“That’s a nice way for them to put it,” said Mike, smirking. “More like shit-canned without pay until they could figure out what to do with me.”
“What happened?” asked Ken.
“Bad stuff with a side thing I was doing,” said Mike. “Nothing to do with my work, but they’re afraid I’ll get convicted of something and they don’t want any impropriety scandal. So what was their conclusion about the results?”
“How about you tell me what you think first?” asked Ken.
“Well,” Mike said rubbing his temple. “It’s nothing that has been classified, I can tell you that. It’s great you’ve got samples from the mom and dad, but why only sperm from dad?”
“He’s dead,” said Ken. “Had a vasectomy before he kicked, so they banked some.”
“And what’s this with mom?” Mike pointed at an anomaly on Melanie’s results.
“Uh, don’t know. Probably got contaminated. I’m going to have her retested,” said Ken. “Do you want to see some of the casework?”
“In a second,” said Mike. “Not to be crass, but this is my favorite part.”
“Okay,” said Ken.
“I’m going to say…” Mike tapped a page of results with his finger and hummed a little. “Clumsy.”
“Wow,” said Ken. “That’s amazing. How did you know?”
“It’s a gift,” Mike smiled. “No, seriously, none of these results show any of the markers I would expect. So he clearly isn’t dying of cancer. Plus, you don’t have any signs of delayed development here. If anything, I’d say he’s an early bloomer.”
“Right again,” said Ken.
“So it had to be an external indicator—something big enough to get him to you. Did someone think he was abused or something? I saw another case where the kid was reported as an abuse victim, but then they just figured out he couldn’t keep his feet under him.”
“No, he came in for a punctured lung that was supposed to be from a fall. But his fall shouldn’t have caused what I was seeing,” said Dr. Stuart.
“Cystic Fibrosis? Maybe Marfan syndrome?” asked Mike. He flipped through a couple of pages. “No, can’t be.”
“Yeah, no, we ruled out both of those right away," said Ken. “But you already told me that. Nothing that’s been classified, remember?”
“I thought maybe I’d missed something,” said Mike. “Not as much confidence as I used to have.”
“Happens to the best of us,” said Ken. “So, have any other ideas?”
“Well, if it’s something nobody has seen, then he’s a clean slate, right? How bad are the symptoms? Any organs misfiring?”
“Symptoms aren’t bad—he’s clumsy sometimes, early puberty, gets these weird chalky marks on him, especially on his neck.”
“Weird,” said Mike, looking towards the window.
“Yeah, right? What else… He’s really smart, almost too smart for his age. Great memory, sight, hearing, all above average. He’s quite an athlete, too. Great kid, you should meet them. Him and his mom.”
“No thanks,” said Mike. “I don’t know how you can do that. It would break my heart if I had to think of all these crazy diseases belonging to actual humans. I’ll leave that to you.”
“I hear you,” said Ken. “It gets easier over time, but not much.”
“So I’d get it published, see if anyone else is seeing the same thing, and then just treat the symptoms. You know, he’s got some unusual markers here, looks like they’re from the dad, but who knows, maybe you’re chasing ghosts. You have him with a shrink?”
“Yeah, he started with John Tooley a few weeks ago,” said Ken.
Mike nodded. “Wish there was something more I could tell you.”
They sat silent for a few moments.
“You ready for some lunch?” asked Ken.
“Absolutely.”
DR. KEN STUART LED MIKE a few buildings down from his office to a steak house. They kept the conversation light while they walked down the block, in deference to the beautiful day. They joked about the weather and talked about old friends until they had settled in the privacy of a booth with menus tilted between them.
“So how long are you out of a job—do you know?” Ken asked, trying to sound casual.
“Who knows,” said Mike. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s cool,” said Ken.
“I miss working—trying to combine the paranormal with my genetic research. That was my passion, you know? I really think I’m on to something, but now I can’t even work on it if I wanted to.”
“Why’s that?” asked Ken. “Just because of the investigation and the lawsuits?”
“That’s not the half of it,” Mike explained. “Our last case, the one where Gary died, was for this engineer guy, and he made me sign all these long documents. Turns out I was handing over my intellectual property if anything went wrong. I didn’t even realize that at the time, but when the shit hit the fan, I lost my rights to even work on anything combining technology with paranormal investigation.”
“Wow,” said Ken.
“Yeah. But seriously, let’s change the subject,” said Mike.
“No problem.”
“You know what’s weird? When I first got into paranormal research I ran into something that reminds me of your kid,” said Mike.
“My kid?”
“You know, the clumsy kid.”
“Oh sure,” said Ken, realizing that Mike was referring to Davey Hunter.
Their waiter approached as they talked.
“I studied the history of genetics for a while. Before there was solid genetic theory, there were some surprising myths that had interesting scientific components wrapped into them. Hi there,” Mike said, turning to the waiter. “What do you have on draft?”
The waiter looked at the ceiling and turned his head to the side as he recited, “Shipyard, Guinness, Bud.”
“Let me get a Guinness,” said Mike. “Ken?”
“Diet coke?” asked Ken.
“Ready to order?” the waiter asked.
“Give us a few,” said Mike. “Where was I?”
“Ordering a liquid lunch?” smiled Ken. He liked catching up with Mike. It gave them both a chance to talk like they did when they were younger—before they had careers and responsibilities.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “You’re buying right?” he asked, laughing. “Anyway, if you went back a couple thousand years, there were some sophisticated theories about how groups maintained their genetic health.”
“Really?” asked Ken. “I thought natural selection was a silent partner.”
“It was amongst the Romans or Greeks,” Mike explained. “What I’m talking about you’d have to go to more tribal areas. Away from big culture. Like Africa or North America—away from Europe, South America, or Asia, where people were forming big super-colonies. The tribal people had pretty interesting practices; eskimos too—they had the same ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?” asked Ken.
“Well, like beached whales, or dolphins. You’ve heard of mass strandings?” asked Mike.
“I guess,” said Ken. “You mean when lots of dolphins all beach themselves at the same time?”
“Exactly,” said Mike. “Marine biologists have tons of theories, but none very satisfactory. They’ll say things like there was a disturbance in the magnetic field, or the animals can’t see a slowly sloping beach or something. They want to blame the environment for everything, but animals have always needed to quickly adapt to changing environments. All those theories sound like a bunch of bullshit. Way back, tribal people displayed the same behaviors.”
The waiter returned with their drinks. Mike took a long sip of his beer and wiped the foam from his stubble with his open hand.