Sometimes to Cure a Virus You Need to Catch One

Sometimes to Cure a Virus You Need to Catch One(N. Rose ISW) BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. The alarm clock pulled Luke Welby abruptly from his sleep. Without opening his eyes, he fumbled with the clock until he found the off button. He was indulging in just five more minutes of glorious sleep when he was awoken for the second time that morning by his wife, Amy, setting a mug of coffee down with a loud clunk on the bed side table, right next to his ear. Luke yawned, stretched, and at long last, opened his eyes.

"Thanks, Amy. You spoil me," Luke said, taking a gulp of coffee.
"If I really wanted to spoil you, I would forbid you from going into work today," said Amy, "since you can't stand that new doctor, Malificio. But I'm not going to do that, because your patients need you more than ever."
"The patients don't even know I'm there. Nathan does the talking, I just look for a cure in the lab."
"Nathan's talking, however charming and glib it is, is not going to cure HIV. You are, in the lab," Amy returned. "It's one of the last diseases out there, and it's only getting worse. I heard on the radio that they found a new strain of the virus. It's even more aggressive. It guns straight for your immune system."
"I know, I know," said Luke, climbing out of bed and heading for the bathroom. The automatic doors slid open to let him through. "Anyway, how is your petition going? The one for the genetically damaged people?"
"Not good," said Amy. "No matter how much evidence I present, no one seems to want to believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with so-called "genetically damaged" people. They're completely unique, just like every other human being. If there is anything dangerous or mentally inferior about them, it is because they were born that way."
"Here's a reason I don't like Dr. Malificio that you'll understand: he is an avid supporter of enslaving the GDs. And he never passes up a chance to talk about how young I was when I graduated college or how many diseases I've cured."
The house's butler, which wasn't really a butler at all but a program synced to the backboard of the house, said, "Dr.-Welby-it-is-time-you-considered-kicking-it-in-gear. The-carpool-will-be-here-in-exactly-20-minutes."
"Thank you, Bertram," Luke said wearily.

Luke pulled up to the hospital exactly on time. He walked to his laboratory on the 8th floor. On the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th floors, he stopped to say hello to some patients he had befriended and the nurses caring for them. He stopped on the 2nd, 4th, and 6th floors to say hi to some new interns and his friends from the lab. On the 8th floor landing, he took a deep breath and stepped into Nathan's office, except now it belonged to Nathan and Malificio.

"Luke!" said Nathan, "how was your time off?"
"Really relaxing, thanks," replied Luke, "did you manage to get away?"
"You bet I did! Now that we have robots doing all the operations, I can work for home a lot more," said Nathan, "Gosh, I sound like a commercial touting the benefits of the Robo-Surge program. Mwaahahahaha!"
Luke always found it funny that a guy as nice as Nathan would have such an evil laugh.
"And where's Drew?" he asked, desperately hoping he was sick or still in Italy.
"In your office! Isn't that great?" said Nathan, in an overly cheerful tone of voice. Luke knew that was his way of showing irritation.
Luke walked straight into his office without knocking. Sure enough, Malaficio was in there, looking over Luke's notes on how he cured cancer.
"Luke! Good to see you!" he said, as if there was nothing wrong in the world. "I was just looking over your cancer notes! Fascinating, how you found how to correct the multiplying cells. I was just thinking, would you want to collaborate on a tiny little project? Figuring out how to correct the cells to multiply infinitely? Yeah? Sound fun?"
"That would essentially be immortality, something wholly unnatural that I wish to take no part in," replied Luke coolly. "Please leave my office."
Hostility flashed behind Malaficio's eyes, but he quickly hoisted on his smile again.
"Sure, buddy. Hey, do you need a blood transfusion this week? Because I've got your blood type in stock," he said.
"Sure, I'll take it today if you've got time," said Luke. "thank you. Now if you don't mind, I've got HIV to cure."
"Why would you want to? It's most common among GDs," said Malaficio.
Luke couldn't believe that people could be so blatant with their prejudices, but he just sat down at his desk and ignored Malaficio, who eventually left.

After a long, fruitless day, Luke locked up his office and knocked on Malaficio's door.
"Come on in, Luke," he called.
Luke entered and rolled up his sleeves, exposing the crook of his elbow to Malaficio, who hooked him up. They sat there in silence for awhile, partly because they both hated each other, and partly because they needed to listen for the beep that would signify when Luke's levels returned to normal. When it sounded, Luke stood up, said, "Thanks," and left. Malaficio hadn't said a word, which struck Luke as somewhat odd, but he really didn't mind that much.

That night at dinner, as the dinner table opened up and swallowed the dirty dishes, Luke's three daughters puzzled over the splitting headache, swollen glands, and rash he had developed on the train ride home. He was upstairs lying down.
"And he was super sad," said Cordelia, the youngest. "And he couldn't remember my name for a little while there, and he had no appetite, and was he always that skinny?"
"It sounds kinda like AIDS, but that's impossible," said Anastasia, the middle child.
"Okay, mom! We've got our list!" called Selena, the oldest. Amy entered. "It's either some weird sort of flu paired with shingles, or a severe allergic reaction to nuts."
"Or AIDS!" called Anastasia, dashing up the stairs to tell her father that he either had some weird sort of flu paired with shingles or a severe allergic reaction to nuts.
"AIDS?" said Amy, "that's imposs…"


Luke looked at the calendar. After looking into the subject, he found that with this new strain of AIDS (which had been discovered, and developed, he suspected, by Drew Malaficio) in his veins, he had about 2 weeks to live. The last few days would be spent in horrible condition as all of the common infections he usually fought off would suddenly become fatal. Now, at least, he had his mind still with him. And as long as he had that, he would not bend. Malaficio might have thought that this would make him look for immortality, but he wouldn't do it. He would simply have to cure HIV.


3 MONTHS LATER

"Are you ready, Dad?"
Luke hobbled out of his room, leaning heavily on his cane. He was wearing a tuxedo and looked thoroughly miserable, something Cordelia noticed.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I just… hate confrontation!" said Luke.
"It's not a confrontation, everybody already knows about Malaficio. You're just going up on stage to receive an award and lots and lots of money and then say a couple words and be done with this whole thing. Now let's go."

Luke received every award for contributing to society and medical science that you can think of, and he received some awards made up just for him. The result was more money than he knew what to do with, so it all went back to the hospital. Well, most of it, anyway.