Finding My Normal

Ch 46: Breaking News

It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting in the courtyard eating lunch with Kota, Nathan and Victor. For the past ten minutes Kota and Victor have been arguing over some type of technology. I came to the group halfway through the conversation so it's hard for me to keep up and even understand what they are talking about.

Kota gives a great sigh and nudges his glasses up with one finger, "No, no, no. I'm telling you Victor, you don't have to be a biomedical engineer to create something like this."

"Chemicals, drugs, medical devices? Of course you do!" Victor exclaims.

"Listen, all you need is an electrical engineer. They specialize in microelectronics. All the engineer would have to do is create a device small enough, specifically a nano-electronic that would be able to withstand the human body and disperse the drug at the appropriate interval. You don't even need to take it out if it runs out of battery! Your body heat can act as a power source. I'm positive that's how they structured it."

"Guys!! Shut up," Nathan interjects, "You've been going on and on about this and it's giving me a headache."

Victor and Kota don't look the least bit sorry. I giggle, because Kota was rambling a bit, but I would be interested in the conversation if I knew what they were talking about.

I decide to ask them, "What are you guys talking about? I couldn't really follow."

Victor leans towards me, "Princess, we have a lot to tell you and it's related to what we were discussing," He looks over at Kota, "well, kind of."

"Okay go ahead and tell me." I urge him to continue.

"Well, did you hear about the breaking news yesterday? The people who created the cancer drug may be the same people who created JH-14."

"I heard something, but I'm not really familiar with the cases."  I tell him.

"JH-14 is a drug that circulated high schools last year," Kota jumps right into the explanation, "It was a bad batch or something, because it was making people crazy. They were getting sick, had high fevers, it even made some want to kill themselves."

I gasp at the horrific facts. Drugs are bad to begin with, but drugs that cause even more harm...how could anyone with a conscious put that out into the world?

Nathan gives me a squeeze around my shoulders, "Don't worry Sang it's gone now. They arrested a few people in connection with the drug, but they haven't gotten the big players."

"That's right," Victor agrees, "But the other case, none of us were really old enough to remember I don't think. We didn't really watch the news when we were kids, but I read a bunch of articles yesterday once this JH-14 connection story aired. About eight years ago a new drug came out that was supposedly the cure for cancer. It wasn't approved by the FDA, but it was sold on the black market anyway."

Kota takes over and I can tell this story is not going to be pretty. "The drug was a miracle for many people and the science behind it was ahead of it's time. It wasn't just a pill, it was a nano-electronic device implanted into your system. The device held the drug and would release the appropriate amount at regular intervals.  In addition, the device would emit smaller nano-electronics that would travel through your system and find any other harmful bacteria, infections or cancer cells in your body.  It would then record the information and submit it to a log you could access through your computer.  People were flocking to buy this stuff, not only were cancer patients being 'cured', but they were also preventing any other maladies from occurring.  The device did it all for you, no need for checkups at the doctor."

I can't even begin to imagine technology inside me, let alone a drug that cured cancer. "I don't understand, nano technology is used in medicine today...what went wrong? The news said thousands were killed."