Double-Back (Jake Waters Book 3) (7 page)

Two weeks after the drunken event, she was back on campus using the library for research.  Not everything was to be found as easily online as some suspected.  She had found what she wanted in the stacks, and was about to leave when she spotted Professor Morris approaching.  Seeing him recalled the vivid memories that still persisted, and the strange offer he'd made to her in that dream, or whatever it was.  On a whim, and because she genuinely liked the older scholar, she altered her direction so as to intercept him.

"Professor Morris," she called out as she approached. 

He looked up as his name was called, and grinned hugely when he spotted her.

"Natalie," he said fondly, and hurried over to her.  "I thought you were off to the world of business to make your fortune," he said.

"It's not as great as I thought it would be," she admitted.  "I needed to look something up in the library.  How about you?  Are you still teaching?  I thought you planned on retiring last year."

"I did.  I did," he said, his white haired head bobbing slightly as he spoke.  "Like you, I needed to look something up."

The Professor paused, and seemed to consider something, then looked at her curiously.

"You aren't happy with your work?" he asked.

"It is far less challenging than I expected," Natalie admitted.  "I had hoped to have more responsibility and more control over the kinds of things I investigated."

"It'll take a couple of years to prove yourself," the Professor warned.  "Eventually, with your intelligence and ability, they'll see it is best to give you more latitude."

"Maybe so," she agreed.  "I'm just impatient I guess."

The Professor was scribbling something on a scrap of paper, which he handed to her when he was finished.

"That's my address and phone number," he said.  "I have something that I could really use some help with.  You might be just the person.  How about you come by this Saturday and talk with me?  Maybe we can both find what we need."

Natalie glanced at the paper, and then said uncertainly.  "Okay.  I'll call you and see what's a good time."

"Anytime would be fine.  Just come by when it fits your schedule," Professor Morris said.  Then he added, "I need to go.  It's been good seeing you again," he added, as he hurried off.

Natalie had looked at the scrap of paper with the wobbly writing, and shrugged.  She shoved it into her leather binder, not really expecting to follow up on it, and headed back to work.

Friday had been a horrible day at work, her supervisor particularly unsympathetic to something Natalie had suggested, and that night while she sipped a glass of white wine and contemplated finding another job, she recalled the encounter with the professor.  She stood and checked, finding the scrap of paper where she'd crammed it.  That's when she decided she'd pay the old scholar a visit.

"I wondered if you'd come, or whether you were just accommodating an old man," Professor Morris said as he led her through the front of his large, but older house toward the large screen patio in back.  Clearly the Professor's family had money.  He couldn't have afforded anything like this on his university salary. The mansion, no other word fit, was isolated from any neighbors by both distance and large, ancient trees that surround the estate on all sides.

"Something to drink?" he asked almost formally.

Natalie shook her head.

"You made me curious," she admitted.  "Do you really have something I might be able to help with?  Are you still doing research at the university even though you are no longer teaching?"

Professor Morris smiled, and slowly shook his head as he fingered the white hair of his beard.

"This is something of my own.  I've done everything here at the house.  The university knows nothing about it.  It's cost a small fortune, but I've used Mary's money for it.  She was quite well off, you know.  I promised her I'd find something, and it seemed like the best use of the money she left when she passed."

Natalie recalled the Professor's wife had passed almost ten years ago, long before she'd been in his class.

"What exactly is it?" she asked, wanting to sweep away the mystery.

The Professor nodded.  "I think I might have found a cure for diabetes," he said.

Natalie wasn't certain how to respond to the claim.  Such a find would indeed be worth an astronomical amount of money, not to mention the relief it would afford to millions.

"I don't expect you to just believe my claims," he said.  "I want to show you my test results and let you make your own evaluation.  I need a secondary evaluation to ensure I haven't fooled myself.  I have kept this secret up to now in part because of the value of the discovery and how certain people might want to make their fortunes from it.  I intend to release the discovery to the world for free once I'm certain my results are verifiable."

"For free?" Natalie asked, shocked.

"Well, it won't be entirely free.  But if all the pharmaceutical companies in the world know what the formula is and how to make the serum, it will keep the costs down to a minimum.  No one will be able to use their proprietary ownership to exact ridiculous profits from sufferers."

"Why wouldn't you want to benefit from your efforts?"

"I'm old, have no immediate family, and am frankly reasonably well off.  I don't need the money, and I did this for Mary.  She would have wished it," Professor Morris confessed.

"You really believe you have found something?" Natalie asked.

It was almost impossible to believe.  Large pharmaceutical firms with huge staffs spent millions and worked for years in hopes of a major breakthrough such as this.  For Professor Morris to have uncovered something in his private lab in his home was almost too remarkable to be believed.

"Let me show you what I have, and you make your own evaluation," he said.

That first day she'd gone on a tour.  His lab was in the basement of the large mansion, an area that had been carefully renovated when he had decided what he had in mind.  State of the art equipment had been installed to support his inquiries.  All of his records were kept in a large locked steel cabinet.  While there were several logbooks, the Professor was no stranger to modern technology, and he'd kept most of records as electronic files, stored on a pair of removable hard disks which he connected to the computer when he wanted to make entries.  Nothing of importance could be found on the main computers.  A backup of all data had been copied to a number of high density DVDs, which sat in a small container near the back of the cabinet.

"It would probably be best if you read my journal first," the Professor said.  "That way you can understand my approach, and what I hoped to discover at each step.  Then you can work your way through my test results, and see if you agree with my conclusions."

Natalie spent the rest of the day, and all of the next reading through the files on the hard disk.  Years of work were condensed into careful entries.  She could immediately sense the brilliance she had observed when she was a student of this man, and by the end of the weekend she was becoming excited at the possibility that he was actually accomplishing what he believed.

"I can come over evenings and next weekend," she promised.  She wasn't quite ready to quit her job until she was certain there was something here for her.  Without telling the professor, she also planned to circulate her resume throughout the industry in parallel with the time she would spend with the Professor.

Two weeks later she was convinced the Professor was indeed on a path that promised success.  It was impossible to be certain until the full testing program was completed.  Natalie had read of projects that had come this far, only to fail in the final testing, but she was convinced that even if this compound wasn't all the Professor hoped, it would be a great boon to diabetes around the world. 

"We can complete phase one testing in your lab," she said, "but eventually we'll need to test against human subjects.  At that time, you'll have to have the support of one of the accredited research labs."

"I know, I know," the Professor agreed.  "But I want to get through the phase one before we approach them.  Are you interested?"

Natalie had agreed.

"I'll have to give notice and it'll be a couple of weeks until I'm free," she said.  "Until then, we can begin setting up on weekends."

She had submitted her resignation at her firm, and spent evenings in the somewhat uncertain limbo of the dramatic step she was taking.  She believed the Professor had found a miracle, and imagined the professional esteem they both would earn when they released the find.  It was too bad the Professor was set on giving away the secret.  The financial rewards that could be associated with the new product would be astronomical.

The first Saturday they had cleared out a section of the basement lab, moving benches into place, stripping out some of the extraneous gas lines and electrical cables that had supported Bunsen burners and other test equipment that was no longer needed.  When she returned the following morning, no one answered her ring, so she used the key the Professor had given her to let herself in, assuming he was already at work in the lower level.  Instead, she found him pale and weakened, resting in a large chair in the large great room.

"Professor!" she had yelled, as she hurried over to him.

"Heart attack," he told her.  "A moderate one.  The pills my doctor gave me probably saved my life."

"Have you had problems before?" she asked.  He had told her nothing about any health conditions.

"Minor attacks, once or twice.  I usually take the pills when I sense even a little discomfort.  This was by far the worst."

"We need to get you to the Emergency Room so they can check you out," she insisted.

"Okay, if you would take me.  But first, I think another of the pills is called for.  Would you get them for me?"

He told her where to find the medicine, and she headed back into his private quarters for the first time ever, finally locating the bottle on the bathroom sink counter where he'd told her they would be.  She checked the label, recognizing the compound, and opened to see how many were left.  There were only three, yet the label indicated he'd had twenty when he'd picked up the prescription.  Obviously, he'd been taking them a little more often than he'd indicated. 

She replaced the cap, twisting it so it was secure, then hurried back to where the Professor waited.  She handed him the bottle, and he quickly unsealed the bottle, popping on of the small tablets into his mouth.

"Give me a few minutes and we can go," he said.

It was while she waited for the tests by the medical technicians at ER that she'd begun to think.  She liked the Professor a great deal, but it was clear that his health was much poorer than she had realized.  In fact, the doctor who they'd seen had recognized the Professor, and indicated this wasn't the first time he'd been to the ER after a problem.  What if the Professor were to die?  She'd submitted her resignation and had great hopes of what her involvement in the Professor's discovery could do for her professional reputation, but if something happened to him, his discovery would be revealed, and she could very easily be cut out of any future development.  She was, after all, a relative newcomer, and something this important would be turned over to a large lab and its experienced staff.   The more she thought about it, the more she became certain that she could easily be pushed completely aside.

They elected to keep the Professor overnight, and she promised him she would check the house and lock everything up, setting his alarms.  He told her the codes, and she returned as to his estate as promised.  Once there, she lingered, checking through the house more thoroughly than she'd ever done before, going down to the lab and making a careful assessment of what they had done.  That night at home, she lay awake most of the night wondering if she dare act, assuming it was even possible.

What she was considering was cold-hearted and cruel, but it could serve her well if it worked out.  After this latest attack, there was no telling how long the Professor might last.  The doctor had told them both that moderate damage had occurred to the lower chamber of the Professor's heart, and further tests would be required to understand just how serious that might be.  Almost certainly, the Professor would be restricted in how much he could do, and she didn't know how that would affect their secret test program.  If he was unable to guide the testing, the Professor might well decide it was more important to have other professionals see to his discovery rather than leave it in the hands of a relatively young researcher, no matter how smart he thought she was.

If, however, the Professor were to die, and none of the critical documentation on his research were found, then she might be able to take his work as her own.  No one knew she had been working with the Professor.  He had told her as much, and the somewhat secluded nature of the estate would have helped mask her arrivals and departures.  She wondered if it were possible.  Could she use the strange ability that had saved her twice before to do something like this?  She'd experimented with the possibility before, and had discovered a weird ability to 'sense' herself in the past, going back a number of days.  The farther back she reached, the weaker the feeling became.  Once before she'd made an attempt to shift her memories back to herself, and much to her surprise, it worked!