T-minus 17 days to DEADLINE.
May. 14th, 2011 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguireManhattan, New York. July 7th, 2014.
In the month since his report on the supposed "Kellis cure" had first appeared, Robert Stalnaker had received a level of attention and adulation—and yes, vitrol—that he had previously only dreamed of. His inbox was packed every morning with people both applauding and condemning his decision to reveal Dr. Alexander Kellis's scientific violation of the American public. Was he the one who told the Mayday Army to break into Kellis's lab, doing thousands of dollars of damage and unleashing millions of dollars of research into the open air? No, he was not. He was simply a concerned member of the American free press, doing his job, and reporting the news.
The fact that he had essentially fabricated the story had stopped bothering him after the third interview request. By the Monday following the Fourth of July, he would have been honestly shocked if someone had asked him about the truth behind his lies. As far as he was concerned, he'd been telling the truth. Maybe it wasn't the truth Dr. Kellis had intended, but it was the one he'd created. All Stalnaker did was report it.
Best of all, he hadn't seen anyone sneezing or coughing in almost two weeks. Whatever craziness Kellis had been cooking up in that lab of his, it did what it was supposed to do. Throw out the Kleenex and cancel that order for chicken soup, can I hear an amen from the floor?
"Amen," murmured Stalnaker, pushing open the door to his paper's New York office. A cool blast of climate-controlled air flowed out into the hall, chasing away the stickiness of the New York summer. He stepped into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him, and waited for the applause that inevitably followed his arrival. He was, after all, the one who had single-handedly increased circulation almost fifteen percent in under a week.
The applause didn't come. Bemused, he looked around the room and saw his editor bearing down on him with a grim expression on his face and a toothpick bouncing between his lips as he frantically chewed it into splinters. The toothpicks had been intended as an aid when he quit smoking the year before. Somehow, they'd just never gone away.
"Stalnaker!" he growled, shoving the toothpick off to one side of his mouth as he demanded, "Where the hell have you been? Don't you check your email?"
"Not during breakfast most mornings," said Stalnaker, taken aback by his editor's tone. Don never talked to him like that. Harshly, sure, and sometimes coldly, but never like he'd done something too wrong to be articulated; never like he was a puppy who'd made a mess on the carpet. "Why? Did I miss a political scandal or something while I was having a bagel?"
Don Nutick paused, forcing himself to take a deep, slow breath before he said, "No. You missed the Pennsylvania police department announcing that the ringleaders of the Mayday Army were taken into custody Friday afternoon."
"What?" Stalnaker stared at him, suddenly fully alert. "You're telling me they actually caught the guys? How the hell did they manage that?"
"One of their own decided to rat them out. Said that it wasn't right, what they were doing." Don shook his head. "They're not releasing the guy's name yet. Still, whoever managed to get an exclusive interview with him, why. I bet that person could write his or her own ticket. Maybe even convince a sympathetic editor not to fire his ass over faking a report that's getting the paper threatened with a lawsuit."
Stalnaker scoffed. "They'd never get it to stick."
"You sure of that?"
There was a moment of silence before Stalnaker said, reluctantly, "I guess I'm going to Pennsylvania."
"Yes," Don agreed. "I guess you are."
***
While the identity of the Mayday Army's deserter has been protected thus far, it must be asked: why did this man decide to turn on his compatriots? What did he see in that lab that caused him to change his ways? We don't know, but we're going to find out...
When will you Rise?
In the month since his report on the supposed "Kellis cure" had first appeared, Robert Stalnaker had received a level of attention and adulation—and yes, vitrol—that he had previously only dreamed of. His inbox was packed every morning with people both applauding and condemning his decision to reveal Dr. Alexander Kellis's scientific violation of the American public. Was he the one who told the Mayday Army to break into Kellis's lab, doing thousands of dollars of damage and unleashing millions of dollars of research into the open air? No, he was not. He was simply a concerned member of the American free press, doing his job, and reporting the news.
The fact that he had essentially fabricated the story had stopped bothering him after the third interview request. By the Monday following the Fourth of July, he would have been honestly shocked if someone had asked him about the truth behind his lies. As far as he was concerned, he'd been telling the truth. Maybe it wasn't the truth Dr. Kellis had intended, but it was the one he'd created. All Stalnaker did was report it.
Best of all, he hadn't seen anyone sneezing or coughing in almost two weeks. Whatever craziness Kellis had been cooking up in that lab of his, it did what it was supposed to do. Throw out the Kleenex and cancel that order for chicken soup, can I hear an amen from the floor?
"Amen," murmured Stalnaker, pushing open the door to his paper's New York office. A cool blast of climate-controlled air flowed out into the hall, chasing away the stickiness of the New York summer. He stepped into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him, and waited for the applause that inevitably followed his arrival. He was, after all, the one who had single-handedly increased circulation almost fifteen percent in under a week.
The applause didn't come. Bemused, he looked around the room and saw his editor bearing down on him with a grim expression on his face and a toothpick bouncing between his lips as he frantically chewed it into splinters. The toothpicks had been intended as an aid when he quit smoking the year before. Somehow, they'd just never gone away.
"Stalnaker!" he growled, shoving the toothpick off to one side of his mouth as he demanded, "Where the hell have you been? Don't you check your email?"
"Not during breakfast most mornings," said Stalnaker, taken aback by his editor's tone. Don never talked to him like that. Harshly, sure, and sometimes coldly, but never like he'd done something too wrong to be articulated; never like he was a puppy who'd made a mess on the carpet. "Why? Did I miss a political scandal or something while I was having a bagel?"
Don Nutick paused, forcing himself to take a deep, slow breath before he said, "No. You missed the Pennsylvania police department announcing that the ringleaders of the Mayday Army were taken into custody Friday afternoon."
"What?" Stalnaker stared at him, suddenly fully alert. "You're telling me they actually caught the guys? How the hell did they manage that?"
"One of their own decided to rat them out. Said that it wasn't right, what they were doing." Don shook his head. "They're not releasing the guy's name yet. Still, whoever managed to get an exclusive interview with him, why. I bet that person could write his or her own ticket. Maybe even convince a sympathetic editor not to fire his ass over faking a report that's getting the paper threatened with a lawsuit."
Stalnaker scoffed. "They'd never get it to stick."
"You sure of that?"
There was a moment of silence before Stalnaker said, reluctantly, "I guess I'm going to Pennsylvania."
"Yes," Don agreed. "I guess you are."
***
While the identity of the Mayday Army's deserter has been protected thus far, it must be asked: why did this man decide to turn on his compatriots? What did he see in that lab that caused him to change his ways? We don't know, but we're going to find out...
When will you Rise?
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 02:57 pm (UTC)♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 03:33 pm (UTC)I hate tabloid hacks ...
Seanan, any plans to collect Countdown and do it as an ebook or something?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 04:13 pm (UTC)Damn.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 03:40 pm (UTC)I am excited. I also like how this is taking a clear arc, even if the arc is straight into the zombie pits.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 04:16 pm (UTC)I wouldn't have considered Stalnaker's story a complete fabrication given the fact that this (http://digg.com/news/story/Scientists_cure_cancer_but_no_one_takes_notice_5) hit the news yesterday (Scientists cure cancer; no one takes notice) for PRECISELY THE REASONS Stalnaker mentioned. Big Pharma not gonna share that with the common man because they can make more money off cancer.
So suffice to say that I am pleased to see Stalnaker getting what's coming to him. I am not really surprised by Seanan's oracular prowess, and I hope to find out more about the Mayday person who turned in.
Thank you again, O great Blonde of terrifying literature.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:37 pm (UTC)If I had excess funds, I'd certainly be enthusiastic about funding more trials.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:50 pm (UTC)(I don't know much beyond what I read in Scientific American on cancer research, but I know how to search PubMed and read abstracts when I see people making a fuss over the Cure for Cancer!!!!!111 That and I'm a astronomer, and I know the range of bad astronomy journalism*.)
* Want to see me rant? Mention 2012 astronomical doomsday predictions. At least the Rising has nothing to do with people claiming the ancient Mayans predicted the black hole in the center of our galaxy will stop the Earth's magnetic field or something, and that's why their calendar has a big turn-over at 13.0.0.0.0.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 06:10 pm (UTC)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18465755
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18423823
(Vitamin K2 may also be of interest. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18374196 )
Meanwhile, there's an ongoing study at http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01029925, for DCA and metastatic lung and breast cancers.
(And they caught and extradited someone selling fake DCA: http://phoenix.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/px082510.htm )
Er, sorry. Search terms are dichloroacetate cancer site:gov. I'll stop geeking out about the data now. >_>
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:38 pm (UTC)Also with the Don, I see what you did thar. *g*
no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 03:50 am (UTC)I mean, I get that the editor threatening Stalnaker's job is the same editor who jumped at the story, but beyond that, what am I missing?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 09:15 am (UTC)Also countdown snippet love to Seanan, but I think everyone here reading these knows to expect that. :3
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 07:27 pm (UTC)"Like Willy Wonka and the snotberries?" asked one of the men, sounding perplexed. He was a bio-chem graduate student; he'd come to the meeting because he'd heard there would be good weed. No one had mentioned anything about a political tirade from a man who thought metaphors were like cocktails: better when mixed thoroughly.
Yes, I have a working hypothesis about who the "deserter" is, and what might have made him, in particular, have misgivings after the break-in...
This countdown is a most excellent series. It's the closest I've come to the kind of experience readers had in the 19th century, when fans of Dickens, etc., would await installments of novels.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 03:20 am (UTC)