Eighteen hundred miles away, Dr. Henry Shoo sat in the break room of the BioTech Corporation’s Salt Lake City laboratory watching the press conference on FOX.
“Wow, three billion,” a technician said to him. “Those guys aren’t kidding, are they?”
“No, I guess not,” Shoo said.
Dr. Shoo watched in silence, staring at the television propped up in the corner of the room. His heart was still heavy with the loss of his mother, and he would need time to return to normal. He listened as the medical correspondent talked about what it would take to find a cure to cancer. The Holy Grail of Medicine, the talking head called it.
“They’re asking for a miracle,” the tech said. “Sadly, there’s no such thing as miracles.”
“I wonder,” Shoo said softly. “I wonder.”
*****
On the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Dr. Barry Hayes sat in his lab with his students following the press conference. Shelly had called to let him know what was happening—that the announcement was now on a fast track. As the television health correspondents began their liturgy, students’ hands began to rise.