready to try it?”

“Awright. Seems simple enough.”

“Okay, go ahead and start.”

Author Notes CHARACTERS

Brian Kendrick: A 43-year-old neuroscientist and cancer researcher
Julia Kendrick: Brian's 43-year-old wife. She is also a world-class violinist.
Johnny Kendrick: Their 8-year-old son
Lindsay Kendrick: Their 6-year-old daughter
Earl Kendrick: The Kendrick's chocolate Labrador Retriever
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother
Abby Payne: Brian's partner on the project. She is 67 and a brilliant mathematician.
Malcolm Roberts (Mal): One of Brian's two lab technicians
Tanya Roberts: Mal's wife
Samantha (Sammy) Roberts: Mal's 6-year-old daughter
Letitia Roberts (Lettie): Mal's mother
Larry Posner: One of Brian's two lab technicians
Vivian Delacroix: An oncology professor at Wake Forest University also doing early cancer detection work
Roberta (Bertie) Chen: Brian's new lab technician
Cedric (aka Cecil) Washington: Marie's premier violin student and friend
Maddy McPhail: Owner of Bo
Bo McPhail: Maddy McPhail's cancer-sniffing therapy dog
Dr. Renee Houlihan: Marie's oncologist
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's former chemistry professor and mentor, now a good friend

Picture courtesy of Imagen-4-Ultra

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