Feeling depressed, Allison decided to stop at Louie’s for one of his great calzones along with a nice, cold Yoo-Hoo prior to checking on her simian friends. Her mom was always offended that Allison would eat her pizza or calzone with a chocolate drink. She just didn’t understand. Louie, on the other hand, had been serving this combo for over forty years and welcomed Allison with a great hug…Italians do that quite often. She enjoyed sitting at the counter for lunch, watching Louie flip the pizza dough in the air. She noticed that not once did he miss the retrieval nor ever did he hit the ceiling. The aroma of the freshly fried calzone had an immediate calming affect, and the Daily News at one of the nearby tables beckoned to her. Maybe checking the classifieds for another source of income might help her economic plight. Flipping past the shootings, robberies and fraudulent dealings found on the first few pages, Allison focused in on potential income opportunities. While the majority of the ads promised ‘one thousand dollars a week working from home’, one in particular caught her eye. The ad read as follows: “Wanted, fellow researcher to take part in cell research; pays well and I come to you.” Allison recognized the phone number as a cellular line and was about to dial when the lunch from heaven arrived. First things first, the phone call could wait. There is nothing that a steaming hot cheese calzone and a Yoo-Hoo can’t help fix, thought Allison.
Cells
John Fabrini was smarter than all the rest of his colleagues. He was convinced of this wholeheartedly. After graduating Summa Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University with a PhD. in microbiology, he was quickly scooped up by the Rockefeller University and given a great salary with all the bells and whistles that came with it. His only prerequisite to accepting the position was that he be allowed to continue his work on the use of hand sanitizers to fend off disease. He found that while millions of dollars were spent each year on what was really just perfumed alcohol, his research focused on synthesizing a new form of sanitizer that killed 99.9% of bacteria and viruses while at the same time allowing for the normal flora of the skin to remain intact. In other words, he was not looking to create a barren, sterile environment that smelled good, but rather a natural “healthy skin” environment. The Board of Directors agreed to his one caveat despite protests from one of their current Professors. Alfred Milton, chairman of the Department of Microbiology had taught Professor Fabrini several years earlier while still at Vanderbilt. Though Dr Milton agreed that Professor Fabrini was well qualified “on paper,” he had seen him perform in real world laboratory experiments. Quick to form hypotheses, there were numerous times when such ‘educated guesses’ were not given enough time to come to fruition (or failure). Indeed, several experiments proved dangerous. One instance in particular came to Professor Milton’s mind. The deactivation of a corrosive acid required several minutes for the reaction to reach completion and Dr.Fabrini in his haste attempted to push the reaction faster. The end result was the total loss of a tabletop due to damage from the boiling acid, and a near miss of acid on a student. Of course, Mr. Fabrini blamed the entire incident on his incompetent student collaborator who did not set the correct setting on the Bunsen burner. With extreme reluctance, Dr. Milton agreed to adding on the new staff member. He also knew that Fabrini could really hurt his reputation, if not destroy it.
Dr. Milton was an asshole. Professor Fabrini was aware that he was on staff at the Rockefeller Institute but with such a sweet signing package, he knew that Milton was not going to get in the way of his work. As a matter of fact, his position as chairman of the department of microbiology may even come in handy with his studies. Fabrini always smirks when he thinks of the day that he walked in on Professor Milton and Carly Robach a third year grad student in the Biochem lab. Core temperatures were definitely high that day as he took Carly for a ride on top of the granite countertop! Fabrini put that little tidbit of knowledge in his back pocket, knowing that someday it might come in handy.
The Rockefeller University, located on the upper east side of Manhattan, was founded in 1901 and has been the leader in many areas of medical research, including infectious disease. Researchers there are credited with culturing the organism responsible for syphilis and for associating certain oncogenic viruses with cancer. The microbiology department, located on the third floor of a nineteenth century neoclassical building, is somewhat isolated from the rest of the local scientific community. Fabrini’s office, complete with his own lab and incubators, was located at the end of a long hall, incidentally the furthest office away from Milton’s. From a passersby point of view, Fabrini’s office appeared chaotic. Fabrini would paraphrase that by saying that it was organized chaos. He knew exactly where everything was…or so he kept telling himself. His most recent work focused on a chemical known as Bourgal, otherwise known as lily of the valley. He much preferred the scientific name of 3,4 tert butylphenyl propionaldehyde because it impressed the majority of the ‘common’ women that he dated. He decided years ago that romantic encounters with those of the scientific community were too stressful as they were always questioning his research protocols. His most recent date with a third year psychology major (red flag) ended abruptly at dinner when she suggested that he was suffering from flight of ideas. Unfortunately, she just couldn’t keep up. Luckily, his romantic life was secondary to his work which kept him in the lab for many more hours than his colleagues, often being the last out the door at night. Though his previous work on the use of various sanitizing agents did not contribute much to what was already marketed, his recent discovery was substantial. Bourgal, when applied to cultures containing disease causing bacteria and viruses, killed all the organisms on the culture plate immediately. Even more importantly, normal skin cells placed in the culture were unaffected and began to multiply at a rapid rate. He had finally found a chemical that might fill a very lucrative niche and make some great dinero. Not only might this be used as a sanitizer on the skin, but with its reproductive capability, it might be useful for burn victims and for synthesizing new skin! He could not figure out, though, why the cultures became a liquid soup mess after eight to twelve hours in the incubator. He made a mental note to get maintenance up there to check the temperatures on the twenty year old machine.
Fabrini knew that he had discovered something that would change his life. He would finally be able to prove himself to that idiot Milton. Fabrini had heard through the grapevine that Milton was against his coming on staff. Who would be eating crow now?, thought Fabrini. He knew that he would have to approach Milton to get further funding for his next step in the research process, human experimenting. That piece of information in Fabrini’s back pocket may finally prove useful to him, but he needed a plan. First, he would show Milton his work (leaving the incubator issue out of the equation). Who knows, he might just show some interest/approval of his work. If Milton gave him any problem, he just might have to mention Carly Robach and his tryst in the bio-chem lab. Funding for the project should be easy. Whenever money could be made for the Institute, the Board of Directors ears would go up like those of a fox near a hen house. While Fabrini would only collect 50% of the earnings from any project (another stipulation in his contract), it would still be a shit load of money.
Milton approached Fabrini’s office with that “I am the man” swagger when