Chapter 48: Nobel, here we come! part 2

*** One week later, Connors lab. ***

"Good evening, Professor, I see you're back to work?" I intercepted Karen just outside her office.

"Peter, it's good to see you. As you can see, I'm teaching again. Teaching a course of lectures at the university... but about that," the woman looked at the lab door, "I'm not sure I should resume the project... you see, I've lost confidence, I don't know what to tell people, everyone expects me to solve the greatest medical mystery in history..."

Karen does seem a little depressed. It is understandable, her whole life project was a waste of time, even more, her mistakes almost cost her everything. I've seen that look before, more than once. She was much luckier than Kurt, though. Besides, she got her hand back, isn't that a success?

"I have something for you. Take a look," I handed Karen the vaccine data stick.

"What is it?" the woman asked, "Haven't we been through this before? It ended horribly that time."

Yeah, I went to Karen once before with my father's research data, and I almost blew it.

"It's not as bad as you think," I objected, "I agree that, for some reason, mass use of your serum is impossible, but it's not over... but we'd better talk about that inside."

"Yes, of course," Karen hurriedly opened the lab, and we went inside.

There wasn't much in the room anymore that reminded me of the pogrom that Reptilian and Venom had caused. The faulty equipment had been replaced, the walls restored, and the university was clearly not stingy when it came to Connors' work.

Starting up the computer, Karen proceeded to look through the files on the removable media I'd brought.

"Your serum," I began to explain my plan, "despite its obvious shortcomings, was very successful in its task. I took the liberty of using it as a base, but instead of the lizard genes, I put a single gene into the formula. This gene I found in the blood of elephants. It's a..."

"A tumor suppressor gene that prevents mitosis of cells with damaged DNA," Karen interrupted me in an excited voice, flipping through the files, "elephants and whales are cancer-free! And it works? You did it?"

She quickly grasped the essence of my idea, proving that I was right in my judgments.

"We did," I corrected Connors, "it's our common project, because I used your work on species interbreeding."

"Are you serious?" she finally broke away from the screen and stared at me, "It's the greatest medical discovery of the century! Are you really willing to share it with me?"

"I don't think "share" is the right word. It's as much your project as it is mine," I smile in response to her outburst.

"Damn! Peter, you look so much like your father! You two must be the most honest scientists I've ever known in my life! That's why men rarely get much success in science, male scientists are too straightforward."

"Huh..." I choked on my words after hearing such a judgment.

"But to continue this research we'll need generous funding, we have to get investors," Karen continued excitedly, "the government... although those willing to sponsor such a thing will themselves line up once they realize what they're dealing with... we need to start testing as soon as possible..."

"NO!" I interrupted her monologue, "First of all, the tests have already been done. On a human being."

"What? But that's illegal! My God, you didn't experiment on people, did you?"

"Not exactly experiments. Anyway, I have a friend who has the healing factor, and she has cancer. The cancer cells in her body are constantly dying off and regenerating. Her whole body is one big cancerous tumor."

"God, that's terrible!" Karen reacted very emotionally.

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"It's more than that. Her regeneration is so strong that no drugs, poisons or toxins work on her properly. With this or any other serum, Wanda's body simply destroys everything alien and regenerates the areas that have changed. I had to suppress her regeneration to begin the healing process. If the cure didn't work or didn't work correctly, we could always remove the suppressor and regeneration would correct any interference with the body. In this way she became the perfect test subject for me. It's been a week since her regeneration was suppressed, and so far she hasn't died, and yesterday her condition improved noticeably, the number of cancer cells is going down. Her body was beginning to regenerate. Her whole body was a colony of cancer, and if THIS is what our medicine can cure, then it can cure ordinary cancer too!"

"Wait, but if the infection level is so high, shouldn't she have died as soon as her healing factor was suppressed?" Karen immediately saw the reticence.

"Right, that's why, to keep her alive, in addition to the most powerful and expensive drugs, we also had to use, shall we say, a super-powered life-support module," I decided to keep quiet about the fact that the alien organism acted in the role of this system for now. The Venom had to spend most of that time at Wanda's bedside, and so did I.

"But we'll still need formal testing, and we need investors anyway!"

I shook my head.

"Money is not a problem. My secret sponsor is a very rich woman" it doesn't have to be clear that this sponsorship is as secret for her as it is for everyone else "but I'm only sixteen, I can't do everything myself, so I ask you to be my partner... perhaps be the CEO of our future company, or at least help in the first stages."

"That's...if all this is true, that's too generous an offer, you just come to me with everything ready and offer me the gold mountain and world fame, what's the catch?"

"You see, if I tried to represent the company myself now...ha, it would take a lot of effort just to be taken seriously. So, it's not only a generous offer, but it's also a lot of hard work, because you'd have to take on most of the work of organizing the firm. But you're absolutely right about fame: Nobel, here we come!"

"Peter, I am flattered by your offer, but you should understand that I am a scientist, not a manager. I can be your partner as far as research is concerned, but running a company is not my specialty. At most, I can manage the research department and advise you on the best scientists and things related to science, but a director... I'm sorry, but you have to find someone else for that role."

There was a note of regret in her voice when she turned down the directorship, but Connors was sure of her decision.

"So you're saying you're willing to work for me, in my company, but not with me?" I slightly change the formulation of the question, hoping to play on the pride of an adult established woman: it is one thing to have a full partnership, and quite another to go into subordination to a young man, who is younger than her lab assistants and has not even graduated from high school yet. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why I could not represent the company myself.

Of course, I knew that Karen's specialty did not involve company management skills when I went to her with my proposal, but I still hoped for a positive response. After all, I had good reason to consider her for the role. Connors is a person of exceptional integrity and principle, and I don't want to find out at some point, like Norma Osborne, that the governing board of my company has gone behind my back and negotiated the sale of all the assets.

"We can work together in the lab, but in general you're right," she answered, smiling as if she'd figured out my trick... but why "as if"? She definitely did!

Where am I supposed to find people to run this place?

"I take it," Karen continued, "you have a place where you work on creating a cure, if we present it as our common project, I should get involved in the work as early as possible..."

It's a reasonable suggestion, but I can't do it yet. The fewer people who know about the lab, the better. Karen has nothing to do with our secret organization, which means she has nothing to do there.

"You see, the place where I work now is... secret," I smiled awkwardly, "the landlady let me set up a lab there, but I can't take tours. In a few days I'll move the equipment... prepare the ground for our firm and then we can get to work..."

"A few days?" Karen said skeptically, "Peter, these things don't happen in a few days..."

"Yes, I understand... in that case we'll have to buy the premises from someone else..." I agreed.

"Well, I'll be waiting for your call, in the meantime I'll get ready to change jobs... I need to warn my staff that the lab will be closing down," Karen turned her back to her computer and continued to think out loud, "write a few recommendations, maybe I can get Stacy in with Alex, her assistant just recently took a maternity leave..."

That's why I wanted to make her director, in changing her place of work, she first thought about how it would affect her former subordinates, because without a scientist of such level as Connors, it makes no sense to maintain such an expensive laboratory at the university. Karen was the university's advertisement and calling card; for many applicants, the very possibility of studying under her was a deciding factor in their choice of institution. Sorry to disappoint them, but I need Connors more.

"About Stacy, I wouldn't mind if you offered her a position as your deputy at our firm. And take a closer look at the other students, if any of them are qualified..." The schoolboy is talking about the qualifications of university graduates, laughter aside, "in general, you have every right to recruit laboratory staff."

"If you don't want to help me with the management, at least I'll leave the organization of the laboratory to you!" I thought with a malicious chuckle.

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