Desperate Remedies

There was blood on the phone. That phone had been expensive.

That was all Dani could think about as her father slammed the receiver until it cracked, his wrist leaking blood where the jagged plastic cut at his hand. He picked up the device and hucked it with incredible force into the safety glass of the conference room wall, a resounding thump to the people on the other side.

As Wilson set himself back down on the chair, he placed his head in his hands. Concern was growing all around him, the employees were ushered away as the others: her family all sat silent around the table.

She gulped, watching the man closely. His explosive rage had never changed in all the years she'd known him, but this sudden, quiet aftermath; that was something new. She, her two brothers, mom, and cousins were scared. They looked to him for guidance.

"Well..." One of her cousins chuckled nervously. "I guess the projection wasn't good, huh?" He hadn't read the packet sitting before each of them.

Wilson said nothing. He sat there, staring at the table as if it had insulted him. Dani, finally tired of waiting and unwilling to let someone else ask him first spoke: "How bad is it dad?"

His eyes turned to her. In that instant, something shifted in the air of the well-vented room. There was something in her father's eyes. Not quite a guilt, not quite a shame, but something heavy. Darkness, like the void between stars. Nervous smiles turned to even stares. He practically whispered it into the dead air, but they still heard.

"It mutated too fast.-" He maintained eye contact with his daughter. She felt the weight in his eyes close around her chest. "-We lost containment."

Then there was terror.

Prison population was always an industry in need of innovation. After all, with so many new laws, new people, and new societal changes, you needed new facilities to match. But facilities were expensive, new locks and walls costly to make. That was where Dani's father and their family company came in.

They were a drug company, to be precise. Wilson Pharmaceuticals, specializing in experimental treatments for obscure diseases, which had been started almost a full two generations before Dani. They had prided themselves on looking after people with nowhere else to turn...at least until the defense contract had come in for her father.

It was steady, incredibly profitable to work for the prison industry. He'd found this out almost immediately after the first check had rolled in, and from there, Dani's whole family was set for life. No more "upper middle class" for them, not when you could offload your costs onto literal debtor's prisons.

The moral and ethical implications had always weighed heavily on Dani. She liked to think of herself as a progressive person, and the more she got into the family business, the more she felt disgusted. Still, dad owned the business, and until otherwise, she had her hands tied. Part of her mind always liked to wander to the after, when she'd have her slice of the evil empire untethered from this mass that was her family. One day, she could screw off to somewhere quiet and live and think without the incredible amount of death and profit weighing her down. Not now though.

And maybe not ever.

Arguments broke out immediately as he said it. Old scars opened, relationships ruined. It didn't matter. None of the bickering mattered. Perhaps it never had. They'd made a bad decision, and now it was going to bite them like a starving bear.

The decision in question was the rollout of a new, experimental drug that they'd marketed aggressively as "the future of punishment". The criminal justice system had loved it; how could they not? It was their dream! A drug that inhibited the mental faculties of the affected party, turning them into a drooling, yet obedient prisoner.

It was revolutionary! A perfect solution to the cost growth of the prison system, an amazing money saver, as well as an opportunity bringer for prison labor. Until it all got cocked up by a ten percent chance.

Her father paced the room as people argued over the data they'd been given. Numbers in files written by people they'd never once thought to speak to were regurgitated with fury and fear. Dani wasn't proud that she was one of them at first, but with her wits returning as she burned out, she had the sense to approach her father.

"Dad. Do you need another phone?" she whispered to him over the din of her families' arguments. He did not speak, merely nodded gravely as she fetched some hapless intern.

They all managed, somehow, to quiet down as the phone rang. Wilson had punched in a number he'd been given as a cruel joke, by someone every single one of them hated. Her cousins almost left the room as the crackle of a medium-to-bad voice call shone though, agonizing minutes passing as it almost failed to make connection.

"So you're calling me?" The wheezing voice spoke on the other end.

"Yes, I uh..." Wilson spoke, tapping a finger on his swivel chair from behind. "You're on speaker. Everyone's here. Say hi." He motioned to them. Confused, but following their patriarch, they spoke up in faux enthusiasm.

There was a pause. Then a weary sigh. "what happened?"

"My, uh, our boys at the lab-" The voice cut in: "You cut me from the company, remember? So why are you calling me?"

Her father paused now. Then he looked at Dani for help. Picking up on the cue, she spoke up, relishing the chance as her brothers frowned at her.

"Hi David...uh...yes, we are calling you. You see, its about that 10% chance you mentioned back when we were in the initial phases of implementation. Something about spinal failure?"

"Spontaneous spinal failure. I'm guessing you never closed the bottleneck?" He spoke again. She laughed, a little to feign confidence. "Yes, something like that. I think my dad would like to, maybe talk about bringing you back to the project?" he glared at her, but it was a good glare. At least, she hoped it was.

David Carkov was their scientific lead. Or at least, he had been for the first months of developing "Gasyporvov" the miracle drug that would put them in the history books. He had constantly threatened quitting, citing issues with their designs and marketing processes that they'd worked so hard on. He was an ethicist who'd been somehow wrapped up in their little operation without realizing, and the instant he did, he'd lost it.

He'd never made friends with anyone at Wilson and Co. but he was a virologist and pharmaceutical scientist second to none. He'd only masterminded the whole project for some niche medical purpose outside of their personal intended use. When the family found no more reason for him working there with the lions share of development work already over, they'd let him go. It had been...about as amicable as you could expect.

"So what? I'm not coming back to finish the thing. You can make your slave drug with BlackRock or some other bankrupt hell-" before he could continue, she stopped him. Rather, her brother did.

"Listen, enough of this crap. Name a price and we'll meet it. We need you back here now, to fix the mistakes you left behind in the formula."

"Mistakes?" They heard a laugh. "Oh god, that's funny." A swear from her brother almost escaped as her father held up a hand to silence him. "Listen, David. I get there may be reservations, but the bottom line is that Wilson and Co. needs your expertise on-"

The laughing didn't stop. Dani almost felt her father's grip as it tightened on the chair.

"Alright. Go ahead and pitch it to me. What's the problem?"

He waited. "Well?" Her father still didn't answer.

Then: "Oh no." The tone of his voice shifted over the phone. "You didn't, did you?" A chuckle. "No, you aren't that stupid." Desperation in the voice.

Wilson bit his lip. "I assure you, I had every reason at the time-"

"No, no, no-"

"That it was in the stages where it was safe! We had every assurance-"

You didn't. You didn't!" The fury on the other end had eclipsed what her father had when he'd broken the phone. "You absolute scum-"

"We were trying David, I swear to you on my first wife's grave that we tried."

"But you still went through with it, didn't you?! After I warned you, after I told you the chances? What did I tell you? Hmm? What were my exact words?"

Her father's mouth flapped. "You said that there was a remote, again I stress, remote chance that the drug might slip past the blood brain barrier and-"

"and?!" He was screaming on the other end, louder than she'd ever heard the man scream, even in those last few days in layoff season. She hung her head. Collars ruffled and people looked away from the phone, as if it could sense the man on the other end's apocalyptic anger.

"You said that there was a chance of a failure cascade, a prion disease manifesting that would cause bodily paralysis."

"AND?!" Smashing sounds followed. Glass windows breaking into stars.

"And...we got word from a couple of our, uh, our test sites that it might have started what you said."

"Wilson. Please. Please god tell me that you didn't send it to places near a population site. Please."

No response. A hiss on the other end now. "You fucking moron, you absolute cock-" Her father started yelling now.

"What was I supposed to do!? We had the trade show coming and you wouldn't even let us show off the damn thing! Kept screaming at us about how it was a shit idea by a shit family! We! Always! Knew that you hated our guts, so why did you stick around?! Huh, you self-righteous-"

"Self-righteous?! That's rich coming from you, you self-entitled prick. You and your poisonous little spawn crowding you like the scorpion you are." Dani almost butt in then, but the doctor wasn't finished. "You idiots were always the same, dime a dozen con men inheriting wealth that you had no business having. Talking about making things better for the vulnerable when you couldn't look them in the eye! Now you screwed everyone over and you want me to come fix it?!"

Her father put his hands together, like prayer. "We know you can. Listen, you are the key element in making this disaster a speed-bump. I'm not going to take no for an answer." He waited for the man to respond, everyone waiting alongside him.

"We'll meet any demand you want, David." Her other brother spoke up now. "It's imperative."

"Oh? Oh, its imperative, is it?" He mocked. "Have you all stopped grovelling for a minute and decided to think rationally? About how you might have caused the extinction of the human race?"

More shouting, more arguing. They didn't want to hear it, not that. Anything but that.

"Listen. We get it. We messed up. But we need you back to fix it. Just, please we'll do whatever you want. Please. Please..." Dani said it more to stop them from bickering. A silence settled over the room. Her dad didn't correct her. He was going with it. That scared Dani more for some reason.

"Fine. Alright."

"So you'll come back?" She said.

"Yeah. I will. On one condition."

"Of course." She smiled, watching with pride as people jealously looked over her. This was suddenly her achievement.

"I want you to destroy all your assets."

"W-What?" She stumbled. Her father almost went to grab the receiver, to throw it as he continued.

"I want it in writing. That if I complete this work for you, you, your family and every member of your immediate and extended family divest their money, their properties, and their companies to the public and employees."

A heavy silence. "You sonofa-" she felt her own fists clenching. Then, another laugh, a sick one, so deeply joyful that it sent shivers into her spine.

"That's how it goes, doesn't it? It's all about the altruism until it's you. Then the claws come out."

A sudden reality of what he was laying down on them hit her. "Listen here you little skeeze. We didn't do this to you, we didn't-"

"Yes! Yes you did! You are about to destroy the world, and I'll be damn sure that you suffer for it. No one else will, but me? Absolutely. You aren't walking away from this with comfort you sick weirdos! So, what's it going to be? Apocalypse?! Do I tell the CDC or do YOU make a single sacrifice in your lives? I'll give you a few minutes to talk it over. Time's ticking." He hung up on them immediately, not giving them a chance to respond.

The debate that followed lasted hours. Hours of begging, of pleading and rationalizing. Dani felt sweat gather on her back as they fought to hold onto what was rightfully theirs. Nothing worked.

People were talking of murdering him after, cleaning up. She was one of them. Until finally the ultimatum came.

They refused. Each one of them. She felt her teeth crack.

Instead of anger, or resentment, or pleading, David was laughing as they called him back. Then he said words so devastating that it made Dani realize that she lacked a soul. The same as the rest of her family.

"Moral fiber so flexible you could tie it into a noose. Same as you ever were, you heartless fools."

She lost her own temper now, even though she'd worked so hard to hide that she'd inherited it. "Why are you doing this, huh? Is this the trick, are our competitors paying you to bump us off?"

"Here comes the delusions. Look, I'll tell you flat, your money won't survive either way. You think the authorities are going to let you walk away from this? No, I know how you weasels work. All the court battles, all the laws in the world won't punish you for what you've done, not properly. But I will, and I'll stake the entire human race on it, because I'm as petty as the lot of you. At least if you say no, I'll die knowing that this dead planet will remember it was YOUR fault."

"David-"

"This whole time, how I felt about you tribalists has never once changed. You talk this big game about rules and crime and punishment, but when were you going to face yours, huh? Banking on the afterlife being merciful? Fuck you, either you don't walk away from this, or everyone dies, including you. What'll it be?"

Dani was shaking as she looked through the packet on the table. All signs pointed to a slow, agonizing demise. Everything gone. Even then, the dream of a quiet little place still rang in her mind, an escape from the fires that had visited them here. It wasn't fair. She didn't deserve this. She was better, deserved more. A blood vessel stood out on her forehead.

Everyone around the table nodded in agreement to the unspoken decision. Wilson breathed out.

"There's still other options. We'll get back to you on this David."

Silence on the other end. Followed by a final laugh as David's phone sailed through the air in rage.

They discussed media and outlook for the rest of the meeting, and far away, their quiet doom encroached.