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SEPTEMBER LEANED CLOSE to the computer screen. She found the mouse and clicked to enlarge the text. “Damn, there’s dozens of pages, all in ten-point, single spaced type. And it’s in medicalese.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you understand this stuff?”
Teddy stood back, hands on hips. He removed his glasses and leaned closer. “It describes some test protocol.” He pointed to the pertinent sentence.
She dipped her head. “The first page is an abstract. There’s the medication—Damenia, and the dose. That fits. Same drug listed on Steven’s empty pill bottles.” She read farther down the page, but shrugged away from Teddy’s old man breath.
“Damenia. That sounds familiar. I think Molly takes that.” He shrugged at her raised eyebrows. “Molly is my wife.”
She stopped. “I thought she was dead.”
He adjusted his glasses. “Molly’s got Alzheimer’s. I take the bus every day to the mall, and on her good days she comes and we visit. Today wasn’t a good day.” His sarcasm cut deep.
A buzzer from the distant kitchen startled them both. Shadow woofed under his breath and hopped off the bed. “He thinks it’s something for him.” September smiled and then felt guilty. Had to be hundred years since she’d smiled. She shrugged an apology.
Teddy laughed. “Sometimes life’s so shitty you got to laugh in the devil’s face.” He stood as the buzzer grew more intense. “The rolls will burn, I better get them. You want cream in your coffee or black?”
“Coffee, any way you have it is fine. Maybe that’ll help clear the cobwebs.”
“Be right back.” He hurried from the room.
September puzzled out the text on the computer. The document listed no authors or co-authors. She paged down and discovered the document included Pottinger’s own notes and conclusions. It appeared that Dr. Pottinger had simply cut-and-pasted from some larger document to include the initial abstract that detailed the study structure, subjects, expected outcome, and what had transpired.
The paper detailed research compiled from seven groups located in Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit, each composed of between nine to fifteen subjects. A mix of males and a handful of females aged five to fifteen, diagnosed with mild to severe autism made up each group. The children were not identified other than by group code, sex, and age.
In all, the measure of eye contact, verbal communication, and one-on-one interaction increased by at least three-fold within the first six weeks on the trial drug. Objectionable stereotypic behaviors—repetitious self-stimulating actions or “stimming,” such as spinning, hand flapping, rocking—and tantrums decreased by twenty-five percent within the same period, and these symptoms were eliminated in fifty percent of cases by the end of the first phase study. A small percentage of children started to talk virtually overnight. No wonder April was excited by the new treatment.
Nothing on the flash drive seemed worth Lizzie’s efforts to recover the information, though. Sure, the drug composition and test results were proprietary. But all the parents signed an informed consent to enroll their children. April would have been told of any possible adverse effects of the drug, and must have deemed the risks to be minimal compared to the potential for improvement. Hell, any parent would willingly risk a bit of diarrhea to have a normal relationship with their child.
The old guilt stabbed anew. Chris had been sure he could change her mind about kids. “But I’m a freak,” she said. Chris saved her, and she couldn’t bring herself to give him what he wanted. Then he was dead..
She shrugged off the pain. None of that mattered in this moment. She returned to the tedious copy. The conclusion with Pottinger’s annotations began on page 29 and continued for five pages. September reached the last few paragraphs and stiffened. She re-read them.
September opened an email and attached the document. She addressed it to herself, her parents, and siblings and hit send. Whatever happened in the hours ahead, the whole family would know. They needed to understand, and protect themselves, especially when Steven came home.
If he came home. Because the consequences of missing the 24-hour deadline went beyond returning the flash drive. For Steven and the people around him, missing the deadline could be fatal.
Teddy hurried back into the room balancing a tray with two coffee mugs, a saucer of steaming biscuits, a tub of margarine and a beaker of honey. “Help yourself.” He settled the tray on the desk. “So what did you find out?”
Shadow sniff-tested the air, and wagged a polite request for a taste.
September closed the file. Did she want him to know? “They’ve found a cure for autism. At least, that’s what they say.”
He looked so relieved she thought he’d dance a jig. “But that’s marvelous!” Her expression tempered his joy. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s awesome for about seventy percent of the kids. But the others . . .” She stopped. Dear God, Steven had taken the drug for weeks. She forced herself to continue. “They can’t stop the medication. Not ever. They price it low to get parents to sign kids into the program, and once they’re hooked, they raise the maintenance fee at the Rebirth Gathering to stay on the drug. Without the drug the children revert to their original state.”
“Like a diabetic needs lifelong insulin therapy. That means millions of dollars are at stake.” He licked his lips. “People do awful things for money.”
“It gets worse.” She couldn’t stop thinking about what this meant for Steven. “Withdrawal causes side effects. Bad ones. They develop severe—um, anger issues.” She couldn’t tell him. It was hard to believe something that cured autism also caused psychosis.
A little girl told to eat her vegetables stabbed her mother repeatedly with a salad fork. Another child set the family cat on fire. One boy Steven’s age beat and drowned his four-year-old sister in the toilet. The document listed dozens of examples of explosive violence along with video evidence, but she couldn’t bring herself to watch.
Pottinger brought the evidence to convince April, a drugstore blackmail to pay the extortion or risk Steven’s sanity. And her sister must have gone ballistic and killed Pottinger when she didn’t have the funds, and knew what would happen to Steven without the treatment. April was a victim, but she also must be a party to Lizzie’s cover-up. God only knew how many other children were on the treatment, maybe hundreds of children with ticking time bombs inside their heads. Getting cut off from the drug would turn them into an army of psychotic youngsters. September shuddered.
Teddy plucked at the long sleeves of his sweater. “There are always side effects. Parents wouldn’t mind risking a few problems for the chance of a cure.”
“Even violence?” She didn’t buy it. “Either the researchers didn’t know about the problems, or the parents weren’t told until it was too late.”
“Don’t autistic children sometimes have tantrums? That’s not beyond the realm of normal.” Teddy buttered a biscuit. “I know parents can be extra sensitive.” He took a bite, glanced at Shadow’s drooling face, and tossed him a piece. The dog snapped the treat out of the air and wagged for more.
“Parents didn’t complain. The researchers documented it. Don’t you see? That’s why Pottinger visited April, to hold this over her head so she’d pay. It’s all in his notes.”
April would have held out for the promise of a cure. Steven was her world, and she’d do anything to protect his chance for normalcy. “Read it for yourself.”
Teddy moved to the desk when she stood up. He adjusted his glasses.
“Worldwide distribution of the drug’s already begun.” September paced in the small room. “They’ve got plans for before and after interviews with miracle children slated for an international market push. Forget millions, that’s billions of dollars and thousands of kids.” She sat on the bed, patted the comforter for Shadow to jump up beside her. Smoothing his fur helped calm her nervous energy that had to go somewhere or explode. “I remember what you said about backups, so I emailed a copy of the document to myself.”
Teddy picked up his mug of coffee, started to sip, and stopped as he read. “Oh, God.” He set down the mug, sloshing some of the liquid onto the tray.
“I know it’s horrible. Desperate people risk everything for a maybe cure. They don’t know they could kill their kids or push them to hurt someone else. We can’t let that happen.” She glanced at the tray of food, but had lost her appetite, perhaps permanently. Still, she needed to eat or would crash, probably when she least expected. “I sent my email public to de-fang the snake. Doctors won’t prescribe it, parents will sue, and the recalls would bury NeuroRealm.” She picked up a biscuit, chewed fiercely and swallowed half before she washed it down with a mouthful of scalding coffee. She fed the rest of the biscuit to Shadow.
Teddy sat quietly and stared at the screen.
“They call it a cure. Meanwhile, the drug creates an army of children ready to go postal while their parents celebrate a miracle.” She shuddered. “The liability is unbelievable.”
He nodded, his face white. “Worth killing for.”
