Selector

Five

"That's what they want you to think, isn't it? Publicly cut funding to a program and the whole country will believe that it's done. It makes us believe what the government wants us to believe, that there isn't anything out there, that space travel is futile, that we have given up on the final frontier. When, in fact, they have made contact with aliens."

Alvy stayed quite, just eating the breakfast I had brought him. Dr. Keelton continued the conversation, asking the exact question I wanted him to. "And tell me, boy, why would they keep something like that a secret?"

I shrugged, "Maybe they think that the public just isn't ready for it. Did you know that they created shows like Space Voyage, and the others to condition our culture to start believing? It's a gradual process so that the whole population doesn't flip out. They cut the funding to ease troubled minds, and once people are ready, then they will 'reboot' the space program and 'just so happen' to find other life out there. It's a genius plan really."

There was a beeping sound coming from the other side of the lab door. Alvy stood, "That will be our excuse to leave you. Here, I made this for you." Alvy handed me a little tin hat he made out of the wrappings from his breakfast tacos.

I smiled and took it, "You know, you are going to regret mocking me when the aliens start to invade."

Alvy rolled his eyes, "If that happens, I give you full permission to rub it in my face with unlimited 'I told you so's."

Dr. Keelton stood, chuckling, "Please, for everyone's sake, just stick to genes."

I exited through the second door out of Alvy's office into the main hallway and headed toward my own lab. "Hey See, " He was lounging in one of the lab chairs with his feet propped up on the table. I jumped up and sat down on the table beside his feet. My legs swung back and forth as we talked.

"You delivered the goods?" He asked right before taking a huge bite out of his breakfast taco.

"Yeah, he scarfed it down like he was a lion and that taco was the only gazelle he'd caught in weeks."

Seeley sat up a little, "Well, this was on our desk when I came in." He reached for a stack of papers about two inches thick and handed it to me.

"Corrections?" I groaned as I saw Dr. Lygand's signature scrawled across the bottom next to a grease stain Seeley had made with his hands. "How could he have this many? Our paper wasn't even that long!"

Seeley nodded, "I know. They aren't due till next Monday though, so we have plenty of time."

I started flipping through the pages, skimming his notes on our research. I stopped at a page that caught my eye, "Yeah except for the fact that he wants four more participants by then too."

Seeley threw his balled up foil across the room, "Dammit."

"It's not so bad, we have a whole building filled with sick patients. We will just look through the database and find ones that have genetic diseases. After getting their consent, it doesn't really take us that long."

He sighed, and sat back down in his chair, "I know, it's just that it never stops with this guy. And his deadlines are outrageous."

I sighed, ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. "Well, I guess we better get to work. I'll do the corrections, you start looking for more patients. I know he said four, but will you try to find a fifth? I, uh, I think we should replace Mr. Watson Mendel before anyone looks to closely at it."

He have a swift nod, "Yeah, that would be wise."

The hours passed by slowly as I read through all of Dr. Lygand's comments and annotations. He scratched out whole paragraphs of our paper. He wrote questions marks with no explanations, leaving me to decipher what he was confused about. When he did use words, his writing was almost illegible. Seeley made multiple calls to patient's doctors, trying to convince them to help us with our study. Most of them said they would report back with the patient's decision.